Chapter 70
The Fastest Man Alive
By: BigToFu
Beta:
-]*[-
Natasha Blake
The silent knife of Pandora
To Russia With Love
The video of the execution cuts out as the room descends into silence. Honestly, she could only let out a sigh as she took in what was taking place while reading over the reports on the plans for the rest of that traitor's family.
Her Ben had called it a light touch but she knew what it truly was, and this was the action of pulling out the weeds to make sure no growth came afterward to cause issues. The plan was to completely mind wipe the rest of the traitor's family while also placing them around the Empire with total watch protocols.
While all of that was happening, everyone else that was in the know of the traitor's actions was also being rounded up and executed. This Count Pierre was just the face of the closing trials and conclusions since he was also the main instigator of the mess. Yet, as she read these orders over and made her own changes and notated advice, a voice long not heard by her; decided to make his thoughts known on the matter.
"Hmm, you have picked a good one little Natalia." A deep voice rumbled from the side. "Justice was quick yet swift with evidence of wrongdoing, but that same justice also came with a touch of blood for all to witness. Now those with power won't dare abuse it with such an outcoming waiting for them."
A smile played its way across her lips, "Yeah, he believes that this will help spare lives in the long run for our people."
"Yet, he will still kill any who decide to upset the balance."
"Of course, he is the man I choose after all," Nat replied with a smile, at the man who dubbed himself her uncle. Shaking her head at him, her attention turned to her son who was sitting with that same Uncle. Alfred had that same face of concentration Ben showed as he worked with the knife given to him as he chiseled the piece of wood sitting before him.
She took the time to watch since soon they would be leaving to find her sisters in Budapest. The call had gone out, so now it was time to bring everyone home, hopefully, there wouldn't be any trouble but then again. This was Russia there was no such thing as a simple day without a little complication thrown in to keep you on your toes.
Yet, none of that would stop her, they had been on the run for far too long and she now had a place in the world or, well, more like worlds for those that wanted it to lay down their heads to have a good night's sleep without fear of vanishing in the night.
There was a ping that drew her attention, causing her to look down at her omni, yet what she found did put a smile on her face. From the sensor pings, her sisters did make it home and had also input the correct command code into the hidden decrypter.
With a smile upon her lips, Natasha stood with one graceful movement while also sending a signal to a waiting Spartan by the door.
"Alright Alfred, it's time to clean up. Your Aunts are waiting for us, Mikhail, make sure to pack and don't abuse my spartans. They are only here to help you not fetch you booze. There is plenty of that back home and the sooner you get done here the sooner you can get a drink." Nat spoke, laying down the law for all within the vicinity.
Mikhail looked at her, his bear jaws pulled back in a grin showing off all of those razor-sharp teeth. With a snort, he popped up from his seat before shaking himself as he then transformed down into his human form.
"I will do as you ask, little red," Mikhail said with a nod. "Come, Alfred, there is much I would like to show you."
Shaking her head, Natasha made to walk through the front door before pausing mid-motion, "Don't give him any more weapons. He has plenty at home and in his tool belt already.
"Bahhh, there is no such thing as too many weapons. He is from the motherland, yes? So he must carry a Russian weapon also." A loud gruff voice called back. With a shake of her head, Natasha closed the door behind her before making her way up the ramp to the waiting shuttle.
Some of her soldiers gave way and she gave them a smile in return as she took up a seat at one of the holo-terminals. Giving her thanks, nat sat down and booted the terminal up while also entering her command key.
Space before her swirled alive with a kaleidoscope of lights before giving her access to the black server. On the side of the server files were three maps updated in real-time. One was of Earth with locations of their teams marked. The second was of Vodan and the exploration teams beneath the waves. The final was of the moon Titan with another set of teams deployed to look over the last of the Eternals within this Solar system.
Then again, Ben had told her not to cook that egg with how the Eternals had extended lifespans and that some of them could be alive on earth just blended in with the masses. Shaking that thought out of her head, Nat turned her attention to the planet that they would soon call their home.
Mars or better yet Pandora was also one of the worlds shown yet it wasn't listed since the ecosystem of the world was still very much in flux due to the terraforming efforts. With an easy nod of the head, nat quickly shifted through all of the information available to her before coming to a file labeled sisters of battle.
With a smile, she clicked on the program, looked it over, then sent the blueprints to the three-D printer for fabrication. A flick of the wrist sent that to the side as another holo-panel pulled up with weapons information. Selecting the bolters and a few jump packs, Natasha also sent those for fabrication. Once she was finished with that, she leaned back in her seat.
This coincided right on time as a spartan came up to her with a tray with a steaming mug of tea sitting on top. Accepting the cup of tea, Natasha took a sip while commanding the terminal to show her a live feed from one of her teams.
The location was down in Brazil, the Amazon rainforest. From the mission report, they were hunting what was known as a wild sentinel that was in the company of Bolivar Trask's daughter. Now, that was a debacle that couldn't be over any sooner. That madman Trask had really gone down the rabbit hole with this one. How could a man with such intelligence not see what was before him? How could he not see that such creations would only come back to doom the human race?
