USD: 1 Day after Cadre-S Graduation

Location: Van Biesbroeck’s star, Meltisar, MIL-1A Elevator, Main Transit Hub 36

Alex sealed the emergency inflatable near where Rachel had been ejected.

“She’s going to be okay?”

[Informative: Sub-core Thea’s Avatar cerebral function has been maintained and her body is undergoing trauma repair. Computronic module substrates have sustained 95% destabilization; This unit has initiated a combining of modules to maintain functional operations.]

Alex hadn’t expected that the woman’s resistance would result in the destruction of all but one of her computronics; and that one would be needed to keep her alive.

She hadn’t expected to start hearing Thea’s thoughts during the override process, either. More than that; feeling her fears. It had been hard not to break down and cry. She had wanted to give the woman a more comforting hug, but things were starting to go from bad to worse.

[Notice: I-field failure imminent.]

Alex repeated Thea’s earlier action and shoved the emergency pod out of the section, probably on somewhat of the same path that Rachel’s would take. “Keep her unconscious until we have time to talk. Make sure her flitter and computronics is set to follow her automatically, too.”

Nameless confirmed the command with his normal efficiency. There would be time to deal with the Phi, later.

She hoped.

The floor vibrated as Tia and the AGAI continued to square off. An overlay on her HUD showed her friend’s status via several bars that Nameless had helpfully combined into red and blue bars. Both were missing about a quarter of their length.

Alex started to approach, considering how she could help in the fight, but then came to a stop. The black infection of nanites had seeped through a large portion of the room. They weren’t actively attacking anything, but Alex saw that when Tia was knocked into an area prevalent with the stuff, the area disintegrated into dust.

It was like a rot that caused anything it infected to become weak and brittle and then fall apart. It didn’t even seem like the AGAI could compel it to do anything, or everyone in the transit hub would have been overwhelmed by the mass of hostile nanites.

She didn’t think winning this by jumping in to help fight personally would be the best option.

“Nameless, is the AGAI still blocking you from the StationNet?”

[Informative: StationNet communications have been highly disrupted due to ongoing emergency procedures. However, AGAI influence is no longer detected.]

“We need to stop the rampancy spread, and deal with the AGAI’s avatar. Can we interface with any of the station’s systems? Weapons to take out the avatar; sensors to figure out how far the spread has gone?”

Alex rested a hand on a wall, stripping the outer layer to make fodder for a new nanite swarm. Some of the black tendrils had wormed their way all the way across to her location, and she directed her bubble to elongate, targeting the black mass.

Her blue nanites wiped away the infection easily, and the material was easy for her nanites to repurpose into material to create more of themselves. But that left gaping holes in the structure, and using her nanites to plug all the massive holes everywhere was way beyond her control capacity.

Welding the sheets of nanites into thin, brittle patches might have been an option, if she had a big welding torch… but she didn’t have any idea where to start with finding a tool that would suit the purpose.

[Informative: Access to various sensors have been acquired via security bypass and poor network configuration, however complete access is unavailable due to segregation of station networks. A central access node with control to leading and trailing weapon sections is located 13km away.]

A map appeared, filling her vision before it split off into the new double view she had experienced when controlling the local turret. The schematic included detailed highlights of various weapon systems and the specific location of what she realized was likely the station’s main CIC.

The background shading of the station was white, but a black spread covered the entire research and development module, with various lines growing across the tram network. The rampancy infection had used the vehicles to spread. It looked like someone had realized this because all those infection lines had stopped at various points; someone had shut down the tram network.

The worse offender was the line that led to the main transit hub, but it had stopped in the module they were in.

Probably because of all the violence and competing nanite swarms that had been flying around.

[Informative: A mass evacuation of multiple station modules in underway. Estimate 200,000+ people have been evacuated from the locations of high-density rampancy. A considerable necklace of ‘bunker’ escape vehicles is forming above MIL-1A.]

Alex let out a breath. That was good at least. If any of the bunkers were infected, they didn’t have to worry about the rampancy landing on the moon. That would be… disaster.

She really hoped that none of the debris would survive re-entry stress. How to even begin to deal with a catastrophe this scale on the surface would be a nightmare. Especially with the atmosphere blowing the particles around willy-nilly… a shiver passed through her spine.

Restrictions on nanite technology didn’t seem like that bad of an idea.

“What about the military? Can we patch into the communications to whoever is in charge?”

Alex wasn’t quite prepared for how fast the map swapped to a video call. Or for who she’d just called.

Admiral Anderson and two other flag officers were sitting at a bridge console, examining a schematic of the station. Behind them, the CIC of what she presumed was MIL-1A was a chaos of more junior officers running to and froe in a panic while more senior officers worked to direct them into some form of order.

A third picture opened up in her vision, this time a monitor displaying herself in what she assumed was what was being sent to the Admiral’s monitor as he looked up to stare at her.

She was covered in blood, her uniform was ruined, and she looked like shit. The extra screen was also disorienting, and she swiped it away with a thought while bringing the video call picture closer to regular vision, overlapping her peripheral so it wasn’t like looking out of a second set of eyes in different directions.

The admiral spoke first. “Cadet Myers, is there a reason you’ve hijacked my CIC’s main monitor feed?”

Alex suppressed her desire to ask where Westlake or the Fleet Admiral was and saluted. “Admiral, we’ve disabled and subverted the Corpo NAI at Hub 36, and Cadet Tia has engaged the rampant AGAI. We need a bigger weapon to take out the AGAI.”

Admiral Anderson stared at her for a moment, then muted his feed and asked something from one of the other officers before turning back to her.

“Cadet, if you are anywhere near Hub 36, you should evacuate immediately. BB Solion is moving into position to laze the entire area to prevent the spread of rampancy to the elevator cable.”

Alex swallowed back her alarm and shook her head. “Please don’t do that! Tia is stuck in a melee with that thing, and I don’t think we can disengage without leading it somewhere else!”

The Admiral frowned at her. “We can’t risk the rampancy spreading further. We’ve already severed the physical links to the infected tram lines and the Research and Development facility, but there is no way for us to stop the spread if it reaches the cable.”

“You’ve already solved the worst of it! I can’t be everywhere at once, but I can stop the spread here in the hub! The only issue is the AGAI itself spreading more nanites if it gets loose.”

The Admiral stared at her for a moment, before glancing at his tactical monitor. Alex struggled to maintain her composure. Alex’s memory of the meeting with the Admiralty and Anderson’s position on the anti-NAI faction did nothing to quell her agitation.

Finally, he looked back up at her.

“Alright, Cadet. I will give you a chance to handle this. Your first priority is to halt the spread of the rampancy to the adjoining sections. I will order the Solion to be on standby. If the rampancy spreads across the indicated lines, I’ll have no choice but to order the entire area lazed.”