He backed slowly away as the suit approached him. There were halogen pods on either side of the acrylic bubble and now they were activated. The light exploded in Orr’s face, their brilliance blinding him. He stumbled backwards, unable to see, fumbling over the deck and finally reaching the door. He pulled it open and slammed it shut, sealing it from the inside.

Outside, the suit thumped ever forward.

It was coming and he rather doubted anything could conceivably stop it.

“Sir…sir, it’s right outside,” Anderson managed, beads of sweat rolling down his face which was shriveled tight to the skull beneath with abject terror.

Orr tried to think. They needed a weapon, but he couldn’t think of a dang thing. They had no guns. Firearms were forbidden in Antarctica by international law, despite what many silly, inaccurate movies led people to believe. There was plenty of iron around to be used as clubs and a welding unit in the maintenance shack on the forward deck…but both would require getting hazardously close to the suit and its deadly implements.

Boom.

The suit was banging on the door now. Each time its manipulator thudded against the stainless steel hatch, Anderson cried out like a horror-stricken child. He was a civilian and would be pretty much useless in the game of life and death that was coming.

Boom, boom, boom.

The door was shaking in its frame. It groaned with metal fatigue, its plates collapsing, screws ejected. Anderson was crying and blubbering, wrapping his arms around himself, nearly hysterical with fright.

“Goddammit, boy! Don’t fold up on me now!” Orr shouted at him.

The door was hit again and this time it broke free of its frame. One of the hinges shot past Anderson with such force it threw blue sparks when it struck the deck plating; something Orr did not see because one of the plates bashed into him and threw him down.

The Exosuit smashed through the doorway, widening it to fit its girth. One of the halogen pods on the helmet was torn off, the other strobing now with flickering, disorienting flashes of blue-white light.

Orr scrambled across the deck as the heavy tread of the suit made everything shake. It knocked a computer terminal out of the way and smashed a desk in two, crushing a small toolbox beneath its tread. Orr was in pain. He could barely straighten up. The door plate had bashed into him like a battering ram. He managed to get to his knees, wincing, white foam at his mouth from the exertion.

If you have internal injuries or a broken disc, you’re finished, a voice said in his head.

But geared to survival, he would not listen. He could not give up. He could not give in. As the Exosuit destroyed everything in its path, he cried out, “ANDERSON! GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE! DO YOU HEAR ME? GET THE HELL OUT!”