+++Against All Tyrants, Roaring+++
One of the few things Lily Shen thought she wouldn't miss from the old world was the computer monitors. Even one of those LCD relics would have been a better choice for this.
She had stolen (acquired) drones that had antigravity repulsors and modified them to administer advanced mist-based cell restorative medicine that could bring a man away from the brink of death in an instant. She had been the one to help Tyan restore the Avenger's power core to a safe operating threshold. The daughter of one of Earth's most brilliant minds had proven herself time and time again there was little she couldn't rip apart and reverse engineer, and if that was impossible then she could find a way to destroy whatever was in her way without fail.
With that in mind, it pissed her off to no end that the aliens' holograms couldn't switch to a warmer color unless they had specialized emitters which the Avenger wasn't. Equipped. With. Doubly so when conducting an operation in the dead of night, only facilitating the process by which the harsh blue light of the tactical feed was torturing her eyes. Triply when she knocked over her coffee because her vision was fraying at the seams.
Lily stopped her internal tirade about the lights when Crasher-2 died with a dozen magnetic slugs in her back and Crasher-1 was about to follow. She shouted out a warning that came later than the bullets, and watched in a manner that wasn't quite impassive as much as it was too fatigued to grieve right then and there.
Operation Gatecrasher had started smoothly.
The ADVENT Officer wasted no time, its boots splashing the puddle of undoubtedly still-warm blood pooling around Crasher-1. The hybrid human babbled as it took aim, probably to request reinforcements which were more than likely on their way. The other trooper joined it, and they broke the window of the gene clinic together as they fired, shots narrowly missing that Kelly Rookie. Jane Kelly, Lily chastised herself when she considered what would happen if any of those shots had connected. The beleaguered woman couldn't even take aim through the doorway because there were enough shots flying by that the rifle would probably get blown to bits if she tried.
Operation Gatecrasher had rapidly transitioned into one of those missions.
Lily Shen cursed when another pair of troopers emerged from an enforcement car and ran across the street, then called it in.
Kelly was glad she brought two grenades, and happier that ADVENT was displeased with her decision after a very shrapnel-filled moment had passed.
Officer's uniform a smoky black and red with the viscera of its subordinate, the lead alien soldier wasn't able to run to a part of the clinic's walls that hadn't been destroyed. She fired two bursts, and needed only one to connect. He faltered mid-step and went down, not getting up as sickly orange blood seeped from more than a few bullet holes in vital areas and staining the unnervingly clean streets of the city.
'Rest forever, Ramirez. Osei. That was for you.' It had been years since the sisters at the orphanage had unsuccessfully taught Kelly about Christianity. Even longer since she'd said a proper prayer, but on the battlefield the short wish made her feel better.
Up until the Avenger's next warning came in.
"Central, be advised that I am tracking multiple enemy infantry units closing on your location. Possible MEC movement about two and a half blocks away but the signal is spotty and I likely can't keep tracking ground- Dammit!"
The orange and red lighting of the dim backroom hidden behind the gene clinic's façade flickered, and Kelly wondered if that had anything to do with Shen's pause.
Central Officer Bradford hefted the package's considerably bulky suit against himself in a way that freed up his earpiece-using arm. "Shen, confirm last transmission. MECs spotted and-"
The engineer's voice cut back, a lot more frantic than it had been a second ago. "Enemy air support has driven off Firebrand! You need to hold out until we can get her to lose them!"
Kelly was kicking herself that she only brought two grenades.
"Copy that, Shen. Keep us posted, Central out," Bradford replied, facial expression refusing to budge as his rifle joined hers, pointed at the doorway. The package was lying on its back, safely out of the line of fire. "You holding up alright, kid?"
The Rookie nodded, then cursed when the action caused her rifle to wobble just as two black-clad troopers appeared in the street outside, sending magnetic projectiles bouncing all around them. She ducked behind the waist-high crate, not eager to know what it was like to have her brains moving a thousand miles per hour faster than the rest of her anatomy.
