If there was ever a master of the unintended ambush, it was Fea.
One of the doors she passed by on her way through the pirate frigate's corridors slid open. Someone had forgotten to lock it. Fea stopped short in front of the doorway.
It opened up to a cargo hold. A gang of pirates looked out at her.
"Oh. Hello, boys."
The pirates roared and raised their guns. Fea leaped into motion, diving under the first wave of laser rifle fire. Her pistol snapped up and fired twice, both rounds caving in the faceplates of two pirates. She sprang off the floor into cover of a crate as gunfire tore up the deck around her. She had a few disk grenades left, and palmed one into her hand off her belt. Her thumb brushed the primer switch, giving her ten seconds to toss the explosive. She underhanded it with force, and the grenade bounced off the deck like a flat rock off a pond and cracked another pirate in the neck. He staggered for a moment, then threw himself flat as the grenade went off.
Fea reacted as a vibroblade skittered off her hard light armor. She pivoted and kicked out, hitting her attacker in the knee. He staggered, and Fea cut him down with a burst from her weapon. She ran out from cover, only to eat a dozen rounds to her shield in moments, sending it skittering into the red on her HUD. She retreated, ducking behind a container. She'd gotten a look at her attacker.
She was in a predicament. She was separated from her squad, almost out of ammo, almost out of shields, and squaring off with the biggest damn brujak she'd ever seen, armed with the biggest plasma cannon she'd ever seen.
All things considered, she liked her odds.
The brujak's amplified voice boomed through his helmet filters. "Give it up, Legion trash! You can't win!"
Fea glowered at him inside her hard light helmet. That was the best jibe he had? Really?
"Thirty seconds, Fea," Rasha said in her ear. Her allies were coming. She appreciated it. But she didn't think she'd need it.
The plasma cannon spun up, and would begin to fire in two seconds. Fea moved, her augmented body springing off the floor. She sighted her machine pistol and emptied the clip into the brujak's shields. He cackled as the rounds bounced off. But it wasn't Fea's intent to shatter the shield with her sidearm.
She defied conventional logic and ran towards the brujak just as his plasma cannon reached firing speed. With a flicker of thought, she directed the matrix of hard light energy running through her body to form her weapons. In a flash, she held glowing yellow knives between her fingers, each a few inches long and looking like nothing too threatening.
Just as the brujak started shooting, Fea jumped. Her newer implants augmented her agility. Being an enn'cief, she had strong legs, an evolutionary advantage entrenched in her species genes from evolving on a planet that was mostly forest. However, with the new adrenaline boosters sheathed in her leg muscles, she could now easily pop up fifteen feet with effort.
So she did, springing into the air with her knives held ready. Strong as the brujak was, it was hard to adjust the line of fire of a plasma cannon actively shooting. You had to commit. And the brujak had made a bad commitment.
Fea dropped like a rock as gravity took hold of her, angling her arm back as she did. The brujak struggled to get the plasma cannons barrel up and pointed at her. She was falling too fast for him to draw a bead.
She landed on his shoulders, her weight making him stagger backwards. With a cry of fury Feam jammed her hard light knives into the brujak's faceplate, then kicked off his shoulders and somersaulted over his head behind him.
"That the best you got?" the brujak cackled. "The tips of these things are nowhere near my-"
Fea shut him up with a snap of her fingers. She could've simply willed the knives to explode, as the hard light matrix was wired into her cerebellum and responded to her thoughts. But she liked using a snap of her fingers. It was a somatic component of sorts, a way of making absolutely sure her mental command was exactly what the matrix would respond to. It also had a finality to it. Snap. Boom. You're dead.
And the brujak was very dead, a smoking crater where his head had been a moment before. Fea didn't feel bad. These pirates had been doing a lot of damage to settlements and colonies within the range of their attack shuttles, both in terms of property and lives. The Federation had requested the Legion do something, and that's what they were doing. And it was nice to fighting pirates rather than her last major adversaries. There was less moral quandry to it.
Fea's large ear flicked as she heard several someones hurry into the cargo hold. After almost a month of working with them, she knew the cadences of Proto Squad's footsteps.
Rasha, an affrin who was a Legion veteran but was a couple years older than her, whistled as he slowed up coming into the room. His eyes scanned the fallen pirates. "Guess you didn't need backup after all," he said.
To his left was Bras, an ervicen with black fur and a scarred throat who didn't speak unless absolutely necessary because it was painful for him. He nodded approval at Fea's handiwork.
"She still shouldn't have wandered off like that!" said Aleen, a female multesi with yellow and green streaks dyed through her brown fur. She was also older than Fea, but had only been with the Legion for a year rather than Fea's several. "It's dangerous and unnecessary!"
"Relax, Aleen," Fea said as she walked up to them. Without a word Bras handed her a fresh power cell for her machine pistol, and Fea took it gratefully. "What's our status?"
Aleen looked like she wanted to continue grilling Fea about her recklessness, but she bit her tongue. "We're almost done. The leadership and about a third of the mercs have surrendered, but a few aren't letting up?"
"Casualties?" Fea asked as she started to walk down the hallway the others had arrived through.
"None on our side," Rasha said, his tail flicking in satisfaction. "As it should be."
"Good," Fea said, slapping the fresh power cell into her sidearm. "Let's wrap this up and go home."
By the time she and her squad joined up with the main Legion force, however, the work was almost already done. The pirates that had surrendered sat with their backs to the wall in the main hangar, arms cuffed and heads bowed as they were minded by several heavily armed Legionnaires. Fea's sensitive ears picked out gunfire deeper in the ship, but it was sporadic small arms fire rather than big guns. Things were almost done, then.
Directing the proceedings was Valain, commander of the Legion's Ninth Chapter and Fea's immediate superior. A strongly built multesi, he commanded an air of respect from his troops. Fea knew Aleen had a huge thing for him, despite the fact that he was at least ten years her senior, if not more. Fea wasn't one to judge.
She saluted as they came close. "Commander."
Valain nodded. "Good hunting, Fea?"
She nodded. "A few stragglers. Nothing I couldn't handle."
"You still shouldn't have," Aleen scolded. "You could've gotten hurt!"
"We all could've gotten hurt today," Fea countered. "It's kind of in the job description."
"That doesn't mean it's warranted to take unnecessary risks," Aleen said.
