The timer burned in the corner of my vision. 1:59. The white, digital numbers were a death sentence, ticking down with cold, mechanical indifference. Seraph's betrayal was no longer a possibility; it was a cold, hard fact of our new reality. There was no time for shock. There was no time for anger. There was only the ticking clock.
"Anya!" I yelled, my voice cutting through the roar of the battle. It was a sound of pure, desperate urgency. "New plan! Seraph betrayed us! Her snipers have orders to kill us! We have less than two minutes to get to that terminal!"
Anya, who was exchanging fire with a Dominion hunter from behind the cover of a massive, fallen I-beam, flinched as if she'd been shot again. She risked a glance at me, and the look in her eyes was one of pure, venomous rage. It wasn't directed at me. It was directed at the sky, at the unseen leader who had just marked us both for death.
"That bitch," she spat, the words a low, vicious growl. She leaned out and fired another round from her Phantom SR-90. The shot forced a hunter who was trying to flank her back into cover. "So this was the plan all along. A neat little cleanup. Leave no loose ends."
"We can be angry later," I said, my mind racing, scanning the massive factory space. My brain was no longer a panicked mess; it was a tactical computer, absorbing data, calculating angles, searching for a path. Any path. The terminal was fifty meters away. It might as well have been on the other side of the world. The ground between us and it was a wide-open killing field. The remaining Dominion hunters were between us and our objective. The Ghost Enforcer was a free-roaming monster, a queen on this deadly chessboard. And Seraph's snipers controlled every angle from above.
We couldn't fight our way through. We couldn't outrun them. We couldn't hide.
We had to change the battlefield itself.
My eyes landed on it. High above the factory floor, suspended from the ceiling by a complex network of thick steel cables, was a massive industrial crane. It was an ancient, silent giant, a relic from the world before the game. Hanging from its hook by four heavy chains was a colossal, rust-covered engine block, the size of a small truck. It swayed gently in the air currents of the vast space. It was positioned almost directly above the main cluster of Dominion hunters, who were using a pile of rubble for cover.
"Anya, I have a target for you!" I shouted over the gunfire, pointing up with my pistol. "Look up! The crane! See the main gear assembly where the cables connect to the winch? The big wheel with the brake mechanism!"
She followed my gaze, her eyes narrowing as she assessed the shot. "Leo, that's a hundred meters up! At least! And it's a moving target, it's swaying in the draft!"
"You're the only one who can make that shot!" I countered, my voice filled with a certainty I absolutely did not feel. I was selling her a lie, but it was a lie we both needed to believe. "You hit that gear assembly, hit it hard, the brake will fail. The whole thing will come down. It's our only chance to clear a path!"
It was a crazy plan. A one-in-a-thousand shot, with a wounded leg, under fire. But a one-in-a-thousand chance was infinitely better than zero.
"I'll draw their fire," I said, taking a deep breath. My heart hammered against my ribs. This was the stupidest thing I had ever done. "When you see an opening, you take it. Don't wait for my signal. Just shoot."
I broke from cover. I didn't run towards the terminal. I ran sideways, into the open, firing my pathetic pistol at the Dominion hunters. The shots were useless, pinging harmlessly off their cover. They were meant only to draw their attention, to make myself a target, to make them look at me instead of Anya. "Hey! Bounty's over here!" I screamed, my voice raw. "Come and get your prize!"
As I predicted, two of the three remaining hunters swiveled towards me, their rifles barking. Bullets sparked on the metal floor all around me, forcing me to dive behind another piece of heavy machinery. But it worked. For a split second, their attention was off Anya. Their focus was entirely on the stupid, noisy target who had just exposed himself.
That was all she needed.
The deep, deafening BOOM of her Phantom SR-90 echoed through the plaza, a sound distinct from all the other noise. It was the sound of authority. It was the sound of a legend. I risked a glance over my cover. High above, I saw sparks fly from the crane's main winch assembly. A high-pitched, metallic scream followed, the sound of hardened steel gears grinding themselves to dust under immense pressure.
For a moment, nothing happened. The giant engine block just hung there. My heart sank. She had missed. The plan had failed.
Then, with a low groan that seemed to shake the entire factory, the giant engine block began to fall.
It wasn't a fast drop at first. It was a slow, heavy descent. Then the last of the gears shattered, and it plummeted. It gathered speed, a multi-ton wrecking ball of solid steel and rust, screaming towards the factory floor.
The Dominion hunters below, who had been focused on me, looked up. Their faces, visible for a brief moment, were masks of pure, absolute terror. They tried to run, to scramble away, but it was too late. There was nowhere to go.
The engine block hit the factory floor with a cataclysmic, earth-shattering crash. The sound was not a bang; it was a physical event, a wave of pressure that washed over us. The thick metal floor buckled and split. The ground shook so violently it knocked me off my feet. A massive cloud of dust, rust, and debris erupted outwards, obscuring everything in a thick, gray fog.
The hunters who were directly underneath were simply gone. Erased from existence. The others were thrown through the air like dolls, their bodies broken and mangled.
The path was clear. But the clock was still ticking.
1:12... 1:11... The numbers on my HUD were a frantic, pulsing red. We had bought ourselves an opportunity, but we had paid for it in precious seconds.