Explosions ripped into the zombies, shredding them into a cloud of expanding red. In that instant, the synth modded zombie blurred, leaping away from the deck leaving a half consumed meal bar spinning in its wake.

A bare second later it slammed into Sam, whipping one clawed limb at his visor while the other was clamped securely on an upraised gauntlet. Its claws glanced off with a sharp ‘scree!’ noise several times before this limb, too was immobilized.

The zombie proved stronger than any of us expected. Despite being held securely by both arms it managed to draw its feet up and slam them into Sam’s visor as synthetic muscle strained against the might of the combat exosuit.

Then we all heard it. A lone zombie howl from somewhere deeper in the vendor area.

Two shots sounded almost as one as I fired at the blurry black figure I could see over the front sight of my pistol. Two spurts of arterial red blood appeared on its chest as the bulkhead behind it was splattered with flesh and bits of organ meat. The howl cut off abruptly.

For a moment it seemed we had avoided disaster.

Then a low echoing growl sounded from deeper in the engineering wing of the deck. An almost querulous howl sounded from the elevators beside us swiftly after.

“Well? Do we retreat?” Doctor Delveccio’s voice sounded tense but controlled.

“No! We can still barricade both if we have enough plating! We’ve only got the one welder and two openings to seal. Which one is priority?” Vera’s voice was tense, but confident.

“Shaft. The other horde will take longer to get here. I will bring materials to you,” I was already leaping through the opening to engineering as I spoke.

A single zombie greeted me with a howl on the way to the wreckage. All it received for its efforts were two bullets that shattered its sternum. More were making their way through engineering ahead of the horde by the sound of things.

I snatched a large panel to bring back with me, knowing it wasn’t large enough to cover the elevator shaft on its own. Two more zombies appeared on my way back, forcing me to abandon the panel briefly to deal with them.

After encountering zombies so many times their reactions and movements were becoming much more familiar. The first one seemed to almost leap into the path of the bullet that shattered its face and ravaged its brain. The second grabbed weakly at nothing as blood jetted out of its ruined neck an instant later.

While complacency would be an utterly foolish indulgence, I was finally becoming more comfortable with the pistol. The process of aiming, lining up the sights with a moving target, and shooting without jerking the trigger and spoiling my aim was becoming easier.

As if to mock my growing competence, the next attack occurred just outside the cafeteria. A single zombie leapt at me from around a blind corner, bouncing off the panel I was pushing and instantly reaching for my visor.

It grabbed onto my arm as I instinctively attempted to push it away. Infortunately for the zombie, its attempt to bite through my gauntlet proved to be a poor tactical choice in the heat of the moment. Stabbing it up under its jaw ended all opportunity for regret.

On brief reflection though, I rather doubted zombies could feel such an emotion anyway.

I pushed the panel towards the elevator shaft the moment I entered the cafeteria. Vera was ready and waiting while Doctor Delveccio and Quenton both stood watch over the shaft itself. Sam fired a short burst over my shoulder as I spun around, stopping a howl midway through and shredding a zombie with a full head of glowing hair.

Evidently they had triumphed over the synthetic musclehead zombie easily enough. I only encountered one zombie on the way back to the area with all the scrap. It crumpled with a warbling howl after being shot twice.

Much of wreckage was welded together in a nearly impenetrable thicket of jagged scrap. Others were trapped in places that would take too long to free. My search for another panel led me deeper into the tangle. Close, chaotic terrain hid the threat from me until the very last moment.

A slivery blur crashed into a piece of bulkhead inches from my helmet. Another one swept through the space I ducked away from, and a third smacked into another piece of bulkhead at least a foot away. In between desperate dodging through the jungle of scrap I finally caught a glimpse of my attacker.

The zombie was wearing an exoskeleton with tentacle-like manipulators. Zero g construction crews wore these at times to increase their productivity, effectively giving them four extra “hands.” Another whipping tentacle struck the bulkhead I was clinging to.

It should have been able to hit me with that first sequence of attacks, judging by its speed. But every strike seemed to throw it off balance. But the same clumsiness in microgravity that plagued nearly every other zombie was keeping me alive.

I was finally able to hit it when its gyrations spun it slightly away from me. My bullet struck it in the side as it tried to look over its shoulder at me. Then, by luck or some sort of retained memory of skill, it managed to right itself.

Two tentacles and a foot kept it steady for a split second as a tentacle suddenly grabbed me by the waist. It pulled, but my suit was caught in the tangle. I cut through the tentacle with my vibroknife a moment later and the cut end slammed into my visor.

I pushed myself free. The next instant, I felt a zombie grab me by the shoulder. I stabbed it blindly but it didn’t let go. Then I realized that I was punching it, not stabbing. My vibroknife was missing from my fist.

Shooting it worked to get me free. Then another tentacle smacked into me and I spun away. The spidery looking zombie was now crawling across the jagged pile of metal. I attempted to duck away again, but instead struck a bulkhead and bounced off.

That was all the thing needed to grab hold of me securely. This time when it pulled me in my suit didn’t catch. I tried to shoot it as was spun around and yanked about, but only managed to hit it in the shoulder ineffectually.

First it tried to bite through my helmet. When that didn’t work it tried to smash and claw its way through. Only one of my arms was free, the other was trying to grab the pistol from my immobilized hand.

