Alert sirens rang out loudly, quickly becoming the only audible noise on the ship save for the vibrations and shockwaves of nearby exploding ships and impacts against the hull. Picking himself up from the floor of the hallway where he and Sergeant Jospert had fallen, Tobias quickly regained his momentum and jogged towards the launch deck.
Upon emerging onto the deck, he and Jospert were greeted with a sight of the large window in front of them where a full view of the massive-scale battle over Demeter was visible. Fighter squadrons and dropships alike flew in the space between frigates, trading shots between the Militia and IMC fleets. Another frigate exploded, thankfully one of the Militia's.
Other Pilots in the area quickly moved towards the drop-pods, preparing to drop as the third wave of Pilots on the ground. His HUD indicated his assignment, the pod on the far left. He and Jospert quickly moved towards it, strapping themselves in as the operator's voice spoke over the comms, "Anvil 7, ready to go."
"Anvil 8 is all-clear."
"Initiating drop sequence-"
A warning alarm suddenly wailed throughout the ship, and the pods cancelled their drop sequences. The hatches opened, and with confused looks the Pilots exited them to see what was going on.
Below the launch platform, Admiral Graves was speaking over the comms channel to the forces on the ground; "Pilots, the core is going critical. We're sending evac ships to your location. We're gonna get you out of there."
He spoke assuringly, confident in the dropships' capability to rescue the Pilots and riflemen from the surface. Tobias knew it wasn't exactly protocol, but he and the other Pilots walked towards the glass window, looking down at Demeter below. Now they knew why their drop had been aborted, the missions as a failure. He shuddered at the thought of nearly having been sent down right as the core was about to go critical. Still, at least the forces on the ground were going to be evacuated-
"Negative- executing command override. Evacuation dropships- cancelled."
He couldn't believe what he'd just heard, and evidently he wasn't the only one who thought so. Every Pilot turned their heads toward Graves who began to yell at the console in front of him, "Dammit Spyglass, what the hell do you think you're doing?!"
"All Capital ships- auto pilot engaged. Forcing jump to minimum safe distance."
Graves seemed to be at a complete loss for words until someone else appeared to speak to him over a private channel. Whatever it was, Tobias couldn't hear what they were saying, and he didn't care.
The space around the ship began to twist and distort until a blindingly white flash appeared, and when he next looked the planet was quite a bit further away, with no hope of rescue for the people on the ground.
He thought about the people he knew who were still down there; Renée, Hendrix, Kouper-
An enormous explosion suddenly filled an entire half of the planet as the core exploded and caused sections of it to crack and completely break away from the main body. The launch room fell silent as they watched the event transpire, unable to look away as they stood there helplessly.
He felt a pit in his stomach, one that threatened to overwhelm him with nausea. Barely, he managed to control it.
Spyglass. How could he have done this? The AI was supposed to be the IMC's most efficient tactical mind, created for the sole purpose of helping the IMC win the war to protect humanity. Thus far, he had proved that no other of his kind was necessary, his processing power monumental enough to handle every calculation and decision thrown his way.
But this … Tobias had never expected this. Nobody had wanted this.
He remembered back to when he was younger, how he'd been told that story by his mother and how it had shaped his way of thinking, allowing him to question his own decisions and make the right choice.
Maybe Spyglass didn't have any kind of thinking like that. If the AI thought he was perfect, then technically every choice he made was 'right', or at least the most efficient.
Apparently morals weren't a part of that process. Maybe they should have been.
Feet slamming into the floor as they ran, they finally came to a stop at the hangar as they heard the sounds of gunfire from within. Peeking past the edge of the door that led into it, Tobias could see squads of Embers and New Humanity forces battling it out in a large firefight.
The Embers were trying to keep these NH forces from making it past the hangar, but if the emergency broadcasts were accurate, then it was in vain; apparently boarding parties had entered at just about every accessible junction on the ship. Looking at the hangar doors, it was easy to see how; even with the blast doors up and closing off access to the hangar, the boarding ships' tips had penetrated the metal and torn wide holes into it to dispense troops.
