26-Jul-2005
My apologies for the delay... hopefully those few Otto fans out there can forgive me. Anyway, here's the next part, full of action and adventure and big explosions! C&C is, as always, desperately welcome...
I couldn't sleep that night. Lying awake, staring at the underside of the bunk above me, I tried to figure out what I was going to do. From the beginning I had assumed that once I'd found Zechs, I'd find my answers, whether I liked them or not. Now... Zechs was literally within arm's reach. All I had to do was walk up to him and ask.
Then what?
That was the million-credit question. It was obvious that Zechs hadn't recognized me today. Part of that was no doubt due to me doing my damnedest not to get noticed, but the other... . Zechs wasn't just part of White Fang. He was the leader--the new voice of the resistance, Quinze's charismatic figurehead. What the hell did he think he was doing? First OZ, then 'Ambassador Peacecraft'... . and now this. There was something seriously wrong with all this. Was Zechs trying to infiltrate White Fang like I had? But why? What could he hope to accomplish?
The Zechs that I'd known would never have joined up with an asshole like Quinze. Something had changed for him, and I didn't know what that was. He'd already proved he had a nasty habit of treating subordinates as expendables. If I revealed who I was, and cornered Zechs... would he do it again? Throw me to the wolves? All it would take was two words--OZ spy--and I'd be sucking vacuum.
Did I even stand a chance of bringing Zechs to his senses? For as long as I'd known him, Marquise had always gone his own way... but he'd never been a traitor. Did he hate Khushrenada so much now that he'd set himself against Earth out of spite? It was the only thing I could think of that made sense. And if it was true, then I stood a snowball's chance in hell of stopping him.
So where did that leave me? With my ass in one hell of a crack, that's where. I'd already committed myself--there was no way to back out of White Fang now. Not without raising a lot of questions I didn't have answers to. I couldn't go back--and I couldn't go forward, not until I knew Zechs' true intentions. I didn't like it, but the only thing I could do was sit tight and try to formulate a contingency plan or three. I just hoped to hell that my guardian angel was paying a bit more attention this time around.
Time was running out, and I'd pussyfooted around long enough. If the Tallgeese had been there, I would have been tempted to monkey with it. But Zechs had apparently traded up somewhere along the way; he'd brought along a new red MS I didn't recognize. That Suit had its own team of engineers, which was fine by me. At the risk of sounding superstitious, that MS seemed... .off, somehow. I didn't want to have anything to do with it. Besides, working on Zechs' MS would mean I'd likely get recognized, and I couldn't take that kind of risk.
Instead, I escalated my own sabotage attempts, doing all the damage I could without getting caught. The MDs weren't easy to tweak, but I managed to make them at least a bit slower, a little less responsive... giving the Earth forces whatever edge I could. There were also a couple of Tauruses left over--lemons, basically, who for one reason or another we could never get quite up to battle-ready status. Picking out the worst of them, I threw every spare moment I had into bringing it online. We'd never managed to successfully integrate the Zero system in, so I shut it down, leaving the hardware where it was and loading up the original OS. I'd cobbled in some of the Virgos' advanced shielding systems during the retrofit, loading it up on the armor and defensive capabilities. It was a stone bitch--but in the end I had a battle-worthy Taurus that no one knew about. It was my ace in the hole. I was going to do my best to keep it that way, even though I hoped I never had to use it.
The Libra had barely been finished before Zechs decided to throw us into the fray. I wasn't surprised--where Marquise goes, trouble follows. Though in all honesty, it was OZ who forced his hand. Some bright boys in OZ had decided that the only way to take care of White Fang was to take a colony hostage. So they landed a couple squads of Tauruses on L3's C421, took control, and issued White Fang an ultimatum: Surrender, or we blow up the colony.
Where had I heard that one before?
It didn't work any better this time around, either. Any hopes I'd had that Marquise would be reasonable curled up and died an early death once I heard his response. There was no way he was going to back down now. Not with Quinze behind him, busy throwing more rocket fuel on the fire. I don't even think the word 'surrender' is in Zechs' vocabulary. But then, I didn't think that 'genocide' was in there either--which is why I couldn't believe it when we received orders to target the Libra's main array on the colony. It even seemed to shake up my fellow rebels a bit. Killing Ozzies and Earthers was one thing, but these were *colonists*. Weren't they the ones we were supposedly fighting for?
