((I'm doing a TL;DR of how the rest of the story plays out, so I can start on another project. Tired of waiting for reviews on an old piece.))
"Whether we came under attack from someone on the outside, or it was something inside, we didn't see it coming. The kid that survived the Compound's effects was odd, granted, but it responded to orders well enough over the last few months. When the Starcatcher transport made contact, everything was fine. Then the mag rails shut off. SPARTAN disappeared for a few minutes. We tried getting the computers back online. We didn't think it was anything serious. 'Might be a system update,' some said. Then, I remember the drones powering down. When they came back up, some had the regular red eyes, others blue. They started fighting. The Mark IV Arachnicas started blowing up sections of the facility. Even the turrets were affected. The drones were fighting each other, and we were caught in the crossfire. I hailed Starcatcher, told them we were under attack. I sounded the evac alarm, then booked it for the hangars. Only a few people had been killed, but that's when the specimens were released.
"The same thing that caused the drones to go crazy also disabled the shuttles. Starcatcher sent down the two they had, but that only succeeded in getting a few key scientists out. Oh, I do want to mention that Darkarlov was gone; no one had seen him since the drones were hijacked. The techs worked on getting the base's shuttles back up and running.
"One of the scientists yelled out as the shuttle was leaving that we needed to save the Compound. Couple of the mercs volunteered to go and get it, and left with a tech. We never saw the retrieval squad again, then one of the mass drivers took out the shuttle that egghead was on.
"I did my best with my radio to coordinate a resistance of sorts. The xenos overran quadrant three, and four was flooded with creatures from Alia Minora. We kept them back at the center hangar area, but they were working around to get us on our flank. Then, I heard someone saying that more xenos were climbing over the walls.
"Then, the blue drones beat ours, mainly because they had the Mark IVs. Never would have thought that I'd be fearing for my life from our own weapons. The big ass guns on the IVs still ring in my ears. But, they turned their attention on the xenos. They kept them away until we got the shuttles back online."
Alexandra Veressin paused. She took a deep breath. The comms officer hated debriefings to begin with, but after the past week's events she needed someone to vent to.
"This is strange. But forty other people saw the same thing I did. It looked like Darkarlov was being protected by one of the xenos. Then, lightning came out of it and fried a group of xenos advancing on the Professor. They stood there, the lightning bug hissing at the hostiles, the hostiles screeching and backing away from the lightning guy, for a minute or two. Someone had the bright idea of firing on the bug next to the Professor, but his head turned into a fine pink mist when he aimed at it. I swear, I think that the drones were answering to the xenos or something.
"I had the bright idea of making my way to the nearest shuttle and said 'I'm done with this shit.' Everyone else followed suit when the engines spooled up. Last I saw of the facility, it looked like the main reactor went nuclear. Almost knocked us out of the sky."
Veressin shrugged. "Rest is history. Can I go now, SPARTAN?"
The glowing red figure resembling its namesake looked at the leader of the survivors of Alia Minora. It reviewed the data gathered from today's debriefing, compiling it into reports to analyze further later.
"I BELIEVE THAT WILL BE ALL FOR NOW, MS. ALEXANDRA," the monotone AI replied. "YOU WILL BE NOTIFIED IF WE REQUIRE ANY FURTHER INFORMATION. PLEASE REPORT TO THE STARCATCHER. IT WILL BE DETACHING FROM THE EXILE SHORTLY. REASSIGNMENT WILL OCCUR UPON ARRIVING AT THE NEAREST MAXIMUS OUTPOST, IN UNITED SYSTEMS SPACE."
Satisfied with the answer, she stood up from her chair and exited the room.
SPARTAN had remembered the unpleasant experience of having one of its active mirrors forcibly ripped apart and eliminated. It could not feel pain, though the experience may as well qualify as such. Still, it was interesting to note that the test subject had gained the ability to manipulate electronics in the same fashion as a hacker that had unprecedented control over the system.
Parsing through the wreckage with scanners indicated that the facility had indeed become a crater. All that was left were ashes. The Compound was a unique commodity in the universe, and now it was gone.
SPARTAN took a few minutes to run analytics over the data collected from the survivors again. It then secured the files, and transmitted them to Alexander's data pad. He would not be happy with the total loss of their most extensive black site, as well as the Pilot technology that had been stored there. Regardless, SPARTAN performed his duty.
The red hologram winked out of existence. The room's lights followed suit.