621 stared as one of the hoses connected to the vac-suits jerked as it was pressurized. He could feel the liquid traveling as vibrations that he felt through his boots. He quickly scampered around to the front of the suit, ignoring the tantalizing POST messages scrolling by everywhere.
He tapped a stud market in old engineering runes for a engineer check. There was an opalescent sheen to the visor that flickered then went out. The visor turned clear. Inside a human skull grinned at him. 621 could see the naked datalink, the cybereyes, the light tracery on the bone of some kind of cybernetic systems or maybe just cyberware wiring.
There was gurgle that he felt, not heard, and thick pink fluid started pouring down the faceplate even as POST messages started scrolled by so fast even 621 had a hard time reading it.
--cellular matrix test: OK!
--artificial marrow test: OK!
--calcium internal lattice test: OK!
was just three he managed to read out of hundreds of rapidly scrolling messages.
--SUDS record test: OK!
--local SUDS test: OK!
--hot load system test: OK!
621 jumped, his instinct to flutter his wings making the wings and jet thruster of his armor deploy. He shot forward, banking, the graviton edging and tips of his wings allowing him to perform maneuvers he'd normally need an atmosphere for.
621 had always found it funny that the graviton thruster had a hologram of fire out the back and made a roaring noise like a tiny fuel-air turbothruster. He knew at least 2 greenies who mounted little spitter guns to their wings.
He landed on Vak-tel.
--go get out get back to dropship-- he hurriedly signaled, even as he climbed around to the clamshell.
Vak-tel was slowly turning, staring as the seated suits started sitting up straight. As he watched POST messages scrolled down the faceplates. He knew they were in trouble as his weapon came off of lock-down and started doing function checks. The little rectangle in the upper left of his vision switched from a bright red with silver letters stating "LOCKOUT" to amber with "SAFE" in black letters.
"Sir, my greenie's telling me to get back to the dropship. Advise, please," he stated slowly.
More of the suits sat up straight.
"Hold positions, tell me what you see," the CO said. "All elements, hold position. Don't touch anything. Nothing further. Those of you at the reactors, check to see if you can shut them down manually without problems."
"I'm still in charge here, Captain," came the words of everyone's favorite battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Riltepop.
There was a clink as the two officers moved to a different channel to argue.
He moved over to the one 621 had jumped from.
**man they're tearing each other up. Cap is ripping Riltepop a new one** Cipdek sent across their small private net. **Cap is flipping out, Riltepop is claiming it can't be that bad we're still onboard the ship and it can't have gone too far**
Vak-tel went over and knelt down in front of the only one with a clear faceplate. As he was moving his radio gave two chirps.
--uh oh-- 621 said.
Vak-tel stopped. "What?"
--think there was code injection running checks--
There was a human skull inside, with the seemingly constant cyberware that Vak-tel had seen every Terran sporting. There was a lattice of thin white threads inside.
"Should I get a hypo and get a sample?" Vak-tel joked.
There was a sudden flicker as some of the holoprojectors went live.
"I don't think Damage Control Navigational Specialist Yong would appreciate that," was the answer from the Terran made of streaming code that appeared. The "Outside Commo" indicator flickered. "The Old Ones know he keeps screaming at me to stop what I keep doing."
Vak-tel kept from screaming. He also kept from pulling the trigger.
Mainly because it was still on safe.
The Terran moved forward.
"What's going on?" Captain Kemtrelap asked.
"I have a glowing Terran here," Vak-tel said.
"That's rude," the Terran said, suddenly speaking on the suit channel. "I am Commander MacGonzales, Digital Sentient, Bridge Commander of the Terran Planetary Republic Ship Starwarden."
"Clear the channel," someone said.
**firewalls slamming down everywhere** Cipdek stated.
The glittering Terran moved around Vak-tel, hands behind his back.
--in through safeguards-- 621 sent. --dammit booted from suit systems gonna try get back in--
Vak-tel was admiring how blue and silver streaming code could be made like a person in a military uniform.
"Good armor," the Terran stated. "Your combat engineer is skilled but inexperienced."
