Chapter 18 : Fight to Death 2 While I was running, I asked Gladia. 'How much time left for the ship to be ready Gladia ??' [The fastest I can do if I ignore many of the required procedures, is to reduce the time to one hour from now… But if you decide to use the core before its completion to force a warp jump, after we escape we may be unable to move the ship for a few more days and you may damage it definitely.] 'Can't we release a few reapers or battle drones to hold on until the core is ready ?' [Not until the core is fully charged and ready, if you force it to complete earlier when it just requires a few more hours you won't be able to release any drones or reapers. Just to bypass the core security system and open Alpha Zero's capsule, I needed to delay the core completion for a whole month. The best we can do is to force a warp jump and get out of here and the main specs of the flagship such as its shield system, armaments, or its army will all be unusable for a time. The destination will also be unknown, we could end up in a desert solar system or right inside the middle of a black hole, it will once again depend on luck.] 'It is still better than just dying here ! Be ready, if the golems lose and they let the giant ants go through the door before the completion of the core, force the process and get us out of here !' [Understood.] When I reached the door, I hurriedly told Douglas. "We have to go, now ! We can't do anything else to help the golems defend the door. Alice is dying, my Red Mist is about to stop and my injuries will make me unable to fight after the effects of my skill wear off." Once I was close enough to him, I gently put the lifeless Alice in his arm and told him. "Rush inside the flagship and place her inside a cryo capsule. Ask Alpha One to start a complete regenerative protocol and let her rest and recover inside." "What about you Leader ?" "I have a last thing to do before my skill goes off. Now run !!" When I saw Douglas passing the door and rushing inside, I picked up an object next to the door that I had prepared a few weeks ago as a trump card, in case we would get attacked by the swarmlings before we could escape. "Hello there." It was a dark green egg, almost as big as my chest. This egg was special, during one of her covert ops, Alice stole it inside a swarmling nursery. When she told me that five omegas and a whole alpha legion were guarding it, I knew that this egg was special. I planned to use it as a hostage against the dumb swarmlings who could have attacked us, but because we are now in such a situation I have no choice anymore. "I am sorry little monster, it is all for surviving. Blame your ugly mother for not protecting you enough and letting us capture you." Without remorse, I activated my dark blade to cut a small part of the egg and to remove a chunk of flesh from the being still living inside, which was about to hatch. Concentrated acidic blood started to flow from the little hole in the egg and the being inside made a noise so loud and unpleasant that even the giant ants who were still fighting the golems a dozen of meters away, briefly turned their head and looked at me, seemingly not knowing what I was doing. Once the little swarmling hatching was suffering and agonizing enough, I waited a whole minute for its cry to be heard in the whole Hive area around our tunnel, before throwing it with all the forces I had remaining to where the ants and golems were still fighting. One of the two giant ants instantly slashed the egg with one of its legs and made it explode in many small pieces when it reached its reach, probably thinking that I was attacking them. The leftovers of the not-yet-born swarmling body got scattered everywhere, covering both the giant ants and the golems with green blood and swarmlings inwards. After confirming that my plan was a success, I also passed the door and closed it behind me, before the Red Mist went off ejecting a thick red smoke from my body. I fell on the floor, not able to move my legs anymore. I tried to muster the little force I had to crawl with difficulty to the flagship until I was met a few meters away from the door by Kat and Jerome, both standing straight in front of me. "Need help Leader ?" They both seemed calm, in fact, they were too calm compared to a few hours ago. Something I couldn't point out was different and a thought I hoped would not be true crossed my mind. Before I could respond, Alpha Zero suddenly emerged from my shadow and blocked Kat's dark blade with its long hands, just a few inches away from my neck. At this moment, the thought that I had just confirmed itself and I understood what happened to them. I just hoped Douglas and Alice didn't meet them and had the time to join the ship. 'Master. A. Powerful. Entity. Is. Controlling. Them.' Alpha Zero, who just saved my life, grabbed Kat by her neck without letting her the time to block his hand, and when Jerome activated his dark blade and moved forward to join the battle, Alpha Zero threw Kat to him with so much force that Jerome had to dodge on the side and lost his momentum. Alpha Zero used this short lap of time to rush at Jerome and started violently fighting with him. I wanted to move, but I couldn't. I only had enough force remaining to mutter a few words with difficulty. "Alpha... Do not... Kill them..." 