But they followed orders anyway. There was nothing I could do--I wasn't assigned anywhere near the main array, and there was no heroic gesture I could have made that would have stopped them from firing. All I could do was pray that the flaws the Gundam scientists had built into the system would somehow be enough to keep C421 from being destroyed.
Someone must have been listening. Everybody and their cousin decided to show up to defend L3--including several Gundams, though it was anyone's guess who they were really fighting. Khushrenada denounced the OZ troops responsible for taking the colony hostage as rebels and mutineers. That was good enough for Zechs, apparently, and the Libra fired--but at the Earth, not L3.
It was a obvious challenge to Romefeller, not to mention Khushrenada--Zechs' little way of saying 'Come and get me.' When Marquise wanted to throw down the gauntlet, he did it in a big way. The fact that he'd nearly annihilated an entire colony, not to mention a stray Gundam or two, didn't seem to matter much.
The shit hit the fan fast after that.
Those of us belowdecks weren't lucky enough to have front-row seats to whatever posturing was going on in the bridge, but there were computers everywhere, most of them tied into the sensor network. We could see the troop numbers OZ was moving into place around MO-II. Even I was intimidated--stationed on the main power relay for the weapons systems, I had to fight to keep my hands steady. I'd never seen that many mobile suits in one place: there were thousands of them, with more showing up all the time. That was a helluva lot of firepower... and it was all aimed at us.
The air was tight. The engineers down at the main array kept throwing each other uneasy sideways glances. Techs, even spacer techs, aren't used to being on the front lines. As impressive as this battle station was, my 'comrades' were starting to realize that there was no way out if the battle turned against us. No one abandoned post--it would have been pointless anyway--but there was a new tang of fear in the air. I took a certain amount of satisfaction out of that. It's one thing to talk about taking down OZ. But when you're facing down several battalions of MS, with Khushrenada himself leading the way, suddenly it doesn't seem quite so easy.
Zechs didn't waste time. Once OZ's forces were lined up nice and neat, the orders came down to fire the main array at MO-II. I lagged behind as much as I dared, but I didn't have my finger on the button--another engineer named Steadman did. Zechs' earlier trigger-happy ways had stood the White Fang crew in good stead, unfortunately. They were able to prep the cannon for firing in a minimum of time. All I could do from my station was tweak the power settings to deliver the maximum amount of power needed for firing--and hopefully create the maximum amount of feedback to fry that damn thing out of existence.
Steadman was doing final checks, the conscientious bastard. "Main relays?"
"All green!"
"Targeting?" That question was almost ridiculous. MO-II made a damn big target.
"Targeting at convergence point thirty-four point oh-six-one. Coordinates confirmed from bridge. Target set!" The targeting officer was an engineer I'd never worked with before, pale-faced and determined. Scuttlebutt had it that the last targeting officer had manage to fry himself on amped-up board. This must be his relief; he didn't look any too happy to be put in the hot seat.
"All right. Energy levels at output levels and holding." Steadman entered the last command. Even from where I was, I could see his hand hesitate a bit--but only for a bit--before hitting 'return'. "We're ready to go!"
There was an audible hum as the firing sequence started, drawing power from Libra's main reactor core and building it up to the critical mass necessary for discharge. Even behind all the shielding, I could feel my hair prickle under the static charge building up in the air. I had to fight the sudden urge to pray. Instead I watched my console with hot eyes, muttering under my breath. "... come on, you bitch. Don't disappoint me now... ."
The array fired. All the voltage in the station dropped, lights flickering and backups kicking on as the Libra shuddered. The residuals of the blast whited out our sensors for a full five seconds, leaving us blind in the aftermath. Which was just as well, because the firing crew had their own shit to deal with as the cannon overheated.
Sparks flew everywhere as boards blew, taking fragile solid- and poly-state circuitry with them. Steadman was on the speaker, attempting to control the chaos--"Fire control team to the main array! Cut the power now!" I cheerfully disregarded that order, fumbling around in what I hoped was a convincing panic-stricken state. Cutting the power to the nonessentials, I left the main conduits open to burn through relay switch after relay switch. With everything else going on--they'd expected something like this, but things were still blowing out faster than they could keep up--Steadman never noticed, and it took several minutes for the crew chief on the relay team to catch on.
"Adler! What the fuck do you think you're doing?! You fucking idiot--shut it down! Shut it down now!"
