NOVEL NEXT WORLD Chapter 13: Building Bridges.
September 2184, Bunker 00, Topside
After establishing contact with the Super Destroyer in orbit and sending the request for an engineering team, along with additional reinforcements to keep watch over the site, Jason stepped out of the APC. The biting cold of the icy wind hit him immediately. The SEAF soldiers stood their ground, keeping their distance, eyes trained on the ominous drones patrolling the bunker walls.
"Did you get through, sir?" one of his men asked.
"I did. They'll be here soon. Any developments while I was inside?"
"None so far. They've kept their distance."
Jason nodded, but before he could respond further, V approached him, her footsteps almost silent against the frost-crusted ground. Her presence was unnerving, even though he had no real reason to mistrust her yet.
"I assume the reinforcements are on their way down?" she asked.
Jason nodded again. "That's right. Why?"
"I would like you to come with me for a moment. There's something I think you need to see—to understand what happened here. I'll answer any questions you have along the way."
Jason hesitated. He needed to be present when the Pelicans arrived, but curiosity tugged at him. The situation was already spiraling into chaos, and any piece of information could prove crucial. Reluctantly, he made a decision.
"Once the Pelicans arrive," he ordered his team, "assist them with anything they need. Send a SEAF squad back to that warehouse. Confirm that thing is dead, no chances taken. It's going to be a long day."
As he walked alongside V toward the bunker entrance, his thoughts churned. This mission had devolved from a salvage op into something far more sinister. Too many unanswered questions. And V… she was at the center of it all.
"I need to ask," Jason said, breaking the silence as they passed through the grinding metal doors of the bunker. "What exactly are you? In all my years in the Helldivers Corps and civilian life, I've never seen anything like you."
V paused before responding, her glowing eyes casting a faint light on the cold, dark corridor.
"To the best of my understanding," she said, "I am a combat model once deployed by the SEAF military. There were others—worker drones mostly, used for construction. But why we weren't built in greater numbers off-world? I can't say. What you see now is all that remains."
They continued walking through the narrow halls, the dim lighting barely illuminating the decay around them. V led him down a flight of stairs, deeper into the bunker, towards an area marked as an old water filtration system. It hadn't been used in years. The air was heavy with the stench of rust and neglect.
As they entered a wide, dimly lit chamber, Jason saw what immediately sent a chill down his spine—mounds of debris, each about the size of a human body. Graves.
"When the bombardment happened, I managed to lead a small group of SEAF survivors into this bunker," V explained, her voice quieter now. "More came later, but most were in terrible shape—civilians and soldiers alike, all far enough from the blasts to survive, but still terrified. No one understood why it happened. Why they did this to us."
Jason stepped closer to the mounds. There were over thirty, maybe more. Each one was a silent testament to the lives lost here.
"Is this all of them?" he asked, his voice tight.
V shook her head. "No. Within a month, we started sending teams out into the ruins, to scavenge from areas that hadn't been hit by nukes. But the enemy was out there too. They survived, just like we did. Every mission cost us more lives. We didn't recover the bodies… couldn't. But we brought back what drones we could find—combat models mostly. The humans… they died, and we kept going."
Jason felt the weight of her words as he stared at the makeshift graves. The drones had carried on while humanity withered away. His eyes moved to the far wall, where rows upon rows of tally marks lined the cold metal surface.
"By the end of the first year," V continued, "this is all that remained. Just us, and a few stragglers clinging to the hope that the SES would send rescue. They never did."
"But none came," Jason muttered, already knowing the answer.
V nodded and knelt beside one of the mounds. "My commanding officer was one of the first to die. Radiation sickness. Starvation. One by one, they either wasted away or took their own lives. For us drones, it was different. We just kept functioning, even as everything fell apart."
Jason turned from the graves, disgust rising in his throat. The tally marks stretched on endlessly across the walls, a silent record of the horrors that had taken place here. His voice cracked as he spoke.
"I've been fighting for a long time. I thought I'd seen the worst war could do, but this… this is different. We did this."
"Perhaps," V said quietly. "We never received any warning, no demands. They just opened fire and destroyed everything."
Jason had fought in many battles—had seen hell itself in places like Malevelon Creek and Hellmire. But even at their darkest, Command had never ordered the obliteration of a planet. They had always retreated, regrouped, and fought back. This was different. Here, the people they had sworn to protect had been left to rot.
"I'm going to make this right," Jason said, his voice hardening. "I can't undo what's happened, but we can start here."
"I don't hold it against you, or your men," V replied, her glowing eyes softening. "But others won't see it that way. The old combat drones—they still hold a deep hatred for humans."
Jason nodded grimly. "Then we need to start fixing this. One more thing—have you ever heard of a project called Dark Star?"
V's expression shifted. "No. Why do you ask?"
"We found something in the Communication Hub… a reference to Dark Star. I have a gut feeling it's connected to all of this."
She shook her head. "I've never heard of it."
Jason couldn't shake the unease that lingered. The symbol he had seen, the mound of human remains, and the monstrous creature they had killed—it was all connected. Somehow.
Bunker 00, Entrance
Outside, the SEAF soldiers remained by the APC, tension thick in the air. The glowing eyes of the drones on the wall never left them, adding to the unease. One of the worker drones, with blue-lit eyes and a pale body, approached, hesitantly breaking the silence.
"Are you the humans we've heard about?" the drone asked, its synthetic voice surprisingly soft. "You're… different from what I imagined."
The SEAF soldiers eyed the drone warily. They had seen enough to know not to trust any machine, no matter how harmless it looked.
"And you're not what we imagined either," one soldier replied coldly. "The only sentient machines we've encountered have been killing us for months."
"We're not like them," the drone insisted. "I see no reason to bring you harm."
"That remains to be seen."
The tension was palpable. Trust would not come easily after so much blood had been spilled. A laugh suddenly rang out from behind them, cold and bitter. One of the combat drones had descended from the wall, its yellow eyes gleaming with resentment.
"You might not have pulled the trigger," the combat drone growled, "but it was still your kind that did this to us. I fought alongside the SEAF with pride and risked my life countless times. And what did we get in return? Your SES fleet rained hell down on us, killing friend and foe alike. And now you show up, expecting us to forget that?"
One of the SEAF soldiers stepped forward. "I think what happened here was wrong. My words may not mean much to you, but this shouldn't have happened. Machines like you have killed us too. We're not your enemy."
The combat drone stared at him for a long moment, the weight of shared suffering hanging heavy between them. Before either could say more, the roar of engines cut through the icy air. Above, the Pelicans descended, piercing through the clouds and sending gusts of wind across the snow. Reinforcements had arrived.
For the first time in a long while, a sliver of moonlight broke through the clouds. Perhaps, Jason thought, hope had arrived too.
Edited thanks to ELE73CH.