Legion has completed: Soul of Mendacius, Heart of the Infernal Machine | Time to Process: 72 Hours

  You and your Strike Team have cleared a Siege Class Dungeon! XP will be divided by contribution. To change these settings, review the Party Screen!

  Legion has absorbed echoes of itself and produced (1) Dreadblade Shard (Epic Quality)

  Your Social Link with Eidolon has Increased! Eidolon Social Link Rank: 1 Acknowledged

  You have been offered a Quest Chain! Evacuation Protocol [Part 1]

  WARNING

  The Infernal Machine has entered a Critical State -- Time Limit imposed

  Objective: [Part 1] Reach your Dropship within 45 minutes, or perish in the initial blasts of the Station's destruction.

  Quest Chain Rewards: XP | Anomalous Crew Social Link Progression | Warden Set Piece

  "We gotta go, now," Tony shouted, pulling the Strike Team, most notably Maximus and Embry from picking through the ruined mechanical corpses and other components in the boss room.

  A timer populated in the top center of his vision, counting down from forty-five minutes. Fortunately, the team trusted his urgency and readied up on his six.

  Tony turned and put his hands on Esava's shoulders, "Can you use that exploration talent to get us back to the landing zone? We have forty minutes before this place blows and we all die..." Tony asked. The white lie wasn't much of a stretch, Bruce had done the same thing to him, shaving time to ensure punctuality.

  She looked up at him, met his gaze, and thought for a moment before nodding confidently, "I can tweak it like that, yeah," she answered and stepped past him. A singular red star popped into existence from between her hands and rocketed out of the room.

  "Ball!" Maximus shouted before he took off at full-tilt after the star, the rest of the team just a beat behind him.

  With seven minutes to spare, Tony and the Strike Team reconvened with Ost at the drop ship. He had to give the Selenian credit, they had the engines primed, readied, and the meeting point cleared of enemy mobs.

  Evacuation Protocol [Part 1] Completed!

  Evacuation Protocol [Part 2]

  Objective: Dock at The Anomalous and reach the bridge within 10 minutes. Failure to do so will result in catastrophic damage to Anomalous systems due to radiation flash, concussive force, and debris.

  Another timer... he lamented.

  "Everyone on, let's go!" Tony bellowed, waving the team in over the whine of the engines. Once inside, the doors slammed shut.

  "Strap in!" Ost's voice boomed over the loudspeaker in the hold as the dropship lurched into open space, punching through debris and the haze from the continuing sortie.

  "This is Silver Wing, all fighters back to the Anomalous immediately. Station's gone critical and we're not leaving anyone behind!" Ost's voice could be heard as they shouted the order into the fighter channel comms.

  Ost's talent as a pilot only continued to shine as they docked on the Anomalous in under four minutes. Tony burst out of the hold as soon as the doors open and moved in a full on sprint toward the bridge. Tony had taken just a moment to ponder why he would need to make it to the bridge in a certain amount of time. Wouldn't Moanthin just take The Anomalous out of the area as soon as everyone was docked? Something had to be preventing them from leaving.

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  He didn't care about the viscera and battle refuse still clinging to him... he had a time-bound objective and was certain that there was another coming and his hustle was proven necessary as he arrived on the bridge. It was pandemonium... Renestrae was shouting at Moanthin, who looked particularly annoyed at the situation... unless that was just how he looked about everything... Kaelen was attempting to mediate but Vireth and Sidro appeared to have taken Renestrae's side in whatever the argument was.

  Tony froze for a moment, unsure of what exactly to do before a slight thrum somewhere in his chest spurred him to action. "Commander on deck!" he bellowed with an authority in his voice he didn't know he had.

  Silence fell over the bridge as the remaining time continued to tick down. "I do not care what the argument was, I do not care who started it, it is over. We need to get to the other side of this system now or we risk catastrophic damage to the ship. Renestrae, back to your post and plot the fastest course that gets us at safe distance..."

  Orbis, help me out here... Tony thought.

  The small ball of rings, wings, and eyes started spouting nonsense about joules, and energy per square meter before it was unsafe for the ship before Tony cut him off.

  Just the answer, you don't need to show me your work... we're on a time crunch.

  "Of course, Antonious," Orbis replied into his mind. "at 3 million kilometers, catastrophic exposure without cover is certain, 30 million will still result in severe heat and radiation damage. Minimum safe distance to avoid damage is 90 million kilometers from the station. Putting something solid between The Anomalous and the explosion would be advised."

  "Ninety million kilometers from here," Tony finished the order.

  Renestrae's eyes went wide.

  Evacuation Protocol [Part 2] Complete!

  Evacuation Protocol [Part 3] Finale

  Objective: Reach minimum safe distance within 12 17 minutes (+5 minutes from Part 2 completion time!) to reduce damage from The Infernal Machine's explosion.

  "Ninety mill--" Renestrae balked.

  "And preferably on the other side of something solid... like a planet... in fifteen minutes..." Tony added.

  To her credit, the Celestial Elf went about tapping furiously at the navigation display before sending the pathing over to Moanthin at the helm.

  "Are you mad?" Moanthin spat, "This course is dangerous, Renestrae--"

  "But it's necessary if we're going to achieve the distance in the time we have, we need to take advantage of gravity slings and momentum,"

  Tony's patience had run flat out.

  "Can you do it or do I need to put someone else at the helm?" Tony shouted over the two bickering elves. The two of them promptly shut their mouths and set about busying themselves in a flurry of purpose driven motion.

  “This is your helmsman speaking, all crew are strongly advised to strap into the nearest emergency safety harness available. Fighter pilots still in their crafts are advised to stay inside. It’s going to get bumpy,” Moanthin announced over the Anomalous’ intercom.

  With a violent shudder and the low rumbling of the engines burning Moanthin slammed himself into the helm seat and assumed manual control of the ship.

  “Divert all power from shields and guns to engines,” Tony commanded. A trio of “Yes sir” sounded in response.

  “Here we go…” he heard Moanthin mutter as the ship lurched forward.

  Tony allowed some bend is his knees, but planted his feet firmly on the deck. Despite the rapid acceleration and maneuvering of the ship, he did not falter in his stance. He just watched his quest tracking as the numbers of kilometers between himself and the station-in-meltdown grew rapidly.

  They crossed the safe zone and, in a clever bit of navigating, drifted into the gap of a dense asteroid belt just as power to the engines was cut and redirected in full to the shields.

  Tony practically plastered himself to the viewport and watched as fire blossomed in the distance, suddenly remembering the two ascendant ships they'd come to rescue in the first place.