Chapter 9

Hyperion Station: Central Hub

They found themselves standing at the point of a short hall, which after about fifteen feet, split and corridors each wider than the hall went off at forward angles. They were slit by planters that sat about two thirds of the way across the corridors and had once undoubtedly held hedges, but they had long ago been torn out, leaving bits of sod spilling out onto the ground. A few benches were placed past the far side, against the waist high wall that separated it from the open area in the center. Further out they could see another low wall, and what appeared to be the mirror of where they were standing.

Guns out, they moved cautiously forward, near the walls and checked the area. Litter had built up in the corners, mostly consisting of discarded food containers and filthy cloth, as well as a fair amount of dust.

Stepping out into the open they could finally see the area. The paths formed a diamond rhombus with short halls sticking out of the points. There was an open area across the center of it, and as they moved up they could see down quite a ways. At the bottom they could make out what had once probably been some kind of atrium. They could make out the stump of what must have once been a large tree that was surrounded by benches and more planters that had no doubt once held more shrubbery.

They found themselves standing at the point of the shorter end of the diamond and could easily see across to the flights of stairs there, flanked by banks of elevators. In either of the other directions, at the points of the long way across were large doors like the ones they had come through, but even at this distance they could tell that they had been welded shut, making any forward progress on this floor impossible, so they looked at each other and silently agreed to head down.

They swung around the left side, since that was the closest to the wall they were near and moved around to the stairs, taking a brief detour to check the short hall as they passed. Like they had seen from a distance the door was welded shut, but what they hadn't seen was that the control panel had been smashed and ripped from the wall. Junk had been thrown against it including a few benches and a pot that had once held a plant of some kind. Looking around they could find no identifying marker to let them know what was through there, so they moved on.

They quietly continued moving around till they found themselves at the short hall that led to the stairs, and before heading down, Artemis slid up to the central rail and peered over. After making sure that there wasn't anyone or anything waiting, she motioned for Gaige to proceed, and only once she had made it down safely did she follow.

The stairs were solid, and not overly fancy, but still had once been nicely designed, but now were covered in dust. The walls had once had a nice smooth covering, which was now marred by gouges and dents, and bits that had fallen out were built up in the corners. Overall, the place had a grim vibe that would have been called decaying opulence, except that it had never been very opulent.

They proceeded down that way, Artemis checking the next floor and Gaige and Deathtrap moving ahead for the next two floors when suddenly Artemis motioned for them to hold back and started moving cautiously out. She stopped near the short wall where a chunk had been knocked out at some point and looked over and down.

Gaige couldn't take it so she motioned for Deathtrap to guard the stairs and moved over in a crouch till she was right behind the other girl. She knew she hadn't managed to sneak up on her, and the other girl wordlessly slid a little to the side to form enough space that they could both see. Gaige squished in next to her, trying to be conscious of the spikes on her jacket and trying not to be aware of how close she was to the other girl.

She looked down and immediately spotted what had the other girls' attention, a group of men with bulky armor were moving across the central area in a tight military like formation. She had trouble making out details on them, due to the distance, but she could make out their pitch-black armor, but of a completely different design from the ones that Holloway's goons had been wearing. All of them was carrying high tech, high end guns.

The troops moved into the central area and spread out slightly as the leader motioned for them to proceed towards the furthest door from where the girls were crouched down. Two of them stayed covering the rear as the rest started their approach when all hell broke loose.

The first of them wasn't fast enough to react to something and exploded in a ball of fire and gore. The rest took cover while opening fire.

The girls leaned forward to try and see what was happening, when a pair of loaders stomped out. The first one was massive with sloped shoulders loaded with missile pods, the other was darker and had long clamps for its hands. The second one stepped forward and the clamps opened up and started spinning, intercepting the bullets, sending them pinging around the area, as the first fired off another wave of rockets that demolished the small bits of cover that two of the men were hiding behind, as well as the men.

The rest of the men switched weapons and started unloading. The ones armed with explosive weapons fired low so their shots detonated around the one with the whirling arms feet, knocking it over and the others with caustic weapons fried the loader in next to no time. The other one turned and killed another of the men before they turned and destroyed it.

Some of the men moved forward and covered the door while the rest did a quick check of the dead, when the rear guard opened fire. The girls couldn't see what was being shot and but from the cries they could hear it was bad. The rest of the men turned and opened fire as they moved to back up the rest of their crew. Moments later what they were shooting at emerged into their line of sight.

A pair of female forms stepped out as the bullets pinged off them. It was Gaige's first time seeing these kinds but she recognized them from Artemis's description.

The men turned their caustic weapons onto them and the creatures started to melt, but suddenly from behind them, out of the girls sight, a pair of arms extended out over the front creatures and stabbed into the front row of men, before dragging them back. The remaining men fell back in surprise, it seemed that no one expected that kind of reach.

