Chapter IV: Never Split the Party

AN:
Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

Apologies for the near-month delay. It's a long story and kind of pointless to tell, so I'm just going to leave it at the apology. Going to try to get actually on schedule though from now on. I'm thinking I'm going to go onto a one-chapter upload per week thing to get into the habit of writing to a weekly schedule then amp it back up to two (or hopefully more, as I'm getting many stories now and I wanna get some of these muthas moving) when I get the hang of that again.

This one was a lil' bit more difficult to write than I thought. I had a plan, it was only going to be a short chapter, but then shit happened. That entire sequence on the tram was completely unplanned. I was just gonna have 'em hop on then hop off. Also, maybe I kind of segued into ChloeVoice a little in a few places here. Seriously though, this was supposed to be about a fifth the length it ended up being. Jfc, me.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.

Fanfictionreader200:

Maybe they will. Maybe they won't. Muahahaha. :)

"Son of a biscuit, I- Why isn't this coming... Oh, jeez..."

"Max, Max! This thing isn't budging and I - no fucking way, dude! Keep that thing away from me or I'll use it to cut off your fucking balls!"

Copse puts down the plasma cutter.

Chloe drops her hand and turns back to me. "Look, it's fine, Maxie. I'm stuck in here for now. We can get me out when we're somewhere safe and not in the middle of a fucking CommShack."

She maybe had a point. The entire storefront was ripped off, and if anyone walked more than two steps in we would be in full view. But there was still an issue. "Chloe, those suits are made for vacuum. You're completely airtight-"

"Yeah I am."

I tilt my head in confusion. "What?"

I couldn't see her face, but somehow the blue headlights flickered in a way that made her look sheepish. "I have no fucking clue. I just heard 'tight'."

I grin. "You're an idiot, Chloe Price."

She shrugs. "Yeah, well. Somehow I make it work with my hella badass-ness. Right?"

I nod, giving her an indulgent smile. "Right. So, you're stuck in there, and you're running on a limited oxygen supply, and we can't get you out, and-"

Chloe rolls her eyes. Again, I can't see her face, but when you've been together for a decade you get to know each other pretty well and - don't tell Chloe I said this - my wife is pretty predictable with the eyerolls. She finishes my sentence without hesitation "and if I run out of oxygen my scrubbers will keep taking the CO2 outta my air and I'll get hypoxic and die. I know, Max. I was just tryin' to keep shit light. Not much we can do about it right now."

I reach out a hand and squeeze hers through the glove. "Maybe we'll run into Valleau and you can finally punch him out that airlock."

She lets the conversation drift into a comfortable quiet, but I pull her up before she can get into another funk. "Come on then. The quicker we get somewhere safe, the quicker we can get you out of there. David still has those tools, right?"

"Only tiny ones. After all-"

"He is a tiny tool." We say together, laughing at the memories. It was weird, laughing over something that'd caused us both so much pain in the past, but it was our damn weird.

I drag Chloe over to Copse's spot by the door, approaching as quietly as we could. "Is it clear?"

He nods. "Yes. Still clear out." He doesn't look at us, his eyes keenly sweeping the area, alert for any threat. It's pretty cool. I guess you've gotta be pretty keen and alert to be a pilot, sitting in a flying metal box that, if anything went wrong, could kill you at any second.

"Great. We need to get out of here. Now."

He raises an eyebrow at my... um... brusque tone, but he quickly accedes after I explain the whole 'my wife is at risk of dying and I will literally rip out your throat without a second thought if you try to stop me' thing.

Smart man.

He pokes his head out of the store, quietly scouting around for monsters. When he nods, Chloe and I start to follow him.

He leads us down unfamiliar paths at first, and I have no idea how he knows his way around this random residential zone (I'm tempted to ask if he lives here but, when I try to break the silence we'd fallen into, I find that I just... can't.), but we move quickly and quietly across the zone. He hesitates occasionally, surveying the area before nodding to himself and moving on, but otherwise we make very good time.

Eventually, we end up in familiar ground. We're about two-thirds the way along the route we took last time, where the soldiers first found us. Told you memorising it would come in useful.

