15 Years of Change

by StrikersConondrum

Prologue

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Date : 2030, 23rd of August

Location : Nevada, United States of America

Time : 1800 hours

Mission : Recon the outskirts of the desert, and report the designated LZ to the Headquarters for future operations

"I still wonder what the hell we're doing here..."  A tired voice said from the back of the Russian made Sprut-SD, whose tracks were rolling tirelessly through parts of the Nevada desert, raising sand and dirt behind it.

Jesse, our tank commander, wasn't usually this serious, probably the thing that they are totally exposed to American attacks was getting to his head. Not even he could get so claustrophobic. He had his head buried into the map whole day. Probably trying to figure out in which part of the desert we actually were. Sure, there were more dangerous situations than this, but seeing him upset would add a whole new atmosphere in the vehicle.

This time it wasn't tension, or the feeling of being blow to bits by rocket launchers... It was fear.

The silence continued, as all three crew members did their job accordingly, without any questions asked. Sound of the roaring tank echoed through empty sandy dunes of Nevada. Nothing but sheer dryness and heat that was exhausting now already tired tankees. It was more than 50 celsius outside, not mentioning that the steel armor platings on outside of the tank were so hot you could fry an egg within minutes. Both Jesse and Vedran can thank Robin for installing an air conditioner before the mission. If it wasn't for him they would be boiled alive inside the armored beast.

As for the occupants inside the vehicle, none of them let out a single sound. Vedran, the Sprut-SD gunner and a reconnaissance observer, was sitting back looking through the monitor of the CITV station, completing a fifth scan of the horizon. He was selected as the gunner because of his sharp eye and skill to lay pin-point shots on the target. Before he got transferred to the tank battalion, he was a engineer, a marksman and an anti-tank specialist. He gained those skills while dealing with insurgents in the Middle East. He was often called a "cold handed killer". He had a kind of a habit to... Stab everyone he could. His squad members were freaked out about that.

Robin was a whole different story. Had a record of a combat medic, anoninomusly working with Vedran's anti-tank squad who got pinned down in an ambush. Vedran owes him alot for pulling that bullet out of his leg. But, right now, Robin was driving the tank through the harsch terrain that was in front of them, going at a steady speed.

Jesse served as a sniper team leader back in the days, but kept his mouth shut about the missions, even though they weren't as quite as important as this one. He was awfully quiet at times. Nobody knew why. Jesse was a born leader, but adrenaline and pressure of some situations would negate that.

Fortunately every single one of them knew each other before they even met in real life. They were professional gaming buddies when they were 18, with an exeption that Robin was 2 years younger than both of them, that being that Vedran was oldest and Robin being the youngest.

Their gaming consisted about strategy games and first person shooters, but this time it all changed. This was no longer made up, this war was real.

Well, that was 15 years ago. The present is now, trying to get out of this mess.

Vedran was about to turn the monitor off, expecting nothing, but a light silhouette cought his eye in the bottom left corner of the screen. His eyes widened in disbelieve, and started breathing heavily.

"Guys, I found something!" He yelled and jumped in surprise as he turned the CITV station towards now clearly visible silhouettes. They weren't as big, but there were many of them.

Commander and the driver were dumbfound. 'Why would anything be in a middle of a desert?' they thought.

It would be a long ride, and neither one of them couldn't stand being bored to submission again. All of them made an agreement to listen to some music.

Vedran reached for his iPod, he didn't choose a specific song, so he hit shuffle.

The tone was pretty familiar from all three sides, it didn't take long to process which song it was. It was the good old Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival, something to boost their spirits.

The commander radioed the Headquarters and in the process telling Vedran to turn the music down. After the music volume was lowered to a minimum, he continued with his real intentions.

"This is Zulu Lightning calling Bulldog, over." Jesse said into the radio. Hoping that they will awnser back.

They didn't contact the main base for quite a while now. It wasn't certain if they cancelled out the radio network, because of a risk that the Americans would break their codes and spy on the conversation. So they waited a little bit.

The expectations were rising as the silence continued. They didn't find anything since they got paradropped out of a C-17 Globemaster III transport aircraft, and were pretty confident that the Headquarters needed to agree on checking out the base. NNA had hackers of their own, and hacked the planes ID so they could easily get across the US border.

A extremely slight static appeared, continuing to go louder until a voice was heard

"We're on our own... For now."

Time : 0100 hours

It was night, and the commander didn't allow any headlights to be turned on. Robin was driving blindly, with the help of Vedran's CITV thermal imaging. They didn't take any risks that would ruin the operation.

Crew didn't know what lies up ahead, they were completely out of info. After a minute, the gunner saw something at the edge of the road and decided to check it out.

Robin hit the brakes, and the tank freezed dead in its tracks. Hatch on the top opened, where Vedran exited the vehicle. He jumped down, and started walking towrads an object that looked like a sign. He turned on his flashlight, only to read something that will strike terror in his whole crew. He didn't believe it.

'Oh shit.' Jesse thought. He took out a GPS and zoomed out too see a bigger proportion of the area. There was no mistake, he could clearly see the whole base on the screen.

