Its Good To Have Friends

"I recommend distracting them." The Mutant's numbers weren't insurmountable, no more than thirty of them. Odds Xanthiana herself had fought off in the war, though during those times she had better equipment and ground than she currently occupied.

"With what? A strip show?"

"Mutants are largely male you have a large bust it might actually work." Elly had a computer's mind on things.

"I'm not taking my top off!" Xanthiana was not normally a modest person, but the idea of surviving by showing her breasts seemed insulting in so many ways, she'd rather die. The other operative apparently decided discretion was the better part of valor and laid down his arm. Xanthiana felt a bit of superiority, Votan's generally never surrendered to humans even when it was certain death otherwise, and today would be no different for her, better to die on her feet than to live on her knees. Xanthiana stood on as the mutants aimed their rifles.

"Put weapon down." The one standing out front with a pistol that looked like it had seen better decades ordered one final time.

"Go fuck yourself." She punctuated her statement by spitting and pulling up her pistol. The shot hit the mutant in the chest, the rest of his squad turned to fire and then they were enveloped in fire. Xanthiana had not heard the mortar shot fired by Max until a second later, but she saw its devastating result. The sniper siblings finished off the mutants not killed in the blast. Xanthiana had a smile on her face even though she'd written off the group she had arrived with as dead.

"Nice to see you Roeyka." Max was the first to congratulate her, the sniper's looked after the operative, she wanted to pretend it wasn't racism, but she knew deep down votans will always look after votans and humans after humans.

"Got here a bit late didn't you Max?"

"Actually Xan he arrived precisely when he told me he would." Elly still did not understand the basic nature of ribbing.

"You know what they say about artillery, we aren't the first to arrive but we'll be the first you'll hear."

"I have literally never heard that before." The big sensoth put one of his massive arms over her head and drug her back to the rest of the group. She was happy things had worked out for everyone so far, but she knew the nature of conflict, everyone could be dead tomorrow.

"Glad you can join us Roeyka we have to plan." The operative who's name turned out be Tyrone Lewis, was already arranging the supplies the Ryan's had managed to scrounge up since the last conflict.

"For what?" Xanthiana did not like Lewis, he was too much about the objective and not enough about the people from what little she'd seen of his management style.

"To rescue Mr. Von Bach."

"Oh right that I forgot who is he again?"

Hellbug Matricide

"There are no identifiable weak points or stress fractures in her hide, simply put I don't think we have the fire power to even give her a bad rash let alone kill the creature."

"Elly you are full of delightful helpful information."

"The scent from the hellbug shit is also wearing off Xan, she's about to see us."

"Shit." Xanthiana knew that when it rained it poured, but it seemed like the shower she was in never relented. The operative apparently also recieved the same bad news as he charged forward firing with his rifle. Shocking to Xanthiana none of the other hellbugs seemed to have become aware of their precense immeadiately, she didn't hear a rumble of the adults and other nasties coming to aid their matriarch, it was just the defeaning shriek of the beast as the rifle slugs made an impact but no identifiable mark on its hard hide. Xanthiana not willing to be the only person fighting futilely opened fire herslef, she dropped an entire magazine into what appeared to be the "head" of the creature with no actual effect.

"I told you Xan you can not harm the creature with your weapons." Xanthiana dodged the matriarch as it came charging forward on one of its hundreds of legs, it was like a huge wrecking ball with teeth. She figured as long as the rest of the nest did not come to aid the creature her and the other operative might be able to at least avoid it to escape. That thought died when a blast of electricity emitted from the hide and shocked the crap out of her.

"Did not warn me about static electricity powers." Xanthiana felt all of her muscles spasming and her head hurt, it did not surprise her that Elly seemed also equally taken offline. Xanthiana saw things happening in a slideshow, she almost missed that the operative had managed to avoid getting zapped and exited before the matriarch slammed after him causing the cave above them to shake with her impact.

