When the Zenith forces finally broke through into the underground chamber, dozens of bots came bursting through the new hole, scanning the area with weapons at the ready. The collapsing of the tunnel had caught the artificial intelligence off guard temporarily. The Zenith AI could calculate multiple outcomes and probability factors but sometimes had a hard time predicting the certain unpredictability factor that these Titans could sometimes exhibit.

This time, the responding forces were ready for nearly any insurgent tactic that might be thrown at them. What they were not ready for, was for the underground chamber to be completely empty. There were no signs of the rebels, though they did find the dead Canid super soldier lying on the ground. Several of the MV1 units went over to examine the dead body, while more spread out to fill the outer reaches, searching for a second way out of the chamber while still others busied themselves widening the mouth of the opening and fortifying it.

The robotic drones did not speak aloud unless it was to give implicit orders or instructions to Titans. They instead bounced information back between each other and ultimately to the central Zenith intelligence. It was no wonder that among the populace, the ones that knew about it at least, would often call the Zenith supreme AI a robot god. It was capable of using every one of the robots as extensions of its own consciousness, interpreting the information it received from millions of robotic entities across the galaxy, and instantly calculate this vast amount of data in a nanosecond.

But once again, the Zenith supreme AI had a certain blind spot when it came to particularly bold or suicidal tactics. While the supreme intelligence was certainly aware of such technologic advancements such as the extremely rare armors like the Phantasm series that could utilize light bending stealth invisibility, and even invented and developed it, it leaned hard on the data that it already had, that the fugitives were alone down there, and that they had no such advanced technologies. If they had such advanced armor systems, surely they would have used them by now?

The one tactic that the overmind did not fathom, was that there was a trio of Titans utilizing invisibility technology standing right by the place where the Zenith forces broke through and entered. And as soon as an opening presented itself, they simply walked right through the new opening and back up the ramp.

The Zenith troops in the area busied themselves like ants moving around the area, searching for the fugatives and guarding the entrance to the hole. The robot collective consciousness’ first indication that they had severely miscalculated was when one of the helicopters was hijacked.

From inside the central control unit of the helicopter, Lupis took possession of the controls and immediately took off, at the same time, he dropped the Phantasm armor’s stealth mode. Kicking the destroyed robot pilot out the open doorway, he slammed the door shut while the blades were spooling up. The action took the robotic units standing outside by surprise, but not for long. They received orders to stop the helicopter, which they quickly surrounded.

Lupis leaned out the window with his Roland machine pistol and opened fire. Three of the MV1 battle drones were destroyed in the blink of an eye. By the time the other units had received orders to ignore adverse property damage to the Zenith helicopter, an action they needed special permission to carry out, and open fire, the helicopter blades were in full motion and the vehicle was achieving liftoff.

As the centrifugal force plastered Ricky and Rocco to the floorboards in the rear of the vehicle while it raised into the air, angry holes began punching through the fuselage with ear splitting twangs.

“Shit we’re gonna die!” Rocco shouted over the thumping whirl of the blades.

They lifted off under a storm of small arms fire. Though the vehicle looked a little like a piece of swiss cheese with hundreds of beams of daylight pouring in from everywhere, eventually the gunfire stopped, and the brothers realized that somehow, they had managed to escape. Their small victory seemed a lot more like a defeat though, as they had left Bingo, Amiga and Eligah behind somewhere in the volatile situation. What they didn’t realize at that point was there were already swarms of aerial drones and several attack helicopters already moving to intercept them.

Back inside the underground chamber, the scores of Zenith robotic troops continued to search the area, having already received transmission that the helicopter had escaped at the insistence of the central AI. The Constructo 500 units were moved up and began unearthing the inner chamber to the ancient temple that had also had a partial cave-in when the explosion decimated the entry tunnel. Several of the units with advanced sensors had begun detecting a single life sign on the inside of the temple.

It took time to dig the entryway back out again, but the Zenith robots never tired, or grumbled, or grew unsatisfied with their position or task at hand. They simply obediently carried out their programming without hesitation. Another positive about the robot workers was that Zenith never seemed to run out of them, and with so many working tirelessly, they were able to achieve tasks that would have taken Titan workers weeks in mere hours. The robots worked just as enthusiastically after an hour or five hours’ worth of back breaking labor as they had started the task with.

Thus, it took about two hours for them to break through into the inner chamber of the temple. All scans were still reading one life sign inside, which meant there must have been an adequate pocket of air to survive. The bulky construction robots moved aside once the chamber was cleared, and multiple MV1 battle drones moved in, leading with their assault rifles.

They were expecting one of the Procyon rebels, but the Zenith intelligence was somewhat taken by surprise when, instead of an armed insurgent, ready to fight for his life, or even perhaps surrender to them, they saw only an old Prairie dog, covered in a layer of silt from the collapse. He seemed neither antagonistic nor thankful for the recovery effort. Instead, he was much more engrossed in something within the chamber. After a moment, he turned to regard the sudden appearance of the guns aimed at him, and the drones carrying them almost as an afterthought.

