Last Stand in Jakarta

In a city submerged and burning, survival depends on speed, sensors, and split-second decisions. As Jakarta collapses around them, one unit faces its final stand in a war fought as much by drones as by men.

An AI-controlled sustainment pod provides advanced intensive care amidst chaos

The convoy’s lead vehicle exploded in a bloom of fire and shrapnel, the impact sending an armoured Foxhound APC skidding sideways into the skeletal remains of a collapsed tower block. The driver fought for control, but the flooded street betrayed them. The vehicle tipped, rolling violently onto its side.

Before the dust settled, the force protection drone brick was airborne. It detached from the commander’s harness, unfolded like an origami machine, and released a swarm of sentry drones into the air. The tiny machines spread out, forming an invisible net of surveillance, mapping every movement, scanning for threat signatures in the shifting shadows of Jakarta’s drowned ruins.

Inside the overturned vehicle, chaos reigned. Screams. The acrid stench of leaking coolant. Blood pooling against the buckled interior.

Major Elena Kade, emergency medicine consultant, moved fast. Her visor flickered to life, its AI overlay instantly tagging her casualties. Soldier A: compound fractures, major hemorrhage. Soldier B: unconscious, possible traumatic brain injury, cranial bleeding detected.

She toggled the CNS modulation bands on each casualty’s helmet. The implants, linked at the top of the spine, activated with a faint hum. The neural regulators cut off pain pathways, silencing agony before it could even register. Soldier A’s screams choked off into stunned silence.

Nanobot injection. Now

A Combat Medical Technician (CMT) slammed an autoinjector against Soldier B’s carotid artery. A second dose was pressed against Soldier A’s femoral vein. Micro-scale machines flooded their bloodstream, hunting for internal damage.

Kade’s visor recalibrated, its sensors mapping the nanobots’ work in real-time. Tiny AI-controlled drones raced through capillaries, sealing micro-tears, reinforcing vessel walls, and repairing damaged tissue at the cellular level.

Outside, gunfire rattled against the Foxhound’s hull. The force protection drones retaliated, targeting movement signatures with high-frequency disruption pulses. The enemy—a rogue insurgency armed with autonomous combat platforms—was searching for survivors.

But Kade had no time to think about the fight.

We’re moving them to the sustainment pod. Now.

The medics deployed the pod, a sleek, AI-controlled intensive care unit designed for extreme field conditions. It unfolded like an insect, mechanical arms extending as it locked onto the casualties.

Inside the pod, Soldier B’s body was placed in a controlled metabolic stasis—hibernation mode, slowing his system to conserve resources while nanobots rebuilt his neural pathways. The pod’s robotic surgeons flexed their delicate instruments, preparing for emergency bone stabilization on Soldier A.

The pod’s internal AI regulated everything—breathing, sedation, circulation. It could sustain a casualty for weeks.

Kade wiped sweat from her visor. She looked at the sky. Still dark. Still silent. No evac coming.

They were trapped inside an electromagnetic dead zone, cut off from all comms. The autonomous armoured ground drone—The Hound—was their only hope.

Somewhere out there, beyond the ruined city, the Hound was moving. A machine of war, built to track, built to kill—but now, their only rescue.

If it reached them in time.

If they survived until then.

Kade exhaled. Checked her rifle. Listened to the distant sound of insurgent drones circling.

They were coming.

And she wasn’t leaving without her soldiers.