As I stepped into the hallway, claxons sounded, and the blast doors at my back began closing. I started running, following the trail Rova had left. The hallway was an external route between cargo elevators and the primary hub of the small space station. When I got to the next set of doors, they were cycling closed.

I caught the lip of the door and heaved, pressing all of my enhanced strength into the mechanism. Something broke, and I smiled as the door slid open again. They appeared to want to flush me out into space, or at least contain me and empty my area of breathable air. I intended to make it as difficult on them as possible.

The next area I entered was larger, with several hallways leading off a main hub. All of the doors were wide enough to drive a semi-truck through, and the ceilings were tall enough to admit a giraffe comfortably.

Dearth soldiers in pressure suits stormed into the room, all raising laser rifles at me. They formed up in front of a small, secondary elevator shaft. Rova watched me from the top of the elevator, in a glass car at the top, where the station became more luxury, and less industry.

I pushed off from the deck in a leap, putting all my strength into it and activating my gravity drive. The gathered soldiers fired, but I came at them head and fists first. Their fire bounced and ricocheted from my gauntlets and horned helmet, and I slammed into a group. They scattered like broken, screaming bowling pins.

Rova screamed something over her shoulder, and all the doors in the room started to cycle closed. I hurtled into the bottom of the rounded elevator shaft, ignoring the incoming laser fire. Where it hit me, it didn’t even hurt. Just burned a bit, like touching a hot stove momentarily. My stoneskin colonies were working already, as advertised.

This time I allowed the door to close behind me before I shot up the shaft, toward the bottom of the elevator platform. I activated my power blow ability as I struck the bottom of the platform and blasted it off its wall-mounted tracks.

“Breach,” a computerized voice blared. “Security, please report to cargo control. Repeat, security to cargo control.”

My metal covered fists clenched as I hovered into the room, landing gently in front of Rova. The Nah’gh woman lay on the floor, bleeding from a cut on her forehead.

Beyond her, a series of consoles and workspaces stretched out across the ceiling of the cargo hanger below, ending in another set of massive blast doors at the far side. Those doors slid open, showing two burly mordren, each holding different weapons.

One held what appeared to be an oversized shotgun, with a single massive open barrel, and an ammunition feed linked to a large container on his back. The other was carrying a two-handed axe, with an oversized, double-bladed head.

“Bulwark! Barricade!” Rova screamed, slither-crawling across the floor away from me.

“You let her name you? Like pets?!” I roared in challenge. Then I dove into the air and pushed the suit to drive me toward them.

Bulwark surprised me by lifting his cannon and firing a jet of intense flames at me. The fire washed over my body in flight and burned, and then Barricade slammed his axe into me with a thunderous spark, sending me flying into a nearby portal. The axe didn’t summon lightning, it just shocked the hell out of me on contact. I convulsed and bared my teeth as I slammed into the window, spiderwebbing cracks from the impact.

It wasn’t simple glass, but it was weaker than the reinforced material around it. I raised a metal clad fist to do what I did best, without regard for my own well-being, when Rova’s tail suddenly impaled my wrist.

I twisted my hand, catching the other end of the metal prosthesis and turning to glare at the Nah’gh woman. The metal spike in my body popped loose and she slithered away again as fast as she could. Barricade stepped into her place and raised the axe again.

With a jolt from the drive, I slammed into the lizard man around the waist as tendrils sprouted to repair my hardened body. He grunted, but caught me, and we slid back a few feet. Then he reared his head back and roared flame down onto my face. The helmet caught the worst of it, but my shoulders and upper body blackened and singed.

My crystalline colonies worked fast, as advertised, and the damage was minimal. I grinned and slammed my horned helmet up into the mordren’s mouth. He grunted in surprise, then slumped. I held up his weight as I turned and used the bigger body to shield myself from Bulwark.

The other mordren opened up on me with his painful weapon, the flame burning and sticking to my body where it struck. I used a gauntlet to swipe some of it off and recognized the material. It was slag ammunition.

I snarled and hurled the dead mordren at his friend, flying to the side in the same motion. His axe tumbled free and slammed into the bulwark with a fat blue spark. All the lights in the room cut out, and we were illuminated from the cargo bay below. Earth shined out one set of windows, and the glittering black of space in the other.

Bulwark turned and used his tail to bash Barricade’s dead body out of the way, then turned to track my movement, spraying molten slag in a trail behind me. I bounced from one wall, onto the ceiling, then back down to the floor to snatch Rova from behind and turn to face the mordren again.

He hauled up on the weapon, preventing the spray from hitting Rova. Then Barricade roared and threw aside the weapon. The angry mordren reached back and dislodged the oversized axe with a single easy movement, then turned and hurled it at me.

The massive axe flipped end over end in the lowered gravity, before striking me directly in the helmet, over Rova’s shoulder. Barricade’s aim was impressive. The axe sparked and spit, embedded in my nanite helmet. A thin trickle of blood crept down my cheek from the top of my head, where my hardened skin had helped stop the blade before it caused any serious damage.

Tendrils erupted from the suit, branching out from my neck and swarming in the air around my head. I yanked the axe out and dismissed the helmet. I didn’t want to see what happened if my helmet and my suit got in a fight.

Rova screamed and tried to run again, but I slammed the axe-head down into the back of her retreating tail, pinning the Nah’gh woman to the floor before Barricade slammed into me.

The mordren pushed me to the floor and pressed me down with one foot, pointing his slag-thrower in my face. I summoned the helmet again and raised both gauntlets to fend off the slag. I needn’t have worried, as the scalding liquid metal coursed off my body, leaving trails of bright burns behind.

But it was mild. It felt like stepping into a shower that was too hot, instead of the agonizing death I had expected. I grinned inside the helmet and slammed both fists into Barricade’s leg, crushing it between my breaker gauntlets.

The mordren howled and collapsed. I slung the remaining liquid metal from my chest and rose, looming over my wounded foe. He gripped his weapon and tried to turn it toward me, but I slapped it out of his hands. The slag thrower smashed against the bulkhead to our side and started leaking boiling metal.

My first blow was deflected, and Barricade extended his sharpened claws to try and slash my forearm, but they bounced off the hardened skin, leaving only a series of light scratches. Barricade’s eyes widened, and he looked up in time for me to slam my fist down, catching the heavy blow with his own, much larger hands.

I hauled my hand back out of his grip and slammed it down again. Again, he frustrated my attack by blocking. This time, I hit his open palms so hard, I dented the bulwark beneath him, and the broken slag rifle began leaking toward him.

With one more massive punch, I crumpled the floor beneath Barricade, and the pooling slag poured down on top of him. The mordren screamed, impossibly high-pitched as the liquid metal poured into his mouth, nostrils, and eyes.

Rova heaved against the axe in her tail, not far away, but slumped with a pained sob. I stalked over and clenched my bloody fists.

“I showed you mercy, Rova,” I growled. “And you killed my people for it.”

“Security!” the helpless Nah’gh woman screamed. I pushed away the sudden surge of pity I felt and focused on the incoming tromp of armored boots.

“Never again,” I muttered. I snatched the axe out of the flooring and slashed her in half with it, dragging the sparking blade through her head to be certain the Dearth executive would die.