What could they do? They had no extra weapons, they had no area-of-effect weapons, and they didn't have any high-level skills. The only higher-level skill he had was in hand-to-hand combat. And that was all Sevs had really trained on so far.

A standard squad of four or six would have rifles, but they also have grenades or machine guns. So they could set up a more defensible position with much more firepower. So those four men's squads were much more effective than Sevs seven men's team.

Well, now the four man squad. His estimation looked to be correct. They're only four of the Tarlaki left. But even if they managed to wipe them out, they wouldn't matter because Zim's squad needed assistance. So Sevs was required to finish these four and then turn and help them. Sevs risked another glance back.

Now it was just Zim. Zim was a monster. Sevs could tell he was all alone, but he could fire at a rate three times that of the students and with much more precision. Forcing many of the enemies to dive for cover. It looks like he was burning a skill, and seeing that he hadn't used it earlier, there was likely a cooldown. But it bought him enough time to reposition slightly. He turned and gave Sev's side some fire, buying them a second as well.

Sevs looked at some of his squad and made his decision. With the half-second breather, they needed to take action. So he tapped some signals into a couple of his squad members, leaving Bexy and Carl to cover them while he and the other two charged forward. This is their only chance.

Sevs lost the ability to keep track of his teammates, his backup fire, and Zim. The battle ate all his attention. Finally, he picked the closest Tarlaki and charged into him, swinging his rifle by the barrel like a baseball bat. This caught the smaller being off guard. He managed to cross the distance before he took a shot in the chest again. However, his armor was enough to stop it. While it stung, it didn't slow him down at all. Similarly to how Robert had just clobbered Jason in the training match, Sevs brought his rifle bat into the creature's chin. He heard the crunch as its head snapped aside and killed it in one blow.

It was surprising how easy that was. That shouldn't be a training monster or anything. All the training was done in the tutorial, and people were thrown to the wolves. They were sometimes higher and lower level areas, but he needed to figure out how this would work for this world. Maybe this was an extremely weak raid?

Without losing momentum, Sevs charged to the next one. And he learned why it wasn't so easy. These were almost entirely dexterity-based. This next one slipped under his blow like it was nothing. And pulled out a wicked dagger, which drove for Sev’s throat. There's not much he could do. He turned his head slightly, hoping his armor plates would deflect the blow. They did, barely. He felt it right across the side of his neck. It was not deep enough to nick an artery but enough to burn pain. Maybe a quarter-inch deep cut. He started bleeding profusely, and Sevs figured if he didn't get some healing soon, he would be sent for respawn.

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This would've been a clever tactic, but that tricky space elf got in too close. Sevs had adjusted his rifle against his chest even as he was cut. He slammed it as hard as possible with all his weight into the wall. The force lifted the creature up off the ground.

While the Tarlaki looked to be only three-quarters of the size of Sevs as a 15-year-old. However, he probably only weighed half that, maybe 80 lbs. So it was no problem for Sevs to slam him into the wall hard enough to stun him. He quickly regained his rifle in a regular grip and fired point blank three shots into his face.

Sevs looked up and saw that the other two Tarlaki were down, but so were the other two squad members who charged with him. Looking back, he saw his two squad mates still standing after they managed to take down the two Tarlaki who were distracted finishing off the other people who charged. But, of course, there might have been better ideas than charging. These things were all deadly with aim. They were pretty evenly matched against the recruits at a distance. But up close, it wasn't even fair. Only Sevs, with his advanced skills, had managed to hold his own, and if he didn't get some sort of bandage on his neck soon, he might only make it a little further.

However, it wasn't over. Sevs turned and looked and saw Zim was critically wounded. One leg could not move, and he leaned against the wall, returning fire. But Zim was taking hits, and even as Sevs watched, Zim went down. He had not sold his respawn cheaply. Of the twenty stackers, twelve made it onto the ship. And by the time Zim was alone, it was a five versus one. However, when he went down, they're only three left. This left three on three.

These were not odds Sevs liked. There was no cover in this corridor and nowhere to run.

His people were also out of position. But so were the space elves. Sevs could only use the same tactic. Giving the "cover me" signal to the other two, Sevs ducked low and charged as they opened fire. The Tarlaki had seen what he had done to the previous one and prepared to receive him. However, when one of them tried to stop to flank him it got shot in the leg and the head several times by cover fire. And went down. The other Tarlaki stopped trying to support the one receiving Sevs charge and started returning fire. However, now they were outnumbered. This was a scenario the Tarlaki were not used to.

Tarlaki usually would use swarming numbers and quick speed to overwhelm their opponents quickly. They were not good at slow wars of attrition, especially when the numbers were even. They were more ambush or blitz predators than persistence. Humans were not ambush predators.