"Sorry Xan was not aware it had electricity powers, I'll update my files accordingly, the other operative said thank you before he left."

"Yeah I'm so glad I saved his ass for him to leave me behind." The Matriarch appeared stuck in the exit for the time being, which was a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it meant it wasn't trying to actively eat her, a curse because the creature was freaking out causing big arcing currents of electricity to smash around the room and potentially bring down the whole cave structure on top of Xanthiana.

"Xanthiana the structural integrity of this cave has been severely damaged by the matriarch, if she keeps at her current..."

"I got it I got it I'll be crushed." Xanthiana knew she was running out of time, she also didn't have a way of killing the creature with her pistol directly, but she did see some fairly large stalagtites hanging above the beast that would prove lethal if they came down. She fired with her pistol and thankfully between the bullets and the shaking they came crashing down impaling the matriarch and stopping the cave temporarily from collapsing. Unfortunately whatever was preventing the rest of the hive from intervening had come to a halt, Xanthiana could hear behind her a tremendous sound of angry hungry hellbugs looking to kill whatever had just killed their mama. Xanthiana scrambled over the fresh corpse of the matriach, she could see a little bit of daylight between the top of the bug and the cave. The creature smelled horrible, its blood a sticky ooze that clinged to her, as she slipped down to her exit the matriach suddenly sprang to life, its horrific mouth grabbing a hold of her boot. Xanthiana acted fast, firing once again above the creature and bringing a final cavern nail into its body causing the creature to let her go and its screeching death wail to finish the rest of the cave in.

"Yeah fuck you too." She said as she slipped out of the cave and into the daylight beyond. Unfortunately the mutants had also apparently known about this exit as she could see the operative had already been recaptured and their guns turned to her as she emerged.

"Xanthiana I believe they want us to surrender."

"Well ain't that kind of them."

Hellacious Bugs

"Why aren't they attacking?" Xanthiana was covered in Hellbug shit, the smell was so awful she could hardly breathe. The hellbugs which were all over had not attacked her or the other operative yet.

"They are smell hunters Xan, you smell like their excrement they do not see you."

"Well great now I feel better for smelling like shit." The operative got up and started to walk forward very slowly.

"He's not going to talk for fear of alerting the bugs, but he suggest we move forward at a rapid pace." Xanthiana herself got to her feet and followed his lead, though she still wasn't exactly trusting the shit scent mask.

"Well I'm certainly all broken up by the lack of company." The bugs seemed mildly content to just mull about in their caves. In a way it was interesting to just watch the monsters in their native enviroment and not lunging for her neck, Xanthiana could almost forget the creatures sucked the bone marrow from peoples bodies, almost. They continued past the smaller drones and started to be near the larger adults, Xanthiana hoped they wouldn't wake up and notice she was there, because it would be all over, but the sickening sound of her entrails being eaten.

"Keep going this way, the maps say there should be a secondary exit around here." Xanthiana was glad Elly said something she was beginning to wonder if they were just going deeper into hellbug land for nothing. The operative had already skipped ahead of her, she figured he was leaving her behind it seemed to be in his dickish nature.

"I really hope he's not leaving us behind Elly."

"Officially he's scouting ahead for trouble."

"Unofficially?"

"He's totally leaving us behind." Xanthiana picked up her pace even if it meant upsetting the bugs, she didn't know how long the shit mask would work on her and didn't want the operative up ahead to some how piss off the bugs and get her eaten. She was moving so fast she didn't realize he was standing right in front of her until she bumped into him. She was about to curse him out for just standing there like an idiot when she looked up and saw a hellbug matriarch, or what she could assume was a hellbug matriarch since she'd never actually seen one before.

"That's a hellbug matriarch."

"Correct Xan."

"And its standing in the way to the exit of this cave."

"Correct Xan."

"We are completely fucked aren't we?"

"Correct Xan."

"I hate being right."

