Sentient Worm

A Lead

A Lead

"Margulis, I hate you!" Taylor screams as she ducks in a spectre that is configured for her old operator body, with implants, but without void abilities.

"Taylor, you said yourself that you learn best under pressure. You've been struggling with how all the lessons could apply over the last 2 months."

"I know, but MOT?"

"You have everything you need right there to completely take over that tower."

"Margulis, I don't even have an overlay!"

"Well make one then."

"Oh, yeah, I can do that."

Quickly, Taylor configures a basic map overlay, as well as an FoF system. Finding a door that should connect two sections, but is currently locked, she unlocks it and darts through before locking it behind her. As the computer starts to divert compromised troops her way, she signals the computer to query what crew are active on the tower.

"Shit, that's a lot of corrupted, please can I use transference?"

"Nope, we all know you're doing really well in the combat uses of your natural form. Now you have to show you can do the same with only your implants."

Plotting out a route, Taylor desperately searches for the engineering tube that runs the length of the tower. Sprinting for a closing gap in the coverage of corrupted, she dives through a door and lands on a pressure plate before sliding to stop in front of a death orb. For a couple of breaths she waits to die, then her brain realises that there are lasers spinning overhead. Wait! "Margulis, didn't you once say that death orbs were portable generators?"

"I did"

Flexing her will, she makes the orb levitate and jams it into the door she just came through, the laser slicing some of the corrupted in half as a bonus. Quickly reprogramming it, she sets it to disable the lasers that are pointing towards her before searching for any more death orbs. Slapping her head she queries the tower for them and gets them nicely displayed on her overlay. As an afterthought she adds EmMats and gasps at just how many there are in the tower.

Cursing, as the tower starts to reconfigure to allow the corrupted troops to flank her, she comes up with a plan on the fly. Scurrying off, she locates the nearest death orb that isn't stopping her from dying hideously. Separating the laser plates she set them to spinning slowly around her while the orb itself follows her around like a puppy. At this point her mood does an about face, and her brain starts seeing her implants as tools to be abused, rather than something that just causes her headaches, because she doesn't understand the math she's supposed to know. Slowly and carefully, she makes her way close enough to an EmMat that she can control it directly, and disconnects it from the ship. With an EmMat, one or two death orbs, and a multitude of laser plates, she's able to start to cobble together some basic droids to carry the lasers and handle the aiming.

After an hour she makes her way into the maintenance room, and closes the door. Leaning heavily against the wall, Taylor authenticates herself to the controlling intelligence. As she does she slaps her face, as she realises that she could have done that at the beginning and avoided all of the fighting. Creating a goblet of water, she quenches her thirst before she goes to work suborning the cephalon in charge.

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As Taylor exits the transference pod, Margulis stands there in human form, her hand on one hip, "Well, I don't think we're ever going to make an Engineer out of you. Your instincts are all wrong. But you did well. Could you have done better? Probably not, you could have done it faster by marking yourself as friendly from the beginning. But you wouldn't have learnt anything. At the end you reminded me of Ballas, and the way he could effortlessly make things happen, but always needed help with coming up with something new."