Reaper was shocked what he saw. The image slowly built up to show the entire structure was larger than anyone thought. There was an entire facility constructed outside the walls. When the ice shelf shifted, an immense amount of pressure pressed up against the facility. Enough to create cracks big enough for imaging drones to enter.

None of the maps or charts showed anything other than the research post. A square kilometer was all that was mapped. This encompassing structure, it was nearly ten square kilometers. And those kilometers weren't empty. It didn't make any sense at all but the base was well armed.

Reaper walked in on Ryuki as he began his speech. Their new orders, to breach the fake wall in the lab bay. "Sir , that wall may not be the only part that wasn't mapped. I sent out some drones to do recon. They somehow got into an entirely separate structure. This place is just siting inside of an even bigger base. And its not empty. The best I can tell, there are tanks, jump-fighters and walkers just sitting in there. Its like they're in storage. Someone was planning on doing something big with em".

"Frakking hell, what the hell has Steelhelm been doing these few years? This was an archeology dig. They said they found ancient ruins. This is not what you do when you find alien slag!" Ryuki yelled incoherently. His mouth lathered with spit, his mind seemingly breaking in front of the rest of the crew. It wasn't his mind breaking. It was the rules of engagement. "Alright. Frak all of this. We are going find out what the hell this place is and blow it up if we need to. They left us here for dead, I will make sure this place is frakked up by the time I take my last breath. People, we've got enough tanks and bombs to take down a Sol Republic garrison. Lets make the most of it" he yelled.

There were a few things that made the unknown bearable. An inquisitive mind and a thirst of knowledge. A metric frakton of bombs and bullets was one of the others. "Load up the laser cutters onto the Zephyrs. Get those striders prepped for movement. Pack everything you can on the sled. The first thing we're going to do is a bit of redecorating in the lab bay".

The column of Zephyrs reached the entrance to the lab. A burst of light in the darkness, the flicker of steel melting under intense laser energy. The collomated beams cut deep into the walls as fletchettes of metal burst into flames. Embers bounced on the ground before disappearing. Ice had cooled the heated walls fast enough to cause cracks to race up and down the quenched steel. Ryuki's Zephyr approached the cut walls and dug its manipulators into the cracks , tearing them apart , one panel at a time.

Another round of cutting , this time with flamers along side to make the walls pliant. The lasers dug even deeper as the red hot liquid walls dripped down to the ground, pooling into blobs of blackened metal. The flamers died. The sound of ejected fuel tanks rang through the hallways followed by the heavy clamping and pneumatic arms of new tanks. Again the fires exploded, the walls now loose enough to punch through. The new entrance was tall and wide, big enough for striders to scurry through.

Making room inside the labs involved strategically destroying vast portions of it. Shattered glass flew through the air and tiny explosions rattled under the armored feet of the walkers. Thin walls were shorn clean from the bulkheads and tossed like pieces of cardboard.

The lasers lit up the wall. Its thickness made it difficult to cut which meant the flamers were activated again. Still not enough. While the slow progress was still progress, Ryuki grew impatient. He wasn't afraid anymore, it was time to face unknown. He kept restraint though. The munitions they carried were all that they had. No supply drops would be coming. The trigger tempted him though.

It seemed hours had passed between cutting and cooling. The lasers heated up too fast for continuous use. With the limited supply of focus crystals, they needed to be careful and precise. Burst of the laser reduced the lifespan of the tool, each used crystal leaving them one less upon a time of need.

Missiles, rockets, shells and fuel. Whether there was enough was a question that couldn't be answered until too late. For Ryuki, that answer would have terrible consequences. So for him, this would be the step across a threshold from which no one could return. Nothing left for them to fight for, alone on a plan seemingly breaking apart as time passed on, their only choice was to break through the wall and descend down to the source of the power draw. He hopped it would be enlightenment waiting for them. He felt the only light though would be from the the barrel of a particle cannon.

The wall was softened enough. An impromptu battering ram ,scavenged from the supports holding the roof up, was lifted by two of the mechs. They heaved , the sound of their whirring servos mixing with the clang of metal. Liquid metal flowed out from the seams as the wall began to collapse on itself. With one final crash of the ram, the wall broke to pieces.

Behind it was a vista no one would believe. A gigantic ice cavern with shards of ice as big as city blocks hanging from the ceiling. Below was a seemingly endless descent and just beyond visual sight was something massive.

The freight elevator too was larger than expected. It seemed indicative of what went down. The scans showing large stockpiles of armaments made more sense now, though still not enough to seem rational.

"About fifty meters down is the floor with all the armaments. We can set up base there in case we have to fall back" Reaper reported. The scans were still inconclusive regarding the depths of the cavern. The drones had too little power to make the trip down let alone transmit anything of use. The armaments floor was their best choice for base of operations, at least until they reach the bottom.

