《Metal Fatigue Fan Fiction》 Prologue and Chapter 1 Few soldiers are fortunate enough to outlive their careers. I trained recruits only to see them get blown to bits weeks later. My name is Stefan Angelus, and I am the only soldier to survive the 11 year long Corponation War that threatened to rip apart the human race. If you have found this Holo-Log, it likely means I am long dead. As far as I know this is the only first-hand account of the war in existence, so do what you must to keep it safe. No doubt the Hedoth will want the story suppressed, seeing as how they consider us the inferior race. But I¡¯ll get to that. If you are part of a colony of some sort, show your leader this recording. The information will help you survive, if I¡¯m correct in believing that our race has been enslaved. ------ I woke up with a start, and smiled as I remembered where I was, and what we were doing today. I glanced at my watch: 7 minutes to scramble time for our survey unit. I fell back on my bed, imagining what today would be like. Finally, my first real mission. No more training. I was going to prove myself today. Sure, it wasn¡¯t a combat mission, just reconnaissance and investigation. But I¡¯d be out on the field, with Diego and Jonus, my brothers. Diego had surprised me yesterday by reluctantly admitting that I was ready to go on a real mission. I was finally going to be in a combot alongside my brothers. I zipped up my combot suit and topped it off with my Overseer Comm helmet. Every Combot was equipped with a custom AI linked to the pilot via the helmet. ¡°Good morning, Stefan. Up early I see. Would you like me to run the pre-launch checklist?¡± chirped the voice of Betty, the latest in the long line of Overseer technology. Her voice never failed to cheer me up, but that just might be because I¡¯m new to all of this. ¡°Go ahead, Betty. Could you also check if Diego and Jonus are up yet?¡± I had no doubt that my eldest brother, being the dedicated unit commander that he is, would be up and going over the survey mission plan again. Jonus, our middle brother, had a different take on being a combot pilot: Do the very least you can to collect your monthly money transfer, and party in whatever time¡¯s leftover. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°Diego¡¯s Overseer informs me that he has been awake for two hours. The lack of reply from Jonus¡¯ Overseer leads me to believe she is currently deactivated.¡± Betty informed me. Typical Jonus. Even though it was against protocol to deactivate your overseer inc ase of an emergency, Jonus clearly didn¡¯t consider an emergency enough of a reason to be woken up. My stomach grumbled, so I strapped on a Nutri-Pak and headed out to the combot hangar. My hunger was satisfied by the time I got there so I stripped off the Pak and dropped it on the ground. One of the cleaning drones would get it. Being relatively fragile for how valuable they are, Combots were kept inside reinforced hangars to protect them from possible bombing runs. It hadn¡¯t happened yet, but we had to be prepared. Mil-Agro, a competing corponation, really had it in for us, even though no open hostility had broken the treaty. Yet. They didn¡¯t try to hide how much they hated us Neuropa, the third and last corponation still in the cooperative treaty, were not friendly or hostile. They were aloof in any communications with us, and stayed neutral in disputes. You¡¯d think after training in and around Combots for weeks, I would be used to them. But as I entered the Hangar, the sight of their massive humanoid figures still knocked the breath out of me. Pride swelled in my chest as I walked to my personal combot, knowing it was assigned only to me. Thanks to Betty¡¯s remote instructions, my Combot knelt down as I approached it. Despite that, combots being over 20 meters tall, it was always a struggle to clamber up to the cockpit. Most of the pre-launch procedures were already complete, and I just did a cursory check of all systems to make sure everything was in order before integrating. This was my favourite part. ¡°Betty, commence the CPIS.¡± Everything blacked out as my senses shut down one by one. Betty was linking signals in my brain to the combot¡¯s own electronic ¡°brain¡± via my OC helmet. After a few seconds my senses started coming back, one at a time to prevent a sensory overload. My now enhanced hearing through the combot¡¯s sensors picked up the stirring of soldiers leaving their bunkers. Finally my vision restored itself, blurred at first, but quickly sharpening. I looked down at the pilots scurrying to their combots. ¡°Combot-Pilot Integration Sequence complete.¡± Betty announced. It always amused me how the actions of the tiny people down there seemed so inconsequential when I was integrated. I had become my combot.