A soft chiming noise pierced the sea of slumber, and the sleeping woman roused with a disgruntled noise. Nedi reached out blindly for the source of the disturbance as she gritted her teeth at the grating sound of its metallic shuffling. It adeptly avoided her clumsy effort. She lifted her head and glared at the tiny robot that stood on her bedside table. The cute digital screen emoted a cheerful face back at her. Nedi finally reached out with a fist and gently bonked the top of the robot, and the racket stopped. After a moment's pause, she gave a heavy sigh as she moved away from the alluring comfort of her pillow and sat up in her bed. She stretched her arms over her head and dropped them with a hum before climbing up to her feet. She checked the time and grumbled. She grabbed a gray jumpsuit from her closet with her name printed across the breast, 'Nedilla', though she went by Nedi.
She dropped her light sleep shirt and shorts to the floor and climbed into the stall. Her tail swayed behind her as she braced for the hot water that started to spray down across her. Her purple hair was matted down, and she brushed it back, the water running over her blue skin as she got clean and ready for the day. The refreshing water helped her shake off clinging tendrils of sleep as it ran over her gentle curves and down her finned tail. She rubbed the side of her snout and fiddled with one of her teeth with her tongue before she decided to grab it with her fingers and wiggle it free. The sharp, jagged fang was replaceable; by the end of the day, another would have moved to take its place. She belonged to a shark-like humanoid race from an aquatic world, though she'd never seen the homeworld of her people, having been born on a colony world of oceans and reefs.
When she finished washing, Nedilla stepped out of the stall and paused by the mirror to look over herself again, a burn scar on her right shoulder and more scars from small faded cuts across the top of her chest and side of her neck. She rubbed them with a brief frown. She shrugged and started to hum a more cheerful tune as she got dressed. She pulled on black underwear that was more practical than showy, and over it went her gray utility jumpsuit, her tail slipping through the lower hole and the fin on her back sliding through the second opening higher up on the jumpsuit. She pulled on a pair of heavy jackboots that were battered and worn from use. She grabbed her black and red lab coat and headed out the door with a wave to the little robot by her bed. It beeped at her cheerfully and saluted with one of its stubby arms. The little mech frame had been modeled after a larger one with a weapon system, but the little one she'd made just had a laser pointer. Nedilla locked the door to her quarters and looked up and down the busy corridor with other people waking up and moving to their jobs and posts around the station. She strode down the hall to the lifts.
The halls were brightly lit and clean, little cleaner bots running along the edge of the hallway, staying out from underfoot except when someone spilled a bit of their coffee or got bumped and dropped what they were eating, then the busy little bots would dart in and clean up the mess and polish the floor. They left nothing behind, but Nedi had to hold back a snicker as someone not paying proper attention slipped on a freshly cleaned spot and went down with a curse. She paused and offered the stranger a hand, helping them to their feet while they grumbled and straightened out their suit. Nedi gave a fanged grin and went on with a wave while they nodded in thanks before going on their way in the opposite direction. A few friends passed, and she waved at them cheerfully, getting in the lift and keying it to the docks while others crammed in until she had to wrap her tail around her leg to keep it out of the way while people selected different destinations. With a smooth surge of movement suppressed by inertial compensators, the lift began to slide through the shafts running through the ground complex where they resided and worked.
Nedilla sighed softly as the lift pinged, and a soft robotic voice announced they reached the docks. She squeezed her way out and stretched out her tail with visible relief before continuing to where the transit shuttle lay in port, slowly filling with people. She got in line to enter, scanned her ID at the security kiosk, and walked into the small spaceship, taking a seat in one of the few remaining places squeezing between a felinid in a white jumpsuit of medical and a human in a service suit. She wrapped her tail around her waist and let it rest in her lap while the engines of the shuttle hum and the doors close and bolt shut; again, the feeling of motion suppressed by advanced systems buffet and makes everyone lean slightly with lift-off. Nedi looked out the window and watched the ground station recede in the distance and clouds race by, the ground shrinking until they finally break the atmosphere, and the blue shift drives begin to spin up. The soft hum grew more severe, and then the view of the world was gone, replaced by the streaking lights and peaceful aura of blue light that gave the drives their name. It passed after a few seconds, replaced by the view of a massive space station floating in the void.
The station was a civilian structure with sleek hull lines and reinforced windows that gave a view out into space for those within, lacking the armored plating of a military installation. It was a frontier station built as a large hemisphere with blocky protrusions coming off the bottom. Most of the workstations are built around the edge of the station, with the engine made visible by the complex cooling lines and exhaust vents. Her view of the station shifted as the shuttle came around the docks, Nedi looking at other ships already mated with the station. There were two trader ships, large cumbersome vessels that ran cargo between planets and stations, but nestled up next to them was a sleek black vessel, too small to be anything but a personal ship, and it had the brand mark of Nanotrasen.
The branding mark was no surprise; NT owned the entire station, but that ship was too new and advanced to be anything minor. 'I wonder what's up that Corporate is visiting?' Nedi thought to herself, then looked up as the shuttle pinged and the airlocks clicked, their bolts pulling up and the doors sliding open with a hiss. The passengers got up and moved, and Nedi was no exception, following the flow of people to the door and into the arrivals area. She glanced over at the busy docks watching people and one loader mech carrying cargo under the dutiful eyes of a customs agent, but where the sleek ship was parked, two guards stood in black armor carrying pulse rifles. That made her shiver, and the curiosity of who or what that shuttle had brought to the station burned brighter.
