Leaning out from her cover again, Sam was in time to see one of her droids get crushed by an enormous mechanical walker. An elite droid was clearly operating the large bipedal machine. Sam could see the elite droid through the clear shield covering the pilot seat.

“I want that, Mech!” Sam thought excitedly. Even as it punted another of her droids across the room and fired a barrage of lasers, cutting down several more.

Sam didn't care about losing the overridden droids; she knew the override spell would only last a few more minutes. The droids were doing their job by distracting the attacking forces.

Firing several shots from her rifle, Sam took out a droid that was focusing on Nul as the slime teleported around, sending void bolts in all directions. She tried to move from cover to get a better shot at another of the attackers harassing Lupie. She stopped when a small metallic object clinked to the deck in front of her, followed by two more. "What the—”

“Protect user!” S-3’s voice cut Sam’s curious words off as it dove atop the three small objects.

That's when Sam realized the objects were grenades. The thought had no more crossed her mind when they exploded.

Most of Sam’s shield was instantly destroyed, and she was launched back from the force of the blasts, hitting the hard metal wall with an audible “oof!”

Disoriented, Sam looked around in a daze before her Rebuild skill kicked in and healed her ruptured eardrums. Her chest was aching more than usual after the skill activated, and she realized why when she reached down to find S-3's arm was still embedded in her lung.

Checking her mana, Sam stood yanking at the arm stuck in her torso. She was down half her total reserves and had only seen two kill notifications. "Lupie, I need help getting this out!" She called when she couldn't free the stupid arm from her already healed body.

Abandoning her cover, Lupie ran over and grabbed the arm in Sam’s chest. Bracing a foot against Sam, the Bloodmorph pulled. Sam gritted her teeth at the pain as the droid’s arm slowly pulled free of her body with a wet sucking sound.

“We need to retreat,” Sam gasped when the arm finally pulled free. Sending the message through their party chat so Nul would get it, Sam ordered her three remaining droids to fall back with them.

When she reached the door they entered through, Sam turned to cover the retreat only to see S-1 get pancaked by the mech. Sam hammered the giant mechanical monstrosity, firing void bolts from her threads even as she used Identify.

Hyperlite Mobile Armor [Level 100]

Classification: Armored Combat Frame

Quality: Exceptional

Damage: 93% Functional

Magical: No

Loadout: Heavy Laser x 4; Explosive Projectile Launcher x 1; Seeker Missile Launcher x 1.

Functions: High damage output attack frame.

Max Occupants: 2

Before the company was dissolved, the Hyperlite Manufacturing Consortium was the exclusive seller of this mass-produced mobile attack frame. These mobile armor units are capable of operating in the atmosphere and vacuum. These attack frames were once the most versatile weapons for close infantry support. Their relatively slow speeds and short range of 100 kilometers (in standard gravity) means they serve best as drop troop support. They support a maximum capacity of 2 bipedal life forms as pilots (the frame can be modified to support other species types upon request). They come standard with an AI-supported navigation and targeting system for low-visibility areas. They also have enough organic supplies for one System standard month to support their crew. Note: The pilot and copilot must be within 20 levels of the armor to be capable of operating it safely.

Seeing the absolute power of the armor coupled with how her void bolts barely left a scratch on the plating around its legs, Sam knew they were outmatched. Maybe if there wasn't a seemingly endless wave of droids supporting it, they could take it down, but she wasn't sure even then. As they retreated, Sam managed to take two more droids down, but as each one fell, another of the dormant ones on the floor would stand up and begin attacking.

By the time S-2 and S-4 dashed past her, her mana was in danger of bottoming out. Sam wasted no time closing the door behind them, thankful the controller was still overridden. A rapid series of muted thumps and at least two explosions echoed through the thick metal of the armory doors when they hissed shut.

“Keep moving!” Sam shouted and vaporized the small door controller with a void bolt, hoping to buy them some time. Her only consolation was she didn’t think the mech suit would fit through the doorway. “Unless it can change into a car or something and run us down that way,” she thought as they finally cleared the sightline of the door.

“Lupie, throw up a blood barrier to block off this hallway!” Sam shouted over a massive explosion that vibrated the floor. “Well, I guess they're through the door,” Sam thought when she saw the dust and debris coming around the bend in the corridor.

Before Lupie could form a barrier, something small and black shot toward them from the direction of the armory. Sam raised her hands and formed a Kinetic Dampener in front of her…or at least she tried to. She remembered too late that she no longer had that spell in her arsenal. “Oh shi—" Sam’s words were cut off when the small missile smashed through her hex shields and detonated!

