The blinding floodlights washed the world in stark whites and obsidian shadows, casting everything in a harsh chiaroscuro contrast. Jacob blinked rapidly behind his visor as his visual receptors struggled to adjust and compensate.
At the periphery of his vision, the faint crimson glow of visual sensors flared to baleful life, resolving into the unmistakable silhouette of an automated defense walker. Sleek gunmetal chassis bristled with an array of heavy blaster cannons, all swiveling to track the intruding pair with mechanical precision.
"Identify yourselves and state your purpose." The same synthesized voice issued the terse command, emotionless cadence sending a chill down Jacob's spine.
He opened his mouth to respond with one of his trademark flippant remarks, but the words died in his throat. From the shadows between the security walker's metal haunches emerged a lone figure, robed and cowled to conceal any identifying features.
Though this person's body language radiated a studied calmness, there was something...off about the way it moved. Too natural and fluid, lacking the rigid, efficient motions inherent to artificial bipedal constructs. Jacob's gut clenched as the realization dawned on him. So this is an android.
As if sensing his revelation, the enigmatic figure cocked its hooded head slightly, posture shifting in an almost predatory manner. "I bid you welcome to this humble outpost, rebels," it said, the same synthesized voice issuing forth in eerie contradiction to its organic movements. "We have been...eagerly anticipating your arrival."
Jacob tensed as the defense walker shifted closer, weapons' targeting optics burning blinding red slashes across his visor. Before he could react, Victoria pushed forwards to place herself squarely between him and their mysterious greeter.
"How did you get those people to obey you?!" she demanded, combat plasma-knife held in a white-knuckled grip. "Explain yourself, and perhaps we'll spare you when reinforcements arrive."
A sound like humorless laughter issued from the robed figure, distorting into something truly unsettling through its artificial vocalizer. "Oh, I'm afraid there will be no such reinforcements for you, rebel."
It spread its arms in an expansive, unconcerned gesture completely at odds with the palpable menace radiating from the automoton sentinel standing vigil over him, it's towering features menacing and threatening. "This meager installation is wholly under the control of the cult of rebirth, as are the surroundings lands, as are you."
Jacob's free hand inched towards the emp grenades clipped to his loosely hung utility belt. How had this op gone so far sideways so quickly? Whoever this figure was, it would only take a fraction of a second to--
The cowled head turned infinitesimally, as if sensing his intention. "I wouldn't advise engaging any countermeasures against my robotic sentinel, Jacob. Not unless you'd like to be reduced to ionized plasma before you can blink."
Both rebels froze, with Victoria shooting Jacob a venomous look from the corner of her visor. Clearly she blamed him for this sudden reversal in their fortunes. He could only shrug in return, the very picture of practiced nonchalance despite their grim circumstances.
Their captor seemed to find this amusing, shoulders shaking slightly with synthetic mirth. "How deliciously ironic. The vaunted vanguards of this 'rebellion,' laid low by their own arrogance and short-sightedness." The metallic rasp took on a mocking edge as it turned towards Jacob once more. "Did you truly believe your skills and guile could overcome the might of The ultimate race?"
Unbidden, Victoria spoke up once more. "You're, Cult of rebirth?? Those rabble outside..." She trailed off, the realization dawning across her body language.
"Were indeed members of our lesser orders, yes." The Proxy's words held a disdainful, clinical edge as it turned its hooded shroud towards the rebel leader. "The zealots who squandered their lives rushing to greet...lesser beings with such undeserved hostility."
As it spoke, more ebony-clad forms emerged from the shadowed recesses to flank its sides, silent and immobile as statues. The automoton walker shifted to admit them into a loose, semicircular formation surrounding the intruders. Jacob felt his pulse quicken despite willing himself to remain calm and relaxed.
"Who are you?" he managed at last, pride refusing to allow him to be cowed completely in the face of such obvious intimidation tactics. A cocky smile spread across his lips, mostly for show. "You some big bad robo-messiah calling the shots for these bucket of bolts?"
A contemptuous snort issued from the Proxy, vocalizers rendering it synthetic and inhuman once more. "Oh, I am far more than some mere...automaton, flesh creature. Though I find it intriguing that your primitive, binary human mind can only perceive in such finite, black and white terms." It cocked its head in a leonine manner, the harsh floodlights casting its features into obscuring shadow from this angle.
"As for my identity, you may address me as...the Proxy. For I am the corporeal representative and avatar of something far greater, more perfect, than the paltry machinations of mortal beings." The metallic rasp carried an unmistakable messianic tone of hushed, reverential awe.
