Suzuo twitched with the after effects of repeated electrocution. His shoulders shuddered and his head jerked from side to side while as mouth worked through a series of odd motions that Rachel couldn't understand at all. He looked unsettled by his experiences with the Squid Droids but Rachel was amazed to see that he was still alive at all after his ordeal. She hadn't seen anything else start a fight with a Squid Droid and survive. She suspected that if the fight had taken place at ground level the result might have been very different. Suzuo made a rough gargling noise in the back of his throat as he stood facing the advancing Urwax.
Urwax raised a long grey tube over his shoulder, locking a rocket onto Suzuo's head.
'No explosives,' Rachel said. 'Not here. We can't risk it so close to the shield engineering room.'
Suzuo smiled. Urwax deactivated his rockets and extended his thick grey arms instead. The outer shells of his forearms popped open, revealing multiple blades that jerked back and forth with a rapid pulsing action. Suzuo lowered his thick brows, swirling his thick white tentacles beneath him.
Half a dozen soldiers ran out from the staircase, sounding out of breath. Parker looked in Rachel's direction with questions in his eyes but she gestured for him to tell the soldiers to stay back. He relayed her orders with a low wave of his hand that the soldiers seemed to understand.
Urwax strode past Rachel and Parker, advancing towards Suzuo with heavy, plodding steps that shook the floor beneath their feet. Suzuo swung a thick tentacle towards him, striking Urwax with a hard blow across the head but it had no effect at all. Urwax was far too heavy to be knocked off balance by anything less than a Juxter K11. The stone floor was cracked where he had walked along it, and the whole corridor seemed to groan with the effort of holding him up.
He lumbered forwards, cracking the stone floor with every step as he held his arms out in front of him. The long blades slashed back and forth, glinting in the bright lights of the corridor.
Suzuo backed away, matching Urwax step for step. Rachel watched from behind Urwax. She didn't want to end up standing between those two.
Urwax increased his pace, marching towards Suzuo with his bulky grey head angled down towards the floor. His feet slammed into the stone like mighty hammers as he picked up speed. Suzuo flung his tentacles back and forth with increasing desperation, slapping at Urwax's head and body, but the droid was far too heavy to be knocked around. Rachel allowed a small smile to creep across her face. Suzuo had never faced a foe like Urwax before. He was going to meet his match this time.
When Suzuo grabbed Urwax's neck, the droid lifted one arm and severed the tentacle with razor sharp slashing blades. Suzuo hissed as the tentacle fell off and writhed across the floor without him.
Parker stepped forwards, advancing down the corridor behind Urwax. Rachel shook her head in his direction but he ignored her, lifting his infusor pistol to waist height before firing it through the wide gap between Urwax's legs. The infusor cartridge made a hissing sound as it sped down the corridor and caught Suzuo in the chest. The Augmented glanced down, seeming surprised by the cartridge sticking out from his punctured skin. Reaching down, he knocked the white feathered tail away with the back of his hand but the infusor cartridge had already delivered its payload of strong tranquillizers. One of Suzuo's eyes blinked shut and then opened again. He shook his head and roared with a ferocity that made Parker back away even though Urwax was still protecting him.
'Leave this to the droids,' Rachel said as Parker hurried back towards her, looking more than a little concerned. 'Suzuo is too strong for us.'
Parker nodded. 'The infusor will slow him a little. It may be enough to give Urwax an advantage.'
Rachel gave him an odd look. Did Parker think that Urwax couldn't stop Suzuo without help? His doubts made her worry about the consequences if he was right. There weren't anymore droids nearby. It would take too long to gather further reinforcements. She could call for more security forces but after what she had seen so far, she didn't think they would be able to slow Suzuo at all, never mind stop him. It would do no good to get even more people killed.
Her hand slipped over her shoulder without her realising what she was doing, and she pulled the twin bone staffs from their holster on her back.
Urwax lunged forwards, slicing his blades into Suzuo's chest and neck. Rachel dashed forwards. Was it over? For a moment, Suzuo stumbled back towards the ledge with his mouth hanging open. She hoped he might fall, but then he flung his tentacles up around the side of the tower and dragged himself up onto the outer wall of the White Spear.
Urwax slashed his blades back and forth where Suzuo had just been standing but he made no move to step closer to the ledge. Rachel thought it was a wise precaution after what she had seen today.
She kept her distance from Urwax and made her way to the edge of the corridor, leaning out over the ledge as she peered up the side of the White Spear. Her heart pounded in her chest as she tried to see what was happening above. She half expected a thick tentacle to yank her over the edge at any moment, tossing her to her death like Drefnig, but Suzuo was nowhere in sight.
