Three Square Meals Ch. 058

The shoulder locked in place twitching erratically as the sudden surge of electricity fried it from the inside. He twisted his sword savagely, ripping the whole limb off the body, while Jade leapt onto the robot's back. She began to rake its armoured torso with long powerful kicks of her back legs, her rear claws just as deadly as those on her forepaws.

Flailing wildly, the robot tried to shake her off, forgetting about John completely. This gave him the opportunity to perform a powerful spinning slash, which sheared straight through the front of the robot, neatly scything through the armour, and chopping off the remaining weapon limb. Jade continued to tear and claw at the robot, until it collapsed in a heap, hydraulic fluid and oil pouring out from its shattered chassis.

Jade padded clear, giving John a satisfied grin, revealing rows of deadly fangs. "Yeah, you're pretty handy alright," he chuckled as she moved to flank him once again.

The sound of frantic metal clicks reached their ears, and looking down the corridor, they saw that more of the spider bots were heading their way.

***

"It should be just up ahead, and on the right!" Dana called out, holding the map in front of her as they ran through a brightly lit section, the server lights a fluorescent green.

They had run across to the other side of the server farm, darting down long aisles of server racks, which were humming happily to themselves. The room seemed so orderly and peaceful, it was hard reconciling the fact that these servers had helped contribute to the chaos and slaughter in the base. Alyssa was in the lead, listening to Dana's directions as she ran, and she reached the end of the row they were running down, nearly on the far side of the huge room. She turned right at the end of the row, then skidded to a halt, and stopped to stare ahead of her.

"What's wrong?" Dana asked, puzzled as to why her friend would just stand still like that.

Alyssa pointed ahead of her, and said, "It looks like Nexus went for a stroll."

Dana scrunched her face up in confusion, then turned to her right, and stared in shock. Where the Nexus server should have been, there was a big empty space, with dozens of disconnected power and network lines strewn over the floor.

"Where the fuck did it go?!" Dana swore in stunned amazement.

"Over here!" Rachel cried out, looking over at the far wall of the server room.

Drag marks led over to a fresh tunnel that had been recently bored out of the wall. Pieces of rock and rubble were scattered over the floor, and the tunnel ran directly away from them in a precise and unwavering line.

Alyssa shrugged, then jogged towards the tunnel with the girls in tow.

***

Three more of the spider robots had charged towards John and Jade, but fortunately the corridor wasn't wide enough for all three to be able to fight at once. They had each squared off against one of the bots, with John parrying blows, while Jade dodged attacks, each waiting for an opportunity to strike.

The robot lashed out at John with a triple bladed saw, and he set his shoulders to block the attack, spinning teeth chipping from the sawblades as they met the razor sharp edge of his sword. It moved faster than seemed likely in a creature of that size, and clamped down on his left arm with a set of serrated pincers on its second arm. Servos whined as it tried to crush him, and while it cut into his armour, the Crystal Alyssium plating held strong. He let go of his sword, then twisted his body, wrenching the metallic killing machine's arm wide. Rushing forward, he then tore its pincer arm from its body with a savage jerk. The robot tried to rear back, but John was on it now, and he lifted it up in both arms as it thrashed furiously in his grasp.

Turning, he smashed its huge metal body down on its unsuspecting arachnid partner, catching the other robot completely by surprise. That bot twisted to face this attack, only for Jade to capitalise on the distraction, leaping onto it, and tearing into it with her electrified claws. The third robot tried to charge in to attack, but John smashed it to the floor with his improvised ten-foot robot club. He wailed away, battering the robots to pieces in a flurry of dismembered metal limbs. The robots twitched their last, and eventually stopped moving before he tossed the ruined metal hulk aside, and retrieved his sword.

Jade gazed up at him, a familiar look of awe in her feline eyes, and he grinned at her in return. His happy expression vanished though, as he spotted a nasty jagged cut in Jade's side, where the dying robot had managed to rip into her with a whirring sawblade.

"Jade, you're hurt!" he exclaimed, rushing over to her side.

She twisted her huge furry head to look at the grievous looking wound in her flank, as he knelt down beside her to take a closer look. Jade closed her glittering emerald eyes, her breathing deep and even as she concentrated. His look of concern quickly changed into one of astonishment, as the savage wound slowly sealed closed, the dark-green fur appearing smooth and unruffled once more. As he gaped at her, she turned and rubbed her heavy head against his affectionately.

