We climbed the last few steps to the next flight of stairs, ducking back down the moment the thugs covering the top of the stairs started firing at us.

They did not even give us a chance to peek over the edge as the gunfire continued even after we ducked down.

It seems like there were at least three of them who were using mounted machine guns that they were spraying down range at us.

"They're really desperate huh?" Amber chuckled while taking cover beside me.

Lea crawled up to me while hugging her rifle to her chest, "Should I try to shoot them from here, Captain?"

I turned to her, "Won't that put you in the line of fire then?"

"I should be able to take a few shots with my shield before it goes down. Perhaps I might take one of them out with my rifle."

I quickly shoot my head, "No, I don't want you to take that risk. There should be another way."

Amber turned to me, "So… What should we do then? We can't stay here."

I was still trying to think of a solution when the rest of the group caught up to us, most of them panting from exhaustion from climbing the entire flight of stairs.

The leader climbed up to my level, "Huff… Huff… What… Do we have… Here?"

I gestured to the front, "Is it not obvious enough?"

He looked up at the bullets whizzing past above us before turning back to me, "I suppose I can… Huff… Alright, get back…"

I was about to ask him what he planned to do when he took out a ball shaped object.

Amber widened her eyes, "You're planning to use a grenade?! You're going to blow the entire stairs up you crazy idiot!"

He scowled at her but sorry mate, I'm on Amber's side here. This staircase does not look like it would hold after an explosion from a grenade. Especially if that one was big enough to take out the group of thugs currently holding us back.

He put the grenade away, "Then what do you suggest we do?"

I looked around, trying to see if there was something that I could make use of to bring us out of this predicament.

Well… Fuck… What are we supposed to do here? We can't just sit here and wait for them to run out of bullets either with the people coming up from below.

"Captain, let me do it, please," Lea requested once more.

I turned back to Lea and saw her looking back at me with a determined expression.

Seems like she's really serious about it.

I relented, "Fine, fine… If I see that you are in danger, I'll immediately pull you back into cover."

She nodded before moving up to take my position while readying her rifle.

She took a moment to settle herself into a stance where she was propping the gun up with her left arm as a makeshift bipod before she pulled the trigger and prompted the gun to start charging up.

It took a moment before it got to the whine sound that I have started becoming familiar with and she quickly sat up on the stairs to reveal herself to the thugs.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Almost instantly, an entire wave of bullets smashed themselves against her shield and I was worried that it might be too much for it to handle and prepared to pull her back.

My worries seem to be unfounded as she fired her rifle a split second afterwards and one of the machine gunners was blasted apart.

Lea then ducked back down even before her shield was depleted and started charging her coil gun again.

As soon as the whine started, she popped back out and took another shot, accurately muting the second machine gun.

I thought she would need to repeat this one more time for the last machine gunner but that suddenly went silent on its own.

I peeked from over the top of the stairs and realised that the remaining thugs had abandoned their positions and were running away.

Oh, nice. We don't have to fight everyone then. Also… I want those machine guns!

All of us popped out from the stairs and started running after the retreating thugs.

Amber started shooting at some of them from behind, dropping at least four more thugs before the leader guy grabbed her by the shoulder to stop her.

"What are you doing?!"

She gave him a weird look, "What do you mean? I'm finishing them off."

"They've already given up and are retreating! How can you shoot someone like that in the back?!"

She scowled at him, "Didn't think that you would be one of those naive idiots… They aren't running away, they're regrouping outside."

The leader frowned, "That doesn't make any sense. Why would they abandon the high ground and risk getting shot from behind?"

"Why waste time finding out when you can just shoot them?" Amber argued, lifting her pistols once more to shoot down several more thugs.

The thugs did not even try to shoot back and were just concentrating on running away, disappearing around a corner that turned to the left sharply.

I decided to just join her and fired a few shots of my own, killing three more before they all ran off.

"You guys are monsters," The leader growled, giving us a hateful look.

Amber narrowed her eyes at him, "Oh… You guys are really far away from home I see. Why would someone from the inner colonies end up all the way out here? Don't tell me that client of yours is taking part in some illicit dealings here?"

The guy's jaw tightened but said nothing, even though I could tell from his reaction that Amber hit the nail right on the head.

I sensed the tension rising quite a bit and stepped in, "Let's get out of here first, ok? There's still more coming from behind."

The two of them broke eye contact and nodded at me, the leader returning to the client's side and barking at the other Mercs to catch up.

The guy with the power armour was still firing from below and I wonder how his gun had not overheated yet.

We went towards the corner and I peeked around it.

I was fully expecting to see another barricade or something but surprisingly, the corridor ended at an industrial metal door.

That doesn't make any sense… Why would they have such a big door leading to this flight of stairs? What was this place supposed to be used for?

I was just about to turn back to tell them what was around the corner when the metal door got blasted apart and something big stomped in.

At first I thought it was another guy with power armour kicking down the door but I realised that the size of the thing walking through the door was even bigger than a normal power armour.

The dust settled to reveal what I could only describe as a mech standing amongst the debris.

There was a pod thing at the very top which I guessed housed the pilot and two arms that ended in a cannon on the left hand and a minigun on the right hand jutted out from the sides.

Two struts came out from below the pod to form its legs that could easily stomp a person flat.

Using said leg struts as cover were the thugs who had managed to run away from the earlier barricade.

All of us ducked behind the corner right before the cannon on its left arm fired at us, destroying a whole section of it.

"Is this the part where I say 'I told you so'?" Amber asked sarcastically.

The leader wisely decided not to say anything about it and asked, "Damnit… Do we need to go back down? We have nothing that can deal with a mech!"

I looked at Amber, "Could I?"

She grimaced, "If it's fired at point blank range at the pilot… I believe you should be able to."

"I can try to shoot him," Lea offered, hefting her rifle once more.

"You'll be a sitting duck for the Mech and your shield can't take a cannon shell to the face."

The leader then reached into his jacket and pulled out another grenade, "I can provide some cover for that."

I was going to ask if he was planning to blow them up again when Amber nodded, "A smoke grenade huh? Yeah, let's go with that. All of us will deal with the small fries underneath that Mech while Tera and Lea will deal with the pilot of the Mech directly."

Well… Sounds like a simple plan but I think a lot of things can go wrong with this… But seeing that we were literally backed into a corner right now, I guess we don't exactly have a choice either.

Let's do it then.

Time to take down a Mech!