Emergence of a Strange Presence

The larger drones they had dispatched were quickly replaced by those of a more minuscule yet swifter variety, much to his annoyance. Whatever corporation had sent them were cowards, incapable of amounting a sufficient force beyond sheer mindless numbers, and a ship of such layout was not ideal for overwhelming the enemy, there were too many crevices and passages that made slowly picking off the masses an easy task. At least, it would have been, had they actually needed to apply that sort of strategy. The scraps of metals were too weak, however, to put in that level of effort, not only in their armoring but lacking in speed and maneuverability as well. Covert operations would only take up more time, a resource they typically had plenty of but in such a circumstance was scantly found.

The screeching of metal on metal, the crushing of the automatons' heads like cans under bough and limb alike, they fell into a steady, continuous rhythm, all too familiar in their day to day lives. Yet from the battlefield did a stench begin to emerge, its effects intangible to them yet concerning all the same. What could be emitting such an unknown variable, it wasn't the drones, was it? No, the machines themselves seemed taken aback by the new developments, enough for Leo and Eris to mark down a few more of the battalion before chaos erupted. From the creaking steel below did shots begin to ring out, punctuated by the crashing of mechanisms echoing from a source other than their own.

A strange man who utilized a technological disguise, and now was sniping targets amidst gas they most certainly blocked the censors of his targets, what a peculiar outing it had come to. Yet there was something more beneath his firearm and vaporous trick, a certain shape below that didn't seem to bode well for the newly formed alliance they seemed to have affirmed. Before Leo could approach the man's position to investigate, however, he himself neared, their shared enemy neutralized for the moment. "Fancy seeing you here!" he exclaimed with a grin, Eris rolling her eyes behind him.

"I take it you've eliminated the rest of them?"

"There's going to be an explosion. Gas is leaking and fires are spreading. We need to move."

That wasn't a part of his original plan. After all, if the explosion consumed these two and nobody was around to report it...

He turned his head towards the hole he'd crept out of and the undulating pinkish-brown smoke starting to wallow through and the sounds of fire licking the fetid, ripe air. He was at least that honest.

Though the stains on his fingers didn't look like blood, at least not human blood. They were some deep purple colouration and still wet with small droplets of the foul fluid slowly sliding down the handle of his rifle. His body didn't appear damaged either; only a few smudges of soot stained the jacket and darkened the shroud on his face.

He jogged past them quickly, gradually breaking into a sprint as if he was running from more than the fire and the ensuing blast. The second location wasn't much farther; a storage room just a few rooms away. The problem was that this explosion was going to do more than weaken the structure. There were more drones and Jairec knew that this was an escalation.

"You've held your own so far. That is good. When the explosion go-"

An ear splitting roar blurred all sound into the echoing cacophony. A massive shockwave ensued, knocked him off of his feet and twisting as he fell, slamming against a support column. His head rung and his body stung with pain but he felt his body resisting the sensory influx, pushing itself to suppress the disorienting swirl of the consciousness and the throbbing of bruised muscle with a myriad of strange substances. He braced an arm against the column, steadying himself as he swayed away from it.

"You two, there's more drones. But..." He paused to cough and spit; some sort of black gunk smeared against the ground. "Not the ones you fought; these ones won't be getting in close."

His jaw could be seen moving behind the veil, clenching notably as he sucked in air and continued his sprint. As far as he knew, they'd distracted them from finding the satellite but now they'd for sure be sending in not the grunts but the elites. Heavy duty, highly mobile, and piloted by veterans.

For all he knew, laying in wait in the storage room.

He... knew too much for his appearance to be a coincidence. An explosion, Leo supposed there could be some indication of such that an outsider could pick up on, if trained in the subject, yet in the heat of combat it was most certainly unlikely. More than that, though, was the confident air in which the man spoke, no hypotheticals even posed in his statement. Simple, commands even, obviously he either didn't care that they knew his affiliation, or he was quite bad at hiding it. Given his disguise, Leo wagered it was the latter. He didn't even bat an eye at the liquid dripping down his arm, its hue a familiar one that his gaze instinctively brushed over, at least that was until Leo actually processed that it was upon the man's limb, and Eris was entirely uninjured beside him. Not blood, then, but he had no way of knowing what it actually was. He had a lot to answer for, although they both hid their suspicions for the moment, as they always did. When he began to take the lead, however, Leo and Eris exchanged a glance that was bordering between annoyance and scrutiny, before he shrugged and they both ran to catch up, surpassing the man even.

