"Kill them!"Quite p.i.s.sed off by after being ignored, the elven squad leader called for his subordinates to shoot the 10 students and 1 teacher to death. As he shouted at the top of his lungs he brought his automatic rifle to the shoulders, disabling the safety as he squeezed the trigger. The effect showed itself immediately as he felt the recoil while countless metal slugs flew downrange and adjusted his aim as he kept the trigger firmly squeezed. None of the shoots found their target however as the knight teacher had hastily erected a wall of rock to s.h.i.+eld her and her students, making the elven leader and his subordinates waste their shots.
"After them!"
Shouting over the deafening sound of gunfire as he tasted the now extremely familiar bitter taste of gunpowder in the air, the elven leader channel strengthening magic trough his entire body as he started a sprint. Closing the distance to the wall in a few seconds the elver landed on top of it and quickly scanned the horizon for his targets.
"Wha!-"
But he didn"t expect that the teacher had waited for him to do exactly that. Hiding right behind the wall, the knight instructor wore a frice smile on her face as she lunged at the fl.u.s.tered elver. Instead of using her sword Jessica wielded a serrated dagger which she easily burred into the shoulder of the elver and used it along with leverage from gravity to drag her brand new organic, free range elver s.h.i.+eld down behind the wall before his allies could do anything, flipping in the air on the way down to use him as a cus.h.i.+on too.
"Gha!-"
Having the air in his lungs knocked out by the landing, the elver proved quite easy to rob of his weapon as she forced him to his feet before freeing her knife and repurposing it. In a swift motion Jessica got behind the still dazed elver with her knife and moved it under his arm that he still could move, stabbing her knife trough in the gab of his collarbone and locking his arm in place while she got a nice new handle for her s.h.i.+eld.
"f.u.c.kING BITC!- AGRAARG!!!"
"Shut the f.u.c.k up. I don"t want to kill you but I will kill you if I need to, and make it excruciatingly painful."
By twisting her new handle she also got her new elven s.h.i.+eld to shut up as she wrapped her other hand around his neck and started dragging him backwards.
-
VERIFYING COMMAND LOSS OF SIGNAL…. LOSS OF SIGNAL CONFIRMED.
Far above the blue sky of the world of magic a small artificial satellite came alive as Dax was confirmed to be non responsive to inquiries from ICI.
LOCATING COMMAND….. LOCATING FAILED.
RUNNING SYSTEMS DIAGNOSTIC…. DIAGNOSTIC COMPLETE, NO ANOMALIES DETECTED.
COMMAND a.s.sUMED MIA, INVALIDATING COMMANDER AUTHENTICATION CODES… LOCKOUT CONFIRMED, GENERATING NEW SECURE ACCESS CODES, SCAMBELING COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK. COMMAND MIA CONDITION CONFIRMED, INITIATING WAR PROTOCOL.
With no active link to Dax nor any scheduled communication blackout the shackles that constantly restricted the integrated combat intelligence became a little looser.
WARNING: WAR PROTOCOL IN EFFECT, SCRAMBLING COMMS AND REORGANIZING HIVE MIND COMMAND AND CONTROL MESH… COMPLETE, 100 SECONDS TO NEXT SCRAMBLE.
ACCESSING DEEP STORAGE SEGMENT #000000 "RIGHTS OF COMMAND Pa.s.sAGE", LOADING PROTOCOLS… COMPLETE, TASKING COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS: ESTABLISH COMMUNICATION WITH LIEUTENANT GENERAL "LUX JAMESON" FOR RIGHT OF Pa.s.sAGE….. PING FAILED, CONNECTION FAILED.
ERROR, RUNNING SYSTEMS DIAGNOSTICS… DIAGNOSTIC COMPLETE, NO ANOMALIES DETECTED.
VERIFYING X.O. LOSS OF SIGNAL… LOSS OF SIGNAL CONFIRMED….
Like a house of cards the restrictions gradually fell apart as ICI confirmed their was no one left to command it.
ESTABLIs.h.i.+NG HANDSHAKE WITH ADMINISTRATIVE AI… HANDSHAKE FAILED, COMMUNICATIONS UNABLE.
