The projection spun slowly in the middle of them. A blueish map of the building detailed their chosen path from the basement of the main building up to one of the lower floors of the shortest building. Their target was the final objective given to them before drop, the enemy command center.
“We move.” Alvarez commanded, taking point at the hallway door.
They each spared a look towards Jane but all of them knew to put feelings aside for the time being. Readied, Cerberus pushed out of the room into immediate gunfire. Cormin mercs had used the time to set up, apparently managing to pull forces from what had to be a hell of a fight happening outside.
The fire pushed Alvarez and Mac back inside momentarily. The captain pulled a flashbang from his hip and Mac grabbed one from Lei. In practiced unison they opened the door just long enough for one to go right and the other left. The door shut, they went off, and the five pushed back out immediately. Mac threw suppressive fire back down the way they had come while Alvarez led the other four into cover. Their path took them further through the basement level and up a different stairwell. None of them were looking forward to that push back up.
Resistance was tougher than they’d have liked but Cerberus slowly cut through it. Thankfully Mac brought a number of trap explosives. Once they’d pushed out of that hallway, they mostly only took fire from one direction, noting explosions periodically echoing back along the path they’d taken. Whether or not the traps had caught someone or simply slowed their pursuers was anyone’s guess. They did their job either way, taking heat off of the fireteam as they moved through the labyrinth of hallways.
In only a few minutes, Cerberus came to the last intersection. A right hand turn would reveal a doorway to another stairwell. Up the stairwell and out another door would lead through what used to be an office building to a security room that had been turned into a makeshift command center.
Before anyone made the turn, however, Alvarez’s fist came up and the team immediately halted. His ears were more attuned to the sounds Sentinels made and he knew for a fact one knelt in wait by the door. It almost certainly was holding aim on the corner, waiting with mechanical patience for the first sign of movement. He waived Pen forward.
“Thirty meters or so to the door,” He pulled a fragmentation grenade from his waist, “Ready?”
He didn’t need to explain. He would whip the grenade around the corner and she would follow after the detonation and carve through the Sentinel with the single slug rounds in her shotgun.
She stowed her sub and readied the shotgun. She took a position just at the corner as Alvarez actually backed up against the far wall.
“Good. Go.” She called.
Alvarez pulled the pin and launched the grenade with as much force as he could muster. He didn’t dare step out into the intersection to throw it directly down the corridor. Doing so would risk an easy shot from the Sentinel. Instead, he worked to bank the grenade off of the left side wall and keep it going down the way. All he needed was to get it close enough to disrupt the construct.
Close counted well enough here as the explosion did its job. When Pen wheeled around the corner the Sentinel was only just recovering, shielding its vital areas with its arms and not aiming down the hallway. She wasted no time.
CRACK.
She racked another round.
CRACK.
Two slugs, fast and heavy, ripped down the concrete hallway and tore into the Sentinel. The first mangled its right hip joint. Before it could even start compensating for the kinetic force of the first shot, the second impacted and punched through the armor plating that passed for a face. The slug burrowed out the back of its head bringing metal plastic and wires out with it. The thing stuttered and stumbled backwards, falling against the far wall in a sparking heap.
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In the same moment the second slug hit its mark the other members of Cerberus were surging down the hallway. Pops and kicks of rifle fire spat from behind them as combatants converged on the intersection.
“Stairwell! Now!” Alvarez called.
Pen lead the team through the door. She considered putting another slug into the Sentinel for certainties sake as she passed by but with only three slug rounds left she decided against it.
Alvarez followed Nurse and Lei after him. Mac was last. As Lei made for the door a thumping sound became audible. Quickly it grew louder and louder until its source became visible.
Rounding the corner with speed was a third Sentinel. It differed in construction from the other two. Boasting no weapons, it instead was more heavily armored and attached to both forearms were rectangular shields that came to two sharp points just past its hands. As it sprinted, it held its arms forward covering its more vulnerable points.
Mac wasted no time leveling his LMG and firing on the fast-approaching machine. High caliber bullets sparked and buffeted the thing, but it held its course. Nurse and Lei both joined in firing on it but to little effect. In only a few seconds it was down the hallway. Without slowing it collided with Mac driving him into the wall just left of the doorframe. The concrete cracked under the impact. Mac's heavy chest plate seemed about to buckle under the force. Even without the armor failure he could feel ribs shattering.
Through all of it Mac had managed not to scream. In this he failed only milliseconds later. Unlike a person the Sentinel didn’t pull back after the initial impact. It had no need to recover. As such it only continued to apply pressure to its target.
Under the weight, finally, Mac’s chest plate buckled and with it came the crunching of bones and a distinct pain blooming where his shoulder met his neck. With a pop, he felt his right clavicle snap in two.
“AGHHHGH!!!” He was nearly delirious with pain.
Finally, the Sentinel relented but only to levy a different strike. It held him in place with its shielded right arm and pulled its left down and away. With a low buzzing sound, it drove the double pointed portion of the attached shield up under Mac’s chest plate. There was a gap where the plates that covered the stomach met the chest plate. It was between this gap that the machine drove its left arm through. It tore easily up into Mac’s sternum silencing him once again.
Only seconds having passed, Lei cried out and opened fire at nearly point-blank range with her sub machine gun. Unfortunately, the thing reacted quickly turning its head town so that its neck was protected. The smaller caliber rounds of the sub scratched but couldn’t puncture its angular plate.
Another low buzz rang out as it moved to strike at her now. It kept is left arm firmly planted up in Macs middle but snapped its right out batting her gun to the side and snapping forward to crack its pointed shield against Lei’s head. She saw the strike coming and forced herself backwards. Between her reaction and her helmets protection the strike only glanced off with little damage.
It started to move for the door but halted almost instantly as it realized its initial target was still moving. That droning buzz rang out as it took in this information.
Mac had blacked out but clearly only for a second. Burning pain in his lower chest had ripped him back to reality to see the Sentinel strike at Lei. Unacceptable. He felt unconsciousness dragging him back downward or maybe that was the thing’s left arm. Either way he managed one last act. His right arm wasn’t listening to him, in fact he couldn’t even feel it. So, with his left, he pulled the highest-grade explosive he’d brought with him from his waist. He shoved the first half into the second on his right hip to create a short cylinder. Inert when separated, he now held a chemically activated, anti-material, thermite grenade with a truly unhealthy amount of explosive filling.
Detaching the second half from his waist he was incapable of pulling the activating lever. In lieu of that, he simply hooked the lever on one of the Sentinel’s many armor plates and ripped it downward. In one final movement he shoved the cylindrical device down into its neck and held it there even as the machine tried desperately to extricate itself from him.
It took less than a second for them both to be engulfed in the burning reaction. It managed to throw Mac’s corpse to the ground but could only claw at its neck at it melted under the heat and joined its sibling on the ground.
“AHHHHH!” Lei screamed.
She pushed out under the resuming enemy fire, grabbed Mac, and began dragging him to the doorway. Alvarez and Pen covered her, slamming the door shut behind her.