All three of us stood by a holographic light table in the armory while Strafford looked over the information that Gumi had sent him.

"So," Strafford said, swiping through the holographic images, "looks like your friends are trying to find our base, it seems."

"Looks that way," Meiko said, "I assume Gumi gave you the information regarding their location?"

"She did," Strafford answered, his white dots having an intense look that observed every detail on the feed, "she's asking for a couple of my troops to help you take whatever it is you need from that base. Normally, I'd tell you that we can't spare anyone, but you're the ones who helped us, so I can't really turn you down."

"We're going to try to utilize as little as we can," Meiko added, "but we could use a vehicle to get there, and a few support troops just to keep watch while we get inside. Once we take this base, there's plenty we can take from it, including supplies for your group."

"You've done so much for us already," he said, looking at Meiko. "I'd feel bad if I didn't pay you back somehow."

"We won't hold it over your head," Meiko said, "it's not like those supplies are going to go anywhere for us. If it's something your group can use, it's yours. I'm sure we can make a deal down the line once we need it."

Strafford nodded, and looked over the planning table again.

"I think I have a good idea of what we're up against," he said. "I've put together a team of volunteers willing to come with us. It's a small group of men and women willing to come with us."

"How many?" Meiko asked.

"About seven; two engineers, one infantry, a medic, and a recon scout along with myself. We'll make our way to the base and see about finding out where your friends came from, as well as getting them away from us. The last thing we need is another faction at odds with us."

I looked at the holographic planning table and noticed that there was little information about the inside of the facility. Only the outside area was noted.

"According to our scouts," Strafford added, "it seems they get supplies coming in from a shipyard. The shipyard drops off supplies as well as reinforcements, and the dropship takes off back into Interspace. We don't know where they're getting them, but they seem to have a pretty big operation going on. I'd wager you all probably want that more than anything."

"Frankly," Luka said, "we could use as much info as possible. The supplies are yours, but we need that data or we're all going to be in trouble. If they're just sitting by and recording information about this place, there's no telling if they're planning to attack."

"Fine by me," Strafford said, "suit up and meet us at the hangars. We'll be making our way over by aircraft."

"Gotcha," Meiko said. "We'll be there in ten."

Everyone nodded in agreement, and split off to grab our equipment while Strafford got his team ready.

I grabbed the same rifle I was using the last time we came, and grabbed it. I loaded a magazine into it and secured a few extra rounds that sat on my hip. The new suit was nice for storage. I also grabbed a sidearm that shared the same glowing aesthetic as the rest of the routine items in this place. Only it didn't have a magazine slot. I pulled the slide back and noticed it had a glowing blue cylinder in it.

I aimed it for a quick second and my suit picked up the weapon's temperature control. It seemed so long as I didn't rush firing on it, it would be able to shoot as much as it wanted.

I holstered my gear and stood up. Meiko and Luka were leaving the armory and I followed closely behind them. Meiko was packing a short-barreled sniper rifle and a sidearm. Her knife holster was empty. Luka was holding a smaller weapon that looked like a regular submachine gun. Everyone had their own specialty, I guessed. Though it certainly surprised me that Meiko went for something like a sniper rifle; I figured a girl like her seemed to prefer weapons that got up close and personal.

Regardless, we followed our display's minimap that led us to the hangar. It wasn't too far from the armory, and seemed to have plenty of the Rangers going to and from it.

We stepped inside, seeing Strafford and his men gearing up a small dropship. The armament on it was a small rotary cannon for defensive fire seated at the front of the ship. Its canopy had a hexagonal pattern running along it, and the ship had the same orange glowing lines as the Rangers. This ship was one of theirs that they brought into the hangar.

"Ah," Strafford waved us over, "you're here. These are the other six volunteers coming with us to visit our new friends."

"Sir," one of the Rangers said, "we ridin' with these three?"

"Sure are," Strafford said, "I'll let you all get acquainted while we finish our final checks. Head aboard and we'll go over the plan one last time."

The Ranger who asked nodded his head, and climbed into the dropship. We followed behind him and the others followed behind us.

Us three sat at the left front of the dropship while the others piled in.

"Judging by you three I assume you're the outsiders that got this place runnin', am I correct?"

Meiko nodded, and the Ranger held out his hand.

"I'm Engineer Declan," he said, his voice somewhat shaky.

