To You I Salute
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It’s been so long since I have had time to stop and think to myself; about the war, about my family that may be alive somewhere far off, about life in general.
Who knew that one day we would all stand shoulder to shoulder on worlds stars away fighting for not only ourselves but for possibly countless other lives out in the galaxy. I never thought I would see the day when I would meet a real “alien.” So many things in so little time… We, as a species, have lost so much but in return we have learned so much, a heavy price to pay indeed for knowledge. But thanks to this knowledge we can now fight back against those who took all that we love away, the Bane.
To those who read my public entry on the AFS network know that what you do today makes a difference tomorrow. I may not be an officer who gives orders that change the worlds but I do see the blood, tears, and smiles drawn on the battlefield and those who benefit from your selfless actions. To you I salute with all my pride as a fellow AFS member but more so as being grateful for all those who head out to field. Without you there is no hope, and without hope there is no future. To you I salute.
Lance Corporal Akiumi
~Ultima Ratio~
Demolition Division
A Man or a Monster
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I found myself today questioning what I do here on Foreas. I was on a normal routine recon mission after following Orders from AFS High command or, at least what they thought would be normal. My orders were to watch the bane activity near the frontline of divide near outpost delta and assess what they were doing. So I set out and watched the bane labor. It is easy for me to spot an officer because of the way the bane hierarchy works, and normally this would be the target of choice. Not today, not for me, He would be the last one to die.
I captured the Thrax officer but instead of returning to High command. I tortured him, to the point he was beseeching for his life. This was rare for a Thrax to be afraid of a human. He knew he was going to die. I knew I was going to exterminate him. He could tell by the menacing glare in my eye. Was I a monster? This is not just some war between 2 countries. This is a war for the survival of the human race. I will walk through hellfire at any means to get the mission done for AFS High Command. I’m simply a soldier that knows when not to question morality, and if you question my morality, must I remind you of the Machina? I’m neither a man nor a monster. I am an ASF Soldier.
—Sgt. Jerec Suron
The Misfit Mercenaries
Routine
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I'm Stuck in a foxhole in the blood covered ground on a planet that I can't even remember the name of. All I know is my target, a crude marking on my map to point me in the right direction. High command sends me where they need me, no questions asked. General Creelig always jokes with me, saying he'd kill me if I ever fail a mission or worse, station me at the Landing Zone on Foreas. We both know I'd be dead if I ever failed.
The sun drops behind the edge of the world as I vigilantly move out of my foxhole. I can see mayhem in the distance around me, but I can ignore it for now. I press forward avoiding any unnecessary confrontations. As I climb over a muddy hill, I look up, and see my goal.
Base walls loom over me with Thrax on top, watching for a large attack coming their way to try and take their territory away. Unfortunately, they did not expect me. I sling my Cannon over my shoulder as the Bane artillery notices me and opens fire. The odds are on my side today, I can only see 3 Striders. Everything suddenly becomes routine.
-The Niichts
No Need for Soldiers
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Boom
What a wonderful sound my rifle makes.
So many of us talk about how terrible this war is, how much it changes us deep down. How we're all losing ourselves to the fighting, losing that which makes us humans. Every day, I hear another soldier say that they wish they could still cry, still feel emotions anymore. Soldiers wishing they could be happy, sad, anything but the deep anger they feel.
I don't understand them.
I feel happy when I'm in the field. When I squeeze round after round into Thrax flesh. I feel sad when my rifle isn't killing, when my netgun isn't tangling them up, when my shotgun isn't making them fly. I feel ecstatic when the enemy doesn't see me, doesn't know I'm there.
I'm more alive now than I ever was before. This war has set me free. Free to be the soldier that my soul always wanted to become.
What if the war ends, and I'm still alive? Will there still be a place for someone who enjoys murdering Thrax as much as I do? Will my soul be trapped again, stuck in the body of a farmer or cubicle prisoner? That's my fear, a life without this war. A life without a need for soldiers.
Boom. Headshot.
Remembrance
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You remember it, right? That big filthy auditorium, the stifling hot atmosphere, and the bunch of geezers crying their eyes out for nuthin, right? Every year, on November 11, at 10:00 am, you would go to the auditorium with your whole class, sit their listening to stupid stories about some war that never hurt nobody, and staring at old pictures that you can't even tell what it's of. All of us kids were too busy to notice, too busy laughing, too busy joking around, too busy doing nothing. Of course maybe I'm the only one left who remembers, but back then, it just didn't seem important, the rest of the world went on as usual on November 11th.
