“May I?” Beatrix asked. I nodded and took a step back.
Beatrix’s hammer began to glow brighter and arc small lightning bolts across its surface. When it reached a charge that seemed satisfactory to her, she swung hard. The resounding gong stunned all of us for a second.
“It is only a dent,” she said after she inspected the place her hammer struck.
The problem with doors, I mused, was similar across all species and places. Governments and private citizens made the same mistake. They used expensive locks and materials. They reinforced the hinges. They even used locking bolts, like banks once used to protect money. But most people didn’t think about the wall next to the door.
“Try here,” I said, pointing with Ebon to a spot on the concrete about three feet to the door’s left.
Beatrix looked at the spot, then back to me, and smiled. “Do you think they got cheap on the construction?”
I shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”
Beatrix motioned for everyone to step back, charged her hammer, and swung hard. I wasn’t sure what I expected to happen. Maybe an explosion of rock and rubble. Maybe a huge shower of sparks. Instead, there was a grunt from the gladiator, the thud and sparks of the impact, then nothing.
“Now what?” Timo-Ran asked.
His answer was a laugh from Beatrix. She kicked the spot she’d struck, and the concrete fell away like a neatly piled column of sugar. The wall was thick, but it was only a wall. There was no reinforcement, and Beatrix had just made a new entrance.
“After you?” she invited.
“Don’t mind if I do,” I said with a smile.
Reaver took a position behind me and placed a hand on my shoulder so that I’d know she was there. It was part of our training, called “stacking up.” Normally, there’d be four of us, and we wouldn't have announced our presence so long before entering, but we did what we had to do. I waited for the signal that the team was ready and focused on the breach.
The hole was almost as tall as me, but it was narrow. I’d have to go in sideways, and I had no doubt I’d instantly be subjected to enemy fire, so with Ebon held vertically, I waited.
The signal came a few seconds later when Reaver squeezed my shoulder. I moved, entered the breach, and shot the first enemy who presented himself—a vrak who was climbing into a mech. There were two others, but their canopies were open, and I could see they were unoccupied.
The room was dark except for the top and bottom edges of the polished concrete walls. Hidden blue lights cast an even, deep glow over everything from high and low angles, which created a cool effect on the frames of the mechs. They were mounted to the floor by some kind of mechanical locking system. The presence of tools, small workstations attached to the walls, and diagnostic equipment made it clear that it was a garage or staging area. Probably both.
The floor was only polished in the center of the room. The rest had a sheen that reflected the hidden lights, but it was uneven, and I suspected it was caused by years of oil buildup.
The room was about ten yards wide and a little longer, and on the far end was another door almost as wide as one of the doors we’d just avoided. It didn’t look like it was as heavily armored, though, and the ornate designs, most of which seemed to be exotic flowers, wouldn't help with the door’s durability either.
“Reaver,” I ordered, “find out how they open the doors. Bring Skrew inside, then close them again. After that, get him to drag one of these mechs over to our breach and make him stuff as much of it inside as he can. It should keep reinforcements out and prevent the doors from opening until we remove the obstruction.
Reaver grabbed Neb-Ka, and together they started looking for a control panel, lever, or other type of control that would open the doors. A few seconds later, the doors began to rattle and move.
I sent Beatrix and Timo-Ran to the door on the far side of the room to guard against anyone coming in from behind. Then, I took cover behind the mech on the right side of the room, the one the vrak had tried to get into, and aimed my pistol at the opening. If whatever came inside wasn’t a huge, metal war machine, I’d shoot it.
Skrew’s mech was standing right in the middle of the opening. He was bouncing excitedly from foot to foot, shaking the ground as he did so. He looked as eager as I’d ever seen him, and for once, I found myself looking forward to the stories he’d tell after the battle. He’d have something to talk about for months.
My first warning that there was a new threat was automatic fire from an energy weapon peppering the ceiling. I turned and saw her opponent flailing from her first strike as Beatrix’s hammer came around for another. Guards began pouring into the room. The first guard who tried to enter had a smoking stump of a neck where his head used to be. His body lay in a crumpled mess on the floor. The other guards stomped him as they rushed in.
I’d expected more rushada guards like the ones we’d seen outside, but though the creatures pouring out of the open doorway were four-armed, there was no mistake what species they were. These were vrak. All of them.
I began firing into the horde, as did Reaver, who, I knew, would have to split her attention between the immediate threat of the guards and the breach she was trying to cover. It wouldn’t do us any good to fight