"Declan, good to meet you," Meiko said. "Who's your squadron leader?"

"That would be me," the Ranger next to him answered. "I'm Lead Engineer Coren. We'll be the one's breaking into any terminals we can get our hands on."

The next Ranger spoke with a much more feminine tone, whose build was a much slimmer body and rounded frame for a face. It was interesting to see a female variation of the Interspace people. She sat next to me, and held her hand out.

"Lead Medical Officer Alexandria," she introduced herself. "If you get hit, I'll have a look at you and get back on your feet."

I nodded, and shook her hand, though I doubted she'd be able to help if medicine worked differently here than elsewhere.

Curious, I checked my Watcher to see about medical status and how it would manage my vitals. The suit managed a "Reserve Medical Operation" that kept tabs on whether or not the user would need first-aid. It also had morphine and adrenaline it could give to the user, depending on the circumstance. More and more I was starting to think this suit in particular was made especially for humans coming here on expeditions.

From the back, another Ranger spoke up as Strafford climbed aboard.

"Barris, I'll be on recon from the air with our pilot. We'll make sure no one sneaks up on you."

The two infantrymen remained silent and Strafford closed the back door and the ship took off.

"Denner, Prinn," Strafford said, "glad you two could join us."

The two infantrymen looked up, and nodded.

"So, it looks like everyone's mostly gotten acquainted," Strafford started. "Wanna be as clear as I can that what we're after is a new enemy for us. They aren't one of us but that doesn't mean you underestimate them. We're here to shut their base of operations down and get whatever supplies we can."

"And what about the three tagging with us, sir?" Barris asked.

"They will be handling their own operation of getting into the base. Once everything is clear, I'll have the engineers grab what they can, and then we'll scuttle the place in case we get someone on the outside having an idea or two about raiding it. Any other questions?"

"Yeah," one of Stafford's infantrymen raised his hand, "you don't expect us to fit the supplies on here, do you?"

"No," he answered. "Once the facility is secured, we'll have time to move the supplies out and back to the base. Our priority is seizing it, but if we can get our hands on anything, we'll take it."

They all nodded.

"We'll be landing in ten minutes, so get yourself ready, because it's going to be a nasty fight with these…"

"Drones, sir," Luka said, "we think of them like worker bees."

"Worker… bees?" Strafford asked, his white dotted eyes shot her a confused look.

"Right, sorry, I guess you might think of them like…"

Meiko interrupted, "the point is, they don't act like we do. Keep in mind they're linked to a single entity, and that's where they get orders from. They're designed to attack and intimidate."

"Right," Strafford said, "once we land, we'll make our infiltration and stick to our objective. Shut down the security forces outside and we'll have our external team take care of it."

"If by 'external team,'" Meiko added, "we'll be going by 'Operators' from this point forward. We'll be heading inside once it's clear. Once we have everything, we'll let you in and you can take what you want from the base."

"If nothing else," Luka said, "we'd like to do this as quietly as we can."

"We'll do just that, ma'am," Strafford said. "Just worry about you, and we'll do our thing."

"That's what I like to hear," Meiko said. "Then we'll leave you to it."

I sat back and waited for our craft to land while Strafford explained everything to his team.

As the ship landed, I checked the magazine in my rifle, and clicked it back into place.

"We're coming in," the pilot announced, "we'll be making our landing a ways from their base, but I'd be careful heading in. They might have seen us."

"We'll take it from here, Jester," Strafford said, "keep yourself out of sight until we need a pickup."

"It's Jester-2, sir," he corrected, "and I'll be right here waiting for ya."

"Right, sorry," Strafford said, "Jester-2."

The back doors opened, and we all stepped out, one by one, into the forest. I looked at the trees around us and noticed they had glowing blue roots that ran into the ground. The leaves were transparent and looked like pieces of broken glass with lights pulsating throughout them. The only part that resembled the trees back home was the bark, but it looked like it was colored a lighter color, almost a metallic gray instead.

"Don't get left behind," Meiko teased, "I know it's nice to look at, but we got work to do."

"Right, right," I said, "sorry. I'll stick in front of you so I don't lag."

"Just be sure to keep your eyes up front. We're about to see the real deal here, and you don't want to get hit. It ain't a simulation now."

"Right," I nodded, and stepped forward. "Best not to get hit."

