Which Can Eternal Lie - Act III: The Future Past

[The Storyteller]

THE PLANET AGORAX, THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO...

Chief Vecra Zaxary watched, lingering horror still etched upon his features, as the television monitors retracted back into the ceiling. Around him, dozens of others wore similar expressions, ranging from Vecra's abject horror, to barely controlled grief, to simmering rage.

"It is done. The cancer is excised, and the Empire can be as it was meant to. Order has been restored."

There was silence for several moments, before a being stepped forward from one of the cowed throngs. He was a small Tintinna, short even for his kind and wearing large spectacles; Vecra dimly recognized him as the High Minister of Agriculture. He was slightly surprised to see the man; rumor said that he had bribed officials to take his family out of the system. Surely that would have flagged him as disloyal, and not fit for the presence of the Leader?

He spoke up in a quavering voice.

"My Leader... you have guided us all for so long. Your knowledge and wisdom are beyond any I know! But my Leader... my Diktat... I cannot understand this... this..."

"This SLAUGHTER[/i]!!"

There was shocked, hushed murmuring as another voice spoke up. A Cathar female, the same Vecra had noted earlier. Haflin shouldered her way forward, her lips peeled back in a snarl that exposed gleaming teeth.

"You have all just witnessed murder! On a scale I cannot fathom!" Called Haflin, turning back to those assembled. "Not of enemies! Not of barbarians! But of Imperial subjects! Those who looked to the leader for guidance! For protection!"

The Cathar spread her hands, turning back to look up at Agorander.

"You are the Leader, sire, but I cannot ignore what you yourself have seen fit to show us!"

Vecra did not even see the Leader shift on his throne.

"As I said." Intoned Agorander. "I have excised a cancer. Those who would defy me have been destroyed."

To Vecra's - and most of the others' - surprise, it was the little Agricultural Minister who replied.

"Sire, you did this!" He confirmed. "But in so indiscriminate a fashion... all on Agorax who remained loyal have been destroyed as well! Beyond the walls of the Ziggurat is a tomb, my Diktat! A tomb of your people!!"

To Vecra's shock, he saw the Leader's head actually move. The vision slit of his gleaming helm focused on the little rodentoid.

"All on Agorax?" He questioned. "High Minister, your statement implies that no loyal subjects remain. Does that include all of those I have seen fit to spare?"

There was more murmuring. A few beings shouted "No, my Leader!"

The Minister adjusted his glasses, and stood taller than Vecra would have thought he could. His whiskers twitched nervously, but he met Agorander's steel gaze.

"It includes me, Sire."

There was a pause before Agorander spoke once more.

"Then further surgery is required."

The Leader raised his arm, and a crackling beam lanced out from a weapon in his hand. The Tintinna let out a brief cry as the beam struck; after only a moment, all that was left of the brave Minister was a pile of grey ash.

There was stunned silence for another moment, before Agorander spoke again.

"My intention," intoned the Leader, "had been to make you the core of my future empire. To start again with the most loyal. The most trusted."

The beam lanced out again. An Aqualish screamed before he, too, was reduced to ash.

"I see now that I was optimistic in my projections. I cannot determine who among you will remain loyal enough to carry out my will. And thus, I must accelerate to the final phase of my design."

The beam seared away another of the gathered officials, and the throngs began to panic. Many broke toward the doors, which of course did not open for them; more beams struck down several even as they pounded uselessly on the metal. More tried to hide behind pillars, but the thing profile of these toward the base made this almost impossible.

Haflin, who somehow had not been targeted yet, did neither of these things.

"He has us trapped! But he's in here with us! C'mon!"

Even then, with the Leader raining death upon them, many of those scrambling for their lives hesitated, so deeply rooted was their loyalty to Agorander. A few, however, did change direction; a mob of beings gathered around the Cathar, sprinting toward the pyramidal dais upon which sat the Leader's throne. As they approached, the two Automatic Conquerors which stood at the base stirred to life. Their bladed bracers hummed, and they fired beams of destructive energy from their chest-mounted disruptors, ashing several even as they charged.

The droids were powerful, but even they could be defeated by shear numbers. A dozen each brought them to the ground, many dying as they did so, but pinning the Slaughteroids beneath hills of corpses and beating limbs.

Vecra watched, transfixed, as Haflin sprinted up the steps. The Leader was not oblivious to the danger; his aim shifted, and he actually rose from his throne, standing to fire down at the Cathar. To everyone's amazement, the large felinoid nimbly dodged before the weapon had even been brought to bear, as if granted precognition of what was to happen. Agorander readjusted his aim, and the same thing happened. The Cathar was fast, faster than Vecra would have believed!

And then, Haflin reached out her arm, palm opened.

There was a concussive blast, seemingly from the outstretched palm, and Agorander fall backward into his throne, gleaming armor clattering on the hard stone. He uttered a sound that seemed more robotic than human, and before he could recover, Haflin was on him.

"The Je'daii Rangers send their regards, monster!"

There was a crackle, and abruptly, Haflin crumbled into ash. As she did, Vecra could not help but imagine that she turned back toward him, looked directly at him...

Then she was gone.

Everyone stared up at the throne. Agorander sat, armor still gleaming, but there was a slit-shaped hole in his chest, as if Haflin had somehow been able to punch through the metal with her bare hand. Something clear that wasn't blood oozed from the wound. The Leader sat composed for a moment, as if nothing had happened, before he began to sag. The raygun was still clutched in his hand, but it wavered, and was left pointing at the ground.

There was absolute silence for several moments after it became apparent that Agorander, Whose Will the Stars Obeyed, had died.

And then the Leader's voice echoed through the room.

"I am Agorander. Whose Will the Stars Obey. Foolish mortals, know that I am not so easy to destroy."

Along the walls of the throne room, hidden doors began to open. From them, squads of Slaughteroids began sprinting in, and the killing began again.

Doing his best to avoid the murderous droids, Vecra ran, Haflin's last look etched in his mind. There was something to that look, something she was trying to tell him. Something he had to do...

The doors that had discharged the Slaughteroids began to close, and abruptly, Vecra knew. At the last moment, he dove beneath a closing door, scrambling into the passage beyond and running through the darkness.

Agorander was not so easily killed, it seemed, but there were other ways he could be stopped.

 

[Irma Kinton]

BENEATH THE SURFACE OF AGORAX, PRESENT DAY...

Irma Kinton, former librarian and amateur archaeologist, huddled on the seat of the train car, looking up and down the corridor occasionally as it rushed at un-guessed speed through Agorax's lightless nearly tunnels. Occasionally, the Tintinna got brief illumination, and the impression of passing through an enormous vaulted space similar to the one she had left the Professor in. She did not look out of the windows when she passed through these; the Tintinna suspected she knew what she would see; rank upon rank of ancient Slaughteroids, or other, deadlier war machines, waiting to march on an unsuspecting galaxy after an age of dormancy.

