"What was that? Open the shutter!"

The barked order that came over the radio stopped them in their tracks. There was a loud click that was followed by a grinding sound that filled the room as the massive shutters that blocked the bridge that led to the next building opened.

"Double time it." Derrick said and Alex nodded.

Before the shutter had fully risen, Alex was darting forward with weapon in hand, and Derrick was right behind her. They had only taken four steps when Alex came to a halt, grabbed Derrick by his vest, and spun them both behind the cover of a thick, stone plinth in the middle of the corridor. A microsecond later the sound of a .50-caliber, emplaced machinegun filled the space with a terrifying noise.

"We're sitting ducks out here!" Alex screamed close to his ear, and normally Derrick would have enjoyed have a woman pressed up against a solid surface, but now was not one of those times. "Can you throw a grenade?"

Derrick thought about it and shook his head, "No! I'd have to expose myself to chuck it!"

"What the fuck are we gonna do!?"

Pieces of masonry, some disturbingly large, had begun to fall from the plinth. Soon the machinegun would eat right through and they would be mincemeat.

"Somebody better think of something!" Derrick looked into her eyes as she spoke and was shaken by the absolute faith he found there.

Faith in him.

"Here!" Derrick removed his SMG and handed it to her. "Let loose a burst, blind-fire, and hopefully that'll give me enough time to chuck one!"

"Okay!" Alex replied but she still seemed a little shaken by their encounter with Solus.

"It's been fun! On three! One!" Derrick unhooked a grenade. "Two!" He placed his forefinger in the pin. "Three!"

Alex stuck the SMG out and let off a sustained burst. Derrick whipped out from cover, everything oddly surreal, and pulled the pin. He reared back, took a quick-step forward, and threw. Unfortunately a round grazed, and a .50-caliber graze wasn't something to laugh at, Derrick's ribcage at the instant of release. The grenade sailed about three-quarters of the way across the sky-bridge before detonating. Ignoring the blood that was steadily pumping from his side, Derrick reached for another grenade, and a .50-cal round tore into his thigh. Luckily it had not hit dead-center or his leg would have been shattered, but it was enough to drop him to his belly. For a moment Derrick thought he would be able to crawl back to safety but a ribbon of impact divots began to sweep the floor. Even if he had made it there was little chance Derrick would have lived. His health bar was in the red zone and every second he lost more blood that edged it even closer to zero.

Looks like this is it. I never even got the chance to try to fuck her.

Derrick held his hand up instinctively as the divots came within a meter. Pain flared in his forearm, far worse than before, and quickly spread to his entire body. The crackling white light that issued from his arm was also brighter. The pain lessened somewhat but only because it had spread. Derrick felt his wounds close and came close to fainting when his health bar refilled. Then the crystalline sound of a T'lan Shield filled his ears and he looked around wildly for the threat. It was only the faint sensation of pressure, like getting hit by snowballs through a winter jacket, which made him look forward.

Derrick's vision was intermittently obscured as several .50-caliber rounds were stopped millimeters from his face by the honeycomb design of a T'lan Shield. A smaller bar had appeared beneath his health bar and had gone down fractionally with each hit.

Fuck me if I expected that.

Derrick rose lithely to his feet and sprinted towards the gun. There could be no hesitation from amazement, Derrick knew that in his gut, but he did retain enough sense not to make it easy on the gunner. He careened from side to side on his way down the bridge, sometimes running in an all-out sprint only to dart to one side when the first round hit his shield.

"He's coming straight at us!" One of the soldiers practically screamed.

"That's impossible!" Another answered and then Derrick was leaping over the long barrel of the emplacement.

Derrick came down with a boot on the head of the soldier manning the weapon. He rode the soldier's head down, drew his sidearm, and fired twice into his enemy's visor. Tiny impacts, lots of them, on his shield drew his attention to the right. The remaining pair were firing their SMG's as they slowly backed away towards the sky-bridge. Derrick raised his sidearm but then a familiar handgun boomed and both fell to the floor with startled croaks. Alex walked up to Derrick with a wide grin, but before she could say anything the elevator door chimed. Derrick held out his hand and Alex tossed him the SMG. He crouched, finger ready on the trigger, and at the first sight of military-issue boots he began firing an entire magazine into the opening doors. When the doors fully opened, two soldiers bullet-riddled bodies were revealed to be slumped in slowly spreading pools of blood.

