….

"Remember your sector's rifleman!" Screamed the Drill Sgt, Toren narrowed his eyes on his sector, watching the Darkness for movement.

Suddenly there was movement, a shimmer, a pilot's cloak he decided.

Without hesitating he opened fire, green paint splattering the area, the pilot had dodged as the paint hit nothing but the ground.

He and his squad were positioned in a defensive posture around a target building, there objective was to hold it for as long as possible, so far they had dealt with two other Squads of infantry and even a pilot with a grappling hook, now they were fighting what looked to be a team of pilots, either equipped with Cloaks or hiding in the tree Line.

Just as this thought occurred a shot rang out, Rifleman Peters was down on the ground writhing in pain, a big splash of red paint on his chest.

"Fuck, I'm down guys, need someone to cover my sector." He told them, Toren was already on it, peaking out of cover every once in awhile to see if he could spot them.

He knew this was a losing fight, they had been lucky with the last pilot, he was cocky, these were not cocky, in fact they were quite terrifying, their silence was much scarier than the threats the last pilot made as he fought.

In this moment Toren knew he wanted to be a pilot, to be able to wield such powerful equipment, to have access to such awesome skills.

Just then another shot rang out, Toren turned, There Squad lead was down, Toren glanced at the Drill Sgt on the catwalk, he had a sneer on his face.

Yea, this was gonna be a long day.

…..

"Pilot, I am detecting lifeforms, sensors estimate a platoon's worth of them, be advised, they are approaching the direction of the deceased combatants." Vata told him.

"How far Vata?" He asked, already knowing they must be close.

"Approximately a half mile in the East, current speeds put them at arriving in 30 minutes, i recommend haste."

Tanner nodded, "Alright VT, I want to get out of the area, but once we're clear I want to stop and use the TSAR'S Transmitter."

"Affirmative pilot, moving out now."

…..

They had been travelling for the better part of the day, Tanner had unfortunately forgotten to check for a map of some kind on the combatants from earlier, so he and VT chose the next best option. They went the opposite direction that the unknowns from earlier came from,

In that time they had finally exited the mountains and came to a position overlooking the coast. Tanner had to say, it was quite beautiful.

So now they sat there, Tanner had VT set the TSAR back on the ground for him to use in person, he could've had VT connect with it but he was longing for some fresh air.

Tanner tapped the interface on.

The machine sprang to life, he could hear the faint hum of internal components powering up, once the machine was on he powered up the Transmitter.

"This is Pilot Tanner of the Frontier Militia, to any all units, be you IMC or Militia, do you read?"

Tanner sat for a few moments awaiting a reply, none came, so, he repeated himself.

"I repeat, this is Pilot Tanner of the Frontier Militia, be you IMC or Militia, do you read?"

No answer came immediately, for a moment he thought none would come, before morse code started playing through the Transmitter, Tanner was a bit rusty but he still understood.

'I read you, sending a data connection.' What data? Suddenly a connection was sent through, He turned to VT, he was admittedly very excited to have come into contact with someone with technology, but he was also worried that the file could contain some unknown tech virus and harm VT.

In the end his excitement won the argument.

VT opened the connection, in the end it was both good and bad news, it was a reconnaissance satellite with a primitive AI on board, VT had told me she would have no trouble isolating and destroying it if necessary, so my fear was so far unfounded, unless of course that satellite was transmitting data somewhere, which again was assured to not be the case by VT.

In the end it turned out it was on board a ship with an early jump drive, said ship crashed into the ocean here, but not before the crew launched the Satellite in an attempt to get communications out before the crash.

What was bad about this was that its transmitter was undamaged, and it had in fact been transmitting, and no had shown up according to the AI onboard, let me rephrase that, it had been transmitting for the past 300 years and no one has shown up, bad considering its transmitter was on par with the one on the ground with us.

The AI had been watching the Planets inhabitants in detached interest as they went about there daily lives, it had all kinds of interesting things to show VT and Me, We saw giant flying lizards, thousands of soldiers, tree dwelling people growing trees in record time, Entirely dark figures riding equally dark bird things, Tanner had to admit, they looked very intimidating from the Aerial View.

Lately though the AI had been recording things upon a new curiosity, after years upon years of the giant Lizards seemingly going near extinct, besides the giant black one, which Tanner would also admit intimidated him even more then the bird things.

There was now a Blue Lizard Flying around,with an apparent rider to, the AI said it appeared to be an adolescent, and that the rider was a Human, at least the form was human.

One thing tanner knew above certain however was that the lands around him were preparing for war, steel clad soldiers seemed to be building up in mass, Farmers were stocking grain and other crops by the tonnes, Primitive Cities were fortifying, and the Black Lizard had been taking more and more flights to other cities with a rider on its back.

The AI had decided to correct me to, apparently the other Flying Lizards also had riders.

Getting more into specifics the red armoured combatants from earlier were wide spread over the continent, only places they weren't was to the south in what was an apparent independent nation, a forest to the east, and another thing of Mountains neighboring said independent kingdom, though recently the AI had alerted me to soldiers in Red garb gathering nearby on the border of both the kingdom and the series of mountains.

Getting this information, Tanner had decided to consult with VT and there new AI ally on what the next course of action was, overall this information sharing and planning would take the rest of the day through to the night.

….

Short chapter and long overdue, i know, I have what is a very crappy attention span unfortunately.

Anyways everyone, let me know what you think, and i'll try to get the next chapter out within the next seven days.

Thanks All.

Jctherebel signing off.