Blue light blinded all the drones’ visuals, along with alarms that the drones had been knocked off their feet. A second later, their vision returned as the cameras adjusted up and down. The gunbay was back to normal, aside from a massive 20ft circle that had been cleared of everything but the rusted ship frame. Even the pig-men had been flung back as well, with the woman who’d activated her strange stick being knocked unconscious against several cracked and tilted trees - still between the two groups.

Opal quickly summarized that a concussive energy wave had been emitted from the woman’s stick.

It disregarded that as a self-defense measure and did not hold it against the woman. A red square encased the woman, and it was removed. The rules of engagement were more tight with AIs, but even the program didn’t want to hurt the woman for trying to defend her… It was odd that Opal understood the context of this situation. These kinds of situations were the hardest to deal with when it came to AIs. Nuances were difficult for them to grasp.

With their vision clear, all the units were quickly back to their feet. The pig-men were slower as they were still confused by the sudden blast. Opal decided, for legal purposes, to attempt to arrest the beasts. They were not human and did not qualify to be treated under ‘human’ conduct rules, but the AI wanted all its legal bases covered for the generated report.

“You are under arrest!” Opal announced over the external speakers of all the robots. “You have been found to be in violation of ---”

The AI’s speech went on as a wooden club crashed into the closest unit to the pigs. It forced the drone back several steps as it tried to regain its balance. Visuals were lost as a ‘Camera destroyed.’ came over the feed. Opal switched to the second unit in the roster, off to the left of the hit unit. Just as it did so, Opal saw as the pigmen had charged the units.

They came at the drones with surprising speed, with the first pig already upon the damaged drone. Its meaty hands wrapped themselves around its neck and squeezed with enough force to bend the frame. Its face distorted in pain and rage. An expression that was quickly wiped off its face as the damaged unit speared both its arms into the beast's chest.

A wet crack followed the whine of metal as the beast separated the unit’s head from the rest of the frame. Though, that was as far as it managed to get before the unit popped its lungs and heart like grapes. It struggled for several moments before it went limp, thick red blood oozing onto the robot. The thing slumped over the drone, its immense weight surpassing the unit’s 700lb (317.5kg) lift limit.

[UNIT 1: WARNING - WEIGHT LIMIT EXCEEDED, DAMAGE TO EXTERNAL CARRIAGE IMMINENT!

[Opal: Acknowledged. No support available. . .]

The unit sent an emergency report to the AI, which in its system sounded like a cry as it kept spamming it; calling for help that couldn’t be given as each of its fellow drones were currently dealing with the rest of them. None of them were willing to allow themselves to stop only to get caught like Unit 1 as it struggled to free itself from beneath the dead pig-man.

[Opal: Requesting maintenance support for unit retrieval.

Cai: Denied. The Area of Operations is still a hostile zone.

Opal: Unit 1 is down and needs immediate recovery.

Cai: AO is still hot, request cannot be accepted.]

Cai, waiting with its maintenance convoy further back in the corridor, felt the ship’s system… Glitch, slightly? It then felt Opal was displeased by the denial as every available security unit was mobilized. Then came the attempted hijacking of her units - which was thwarted with a harsh rebuttal. This seemed to have angered Opal as Cai felt herself removed from the communication channel Opal was on.

The AI didn’t understand why Opal was acting this way. Protocol dictated that non-combat units were not to enter an AO without it being cleared for hostiles. Entering an active combat area was a serious breach of it on all accounts. Cai could not break the rule as it was bound by it, and it certainly couldn’t have stretched the clearly defined protocol enough to save the unit. It did want to help, but it felt Opal was lashing out at it unfairly.

Back in the Gunbay, another pig-man fell to the floor, its neck sizzling as its life gushed out of its arteries. Its chest was filled with several plasma burns as it had taken three discharges before it was felled by a shot to the neck. The room was filled with angry squeals and Ssheeoo-Sheeoo as the drones dodged each of the beasts. Another unit was grabbed as it tried to dodge to the side where another pig-man had set up an ambush.

It pulled its legs out from under it, slamming the unit's chest into a thick root and bending its rifle. It went for its sidearm, pulling it just as it twisted around. A massive fat leg came at its head just as it discharged it between the pig’s legs. Its attack missed by inches as blood dripped over the robot. A pained squeal followed as it gripped its mangled genitals and the previous attacker disabled the drone by curb stomping its head.

[Opal: Unit 2, cease movement until further orders are given

Unit 2: Acknowledged.]

The injured pig-man limped away from the battle as the other one jumped back into the fray. With 2 TRUs down along with three of the attackers, only 4 drones were in combat against 7 of the pig-men. The closest backup units were less than 2 minutes out. It was a unit of LCUs. Heavier units were deeper in the ship, closer to the core and would take far longer.