"Sorry, sir!" Busted--but the damage had been done. I started flipping switches, cutting the main array out of the network. There was smoke everywhere. Paneling was being ripped out by frantic techs as they tried to assess just how much they'd lost, and whether it needed to be fixed or replaced. From the damage visible on the main floor, Zechs wasn't going to get a second shot out of this thing any time soon. And as the sensors cleared and data began rushing in, the news was better than I'd dared hope. Somehow--maybe due to a last-minute course change, maybe due to targeting's jitters--the main blast had missed the center of MO-II. Instead it had hit to one side, carving a good chunk out of the far edge of the satellite. The damage was still severe, but nowhere near what it could have been. If the blast had hit head-on, the way Zechs had intended, OZ would have lost its staging point, and MO-II would be nothing more than an expanding cloud of space debris.
Quinze was probably having a stroke right about now. I hoped so, at least.
With the main array down, White Fang would be forced to deploy their Mobile Dolls. I could already hear the priority orders rattling through the coms to the launch bay crews. Backup teams and pilots were running through the halls--at a guess, Quinze had ordered them out too as fringe support. Given the kind of battle White Fang was facing, there was no point in keeping them in reserve. No resource would be wasted. Hell, with the Dolls now going into action, even those of us who'd worked on them had been reassigned. There would be no hot turns, not on this one. The Mobile Dolls would keep going until they'd either won or were turned into scrap metal. And if OZ managed to win here, then White Fang was done with. Everyone knew it, especially Quinze.
None of us knew how long the battle would last. We also didn't have the luxury of sitting hunched over the viewscreens. The main array wasn't going to fix itself, and unless I missed my guess, the Libra was going to see some face-to-face action herself soon. Her defenses were pretty solid, but without the main array she didn't have much in the way of teeth--it was only a matter of time before some enterprising David decided to take on this particular Goliath.
In the meantime, Stedman had finally gotten his head screwed on straight. "Rossi, Beeldt! Start patching the feedback circuitry." The guy was turning into a regular tin-plated dictator. "Adler! Grab a crew and start hauling spares from storage. Get what you need, but fix those main conduits--the backups aren't enough for this kind of power load."
Considering that I had no intention of doing any such thing, I thought my response was pretty mild. "On it." I snagged a snot-nosed rookie tech. "You--Bobby."
"It's Harry."
"Right--Harry." At this point his name could be pieface for all I cared. "You're coming with me." I cast an eye around for a couple other moronically-inclined individuals. "You! And you! You guys as well." They were older engineers, a man and a woman I knew only by reputation. They had know-how, but no creativity. In a pinch, they'd have to do.
I dragged them off with a minimum of quibbling. The main array was the minimum distance necessary from the main engines that supplied it with power, but that was still a good amount of hallway--and conduit--that had to be covered. The storage lockers were placed at points along the line, which made finding the tools and spare parts we needed easier than I wanted it to be. I had to curb my own impulse to organize my little crew to do what needed to be done. Instead I let them bumble around on their own, attempting repairs and scrambling for parts. When they did come for instructions, I tried to be as vague and confusing as possible... which for me wasn't very. But hey, at least it was an attempt. It grated more than I thought, being a saboteur instead of the engineer I was trained to be. But I'd never let my pride get in the way of what needed to be done, and I wasn't about to start now.
One of the conduit relays was right next to the primary launch bay catapults. Through the bay doors, I could see distant lights flashing as MS were moved into launch position... including Zechs' Epyon. Watching that thing get prepped, I had to fight off my misgivings. I'd known Zechs would decide to be in the thick of things. Khushrenada had taken his challenge, after all. He was probably figuring on killing the general personally--and there wasn't damn thing I could do about it. Admitting that left a bitter taste in my mouth, but I had to face facts. I'd been chasing after my answers, but it would never matter to Zechs whether I got them or not. Marquise had always gone his own way.
I turned back to my work. There was an eerie silence once the last MS was launched--a waiting kind of silence. Outside, men were fighting and dying. In here--all we could do was work, and wait.
We were about midway through the repairs when the first buzz started filtering down through the crew. Gundams. The word hopped from man to man, and all of a sudden the stress levels jumped about three hundred percent. The Gundams had made it abundantly clear that they weren't siding with anyone, much less White Fang. But that made them no less of a threat. Howard's wild cards were living up to the name.