The only way out of this one was going to be getting Kay off the ship, and allowing the frigate to warp. The NH forces could be dealt with greater ease if they had Titans, but they'd need to open that section of the ship manually now that the ship had gone on lockdown. Only thing in their way was the large number of enemies between them and it-
"What's wrong with them?" he heard Gates ask to his side as she also looked out the doorway. "Their eyes …"
He tried to see what she was talking about, and found himself shocked at what he'd failed to notice; their eyes were glowing, shining with bright luminescent irises that were easy to see in the dimly lit hangar.
"The nanites," he muttered, "I guess Spyglass decided that his forces were a good start in the conversion process. Probably helps an army to remain cohesive when they all share the same mind."
He felt just a bit sick, knowing that every single NH rifleman in front of him was no longer really there, but rather just an organic vessel for Spyglass to extend himself through. And this was just a small hint of what was in store for all of mankind if Spyglass was allowed to bring his Coalescence to fruition; first the frontier, then the inner colonies.
"El! Four!"
He looked out again to see Gates and Davis waving them over, fighting with a group of Embers to hold back the enemy.
"C'mon," he ordered Gates, "let's give these guys some help!" He pointed at Mayfair and Rye. "You two stay here until we've cleared the hangar, especially you," he emphasized, his gaze upon Mayfair. "If you've got any info on Kay's condition, I'll need your help in containing her when this is all over."
Turning his attention back to the hangar, he ran out the door with Gates close behind. Bullets quickly changed course towards them, and they hastily slid across the floor into cover with the other Embers.
"We were prepping the Leatherback for departure when the boarding parties starts pouring in," Gray panted. "You got a plan?"
"Indeed we do," Gates answered as Tobias looked at one of the riflemen, apparently the squad leader.
"Can you guys hold them off for a few seconds? We need to make it to the other side of the hangar," he asked, pointing towards the Titan barracks situated on the opposite end of their location.
The woman snorted. "What did it look like we were doing before you got here?"
He shrugged. She had a point.
Raising her rifle up, she poked out of cover and laid down some suppressing fire before throwing him her sidearm, a Wingman, upon her noticing his lack of firearms. "We've got your back! Go!"
Not wasting a moment of this opportunity, he and Gates dove out of cover once more and entered a mad dash towards the barracks while Davis and Gray stayed to help the Embers. They utilized the shelter of dropships to avoid most of the shots directed towards them, shooting back whenever possible.
"If you guys are gonna pull some kinda solution out of your ass, now would be a good time to do it!" came the leader's voice over an open comm channel.
He looked at the distance between them and the barracks. It wasn't particularly far, but there was still a fair bit of likelihood they'd be shot before reaching them. But so long as he was able to release the locks, he hoped that things would work themselves out.
Sprinting towards the large door, he opted to slide and narrowly dodged being hit by burst of rounds over his head. Quickly locating the control panel next to the barracks' entrance, he grabbed the emergency release and pulled it.
Immediately, warning lights that an emergency was underway lit up over the door, as though no one was aware of the fact that the ship was under attack. The door began to slide up into the ceiling-
Without warning, he was knocked onto his back as something tackled him. He glanced up to see the head of a Stalker, glaring at him with its synthetic optics. Through its vocal processors, it spoke with a familiar monotonous tone, "I assumed my intent for you was clear when I gave the announcement of your death."
"Well I changed my mind," he growled back at the Spyglass-controlled robot. Bringing the Wingman up, he placed it against its chest cavity and blew a hole through its core circuitry. Shoving the heavy weight away, he looked over to see three of the NH riflemen approaching him.
"Artemis was given a chance to persuade you, but it would appear that perhaps her trust in you was misguided." Disturbingly, the one speaking retained his old voice as Spyglass spoke through him. "Force will be necessary in your acquisition-"
Spyglass wasn't able to finish his sentence as a massive fist smashed the three men into the ground where their bodies burst from the sheer force applied to them. Tobias jerked back in shock for a moment before looking up and seeing a Vanguard retract its fist and give a nod to him. "Hello, Admiral. It is good to see you unharmed."
