Rust Goddess appeared, sailing over the dead warship. Her turrets were spitting hellfire. Under a lightshow of return fire, they maneuvered into the airlock and hit the button that cycled it.

  “Alright,” Tarl managed to say though his heavy breathing, “I’ll get this thing installed. You two cover me.”

  Movement attracted their attention to the outer door’s viewport. One of them had its face pressed against it.

  It had a long snout, the gaping maw full of needle teeth. A thick lens on the side of its head. Under this, something organic squirmed, a twisted version of an eye.

  The hide was thick, like armor, or an insect’s exoskeleton. It moved a long-fingered hand into view. There was a small hole in its wrist, not a wound, but something natural. Eli was able to see another on its back.

  A jet of weird, static flame came out of its mouth, “We’ll find a way in. There is no escape. You will suffer!”

  The thing moved away. The airlock finished cycling. Another one of Tarl’s bodies was waiting for them. This body and the one that had gone with them into the derelict grabbed the pump and picked it up. In tandem, they carried it down a series of corridors. Eli and Gami followed them.

  Gami rubbed her left temple with two fingers, “Voidborne beings are notoriously difficult to kill. They have to be tough to survive in space.”

  “They have some kind of thrusters on their bodies,” Eli offered, “Those could be weak points.”

  “It’s worth a try. You provide close support. I’ll try to get the drop on them.”

  They reached a machine room. This was an open space, large enough that even at a sprint it would take at least a half a minute to cross it. Bulky equipment lined the walls. Large pipes stretched across the length of the room, dividing it up at different heights.

  The Tarls lugged the pump into a corner. They picked up tools and got to work. The Rust Goddess’s captain had placed a collection of weapons and ammo in the room. Gami selected a scout carbine and a pair of heavy pistols. Eli picked up a squad support machinegun.

  Gami stripped out of her space suit, put her helmet on, and activated her stealth system, disappearing, at least from the spectrum which he could see in. It took her several minutes to atune the carbine to the field, so that it too disappeared. Eli tried to follow the nearly imperceptible blur as she climbed up one of the ship’s subsystems and leapt onto a pipe. From there, he lost her.

  A klaxon sounded. A prerecorded voice accompanied the alarm. It alerted them to the fact that there had been a hull breach in one of the forward compartments.

  Eli took up a position behind a piece of equipment. He unfolded the bipod, sat the weapon on top of his cover, and braced the buttstock against his shoulder.

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  The entrance opened. The things began to pour through. At that proximity, and in that light, he got a much better look at them. They were evolved to survive in the vacuum, and atop those hardy attributes mother nature had gifted them, they had added technology. They had salvaged weapons and gadgets of all kinds and origins. They wore these things over their armored exoskeleton.

  Eli fired in long bursts, cutting them down as they came through the door. White blood burst out of the gaping wounds that the gun blasted into them. When their maneuvering jets were struck, they exploded violently, blowing even more gristly holes in the victim.

  They returned fire. Pulses and bullets struck the thing that Eli was taking cover behind. Rounds ricocheted off in storms of sparks. Light melted holes into metal. Some brandished cruel melee weapons, which looked like they had been fashioned from starship hull plating.

  Even over the deafening sound of the barrage he was laying down, he heard a shot from above. One of them fell beside him. It had found a way around and tried to stab him in the back. But Gami had dealt with it.

  Gami’s voice in his earpiece, “Watch out! They’ve found a way through one of the vents!”

  Eli moved out of cover, firing short, controlled bursts into them as they bolted at him from behind instrument panels or tried to drop down on him from one of the pipes that crisscrossed the room. He started making his way over to Tarl, who kept working, despite the chaos going on around him.

  ***

  Gami lined up the iron sights and squeezed the trigger. One of their heads exploded, it fell, the shot that it was lining up failing to hit one of Tarl’s bodies.

  Gami took potshots from above, dropping enemies as they tried to get at Tarl and Eli. She had let go, fully immersing herself in some of her earliest training. One shot at a time, she dropped them. Headshots were instant kills. Shots to their maneuvering jets were also effective.

  Some of them seemed to have realized that there was a threat above them. They were ascending as she had, jumping between the pipes, making their way toward the high ceiling.

  The mag ran out. She switched to the pair of pistols. A blur of death, she leapt around, killing one with a brief salvo, before changing position and opening fire again. The guns ran dry. She dropped them, drew her sidearm and knife, and started working her way down toward Tarl and Eli.

  ***

  The drum ran out. Eli dropped the big gun and drew his pistol. One of them charged, swinging a crude axe. Eli fired as he dodged, putting a round into the attacker. A long jet of flame shot out of its mouth, the static conveying a death cry.

  A thud on the deck plates startled him. Gami decloaked, gunning down one foe, slashing another’s throat open.

  “Pump’s installed,” Tarl shouted, “Start making your way to your ship.”

  “Copy,” Gami said, “You got that autopilot set up?”

  Tarl’s tone was nonchalant, “I’ll just sacrifice one of my bodies.”

  Eli frowned, “You sure that you really want to do that?”

  “Don’t worry about it, I’ll just grow another one. Now, let’s get to your ship!”

  The four of them ran out of the room. They barreled through a maze of corridors, only slowing down to take potshots at the beings which chased them. Tarl’s bodies took the lead, guiding them back to a familiar area. They went through the door that led to the spine.

  The vessel shook violently. One of Tarl’s bodies fell over. The other helped it back up. Eli braced himself against a wall. Even with her physical training Gami struggled to stay on her feet.

  “The tractor beam’s got us,” Tarl reported, “We’re moving fast. Hurry!”

  The group ran down the long corridor. Enemies jumped out of the cargo bays. Firing as they went, they pushed through them. Two of Tarl’s flying things glided over their heads, grenades clutched in their talons. They conducted a bombing run on the group’s pursuers. Then they circled back around, swooping into Cavalier.

  Another one of Tarl’s bodies was waiting in the hangar. It provided suppression fire using a pair of submachineguns. Crawling under this barrage, they made it into the hangar and onto the ship.