Eliza stretched her limbs as the warsuit slowly buzzed to life, booting up and controlling the electromagnetic shroud that formed its armor and marveling at the soft blue glow that it emitted.
The basics of the Warsuit's defense was incredibly complex, despite being the basic defense.
The warsuit was controlling electromagnetic nanobots the size of a grain, forming a cloud around the suit and was a free forming utility, capable of compressing, decompressing and free floating.
It was the primary utility and defensive ability of the armor since it was easily programmed to receive immense amounts of force, dispersing it in ripples and waves. This was called the 'Shroud' of the armor.
The second layer was a defense for energy based weapons, conveniently called an Alpha Cloak
It was comprised of alternating layers of rapidly accelerating alpha particles that had fixed orbits around the suit to block gamma radiation, lasers, high frequency attacks, penetrating waves and other non-mechanical weapons.
"It's been so long since I donned this…" Eliza fought back another flashback. "I… don't know if I should be happy or not…"
"You shouldn't worry too much. We aren't going to make you stain your hands again." Nile Gibson spoke as he gestured to the relay beacons that were in a corner. "We have MAO back in working order, though we can't get the signal to reach even 2% of the usual, we can have these relay beacons expand the territory of our control."
"Are we going to use the drones to proceed with the operation?" Eliza gestured at the drones being taken out from storage, giving much attention to some drones being armed with electromagnetic cannons. "Those look like overkill."
"Indeed." Nile sighed. "But we will take no chances. One of the identified Corrupted personnel was a Mecha Engineer. You can imagine the details as to the degree of combat involved against an army of Mechatronic Drones equipped with zero gravity missiles and pulse cannons."
Eliza's eye twitched at the horror.
"Di- Did the Mecha Ward get obliterated…?"
"No." Nile Gibson shook his head. "The said personnel was able to gain some semblance of humanity in the fight and put an override to shut down the drones in the area before knocking himself unconscious."
"How strong." Eliza felt awe. "To resist control over your own body to help the people trying to kill you… He's a good man. Did you terminate him?"
"No, we locked them up." Gibson sighed. "We try to catch them alive."
"How many have you caught?"
"Five." Gibson scratched his head. "But personnel are still disappearing and we don't know where they take them."
Eliza bit her lip. She had yet to even deploy but they were already stuck with a problem of locating the enemy.
"We were covert about our operation on capturing the corrupted personnel…" Eliza narrowed her eyes. "How did they-"
"Reports state that this was no normal corruption." Nile said as he stepped away, cautious of the alpha cloak that was yet to stabilize around Eliza. "There has been a theory that it has something to do with the Alien Hivemind that is interfering with the system."
"And how could that even…" Eliza paused. "Wait, are you trying to tell me that SOMEONE assimilated with the-?!"
Sir Nile Gibson did not respond. He simply wore a dark expression and sat there in his chair.
"We hope not, Dr. Stuart." The old man closed his eyes. "We hope not."
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Eliza walked down the corridor, the magnetic soles of her warsuit allowing her to latch on to metallic surfaces without much of a problem.
"I wonder how Kaylen is doing right now…" Eliza wondered as she opened up a panel and set up a MAO relay beacon. "Jumar should be in intensive care unit, rehabilitating…"
Eliza sighed, but immediately paused as she heard murmuring from around the corner.
"Hitler did nothing wrong… haha… hah… ahah…" A personnel was talking to himself. "Death to all the jews…."
Eliza did not hesitate to draw her firearm and point it at the personnel.
'Who the fuck is Hitler?' Eliza furrowed her brows in confusion. 'Is it the name of their leader?'
Eliza slowly approached the personnel who had his back faced towards Eliza.
"They should all burn… ahahahaha… hah… hehe.."
Eliza once again twitched in confusion. 'What the fuck are Jews? Somekind of organization?'
Eliza cleared her mind as she stopped at four meters behind the man.
'No time to think about stuff.'
