He landed on the deck, crashed back to alleged reality.
Pain overwhelmed, drowned out everything else. His hand throbbed, stained with blood through its compression wraps. His chest hurt like someone had run a steamroller across his ribs.
His lungs burned. A bag over his mouth shoved air down his throat.
Kawalski pounded on his chest, something chime-crackled, and the whole world snapped clear.
Agony superseded pain.
A scream ripped from his throat, only to choke into a desperate gasp for air.
He tried to speak. Kawalski reached to pull him up.
The lights went dark, and he flew once more.
A distant voice informed him, pedantically, that this was untrue. An academic portion of his mind clarified that he was not flying, but that the ship was falling.
Technicalities brought cold comfort when he slammed into the deck.
He tasted blood. Someone screamed.
The ship's announcer intoned, "Emergency Lockout is in effect. We apologize for the turbulence. Please remain calm."
The corridor lights flickered back to life. Hill, half-covered in debris, asked, "What the fuck was that?!"
"Crash." Firenze managed.
Hill demanded, "System crash? Please tell me we're not-"
"We're crashing!" Firenze choke-screamed.
Kawalski had risen to one knee, crouched beside him. Her rifle snapped up, and she spat, "Get down!"
Firenze ducked, as hot gas and sinus-crushing concussions pummeled him.
Her targets down, Kawalski demanded, "Did you-" Her eyes flicked forward, her rifle tracked left, and Firenze was blinded by another gust of scorching dust.
When she stopped shooting, he gasped, "No! I didn't-"
She grabbed for his buddy-handle, to drag him up by the hoop behind his neck, but he shook her off. "I can walk!" He protested. She let him stand and motioned for her team to cover.
Kawalski checked the next corner, rifle-first. Satisfied, she demanded, "SITREP, Princess!"
He started, "TACNET's back-" Kawalski nodded, touched her helmet as a mark of respect. He continued, "Everyone's dead! The enemy's closing-"
"Saw that." She growled. She flicked her view back towards the tattered remains of her squad. "We've been overrun. How's the ship, Princess?"
"Net's cooked, drives are fucked, we're going down slow, and the whole thing's a bomb." He answered. He almost added the most damning part. Lauren was gone, ripped to shreds by the Phalanx. He glanced down at the red light on his assist box. How much of her was scattered across that drive? How many pieces had the guard dog ripped her into?
A mental voice demanded, 'Why did you let her go?'
"Princess!" Kawalski demanded. She was staring at him. That hadn't been the first time she'd called his name. She demanded, "You with us?!"
He nodded.
She ordered, "Okay, new plan. We're regrouping with the rest of Delta. There's a junction box next corner, you're going to plug in, see if you can't assist. We need a flanking route back to the servers."
"Net's gone." He repeated.
"Figure it out!" She snapped. Something in her voice caught. Kawalski was always a hardass, but this wasn't her 'soldier up' voice. She was scared. Desperate.
He nodded, tried to find a way to be useful. "The Phalanx is compromised. I think I can get into cameras, even without hard-link." He didn't add, 'Lauren might have bought me that much.'
He crouched in his alcove, back against the pot-holed steel ribbing. Hill took up the opposite flank, tongue wedged in cheek, and machinegun laid in. Kawalski stayed close, her last three men fanned across the junction - Spencer, Hayes, and Gurian.
Firenze pulled his goggles over his eyes, rubbed the dirt clear with one of his handi-wipes. Too much of the net was gone to try and force a link. Despite himself, he checked mask health. Blood red text answered: INOPERABLE - FILE CORRUPT. This time, the tears weren't fear.
He swallowed them back, forced himself to focus. He could still help. He could save lives.
The Phalanx did not contest his access. He didn't know if it was segmented away from him, if it was offline, or if it was just too busy with a dying net. He couldn't bring himself to care, beyond a swallowed ache and a traitorous relief.
Local feed was still up, he could pull security footage. He checked TACNET, found the remaining Delta teams pushing towards the rendezvous. Lieutenant Weber's Delta Two was still up and fighting - eight lights were green. Firenze pulled up their location on camera.
Weber's team moved in a modified column, bounding from cover to cover, weapons high and angles checked. They were beaten, ammo critical, but not broken. Firenze ran the math. Once linked with Kawalski's team, they might be able to punch back into the server. Maybe.
Movement caught his eye from one of the adjoining halls. Enemy heavies were moving to intercept.
Firenze pinged them on TACNET, and Weber confirmed. Delta Two fanned across the corridor, pressed themselves into alcoves, prepared to counter-ambush. Firenze flipped cameras, changed to a better angle to see what was coming up the hallway.
What he saw was death itself.
Three behemoths climbed the subdeck access ramp. The two flankers resembled the heavies they'd contacted earlier, powered exoframes wrapped in armored greatcoats. Their jackbooted steps rang from the deck plates, servos whirring under their cascading armor. Each of them wore a rebreather, a great tube running from armored faceplate to their chest, thrumming in time to the scrubbers. Both carried crew-served weapons, backpack powerplants linked to emitter tubes, each adorned with radiators and parabolic mirrors. A distant voice from his imprint echoed, 'Acheron Mark Two Directed Plasma Projector, with Mark Seven Molten Salt Battery'. The enemy had plasma casters.
What was worse, the third figure dwarfed the others.
The goliath stood three meters tall, covered head to toe in gleaming mirrored armor. It didn't walk but loped, climbing the ramp in clanging, swooping bounds that left dents in the polished deck. Hardpoints for a half-dozen weapons jutted from its treetrunk arms, a v-rack launcher rested on its shoulders, and a small reactor perched upon its back, cabled to the anti-vehicular laser clenched in its massive gauntlets.
Firenze's heart caught in his throat, and he scrambled
