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Why they still chose treads for tanks sometimes, she really didn’t know. It wasn’t like that would lessen the possibility of disrupting that monster’s progress. She wondered if this tank rolled along the ground on treads because it offered a more imposing, intimidating figure. It was a very large vehicle, with multiple very large cannons mounted on a turret atop it. It was clearly a tank, and it was getting closer.
Behind it were three hovering armored personnel carriers (APCs). They maintained a distance that would allow the tank to defend them. Not that they weren’t well-armed, too. Each APC, she knew, had a compliment of Federation marines aboard, between thirty and thirty-six total.
She looked past the tank, using her enhanced vision to zoom in on the trio of APCs. Shifting through different functions, she was able to see that there were, between the three, a total of thirty-four marines embarked on each.
They were all terribly out of place. This was a city, and the streets that were normally teeming with life were not. It was eerily quiet, save the noise of the approaching vehicles.
She blinked, and she now had a range of tracking information on all four targets. Additionally, she had each of her companions, in the buildings behind her, marked. She also had data on the empty neighborhood the Federation was rolling through.
This was the city of Samanvay, on the planet Concordance in what was, before invasion and occupation, the Alliance. Samanvay was a city bordered on three sides by manufacturing and industrial complexes, which was the only reason the Federation would care about it and its population of three to five million. It was also only a hundred and sixty kilometers away from the capital, Ekata.
Over the past few local days, the Federation had forced the residents living on the outer edges of the city from their homes. They were ‘encouraged’ to take up residence within buildings closer to the center of the city, crowding them significantly.
Federation officials had broadcast across the planet that they had heard rumors of potential resistance cells forming, which they would not stand for. To reduce how many patrols they needed in the city, they ‘reduced’ its footprint.
She knew all about this because the Federation officials were correct. A resistance was forming, led by a coalition of former Alliance military and government forces.
She was not one of those officials. But after they had received information that before forcibly moving residents in the city, the Federation had planned an orbital bombardment, they wanted to strike fast. Hiring her was the best means to that end. When you wanted this sort of thing done with speed and precision, you hired a cyberwizard.
The monks and clerics of the UEO, with their abilities to manipulate chi and Universal Energy, followed their dogma and tended towards neutrality in conflicts. Sorcerers were also capable of using chi and Universal Energy in many of the same ways that monks and clerics did. However, sorcerers didn’t follow the transtheism of the UEO and used cybernetic enhancements to do things with both chi and Universal Energy far beyond monks and clerics. Sorcerers used spells to activate their implants to manipulate matter to create the forces they used.
However, the way sorcerers used chi and Universal Energy drained them terribly. Monks and clerics meditated and worked with only natural energy, so they did not burn themselves out in the way sorcerers tended to. She suspected this was why sorcerers didn’t live terribly long lives, nor develop reputations like cyberwizards.
Cyberwizards were much like sorcerers, save one key difference. They didn’t use chi nor Universal Energies, per se. Instead, they used technology to manipulate unseen Universal Energies by utilizing local subatomic particles to change matter. That would create effects and alter nature for attack, defense, and many, more general life tricks. Some of the “magic” they did was relatively simple. These were what they called cantrips, and they included drawing on natural elements for wind and rain, creating light and fire from nowhere, and similar, simple acts of matter and darkmatter manipulation.
She was a cyberwizard. Like the rest of the cyberwizards, she was a cyborg, possessing many enhancements and augmentations. Thanks to her cybernetics, and her long experience, neither the tank nor the APCs would be able to detect her presence, her companions, nor the surprise she had awaiting the approaching Federation force.
She was not a resident of the Alliance. In truth, she was not a resident of anywhere. Like most other cyberwizards, she hired herself out to various parties for COIN or to gain new technology.
Though she had been human before becoming a cyborg, she had no affiliations with any of the human territories. Yet she had a long-time moral code, and for that reason she would never work for the Federation or the Hegemony. Not that the latter would ever want her services. The Incorporation tended to keep to themselves and their business. The Alliance, Union, and Confederation, however, were mostly functional democracies with neutral or good intent towards all.
Once upon a time, she had been hired to do a job for one of the Alliance military leaders presently organizing the resistance. That was how she had been contacted for this gig. On the run, with Federation forces and bounty hunters seeking them out, they could not offer her COIN or tech in exchange for her services. However, the former Alliance military leader knew her moral code. Thus, they knew that she’d do this job, to all intents and purposes, pro-bono.
There was one benefit to her to be gained with this job. Federation cybersecurity was among the tightest and toughest to crack. With Federation forces inside the formerly Alliance territories, she had unprecedented close access to their systems. Hacking a system from closer proximity tended to be more successful, given you had many more sources to hack at.
Checking all the targets, her plan was nearly read to execute. She looked back toward the five-story, largely concrete and composite building where her companions waited, transmitting a very tight line-of-sight (LOS) signal, prepping them to move.
