One thing Blake had not expected was hand grenades.
The metallic ping echoed in Blake's mind. A small, dark object sailing through the air. His instincts kicked in - swat the threat away. The grenade bounced off his palm, tumbled down the stairwell, and disappeared into the maintenance deck below.
The explosion rocked the ship. Heat and shrapnel tore through the lower deck, the blast wave rattling Blake's bones. Metal shrieked and groaned.
"Amateur hour," Blake muttered. Twenty years of combat experience, and he'd batted a live grenade into the guts of their only ride off this rock. The maintenance deck housed critical systems - systems they couldn't afford to lose.
A bullet whizzed past his head, sparking off the bulkhead. Blake pressed himself flat against the wall. Time to shelve the self-criticism. Not like there were a ton of options for dealing with live grenades anyway. More scavs were coming, and they weren't about to let him dwell on past mistakes.
Smoke from the floor below was already making visibility a challenge. The scavengers had chosen to split up - smart move on their part. Two of them held back near the stairwell, makeshift pistols trained on his position. They crouched behind large crates on either side of the room, trying to keep him pinned.
Of the remaining two, one had a spear and the other a machete. Archaic choices, sure, but if they moved half as well as the previous group of scavengers, then they were a real threat.
Nine rounds left. Blake felt his gun's weight in his right hand. Comfortable. Familiar. His free hand wrapped around the handle of his knife. It had served him well so far. Four and a half inches of hardened steel. It wasn't quite a machete, but he'd done a lot with less.
Acrid, burnt-plastic smoke continue to billow up from the deck beneath them. The air burned with it - scorched metal and electricity. Sweat rolled down Blake's neck while he strained to listen. Scavenger boot heels rang against the steel floor. Their lungs worked overtime in the toxic haze. Getting closer now. Much closer.
There! The tip of the spear came into view to his left. The man holding it was only a few steps away.
Blake launched himself from cover, past the spear's deadly point. His boots hammered the deck plates as he closed the gap. The scav's eyes widened, mouth opening in surprise. Too late.
The knife plunged between ribs with a meaty thunk. Blake twisted the blade, feeling tissue tear. Hot blood spilled over his fingers. The scav's spear clattered to the ground. Weakly, the injured man tried striking Blake, but strength was already leaving his limbs.
Gunfire erupted from across the room. Blake yanked the dying scav close, using the body as a shield. Bullets thudded into dying flesh. The soon-to-be corpse jerked with each impact.
Blake's arm snaked around the body, extending his pistol. He sighted down the barrel and watched for muzzle flare, finding his target through the haze. The shooter's outline was indistinct through the smoke.
Blake squeezed the trigger. The gun bucked in his hand.
A sharp cry echoed through the maintenance bay. The sound of a body hitting metal followed. But still sounds of pain. Wounded, not killed.
Blake wrenched the knife free with a wet sound. The body slumped, dead weight pulling at his arms. He let it drop.
His boots left bloody prints as he rolled across the deck. A bullet cracked past his shoulder, missing by fractions of an inch. The sound echoed through the maintenance bay, mixing with the crackle of damaged electronics and the hiss of ruptured coolant lines.
His reconstructed muscles moved with fluid precision. Zero wasted motion. Zero strain. Chimera's work had transformed him into something pushing the boundaries of human limits. His body flowed through the brutal choreography as easily as drawing breath.
The wounded gunman sprawled against a twisted support beam, one hand pressed to a bleeding gut wound. Blood leaked between his fingers. His other hand trembled, trying to bring a battered pistol to bear.
Blake crossed the distance in three smooth strides. The pistol's barrel tracked upward, seeking center mass. Too slow. Far too slow.
Blake's knife found the gunman's throat. A quick, savage slash. Arterial spray painted the bulkhead. The pistol clattered to the deck, unfired.
Blake got low, unceremoniously rolling and shoving the body out of the way. He sunk into the same position the dead gunner previously occupied, taking cover from the remaining gunman. Two targets left.
Blake's shoulder pressed against the crate, sweat mixing with blood on his hands. The acrid stench of burnt metal and gunpowder filled his nostrils. His muscles coiled, ready to spring into action.
He lifted his head above the crate's edge, scanning the smoke-filled maintenance bay. Movement caught his eye. The machete wielder was circling back. He crept closer, using the cover of twisted pipes and damaged equipment.
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The crack of gunfire split the air. Wood splintered inches from Blake's face. He jerked back, heart hammering against his ribs. Debris rained down his collar.
Blake tracked the machete wielder's approach. The blade in his hand caught the dim emergency lighting, throwing off crimson reflections. All the while, the second gunman maintained covering fire, forcing Blake to stay low.
The distance shrank. Twenty feet. Fifteen. Once more the sound of boots on steel. The blade lifted, hungry.
Blake knew the geometry was wrong. Bad angles meant dead men. He pivoted, faced the crate, laid flat with his back against the floor. Both feet planted against the crate. He kicked off—hard—sliding away from the crate. Too low for the remaining shooter. Out of reach of the macheteman. The scavenger's face appeared over the far edge of the crate as Blake shot from out of cover - shocked eyes in his twisted, not-quite-human visage.
