Page 26 of Enslak

"You cannot escape," he called out, his voice carrying absolute certainty. "We have you surrounded. Your options are surrender or death. Choose quickly."

The guards around him chuckled, a sound like grinding metal.

My stomach dropped. This was already over. They were just waiting for us to realize it.

"Enslak," I said, my voice steady despite the terror flooding through me and the tactical data screaming that we had maybe a thirty percent survival chance. "We need to—"

The only option was retreat. Back into the sewers, back into the darkness with those creatures, back into—

Enslak moved.

One second he stood beside me. The next he was a blur.

The gentle creature who'd carried me through the sewers vanished entirely. In his place stood something else, a weapon, pure lethal grace moving with the kind of efficiency that made my combat training look like a children's game. He didn't charge forward. He moved back, positioning himself between me and the guards with his body a living shield. His eyes tracked every weapon, every threat, calculating angles and distances with predatory precision.

His gold eyes flicked back to me with an expression that needed no translation.

Down.

I hit the dirt.

The first guard fired. Enslak was already moving, and the bolt passed through empty air where he'd been a heartbeat before. He closed the distance in two strides, claws flashing. The guard's throat opened in a spray of arterial blood, the scream dying before it could fully form.

Two more guards fired simultaneously. Enslak twisted, his body moving with impossible fluidity, and both bolts hit the ground where he'd just been standing. His hand shot out, claws extended, and caught the first guard across the face. The man's head snapped back, jaw hanging at an unnatural angle. The second guard tried to adjust his aim. Enslak's other hand closed around the man's wrist, crushing bone with a sound like breaking branches.

The guard screamed.

Enslak's teeth found his throat, tearing through flesh and cartilage with savage efficiency.

"Enslak," I screamed.

But he was already moving.

A blaster bolt caught him in the shoulder. The impact spun him slightly, smoke rising from burned fur and flesh. He stumbled, pain flashing across his face.

But he didn't stop.

I yanked the small blaster from my pocket and fired at the nearest standing guard. The bolt hit him square in the chest plate and dissipated across the armor in a brief flash of light. The guard didn't even flinch. He turned toward me, raising his weapon.

I fired again and again, the bolts splashing uselessly against reinforced plating designed to withstand far more powerful weapons than my pathetic little sidearm.

"Fuck!" I squeezed the trigger desperately, the blaster whining as it cycled through shots that did absolutely nothing.

The guard's weapon swung toward me, the barrel a dark eye promising death.

Then Enslak was there. He launched himself at the guard, covering the distance in a single bound, his claws opening the man from sternum to groin and spilling intestines onto the ground in a wet rush. The guard was dead before he hit the dirt.

Another guard, another kill. Enslak's movements were economical and efficient, beautiful in their brutality. Every strike was precise, targeting vital areas with surgical accuracy: throat, heart, arteries. He knew exactly where to hit for maximum damage.

But there were too many.

A bolt hit him in the thigh, then another in his side. The burns spread, his leg buckling slightly. Blood, his blood, soaked into the sand.

Enslak killed three more in rapid succession. His teeth flashed as he tore into a guard's throat, blood painting his face red. His claws opened another guard's chest, ribs cracking like kindling. A bolt caught him in the chest and the impact drove him back a step, smoke rising from the wound, the smell of burned flesh mixing with the copper tang of blood.

He turned his head slightly, his gold eyes finding mine for just a moment.

In that brief glance I saw everything. He knew he was hurt. Knew he was bleeding. Knew that every bolt brought him closer to death.