[h1]Tar 'Mdalak[/h1]
[hr]

From her position behind the crates, Tar had a slightly better view of the elevated platforms above them. She couldn’t see any hostiles peeking out just yet. “I can’t see anyone on the platforms; will keep an eye out.” Tar reported, just as the box she was hiding behind began shuddering from a hail of bullets. Cover was particularly poor this close to the near pillars; Tar needed to get into the grid of crates to stand a chance. 

She noticed her left leg was starting to hurt; blood trickled slowly from a gap in her armour plating. Could that bullet she’d felt while holding up her Brute cover outside have gone through, rather than grazed her? She wasn’t sure. Tar probed the gap with one of her fingers, mandibles clamped together. She couldn’t find an entry wound. She’d need to leave it be for now and look once the fighting had stopped.

Tar peeked out from behind the crate she hid behind. A couple of Brutes and Humans had been dealt with, and part of the room was on fire. She could see shapes flitting between the stacks of crates toward the back of the room. It looks like they’d abandoned their previous position. “Our foe runs! We should press the attack.” Tar called, shooting between crates at two Humans as they scrambled for cover. One of them fell over.

Tar had never actually killed Humans before now. There’d been no need to; her time with the Silent Shadow remnants had been exclusively focused on killing Brutes. She found these Human warriors to be quite disappointing so far. She’d simmed against ODSTs and other Human elements in Paxopolis, but that’d been in a carefully controlled environment. This was real.

“Moving!” Tar announced, mostly out of necessity. The crate she’d hidden behind had practically fallen apart. She got up and stepped into a ‘corridor’ between two rows of crates leading to the other side of the room. She spotted a Human with a SAW at the opposite end of the corridor just as they opened fire. Tar only made it forward one row before ducking back behind another stack of boxes. “I'm pinned, how is my right side looking?” Tar asked, partly to herself as she peeked around the other side of the box and partly to Aegis team, who would have a more holistic view.