A Brotherhood of Crows.

He’d been walking, furtively, for about ten minutes, when Tobias had the horrible realisation that he was alone.

“Crucius?” he hissed. “Err...Cruicus?”

There was no response. He looked over his shoulder, and saw only the same dark corridor as that which lay before him. He and Crucius had slipped quietly through the emergency stairwells, Tobias taking point, using his wrist unit as a map, the other hand wreathed in pyromancy flame. Crucius followed, silently, impassively, one hand in the pocket of his coat, clasping something, but otherwise unarmed. They had reached deck twelve without incident, though the main lights had died, and their surroundings were illuminated only by a faint, red emergency flashing.

What they had found were bodies. Lots of them. Bodies torn to shreds, surrounded by empty bullet casings. Bodies that were missing limbs and heads. Bodies that still clutching onto using firearms. Even masked up, Tobias found himself retching every few minutes.

And now he was alone.

“Crucius!” he hissed again. “Dude...hello? Look I just wanted a cuddle, okay?”

Faintly, he heard the sound of distant gunfire, a horrifying, world shaking roar, and a scream suddenly cut off.

“Ok, ok, ok, nope. Just nope. Nope, nope, nope.”

He glanced down at his wrist unit. According to this, he was less than a hundred metres from the hanger bay. That screaming had come from further ahead. There must be another way. Gingerly, he opened a nearby door, and peered inside.

It was horrible. It looked as whoever had been hiding in that room had swallowed a grenade.

“Nope,” he muttered, “So much nope.”

Tobias began to roadie run up the corridor, aware, very suddenly, about how weedy his pyromancy flame seemed, like the weak spurting of a cheap match. He stopped suddenly, as something heavy smashed into something equally heavy, a crashing sound that reverberated around the metal walls.

“Nope. Just nope. Nope.”

He glanced down at his wrist unit, and then tried another side door. A crew head: a series of regulation bunk beds, each with a footlocker at the end. The room was empty. According to the ship’s schematics, he could pass through the crew quarters and make his way to a side entrance to the hanger bay. Easy. Easy peasy. No need for any fighting or screaming or things best saved for Alien films.

He made it about halfway across the room when something tumbled off a top bunk. Tobias yelped, and let off a fireball, disintegrating a nearby bunk bed. As the flames cleared, he realised someone had, in fact, been lying on the top bunk. He was dead. Living people had more abdomen.

“Nope. Nope. Nope-y nope-y nope.”

Tobias began to jog, skirting through the remaining crew quarters, breathing heavily. He came to a bulkhead door, and with a check of his wrist unit, saw he was finally at the hangar bay. According to the ship’s computer, the skyskimmer was in bay four. Distantly, there was another rumble, though whether from the Maelstrom or cannon fire, he didn’t know. Gingerly, he hit the release on the door.

The hanger bay was mostly empty, and he saw the skyskimmer almost immediately. That was fine.

What was somewhat less fine was the three beasts feasting on a pile of corpses in the middle of the room, who raised bloody muzzles as the the door open, and glared at him with their fiery eyes.

“Nope! Nope! Definitely nope, so much fucking nope!”

Tobias shut the door. Something smashed into in on the other side, causing the whole thing to buckle. He leapt back, and almost tripped over something on the floor.

He glanced down. A dead marine lay face down on the ground. Tobias hadn’t noticed the corpse in the dim light. He reached down, and plucked, from the dead man’s hands, an object that he had been clutching as he died - a bulky rifle. In the poor lighting, he managed to make out the writing on the side: ANTI-TANK RAIL GUN. DO NOT FIRE INSIDE. HIGHLY DEADLY.

“....Oooh. Yep. So much yep.”

Tobias killed his pyromancy flame, hoisted the railgun in both hands. The display by the trigger showed an almost full magazine. There was another crash as the beast threw itself against the bulkhead door. Tobias took a deep breath, counted to three, and then smashed the door release.

“SURPRISE, MOTHERFUCKERS!” he bellowed, and opened fire, staggering as the kickback from the weapon hit his shoulder. He kept the trigger squeezed until a loud clunk told him the magazine was empty.

The three beasts stood, exactly where he’d first seen them, completely unharmed. He swore, if they had eyes, they would have been blinking, nonplussed.

“OH COME ON!”

