It had been about an hour since Dax had surgically destroyed the golem that had appeared out of nowhere. After that he had silently started picking it apart ignoring Solaris' attempts at striking up a conversation.

"... Give me a second."

"Yeah, sure… It is after all only the 4th time you've said that."

Enduring his silence for that long Solaris understandably started getting quite annoyed with him and finally couldn't handle the annoyance anymore and started approaching Dax so she could whack his head.

"I'm done, or more like ICI is done."

"... You've barely survived, this time."

"Yeah yeah. I know where we need to go now, follow me."

Bruising Solaris to the side as he stood up Dax started walking in a new direction, away from what would be the center of the station he had previously approached.

"So did you find out what it was?"

"What? The golem?"

Trying once more to start up a conversation Solaris felt her blood started boiling when Dax acted like he had no idea what she was talking about.

"No, the bunny that hopped past you a moment ago."

Showing Dax a cold smile as she joked with him Dax started feeling Solaris might be mad at him.

"It was a groundskeeper. It's arms had repair tools and a pair of hedge scissors, that combined with its general lack of combat prowers leads me to believe it was not meant for combat and wouldn't be aggressive if I didn't pry those panels off the wall. The golem also had ports on its back for recharging and resupply but most importantly there was a locking mechanism under its feet to secure it- Ah here we are."

Cutting his own explanation short Dax stopped in the middle of a corridor between two halls and pointed towards one of the stone plates that covered the wall.

"Could you please try and open this like panel like you did with the doors?"

"..."

Not liking her treatment lately Solaris took a stance of non compliance until Dax explained himself more.

"This is a maintenance port, where the golems travel through to get into this residential area. I'm hypnotizing that what we have explored of this station so far is some sort of temporary holding area, hence the cheap construction. Whatever is behind this panel is likely to lead to an older and more technologically advanced part of the station, as in where we need to go."

"... Okay, but you are kind of being an a.s.shole acting like you have been."

Giving her honest opinion of Dax's current behavior Solaris went over to touch the panel, and just like Dax had explained when she sent her mana into the stone panel it reacted just like a door.

"Sorry."

"It's okay, I just wanted to make you aware of it."

"I will take that to heart, I've been acting like I always do on missions and didn't realize I was coming off as rude, thank you for bringing this to my attention."

The panel revealed itself to be door like Dax had taught and was quickly unlocked, revealing a dark maintenance shaft behind.

"ICI check it out."

Acting cautiously Dax sent a pair of Reaper drones into the shaft to explore it further, revealing 2 levels below the one Solaris and Dax where on, and a total of 5 above.

"A total of 8 levels… Let's head to the top one first and check that one out first, then work our way down and leave the less interesting floors like this one to the Lantern drones."

"And what's your basic for going after the top level first?"

"Because the easiest place to establish communication with the outside is the top level where you could in theory stick an antenna all the way through the top of the dome."

"And it's the smallest level, therefore the quickest to search."

Finally working a bit more as a team Solaris and Dax improved their effectiveness greatly, and the chance of Solaris. .h.i.tting Dax in the head lowered grealy.

"That sounds like a good plan, let's do it."

Having a plan of action it only took Dax and Solaris a few minutes to reach the top level using the service duct. Prying open the door from the inside Dax and Solaris found it to be a lot different than the level they entered on. Instead of stone panels the narrow hall they entered were made of a mix of black metal alloys and some kind of glowing red crystals that formed some kind of ominous pattern. The area also seemed poorly maintained, as scratches on the floor and walls were clearly visible, and some kind of fungi spores drifted in the filthy air.

"The air here is strange.. Take extreme caution."

"Right."

Moving through the slim corridor in formation with several layers of drones between anything unknown and Solaris Dax took extreme care.

"We have some kind of room coming up, the air is also getting increasingly thick with fungi spores. If you tear your arm on something I am immediately amputating and sterilizing it so be prepared."

"... That'll hurt a lot won't it."

"Yeah it will, speaking from personal experience. Of course those that condition also applies to myself."

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With the extra conditions established and clearly laid out Dax continued into the first room and quickly cleared it with the Reaper drones.

"All clear, Solaris get up here."

Calling Solaris to the center of the room cluttered with what looked to be broken down servers she let out a scream when she saw what Dax had found.

"Rest in peace."

It was a copse of some kind of humanoid creature sitting in a chair, it was covered from head to toe in some kind of carnivorous fungi colony that were about halfway done devouring the corpse. With goo and other decomposing biological matter seeping out onto the floor Solaris were for the first time extremely glad she wore a s.p.a.ce suit.

"Whatever it is seems to feed on biological matter, but more importantly it also survives on electricity. ICI make sure all drones from this mission are scuttled after this mission to avoid cross contamination."

[DIRECTIVE CONFIRMED: 12 DRONES MARKED FOR END OF SERVICE FOLLOWING COMPLETION OF CURRENT MISSION.]

"I'm going to dig through some of the servers to see if anything can be recovered, Solaris make sure you don't touch anything."

"That you don't have to tell me."

As Dax had one of his free Reaper drones look through the depri for anything salvageable Solaris found the place in the room with the most free s.p.a.ce to stand, all of which was observed by multiple hidden surveillance video cameras.

A few rooms away from Dax and Solaris in the center of what could only be described as a command room something came alive as it emerged from a stasis pod. The human figure that was amalgamation of flesh, fungi, runestones and cybernetic technology rose from the pod as it grasped a chipped two handed sword before activating some kind of magic formation carved into its body and completely disappeared from sight.