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and over. She would then have to quickly pull up and dispatch the “successful” climber with a flurry of cuts and slashes. Despite her best efforts, she was slowing down. It was only a matter of time before she would take too long to kill one of them, and others would gain a handhold behind her.
    She made her decision. It would be to deny them a direct victory. She intended to leap out over the abyss, and use her final saved round on the way down.
    That time was fast approaching, she knew, as she barely managed to keep two of them from reaching the top behind her. That’s when she felt them finally change tactics.
    It was felt , because the unexpected jolt nearly shook her loose from her one handed grip, as she swung over and slashed the fingers off a hand griping a top support beam. They were somehow battering the main beam she thought, to shake her down.
    The jolt came again, and she was better prepared this time to hold on, but debris splintered from the ceiling and unexpectedly struck her in the face in the darkness as she looked up, lodging tiny fragments of grit in her eyes. Unable to see their IR signatures, she’d have to rely on her mental acoustic map to continue the fight. The sound absorbing enemy bodies could be faintly perceived when they were close to her, via occultation of background sound reflections. Of course, they often could be sensed directly, because their noisy mouths made their heads and eyes a target for her blade.
    The third, much harder impact, shattered large segments from the ceiling, because she felt from which direction the larger particle spray came. The pieces stung when they hit, and one larger shard nicked her left cheek. Unless a smaller angled support beam had just pulled free, she couldn’t understand how that happened. Nor could she imagine how these Krall had managed to apply something heavy enough to act as a battering ram on the sturdy beam. Apparently, a few of them were more resourceful than she had expected, compared to those still climbing towards her.
    Because the battering had caused some of the climbers to slip down the column, she had a moment to reposition herself, to confront the next closest climber. It was fortunate that she was climbing over a n angled support beam when the next and stronger impact came, because the chaotic loud low frequency noise disrupted her mental acoustic map, and simultaneously slightly displaced the beam she had reached for in her blindness.
    Missing her handhold , she spun downward, saved only by a knee hooked over the support she had straddled. Without the mental map of where she was in space, she’d have to listen for a few seconds to rebuild that. The Krall were screaming their anger even louder, as if she had done this. She needed to try to blink the grit out of her eyes, using the tears generated by the irritation. If she could regain part of her IR vision, she might hold them at bay while her mind rebuilt a map from the sounds echoing around.
    With effort, she tried and failed to open her eyelids. Dust, mixed with tear duct fluid had gummed them closed while she’d held them tightly shut. Shifting her knife to her left hand, she used her right thumb to try to pull the right eyelid gently open. It hurt, as this activity drug grit over the surface of her eye.
    Dazzling light blinded her for a moment as the eyelid lifted, and she thought she had done that to herself. Possibly a shot of pain induced optic nerve activity. Except her eye, even though closed, adapted swiftly to a continuing glare, closing the iris. It was then that she sensed the pink glow through her eyelid. The light was real. The ceiling must have cracked, to allow light through from the hall in the dome above her. The Krall wouldn’t need IR to see her now, and she couldn’t take advantage of the same light. If several of them got hold of her, she might not be able to fight free.
    She thumbed open the holster retainer and drew the Krall made pistol. It occurred to