A terrible pit formed in her stomach. Three members down, three of her only family, and now they were trapped like rats. The attack should have already begun. With no diversion, the enemy force could focus all of their attention on Cerberus. Even without effective communication, it was only a matter of time. It was a numbers game and the math was clear.

“Colonel Pines has ordered two delays’ pending your contact. Should I tell him he has the all clear?”

“All clear!? We were-” She was cut off by another voice coming through.

“You will not take that tone with me Lieutenant. I will commence with the attack but afterward we will be having a discussion.”

Are you delusional!

She wanted to scream.

“What happened? The plan was-”

“Plans change. You may not have this responsibility, but I must look at a much larger picture Lieutenant. I cannot throw my men’s lives at such an unknown. Now that the situation is clearer, however, I will start the push. We’ll have you out of there in short order.”

“We’ve already-” the line was cut suddenly.

No one said a word. In fact the first sound came from the PMC.

He laughed. It started as a small chuckle. He couldn’t have heard the conversation, but he could piece things together. Shortly he was almost doubling over with laughter.

“You wouldn’t consider a career change, would you?” He finally asked.

“Shut it.” Alvarez flourished the gun still trained on him.

“I’m serious. Get me out of here and not only do you live but Comin Group pays extremely handsomely…”

“I said. Shut. It.” He turned his coms scrambler back on.

The three spoke clearly to each other but the PMC heard nothing but garbled glitching noises.

“What’s the plan?”

“We have this one. They might hesitate to push in here if we leverage him. Just to buy time. We just need time. Ammunition check?”

“Less than half.”

“Getting low. And my shotgun is…”

“I’m running on fumes here too. Shit, Awali share out what you have. Conserve ammunition if you can. And yes, we have one last Sentinel to watch out for. You put damage on it though?” He asked as Nurse handed a full magazine to each of them.

“Yea, I think I wrecked its cannon.”

“That’s good but the main threat right now is-” He stopped.

They all took notice. There was the sound of shuffling around two of the three doors into the room. Immediately they readied their weapons and took up advantageous positions. Alvarez dragged the PMC into a corner with him.

Suddenly the two doors slid open, and a group tried to push in. Three made it inside but fell immediately. Another two fell just outside the doorways. Apparently, this was enough to stifle their courage for a moment as the doors slid back closed.

Alvarez took a moment to bind the man’s hands before speaking.

“Tell them to pull back or its your life.”

“Ha! Counteroffer, you surrender or it’s your lives. Let’s be honest you can’t really hold my life as leverage because it’s your only leverage. You kill me and you die. Better yet though, that first offer is still on the table. I mean it, they deserted you first so it’s only fa-” a gauntleted fist silenced him quickly.

“You might want to think that through a little. If you’re not useful then I have no need to keep you alive…”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“I am unarmed and bound…”

“And? You really think anyone is going to look that hard after what you people pulled here?! Sentinels is the only thing making it around the news nets.”

As if to highlight his point, a door opened, and a rifle blind fired around the corner. Pen put a single round into a poorly place ankle she could see from her angle dropping them out into view. Alvarez finished the job with two rounds into the person’s chest as they fell. The door slid back closed.

The man’s cool façade was slipping. Sweat dripped down his face and his eyes began to dart around.

“I…I re… really mean it. Mountains of cash. Enough to set all of you up for life and of course safe passage for your families wherever you want! I promise.”

“Not a single one of us would take that deal. We’d rather eat a bullet than become a fucking shill like you. Just tell them to stand down!”

“I… I cant! They…”

The man began to fidget nervously. If he’d rather die, then fine! The mans eyes fell on a 9mm dropped by one of his slain men. This Captain had kicked it away but… maybe. Shit. He was starting to shake.

“Don’t.”

If he couldn’t… He wouldn’t let… Fuck it.

He dove for the pistol. He might get a shot off at least. As he raised the gun, he found himself staring down a barrel.

