XVII

Stevens sat motionless at his desk, staring glumly at the cup of ominous dark liquid that sat steaming in front of him. The desk wasn't a desk as such, but a sheet of decking plate balanced on top of two packing crates inside the office area of the hangar. The fake desk complemented his drink, which wasn't really coffee, but a synthetic base loaded with stimulants and the subtle taste of what could only be described as wet cardboard.

"You still pissed off?"

Stevens didn't look up from his coffee to acknowledge Dawes with a response: instead, he turned slowly on his seat and glared through the opaque windows of the office, squinting as he made out the blurry shapes of Marines moving back and forth.

The hangar had been modified to accommodate the Marines as best as it could, with a third of the area dedicated to sleeping and weapons maintenance: crates set up to create low walls and corridors, individual areas cordoned off into makeshift rooms, each decorated with photographs or other personal artefacts that the Marines may have had on their person. Another third had been dedicated to exercise and recreation, with improvised weightlifting rigs, craps tables and a half-size touch football field marked out with neon-glow paint. The final third had been designated as the combat zone, areas cordoned off around the doors where conflict would occur if the creatures tried to break through into the room.

"Been trapped in here for a week now," he sullenly muttered, pushing his cup around the desk before moving it next to the three other cups of cold, dark liquid that he'd left from earlier in the day: all were untouched. "Confined in this god damn hangar while these creatures create havoc all over the rest of the ship. They could be dead. Or worse."

"And the men here just keep playing football and betting money they don't have."

Stevens finally acknowledged Dawes as he looked up and nodded glumly.

"And we've been here for what, six days now? Seven?"

"A week," Dawes nodded. "Last we heard from The Vengeance was that they'd been successful in getting us turned around, and we're heading back to Gamma. That was four days ago, we've heard nothing since."

"And you've tried raising them?"

"Couple of times," she nodded. "No response."

"Cause we're in quarantine," Evelyn muttered, also present in Steven's small administrative area. "We're potentially infected, so they're treating us like lepers. They'll probably let us know when we're going to dock, that'll be the next thing we hear."

"Expert in Marine goings-on, now, are we doc?"

"Familiar with ICC Quarantine," she shrugged. "If your people are playing by the rules, then it's pretty standard procedure."

"And we can't find anything else out there?" Stevens waved a hand in a vague direction towards the rest of the ship. "No pockets of survivors, nothing on the internal coms or security feeds?"

"Still nothing. The longer we stay cooped up in here, the more cameras we loose to the creatures or the nests that they build. I don't know how many of those things there are now, but we have to assume that the whole ship is overrun now. I've been working closely with Knight to see if there's anything else we can do, but every day, more and more systems become inoperable."

"Knight," Stevens snarled, curling his lip as he twisted on his seat, leaning back and looking through the open door of the office at the emotionless Marine who stood at the foot of the ramp leading into the small shuttlecraft he'd arrived on: six foot tall, with short blond hair cropped close to his skull and a muscular build that put most Marines to shame. Cold blue eyes scanned slowly from side to side, taking in the details of the hangar. As his eyes fell on Stevens, he raised a hand and performed a slow salute before continuing his vigil over the hangar. "God damn Thorn… of all the people he could have sent us."

"You don't like him," JT said. It wasn't a question, but a statement. Stevens nodded slowly anyway.

"Not a lot of Marines like working with synths," he shook his head, then turned to look at Dawes. "I don't even know how you can work with him."

"Because I have to, and because I don't take notice of all the different myths and legends that do the rounds in the barracks. You could do a lot worse than take everything you're told with a pinch of salt, you know that?"

"Myths? Legends? We all know that synths are twitchy as fuck; look at Knight, he's a combat model synth that hasn't actually seen any combat in any unit: This is like a baptism of fire, and throwing him into this shit unprepared is crazy. If his programming hasn't been tested out, he could flip out and kill us all. With him being a combat model, he's had his programming tweaked just a little too much for my liking, too. He can actually hurt a human within his normal operating parameters. Look at what happened with that crazy fucked up science droid."

"Rumours, all of them," Dawes shook her head.

"What rumours?" JT asked, warily eyeing the synthetic combat model, Knight being both his name and model type. "I always thought droids couldn't hurt people at all."

"Combat droids can, obviously because of their combat role, but only within certain parameters: force can be used, incapacitation of a target but not death; at least not the death of a human. They're normally armed with baton rounds, safety bullets, enough to stun or knock out someone.

"Now," he carried on, "About twenty five, maybe even thirty years ago, there was a ship that went missing in the outer rim sector, on the cold side of Zeta Reticuli: a routine mission for a small platoon of Marines on patrol, on their way to help out a colony who was having problems with their communication relays. So, this squad has a science droid with them, a synth with the right knowledge in its tin can head to fix the relays and get the colony up and running again."

