Come Hell or High Water
- - - - - - -
The thud of a stray plasma bolt stung his fur as it impacted the wall behind him. Fox Mccloud pressed himself to the alloy bulwark, trusting his makeshift cover. Another two shots charred the hallway next to his leg. As he readied his blaster, a soothing, female voice came into his head.
"One on your left, fox, and two on your right. The one on the left is nervous."
Mccloud smiled, now feeling confident. There was a pause in the gunfire: two seconds, three seconds, four. On five he dashed forward, quickly but quietly. His gun was raised to his shoulder, sights on the intersection ahead. As he approached, he hugged the left wall, aiming for the pair around the corner. He inched around the angle, until he found the glint of a rifle. Fox squeezed the trigger, causing his target to grunt in pain and collapse. the other hostile froze, for just an instant. long enough to delay his aim. Fox cycled his bolt-rifle, before boring a hole in the mans head. Mccloud cycled, then pressed off the wall, cutting the angle left to find their third. He stood in the middle of the hallway, His aim unsteady and off-target. His bolt flew, and missed. Fox shot and saw the man crumple. The intersection went still. The vulpine scanned the crossroad before putting a fresh round into each corpse. Satisfied, he shifted back behind the corner and activated his comm.
"Krystal, did you manage to locate our target?"
He heard a gentle scoff enter his thoughts.
"It's a bit hard to reach through a dozen layers of metal and save your fur at the same time, love. Think I've hit my limit here, changing locations."
The male half-smiled, his eyes flicking to the side before pressing on down the left path.
//////
Krystal drew herself back from the ether and rose from her sitting position. She frowned, still deep in frustration. Finding their VIP was proving more difficult than she expected. The facility was big, and she had counted at least 15 lives within her range. She could tell their location, and depending on how close they were, their emotional state. Being a living radar kept her busy, but telepathy required her entire focus. She was essentially flinging her mind at a vague ball of emotion that couldn't respond. Reading their thoughts was the natural solution but physical contact wasn't practical in a combat zone. The feedback was hard for her to manage, anyway.
Krystal sighed and shook her head, before creeping out of her hiding spot. Her job was to find the target. If she wanted to do a complete search, she'd have to go lower, into the depths of the base.
While on the move her focus was split, reducing the range of her awareness. Still, the vixen relied on her far-sight to avoid hostiles as she went. Fox and the others were drawing a lot of attention, making it easier to slip past the hurried soldiers.
The blue vixen entered a stairwell and started to descend: two levels, three, four. After six or so, she stopped and felt her ears perk up. There was a sudden, unpleasant sensation in the back of her head. It was like a mystic wind that carried the fumes of a garbage fire. It forced itself on her far-sight. Wincing, she went further down, hoping that the odd discomfort would fade. It only intensified. As she went lower, the sensation of acrid, burnt waste filled her more and more. Finally, she decided she had gone far enough, and tried to probe the hallway on her current level. She squinted, mentally, into the space but it was like trying to see through a smokescreen. The young psychic had never experienced anything like it. She recalled one time, where she had tried to compete with peppy in a drinking game but that didn't really compare.
Stepping out into the hall, she was forced to look with her eyes. It was clear, and the passage seemed like any other in the facility, sleek and well lit. Krystal pressed on, forced to move much slower now. Not only was her psychic awareness crippled, her mind felt like it was being fumigated. She felt a silent hum in her earpiece, a comm notification. She welcomed the distraction, putting her hand up to her ear and opening the channel.
"Krystal. Update?"
It was Falco's voice. Apparently he hadn't been paying attention earlier.
"Working on it. I ran into some kind of weird interference, so it might be awhile."
The falcon clicked his tongue.
"Aight, well, just so you know, and our wonderful leader can back me up on this, I do not do well in enclosed spaces! I really, truly, have no idea why Slippy was given aerial support on this op, instead of me, ya know? He loves stooping and getting his hands dirty. He'd love these tiny rat trap walkways!"
