A clang rings throughout my ears. Am I dead? If so, this freakin' SUCKS. I slowly open my eyes to see a closed metallic fist, clutching the bullet that nearly killed me. It opens, dropping the bullet on the floor.

"Christ, that was close," I noted.

"Too close," Hound added.

Clanging sounded throughout the ship, bullets hitting the outer plating. Dents starting poking in through the door, light shining through. The armored outside was failing.

"Get us out of here!" I shout.

"Directive! Autopilot, safe zone 11731!" Hound shouts.

The ship starts going up, and we grab into something for fear of falling. A loud THUNK hits the door. A beeping sound follows, growing increasingly fast. Oh, no...

The door gets blown off, sending boxes and bullets out of the back into the open air, the ship increasingly gaining altitude. My hands slip, and I'm sucked into the open air. Hound grabs a pole with his metallic arm, and he grabs my hand with his biological one.

"Autopilot! Stabilize!" he yells. The ship begins to face forward instead of up, allowing me to be pulled up into the safety of a chair with a harness. Hound shouts for the hole to be closed off, and a metal wall shoots down, sealing the hole.

"Hopefully nothing valuable fell out," Hound says.

"Define 'valuable'," I tell him.

Without answering, he wanders over to different metal cases attached to the walls. He opens each one, examining it for a few seconds each.

"It's not the best," he says. "But it's the best we've got."

"For what?" I ask.

Hound grins maliciously. There's some diabolical plan forming in his head. I can feel it.

"We're gonna storm Outpost Alpha, their base of operations," he explains, opening a case full of seismic charges. Oh, God...

"No. No, no, no, no. We're not prepared. Why can't we just take a minute and figure things out?" I ask.

"We need to strike now before they send more troops. If they're going down, now's the time. We're not gonna get a window like this again. Are you in or are you out?" he asks.

"Of course, I'm in," I say. "I just wanna make sure we've thought this through. They'll be expecting us to attack. They'll have defenses set up, their best men guarding Parkinson, the whole facility on lockdown. EVERYONE will be there, waiting for us."

"That's what I'm counting on."