After the alarm went off, all the resistance that the two encountered were left behind Replicas and combat drones, in addition to the few functional ceiling turrets in the inner facility. Alma in particular enjoyed bullrushing through clusters of withdrawing Replicas, even with the nervousness from the steadily progressing countdown.
Then they reached the doors to Security, which was the only connection between where the test subjects were kept and everything else, including the only way off the planet, the spaceport. Jack didn't know much about the planet, but he'd heard enough to hear that it was uninhabited except for the Armacham facility and that it was in some distant part of the Terminus, the roughly half of the known galaxy that had no major states and which generally considered the lawless playground of pirates and warlords.
No matter what, it was definitely better than dying to a gamma bomb, so Jack focused on the task at hand.
The doors themselves had been torn open by the former test subjects whose bodies now littered the hallways after they were killed by the guards. Luckily for Alma and Jack the holes were big enough to fit the mechs through, which made sense since they had to have been taken to Quarantine somehow.
Voices were loud over the radio as the Armacham personnel panicked and tried to evacuate, but Jack immediately recognized one. "Follow me to the hangar!" Alma said over the radio.
"Okay! Wait, how do I turn the radio on? Alma? Hey, wait up!"
Alma's REV8 smashed through a hastily erected barricade of several crates and kinetic barrier generators and opened fire on something he couldn't see from behind. However, he did see the return fire bouncing off the mech's barriers and impacting on the walls around it as the mech continued to charge forward, so he assumed it was either soon to be dead Replicas, or soon to be destroyed drones. It didn't really matter which and as the two escapees continued on he simply ignored the weapons fire that bounced off his mech's barriers. He assumed that there had to be at least a few Armacham minions around somewhere since it was doubtful that they could have kept ahead of the mechs so long. He assumed that they had run into side corridors or something to avoid the captured mechs as they tried to escape. At least it made things simpler.
Alma's REV8 came to an abrupt stop, and Jack jerked back on the throttle, but not fast enough to prevent his EPA from colliding with the other mech, staggering both for a moment. When they recovered, he saw her mech's canopy open so that she could get out, and he followed suit.
Once they were out he could see what the matter was, though he assumed there was some function in the EPA that would allow him to see around obstacles without getting out. He'd seen Alma shoot walls one time in the labs, though that could have just been her terrible aim. He personally thought it would be a waste if some smoke or fog or something could stop a murdermachine like the EPA from killing people.
He shook his head clear and looked at what blocked their path: a collapsed ceiling.
"Can we clear this?" he asked.
Alma stood before the wreckage, clearly concentrating for several painfully long seconds. "Yes, one moment."
He nodded and prepared to dodge in case more of the ceiling collapsed.
After several tense seconds, there was a deafening tearing sound as the wreckage was sent crashing down the hallway and pulling more of the ceiling and walls with it. The sound was enough that Jack had to cover his ears, but eventually the ringing in his ears died down and he found that despite his worst fears, there was in fact a clear space for them to advance along the hallway. Or, rather the ceiling ahead had completely collapsed and now there was a ramp of rubble leading up to the next floor. Which was surprisingly lucky considering how much structural damage that must have caused.
The universe must have agreed because he suddenly heard an ominous groaning coming from all around him. He looked to Alma again and shouted, "We need to go now!"
She nodded and shouted back, "Security only has one two more floors before we get to the first hangar!"
They climbed back into their mechs and started up the rubble. It was slow going due to the unsteady footing, but the mehcs were able to efficiently balance themselves well enough to prevent any disastrous accidents.
This floor was both more occupied, and more chaotic. Now that he thought about it as he thundered down the maze of hallways, the first floor had been mostly unoccupied as a recently evacuated battleground. This floor however hadn't seen much in the way of fighting since there was a notable absence of blood or bullet holes after the two left behind the wreckage. However, this was clearly where most of the fleeing personnel from who had come after them had made it too, as evidenced by the large numbers of security guards running either away towards the exits, or towards cover as the former prisoners continued on their path to freedom.
Jack made it a point to shoot the guards whenever he had the chance, and sent more than one missile into offices as he passed.
He knew that if they made a concerted effort, the guards could keep Alma and him from reaching a ship in time, but it was clear that they valued their lives more than their duty to the Armacham Conglomerate. This meant that they weren't providing organized resistance, aside from the occasional squad of Replicas and drones, or the annoy turrets that seemed to be placed over every one of the larger intersections, but they weren't heavily armed enough to really pose a threat. Additionally, where the turrets made themselves known, Alma would pause and demonstrate that the REV8's rockets did not need pinpoint accuracy to be effective.
On the other hand, the ones with rockets and flamethrowers did pose problems, but they were rare, probably because Armacham didn't think it was too likely for their mechs to be stolen be the psychic kids they kept locked up and forced to fight. Suckers.
He stomped past another intersection where several Replicas and two hover drones had set up. A sweep with his miniguns and a volley of his missiles had destroyed the turret and either killed them or forced them into cover, which for his purposes was good enough. He didn't want to take any more time than absolutely necessary, and even the slightest pause to fight meant that Alma and her REV8 were farther ahead. He didn't want to get left behind.
He saw her stop at the next intersection and turn to the left as a rocket hit her mech from the corridor to the right, quickly followed by kinetic fire and a laser beam. He hadn't seen any of the Replicas use one of those so far, but he knew that Armacham did occasionally have special units equipped with them. He wasn't sure why more didn't use them, but it wasn't really important at the moment. Getting off the planet alive was.
