Eirik cursed loudly as enemy shots blew debris out of the wall he was currently pressed against. The Plyxii soldiers had converged on the stairs to the 3rd level, only to find a wounded, but extremely angry Terran waiting for them. In response, they had barricaded off all corridors leading to the stairs in anticipation of the raiding party's return.

This was not going well at all for them. They had been stopped dead in their tracks by overwhelming numbers gathered up and waiting for them and Eirik's brothers were currently busy holding off the reinforcements from down below.

"JUST FUCKING DIE ALREADY!!", Eirik roared as he swung his arm around the corner and blew more shotgun shells down their chosen corridor, He heard the screams of the wounded left by his barrage and he checked his ammo count. 7 shells for the shotgun and approximately 300 rounds for the minigun. After that, he would have to resort to the spare weapons in the duffle bags they still carried with them, or go into melee, which was effectively suicide, considering the number of guns currently pointed at his location.

He heard a massed growl that rose in pitch and swung his whole body around the corner while spinning up his minigun. He started firing before he had a good line of sight, but he knew that collective growl. It was the sound of Plyxii males charging into melee. Like a bayonet charge, only instead of a long knife at the end of a gun, they had their size, strength, and quite formidable front claws, not to mention their bite, to support them. They were frenzied once they started growling like that, the mental state infecting the other Plyxii around the affected individual, resulting in a chain reaction of the famed berserker state, causing them to charge forward, heedless of anything and anyone in their bloodlust.

It was like shooting fish in a barrel. Eirik suspected it was on account of having an armed Terran at their backs. Like the Terran badgers they resembled, they hated being surrounded and would usually react with a burst of violence, meant to give it room to maneuver. As he emptied the last rounds in the minigun, he yelled for the others to gather up and prepare to move. They had been saved by the base instincts of their enemy.

Yelling a collective battle cry, they stormed down the corridor, crushing any survivors under the heavy siege armors. They could see the stairs and this made Eirik's brothers increase their pace to get to the promised safety of a waiting soldier. As they leaped across the open gap, they were met by the spinning barrels of a Terran soldier, leaning against the short wall lining the top of the stairs.

Without taking his eyes off the stairs, he gestured them past him, and they made it to the top of the stairs where they were greeted by a squad of 9 soldiers wearing the familiar black kevlar suits, though these had seen several upgrades since the 4 brothers been in active service. Eirik, Jesper, and the last veteran reached the bottom of the stairs and while the other 2 kept firing bursts down the corridors, Eirik pointed at the waiting soldier and exclaimed, "Ammo count!"

"Full refill sire, even got spares for you and the others. Seems the Plyxii prioritized the entrance over following us down and they managed to clear themselves out by running into the courtyard to retake the entrance. It's slippery up there, according to these guys." The veteran gestured to the group of 9 soldiers as he finished speaking.

"Reload me, quickly!!" Eirik commanded and 3 of the men quickly got to work. while the last 6 rushed to cover the stairs as the other 2 siege armors turned around as they heard the word ammunition. With 3 men working on a single siege armor at a time, it only took 20 seconds to reload each of them and as the last reload finished, Eirik bellowed, "FIGHTING RETREAT, SIEGE ARMORS IN ONE GROUP, REGULAR INFANTRY IN THE OTHER, REGULAR INFANTRY GOES FIRST. NOW!!"

As he swung his weapon around and leveled it at the stairs. moments after the regular soldiers had started running towards the stairs back to the 2nd level, Eirik and his little group, the wounded veteran supported Jesper, opened fire on the literal sea of raging Plyxii soldiers hot on their heels. Once the first group made it 50 meters away, they took a kneeling position and raised their weapons, ready to cover the retreat of the 4 siege armors. "CLEAR!" Jesper shouted out, and Eirik's group turned as one and started moving toward the waiting group. They passed them with bullets whizzing around their heads and once they reached the 50-meter mark, they repeated the actions of the first group.

They kept on fighting and retreating this way through the 3rd and 2nd levels. Once they reached the stairs to the first level, Signe was there with Knud who immediately Lead Eirik's brothers away from the fighting, flanked by 4 soldiers as the rest opened fire on the rush of enemies that had become harder to contain as they had spread out across the 3rd floor during the retreat. Eirik was about to fire another burst into the sea of bodies when he noticed a group making their way through the enemies.

These were old Plyxii, a feat in and of itself, but they moved like long-time veterans and their leader was holding his arms in a wrong way for a rifle...

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Shu'Malen and his loyal guards had finally made their way to the actual fighting and he saw what he assumed was the leader of the raiding party aiming his weapon down the stairs. He raised his grenade launcher and fired it directly at the Terran while screaming, "DIE TERRAN!!!"

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Eirik saw the grenade sailing through the air and felt like time slowed down. He had no time to move out of the way, and no way of blocking it. His mind flashed with a thousand memory instances in the brief moment it took for the grenade to reach him. His carefree childhood with his brothers and grandfather. His adolescence was spent as a troublemaker in the cities surrounding his own. His adulthood as a soldier of Terra and later his now current life as a free agent. He tried twisting out of the way but only managed to get his shoulder and arm in the way of the round, instead of his chest.

His world was rocked as he sailed through the air, his eardrums ruptured and ears bleeding from the explosion, he slammed into the wall 5 meters behind him. As he slid to the floor, he was trying to make sense of the world, the massive concussion he had received turning what little sound he could hear into static, and what little sight had not been robbed from him during the explosion was blurred and swirling.

