Iron oxides bathe the area in an orange-red glow as artificial sun lamps stream down from the ceiling to the dilapidated complex below. Staccato retorts echo through the ruins like locked up machinery- harsh, loud, halting. High tensile servos tense and release with rhythmic regularity as they shift from one position to the next. Five LEDs trace lines in the air in erratic patterns as optics pivot from one wall to another haphazardly. Augmented reality covers the rusted walls all around with data innocuous and imprecise, area jamming at full.

Stillness. A heartbeat half imagined, half real, unfelt but heard. Forgotten echoes screaming into the feed as reflexes kick into action.

A sudden electric whine fills the air. Even as the first blast of fragmentation reams into the wall the optics focus on a single point of the barrel on the other side with the O1 Warfare Intellect finding coherence enough to pinpoint it. Two more blasts of auto-shotguns buffet plasteel by the time the tungsten sabot is slung through the wall and into the core casing of the O2 Warform on the other side.

A burst of retro rockets throws the Contractor through the same wall as automatic fire rips into the room from an angle below. He crashes into the wreck just as they begin lancing in from the floor below- either they don't care about their comrade or they're just as expendable.

'All life is sacred-' -bullets rack into the back of the armored hulk but fail to penetrate as the Contractor rolls off the Warform bursting into a dead sprint as his railgun whirs to life once more. The hall is long, empty craftsrooms warehousing and workshops exposed to the elements by the shear line cut through the roof of the building due to the catastrophic failure of the nearby shipyards suspended from the ceiling, deep cuts into the surface below from overloaded plasma welders. Nearly the entire sector was Automated during the collapse and it quickly fell to Vector Syndrome. They hurt themselves as much as they hurt everyone else.

Another O2- powered armor? Cuts off the Contractor's escape, bursting through ahead of him from a service elevator. He fires a sabot haphazardly before the O1 has a chance to provide a firing solution and only manages to throw off the aim of the massive bulk, not penetrating the armor. It hefts a HMG in his direction but he clears the distance with another burst of retro rockets, screaming in with his Spear as it briefly overclocks and melts through the upper chestplate like butter as he hears a synthetic scream of pain from his foe.

Shoulder checking it still throws it into the ground as he yanks the spear out and stabs the head, heart, and shoulders a piece. Even if it's not fully incapacitated it should slow it down. Unsure what lies beneath the metal coffin he kicks off of it, throwing it into the elevator and jumping down himself, grabbing onto a rail in the wall that sparks with light as he falls downwards to the basement. Darkness quickly consumes him as nightvision clicks on and a loud thrum through his frame as he impacts the floor with a muffled *thump* next to the destroyed armor right after it hit the ground. Even now it's unmoving.

Stillness. Dust settling, the glow of an orange pinprick overhead as he stares up towards the false light shows his pursuers aren't so dedicated or ready. A small cell then, or woefully unprepared for resistance. Rogue Vectors would be his guess, prowling around the manufactory like they own the place. He knows based on errant research and data sniffing isolated planetary intranets the M48 Helgocorp Complex has been abandoned ever since the collapse owing to a mix of radiological hazards from the local fission plants and isolation from the rest of the sector due to the Plasma Rifts.

It matters little. He untenses and gets up, hefting himself over and onto the B6 Floor proper after his O1 recognizes his position. What he does know is that there's a chance that the Helgocorp remnants here were working on something that interests him before their disintegration in the chaos.

The room he enters is pitch black and sterile- for as far as sterile goes in this environment, caked in dust and rust. Unlike the top floors this place is clearly militarized and secured, reinforced doors and an enclosed front desk just after exiting the elevator, likely having held the local security forces. The doors to the sides are already cut open by one thing or another, scoring on the edges and split into rough chunks decorating the floors-

It matters little. He untenses-

Stillness.

The scene is unchanging. Lights in the corner of his vision as his sensors and AR pick up readings from somewhere down the hall to the right, a haze streaming into his mind and a cacophony of EM emissions.