Of course, he couldn't and it wasn't even the money that was blinding him, no. She had seen plenty of men like him during her life as the Black Widow. No, it wasn't the money, it was the pure unbridled hatred within him that made him take that step. He didn't do it for science like those who created the atomic bomb. The story was clear within his actions, if he had done it for science then he would have turned over the work or had some other type of backers.
No, Trask did it all for himself, and that was why she had no problems with hunting down the last of his bloodline. Natasha had to shake her head at the irony of it all. The same genetic scanner meant to keep the meta-humans beneath the heel was the same thing that would hunt down the last of his line.
The live feed showed her team tracking the daughter of Trask until they arrived at a cave entrance that looked far too much like a trap. Communication chatter was halted just before they pulled out two different devices. One would listen to the vibrations combined with its own use of echo-location to create a three-D image. This would then pair with the other that would then fly through the entrance of the cave to also use its laser sensors to create a three-D model that would overlap the sonic oscillation variant to make sure that everything was on the up and up.
Another process born of Ben's paranoia, and she had to agree with him on that. The visual cortex might be fooled but the sound could only be suppressed so much. Even then, you can't hide the soft shifting of the dirt under foot or the scrap of metal talons on bare stone walls.
Natasha watched as the entire team paused in their steps before hand singles went out and coms chatter opened up.
"Team 3 are those damn perimeter shields in place?" The Spartan Leader of the mission asked. "Team two, please tell me you're in position at the exit to this cave system."
No one moved, but the communications line did open back up as both of the other team leaders came back with their responses.
Team Two, "Exits buttoned up and we are hunkered down in case of runners.
Team Three, "Perimeter is set and goes down for about one hundred meters underground. We felt it prudent to triple the underground protections in case she has some type of drill mole sentinel in there with her."
The team leader paused in his actions as Nat sat up in her seat. Her own hands flew across the controls, bringing up maps of the area and the cavern system that they were about to explore. The cave system wasn't in any database but the data coming to her from the field was able to create a high-resolution map of the cavern.
Noticing the echo spot, Natasha made sure to send in her own thoughts on what that might be. For some reason, it wasn't reading with all of their equipment so they would have to tread carefully.
A message of thanks came back as the team leader started to look over his gear once more. When he finished he then had each person double-check their own gear. With an all-clear, the Spartan leader pulled out two disks from his utility belt as his second command also did the same. Then with a flick of the wrist, the disk connected to the cave entrance before a shimmer of blue flashed to life.
"Alright team, boulters lock and loaded, look alive." Spartan Lead said before taking the first quiet steps into the cave. There was a round of confirmations as before they followed along behind their fearless leader.
She watched with bated breath as the team moved with stealth and speed through the cavern: idly she did notice the other two had joined the video feed. All of that was ignored when someone stepped on a cloaked sentinel.
The thing was just sitting there in stealth mode, completely still, and there was no sign of earth movement or clumping to give it away. This was completely unlike those that were deeper in the cave as the map was showing movement picked up from the echo-location and sonar pings. Even with just those two sound based systems the map was clear except for certain parts and they were able to locate at least fifty combatants.
No words were shared as the spartan that stepped on the sentinel lowered his weapon and blew the sentinel apart. He looked up and the Captain gave him a nod before a command rang out.
"Full forward."
That was all the command that was needed for everyone to spring into motion. From there it was a dance of death: any sentinel that showed any motion was shot with a bolter round. Natasha watched as the walls came alive as if they had kicked a beehive, yet her team carried on with an efficiency that made her proud. Each robot got one round apiece as they moved in a brutally efficient combat trot.
Natasha checked the map and watched as some of the sentinels made their way to the exit in the back. While a team was trying to escape out from the back of the cave, another set was trying to escape by going underground. That was followed up with those that tried to burrow upwards and escape out from the top of the cave.
Those that tried to escape underground hit the boundary wall and vaporized on contact, the team that was holding the shields extended it some more as a precautionary measure. The ships that hovered overhead also made themselves known as they started to fire from their stealthy positions.
She shifted the video feed to the Captain guarding the back exit to the cave and watched as their position rained down hell fire upon the sentinels that were attempting to escape. The robots of course fired back while some tried to get within melee range. Unfortunately, these were trained spartan soldiers and not those living in that cult like school in upstate New York.
Another interesting thing that she noted was that the sentinels were not able to adapt to the ballistic fire. That alone should have been considered a major find, but something was wrong. Bringing up a second hologram she played the last battle that took place in Oregon.
They had been able to track down a lead and found a barn filled with the monsters and they had covered it up by using a neural cap on the people that stayed there. That cover didn't last long since they might be able to answer the call, but had not been able to perform the same task. All it took was a call in for someone to take a look at the old couple that lived in the home for the sheriff to send someone out to investigate.
