Bringing my own weapon to bear I aimed through the holographic sight and squinted as I tried to find exactly what Nikhara had seen. All I saw though was the pitch-black darkness of the theatre. Then a deeper section of the blackness scuttled across the metal rigging on the ceiling.

It scurry and leapt like a spider to clang on another section of the rigging. The noise domed through the theatre loudly and I was sure as shit certain that if any of those hunter-humanoid-xeno’s were in the building, they had heard it.

“We need to move,” I told Nikhara and the light-beam beside my own jerked in a nod. I couldn’t properly make-out whatever it was looked-like. But I doubted a human or a Darkmoon elf could spider-walk across the ceiling and fling themselves about so quickly.

I kept my sights trained on the section where I thought it was, and backed up slowly as Nikhara moved further ahead down the hallway. The flimsy white walls on either side of us, were used to compartment off certain exhibits and display.

And it definitely wouldn’t hold if someone tried to walk—balancing—across it.

We back up until Nikhara tapped my lower back with her fist. The action almost made me shit myself. But everything was so clenched tight as I kept my focus upwards, that it’d be like trying to squeeze paste through a needle sized hole.

“You got an exit?” I asked her without turning around. I heard a low creaky groan from the rafters above. I imagined that the wiring that held the rigging suspended above us, only groaned because whatever was there was swinging the rigging with its weight.

“I do. At least I think I do. There’s just a lot of bodies blocking the way.”

“Okay. You deal with it. You’re stronger than me after all. I’ll keep an eye out for our hidden host.” Nikhara grunted her agreement and got to work.

A soft0 chittering sound echoed distantly, and I frowned. “Andrea, you get any reading on the building we’re in?” I asked as I called the android, through the link.

“Nothing, but the two of-- hang on. There is a faint signature blurring in and out south-east of your position. What is it, are you guys okay?” she asked hurriedly as the implications seemed to hit her.

“We’re fine. But something is here with us and we’ve yet to identify it.” The fact that whatever it was, was staying out of reach could mean it was either cautious of us. Or was waiting for our guard to falter.

“Marcus!” Andrea voice became frantic through the link and I winced as I heard Nikhara groan in annoyance behind me.

“What?” I hissed back to my android wife.

“That signature in the south-west quarter of the city, just doubled. There’re two signature now, and both are moving staticky. I think wherever these ping’s are coming from. It’s deep underground.”

“Okay. Keep us updated on any changes.”

“Door is clear,” Nikhara whispered voice came a few seconds later, and I looked over my shoulder briefly to see that she had moved more than six bodies.

The door had a blank screen above it that I guessed would’ve displayed ‘exit’ on a better day. Nikhara unslung her rifle and took position by the door and I retreated back towards her. I tried the doors handle and it didn’t budge an inch.

“Agh, fucking thing is locked.”

“Want me to try?” Nikhara suggested but I shook my head, raised the stock of my rifle, and bore it down with a metallic clang. The handle buckled as the heavy stock hit and dented the top portion.

“You hearing that?” Nikhara said intently. I looked over my shoulder as I heard that distant chittering sound again. It was closer this time and sounded more aggravated this time.

“I think that sounds coming from our guest up there,” I told her and threw a nod at where I saw the deeper shadow still moving agitatedly on the ceiling rig. I tested the doors handle once again. “It’s good, let’s go.”

I stepped aside and aimed my rifle into the darkness as Nikhara went first through the door. I immediately heard the pelting sand brushing off against her combat armour and the swallowing billow of wind that tried to gush past me and fill the interior of the convention centre. I backed outside and grabbed a hold of the door, pulling it closed between me.

The wind batted it back but as I held it shut something slammed into the other side of the door and sent me stumbling. “Captain?” Nikhara concerned voice reached me. I blinked as I looked at the door and saw a vague figure moving the bodies back in place.

“Let’s move. We need to reach that train station.”

Nikhara nodded her agreement and shut off her helmet’s light. I mentally shrugged and did the same. No use in giving our position away. “Andrea? how far from the station are we?” Nikhara curious voice trailed through the neural-coms-link.

“You’re about two miles east of its approximate destination. But like I said before, I’m don’t whether it’s above or underground.

