NOVEL NEXT They Have A Power Armour
The place was too silent… Especially after all those sounds of gunfire when I first boarded the ship…
Amber should be fine right?
I didn’t dare to rush through the place since I had already been ambushed twice, meaning there was a possibility there were some of those gang members that managed to hide themselves from Amber and were laying in wait to ambush me.
Well.. Maybe not me specifically since I’m not sure if they even knew I was on board or they were just attacking anyone they didn’t recognise… But it didn’t hurt to be cautious.
The corridor I was moving through had also been turned into a battlezone as the gang members had piled up boxes and even overturned tables to act as makeshift barricades.
That didn’t seem to have worked well for them judging by how the entire place was littered with corpses of those gang members.
Interestingly, in some parts of the corridor, I found that some of the gang members were crushed by objects or were even stuck in the ceiling somehow.
I wondered if Amber was using some kind of force grenade or something to cause that to happen. They must have been pretty powerful to cause that much destruction.
As I moved through the corridor, I realised that Amber wasn’t kidding when she said that she could clear out the freighter by herself.
Like hell, there must be at least two dozen dead gang members I’ve come across so far and it feels like she’s breezing through the entire thing.
So I’m going to be optimistic and guess that it got quiet because she killed everyone.
Just as that thought came to mind, I heard the sound of metallic stomping and then what sounded like a chaingun revving up.
That was then followed closely by a hailstorm of bullets being fired and I realised it was coming from the next room.
Ok, at least this meant that Amber was still alright but that chaingun did not sound like she was having a good time.
I rushed towards the direction of the door and pressed myself against the doorframe as the door cycled open.
The sound of the chaingun was deafening and I winced when it hit my ears.
Peeking around the corner, the first thing I saw was Amber hiding behind a large metal container that was doing its best to protect her from a storm of bullets.
This room seemed to be the freighter’s loading bay judging by the metal containers and the cranes that were obviously meant to be used to move said containers around.
The one that was firing the chaingun was what I assume to be a power armour of some kind, the person wearing it firing the weapon directly at where Amber was hiding.
The guy in the power armour was slowly making his way towards Amber while continuously firing his minigun, not even allowing Amber to peek out from her cover.
Judging by how Amber was also clutching her side, I believe she had been hit before she got into cover which meant that she probably couldn't run from there either.
Fuck.
Amber must have noticed the door opening because she turned her head in my direction, finding me hiding behind the door frame.
Instead of being relieved, she actually gave me a sad smile before making a shooing motion with her hand, obviously telling me to run away.
Well, no surprise since a normal person can’t win against a power armour unless they have some kind of anti-armour ordnance and I most certainly did not have those on hand.
But that doesn’t mean I was going to abandon Amber here.
Sure, I only knew her for a day but fuck, she trusted me to watch her back and she helped me even when she didn’t need to.
Granted, she had her own reasons for helping me but I would most likely still be lost in the station if I did not meet her.
Alright, fuck it, let’s do this. I’m just up against a walking tank with a minigun, no big deal.
I dashed out of my cover, keeping to the shadows to avoid the power armour guy spotting me to enter the loading bay.
Looking around, I tried to find something that I could use to fight against that guy. Maybe I would get lucky and this freighter had a container filled with armour piercing rockets or something.
That was when I noticed that the power armour guy was walking towards a container that was hanging overhead on a crane.
My eyes went to the control room at the back that I was quite confident was also where the controls for those cranes were.
Ok, I can do this.
I kept myself low and scurried in the direction of the control room, the whirring sound from the minigun practically drowning my footsteps so I did not need to worry about being heard.
Nothing hindered me from reaching the room until I opened the door, only to find a gang member who jumped when he saw me.
I didn’t want to risk the sound of gunshots alerting the power armour guy so I leapt towards the gang member and tackled him to the ground.
He opened his mouth to shout but I punched him across the cheek, stunning him for a moment.
His arms flailed in an attempt to grab me but my hands reached his head first and I lifted it to slam it back down on the metal ground.
I repeated the motion several times, but was forced to let go when he punched at my side, causing me to loosen my grip enough that he could throw me off of him.
He tried to get back on his feet but I kicked my leg out and managed to land a hit on his side, sending him rolling away to crash against the wall.
I looked around for something to use and found a pen in a cup by one of the consoles.
I grabbed my impromptu weapon and jumped on the gang member again, knocking him flat on his back and straddling his chest.
He let out a yelp of surprise right before I covered his mouth with one hand and stabbed the pen down on his eye, sinking the stationary all the way inside the socket.
He screamed into my hand but I ignored it and pulled the pen out to stab it into his other eye.
I held on as he struggled to get me off of him, using my hand that was holding his mouth to tilt his head up to expose his neck.
Pulling the pen out from his eye socket, I stabbed it into his throat before pulling it out, some of his blood splattering on me.
I got up from him as the dying man gurgled in his death throes, returning to my own objective of looking for the controls.
I found them easily enough since they were labelled and all I needed was to find the button that had the word ‘release’ on it.
The power armour guy was already right below it so I did not hesitate to press the button as soon as I found it.
And… Nothing happened.
Fuck! The controls are locked! I need to hack it first!
I brought up my Codex and connected it to the controls, matching the word and number needed to grant me access.
The console then lit up, showing that it was in operation and I punched the button to release the container immediately.
There was a metallic groan before the sound of something snapping could be heard.
I looked out through the window at the loading bay and saw the metal container above the power armour guy falling down towards him at an angle.
The minigun went silent and a shout of surprise came from him, right before the container crashed on top of him.
I let out the breath that I didn’t know I was holding, expelling the air in my lungs as I felt the tension bleed out from my body.
That was when I heard the whirring sound from the minigun and my instinct screamed at me to throw myself on the ground.
I just managed to hit the deck before a storm of bullets crashed through the place where I had been standing moments ago, shattering the window of the control room.
I covered the back of my neck with my hands as the glass fell around me, but it seemed that was unnecessary as my shield protected me from it.
The gunfire lasted only for a few seconds before it stopped and I risked peeking over the control panel to look at the loading bay.
The crashed metal container moved and the power armour guy was standing in the middle of the debris, his minigun still red hot and smoking.
Fuck, fuck, fuck! He didn’t die from that?! Just how strong is that power armour?!
Worse still, now it seems like he’s coming for me!