Soren ducked instinctively as the tremor rolled through the metal beneath their boots, followed by a dull, distant boom that echoed through the station’s inner walls. A few motes of dust filtered down from the ceiling grates. Soon another thunderous boom slammed through the station, and a third followed not long after.

  The injured lieutenant looked around, wondering where the noise was coming from. She glanced over at Amalia, “W-who’s Riza?”

  Aurania acted like she hadn’t even noticed. “Inelius, Violet, triage their injuries. Lieutenant Jao, he asked you a question.” She vaguely gestured at Soren. “Where are your people?”

  “Sergeant Rourke is back there,” she gestured back behind where they were holed up. “He took a bunch of shrapnel retreating to this position. He held on for a lot longer than I thought he would, but he bled out yesterday.” Her voice strained, the stress was getting to her for sure.

  “Rhen and Kesh are down that hallway,” she continued, pointing where the enemy combatants had come from. “Siika, we got split up from her when they started pushing us back towards here.”

  Amalia was posted up to make sure no further threats came down the hallway. She yelled back at them, “Siika was the lacravida on your team, right?!”

  Maren looked at her with exhaustion, and then back to Aurania. “Yeah, a damn tough one too. We were in radio contact after we got separated, she said she was pretty sure all of the civilians on the station had been killed. But… she stopped responding more’n a day ago.” She winced in pain.

  Soren watched as the warrior women all exchanged glances. He was pretty sure he could tell what they were thinking. They wanted to go find Siika.

  Two more thundering booms slammed through the station. The lieutenant looked around worried again.

  Aurania sighed a little and keyed up her radio. “Riza, report.” She didn’t sound overly worried.

  A brief moment passed, then Riza’s voice answered back through the radio. “Six enemy combatants confirmed down. Three other possibles. Sights are clear of movement for the moment.”

  “We’ve made contact with what’s left of V-5 Recon,” Aurania said back to Riza. “Hold tight for exfil, we’ve gotta collect a couple strays.” She turned back to her team. “How we looking people?”

  “About ready to move,” Inelius responded as he continued patching up the d’moria man. “These two will need to be carried out,” he gestured over to the human woman Violet was treating.

  “I can still fight,” spoke up the lazarco hunched over the smashed turret. He sounded a bit fatigued, but steady. “We’re almost out of ammo though and my weapon’s busted to shit.”

  Aurania looked down at him, then around the room. Finally, she handed the handgun she was carrying to him. “Know how to use this model?”

  “Y-yeah, looks simple enough,” he responded. “Thanks”

  “What’s your name?” she asked him.

  “Corporal Vesk.”

  “Well Corporal Vesk, you’re going to provide cover escort to my team while they carry yours up to our shuttle. You two can walk?” Aurania gestured to Lieutenant Jao and the d’moria crouched in the corner.

  They both nodded weakly.

  “Good,” Aurania continued. “Inelius, Violet, help get them up the stairs.” She snapped her fingers at Soren and then pointed at the d’moria Inelius had patched up. “Pick him up, you’re carrying him to the shuttle.” Then she moved to pick up the other human woman.

  The squad moved slowly, making sure not to worsen any of the injuries the vanguards had sustained. Veolo and Amalia stayed at the bottom of the stairwell with rifles trained down the hallway while the group retreated up the stairs. Aurania radioed that they were coming out so Riza would hold her fire and they successfully got their survivors back to the ship.

  Aurania and Soren gently set their wards on the floor of the The Ghost as their exhausted team sat down around them. Elias quickly began checking the wounded and helping make sure they were stable.

  Corporal Vesk tried giving the handgun back to Aurania but she held out a hand to stop him.

  “Hold onto it just in case.” Aurania said as she handed the corporal the rest of her ammo. “Inelius, stay and give Elias a hand with them.”

  They jogged back down the airlock hallway toward Riza, and just as they were about to round the corner, she fired off her cannon. Soren felt the blast of the rifle shake his body an instant before he actually heard the noise. A handful of bullets rang past the hallway opening and peppered into the wall. Soren crouched down with Aurania and Violet, then peered out to check on Riza.

  Just as Soren looked, she slid the massive chamber shut on her sniper cannon and took aim again. He leaned a bit further to see her target just as she fired, and he felt the shockwave blast him in the face through his helmet.

  Soren saw a lazarco pirate that had stepped out from behind cover. An instant later his entire torso, head, and one of his four arms exploded backwards towards a newly formed crater in the wall. The man’s legs and three other arms fell to the ground in a bloody pile where he had been standing.

  “Clear,” Riza said in a flat tone.

  Aurania and Veolo began to move. As Soren walked past Riza, he watched her load another massive round into the chamber. The slug was thick as hell and looked like it was almost a foot long.

  “Where are those possibles you mentioned?” he asked.

  “Bleeding out somewhere.”

  “Hurry up, Little Boy,” Aurania yelled back at him.

  He caught up just as they were about to head back down the stairs. They regrouped with Veolo and Amalia at the bottom and set out again.