Guess they should change the date shouldn't they? December 21st. We were still too busy. Too busy enjoying ourselves, too busy watching TV, too busy talking on MSN, too busy doing nothing. Too busy to notice it. 6.5 billion people... all so busy. That's what everybody was so proud of, and yet, majority of it crumbled under the Bane's monstrous feet. Everybody says we were caught off guard, and we didn't know what hit us, but in my opinion, those are excuses. We took too many things for granted, and took nothing seriously, we lived without regard for things around us. You could call the Bane, demons from hell. You can also call them human cleansers. Maybe we did need to get back into reality, maybe we do need to fight. Those geezers back then didn't take things for granted, because they fought. They went to hell and back, and know what it's like. Four years of hell in WWI, 7 years of hell in WWII, and we're whining after 5 days.....
Now is the time for our war, and now we must fight. There is a time to remember those who gave their lives, and there is a time to stop thinking about the past, and do what's important.
Grab that rifle soldier, we have sentry duty down at Delta Outpost. Kill come crusties, or at least, make your life meaningful enough to remember.
~H. Fung
Life & Death
Xenet 71.43.1 System Msg
TTY31201.11.09
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Since the dawn of time man has wondered what happened when you die. I used to wonder that sometimes myself. Is there a life after death? Heaven or Hell? This is a question that has evaded any real answer since it was first asked.
Everyone had their own idea. We'll I'll tell you what, everyone was wrong.
You want to know what happens when you die? Everything goes dark, you get extremely cold and then you hear the beeping. That's your MedEvac unit going off. Then you wake up in the hospital that had the quickest response. You fix your armor and run back out to kill more Bane. That is what happens when you die.
You could also have the bad luck of feeling the pain of being resuscitated on the field by a medic. That is a pain I'll never forget. Of course there is always the off chance of a malfunction in which case everything goes dark and you wake up as a Machina.
Either way, they were all wrong. Hell isn't fire and brimstone, it's the fight for survival.
-Gunny Septumus
~Umbral Seraphim~
Ties That Bind
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They sent me down to the Frontlines today. At least, that's what they call it. To me and the other poor saps who have to spend our days huddled against those sandbags, the only word we can use to describe that place is hell. For hours we're alone behind our one piece of cover, the one thing that keeps the Bane fire from tearing us to shreds, with nothing but the sound of gunfire and explosions roaring through the black, smoky air around us. It's a stalemate. We can't advance, they can't advance. As long as there's a soul there to ensure the other side can't pass.
Today, that soul was me. Yesterday, it was the guy I was replacing, who had taken a piece of grenade shrapnel in the leg. As I watched the medics carry him off, I couldn't help but wonder if he had any family or friends left to comfort him. It was reflex. I knew he was just as alone as me, or the guy in the next trench, or the guy on the next planet. Since Earth, the only thing that connects us is the fact that any day it'll be that guy who saves your life, so you better save his.
Maybe it was always like this. Maybe we were always trying to cling to someone else who we knew would do the same for us. They say this is a blank slate for us, but I think we still feel connected to each other. Because next time, when the next guy comes to replace me, I want to let him know I can't thank him enough.
SGT Dante Nathaniel
AFS Commando Class, Guardian Division
The Soul of a Soldier
Xenet 71.43.1 System Msg
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I was not a soldier before. I was a screwup. I could never do anything right but now… Now I have a job I can do and it is one I am good at. I am an AFS sniper.
Today, I was busy working in the Pools area on Valverde, searching for high value Bane targets and eliminating them. Generally I work alone because I tend to make my fellow soldiers a bit nervous. I rage at what happened to my family, my friends, my planet, just like they do. But I do it quietly. I am not boisterous or obnoxious like many others have become. The angrier I get the quieter I get.
I had a good score today. I was sent after a Bane overseer, a Lightbender, a fellow sniper. It never knew I was there until I fired. Then it was time to run like hell, as the Bane take it really amiss when you kill a leader. The linkers in particular were hard to evade, it was like they could see me through the solid rock of the mountain. I took down two of them when chances presented themselves. Then I hit a Predator in the sweet spot, dead astern of it, with my EMP torqueshell. It blew up nicely. That made them a bit more cautious. I finally managed to shake the Bane.
The problem was that my evac route ran right through a tree lurker colony. They hadn’t been there when I ghosted in, but there they were. Next thing I know I’m flat on my back and unable to move. I thought I was dead and then I hear the sound of a flamethrower. Another AFS soldier saw me go down and saved my bacon. She slapped a medevac tag on me and then disappeared into the gathering darkness. I don’t know her name and it doesn’t really matter.
As I lie in the sickbay tent at the Snakepit recovering, I think about about what I am and what I do. We are all part of a team, even if some of my teammates find me a bit strange. I help others as I can because in the end we are not here for ourselves. We are here for each other. My name is Kalenath Gerin and I am an AFS sniper. You will probably never see me, but I am there, backing up my teammates.
