2411: The Last Assault

2411: The Last Assault

Written by Hirako Shinji (me)

“And the colour itself fades, as oblivion previously known to human as
nanorobots devours the very colour itself.”

—Jonathan Robert Henry, 1986-2053
A science-fiction writer

PROLOGUE

The year was 2411. Half of us were already living in space, driven by the terror that filled half of the earth. Our population dropped to all-time low of one billion humans. Every single day, a spacecraft left the earth surface, evacuating even more of us. We suffered our own creation, the nanobots. They had become smarter than us. Evolution gave them something we do not have. They had the Overmind.

The Overmind: the nexus of power of the nanobots that had occupied parts of the Earth for more than two hundred years. We had yet known the working of it. It was weird and defied all logic. The Overmind let the nanobots worked like an ants’ colony, allowing them to have one brain controlling the rest of the nanobots, but at much bigger scale. At present, the Overmind controlled half of the land surface of the earth.

The Overmind first appeared about fifty years after we abandoned our nanotechnology research site at the site known to most of us now as Hell Hole. The Hell Hole, previously known as Massachusetts, was a small island beside the Atlantic Ocean. A failed nanobots project render the whole island uninhabitable as nanobots devoured all that is carbon in that island, killing most of its population. We managed to contain this destruction and sealed the island forever. The nanobots went to stagnation as usable carbon limits their growth. All was fine until the year of 2273. Our observatory satellite detected unusual activities from the island. The nanobots started forming structures; they were learning. Before we know it, they formed a catapult-like structure that threw masses after masses of nanobots into the main continent. That was our first encounter with the Overmind.

We tried everything. But nothing sealed their movements. Not the most powerful atomic bombs, not the most powerful disintegrator; nothing prevails against the Overmind. The earth no longer held its magnificent display of colour. Two continents were all reddish in colour, marking the territory of the Overmind.

THE DESCENT

April 1, 2411—Journal of the Spaceship X7

10:03AM
My name is Clark Reid. I am one of those simultaneously trained to be warriors and scientists. I led a few aerial attacks on the Hell Hole recently. Right now, my team is on a mission that will likely send us to our deaths. We are assaulting the Overmind, located in the depth of the Hell Hole.

Briefing our team before we left was the Professor himself. Professor Shawlong Gillian was the person who theorized the Overmind, which led to the discovery of the Overmind itself. We have narrowed the possible Overmind structures to three, all of which are located at the Hell Hole, the original location of the first nanobots. The Professor provided us with nine Zeta-rays bombs. This is the first time my team ever handles a Zeta-rays bombs, the most powerful bombs ever created. The bombs produced destructive rays that disintegrate atoms into its constituent quarks within a radius of fifteen metres. Any material within thirty metres radius would also be decimated almost completely. Our mission is to place these bombs around the three Overmind structures. This would remove all the intelligence the nanobots ever developed, giving us that little hope to contain the expansion of the nanobots. According to the theory the Professor developed, the nanobots will fail to function once the Overmind is destroyed. They will be mindless once again.

This mission is not as simple as it seems. There are different weaponries created by the nanobots surrounding the three Overmind structures. We are nonetheless prepared. Our team of ten is shielded from the nanobots with a lightweight metal alloy that the nanobots could not yet consume. We are also provided with limited energy shield that protects us from damage created by nanobots’ high-energy ray-beam weaponries.

14:35PM
We are on schedule. In ten minutes, we will be parachuting down from the height of 2500 metres into the vicinity of the Hell Hole.

14:44PM
This could be my last journal entry. We are parachuting down immediately. If I were to die in this mission, tell my parents that I will miss them and sorry that I could not keep my promise. Off to go now.


Journal ends.

THE STRIKE

My radio was filled with static as we descend down towards the surface. We parachuted nicely into an open field. There were pools of reddish and grayish substance throughout the field. They were dormant nanobots, nanobots that do not have any command assigned to them by the Overmind. As we landed, the pools of nanobots started to swirl together. They were in learning phase, trying to figure out what we were.

“Prepare yourself, they will likely enter their attack mode shortly,” I commanded my men while I braced myself for an attack. The first attack was not an attack at all. They just surround our whole body armors. It seemed that these nanobots were trying to devour us. “Stay still,” shouted Rob, our youngest and most charming team member. Rob was one of those mentally gifted. He could easily memorize a textbook and analyze situations. He was very kind and cheerful too, easily the gem of this team. Yet, even his usually bright temper seemed to be affected greatly by this mission.

We stayed still. After a minute being buried by these nanobots, their behavior changed suddenly, as we had anticipated earlier. They left us. My viewglasses started to clear. Then, out of the blue, I felt a great force pounding my armor, and then again, and again. I fell down to the ground. The nanobots were attacking us with waves after waves of swift attack, trying to destroy us to pieces. Another minute passed before the attack wore away. These things were learning fast. I told my team to move quickly as the attack died down.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” I heard Rob speaking over the radio. I thought so too, we were moving too easily. No attack had been made on us after the initial attacks. “We might be just lucky today,” Constantine replied. “Well, anyway, just in case, it’s been great with you guys around, I love you all as much as I love my wife.” That was Rob for you, always able to crack joke even on the worst subject of all. I can almost hear Constantine smirking.