His vision swims as he brings a free hand to his head, grasping at the front plate of his helm with a degraded manipulator that's served far too long. Rents in the combat padding and unpainted metal bleeding into rusted marks. Actuators groaning as his aural senses fixate on the minute flexing. Slowly he walks down the hall, optics tripping the light fantastic as a myriad of colors bleed into his vision. Other forms stream in besides him, running past as AR tries and fails to form processing data for the class of Warforms, their armaments, armor composition, all twitching their heads this way and that. They stop just before the end of the hallway- a massive vault door embedded into the wall with a lattice of Plasteel overlaying another Metamat he can't readily identify as dozens of tracer lights crawl over it. Gunfire rings in his ears from above.

Someone rings in form his side. 'Something isn't right ——-, it's never this easy.'

He knows. But how are they supposed to break in? They only brought along plastics-

'That doesn't change the objective.' 'Requesting permission to breach?' 'A-firm, go ahead with op. I want this tin can-'

Stillness.

The world comes rushing back into him as he collapses forwards, frame just barely catching on the vault door itself as his memories settle themselves in place, though an underlayer of static streams along the sides of his vision. Radiation is high at several thousand rads as the O1 struggles to estimate given its lack of speciality and onboard sensors. His frame is hardened but might suffer harder disruptions if there's a leak in the protection suite. Given how long he's been running it there's no doubts he has one.

Scanning the vault for any I/O ports or ways to interface he only sees the mangled tangle of wires just off to the side, right behind a small kiosk. A pair of broken cameras above further hint that someone was rough with the place.

'Philistines. Have they no respect for-' -seating his railgun on its back maglock he unclips a hidden wire up a sleeved arm, saddling up over to the wires on the right as a micro manipulator automatically isolates the one he needs to connect to. Military grade encryption and counter hacking suites automatically hit him like a veritable gut punch but his aging cryptokeys shake out of their blackbox and the handshake process begins crawling the side of his hud.

Less than a minute of the two security suites intermingling before a thrum comes from behind him. Something fell down the elevator shaft. Two louder thuds and he soft terminates the connection and moves down the hall looking for an open room given how minimal the cover is. His railgun whines the second he grips and readies it against himself.

Then all hell breaks loose once a wall moves into his sight from where he came in at down the hall.

A storm of metal comes screaming into the hallway and buffering his frame with hundreds of small claibre bullets tearing into it. Armor holds for seconds long enough for him to retro dash into a nearby room that was shredded open by whoever was here before him, clattering to the floor as the fire rages outside. He struggles to get up realizing something made it through is armor as diagnostics blare in his mind's eye, vaguely aware that several of his joints are either jammed or locked up. That would've annihilated normal infantry, instead only disabling his Exo.

Self repair routines will take too long to fix the issue though- several small nanite swarms either trying to chew through plasticized copper metal or fix where the systems broke down. Mentally running through the cost benefits for a second it's a simple matter.

With a hiss his externals purge the locks on his body and crack open, no longer encased in a bulky exo-frame and reduced to normal operation. Climbing out of the husk he blurs into motion, collecting his weapons and a few pieces of gear from the exo before rolling it over on its side as best as he can. His O1 still streams data into him and helps with an arm once it unlocks but he risks too much, prepping the railgun with the stored up charge last shot and hoping it wasn't damaged.

The Warform wastes no time laying into his exo with twin short barreled gatling guns mounted on the shoulders but it's too distracted by the disabled threat to respond to his shot, misaligned by a few inches and nailing a shoulder. The huge thing whirs on him in a flash but he's already sliding towards it and stabbing into it with a spear from his offhand.

It reels only slightly from the damage before kicking out and throwing him down the hallway from the action, the crunched armor barely protecting him from the impact and losing his railgun in the process. It goes to shoot but goes wide, staggering as the spear drips with fluids and fire from the waist. Finding another room he prays he survives what he's about to do.

Before a new line of tracers breaks out he tosses a canister down the hall and hides, the thing thudding forward once before falling on a knee.

He hears a small pop and-

Stillness.

Stock still. Looking into the hallway with dread as he grips the only thing that can save him. The walls drip with oil and blood, rusted seams and rivets as gunfire crosses his sight outside. He hears screaming and wailing- mad howls and the chattering of radio callouts over Human and Order bands. A four legged beast crawls into his room, turning his way with a gleaming silver maw and bloodshot eyes before bounding and leaping and-

-a scream-

-he pulls the trigger on the hand shocker and the mass shatters apart in an instant, specks of silvery goo draping him in an iridescent mess that his AR has trouble reading. The integrated O1 gives him the all clear just a few seconds later.