'Yes. Master.' Alpha words resonating in my head were the last things I heard before closing my eyes and losing consciousness. ______ A few days ago, inside the control room of a Dreadnought-class ship in orbit above Kar'goth, a few Scyllas in their Templar bodies were monitoring the surface combats and the few teams they sent to find B213-84's squad. After waiting for a year, they never saw the black matters of this squad return to the Revered Mother system. It meant that either they left the singularity, or they were still alive on Kar'goth. Both of the possibilities were very unlikely, but the most probable was still for them to have somehow survived this hostile place. "Sir, you were right. We received a report from the Arthropoda Formicidae squad, they found the targets hiding inside an unknown underground hangar, right in the middle of the Hive." When the Scyllas decided to fight themselves and joined the Singularity in their Templar clones, they started to win a few major battles and forced the Void Legions to stop their advance ; even the fifth Legion which was the largest and most dangerous of them had to stop before reaching the mother system. Taking advantage of this small amount of time they earned before the Void Legions start attacking again, Legatus decided to bring a small stealth fleet to Kar'goth, in the border, to retrieve the squad led by the subject his brothers called the Deficient One. He sent three high lethality squads and more than twenty medium lethality squads, searching in the areas they estimated the lost rifters could be hiding. Fortunately, they didn't have to search far from the area where they first got teleported to. In only a year they wouldn't have been able to escape far away, and so Legatus didn't have to spend too many resources to find them. After scanning the whole planet and all of its native population, Legatus noticed a huge underground Hive covering thousands of kilometers and hosting more than a billion individuals. If these rifters were smart, this Hive would probably have been the perfect place for them to hide and keep a low profile to survive. Following his guess, he decided to force them out by asking half of the rifters squad he sent to provoke the Hive by submitting the surfaces monsters and sending them to attack the Hive territory from all sides. It seemed that luck was on his side, as he just received the confirmation that his guess was right, and even better, the ones who find them were one of the most lethal squads they had sent. Even compared to other high lethality species the Arthropoda Formicidae, also called Giant Ants by B213-84, were extremely powerful thanks to the characteristics inherent to their species. They were the perfect killers, and it wouldn't be too difficult for them to capture a squad with just 5 rifters left and only one of them being a high lethality vector, especially since they're of the human race and therefore totally inferior to Giant Ants. "Order them to capture the target, they shall kill them and retrieve their bodies if they resist." "Yes Sir." Before sending the void rifters on the surface, Legatus modified one member in each of the three high lethality squads and boosted it to its maximum, forcefully evolving it to a superior being. He also gave each of these modified rifters a means to precisely pinpoints the targets when they are in a 100 meters radius, so the Scyllas can take control of their mind and force them to surrender themselves to avoid unnecessary losses. Once the Giant Ants tired out the targets during a few days by sending them waves after waves of surface monsters, they finally showed themselves and started their mission to recover the lost squad. However, they were met with a few unexpected problems hindering the Scyllas' initial plan. First of all, the squad supposedly lost and hiding in fear was actually rebelling against the Scyllas, and they were fighting extremely well compared to their first evaluation by the monolith. It means that they didn't just hide like cowards but they continuously fought on Kar'goth and slowly built up their strength. Secondly, the place they were staying at was extremely well guarded, and while the Scyllas could calculate the size of this underground giant room their sensors couldn't pass through the walls and ceiling, every attempt to spy on this area was blocked by a strange material present in every part of the walls that was completely unknown to them. After having existed for several millenniums and having roamed the whole galaxy, it was extremely rare for them to discover materials they didn't already know. In contrary to what they always thought, they didn't know the Singularity as well as their galaxy. Lastly, Legatus understood the plan wouldn't go as planned when instead of five rifters showing up to defend the only door accessing this strange place, only three of them joined the fight, accompanied by two golems made of an unknown and ancient technology capable of rivaling the Scyllas' high lethality vectors. At first, Legatus thought that the two missing rifters died in this strange place and their black matter was trapped and couldn't leave, but after verifying the intel he had about these rifters he found out something extremely disturbing ; the missing rifters were those who had the highest submission level and they were the easiest to be controlled. What a surprise it was for him to see that not only these rifters were rebelling against their masters, the Scyllas, but their leader was also smart enough to hide the most vulnerable units in his squad. He didn't hesitate to remove the only high lethality vector of his squad from battle, not using his best unit. He was ready to lose more than half of their firepower just in case the Scyllas would be able to control them. Legatus understood why all of his brothers who met this abnormal rifter called him the Deficient One. He really was deficient, from the first protocol when he was the last one to keep his eyes open, to the evaluation when the monolith ranked him as an unknown lethality vector and assessed him to be able to manipulate Void Energy, until now and his tricky stratagems based only on his guesses. 