The metal halls of the station were lit by the ever-glowing white lights bustled with people and activity. Security officers patrolled in twos and threes; a cook hurried by carrying a box of ingredients, and assistants moved about with color tags on their IDs showing their duty stations for the shift. A lone head of staff, the chief engineer by the looks of it, moved through the barely organized chaos while people got out of their way like a shark moving through a school of fish. She grinned at the analogy and waved as she spotted a particular sec officer, a tall blue-furred synthetic with wolf-like features and the name GARM stamped onto his armored vest over his heart. He smiled and blew a kiss at her making her blush as she hurried on to robotics and her assigned department.
The purple-striped airlock hissed open as she swiped her ID through the reader and a dark lab greeted her. She'd expected it as she'd been assigned by herself for the shift and had to lab all on her own for a change. It wasn't entirely unusual, and it meant she had her own choice of music, but it was a little lonely at times. She'd have to bug Garm to visit when he got a break, or maybe Lilith if she showed up at the station later. Either of her lovers would be a welcome sight around her workstation for a break, but for the moment, she hit the light switch and sighed at the mess left behind by the evening shift. Nedi didn't like to think poorly of others, with a few exceptions, but she hated that the first thing she'd need to do was clean up over others. Spilled oil, grime on the floors, parts of cyborgs left out just lying strewn across tables, it all bugged her. However, the parts would be helpful, at least. She adjusted her lab coat and sat down her bag on a table that was mostly clear of clutter before turning on a playlist of songs with hard bass and a fast beat. She goes to a small closet and pulls out a bucket and mop. Fill the bucket, wet the mop, and get started on the floors first, so she didn't slip on the oil spill at the very least, and she hated getting it on her boots and tracking it everywhere even if she didn't fall.
Fifteen minutes later, the floor was clean, and Nedi was putting the mop back in the closet, though she kept the bucket out after dumping the fouled water. She looked around again and sighed, starting to clean up the tables and organize the clutter, moving the cyborg limbs around into neat stacks and shuffling piles of metal and glass plates for the machine fabricators into more sightly piles off to the side where they'd be easy to grab and feed into the printers. Another half an hour passes just cleaning up, most of an hour into her shift spent just cleaning up after the previous crew, but at least she knew what she did or didn't need now and had a nice stack of internal parts for use making some simple bots for the crew. It wasn't a terrible way to start the shift, she thought to herself, but she was annoyed that it had needed doing. The lab was finally clean, though. Now it was time to check the logs and see what was up first for her to-do list.
The console in the corner of the lab lit up and showed the research logs from the last few weeks, not that she needed that, and a work order log for robotics that other departments required. She scanned through the list humming to herself; a couple of medibots for medical, as always, engineering wanted another fire extinguisher bot for public station use. Cargo wanted a Ripley for general use hauling crates, and lastly, security had put in an order for three ED-209s and a Gygax combat mech. The last one made her frown, the ED-209s weren't very hard to put together, but a Gygax was a complex mech to assemble by herself and would probably take her a couple of hours to get together by itself. Well, she could get the frame put together now and then do the rest as she reached the other things done.
Nedi nodded to herself and looked around, realizing all her work cleaning was about to be entirely undone by the time she was finished, but it was only fair that she left a mess for the next shift, the same as they left for her. She grabbed metal and glass plates and slid them into the fabricators, loading both machines up with materials before going to them individually and setting in the commands. For the first, Nedi set up to start printing the parts for the Ripley along with its framing pieces; for the second, she queued up a list of components to get bots assembled, mostly assorted cyborg parts. While they began to hum to life and sparked internally while hidden machinery began to shape and cut metal, she gathered the other parts and pieces for the bots as they were the easiest to assemble. The medibots were the easiest to throw together. Hence, they were the priority, plus it never hurt to have medical happy with you. So she got the frames left behind by the last shift, who hadn't finished the work, and began fitting in the control circuits and sensors. Each of the three was installed and fitting one at a time, like a mini assembly line on a long table, as she went through the parts one by one.
By the time she finished with the internals and got the frames in place, the fabricator had printed the cyborg limbs the medibots used to do their work, and she mounted them, finally fitting a health analyzer and scanner to the frames. As she checked the scanners, the whole thing blinked lights on and hummed softly, a preprogrammed voice coming out to announce their activation. Nedi smiles happily with herself and the little bots, setting them on the floor and turning on their patrol modes one by one so they have some spacing, the little bots rolling out the doors excitedly going about their work. She goes to the console to report the task complete, then glances over the pile of Ripley parts that the fabricator had printed out. She nods and takes off her lab coat, dropping it on a table and rolling up her sleeves for real work.
The Ripley was one of the most basic mechs she could build, but at ten feet tall, fully assembled, it still took some work to put together, but the Akula was fit and knew her business well as she set herself to the task at hand. She began connecting the internal framing pieces and clamping together the inner lock points before welding them so they didn't flex or shift; next was the 'limbs' of the mech. She hooked the frame to a gantry and got it off the floor, and with a grunt of effort, she got each leg into place and then ran the linkages to the frame so they locked in place before lowering the gantry, so it settled onto its legs to test if the connections were indeed seated. She gave a short nod when it stood on its own and grabbed a step ladder. Nedi loaded the arm onto a lift, hauling the heavy limb up to the shoulder and slotting it in place much as she did the legs, running wiring and hydraulic connections before bolting the whole thing in business and going to the other side and repeating the process. Last to go on was the torso, the pilot's 'seat,' and the housing for all the electronics she'd be installing next. The torso took longer than the limbs to assemble to the frame, and when done, the bones and muscles stood over her. The cockpit hung open, waiting for the control systems to be installed and the power source to be put in.