The Tintinna had no real idea where the train was going. It had been underway for hours now; in that time, she had thoroughly explored it, or at least as much as she could. She was, as she had suspected from the start, the only passenger, and the train was automated, with a droid brain of some description sealed away somewhere, or perhaps a remote control receiver. Either way, she had not been able to locate it; the train was designed to resist tampering, and Irma had not discovered anywhere that she could break into its workings, at least not with the few tools at her disposal.

She looked down at Skuld's blaster, biting her lip. The Slaughteroids had begun powering up only moments after she had fired it at the Professor; she wondered at this point if having the thing was more a liability than an asset. It wouldn't be much good against a horde of lethal war droids, which seemed to be the only unit strength the ancient machines came in.

Still, it would be better than her bare hands, she reasoned.

It was as she contemplated the weapon that she sensed the train beginning to slow. It emerged into another of the huge, vaulted spaces, and gradually came to a halt, turbines spinning down and brakes hissing. The doors slid open, which caused Irma to jump slightly.

She gripped the blaster, expecting legions of antique droids to stride in and try to kill her. Against an army like that she knew she could only last so long, but the blaster still had a good charge, and she would make her shots count...

She waited. Nothing happened.

Cautiously, Irma hopped down from her seat, blaster gripped in both hands, and went to one of the open doors. Peering outside, she did not see the ranks of Slaughteroids she had expected, but instead what appeared to be a subterranean train station, albeit on a grand scale. It was decorated in the same streamlined, monumental style as the buildings on the surface, and Irma could see train platforms stretching away for hundreds of meters. All of them were empty, however.

Cautiously, she emerged from the train. There was a soft chime, and Irma spun around as the doors slid closed. Before she could react, the vehicle's turbines spun up and it shot away into a tunnel.

Irma blinked, and then turned around to view her surroundings.

"Where... am I?"

AGORAX EQUATORIAL SPACEPORT 45677-XA, SAME TIME...

The Captain of the research ship Herodotus paced the bridge, his hands clasped behind his back.

"I've gone on dangerous expeditions before, mind you." Said the human. "Jungle planets with hostile wildlife, remote ice world with weather that'll freeze-dry your face off... but I've never faced a planet of killer droids before!"

He turned to Tagal and Skuld, who he had summoned to the bridge.

"Don't misunderstand me. I like your friend. Irma got us through some tight spots in the nebula, and frankly, she was a ray of sunshine on this ship just where we needed one. And no, I'm probably not as concerned about the Professor as I ought to be. Truth be told, I was tired of being his chauffeur. But I don't want anyone dead. Not any more than we've already got."

The Captain turned and walked to the viewport. Looking down, he watched students, crew and loader droids piling a sandbag perimeter around the research ship and Tagal's galleon. There were also a number of prefab structures going up; they had seen fit to follow that instruction at least, but nobody was now considering setting up shop in the old terminal building, which almost everyone now watched for signs of activity.

"But we have no idea where to look for either of them. According to ground-penetrating scanners, it's a maze down there. We could comb them for years and never find her."

"With all due respect, Captain, it's not actually that hard to guess where she is."

The Captain turned to a tall, dark-skinned human man, who wore the uniform of one of the ship's crew. He had his arms folded, and turned his gaze to Tagal, raising his eyebrows.

"I mean, it's pretty obvious."

The Captain sighed, turning to the man.

"Well why don't you enlighten us, Kano."

Kano nodded.

"I've been studying this place. Agorander's empire was one of the most centralized in history; everything was arranged in a tiered structure. The Professor hit a panic button that would have let trapped personnel escape to somewhere on a higher tier of the defense net. It stands to reason that a spaceport would be pretty high up already, so there's only one place left to go from there, really."

The Captain frowned.

"And that would be...?"

Kano grinned.

"Agorander's ziggurat, probably."

The Captain groaned, dragging a hand down his face.

"Well that makes it perfectly simple, doesn't it..."

@Nefieslab @Killa Ree

 

[Eva 'Skuld' Stark]

When she had meant for them to get back to the ships, she had not meant herself and Tagal.

She knew the man hadn't forgiven her quite yet for retreating, but really, what could they do? Neither were experts in ancient tech, and neither really had an accurate way to check the mouse-woman on her location when she disappeared underground. But she sincerely planned on just dropping off the Captain, crew, and students back on the Herodotus and going back underground herself... she had some intel with conversations with the Tintinna in between hyperspace jaunts, sure, but she was hardly an expert on the planet itself.

Rage always simmered in veins just beneath the cool rationality she earned. Now was not the time to go charging with guns blazing... and she knew that Saxon felt the same way, though no doubt he worried. Good.

She was worried too. But she had done what she would have done for any of her children; made sure she was armed before she was out of reach of Skuld's protection. And that did little to assuage the feeling of regret that she wasn't fast enough to draw the smaller female out of whatever danger she was in. But surely there had to be some way to contact her... at least, if she ever got above ground.

She gritted her teeth, however, when they were summoned back to the ship.

She was armed, and she was smart. That was the best Skuld could hope for by this point. And from what Tagal had told her before, she was capable of holding her own. Arms crossed beneath her bust, icy eyes deceptively calm, face a blank, unreadable expression. She would wait for them to talk it out between them, this Kano and the Captain. When the Captain spoke of danger, she tilted her head ever so slightly. No doubt the man had... but killer droids were hardly the largest item of concern on her list.
"I do not think the Professor did this by mistake."

Her words fell heavy, the only indication of her true state of emotions belied by how tightly her fingers gripped into her armor. Nor would Saxon mistaken the very slight shiver that ran down her spine, invisible to most. But her features did not change; she shifted, then exhaled slowly, releasing her grip upon her own arms to bring her hands behind her, standing tall. "I did not trust the man, and now one of our own is in danger. Tell me all you know about this... ziggurat." Icy eyes bored down into the male that spoke up, lips curled into a smile that, if it had been on the face of any other being, would have classified as a snarl.

"And I mean everything. I am going to get her back no matter vhat the cost. And forewarned is forearmed... so speak, lad, and tell us all you know."

@AutoFox @Nefieslab

​

 

[Tagal Saxon]

Tagal scowled all the way back to the ship and he scowled even more when they reached the ship. By the time they were discussing this all with the captain, Tagal was already planning on charging out of the ship to go and rescue his mouse-woman friend. He was going to get her back from the clutches of this archaic techno-nightmare if it killed someone.

Preferably it would kill the professor but he wasn't fussy about who died to secure the safety of their mouse-woman. She was a mascot and she was a friend and damn it she was not going to die due to the machinations of a jumped up ponce with delusions of reviving some dead Empire or making himself richer than gods and men combined.

He glanced at the others even as he was priming the weapons of his armour and his rifle.

There were droids to be killed and they would get through as many of them as possible. He scowled a little less at the crewmember who seemed to be actually helping. He needed to know where to go after all.

"Where am I going and what level of explosives do I need to bring?" He asked bluntly as he held up a bandoleer of half a dozen high explosive grenades, "Cus this is my minimum."

