Shade leaped at the alien, trying to land a kick to his face. He ducked under the flying kick. She flew by and landed against the wall.

Jonah flung a hex bolt at the alien. He wanted to put the guard out of the fight so they could move on. The energy weapon at the invader's hip exploded. He stumbled to the ground in a spray of green blood.

(“Two of the guards are definitely out of the fight,” said Stan. “The one that Sighter knocked out in the first exchange, and Jonah just blew a big chunk out of the second guy. One is still down on the floor, trying to get back up. The last one is the one Punch punched in the face.”

“I punch him again, Stan,” said George.)

Punch punched the wall instead of his opponent who pushed him off his feet. It was a feeble attempt but it was enough to clear a space for the alien to decide who he would attack next.

Sighter missed with an energy blast as the alien tried to push forward to where his hand gun had fallen.

Gadget leveled his freeze gun. One pull of the trigger froze the alien in place under a coating of ice. He blew the fog away from the muzzle of his weapon.

The alien on the floor reached for Shade to use her as a hostage. She blocked the hand away. One fist came down, but a giant arm knocked it away.

Jonah approached from the other side. He fired a hex bolt in the hopes of making the alien fall apart. The blast hit the wall next to the door. Rust ran in a circle from the hit.

Punch tried a backhand, but that was blocked easily. He grimaced that he might need to work on his skills, and not depend on his strength in a fight.

Sighter blasted the alien in the head with one of his optic beams. That knocked the alien out with one blow. The bruiser collapsed to the deck, helmet a wreck.

Gadget froze the group for later retrieval by whomever won the day. He wondered what the government would do with them.

(“Four more mooks down,” said Stan. “What do you guys want to do from here?”

“We should get to engineering and shut things down,” said Nick. “Then we have to help secure the crew for the Army, and then check on the other two ships. We can't let them blow up any of their ships in the city.”

“Do we do a search here, or just see how much attention we can attract on the way out?,” asked Gail.

“I think we should do a search, and then make sure they can't work anything before we move on,” said Arnold.”

“I think we should stay together,” said George. “These guys are tough. If Marv hadn't blown the leg off that one guy, we could still be fighting.”

“The armor makes a difference,” said Stan.

“So we go down to engineering, shut everything down, then move to the other two ships,” said Nick. He looked around for any disagreement.

“I think that's right,” said Arnold.

“So the first thing we need to do is open the door these guys were guarding so we can head on to where we want to be,” said Nick.

“Open the door, Brain,” said Gail.)

Gadget examined the locks on the door. He pulled out some equipment. He worked on the electronic bars until they snapped open. He nodded as the doors slid out of the way.

No one waited on the other side to shoot at them.

He put his equipment away before he pointed the freeze gun down the hall. Anything that stepped in front of him was going into the freezer. He heard the hum of Sighter's readiness and nodded.

“If we can find the engine, we can hex it,” said Gadget. “That should take care of any problem with the ship being active. Then we can fight our way back up, or punch through the wall.”

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“Doesn't sound that exciting,” said Shade.

“It will be exciting if they set it up to blow and we can't hex the engine to stop it,” said Gadget.

“All right,” said Shade. “I definitely wouldn't want ot be caught in that amount of light.”

“Some more of the aliens are in front of us,” said Sighter. “They don't seem to know we got through the protective barricade.”

“Let's look for stairs or ladders,” said Gadget. “I'm not comfortable with being noticed in an elevator.”

The others agreed with the sentiment. No one wanted to be caught in an ambush by fish in cans.

Sighter pointed to an alcove. A ladder ran up the wall to the decks above and below the deck they were on. They paused around the hole in the floor.

“I'll go first,” said Punch. “You guys come after me.”

“We're ready, Punch,” said Jonah.

“Just head for the back,” said Gadget. He pointed the direction he wanted his comrade to go. “We'll be right behind you.”

Punch dropped down through the hole and flew off. Shade teleported to the lower deck. She moved along, glad that Gadget's first aid kit was still putting her back together. Gadget, Jonah, and Sighter came down much slower using the ladder.

(“How fast are you going, George?,” asked Stan.

“As fast as possible,” said George. “As soon as I see some of the aliens, I'll charge them and see how many I can knock out with a flying ram.”

“All right,” said Stan. “The rest of you should be able to reach the scene at the end of the melee.”

“He's going to get stomped without us,” said Gail.

“It'll be okay,” said Stan. “Go ahead and roll your first attack, then we'll roll for initiative.”)

Punch slammed into the group of aliens at full speed. He didn't knock them out, but he knocked them off their feet. He needed to clear this chokepoint for his friends before he moved on.

He smashed one in the face, and the alien went down. That was an improvement over the other guards they had ran into. One of his victims recovered fast and threw himself at the flying hero. A punch knocked the alien crew member down the corridor with some of his teeth missing.

That left three. Two turned and ran down the corridor toward his destination. The last one reached for the weapon at his hip.

Punch swung at the third alien. He missed as the guard pulled his weapon and shot at him. He decided to tank the hit and swing again. That was enough to make the crew lizard stumble back. He landed another hit, and knocked his enemy down. He missed the follow up stomp.

The lizard fired again as Punch swung at him. The hero's fist swung wide as energy trailed around his body. They exchanged strikes. This time the flying brick knocked his enemy out with the punch.

He still had to chase down the other two. Alarms had been sounding since they had boarded. Those two knew exactly where he was. He had to do something about that before another group arrived to slow him down.

He flew down the hall and realized the corridor was giving way to a set of scaffolding around a cylinder under the deck. He realized this was the engine. He needed to find the two escapees before they did something he wanted to prevent.

The others were behind him somewhere. Jonah and Gadget should be able to shut things down between the two of them. He had to keep drawing attention to him so they could work in the background.

He wondered how much of the surviving crew would arrive at engineering with the intent on stopping him. He hoped it was all of them. The more he punched was the less the others had to deal with while trying to protect the city.

Punch realized he couldn't see the extent of the engine in the deck. He wondered what would happen if he decided to punch it. Would he have enough to rip the guts out of the thing before it exploded.

Red ribbons whipped through the air and sent him crashing into the scaffolding. He frowned at the sudden attack. Some of the enemy must have set up one of those heavy crew served weapons. That was okay. They couldn't hurt him, and he wanted them to come closer.

The others would be on the scene in a few minutes. He wanted to deal with this before they arrived. They could pick up the pieces after he was done.

Punch scanned the room for the heavy gun. He spotted it in a nest at the other end of the scaffolding. He thought a lock kept it from depressing down to shoot at the engine. He thought that was excellent for what he wanted to do.

After all he didn't want them shooting the one thing in the room more dangerous than he was.

The aliens fired at Punch again. The blast sent him flying through the air. He flew at them on the rebound from the ceiling. He missed his punch from the ram. He grimaced.

The aliens seemed to think he was too close. They reached for sidearms. He knocked one from the nest with a single move. The gunner hit the metal decking and didn't move.

The other fired at Punch. He struck again and sent that lizard into the wall directly opposite of the gunner's nest. The gunner slid down the wall and didn't move from where he landed.

Shade appeared, but she was too late to do anything but shrug at the motionless aliens.

“It looks like you took care of business,” said the shadowy scourge.

“I don't like to fool around,” said Punch. “I don't know if there are more lurking around, but we should look around before the others get here.”

“I'm with you,” said Shade. “I'll go down to the other end and see if there are any hiding down there.”

“I'll check for other ladders and see if I can close this deck off from any other decks,” said Punch.

(“Good job,” said Stan. “Those nineteens changed everything around for you.”

“What's next?,” said George.)