"Derrick-," Alex brought his attention back to her, "-show me your hand."

Derrick secured his SMG and held out his right hand. Alex grabbed it by the wrist with her right hand and ran her left across the forearm. The calluses on her fingertips caused, for the first time that day, an entirely enjoyable sensation to crawl up his forearm. She met his eyes briefly before returning to her intense scrutiny of his forearm.

"Your powers are coming back, aren't they?" Alex returned her gaze to his eyes as she let his arm go and he took it back reluctantly. "The Derrick I know has got to be in there somewhere!" Alex grabbed him around the shoulders and began shaking him.

"What the fu-!"

"Wake up!" Alex shouted before letting him go with a frustrated grunt. "Damn!" Alex turned and walked away with her forearms pressed to her head. "Patience, Alex, patience!" She turned back to him. "You'll get better. You have to."

"Okay, Alex." Derrick tried to be reassuring. "Let's go."

Derrick went over the elevator and was somehow not surprised to see that it was now without power. The massive doors opposite the bridge were locked.

"Hey, Derrick." Alex called from the wall to the right of their entrance.

Derrick immediately saw what she was calling him about. Someone had been playing amateur electrician with a fuse box. There were a number of circuit panels… or breakers; he really had no idea what they were called. He did know that there was only one cord plugged into the breaker in the upper right corner and the other was dangling with exposed wires. Derrick leaned closer and "Access" popped up.

What the hell, he thought and disconnected the cord.

"Do you know what you're doing?" Alex asked, her breath hot in his ear.

"No," Derrick answered and plugged the cord into the adjoining port.

The shutter leading to the sky-bridge closed and the doors opposite began to slide open.

"Piece of cake!"

While the doors opened Derrick secured a new clip, several grenades, and a couple of ration bars from the corpses. Alex did the same and once the doors were fully open they confidently entered the hall. Derrick went first, though he was still on edge, but was ready to dive behind cover in a second. He didn't want to test his newfound abilities and find out he had been dreaming. They looked to the left and discovered two soldiers staring at them in shock.

"It's them!" One shouted, only to have his shout end in a gurgle as Derrick fired several bursts from his SMG.

"Check those doors, Alex." Derrick said, as he went to make sure of them.

Alex mumbled something before trotting off down the opposite end of the hall. Derrick was reloading his SMG when she returned.

"It's locked."

"Of course it is." Derrick said, dejectedly. "Guess we go there."

Derrick nodded in the direction the soldiers had been guarding. The doors opened and they stepped through. It was then that Derrick began to seriously question if this all was a dream. He moved automatically as his mind circled around the dreadful possibility. He and Alex moved down a dead-end hall with a large room on the left. Derrick entered and took out soldiers with a magazine-eating automatic burst. Alex found the switch to open the door in the other hall and they raced back to it. Down another hall that led to a door through which was another, albeit empty, maintenance room. The elevator there was locked-down, too. Then another stairwell. The only thing Derrick could seem to think about was his increasing belief that he was dreaming. There was one other possibility that he had made light of, but that was far too troubling to take seriously.

The sounds of booted feet stomping their way down the stairwell got his attention. Derrick put a finger to his lips as he turned to Alex and then the two began to creep up the stairs. In this kind of situation you simply had to be more silent than your enemy.

"Cover me!" One of them shouted and Derrick could only shake his head.

"If you spot the enemy, report immediately." It was almost a shock to hear Romeo in his ear after so long.

Together they crept up two flights of stairs before Derrick spotted the helmet of a shoulder on the landing directly above him. He was walking up the stairs backwards so they could check both landings at the same time. Derrick signed for them to go on three and ticked the numbers off on his fingers. On three, they leaped the last four steps as they twisted to land with their weapons trained above them. There was another soldier three meters to the first's right.

