Metro Day 1,830 – The Mikri Poli Spaceport Hangar
The scream tore through the air like a blade.
It wasn't human. Not even close. It was the kind of sound that set ancient instinct alight—like the howling of a predator in the black. It echoed down the frost-glazed corridors, bouncing off shattered glass and warped metal, filling the lungs with something old and primal: dread.
> "MOVE!"
The Sergeant's voice cut through the tension like a commandment. The squad exploded into motion.
---
The Chase
They sprinted down the corridor—past shattered terminals, broken benches, and rust-covered safety signs that hung at odd angles like relics from a forgotten age. Ash drifted from the ceiling like snow, stirred by the tremors of their boots. The overhead lights flickered weakly, casting distorted shadows that danced like ghosts in every crevice.
Old advertisements still clung to the walls in curling sheets, their once-vibrant images faded to hollow caricatures. Smiling families posed in front of long-dead shuttles. Bright banners promised discounts and destinations that would never be reached again.
And then the screaming came again—closer now. Echoing. Shrill.
From outside the terminal's fractured windows, a massive shadow passed overhead, blotting out what little light filtered through the cracked dome.
Then it hit.
The creature smashed through a section of the frost-covered glass, wings spread wide, its body like a grotesque parody of flight. Black membranes stretched over exposed ribs and skeletal limbs. Its claws dug deep into the walls as it landed with a wet, crunching thud, talons gouging sparks from the floor.
> "Eyes up! Wings incoming!" the Sergeant shouted, voice sharp.
Crackshot was already spinning, rifle raised. He fired three times, quick and practiced. The first round ricocheted. The second grazed the beast's flank. The third struck true—right through the gaping jaw.
The thing shrieked, staggered, and tumbled through a broken ticket kiosk, dragging bits of rusted signage with it as it fell.
Then another appeared.
It came from above—crawling along the ceiling, its claws piercing ancient metal with sickening ease. Its body was longer than a man's, with spindly limbs and a distended spine. Its skin was the pale, rotting hue of a corpse left in the sun, and fused into its back was something horrifyingly familiar:
A harness.
A rescue animal's harness.
> A dog, Lili realized, her blood turning to ice. It used to be a dog.
She barely had time to think before the beast let out a wet, bubbling hiss and launched itself toward them.
Garr reacted without hesitation. He roared, dropping low and catching the creature mid-flight with his armored shoulder. The impact knocked them both into the wall with a thunderous clang.
> "Lili, down!" he barked.
She hit the floor, heart hammering. Her hands scraped across the frozen tile as she scrambled behind an overturned luggage scanner, lightstone at her chest pulsing erratically with fear.
The Medic was already dragging the wounded Crackshot to cover, blood trailing behind them like a banner of despair. Reeve and Vale returned fire, the shriek of las-bolts tearing through the cold.
The ceiling buckled.
Dust rained down.
And the beasts kept coming.
---
They kept moving.
Boots thundered against old ferrocrete and buckled steel. The squad pushed through corridors half-choked with debris, ducking beneath collapsed signage and sprinting past flickering emergency lights that cast crimson halos through the dust.
Breath fogged thick in the subzero air. Every exhale was a gasp. The cold bit at joints and burned in lungs, gnawing even through the layers of cloth and armor.
The Medic wheezed, spun, and fired down the corridor.
> "Behind!"
A rot-wing—its wings torn and flapping uselessly—banked low through the open concourse and smashed into a support pillar with a sound like wet bones shattering. Its body hit the tile floor in a mess of twisted limbs and snapping teeth, screeching as it clawed mindlessly at the air.
Crackshot turned and fired once more.
> "It's not dead!"
> "Don't stop!" the Sergeant shouted. "Push through!"
They passed a collapsed security checkpoint, the walls still stained with las-burns and impact craters from battles fought long ago. Bloodless corpses in flak armor lay frozen in place—imperial guardsmen from another age, their final expressions still etched in cracked faceplates.
