The Gunslinger

These guys were persistent.

Alison had warned her moments before they'd sprung the ambush, and she'd managed to duck behind the transport for cover. A relic of the first war, it had been designed to withstand anti-material rounds, what the Consanguine were firing might as well have been rocks.

Roy had always told her that if she took care of it, it would take care of her.

She'd never known why the Aegis had let her stay with him. She'd kicked screamed and threatened to shoot them, but she was an angry 11 year old. It didn't make sense that they'd just hand over a first gen Anderen, literally their future, to an old baseline.

An explosion rocked the transport behind her.

Of course.

They'd prepared for the transport. She and Roy had upgraded the armor beyond the original loadout, but whatever they were firing now was big, and she couldn't tell if it would hold.

She had managed to grab her impact cannon, and utility knife, but neither of those things were useful while she was pinned down.

Another explosion shook the transport.

Goddamn Consanguine. Hypocrites. All of them.

They started this thing because they said they were tired of being "marginalized" and "treated like monsters", but the first thing they did was kill their own children. They were so much better, that they'd tried to do to her the one thing the baselines had never done to them.

She got to her feet, back still pressed against the vehicle and drove her utility knife into a seam in the side of the cannon cracking the stabilizer coil underneath. The heat of the reaction fused the knife to the weapon and burned her hand.

Sarah cursed. She'd rebuilt enough of these to have expected that.

10 seconds before the thermal runaway of the destabilized power cell would make a very loud mess.

She threw it over the transport in the direction the gunfire, and then ran towards the cab. Hopefully the cannon would distract the Consanguine long enough for her to get to the W.I.P.

The Work In Progress. The whip.

A heavy plasma rifle with a foldspace emitter grafted to the business end. There was never any point in aiming it, the portal ribbon would just thrash between the containment antennae until the power cells were dead anyway. It made for a very decisive weapon.

Just as she got to the door, the impact cannon exploded in a flash of burning plasma and the gunfire stopped abruptly. She didn't know if they were stunned or dead, but she wasted no time ducking into the cab.

She pulled the W.I.P from its spot under the floor and crammed a handfull of power cells into it, six to an ordinary weapon's one.

Another blast hit the transport, sending the extras clattering to the floor.

Some of those bastards had survived, but it didn't matter.

She kicked out the side window of the cab and pushed the weapon through so the antennae just cleared. Nothing they did mattered now.

There was no safe place in the wake of the W.I.P.