Gunfire exploded against their chopper, small arms rounds clipping the armored transport. Maria Arnaz cursed, Phillip shouting obscenities as he pulled the helicopter into a deep dive. The instant they appeared in their view; a dozen trained soldiers fired. They had two saving graces- this was only a transport ship, and their attack helicopter could survive tank fire.

“Phantom, what the fuck!” Natalia called out.

“Gear the fuck up!” Maria ordered, grabbing her H&K 11 rifle. “We’re going in heavy!”

“I could wipe the ship off the map,” Phillips said.

“Phillips, no. If we can salvage this shit, we will. Get your boots on soldiers! We’re taking this ship and killing every single cocksucker onboard!”

“Ma’am!” they called out in unison.

They secured their helmets and Maria threw down the gauntlet, pressing in the center of her badge completely. It glowed an ominous light.

Much like the guns they were using she understood the basics of her uniform. Something about nano fiber, electroplate flexible poly-whatever. She understood the words the tech team quoted at her. That didn’t mean she knew how it worked, nor was expected to. The fabric reacted immediately, drawing up around her as plates of some miracle material expanded from the seamlines.

Her collar stretched, circling around her neck and closing over her head. Armor plates emerged, growing with the fabric, creating a perfectly sealed helmet. The rest of her uniform finished its transformation in tandem, converting from the cavalry rider look to that of a segmented, sleek badass suit of power armor the likes of which only the 50s could have dreamed.

All around her, her squad’s armor reacted in kind. From their harnesses came more armor, supported by powerful servos and their helmets snapped in place, locking into the body armor, and closing around their mouths. They were lesser variants, support armor to aid an Agent in the field, more limited and without any of the fun built in toys she had. But a single soldier could man a minigun, which was more than enough to make up for it.

Phillips dove the helicopter straight into the ship, pulling up at the last minute to slam into the deck as safely as one could. Some soldiers were hurled off by the shockwave. Most of them took cover, but their fates were sealed from the start. The doors blasted open, the squad emerging to a hail of bullets.

Nothing short of an anti-tank round would impact the support armors, and for her Titan Armor, it’d require significantly more. Her visor reported back that there were nearly a hundred soldiers aboard, and deep in the hold were the eggs they came for. Motioning to her squad they moved out.

On the ship, the soldiers were limited in how they could fight back. Not a good thing in this situation. None of them were talking either, which didn’t surprise Maria. The Demo crew, plus Phillips, moved to the front of the ship to prepare their side of things and defend the transport. Maria followed Haig and Jacek into the thick of it, taking aim and gunning down each soldier that crossed her sight.

A soldier popped up, an RPG in hand. Haig snapped to him, firing, but missed the mark. The grenade fired, slipping past her two companions, striking her in the shoulder. The explosion rocked her, head ringing as she stumbled back.

The man was swiftly put down. Maria mused that they knew how dire this was. She also was acutely aware what this meant.

Betrayal.

When she made it off this fucking boat, she was going to shoot Ethan in his craven face. Right now, the only hope she had was that they could capture this boat and make a plea deal with Ritter. Use it as proof of what McFree was up to and leverage for her own position after. She needed the eggs for that. She brushed past Haig, moving to the front as they headed below deck.

“You missed.”

“Won’t happen again.”

Another man appeared, a belt of grenades in hand. More soldiers were behind him. Maria snapped her arm up, two devices popping out of her wrists. A sudden, violent sonic wave blasted, tossing the man and his munitions backwards. Maria twisted it, setting the vibration to a specific tune. The grenades abruptly exploded, tearing through the hallway.

The fighting continued, the three soldiers going room to room. Maria could only see Ethan’s face. She was going to gut him. She was going to cut his fucking balls off. Eventually ammo grew scarce as they emptied the lower decks. Some soldiers, seeing their approach, slid into the lowest chamber, locking it tight.

Maria tapped her shoulder, a handle appearing. Drawing it, a blade made of shaped plasma took form, no more than a foot in length. Stabbing it into the hinges, she took some enjoyment from the sparks as the metal turned molten. How this thing worked she also didn’t know, nor did she care. Lafayette once tried to explain about how it was using a magnetic field to direct the plasma and keep it in a single, solid state. All she needed to know was that it could melt through damn near anything.

Once the hinges were cut, she stepped aside. Haig stepped up, rearing back, before battering the whole thing the rest of the way down in one punch. They found the men huddled at the back of the freezing container. She raised her fist for her men to hold their fire.

“Come out.”

“Go fuck yourself!”

Maria tossed Jacek the plasma knife. Crossing her arms, she stepped into the room.

“Break their necks and drag them out.”

“Ma’am!” Jacek and Haig replied in unison.

They couldn’t risk damaging the fucking bug nest. Not now. The soldier that mouthed off to her produced a device.

“I was told your armor would be disabled,” he muttered. “I didn’t want to do this.”

“Whatever that toy is, it’s not going to change anything.”

He glared at her. “I don’t agree.”

It was a strange gadget. It seemed to be some communication system, round at the top where the speaker was, with a narrow interface at the bottom. She’d never seen anything like it before. The soldier fiddled with the controls until something happened.

The device wrested itself from his hands, the man shouting in surprise. Maria couldn’t hear anything, but the sheer amount of vibration coming from it was more than telling as it bounced and skipped across the ground. She could feel an incredible pressure, even through her suit. Jacek and Haig stumbled, and the unarmored group were immediately brought to their knees.

That was when the eggs began hatching.