Stormblood, стр. 141
‘That was one hell of a shot, kid.’ Jasken’s skullface filled my vision as he pulled me back to my feet.
The corridor clear, we cut down the remaining Suns engaging the rest of the fireteam before moving on.
I watched Saren and Vanto climb up the scaffolding and run alongside us, tagging incoming enemies. They lit up an incoming squad, their grenades and weapons glowing in my HUD. We focused our fire on a cultist armed with gas grenades and concussion bombs. Rounds ricocheted in furious clatters around us. Heavy, thunking footsteps as a cultist in hulking red armour came barrelling out of the smoke, smashing into us. Metal screamed and crunched. Katherine was slammed to the ground, Jasken half-crushed against the wall. I stabbed our attacker through the hand, pinning him to the wall. He roared and smashed me across the face with his other hand, my head whipping sideways and almost biting my tongue in half. Vanto reared up behind me, blasting him in the head until he slumped down, but the distraction had cost us. A metal thunk at my feet. Concussion bomb. I jerked my head up, an enemy squad charging towards us from around a corner.
‘Armour wall!’ Saren roared out. Age-old battlefield jargon leaped through my memory as I squeezed between Katherine and Vanto in a line-up, shoulders thrust forward, blades extended, the six of us triggering our armour-lock functions. Our suits shimmered with a red hazy outline of triple-shielding, rendering us near immobile in our armour. I just had time to clench my teeth before the concussion bomb erupted and the incoming squad slammed into us.
Whooopf. The world blared into white-hot fury. Couldn’t see. Couldn’t see. All sound swallowed up. Felt like a sun had gone supernova inside my skull and spat shrapnel into my brain. The armour-lock had turned my flesh numb. Shapes moving through the whiteness, the world returning in ear-shattering fragments. Helmets smashing into mine, armour plates grinding against each other, blades stabbing down, bloody teeth gritted, eyes wild with battle fury.
We released armour-lock as one. Ears popping, body tingling, I stabbed at a cultist and cleaved half his hand away as he collapsed, but he was replaced with two more. Guns going off at point-blank range, denting my armour in a dozen places. Grenades exploded in furious bursts of red shrapnel down the corridor, shredding fallen bodies apart. Vanto hacked at a Suns’ helmet like he was chopping wood, the blade crunching down between the bridge of his nose, the black spatter of brains across his eyes. The muzzle flash of a scattershot roared out, blasting Vanto backwards, almost carving through his armour. Couldn’t get a lock on the shooter. Too many of them, overcrowding us too fast. We pulled back as one, spraying cover fire. We’d held, but now we were pinned down. And I’ve seen what happens when fireteams are caught in a killzone.
I quickly told the rest of my fireteam what I was going to do, told them to be ready. ‘Now!’ I yelled, getting a running start and leaping ahead on my thrusters. The cultists dodged out of the way on instinct, but I slammed into two of them like an armoured wrecking ball. My skull rattling and the stormtech throbbing, I picked myself up and spun back around, unloaded my handcannon into the corridor, the walls shuddering with echoing blasts. Sandwiched between us, the cultists had nowhere to go as we hosed them from both sides with salvos of gunfire. The heavy, supercharged rounds of my handcannon punching fist-sized holes through them. A cultist with Suns’ phrases scrawled along his armour circled like a shark around the scaffolding, ducking my blasts, trying to get up close. I deliberately missed, let him think he had an opportunity. He reared up like a dark wave, but I feinted left, his scattershot blast punching past me, aimed down the glowing barrel of my handcannon and blasted him. His body thudded down as the echoes of the gunshot died out in my head.
The corridor was clear, but wouldn’t be for long. ‘They’re trying to flank us down the side tunnels,’ Saren said. ‘Move out, quickly!’
But before we could, a barricade slammed down in front of us. Trapping us. We pressed our backs against the wall, Saren and Kuen kneeling down as cultists came screaming around the corner. The walls denting and showering sparks as they ripped out suppressing fire.
‘Grim!’ I yelled over the armoured thunk of incoming enemies.
‘Almost got it!’ Grim yelled.
A cultist in heavy silver armour interlocked with black machinery lunged out, the railgun mounted on his shoulder flashing as it vomited out a slug between me and Vanto, splashing metal-eating acid over the barricade. Saren throttled the trigger, tearing through his ankles and sending him shrieking to the floor. More Suns were peeking around the corner, waiting for additional forces before swarming us.
The barricade dilated open and we rushed through. Grim shut it down again as soon as we were clear. We kept each other covered as we pounded down the corridors. The crackle of bullets echoing from somewhere. Saren was about to lead us down another passageway when I called him back. ‘It’s a trap,’ I growled. The stormtech was pulsing in me, my arm hairs raised. ‘They wanted us to go this way. Like cattle into the meatgrinder.’
‘We don’t have time to argue,’ Saren yelled, already moving forward again.
‘We go there, we’ll run straight into an ambush. That’s why they flanked us, they knew we’d run this way.’ I glanced into the mirrored visors of my fireteam. I thumped a fist against my armoured