“Whoever it was that fought here had a reason for all those barricades and defenses. They were trying to keep something out, probably something like that creature that ambushed us.”

It was the third time they had to backtrack. Twice their route was blocked by hatches welded shut and once it appeared to be missile that punched through the bulkhead, miraculously intact but completely blocking their progress.

“That means all the exterior access hatches are blocked. What do we do, Captain?” Her voice held a hint of worry. He didn’t wonder at that, hell, he was worried.

“We need to think bigger. Larger ships generally have a shuttle bay or cargo access. The internal defenses tend to be more robust around there, and if the defenders had held the area long enough, there might still be a way out.” He hoped.

Ensign Liu checked the blueprint she’d taken from the CIC. The tiny screen of her handheld did show the shuttle bay, but…

“The shuttle bay is two decks down and aft of us. To get there, we will have to backtrack to the companionway we passed earlier.”

“You mean…”

“Yes sir. The wrecked one. I think we can fit.”

They had passed a narrow companionway that looked like it had been destroyed, blocked, the block broken through, and then a half assed attempt to cover it once more. It didn’t directly lead to the hull, so they’d passed it by. All the passages going inward to the wound that had killed the Courageous were in even worse shape. Everts considered it a miracle they had found a way inside the ship from where they crashed.

“Lead on, Ensign. Let’s do this thing.”

I can honestly say I’ve had better days, Everts mused as he followed his tiny pilot through the damnable maze that was the heavy cruiser Courageous. His battery levels were down to 32%, and his busted ribs were pressing against his lungs. He’d had broken ribs before. And had to fight after. It was a lot more unpleasant to do so without a good load of alcohol to dull the ache and warm the gut, though. The alien he’d fought hadn’t brought along any friends, thank goodness. It had been a handful in close combat, even in microgravity.

Getting through the hole proved to be easier than expected. With the loose debris cleared, all it took was unlocking his mag boots and drifting down with a slight push. The stair to the second lower deck was also missing, making the descent even simpler. The path going aft was a by now familiar mess. Shattered bulkheads and warped deckplates, drifting scrap, and more suited bodies. Space suited bodies, human ones in the style of Old Terra. No weapons remained, if they’d had some when they died.

They were either killed when the ship was still fighting or after, when the crew was fighting but the ship was not. How had that creature survived all this time. Or had it? They knew next to nothing about what happened after the Exile Fleet escaped. There hadn’t been time to investigate much of anything once they returned as the fleet was immediately attacked. The Battle of Ceres lasted three long days of capital ships slugging it out with the titans of the bug fleet, missiles and megawatt lasers flying about while plasma and railguns sniped at anything too slow. His ship had spent the battle as close cover for the supply vessels, far from the main front. From what he understood, there had been far fewer ships than expected, too. More questions he didn’t have any answers to. He just hoped someone higher up did.

Movement ahead drew his attention. Not the slow drifting of debris, but something fast and purposeful. He found the boarding pistol had made its way into his hand pointing downrange without his conscious intent. He kept it that way, walking slowly forward, sweeping his gaze around carefully. It happened again and he could see what he’d missed the first time. Something red was visible through a half open hatch, darting quickly past.

He stopped, sweeping his gaze around to make sure no threats were sneaking up on them. Namely no open vents or maintenance panels above them. This section of the corridor was more or less intact, but there were still small gaps here and there. Too small for anything to squeeze through. He waived Liu forward so he could speak with her, keeping his eyes forward.

“Is there another way to get to the shuttle bay?”

“Not without significant backtracking. The main hold should be just ahead, sir.”

Even with him kneeling in front of her, she only needed to bend down a little to touch her helmet to his. He could hear the concern in her voice without needing to see her face.

“I saw what looked like another one of those creatures through the open hatch ahead. At least one, rather. Stay close and-”

It came through the open hatch near the ceiling, gripping and lunging its way forward in an instant. Everts tracked its movement, fired and missed just as quickly. He shot again, hitting one of the creature’s claws. His third shot struck it in the head, causing it to explode. The body drifted slowly towards them until the ragged wound of its neck snagged on something, halting it. A second, then a third creature were already through the door by the time the first was slain with a fourth right behind them.

He began backing up as he fired at them, hitting the third by accident as it attempted to use the second as a springboard. Gore erupted from its open neck just like the first and he lost track of the creatures for a second before one of them came barreling through the blood cloud. Four more shots hit the creature without stopping it before his last bullet took it in the eye, killing it as well. He slammed a new magazine home, searching for the next one he knew was still there.

Long moments passed with his heart hammering, each beat sending a new sharp poke of pain in his chest. The gallons of blood and bits of brain matter began to clear, the wet bits sticking to the first surface they touched while the fleshy bits bounced around until they got stuck on something. The last creature- no, the last two creatures now- were chowing down on the first one he’d killed. They eat the dead. Looks like they eat their own dead, too. He tried to calm his thundering heart as he carefully lined up and shot those two as well. They were gripping on to the bulkhead with their feet and using their claws to grip the corpse, making them relatively easy targets. Their heads popped in quick succession, and no more of the things emerged.

By then there were sticky droplets and nasty bits getting closer to the two, and Everts motioned his companion back through a side passage to let the worst of it drift by. He reloaded his spent magazine while he waited and swapped it for the one in the well, topping it off too. He fumbled the second magazine and nearly lost it. A few loose rounds tumbled out of his grip while he snatched at the magazine. Pain that he’d pushed away while shooting had come back with a vengeance. But pain would have to wait its turn, he didn’t have time for it now. Just a little longer. Once the worst of the mess was past, they resumed their careful approach to the hold.

