Travers took the corner, his rifle up and ready to fire in case there was an enemy. His suit sensors were still running, but the scrapes along his armored faceplate told him he couldn’t rely on those or the other sensors in his armor.

  The Shican had surprised his fire team half a dozen times as they moved to clear the massive vessel, which was surprising given none of them were fully cybernetic. The groups they ran into didn’t have anything other than projectile weapons and knives, but that didn’t seem to deter the Shican from trying to murder them.

  The suit upgrades ensured his people stayed safe, but as they closed in on where they suspected the bridge to be, he was extra wary.

  Communications had been scrambled since shortly after they entered the ship. He suspected whatever the Shican were doing to block their comms was also causing issues with the suit sensors. The only systems that seemed unaffected were the optical sensors, the muscle augmentation systems, and the defensive fields.

  Travers’ defensive field had kicked in three times during the clearing operation, but it was once again recharging, and he couldn’t afford to wait for it to reset a fourth time.

  Taking a guess based on the Shican’s preferred method of ambush, his rifle spat out a quick volley of projectiles, punching through the walls leading to an intersecting corridor ahead.

  One Shican slumped into the hallway, and two others shoved past their dead comrade, madness in their eyes as they charged toward his team. The enemy was quickly dispatched by his team members, and they slowly advanced.

  They had been forced to rely on hand signals as the interference aboard the ship had grown so bad that even short-range communications were being affected. He could shout through his armor, but that would give away their position, and there was no way he was allowing anyone on his team to open their helmets or remove their gear until the vessel was cleared.

  As they passed the three Shican, his people put a few more rounds into them for good measure. They made the mistake of assuming the alien bastards were dead once before, which led to the new scars on his armor, and that wasn’t happening again.

  He scanned the connecting corridor, but it was a dead end. Before he could turn back toward the other direction, a loud boom filled the space, and one of his team members’ defensive fields deployed to catch the large projectile.

  His entire team poured a volley of fire down the corridor before taking cover in the same side passage they had just passed. The Shican who had fired at them ducked behind the wall before the return fire arrived.

  Travers caught a glimpse of the armored form before he vanished and cursed under his breath. They had finally encountered a Shican cyborg.

  With communications being down, he had restricted his team to mode two on the FE rifles, so no shooting through walls. He did so sparingly, but with them closing in on the bridge and possible command-level prisoners, he couldn’t take the chance to fire blindly around a corner. They were going to have to deal with the cyborg before moving forward.

  Travers motioned one of his people over and spun the man around. He pulled a small drone off the man’s carrier pack and turned it on.

  The connection was extremely weak, even while holding it in his hands. Travers sighed, then reached down to his belt pouch and pulled out a small container. He stuck the container on the front of his armor, the little probe on the back connecting directly to his suit. Then he pulled out the other end of the fiber optic cable and attached it to the drone.

  The signal instantly cleared up. He motioned for the drone operator to connect to his armor the same way.

  Once he was connected, the man flew the drone down the hallway while Travers prepared to take his shot. The range of the cable was limited to a few hundred meters, but that should be more than enough.

  The drone reached the intersection and was instantly struck by a projectile, but it lasted just long enough for him to calculate how far down the corridor his target was. Five rounds hissed through the surrounding walls, and there was a howl of agony from their target, followed by running footsteps.

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  The injured cyborg had chosen to flee, making moving forward much riskier for his team.

  ***

  Hessari clamped his muzzle tight as he wrapped a bandage around his wounded arm. The humans’ weapons were impressive with their ability to punch through walls. If he could take just one of them down and get his hands on their weapons, he could easily turn their situation around.

  Unfortunately, their armor was making that extremely difficult. He had caught the humans off guard, yet their armor had stopped his projectile. He knew a defensive field when he saw one, but how had they miniaturized it enough for an individual to use?

  Had he voiced such a question out loud, he might have been deemed too independent. He was a soldier, not a technologue; he should leave those sorts of questions to them.