***

Hundreds of tiny pellets perforated Sam from head to toe, followed closely by a burst of white-hot flame. Even as she was being thrown back from the blast, she watched in horror as two more missiles followed the one that struck her, heading for each of her companions. Before she could warn Lupie and Nul, the missiles reached them and…slipped soundlessly into a Void Tunnel. Sam couldn't be sure, but she thought she saw the back of the Mech suit on the other side of the portal just before it whooshed out of existence. Sam heard two explosions from down the hallway at about the same time as her head ‘thunked’ against the hard metal floor, sending spots across her vision.

Pulling a mana potion from her inventory, Sam chugged it, sighing with relief that Nul had enough presence of mind to redirect the missile attack. Her mana headache faded from the potion, and Sam returned her focus to the task at hand: somehow surviving what she assumed would be an endless wave of attackers storming around the bend.

"S-2, will the droids follow us into the hanger bay if we run for it?" She asked as an idea started to form in her head.

“Some will, yes, but not all,” was the immediate mechanical reply.

“Okay. In that case, as soon as Lupie finishes the barricade, let’s all retreat to the hanger bay. On our way back, we’ll collapse the tunnel again if we can. It will also give me time to recover some mana while we run.”

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They all silently waited, listening to the dozens of footsteps approaching from the armory entrance. The sound cut off abruptly when Lupie finished the thick blood barrier completely blocking off the corridor. As one everyone turned and started running back toward the hanger bay.

Lupie transitioned into her wolf form, and Sam leaped onto her back, snatching Nul from the air when the slime teleported next to her. Lupie grabbed the two remaining droids with her tentacles and activated her movement skill.

Sam’s vision tunneled from the sheer speed at which Lupie was running. The Bloodmorph actually used the wall to run on occasionally when the bend in the hallway allowed.

When they reached the previously collapsed part of the tunnel, Lupie didn't even slow down. Instead, she went into a crouch and slid beneath the beams they installed to support the weight of the collapse. She used void-coated blades at the end of her tentacles to sever the metal supports as they slid past them.

The sounds of the roof collapsing echoed in Sam’s ears as they continued their retreat into the hanger bay. Sliding to a stop behind a stalagmite, Lupie asked, “What is the plan, Mistress?”

“If you have enough energy and blood, I need you to set up as many barriers as possible between us and the hallway we just exited!” Sam said quickly, trying to formulate a plan. “Nul, if we are overwhelmed, I want you to open a portal leading to the grove above us, and we’ll retreat out of the dungeon.” She turned to her remaining droids and asked, “Can the two of you survive outside the dungeon?”

"Affirmative," both nodded in unison.

“Good, in that case, I want you to retreat with us if it comes to that,” Sam said, hoping it didn’t, but wanted to be prepared, nonetheless.

They all waited silently behind their cover as echoes of explosions vibrated from the direction of the armory. Sam did her best to refill as much of her energy reserves as she could while waiting. She even thought about changing back to her Pathfinder class but refrained. Sam didn't like not being able to level, but at the same time, being able to override and reprogram droids helped balance the cost somewhat. She knew she would have to change back eventually to increase her strength but was determined to give this class her best effort first.

On a whim, Sam handed out several arcane mana crystals to the droids and her companions, instructing them to toss them at their enemies like grenades and let her or Nul know so either could shoot them with a void bolt.

The attack came a few minutes later, but not from the corridor leading to the armory, as they were expecting. Instead, laser blasts started raining down on them from their left and right!

"Blockages have been cleared," S-2 said while firing with S-4 at the droids approaching from either side.

“No shit, they’ve been cleared,” Sam grunted, shouldering her rifle and returning fire at the fast-approaching enemies. It was difficult to see them through the constant flashing of her shield and the chunks of rock being kicked up by the ballistic rounds.

“Above us!” Lupie’s voice shouted into Sam’s head, momentarily drowning out the battle noise.

Looking up, Sam cursed under her breath; several dozen drones the size of her torso were arching across the ceiling and beginning a strafing run on their position.

Tossing an arcane crystal into the approaching swarm, Sam shot it with a void bolt. The detonation destroyed the closest drones and knocked many others out of their flight path, throwing off their aim. A few still got good hits in their group, though, with Sam and Lupie taking several painful shots from the hot mana lasers. Sam realized the hex shield was great, but one of its drawbacks was that the individual shields couldn’t take much damage before being destroyed and having to recharge. And with the rapid-fire lasers from the mana weapons, it didn’t take long for one of her shields to drop and let an attack through.

Grabbing a few of the drones as they zipped past with her void threads, Sam used their momentum to slam them into the floor before blasting each of them with a void bolt. She received kill notifications for her efforts. She noticed Lupie sliced several open with her void-coated tentacles as well.

“We will be overrun in thirteen seconds,” S-4 informed the group in its emotionless robot voice.

Sam knew it was true. Her hex shields were dropping left and right, letting more and more attacks through. Even though the laser blasts were relatively weak, they stacked up over time, and already, her reserves were close to being exhausted again. Still, she thought they may have a chance if she could get more mana crystals into the tightly packed formations of droids approaching from either side.