​

 

[Irma Kinton]

Irma walked cautiously along the permacrete train platform, looking around at her surroundings. The gigantic station had obviously been built to handle hundreds, even thousands of people; cathode displays on poles flashed up timetables and route information, glowing vending machines selling countless varieties of foods and beverages stood in isolated clusters, and occasionally the Tintinna even passed small, freestanding structures selling what looked like large flimsiplast printouts.

These stands were all staffed by a single, motionless droid, and Irma did her best to keep from being seen by them.

The entire station was eerily silent, and the fact that it was all apparently waiting for vast numbers of people who would never arrive, and had been for possibly thousands of years, give Irma chills. Even her light footfalls echoed in the enormous space. Idly, she wondered just how deep underground she was.

It was then that a voice made her nearly jump out of her skin.

"GREET-INGS, FLIGHT CON-TROLL-ER. WEL-COME TO ZIGG-UR-AT STA-TION."

Irma whirled, looking around for the voice that had sounded. Eventually she looked up, only to see what looked like a chrome sphere suspended from an overhead track, its surface studded with what looked like recessed camera lenses. As she stared up at the thing, debating whether or not to run, it rotated to focus one of its huge "eyes" on her, and Irma could see an aperture focusing behind the crystalline surface.

"W-...What?"

The sphere's cameras whirred.

"GREET-INGS, FLIGHT CON-TROLL-ER. WEL-COME TO ZIGG-UR-AT STA-TION." The sphere repeated. "IT IS GOOD THAT YOU HAVE ARR-IVED. YOUR STA-TION WAS RE-PORT-ED OV-ER-UN. THE COUN-TER ATT-ACK IS ON-GO-ING."

Irma's mind worked, and she understood. She had gotten off the train that had come from the spaceport, and the system had assumed she was among the personnel who had escaped an attack...

"STAN-DING OR-DERS RE-QUIRE YOU TO RE-PORT FOR DE-BRIEF-ING AND RE-ASS-IGN-MENT. PLEASE FOLL-OW ME."

With that, the sphere sped off down its track, turning off in the direction of a gargantuan flight of stairs leading up to a pair of double doors. Irma hesitated...

When she did not immediately pursue, the sphere halted.

"FLIGHT CON-TROLL-ER, YOU ARE RE-QUI-RED TO OBEY STAND-ING OR-DERS. SO THE LEA-DER HAS DE-CREED. PLEASE FOLL-OW ME FOR DE-BRIEF-ING AND RE-ASS-IGN-MENT."

Irma felt a familiar chill, and reluctantly sprinted to catch up with the droid. She wasn't sure what the machine could do to her if she didn't comply, but for now she didn't want to find out. She could play along for a bit, she supposed.

But just what would happen when these machines discovered she was not who they believed her to be?

When Tagal held up his bandoleers of grenades, the Captain gave the Mandalorian a slightly startled look, and nodded.

"Indeed."

He turned back to the newcomer.

"Kano, you'd best tell us all you've learned. These two will be going in with or without our help, I feel. But preferably with."

The human nodded. He strode over to a holoprojector and plugged in a datacard, keying it on. A low-resolution image of a sprawling palace, built in the same rounded, monolithic style as most of the planet's buildings.

"The Ziggurat of Agorander, Whose Will the Stars Obeyed." Said Kano. "We got this image from probe droids we've belatedly been sending out across the planet; none of them have lasted very long, by the way, and we lost contact with this one shortly after we received this image. Anyway, the Ziggurat was - is, I suppose - the seat of Imperial power. All hyperlanes in Agorander's empire led eventually back to Agorax, and on Agorax, all roads lead back to the Ziggurat. This was the ultimate seat of power; Agorander ran all his holdings from here. It was supposed to be the grandest palace of its day, and even from this holo you can see that's accurate."

Kano's expression grew serious.

"Needless to say, it's also probably the most heavily defended location on the planet, which is saying something."

Kano keyed a few buttons on the projector, and the holo zoomed in, revealing blurry, humanoid figures standing at various positions. The image then shifted to an image of one of the Slaughteroids, although this one looked to have been photographed in a museum, and was in significantly worse condition than the gleaming horrors Tagal and Skuld had faced before.

"Guard droids, more of the Slaughteroids you faced in the spaceport. Nasty buggers, as you saw; those blades on their arms are vibros, and the energy weapons in their chests are disruptor cannons, or something very much like them. They've also got heavier vehicles supporting them, we assume."

The holo changed again to display two archaic-looking vehicles.

"The H-type assault tank and the L-type pursuit rocket. Don't let their age fool you, these things were top of the line in their day and still significantly outclass anything we brought with us. Chances are, we'll have to get past at least a few of these getting into the Ziggurat."

Kano keyed off the hologram, folding his arms.

"Of course we have no idea what the Ziggurat looks like on the inside. We can't scan it from here, and something takes down our probe droids before they can get close. Once we're inside, we're going to have to feel our way. And no offense, tough as I'm sure you are, just the two of you aren't going to cut it for this one."

As if on cue, three other beings walked onto the bridge. They all wore the uniform of the Herodotus' crew, but with a red starbird crest sewn onto their sleeves. They were also armed to the teeth, carrying blasters, grenades, and one of them even had what looked like a PIPE slung over one shoulder.

The Captain watched the team arrive, and sighed.

"Well if half the security team is going, I suppose I have no choice now."

The human walked to his ready room, entering it, and returned after a few moments with bandoleer of pistols and what looked like a light repeater. He checked the latter professionally.

"Chances are, if we pull this off, or even if we don't, it will provoke the droids to attack our respective ships. We'll have to do this fast, and then get back here as soon as we can. Then we're all leaving. I've had more than enough of this... mechanized tomb."

@Nefieslab @Killa Ree

 

[Eva 'Skuld' Stark]

She scowled, not necessarily at Kano, but at herself. She did not have explosives on herself, apart from one frag... and against this tech, it wasn't gonna cut it. It was all well and good to be hand-to-hand with these droids, but when they were further armed with such things as rockets and tanks, even Skuld had to admit she was a bit lacking to properly defend against such odds.

And she never wanted to hear those odds. It wasn't going to change the fact that she wasn't going to go down without a fight, or at least with the assurance Irma was safely in their ranks.

She eyed the three newcomers appreciatively. The Starbird… she knew that insignia, and was hardly surprised. Instead she only nodded briefly, glanced back to the Captain and Kano, then briefly turned to check her weapons and armor once more. Sufficient... but even strapped to the teeth, her only advantage was her rage.

And oh, she had plenty to go around.

And glanced to the Captain, eyes glittering coldly, her own voice as chilled as her own expression.

"Agreed. Let's rescue our girl and get the kark out of here."

@Nefieslab @AutoFox

 

[Tagal Saxon]

Tagal didn't think much of the defenses that they had to face for a couple of reasons. One was the simple fact that he was a Mandalorian and he was prejudiced against the idea of a droid army on a cultural level. To the Mandalorians, a race willing to put their fates in the hands of machines was not worthy of determining their own fate at all and was to be conquered and subjugated by a race that would.

