Scratch marks

(You should probably read Robot 55 first.)

A wavy plain the color of rust stretched all the way to a not-so-distant horizon, dotted with rocks big and small. Farther out, low outcroppings barely cast a shadow in the tiny, pale sun; high up, the air was thick with dust.

Something foreign stood in that empty vastness: the statue of a human being, thirty meters tall and covered in shiny armor plates painted red and white, that gave it an angular figure. On its head was a helmet with hard edges and a smooth faceplate attached. A pair of eyes burned in the gap between them. The giant appeared to stare into the distance, at bright lights chasing each other in the sky. After a while, it lifted a foot and started walking.

Inside the cockpit, numbers and diagrams danced across big screens that showed a panorama of the landscape. A young man in a red and white flight suit frantically pushed virtual buttons, straining against the cushioned harness he was strapped into.

"At least I made it down in one piece," he muttered, before zooming in to better see the celestial light show. "I hope they can hold the line without me."

Right on cue, the image of a muscular young woman appeared in a window on his helmet visor, flanked by thumbs-up symbols. The digital avatar winked at him, then vanished.

"Thanks, Hikaru," the young man said belatedly. "Let's see, if I got this right, the old research outpost should be... roughly this way."

This wasn't supposed to be a complete story; I was trying to flesh out a character background for a shared setting, hence its fragmented nature. But while writing it, the narrative increasingly stood by itself, so why not. Even if a grim, sad near-future war story isn't my usual fare at all.

Content warning: guns.

The cold red sun of autumn sends slanted rays through the gaping hole that used to be a window. Inside, debris litter the bare floor. Little furniture still stands within the room's concrete cube. Outside's what matters anyway. Four meters below and across the street, between two apartment buildings that don't look much better, people in camo are coming, bent low among cars and dumpsters. I flip the fire selector down one notch and fire a couple of short bursts; the tankies turn tail and scatter back the way they came. One falls. A lone shot rings from the floor above me, but I'm looking at other moving shadows by then. Oh, that's just a tree in the wind. I lean back against the wall while the old PM-65 slowly cools down. Then they show up again, and again. It lasts halfway to noon.

This fancy hovel used to be a restaurant. Not the kind a street boy could walk into, way back. Now its owners must be long gone, like their clients from the mansions across the lake; what a view it is from up here. But all I can think of is how many refugees it could house. Meanwhile, a starched ass prattles on.

They moved the tables to divide the room in half. In the lacquered corner, wearing olive green uniforms with too many braids, the brass. Not our brass, mind. We're over here, among broken glass, all dark blue work clothes and covered faces. Also guns. That's what we have and they want. They can't seem to grasp why we don't care to get in uniform.

Dude. Do you want to fight tankies, or have someone to boss around?

Another general is talking now. He's making veiled threats, and doesn't seem to notice when barrels begin to shift, hands resting on safeties. Then someone shouts, "DRONE!" The whole gathering piles out through every opening. We're far enough when the missile hits.