Just then, an explosion rocked the hanger bay, blowing apart Lupie’s final blood barrier. The mech burst from the corridor they blocked off.

“Shit! Time to go, everyone! Nul, get us out of here!” Sam yelled even as the enormous mech stood to its full height and turned toward them. “Well, I guess I was wrong; the damn thing could fit into the hallway after all.”

A portal opened in front of her, and Lupie dove through, snagging S-2 and Sam with her tentacles. As Sam requested, Nul hadn't left her head during the fight. S-4 was halfway through the portal when a barrage of missiles slammed into its back, blowing the droid to pieces.

The portal whooshed closed, and Sam stood in the grove at the edge of the hole left by the collapsing escape pod. Not wanting to take any chances, Sam quickly stored the remains of S-4 and dropped a beachball-sized wad of mana crystals into the hole after priming the bomb with a void bolt.

Reacting to Sam's spur-of-the-moment plan, Lupie yanked Sam, Nul, and S-2 onto her back and took off away from the grove at a sprint. Her breath came in labored gasps as she ran. Between panting breaths, she said, "Nul, please open a portal at least a kilometer away."

Instantly, another portal opened, and they ran through. Lupie stopped and turned back to look at the grove. They were on a large hill roughly a kilometer from the battle now. Curiously, Lupie asked Sam, “How many crystals did you drop?”

“Um, most of them,” Sam replied sheepishly.

At her words, Lupie immediately turned and activated her Final Push skill. They were still way too close!

***

Cara was standing at the edge of a small crater, staring at the lifeless remains of one of her mortal enemies. She used one of her skills to reconstruct the ashen remains lying in the black sarcophagus. The outline of a Bovalin now hovered over the pile of ash, displaying what the creature looked like when it was alive.

Although she couldn't raise the dead, Cara had her own tricks, and Forensic Reconstruction was one of them. She wasn't chosen out of the thousands of volunteers for this mission because she was related to the clan leader. Her clan didn't work that way. She was selected because of her ability to find things. These things didn't want to be found, such as the final resting place of one of the murderous savages responsible for the death of so many of her friends.

But it didn't make sense. How was a Bovalin here? The last she saw of the two starships, they looked like they were both destroyed in the battle. She was hopeful when the church discovered the crashed ship cycles ago, only to be disappointed when it wound up being an airship of some type from ages past. Judging from the many ancient ruins she discovered on this planet, she hypothesized that Hallista had been subject to several extinction or near-extinction events throughout its past.

Returning to the present, Cara asked the ashen remains, "Where is the rest of your crew? And more importantly, where is your ship?" Knowing the fragile outline of ash couldn't respond, Cara turned her attention to the barely perceptible trail of footprints leading away from the crater and activated a tracking ability that highlighted the tracks for her.

Looking one last time toward the battleground, where, from what she could tell, a short but violent battle had taken place, Cara turned her attention back to the tracks that, judging by their shape and size, she assumed they were from another Bovalin.

“I will hunt you until the end of time if that is what it takes,” Cara thought, grinding her teeth in rage at the thought that one of the creatures that murdered her crew might still be alive and, on this planet, no less.

Several hours later, Cara found a campsite where, much to her surprise, she discovered a shriveled eyeball and brain matter amongst the tall grass of the plains. What was even more surprising was the DNA matched that of a Bovalin.

“Just how formidable is this, Sam?” Cara thought to herself as she mentally reviewed what she found so far in her search for the elusive Pathfinder. "Let's see…first, there were the remains of what I assume was a reptile of some sort in the canyon. Then, her trail led past an e-grade griffon’s nest before exiting the canyon. After that, she must have fought and killed the burned e-grade Bovalin…or maybe it was another…the data was not clear on that. Either way, this Sam has killed at least three e-grades, and she's what? Level forty...maybe fifty now? She is not to be trifled with, but I thought that was because she was strong for her level, not because she was a match for e-grades."

Cara was worried; her daughter was apparently traveling with a person powerful enough to go toe to toe with beings that even she would approach cautiously. “She didn’t seem that strong when I saw her fight outside the cave…but she did kill two high-level church members in seconds and survive a direct attack that cut her in half. She has also apparently recovered from what should have been a mortal wound. Then subsequently fought and defeated two e-grades in less than a week…just who is this Pathfinder?"

Cara's internal musings were cut short when she felt the ground shake, followed by the sound of a far-off explosion. Looking to the origin of the sound, Cara gasped at the mushroom cloud silhouetted in the distant twilight. It was in the direction of the Pathfinder's footsteps. A shockwave laid the grass flat a few seconds later as it passed.

“Oh, ancestors, what have I gotten myself into?” Cara asked before, almost reluctantly, running toward the massive violet and black cloud.