Two shots. Clean. Efficient. A meaty thud followed by the musical ping of steel weapon meeting steel floor. One hostile remaining.
Blake spun his body over, low crawled back into cover as fast as he could manage. He fought his body's instincts, forcibly keeping his breathing measured. Once it was no longer a struggle he spoke.
"Still a chance you walk away," he called to the remaining gunman. "You picked this fight, maybe it didn't shake out how you thought. You can still pack it in."
There was a gasp, a choking noise, and a thud. Blake risked a look and saw a hulking figure silhouetted against the smoldering light of the damaged deck below.
"Actually," Eland said, the tone unfamiliar to Blake. Too dispassionate. "It was too late for him."
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Blake followed Eland's massive frame through the wreckage of the lower decks. Exposed wiring crackled and spat blue sparks that reflected off the Stokrine's hide. The emergency lighting cast long shadows across buckled floor plates and shattered bulkheads.
His boots crunched over fragments of shattered displays. The tang of ozone and melted circuitry stung his nostrils, mixing with the caustic stench of burnt plastic. Wisps of grey smoke curled through the air, catching in his throat.
Twisted support beams jutted at odd angles, forcing them to duck and weave. Coolant dripped from ruptured lines overhead, pattering against the deck in an arhythmic cadence. The liquid hissed where it contacted still-hot metal.
Eland moved with surprising grace for his size, but remained uncharacteristically silent. His shoulders were tight, head forward, focused entirely on picking through the devastation. The usual warmth was gone from his bearing, replaced by something harder.
The corridor opened into a vast chamber dominated by towering cylindrical structures. Unlike the devastation they'd left behind, most systems here still functioned. Holographic displays flickered across curved surfaces, bathing the room in an eerie red glow. Warning symbols Blake didn't recognize scrolled across every screen.
A speaker mounted near the ceiling sputtered and wheezed, managing only weak bursts of what should have been an alarm. The sound reminded Blake of a dying animal gasping its last breaths.
Eland's massive frame went rigid. His head tilted slightly - a gesture Blake had learned meant he was interfacing with Zephyr.
"How severe is the damage?" Eland's voice carried none of its usual warmth.
"Critical," Zephyr's disembodied voice cut through the failed alarm attempts. "The regulators are completely destroyed. Both cores are locked in an exponential feedback loop. Without intervention, they'll reach super-critical mass within the hour. The resulting explosion will vaporize everything within a kilometer radius."
Blake's fingers twitched near his sidearm. The casual mention of a kilometer-wide explosion had that effect.
"Do we have the parts to fix this?" Eland's voice carried a weight Blake hadn't heard before.
"Negative. The damage is too extensive." Zephyr's voice crackled through the damaged speakers. "We'd need an entirely new regulatory system."
Eland's massive frame sagged. A long breath escaped through his nostril slits. "What about hooking me directly into the system?"
"The interface ports are intact. It's possible, but—"
"What exactly are you talking about doing?" Blake cut in.
Eland smiled grimly at Blake. "It will be boring, and it will certainly be uncomfortable—"
"If not outright painful," Zephyr interjected helpfully. Eland sighed.
"But if I loop myself into the system and manually cycle the power I can get this all safely spun down until we can do repairs."
"Okay," Blake said. "Not sure how that works, but I assume it's some bullshit cultivation stuff I'll learn when I'm a big boy. I assume this will leave you stationary and vulnerable?"
"Correct," Zephyr said, not waiting for Eland.
"Understood. How long will you be out for?"
"That is a good question," Eland said. "I can't say for certain until I get in there, but between 36 and 72 hours? It will be slow going reallocating power to the cells that don't have proper couplings, but I'll manage."
Blake fought back a surge of annoyance at the suit—no, Chimera—for having wrecked so much of the power system rebuilding him. The time for recrimination on that front was past.
"Alright," Blake put on his best 'everything will go according to plan' voice. "You focus on that, and I'll figure out how to keep us all safe when more of those scavs show up."
"They're cultivation is incredibly lopsided, if you can advance at all in the next day or two I'd say you don't have too much to worry about." Eland sounded confident, which made Blake feel better.
Until Zephyr piped up.
"Yeah another raiding party this size will be straightforward. We only have to worry if their entire clan is willing to spill blood over this incident. Hopefully, there were just a handful willing to follow that 'Rax' idiot." Eland's face drooped, and a stone settled in Blake's gut. Of course the next attack would be larger. There was very little chance they wouldn't show up in force within the next few days.
"I'll work on front, just focus on this," Blake responded, his tone still confident. "Let me know if you need anything."
With that he walked away, retreating back to his quarters. It was time he and Chimera finished their talk and Blake was allowed access to the Demiurge system. Whatever assistance it offered to those trying to become cultivators, Blake needed it. He couldn't stagnate here, not with Eland helpless belowdecks. Progress or death.
"Time to level up."