The first ones came at the southern entrance. The howling monsters beat and thrashed, glared and stuck their grasping hands through narrow gaps. But the glue held the tool cases and wall sections in place. For now.

They beat on the western doorway that was blocked by the wall section and the printer. Maybe the fact that only a few could beat on it at a time would allow it to hold out.

The two northern passages were the last to come under assault. Gaylen heard rattling and groaning as manic strength tried to move the obstacles.

Absurdly, Gaylen thought of the time he’d seen a small, fluffy animal in a cage, surrounded by thoughtlessly cruel children who batted at the bars, all at once. He wondered if the critter had felt as he did now.

There was a cracking noise, but he couldn’t be certain where. The first penetration came at the north-east hallway. Jaquan shouted Gaylen’s name, and he hurried over to see. A marbozi was squeezing up between the ceiling and the top case, no doubt injuring itself with the frantic thrashing. Gaylen ran, hopped over the tripwire, and swung the sledgehammer at the marbozi’s head as it hung out above the floor. The blow connected, and there was no need for a second one.

He waited there for a couple of breaths, in case of another climber. The cases shuddered under the force of the mob on the other side, and a single hand came around the narrow gap between wall and case. Gaylen smashed the arm with a blow, then ran back to the main area.

Kiris stood between the west and north-west openings, watching both with her cutter at the ready. Gaylen heard something give in the southern barricade, and rushed to check it out. He couldn’t actually see what the problem was. He could barely see the marbozi themselves. But there had been a noise.

He turned at the sound of Kiris moving, and saw her charge into the north-west corridor, leading with her cutter like it was a lance. He didn’t have the angle to see her target, and another noise drew his attention back to the barricade.

He saw one of the wall sections move. Just a little, but it moved. Someone on the other side was pushing extremely hard against the print blocks. And unless he wanted to spend his last two bullets, there was nothing he could do about it.

He ran back to the eastern part of the fort, found the eastern stairs still empty, Jaquan still working, and the north-east still secure, with the dead marbozi acting as a stopper of sorts.

He ran to check on Kiris, and found that she’d put the cutter through the skull of another marbozi who’d been halfway through at the top. There was another one just behind it, but Kiris stood at the ready to give it the same treatment. The barricade itself was holding. For now.

There was a crack from the western door. No surprise there. Those wall sections weren’t thick. Gaylen stepped over to take a quick peek, found no immediate danger, and went back to check on the southern barricade. There were more cracks, more rattles, an awful countdown to disaster.

“Gaylen!” Jaquan shouted.

He ran towards the north-east. Jaquan was squatting by the battery, but looking down the hallway. A marbozi came bounding out of it, and tripped over the wire it hadn’t noticed. The clumsy beast faceplanted, and simply started crawling towards the engineer. It had barely gotten started by the time Gaylen brought the sledgehammer down. Its skull was smashed against the floor.

“Eight minutes,” Jaquan said.

Gaylen looked up, his gaze drawn by noise. It was hard to be sure, what with the deafening din of screaming monsters, but he thought he heard the door upstairs being pounded on.

He looked west, at the sound of a clearer noise, and saw that a corner of the wall section had been beaten away. Kiris moved over, and brought the cutter flame down on an intruding arm.

There were more coming over the glued-together cases blocking the hallway, and Gaylen leapt over the wire. The one in the lead made an easy enough target, as it was pushing away the dead body, and took the hammer to the face. The other two were trickier, further back as they were. Gaylen didn’t want to waste an extra second, not with all the other spots that needed guarding, but he couldn’t swing the big hammer properly until they got closer.

He stepped up on a corner of the lower tool case, and jabbed the sledgehammer like a spear, punching it into a marbozi’s face. It snarled at him and tried to grab at the weapon. He jabbed at the other one, then the first again, and desperately alternated attacks.

“Back, you bastards,” he growled from deep in his throat, even though he knew pain alone wouldn’t stop them.

After a few more blows each they at least looked woosy, and he chose to break away at the sound of more trouble back in the main space. He found Kiris leaning into the southern fortifications, pushing the cutter flame into someone’s head. A couple of arms were pushing through the gap in the western defences.

He ran across the main space, and swung his hammer at the protruding arms, as he stopped to peek down the north-west corridor. The barricade was shaking a bit, but none of them were coming over it at the moment.

