Chapter 25 Chapter Twenty-Four

Carly ran across the deserted barter deck and ran towards the spaceship.Gillian has now made it her home.All her attention was on finding Gillian, in case something happened.She didn't even think about Handel, who was hiding behind the desk. Kali slowed down as she walked through the corridor between the barter deck and the landing dock, walking quietly in case there were Cerberus soldiers waiting for her here.Her worry was justified, there was a Cerberus soldier outside the spaceship.He stood with his back to her, pressing the control panel with one hand, ready to release the caliper that fixed the spaceship in the dock, while the other hand was hanging on the side, holding an assault rifle.

The sound of a gunshot might have alerted those nearby, but that didn't mean she couldn't use her assault rifle as a weapon.She knew his armor was equipped with kinetic shields, but the kinetic shields were programmed to respond only to specific high-velocity strikes.If you crouch down and hit him hard on the back, the kinetic shield won't activate; only high-velocity bullets will activate the shield.Hitting him hard on the head would certainly not be fast enough to trigger the shield. Callie ducked down and ran quickly behind him, grabbed the end of the barrel, and held the gun like a baseball bat.When approaching that person, she ran three steps in a row to accumulate speed, and smashed the temporary stick down hard.

The sound of her kicking as she sprinted across the metal floor of the landing dock gave the soldier enough alertness to react.He half-turned toward her, drew his weapon, and lowered his head, Kali hitting him in the shoulder, not the side of the helmet.The force of the impact knocked the assault rifle out of his hands, and it fell to the ground with a clang. He was knocked aside and staggered a few steps to regain his balance. Carly swung again, but too close to use the force needed.This hit the side of the helmet, but not hard enough to knock him out.The soldier staggered forward, fumbling for the pistol on his hip.

Callie twirled the assault rifle in her hand, relocating the grip so she could smash it out with the heavy rear stock.She swung from below so that it hit the lower three-quarters of the mask, shattering the soldier's upper jaw teeth.His head fell back and he fell.Carly jumped on top of him, grabbed the butt of the assault rifle with both hands, and smashed him in the head. Not even his helmet could protect him from the continuous pounding.Carly took six hits in a row, convinced he would never get up again.Carly shot him two more times, guaranteeing his death. Carly stood up and saw that the gun body had been bent.

Useless Waller waste, she thought.Not forgetting to untie the pistol from the belt of the dead soldier. The enemy was down, and Carly glanced quickly at the dock.She saw the bodies of two Cerberus soldiers under the forklift and knew that Gillian had been here. Kali climbed into the ship, making as little noise as possible.The passenger compartment was empty, so Carly continued on to the cockpit, only to find that the cockpit was also empty.She went to the sleeping pod at the back and was slightly surprised to see Gillian lying on the bed with Grayson sitting beside her protecting her. Carly raised the soldier's pistol and pointed it at Grayson. "Get away from her, you son of a bitch."

Grayson heard Carly's voice and looked up to see Carly, eyes wide open.It took him a moment to recognize who was behind the environmental suit. "Carly?" he asked. Callie nodded, gestured with the gun, and Grayson stood up and left the bed. Carly glanced down at Gillian and saw that she was unconscious. "What did you do? Drugged her again?" Carly demanded. "The shocker," Grayson said in a low voice, and Carrie thought he was ashamed of herself.She discovers that although Grayson does a lot of shit, he really cares about his girls.But it also makes his loyalty and devotion to the Cerberus all the more creepy and pathetic.

Then Carly felt the blunt barrel of a pistol against her ribs. "Put down the gun." A voice sounded behind her. There is a moment when Carly wants to shoot Grayson.But killing Dad wouldn't save Gillian, and would almost certainly kill him.So she put the pistol on the ground. "Get down on the floor with the back of your head," the voice ordered, prodding her again with the gun. She did as she was ordered, and then heard the footsteps of the unknown assailant passing her and approaching the bed. "Hold her, Glo," Grayson warned.The cold anger in his voice made Glo pause.

Carly landed on her stomach and raised her head slightly to look up.She was shocked to see Grayson talking to a quarian. Handel regained his sense of the world in a wave of pain.Every bone and every muscle in my body ached from being smashed against the wall.Consciousness slowly came back, and he was still lying there, trying to regain consciousness.After a while, he had various feelings again.He was on the barter deck, where the quarians and the hellhounds had been in a fierce firefight. He could still hear the firefight, but it was far away. The battle moved to the deck above. Although his muscles were still aching, Handel forced himself to his feet.He was dizzy for a while before he could stand still.Handel looked around, found the assault rifle that had fallen on the ground, and picked it up.