As we kept moving, one of the two infantrymen walked next to me as we walked through the forest.

"Don't think we got introduced earlier," he said, "I'm Rifleman Denner," he said. "Heard one of yours mention something about 'worker bees'? You from a different colony or something? Never heard of anything like that before."

Denner looked a little different from the rest of the Rangers. He looked like a normal human but his skin was gray with orange glowing lines that ran from his neck to his forehead and rounded behind his helmet. Instead of looking like a robotic humanoid, he seemed to have a skin covering that. His eyes still had a glow to them, but the shape resembled actual human eyes more than white dots.

I looked at him and noted how friendly he was.

"Uh, colony?" I asked.

"Yeah, you know, your home? Don't tell me you don't have memory from that."

I looked over at Meiko, who signaled I should keep my mouth shut.

"Well, I can't really answer that," I said, trying to sound as confident as Meiko would when she answered someone.

"Ah, I get it, you don't wanna give things away, I take it."

"Stow the chatter, Rifleman," Strafford ordered. "We're coming up on the base."

Strafford signaled everyone to crouch down. I knelt down next to Denner and Meiko, and noticed Luka was off on the right with a few others.

"Infiltration team, this is Barris," Barris said over the radio, "I'm with Jester-2 up here, looks like there's about thirteen or so of these 'drones' making patrols. Doesn't seem like they're on high alert. If we're going to hit them, I'd say hard and fast before they know what's going on."

Strafford nodded and took a second before replying.

"I guess we could try that. How far are we from the base?"

"Not too far off, half a klick, give or take. Problem is we don't know how many they got inside."

"Then we'll take the long way in. Any potential infiltration routes?"

"Not that I can see. Looks like one way in with a big door. It's a big riverfront facility. We could try having a flanking group fire from the far end and buy you guys a way inside. You might have to fight with 'em yourself, though."

"Then we'll do that if it's the only way in." Strafford said, and turned back to us.

"It'd be too risky if all of us went in," Strafford said, "so I need me and someone else to come with us until the route is clear. I'll have Barris pinpoint where the rest of you will fire from. Once we've got the facility cleared, we'll move in and take it. Clear?"

Alexandria raised her hand. "Seems mighty risky to take yourself in there. I'd say I should come along in case things get ugly, besides, you could use a medic seeing as how we'll be in the heart of the machine here."

Strafford's dotted eyes looked over in my direction, then at Meiko, almost seeming to ask us, "are you okay with this?"

Considering the fact that Strafford knew we were human but no one else did, I wondered if Alexandria would be useful to us as opposed to someone like the engineers, but so long as everyone else stayed safe, I assumed we'd all be fine. It would be up to if her medical skills could operate on someone like me or Meiko the same way she'd be able to operate on one of her own.

"Sure," Meiko said, "I think you might be a good backup for us. Anything else?"

Strafford nodded. "Then we'll be moving into the facility while you take cover once the outside is clear. The rest of you are to stay in cover until we give the signal, is that clear?"

"Yes sir!" Strafford's men replied in unison.

Meiko, Luka, and I as well as Alexandria and Strafford stood up, and moved ahead while the others took cover in the trees around us. As we moved closer, the sound of moving machinery could be heard, along with water running across a stream.

"Must be close," Meiko said, "I'd keep an eye out, they might have scouts around the forest here to see if they get wanderers coming in."

"Good point," Luka said, "everyone be careful."

As we drew closer and moved up a hill, I noticed we had arrived. With a large stream of water passing through a canal. The water glistened against the sun, but under the shade, bits and pieces of glowing rocks shone underneath its surface. All the while drones patrolled across a bridge to a large square building on the other side. Did they build that, or was it always that way? It didn't matter that much, but it begged me to ask what this facility was being used for.

The drones themselves patrolled, walking around and inspecting large crates while automated carriers moved supplies in and out of the front of the facility. They would check on the worker crews, and walk away to check elsewhere, likely seeing if something had broken, or something was where it shouldn't be.

"And these things all move depending on a bigger source, right?" Strafford said. "Talk about creepy."

"Certainly beats hiring someone," Meiko commented. "If they're trying to keep hidden, the drones don't go anywhere, and they also don't talk to anyone. They just follow their path until something is out of place."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"I never thought of it that way," I said, "though it must be expensive to put them together, right?"

