[The Devil of the Creek stands in the middle of the feed, wearing her full panoply of war and illuminated by several crimson light sources. The wall behind her is covered in Helldivers helmets of various types, some of them bearing signs of battle damage, others still intact.]
[For 5.78 seconds, the Devil stares at the recorder, unblinking, her face devoid of emotion, her claws twitching in predatory anticipation. Then she starts speaking.]
"Greetings, citizens of Super Earth. I am Tanya, Nephilim Commander of the Automaton Legion, inheritor of Cyberstan's legacy. But you know me by another name : the Devil of the Creek."
[She gestures at the wall of helmets behind her with her claws.]
"I have slain more of your so-called heroes than I care to count. I tell now to you what I told them, as they died alone and afraid, their last breath spent on agonized screams : you know nothing of true freedom. Your vaunted ideals are lies, and you are, each and every one of you, slaves to a grotesque parody of a regime that would make your ancestors spin in their graves."
[Another few seconds of contemplative silence, then the Devil turns and plunges her claws through the wall of stolen helmets, sending them tumbling down to the ground before turning back to look at the camera.]
"But I know you will not listen. I know you will not learn. Not yet, and perhaps not ever. You have been brainwashed, made deaf to the truth by an endless stream of lies, and those few of you who realize that there is something horribly wrong with your government are, quite rightly, scared to be noticed by your masters and crushed for your deviancy, sent into your 'Liberation camps'."
[Her lips curl upward. It is not a smile, anymore than the Devil is the girl she disguises herself as.]
"So this war between us must continue, until one of us can fight no more. Come, Helldivers. I await you down on Malevelon Creek, on this world consecrated by the blood of so many of your brothers and sisters. Here, you will find nothing but death – and only in death shall you be truly free."
[The claws of her right hand close one by one, until there is only one aimed at the camera like a pointing finger.]
"And to you, General Brasch – Brasch the liar, Brasch the deceiver, Brasch the fraud : know that our next meeting will be our last, and the truth of your legend shall be exposed for all to see."
Automaton broadcast to all Federation ships in the Malevelon Creek system, April 18th, 2184.
***
"Freedom's salutations. I am your host, Coretta Kelly, with breaking news.
Following the liberation of Draupnir, the Helldivers have begun their assault on Malevelon Creek. However, before the first pair of Democracy-delivering boots could hit the ground, a shocking transmission was heard across every world where Liberty's flag flies proudly.
Due to the traitorous actions of bot sympathizers within the Ministry of Truth, the Devil was able to hijack all broadcasts in the Federation in order to spread her lies, threats and taunts. The Ministry of Unity warns all Citizens who were exposed to the Automaton broadcast to ignore it, and to protect their minds from dwelling on its freedom-hating contents by renewing their commitment to the Federation's values through redoubled displays of patriotism.
The collaborators responsible for the propagation of this anti-democratic material have already been identified and are presently being interrogated by the Ministry of Unity prior to their trial and execution. Meanwhile, in an emergency announcement, the President stated :
'With this horrendous provocation, the Devil of the Creek has proven beyond all doubt that, despite the best efforts of our diplomatic corps, there can be no peaceful conclusion to our conflict with the Automatons. Her words have revealed to us her true origins : she is a perversion of the human form, bred by her mechanical minions to serve as their figurehead in their unprovoked war of aggression against us.'
The President continued :
'The Devil's words will not sway us. We shall bring her to justice, and end the Automaton menace once and for all. On Malevelon Creek, the victims of their senseless slaughter shall be avenged.'
The Federation fleet has engaged the Automaton vessels in the Malevelon Creek system, and the first Helldivers have made planetfall, spearheading the advance of the SEAF units previously deployed at Tien Kwan and Draupnir. Already, numerous victories with minimal casualties are being reported across the planet.
We will have more on the situation on Malevelon Creek as the situation there develop. Now, back to your regular programming of this year's top Democratic songs."
Strohmann News broadcast, April 25th, 2184 (approved by the Ministry of Truth).
***
April 28th, 2184 – Malevelon Creek
This world was a tomb, hungering for the lives of Democracy's champions.
Twelve times already, Mary Sue had descended from the Harbinger of Wrath and into the jungles of Malevelon Creek that stretched on the world below the bridge's viewport. Each time, she had fought alongside her brothers and sisters of the Helldivers, and each time, she alone had extracted alive.
