Zeryn jumped behind a turbolaser turret as the combat droids started shooting them. It was oddly eerie to duck those plasma shots without their typical "wooosh", but all Zeryn could hear was her own suit creaking, and Londo's breathing through the radio.
She had counted four droids as they ducked, each with two gunports. By the spread pattern of the blasts around them, they advanced quickly. Arachnids moved swiftly, Zeryn and Londo would both be overrun.
Zeryn picked up her heavy repeating blaster and rained back some fire at them. She moved clumsily in the vacc-suit, and missed them as well. At least she thought she could manage to keep one of them, maybe two, at bay for a while.
"Any other bright ideas, mr. Zaani?" She said.
Londo seemed to be much more at ease in his vacc-suit as he managed to hit some shots in the droids. Unfortunately, they were heavily armored, and his pistols did nothing more than graze them.
"Not many right now. Tell me what have you packed there?"
Zeryn leaned out of her cover and shot another salvo back at the droids before answering.
"I have a heavy repeating blaster, two heavy pistols, three knives, four frag grenades, six ion grenades and two thermal detonators."
"Oh. That's all is it?" He said as he shot another silent blast at the droids. The arachnids also took cover, and would soon overrun them.
"Well, I also have a rechargeable power pack, but it was damaged in our fall and is leaking fluid, so I don't know how good it's going to be." She fired another barrage of shots. Missed them all, but at least had the droids retreating to their cover. She could also say her repeating blaster was at half charge now, but… why bother?
"Wait" Londo said "Six ion grenades, you say?"
"Yea. Why?"
"Fire them up, and hand me three."
What could he possibly want with those? Those droids were armored enough that even six ion grenades would not be enough to take them down. However, he did sound like a man with a plan, so… she really had nothing to lose at that point. She took off her grenades and deftly handed him three.
"On my mark, throw your grenades as best as you can around them. Don't aim at them, just at the floor. Try to cover as much ground as you can."
"Got it." In her hand, her grenades already hummed with charge. The droids took advantage of this opening in their cover fire and came out of hiding, running right at them.
"Now!" Londo said.
Zeryn threw her grenades. Londo did the same but he threw his grenades way up. The six exploded at almost the same time.
A lightning storm hit the droids. Voltaic arcs extended from the hull through them all the way up as the droids were caught in a thunderous electrical conflagration. All of Zeryn's vacc-suit systems went offline. Cold started seeping in through her limbs.
The droids fell down. Twitching a little, but mostly disabled. Londo ran through them, up to the exit port they used to come out of the hull.
Zeryn followed, although, without her vacc-suit functioning at all, her fingers were already freezing and the air wouldn't last more than a minute.
Londo were likely trying to hack the exit port, but so far unsuccessfully. He did find a command pad, but it seemed to be shut. Zeryn motioned for him to move back.
She fumbled through her grenades with stiff fingers and growing disorientation. She picked up a frag grenade, activated it, and thrust it into the exit pad.
The blast destroyed the controls and eased open the small blast door. As she slid into the opening, blessed warmth filled her every bone.
She crawled through the passageway into a droid service area, where a number of those arachnid combat droids passed by. Zeryn managed to hide right at the entrance ducking behind a few crates. Londo came right after her, but she motioned for him to wait at the passage.
This room still had no atmosphere. Why would the droids ever need it, anyway, but it did have control panels. If Zeryn could get to one, she could try to hack at least the room systems and use it to restore atmosphere to that sector of the ship.
Brute force would not help her at all here. If she were to shoot her way through this, the ship would definitely lock them out. It would likely lock them out at any minute, after they defeated the first wave of combat droids, so she had to act at once. Also, because her remaining air was running out.
What could she do, though? How could she approach a console without being seen? If only she could…
Well, she could merge with the background. Fool the droids visual sensors, but that would mean stripping up in a room without atmosphere. Retaining another shape in vacuum wasn't just exceptionally hard, it would be more painful than anything else she ever did… and she would have to do it all while holding her breath.
Was there any option, though? She couldn't see one. She closed her eyes, hyperventilated as best as she could, and focused.
Hardening her skin was the easy part. It took no more than a stab of pain. She covered her eyes with a reinforced membrane, which felt like passing needles through her retinas. But still, she held her own.
Then she started removing her vacc-suit. Londo got a little agitated at that, but she paid him no mind, and he soon went immobile again, likely because he realized there was nothing he could do.
As all air pressure left her skin, her every cell screamed in agony. Zeryn clenched her jaw and trembled from head to toe as she concentrated on simply not breathing out, not gasping for air. Hold up as much as she could.
If she had time, she could easily pass by the room unseen. She hadn't, though. She thought maybe thirty, twenty seconds would pass before she couldn't hold any longer, so she ran towards the nearest command console.
With every single ounce of training still left in her, she shaped the color of her skin to mimic her surroundings. In complete vacuum, this felt like slicing her muscles off with dull blades. Her hands twitched uncontrollably as she reached the command panel, but it did seem no droid had taken notice of her.
A wave of dizziness took hold of her. Her already blurred eyesight started fading into dark, and her chest felt like bursting out with her last remaining air.
She keyed in the commands. Tried to overrun the system's buffers: no success. Tried to inject authorization directly into the database: no success. Tried to crash the operating system console and get superuser access: no success. Tried to feed a document into the file system with an impromptu virus. The interface crashed.
Did she do it? Did she have access? She could hold no longer. Her skin started loosing coherence. She felt her natural color coming back. The droids turned at her.
She had access. She typed one command. Two commands. The droids raised their guns.
Air rushed in to the room. No droids shot.
She fell down. The first gasp of breath burned her throat all the way through her lungs. Convulsions took hold of her and the dark spots in her eyesight finally overwhelmed her. Darkness never felt this warm before.