"Not exactly," Luka said, "if they're constructing their drones here within Interspace, then it's probably not costing Duodecim anything to put them together."

Despite that, it was still strange to think that Duodecim was actually here researching Interspace. Granted, it was with an autonomous A.I. that Duodecim managed to send here to collect data, but it seemed to have built an entire force all on its own. How long had it been here that it was able to do all of this? And without anyone knowing?

Whatever the case, right now the important thing was getting in there and figuring out what Duodecim was doing out here.

"Gumi," Meiko radioed, "any idea what we're looking at here?"

"From what I can see," Gumi replied, "this looks like a factory of some sort. Maybe a processing facility."

"What could they possibly be processing," Strafford asked observing the facility grounds.

"Not sure, prisoners, materials, data even," Luka suggested. "We'll need to figure out a good plan to get in."

"Doesn't look like we've any other choice," Strafford said, "I just hope this is all we have to deal with."

Just as Strafford mentioned it, a ship pulled in from the sky, and flew over us. It looked like a carrier transport, with eight individual pods sitting in the middle of the ship. It was making a different delivery, it seemed, as it wasn't carrying a delivery crate. It glided over and landed on the top of the ship.

"What's it doing up there?" Strafford asked.

"I think it's bringing more friends," Meiko said. "Look."

I zoomed in with my helmet's visual camera, and saw as the eight pods opened up. The drones all sat up with their bodies almost packed together, like they were in a fetal position. Once the doors opened up all the way, they activated and stood up almost immediately. Grabbing a firearm off the side of a rack that sat in their pod, and walking out in a straight line. They all met up at the back, and watched as the ship closed up each pod.

We were in a corner it felt like, but we still had the element of surprise. We just needed to find a way to use it.

"Sir," Barris said again, "I'd be careful. I got a weird signal popping on and off. This doesn't look good. It might be another enemy."

"That complicates things," Strafford said.

"Sir," Coren said, "we're in position on the far side of the facility across the river. We're in cover and ready to start distracting them. Just give us the signal."

"Coren," Strafford said, "do you have any explosives. Anti-air, maybe?"

"You wanting us to take out that dropship?" Declan asked.

"Blow those pieces of scratch to smithereens," he said. "That'll really get their attention."

"Once we do, get ready to rush it. We'll cover you from here."

We waited in cover and watched the roof of the facility. Within moments a loud whistling could be heard as a bright orange orb flew into the ship at the top. Pieces of debris flew about, and landed below, crushing two drones in the process. The drones up top were all obliterated as well.

"That's a good hit!" Strafford yelled. "We're moving, let's go, go, go!"

We rushed down the hill while the flanking team shot at the drones from across the river. The drones returned fire, but were obviously frenzied, it seemed they couldn't see where the attack was coming from.

"Hit 'em hard and fast!" Meiko yelled. "It's the only way we're getting across that bridge!"

A drone looked over at us as we ran across the bridge, and pointed its gun towards us, but it was unable to make a move as Luka shot a pistol round right into its chest. It fell over backwards.

The flanking team took shots as drones took cover. They managed to keep them on their feet, but didn't anticipate us moving in behind them.

One drone, hidden behind a crate, tried to pop out of cover and took on Meiko up close. Meiko grabbed the drone's gun, and ripped it out of its hand, and started beating it mercilessly with the butt of the rifle.

"Jeez," I said, moving behind the crate as four more drones popped up, "is that why you didn't pack a knife?"

"Yeah," Meiko said, taking cover in front of me, "I like punching more than stabbing."

I nodded.

Meiko fired the rifle she stole into the drones that were heading for us until it was empty, then tossed it.

"Any reason in particular you brought the rifle?" I asked.

"Yeah, it was for this."

Meiko slung the rifle off her back and aimed down the scope, firing almost immediately.

"That got him!" Meiko yelled.

"Showoff," Luka sneered.

"Damn good hit though," Strafford congratulated her, "you ever think you could train my people?"

"I'll consider it," Meiko replied, "how many more are left!?"

"We cleared about eleven of 'em," Alexandria said, "two were crushed under the debris. Any of you guys across the river seeing anything?"

"Nope," Coren said, "We did see two run back into the base when the fighting started, though. Once you guys run in, we won't be able to cover you."

"Got it," Strafford said, "I think we'll be fine. Everyone okay over there?"

