© 1999-2000 Imminent Storm of NEWST.
The battle at Paris was not the only problem area that our forces were running into; our forces were running into this same hostile force at places such as LeHarve, Dijon, and Marseille. These weren't like our previous battles with them as we had come across France; these were heavily fortified and had very well-prepared armies. We needed information, and fast. HQ hoped that the second force we discovered would be able to shed more light on our enemy.
The 12th Infantry Battalion departed at dusk, on the 8th of September, to bypass Paris eastward, then north. They would hopefully find the force at Charles De Gualle Airport less hostile than our current enemy. They used satellite data to plot a path that would keep them away from most of the enemy's defenses and outposts. After evading several enemy patrols and clearing several nests of tank traps, the infantry force of cyborgs found themselves about 3 miles from the airport by daybreak.
It was not long before they were noticed by one of the new force's patrols. We received a message from them, broadcast in three different languages--French, German, and English. It said, "We are the forces of the French Re-unification Army. Identify yourselves and state your buisiness here, or we will open fire! You have 30 seconds to comply!" We quickly identfied ourselves and explained that we were engaged with the hostile force within the city, and that we would like to negotiate terms of cooperation between our two forces. After a few moments, they responded that they would escort us to their HQ. As we headed along with our escorts, they kept their weapons armed and pointed at us the whole way in.
We soon learned that the FRA was not that different from our Project; they were dedicated to restoring what was lost in the Collapse. We asked them about what they knew of this force that was fighting us both, but they didn't know that much more than we did. They told us that they had been active in France since 2090, trying to re-unite the scavenger factions and rebuild their country. In the process, they had recovered about as much technology as ourselves. But then, about the same time that we defeated NEXUS, this new hostile force swept out of the former country of Germany and quickly overcame the FRA. Now all that is left of them are a few isolated pockets of resistance like theirs, and an underground resistance group mixed in with the civilian population.
We exchanged what technologies we had acquired from this enemy. We gave them specs on the Stormbringer Laser AA. They gave us information they had gained from several captured enemy units; and all of them were of the smaller red body type they called Wyvern. They had analyzed them to the point of being able to build their own Wyvern units. We gladly accepted this information. Also, they had a few fragments from the larger red body they called Dragon. They haven't had time to analyze the armor structure yet, so we decided to take the fragments to our research facilities for analysis.
We then told them of what had happened in North America--about NEXUS, about Dr. Reed, and the cause of the Collapse. They were very interested in the way that NEXUS controlled the agressive factions of North America, and how NEXUS provided those factions with technologies. Also, they were intrigued by the seeming coincidence of NEXUS's fall and the attack by this hostile force. They theorized that NEXUS may have contacted this force at some time. Then as we dealt the final blow to NEXUS, it may have been able to transfer some piece of itself via satellite into Europe. The only way to test this hypothesis would be to capture some of the enemy's systems intact. HQ decided that this would be our next goal.