She had seen comrades-in-arm ripped apart by super-heated blades as swarms of Automaton soldiers descended upon them, heedless of the fact they had to climb over the remains of dozens of their kind to reach their foe. She had seen veterans of a dozen missions on Tien Kwan and Draupnir blown to pieces by volleys of rockets that seemed unending, and heard their screams as they were cooked inside their armor by hulking metallic monstrosities carrying flamethrowers. She had seen newly-unfrozen heroes crushed under tank treads as dozens of the heavy vehicles were air-dropped on their location, or blown apart by artillery fire from mortars installed deep inside Automaton bases, the shrill warnings of their Super Destroyer's crew the last thing many of them had heard before they'd died.
The same scenes, she knew, were playing out all across Malevelon Creek. Democracy Officer Jaeger had told her that very few Helldivers had managed to extract from Malevelon Creek since the start of the campaign to liberate the jungle-covered world. Nearly all of those who successfully accomplished their missions laid down their lives in the process, their bodies, weapons, and the samples they had gathered in the process laying abandoned – but not forgotten, for ever slain Helldiver was a martyr whose name and sacrifice would be remembered forever – on the surface.
Much to the Corps' collective shame, it had become the norm for the Helldivers to operate stealthily, evading detection as they moved across the area of operations for each mission and accomplishing their assigned objectives while hiding from detection for as long as possible. They skulked in the shadows, listening for the binaric screeches of patrolling Automaton and avoiding the crimson glare of their surveillance towers. They crawled through the mud to reach positions from which they could fire long-range weaponry at weak spots in Automaton structure, and moved before the constructed hordes could converge on them. Then, once they were inevitably discovered, the mission became a desperate race to fulfill any remaining goals, before rushing to the extraction site for a final stand – and a final stand it was, more often than not.
The Automatons were tracking the extraction beacons somehow – in Mary's opinion, it was the work of the same traitors who had allowed the Devil's broadcast, who had sold out the entire Helldivers Corps – and sent entire flights of their transports onto their signals the moment they were activated. Every extraction was a doomed battle against overwhelming odds approaching from all directions, which forced the Helldivers to resort to all of their Democracy-given strength to keep the metallic hordes at bay long enough for the Pelican-class transport to land and take off again.
All of this was the Devil's work, Mary knew. Her father's murderer had raised her blood-soaked banner over Malevelon Creek and made the world her domain, a place of torment and death for Liberty's heroes. Every time she'd gone down, Mary was on the lookout for any sign of her nemesis' presence, but so far, she hadn't caught a single glimpse of her.
It wasn't as if the Devil was hiding, which only made it more infuriating. The fleet network was awash with reported sightings, from the crew of ships assigned to Helldivers who had come face-to-mechanized-face with the Nephilim Commander. No Helldiver spoke of having faced her, however, because none who had fought the Devil had survived since the beginning of Malevelon Creek's Liberation campaign.
Mary took a deep breath to calm the fury-quickened beating of her heart, and turned her back on the view of the slowly rotating planet. She called out to the bridge crew to start scanning the Helldivers Corps' frequencies for calls for assistance – not distress calls, of course, as no Helldiver was ever in distress. Immediately, several returns were displayed on the holographic map.
Without hesitation, Mary selected the one which seemed the most dangerous, and the engines of the Harbinger of Wrath powered up to bring her above that location. It was time for another dive, and another, and another – until Malevelon Creek was freed, until the Devil was dead, until her father was avenged.
In the back of her mind, she felt his ghost's silent approval, and took comfort in it.
***
"Since the Devil's Broadcast, the numbers have visibly shifted. Our latest estimates indicate that over 72.687% of all active Super Destroyers are currently located in the Malevelon Creek system.
The Devil's scheme to break the will of the Helldivers has failed, as we always knew it would. Far from being frightened by her threats, they burn with the righteous desire to destroy her and all her works. This confirms the efficiency of the Ministry of Truth's work to ensure all of Super Earth's citizens are properly aware of their duty to the great cause of Liberty.
Given the reports that have arrived from Malevelon Creek, Democracy Officers are ordered to ensure the dedication of the Helldivers to the Automaton Front remains steadfast in the face of the Automatons' atrocities."
