When the acid grenade exploded, it would melt through their armorsuits’ polymer joints, eating into the exposed skin. It had a good chance of dissolving right down to the bone and severing the limb at whatever joint in touched. Lucky victims lost a hand or half an arm. Joint burns at the shoulders or legs proved much more difficult to navigate. Aside from the sudden traumatic amputation, this would leave a gaping hole in a victim’s suit through which air could escape and frigid, half-terraformed gases could enter, a hole too big for the fast-bonding feedback suit resin to patch. Acid burns were a slow death sentence—that is, if the Hexes didn’t finish off the incapacitated victim first.
New polymer formulas were supposed to be acid-resistant. Resistant. Not proof. There was about a fifty-fifty shot of surviving the immediate blast. But the Hexadians were always upgrading their biotech, too; human advancements may have already been rendered obsolete.
Nic watched the acid grenade land on the cabin floor at his feet. It rolled to a stop against his boot. The bump-lined seams started to split, revealing a neon green glow inside. All in slow motion.
He bent down, snatched the grenade, and hurled it through the open hatch above. It exploded in midair as he ripped the door shut as hard and fast as his suit would muster. The metal clang was loud even in the low-air environment.
A split second later came the pain.
“Agh, shit,” he cursed through gritted teeth.
“You okay?” Jarek asked.
“What happened?” said Max. “Were you hit?”
Perri had already pushed aside them to inspect him. The bioluminescent glow of the alien acid was helpful in detecting and avoiding it; some had splattered harmlessly across his breastplate. One drop was working its way through the elbow joint of his polymer feedback suit. That was the spot that burned.
“It burns like hell,” Nic hissed, tensing up. “Dammit... We need to get out of here.”
“Are you going to be okay to move?” Perri asked. She did a good job of hiding her worry, but not a perfect one.
“I’m gonna have to be. We need to get out of here ASAP. I won’t hunker down and wait for the next acid grenade to drop.” The pain in his inner elbow reached a crescendo and then plateaued; whether it was the acid burning out or the painkillers in his suit and body, only time would tell.
“How do we wanna do this?” Jarek asked.
“Jarek, you’re our rocket expert,” Nic reminded him. “And you happen to be the only one with a rocket left.” He gestured with his good arm to the launcher strapped to Scarlet Two’s back. “Max and I will give you covering fire for any Hexes on the roof. Get that rocket off to open up a path for us, do a second of recon, and we’re gonna cover you. If it’s clear, give us the word and we’ll follow you out.”
“Nic,” said Perri, “don’t you think we should wait? The Medusa could—”
“It could come back online in five minutes when those slugs run out of juice,” he cut in, “or it could be fried for life. We don’t have time to wait around and find out! Not with our only lock disabled.”
She nodded once. “Understood.”
“Up I go, then,” said Jarek, climbing the ladder up to the hatch. “Wish me luck.”
“You don’t need it, brother. You got this. Just like the Final Exam back on Ayrus.” He recalled the weapon trade they made during the Wargame battle royale match back on their home planet, the trade that formed the seed of their friendship. It felt like a lifetime ago already.
Jarek lifted the hatch and poked his head out of the tank. A silent beat. Then the whisper of burning propellant as the tube-shaped weapon in his arms shot a projectile at the enemy. The air was too thin for Nic to hear the explosion from this distance.
“Kills confirmed,” Jarek breathed. “They’re goin’ from tank to tank. They’re droppin’ ‘nades!” A pause. “The one you threw back got a couple Commanders. Nice throw, Nic! We’re clear!”
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RTIFIS rewarded his efforts with a visual notification on his HUD.
NIC [2COM] (+400 Credits)
“Let’s move!” Nic called up, and the three of them climbed out.
The battlefield had taken a turn in the aliens’ favor. A sea of Fodders scrambled across the tanks, many slipping clumsily. Each tank had a pair of Commanders opening the hatch and dropping acid grenades into the cabins. Some of the ambushed soldiers managed to escape like Team Scarlet. Others didn’t appear so lucky.
