ShipCore

USD: A few minutes after a discussion about Power Armor Aesthetics

Location: Meltisar, Groundside, 62km north of M-Prime, Rogue NAI Base

Distant echoes of small arms fire echoed from the fortress, each rapidly punctuated by a replying explosion. By the time Elis and Thea reached a ruined entry point on the compound’s exterior, the conflict had mostly subsided. Thea’s drones had swiftly taught the defenders that opening fire led to a rapid and lethal response.

Billowing smoke trailed into the sky from the destroyed cutter while damage to the compound was extensive. Broken glass and debris crunched under their footsteps on approach.

Elis cautiously took her first step up a ramp made of rubble and entered what used to be the second floor of the building. The long, narrow room featured high ceilings, occupying the entire space between the outer and inner walls. Two rows of simple beds lined both sides, each accompanied by a single foot chest.

The destruction was evident throughout; damaged furniture lay amongst scattered belongings. Elis wondered if this room had been used as a barracks or some sort of makeshift dormitory for workers or hostages.

“Weird shit,” Elis muttered into her comms as she scanned her sensors for any threats but found none.

Thea followed closely behind and tapped Elis’ shoulder before pointing into the unlit darkness. “All hostiles above ground level have been neutralized. Drones have an entry point to an underground bunker entrance on lockdown. Unfortunately, I don’t think there are any wounded.”

“You were shooting unarmored people with railguns. Did you expect any?” Elis retorted sarcastically.

“I hope there aren’t any journalists nearby,” said Elis. “I don’t think ‘NAI slaughters all foes’ is a headline Tia was aiming for.”

Thea bristled defensively yet again. “They were shooting at us.”

Elis didn’t respond, choosing instead to lead the way through the long room in the direction Thea had indicated. Her suit’s targeting reticle moved around her HUD, following her gaze while automated systems continuously scanned their surroundings for movement or sounds. Smoldering embers littered their path as they ventured deeper into the building, where smoke hung heavily in the air, a testament to the extensive damage.

Elis’ suit switched to enhanced visual mode, which utilized multiple methods to present her with a rendered picture of their environment. Light filtered in from above through punctures created by railgun rounds. Scattered corpses lay alongside dismembered limbs and viscera that stained the walls.

Unfazed by it all, Elis followed a mini map on her HUD that highlighted their path towards the bunker entrance. Suddenly, an angry beep alerted her to danger nearby; she flipped out her combat shotgun and aimed it at an armoire.

The occupant inside realized they’d been discovered and burst out—a woman wielding a pulse rifle. Elis nearly pulled the trigger of her shotgun on her but hesitated as her suit highlighted the weapon in yellow—it wasn’t powerful enough to penetrate her armor and the safety was still engaged.

Elis’ eyes quickly scanned her features. She appeared to be in her late twenties or early thirties, with disheveled hair and wild green eyes that seemed desperate and afraid. Her face was streaked with dirt and sweat, and her clothes were tattered—a mixture of civilian attire and torn tactical rigging.

Her lean frame trembled as she brandished the pulse rifle; determination mingled with fear in her expression. It was clear that she lacked proper training or experience with a weapon.

Elis couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy as she started to turn toward Thea. But before she could speak, a swarm of blue nanites surged forward and engulfed the woman. She swatted at herself frantically, screaming as she fell to the floor.

Her screams were suddenly silenced, leaving Elis filled with a pained fear that Thea had executed her without warning. Relief washed over her when she saw that wasn’t true: “Fuck! Give me some warning next time,” she hissed at Thea, her hand shaking from the adrenaline.

“Just wanted to neutralize her before you blew her away—there might be some intel,” Thea remarked nonchalantly, raising an eyebrow in.

“I thought you were disintegrating her,” Elis admitted, tension still present in her voice.

“That’s not nice; I do have some morals, you know—and she was basically unarmed,” Thea quipped back defensively, crossing her arms over her chest.

“You’re one not wearing any protection,” Elis pointed out with a hint of concern in her tone.

“I’m always wearing protection,” Thea snarked in response with a sly grin.

Approaching the unconscious woman, Thea melted her pulse rifle into goop and absorbed the resulting nanite pool for some unknown purpose. Placing a hand on the now disarmed captive’s chest, she assessed: “She’s not an alpha or NAI. No cybernetics. So, they’re either psychologically brainwashed or something else.”