The team of course almost all died, but a key word tripped the tags and she had sent a team. They had sent out a team within the same forty seconds that the alerts had been tripped. Then the team had taken another three hundred and ninety two seconds to get there with an orbital shift.
Upon the team's arrival, they jumped right into battle, the combat medic had gone directly for the downed cops. Yet, with that action there was a reaction. Shaking her head as she thought about it, Natasha kept scrolling the feed until she located what she wanted.
She paused the video then zoomed in on the combat medic before rewinding the feed. The combat medic had one hand on her patient while the other was pointing upwards and outwards towards the approaching sentinels.
From the medics hands a jet of flames were being sent out towards the sentinel as her weapon was strapped to her back. Forwarding the video, Natasha noted the shift in how the robots reacted and made a note of it. She also found that the team leader at the time had made a note of how the robots had suddenly become explosion proof. The sudden change had made them swap to penetrating rounds, but they had still come out with no injuries.
Now that she was watching things live, Natasha was certain that the sentinels were only able to adapt to powers and not conventional weapons. Well, maybe weapons that were not so conventional since she had her doubts that a 7.62 or a .308 could breach the standard sentinel armor.
From the bolter rounds tearing the machines apart, she had to acknowledge that these were truly weapons of war. Movement caught her eye and Nat had to rewind and zoom in before running a few clearing algorithms over the image.
"Captain, be advised you have heavy incoming." Natasha said with a hand on the communications switch.
In return, she got a grunt, but her warnings were taken as the heavies in the fire group shifted to the front. There was a flash of green as the heavies brought out a chain-gun. There was a whine as the death machine spun to life, then all hell broke loose as the giant robot was trying to slowly work its way to the front of the assault.
The massive robot broke out of the cave's mouth setting a hard course to take down the team but it didn't make it past fifty feet as it was mowed down.
Rotating the video feed once more to that of the team inside the cave, Natasha was greeted with what could only be described as a blood bath. Oil and robotic fluids were all over the place and sitting in the middle against the far wall was a sentinel that was more face than body, the Master Mold.
Fuck, now they really had to blow that entire cave system and its surroundings. The Master Mold was something that Ben would hold no quarter on, period.
The moment that thought ran through her mind, a red flag flashed upon the screen as exterminatus protocols became active.
The moment the spartans received that command their actions shifted, they went from a predatory stroll to all out warfare as they sprinted through the cave looking for any signs of Trask's daughter. They were positive that she was here since they not only followed her trail but also had a positive ID and DNA discovery.
They had to find her and confirm her death or a body before this could be called a successful mission. The video feed changed on its own as another team of sentinels, this time five of the larger ones burst through the cave walls on the west side in a mad dash. Interesting enough was the sentinel in the middle, not only was it not shaped like the others. It was also giving off a heat bloom coming out of the back ventral systems.
Now not only was that out of the norm, but it was also damn conspicuous. Before any commands could be sent or shared, two missiles came from beyond the screen. The first missiles took out the sentinals and the second fully destroyed them, the third and fourth were just for extra measures, since they came from murder bots.
A team dropped down swiftly and started to double tap any of the intact bots when a call came over the network confirming the kill. Hidden or not, the bloodline of Trask was going to end.
-]*[-
Spartan Kennedy
Kennedy ducked below a blow before swinging around her chain sword. The sound of revving sang to her ears as metallic flesh was torn asunder. She wanted to curse that fool Jacob for stepping on the damn cloaked sentinel, but she knew that it could have easily been her who set off the alarm.
So instead of raging at him, here she was with the team fighting their way deeper into the cave in hopes to find the Trask girl. That mission changed when a sentinel group made a mad dash out the side of the cave's walls and through the side of the hill.
The good of that was no longer having to search for a body, but the downside meant that they were now stuck inside of a cave with a bunch of murder bots. Then the bad changed to good as they no longer had any reason to pull their punches.
A command key scrolled across her hud, exterminatus protocols active, well shit. They had to get out of here as soon as possible before the flyboys dropped a pocket nuke.
"Captain, you see that?" Kennedy asked, twisting her left arm out, massive bolter rifle in hand. Two cracks rang out as her micro explosive rounds blew chunks out of an approaching sentinel.
The mark on her hud labeled Captain lit up as his voice spoke into her ear. "Yeah, I see it, planning to drop a party favor since you plan on leaving the dance so early."
That sent a shiver down her spine, the party favor was an egg shaped baseball sized grenade that could generate a sheer field gravity implosion pulse. It wasn't just kill, it was over kill in a way that made her want to be at least fifty miles away from its detonation point.
For half a second, gravity would exponentially increase upwards of one hundred times the standard, crushing everything within at least one kilometer of the detonation point. Then, from there, on the other side of the half second before the energy source expired, it would all be sucked back inwards. If all of that wasn't enough, this entire process would all happen while the whole area was super heated to extreme plasma level temperatures due to the nature of thermodynamics. The effect was to create a kilometer deep and two kilometer wide glassed crater.
All of that ran through her mind within a split second and she just couldn't hold it in as she mowed down one of those larger sentinels.
