[center][h1][color=00aeef]Ren[/color][/h1][/center] [hr] [center]Dodging lasers.[/center] [hr] Pinprick holes opened up in several points on the Revenant's outer hull, and wormlike cables poked through. The Machine had almost completed its infection of the Revenant, and now required external cameras, which it happily provided for itself. What it saw was, frankly, terrifying. More terrifying than anything it had experienced in decades, at least, and it felt a surge of synthetic adrenaline flood through itself. Beams of unfocused destructive power were blasting through the outer casings of Helsin's reactor core and flashing through the empty sky with brilliant fury -- the death cries of a crumbling station. Rento felt the Tower's adrenaline dump. It was faint, but the initial feeling was a very powerful one, and she felt it happen to herself as well. Preserving the old fight-or-flight response had gone surprisingly well during construction, and she felt a strange sort of pride at how [i]effective[/i] it was. Unlike in organics, however, it didn't shut down higher reasoning, but rather increased voltage to the brain. The Tower's cameras sent an image -- a hot spot was building on the surface of the station's reactor casing, and every calculation suggested it would perfectly toast the Revenant faster than the ship could possibly move out of the way. Rento nearly snapped the joysticks clean off of the four gunnery controls to swivel the turrets toward it and simultaneously fired four heavy caliber flat-head slugs at a series of points on the side of the hot spot. Analysis showed that the energy was rapidly eating its way through the shell, and just as a tiny pinprick of light flashed through towards the ship, the four slugs slammed into the casing, heavily denting and warping it in time for the rest of the energy burst to erupt outwards. Even though heat doesn't transfer well through space, Rento almost felt the warmth of the light as it passed within mere meters of the top deck of the ship. She focused on diverting subsequent beams by any method possible - warping their path by destabilizing them with the Revenant's beam guns, by warping the outer shell of the station, or by punching holes in the casing to strategically reduce heat and pressure buildup inside the reactor. [@Crossfire][@Banana]