XII

JT watched in silence as the Marines went about their business in the hanger, the huge yellow exoskeletons clumping their way from side of the chamber to the other, carrying heavy loads of equipment and material that would be used in one way or another to secure the shuttle bay from outside interference by the creatures. Grated deck plates had been hauled up from walkways and welded in place over sealed doors, a modern-day portcullis over a locked drawbridge, while elsewhere in the bay any open ventilation shaft had its entrance blocked by a barrel or a crate, each obstruction hastily welded to the floor or the wall. Within an hour, there were a number of discarded portable cutting and welding torches lying in the centre of the room, their ends glowing white hot but their internal fuel supply having been long-since depleted, and the Marines were now making slow but steady progress with the larger solidox welding gear used for repairing dropships or fixing rips in the hulls of larger craft.

Of the many different ways into the room, only two had been sealed up with the makeshift seals: the large double-doors that opened up into the elevator JT and his friends had entered the hanger through, and a smaller hatch barely big enough for one of the armoured Marines to enter through, let alone the large ebony nightmares that were loose in the ship. The smaller door was guarded by five marines, all but one equipped with a modified pulse rifle with an extended drum magazine, capable of holding more than double the capacity of a normal magazine. The fifth person carried a heavy machine gun attached to his hip by a gyroscopic mount, the smartgun swinging smoothly from side to side as he covered the hatch with relative grace and ease, despite the bulk and weight of the weapon. He didn't wear the same cumbersome armour or helmet as the other men and women, and was quite vocal on several occasions how he was more of a badass ground pounder because he didn't go in for that "tin can crap" his counterparts wore.

A trio of sentry cannons guarded the larger doors to the elevators, heavy duty automated turrets that cycled back and forth in a fixed arc, forming an overlapping field of fire that could detect and open fire on any creatures, should they breach the elevator itself in a bid to get to the Marines stationed within. Capable of operating a number of different mounted weapons, Green had elected to use the experimental incinerator units: with the choice of either flames or bullets, and the potential of the lift doors becoming the scene of an impromptu shooting gallery, something that wouldn't make the creatures bleed as much was more favourable.

"Are we secure in here?" JT finally said, glancing over at Stevens as Evelyn finished tending to his wounds. With a full field kit provided by one of the medics in the squad, she had more equipment to work with and could concentrate more on the job at hand, applying salves to burns and wrapping cuts and suspected breaks in bandages and braces.

"As secure as we are in any other room anywhere else on the ship," Stevens shrugged, watching as the Marines continued to work around him. Both he and Dawes were considered as walking wounded – injured, but not out of the fight by a long shot – but they were more valuable in a firefight than the securing of the bay, and were ordered to get the medical attention they needed. That didn't mean that Green wasn't keeping an eye on them from across the hanger, glaring warily at them while one of his own corporals reported on the progress of securing the room.

"Green's got a plan, too," voiced Dawes as she readjusted her helmet: with her hair falling outside regulations, she stood out just as much as much as the civilians. "If they breech the hanger, we retreat to the lift of the access tunnels, seal them off, then remotely open both airlocks, suck them out into space. Can't survive without oxy, am I right?" She raised her fist slightly, and Stevens tapped it lightly with his own fist.

"Fuckin 'a," he nodded in agreement. "Suck the bastards clean out into the void."

"Looks like he's got all bases covered," JT resented the fact Green seemed to know what he was doing, and his resentment clearly came through in his tones.

"Don't get stressed out, civ," Stevens shook his head. "He's right, you've got some cajones on you to try and start a brawl with a sergeant on account of some girl. Don't take it as an insult: any other civ would be sitting in the dropship right now, waiting for the all clear to be evaced. The fact he's taking you in – Christ, you're practically leading us there – twinned with the fact you've already proven yourself to be worth something in a serious firefight means he's obviously impressed with your ability to look after yourself. And others. You've saved me, saved her," he said, waving to Evelyn as she finished off dressing his wounds.

"Evelyn," she muttered, absentmindedly. "My name's Evelyn."