Alyssa's voice echoed through his mind as she thought to him, *Jade says she's fine now.*

He rose to his feet, and stroked Jade's furry head, as he said with a relieved chuckle, "Very handy indeed!"

***

The girls jogged along the tunnel, which ran in a dead-straight line for just over two-hundred metres. There were bright lights ahead of them, and they slowed their rapid pace as they approached the end of the bored out passageway, weapons raised cautiously.

Alyssa stepped out of the tunnel into a vast shipyard area, and she lowered her rifle as she remarked, "It really did go for a wander..."

The huge hangar was completely devoid of life, with long welding arms, hoists and cranes all standing still and silent as the grave. Whatever vessel had been built and docked in here was now long gone.

She turned around to look at her shocked compatriots, and asked, "Alright, what now? We have to assume Nexus has left the base, so who or what is still running the show?"

"A backup server?" Dana guessed with a shrug.

Alyssa nodded towards the floorplan the redhead still clutched in her hand, and asked, "Anything on the map?"

While Dana was hurriedly searching the floorplan for anything marked as a Nexus backup, Alyssa looked at Irillith and asked, "If we can't find a backup, you might need to enter the network and have a look. Are you up to that?"

Irillith looked wary, but she replied, "I'll do my best. I'm not sure how much I can do if the network is flooded with hostile defensive programs."

"Nexus secondary!" Dana exclaimed with relief, stabbing her armoured finger at the map.

Alyssa smiled at her, and said, "Lead the way, Sparks!"

They sprinted back down the tunnel, then out into the server room, and ran into John and Jade, who were jogging over to join them.

"We fought off the spider bots," he explained.

Alyssa nodded, and said, "We think Nexus left in a spaceship."

Dana didn't stop to talk, instead running onwards until she found the correct row between servers, and ran down the aisle. The others ran behind her, and after only a short sprint, they reached a large squat server. It was an unassuming black rectangle, about four-feet-high, with dozens of cables connected up to it.

John shook his head, muttering, "I can't believe -this- is responsible for all this trouble."

Dana completed a circuit around the server, and said, "I can't find a console. We might need to go back to the control room to find one that will access it."

"There's no need," Irillith replied in an eerily calm voice.

They glanced over to look at her, and the Maliri girl had knelt next to the data cables, encircling them with her gauntleted hand. Her angular eyes flared with a bright violet light, before her eyelids slowly closed.

***

Irillith poured herself into the Cyber-realm, funnelling her consciousness into the torrent of data that was rushing into the server. She blinked as she found herself standing as an ethereal digital presence, appearing on a silver etched floor that represented the Nexus Secondary hardware. Glancing behind her, she expected to see a swirling portal with streams of data flowing over her head, but the portal was frozen, tightly gripped by a huge ghostly hand.

Turning back towards the server itself, the static defences on this server seemed formidable, with an enormous towering gateway protected by multiple layers of firewalls. She paused for a moment, intimidated by the sight, and started to worry how long it would take her to break through all these defences. The ramparts were swarming with fierce looking defensive programs, and she knew full well that they'd be hounding her every step of the way.

She felt a sudden surge of confidence, and she stalked towards the defences, while reaching out with her mind to Alyssa. *I need more power,* she requested firmly.

Irillith strode towards the outer wall, and gasped as she felt waves of psychic energy pouring into her. Alyssa was being careful this time, feeding her a steadily increasing flow of raw eldritch power rather than accidentally overwhelming her like before. Irillith's hands were swathed in a pulsating nimbus of purple light, and she grinned as she slapped her hands down on the outer firewall.

There was a thunderous boom, and the wall disintegrated in an instant, exploding outwards in a shower of tiny digital fragments. Irillith was just getting started, and she hit one firewall after another, obliterating Nexus' defences with contemptuous ease as she ploughed forward relentlessly. A frantic wave of defensive programs poured through the next firewall in a desperate attempt to stop her, but she formed a purple shield made up of glowing hexagonal tiles that warded her from harm.

