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  Sharon asked from behind Celeste, in a confused voice. “What’s going on, Celeste?”

  Celeste nodded her head, turning around to look at the others. “This is the leader of the Empire, a man who has set humanity on a ‘holy mission’ given to him by the God of War himself. From what those men believed, every major advancement that the Empire made in the last six years, all of it was passed down from the heavens. Given to Martin so that he could advance the human cause.”

  Sharon clenched her fists, gritting her teeth as she spoke. “So, a god really is pulling the strings for this war?” Her words caused Yin next to her to frown, putting a reassuring hand on Sharon’s shoulder.

  “That’s right.” Celeste chuckled, as if amused by something. “And they don’t even know the face of this god of theirs. Martin has asserted that it is a human god, and that he will help humanity rise to be the dominant power of the entire universe.”

  “He’s not?” Yin asked, an eyebrow raised in confusion.

  Celeste simply shook her head. “No, he’s not. Not like it really matters, at this point.” She then looked back at the statue, and sighed. “No wonder they were able to get so far, they literally had the hand of god guiding them.” I felt the smile on Celeste’s lips turn cold. “But, they weren’t the only one, were they?”

  “The Qu’Lopti!” Priscilla exclaimed in surprise. “Weren’t they being guided by their god to rapidly advance, too?”

  Celeste nodded at that. “That’s right. I don’t know if this is some game between the gods, to see who will win, or if there is some other reason behind it. Either way, we’re stuck between two powerhouses.”

  Sharon paused for a moment, and then gave another nod. “Let’s move this along. You said this is a research facility, so at the very least there will be researchers, and we can learn a thing or two. We’ll need as much intel as we can get if we want to take on a god.”

  Once again, Celeste led the way, though this time they encountered far more resistance. In their first encounter, they came across five human officers, and a proverbial horde of the four-armed aliens. Again, there was a warning from Celeste, so the fight was not difficult. Meanwhile, I was focused on something else.

  Malthan said that there were rules for how they could interfere. He was able to advance the Qu’Lopti like he did only because I did that big quest to save their species, and one of the rewards was to have the Qu’Lopti advanced enough to be of use when I needed them. But, the General shouldn’t have been able to do a quest of that scale. So, how is he giving them all this help?

  By the time I had finished my thought, the scene Celeste was showing me had already been dyed red in blood. Aside from the last few grunts, the enemy force at this checkpoint had already been entirely wiped out. Once that was taken care of, she spoke to the others. “There should only be one checkpoint left. By now, the other teams should be in the facility as well, so they can’t focus all of their attention on us. However, the last checkpoint has additional safety measures.”

  “Such as?” Sharon wiped some blood off of her cheek, looking to Celeste.

  “They use proper laser turrets to guard the research itself, not the lightning turrets we’ve fought until now. Additionally, this base has a self-destruct code. If the final layer of defense is breached, it will be activated. After that, all of the doors will close and lock. Sixty seconds later, the base will explode, killing everyone inside.”

  Sharon furrowed her brows. “Is there an abort code, or any way for people to evacuate?”

  Celeste shook her head. “It’s a completely automated process. If the final layer of defense is breached, the base is assumed to be lost. All personnel are written off as either dead or dying, and the base becomes a death trap. If we don’t take out the shield generator within that sixty seconds, we’ll have to lose these bodies.”

  Sharon blinked, confused for a moment. “Why don’t we simply take out the shields first, then?”

  “Because, if the shields are destroyed, the self destruct is also triggered. And, I’m sure we can all agree that getting the research is more important, yes?” The girls all nodded at that. “Alright. We’ll head to the labs first, and I’ll see if I can grab a few researchers to stick in my grove. That way, once we’re back at the ship, I can search their memories for information whether we take the shields down or not.”

  Sharon nods, then looks to Priscilla. “You and I will head to the shield generator as soon as the last line of defense to the labs is taken care of. Smashing things is generally a lot easier than fixing them.” She looks back to Celeste before finishing. “Can you get us a map to it?”

  Celeste nodded, pulling a device from her upgrade inventory and linking with it. Soon, a holographic map appeared in the hallway between them. Judging from the layout, it seemed to be the compound they were currently in. A red dot lit up at what should be their present location. “We’re here right now.” The dot extended into a line that curved through a few more hallways. “This is the last area we should have a real fight before the labs.”

  After that, a green path branched off from the red one, leading back towards the far side of the facility. “And this is the way to the shield generators. You’ll need to move pretty fast, if you want to get there by the end of the countdown.”

  Sharon watched the map closely, committing the two paths to memory. Once Celeste was done, she gave a small nod to her. “Alright, let’s go.”

  It was a bit odd that they hadn’t received any communication from the other two teams, but I could confirm from my end that they hadn’t been taken out. At the very least, they hadn’t left their clone bodies yet. Most likely, communications were one of the things blocked out with that shield. I was probably only able to watch because the link between Celeste and myself was not exactly conventional.

