Chapter 4 – Nightfall

The hours passed without further incident. As the sun fell behind distant mountains the sky faded dark purple to black, the aurora disappeared and the black smear over the city grew until it stretched across the hills and up the valleys, enveloping the Arrator Range in a smoggy darkness of low-hanging cloud. When the rain came it was thick, heavy and constant, pattering against glasscrete and pooling on broad leaves. It seemed like it was in for the night.

Nytus watched the rain fall outside the main facility entrance. Green screens and static signals surrounded him on the reception desk that had been transformed into a miniature headquarters. The afternoon had passed slowly, warm and wet, and then the evening had dragged the storm cloud with it. It would have been a long, boring day, save for the unease brought about by the reserved, almost disoriented demeanour of the civilians here, and by Hasken's noises, Jagg's abomination, Lander's rogue medic...

Nytus glanced at the girl. She had yet to speak, she just hid behind Private Lander, shivered, fidgeted and stared. Lander was soft, and would be looking out for her now, even if it went against his better judgement. Nytus had seen it before, the big man was always on the look out for something delicate and pretty to protect.

The heavy footsteps of Sergeant Rozen caused Nytus to turn in his chair. He saw the large, scarred form of his superior, the distinct Guard-issue flak armour and prosthetic arm. The facility administrator, Astea Kress, was still with him.

"Anything from the tower?" the sergeant said quietly, appraising the screens arrayed before Nytus' position.

"Nothing, not since last check-in," Nytus replied. "I think we're all in for a long night."

Rozen nodded. "Keep me updated."

The darkness pressed against the guard tower windows, oppressive in it's completeness. The light from the pict-feeds and the readouts radiated enough only to pick out the tracks of rain water rolling down the glasscrete. Private Ridge paced in the far corner, looking out to where two stark spotlights lit up the area around the main gate. On the far side of the gate he could make out what might have been one of the bodies from the gunfight earlier in the day. One of the Mutts. Maybe one that he'd killed.

Ridge was uncomfortable. The others seemed calm and seasoned to him. They had seen battles, had spent time together, had formed a group dynamic. He was an outsider and he was alone.

"It's quiet," he said to the room, turning his head to look at his comrades. He forced out a smile again. There was a desperation in his smiles, a boyish need to prove himself and to become one of them, and to hide that he was shaken up. The thing that had hit the window kept materialising in his thoughts. He had been relieved when Jagg had doused it in propellant, set it alight, and booted it off the side of the guard tower walkway.

"Astute observation, kid," Jagg replied absently, scanning the row of pict-feeds with his dark eyes. Behind him Private Edora sat in a small, clear space on the metal floor, cross-legged, arms folded, pretty eyes looking up at the ceiling.

"You … uh, seen anything yet on those screens?" Ridge tried. There was a wobble in his voice.

Jagg looked at him with a smirk this time. "Not a damned thing," he said with a subtle shrug, "don't even know if the feeds are live. I could be looking at last summer for all I know."

Ridge laughed, a laugh of nervous exhilaration that a joke had actually been shared with him.

The wind changed, and the rain clattered against the glasscrete window with sudden vigour. Ridge turned with a start, nerves fraying. The spotlights near the gate down below were blurred by the shifting water on the window, causing every shadow to seem to fluctuate and grow.

"Throne," he breathed, "can't wait 'til sunrise."

"I got you something to eat," said Lander, sitting down next to the girl whose name-tag identified her as Bota. She was sitting away from the other civilians, in a corner on the floor of the reception area. Some of the facility workers had attempted to approach her and offer a hand or a reassuring word, but she was weary of them. She looked at Lander with her big eyes, and cautiously took one of the wrapped ration bars from his huge palm.

"Looks like meat-head's got a little girlfriend over there," said Hasken in a hushed tone on the other side of the corridor. She and Hein were standing aside from the others. Hein gave a strange, slow laugh, his eyes wide and watching her even as he tilted his head backwards.