Then a voice—shaky, sharp.
> "Here!" Reeve barked. "Service lock!"
Ahead, a recessed door stood embedded in the wall—its edges warped from heat, but intact. The words EMERGENCY EGRESS ONLY were etched in faded red across the blast plating.
Crackshot didn't wait. He slid into the panel alcove like a man possessed, unslinging his tools in a practiced blur. His fingers, though numb, moved with desperation and precision.
> "Come on, come on—open, you bastard—"
A single wire sparked. The lock hissed. The door groaned.
Lili glanced back.
A soft skittering echoed through the corridor.
One of the creatures—a twisted, elongated thing—was crawling along the ceiling. Upside down. Its limbs were too long. Its mouth hung open in a crooked, lipless smile that stretched far too wide. Milky eyes blinked in mismatched rhythms.
It was watching her.
It twitched.
And leapt.
The blast door slammed shut.
THUNK.
Something splattered against the far side.
A long, wet smear of black and red oozed through the thin seam at the base of the door, bubbling and sizzling on contact with the freezing floor.
No one cheered. No one spoke.
They just ran.
**
The Run to the Bay
The service corridor on the other side was like a throat—tight, winding, and chokingly cold.
This was no grand promenade or polished civilian walkway. It was industrial—raw, rusted steel and exposed piping. The walls were close. The air thick with the stink of mildew, frozen sewage, and half-processed chemicals from ruptured ducts. Condensation dripped steadily from overhead.
Red warning lights flickered with no rhythm, the systems too decayed to maintain even the illusion of order. Shadows jerked and leapt in their wake, making the squad twitch with every step.
> "Don't stop," the Sergeant said, voice low. "Keep eyes forward."
The corridor sloped downward, then banked left. Old signage pointed the way toward auxiliary hangars. Lili could barely read them—frost and grime had worn them to ghosts.
Her legs ached. Her breath burned. But she didn't slow.
She was surrounded by giants in armor, their breath ragged in the stillness. They weren't just her protectors anymore—they were her last remaining family.
> Don't let them die. Don't fall behind.
They passed an open hatch to a side maintenance room. Inside were bodies—curled in corners, wearing the uniforms of port staff. Some still clutched datapads. Others held each other.
The Medic slowed for a moment, just a heartbeat—then kept moving.
> Too late. Too late for all of them.
Then—light.
Crackshot reached the far panel. His gloved hand wiped away frost from the viewing port. A faint glow—distant, yellow-white—filtered through.
> "This is it. We're here."
He turned the crank. The lock disengaged.
The hatch creaked open.
And light spilled in.
A wide chamber greeted them.
Silent.
Once a place of thunderous engines and roaring logistics orders. Once alive with the motion of ships and crews and cargo.
Now—frozen tomb.
Blackened crates and frost-covered scaffolds lay piled in crooked rows. Giant gantries loomed like the ribs of some ancient beast, lost to time.
And at the center—
A ship.
---
It stood tall and proud against the cathedral ceiling of the hangar—an old ST-96 Grav Hauler, weathered by time and war, but still upright, still whole. Its hull bore the pitted scars of orbital debris impacts and laser burns. Great chunks of its outer plating were scorched to black, and the faded emblem of the Imperium was barely visible on its flank beneath layers of ash.
Yet it stood.
The engines—twin plasma thrusters the size of bunker doors—remained intact, their vents cold but unbreached. The forward cabin's viewport was spiderwebbed with cracks, but not shattered. A boarding ramp hung partway open at the side like an invitation from an old friend. Frozen cables still curled from its undercarriage like vines from a forgotten ruin.
But it was there.
Real.
Tangible.
Hope made metal.
Lili's eyes widened. Her mouth parted.
In that moment, she forgot everything—the cold biting her fingers, the stink of the rot-wing's blood on her coat, the coppery tang of adrenaline in her mouth. She didn't feel the ache in her legs or the weight of her pack.
She only saw the ship.
> "A ship," she breathed. Her voice was so soft, so awed it barely carried. "A ship."