The front two of the armored creatures fell to the ground and another pair of them stepped over them and continued to march forward. And then another one stepped out, different from the ones they had seen up to that point. It was twitching oddly and suddenly a dome spread out from it, reflecting the green tinged shots. Standing behind that one was another like the first one they had seen. It waved its arm and two arms flew out and snagged another one of the men, the second managed to throw themselves out of the way as the arm stabbed where they had just been.

The lumpy looking one waved its arm again and something leaped over it and came down on the man who had just dodged, stabbing clean through him, before lunging at the remaining two slicing them in half with its deformed left arm.

The boss motioned and the other creatures moved out and grabbed the dead and drug them back underneath and out of the girls' sight.

The girls leaned back and looked at each other horrified.

"Well that was...unpleasant."

"Yeah, I don't know which is more troubling, those guys, the loaders or the whatever those last things were."

"Yeah, I mean I should have expected there to be loaders here, but the rest of that."

"You've seen those types of loaders before?"

"Of course, I did fight Jack and all of Hyperion you know."

"Right, of course."

"The PWR loader, that's the one that was spinning its arms, they're easy enough to deal with, either shoot them before they start spinning, shoot their legs, or if you hit them just right, you can hit them despite the shield. The RPG loader on the other hand, yeesh, those things can kill you right quick, as you saw. Take them out fast if you see one."

"Good to know. What about those guys in the armor?"

"Never seen them before, at least not to my recollection. Babe, you remember them."

"Urrar"

"Right, sorry you stayed back so they wouldn't spot you. What about you?"

"No. They were completely different from Holloway's goons, plus there was some kind of silver emblem on their chests. But I couldn't get a good look at it because of the angles."

"Silver mark?"

"Yeah. That mean anything to you?"

"Nope."

"Maybe if we could see it better."

"Let's not waste time on maybes."

"Right, which leaves us with those...whatevers. We really need some name for them."

"I donno, I've never been good at coming up with names."

"You came up with Artemis didn't you?"

"Yeah, but that was after a week in bed with nothing else to do."

"Ouch, right, whatevers it is for now. Anyway, them, they worry me. I mean they seem to have some form of coordination."

"That lumpy one seemed to be directing the others."

"So we are agreed that lumpy was a commander? Good. And I saw your armored ones, and stretchies. The shield one was new, but that last one. Yeesh."

"Truly yeesh. But I bet it was one of those that opened the elevator door like that. The freight elevator I mean."

"I could see that. But what worries me the most is that they took the dead with them. And not just their own, but all of them."

"What you think they eat them?"

"Honestly, considering the other option, I hope so."

"You hope so?"

"Actually, I hope they're just neat freaks that can't stand dead things laying around and took them to be disposed of properly."

"Unlikely."

"Seriously unlikely. No, the other option is that they are taking back to the lab for some reason."

"The lab? Not the one we went through, right? You said that was probably for making samples. Wait, you're not suggesting that they are using those corpses with the samples, are you?"

"I honestly have no idea. But we can figure that they drug the bodies back to the lab."

"We can? Wait. There's no reason that the loaders couldn't be protecting the lab, is there?"

"No. I suppose you're right, but I don't think so."

"Yeah, neither do I. More than likely that would be something else, which by process of elimination leaves the direction that they drug the bodies the main lab. But what are they doing in there?"

"No idea. But those bodies were taken there for some reason."

"Well, we aren't gonna figure it out sitting here."

"No but we are probably gonna have to fight all three groups from here on, and while I know about two of them, to some degree, it's that last one that worries me."

"On the plus side we now know of five different kinds of them."

"And probably more in the lab."

"Well that's a comforting thought. On a more pleasant note, what do I need to know about loaders? What ones should I look out for?"

"You've never faced a loader before?"

"I killed one once, but you don't really find them as quarry on a hunt."

"Yeah, that makes sense. Let's see, you saw a RPG loader and a PWR one and I doubt we'll find a Jet loader in here, they fly around. There was one that had a big shield on its arm, would transform and charge you with it, easy enough to take care of other than that, just get behind something or if you time it right you can jump them. Shoot off that arm and they're done. Oh, there was one that was all about fire, kill them fast, they can hurt. Oh, and if you see one with like yellow hazard stripes, it will run at you and blow itself up, but they're pretty weak otherwise. Uh, let's see, oh yeah, there was a, I think it was called a WAR loader, you'll know it if you see it, big sucker, at least twice your size, with massive guns, but like any loader, take those off and it's worthless. There were a couple others, but I can't remember them at the moment. That enough for you?"

"Hopefully, and to kill them I what? Shoot their arms off?"

"Yeah, but if you do that, they tend to charge you and explode, so it's always better to go for the eye. That would be that lens in the middle of, well they don't really have a head, but that area."

"Got it, so now what?" Artemis asked as they got to the bottom of the stairs and looked at the devastated area.

"So now we have to make a decision. Do we go into the lab and find out, and face the whatevers, or do we go and face the loaders and whatever they're guarding?"

The two girls sat in silence for a second before simultaneously declaring "Loaders."