Hasken glanced at Rozen, Nytus, and the civvies, then leaned in close to Hein, her voice becoming even more conspiratorial.

"You're acting weird, Abel, even for you," she said. "You taken something?"

Private Hein finished laughing and brought his face close to hers. He put an oily finger to his lips and hushed her, giggling as he did so. "Maybe," he said eventually, his tone juvenile.

Hasken narrowed her eyes and stared into his. "Throne," she hissed, "your pupils are shot to hell, Abel, you better stay away from Rozen and Nytus, you hear me?"

Hein just stared and stared, showing his yellowed teeth in a sideways smile. Hasken's brow furrowed.

"You're freaking me out, Hein..." she said.

The sudden, devastatingly loud thunder clap felt for just a moment like an orbital bombardment, shattering the relative quiet of the hallway.

The lights flickered and went dark. Muted cries and gasps and whimpers emanated from the civilians that were dotted in groups around the reception area. Bota cowered into Lander, Nytus tapped buttons as his feeds buzzed and then dropped. Hasken did her best to hide the fact that she'd jumped almost out of her skin as the dim, gloomy emergency lighting kicked in.

Hein had not been shocked at all. He looked up and around, tilting his head slowly, not losing that strange little grin.

Then he stopped dead and his ears pricked up. He looked for all the world like he'd heard something. Something else. Something beyond the thunderous roar.

"...and now the game starts..." he said in a small voice, oddly, as if reciting an old song or rhyme.

"What?" hissed Hasken, agitated.

"Now the game starts," Hein said again, his eyes meeting hers with sudden intensity.

Hasken glanced past her drug-addled comrade. She felt eyes on her. The administrator, Astea, she was watching them.

"Shut up," Hasken whispered, looking away.

The sudden clap of thunder shook the guard tower and knocked out the screens.

Ridge ducked and brought up his autogun, his face suddenly pale and his eyes comically wide.

"It's thunder, kid," said Jagg as he watched the feeds go down one by one, "can't hurt you."

Behind him, Private Edora rose up to her feet from where she was sitting cross-legged on the floor. She looked up and around her with an expression of something close to wonder. Her eyes were wide and sparkling. An energy was alive in her, it seemed. An almost visible aura surrounded her.

"Did you hear that?" she breathed with wonder in her voice.

Jagg turned, exasperated. "Yes, Mindi, it was thunder. Throne! Do you both need me to tuck you up into bed, or what?"

"No, the other thing. After the thunder," she said with more than a hint of awe.

Jagg ignored her as he set about reworking the link to his video screens. Ridge watched her as she opened the hatch and stepped outside, face turned up to the rain.

On the roof of Facility IX, Private Kimura looked up into the low, looming clouds. He had pulled a rain covering out of his pack and had been standing forlornly on the wide, flat roof of the facility, the downpour pattering onto his hood. The remnant of the thunder clap was ringing in his ears. He squinted as the rain fell onto his face. It was as if the thunder cloud had formed right above them and unleashed all at once. He had heard no distant rumble, and had seen no sign that the storm had been coming down over the hills or out of the valleys below. Further reverberations could be heard now, long, low roars that were more typical of the tropical storms in this part of the world, but that first clap … it felt like a dreadful omen.

Kimura tried to shrug it off.

Just a storm.

He'd been in worse situations than this, than being stuck alone on the rooftop of a facility in the middle of nowhere, getting soaked through to his PDF-issue undergarments.

The noise sounded like the beginning of a dumb, hollow chuckle, cut off as soon as it started.

He looked around. He saw it straight away. The figure seemed to grow out of the darkness, near a railing on the far side of the flat roof, away from the light. Kimura was confused. No one had said they were coming up. The rain pelting his face stopped him from opening his eyes properly to get a good look. The wind seemed to be pulling him towards it.

