Space Odyssey: Spectre-Chapter 208: Elder Church Command Center
Jace looked at the bundle of enemy soldiers who were wrapped in various things they found around the room. Just outside of the room were their weapons and explosives. Aside from the ones that they had decided to bring with them.
He moved to the door and began messing with the door panel programming to open under any circumstances. It would ensure they stayed prisoner in the room and unable to contact others especially after Uti and Josef stripped them of their armor. As well as any communication method that he did not know the Victorium was aware of.
As soon as they were all done, Jace led the way walking through the hall. He moved along one of the walls as he moved. He had the route to the enemy’s main operations center for the building as their destination.
"How did you get them to talk? Mar’talics are notorious for being loyal and typed lip even while being threatened. Besides, it did not look like you did much more than touch his shoulder." Uti pointed out as he was following quickly while glancing behind them several times.
"I ran an electrical current through his body. I did not realize it at first, but it appears that species are particularly vulnerable to electrical energies." Jace informed them as he crouched at a corner and made several hand motions for the others to take up position.
They had arrived at their destination after only a few minutes. If he was right about the building being operated by an enslaved AI then it would only be a minute or two before the enemy were warned by the AI. So they need to attack quickly, unfortunately they would have to surrender safety for this tactic.
"What is the plan?" Josef asked as they moved up to the door which was the entrance to the room. Jace was on one side with Uti behind him while Josef was on the other side of the door.
"We have to be quick and-"
Shing!
The door slid open between them and an Accer in Elite armor walked out. Jace did not even finish his sentence as he ran into the room while pushing the Accer back, catching them off guard. But as Jace entered he released his mistake a second too late as a red laser shot forward and turned the Accer’s midsection into ash.
Jace then felt the laser bounce off an armor plate on his arm. Then he could hear what sounded like Josef grunting. Jace did not even get fully into the room, or have his Wildfire fully pointed at the Ola that was firing the turret before he fired.
There were only six enemies in the room, including the Accer that had unexpectedly died. So as he dragged the muzzle of his gun in a short arc he only killed one other enemy before arriving at the Ola. The Ola got off another two laser bolts before several of Jace’s bullets turned the Ola into pieces.
Jace fired a quarter of a magazine in the quick exchange. One of those purple skinned ones was killed at the start of his volley of bullets. Then the Ola was torn apart by the rest of the bullets as they tore through his upper body and head. Leaving behind only the lower half of the Ola’s body and one of its arms.
Meanwhile Jace was hit two more times by those red laser bolts. The second shot hit his chest plate, causing him to skid backwards slightly and stopping his forward momentum. He could feel the flare of heat spread over his chest, but it felt less painful than before. Probably because there was a large piece of metal for the heat to spread out over. Then the third and final shot missed his head only by an inch. As it passed by his head, his heads up display fritz for a moment.
Jace was fortunate that these red laser weapons did not have a high fire rate or were very accurate. Because he was not sure a laser to the face would have let him survive. Unfortunately the first one had broken his armor’s shielding.
But instead of backing off he turned his attention to the last three enemies in the room. One of them was directly to his left. While the other two were toward his right. He dove left while firing a few shots to the first enemy on the right. They hit the enemy’s exposed head, they had likely taken off their helmet for comfort. An explosion of blood covered several monitors and part of the wall, as the enemy’s head exploded.
Jace was then by the only enemy that was to his left. Instead of reaching for his weapon he pulled out an energy blade and tried to stab Jace. Jace hit the Mar’talic in the head with his elbow, pushing them back a few feet. He then turned and fired several shots at the Accer who had readied his weapon. A plasma bolt hit Jace’s armor, it did not heat it up like the red laser did. Instead the bolt bounced off and hit the Mar’talic he was next to.
While the Accer dropped to the ground dead, the Mar’talic was screaming while rolling on the ground in pain. The plasma bolt had hit him in the face. But with his armor’s shielding already down from his elbow he was exposed to the bolt. His armor protected him enough that they were not dead. But between the enemies hands Jace could see that their face had and was melting. In a moment of pity, Jace stepped up to the enemy and slammed his foot down crushing their head.
Jace then turned and looked around the room. All of the enemies were dead, but as he looked to the door he realized that Uti and Josef had not entered with him. He had thought as much earlier but something had gone wrong during the initial breach of the room.
He walked over to the door and looked out. Josef was on his back groaning in pain while grabbing the shoulder stump where his left arm used to be. Nearby was his hand and a bunch of ash, but the rest of his arm was gone. Likely turned to ash by this red laser weapon. Uti was doing first aid on Josef quickly.
"Well damn." Jace walked out and put the Wildfire on his back. "Uti help me get him inside." Jace picked up the Tacole in a princess carry in a comical sight and then carried him into the Elder Council Soldiers main command center. He moved over to a side of the wall that was not covered in blood and set him down against the wall.
Jace then backed away and looked around the room for what he was looking for. He found it as a complex machine that was on wheels. The AI core was inside with the enslavement device attached to it. It seemed to be some high level processing machine, it was plugged directly into what Jace figured was the central processing unit for all buildings systems. After he reached inside he began disconnecting the enslavement device.
"Should we get a medic up here?" Uti asked, from where he was helping his comrade. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢
"No, we complete our objective and then hold our position." Jace answered as he disconnected the enslavement device that was attached to the AI core.
"But if we leave him like this..." Uti trailed off to make his point without actually saying. Which was that Josef might die, Jace might not know a Tacole’s biology. But almost any race would become exhausted after losing a limb.
"I know, that is why you should stay with him and-"
"No." Josef interrupted Jace. Jace looked over along with Uti who quickly spun around in surprise. "You two need to go and complete the objective." Josef used his remaining arm and his legs to pull himself up against the wall. He then moved to the turret that was still sitting in the center of the room. "I will stay and protect this room."
"But your injuries are not minor!" Uti insisted but then Jace caught something appearing out of the corner of his eye on the screen in the room. It was a circle with another circle around it.
Then a new voice appeared that was more mechanical and genderless in nature. "Spectre Jace, I have the locations of the two Elders who are in the building. In addition I have removed the varying jamming frequency. Solisa has reached out and informed me of your objective."
"Thank you," Jace nodded his head. "Can you watch Josef’s back?"
"Affirmative. I will also direct you to one of the Elder’s who is located on this floor. The other one is on a lower floor. I will notify the other half of your unit to the other Elders location. I will also see about finding the location of the remaining Elder." The AI informed Jace.
Jace after a moment of contemplation nodded and walked to the door, "Come on Uti, we have an Elder to kill."