As he lay there dazed and confused, Eirik realized he was being dragged along the floor. With the sound of gunfire intensifying around him as he started to recognize rough shapes of people around him, all of them firing, what he supposed were weapons, towards the direction he had been blown away from. A fist was slammed sideways into his thigh and he felt a sharp pain.

Unable to comprehend where the pain came from, the world suddenly seemed to snap into focus once more and he saw the syringe in Jesper's hand.

Sound returned to a degree, still sounding muffled and far away when it looked like people were screaming at the top of their lungs, but he could hear.

"-Need to get him out of here, Knud! For fuck's sake, don't you fucking die on me now!" Jesper's voice sounded as he turned his head from the side and back down to Eirik.

Eirik tried moving but could only move the left side of his body without pain. The right side felt like everything was on fire while being corroded by acid every time he tried moving a muscle.

He tried looking towards his feet to see the situation and after his head had lolled around for a short second, he managed to focus on the unfolding scene that grew smaller as he was still being dragged. He saw a mix of honor guards from the diplomat's party and his own troops.

"whswtchngthntrnc..." Eirik tried to speak finding his tongue feeling twice as large and covered in the taste of blood. He must have bitten down on it when he was hit. "Who's...Watching...The..Entrance." He managed to get out, loud enough for Jesper to hear him

"You're awake!! Knud, he's still alive!! It's okay Eirik, the internal security force is holding down the fort!!" Jesper was yelling as loud as he could, judging from the veins popping out on his neck, and Eirik felt a wave of relief hit him. The internal security force was not his first choice of soldier, but as a defender, they were all but impervious.

Their training differed wildly from Eirik and his assault forces, mostly focusing on laying down overlapping fields of suppressive fire to allow snipers to pick off the enemy, setting up defensive barriers and formations to maximize the use of the fewest amount of troops through the use of barricades, camouflage coverings, and pyrotechnics.

They were combat engineers and trench fighters rolled into one specialized combat role, designed to be the ultimate defensive fighter. If you had 50 on your side you could hold off a battalion. with 500, you could hold off a division, provided of course they had a defensive location, gathered supplies, and ample time to prepare, at least 48 hours.

They would hold the entrance, of that Eirik had no doubt. He sensed he was no longer being dragged and a face appeared in his vision. He squinted and recognized Knud. He was yelling something but Eirik was no longer listening. Everything was going to be okay. He let his eyes close shut and let the darkness overtake him, his left hand firmly clutched around the handle of the combat knife.

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He slowly opened his eyes and tried looking around, only to realize his neck was fixated by a brace. Everything hurt and his throat felt like sandpaper. He felt a weight on his left hand and realized he was still clutching the blade, a slender hand laying on top of his. Someone was there.

"Water." he croaked and had to suppress the urge to cough. If he did so before he got some water it would be a very painful experience, and he would rather not have to go through that. He heard mumbling next to him and he recognized Freja's voice. He slowly and painfully opened his left hand, the muscles feeling like they had been cramped around the knife handle for days without pause. The movement must have awakened Freja because she grabbed his now open hand and squeezed it hard.

"Eirik!! Are you awake?!?" She exclaimed frantically.

"Water!" He managed to croak out once again and he felt her hand disappear. A moment later she appeared in his vision holding a cup with a straw which she guided to his mouth. He drank greedily from the water, feeling life return as his body regained more water than was simply needed to survive, through the IV he was no doubt connected to. When he finished half the cup, he let go of the straw and looked at the Icy blue eyes of the woman he loved. He saw worry in her eyes, something he had not seen before.

"That bad, huh?" He rasped. He was still pretty beat up and felt tired, his body still desperate for rest to allow it time to heal.

"Just rest, love. Rest and get better!" Freja said firmly as she kissed him and sat back down in the chair after taking the knife from him. "You won't need it anymore, you are not at risk of dying anymore." He heard her say before he fell back asleep.

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The next time Eirik woke up he was feeling slightly better. His neck was no longer braced and his head no longer pounding like a group of construction workers with jackhammers were working overtime inside of it. Freja was still sitting in the chair, holding his hand, but this time she was awake. As Eirik lifted his head, Freja handed him a glass of water. After he slowly rose to a sitting position, he drained the glass of cool water within seconds and exhaled sharply.

"Finally awake, I see." A condescending voice rang out and it took Eirik a moment to connect it to Jensen, the diplomat. "You try taking a grenade to the face, see how you feel afterward!" Eirik shot back, his voice still raspy and broken, before he broke into a coughing fit. His right side seared with pain as he convulsed, and Freja hissed at Jensen, "You only dare mock him because he is as wounded as he is!"

Eirik did not hear a reply and figured Jensen had nothing to say but when he turned his head as he got the coughing under control he saw the man standing next to his bed, on the opposite side of Freja.

"And why shouldn't I? The first time we met, he threatened me because he was armed and I was not." He pressed a finger into Eirik's shoulder and the pain made him groan loudly before he shot his left hand out and managed to grab Jensen by the throat. "I do not need a weapon to kill, worm!" Eirik grunted as the pain still raced through his right shoulder. He started tightening his grip and saw the fear in Jensen's eyes, but he had to let go. He was still weak and this short exertion had drained him of everything he had.

Jensen stumbled backward as Eirik collapsed back into his bed, sweat rolling down his forehead and heaving for breath.

"WHAT IN THE HOLY TRINITY OF FUCKERY DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING TO MY PATIENT!!" Eirik heard Knud thunder before the sound of fists hitting flesh and Jensen's desperate pleas for mercy filled the air.