Three Square Meals Ch. 058

Jade pulled her furry head back from the balcony, then crouched down, shimmering as she changed back into her Nymph-shape. "They're down there," she explained, pointing over the edge into the seemingly bottomless shaft. "You'll need to use your Paragon-Armour's flight mode."

Irillith looked over the edge, and even from here, she could hear the sound of an intense firefight coming from the bottom level. "How are you getting down there?" she asked, turning to look back at Jade.

The Nymph had already begun shimmering as she changed form into a large falcon. She hopped up on to the balcony, then paused, looking back at Irillith as if waiting for her to go first. Irillith had never been a big fan of heights, and she eyed the plunging drop with no small amount of trepidation. Knowing that her crewmates were counting on her, she took a deep breath, then vaulted over the balcony and dropped like a rock.

She managed to suppress her desire to scream in terror as she fell, and instead looked at the HUD to activate flight-mode. The anti-grav stabilisers in her vambraces and boots kicked in, and abruptly it felt like she was descending in a careful manner, rather than falling to her doom. A dark-green shape suddenly rushed past her, and she craned her neck to see where Jade had gone. The jade falcon was in a tightly controlled dive, and she watched the Nymph suddenly unfurl her wings as she reached the bottom, swooping out and over dozens of wrecked bots.

Irillith was close to the ground now herself, and she activated the rear-mounted jets on her Paragon Armour to slow her fall, as the floor raced up to meet her. She landed lightly, and let out a relieved sigh, but any sense of relief would prove to be short lived. Bullets began to rain down on her from the upper levels, as robots near the central shaft had spotted her flying past, and started to unload a withering hail of fire. She glanced around to try and find Jade, and the sound of pounding footfalls reached her ears. Her eyes went wide as she spotted an enormous dark-green form go barrelling off to the north, sending tremors through her feet with every weighty step.

"What the fuck was that?!" she murmured to herself as she ran to catch up.

***

"Down to my last mag," Rachel called out in alarm.

John had just reloaded his magazines with the last of his clips, and he handed them over without reloading his railgun. "Take these!" he said, as he drew his sword, and got ready to charge any robots that got close.

Alyssa, Dana and Rachel blazed away with Punisher rifles, but the robots kept up their inexorable advance. The dozens of shattered metal bodies did nothing to slow them down, as the Mantis-bots climbed over them with their four nimble legs. They were pressing forward now, the killing ground moving beyond the collapsed ceiling, and twitching pieces of robots were starting to tumble at their feet as they kept gunning them down.

Suddenly a rhythmic pounding reached John's sensitive ears, and it sound like something massive was stomping towards them at speed. Bracing himself for whatever new robotic monstrosity the AI was going to send at them, he brandished his sword, getting ready to engage, and keep the girls safe.

*Cease fire! Incoming friendlies!* Alyssa thought to all of them, and John glanced at her in surprise as she gave him a big grin.

The robots paused in their assault, with even the ones in the lead turning to face whatever was galloping towards them. The sound of sporadic gunfire reached his ears, along with the crash of one massive impact after another. The floor began to shake beneath his feet, and he could feel the reverberations through his armour, right the way up his legs. He spotted an enormous barrel-like shape thundering towards them down the corridor, blocking out most of the remaining light, and the shrieking sound of metal began smashed to bits intensified.

There was a sudden burst of light, and a huge crested head loomed out of the darkness, brightly illuminated by a pair of metre-long horns that were swathed in crackling electricity. The beast let out a huge roar from its horned and beaked snout, then charged straight into the last two robots. The first it impaled through the chest with those horns, and the bot exploded outwards as the lightning blasted through its conductive body.

The second robot was smashed aside, and it slammed into the nearby wall where it collapsed in a heap. It managed to twist awkwardly where it lay, and opened fire with the heavy rifle it had somehow managed to keep clutched in its hands. The heavy calibre bullets bounced off the jade behemoth's heavily armoured hide, and she roared her defiance before lowering her crested head and charging forward. The robot was crushed in an instant as the hulking creature slammed into it head first, the long horns driving a metre deep into the wall behind. She stomped down on the ravaged robot afterwards, crushing its armoured body like tissue paper under that massive, three-toed tree-trunk of a leg.

