Demise

[Boss]

As it turned out, there wasn't a whole lot left of the man. Harris and the team's medic carefully extracted one thumb and part of the head. One eye was mostly intact, though with massive hemorrhaging throughout. Harris and the medic just looked at each other. "There's no fecking way that'll work. Commander Mathers...things got tricky. The man to get our man out is now Kibble and we don't have the gear to take down the shield safely."

"Do it unsafely then. We don't have time. The vessel from Juneau is about fifteen minutes out. Looks like a gunboat with fighter escort. Need I say more?" Mathers cut the link. "Johnson, any luck on those defensive guns?"

"Nah. I'm COMSCAN, not COMSEC. I could get through the security, but not in the next five minutes. Uh, hey, what about the corridor turrets for riot suppression and escape deterrence? Those don't pack lethals. Shouldn't be as strongly firewalled as the base guns." Mathers nodded. It wouldn't be very useful to slow down boarding forces, but it could confuse them long enough for the recovery teams to get back aboard and maybe even lift off...

"Do it fast.' Johnson grunted and settled in to hack through to the turret controls. A few moments later "I'm in. Reacti...damnit. Those siphons on the conduits are sucking the turrets dry."

Mathers thought a second and then fingered his headset again. "Hollis, I may have your solution. Pull as many siphons off of the weapons conduits as you need. We'll need the guns to slow down our company, and you should be able to take down the shield with them."