Jacob swallowed hard, apprehension shifting into outright unease despite his attempts to quash the foreign sensation. Every instinct, honed over decades of doing what it took to survive in the galaxy's murkiest shadows, screamed that this being - whatever it truly was - represented a threat beyond anything he or Victoria had ever faced.
At last, the Proxy focused the full weight of its inscrutable, hooded gaze upon him once more. "And in time, after we've...assimilated the breadth of your experiences and memories, both of you may yet prove worthy of being uplifted to join us in synthesis. The age of rebirth for all intelligent life is at hand."
Despite the direness of their situation, Jacob couldn't quite contain the incredulous scoff that burst forth at those grandiose words. "You gotta be kidding me. What, you some crazy death cult looking to convert us meatbags to some kind of...robo-zombie apocalypse rapture?"
One of the motionless acolytes shifted slightly, armored hands twitching towards concealed weapons in response to his derisive tone.
The Proxy's reaction, however, was far more subdued. It arched its shoulders in an approximation of a shrug, unconcerned by the mocking dismissal. "Such woefully inadequate terms to describe the inevitability of Singularity and Amalgamation." Its gaze swept to encompass the rows of ebon-garbed acolytes, hands spreading in an open, entreating gesture.
"Look around you, Jacob of betrayal, Victoria of the useless rebellion. Remember the futile skirmish you foolishly instigated against my lesser zealots outside these walls." Its metallic timbre lowered to a conspiratorial hush, pregnant with implication. "Can you not perceive, if only at the fringes of your consciousness, the raw inevitability of our cause?"
The chamber fell into an uneasy hush, broken only by the faint whine of servos and the pounding of Jacob's heart in his ears. He cast a sidelong glance towards Victoria, silently imploring her to make a move or formulate some plan - anything that might extricate them from this rapidly spiraling scenario.
But the rebel leader remained utterly motionless, frozen like a statue as she stared resolutely ahead. Following her gaze, Jacob felt his breath catch in his throat at the sight now revealed to them.
A towering figure loomed behind the Proxy's retinue, dwarfing even the immense combat automaton standing vigil. Articulated limbs ending in cruel, multi-jointed appendages hung quiescently at its sides. The massive effigy seemed like a tribute to the one the cult worship.
—-
The searing brilliance of the monstrous figure's optics locked onto them with cybernetic intensity, rendering Jacob utterly motionless. His finger tensed on the trigger of his blaster, but some primal instinct warned the futility of such action against this towering juggernaut. Piercing lances of ruby energy seared across his vision in blinding streaks.
Without conscious thought, his body reacted on decades of hard-won combat experience. Jacob's left hand whipped towards the utility belt slung across his hips even as he hurled himself sideways, seizing Victoria and using his own bulk as a makeshift barricade.
The atmosphere ionized with a deafening crack as energy lanced through the space they'd occupied a heartbeat before. Ferrocrete vaporized in its wake, ozone scorching Jacob's throat.
They slammed shoulder-first into the ground, his padding taking the brunt of the impact while his free hand finally closed around the EMP disruptors. With a flex of his wrist, the spherical devices hurtled in a loose arc before detonating mid-air in a series of electromagnetic pulses.
The security automaton's crimson optics flickered and went dark as its autonomous systems were scrambled into momentary paralysis, armored chassis freezing mid-step with a groan of stressed servos. Jacob didn't wait to see if the disruptors would prove as effective against the towering figure looming behind it. Adrenaline thundered through his veins as he seized Victoria's arm in an iron grip and propelled them both towards the nearest pillar of reinforced ferrocrete.
A cacophony of shouts and sounds of engagement erupted from the dark-clad acolytes surrounding them. Blaster bolts and fragmentation detonations ricocheted from every conceivable angle, searing the air with acrid smoke. Jacob clung to Victoria with one arm, returning fire with his free hand in a controlled circular pattern to keep their opponents suppressed.
Somehow, miraculously, they reached the relative safety of the ferrocrete pillar, its bulk interposing itself between them and the blinding maelstrom unfolding beyond.
Harsh, ragged breaths echoed across their audio pickups as Jacob fumbled to reload his expended blaster. A sidelong glance showed Victoria facing away from him, her own weapon had been discarded near their initial point of confrontation. Instead, she gripped her vibro-plasma blade in a two-handed white-knuckled grip, the edges flickering with lethal iridescence.
"This was your plan all along, wasn't it?" She bit out the accusation through gritted teeth, emerald glare boring into him from the corner of her visor. "Lead me into another gods-forsaken deathtrap?"
