His HUD went wild, but he only noted it instinctively as he screamed both in pain and outraged exertion. He kept his right arm moving by some force of will and locked it onto the carapace of the leg that had impaled him.

He screamed at the drone, anything to distract himself from the torturous pain as he began twisting the leg to the side. The leg gave way slowly but surely as his armor-enhanced muscles continued to pressure it down in a twisting motion, like one might use when breaking off a lobster’s claw at a fine meal.

There was a sickening crack as the leg broke, and the drone squealed in shock or pain, Bermont didn’t know or care which. He ripped it loose, twisting his entire body back and yanking until the leg burst from the main body in a spray of steaming fluids.

Both fell apart at that moment, the human collapsing to the ground and the alien staggering as it tried to balance itself on a limb that was no longer there.

Bermont screamed yet again as he pulled the impaling limb from his shoulder, while feeling the cooling rush of the suit’s automatic foam systems sealing the wound. He looked at the tip of the limb where it was coated in his own blood, giving the carapace a sinister, oily appearance. It was shaped like a spear point, with jagged edges that he assumed were to aid it in climbing but had also done a wicked job on his flesh.

His attention came back to the real world when the creature charged at him again. Bermont howled, covering his pain with sound as he drove upward and flipped the alien limb over in his wounded hand, then passed it to his good one. He met the charge like a pikeman from some long-forgotten war, grunting in pain and exertion as he drove the alien’s own leg deep into its guts.

It screamed this time, and Bermont grunted in satisfaction as he gave the limb a twist and fell back. The steaming and sizzling fluid that filled the alien poured around him, bubbling against his armor and the ground, but he didn’t have the strength to get up and fell back where he was and lay on the ground.

“One…This is Five. Scratch the rearm and send me a medevac,” he grunted into the tac-net.

“Confirmed, Five. You all right, Sean?”

Bermont grimaced as a rough chuckle echoed through him. “I’ll live—probably.”

“Chute is coming in now.”

“Good.”

Savoy looked up as the local military came around the corner at a dead run, Mehn’s easy jog placing him at their rear as his rifle swept their six.

“Here,” Savoy snapped, slapping his rifle into the arms of the closest of the locals, startling the man into grabbing it as he appropriated the man’s laser rifle.

“What…?” the man blurted, but Savoy ignored him.

The Terran lieutenant stepped away from them and examined the rifle, comparing it to the log recordings of Bermont’s experimentation. In a few seconds, he had the controls more or less figured out, and if he was right, it was already set to maximum power.