Out of the Frying Pan

"Get him up." Xanthiana had used the bodies and a stretcher to create a makeshift barricade, there were already two new dead to add to it and she knew there would be more.

"Xan he was just undergoing adrenaline removal, combat efficiency will be well below fifty percent."

"That's fifty more percent than I've got right now." Xanthiana pulled a rifle from one of the dead mutants, she meant to set it next to her but a hand grabbed it. She turned around to see the operative, he was still in a medical night gown, but looked no worse for wear outside of that.

"Operator Roeyka thank you for coming, I hope you have a better exit strategy than you did an entrance one." He was one of Von Bach's personal security, she could tell from the bar code on his arm.

"Figure they can't keep coming, eventually they'll run out of men." She had to admit it was not a very good strategy.

"Fantastic, the kind of plan I expect from someone being paid to shoot not to think, one moment." His voice was pretty gruff, most likely from smoking and not just having been taken off adrenaline stealing machines. Hair was black, going grey, decent shape though she could tell the muscle tone was fading, age was catching up like with his hair.

"I don't think this operative likes us very much Xan."

"Oh what gave you that impression?"

"His ego unit keeps using derogatory terms to refer to us."

"You know in another place that would be hilarious to hear." More mutants were coming, Xanthiana could hear the clank of heavy weaponry coming with them, it was what she feared.

"There is a hallway past this one, listed as closed off due to a Hellbug infestation, we can go that way." The other operative stole some clothes from a corpse, they didn't fit, but Xanthiana couldn't really comment on not looking regulation.

"Sure lets go from guys with guns to creatures that suck the marrow from your broken bones."

"Do you have a better idea?" The clank of a high explosive device ended the conversation, Xanthiana and the operative lept over her makeshift barricade and ran away from the mutants, their gunfire came zipping on by before the explosion let up the world behind them. The mutants seemed genuinely surprised about them running, or at least it seemed that way with how wildly inaccurate their gun fire was. The other operative was leading Xanthiana though Elly had also given her a map to their location in case he tried to leave her behind. They broke through a barrier into an area with quarentine written in an unsteady hand, and then the metal underneath their feet gave way. Xanthian landed right in hellbug shit, the other operative crashed into a cluster of eggs.

"Well I'm so glad we went this way." Xanthiana pulled herself up looked around saw they were in the middle of what appeared to be hundreds of hellbugs.

"Xan I think we were better off with the mutants." Elly piped up her ai voice almost sounding afraid.

"Don't worry Elly, I'm sure they don't eat AI's."

Alone But Not Out

"Put your weapons down." There were four of them, they looked less armed and armored than the mutants outside, but lesser weapons were no less deadly. Xanthiana reached down to where her pistol was on her hip, they had gotten to her so fast she didn't even have time to draw it to the ready position.

"How's my adrenaline Elly?"

"You are in the safe zone as far as usage, if you are wanting to use a burst your health would not be in any danger."

"Excellent."

"WEAPONS DOWN NOW!" The mutant snarled and Xanthiana removed the pistol and in one swift motion tossed it and dove after it just as the adrenaline hit. The mutants were caught off guard from her sudden position change, they didn't even bring their rifles around by the time she put them down. The last one alive managed one errant shot as he died. Xanthiana felt the adrenaline pulsing some more, but it abated as Elly brought her back to normal levels.

"Well I'm so glad I didn't dump that extra pistol ammunition earlier." The bunker was dark, but the EGO overlays made it manageable. Xanthiana was able to see her way forward, and see no one else was coming.

"It would be unwise to leave ammunition lying around Xan." Elly still hadn't gotten a hang of rhetorical statements and that brought a smile to Xanthiana's face. It was like dealing with a really smart child that was somehow stuck in her head and didn't understand people.

"Do we have a map of this bunker available Elly?"

"One second let me try and access the internal servers, yes I do have an overlay, crosschecking with recent power usage finds the most likely room location for our operative here." Xanthiana got a mental image of a room deeper into the bunker.