One shot, one kill.
A Day as a Combat Medic
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Most people call me medic, some call me doc, but whatever you call me, I am well known across the battlefield as the "Life Saver". My job seems to be never done, but its exciting, even with no fighting, someone, somewhere, is hurt and needs me. I will come running and jumping my way across the endless terrain to help you.
For the most part, I enjoy doing my part. Everyone needs me, but I get little in return. Most of my days are spent at the South Outpost on Divide. For most of you, its a ugly place full of Bane. The fighting is usually intense, and the Stalkers are always around. But at the end of the day, the soldiers I save, walk out with medals and promotions, while I run along, trying to find that endless voice calling out for me in the background. You know whats its like to be out there, day after day, healing, reviving, and repairing the soldiers, so we can keep our foot hold on that world. Where is my reward? My promotion? Why isn't high command putting medals around my neck and congratulating me on a fine job. It's never easy being a combat medic, if it were, there wouldn't be any soldiers.
— Drej Saratoga
Combat Medic & Engineer
Changes
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There’s this old saying back on Earth, “war changes a man”. I’d heard it many times, mostly from my grandfather who had fought in World War II, but I never really got it. Sure, I could understand it in a general sense. The idea of taking another mans life to preserve your own and those of the people around you is something that is bound to change you but never having been through that type of ordeal I could never fully grasp the extent of that change.
I get it now.
A lot has changed since that November night two years ago. I’ve witnessed unimaginable horrors, I’ve watched friends die and I’ve committed atrocities that I never would have believed myself capable of just to stay alive. Two years ago I was a long haired, slightly overweight video store manager with no real ambition in life. Now I stand in Concordia Wilderness on Foreas, covered in armor and toting more firepower than Earth laws would have allowed. Two years ago my shoulder length hair was black, now it is short, the dye has washed out and it's beginning show signs of grey. My once perfect vision is now obscured by an eye patch thanks to a particularly nasty Thrax soldier whose skull now sits in my footlocker. Two years ago I would flinch any time I pulled the trigger of a gun but now I don’t even think twice about blowing away any Bane soldier that would threaten me or those under my command.
— Sebastian Bennett
Soldier, Survivor, and a Changed Man
Clean the Generals Slate
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“I’ve got a wound in my belly and I’m feeling a little… evil.”
Mad words overheard over the AFS official frequency are never a good thing. Especially not when those words are spoken by an officer. But it’s REALLY bad news when you hear those words spoken by General British himself…
It wasn’t a good day. SFC Sarah Morrison told us all what to expect. We knew our leader, our symbol of hope, our beacon of strength… had been compromised. Morrison told us the seriousness of what was coming. She told us it was to be our finest hour. She told us that many of us would die. SFC Sarah Morrison… was 100% correct.
You know, I never thought killing Bane took much effort. They’re alien, right? They look nothing like Jimmy who snores every night in the bunk next to mine. War, frankly, has always come easy for me since the invasion. It’s almost a relief to pull that trigger and watch green and purple blood fly. We are taking revenge, getting back some just desserts for what they did to our home.
But having the General in your sights is another matter. Even when I stood over the once cackling clone and nudged it’s corpse with my foot, I couldn’t help feel like I wanted to throw up. This wasn’t the “easy to kill” enemy… this was the only man who we had left who stood for something. We knew they were only clones, but it was like snuffing out our pride. I’m sure as we headed for Trinity Bridge more than one of us was thinking: What will happen after the gunfire stops today? What will we be left with?
We got him back though. I thought it was time to REALLY clean the slate, but apparently British is tougher than even WE thought. Good thing too. I doubt AFS would stand behind “General Sly Fox.”
One thing we did learn. We’d do anything to save our leader, but we aren’t lost without him. Maybe we do have a chance after all. As long as one human being is left holding a rifle, there’s still hope. Frankly, though, after seeing what they did to the General? If it ever comes down to that… I hope I’m one of the last left standing.
~Sylvester “Sly Fox” Renard
Prison
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I've disobeyed an order, and I don't even know why. No idea what's going to happen now. There is no discharge in the AFS; they're either going to let it slide or let me swing.
I was sent into Torcastra for two prisoners, a Forean and a man. Found the lizard just fine, and once she got her sea-legs, she turned out to be pretty useful covering my back. But the man, well... he was in a bad way. Already most of the way to being machina, but he was still himself, or something like himself. He knew what they'd made him, and what was waiting for him on the outside. He could leave Torcastra, but he'd never escape the prison his mechanical body had become. At best we'd keep him for research. He asked me to kill him. And against my orders to bring him out alive, I did it.
