Chapter 10: Gamma-4
The corridor was empty as she walked along the wall, silent, to avoid making the slightest noise.
A door suddenly swung open a few meters away, spilling light and two silhouettes. The first pirate, with bluish skin, brandished a rifle, while his ally, disfigured by metallic implants, clutched an energy axe that crackled with a menacing hum.
The first shot fired before they could react. The plasma bullet pierced the blue-skinned pirate’s eye socket with precision, exploding on exit in a splash of pulverized bone and brain matter that stained the wall.
The hybrid leaped, hurling her axe. She spun, narrowly avoiding the blade, and kicked him in the sternum. The impact sent him flying backward, winded.
She didn’t give him time to get up.
With a swift motion, she grabbed his cranial implants, jerking his head back, and crushed his throat with the butt of her rifle. Once. Twice. The cartilage snapped with a wet crack, and a jet of bloody mucus burst from his nostrils.
He thrashed like a trapped animal, pulling a retractable blade from his forearm. She seized his wrist with one hand and twisted until the bone snapped. The arm, now useless, hung limply.
Then she shoved the barrel into his mouth.
The detonation blew his head apart like an overripe watermelon, spraying shards of skull and metal across the floor.
She picked up the knife that had fallen from his lifeless hand, barely examining it before a new group burst in, alerted by the carnage.
The bursts of fire arrived before she could fully take cover. Three hits struck her in rapid succession: shoulder, hip, thigh. The plasma’s heat burned through her clothes, but her superior race’s epidermis absorbed most of the damage.