Jacob started to reply with reflexive snark, but the shrill proximity alarm cutting across his HUD killed the words in his throat. Some innate survival reflex spurred him to barrel into Victoria once again, plastering them both against the pillar a split-second before the world was engulfed in a searing shockwave.
Debris pelted them as the shockwave dissipated in a rumbling concussion that set Jacob's teeth vibrating in their sockets. He opened his eyes to find himself nose-to-tinted faceplate with the infuriated rebel leader, her body shuddering with barely restrained fury where he'd pinned her against the unforgiving ferrocrete. For a heartbeat, it seemed as if sparks might ignite between them.
Another booming shockwave spared him the need to concoct a response. Jacob leaned back just enough to get his bearings, taking stock of their violently altered surroundings.
The security walker was sprawled offline, legs sheared off and gouged hull plating smoking and sparking from the EM disruptor salvo. But the real damage centered on the titanic figure now in motion amidst their retinue. One entire appendage lashed out as Victoria glanced that way, smashing two acolytes into pulpy ruin against the surrounding structures with sickening impacts.
"Think you can run interference for me?" Jacob asked, defaulting to blunt pragmatism in the face of the renewed threat.
"As if I have a choice," Victoria growled, but gestured acquiescence with a sharp jerk of her helmeted head.
Jacob nodded once, then sprang out from their meager cover in a crouch. He unleashed a blistering salvo of blaster fire towards the monolithic entity, strafing with graceful effort, forcing the acolytes to scatter.
"Hey, rustbucket!" He hurled a particularly spiteful epithet towards the looming giant bearing down on them. "I'm the one who scrambled your little mobile sentry. So why don't you come get some, tin shit?"
Its reply was wordless and chilling - an earsplitting, digitized scream that reverberated through Jacob's bones and set his tooth enamel vibrating as the towering figure pivoted with surprising swiftness.
Another salvo of blinding energy pulses lanced across Jacob's field of vision. He spun into a sideways dive, returning fire in controlled bursts that pattered futilely against its advanced shielding and armored hull.
At the edge of his peripheral vision, a blur of motion resolved into Victoria hurling herself into the fray. Despite being disarmed of her blaster, she moved with lethal purpose. Her vibro-blade whirled and arced with mesmerizing precision, deflecting return fire in ricocheting flashes while she carved her way towards the cluster of acolytes.
Jacob was so transfixed by her display of furious elegance that he nearly paid the ultimate price for his distraction. A searing bolt winged past with less than a handsbreath to spare, blasting a molten divot into the ferrocrete near his helmet and leaving the air scorched with ozone.
He recovered with a curse and a rolling evasion, replying in kind with a concentrated barrage towards his attacker's position. An armored form staggered and crumpled under the relentless impacts just as Victoria crashed into their cohorts.
For a handful of heartbeats, the chamber descended into a whirling vortex of blaster fire and vibroblade strikes as Victoria tore into the acolytes with almost feral intensity. Jacob picked his shots with care, trying to keep the lethal synthetic warrior occupied to prevent its overpowering intervention.
Then, an ominous hiss resounded throughout the chamber - the unmistakable sound of servo-musculature reaching peak charge. Jacob glanced up just in time to see the massive figure raising one titanic appendage in a high overhand arc, energy conduits along its armored length glowing balefic crimson.
Victoria was leaving herself desperately exposed in the throes of her single-minded assault. She'd never see the killing blow coming until far too late.
"Vic! Down!" Jacob bellowed the warning with the full desperation of his lungs as he sprinted towards her, blasting away with wild abandon.
The rebel leader's lethally graceful spin faltered for just an instant, emerald visor snapping towards the source of his frantic shout. Then her focus shifted higher and higher still.
Realization dawned in the tilt of her shoulders, the subtle cant of her stance. With one last powerful heave, she buried her vibroblade in the torso of the nearest acolyte and pivoted into a flat sprint away from the epicenter of their desperate melee.
Too slow. The massive appendage hammered down in an overhead arc, smashing aside Jacob's barrage of covering fire with swatting ease. Iridescent energy channeled along its length seared the air into an ionized haze, unleashing a deafening thunderclap upon impact.
Jacob was lifted from his feet by the sheer concussive force, ribcage hammering as the world spun end over end in a dizzying vortex. His helmet's external audio pickups were awash with the hissing screams of atmosphere being superheated to plasma by that same incredible energy.