"Got 'em!" Alex yelled and Derrick immediately fired on the first soldier who was still bringing his weapon up.

Alex's handgun barked once and the second was down as fast as the first.

"Squinty, Jack, what the fuck's goin' on!" Someone yelled from near the top of the stairwell.

"Double-time." Derrick whispered to Alex.

The pair raced up the stairs and stopped a landing below the top. Derrick unclipped a grenade, pulled the pin, and lofted it over the rail.

"Shit!"

Then the grenade went off and the only sound was the fading echo. There were two bodies that were quickly searched for ammo. Alex even found rounds for her sidearm.

"Do you hear that?" Alex asked, and Derrick paused to listen.

Derrick grinned, "Sounds like a 'chopper."

Alex grinned back and Derrick opened the door. They stepped into another maintenance elevator lobby, then through a maintenance room, and finally through a set of double doors that led to the roof. A chain-link fence blocked the way to the left but that was not the way they needed to go.

"Look!" Alex said as she pointed to the right.

Just visible, past one of the small ventilation structures that dotted the roof, was the tail-rotor of a helicopter. Alex raced forward and Derrick chased her marvelously shaped posterior like a hungry puppy. He followed her across a tiny catwalk, over an exhaust pipe, and they stopped ten meters away from the center of the helipad. Several scientists were fighting for a place on the already overcrowded helicopter.

"How do you-?"

"Oh, shit!" Alex cut him off and Derrick was inclined to agree with the expletive.

The attack 'chopper was back and as they watched in horror it fired a rocket at the civilian helicopter. Derrick and Alex both dropped and put their hands over their heads as the rocket blew the helicopter to bits. Something flew over their heads and with a tremendous crash hit the exhaust pipe. Derrick raised his head and cursed at the sight of the main rotor assembly blocking their way back.

"C'mon!" Alex yelled and began sprinting for cover.

Derrick wasted no time and seconds later the attack 'chopper began hosing the area with high-caliber machinegun fire. Somehow they sandwiched themselves between two buildings before the 'chopper got a look.

"Devil Eight-Zero to Romeo-One-One-Five. We have reacquired the objective. They're on the roof, over."

"You know your orders."

"Yes, sir."

"Let's go!" Alex barked as soon as the 'chopper disappeared from view.

Together they raced underneath a high catwalk and then all hell broke loose. Several soldiers appeared out of nowhere and began firing. Derrick pushed Alex behind cover and held his arms up in front of him. Nothing touched him as he charged the startled soldiers. The area was crowded with ventilation machinery and provided plenty of cover. Derrick killed them all with precise bursts and moved into an open area with another catwalk on the far right. Several rounds pinged off of Derrick's shield, bringing his attention to the left just as Alex shot the soldier point-blank in the temple.

"Catwalk!" Derrick yelled and raced for the last soldier.

The ominous sound of the attack 'chopper brought him up short. It appeared over the soldier's head like an avenging angel.

One with rockets.

Derrick held his hands up in front of him and the world disappeared in flame and tinkling crystal. He rolled, his SMG staying with him by virtue of his strap, and he began getting shakily to his feet. He leaped away at the tell-tale whistle of a rocket launch and the concussion knocked him over the edge of the roof. Derrick grabbed the edge with both hands and laughed bitterly.

Looks like this is finally it.

His shield energy, odd to think of how naturally these things came to him now and wasn't that an odd thing to think just before he died, was down to nothing. Derrick didn't think he could hold on for very long. Alex was there just as he lost his grip and grabbed him by his right hand. The attack 'chopper appeared over her head and she looked back with a glare. She produced a rappelling line and spike from her kit and secured them into a surface out of his sight.

"You ready?" She asked, her expression intense, and his only response was a tight grin.

The inevitable rocked was fired and Alex jumped. Somehow she pulled him close as the rocket detonated. The weightless feeling of freefall was as nothing compared to the elation of her intense focus being entirely on him.

"Beautiful."