There was one thing that was certain, after all, if an explosion were indeed to go off it would do no go to be standing right next to it. Again with the short sentences, though, it was clear that the man was used to communicating orders to subordinates of some kind. Of course, they had no idea who he was, where he came from, and Leo especially... disliked when others dictated without true authority, halfway because they almost always came off as complete and utter idiots to him, presuming he had no experience in a variety of subjects. There was always the temptation to crush the preconceived notions, to reveal the truth, but that would be even more foolish of him. In the shadows, that was where it would always lie. Anything else would be suicide, he knew that well enough.

Of course, the man didn't even have the time to finish his sentence. As a cacophony ripped through the hall Leo wasted no time, grabbing Eris and then dropping straight to the floor, darkened branches encapsulating them before the shockwave tore the flora to shreds. With their actions was some of the pulverization ablated, although not all as his chest rammed against the floor again after a brief respite, sharply losing his breath even as a piece of metal was dislodged from the ship, embedding itself into his forearm. Eris fared better, however, mostly due to her position relative to him. It was their agreement anyway, her primary, well, inhuman trait was held in much more contrast with normality than his own. They both rose to the wreckage, however, witnessing the man cough up something strange of his own even as Leo mindlessly pulled the shrapnel out of himself, a blackened crimson slick upon it as he threw it in the direction of the explosion.

"Oh, the first ones didn't get close either; we engaged them. But you do say... how might you know so much about these drones anyway?"

They would not move, not until a satisfactory answer was reached.

"Because I've encountered them before. Seen how they fight. Hid from them. They gave me a problem recently when I was scavenging the ship. I'm repaying the favour."



Of course, this wasn't fully true but he couldn't say it didn't bear an element of the truth. And with the ship violently shuddering and sparking, it was hard to ignore urgency and steel in his voice. He figured they didn't trust him much but now that the enemy knew he was with them, they weren't going to treat them any more lightly. They'd had it easy for now but even looking behind him he could see the shadows of dropships darkening the beams of light shining through the hull of the ship. Heavy clanks against the weakened frame ensued, followed by metal bending and cracking.



"After we survive, that would be a better time to continue this conversation."



Truthfully, as they were his first contact with whatever became of humanity he didn't plan to leave so soon. He had the feeling that these two were not here for the satellite as it would not have been hard to track its movements or discern its location from electronically interfering with their human enemies. He looked to them and waited as the sound of tapping, shimmering, almost buzz-tone movement of hundreds of metallic legs continued in the background.



---



Outside the hull of the ship, a new kind of drone entered through gaping wounds from re-entry and the forced entry from dropship gunfire. While their predecessors were similar to overgrown ticks, these ones were different. These ones had dark grey bodies with purple striped markings that tapered down from their wide shoulders attached to a body like a cobra's hood but lead to a slimmer waist that stood on reinforced digitigrade legs, their knee joints protected by some sort of flexible curve ball-like plating. A long tail made of bicycle-chain like components linked together by sleek plates of blue alloys ended in a thinner serrated section like the blade of a key. A conical barrel-like protrusion could be seen emerging where one might expect a stinger. 

In spite of their strange, unwieldy shape they moved with a predatory aggression and speed, standing up right yet leaning forwards wit their four-eyed skulls sleek and elongated for a semi-reptilian shape while the four quad-jointed arms extended from outside the radius of their hoods - each one ending in a cruel assortment of curving scythe-like claws and customized weaponry both direct energy and solid round. 

They were moving in on the last known location of the satellite but they weren't just here to capture it. 

The strange interloper and his newfound friends had just officially become just as important to eliminate or capture as their primary objective.

