Chapter Three: Vydar’s Outpost
A red light clicked on in the silent metal room. It then went back out, and proceeded to blink on and off in the darkness. In its red glare, the interior of the metal room was revealed. The room was quite large, though rather narrow, and shaped something like a wide hallway. Some form of gas poured down into the air from tubes at either of the short ends, evaporating in a cloud of whiteness. One of the long walls was covered in an assortment of electronic equipment, most of which appeared to be dedicated to the surveillance of wide areas. The short wall, next to which the red light was, was occupied with a strange circular contraption, which regularly emitted a faint blue glow. At the other short end of the room, two closed panels made up the wall, apparently some form of door or ramp. However, it was the other long wall in the room that was the most interesting.
Here, embedded in regular slots along the wall, were at least thirty soulborgs, their ranks dominated by a huge figure clad in blue armor. This figure was none other than Major Q10, supreme commander of Vydar’s jungle forces. After word had reached the soulborgs that Vydar had fallen, Q10 and the others of the jungle group had gone into a state of suspended animation, awaiting further orders that never came. However, as the red light continued to blink on and off, things began to change.
Q10’s mind activated itself, and, after downloading critical data, the wall slot that he was in slowly detracted, leaving him free to move. Q10 slowly opened one eye, or, rather, powered it up, having no eyelids. He then did the same with the other eye, and began to survey his surroundings.
His mind told him that two years had passed since he and the other soulborgs had fallen ‘asleep,’ but for all the change that met his eyes, it could have been yesterday. Q10 walked over to one of the contraptions on the opposite long wall, and pressed several buttons. A large radar screen popped up to reveal around fifty dots moving quickly towards the center point. They were approaching from the East, from the Ticalla. ‘Marro’ Q10’s mind classified them, and then he turned to the rest of the soulborgs.
Ne-Gok-Sa held up a hand, though it was unnecessary, for his mind alone stopped the marro behind him. He took a cautious step forward, out of the underbrush, and gazed at the metal building nearly one hundred yards away. It was a uniform square, shorter than it was long, and covered with strange equipment for detecting any nearby movement. Doubtless, the occupants, if there were any, had seen the marro by now. A sheet of metal, something like a deck, though it was on the ground, extended outwards from the base of the structure in all directions, and on the top of the building, mounted on a tall pole, fluttered the emblem of Vydar.
Ne-Gok-Sa’s recollections of Vydar were hazy. Rumors of a betrayal, whisperings of Jandar’s defeat, this was all that had reached his nonexistent ears. In one thing only was he certain: Vydar had an outpost on the Ticalla Volcarren border, and it must either be moved, or taken. And since it obviously could not be moved…
Q10, after having armed himself with his rocket launcher and machine pistol, pulled down on a lever and watched as a ramp descended to the ground, exposing the interior of the room to sunlight it had not experienced in two years. Adjusting their eyes to the daylight, the soulborgs, led by Q10, tramped out of the outpost and formed a line on the metal deck, sensors fixed on the yellow figures that had appeared at the edge of the jungle. A quick scan revealed the form of Ne-Gok-Sa at their head, though his physical appearance was much altered. Q10 made an update to the file on the marro warlord, and sent the information to the soulborg prime command to be fed to the other soulborgs, only to find the circuit pathway blocked. Confused, he stored the data in a secure archive, and returned his attention to the present.
Slowly, with faltering steps, the marro crossed the distance to the outpost, and stopped just beyond the metal deck. Only Ne-Gok-Sa continued moving. Keeping his eyes fixed warily on Q10, the warlord approached the massive soulborg, until they were only a blade’s length away.
Q10 stood stolidly by, watching the marro’s every move. When he came to a halt, he said, in a voice rusty with unuse, “Ne-Gok-Sa, Warlord. State your business.”
The mechanical voice jarred on Ne-Gok-Sa’s nerves, but he replied with calmness, in terms he hoped would make sense to the soulborg, “The marro require your removal from this area.”
Several fast transactions took place in Q10’s head, and then, “Request denied. Our presence here has been ordered by the prime command. We may not leave until further orders are received.”
Ne-Gok-Sa shuddered at the soulborg’s plain logic, and quickly reverted to plan B. In a move so fast not even the soulborg could prevent it, he drew his blade back, and sunk it directly into Major Q10 of the Vydar swamp division.
Chapter Four: Battle Within the Lines
Major Q10 staggered back as Ne-Gok-Sa withdrew his blade from under his armor plates. Q10 raised his pistol, but Ne-Gok-Sa, seeing this, rolled to his right, at the same time commanding the marro behind him forward. They rushed towards the outpost in a random manner, their oddly assorted weapons flailing wildly.
Ne-Gok-Sa ducked as Q10 shot a spray of bullets at him, and rolling towards the giant soulborg, came up with his left hand planted firmly on the creature’s head. Vines encircled the metal cranium, but a soulborg mind is not like that of a marro.
The soulborgs behind Q10, which were primarily designed to detain an enemy until reinforcements arrived, lowered their guns at the oncoming horde of yellow before them. Working collectively, they each picked out a different target, and fired. Electrically charged bullets went spinning out of their guns to land on the yellow skeletons of the horde, and confusion instantly ensued. As soon as the bullets struck, the marro stopped, their limbs rendered helpless by the electrical shock. Each soulborg only having one gun, however, some of the marro continued to charge, and the soulborgs were forced to resort to their other arm, the right. Their right arm was simply a long blade, kept sharp and clean at all times. Their left arm, though it was a gun, also doubled as shield, through which few things could get through.
Major Q10’s mind was a dense fog of static. Electrical barriers went up and down, only to go offline completely a few moments later. He was not entirely sure what was going on, only that Ne-Gok-Sa had done something, or was doing something, to his mechanical mind. Behind an electronic wall that was temporarily up, he linked to one of the small soulborgs behind him, and used it to see what was going on. He did not like what he saw.
Ne-Gok-Sa frowned in concentration as telepathic wave after telepathic wave pulsed down his arm into Q10’s head. With almost any other target, taking over the mind would be a simple matter. But with Q10, who, strictly speaking, had no mind, it was a significantly harder task. Q10’s ‘mind’ was a processor made up of electrical pathways and circuits, not synapses and blood. There was a large difference. Deciding that useful as he could be, Q10 would take a very long time to take over, Ne-Gok-Sa changed his mind and brought his blade down on q10’s head, neatly severing it in two. At that moment, the line of marro behind Ne-Gok-Sa rushed past him, headed for the other soulborgs.
The soulborgs got off another volley before the marro were upon them. Then they had to resort to their blades. Here, they had a serious advantage over the marro, who were either unarmed, or had the simple staves used by the drones, as most of them indeed were. However, those who were not drones quickly evened the field out, for they were the same type of marro that had latched itself onto Ne-Gok-Sa, splicing itself into him.
They now did the same thing to the soulborgs, though their minds retained control.
The soulborgs, with their fast precision, mowed down the marro as they came up, but every now and then, a soulborg would go down, enveloped by a marro splicer. The soulborgs, not programmed to fire on their fellow allies, allowed the transformation to occur, and the result was a marro encased in soulborg equipment. As though the marro needed any more help, Ne-Gok-Sa arrived and began to bring the soulborgs down as well.
Soon, the outpost of Vydar was in the hands of the marro.