A small gathering of soldiers stood at attention atop a circular grey platform. Overhead, the countless floors of the Atlas facility loomed with passerbies drifting through offices and labs. Far in the distance, on one corner of the roof, you could see the control tower hanging from the ceiling like a massive inverted needle.
This platform sat at the very bottom of the floor and was a cargo elevator designed for transporting large amounts of personnel or heavy equipment that would otherwise be unable to fit in the confined outhouse elevator Samael and Blisk had entered through.
However, it was only used on occasion as it would disrupt the land above the facility, temporarily disrupting the secretive nature of the facility.
IMC soldiers who idly waited on it couldn't help but feel uneasy as they stood next to a gigantic metal titan, ION, who was currently tapping on the floor with the tip of one massive finger.
While it may have seemed like this elevator was just another random piece of ground, with superconcrete beneath their boots, it was actually completely hollow beneath the surface. Far down below, magenta particle thrusters were burning steadily and would propel the platform upwards smoothly and without any imbalance when activated. They did not use much fuel, instead energizing atoms and molecules ahead, creating a weightless pocket of propulsion for the elevator to glide through.
The AI inside ION appeared to find the echo of his taps calming, continuing in a steady, almost metronomic rhythm. Each tap sent a dull thrum reverberating across the platform and the feet of the nearby soldiers.
Meanwhile, at the centre of the gathering stood Blisk and Samael, the latter with a vein bulging on his small forehead.
"Dammit Albreck, if I say I want the fleet admiral, I'll get the fleet admiral!" he shouted to what amounted to thin air though on his right side, an earpiece rested almost unnoticeably.
"What do you mean? I'm perfectly stable. Yes, I've taken my neuro-suppressants!" The young boy's hand drifted into his pocket and brought out a pill before shoving it into his mouth and swallowing. "If you can't get Graves, then Spyglass should be in the Demeter system. You've seen the ION project and the recordings of the results, so just tell father to pull some strings."
A few soldiers listened in to the conversation unintentionally. They couldn't help it - it wasn't as though they could switch off their ears when they were all so close to Samael.
Unfortunately, when they heard the name 'Spyglass,' they all felt a little uncomfortable. Spyglass was an artificial intelligence on par with Albreck, but without a body designed for combat. Instead, he acted more as a commanding officer for IMC pilots and grunts.
Infact, Spyglass had the formal rank of Vice Admiral, which meant he was on par with Graves in military status.
In each of his campaigns across the Frontier, Spyglass had demonstrated both the upsides and downsides of putting an artificial intelligence in charge of humans.
The positive? This robot had no qualms about being ruthless and possessed a mind capable of handling vast deployments of troops with ease and was probably the single best intelligence gatherer in the IMC to date. He never panicked, never betrayed the IMC like the previous Head Officer James Macallan, who once served directly under Admiral Graves.
Unfortunately, Macallan mutinied and stole the then-flagship of the IMC fleet - the IMS Odyssey, an Andromeda-class supercarrier.
But there were some downsides to having a vice admiral AI. Chief among them was that it was sometimes too ruthless… even for its own troops. In the Battle of Demeter a decade ahead of current time, Marcus Graves ordered an evacuation of IMC troops from the imploding surface of the planet after being defeated by the militia, only to have Spyglass disobey that order and force the fleet above to activate their jumpdrives and retreat into slipspace.
He made the right choice, as the fleet was far more valuable than the lives of soldiers. However, the action led to Marcus Graves defecting from the IMC - a nuance this robot's logic couldn't predict, lacking a moral framework capable of understanding human loyalty.
"Right, thank you Albreck. I'll keep in touch." Samael tapped his earpiece, cutting off the call. He then turned to Blisk with a smug smile. "Your favorite Vice Admiral is coming. Aren't you excited? He's at Airbase Sierra now, so it shouldn't take long for him to get here."
"Hardly. That microwave 'as the personality of a dead fish stuffed in a simulacrum shell." Despite the annoyance in his words, Blisk still maintained a flat face and inhaled deeply on a half-used cigar. The thick smoke drifted lazily up into the stale air. "If 'e's at Airbase Sierra, should only take him five minutes to get here, aye?"
Samael nodded in response.
Airbase Sierra was on one of the four moons of Demeter, in the same star system as the planet they were currently standing on. It was a massive military base, and the largest projection of IMC power in the Frontier. The airbase had a permanent defense fleet rivaling the size of the entire Militia navy. In other words, the airbase was impenetrable and by proximity, so was Demeter itself.
"Ten minutes with a jumpdrive." Samael spoke confidently while signaling to a soldier on the far side of the elevator platform.
The soldier nodded back and fiddled with a console, pressing a series of keys before a camera projected a soft blue light outwards. The light swept up and down his body, confirming his identity with a faint upbeat chime.
Not long after, a rising hum filled the air, and the sound of whirring emanated from beneath the floor. The elevator disengaged from ground level, slowly ascending toward the high roof up ahead.
About halfway up, a crack in the ceiling allowed a narrow ray of sunlight to pierce through the gloom, cutting a warm line across the platform. The light quickly grew in size as the second entrance to the facility opened up, sliding apart like a massive manhole cover or the hatch of a missile silo. Dust motes danced in the sudden beam, illuminated like drifting sparks.
"Here it is - the beautiful Gridiron sun." Samael muttered to himself.
The elevator smoothly halted as it reached the surface of the planet, fitting perfectly in place against the entrance's edge. The looming star in the distance cast a searing glow over the barren, ochre landscape. Waves of drifting sands rolled lazily across the horizon, the oppressive heat blurring the air into a wavering haze. It was still not a welcome sight to Samael, who had already begun sweating under the relentless glare.
"Well, at least nothin's tryin' to kill ya. I once 'ad to survive on a planet filled with Carthage spiders." Blisk grunted while absentmindedly wiping his forehead.
"Hmm… sounds like a good time. They're mammoth-class creatures, but they should still be vulnerable to gunfire."
The idle chattering continued for ten minutes even amongst the soldiers who talked about their favorite guns and or ordanances, the occasional gust of wind rattling the facility's metallic structures, until a substantial visual anomaly occurred high in the sky far above where the clouds should have been.
It appeared as if a large portion of space itself was warping and rippling like disturbed water, folding in ways barely comprehensible to the human eye. A deep, guttural echo rolled through the air, shaking the ground beneath their feet.
Suddenly and without warning, a shadow descended upon the land as a menacingly massive ship - at least the size of half a city - tore into realspace and halted with tremendous force after arriving from slipspace.
The deceleration caused sharp gusts of wind that whipped against Samael's coat and sent sand spiraling away in all directions. The turbulent air rattled nearby equipment and made the platform's metal edges groan in protest. It felt like the prelude to a storm.
The ship hovered ominously above them, with four building-sized thrusters on each side of its main rectangular body spewing out roaring columns of orange molten flame. Each one resembled an erupting volcano, bathing the desert sands in a hellish glow. On the side of its colossal form, a decal displaying the name 'IMS Soloris' was emboldened in stark black, the letters standing out against the ship's dull matt grey alloy.
Slowly, the IMS Soloris descended with thick steel landing legs unfolding from its underbelly. There were four legs on each side beside every thruster, designed to stabilize the landing of a ship this immense. When each one made contact with the ground, a thunderous metallic tremor ran through the earth and up through the soles of Samael's boots.