Fire and debris exploded all around us. Little chunks of rock, metal, and wood bsted all around us as we y on the floor, holding our heads down and hoping that if we get shot that it’s in the head for an instant death. Nothing worse than writhing on the floor while bleeding out. I’ve come close. It ain’t fun.

  “What the fuck do we do?” I shouted out for everyone to hear.

  Speck was unconscious. Echo was hurting bad. Uwu’s eyes were frantically looking around for something to do, something that could help, but this was it. There was no more help here.

  A militia member stood and ran for the elevator. He smashed the button over and over, frantically waiting for the doors to open.

  Ding.

  The doors slid open and he jumped inside, smming the buttons to go up. Several other militia members joined him. They gambled on the chance to get out alive, and they soon lost. Their bodies were cut down in a mist of crimson, soon overtook with fire and shrapnel as the slug repeater ripped through the whole elevator. The mechanical device shook and sparked, the doors getting ripped apart as they began to close.

  Our cover was getting ripped apart by the second, each bit chipped away until we would be left exposed to be cut down. They weren’t taking prisoners at this point. They wanted us all dead. The shooting paused momentarily.

  Uwu gnced over the cover, “They’re reloading. We won’t get out of this next barrage.” He shot a few times over the cover until his gun clicked empty. A few bullets were returned as a favor, clipping into the many craters on the wall behind us.

  Uwu’s eyes looked heavy and defeated, “I’ve got nothing. We’re sitting ducks here. Once they’ve reloaded, we…” he trailed off, his eyebrows furrowed and heavy. He looked over at me and forced a smile.

  I returned one back to him. If we were going to die. At least we would die together. Hopefully the Meowtws could carry out their pn and take back the moon. I didn’t care right now if they did or not. Once I was gone, that was that.

  My earpiece began to crackle. It fuzzed; a faint sound could be heard from the piece. I couldn’t make it out. Echo, Uwu, and I all looked at each other in confusion. What could it be?

  The faint voice buzzed clearer, “Ya’ll keep yah asses down nah, yah hear?”

  Shhh-Click. The sound of the Praxis security forces chambering that first round rang out, pulling all of us from our thoughts and sitting our asses down in reality. This was it.

  A hiss buzzed into the back of our heads. We looked around at what was going on.

  Ba-Boom!

  The ceiling exploded, caving in with a cacophony of fire. Debris rained down on us all. We covered ourselves, hoping not to be crushed to death.

  Wind started to whip around us, the hole in the ceiling opened like a broken damn, gushing freezing cold air down around us, whipping our clothes about, flipping anything loose up into the air like a damn crazy tornado.

  What the hell was happening here? I covered my eyes and tired to see what was going on at the hole. The heavy hum of engines drowned out any sound that the wind currents failed to do so.

  Our ear pieces clicked on, “Sorrah, we ran into some traffic on de way her’. We got it from her’.”

  I could faintly see a red lump floating in the sky, aiming its guns down at the Praxis line.

  “Fucking finally.” I felt a wave a relief wash over me. My anxiety was still high. We weren’t out of this yet. I looked over the little cover we had remaining. The slug repeater was aiming up at the sky.

  “There’s a slug repeater at the bottom of the stairs! They’re aiming right at you!” I shouted over my earpiece. A few shots from rifles below cracked at me. I ducked down, not wanting a crater in my head.

  A sweet calm voice came over the earpiece, “Don’t worry, I see them, deary. You just sit tight and rex.”

  “Mama?”

  Sssssperfffff!

  I looked up at a missile trailing off from the red ship, flying true, right into the Praxis line.

  Boom!

  The ground shook. The room lit up like a Christmas tree, unspent ammo fired off, crackling and exploding all about.

  We all ducked down again, avoiding any st projectiles.

  Several rope lines dropped from the hole, nding around us. With a massive thump, Mama was down on the ground. Aiming her gun at the smoke cloud at the bottom of the steps. Several more figures dropped down around them, zipping down the ropes and moving in on the smoke.

  A few Meowtws stayed behind, smming down rge bags, and pulling out medical supplies, and treating the wounded.

  A bck, Anthro-Cat was shouting orders, directing the Meowtws about. He bent down, helping Uwu and I up, “Gd to see you’re still alive.”

  Pop. Pop. Pop. Casual gunshots rang out here and there as they moped up the st of the Praxis goons.

  My anger rose to the top of my mind. All this death and destruction could have been avoided if they followed the pn, “What the hell took you so long?”

  Uwu grabbed me and held me back, trying to calm me down.

  The bck, Anthro-Cat pursed his lips, “We ran into some trouble in the city. Bad shit is going down all around. We rushed here as fast as we could. You won’t like what you have to hear.”

  I was confused. What happened while we were gone?