System Wars 1.0 (a reboot fanfic)
Posted: 2003-05-27 11:44pm
System Wars 1.0
Chapter 0.1.0: Remember the Alamo.com
Colonel Spriggly moved down the line of his binome loyalists. He stopped here and there for a quick word or a pat on the back, then kept moving down the line. He longed for the days when he was merely binome 111001010010, but he'd be damned if he'd show the slightest lack of confidence or cheer in front of his boys. He rejoined his command staff, Major Hapablap (the User knew where some of these zero's got their names!?!) in the small tent they'd set up as a command post. Hapablap was one of the round binomes known as zero's, and Spriggly himself was a taller box like binome with one eye known as a one. They both wore green uniforms with insignia marking them as Crime Prevention Units, or CPU's. And of course, like everyone else in their universe, they were digital.
The two binomes stood over a vidwindow showing them the sector they'd been fighting to protect for the last several cycles and noted the complete lack of green dots representing their troops positions, except of course for this last fort they'd fallen back to. It used to be a temple to the User apparently, but near constant energy bursts and stray delete bolts had turned it into a burnt out wreck. There were however several large stretches of red dots, representing CPU's from another system. Spriggly looked over at Hapablap, "well then Hap old boy, what do the scouts have to say?" The shorter round binome didn't look away from the map as he answered, just pointed to different points on the map as he spoke, "it would seem sir that we're now completely cut off. The rebel sprites have leveled most of the sector so they can bring their heavy weapons in after us, and they've moved up enough troops to prevent a breakout. Of course they haven't blocked off the energy sea from behind us, but without any ships it'd be suicide to go that way." Spriggly accepted the report with good grace as always, a high morale seemed a natural part of his code. "Alright then chum, looks like they won't leave the sector with us behind them, so we'd best get ready for an attack. And you know what that means!", Spriggly raised his baton as he said this and looked defiant. Hapablap sighed and grabbed his baton as well, making sure the weapon was loaded "yes sir". And with that they both headed back to the line.
Some distance away in a tower there was a very different being, much larger than the binomes and human looking. She was also bright red, but that's life in the net for you. At the moment she was studying the fort full of green binomes and smiling to herself. She put down the scope and tapped a control on her wrist panel making a vidwindow appear, there was a CPU on the screen in a red uniform covered in decorations and braid. He snapped to attention immediately, "ma'am, your orders?" The red female sprite called up a display of the area into a corner of the vidwindow, "alright general, I want you to pound that place with your energy batteries til you make a breach then storm it with everything you've got. We've got to secure this sector now so we can focus on taking this system's principle office, understood?" The general nodded his understanding, "yes ma'am, we'll have this sector secured for you in two nano's, three tops", with that he saluted again and turned away as the vidwindow dissapeared. The sprite lifter her scope again and waited.
The red general opened a command vidwindow to his commanders, "alright 'nomes, I need a breach and I need it now! Get those batteries firing and don't stop til I tell you. Captain Tooly, get your company ready to move in as soon as you see an opening. And before anyone asks, no you can't have air support. The reinforcements haven't shown up yet and the locals shot everything we had out of the sky, now move!" And with that a dozen large batteries that looked suspiciously like napoleonic era cannons began pounding away at the fort. Still, latest version or no they were having the desired effect, the greens were keeping down and some shots were actually hitting the wall.
Inside the fort Colonel Spriggly was moving calmly up and down the line again, though he was crouching. "Alright me, this looks like the big one, so keep down and wait the charge. And remember men, we're not just fighting for system integrity, we're fighting for what's right!" The men gave a half hearted cheer to that and waited for the inevitable. It wasn't long in coming as a quick succession of hits derezzed the corner tower and the assaulting red's charged towards the breach yelling, "DOWN WITH THE GUARDIANS!", and "FREE THE SYSTEMS!"
The drama of the scene was somewhat downplayed by the fact that the entire battle was being fought by short and stubby digital characters who were attacking each other with what looked like police batons. Still, the energy bursts the red binomes fired as they charged the breach were serious enough, and deleted several unfortunate green's who got in the way. The horde of red CPU's poured into the breach and were deleted in droves as they faced the defenders massed fire, but there were so many pushing from behind they had no choice but to move forward and the attack continued despite their losses.
