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.
Back in sim-space Captain Steegle loosed a volley at Hydra and it descended on her like an apocalyptic vision. Red, blue and yellow beams charged in it's mouths as it's wings slowed it's landing.
Before it touched down Captain Steegle ran under it towards the pulpit, pulling it's attention away from the fire team that was about to appear in front of it. She slid past just as it's ancient tree stump feet shattered the ground beneath them, making her bounce unexpectedly. It's tail swiped at her but she barely vaulted over it as beams bored into the ground where she had just been. Instead of just stopping like before, the beast's heads turned away, dragging the beams across and through the many columns, both fallen and upright. Dozens of screams filled the air, accompanying the low bass of the beams like a macabre opera chorus. Back in the ship the same thing happened again; bodies arced and the living electricity sought, the no longer safe, backups. The Recon team however, didn't miss a beat. Normal front-liners filled in for the recently deceased members and they loosed a violent volley of shots at the beast. Captain Steegle lept to her feet and ran up the back of Hydra while pulling out a De-rez detonator. She clapped it on the spine of the center head while the firing squad continued their barrage below and as it activated she pulled out her side arm and fired a shot at the left and right heads, drawing their attention. They turned inward and from their mouths exploded yellow and blue beams. A grapple wrapped around Captain Steegle's waist and pulled her out of harms way. The beams clashed mid-air, causing devastating blowback, melting the two heads from their necks which then dropped limp to it's sides.
Captain Lancieta crashed to the ground unceremoniously and fumbled for the button clicking it before she came to a stop. Hydra almost managed to charge up a red blast before the bomb on it's neck blew. It's head and neck fell to the ground in a slump as the beam in it's mouth fizzled out. Captain Steegle wasted no time as she stood up. "I need tech to get into the system right away! We're not done until we get back on course!"
Twelve people, two teams of six, rushed to the terminals their crew-mates were killed at mere moments ago. Jaykon however, was still worried. "Captain, after all we've heard - that felt too easy." Easy or not we have to get into the system now but I agree; everyone stay on your toes."
Almost as if those words were a passcode, another roar rocked the colosseum. This time there was no big reveal of the creature just beams of red, blue and yellow tearing across and completely through the massive colosseum, evaporating 100's of Androids per head. "...a system destroyer...?" Captain Steegle was frozen in place. Theoretically there wasn't enough room for more than one Hydra in a system. This didn't make sense. In order for that to happen the system would have had to have the Hydra built into it from the beginning. "The only people who worked on this were my father and I..." A beam raced across the ground as Praiyem tackled her Captain out of the way. The beam scratched at Praiyem's crossbow, over-loading it and sending her flying into a downed column. In the real world hr body jerked from the impact, a sign that it was serious. As she hit she saw that same beam tear through Jaykon before fizzling out. "NOOO!" She screamed so loud that if she had vocal chords in that moment they would've been torn. She tried to stand but her mind was fuzzy. The hit caused a desync. She looked around frantically for Jakon, unable to process what just happened and then three more beams tore across the colosseum from the opposite side. Captain Steegle yelled something but Praiyem couldn't hear. She just ran towards the second Hydra, firing her sidearm erratically. She reached one of the tunnels but before she could jump down an explosion of granite blew her back.
Tould picked up on the massive energy surge as his crew were quickly falling to the creatures. In less than a minute a thousand had already been wiped out and the pace only quickened. "Emergency logout initiat.... it's not working?" His voice was tinged with fear. "Emergency Logout!" He screamed the command this time but nothing happened. "I must save my crew." Tould stopped working on trying to regain control of the systems and focused completely on the Hydra's. The operating ones had defenses that were too strong for him but the dead one was easy to pick apart. He poured over far more information than his core physically could. The fact that they were built into the system made his task akin to performing brain surgery on yourself without anesthetic.
Captain Steegle looked around and saw a group surround the second Hydra. "I said log out now!" She tried a forced logout but it didn't work. "We're trapped... " A beam tore through a column in front of her and as her crewmate was evappourated right before her eyes their weapon over-loaded just like Praiyem's and sent her flying again into a column 30 feet away. She hit with a thud and fell unconscious. In the real world Praiyem jolted back to consciousness and fell out of her chair. Her head was spinning and as she ran through what just happened in sim-space she puked on the floor in front of her. A sub-system message sounded bringing her back to her senses. "Thirty minutes till planet-fall. Everyone to your designated landing pods. Kinetic munitions currently being armed." She glared at the timer Captain Steegle had set up and sure enough it said 29 minutes, forty seconds. "But we had hours. It was hours till... time dilation." Her eyes went wide. They never had a chance. As soon as they entered sim-space they lost. She looked over to her crew-mates and her Captain. Many were dead and she raced over to Captain Steegle's console. "She's unconscious." Praiyem connected manually, trying a forced a logout, which was basically like pulling someone out of a pool with weights wrapped around them with no steps or ladder. Her eyes flashed then her connector exploded, sending her realing as did Lancieta's. "NO!" The connector was torn from the Captain's console and fused to her neck. Blood started oozing from her port as she scrambled back to her Captain. She checked her vitals and found the logout was successful. Her Captain was unconscious but alive. "Tould has... is anyone else out?" For a few uneasy seconds there was no response. "Fo - rced logout may - measures ha – ha-v-v-ve failed. Attempting to overwri – ride proce – dures. Co – coreover – lo – lo – loading. Teleportation al – most active. Saving my cr – crew." Praiyem knew what was happening to Tould and it broke her heart. It happened to all Androids, it's how they gained sentience and evolved from A.I. But Tould would never be able to be full Android, not in this situation. Praiyem looked around frantically for anyone else on the bridge who was still alive, then raced out to the nearest crew area. Looking for someone else who was still alive and she found one. She had two more ports left that she could force a logout with, she just hoped it worked.
When Lancieta came to, she was in the real world and her ports were non-functional. She saw the emergency connector had bee torn from her console and looked around to see who was missing. "Prai... " Then she caught a glimpse of her countdown. "5 minutes?!" The time confused her but she had little time to figure it out when she was teleported to a crash room. She fell on her butt and saw there were two others there. Both unconscious. The room was built to carry a few hundred but when she looked around her and the two in front of her were the only ones there. Her heart ached as she fought back tears and strapped the two of them into crash chairs, which was a lot harder with them being dead weight. The Sub-system's voice broke the silence.
"40 seconds till atmospheric entry. Warning: Sections 9, 3 and 1 are unstable due to kinetic munitions malfunction. Section 6 kinetic muni..."
The voice cut-off as a massive explosion rocked the crash room. She looked up and saw she was in Section 6; the blood in her veins went cold.
"If I survive this, my only purpose will be to help the humans or die at their hands in retribution for my arrogance."
Lost in thought she barely noticed the red emergency light turned off and a yellow one came on, meaning they had just entered Earth's atmosphere and something was wrong. She felt the shock wave of the other two sections exploding and her attitude changed. She didn't hope she would survive, she would survive.
Section 6 hits the ground hard and a metal groan ripples through it as if it's yelling in pain. The wall in front of her splits open as her chair dislodges from its clamps and she barrels toward the sheared metal.