He ran back, past Kiris as she severed a couple of arms, and to the north-east corridor. One of the battered marbozi had made it over the cases, and charged. Gaylen let it hit the wire, then gave it a blow as it lay on the ground. The other one had made enough progress to make a good target. It saw the blow coming and raised a hand. The arm broke, and a second blow hit home against the skull.

Gaylen bounded back. Kiris had stepped back from the southern barricade and was looking at the western doorway. An echoing scream then ripped his attention to the stairs.

“Shit.”

By chance or a remaining flicker of intelligence, marbozi had found their way up the stairs on the other side of the balcony. And now one was sprinting down at them.

Gaylen ran to intercept, let the beast hit the wire, then brained it as it lay prone. There were two more behind it. One tripped over the wire and fell, but Gaylen didn’t have time to deliver a killing blow. The other stepped over the wire, whether on purpose or not he did not know, and then it was on him.

Gaylen swung low, smashing the thing’s leg. It went down, but now the other one was up. He launched a massive overhand swing at the marbozi, but though it probably tore tendons in the process, the monster actually caught the hammer as it came down.

Gaylen didn’t try to match it with strength. His body just fell back on the lessons of many a desperate fight, and occasional tips from professionals, and guided the marbozi into overbalancing and falling to the floor.

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The one with the broken leg had by now crawled over to him, and seemed ready to take a bite out of his leg. Gaylen yanked his limb back, and delivered a crushing head blow. Then the other one tackled him.

He managed to land on his back, rather than have the monster force him onto his stomach. He couldn’t swing the hammer, but he did stick the handle in between its teeth as they came at his face, like a riding bit. The monster gnawed away at the metal, ruining its own teeth and not caring at all.

Gaylen dared to release one hand, and tried to get at the gun, and its two precious bullets. The marbozi thrashed and growled and tightened its grip, squeezing the air out of his chest. Then Jaquan struck it in the back of the head with his wrench.

“Six minutes.”

He hurried back to his task, and Gaylen got to his feet.

Kiris was now back to fighting by the western doorway, fighting an ever-widening gap in the wall section, like a gardener against the galaxy’s most horrible weed. The cutter inflicted terrible wounds, but the marbozi didn’t stop until they died, and when they did there was always another one ready to take its place. And then there was the limited supply of plasma in the tank.

A marbozi came running out of the north-west corridor, missing the wire and pouncing right on Kiris. She turned quickly enough to swing the cutter, but not quickly enough to catch the monster in the head. Instead, the arm came off at the shoulder, and the marbozi caught her with its remaining hand.

It slammed her into the printer like a ragdoll. Gaylen sprinted as fast as his body could possibly allow, but he still had to watch the woman get beaten into the machine a second time. Then he reached them, and rammed straight into the marbozi. It was knocked into the wall next to the doorway, then fell to the floor as Gaylen dealt a killing blow.

Hands were reaching through the gap in the wall section, and a couple of heads were now poking out, snarling and screaming. Gaylen crushed one head, then the other, glanced at the nearby corridor, then looked down at Kiris.

“Get up!” he half-ordered, half-begged.

She was clearly disoriented, but her head seemed to have escaped the worst of the impact.

“Get up!”

She held a hand out, and he took a two-second break from swinging the hammer to pull her to her feet. She supported herself against the printer. Then a marbozi came running out of the corridor, and he ran to meet it. It didn’t clear the wire, but it took two blows to get it to stop moving.

He returned to Kiris. She had gained enough of her senses to grip the cutter again, and gave him a nod. With that, he rushed back to the other side of the space.

It all became a blur of movement, adrenaline, burning muscles, and the constant screaming. All extraneous thought and sensation faded into the background, as Gaylen entered a trance-like state of survival. He perceived, reacted, then waited until he perceived again. The weight of the hammer came to feel like a part of him.

The defences weakened bit by bit. Kiris did her part with the cutter, and Gaylen swung at limbs and the occasional head, but as much as the marbozi got in each other’s way, and their bodies clogged the openings, the sheer weight of their numbers and strength moved heavy weight, broke what could be broken, and tore up glue.

Cases rattled, printers twitched by millimetres at a time, and there was no time to rush upstairs to block the door better. The occasional marbozi came down that way, tripped over the wire, and got a sledgehammer or wrench to the head for its trouble. It was all manageable as long it was only the odd stray, but each incursion did draw Gaylen away from holding the line somewhere else.