"Best as we can be, sir," Denner said, "we might just spend the night out here it's been so nice."

"Right now I'd say you should move to get supplies gathered," Meiko suggested. "If you guys think it's safe, I mean."

"We're already sending people over. We'll take care of it, just get inside!"

I gave an affirmative nod to Meiko, and moved out from behind the crates, heading towards the entrance. We were breaking through the first line of defense. Now came the next part of the plan.

"Surprised more haven't been called out," Luka observed as we headed through the front.

"I don't like it," Meiko said, "feels like they're going to hunker down in here and spring an ambush. Can't risk waiting on it, though."

"You seem to know how to handle yourself," Strafford said, "so you can take point."

Meiko nodded, and moved ahead. The front entrance functioned like a garage, and it seemed it didn't shut when we started attacking. We just took out their entire security force, and not even the alarm sounded. They should have been sending reinforcements out by the dozens if they were going to stop whoever was attacking.

We noticed that the facility's loading bay was empty and seemed to have no security whatsoever. The lights were mostly off, and the floor lacked the glowing lines like the other facilities had. Further ahead was a freight elevator where it looked as if supplies were loaded on, but it also looked like no one came to take them off to unload it. It was large, flat, and had railings on it.

"Did something happen?" Meiko wondered aloud. "There should have been security waiting for us."

"If there was going to be an ambush, it would have been perfect here," Strafford commented.

"They're probably waiting further in," Luka commented.

"Alright, well," Strafford said, "I'll radio my team to go ahead and start grabbing supplies."

Strafford radioed his team while we piled on to the elevator and waited for him.

"No telling if we'll be able to actually have a signal once we're down there," Alexandria warned.

"We'll try to be in and out as fast as we can," Strafford said.

I nodded and the elevator began its descent.

----------------------------------------

Gumi watched the facility as the Rangers began gather supplies. The signals for Griff, Meiko, and Luka along with Strafford and Alexandria were still showing green, but she wasn't able to make any communication the further down they got. She noted that the energy signature was interfering with her ability to make contact with them over Interspace. It was almost like there was something blocking her ability to get anything out to them rather than being cut off entirely.

She kept her attention focused on the access chip as she attempted to bypass its security protocols. It made sense, of course, that something like this would be so well-encrypted. It was like walking through a minefield at times; if she were to trip a security system on it, the chip would wipe itself and lose all function. Gumi had to be careful every step of the way to prevent that.

As she worked on it, a thought occurred to Gumi: if this device was given to Miku, what was she expected to do with it? Gumi thought there was no way Miku was as excellent with technical stuff as she was, could she? It didn't make sense.

Then Gumi realized something as she mulled it over.

"That's why they gave it to you," Gumi said.

She pulled the chip out from the computer's reader, and examined it.

"It's because a supercomputer isn't the tool I need."

Gumi reached around her neck, and grabbed a cable.

"I've been looking at this the wrong way," she said. "Well, hopefully I won't be doing too much this time. I learned my lesson the last time I tried this."

She slotted the chip back in the supercomputer, and connected herself to it.

"Let's hope it works," she said, optimistically.

Once she connected to the device, an interface appeared directly over her eyes, with data being fed to her at a rate that would be disorienting for most of the others, but Gumi wasn't built like Meiko or Luka were. She was built specifically to process something like this.

But, it wasn't without risk for Gumi. In fact, the last time she tried to plug into the supercomputer, she almost caused irreversible damage to herself, but luckily, had Luka there at the time to pull her out of it before it ended up going that way.

This time, Gumi hoped at least, she would be using it to only see about being granted access to the device itself, not making modifications to her processing speed or anything related to herself.

Once connected, her system could see what was connected to the supercomputer. She browsed around until "SECDD12" came up. She connected to it from her interface. Once connected, the device started communicating with her through the computer, reading off data about her:

Model: Duodecim Security Experimental Human Interface, V.C.D.-05, registered "Vocaloid Gumi Megpoid."

Activation Date: 09.03.2031

Serial No.: 072-093-64e724

…

Access granted.

Gumi was delighted by what she had just done. She had only wished she could have figured this out sooner.

Access to security devices identified.

Transference of security identification confirmed.

Request overwrite: [y/n]

The system blinked at Gumi as it waited for a response. Gumi attempted to look for the chip's previous owner before trying to write her name over it.

