Three Square Meals Ch. 058

"Keep-" Irillith started to say.

"-Shooting, yeah I know," Faye replied as she strafed the wall.

She had started with two de-res cannons per arm, but as Irillith added one hunter-killer program after another to the turret, the sporadic red bolts became a sweeping hail of crimson. Faye walked her cannon fire along the wall, spraying shots indiscriminately, but as the number of weapons intensified, it no longer mattered. Soon she had over fifty hunter killer programs per side, and Irillith was still adding more.

"Woohoo!!" Faye cheered triumphantly, as the curtain of red swept over the baying horde of hostile programs.

None were left alive near the wall now, and they were being killed by the hundreds as Faye swept the system clear of aggressors. The remaining sentient programs had clearly had enough, as they turned around and fled back out the portal to the safety of the R&D facility's network.

"We did it!" Irillith cheered triumphantly.

Faye turned to look at the utterly ridiculous amount of firepower the defensive turret was now toting, and her jaw dropped in amazement at the bristling walls of cannons on either side of her. "How did you do that?" she asked the Maliri girl in wonder. "These nodes shouldn't be able to support this volume of software."

"I'm not sure," Irillith faltered, gazing up at the terrifying array of lethal attack programs. "i don't think they're permanent, but they'll last for a few hours. Hopefully that'll be long enough to keep us safe." She felt a bit woozy, and swayed slightly, before leaning against the tower for support.

"Are you alright?" Faye asked, floating down to join the exhausted Maliri, her face filled with worry.

Irillith nodded wearily, and said, "Yeah, I just need to rest for a bit. I'll be fine."

"Go, I've got this covered, Creator!" Faye said with a wildly enthusiastic grin.

The two hugged each other fiercely, and the blue-skinned girl murmured in the sprite's pointed ear, "Please call me, Irillith." With that, she soared away, her astrally-projected consciousness racing back to her physical form.

Faye watched her leave, and let out a happy sigh, before returning to man the turret.

***

John reached a sturdy looking security door, and hit the button on the wall beside it. Predictably, nothing happened, so he raised a booted foot, and gave it a hefty kick. The door bowed inwards with a tortured squeal, then when he kicked it a second time, it smashed backwards, ripped from its hinges. It crashed to the ground with a deafening clang, which echoed loudly down the corridor, leaving the portal yawning wide open.

He took the lead, striding in with his weapon raised, but he grimaced at the sight of the room beyond. They had broken into a security control room, which was filled with monitors and consoles at one end of the room, the displays flickering with static. That end of the room was bathed in blood, with riotous sprays of dark-red arcing all over the ceiling and walls. Just as before, there were no corpses in here, but the room was still filled with a charnel house stench.

"What could have done that?" Dana asked, looking a bit queasy.

Rachel stepped into the room behind them, and after a quick glance replied, "Judging by these blood spatters, the people here were killed by some kind of whirring serrated blade. My first guess would be a chainsaw."

Dana frowned, and said, "I don't remember seeing any of those bots armed with melee weapons."

"Over here," Alyssa called out from the other side of the room.

She was standing in front of another door which she pushed open, and John strolled over to join her. He leaned around the corner, and saw what appeared to be dozens of prison cells stretching off into the poorly lit gloom. Alyssa stepped aside for him, and he walked inside, his eyes darting from side to side in case of an ambush.

As he walked forward he got his first glimpse of the prisoners. Wretched, emaciated looking people stared at him fearfully, huddled in the corner of their cell's, as though desperate to avoid any kind of attention. John activated the external lighting on his armour as he strode through, and as the people cowering in the cells got a good look at him, their behaviour changed abruptly.

He heard the shocked whispers starting immediately, and murmurs of "The Lion!" soon rang around the cells.

"My name's Commodore John Blake," he announced loudly. "I'm here with my crew to rescue you. Who's the most senior officer here who can give me an accurate SitRep?"

A weak female voice drifted out to him, coming from a few cells along, "Over here..."

He strode over to speak with the woman, while glancing at Alyssa and saying, *Keep watch in the corridor. We'll only have a couple of minutes until the rest of the robots catch up with us.*

A pale, gaunt looking woman was slumped against the wall of her cell, and John squatted down next to her on the other side of the bars. "Who are you?" he asked her gently.