When it moved his stomach turned. It's form shifted and changed as it came towards him, night-blue skin stretched and turned and limbs reached out at senseless angles. Kimura felt a lurch of fear, a base-level, primal disgust. The figure moved quickly, skittering towards him faster than he could raise his weapon. The feeling of wrongness was palpable, and weighed on him like a slithering, suffocating cloak. Even the rain seemed to part around it.

In the time it took to clear the space between itself and Private Kimura, the figure had changed and twisted and reformed numerous times. When it reached the PDF soldier, his finger just beginning to squeeze the trigger of his autogun, it had formed a disgusting limb formed of wrapped, bulging sinew that rose from it's hunched back like a parody of a scorpion's tail.

The bony protrusion on the end of this blasphemous limb penetrated Kimura's throat with a sudden, violent plunge. The single shot the soldier had managed to get off was drowned out by another clap of thunder, so that his lonely demise went unnoticed. Kimura sank to his knees, blood bubbling in his mouth. Dozens of little black eyes watched him as he fell and choked, and each one was filled with a terrifying, spiralling void of pitch-black malevolence.

It's form shrank back and disappeared into the driving rain as Private Kimura lay on the rooftop, blood rushing out to mix with the restless, pooling rainwater. An absurd and otherworldly, maddening laughter filled the air.

Facility Guard Tower

Jagg had got the tower's security screens back up and running, though now the pictures shown on each of them were somehow more hazy and distorted. He watched the screens intently, unsettled by the sudden ferocity of the storm.

Ridge watched through the tinted window. Outside on the balcony, lit up by the sporadic flashes of lightning, Edora stood in the rain, her head tilted back, as if savouring the elements.

"You don't think that's weird?" Ridge said pensively. The storm had done nothing for his state of mind.

Jagg glanced at Edora's outline, but quickly returned his attentions to the devices in front of him. "It's Edora," he said dismissively, "you'll get used to her."

They sat in silence for a while, rain pattering on the windows, occasionally drowned out by rumbling thunder. Lightning flashed over the jungle, lighting up the quivering forest leaves in fleeting moments of daylight glare. The lightning had a pinkish, purple hue that contrasted strangely with the yellow tint of the glasscrete.

When Edora stepped back in through the hatchway she looked breathtaking. She had untied and let loose her flowing, white-gold hair. It fell damply but radiantly around her shoulders and down her back, framing her face and her wide eyes that dazzled with sparkling wonder. She looked like a saint, like some holy being crafted reverently into a stained glass window high on the wall of a grand basilica. She was the most spellbinding thing that Cullen Ridge had ever seen, his eyes drawn to her in a way that was far beyond mere attraction.

Ridge realised that his mouth was hanging open. He closed it and took a breath.

"You alright...?" he managed, attempting to sound casual.

She looked at him with a playful, sparkling intensity and a fay smile. When she breathed in to speak the air around her seemed to energise. "I saw a light go out..." she said.

"Oh, uh, on the fence?" Ridge said dumbly.

She did not reply. She looked at him, her eyes and smile displaying an insidious mischief. Not the mischief of a child, but the mischief of a Goddess, of a being to whom life itself was but a plaything. Ridge was unable to look away.

A rapid, invasive chirp emanated from one of the machines, cutting through the moment.

Jagg sprung forward in his seat and leaned close to one of the screens, squinting at the distorted picture. He tapped his micro-bead.

"Sergeant," he spoke seriously, "something set off a perimeter alarm, just North of the main gate."

Ridge turned his attentions from the encapsulating form of Private Edora, and stared once more at the spotlights that shook and danced in the howling storm.

Rozen hurried to Nytus' side, where his second in command was scanning the two remaining active pict-feeds in front of them. They were watching carefully for any signs of movement beyond the constant sway of leaves and flicker of rain.

"Do you see anything?" Rozen said.

Nytus shook his head and tapped some buttons. "No, Sir, but we're still missing a lot of coverage."

Rozen grunted. "Do you have a visual, Jagg?" he said into his micro-bead.