One of the beasts began to coil its muscle, ready to pounce, when it froze, a sudden expression of confusion on its mutilated face, before was a horrible snapping sound its body caved in on itself. The other two started to move before they do crashed to the ground, spasming and screaming.

From behind the Skyskimmer, Dr Crucius emerged, brushing dust off his coat.

“How did you -?” began Tobias.

“I went round the side.”

“What?”

“I said I went around the side. You really are an appalling shot, my boy.”

“Yeah, well...well...you smell.”

“I do not. I am rigorously hygienic.”

“You ever going to explain how you do that whole...er...imploding people thing?”

Crucius sniffed. “No.”

“Okay, well...you did just save my life. So….cuddle?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“No.”

*

“How many?” Zularna mouthed at me.

I peeked over the packing crate we’d taken cover behind, and held up two fingers.

“Rude,” she whispered.

I reversed the direction of the fingers.

“Better.”

We were hunkered down at the edge of what look like a mess hall, or at least might have been, before the tables had been shredded, along with inhabitants of the room. Two of Gorcrow’s super soldiers lurked among the mess, seemingly at a loss with nothing to kill. Their hulking bodies were directly between us that path to the bridge.

I checked out the rest of the destroyed room for other banks of cover. A few upturned tables. A low counter where food might have been served.

“I need you to run interference,” I breathed to Zularna.

“You want me to what now?”

“Don’t you play CoD?”

“Literally what is it with you and Tobias and talking about fish and combat strategy -?”

I sighed. “Just shoot them before they eat me!” I snapped, and vaulted out cover.

I hit the ground, rolled, and came up firing, targeting the closest of the beasts. My first shot went wild, but by second spattered off its shoulder armour, causing it to roar in pain, a furnace blast of fury, and charge at me. I let off a couple of more rounds, as it began to leap, serrated claws outstretched. The other beast also began to charge, but it staggered as one of Zularna’s explosive tipped bolts struck its flank, causing it to stagger to one side, bellowing.

I slipped into Elsewhere, and ducked and weaved. The beast, a fiery nightmare in that grey place, soared sluggishly over my head, and as its legs cleared my head, and hacked out with my katais, cleaving through its back legs above the ankle. I snapped back into the reality as the beast hit the floor, screeching as blood spurted from its severed achilles tendons. I emptied the rest of my revolver into its head and watched its fires die.

One down.

Instinct caused me to leap to one side as the other beast hurled itself at me. Zularna let loose another bolt, striking it right in the jaw, but that didn’t seem to slow it. I didn’t have time to reload, and my katais lanced out of their sheaths. The beast swiped at me, and its knife like claws came within centimetres of my chest - the air singing with steel - as I back stepped, slashed out at its gargantuan limbs as it was off balance. My blades clattered off its armour. I saw, out of the corner of my eye, Zularna frantically reloading her crossbow.

The beast came in for another strike, but as it drew back its arm, there was a sudden shout.

“There’s another! Open fire!”

The beast’s head turned in the direction of the shout, and that was its mistake. Zularna got a shot off, and the explosive tipped bolt hit the beast clear in its mouth. I threw up my hands as the charges in the bolt exploded, ripping the beast’s head cleanly off its shoulders and showering me in gore and metal. Automatically, I reloaded and spun to face the group of people, painting Zularna and I with laser sights, who had emerged from the other side of the mess hall. I counted maybe twenty of them, all in Commonwealth uniform. The majority looked like crew members, clutching nervously at their puny service pistols. A few marines, armour drenched in blood and dented, kept their assault rifles trained on us. At the head of the group, a man - tall, clad in a captain’s uniform - levelled his pistol on me.

“Who the bloody hell are you?” he barked. His face was half smeared in blood, matting his silvery-grey whiskers, but he seemed uninjured.

“Funnily enough, I’ve been asking myself that question for about twenty odd years, but then again that’s why existential crises suck,” I snapped back.

Zularna stepped forward, her crossbow loaded and primed. “We’re looking for the Crow. We’ve no trouble with you!”

The man’s face flickered for a moment. “The Crow?”

“Yeah, scary guy, mask, looks like a Slipknot reject,” I lowered my revolver an inch, “We don’t mean you any harm. I’m Elijah, this is Zularna. We need to get to the bridge. Let us pass.”