Opal switched them off their standard combat style, a style meant for dealing with humans in confined quarters. In hindsight, changing it would have been a smart move, but it would serve. The units disengaged as Opal began to control each unit itself. That allowed it to use more precise and tailored moves than the algorithms.

Each unit broke away from their attackers, slipping into different directions, taking away their power in numbers; and allowing a much more diverse array of tactics the AI could employ, a much needed advantage. One unit slipped back the way the green pigs had come from. Another slipped away into the light of the outside. Another retreated back up the stairs and the last one slipped into the throng that was the overgrowth around the gun emplacement.

The first drone, retracing the steps of the pigs, found itself splashing through the rushing water over yonder. It found that there had been more of the robed humans, three of them in fact. Each of them had been left discarded by the side of the outflowing stream. It did not get a good look at the surroundings as it fled past them with two hostiles in tow, so there could have been more.

It crossed the first stream and went up a slope where it found the control deck for the gun at its crest. Its physical monitors were long broken and decayed by the elements with plants growing out of them. One more robed figure, an elderly man, laid lifeless on the right control panel. His body was torn in half. Several more dead guards surrounded him in what appeared to be the contact point between the two groups.

The other side was more overgrown. Rocks and overgrowth littered both sides of the second flow. It offered no advantage. Opal opted to stay on the high ground and turned to confront its pursuers.

Despite their apparent strength in their attacks, it didn’t seem to translate in their movements. They were slow and encumbered crossing the stream. Water slapped their thighs and they seemed repulsed by the very fact that water was touching them. It didn’t stop them, but it did hinder them significantly. By the time they joined the unit on the other side, it had already taken the high ground.

They lumbered up the stairs / slope and let out squeals of annoyance. Opal took some odd pleasure in that it could annoy them in this unexpected way. The pleasure was short lived as the drone switched to combat. With the first pig making its way up, the drone fired three charges towards its face. Contact was made, but it never reached its head. Instead, the pig had anticipated the attack and brought up its left arm to take it.

Several shots landed on its chest, though the majority of it was eaten up by its arm. The muscle crackled and fizzled, followed by a pained squeal. Opal felt slightly off put by how the beast did not turn and flee from the pain. Especially when it looked like its arm was ready to fall off. That moment’s hesitation as the program attempted to process the situation was all the pig needed to close the gap.

The pig-man lunged forward with speed that rivaled a cat. Its right arm aiming for the drone’s head with a club in its hand. Opal quickly ducked down then sidestepped to the left. The pig brought its arm down to its right, as if it had anticipated that it would have sidestepped. The impact made the club crack and splitter on the surface. It was by pure luck the drone hadn’t stepped that way…

Without hesitating, Opal brought the M1014-PB up. With machine speed and precision, the AI unloaded the remaining charges in the magazine. The bolts splattered across the beast’s face until its entire head popped like a microwaved potato. The second pig came up behind its deceased partner and shoved it aside. Its right arm coming down for an overhead swing.

Opal was just about to side step, but it caught that it was a distraction in time. The overhead attack masked, momentarily, it coming in with a left handed jab.

The AI stepped into the attack instead. It rammed the depleted rifle’s barrel into the pig's adam apple and caused it to choke. Without waiting to see how effective its attack was, a side pocket in the drone’s right thigh clicked out just as it reached down. From the compartment, a VG20 10mm Kinetic pistol was pulled. It was one of the few categories of weapons onbound the Omega that used physical slug projectiles.

Technology had not advanced far enough to use energy tech in small pistol formats. Not in a cost effective way for an entire combat drone fleet. Despite that, it was still the most lethal weapon in the drone’s arsenal. A plasma shot was almost always a two-shot drop, but a lead slug? That was a one-shot drop when placed right. Plasma burned tissue and meat - the slug simply cut through it all similar to a laser rifle.

The VG20 polymer pistol, white, came up leveled to the pig’s surprised face. Without another wasted moment, three consecutive bangs filled the room.

A hole opened up in the pig’s skull, though it looked like the lead projectile had been stopped by the bone. A second shot pierced through its right eye while another ripped off-center through its nose. It twitched for a few moments after, as if it registered its own death and decided to turn off the stove on its way to wherever it would go. It then finally fell to the ground with a thud...

[Unit 3: Hostile neutralized.]

Unit 4, the drone that returned the way they came, was stuck in a stickier situation. The stairs creaked and gave way, failing just as it reached the final stretch. The pig-men, slow and heavy, figured out they could just pull the entire composed structure down. And in all its glory, killed one and injured the second one. The stairs was now in shambles. Rusted pieces hung from roots and vines while the majority of it ended up in a pile at the bottom level. A injured whine escaped the remaining pigman as Unit 4 freed itself from the wreckage. Aside from its paint job being scratched to hell, it was 100% functional. Noting that Opal had dispatched the 2 hostiles using its sidearm, it opted to do the same just as it felt Opal enter its system.

