The Ace of Spades Campaign - Alien Base part 10

Alien Base Sub Level 3
The two alien security robots pointed and aimed their weapons at the intruders, briefly awaiting their request to identify who they were. It was a tense moment.

Danica reacted with incredible speed and deadly precision. She fired her Phaser Pistol twice on Kill setting, penetrating the security robot's armour with ease.

 The first shot severely damaged the robot and the second killed it. It toppled backwards and lay still.

Storm Galloway was a fraction of a second slower than Danica, but just as accurate and deadly with her shooting.

She also struck twice with her Phaser Pistol on Kill setting, fatally damaging the alien robot.
"Okay, I was not expecting that," she said as she breathed a sigh of relief.
"Those were the robots that attacked me on the DSX Timothy," Johan observed, "or at least ones that looked similar. I don't know how many the Npurth have."
"I should have known this base wouldn't be totally abandoned," Danica remarked. "It makes sense that they left someone to watch over it. We almost got caught off guard once. Let's make sure it doesn't happen again. Stay alert, people."

They moved into the corridor that led east. There were three exits visible in the wide corridor, a hatchway to the north, a forcefield directly opposite and a sliding door at the end of the corridor on the south wall. Danica opened the hatchway to the north, which was not locked.

They entered a T-shaped corridor that held a gun turret at the corner of the junction leading to the east. That corridor contained three hatchways in the north-facing wall. The rest of the main corridor led to another hatchway north of them. It was to this exit that they approached.

Occupying the square-shaped room was a large globe, half sunk into the floor. It was approximately six yards in diameter and it depicted this planet. On it were clearly marked this base, a large number of Thonne villages and the atomic waste dump, south east of the base. Lynda examined a control panel on the eastern wall and after a few seconds discovered that it could be used to manipulate the globe to rotate back and forth, turn over to show the southern hemisphere and caused strange patterns to go marching across the surface, bending around natural features of the landscape and converging on the Thonne villages.
"This seems to be a tactical display," she surmised, "but for what purpose I can't say."
"Okay, let's move on," Storm commanded.

A forcefield in the corner of the eastern wall was deactivated by the press of a button in the side of the opening to reveal another square-shaped room. This room consisted entirely of banks of monitors. each one showed a scene of life amongst the native Thonne. Activity was going on in all of them, hunting, cleaning kills, fishing, some farming, and many other features of native life on this world. No controls of any kind were visible. Nor were they. This was a display only bank. The controls were located in another room on this level that they hadn't examined yet.

They exited the monitor room and globe room to check out the three hatches in the corridor that led eastwards. The first room was lit with a soft, pinkish glow that was rather hard on the eyes. A large screen was visible on its northern wall, but it was blank. On a low table under the screen was a speaker grille, a microphone pick-up and a two position switch in the "up" position. There was no sign of damage and no loose articles lying about. Lynda recognised the set-up as being identical to the computer access panel on the submarine. One additional switch was visible and she found that when turned to the "down" position it switched the terminal from the broken biocomputer on the second level to the main computer on the fourth level.
Acting on a hunch and using her translator device, Lynda spoke the following phrase into the microphone, "Qootpol Npuk Sorgnul Pnesh"
This was the computer override phrase that the dissected clone of Chembles had given her before he died.
The computer responded instantly and spoke in Npurth, "Access granted. What are your instructions?"
Lynda turned to the others and pumped the air with both fists.
"Yes!" she exclaimed, "I'm in."
"Computer, enter passive mode," she instructed. "Command all robots and any sentient beings in the base to ignore any strangers. Shut down all defences and unlock all doors and hatches, and turn off all forcefields."
"Confirmed," the computer replied.
Lynda turned back to face her colleagues, grinning from ear to ear.
"This should make the rest of our exploration a cakewalk," she beamed.
"Way to go, Lynda!" Storm congratulated the research scientist.

The other two rooms further down the corridor were identical in every respect to the first one. Storm suggested they explore the rest of this level, feeling confident that no more nasty surprises awaited them.