The trio walked down the grated hallways of the Methuselah, their boots ringing out a sordid cacophony on the dusty grates. As they walked, Marcus realized that every surface on the interior of the dead tank was covered in a thin layer of soot. He ran a finger atop a guardrail, and his digit came away black and grimy. He rubbed his hand on the spot on his finger to remove it, and continued after the others. These people cooked alive, he thought to himself. Indeed, this was the most likely death for a tanker. If an enemy projectile penetrated the hull, the interior of that tank would become a hellish oven in an instant. Components of most tank rounds, Marcus had been trained, contain the most severe and deadly variants of phosphorus. Water would boil, clothes would burn off, skin would blacken and singe. Eyes would curdle and slip out of skulls to simmer on the grates. Someone lucky enough to survive the heatwave would then have to face the fact that the explosive heat the round provided would consume all available oxygen, effectively suffocating anyone that survived initially. Modern tanks were built with seperated compartments that could operate independently of one another, in case of catastrophic damage. This would leave pockets of survivors, which was better than no survivors at all. But a Gen 2 tank like the Methuselah would have no such thought process built into its hull.

Everyone aboard the Methuselah was dead. Full stop.

The trio found themselves in the galley, where McCullagh had placed the injured Mason. The young assistant gunner in question was sitting at one of the soot-covered tables, sitting sideways tending to his leg. Blood had splattered on the floor, collecting ash and soot in macabre patterns. Mason looked at the group, though Marcus couldn't see the young man's expression through his facemask. McCullagh knelt next to Mason, looking at his wound. As Marcus neared, he realized just how severe the gunner's wound truly was. Mason had peeled back his tattered pant leg to reveal his wound, and it was grisly. The natter had almost carved a section off of Mason's leg; bone and sinew was completely visible. What's worse, sand had obviously been blown into the wound by the uncaring atmosphere of Harmattan, and blood flowed freely from the grotesque ripped flesh. Mason was breathing hard. McCullagh put her hand on Mason's shoulder to calm him.

"It's not so bad. Your femoral artery is fine; this bleeding is superficial. We'll get you bandaged and drugged up, and then Rhyne will pull you back on that sled of his is. Then Thaler will stitch you up right as rain." Uncharacteristically, her voice almost sounded calming and soft. Mason nodded, and groaned as McCullagh began to tend to the wound. Deknost thumped Marcus' shoulder and motioned that they should leave, probably to allow McCullagh to work unhindered. Marcus nodded, and the two walked out into the hallway.

"Where would the bridge be, big man?" Deknost asked Marcus. The young engineer thought for a moment. He then motioned in a vague direction towards the front of the tank.

"The bridge accessway should be near the fore on these old tank variants, I think," Marcus pondered. That appeared to be good enough for Deknost, because he nodded and began plodding in that direction, his rifle strapped to his back. The weapon almost seemed like a toy on the giant's back. Marcus wondered if it would be more effective if he used it as a club rather than its intended purpose.

The two crept forward, flashlights up. Marcus held his rifle, but Deknost seemed to be comfortable with his on his shoulder. In truth, Marcus admired how at ease Deknost seemed to be, but Marcus was on edge being surrounded by so much death. Twenty, maybe thirty people lived and fought inside this metal vessel that eventually become their tomb. The armored hull had protected them and others like them for almost a century, and then it became the crypt that would seal their deaths. The scarred metal may have once been caressed affectionately, but now they had clawed at it, trying to free themselves from the hell they died in. For some, death would have been instant; the concussive explosion would have ruptured organs, hemorraged brains, turning flesh to paste. But for those that had died in the ensuing firestorm, they experienced unimaginable agony for at least several seconds, as their skeletons preserved their vital organs just long enough for them to be burned alive. The two passed a wall that had hand marks dragging downwards, sealing in time someone's last moments.