I'm going to help Carly and the others. Before he had time to climb onto the table, he heard heavy footsteps coming from the other side of the stairs, going down continuously.Two Cerberus soldiers appeared on the upper deck. They didn't notice Handel, because they were all focused on the pursuing quarians. They are retreating!Handel realized.We are victorious! Biological abilities are definitely not counted on.His head was still spinning from the impact, and he suspected he had suffered a mild concussion.But he's in a situation where he can at least use an assault rifle. Although he still feels that he can't hold the gun steadily, the automatic aiming system of the weapon is enough to overcome this problem.He aimed at the nearest Cerberus soldier and pulled the trigger.

At this distance, bullets will quickly deplete kinetic shields.The kinetic shield was enough to turn him around to face Handel, but not enough to give him time to raise his gun and return fire. As the first soldier fell, the second turned around, and Handel crouched to cover himself behind the large table.The first round of bullets from the enemy soldiers knocked off a lot of fragments on the hardwood table, but the table was not broken, and Handel took this opportunity to rush to a safe place in the storage room.He poked his head out of the door to fire back, only to see the Cerberus soldiers caught in the crossfire.Handel fired, and the quarians on the deck above walked down the stairs, firing as they went.The Cerberus soldiers were attacked from the back and the back, and they didn't even survive for three seconds.

