The outpost loomed before them, a stark durasteel monolith jutting defiantly against the crimson-hazed skyline. Jacob double-checked the seals on his environmental suit, ensuring the airtight helmet was secure against the biting winds that whipped fine particulates in stinging swirls. Even through the tinted visor, the ruddy miasma seemed to burn his eyes.
"You ready for this, princess?" His tone carried a mocking lilt, lips curled in a smirk he knew Victoria couldn't see. Feigning nonchalance was his armor against the knot of apprehension coiling in his gut.
"Let's just get on with it." Victoria's clipped response crackled through the vox filter, distorting her voice into an inhuman rasp.
She brushed past him without another word, the rebel leader taking point as always. Jacob rolled his eyes but held his tongue, lengthening his stride to keep pace. Despite the bulky environmental suit, her movements radiated that signature feline grace coupled with a tension so palpable it was nearly tangible - like a serpent coiled to strike at any moment.
As the sealed entrance swelled to fill their vision, Victoria slowed her advance to a cautious creep. One hand drifted towards the blaster pistol holstered at her hip. Jacob mirrored the motion, his other hand toggling the air cyclers to keep a steady flow circulating through his suit.
"Hold it right there! Identify yourselves immediately!"
The electronically-distorted voice crackled over their external pickups a split second before armed figures resolved from the shadowed recesses. Blaster muzzles leveled squarely at the intruding pair with unsettling unity.
Jacob's finger caressed the trigger guard, but he held his fire for the moment. Keeping his body loose and relaxed rather than tense, he murmured, "Steady, Vic. You're the one the spooks gave codes to, right? Let's--"
A hair-trigger twitch was the only warning before ruby plasma seared past with a stench of ozone. Training took over in a blurred instant. Jacob whipped his blaster free and unleashed a barrage of covering fire towards the source of the attack, his other hand bunching in the fabric of Victoria's suit to yank her into an evasive zigzag.
The percussive staccato of blasterfire was deafening over the audio pickups. Jacob's world contracted to that laser-sharp focus of combat, adrenaline spiking as he led them in an erratic pattern to throw off the shooters' aim. A wild shot sliced through the dangling fabric of his sleeve, leaving a scorched and smoldering wake.
"Are those people?!" he shouted over the cacophony, enhanced visual receptors picking out telltale disparities in their opponents' tactics - lacks of cohesion and uniformity that marked them as disorganized rabble rather than disciplined sentries. "Why the hell are they here?"
He risked a glance towards Victoria, but her expression was unreadable behind the polarized visor. With a guttural snarl of pure fury, she kicked their evasive weaving into an even higher gear.
Rather than seek cover, the rebel leader charged straight towards the heaviest concentration of weapons fire.
"Fucking idiot!" Jacob swore vehemently, finally being forced to abandon what little protective cover he'd found in order to intervene. He slammed into Victoria with the full brunt of his mass, using his greater size and momentum to cushion their bone-jarring impact on the unforgiving ground. The lithe fury in his grasp thrashed and contorted with bestial intensity, threatening to buck him off completely.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he demanded, grunting as he fought to maintain his iron grip around her waist. The only response was an inarticulate scream of impotent rage muffled by the audio filters.
His world became a kaleidoscopic blur of frantic motion and blinding flashes of pain as one of Victoria's wildly flailing limbs cracked against the side of his helmet hard enough to send starbursts flickering at the edges of his vision. For a sickening moment, the world tilted dizzily as he was nearly stunned unconscious.
"Enough!" Jacob roared with the full force of his diaphragm, the guttural bellow seeming to ripple the air around them.
At last, Victoria stilled in his grip, though her body still quivered with unreleased tension, muscles quaking like a spring compressed flat. Sparing her only a single, withering look, Jacob surged back to his feet in an eruption of graceful violence.
His returning barrage was a whirlwind of lethal precision, each shot meticulously aimed and timed to systematically cut down the shooters and force them back under the relentless onslaught. One by one, silhouettes dropped and fell still, until at last a ringing quiet fell over the outpost's entrance.
Jacob's breaths came in ragged gasps, heart thundering in his ears - though it wasn't exertion fueling the adrenaline coursing through his veins. No, it was the gut-punching realization of how perilously close Victoria's reckless charge had brought them to a grisly end at the hands of mere rabble.
At last, he lowered his blaster, grip still white-knuckled as he turned his gaze towards the rebel leader. Victoria stood over one of the fallen attackers, weapon aimed squarely at its helmeted head in an unnerving parody of an execution stance. Strange, garbled sounds of anguish and fury issued from her vox in eerie counterpoint.
Without warning, she pivoted and unleashed a series of vicious stomps, fracturing the helmet's visor in a spiderweb of shattered transparisteel.
Jacob watched in silence for a long moment before finally speaking in a flat tone, devoid of his usual taunting inflection. "Is this about the idiot Emily?"
Victoria whirled with blinding speed, blaster snapping up to line his faceplate squarely in the sights. For the span of a single heartbeat, Jacob was certain she fully intended to execute him where he stood. But then, just as suddenly, sanity seemed to flicker back into her posture. The weapon wavered ever so slightly as she faltered.
He held her gaze steadily, refusing to so much as flinch away from the threat. His own blaster remained holstered at his side, body language radiating utter indifference to her show of force. Confronted with his seeming nonchalance, Victoria wavered further, then faltered completely.
With an inarticulate scream of frustration, she turned away once more. A vicious slashing arc sent her blaster clattering away to crack against the reinforced wall in a puff of acrid smoke.
Ignoring Jacob completely, she stalked towards the sealed entrance with that same sinuous, predatory grace. Within seconds she'd cut through the electronic access panel with a blinding flare of plasma from her welding torch. Plumes of caustic smoke billowed around them as the reinforced portal ground open with a metallic shriek.
Without a backwards glance, Victoria slipped through the resulting gap and vanished into the shadowed interior.
Jacob watched her disappear, unmoving for a long moment before allowing himself a weary sigh that vented a steaming rush from his cyclers. Slowly shaking his head, he followed the wayward rebel leader into whatever maelstrom she seemed so feverishly determined to fling them both towards.
The crazy fool was liable to get them killed at this rate with her erratic, emotional outbursts. But she was still his leader, at least for now. And damned if that stubborn fire didn't intrigue him despite the extreme risks it so casually courted.
So focused was he on pondering the disaster their op was rapidly becoming that Jacob failed to register the faint whir of mechanical motion until it was too late. The shadows shifted and parted, bathing the world in a blinding floodlight glare.
"Welcome, intruders." The cold, synthesized voice was devoid of inflection or warmth - purely artificial. "We have been expecting you."