The only abundance you shall find is our ordnance! - Lanaktallan High General Le'edrmo'o, Defense of Shar-Lamok-281, Mar-gite Resurgence, 14,832 Post-Confederacy Reconsolidation
"You guys need to follow me," the holoemitter projection said. It was scratched, tears in its uniform. It still held a blade of shining whitish blue code in one hand. It was varying shades of deep red with silver lines.
"Where are we?" W44 asked. He looked back at the closed door. "What did they pull out of her?"
"You're at Main Support Non-Orbital Station 741-94B, Confederate side of the Long Dark," the hologram said. "As for that, well, that was a shade and it yanked out her soul, although some would say it just pulled out her phasic self-impression."
W44 looked down at his hand, the one he had held out to her, the one she had just missed grabbing. "I almost had her."
The hologram nodded. "That's pretty standard," he opened a window in midair and looked over the data. "Huh, weird."
"Your files are all garbled," the hologram said. He shook his head. "I'm Emerald Horizon 4474, Terran Digital Sentience. I was supposed to not wake up until I got sent to the Telkan systems."
The trio looked at one another and back at the hologram.
"What woke you up?" W44 asked.
"Not sure. I came too after the ship went through autodocking with the station. Cargo was offloaded, I was put in place for some reason and woke up," Horizon said. "I'm a digital sentience, we have to stay locked down in Fairy Day cages for hyperspace transit. When they let me out and woke me up, the dying had already happened to the crew that brought me in. I've been running, hiding, and fighting for nearly a week."
"So..." W44 said slowly. "We're all in trouble."
"Yeah," Emerald "Call me Emry" said.
"What was the cargo on our vessel that you had to unload?" D44 asked.
"Not sure. Whatever it was, it was out of Telkan Prime, same as you guys," Emry said. "You four, well, three now, were the only ones alive," He looked at D44. "When did the Telkan Marines start accepting female Telkans?"
"We're Telkana," D44 said. She shook her head. "I don't know. I don't know anything."
"Cryoshock. It happens," Emry said. He paused next to a door, touching the hologram. "OK, Ready Room 23 is clear. Armory is inside. We'll need to get you guys armor and weapons," he sighed. "I haven't been able to find any disaster frames for myself."
W44 frowned. "What are you again?"
Emry looked at W44. "A Terran Digital Sentience. You know, code brought to life? Not an AI, AI's are artificial sentience, I'm a digital sentience, two different things."
W44 frowned deeper, racking his empty mind. "You aren't supposed to be here."
"Well, yeah, but what do you mean?" Emry asked. "I'm hacking the passcodes. Pretty heavy duty encryption."
"No, you're a Terran. You aren't supposed to be here," W44 said. He wiped the sweat from the fur on his forehead. "I don't know why, I just know you aren't supposed to be here."
N44 nodded. "Yeah. I mean, I don't know why, but I know you shouldn't be here."
"Well, I am," Emry said. There was a beep and the bars collapsed into themselves and pulled into the bulkhead. "OK, armory is open."
The Ready Room was a large open space, with tables that came up to the Telkan's shoulders but the DS's lower chest. There were three barred doors, one reading "ARMOR LOCKER", one reading "ARMS LOCKER" and the last reading "ORDNANCE - DANGER" on it. There were signs saying "NO SMOKING" as well as reminders to clear all weapons.
Emry's hologram stuttered slightly when he moved into the Ready Room.
"Oof. Computer systems are down," he shook his head. "I'd give my right digital testicle to have a disaster frame," he looked around. "Right now, I'm sitting on a pallet in Delivery Bay 119. If there hadn't been a wireless port open, I'd be blind and deaf, just sitting there helpless."
W44 nodded. "Do you know if there's any more like you?"
Emry shook his head, putting one hand on the armory door. "No. I don't have access to a ton of stuff. I've got some emergency dataslicing tools, I always pack those, but the majority of the systems are either offline, trashed, or locked down."
He looked at the armory door. "It's going to take me forever to crack this thing. We're talking, minutes."
D44 looked around. "What are we supposed to do in here?"
Emry tapped the sign next to him. "Get you in your power armor, or at least hardshell armor, get your weapons."
W44 turned to D44. "I'm not sure either."
Emry stopped, staring at W44. "Uh, you are Telkan Marines, right? Your records that I could access say you're riflemen, and Telkan Marine rifleman wear power armor."
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
N44 shrugged. "I don't remember."
"Turn around," Emry said.
"OK," N44 said, turning around. D44 turned around too.
"OK. That's weird. You can turn back around now," Emry said.
"What's weird?" N44 asked.
"You don't have pilot jacks at the base of your skulls," he squinted. "Are those real eyes? Can I see your palms?"
All three held out their hands.
"No subdermal palm and fingertip smartgun links, no smartwires, no cybereyes, no retinal display links," Emry said. He frowned. "Are you sure you're Marines?"
W44 shrugged. "Yeah. I mean, I guess."
Emry frowned. "You're missing the basic hardware implants."
D44 shrugged. "I don't know. I don't remember anything."
Emry turned back to the door. "Three cases of severe cryoshock. Great."
W44 sat down, going to pat his pockets out of habit before he realized that the leotard didn't have pockets. He wondered for a moment what he was looking for. He looked at N44, who was sitting on the floor too, his legs stretched out, leaning back slightly in a slumped posture. D44 was sitting up, her legs crossed.
"You don't sit like Telkan Marines either," the DS said. "Not that I've met that many. There were a few on the ship, I remember that," he sighed and ran a hand through his hair, making the code brighten and ripple. "I know we're supposed to go toe to toe with the Lanks and the PAWM."
