Doom gasped like a man coming up for air, except he quickly realized that he was falling as a stone floor came rushing at him. A moment later he landed awkwardly, knocking the freshly taken breath out of him and cracking his knee off the ground.
Yet he recognized this floor; he was in Castle Doom again.
He picked himself up, rubbing his protesting knee. There was a distant rumble, likely from whatever excavation equipment the Skrulls brought to breach the core of his home. He had specially armoured his sanctum, and it would take them some time to breach it. Nevertheless, this sub-basement had suffered; dust had accumulated on the ground and several banks of monitors had fallen, smashing the delicate screens.
Moving quickly to the central chamber, he engaged a wall panel, and a hidden door slid back, revealing a new suit of armour.
"Computer; progression status of the virus?" he demanded, as he began donning his plate.
A computer in the center of the chamber winked and whirred to life, summoning a hologram over itself. Ghostly data wisps materialized, scrolled by, and disappeared into the electronic ether as the machine processed the order.
"Virus has infected 78.6% of worldwide systems: all unsecured networks and 98% of private networks infected, with secured military, government, and earth-based Skrull networks at 80.9%," droned the electronic voice.
"And the fleet?"
"56.2% of Skrull fleet assets infected. Tier 1 and 2 systems remain unaffected."
Doom quietly cursed to himself as he secured a gauntlet. He had hoped for more. He would have control of any non-critical system on the ships, but life support, reactors, exterior doors and the like would remain out of his control.
Hardly the silver bullet he needed, but at the least, he could disable the ships primary weapons systems.
"Open a channel to Colonel Rhodes," he ordered, as he fastened his cloak and pulled up his hood.
A moment later, the ghosts of data coagulated in the form of Warmachine. Even through the hologram, the cyborg looked tired beyond measure.
"And here I thought they got you, Doom," Rhodes said flatly as he slumped in his seat.
"More importantly to you, the aliens have captured Ms. Danvers," Doom replied.
Rhodes leaned forward as his expression suddenly changed to surprise. "What?" he said sharply.
"Both she and I were captured. I managed to escape." he said, not wishing to elaborate.
"And you left her behind?"
"There was little choice in the matter. More to the point, we must return to the Skrull colony ship; events have transpired to force our hand, and if we are to have any chance of liberating our world, we must strike now."
Rhodes started working keypads in his station as he spoke, "We're saving Carol this time."
Doom nodded, "Amongst other goals, but I assure you we will be releasing all the prisoners on that ship. Prepare yourself for an orbital assault."
A look of grim satisfaction crossed Rhodes' scarred face, "It's about time. Meet me at these coordinates with whatever forces you got; I have just the thing for this."
Doom hoped that his patience with this violent dullard would bear fruit. He shut down the down the comm and addressed his computer again.
"Computer: initialize Operation Excalibur. Converge reserve units on this location; weapons free."
The lights dulled to a ruddy colour as the machines spooled up their response to the battle procedure. Non-essential power was shunted to the processors and shielding. New interfaces manifested in his vision as his armor computers reported.
C2 FUNTIONS ROUTED TO ONBOARD SYSTEMS
RESERVE FORCES APPROX. 3 BATTALIONS HEREBY DESIGNATED ALPHA, BRAVO, CHARLIE
INITIALIZING VIBRANIUM POWER CORE
With these orders, Doom summoned the last vestiges of his troops. The Skrull attack virtually annihilated his military, but the automated defence network, perceiving the futility of further actions, left a small contingent of robot soldiers hidden in the mountains.
It was a small force, but Doom's technological advantage meant it could punch well above its weight against human enemies. As to their effectiveness against the aliens, he had confidence in their ability to combat any conventional troops, for some time at least.
Next, the system authority his virus had covertly wrestled from the alien computers was routed to his armour. While he was restricted from the higher tiers of control, he would have a surprising amount of power over the Skrull ships. Given the general Skrull weakness to computer warfare, this would be the deciding factor.
Of course, such a thing could be rendered useless if they took this vault and smashed his machines.