Jade shimmered, shrinking before his eyes, and then it was the cute and adorable Nymph standing before him once again. "It sounded like you needed rescuing!" she said cheerfully.

John stared at her, mouth agape, but the sound of a Punisher railgun from down the corridor snapped his attention that way. He ran forward, and saw Irillith making steady progress towards them, finishing off the occasional robot that had somehow survived Jade's crazed stampede. Alyssa, Dana, and Rachel ran forward to join him, and they quickly dispatched any robots that were still showing any sign of life. Irillith grinned as she ran over to join them, and they all backed away from the killing grounds to take a breather and regroup.

"You're a sight for sore eyes!" John said to them both with relief, and he sheathed his sword as Jade rushed over for a hug.

Irillith smiled at him, then unshouldered her backpack and handed it over to Rachel. The brunette thanked her profusely, then knelt down next to the pack, flipped it open, and began to quickly restock on ammo. Dana gave the two newcomers a cheerful wave, then squatted down next to Rachel to join her in reloading her spent magazines.

Alyssa pulled off her helmet, smiled warmly at Irillith, and said, "Perfect timing!" She suddenly frowned, then added, "You're looking tired though. Take off your helmet, and I'll make you feel much better."

Irillith did so, then let out a surprised gasp as the blonde girl pulled her in for a passionate kiss, the moment the helmet had left her head. She moaned into Alyssa's mouth as her lips tingled with sensation, and she felt her weariness disappearing like an invisible weight had just been lifted off her shoulders.

"I've never been kissed like that before!" Irillith gasped when Alyssa finally released her.

Alyssa giggled, and looking over at her man, asked, "You hear that John?"

He laughed, and replied, "It's a good job I'm not the jealous type." Turning to look down at Jade, who he had encircled in his arms, he was excited as he asked, "That was some kind of dinosaur wasn't it? I remember being interested in them when I was a kid. It was absolutely enormous!"

She nodded, and replied enthusiastically, "It was a Triceratops! That one was just over twelve tonnes."

He shook his head, truly astounded, and asked, "How on Terra can you make something so huge?! And you just shrugged off those twenty-mil shells like they were annoying flies!"

Jade gazed at him adoringly, and said, "You've been making me stronger."

John blinked in surprise, then gave her an eager grin, and said, "We'll have to keep that up."

The Nymph sighed happily, licking her lips at the thought. John released her from his embrace as Dana handed him some replenished magazines, and he quickly reloaded his Punisher rifle, then slotted the spare mags into his webbing. A quick glance around showed him that the girls were all restocked and ready to go.

He grinned, and said, "I almost feel sorry for the robots now!" As the girls grinned at him with enthusiasm, he said, "Alright, here's a quick status update for our new arrivals. There's some hostile AI called Nexus that's taken over the base. We're going to go down to Level Seventy-Two, find its server, then try and find out where that robot fleet went before we shut it down."

"Shall I head back to the surface?" Jade asked him.

Turning to look at Alyssa, John asked, "Is Calara in any kind of trouble?"

After a brief pause, she replied, "She and Faye are fine. They're both keeping watch at the moment, but haven't seen anything hostile yet."

He nodded, then smiled at Jade and said, "You might as well stay with us. You absolutely flattened those other robots, and I suspect you're a handy girl to have around."

Jade looked delighted, and she shimmered before slipping into her favourite jade tiger form.

"Alright, let's move out," John commanded, and they walked quickly to the checkpoint.

Deciding not to chance the nearby elevators, they walked down the stairs, with John, Alyssa, and Jade at the front, with the other girls following close behind. There was another checkpoint on the level below, and similar scenes of slaughter, where the scientists and engineers had been massacred as they tried to flee to safety.

"Can you do anything with those turrets?" John asked Irillith, as they hung back out of the Gatling Lasers lines of fire.

Irillith looked around for a nearby console she could jack into, but there wasn't anything obvious nearby. She was about to shake her head, when her eyes happened to linger on the turrets themselves. She could see a stream of green data flowing into the turreted weapon, and felt that strange tugging sensation at her chest again. Following the feeling as she had done before, she slipped into her spirit-form, and drifted across the corridor, stepping careful around the bodies.