Secondly?

It seemed to him that the defenses were built for large scale assaults. They were built based around the idea that the enemy would have capital ships and tanks and legions of their own to be slowed and assaulted by the rigid defensive positions that the droids had taken and the positions they would likely fall back to as well.

"Small scale unit tactics." he announced to those of them who were making the attack, "The droids are good. The weapons are good. The tanks and the ships are good - but you can't hit a fly with a turbolaser. We go in fast, we go in unpredictable and we go in small and their net won't be able to adjust quickly enough to catch us."

He pointed to the pilot.

"Get us some altitude." he demanded, gratified when he was obeyed immediately, "Everyone else? Suit up with parachutes. We're going in hard, fast and low. Before their space defenses but above their ground defenses at too spread out for their air defenses."

What he didn't mention was another fact; he didn't care that he was essentially using some of the security team as bait. They would be used as more targets in the sky so that he and Skuld were less likely to be hit before they managed to perform a landing. As the ship began it's approach, he opened the cargo bay ramp.

"Meet at the predicted entrance on the mid-level! GO!"

Tagal was the first to jump, sprinting down the ramp before throwing himself out into the air. There was a brief, spine-tingling, moment where he felt utterly weightless before gravity reasserted itself and he was falling, like a missile, straight towards the target entry point. Unlike the others however, Tagal didn't need to slow down like they did.

Instead he spun in the air before activating his jetpack, counter-acting his downward force with the power of the jetpack to land, slightly heavily on his knees, close to the entry point.

"Form up or find your own entrances people."

 

[Irma Kinton]

Irma looked anxiously around the corridor as she walked, mulling over her situation and chewing her lower lip in agitation.

She had been following the camera droid for several minutes now, walking down a long, monotonous corridor. It was decorated in the same style as everything else she had seen so far; dark grey and green, with evenly spaced pillars along the walls and lighting sconces every few meters, their illumination providing an eerie, gloomy atmosphere. Her guide hung from a track in the ceiling, and though its sensor lenses pointed in every direction at once, Irma had the strange feeling that all of its attention was focused on her.

She gripped Skuld's blaster, silently wondering just how will armored the thing was, and whether simply shooting it would raise an alarm. The answer to the second question she assumed to be yes; it was obviously meant for surveillance, and taking out a surveillance system tended to attract the attention of the powers that be, whether they were modern day convenience store managers or ancient interstellar warlords.

Of course it'll probably try to stop me if I just run, so eventually I'll have to blast it anyway. She thought to herself.

As for her opportunity to escape, she was slightly surprised when it presented itself.

Irma and the droid eventually came to what looked like a small security checkpoint, staffed by a droid of the same labor type Irma had seen at the spaceport. It was seated in a booth before a fork in the passage.

"HALT." It called as Irma and the sensor globe approached. "STATE YOUR PUR-POSE AND PRE-SENT I-DENT-I-FI-CA-TION."

The sensor globe spoke up before Irma could.

"THIS IS THE FLIGHT CON-TROLL-ER OF SPACE-PORT 45677-XA." Stated the machine. "RE-POR-TING FOR DE-BRIEF-ING AND RE-ASS-IGN-MENT."

The droid looked at the sensor globe, and then at Irma. It was illuminated from below by banks of monitors and controls, just out of sight below the lip of the booth, but the effect was eerie all the same.

"FLIGHT CON-TROLL-ER, PLEASE PRE-SENT I-DENT-I-FI-CA-TION."

Irma, seeing her chance, tightened her grip on the blaster yet again, and made a show of searching her pockets for an ID card of some kind.

"Ah... it's here somewhere, just a moment."

"FLIGHT CON-TROLL-ER, I-DENT-I-FI-CA-TION IS RE-QUI-"

"I have it!"

Irma whipped the blaster out from behind her back, and fired a bolt into the head of the security droid, which let out a mechanical warble and slumped over the booth. Almost immediately, alarms began shrieking, and red strobe lights began flashing. The Tintinna turned, aiming upward to blast the sensor globe, her bolt severing its connection to the overhead rail and sending it crashing to the floor in a shower of sparks. Turning back to the fork in the hallway, she saw massive, gleaming blast doors beginning to descend, and cursed.

Blindly, she picked one, and plunged ahead into the unknown depths of the Ziggurat, the door closing behind her with a thunderous boom...

In the skies above the ziggurat, the weather had darkened. Whether a natural phenomena or part of the planet's own defenses it was hard to tell, but boiling clouds had rolled in, jagged forks of lightning spearing down around the science ship as it flew. Below, there was activity; dark shapes could be seen running back and forth, and occasionally a ponderous turret could be seen, aiming up at the ship and lobbing a few massive bolts into the sky.

Once Tagal, Skuld and the others had jumped, the ship turned away, making once again for the spaceport. Lightning and disruptor bolts crackled over it shields as it flew.

The ground defenses did not immediately notice the drifting parachutes, but when they did, Tagal's predictions proved correct. Agorander's ancient defenses were indeed predicated on the idea that they would have to defend against a massive, sustained assault, either by land or by air. Six small parachutists defeated the targeting systems of the anti-air defenses, which were never designed to shoot down anything so small. Disruptor bolts crackled past, but the only hit came when one grazed the edge of a parachute, which caused a round of cursing over the comm but did not knock out the individual in question.

They reached the ground, each checking in as they did. They had all landed at various points on the Ziggurat, but were generally within sight of the entrance Tagal had specified.

"This is Kano. Everyone, watch out for Slaughteroids, or whatever they've got patrolling out here. Manendez! Peters! Bring your breaching charges."

"The Professor would be pitching a fit at our treatment of a priceless archaeological relic." Came the Captain's voice over the comm. "Not that I much care, mind."

@Nefieslab @Killa Ree

 

[Eva 'Skuld' Stark]

Seconded to Tagal, Skuld flung herself out next wordlessly, feeling the familiar gut-dropping sensation of weightlessness before she was free-falling, the weight from her armor causing her to fall faster than some of the others. Disruptor bolts hissed and crackled, some close, especially when she pulled the tab to activate the parachute; it wasn't long before she stumbled hard to the ground close to the entrance of their agreed rendezvous, close to one of the three that had been part of the science ship security detail. Tagal was some distance ahead; she shrugged aside the parachute, having no jetpack to counter the impact she felt from gravity.

The one she was with checked for breach charges, and she gave a silent nod. It wouldn't be long before secondary defenses would come swarming, so she wouldn't waste time, grabbing one of her throwing axes free of its' holster and feeling it hum to life in her hand, shield prepared to spring to life at the slightest indication of trouble.

It wouldn't be long for her to catch up... but who knew how long Irma had, with all the alarms no doubt going off at once.

"The professor can eat my durasteel," she clipped out, moving at a light jog to catch up.