I thought it was a mercy kill at the time. That's what I reported it as. But the more I think about it, the less sure I am. He really could have been useful to us, even as machina, even as a lab experiment. And his suffering doesn't outweigh our need to win. Sometimes it takes sacrifice. And I think I knew all that when I put a bullet in his head. It was an irrational thing, an emotional impulse, that made me pull the trigger.
I think I hated him. He was still human inside, no matter what they'd done to the meat. He could speak, and he could fear what his future outside Torcastra held. He asked me, begged me to kill him just to spare him that. And it felt like broken glass in my guts, because he made me wonder if he was the only one. I've never had any trouble gunning down machina because I never let myself think of them as human. I hated this one for making me doubt. And I couldn't stand to live in the same world he did.
Mercy kill. That's the story I'll stick to. But it sure as shit wasn't mercy for him.
~ Erika Kessler
Happy Halloween
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I spent this afternoon making the rounds in Wilderness. We’ve gotten an influx of new recruits and I was asked to make sure they got situated. I think what high command really wants is for me to check them out and give them a report of how long I think they’ll last in the field. I see some promising Soldiers… I think together we can make a difference.
Anyway, they instituted a new “morale” officer at some of the bases. They are calling themselves R & R Coordinators. Well, there is one in Foreas Base, handing out treats to the Troops to try and make it feel more like home here. To be honest, I had actually forgotten today was even Halloween, forgot it used to be special. A day for fun, parties, and lots of candy. I miss chocolate. They are handing out Halloween Masks and some candy they are calling chocolate. I don’t know what it is... but I know it’s definitely NOT chocolate.
Anyway, I was just standing there in awe. Everyone was so happy… like little kids trick or treating. It didn’t matter that there was a war raging right outside camp. All that mattered was that they remembered. Remembered what it was like to laugh and be carefree. They remembered what we are all fighting for. Freedom.
I think I’ll get myself a mask and grab me some of that “chocolate”.
~ Sarah
Soul on Display
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HaHaHa! You know it is actually kind of comforting to be typing on this AFS terminal. Its the closest thing to my old life on Earth that I have found here on Foreas.
I was an electronics salesman at one of the top electronics store in the United States. I spent my days talking people into purchasing the latest in entertainment technology. Upgrade to HD this and mount your flat screen that, boy if only I knew the Bane were on their way I would have spent more time in the gym or at the shooting range. Now I'm trading laser rifle blasts and logos created crab mines with Thrax (the bastards) and upgrading my Hazmat gear to Mech armor.
On the red eye watch shift at Foreas Hydro-Plant my platoon came up with the theory that the Bane came to Earth in response to bad television signals from the 70's. Whatever the case maybe they destroyed Earth and now I am putting as many bullets in as many Bane foreheads as possible.
2nd Lt Nisus Arrington
Orion Battalion, Sapper Division
Those Intimate Moments
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For whatever reason I find myself always needing five minutes every morning to pull myself together. Half the time this involves a very deep and intimate conversation with Jack. Jack doesn't say much, but with twenty round mag of .45 cartridges, he has his uses. For the better part of these conversations he's either in pieces on a workbench being cleaned and lubricated, or pointing at my chest, with me arguing with him about why I should or shouldn't let him do his thing. Like I said he doesn't say very much, so most of the time I give up trying for a reason, and put him back in his holster.
Today was one of those not so happy days when Jack was pointing at me and I was doing all the talking. The day before wasn't all that good either.
Our squad was to retake Purgas, something that's quickly becoming a daily chore, not that we're getting any better at it. Rule one: Never trust your Intel. I have no idea what those cloak and sword types get up to but they seem to have it in for every tin head out there. Supposedly the west gate was lightly defended; maybe only two squads with little support, and the far gate had another five, again no support. We make it halfway up to the main force field, and I've lost count at about seventeen squads. Our bio-tech bought it first, and it was going downhill from there. We decide it's probably a fair bet to start advancing in the opposite direction, and turn around to come face to face with a pack of three Predators flying up to great us. Well Pancho tries to get one with the launcher, the thing swerves at the last second and they paint up Pancho. Bill and Melinda freak out, go full auto on their chainguns and charge blindly. I didn't even bother to stop them; I just got the heck out of there.
I finally gave up on Jack, picked Bubba up off the workbench and promptly marched out into the way too bright morning sun. I took a glance at the new rookies they've sent to fill out my squad, and I catch myself taking a guilty glance down at Jack for a split second. “Alright guys, this just in from HQ, we're off to Purgas today, looks like someone forgot their keys.”
SSG Sarah Gunsmith