"Negative," came Jagg's tinny reply as Private Hasken slunk around behind them to get a look at the screens. Nytus glanced around the dimly lit reception area. Hein had stayed over in his corner, and Lander was still sitting with the medic girl. The civilians were glancing over with worried expressions. Astea Kress was the calmest among them. She watched with interest.

"You're sure it's a breach, private?" Rozen said.

"Gotta be, Sir," the reply came back. "That or the storm took out a sensor, but..."

Rozen breathed. He was leaning on the desk next to Nytus, the defined musculature of his remaining arm tense and steady. His often dull-grey eyes turned to steel as he regarded the distorted images on the screens.

"Jagg, monitor the situation," Rozen said after a moment. "Edora, Ridge, sweep the area. Use caution."

Jagg took his finger away from the micro-bead and looked at his two companions. His eyes lingered on Edora for a moment, only now realising that she had let her hair down, and that there was something about her. He shook it off, gave them both a smirk and raised his eyebrows.

"Enjoy the weather," he taunted, before returning his attentions to the screens.

Edora crouched slowly and picked up her autogun from the floor, her smile remaining as she did so. She looked at Ridge with the kind of interest a child watches an insect after having pulled off some of its legs. Then she turned and made for the stairs. Ridge stared after her for a moment before flicking the safety on his autogun and following behind, a forlorn expression on his face.

Jagg looked closely at the screens as they left, their footsteps loud on the stairs. The shrill bleeping of the perimeter alarm still sounded from a speaker in one of the control panels, the sound accompanied the constant drum of the rain and the irregular boom of the thunder. He focussed his attentions on the pict-feeds that he thought showed areas at or near the main gate. His dark eyes flicked back and forth as he tried to focus on every movement, but the combination of the low-tech screens and the indistinct patches of mud and leaves the distant pict-recorders were pointed at made the task extremely difficult. What might have been a Mutt darting from cover to cover could just as easily have been a thick branch blowing in the wind, a flicker of static distortion or a crackle of interference.

Long moments passed. He hit the switch that silenced the perimeter alarm and sat with only the sound of the storm for company. He pictured Ridge and Edora out there in the dark, creeping through the mud and rain. He felt sorry for the kid. He imagined that this unit more than most was a tough place to be the new guy. Hein and Hasken were hostile and malicious, Rozen was grim and distant and Nytus was a hardass, and Edora, well no-one knew what to make of Edora. Jagg let out a small, humourless laugh as he scanned the screens.

Then he heard the autogun fire.

"Contact!" came Private Ridge's voice over the micro-bead. "Something's out here!"

Jagg sprang to his feet. He snatched his long-las from the desk and heated it up as he dashed through the hatchway and out into the storm. The wind caught him by surprise, hitting like a shockwave and knocking him into the frame of the hatchway. It was worse outside than he'd expected. Within seconds his hair was soaked to his scalp, and he was having to rub the excess water from his eyes. He paused, steadied himself, and moved around the corner of the balcony as lightning lit up the skies and the lush, wet valley down below. He spotted the telltale flashes of tracer rounds blink through the undergrowth on the inside of the gate, not far from the circle of light cast by the spotlights high up on the perimeter fence. A quick glance through the rain told him that the main gate still appeared to be closed tight.

Jagg rose the long-las sight to his eye and peered down over the balcony, trying to figure out what Ridge was shooting at. All he could see were the dark shapes of billowing, shaking leaves.

"Where are they?" he yelled into the micro-bead, barely able to hear his own voice over the storm.

Ridge just yelled incoherently as the repetitive, coughing thrum of autogun fire rattled through the undergrowth. The tracer arc changed direction, now flashing off to the North.

"Ridge!" Jagg yelled over the micro-bead, one knee on the balcony railing as he leaned precariously over the edge. He moved the sight of the long-las hastily from the base of the gate to the edge of the undergrowth, all the while being buffeted by the relentless winds. He saw nothing but blurred shapes and shadows. "Identify your targets, Ridge! Give me something!"