"Why do you have that thing on you?" She yelled and the entire team paused for a quarter of a second.
The reply she heard was one of cold calculation, "We are dealing with world-ending super abominable intelligence that will move on from meta-human kind to human-kind. It's tied to my heart in case we fail to survive this mission. This mission is to save the world: make no mistake, this is not an assassination mission."
"Well said Captain, get your people out of there. Additional shields have been put in place, set that thing for remote detonation."
"Ma'am," Was the reply that rang out from everyone upon her team. Her captain took a moment to look around as he pulled an oblique yellow device from his belt.
"Alright boys and girls, shields to maximum."
Hunkering down in armor lock, Kennedy had to grit her teeth as a sonic scream tore around the room blasting creators and chunks out of every surface within the vicinity of the blast. Within her armor, her eyes went wide as the meter with the label for shields upon it started to slowly lower.
Emperor no, please no, Kennedy preyed to the heavens before releasing a relieved sigh as the shield's discharge stopped after reaching forty seven percent. If that wasn't bad enough, a countdown meter popped up upon her screen sending her heart to pounding.
Deactivating her armor lock, Kennedy stood up with the rest of her team before they all then made an about face turn. Then, with no words shared, they moved it double time, hell she didn't even send a second glance to all of the crumpled machinery.
Breathing evenly, she ran through the tunnels with Wrecker bringing up the rear. A turn then another one before light shone at the end of the tunnel. No one said anything as they ran through the shimmer field that kept everything behind them inside of the cave system.
As they made it outside of the cave, they found their transport already there lying in wait for them. No words were shared as they all got onto the shuttle as the door gunner was in position to watch their backs.
The ground rumbled and the tree's shook, but Kennedy did not look up as the gunner's weapons barked with the sounds of activation. She had no care over anything that was happening outside of the gunship as she took a seat and started to buckle in.
RROOOOAAAAARRRRR!
Thunk! Thunk!
Now that was a sound that made her eyes widen, forcing her to take a look in the direction of the noise. She watched as two canisters hovered in the air before taking off and slamming into the torso of the behemoth sized sentinel.
One hip and leg was vaporized within a heartbeat as the other canister removed a shoulder and arm. Yeah, they had all of the best toys; but those same toys were just bowel shakingly terrifying. The gunner turned around with a smile as he packed his own gear away.
Within thirty seconds they were all strapped, having properly stowed their gear, as the shuttle took off directly upwards.
-]*[-
Natasha entered her command codes then waited for the ping. Once she received the confirmation, she then activated her own communications unit.
"Captain, you have a go for party favor, I repeat you have a go for party favor."
"Thank you ma'am" The Spartan Captain returned.
A sly smile flowed across Natasha's face, "You know the saying."
"Ain't no kill like overkill!"
On the other side of the communications went up a unit cheer. "Hoorah!"
The cheering was cut out with the clap of thunder as the sheer field activated, rendering a section of earth totally atomized.
-]*[-
With a shake of her head, Natasha closed down the holo-unit before turning to greet her son. "Ready?"
"Yeah, Uncle Mikhail said that he is going to show me some moves to use on some guy called Alexei."
Now, that had Natasha pausing in her step as she rounded on the massive man, "Ohh is he now?"
"Yeah, he was muttering something about payback for '82." Alfred answered as he walked past his mother.
Oddly enough Mikhail had to fix his collar as he looked around as if the solid gaze didn't unnerve him at all.
"Bahh, pay it no mind little Natalia, it's all in good jest." Mikhail rumbled.
"Then since it's in good jest, I am sure you wouldn't mind a spar after a light workout?" Natasha asked in a voice so sickly sweet that all of the spartans within range all turned around and vacated the area to other parts of the shuttle. The term, "He's fucked!" could be heard whispered amongst one group.
Mikhail stood there for a moment before his ear twitched, "Did you hear that? The pilot called for my assistance, raincheck!"
No one had ever seen a giant bear man move that quickly before.
Author's Note's :
Anyway, the plot moves forward just a little more along Natasha's side. I have a Sue thing next mixed back in with Ben. Then some Ben and Falica time since everyone must be wondering what's happening in New York with a dash of repercussions of a new Planet springing up within the solar system.
This is what the chapter schedule looks like. Leave a comment or send a message if you would like a poll released for chapter updates and we can lock that in.
Sorry about missing the last chapter day, I would like to say that it won't happen again, but that would just be a lie.
So onto the news, Full Metal will be delayed due to the person I was collabing with on the story no longer wants to collaborate. This means that I have to do the storyboard on my own and all kinds of things that come with writing a story.
It's going to be a delay before those chapters can start back up, but it's no biggie.
Now here is the self-promotion. If you are looking for early chapters or any of my other projects that haven't made it public yet. You should come and check out my patron. There are at least ten or more chapters of interesting things that haven't seen the light of day yet.
Anyway Dooms going up next after an errand or two.
Let me know what you guys think about the chapter.