  “What took you guys so long?” Veolo joked to Violet.

  “He couldn’t stop looking at Riza’s weapon,” Violet answered.

  Soren felt almost ashamed, like he had behaved like a little child staring through the window of a toy store. Finally he said, “I just don’t understand how she’s not blasting holes clean through the asteroid with that thing. Those slugs aren’t made of lead.”

  “No, they’re not,” Violet answered him. “They’re actually made out of karsanite, the same stuff this colony mines.”

  Amalia giggled. “She calls them the Rods of God.”

  “I can see why,” Soren said.

  They approached the bodies of the two pirates they killed earlier. Aurania ordered Soren to grab the body of Sergeant Rourke from the holdout, and as he made his way back towards the stairs, he encountered Veolo and Aurania carrying the bodies of a d’moria and lazarco. They returned them to the shuttle like they had the survivors, then rejoined Violet and Amalia at the bottom of the stairs. They didn’t encounter any more adversaries while extracting the bodies, and no one else had decided to entertain Riza. There was no telling how many may lie further in, however.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Aurania ordered them to cut the idle chatter as they pressed further into the unexplored mine. They began searching for Siika.

  Past the bloodstains and debris-strewn corridors that had marked the Vanguard fallback, the terrain changed. It looked less like a station here and more like a refinery. Pipes crisscrossed overhead. Steam hissed from vent slits. Raw veins of karsanite could be seen sticking out of the walls. The silence held too long.

  Aurania raised a clenched fist and the squad froze.

  Veolo scanned the ceiling with her rifle. “Been a minute since we’ve heard anything. Maybe Riza cleaned up the last of them.”

  “That or they’re bunched up ahead,” Violet murmured. “Waiting for us.”

  “Or eating each other,” Amalia added helpfully.

  Aurania ignored them. She stepped forward and tilted her head, listening. Then she pointed. “Chamber ahead. Bigger space. Veolo, you lead breach with Violet and Amalia on wide flank.”

  She didn’t even bother to give Soren an order but he knew to stay at the back and to help however he could. He kept making sweeping passes with his rifle to provide an effective rear guard.

  They moved and the tunnel curved, then opened. The moment they stepped into the chamber, the lights changed. Strobing red was replaced by a dull orange glow radiating from the chamber’s industrial furnaces. The room was six stories tall and partially sunken into the deck. A grid of metal catwalks spanned above and below, casting long, crisscrossed shadows.

  “Contact!” Amalia shouted. “High right!”

  A muzzle flash burst from a catwalk above them. Bullets screamed down, chipping metal and kicking sparks across the deck. They all dove for cover before quickly popping back up and returning fire.

  “Enemy on the gantries!” Aurania yelled. “Stack and push!”

  Three more muzzle flashes lit up, two pirates with scatterguns, one with a belt-fed rifle braced on a railing. Their armor was mismatched: red-patched vests, stolen Union gear, and bits of exosuit plating. Amalia ducked under a blast, returned fire, and dropped one of them with a shot to the throat.

  “Fifteen total!” Violet shouted. “Two flanking, north platform!”

  Two grenades clinked across the floor, one near Aurania and one near Soren. Aurania knocked the pommel of her axe-handle into the grenade and sent it flying off into an adjacent room. Soren grabbed the one near him and hurled it back up, catching one of the pirates mid-toss. The explosion lit the ceiling like a sunrise, two bodies flung free and crumpled into the smelter scaffold below.

  Veolo surged forward, firing upward in short bursts toward an elevated guard post.

  “Pin that heavy!” Aurania barked, motioning Violet wide.

  Soren turned and saw a larger pirate dragging a mounted cannon into position atop a crate barricade. If that thing locked in, they’d be cut in half before they cleared the chamber. Soren opened fire. He wasn’t an expert marksman, but he was proficient enough to keep the man pinned behind the box.

  The firefight raged for a few moments. Metal screamed and sparks danced. Aurania continued to call out targets as they attempted to take them down, but it was momentarily a standoff.

  Then Aurania saw an opening and ran. She vaulted a railing, spun with her axe, and cleaved two attackers in one movement, a blur of force and steel that sent limbs flying. Then a couple sparks rang off her shoulder armor, forcing her to duck down behind a stack of crates for cover.

  Soren looked over to her—she appeared to be mostly unharmed, the armor had done its job. He ran up next to her and continued firing up at the pirate cannoneer. Bullets pinged off the crate shielding the heavy's torso but it was too late. The brief moment Soren had taken his eyes off the man had given him just enough time. The mount clanked into place and the weapon swung toward him.

  He tried one last attempt to take the heavy down with a burst of bullets as a blast tore across the chamber with a deep, mechanical bark. Soren’s head jerked sideways and something sparked off the wall behind him.

  He hit the deck hard. The rifle flew from his hands and skidded away from him.

  “Soren—!” Aurania’s voice cracked through the chaos. She stared across the aisle, her shoulder armor scorched and glowing orange. Her tone actually sounded concerned instead of cold.

  Soren groaned and sat up.

