Octavia skidded into a crouched firing position and brought her rifle up to bear. Her slide had left marks in the ash and dirt and blew up a cloud of particulates that would have obscured a lesser warrior's vision. However, Octavia's killer instinct was almost primal at this point into the battle, she smelled blood and could practically see the red liquid coursing in the other men's veins. She whipped her lascarbine up and rapidly squeezed off a burst of rounds. The first missed and dinged off of a pile of wreckage. The second found its mark and scorched half of a helmeted man's face into a slag of melted flesh and bone which fell with a [i]thwump[/i] into a pile of dirt, dust and blood. The third blast took the other man's arm off in a spray of half-misted blood. His rifle in his severed hand, kicking off lances of crimson as it twitched its last moves, tumbled through the air until it landed on the ground. The crippled man screamed as he flopped down and died. 

Octavia stood up with a satisfied look on her face and scanned the arena for the remaining few squads. Her rifle radiated heat and the metallic tang of blood. She looked back at her squad; the pale doctor looked like he took a hit but was still standing, the former enforcer seemed shaken but was still able to fight, and finally the PDF soldier seemed fairly steady as far as PDF soldiers went. The rest of the squad was out of her sight at the moment, although she could hear the crazed man's shouting so she assumed he was still 'fine.' The veteran motioned for the rest of the squad to fall in behind her; the hard part was over, it was just clean up by this point. The rest of the squads were likely to be in shambles and would be easy prey for a full strength squad like the Eighth.

Octavia looked back over the battlefield and scanned again for any signs of life. Any sounds were for the most part drown out by dying screams and moans. No lasfire could be seen either. Curious, the enemy must be too frightened to come out. Octavia took a knee and removed her helmet, brushing her hand over her short cropped hair and wiping some sweat that had pooled on one of her forehead scars. Killing was tiring work. Leading a squad AND killing was downright exhausting.