She paused for a moment and walked across the lab to a small fridge, finally turning on her radio and listening to chatter across the standard band. Her department radio had been quiet for the most part; scientists are rarely the chatty type, and she giggled as she listened to two people arguing over the radio about some petty squabble while others tried to tell them to shut up. She pulled her PDA and turned away from the table she was resting against, snapping a picture of herself with the majority of the Ripley visible over her shoulder, then sent it to her fiance, "Hey love, just a regular day at work for me. How's it going on your end of the stars?"
She waited a few minutes, and when there wasn't a response, she shrugged and looked back at the shell of the mech waiting for her to finish what she'd started. She nodded to herself and finished her water, unsealing the top half of her jumpsuit and rolling it down to the waist as the lab was a bit warmer than it had been when she'd started. She turned her radio back off, the fight continuing with no apparent end in sight, and she had work to do. Rolling her shoulders, she walked back to the mech and gave it a gentle kick, then went to the fabricator, and with a few keystrokes, it was back in motion, printing out the internal parts and sections of outer plating, along with a battery cell to power the whole thing. With the fabricator in action, Nedi returned up the ladder and started the longest part of the entire job, and her least favorite was running the wires through the whole assembly and trimming the wires to fit. Running, splicing, connecting, and then cutting the excess took nearly an hour to fully rig the entire mech, not long when you thought about the size of it, but when she'd first started, it took her half a shift to finish the same job if she didn't miss anything. A quick plug into her multi-tool sent a low-energy pulse through the wiring, and she smiled when it came back green, everything was hooked up properly, and nothing was grounding out, perfect.
Into the cockpit and along the shell go a set of scanners so the pilot would have a good sense of their surroundings and not back into anyone, or so she hoped. She checked on the fabricator and nodded, seeing it had finished the internal circuitry she needed. The primary control slots in and are connected, then the peripheral board slots in next to it, and she screwed both down. Nedi sealed up the console before climbing back out and going around to the back. In went the capacitors for the charge ports, and finally, she pulled the battery from the fabricator port and threw it into a charger. A quick check of the time and a glance at the fabricator queue before frowning at the charger, its lights blinking, showing the power level, and Nedi sighed and rolled her suit back up before grabbing her PDA and stepping out of the lab. She dodged a sec officer running past without a word and stared questioningly after them for a moment before shrugging and walking down the hall toward the cafeteria. Time for some lunch; maybe they'd have some fish served today. The thought cheered her up, and she walked with a hum, keeping to the side of the hallway, so she didn't get caught in the heavier foot traffic.
The cafe was busy, with people coming in and out this time of day. The entire area had the subtle noise of folks talking amongst themselves while they ate; others sat looking at their PDA. One dead-eyed janitor stared at the far wall while slowly chewing his food. Nedilla stepped into the bustle and got in line for the food, grabbing a tray and shifting from one foot to the next as she caught one of her favorite smells from the station; fried fish. Her tail swayed excitedly behind her, and she tried to be patient in the line, finally getting to the front and grabbing a plate of fried fish filets and chips. A couple of the little cups of ketchup follow the plate onto her tray, and she is out of the line without grabbing anything else; finding herself a space at a table, she sat down and began eating. She blew lightly on a filet to try and cool it down a little before taking a bite out of it and chewing happily, fish is one of her favorite flavors, and even the patties of ground-up fish were still so tasty for her. It wasn't as lovely as getting it fresh from home, but she'd never complain about seeing it at the cafe, even if they overcooked it a little. Sushi was better, but the sushi from the restaurant was dubious at best, and she'd had a nasty run-in with it in the past. So now she stuck to the safety of the fried fish.
When the fish was gone, and the chips and their ketchup had followed the filets to their fate, Nedi sat at the table pondering the contents of her PDA, looking into the current station news and announcements. Nothing too important, but her ruminations were interrupted when one of the black-suited guards entered the cafe. He wore the heavy body armor of corporate security and walked past the line for food, loading a tray with food and ignoring the comments of the disgruntled crew waiting for their food. He piled high the tray and went back out the way he came, pausing only when a coughing fit came over him, and he nearly lost the tray. The man recovered from the fit and then went further out the door. Nedi shrugged and got up from her table to head back to her lab as well, the Ripley was almost complete, and the Gygax still needed to be built, then she'd begin work on the other projects. As she walked out of the cafe, she spotted drops of blood where the guard had been coughing, and she frowned and looks in the direction he went on his way out. Part of her was worried, but that was others to concern themselves with.
Nedi headed back to her lab, sighing as the doors shut behind her with a soft hiss. She walked over to the charger first, pulling the heavy battery free and throwing a replacement into the charger to fill, and slotting it into the chest of the Ripley before securing it down and connecting it to the power systems. Nedi looked at the pile of plating on the floor by the fabricator and began the final steps of the whole process. First, the plates were lifted by one of the loaders and held in place while she secured them onto the mounting points of the frame; then, she fitted her goggles on tight, and out came the welder sealing them down against each other. The outer plates of the Ripley were not exactly armor, as they were a covering to keep the insides intact. Bullets or a severe strike with a crowbar would do some damage if they were determined. Thankfully the last step of the process didn't take long, and soon the completed mech stood on its legs under the white lights of her lab. She grinned up at it before climbing in, her legs slotting down into the upper thighs of the mech and her tail wrapping around her waist before she grabbed the controls in the arms and began moving it. She didn't take it far, parking the loader mech in the corner of her lab to be collected later, and for now, she climbed back out and walked over to her order screen to let the cargo techs know they could get it or wait for her to bring it by.
