There was something about rocketing toward the enemy in a five-ton breaching pod with a squad of troops all geared up with battle suits that got your blood boiling in a completely unique way. Simmons knew it was too expensive to use these all the time, but if he had his way, they'd find a way to make it work. There was just nothing else like it!

When they hit the ship, the single-use inertia dampeners did their thing, but Simmons still got a rush when the rest of the impact was bled off in the stabilizing risers that lifted him from his "safe" laying position to a ready-for-action standing one. A half moment later, the front portion of the pod blasted off, leaving the ship open for their assault. For once, the gunner's target had been right on target, leaving less than a foot drop as the six-man squad cleared the pod in a rush.

There were additional impacts as more pods hit the ship, but none were close enough to Simmons that he had to worry about the brief vacuum effect before the pods essentially welded themselves into place. A smattering of distant gunfire indicated some of the other squads were already seeing action, and Simmons wasn't about to let them have all the fun. He started stomping down the hall, knowing the rest of the squad would be behind him.

They cleared a few rooms, and Simmons was just starting to worry that the rest of the squads had already cleared most of the defenders when he rounded a corner, and an honest-to-good axe flew past his head. He barely got a chance to mutter, "The hell?" when one of the men at his back fell over, the flying axe somehow embedded in the faceplate through the suit's armor.

Whatever had thrown the axe was already gone, but the squad was still pouring fire down the hall in the direction the axe had come from when another scream came from the back of the group. Looking back, Simmons saw what looked like a black blur retreat into one of the rooms they'd already cleared as another man fell to the ground. Where had it come from? They'd already cleared everything in that direction! Still, whatever it was had just cornered itself. There was no way out of that room. Leaving Turner and Reyes to guard their back, guns pointed toward where the axe had come flying from. Simmons took Baker and busted into the room, leaving no time for anyone to get into a covered position as he swept the room.

The only problem was, the room was empty. Even Simmons' suit read no bio signals other than their own. He growled out a quick, "What the hell is happening?" Then the sound of gunfire signaled the return of whatever had thrown that damn axe.

As he rushed out into the hall, Simmons heard one of the men shout, "The hell is that?!?" before turning to see what looked like some kind of demon bearing down on them. Another axe flew into the chest of another man, but it didn't seem to penetrate far enough as the man staggered but didn't fall. The demon lept off the walls, moving with impossible speeds as it somehow managed to stay just ahead of the pirates' aim while closing the distance between them.

Simmons fell back into the room, trying to get a shot at what was becoming a maelstrom of limbs as the demon fought the two pirates in battle suits as if they were mere children. He had a third axe in one hand, swinging toward Turner's head even as he ripped the second axe out of the chest armor of Reyes' suit, throwing him off balance. Turner managed to get his gauntlets up into place to deflect the blow aimed at his neck, but the demon bent low and came up with an underhanded palm strike that somehow managed to lift the armored man up into the air before dumping him back onto the ground.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Reyes, seeing his opening, slammed the butt of his assault gun into the armored back of the demon, making it step forward to brace itself. But before Reyes or Simmons could get a shot off, the demon kicked off the wall with his other foot, slamming both itself and Reyes back into the opposite wall, which it followed up by slamming the back of its elbow, tipped with a massive boney spike, into Reye's faceplate.

Then, as Turner got to his feet and took aim, the demon slammed both its axes down onto either shoulder, somehow managing to bury them deep even through the battlesuit's exoskeleton and dropping the man.

However, that was the demon's first and last mistake, as it left the monster open for Simmons to gun down. As he stepped back to stabilize himself, Simmons had just a fraction of a second to wonder what had happened to Baker when his foot hit something on the ground, and Simmons fell back over Baker's body.

Simmons had just a moment to wonder what the hell was happening when something detached itself from the ceiling. As its color changed from the pale grey of the ceiling to the black carapace he'd seen before, Simmons realized what was going on. As the nightmare landed on his chest, he got out a quick general comm call to the other squads. "We got some damn weavers on board!" But then the nightmare spider monster stabbed downward with two appendages that easily pierced his suit, and then Simmons screamed.

-

Erik watched Vanessa quickly finish her prey as he extracted his last axe from the face of the pirate who'd gone down first. "Three each, huh? Not a bad start, but I'm gonna pull ahead before we're done!"

Vanessa looked at Erik, noticing a couple places where bullets had either grazed him or deflected off his thick bony plates. "My lady, you must be more careful! You got lucky that the humans panicked when they saw you, throwing off their aim, and that the ones that hit you were using smaller rapid-fire weapons meant more for dealing with unarmored humans rather than the larger caliber guns the ones I took out had."

Erik grinned. "Naw, luck had nothing to do with it. We've done this enough, I knew you'd take out the most important targets first! Besides, the only reason they hit me at all was because they could spray and pray. If they'd been wielding larger caliber guns, they would have never got a bead on me!"

Vanessa shook her head. "Be that as it may, I urge you to be more careful in the future. I implore you, do not leave me alone on a ship with nothing but humans!"

Erik laughed. "Fair enough! But these ones aren't all bad! That Alen kid seems nice enough. Reminds me a bit of the stories you told me about that Scott fella back when he was a kid! I wonder how he's getting along up on the bridge?"

-

Alen was hidden behind a console, his gun at the ready as the pirates were cutting through the door to the bridge. He didn't know how good his sidearm would be if the pirates were in battle suits, but he suspected he might offer at least a bit of a distraction.

Some of the other officers were setting up heavy weapons, complete with braces and/or tripods, to make them more manageable for someone to use when not in an augmented suit. Alen briefly considered asking if he could get such a weapon, but as he had no training with them, he figured he'd better stick with what he knew, even if it would be a distraction at best.

They'd been getting progress reports from Reid, and apparently, the fighting had gotten bloody, very bloody. The crew had the numbers and familiarity of the ship on their side, but the pirates were much better armed and armored than they'd expected. Reid was pushing back against the pirates when he could, but since his squad was the only one with battle suits, the rest of the crew weren't faring as well and were taking heavy losses.

However, all that might not matter to Alen for much longer as he watched the glow of a laser cutter slowly melting away the locked points on the "secured" bridge hatch.