She checked on her Wardenites. Brinks, Miles, and Renaldo fired constantly into the fray. Renaldo didn’t seem to have trouble keeping up for once. She supposed the threat of imminent death was enough of a spur to keep him moving.
Rhea continued forward. The Presidential Palace sprawled before her: the front facade proved a series of colonnades supporting the upper levels, which were dotted with balconies. Security robots fired down from the heights, forcing Rhea to keep one Ban’Shar held forward. At the four corners of the building, she could see the tall spires that had been visible from the square outside.
She passed another fountain, behind which some of her robots had taken cover to fire at the balconies, and continued past. She climbed the stairs that led underneath the main colonnade, which sheltered her from those balconies.
Some of her mechanical troops had taken up positions on either side of the front doors, which sat askew their hinges; enemy troops fired at them from inside, pinning them.
With one Ban’Shar held directly in front of her and the other behind, Rhea raced right past her troops and plowed through the front doors. She worked her way through the enemy robots that formed a semicircle just inside, cutting off heads, and slicing through torsos. One of the robots, a walker, managed to strike her in the leg with its foot, and she was sent careening to the side, sliding across the floor. She spun her Ban’Shar toward it to protect herself, but a moment later it was shot down by plasma bolts as Will and Horatio entered.
She heard a clatter to her right as the constituent parts of a robot that had been split in half toppled to the floor. It had been lurking behind a pillar, and no doubt had been ready to fire its built-in plasma rifles straight through her brain.
But Min stood there above the robot, next to an open window she’d evidently utilized for entry. The X2-59 she’d used to slice open the robot glowed with electrolaser plasma in her right hand. In her left, she held a pistol.
When Rhea met her eyes, she gave her sensei a grateful look. Min bowed her head, then turned to fire off her pistol at the next approaching robot.
Rhea glanced at her overhead map and took stock of her remaining troops. All the Wardenites were still alive, but her robot army had been reduced by about half.
“Those of you still outside, take up defensive positions on the doors if you can!” She highlighted the alternate entrances on her map, to clarify that she wanted all access points guarded. “Don’t let any more of them in! Those of you already inside, with me!”
And so she fought her way through the hall to the throne room. Burhawk and Will were at her left. Horatio and Min at her right. The other Wardenites followed behind her, with the remaining robot troops forming a defensive circle around them. Two of the robots moved ahead of the party, acting as scouts. They headed west.
Pillars lined either side at intervals. Between them, tapestries or paintings hung from the walls. Occasionally a bust stood upon a pedestal. Rhea didn’t pay any of the art much heed, as she was too intent on looking for enemies.
The scouts took cover behind pillars as plasma fire came from ahead. Rhea broke away from the others to face these latest attackers: a pair of walkers standing at the main entrance to the throne room. The iron monstrosities unleashed a steady stream of plasma fire at Rhea, which she deflected back at them with her Ban’Shar. As the robots collapsed into smoking piles of slag, a black slab slid over the arched entrance, sealing off the throne room.
Rhea and her companions hurried toward the black seal.
“Hm, don’t like the looks of that.” Will fired repeatedly at the blockage as he approached, causing red heat circles to appear. The incandescent patterns quickly faded when he ceased firing, and otherwise left no marks in the material.
When Rhea arrived, she took a run at the black seal, swinging her Ban’Shar disks into it with all her might, but the weapons bounced away. She nearly cut off one of her legs in the ricochet, but quickly opened her hands, disabling the Ban’Shar.
She took cover behind the wreckage of one of the walkers, along with the other Wardenites. The robot troops meanwhile formed a defensive half circle around the party, crouching behind nearby pillars.
More infantry units appeared down the hall, and her companions opened fire with their robot allies, pinning down the aggressors.
“Burhawk?” Rhea asked. “The door?”
“Working on it,” Burhawk replied.
She switched to her plasma pistol and joined the others in firing at the distant enemies.
“This palace was built around the wreckage of a Ganymedean starship,” Burhawk explained. “The core, right here, is mostly impenetrable. It’s the perfect place to build a throne room.”
“If the palace was built around the wreckage of a Ganymedean starship, that implies the architects weren’t able to move the ship,” Rhea said, thinking of the wreckage she’d found in the Emerald Highlands. “And yet, they were able to seal a door.”
“The Martian scientists managed to link our door interfaces to theirs, but little else.” Burhawk paused, then shook his head. “The codes have changed. I can’t open it this way.”
“Maybe you can open it?” Will asked her, hinting at what she’d done in the Emerald Highlands.
In theory, her mind-machine interface was able to interact with Ganymedean technology in ways ordinary human tech could not. She focused but couldn’t detect any remote interfaces. Nor did any holograms appear.
She glanced at Min. “Anything?”
Min shook her head. “I have nothing. If there was an interface