Krystal pursed her lips and was about to respond when she felt a rush through the smoke. It was coming up from the other side of the wall. The fox dug her heel into the flooring and pivoted into an alcove, barely hiding herself before a patrol passed her. Two riflemen and a technician. She watched them run down the hall, the technician's plasma lathe jostling on his back. It was an older model, reeking of fuel and burnt grease. After a few agonizing seconds, they vanished deeper into the base. Krystal felt the urge to swear, loudly. Toggling her comm again she found Fox trying to placate his wingman.
"-eah but Falco, you're great in the pit, and you're taller than all of us! I can feel my joints for days after a full sortie, and this is worse for you? Come on."
"There's this beautiful thing called the stars, Fox. The sky? Really helps keep things in perspective for an ace pilot! Look, Krystal, honey, It's fine. Take your time, no rush, don't stress yourself. Just let me know as soon as you find our broad because I swear to god, I quit after we're done here."
The blue vixen rolled her eyes and dropped her hand without responding. She eyed the passage to the left, where the patrol had been going. It was moving in the opposite direction from the others. Perhaps their target was closer than she first thought. Trusting her intuition, she decided to tail them.
Krystal moved through the metal labyrinth, keeping her distance and following the smell of the lathe. She turned corner after corner, careful not to proceed too quickly. The blue vixen made her way, corridor to corridor, until the smell of fuel began to stagnate. Peaking over the edge and into the next hall, Krystal felt her eyes widen. There were three corpses strewn in front of her. They were messy, haphazard kills that had left blood on the wall in large smears. Krystal drew her sidearm and approached. As she got closer, she could tell that they were her patrol. The technician in question was pinned to the wall and missing his head. The flesh around the injury was cauterized, with the shaft of his plasma cutter lodged through his stomach. The riflemen were worse.
The fox curled her lip, feeling physical disgust mingle with her psychic discomfort. The latter had been growing steadily, the cloud of fumes turning acidic, stinging her mind. She had a sinking feeling the bodies were related. Krystal made her way to the end of the hall, and pressed herself flat, just before the corner. There was a deep breath, to calm herself. No use complaining about it. She rolled off her shoulder and into the new passage. Two more bodies lay directly ahead, at the intersection of a door and a left turn. The entrance was slightly ajar, with one of the corpse-legs wedged inside. The fox could just barely make out the sounds of hushed conversation.
She raised her gun and crept toward the doorway, keeping her grip loose and steady, just like she'd been trained. She inched forward, on the right-side wall, staying on the side of the door. Once she reached the intersection, she glanced down the left turn. Clear and clean. Her stance shifted as she prepared to breach. For the first time since leaving the stairwell, the psychic Cerinian reached out with her mind, desperate to gather any information she could. A wave of searing nausea made her recoil. It oozed out of the room, layer over layer, like a furnace burning filth. The soldier forced herself to stay submerged for a few moments, stiffening as if holding her breath. Through the smog she could see a masked presence. It bore through the thick veil, flickering with an obnoxious red glare. Next to it, so faint and dim that it could've been her imagination, was a potential other. Krystal grit her teeth and stepped in.
The room showed itself empty. Krystal stood, just past the doorway and moved her eyes from left to right. There were modules lining the far wall, with control panels embedded in them. The right side had lockers and the left empty chairs. In the center of the room was a single, large table, solid underneath. Above it was an air vent. The fox cleared her throat and tried her best to sound level and patient.
"I know you're here. Come out slowly, with your hands visible."
She waited a moment, then started her sweep. She began near the chairs, facing the table with her gun arm half extended. Thanks to her short probe, she suspected they were hiding near the center.
"There are two of you, hiding behind the table. I won't ask again."
Krystal steadied herself, leaning into the angle as she moved to inspect the far side of the obstruction.
"Hey, hi! Don't fucking shoot!"
With uncanny speed, a liquorish-colored blur shot up from where Krystal had pointed her gun. It was lanky and awkward, with horns on its head and skin like red, abused leather. It held a person, and a knife. Krystal, caught off-guard, quickly levied her weapon at the creature. She took in its strange appearance and then it's captive. Her eyes couldn't decide who to inspect more.
"I said hi dammit, don't just sit there like a retard."