Dimly, the wail of klaxons rang out into the brewing air. But no rain fell... yet. But she still held out the opinion they weren't out of the clear yet; they had to breach first.

Grab the mouse woman and run. Simple enough for a berserkir.

@Nefieslab @AutoFox

 

[Tagal Saxon]

Yeah, Tagal didn't much care for their treatment of the priceless artifact either. Though his main concern was the idea that they were still being slightly too gentle with it for his tastes. He wanted to blast the hell in there as quickly as possible but he made sure to curb his enthusiasm for the destruction of obstacles. There were bound to be more in store for them when all was said and done after all. His rifle was raised and he checked his surroundings as their team began to assemble.

Some of the droids noticed what they were doing and turned to them to begin firing.

Thankfully they were still at a range that meant that their disruptor bolts were not as accurate as they could be while still being within the minimum accurate range of his blaster rifle. With fierce concentration, Tagal focused on firing two bolts for each of the droids. He wasn't trying to destroy the tough droids with only two shots but instead to disable them.

He wasn't attempting to double tap their power supply or the sensors or anything so precise; he was merely hitting them in their leg joints. The droids hit would fall either forwards or backwards but the important thing was that they would be unable to make any kind of significant progress towards them when they couldn't actually walk.

Of course they immediately began crawling but whatever.

"ETA to breach?"

 

[Irma Kinton]

The Ziggurat was like a maze.

The alarms were still blaring overhead as Irma scurried through shadowed passages, keeping watch for the sensor globes that scanned from their ceiling-mounted tracks, and dodging patrols of droids that tramped by on foot, on wheels, or on clattering treads. The security, it seemed, was not geared toward finding a lone, stealthy intruder; everything Irma had seen so far was huge, imposing, meant to swat down masses of enemies as they threw themselves against them in waves.

Not that they would have any trouble with her if she stayed in place for too long, and some of the things she saw left her sorely tempted to do just that.

There were vast libraries, with shelves of punchcards and tape reels that promised untold secrets. Huge vaults, piled with the glittering loot of a million plundered worlds. Laboratories, their still spotless workbenches laid out with scientific marvels the likes of which had not been seen in the Galaxy since before the Republic. All called out to be witnessed, to be explored...

It was when Irma found herself in a vast, strange, open chamber, lined with tapered columns, that she did pause.

As she crossed the space to reach a doorway on the other side, barely visible across what seemed a great distance, she felt the sensation of being watched. Looking around, she could not see any of the sensor globes that had searched for her in the corridors, but she was equally certain that other, subtler forms of surveillance were in play here. She felt a shiver up her spine...

"WEA-PON DE-TEC-TED."

Abruptly, a hatch in the ceiling dropped open, and a turreted cannon of some kind emerged, rapidly tracking Irma's movements. The Tintinna squeaked and dodged a crackling bolt that scorched the polished floor at her feet, and she reflexively drew her blaster, aiming it up at the turret and loosing her own bolt, which destroyed it in a shower of sparks. More turrets descended, and Irma blasted them as well, scurrying to avoid their fire; it wasn't long, however, before her power pack was spent. As the blaster clicked empty, she cursed, looking up at the turrets, expecting them to continue firing.

She was confused when they did not.

"WEA-PON NEU-TRAL-IZED."

The turrets slowly retracted once more into the ceiling, Irma watching in confusion, then looking at Skuld's blaster. The indicator blinked empty, and she raised her eyebrows; with her weapon dry, whatever security system reigned here had concluded she was no longer a threat.

Shows what it knows. She thought to herself, continuing forward.

It was strange, she thought as she approached the door; millennia old it might have been, but Irma would have given a system tasked with protecting the Imperial Ziggurat more credit than to give up so quickly. Even the simplest modern systems would have gone after her, even after her weapon had run down, and especially after she had managed to destroy some of the weapons sent against her. Now that she thought of it, everything she had encountered so far acted as if it were operating by wrote, not through any sort of high-level coordination.

Something is missing from this picture. She mused, finally coming up to the huge doors. Up close, they were even more massive than they had first appeared.

Irma jumped slightly when they abruptly creaked open. And when she recognized what was beyond, her eyes widened.

"...oh..."

Outside, two members of the security team, loaded down with packs, sprinted up to where Tagal stood. One of them, carrying a powerful blaster carbine, stood guard, aiming around, while the second opened the first's pack, removing three cylindrical breaching charges from it. They swiftly went up to the door, placing them carefully, and removing one of their own to form a quartet around the edges.

"Set!" They called. "Get clear!"

The group retreated behind cover, and one of the demolition team pulled a detonator from their pack. Thunder rumbled, and it began to rain, swiftly building to a blinding, lashing storm.

"Fire in the hole!"

There were four heavy thumps, and from cover, the group watched the heavy doors fall inward. It was as they landed with a boom that something else did as well.

In a confined space, the Slaughteroids were deadly by any measure, but out in the open, that effectiveness only grew. The robotic warriors were built to run, weave and leap, attaining speeds and distances only the most skilled organic athletes could match. They dropped down from above, standing between Tagal, Skuld and the now open doors, their red photoreceptors glowing ominously.

And then, they charged.

@Nefieslab @Killa Ree

 

[Tagal Saxon]

Tagal wasn't stubborn enough to stand close by when breaching charges exploded - he was stubborn and he was willful but he stopped short of being a complete and utter fool. Throwing himself behind some cover, Tagal made sure to cover his head as much as possible to reduce the level of noise that got through to his ears. Explosions even past the minimum safe distance had a tendency to affect the hearing after all.

And then it seemingly all went to hell.

Because the droids were here and they were charging! Tagal didn't waste a moment to hang around. Instead of hunkering down, Tagal hit the controls to his jetpack and laughed into the air at an angle even as he leveled one of his wrists and fired a rocket down at the droids as they advanced. The rocket was not powerful enough to destroy the group of droids but it did what he had intended and stunted their charge due to the concussive force of the explosion alone.

Tagal drew fire from the others on the ground, dodging nimbly through the air and peppering the group of droids with both of his blaster pistols, his blaster rifle dropped to give him more options. He wasn't really doing much damage because of his evasive moves but he was doing a good job of being the primary focus of the group of droids because of that.

@Killa Ree @AutoFox

 

[Eva 'Skuld' Stark]

For the first time in a long time... Eva Stark felt alive.

This was real combat. Not against soft-bodied Imperials or pathetic Force users, or even against half-sentient beasts like wampas, but against technology and machine. She managed to also find cover, ducking low and curling down as both thunder and the breach charges shuddered the ground beneath her. Ears rang dully afterwards, and she growled low, muttering curses against every God she could think of, about what madness possessed her to go with Tagal through this.

This wasn't a fight of strategy or to outmaneuver their opponents; this was a battle to power through, one step at a time, and whether you lived or not hardly mattered, what mattered was getting their company out of the depths of this ziggurat and getting out of here.