Back at her perch overlooking the battle the red woman nodded to herself in satisfaction. . More of her 'nomes were being deleted than she would have liked, but it looked as though they'd still take the fort through sheer numbers. She stood back from the edge of the roof and tapped her 'scope on a small panel in its side and it micronized down to a compact unit which she placed on her belt, along with several other gadgets. She was just getting ready to dictate a report to her wristpad when she noticed some sort of activity out at the edge of the sector. With just a trace of alarm she pulled the 'scope back off her belt to see what was happening. She couldn't accept the system had found reinforcements, they'd already pinned down the system's entire force of CPU's and they already controlled the only port in the system so no new ships could've gated in without her knowing. Unfortunately that left one seriously disturbing possibility, but why would the guardians trouble themselves over such a minor system? As she zoomed in with the scope she was momentarily startled to see several gangs of walking numerical characters; fives and sixes and such with arms and legs that tended to get menial labor jobs; pulling up all the bridges to the sector. "But what good would that do them?", she asked herself, "unless...." Her head suddenly snapped up with a startled expression, "damnit!" And with that she hauled a small disk off her belt and threw it at the ground, but rather than hit it expanded into two foot sized disks connected by a flexible bar. She hopped aboard and began flying towards the harbor as she opened a vidwindow, this one opening on a startled group of human shaped sprites like herself ;though some were different colors; and before any of them could speak she shouted at them ,"get the ship ready NOW!"
Back in the green CPU's fort Colonel Spriggly was hunched behind a piece of debris, getting quick glimpses of his boys being overrun as he popped up to take the occasional shot. The red's had now secured the breach and were quickly overtaking the green's on the walls. And once they had the wall, they could pick off the leftover defenders with ease. Spriggly turned to Hap who was of course still fighting right along side him ,"well old sport, looks like this is it. Cover me won't you?" Hap grinned and gave a sloppy half salute ,"righty'o sir" and with that Hap jumped up and began blazing wildly at the nearest red's. While they had their heads down Spriggly made a quick dash, well as quick as possible dash, into the command tent. He slapped a button on the table and vidwindow to the system's principal office opened, but instead of the short system command.com there was a large muscular sprite with a shiny keytool on his wrist, Spriggly stood to attention and saluted "it's as you feared sir, we can't stop them but we have managed to draw in what appears to be their entire force. Your orders sir?" Spriggly was expecting a quick ,"fight to the bitter end, rah rah" speech, so was surprised when the guardian simply looked sad and lifted his arm with his keytool and said ,"detonator" The box on his arm immediately sprouted a large red button that said 'BOOM' on it. As he reached for the button he looked back at Spriggly ,"sorry Colonel", to which Spriggly could only respond, "oh my"
Chapter 0.1.0: Remember the Alamo.com
Colonel Spriggly moved down the line of his binome loyalists. He stopped here and there for a quick word or a pat on the back, then kept moving down the line. He longed for the days when he was merely binome 111001010010, but he'd be damned if he'd show the slightest lack of confidence or cheer in front of his boys. He rejoined his command staff, Major Hapablap (the User knew where some of these zero's got their names!?!) in the small tent they'd set up as a command post. Hapablap was one of the round binomes known as zero's, and Spriggly himself was a taller box like binome with one eye known as a one. They both wore green uniforms with insignia marking them as Crime Prevention Units, or CPU's. And of course, like everyone else in their universe, they were digital.
The two binomes stood over a vidwindow showing them the sector they'd been fighting to protect for the last several cycles and noted the complete lack of green dots representing their troops positions, except of course for this last fort they'd fallen back to. It used to be a temple to the User apparently, but near constant energy bursts and stray delete bolts had turned it into a burnt out wreck. There were however several large stretches of red dots, representing CPU's from another system. Spriggly looked over at Hapablap, "well then Hap old boy, what do the scouts have to say?" The shorter round binome didn't look away from the map as he answered, just pointed to different points on the map as he spoke, "it would seem sir that we're now completely cut off. The rebel sprites have leveled most of the sector so they can bring their heavy weapons in after us, and they've moved up enough troops to prevent a breakout. Of course they haven't blocked off the energy sea from behind us, but without any ships it'd be suicide to go that way." Spriggly accepted the report with good grace as always, a high morale seemed a natural part of his code. "Alright then chum, looks like they won't leave the sector with us behind them, so we'd best get ready for an attack. And you know what that means!", Spriggly raised his baton as he said this and looked defiant. Hapablap sighed and grabbed his baton as well, making sure the weapon was loaded "yes sir". And with that they both headed back to the line.
Some distance away in a tower there was a very different being, much larger than the binomes and human looking. She was also bright red, but that's life in the net for you. At the moment she was studying the fort full of green binomes and smiling to herself. She put down the scope and tapped a control on her wrist panel making a vidwindow appear, there was a CPU on the screen in a red uniform covered in decorations and braid. He snapped to attention immediately, "ma'am, your orders?" The red female sprite called up a display of the area into a corner of the vidwindow, "alright general, I want you to pound that place with your energy batteries til you make a breach then storm it with everything you've got. We've got to secure this sector now so we can focus on taking this system's principle office, understood?" The general nodded his understanding, "yes ma'am, we'll have this sector secured for you in two nano's, three tops", with that he saluted again and turned away as the vidwindow dissapeared. The sprite lifter her scope again and waited.
