Dassion Way activated the glareshield to dim the cockpit canopy as the bright morning sun rose, threatening to blind him as he flew his Lander. It was a small, clunky Mk VI Orbital, with enough space in its hold for barely thirty men, and was growing old, but the Hermia was one of the last flyers around, something he was very glad of. He squinted as he looked at the auspex reader on the aged control panel, and noticed that it continued to blink over multiple moving contacts – the plague twists below him were moving for cover from the suns rays. Just like every other morning.

It had been another quiet night for him, once more finding no survivors in the city. He switched off his now-redundant spotlights, then eased the control stick backwards, and immediately the orbital Lander ascended away from the confines of the city towers into the light blue morning sky, her engines complaining faintly. As he flew above Tharius' spires he felt the tension in his body dissipate – he had been growing so used to the adrenaline pumping in his veins as he worked his way through the maze-like city streets night after night, he hadn't realised how wound up he was. He supposed that's what living here would be like for the foreseeable future. Yet, until he searched everywhere throughout the city, he would not stop. He couldn't leave anyone else behind.

He took one last look at the auspex, which showed nothing but the itchy, slow movements of the dead, and thumbed it to off, sick of it. It was time to go home, he thought, realising how tired he was. With the buzz of danger gone, the heavy weight of fatigue gripped him. His clothes felt dirty with sweat and his limbs ached after hours of being strapped into the cockpit seat. Dassion gripped the control stick and hit the thrusters, feeling the engines of the Lander growl as he pushed them onwards. The Hermia bucked as he did so, and he could hear the usual groans of complaint from her old hull. His Lander had seen better days, though she flew true and he knew her quirks. Just like him, he mused.

Under the glareshield, the morning sky looked tainted and dull, but through the corner of his eye, he suddenly saw a bright flash above his position. It sparked brilliantly for a second, then vanished. He turned his head, straining to see what it was. He turned the auspex on, tuning it to search the sky around, and moments later he found another signal.

Someone had just appeared above the city from orbit. The signal he was getting was strong, and from the looks of it, it was from a large vehicle. His old instincts kicked in and he pushed the throttle downward, banking sharply. Hermia complained violently, her machine spirit crying out as she banked deeply. Dassion hoped he had reacted quickly enough, aiming to drop out of their auspex sights and back into the crowded cityscape below, masking his whereabouts – he knew he was being overly cautious, as this could finally be the rescue force they had been hoping for. But old habits die hard, and he had not grown old in his line of work for nothing.

He expertly weaved his bulky Lander through the tops of the city, while keeping a keen eye on the new arrival. It descended rapidly toward the now abandoned and fire damaged spaceport, making a navy-like orbital landing. He increased the power to the auspex, the machine spirit hissing through the static, and he saw a grainy pict of the ship.

He knew immediately that it was no navy ship. Maybe it had been before, but not now. Strange looking symbols adorned its hull and weapons bristled out from it wherever seemed possible. There was something ugly about it – as if the usual symmetrical lines of the flyer's hull were somehow distorted. A bad feeling slipped into his thoughts.

He turned away from the spaceport, and gunned the Hermia towards the distant mountains, and the rest of the survivors.

*

Carson heard the fiery, booming sound of something thundering into the atmosphere above the city. He turned away from the zombies for the first time since daybreak, and looked to the sky. He saw a thin line of smoke of a flyer that had dropped from space above Tharius, and from its bearing he guessed that it was heading for the spaceport.

It felt like years since he had last set foot in the Tharius spaceport. Once a place of work for him, now nothing but a distant memory.

Yet, someone seemed to be flying into it. Maybe a relief force had finally reached the city? His previous disappointment at missing the Lander during the night vanished momentarily, and a glimmer of hope shined within him. Then he remembered his precarious predicament. There was an ancient terran saying about being trapped between a rock and a hard place, and he laughed to himself as he considered how it matched his situation.

The noise he made from laughing immediately aggravated the plague zombies deep within the shadows, and they emitted a gritty, hoarse growl, bringing Carson's reality sharply into focus. His jailors waited tirelessly for his flesh, it seemed.

He stood in the sunlight and he considered what to do next. He was out of ammunition for his gun, and had no discernable weapon to hand, so fighting his way out with his fists was suicide – as soon as one of them bit you, you became one of them; there was no way he could fend off those hungry, dead jaws with his hands alone. Jumping to safety was out of the question also.

What would my father do? he thought.

The Imperial hero, Grigarian Leto, would have found a way out of any situation. Even if the dead had risen to claim the souls of the living.

Carson shook his head, trying to clear his mind. The hangover and adrenaline rush of the fighting earlier still affecting him. An idea struck him suddenly. He edged out over the opening the broken window created, and peered downwards. The wind was still strong, but he was able to steadily hold himself over the ledge. He saw the opposite building, many of its windows were smashed and jagged looking also, and the damage caused to it hid the gothic beauty it once held. All of the hab towers in this area where adorned with ancient architechure and stone gargoyles – portaying creative carvings of Imperial heroes and the mighty Adeptus Astartes.

If there were ledges on the other buildings, surely there would be some on this one?

There was. A few feet below the window a ceremite ledge lipped around the building. It was reachable. He could make it. But then what? What would he do once he stood on a ledge hundreds of metres off the hard ground, with no discernable handholds?

He heard a shambling sound behind him, and he reacted cat-quick, turning from the dizzying drop, amid the crackling of glass under him. Quickly, he realised that his attackers were only moving around the shadows, and he was still in sunlight. His blood was up, and he forced himself to calm down, to breath easy. He was on edge – he had been for weeks now – and it was starting to fray on his sanity's edges. Hours ago he had almost died – again – and his situation had barely improved.

He needed to escape. He needed to live.

He sucked in a deep breath of air, and stood. He holstered his gun, and looked around for anything useful, finding only the damaged bottles of wine scattered across the bloodstained floor. He ran a hand through his bushy hair absentmindedly, and looked into the shadows. Only death stared back, with a dark glare.

Carson bent over and picked up a bottle. 'Frak you, and your dead, bloody stare,' he said, before throwing the wine bottle at the nearest zombie. It broke over the undead being, and it grunted, then continued its servitor-like vigil.

Carson shook his head, and turned his back from the dead, ready to take a perilous leap of faith to live.

If it worked, he could escape and travel to the spaceport, and be saved. But only if it worked - and his chances were slim at best.

Dangle over an almost certain-death drop; walk along a thin ledge; break into a hab (without a zombie); find his way out of the plague ridden building; then find a way to the spaceport and, finally, be saved.

How hard could it be?