The others stopped.
Time paused.
They stared.
Garr exhaled a breath he'd held for hours. Crackshot staggered and let out a short, cracked laugh that sounded halfway between madness and prayer. The Corporal dropped to his knees, his hands limp at his sides, mouth agape.
> "We made it."
Only the Sergeant remained silent.
His eyes swept the bay, scanning for movement, cover, approach vectors.
But even he stood a moment longer than he should have, letting the shape of the freighter fill his vision.
Then, as if remembering himself, he snapped forward.
> "How long to prep?"
Crackshot shook himself back to the moment. "Eight minutes, maybe ten. Depends if auxiliary power holds."
> "You get six."
They moved.
No one needed orders.
Reeve and Vale broke off to cover the hangar's side entries, weapons raised, eyes scanning every vent and every shadow. The Corporal and Garr fanned out toward the gantries and scaffolds that ringed the launch bay, checking for anything moving.
Crackshot bounded up the ladder to the freighter's dorsal hatch like a man possessed, tools already in hand.
Lili followed. Her steps were shaky, her hands trembling—not with fear, but with something dangerous.
Hope.
Behind them, the Medic paused near the central control terminal, fingers brushing ash off a half-shattered interface. He tapped keys out of instinct, more prayer than plan.
> "We might actually do this," he said.
The words hung in the air like the last line of a song.
Then—
A sound.
Not a noise, not truly. A sensation. A shift in pressure that made skin crawl and teeth ache. Static rose in the air like the breath before a scream.
The temperature dropped. Frost spread across the broken gantries, forming crystalline webs over scorched metal. The light dimmed, not because it faded—but because something blocked it.
The Sergeant looked up.
So did Lili.
And through the fractured glass and reinforced ceramite of the dome above—
They saw it.
A shape.
Black. Heavy. Alive.
It fell fast, screaming down from the heavens like the execution of a sentence.
Wrapped in fire.
Wreathed in green fog.
It glowed at the seams—runes etched into its living armor pulsing like veins, like it was breathing. It wasn't just falling—it was aiming.
A shriek followed—high, metallic, wrong.
The wind shifted, spiraled inward. The void above howled.
> "DROP POD! ABOVE!"
The Sergeant's warning was swallowed by the thunder.
Impact.
The pod smashed through the upper dome in a hail of fire and debris. Glass shattered like a hurricane. Steel supports screamed and twisted. The dome collapsed inward, a jagged ring of death tearing the sky apart.
It struck the ST-96 amidships.
Direct. Merciless. Absolute.
The deck screamed as it buckled. The freighter's central spine snapped like a twig, splitting the hull in two. Flames erupted from the ruptured plasma coils, washing over the hangar like solar flares. The fusion core let out a single, long, mechanical scream—
And then exploded.
The shockwave hit them like the wrath of a god.
Lili didn't see what happened to the others.
She flew.
The world spun.
Fire. Heat. Light. Pain.
She landed hard, skidding across the ash-streaked floor, her breath punched from her lungs.
She saw Garr's body tumbling mid-air, a black silhouette flung against the wall like a puppet.
She saw the Medic vanish behind a tower of fire.
She saw Crackshot scream something—something defiant—before the blast swallowed his voice.
The ST-96 was gone.
Gone.
In its place, a crater of flame.
Debris rained down. The burning remains of hopes and prayers and days of survival.
A wave of shrapnel tore through the hangar, bouncing off walls, slicing through flesh and plating alike. The blast didn't just throw bodies—it erased them.
Consoles shattered. Cables snapped. The floor itself cracked, leaving jagged rents that glowed with spilled coolant and flame.
Smoke rolled over the chamber in thick, stinking waves.
The squad lay scattered.
Silent.
Still.
Only Lili stirred—curled beneath the twisted remains of a support beam, her chest heaving, ears ringing.
She blinked.
She saw flame.
She tasted copper.
The air reeked of fuel, blood, and burning flesh.
