EliteCommander

The Cradle

If nothing else, Rhia had to commend the builder’s response. With Vreta’s physical power, there were few favorable outcomes of a grapple for the builder. That they had trapped themselves as well was a sign of desperation, but it was an intelligent decision. Unfortunately for the builder, Rhia had already grabbed a hold of their spear arm before being trapped, and she had held on tight the whole time.

For the moment, at least, Rhia was almost completely immobile. Almost. While the material around her prevented her from opening her hand, there was nothing stopping her from closing it even tighter. As she had done before with Vreta’s leg, Rhia temporarily disabled some of the safeties holding back his arm muscles, and considering that there was not much else her suit could be doing at the moment, she also transferred more power into the suit’s muscle-assist systems to give her an extra crushing grip.

From where Rhia had grabbed the builder near their elbow, her hand clamped down like a hydraulic press, crushing the suit under the pressure. Though, of course, she certainly did not stop there. Flesh, bone, tendons, and ligaments; everything underneath would be crushed or shredded by the crumpling metal until the forearm had been torn from the body. Their spear would be useless if they could not control the arm wielding it.

At the same time, Rhia had isolated access points to the builder’s suit and internal network, and they would soon find every one inundated with a swarm of complex Rothian viral programs aiming to find any vulnerable hook she could latch on to in order to breach their security.

The Cradle

While it was durable, the forces Vreta could apply did allow Rhia to break away enough of the material around her to free her legs, and just in time. There were new contacts: infected Humans, as they had seen during the drive. Rhia was the closest to the door they were breaking through, so she already had their attention, but she did not have time to fight them immediately. The priority threat needed to be neutralized.

Deploying her thrusters once more, Rhia kicked off the ground and resumed her attack, sharply accelerating straight at the builder’s position. She saw Osman launched across the room, but she could not help at the moment. To have the speed and surprise needed, she had to attack now. The cover the builder had created was between them, but Rhia hoped for that to be an advantage, as it obscured the line of sight between them to hide that she had freed herself.

The instant after Osman had been launched, Rhia lunged at full speed over the barrier. Her attack was both fluid, and precise. She had her pistol drawn, and the moment they came into view, she fired a three-round burst into the remaining soldier. While the builder’s durability was unknown, she could be confident from observations of their foe so far that their standard soldier would not survive the shots. At the speed Rhia was moving, the burst hardly even had time to finish before she was upon the builder, using her full weight to tackle them. Her priority was to control the spear arm, then pin down the one with the gauntlet. All of the data collected so far suggested that the builder needed to perform specific motions in order to manipulate the simulation for attacks. So, if Rhia could leverage overwhelming strength in a grapple to bend back and break both of her target’s arms, she judged that they would be much less of a threat.

The Cradle

Though she was in control of Vreta’s body, Rhia did still have access to to the capabilities afforded to her by his implants. She could think, and act, incredibly quickly. An echolocation pulse clued her in to the change in consistency of the ground underneath her, though physics itself did still put some limits on how quickly she could actually respond. The whirlpool of material appeared as she was moving downward, so inertia brought her legs into it. Adding the fraction of a second it took for her thrusters to deploy, she was up to her thighs before the antigrav thrusters countered her downward velocity.

The liquid material was viscous enough to resist her escape, so she only pulled herself up to her knees before it solidified. She growled in frustration, but still kept her focus and wasted no time. However Osman might have been faring, Rhia did not have an angle to assist from where she was, so that was what demanded her attention. She moved her rifle to her back momentarily to free up both of her hands, then balled both up into fists.

With the power of Vreta’s muscles, assisted by his powered armor, Rhia was confident she had the tools to free herself. She hammered her fists into the ground surrounding her legs to shatter and break up the material around them. Each strike sent the deafening sounds of the fractures she was causing echoing throughout the lobby. The more damage she caused, the easier it would be to dig herself out. Fortunately, her gauntlets were more than strong enough to protect her from breaking her hands in the process.

The Cradle

Being that he was more of the target for the attack, Vreta did not exactly have time to move to the side. Fortunately, he was equipped as well as he had been on the last mission. Instead of stopping, or even turning, Vreta kept up his trajectory straight at the grey wall, then leaped into the air at full strength. Rhia, meanwhile, powered his suit’s anti-grav thrusters for a second to make sure he could clear the wave.

On the other side of the wave, Vreta ducked and rolled once he hit the ground, moving briefly into cover behind one of the pillars. He might have kept up his aggression, but it was Rhia that asked him to move into cover. He could hear her thoughts within his mind, speaking more urgently than she ever had before. ”I can get us out of this, Vreta, but you have to trust me. There are things I can’t do with our current arrangement. I need to take control, fully, and you have to authorize me to do that.”