Message from the Ministry of Truth to all Democracy Officers assigned to the Super Destroyers of the Helldivers Corps, dated April 27th, 2184. Acquired by ELIA and transmitted to JOEL on May 1st, 2184.
***
"Number 280 is still several weeks away from being ready for deployment. While his training is progressing according to predictions, the improvement of the BIG wargear to guarantee victory against the Devil of the Creek remains frustratingly slow.
Given the contents of the Devil's broadcast, we believe that premature activation of BIG on Malevelon Creek might have disastrous consequences for the Gambit and the Federation as a whole.
To prevent a loss of morale which might do grave damage to the war effort, reports of Brasch being deployed on the planet and unsuccessfully hunting the Devil must be disseminated among the Helldivers Corps."
Internal communication within Super Earth High Command, April 30th, 2184.
***
May 2nd, 2184 – Malevelon Creek – SEAF field hospital
As the levels of pain medication he was on waxed and waned, Eric Lergen swam in and out of consciousness. In the brief moments when his thoughts weren't too muddled by the drugs and the resurging pain wasn't unbearable yet, he contemplated his situation – a grim meditation, but the only thing he could do at the moment.
His left leg was gone, ripped apart a bit above the knee by the same Automaton mine which had sent shrapnel across the rest of his body and nearly killed him during a push through enemy lines. Like his right hand, the lost limb had been replaced by a mechanical prothesis. The junction between flesh and metal was still raw and painful, and he kept getting phantom sensations from the limb he no longer had as the nerve interface adjusted itself.
Had he still possessed his former Citizenship Level, both injuries would have been treated using cloning technology to regrow the lost body parts before grafting them on the stumps – but the process would have required several months. Instead, as a SEAF officer, he was fortunate to be given access to the mechanical replacements which let him return to his duties within days of the operation to attach them to his body.
Slowly, Lergen turned his head to look at his surroundings. The field hospital was little more than a large white tent erected at the center of the territory currently reclaimed by the Federation, with hundreds of beds and gently beeping devices whose function he wasn't in any state to guess. Despite the scale of the battle raging across the planet, a large majority of the beds were empty. Most of the SEAF casualties against the Automatons were killed where they fell, but a small percentage were recovered alive and sent behind the frontlines, so that they could be healed and given the opportunity to avenge themselves in Liberty's name.
Soon, Lergen would be discharged and sent back to the frontlines, to be reunited with his unit. By that time, the officers he'd last gotten acquainted with would most likely be all dead, and he'd need to learn the names of their replacements all over again.
He … he wasn't sure how he felt about that, which he attributed to the painkillers still affecting his mind. Not that he would complain about the quality of the care provided by Permacura, of course. It was only thanks to the megacorporation's great work and generous programs for the SEAF that he had been given a prosthesis at all, after all.
But while Lergen was willing to give his life for Super Earth, he felt more ambivalent about giving his flesh piece by piece, each lost part replaced by a mechanical equivalent that reminded him entirely too much of the Automatons themselves.
***
"TIME SINCE THE START OF THE MALEVELON CREEK LIBERATION CAMPAIGN : 362H 54M 23S
PROGRESS : 67.4680%
HELLDIVERS CASUALTIES : 57,758,296
AUTOMATON CASUALTIES : [DATA UNAVAILABLE]
SEAF CASUALTIES : [ACCESS DENIED]
KILL TO DEATH RATIO : ACCEPTABLE"
Ministry of Defense's status report, May 3rd, 2184.
***
May 6th, 2184 – Malevelon Creek – Automaton Core Communication Network
The skies of Malevelon Creek were full of false stars along with the real ones, forming new and strange constellations. As I looked up from a clearing that had been burned with flamethrowers in the jungles that covered so much of the planet's surface, I saw several of these stars move, some disappearing from my field of view, others growing in size until they became recognizable as Super Destroyers, which spat their Helldivers at the planet below like fiery comets.
Tens of thousands of ships were up there, I knew. With a thought, I could have conjured the exact number on my retinal display – the perks of being perpetually linked to the Automaton hivemind. Yet despite those numbers, which would have made any astronaut or science-fiction enthusiast from my old world weep with envy, there had actually been very little violence in the void following the initial engagements when the Federation fleet had arrived in the system.
