Space Odyssey: Spectre-Chapter 472: Quick Draw

"Jace and Asher, I am sending you the location of the original room where the records were being held. It looks like they were already grabbed by someone. See if you can pick up a trail. I will stay and coordinate with Nulltone. K and Bella will be heading to the only hangar this ship has." Ulin ordered as she sent the coordinates.

The others were able to easily take the bridge while Asher and Jace guarded the elevators. He then could see and hear as Ulin interrogated the traitorous captain of the ship before killing him. Fortunately it appeared that only K had slight qualms about their actions so far. But that could be trained out with time and he was sure a few years of service under Ulin would do that.

"Understood." Jace answered as he pulled up the map of the ship on his HUD and picked the quickest route to the room she designated. He then walked up and joined Asher in the elevator. Putting the assault rifle on his back. He picked up the body that was blocking the elevator from closing and tossed it out into the hall. It then closed and he frowned before looking at the buttons and seeing that there were none pressed as the elevator began descending. "Can you check the other end of the elevator? We started moving before we pressed any buttons." Jace informed the others.

"Give me a moment Colonel." Nulltone answered. Then a moment later the side panel where you would pick the floor showed footage of an elevator. It had ten people in basic infantry armor with their weapons pointed at the door. "It appears you have enemies at your destination floor, would you like me to stop you a floor early?"

Jace and Asher exchanged a look, he started getting his hand axes ready immediately but Jace just shook his head. "No need. We will take them." Jace answered before he moved to the center and positioned his body like he was going to draw a sword. Which appeared a moment later. It was a katana this time that appeared. He held the blade with one hand while the other one held the hilt like his hand holding the blade was the sheath of the weapon. "Let me try something."

He could feel as the counter clicked over to the next floor as his body began heating up. But he focused on the feeling and a moment later his muscles started heating up. The katana began glowing white with small sparks of electricity. While his feet slightly hovered off the ground almost to an almost unnoticeable degree.

Jace could just barely see out of the corner of his eye as Asher took a step back and into the back corner of the elevator as it dinged as it arrived at the next floor. The doors began opening up and Jace tilted forward.

It happened in a moment. One second he was in the elevator the next he was on the other side of the ten enemies that were wearing old infantry armor. They were the standard stuff so not even of the commandos he was hoping to find.

Jace stood up straight and took a breath as Asher peaked his head out of the elevator. The enemies were frozen standing up. Time was still catching up with them. He then processed the memory of what he just did. He had to slow it down afterwards to even remember.

He drew his sword quickly using an ancient Japanese technique called Iaijutsu. He had learned it recently but clearly had not perfected it. Mostly because he needed a sheath to do it correctly but he was just using his other hand as the sheath.

After drawing his sword he shot forward by jumping off the toes of his boot that touched the ground and used the electromagnetic relationship between his armor and the ship to hold himself up off the floor. Which made him weightless and able to move with a full three hundred and sixty degrees of movement.

Which allowed him to spin and swing his sword through his enemies with various techniques and without slowing down or stopping. Fortunately the katana version of his sword was as sharp as it needed to be to cut through most metals.

Jace took a breath as he bowed slightly and then time caught up to the bodies and the hall. It started at the front as cuts appeared on the walls before the enemies at the front started falling apart before spraying blood on the walls, ceiling and floor. Then it continued until the blood began pooling up and spreading across the ground. Jace’s legs were covered in a splash of blood as a torso fell to the ground in the growing puddle.

"What was that..." Nulltone asked over the camera feed. "Seriously, the camera feeds in that hall are now down and Jace moved so fast that my processor could not keep up."

Asher scoffed. "Your processor? I saw it and I could not tell you what happened."

Jace rolled his eyes as he dematerialized his sword and turned to continue walking down the hall. "Come on, we have a task to do." He remedied Asher as he walked down the hall that was still illuminated by the red light.

But as he started reaching up for his weapon he stopped and groaned in pain. Reaching the hand he used as a sheath over to his other arm. He could not feel it through the armor but could feel his arm was broken in a few places. He had a long way to go before he managed to perfect that technique.

As he was thinking this they rounded a corner and stopped in their tracks when they arrived at the next area where a number of corpses were on the ground or resting against walls. Jace frowned as he looked with his electrical vision. There were small spots of electricity on the bodies.

"What happened here?" Asher asked just openly then spoke over the channel. "Nulltone, roll back the footage of the hall we are in now. Can you see what happened?"

"Nope. The last footage of your location was of people moving down it and then the camera cut out. Nothing. What do you see?" Nulltone asked.

Jace gripped his hand open and closed as he could feel the stiffness from breaking bones leaving it. He reached back to the back of his hip and drew his magnum revolver. Aiming at one of the electrical spots on the body and firing.

There was an explosion of some red blood, bones and organs as it tore through the body. But there was also a mechanical scratch of metal as a circular metal thing with several legs crashed against the wall. There was a giant hole in it.

"A metal spider?" Asher asked. But Jace frowned as he noticed something else as the electricity from the broken mechanical creature disappeared. The other bodies started being filled with electricity. They shook and spasmed before they started moving shakily. Some of the bodies even managed to pull themselves up.

"No... that is not terrifying in the slightest." Jace spoke over the communication channel as he quickly shared what they were seeing with the others.

"Oh... dear. It appears some rather nasty Rogue Metal Legion black market technology has managed to make it aboard the ship. This is rather dangerous. But there is some good news, I do know how to subdue these." Nulltone announced with a mix between... actually it was still too emotionless.

"Do tell," Asher requested as he started firing at one of the closest ones. It took the burst of laser fire and fell back slightly before pulling itself up. "Because I do not want to get close to these things."

"Yeah, you should not get close to them. The metal spiders will just latch onto you and turn you into its host if it can. Which usually entails it sticking a sharp needle right into your brain. Which is one of the ways to take it down." Nulltone began explaining as Jace raised the revolver and fired, blowing one of the heads off.

But they watched as the spider jumped off the headless man and ran toward him. Asher quickly fired it and destroyed the metal spider. "Although you do have to be careful because that will not destroy the metal spider, only the host. I would suggest locating and destroying the spiders first. But there should be a mobile command module that is controlling them."

"Meaning they are not just an anomaly but someone is controlling them?" Jace asked as he fired for the initial electrical spots. He remembered where they were. Asher was double tapping the kills, destroying the bodies so they could not be used again.

"Affirmative." Nulltone answered.

"Ulin, did you hear that?" Jace asked.

"I did, I will look for a third party. Bella and K, be careful we have a third playing in the field." Ulin turned around and clarified for the other small team.