Lucky realized after a moment that his nanobots had slapped a skin graft over his face as space poured into the control room. He slapped his combat visor shut and felt the skin instantly roll back, and he was sighted again.

Empire Marines poured into the room.

The first one took four shots in the stomach from Jiang, who somehow had her rifle up and firing. She had been farthest from the blast, and her boots had remained locked down to the metal floor.

Jiang pumped in more rounds, but the numbers weren’t in their favor, and two men quickly managed to bull-rush past their dead buddy.

Lucky felt the soft sensation of drones sliding out of his suit as Rocky got her defenses hot.

He shoved off hard, flying through the gravity-less room, hoping to close the distance before they could get off a shot, but these were trained and prepared Marines. His chances of taking them by surprise were almost zero.

The closest one fired his rifle. Lucky felt the pluck of his spiders and dipped his shoulder, feeling the hot sensation of energy as it flew past his shoulder, buzzing his head.

Close.

Lucky felt the old knot in his stomach that always came when killing needed to be done. It didn’t thrill him like it once did, but he still got that old rush if he was honest with himself. He saw the red mist swirling at the edges of his vision.

He shoved it away as he clamped his jaw down so hard that he felt his teeth crack.

Back into your bottle, you demon piece of shit.

He juked his other shoulder, anticipating the second shot and waiting to take a slug from his buddy. Dodging one rifle at close range was something his spiders could do. Two men concentrating their fire would surely overwhelm even his spiders, and certainly his reaction time.

But the other figure wasn’t firing. It took Lucky a second to understand why, and judging from the way the Marine was staring down at his arm, it was taking him some time to figure it out as well.

The front half of his rifle had been lopped off, and a good chunk of his hand with it.

April slammed into the man as she shoved her pistol under the lip of his helmet. She fired into his neck, and blood splattered outward in slow-motion droplets. The force bent the Marine’s head backward and sent him flailing into the soldier behind him. April leapt on both of them, screaming gutturally.

The man in front of Lucky fired again, so close that he couldn’t miss.

But he did miss. Lucky had fired his skyskimmers a moment before, and the shot sizzled under him as he barreled into the Marine, smashing into the man and using him as a battering ram to shove him backward into the explosive hole that the Marine team had ripped in the side of the control room. Several of the Empire Marines flew backwards, and the rest were thrown to either side.

“Damn it, Lucky!” screamed Malby, who was smashed against the opposite wall. Lucky realized too late that the backwash from firing his skyskimmers in the small space had caught Malby and sent him flying.

Lucky landed on top of a Marine who tried to turn and pull something from his waist that might have been a grenade. Before he could do so, Lucky smashed his arm across his body and slapped the device away.

The man had something that looked like a pin in his hand.

“Rocky!”

A drone flashed by Lucky’s face, scooped up the grenade, and shot out the opening. A flash of light was followed by a rolling energy wave that crashed back through the opening and threw Lucky backwards across the small control room.

He smashed into the far wall and took a moment to get his bearings. The grenade must have been Da’hune tech. The blast was at least twice what he would expect. It had killed at least four of the Empire Marines. Two more had been shot by Jiang.