"So?" JT shrugged his shoulders. "What's the big deal about that? Didn't the synthetic fix them right?"

"Shortly after they were due to report in, the ship vanished out of sight. A few years later, they find the ship floating in the middle of nowhere. Like the Mary fucking Celeste, you know? Lights on, systems going, but no sign of anyone aboard. A salvage squad was called in, broke into the vehicle and had a good look around. Turned out the science droid had flipped its lid, like a switch had been turned on in its head that sent it crazy. During travel to the colony it was supposed to help, it had pulled itself out of the sleep cycle and ejected all the other sleeper capsules while the poor bastards were asleep, flash-froze them and killed them instantly. Details are sketchy, but they say they found the legs of a Bishop model science droid down in the main hangar, but no body, like he'd held on to a grenade too long and blown its torso apart, like it was trying to come to terms with the guilt of everything."

"And they never made it to the colony? I mean, they didn't report anything about erratic behaviour?"

"The colony wasn't there," Stevens placed his hands flat on the desk and pulled himself up from his seat. "The other part of the rumour is that the rock they were supposed to go and help had been attacked, a barrage of nukes that had scoured the planet clean. Now, the Sulaco had enough ordinance aboard it to level a city… they say that the synth brought the hammers crashing down on that colony..."

"It's all rumours," Dawes snorted, shaking her head. "I think it would have made big news if a Bishop model synthetic had wiped out a colony and a platoon of Marines."

"Would it? Not if they tried to cover it up."

"They? Who're 'they'?"

"Anyway," Stevens shrugged his shoulders. "That's the word that goes around in the barracks. Synths aren't trusted at all. I mean, if a Science Droid could freak out like that and kill that many, an android with its primary laws firmly in place…" he stood and glared at Knight, who still stood motionless by his shuttlecraft, then fixed him with an icy stare. He saluted again, and Stevens ignored him, leaning in closer and lowering his voice. "If a science model could do that, think what a combat droid with modified primary laws could do to us all."

"But it's all a myth, right?" Evelyn looked from Stevens to Dawes; the former seemed convinced by every word he'd spoke, but the latter seemed impartial to it all.

"Thorn wouldn't place us in any more danger than we already are," Dawes shook her head.

"Pretty hard to do that, anyway," JT muttered glumly. "A twitchy robot that may kill us all, or a ship filled with monsters that may kill us all. I'd rather have a bullet going in my brain than a creature coming out my chest."

"Just keep an eye on the fucker, that's all I'm saying."

"Lieutenant Stevens?"

The flat, emotionless voice of Knight echoed in the office, and the combat droid entered the antechamber with strong, confident strides, coming to a halt in front of the desk and saluting once more. Stevens grimaced: his temporary field commission had been the second unwelcome surprise that had arrived of Knight's one-man cargo vehicle, a new set of ID tags labelling him as the officer in charge of the operation aboard The Eden. It was a necessary evil in order that Stevens could be in charge of combat synthetic, but he could have done without both of them. Now, he had to keep one eye on his men, another on the doors for any sign of a breech, and a third for any sign of Knight twitching and breaking down.

"What is it?" he snapped, glaring at the solid, angular face of the man mountain that loomed before him. The artificial man mountain. Knight looked down on Stevens, but didn't seem to react to the indifference in the way he was treat.

"Lieutenant, there has been increased activity on the periphery of the motion sensors placed around the perimeter of the hangar. Analysis of all available combat data suggests that the creatures may be preparing for an assault on our locus."

"What combat data do you have to analyse?" Stevens snapped, grabbing his pulse rifle from beneath his desk and cocking the weapon, looking at the glowing readout on the side of the device that said he had a full magazine with ninety-five rounds ready. Knight went to answer, but Stevens shook his head, indicating he wasn't interested. "Get everyone ready, rouse the troops. JT, you and Evelyn grab your weapons but stay back in this office."

"Arming civilians with military firearms is a direct violation of the United Systems Colonial Marines directive seven nine four…"

"Stow it, tin can," Stevens ordered. "Make a mental note and take it up with Thorn later. Providing you don't tweak out on me and kill us."

"Sir," Knight nodded, touching his brow with the tip of his finger, then a Stevens went to walk away, he reached out and grabbed his arm. His touch was surprisingly soft considering his sizable bulk and power, but Stevens recoiled from the touch nevertheless. "I understand you dislike working with me, but I assure you my programming is perfectly intact, and my body fully prepared for combat. All my systems are well within standard operating parameters, and I assure you that it is my mission to aid, support and protect this squad."

"I'm sure that's what the science droid said before it flushed its crew out into deep space," Stevens shook his head.

