The Enemy of Old

After several bounds of questioning from the AI about the functionality of the implant and its system, Shara had materialized several items. First among them, a tablet for her to use to interface with the base and navigate the corridors. Second, a set of clothing more appropriate for daily use than the bashed-up armor she was wearing, and third, food for herself. After changing and eating, Shara began to explore the abandoned research facility, finally coming to, as the AI explained, a cryogenics bay. The AI hadn't mentioned it before, it explained, as it didn't have the permissions to open the cryocells themselves; they had to be manually opened. However, the AI said, they should all be functional. The maintenance of the cryogenics bay was minimal, and the base's integrated power sources had never lost enough power to shut the machinery and electronics down on them. The AI began walking Shara through how to open one of the cryocells. This took some time, as Shara was no cryogenics engineer. After she was walked through opening one of the empty cryos, she looked down the manifest of people in cryo. Three, in particular, caught her eye. One, a research specialist by the name of Garret Helsingr. Another, an engineer specializing in power systems; Weldon Arleth. Finally, Linwood Rosek; one of the last members of the skeleton crew of the facility to be put into cryostasis. Ironically enough, he was a cryogenics engineer. Shara, however, put opening up the pods onto the back burner. She had other topics on her mind.

Namely, how to get off this rock.

Shara began to browse the base's map and manifest. While the base itself was in a general state of disrepair, that did not mean it wasn't useful. Primarily, her main topics of interest was the hangar bay. On the map, it at least looked sizable enough to hold anything up to a frigate. However, the AI's cameras in that area were damaged well before the fall of the empire, so there could be anything in there.

Or nothing.

While Shara had the implanted system, which almost guaranteed her a way out via an expensive, single use teleport, she also now had to think about those who were in cryo. She didn't want to leave them iced on a planet where they might never be released, but she would if she had to. Finding a reliable source of transportation would allow her to get at least some of the people frozen awake, and that would mean she had a crew for whatever came next in her journey.

She finally got to the bay doors, after taking a side trip to get her combat armor and rifle. "You can't ever be too careful with this kind of thing," Shara thought, as she activated the seals on her suit of dented armor and made sure everything was closed up. Valkyr's familiar voice rang in the helmet.

"It's been a strange couple of hours, hasn't it?"

"Yes, yes it has, Valkyr."

Shara unlocked the door ahead of her. She stepped into the airlock in front of her, and let the doors slide closed behind her. The atmosphere depressurized. Shara felt less pressure pushing her down. Movements were infinitesimally quicker without the slight resistance of air. Slowly, the outside atmosphere began to filter in. The doors in front of her unlocked and both doors slowly slid open.

Shara came face to face with a massacre. There were bodies everywhere in the hangar bay. Some slumped over crates in front of her, some lay on the floor missing appendages. She saw scorch marks on containers, burned floor plating. It was obvious that there was some sort of battle here.

"Shara, movement, 2 o clock."

Shara ducked behind the edge of the airlock's external shell. She made sure her weapons were readied, and then popped back out, hoping to catch it by surprise.

It looked to be some sort of small mech, standing about 10 feet tall. There was a malevolence in how it appeared, although it was small from the standpoint of mechs, to Shara, in her comparatively light combat armor, this was a huge threat. She did notice, however, that it already had some sort of battle damage, which worked in her favor. She quickly took cover behind a few, smaller crates that allowed her to have a line of site to the metal behemoth in front of her.

[Enemy force detected. Recommend caution. Force consists of a single Gladiator-type light fire platform. Recommended targeting solutions, Left arm joint, Right knee joint, Sensors.]

Shara peeked out over the crate she had been hiding behind and lined up her shot, seeing that it hadn't noticed her yet. She set the railrifle to overcharge the first shot, as she wasn't sure how much armor this thing truly had. Aiming at the right knee was out of the question, and the sensors on this side were already fried, so that left the arm.

Soundlessly, the rifle arced down it's rails, and propelled a ferrous nickel-cobalt slug with a tip made of tungsten to well over 4 kilometers per second.

The arm of the 'Gladiator' fell off, cleanly sheared by the shell and whatever damage it had already sustained. It quickly turned around, it's right arm now visible to Shara. It had some sort of underslung minigun that began to turn, and turn, and turn. Realizing its weapon must have jammed, or ran out of ammunition, or deteriorated somehow that affected its ability to fire, Shara quickly fired another pair of shots that completely finished the combat by first removing it's only weapon and then disabling its ability to move.

"System, what was that?"

[The Gladiator-class is a mobile weapons platform used during the fall of the empire by the Hedetet Congregation. The Congregation, as well as various internal factors, lead to the Makoni Empire's eventual downfall during the final struggles against the Zoni Aliens. The weapons platforms are fully autonomous.]

"Huh. I'll have to get back to you on that."

[Affirmative, host.]