“The eyes gave me a jump,” Elis admitted with unease.

“Contacts or bio-engineered. Yours are Imperium red, you know,” Thea observed casually.

“Had a funny ancestor.”

“It’s easy to forget you’re a fossil and predate the Imperium,” said Thea teasingly.

“Is that a compliment or an insult?” asked Elis playfully narrowing her eyes.

“Depends on how you want to play it,” Thea responded, smirking. But her words trailed off as she looked toward their destination. “We need to get a move on. She’ll stay unconscious until recovery teams arrive.”

Elis nodded inside her suit and turned toward the bunker entrance. Studying the walls of the building, she decided to make their own door by crushing through them with brute force. As the dust settled, the whine of small combat drones filled the room. The dark entrance to the bunker revealed a concrete ramp leading into a dimly lit parking garage area.

“Navy teams are on their way to back us up,” Thea informed Elis as they surveyed their surroundings.

“Wasn’t the whole point not to use them?” Elis asked, raising an eyebrow behind her visor.

“They want to check out the damage caused by their OB,” Thea replied, with a hint of annoyance in her voice.

“If they were looking for salvage from the ship, they’re going to be disappointed,” Elis said as she swept the room for any hostiles. Everything seemed clear, but just as they took a few more steps deeper into the area, alarms blared around them.

Her suit highlighted three zones where defensive pop-up turrets suddenly emerged from hiding spots in floor, wall and ceiling. Without needing confirmation or hesitation, her suit auto-loaded her shoulder-mounted rockets and fired before the turrets could finish targeting them. Explosions ripped through confined space almost simultaneously.

“Fuck! I could have hacked those!” Thea muttered under her breath.

Elis frowned at Thea’s frustration. “Do you want to go first? I don’t think we need to worry about collateral damage anymore.”

Thea shook her head dismissively but sent drones buzzing in from behind them to fill out room and fly into several open doors nearby. On Elis’ HUD, she watched the map rapidly expanding as drones scanned the area using physical and optical examination — bypassing acoustic prevention measures put in place by defenders.

“Why did we even bother coming down here? Why not drop a bunker buster?” Elis questioned while scanning the area intently for any signs of danger ahead of them.

“Tia wants info on how all this was built without anyone knowing. I’d like to know as well, actually. So we need to find a terminal,” Thea explained. “Ah! I see something.”

Elis noticed a large chamber appear on map too, right beside what seemed marked as freight elevator. They immediately headed in that direction with caution and determination.

“He probably used the same backdoors that Nameless did to take over everything.” Elis said quietly.

Thea didn’t reply or argue. “Would be good to know for sure.”

Elis nodded, and they progressed deeper into the facility. No more turrets popped up to threaten them; it appeared the defenders had fully retreated further inside the bunker.

As they approached the end of the floor, Elis spoke quietly, her voice tinged with concern. “Considering he was able to build a fucking ship here, there could be all kinds of nasty shit left behind all over the planet by any of the major factions.”

“Exactly. So, we’ll dig for some historical records as we go,” Thea agreed, nodding her head.

“Why not just have the super NAI check everything?” Elis asked curiously.

“Do you even understand how much data we are talking about?” Thea responded incredulously.

“No clue. It only took a few months to secure all systems, didn’t it?” Elis inquired further.

“Now multiply that by decades and instead of locating and usurping security on those systems, try digging through all their historical records. It’s ridiculous to think that we’d get it done this century,” Thea explained with exasperation.

“Well, why not build more compute power to make it faster? I watched Alex build more modules on the Tears,” Elis suggested.

“Tia is—we are—but everything’s going toward industrialization now. Seriously, you noped out of any strategy meetings and now you want to ask questions?” Thea huffed impatiently.

Elis glanced at her and shrugged—the motion didn’t translate well within her suit—and replied defensively: “Yeah, sorry. Not trying to third-degree you here; just seriously wondering. And I’m just a grunt.”

Thea didn’t seem appeased by this explanation: “Just a grunt? I have news for you—considering the importance Big Blue places on you—you have a responsibility to be more than ‘just a grunt’ now.”

Elis bit her lip, but before she could muster up an appropriate response or process that statement properly, Thea grabbed her armored arm and pulled her to a stop. Nothing blipped on her sensors, but Thea raised a hand and a digital signal arrived, indicating that there were hostiles ahead. They lip up as yellow, unconfirmed but added to her mapping by an ally.