She noticed security had bumped the Gygax as a priority item for some reason and shrugged as she was going to be building that next just to get it out of the way anyways. She glanced at her empty desk and went back to the fabricators to begin a new list of items to print. More metal and glass plates are loaded into them, and they get to work, humming and quickly warming up the lab. The shark closed the shutters for her desk, so they could get her on the radio if they needed something and rolled her suit back down. She moves the ceiling-mounted hauler over to the fabricator as it rolls out the main frame of the Gygax. This mech was no civilian cargo loader; even the structure of it without limbs was an imposing ten feet tall and weighed enough to crush Nedi if it fell on her. She carefully connects it to the lifter and hauls it onto the gantry. Only when it was lifted and secured did she begin connecting the frame to its pieces, turning the limp pile of metal plates into the rigid internal skeleton of a war machine. It had a larger torso than the Ripley, as the pilot sat at the controls rather than stood. There were more slots for internal screens and the ability to seal itself against atmospheric threats and depressurization fully.
The Gygax was always one of Nedi's favorite mechs, combining speed and firepower with heavy armor and good endurance. Though it would never match the more heavily armored Durand in a direct engagement, it was far better in urban environments and for rapid response situations. The Gygax was like a shark on the battlefield, a mental image that suited the Akula nicely. She climbed down her ladder as the first of the legs finished printed and grabbed it with her second lifter, pulling it upright and moving it into position. The Gygax's legs had more connections than the Ripley's, so it took her longer, but it also gave time for the fabricators to work at their jobs. When she finished the linkages on the first leg, she disconnected the lifter and grabbed the second to begin the process all over again. Nedi didn't mind the hard work much, it passed the time, and she got into a solid groove. Sweat and bits of oil marred her skin by the time she reached the second leg in place; the shark sat down for a moment and stared at the first of the arms with a heavy sigh. She took a moment to drink some water, then got up and grabbed it with the lifter.
The arms of the Ripley were heavy things that ended in lifting clamps, but the Gygax was a different animal. Even without the armor, they weighed more than Ripley's arms and ended in blunt fists with mountings on the components' underside for various weapons. With the multi-role nature of the Gygax, it was designed to be equipped with a list of energy or kinetic weapons, and its systems could run targeting software for all of them. She wasn't sure installing all the software onto the board was the best idea, but she didn't make it, and it did make it easier to change out the load outs in the field without opening up the inner case. The lifter glides up smoothly, and Nedi guides the arm into the socket on the frame before starting on the linkages that would connect to the main drive when she finally got the torso in place, a process she was not looking forward to doing. By the time she finished the first arm, the second was ready, and the process was no different than the first in getting it in place. A heavy clunk from the fabricators as the front half of the torso slid out of the machine and came to rest on the floor. A moment later, the back half came from the other unit.
Nedi sighed at them, disconnecting the lifter from the arm she'd just fixed to the frame, and climbed down, guiding the lifter to the torso and connecting it. The torso of the Gygax was divided into two halves and then welded together down the sides when attached to the frame. Once the torso was in place, it could not be removed or altered without destroying the Gygax due to how it mounted to the body. A flaw as she saw it, but it was designed to be built in an hour by a good team or a few hours by one lonely shark. It had taken her almost two hours to get the arms and legs attached. The torso would take an hour by itself. Then she'd install the wiring, computer boards, cockpit seat, and screens, then the final pieces before the outer plating. She nodded to herself and connected the lifter to the front half, as there was only one way to see it done after all.
The front half of the Gygax's torso is mounted to the frame and locked in place; she started running the connectors for the wiring so she'd save herself some headaches later as it was much more difficult to do the same job with the back of the torso in place. With the torso locked to the frame and the connectors run, she climbed out of the half-built machine inside and gets the back half of the cockpit. To do the connectors of the back half, she had to climb into the cavity that would become the cockpit, secure the connections, and pull through the wiring hard points. That done, she climbed back out and rolled her suit around, ignoring the lab heat as sparks of loose metal did poor things for the skin. Her goggles came down again, and she struck up her welder, sealing first one side and then the other, hoping she made no mistakes as now the only way to undo them was to start over completely.
Nedi climbed out of the now mostly built mech, lacking only the head and the internal parts. However, she didn't follow the written directions and often connected the hatch hydraulics for the front before putting the head on. To that end, she grabbed the parts she needed and stuffed them in a duffle back and back up the ladder she climbs. She sat in the hollow cavity of the torso that would become a seat for the pilot, linking the hydraulics to the rear panels so they could open. It created a slight weak point in the armor, but one had to be able to get inside the mech from somewhere. Older models of the Gygax were top entry mechs, but the head entry hatch was a greater weak spot than the fold in the back, so it was altered with the current generation. With the hydraulics connected, she grabbed the emergency lever and braced her feet, hauling back on the arm. The freshly installed frame shifted, and the rear hatch opened with a struggle that strained the shark's muscles. Nedi nodded while catching her breath and wiped at the sweat on her face before closing the hatch again and getting out.
She checked the fabricators and went to the board printers. The circuit boards for the Gygax were nearly a foot across and shined brightly in the lights of the lab. She stacked them on each other and carried them over to the table with the other needed parts. Everything was top grade, and one of the small benefits of the private sector was the ability to make even these older model mechs stand up as good as a current front-line equivalent with parts that got the most of their technologies. She looked over the assembled pieces and took a drink of water, and as she did, the lights in the lab shifted suddenly to a violet hue, and alarms started ringing in the station halls. That was the first thing she noticed; the second was the air vents in the lab turning off the grates sealing themselves shit. Nedi walked over to the alert console, swiping away the alert for a level seven biohazard warning and looking at the actual information. There was limited information available from the brief captain's announcement beyond that there was a biohazard alert and the station was going into lockdowns. As she read the announcement, the internal tanks for the room clicked over and opened to replace the primary system's life support being shut off. At least she wasn't in danger of running out of air, but until they solved the viral issue, her department was completely locked down.
