As things turned out, the path ended up leading me to a Y shaped intersection, with one side leading farther down into the earth. The other led upward, toward a higher elevation compared to the section of tunnel that I had been walking down for the past 10 minutes.

During the walk along the tunnel, I discovered a wonderful feature of the Deep Breath, that Eris had forgotten to mention. Alongside the projected path the Lib-VRRRT-tea’s bullets would take, it also had some sort of built in short range radar system.

Though I probably should have guessed that the presumably underwater designed helmet would have a feature like this. After all, shining a light underwater could just be ringing the dinner bell for some alien species of fish.

It had taken a couple of minutes to get used to seeing everything inside of 100’ as a wireframe model, but it had helpfully rendered trying to attach my flashlight to the Lib-VRRT-tea a non issue.

It had ended up being stuffed into one of the unused ammo pouches on the front of the “light assault armor.”

Still had that growing suspicion that part of the kit was just a regular flak jacket, it simply didn’t match with the gauntlets and greaves.

“Eris, is it possible to display my rough geo location on the Deep Breath? Could be that there’s a basement that we can get into along one of these sides.”

That is a great idea, though we will need to get a connection to the outside world before I can pass that data to you. Please hold a moment.

I've detected a network running through the roof, leading down both sides, and I've managed to intercept a packet of data. I’ll put the data through to the Deep Breath right away.

That got a little eyebrow raise on the inside of the helmet, but the task of manipulating the map via voice commands to Eris soon pushed that thought out of the way.

5 minutes of interacting with the second worst voice control scheme later, it was revealed that I had arrived near what had been an old folks home in my world. Though the barbed wire, brick perimeter fence, and guard towers were a new addition.

Of course, they had tried their best, but a very common occurrence was a massive overshoot when I had only intended to do a small move to get a better look at something.

“*Yawns* Well we should at least be able to make use of their front lawn to procure a ride, I’m sure the guys at CFB Shearwater won’t mind if I crash there.”

They should have zero issues with you sleeping there, as unless procedure has changed in the last hour or so, all Vanguards are given an automatic rank of Captain in the local military. It would probably be best to introduce yourself as a Samurai though, as that is the local equivalent name to Vanguard.

“Samurai huh. Alright, once we get to Shearwater, Eris, no interruptions unless the world catches on fire. I want to have a nice quiet rest before I have to deal with anything else.” Surely not tempting Murphy, I headed out down the tunnel towards the old folks home.

Hopefully the guards weren’t too trigger happy about things popping out of the ground, or that the tunnel wouldn’t end far enough underground that it would take hours of digging to make it to the surface.

Of course, none of my mental calculations or guesses for when I neared the end of the tunnel, after another 5 minutes of walking.

I mean, who would expect to find a vault door, straight out of a bank at the end of a dirt tunnel.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“So Eris…. Is it normal for large buildings here to have an underground vault door, leading into an underground dirt tunnel?” I asked, confused about the requirements that would lead to this.

I was also secretly relieved that this was what I had run into, and not some eldritch mass of tentacles coming out of the walls of the tunnel.

This… This is unexpected. I don’t believe that we will have to worry about contacting security in order to get in though. They appear to be coming out to greet you.

Sure enough, the 5’ thick vault door slowly swung open, complete with all of the warning klaxons and strobe lights, to reveal 16 nervous looking humanoid shapes.

One major downside to the wireframe system, was that it was impossible to pick up things like words, or badges when there was no relative depth between them and what they were attached to.

“Hold on a second, let me get this helmet off.” I said, holding up a hand to forestall the shape that looked like it was about to start talking. “This thing is great for rendering flashlights to the past tense, but it’s not that good at the fine details.”

“I imagine that it’s quite useful in a tunnel.” The shape, now revealed to be the chief of security, said, while nervously scratching the back of his head. “I must apologize, Miss Samurai, if I had known that you were conducting a tunnel sweep today, I would have sent a group with you to provide assistance.”

“A tunnel sweep?” I asked, now having my turn to scratch the back of my head. “I think that there's been a bit of a misunderstanding. I was fighting a Model Three, when we both went through a portal and ended up in your tunnels.”

The chief visibly relaxed, then turned to the gathered guards. “Right then you lot, get sweeping to inspection point one. Fall back if you encounter any signs of a hive before then.”

As the rest of the guards filed past, the chief turned his attention back toward me. “Now then, is there anything else that we could help you with, Miss…?”

“Thunderchild.” I replied, pulling the name of the monitor from War of the Worlds. I’m sure the author wouldn’t mind me using it as a call sign to fight alien invaders. “If possible, I’d like to make use of your front lawn as a landing spot for my transportation.”

“That won’t be a problem in the slightest. Please follow me, Miss Thunderchild.” The chief replied, waving for me to follow, as the vault door made its loud passage to close behind me.

“Eris, please spin up a transport for me. Let’s go for the longer haul for this one, and include stealth features, alongside an autopilot system until I learn to fly it myself.”

Of course, it’s waiting for you on the lawn. You can also purchase a dream training program alongside augmetics for better control, once you land at Shearwater. They will be able to be installed during your sleep without affecting it.

Item purchased:

Class 1 “Ghost-rider” MK 10 Assault Dropship (stealth variant) 10,000 points.

“Alright, start going over recommendations for aug’s, as well as some kind of IFF system to work with the Deep Breath. We can go over it before I hit the sack.”

Very well, I’ll start chewing on this task. Yet another excellent idea.

One eyebrow raising, and one quick walk through the building revealed… nothing but the grass blowing gently in the morning breeze.

“Uhh, Eris?”

Oh. Right, no augmetics. Disabling visual stealth systems.

Shimmering into view, was a black coloured teardrop, with an engine block hanging off of each side, each running whisper quiet. Slung under the nose was what looked like a 75mm cannon, along with a pair of rotary cannons attached on gimbal mounts, one on each side just forward and inboard of the engine blocks.

It looked an awful lot like a stretched and widened version of the dropship from Helldivers, with a couple extra guns added for better democratic ballot delivery.

“I see that someone’s taken some ‘inspiration’ from my world.” I jokingly said as I climbed aboard.

I would never.

However, Murphy had come for his due, dashing my hopes of going to sleep. As the ramp closed and I sat down on one of the seats along the outside of the dropship, there was a squeaking sound just audible coming from my helmet. Pulling it on, I just barely got the end of what the message had been.

*We are unable to provide extraction, out.*

“Eris, what was that about?” I asked, dreams of a nap sliding away.

One second please.

It appears that an antithesis hive has breached the basement of a nearby cheese factory. The Beaver Tails PMC is currently in the process of fighting their way into the core of the hive, and has the equipment needed to deal with it. However the top most shelter in the factory has had its door system malfunction, leaving the roughly 20 workers inside vulnerable. The Beaver Tails are likely not going to be able to clear the hive, and deal with the antithesis roaming the building, before the automated defensive system on the shelter runs out of ammunition.

I stared at the other wall of the extraction vehicle that I was sitting, and then softly sighed. “Did someone really build a cheese factory at Cheese Factory Corner?”

Yes

“Alright, get us headed that way Eris.” I said, shaking my head, as the Ghost-rider gained altitude.

“It’s time to get that cheese.”