"Its weird to have an internal gps system Elly."

"I don't find it at all strange, I have several internal diagnostics I'm constantly evaluating." Xanthiana started making her way down the corridor, Elly highlighted areas she considered to be more dangerous than others. Xanthiana went as stealthy as she could, and it appeared successful. Either the mutants were still too engaged with the forces outside the bunker, or this group wasn't as large as their presense outside hinted at.

Xanthiana came upon the room with the operative. It looked like some kind of lab, there were discarded drained bodies near the front of the room and a bunch of tables with drips set up. On one of the tables was the operative. He wasn't Von Bach, but she wasn't going to allow him to die like the rest of the drained corpses like an animal. There was only one other occupant in the room, a huge bioman dressed in a scientists overcoat, the coat was way too small for the Bioman but that apparently didn't bother him. She was however completely confused by what he was doing.

"Producing a drug based on Adrenaline that was developed during the war, in the war they used criminals to produce it, the draining is fatal." Elly answered before Xanthiana could even articulate the question.

"Monstrous."

"It was war is the justification VBI lists in the books, I'll admit it does look fairly horrible when seen like this." Xanthiana didn't know how this wouldn't look horrible when seen some other way, but she didn't want to get into an argument in her own head. On top of that the blueman scientist had spotted her and snatched up the operative.

"Come any closer and this one dies, drop your pistol."

"Yeah that's not fucking happening, put him down and maybe I'll let you live." The creature sneered.

"Your pistol can't even attempt to penetrate my ski..." Xanthiana shot him through the eyes and his big hulk of a body collapsed to the lab floor. The operative was still out, but he was at least safe.

"Xan I hate to be the bearer of bad news."

"But the shots seemingly alerted the base to our presence."

"Correct."

"Swell."

Good Plan, Great Plan

The explosions started rapid fire as Max and Xanthiana charged the bunker. Some of them were from Max's grenade launcher, most of them were the mutants. Xanthiana didn't recall seeing mortars from when they did a quick scouting of the area, but obviously the mutants had some. Elly was tracking trajectory and showing Xanthiana the safe places to run, but she was moving at a high speed and trying to course correct in the midst of gun fire and mortars striking was a little bit harder than just avoiding the very widening circle of doom. Xanthiana slammed into a piece of burned out cover and took a mintue to catch her bearings. Max was well behind her crouched down near a burnt out car, he motioned her forward.

"He has a leg injury his EGO unit informed me he will not be able to make the final push on the bunker."

"Well that's just great, he does realize the point was to at least get two people inside correct?"

"Correct. Xan I'm beginning to suspect the planning for this operation lacked in some aspects."

"You don't say, how are the twins doing?"

"Kill counts are high, ammo counts are running low, their egos are informing me in that we have to 'shit or get off the pot' to borrow a nice earth saying."

"So how much of a chance do we stand, be blunt I can take it."

"We have a 15% chance of making the bunker door, and if I'm being generous a 2% chance of making it out alive."

"I lied I can't take it, tell me we'll make it Elly." Xanthiana shouldered her rifle, she hadn't fired a shot so the magazine was full, but she knew that too would not last.

"We will be 100% successful Xan, so successful the enemies will just give up in the face of our success."

"You are not very good at this lying thing Elly."

"I hope to get better Xan."

"Don't worry you will." And with that Xanthiana pushed herself off the burnt out wall and rushed forward. The first mutant she came across she hit with the butt of her rifle stunning him long enough to spin him around and use him as a human shield from some of the incoming fire. The mutant spun in place as his comrades lit him up, Xanthiana returned fire and kept running. One of the deadly circles came too close to her, the ground erupted to Xanthiana's right and knocked her down.