  Hessari grunted as he pulled the bandage tight. He released the end from his mouth and panted slightly as he pulled his armor back on. He could hear the other guardians fighting off their own humans. The sounds of combat were growing closer, so he knew they were losing ground.

  He stood up, checked his weapons, and slowly opened the door to check the hallway. A human was standing right outside, his foot raised.

  Hessari braced himself, but the large human’s foot slammed into the door, sending him flying against the back wall of the storage room, despite his cybernetically enhanced strength. His helmet slammed into the bulkhead, making him see stars for a moment. He quickly shook off the disorientation with the help of his implants as the human rushed into the room.

  He snarled and drew his laser pistol, holding the firing stud down. The beam struck true, but the human’s armor soaked it up as he covered the short distance between them and smashed the weapon aside with a powerful strike.

  If Hessari didn’t know any better, he would have assumed the human was cybernetically enhanced as well. Instead of dwelling on that possibility, he drew his claw with his other hand and sliced it across the human’s torso in an upward arc, hoping to catch a weak spot or joint in the armor.

  The blade barely even left a shallow line across the tough composite of the human’s armor. Hessari ducked a blow that would have caved his head in if the dent in the bulkhead was any indication.

  He tried to weave around the awkward human, but he was too focused on the alien’s hands and missed the knee that exploded upward.

  Hessari managed to twist sideways and take the blow to his shoulder instead of his chest, but the blow staggered him back against the wall once again.

  ***

  When Travers realized the Shican cyborg had retreated to a small room, he thought subduing it would be much easier. He was regretting that choice. The damn thing fought like a demon, and the only reason Travers could keep up was thanks to his extra training from the Asgardians. Even so, it took two more of his team members to come in and help him subdue the target.

  Travers stepped back, breathing heavily as the unconscious Shican lay face down on the floor. He held up the broken stun stick and threw it away. It had been completely useless. They were going to need something stronger if they ever tried to take prisoners again.

  The Shican cyborg was trussed up with his hands and arms bound behind his body in thick metal restraints. He really hoped the sedatives that Eden’s End had developed for use on Shican anatomy worked as advertised. They couldn’t afford to have an angry weapon wake up aboard the shuttle.

  Travers ran his hand across the dozens of new scars in his armor. They were superficial, but half of his optical sensors were a fuzzy grey from the laser burn on his helmet.

  Another second, and the beam would have cut through the armored faceplate.

  Knowing he couldn’t take point anymore, Travers nominated someone else on his team. He picked up the secured prisoner and followed along.

  He could hear gunfire growing closer. Some of it was from the Shican weapons, but he could hear the zip crack of FE rounds far more often. Soon enough, they were standing outside a thick hatch.

  Travers grunted in annoyance at not being the first team to arrive. He took solace in the fact that his team was the only one with a prisoner. Something the other teams were nodding in approval at.

  It took a few more minutes to gather more teams to the door, and a quick link of their suits managed to cut through the jamming long enough to show the enemy wasn’t waiting in ambush. They were cowering on the far side of the bridge.

  The scene was so out of character for the Shican that Travers felt momentary pity for them. Then he reminded himself that they had started the war, and any pity he felt evaporated.

  Explosives were placed around the door and detonated, but the hatch was made from stern stuff, and they had to repeat the breaching charges three times before the door finally fell inward.

  The Shican didn’t exactly give up; they simply hissed and swiped at them from the corner of the bridge, like trapped animals. It was one of the most pathetic things Travers had ever seen. One of the teams had brought pulse rifles, and those worked a whole lot better than the stun batons. After a few well-placed shots, all the fight was knocked out of the alien cats. They were secured, and the teams moved back to their exit points, leaving two teams to guard the bridge in case they missed any hidden Shican.

  That wasn’t likely, considering someone turned off the Shican’s emergency power shortly after the bridge raid, and with it went the Shican’s electronic interference. With the suits fully functional once again, finding the remaining Shican wasn’t all that hard.

  The rest of the ship was cleared, their prizes taken back to the shuttles, and then they headed back to the fleet. Travers’ job was complete. Now that Alex was back, it was time to let him and the other engineers examine the enemy vessel.

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