“Ah yes. That’s the final ingredient of course, I should have known.” The old Titan had something in his hands that the multiple camera lenses inside the robots’ heads’ zoomed in on. “Air flow.”

It was a simple pack of matches. He struck one of these and held it to the flimsy shirt that he had taken off and was draped inside of an impossibly old, worn basin. The shirt caught fire and the basin suddenly appeared like a brazier of some sort. The flickering flame continued its provocative dance inside of the pit and Eligah smiled widely.

“There it is now. Good show.”

“Come with us.” One of the battle drones reached out and grabbed the old Titan by the arm, yanking him roughly to his feet.

“Wait, wait. I need to see what happens next!” Eligah cried out, but his protests fell on deaf circuits.

What did happen next came as a surprise even to the highly evolved Zenith AI, which for all of its computation prowess could not have predicted in a million simulation runs.

The dancing flame changed colors and brightened to the point that it became painful to gaze directly at. And then the entire chamber began to rumble. Eligah trembled with excitement.

“Something’s happening! It works! By Jove he’s coming!”

The Zenith supreme AI knew exactly what this place was, having absorbed the collective of Titan’s historical record into its own database before scrubbing it from the Titannet. It knew all about the ancient mythology and the scattered sites across the globe. But despite its advanced intelligence, the AI was still a simple machine of numbers and data. It had put no credibility into the ancient campfire tales and had waived away mythology as mere fiction that held a place only in weak Titan psychology. It certainly had no place in the modern world.

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The AI commanded the units to put out the flame. The two that stepped forward to do this were liquified instantly when they touched the now brightly glowing flare. The flame seemed to be growing in power or pressure, the earth shook violently and suddenly the top blew and the flame exploded out from the chamber like a nuclear blast, causing thousands of tons of rock and soil to blast high into the sky, exposing the temple to the bright blue Rook Coast sky for the first time in maybe centuries.

The flame still burning within the ancient brazier was gathering strength and intensity, much more than a mere flame from a burning piece of cloth now, it was a beacon, reaching high into the upper atmosphere of the planet. Something in the reaches of space saw it, and moved to respond.

* * * *

When the helicopter landed, Rocco predictably tried to make an escape. It may have been a better idea if the pair of them had tried to jump the bounty hunter from behind while he was otherwise engaged in the basic operation of the vehicle. As it stood, within the cramped confines, a simple shove and a slap was enough to put aside any further attempts to get away. Lupis wrestled the packs from their back and confiscated their empty weapons and melee weapons just to make sure.

It was then that he noticed how technologically advanced the little packs they had been wearing like backpacks were. He had assumed them to simply be some type of storage, but they were some type of highly advanced machinery, the likes of which he had never seen before…even with his own Phantasm Model 3 power armor.

“What are these? Some type of weapon?” The booming angry sounding robotic voice sounded from the speakers inside of the armor.

“Those are…” Rocco began in a defiant tone but quickly looked to his brother for support.

“Those are nonfunctioning prototypes. We uh…stole them back in Kallerish City from some rebels.” Ricky spoke quickly and confidently.

“Figured they might be worth a small fortune.” Suddenly the train of thought brought the bigger Procyon’s thought back to his recent acquisition. “Ah shit. The sexbot. Damn that would’ve been worth a good sum.”

“Right, just like those computer chips Rocky had us take before Kallerish. We never got a chance to see what those were worth either.”

“Or those bots from Marshall Industries. Damn. We’re bad at this. We’ve stolen a lot lately and got zero to show for it all.”

“We made a little from Bingo’s friend. Remember that?”

Rocco thought back to when they first arrived in Kallerish City and ran afoul of a cyborg repossessor. They’d been more or less forced to fight him to the death, and afterwards they found a shady blackmarket site that bought back all the parts for a tidy sum. They had later found out that the parts were worth way more than they had received, but it was enough that they had been subsisting off those credits ever since.

“You’d have me believe these are worthless prototypes?” Lupis responded skeptically.

Lupis had Gabriel, his armor’s AI system run a scan on the backpacks. Within seconds it came back with some interesting results. They were not machined or manufactured by any known official Zenith company, which meant they were blackmarket. Also, after analyzing the design, Gabriel surmised that incredibly enough, they must have been meant for locomotive purposes.

“These are some sort of portable flight packs?” Lupis asked the pair.

“Well they were supposed to be I think. Maybe something like that, but they don’t work.”

“Interesting.” Lupis slung both of the packs’ straps over one arm for easy carrying and then pointed to the door. “Move.” He commanded.

The brothers had little choice in the matter, especially with the hulking mass of machinery right behind them. The armor made the Titan inside the suit much stronger and faster than them. They all stepped off the helicopter and saw a sleek expensive personal transport ship parked on landing gear with the back hatch standing open in the middle of the dry field they were now in.