"Gundams, sir?" the kid asked me, trying to find some reassurance. "Do you think they're here to take down OZ?"
I shrugged. "Who knows? Better keep your eye on what you're doing instead, Bobby--"
"Harry."
"--Harry, or you're gonna blow off your hand." I tapped the live circuit he had been just about to cut. "Worry about this instead."
"Shit!" Embarrassed, the kid ducked his head and made like he was busy isolating the circuit. I wished I could take my own advice, but that was impossible. The Gundams--I'd been through too many close encounters. I *knew* what they could do, and the idea had sent a spike of ice straight down my spine. Getting out of here had suddenly gotten a lot more urgent.
Apparently I wasn't the only who thought so, either. Shortly after that, the Libra's main engines kicked in, and we started to move. This deep in the heart of her, there was no way of knowing if we were moving towards the battle or away from it, but we could all feel the teeth-rattling bass rumble of those thrusters through the deck plating. Leaving my crew to their fumblings, I headed over to the nearest com station.
Switching over to my crew chief, I toggled it open. "It's Adler. What's going on?" After a few seconds, the guy came into view on the little screen and scowled at me.
"Can't you see I'm fucking busy, Adler? We're moving the Libra to a better position, and that's all you need to know. Now get back to work!"
"Yes, sir." I hit the 'off' switch, muttering under my breath. "Fucking prick." I hated being left in the dark. But there was nothing I could do about it now, and I hated that even more.
Bobby and the others had almost made it to the reactor on the repairs. I was headed back their way, still trying to figure a way out of this mess, when the proximity alarms went off. Then came the first shuddering impact, knocking us off our feet, and the one thing you never, ever want to hear in space, the horrible, screaming crunch of metal tearing--
--and then a second later, the world ended.
Or at least it seemed like it.
I woke up coughing, hacking as I tried to breathe the thick black smoke that was filling the corridor, half-flattened under a piece of deck plating. Sirens were wailing everywhere: evacuation sirens, fire sirens, hull integrity alarms all turning into a panicky chorus of noise. The fire hadn't reached where I was yet, but given the amount of smoke, it was probably eating up atmosphere at an insane rate. And while I couldn't hear the distinctive whistle of decompression, I could feel it--a fierce, unnatural wind rushing through the Libra as our oxygen was gradually sucked away into the black hole of space.
It was the Peacemillon, though I didn't know it at the time. Howard, insane bastard that he was, had decided to ram his ship right up the Libra's nose, and for the most part had succeeded. He'd taken out the main array, at least--considering how close we'd been, it was amazing I woke up at all. I scrabbled my way out of the rubble, heaving aside the metal on top of me and staggering to my feet. The corridor wasn't even recognizeable, bent and twisted, all identifying markers scorched away. Further down there were bodies... I headed towards them instinctively. Most were very messily dead, the odor of burnt flesh adding to the stench. I found Bobby-Harry... he was lying in a corner, curled around a metal spike the explosion had shoved through his ribcage, his eyes dead and surprised in the half-charred mask of his face. I checked for a pulse anyway, not really knowing why. There wasn't one... .no life, no movement, just the spreading pool of his blood seeping through the debris.
There were others... I couldn't find the other two from my team, though they should have been nearby. But there was no telling how far they might have been thrown. Hell, if they had half a brain, they would have gotten the hell out of here. Assuming they were still alive. I wasn't the only one up and moving--well, staggering anyway. Through the haze I could see fire control teams working on the edges of the huge caved in sections. No rescuers, not yet... maybe not at all, from what I could see. If other parts of Libra were as damaged as the central section, then there probably wasn't anyone to spare. I was on my own.
I started climbing out. It was difficult, even with the low grav--the corridor was partially intact, but the central area where the main array had been located was just gone, reduced to a slagged mass of twisted metal and open space edged by jagged bits of decking infrastructure. I ended up limping my way towards the main reactor, which seemed to have escaped the worst of the damage. After hauling my ass up into the mostly-intact A block, I was able to find a locker with an intact emergency pack. Yanking the mask on, my first lungful of clean air started me coughing all over again. It was all I could do to limp my way to the nearest terminal and punch up the systems status. The system was damaged, but still up; the image fritzed and wobbled as it showed me just how badly the Libra was wounded. It was bad, but the Libra wasn't dead yet. More importantly, the outer MS bays were relatively untouched--if I could get to the one where I'd stashed my Taurus, I might actually have a snowball's chance in hell of making it out of here alive. It was a fair distance from where I was, but... Then I read the rest of readouts.