Reaching out with her hands, she brushed her fingers through the data that was flowing into the turret, and she could see where it had been corrupted by the rogue AI. The green data flared as she studied it, and she blinked in surprise as she realised she'd subtly altered the code, updating the turrets to target non-organic creatures instead of Terrans. Her hand seemed to grow more solid, and instead of brushing through the stream of data, she was now halting the flow with her hand. She stared at her impromptu firewall in shock, and when she pulled her hand free, she left a ghostly imprint behind that continued to block communication from the network to the turret.

She rushed back to her body, and took a deep breath before blurting out, "I did it! I remotely hacked the turrets, and didn't even have to use a data jack to enter the network!"

Dana looked equally astonished, opening her mouth to ask a question, but John headed off any tech discussion by saying, "Nice work. Now, let's keep moving, we haven't got any time to lose."

He took the lead, striding boldly in front of the laser turrets, but they didn't so much as move an inch, no longer recognising him as a viable target. There was a security gate here, which would normally be sealed, blocking entry to the lower levels. However a guard was slumped beside an identity tag scanner, his own security ID in hand, and a big hole in his back where he'd been shot whilst opening the gate.

John reached down to scoop up the ID, read the name of the slain soldier, and murmured, "Thanks, Corporal Hansen."

They hurried past the scene of slaughter, sidestepping the dozen slain researchers, and descended the stairs on the other side. Level Seventy-Two had much the same layout, with a robust security gate barring entry to the lower levels. This gate was locked, and the stairwell opposite was piled high with bodies. These people had been trying to force open the gates before they were killed, and their faces were twisted in anguish, their last horrifying moments captured in their terrified expressions. The brutally eviscerated corpses had been attacked from behind, ripped and torn by some hideous mechanical monstrosity that was now no longer in sight.

There were no bodies on John's side of the gate, in the passage between the staircases, but that was only because the Gatling Lasers had mowed down anyone trying to escape from this level. Irillith quickly performed the same technokinesis tricks on these gun turrets as she had on the ones above, and John took the lead, striding out into the corridor past the neutered weapon emplacements. The corridor ran straight ahead for about fifty metres before ending in a T-junction where several people had been shot. Remembering Technician Rawlins directions, he turned right, then stopped at the scene of a bloodbath.

"Those poor bastards," Dana said, looking at the ripped and torn remains of several people.

Rachel looked grim as she said, "These people must have been hiding here, trying to figure out how to get past the turrets when something caught up with them."

"One of the Mantis-bots?" John asked hefting his Punisher rifle.

She paused, studying the remains, and replied hesitantly, "No... I don't think so. Those chainsaw blades they use would cause different types of lacerations."

Striding ahead, John looked grim as he said, "We better shut down Nexus as fast as possible, then we can put all these fucking robots out of action."

The girls fell into step behind him, and they hurried along the corridor ahead, which was brightly lit at the far end by a neon purple glow. The solid walls abruptly changed to glass, and they stopped to look out in amazement at the incredible view beyond. The corridor looked out over a vast server farm in huge rooms on either side of them, and from this high vantage point, they could see neat, orderly rows of computer equipment stretching away into the distance. The room was a riot of colour, with lighting on the servers grouped into different sections. Blues, yellows, greens, and purples were the most common, and it provided a breathtaking sight as they gathered at the windows staring out in wonder.

"How are we going to find the right server in all that?!" John wondered out loud.

Dana raised her gauntleted hand up to tap her chin, then grinned as it bumped into her armoured faceplate. "There must be a floorplan somewhere in here. Techs are usually obsessed with order, and I'm betting the person who engineered all this is no exception. If we can find a control room, I'm sure there'll be a plan of some kind in there," she said confidently.

"Alright, sounds reasonable to me," John agreed, and jogged ahead along the corridor.

The walkway ended at another T-junction, and when he glanced in either direction, he saw that there were staircases heading down in both directions. As they paused for a second to decide which way to go, they heard an ominous tapping heading towards them from back along the corridor they'd just walked down. Turning to face the latest threat, they stared in shock at the spine-chilling metal monstrosity that was rapidly charging towards them.

