“Alex!” Yulia shouted as she ran into his workshop in a panic.

  He wasn’t there though. The pce was as quiet as everywhere else. She had been heading home from csses when the lights went out. Then the voi the speaker said there irate attack. She knew she should have headed straight for the shelter, but she was afraid to do so alone.

  Shortly after she called out, the voice of the scary security guy called Alex to the security room. Now that she knew where to look, she did her best to hurry over there. It was a long way to the security station from Alex’s shop though and before she got there, the building shook around her, sending her falling to the ground.

  She screamed and tucked her head in her hands, fearing the worst, when she heard footsteps.

  “There you are!” a familiar voice called.

  Yulia peeked through her arms and saw Markus running towards her.

  “You were supposed to go to the shelter, why didn’t you?”

  “I- I was looking for Alex. Why didn’t you go?”

  The boy sighed and picked her up off the floor. “I had a feeling you weren’t going to follow instrus. When I heard them called to the security room, I came this way to stop you. Do you think he would be happy to know you weren’t heading for safety?”

  She shook her head, not meeting the older boy’s gaze.

  “Let's go.”

  Markus pulled her but she resisted. “What about Alex? I o find him.”

  “No,” Markus said in annoyance. “He’s busy, and we’re kids. We’ll just get in his way. Now e on, or I’ll drag you.”

  Yulia didn’t want to be dragged so she hurried behind Markus as fast as she could. Loud booms started to echh the halls and Markus stopped at an interse, cursing under his breath as he looked for where to go.

  “I don’t know this se, which way to the closest shelter?”

  “I only know where my designated shelter is,” Yulia admitted in embarrassment. “And that’s near atrium B.”

  The boy cursed again, and Yulia wao tell him to stop or Headmaster Wong would give him a talking-to, but this did feel like a time that cursing might be allowed. “We o find somepce safe. Somepce the–,” Markus’ words trailed off as loud shouting came from down one hallway. The shouting was followed by a series of loud pops that echoed through the halls and a buzzing crack that made her tense up. She remembered that sound from the attack at Alex’s.

  “This way, quickly,” he whispered as they ran iher dire.

  ***

  Zade chuckled darkly as one of the shuttles impacted the nding pad faster than it should have and exploded. “More for us!” he yelled to the cheers of his crew.

  He would have preferred that shuttle to have been Arkonis’ that way he could have takehe crew but it wasn’t. That was unfortunate, but there was still a ce the man would get himself killed down here. The old bastard was going on forty-five. He was a relid should have done everyone a favor and gone down in a raid a long time ago. Arkonis was also a coward who liked to run raids from the rear instead of getting his hands dirty. The pampered little prince might as well move into STO spad live there if he wanted safety. This pce was too big for him to hide behind his other teams this time though. Other thaon crews left to monitor the ships in orbit, everyone was down here. Maybe he could actally fire a grenade in his boss’ dire. It was certainly an option.

  The ship fred its thrusters hard and Zade grunted uhe pressure. He didn’t bck out though. If he did, someone on his team probably would have shot him in the back at the first opportunity and took his pce as the leader of his crew. As it should be. The weak should be culled and the strong should rule.

  Even with the extreme deceleration, their nding was a hard ohis p’s atmosphere was so thin that he ushing his luck with a ship this rge. But he had the biggest crew besides the boss’, and he would be damned if he wasn’t taking everything he could from this miserable rock.

  It better be worth it too, because the cost of that nuke had e out of everyone's share.

  He checked his armor. Uhe grunts, his was the best money could buy off the bck market. It had military-grade armor pting and even had minmentation making it nearly as good as the mech suits the STO used. He smiled and lifted the heavy grenade uncher. Since he liked to lead from the front, he got to breach the doors, and what better way than with a big boom!

  The ramp lowered and his crew hollered in glee as they followed him off the ship. He almost paused when he saw the turrets, but if they had been active, they would have shot by now. “Maybe that nuke was worth it after all,” he smiled wickedly as he let a series of grenades fly toward the entry at the far end of the nding pad.

  A satisfying series of explosions rattled the thin air before the tone ged. “Door’s open boys!”

  His crew streamed past him, hoping to be the first to cim a kill or something good. Zade just stuck the uncher on his back where it magically attached before he drew his minigun. He spun it up, smiling widely at the sound before he joined his people who were already f their way inside and firing on whoever was dumb enough to resist.

  The only thing he heard was the buzzing crack of pulse rifles. He shoved the broken door aside and his people hit the deck as the defenders all turo look his way. The bullets from his minigun tore through them before they even had a ce to fire more than a few bsts his way.

  One man held a strange on and fired it at him, but the flechette ricocheted harmlessly off his armor. In annoyance more than anger, Zade hosed the man down ahe trigger pulled as he stomped forward, turning the man into a red paste on the ground before he finally ran out of ammo.

  He tsked in annoyand uhe on and the ammo ister, dropping it by the door. He picked up one of the rifles from his dead men, repced the magazine and his team stalked forward looking for more targets.

  ***

  Alexander felt more than heard the explosion as something came down just outside the door he was at. At first, he thought maybe the turrets came ba, but when no further explosions happened, he realized that wasn’t the case.

  Then he heard muted gunfire and booms. This was followed by a long series of shots from some fully automatic on. The people in Eden’s End had nothing parable to that and he khat things were going to get much worse if he couldn’t e up with a solution.

  He made for his workshop as fast as he could go. There were parts in there, maybe he could put together something to help.