'I absolutely want this specimen, when we stop the invasions he will be the first one to be analyzed. He might be the key to finalize our protocols...' This is what Legatus thought. But once again, Legatus is trying to sell the bear pelt before killing it. He didn't capture B213-84 yet and he is already planning about all the experiments he will try on his body. "Sir, we just lost two Formicidae units just to neutralize one of them. Their strength make no sense, normally only one Formicidae would be enough to wipe all of them even in a one versus three..." "How far are the other squads ?" "They are all converging to the target position, but on their way, they lost a few of their members to the natives of this Hive. These lowly creatures are defending their territory fiercely, which makes the squads' progression more difficult. The closer squad is the one led by Z155-84, they will be on the objective in half an hour at best. It is a twenty units medium lethality squad." "Good, no matter the tricks this Deficient One planned he won't be able to hide any longer." "Sir, urgent report ! After opening this door multiple times, we've been able to locate the missing rifters and sent them direct orders to capture B213-84 !" "Good ! Very good ! From what I've seen, he is too injured to fight back. They have no way to escape, they can't fight back anymore and we took control of their most powerful unit. Prepare to warp and extract the furthest squad, once we capture of the Deficient One and his squad is done we'll jump as fast as I can. I don't want to meet a Void Legion before achieving our objective." "Yes Si..." Before being able to respond, another operator interrupted his brother to transmit another important report. "Alert ! We detected important hostile movements around the objective place. The natives are all crazily rushing the target position !!" "What ?!" "Contact !! Z155-84's squad met a swarm of natives monsters and got trapped !!" "Multiple contact !! 2 squads have already been completely eliminated by the Hive forces !!" "Alert !! Hostil..." The report continued for a while until it has been confirmed that all the squads still on the surface trying to reach the objective location have been ambushed by an extremely high number of frenzied native monsters, also rushing in the same direction. "Just what is happening now..." Legatus couldn't believe what was happening, in just a few minutes he lost almost all of the rifters he sent on the surface. The only ones still alive were the three high lethality squad, but one of them was in the middle of a fight with a group of powerful natives monster and the second one was too far to be of any help, as for the last one... They were the Giant Ants and even if they were already close to the target, they had lost two of their members. While they just finally destroyed the golems after a tough battle, they still couldn't pass the door and were trapped with a huge Hive army rushing them. "How is this possible…Do you still have contacts with the two rifters you controlled ??" "Negative, Sir… We were only able to transmit our orders when they opened the door. Since it's now closed we lost contact and can't reach them again… Even if they succeed and captured the target, they will be soon trapped inside this place with an army of native monsters waiting outside the door." "DAMNED HUMAN !!!" Legatus lost control and the fog surrounding his Templar body started shivering violently, oppressing all the other Scyllas present in the room. "Sir…Please calm down, the mission hasn't failed yet... Even if the two rifters we sent order to can't capture the target, they are all extremely exhausted, seriously injured and trapped in the middle of an hostile place with a large army of monsters soon waiting at their door… They can't escape anymore. We just have to penetrate this room and extract them from here." Legatus slowly calmed himself, before asking with a murderous gaze. "Did you finished analyzing the materials canceling our sensors ?" "Not yet, Sir…B-But we already found out that it is not indestructible !! With some time, we would be able to open a hole inside this room !!" "How much time ?" "No more than a week, Sir..." "I give you a day, if this place isn't opened tomorrow at the same hour, I'll send you and all the brothers present on my ship to the Nargiza system fighting the fifth Legion at the front lines !!" Frightened to see the Leader they respected so much lost his calm for the first time in centuries, all the Scylla in the room hurriedly left to find a way to destroy these walls before being forcefully sent to the most horrific and deadly system in the Singularity. Legatus was boiling inside. He never have been humiliated this much. How could he report to his Leader that he, Legatus, his most trusted, loyal, and competent subordinate has failed to capture a seriously injured lowly organic life-form ? He could have directly sent a dozen Scyllas in their Templar clones to the surface, but he still didn't know the depth of this Hive. The being controlling it was probably strong enough to deal with a few Scyllas in their Templar bodies and he didn't want to sacrifice his brothers just to capture a mere rifter. The only thing left is to wait for one more day, hoping that the two rifters inside would listen to the orders and capture the target by themselves, so Legatus and his fleet won't have to waste any more time in the dangerous Singularity Border.