Space Odyssey: Spectre-Chapter 524: Unlucky Thirteen VII

Bang!

Another bullet shattered Ignius shielding and then blew off another chunk of armor. "I left you with that Mortella! She was supposed to have killed all of you or put you in stasis!" Ignius yelled in anger as it fell to a knee. Its body was breaking apart slowly as he crouched. He then glanced to the side as Cain moved away from the console.

It leaped forward and hit Cain with its arm that was in shreds at this point. Hitting Cain and sending him flying and crashing into a wall. "Aaarggh!" Cain screamed as he hit the wall.

"You are looking the wrong way." A cold voice remarked before another shotgun round tore through Ignius’ head. Destroying its body completely. Jamal looked over it for only a second before moving over to Gene who was laying on the ground bleeding out. "Hey kid..."

"Old guy- khoff khoff khoff -sorry..." Gene apologized as he coughed up blood over Jamal’s arm as he began helping him up.

"Hmm... don’t worry about it." Jamal told him. Then looked over as Cain walked over. Looking over Gene for a moment before shaking its head and continuing to Ignius’ body. "Is there a doctor we can get him to in order to save him?" Jamal asked aloud in annoyance.

"No, not even the best Victorium doctors can save him. It is a miracle he is even alive. Probably a facet of the nanosystem. Sorry Gene but-"

"I know." Gene nodded. "Hey, do you guys think I lived a good life?" Gene asked in pain.

Jamal smiled down at him through their visors. Gene’s visor and helmet was broken so his face was exposed as he spewed up blood. "I am sure you did what you could." He remarked.

"Good, I hope those... orphans back... home... are alright..." Gene quietly hoped as the light in his life began leaving his eyes.

Jamal sighed as he laid Gene back down before looking at the others. He had lost many on the battlefield before. He was no stranger to death. But it still stung when the dying comrade was younger than him, especially by such a large margin. "The others-"

"Are fine." Cain answered as he stood over Ignius’ body and began nudging around some metal before clamping onto a chunk and pulling it apart. "Although they are all injured and will need assistance." As he pulled it apart the red glowing core appeared and Cain reached inside and pulled it out.

"What are you doing?" Jamal asked as he moved over and checked on Shinobi and Valkyrie. Both of whom were not badly injured. Valkyrie was just unconscious while Shinobi was just skewered on the wall. He could be easily healed and patched up, but he just could not do it himself, which was why he was trying not to exacerbate his wound.

"Deconstructing Ignius’ code and absorbing his raw data." Cain explained as he walked over to K with Ignius’ core in his mouth. He looked over at her before nodding. "Only slight injuries and damage to her internal organs. She will be fine but unconscious for a few minutes at least."

"Is that... normal for artificial intelligences to do... that... to other artificial intelligences?" Jamal asked awkwardly. "I apologize if that is rude to ask."

"It is fine." Cain crushed the core then snapped his head to the side, tossing the destroyed core to the side. "It is not normal. My creators are sharper than most and created a program so I could grow on my own and quickly if I need to by absorbing the experiences and lessons of other AI programs. Honestly, if another AI saw what I just did. They would call me an abomination." Cain explained before moving over to check on Shinobi and the waking Valkyrie. "Now that she is awake we should get moving. Make sure you grab Gene’s tags."

"Already grabbed them." Jamal confirmed with a head nod.

—--------------------------------

{Surrender human! Or your ally will die a pointless death!} One of the Mortella called out. Crystal frowned as he activated his mech’s external audio speakers.

"You can’t. If you kill him I will kill all of you. I mean that is the reason why you have held off so far." Crystal pointed out. They were stuck in a stalemate for several minutes. Hopefully by this point the others would arrive here. That was the plan at least.

The doors to the room slid open and another group of Mortella ran in. {Ha! Now it is over human! Our allies have arrived-}

{Run!} One of the new Mortella yelled in a panic before suddenly its head was cleaved in half by an axe.

The other ones fell just as quickly as Victor cut through them.

{You stay still or-} The hostage taking Mortella was cut off as he was suddenly cleaved in two by seemingly nothing. Then a moment later the rest of the Mortella were dying quickly. With nothing seemingly around.

But Crystal frowned for a moment before he picked up an abnormal heat signature. Then a moment later Shilla of the Centuria began appearing. He pulled back his weapons now that there was no immediate threat. But their squad was noticeably smaller.

"What happened to the others?" Crystal asked through the speaker system.

"Jamal went to the portal engine room to check on Cain’s group. Ignius is a traitor who betrayed us to the Mortella. We should kill him on sight if we come across him." Shilla declared as she spun her spear before it seemed to turn into dust particles and disappeared.

"Hmm... then I suppose we are down to only eleven members. Sol died, he was killed by the Mortella. I killed them in turn but damaged his mech." Crystal explained as his mech turned to look at the destroyed mech.

"Colvert, see if you can make something to get past the communication jamming. Jace sent us a detailed analysis and said our equipment was interfering with itself because of the composition of the Mortella ship’s hull." Victor explained as he pulled his axe out of one of the Mortella’s corpses.

"That... makes sense." Colvert nodded his head. "Okay, I need some help and bring me Sol’s mech core. This will take a lot of power. What are we transmitting?"

"All of the data we found and the fact that the Mortella’s first fleet will be arriving somewhere between a year or two." Victor informed them. "We overheard it when we were captured."

"Okay, this will take about ten minutes at least." Colvert explained as he quickly tore open a panel on the ship and began pulling out wires.

"Then get to work." Shilla informed him.

—--------------------------------

"I am surprised." Jace chuckled as he sat down on the ground. General Ariel was still struggling to move in the cold. "Such a massive threat to all life in the galaxy has such a blaring weakness. I am guessing it has been discovered before but your own people kept your weakness a secret from you in case you leaked it." Jace informed them as he relaxed a bit. "At least that is what I would do."

{I believe... you are right.} Her hesitation in speaking was actually her struggling to transmit her voice. Which reminds him. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

"How do your people communicate with biological organisms?" Jace asked as he checked his armor suit’s systems. Confirming that all his armor’s systems were operating at full capacity.

{We are transmitting... the vibrational frequency of our... gas particles... it takes... practice. But we... discovered it was faster than... natural communication method.} General Ariel explained.

"Huh... interesting." Jace nodded. "But what are you going to do now? By now my team will have completed or are completing their objective and for some reason I did not see the primary squad that appeared on Yuri. Are they... not on the ship?"

{Correct... I had decided to send them to establish a base on the edge of your galaxy to prepare for the invasion.} General Ariel explained.

"Oh? Then I suppose you were planning to sacrifice yourself?" Jace asked in amusement.

{No... actually... I was trying to be discreet about my escape method. After all, you said it yourself. This ship was just a trap.} General Ariel explained before a green light engulfed her and she disappeared.

Jace stared in shock. He really did not feel any build up power at all. But her last words were just as shocking. "Fuck." He hurriedly got up and ran over to the panel he exposed before. The frost buildup on it was intense. He looked for something he could use. The ship did not have a speaker system. They had a message transmission system but it was disabled, or rather it was pulled apart. Then what could he use?

Then he smiled as he thought of something. But he just had to hope Cain was paying attention as he quickly began programming it. Then the blaring alarm was heard throughout the entire ship. They had a limited amount of time before it all went wrong.