  Alexander crossed an interse when someone shouted from down the hall and a hail of bullets came his way. But he was moving so quickly that they missed or smmed into the walls behind him.

  [WARNING HOSTILE FIRE DETECTED!]

  Alexander wao roll his eyes at the stupid message. Of course, he knew ‘hostile fire’ was detected. He tried to will away the message, but it stayed front aer for a bit before it seemed to go away on its own. ‘What? No defensive mode, or ultimate badass mode?’ The mind space didn’t reply, it never did. And he saw no ges to the other readouts, most of which he still didn’t uand.

  He took the urn, ensuring the people who were now chasing him couldn’t get a clear shot. He still wasn’t vihis body was bulletproof. And from the sounds of it, the pirates had much heavier ons. He had spotted one of them was wearing an augment suit with something rge strapped to its back. That single pirate could take on this entire facility without issue.

  His workshop came into sight and he ducked inside and shut the door before log it by pg a piece of scrap barsto the tra it closed.

  Alexander quickly looked around for something he could use to fight back with. The workshop had accumuted quite a series of failed tests and pos ever sihe smelter had been moved into orbit. But ohing caught his eye.

  It was the railgun from his very first tests. He dragged it out from the pile of scraps. The cables were still ected to it, but it had no power source. Si was offline during the EMP, it should be funal. But how was he going to power it?

  Alexander sed the room for any batteries or power banks, but there were hen he looked at the fshing warning light for the station arm. “Power is power,” he muttered as he dragged the oo the wall just as someoarted pounding on his door.

  He worked as fast as he could to modify the internal capacitor of the gun so it would only discharge when he was ready. It wouldn't be a very high-power shot, but with any luck, it would work. Alexander just ime.

  ***

  “Doors wedged shut,” one of his people stated.

  Zade didn’t have time for this shit. And a closed door meant there was likely something valuable behind it. “Move!” he yelled as he backed away from the door and pulled the uncher off his back again.

  Each explosive cost a hundred credits, which is why he mainly used it for breag but he had a good feeling about this door. The first bst rocked the hallway, sending dust and debris flying, but the door was strohan it looked. The explosion had de quite heavily though, so one or two more would get them in.

  The third time was the charm as he heard the metal shriek in protest before it blew inward. He hoped it didn’t kill anyone inside, he wao do that personally for making him waste his time and money.

  Zade stepped through the bsted opening and saw a treasure trove of high-eronid manufacturing equipment. But his eyes focused on the robot at the far side of the room. The ohey had been chasing. Arkonis had told them to be on the lookout for it as it had something to do with the person they were here to capture. That didn’t mean he couldn’t disable it though. He smiled as the thing wasn’t even fag him. He flicked the selector to burst fire and fired off three grenades.

  They screamed across the room… and stopped.

  ***

  Alexander would have blinked if he had eyes. He heard the attempts to get into his shop, he k was only a matter of time until they would. Ohe door blew opeched them with a part of his focus as he put the finishing touches on the railgun he was hiding from view.

  He hadn’t expected the man to fire three grenades his way as soon as he entered, or the message that popped up when they flew his way.

  [WARNING THREAT DETECTED!]

  [TERMEASURES DEPLOYED]

  [DEFENSE FIELD ACTIVATED]

  The messages popped up so fast, that he couldn’t eve. A static hum built around him iime it took the greo cross the room. The three grenades smmed into the field and simply stopped about a foot in front of him. Alexander was shocked by this, he expected them to maybe be deflected by this strange defense field. This was not the simple static field that ships used to deflect space debris, this was b on a frig forcefield. A stray thought entered his mind. If his body had something like this, how the hell had it been damaged in the first pce?

  It seemed everyone was just as shocked to see this as he was because the pirates stopped and stared. It was a good thing Alexander’s mind worked much faster to process this new situation. He plucked the three explosives out of the air and chucked them back toward the pirates.

  Unfortunately, there must have been some sort of timer or proximity awareness fuse on the ons because they detonated far short of his target, tearing up the room. The explosion had the additional effect of knog the pirates out of their shock. As they recovered, they quickly opened fire at him.

  The strange field stopped every bullet, but he saw the man with the augment suit was getting ready tain after having adjusted something on his on.

  Not willing to risk a sed round of explosives, Alexaepped aside, exposing the railgun.

  It was already loaded with a spare round he found in the same pile he dug it out from. The man with the grenade uncher had just enough time to realize what was fag him before Alexaouched the exposed wire to the firing meism.

  The crack of the hypersonic round was deafening ihe workshop and the bst of its passing kicked up dust a loose parts scattering around the room. But it found its mark and passed effortlessly into the man’s armored front.

  Alexander was worried about the round going through the facility walls. Turned out he have worried, much like his early tests, the round failed to pee the back side of the armor. Uhose early tests, there was a squishy humaween those ptes. The energy had to go somewhere. The man exploded like a water balloon as shards of tungsten flew out the sides hitting three more pirates who were standio him.

  The soni aant human explosion had done a signifit amount of damage to the pirates as well, leaving the few survivroaning on the ground.

  Diseg the gun, Alexander hurried over to make sure they didn’t get back up. He took no fort in pig up one of their rifles and dispatg them, but it had to be done.

  He grabbed a small rolling cart that had been knocked over during the fight and loaded the pirates' ons onto them. Even the grenade uncher was loaded onto the cart. Once everything iled on top, he pushed it out through the opening and toward the entry point.

  He didn’t know if this new defense field would stay active forever, so he o make it t while it was.