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Chapter 70
The Fastest Man Alive
By: BigToFu
Beta:
-]*[-
Natasha Blake
The silent knife of Pandora
To Russia With Love
The video of the execution cuts out as the room descends into silence. Honestly, she could only let out a sigh as she took in what was taking place while reading over the reports on the plans for the rest of that traitor's family.
Her Ben had called it a light touch but she knew what it truly was, and this was the action of pulling out the weeds to make sure no growth came afterward to cause issues. The plan was to completely mind wipe the rest of the traitor's family while also placing them around the Empire with total watch protocols.
While all of that was happening, everyone else that was in the know of the traitor's actions was also being rounded up and executed. This Count Pierre was just the face of the closing trials and conclusions since he was also the main instigator of the mess. Yet, as she read these orders over and made her own changes and notated advice, a voice long not heard by her; decided to make his thoughts known on the matter.
"Hmm, you have picked a good one little Natalia." A deep voice rumbled from the side. "Justice was quick yet swift with evidence of wrongdoing, but that same justice also came with a touch of blood for all to witness. Now those with power won't dare abuse it with such an outcoming waiting for them."
A smile played its way across her lips, "Yeah, he believes that this will help spare lives in the long run for our people."
"Yet, he will still kill any who decide to upset the balance."
"Of course, he is the man I choose after all," Nat replied with a smile, at the man who dubbed himself her uncle. Shaking her head at him, her attention turned to her son who was sitting with that same Uncle. Alfred had that same face of concentration Ben showed as he worked with the knife given to him as he chiseled the piece of wood sitting before him.
She took the time to watch since soon they would be leaving to find her sisters in Budapest. The call had gone out, so now it was time to bring everyone home, hopefully, there wouldn't be any trouble but then again. This was Russia there was no such thing as a simple day without a little complication thrown in to keep you on your toes.
Yet, none of that would stop her, they had been on the run for far too long and she now had a place in the world or, well, more like worlds for those that wanted it to lay down their heads to have a good night's sleep without fear of vanishing in the night.
There was a ping that drew her attention, causing her to look down at her omni, yet what she found did put a smile on her face. From the sensor pings, her sisters did make it home and had also input the correct command code into the hidden decrypter.
With a smile upon her lips, Natasha stood with one graceful movement while also sending a signal to a waiting Spartan by the door.
"Alright Alfred, it's time to clean up. Your Aunts are waiting for us, Mikhail, make sure to pack and don't abuse my spartans. They are only here to help you not fetch you booze. There is plenty of that back home and the sooner you get done here the sooner you can get a drink." Nat spoke, laying down the law for all within the vicinity.
Mikhail looked at her, his bear jaws pulled back in a grin showing off all of those razor-sharp teeth. With a snort, he popped up from his seat before shaking himself as he then transformed down into his human form.
"I will do as you ask, little red," Mikhail said with a nod. "Come, Alfred, there is much I would like to show you."
Shaking her head, Natasha made to walk through the front door before pausing mid-motion, "Don't give him any more weapons. He has plenty at home and in his tool belt already.
"Bahhh, there is no such thing as too many weapons. He is from the motherland, yes? So he must carry a Russian weapon also." A loud gruff voice called back. With a shake of her head, Natasha closed the door behind her before making her way up the ramp to the waiting shuttle.
Some of her soldiers gave way and she gave them a smile in return as she took up a seat at one of the holo-terminals. Giving her thanks, nat sat down and booted the terminal up while also entering her command key.
Space before her swirled alive with a kaleidoscope of lights before giving her access to the black server. On the side of the server files were three maps updated in real-time. One was of Earth with locations of their teams marked. The second was of Vodan and the exploration teams beneath the waves. The final was of the moon Titan with another set of teams deployed to look over the last of the Eternals within this Solar system.
Then again, Ben had told her not to cook that egg with how the Eternals had extended lifespans and that some of them could be alive on earth just blended in with the masses. Shaking that thought out of her head, Nat turned her attention to the planet that they would soon call their home.
Mars or better yet Pandora was also one of the worlds shown yet it wasn't listed since the ecosystem of the world was still very much in flux due to the terraforming efforts. With an easy nod of the head, nat quickly shifted through all of the information available to her before coming to a file labeled sisters of battle.
With a smile, she clicked on the program, looked it over, then sent the blueprints to the three-D printer for fabrication. A flick of the wrist sent that to the side as another holo-panel pulled up with weapons information. Selecting the bolters and a few jump packs, Natasha also sent those for fabrication. Once she was finished with that, she leaned back in her seat.
This coincided right on time as a spartan came up to her with a tray with a steaming mug of tea sitting on top. Accepting the cup of tea, Natasha took a sip while commanding the terminal to show her a live feed from one of her teams.
The location was down in Brazil, the Amazon rainforest. From the mission report, they were hunting what was known as a wild sentinel that was in the company of Bolivar Trask's daughter. Now, that was a debacle that couldn't be over any sooner. That madman Trask had really gone down the rabbit hole with this one. How could a man with such intelligence not see what was before him? How could he not see that such creations would only come back to doom the human race?
