The heavy table slammed into Jax, the metal edge catching him in the chest and knocking him off balance. He stumbled back, his face a mask of shocked fury. The Dominion soldiers, their perfect discipline shattered by my sudden, unexpected move, hesitated for a fatal second. Their brains were still processing the psychological trick I had played, and now they were faced with physical violence.
That was all the time Anya needed.
She didn't run. She didn't shoot. She moved with a limping, but ferocious, grace. She dove for the fire pit in the center of the cavern. With a powerful sweep of her good leg, she kicked the heavy iron brazier with all her might. The brazier tipped, sending a wave of hot coals, ash, and burning embers scattering across the cavern floor directly towards the soldiers.
It was a brilliant, chaotic move. It was pure Anya. The soldiers yelled in surprise and pain, jumping back as the hot coals landed on their boots and armor, sizzling against their gear. Their perfect firing line was broken. A thick cloud of smoke and ash billowed into the air, creating a choking, blinding screen that obscured their vision.
"Now!" I yelled, bringing the energy rifle to my shoulder. It felt good in my hands. Solid. Powerful. I fired from the hip, not aiming for kills, but for suppression. Bright blue bolts of energy ripped through the smoky cavern, striking the walls and shelves behind the soldiers, sending showers of sparks and rock dust everywhere. They were forced to dive for cover behind crates and the very shelves they had so carefully organized.
We ran. We charged for the main entrance to the marketplace, the same wide tunnel that Jax's crew had been guarding. It was our only way out.
"They're getting away!" Jax roared, recovering his balance. He was absolutely furious. I had not only defied him, I had made him look like a fool in front of his new crew. He had lost control.
His soldiers, recovering from the initial shock, opened fire. Energy bolts and solid rounds filled the air, crisscrossing the smoky space. A shot grazed my shoulder, a searing, hot line of pain that spun me around. My HUD, were it active, would have been flashing red. Anya cried out as a round hit her scavenged leg, not damaging her, but striking the uncalibrated servo-motor with a loud CLANG. The leg seized up, sparks flying from the knee joint, and she stumbled and fell hard to the ground.
We were exposed. The smoke was clearing. Jax and his crew were advancing, their faces masks of rage. They were moving to flank us.
It was over. My desperate bluff, my chaotic gambit, had failed. We had bought ourselves ten seconds of chaos, but it wasn't enough. We were still trapped.
Then, a new sound cut through the noise of the firefight.
It was not a gunshot. It was not an explosion. It was the sound of tearing metal, amplified a hundred times.
It came from the dark maintenance tunnel we had used to enter the cavern. The narrow opening began to widen as something impossibly strong began to rip the rock and the reinforced steel frame apart from the inside. The walls groaned and cracked under the immense pressure.
Everyone—me, Anya, Jax, his soldiers—froze. The firefight stopped. All attention, all weapons, snapped to the tunnel.
With a final, deafening shriek of tortured metal, the entire section of the cavern wall collapsed inwards, sending an avalanche of rock and steel debris onto the marketplace floor.
Standing in the newly created, gaping opening, its red eye glowing with an infernal light that cut through the dust and smoke, was the Ghost Enforcer. Its armor was scratched and dented from its fall and the battle with the Exiles. Its right arm hung limp and sparking at its side. But it was here.
My bluff had not been a bluff at all. It had been a prophecy. I had been more right than I knew.
The Enforcer's red eye swept across the chaotic scene. It saw me on the floor, my rifle aimed at Jax. It saw Anya, struggling to get up beside me. It saw Jax and his soldiers, their weapons all now pointed at this new, terrifying threat.
For a moment, I thought it would charge me, its primary target. But its cold, machine logic did something else. It assessed the situation. I was down, my health low. The immediate, greater threat was the half-dozen heavily armed soldiers standing between it and me. It was programmed for maximum efficiency.
The Enforcer raised its pistol with its one good arm. Its first shot was not aimed at me. It was aimed at the closest Dominion soldier. The man's head snapped back as the high-caliber round hit him, and he fell without a sound.
Jax and his crew stared in horror. The monster they thought I had invented was real, and it was ignoring me completely. It was systematically eliminating them.
"What is this?" Jax yelled, his question aimed at me, his voice filled with a mixture of disbelief and raw terror. "You really did lead it to us!"
The Enforcer fired again. Another soldier down, clutching his chest as he collapsed behind a crate.
"I told you," I shouted back over the gunfire, dragging Anya behind a large, overturned table. "It wants me. And it will kill anyone who gets in its way!"
Jax was now trapped between two enemies. Me, the target of his revenge, and a monster that was actively, and efficiently, slaughtering his men. He had to make a choice, and he had to make it in the next five seconds. His desire for vengeance versus the survival of his new faction, the last people he had in the world.
He looked at me, his face a storm of conflicting emotions: hatred, fear, desperation. He looked at his men being cut down by a foe they couldn't even scratch. He looked at the relentless, advancing machine.
He made his decision.
"Forsaken!" he roared, his voice cutting through the panic of his remaining men. "Forget the bounty! Target the machine! Target the machine!"
The hunters had become the hunted. And in a desperate, unspoken truce born of pure survival instinct, my greatest enemy had just become my only ally.