"I'm Lieutenant Commander Juliette Hawthorne," she replied gazing up at him. "I was second-in-command of the base marines until we got overwhelmed and slaughtered. When Nexus demanded we surrender, I had to do it. It would have wiped us out to a man otherwise!"

"Who or what is Nexus?" John asked tersely.

"The AI that controls this base," Hawthorne replied. "I was told it was perfectly safe and controlled, but it turned on us a few weeks ago, and everything went to shit."

"If we shut this 'Nexus' down, will it knock out all the robots? the rogue AI ships too? They've been slaughtering civilians for weeks, but we only found four AI cruisers defending this place. From looking at all the hangars in the hollowed out asteroids, it looks like this place had a huge automated fleet prepared; I need to know where it's gone." John explained.

Hawthorne shrugged helplessly, and said, "I didn't have high enough clearance to know what was happening with the research. I helped run the garrison, and maintain security, that's it."

He looked around, and saw what appeared to be tattered marine uniforms on nearly all the inhabitants of this prison. They were standing at the bars, staring out at him with drawn, hollow, but hope-filled faces.

Hawthorne watched his face, and said, "Yeah, they tossed us in here, and didn't bother to feed us. Fortunately the water dispensers still work, but we're on our last legs."

Looking her straight in the eye, John said, "There's too many of you to evac safely, and you're too weak to move unaided. We're going to shut down Nexus, then we'll be able to provide proper assistance. Do you know where it is?"

She shook her head regretfully, but a voice coming from a couple of cells over said, "I think I know..."

John nodded towards Hawthorne, then jogged over to the person who'd spoken. It was a young, painfully thin man, with long dark hair, and wearing what looked like a Janitor's uniform. He smiled at John weakly and said, "Name's Reevus, I work in facilities management. We're never allowed below Level Seventy, so if there's something top secret, it'll be hidden down there."

"Thanks Reevus," John replied giving him a grateful smile.

Reevus grinned back at him and said, "I can't believe the Lion is here. I thought we were fucked!"

*We've got incoming,* Alyssa called out to him, and the distinctive sounds of Punisher rifles being fired reached his ears.

John said to the staring prisoners, "We need to move out, but we'll free you soon, I promise."

Not having time for any more placating words, John darted for the door, jogged through the security room and then out into the corridor. The girls were mowing down robots as they lurched out into the corridor, having scrambled over the scrapyard on the staircase. He raised his rifle and joined in the fusillade of railgun rounds that were wreaking havoc amongst the robot forces. Alyssa quickly swapped magazines, then looked at him expectantly, waiting for orders.

*We need to reach the lower levels,* John thought to her, knowing she'd pass on his orders to Dana and Rachel. *These garrison troops didn't seem to know much about what was going on in this place, but if we can find a group of researchers, they might know more.*

She nodded her understanding, and the two of them advanced, blasting big holes through the incoming robots, which were piling up around the doorway into the stairwell. Dana and Rachel reloaded too, and then moved out to flank the others, to continue the destruction of the robot forces.

John sighted the last active robot in the corridor, which had just lurched through the doorway over its fallen cohort, then pulled the trigger. The railgun slug slammed into the side of its armoured torso, then skewered through its chest before blasting out the other side in a shower of debris and sparks. The robot pitched straight forward, and slammed face first into the steel floor with a loud clang.

Turning to the girls, he said, "Let's go, follow me!"

He ran at full tilt down the corridor, taking advantage of the lull in combat, and he could hear the light footfalls of the girls sprinting behind him. Not slowing down as he approached the big room at the end of the long hallway, he vaulted over the balcony, and plummeted feet first down the central shaft. He activated flight-mode as he fell, watching level after level flash past, each of which was crawling with robots.

The anti-grav generators built into the Paragon suit's armoured limbs let him stabilise his fall, and while he was still dropping at quite a rate, it was now a controlled descent. There were more robots on the lower levels, but the design of these was radically different to those they'd encountered so far. They were bigger than the soldier bots, standing on four long legs, with a number of limbs on the upper torso. At first glance, they reminded him of some kind of metallic praying mantis, and the odd design certainly didn't look like something a Terran mind would create, no matter how twisted.

