From Darkness

[l3wt]

ARLAND

James barked out a directive even as the first rounds burst against his chosen piece of cover, a strong bulkhead by the main airlock.

"JADE, disable the elevators, seal off any compartments behind me. I don't want any surprises or reinforcements."

The purpose of this was rather simple - he couldn't afford to be caught off guard by more people from below, and now that he'd eliminated the possibility of being flanked from any compartments further aft of his position, he only had the hub-like spinal area running the ship's length to worry about. He had effectively turned any approach to his position into his personal shooting gallery. They could pop up from the side rooms, and shoot at him from upper walkways, but it didn't change the fact that any fire coming his way would be from the front, and he had a nice, thick metal wall to hide behind.

He took stock of his ammunition. Four more magazines for his handgun, not including the one currently in use, 20 rounds each. 45 rounds in the magazine of his stolen assault rifle, judging by the little display on the side, and one spare magazine he'd taken the time to pilfer off the dead crewman. Should be enough.

Now what was he missing?

Ah. Music.

A little fiddling with his haptic display and something suitably martial was thumping through the mask's auditory systems - a software upgrade let it filter external sounds as well, and let him hear certain audio patterns of his choosing even over the music.

Such as that of the grenade clanging against the floor by his feet. He kicked it out back into no-man's land, with some contempt, then waited for the blast. A split second after he felt the shockwave and felt shrapnel ricocheting against his suit - regular steel ball bearings, not quite enough to harm him after bouncing off the walls and losing most of their energy.

Someone had thought to try and use the confusion of the grenade to close with him, a man with a light machinegun taken from the ship's cargo. James was significantly less confused than predicted, and leaned out of cover, catching the man in the open. The assailant had his torso torn half to pieces with a long burst of automatic fire. James himself was sent flinching back into cover by a retort from a second and third combatant, who appeared to have been covering the first one.

While these two busied themselves with suppressing him, James shuffled over to the other side of his wall. Sticking the rifle out past the corner and firing a blind, somewhat experimental burst which brought about another hail of gunfire on that side too, confirming his suspicions that there was indeed someone covering that side of his wall as well.

Since it was already a day of firsts, James decided to try a trick he'd only vaguely considered in the past, but had dismissed as sort of preposterous. After nesting the rifle in one shoulder and raising it to aim as per usual, he removed his off hand from it, using it to hold his pistol instead. Then he amped up the suit's arm stabilizer system - essentially causing his arms and hands to nearly stiffen in place around his weapons, something he'd typically only do for something requiring long-range marksmanship.

Now was the time to stop thinking again, as he popped back out of cover, targeting two positions simultaneously, firing each weapon independent of one another, the staccato bursts from the rifle being accompanied by the sharp suppressor-coughs of the handgun.

It was hardly his best shots, in fact, marksmen across the sector would have banged their heads against a wall in unison had they been observing, but for this combat distance it was simply accurate enough. With a bit of sustained firing, he'd managed to trip up the enemy's sense of firefight dynamics, such as it were, and crewmen began to poke their heads out to fire at the wrong times. With detached satisfaction James noted that after expending another thirty rounds or so, he'd sent another three crewmen slumping to the floor, motionless in pools of blood.

He began to lose track of time.

He'd almost stopped caring about the return fire, too. A rifle round had impacted his shoulder at some point, penetrating the suit and lodging itself there. He knew he'd probably lost more blood than was strictly healthy, but like everything else, it didn't matter, so long as he could still keep those guns firing, and his position locked down.

When he slumped back into cover to reload, for - what, the third? Fourth time? He didn't know how long it had been, but his breathing had gotten worse, and the rifle was finally empty, he'd tried to conserve the last rounds as best as he could. Had they even landed yet? He didn't know. Most of the return fire had stopped, but he pointed the pistol back around the corner and sent another couple of blind rounds downrange again, mostly out of spite.

He was getting... a bit light-headed. This was hardly ideal. He needed backup soon.