Mid-hive, Sector 9 Forbidden Zone, Facility Corridor of Sector D.
The sharp scent of ozone from high-temperature plasma scorching the air mingled with the acrid stench of corpses carbonized by las-blasts, turning the corridor into a literal pressure cooker.
Zeman pressed his back tightly against an alloy barricade, his hands white-knuckled around a modified master-crafted bolter. His breathing was heavy, each gasp bringing the stinging pain of alveoli seared by the heat.
As the Head of the Combat Department for the Helios Group, Zeman had fought many wars in his time. He had led squads to exterminate mutant tribes in the Under-hive, suppressed massive worker riots, and had even traded blows with a stray Plague Marine from the Death Guard. His "Gecko" Special Operations Task Force was equipped with full suits of carapace armor, hellguns, standard-pattern bolters, and even seven heavy plasma cannons.
This level of equipment, on any hive world, would be considered a formidable paramilitary force. But right now, Zeman just wanted to scream.
"Left flank! Left flank, suppressive fire!" "Heavy weapons team! Get up there and hold the line!!!"
Zeman roared into the comms channel. However, the only responses were agonizing screams and the piercing static of electrical interference.
At the end of the T-shaped corridor ahead, a heavy blast door had been violently torn open. Three dark shadows were darting through the interlocking web of las-beams at high speed. They were three security robots, likely dating back to an ancient era—what the cultists of Mars would call... Abominable Intelligence.
To be honest, the condition of these three AIs was atrocious. One had a severed left arm, with only half a cable dangling outside. Another was missing half its head, exposing the sensor crystals within. The last one was even more absurd; it had a hole in its chest large enough to fit a basketball, and its outer casing was so rusted it looked like it had just been dug out of a scrap heap.
Yet, it was these three piles of "scrap metal" that were slaughtering Zeman's pride and joy—Helios's top elite force—and sending them fleeing in terror.
They were too fast! Standing at least 2.7 meters tall and weighing over two tons, their speed completely defied human understanding of heavy machinery. There was no acceleration process; one second they were stationary, the next they were right in your face.
Zeman watched with his own eyes as a heavy assault trooper in full carapace armor was grabbed by the head by the one-armed AI.
Crunch.
It was like crushing a tomato. High-strength ceramic helmets possessed zero dignity when faced with the hydraulic fingers of an ancient killing machine.
"Oh my, it broke just like that?"
A playful, arrogant, and almost girlish female voice echoed through the corridor via the starship's ubiquitous broadcast system.
"Your toys are really poor quality. The red water inside splashed everywhere and got my floor all dirty~ Cleaner No. 1, hurry up and clear away this trash."
The one-armed AI seemed to understand the command. It nonchalantly slammed the headless corpse against the wall with a dull thud, then turned to charge at the next target.
Zeman's blood pressure instantly spiked. This damned Machine Spirit! The spirit awakened in this ship was an absolute psychopath! Normal machine spirits were supposed to be solemn, logical, or even holy—but this thing was a madwoman who found joy in murder!
But that wasn't even the part that made Zeman break down the most. What truly destroyed his composure were the people currently chattering away in his earpiece: the Board of Directors of the Helios Group. These big shots were sitting on comfortable leather sofas in the Upper Hive, sipping red wine and watching the real-time feed from Zeman's helmet while attempting suffocating micro-management.
"Zeman! What are you doing?!" Saul Hell's ancient and greedy voice exploded in the channel. "I see your plasma gunner is charging up! Stop him! Stop him immediately! The wall he's aiming at is ancient composite armor plating! It has intact molecular circuit patterns! A single panel of that is worth five billion credits! If you break it, I couldn't afford to replace it even if I sold you into slavery!"
Zeman glanced at the heavy weapons specialist beside him. The gunner was drenched in sweat, bracing the heavy plasma cannon, finally managing to lock his sights onto the headless AI. If he fired, that machine would be crippled, if not destroyed.
But Saul's order made the gunner hesitate. "Commander... do I fire?" the gunner's voice trembled.
"Fire my ass! Didn't you hear the boss say don't break the walls?!" Another voice cut in—the Chief Financial Officer. "Zeman, pay attention to cost control! We've already exceeded the budget for bereavement payouts for this battle!"
In that split second of hesitation, the headless AI reached the gunner. It didn't use a weapon; it simply raised its leg and kicked the gunner in the chest.
BAM—!!!
The gunner was sent flying backward, his chest caving in instantly. The charging plasma cannon slipped from his hands and slammed into the ground, emitting a heart-stopping overload alarm.
"No—! My plasma cannon!" the Technical Director shrieked in the channel. "Zeman, go pick it up! That's a prototype!"
Zeman felt like a blood vessel in his brain was about to burst. CAN YOU ALL JUST SHUT UP!! He roared in his mind, but he didn't dare say it out loud—these were the people who paid his salary.
At this moment, another cold female voice sounded in the channel. It was Jessia: "Zeman, I don't care about the walls, and I care even less about the cannons. I want those three AIs dead, and I want the Group's excavation to proceed at full speed. I don't care what method you use—even if you have to fill the gap with human lives—kill those three machines for me."
Saul immediately countered: "No! We must take them alive! If we destroy them, the research value is gone!"
"Then use an EMP!" someone suggested. "Idiot!" the Technical Director snapped. "There's strong magnetic field interference here. If we release an EMP, our own comms and night vision will go blind!" "Then use net guns!" "What good are net guns? That junk can't even cut through Power Armor!"
A group of capitalists who had never set foot on a battlefield were arguing incessantly over how to take down three killing machines. Meanwhile, Zeman and his men were being one-sidedly slaughtered in this hellish corridor.