"You refer to the events of the Sulaco, I presume. A spacers myth popular with the most of the new generation of the USCM. I assure you the reports of this situation have been grossly exaggerated and blown out of proportion, and that a 'Bishop' scientific model of artificial person would not be capable of flushing a crew into deep space, or firing nuclear payload at a colony; populated or otherwise. The access codes and levels alone…"

"Take your hands off me," Stevens growled. "Get the men ready: if you're so damn sure that something's coming, then get them roused and ready. Dawes, give the tin man a hand."

"You really don't trust him," muttered Evelyn, adjusting the flak jacket she wore beneath her grubby lab coat. Additional armour was available for everyone, but coveralls and BDUs were in limited supply, no one had anticipated the assault to last as long as it had. Both Evelyn and JT had to make do with the clothing they had: after a week of rationing water and wearing the same clothes, everything was starting to show some signs of wear and tear, and the smell that lingered around the living area of the hangar was a strong, musky scent that seemed to cling to the clothing everyone wore. Even Knight, synthetic to his core, seemed to exude the same musky odour in the pearls of artificial sweat the rolled down his forehead.

"They make those things too real," Stevens muttered, watching as the android approached different pockets of Marines and urged them into action. There wasn't that many men left, almost half of them had been killed in the initial failed strike into the heart of engineering, and it didn't take them long to drop whatever activity they were engrossed in and prep themselves for war: standard issue undergarments became obscured by coveralls and armour, helmets secured in place and magazines slammed home into rifles. Stevens strolled out into the main area of the hangar, cradling his pulse rifle, and looked at the small data pad he held, at the screens that did indeed indicate a surge of movement in the outer corridors that encompassed the hangar. It wasn't the first time in the past week that the outlying sensors had picked up the movement, but it was the first time such a massive signal had been encountered. He handed the tablet to the closest Marine, who nodded and sent it down the line, lettering all the men and women assembled there to see what they'd been pulled together for.

"It's a big shift, bigger than anything we've seen before," Stevens said, nodding towards Knight. "Knight thinks they may be getting ready to attempt a break in. I'm loath to admit it, but I agree with him. It's been too long since we last seen anything of those bastards, and this sudden rush around us suggests an attack: maybe even a coordinated assault. I want seventy percent of you by the main elevator, the other thirty by the rear hatch leading back into the engineering compartments: we've got this place sealed up pretty tight, they're the only way they can come in here, it'll be like a bottle neck. Incinerator units at the ready for the bodies, but use them sparingly. Keep an exit to the dropship open. If it comes to it, we'll seal it up and pop the airlock, flush them out into space: it's also the primary way we we've got of putting out any fires that may spread, so stay frosty, people."

Just as Stevens finished talking, one of the motion trackers set up on a tripod by one of the entrances came to life, a trilling succession of high-pitched rings that indicated something was moving within its limited range: normally able to track up to a kilometre, the systems of the lower engineering decks were powerful enough to disrupt readings enough to mean they were dialled down to their minimum settings, less than fifty meters.

The sudden sound of the motion tracker, and the fact that the creatures were now the closest they had been in a week, made Steven's heart skip a beat and the floodgates holding back the rush of adrenaline swung wide open. He split the squad in half, sending them to the separate entrances, and beckoned Dawes and Knight closer to him.

"You two, stay back by the office with JT and Evelyn: breakout the M42A's and offer sniper support to the squads covering the entrances. You can snipe, can't you?" This last comment was directed to Knight, who chose to ignore the condescending tone and nodded slowly.

"I am proficient in all weapons currently employed by the USCM. However, I feel I would be more beneficial in a support role with the men near the front of the assault. I can operate dual…"

"Snipe," Stevens shook his head, thrusting a scoped rifle into Knight's oversized hands and indicated the double doors leading into the elevator. "You take the lift, Dawes, take the hatch. I'll let the men on the front lines know they're getting distant support, make sure they keep out the line of fire. I'll make sure there's a pilot in the dropship, prepping it for vacuum if the need arises."

He stormed over to the elevator doors, where a crowd of Marines had started to gather, waving to a pair of pilots and directing them to enter the dropship and prepare the vehicle in case the backup plan of flushing the hangar had to be fallen back on. They nodded their understanding and moved to the ship – perhaps a little too enthusiastically? Stevens shrugged his shoulders as he moved, knowing that the pilots weren't trained or prepared for hard combat as much as the standard Marines, the grunts, were. Acknowledging that fact even more as he approached the soldiers huddled around the entrance and behind the sentry units, he motioned for the remaining pilots to take up positions closer to the back: everyone would fight, but in different capacities. Stevens hunkered down behind a packing crate in the middle of the group, cradling his pulse rifle and checking he still carried as much ammo as he could: he also fingered the bandoleer of grenades that were slung loosely over his shoulders, the different shaped projectiles with different coloured caps that each served a different purpose: some he would happily use, others he would hesitate to employ at the moment, but if push came to shove… There was a special little green-capped grenade he'd keep back for the worst-case scenario, like a warriors death knell.

