Upon a Savage Shore Ch. 22

"Watch yourself!" he snapped, reloading his weapon. "He's got more than one gun in there."

Clot'ilda ignored his advice and fired three more rounds. These were answered by another volley of gyro-jet rounds that bounced and careened off the bulkheads and ceiling. One finally exploded, sending shrapnel slicing into Clot'ilda's legs and rump. She yelped in surprise and pain, dropping into the water.

"Babydoll!" Liam shouted, turning to help her.

"Not bad!" she barked and waved him off. "Go! Kill it!"

Liam gritted his teeth. He knew if he paused long enough to help his wife they might both get killed, but damn it! He hadn't come this far just to have her bleed out while he fought the monster.

"Kill it, SarJ'ant of Household SarJ'ant!" she said fiercely and began dragging herself away from the door. "Kill it, my mate. Kill it."

"I love you," said Liam and gave her a firm nod. Turning to the door he took the last grenades from his harness. He activated them and tossed both through the door, relying on his armor to protect him. The grenades detonated and Liam leapt through the opening, the alien weapon at the ready.

Against the side of the compartment was the alien in its armor. It brought up its projected energy gun and blasted him, sending enough energy to fully charge his depleted power supply and top off his secondary capacitors. Another such blast would overload his capacitors, triggering an auto shunt which would discharge the excess energy into the surrounding area. This would have no effect on Liam and under normal circumstances he wouldn't worry about it. These were not normal circumstances, though. Clot'ilda was in the next compartment laying in the knee deep water. If his suit shunted the energy now, his wife would die.

Gritting his teeth in a feral snarl, Liam let fly with the alien weapon and dropped it. The long dart smashed the energy projector showering him with searing hot blue sparks and staggering the giant in its armor. The alien didn't hesitate. It knew as well as Liam did that this was a fight to the death and it surged forward, bringing its dart gun up, spraying a cloud of the little projectiles as it closed. Liam drew his remaining EP 12 and dove aside, splashing in the water as he rolled. Darts clattered off his visor and breastplate. He ignored them and drew a bead on the monster as it lurched, clumsy in the confined quarters. Liam sent a volley of armor piercing rounds into the magazine of the gyro-jet gun. The magazine ruptured and several rounds burst sending a blast of propellant out of the holes, but they did not detonate. The EP 12's rounds were not charged and could not ignite the small warheads. The thing in the suit whipped a long mechanical tentacle at his head, flattening Liam against the far bulkhead. The marine rolled, getting his feet under him and pulled his rifle around. He fired a quick, un-aimed blast and rolled aside to avoid a second swipe of the long tentacle. He came to his feet behind the monster and jammed the barrel of his rifle into one of the hip joints, pulling the trigger as the muzzle made contact. A blast of bloody water sprayed out the other side of the leg and the armored giant staggered and nearly fell. It saved itself by grabbing hold of a support on the ceiling with its tentacle. By the time it got turned around Liam had reloaded the huge dart cannon. The alien just stared at him through its faceplate.

"You should have left us alone," Liam said almost calmly.

In reply the creature fired another useless spray of darts at him and Liam let fly with the explosive bolt from the alien weapon in his grip. The thick breastplate of the creature shattered under the impact. A blast of gore and metal splattered the hull behind it and the four legs buckled. It hung from its tentacle, still latched to the ceiling support, a macabre sculpture of death. Blood stained the water around Liam's knees, slowly flowing towards the door. Liam dropped his weapon, breathing a sigh of relief.

"I fucking hate sushi," he said and went to Clot'ilda, his medical kit in his hand.