307 Convergence 4

"So, in the end, what the fuck was that monster? Solaris, do you recognize it?"

Having spent the last hour pouring over the autopsy report on the strange spider monsters she had encountered, Phillipa had only gotten more confused when she read about unknown carbon isotopes and so on, so, in the end, she decided just to ask Solaris if she knew something about it.

"... I have no idea actually, but I don't think it was from the same place as me."

Having also seen the autopsy report and heard about what had happened from Phillipa, Solaris drew a blank.

Not only had she never heard about such a creature from any other arcangel sanctuary back home, but she also had a hard time even imagining a creature who could create defenses strong enough to resist gauss rifle fire, even Solaris herself would have had a hard time dealing with that before she met Dax.

"... Seriously?"

"Yeah, if those kinds of monsters roamed my world it would be looking radically different than it does, from the report it seemed like that spider had toughness equal to that of a dragon."

"Indeed, I don't think that creature was from our world, it doesn't seem like anything I had ever heard about."

With Alice also adding her opinion on top of Solaris' in addition to the new elements and isotopes discovered in the monsters autopsy it was safe to assume for the moment that it came from another plane of existence than the world of magic, meaning another plane of existence was at play, then there was the matter of cross dimensional travel inside Emergence space.

"Regardless of what exactly that monster was and where it came from, there is definite evidence of a 3rd party at play, whether it is the ancients with their lost technology or something else, it is clear that they are hostile to the Galactic Empire. As we continue to push into Emergence occupied space I want everyone here to display extreme caution, we don't know what we're dealing with here."

If a throwaway creature that the Emergence had taken control over could create armour strong enough to deflect rifle fire, then what could a dedicated attack force do? Not to mention the fact that one of the spiders had managed to get a strike in on Phillipa before she even noticed it was there, Dax saw the current situation as extremely dangerous.

"From now on I want everyone to sortie with XMRA armour, no exceptions."

"If you have any special wishes for your armour, then contact Ra, otherwise its features will be limited to the standard mana generator and trophy active protection system."

-

In the end, the surprise attack from the Emergence succeeded in delaying the 3rd battle group's retrofit by 2 months, but when it was finally operational once again, the newly installed manatech proved worth the wait. In addition to no longer needing an operator able to manipulate mana, the new generators were magnitudes more powerful than the previous generation. With such power at their disposal, the galactic navy quickly cut through the Emergence's defensive lines and deep into its territory in accordance with the blitz attack fleet admiral Simmons had originally proposed before the attack on Cyprex prime. The objective was to cripple the Emergence's strategic industry and its ability to construct new ships, so the punitive force's objective was the so called dark systems in the core of former Iron race space, an area where a large part of the main sequence stars had been covered in either Dison spheres or Dison swarms, massive installations which collected a large part of the star's energy to fuel massive orbital drydocks and forges. While most of the galactic navy was focused on smashing through the numerous defensive lines to reach those systems, a considerably smaller force led by Dax was heading in an entirely different direction. Their destination was the unremarkable rocky planet Marex 4 inside the even more unremarkable system by the same name. With a breathable nitrogen rich atmosphere and relatively normal surface gravity of 1.2 G as well as its own native flora, the only thing which normally made the planet stand out was its remarkably strong magnetic field powered by the planet's liquid iron nickel core, but even that characteristic was relatively common in the galaxy at large. What was unique about the planet was the countless cross dimensional travel events which had been traced back to the planet's surface through gravitational waves, at least 40 distinct signatures had been detected in a cluster near the planet's equator, this was what Dax and his subordinates were sent to investigate.

"This planet has no large native fauna and was unpopulated when the Iron race containment war broke out, as such any signs of animal life is an anomaly. Orbital resonance has identified 4 distinct hotspots of unusual activity on the surface within 200 kilometres of each other, we'll be taking 5 CAS-7A stingers and a detachment of Hornet close air support drones as well as a division of Reaper drones down to the surface, the insertion point will be 20 kilometres from the first of the anomalies, after landing we've head towards that point on foot… Any questions?"

Met with silence after his initial briefing, Dax looked around to see only confident expressions on his subordinate's faces, all of them had been training over a month for this operation, each one of them was as ready as they could be.

"I take that as a no, then suit up! We're deploying in 5 minutes, dismissed!"

WIth the briefing finished, Dax immediately went to don his brand new XMRA armour. Already wearing the sub armour over his vacuum suit, all there was left was the multiple layers of composite armour which would go on top of that and with the help of an automatic armour equipping station, that process was also completed quite fast.

"Dax, care to help me with this? I need to calibrate the arms and tweak the software."

While Dax was quick to don his armour, Lux who had her Tali system installed on top of her XMRA suit needed some additional time to get everything sorted.

"Sure, turn around and let me take a look."

With Lux's mechanical pair of arms folded up on her back, she turned so Dax could check them over for issues while she looked over the new firmware which would run them in the meantime.

"They sure have gotten reliable all of a sudden."

While looking over the firmware Lux glanced at the others with a smile on her face, while she may have been on the fence at first, every single one of the new Hellwalkers Dax recruited had turned into reliable subordinates that even rivalled Lux on some points. 

"Yeah, I told you they were diamonds in the rough. All good here, try it out now."

Tapping Lux on the shoulder, Dax took a step away from her as her mechanical arms activated, folding out to a length which reached all the way to her knees from their mounts at her shoulders. Quickly confirming the arms mobility Lux took a stance and punched out in the air in front of her, in response one of her mechanical arms transformed its forearm into a spike which followed her punch before both of them combined into a mechanical tail which moved to the base of her back.

"Perfect as always. I really have to thank Ra for this next time I see her."

With a satisfied smile on her face, Lux used her mechanical tail to support herself as she sat down on it.

"Yeah, she really outdid herself this time."

Dax was also extremely satisfied with his own new armour, but also the other's brand new armour which was individually customized to their user.