The first of the chasers barrelled carelessly into the room, pulling the trigger the barrel lit the air around me with a blinding flash as the bolt left the pistol splitting through the air like a warp drive, to my left my companion opened up hosing down 2 more of them who staggered carelessly into the open, another fell to an aimed shot from me hitting him cleanly within his ribcage, slumping hard against the floor. Another of them tripped over the one I just killed and caught a las-bolt into the side of his head knocking him out of the fight too.
From behind a single shot rang out, taking me by surprise. Keeping my pistol aimed at the doorway waiting for any more of our pursuers I glanced backwards, whoever was to my right was tracking something moving within the chamber.
“What is it” I had to shout, breaking the communication silence we imposed on ourselves subconsciously. As the words left my lips I cursed out loud, a bright white light punctured the room ahead of us from the doorway casting a harsh shadow into the room, illuminating the chamber. My jaw dropped, there were at least 20 of them approaching us from various directions, all weapons aimed at each one of us.
“CONTACT REAR”, twisting onto my stomach I let loose 2 rounds, dropping someone wearing a medic uniform and another wearing a battered engineer uniform. At that, the room erupted in chaos, bullets and las bolts ripped through the air around us as the firefight reached a crescendo, determined to not shy away I slunk further into the floor keeping my pistol steady. Loosing off shots at every chance I got, I could feel myself shaking as adrenaline pumped into my veins as I tried to maintain focus, pushing hard against each flinch and wince as rounds struck ever closer to me. Another blinding flash lit up the room ahead of us, this time it seemed to catch our attackers unaware, sending a few of them fly forward towards us. Landing with an unnerving crunch onto the walls and bouncing off the floor.
Gripping my pistol tighter in my hand, I attempted to discern any figures in the chamber ahead of us. The blinding light made it incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to see any of the figures around the room, but the urgency in Dominskev's voice made it clear the situation we were in was heading from bad to worse. “They’re coming from the tunnel again!”
I swallowed and rotated myself once again, losing off 4 shots in quick succession taking down the first of the careless attackers that burst through the corridor behind. We were surrounded and now I was out of my depth, Panic began to brew within my stomach threatening to completely consume me, I focused on my breathing and wrestled for control in my mind. A searing pain ripped me from my wrestling match, when a second searing pain shot through my legs I struggling to contain the scream of pain, it was surreal.
More bullets whizzed past my head and my torso creating a symphony of deadly notes, I scanned the rest of the room around me before risking a glance at my legs. A single round had glanced my knee and a secondary round had grazed my leg from my ankle up to the top of my leg. My dishevelled trousers now wore a black scorch mark and hung loosely on either side of my leg, revealing the bright pink and dark crimson of my leg below. I gritted my teeth, breathing heavily as the pain came in waves, a slight breeze making contact with my leg causing me to go dizzy.
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Forcing myself to focus again I scanned for targets, spotting one approaching from behind a shipping crate ahead of me I fired, catching him as he ran his legs gave out as it ripped through his torso and he collapsed unceremoniously onto the floor. touching myear I activated my voxlink.
“I’m hit, I’m hit. Does anyone see any escape from this? Can’t do this for much longer!” I gasped into it, once again having to fight through another wave of pain which threatened to send what little I had eaten back from where it came. I took a brief moment to survey the carnage around me in the harsh white light, our attackers looked like little more than untrained rebels sent in as cannon fodder to distract us, but from what they were distracting us from I couldn’t work out. Admittedly we had seriously thinned their numbers, the approximate number dropping from 30 or more to something more akin to 16.
Without warning, some of them appeared to be breaking into arguments. Arguments began to turn into gun fights between one another. As I watched a bulky young man, who looked about 5’11 towered over a woman as they traded words, the argument got heated and she shoved him back. Following up on this the woman raised her rifle to his stomach and pulled the trigger, causing him to drop in that one shot.
She bent down real close to his face, uttering some words into his face, he lunged forward at her, catching her by surprise and she stumbled back, bleeding profusely from her nose. When she stood, she flipped the rifle up and pointed her rifle at him once more, Pulling the trigger she jumped with joy, finishing him off with a shriek of excitement. “They seem to be fighting one another sir” Dominskev said over the Radio, and just like that they all turned on one another.
The rebel who I’d been watching was brought down by a shot to her knee from somewhere to her right, spinning around she caught another round to the centre of her chest. A finishing shot sent her sprawling backwards with a nasty head wound. I shifted my attention to another of her small group, a small woman who was off to her right, she spun her tattered white uniform which distinguished her as a former medic, and brought her rifle up to bear unleashing a withering volley in the direction of the prior shots, slaying a decrepit old man. His torn clothing turned to little more than charred fabric as the rounds slammed into him, pitching forward, fell towards the ground leaving blood spray to decorate the walls behind where he was. And with that whatever had been keeping them focused lost control and they turned on one another, firing at point-blank range riddling their former allies with rounds until they stopped moving or until they ran out of ammo.
The clean-up after this was easy, only 3 survived the backstabbing and they were brought down with easy precise shots. The adrenaline leaving my system brought back the waves of pain which I had thought were gone, my leg was in fairly okay shape. Nothing too severe that wouldn’t be able to be fixed when we get to a medical station if we got to one at all that was.