She turned back to watch the progress of the tank and three APCs behind it. The mostly short, dull buildings created something of any echo chamber, carrying the sound of their approach to her. For a few moments more, she had nothing to do but ruminate.
In some circles, she was known as the Blue Cyberwizard. She had been something of a child progeny. By age ten, she’d torn apart and rebuilt every computer system and appliance in her home. By her teen years, she had moved on to local and remote systems. It wasn’t long before she became so enamored of technology that she started getting cybernetic implants in her body.
Unlike most cyberwizards, she had no obvious signs of her tech on her. No noticeably mechanical limbs, no visible visor, monocle, or other metallic parts on her head or face. She looked like any other human woman one would presume to be in her mid-thirties.
This was another false impression she made on people. The Blue Cyberwizard was in truth in her eighties. She had so many implants and alterations during her long life that she had multiple bones and organs that hadn’t been her original parts in decades.
Back to the task at hand, her primary target, the rolling tank, was almost at the device she had planted in the road. But it would be undetectable to them, even as they rolled atop it. As a cyberwizard, she had the ability to use her cybernetic enhancements to manipulate base elements. Her device didn’t appear at all on any sensors, but if it had it would not register as an explosive. The tank was rolling over the device now. She could read via her enhanced sensors when the monstrous vehicle was directly above it.
She sent signals via her implants that would be untraceable to any devices the Federation, or anyone, for that matter, employed. This caused air molecules, and their constituent atoms, to shift all around her device, which interacted with other elements within it.
The explosion was powerful, throwing the tank off the ground like it had no weight at all, up and backwards.
Her calculations had been precise. The tank’s trajectory smashed it into all three of the APCs on its flight, grounding and wrecking them. The tank was so heavy that it flew well past them, exploding as it landed. She concluded that she must have breached the cannons’ energy source.
The surviving Federation soldiers were climbing out of the APCs. They appeared stunned at the least, or otherwise injured to a greater or lesser degree. Yet now they’d have to contend with her companions.
Most of her companions were former Alliance soldiers, but their ranks had been enhanced with civilians. They would have outnumbered the marines by nearly two to one before she’d damaged the APCs. Any Federation marines who offered resistance and tried to fight were taken out. The rest were captured. The first organized and coordinated strike of the resistance had been swift, and decisive, and was complete in under two minutes.
Three people were approaching her. She had only met one of them before. However, knowledge was one of her best assets, so she knew who her companions were. Admiral Jaya Carr had been nearing retirement when the Federation invaded. With her now were Captain Mohammed Day, one of her long-time aides and rumored lover, and Sam Perez, former deputy minister of defense for Concordance.
“The Blue Cyberwizard,” intoned Perez as they reached her. “The Admiral was correct. You measure up to your legend.”
“Captain Day, Minister Perez, trust me, he exceeds his legend. Meet Gideon Azurite,” Admiral Carr introduced her.
“Actually, Admiral Carr, it’s Galit now. My pronouns are she/her,” Galit said.
“My apologies,” stated Admiral Carr. “Captain Day, Minister Perez, she is Galit Azurite.”
Galit inclined her head to the Admiral’s companions. Then, she said, “You haven’t much time. Federation forces will be here en masse all too soon.”
“I know we hired you to start this,” said Admiral Carr, gesturing to the obliterated road. “But will you stay and do more for the resistance?”
Galit shook her head. “My work here is done. For now. Yours has only just begun.”
“We could really use your guidance,” Perez pleaded.
“I am not a soldier,” Galit said. “But I will be in touch. And if I learn anything of interest or use to your movement, I shall pass it along.”
Before more could be said, Galit turned and walked purposefully away from the devastation. However, she didn’t go far. Instead, she found a vantage point where she could make sure that Carr and her resistance fighters got clear. Then she remained to watch when more Federation forces arrived, shortly after, to investigate.
Just as Galit had predicted, the Federation systematically leveled all the buildings within a quarter of a kilometer from the destroyed tank and APCs. They would not appear to be abandoned, but they were. Still, the Federation would believe they had taught a lesson to the locals. Which they had. Just not the lesson they hoped to teach.
Once she’d seen enough, Galit made her way back to her ship. None would mark her passage. Her cybernetic enhancements hacked sensors and manipulated systems to assure that she wouldn’t be noticed.
Once she was back on her ship, before leaving Concordance, Galit would check on her hack into Federation systems. Her ship’s AI had been searching through information since she’d arrived in the occupied territory.
She knew that this invasion was just the start of the Federation’s offensive, and that their alliance with the drow had another purpose. Were they creating technology that might be something of interest to her, or a threat she might desire to work against? Galit was intrigued to learn what it would turn out to be. Her long experience told her this was the only the start of her involvement in this situation.