"I know what your name is," Stevens shook his head. "It doesn't matter."

"In all honesty, I'd rather I was sitting in the damn dropship. At least I'd be safe."

"Can they really force him to lead them?" Evelyn asked. "I mean he's not one of them. One of you, I mean, he's not a soldier."

"I'll be okay," JT nodded. "Just have to keep a level head."

"Normally, I'd say no: unless the Marines are in a policing role, they can't order a civilian or put one directly in the line of danger. However, these aren't really normal circumstances, more like a war or an invasion. And in an invasion or a war, the rules can change without warning."

"You ready, Civ?" Green called from over the bay, motioning towards the small hatch under the supervision of the quintet of Marines. "Lets get this show moving: we were in the middle of a game of craps before coming over here, and I was on a winning role: I don't want to lose any of that pay I'm owed."

Stevens hauled himself up from the collection of pipes he'd been resting on and slapped JT's shoulders as he egged him on. "C'mon, mouse, lead us to the cheese."

"Don't I get any armour, any protection?"

"You're lucky you're allowed that," Stevens nodded towards the pulse rifle JT carried. "Plus, you've got a squad of the fleet's finest with you, what other protection could you possibly want?"

"Change of plan," Green announced as the quartet approached him, holding up a hand to halt the squad advancing. "Civ, you and your girl stick to the middle of the pack: I'm going to have Mallard take point, sweep the corridors before we follow him. Stevens, you and Dawes are Tail-end Charlie, watch our backs."

"Got it, Sarge," Stevens nodded, then winked to Evelyn. "Keep him out of trouble, we'll meet up at the other end."

"Okay men, listen up," Green bellowed, his voice echoing in the vast chamber he stood in. All the Marines turned to face him, over thirty people including the pilots and civilians that were waiting patiently in the bay. "We've got a couple of briefs, we know the tunnels are going to be tight, barely big enough to go through in pairs, and we also know that these creatures are strong, and quick. They can come from the ceilings, come from the floors: they could come from any angle, so don't be surprised if they come at us from both ends. The civ's going to lead us to Engineering, he says it can get hot as hell there, so don't be afraid to unfasten a button or two if the heat gets too much. IR won't show shit down there, so dump any unnecessary crap we don't need to carry.

"Mallard's taking point as squad machine gunner, I need two men behind him with rifles and trackers, another two behind them with ammo loads. Standard formations following that: cross your fields of fire and hold off on grenades unless the tunnels open up. Keep your heads down, and don't shoot us," he finished off, addressing JT and Evelyn at the end of his briefing. A squad of nine Marines formed up at the small hatch, falling in line behind Mallard, the man with the smartgun who had been so vocal about not wearing as much armour as the rest of the infantry around him. He was much larger up close, his impressive bulk rippling with power as he stood impatiently in front of the door, grinding his teeth and adjusting the mission camera attached to his pair of safety goggles that covered his eyes. His skin was dark, his skull shaved impeccably smooth, and a fine bead of sweat rolled down the back of neck, staining the olive T-shirt he wore with a trickle of sweat. He nodded to himself, hoisted his weapon as if he carried it without the aid of the gyroscopic arm, then stood still, waiting for the hatch to be opened.

"Don't worry, civs," he called out to JT and Evelyn as they arranged themselves into the centre of the squad. "I got you covered. Just keep me right, and get me to a couple of those bugs if you can," he grinned, showing yellowed teeth that were missing more than one, clearly casualties of fistfights from his tours of duty. He was clearly proud of these trophies and mementos, as it cost very little to get minor work like that fixed.

"Can't believe he let the 'Roid Rage go first," chuckled one of the men behind JT. "We'll never get to tag any bad guys ourselves with him up front."

"Cool it," whispered the man beside him. "I hear this is all just a drill, anyway, something to keep us occupied. Soon as it's over, I'm going to see if I can find myself some civilian pussy before we go back over: Marine women ain't nothing but butch bitches or dykes, Sometimes I need a little smooth to go with the rough, if you now what I mean."