"You spook us about that damn 'droid," JT's voice crackled over the com unit Stevens wore, "Then you leave us in his care? What the fuck's that about?"

"Live with it, Johnny," Stevens murmured, tuning out the complaints of the civilian pilot and keeping his eyes fixed on the doors. The motion trackers had stopped sounding now, meaning the creatures had either retreated, or had lapsed into whatever state passed for sleep.

"Sensors indicate they are still out there," Knight's monotonous voice droned over the radio. "Just on the other side of the door. Perhaps they are assessing the situation as we are ourselves."

"Can't we switch you to silent mode, or speak-when-spoken-to mode?" Stevens snapped. "Keep the line clear."

Minutes passed, and Stevens remained crouched in position, the muscles in his legs aching as he held his stance: others around him weren't so disciplined as they shifted their weight from one foot to another, and diverted their attention from the door to others around them: the tense atmosphere of the pre-combat gathering was starting to wane and distractions were suddenly aplenty.

"Where they at?" whispered one of the men behind Stevens, speaking louder than he thought as his voice carried far in the silent hangar.

"Don't know," his companion answered, his voice slightly more subdued. "Should've given us more shit to deal with then these, though. Gimme a pig any day…"

"Phased plasma infantry guns against those things?" snorted the first. "Why not just give us all SADARs so's we can blow us all to hell? Damn it, Craig, don't talk bullshit. Frigging heavy infantry for a handful of man-sized mutants. Fuckin' idiot."

"Shut it and keep your attention on the doors," Stevens snapped, peering at them himself and frowning. There was something not right, something that seemed out of place. The doors still held fast, they hadn't shown any sign of being breeched. It wasn't possible that both the motion trackers and the periphery sensors were glitching at the same time, was it?

"Front line," Steven spoke up, looking towards one of the men closest to front of the defensive positions. "Status check, what are those doors like?"

"Looks secure, LT," one of the Marines shouted back. "Locks still holding."

"Disable the sentry units, check it out."

Apprehensively, the Marine rose to his feet and cautiously edged forwards, the muzzle of his weapon trained on the door he approached and remaining fixed there until he was within a couple of feet. He lowered his weapon and gently pressed against the door, satisfied that it remained firmly in place, before turning back to the awaiting Marines and giving the thumbs up.

Even if he hadn't turned his back on the door, the fate of the Marine would have been just the same.

The doors, still locked together, shook violently with a deafening thud and impossibly seemed to be coming away from the wall with a deafening screech of protesting metal. The ragged edges of the door were smouldering as they came free, soft and pliable and spewing acrid fumes from the powerful chemicals that had been working their way through the frame from the inside of the lift. The heavy doors toppled to the ground, the overwhelming weight of the barriers crashing down on the Marine that had just checked them and pinning him to the ground, the immense weight of the damaged structure crushing his lower limbs while he screamed hysterically; screamed for help.

Without waiting for the say-so from Stevens, two other men from the front of the group rushed forwards, crouching low to make themselves a low target for any potential threat and making sure their comrades had as large a field of fire as possible.

While the rescue operation was under way, Stevens kept his rifle aimed at the opening while holding his breath, knowing something would be coming any moment now, even though the lift on the other side was empty, a small antechamber illuminated by a flashing illumination tube partially obscured by the sickly secretions that had consumed most of the tunnels of the engineering deck. There was no sign of the creatures, though that wasn't to say that they weren't there: their stealth capabilities weren't to be underestimated.

"How's he doing?" Stevens finally said, his voice lifting above the pain-filled mumblings of the downed soldier.

"Broken legs, he can't move, and we can't shift the doors. Fuck, he's messed up bad…"

"Okay, Knight," Stevens turned his head, seeing the combat synthetic standing beside Dawes as he'd commanded, both with the long range sniping rifles and aiming at the opened doorway. "Drop the rifle, get here."

"My programming dictates that I should remain here and offer support."

"That man's going to die if we don't get him out…"

"Removal of the casualty from the scene will aggravate his injuries. I predict he has a five percent chance of survival where he is: this drops to two percent if we attempt to remove him. My being here provides adequate cover for all people at the front. If I were to move this would endanger their lives, which conflicts with my core programming. Logic dictates two healthy men outweigh one crippled person with a low chance of survival regardless of the help available."