The situation was getting more and more dire with every second that passed. The builder was halting their escape here, and by the shouts he heard, Freyr and Girard needed help as well. He could see Agent 595 rushing to assist, but they still could not afford to make this a protracted battle. It had to end. Now. ”Okay…do it.” He replied.

Vreta’s permission was all Rhia needed for his implants to grant her unrestricted control over his brain. Just as before, Rhia could “move” parts of his cognitive processes to allow her to place parts of herself in the sections of his mind controlling cognition, sensory input, and motor functions. With how fluidly her consciousness could flow between implants and an organic brain, she truly could take over his body. However, there was an aspect of this process that she had not explained to Vreta. If he had reached full affinity with his synthetic implants, then his consciousness could exist within his implants just like Rhia’s could. However, he was still far from being able to accomplish that feat, and there was not room enough for both of their consciousnesses within one brain. Therefore, to take control of his body, Rhia had to push away Vreta’s consciousness and store it within memory. For as long as she was in control, Vreta would be unconscious. Unaware. Powerless to anything Rhia may have wanted to do.

Immediately, Rhia dashed out from behind the pillar in a thruster-assisted sprint straight at the position of the builder and remaining soldier. Even just in running, her technique was more refined than Vreta’s, allowing her to stay low and keep evasive while maintaining speed. She closed on them like a cheetah in full sprint, intent on ending this quickly and decisively. She kept up suppressing fire on the soldier’s position, even more accurately than before, but the builder was her priority target. She did not know what these droids behind them would be able to accomplish, but even if they could just be a distraction, she would cut off the head of the snake herself. She was aware of the threat of the builder’s spear, but she had ideas in mind to deal with that.

The Cradle

As much as Vreta generally preferred caution, now was not the where they could afford much of it. Vreta had only slowed down the hostiles from the street, not stopped them. They needed to resolve this builder’s ambush quickly, else they would find themselves surrounded. Ultimately, there was not much time for Vreta to formulate a plan with his team, as he suddenly found himself with the ground underneath him shifting. It was fortunate the lobby’s ceiling was as tall as it was, as it gave Vreta time to react before the artificial fist could crush him.

Vreta kicked off laterally from the object beneath him and decided to use that momentum to his advantage. As soon as he hit the ground, he kept running at his best sprint off towards the left flank, weaving between the pillars. A Rothian’s long, powerful legs were tailored to quick sprinting, even without the kind of enhancements Vreta had. With each leap he took forward, he also dashed side to side to make himself more difficult to hit. All the while, Vreta returned fire on the one soldier who was still shooting back. Rhia did have limits on how much she could control Vreta’s muscles, and therefore, how much she could correct his aim. While moving at such high speed, he was less accurate, though as he sprinted into a flanking angle on the hostiles’ cover position, there was still a good chance of him landing a shot. Enough that his enemies could not just ignore the threat. He wanted to find an angle on the builder, but whether he could make the kill or not, any attention on him was more time for Agent 595 to carry out her plan. He just hoped it was a good one.

The Cradle

Vreta quickly backed away through the car, then out the other exit into the building. He had taken a hit or two from his brief exposure, but his shields still held strong. Given his weaponry and shield strength, he expected that he was going to be a priority target for these attackers, but there was a way that could work to the advantage of the team as a whole. As long as he could fight smart and withstand the pressure on him, that would be pressure not on his allies. As expected, the full-powered scattershot blasts from his rifle were most certainly overkill against the enemy’s defenses. At full power, Vreta did have to watch his rate of fire in the scattershot firing mode to avoid overheating, but in any case, Rhia did somewhat dial back the weapon’s output setting. She did not yet have enough data to know the exact efficient power setting, but she would continue to fine-tune it as they went along.

Fortunately, Rhia had been keeping track of the fight behind them. They were pinned at the moment, and had already taken a casualty due to this “builder.” That was clearly the largest threat, but at the moment Vreta emerged from the car, the builder was still behind cover. As dire as the situation seemed, though, there was a way out. At this moment, there were still just three opponents, including this builder. Any kills they could get would drastically reduce the pressure on them. The hostile soldiers had good cover, but they were shooting from a static position. Rather than trying to use mobility to avoid shots, they relied on their cover being difficult to aim a shot through. Before Vreta was even in sight, Rhia was already running the calculations.