Evelyn spun, glared at the pair, but none of them seemed to draw back from her withering stare: one smiled, the other winked and made a pursing gesture with his lips. "Can't argue about the view from here, though. I could always settle for a little doctor-dicking, you know what I mean?"

"Hermes, King," Green snapped, having to throw himself into the melee about to erupt between JT and the pair of soldiers. "You stow your shit and cool your cocks at the back to squad: you're covering our flanks now, Stevens, get you and your woman up here. Keep an eye on your friend here; make sure he doesn't get himself into trouble."

Hermes and King stepped out of line and trudged backwards, away from JT but keeping their eyes locked with his, neither man willing to break off their glare. Stevens forced his way between them and he and Dawes took their position, making a point of emphasizing his movements and barging into them with his shoulders, ensuring they turned around and stepped to the back of the line-up.

"Can't play well with other kids, can you?" Stevens grinned, rolling his eyes.

"Lousy fucker wants to keep his mouth shut," JT said angrily, making sure his voice was loud enough to carry to the rear of the formation.

"You got a lot of piss boiling inside you," Stevens shook his head. "I like this side of you. You got balls."

"I don't like it," Evelyn muttered to herself. Not loud enough for Stevens to hear, but JT could hear well enough.

"All right, we're moving out," Green's voice bellowed. "Mallard, take us in."

"It's about fucking time," spat Mallard, nodding to one of the Marines as he pulled open the sealed hatch and revealed the dark tunnel within. "Watch your step. It's dark as shit in here."

Lights attached to armour and fixed to guns hummed to life as they were activated in unison and the squad slowly began to push on into the cramped tunnel.

The walls pressed in around JT and Evelyn as they marched into the darkness, each side lined with thick pipes and bundles of wires strapped together and held down with thick metal clamps. The dullest of light found its way into the corridor through the grilled ceiling above them, dim emergency lighting that was barely bright enough to pick out the contours of the corridor. The lamps the Marines carried cut through the darkness with piercing shafts of brilliant white, picking out the details of the enclosed space: pipes covered with fine layers of condensation and patches of corrosion, the drip-drip-drip of water echoing in the confines of the still tunnel; the audible hum of power that pulsed through the wiring surrounding them, and the heat that they generated. Less than a fifty meters into the tunnel, and the temperature had already hiked a couple of degrees, and each step seemed to bring it closer and closer to the intolerable. Somewhere along the corridor a pipe must have burst, giving birth to a thick miasma that oozed across the floor, barely a couple of inches above the ground, and a stale, organic stench permeated the air.

"Junction coming up," Mallard called from the front of column.

"Head left," JT announced, accepting a headset from Stevens and slipping the device over his ear. "Then there should be a sealed bulkhead on the right after that: we need to go through that."

"Copy that," Mallard growled. "Left, through the sealed bulkhead… we may have a problem."

"What's happening, soldier?" Green's voice carried from the rear of the squad and over JT's headset, almost in unison.

"Sealed bulkhead isn't sealed. It ain't even there."

"Bullshit, it's there," JT butted into the exchange. "I know it's there."

"Used to be," Mallard said, and from the front of the line, JT could see him shrug his shoulders. "Ain't now, though. The seal for the door's there, but the hatch isn't."

"They tore it off?" JT wondered aloud.

"Or through it," Mallard offered as he continued through the opened hatchway. As JT reached the opening, he paused a couple of seconds to examine the seal and the frame surrounding it. Splashed with corrosive liquids and spattered in thick, stringy mucus, it looked like it had been completely removed, but couldn't explain why.

"Move it," Stevens nodded, tapping JT's head with back of his hand. "There used to be a door, now there isn't. Big mystery, we'll sort it out later. "

"Yeah, right," JT said, not entirely convinced as he picked up his pace and rejoined Evelyn by her side. "Later."

The squad travelled for almost twenty minutes, the cramped corridor twinned with the bulky armour and weapons of the Marines meaning it took them longer to negotiate some areas where pipes crossed their path, until Mallard gave a sigh of relief, then a soft laugh.