"For fucks sake," Stevens spat, resisting the urge to turn and plug the synthetic's head with a round from his own rifle. Would the court martial be worth it? Could he just blame the loss of the combat droid to the creatures?

"I'll help!"

Evelyn darted around the two snipers set up by the admin office and ran across the hangar, snagging an olive canvas satchel filled with medical supplies as she stormed past it and weaved through the gathered Marines, sliding to the floor beside the fallen Marine while the two men beside him dropped to a low crouch and kept their weapons trained on the opening, providing cover while Evelyn worked over her patient. Stevens hauled himself up from his position at the rear of the ranks and slowly advanced on the accident, his eyes fixed on the opening and expecting the attack that still hadn't come. He reached the doctor, joined his other men in a defensive crouch, then gently placed a gauntleted hand on her shoulder as she worked.

There was barely a three inch gap between the deck plates and the fallen door, leading Stevens to know that Knight had been right about the Marine, he was more or less finished as the tissue damage to his legs was too much; beneath the heavy barrier flesh had been shredded, bones snapped and arteries severed. The deck around the scene was thick with fresh blood, a pool of gore creeping slowly out from the flattened man as he stared vacantly at high ceiling. Evelyn had given him painkillers, enough to give everything a pleasant and fuzzy numbness so he couldn't feel the crushing pain that had destroyed everything from his hips down.

"Can't move him, can't amputate anything…" Evelyn reported without looking up from her patient as she fed another dose of painkillers into the downed soldier.

"Can you make it quick?" Stevens asked, staring at the casualty. He didn't get an answer, so he looked up to Evelyn, their eyes locking as she weighed up the options she had. What could she do? He could see the conflict in her face in the fact he was asking her to do what doctors normally strived to avoid, but eventually she gave a slight shrug of her shoulders. "I can make it painless," she finally said.

"Do what you can," Stevens said, knowing that it would have to do. The young Marine was already silent, in shock no doubt, and wasn't up to saying anything other than whimper occasionally, as a sleeping dog would as it dreamt.

Stevens rose to his feet, prodded the edges of the fallen door with the heel of his boot, and noticed that the edges of the ragged piece or giant shrapnel were scarred with pockmarks and pits, a sign that it had been sprayed with a concentrated acid before it had been forced from its housing. He knew that the creatures had blood this potent, but without any bodies lying in the opened elevator cage, where could this much caustic juice have come from, and how had it been applied in such a perfect shape around the door. Could they squirt their blood through glands or tubes on their alien bodies, as an animal would spray urine to mark its territory? If so, then this added another level of danger to the already deadly animals: without any specialised armour, any acid spray would chew right through plating and flesh within a matter of seconds; there was no way the human body was as resilient as a bulkhead designed to keep in atmosphere in case of a breech.

He turned to look back at the casualty, the face of the young soldier passive and stoic, barely aware of the situation he was in, and he almost reached down to snag the holotag that lay beneath his cracked breastplate when he paused, a loathsome sound filling his ears: distant at first, the sound of a hundred chitinous carapaces clambering over steel panels and one another, bone against metal as the creatures advanced, leaping from wall to wall as they tumbled down the exposed elevator shaft.

Before Stevens could react, the gaping hole of the ravaged door became alive as one as a slew of demonic dark creatures tumbled into view, their ridged bodies glistening with wet mucous, jaws dripping with saliva, while those at the front of the crowd loped into view with strings of yellow ichor seeping from their deathly grins, the thick gelatinous liquid spattering the deck plating and hissing where it oxidised the surface. The swarming creatures lurched into view en masse, a mix of biped and quadruped terrors that clambered through the hole, spread out to either side of the opening, as well as up the wall, the creatures hugging the vertical surface as they scuttled into the shadows of the vaulted ceiling where only the motion trackers could find them, and only then if they moved.

Stevens, Evelyn and the two Marines tending the third were in the direct line of fire, there was no clear shot for any of the men behind them, so they were the first to open fire. A barrage of explosive tipped, armour piercing rounds pounded into the front-most creatures in the line up, punching through exoskeletons and spraying caustic juices where the tiny rounds made fist-sized holes in their insect-like frame. Chunks of singed flesh and severed fingers and limbs showered the floor, the acid blood dissolving anything it came in contact with, but the constant barrage of point-blank gunfire held back the aliens from their immediate position. The creatures that tried to flank the soldiers by spreading out along the walls to the left and right were easier targets for the soldiers, not only for the defensive soldiers seeking refuge behind the crates, but also the two snipers by the administrative office. The creatures tumbled beneath the assault of gunfire, but for every gruesome creature that was downed, two more took its place.