I start to push forward a little more, closing the gap between us and Copse. The look he gives me clearly says he's not happy, but fuck it. I need to get Chloe to her parent's ASAP.

We're a little way from where we'd been found when Copse suddenly holds up a hand: Stop. We immediately freeze and stare in horror as a pack of monsters stroll into view, joining another group loudly snacking on what I'm very carefully not thinking of as people.

Copse moves his hand, just barely, and points to an alleyway to the right. It's... maybe ten feet away. Probably a little under. He turns his head, still moving as little and as slowly as possible, and mouths "Go Slow."

Since Chloe can't roll her eyes at him right now, I do it for her. Of course we're going slow. We do not want to make any loud noises right now.

I go first - since Chloe is in a protective suit and Copse has military training, I'm totally the weak link here - and quietly pace to the alley. I make it without much bother.

Chloe goes next, and when her boots clunk loudly against the metal ground, all three of us freeze in grimaces as we desperately hope they didn't hear her.

One second passes.

Two seconds.

Three.

...

We're about to sigh in relief when an ear-splitting scream of hunger echoes through the air around us. The pack all raise their heads, like wolves or dogs, and answer. Chloe just bolts for me, feet slamming into the ground, and Copse spins while raising his gun.

They're... they're gone. The pack had just... vanished, leaving the scraps of their meal scattered across the ground (hngggh-ulp).

Copse is spinning, his face contorted in paranoid horror as whatever cogs are in his head go spinning uselessly like the wheels on an overturned bicycle.

He scurries over to us, keeping his eyes sweeping across our surroundings, looking for any sign of where those things had gone, and if they were coming back.

We wait quietly, hoping and wondering. Where did they go? I mean, I hadn't seen them give up before. Not once. So, why did they give up on us?

It felt even more terrifying than when they screamed. At least then we knew where they were, and where we needed to run to to get away from them. The suspense was the worst, here. My hands were sweaty, I could hear my heart beating in my ears. It was pretty much all I could hear, all the screaming and yelling just melting away until the air sung with the staccato beats of my panicked heartbeat.

Dog, it... it sucked.

Eventually though, after what felt like dogdamn aeons of this... tension, Copse guided us out onto the street again. We took it slow, listening for any sign of those things coming back, but... nothing.

We made it through to the tram with no bother, which was honestly worse than if we'd found something.

The monsters just stood around quietly when they weren't chasing someone, so they could be all around us and we'd never have any idea. Until we ran into them. Until we made a sound. Then, they'd swarm us and we'd be completely surrounded, with nowhere to run.

The tram station loomed over us, the shadows cast by the exterior lights on the tether swaying with the station's spin. We creep up to the stair leading to the main platform, and Copse holds out a hand for us to stop. We do, and he just... waits. Patiently, quietly, waiting, just hoping that we'd survive. The seconds creep by, and the familiar terror settles into my stomach for the long haul.

He heads up the stairs, gun held out in front of him. He held it steady, calm by virtue of whatever military discipline EarthGov pilots had.

We watched with baited breath as he disappeared into the station, one beat, then two, and "Clear. Come on up."

We dart up the stairs after him, moving into a largish reception area. Traditional-looking place with a main desk flanked by long rows of waiting-benches and a door to the platform at the far end. It stood untouched by the chaos outside: apparently nobody thought of moving in or out from the rings. Copse listens at the next door, then signals clear again. There's a single tram left on the platform, lights off and doors closed. It's sharp angles and shiny metal surfaces make a striking image imposed over the blackness of space outside the observation windows.

Chloe taps on the glass (heavily reinforced to survive vacuum) and grins. "Back near the Stars, huh Max?"

I chuckle. "From the Stars we came, and to the Stars we return..."

Chloe beams (#light jokes) and throws an arm over my shoulder. "There's the little beat poet I married."

"Still average height, Chloe."

"Still shorter than me, shortstack."

"But not-"

"Ahem."

