Chapter 26 – Echo [Part 1]
Kalina jumped up. "Commander! We are detecting a dense electronic attack! It's Papaluie."
"All troops, retreat! Get out of there now. Abandon the mission." Ursula commanded. USP hadn't come back. Some combat teams were deep in enemy territory. It was likely that they wouldn't make it. But Ursula couldn't risk the rest of her dolls getting exposed. The teams sprinted towards the nearest helicopter, dropping all the gear they could to make their escape.
Ursula sat down and put her head in her hands. "Ugh, what a mess." Kalina took a shaky breath. "Who didn't make it?" Kalina turned back to her monitor and took a slow breath.
"STEN, Astra, RFB and USP Compact. Besides these, we've lost about twenty or so dummies and we will need to decontaminate the dolls that were closest to the attack." Kalina sent the information to the large monitor in the control room. "Just when things were starting to go our way, too." Ursula nodded and leaned back in her chair. The two of them sat in the quietness of the room to try and collect themselves. But their work was not done. SAR contacted the Base.
"Commander Ursula, we are on route to base. A number of dolls are injured, please have the repair bay ready." Ursula sighed. "Also, we were able to recover the combat cores from affected dolls. If we can purge them, we might be able to use the ECHO system."
Ursula gasped. "ECHO!" She grabbed Kalina and lightly shook her. "Ah, this changes so so much." She turned to the monitor. "SAR, everything will be ready." Ursula got her things together and dragged the speechless Kalina out of the room.
The base was all abuzz as soon as the helicopters landed. Dolls and base personnel began preparing the repair bay for the incoming dolls. All the dolls that were in decent conditon jumped out and began helping the support crews. Damaged dolls and pieces came out next. The stable ones were rushed off to the repair bay, while the unstable ones were pulled to the side for emergency maintenance. The last one out was SAR, who was carrying a small bundle of combat cores. Ursula and her team came up and attached the cores to external batteries. These were taken to the armory, where the ECHO system had been set up.
Ursula hooked up the cores to the terminal. Kalina began her examination. "Astra and STEN need some work, but it looks like RFB's core is in better shape. I'll start the purging process."
"Great, that's wonderful news." Ursula let out a long sigh and slumped in her chair. "That's fantastic."
"It is….if ECHO works, this could change everything." Kalina muttered. She opened up a list of neural snapshots. "RFB and Astra didn't send and update during the mission, so they wont have any memories of the battle."
"How about USP Compact's snapshot?"
"She sent an update just before the EMP attack."
"Lovely. Let's start up the system while we wait on the others." Ursula got up and went over to another terminal. She changed some settings and loaded one of USP's dummies into the system. The doll was lifted by mechanical arms. The dummy core was removed and replaced with an active combat core. The arms put the dummy back onto the transport rack and returned to their positions.
"Was...was that it?" Ursula asked.
"Yes Commander. The system is telling me that USP's neural cloud was accepted. She has to go through maintenance, calibration, and some other system updates. The whole process will take eight hours." Ursula let out a low whistle.
"Technology is something else. Great work, Miss Kalin." She gave Kalina a high-five.
USP opened her eyes. A few more updates ran in the background, but her system was up and running now. She sat up and waited. Everything was quiet. She could focus, her head wasn't a jumbled mess. She was at peace. She practically floated out of the repair bay, completely absorbed in the solitude of her thoughts. She snapped out of her daydream when she found herself in front of Ursula's office.
USP knocked on the door. "Miss Ursula?" SAR opened the door and smiled.
"Good morning, USP Compact." She said with a pleasant smile. "Come on in, I'll call the Commander." The two dolls entered the office and chatted while they waited. Ursula arrived and the chatting continued. USP finally worked up the courage to ask about the operation. Ursula nodded slowly.
"Well, we were able to find and subdue the humans that attacked you. Most of the dolls needed significant repairs, you included." USP nodded.
"That's why my neural cloud feels…better." Ursula gave a sad chuckle.
"Its amazing what an EMP can do. I'm just glad you're in one piece. We were able to rescue the captured dolls, though we did cut it close there." SAR gave a concerned look to Ursula, who returned with a sharp glare. SAR nodded.