Luxemburg City

A dialogue box abruptly jumps out at Abdul, reading: "New hardware device activated. Install new hardware device?"
He tagged the info button.
"New hardware device labeled: 'three-barreled sentry gun.' Do you wish to install?"
He decided, "Yes."
"New device preparing to install, please wait." He waited a moment.
"Nombril Installation Protecting Software loading... 1%, 50%, 79%, 95%... 99%, 100%" That window closes.
"Where do you wish to save sentry gun installation software?"
"Who gives a bit?" Abdul selects the default location.
"One moment, please. 1%... 32%...50%, 75% (sticks)...99%, 100%. Installation complete. Save?"
He does, and presses a special hotkey.
"Uploading IAI (Israeli Aircraft Industry) 'Sentient Sentinel Killware' program version 11. Please read licensing agreement."
Abdul gave it a glance.
"This product is patented by IAI. Please don't reverse engineer, copy, or redistribute software, especially to Arabs angry with our statehood...yada, yada, yada."
Abdul checks the agreement box, and gets things moving.
"Loading...100%"
"Whoa! This software is topnotch to load that fast!"
"Done. Would you like to visit the IAI store or register for updates concerning our products?"
Hmm.
"Sure, I'm not busy," he clicked the store's link.

Inside the complex

Crouched behind his massive wraparound desk, Polk Browning mentally sifted through all the sensory information he could, counting WuFei's staccato, time-consuming use of ammunition, inspecting his troops, and analyzing every factor in hopes of intercepting the coming leap-from insertion.
He galvanizes himself as he plants the butt-end of his service pistol between his eyes, callously steadying the weapon against his hands, brow, and desk.
He lines up his radioactive sight with the Preventer, closes his index finger over the trigger.
"O sh—" The pain of a broken nose fades as soon as he sees, a young female with violet hair duck under a desk.
'She's not being shot at...' Somewhere, a neuron fires, and Polk recollects his previous order to shutdown the sentry guns. A hacker had taken over the base, so he ordered a technician to manually cut the power... from a lever right there!"
Hilde closed her eyes and counted upward, while tucking herself into a ball. From under the desk, gunfire sounded highly punctuated. Fighters must be doing a lot of shooting and scooting. Her count grows, and she wonders if Abdul has it together, when ice suddenly runs up her back, dissipates, and fluid runs down her thigh.
Her spine jolts again, and now the fluid also leaks from her buttocks. Feebly, she throws herself away from the desk.
Another savage bullet severs a tendon at her heel. No choice, she lobs a vertical volley, knowing the assailant stands somewhere above. Pain sets in, especially at the swelling ankle.
Her eyes water, and awareness fades. But first, Hilde remembers to re- station beneath the desk.
Intensity multiplies, and Hilde audibly senses the world crack apart.
"Abdul, I waited for you." External awareness dissipated.
"Awe men. Oh ouch," Chang rasped, waddled away in agony. He folded over, leaned with the wall, and trudged away from the situations room.
He felt the top edge of his chest plate, just below the neck. Light bleeding. The titanium bent into his sternum, where he couldn't dislodge it. He felt where the ricocheted projectile grazed his neck. More blood, but he felt relief no vitals were hit.
He steeled himself, as he redoubled his effort to remove the metal sheet from his chest bone.
WuFei couldn't grit away his scream. His face flushed with color, tears streamed his face, his hands bled from removal, but Chang freed himself from it.
"An ugly mess," he marveled, "but I can't stop 'till Hilde's out."
"Abdul," he radioed, "watch your fire, I'm going in." He switched open a knife and led it across his body armor, until the fabric's grip on the chest plate slackened, then he tossed it aside.
Finished, he moved ahead.
"Hey Abdul, notify the hospital that my collar bone is broken, will you?" Abdul complied, and WuFei probed around the door with his SMG. A few terminals dimly glowed, and some office items fueled scattered torches, but the available light scarcely revealed details to the eye. He'd only seen imagery like this a few times, and all of those were bombed-out underground parking lots or war-wrecked colonies.
"Hilde!" The Gundam pilot dived into the room as tracer rounds answered his cry. Meanwhile, the tri-barreled sentinel snuffed away that answer.
"Awe!" Even before things quieted, Chang oscillated in severe pain after diving his raw wound into computer debris and table chipping.
His arms came to the threshold of buckling, but he lifted himself enough to continue the retrieval.
"Hilde!" His heart paused once the search passed over to a rescue.
Schbeiker's blood flowed much like a crimson gown down her limp legs, the only consolation being it dried and clotted before WuFei's concerned eyes.
"Hey, you're staunching the flow even as you sleep, good, very good, but I need to see you awake, alright?" He pleaded, shaken by the woman's condition.
"Come on," weakened, he struggled to gently drag her body away from the desk. He fastened his arms under her armpits and uncomfortably clasped his hands over her chest, and took baby steps slowly backward. He made timely progress, but blood pooled to her lower extremities and the feet dragged blood across the floor. Nonetheless, WuFei heard her breath sputter, then her chest heave. She's still alive. They cleared the door when WuFei relapsed. The bright corridor lighting gave him fatigue, and even his own weight felt like an impossible burden.
"Trowa, I can-"his degenerative state cutoff the sentence, and he felt nothing but the sensation of being carried after that.