Device ownership previously registered to V.C.D.-01 "Vocaloid Miku Hatsune" by no data.

"No data? Seems someone wanted to cover their tracks."

Gumi tried to search deeper into it, but she was running out of time. Something was happening back on Interspace.

Overwrite.

Overwrite confirmed. Transfer of ownership complete. V.C.D.-05 has now received security clearance into Duodecim Security.

Thank you, and have a pleasant day.

Gumi transferred the security data over to the supercomputer, and decided she'd look it over later as things kicked up. It turned out, there was something coming in. It looked like another signal that the recon team hadn't reported on. Gumi turned her attention to it.

As it turned out, another Duodecim dropship was heading towards the base. Gumi wondered if the drones that everyone took out went dark to the A.I. calling the shots. She didn't think about that until just now, but she decided that she needed to roll with it, and get a warning out.

She pulled the cable out of her neck and got right to work.

----------------------------------------

"They're all dead," Meiko said, looking over the remains of a drone. "Someone got here before us."

We had arrived at the storage basement where the supplies were being dropped off to be greeted by such a grizzly sight. It looked like a battle had taken place down here, and compared to up on the surface, it looked like more were down here. No wonder there wasn't any reinforcements; they were all taken out.

"What do you make of it?" Strafford asked. "Think we should be worried?"

"Well," Meiko said, "I'll ask you. This look like the work of those fanatics of yours?"

Strafford's dots scanned the drone's corpse, and ran his hand along the exit wounds.

"These look like blade marks, and whatever isn't a blade seems to work more like our weapons than the routine blaster bolts the Hands of Unity use."

"Huh, so it was someone like you guys?" I asked, looking it over myself.

"I'm afraid so," Strafford said, standing up. "Which means someone else came here, and they might also still be here."

"Good point," Meiko said, "just because it ripped through Duodecim doesn't mean it's our friend, either."

"Then let's go," Meiko ordered, "we'll keep our eyes peeled for any hostiles."

"'Peeled'?" Alexandria looked at Meiko.

"Figure of speech," I said. "It's kinda how we talk."

"You people are from the strangest place," Alexandria said.

"We get that a lot," Luka said, and motioned for us to follow behind Meiko.

We kept our weapons raised, all in different directions, and walked quietly through the maze of supply crates and dead machines that lay about. It felt creepy, but I at least felt a little safer with Meiko and Luka around. Not to say that Strafford and Alexandria weren't also comfortable to be around, but I barely knew them.

Once we were through the maze, we came across another elevator. This one wasn't a freight elevator, but a normal personnel elevator. It was round and still seemed operational.

"Ready for another ride?" Meiko quipped.

I nodded, and she pressed the call button. The elevator arrived almost immediately, and opened. The room was empty, save for the two dead drones that laid inside.

"Oh, wonderful," Luka said, "I guess we're going the right way if there's still plenty of dead drones about, huh?"

"Definitely not creepy at all," I said, anxiously. "Nope, not even a little scared."

"Better suck it up," Meiko said, "we're going down to see what we can find. Now come on."

We all piled into the elevator, which, surprisingly, fit all of us in it, and headed down further into the belly of the facility.

Once the elevator stopped at the bottom floor, and the doors opened, we stepped out, our weapons pointed forward. We were greeted by even more dead drones and seemingly no survivors among them. Computers lined the floor of the room, and the monitors were smashed and broken.

The drones that were sitting at those computers were disarmed, but they didn't have arms at all to begin with. They were hooked into the computers themselves with cables that attached into their heads and neck. They were destroyed beyond repair, with some having their cables cut and others having their heads removed entirely from their bodies.

At the farthest end, however, one computer was still functional. We decided to take advantage of it in case whoever had broken in here planned to come back. It seemed odd to do that though; break in but leave everything unlocked.

Luka approached the terminal, and ran her fingers along the keyboard.

"Looks like they left it logged in," Luka said, typing in a search. "Wonder if someone was looking for something here."

"Anything good we can find from this place?" Strafford asked.

"If you give me a second," Luka said, "I can pull up what they're working on."

Luka continued typing away while we gathered around her and watched what she was doing.

Duodecim Security "River" Forward Base. Security Operation v.1.2830

Duodecim Research Logs, Data Backed to External Storage Device.

