Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System



Nico quickly equipped the Tech Adept Harness and aimed the cutting torch at the door. The plasma jet cut through the door in a matter of seconds, and then Nico took a handheld weapon out of her Flat Space while the torch moved quickly along the seam between the two halves of the sliding door. 

"The doors will be open in five seconds. Get ready." She instructed as she moved the flexible arms of her suit to the slowly cooling metal. 

The Klem on the other side of the barrier didn't seem to have noticed her interference at first, but now there was enough heat in the room that they couldn't ignore her attempts to breach the exit. The Swarm wasn't sure about what to do about the attack on their territory at first, but a larger pod was starting to open now, and they were making space for the newly hatched Warrior to deal with whatever was coming for them. 

With a ping of metal falling, the last of the cuts was finished, and the arms of Nico's harness pulled the door wide while the Fusion Flamer filled the air in front of them with flames hot enough that the paint on the wall behind them began to peel. 

The sizzle and pop of burning Klem filled the air, and the Warrior shrieked while it leaped at Nico, trying to save the other pods and eliminate the threat before it could be burnt to death. 

Max stepped forward and met it with a kick to the torso that threw it back into the core of the Fusion Flamer's attack, then waited for Nico to finish sweeping the room to eliminate the Swarm bugs. 

"Grab what we can, and let's get out of here. I will burn it all once we have what we need." Nico instructed. 

The Station Boss rushed to a terminal to make his own copies of the data and grabbed a few partially melted handheld devices along the way. They were scattered all over the room, so there was no telling how many of them Nico had totally obliterated, other than the ones that went offline during the attack, but it didn't matter much. 

They had gotten the device that they were after, and it led them to a solid source for where the Klem might have come from. Max moved smoothly through the room, shooting anything that looked like it might still be able to move and then moving on to put additional rounds into the pods so that they couldn't continue to develop. There were dozens of additional damaged devices lying on the ground that he threw into his storage to be analyzed later as well. Just because they didn't turn on or weren't turned on right now didn't mean that the tech wizards of the research and development department couldn't get the data that he needed out of them. 

There was a lot more stored in this room than he had expected, but if they were going to use it as an escape pod, it made sense that they would save as much as they could in the few minutes they had between realizing that the Klem was active and everyone on board dying. 

"I think that's it." He called when he reached the spot where the Station Boss was firing rounds into damaged pods. Nico nodded and moved for the door, with Max and the Valkia close behind her. As soon as they were through, she pulled the door closed and welded a few spots on them so that they wouldn't just slide open again later. 

She was pretty sure that everything in there was dead or would be after she fired the Fusion Flamer at the full output through the remaining hole in the doors, but it was best to avoid any backlash that might damage their suits. 

They had been extensively Combat Tested but not directly against the Fusion Flamers, and this wasn't really the time for it. 

Max noticed that she still did the likely damage calculations in her head, but when she fired the Flamer, it was into a sealed room, which quickly became an inferno that made even the walls of the corridor begin to glow with the heat. 

"Better stop before you breach the windows, and it becomes obvious that the ship is destroyed from the inside." Max reminded her. 

They were still going to give it a fiery funeral after this, and it would be better for the Station if there wasn't footage from dozens of other ships detailing a battle inside the vessel, which they were going to claim had been decommissioned. 

The station boss led the way to the back doors, still on high alert for anything else that might be moving inside the vessel. Max could sense that the man was likely going to have killer insect nightmares in the future, but at least he would have the knowledge that they had been destroyed properly this time and that he wouldn't have another infestation on his Station. 

Max fully intended to look into the source of the first infestation since it wasn't the ship that they were clearing right now and might be more closely tied to the origin of the infestation. It could also be a secondary infestation caused by someone passing by a pod wave in space, as the Station suspected, but it was better to be safe than sorry. 

"Give me fifteen seconds to initiate the disembarking procedure and set the automatic course for the ship. Then I will set security on the controls, and we can leave." Nico informed them as they reached the rear doors, which were currently sealed against the departure of the Klem infestation. 

"Got it. Let's get out of here, and I will double-check the sensors and cameras to make sure that nothing breached the outer hull and got to the Station after this vessel arrived here." She declared with a smile under her helmet for the panic that she was causing the Boss.