Chapter 2

Hannah left Yeshua to continue deeper into the factory complex. Yeshua would be fine on his own. And Amad was in the area if Yeshua got in too deep of uncharted waters.

She came across a clearing, or maybe hangar. There were line drawn on the metal floor with numbers and a hole in the ceiling that was big enough to land a VTOL gunship. Metal walkways surrounded the perimeter of the area.

KA-TOMM, KA-TOMM

Hannah reflexively dropped to the floor, using her feet to create a slipping motion. She would land on her back, but it was better than getting shot. She activated her jet boosters on the way down, transforming the slipping motion into a slide. Hannah slid forward and spied a formation of enemy robots marching up from a ramp in the back left section of the hangar.

They fired again.

Ka-Tomm, Ka-Tomm.

Hannah fed her gun’s magazine into two of them then leapt onto the wall at the back of the hangar, to the robots’ left. She immediately shifted left and leapt off it across the corridor the robots were entering from, reloading as she flew. Hannah shifted right and ran across the wall, her left hand used to help hold her steady while she fired into the mass of robots. There were too many to accurately count but Hannah was facing off with at least thirty of them. She clipped some of them with her automatic rifle before reaching the end of the wall.

Instead of continuing with the wall to the left, Hannah jumped off it, her momentum carrying her forward. She hit the ground, turned, and slid into the wall of a smaller facility within the complex. Hannah was slightly winded but her motions carried through a reload.

The robots turned to face her. She aimed down sights, putting the targeting irons between the eyes of the closest robot. Hannah squeezed the trigger, popping its head off. She immediately shifted to aim at the next one, taking its head too. A third robot and the rifle went dry.

Hannah reloaded and got up. She sprinted towards the formation. Instead of bodying one down, Hannah jumped over their heads, then doubled jumped with her jet booster. She threw her left hand out, revealing a grappling hook, and sent it into the ceiling. The grappling hook pulled her up and over the robot formation.

The angle of impact for the grappling hook and its position relative to Hannah’s body carried her up and to the left, out of sight from the robots. She knew they would turn back to their original orders and march into the hangar. Hannah landed on the upper wall section of the hangar. She didn’t stick to the wall, though.

Hannah fell to the floor, her gear taking the impact of landing. Tough equipment, their gear were. She prepared to fire upon the robots.

The robots rounded the corner as predicted. Hannah put a magazine into the lead robots. She reloaded but they continued to march into the hangar. Hannah poured another magazine into them. They were beginning to fire back at her. She kept the fire up and put magazine number three into them. She was up to eight kills from this endeavor.

Robots marched into the hangar area from the catwalks opposite of her. They began to fire on her from across the room, though their fire was less accurate than the ones she was facing down.

Hannah figured she was in the clear, more or less, until she spied several robots on that far walkway pull out heavy weapons. Namely, a trio of heavy machine guns. The robots put them on the walkway’s wall and prepared to unleash their belt-fed weapons on Hannah. She had to move.

“Over here!”

“Robot scum; blast them!”

“Firing on target!”

“Got one!”

A squad of marines emerged on the left side of the walkway from a hallway. They moved into low cover and started to spray into the robots busily trying to set up their machine guns. The machine gun operators were the first to be shot and taken out.

“Nade out!”

A marine tossed a frag into the clump of robot soldiers. It went off and blew several to pieces.

Hannah was not idle while the marines were fighting, though. She kept up firing and reloading to finish off the formation trying to push their way into the hangar.

There was a pause in the robot attack. In her helmet, Hannah furled one of her eyebrows. What gave?

Hannah got her answer when a large robot rounded the corner. It was clearly a robot; not a mech, and it meant business. A couple squads rounded the corner with it. The large robot fired plasma rounds at Hannah and the marines. The marines ducked into a side hallway to escape it and it turned its attention fully on her.

Hannah swapped weapons. Spirits carried into battle three weapons. A primary, which was generally an anti-personnel weapon, although the lines blurred a bit with grenadier type weapons. A secondary, which was strictly anti-personnel and used as a backup. Most secondary weapons additionally carried tactical gear like night-finders or silencers. And an anti-armor weapon. The anti-armor weapon Hannah employed was a rocket propelled grenade launcher.

She pulled it out and took aim at the large robot. The robot fired at her, its fire inaccurate from the distance it stood, but a stray shot did serious damage to her armor. It was clearly some kind of anti-armor robot but it could be used as an assault spearhead as needed.

The first rocket grenade impacted the large robot and it staggered. She reloaded and put a second grenade into its face. It did not stagger this time. She took another hit and was almost on death’s door when she launched a third shot into it. This time, the robot exploded.

Hannah couldn’t stick around, though, as the squad of robots were also firing on her and she knew that one random shot would end her life. She didn’t know where she would respawn.

Hannah booked it out of the hangar and to the right, around the corner close to her. She used the grapple to help her gain speed.