"Tunnel's finally opened up," he said, the relief in his voice sounding like he was smiling has he made the comment. "'Bout time."

"There's a few of these chambers between us and the bottom of Engineering," JT nodded as he and Evelyn emerged into the chamber and watched as the other soldiers spread out in a cordon across the chamber. He wiped his brow with the back of his sleeve, the arm of his jacket coming away covered in a thick mixture of sweat and grime. "It'll give us a chance to stretch and rest up before we move on. The next one's another two hundred meters on, then we need to take the left branch from there."

"It'll also give us somewhere to fall back to if we need to break out the big guns," Green nodded. "So far, so good. Mallard, secure the exit: King and Hermes, make sure nothing sneaks up on us. The rest of you, hydrate and swap, take turns while we all get prepared for the next leg of our journey."

He approached JT and Evelyn, covering the mouthpiece of his head set and nodded solemnly to them. "You're doing good so far," he said quietly, assuring them, before uncovering the microphone once more. "It's only gonna get hotter, so make sure you're not going to overheat. Make sure those motion sensors are working, too, I don't want anything getting the drop on us."

"I've got something up here," Mallard shouted from his sentry position, waving over to Green but not taking his eyes off the corridor ahead of him, nor his finger off the firing stud of his weapon. Every Marine turned to face him, weapons snapping up and waiming in his direction. "Get the brains of the civ operation up here, too."

"He means you," Green barked, pointing to Evelyn as he rushed over to see what Mallard was talking about. Bewildered, she stumbled forwards, JT in tow, he steps becoming increasingly slower as the object Mallard's light illuminated came into view.

A hideous sculpture made by a crazed artist, a human figure had been attached to the wall of a small antechamber leading back into another cramped corridor. Surrounded by dark resinous material that glistened in the glare of the halogen lamp, the figure had been welded in place by the grim organic material. Loops of the material surrounded his limbs and upper torso, like distended intestines dipped in a hardening compound and sprayed with glistening slime, supporting the weight of his body as it leaned forwards, almost as if he had been frozen in the middle of peeling away from the wall. The texture of the wall around him was equally as alien as the restraints that surrounded him: organic swirls and pipes of a structure that seemed to blend perfectly from organic to inorganic in a bizarre, fluid moment. The shapes of the structure surrounding the person were reminiscent in both shape and shade of the creatures themselves, and for a moment he thought they'd come across a giant creature in the middle of eating a person alive.

The man was dead, though. Blood had sprayed across his face and chest, and the ruptured cage of his ribs had burst outwards. Fragments of shattered ribs were scattered across the ground and around the thick, fleshy roots that spanned the floor; bloodied candy corn smashed and torn from the piñata glued to the wall. Shredded organs dripped out the gaping hole, slick with blood and bile chewed in some place, and the look of pain and terror etched on the face of the main told the true story of the agony he had went through in his final hours. His bloody tongue lolled from his face, bitten halfway through as if he had tried to bite it and swallow it to end his suffering.

On the ground at the base of the structure there lay a large, grey-green leathery pod, the apparent origins of the fleshy, slime-coated roots that snaked across the floor. Its top had peeled back in four large, fleshy petals, coated in the same translucent matter. Beside the spent egg, the carcass of an eight-legged creature lay dormant, its legs curled up on itself and its tail trailing lazily away from it.

"Just like we told you," JT said, but took no pleasure in being right. Instead, he watched as Evelyn pushed her way to the front of the crowd, peered into the eyes of the dead man and examined the opened chest cavity. A hushed silence fell over the Marines, the only sound that could be heard the steady pulsing hum of the engines of the craft around them. Green was the first to speak as he pushed past Mallard and took place at the head of the squad.

"Pull that poor bastard off the wall, tag him and bag him, then we push on. We'll pick him up on the way back."

Reluctantly, two Marines stepped forwards and chipped away at the hardened resin that surrounded the man until enough of the matter had been removed and they could pull him from his encrusted tomb. He dropped lifelessly to the ground, then quickly vanished beneath a sheet of plastic that the Marines engulfed him in. With a tracker beacon fixed to the body bag, it was pushed to one side, waiting to be picked up by the squad on its returning journey.