“We’ll contact you when we arrive,” I told her, and Nikhara said the same. Then we picked up the pace, moving swiftly westward hoping to see our destination. I kept my head on a swivel as we moved. But all seemed to be shut down and quiet. A few scattered bodies blanketed the street, but nothing as major as what we’d seen in the convention centre and we hadn’t even explored the entire building.

I could only guess that there were even more on other floors in the centre.

It didn’t take long for us moving out in the open to start spotting signs denoting directions to the train platform. I only hoped it was still running. If the services were run through solar energy then we would be fine. Electricity and other various sources tended to need manual monitoring.

Before long we reached the reached a series of ascending platforms. We took the steps on the outside of the building two at a time as we sprinted up them. Soon reaching a side entrance through which lead out onto a platform, divided by mag-rails.

Looking right I saw that the rails lead northernly and dipped down as if going under a bridge or into the ground. To our left they lead on in a straight line before twisting left at a bend.

Then as quietly as humanly possible a mag train breezed past on the far side. Leading out from our right and zooming passed the platform without even stopping. No intercom announcement came which should’ve been obvious considering that most people were either dead or missing on Lios.

I wasn’t certain about the other two planets here, but Lios was most likely to lead us to answers.

“Fuck!” I growled and looked about for a way to cross platforms. About thirty metres down the platform was an overarching footpath bridge that would take us across.

“Nikhara!” I called and began running for the bridge. I heard the orc-dryad’s thumping footfalls speed after my own as we raced for the steps to take us up and across. Then a train to our immediate right—for the platform we were on—shot past us.

“Damn it,” I heard Nikhara growl as she huffed out air. Slinging my rifle over my shoulder, I felt it click against the rig-pin on my armour’s back and bounded up the steps, Nikhara chasing after me. Two trains had already passed, hopefully that meant a third was the way. Or it had already passed before we had even arrived here.

Running across the bridge I glanced to my right and saw a train speeding down the mid-track.

“Quickly!” I yelled through the neural-link and ran for the middle of the bridge. The second I got there, I hurled myself bodily over the edge and fell the seventeen feet to clang off the speeding trains roof.

I bounced thrice and rolled, my armour absorbing the impact but the several clanging domes against my helmet bounced my brains about in my skull. The mag-train was going so fast that I couldn’t stop my momentum at all, as wind whipped around me and I slid along the surface of the train on my back.

The wind and my attempts to stop myself causing me to spin and flail like a turtle on its back. Then for the barest of a moment I was airborne, and the sand swept city filled my vision as I hung forty feet in the air. A strong firm hand gripped my ankle brace and caught me before I was propelled out like a spinning top.

I was hauled back and clanged into the side of the train, upside down. I looked up my body to see Nikhara struggling to pull me to her.

Her other hand braced against the trains roof. But I saw her grip sliding on the smooth surface. Mag-trains were built for speed and efficiency, not carrying passages on their roof.

I twisted and looked through the window behind me. I slammed my elbow into it, my armoured arm hit the glass and rebounded back.

“Marcus! my grip… its slipping!” Nikhara panicked voice reached me. I slammed my elbow back again, and again. But nothing was working. The window was most likely made out of some sort of the kinetic-absorbing material.

Reaching over my shoulder I hauled my rifle out and aimed. My dangling leg bent and pressed against the train’s side.

“When I sat: now, swing me up and down!” I ordered her.

“Got it.”

I leg pressed with my right leg and pushed off and outwards. I felt Nikhara’ strength as she kept a hold of me and strain to not loosen her grip. As I passed the four feet out at a forty-degree angles, I twisted, and I unloaded four rounds into the glass as Nikhara pulled me back to slam against it.

The bullets I’d fire, had embedded in the glass, and cracks spiralled out from each impact. Then my torso clanged into it. The back of my helmet and neck rang as I hit roughly.

The window didn’t break, and I lurched as Nikhara’s grip on me loosened slightly. I reared my arm forward and slammed my elbow into the glass twice more, and the grip my wife had on me faltered finally. I felt her hand slide up my boot and clipped off the tip of my boot.

“Marcus!” she shouted. And just before I fell. I brought my foot down on the spiralling crack. Then my whole body halted as my foot jammed into the window. But I wasn’t free, my helmet was maybe thirty centimetres off the zooming rail beneath me.