  Anyways, it didn’t take them very long before they were standing before the next checkpoint, making their own preparations. Celeste equipped her wristband cannon, Yo morphed into a fully armored form, and Yin… well, she’s pretty much in her prepared state at all times. However, she did pull out her whip.

  As for Sharon and Priscilla, they looked to each other and nodded. The rabbit girl walked over to Sharon, and gently grabbed her hand. “See you soon, Mistress.” She spoke with a small smile, her body starting to glow.

  When Priscilla’s body shattered into strands of light, those strands then curved and struck towards Sharon’s body. At first, I was confused, as it looked like some kind of attack, but Celeste managed to remain calm. I watched as Sharon’s body became more lithe, her legs extending slightly. White, furred ears sprouted from the top of her head, and a strange glow seemed to come from her eyes.

  “I’m ready.” She spoke, walking up to the door. Just as she had done many times before, she was getting ready to knock down the door to announce their arrival. However, this time, as soon as she got close, the door was blasted towards her, throwing her back down the hall.

  Had it not been for her merging with Priscilla, she would not have likely been able to correct her posture in midair to land on her feet. Though, once she did so, she let out a furious shout and charged forward, far faster than her body would normally carry her. On the other side of the doorway, there was a single human. This human was wearing a large, metal exoskeleton. Without a doubt, it was power armor, and he was aided by two rifle-wielding humans in the back, and over a dozen grunts.

  Oh, and did I forget to mention the laser turrets dropping down from above his head? Yeah, those were there, too. Still, Sharon charged straight towards the new mech, taking advantage of its heavy build and inability to quickly make adjustments. Within a moment, she was behind it, one blade stabbing through the man’s chest from the back.

  Her other hand let out an explosion of fire that engulfed the remaining two humans, and the majority of the grunts. “Sheesh, going so far on her own.” Celeste clicked her tongue, taking careful aim and shooting down anyone that managed to survive Sharon’s initial
assault. Yo stood just in front of Celeste, ready to take out anyone that happened to get close, while Yin stood at the very back, waiting to see if she would need to participate in this fight.

  This battle only last a few moments, before the last grunt had fallen. Although the laser turrets had significant offensive power if left alone, they had been Celeste’s first targets when she opened fire. Having knowledge of the area completely changed the situation.

  Once the battle was over, there was a red light flashing through the base. The door they had come through before encountering this final obstacle, which had been left open before, suddenly slammed closed with a clicking sound. Celeste looked towards Sharon and shouted out. “Sixty seconds, go!”

  Sharon looked back to her, nodding, before turning and abruptly running back down the hall. Rather than raise her fist to batter down the door, she brought her arms in an X shape to shield her head, putting more force into the final step before she reached the door. There was the sound of tearing metal as Sharon jumped into the door, opening a hole through it and continuing on without pause.

  For Celeste and the others, they made a beeline towards the labs, finding several panicking humans in white labcoats. Some tried to pull out weapons to offer a last token of resistance, but it was obvious that none of them had been properly trained for battle. Yin glared at the group of them, and there were dozens of sickening crunches issued out from the surroundings. A moment later, the researchers all fell to the ground, where Celeste began grabbing them to store in her grove.

  “Take this and see if you can find a computer to plug it into!” She shouted out, tossing what looked like a small USB drive to Yin, who caught it in one hand and rushed toward the counters. I could only watch as Celeste hurriedly stuffed as many bodies from the researchers into her grove as she could.

  “Come on, come on…” She muttered to herself, likely tracking the time. Losing these bodies would not be a major loss, but each one represented a full level for the body’s owner. And for those that leveled up without rampantly killing monsters, each level represented a certain amount of skill proficiency.

  “Ten seconds…” I heard Celeste say under her breath, before a distant explosion rocked the base. With an expression of excitement, Celeste immediately activated her comms. “Teleport all teams out, now!”

  Light appeared from above to wrap around her, and as she was pulled out I could see a blinding flash of light appear from below the base.

  Chapter 23: What Was Gained, What Was Lost

  By the time the fight had ended, only two of the people sent down had died. One of them was Ackbar, while the other was my father. Thankfully, their levels were among the lowest out of all of us, so losing a single one was not too big of an issue.

  “So, what did you discover?” I asked Celeste in the War Room. Gathered around the large display in the center was a circle of chairs, each of which held someone from the previous mission. After they came back from the mission, Celeste had been given two hours to ‘interrogate’ the dead scientists and go over the acquired research data.

  “Aside from what you personally saw, not much.” The Deus Ex shook her head. “They might be overly cautious, or aware that we have secret methods to gather information, because they weren’t given much information to work with. Their base was devoted to researching a method to create two pieces of technology. One for personal use, and the other to install in a ship.”

  Celeste reached forward and tapped her fingers against the display a couple times, and an image appeared on it. This was something I had personally seen before, and was intimately familiar with. However, it was something that should not exist for thousands of years yet. “Is that…?”