Her vision was swimming, ears were ringing, and she felt what had to have been a pretty ugly injury to her right leg. She struggled to get back to her feet, in front of her no more than a hundred feet was the bunker, its large blast doors which would be impossible to blow open save some serious ordinance were closing. She gritted her teeth and charged forward, she hadn't come this close to get held back now. She felt the rush of adrenaline, each footfall caused her pain but she grit her teeth past it. The final two mutants between her and the closing doors recieved the rest of her rifles magazine and then the rifle as she threw it aside to not slow her down. Just as the doors were about to close she dove forward and came made it inside, the the loud clang of metal a punctuation mark on her victory.

"What was that Elly?" Despite not having to actually hear the EGO device, the ringing prevented her from focussing on it.

"I said we'll probably need that rifle."

"Right." Xanthiana looked on, the bunker looked pretty deep, there wasn't anyone there to greet her yet, but she knew they would be along shortly.

"Chance for success just went up half a percet Xan!"

"You're such an optimist Elly."

Best Laid Plans of Mice and Bunkers

"Well it's nice of you to join us today Roeyka did you get lost?" The leader of the band of three was a Sensoth, fairly large lumbering one too, Xanthiana could see what looked like a not particularly well dressed wound on his right shoulder. He was also missing most of the hair on his face, it looked like it got scorched off. The other two with him were human, one male, one female, they looked like brother and sister but Xanthiana was always terrible telling humans apart.

"Your directions are shit." It was partly a joke, but the bunker was in a fairly remote area and Xanthiana did have to take some weird paths to get there, Elly was quite proud of her AI self for getting them there without conflict.

"Bitch bitch bitch, its like being back in the Votanis Collective." Xanthiana smiled, most former VC soldiers did not talk very kindly of their former service, that was something the humans definately had going for them, they were at least proud of defending their home. The Votan's felt a bit of shame at destroying earth, and anger at how humans had treated them, but never pride for what they had done. Well outside of Casti's but they were assholes of the highest order.

"What's the situation?" Roeyka wanted to focus on the task at hand, she could tell from the glaze eyed look of the humans they were in conversation with their own EGO units, she hadn't been around many Ark Hunters since land fall, but what she'd seen they all would stand their in a stupor when deep in EGO converstaion, it was almost comical.

"We have a signal, possibly Von Bach, possibly something other VIP, its coming from inside. Mutants are swarming the entire complex, though there appears to possibly be some hellbugs inside, my EGO picked up some of their stink earlier, could have been a former nest of the fuckers or slowly becoming a new one. Can't be too sure until we get inside." Xanthiana could see the entrance, it looked fairly well guarded, the mutants for whatever brain ailment they had that made them still think the war was on, were still well disciplined. The entrance had two guard towers with what appeared to be a sniper and spotter in each one. Sand bagged entrance fortifictions with heavy weapons back up, and at least one blue man stomping around for extra shit and giggles.

"So what's the plan?"

"Kill everyone, collect the vip, get out."

"Sounds great how do you expect to accomplish any of that?"

"I figured with the four of us being ultimate bad asses we could have it done in time for lunch."

"Are all Sensoths entirely insane, or are you just from the same family as every other one of your race I've ever worked with?"

"Nah we're all crazy."

"Well at least that makes me feel better."

"The Ryan's here can provide cover support, she's nasty with a sniper rifle, he's a decent spotter, I figure you and I charge up the middle, I've got a couple rounds in a grenade launcher I borrowed from an Erep soldier here. Figure we can blitz hit them so fast they won't have time to realize our numbers don't resemble our moxxy."

"And what makes you think I like to charge anything?"

"Your charming wit, and your EGO device." Xanthiana wondered what else Elly said to other EGO devices she wasn't aware of.

"Are we going to talk all day or are we going to shoot somebody." The male Ryan was overly eager, but Xanthiana appreciated the sentiment.

"Lets do this before I get a brain and figure out this is a really bad plan." Xanthiana already knew it was a bad plan, but levity always helped in the face of futility. The sensoth who went by Max according to Elly piping up very briefly checked his weapons and motioned Xanthiana forward, and into the breach they went.