The red general opened a command vidwindow to his commanders, "alright 'nomes, I need a breach and I need it now! Get those batteries firing and don't stop til I tell you. Captain Tooly, get your company ready to move in as soon as you see an opening. And before anyone asks, no you can't have air support. The reinforcements haven't shown up yet and the locals shot everything we had out of the sky, now move!" And with that a dozen large batteries that looked suspiciously like napoleonic era cannons began pounding away at the fort. Still, latest version or no they were having the desired effect, the greens were keeping down and some shots were actually hitting the wall.
Inside the fort Colonel Spriggly was moving calmly up and down the line again, though he was crouching. "Alright me, this looks like the big one, so keep down and wait the charge. And remember men, we're not just fighting for system integrity, we're fighting for what's right!" The men gave a half hearted cheer to that and waited for the inevitable. It wasn't long in coming as a quick succession of hits derezzed the corner tower and the assaulting red's charged towards the breach yelling, "DOWN WITH THE GUARDIANS!", and "FREE THE SYSTEMS!"
The drama of the scene was somewhat downplayed by the fact that the entire battle was being fought by short and stubby digital characters who were attacking each other with what looked like police batons. Still, the energy bursts the red binomes fired as they charged the breach were serious enough, and deleted several unfortunate green's who got in the way. The horde of red CPU's poured into the breach and were deleted in droves as they faced the defenders massed fire, but there were so many pushing from behind they had no choice but to move forward and the attack continued despite their losses.
Back at her perch overlooking the battle the red woman nodded to herself in satisfaction. . More of her 'nomes were being deleted than she would have liked, but it looked as though they'd still take the fort through sheer numbers. She stood back from the edge of the roof and tapped her 'scope on a small panel in its side and it micronized down to a compact unit which she placed on her belt, along with several other gadgets. She was just getting ready to dictate a report to her wristpad when she noticed some sort of activity out at the edge of the sector. With just a trace of alarm she pulled the 'scope back off her belt to see what was happening. She couldn't accept the system had found reinforcements, they'd already pinned down the system's entire force of CPU's and they already controlled the only port in the system so no new ships could've gated in without her knowing. Unfortunately that left one seriously disturbing possibility, but why would the guardians trouble themselves over such a minor system? As she zoomed in with the scope she was momentarily startled to see several gangs of walking numerical characters; fives and sixes and such with arms and legs that tended to get menial labor jobs; pulling up all the bridges to the sector. "But what good would that do them?", she asked herself, "unless...." Her head suddenly snapped up with a startled expression, "damnit!" And with that she hauled a small disk off her belt and threw it at the ground, but rather than hit it expanded into two foot sized disks connected by a flexible bar. She hopped aboard and began flying towards the harbor as she opened a vidwindow, this one opening on a startled group of human shaped sprites like herself ;though some were different colors; and before any of them could speak she shouted at them ,"get the ship ready NOW!"
Back in the green CPU's fort Colonel Spriggly was hunched behind a piece of debris, getting quick glimpses of his boys being overrun as he popped up to take the occasional shot. The red's had now secured the breach and were quickly overtaking the green's on the walls. And once they had the wall, they could pick off the leftover defenders with ease. Spriggly turned to Hap who was of course still fighting right along side him ,"well old sport, looks like this is it. Cover me won't you?" Hap grinned and gave a sloppy half salute ,"righty'o sir" and with that Hap jumped up and began blazing wildly at the nearest red's. While they had their heads down Spriggly made a quick dash, well as quick as possible dash, into the command tent. He slapped a button on the table and vidwindow to the system's principal office opened, but instead of the short system command.com there was a large muscular sprite with a shiny keytool on his wrist, Spriggly stood to attention and saluted "it's as you feared sir, we can't stop them but we have managed to draw in what appears to be their entire force. Your orders sir?" Spriggly was expecting a quick ,"fight to the bitter end, rah rah" speech, so was surprised when the guardian simply looked sad and lifted his arm with his keytool and said ,"detonator" The box on his arm immediately sprouted a large red button that said 'BOOM' on it. As he reached for the button he looked back at Spriggly ,"sorry Colonel", to which Spriggly could only respond, "oh my"
Good job, and I hope to read more. And Reboot rocks. 