For a moment, she looked back at the half-built Gygax and considered if it was even worth the efforts to finish building; with a viral alert and the station in lockdown, all she could do was wait for the medical to create a solution for the issue at hand. She walked over to the leg of the sixteen-foot tall mech and leaned against it, still thinking, digging out her radio headset and turning it on to listen to the main comms channel.
"They're in medical, they've breached past the biohazard shutters, and the airlocks are destroyed!"
"Multiple infected at the cafe and bar, we've sealed the doors, but they're breaking down the locks!"
"Security to cargo, we have hostiles."
"HELP! Oh god, they're in the doo-"
Nedi's tail froze as the screams registered, and the panicked voices over the radio started to sink in. She stood very still for a moment before racing over to the door to the robotics lab and triggering the locking bolts. Breathing hard from the sudden surge of adrenaline, Nedi looked around the room before picking up her PDA. She hurriedly sent a message to Lilith, "Stay off station, something has gone wrong, and people are dying. I'm safe for now. Going to find a way out."
Nedi winced as another scream came over the radio, then turned it back off and dropped it in her pack. She looked around the lab for options when her eyes drifted to the mostly complete Gygax. She thought and frowned at the mech, she wasn't near the station's center, and the shutters were closed. Whatever was killing the crew seemed to be drawn to them, and she didn't feel sick. If she were infected, it wouldn't matter anyways, so she nodded to herself, "Alright then, Nedi, let's do this."
She grabbed a loop of cable coil and climbed back up into the Gygax, dropping into space in a rush driven by adrenaline and determination to survive whatever this is. She ran the wiring and connectors, splicing links as she went instead of doing it all at the end like she usually might. There was no time for mistakes, and as her hands worked the cables, there were none to be seen so far as she could tell. She climbed out, ran the line to the exterior limbs, and set the connection points for the external hardware. She climbed down and grabs the boards, slotting in one and securing it before doing the same with the next two. Finally, she shut and screwed in the panel for the boards. The next step was more straightforward and intricate; she cursed softly at the time it would take to see it done right. She started slotting in the exterior facing scanners, connecting them to the wiring harness and then plugging them against the frame. Without the armor on it, they stood out like strange protrusions, metal growths on the metal frame of the Gygax, and all the while, outside the doors of her lab, the station began to bleed.
Despite her best efforts to tune it out, Nedi could hear echoes of gunfire and explosions in the main halls of the station. The screams didn't carry through the metal doors quite so well, but she knew they were there under the echoes of violence. The work she did, despite the situation, was routine enough that her mind stirred over everything she'd seen that day. The ship from Central, the guards were watching over the ship, the man coughing in the cafe. That blood must have been his blood, she realized with a chill going up her spine, and her concerns about being infected became stronger. She took a moment to steady herself before finishing up with the scanners, picking up the charging capacitors and slotting them next to the rear of the mech. Last was the power supply, and she was thankful she'd put a second power cell to charge when she pulled the first earlier. She grabbed the power cell and pulled it free, slotting it into the chest, locking it in place, and turned to check on the fabricators. The controls for the Gygax were printed in three pieces that needed to be connected in the proper order, but thankfully they were quick to do.
The lifter hummed as she navigated it over, picked up the pilot's seat, guided it into the open top of the mech, and lowered it inside. The whole task was much harder to do with the head installed. She dropped the chair in with the lifter and then brought the lifter down to collect the two halves of the control interfaces. She climbed the ladder and was back inside the Gygax, trying to ignore the fact that the gunfire had come to a slow, staggering halt, and now all she could hear was the hum of her machines. She bolted the seat down to the frame, no shocks installed like she usually might, but she could ride the bumps well enough it was urgent to finish quickly. With the seat installed, the Akula turned and grabbed the first console sets from the lifter, lowering it in carefully into place before connecting the wiring points and ensuring the controls were slotted in properly. The second one followed it, and she sat in the seat for this one, no longer having the space to move freely in the chest of the mech. When everything was done, she hurriedly crawled back out and guided the lifter down to grab the head of the Gygax. She sealed the top in and then connected the sensors with the head before locking it down so it could turn freely, but it would never be removed without serious work.
Nedi looked over what was left, the fabricators were finishing with the weapon systems, and ammo and the armor lay on the floor waiting for her. A quick nod and she let out a soft huff and hopped off the ladder, grabbing the first pieces of armor and starting to set them in place and connect the quick bolts. She worked her way up from the three-toed feet to the 'hip' of the mech before moving on to the heavier pieces of red-hued steel. The lifter got the heaviest of them in place across the front of the chest, fitting snugly against the frame around the sensors. When all the armor plates were in place, she moved to begin the final step when she heard the sound she'd been dreading; a powerful slam against the airlock leading into her lab.
She had known it was only a matter of time, but now it was a race between which would finish first. She pulled her goggles down and tried to ignore the noise of blows hitting the heavy airlock, making it shudder with each strike. The armor didn't take long, and she cut a few corners with the welding, praying to the stars it wouldn't compromise the armor's integrity. She threw the welder to the side and grabbed the lifter, sparing a glance to the door, and her eyes went wide as the first dent formed in the door, no more than a dimple in the steel, but it stood out in the lights of the lab. The guns were the easiest part; activating the lifter and moving it manually for speed, she linked the two AC-2 LMGs to the underside of the mech's arms and hurriedly slotted in the reloads for the twin guns. Everything in place, she stared up at the mech for a moment, then looked at the shutters for the mech bay and hoped it wouldn't be too cramped when she left. She climbed up the back of the Gygax and grabbed the entry handle; pulling it back, the twin panels of the back of the mech hissed open, and the torso tipped itself back, revealing the interior of the war machine at her disposal. She climbed inside and sat down, buckling herself down and hitting the activation switch. There was a pause, there was always a pause, she reminded herself, and the interior came to life with the soft blue light as the displays came online and the torso righted itself.