"There's more further on," Mallard hissed as he panned the beam from his lamp into the darkness of the corridor beyond the macabre totem, the structures beyond glistening as the light played over their twisted and reformed surfaces.

"Move up, secure the area," Green ordered, and Mallard took a step forwards, his weapon slowly dancing from one human form to another as the details of the captives became clearer.

Four in total, each had been glued to the wall using the same secretions, the mix of organic and inorganic almost indecipherable as bulkhead merged with the baroque alien structure: limbs had been twisted, bent or broken to fit in place around malformed secretions and parts of equipment, the ergonomic requirements of the human body clearly not taken into account when they had been fixed into place. Four pods lay empty on the ground, each with their fleshy lips peeled back and surrounded by a network of roots.

Of the four people, two had already been used: their chests were ruptured and shredded, arterial spray covering the floor and wall around them, nothing but husks that had served their purpose. A third body was in the process of becoming impregnated, the spider-like creature having engulfed their head with its elongated fingers and secured in place by the powerful tail coiled around their neck. The fourth seemed to be in the limbo state between the two: the desiccated husk of the crab-creature lay at his feet, but his chest was intact, rising slowly as he laboriously breathed in and out, his torso twisted around a round vent opening that could have been either part of the ship or part of the alien hive. The opening seemed to go on forever into the darkness beyond, but no one seemed to fix their attention on this: while the man still breathed, there could be chance he was going to be okay.

With Mallard standing guard, Green rushed forwards, almost dragging Evelyn as they approached the man, moving softly and carefully so they didn't make too much noise as they stepped over roots and pools of sludge and slime.

"Is he awake?" Green asked as Evelyn gingerly examined the man, keeping back from him as she played the beam of a penlight across his features.

"Hmm," he man responded himself, his head rolling forward a couple of inches before the resin coating his head snagged at his scalp and split the flesh. "Yeah… I'm… I'm awake."

"Get him down from there," snapped Green, stepping forwards with his own blade and starting to chip away at the restraints that bound his arms. "Get him down."

"Don't!" the man yelled, a wild look in his eyes as he glared at the Marine, obviously aware of his fate: the three other people plastered to the wall around him was a testament to both his past and present.

"We can help," Green said, though he didn't sound convinced as the sound of an organ slipping out an exposed rib cage and slapping into the pool of gore beneath one of the dead bodies startled him: all the soldiers lifted their weapon and spun to face it, but none of them opened fire: training won out over nerves. Barely.

"I can… I can feel it… moving,' he grimaced as the snake within his chest shifted, its alien bulk displacing his heart and stomach, stifling a cough as his lungs were squeezed slightly. "It's in me. Christ, I can feel it…"

A violent shudder passed through his body, and with the convulsion came a barking cough, harsh and grating that produced a spray of bloody phlegm. It trickled down his chin, rivulets of crimson and ochre gore that remained fixed to his skin.

"She's a doctor," Green urged, motioning towards Evelyn with a nod of his head. "We can take it out."

"Too late," the man grinned. "I'm… I'm having a baby!" He laughed, as harsh a bark as his cough and equally as productive as far as bloodied saliva was concerned. With a wild look in his eyes, he fixed Green with a glare, but then seemed to lose focus as his gaze drifted beyond him. "Is this… what it feels… feels like to have one? He moves, he… he hurts me… but I'm reminded that I'm… I'm alive. For now…"

"He's fucking lost it," Mallard barely looked over his shoulder as he focused his attention on the other end of the corridor, and the darkness that loomed ominously in the near distance.

"Is this… what it feels like?" the man continued, before snapping his gaze to Evelyn and fixing her with the same maddening gaze as he had green. Almost shouting now, he screamed: "You're the fucking doctor! Does it always hurt?"

Evelyn jumped at his sudden outburst, and JT instinctively stepped forwards, his hands tightening around the weapon he held, but Stevens quickly snagged his collar and pulled him back.

