Lair of the Mantis, Pt. 3
10 Oct 2024Dwayne "Nova" Smith
June 15th, 2330You're never going to believe this. I mean, I don't believe it and I'm staring right at it... This is... I mean it's the Mantis' ship! And the Mantis' gear! Just... just waiting. Waiting for someone worthy to take up the mantle and keep up the fight...
Let's see, where did I leave off last time... Oh right! Just outside the hallway of death!
So, down the hallway I went. Which led to... another hallway. Turns out Livvey was a little wrong. The hallway directly behind the door wasn't the deadly one, it was a couple hallways up. Once I got there though, I saw immediately what he was talking about. Spacer bodies were strewn across the floor, their lifeless husks riddled with what looked like laser fire. Once I saw the turrets I knew what happened. High speed laser turrets are effective and incredibly dangerous. Have you ever tried to outrun a bullet? It's almost impossible for a human to accurately track a shot from trigger pull to impact and move just right so it misses, even if you're Amped out of your gourd. And lasers? Even faster. Even more impossible. Which means the Mantis had set up one hell of a trap.
I took stock of the room before moving forward, I didn't want to end up like the Spacers before me. I could see the long hallway had plates on the floor with what looked like letters, spaced about 5 feet forward of the last set. At the end of the hallway was another door, 4 laser turrets and a couple of massive fuel tanks directly below the turrets. Seemed like a bad design choice, but it was an idea for later if this puzzle proved too tricky. Some of the Spacer bodies were further along the hallway than others so I guessed you needed to spell out some sort of word to advance. But what word? There were 8 rows of letters, it could basically be any word or phrase? Too many permutations.
It was around then that I had a spark of inspiration. Leon had said something in the first slate of his I'd found. Something about a catchphrase his mother said a lot. I pulled the slate out of my pocket and listened. That's when it hit me. Tyrannis. He said his mother's favorite words were "Sic Semper Tyrannis". He'd ended the slate with a sarcastic "thanks mom!", but as I finished listening I said a heartfelt "thanks Leon!", because as I read the letters on the floor I could clearly make out a T, Y, R, A and N on the first six rows. The last two were a little too far away for me to read at this angle, but I was positive I had the answer.
It was still a little nerve wracking trying it out though! What if I was wrong! If I made it half way into the hallway and it turned out to not be Tyrannis there would be no cover and I'd get shredded. I could have simply blown the fuel tanks and tried to take out the turrets by hand... But that felt... almost rude? If that makes sense? The Mantis had put so much time and effort into making sure her legacy was protected. I mean, for god's sake, her own son had died trying to reach her! To avoid her puzzle and try to brute force my way in now just felt... wrong.
Anyways, I got over my fear quick enough and decided to gamble again. I ventured out into the hallway and started stepping on specific letters. I made it about halfway when I had to stop and think, "wait, how do you spell Tyrannis again?" Just the nerves getting to me, to be honest. I eventually settled on it having two N's, and clearly, I was right. I continued forward, those damn turrets ever pointed in my direction. They'd locked on as soon as I stepped in the room and hadn't stopped tracking me the whole time. I assume if I had stepped on the wrong letter they would have opened fire, but since I got the puzzle right I'll never know. The button that opened the door at the end of the hallway also deactivated the turrets. So no need to redo the puzzle everytime I walked through here.
Looking around I noticed a locked door that looked like it led to some sort of supply closet. I figured I was already looting the facility, I might as well, pulled out a digipick and took a crack at it. It was a pretty hard lock, but eventually it yielded. Inside was a weapon chest that had a refined old Earth pistol with a suppressor and the word "Instigator" stamped on the barrel. Pretty good find if I say so myself. That was definitely going in my personal armory if nothing else.
After my little side quest I moved forward. Down the ever present stairwells, even this deep into the facility it still went deeper. I'm glad I was moving cautiously, cause there was one more surprise turret waiting for me down a long hallway. This one didn't have a puzzle testing me. Oh no, this was just a simple turret. Point and shoot. It hadn't picked me up yet, so I did the same thing, pointed and shot. I could see I made a dent in it with that shot, but not enough to disable it, unfortunately, because it homed in on me and opened fire. My spacesuit has some energy shielding tech built into it, so while I was grazed by one shot before I ducked around the corner it, thankfully, didn't do any real damage. Just a singe.
Took a minute before the turret stopped shooting, but once it did I hucked a grenade down the hallway, hoping it would target that for a second or two, long enough for me to get off one more shot at least. That worked, thankfully, because it shot the grenade before it even hit the floor. That gave me a second to peak, aim and fire off a round that, this time, did disable it, rocking it back at an awkward angle, before it disconnected from the cowling on the ceiling holding it in place.
