Space Odyssey: Spectre-Chapter 473: Following the Scent of Death

Jace grunted as he flicked open his revolver and shook it so the shells would fall out of the chamber. Then he began replacing the shells with new bullets. "That is all of them." Asher confirmed as he finished checking the last one they killed. "Should we look for the operator for these things?"

"No." Jace shook his head. "We need to focus on our objective. Follow me. We are heading to the site that the records were originally being held at." Jace told him before walking down the hall and flicking his revolver closed before holstering it. He then pulled out his Wildfire assault rifle and led the way down the hall and through a few twists and turns before they arrived at a pair of unguarded double doors. "Nulltone, we arrived on site."

"Good. I finished my analysis of the footage and have determined it is useless. Most of it was hacked and corrupted. There is nothing I can do on my end. You will have to look for something else." Nulltone informed them.

Jace grunted as he looked at the door panel and found it was already unlocked. He opened the door and they found two bodies just inside. One had their neck snapped, the other was stabbed through the throat.

Asher looked around the room quickly before crouching near one of the bodies and sniffing the air. "I am not picking up anything aside from some human alcohol but it is faint." Asher informed him.

Jace took a breath and closed his eyes before opening them again. When he opened them he used his electrical vision to look over the bodies. "Nothing was left on them. Nor was anything taken away. But this is clearly a third party but I would say they died just before we arrived with our ship."

"So the third party was in the midst of their operation when we interrupted their possible escape?" Asher asked as he flinched and looked at the door. "Ah... I got a scent. It smells like... death?"

"Death?" Jace asked.

"Yeah, it is the scent a person gives off when they are close to dying. But no I do not mean the scent of blood but of decaying organs." Asher clarified as he stood up and looked at Jace. "Should we follow it?"

Jace nodded his head. "Lead the way."

Asher nodded in turn and then moved to the doorway and looked both ways before moving into the hall. Jace followed behind him until they arrived at an intersection. Where he looked at all three of the other paths in confusion.

"Something wrong?" Jace asked, his sense of smell was strong but he had not trained enough with it to track by scent. An oversight he should amend in the future.

"Yes and no. The scent is heavier in this area and overlaps. Almost as if they went through this area multiple times." Asher informed him and crouched down. "I am going to need a moment to sort this out."

Jace grunted. "Take your time." But a moment later as he took up position at one of the corners he heard a distinctive noise. It sounded like metal skittering. He looked down the halls but could not see anything. Then he heard creaking and looked up to see a metal vent above them. Whatever it is must be in the air ducts.

He blinked again and was looking at the electrical outline of several round spider-like objects. It was more of those robotic spiders. He raised his gun and fired into the vent. Destroying the vent but also taking out a few of the spiders.

He noticed Asher blink in surprise as a destroyed one fell in front of him. Then he cursed in a Victorium dialect. "The left way is where they came from. They came and then went back that way but doubled back. They then went right but then he came back alone to go straight down the hall."

"They?" Jace asked as he picked off a few more of the electronic spider bots.

"Yes. Originally there were three of them. But one of them got left behind when they doubled back. Finally the last two went with the third one to the right before he double backed again alone. Which way should we take?" Asher asked as he started firing up into the air duct as well.

"We are going to the right." Jace informed him before switching to the communication channel. "K and Bella, you have one of the members of the third party group coming your way." Jace informed them.

K and Bella should have taken a shortcut to the rear of the ship where the hangar was located. That was also where that other divergence in the hall led in general. But why did the third party group move so strangely? Unless they lost their guide and did not know the exact direction to move to.

That must have been what happened. But then how did they get these spider bots under their control? "Enemies to the front!" Asher called out as they turned a corner to find soldiers in Kamot Commando armor.

Jace cursed under his breath before he elbowed a door panel and dived to the side with Asher diving in after him into a door that opened up right before a hail of bullets began peppering the hallway they were running down and taking down a few of the mechanical spiders that were chasing them.

Jace moved to the door and smashed his foot down on a mechanical spider after it made its way past the hail of bullets and into the room. The rest of them had been killed by the Kamot Commandos.

Jace was actually hoping to run into them. As they were traitors from his own system he was ashamed of them. Especially since he was once going to join their ranks. They originally thought they died or disappeared. But now they knew that the Kamot Commandos had turned traitor and joined the first prince in rebellion. But then they abandoned him when Jace captured the prince and killed their commanding officer in the New Republic.

Jace positioned himself by the doorway and glanced into the hall. Quickly withdrawing his head as a bullet ricocheted off the door frame and barely missed his head. "You are definitely the Kamot Commandos."

"Yeah, and you are that Spectre that they made to replace commandos like us. You know there was a bunch of talk about which was better since the military started sending all our new recruits or possible recruits to get trained up as Spectres. Should we see who is better?" One of them responded with what he could only guess was a sneer. He could not see his face but he could just tell.

Jace looked over at Asher. "Are you okay with staying back and covering my rear?"

Asher nodded in response. "I will but... are you sure about... killing them?" Asher asked and with good reason. While they sounded confident. These Kamot Commandos sounded more exasperated than anything.

"Commandos like them have pride in their work. Unfortunately it sounds like they were tricked into joining the first prince’s side and stayed loyal after their commander’s death simply because that was the only way for them to survive." Jace explained with a sigh. He had seen reports of several similar occurrences throughout the intergalactic war. Entire ships of the Vexical Military that were considered traitors would break through enemy lines fighting to the last man to give their former comrades a better chance. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

It was like a sort of swan song for these soldiers that Vexical could no longer trust and normally would have been imprisoned if they had been captured. Instead they chose to die in battle and the most honorable way they could.

But it sounded like these Commandos did not believe they would get the same opportunity so they instead wanted to die in battle. Back in Kamot there was an old tradition of dying in battle because the belief was that dying while doing your task such as battle would grant you the highest honors in the afterlife. In a way it was similar to the Norse Mythology of Ancient Earth.

Jace would grant them their final battle and subsequent desire for death. He activated his armor’s stealth mode and moved out into the hall. Invisible. It took them only a moment before they were shooting at him again. But he was already halfway down the hall. So he just let his armor’s shielding tank the bullets as he returned fired.

Commandos were typically sent into emergency situations. As such they were used to a variety of situations. But most notably they would deal with rebellions and insurrections where their own weapons were used. So they were used to the high powered weapons and had a way of avoiding fatal damage from such an attack.

As such it was no surprise when he saw a slanted metal shield appear that caused the bullets to ricochet further down the hall past the commandos.

But just as they had ways to stop his bullets from reaching them. He knew this method could give himself enough covering fire to close the distance and enter hand-to-hand combat. Where he could begin taking them down one by one.