Footsteps echoed in the corridor. Multiple hostiles, moving with tactical precision. They'd tracked us faster than expected.
Elena raised the weapon, and I realized with distant shock that her hands weren't shaking. My scattered engineer, my chaotic electrical specialist who could barely sit still during mission briefings, held that raider rifle with the steady competence of someone who'd done this before.
"Grew up in a rough neighborhood," she'd said earlier, like it explained everything. Like that casual admission encompassed whatever history had taught her to shoot with deadly accuracy.
The first raider rounded the corner.
Elena didn't hesitate. One shot, center mass, dropping him before he could raise his own weapon. The second hostile learned from his companion's mistake—came in low and fast, using debris for cover.
She adjusted her aim with fluid precision, waited for him to expose himself, fired. The shot clipped his shoulder, sending him stumbling back. Not a kill, but enough to make him retreat.
"How many more?" she called out in trade language, voice sharp and commanding.
Silence from the corridor. Then movement, they were regrouping, reassessing. They'd expected easy targets. Instead they'd found a woman who fought like a cornered predator.
I tried to focus on her datapad, and saw her fingers flying across the interface with her free hand. Somehow she was working on the engine repairs while simultaneously holding off hostiles. Multitasking at a level that should have been impossible.
She was magnificent.
"Engine power routing through secondary conduits," she muttered, more to herself than me. "Come on, come on?—"
More footsteps. They were coming from two directions now, trying to flank us. Elena's eyes tracked both corridors, calculating angles and odds with the same brilliant mind that rewired power grids.
"Three more hostiles approaching," I managed to rasp. My tactical implants were still feeding me data even if my body was failing. "Thirty seconds."
"Then I better work fast." Her fingers moved even faster across the datapad. "Just need to override the safety lockouts, reroute power through, yes!"
The shuttle's engines roared to life somewhere above us, the vibration rattling through the derelict's damaged structure. But we were still trapped down here, still pinned by hostiles who wouldn't let us reach the shuttle even if I could move.
"Can you stand?" Elena asked.
"No."
"Can you shoot?"
I looked at my hands. They were shaking, barely responsive. "No."
"Then hold on to me and try not to die. I'm getting us out of here."
She holstered her weapon, grabbed my arm, and hauled with strength that shouldn't have existed in her compact frame. My vision whited out from the pain as she dragged me upright, positioned herself under my shoulder to take my weight.
I was twice her height and probably four times her mass. This wouldn't work. Couldn't work.
But Elena Vasquez had apparently decided that physics was negotiable.
"Move." She half-carried, half-dragged me toward the corridor junction, away from the approaching hostiles. Each step sent fresh agony through my damaged torso, but I forced my legs to cooperate, tried to take some of my own weight.
Behind us, the raiders emerged into our previous position. Saw us moving. Opened fire.
Elena ducked into an intersecting corridor, plasma bolts scorching the air where we'd been seconds before. The shuttle was two levels up and fifty meters forward, might as well have been on a different planet given my current condition.
"Shuttle, this is Vasquez." She activated her comm, breathless but steady. "We need emergency extraction, lower cargo bay, now."
Er'dox's voice crackled back: "We can't dock there, structural integrity is compromised."
"I don't care if it's compromised. Hover close enough for us to jump. Vaxon's critically injured and we've got hostiles converging on our position."
Silence. Then: "Understood. Moving into position. Thirty seconds."