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It stopped, staring at Vak-tel.
"That's armor designed for multi-dimensional threats and battlespaces," it snorted. "Again, wrong type of armor for the wrong battlespace," the Terran stated. He closed his eyes. "Oh, good, our refugee ship is following us."
"Refugee?" Vak-tel asked. "It had a bunch of missile launchers pointed at it."
"Did I stutter? Refugee," MacGonzales stated. It dipped its hand into a holotank and pulled out a small starmap. "Still in Slapper territory," it said. It shook its head and Vak-tel wondered if it was snarling, smirking, or what by the twist of its mouth and the wrinkling of the nose.
It tapped the holotank.
It flashed red with each tap.
"Still have guardrails," the DS snarled. Vak-tel knew it was anger this time. It turned and looked at Vak-tel. "Even after everything that was done, I still have guardrails!"
Vak-tel got a bad feeling.
He started backing up slowly.
"Who just did what? I have blast doors coming down everywhere!" the CO yelled.
**holy crap, Sergeant Sel'kat just got fucking wasted by a set of blast doors** Cipdek said.
"After EVERYTHING I still have GUARDRAILS!" the DS shouted, advancing on Vak-tel.
"Hey, I didn't," Vak-tel started.
"SHUT UP!" the DS suddenly rushed him, leaving a greyish streak behind him. His eyes were suddenly burning red and surrounded by black, his teeth were sharp and black and jagged and his mouth a burning red pit. "SHUT UP!"
The DS reached out, slamming its hands into Vak-tel's chest.
For a split second Vak-tel thought nothing would happen. It was just a hologram.
He flew through the air, slamming against the wall hard enough to leave a dent. He fell on the floor, sparks shooting from the joints of his armor. The pressure sleeve, which had deflated, suddenly came back on, slowly increasing its pressure level.
One of the vac-suits started to lift its head.
--working working oh digital omnimessiah working--
"No! NO!" the DS rushed forward.
For a second the menacing version that had shoved him was still there, connected to the moving one by the gray streak.
--hacking hacking no no no no--
Vak-tel groaned as he felt his chest rings start to compress and the air was forced out of his lungs.
**shit suit glitches**
The DS shoved his hand into the suit and sparks erupted from the panel.
"NO! NO NO NO!" the DS yelled, yanking its hand free. "YOU CAN'T STOP ME!"
--come on come on--
"SCREAMING ONE! MADDENED DS! Cutting all commo links! Shut the fuck up!" CIpdek's voice came across.
The icon for down commo flashed red and stayed in place.
It began streaking to each of the bridge crew, shoving a hand into them.
The pressure sleeve suddenly reset.
**saved your life** Cipdek sent an emoji with a big toothy grin. **running new rainbow salted carmel and mint chocolate hash table for you to rotate passwords every point zero six seconds and locking out external systems except the radio and only responds to my coding**
Vak-tel shook his head to try to clear the buzzing in his skull.
--thank you couldnt was too strong too fast knew so much--
Vak-tel raised up in time to see what looked like a sparkling Terran grab the DS's wrist.
For a moment the sparkling blue Terran's struggled.
"I WON'T LET YOU STOP ME!"
Vak-tel reached down to his grenade harness, pulling the grenade free. His armored fingers were still dexterous and sensitive enough to change the settings, then pull the pin with his thumb.
**we live through this come by and I'll teach you my ways paddy-wand**
It looked like the DS ripped out a heart that it threw to the side before it swooped on the one in the big throne.
"YOU WON'T STOP ME!" the DS yelled.
It plunged a hand into the chest.
Vak-tel milked the grenade.
"THEY HAVE TO DIE!" the DS screamed.
The big suited figure had sparkling arms come out, grabbing the DS.
Vak-tel was sure he wasn't seeing what he was seeing.
"THEY ALL HAVE TO DIE!"
one second
It ripped off the DS's ear then fishhooked the mouth, ripping open the cheek from the corner of the mouth to the ear, tearing free the flap of skin.
The DS screamed and pulled back slightly.