Elis readied her combat rifle; the shots were penetrating enough that they’d go through the concrete walls, but Thea stopped her.

“I got this,” Thea said as she raised her hands. A nanite swarm began to swirl around them, then shot out into the next room. Elis didn’t have a good view, but she could hear the shouts and sudden gunshots that filled the space. Less than thirty seconds later, it was silent.

“Done.” Thea said.

“Nonlethal?” Elis asked.

“Yes, incapacitated like the first one.” Thea replied.

“We could have just brought something to pump the entire place with knock-out gas.” Elis complained.

“They might have had masks, and I seriously doubt anyone has anything like your ridiculous antique suit.” Thea said.

“Its brand new.” Elis shot back.

Thea laughed and led the way into the next room. Drones were buzzing over the knocked out combatants, they were all women as well, and Elis frowned. It was more than coincidence now. The drones turned away and found air shaft grates to knock loose and then plunged inside.

“Sending our mapping team below.” Thea informed her.

Elis eyed the freight elevator at the end of the room warily, but they both headed to the other facility that had been of interest.

Thea slipped a hand over control; it beeped red but the door opened anyway.

As they stepped inside, cool blue atmospheric lights greeted them, revealing hundreds of fluid-filled tubes in rows two or three dozen deep stretching into the back of warehouse-sized space. Elis’ stomach dropped at sight and her suit chimed a warning as the temperature rapidly plummeted to a level that could have troubled anyone unprepared for the chill. Her suit leapt to action and initiated de-icing procedures in response.

“I was hoping we’d avoid mad science experiments,” Elis said flatly, her eyes scanning the eerie sight before them.

“Looks like cloning tech; all the ladies we met might have been grown,” Thea mused, tilting her head as she studied the tubes.

“But why? Surely there are better options,” Elis questioned skeptically.

“I’ve no fucking clue. Maybe it’s a religious law that he couldn’t escape,” Thea suggested with a shrug.

“A religious law to clone women to use as soldiers?” Elis asked incredulously, raising an eyebrow at the notion.

Thea looked at Elis and frowned. “You’d be surprised what random bullshit you’ll be forced to do at some higher ranked NAI’s whim. It’s one of the reasons I agreed to help your sister.”

Elis nodded in understanding as Thea placed a palm on the electronic console. She peered into dark tubes and could barely make out their contents—some held nearly fully grown adult bodies—through her enhanced suit vision. She suppressed a shiver running down her spine.

A few moments later, her map began flashing and rapidly zoomed out, filling in new space with dozens of rooms across eight different floors. “Got a full map of facility and dumped databanks to orbit. We can move on; looks like he might have an escape route,” Thea informed Elis.

Elis frowned as she studied the map, noting the bottom floor’s giant cavernous area. A tunnel jutted out farther than the map went, drawing her attention.

“Mining tunnels?” Elis asked Thea quizzically.

“Maybe. But he’s deleted the map of them, and they might go further than our net in orbit. Hell, they could even reach the nearest settlement for all we know. We need to get after him now,” Thea insisted urgently.

As they stepped forward, Elis glanced at the map in search of a stairwell. However, Thea moved toward the freight elevator instead. “What are you doing?” Elis questioned with apprehension.

Thea stopped and looked back at her friend. “The elevator goes straight to the bottom floor. It’s the fastest way down.”

“I don’t like elevators,” Elis admitted reluctantly.

Thea stared at her incredulously before retorting: “The stairwell is all the way back at the entrance and it’ll take two or three times longer to use it! There are eight levels!”

Elis took a deep breath and stepped past Thea to stare at the elevator doors. The other woman smirked: “Great to see you’re reasonab—”

Interrupting her mid-sentence, Elis raised her energy shotgun and blasted one corner of the elevator door before quickly shooting another round into an opposite corner. Two more shots followed suit; sending the metal box tumbling downward with a thunderous screech.

“What in hell are you doing?” Thea hissed indignantly at her.

“You wanted the fastest way down? Now we have it.” Elis replied resolutely as she peered down the dark shaft below. The shrieking of metal still echoed up at them, and small embers and sparks floated downward lazily.

“Do you have some sort of phobia or something?” Thea asked hotly; annoyance evident on her face.

“Yeah. Sure. Elevators are evil,” Elis explained sarcastically.