I froze where I stood inside the pup. Why didn’t anything appear on my HUD’s mini-map? How did the guards know we were here? I had so many questions at that moment.

  “Exit the ship, or we will be forced to extract you!” the voice said again with a firm robotic monotone.

  I looked over at CJ’s drop suit. “What the fuck, man? How did they know we were here?” I asked in a whispered, panicked tone. “Elvis and Tiff, both assured us that the guards wouldn’t know we were coming, so how do they know?!”

  I was pacing back and forth, trying to devise a plan, when CJ stood his suit up. “Listen, Andy, I will walk out first. I’ll be able to see how many of them are out there. I will let you know what to expect before we dive into a fight we can’t win,” CJ walked his suit toward the back door of the Pup. “Even if they take me out, you still have a chance to complete the mission. Just stay back, and let’s be smart about this.”

  I took a deep breath and nodded to CJ. If they somehow scanned the Pup and saw a life sign on board, they would more than likely assume that I was in the suit. This could work, I thought to myself.

  CJ began walking down the back ramp, then stepped around the ship’s port side, hands raised. He slowly made his way out of sight. “Hey guys, didn’t you receive the communication?” CJ asked, “It takes three of you to welcome one hab-tech?” CJ said, making sure that the communications channels were open so I could hear what he was saying. Good situational awareness, CJ, I thought to myself. He was able to let me know there were three of them. Hopefully, he could get me a little more info.

  “There is no maintenance scheduled for today. The facility maintenance was completed 12 cycles ago and is not scheduled for another 78 cycles,” the robotic voice responded. “The facility control systems were alerted to multiple undocumented ships in the vicinity when one ship opened fire on the other. We have been on alert since that time. You will be taken to a holding cell until the next Council inspection, at which time you will be transported to a more secure facility for questioning and sentencing. Your transport vessel will remain in the cargo dock until it is searched and cleared of threats, at which time it will be launched and destroyed.”

  I could hear all of this going down through my comms channel as CJ spoke directly to me. “Okay, Andy, there is one Level 10 Mech and two Mech support guards. The mech guards are level 9. The Mech looks like the damn bad guy from Robo-cop.” CJ was utilizing his suit’s identify feature, something Elvis had taught him during their training sessions.

  I needed to do something. I couldn’t let these things take CJ’s drop suit, but I also needed to make sure they didn’t find me in the Pup. The rear of the Pup was facing the entrance to the cargo dock; there was just open space for about 100 feet between the pup and the cargo bay entrance. I assumed there was some sort of force field keeping everything from getting sucked out into open space because I couldn’t see any sort of physical door separating us from the void. If I could disarm that field, I could possibly take all three members of the security detail out at once. I was pretty sure the Pup would be okay. It was big and heavy, but I needed to make sure CJ could secure himself before I did anything extreme.

  “CJ, I’m going to do something a little crazy,” I said. “I don’t know if it will work, but I think it’s worth a shot. Do you see anything that you can grab onto and secure yourself?”

  There was silence for a couple of seconds. “Yeah, I see some sort of anchoring system right in front of me. It looks like it was built in case the cargo bay loses containment. I think I can send you a picture. Let me know if you get it,” he said. Immediately, an image populated on my interface. I saw a large metal post sticking out of the floor with a yellow caution square painted around it. The top had what looked like some sort of large ring on it, presumably to secure items with safety straps. In front of the anchor stood the Mech and the two guards.

  “Okay, CJ, here is the plan,” I said with all the confidence I could muster. “I’m going to get their attention. I see some sort of panel on top of what looks like a generator beside the cargo bay door. I think I can disable the force field. If this works, we’re gonna suck these fuckers out into space.”

  “Sounds risky, Andy. How are you gonna make sure you don’t get sucked out as well?” CJ asked.

  “Don’t worry, I have a plan,” I replied. “You just make sure you get to that security anchor when shit hits the fan. Understood?”

  “You better make a move soon. They are getting impatient,” CJ responded.

  I ran down the pup’s rear ramp, shouting and waving my arms. The security detail snapped to attention. “Halt, Intruder! Drop your weapon and lie on the ground. Comply, or we will use lethal force!” The Mech guard had no mouth. The robot had an electronic screen for a face that lit up red when it identified another intruder. The two guards had their weapons trained on me, and the Mech had its two huge arm guns trained on me as well.

  The Mech was huge! Standing at least 12 feet tall. Its body was octagonal, and its legs bent backward like a giant mechanical bird. It was completely black, and a red light glowed around its robotic face. The Mech support guards looked much like CJ’s Havok Hound suit but were way less advanced. Based on their robotic body language, these guys were definitely on high alert.

  “How about I don’t do any of that?” I shouted at the robotic trio as I continued running. Before the guards could react, I spun and fired my weapon at the panel. The generator groaned and ground to a halt as a shower of sparks flew out of the top. The force field on the cargo bay door immediately took on a blue electronic hue and began blinking.

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  “Get to the anchor, CJ!” I yelled.

  The mech raised its guns and began firing at CJ as he made a dash for the anchor. The mech guards both rushed me, firing their weapons in tandem. I jumped to my left and rolled to my knees as I summoned my armor. The armor materialized just as the two guards reached me. I knelt on one knee and extended my arms to each side as I summoned my black hole daggers. I looked up, arms extended to either side and smiled. It was about time for a good fight.