" ...fuck," I muttered, voice echoing in the mask. I slammed a fist into the wall in frustration. The Libra was still moving. I didn't know what they were up to, but... I could think of a few possibilities, all of them pretty nasty. I couldn't just let Quinze do whatever the hell he wanted. Even half-dead, the Libra was one hell of a ship. It deserved a better end than whatever he had planned.
"Otto, you're an idiot," I said out loud, turning away from the terminal. "A damned motherfucking MORON." The power plant that fed the main engines weren't far from here... if I could get to it, and if no one interfered, I could set it to overload... . If it didn't destroy the Libra outright, it would at least throw off Quinze's plans. "And I'm going to fucking KILL Zechs. Assuming I don't die first." Of course, it was in the opposite direction of my Taurus, which meant my chances of dying just got that much bigger.
" ...damn it." I ground my teeth and headed down the corridor. I'd come too far to leave this half-finished.
I couldn't take the direct route to the main engines. That had been blocked off by whatever had punched into the side of the Libra. Instead I circled around, climbing over piles of wreckage, using maintenance accesses to circumvent the blocked areas of corridor. There were fewer sirens in this area, though the haze was still pretty thick. I snagged a gun from a dead body on the way down--I had the feeling I'd need it. The Libra was shivering under my fingers... .she was too massive for me to hear anything, but I could feel the vibrations of multiple hull impacts under my hands as I crawled through her innards. It looked like the battle had well and truly come to us.
Unlike most ships, the Libra didn't have just one power plant, but five, one for each block. It took that many to supply enough power for both the engines and the weapons systems, in addition to all the other necessary support systems. At best, I would only manage to get to the one in A block--but that one was the central plant, which would be more than enough. I'd learned the Libra inside and out in the weeks I'd been onboard. Setting up an overload would be easy... assuming no one stood in my way. Stepping down from the last rung, I looked up and down the massive main corridor. It was empty, though I could hear the echoes of fighting further down. I checked the safety on my gun, and then moved towards the red-marked doors that led to the power plant.
I pushed open the door casually, trying to look like I knew what I was doing. It wasn't hard... the mask over my face helped. The plant was down to a skeleton crew... it looked like they'd suffered some secondary damage. There were a couple dead bodies here too, shoved near the wall, coats laid over their faces in a hasty attempt at respect. It was obvious that the engineers that remained didn't have much in the way of time... there were three or four of them left, working frantically to repair something--feedback connectors, looked like. Normally a simple job, but without any spare parts, I'd be amazed if they'd pull it off. Without them, if the plant decided to go critical... well, let's just say I was hoping they didn't succeed before I could do my part.
One of the engineers turned, reaching for a tool, and noticed me lurking. "Hey! You there! What're you doing?"
I lifted my hand, showing I'd heard. "Adler, from C-section." My voice echoed weirdly through the mask. "I managed to make it out. Thought I'd see if I could help."
"C-section? Holy shit." The engineer eyed me with new respect. "You've got some serious luck, man. Yeah, we need help. Can you go monitor the reaction levels? We need an extra set of eyes while we're workin' on this."
"I'm on it." Perfect. The controls were out of sight of the other engineers... maybe I could get away with this without ending up in a gun battle after all. I headed for the control area, and once out of sight, ducked over to an primary control room. Punching up the data, I scanned it. The fusion core was already unstable, fluctuating wildly as the dampers around it failed and auxilaries kicked in. It was almost pathetically easy to cut out even more of the control systems--override codes weren't necessary when you could simply cut them off from their source. It was quick and dirty, and in about fifteen minutes I was going to have every siren in the world screaming in my ears when the fusion mass hit critical levels... but it would suffice. I tried not to think too hard about those engineers, along with all the others that would die when it went. They knew the risks when they signed on. Besides, it was my ass on the line right alongside them.
Then one of the engineers came to see how I was doing, and blew my cover but good.
I'd never gotten his name... maybe I would have recognized him from the mess hall, if he hadn't been covered head to toe in soot and grease. As it was, all I could tell was that he was young, and dedicated--and sharp. He rounded the corner, and I snapped my head up. My guilt must have been written all over my face, because he hesitated in mid-step. Then the first siren went off, indicators going red under my hands, and I could see the realization dawning across his face. "You--!" He lunged. And I shot him.