Sheltered inside her shell of steel and chrome, she slid her tail to the side, so it wasn't in her way and wrapped her hands around the controls and squeezed the grips, her feet pressing to the pedals as the central power core hummed with the lightning in its copper veins. She doesn't bother with the gantry, a flex of the Gygax's hydraulic limbs and muscles sheer the mounting points, and she popped off to step forward in the lab. The mech turns, and the guns aim for the door, the reticles lining up together on the doorway as the heavy blows continue and the door begins to warp. Nedi narrowed her eyes, no longer panicked or scared; her fangs bared in simmering bloodlust as she recalled those screams of before and wondered what exactly was about to come through the doors to her lab.
The doors buckle and warp inwards, wrenching out of their frame as horribly mutated hands reach in without regard for the jagged steel edges, and there is a heave in the opposite direction. The two halves of the door resist, then begin to wrench back into the hall until a blood-stained human man finally staggered into the lab and looked around with wide, frenzied eyes. Blood ran down the lips of his mouth as he pulled his teeth back into a feral snarl, his hands twisted and mutated into clawed masses bulging with muscle and bone that split the skin. Every step he took into the lab left more blood across the metal decks, and Nedi reached over, turning on the Gygax's internal air supply almost as an afterthought.
"Alright, then," She said out loud in the confines of the mech, and the man screamed a bone-chilling wail that drew others into the lab, a swarm of twisted, mutated figures that charged at the Gygax howling for armageddon. She turned off the safeties for the two machine guns, and heavy fifteen-millimeter bullets were chambered with heavy clacks she could barely hear. Inside the cockpit, the light blue display showed a green outline around the guns stating they were both ready to fire. She shifted her feet, and the mech took a step back, adjusting its stance before she pulled down both triggers for the first time. The thunderous roar of the twin guns overwhelmed the howls of the charging mutants, the guns striking unarmored flesh like thunderbolts of the gods long dead. Flesh separates in front of the heavy bullets designed to pierce through duralloy armor and steel frames, blood spraying in a fine mist as the shots carry through the surging infected and bury themselves in the walls of the mech bay. The 'swarm' Nedi thought it was had only eight or nine people in total, their shredded uniforms mostly medical staff, and she looked down at the only survivor, the first one through the door oddly enough. Still crawling towards her despite his lower body completely blown away, she advanced the mech and brought one of the feet down on his torso. There is resistance from his muscles and bones as he claws at the floor with the mech's foot on his back, pinning him down, then a wet pop as his ribs collapse and his torso flattened like a melon under the force of a hammer.
She advanced the mech past the slaughter and the ruined doors to the taller shutters of the mech bay, using the remote access in the mech and her ID's clearance to order the shutters to open. They slid on their tracks and reveal a hallway splattered with bloody footprints and trails on the walls from the mutants she'd seen before. She didn't know what had happened to them to cause this, but some part of her noted they appeared to be primarily human crew. It wasn't a sure sign that only humans were affected, as they made up most of the crew, but it gave her a little hope for her situation. She left the internals on all the same as she stepped into the hallway and checked the mech's scanners. The holographic screens projected around the shell of the mech gave her imagery from all around the mech, a map of the station and her location, and local motion trackers. She stared at them for a moment processing the information before turning down the long hall and advancing away from the center of the station and towards the outer ring in the hope of finding an escape pod.
The empty halls of the corridor echoed the heavy footfalls of the Gygax back into the sensors, and Nedi could hear it over the sound of her breaths as she leaned forward in the mech. The once familiar and reassuring hallways were now ominous, lit by the deep red emergency lights and marred by blood trails and occasionally the remains of a crew mate. She tried not to look at the dead as she passed them, fearing she'd recognize the face of a friend or colleague and the true horror of the situation would begin to set in. It was a low whisper in the back of her mind, the faces of the people she'd just killed, but for all she knew, they were already dead. It wasn't like she'd had a choice after all, and she kept reminding herself of that as she guided the Gygax through the steel halls.
The motion tracker pinged softly, and she glanced at the light blue screen with yellow dots of movements ahead, and Nedi tried to bury the dread that she was about to find more infected crew. She paused her advance, eyes checking ammunition levels and other displays, before calling out over the loudspeaker, "If you're friendly, please say something. If you're more infected, come out screaming so we can end this."
There is a moment of silence in the halls, and then finally, a pair of familiar fuzzy ears poke around the corner, followed by a friendly face. However, the blood splatter and the stern expression left Nedi worried about what was coming next. Garm stepped around the corner and motioned behind him; two more security officers Nedi didn't recognize followed him out with weapons at the ready, and then eight crew members in various jumpsuits. It was a motley collection of survivors; the two officers Nedi didn't know carried shotguns, and Garm was carrying a heavier LMG. The survivors following them had various tools and cobbled-together weapons, though one assistant who looked far too calm was carrying a blood-splattered fire ax. Garm approached the Gygax and offered a small smile; even though he was taller than most standing at 6'8", the mech left him looking up to stare into its main sensors.
"Nedi?" He asked tentatively, and inside the Gygax, the Akula nearly started to cry and wanted dearly to hop out and lean into his arms. Still, the situation did not allow for such things, and she shook her head as he continued, "We're on our way to engineering; it's the last location showing a viable escape pod on the station. The infected got the rest, and we lack the firepower to make our way through them all."
"I might be able to help, but," Nedi checked the maps in her cockpit and nodded to herself, "Yea, engineering is our safest bet. It's locked down, though. If they don't follow the sounds of this beast, they'll hear it when I start smashing the airlocks in."