Given the lack of cover near the car, Vreta simply had to act quickly. As soon as he crawled out of the opening, he got up on one knee and took aim. Rhia had swapped his weapon back to its rifle firing mode, with two-round burst. Vreta did have his limits and still had to fire from a stable position to make such precise shots, but his shields could still take the hits. And of course, Rhia was what fine-tuned his abilities beyond what he could naturally achieve. She calculated the ideal trajectory, then gave him the small nudges needed to make sure he used it. As he was squeezing the trigger, she tightened and relaxed different muscle groups in his arms to nudge the barrel a few degrees in the right direction just before he fired his burst at the rightmost soldier’s head.

Above all, Vreta was still alert for the builder. If they peered out of cover for a moment, Vreta intended to swap targets immediately. Unless they could confidently survive the damage his weapon could output, the threat would force caution out of this builder as well.

The Cradle

With everything happening around them, Vreta’s responses had to be on point. They could not afford mistakes right now. This kind of fighting was not really his specialization, but in that, Rhia proved to be a remarkable help. With all the tactical feedback Rhia was providing for him, it did seem like she had a surprising amount of combat experience, even for an AI. She knew just what was important to highlight and when, along with recommendations that demonstrated a kind of intuition that could not simply be programmed.

Now that their car had a few exits, Vreta’s echolocation could now give him some additional vision again. Rhia was already marking targets once more, though her vision would be more limited until he left the vehicle entirely. From the street, she marked two hostiles that were close enough to be an immediate threat, while there were at least three behind them in the building. They needed to focus most of their efforts on securing their escape route, but they could not simply ignore the hostiles from the other side either. For Rhia, a plan presented itself as soon as she identified a flashbang being thrown in from the street.

“Help the Agent!” Vreta shouted to Osman. Grabbing the flashbang, he held it under his own body to protect his allies from most of its light and sound. Just as it was about to go off, Rhia briefly darkened his visor completely and blocked out all outside sound from his helmet so he would not experience any effects from the flashbang. It did detonate with some explosive force, though not nearly enough to threaten his armor.

Once the flashbang went off, Rhia knew the hostiles would be pushing aggressively. They would expect their targets to be stunned, disoriented, and vulnerable, so this was the time to strike. She resumed Vreta’s sensory input, then advised him to push his advantage. Rothian weaponry was highly advanced and equally powerful, so when in combat with other species, Rothians usually operated their weapons at a lower power level. Ideally, it would be just enough to breach their opponents’ defenses, which would allow them to conserve energy and keep it powered for more shots. However, right now, Rhia kept Vreta’s weapon at full power; something normally reserved for damaging armored vehicles. Until she had more data on the quality of their enemies’ defensive capabilities, she wanted to make sure his shots would put them down.

In that moment, Vreta pushed aggressively enough that he was able to get a shot on the first soldier before he was fully back on his feet, then quickly transitioned to the second target. Since Rhia had his targets constantly marked, he could aim before the target came into view, then shoot the moment his weapon had a clear line of sight. An advantage of the scattershot firing mode was that the individual plasma shots arrived at slightly different times. An energy shield, even if it was depleted completely by a shot, would generally prevent the first projectile from causing harm, so a rifle would have to fire again to make the kill. Scattershot weapons could potentially deplete a shield and make the kill in a single blast. Even so, Vreta still fired two quick shots each for his second and third target.

Regardless of how many hostiles might be on the street side of the car, Vreta still intended to back off and help with their escape right away. He had just needed to make sure they would not get surrounded from both sides too quickly.

The Cradle

There was not much time to act, so Vreta did benefit from Rhia’s tactical advice. Her best estimates of where they were, and the effort that would be required to break out did give him at least a plan to work with. They did not have time to sit around and discuss, most certainly, so he needed to be willing to act decisively.

Vreta reached down and grabbed his plasma blade from its holster on his thigh, then flipped it around and handed it to Agent 595. “Take this. It should easily be able to cut a way into the building. Get Freyr and the other civilians out that way.”

Wasting no time, Vreta leaned over towards Osman and reached up to the floor. A quick look at the metal that had crumpled onto Osman’s foot allowed Rhia to direct him where to grab it to allow him to most easily, and safely, bend back the metal. He had to lightly shove the Corporal to the side to do it, but he did not have the luxury of time to be polite, aside from a softly spoken “Excuse me.”

After a moment, Vreta heard the sound of the saw piercing through the door behind him. They did not have long now. As quickly as he could, he moved over to the left side of the door their attackers were breaking into, keeping himself low on his back, and hopefully out of sight. It had been Dr. Girard's seat, though 595 was just as proactive as Vreta by moving her. The civilians were still stressed and panicked, and so not necessarily thinking clearly. However, it had been easy enough for the Agent to "encourage" her to move over to the other end of the vehicle. Just moving around the tight space with so many people involved quite a lot of pushing, shoving, and being crammed up next to others, but it was better than being captured, shot, or worse. “Osman, if you can, help me guard this door. We just need to buy time for everyone else to escape into the building, then we’ll go out that way too. Everyone else can join the Agent in protecting the civilians.”

