Fiction Friday: Old Times 2.8

Previously:
0.1
1.0
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
2.0
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
2.5
2.6

2.7
* * * * *

I screamed as a small glob of molten tritanium-isogen alloy lands on my lower leg and instantly melts through the material of the pant leg and fuses it with my skin. Third degree burns probably, I think to myself as I push a frantically screaming Jax off of me. I got off lucky I realize as my leg still works fine and no other parts were hit. Jax not so much. Since I pulled him down partially on top of me, his legs got a few spots of molten alloy on them and the stench of burning flesh is overpowering.

"Shit! That's hot!" I hear from the doorway. As I scramble up to my feet, hissing at Jax to get up, I hear a second voice respond but I don't make out the words over the sizzling of the cooling slag and Jax's whimpering as he tries to get to his knees.

The station's yellow emergency lights were flashing in the apartment and out in the hall now, combining with the residual smoke to add a weird strobing effect. I saw two figures; the first was a large man that jumped over the burn-to-the-touch puddle that used to be the bulkhead door into the apartment, and the second was a slight woman telling her partner to hurry up. I had a small moment of relief when I saw the man had a vibro-knife in his hand instead of a gun but that passed as I flashed on a memory of a time a big Brutor cut me badly back in my shady past in Teonusude. You can die just as good from a knife as a gun.

I don't do a lot of hand to hand fighting but I had my military training and my implants activated into high gear to enhance my reflexes to super-human levels. As everything seemed to go into slow motion from my perspective I could instinctively tell my opponent, a hulking man of Civre descent it appeared, was not as equipped as me. He took a short swing with the knife laterally trying to slice my upraised hands and put me into shock; that told me he was experienced with the knife and knew that most people would freak out at getting cut and that a few quick slashes would work better than one big risky lunge. I easily dodged back and let him keep coming towards me.

He went for another slash, this time stepping forward more to try and catch me. Instead of backing off I stepped in blocking his knife hand at the wrist with a chop from my left hand while firing a jab at my assailants's throat. I crumpled his larynx and as he started to fall back my right hand slid onto his knife hand and peeled the knife from his slackening grip.

As he fell backwards onto a small dinner-plate sized glob of still-sizzling slag (which added to the burning smell in the small confines considerably) the other assailant dodged around him and came at me wielding a second vibro-knife. I swapped my recovered weapon  from my left to my right hand and started to take a defensive stance but had to jump back as she was fast and accurate. Too fast; too accurate. This time I knew I was in trouble.