“N-Nikhara?” I breathed and tried to move, but every fractional movement I made, felt as if my foot would slide free.

“I’m coming, hon.” my wife called back, and I looked up myself to see her peering down at me. Yet I could see the hesitancy of her movements.

“Try to get inside the train,” I suggested and saw her nod partially. Then she was gone from view. I looked above the speeding train and saw that the sandstorm had passed completely. There above the city in orbit, was a giant monstrous skull.

“Oh fuck! That. Isn’t. Good,” I breathed out as my heart began to slam in my chest. “Nikhara, hurry!” I don’t know why, but I felt as if that monstrous ship was focused intently on us.

“Nikhara! fucking hurry!” I shouted through the neural-link.

“What’s … wrong… now?” came her huffing retort, and I guessed that she was running looking for somewhere to break-in.

I gasped as my armoured boot slid an inch. About half of my foot was free, my heel was now the only thing keeping me hooked. Then by taunting incremental inches my heel started to slip free.

“Nikh--” I began to yell, my eyes still riveted on that menacingly monstrous ship.

“I’m here,” Nikhara calm yet exhausted voice tore through my maddening swirl of convoluted thoughts. The sound of shattering glass echoed through my skull. I glanced at my boot and saw two armoured gauntlets protruding through the glass on each side of my slipping boot.

Then I lurched downwards, the grip on my rifle tightened and my helmet skidded against the magnetic metal on the rail. My head rattled violently for what felt like entirety, then the sound of straining grunts and heaving breaths filled my link.

I rose into the air and away from the track. I groaned as my body slid rigidly up and through the broken glass.

I fell into a heap as I breached inside, and rolled over until I was on my back again. My body felt stiff and exhausted as I lay there limp for a few seconds.

“Are you okay?” Nikhara grey featureless oval helmet blocked my view of the trains ceiling.

“Ye-ah,” I sighed heavily, breathing slow and deeply. Then the image of the monstrous skull ship lurking above us jumped back to the forefront of my mind, like I’d been struck physically.

I lunged upright and clambered to my feet, jumping to the broken window. I stuck my head out and twisted my torso to look up.

The ship was gone.

“Andrea?” I called through the neural-link.

“…Yeeesss babe,” she replied after a moment of static. I could only hope she was working on her drone and not lazing about.

“Did the Erebus scanner pick up any signs of ship entry in the last minutes or so?” I asked and ignored the curious tilt of Nikhara’s helmet at me.

“Nothing at all, Marcus. Though those two life signatures I’d picked up previously jumped to about forty, then an instance later it was back to two. We really need to upgrade our scanners, babe. Seriously, this ship may have hidden functions and what-not. But the majority of the tech is old as shit.”

“I know, I know…” I sighed, and then slumped back inside. “How far are we out from the location of those life-sign?”

“About-- seven minutes,” she crackled over the link and I saw my HUD glitch as my neural-implant rang a monotone note.

“Damn implant,” I whispered. Then flinched slightly as a fist grazed lightly against my shoulder.

“What did – see?” Nikhara crackling voice responded.

“I saw that ship, the one in the footage. It was right above us,” I told her, and Nikhara head snapped to the broken window.

“It’s gone now. I don’t whether its cloaked or…” I trailed off. Or if I was going crazy. “Check my armour for me while me wait.”

“Will do. You’re okay, right?” Nikhara asked hesitantly, her hands resting on my shoulders.

“Yeah. I’m good, just shaken up is all. Andrea, let us know when we’re a few minutes out.”

“Got it, babe.” Her voice chirp happily. Sighing I stood patiently as Nikhara scanned my suit for me. I would’ve used my suits vital-display. But the glitching in my neural-implant could mean that I wouldn’t get correct readings.

“All good. There’s a hair-line fracture in the back of your helmet, but I don’t think its deeper than a few millimetres at most. So it hasn’t breached your helmet luckily.”

“Thank you. Damn implant is glitching again,” I told her after a moment of silence. This whole place was making me uneasy. And every step taken towards whatever was ahead of us, reinforced that unease more and more.

My mind flashed to my dream and the man there who had talked to me. His words resounding through my skull.