"Freeze!" Eliza demanded. "Or I'll have your head blown off!"
The personnel did not freeze but was instead swaying his head to side to side.
"Lalalalala… heee, hehe… heh…" The man giggled. "Kill all the jews…"
"I SAID FREEZE!" Eliza used her shroud to form restraints on the man and forced him to face her.
Eliza gasped in shock.
In the man's torso was an embedded mess of biomechanical parts, some were haphazardly lodged into his chest cavity as if someone decided to jam it in there.
Eliza strengthened the defensive shroud around her, calling them closer and form sheets of armor floating in front of her.
[Scanning…]
[Scan Complete]
[Personnel ID P-207]
[Personnel Name: Ricardo Talisa]
[Male]
[Assigned to Mechanical Division, Starship Repair and Maintenance]
[Biomechanical Parts Embedded (Unconnected to Nervous System)]
-Reject part 1
-Reject part 2
-Reject part 3
-Reject part 4
-Biomechanical Adapter
-Antimatter Charge
-Dead Man's Trigger
-0.02kg Container (Half life Uranium 233)
-0.04kg Container (Half life Plutonium 239)
Eliza gasped, bad memories started flooding in about antimatter charges, not to mention the amount of active radioactive material was in the mix, it was easy to imagine this living bomb as a 'dirty bomb' one that was specifically made to cause immense radioactive fallout.
'But for what purpose…' Eliza grit her teeth. 'Wait..'
Eliza checked the map and paled.
'Fucking shit.' Eliza cursed as she felt the cold sweat on her face.
They were right next of the Deep Cryostasis chamber where the colonists were in.
"heh.. hehe…" Ricardo Talisa giggled. "Suicide is badass~"
"No it isn't, asshole." Eliza used her shroud and formed huge scythes. "Try not to die."
In the next few moments the hallways of D3 were filled with the howling noises of torture as Eliza pried open the man's chest cavity while keeping him alive and unsedated as she carefully extracted the man's embedded biomechanical implants (?), making sure the dead man's trigger was secured in perfect condition to avoid blowing up the antimatter charge alongside the radioactive material.
Eliza had nothing on her to wrap up the materials, so she had to be resourceful.
Eliza wiped the blood staining her visor using the shroud and sighed as she patched in the comms.
"Sir Nile, I think I know where our man is." Eliza contacted. "Suspected to be a biomechanics staff, judging from the handiwork."
"Copy that, the others are on the way." Nile Gibson responded normally until something beeped in the system.
"SHIT!"
"What was that!" Eliza went into battle mode again, evident on how the black shroud around her rippled violently, forming a well defined sphere of spikes around her.
"Something is attacking the jamming system." Nile grunted. "It got fought back very easily but it got me surprised…"
"You had me scared there, I thought that MAO was getting hacked."
"For a moment, MAO managed to access everything." Gibson sighed. "Luckily, they removed SOCS already or that would have wreaked havoc."
"Why would the syste-" Eliza saw the message received notification. "-m… get attacked…"
"Dr. Stewart? Is there a problem?"
Eliza opened her IRIS and sighed as she saw it was Jumar who sent the message.
"It's nothing, Sir Gibson." Eliza opened the message.
Eliza was supposed to be relieved that the one who attacked the system was Jumar but at the same time did not believe Jumar would do it if it wasn't urgent.
[They took Kaylen]
Eliza smashed through the wall and crashed through the main annex, throwing away the antimatter charge and all.
"Dr.- Dr. Stuart!" Gibson blared out. "WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS!"
"I don't have time to explain right now, sir." Eliza spoke as she broke through the external hull of the ship. "I promise I'll explain later."
"ELIZA YOU-!" Gibson's voice faded away as Eliza was now out of the beacon's coverage.
[SYSTEM NOTICE]
[Due to vacuum, the current energy consumption is doubled in order to maintain mobility in space and internal pressures of the Warsuit]
[Operator is advised to avoid staying longer than 20 minutes in Vacuum Space]
Eliza turned on her micro DSG4 thrusters, hearing the hiss of the liquid Xenon canisters of her suit leak out the gas to generate thrust.
