The silence in the corridor was heavy, broken only by Anya's ragged breathing and the faint, menacing hum of the Ghost Enforcer's systems. Seraph had abandoned us. We were alone, trapped between a machine that couldn't miss and a painful death from blood loss. It was time for the final, desperate move.
"Ready?" I shouted to Anya, my voice echoing in the metallic space.
"Ready!" she yelled back, her voice tight but determined.
"NOW!"
The world erupted in sound and fury. Anya leaned out from behind her pillar and unleashed a torrent of fire. She wasn't aiming anymore. She was just firing the Phantom SR-90 as fast as she could cycle the bolt. The corridor filled with a deafening thunder and blinding muzzle flash. Bullets sparked and ricocheted wildly off the walls and ceiling, a chaotic storm of lead and noise.
It worked. The sheer volume of fire forced the Ghost Enforcer to finally react. Its rigid programming identified the overwhelming attack as a primary threat. Its red eye vanished behind its own pillar as it took cover. This was our window. It would only last for a few seconds before its superior tactical AI reassessed the situation.
I didn't hesitate. I stood up, rising from my flimsy cover and exposing myself completely. The world seemed to slow down, every detail becoming sharp and clear. The fifty meters to the Enforcer felt like a kilometer. I raised my basic pistol with both hands, trying to steady my shaking arms. The valve on the coolant pipe was a small, dark shape against the dimly lit ceiling. It was an almost impossible shot with this weapon.
Breathe. Squeeze the trigger.Don't jerk it. The old lessons surfaced from a part of my mind that hadn't been erased.
I fired. The pistol barked, a pathetic pop compared to the roar of Anya's rifle. The bullet went high, whining off the ceiling far from the target.
Miss.
My heart hammered against my ribs. I fired again, trying to correct my aim. The shot went low and to the left, striking a smaller conduit with a dull clang.
Miss.
Anya's rifle clicked empty. The suppressing fire stopped as abruptly as it began. The sudden silence was terrifying.
The Enforcer's red eye reappeared instantly. It had weathered the storm. It leveled its rifle directly at me. I was standing in the open, completely exposed, my useless pistol in my hand. This was it. The mistake. The final moment. He had me.
In that final, frozen sliver of time, I didn't think. I didn't aim. I just reacted. Pure, animal panic took over. I fired my pistol one last time, a wild, unaimed shot sent on a prayer.
CLANG!
The bullet struck the rusted valve assembly. It wasn't a clean hit, but it was enough. It was a one-in-a-million shot. A miracle of dumb luck. A system glitch in my favor.
For a second, nothing happened. The Enforcer was still aiming at me, its trigger finger no doubt a microsecond from ending my life. Then, with a high-pitched, piercing scream of escaping pressure, the valve ruptured.
A massive cloud of supercooled white gas erupted from the pipe. It wasn't smoke; it was a physical substance, a thick, dense fog that billowed outwards, instantly filling the corridor. Vision dropped to zero. The white gas was so cold it burned, stinging my exposed skin.
"Anya, run!" I screamed, grabbing her arm. "NOW!"
She was already moving, using the last of her adrenaline. She had jammed a Med-Syringe into her leg the moment the cloud erupted. She was limping heavily, but she was moving. We plunged into the white-out, completely blind. We could hear the Ghost Enforcer firing into the cloud, its shots cracking blindly through the fog. The machine was confused. It didn't know where we were.
"This way!" I shouted, pulling Anya towards the far end of the corridor. My mind was a map. I had studied the layout on my HUD while we were pinned down. The exit to the main industrial plaza was straight ahead.
We burst out of the maintenance corridor and into the open air. The change was dizzying. We were standing on a wide metal gantry overlooking a vast, cavernous industrial space. We were high up, maybe thirty stories. It was the Titan's Cross plaza. Below us, massive, silent machinery sat under dim, yellow spotlights. A complex web of catwalks and gantries crisscrossed the space at multiple levels.
And it was a warzone.
We were too early. Or maybe the Ghost Enforcer was. We had sprung Seraph's trap before the main targets, the Dominion hunter squads, had fully arrived. But the sound of our firefight—the roar of two sniper rifles and a rupturing coolant pipe—had acted like a dinner bell for every predator in the area.
To our left, on a parallel gantry across the plaza, three figures in the dark gray armor of the Ouroboros Dominion faction were taking up positions. One of them was already kneeling, a rocket launcher resting on his shoulder, its targeting laser sweeping across the plaza towards us.
To our right, emerging from another access tunnel onto our own gantry, was a squad of four more Dominion hunters. They were moving fast, their assault rifles raised, fanning out to cut off our escape. We had run from one enemy directly into the arms of seven more.
Above us, in the high, dark shadows of the factory ceiling, I saw the faint glint of sniper scopes. Seraph's team. They were in position, but they were holding their fire. Their orders were clear: wait for the primary targets. We were just the bait, and we had blundered into the open too soon, ruining their perfect ambush. They were watching, waiting.
Then, a heavy, rhythmic, mechanical footstep echoed from the corridor behind us.
The Ghost Enforcer emerged from the dissipating white cloud. Frost coated its metallic chassis, but it was otherwise unharmed. Its red eye glowed with malevolent fury. It raised its Phantom SR-90, its aim unwavering, completely ignoring the Dominion soldiers. Its target was me.
We were trapped. Absolutely and completely trapped.
The Dominion hunters were in front of us. The Ghost Enforcer, my personal demon, was behind us. Seraph's supposedly friendly team was above us, their rifles pointed in our direction but offering no help. We were standing in the dead center of a three-way standoff. A perfect killing field.
And we were the only target that everyone wanted to kill.