  The first guard reached me. I swung the dagger in my right hand in a cross-body strike, slicing across the mech guard’s chest and under its arm. I spun to my left, and with a maneuver that would make a gymnast jealous, I reverse-flipped up into a standing guard. The second guard had managed to flank me and was now closing in on me from behind. My interface flashed a proximity warning as I braced myself and spun into the approaching guard, burying both of the black hole daggers into its abdomen. The guard stopped and fell to its knees. The guard grasped at the two daggers as sparks and an oily substance exploded from its abdomen. A timer appeared in the center of my interface.

  3.

  The first guard gathered itself and reengaged. It was injured, but it still managed to get a defensible position and centered its weapon on me. I dashed toward the guard and leapt over its head with a twisting backflip, positioning myself between the guard and the failing force field.

  2.

  “CJ, you better hold on to that damn anchor with everything you have!” I shouted.

  1.

  The Black Hole ability from my daggers activated. The guard that was currently impaled began to scream a robotic, chilling explosion of inhuman sound. The guard’s arms pulled completely into its body, and the rest of its body began to break and implode in on itself. After another second, the guard was completely gone in a flash of blue and black light, as a tiny black hole appeared, then immediately disappeared.

  “What the fuck?!” I said, trying to figure out what I had just watched. “That was way more traumatic than the times I did it in simulation!” I didn’t have time to further consider what I had just witnessed. The remaining mech guard opened fire. The rounds were kinetic, and even though I could feel them hitting, they were barely doing any damage to my suit.

  “Here we go, CJ! HOLD ON!” I shouted. I dropped to one knee, pointed one hand at the mech guard, one hand at the giant mech, and activated the pulsar blast ability. A burst of energy emanated from my suit, spreading in a bubble all around me. Two bright white beams shot from my hands, hitting the mechanical mech and support guard. The Pulsar Blast ability was meant to disarm enemy combatants. Assuming the combatants were biological in nature, the ability would disarm them due to the electromagnetic nature of the blasts. The blast would also injure them severely if it didn’t kill them outright. The Mech and Mech support guards were not biological in nature; they were robotic in nature. This meant the blast would literally drag them toward me. As the blast bubble expanded outward from my body, the two concentrated blasts hit the Mech and Mech guard. Their metal bodies sizzled and melted as they were hit with the blast of high-intensity electromagnetic energy. The blast began dragging them toward me. At the same time, the force field on the cargo bay entrance failed completely.

  The energy bubble receded around my body, pressing me hard down to one knee as the beams from my hand dissipated. A ten-second timer populated on my interface. I couldn’t move. I was stuck in place. I hoped that nothing would be able to move me. Luckily, I was right. As the force field failed, everything got sucked out into the vacuum of space. Various boxes that were staged in the cargo bay began flying past me, along with the giant Mech and the support guard. CJ was holding onto the anchor, but his body was still being pulled toward the open door.

  “CJ, YOU HAVE TO ENGAGE THE SAFETY SEAL TRIGGER! THERE IS A PANEL BESIDE THE ENTRANCE TO THE MAIN AREA. DO YOU SEE IT?” I was having to shout over the noise of air and other objects being sucked out of the cargo bay into empty space. I could see CJ looking around until he spotted it. The safety seals were outlined in yellow and red alternating paint. There was a glass cover with a big red button underneath. The words Emergency Safety Seal were outlined in bold above the panel.

  In that moment of total chaos, I wondered how I could read that. Surely, these aliens didn’t use the English language. I assumed my interface had something to do with it, and I would ask Tiff later if we didn’t die.

  The timer ticked down on my interface. It was now at seven seconds. CJ planted his feet on the ground, fighting against the pressure of the vacuum, and began walking toward the emergency seal panel. He looked like one of those mountain climbers that you would see scaling Mount Everest as a giant blizzard pushed against them. There was no snow here; it was just the force of space creating a vacuum in the cargo bay.

  My time was down to 2 seconds as CJ reached the wall, broke the glass, and pressed the red button. A giant metal door slid down behind me, sealing the cargo bay as the timer on Pulsar Blast ran out. My suit disappeared completely as the ability ended. “I guess that is why the description said to use this as a last resort,” I said as I tried to catch my breath.

  CJ ran over to me in his armor to help me up. “Damn it, bro, do you have to do everything the hard way?” he asked as he grabbed my arm and lifted me up onto my feet.

  Level 10 Mech defeated!

  Experience gained.

  Level 9 mech guard defeated!

  Experience earned.

  Level 9 mech guard X2 defeated!

  Experience earned.

  The notifications spammed my interface as I got to my feet.

  Level up achieved – Level 8

  “Hey, we got ‘em, right?” I asked rhetorically, “I didn’t really wanna test that Mech in a head-on fight if I could help it. Now we gotta hope that Elvis’ worm does its job, so we can breach the main facility. We need to move fast, though. The secondary security team is probably on its way here now. I’d rather avoid them now and fight them on our terms if we can,” I said as we walked toward the facility’s entrance. I took the key card Elvis had created and stuck it up to the security pad. The keycard attached itself to the pad with four small tendrils, one extending from each side. The tendrils attached themselves to the panel as we waited.

  “C’mon Elvis, this better work,” I muttered. A green light glowed around the edges of the panels as I heard an audible beep from above the door.

  “Hell yeah! We’re in!” CJ shouted as I grabbed the keycard, and we ran into the facility.

  I looked at CJ as we ran. “The easy part is over. Time to lock in.”

  “That was the easy part?! What the hell, man? What are you expecting in there?” CJ asked.

  “The unexpected,” I replied as we ran deeper into the facility.