The robots below didn't seem to be aware of him yet, so he was able to get a good look as he dropped silently towards them. The four legs seemed to have some kind of tracks built into them, and while some of the robots were stalking around on the tips of their legs, a couple of others had squatted down and were driving across the ground at a rapid pace. There were four upper limbs, the lower set clutching a blocky looking rifle, while the top two sported long, wicked-looking serrated blades. The closest of these mechanical nightmares was stomping along directly below him, and he could see that its blades were spattered in red, dispelling any doubt as to their intentions towards the living. Atop its torso was a spiked, head with a single red baleful eye that emitted a sinister crimson glow.

*We need to clear a landing zone,* he said to Alyssa, and when he glanced up, he saw the three young women floating down directly above him.

He saw her nod, and raise her Punisher rifle, as she replied, *Go! We'll fire on your lead.*

Sighting the eight limbed robotic monstrosity beneath him, he aimed for the centre of its torso, right in the middle of the four arms. He felt the slight recoil in the rifle as he fired, and the slug smashed into its grey plated centre mass. With his shot coming from directly above it, the round pulverised it's spiked face then blasted into its upper body, destroying stabilisers, power core's and processors alike. The hideous looking creature collapsed to the ground in a sprawl of limbs, which twitched and jerked intermittently as it died.

Alyssa coordinated her shooting with Dana and Rachel, and they fired in three round bursts, blowing apart three of the hostile robots with precisely aimed shots. Two dozen robots all stared up at them as one, raising their heavy rifles, and opening fire in return. The base of this mineshaft lit up with flickering bursts of light as the robots unloaded on full auto, and deadly streams of high calibre bullets sprayed up from below like a swarm of angry hornets.

John was hit in the chest by a salvo, and although the rounds didn't penetrate his armour, the impact still hurt, jolting him with the force of the strike. Without the magnetic fields to reduce the stopping power, the high calibre rounds were hitting a lot harder. He dropped the last twenty metres, falling like a stone and only feathering the rockets on his back to reduce his velocity at the last moment. He landed with a jarring crash, but the speed of his descent meant that the rest of the incoming fire sailed over his head, as the robots sprayed bullets all over the walls as they tried to track him.

He shut off flight-mode the second he landed, then sighted the closest mantis-bot and opened fire with a three-round burst. His target had started to sway and weave, making it harder to hit, but two of his railgun rounds still hit home, blowing apart a lower shoulder joint, and smashing a flailing upper limb too. The sound of Punisher rifles being fired repeatedly from several directions reached his ears, and he took a quick glance over his shoulder to check on the girls. He saw Dana had landed on his left, Rachel on his right, with Alyssa directly behind him, and between them they were efficiently clearing the ground floor in those directions.

Focusing directly ahead of him, he fired again at the wounded bot which was struggling to aim its rifle with only one arm. He hit it just above the waist this time, and the multi limbed body was blasted in two, with the chest piece flipping over backwards. He concentrated on taking out the ones behind it, and he'd killed two more when he heard a cry of alarm.

"John! Help!" Dana shouted from his side, and when he glanced her way, he saw that several of the robots had hunkered down and were now driving towards them at speed.

He snapped off a quick shot, but the lead mantis bot skidded to the side to weave around one of Dana's previous victims, and the shot sailed wide. He switched to full auto, and fired twenty rounds at the speeding robot, managing to punch a lethal series of holes through its drive system and lower body. It crashed to the ground, skidding towards him, with serrated blades flailing wildly in the air. Smoothly drawing his sword, he used the momentum from bringing it over his shoulder to swipe straight across, neatly severing both dangerous limbs.

Dana's rifle chattered away angrily, but there were too many to take out at once. He leapt forward to engage the ones that were nearly on them, and as the robots got close enough to bring their barbed swords to bear, an angry buzzing sound filled the air as the sharp teeth on the blade began to whir back and forth. It skidded to a halt, and flipped up onto its legs, then swiped at him with powerful overhead chops. He sidestepped the first, then parried the second, and as the two swords clashed, there was a shrill whine as the Crystal-Alyssium blade sliced all the teeth off the chain-sword.