  She nodded her head slowly. “It’s a Companion Implant, and from the blueprints that were sent, it might even be an improved version of the one you copied in NeoLife. If my understanding of the blueprint is correct, it will allow for increased reaction speed by having the AI in control of the user’s senses increase their perception speed.” She pointed out two wires that had not been on the original model. “One of these seems designed to override sensory input, while the other looks like a kill-switch. If that is triggered, from what I can tell the mind of the input’s owner will be wiped, leaving only the AI.”

  I furrowed my brows when I heard her explanation. When I originally botched my implant, I had accidentally given Celeste the chance to control my body if she wanted. For the two of us, that was fine as we were able to trust each other. I also had the guarantee of being able to use my own magic to forcefully destroy the implant if I wanted. But, the same was not true for these. They were basically designed to put an AI commander in control of every soldier.

  Sitting next to me, Sharon was the first one to speak up. “How far did they get on their research?”

  Celeste smiled bitterly when she was asked that question. “As you can see, they have complete blueprints. They had those from the start, passed down from ‘High Command’. Their only goal was to figure out how to make it work, and build it. They were getting ready to deliver the first prototype when we moved in, which may be why the Empire responded so quickly with those two ships. They had already been preparing them to retrieve the technology.”

  “But…” I started, looking at Celeste. “If they already have the blueprints, and we can assume the data was transmitted before our arrival, then another base can easily be created to pick up where they left off. What about the other piece of technology? The one that you said would be designed for ships?”

  “Ah… we might have lucked out with that one.” Celeste spoke, grinning slightly. Again, she tapped the display, and something that looked like a segmented ring appeared in the hologram. “For their spaceship technology, this base was entrusted with something very valuable, something that could easily tip the scales of war, even in the age of NeoLife.”

  “From the data gathered, this appears to be a portal warp gate, a wormhole generator. Now, the reason I said we lucked out comes in two parts. First, their research had not made much progress on this item, meaning that they won’t get very far even if they start up another project for it. The second, with the aid of the Deus Ex, we might be able to complete this design.”

  “If the data can be believed, this device functions similarly to a standard FTL drive. However, rather than transporting the ship to subspace, this can only be activated while in subspace. By pulling in the exotic particles that make up that dimension, and using them as a power source, it opens a wormhole to the designated location. If the Empire had managed to complete this, then they could effortlessly send their entire fleet directly to any race’s homeworld.”

  Around the table, at least half of the people gathered let out a gasp at Celeste’s words. As for me, I was only glad that we got ahold of this before they finished it. “Have the Deus Ex begin working on this as soon as possible, and see if you can find any countermeasures, just in case they do manage to finish it.”

  Celeste nodded, committing the orders to memory. “One other thing. Whether it was from the scientists themselves, or the data on their computers, we weren’t able to get a location for any of the other bases. I found a picture file, one of them celebrating at a party at night. However, the sky was purposely blurred, making it impossible to determine the location from the stars.”

  I grimaced at that. From all the precautions they took to make sure that no base knew where the others were, or knew what they were working on, the only answer I could come up with was that the person handing down these orders knew we had a way to get answers from their people. Likely, the only ones that knew the locations for other bases were those that scouted them out and built the warp gates. “What about their funds, any information on that? All of the people they bought from the market couldn’t come cheap.”

  “Ah, actually, I do have some news about that.” Once again, she tapped the display, bringing up the image of the four-armed race they had encountered in the lab. “They call this race ‘
Grunts’, though their actual name seems to be Orik. One of the researchers had seen the Orik gathered in large quantities around a block of solid gold.”

  “Although the researcher himself didn’t know what they were doing, it’s likely that they turned a large number of Orik into druids, specifically so that they could obtain the Gold Affinity and become living farms. Their efficiency can’t be as good as your’s, since you have a higher level grove able to self-expand, but they make up for it in numbers. I can’t say how many Orik they have working on this, or where they came from, but they probably stole the entire race off of an underdeveloped world. Likely turned the entire population into a slave species.”

  I couldn’t help but nod solemnly at this information. “That could explain it. And, unfortunately we have no method to stop them. Their farming operation is likely to be held at their central base, to ensure that it can’t be taken down. Next time we hit one of their bases, we have to grab an Orik or two, and find out where their homeworld was.”

  Even if the New Human Empire had simply taken the population of the Orik from their homeworld to a different planet, a move of that scale could not go very far. It was even more likely that the New Human Empire had simply set up a base at the Orik homeworld. If we could find that, we could deal a major blow to them, while potentially freeing the Orik race.

  Celeste seemed to understand my thoughts, because she nodded slightly, agreeing with me. Next, I turned to address the rest of the room. “That’s all for this meeting. I want everyone to understand, the battles we had today were just the first of many. Get used to your teammates, and develop strategies to use for future combat. Celeste, I’ll leave it to you to contact the Deus Ex fleet and pass the schematics. Try to get an understanding for how long it would take to create a working prototype, as well as how long they’d need to repair their damaged ship. With that, everyone is dismissed.”