So as long as they stayed off to the sides of the door, the pair of them would have decent cover from within the vehicle, and they did not need to buy much time for the others to get out. Vreta intended to take the initiative, but he would still wait as long as he could to do so. Rhia recognized his plan, so she went ahead and prepared as best as she could. The muscles in his legs were mostly synthetic, so she disabled some of the safety limiters restricting their maximum force, then preemptively deployed nanites to the area to quickly deal with any tearing.

Vreta watched the door carefully as he readied his rifle. Given the tight quarters, he switched the firing mode to scattershot and took aim. Rhia kept an eye on the integrity of the door, and just as the saw was about to open up the door, Vreta delivered to it the most powerful kick he could muster. It flew off its hinges and slammed immediately into the one holding the saw. Since the saw had almost broken through already, nearly the full force of the kick was transferred to the door, and by extent, the person behind it. Against an unprotected body, it was the kind of blow that could collapse one’s chest cavity and turn ribs to powder. Armor would likely protect against such things, but a Human would still be hard-pressed to stay standing through such a blow.

Once the door was open, Rhia would immediately resume marking targets as best she could. Vreta, taking cover to the left of the door, was ready to fire out to the center and right at any hostiles that might be in view.

The Cradle

Vreta had to duck back into the passenger hold quickly as he saw the truck careening towards them. He pressed his feet into the wall underneath one of the seats while digging his claws into the thinner metal of the roof above them, pushing hard against both to try and keep himself stable once their vehicle was hit. His armor could protect him from the impact, but he would be a danger to others in the vehicle if he ended up flying around the hold untethered. He relied on Rhia to make small adjustments to keep him in place as their car was rolling.

After a few seconds, the car came to rest upside down and Vreta allowed himself to drop down onto what was formerly the roof. For someone properly armored, like himself or the Agent, the crash had not been too much of a danger, but not everyone in their vehicle was so well equipped. All had protection, but for the civilians it was more basic. In any case, Vreta did his best to right himself quickly. With all the chaos around them, they would have to organize quickly if they wanted to effectively defend themselves.

”I can’t update enemy positions from in here. We need to get out as quickly as we can. From what I can calculate, we were knocked into one of the buildings. It could provide cover, but there’s no guarantee there aren’t hostiles waiting inside in ambush. Still, we’d probably have a better chance of fighting them off inside than standing out in the open in the street. Either way, we need to move quickly. I can’t update enemy positions from inside this thing.” Rhia advised.

Vreta silently acknowledged Rhia, then took stock of the status of the others. Dr. Girard seemed to be injured, but he could not tell just on appearance if it was just superficial, or something that would require treatment. “What is everyone’s status? Can everyone move? We need to go; we’re not safe here.” He said as he moved over towards one of the doors leading, presumably, into the building. It was bent by the impact and might have been jammed in place, but he would kick it off its hinges if he had to.

The Cradle

Vreta certainly agreed with his companions’ intention to get their convoy out of here as soon as possible, so he had no arguments with their plan. When it came to scanning their surroundings, though, Vreta could see a bit more clearly. Rhia directed his sensors, both in his suit and among his implants, to scour every nook and cranny around them for threats. Particularly once Agent 595 pointed out the low, constant hum all around them, Vreta wanted to find its source.

The combat armor Vreta wore only further improved the sensors he could access. Visual scans could encompass a wide section of the light spectrum, and he could detect electromagnetic signatures as well. Given their surroundings, his echolocation was particularly effective as well. The tall buildings and tight quarters allowed the sound waves to propagate far and wide to quickly build up a real-time map of the are, and the objects within. What they detected was alarming, causing a sudden, drastic shift in Vreta’s demeanor.

Vreta focused up, gripping tightly onto the controls of the turret and calming his mind. For survival, all that could be allowed to occupy his mind was the threat, and how to deal with it. Rhia collated the data and Vreta passed it on as quickly and efficiently as he could. “Contacts from all side roads. Cloaked, large…silhouette of vehicles, not creatures. Six minimum. Additional movement in the buildings; I sense open windows in the buildings on the fourth and fifth floors at three, ten, and eight o’clock. Movement within, unknown numbers.”

Rhia knew the protocols of Outreman military equipment enough to interface with, and send useful information to, their HUDs, she just needed the authorization to do so. In this case, it would be much quicker to simply ask for the authorization than to try to force her way in. “I need squadmate access to your tactical displays, quickly!” Vreta shouted into the passenger hold below him, which was accompanied by a proper authorization request from Rhia to both Osman and 595.”