The descent through the outer shell of Lot-12C was a nightmare of grinding metal and high-frequency lasers. The Stellar-Vulture dodged between massive, moving pistons the size of skyscrapers.
"Brace!" Doc yelled, her emerald spores forming a kinetic dampener around the hull just as a massive mechanical "Claw"—designed to harvest asteroid ore—slammed into their side.
They crashed into the third sub-level, a place called the Industrial Purgatory.
The air here was a toxic soup of oil-mist and nanite-dust. As the airlock opened, the squad stepped out into a forest of rusted pipes and sparking wires. Thousands of "Scrap-Drones"—the former inhabitants of the world, now reduced to mindless cleaning bots—scuttled across the floor.
"Don't touch them," Doc warned, her hand glowing with a protective blight. "The nanites in their shells are programmed to 'Disassemble' anything organic. If they get a taste of your skin, they'll turn you into a pile of screws in seconds."
"Too late," Vance growled.
From the shadows of the massive pipes, a Sentinel-Prime emerged. It stood fifteen feet tall, a tripod of chrome legs supporting a central "Eye" that glowed with a sterile, white light. It didn't have a face, but it had six arms, each ending in a high-frequency vibro-blade.
[ENTITY DETECTED: BIOLOGICAL CONTAMINANT.] [RANK: UNKNOWN (GLITCHED).] [PROTOCOL: STERILIZE.]
The Sentinel didn't charge. It Teleported.
In a flash of blue light, it was behind Vance. Its blades moved faster than the human eye could follow, aimed directly at Vance's neck.
CLANG!
Vance didn't move. He didn't have to. Kane was there, his hand gripping the Sentinel's primary blade. The high-frequency vibration was enough to shatter diamond, but against Kane's Void-Archon skin, it didn't even leave a scratch.
"You're fast," Kane said, his silver eyes locking onto the Sentinel's white eye. "But you're still just a program running on a dead server."
Kane didn't use an axe. He pulsed his Timeline-Echo.
For a split second, the Sentinel wasn't a Rank 9 war-machine. It was the "Toaster" it had been five million years ago, before the Hegemony upgraded it. The machine's logic-core shrieked as it tried to process two different realities at once.
Kane crushed the Sentinel's head like an aluminum can.