Soon, our eleven-man team entered the target compound. We could clearly see the three structures we were to detonate about half a kilometre away. I instructed the team to split into three groups, each aiming for one structure while Constantine and Steve, the team’s observer specialist, stayed back. Everything went according to our plan.

***

I really had a bad feeling about this, I thought. This was all too easy. The three of us were assigned the furthest structure. We had to trek past several difficult obstacles like drains and high fences to get to the structure. Meanwhile, the radio seemed to inform us of the success of the other two teams as they were reaching their target structures. No, this is the definitely all too easy.

As we were nearing our target structure, Ivan’s team informed of their success in placing their bombs. About thirty seconds later, we stopped for awhile the three bombs placed on the first structure exploded. I watched in awe as the structure simply vanished completely. I looked at the bomb that I carried thinking that if this thing were to explode right now, nobody would find any remain of myself.

I was jolted back to the war reality as Clark’s team messaged their success in placing their bombs. We ran closer to our target structure. When the other three bombs exploded behind us, the nanobots, who up until then were still doing whatever mundane things they were assigned to do by the Overmind, started to stir. As a wall of nanobots started to rise in front of us, I thought to myself, oh shit.

“Rob, Genesis, Greg! Careful!” I heard Clark shouted over the radio. I did not get any chance to reply that message, we were forced to run and avoid that swirling walls of nanobots. Then the bombardment began. The nanobots started firing their ultra powerful ray-beam guns. These ray-beam guns were the nanobots’ self-improved version of those researched many centuries ago by the early nanotechnologists. Each nanobots act as a small LASER generator, letting sunlight and strengthen light rays to enter their nozzle and passed through a set of trapped-gas chambers. The light was contained within a ball containing of millions of nanobots. After a few seconds of charging up time, the ball would release its charges, creating a powerful ray-beam that could potentially burn everything on its way, while the ray-beam’s high momentum would probably knock back whatever stood on its way. Our shield simply dispersed this ray-beam as it entered our shield’s sphere of influence. However, each ray-beam would still produce considerable force that slowed us down quite visibly. Fortunately for us, the ray-beam took at least five seconds to charge up. After the initial burst of ray-beam, we were able to run unhindered for awhile.

There were only fifty metres separating us from the structure. “Genesis, Greg, split up!” I told my other two teammates. We split up, basically to increase our chance of success as the focus of the nanobots would be divided. As we entered the twenty metres threshold, the ray-beam guns stopped firing at us. Now it was simply walls after walls of nanobots trying to slow us down by knocking us. We were trained in this kind of war, however, and managed to avoid most of the tentacles. And here we were, at our target, all three of us.

I fell down dodging another tentacle attack. “Activate the initiation sequence!” I shouted through the radio. Two replies came immediately, “Roger! Roger!” I could see in my viewglasses that the three bombs had been activated. Now it was a matter of running away to safety and initiating the final sequence.

Just as we began running away, a huge wall of nanobots rose up from the ground. “These things are learning fast,” I heard Greg shouted desperately. “Get out from there!” That one must have been Constantine. I knew that my feeling was correct then. I could analyze their attack pattern easily and this one too. The nanobots were trapping us within these walls. I knew from the sight of it that any opposition against such thick, regenerating walls would be useless. I never thought that the Overmind was capable of risking such a move. It must be desperate. This move definitely took account of humans’ emotion. The Overmind seemed to know that the rest of our teammates would be trying to rescue us before detonating the bombs. And I knew that the Overmind was correct. Clark would have never left us behind. The radio was filled with shouts as our teammates were rushing towards us.

“Initiating final sequence,” I spoke calmly through the radio. “No! Rob, No!” I could hear people shouting through the radio. “Initiating final sequence,” another two replies came. Genesis and Greg must have come to the same conclusion as I did. I saw the timer countdown in my viewglasses counting down.

00:30 . . . 00:29 . . . 00:28 . . .

“Hold fire, move back!” I heard Clark shouting commands to the other team members. He was trying to keep the rest of the members from entering the destructive radius of the bombs.

00:17 . . . 00:16 . . . 00:15

“Hey, I know I told you all this just now, but I’m serious now. I love you guys. I’m sorry that this would be my last mission with you guys.” Static. “Humanity owes you guys tremendously,” I heard Clark’s reply. “We love you all too!” “Why?” The last fifteen seconds seemed to last for eternity. There were lots of chatters through the radio and every single one of them went into my ears with more clarity than ever.

00:01 . . .