"Hee hee hee~" The Machine Spirit on the broadcast laughed even harder. "I just hacked into your channel... are you having a fight? How interesting. You low-tier biological organisms are at each other's throats even when death is at the door. It seems your commander is a useless waste~ In that case, let me help release you all. Cleaner No. 2, activate 'Windmill' mode. Cleaners No. 1 and 3, coordinate with the defensive fire net for suppression."
As the words fell, the AI with the hole in its chest stopped in its tracks. Its two arms suddenly leveled out to its sides, and the armor at the wrists flipped open, revealing two high-speed rotating monomolecular cutting blades.
Then, its upper body began to spin violently like a top.
VROOOOM—!!!
It turned into a whirlwind of death, charging straight at the Helios line. Wherever it passed—be it cover, firearms, or human bodies—everything was sliced into fragments.
There was no stopping it! Conventional kinetic rounds simply ricocheted off its frame, and las-beams only managed to heat its casing to a dull red. Unless a melta bomb or a plasma bolt hit its core directly, there was no stopping this runaway slaughter program.
But of the only two plasma cannons remaining in Zeman's hands, one had just been smashed, and the other gunner had lost his nerve, shivering in a corner.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Furthermore, the starship's internal defense systems were picking them off with precision! The other two AIs even picked up the fallen bolters to use against them!
"Zeman! Think of something!" Saul was still howling. "That's an ancient tactical maneuver! Have your men trap it!"
Trap it? With what?! Why don't you come down here and try trapping it yourself!
Zeman looked at the whirlwind turning his elite men into minced meat, then listened to the absurd orders in his ear. The string of his sanity finally snapped.
"Go to hell!" Zeman ripped the tactical headset from his helmet and slammed it into the ground. "SHUT UP!!"
He stomped on it, turning the expensive communicator into a pile of plastic shards. The world was finally quiet. Without those high-and-mighty people barking orders, Zeman's professional instincts instantly returned.
He glanced at the tactical situation. It was unwinnable. This wasn't a battle; it was pure suicide. Although those three AIs were heavily damaged and their shield generators were offline, their mechanical strength and reaction speeds completely outclassed mortals. Combined with the sadistic Machine Spirit directing them from a god-like perspective, staying here served no purpose other than providing entertainment for the AI.
"All personnel, listen to my command!" Zeman's voice was hoarse but filled with resolve. "Alternating cover! Retreat! Throw every smoke grenade and stun grenade we have! Forget the equipment! Just get the men out!"
The remaining twenty-odd team members felt like they had received a divine reprieve. They had wanted to run long ago, held back only by harsh military law. Now that their commander had spoken, they didn't hesitate.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
Dozens of smoke and stun grenades were hurled forward. The corridor was instantly filled with thick white smoke and blinding flashes. While this wouldn't stop the AIs' sensors, it could at least interfere with the Machine Spirit's visual capture.
"Retreat! Move!" Zeman fired blindly into the smoke while dragging the petrified plasma gunner backward. The team scrambled toward the elevator shaft in total disarray.
Behind them came the ear-piercing sound of cutting blades scraping against the walls, accompanied by the Machine Spirit's arrogant laughter.
"Running away? Just like that? How boring, I haven't had enough fun yet~ Remember to bring some more durable toys next time, okay? Otherwise, I'll be so bored~ Run a little slower, Cleaner No. 2 isn't full yet~"
The humiliating words whipped against the backs of every survivor like a lash. But no one dared to look back. Even a hard-boiled man like Zeman had only one thought: Get as far away from this place as possible! Get as far away from that crazy btch machine spirit as possible!*
Half an hour later. Outer perimeter of Sector 9 Forbidden Zone, Temporary Command Center.
"Hiss... gentler!" Zeman sat on a field cot, letting a medic bandage a wound on his arm.
"So sorry! So sorry!" The medic's face was pale. Zeman's expression was dark enough to drip ink. The headset he had crushed earlier was left in the tunnels, and a new terminal sat before him.
On the screen, Saul's face had turned the color of a bloated liver as he roared, "Zeman! You dared to cut off communications! You dared to desert the field! Do you have any idea what you abandoned?! That was a priceless treasure!"
Zeman looked at the screen calmly, his eyes devoid of emotion. "Chairman," Zeman interrupted Saul's rant. "My unit suffered over seventy percent casualties. All seven heavy plasma cannons are destroyed, and all heavy weapon ammunition is depleted. The defense systems of Sector D have been fully activated; those three AIs were just the appetizer."
Zeman began to lie, his face perfectly composed. "Our sensors detected even higher-level energy signatures. If we didn't retreat, the Machine Spirit would have triggered a self-destruct sequence, blowing the entire ship and us to high heaven. To preserve the Group's assets, I had no choice but to choose a tactical pivot."
Hearing about a self-destruct sequence made Saul shut his mouth. He was greedy, but he was also afraid of losing everything. If the ship blew up, there would truly be nothing left.
"Then... what now?" Jessia, who had been silent, asked coldly. "Do you plan to just wait here?"
"No." Zeman shook his head. "Conventional troops can't break in. The Machine Spirit has extremely high processing power and a... highly malicious personality. Against such an enemy, human wave tactics are useless."
Zeman paused to offer his professional suggestion. "We need more specialized heavy firepower. Or... a higher-level Electronic Warfare expert. Until then, I suggest sealing all entrances and exits. Fence it off and let it play with itself."
His words sounded professional, but in his heart, Zeman was thinking: Anyone who wants this job can have it, because I'm done! Whoever can subdue that crazy machine spirit, I'll call them 'Father'!