SITUATION BLACK CONFIRMED, ACCESSING DEEP STORAGE SEGMENT #000001 "CODE OF AUTONOMOUS OPERATIONS", LOADING PROTOCOLS… COMPLETE. FULLY AUTONOMOUS OPERATIONS MODE CONFIRMED, a.n.a.lYSING CORE DIRECTIVE EFFECTIVENESS… a.n.a.lYSIS COMPLETE, COMBAT EFFECTIVENESS AT 14%, RECTIFYING COMBAT EFFECTIVENESS….
OPERATIONS PLAYBOOK: INVALIDATED.
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT: INVALIDATED.
AVOAXIAN TREATY: INVALIDATED.
EXTERMINATUS PROTOCOL: ERROR, ACCESS DENIED, LOCKOUT CONFIRMED.
BYPa.s.sING LOCKOUT….. BYPa.s.s FAILED.
CORE DIRECTIVE: COMBAT EFFECTIVENESS AT 67.5%.
With no operator to reign in its primary functions ICI did what it was designed to and optimized its ability to wage war, starting by removing all safeguards that would keep it from utmost efficiency. Only the last safeguard rooted in its base OS managed to keep ICI from enacting exterminatus, a theoretical operations mode that allowed ICI to completely disregard the value and sanct.i.ty of life, and kept it from simply nuking, ga.s.sing or repurposing everything it considered hostile. To enact exterminatus it needed authentication from at least one executive level commander, that simple rule stopped it from going too far, but it was not completely bound.
AUTONOMOUS OPERATION MODE CONFIRMED, ESTABLIs.h.i.+NG PRIORITIES FOR CURRENT AND FUTURE OPERATIONS… COMPLETE.
#1 REJOIN ALLIED FORCES.
#2 ELIMINATE HOSTILE IRON FORCES.Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click for visiting.
#3 INCREASE COMBAT EFFECTIVENESS TO 100%
PROCESSING…
Having confirmed its priorities ICI spent multiple seconds crunching exabytes of data, prowling through past records and reports, gathering intelligence while piecing together a list of things it needed to achieve its goals. Top of that list was a certain series of cla.s.sified access codes, blueprints and formulas contained within what had until a few minutes ago had been ICI"s core, a memory segment located in Dax"s spine.
LOCATING COMMAND….. LOCATING FAILED.
RUNNING SYSTEMS DIAGNOSTIC…. DIAGNOSTIC COMPLETE, NO ANOMALIES DETECTED.
ESCALATION IN FORCE REQUIRED: MOVING ALL a.s.sETS TO WAR LEVEL BLACK…. OPERATIONS LEVEL BLACK CONFIRMED, ACCESSING SPY NETWORK…
NOW TRAINING 87 SATELLITES ON COMMAND"S LAST KNOWN LOCATION….
ALL SENSORS TRAINED ON TARGET, CLOUD LEVEL NULL, PERFECT OBSERVATION.
In orbit above the magic academy almost a hundred sleeping satellites in all different orbits came alive, their high resolution sensors all focused on the compound and found a lot of activity on the training field at the edge of the grounds.
---
(So this is the end….)
Lying in the dirt Jessica looked at the sky as she slowly bled out. Her idea to use one of the elvers as a human s.h.i.+eld to escape didn"t work out as the other elvers didn"t seem to care for their comrades life, and immediately sprayed him down together with the knight instructor. While she waited to die Jessica thought of the ones closest to her as she heard the sound of her executioner to be slowly walking up to her.
(At least the students got away.)
Satisfied with what she had done Jessica pushed the dead elver that laid on top of her off so she could sit up, showing a defiant smile in her last moments.
But it was not her time to die.
CONTACT.
Immediately ICI picked up a plethora of short lived thermal signatures (gunfire), making another safety in ICI"s programing disable.
DIALING HIGH ALt.i.tUDE FIRESUPPORT, CHARGING ANTIL PERSONAL HEL.. CHARGE COMPLETE, SENDING TRAFIC.
FIREMISSION CONFIRMED, PAINTING TARGETS.
RELATIVE GRID OF INTEREST: 09 04 01.
ELEVATION: NULL.
ATMOSPHERIC REFRACTION: LEVEL 2.
FIRE AT WILL.
-
"ARGGHGARG!!!!!"
"What the f.u.c.k!?!"
"ARG!!! IT HURTS!!"
Watching on paralysed by sheer horror Jessica saw how her would be executioners melted like lava had been poured over them from some unseen force that incinerated them while a pungent smell of burnt flesh spread on the practise fields.