steelandtemper: (60)
Cortana ([personal profile] steelandtemper) wrote in [community profile] legionmissions 2017-01-06 05:42 pm (UTC)

"I've got to think about this for a bit. I'll be back," Cortana had said, withdrawing from Sombra's mind to where she could do her calculations, trying to map all their accumulated data to some construct. Realspace? The eleven dimensions of slipspace? Something even more exotic? Too many variables, not enough constants. Cortana had retreated to a realm of pure numbers, testing and discarding hypothesis after hypothesis. It would have been exhilarating, if she hadn't been trying to feel out the limits of their prison. Instead she'd felt only a grim determination.

Then one of her alerts screams CHANGE IN CARRIER CONSCIOUSNESS, and Cortana drops everything to switch her attention back to the real world.

...Thirty seconds, Sombra. She'd been gone for thirty seconds.

Organics are all but frozen when an AI stops pretending its speed is as limited as theirs, and Cortana considers the still life with monster from the omnicomm sensors and Sombra's internal system, replaying the fight so far in a nanosecond flicker.

Superior size and strength. Pain is not a deterrent. So. Treat it like an Elite or a Hunter. The pistol is too small to deliver a kill shot directly--note to self: get the Chief to teach Sombra how to use something bigger--but everything has weak spots, humanoids especially.

Like knees. Knees are terrible. Whose idea were those?

Kneecapping is out of the question right now, so Cortana instead highlights a small section of the shoulder joint with a targeting reticule. In under the clavicle, and maybe they'd nick the subclavian or brachial artery. Regardless, they can wreck the joint, if Sombra can make the shot.

She can't with her arm pinned, of course, and Cortana turns her attention to the translocator. Too close for a clean escape, but being even a meter to one side will free Sombra's weapon...assuming she can pull herself together enough from the head injury and disorientation of the teleportation to fire. Big assumption, sure, but Cortana will deal with being wrong when it happens. With even a little luck, their ugly friend will be just as disoriented from its prey disappearing out from under it.

Well, not much more to do here. Cortana triggers the translocator, and in the microseconds before anything happens, wonders not-so-idly why this creature is striking her as familiar.

Oops, there they go.

Cortana speaks directly into Sombra's mind--thinking is faster than physical speech. Sombra. Shoot now.

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