*POP*

Alvarez wasted no time. A single shot dropped the PMC and that was the end of it. The pistol fell back to the ground almost exactly where he’d grabbed it from, and the man fell just next to it. What a pathetic showing.

“Well… there goes that plan.”

They each knew that it wasn’t holding water anyway. That plan was dead as soon as he’d started to panic.

“We can still hold out. Just until the army makes it to us.” Pen said.

Even as she said it, though, she knew the odds. All their enemy had to do was push through those doors with enough bodies to overwhelm them. An even easier job with how low on ammunition the three were, not that these mercs knew that. The only thing keeping that from happening was hesitation. They’d made a showing getting here and Cerberus’s reputation was known and known well.

As time crawled by their enemy’s courage grew steadily. Their attempts became more and more confident. The first two pushes were answered viciously by the trio but the third… less so. With that third push their enemy realized. A few minutes had passed of exchanges but now a spell of calm was prelude to a proper attack.

Three doors. Three entry points. Each one of them covered one door. Alvarez had already thrown down his sub-machine gun, cleaned out of ammunition, and scavenged a rifle from the corpses around them. It was a less than ideal piece, scuffed and poorly maintained, but it was better than nothing.

The silence lasted only a few more moments. Each of them had taken up angles on their doors. Pen sat close to hers. When she ran empty, and she was going to with only half a magazine left, she would have to be close enough already to engage in hand to hand.

The door closest to Nurse blew open with him only a few feet clear of the blast. Fire came pouring through blindly. Soon after figures came carefully into the doorway. Nurse dropped two, then another. Alvarez’s door slid open, he dropped two. The same happened to the third and final door. Pen responded like her allies dropping one body, then a second, but a third made it in. They took aim at the first figure they could see, Alvarez, but a knife came down forcing the barrel of their rifle towards the floor. The next second a hatchet found its home in their neck.

Awali carefully swung his doorway, taking another combatant by surprise.

Alvarez took aim as well.

*Click, click, snap.*

The gun jammed.

Instantly and on instinct the rifle fell from his grip and his hands went for his sidearm. The woman standing only feet from him wore body armor, he could see it clearly, but Cerberus was not equipped with standard issue sidearms. What he slid from the holster on his waist would punch through plate rated even for rifle rounds as that is what his FN fired.

He was going to take hits. This was a fact, and he knew it. He was already preparing for the impacts. Every single member of their fireteam had gone through the most grueling training for this very reason. Every useless or less than useless instinctual reaction to danger and pain had been carefully trained out of them. Where others flinched, they did not.

Alvarez, even as heavy impacts and biting pain ripped into him, followed through. The impacts pushed him and instead of fighting it he allowed himself to fall backwards out of the line of fire. As he did so, he steadied his aim and placed three rounds through the attacker’s chest. Her body armor indeed failed her, and she slumped to the ground.

Alvarez found himself on his ass as well, in pain, and distinctly aware of a spreading warmth in his shoulder and gut. Still, he kept his aim on the doorway.

Pen dispatched a final attacker of her own while Nurse rushed to their Captain’s side.

“Pen!” He yelled.

She was already on it. She returned the hatchet to her waist and pulled her own sidearm from its holster on her chest. With a knife in her left hand and her FN in her right she positioned herself close to the door that was blown open with a view on the other two.

As Nurse went to work on the Captain Pen covered them. She’d dropped a brazen one in the far door when the other slid open. She was ready to drop this one too but halted at the last moment. They were already falling, a corpse. As the corpse hit the floor, she realized its purpose was only to keep the door open long enough for whoever was behind the corner.

Their hand hooked around the doorframe releasing a familiar small spherical metallic object. It bounced with a hefty clang twice before rolling to a stop between the three of them.

Time seemed to stop.

Nurse looked from the grenade to her. She did the same with him. They both burst into motion, but he got to it first, curling his body over certain death.

She could only watch.