“—fails to account for other fools!”

The scene that greeted Esma on the other side of the cargo bay door was more or less what one would expect based on the audio clues, with both participants jockeying for leverage in a space ill-suited for individuals of their combat styles and statures. In regard to their exact positioning it wasn’t immediately obvious to a novice like Esma who held the upper hand, though intuition led her to believe that both parties were of similar martial skill.

“You!? What do you think you’re doing!?”

It didn’t escape Esma just how dumbfounded Rohner sounded at her sudden incursion into the corridor, though she supposed the fact he could still bark at her despite the current predicament meant it wasn’t time to worry yet.

“Get back in... the cargo bay...!”

Esma swallowed anxiously but refused to break stride as she neared the entangled duo. Instead focusing the entirety of her faculties into searching for a way past the melee so she could reach the engine room. The space being infringed upon by Cloud Nine in real time.

“They’ll kill you!”

Recognizing that their opponent’s attention was split the armor-clad raider attempted to swipe one of his lantern shields down across Rohner’s abdomen. An attempt that proved successful albeit the cut was relatively shallow thanks to a well-timed knee disrupting the offending arm’s course. The security rep then released the hand that had been attempting to twist the raider’s helmet and used it to lock the attacking arm in an extended position towards the floor. It around this time that Esma’s gaze honed in on a narrow opening behind the raider’s back that she could conceivably use to slip past the pair, assuming she acted before the window closed.

Putting two and two together, fresh wound notwithstanding, Rohner began to apply more force into his points of contact in hopes of drawing the raider’s full attention. A tall order now that the brunette was right on top of them, making her almost impossible to ignore. Despite this the security rep didn’t observe any obvious changes in his adversary’s countenance or weight distribution, suggesting he still had the raider’s full attention. He supposed they were operating under the assumption that their subordinate in the engine room could handle one girl without fuss. But this assumption would soon prove false as the arm wielding the lantern shield that hadn’t been locked in place abruptly swung over the raider’s shoulder and embedded its blade in the corridor wall directly behind him. Right into the path Esma had been keen to exploit.

Time slowed to a crawl and the interim security officer swore she caught of glimpse of her reflection in the blade prior to craning her head back towards the ceiling, narrowly avoiding clotheslining herself. But rather than pass under the blade seamlessly Esma felt her left hip collide with the raider’s armored backside, causing her to ricochet into the corridor wall and kill whatever previous momentum she’d accumulated. Or more accurately, transfer it into what felt like every bone in the right side of her body.

As a dull ache began to spread across the multiple areas of her body Esma heard rather than saw the end of the lantern shield being extracted from the wall somewhere above her. Panicking at the implications of the sound she pushed off the wall and tried to continue forward down the corridor.

“Look out!”

Esma yelped as the same blade from before flashed across her vision again, this time embedding itself at an awkward angle in front of her. The cause of which was Rohner releasing the arm he’d trapped in favor of resetting his hands on either side of the Cloud Nine member’s chest piece. This allowed him to steer the man’s entire upper body and influence the trajectory of the second jab attempt. That being said, the brunette had practically been crushed up against the wall in the process, with the awkwardly set blade still acting as an obstacle she’d have to somehow navigate past.

It was from this unfortunate position that Esma was reminded of the plight they were facing if she were to be stalled any longer. The second Cloud Nine member having already disappeared into the engine room for a short time, doing who knows how much damage to the various engine components. And that cognizance frustrated her more than she ever thought possible.

I expected things to be rough on the other side, but to become collateral damage in someone else’s fight. Pathetic. And I’m already so sick of it. Sick of my body being bashed around, sick of sharp things trying to impale me, sick of holding up this fucking wall!

Releasing all that pent up frustration in the form of a near primal growl, Esma mustered the totality of her remaining strength and allocated it towards repelling the gilded form smothering her. A second wind that bought her several inches of forward progress with each burst, a feat the young woman never would have thought possible half a corridor ago. Not within the confines of her old familiar world.

Off the tail end of such a welcome realization she continued to press onward, not even pausing when the blade of the lantern shield sliced the center of her right cheek open as it made one final attempt at stuffing her steady advancement along the wall. The security officer simply tabbed it as one more thing that would hurt when she awoke the next morning and stayed focused on what was in front of her. And no sooner had Esma cleared the influence of the entwined pair did her legs take to stride and resume their sprint for the target destination.

It’s almost absurd how many things all started to make sense just now. Not to say I suddenly have all the answers, more like I discovered the means to arrive at them. The crux of so many of my anxieties and mistakes. That day I kept being dragged back to seemingly against my will for example.

What kind of life would I be leading if I’d responded to that hifalutin bureaucrat the same way I did this raider? Or maybe it had always been part of his strategy to keep me from gaining the momentum to even try. Food for thought I suppose. Though there is one other thing I don’t know how to feel about yet. This rifle in my hand, it somehow feels heavier...

“Doizer! Company!”