Soon enough, the two found what Marcus assumed to be the bridgeway access. The soot was darker here, and Marcus figured they were getting close to the enemy projectile's entry location. The door to the bridge was designed to withstand a significant impact, including blast force, but it had buckled outwards. Marcus indicated the door with a gesture.

"The projectile must have entered the tank in here, to blow the blastdoor outwards like this. If it entered elsewhere, the door would have been blown inwards." Deknost nodded in agreement and tried to open the smashed door. He grappled with an exposed edge and heaved, straining against the massive block of steel. Marcus chipped in, though his respectable strength was nothing compared to the giant's. Straining for several moments, the door eventually gave up for good, opening violently. The two staggered back, free from their labor. Bodies slumped to the floor over the threshold, partially rotted and skeletonized. Marcus gasped in horror at the gory sight, and Deknost murmed something that was obviously a curse in what was probably his native language. The two stared at the sight for a moment, unsure of what to do. Marcus spoke up first.

"Locke must have missed these when he swept through the first time." Deknost nodded.

"Probably couldn't get the door open. Wasn't any where near as strong as Rhyne and Ginovsky!" he chuckled, lightening the mood. Marcus smiled somewhat, and Deknost thumped him on the chest.

"Come along, big man," the giant told him, "let us continue our mission with strength, yes?" Marcus nodded and swalled, his mouth suddenly dry. Deknost stepped over the corpses as respectfully as one could step over a pile of burned corpses, and slowly trudged up the stairs, rifle now in his hands. Marcus paused a moment, his eyes greedily drinking in the sight his soul told him to turn away from. The bodies were piled at the bottom of the staircase, and Marcus intially wondered if they had been blown down here from the impact force, but the bloody clawmarks on the inside of the door indicated otherwise. These people had died in terror and agony, trying to escape. Marcus shivered and, steeling himself, clambored over the bodies and up the staircase. He found Deknost thumping a computer terminal with his hand, performing "percussive maintenance," as Penske called it. The big man shook his head at the terminals' inability to turn on. He turned to Marcus.

"No good; backup battery is probably low. Will need to go check the auxillery generator." Marcus blinked in surprise.

"How'd you know about the backup battery, Ginovsky? It was an aftermarket option on this model, and they didn't brief us about it." The giant paused, or rather froze for a moment. Marcus' heart caught in his throat, and for a small moment, Marcus was afraid of what he had thought was a gentle giant. Marcus straightened and laughed heartily, and that laugh thawed Marcus' fear. How stupid could he be? Deknost was a good guy; everyone knew it.

"You must have been sleeping, big man. Typhon told us to check the bridge first, in case the backup battery was still functional. Didn't you hear?" Marcus wracked his brain, but never remembered Typhon mentioning it. He shrugged.

"Yeah, you're right. I must have been sleeping." He chuckled in discomfort. Deknost turned around and indicated to the lockers throughout the room.

"You would know best where the generator is, and I can see if any paperwork survived the fires, yes?" Marcus nodded. This made sense, he would know best where to look for the generator. They had no blueprints of the Methuselah's floorplan, but Penske had a hunch that it may be somewhere near the rear of the tank, on the common level, or perhaps a deck below it.

"Yeah, I'll go look for it. I'll radio you if I find anything." Marcus left the room as Deknost began using the butt of his rifle to bash open the lockers. He worked his way aft, the flashlight being the only thing lighting his way; even the auxilliary lights having been burnt out and melted by the heatwave. Marcus steeled himself at the horrors that he walked past; clawmarks and even a severed limb Locke had failed to retrieve on his initial corpse run. He found himself near the hold. He checked several rooms in the area, but he found no generator. He checked several hatches that had turned out to be just service hatches for pipes and components, until he found one that opened up into a passageway. Bingo? Marcus wondered. He descended the ladder into the passageway, forced to crouch, as he was accustomed to doing. He crept down the passageway, waving the flashlight on his rifle around corners just in case something lurked down here. Eventually, he reached a machine that vaguely resembled a generator. He brushed his hand over a flat piece of metal that he assumed was a sign, wiping the soot and ash of it to reveal a single word. "Generator." Bingo, the young engineer thought to himself triumphantly.