He lowered his own weapon, and motioned for his men to do the same. “Captain Pillion, of Cerberus.” Pillion scowled at us. “What makes you think you can kill Gorcrow?”

“Well, I’ve already done it once,” said Zularna. “Now it’s his turn,”

“The bastard.” Pillion spat. “He lured us into a trap. Hacked my ship. Released these...things! Bloody bastard. I want his head.”

“Same.” I said grimly. “Look, if we can bring him down, we bring down those creatures, and maybe the storm. Let us pass. The way ahead is clear for you...you can make it to one of the hanger bays. Save your crew.”

Pillion did not reply. “Modaboah?” he snapped.

A young woman detached herself from the crowd of wary survivors. Her left arm, bloody, was secured by a makeshift sling. In her other hand, she held a datapad. “He’s right sir. We can reach hangar bay two… there’s enough escape pods there.”

“I’m not abandoning this ship while I can still save my crew -”

“You can’t, Captain.” I interrupted. “Everything on the decks below is dead. You need to get your people off this ship. Now.”

An expression, somewhere between rage, resentment and sadness spread over Pillion’s face. “...You’re right. Goddamn him. Goddamn that bloody Crow…”

“Don’t worry,” Zularna said, “We’ll make sure he does.”

“Do. Sergeant Waugh?” one of the marines saluted, “Take point. I’ll take the rear. Move out.”

They walked past us, regarding us with expressions ranging from surprise to out and out fear. Poor bastards. This ship had been their home. Now, for most of the people they knew, it was a tomb. I let them past, and was about to move forward myself when Pillion seized my arm.

“I got a shot at him,” he said urgently. “He’s weak. But still dangerous.”

“Got it. Good luck, Captain. Get your people home.”

Pillion nodded to Zularna and I gruffly. He took the arm of the injured, and followed what was left of his crew into the darkness.

“Eli?” Zularna asked me as we began to move forward, me taking point, her covering my rear.

“What?”

“...Are you okay?”

I frowned at her. “You want to know that now?”

She met my gaze with an even sterner one. “Yes, I do. I saw what happened back in the brig. You weren’t yourself. And I saw what they were doing to you in that place…”

(I know what you did)

“...so I just wanted to check in.”

“I’m fine.” I said harshly.

“You don’t look it.”

“Actually, I’m sure I look lovely under all the blood -”

She touched my arm. “Just...when we get out of here. If you need anything I -”

I sensed the rumble before I felt it, and dropped into Elsewhere. The bottom seemed to drop out of the world, throwing us against one wall hard. I seized onto Zularna (and Red, who watched me, wordlessly, expressionlessly) and forcefully threw her back as the ceiling above caved in with a thundering crack. I darted back to avoid collapsing debris, skidded back and fell into reality. Where we had been standing a second before, a jagged wall of collapsed and shattered metal cleaved the mess hall in half.

There was no sign of Zularna.

I felt my comm buzz. “...ijah, Elijah, are you there?”

“Tobias! Talk to me. Do you have the skimmer?”

“Yeah we do...but I don’t wish to hurry you or anything, but that storm is growing. Crucius reckons we’ve got about fifteen minutes before its draws us in. It just crushed a good third of the ship…!”

I glanced at the pile of debris. “I noticed. Listen to me. Wait ten minutes, then go.”

There was a pause. “But what if you’re not back yet?”

“I’ll improvise.” I killed the call. “Zularna!” I yelled. “Zularna!”

Faintly, I heard someone respond. Crouching, I made out a small gap in the wreckage. I could just about make out her face on the other side. “You okay?”

“Fine. I’ll find a way around -” she began.

I shook my head. “There’s no time. You need to get back to the ship.”

What I could of her face twisted in anger. “I’m not leaving you -”

“You’re not leaving me. Get back to the ship and hold off for as long as you can. I’m gonna put a bullet to this son of a bitch.”

“But you’ll die!”

“Don’t worry,” I lied. “I have no intention of dying today.”

She looked for a moment as if she were about to argue. Then I sensed her nod. “We’re not leaving without you.”

“I hear you. Keep the engine running.”

I watched her flee into the darkness and sighed. I check my speedloaders. Fifteen rounds left. Fine. That would be enough.

(I know what you did.)

“I know you do.” I said, to no one in particular. “What say we finish this, yeah?”