TCR 54) Door prize

All four of the Space Force Specialists opened up on me with some stubby looking automatic rifles.

Whatever type of gun it was, the body armor Falco had provided was stopping the shots while the few that hit my arms as I held up in front of my head weren't powerful enough to do more than bruise a Brute 4.

Then I plowed into them, with my arms thrown wide, even as they were trying to back up out of the way. In Samantha’s body I wasn’t quick or graceful, so charging was the only way for me to hit them fast enough I could get to them before they scattered out of the way.

Three of them went down with grunts, with me on top of them. The fourth guy, I grabbed his ankle and yanked him off his feet. “Settle down and take your beating, it’s that or get shot.”

I could hear Shrike laugh behind me as I clocked one of the guards in the face hard enough to knock him out. Then two of them were being lifted in the air by Phoenix who held them at arm's length to either side of him, before slamming the two of them together. Once, twice, then after checking to see if they were still conscious, a third time before dropping them to the floor.

Shrike walked up to the guy I had pulled off his feet, and then causally stomped her foot on his leg which made a cracking sound as the guy howled. “She’s nice, I like her. So you can stay here until someone comes to help you instead of dying.”

She leaned forward while pulling his head up by sinking her claws into the top of his helmet. “Unless you do something stupid like pull out that handgun and take a shot at us. In which case I'll pull your heart out of your chest and force it down your throat. Try to make the right call." Then she dropped the groaning man to the floor.

Buzz was focusing on something only he could see as he got to the bottom of the rope. “We got alarms going off all over the place, lots of chatter, and off duty people getting woke up.”

He looked up at his boss, Falco, as he slid down the rope. "Boss, they got a Mechanical.”

Falco tapped his chin. "I don't think we have time to go through three stories of stone, we're going to have to take the checkpoint."

He held out his hands. “Here’s the plan.”

Pointing at Buzz, he told him to, "Jam the elevators and the passcard locks."

Turning to me as I got up, he pointed to me and Shrike. “You two take point and hit the Mech when we get to it.”

Then he finished with Phoenix. “Take the rear and weld the doors behind us.”

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Shrike grabbed my shoulder, “You go first. Bullets seem to hurt you less then me.”

I didn’t argue, but instead grabbed and snapped off the retractable wire cord with the passcard off the guy who I punched and began running in the direction the four Specialists had come from.

Who knows? It might work.

A few hundred feet down the curving corridor there was a heavier door than the one we had seen on the Hydroponics floor. It was thicker, more like a vault door.

I tried the Space Force guy’s passcard, but the light stayed red and made a rude buzzing sound at me.

Shrike jogged up to me and gave me a look. “Can you bust it, or does Nix have to melt it?”

Looking at the door, I set my hands to get a good grip and set my foot against the lip of the wall below the door. "So Nix for Phoenix, and I'm guessing Ron for Heron, what is the short version for Shrike?"

With an audible groan of tearing metal, something broke inside the door. Then something else, before the door began to bend under my hands.

The green feathered woman crouched down and looked through the hole I made, ducking back as bullets began flying through. "Kess. It’s short for something else. I'm thinking you don't have a good nickname for Pyrope."

I tugged and pulled the door entirely free before tilting it so I could carry the thing through the doorway as a shield. “It’s just two syllables. Does it need a short version?”

Shrike shrugged and began following behind me as bullets ricocheted from the other side of the door. She leaned off to the side now and then tried to help direct me since I had to hold the ripped off door roughly by the middle and couldn’t see around it.

“Keep going straight. I mean, it’s nice to have a name to use with just the people you like, it's friendly that way.” Then she screamed down the corridor ahead of me. “Seriously. Lord Vader has arrived Jack Offs. Your guns aren't going to stop us, just make you targets… Grenade launcher!”

I slammed the door down, but still got knocked back a few feet as something hit the other side of the door in a burst of flame and an enormous kaboom sound.

Shrike was swearing behind me as another grenade, then another slammed into the door. I could hear her clearly as the dead can’t go deaf unless their eardrums get shattered, and while the grenades were loud, they weren't up to that level.

Or at least not to the level of shattering a Brute 4’s eardrums. I guess I had to adjust how I judge things in Samantha’s body.

So I could also hear Phoenix as he came up behind us. “How am I supposed to weld doors shut when you walk off with the door."

He tapped me on the shoulder and pointed at the door, gesturing with one finger for me to wait, then made a lifting motion at me with his hands held over each other about a foot apart.

Then he laid down on the floor and slapped my ankle.

I think I got that?

Lifting the door as he peered underneath it, he stuck out his hands to fill the entire corridor ahead of us with flames from below the door. Hot air blew back as screams sounded out ahead of us.

Twisting my hips to swing the door a bit to the side, I got a look down the corridor as Shrike raced past me to begin kicking Guards who had thrown themselves to the side, saving them from most of the flames. Only one guy, the one with a multi-barreled gun lying next to him, was dead.

I set the door down. “I going to need a moment, I’ll catch up in a second.” Then I slumped down onto the floor, letting myself ease back into a sitting position.

He had only been dead for a moment. So... Heal the lungs. His eyes can wait, I know they got healers up here. Legs are bad, but the heart is next. Seal up the major burns on the legs so he doesn't bleed out.

Squeeze the heart, again, and again...

I felt the Specialist's panic he stirred back to life and felt me inside him. I pulled back to Samantha before he could recover enough to force me out.

Too bad it’s doubtful if I will ever to able to find out if this triggered him.

Heron was standing guard over me. A pistol in hand. As I began to stand up, he gave me a mildly concerned look. “Are you functional?”

I nodded. “Ripped something in my back lifting the door, had to give it a chance to heal so I could walk.”

He turned from me and began to run down the corridor. “Good, because the Mech has everyone pinned outside of the checkpoint. You’re up again.”

You know, no one ever mentioned how much I’m supposed to be getting paid for this, but I think I should be getting a bonus.