Of course, he couldn't and it wasn't even the money that was blinding him, no. She had seen plenty of men like him during her life as the Black Widow. No, it wasn't the money, it was the pure unbridled hatred within him that made him take that step. He didn't do it for science like those who created the atomic bomb. The story was clear within his actions, if he had done it for science then he would have turned over the work or had some other type of backers.
No, Trask did it all for himself, and that was why she had no problems with hunting down the last of his bloodline. Natasha had to shake her head at the irony of it all. The same genetic scanner meant to keep the meta-humans beneath the heel was the same thing that would hunt down the last of his line.
The live feed showed her team tracking the daughter of Trask until they arrived at a cave entrance that looked far too much like a trap. Communication chatter was halted just before they pulled out two different devices. One would listen to the vibrations combined with its own use of echo-location to create a three-D image. This would then pair with the other that would then fly through the entrance of the cave to also use its laser sensors to create a three-D model that would overlap the sonic oscillation variant to make sure that everything was on the up and up.
Another process born of Ben's paranoia, and she had to agree with him on that. The visual cortex might be fooled but the sound could only be suppressed so much. Even then, you can't hide the soft shifting of the dirt under foot or the scrap of metal talons on bare stone walls.
Natasha watched as the entire team paused in their steps before hand singles went out and coms chatter opened up.
"Team 3 are those damn perimeter shields in place?" The Spartan Leader of the mission asked. "Team two, please tell me you're in position at the exit to this cave system."
No one moved, but the communications line did open back up as both of the other team leaders came back with their responses.
Team Two, "Exits buttoned up and we are hunkered down in case of runners.
Team Three, "Perimeter is set and goes down for about one hundred meters underground. We felt it prudent to triple the underground protections in case she has some type of drill mole sentinel in there with her."
The team leader paused in his actions as Nat sat up in her seat. Her own hands flew across the controls, bringing up maps of the area and the cavern system that they were about to explore. The cave system wasn't in any database but the data coming to her from the field was able to create a high-resolution map of the cavern.
Noticing the echo spot, Natasha made sure to send in her own thoughts on what that might be. For some reason, it wasn't reading with all of their equipment so they would have to tread carefully.
A message of thanks came back as the team leader started to look over his gear once more. When he finished he then had each person double-check their own gear. With an all-clear, the Spartan leader pulled out two disks from his utility belt as his second command also did the same. Then with a flick of the wrist, the disk connected to the cave entrance before a shimmer of blue flashed to life.
"Alright team, boulters lock and loaded, look alive." Spartan Lead said before taking the first quiet steps into the cave. There was a round of confirmations as before they followed along behind their fearless leader.
She watched with bated breath as the team moved with stealth and speed through the cavern: idly she did notice the other two had joined the video feed. All of that was ignored when someone stepped on a cloaked sentinel.
The thing was just sitting there in stealth mode, completely still, and there was no sign of earth movement or clumping to give it away. This was completely unlike those that were deeper in the cave as the map was showing movement picked up from the echo-location and sonar pings. Even with just those two sound based systems the map was clear except for certain parts and they were able to locate at least fifty combatants.
No words were shared as the spartan that stepped on the sentinel lowered his weapon and blew the sentinel apart. He looked up and the Captain gave him a nod before a command rang out.
"Full forward."
That was all the command that was needed for everyone to spring into motion. From there it was a dance of death: any sentinel that showed any motion was shot with a bolter round. Natasha watched as the walls came alive as if they had kicked a beehive, yet her team carried on with an efficiency that made her proud. Each robot got one round apiece as they moved in a brutally efficient combat trot.
Natasha checked the map and watched as some of the sentinels made their way to the exit in the back. While a team was trying to escape out from the back of the cave, another set was trying to escape by going underground. That was followed up with those that tried to burrow upwards and escape out from the top of the cave.
Those that tried to escape underground hit the boundary wall and vaporized on contact, the team that was holding the shields extended it some more as a precautionary measure. The ships that hovered overhead also made themselves known as they started to fire from their stealthy positions.
She shifted the video feed to the Captain guarding the back exit to the cave and watched as their position rained down hell fire upon the sentinels that were attempting to escape. The robots of course fired back while some tried to get within melee range. Unfortunately, these were trained spartan soldiers and not those living in that cult like school in upstate New York.
Another interesting thing that she noted was that the sentinels were not able to adapt to the ballistic fire. That alone should have been considered a major find, but something was wrong. Bringing up a second hologram she played the last battle that took place in Oregon.
They had been able to track down a lead and found a barn filled with the monsters and they had covered it up by using a neural cap on the people that stayed there. That cover didn't last long since they might be able to answer the call, but had not been able to perform the same task. All it took was a call in for someone to take a look at the old couple that lived in the home for the sheriff to send someone out to investigate.