"You gonna wail on some half-mad bastard strapped to a wall with a creature in his gut that's about to pop just because he shouted? Cool it, civ," he said calmly, then looked at the man fastened into the structure. He spoke up to him, for what good it was. "How many of them are there? Where'd they go?"

"Them?" he whispered, nodding his head more. The resin pulled more hair from his scalp as he moved, though in the state of delirium he was in, did didn't act like he felt it. "Yes, them… hundreds," his voice tailed off into a whisper, so quiet that Stevens had to step closer to hear his incoherent ramblings to see if he could gleam any knowledge from him. "The darkness, it hides them. The walls hide them. They watch us now, watch for their baby, Did… did you know I was pregnant? They love me… they all do… I'm the mother… father… of their brother."

"He's fucking gone," Mallard warned again. "I know crazy, and that fucker's crazy."

"Hundreds," he warned again. "Hundreds of them. Men and animals and animals and men… they're all the parents… all feel it… it moves!"

He gritted his teeth once more, grimacing as the creature rolled around inside him chest, then blinked away the tears of pain.

"It moves," he whispered again. "My beautiful… beautiful baby… moved."

"There's nothing you can do for him?" murmured Green as he turned away from the deranged man and pulled Evelyn aside.

"Even if we got him down," she shook her head, "I couldn't... wouldn't even know where to begin."

The deliberation was cut short as the man on the wall screamed again, this time his gut-wrenching agony coming out in a gurgling scream as blood frothed from his cracked lips. He spat a wad of thick blood laced with bile onto the ground, shuddered and screamed again, his burbling cry continuing as the ferocity of his scream ripped through his vocal chords and shredded his throat: he thrashed from side to side, his limbs cracking and popping as they tried to break free from the secreted structure. His bones snapped and gave before the prison around him did, and with a final, agonising scream that rattled off into the dark confines of the tight maintenance corridors…

He stopped moving: eyes glazed over, bloody spittle hanging from his mouth in thick rivulets of gore-streaked mucus, chest barely moving as his final breaths escaped from his tortured body.

"Feel it… move… see… brothers!"

He managed a final, drawn-out guttural belch, then fell deathly silent. All eyes were fixed on the body, and five seconds passed without any further activity from the organic wall fixture. JT felt himself relax, thinking either the creature wasn't ready to come out, or that maybe – thankfully – the man had just expired. He could see that Evelyn had visibly relaxed, too.

Which made the bloody eruption of the toothed worm that ripped through the sternum of the man that much more startling, even though deep down, JT was still expecting it.

Gnashing its tiny, metallic-looking teeth as it slithered through the quagmire of gore that slewed from the opened body cavity; it hissed a high-pitched scream before attempting to sidle into the hole in the hive structure surrounding the fresh corpse. Weapons that had been snapped up during the initial convulsions tracked to the side, trying to follow the quick-moving infant, but Mallard was the first to fire, the staccato of gunshots a different timbre than the pulse rifles, and the powerful rounds found their mark, smashing through the body of the snake with unnerving accuracy and destroying it with brutally accurate shots that took out head, chest and tail. It flopped lifelessly to the floor, the acrid spray dousing deck and structure alike: where the putrid liquid found metal, it smoked and sizzled as it corroded the plate: where it struck the alien structure, it simply splashed and dripped down the wall, until it came to rest in a shallow pool forming in the uneven sculpture.

The retort of the gunfire hadn't even died away before another sound erupted, a shrill and undulating tone that beeped, almost sang, as the motion sensors half the squad carried burst to life in a synchronised trill. They were lifted up, spun around, moved from side to side as they tried to get a fix on the location of the movement. Some slapped the boxes they carried before consulting others in hushed tones.

"Don't make me ask," Green muttered, grabbing the tracker from the closest Marine and glaring at the readout. Pale blue lines illuminated the small black screen, an arc pulsing from one side of the screen to another as the machine emitted an invisible sensory wave. Any movement from something not wearing an IFF tag the Marines wore would be detected by the devices, and would show up on the screen as a white shapeless blob, with an indication as to how far the source of movement was. The screen was blank.

