Chapter 552: Chapter 552 An Explosive Finish
Liesel did not wait to try and figure out what the dying man had planned.
He was just a step away from death, but that did not mean he was no longer a threat.
The malicious tone of his voice and the look on his face was all Liesel needed to know that he truly believed he would be able to take her with him into the afterlife.
So, without hesitation, she pushed off with her good leg and jumped back as quickly as she could.
This sent a horrid wave of pain coursing through her entire body from the injuries she had incurred, but she did not allow this to distract her.
Time seemed to slow down around her as her eyes finally caught sight of how Dalton planned to take her out with him.
Up until this point he had not revealed what was hidden within his left leg.
Liesel had started to believe that whatever equipment was inside of it was more for utility than combat since he had not used it during their fight.
Yet, she now saw that the leg indeed had a weapon stored within it. And a dangerous one at that.
A rocket was sticking out of an opening on the bottom of his foot.
Its size was not that large, but Liesel did not doubt that its yield would be impressive.
From her battle with the man, she knew that he would not compromise on the quality of his armaments and equipment.
’Why did he not use this earlier? When I was hiding behind the rubble, it would have been enough to force me into a disadvantageous position at least.’ Liesel thought, her mind racing with questions as she reflexively curled up her body to be as small as possible and held her shield out in front of her.
She could not ask her opponent exactly why he had saved the weapon until now, but she quickly came to a logical conclusion as she was flying backwards through the air.
It came down to his damaged right leg.
He could not risk her counterattacking while he was off balance trying to aim the rocket that took up the length of his cybernetic left leg.
Now though, it did not matter. Dalton knew he was dying and that there was no chance he would make it.
In his mind, he would rather blow himself up and take Liesel with him than wait to bleed out.
Liesel was ready to throw something at the rocket to knock it off course when it was fired at her, but Dalton was not going to let this happen.
When it launched, it only flew around a meter before slamming right into the ground.
He was not going to let her deflect his final attack and instead was confident that the ensuring explosion would kill her even when she had managed to jump away at the last moment.
The slowed perception of time ended for Liesel once the rocket burst.
There was no more thinking or planning she could do to try and get out of the situation.
All Liesel could hope for was that she could withstand the incoming blast and somehow survive.
Everyone of her senses was consumed as the explosion engulfed her.
The first thing she felt was her eardrum’s bursting, followed by an impact that felt like a heavy punch in the gut.
After that was the burning.
Her shield was doing its best to protect her head, and her armor was still sturdy enough to offer some protection to the rest of her body.
However, it did not last.
By the time that Liesel was thrown free from the blast and sent flying away, she could tell her entire body was a wreak.
It was not until she landed with a heavy thud that she truly felt the agony of the aftermath though.
She had terrible burns over a large portion of her body, and that she had broken more bones and taken some internal damage.
Still, all of the pain she was feeling told her that she was alive at least, and honestly in better condition than she was expecting after having been caught up in an explosion.
Her quick reaction to leap away and defend herself as best she could with her hardlight buckler had managed to save her from immediate death.
Unfortunately, she was completely unable to move and could only lie where she had collapsed.
Already she could tell that the medical nanomachines in her system were attempting to repair the worst of the damage.
Honestly, without her implant and the medicine she had taken, she likely would have been dead already.
Unable to move, she only had her fading consciousness left under her control.
Her thoughts first went towards the promise she had made with Burke not to die or get too injured.
She would have laughed at her utter failure if it did not hurt so much to do so.
Avery was definitely going to pitch a fit later, Liesel knew that. She just hoped she would be around for it.
While she was not dead yet, there was no guarantee that she was going to survive this.
Any enemy could walk by and fire a laser into her head, and she would be unable to offer any resistance.
As unconsciousness started to talk hold, her last thoughts were sent towards the man that had put her in her current condition.
"Vindictive f*cking a*shole couldn’t have just died in peace." Liesel muttered just before she was unable to stay awake any longer and passed out.
...
While Liesel and Burke had been engaged with Dalton and the bulk of the station’s defenders, Avery’s team had traversed through the base with almost no resistance since the first battle they had fought.
It was almost unnerving how easily they were able to proceed to their destination.
Avery had been anticipating a trap or ambush of some kind, but none ever came.
Even once his team made it to the production faciality’s command center, they had hardly run into anyone else.
Only a few scared and confused noncombatants had come across their path, and considering that they possessed no real threat, Avery had them all detained and sent back to the Intrepid as prisoners.
He was not certain what Cerise would ultimately end up doing with them, but the more sources of information they had, the better.
"We’ve secured the area. It doesn’t look like anyone is around. I assume that whoever was stationed here left in a hurry several minutes ago." One of the mercenaries in chrage of scouting the area told Avery.
It was a bit unexpected to find that the command center had been abandoned.
He had figured that the obviously vain station manager, Bartholomew, would have clung to the place until he was pried away.
Of course, he would not have put it past the man to also hunker down in some bunker hidden within the base, but finding the command center devoid of anyone was a major surprise.
It was the control center for the entire production facility. Normally it would make no sense to give it up so easily.
’Are they trying to escape? Burke and Olivia have the main hangar locked down though. There might be other ships stored away somewhere for emergencies, but they’ll never get past Kaiden of Victoria. What’s going on here?’ Avery thought confused by what he considered to be aberrant movements from their enemies.
He did not have long to ponder this train of thought before a worry report reached him.
The line of communication with Liesel’s and Burke’s squads had recently been cut off and attempts to reconnected were being jammed.
This naturally pushed everything else to the back of Avery’s mind.
He had considered something like this happening, but it still did not make it any easier on him.
Nevertheless, he knew that Liesel and Burke would be able to hold their own for a while, and that would be plenty long enough for him to lead his team over to them to help.
’If we rush, we should be able to reach their last known location in seven minutes or so. I could get there faster if I went on my own.’
Avery considered leaving the rest of his team behind but ultimately decided against doing so.
He was the one in charge, so he could not just go bounding off on his own at the first sign of trouble.
If he could not keep himself under control, how could he expect to be the leader of an entire mercenary company.
Swiftly, he assigned sixty people to take over the command station and begin extracting records from the main computer.
He then led the rest of his team back through the corridors of the production facility to go and assist Liesel and Burke.
Yet, along the way, he started getting a distinct feeling that something was wrong.
Pinpointing it exactly felt impossible at first though.
It was merely a bad feeling in the center of his stomach.
Only after they had been moving for around four minutes did the first signs of the trouble Avery had felt make itself known.
"There’s movement ahead of us. Just one person from what the instrument has detected. From the size, they’ve got to be a bahnen. One bigger than even Ezra." The member of Avery’s team in charge of their best scanner said.
With what was likely an enemy approach, everyone took up defensive positions, with Avery at the head of the group.
Except, what appeared before them was no bahnen. In fact, it would be difficult to even call it a person.
"What the hell is that thing?!" Avery said in shock and disgust when the monstrosity came into view.
