"The spore infestation is also severe in this room, it"s getting to the level where visibility is dropping."Scanning yet another overgrown server room Dax declared all clear before immediately commenting on the fog created by the flesh and electricity eating fungi that seemed present all over this floor.
"It is… Arg it"s even sticking to my suit at this point! How are we keep them from coming back with us?"
"That"s relatively simple, we just step out into the sunlight for a bit, the solar radiation and extreme cold will immediately annihilate most of the spores, also the CAS-7A has a decontamination function which kills everything and renders the remains sterile."
"Neat, I can"t wait for that."
Wiping her visor clean of fungi spores for the nth time Solaris greatly looked forward to the decontamination, and a shower.
"Up ahead should be the central room. Let"s make this fast, I have a bad feeling about this, we"re definitely not alone."
Having the impression that they were being watched by something hostile Dax kept his head on a swivl as he entered what should be the command room of this dome. Inside the fungi spores in the air formed a dense fog that limited visibility to only a few meters, this was of course not an issue for Dax as his suit and the Drones he moved in formation with was outfitted with advanced sensors like high powered LIDA and Doppler radar.
"I can"t see s.h.i.+t."
Solaris on the other hand did not have that luxury.
"ICI relay primary sensor feed to VIP HUHD please."
[AFFIRMATIVE, RELAYING PRIMARY SENSORY SWARM AGGREGATED FEED TO VIP HEADS UP HELMET DISPLAY, FORMULATING RENDER… COMPLETE.]
Instantly green lines were drawn on Solaris" visor outlining the room hidden behind the spores that covered most of her sight, with a pulse of green was.h.i.+ng over her visor every second and updating the information in relation to her movement and relation.
"Is this how you always see the world?"
"Kind of. My cybernetic eye sees this, inferred, ultra violet, thermal and high energy electromagnetic radiation like hostile radar, among other things. All at the same time of course."
Taking a few seconds to understand words she was not entirely familiar with Solaris understood that there was a reason the people that had made Dax"s eye compared it with the vision of a all seeing G.o.d.
"... I wonder how I look from your eyes…"
"You want to know?"
"Eh?!"
Wondering out loud Solaris didn"t realize those words had accidently spilled from her lips until Dax responded to her question.
"I-I guess?"
"It"s really not that different from how my other eye sees you, or any other intelligent being sees you."
"Just tell me already."
Feeling Dax was deliperly playing around with her heart Solaris got quite frustrated and accidentally spoke out in annoyance.
"You"re adorable, simple as that. More importantly look alive, I think I just found out why there"s mana here."
"W-what did you fi-"
Suppressing her own rapid heartbeat as she felt her face heat up Solaris walked over to Dax that was a bit in front of her, but all of a sudden the fungi spores cleared from her vision and she saw what Dax were talking about, making her stop in her tracks completely. It was some kind of red glowing orb approximately 1 meter in diameter that hovered in some kind of containment field a few meters above the ground. Examining the surface in greater detail Solaris found it to be a mix of runic formations and densely packed circuit boards letting of the occasional spark of high voltage current. What was even more strange than the sphere was the effect it had on the surroundings, even though her isolating s.p.a.ce suit Solaris could feel it.
"Mana is pouring out of it endlessly… T-that shouldn"t be possible."
Like a spring of infinite water, dense mana almost visible to the naked eye flowed endlessly out of the red orb, showing no signs of slowing down or decaying.
"Actually I"ve felt like this might be possible for a while. Remember when we suppressed the north, there was this device of mine that had been modified to eliminate mana from its surroundings? That made me look closer at the nature of mana in closer detail and I quickly discovered that it is some kind of exotic particle, most likely generated and stabilized somewhere deep inside the planet due to some special material properties of the core. I suspect who or whatever made this thing understands this process perfectly, and are therefore able to replicate the effect."
"But that"s-"
"Impossible? Where I come from people grasped the power of gravity and mastered it, a feet long believed to be impossible. Intelligent life is tenacious and universally obsessed with bending nature to its will, given enough time I belive everything is possible, and even if you disagree with that the example is floating right in front of you."
With Dax"s strong argument for technological advancement and the proof of that right in front of her, Solaris forced herself to reluctantly accept the fact that mana could be fabricated for the time being.
"ICI I want a complete ma.s.s spectral scan of that thing immediately."
[ORDER CONFIRMED, COMMENCING SCAN OF MANA PRODUCING ANOMALY #1… 0.12%..... 0.49%....-]
With nothing to do for the moment Solaris kept close to Dax like he had instructed, but her eyes wandered all over the room.
(That"s what he called a "server" infected with quite a lot of those fungi, I can ask for what exactly that is at a later date… And is that… A bed?)
