There was a screech and then a spurt of blood as the ola collapsed and the others went back into cover. By others, Jace meant all of them. All of the enemies that are wearing Shadows’ armor hid behind cover.
Before Jace could react, Nila dashed down the hall straight toward the nearest one. Jace groaned and ran toward the second nearest one. Nila managed to get to the enemy before they realized what was going on. She proceeded to pull out the enemy’s knife and stab them several times with it. Disabling the shielding and then killing them.
Jace was almost to his target when he felt a scorching across his midsection and then felt another scorch against the side of his face. The second one he even spotted at the last moment but was moving too slow to react to. But as it hit his head he could feel part of the side of his skin on his head melt off, likely showing off the meatiness underneath.
But it failed to kill or cause crippling damage. He was blind in his right eye, but he managed to turn his head enough that he was not blinded in both eyes. He could still see in his left eye as he managed to make it to his target.
He grabbed his target and slammed them hard into the wall. There was a momentary flash before their shielding was disabled. He then spun the mar’talic’s body around and used them as a living shield as he returned fire.
The mar’talic was still dazed as he began making his way down the hallway. The enemies began returning fire for a moment until a shot hit the mar’talic and he screamed in pain. Then they switched to Nila, but she hid behind them.
After a moment of agonizing pain where Jace made his way toward them they seemed to come to a decision. He does not know whether it was him and his undoubtedly horrendous appearance or the fact that he was using their comrade as a living shield. But something caused them to suddenly decide to change their tactics.
They holstered and put away their weapons as they ran forward drawing their knives. Or at least thai is what Jace figured they were all doing. He could not tell because he could only see half the hallway.
Jace raised the living shield and charged straight for them. He fired five quick shots that caused the plasma pistol to overheat, but he just tossed it at them. When he was close enough to one of them he materialized his element blade as a gladius. Then he cut through the living shield, tossing the top half over their heads as a terror and distraction tactic.
One that worked perfectly on the nearest one as they were looking at the flying top half of their comrade. Making them wholly unprepared for when Jace’s gladius cut through their body at a diagonal angle, killing them instantly. Jace then searched for his next target, finding the enemies had completely broken rank and were moving backwards toward their boarding ship.
Some of them were smartly firing backwards while moving. But most of them were retreating by running away in a panic. Which was both good and bad.
Jace launched himself forward off the ground, almost instantly hearing one of the enemies chanting some words or maybe a name? It was not in one of the few languages he had learned yet. He would ask Nila later what it meant.
Jace cut through another enemy but this time they kept their cool because as they were dying they dropped a triggered plasma grenade. The light was blinking and making a faint noise as the chemicals inside mixed together. A desperate bid to kill or stop him.
Jace kicked it towards the retreating enemies. It entered into the crowd and an explosion of plasma had most of them on the ground groaning in pain. A few unlucky ones were dead or clearly about to die. Then the few lucky ones were making it to the airlock and sealing themselves inside.
Jace could hear the computer complain as they failed to seal the hatch. Jace made a line straight for the door controls while Nila finished stabbing her target. "Cowards! Do not run!" She then began moving toward the ones already on the ground that were sobbing in pain.
Jace almost arrived at the door as the ship disconnected and pulled away from the airlock. The inner doors automatically began closing as air escaped the ship and everything was pulled towards it. But the inner doors were stopped from closing by an unconscious or probably dead body.
Jace felt himself lifted up and pulled towards the door but he caught himself on the partially closed door and crouched down. He began operating the airlock controls while he could feel his clothes or what remained of them attempting to peel off his skin.
He closed the outer airlock doors and the suction stopped causing him to fall on the ground by the inner airlock door. Now the only noise was the sound of the inner air lock doors repetitively failing to close because of the body that was blocking it from closing in the first place.
Jace climbed up and began looking at the controls. After a few seconds the inner airlock doors opened. "Solisa, I know you are listening. Remind me in the future to go over human ship security features with the General later. I can think of a few things that would make repelling or killing boarding parties easier."
"Was that it?" Nila asked as she walked up to join him by the airlock door.
"It is for the moment." Jace confirmed as he could hear synchronized footsteps and turned around to see the Venture’s security force had arrived and they slowed down at what they saw. "Come on, let’s get back to the bridge to get an update from Solisa. Hopefully they have figured out what is going on."