Cal stepped carefully over the corpses, moving to the next corner.
Here he tucked the XO’s pistol into his waistband and stooped beside the nearest fallen soldier—the one whose helmet had been crushed down into his skull—and grabbed his rifle.
He took a moment to check it—and felt a sharp pang of sympathy.
The man had never fired a shot.
Cal relieved the corpse of two extra magazines, stuffing them awkwardly into his back pockets.
There was also a grenade.
No markings. No label.
Cal took it anyway, slipping the handle into his front pocket, letting the bulk of it hang loose.
For a brief moment, he imagined some drill instructor losing his mind at the sight.
-
Now he leaned into the next corner, where the breach had happened, peering carefully around it.
At the far end were two of the Aggressors—the survivors of the encounter around him.
They were facing away from him, moving toward the other end of the hall.
Cal debated his options in the few moments he had.
They had come this way, lost one of their number in the fight, and found nothing but locked doors behind the dead humans.
Now they were going to regroup.
So it was two now… or five later.
Cal was right handed so there was no choice but to step fully into the open if he wanted to properly shoulder the weapon.
He elected to drop to one knee, propping his elbow on his other knee for stability—Cal peered down the sights and slowly exhaled.
He squeezed, steady pressure—all of his focus on keeping the sights level—waiting for the trigger to break. Wanting to be surprised when it came.
Steady, slow—and it fired.
Cal knew he had hit it and thought it dropped but he hadn’t waited to be sure.
He was moving.
And it was good he had.
An enormous blast of red energy tore down the corridor, slamming into the wall behind him.
A chunk of paneling exploded outward, leaving a smoking crater.
Cal sprinted past the corpses, back to the next corner—one he could fire from without exposing himself.
He took as much cover as he could and shouldered his weapon.
He waited.
—
The girls could hear them.
Tearing at the door in the other room.
Brenda’s voice remained calm—but urgent.
“No, Savannah—the red ones. You too, Sierra. Swap them out quickly.”
Savannah hesitated.
Sierra did not.
She dumped the orange caps from her revolver and began replacing them with red.
Savannah reached forward and pulled two red caps free.
She took a steadying breath.
Then she began loading her rifle.
Brenda spoke again.
“Girls.”
Her tone was different now.
Contrite.
“When the battle began, I dramatically increased power to the transceiver to contact the Chromaphor ship.
The Aggressors detected it.
And now, they have decided something here is worth investigating.
I made a mistake.
I need you to carefully follow my instructions to correct it.”
—
Cal lowered his eyes to the fallen soldiers.
He searched for another grenade.
Each soldier had one.
Letting the rifle hang from its sling, he retrieved his own grenade and examined it with trepidation.
He had never used one before.
But the operation seemed simple enough.
Cal pulled the pin and hurled the device as hard as he could down the corridor.
He hoped it would bounce off the far wall and round the corner.
It didn’t.
Instead, it landed near the intersection, rolled a bit—Cal ducked back.
And detonated.
A flash of intense red light was accompanied by a blast you could feel in your chest.
He moved.
Coming back around the corner—rifle raised and aimed at the corner.
Keeping his eyes on the intersection, he dropped to one knee and felt blindly over the belt of the defiled corpse, searching for the grenade
Found it.
Slipped the handle into his pocket, the bulk hanging free like the first.
Cal stood and advanced toward the next corner.
He paused.
Listened.
Then—quickly rounded the turn and dropped again to a knee.
Nothing.
Only the edge of the boarding shuttle protruding into the corridor.
Cal stood.
He moved forward.
—
The bad guys were cutting through the door to their quarters.
Some kind of tool, generating noise and smoke—a smoldering black bead crept slowly down the middle of the door.
Savannah crouched in the corner, watching as it worked its way toward the bottom.
It didn’t have to go all the way.
The door popped slightly open before the bead reached the floor.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
And then an enormous set of grotesquely clawed hands pried it apart.
The door slid into the pockets of the wall.
Savannah wanted to scream.
She didn’t.
The thing filled the entire doorway.
Gray.
Massive.
Awful.
It made low, snarling noises, reaching back with one hand.
A rifle was passed to it from someone unseen.
-
Sierra sat alone in the girl’s bedroom.
Her revolver was loaded with red caps for the first time in her life.
It was aimed at the bedroom door.
-
The monster’s eyes swept the room.
It looked directly at Savannah.
Twice.
Then—It sniffed.
A slow, deliberate inhale.
Its body shifted.
It turned toward her.
Savannah held her breath.
The rifle in her hands trembled.
It was aimed at the center of its chest.
Brenda’s voice whispered in her ear.
“Do nothing.
It cannot see you.
It does not know you’re here.
It smells something.
It will not shoot a smell.
Do nothing.”
Savannah obeyed.
The monster took a step toward her.
Its rifle leveled at her.
A smaller step.
Then, it turned.
It moved toward the adults’ bedroom.
A second monster now entered the room.
—
Cal approached the breaching shuttle.
He checked the far end of the hall one last time before shifting his aim to the breach in the Sol’s corridor.
Thick sealing foam surrounded a metal intrusion, designed explicitly for this—breach a hull, seal the breach, unload its passengers.
Cal lifted his foot to step forward.
He stopped.
Quietly, he placed his foot back down and took a step back.