I'd never heard anyone actually say 'ahem' before, but somehow Copse managed it. He was standing at the corner of our vision like an irritated librarian, arms crossed in front of him and foot tapping on the floor. Back in school, I probably would've flushed at being caught bantering like that. Now, I just glare right back. "You need something, Copse?"

Still let Chloe do the talking, though.

He snorts. "Need you to stop bein' cute and come help me with this. Max, if you could keep an eye on the door?"

Chloe turns back to me, eyes questioning. I shrug off her concern with a little nod. And a shrug. "Sure."

So, Chloe goes over to join him by the station console, and I stick to the door. Those things weren't exactly quiet, but we couldn't afford to take any chances. One misstep and it'd all go to our heads. Until they chopped them off, anyway.

Every so often, I spare a glance over my shoulder at Chloe. I couldn't help it, there was something so... appealing about her when she was working. Sleeves rolled up (when she actually had sleeves, anyway), tongue quirked out of her mouth, and her eyes completely intent on whatever she was working on. Admittedly the headgear and maintenance suit made seeing that harder, but I could still picture it. Again, together for ten years, y'all.

We stay like this for about... ten minutes or so, maybe fifteen, before Chloe suddenly yells out "Fuck yeah! We-"

Copse promptly claps his hand over her mouth, before remembering that she was wearing a suit and thus putting his hand over her mouth (actually a glowy light in her mouth region) was useless. The sudden shock of being slapped in the face did shock her into silence for a moment though, before she whirls angrily on him and yells "What the fuck, dude?"

He growls. "Stay quiet. Noise attracts those things, remember?"

"Oh." Chloe scraped her foot on the ground, like a sheepish child. Even in the suit, it was 'hella cute'. "Sorry."

Copse scowls, tapping a few controls on the panel. Chloe quickly gets bored of whatever he's doing wrong and nudges him aside. "Let me, dude. You're gonna break some shit if you keep doing that."

Copse steps obediently back, then wanders over to me. "Your wife is very obstinate."

I chuckle. "She really is. One of the reasons I married her."

He snorts again, clearly not believing me, and turns to look out the door. Nothing had turned up, but hey, I could use the extra eyes. We stand there in silence, just listening to the screams and beeps and whirrs from around us (along with Chloe cursing lightly in the background, then catching herself and cursing again when she kept doing it. I put a ring on that, folks. Dog, I love my wife). It's amazing what you can get used to. The screaming, I mean. Not the beeping and whirring and so on. That was normal.

Wowzers.

It'd only been a few hours and I was already used to the constant noise of people being... being... hunted. I'm not sure what's more fucked up about that, me, or the situation we're in.

The screams get louder.

I flinch.

Okay, situation. Definitely the situation. I get it, already. Dog, that's the last time I dare fate.

"Fucking finally! I've got it!"

Chloe's triumphant yell echoes through the station like music. Music that was quickly accompanied by the station on many, many alarms.

Copse curses louder than all of Chloe's yelling put together and rushes over to her. "Shit. You tripped the Exit Breach Protocol."

"The what?"

He doesn't respond for a minute, so I ask again.

"What are you talking about, Copse?"

He still doesn't answer, not verbally, anyway. He just points towards the window.

The entire thing was whirring like a blast door.

Oh fuck.

We were about to be launched into space.

Oh, and the vents started rattling as screaming monsters tried to force their way in to the loud room full of flashing lights and panicky yelling human beings. The screaming was coming from all around us so I really couldn't decide direction, but I thought they might be coming in the main doors as well.

I began to stare as one of the vents cracked open to reveal, not the usual blade-arm monster, but something small and lean and covered in fucking tentacles.

Wowzers. I just stared.

Ew.

Copse immediately moved over to the tramcar and started poring over it for any way in.

I didn't have much hope for that though, the entire place was switched off and locked down when we came in. The tram was probably- oh, he's climbing through the roof.

He drops down from the maintenance hatch and dashes for the driver console, tapping a key.

The doors immediately slide open.

Okay, so. That was convenient. Panic over, I guess.

"Run, Max!"