He reached the corner after Alma had completely passed from view, and followed her, ignoring the alert for incoming fire, and the one for hull damage as well. It could fix itself later.
Then he was shaken in his seat by a rocket impact. The interface showed the kinetic barriers were almost down. But as long as it could walk faster than he could run, it didn't matter. He kept going, following Alma's mech down the corridor and into a larger cubical farm as the barriers steadily dropped.
Then he saw the barriers of the REV8 flicker and die under a barrage of missiles and grenades coming from cubicles to either side as Replicas and drones burst out of cover. He gritted his teeth as her mech came to a stop.
"No, no, no!"
The mech fired rockets to the right and swept the area with its laser cannons, setting the entire area ablaze. Jack sent missiles and a storm of slugs into the left flank and the incoming fire stopped.
Alma started moving again, but this time her mech had a noticeable limp.
Jack frowned. They [i]needed[/i] to get out now. The Replicas were doing their job as disposable soldiers and slowing the two down. How long had it already been? Jack wasn't sure, other than that it was too long. How much time did they have left? Too little.
And there was nothing he could do at this point since of the two, only Alma actually had any idea of the layout of the place.
He didn't like it, but he kept following her as the evacuation continued.
Replica Tango 12609 reached the entrance to the main Security servers. It was guarded by two standard Replicas and a ceiling turret.
The Replica Elite walked past the guards and the door to the servers opened automatically, even though it should have been locked.
The Replica marched through the server room, past the two towers which ran the base and approached the terminal.
It didn't have the biometrics or the ID chip to access the terminal, but it did have its Replica Cybernetic Command Chip, which allowed it to wirelessly communicate with its superiors and with other Replicas. However, the wireless signal could be used to communicate with other things.
The Replica Elite didn't know any of this though. All it knew were its orders.
Alma and Jack had parked the their mechs in front of the closed elevator doors.
"Are you sure we can't just use the stairs?"
Alma concentrated and frowned. "They are full of scared people."
Jack sighed. "Okay, then I guess we need to get this door open and climb up the shaft. Stupid lockdown. You'd think they'd make it easy for their own people to get out if they're going to kill everything in the facility."
"Then we'd get out easily too."
"And you don't like that part?" Jack asked as he psionically started probing the structure of the doorway for ways to lever it open.
"I appreciate it." She focused on the doors, and they opened with a ping.
"Neat trick, how'd you do that? Enter some code?"
"I didn't. Someone has hacked into the system."
Jack wanted to think this over, but… "I'd rather not have to enter a hacked elevator in a base about to blow up, but I think I'll take my chances."
Alma nodded and they two entered their mechs and walked them into the waiting elevator. Then Alma and Jack opened their mechs to get out, but the elevator doors closed and it started to move up. The destination listed on the overhead display was "Hangar 02."
"Convenient."
Jack saw Alma tilt her head to the side for a moment before speaking. "They helped us."
"The evil voices that helped you learn how to eat minds?"
"Yes."
"I guess they didn't want to waste their creepy investment. Wonder how they did this though. Whatever, we're about to reach the hangar, get ready!"
They both re-entered their mechs as the elevator doors opened onto more chaos as people fled for their lives. About fifty meter in front of them across a space littered with crates and crowded with panicked employees was a freighter. Jack remembered seeing it's type often near the port before he was taken, and that it was a Kowloon freighter. Mass produced and easy to operate. Excellent for two escapees with limited piloting experience.
They rushed towards it, Alma opening fire once and hitting a crate. There was a guard near the crate, so Jack assumed she was trying hit him.
When the guards saw what they were doing, they ran for cover or just stood out in the open and fired at the two mechs, desperate to stop them from reaching the freighter.
Jack ignored the gunfire, he'd let them live and escape on their own, it didn't matter at the moment as long as he got away into FTL before the gamma bomb went off. He didn't know much about weapons really, but he did know that Batarians had used a gamma bomb to wipe out an entire Krogan colony once so they could settle there. People hadn't been happy about that.
And then the EPA shook as a missile hit it, causing his kinetic barriers to drop precipitously. Looking around as he continued forward, he saw several turrets had dropped out of the ceiling, several of them clearly armed with missile launchers. All of them firing at him.
Jack cursed as his and Alma's barriers rapidly dropped under the barrage and the mechs themselves began taking direct fire. They couldn't survive much longer.
Replica Tango 12609 turned and left the server room. Its objective was complete and it had new orders.
So did the other Replicas.
Urdnot Wrex stood in the hallway to leading into the morgue. He'd taken this job so because the humans were paying well because it seemed like a good chance to relax and catch up with some old friends who the humans had also hired. Not that he was exactly good at relaxing, being a Krogan and all, but he'd learned that it was important from time to time. Add to that the fact that it was perhaps his first chance in a long time to fulfill the 'master' part of Battle Master, and that this could be his opportunity to start a Krogan run mercenary/security company that wasn't run by a bunch of bloodthirsty varren-brains, and he had thought that this was a good job to take.
And now people were crazy, killing themselves and each other before becoming homicidal undead abominations.
He fired his incendiary loaded shotgun at another necromorph that tried to ambush him from the vents. He smirked as the chunks of its body burned.
Not what he'd hoped for, but it was still fun. And since the surviving Krogan and humans were looking to him for leadership after his counter-coup for control of the Ishimura, he had plenty of potential recruits for his future company.
He laughed as several necromorphs chased one of the human security officers around the corner and into his sights. After so long, things were looking up.