The ring was taken up mostly by rooms around the perimeter, open doorways spaced every fifty feet or so. Their purpose was still a mystery to me. Everything was pristine, except for the section directly ahead. Something had caused two of the rooms to shatter and then collapse, the rubble forming a barrier. One that up until recently Regar had been safe behind.
Four Ferals swarmed a three-foot hole in the rubble, a mass of snake-like coils. Each of the hideous creatures was twenty feet long, their snake bodies a fleshy, shiny green color. Where on a snake there would be a head, though, there was something else. A humanoid torso, made of a dingy grey metal. They didn't have arms, and none of them currently saw me.
The Interface labeled one of the monstrosities for me.
╠═╦╬╧╪
Nagite Soldier, Threat Level: 11
╠═╦╬╧╪
I palmed a plasma grenade in each hand, using a quick thought to set both of them to detonate a quarter-second after impact.
One of the grenades clinked off the metallic torso of a Nagite, and it turned, quicker than I thought possible. The torso was familiar—it was that of Vassago's Soldiers, but without arms. The same head, the same sensor strip. What was different was the yawning mouth covering most of the thing's broad chest. The teeth were triangular metal nightmares the size of a playing card. Each tooth had a faint red glow to it.
A quarter-second later, the plasma grenades detonated and wiped it away. The blooming flash of the plasma cloud disintegrated all but one of the Nagites entirely. That one had been squirming into the hole, and the explosion had removed the lower two-thirds of its body.
I charged in, Excalibur leaping into my hand. The Nagite was still alive, still attempting to get to Regar. I raised Excalibur and charged the hook end, preparing to smash it into the Nagite. Firing the Gazer into that hole was far too risky.
The clang of metal striking metal was loud, and fast. It sounded like a very angry blacksmith punishing a very naughty anvil. I stepped aside just in time, as the Nagite flew backward out of the hole, landing with a squirt of black ichor from the stump of snake body still left to it.
The monstrous creature was still alive, fist-sized dents covering the metal torso. I brought Excalibur's hook down hard, the charged Voidcutter points digging deep into the Nagite's machine internals. It struggled weakly, but two more blows and it was done. The red light faded from its teeth as it died.
Reflexively I bent over and harvested the Nanite Clusters from it. A small flood of small, grey marbles poured from the corpse, adding twenty clusters to my total.
"Just like Matty. He'd never forget to loot either," said a voice from the hole.
I turned, spotting Regar at the bottom. He sat down heavily.
Regar was wearing the same red armor I'd seen him in during the message he'd left for Grandpa. The armor was looking a lot the worse for wear. His right arm was shredded and bled heavily. Whatever had been empowering the Soldier's teeth, it had been effective.
"You got them all then?" he asked. "Good. I'll patch this up and we can get going."
A thick black swarm left his hand and entered the vicious wounds on his arm. Splinters of bloodied red armor pushed their way out and dropped to the floor. The bleeding stopped and he shook his arm to free the last few splinters of armor.
I ordered the drones to cover the area. Without the scout it was possible that something stealthy could sneak up on us, but with luck the drones would kill it before it could kill one of us.
Regar stood up and disappeared, walking further into the collapsed section. A moment later he handed through a thick-barreled weapon. It was about four feet long, bulky, and heavy. Mostly black, it was worn and covered with scratches in the finish. There was a forward grip on the left side of the weapon, and the rear grip had what looked like a mechanical trigger rather than a trigger stud like all the Union weapons I'd seen so far had.
"Take that. If you've got some extra juice, I'd appreciate it if you'd charge it up. It takes forever with only my internal Augment doing it."
╠═╦╬╧╪
TDR-501 "Tempest" Dimensional Rift weapon
3% Charge
Control(s) Available: None
╠═╦╬╧╪
This was the weapon he had mentioned, the Tempest. It wasn't like anything else I'd seen, though. It had no Interface controls, and there was no manufacturer listed. I triggered my Engineering visualization mode and looked at it. I was astonished.
There were components, but very few of them and most only around the center of the weapon, the bulkiest part directly above the grip and trigger. Studying them it was obvious what they were doing—it was a standard Union power draw mechanism, but it was feeding into something that wasn't Union tech. There were a few other things there, as well, including a couple of gecko patches.
"What is this?" I asked, turning the Tempest over in my hands. Unlike the Gazer and GN-75, there were actually external, physical controls. Switches and buttons. They were labeled with embossed letters in a language I couldn't read.
"Oh, you've noticed, have you?" Regar asked as he clambered out of the hole.
Cradled in his arms was a white, capsule-shaped pod about three feet long and a foot thick. There was something strange about the material the pod was made of. It didn't seem like it was actually there. Something about how it reflected light made me think of early Hollywood CGI. It looked fake. The Interface cleared it up for me by giving it a label.
╠═╦╬╧╪
Stasis Pod Contains: Kiril, Faella-branch, Threat Level: unknown
╠═╦╬╧╪
Regar followed my gaze.