The mantis-bot pivoted, then opened fire with its heavy rifle at point blank range, but John hadn't been standing by idly. He lunged forward and swept his sword down, neatly slicing through the robot's nearest leg, the metal making a sharp shriek as it was cleanly severed from the body. It reared back to avoid overbalancing, and the swords swung towards his head in a wild flurry of blows. The automaton was fast, and he had to move quickly to deflect each of the of the ringing blows.

"Lightning," he murmured under his breath, remembering to lock the power off in a mental compartment this time.

Sparking electricity crackled up his sword, and now when he parried a blow, the lightning arced from his infused weapon, leaping across to the robot's blade. It's arms twitched as they were shrouded in dancing eldritch energy, and the robotic abomination began to move erratically, its servos burning out. It jerked its left arm back in a uncoordinated lurch, and John seized the opportunity to take a backhanded swipe at the robot's body. It tried to twist out the way, but his sword still bit deep, and the lightning poured into its chest, frying the robots internals in a shower of sparks.

No sooner had he dispatched this one, when two more moved to engage him. He dodged and parried, moving smoothly through the Kata as if it were second nature, and he skilfully defended against the raining blows. He did his best to fend off four pumping swordarms, while trying to avoid being shot by the heavy rifles being fired at point-blank range, but he couldn't dodge everything, and one of the robot's blades smashed into his shoulder. The diamond edged teeth of the chain-sword slashed across the golden lion on his pauldron, carving a serrated furrow across its noble visage.

John was knocked off balance by the heavy blow, and barely managed to parry the frantic strikes from the second robot. Suddenly the first one flipped up into the air, its eight limbs thrashing wildly as it levitated a few metres above the ground. He heard the furious bark of a Punisher rifle firing on automatic behind him, and the impudent robot was hit in a dozen places by railgun rounds. It was blown to pieces, showering the area in a downpour of metal fragments, and leaving John with just one active robot to fight.

It seemed distracted by what had happened to its compatriot, and he seized that moment to impale it through the chest with his sword. He ran the metal monster through, his sword cleaving into its armoured torso with ease. Electricity poured out of his blade in a relentless stream, and its arms locked out wide as the lightning did its deadly work. It only took a couple of seconds to totally fry the robot, and when he yanked out his sword a few moments later, it toppled over, its body rigid and unresponsive.

Taking a moment to survey the battle, he saw Alyssa and Rachel dispatch the last couple of Mantis-bots attacking from behind, leaving them relatively unscathed in the centre of the robot graveyard. "Is everybody alright?" he asked them all, looking them over to see if they'd taken any bad hits.

Rachel nodded and gave him a cheerful smile, while Alyssa said quietly, "I took a few hits in the leg, but it's not too bad. The armour held up."

He glanced her way, and saw half a dozen impact craters across her right thigh, the armour plating badly cracked from the repeated hits from the big slugs. When Dana didn't say anything, he turned to look at her, and saw her weaving unsteadily. He dashed over to her, immediately spotting the crater marks where she'd been hit in the helmet by some heavy rounds. She blinked at him owlishly when he stared at her through the cracked faceplate, and he guessed from her dazed expression that she must have banged her head with the impact from the heavy slugs. Bullets began to hit the ground around them, and when he glanced upwards, he saw robots gathering at the balconies on the levels above.

"We need to get to cover!" he ordered, sheathing his sword, and scooping up Dana in his arms. "You two take point, I've got her."

Alyssa and Rachel immediately moved out, running across the open plaza area, and weaving their way around the ruined robotic hulks that were strewn about. A hail of bullets hit the ground around them, but fortunately they were smaller calibre rounds, and the few that were on target were mostly deflected by the magnetic fields. They rushed into a corridor and out of line of sight of the robotic horde, then ran along the passageway for half a minute before skidding to a halt.

"I'm alright now!" Dana protested, looking up at John through her fractured visor.

He studied her face, and her eyes seemed sharper now, focused and alert once more. "OK, where's the closest group of prisoners?" he asked her with an encouraging smile.

Dana checked the results of the Active scan in the HUD, while working out where they were in the overrun R&D facility. "Just over there," she said, pointing to a set of double doors twenty metres down the corridor.