Eliza accelerated, heading off into the biomechanical labs at the rear end of the starship faster than a space drone, looping around TORUS 2 and 3 before crashing into the Starship's already damaged hull and smashing through to the external modules and straight towards E5.
[Please be advised Dr. Stuart, a breach has been detected in the area]
[A local shutdown has been in place. Should I send out a distress beacon and show you the nearest emergency oxygen lines?]
[Y/N]
Eliza waved away the prompt as she pushed away a large debris being blown towards her.
Using her shroud, Eliza sealed the breach she just caused and marveled the mess she just made before putting up a thin blast shield in front of her, barely stopping a makeshift bomb from blasting her back to space.
'Shit.' Eliza cursed.
If they had bombs, they were well prepared.
And Eliza had recklessly rushed in.
"As the data suggested." A man hysterically laughed as he threw away a compression suit. "You are entirely vulnerable when your feelings are in the mix…"
Eliza stood up as she fought the urge to curse once again.
She had to admit. It was some damn good research they had done.
After all.
'Eliza Stuart' did not exist during the reign of Geocorp.
'The Boss made sure of that.' Eliza grit her teeth. 'And even Ethan Bloom took precautions.'
"You got me there." Eliza spat. "How the hell did you even-"
"There is no escape from the internet." The man spoke as he stripped off his clothes in an awkward fashion. "All are the same in the eyes of the new reich."
"I have no idea what you mean." Eliza shuffled uncomfortably as the man pranced around in zero gravity. "But you know what I'm here for.
"Where is Kaylen."
Eliza demanded.
"Kaylen? Oh you mean one of the girls that were taken to the happy place?" The man smiled. "There is no worry. They are not here anymore."
Eliza pulled out her slug rifle and pointed at the man. "DON'T FUCK WITH ME!"
"Precisely what I want~" The man snapped his neck and tore his skin apart.
Eliza shot four slugs, all correctly hit but were somehow deflected upon coming contact with the man's skin.
'What the hell is he made out of?!' Eliza cursed as she backed off.
The man's already snapped neck disturbingly spun a full circle in a diagonal axis, tearing the skin apart.
"Behold, the ultimate life form!" The man laughed hysterically as his four limbs spun in horribly wrong places.
His limbs extended ripping apart his skin and flesh in the process as he grew two extra pairs of legs and more appendages burst from within his chest.
"What in god's name…" Eliza watched in horror.
"What kind of grotesque assembly are you?! This is-"
"Fool, my transformation isn't even complete yet!" The man laughed as he widely opened his jaw, dislocating it and out came a glass ball with a big red dot in the middle.
"Behold! For I am the image of God!"
The thing that was once a human was still twisting and turning, trying to shake off its former shape as it steadily extended it's biomaterial alloy frame and synthetic muscular appendages.
Eliza did not want to know what kind of monstrosity this thing was, so she shot.
And this time, she made sure he would feel it.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Jumar rushed back to the Cybernetics ward as fast as he could.
His face was full of bruises from smashing his weak body against the Plastiluminum walls and panels but he barely cared for that.
He couldn't wait any further.
Normally, after one surgery, one would need to have a rehabilitation period. Which was why his next two implants were scheduled pretty far.
Normally, he'd have to wait.
Normally.
Jumar opened the door to find the iconic man in white, doctor's coat and blood red gloves.
"Doctor." Jumar floated down towards the gurney and sat. "I need some help with-"
Jumar froze in horror as he saw Medic smile wider than before.
"Ah, of course kamarade…" Medic giggled. "Of course…"
"I need the-"
"Shhh…" Medic hushed. "Stay ztill. Zis vill hurt a bit."
Jumar nodded as Medic took a backpack with a medical cross over it and attached what looked like a fire hose.
"Now, kamerade." Medic laughed. "Lets go practice medezin…"