He eyed the machine, and wiped it down with a gloved hand. It was ancient, archaic, and obviously added long after the Methuselah rolled off the factory floor. Marcus, using his engineer's intuition, eventually got it into a pre-startup state. He checked the fuel levels that generator already had in it, and was revelieved that the engineers of the Methuselah kept the generator topped off. He even saw that they had marked a test date a month ago, meaning that if the stars aligned, this generator would function. Marcus was not a religious man, as he rarely gave any real thought to deities or afterlives, rather spending most of his time thinking about repairs, components, food, and the now. However, this time he offered up a vague prayer to any deity that was listening, and flipped the generator's "on" switch. It groaned, struggled, and chugged, until it eventually roard to live. Marcus was exultant.

And he regretted it almost immediately.

Warning klaxons roard to life, screeching in his ears. Above him in the walkway, lights that had survived the intense heat strobed in blood-red. Marcus crept down the walkway and into the passage above, here he stood, trying to cover his ears fromt he awful din, which even his hands couldn't dampen. Just when he thought his ears were about to bleed, the klaxons stopped. The gently strobing lights remained on, however. Marcus figured Deknost must have found a way to turn the klaxons off from the bridge. Marcus let his hands rest by his side, and sighed in relief. However, his ringing ears were met with another cacophany that the klaxons had hidden.

Marcus heard gunfire.

It was close, and it sounded like it came from the galley, but -

An explosion rocked the tank, knocking Marcus off of his feet and onto the grates below him. He hit his head, and was dazed. He stumbled to his feet and staggered towards the galley, shaking his head and trying to rouse himself. He walked faster, eventually breaking into a sprint.

"McCullagh! Mason, Locke! Anyone, come in!" he radioed, but there was no response but white static. He heard gunfire that must be from outside the tank. Locke and Brogers were fighting something. He couldn't help them now though; he had to reach McCullagh and Mason. He stumbled often, and he suspected he may have a concussion. Another smaller explosion went off nearby, and a pipe came out in front of Marcus, blasting him with steam. His mechanic's mind raced as to what caused the explosion. Had the generator turned on more than just the lights? If the systems it turned on were damaged, that would explain the detonations. Governers could be disabled, allowing components to run past their allowed limits, and if they -

Marcus reached the galley, and was horrified to see that the room was filled with natters. Without a thought as to how they got into the tank, he set into action. McCullagh and Mason were doing their best to shoot the deadly creatures. Mason stood unsteadily on a table, shooting any that approached, and he got a couple of lucky shots at their soft underbellies. McCullagh had either lost her rifle or ditched it, opting instead to use a sidearm and a blade of wicked length to fight the natters. One lept onto her, and she stabbed it, flipping it onto its back, firing several rounds into it as it screeched. She was already coated in natter blood.

Marcus was knocked off of his feet from behind, and he rolled to the side instantly. He looked up to see a natter looming over him, and it reared up to skewer him with its wicked front appendages. He flicked his rifle up, clicked the safety off, and shot it in its face. It instantly collapsed to the ground and shuddered, blood pooling onto the galley floor beneath. Marcus stood and bashed another natter that was climbing the wall, shooting its underbelly before it could recover. Another one crawled away, wounded by someone. Marcus stomped on its tail, unloading into its damaged carapace. It died writhing, until it eventually became still. Marcus heard a yell, and looked to see that a natter had crept up on McCullagh from behind, and had grabbed her ankle and yanked, pulling her off of her feet. It dragged her back, and she began slashing and shooting at it. At the same time, a natter pounced on Mason from the side while he was busy fighting another natter.