One of the corpses was still drifting so he pushed it gently aside. It wasn’t as if his hard suit could get much nastier- there was still dried goo from the first ambusher stuck to the chest plate and sleeves. He glanced back to see Ensign Liu mincing her way around the worst of the mess, her face a rigid mask. This wasn’t something that was covered in the Naval pilots course. Pilots of larger vessels might never even see the outside of a ship with their own two eyes. Despite the fear he could see was there, she carried on.

Through the open hatch they found what appeared to be some sort of material control area. Cargo handling equipment lined the walls, locked down to prevent further damage during battle or maneuvers. A couple of small offices faced them with a door in the center standing open between them. Through it they could see opened crates littering the area with packing material scattered about like someone had ransacked the place. Nothing else moved as they made their way through, ending up at a personnel lock beside a much larger cargo lock. Both indicated pressure on the other side.

Opening the lock released a slight bit of air pressure stored within, causing a brief storm of debris before they entered. No power meant manually cycling the lock: shutting the inner door, turning the wheel that allowed the pressure to equalize, then opening the outer door. He had to get her to help with the wheel, as pain and growing exhaustion made it more and more difficult to apply the necessary force.

The change from the hard edged shadows of space to even the low pressure light scatter surprised him after all they’d been through that day. A wall of stacked hex crates stretched from right to left in front of them and up to the ceiling that soared three decks high. He saw no evidence of a hasty search like the material control area and wondered if the creatures were not stuck outside. They’d shown no evidence of being able to manage any sort of complex task like working an airlock system. They just mindlessly attacked or ate their own fallen the two times he knew of. Probably slept and excreted, too. But then, he was no xenobiologist, so who knew what the murderous little things did.

Two rows down and three closer in he paused in an intersection to catch his breath. He felt something strike his helmet with a smack like a thrown chicken wing as he stood. Something else streaked by in front of him as he looked around to find out what hit him. It was a dark red piece of torn flesh, and when he looked up, he saw it. A wriggling mass of the things in a feeding frenzy, eating their own dead. Or not all dead, as he saw one missing an arm have a large bite taken out of it by another. There were too many of them together and he began to back away slowly but froze when he saw a flash of black that he knew he recognized. A fist shot out of the pile with a bloody knife gripped tightly within, stabbing and slashing wildly. The wounds the man caused created more chaos in the pile as his victims began to be targeted by their former comrades.

Everts’ pain fogged brain recognized the black of marine armor before it was swallowed up in the thrashing, feeding mob. Before he knew it the pistol was once again in his hand and rising to point up at the creatures when a smaller hand gripped his and tugged him back.

“What are you doing, sir? There’s probably fifty of those things!”

That was a problem, he knew. But there was another problem he could not ignore that was more important than that.

“One of our marines is in there.”

“What? Sir, are you okay?”

He knew he was not.

“No. One of our marines is in there. I saw him.”

She pulled away and crept around him, looking up to where the creatures swarmed. Breathe in. Breathe out. No deep breaths. In, out.

“Sir? I think you’re right. That’s one of ours. What are we going to do?”

“Help him, of course. He’s one of ours, isn’t he?”

The grin he tried on was probably more of a grimace. But, needs must, it would have to serve. He stepped around the corner once more and raised the pistol that seemed to have gained weight in the past few minutes. But raise it he did, and aimed at one on the edge that was chewing a mouthful of something disgusting. Headshot. Boom. Another creature leapt from the pile onto the newest morsel. He shot that one too. Twice, before it calmed down and became a good little cannibal critter. Three more extricated themselves from the pile and he got two of them before the third turned and launched itself at him. His next hasty shot missed by a mile. It did hit one on the edge of the pile and that one turned and launched itself at this newest opponent too.

The last of that magazine he spent taking down just those two. Another was pressed into his hand as soon as he released it from the pistol, and he began firing again. Two reloads in and all hell broke loose. Over a dozen creatures at once were coming at them and he could feel small hands pulling at his ruined maneuvering pack. He released his mag boots and floated as she dragged him to safety. The creatures kept coming.

He clicked his boots back on whenever she stopped, and fired as soon as he was connected to the deck again. Heads exploded and weakened limbs were ripped off by the heavy bullets but they didn’t stop to eat their fallen with an enemy in sight. Each shot hammered pain deep into his chest and each breath came a bit more ragged as he shot and was dragged away. The thin air in the hold became thick with blood and gobbets of flesh, but somehow the creatures kept finding them. Once the creatures nearly caught them, dropping from above at the same time two rushed form the front. Ensign Liu seemed to become more cautious after that, only stopping him to fire twice before moving away again.

The slide locked back just as he killed the latest one diving down from above. A swift change of magazine and… Nothing. He peered up, down, left and right. After long moments he caught sight of something red above him and jerked his arm up only to stop just before tightening his finger the last little bit on the trigger. It was the marine, walking along the ceiling who then descended quickly if not with much grace. Everts could see the faint distortion where air was escaping his armor in not one but several different places. He could also see the suit patches covering even more small holes.

I could do this half-drunk and ninety percent asleep five years ago. I can do it now. Pain was a distraction, like drunk was a distraction, like sleepy was a distraction. He didn’t need to think to patch suits. His hands knew the work better than his brain. Ensign Liu helped as well, as it took both of their emergency kits to seal up the last of the leaking holes.

“Thank you, sir. I’m, uh, here to rescue you?”

The young man seemed awfully earnest. Everts suppressed a tired eye roll.