Chapter 6

  Mining Hub

  The skeletons rushed towards the battle, and Sapphiria idly noted that they seemed to have a kind of marching protocol. As in, beyond a certain distance, instead of charging headlong, they marched in the pre power armor infantry style, a stride that ate the kilometers while preserving strength. That meant that despite being an impossibility there were some power and endurance considerations to them.

  Not that it was going to matter.

  The first shot was on medium power, and three skeletons near the front of the pack died in atomic fire. In so far as these things could die to begin with.

  The rest spun around, and Sapphiria fell back on half forgotten training and the armor's tactical programs, slowly backing away as she scanned the weapon from left to right like an automated turret, blasting the creatures as they came for her.

  There were both more than she had hoped and far less than she had feared. Fortunately, retreating inside the tunnel turned into a major advantage for her, as the skeletons got in each other's way and were unable to bring their ranged weapons to bear -a few had slings and shortbows of some kind-, while she could blast them with the plasma gun's area of effect.

  She could have unleashed it on maximum power but she wasn't willing to risk a blast that powerful. Not repeatedly anyway. Besides which, medium power was already overkill, going through several skeletons and severely damaging the ones flanking them

  To her amazement however, one of the skeletons survived a direct hit. It had been wearing full armor. Scale, if she wasn't mistaken, and evidently modified to fit the skeleton's frame.

  The plasma bolt screamed straight into its torso...and died, dispersed in a flash as the armor hissed, scales melting right off of it, and her sensors registered a massive spike in exotic radiation, as the undead brought a javelin up. A javelin that, although almost drowned in the emissions from the armor, was pulsating with exotic energy as well.

  This time however, she was ready, and Sapphiria nimbly rolled to the side as the javelin went straight where she had been, trailing vivid, supernatural flames as it did.

  By the time the skeleton had drawn its second weapon the plasma gun had recharged, and she had recovered from her roll.

  The second shot went straight through the creature. Interestingly enough, it didn't disperse on the back armor, though it was significantly attenuated. Which meant that either the defenses were active in some way and she had shattered them, or the armor itself had been a composite plating, similar to what her ships had used, with an energy dispersion matrix underneath the primary armor materials, meant to distribute the power of attacks, which wouldn't work if one hit it from the back.

  Those were questions for later however, as she retreated deeper into the mineshaft, slowly going down the spiral as she pulled the trigger with methodical precision.

  Then it was over. Nothing was left but distant screams and charred bones.

  She began sprinting. She hadn't truly made full use of the armor's mobility capabilities previously, preferring caution over speed, but there were humans in danger now and that meant caution was a secondary concern.

  She probably would never know why the skeleton at the entrance of the mineshaft hadn't been able to follow the initial rush. Maybe it had been further away, a skeleton that had escaped whatever kept the rest in the chamber, and had to move its way out of another one of the mining shafts. Maybe it was damaged and had to limb behind all the others.

  It didn't matter. There was no time to even aim, all she was able to do was angle herself so that her shoulder and arm would take the impact and not the much more delicate plasma gun.

  She didn't so much run into the skeleton as she ran through it, her armor only shuddering as its blade, a shortsword of some sort, clashed against the plating, impossibly scoring deeply into the outer armor before being battered aside.

  Sapphiria erupted into the main hub in a cloud of pulverized bone, and immediately rushed towards the continuing sounds of combat. She could hear someone talking. A leader, she could guess, a trained voice effortlessly and calmly cutting through the sounds of war.

  A feminine voice speaking in perfect english.

  "Quorisia, watch your left! Albert, the legionnaire!" The voice halted for a second, and there was a gunshot. "Damn it! Truvan, pull Albert back! We need to hold or-"

  The woman never finished her sentence as suddenly Sapphiria was there.

  Dialing back one's perception of time for an AI was dangerous. Computers could run extremely quickly but AI programs were still based on human neural patterns, there was only so much they could be accelerated before things went sideways. Furthermore, the use in resources for them was...massive. Most advantages gained by doing that were actually lesser than using them on other things, like running more systems or programs. Besides which, there was only so fast one's physical components could execute instructions to begin with.

  Sapphiria shut everything down. The non-combat drones, and sent the fabricator, minilab and mining bots on local control. Even Cia was dialed down to the point she couldn't even speak, just send bursts of data.

  Time slowed as she took in the scene. A small knot of humans was backed into a corner, forming a defensive position. Something told her it was intentional, as despite being hemmed in, the half dozen humans -at least those she could see still standing- were facing five times their number in skeletons.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  And losing.

  The humans were a strange bunch. Three bore shields and shortswords, holding back the tide, while one of the others was supporting them with a spear, stabbing out and between the shields in what had to be a practiced maneuver, as the last two sheltered behind. One was probably a medic of some kind, kneeling next to a casualty she couldn't see, while the last one had to be the leader, standing tall, striking quite the figure as she aimed a carbine, an actual firearm, into the crowd of skeletons.

  Sapphiria took a deep, mental breath, dialed her plasma gun back to low power as she restored her time sense to normal, and went to work.

  The first blast was unnoticed by the skeletons, but the humans fell silent as a bolt of what seemed like pure light went straight through a couple of undead, the thermal shock reducing them to shreds.

  The second and third were anything but, and half of the enemy force whirled around to face her.

  With the low power consuming less of the capacitor, Sapphiria went into rapid fire, blasting a corridor almost clean through the skeletons, intending to lessen the pressure on the three shield bearers, as she fell back, drawing the ones heading for her away.

  The undead closed ranks in front of her, denying her a line of fire...and clumping up into a single mass, trying to get to her.