He sits still, motionless. Looking ahead into the darkness, wondering if that's really the case.

After waiting a precious few more moments, dreading the results, he stands up and lightly shakes himself off making his way back into the hallway.

Looking down and to the left reveals it is the case.

Silvery streaks line the walls from the nano-weapon's deployment, great gashes torn into everything despite the militarized hardening this floor seems to have gone through. The enemy is reduced to little less than the backside of a shell, O2 or Human, it doesn't matter at this point. Whatever was there served as feedstock to the great beast he unleashed for a scant few seconds.

Weapons like that shouldn't exist on worlds like this, yet it found its way into his hands anyway.

A shudder as he processes the results, idly noting that the vault is completely unaffected. Likely leaking too much radiation. He moves forwards slowly, bereft weapons entirely now. The railgun is likely repairable- if only because of how magnetized it is- but will be missing important materials from its internals if the wiring is even still intact. The spear is… Mostly intact, having lost its O1 interface. Functionally useless in that case until he clones his onboard with a new dataset and smart grip.

Despite his worries the exo fared somewhat well, but is heavily scored and marred by the portions the nanites did quickly eat. It'll take hours to recover, but hopefully it's up and mobile in less time. If not, he'll have to scuttle it.

Looking towards the vault door, he glares, as best as he's able to at least. Ripping out his personal jack-in he goes over to the panel once more as EM interference ticks up from the radiation leaking out, eyes buzzing with static and AR bleeding new logs as he jams in entire arm into the panel and waits for the smaller manipulator to find an undamaged portion of the data-wire.

Minutes pass, but the vault hisses open after the logs fall still. Inside is his worst fears.

Rads spike well into the tens of thousands now that its opened and barred to the world. He knew it likely served as a core part of an interior reactor setup, but this is beyond bleaker than he was expecting, a floor of corium holes bleeding into the internals of the sector just beneath. The reactor must be sitting above him then- had been, at least.

The room did seem to serve what he was interested in, however. Smaller scale computing setups, hardened data storage devices, lines of half melted server racks and radiation hardened walls. A few simplified Order interfaces lay inside, discarded and damaged by a mix of gunfire and corium scoring. Even as warnings blare in his vision he forces a deeper level scan of the interior to see if anything is salvagable, if he's able to find…

Nothing. All of it is unusable- even the O1 reports back the same conclusion he comes to. Hardened or not, direct exposure to this level of rads would fry anything but the most specialized equipment. If this was Sol things might've been different, but-

He catches something that his AR ignores however. A single spark of light on one of the interfaces- no, less than a picosecond flash amidst the darkness. Standing here like this, it must've been a soft error. He writes it off as such well enough, seeing if any other materials in the room might fetch something to the Vectors or Imperials. They'd pay if any of the internals to these drives were intact, even if bathed in radiation. Most of it probably can't be reproduced easily, even the door would be worth a nice price if he could haul it out of here intact now that it's opened.

But he also can't help his curiosity given how poorly everything else has gone. Shifting inside and quickly grabbing a few of the hardened items, he drags the interface on the floor with a free hand. Automatically the vault closes behind him, likely door sensors in the floor still running on whatever power is feeding the vault door itself. Now if anyone wanted in they'd need his cryptokeys.

Not that he'd touch this place again, looking like this. It's bound to attract some attention if they have heavies on their docket, but they're probably preparing worse.

He tosses the interface next to his armor, piling the hardened cases next to it and sitting on the back of it to think about his options-

-before the O1 twitches the legs and kicks him off. Thankfully, he knows it's just trying to right itself. It's not the first time this has happened.

Getting the hulking exo back on its feet is a two man task, the thing setting itself down in front of him. Slamming the discarded railgun back on the maglock- one of the few surfaces unmarred- and putting the Spear back into its undamaged side latch he gets the drives and piles them into the waist storage. The O1's readouts from the armor aren't great but they're passable enough to get moving. No fights if he can avoid them.

He grabs the interface-

-whispers stream into his ears-

-and hauls it over his shoulder, making his way back to the elevator and ripping the HMG from the death gripped by the armored coffin has. A spare box of ammo should be more than enough as he gets back inside the floor and starts looking for stairs.

Even if he makes it out of this, it'll be a long way back home.