Driver was silent, scary silent. Robin had his eyes widened in surprise, and was unable to speak. His sweat dripping on the sides of his face, falling on cold metal inside the tank.

The moment lasted forever. All of them stayed in their spots, dull, silent. Only the howling, night breeze made a slight sound. Crew was scared out of their minds, knowing that they should get a move on and get out of there. They couldn't afford to stay here for long.

Vedan truned off the flashlight and got back inside the tank, closed the hatch and sat on his designated gunner position.

Jesse was cheking out shell ammo that was in the stock. All was in place and ready to be used. He quickly thinked through the concepts and situations they could be in.

Robin slowly brought the tank up a little hill, still unsure of presence of the American soldiers in the base. It took them a while to get around the base, and it was morning.

Once the vehicle fully stopped, Vedran and Jesse scanned the base with thermal imaging.

"I don't like this a bit. This place looks like a ghost town. Not a living soul anywhere." Vedran stated, hoping that he was right.

Engine started and the tank rolled down the hill, constantly speeding up. Once they got to the bunker entrance, Vedran hopped out of the tank, going behind it and opening a small compartment.

He ran around the tank and got near the blocked entrance. Vedran started to place C4 around and on the debre caused by an unknown explosion. Once it was all done,he gestured to others to back away, same as he did with himself.

*Click*

*BOOM*

The explosion was deafening. Their ears were ringing and they were shell shocked. After all the sand and dirt were setteled down, the entrance to the underground bunker was right open.

As they drived deeper into the underground complex, they have seens things no ordinary man would ever see. All of those roumors about this place were true.

UFO's, unused lasers, robots... And something that surprised them, a machine that looked like some sort of a teleporter. It had a massive path leading into a large metal ring.

But Vedran found something that was completely mind blowing. In one of the areas, he found a small compartment which said "Put your weapon here". The gunner stopped for a moment, but decided to go ahead and put his Desert Eagle in. Once the hatch was closed, a strange sound was heard, like that of a drill. Several minutes later the digital display said; "Nanonite transfer complete".

He checked out his pistol, immidiately noticed it was significally lighter, and that his magazine used...Liquid metal for bullets?

He warned his mates and fired a couple of shots. There was less recoil, the barrel was coller and inside the magazine the liquid metal truned into bullets.

Near him was a diamond cutter, which he used to peel off a small metal piece of the gun, only to see it grow back.

He couldn't believe it.

Vedran took advantage of that, and upgraded all of the weapons he stored in the tank. He had a Rheinmetall MG,a Dillon M134, an AS50 anti-materiel sniper rifle and a pair assault rifles(Magpul ACR, SCAR). With a permission, he also upgraded his friends guns.

He never knew why he brought so much firepower into this mission.

The last thing he saw before he got to the tank was a small clearing on the right side of the massive room, which held the teleporter.

Sign said "The Creator Cube".

He walked up to it, and picked up the small cube, which was little bigger than his fist. While rolling it around in his hands, a small button popped up.

He clicked it.

The cube suddenly started shaking, eventually transforming and getting bigger, until it reached its full size around 4x4 meters.

While observing it, the cube was glowing in blue-ish tone, and let out a slight beep, before a digital sign appeared on the side.

"Choose an option for : Vehicles, Soldiers or Weapons"

He decided to click "Vehicles" option. The first upgrade that cought his eye was: "Generate a Nano Composite Cloak".

Lucky for him, the Sprut was 2 meters away from the strange machine. Almost instantly, the tank was scanned by some sort of a holographic "Wall". After that, the cube engulfed the vehicle and after 10 seconds returned to the smallest possible volume after completing its task.

The tank didn't look any different. He climbed up on the tank and went down the hatch. After checking Robin's and Jesse's position, he saw a new button near his cannon aim. After pressing it, on the right bottom of the screen appeared a small quote "CLOAK ACTIVATED".

Vedran was confused, and got on top of the tank. Only thing he could see is down the hatch and insides of the tank. Everything else was invisible.

He disengaged the cloak and called his friends back. He told them everything about his discoveries. They were in quite a shock, but still amazed.

All of them kept chatting about the place for a little longer, and soon Robin asked a question;

Both of them nodded and continued to walk until they stopped near the teleporter.

They took a good look around, it took them good 10 minutes to find the control panel. It was pretty big, with alot of buttons all over it.

Both of them were looking at the command panel, trying to figure out how it works. Only word that cought their attention was "POWER". It couldn't mean anything else than truning it on. Robin hesitated a little and aftef a while pressed it.

Whole complex suddenly burst into light, along with the control panel.

Not even a minute later, an alarm sounded through the speakers with a voice following it : "Warning! Malfunction on teleporter 22-B!"

All of them took a careful look at the massive ring with a display on top of it, which clearly said "22-B" in red colours.

'Holy shit...' Robin though before a vortex developed out of the teleporter, sucking  the crew members and the tank with them. As they touched the time and dimension wormhole, everything went black.

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