Bestial Planet

Chapter 3: A Forlorn Stand

As the last of his team came through the portal Jaykon's senses were already heightened. Some of their weapons were rewritten to look and operate like primitive weapons; bows, crossbows, etc. Their armour remained ultimately unchanged which he saw as odd. "From here on out, act like your fighting naked, understood?" His team nodded and he motioned them into action. They split into three teams and filtered out into the giant Colosseum.

Always preferring to be the head of the spear Jaykon made his way through the center of the colosseum. The "death-pit". There were various columns scattered throughout, which he and his team slipped behind and under as they made their way to what looked like a pulpit at the far end. They were nearly silent, the only thing that would have given them away were the random puffs of dust that were kicked up as they moved. At about three quarters of the way through the death-pit, they stopped and dug in. The two break off teams arrived at their destinations and were gathering information about the system locking them out of the main navigation system.

Everyone was silent as the three diagnostic techs whispered their intel back and forth on comm. A small, almost inaudible click-clack was heard every few seconds, letting everyone outside know things were still copacetic. "Recon Leader, a cascade lock-out is starting." Jaykons heart skipped a beat. He was sure that would happen but it meant that they were certainly going to be confronted by a Hydra. He pocketed his clicker and after the next click-clack was missed the Captain and Praiyem's faces tightened. Captain Steegle opened up comms with the regiment leaders. "We're onto the back-up. They weren't able to re-establish a connection. We're facing off against the Hydra everyone, we infiltrate in 10, load up."

The thousands strong force locked and loaded their weapons and were all unified in singular purpose. A tremble shot through more than a few of them and many believed this would be their last day. The next order snapped them to attention. "Teams 1 – 3 go. Pay attention to your timers for the rest of the op! Prai, jump in with team 15, I'm going in now."

"Captain."

Her second in command saluted and immediately made contact with the second group of teams as Captain Steegle slammed on her helmet and activated the combat visor. She put a hand up to the improvised gateway and her body seemed to digitize then flowed in; disappearing from sight in less than a second. When she emerged she was expecting to be greeted by Hydra but instead it was still quiet, bone chillingly so. She looked around and saw the shadows and glimpses of her crew filtering out through the colosseum. It was beyond belief how large it was when considering a normal Nav room was only supposed to take up the space of a small house. "This is wrong. Why would he put a delay in place... Jaykon, I'm coming to you, we're making a direct attack on the pulpit up there."

"You want to force a reaction Captain?"

"We don't have time to waste playing that Halgred's twisted game of 'who dies first?' "

"Understoo..."

He was cut off by a roar. It sounded like many creatures roaring at once, indicative of the multi-headed beast. Everyone's heart stopped. Everyone but Captain Steegle were gripped by the fear that they were about to meet their worst nightmare. "Tould, as soon as the beast shows itself I want you to scan, and catalogue every single part of it's code you can and send it back home immediately."

"Immediately Captain and I won't have enough of my core to dedicate to..." His Captain cut him off. "You heard the order Tould!"

"Concurrently, Captain." At that moment Tould felt something he hadn't before then. More confusingly, he felt.

Back on the battlefield Captain Steegle caught up with Recon Leader's team and dug in, waiting with baited breath for the enemy to show itself. The 2 tech teams were still at the terminal access points, trying to break back into the hacked system. "Leader Jaykon, when it arrives I'll lure it to the central location, make sure everyone else stays out of it's line of sight. When it touches down be ready to initiate. "Jaykon nodded and repeated the directions. The colosseum started to rumble from what the Captain assumed were the Hydra's steps. A hologram buzzed to life at the head of the colosseum and took the form of Draconisis. "For the moment we've all been waiting for..." It looked around the seemingly empty colosseum and smirked. "... your death." Without a seconds pause, the hologram disappeared and Hydra crashed down onto the pulpit, fracturing the granite-like structure. Two beams exploded from two of it's three heads causing bass-filled hums to reverberate throughout the colosseum, shaking the Androids to their cores. The beams looked like they were random at first but the screams and then instantaneous silence over the comms told a different story. The two tech teams had been annihilated. Back on the ship in the real world their bodies arced in their seats as they screamed. What looked like living electricity raced across their bodies and shot back into the freshly singed connection ports, hunting for their on-ship backups which were supposed to be incorruptible.