A flicker of something akin to post-traumatic stress crossed Lia's face. "It's... vast, chaotic, filled with hunger and... a desire to transform. It's not pure intelligence, more like an... instinct-driven force, but its adaptation and learning rates are extremely high. It perceives everything through the outpost's network and that energy signature. I believe... it likely *is* the 'crystal' itself, or an extension of its... sensory apparatus!"
The crystal itself possessed consciousness? A cosmic pathogen with network intrusion and control capabilities?
This revelation sent Kael's heart sinking like a stone.
Just then, the turret fire outside suddenly dropped in intensity!
"Power draining too fast! The network sentience is forcing a system shutdown!" Lia said urgently.
The cracking, grinding sounds grew distinct again as the crystalline aggregates began pushing forward tentatively.
"No time!" Kael made the snap decision. "Rex, heavy fire on point! We fall back to the main corridor! We must reach the core lab, fast! Only by finding the source can we end this!"
He glanced back the way they came, then into the deeper darkness leading to the laboratories.
The phantom in the machine was roused, the physical threat was closing in. Every step felt like sinking deeper into a trap.
***
Outside the armory, the auto-turrets' roar became intermittent, like the dying gasps of a giant. The frequency of the energy bolts dropped noticeably, their brightness dimming. The sound of shattering crystals was gradually overtaken by more, denser cracking and grating noises—the creatures were breaking through the failing fire net.
"System failure imminent! Power exhausted! The network sentience has fully regained control!" Lia's voice was sharp, laced with the faint static of system strain.
"Show's over! Fall back! Fall back! Fall back!" Rex bellowed, his freshly reloaded blaster erupting once more. A storm of superheated projectiles instantly vaporized two aggregates trying to breach the doorway, momentarily clearing the entrance.
"Go!" Kael barked, laying down covering fire with precise bursts from his pulse rifle.
Without hesitation, the three filed out through a small maintenance hatch on the other side of the armory. This passage was even narrower, barely wide enough for one person, crammed with thick conduits and damaged lighting. Fortunately, the crystalline growth here seemed temporarily suppressed by the previous defense systems, relatively sparse.
They had only moved a few meters when a violent energy overload explosion and the shriek of twisting metal echoed from behind them—the auto-turrets were finished.
Immediately followed by the terrifying sound of countless sharp objects scraping against metal walls and密集的 cracking sounds flooding into the narrow maintenance conduit. They were coming, and the confined space made the pursuit sound more concentrated, more imminent.
"Goddamn cramped deathtrap!" Rex cursed, stooping and moving as fast as his bulky frame allowed, his heavy armor scraping loudly against the conduit walls.
"Twenty meters ahead, left turn, back to the main corridor!" Lia directed quickly, her sensors working overtime monitoring their surroundings. "Caution, main corridor status unknown!"
Kael covered the rear. He could clearly feel the pursuers closing in, the cold, transformative energy fluctuation almost touching his armor. He spun around, emptying the remaining charge in his pulse rifle magazine in a sustained burst. Blue-white energy beams flared brightly in the narrow space, momentarily halting the pursuers' advance, answered by a frenzy of crystalline shattering and reorganization sounds.
Seizing the chance, he accelerated, following Lia's direction and bursting out of the maintenance conduit with a sharp left turn, back into the nightmarish main corridor. Rex and Lia were already outside, taking cover against the corridor wall.