When Tagal launched up, her shield sprang to life, and she leapt forward. Unlike her brethren, that preferred heavy armor, she needed swift, hard movement, brute force overcoming aerial acrobatics. She shield-checked first, feeling robotic limbs flail against the edge of it with a skin-rippling skreeek.

While he was busy drawing focus, she was charging ahead with one of her throwing axes, leading the security team and captain behind.

Numbers of the Slaughteroids were falling, but nonetheless still a threat. One arm came almost close enough to sever mechanical arm from the elbow, but was caught, barely in time. She was fast, but they were faster, with a mechanical grace that even in peak physical fitness she struggled to keep pace of.

But they kept falling, and though she was breathing hard, the end was getting closer.

Red eyes. Red eyes and crackling insides, one after the other. But soon, there was enough of a clear-through to allow the company through, at least until more ground support would come. And in such a well-stocked ancient armory, Eva had no doubt there would be more coming, and quicker than even she and Tagal could handle.

"Let's move!" she bellowed, and hefted the shield before her, slamming one of the last droids with her shoulder, and shifting ahead.

She wasn't going to wait and see what some karking professor thought of her desecrating some old building. She wanted out of here, and the quickest way out was to go in.

And no kriffing murderous tin cans were gonna stand in her way. Not unless they wanted axes buried in their circuitry.

@Nefieslab @AutoFox

 

[Irma Kinton]

THEME

Irma lingered for a long moment at the threshold of the chamber before her, holding her friend's depleted blaster. The room was vast, lit by overhead fixtures that provided only small pools of light around the same style of tapered columns she had seen in the preceding rooms. The Tintinna's nose twitched as an ancient, musty scent rolled out of the chamber; the air inside was breathable, but was not nearly as fresh as the rest of the Ziggurat had been, for the most part.

As she took her first hesitant step inside, Irma reeled, stumbling. The same sensation she had felt upon first setting foot on Agorax now returned, but sharper, more concentrated in this place. She clutched her head for a moment, giving a small whimper as she waited for it to pass...

Just as she was recovering, though, she heard a boom behind her, and spun to find that the massive doors which had admitted her had swung closed once more. Irma stared at them, wide eyed, before slowly turning back around, and staring up at the the thing that had first captured her attention.

Dominating the back of the room was a massive dais, in fact it was more like a small stepped pyramid, with a long flight of stairs climbing to the summit of a tiered structure. She could make out something at the top, a huge throne, with what looked like a droid or perhaps a suit of armor slumped in it. As she stared, something seemed to compel Irma to approach, walking across the chamber, leaving footprints in the dust that covered the floor.

The rest of the Ziggurat is cleaner than this. She thought to herself, looking down at the dust. Why don't they maintain this room?

Irma climbed the steps of the dais, eyes fixed on the throne at its summit. Despite having suppressed the sensation which had overcome her upon first entering the room, Irma still felt chills running down her spine; something was wrong with this place, something far worse than bad housekeeping.

When she reached the throne, she discovered what it was.

There was indeed a figure slumped in the throne, a jumble of metal, wire and, Irma could now see, scraps of bone and mummified flesh. The metal parts were not merely a suit of armor; mechanical and electronic parts had clearly been grafted into the decayed organic portions, complex fusions of man and machine now partially bared for Irma to see. The skull, in particular, was morbidly fascinating; once covered by an ornate helmet which had tumbled off into the cadaver's lap, the top half appeared to have been removed, replaced with an intricate mesh of circuitry that still gleamed in the light.

The Tintinna abruptly realized what, and who, she was looking at, and her eyes widened. She stepped back, staring in fascinated horror and disbelief at the remains on the throne before her.

"So this is what happened to you..."

In spite of everything, Irma was momentarily in awe of the tumbled bone and scrap that was before her. Here sat Agorander, Whose Will the Stars Obeyed. A man who had held the Galaxy in his fist, left to rot on a lost, dead world of his own making.

Irma's reverence lasted a few moments, before being interrupted by a glint of silver.

The Tintinna looked down and saw, still dangling from the dead conqueror's fingers, an archaic-looking weapon. Glancing at the now depleted pistol Skuld had given her, Irma bit her lip in indecision, before finally reaching out and gingerly taking Agorander's sidearm, tucking Skuld's weapon into the belt of her flight suit. She hefted the ancient pistol.

Energy weapons of Agorander's day were primitive compared to modern designs, using only basic focusing elements and requiring exotic, radioactive power sources, but almost all the examples Irma had seen in books and museums had an elegance to them that modern weapons seemed to lack. Not so with the weapon she now held; rather than chromium plating and delicate cooling fins, it was a chunky, brutal-looking device, strictly functional in its intent. Irma wasn't sure what type of weapon it was, or indeed if it even still worked, but deep in the Ziggurat she would take what she could get.

Walking away from the throne to the edge of the dais' summit, she looked around, trying to spot another way out of the throne room. Abruptly, however, she heard a clatter behind her, nearly causing her to jump out of her skin. Turning around, she watched the remains of Agorander sag further, crumbling under their own weight after being disturbed by Irma's brief touch. She raised her eyebrows in surprise.

"Force..."

Meanwhile, at the gates of the Ziggurat, the onslaught was ongoing, but the Deucalian and the Mandalorian were succeeding in clearing a path. The security team, not ones to let a tactical advantage pass them by, were moving up swiftly, cracks of blaster fire felling droid after droid; the Captain's light repeater, fired from the hip, was a staccato roar, sweeping dozens of droids to the ground as they closed in, sprinting and leaping like deadly acrobats.

"Get inside the Ziggurat!!" Shouted Kano's voice. "Move! We're easy meat out in the open!"

Rolling grenades ahead of them to clear the interior ahead of them, the security team sprinted into the Ziggurat, working their way into the gloomy hallways within. Outside, the Captain waved to Tagal and Skuld.

"Move move move!" He called, spraying his weapon at an approaching clump of Slaughteroids. "Before they call in the heavy stuff and get us pinned out here!"

@Nefieslab @Killa Ree

 

[Tagal Saxon]

Time to get inside?

Well thank god for that.

Tagal might not be too screwed when it came to the situation but he was still not exactly 100% on board with the idea either. Gritting his teeth, he sighed a little bit as he fired one more shop before swooping in low. Keeping low to the ground, Tagal shot as quickly as he could reasonably control towards the interior that had been exposed.

Flying into the interior on his jetpack, he cut the power to it almost immediately and almost stumbled on the landing, managing to keep himself upright more by a combination of luck and skill more than actual intent. He grunted all the same as he noted the fact that he had left his rifle outside.

He reloaded both of his pistols.

"What we got to plug the gap with?"

Best way to make sure no one followed them was to make it hard to follow them at all.

@AutoFox @Killa Ree

 

[Eva 'Skuld' Stark]

Too many words here, not enough movement.

She waited until the security team and Tagal were close to the interior before reaching for her rifle, the axe temporarily sheathed at her side, and the captain on her heels. No need to waste shots before stepping into a literal heart of darkness, and the scope would come in handy for the low light.