"Retreat," Stevens shouted, stepping away from the mouth of the swarm and narrowly missing having a lump of flesh torn from his face by a wildly flailing claw. As it was, he was lucky and one talon just grazed his cheek, slicing open his flesh. He pulled at Evelyn's coat, who seemed torn between her duties as a doctor and her instinct to flee the battle, the latter finally winning over the former as she allowed Stevens to forcefully remove her from her patient's side. The two other Marines closed in and stepped back, leaving the gibbering soldier beneath the door as they went like a sacrificial lamb. The creatures were quick to lunge on him, clawed hands encircling his arms and neck and the brute strength of the animals heaving at him, lifting him upwards as they wrestled him free from the doors that pinned him. While the fallen structure was quick to relinquish its grip on his upper half, it was unwilling to release his lower limbs, and with a sickening crack and exultant scream from the aliens, the Marine was torn in two, his legs and groin remaining firmly in place beneath the door while his flailing torso was pulled up and passed back along the crowd of advancing demons, his ragged wound slopping blood, entrails and filth as he vanished into the living darkness that filled the elevator, his screams of pain and terror fading into nothing as the sounds of the gunfight carried on.

"Get into the dropship," Stevens cried, his command carried over the comlink as weapons sounded all across the hangar, a deafening cacophony of gunfire punctuated by the high-pitched screeches of the falling creatures. Sporadic bursts of muzzle flash were drowned out by the torches of the sentry units as one of the technicians managed to get them back on line, splashing searing gouts of liquid fire into the mass of encroaching creatures. Some seemed to drop back from the barrage of fire, clearly intimidated by the uncanny command the Marines had over the forces of an artificial nature, while others pressed on through the curtain of smoke and fire. Limbs consumed in the conflagration trailed thick black smoke, the reek of burning rubber and oil mixing with discharged propellant, while the living torches skittered this way and that, some of the creatures dropping to the floor, while others writhed and clawed their way up the wall.

Up the walls!

He'd been so busy concentrating on pulling his men out and getting them into the sanctity of the dropship, Stevens had completely forgotten about the stream of creatures that had climbed the wall instead of flanking around the side. A couple of the Marines had tried to follow them, but those that had lifted their aim of their gaze skywards had quickly fallen as the flailing creatures on ground level barrelled into them, claws and teeth cutting through them and knocking them aside. Pulling Evelyn behind him and snatching a rifle from the prone form of a fallen Marine twisted around the bubbling remains of an alien, he made she he had plenty of cover before pulling one of the grenades from his bandoleer, feeding it into the underslung grenade on his rifle before firing it into the darkened rafters of the tall chamber. The starshell grenade was aptly named, as it struck the ceiling and lodged there, bursting into a bright white flare of magnesium and it illuminated the ceiling with the power of a small star. It only lasted for forty-five seconds, but it was long enough to show that the creatures that had ascended the wall were nowhere to be seen.

"Fuckers have breeched," he screamed, before reiterating his previous command. "Fall back, into the ship. We need to flush the hangar!"

A second barrage of gunfire sounded, this one from the smaller squad of soldiers guarding the rear hatch leading into the bowels of the engineering compartment. Stevens bolted from the front line defence to the omther side of the dropship, where he could see the small group of men and women that had been quickly subdued by the ebony nightmares that had crawled up, along the ceiling, and dropped down behind them: their deaths had been quick but bloody, the last survivor of the group scrambling frantically onto the packing crates welded to the smaller doorway and patting down his armour for anything that could aid him: he'd lost his rifle in the confusion of the creatures dropping to the ground, and seemed to have lost half of his hand in the skirmish. Indeed, the drooling maw of one of darker-skinned bipedal creatures that slowly stalked up the crates behind him bore the remnants of his digits as they poked out the thick gelatinous ooze seeping from its lethal opening. Oblivious to the pain of the injury, the Marine had found what he had been looking for, a pair of grenades that he clutched grimly in one hand that he activated by twisting their plastic caps in his teeth. He raised them above his head to hurl into the crowd of advancing creatures, resigned to the fact the closest of the creatures would take him but refusing to go out without taking our some more and avenging his fallen comrades.

Before he could hurl the grenades into the writhing mass of tails, teeth and talons, one of the sleeker creatures amongst the attacking throng lifted its domed head, curled back the thin lips that slipped effortlessly over its teeth, and sprayed a fine jet of acrid sputum that caught the Marine on his body. The corrosive phlegm quickly began to chew its way through armour, flesh and bone, the soldier dropping to his knees and reflexively clawing at the smoking edges of his wound. His fingers started to smoulder as they came into contact with the lethal spray, and with a gurgling scream that escaped from rapidly decaying lungs, he keeled forwards, off the crates he had balanced on and disappearing into the swarm of deadly, blood-spattered creatures that swarmed around the base of the barricade. His screams stopped, and for the briefest second, everything seemed to be silent.