He allowed the rifle to hang from its sling as he reached for the grenade.
He pulled it free, gripped the pin, and moved slightly for a better throwing angle.
An energy blast ripped from the shuttle.
Cal didn’t know if he’d been hit.
He hadn’t.
Even a glancing shot would have killed him instantly.
But the creature had fired the moment it saw movement—and the impact missed by a hair, ripping into the wall beside him.
If the Aggressor had slightly poorer reflexes Cal would be dead.
Something—maybe the blast—maybe his own instinct to dive—had sent Cal flying to the floor and away from the smoldering spot in the wall.
The creature stepped out of the shuttle.
Cal was on the floor, his rifle was under him, he had no options.
He yanked the pin.
And threw the grenade at the thing's feet.
They were both going to die, Cal thought.
The creature was stepping forward.
Its massive foot came down directly on the grenade.
It detonated.
—
The girls and the monsters heard the explosion.
Similar to one from earlier.
But this time—A horrific sound followed.
A wailing, animalistic scream.
Unquestionably something in agony.
Something big. Something not human.
The Aggressors reacted immediately.
The two Savannah could see turned toward the noise.
The one exploring the adults’ bedroom returned, snarled—a guttural, wet sound—and the one in the doorway immediately moved into the hall.
Its heavy footsteps retreated away from them.
More low snarling from the one who seemed to be in charge as he took position at the room's exit, replacing the departed monster.
The one hovering in the center of the room turned toward the girls’ bedroom.
And advanced.
Brenda whispered:
“Keep your aim on the left one.
Trust your sister to handle hers.
Be ready.”
Her voice was calm. Cold. Absolute.
-
Sierra shoved the wailing sound out of her mind.
She focused.
The memory of her Uncle’s voice whispered to her.
Stay calm. Stay alive.
Know your target. Know what’s behind it.
The extra moment you think you don’t have—
Is always worth taking.
-
Brenda had calculated the exact point of no return for the Aggressor approaching Sierra’s door.
She had calculated how long it would take her to speak.
How long it would take Savannah to react.
Now, at exactly the right moment, she whispered—
“Shoot him in the head, Savannah. Right now.”
—
Cal was hurt.
He didn’t know where.
Didn’t know how bad.
But he knew pain.
His thoughts blurred.
What—happened?
The werewolf.
Cal forced himself to focus.
He rolled onto his back—
Bad idea.
Everything hurt.
That noise—
What is that awful fucking noise?
Cal lifted his head—it pounded.
Forced his eyes to focus.
A massive figure writhed on the floor.
Rolling.
Screaming.
Cal looked left.
The XO’s pistol lay there.
Cal grabbed it.
Pointed at the noise.
He knew there was a right way to shoot.
He knew it wasn’t blindly firing at a loud sound.
Didn’t matter.
Everything hurt.
And he needed to kill the noise.
For some reason—he was absolutely certain he needed to kill the noise.
He jerked the trigger.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Until the noise stopped.
Then—Cal’s head fell backward.
And darkness.
—
Savannah hesitated.
Brenda had accounted for that.
“Squeeze, Savannah. Slow and steady.”
Somewhere to her right, the bedroom door slid open.
She ignored it.
She squeezed.
Slow.
It should be a surprise, she told herself.
-
The doors parted.
Sierra saw it.
A fucking-goddamn-holy-shit-werewolf in the doorway.
She gasped.
Its head snapped toward her.
She squeezed.
-
Savannah’s rifle jerked in her hands.
She yelped.
The creature never got the chance to wonder about the little girl who had just appeared in the corner.
It crumpled.
A cloud of red, flecked with chunks of gray, materialized where its head had been.
-
The werewolf fired at Sierra.
At the same moment she fired at it.
They hit each other.
Sierra’s shot landed center-mass, right on a plate designed to stop exactly this.
It flinched.
Her shield flared.
She didn’t feel anything.
She fired again.
Rushed the shot.
It worked out.
The creature’s shoulder jerked, a chunk of leather and blood peeling back.
It snarled, trying to bring its aim back to the child who had just shot it twice.
Sierra took the moment she was sure she didn’t have.
She aligned the blade at the end of her barrel with the thing’s head.
She squeezed slowly.
-
Savannah screamed again as Sierra’s revolver barked and the one in the bedroom doorway stumbled back—
And fell to the ground with a thud.
She jerked her rifle toward it, eyes wide, breathing heavy.
“The door, Savannah,” Brenda urged—louder than normal.
“Aim at the door. Now!”
Savannah was good at following instructions.
It wasn’t the first time that instinct saved her.
The monster that had been sent away earlier reappeared.
It fired instantly.
It hadn’t aimed.
The shot slammed into the wall—
Close enough to make Savannah scream.
She fired back without aiming either.
The shot buried into the doorframe.
The creature ducked back into the hall—
And was met with the roar of fully automatic gunfire.
-
“DOWN!”
“All Clear!”
“Moving Up!”
“IS ANYONE IN THE ROOM?!”
-
Savannah’s rifle was still raised.
Her hands trembled.
Her whole body trembled.
Tears ran down her face.
Brenda’s voice whispered, ever so gently.
“Lower your weapon.
Tell them it is safe to come in.”
Savannah moved only what she was told to move.
Her rifle lowered, the barrel aimed at the floor.
She opened her mouth.
And started sobbing.