But her husband was right, they needed to close the gap before more droids came swarming into their temporary sanctuary.

Closing themselves inside with whatever laid in wait within a building they had scant intelligence of, but hey, nobody asked the veteran combatant what she thought. She was just here to be a meatshield for those eggheads that bobbed along in their ship, waiting for a search and rescue op.

Kark, both Tag and Irma owed her a good drink after this.

@Nefieslab @AutoFox

 

[Irma Kinton]

It took Irma some time to find her way out of the throne room, but eventually, she did. Making her way along the walls, she felt for seams, and eventually found one. It was the outline of a door, not quite closed, or at least not quite flush with its surroundings; nevertheless, it stubbornly refused to open for the little Tintinna, and she could find no hidden controls on her side of the wall.

Stepping back to consider things, Irma rubbed her chin, and then looked down at the bulky pistol she had taken off Agorander's body.

She pursed her lips.

Well, what other options do I have?

Taking another few steps back, Irma raised the pistol, aimed it at the faint outline of the door, and squeezed the trigger.

The weapon's recoil was surprisingly light, but even so, Irma squeaked at the incandescent beam of power that sprang from the needle-like emitter. Impacting the door, it caused smoke and a shower of sparks. When Irma released the trigger and inspected the damage, she found she had made a roughly Tintinna-sized hole in what seemed to be a fairly thick slab of metal, the edges still glowing slightly from the heat. Irma's eyes were wide as she looked down at the weapon in her hand.

"I guess Agorander had some pretty serious toys..."

Steeling herself, the Tintinna stepped carefully through the hole she had made, entering a long corridor let only by red indicator lights on boxes mounted along the walls. The walls had regularly spaced indentations, roughly humanoid in shape.

They were not empty.

Irma stifled another squeak as she saw the first Slaughteroid, nestled into its alcove. In the dark, she had not seen it until she happened to look to her left, and there it was. It stood perfectly still, and after a few tense moments, Irma realized that it was inert, deactivated. Power and diagnostic couplings trailed from it.

As she crept further up the corridor, Irma passed over a dozen of the slumbering droids, before eventually coming to what looked like a service hatch. Trembling with apprehension, she keyed the controls next to it, and it opened with a clatter that made the Tintinna suppress yet another squeal of fright. Looking behind her, however, she saw nothing; the war droids remained asleep.

Irma climbed out of the hatch, keying it closed behind her. Looking around, she found herself in a long gallery, still gloomy but nonetheless better lit than the droid silo had been. Along one wall were hatches similar to the one Irma had come through; no doubt, more Slaughteroids waited within, ready to heed the call of their long-dead master. The idea made the little Tintinna shudder.

Now then, where else is there to go?

Turning, Irma saw another passage, and took it, her new weapon held before her in both hands. The decor, she noted, was a departure from the monolithic, streamlined splendor of the rest of the building; it reminded the Tintinna of the interior of an ancient starship, with exposed conduits, riveted metal and a purely functional aesthetic.

After a ways, the passage split, and the Tintinna was forced to make a choice of which direction to turn. Hesitating a moment, she looked up at a sign that was posted. It was printed with two arrows pointing down each fork, with a name beneath each. One was marked "Integration Control."

Irma would never be sure what made her pick that direction, but down the passage she went, weapon ready...

THEME

At Tagal's inquiry, the two demolition experts came up quickly beside him. From further down the corridor, blaster fire could be heard, and bits of droids were already scattered across the glossy floor.

"Leave that to us!" One of them called, hefting his bag. "Just cover us!"

The entry hall Tagal, Skuld and the others now found themselves in was nearly as imposing and monolithic as the Ziggurat's exterior had been. Obviously meant to intimidate those entering for the first time, its scale and decor had been carefully calculated to make a being feel small, insignificant. It was decorated with vibrant murals, depicting species from a hundred different worlds, working beneath or side-by-side with antiquated but still noble-looking droids and other machines.

The huge doors, now collapsed inward, were flanked by huge obsidian pillars, which soared to the ceiling high above. The two demolition experts sprinted toward these, rapidly setting to work planting charges around the base of each. Once they were finished, they ran back to a safe distance, working their detonators. The pillars crashed to the floor like felled trees, neatly blocking the entrance.

Blaster fire continued at the other end of the hall for a time, but after only a few moments, it fell silent. There were shouts of "Clear!" from the members of the security team, but everyone looked around nervously, expecting another wave of defenders to come charging up from deeper in the palace, or perhaps out of secret passages in the walls as they had done at the spaceport.

And yet, the moments dragged on, and nothing happened. Even the blaring klaxons had fallen silent.

"Well where ARE they?!" Shouted the Captain, who ejected a spent, smoking power pack from his repeater and loaded a fresh one. "I'm not complaining, mind, but I wasn't actually expecting a respite once we got inside!"

Meanwhile, Kano, the security chief, was kneeling down to inspect one of the fallen Slaughteroids, which lay crumpled on the floor, taken down by a flurry of bolts from the Captain's repeater. Looking up, he shook his head.

"These aren't the same droids we faced outside." He declared, standing again. "They're the same model, but the casing is different."

Indeed, the fallen droids inside the Ziggurat were all Mark II Guardian Corps, but their casing was plated in a gold material, possibly electrum. The scattered pieces of blasted Slaughteroids glittered in the overhead light.

"Well, that makes sense, doesn't it?" Replied the Captain. "We're inside the Imperial palace. The Royal Guard versions would be gussied up accordingly, I expect."

Kano nodded, checking his blaster.

"Naturally. But it also likely means they're under a different command than the droids outside."

One of the demolition experts piped up.

"So, if they're the Imperial Guard, or whatever," he interjected, "why'd they let up? Shouldn't they be coming in waves until we're all dead? We can't have destroyed them all. Why would they just... stop?"

Kano nodded again.

"That is an excellent question." He replied. "And as I see it, there are two possibilities.The first I can think of is that they're planning something sneaky, although given they have the home turf advantage and can come at us with superior numbers pretty much indefinitely, I don't see why that would be the case. The second is that something has gone wrong with their chain of command; we destroyed all the units stationed in the front hall, and for some reason, nobody is calling up reinforcements. Either they don't know we're here, which I seriously doubt, or nobody knows what to do."

He turned to Tagal and Skuld.

"In either case, I think we should cover as much ground as we can before whoever or whatever is in charge comes to their senses."

@Nefieslab @Killa Ree

 

[Tagal Saxon]

Covering for an explosives team? Well that was something that Tagal was happy enough to do and why not? You only got the big booms when you covered the people doing the big booms after all. He did as he was asked, firing with his rifle to lay down some suppressing fire to let them get their charges in place. Of course he didn't notice the room he was stood in to begin with due to being so occupied with the covering fire.

With the explosion done with however, Tagal was able to take a look around the hall they had found themselves in without the imminent danger of being shot. He had to admit that it had a touch of regalia to it that he kind of had to admire now that he wasn't in danger.