"Kid's panicking," said Rozen, still leaning over Nytus' shoulder at the reception desk. The sergeant pressed a finger to his micro-bead. "Private Ridge, can you identify the enemy?"

What came back over the vox-channel was a mess of stop-start audio. Unintelligible snippets of panicked words. Nytus' weathered face creased into a grimace as he made subtle, precise adjustments to dials and readers.

"His link is going dead, Sir," he said, "Edora's too. Something is … killing the signal out there."

Rozen was practically on his shoulder, staring hard at the screens that were proving to be less than useless. Hasken was at the other shoulder, leaning in. Lander watched from the other side of the desk. They all knew well enough to keep what they were hearing over the vox systems to themselves, but the locals could hear one side of the conversation, and they could read the expressions on the soldier's faces. They knew that something was wrong.

"Keep trying him," Rozen urged.

"Ridge, report," said Nytus, "tell me what's going on out there."

When the young soldier's voice came over the micro-bead again, it was only as a quick series of unidentified words cut off by the interference. Then, as if by design, the signal held together long enough to hear a long, frantic and blood-curdling cry, cut off by a disturbingly wet crack.

Then nothing.

"Throne..." Nytus said quietly. Seconds later, he noticed that the links had gone completely quiet. No static. No interference. Nytus tapped at a keypad. "I've lost his signal..." he told Rozen, "Edora's too. Just … dead air."

Rozen stood up straight, giving up on the useless pict-feeds. He started to pace, his agitation showing. "Private Jagg," he said into the micro-bead, "are you reading me?"

"Affirmative..." came Jagg's voice, but he was barely audible over the growing distortion.

"I want you to find out what happened and then return to the facility." Rozen said, pronouncing each word clearly.

"... repeat ..." came Jagg's voice.

"Investigate what happened to Ridge and Edora, and then come back," Rozen said loudly, his demeanour flaking.

"... know … there … confirm ..."

The vox-link died.

"His signal is gone too, Sir," Nytus said grimly. "We're cut off from them."

Rozen's eyes were set and unmoving.

"Contact Kimura," he said to Nytus, "he might have seen something from the roof."

Nytus nodded, once again tapping the micro-bead. "Private Kimura," he said, "do you have eyes on the guard tower?"

Nothing.

"Kimura, report."

"What is happening out there, Nytus?" Rozen said grimly.

"His vox-link is still active, Sir," Nytus replied, "but he's not responding."

The atmosphere in the reception area seemed to freeze. Rozen tensed, his eyes distant for a moment. His thoughts drifted far away, to other battles on distant planets. He breathed, then his expression changed. He snapped back to reality.

"We are under attack," he growled, his voice like a death knell. "Lock this place down. Civilians to the rear. Nothing gets inside."

Private Jagg dashed across the track from the guard tower exit door to the parked PDF transport, slipping on the mud and being pushed around by the howling wind. He ducked, sliding to one knee next to the transport, and took a breath. He looked around, seeing only the flash of pouring rain hurtling sideways, picked out by the nearby spotlight. He raised the autopistol, pointing it up the mild slope towards the front gate, and down the track that led towards the facility. The long-las, near-useless in the current situation, was slung across his back.

He moved again, sprinting into the undergrowth on the far side of the track. His flak-armour blending in with the dark flora, Jagg advanced more slowly now, trees swaying in the storm above him. Lightning flashed, striking the top of the perimeter fence nearby and causing sparks to fly and little clouds of smoke to stain the air like anti-aircraft fire. He was heading to where he thought Ridge had been when the kid was firing. The storm was relentless, the raging wind fought to knock him from his feet as he crept between thick trunks and wet leaves.

He saw a litter of spent shell casings, scattered around like petals.

"Ridge?"

