EliteCommander

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

It had not even been a minute and their great escape had already been ground to a halt. Just one complication after another, it seemed. Senjen leaned out of the truck just enough that he could get an angle to keep firing on the droids, and keep up the pressure to help the commander. He did not know how much he could help, but he could at least empty his magazine on them. His pistol did not have as much ammunition capacity as “standard” projectile weapons. Flesh would cavitate when struck at high speed, so weapons used against it could get away with tiny, plentiful projectiles. It was not ideal for anti-droid projectiles to be so small, though. His pistol used ammo with an armor-piercing shell surrounding a small explosive core meant to burst after penetrating a hard target. They had a better chance of damaging internal components, but a magazine could not hold near as many.

As soon as his weapon ran dry, Senjen ducked back inside to reload. He brought up Light’s perspective from the corner of his field-of-view to try to make sense of what was holding them up. Apparently the door was not responding to the controls, and there was probably no way to quickly fix that particular problem. “Does it have a manual release, or…” Senjen began to ask, though he hesitated as more ideas started to come to mind. “Is that door more sturdy than this truck? If not, maybe we can use that...and maybe we should all brace?”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Right now, there were a few questions Senjen wished he had the answer to. What was a “directional dark star’”, why had it been disarmed, what what did it mean for it to be jammed?. There was no time to ask, and he doubted he would get an answer regardless. Light got them moving, and they were heading to the garage’s exit.

The commander had said she would be right behind them. Honestly, Senjen did not know whether to believe her, but he couldn’t just leave her behind, could he? He had to at least give her a chance. He did not lock the hatch immediately, but instead drew his pistol and leaned out to try and give her cover. She had that exoskeleton, and they could not move too quickly underground, so there was some possibility she might be able to catch up...as long as that was her intention. He put some shots towards the droids shooting at the commander. His weapon was made for killing machines, at least.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

“Okay, I guess it was a trick.” Senjen remarked, looking warily up at the cutter trying to make its way through the door. “In that case, I think we’re done here. Get in and let’s go while we still have a shot at getting out of this!”

Senjen offered a hand to the commander to pull her in quickly, but beyond that, it would mostly be up to Light to get them all out in one piece. The truck had enough space to hold them and was tough enough to protect them, but it would be a bit like flying a brick through the city. Of course, Light’s freighter was like an even bigger brick, so hopefully his experience would give him an edge. If not, Senjen was not sure he would have any more clever ideas to salvage the situation.

While he was waiting, Senjen made sure he still had a connection to Light’s implants. There was not much Senjen could do himself from the back, but if he could stay informed, then maybe he could be of some use.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Senjen was having an easier time thinking straight without all the heat warnings to distract him. Light brought them to a stop, so Senjen quickly pulled open the hatch. He stood just off to the side of the opening inside, so as to keep himself out of the way of anyone climbing inside. “Come on, we’ve got to hurry!” He shouted to the others just outside the truck. He offered a hand to help pull anyone inside as quickly as possible. In times like this, there was really no luxury of being gentle.

Thinking about it, the chance that these attackers were not waiting outside for them felt slim to none. Maybe it really would be too risky for them to give chase; side roads or no, a high speed chase with gunships would have to be a risk for an organization on Korit. It was just a matter of whether or not they viewed the reward of catching them to be worth said risk.

Aside from whatever might be ahead of them, Senjen heard the voices from the other side of the door. He did not want to leave anyone to die if he could help it, but there was good reason to be wary. “You recognize those voices? Are they your people, or could it be some sort of trick?” He asked, though there was not time to linger and debate. With everything they did, they needed to be quick and decisive. “What’s the name of your commander?” Senjen shouted through the door. If they responded back with a name the boss or his guards recognized, they could let them in.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Progress, at least. Since they had avoided being at one another’s throats for now, they still had a chance to get out alive. Senjen caught the extinguisher from Light and took just a moment to check the label and make sure it was safe for him. The hole in his back provided enough access for him to reach back and angle the nozzle up towards his frame’s chest cavity. The small fires themselves had already been taken care of, but the first burst of the extinguisher into him did wonders to cool his core temperature. Some parts of his body were more or less susceptible to heat than others, but it was most important to keep his data storage and processor cooled. Fortunately, storage did not generate much heat on its own, but his processor certainly did. His power cells could handle higher temperatures, though the consequences of them staying overheated for too long could be...dangerous. The extinguisher would cool him down for a while, and since he had not needed to use all of its contents, he kept a hold of it for now.

The front seats of the cash truck were already taken by the time Senjen was done, so he sprinted for the hatch into the back instead. He could at least still keep on on a call with Light, so they could keep in contact, but Senjen wanted to keep his body and mind as still as he could for now. The less he was doing, the less heat he produced, and the easier his bottlenecked cooling system could keep up. Senjen was the first in, so he picked a corner where he could find something to grab onto and help keep himself still.