Garm nodded, her response reassuring him as the big synth checked his internal maps on the station, "Alright, let's head that way. And Nedi, I'm glad you found us."
"Me too, Garm. I'll take the point, put the survivors in the middle, and you cover my ass. This mech has firepower, but I can't be everywhere at once," She advanced the Gygax down the hall and turned the corner going left; on her screens, she could see the looks of wonder and relief on the survivors. She could only hope it wouldn't be ill-spent on them finding each other.
Nedi tried to get comfortable in the Gygax, the unexpected burden of survivors making her worry that much more, even if she was greatly relieved to find Garm in all this mess. His presence was reassuring; even if it came with some extra add-ons, she wasn't alone now. Her relief was all too brief; however, the radio went from dead quiet in the cockpit to crackling with a man coughing into a mic.
"This… This is Captain Staen coming through on all channels," He broke off into another wet cough, and a small groan escaped him, "The station is no longer under our control. The virus that got loose appears only to affect humans. Anyone else still alive and hearing this, you have fifteen minutes to make it to an escape pod. I'm… I'm setting the self-destruct; this cannot be allowed to spread any further. May the stars guide your way, and good luck."
The radio didn't cut off, but the captain's voice became quieter as though he'd leaned away from the mic, "Alright, the timer is set, do it."
There was a gunshot, then a new voice came over the radio, "This is the BlueShield. The captain is formally relieved of duty; there is no surviving command staff. I'm putting a complete incident report on the station net for download. If you can get out, make sure they know what happened. I will be remaining on the bridge. Over and out."
Nedi realized she had come to a stop when she looked at her screens and saw the others have done the same. One of the survivors in the light blue jumpsuit of a command aid began to cry quietly, and she watched for a moment while the others tried to reassure her; then she keyed her mic to the external speakers, "Garm, you heard him. We have fifteen minutes. No time to waste now."
Nedi let go of the left control guide and reached over, flipping up a switch cover and toggling the safety override. The Gygax had a unique feature to overload its actuators for bursts of speed in a fight. In theory, it was good for an hour of active use, but that wasn't something she'd ever thoroughly tested. She leaned forward again and began moving, the war machine's slow pondering steps now more fluid and graceful, but each step hit the decks and left an indent as she moved at a speed the survivors she escorted had to run to keep up with. No one complained; they knew what was at stake as they started running down the halls following the orange guidelines towards engineering.
Nedi pushed the Gygax forward, her legs flexing as she shifted the two pedals, and the entire mech slid with a sharp turn, the Akula leaning against the turn and fighting to keep her hands on the controls as the Gygax rounds the corner and she came face to face with what she was worried she'd find. The long hallway ended at a massive double door leading into engineering, but the airlock doors were battered and crooked in their frame, and the hallway was full of the infected. At the moment, they were distracted, consuming the remains of other crew and fighting over morsels of flesh, but all their heads shot up when the Gygax rounded the corner with a shower of sparks as its feet slid across the flooring.
"Garm, we got company; stay back!" Nedi yelled over the comms, then righted the Gygax and braced its feet as the swarm, easily over a hundred strong, howled as one. The walls seemed to shake with the sound of their voices raised together like the wailing of the damned at the gates of hell, and Nedilla found herself standing alone. Not unarmed, though, she reminded herself, swinging the guns up as their targeting reticles shine on her screen and pulling down the two triggers.
For a brief moment, everything slowed down for Nedi, her perception of time drawing to a slow as her fingers pulled down the triggers for the guns. On all her forward screens, she could see the bloodied faces of human and humanoid crew charging her, howling and clawing the air as they came. She knew a few of those faces, distorted with a fury not their own, and a burning hate filled her stomach for some unknown foe. Whoever did this, whoever caused this, she would find them. She swore this to herself, and time began to pick back up as her two guns opened fire, dumping casing like a waterfall of brass as massive bullets broke the horde's charge.
Over it all, louder than the guns or the howling swarm, was a long, pained scream of rage as Nedi vented her anger in the cockpit of Gygax. She stood a titan before the surge of twisted flesh, but the guns can only do so much, and the Gygax is rocked as the press of bodies finally reached and slammed into it. Claws and fists struck the armored shell as Nedi went into a frenzy, the guns firing in long bursts as the arms turned and slammed humanoid figures into the walls and floor. All that was left behind was shattered, splattered remains with each swing; each time she raised a foot and brought it down in a vicious stomp, another two or three died, but then there were still more coming. One of them managed to get its claws into a weak point in the armor, a weld seam stressed by the rapid movement of the legs and the suddenly repeated stomping as the Gygax dominated the melee even as it was swarmed over and pounded from all sides.
The claws find the gap, and warning lights flare in the cockpit as the armor is suddenly ripped away, revealing the actuators of the leg to the mutated claws of her enemies. Nedi tried to pull back from them all, backing up and blasting her guns, but they were relentless and surged forward again. One got a grip on a bundle of wires and pulled hard, tearing it free of its connection points, and the entire leg suddenly stiffened up. Nedi tried to move it, but the pedal also jammed, and she realized the Gygax was suddenly lame and a much easier target. Alerts of armor points failing began to flare up when she heard through the howling the sound of a shotgun, then an LMG firing in full auto.
She glanced to the side and saw Garm and the other two sec officers standing at the corner, the two officers kneeling while Garm stood over them, all three firing as fast as they could. The horde faltered for a moment seeing this new target that promised an easier meal, and it was enough for Nedi to limp back on her good leg, dragging the other under her, and fire again. When her machine guns clicked empty, the hallway was filled with shattered bodies; some had nearly reached the less protected security team that had come to her rescue against all odds. She began checking the Gygax's functions and integrity, the guns cycling new ammo belts while dumping the empty boxes to clatter to the floor behind her. She sighed at what she saw and then looked at the time they had left.