Panic not over! Panic totally not over! My brain screams as two different vents explode inwards in a cloud of metal shards and angry monster-things that promptly launch themselves in our direction with a shriek of fury and hunger and-

Chloe throws me into the tram.

I land in a heap, sliding up against the opposite side door.

Ow.

A sudden scream pulls me out of my pained moaning haze and I scramble to my feet to go check on my dumbass life-saving wife.

Oh.

Wow.

That's...

Hot.

Chloe was standing in the doorway, feet spread, with the plasma cutter raised and blasting away at the literal horde of monsters charging in our direction.

If her hair wasn't trapped in that suit with the rest of her, I was pretty sure it'd be fluttering in the wind right now.

Wait. Wind?

Oh, yeah. The station is about to unseal and launch the tram out to the rings. Meaning this room is about to lose oxygen.

Crap.

"Chloe, get in here! The doors are about to-"

The tram rattles and starts to move, the telltale pneumatic hiss of the engine joining the telltale deadly hiss of oxygen being removed from the room. The doors to outside were finally opening.

And the tram doors were closing.

Oh dog.

Chloe, standing strong and confident against the tide of monsters, suddenly loses her feet and goes screaming out into space, dragged by the escaping air, still surrounded by that horde of monsters. She screams, I scream, the monsters scream. It's a thing.

I know I can't go outside, but that doesn't stop me from instinctively moving to the door. I have to stop myself, steady my hands (I try to steady my breathing as well, but that was never going to happen), and sprint to Copse in the front cab. "Copse! We've gotta stop, we need to-"

The cold bastard doesn't even bother looking up from the console. "We can't, Max. I'm sorry, but there's nothing we can do. We can't go out there, and if we open the doors to let her in, we die."

I growl. "Then we'll do something else, we'll find a way, there has to be-"

"No. There isn't." He's direct. Unyielding. Cold. There wasn't a trace of the wry amusement we'd seen when we first met. Just hardened military gruffness. "I'm sorry, but there isn't. And I've got to concentrate on this, or we're going to die too."

I pull his gun. "N-no. We're going to get her. Now!"

He turns, very slowly, hands in the air. "Don't do anything stupid, Max." His voice is that annoying calm, measured tone that people always use with people that they think are crazy. "I'm pretty sure you can't drive a tram."

I shrug. "Sure I can. Forward, back, switch on the autopilot. How hard can it be? My wife is out there, you fucking bastard." I was angry, and kinda drunk on it, but even I knew that last insult fell a little flat. I don't swear very much, and I'm really not good at it.

He smirks, confidence never fading, and just says simply "Then shoot me. Because there's nothing I can do."

I pull the trigger.

Copse swears, louder and better than me, when the little bolt of plasma flies past him and smashes into the front window. I chuckle at his panic and switch my aim back to him. He just stares at the window, confused that we haven't also been sucked into space. "Reinforced glass. So people can't do that. Just proving what I'm willing to do for Chloe."

He just glares.

"Okay, fine. Let me think..."

Chloe glides past the window, shooting wildly at the cloud of monsters surrounding her. It's terrifying and beautiful in equal measure. Like a deadly ballet, in three dimensions, with guns and swords. (AN: And boy, does THAT sound like a great concept for an anime or what? :D).

I let him think, never letting the gun meander away from his chest.

Suddenly, he whirls and starts to tap keys. I catch a few muttered words, like 'airlock' and 'catchers mitt' (whatever that means), and I let him do his thing. I still tap my foot impatiently all the while though. My heart was pounding in my chest, and an endless litany of "I hope she's okay, she'd better be okay, oh dog I need her to be okay" was going round and round in my head, so it was the only thing that kept me distracted and not crying on the floor.

After a few painfully long seconds, he turns back to me. "I have an idea. It's a stretch, but it is literally all I have."

I resist the urge to say I told you so. Dog, I'm starting to sound like Victoria. I feel a faint pang of wonder at how she's doing through all this, and hope that she and Taylor and their kid are okay. "Okay. What is it?"

"We're going to catch her in the back carriage. We can seal us in here, then let her into the back. She can just re-oxygenate the train when we're in the ring-station."