The team of course almost all died, but a key word tripped the tags and she had sent a team. They had sent out a team within the same forty seconds that the alerts had been tripped. Then the team had taken another three hundred and ninety two seconds to get there with an orbital shift.
Upon the team's arrival, they jumped right into battle, the combat medic had gone directly for the downed cops. Yet, with that action there was a reaction. Shaking her head as she thought about it, Natasha kept scrolling the feed until she located what she wanted.
She paused the video then zoomed in on the combat medic before rewinding the feed. The combat medic had one hand on her patient while the other was pointing upwards and outwards towards the approaching sentinels.
From the medics hands a jet of flames were being sent out towards the sentinel as her weapon was strapped to her back. Forwarding the video, Natasha noted the shift in how the robots reacted and made a note of it. She also found that the team leader at the time had made a note of how the robots had suddenly become explosion proof. The sudden change had made them swap to penetrating rounds, but they had still come out with no injuries.
Now that she was watching things live, Natasha was certain that the sentinels were only able to adapt to powers and not conventional weapons. Well, maybe weapons that were not so conventional since she had her doubts that a 7.62 or a .308 could breach the standard sentinel armor.
From the bolter rounds tearing the machines apart, she had to acknowledge that these were truly weapons of war. Movement caught her eye and Nat had to rewind and zoom in before running a few clearing algorithms over the image.
"Captain, be advised you have heavy incoming." Natasha said with a hand on the communications switch.
In return, she got a grunt, but her warnings were taken as the heavies in the fire group shifted to the front. There was a flash of green as the heavies brought out a chain-gun. There was a whine as the death machine spun to life, then all hell broke loose as the giant robot was trying to slowly work its way to the front of the assault.
The massive robot broke out of the cave's mouth setting a hard course to take down the team but it didn't make it past fifty feet as it was mowed down.
Rotating the video feed once more to that of the team inside the cave, Natasha was greeted with what could only be described as a blood bath. Oil and robotic fluids were all over the place and sitting in the middle against the far wall was a sentinel that was more face than body, the Master Mold.
Fuck, now they really had to blow that entire cave system and its surroundings. The Master Mold was something that Ben would hold no quarter on, period.
The moment that thought ran through her mind, a red flag flashed upon the screen as exterminatus protocols became active.
The moment the spartans received that command their actions shifted, they went from a predatory stroll to all out warfare as they sprinted through the cave looking for any signs of Trask's daughter. They were positive that she was here since they not only followed her trail but also had a positive ID and DNA discovery.
They had to find her and confirm her death or a body before this could be called a successful mission. The video feed changed on its own as another team of sentinels, this time five of the larger ones burst through the cave walls on the west side in a mad dash. Interesting enough was the sentinel in the middle, not only was it not shaped like the others. It was also giving off a heat bloom coming out of the back ventral systems.
Now not only was that out of the norm, but it was also damn conspicuous. Before any commands could be sent or shared, two missiles came from beyond the screen. The first missiles took out the sentinals and the second fully destroyed them, the third and fourth were just for extra measures, since they came from murder bots.
A team dropped down swiftly and started to double tap any of the intact bots when a call came over the network confirming the kill. Hidden or not, the bloodline of Trask was going to end.
-]*[-
Spartan Kennedy
Kennedy ducked below a blow before swinging around her chain sword. The sound of revving sang to her ears as metallic flesh was torn asunder. She wanted to curse that fool Jacob for stepping on the damn cloaked sentinel, but she knew that it could have easily been her who set off the alarm.
So instead of raging at him, here she was with the team fighting their way deeper into the cave in hopes to find the Trask girl. That mission changed when a sentinel group made a mad dash out the side of the cave's walls and through the side of the hill.
The good of that was no longer having to search for a body, but the downside meant that they were now stuck inside of a cave with a bunch of murder bots. Then the bad changed to good as they no longer had any reason to pull their punches.
A command key scrolled across her hud, exterminatus protocols active, well shit. They had to get out of here as soon as possible before the flyboys dropped a pocket nuke.
"Captain, you see that?" Kennedy asked, twisting her left arm out, massive bolter rifle in hand. Two cracks rang out as her micro explosive rounds blew chunks out of an approaching sentinel.
The mark on her hud labeled Captain lit up as his voice spoke into her ear. "Yeah, I see it, planning to drop a party favor since you plan on leaving the dance so early."
That sent a shiver down her spine, the party favor was an egg shaped baseball sized grenade that could generate a sheer field gravity implosion pulse. It wasn't just kill, it was over kill in a way that made her want to be at least fifty miles away from its detonation point.
For half a second, gravity would exponentially increase upwards of one hundred times the standard, crushing everything within at least one kilometer of the detonation point. Then, from there, on the other side of the half second before the energy source expired, it would all be sucked back inwards. If all of that wasn't enough, this entire process would all happen while the whole area was super heated to extreme plasma level temperatures due to the nature of thermodynamics. The effect was to create a kilometer deep and two kilometer wide glassed crater.
All of that ran through her mind within a split second and she just couldn't hold it in as she mowed down one of those larger sentinels.