***

I watched with horror as the timer countdown reached 00:05. This team had held its ground for five long years of campaigns against the nanobots without losing any members. We were one of the most advanced and successful specialist strike team. Yet, here we were, only able to watch as three of our best teammates were going to be decimated. I resigned myself.

“Good-bye . . .”

I swore I was going to resign from my position after this mission, I thought to myself as I watched the structure and the walls vanished, along with three of my best friends.

THE DEATHS

As the final bombs exploded, we watched from afar how the last remaining structure disappeared instantaneously. The structures were all gone now. We lost three men, and yet we prevailed. The radio signal was filled with celebration, both from the remaining eight of us and the Command Headquarters, our war headquarters.

“All right guys! We succeeded,” I told my men without any hint of joy in my voice. We watched the sea of nanobots around us; they had stopped trying to attack us. “Send the plane down, we are evacuating,” I said to the operator. “Roger that,” he replied.

Minutes later, we saw our plane descended above us. It was one of those new anti-gravity engine jets. We were going to be home soon. I felt a guilt pang within me as I realized that we were going home without them for the first time ever.

The plane was about ten metres above ground, preparing for landing sequence, when it happened. The nanobots around us swirled and formed a huge wall around the plane. We were trained to be calm in all circumstance, but nobody could maintain their calm as we watched the nanobots destroyed the plane that was supposed to bring us back home. I could feel the terror around me. Somebody screamed through the radio. I could hear the operator shouting commands and relaying information to the Command Headquarters. As for me, I was filled with calmness that was almost numbing. The moment felt so surreal. My eyes stared blankly at the sight of the plane being torn down. I heard the pilots screamed through the radio. No. Not through the radio. I could hear their screams through the air around me. The moment lasts for a mere minute or so. Then there was silence. It slowly dawned on us that we were stranded, surrounded by the nanobots.

The terrors and grieves that filled us were slowly replaced with calmness as each one of us accepted the fact that we were going to die here. Three days passed and three rescue attempts were made unsuccessfully. Although we still have liquid food within our armor, water had run out quite some time ago. Thirst started to fill my throat. This will soon be over.

***

I had come to my decision. Instead of dying slowly with thirst and hunger, I had chosen a quick way out. I looked at my commander, he looked back at me. I thought that he must have known what I was thinking.

“Clark, I’m sorry I could not be with you to the end.”
“Don’t be. I should be sorry for leading you here.”
“Remember the time we were still training together, old buddy?”
“Yea… Good time, wasn’t it?”
“I guess this is the end. Goodbye, my friend.”

Then I stood up and saluted my friend and commander one last time. He slowly stood up and replied my salute. I could hear him sighing as I entered the password. I heard a few clicking sound as my helmet unlocked itself. I opened my helmet. There was calm. Then I felt it, the soft tingling sensation as the invisible nanobots landed on my skin. Then I saw it began, the nanobots on the ground swirled up, right to my face. I could see the terror on Clark’s face and the rest of the crews. On the other hand, I no longer felt any pain; I am going to see Clark, Rob and the rest very soon after all . . .

EPILOGUE

April 1, 2911

Today was the 500th Patriots Day, the day that marked the failed mission to destroy the Overmind. The eleven valiant men were remembered throughout the history as the last patriots who died in the war that went down the history as the Last Earth War. The full history of this war itself is stored within the Clark Reid Library, in honour of the gallant commander of the operation. The last human was evacuated from the earth surface in 2417.

After five hundred years, we still had yet figured how the Overmind worked. What we did know now was that the Overmind was not confined to any single structure, as we had previously conjectured. The Overmind is a collective formed from the minds of each and every single nanobots that existed.

Nanobots and the Overmind were much less of a threat now. Our observations clearly indicated that the Overmind had created impressive structures on the surface of earth. However, they had not managed to expand into the space. In fact, in 2735, a young genius, Dr Wilhelm Stoddart, created a permanent blanket of magnetic ion storms on the earth’s outer atmosphere, permanently sealing the nanobots to the surface of the earth and us from the surface of the earth.

We have since lived on borrowed time. Our spacefaring technology allowed us to warp into nearby stars in short amount of time, expanding our great civilization throughout the galaxy. We adapted. We survived. We emerged better than ever.

-THE END-

Credits


Cover image:

Original picture by F1driver, published at Deviant Art here.

Photoshop editing to add reddish tint and making the image more earth-like was done by Hirako Shinji (i.e. me).


My sincere thanks also go to the countless proofreaders who provided feedbacks on the storyline in general and the grammar and typography errors.
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Author's Note:

there it is, my new science-fiction that i wrote for my term paper. cool right? i love it man! just that i felt a bit rushed due to word limit. i mean, how "un-rush"-ed can it be with 3000 words limit? but anyway, the storyline is there. and i managed to develop it sufficiently.

and a friend told me that i am a sadist for killing eleven people in a span of 3000 words. well, i might be! ;) wow, but to think about it, killing eleven people is quite sadistic huh? hehe! i just felt like killing them, making the story much more exciting.