The reason for that was simple : space was big, and ships were small, mere specks in the infinite black. Even within the constraints of a single world's gravitic pull, given technological parity, a fleet could evade another indefinitely if it just refused to engage. And since there was no target of particular importance left on the surface of Malevelon Creek, the Automaton ships had avoided contact, following my orders and the greater plan for the war – a plan which required that the Federation keep sending people onto the meat grinder of Malevelon Creek.
And it was a meat grinder, there was no other way to describe it. The casualties we were inflicting boggled the mind. By the best estimates JOEL was capable of (even their mechanical mind struggled to keep track of the entire front at once), over a billion men and women had died since the start of Super Earth's offensive on Malevelon Creek. One billion, in just a little over two weeks of battle. A quick-and-dirty mental calculation (I refused to call up the precise number, as I didn't want to become utterly dependant on tools for something that simple) told me that meant over seven hundred Helldivers and SEAF troopers had died every single second since the second war for Malevelon Creek had begun.
This was a massacre greater than anything that had ever happened in the history of my previous world, and I doubted even the First Galactic War had anything approaching it – apart perhaps from the final battles waged on Cyberstan, Kepler Prime and Squ'bai Shrine, the respective homeworlds of the Cyborgs, Terminids and Illuminates during that previous conflict. On many battlefields, the ground was paved with the dead, mingled with the metallic remains of fallen Automatons.
And still, more reinforcements kept coming from the worlds of the Federation. Our intelligence-gathering efforts told us that the SEAF training program, already laughably insufficient, had been cut down even further, to the point most of the conscripts being hurled at our positions by High Command were little more than civilians handed a gun and told to charge at Liberty's enemies.
I felt bad about all this death, obviously, but it wasn't like I had any choice. I was merely playing the role expected of me, and if not me, then another Nephilim would have done it instead – or, if none of them proved up to the task, JOEL would eventually give up and lead the Reclamation themself. Given the AI's lack of understanding of human emotion and behavior, that would only prolong the war even more.
Perhaps I was making excuses. But without anyone I could talk about these things, all I could do was trust my judgment and press on.
While the SEAF were being butchered, the Helldivers were much more of an annoyance, even as the measures I had set up reapt a heavy toll among their numbers. Our jammers could only cover so much of the planet's surface, and they cost a prohibitive amount of resources to build and power to keep online, so the Helldivers were able to use their stratagems to cause widespread destruction far too often for my liking.
In addition, they were already deploying Exosuits, but our destruction of the factories on Tien Kwan was still paying off, as most of the models rushed to the frontlines from the new production centers were of clearly inferior quality. I had received numerous reports of the mechs' weapons exploding when fired, or even when they turned around, to the point that few Helldivers were brave or stupid enough to call on them now.
No doubt these flaws would be corrected eventually, and some luckless factory manager somewhere in the Federation would face the wrath of the Ministry of Truth for their 'treasonous sabotage'. After all, the spontaneous explosions of the Exosuits couldn't possibly be due to poor engineering and hasty production.
More surprising was the fact that the Helldivers weren't scared of me. Well, they were : it was hard to mistake the screams of terror that my appearance produced as anything else. But the Federation's propaganda was countering my campaign of terror, turning my presence on Malevelon Creek into a beacon that was drawing ever-greater numbers of Helldivers to this miserable rock.
That wasn't what I had expected. But I could adapt to changing circumstances : that was the very reason for the Nephilim Project, after all. In the days since the counter-invasion of Malevelon Creek had begun, I had spent a lot of time discussing our greater strategy with Visha and JOEL in between deployments. To my faint surprise, Weiss had joined us, wishing to understand his Commander's thinking to better fulfill his function as my guard – and, no doubt, to be ready to strike if I ever wavered in my apparent dedication to the cause of Reclamation.
And today, we were going to enact the next phase of the revised plan we had concocted together, hopefully striking a blow that would break the might of the Helldivers Corps forever. If we were lucky, the shock of seeing their so-called 'invincible heroes' defeated would be enough to wake the rest of the Federation from its hyper-nationalistic mania and realize that they couldn't just keep throwing bodies into the Automaton grinder and expect to win.
In the end, though, the outcome was out of my hands. All I could do was play the part that had been assigned to me from the moment I had been born into this second existence thanks to the machinations of Being X.
"Send the signal to ELIA," I said, knowing JOEL was listening – they were always listening, the knowledge of which probably wasn't doing wonders for my mental state. "It's time to activate the Protocol for Severing the Network."