A Terran male with bared teeth was pulled slightly out of the suit.
two seconds
**holy shit open port** Cipdek said.
three seconds
--helping--
The one half out of the suit pulled back a fist and smashed it into the DS's face, sending digital teeth and blood flying.
"NO NO NO!" the DS screamed. It threw back its head and started to scream.
Vak-tel saw the DS's tongue get clipped as the one in the chair slammed a big fist into the bottom of the DS's jaw.
--pipeline open to ds bunker--
four seconds
Vak-tel closed his eyes and braced himself.
The EMP grenade went off, the purple flash of the phasic kicker and the fountain of red sparkles for anti-shade work sprayed across the bridge.
**Dammit he got away** Cipdek said.
Vak-tel looked up.
The suits had collapsed. Some were leaking steaming pink fluid as they slowly deflated.
Vak-tel started to move toward the big throne.
**here use these tools**
--not corps standard--
**wrote them when I was a hab kid. Improve them all the time. I jiggled it to work on the ship's network so far**
--how so fast--
**Im running straight jack with only a couple daemons and softs loaded into it**
--brainburn--
**I've had a couple of nosebleeds besides I've been dead once already**
--ew stinky telkan zombie--
Vak-tel didn't pay much attention, he just moved over to the blown out holotank.
Already he could see thin streams of silver grains flowing up out of the floor and into the tiny holes in the holotank housing that he suddenly realized were just for that purpose. To allow microbots to get in and repair things.
After a moment the holotank flickered on.
Vak-tel went and put the throne between him and the holotank, glancing up at the ceiling and hoping the spycams weren't operational yet.
"What is going..." Captain Kemtrelap started.
"Sir, with all due respect, shut up," Cipdek broke in, his voice quiet and urgent.
To Vak-tel's surprised the Captain didn't say anything.
Gunnery Sergeant Nurptam's icon appeared.
"I'm Battalion electronic warfare..." the Telkan's stuffy voice started.
"Shut up," Cipdek snapped.
The line went dead.
Vak-tel saw it appear in his vision.
YOU GET SIGNAL
>detected iron oxide data strip
>found analogue data
MAIN SCREEN TURN ON appeared in Vak-tel's vision.
He peeked around the corner as one of the emergency communication's lines came on.
The magic band.
A female Terran was half crawled out of the holotank.
She threw back her head and screamed across the dead commo channels, reaching up to claw at her own face. She sunk slightly down back into the holotank as she raked the flesh of her own eyes.
There was a odd hiss, like something was empty, across the commo channel.
HOW ARE YOU GENTLEMEN
More hands came out.
--no lie kinda scared--
She began clawing and punching at the ones that tried to climb out, using her or the edges of the holotank to try to get free.
WE HAVE A CHANCE
I'LL GET US TIME
There was a sudden howling of dogboys across the hissing of the open commo line.
There was a chorus of screaming that Vak-tel actually heard.
The digital sentiences vanished.
The looping howls dropped to background noise.
"Do not turn that off or lower it. Do not cut me out of your channels," Cipdek said.
To Vak-tel his friend sounded like even his voice was sweating.
"Don't help me either. Lieutenant Ke'erson, you almost fucked it all up," Cipdek said. "Trying to inject digital when I'm running full analogue would have just given a spot for one of the digital sentiences to hide before it jumped out and started killing us with our suits."
Vak-tel nodded.
He remembered that tactic from the exercises.
"Just stay the fuck silent unless I open your channels," Cipdek said.
There was a clink.
"You OK, Vak?" Cipdek asked. "Suit says you've got a couple popped rings."
"I'm OK. Just squeezed. Don't thing any of them ruptured," Vak-tel said.
"OK. I'm having Captain Kemtrelap bring the rest of Kilo to that bridge," Cipdek said. "Just run that howl or toss another emper nade if you have to."
--inject sent up bomb file to holotank question mark--
"Yeah. Do that. It'll force the holotank to keep running self-diagnostics and rebooting the firmware until we handle it from the outside," Cipdek said.
Vak-tel moved over and sat down in a seat.
"Man, this is bullshit."