Mason fell on his front on the ground, and his head bounced on the floor hard. The young gunner tried to pick himself up, but the natters were on him almost instantly. They piled on him, stabbing his back with their long rapier-like appendages, digging into his flesh with their mandables. Marcus looked on in horror, his heart frozen in his chest. He began running forward, because he had to help Mason, but he couldn't just fire blindly at the natters, as he could hit Mason. He had to -

An explosion to his left stopped him in his tracks. One of the natters ripping into Mason exploded into a cloud of bone and mist. Marcus looked over to see Deknost, with a strange rifle in his hand. A coilgun? Marcus thought to himself, as his ears rang. The big man fired again, the electric whine of the coilgun sounding like a piercing scream in these cramped quarters. Another natter exploded on Mason's back, and the rest of the natters rushed Deknost. McCullagh killed the natter that had been pulling her along, and another that tried to stab her while she was on her back, and stood up. She screamed in unadulterated fury, and bodied another natter that ran towards Deknost, stabbing it repeatedly. Deknost, meanwhile, turned the rest of the natters into paste with his coilgun. With a final "Crack!" the last natter was reduced to its base components. The room as silent. McCullagh stood, dripping with natter gore. She walked over to Mason and flipped him onto his ruined back. And shakily pulled a first-aid kit from her backpack. Marcus walked over to Mason, and dropped to his side, kneeling. He grabbed Mason's hand and slapped it, trying to rouse the young man. McCullagh pulled Mason's helmet off, and placed a small breather over his mouth and nose. Mason was alive, but just barely.

Blood pooled on the galley floor beneath them. Mason breathed shallowly. The front of Mason's suit slowly blossomed with blood. The stabbing strokes from the natters had obviously pierced him all the way through. McCullagh shined a light in Mason's eyes, but they were already dilated, and didn't narrow. Marcus slapped Mason's hand again.

"Come on, man, you got this. Like McCullagh said earlier, we'll strap you to the sled, take you to Thaler, and he'll stitch you up good as new." Mason slowly turned his head to look at Marcus, who knelt by his side. Deknost stood nearby, coilgun in hand, probably in case more natters came. The room reeked of blood.

"Marcus," Mason said, "I'm really fucking cold. Like, fuck, man." Mason coughed, and blood splattered the inside of the clear breather. His breathing became more ragged, and he became pale. Marcus knew his lungs were in tatters. The blood at the corners of Mason's mouth were full of bubbles, meaning the young man's lungs were filling with blood.

"Don't worry about that, Silas, we'll warm you back up in the Enoch, man. You can have my shower shift. Ten whole minutes of hot water, doesn't that sound good?" Mason slowly turned his head back to looking up at the ceiling.

"McCullagh will let you use her shower shift too, how does that sound? Fifteen whole minutes of hot water, Silas. Everyone will be jealous." Marcus slapped Mason's hand again, trying to get any response out of the young man. McCullagh pulled off Mason's ruined body armor, which was meant to stop bullets, not stabbing limbs, and ripped open the front of his suit. It was a mess of blood and pierced flesh. She looked at Marcus, who held her gaze. She slowly shook her head, and looked down at Mason. Marcus knew what it meant.

"Thanks for being a good guy," Mason said quietly. Marcus nodded and slapped his shoulder.

"Yeah man, any time. Any time." He choked a little bit. He didn't know Mason well, but he was watching a good kid die, and he knew it. Mason slowly closed his eyes, and his breathing became more ragged. And then his breathing stopped. Silas Mason breathed his last, a wet phlegmy noise climbing out of his throat, and then he was still. Marcus and McCullagh sat in silence for a moment, staring at the body of their comrade. Marcus shook his head, not believing it.

"Fuck," he said, standing up. "Fuck!" he shouted, kicking a natter. He stumbled, and his vision darkened, and he realized he still probably had that concussion. He held a hand to his head and realized something.

"The gunfire outside has stopped," he said.