When he sees my sceptical look, he just shrugs. "You wanted an idea. This is it."

He has a point. "What do you need me to do?"

"Give me my gun back and hold on. The lines are going to jolt when I open the doors."

"I'm not giving-"

He just glares. Chloe goes past the window again, still shooting. She's also holding one of the blade arms in her other hand. It's not attached to a monster anymore.

I sigh. "Fine. Here." I hand it over, handle first (AN1).

"Thank you. Now, hold on to something."

I look around the barren cab, full of flat surfaces and important levers. "Hold on to what?"

He looks back at me with a grin, shrugs. "Fair point."

He pulls the lever.

The entire tram jolts wildly from side to side as the atmosphere-controlled carriages vent every last particle of air into space. The buffeting doesn't last long though, luckily. Because Copse was right, I should've held onto something. I think my nose might be broken. Ow.

I swear at him, the asshole, and glare halfheartedly as I paw at my nose. He just scowls and taps a few keys.

Chloe goes past the window yet again. She's lost the gun, and now seems to be wielding some kind of tentacle in addition to the sword-arm. She's firing little bolts of something from the arm at a few more monsters off at a distance from her, while holding off another two with the dismembered arm.

The doors in the rear carriages slide open, and Copse gestures me to the console. "I've activated the comm unit. She should be able to hear you if you press that button. Tell her the plan while I get ready to catch her."

I scurry over and gently push the button. "Hello? Chloe?"

The familiar voice crackles through the intercom, full of wry amusement. "H- fucking back off! - Hey Max. Lovely fucking weather we're having, huh?"

I grin. "Oh wowzers, yes. It's the best. Don't you think it might time to come inside though? I hear there's a storm rolling in."

"Now you mention it, it is hella cold out here. I don't think I got enough juice in the rockets on this thing to get to the ring though." There's a few low beeps as she accesses the readout of whatever onboard diagnostic system that old suit has. "Or enough oxygen. Should probably have lead with that. Shit."

I chuckle. "Not to worry, Chloe. The Caulfield Express will be right there. We left the doors open for you."

"Aww. You think of everything." I watch as she suddenly twists, and the ball of monsters surrounding explodes as she rams through them. She may not have had much fuel left, but she seemed to be using it brilliantly as she swept herself along in our direction. (AN2) Until she screamed past us, desperately trying to reorient herself and slow the hell down. "D-damn it! Fucking piece of sh-aaaaaaa!" She shot off once again, spinning around and around like an out of control rocket. Which she kind of was right now, I guess.

I know it's not really the time to be making jokes, but you try staying calm while your wife is... doing that. I could feel the shaking get worse. Dog. How do people live worrying this much about other people? I have no idea how I did.

At the last second, Chloe caught herself on a maintenance guideline and pivoted around, cutting the thrust on her suit immediately. But, space loves inertia and doesn't brake for anyone, so she kept going round and round the wire like a trapeze artist. Her voice came through the intercom again.

"You spin me right round baby, right round like a record, baby, right rooound."

As my face cracked into a painfully wide grin, I helpfully reminded myself of a few similarly goofy events. Okay. I know I how I live with it now.

Copse facepalmed.

With an abrupt grunt, she launched herself from the line, slamming through the monsters like a footballer. Her voice came through again, this time only a faint mumble about momentums and velocities and other words I had absolutely no idea the meaning of.

Copse and I stared as she floated onward through space toward us. She was almost in, only thirty feet off, when yet another shitty thing happened.

A few of those tentacle monsters (seriously, ew) that Chloe had pissed off by ripping out their tentacles started shooting those little white bolts in her direction. Chloe hadn't noticed, intent on the tram doors.

So, I slammed down a hand on the intercom. "Chloe, watch-"

Two shots hit her.

She went spinning off, screaming in panic through the intercom as her suit was punctured. There were a few moments where my heart was in my mouth, thinking that I was going to watch my wife asphyxiate in front of me, but gradually, the spinning stopped and the bursts of air escaping petered off. Chloe's voice sounded wearier, but proud "H-hey. Hey guys. Sorry about that. Hella fucked up neighbours wanted to borrow some sugar."

