Lucy was inputting various commands into the console when Charlotte leaned over to speak urgently. "Four of the humans chasing us came aboard before we cleared the station."

The pit of Lucy's stomach dropped out. These were no ordinary operatives, as proved by the fact they overcame all but the last of Charlotte's appendages. What chance did they have against four fully armed and armored operatives of such caliber?

Lucy didn't have time to panic. She calmed herself and turned to Charlotte. "Well, I'm not going to make this easy on them, but I need you to listen carefully to what I'm about to say..."

-

Charlotte quickly moved through the ship to the location where she'd make her stand. In these tight corridors, she'd be forced into a head-on confrontation with the humans in their combat suits, in which they would quickly and easily be able to overpower her. Her only advantages over the humans in this appendage were speed and maneuverability; for that, she needed room. Right now, the humans were making sure the cargo hold was clear, and she needed to engage them before they were done.

This was the most advanced appendage Charlotte had taken with Lacy, which was why it had been reserved for her personal defense. However, while this form had two bladed arms, it lacked the raw power of the specialized blade appendages. It also lacked the bio-organic ranged ability of some of her other appendages. However, this appendage did have one advantage; in addition to its blades, it had two other attachments that replicated humanoid hands, which allowed her to wield human weaponry.

On Charlotte's signal, Lucy triggered all the doors in the cargo area to open simultaneously, making it unclear what door Charlotte would enter through. Then, rather than give the humans time to process what was happening, Charlotte immediately leaped through, aiming for the room's far wall, depending on the humans' surprise and her own speed to keep her safe.

As she rocketed over the human head, Charlotte fired a three-round burst from the rifle she'd taken from a fallen human when boarding the station. The impacts shoved one of the humans off his feet and cracked his armor.

The reaction time of the other three humans was far greater than what Charlotte expected as they began returning fire before she hit the wall, but thankfully, the speed of their reaction threw off their aim enough that they could not hit her. Upon contact with the wall, she again launched herself forward, this time aiming for the fallen human while firing at the next closest.

This time, her own shots went wide of their mark, but it did force the human to take cover rather than return fire. Additionally, several of the large crates in the room blocked one of the other human's line of fire.

As She landed, Charlotte stabbed her blades through the cracks in the armor her shots had created, taking the human out of the fight for good. She fired another burst to keep the nearest human behind cover, but as she lept again, the furthest human got off a hail of gunfire in her direction. Most of the bullets missed their mark, but two struck her. Once grazing across her abdomen, cracking the casing enough for some of her fluids to leak; however, this body was designed with rapid clotting, so it had a negligible effect on her performance. What was worse was the second bullet caught one of her bladed arms directly, tearing the limb from her body.

Rather than panic as most humans were wont to do in such a situation, the remaining combatants immediately moved to try covering one another, negating the benefit of her earlier surprise. However, Charlotte's advanced appendage was not alone in this situation either. Under the cover of her assault, she'd flown in the few remaining flying stingers she'd brought. Despite their ability to fly, they were considerably slower than her advanced form, and they would be unable to pierce the hard carapace of the battle suits, but they could still make an excellent distraction. Now, she flew all three stingers toward the furthest human, even as she leaped toward the closest that had taken cover.

As the furthest human took aim, the stingers assaulted his helmet, crawling all over it and trying ineffectually to pierce the armored form. The human took one out with a burst of gunfire and crushed a second with his gauntleted hand, smearing his faceplate while trying to fend off the third. While he was distracted, Charlotte rounded the corner, where she and the human both got off a burst of gunfire into each other. The human's torso armor cracked in multiple places, and he doubled over; however, Charlotte lost one of her legs and felt a round pierce through her chest, causing a noticeable drop in fluid pressure, slowing and weakening her at the same time. Before She could finish the now vulnerable human, the third group member finally rounded the crates and began firing in Charlotte's direction.

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Charlotte leaped toward the ceiling directly above her assailant, firing as she went, but due to the speed of the maneuver, both the human and herself missed their marks. The furthest human finished off the remaining stinger and took aim, but upon contact with the ceiling, she launched herself down directly toward the third human.

This time, both Charlotte and the human scored hits, as another two rounds pierced her abdomen, and Charlotte's shots cracked the shoulder armor of the human's primary arm. But rather than fall, the human remained standing to meet Charlotte's charge.