Something like a laugh, cut off before it could start, replied to him, coming from somewhere unseen. The lightning flashed, and silhouettes floated in his vision like ghosts in the darkness that followed it. Jagg pointed his gun at the trees. A sick feeling trickled down the back of his spine like a trail of thick blood. It was becoming difficult to tell what was real.

Something caught his eye from above, something metallic glinted in the next flash of lightning. It was moving quickly, back and forth in the wind. Jagg wiped the water from his eyes and tried to focus.

An autogun levitated in mid-air. No. It was held there, it's matte black strap swinging, tangled in the mess of thick branches and wide leaves above it. It was high up, just out of reach. Had someone climbed up there?

"Ridge? Edora?" he tried, then pressed the button on his micro-bead. "Sergeant. Nytus. Anyone, can you read me?"

The signal was dead.

Jagg cursed, holstered the autopistol and started to climb, planting his boot in the thick, gnarled vines that wrapped around the tree. The rain only allowed him to look up for the briefest of moments before the downpour assaulted his vision, but he was able to make some progress. The tree spread out into thick nests of tangled branches, thick with vines and wet, flailing leaves. Jagg climbed a little higher, pausing to hold fast when the wind rose. When he reached the first spread of branches he hauled himself up onto a thick, solid bough.

He looked around for any signs of the enemy and then crept across the bough, trying to orientate himself in the confusion of rain and convulsing leaves.

"Ridge! Edora!" he tried one more time, then parted the branches between himself and where the autogun appeared to have been hanging from.

His curse was drowned out by a roll of thunder as he saw the twisted form of Private Ridge's body hanging limply amongst the branches. Blood seeped from multiple wounds in his lower abdomen, staining and soaking his flak-jacket like a gleaming, black oil. His body was twisted back at the waist in a disturbing, sickening angle. His head, hanging upside down, swayed with the wind. The young soldier's face was frozen into a look of gaping horror.

Jagg let the branches fall back into place, hiding the sickening sight. He felt unsteady, and grabbed the vines around the main trunk of the tree for support. With his free hand he pressed his micro-bead, an automatic reaction.

"Edora?" he said weakly.

As he had already known, the comm-link was dead.

"Screw this," he said to himself, then repeated the phrase multiple times as he attempted to latch onto the trunk and start the climb down.

He would not get far.

The lightning that struck the tree seemed guided by some malevolent force. It seemed like the act of a cruel, uncaring god.

It struck higher up, causing the wood to splinter and crack violently, and igniting the damp air with a numbing charge of incredible energy. Jagg was unable to hold on. He flew back from the tree and started to plummet, a mess of branches, leaves and vines falling with him. He hit the ground flat on his back, violently jarring his body and his senses. When he blinked and tried to make sense of what was going on, an overwhelming pain spread from his right leg across his entire lower body. He looked down groggily to see that a sharp, soaking spear of broken branch was sticking out of his thigh halfway between his hip and his knee. His uniform was torn and ruined, blood bubbled from the wound, bones were broken.

The roaring thunder merged with his agonised cry.

Facility Reception Area

The thick glass panel in the main door to the facility allowed for a muted view at the empty, rainy courtyard outside. Rozen leaned next to it, looking out into an unforgiving night. Looking for the enemy. Looking for his lost soldiers. His cybernetic arm rested against the thick door, metal on metal. Rain battered unrelentingly on the pane of reinforced glass. To Rozen, it seemed as though each drop that hit the window was like a soldier sent by an uncaring commander to die on a fortress wall.

"Your wounds," came the calming voice of Administrator Astea Kress, who stood over on the opposite side of the door frame. She seemed to radiate even in the dim atmosphere of the emergency lighting. She was neat and calm and steady, a beacon of order in a chaotic situation, but also striking and fascinating. Her eyes had a certain magic to them.

"Where did you get those wounds, Mattias? I can see that you were once a guardsman."

