Chapter 68: Jammed Hunger

Sierra yanked his collar backward across the floor, dodging the second blade as the copied stance matched his previous footstep in the dark.

"Roll!" she shouted, throwing three thin wires across the armory threshold to trip the advancing clones.

Leo pushed off the floor with one trembling palm, coughing red foam while his fractured ribs ground together beneath his torn shirt.

"My core cannot drink their force," he wheezed, lunging forward with a quick swing of the blade to parry an incoming cut.

The impact rattled his elbow with raw physical shock, forcing him back two steps while Kage circled beneath the nearest clone.

Two lieutenants advanced through the smoke with matching posture, while a third officer tracked them with an active jammer plate resting at his collarbone.

The fourth copy circled wide along the perimeter, raising a serrated edge to cut off the only service exit behind them.

"They have Smith’s movement logs," he muttered, parrying a low thrust that gouged the stone floor beneath his feet.

Without Gale-Reflex backing his steps, his feet felt sluggish against the synchronized precision of four corporate combat frames.

"They are anticipating every counter," she called through their mental bond, ducking under a horizontal slash that sheared through a nearby stasis conduit.

"Status report!" Bekka’s voice crackled through the ear comm, carrying the distant roar of aircraft circling above the canal basin. "Did you reach the chair?"

"Absorption is dead on this floor," he rasped into the comm, ducking late as a clone’s palm strike grazed his shoulder with brutal force. "They copied Smith’s kinetic data and jammed my intake."

"Watch your right side!" Sierra warned through their shared vision, calling the next attack three seconds before the blade moved.

He parried the strike with the flat of his blade, but the impact sent a sickening shudder through his damaged side.

"Hold the line," Bekka answered, the comm buzzing under electromagnetic strain. "I am holding the Association tape, but corporate guns are starting to traverse."

"Do not fly into their firing grid," he grunted, parrying another vicious thrust that tore the fabric of his sleeve.

The fourth lieutenant broke around his flank, thrusting a razor edge toward her exposed spine while she was reeling in her tripwires.

Kage lunged from the shadows to intercept the strike, taking the deep slash across his flank before crashing hard onto the floor with a strangled yelp.

Contract pain punched through Leo’s jaw like a hot spike, forcing a raw cry from his throat as the beast collapsed beside the containment rows.

"Kage!" he shouted, feeling his ether pathways shudder as the beast’s blood pooled across the floor.

"Damn you!" she shouted, sinking her daggers through the clone’s wrist tendons while blood splattered across the clear cylinders behind them.

The injured copy retreated two paces without making a sound, resetting its mirrored stance alongside the other three officers.

A battered fighter in unfinished armor lunged from the far doorway, slamming his intact right shoulder into the jammer conduit with a hoarse curse.

"Get your heads down!" Rhodes barked, spitting blood through a shattered faceplate while his strapped, ruined left arm hung motionless against his chest plates. "Richter told me you were coming, but I did not expect you to bring four corporate templates with you."

"Can you fire that weapon?" Sierra asked, pointing toward the prototype locked against his right hip.

"Not while forty-two living people are hooked into these tubes," Rhodes warned, kicking a severed power line away from the floor. "A single stray discharge from this prototype will cook every nervous system in the room."

He unclipped an unfamiliar scabbard from his utility belt, thrusting the humming device into Leo’s hands with an urgent shove.

"Take the Phase-Catalyst Sheath," Rhodes demanded, holding off a clone with a sweep of his heel. "It forces Ether into the blade during the draw, but a sloppy stroke will burn the skin off your palm."

Leo caught the sheath with his bleeding hand, feeling a stinging electric pulse bite into his fingers as the device synced with his All-Spark.

He slotted the blade into the housing, dragging the edge through the catalyst channel as searing heat surged up his forearm.

"GAAH-!" he shouted through clenched teeth, throwing an upward slash that sheared through the jammer lieutenant’s collarbone before the clone could raise a guard.

Ozone hissed from the ruptured plate, cutting the interference field while the remaining three copies lunged together with drawn weapons.

Sierra swept her wires through their forward ankles, pulling the lead copy off balance while Kage dragged the second down into the floor shadows.

Leo stepped forward with another quick draw, feeling the catalyst heat blister his knuckles as the blade removed the third clone’s weapon arm at the elbow.

"Die!" he growled, plunging the glowing edge through the officer’s chest core until the clone collapsed onto the floor.

Rhodes stepped into the gap with his shoulder, smashing his armor against the last standing lieutenant until the clone crashed against the wall.

"Finish it!" Rhodes shouted, holding the thrashing clone against the bulkhead while sparks showered across his dented chestplate.

Leo drove the blade through the final officer’s power core, ending the fight as sparks showered across the floor and the humming machinery went dark.

The low vibration of the harvest grid died across the chamber, cutting the fluid pumps while emergency lights flickered along the containment aisles.

Inside the tubes, hands began pressing weakly against the surfaces as coughing figures awoke from stasis in the draining fluid.

"They are waking up," Sierra whispered, kneeling beside a sputtering girl who pounded feebly on the barrier. "We have forty-two patients who cannot walk, and no clean exit."

"Help them out of the cylinders," Rhodes grunted, using his good hand to pry open the emergency release valves along the central pipeline. "If they breathe this stagnant fluid much longer, their lungs will seize before we reach the upper levels."

Leo moved down the row, cracking the seals on three adjacent tanks while helping two disoriented healers onto the floor.

"Help us," a young healer gasped, choking on bitter fluid while clutching Sierra’s arm with trembling fingers.

"Hold onto me," she whispered gently, supporting the shivering girl while guiding her away from the broken glass and leaking conduits.

"Gruber is turning the roof turrets inward," Bekka shouted over the comm, alarms blaring behind her voice. "I have one pass to open the ceiling, but you need to get those people ready right now."

"We are clearing the tanks as fast as we can," he answered, gritting his teeth against the stabbing ache in his side.

Leo dropped to one knee beside the ruined machinery, clutching his fractured ribs while blood dripped from his fingers onto the floor.

[ Combat Mission Completed: Gene-Lieutenants Down ]

[ Warning: Kinetic Absorption Jammed For This Site ]

[ LEVEL UP: Level 34 -> Level 35 ]

[ Wound Flag: Bleeding | Ether Unstable ]

[ Phase-Catalyst Sheath: Bound To Host ]

He pocketed the scrap core from the jammer plate, staring upward as the ceiling began to shudder under the weight of descending artillery fire.

Above them, Tempest shrieked through the outer storm, diving toward the upper roof to tear an opening through the outer armor plates.