“That is what’re up against,” he told me and pointed out his gauntleted hand at the breach in the sky. “Not these distractions.”

“—Captain you are a few minutes away from your destination.” Andrea’s sweet cheery voice broke through my thoughts.

“Thanks Andii,” Nikhara replied before I could.

“Let us know if anything changes. And, when your drone is ready,” I told her.

“Will do… Be safe both of you, please. Its’ save on the Erebus but it’s really fucking lonely here by myself. If you are going underground our connection might be blocked or disrupted. So be safe, pleeeaase…”

We both affirmed her that we would try to stay in touch if possible, and the link quieted as our thoughts turned to the hazards ahead.

“Marcus, the train is a minute out from the signal location.”

I snapped my head from where it been lulling. I had only closed my eyes in the barest of a blink, now when I looked out the window before us I saw a blocky tower.

The building was a neutral grey-steel-white and looked a lot like a military outpost.

The mag-rail line trailed off into the structure, and I began to search for a stop button or something that would slow the trains momentum.

“Do see you a stop button anywhere?” I called out.

“None,” came Nikhara’s terse reply and saw my wife intensely holding onto a standing rail, just opposite the broken window.

“No,” I said immediately as her helmet swivelled to focus on me.

“We have to jump out onto the platform.”

“I was afraid you were going to suggest that,” I huffed dejectedly, then nodded as I saw literally no passenger stop buttons. I didn’t have time to look.

“Five,” Nikhara intoned, and I let out a quiet groan as I came to stand beside her. The window was wide enough for both of us to jumped out simultaneously.

“Fuck the count! Just go!” I shouted as we saw the platform was maybe twenty metres away from the tip of the mag-train. The speed was moving so fast that come the count of three we would be half way beneath the building.

We sprinted at the narrow gap and sprang through it, launching ourselves a split second before the platform came into view outside the window.

We clashed and hit the hard ground at a roll. My skeleton seemed to jar at the rough impact as I clanged in my armour, and rolled for a few feet.

I groaned and rolled onto my front and dizzily shook my head. The helmet’s display glitched briefly before spinning to life, and I blinked as a proffered forest-green gauntlet came into view.

Nikhara was always quicker to recover than me.

“Thanks,” I wheezed out and stood with her aide. We looked about ourselves and I realised that we were standing on a privatised platform.

Blue holo-graphic caution tape marked off steps to our far right. Before us was twin elevator doors. It was the first sign of power—other than the train—we’d seen since landing here.

“Steps, or elevator?” I asked the orc-dryad.

“Well the stairs lead upwards into the building. And the footage mentioned a sub-facility. So we should see if these elevators go downwards first.”

I nodded my agreement. Nikhara went to check the elevators as I cautiously walked over to the stairs leading inside. I passed through the tape and it blurred to a red warning label, that I guessed would notify security if there were any left that is.

Hopping up the few steps and I came to the doors and peek my head inside. It was dark, but the light of the security label and a few working terminals were active. They shone on the black figures standing like guarding sentinels in the security booth.

“Shit!” I hissed and ducked back outside, carefully retreating down the steps. “Nikhara,” I growled and passed the red tape again. This time it blurred to a violet alert and I cursed realising that the black figures were stood before the terminals.

I hadn’t been able to see exactly what they’d been monitoring. But I hoped it wasn’t us.

Nikhara helmet swivelled to me and saw that I was backing away from the stairs. I reached over my shoulder drew my rifle and it unlocked into a ready form with a whirr of gears.

“Is it one of them hunters?” Nikhara hissed questioningly at me.

“I don’t know. It might actually be a person,” I shrugged helplessly. “I didn’t exactly want to find out. They were in the security booth,” I said and gestured with the barrel of my rifle at the violet flaring tape. The alert was a silent one, or maybe the power was only active for a few things.

I wasn’t sure.

“Well the elevator isn’t returning. But we could force the doors and make our way down that way. Might be faster as--”

she was cut off when the doors by the stairs hissed open and two black figures stepped down past the violet holo-graphic tape.

“Oh damn,” I gasped loudly and was echoed an instant later by Nikhara.

This novel is the work of Rhys Thomas. If you are reading this and it has not been published by Rhys Thomas, then this work has been stolen. Please report this to Amazon and me at email: [email protected]