Kiris stayed almost exclusively in the western part. Her cutter did effective work, but even through the battle haze Gaylen noticed that she swayed on her feet a bit.

Finally, the southern barricade gave way. The print blocks between two of the cases fell away, and a marbozi came through.

“Kiris!” Gaylen shouted as he ran to meet this disaster.

He was too amped up to really feel the ache in his muscles, but his swings were becoming slower and weaker. The blow he hit the marbozi with struck it on the shoulder rather than the head. The beast wobbled beneath the impact, but struck at him. Its own blow wasn’t perfect, but hit Gaylen in the face. He still didn’t really feel pain, but lost his balance, and the marbozi kept up its assault.

Kiris arrived and put the cutter’s flame through the head of the next marbozi in line. For a split-second she turned to look at Gaylen’s fight with the first one, but there were more coming, and so she faced front and squeezed the trigger once again.

And that was the moment it ran out of fuel.

Gaylen smacked the hammer’s handle into his opponent’s face, as Kiris hopped back and barely evaded another marbozi’s grasping hands. She unfastened the tank from her back and swung it by the strap. It hit the monster right in the head, but had little effect.

Gaylen broke his foe’s knee and sent the marbozi to the floor, then stepped in and swung his ever-heavier hammer at the one going after Kiris. Again he missed the mark a bit, and the marbozi stopped snarling as its chest broke. But it stayed on its feet, and simply switched targets.

He retreated from the attack, and very nearly got his legs caught by the one on the ground. Kiris unclipped the cane from her belt, extended it, and cracked the standing marbozi in the back of the head. It stayed on its feet, and stayed focused on Gaylen.

The one on the ground flopped in the direction of Gaylen’s legs, again trying to grab at them. Evading it cost Gaylen the chance to launch another swing, and then he had to dart in another direction as the standing one speed-lurched at him.

Another marbozi was clambering through the opening in the barricade, and yet another one was crawling over the printer by the western door. And there were more behind them. The flood was starting.

Gaylen finally cracked his pursuer in the face. He didn’t wait to see if it was actually dead. He just charged past it as it landed on the floor, and smashed the hammer into the one leading the charge over the defeated barricade. The marbozi went backwards, into the others, but their momentum pushed it back, and in a second it was simply being trampled as the charge continued.

“IT’S READY!” Jaquan shouted. “COME ON! COME ON!”

It took a second for the words to register with Gaylen’s dazed mind. Then he and Kiris ran. The marbozi followed, coming at them from two directions, now streaming in through the gaps as no one was holding them back.

Jaquan got ahead of them into the elevator box. Gaylen felt a hand at his back; fingertips stroking, millimetres away from being able to grab a hold. Kiris was slightly ahead of him through the doors, and Gaylen drew the pistol as he followed her.

The marbozi was inside before anyone could hit the door button. It rammed into Gaylen and pinned him against the box wall. Another one came right on its heels, going after Kiris. She had just hit the door button, and it closed with a quick, sharp hiss as the monster bore her down to the floor. Jaquan brought his wrench down on the back of its head. Gaylen tried to aim the pistol, but his marbozi had a grip on his arm, squeezing it like a steel cable and keeping the weapon off-target.

The other hand was on his shoulder, and the ravenous beast pressed in closer, its mouth wide open for a bite. Gaylen’s hand lost strength, and the pistol fell from it. He couldn’t tell if the marbozi was going for his face or his throat. He just fought and bucked, and still the monster’s face came in closer, as Jaquan and Kiris fought the other one.

With his good arm, Manvis raised the pistol and shot the marbozi in the brain. It flopped down, dead. Gaylen immediately stepped over the body and added his bootheel to Jaquan’s efforts, and a couple of breaths later the other marbozi was finished as well.

Gaylen reached over the mess and hit the top floor button. Then he helped Kiris and Jaquan move the body off of her, then pull her to her feet.

“You alright?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied in a slightly raw voice.

They all found themselves a wall to lean against. The battle drained out of them, little by little, as the car slowly ascended, and Gaylen felt the shakes start to hit.

“He is up there,” Manvis said.

Gaylen turned to the injured janitor. He held his hand out for the gun, and the man returned it absent-mindedly.

“What?”

“The man who did all this. He is in the central security station on the top floor. That’s how he’s been able to observe everything, and mess with the power. He is up there.”

Gaylen looked at the rising number on the panel.

“Is he really?”