It was instinct more than anything. I'd been trained, but... I'd never been in close-quarters combat in my life. And yet it was so fucking easy. My arm jerked up, my finger squeezed, three shots, just like on the range. And then the guy was falling backward, blood spraying, his chest full of holes.
"Scheisse!" Between the sirens and the gunshots--I lunged for the control room door, slamming it closed and locking it just as the others came running. I leaned there for a moment, hands shaking, trying not to look at the corpse I'd just made. The man was either dead or dying anyway... Given the number of people I was planning to kill, it was stupid how guilty I felt over this one.
"Adler! Open up!" The hammering on the steel door woke me out of my daze, and sent me stumbling to the other wall. "Rosen? Rosen! You in there? Adler! What the fuck is going on?" There was some other muttered conversation I couldn't hear, then a sharp, "--what are you, stupid? Don't shoot at that in here! Go get a torch!"
Well, fuck. I'd managed get myself cornered but good. I looked at the controls... the reaction was still building. It would take a bit of time--but it was only moments away from getting past the point of no return. After that, no one could stop it, and everyone in this block would be crispy-crittered but good, assuming we weren't vaporized outright. Including me.
Damn it. Planting my back against the far wall, I slid down it, facing the door. The gun was still in my hand--I had nine shots left. Enough to kill the first couple people that made it through, if I got lucky, if they didn't shoot me first. The pounding on the door had stopped, and I could hear the hiss of the cutting torch. That didn't take them long. It was funny, really. They wanted to get in so badly--and all I wanted to do was get out. Too bad we couldn't switch places.
They were halfway through the lock when Quinze's voice came over the ship's com, booming like the voice of God. "All personnel--we are initialising final thrust. Evacuate at your own discretion. I pray for your safety."
The com clicked off, along with the sound of the cutting torch. There was a long moment of silence. I couldn't believe what I'd just heard... and apparently neither could the guys outside. 'Evacuate at our own discretion'? In the middle of a firefight with MDs, Gundams, and God-only-knew what else? What kind of crap was that? And... final thrust? What the hell did that mean? Then I froze, remembering what I'd seen.
"Oh no... you're shitting me." The main array was gone. Libra had no weapons left, nothing that would change the course of the battle... except herself. " ...SonuvaBITCH." Quinze was going to ram.
I wasn't the only one who'd figured it out, apparently. There were some muffled shouts, and then I heard the clatter of tools falling to the floor. I cautiously got up and approached the door... Nothing. Dead silence. Gun at the ready, I eased it open. Sure enough, they'd bugged out. Guess they thought they'd take their chances with the Gundams. Glancing over at the panels, I hesitated, wondering if I should try to do more damage. One look at the readouts convinced me I'd done all I could do. This reactor was going to go critical in less time than I wanted to think about, and I could only hope it would toast Quinze's ass in the process.
So I ran. I knew I stood almost no chance of making my Taurus in time, but I had to try. I pounded down the corridors, cursing under my breath, the Libra shuddering and quaking around me as Quinze made his final move. In the back my head, a little voice faithfully counted down the time I had left--not much. Not enough.
I was almost at the MS bays when the Libra *lurched* in a way that shouldn't be possible for a battle station her size. It threw me off my feet, skidding against the floor and then bounced towards the ceiling as the already-shaky gravity failed completely. Grabbing for the nearest support, I hung on like I was drowning, listening to metal crunch and tear around me. Debris was being thrown around, floating everywhere. I could hear a distant roar, a sound that I couldn't recognize. An explosion? Or impact? I couldn't tell. Twisting aside just in time to avoid getting skewered by the business end of a broken I-beam, I threw myself in the general direction of the open doors of the bay.
Everything exploded around me. I had just enough time for my mental clock to stutter, and think too soon!... then fire erupted everywhere. The joins of the decks were tearing apart, pipes exploding in a hail of chemicals and sharp-edged shrapnel. I slammed into something, I don't know what--and felt my skin scorching and shredding under the blast. I'm sure I would have screamed, if I'd had the breath for it. I slammed into another unyielding surface. There was the sickening crunch of bone, a moment of disbelieving pain, and then I was... out.
End Part 5
(:./hope/fealty5)