She shifted the bone staffs to her left hand, freeing her right hand to hold onto a thin piece of glass that was still attached to the upper part of the outer wall. Leaning out further, she tried not to put too much weight on the glass shard in case it broke off in her hand. Even now she could feel it cracking under her weight. She was about to call off her search when Suzuo appeared once more. He was further up the side of the tower, charging back towards the opposite end of the corridor. Bordox was chasing him, firing twin miniguns into Suzuo's back as he fled for his life.
Rachel laughed. 'Kill him Bordox! Kill him!'
Suzuo was moving erratically, his once graceful movements now looking laboured and contrived. He slithered down the side of the tower at an odd angle and leapt back into the corridor near the blast doors. Urwax turned and shuffled towards him but he was slow and he had a long distance to cover. Rachel followed, carrying a bone staff in each hand. She had no idea what she intended to do with them, but she needed to do something, and she could already feel their power flowing up her arms.
Suzuo turned towards the blast doors, taking a black cartridge from his belt and flinging it towards them. He raised his arms to protect himself as the cartridge exploded with a loud bang. The blast doors shook but didn't appear to be damaged.
Glancing over his shoulder at the advancing Urwax, Suzuo displayed his silver teeth, his well muscled cheeks twitching on both sides. He grabbed two more black cartridges from his belt, flinging them towards the blast doors as he crouched down, wrapping himself in his tentacles and waiting for the explosion. It was louder this time. It shook the floor and made parts of the ceiling crash down on top of him. A shock wave travelled along the corridor, making the gathered soldiers step back even further.
The blast doors were still intact, but they now had tiny cracks covering their surface. Rachel didn't know how long they could withstand such an attack. There was something odd about Suzuo's black cartridges. She suspected they were much more powerful than ordinary explosives.
Urwax trudged forwards at his own slow pace. Suzuo was already struggling with his belt to pull out yet more cartridges. There wasn't going to be enough time for Urwax to stop him before he broke through the blast doors.
Rachel ran past Urwax, being careful to avoid his sharp, stabbing blades. Parker tried to join her but she pushed him aside.
'Stop him,' Parker said. 'If he gets through the blast doors it'll be too late to save the shields.'
Several soldiers took up Parker's war cry and charged down the corridor behind Rachel, but she couldn't think about them now.
She raised the bone staffs in both hands, thrusting them forwards to form a diagonal cross that split the air in front of her. The corridor erupted in brilliant white light, and a shock wave travelled across the floor, forming thick ripples in the air. Rachel felt a tingling sensation all over her body. Time stopped around her. Urwax froze in his dogged march towards Suzuo, and when she looked over her shoulder, she saw that the soldiers had paused mid step behind her too. Some had both feet off the floor but they didn't fall down.
When she turned to face Suzuo once more, she saw that he was frozen too. His tentacles had stopped swirling but his eyes still followed her every movement. She didn't know what she had done, or how long the effect might last, but she knew she had to make the most of it. She had conjured something with the bone staffs, based on little more than anger and frustration. There was no time to lose now.
Sprinting down the corridor, she lowered her head and charged towards Suzuo. She lifted the bone staffs over her head as she approached him, swinging them in a wide arc that caught him on both sides of his wide jaw at once. His cheeks collapsed inwards, and he flew backwards at incredible speed, his body spinning faster than anything Rachel had ever seen before. He struck the blast doors like a missile, blowing them apart and sending a dust cloud billowing across the corridor. Rachel was knocked off her feet by the blast. She landed on her side and had to climb quickly back to her feet.
Time started again. The blast doors had shattered under Suzuo's impact. He had disappeared into the shield engineering room with his tentacles swirling behind him. Rachel held the bone staffs upright in front of her, wondering what she had done. She was trying to make things better, but she had a nasty feeling that she might have just made them worse.
A cloud of dust obscured the corridor ahead, illuminated by a pale white light that was coming from inside the shield engineering room. Rachel could hear voices shouting behind her but she was lost in her own thoughts. What had just happened? What had she done?
Urwax surged forwards, making Rachel step out of his way. He advanced until he reached the place where the blast doors had once been and then came to a sudden halt as though they were still there.
'What's wrong with him', Rachel said. 'Why doesn't he go inside?'
Parker ran along the corridor, coming to a halt beside her. 'He doesn't have the access codes to enter.'
'But the doors aren't there.'
'It doesn't matter. Urwax is restricted by area, not physical doors.'
Rachel shook her head and ran past Urwax, heading into the dust cloud with the bone staffs by her sides. She could hear several sets of footsteps following behind her.