Klaxons screeched as Kon raced along the narrow walkway, the heavy emergency duffel bag bounced off his back with each desperate stride. Rumbles shook the ship as the pulse cannons fired again and again. One part of his mind noticed that each salvo had slightly less shots fired than the last. He pushed the negative thoughts out of his mind as he continued to run through the access corridors to the escape shuttles.

  “All hands, abandon ship. This is not a drill. All hands, abandon ship. This is not a drill.” The ship's automated voice rang out over and over as the Dragon’s Maw shuddered again. Kon couldn’t help but think of the repercussions of his home being shot out from under him. It had been his life for the last six years, training in its halls and classrooms with the rest of the cadets.

  He made the final turn and slapped his hand against the sensor to open the hatch that led to the main thoroughfare that the escape shuttles were docked in. Smoke billowed around him and he coughed instantly as the toxic smoke scoured his throat and lungs.

  Kon hit the deck and got under the worst of the yellow smoke. Training had equipped him for what to do in these types of situations, but the reality of it happening here and now shocked him. Using his toes and fingers he scuttled down the hall and toward the bay, relying on memory more than his compromised sight.

  Hshzroo the sound of energy weapons firing came down the hall, shortly followed by pained screams. Decidedly non-human screams. Shouts in foreign languages assaulted his ears and Kon cursed as he found the door panel that operated the hangar’s blast door. It opened without a sound and Kon raced in, slapping a hand blindly behind him to close the blast door behind him.

  Without the choking smoke, Kon was able to clear his watery eyes and clear his lungs, gasping in clean air as he took in the hurried, but still organized evacuation of the ship. Clerks, technicians, and sailors were rushing to the appropriate ships while a half-dozen squires shouted above the clamor and pointed to the correct shuttles. They were all wearing light armor that covered their chests, heads, thighs, and shins. Dull gray armor that light didn’t reflect off of. Each held a standard energy weapon, the type that wouldn’t melt through or pierce bulkheads and expose the inhabitants to void of space.

  Eight tubular shuttles sat in a line along the edge of the bay, each before a tunnel that would shoot them from the protected depths of the ship and into space. At the end of the tunnels was both a sealed blast door and an atmospheric shield. They would be lowering the blast doors now while the shield could keep the ship pressurized, it wouldn’t stop anything physical from flying down the tunnels and into the heart of the ship.

  A single knight watched over them all. The ship wasn’t so large that Kon didn’t know every knight on sight, but Knight Evelyn Bosch wasn’t the social type. She wore her full power armor, a seven foot tall juggernaut of steel who projected a quiet air of confidence. Her own weapons weren’t standardized weakly powered energy weapons, but a pair of short swords on her hip and an energy projector mounted on a wrist. Her suit would have more deadly surprises on it, but that was all Kon could notice as he started to race toward the stairs that connected the catwalk to the bay.

  Another rumble shook the ship, more violent than all the others and Kon cursed as the stairs disappeared out from under his feet. He flew and hit the deck hard and rolled to disperse the energy of the fall. For a moment he worried about having broken the shoulder he had landed on, but the pain faded away as he got to his feet.

  A beam of yellow energy sizzled by his head and Kon leapt to the side, muscle memory pushed through his confusion as he looked around. The primary doors leading into the hangar had been blasted inward and a stream of black armored figures raced inside, firing their weapons indiscriminately into the crowd of evacuating crewmembers.

  Flesh blackened and burst as the water evaporated from bodies in bursts of steam that sent corpses to the ground. Squires fired back as they walked fearlessly against the horde of invaders. Knight Bosch leapt, clearing the twenty meters in a blink of an eye. She landed amongst the invaders in a flash of green energy that wrapped around her body and swords as she moved so fast she left afterimages behind her.

  For a moment Kon thought it was over. The survivors raced into the shuttles as discipline collapsed and they ran into the closest open ramp and the line of shuttles filled. Ramps raised and locked and the shuttles detached from their anchors with a whumph pneumatic cannons propelled them out of their launch bays and into space.

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  The line of eight shuttles quickly whittled down to just two and both of them were the furthest away from where Kon had come down. He kept his head low as he ran toward the shuttles and felt his heart fall as the seventh shuttle departed before he crossed the halfway mark. Smoke had flooded into the bay and the steam and smoke from those who had been hit by the energy weapons added to the confusion all around the cavernous bay.