There was no time for debate as the clear sounds of helicopter blades beating the air came from the horizon and were rapidly drawing closer by the second. No doubt their stolen ride was trackable by the Zenith forces, and they were headed straight for them.

“Go.” The armored bounty hunter commanded.

Ricky looked around, cursing the fact that the hunter had noticed their packs. That had been the majority of the escape plan he had been cooking up in his head on their little helicopter ride. He had figured once they landed and got out, the brothers would be able to distract him long enough to blast off into the clear blue yonder.

With that escape plan no longer an option, he could see no other way out. Trying to fight the power armor with no weapons was out of the question, even with weapons, he assumed most everything they had access to would likely just bounce off. Trying to outrun it was the same song. He was no expert on personal armor platforms and surely Rocky would have been able to provide exact statistics, but as far as he heard most models could provide assisted running at thirty to forty miles an hour, for prolonged periods of time. Some probably could provide even greater speeds, maybe up to sixty miles an hour or better. And the one that this bounty hunter had was not the gigantic boxy heavily armored type, it was sleek and looked made especially for maneuverability. And could apparently turn bloody invisible on top of everything else!

“Move.” The armored figure shoved him forward, breaking Ricky from his musings.

Rocco looked to his brothers with a deep pleading in his eyes. No words were needed between the brothers to convey the message those eyes held. What are you waiting for? This is the time to pull some crazy half-cocked plan from your arsehole and get us out of here!

But they were in a flat field with no cover save for the helicopter and the bounty hunter’s spaceship that he was prodding them towards. They had no weapons, no ammunition, nothing to fight back with against the armored hulk. Even if they’d had something to fight back with, that armor looked like it meant serious business and likely had a complement of built in arms to fight off the entirety of the Zenith forces pursuing them if need be. Certainly, they had bore witness to the remarkably strong sword that had been capable of plunging through the tough hide of that Canid supertitan back there…

Despite himself, Ricky put one foot in front of the other and complied. He found himself being let up the ramp and into the back of the vehicle, his brother by his side with a truly defeated look crossing his normally proud face.

“Greetings! It appears as though we once again reunite under less then ideal situations.”

When they got to the top of the ramp, both brothers were surprised to see Atani, Amiga’s brother.

Ricky whirled around to glare at the armored bounty hunter.

“What the hell is this? You kidnapped our friend? He can’t have a bounty on him…I’m…almost certain of that.”

“He doesn’t. He was my backup insurance policy. I would have used him against you. I didn’t need it.”

“Great! That means you’ll let me go then, right? Wasn’t that the deal? In that case I guess I’ll be seeing you…”

The armored hulk stepped in front of the Foxen to physically bar his progression.

“After.” Came the slightly tinny voice from the featureless mirrored helmet.

“Right then.” Atani lost none of his outward cheekiness, he instead walked further back inside the ship, into what looked like an open cargo area and had a seat. “Well, come on and join the party guys.”

Ricky and Rocco went and sat down next to the Foxen, as the ramp retracted back into the ship and the rear hatch closed up. By now the Zenith aircraft had moved into sight in the distance, and would be probably shooting them or blowing them up within minutes or perhaps even seconds. Ricky felt the need to call this to the bounty hunter’s attention.

“We got multiple inbound bogies.”

Lupis issued a thought command through his helmet, which was linked to his ship’s AI to liftoff and begin heading to orbit. To the other three Titans that suddenly felt the ship begin to move, they assumed there must have been another driver present. Lupis knew the value in using confusion as a tactic and made no attempt to dissuade their probable assumption. They would be less likely after all to attempt escape if they believed he might not be alone.

Lupis said nothing else to his three prisoners and instead unceremoniously made his way through the cargo hold and into the front portion of his ship. After stepping through the doorway which closed behind him, he issued another mental command to his ship to lock the cargo bay access. It was at that moment that the ship pitched to the side and rocked violently. He could see a feed from one of the ship’s cameras that a long range missile had been fired at them, and exploded just a few dozen feet from the mark.

The bounty hunter passed his private quarters off to the right-hand side and quickly slid behind the pilot seat. Sensor readings provided a dizzying amount of information on display. Just as the Procyon had said, there were in fact multiple targets inbound, four fast moving attack helicopters coming in low from the Southeast, the direction of the dig site, and one coming in from the North, the direction of Furwood along with what looked like a small air force worth of automated aerial drones. But what was really worrying was the undisclosed number of fast moving interceptor ships with advanced radar and microwave cloaking capabilities that the Rhapsody was predicting might be coming in from multiple angles.

“Manual control.” Lupis thought into his helmet, and the flight sticks instantly gave way to his manipulation within the iron grip of his suit’s gauntlets.

“It’s been awhile since I’ve had to test myself against interceptors. Bring it on…” Lupis thought to himself.