To counter this, powerful shield emitters would protect this place. These shields were powered by a Vibranium obelisk similar to the Wakandan design, though on a much smaller scale. Almost the entirety of the delivered vibranium was smelted into the generator, and it would be powering a shield a mere fraction of the city-dome in Wakanda. Even orbital strikes would take some time to wear down the field, and by the time enough firepower could be brought down on this place to threaten it, he would be victorious or dead.
He delegated his orders to the tactical computer as he calmly walked to the vault door. In a minute, the robots would strike the Skrull excavation team outside; preceding this, he had prepared by a quick 'flaring' of the shield emitters. This deliberate flickering would cause excess energies to crackle and ground, stunning any nearby unfortunates who managed to survive. He clasped his hands behind his back and waited for the report.
HOSTILES ELIMINATED; CAUSALITIES: NIL
He stepped through the vault door into the ruins of his castle. The formally living Skrulls had razed the whole structure and set up massive laser excavators to bore into the armoured chamber. Now they were little more than smoldering heaps as his war droids mercilessly executed the stunned aliens.
"Charlie Brigade," Doom intoned.
One of the robots stepped forward, raising a hand in a 'salute' while the rest continued their search for survivors. The salute was more for identification of the command unit, as they were otherwise indistinguishable from their fellows.
Turning to the command robot, he said "Charlie Brigade will hold this location at all costs. You will refuge in the vault and leave pickets to detect intruders. Weapons tight for any identified as myself pending further identification; weapons free for all others."
"By your will, Master," the robot answered, as its unit executed their orders.
"Alpha and Bravo Battalions: escort me," Doom commanded, and the units chimed their acknowledgement.
He engaged his jets and took to the sky as his robots adapted their formation around him. He lead them a short distance back to the mountains to another underground location. This garage housed several transport craft; while they weren't designed with spaceflight in mind, they could reach low orbit, so long as one did not plan to return on them. From there, Doom and his troops could make the short jump to Colonel Rhodes' coordinates.
Once they were embarked on the ships, it was a short and bumpy ride as the craft burned to low orbit. The unwieldy, but powerful, transports redlined their engines as they ascend on long particle trails. They were terribly vulnerable to any sort of interceptor craft, but thanks to Doom's sudden appearance in his castle and his rapid deployment of his forces, there would be some time before the Skrulls even knew what was happening.
Near the border of low-orbit, the over taxed engines of the beleaguered transports gave out. Doom and his force debarked into space, and continued by their own power.
The flight to the coordinates took another twenty-minutes. As they closed, he saw a small spherical space station that presumably served as Warmachine's base of operations. He ordered his doombots weapons tight.
Up close, the station could be described as broadly spherical. It was probably about three stories tall, and a similar distance wide, gunmetal coloured with various cylindrical off-shoots. A circular portal sat just around the middle of the station.
Rhodes' voice came over comm, "About time, Vic; glad to see you brought your toys." The cyborg's voice seemed to have picked up an almost jubilant tone.
Whatever decaying meat that was left in Warmachine's shell must be thrilled to see the end of all this, Doom mused to himself. The man was a soldier after all; taking orders from his superiors was what he was designed to, even if he wouldn't admit.
The aperture door opened, and he glided into the airlock. After a few moments, the pressure equalized, and he stepped into the red-lit bay. Colonel Rhodes was there to meet him.
"Tony left me a little gift," he said, gesturing widely.
Doom looked around as he spoke, "It would seem to be a prudent decision. I hope it's as useful as you believe."
"You know Tony; he never failed to deliver the best toys. Speaking of Tony-" His visor flipped up and he gave Doom a hard stare as he spoke very softy, "- if we find him on there, he's coming back too."
Doom considered his words carefully. "If Stark is up there, we will do everything we can to help him," he answered. He decided to leave the fact that Stark was converted into a Skrull out. It would only upset Rhodes, and he needed the man switched on.
"Just like that, huh?" Rhodes said, seemingly taken aback at the easy assent to his demand.
"We may need him after this operation. The Skrull's have integrated his technology to theirs, and he will be invaluable to setting our world free of their control. This is merely the first shot in a war," Doom lied. The truth was that this will be the only operation, one way or another.
"Alright, let's go kick some ass," Rhodes said.