Copse and I shared a look. I knew the emotion in his eyes. Disbelief.

Poor thing. He'd get used to it. My wife was a badass.

I tapped the intercom and replied. "No worries, Chlo'. Probably time to get inside though. You'll catch a chill."

She laughed. "Thanks, hippie. See ya in a sec."

With that, she fired the thrusters again, and glided gracefully into the tram. When she got caught in the grav plating's field of effect, she was immediately pulled to the floor.

There was a significant thud. "Ow."

"Chloe? You okay?"

"Yep. All good here. How are you?"

I beamed. "I'm great. We're closing the doors now, so..." An idea popped in my head. "Please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle, and have a great day! Thanks for travelling with Caulfield-Copse Rail."

Copse just shook his head, clearly still with no idea how that just worked out. "You two are insane."

"Thank you."

He laughs, not meanly, just disbelievingly. "That wasn't a compliment."

I just shrug. "It might not have been intended as one, but it was a compliment to me."

"And me!" Chloe, never one to be left out, chimes in.

He shakes his head again, muttering something else in what I still thought was Spanish. Then, he pulled himself up and moved past me to the console. "Let's speed up a little before those things come after us. You might not be able to shoot through the glass, but lets not risk them smashing through it instead."

The tram lurches forward, leaving the monsters drifting aimlessly out in the black, and before we know it we're safely docked and the observation windows are sealing shut behind us. We've made it to the outer rings.

I quickly unseal the back carriages and dash out of the cab. Chloe stumbles out of the carriages at the same time, and we come together for an embrace. Clutching the faceless maintenance suit was a little uncomfortable, but knowing my wife was in there helped.

But Copse had to come along and ruin it. "We need to get moving."

He strides past us, gun in hand, to the station exit. The main wait area was... fucked. Blood stained the floors and walls (and ceilings, what the fuck?) and limbs and pieces of people and monsters were scattered all over. I hold back a retch and fall back into the detached photo-hound mode as Chloe audibly vomits in her helmet.

Copse doesn't seem bothered, striding straight through to the outer door. I turn to check on Chloe, laying a comforting (attempt-comforting, really) hand on her shoulder. "Chlo?"

Her head twitches, and she retches again. I make sure to rub her back as she does, muttering some attempt-comforting bullshit to make her feel better. Or at least to just fill the silence. Because it is. Completely and totally silent. After whatever slaughter happened here, the air is quiet and still and every sound we make carries to a dull echo.

Copse calls back, "We need to move. The road outside is clear, but it probably won't be for long."

I help Chloe until she's calm, then bring her over. "You okay?"

She nods hurriedly, and I can hear a faint and truly disgusting sloshing sound as the draining systems work to pull the vomit away from her face down into her boots. Ah, technology. Have a couple people drown in their suits and boy do we come up with a disgusting plan to stop it.

Copse guides us out of the station, and I feel a familiar pang of my own nausea as the gravity shifts. The gravity gyro back in the central area of the station didn't reach out here, the lines couldn't carry a strong enough charge to the rings to make a difference, so they'd designed a modified plating to take advantage of centripetal force. Unfortunately for the stomachs of everyone involved, that meant a sharp transition from one gravity field to the other as up became forward and down became back. Human Beings barely did well crossing philosophical perspectives, nevermind actual physical perspective.

Chloe and I lurch out (Copse hops across the gravity gap with his usual unfazed grace. Asshole.) onto a familiar largish two-floored promenade. Across the street was an interior tramline station, the one Chloe and I usually took to get to the Two Whales Commissary. To our left, the road curved around out of sight, leading to a small shopping plaza that sold... well, tat, mostly, to catch any visitors coming through from the docks. The right lead to the EarthGov outpost.

Copse turned to us. "Which way to your family?"

Chloe points to the left. "Through the plaza. They're pretty close. Hella short walk to get there."