  It was tempting...so tempting. But a maximum power shot would almost certainly continue into the humans behind, and she couldn't take the risk. Even a medium power bolt might have some plasma come through, as it wasn't like the skeletons had much body mass to absorb the energy to begin with. In fact, had they not been so anomalously tough and almost energy absorbing, she was almost certain she could have vaporized the entire force she'd lead down the mineshaft with just a single medium power shot.

  Instead she kept the gun on low power, and kept firing, scything them down in ones and twos, using her superior mobility to keep ahead.

  Unfortunately, this time the skeletons weren't hemmed in a cramped tunnel, and the few with ranged weapons made use of them. A metallic sling bullet almost sent her flying as it hit with the force of a sledgehammer, thankfully causing an arrow to miss.

  The javelin however, thrown by an armored skeleton that still had a spear stuck in its ribcage and clearly had taken a bullet directly in the helmet, didn't.

  She hissed as the javelin's energy discharged, and her armor flooded her with failure alerts as it embedded itself into the chest plating.

  Fortunately, the armor was made to deal with far worse, and cooling systems dealt with the heat, as defenses meant to fight fission rounds pushed the invading projectile of the javelin head out as it melted under its own heat.

  Sapphiria took a great leap back, and focused her fire on the armored creature. This time she aimed for the head, instead of the center of mass.

  The first bolt almost knocked the helmet off.

  The second one blasted it into shards, the piece of armor fracturing along the impact point of the bullet.

  The third and last one vaporized the skeleton's head.

  It suffered the same fate as the previous headless one, a few steps, then falling down, spasming violently before falling apart altogether.

  The archer and slingers were the next to go, and Sapphiria jumped to the side as she finally had the room to do so, clearing her line of fire to the humans, dialing the weapon to medium power and blasting what was left to atoms.

  She rushed back up the corridor towards the humans, only to find two shield bearers standing, trying to hold off the remaining skeletons.

  There weren't enough of them to absorb even a low power shot. No matter.

  She slung the plasma rifle, and pulled out the laser pistol.

  She remembered arguing, ranting and pleading about the damned sidearm. Her exact words had been 'useless waste of mass and some forgotten symbol of an officer's authority' to the officer before she had been threatened with suspension for verbally assaulting a fellow member of the navy.

  Wherever you are lieutenant, you and whoever wrote those damned protocols were right. Thought Sapphiria, as she opened fire.

  The laser pistol was part gun, part survival tool, and in many ways was more a symbol of authority than a serious weapon. But its comparatively minuscule power compared to her main weapons was exactly why she needed it.

  Each laser bolt didn't guarantee a kill, but it fired quickly and more importantly didn't risk the squishies.

  The skeletons tried once again to detach troops to deal with her. But there were too few, and seeing their chance, the shield bearers attacked, felling the last couple of skeletons facing them almost simultaneously with her blasting the skull off of the last one that had been charging her.

  Silence fell upon the room as the humans stared directly at her, or at least tried to, and Sapphiria realized with a start that her adaptative camouflage was still on.

  Turning it all the way off however would only leave a suit of armor that was blacker than the void between the stars, made to be nigh invisible in darkness and defeat active and passive sensor sweeps. She pulled up a quick program, and activated the armor's lights on low power, the active camouflage turning her armor a bright, clean white color.

  The shield bearers brought their weapons up as she seemingly, to them at least, materialized into thin air, before hesitating, and looking to their leader.

  The surprisingly young woman, which Sapphiria finally took a good look at, noticing her leather armor, honey blonde shoulder length hair and unnaturally orange irises, spoke up, her voice slightly shaken as the battle's adrenaline began draining away and her command trance ended.

  "Who...who are you?" Said the woman.

  Sapphiria had the sudden inkling that answering 'Fleet Admiral Sapphiria of the Terran Federation Navy' would not be a wise answer, but she didn't actually have an answer to give. Instead, she used the oldest trick in the book.

  "As your savior, I believe I should be the one asking this question." She said dryly, trying to inject some levity into her voice. Don't let them know she was almost as shaken as them, and overjoyed at finally catching sight of some squishies. Damn it, when had she started missing humans?

  The leader smiled.

  "That's...a good point. I am Kalia. I mean Kaliria Comnena, mage-magistrate of the magistracy of Trunevald. What's...what's left of it, anyway."

  There was an expectant silence, and Sapphiria sighed, as she tried to process what was just said.

  Mage-magistrate? That...was a thought for later.

  "Sapphiria."

  "Just...Sapphiria?"

  "I have never needed anything else." Which was true enough. AIs didn't really need family names, they had ID codes and the tradition had started so long ago few thought to challenge it. Some humans had attempted to give them a more traditional structure, based on their 'parents', but in this case her name would go from 'Sapphiria Arcadia' to 'Sapphiria X' with the X being a list of names containing half of the Federation's AI industrial magnates and highest officials.

  Needless to say, 'just' Sapphiria was more than fine by her.

  "...Very well." Kalia was staring at her, and with a start Sapphiria realized the woman wasn't looking at her faceplate, but at the hole the javelin had torn into the armor, as it slowly repaired itself. "Mistress artificer, would you do us the honor of accompanying us? It isn't safe here I'm afraid."

  "Of course." Mistress artificer? Oh boy. "Lead the way."

  Where the hell had she freaking landed?

  https://www.patreon.com/playwars) plug ! All the chapters currently written for this story (all the way up to chapter 25) are available on patreon for five dollars through the Preserver tier ! That tier also includes the advance chapters of all my other stories.