Senjen messaged both Light and the boss. “You think going on public transitways would help? I know the Korit government tends to stay out of private ‘business’, but they get involved if that starts spilling out into the public, right? We’re in cash trucks, so if they follow, station security might take it for an attempted robbery and intervene in our favor.”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Between the alarms for his internal temperature and the pressure of a rapidly approaching enemy, Senjen had his mind only on survival. Even if he wanted to share what had happened between them at the store, there literally was not time at this point. Regardless of what had happened before or in the future, escape needed to be the only thing on their mind at the moment. “Look, if you have a hideout or something, you don’t need to take us there, and I don’t even want to know where it is. If you’re that worried about us, then we don’t even have to work together again after today. We can just go our separate ways after we get out of here.”

The sounds at the other side of the door prompted Senjen to draw his pistol. It couldn’t be long before the enemy was on top of them. “We are right at the edge of escaping here, but every second we waste is another they have to breach this room, or maybe set up an ambush outside. You know we would have had the chance to kill you by now if we were traitors. Let’s just get out of here alive.”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

“If I was working with them, I can think of at least two occasions where I could have just let them have you instead of doing everything I could to save you.” Senjen answered, staring back at the boss. “In the stairwell, or when you got grabbed out in the atrium, my guns were on the droids on both accounts. Not to mention all the chances I would have had by now to split off in the chaos and join them, if I was with them. Whatever they did to prepare this attack, it should be apparent we’re not with them.”

Senjen stayed rather still. The less his system was doing, the less heat it produced. Though, he had no choice but to stay very alert to every little twitch the others made. “Now there really isn’t time for this. They can’t be far behind, and if we waste any time doing this, then none of us are going to end up getting out.”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

“Wait, what?” Senjen answered back, startled. Normally he might have wanted to take a defensive position, but since the bodyguard was offering, Senjen handed over the repeater and leaped into cover near the truck to deal with self-repairs. He opened up the alerts he had suppressed and ran a quick diagnostic. “SHIT!”

Senjen had to scramble to do something but it took some moments of thought to figure out what. He was running hot, though not for the reasons Light might have thought. The fires were small and mostly under control. Auto-repair could take care of them. It was the actual damage that was driving his core temperature through the roof, as his cooling system had been compromised. Actual coolant loss had been minimal since auto-repair re-routed and plugged the leak quickly, but now his coolant was getting bottlenecked through just a few remaining routes. The whole system was running inefficiently, so it couldn’t keep him cooled effectively.

The thought of fire did at least put one thought in his mind. “I need to grab an extinguisher from the truck!” He shouted. A cash truck would definitely have at least one, probably a few. Even if he didn’t need it for the fire, those sorts of extinguishers were frigid, and usually electronics-safe. One of them could bring down his core temperature, for a while.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

At this point, it felt like the only way for Senjen to maintain his sanity was to focus on what was in front of him. Gunfights, executions, it would have been so easy to panic, but he still had his goal. He still had a path. The soldier had a path in mind, and Senjen was willing to follow it. He was good at keeping low, so he could stay out of sight following her. She was at the front, so he guarded the rear, just behind Light.

The soldier mentioned the attackers were Outreman, which was a word that barely meant anything to him. If he recalled correctly, it was a planet, but he had not been interested in visiting there, so he had not read up much about it. Though, the fact that a shady group from another planet was shooting up the building did sound odd. He had expected they would be some other corporation or gang from Korit, not what were basically foreign invaders.

Even once they managed to make it downstairs, even once they had the garage in sight, Senjen could not let himself slow down. These maniacs could still descend upon them at any time. They found the boss and his bodyguard, which was good. All the effort they had made to keep them alive had at least paid off. There were plenty of vehicles as well, so as long as they hurried, an escape was actually in sight.

Now that they were standing around in a well-lit area, while not being shot, Light might notice the hole burned across a portion of Senjen’s back plate and a glimpse of burned components underneath, which Senjen himself had not yet seemed to have noticed.

“Is that truck armored? If so, I say we take that. We just need to get out of here. Hard to imagine they could give much chase; surely Korit security isn’t going to just let them shoot up a public transitway. That can’t be good for business. We just need to hurry; I heard them say they were coming down this way.” Senjen suggested.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Senjen suppressed some flashing warnings in his field of view while they were on the move. Whatever it was, surviving this crisis here and now took precedence. They had gotten one more level down, with still far too many to go, and this one was just as chaotic as the last. There were too many of these droids pretty much everywhere, and it did not seem like fighting was going to be the way out. He fell in behind the soldier holding the repeater, though not firing on anything just yet to avoid calling immediate attention to them.

“Any other ways out, or at least down to the garage? Side routes, maintenance pathways, anything?” Senjen asked the soldier. He figured that the people who worked here would have a better idea of the building’s layout than himself, Light, or any of the attackers. There had to be some other way to get out of this place than the front door. Fire exits, maybe? Whether this place was meant to be more of a restaurant, casino, or fortress, it felt more like a giant coffin, to use a Human analogy.