Exo deployment

[Corsair]

Six months after the acquisition of a proper testing ground for the ExMortis' Exoskeletal Assault Unit, the prototype has been cleared from its design stage and moved into live-fire testing.

Dust floated endlessly within the Cocoon, an old Kishiro Drone owned by the Colonial Republic and left in some mothballed section of the hangar. It had been stripped of everything valuable even before the ExMortis acquired it, and now had been refitted with a more appropriate testing site. The hallways had been fortified, and the entire cargo bay turned into a mock bunker. Unlike typical ExMortis engineering, the Cocoon had life support and gravity enabled, to simulate a live boarding operation.

The Exo rested idly on the hull of the ship, its metal claws biting into the Drone's hull. It waited for the go-ahead signal over the external airlock. When it arrived, the once sedentary war machine leaped into action, tearing the airlock hatch clean off. Two of its four arms grippe the edges of the airlock and pulled the rest of its body inside as the other two arms began hammering on the inner airlock.

With a groan, the metal gave way and the Exo pushed its way in, further bending the metal as its armored carapace forced through. Ahead were the first defenses the Cocoon had installed; a pair of the new 'Zapper' beam turrets, their discharges leaving sweltering scores on the Exo's hull as it raised the gatling guns mounted to its upper arms. A barrage of yellow bolts obliterated the turrets, and much of the wall behind them.

Kicking down a door to its left, the Exo pushed deeper into the ship. Blast doors began closing, attempting to seal the ExMortis in. As the metal bulkheads closed, the Exo grabbed the bottoms of the doors before they touched the ground and heaved, pushing the door fully open again. It didn't move fast enough to catch the second set of blast doors as they dropped down.

These blast doors were guarding the Cocoon's internal defense mainframe. Wrecking that was the suit's first priority, so that other ExMortis marines could storm the ship. The Exo raised its lower arms, mounted with explosive launchers. Cycling from rockets to detonation packs, the Exo fired three charges that latched on to the blast door in a triangle pattern and detonated. The shaped charges forced most of the blast towards the door, blasting a chunk large enough for the Exo to fit its claws through and begin pulling. At first, the going was slow until it pried open a gap large enough to fill with explosive gel.

The explosive gel tore a hole not only in the blast door, but also took a section of the ceiling and floor along with it, with the smoke barely clearing before the Exo stomped through and into the mainframe. There was a computer terminal of Kusari make, displaying a readout of all of the turrets, blast doors and other defenses located throughout the ship. Approaching the terminal, a port opened up on the Exo's abdomen, and a clawed arm-like apparatus emerged. It searched over the terminal for an access port, then inserted two of its digits while the third and final claw extended to press buttons on the terminal's display.

Over the next thirty seconds, the Exo hacked through the computer's defenses and began subverting the ship's components. The clanging of feet outside signalled the arrival of ExMortis marines, which began to secure parts of the ship. The Exo raised blast doors and restored access for the invading forces. The mock battle was over.

The Speaker spoke into the Exo's mind.

<Excellent. Seven minutes from entry to capture.>

The Exo slowly exited the Cocoon the way it came, through the torn open airlock and into open space. There, the Katanfreia floated nearby. Pushing off, the 7' tall behemoth drifted towards the destroyer. When it came into contact with the Katanfreia, it crawled along the ship's hull and found an entry point. There were no airlocks this time, no stifling atmosphere or blinding light. Just the frigid void, bustling with the activity of its family. The Exo simply stood still in the middle of a pitch-black hallway, letting its brethren swarm around it as they went about their tasks.

It was content.

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