In the city of Mogadishu

"Well, I guess you can figure the worst case scenario will creep up on you in Mog," quipped Nichol, venturing a shot toward a squad-strength insurgent force.
As far as Nichol could make out, these fighters, totaling to no more than thirty, were trying to envelope them by holding all the houses on the street, so their vehicles could mow them down.
He ducked behind a donkey cart, tugging Silvia Noventa with him.
"I want you to listen to me," he shouted, making sure she heard him, "all of those guys have guns, so they'll lose their night vision every time they shoot, understand?" He made sure she did, then continued, "you don't have a gun, so I need you to be my night vision. Can you do that?" She nodded.
"Good, I haven't spoiled my sight yet, so I'll peek over and shoot. Keep your eyes closed."
He elevated his knee with his left leg, aimed from and kneeled position, and ripped open the chest of a machine gunner atop a Subaru buggy.
"You have to look now, and please excuse the mess." She opened her adjusted eyes, and intently scoped the street. Marquee Wayridge stood fully erect, steeling himself for a careful shot. Sally and Releana crouched behind a donkey trough, and others lay spread-eagled further behind the trough.
The Marquee, far to the left, ejected a massive slug from his dueling pistol. It kicked back his hands, and the round shattered the Subaru's windshield, kept going, entered the driver's head, and left no head above the lower mandible.
Silvia shrieked. A rifle barrel periscoped from some flowing green curtains in a house behind the aged aristocrat, focusing on him.
"There," she commanded, guiding Nichol with her right index finger. A loud crack deafened her left ear, and she saw a body fall through the window.
The flash dampened her sight, but still she looked, assuming Nichol lost more vision.
Tracers followed Wayridge. He leaped, but too slow. They walked up and down him as he fell, leaving no doubt he was gone.
Before turning away, Silvia witnessed, his gun, a single shot, but still re loadable, jump and flash inches above the ground.
She visually followed it. It journeyed around a corner, but a matter of seconds later, a headless body collapsed into view.
Sally followed Releana's finger. Miss Noventa couldn't see what happened, but she did notice the female duo turn to another target.
Nichol's blazing gun jarred her mind away. His bullets pierced a balcony window, but again, she failed to witness what the target was.
Then, a retreating mechanical noise caught her attention.
"There it goes," she pointed, and Nichol holed the tailgate, corrected, and pockmarked the machine gunner.
"Stay low and out of sight," he directed, "I'm emptying this house." She prostrated herself, ear to the dirt.
His boots shrank to her eye, and the battle suddenly felt far less like something under her complete control. Still, she submitted.
She now couldn't see anyone, just anonymous tracers, fired by nameless, faceless people.