Finding something she had not expected to be inside the fungi infested room Solaris looked at the strange enclosed bed that stood almost upright she noticed something disturbing. While the outside and lid was covered with a layer of fungi like everything else in the room, the inside was not. That lead Solaris to believe it had been opened recently, indeed as Dax"s intuition pointed out they were not alone in here. Wanting to share that information with Dax she turned her eyes back on him, only to finally see it at the last second.
"DAX DODGE!"
Hearing the panicked scream form Solaris time slowed down greatly for Dax as his mind went into overdrive and followed her instruction, instantly collapsing his stance while disabling the primary safety on his Rex-Alpha 357 hybrid gauss rifle. What meet Dax"s eyes as he collapsed downwards and brought his rifle up while he looked behind him could only be described as a monster. Cybernetic enhancements and runestones where imbedded in the vaguely humanoid decomposing form that stood about 4 meters tall, its head almost touching the ceiling. The creatures red glowing and clearly cybernetic eyes where firmly locked on Dax and a mix of tentacles and numerous arms all tipped with metal spikes had pierced where Dax had just stood a moment earlier, making the hair on the back of his neck rise.
(I DIDN"T f.u.c.kING SENSE IT!)
"SOLARIS RUN!"
Switching the fire select to fully automatic Dax squeezed the trigger a placed a grouping of 40mm anti personnel semi-armor piercing high-explosive incendiary rounds firmly in the creature"s center of ma.s.s and head as he opened up the distance by activating the att.i.tude control thrusters on his s.p.a.ce suit propelling him across the floor. The shots however had no effect, as when the came close to the monster, some unknown influence stopped them mid air before harmlessly starting to fall towards the floor in the low gravity. At the same time as Dax realized his attack on the creature had been unsuccessful the reaction control system on Solaris" s.p.a.ce suit lit up and pushed her feet into the ground, allowing her to run as if she in normal gravity, and run she did. Not questioning Dax"s instruction in the slightest she had immediately understood that he and the drones would act as bait, only withdrawing after she had reached safety. As she ran out of the room and into the network of narrow hallways Solaris" visor lit up with a clear trail renderd in augmented reality as she heard Dax"s voice screaming out.
"I"LL DISTRACT IT SO HURRY UP AND GET OUT!"
At the same time Dax unsuccessfully emptied the second magazine of SAPHEI ammunition towards the creature before tossing away his rifle.
"SATURATE TARGET!"
[ESCORT FIRETEAM OPENING UP ON PRIMARY HOSTILE, SATURATING FIRE.]
"TEAM 2 SET UP BEACH AT POINT DELTA, GIVE ME AN ESCAPE ROUTE NOW!"
[DIRECTIVES CONFIRMED, SETTING UP STANDARD TYPE 14 FRAME SHAPED CHARGE BREACHING CHARGE AT POINT DELTA.]
As 6 Reaper drones emptied their magazines towards the creature the rest escaped into the next room over in the same direction as Solaris had fled. Stopping there they quickly went to work laying down explosives on the floor.
[FIRE IN THE HOLE, BREACHING NOW.]
With a shaped charge the explosion forced blades of molten metal trough the relatively thin floor and cut a large hole directly into it, creating an access point to the floor below.
"RETREAT!"
[WITHDRAWING, COVERING FIRE.]
With fireteam 2 leaving through the newly formed route team 1 kept firing at the creature and drawing its attention to allow Dax to get around it so he could escape. The creature perhaps angry at the flys around it morphed a large portion of its tentacles and arms into a single mesh, pointing that towards one of the drones as a formless pressure formed in front of the amalgamation of tentacles and shot out. Instantly a cone of something Dax couldn"t see formed out in front of the gathering of tentacles.
(WHAT THE f.u.c.k!?)
But even as Dax couldn"t directly observe it he saw the phenomenons effect, forming a cone shape in front of the creatures arm reaching out approximately 10 meters all matter was completely annihilated, caving a void in the spore filled air and Reaper drone at the same time.
(That definitely violates serval laws of physics!)
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Internally commenting on the absurdity of it all as he ran along one of the walls around the creature Dax was able to calm down a bit more and formulated a plan as he checked on how far Solaris had gotten. Losing 2 more drones to the matter annihilating attack Dax managed to retreat to the level below, but he couldn"t manage to open up more than a room"s s.p.a.ce between him and it as it turned out the creatures countless tentacles were optimal for traveling in low gravity.
"Solaris keep running, get to the airlock where we entered the plant the gray parcel that"s in your toolbelt on the floor and keep running until you"re outside the ramp and completely clear of… It… Arg! Just dip my b.a.l.l.s in honey and stake me to an ant farm!"
Tailing off at the end Dax cursed his luck as he ran into a room filled to the brim with stasis pods that were currently waking their occupants.