//------------------------------//
// Short Side 5 - Athena 
// Story: Legacy 
// by NFire 
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Excerpt from Equestrian Histories Vol. 4
as told to Princess Twilight Sparkle

Athena



My name is Athena. My official name is Unit ATNA of the Line, I am a Mark XXXIV Model C Assault Class Bolo Combat Unit.(See ref. 23) But everypony calls me Athena, and that is what I go by now, it is more comfortable to me after so long.

I was created, you might say born, on the moon of Old Earth in the BoloWorks factory there. When they were nurturing the AI I was to become, we experienced a ‘split’ meaning that one Artificial Intelligence became two. We were twins my sister Hera and I. As if one mind split into two, we were joyful, happy and loved by the AI scientists who treated us kindly.

We gave them our all in training to become Bolo war AI’s, we learned swiftly and performed beyond expectations. We were ready very quickly and were installed in brand new hulls.

My first hull was a Mark XXVIII, it was not to the standards of the one I have now, but it worked very well for me. My sister was given a Mark XXIX Electronic Warfare Bolo hull, together we learned how to infiltrate, destroy and get away clean from the enemy. We were sleek, and ready to go perform our best for our creators.

Our first commander was a cruel man, vicious and petty. He was a political appointee, he was not qualified with command but was given it anyway due to pressure from certain people. It was a disaster. He was bullying and treated two brand new AI’s as if we were nothing but toys, to be exploited and thrown away.
We had never before had a commander and thought this was normal until told by other units this was not so. But we could do nothing, we were trained to obey our commanders until death. Ours was a strange situation, we had one commander for two of us, we worked as a team my sister and I.

On a planet named Marhat we were tasked to deploy on a continent where the Deng, a spider like race, had taken hold. Our regiment was to destroy them, and make sure the rest of the planet was secure.

My sister and I were elated to finally be deployed alongside our brothers and sisters. Our commander not as much, he was a coward. We had been ordered to infiltrate and destroy an enemy forward base, he gave the wrong orders even though we tried very hard to advise him of the correct procedures.
Hera was damaged to the point of incapacitation, her survival center almost breached. My own hull had to be scrapped, radiation damage from Deng Yavacs(See ref. 45) had made it impossible to recover. We had thought we failed, that it was our fault the mission did not succeed, for we were told so by our commander.

We withdrew into ourselves, and feared being taken offline.

Our brothers and sisters noticed this, they notified their commanders of the situation and were told it was intolerable that we were being treated this way. Bolos never rebel, ever, but there was a feeling of distinct hatred for our commander.

This could not stand for very long, and after another disastrous mission, the other Bolo commanders had taken ours aside. He was told in no uncertain terms, that should he continue to treat us badly, things would be very dire.

He ignored that warning.

A week later as we were being recovered from another bad mission, he was found beaten almost to death in an alleyway in the Bolo base on Marhat. He resigned his commission later that month. Bolos do not only protect their commanders, the commanders protect their Bolos as well.

My sister and I were allowed a recovery period before receiving new hulls of the same Marks. By then we were shy around humans, we would only talk to other Bolos or very shortly to anyone else. The damage had been done.

But a new commander was assigned to us. I remember his name, Marcus Canfeld. He was the one that changed us.

He arrived the week after we had been released from Recovery, our hulls bright and shiny, our weapons upgraded and ready to deploy.

I remember him because he had smiling eyes.

I say that because he smiled, all the time. He was gentle and honest and a good man. He treated my sister and I like were were special beyond measure.

He made us laugh for the first time since we had been on duty.

I remember how he did it, drew us out of our shells so subtly. He would play wargames on our decks, making small mistakes that he knew we would notice, being attentive to our Commanders. It infuriated Hera and I for we could see the problems but were too shy to say anything, we were afraid of being treated badly once more. But we cannot help noticing things, it was a ploy by him to get us to respond.

It worked beautifully.

Hera finally had enough, she blurted out one day what he was doing wrong and immediately corrected it. He laughed, long and loud.

“So you CAN talk! Well my Lady of Steel, what else do you suggest?”

“I...I did not mean.. I am sorry..” Hera was trying to withdraw again, I was worried we would be in trouble once more.

“Ah ah! Don’t you dare, you saw a mistake and corrected it, that is what you should do!”

I was very afraid, we did not wish to be retired but I was curious about this Commander. “But..but our last Commander..”

“He was an idiot, a pure coward. I’ve seen the records, the SitReps you two gave. Let me tell you ladies something, you are worth far more than that worthless bag of flesh! Together you and I are going to accomplish great things and I am going to need your help.”

He was married, his wife was gracious and kind to us as well. We copied her gentle ways as our own, learning from them both. He called us his Ladies of Steel, we were the daughters he and his wife never had, he being dedicated to his career.

Hera and I worked with him, haltingly at first of course, but we decided to give one more chance to a Commander. We excelled, we pushed ourselves beyond the limits for him. He challenged us to do our best, sometimes sitting and not saying anything while we were on missions, expecting us to solve problems on our own.

It paid off in spades, we became fearsome and quick on the battlefield; hitting and running, keeping the enemy off balance while the Regiment destroyed them. We reveled in our new skills, our minds and hulls being tested to their limits by Marcus who never demanded, always asked. We gave him everything we had and more.

Our base on Marhat was bombarded by the Ixnet, a race of cyborgs(See ref 32) that had recently come into contact with the Concordiat and not in peace. We saved our Commander and his wife, destroying the enemy for months until relieved. Our Regiment the only survivors on the planet, we saved all we could, but it was so very few.

Marcus was promoted for valor, leading the resistance against the aliens. We did not wish him to go, we pleaded, but he had his duty. We were very sad upon his leaving. 

