The grip on his arms lessened and he slumped to his knees. When a few seconds passed and the evidence seemed to suggest that he was still alive, he cautiously opened his eyes, only now registering a loud crack delayed for a few seconds by the buzzing in his ears.

It took several moments for the iridescent darkness obscuring his vision to resolve itself into a dim grey sky and the torn outlines of tower blocks and a striped hood above a pair of blue goggles that somehow looked angry. The undead thing which had been holding the engineer lay at his feet, the contents of its skull displayed messily across the street and dripping from the butt of his rifle. Now it was just dead.

"Pay attention! If you're not going to fight, you could at least try not to get yourself killed."

The sniper turned and re-entered the fray. It was like looking after bloody children.

Pilot, however, was doing better than he had feared. A circle of corpses was littered about him, bowing to tradition in that they had stopped moving around. On seeing that his Captain was no longer in danger, a certain joy had returned to his movements. He used the knee of an advancing attacker as a step, audibly destroying its leg while giving himself the height to deliver a spinning kick that shattered a blinking headset and couldn't have been good for the head to which it was attached. The problems began when one of those still standing tried a different tack. Ceasing its attempts to get closer, to get its hand on him, it instead began doing something with its headset.

Pilot hesitated. He cocked his head as though he heard something. He continued the motion of his arm without looking, driving his elbow into an attacker's abdomen, causing it to double over, but his mind was no longer on the fight and he was soon caught and held by two others. This seemed to snap him back to reality, or whatever served as his equivalent, and he wriggled free of one of them, kicking it away, but there were more to replace it and he still seemed unfocussed, distracted.

The leader, as it now seemed, kept fiddling with its headset, adjusting it. It found Pilot's pocket and drew out a fragment of circuitry – flashing blue, like the device on its own head. As Pilot continued to struggle in its comrades' grasp it appeared to realise something. Turning stony eyes on the aviator it clenched the front of his jacket, the others releasing him as it did so. It shook him until he let his hands drop, dazed, and then it hurled him back into the side of a building.

Pilot slammed into the wall and crumpled to the ground. He didn't get up.

Snippy faltered for a moment. So far none of the things had actually tried to hurt any of them. They appeared more interested in trying to get a hold on their victims than delivering blows.

Not anymore.

The one which had thrown Pilot was approaching him slowly, a shadow lengthening over his motionless body. Snippy felt a surge of panic akin to what he had experienced when the engineer had been caught in the tall undead's hands and he thought he wouldn't get there soon enough; that jolt which had in turn brought back older memories, resurfacing like something nameless out of dark water, telling him that he knew how this ended.

He pushed forwards but another was in front of him, in his way, and now it took on the countenance of an animate enemy, maliciously blocking his path, keeping him helpless.

It was all happening again.

"You can't help him," the dead eyes seemed to say "You can't help anyone."

Shut up.

"You're going to watch him die and you won't be able to do a thing. Just like with all the others. You're going to lose him. And then you'll lose the Engineer -"

No!

"- and then your Captain."

NO!

"You'll lose everything you have and then you'll be alone again, forever. All alone…"

He felt the fight go out of him as the words wrapped around his throat and squeezed, leeching him of strength. Their truth was a weapon, sapping his hope, reminding him that he was tired and aching and just one person and that nothing he did would make any difference anyway. That it never had.

I tried, Pilot, truly I did, he thought, and then, feeling the engineer grasp his shoulder again, saying something he couldn't hear, I tried, Alex. I did the best I could.

I wish that were enough.

The hand on his shoulder was shaking him, urgent, and he leant into it, ready to drop. It was over. Might as well give up.

Suddenly the Captain was behind the one impending on Pilot. He rapped its skull smartly with his mug. As it turned to face him he delivered a sideways blow to its torso, using his fist like a hammer; it stumbled away and promptly tripped over a pile of rubble, skewering itself neatly on a rusty pipe which jutted out of the ground, seemingly left there for that purpose. Captain picked Pilot up and marched past them. "Snippy, Engie. Deal with zee guests."

The two shared a glance.

Snippy smashed his fist into the face of his erstwhile tormentor, once again no more than the shambling husk of a man.

There were only a few left now, advancing in a circle. It was time to finish this.

"All right. Stay close, Gromov." The engineer moved up till they were standing back-to-back, scanning their opponents, judging distances. "Check your five, six, then eight o'clock. When you're ready," he offered.

Snippy raised his rifle.