"Bring in the spider-tanks first, send them down to the armory to set up a fire base in case something nasty decides to welcome us. Zephyrs go in next" Rafe called out through the radio. With a skeleton crew handling a battalion sized armored formation, it would take much longer to make any movement. A single pilot in each spider-tank was all they could spare while keeping communications running. Karin took over the comms through the Thunderhammer's wide-band radio transmitter. The Zhuk followed with its targeting computer slaved to Dizzy piloting the Thunderhammer. The six Zephyrs waited as the behemoths loaded onto the elevator platform.

It suddenly lurched downward, its gears and servos breaking the ice covering them. They soon disappeared under them. The distance they traveled seemed longer than it should have been, with the sound of the elevator clamps coupling with the next floor sounding distant and weak.

The elevator soon came back for the rest of the team. The trip down was harrowing to more than one of them. The sight of a vast , nearly endless cavern , sent waves of anxiety through them. None had seen something so vast that was of natural origins. The sheer size left them with a sublime sensation of awe and terror. The dark shadows that covered the cavern hid the terrifying immensity and with it whatever lurking in them. Someone coughed and the echo roared back. One could have thought that something out there called back to them.

The elevator reached the armory. Apart from their own breathing, the only sound heard was the rollers that screeched against the rails. Coming to a halt let out a grinding whine before the clamps locked into place and the rampart extended. Ahead they saw the vast stores of armaments. The giant armor was all one room like a massive hangar. Big enough for a Gungnir class frigate to launch out of. There were rows of racks filled with weapons ,from rifles to the massive infantry rail guns.

Beside the racks were long columns of armor. A plethora of spider-walkers ,tanks and hardsuits lined up as if waiting for inspection. Ryuki couldn't shake the feeling that something terrible was about to happen. Why bring all this down here if that wasn't the case, he wondered. There had to be a reason but then why would they just leave everything behind?

The floor shook as another ice quake rumbled. Its passing was marked with thunderous echos as the ice cracked from the shock wave. A slight tremor under their feet kept them unsteady. It grew as if coming closer.

"Get on thermals" Ryuki ordered. The view changed to a mixture of blues and purples with the masses of frozen armor obscuring anything behind them. An unmistakable sound , the foot steps of a walker, travelled through the air. Still no source of heat could be detected. "Batteries maybe?" Dizzy radioed. Ryuki admonished her "no chatter!".

Without any verbal exchange, the Zephyrs scattered into a semicircle, all facing towards the end of the armory. The steps became louder with the sound of steel bending on impact with the polyalloy feet of a giant war machine.

A quick glimpse of a spot of red alerted the team to the unknown walker's position. Another blip gave them its heading. Its slow jaunt was unusual though. Its movements had no reasoning behind them. It wasn't flanking them or rushing them. It would soon be in line of sight but any pilot would have known that.

Excruciating minutes passed as it came closer. Its thundering steps left no doubt of its location. The thermal images showed its size to be of the same as the Zephyrs , but its shape didn't indicate any arms. Any moment it would be in view and with each passing second the team grew more anxious.

The lumbering mech continued its slow march but it seemed it hadnt noticed the others. "Do not fire unless fired on" Ryuki whispered into the radio. They watched it move past them , its slouched body not even turning towards them. Ryuki turned the therm-optic vision off to see something disturbing.

Mounted on the head of the lumbering Zephyr was a pulsating cyst. Its fleshy red body enveloped the mechs head and shoulders. The arms were replaced with blackened flesh and pulsing veins. It was obvious that the reason it did not respond was because it couldn't see them. But the sound that the active reactors of the spider-tanks was drawing it to the striders.

"Shut off your engines" Ryuki radioed to Dizzy's team. It would be too late. The sloth was still approaching them. Ryuki switched the master-arm to active. The fire control computer projected the expected arrival point of a single round from his auto-gun. Ryuki breathed in. He pressed down on the trigger.

The muzzle flash lit up the dark armory . Air burst into a blue trail behind the shell as it raced towards the walker. The sonic boom rattled the ice loose from the roofs. By the time the walker noticed , the shell had reached the core. It impacted with an explosion. A second explosion erupted out of the chest as super-heated liquid copper burst through the armor plating.

But it was still standing. It turned, now its bulbous head revealing the single , off-center ,blood cracked eye. It wavered where it stood but the eye looked straight at Ryuki as if seeing right into the flight-pit. Its molten innards poured out like bright hot entrails. It took a tentative step , its fuel cells damaged too much to let it move any faster.

Ryuki fired again, aiming for the eye. A second round raced towards it. He could see its eye widen as it watched for a split moment before the shrapnel shredded through it. It burst like a balloon. White fluid poured out with bits and pieces of fleshy pieces. The mech finally slammed to the ground.

The radios remained silent. No one could fathom what had just happened nor could they even understand what they had seen. Barry spoke up first. All he could muster was a disjointed stream of words. Once the shock passed he finally spoke coherently. "What the frak".

Everyone froze up , their eyes completely focused on the mess of pus and metal strewn on the ground. The fleshy arms still twitched with residual stimulus. Ryuki was the first to approach the carcass. He stepped out from his mech and approached on foot. He peered inside the gaping hole to see flesh and deep brown blood.