"You frequent the East Fioran colonies often, then?" Leo asked, the deception in his query utterly undetectable by his tone and subtleties alone. In truth, the man's sense of urgency wasn't exactly reciprocated by either himself or Eris. A collapsing ship, it would have been a more pressing matter were they in the void of space itself. Even then, though, they had unfortunately spent three hundred years in a constantly creaking vessel, it was neither a new experience nor a surprising one to see a grounded one a hair's breadth away from completely sagging in on itself. By all accounts, indeed, they had gotten lucky, many of the colony ships sent out from Earthland had lost their way, torn apart by celestial bodies and the warping of space-time itself.

Though, their lack of alarm probably had to do a bit more with the fact that matters of life and death were a constant in their existence, and to stress over every single one would be a bit silly at that point. That being said, all of it didn't add up. On the off-hand that the man was telling some semblance of the truth, then the party that believed them to be encroaching on their turf most certainly couldn't be alien in nature, even if they had concealed their nature by adopting human weaponry. There was nothing else that would have been significant enough to emit a strange signal from systems away, was there? Perhaps their objective laid somewhere else on the planet and it was merely Blackjack's sensors that had miscalculated the position of the broadcast, then.

In any case, they really had no reason to be in the line of fire involving a petty squabble between small corporations and scavengers, not if their Khonqrien friends were not also invested. What a hassle, and unfortunately negotiation would be off the table considering the classification of the colony as a virtual backwater. He was certain the possessor of the drones had no legal securities in mobilizing such a large task force, the Federation would never allow such on a mere scavenging trip, especially without the protect of an organization like, well, IMG. Not that any official branch would get involved, although there was always the possibility of those who frequented in the shadows touching upon such an affair. Irrelevant, though, they would have to find a way to turn back to their ship quickly, before things escalated any further. Or, Leo supposed, they could simply fight their way out, although honestly he wasn't really in the mood, not when their opponent was a collection of tin cans, no matter how technologically advanced the newest wave turned out to be.

Blackjack was in the other direction though, past where the explosion had detonated. Which meant they would have to loop back around in the unfamiliar environment, somehow, while hoping the old ship hadn't been crushed by the shifting of the larger vessel. In such a scenario, he supposed it would be best to stick with the man who at least seemed to have some idea what they were doing. And thus quickly did they come upon an intersection in the hall, the leftward fork cut off by a thick steel beam, the only possible way around it being a minuscule gap underneath. Even the thought of attempting to traverse such a tiny entrance caused Leo to recoil internally, although externally he merely pointed toward their other option. "Well, that makes our decision easy," he stated, beginning to advance to the right even as the clanking of mechanisms caught his ear upon the same path.

"You're really asking that to a scavenger."

They already had enough suspicions at it was but to ask someone in a line of work with questionable legality such a thing? Perhaps they hoped he would trip up. The bursts and crackles sounding out from below almost sounded like mocking laughter to him. He shook his head and motioned onwards along the mess of crumbling floors and jutting support arches, growing feebler by the minute.

Quietly, a data feed entered his communication system. The ship wasn't going to explode but they were expecting a massive structural failure across 65% of its framework. Enough to still scavenge but they had maybe 25 minutes at maximum to escape. That wasn't factoring in what would happen as the clock began ticking down. He began to jog alongside and gradually pick up speed. Minutes were being wasted and if he didn't get to that satellite then there was no telling what could happen. A disjointed call-and-response rhythm of blasts from beneath and the clanging metal avalanches in their wake was forming and there was less time to be cautious.

As they approached the fork, he prepared to follow the less cluttered of paths. While manoeuvring rough terrain was a normal part of his job, speed was of the essence. It's only when he heard a few metal bars shifting and the sound of metallic feet clanking that he noticed that the adult male was already moving forward. That wasn't what caught his attention the most; any more rushed than he already was, and he would've followed suite.

It was a silhouette moving across the end of the hallway at the end of the blocked path. He thought it was just the shadows cast by the flames on the debris in the smoke. Yet it displaced the gases as it moved before it disappeared around the corner.

It was only a split-second but he had made out a few details. A large, predatory shape that stood taller and more menacing than the mite-drones they'd previously slain in droves. Its footfalls were quiet; sound suppression technology? 