Copse nods. "Awesome." He starts off into the promenade, keeping an eye on the upper level. The area is still just as oppressively silent as the station, and every step we take echoes.

The silence continues as we walk, and our footsteps almost take on a heartbeat kind of rhythm. Ba-dumph. Ba-dumph. Ba-dumph.

It feels wrong to break the quiet stillness of the area around us, so none of us speak, just letting the beat of our footsteps guide us. The quiet continues even as we walk into the plaza. All the annoying tunes that used to play here had stopped, though the gaudy neon lights advertising what various wares were sold here are still on. It was kind of uncomfortable.

Copse holds out a hand for us to stop, and we freeze almost instinctively now as he scans the area. Suddenly, the pistol whips up in the direction of one of the slightly less destroyed storefronts. After a moment, he calls out "Come on out of there."

A small group of ragtag people start appearing from the ruins: some adults (four, three men and a woman), a couple of children (one boy, one girl), and one woman with slate-grey hair.

Copse doesn't lower the gun. "Who are you?"

The old woman steps forward, hands raised over her head. "We're just... people? I'm Hester, and I don't know anyone else. We were just hiding from those... those things." She gives a traumatised little shiver as she pictures whatever monsters happened here.

I step over to Copse's side. "What are you doing? They're clearly not monsters..."

He tilts his head and mutters "They could be Unitologists. Again, religious freedom, but I don't want to let them shoot us in the back."

Chloe scoffs. "Dude, do they look like Unitologists to you? They'd be running at us yelling shit if they were. They're just people who got hella fucked over by monsters."

He snorts. "Nobody looks like a Unitologist. Beliefs are in their head, not on their lapels."

Again, Chloe doesn't visibly smirk, but I know she does. "They do kinda wander around with the symbol on their clothes, dude."

He pauses. "Fair point."

He lowers the gun.

Then, with a grunt and a nod, he simply continues across the plaza to the exit we needed to get to Chloe's parents place. I call out for him to stop and turn to Chloe. "Dog, look at them. We can't just leave them!"

The blinking blue lights of Chloe's helmet wash over the battered looking survivors and she nods. "Guess they can come with, if they can keep up."

Copse was not happy. I knew this because he kept repeating the fact. "I'm not happy about this."

I nod. "Got it, Copse. But we outvoted you like," I recount our new flock of vaguely distressed sheep. "nine to one, so..."

He growls, but stays quiet. The new members of our little group were definitely staying closer to us than him. It had made Chloe chuckle when I pointed it out. I guess it was fair for him to be... not happy, though. It was just him and Chloe protecting the rest of us (mostly him. Don't tell Chloe.) so I bet he was stressed.

The silence was breaking as we walked further, not by our footsteps - though ten people did walk louder than three - but by voices that gradually got louder and louder as we closed on the building Joyce and David lived in.

Copse called a halt a short way away and told the Chloe and the others to stay back. He turned to me. "You can be quiet. Come on, we'll go check it out."

I nod, and look back to Chloe with a "He's right." shrug. Her shoulders slump and she nods in agreement. The rest of our group go with her into a small side-alley to hide while Copse and I scout. Honestly, I was kind of terrified we'd get separated again, but there were children here. Chloe would be able to keep them safe.

Like she always did for me.

Copse leads our party of two forward along the side of the road. Faceless buildings I'd never really paid attention to lined both sides of the road, a dozen slate-grey monoliths looming over us like giants. We stick to the shadows, hiding in doorways and side-alleys wherever possible. It was slow going, but eventually we did make it up to the area where Joyce and David's building was.

It was... bad.

The front of the building faced out onto a t-junction. The diverging road was the main route to the nearest spacedock, and apparently the Unitologists knew it. They were massing at the junction, around two dozen of them joined by four massive monsters. They were like the sword-arm ones - with the same stretched, lean form with pale skin and hungry, chittering mandibles - but taller and broader, like they were the footballer jock version. As Chloe would've said if she were here, they were hella freaky.