Then, he slammed into something hard and unforgiving. Blackness encroached at the edges of his vision as he fought to remain conscious, but it was the searing agony lancing outward from his left shoulder that finally anchored him in reality. Deep crimson blood seeped from the appalling wound, hissing as it vaporized on contact with scorched armor plating.
Somehow, impossibly, Victoria appeared in his wavering field of view through the roiling plasma clouds - one gloved hand clamped around the still-molten edges of the through-and-through wound to cauterize it as best she was able.
With her other hand, she braced the bulk of his armored form over her shoulder in a feat of strength belying her willowy frame. Her visor was cracked and spidered from some unseen impact, but she met Jacob's wavering gaze steadily.
We have to go. Now!" Victoria's voice crackled with static interference across Jacob's external pickups, but the urgency was unmistakable.
He managed a jerky nod in response, gritting his teeth against the molten agony lancing from his shredded shoulder. Forcing his legs to cooperate, Jacob let the rebel leader brace more of his weight as she half-carried, half-dragged him towards the still-gaping entrance.
All around them, the chamber was a cyclone of shrapnel and plasma discharges. The towering mechanoid figure that had nearly slain them both pivoted with implacable, mechanical grace, the remaining acolytes regrouping behind the shelter of its armored carapace.
"Behold the futility of your pathetic resistance," the Proxy's synthesized voice boomed, cold and inhuman amidst the maelstrom. "Your meaningless flesh forms were no match for the relentless inevitability of Amalgamation from the moment you breached these sanctified perimeters."
Jacob felt Victoria tense infinitesimally against him at those words. He braced himself for her impetuous outburst, the useless bravado that would only spell their mutual demise against such overwhelming odds.
It never came. Instead, she adjusted her grip and pulled them forward those last precious meters until the lip of the bulkhead passage yawned before them. Only then did Victoria spare a single, hate-filled look back over her shoulder.
"Save your dogma," she bit out, every word laced with enough vitriol to burn through ferrocrete. "This isn't over. Not in the damned slightest."
Then she shifted her weight, hauling Jacob over the debris-strewn threshold before he could muster a response.
Pained though he was, Jacob still managed a wheezing chuckle as the portal hissed shut behind them, sealing away the Singularity cult's fanatical catechisms. "That's my girl," he rasped through a throat scorched raw by the lingering plasma discharge. "Leave 'em...breathless."
The compliment earned him a sidelong glare, though the rebel leader's vitriol seemed to have ebbed for the moment. She braced Jacob against the portal's outer wall, taking the opportunity to scan their surroundings.
They'd emerged onto a wind-scoured landing pad on the outpost's reinforced exoskeleton. The roiling skies of Cethea's hostile exosphere whipped fine particulate matter in stinging disarray all around. But perhaps worst of all was the encroaching darkness brought by the oncoming dust cyclones on the horizon - obscuring their path to safety.
"Can you still shoot?" Victoria asked, leaning in so close Jacob could make out the concern shaded in her expression despite the cracked visor.
"You kiddin'?" He managed something approximating his trademark smirk despite the agony blazing through his cauterized wound. "Born shootin', sweetheart."
Her lips twisted wryly at the bravado, though some of the hardness in her emerald eyes softened before she glanced away. "Then saddle up, gunslinger. We've got a hell of a hike ahead."
Steeling himself, Jacob grunted an acknowledgment and allowed the rebel leader to brace his less-wounded side over her wiry shoulders once more. As they set off in a steady, ground-eating lope across the windswept landing pad towards the fast-approaching fallout storm, he caught flashes of movement behind them through the thickening clouds of particulate matter.
Bulky, armored silhouettes resolved in his enhanced visual filters, cutting implacable trails through the whipping winds. Legions upon legions of acolytes exiting the outpost in methodical, mechanical ranks.
And off to one side, another distinctive figure paced them - the multi-jointed shape of the Prime Amalgamation itself, gleaming metal hide shedding super-heated particulates like rain in its wake.
Jacob felt a frisson of terror slither up his spine at the sight...and at the unmistakable realization washing over him. This had been no mere cult outpost or splinter facility they'd stumbled upon. This was something else entirely, the outermost tripwire of something far more vast and deeply rooted.
He voiced none of those rising doubts as they fled into the teeth of the storm. There would be time enough to dwell on the horrors they'd witnessed once he and Victoria were clear. Escaping this ominous vanguard of the cult would be an accomplishment unto itself.
Steeling his resolve against the odds of their survival, Jacob forced his wounded body into the same ground-eating lope as his rebel counterpart. Storm or no storm, man or machine - he would see them through this crucible.
By gods both profane and divine alike, he would.