I was really hoping that was the last of the deadly goodies the Mantis had left behind. I was wrong. because in the room just beyond the turret, there were two freaking assault robots, just powered up and waiting. I don't know if they had a nuclear core and had literally been powered up and waiting ever since the Mantis set them up or if they were activated when I passed the puzzle room, but peaking through the window on the door about gave me a heart attack. Luckily I had something for exactly this type of thing. Remember that EM rifle I mentioned earlier? I've jokingly started calling it "Bring 'em in Alive", because that's what Agent No. 1 said I should do with it. Well EM rifles might not be deadly to life forms, but they sure are to robots. So I swapped my Beowulf for the Novablaster and readied myself.
Kicking open the door the first robot started saying something about an intruder, but I zapped it before it could finish. It fell over, not quite dead, but unable to move for the moment. That was good enough for me. Novablast Disruptors only have 5 shots, so you have to make each one count, and if one wasn't enough to kill the first robot, one wasn't enough to kill the other one either. Which proved to be true as my first shot into the second robot merely staggered it for a second. It whirred towards me, laser arm blasting as I pulled the trigger on my next shot, dropping it at my feet. It did hit me with a laser shot, right in the chest, but that energy shielding I mentioned earlier really saved me. At this point the first robot was starting to struggle to it's feet, so I aimed and fired, ending that threat.
Had to use a Med Pack after that shot to the chest though. The energy shielding saved me, but I still had a minor burn and some serious bruising.
After the first aid I kept moving, further into the bowels of the facility. I could hear clicking, metal on metal from the room in front of me, so I guessed there was another robot waiting for me. I was right. This time it was a quadrupedal assault bot. Digidogs as my unit jokingly used to call them. Big 'ol ballistic turret on its back. It was also in a room absolutely filled with control computers and server racks. So to say I was hesitant to use my EM rifle... Well... I didn't want to fry this whole facility trying to destroy one digidog, but I figured it was the better option compared to a hole in the skull.
Took a deep breathe, rounded the corner with my rifle up and rapped out two shots as quick as I could. The first shot dropped the digidog, the second shot shut it down permanently. Thank god I didn't miss either, cause as I found out soon afterwards the computers really were that important.
My eyes were immediately drawn to the large window behind a set of computers. A large window that opened onto what, you might ask? A landing pad. With the Razorleaf waiting patiently atop it. THE RAZORLEAF! Did you hear me! THE GOD DAMNED RAZORLEAF! I'm absolutely losing my mind looking at her. Luckily the digidog was the final threat. Sort of. There was another digidog and an assault robot powered down and tucked away, but a computer on the wall next to them ensured they viewed me as friendly if I decided I ever wanted to turn them on.
After I saw the ship I knew immediately I had to have her. While I still feel bad for Leon, and by extension his mother, as I stand here in front of the Mantis' inheritance I can't help but thank my lucky stars that he never made it here.
But I'm getting ahead of myself here. I don't want to forget to mention the armor. Just off the hanger there was a small apartment, complete with living/bedroom/kitchen, a bathroom, a full workshop and most importantly... the armory. Even though the armory was packed with weaponry, my gaze was locked on a mannequin in the center. A crisp white and green spacesuit with an angular mask hung behind a protective glass casing. It was the uniform of the Mantis. The very soul of the Mantis. And boy is it good gear. I thought the gear they gave me at the Tracker's Alliance was good, but this Mantis stuff blows it out of the water. I'm sure Stache will be annoyed to hear that, but it's true. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what all it can do, it's got so much stuff packed into it. I'm torn about using it, only because I really like the chameleon tech I currently have, but I mean... it's the Mantis. How could I not?
I'm sitting in the apartment at the moment, with the Mantis gear spread out on the bed in front of me, trying to take stock of everything. I did a once over of the hanger just to make sure there weren't any more turrets or robots. No turrets or robots, but there were a few tech crates that looked like they were old enough to have been picked up during the Colony War... So those will be interesting to open up later. I still need to go through the ship, but I think I'll do that after I bring Heller and Lin down here to check things out. And to help me bury Leon of course.
Once we have this place secure I'm gonna head back to the Lodge and bring everyone back to check this place out. Try to help me get the defenses turned back on. Because I am for sure using this as a base in this section of the galaxy. I might still keep my main residence at the Lodge for now, but Denebola I-b just made itself a real contender for permanent homeworld.
Anyways, for now, Dwayne out.