Then the pair of grenades that the Marine had taken down with him into the deadly mosh pit erupted into a frenzied explosion. The clamour of nightmare creatures seemed to vanish in a flash of brilliant white from the high explosive grenades that exploded in the centre of the pile. Fire and shrapnel vaporised the crowd, chewed through a large portion of the packing crates, and sprayed a fine mist of ruddy gore across the wall and what was visible of the door: a spattering of gristle and blood that quickly began to eat through the hull and the barricade of crates. With the crates weakened from the explosive damage and acrid offal smeared across them, the second way into the hangar was easily compromised, and a second wave of alien killers started to break their way into the room.

Stevens turned and ran from the fresh scene of carnage, knowing when it was time to fight and when it was time to flee: the odds were stacked against him, and he'd lost too many men to even consider making a stand.

The last of the surviving Marines were slowly making their way into the dropship now, overlapping fields of fire cutting down the horde of creatures while the wounded were hustled aboard. Evelyn was at the foot of the ramp leading into the craft, overseeing the injured and quickly checking them over in the midst of the battle: Stevens was impressed, with her level-headedness, amazed that a civilian could keep everything together while the whole platoon fell to shit around her. JT, Dawes and Knight were making their way over from the administration office, the sniper rifles having been abandoned now and replaced with the automatic assault rifles. Dawes and JT carried one weapon each, picking off targets as the creatures skittered across the hangar, while Knight carried two pulse rifles with the extended magazines, one in each hand and targeting creatures almost independently of one another. As much as he despised the android, his proficiency in combat couldn't be denied. The trio reached the dropship, covering one another while they reloaded, and Stevens hurried them into the craft, nodding to JT and Dawes while giving the merest tilt of his head in acknowledgement of Knight's prowess. The four of them remained positioned on the ramp while it slowly pulled back up into the belly of the craft, finally locking in place just as the wave of aliens reached the craft and launched into an attack, talons ripping and tearing at the hull of the craft as they sought to make their way in.

"Blow the main hatch," Stevens yelled to the pilots strapped into the cockpit, "before they rip us open!"

The pilots didn't give any form of verbal acknowledgement, but the strobe lights that flickered to life outside the craft indicated they'd done as instructed. Suspended above the main airlock in its cradle, the door into space slid open and the atmosphere was quickly drained from the hangar with a howl. Everything not fastened down was pulled free and dragged into the vacuum beyond; tools, spent magazines, globules of spilled blood that were lifted into shapeless amorphous blobs and pulled from the shuttle bay, severed limbs and corpses. Handfuls of the writhing creatures were torn from their grip on the craft and cast into the void, each thrashing their limbs and working their mouths, screaming in silence as they tumbled free of the artificial gravity.

Stevens pushed his way into the back of the vehicle and took a seat at the operations console, bringing up a view of the cameras mounted on the underside of the dropship.

He watched as the creatures spun end over end, slipping away from the opening, until they broke free of The Eden and breeched the perimeter. An indicator flashed on the control panel, indicating the proximity alarm had been triggered, and Stevens watched with a grin as a network of energy beams criss-crossed one another, dissecting the creatures and disintegrating the debris.

"Burn, fuckers," he smiled grimly, spinning on his chair and looking over the remains of his squad. Twelve Marines were alive and able to fight, some with minor injuries, while on the floor there lay another eight soldiers with a variety of injuries: bloody stumps where limbs had been torn free or melted with an acidic splash, torsos raked by claws and chewed by teeth, faces seared by caustic chemicals. The cramped confines of the vehicle stank of burned flesh and spilled blood, and Evelyn gingerly stepped from patient to patient, assessing their vitals before reporting on their conditions to him.

"They're all going to die," she said bluntly, guiding Stevens back to his operations desk, her voice low so I couldn't be heard by any of the ailing Marines. The flickering screens caught her attention, and she paused for a moment, savouring the vision of the last few creatures that had been sucked from the craft, as they were ripped apart by energy beams that were designed for close-combat space warfare. They were formidable against the hull of another ship, so the chitinous bodies of the creatures put up little resistance. She snapped out of the reverie, returning to the present. "A lot of them, the only reason they're still alive is because of the adrenaline pumping through them. Once that goes, shock will kick in, and that's it."

"What about if we get them to a medical bay?"

"The closest bay is five or six decks away. Even if we could get them there – and there's more injured than there is uninjured, so that itself would be a hell of a task – there's still not much I can do. Blood loss, severe trauma. I'm surprised half of them are still conscious."

"We're a tough bunch of hombres," Stevens shrugged his shoulders. There was nothing he could do from his current position, and it was quite clear that if the dropship fell from its moorings and tried an evac from the open hangar bay, it would meet the same fate the horde of creatures that had been torn from the craft. The Vengeance could have an IFF lockout on their automated weapons, but was that something he was going to chance?