And hope?
Hope had died screaming.
---
No More Panic. No More Fear.
There was no screaming.
No begging.
No running.
Because they were soldiers of the Imperium of Man.
Born to fire.
Bred for war.
And trained to die standing.
They had survived five years underground—buried beneath the weight of ash and loss, hunger and memory. They had buried comrades, held back tears, and breathed recycled air until they forgot what the wind felt like. Now, in the open—on the surface they once dreamed of—they stood together one last time.
> "FOR THE EMPEROR!" the Corporal roared, voice cracked and bleeding, his boots scraping the blood-slick floor as he rose from behind a shattered crate.
He raised his rifle with trembling arms, sights aligning on the glowing edge of the drop pod. His armor was fractured, chest plate scorched, but his eyes burned with the zeal of every martyr who ever stood their ground.
> "IN HIS NAME!"
He fired—over and over—las-bolts lighting up the smoke. They sizzled against the outer shell of the pod, carving black lines into green flesh-metal.
> "FOR EARTH!"
> "FOR MANKIND!"
Reeve and Vale staggered into position beside him. Reeve's visor was shattered, blood leaking down one cheek. Vale's leg twisted at a sick angle, but he leaned against a fallen beam for support.
Together, they shouted—hymns cracked by blood and ash. Their shots echoed across the hangar, a chorus of fury.
Crackshot, half his face burned away, stood laughing—a mad, gasping, broken sound.
He pulled every grenade from his belt, shoving them into a satchel with trembling hands.
> "EAT THIS, YOU ROTTING FUCKS!"
He charged into the smoke.
---
The Rotlords Descend
The drop pod peeled open like a bloated flower—metal fused with bone, cracked and weeping pus. A hiss escaped its core—wet, fetid, breathing.
And then they stepped out.
Four of them.
Each over three meters tall.
Their armor was the color of infection—green-black, streaked with blood and bile. Horns jutted from helmets. Rotting flesh pulsed through armor seams. Their legs ended in hooves wrapped in plated bone. One's chest glowed softly—a hive of burbling gas sacs beneath a visor cracked by war.
Symbols—twisting glyphs of pestilence—glowed on their pauldrons. Flies buzzed in clouds around them, wings whispering secrets from another galaxy.
One raised its cannon—a bile spewer crusted with rot and fused to its body.
The second dragged a gorecleaver, its edge jagged with teeth.
The third had a venting backplate—poison steam belching in bursts.
The fourth bore a multi-barreled blight cannon—living tubes twitching like veins.
They didn't hesitate.
They opened fire.
---
Vale was the first.
A round struck him in the torso, and he imploded—flesh and armor boiling away in a cloud of acidic vapor. His bones hit the floor like wet glass.
Reeve screamed, raising his weapon—only for the gorecleaver to slam into his chest. The blade caught, twisted, and tore him apart. His legs twitched once. Then stopped.
The Corporal tried to reload.
He never finished.
A blight round took him in the throat. His head snapped back, body spinning from the force before he hit the floor.
Blood pooled.
---
Crackshot charged into the flames.
He didn't flinch.
Didn't scream.
His satchel was cooking, grenades ready.
One Rotlord raised its bile cannon.
Fired.
BOOM.
Crackshot exploded, his body torn into a rain of fire and teeth. A rib slammed into the wall beside Lili.
But the Rotlord stood.
Still.
Burning. But whole.
---
The Last Defense
Garr rose.
His rotary gun was gone—melted, dead.
He drew his blade. A long, curved weapon. Heavy.
He didn't yell.
Didn't cry.
He charged.
Slammed into the nearest Rotlord with everything he had, knife plunging into the gap beneath its pauldron.
It grunted.
Grabbed him by the waist.
Lifted him.
And tore him in half.
Lili saw it all.
She couldn't scream.
She couldn't breathe.
The Medic pulled her behind a broken crate.
> "Stay down! Stay—"
A shot pierced his chest, bisected his heart.
