The first squadron had arrived by drop shuttle. This was standard procedure for insertion and boarding in military doctrine when stealth wasn't an absolute requirement. A standard military frigate was equipped with 10 fighters, small, one manned vessels designed for bombing and fighting enemy fighters. They also had one shuttle for dropping a squad of marines within captured space stations or ships. One squad was usually enough for most purposes involving a non-military enemy. However, this case was abnormal.
Captain Velgamo was chewing furiously on the tip of his electronic cigarette, a design approved for smoking aboard naval vessels in the Jovian military. The ventilation systems would be able to handle the residue vapors and extract the chemicals unlike those emitted by traditional cigars, which the captain preferred when he was back home on the terrarium city of Eurania, capital of Europa.
"Lieutenant Vala, is there no response from the squad yet?"
"No." said the communications officer, her voice an involuntary whimper as she feared Captain Velgamo would start yelling at random subordinates again to take out his anger. He was never a pleasant man when he was in a bad mood.
"What is the status of our jet troops?"
"They're arriving at the derelict right now." said Vala in relief, hoping that information would calm Velgamo's temper.
"Good. How could a squadron of my soldiers fail to locate an intruder aboard the ship? Order them to do a full sweep of the vessel after dealing with this trouble maker at once. Also, order them to investigate that fortified room that our first wave of marines reported a little more thoroughly. I think our little archaeologist friends might have found something a little bit more interesting than dear Sergeant Fettle reported. There's got to be a reason that this room was so well protected. Also tell them that I want that intruder's head as a present. He managed to kill a whole squadron of my soldiers. I can't let that go. I'll have it preserved and mounted in my room like a hunter decorates his room with deer heads!"
***
Melbourne observed, to the best of his ability, the thirty marines as they swept around the derelict to enter from multiple directions. Not every one of the exterior cameras was still functional after three and a half centuries, but the Cosmists had built pretty sturdy machines for their time.
[Mission Update:
*Kill the new wave of Jovian marines
*Soldiers Defeated: (0/30)]
Melbourne wondered how he was going to do that? They knew from radio communications that he was in this room and that this would be the first place they would arrive at.
How good were the turrets that littered the corridors of the ancient Cosmist ship? Melbourne decided to check.
At his will, Melbourne got video footage from one of the turrets in a corridor that had just been penetrated by one squad.
[Turret L4 Ammo: 3]
"Maybe I can pick off a good number of them remotely?" thought Melbourne excitedly.
Lining up the crosshair with one of the heads of his assailants, Melbourne willed the turret to fire, causing the soldier's head to explode from a massive shotgun round.
[*Soldiers Defeated: 1/30
*+1 XP
*XP: 56/200]
Melbourne tilted his head in disappointed shock. The Aclito System awarded him less XP for remote kills than it did when the kill was up close and personal?
The other soldiers looked up in fear, some reacting in panic as Melbourne quickly lined up the crosshairs with another soldier, blowing his head off too.
[*Soldiers Defeated: 2/30
*+1 XP
*XP: 57/200]
Just as Melbourne was about to take a third life with Turret L4's last round, a soldier aimed a gun at the turret and the camera went black.
[Turret L4: Offline]
Melbourne switched focus to another turret labeled L7 which read as active.
[Turret L4 Ammo: 4]
As Melbourne began firing the second turret, the panicked reactions of the squadron increased as Melbourne's attunement to the operation of these devices rapidly increased.
[Soldiers Defeated: 6/30
XP: 63/200]
Melbourne had been able to operate this turret more quickly and managed to use up all of the rounds this time. He felt a sense of glee as he watched the squadron of professional soldiers scurry around like mice who had just lost all sense of security. He had killed over half a squadron without them even coming close to them. Unfortunately, there were no more functional turrets in corridor L and Melbourne had to change his focus to another entry point.
[Turret Q2: Active
Ammo: 3]
Melbourne found a different squad had entered this corridor, blissfully unaware of the events that had just happened in corridor L.
This turret shot one soldier before it was shot. Unfortunately, it had a malfunctioning servo that crippled its ability to swivel.
[*Soldiers Defeated: 7/30
*XP: 64/200
"Attention, B Squad and D Squad!" said a voice over the intercom. "Be aware that the enemy has managed to activate remote turrets inside the ship! I'd advise that you shoot all turrets you see just to be on the safe side. C Squad has lost 6 members! I repeat, we have casualties!"
"Copy. B squad has one casualty from a similar situation."
The number of turrets labeled active in corridors Q and C began dropping. One more turret in corridor Q was active, and Melbourne seized the opportunity to fire its single round into one unfortunate soldier before its screen when black.
[*Soldiers Defeated: 8/30
*+1 XP
*XP: 65/200]
Luckily, Melbourne had already built a mental map of how the corridor letters mapped into each other and accessed the turrets of corridor M before C Squad arrived from corridor L. By concentrating a little bit harder, Melbourne found he could multitask and operate two turrets at once.
