It was twice the height of a man. Not at all imposing. Facing them, an opening irised. More of an elevator.
"We go in?" Rhonda asked.
"I think not," Galatea replied.
"We should send your couch tv buddy in first," Priss added.
They needn't have worried. Rising from the bowels of the gigantic boomer Sylia rose into view. She stepped out of the elevator, clad loosely in a bathrobe. Her eyes glowed.
"What more proof do you need, she is a boomer," Galatea hissed
"Mother-daughter," Sylia intoned, "you were foolish to come here."
"And now you're going to destroy me, blah blah." Galatea blurted and chatted with her hand. All the nights awake watching cable movies, she had assimilated an arsenal of cliches.
Her retort stopped the controlled Sylia cold, her face twitched, under an assault from the real Sylia imprisoned within her own shell of a body. The real Sylia would have had something to say. The controlled Sylia, denied liberty except of ways to attack and defend, was mute.
"Get her, Priss! Now!"
"What?"
Galatea hurled the drone at Sylia, turning its camera nose into a sharp pointed lance. Sylia's internal struggle, Priss' unwitting distraction – though if she had attacked without pause that would have even been better – the little opening that had presented opportunity unmissable. The distance was ten meters or less, hypervelocified the drone was there and deep inside Sylia's shoulder in a fraction of a second.
She didn't waste any moment of the further advantage. She poured the drone into Sylia's body seeking out the boomer cordoned organs, the spinal column and the brain. The defensive reaction was instantaneous; as Sylia's meat body staggered, blood spurting out, nano-boomers, the stuff of which they fought with, rushed up through the former Knight Saber leaders' feet to counter the invasion.
If she dies, so be it.
The drone attack itself was a distraction, attention turned to rescuing their intellect, the boomer was slow to recognise what Galatea had really been unleashing, an attack on its own surface, where the real battle for dominance would take place. The boomer was the material.
Galatea fed herself into it, quickly turning the area around her a deep mauve and under her control. She spread out as fast as she could, and as deep, before the defences became too strong for easy take over. She feinted towards Sylia tricking the boomer into weakening in other directions which she took advantage of.
Priss was rooted to her spot, inaction or invasion. Galatea could not spare her any cycles. This was her mountain to conquer and it was a big mountain.
Sylia was the key to the battle, still. Eliminated, her children would have no experience and intelligence to fall back upon, only brute strength. From her new victory, a long thin bladed dagger rose into the Queen's hand and she started the last steps to where Sylia, an overheating body steaming vanquished nano-boomers, shook and trembled.
The mass shook too with each footfall, frightened and gripped in panic.
Galatea twisted the knife in her fingers. She stopped, very close to Sylia, and pulled her robe aside above her heart. Sweat covered the human, eyes unfocused, excruciating pain obvious, vocally cut. It would be doing Sylia a favour, ending her torment and painful misery.
She placed the tip of the knife, pressing into skin, not drawing blood – yet – tightened her grip, the one thrust had to do it, invade right into the heart, flood it, stop it, take her out of the equation. Her left hand she placed the palm over the butt of the knife; to push the thrust.
"Galatea! What are you doing?" Priss screamed at her.
Galatea spared Priss a glance, cracked to the calves, "I'm saving us," she replied, to Priss, to the dozens of airborne cameras that had honed in on her, transmitting the fight across the globe, where they would see her win and save them from the terrible boomer fate.
One thrust would do it all. Propel her to the fame she wanted. Destroy the last of her enemies.
She could see it in Sylia's real eyes, wanting her to do it.
Or maybe that was just her.
It didn't matter.
Galatea tightened her grip, tensed her muscles.
Sylia's eyes focused, a hand shot up to grab the knife blade.
Galatea's eyes widened.
She pushed. Sylia resisted. Blood oozed from the gaps between fingers.
She grunted, leaning into it.
The glow blazed out from Sylia's eyes.
Galatea staggered back, "How..."
Sylia only smiled.
"Priss, help me."
Priss ran up the hill, not to kill, to know sense into or lights-out. She didn't get more than half way when she was stopped in her tracks; there in the opening of the elevator was Linna, bound and held by Mackey Stingray, his eyes glowing too.
"Linna!"
Priss' friend barely stirred.
Sylia, robe blood stained, wounds closed, more transfused with boomers than she had been before stared at Priss and smiled. From the feet upwards Sylia was encased in platinum until just as Priss was, she too was hidden by Hard Suit.
A blade sprung out of the suit's forearm.
Galatea dropped the knife she held, puny.
"Priss," Sylia said, "would you be a dear, and die!"