Rozen looked at her as a new wave of hapless raindrops died on the glass between them. Before answering he glanced at the others. Nytus, Hasken, Hein, Lander and the medic, Bota, were at or near the reception desk, looking at screens or keypads or staring at the floor. The civilians were further back, where Rozen had ordered them to be. Away from the door, out of harm's way. If he kept his voice low, none of them were in earshot. He moved his attention back to Astea,

"Rykker IV. Industrial world. Mutant attack," he said matter-of-factly, pointing at the wound on his head that looked like it had been caused by a multi-ended lash. He then touched the shoulder of his prosthetic arm, a faraway look in his eye. "Elysir. Shrine world. Orks..." he added with disgust.

"Elysir?" repeated Astea, her eyes lighting up. "You were … I mean, I was on Elysir ... when the Orks came."

Rozen shifted, stood up straighter, and looked at her. "That … cannot be..."

"I know," she smiled coyly, "it is difficult to believe that, in this wide galaxy, our paths might have crossed before, but I was there. I was … inside the walls of the capital when the Orks began their siege." She looked him in the eye and took a single step closer. "They defiled our temples and destroyed everything they touched. By the Emperor, the people of Elysir thank you, Sergeant … I thank you."

Her smile was intimate. Her damp eyes caught the meagre light.

Rozen, still running his fingers across the stark metal of his prosthetic, cleared his throat and gave a brief, near-imperceptible nod.

Nytus frowned. The vox-caster was acting strange.

It had been next to useless ever since they'd left the PDF outpost, receiving no communications from HQ, and giving no indication as to the wider situation. Now it was picking up something else, something closer, but Nytus could not discern its origin. At first he had thought that maybe Kimura or Jagg or Edora were still alive out there, and had found another vox-caster or some civilian equivalent. Instead the faded transmission appeared to be of some recording. Two words repeating amidst a sea of static hiss, fading in and out like the calls of ghosts. The static was so complete that no voice could be discerned. Instead, the words seemed to be formed from the distortion itself.

Hegemon.

Sumari'thar.

The soundless voice sent a shiver up his spine.

Nytus twisted the dial in miniscule increments, trying to get a lock on the signal. Nothing worked, and then, when he finally felt as if he might be getting close, it faded away altogether. He put the earpiece down and sat back from the equipment arrayed before him, taking a glance at the raging storm through the door.

Even if he had been able to home in on the vox signal, isolate it somehow, no good would have come of it. Nothing about it made any sense.

He sighed and rubbed his chin. He had an overwhelming feeling that all of them were in for a long night.

Bota appeared to be trying to shrink into the walls. She had backed herself into a gap between the thick metal panelling that ran along the sides of the corridor, her dark little corner in the dull interior of the reception area. Private Lander stood in front of her like a bodyguard, watching the main door and the South corridor. The huge bulk of his heavy stubber was strapped to his muscular frame, the exhaust-like barrel pointed at the floor. His attention was caught by the shady form of Private Hein, across the corridor where he and Hasken stood in shadows. The flamer soldier was skulking like a scavenging animal, circling a far mightier beast and its cub, waiting for its guard to fall. His beady eyes glinted out of the shadows. Lander had never liked Hein, but there was something about him tonight, something that made him seem more dangerous than ever.

Bota said something.

Lander looked startled and tore his attention away from Hein. The words were so unexpected, so quiet, that it took him a moment to register them. He leaned in close, careful to keep his movements calm and unthreatening.

"Did you say something, Bota?" he said gently.

"D-doctor Curtz..." Bota whispered, almost imperceptibly, her voice quivering as much as her hands. "The freezer..." she added.

"A doctor? What do you mean?" Lander pressed.

The scared young medic looked up at him with wide eyes. Her gaze then darted across to the others, Hein, Hasken, Rozen, Astea. She looked down at the ground again, shrinking even further into her gap. Lander looked at her closely, giving her a moment to find her courage to speak.

Her eyes flicked back to his.

"Doctor Curtz," she said again, louder this time, "they killed her."