His head exploded in a cloud of grey matter and skull fragments. Neloni yelped and shielded her face with the back of her hand to avoid being coated in gore. The green-eyed woman chortled darkly at her victim's demise and the bald man behind her simply grunted his approval. The headless corpse fell messily on the floor, vitae still spilling from his body.
They had been running for what had felt like an eternity. Neloni had wanted to stop and collapse out of exhaustion but they would not let her. To do so would have meant certain death, or much worse, she imagined. The thought of what would happen to her if was taken alive by the clan was enough to keep her running. She dismissed the thought with a shake of her head and forced her legs to keep moving.
The horde weren't far behind them. Their insane howls and curses echoed through the corridors behind them and filled her with terror. The only thing that had slowed the horde's advance was the torrent of gunfire that the bald man and the woman with the green eyes had unleashed at them. The booms from their weapons were deafening in the close confines of the corridors and caused her head to ring painfully. The air was thick with the smoke and stink of weapons discharge.
'Keep running!' The bald man had shouted forward at her as he stopped to turn around and fire another volley into their pursuers. The death-screams of three or four clanners confirmed that his shotgun rounds found their mark. Neloni glanced back over her shoulder momentarily to see the slain clanners trampled to a pulp under the mass of bodies chasing them. The woman with the green eyes had remained in the lead and fell any clanners in their way with precision shots.
'Who are you people?' Neloni had screeched whilst trying not to trip over the bloodied and twitching bodies left in the green-eyed woman's wake. They ignored her question and herded her onwards to what she hoped was safety.
A labyrinth of concrete corridors lined with rusted shutters, welded and boarded up doorways, pipes, valves and stairwells had passed her in a blur of browns and greys. Most of Mega-Hab East-6 had fallen into this state of disrepair. It had happened right before her eyes in the two long and miserable years that she had called it home.
East-6, or simply 6, as many of its inhabitants came to refer to as, was home to thousands of men, women and children like her. Like most of East-6's dwellers, she was too poor to afford even the most basic amenities or luxuries and had resigned to a life of low-skilled and menial labour in the many manufactorums or administratums.
It wasn't much of a life, she decided, but it was better than death or a life of servitude in the Imperial Guard, which often resulted in the latter anyway. It was a cold comfort, she reminded herself, but it is what made Neloni endure the rigours of living in Hive-City Despora.
Neloni had reasoned that whoever they were, and whatever they were a part of, they must have been Imperial. She saw no sign of the iconic Imperial Aquila on their persons but the quality of their equipment and their proficiency with weapons suggested that they had received military-grade training.
The green-eyed woman wielded small silver blades with grace and agility and was a sadist if Neloni had ever seen one. The bald-headed man was large and brutish and was undoubtedly the muscle of the operation. Whatever operation that was, she thought.
Feelings of bewilderment, mystification and apprehension bombarded her mind in equal measure when she regarded her peculiar rescuers. If indeed it was a rescue and not abduction.
Who on Holy Terra were these people? And what did they want with her? The questions troubled her greatly.
Neloni decided that it wasn't important to know who they were right now and focused on keeping pace with the woman leading her. She wrapped her hands around the necklace that her father had given her as a child. It had kept her protected since that day a long, long time ago. He had promised it would do so long as she never removed it. To do so would have left her vulnerable and, most importantly, would have disrespected the memory of her dead mother, he had told her. She prayed that it would continue to keep her safe for one more day.
Just keep running, your life depends on it, Neloni repeated to herself over and over.
'The service elevator is just up ahead!' Shouted the green-eyed woman.
Neloni sighed in relief as she vaulted over yet another slain clanner, trying not to slip on the viscera pooling around him.