  Most of his helmet was gone, vaporized in a burst of shredded plating and smoking metal. He ran a gloved hand over his face and then looked at his palm. His head was ringing from the blast but, just like the firefight in the jungle, the projectile hadn’t even drawn blood. He felt like his entire body was buzzing and vibrating, the colors around him seemed brighter and more vibrant. It was like his perceptions were dialed up to 11.

  Aurania just stared at him. “You’re alive.” She almost sounded disappointed. “And you’re glowing again.”

  The pain of the impact was starting to hit him but he pushed through it. He looked at the massive great-axe on the ground next to her. “Well if this thing couldn’t kill me…” he reached out and picked it up before she could stop him.

  Soren spat out a fleck of melted polymer from his ruined helmet and stood up. Steam curled from the seared plating around his collar as several more pieces of helmet fell to the ground in chunks. His eyes locked onto the mounted cannon still tracking low, its operator stunned by what should have been a kill shot.

  The pirate opened fire but Soren was already moving, charging fast with smoke trailing off his armor. The first burst slammed into his chest and staggered him but he didn’t fall. He bore down, step after step, closing the distance like he didn’t care about what was trying to stop him.

  Another pirate charged from Soren’s left. Without breaking stride, he slammed the flat top of the axe-head into the man’s chest, sending him skidding backward across the floor until he slammed into the far wall.

  Soren vaulted over a crate and came in high, swinging the axe down like a meteor. It cleaved through the crate, the cannon mount, and the pirate’s upper body in a single, jarring slice. Sparks flew, metal shrieked, and blood sprayed in a wide crescent against the far wall. The blade sunk partway into the floor grating before Soren wrenched it free with a raw pull of his shoulder.

  Behind him, the pirate he’d floored a moment earlier staggered upright and opened fire. Soren wasn’t sure how the bastard was still breathing, but he spun, ignoring the bullets sparking off his back plate and hurling the axe in a horizontal arc. It spun once through the air, then struck. The blade carved through half the man’s torso and embedded in the wall behind him with a wet crunch. His body went limp, but it didn’t fall. It hung there, pinned like meat on a hook.

  A silence grew in the chamber around him as the vibrancy of his perceptions faded away and the buzzing throughout his body receded.

  “Woooohoooo!” Amalia cheered at him. “That’s what I’m talking about, Soren! Fucking badass!”

  He smiled back at her and then noticed Violet go over to help Aurania to her feet. The smile slowly faded from his face as she walked over to her axe stuck in the wall. She glared at him the entire time.

  Aurania grabbed the haft of her great-axe and pulled but it didn’t budge from the wall. She yanked her helmet off, flared her nostrils as she took a deep breath, then yanked again.

  No success.

  Soren watched as she struggled for a moment, then he stepped forward slowly. “Do you want me to—”

  “No.” She yanked again. Nothing.

  Soren raised an eyebrow. He felt a bit awkward. “It’s wedged in deep. Might be easier if we—”

  “Don’t touch it.” She was being stubborn but making no progress.

  “Here, just let me—” he reached out and tried grabbing the handle but she turned and punched him hard in the shoulder.

  “What did I just say?”

  He recoiled, rubbing the spot where she struck him. “I was trying to help!”

  “Then try helping without touching my things.”

  She resumed pulling, making a struggling grunting noise. She stopped after a few moments, one hand still outstretched onto the axe handle, then hung her head in defeat.

  “... fine.”

  Soren grabbed onto the handle gingerly and began to pull, Aurania pulling along with him. A long metallic screech rang out as the blade tore free, followed by a wet thud as the dead pirate collapsed to the floor.

  Aurania yanked the axe from Soren’s hands without looking at him. “Next time, throw your own weapon.”

  Before he could answer, Veolo yelled out, “Aura! Lower corner. Might be a body.”

  The tension returned like a dropped weight and Aurania slammed her helmet back on. Amalia jogged forward, eyes scanning the grated floor. Violet swept her rifle left, then down toward the edge of the chamber where a collapsed service tunnel funneled into darkness.

  They found her pinned behind a broken coolant duct, half-buried in debris and slumped sideways. One of her arms was gone below the elbow. The other clutched a half-shattered rifle, barrel bent at the midpoint. Her skin shimmered faintly beneath burns and blood.

  “Siika,” Amalia whispered. Her voice cracked. They had never met her, but she was one of them.

  Veolo crouched beside the body, fingers hovering at the neck. A long pause. Then a silent shake of her head.

  Aurania exhaled slowly and stepped forward. She knelt, brushing debris and what was left of her helmet from Siika’s face. The lacravida’s expression was tight, jaw clenched, as if she’d died still resisting.

  “She fought them off until the very end,” Aurania said quietly.

  Veolo pried the broken rifle from Siika’s hand. Violet rested a hand on the fallen woman’s shoulder, then stepped back. Amalia knelt beside her and said nothing.

  Finally, Aurania reached down and grabbed Siika’s remaining arm. She knelt, pulled her onto her shoulders, and stood back up.

  “Let’s get her home.”