[*Turret M4 Ammo: 5
*Turret M9 Ammo: 2]
Melbourne shot each of the four remaining members of C Squad as they filed into the room.
[*Soldiers Defeated: 12/30
*XP: 69/200]
"One less group to watch out for?" thought Melbourne. "How are the other squads doing?"
Melbourne found a machine gun turret active in room P as B squad's survivors began filing in. He knew this because the System had informed him earlier that the turrets assigned number 1 in each corridor were machine guns with a rapid rate of fire and excessive ammo.
[*Turret P1 Ammo: 30]
Melbourne began mowing down Squad B and cut the numbers down to 3 before the turret was finally destroyed.
[*Soldiers Defeated: 17/30
*XP: 75/200]
Melbourne could manage those with his reloaded ZMJ-13 if they alone broke into the bridge. It was time to focus on Squad D who were now in corridor G on the opposite side of the bridge from the other two squads. Luckily, corridor G had a large number of functioning turrets.
[Turret G1 Ammo: 15
Turret G3 Ammo: 2
Turret G4 Ammo: 4
Turret G6 Ammo: 3
Turret G9 Ammo: 2]
Melbourne concentrated first on mowing through as many D Squad members as possible with Turret G1 first. The slaughter was quick and terrifying for the soldiers, the majority of their forces dwindling in the initial attack before one of them managed to shoot the turret.
[*Soldiers Defeated: 24/30
*XP: 82/200]
As the G1 screen went black, Melbourne mercilessly operated turret G4 and G6 simultaneously, giving the squadron not one second of relief as he finished their members off to the last man.
[*Soldiers Defeated: 27/30
*XP: 85/200]
Melbourne noticed that he felt far more emotionally detached as he destroyed soldiers he only saw from remote cameras. He remembered once reading an article about how soldiers should not use UAVs for combat because of the tendency to detach oneself emotionally from the killing. Here it was, the proof of the accuracy of that claim. Still, if a soldiers job was to kill the enemy, wouldn't it be generally a good thing to create systems that would emotionally detach them from the ramifications of their job?
Melbourne reflected for a moment to realize that he had actually been detached to some degree from the killing of the first squad of 10 and the less experienced pirates he had killed aboard the Seeker. Compared to the killing of the three thugs in Lambdanville, the more recent kills had felt watered down and gamified. The G.E.U.D.A. System had even told him back in Lambdanville that it was designed to gamify combat to produce superior soldiers. Melbourne wondered somberly if his enhancement was making him into some sort of monster.
As he pondered on his thoughts, the three surviving soldiers of Squad B had entered the bridge and were now firing at Melbourne.
[*H.P.: 5/20
*Puncture in the right shoulder of spacesuit. Oxygen evacuating from hole. You will run out of oxygen in one minute.]
Warned his system as a bullet grazed his shoulder, the armor of Victoria's spacesuit protecting him from debilitating damage.
Melbourne unstrapped from the chair and kicked off to avoid a barrage of bullets. He then grabbed his fully loaded ZMJ-13 and fired back, killing the remainder of the imperial soldiers that were in the derelict.
As Melbourne applied evaseal to the hole in his shoulder, he realized that his emotional thinking almost got him killed. He concluded that the wisdom of Professor Galten was right. There was no time for over-emotional thinking or moralizing about the lives of your enemy when you were in the battlefield. Soldiers had to condition themselves to kill or be killed, because the enemy wasn't going to moralize about killing you. Immoral or not, if Melbourne had not killed the squads approaching remotely, he would probably be dead right now and the Seeker would be doomed.
The command chair was heavily damaged by a barrage of bullets that Melbourne had successfully evaded. Luckily, the neural interface had not been shot out of commission and Melbourne could still access it if he physically held himself to the sundered metallic chair. It was a much more uncomfortable ordeal now than it was ten seconds before.
[Targeting Computer: Online]
"At last." thought Melbourne excitedly as he pointed the computer at the exterior camera image of the hull of the HRS Strelo. "Sayonara, Captain Velgamo!" exclaimed Melbourne aloud as he willed the launching of the derelict's nuclear missile.
***
The ancient payload loaded centuries before at last launched from the remains of the derelict Cosmist ship, flying through space at a target looming in the distance over a dead world, its last act of vengeance against the keepers of the heritage of its Terran foes who would destroy all cyborgs given the chance. In this final, desperate act, the Cosmists saved two cyborgs from execution in the name of the Artilect Protocol. This "nuclear salvation" was delivered against the red frigate in a fantastic fireworks display.
As Velgamo was screaming at the officers on his bridge furiously over the loss of three more squads at the hands of one man, he didn't even notice the tiny rocket flying at his ship before its impact triggered a white light to engulf him in an explosion of the same variety that destroyed the motherworld centuries before.