"We've still got some creatures on our skin," the pilot from the front of the craft muttered into his microphone, his announcement accompanied by the thudding sounds of creatures walking on the top of the craft, or the sounds of talons ripping and bashing the hull. "They're not being sucked out, they're dug in too tight."

Stevens' hands stabbed the console in front of him, watching as the screen showing the open airlock flickered and changed into a view of the hangar from the camera positioned above the administration office of the flight deck. All the atmosphere had been sucked out now, and anything that hadn't been pulled out now hung suspended in mid air, twirling end over end as they hung suspended in mid air: some were inanimate objects, such as a mug or a handful of live rounds or grenades, snatched from the hands of dead men or an open ammunition crate before the force of the decompression had pulled them from the ship entirely. Other objects weren't as inanimate, the nightmare creatures lazily somersaulting and twisting where they had been dislodged from the wall, floor or ceiling, wherever they had previously clambered or gripped. None of the creatures showed any sign of expiring without any air, and by now the rest of the ship would have been sealed off from the cold depths of space as bulkheads up and down the craft would have slammed shut as soon as the rerouted failsafe protocols had finally kicked in. Stevens shook his head, watched in awe as the dropship on screen shuddered while a trio of creatures clambered over the hull and pried at parts of it: the engine housing, the joints where the wings folded over one another, anything that looked remotely flimsy they were prying with their razor-sharp nails. It was only a matter of time before one of them got lucky, or had the idea of spraying their caustic acid blood or spittle on the vehicle.

"They're still alive out there," Evelyn marvelled, echoing Stevens' sentiment and disbelief. "And they'll make their way in, eventually."

"Let me think," he muttered, then punched up the layout of the deck on a second screen beside the view of the hangar. Already, some of the floating aliens were starting to get their bearings, righting themselves and awkwardly swimming through the airless environment to reach their goal, the vehicle with a handful of survivors and potential hosts in it. Those that were lucky enough to be near a wall or other fixed surface used it to kick off, gracefully slicing through the vacuum towards the craft. He tapped the schematics before him as a quartet of the creatures simultaneously thumped down on the craft and started to tug at the engine housings. If they disabled anything, his plan wouldn't work, so he needed to move quickly.

"Disengage the docking clamps," Stevens commanded, storming across the deck littered with wounded and slick with blood, "But seal up the airlock. We've flushed what we can, and I want us to have something to breathe if this goes wrong." The doors to the cockpit slid open almost silently, and Stevens instinctively reached for the sidearm strapped to his webbing as the dark, ominous shape of the alien creature looked over him, the ridged torso and sinuous arms dragging itself over the cockpit, its lower half mangled and pummelled beyond recognition by explosive rounds. Globules of acid floated from the wounds of the creature as its tattered tail slid out of view, and Stevens let his breath out, not even aware he'd been holding it in until then.

"The glass can hold them off, can't it?"

"You'd be surprised what this thing can take," the pilot answered, though his taut expression and forced grin told Stevens he didn't really believe it would take that much more: the hammering and pounding on the rear and underside of the craft had increased tenfold, and the screen on the operations console showed a swarm of the creatures trying to jostle the craft free from its housing.

"What's the plan, LT?" the co-pilot asked. Stevens looked at his console, he would be designated the weapons officer, and that's what he needed at the minute.

"I need you to activate the weapons systems on this thing and pound that wall opposite from us with everything you can: you can probably only use the twenty-five mil cannon, but that'll do."

"Uhh… what am I aiming for?"

"The wall," Stevens shook his head. "Can manage that?"

"Of course, but I don't think that's going to be beneficial in any way…"

"You're not here to think," snapped Stevens. He didn't have time to explain anything, the last thing he needed was men who would question his every move. He looked towards the main pilot. "Once bay's got its atmo back, I need you to release the docking gear, and give this thing all the juice you can. Hopefully, we can burn enough off those bastards off while we're doing this."

"I know what you've got planned," the pilot nodded to his weapons officer, acknowledging it was okay to do what he asked.

"Think it'll work?" Stevens asked. It was a crazy plan, something that had just come into his mind as he poured over the schematics, but it was the best he could come up. No one else had come up with any other ideas, and as he was the one in charge, he needed to be doing something constructive.Anything would bebetter than sitting on his ass doing nothing: that was the kind of thing Cray would do, and he'd be damned if he was going to go down in military history as another asshole lieutenant like Cray.

"Fuck, yeah," the pilot nodded. He wore the same strained expression he had when Stevens had asked about the cockpit holding to the alien assault. He hoped that he naturally looked like that all the time.