He remembered what he'd been told about most Vanguard AI's being specifically designed without emotional processors in mind; it would appear that this was one such example. Beside the Vanguard stood an Ion, another Vanguard, and a Legion. He peered behind them to look into the barracks, noticing a lack of any other active Titans.
"We've managed to snag quite a few chassises back from the black market and other sources," Gates explained next to him, "but we've still got a notable shortage of data cores. Only a small portion of Titans chose not to defect to Spyglass's regime, and that number hasn't gotten any bigger over the last few years."
He nodded in understanding, hoping that there were more Titans on other ships that had already jumped from this sector of space. Looking up at the Ion, he waved to it. "What's your name?"
"My designation is HBE-4545," it replied with a deep male voice. "What would you have us do?"
"Where are their Pilots?" he questioned Gates. She shook her head.
"As far as I know, most of the Titans we have don't possess any links; their AI's have either been constructed in the last four years, or severed their connections with their Pilots one way or another. It's a rare sight to see any bond between a Pilot and Titan these days."
Tobias hadn't considered how many Pilots must have had their links wiped with their Titans due to the mass exodus to Spyglass's forces, as well as any Titans whose Pilots had probably been killed fighting against the AI's reign. Things kept getting more grim every time he looked around.
"Alright HBE," he ordered, "I need you and the other three here to defend the hangar. Help us clear out the NH forces, and keep anymore who try to board from advancing!"
That was all the instruction they needed as they quickly moved to follow his commands. HBE and the second Vanguard ran to the squads of riflemen on the other side and quickly helped to protect them from the NH units. Tobias and Gates followed the first Vanguard and Legion around as the two of them began to mow down groups of enemies that were trying to move towards the edges of the hangar.
They tried to pick off any stragglers that the two Titans missed, ensuring a proper clean-up. He would've felt bad about it if he didn't know that any semblance of the person these people used to be was long dead, now nothing more than another extension of Spyglass.
It wasn't long before the hangar was free of New Humanity units. Other boarding ships penetrated the hull, but the Titans were waiting for them when they did. It only took two tries before they stopped attempting to enter the hangar anymore. Hopefully they'd focus their efforts somewhere else on the ship- and hopefully the frigate's occupants would be enough to repel them.
"Mayfair! Rye!" he yelled, looking to the hangar entrance where they slowly entered, hesitant due to all the shooting they'd heard only moments prior.
"Follow Davis and Gray," he ordered, pointing at the two Pilots. "They're gonna get the Leatherback set for launch while I track down Kay." Looking at the second Vanguard, he pointed towards the passage in and out of the hangar where the two scientists had just come from. "What's your name?"
"I am PB-7465," it answered with a cool feminine tone.
"PB, watch and make sure no NH forces come in from elsewhere on the ship."
"Understood," the Titan replied, moving to guard what he'd ordered her to.
He waved to the riflemen. "Alright, help the Titans keep the area secure. They'll probably do a decent enough job of that on their own, but help never hurts." With that said, he began to walk with Gates as they watched Gray, Davis, and the two scientists begin to load into the Leatherback.
He furrowed his brow as something crossed his mind. "There's something I don't understand."
Gates turned to look at him as they walked. "What?"
"Spyglass … he said he gave 'Artemis' a chance to persuade me- who's Artemis?"
He was suddenly stopped from walking forward by a powerful force that grabbed the back of his suit's collar and yanked him backwards. Landing hard and sliding across the floor for a meter or two, he saw Gates spin and face the opponent only to be rewarded with a swift kick to her midsection that propelled her backwards much like Tobias had just been.
The leg that delivered the blow belonged to a familiar looking Simulacrum body, one that Tobias had last seen in the medical bay before everything went to shit. Groaning in pain, he pushed himself up to look at Kay's blue visor staring at him.
"That would be me."
A/N: What does boredom have in common with feeling shitty and having free time after work? They can all lead to writing time, so double update this week everyone!
That's about all I really have to say. I never expected this section of the book to last so long; looks like "Cinder" might be a bit longer than anticipated.
Until the next time,
- Matteoarts