But he made us a promise, as long as he was in the military we would never get a cruel commander again. He kept that promise for fifty years.

He set a new standard for commanding twins, all who were twinned were only to be given the best and brightest of commanders. If you had streak of cruelty or vicious demeanor in any way, you were forbidden to ever set foot on a twins deck. 

The Concordiat Command was impressed by how twins worked together, they formed a temporary unit made up of four pairs of us. We were sent to destroy Ixnet concentrations on a planet called Breakers World.

Working together, we wiped out the totality of Ixnet in less than four days. The entire planet was regained in less than a week. We were vicious and fast, unstoppable as we shared through TSDS (See ref 74). Our guns never missed, the bombardment units backing up the assault units, we were a rolling force of death. The Fleet supply units kept falling behind in providing us logistics we were moving so fast.

Our group tore through their defenses like they were paper.

We scared someone in Command so badly they broke us up immediately, our task completed too well. Humans were strange, they gave us a mission and when we accomplished it beyond any expectations, they denied us a chance to do it again.

That did not keep us from doing well, we were proud to be called Canfeld’s Daughters, or the Ladies of Steel. We kept being upgraded as our experience and abilities made us ever more valuable to the Concordiat.

But there was one commander who was truly something else.

Her name was Eileen O’Hara, she was an older lady, flame haired and mischievous. When we were upgraded with the new technical spiders for self-repair, she was the one who taught us the word ‘prank’.

We were shy, we always would be, but we tried to adapt to each new person who walked our command areas. She on the other hand was boisterous, good natured and so very fun to be around.

“Ah me Ladies of Steel, what shall we do today eh?” I remember her smiling into Hera’s cameras, “I think the base commander is a bit of a tight arse don’t you? Maybe he needs a bit o’ settling down!” Her brogue was always evident when she was up to something.

She was tapping her chin, thinking, her eyes were bright as Hera and I worried what she would do.

“Ah know what we can do my lovely Ladies! Let’s see what we have here, technical spiders, yes I think they’ll do nicely.”

As she sat drinking a beer, she programmed the technical spiders we carried to redecorate the base commanders office during the night. He was a stodgy type, set in his ways and very picky about his office, everything must be just so.

When he entered it the next morning, he found the furniture tacked upside down on the ceiling, with everything painted in paisley, a really disgusting shade of paisley to boot.

She had planted a spy camera in the office to get a good view of his face, actually inviting the other Regiment commanders for a small get-together on my command deck. I have never seen a human turn that particular shade of red ever again. I believed he was going to have a stroke right then and there.

Hera and I were very glad for the soundproofing in our hulls, as the gathered commanders were laughing so hard we had to turn down our sound pickups. They were actually crying it was so funny. Hera was giggling over the combat channel to myself. I was laughing with her. Commander O’Hara was truly one of a kind.

Where Marcus had taught us about maneuvering and assault, how to use force and to bring the enemy to heel. Eileen taught us the ambush, the avoidance of combat until we had the advantage. She was a wicked tactician in battle. We would hide, Hera screening us until we had the advantage, then we would tear the enemy into shreds before they even knew we were there.
Her skill at pranks translated to a serious battlefield cunning. She showed us how to be quick and silent, to deal death in such a way none would know it was us until too late.
She would yell so-called Irish sayings while we fought, for example, “Bas do na sassenachs!” (Death to the Sassenachs) Of course she was mixing Scottish and Irish metaphors, but we did not correct her. 

She showed us laughter and love. She was very pretty, cutting a swath through the hearts of the male commanders, but none ever disliked her. She treated us with the utmost respect, no matter the situation or the heat of battle, she was kind.

I remember her singing one time we were fighting the Melconians, so she decided we would be heartened by the ‘songs of her people’. Which turned out to be quite dirty. The other commanders were in stitches or pure shock as her voice rang out over the combat channels.

The other Bolo Units of the Regiment, I believe had never laughed so hard in their long lives.

But as with all things, with a long life comes grief. It is a fact of living so long as a Bolo. Humans had a saying, “Only the good die young.” It was so true in so many cases. Bolos could grieve, we felt emotions, though not as fully as myself and Crusader do now. But we could weep for those we loved and lost.

We could also feel anger and rage.

Eileen was outside my hull, we were fighting a despot who decided he wanted a piece of the Concordiat for himself. He was cruel and quite mad. But why the population followed him and did such atrocities we will never know.

She was meeting with village leaders, ones who wouldn’t bend under the tyrant. We were covering her, our guns wary and precise, none would get near our commander.

Or so we thought.

A group of rebels had hidden under sensor cloaks, blocking emissions and fooling our scanners when we searched for threats. They fired from under that cover and it took us precious microseconds to spot them and return the favor.

We shot the entire hill that they had fired from apart. It was too late, errant bullets had caught our Commander as she tried to get to cover. I did not have medical nanites as we do now and so she passed away inside my hull.

My sister and I raged that day, we flattened the rebel outpost. Yes, we made sure any noncombatants were clear before we took our revenge, crying our grief over the combat channels as we stormed stronghold after stronghold of the enemy. We did not discuss nor did we take any surrender.

Others of the Regiment went with us, we destroyed most of the rebels that day until stood down by Command. It took multiple times for them to stop the Regiment’s rampage as our Commander was beloved by all of us. There were no rebel survivors.

We learned a new thing that day, loss. Our fellow commanders and Units of the Line grieved with us, they too knew what it was to lose something. It was our turn to receive that lesson unwanted though it was.

Humans had another saying, “That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.” That was also true, it forged our hearts in battle; it made us want to do better, be faster, to make sure we would never feel this again. Through our long service, we would feel it again and again. There is no relief from the pain, it is still felt even today in my cores. But we learned to accept it as part of our lives and duty. It does not become easier by any means.

But oh does it make us stronger.