“Only the man who has known freedom

can define his prison.”

― Catherine Fisher, Incarceron

Point of Documentation: ????, Phoenix 11, Wing C

Fire wreathed the front of the cockpit just as pain wracked the front of his head. His foot kicked out to the dark glass once… twice… over and over again as the glass cracked across its entirety in a vain attempt at freedom. He kicked out dozens of times as his senses slowly started to come back to him. The pains in his legs and hands were the first thing he came to understand. The second was that the fire was starting to creep up his resistant clothing from his seat. A fire that was the only thing providing light now in his darkened pod. That as well as the dying display before him that held one or two motes of light in the darkness.

Panic set in to him once more and the kicking started in a more frenzied manner. The glass was something that was meant to survive the void of space and was both pressurized and secured against the internal pressure of air against the void. If the fire was starting in here and the air had not been eaten up by the greedy heat then it was safe to assume that the pressurization was no longer in effect and the hull had a hole.

His eyes wandered around the cockpit for the hole. It landed, however, on possibly his saving grace: his pistol. Of course, his reserve pistol! He took it from the holster on the right of his seat just as the bottom of it caught aflame. The heat in the cockpit reached unbearable levels as the flames started to work up the controls on the front, reminding him of his goal to get out even as the blood on his brow attempted to distract him.

The gun raised up to fire at the glass. The moment the barrel leveled with the glass; the entire craft rocked back and forth with a vicious lurch. The gun fell from his hands into the flames below him and slipped below his seat. A curse left his mouth as the craft went sideways; the safety belts were the only thing keeping him in his seat against this sudden force. An inhuman scream echoed from outside the craft’s shattered and opaque shielding. A shielding that, as the ship went sideways, popped off and let the glass on the inside of it spill out into the sand below it.

The boy paused as the shielding popped off and sand spilled into the edge of the cockpit. The sounds of skittering outside in the ashy-sand surroundings are not the only thing filling his ears now. Yells and panicked voices came through from an unknown distance outside… and the sound of alloy sliding across alloy. The gun! The boy ripped off the half burnt holster from his seat, unbuckled himself, and fell from his seat onto the ground below. A hefty ten foot drop that left him nearly breathless… and the light of the day even more so blinding. His gloved hand came out for the gun. He felt the heat through his glove as his hand touched the gun but for a moment. A wince of pain clearing his mind. The panic came again soon after. A cold, sweaty panic.

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Another pilot ran past a few dozen yards away with their pilot’s reserve pistol drawn. The crashed and broken wreckages around blocking most sight to the area they were in. Their helmet was on, so it wasn’t clear which of his wingmen it was. A rough number ‘4’ painted on the side of their helmet gave a clue, but the boy’s swimming head could not ascertain what that number meant or who wore it. The pilot turned in their panicked running to show a patch of a phoenix clearly on their left shoulder… what was remaining of it. A large chunk had been cleanly hewn off and the ball joint was showing. Even with the evident pain, they seemed to be more concerned with fleeing from something.

The answer came in a horrific sight that caused the boy to grab the heated gun regardless of the pain that it caused. A dark, shifting limb came from behind his blocked view from the fighter. It reached out and swiped the pilot at the ankle and caused them to fall hard on their back. The rest of the shape drug itself out from the unknown angles behind the craft. It was a Spawnling, a writhing, wiggling shape of biomass that wasn’t sure if it was a dog or horse, taloned or pawed, spiked or locked. The shape pulsed as it was shot multiple times with the reserve pistol. Pain cried out from the form and it let go to cover where it was shot. The pilot scooted back and emptied their pistol into the thing, seeming to cause it to stumble and back up.

A second set of limbs came from the other side of the pilot and, rather than grabbing for them, stomped with both frontal limbs on the pilot’s upper body. With the fire stopping from the pistol, the first Spawnling resumed its approach… and they tore the pilot apart. Limbs flew as they brutalized the pilot and consumed the now pile of meat in a rapid manner.

The boy quickly snatched the pistol, ignoring the pain as he did, and scooted back as quietly as he could away from the crash site of the multiple fighters and away from this horrible sight as it unfolded. Pure fear fueled his need for silence and speed, sacrificing the second to preserve the first at times. Once he was sure he was out of immediate danger of being spotted by the things; the boy shakily stood into a crouch and rounded a dune’s top. As he came to the top, his head turned to look behind him. The sight behind him made him sprint and abandon all hopes of being silent.

Behind him was the hive towering out of the ashen-sand dunes a mile off that they had planned to destroy. It belched out more and more Voidlings from its maw even now. Hundreds… thousands. The boy ran in the opposite direction, hoping to reach safety. Hoping to reach humanity. Hoping to reach the wall that separated this devastated land… and the rest of Humanity’s last struggling stronghold on Earth.