Maria sat behind the secretary’s desk. Outside, the moon started its sweep past the window. The Orbital Station had a fantastic view. She paged her team mate. “The lift still isn’t here.”
An annoyed voice snapped back. “I know. I’m working on it. Can you hold down there?”
She popped a couple of shots up the corridor and ducked back behind her cover. Her tactical software took advantage of the brief glance and gave her a read-out – 5 guards, 2 heavily armed.
“For a while, but I’m really gonna need that lift.”
In the lower corner of her field of vision, the software indicated that it had finished analyzing the situation. Maria reviewed the results, and patched them results to her gun. She reached into a pouch on her pants, pulled out a grenade and thumbed the detonation button.
On three. Two. She took a deep breath.
The program took over.
Her arm lobbed the grenade. It took a high arc. She knew the trajectory because the cybernetic arm took its information from the tac-comp. The patched directly into her body’s central nervous system as well as to her gun. For the next 30 seconds should would be moving in perfect harmony.
She popped up and braced herself on the desk. The guards had been momentarily distracted by the shining, smoking object. She squeezed off a burst of shots. One of the armoured guards cursed loudly as his visor shattered. He was silenced by the next shot. Her arm move down and to the right, sending 2 aimed shots into the knee of a regular guard. As he went down screaming the gun traced up to the center of the corridor.
The smoke grenade hit the ground.
She twisted her neck until it clicked and her eyes flicked to infrared. A warm body crossed through the smoke.
Two shots to the chest and the figure went down.
The program ended and she ducked back behind the desk, reloading. She checked the corridor – the heat sources had pulled back a little, dragging a cooling body with them. She blinked twice to clear her vision.
She called her mate again. “Lift?”
“Take the damn stairs.” She heard the sound of gunfire.
She changed channels. “Point? Are you there, Dana?”
“Aye.” The voice was calm. Quiet.
“Stix sounds like he’s in trouble.”
“On my way.”
“Stix, we’re converging on your position. Hang tight. Lock down all access to your position and don’t open until you hear from me.”
She pulled a bomb from her backpack and stuck it to the underside of the desk, setting the detonator to “Remote.” With a final burst up the corridor she…
“Stix – we have shut down all communications in this place, right? I not going to be running into the cavalry am I?”
“Maria – do you take me for a complete noob?”
…she crossed the room and dove through the door into the stairwell.
She gave the took the stairs two at a time, giving the guards 15 seconds before detonating the bomb.
All in a day’s work.
