It worked. The wounded soldier's finger is still on the firing button, Bel's hands wrapped around to hold it there. The third one -- man or woman? no telling, with the armor, without a face -- keels backward, computer-generated blood fountaining from the helm-front, momentum sliding the corpse almost right to their feet.

The firing's stopped from the other side of the room, but Bel can't afford to pay mind to the brief, vicious sounds of close combat following it. Slamming into the second one's personal space, wounding him and taking control of his weapon without stripping it away, had been a great idea for about three seconds. The only idea, really, with the two soldiers too far apart to take out at the same time. But by the fourth second, the man behind Bel has gone from screaming to grappling, the helmeted head slamming into Bel's hard enough to disorient if not for thirty years of muscle memory.

Hip lifting under the guard's, shoulder under the shoulder of his gun arm, Bel throws him as hard as possible, chasing to kick the gun out of his reach. Which leaves Bel's foot in his reach, a scrabbling clutch weaker than it would normally have been; the knife is still in his other shoulder. It's enough to pull Bel off-balance, slapping the ground on going down -- uninjured, but it's time lost, momentum lost, and there's a cold pit in Bel's gut as they kick at the hand and try to reach the nearest weapon. Damned program bypassing the safeties, what are they even doing here--?