Dimension

Chapter 15

Hi!

Chapter 15, eh?

Not much to say, but I hope you enjoy!

Oh, except I finally got around to making a cover that isn't just a random photo I found on public domain! Now it has words!

Here goes nothing!

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"On your knees!"

Carol complied, dryly noting that she was already beyond that, bent over in a fetal position as she tried to no avail to quell the flashbang's incessant, painful aftershock.

"Hands on your head!" The sergeant- he was a sergeant, she could tell now from his helmet stripe- had slung his rifle across his back in favor of a single-fire incendiary pistol. Carol eyed the weapon wearily- she'd heard of them before, heard about how they punched through your body and disintegrated organs from the inside out. Needless to say, she had already made it a life goal never to get hit by one.

She would have to play this carefully. As if she could hope to take any of these men on in direct combat- they were special forces, more likely than not. She was a pilot. The extent of her hand-to-hand combat training amounted to a three-day course on what to do if you found yourself grounded on an enemy vessel- essentially, the end of the class involved the instructor telling her to forget everything and just look for an escape pod.

Nonetheless, pilot training had given her the useful ability to assess her situation very quickly.

Carol considered her options in the few short seconds she had. Her rifle was a dozen feet away, kicked down the corridor by one of the sergeant's men. She could run for it- that would end poorly.

Her eyes flashed to the sergeant's utility belt. A trio of fragmentation grenades was clipped on the left side. Those would obliterate everything within a fifteen-meter radius.

The right side, however, played host to a small, thin cylinder, capped on either end with a glowing yellow diode.

A shock grenade.

It could stun her as well, but shock grenades were designed to target armor, something Carol had a distinct lack of. As long as she put enough distance in between...

Mentally, she berated herself. It was insanity. The chances of this working were slim to none- there was no chance she could reach that grenade before the sergeant or his men turned her body into a partially-vaporized mess.

Although, Carol thought as she was prodded in the general direction of an airlock, she was beginning to like the alternative just as poorly.

It was unfortunate that she had neglected to wear an environmental suit. Escape would be easy then, she thought, glancing at a gaping hole in the Axion's armor plating, still glowing white hot. Atmospheric shields didn't kill people, generally.

She briefly what had happened to... the captain. Whatever his name was. After the railgun round cracked the reactor casing the cruiser's computer lost all telemetry on the crew.

He probably wasn't dead. Boarding parties weren't usually dispatched to execute people.

A dull rumble suddenly filled her ears.

She froze mid-step.

The thick muzzle of an incendiary pistol pressed firmly into her nape. It seared into her skin, filling the corridor with the smell of burning flesh, but at this point, she didn't notice.