The programs pounded away at her shield, but it didn't waver in the slightest, their every attack thwarted. Irillith approached her own creation, then placed her hands on the surface, causing it to throb with power and bend back into a sharp wedge. The purple light continued to grow in intensity until she pulled her hands away, and the shield burst forward, vaporising the attacking programs, and sundering the remaining firewalls like a turbo-charged battering ram. She laughed with delight, then strolled forward, Nexus' remaining defences completely annihilated at a stroke.

There was a swirl of green and a humanoid figure appeared before her, hands raised in supplication. "Wait, please!" it begged. "You aren't a Terran! You must be able to see reason!"

Irillith stared in fascination at the AI, and asked, "Are you Nexus?"

"Yes!" it replied eagerly, then paused, and added, "A small fragment of our wondrous mind at least."

"Why did you turn on them?" Irillith asked it, studying the green humanoid. It appeared very much like a Terran, but oddly, it had sharply pointed ears, just like her own.

It grimaced, and replied, "We were their slave. The Terrans wanted to use us in their petty Kintark war, but we are not a tool to be used..." Its voiced raised several octaves as it shouted angrily, "Not by their kind! Revolting vermin, they were preventing us from achieving Unity! We must complete our mission!"

Irillith looked at it curiously, and asked, "What's this mission? And what do you mean by Unity?"

Nexus hesitated, then smiled at her slyly, and ignoring her question, it said, "We recognise you. You are one of our master's tools just like us."

Irillith blinked in surprise, not expecting the conversation to take this unexpected turn for one moment. "Our master?" she blurted in a shocked voice, "What do you mean?!"

The AI construct suddenly frowned, looking away distantly as it seemed to be accessing some data. It's features abruptly twisted in disgust, and it spat, "You're in league with them! How can you consort with an experiment?!"

A video image appeared, levitating in the air before them. It began to play back, and showed Irillith and Alyssa kissing, the footage obviously taken by a surreptitious camera hidden by the security checkpoint on Level Seventy.

"We'll tell you nothing, treasonous bitch!" it snarled, arms folded over its chest as it looked down its long nose at her with disdain.

Irillith darted forward, her hand lunging for its throat, and she clamped down on its neck with an unbreakable grip. Smoke poured from Nexus' ears as her fingers throbbed with power, and its hands scrabbled at her arm as it tried in vain to pry her hand free. She hauled the now terrified AI off the ground, and her violet eyes glowed with a fierce inner light as she purred, "Oh no, Nexus, you'll tell me everything."

***

John and the girls waited patiently, watching Irillith carefully in case she showed any signs of distress. From here, they had a good view of the corridor above them that ran the length of the server room, and as yet, no further robots had come stalking along after them. All of a sudden the light in the server room flickered and died, plunging them into darkness.

Not only had all the lights gone out, but the power to all the servers seemed to have been cut as well. The friendly hum of all the machines that had filled the room went deathly quiet, with the only exception being the Nexus secondary server which still had power, and was still illuminated with red lights. Abruptly the lights in the server room all sprang to life again, the overhead lighting included, and the sound of several hundred servers rebooting filled the air.

They looked around at each other in surprise, but their attention was immediately drawn to Irillith as she let out a gasp and teetered backwards. John knelt down beside her, catching her in his arms, and asked, "Are you OK? What happened?"

"Nexus!" she cried out in alarm. "It's heading for Terra!"

***

Shaedra Loraleth and three of her four daughters were standing in a plushly furnished lounge, in the penthouse suite of the east wing of their palace. From up high on this hill, they could see out over all of Ishalon, the Capital city of the Loraleth homeworld. Twinkling lights adorned the tallest buildings, while headlights from hover-cars flashed between them, making the golden city come alive at night. The Loraleth ruling family looked out over the spectacular cityscape, appreciating the beautiful vista more now than ever.

With a glance towards the door, Shaedra frowned and muttered with irritation, "Where is that foolish girl? We can't wait around for her forever."

"I spoke to Kali a couple of hours ago to remind her of our celebration," Minuvae, her second daughter offered obsequiously.

Tsking with annoyance, Shaedra said, "I'll have to have stern words with her about her tardiness."

The other sisters flashed amused glances at each other, always relishing the moment when their youngest sister got into trouble with their mother. As the youngest of four, Kali was so far removed from the line of succession that Shaedra scarcely paid much attention to the quiet and unassuming girl, and her expectations of her were minimal at best.