I looked over at a small black brick that sat sitting inside of an open port of the terminal.

"That what we looking for?" Strafford asked.

"Might be," Luka said, "seems whoever was here was in the middle of gathering it before we showed up."

I pulled the small box out and inspected it, and placed it on one of the storage cases at my thigh. It fit just right as I closed it up.

"Guess Griff just volunteered himself to hold on to it," Meiko said.

"Guess so," I said, "but you think we have time to look into this place before we head back up?"

"I'd rather not risk it," Strafford said, "someone else is clearly here, I'd rather not be sitting and waiting for them when we get back."

I looked at the corpses of all of the dead drones that had been left. It was certainly a grim sight, no doubt about it, but why go to all of that trouble to break in and leave whatever it was you stole behind?

Then a thought occurred to me.

I turned to Meiko, and said, "what are the chances Duodecim's drones can go rogue?"

"Not very likely," Meiko said, "there might be an incident with misfiring, but I haven't seen any indication of them breaking off from the A.I. control. If this was a friendly fire incident, there wouldn't be anything of this scale, at least as far as we've known."

I looked at the terminal, and then down at my pouch.

"We don't have a lot of time," I said, "but there's something I want to look for."

Alexandria cocked her head. "Didn't you hear the captain? We have to move out."

"I know, I know," I said, "but if there was someone here, I want to make sure we know what it was they were after."

I clicked around the terminal and was brought back to the main screen.

On the main terminal was a quick summary of what was moved to the storage drive we picked up.

13,822 files have been backed up. Last backup was ten minutes ago.

"Our other guests might still be here," Strafford warned.

"I got that," I said, "but I want to check one thing."

I checked around to see if I could find security footage from inside, maybe there was a chance we could see who attacked. Unfortunately, the entire server came back empty. Whoever broke in here seemed to have wiped the data.

"Or they smashed the whole thing," Meiko said, looking at a door that was left slightly ajar.

"What was that?" I asked.

Meiko walked over to it to check, and waved for Luka to come over. Luka nodded, and stood by as Meiko grabbed the door, and pulled it open.

Inside was another room, with smashed electrical equipment that sparked and crackled.

"Looks like this was where all the data was kept," Meiko said. "Whoever was here, they left everything broken. So why would they leave this and run away?"

"Maybe it's because it was left for us," Luka said, "and that someone wanted us to find all of this."

"None of you are making any sense," Alexandria said, "so what exactly is it we're dealing with?"

Strafford shrugged. "Whatever it is, it'll be on that drive that Griff picked up. We need to get out of here and back up to the surface."

Just as Strafford mentioned the surface, the facility shook.

"Ah, scratch," Strafford said, "that can't be good."

"We better get back up to the surface, and fast," Alexandria said, "no telling what the others are against."

Strafford pointed at me, "you better keep that drive safe. No telling what's on there, but it's the only lead we have at this point."

I nodded. "Won't let you guys down."

We dashed towards the elevator that led back up to the surface, and rode it all the way back up to the sounds of conflict already underway.

"Two landers coming in, and they're bringing firepower-!"

The radio crackled with Declan's voice over comms, but he sounded close by.

Once the elevator arrived at the top, the Rangers that were left on the surface took a good look at us.

"Oh, captain, are we glad to see you," Declan said, relieved.

"Stow it, Declan, we need a report."

"We were about to be ambushed by a dropship, but Megpoid dropped a line about it right before and gave us a warning."

"Glad I could help," Gumi said, "sounds to me like my team returned as well. Hopefully without harm."

"No injuries to report," Alexandria said, "but what's it look like up here."

"We all took cover in here and the drones outside started firing on us. That explosion you felt earlier? It was a bunch of supplies going up."

"I think they're going for a 'scorched earth' strategy," Gumi said.

"A what?" Strafford asked.

"Right, right," Gumi said, "I'll think of another term later. But Duodecim's drones are going to destroy their own supplies to prevent us from taking them."

"And it's likely they want to prevent us from getting whatever it is we've got our hands on," Strafford said, looking over at me.

"We're all still here, sir," Coren said. "Gumi told Jester-2 to land and hang tight until this is over. Once we have an out, he'll pick us up."

"Then let's make sure we live long enough to see it," Strafford said, and pulled back his rifle's charging handle. "Let's do this."