"Faulty machinery," he growled to himself.

"Everyone's picked something up at the same time," Stevens took a tracker from another soldier. "There was something, there had to be. One machine can throw out an odd ghost reading but seven of them?"

"Interference from the engines?" JT asked, his arm wrapped around Evelyn: was he comforting her after the horrific birth and sudden gunfire, or was it for his own benefit? She had seen more of these visceral births than he, maybe she was starting to get used to it. Not that it was something normal you could take in your strides. "Strong EM fields, maybe?"

"I doubt it," Stevens shook his head. "These things can work in any environment with an atmosphere. It's thick and humid here, but not enough to start screwing with these things."

"I'm inclined to agree," Green was reluctant to admit it, but he nodded his head as he talked. "Look sharp, people, those gun shots are sure to bring unwanted attention."

"Unwanted my ass," Mallard grinned. "I want to meet these fuckers and let my old friend here teach them a few new things," he crooned, stroking the lengthy weapon attached to his hip.

"A smartgun's only as intelligent as its operator," one of the Marines to the rear of the squad said, deliberately projecting his voice so it reached the point man. "Couldn't teach a fish to swim."

"I taught your sister a few things last night," Mallard grinned as he swung the barrel of his weapon slowly from one side to another, hoping the weapons automatic tracking would pick something; anything up in the murky corridor ahead of him. "Your momma, too."

"I spoke to my momma, said she couldn't feel you cock at all," the same voice carried on.

"Probably because she was messed up down there after giving birth to you and your fat head."

"Stow it, Marines," Green snapped. Marines found themselves in life-threatening situations nearly every day in their life, and their cocksure attitudes and almost inappropriate attempts at humour was how they dealt with it, in their own way: that didn't mean they were allowed to run their mouths all the time. "Anyone else got anything?"

As if on queue, the motion sensors that the soldiers carried emitted another shrill alarm: and then another. Snapping the devices up, the armed men and women focused their trackers on the corridor in front of them, then the chamber and tunnel they'd come from.

"We've got movement," hissed Stevens, unnecessarily: the panic in his voice mimicked the expressions on the other Marines as they checked their equipment and weapons. He and Dawes slinked closer to JT and Evelyn, a bond seeming to form between the four.

"Another malfunction?" JT asked nervously, hefting his pulse rifle and looking nervously over his shoulder, then back the way he was facing. "Equipment playing up?"

"Real deal, Johnny," Stevens shook his head. Whether he's knowingly called him by the nickname Evelyn gave him or not, JT couldn't say. The pulsating thrum of the trackers continued, and the soldiers became alive with activity as they each prepared their weapons and split off into two teams, each facing one way in the cramped corridor while Green slowly pulled them back towards the opened chamber: while in no way safe, it would be easier to fend off an attack there, where the creatures would be in a bottleneck on their approach. The soldiers understood the tactics, and quickly formed two defensive lines, those at the front of the line hunkering down onto their knees and those behind them standing upright.

"Thirty meters," called one of the front-most men, their eyes flickering from the corridor, to their trackers and back. "Twenty. Ten."

"Why can't we see them?" Evelyn muttered, linking her arms with JT's as he swung his head from side to side. Although it was dark, the lights from the Marines' equipment would be powerful enough to pick out the slightest movement in the dark, but nothing could be seen.

"Oh, fuck," Stevens muttered, snapping his light and weapon up towards to roof. "Check the ceiling," he called, expecting to see a swarm of the creatures hauling their weight over the grates above him. Instead, there was nothing: just metal plates and a lattice of pipes and wires that couldn't possibly hide any of the creatures.

"Holding at five," the Marine announced, checking his weapon. "They've stopped moving."

"Stealthy fuckers," Green whispered, his voice barely a whisper after the screeching of the trackers had ceased. "In the walls?" he wondered.

"Moving again," someone shouted as the trackers blipped to life again. "Here they come…"