"Precursor Autonomous War Machines. Bad ass spaceships the size of a continent, tearing up the neo-sapient worlds and the Lanky worlds," Emry shook his head. "Even without a security VI, eVI, or DS, this encryption system is nasty."
He stepped back. "I can't get it open," he moved to another input port marked by hologram. He put his hand against it and rezzed a bit. "System is totally trashed."
"What happened to the station?" D44 asked.
"Not sure. Automatic systems are online in some places, completely shut down in others," Emry said. "There's shades in the system, so I keep having to fight my way through sections," he made an odd sound. "There's a lot of weird data corruption. I've never seen anything like it. It keeps modifying itself, growing and adapting, but I can't find any virus tags or footprints."
The three Telkan nodded like they understood what he was saying, glancing at each other and giving subtle shrugs.
"Wait, we got a live nanoforge," Emry said. "Huh, weird, it's on autonomous full unlock mode. Class V nanoforge, full unlock," he blinked. "Come on, where are you?"
"OK, it's not far. A half mile, maybe. I've got the notification emitters spinning up red blocks now in our path," Emry said. He stared at them. "Station's shade protocols are pretty specific. PA system is down or I'd play a dogboi howl."
"So, we run?" W44 asked.
Emry nodded. "We run. Stop at each red block to make sure we don't run face first into a shade, then run to the next block. I'll use a red line to guide us."
N44 moved next to the door. "Ready when you are, Emry."
The DS nodded. He touched the door and it opened up to reveal a red lit corridor.
The trio followed the red line, stopping at the edge of each red block to check the corridor between the red blocks. Run, stop. Run. Stop. Run. Stop.
Once Emry held up his hand to have them stop, staring at the wall.
"What could do that?" Emry asked.
The black metal was slagged in a long jagged line in several places. There was pitted spot where something had melted a ragged hole partway through the plating.
"Electrical arcs?" D44 asked.
"Gunfire?" N44 asked.
"No, that's Gen-IV Warsteel. Anything that could do that kind of damage is a crew served weapon or better," Emry said. He tapped the side of his head. "I'm still running on my survival core power," he sighed. "I need to get you to the nanoforge soon."
"Running low on power. My survival core and Fairy Day cage are powered by a zero-point reactor set. They get warm when they provide a certain amount of power. The warmer they get, the less power they can put out, so the more draw they are put under, which makes them hotter," Emry said. He wiped glittering sweat off his forehead. "It won't be long till they go offline and I go into sleep mode for virus checking and defrag."
"Does it hurt?" D44 asked.
"No. Just makes me feel hot and tired," Emry said. He moved to the next red block and the trio moved with him.
There was a sudden grinding shudder and the lights flashed. The red blocks in the hallway blinked and vanished.
The red emergency lights clacked on.
"Shit! Run!" Emry said.
W44 could faintly hear screaming. Not of fear, but of complete rage. He grabbed D44's wrist and half-dragged her behind him as they followed Emry through the now-darkened corridors.
They ducked into a room. There were tool benches, lathes, and other esoteric machinery. Emry got the door shut as the trio ran into a puddle of red light cast by an emergency light.
"Nanoforge is right there," he said. He moved over to it, sweating glitter, the holoemitters flickering and flashing, making him appear to move as jerkily as the shades.
He tapped it, bringing up the menus. "It's fully unlocked."
"What is it?" D44 asked, leaving the red light and moving next to him.
"Class V nanoforge, used for part replacement in cases where it's preferable to replace the parts rather than toss the whole thing into the grinder and print a new one," Emry said.
"What does it do?" N44 asked.
W44 just kept watching the door.
"Prints out things. It's a matter printer," Emry said. He moved through the menus. "Odd. There's Lanaktallan armor loaded into this thing. Why would it have that? Lanky weapons too. Lanky medical kit? That's weird."
"Who are the Lanky?" D44 asked, watching the menus flicker by. She couldn't read them. For reason, she thought that was odd. She knew she knew how to read, but none of the menus make sense.
"Four armed cow headed centaurs. We're at war with them after they biocracked the Harmonous Cluster," Emry said. "OK, got Telkan body armor. It'll have to scan you. They've got unlocks for cold iron weapons. I'm going to try to print up speakers so we can use the doboi howls."
W44 just nodded. After a minute Emry called him over to get scanned. The red laser played over him as he stood with his arms straight out to his side. N44 and D44 were putting on the armor with the help of Emry's instructions.
Afterwards, Emry 'printed up' food and bottles of water, letting them all eat while he checked over their armor, sometimes tossing a piece in the 'grinder' and printing up a new piece.
Finally, all three Telkan were in full environmental body armor, the plates red and coated with a thin layer of iron ferrite. They all held blades in their hands, red coated shields in the other.
"We need to go for the bay where I'm being stored," Emry said. He wiped his forehead of the glitter. "I'm getting really hot."
He reached out and touched their shoulders.
W44 saw "MAP WAYPOINTS LOADDED" appear in his visor.
"I've gotta drop. Follow the waypoints. I'll leave instructions on the datapad on the side of my case," Emry said. He stared at them for a long moment. "Good luck."
"We'll rescue you," W44 said. He looked around. "See you."
"See you," Emry said.
He vanished without a sound.
"Lets get going," W44 said. "Remember, hard short chops. Lock our shields together, thrust through the gap."
"I've got your back, brother," N44 said.
"I'm with you," D44 said. She paused a second. "Brother."
W44 smiled. "And I with you, brothers."
They moved to the dark hallway, lit only in pools from the emergency lights.
There was the loud grinding sound that made the hallway shudder.
Off in the distance something screamed in rage. Something else answered.
"Forward, brothers," D44 said, her voice tight but unafraid.
Shoulder to shoulder, they moved down the corridor.