Eagle X, Mission 15: The Singapore Incident

Part 17: Liam

The construct smashed through the door and tackled Spider. Both tumbled over the conveyor belt and into one of the ship's exposed datanodes. The beam of light and information melted through the series 4's chest plating with ease, killing the machine in an instant. Spider rolled aside, but not before the superheated energy could cut into the plating over his ribs.

He jumped to his feet and shook off his burning tactical armor. He stomped out the fire while his R.Nano sealed the gash in his side and rehardened into new armored bands. In a moment he was good as new except for a ringing in his ears.

He scanned the adjacent hall with his blue hard light visor, tracking the movement of the troopers beyond. A squad of three approached from the west, another three entered from the other side of the causeway. He thought of X-Ray vision and the heat blobs displayed by the infrared sight of his visor switched in an instant. He could see the circuitry and vents running through the walls, as well as the transformers and power switches. Spider set his pistol to high-yield high-density rounds and fired. The bullet penetrated the wall and cut through a cluster of power relays.

Spider ducked around a column as an explosion rocked the hallway. Dashing through the smoking rubble, he switched yield and density back to his preferred settings. He plowed into a burning trooper, shattering flexsteel and bone. Low yield rounds broke against his armor like flies against a shuttle's glass shield. Spider's visor tracked the movements of the oncoming troopers while he scanned the area for more combatants. Satisfied, he fired three times and added three more bodies to his tally.

Once the Core AI had caught sight of them, Cheshire was of little help. Troopers and legionnaires arrived through every egress into the gunnery in waves. They weren't trying to stop Spider and Raven from destroying the ship's gun controls. They focused on one thing only, their capture. The Pale Garden suffered heavy losses, but continued their assault undaunted. If the enemy wanted to dash themselves against an immovable wall, who were they to stop them?

Spider and Raven would have gladly cut them down, but Renegade's warning that the ship's Primus was on the move with the CEO had required a change in tactics. Raven was ready to give chase, but Spider knew they would be dragging the ship's entire contingent in their wake. He decided the two should split up, fight on the move and converge on the Primus from multiple angles. The added bonus was the more distance they kept from each other, the less persistent the ringing in their ears.

The ringing was what concerned Spider as he burst into a stairwell at the end of the hall. A voice whispered to him; bodiless, insisting, and increasingly difficult to ignore. It ordered him to comply, ordered him to bow down, ordered his complete surrender. Spider punched the wall, focusing on the sudden sharp pain lancing through his fist.

"Your name is Liam Marcus," Spider said to himself. "The Pale Garden took your brother, framed you for capital crimes, and made you a monster. They ruined your life." The pain and the affirmation helped push back the whispered orders. "You will never serve Lady Belladonna. You will destroy her."

The R.Nano in his system made Spider an exceptional weapon, but that weapon was created to serve The Pale Garden. T.Nano made the troopers compliant soldiers. R.Nano was meant to make the test subjects stronger versions of the troopers, but that strength made them resistant to the siren's call. Usually Raven and Spider could ignore the little voices, but, so close to the very commanders they were driven to serve, resistance was a battle of will. The ship constantly communicated and coordinated with its troopers. It produced a low frequency signal, a buzzing in their ears.

Spider shook his head to silence the diminishing ringing and ascended the stairs three at a time. As he ran, Spider allowed himself to hear The Pale Garden's comms chatter. When no longer suppressing the R.Nano in his blood, Spider became a part of their information network. He listened long enough to find what he sought then blocked the info before the Core AI could try to crack his nano. Cracking nano was a specialized skill, but Spider operated under the assumption that anything Renegade could do a persistent AI could manage.