  “They can’t see me,” Kon thought miserably as a squad of familiar looking cadets came running through the door the invaders had and raced directly into the open door of the shuttle. Knight Bosch and the three surviving squires turned and leapt into the shuttle in a blur of motion. The ramp closed and the shuttle departed and with it, the last of his hope.

  Kon came to a stop in the middle of the corpse-strewn bay and thought furiously. There were two other bays, but the sounds of fighting echoed down the halls and he doubted he’d be able to scrape by again without encountering more of the invaders.

  “Nobody likes a whiner. Get to it, Kon,” he spoke to himself, his voice loud in the suddenly silent bay. Following his own words he went over to a dead squire, a boy’s face that he vaguely recognized as being a few years older than himself. The rifle in his arms was molten slag, but the kinetic weapon on his hip was still functional.

  A full magazine of 10mm rounds were in the weapon, but Kon didn’t find any more of the magazines on the body. Sounds were coming closer to him and Kon didn’t have any time to scavenge the other dead bodies. Pistol clenched tightly he raced through the broken open lower doors that the invaders had breached.

  The hallway was clear of anyone, a few dead squires and more black armored invaders stretched out. Heavy armored footsteps came behind him and Kon was forced to run faster. There were personal escape pods he could reach, a last line of evacuation for anyone who had been left behind by the shuttle’s departure. Unlike the shuttle bays that were buried in the heart of the ship, these were along the outer edge, behind only a thin layer of armor that wouldn’t resist pulse cannon fire for long.

  He picked up speed, coughing and choking with harsh smoke and the smell of violence invaded his mouth and lungs with every deep breath. Sweat welled down his hand and pooled around his grip of the pistol. Every time he pumped his arms the heavy weapon threatened to go leaping from his grip.

  The sharp and clear fluorescent lighting snapped away and dim red emergency lighting lit up a split second later. The yellow hazard klaxon lights continued to lash about the halls, but with the smoke, dim lighting, and flashing lights created a nightmare-like feel to an already terrible encounter.

  “Keep running, prey! I enjoy the hunt!” a deep voice boomed out from somewhere behind him. It was more growl than clearly enunciated words and the howl of enjoyment that followed it confirmed that it wasn’t human. Behind Kon was nothing but smoke and gloom. Heart thumping powerfully in his chest, he started to run.

  His coughing worsened, but he forced his legs to keep churning. The signs and neon paint showed through the smoke and he used them to navigate as fear tried to cloud his mind. Another howl echoed behind him as he bounced off of a bulkhead in his haste, bruising his shoulder, but he kept his legs going.

  He wasn’t far now, the edge of the ship was close by but the number of corpses were increasing. The attackers had entered close to here and the security forces had engaged them and lost. Squires and more mundane security team bodies were mixed together, but Kon didn’t see any armored knights among the dead. There were only a handful of active knights on the ship, but any one of them should have been enough to push back an attacking force.

  The ship shook but the howl of the pulse cannons hadn’t precipitated this rumble. The Dragon’s Maw was being shaken apart by other ships. Things that the knights couldn’t fight, regardless of their individual strength. In the titanic clashes of capital ships, even the eldritch powers of the knights couldn’t compare against kilometers of steel and cannons.

  “CADET! DOWN!” A familiar voice barked and Kon obeyed instantly. He flung himself to the hard deck just as a violet burst of energy sailed past him and behind, a pained howl coming from behind him as a burst of light filled the hall. He glanced behind him and saw a hulking shape shaking itself as violet flames coated its armored form.

  Nearly eight feet of lean muscle, dark fur coated face with a muzzle covered in scars. Long fur was tightly braided with bleached bone covered in runes, came off the dog like head and fell past his shoulders. Blue aura rippled up and down the invader’s body and the violet flames flickered out. The wolf grinned toothily and stalked forward with a double bladed axe in one hand, black steel gleamed maliciously and he stalked forward with predatory intent.

  Kon looked the other way and saw Knight Commander Alice Roose come striding out of the smoke without a care in the world. She wasn’t armed or armored in anything more than her sleep wear. Thigh shorts that ended at mid thigh and a top that hardly passed her sternum. Her long copper hair was disheveled and looked like she had just crawled out of bed.

  Violet energy was glowing up her arms as she tread barefoot over toward him. Every muscle in her body was pulsings, ripples that rolled down her as more and more energy was drawn from her core and filled her with omnipotent strength. She cracked her neck and raised her fists into a boxer’s stance.

  “Get behind me. This is going to get messy.”