"Why do you have that thing on you?" She yelled and the entire team paused for a quarter of a second.
The reply she heard was one of cold calculation, "We are dealing with world-ending super abominable intelligence that will move on from meta-human kind to human-kind. It's tied to my heart in case we fail to survive this mission. This mission is to save the world: make no mistake, this is not an assassination mission."
"Well said Captain, get your people out of there. Additional shields have been put in place, set that thing for remote detonation."
"Ma'am," Was the reply that rang out from everyone upon her team. Her captain took a moment to look around as he pulled an oblique yellow device from his belt.
"Alright boys and girls, shields to maximum."
Hunkering down in armor lock, Kennedy had to grit her teeth as a sonic scream tore around the room blasting creators and chunks out of every surface within the vicinity of the blast. Within her armor, her eyes went wide as the meter with the label for shields upon it started to slowly lower.
Emperor no, please no, Kennedy preyed to the heavens before releasing a relieved sigh as the shield's discharge stopped after reaching forty seven percent. If that wasn't bad enough, a countdown meter popped up upon her screen sending her heart to pounding.
Deactivating her armor lock, Kennedy stood up with the rest of her team before they all then made an about face turn. Then, with no words shared, they moved it double time, hell she didn't even send a second glance to all of the crumpled machinery.
Breathing evenly, she ran through the tunnels with Wrecker bringing up the rear. A turn then another one before light shone at the end of the tunnel. No one said anything as they ran through the shimmer field that kept everything behind them inside of the cave system.
As they made it outside of the cave, they found their transport already there lying in wait for them. No words were shared as they all got onto the shuttle as the door gunner was in position to watch their backs.
The ground rumbled and the tree's shook, but Kennedy did not look up as the gunner's weapons barked with the sounds of activation. She had no care over anything that was happening outside of the gunship as she took a seat and started to buckle in.
RROOOOAAAAARRRRR!
Thunk! Thunk!
Now that was a sound that made her eyes widen, forcing her to take a look in the direction of the noise. She watched as two canisters hovered in the air before taking off and slamming into the torso of the behemoth sized sentinel.
One hip and leg was vaporized within a heartbeat as the other canister removed a shoulder and arm. Yeah, they had all of the best toys; but those same toys were just bowel shakingly terrifying. The gunner turned around with a smile as he packed his own gear away.
Within thirty seconds they were all strapped, having properly stowed their gear, as the shuttle took off directly upwards.
-]*[-
Natasha entered her command codes then waited for the ping. Once she received the confirmation, she then activated her own communications unit.
"Captain, you have a go for party favor, I repeat you have a go for party favor."
"Thank you ma'am" The Spartan Captain returned.
A sly smile flowed across Natasha's face, "You know the saying."
"Ain't no kill like overkill!"
On the other side of the communications went up a unit cheer. "Hoorah!"
The cheering was cut out with the clap of thunder as the sheer field activated, rendering a section of earth totally atomized.
-]*[-
With a shake of her head, Natasha closed down the holo-unit before turning to greet her son. "Ready?"
"Yeah, Uncle Mikhail said that he is going to show me some moves to use on some guy called Alexei."
Now, that had Natasha pausing in her step as she rounded on the massive man, "Ohh is he now?"
"Yeah, he was muttering something about payback for '82." Alfred answered as he walked past his mother.
Oddly enough Mikhail had to fix his collar as he looked around as if the solid gaze didn't unnerve him at all.
"Bahh, pay it no mind little Natalia, it's all in good jest." Mikhail rumbled.
"Then since it's in good jest, I am sure you wouldn't mind a spar after a light workout?" Natasha asked in a voice so sickly sweet that all of the spartans within range all turned around and vacated the area to other parts of the shuttle. The term, "He's fucked!" could be heard whispered amongst one group.
Mikhail stood there for a moment before his ear twitched, "Did you hear that? The pilot called for my assistance, raincheck!"
No one had ever seen a giant bear man move that quickly before.
Author's Note's :
Anyway, the plot moves forward just a little more along Natasha's side. I have a Sue thing next mixed back in with Ben. Then some Ben and Falica time since everyone must be wondering what's happening in New York with a dash of repercussions of a new Planet springing up within the solar system.
This is what the chapter schedule looks like. Leave a comment or send a message if you would like a poll released for chapter updates and we can lock that in.
Sorry about missing the last chapter day, I would like to say that it won't happen again, but that would just be a lie.
So onto the news, Full Metal will be delayed due to the person I was collabing with on the story no longer wants to collaborate. This means that I have to do the storyboard on my own and all kinds of things that come with writing a story.
It's going to be a delay before those chapters can start back up, but it's no biggie.
Now here is the self-promotion. If you are looking for early chapters or any of my other projects that haven't made it public yet. You should come and check out my patron. There are at least ten or more chapters of interesting things that haven't seen the light of day yet.
Anyway Dooms going up next after an errand or two.
Let me know what you guys think about the chapter.
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