The Unitologists seemed to be... escorting them? Each of the big monsters had a small flock of six or so surrounding them, clutching a mishmash of firearms and improvised weapons. A couple of them had these big buzz-saw things I'd seen Chloe use at work. There were way too many, and they were way too heavily armed. We couldn't take them, not with only two people and not with only a plasma cutter and a handgun.

Copse scowled at the crowd, leaning up ever so slightly to get a better view. I'd seen enough. I left him to it and stuck to watching his back. I did not want to get snuck up on right now.

We spent maybe five minutes sat there in silence, watching the milling crowd of people-monsters and actual monsters. Copse never took his eyes off them. What he found so interesting about them, I had no idea. I wanted to go.

But Copse knew his shit. So, we stuck around and waited until he was satisfied.

The trip back was quieter and I didn't try to break the silence. He was clearly thinking over the terrible, terrible odds we were facing. About halfway, he started to speak. "They're waiting for something. Something that isn't happening soon."

I didn't bother to ask how he knew that. I barely understood his tracking explanation, so this would just be even more confusing. I just say "Okay."

I rattle off what we saw, letting Copse drop in any extra details he'd noticed. I tried to get him to take the lead, but he still wasn't happy about the extra people we had with us. "If we're going to get through them, we're going to need help. Or another way in."

"Shit." Chloe's face-beams focused on me. "We can't leave them, Max. It's my Mom." She hesitates before adding. "And Step-Douche. "

I reach out and lay a hand on her shoulder. It tenses beneath my grip before relaxing, ever so slightly. "I know, Chlo. And we're not going to. We just need some help, right?" The ragtag band of followers we'd gained all nodded in agreement. "Okay, so. Anyone know a place?"

The agreeable band promptly avoided eye contact.

"Copse? Any Earth-Gov places around here that might help us out?"

Copse shakes his head. "Not likely. Earth-Gov around here are more likely to search you for contraband than anything else. And they're station security, not actual military. They'd have about as much armament as we do."

"Crap. Okay, anyone else?"

Still no eye contact.

"Anyone?"

Chloe's head suddenly tilts like she's remembering something. It's really fricking cute. She used to do it all the time when I poked her to- not the time. "Chloe..?" I ask, voice full of hope.

"I might have something. A place we can go. Not sure if anyone there will be willing to help us, they're kinda assholes, but we could at least hide there while we work shit out?"

Copse and I look at each other and both nod. "Sounds good." He says, warily. "Where is this place of assholes?"

"Uh, so the maintenance guys kinda have a... Batcave."

"A Batcave?" That sounds... familiar.

"Yeah, like the superhero dude?" She shrugs. "Anyway, it's safe. Like, hella safe. It's basically sealed off from the rest of the station except for one way in and..." She ruffles through one of the pouches for a second before triumphantly raising a keycard. "And I have a key!" After a beat, she adds "Plus, I'll be able to get out of this suit before I choke to death, so that'd be cool."

A couple of the flock chime in then, "We should go there.", and "If it's safe, it seems like a good idea." They seem confused by the choking thing, but just take it as another fucking weird moment in this fucking weird day and keep focused on the decision.

Chloe was obviously in, so I looked to Copse for his opinion. He gave me a surly look back, but nodded.

Chloe puts the key back in her pocket and tilts her head, mutter yelling "Where the hell is dock 36? Gimme a route, you useless piece of-" to the suit's internal RIG software.

Once she had a direction, she pointed broadly with one arm and strode off with a booming "This way!"

After a moment, she stopped, slammed herself in the side of the head, then turned around. "Nope. This way!"

Copse groans. "Yeah. This is gonna go great."

AN1 - Before any gun-people start, I know it's called a grip and not a handle. I'm just trying to show that Max is not a person who knows firearms. She can shoot them, because pulling a trigger at a window isn't hard, but she's not up on the specifics.

AN2 - Anyone who's played Dead Space will know how... ornery the anti-grav flight system can be. Still better than the one in the new Prey was though, but that's not saying much. There are dead elephants with mohawks and a sidecar that are easier to control than the Prey E.V.O system was. On a side note, every in-space sequence here was written with the Blue Danube Waltz playing along in my head, so...