Hannah landed on a balcony overlooking a large clearing on the outskirts of the complex. She recovered her vitality quickly. Spirits had low vitality counts befit of being human, but their suits rapidly patched up injuries and got them back in the fight. They weren’t invincible, though. The recovery aspect only kicked in when Spirits weren’t getting shot for a few seconds.

She heard a voice yell out.

“Galitilde Saquu!”

Hannah immediately identified a metal man hovering over someone, shooting small energy bolts.

That someone was Yeshua!

Hannah was too far away to try to contact him. But she identified the metal man as a hostile. Hannah leveled her rifle to her eyes and squeezed off a few bursts. She was too far away to do any appreciable damage, though, and her aim was inaccurate too.

“Galitilde Equ...!”

Something impacted the ground where Yeshua was and activated an energy shield. It stood up, revealing it to be an Avatar, a Herald-class. Yeshua’s Herald. A few tense seconds passed and then Herald scooped Yeshua up into it.

Hannah was about to contact Yeshua and urge him to battle when she felt a presence.

Hannah leaped into the air, using her jet booster to make a double jump.

“Saquu! Saquu! Saquu!”

A trio of energy pulses impacted the ground where she was standing. Hannah used her grappling hook to gain some momentum and pull her forward back into the factory complex. She landed, facing the balcony area. A metal man landed at where she was.

“This is Inquisitor Malkan. I’ve encountered and engaged an enemy demon. Requesting back up. Inquisitor Terras will handle the one in the mech.”

“Copy that, Malkan. Inquisitor Torrent is on her way.”

‘Demon?’ thought Hannah.

“You, Demon, your kind will be a blight on the glory of the...”

Hannah did not let the metal man finish his monologue. She put the whole thirty bullets of her rifle magazine into him. It didn’t faze him much.

“So, you chose death. Let us begin.

“Saquu!”

The metal man leveled his right hand and fired a bolt of light towards Hannah. She took the hit but not before chucking an electric smoke grenade at the metal man. It activated, damaging him, and clouding his vision, allowing Hannah to turn around and run back into the complex proper.

Hannah ran all the way back to the balcony where the marines were. They finished off the enemy robots, including a couple larger ones. They turned to see the metal man fly after their comrade.

“Hostile drone!”

“Keep it together! Stay in formation, eyes forward!”

“Engaging drone!”

One of the marines whipped out a missile launcher. As the marine took aim, the metal man noticed and broke off the chase momentarily. The metal man flew up and out of the complex area. Hannah did not stop. She hit the wall below the marines and hoofed herself up and over, hitting the wall behind them. She slid down to the marines.

The squad leader started, “What was that?”

“An advanced enemy soldier,” Hannah replied.

“Looked like something out of a superhero movie,” chimed in one of the lower ranked marines.

“There’s at least three of them running around this neck of the woods. One is engaging Yeshua. He called his Avatar to the field.”

“It’s no matter, Ma’am,” continued the leader. “They come land, air, or sea, and we’ll beat them!”

“Hoorah!” chimed the other three.

“Maybe. We’ll see about that,” came from an unknown speaker.

The five turned to look at the back entrance. A newcomer was casually walking up the ramp. It was a metal man. Or, rather, metal woman, as the voice was feminine. She activated her blaster arm but did not fire at the group.

BOMM

The group looked at the opposite entrance, to the far right of them. Another metal man landed in front of that entrance. This looked to be the one that briefly engaged Hannah.

“Ye Demon know not to give up!”

This one immediately charged his arm blaster and leveled it at the group.

“Galitilde Desilda!”

The group dived into cover.

“You guys take her down. I’ve got a score to settle with this one.”

“Yes, Ma’am, engaging hostile!”

The five departed ways. The marines pulled out their automatic rifles and started firing on the metal woman. She responded with small energy bolts.

“Saquu! Saquu!”

Hannah gunned it for the original metal man.

“You seek to challenge me!? Very well!”

The metal man flew up in the air and peppered the ground with small energy bolts.

“Saquu! Saquu! Saquu!”

He missed of course. Hannah was moving too fast. She leapt onto the entrance opening wall to the right, running across it. She jumped across the gap, dropping another electrical smoke grenade in the metal man’s face.

“Argh! I can’t see!”

The electric part activated.

“Ouch, that hurts!”

Hannah landed on the other side of the opening and kept going. She rounded the corner and jumped off, using her jet boosters to make a double jump onto the roof of a building outside. By the time the smoke dissipated, Hannah was up and into the roof structures and cover.

“Where have thou gone? Art thou hiding from me? I wilt find thou!”

Hannah, behind one of the structures, pulled out a device. It was a Radar Jammer. She pressed the activation button. It send out a small pulse around her, the pulse fading to invisibility but continuing on for a long while.

“My sensors! It’s okay, though! I can now see!”