He was with the captain on this one; he honestly hadn't expected the inside to be the quieter of the two extremes.

"Pricey."

Electrum wasn't exactly cheap after all but, he supposed, an empire built on the backs of slaves and mechanical labour could afford to keep going and keep digging for more where modern companies couldn't. Weird thing to plate anything with in Tagal's mind since it was a mostly decorative, softer, metal than anything more practical.

Oh well.

"Alright let's get moving." he agreed as he reloaded before moving up ahead, "Which way are we going? We should be heading for something like the brain of this monolith so we can lobotomize this nightmare of a planet."

@Killa Ree @AutoFox

 

[Eva 'Skuld' Stark]

She didn't need to be told twice.

Shifting from her axe to her rifle was difficult, but manageable; the blade was powered off, and in one fluid movement slipped into its' holster with one arm while the other slid the rifle off her shoulder, then brought up and the other hand supported the moment her kastoxi was put away, rifle safety disengaged and brought up to keep at bay those that wanted in.

Once the two pillars were dropped, however, she allowed a small nod of appreciation to the demo team. Not many worked so fluidly... she owed a grudging respect at least. To the Captain and Kano too, she gave a nod. Perhaps she was a bit harsh... but it was mostly to blame with that guilt that still gnawed at her. Guilt that she wasn't fast enough to grab their Tintinna friend from the Bantha shitepile that went down, or that she wasn't fast enough to stop the Professor somehow from his seemingly bumbling mistake.

She had no real reason to doubt the man's intents, just a gut feeling. But that gut feeling just wouldn't settle; she exhaled sharply, ejecting one spent power pack for the first spare, facing the deepness of the heart of the palace.

Size meant everything... so perhaps the ancient Agorander felt like he had to compensate for something? She was half-tempted to say so... but it hardly seemed appropriate, considering the circumstances. Instead, she tilted her head, eyeing the droids on the floor and giving one 'corpse' a cursory nudge with her boot.

"Circuitry seems to be a bit different, too," she commented, frowning. Droids weren't her specialty, but...

Yeah. This wasn't a time for a discussion over ancient tech. She wanted out just as keenly as Tagal… but also, now, she could appreciate the wealth that this ancient civilization had at one point. Perhaps she would have taken some of this tech for herself, but for now, she just wanted to go.

"But ja. Let's get going."

She would take on the rear of the group, just to make sure. The tech of this planet was just full of surprises... and even though they were inconvenient and murderous surprises, she could hardly wait to start implementing them.

Down into the belly of the beast they would go.

@Nefieslab @AutoFox

 

[Irma Kinton]

The passage continued for several meters, and as Irma continued, she felt an increasing sense of foreboding. The Tintinna gripped her ancient blaster, her expression set in determination as she advanced.

At long last, the passage widened into a vast, cylindrical chamber, and Irma stared up in wonder at the electronic monolith standing at its center.

The room itself was designed like a temple, sweeping, grandiose architecture flowing toward the edifice at the center, poised on a raised dais like the machine god of some atomic-age cult. The thing stood at least a dozen meters high, gleaming metal and glinting plastic, fronted by thousands of indicator lights, gauges, cathode tubes and other readouts. It was massive, but inert; the lights were dark, the gauges still, the screens inactive. Even as it was, however, Irma felt a sense of great power in the thing.

Power, and an insistent pressure on that strange, extrasensory awareness she was beginning to pay attention to. It was, perhaps, this pressure that caused her to look away from the face of the huge machine, her attention drawn to the base of the thing. When she saw what was there, she stifled a squeak of surprise.

The skeleton looked human, or near as made no difference, and it was sprawled on the floor, wearing the remnants of what had once been a martial uniform of some kind, and clutching in bony fingers the handle of a large fire axe. It lay beside a thick braid of cables coming out of the machine's base, snaking a short ways across the floor to an aperture in the floor. Between these two points, they had been hacked through, and Irma noticed the scorch marks on the clothes and bones of the skeleton that told what severing the connection had cost the poor man.

Looking back up at the machine, the Tintinna stepped forward into the vast room. This was obviously some sort of computer system, and a very sophisticated one at that, but why would someone give their life to stop a machine?

As she came forward, Irma failed to notice a thin beam of light that crossed the floor at ankle height. As she broke it, another beam lanced from the machine, and a green line scanned over the Tintinna from head to toe.

Shortly afterward, there was a resonating click from somewhere inside the edifice, then another. Gradually, a whirring, clattering, beeping sound rose, accompanied lights, dials and screens coming on, one by one. In the center of the console, a speaker grill squawked an incoherent test, fountaining dust. At first, it emitted only warbling, electronic nonsense.

But then, it spoke.

"SMALL ONE."

The voice boomed from everywhere at once. Irma, her eyes widening even more, took a step backward.

"Great old gods...!"

There was a burst of static, distortion that could have been demented laughter, before the voice spoke again.

"YOUR GODS ARE NOT HERE, SMALL ONE." It boomed, as the lights glittered, coruscating across the vast edifice like waves of power. "ONLY ME."

Kano, finishing a check of his blaster, responded to Tagal.

"Assuming this place has a brain, which given what we've seen, I'm not convinced of."

He slotted in a fresh power pack and shrugged.

"I'm hardly an architect, but given what I know of how Agorander and his people built things, the place we're looking for will be at the center of all this." He continued. "We just have to keep going in, and we'll hit it eventually. Even if we have to knock down a few walls to do it."

The group continued deeper into the Ziggurat, clearing it room by room, hallway by hallway. In spite of precedent set by their reception in the entrance foyer, they met only scattered resistance; itchy trigger fingers blasted more than a few innocuous cleaning droids going about their centuries-old tasks, but the few knots of palace guards that Tagal, Skuld and the others encountered were scattered seemingly at random, and though they individually put up stiff resistance, they seemed to be isolated, unwilling or unable to call for backup from the no doubt bottomless reserves of war droids the Ziggurat was sure to possess.

"I have a bad feeling about this."

The Captain scowled at Kano as they jogged along a corridor, leaving a squad of dismembered slaughteroids in their wake.

"Kano, we all have a bad feeling about this." He responded. "This is weird behavior, even for an automated defense system. Either it's a lot more devious than I give it credit for, or there's something very, very wrong with it."

He looked back at the defeated droids, and shuddered.

"I, for one, am prepared to exploit whatever it is for as long as we can. Maybe we can get the Tintinna and the Professor out of here without have to fight out way back out, even. That would be nice!"

"Nice, but unlikely."

The voice came from a speaker grill mounted on the corridor wall, and echoed through the corridor. The voice was very familiar, although the bumbling, slightly naive tone was gone.

"Yes, friends, it's me. While I'm touched you would come all this way to find me, I'm afraid I must ask you to stop destroying my army."

At the end of the corridor, a pair of doors swished open, revealing a squad of Slaughteroids.

"Or else I'm afraid there will be consequences."

@Nefieslab @Killa Ree