Then the flicker of black lightning light up near my face as it gripped my helmet, cracks instantly forming on the visor. I gave up on the pistol.

It tried to pull my arm down with a tentacle as I strained to force that deadly claw away from my face. For a moment the cracks grew.

For a moment I could feel hot magma in my bones again. It was the same feeling that had been plaguing me on and off for days now, and the zombie suddenly seemed to weaken slightly. That was all the opportunity I needed to wrench the claw away from me.

Black lightning licked at the zombie’s head for an instant before the flickering died. It flinched violently at this, its grip loosening just enough to free my pistol arm. Then I shot it in the head.

Two more zombies announced themselves with howls while I struggled to free myself from my fallen foe’s now limp and unresisting limbs. I shot both as they became confused and stuck in the tangle of scrap.

After a brief search it appeared that everything nearby was well and thoroughly trapped. The nearly spent heavy cutter/welder caught my eye. Thinking it might come in handy, I grabbed it. On the way back I caught sight of something familiar, but the sound of fighting nearby made it clear that now was not the time.

A chorus of howls punctuated by gunfire and explosions greeted me as the entrance to the cafeteria came into sight. A large pack of zombies was desperately trying to force its way through the withering fire. So far it was failing.

The corpse of one of the giant zombies was blocking part of the opening though. The zombies kept trying to force their way past, but Sam and the others couldn’t shoot through the massive corpse either. Eventually the main horde would show up though.

I took the time to change magazines before starting to pick off the ones at the back of the pack. Four fell before the rest began to notice that something was behind them. Some of them drifted into view of the cafeteria and were cut down.

That left only a few for me to shoot down. One by one they bobbed into my sights and perished in a flash of muzzle flare that turned into more clouds of blood and body parts on their other end. It seemed prudent to announce my presence before I sprung into view at this point.

“Hold your fire. I’m approaching the cafeteria.”

“Roger that, Z,” Sam replied. “Nice find. How’d you know we needed another welder?”

“It seemed prudent to retrieve it at the time. Unfortunately I was unable to acquire another piece of scrap-”

“It’s fine, Z. Vera managed to use part of a table to close up the shaft.”

The patched together barrier did not look as sturdy as the one in Security. The table was quite obviously of thinner material than the piece of bulkhead, but it blocked the hole adequately well. Several zombie bodies floated near the shaft, evidence that the job had not gone without being contested.

“Sam. Could we weld the hatch that covered this opening back in place or would we need more scrap to cover it?”

“Might could. I’d have to see it first to tell, though.”

Loud, echoing howls sounded from deep within engineering. The main horde was getting close.

“No time. Grab it, Z!”

I was already flying down the corridor before the words registered. The frontrunners of the horde came into view at the other end. The slowly tumbling remains of the hatch were about halfway between us.

Doctor Delveccio warned the others not try and shoot around me in case I needed to maneuver. The vanguard of the horde were using every available surface including each other to launch themselves faster.

By the way things were looking they would likely reach my goal before me. At least before I could stop, grab the hatch, and flee back.

I could not allow that to happen.

There was one last timed explosive left. The other had been used to thin the horde in the cafeteria and draw them after me. This time I used it to obliterate the closest pack of zombies. It worked even better than I could have hoped.

The pressure wave slapped at me hard as I flew, turbulence causing me to spin and slam into the deck. I couldn’t stop though. Thanks to the enclosed corridor I now had a chance.

New zombies appeared through the still expanding cloud of body parts. I shot my pistol dry into them. There was no way to miss. But also no way to tell if my shots killed or disabled any of them.

By the time the slide locked back I was already slowing. The horde was still seconds away. In an instant I locked my boots to the deck and pushed on the heavy slab of metal. It flew away, back towards the cafeteria.

Then I was flying after it, grabbing on and trying to guide it down the corridor and avoid any snagging door frames. Sparks flew as the hatch skipped off the ceiling and bulkheads. There would be no slowing down this time.

I let go of the hatch and spun, flaring the suit jets to bleed off acceleration as I made it through the opening. The hatch clanged off the bulkhead behind me, rebounding back towards the approaching horde.

Then Sam let loose with grenades. The hatch scooted back towards us.

“Z! Go low and grab it! Vera, get ready on the welder. Sam, you hold it in place. Quenton, call the food service elevator. Move it, people!”

For once things actually happened as planned. I grabbed the hatch and pulled it back with me. Sam picked it up just in time to hold it in place as the horde slammed into it.

A couple of zombies squirted through. Neither survived to become a problem. Vera did something with the heavy welder and some sort of off-white foam that hardened in seconds over the welds.

“I wouldn’t trust either of those barricades to hold forever. When we come back, best we be prepared for another fight,” Vera said as we hurried through the food service area to the elevator.

“We will have to worry about that later,” Doctor Delveccio said. “Right now we need to find Ileane.”

The elevator clanged softly as we locked our boots. No one spoke as it slowly returned us to Level 4. Vera took off her helmet to shout Ileane’s name as we rushed in. The only response heard was the hum of the cleaner bots in the distance.

We rushed into the Chief’s office only to find it silent and empty.

“Where could she have gone?” Quenton asked.

“A better question would be what possible reason could have caused her to leave?”

No one had an answer to Vera’s question.