The raider roared out a warning to his comrade in the engine room after having let the brunette slip past. Hands much to full with the older officer who appeared to be having a small watershed moment of his own. A kind of renewed vigor in response to the effort being put on display by his colleague. But Cloud Nine wasn’t about to be caught sleeping either, and the raider who’d appeared before soon reemerged from the depths of the engine room with a sense of urgency. The unexpected sight of a woman storming down the corridor causing them to fumble their firearm as they made to cock it. And while Esma recognized she needed to take advantage of their mistake to close the remaining distance, she didn’t have a concrete plan for incapacitating the raider. As despite it all the CO in every sense but current job description still held considerable reservations at the notion of shooting someone. Especially when the person on the other end of the barrel was at such close range. A memory from earlier in the day flashed across Esma’s mind.

“What, you’re still uneasy about punching a hole in someone’s foot?”

“Very much so. And your paraphrasing is only driving those insecurities home.”

“I suppose it can’t be helped then. Come here.”

Lux beckoned her student to come stand in front of her. Esma did so warily.

“...why?”

“Cause I’m gonna show you a move for disarming and disabling your enemy at close range.”

Esma quickly ran through the finer points of what Lux had taught her. The first of which emphasizing the need for a firm grip of one’s rifle. As for the move itself, it necessitated swinging the stock of the rifle in an upward motion. A movement intended to fulfill the disarming portion of the stratagem.

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“Try and aim for a point just beyond whatever you’re actually targeting. A swing and a miss under these conditions will net you a quick death on account of how wide open it’ll leave you.”

The brunette settled on the raider’s cleft chin as her target, well past the firearm he’d begun to brandish.

“You’ll probably be tempted to hyper focus on whatever target you’ve settled on, but try and resist. What you need to be focusing on is the enemy’s eyes.”

“Their eyes...?”

“Eyes betray a person’s intent, reading them will give you a rough idea of how they’ll respond.”

The raider notably continued to struggle in forming a response to the fast approaching security officer, their growing panic becoming evident in the way they kept shifting their focus from Esma to the rifle in their hand. Eyes flitting up, down and then back up again. Until finally they raised their rifle. Only to have it redirected towards the ceiling alongside both of their arms.

“Once you’ve created your opening, drive the end of the rifle forward into your opponent’s head or abdomen. If the first strike doesn’t get the job done make sure you don’t let up.”

Lux playfully smacked her friend’s stomach to help bring the point home. Just hard enough to make Esma sputter in exasperation. It also had the added benefit of dissipating the tension that had settled into the girl’s posture during the conversation.

“Someone wasn’t watching my eyes.”

A teaching point that failed to translate over to the real thing as Esma’s eyes screwed themselves shut on her follow through. And while this could most likely be chalked up as a flinch in response to her gross inexperience with close combat, the main culprit was undoubtably the raider’s rifle going off as it was knocked upwards. Either way it was a mistake that could prove detrimental on multiple levels as the initial strike fell short of its objective to disarm the enemy completely. A development that now placed greater emphasis on the execution of the disabling strike as an insufficient amount of damage being dealt would equate to a reprisal Esma wasn’t trained up enough to fend off. A concerning prospect that oozed tenability given the upcoming attempt would be delivered blind.

An altogether cruel twist of fate that a rookie CO’s life could very well come down to her inaugural test as a substitute security officer. But such happenstances weren’t so unusual in the scope of a Galen Run. Something a surprising number of field service men and women would site as the basis for their involvement in such convoys. Esma was not one of those people.

Vision or no, the brunette launched the end of her rifle forward with all her might. Markedly unburdened by the conventional concerns of a proficient combatant as she did so. Namely the gravity of maintaining one’s balance in a fight. A negligence that in hindsight may have attributed to the success of the end result as her adversary wouldn’t have expected an all or nothing gamble from the get go. They were, after all, up against a security officer who had the guts to charge through a renowned party member.

Ultimately this decisive blow would miss both the raider’s head and abdomen, splitting the difference and instead contacting the left side of their clavicle. But it was Esma’s repurposed momentum that made up for the whiff as the strike had managed to catch the raider flat footed, necessitating a tumble backwards. The young officer following suit as a result of her weight being shifted so far forward. Unlike Esma however the raider had no one to break his precarious fall into the jumble of aeriform engine components packed into the tight space. The back of his head colliding with the closest module, rendering them unconscious upon contact.

“...?!”

For her part Esma’s only real concern at the time was finding herself atop the raider and scrambling to remove herself rather than press the advantage. Plucking her rifle from where it had fallen beside them in the process. With her rifle re-secured she trained it on the downed enemy from her own spot on the floor, half-expecting them to rise again in retaliation. Because despite the evidence in front of her proving otherwise, Esma’s psyche wouldn’t allow her to accept a reality in which she successfully took out a bonafide raiding party member on her own. And to have pulled it off without shedding blood... she winced as her hand absentmindedly grazed the oozing laceration on her cheek. Figuratively that is.

