"Not a snowball's chance in hell," Fate snarled, taking another step. "I've been through worse."
"I don't doubt that, but I wasn't asking." The scientist turned to one of the guards behind him. "Take them down."
"Yes, Chief Scientist Bregg!" The man said, saluting before moving into the room.
Scientist Bregg stepped aside and let him pass. The guard pointed his gun at Fate from a distance of four feet and flicked a switch on the side. When he fired, a pulse, visible via the circles it made as it passed through the air, expanding to encompass Fate entirely.
Fate's mind grew groggy and his eyelids heavy, but he took another step. The guard fired once more, and this time Fate went down, collapsing onto the hot metal floor to lay beside the guard as the lightning consuming him alleviated but didn't disappear.
"He's playing dead," Bregg said. "The lightning would stop otherwise. Hit him again."
Before the guard could comply, Fate snatched the man's ankle and yanked. The man fell on his back, and Fate jumped on top of him, snatching the gun out of his hands and hammering the man's head with the butt of the weapon until the helmet's visor cracked and the face below was unrecognizable. Fate rolled to the left as another guard fired at him, and he returned fire with the pilfered rifle.
The pulse had no effect on the guard, who continued his assault. Fate, meanwhile, was frozen in place as the lightning attacking him seemed to become tangible, forming chains that tethered his wrists to the ground. With no way to escape, the new guard was free to fire on Fate, and he didn't squander the opportunity. Soon, Fate slumped over on his side as the electricity stopped its task.
"Good," Bregg commented. "Now the girl." The guard shifted his aim to Cait, who met the threat with a snarl as she was likewise restrained by crackling thunderbolts, which chained her to the table by her wrists.
PEW!
The guard gained a finger-sized hole through his forehead and keeled over, revealing another guard, their raised weapon advertising to all that they were the one who fired. The other guards immediately restrained the insubordinate subordinate, and Bregg gave the traitor a look of tired exasperation.
"Care to explain, Corporal?" he asked, although he didn't care one way or the other. He just needed an answer for the Advanced's exhaustive records. He was met with silence. "No? Do you at least want to explain why your chip didn't activate?"
More silence. "Very well. Throw her in here; we'll do this the hard way. If she gets zapped, then someone removed her chip. If not, we'll have to take… special measures to find out how her chip was sabotaged."
The guard finally spoke up, yelling in a crisp voice "For the Flaming Crows!" She cracked her left index finger with her thumb, and an explosion of fire and Divine Energy gushed out with her as the center.
When the fire subsided, all of the guards, including the suicidal rebel, had been reduced to cinders. Bregg, however, was still standing, the lighting having formed a protective shield around him that sapped the explosion of its power.
"There's my answer, I suppose," he dully, shaking his head. "All she accomplished was making me wait a few minutes to bring someone to haul your sorry asses out of here. I'm quite surprised that you two are still conscious, though. Even the best of the soldier caste here wouldn't be standing now, or kneeling, I suppose."
The ship rocked, a cacophonic boom echoing throughout the halls as Bregg placed a hand on the wall to steady himself.
"What now?" he exclaimed. Pressing a small white device in his ear with his free hand, he asked "What's happening?"
"…Who would be stupid enough to attack us, especially when we have a capital ship? …Planet Class? Impossible, even they don't have the resources for that…. Fine, I'll be there soon. Send someone to Archive Room Gamma for retrieval of Subjects Null and Athena."
He lowered his hand, eye twitching as he glared at Cait. "Your lucky day, I suppose. You have the pleasure of getting the rest of the day off."
"Day off," in this case, meant she wouldn't be tortured or tested for the rest of the day. "Enjoy it, because the next few years will be hell. I'll make sure of it." With that, he strode out, lab coat fluttering as he paid no heed to the ash-covered floor.
When he was out of sight, Cait reached out with her hand, fighting against the lightning shackles to touch the spacebar of the monitor she had hacked earlier. She managed to press it with the very tip of her middle finger, and she collapsed, catching her breath as the electricity stopped abruptly. She staggered over to Fate and picked him up, slinging an arm over her shoulder.
"Thanks for guessing the password," she told him, uncaring that he wouldn't hear it. "Now it's my turn to carry you around. You're kind of heavy though, so you better wake up soon."
She stopped next to Romero and gave her apologies in her mind for failing to uphold her promise, then dragged her senseless teammate out of the data room and down the hall, picking a direction at random.
"Halt!" She heard a woman say behind her. She had been walking down the halls at random for a few minutes now, almost falling flat on her face several times as the ship rocked with explosion after explosion. She was starting to think she would be able to escape without encountering a single living guard, but it seemed her luck had finally run out.
She turned, mustering her Divine Energy in preparation to fight. Her apprehension turned to relief as she found not an armored guard in white armor, but a ragtag group of men and women in brown ballistic armor with several pouches over army green shirts and pants.
The one who spoke, a fairly attractive woman with dark green hair and light blue eyes, gave Cait a once-over. Her eyes flickered with recognition as she stepped forward. "Cait, correct? I'm Gwen. Margaret sent us. We're getting you out of here."