He saw another smoke flare rising behind the fleet of tanks—a visual signal from one of the lieutenant commanders. The smoke was green. “Advance!” Nic called out to his squad. Team Scarlet joined other squads running for the factory. It wasn’t far now.
Nic leveled his SMG, aiming for the bulbous lobes on the sides of the alien heads. They popped with spurts of blue blood; one by one, the invaders dropped to the dusty, rocky ground. A trio of Fodders climbed Jarek’s armorsuit; Nic and Perri drew their Combat Knives, driving them into the rabid aliens’ skulls, prying them off and throwing them aside.
Nic’s HUD lit up with constant activity tallying his kills.
NIC [1COM] (+200 Credits) NIC [2FOD] (+40 Credits) NIC [3COM] (+600 Credits) NIC [7FOD] (+140 Credits) NIC [2COM] (+400 Credits)
Nic pulled his Pistol for more precise shots to take down a pair of Sharpshooters near the factory entrance.
NIC [2SHA] (+300 Credits)
His head jerked to the side from the force of an incoming spike that ricocheted off his helmet. A dozen others pinged off his armor plating. While he was distracted killing the offending Commander, another one lobbed an acid grenade into the center of their group.
“‘Nade!” Nic screamed, but as he did so, Jarek had already caught it and pitched it back at the thrower with all the powered might of his armorsuit. The acid grenade popped and bisected the alien diagonally across the chest like a deadly sash. “Holy... Clutch reaction time, dude!”
“I learn from the best,” said Jarek, and he gunned down a Commander readying another acid grenade to throw into a Medusa tank’s open hatch as they ran past.
In doing so, the first dead Hexadian held onto its own grenade, its claws digging into the explosive as the body slumped over mere meters away from them.
“Get down!” Nic yelled, crouching and shielding his neck with one hand and shoulder joint with another. It was the optimal stance to minimize acid burn damage. The grenade went off and he heard Maqsud shriek. “Max! Status report!”
“Aghh!” Max grunted. “Bastard... bloody... boiling damnation that hurts! It got my glove! I-I think I just lost a finger!” He held up a trembling gloved left hand, his left middle now a third its normal length. Thankfully, the hole was small enough that his suit’s fast-acting resin patched it in no time.
“We’ll heal it back on the Liberty!” Nic answered. “We gotta mobilize!”
“Oh, I’m sorry, is my impromptu loss of metatarsal inconveniencing you?!”
If he’s talking like that, he’s not in too much pain, Nic thought. He chose to be logical and nonreactive—it was the only way of getting through to him. “That’s a toe. Pretty sure you meant metacarpal.”
“What did I say?” Despite his traumatic injury, Max snickered, and Nic was relieved to hear it. “Oh, you got me there, Nicolas.”
“Right. More on that later. For now, let’s get on with it! We’re almost there!”
He and his squad fought on, slaying every Hexadian in their path, littering the battleground with fallen foes. Minutes later—what felt like an hour—they were closing in on the factory beside one of the squads from White Battalion.
Team Ivory.
“Glad to see you four made it here in one piece!” said Eli through a proximal voice channel. This close, his words only crackled slightly.
“Mostly,” Maqsud winced.
“Same to you guys,” Nic answered.
“It’s a blue bloodbath today, boys and girls,” said Korbin. “No prisoners!”
“You got that right!” Jarek agreed.
“The two celebrity squads,” said Eli, “retaking the asset together. Killing any remaining enemies who stand in our way, together. Just how it should be. You wanna do the honors, Nic?”
The Scarlet squad leader reloaded his SMG. “Don’t mind if I do.”
Nic passed through the automatic airlock at the front of the factory. The door slid shut behind the eight of them. When the opposing airlock door opened to the factory floor, he was the first one to step inside.
He gasped.