Her state of personal reflection was soon interrupted however by the reminder of the ongoing struggle taking place back the way she’d come. Whipping her head back around to observe the state of the battle the security officer couldn’t help but notice her superior’s growing fatigue. Hands so full holding the raider’s lantern shields in check he couldn’t even spare the energy required to turn his head and confirm the outcome of his subordinate’s foolhardy aspirations to contribute to the cause.

Knowing she had to do something to at least create an opening Esma frantically looked around herself for something, anything she could hurl down the corridor at the raider. Only for her face to become flushed upon recalling the feronectic rifle clasped in her clammy palms. A weapon literally designed to accelerate a permanent magnet along a track as it passed through a series of coils, transforming it into a high velocity projectile capable of lethal damage. All while also being far more accurate than what any person’s arm could manage let alone her own feeble appendage. Stopping her however was that recurring sense of dread that would rear its head whenever the opportunity to discharge the weapon came to pass. Even now when a crewmember’s life was at stake.

But seeing as she wouldn’t be able to recreate the stunt she had just pulled off against an armored opponent with dual lantern shields, Esma fell back on the original plan proposed to her for confrontations. The old shoot a hole in the foot strategy. Something she’d run by the likes of Youn, Faust and even Wash in regards to its validity and effectiveness in the field. Not that she believed Lux would ever lead her astray on such a dangerous subject matter.

And while those she’d surveyed had at least heard of the strategy in passing, each being too competent in battle to actually try it themselves, it appeared they’d each come across it under differing aliases. Some of her favorites being the dorsal delivery, tarsus terminator and last but certainly not least, the cold feet iron treat grit them teeth front row seat. The lengthiest coming courtesy of the yappy pilot. And though part of her suspected all these had been contrived on the spot in a misguided attempt to sow alacrity, she still considered it a thoughtful if not amusing gesture. One that did ultimately serve as a welcome distraction to the inherent discomfort of having to consciously shoot another person for the first time in her life. The fact they’d be armored offering little by way of respite to the young woman’s ever fickle conscience.

Esma lifted her rifle and took aim all the same, not even bothering to raise herself back up from the engine room floor. Mostly out of fear that the quivering in her legs brought about by all the adrenaline in her system would contribute to the shortcomings in her aiming mechanics. Plus remaining on the ground technically meant the target would be closer, right? Either way she’d need to hurry as Rohner’s endurance was slipping by the second.

The brunette lay prone, propping up her elbows in a posture comparable to a sharpshooter as she took aim at the heel of the closest foot. Much of the training she’d received back during her marksmanship courses at the Federation Academy flooding back all at once. Including the fact she’d completed the course with the lowest possible passing score. Something Esma was almost certain had been achieved thanks in large part to luck. A resource she’d never had want for even now. Her earlier tumble down onto the platform of a moving Crusader coming to mind.

But luck wasn’t going to pull the trigger for her here. So she did. Doing her utmost to keep both eyes open as she did so to limit involuntary jerks to either side. And while the shot connected a bit higher than intended, the raider’s ankle, it did enough to slide the entire foot back a short but tangible distance. Not immediately privy to the cause of the minute shift, the armored man tried to reset his footing in an effort to maintain his advantage. Rohner was faster, pulling the raider down by one of his arms and throwing a horizontal elbow across the base of his helm. A blow that staggered the party captain, prompting him to stumble backwards until his back collided with the opposite wall. The result of his arm having been released.

Esma found herself holding her breath as she watched this exchange unfold from the end of the corridor, well aware that both her fate and that of the Crusader were more than likely tied to Rohner’s victory or defeat here. But the veteran officer left little room for doubt in regards to the outcome as he prevented the jarred raider from pushing off the corridor wall with the muzzle of his rifle. Pressing it firmly against the base of where the enemy’s throat would be. It being hard for Esma to tell the exact location or if that general area was as armored as the rest of their person from her angle.

One pull of the trigger later she had her answer. Watching on warily as the raider’s entire body went from scrambling to defend itself to spasming its way down the wall and onto the floor. A horrid sight that was finally quelled by a second point blank shot to the same spot. The security rep’s take on mercy she supposed.

Now it was Rohner’s turn to fall back against the corridor wall as fatigue from the prolonged struggle began to take its toll. Esma used the opportunity to stand and make her way over on unsteady legs, only stopping when the man’s large heaving form turned towards her ever so slightly.

“Not bad kid, didn’t think you had it in you.”

The brunette shuffled in place, unused to receiving this type of roundabout praise.

“Yes well...I think this is the part where I’m supposed to say something along the lines of, ‘I was just doing my job’...”

Rohner chuckled at the young woman’s antics as he looked past her at the incapacitated raider occupying the engine room floor. An exchange he’d failed to witness the full scope of amidst his attempts to avoid being skewered. But one he’d be more than willing to give the rookie her flowers for. Through the appropriate channels that is.

“—I thank her for her service but see no further need for intervention on my or the convoy commander’s part. As such idle pursuits would be nothing short of an offense to any individual who exhibits the ability to take decisive action in defense of their comrades...”