The Beachhead

I still have one of the old newspaper articles somewhere in my room, with photo of the whole crew standing in front of our SLUGS. The camera guy took it the day construction on the Beacon was finally finished, and things in Nod began to stabilize.

Setting up a base inside EMF Nod had been one of the brass’ top priorities after the SLUG program started. We needed to show the public that we weren’t just playing on defense; that we were capable of striking back against the monsters attacking us. And what better way to do that then to build a research outpost right inside of one of them?

I don’t understand all the details behind it, but somehow we managed to set up and maintain a doorway into Nod long enough to start shipping materials in. Those were the hectic days. Trying to build a manmade structure inside a living city that constantly changes itself sounded impossible. It nearly was. We were running almost constant combat shifts, trying to hold back the City long enough for the engineers to ship in the necessary Tower tech and build the Beacon. Skyscrapers would grow out of the concrete as the ground opened up beneath us, and hordes of those shadow things tried swarming us. To be fair, SLUG DES Block Buster did most of the work. All those guns on it aren’t just for showing off. SLUG DES Theseus and my Urban Ranger’s job was to tag in and hold the line while Block Buster’s pilot recovered. Spending the full allotted hour in a SLUG, with only a two hour break in between, over the course of three full days definitely isn’t very healthy. It’s a surprise we only lost four pilots to the mental strain.

Once the Beacon was built, things calmed down considerably. The geography in the immediate vicinity stopped changing all the time, allowing for a real facility to be built. But an end to the chaos meant the big show was over. The news crews left for fresher stories. Block Buster’s pilot was reassigned to a field that needed him more desperately, leaving the SLUG sitting in its hangar gathering dust. When construction finally finished on the facility, there were no cameras to memorialize the event. The researchers got to work running experiments, trying to understand this place. There’s been no progress so far, but you gotta hope. As for me? I kept doing what I’ve been doing since the start. Holding the line.