He fell over her.
Blood spilled down her front.
He didn't move again.
---
The Sergeant
She knelt beside the Medic, her hands glowing faintly.
> "Please… please…"
Her lightstone flickered, sputtered.
The rot was too strong.
Footsteps behind her.
Heavy. Final.
A cannon raised.
Then—
> "NO!"
The Sergeant stepped in front of her.
Armor broken. Face burned.
He fired once. Twice.
Didn't matter.
A shot tore through his chest.
He fell.
Landed on her.
> "Play dead," he hissed.
His arms wrapped around her.
And he went still.
She didn't understand at first.
The Sergeant's body was heavy—too heavy.
His arms locked around her, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Then slowing.
Then stopping.
His weight pressed her into the floor, into blood and dust and shattered hope.
Her fingers curled into the fabric of his coat, the one she always thought of as too stiff, too clean. Now it was torn. Wet.
Warm at first. Then growing cold.
"Sergeant…?" she whispered.
Nothing.
No answer.
Just the rise and fall of the fire.
Just the slow, horrible silence.
Boots crunched over glass and bone. Not human boots—something heavier. Less natural.
The Rotlords stomped across the hangar like titanic mourners, each footfall a funeral drum. They stepped over corpses. Over craters. Over their own dead.
One paused.
Its head turned—a sick, twitching movement. It scanned the smoke.
And saw them.
Two bodies.
Crushed together.
Small. Still.
The Rotlord stepped closer.
Slow. Curious.
It knelt beside the Sergeant's motionless frame and reached down with one bloated, armored hand.
The fingers brushed Lili's arm—just barely.
And stopped.
The creature recoiled.
It sniffed.
A wet, bubbling exhale hissed from its mask.
"Ahhh… still warm…"
It tilted its head, the horns scraping faintly against a twisted beam overhead. Its voice was slow—rotted and gurgling, full of something too soft to be kindness.
"You still draw breath, little one…"
Lili's heart pounded.
She didn't move.
Couldn't.
She couldn't even scream.
The Rotlord leaned closer.
"Your tenacity is truly… most impressive…"
It chuckled, thick and bubbling.
"Why don't you join us… and hear our song?"
"It brings such… sweet smiles…"
Her eyes darted.
Smoke burned her lungs. Her fingers were slick with blood. Her back ached where the Sergeant's weight pinned her down.
Then her hand touched something round beneath her chest.
Hard.
Metal.
The grenade.
She swallowed.
The memory came fast—flashes:
The Sergeant correcting her grip on a blade. His voice in the dark: "If you're going to fight, make it count." His hand on her shoulder after she learned to shoot: "Do as I do."
She trembled. Her little fingers moved across the Sergeant's belt, curling around the device.
The Rotlord leaned in closer, its tongue slithering from between shattered teeth. It stretched toward her hand, toward the lightstone that faintly pulsed at her collar.
"You… shine…"
"You are special… so sweet… so soft…"
Her hand trembled.
Her lip quivered.
"Wh—what do you want…?" she asked.
The creature grinned—somehow—its expression twisting beneath folds of rot.
"To share… to love… to become…"
Her fingers closed tight.
The pin caught beneath her thumb.
She thought of Garr.
Of Crackshot. Of Vale and Reeve.
Of the Medic's kindness.
Of the Corporal's songs.
Of the Sergeant's voice.
"Do as I do."
She pulled the pin.
The Rotlord blinked.
Its many eyes widened.
"Hmmmm…?"
Its tongue licked her palm.
"What are you… really… my little—"
Lili screamed.
"I'M NOT YOUR LITTLE ANYTHING!"
And jammed the grenade into its mouth.
There was no time.
The lightstone pulsed once.
The world erupted in white.
Sound vanished.
Heat bloomed.
The explosion consumed them—ripping the monster's head back, fire chewing through armor, bone, flesh.
The shockwave rolled across the hangar, knocking broken walls further to rubble.
Everything went silent.
Then—
Darkness.