"It's me, Handel!" he shouted from the storage room, not wanting to be killed by a burst of shots just because he poked his head out of nowhere. "Handel!" he heard Rhyme shout, "you're alive!" He walked out of the storage room and climbed onto the table softly.Rhyme, Mal, and four other quarians were at the foot of the stairs. "What about the rest of them?" Handel nodded towards the dead Cerberus soldiers on the ground.He knew the battle was over because there was no more sound of fire being exchanged. "There may be one or two more," replied the captain, "and they have run back to the Sinaiard." "He made us run around and all of a sudden they all backed off," Rhyme added. "Why did they—" Handel wanted to say something, but suddenly stopped. "Where's Carly? Where's Gillian?" No one answered the question. "The Cerberus have taken her!" cried Handel, "that's why they retreated!" Together they ran towards the dock. "Should I kill her?" Glo asked. Grayson looked at Carly, still in her environmental suit, lying face down on the floor.The quarians pointed a pistol at the back of Kali's head. "No," Grayson said, "keep her alive. She's an expert in setting up biotic amplifiers. Cerberus probably wants her to help Gillian with her new training." "I'll never help you guys with those disgusting workouts," Carly said, sprawled on the floor. "Be quiet," Glo warned, kicking her hard in the ribs.Grayson's face twitched. Carly whimpered and turned, lying on her back on the floor, her hands clasped to one side. "Gillian will hate you for this," Carrie said breathlessly. "She'll never forgive you." Glo took a step back and started kicking Carly hard again, and Carly curled her legs up like a baby, trying to protect herself. "Enough!" Grayson yelled. "How could you let them do this to your daughter?" Carly still hugged and squeezed out a sentence through her teeth. "Did you see the forklift outside?" Grayson demanded. "Did you see what Gillian can do? That's why Cerberus did it!" "They're trying to turn Gillian into a weapon," Carrie asked rhetorically, panting under the mask.Grayson guessed that several of her ribs had been broken. "They're going to turn Gillian into a monster!" "They're going to turn Gillian into a savior of humanity," Grayson countered. "We don't have time for this," Glo warned. "They're destroying her," Carrie growled, her words filled with pain and anger. "Those drugs made her condition worse. Without those drugs, she has a chance to return to normal!" The memories of Gillian holding herself outside the airlock came uninvited, filling Grayson's mind.He remembered her words, and her startling contempt. We're going to wait for our friends to come up.I won't go without them. "Gillian is happy here," Carly continued. "Have you ever seen her like this before? She's actually happy!" "Shut up!" Glo shouted, continuing to kick Carly. This time he didn't stop again, but continued to kick Carly until Grayson yelled, "Stop it! Enough, that's enough." Glo looked at Grayson, panting slightly from the effort, and shrugged.Carly on the ground limply collapsed into a ball, groaning and moaning behind the mask. Grayson's eyes flicked from Carly to Gillian on the bed, looking so young, vulnerable and helpless. He seemed to hear the Phantom Man say in his mind that there was a price to pay to save himself.His thoughts went back to the mutilated quarians in the basement of the Pell Warehouse. Judge us not by our means, but by what we seek to accomplish. "We're running out of time," Glo reminded. "We have to go now, without waiting for anyone else." Grayson suddenly remembered the resemblance between the quarian and his former partner.Both were brutal sadists.Everyone will torture and kill others for their own benefit, but there is no guilt in their hearts. And each is a traitor to his own race.It made him sick to think that he should be in the company of such a person. We carry terrible burdens for a great cause.This is the price we must pay for our cause. "Start the engine and let's go," Grayson ordered. The quarians turned to leave, and Grayson calmly lowered his body and picked up the pistol that Carly had dropped on the ground.He got behind the quarians and put the barrel of his gun against the back of Glo's helmet, too close for the kinetic shield to save him.He then shot through Glo's skull, and the bullet flew out of Glo's front visor and pinned to the ship's bulkhead. The quarian fell forward, the pistol falling from Grayson's hand.He turned around and looked down at Carly, but he didn't know what Carly would think when she saw this scene. "The spaceship we came in had a lot of explosives on it," he told Carly. "We're two minutes before they detonate a bomb and blow a hole in the side of the Edenna. If you want to stop them, I need your help." "Can you go?" he asked.He reached out and pulled Carly, helping her to her feet. She hesitated, but took Grayson's hand and pulled herself up, screaming in pain. "I'll give it a fucking try," she replied. Handel and the quarians ran desperately and rushed into the dock.The Sinai Ard was at the furthest berth number seven, passing all the other ships.Handel strode forward and ran in front of everyone, but he saw two people rushing out of the third berth, looked at them in surprise, and the others also stopped. Callie, still in her environmental suit, and Grayson stepped out of the ship in Cerberus armor.Callie's arms are hooked around Grayson's neck, and Grayson is clearly holding Carrie up, as if Callie couldn't even get up on her own.Neither man had a gun. "Handel!" Callie called.But her cry was cut off by a sharp pain, and Carly pressed her free hand to her side. "The Sinaiad," Grayson called to them, "the ship is at berth seven, and it's full of explosives!" Handel was so confused by the scene in front of him that he could only shake his head. "What the hell is going on? Where's Gillian?" "Gillian is safe," Grayson replied quickly, "but you must go to the Sinai Ard. Defuse the bomb before it explodes!" "what are you talking about?" "Cerberus. We never expected to go back on the Sinai Ard, we're going to get my original ship back. The Sinai Ard is loaded with explosives and scheduled to explode when we leave, so that it can attract your attention. " "How much explosive and for how long?" "Two minutes is enough to punch a hole in the hull of the Aidena." "Look at him!" Handel turned and left, pointing at Grayson. "Wait!" Grayson yelled, and Handel froze. "It's a dual simultaneous standby system, you need two people to enter the code at the same time, otherwise it will blow up." "What's the password?" Mal asked. "Six two three three one two." "All others evacuate immediately and leave the dock," the captain ordered, before turning to Handel. "Let's go." It took them less than half a minute to reach the airlock of the Sinai Ard.The bodies of Yisli, Xito and Yugeho were lying outside.The airlock itself sealed. "Wait a minute." Mal grabbed Handel's arm, "What if this is a trap?" Handel was thinking the same thing. "We had to take the risk." They opened the airlock and stormed into the Quary ship.There is enough explosives in the cargo hold to shred an asteroid.At least fifty barrels of liquid rocket charge, each as high as Handel's shoulders, were neatly stacked in the middle of the floor, strung together by wire harnesses.In the middle of these fuel tanks, almost hard to reach, he heard the rhythmic beep beep countdown. "Find the timer!" Handel shouted, and he and Mal separated, one running clockwise around the circle of dynamite, the other running counterclockwise. Handel tried to make the synchronized high-frequency beep of the clock in his mind.He figured it took him half a minute to finally find what he was looking for: a small keyboard, glued to one of the jars.Two wires protruded from the base, joining cables wrapped around the canister of dynamite.Handel was quite sure that trying to remove any of the wires would blow the entire ship to pieces. "I've found it!" Mal shouted from the other side. "I found it too." Handel shouted back. "I enter the code on the count of three? One...two...three!" He pressed the numbered buttons, and if his and Mal's movements were off by a second or two, if they were out of sync, if anyone hesitated, or pressed the wrong one, they would instantly turn to steam. The steady beep of the timer turned into a long, high-pitched whine.Handel instinctively closed his eyes, hugged his shoulders tightly, and waited for the explosion... Nothing happened. The sharp whistling sound gradually weakened and disappeared, Handel reached out to wipe the sweat from his eyebrows, only his gloves touched the mask of the environmental isolation suit. "This signal that all danger is over, damn it," he whispered to himself.Then start laughing out loud.