"Garm," She said, "We need to hurry, but you'll need to go ahead. I'll bring up the rear; I should have enough time to make it. Get them onto the escape pod," She turned her head, and the Gygax did the same as it tracks the primary sensors around to focus on where she was looking.
Garm frowned, but Nedi spoke before he could, "You have to escort the others; come back for me after they're safe."
He hesitated a moment, then gave a reluctant nod, "Come on, we need to go now!" He shouted back at the others, and they all began running toward engineering.
Nedi nodded to herself and looked at the readouts again; the Gygax was in rough shape. Whatever had mutated the crew had turned them monstrously strong. Even where the welds did hold, the armor was beaten, and in a few places, they'd managed to tear through it. Still, she could move, if slowly, and she could fight. Her motion sensors were still active and were picking up many targets, starting to converge on them after the noise of their fight. She started the Gygax limping towards the broken doors, her jammed leg acting as a pivot that drug across the floor, leaving grooves in it. Oddly enough, the blood was helping lubricate her path a little better, but it was still slow progress, and she could only watch the timer and the dots of movement start to get closer. Echoing the hall, she could hear distant howls.
She reached the doors and realized they were too damaged to let the Gygax pass through, but just beyond them, she can see the entrance to the escape pod. Garm and the other two sec officers stood outside it, bodies lay broken on the ground from a fight, but they all looked okay. Nedi glanced at her rear screens and went a little pale as the first of the coming waves reached the end of the hallway. She turned the Gygax, no easy process now, and leveled her guns. Safety was right behind her, but even the long hall seemed to be nothing as the first of the infected came charging down in long, loping strides. The machine guns spoke the fury of the mech's pilot as they shattered the first of the pack, carrying through the body to shed what remained of their energy on the others.
Nedi looked at the timer again; not even three minutes remained, but if she jumped down, the infected would reach the escape pod before they could launch it. She needed to time it right, and that meant running risk. She kept firing, no longer in bursts, as more and more piled into the hallway, and the barrels of her machine guns were glowing red as overheat warnings popped up on her screens. Behind her, more were coming from the depths of engineering, and Garm's LMG spoke loudly of his defiance, but Nedi needed to focus on what was right in front of her now.
Still, they came, swarming in waves dozens strong, not caring that the roaring guns cut others down, and Nedi felt a shiver of fear that it wouldn't be enough. The left gun clicked empty, and a few seconds later, the right did the same. The swarming infected paused for a moment; then, as though they realized the failing of their enemy, they let out a howl that almost seemed to rejoice at the death of the monster that had killed so many. Nedi knew it was time to go and reached down, grabbing the lever by her side. She pulled the lever hard, and explosive bolts shattered the rear armor as the entire pilot seat was shot backward out of the Gygax.
Despite how tightly she held on, Nedi was still thrown free of the seat and sent tumbling. Adrenaline surged and buried the pain as she got to her feet and ran, the officers at the escape pod firing as fast as they could while they also backed up until Garm alone stood before the entrance. He reloaded and burned the last of his ammunition, covering her desperate run. For a moment, the big synth tried to step aside, but Nedi didn't give him a chance and slammed herself fully into his chest, tackling him into the escape pod. The officers inside hit the launch key just as they reached the threshold and the doors hissed shut, nearly taking the end of her tail off. She laid on Garm's chest and held on as the escape pod blasted its way free of the station, hurtling through space, riding engines built for a craft four times its size.
They rode at full speed, and none looked back as behind them, the station seemed to swell from within before finally bursting. For a brief moment, a new star shone briefly in space before it consumed itself and everything within it, leaving only dust and echoes. Everyone else was strapped down to fight the violent acceleration, but Nedi and Garm could only hold onto each other on the escape pod floor while riding the engine surge. As the engine slowed, they did not relax their grip on each other, Nedi clinging hard to her friend and lover and pressing her face into the fur of his neck as she shook. He looked her over, ensuring she was okay, before he relaxed and stroked her hair gently.
"It's alright, Nedi, you got us out," He said softly, reassuring her as the escape pod's acceleration started to slow down, and it triggered the emergency beacon. Garm let out a small 'woof' and hugged Nedi tight into the fur of his neck. The other survivors sat in their seats looking dazed, the security officers just looked tired and worn, but none said a thing about the pair cuddling on the pod floor.
Nedi lifted her head after a few minutes and pushed herself up, wiping tears from her cheeks before sitting up completely, still perched on top of Garm as she looked around, "Well," She said softly, "We made it. This pod has enough supplies for twelve, and there are only nine of us, so we should be fine for a while."
One of the officers nodded and offered Nedi a hand; she takes it and got to her feet. Garm sat up by himself and got to his feet, the four of them finally looking back at the station. Nothing was left aside from a few stray radio signals, and Nedi sighed before finding a seat for herself and falling into it.
"Did anyone download the BlueShield's report?" She asked, looking around.
The stone-faced assistant raised a hand, "I got it; I haven't read it yet."
Nedi nodded, "Alright, good, they'll want that. And we're all probably going into quarantine for a while, so we might as well get comfy. Hopefully, someone will get us before the week is out."
Everyone looked around the tiny escape pod, realizing they'd be sharing the space for a while, but none complained, considering their options. They were safe for now, and Nedi looked at her, still shaking hands, and clenched them into fists. Someone would pay for all the blood spilled today; she made a quiet promise she would see to that.
The pod floated towards the promise of safety and home in the space between the quiet stars.