Charlotte launched her remaining bladed arm forward, aiming for the human's faceplate, using her momentum and inherent striking power to her advantage. In turn, the human dropped their gun and reached out faster than most humans were capable of to grab the blade to save itself.

Charlotte's blade pierced through the outer shell of the human's armor, and while she was sure it had bitten through to the flesh, it apparently didn't go deep enough as soon the human's augmented strength began pushing the blade back, cracking the carapace around the arm that held the blade as she did so. However, Charlotte had not dropped her own firearm in the assault, and as she landed, she unloaded a three-round burst directly into the human's chest, finally knocking it off its feet.

However, once again, before she could take advantage of the prone human, the one whose chest plate had been cracked moments before fired a full burst in Charlotte's direction. Realizing her appendage was quickly nearing its limit, Charlotte dove forward, intending to finish the human that seemed to only be standing by virtue of the crate it was leaning against. However, her forward momentum was immediately turned sidewise as the last human bowled into her. Apparently, it had stayed just out of sight, using its injured comrade as bait.

The human crushed one of her humanoid arms and shoved her to the ground, removing her advantage in speed and maneuverability. Charlotte tried to take aim, but the human quickly batted aside the gun before stabbing downward repeatedly with its knife, tearing new holes through her carapace, resulting in the appendage going dark to Charlotte as it finally gave in to the unrelenting assault. However, it had bought precious time.

Charlotte turned to Lacy with her last remaining appendage aboard the ship. A simple speaking appendage. "I was able to fully neutralize one and gravely injure two more, but the fourth is mostly fine."

Lacy looked grim. "Well, you did better than I thought, but I don't know if it'll be enough..."

-

Dax's chest was on fire, but he ignored the warnings flashing in the lower left corner of his face shield. The commander stood up from the corpse of the thing that had nearly done Dax and Thane in and cleaned his blade before turning to them. Of course, the commander was virtually unscathed. As long as Dax had been a squad member, he'd never seen the man get as much as a paper cut.

As the commander sheathed his blade, he addressed Dax and Thane. "Sound off. What's your condition?"

Dax finally looked down at the flashing warnings. "Well, my armor is compromised, and I'm fairly certain I broke a few ribs, but I'm not drowning in my own blood, so there's that."

Thane removed her gauntlets and pulled off her helmet, revealing a really nasty gash across the side of her head that went all the way to the bone, then spit out a mouthful of blood. She reached into her med pouch and pulled out a couple syringes, opened up a panel on her leg armor, and jabbed the needles into her thigh before answering. "Well, I'm pretty fucked up if that's what you're wondering." She coughed, some blood speckling her lips as she did so. "But I'm not dead yet, and I don't intend to change that any time soon!"

The commander was examining Stilt, then stood up, shaking his head. "Alright. Thane, you stay here and patch yourself up as best you can. Dax, you're with me. We're gonna finish this."

Dax checked over his rifle and then nodded. He was ready for this nightmare job to be over.

-

Lucy watched as the two men in battle suits approached the bridge via a camera. One looked like he'd seen better days, having had his armor cracked and punctured in multiple places, and he seemed to be walking with a bit of difficulty but carried his rifle as if he was ready for trouble. The other had the remnants of viscera all over his armor. Probably what was left of Charlotte's other self. Before they could walk through the crater of a door and onto the bridge, she stopped them, addressing them over the speakers. "I don't know who you are or what they're paying you, but you need to cut your losses and leave now. If you don't, I will kill you."

The guy in the lead, the one with Charlotte's remains all over his armor, shook his head as he carefully looked through the door's remnants. "I think you've played your hand."

Lucy was silently willing the man to walk through the hole, but then he noticed the fine filament wire leading to an explosive she'd hidden on the door frame. She cursed as he reached in to deactivate it, still addressing her. "I gotta hand it to you. This is probably the roughest job we've ever taken, but we never leave a job half-done. You're coming with us."

With the explosive deactivated, he finally stepped into the cabin. Lucy released the trigger on the deadman switch she'd been holding, setting off the second explosive she'd placed in the vent, liquifying his upper torso.

Wishing she'd been able to use the two traps to take out both remaining pursuers, Lucy dropped the switch, drew her guns, and leaped around the corner, taking aim. Her only hope was to catch the last guy off guard and maybe get a lucky shot through his damaged armor. However, as she cleared the corner, Lucy realized she was looking down the barrel of his gun. There was a bright flash, then the world went dark.