This latest robot had eight limbs like the mantis bots, but it was running on six, with the front two ending in a variety of cruel looking claws and whirring blades. Rachel reacted first, raising her railgun, and placing her crosshairs directly over the rampaging robot. She pulled the trigger, and the Punisher rifle barked as she fired, sending a crystal tipped twenty millimetre round directly towards the rapidly undulating synthetic creature. However, instead of blasting a big hole in the robot, the shot slammed into some kind of energy shield, leaving ripples in the air as the round was deflected harmlessly. The bullet bounced off to the side, smashing through plated glass as it struck the long walls.

"Fuck! That thing's shielded!" Dana cursed vehemently, as the robot charged onwards undaunted.

John stepped around them, drawing his sword, and saying, "Let me take care of this, you go find Nexus!"

Dana nodded obediently, and she turned and ran down the corridor to the right. Rachel and Irillith followed behind her, and after a moment's indecision, Alyssa ran after them too. John glanced down at Jade who was still at his side, and she growled angrily, her emerald eyes locked on the charging robot. She lashed her tail, and crouched low to the ground as she prepared herself to pounce.

***

Running down the flight of stairs two at a time, Dana rushed out onto the server room floor, her eyes darting around as she looked for a control room.

"That way!" Irillith called out, pointing over to her right. "Loads of the data streams are headed in that direction, so we'll either find the main router or a command centre of some kind."

Dana turned sharply to the right, following the Maliri girl's instructions, and they ran full tilt between the tall rows of servers. It didn't take long to reach what was obviously the main control room, and they could see dozens of monitors through the tall glass windows, which displayed graphs and status bars that were monitoring the network.

A couple of technicians had tried to make it in here, but they had been caught as they tried to break into the room. The remains of their mangled corpses were strewn all over the corridor outside the sealed room. Alyssa aimed her rifle at the lock and pulled the trigger, blasting a big hole in the door, and taking out the entire locking mechanism. The door creaked open, and she flung it wide open so they could enter.

"Alright, we're looking for a map. Anything with some kind of floor plan that might show where the Nexus server is located," Dana explained.

Rachel frowned as they rushed inside, and looking at Irillith asked, "Can't you just do your techno-magic stuff, and find Nexus that way?"

Irillith started looking around for a map, but glanced over her shoulder to say, "I'd rather not. The network is teeming with hostile programs, so if I can interface with the server directly, I can avoid fighting my way through all that."

"Besides," Dana said from across the room, "If we find the physical hardware it's stored on, we can just shut it down directly, or at least threaten to, and get what information we need that way."

"That technician said something about Nexus talking, but I haven't heard anything from these monitors yet," Rachel mused, glancing up at the wall-mounted screens as she rifled through a desk.

Alyssa was acting as sentry, covering the approaches from the server farm, and she glanced over her shoulder as she replied, "Maybe there are monitors at the server itself?"

"Found it!" Dana cried triumphantly, brandishing a brightly coloured floorplan in her gauntleted fist that she'd just ripped off the wall.

***

John sprinted forward to meet the strange insectoid robot mid-charge, swinging his sword in a wide, two-handed blow. His blade passed through the forcefield protecting the bot, and it lurched backwards at the last minute, narrowly avoiding the sweeping blow. Its long metal legs dug into the ground with a shrill metallic squeal as it abruptly halted its charge, and then it lurched forward in a rush of spinning buzzsaws and sharp blades.

He had to move his sword in a dizzying blur to deflect all the incoming melee attacks, and a high-pitched grating whine filled the air as he blocked a wicked saw from lashing out at his face. With so many strikes to defend against, he was struggling to find an opportunity to counter-attack, and he was forced back a step as he parried a flurry of blows.

The robot suddenly lurched to the left, knocked sideways by Jade, who had leapt past John, and pounced on the huge metal creature in a blur of claws and fangs. Electricity flashed along her claws as she tore into its side, ripping off one of its long serrated limbs with a well timed swipe. The robot twisted sharply, raising one of its nightmarish weapon arms to strike her in the flanks, but John lunged forward, driving his sword into the reinforced metal shoulder-joint and pushing a crackling blast of lightning into its frame.