There were multiple footfalls though; if some could be silent then-

Immediately, he grabbed at Leo's shoulder and attempted to yank him backwards. As he reached for it, his nerves tensed anticipating correctly a split second later a horrifying shriek of ear-splitting agony. A bright blue-white bolt of plasma glared down the empty corridor through the veil of floating particles, barreling their way.

He pulled harder.

"Get back. NOW!" He barked as he would attempt to grab and pull again. "You!" He shouted to Eris. "Cover us. They have a shared data-net; they know where we are! No more element of surprise!"

Oh, how boring. The man didn't even seem capable of holding a conversation that wasn't directly focused on the issue at hand, even when they had nothing else to do except traverse the metallic landscape set out before them. A non-answer, though, perhaps it was possible he didn't know where he was, after all he would have pointed out Leo's purposeful error otherwise, wouldn't he have? Especially with such a localized organization like the one they were up against, if he truly was not a random adversary than certainly something as simple as a sector of the galaxy wouldn't have slipped his mind. For the moment, however, Leo kept quiet about his observations, waiting for a more optimal time to share his suspicions. The fact remained that the man still knew much about those who manipulated the drones, and so long as he was not leading them to an untimely betrayal then his means mattered little, legality even less.

He saw the figure caught in shadow before the man moved to pull him back, glancing over at him with amusement before shrugging lose of his grip and retreating of his own accord, prior to the man even pronouncing his overtly obvious warning. Into a gap of the hall's metal did Leo and Eris both run, the acrid scent of plasma ripping apart noxious fumes not... entirely unpleasant to his senses. Still did Eris's hands fly up, from them petals of vibrant fuchsia produced with thin needles caught upon the flora. She did not direct them at the line of fire itself, however, such would have been a foolish endeavor, instead it was merely the narrow crevice that they guarded, individual leaves sizzling with conflagration as the beam made its pass. A true strike would have decimated her magic and all of them alike, yet the mere glance only left a searing shudder, their position still secure for the moment.

The frantic words and actions, how poorly they betrayed the air of authority the man attempted to exude. He certainly wasn't as experienced as he had let on previously, at least comparatively. And in comparison to others, well, very few had more experience than them, especially in regards to combat. "Calm down," Eris said. Her voice was deadpan, clearly unimpressed by his display of leadership, although in reality it had been more like flailing about attempting to guide those who knew fair well what they were up against, even if Leo and Eris did not have any technical details. A threat, that was what was clear. Anything else, at that moment in time, was unnecessary detail.

Element of surprise... did he somehow think they had possessed it previously? It was a ridiculous notion, they were in foreign territory swarming with drones meant to detect and eliminate, the only significant feature they had on the machines was relative size. Even that didn't help much, though, when the halls they passed through were traversable by much larger beings, much to Leo's own relief. "We can't approach them, not when they have that sort of firepower and we're in an enclosed corridor, which really only leaves us with two options, staying put or going back the way we came. If we go with the former, they'll be forced to either close in or turn back; either way it would give us an advantage compared to our current situation."

"Three, Leo." She gestured for a moment at the leftward passage, knowing all too well what his response would be but obligated to put it forth all the same.

Yes, it was clear that his reaction was not only rationale speaking. "I'd... rather not," he muttered, the harsh clanking of steel muffled by modification yet still reverberation throughout the hull, its thrum growing in intensity.

His rifle spat a quick burst of rounds down the hallway, clanking against metal. Whether he'd hit the machine or a wall was hard to tell but it at the very least kept the unseen metal predator reluctant to expose itself too much. Yet a single rifle was not enough. Another flicker of movement; tall, leaning forth like some huge velociraptor, a tail-shape swinging back and forth. A quartet of tubular shapes on clawed arms.

He ducked as heavy calibre weaponry barked in response, heavy duty armour-piercing rounds flying down the corridor.

"If it makes you feel better, I've got a way to distract them. It does mean we'll split - but just keep going down the blocked hallway. The storage chamber isn't far."

He pulled back to look at the male; his vigour seemed to have hit a momentary pause and an odd unease crept onto his features. What an inopportune time.

"... Please don't tell me that gap is what's stopping him from just going."