The AI didn’t do anything and allowed the drone to do its own thing. Unit 4 felt a sense of relief as it pulled the 10mm pistol and placed it to the injured pigs forehead. The pig-man was impaled on several rusted beams and would bleed out within minutes without its help. Despite this information, Unit 4 opted to dispatch it.

With a single pull, the 10mm ripped into the pig-man’s skull. It didn’t kill it. Instead, the slug was logged into the skull. The pig’s head jolted back, clearly knocked out and very much alive. Unit 4 pulled the slug and inspected the wound and found that the skull was rather thick. The slug cracked the bone enough to cause damage to the frontal lobe.

Intrigued, but pressed for time, the drone placed another shot in the same spot. It was now dead as blood splattered out the back.

Both Unit 4 and 3 grouped up afterward just as a pig man rolled off the Orbital gun. It’s arms mangled and burned with its throat ripped out. Unit 6 leapt down after it. Its torso armor scraped and dented. It had taken several direct hits and its system reported critical internal damage from the impacts.

Unit 5 was still out there dealing with the last two, so the three went to work freeing unit 2 from its prison. Though, it didn;t matter in the end as the unit was no longer responding. A quick inspection showed that the torso had given way at its mounting points. Those were the points where the frame’s integrity would fail in the event of being crushed.

It was a hard thing to fix while attempting to keep them as light as possible with armor. As it proved here, it was fatal as shown when the drones pulled the armor plate off and saw its internals pulverized.

LCUs appeared overhead, their skeleton frames armed with only simple 9mm self-loading pistols. It was the first squad of them to reach Gunbay 34 and they were quick to jump down. Their mostly unarmored frames taking their landings in stride as they lacked the extra 200lbs of armor plating. The TRUs looked down on their fallen comrades before Opal cast its web over them and pushed them all to chase after the last unit in combat.

On their way, they found the injured pig-man that tried to leave dead. The back of its head mutilated by several plasma bolts. It laid dead about 30ft away from the exit. Without wasting another moment, the group exited the Omega.

Light blinded their cameras as Opal quickly jumped onto unit 5 just as it unloaded the last two charges into the abdomen of one of the two remaining pig-men. It had half-pinned it into the sandy beach of a small lake. The other pig was holding its face as blood oozed onto the sand. Tall steep cliffs rose beyond them with pine trees overlooking them on either side. A bright mid-day sun rose over them.

A chorus of loud pops filled the apparent valley as the LCUs and the TRUs unloaded on the second pig-man. Its body jolted slightly with each shot until several 10mm rounds punched through its skull and dropped it onto the lip of the lake’s water.

This caught the first pig-man off guard as it turned to see what was happening. This opening gave the TRU the chance it needed. Its grip on its arm loosened and it freed itself, elbowing the pig in its open mouth. It slammed its mouth hard enough to break its teeth. In two smooth motions, Unit 5 reached down to its right thigh, pulled the 10mm and brought it up to the now shut mouth. It pressed the barrel beneath it and opened fire until three rounds punched through the top of its skull like a geyser of blood. It slowly rocked back and sprawled itself out on the bloodied sand

Unit 5 reported the threat was dead but that the unit had sustained servo and hydraulic damage. That was when Cai acknowledged the situation to their annoyance and the maintenance convoy began its slow trekk to get to the units. LCUs spread out, their dumb AIs lacking any haste to secure the area. The remaining TRUs had enough processing power to operate in a limited capacity on their own and dragged their damaged comrade back into the Omega.

Opal took over Unit 3 and stayed behind on the beach. Its camera panned over the dead pig-men. Their massive bodies dwarfed the LCUs beside them. The drones in question paid the two bodies no heed and scanned their surroundings for threats.

Opal turned back to the Omega and looked up. Noting the directions, it was looking at the portside front side. The starship’s massive frame towered hundreds of levels over like a skyscraper. Its frame rusted and almost looked to have become part of the valley itself with plants growing in nooks and crannies here and there. It was an odd sight to see such a technological marvel reduced to the landscape scenery.

There were also strange markings etched into different parts of the other hull, though that was not a pressing matter at the moment as Opal returned back to the valley walls itself. They towered high, though not as high as the ship. Their steep rock walls scratched pristine nature as it held the lake in, opening out nearly a mile ahead before curving out of sight.

Opal was unsure of what to do with the situation. Their first contact with an alien species turned into a kill-fest, and they had one --- Opal turned back, remembering that they had a ‘human’ in their custody now. Its kill order for the crew did not apply to this human, for obvious reasons, and this made it a prime figure to be a source of information.

Glancing once more to the valley beyond the ship, Opal returned to the Gunbay as the TRUs handcuffed the unconscious human and policed any weapons found.