“Quick, map the easiest way down there. If we hit them from behind it'll give whoever's firing on those soldiers a better chance,” Ayan said as she unslung her rifle.
“On it, this way,” Jason replied as he started running to the left.
They kept the same pace as they did when they were outside, though it seemed they were moving much more swiftly as the lightly gilded walls and hard granite floor passed by. Jason led them down two broad ramps and through several heavy bulkhead doors, the last of which was jammed half closed.
The firefight was in full swing as the first of the enemy came into view. From the cover of desks and counters, upturned heavy work tables and tool chests four squads of Regent Galactic soldiers, all marked with a green tree with three branches on their shoulders tried their best to keep whoever was just around the bend in the broad main corridor at bay.
“Position behind, looks like their armour is sealed so we won't have any luck with stun weaponry,” Oz said as the four of them spread out several meters behind the soldiers. It was easy to pick out the commander, he was at the rear with two other officers who were feverishly working at a terminal built into the wall with the assistance of a computing unit they had wired in through a busted panel.
“You're right. Looks like we'll have to use lethal force here, don't use your rifles unless you have to. Jason, what do you think they're trying to do here?” Ayan asked as she stopped to stand three meters behind the commanding officer, pointing her rifle at him and activating her black nanoblade with her free hand.
“Looks like there's some kind of software creating encryption layers as they break through. I can't see how they'll ever hack in.”
“Does the Holocaust Virus do that?”
“Not that I've seen. It's only as smart as the artificial intelligences that it corrupts, so who knows. Maybe the virus got lucky and infected something with an encryption speciality.” Jason stood at the ready behind two soldiers who had ducked behind a thick desk.
As the firefight continued Oz and Minh crept into the group of soldiers so they were standing behind troops closer to the center of the large reception area. As they crouched low to avoid being shot, Minh raised his hand and looked through the digital eye built into the middle knuckle, a feature he hadn't used since the All-Con War. “What the hell?” he exclaimed in a whisper. “Did you see that Oz?”
“Yup, that was an andie, stepped right out, took a shot to the shoulder but managed to gun down two Regent soldiers before it stepped back behind cover. Something's got that thing working on the right side.”
“Are you sure? We don't want to kill these soldiers without being sure they're not somehow working to free this world,” Ayan questioned emphatically.
“Do we really want to wait? These soldiers are marked with Regent Galactic emblems and the tree marking on their shoulder, that's West Watch. There's no question, these soldiers aren't on our side,” Oz replied.
Minh kept watching and after several moments saw an unarmoured human face, she looked nothing like the android police force that had, until then, been seen in control of the the virus infected machines they'd encountered on the planet. “I'm with Oz, I think I just saw a real resistance fighter.”
“Jason?” Ayan asked.
“I'll go with your call on this but my gut is telling me we should cut the Regent boys down.”
Ayan watched the lead officer carefully. She couldn't hear what he was saying, they were speaking over a private encrypted channel. His armour, with it's thickened under layer and dark grey plating was exactly what she'd seen of Regent Galactic while looking over recordings of fighting on Mount Elbrus. His gear was top notch, high end military equipment and from the looks of his soldiers they had had at least a few weeks training. She nodded to herself; “Go for the neck, it's the thinnest part of their armour. On three. One, two, three.” With a swing of her arm and a flick of her wrist the blade passed over his armour, cutting his neck half through, leaving a microscopic army of nanobots to finish the cut and leap back to her nanoblade.
She moved on to the nearest officer, cutting below his neck, into his shoulder instead. Her quarry spun on her heel, one hand going up to cover the growing wound as she looked for her invisible assailant.
Ayan's blade moved on to the last of the trio she stood behind, using her shortened blade to cut his head cleanly from his shoulders. She looked to where Oz, Minh and Jason were at their own grisly work in time to see Minh running towards her as Oz felled a fourth target. “Drop a grenade on your way out!” he told Oz as he took up a position beside Ayan.
“Frag grenade!” Oz called as he pulled one from inside his long coat and dropped it behind a crate, running as fast as he could towards the inner entrance to the reception area. Ayan, Minh, Jason and Oz at the rear ran back the way they came and ducked behind the corner.
The silence begged a question; “How long did you set the fuse for?” Ayan asked.
An explosion that shook the wall and floor was her answer.
“Eight seconds. The soldiers at the front were starting to turn towards the rear, they should have been right on top of it by the time it went off,” Oz replied.
The four of them peeked back around the corner and saw that the timing of the explosion was indeed perfect. Only five soldiers remained and they were already putting their rifles down, raising their hands in surrender.
Two damaged security androids stepped out from the other end of the hall and slowly walked towards the reception desk. “Take off your helmets!” called a voice from behind them, loud enough to be heard over the more distant gunfire.
The West Keeper soldiers complied, removing their bulky Regent Galactic helmets with some hesitation. In true military form the andies fired stun rounds at all of them, knocking them out completely.
“Anyone remember to bring a white flag?” Minh asked with a snicker.
“We can detect you. If you disengage your obfuscation devices you will not be harmed,” said the nearest android in a low, authoritative tone.
“What are we doing here Ayan?” Jason asked.
“We shut down cloaking, set our suits to combat armour mode and bring up personal shielding, do you agree Oz?”
“That'll do,” Oz answered. “Looks like we're joining the real fight one way or another.”
The four of them did exactly as Ayan had indicated and were visible to the naked eye, wearing black vacsuits that thickened in sections, protecting all the critical areas from attacks. Each of them had a glistening sheen thanks to the molecule thin energy shield that came online as soon as their cloaking systems disengaged.
“Your advanced cloaking systems will be ineffective here. The soldiers have come with sensor suites and pulse generators. Now that they have lost people to stealth units they will ensure their advanced detection systems are always active. I recommend you activate your thermal and audio dampeners, those will assist you effectively while you're out of their immediate line of fire.” Said the blonde woman in a powder blue Far Track Spacelanes customer service uniform. “I'm Ariel, one of Dementia's resistance fighters,” she grinned broadly, mechanically.
“I'm Ayan, with me are Oz, Minh and Jason, we're from Freeground, a space station far from here,” Ayan said as she allowed her faceplate to disappear. The protective mass of the dense plate shifted and changed so it extended her headpiece into a deep hood. The micro projectors built into it were invisibly re-mounted so any important data could be displayed in front of her field of view, including extra peripheral vision and a view of what was behind her.
“Why didn't we get something like that built into our suits?” Minh whispered.
“We did, you just don't know how to activate it because it's too new,” Jason whispered back.