Bradford stayed calm and crouched to her left, aiming straight through the doorway at an angle where the only people who could see him would be those who approached the door in a straight line. As soon as the angular helmet of the first Trooper entered his view, Bradford pulled the trigger once. The helmet deformed ever so slightly, a black pit appearing right where the not-human's forehead would be. Central is the surgeon, bullets are his scalpel, and that's one more successful treatment, part of Kelly said giddily even as she suppressed it.
The second trooper didn't dare to try his luck, if the panicked squawking that followed the sound of an armored body hitting the floor was anything to judge.
Kelly didn't notice that one hand was tightening around her last grenade enough to make her knuckles whiten when she asked Bradford, "Sir, what happens if we cannot extract via Firebrand?"
Bradford's assault rifle never wavered. "Then the mission is a failure." He spared her a glance, then motioned her to switch places with him, which she did. Kneeling in the middle of the room, facing an open door with empty air as her cover. On the plus side, she did have a steady firing stance and everything in visual range of the doorway didn't have any more cover than her.
"However," Bradford continued in a voice that managed to be gruff, brooked no argument, and sounded sympathetic, "Until we get a confirmation that extraction isn't coming, we defend the package for as long as we can. Clear?"
"Clear sir," Kelly replied, noting in her peripheral vision that Central was dragging the package further away from the doorway. She returned her attention to the doorway, where a gray sphere rolled into view not five seconds later, looking incredibly out of place on the sparkling white floor.
Kelly blinked. The Trooper that had been rolling the round plant pot into position stuck his head out, and the two only needed a moment to acquire each other before they traded fire. Both were slightly off in their aim, the Rookie only scuffing his shoulder plates and the ADVENT soldier managing a grazing shot through her armor and skinning an ankle.
Kelly felt fire lancing up her nerves and fell, mercifully behind the crate she had been using at the start of the firefight. She didn't scream at the pain but came close to it when she kicked out to unite her legs with the rest of her body; out of gunfire's way. One hand on the top of the crate for support, the other with her pistol, she fired wildly in a hopefully-suppressive attack that would do more than cost her the last shred of her eardrums.
"I need one of your grenades," Central commented once the service pistol ran dry, hand up to his earpiece and the package on his shoulder once more, seemingly not caring that she was being lit the fuck up. If Firebrand was on her way again, Kelly hadn't heard it over the sound of nerves being flayed.
"My last grenade," Kelly felt the need to correct venomously, even as she slid the empty handgun into a holster and rolled the grenade to him. The Trooper had paused in his fire, either deterred from being shot at or to reload, it was one of life's greatest mysteries. Still had half a mag left in the AR, maybe…
More orange-red light from supersonic projectiles, and Bradford helped yank her away from the crate that was now doing its best impression of swiss cheese. Kelly cursed. That had been way more than a single Trooper firing just then, and with a heavier mag rifle, too. The pods behind them were shattered and crackled, leaking semi-transparent lime green fluid over the floor. High caliber, high velocity. MECs were supposed to be almost three blocks away, had it really been that long? But if they were in firing range, that could only mean-
Metallic stomping, right outside.
"Weapons up, aim center mass. Their armor looks tough but it doesn't hold well against sustained fire," Bradford stated like a mantra, flicking his rifle to full-auto. She followed his example with only a hint of nervousness at the very real possibility of facing death.
"We got a way out of this, sir?" she questioned.
Silence. Kelly unzipped a pouch and reloaded smoothly with hands that didn't tremble. Her ankle was still very far from being a dull throb, but she was adapting to it quickly enough.
The robotic footsteps stopped. There was the sound of servos and synth-muscles twisting, as if the MEC that was only a few meters away and inside the clinic was turning around.
Then the building trembled and a hot wind blasted the charcoal body of a dead MEC in a tumble across the floor of the gene clinic's backroom. Troopers screamed in their guttural language before abruptly being cut off by a loud braaaaaaang! Like a gunshot that someone had stretched over several seconds in some kind of audio editing program in the days when music was made by humans.
She met Bradford's gaze in the mutual feeling of utter bewilderment for only a split second because there was movement in the next, sounding suspiciously like boots on metal.
Kelly snapped her rifle to head-height, and a pair of menacing red eyes stared back through the iron sights.