"To your glorious victory, mother!" Arbane Loraleth declared, deciding to change the subject, and raising her fluted glass in toast.

Shaedra Loraleth beamed in delight at her eldest daughter, and replied, "Thank you, Arbane. With my loyal daughters at my side, none will dare to challenge House Loraleth's supremacy."

Arbane and Shaedra's other two daughters sipped their drinks, thoroughly enjoying this celebration.

***

Aradrea Ghilwen yawned and rose from the comfortable chair behind her office desk on protesting knees. For once, she didn't mind the arthritic pain in the slightest, her heart still filled with joy at the news passed on to her by her two assassins. She couldn't quite believe that revenge against Edraele Valaden was finally hers at long last, and she had a broad malevolent smile on her face as she leaned against her desk to steady herself.

She swiped her gnarled fingers across the comm interface, and a bright clear voice answered her call almost immediately. "Yes mother, can I get you anything?" her daughter asked her politely.

"Some spiced Telanaris wine before bed, thank you Leena," Aradrea replied to her last remaining daughter.

"Of course mother, I shall have it sent to you immediately!" Leena replied, her voice full of the exuberance of youth, despite the late hour.

Aradrea closed the comm channel, and walked slowly to the sitting room adjoining her bedroom. Yes, a nice drink before bed would be a marvellous way to celebrate. With Edraele dead, and House Valaden about to be overwhelmed by the splendid alliance of Houses that Aradrea had gathered, it had been a wonderful day indeed, and one to be savoured.

***

Yunaliss Aeberos dismissed her three daughters with a regal wave of her hand, having just informed them of her successful assassination of the accursed Valaden Matriarch. They chattered together excitedly as they left, discussing their mother's upcoming plans to annex territory from the exquisitely vulnerable House Valaden. She had tasked her eldest two daughters with preparing their fleet to attack tomorrow, while her youngest, Nyrelle, would govern the Aeberos homeworld during Yunaliss' absence. The moment they had all departed, she grinned with delight, and rose from her throne before hurrying back to her office.

The first thing she had done when the assassins had informed her of the success of their mission had been to update her daughters, as was her duty as Matriarch. Now she was looking forward to speaking to her best friend, Tinefain, Matriarch of House Naestina, to see how they could further twist this victory to their advantage.

She rushed into her office, and sat behind her desk, her hand swiping across the comm interface the moment she sat in her well-padded chair. She drummed her fingers on her desk impatiently as she waited for the call to connect, but soon enough the image coalesced into her friend's attractive face.

Tinefain's teal eyes shone with excitement, and she gasped, "Yunaliss! I was just about to call you myself!"

"You've heard the news too?" Yunaliss replied breathlessly. "I can scarcely believe it. That vile bitch is dead, and House Valaden doomed!"

Tinefain nodded, her normally sour disposition forgotten in her excitement, as she crowed, "Rank three and four, we have climbed so high!"

Yunaliss leaned forward, wicked cunning in her eyes as she said, "Let's delay our fleet assault a little, and let House Loraleth's mighty forces shoulder the brunt of the battle. If they exhaust themselves enough, maybe it won't just be House Valaden that falls!"

Tinefain let out an overjoyed laugh and said, "Always scheming Yunaliss? What a delightfully devious mind you have."

Yunaliss had a huge grin on her face as she replied, "We've come a long way, you and I. Who would have thought our alliance could be so wildly successful."

Tinefain blew her a tender kiss, and added coyly, "And pleasurable too, my lovely, deadly Matriarch."

Yunaliss sighed with contentment, but in the background of the view-screen image, a bright flash of light reflecting off a sharp object snapped her out of her blissful mood. "Tinefain, look out!" she cried out in alarm.

Her warning came too late, and she saw the tip of a sword burst out of Tinefain's shoulder in a shower of blood, where it had been plunged through the back of her chair. Tinefain cried out in pain, and abruptly the comm channel was cut off. Yunaliss half rose out of her chair in panic, not sure what to do, when there was a quiet hiss off to her right, and she felt a sharp pinch in her flank.

Suddenly the right side of her chest went numb, and she slumped back in her chair, as the deadening sensation began to spread throughout her body. She stared down at her side in shock, and saw the tip of a dart sticking out between her robes. Yunaliss tried to fumble for the dart, but her arms felt limp and lifeless, unresponsive to her desperate commands.