Flatlined

Caitlin had woken up in many unfortunate places over the years: jail cells, cargo holds, once memorably in a Hiver meditation sphere, but this was new. The cold was the first thing she noticed, followed by the wires, then the disconcerting fact that she couldn't remember her own name.

She was pinned in a coffin-sized box, wires and tubes clinging to her like particularly affectionate snakes. A calm voice whispered at her in perfect nonsense, the sort of soothing tone one used for nursery rhymes or tax audits. She recognised the words. They just refused to form a sentence.

The capsule hissed open with all the enthusiasm of a dying kettle. She sat up, or something close enough to sitting, and found herself in a beige jumpsuit so aggressively plain it looked as though the designer had been fired halfway through. Metal cuffs at her wrists and ankles clicked loose and slithered away.

Beyond the capsule was a chamber that had been decorated in shades of beige and grey, which was to say it hadn’t been decorated at all. Low berths. The phrase dropped into her mind, uninvited but certain. Several others stood open, some dark, some ominously flatlined.

The deck tilted beneath her, port-forward sagging like a drunk at closing time. Water licked at her bare feet, cold and climbing, and the chamber lights flickered the way lights do when they’re trying to decide whether to help or just enjoy the panic.

Adrenaline hit hard. She was on a ship, that much was clear. A Maus-class smallhauler. Two hundred tons of cargo-hauling mediocrity, designed to move rocks between planets without ever leaving its home system. Why she could remember that when her own name felt like it had fallen down the back of the sofa was a puzzle best left for later.

What mattered now was simple. She was on a vessel that seemed to be slowly sinking. She had no weapons, no tools, no shoes, and a jumpsuit that would embarrass a scarecrow.

---

The next berth sighed and released a young woman with white hair and a scar on her face. She moved with quiet precision, wasting nothing, not a gesture, not a breath. Caitlin felt something tighten in her chest, a memory of affection rising unbidden. She set it aside for later.

Another berth groaned and released its occupant: a Vargr. He was making a noise that could charitably be described as "confused Vargr in distress" and uncharitably as "someone drowning a bagpipe". His jumpsuit was rumpled and half unzipped already, as if even fabric couldn’t quite contain his perpetual annoyance. One sleeve, though, ended in something far from fabric: a gleaming cybernetic arm that whirred faintly as he flexed the fingers, a piece of machinery far more dignified than its owner.

An Aslan emerged from his berth next to the Vargr, tall and broad, mane bristling. He immediately cracked his head on the ceiling. Being eight feet tall in a ship designed for humans rarely worked out well. His jumpsuit was clearly not designed for his frame, seams pulled tight and fabric giving way where it could no longer cope. His yellow eyes swept the room, unimpressed.

The final berth sighed open but offered no movement. Inside lay a burly human male, completely inert. A stubbly scalp, a scruffy beard, thin spectacles clinging stubbornly, and bushy eyebrows that could have had their own postal code. He didn’t stir. Subtle metallic tracery ran across his skin, glinting under the flicker of the lights. Not a man, then. An android, dressed in beige and, for the moment, refusing to wake at all.

---

The chamber was a mess of dull jumpsuits and flickering lights. Caitlin glanced around at the group, then cleared her throat.

“Anyone remember their name?”

Blank looks. The woman with the white hair tried, her lips forming sounds that wouldn't quite arrive. The Vargr touched his head, as if checking the memory was still installed somewhere.

The Aslan's tail lashed. "My name..." He paused, and something fierce crossed his face, like he was physically wrestling the information back. "My name is Hlao'iykhateirrohrrifiy'Seieakh'tyeahtlahaoh'khaairra'fekhkhta'ihrakh.”

Caitlin blinked. “Well, congratulations. That’s less a name and more a civil engineering project. You want me to shout that in a panic while we’re drowning? I’ll be blue in the face before I get past the second apostrophe. For now, let’s call you Truck. And I’m Red, I guess? The rest of you?”

“White,” the pale woman said, the word clipped and certain, as if she’d just pulled it from a shelf in her mind and set it down where it belonged.

The Vargr gave a short, barking laugh. “Fine. If you’re Red and she’s White, then I’ll be Silver.” He flexed his gleaming arm, servos whirring for emphasis. “At least one of us deserves to sound shiny.”

“Shiny indeed. So, Red, White, Silver, and Truck,” Caitlin said. “Beige can sleep it off for now.”

She patted at her jumpsuit, found no pockets, and cursed the designer twice over. Yet there it was, still looped around her wrist: a tiny amber bear charm, clinging stubbornly where memory wouldn’t. Her eyes ticked, vision overlay snapping into clarity. 0.94 g. Dense atmosphere. Date: 127–1106. So the universe at least was still keeping track, even if her head wasn’t.

“I know this much,” she said. “We’re on a smallhauler. Maus-class. Two hundred tons of cargo-shuffling brilliance. And unless I’ve lost the knack of gravity, we’re stuck planetside. Anyone got anything else?”

White crouched, dipping her fingers in the water. She raised them to her lips, the movement as precise as everything else she’d done since stepping out of the pod. “Freshwater,” she said. “Drinkable. Very cold.”

“Cold?” Caitlin raised an amused eyebrow. “That’s the bit you think we needed confirmation on?”

White stood, shaking the droplets from her fingers. “The water is rising. Steadily, but slowly. We’re not drowning yet, but it won’t stop. We should start looking around the ship.”

“Agreed,” Caitlin said. “First one to find shoes gets my eternal gratitude.”

Truck’s tail snapped once, loud as a whip-crack. “I will give the orders.” His mane bristled as he squared his shoulders, which only made the jumpsuit seams groan louder. “I am larger than all of you. I am stronger. I am male. Clearly, I am the leader.”

Caitlin gave him a long look. “Oh, marvelous. What’s your first command, then?”

There was a pause, his ears flattening just a little. “We… should search the ship,” he said at last, almost sheepish.

They scattered through the waterlogged corridors, each hallway offering the choice between knee-deep water or waist-deep regrets. 

---

One hour later, they met again in the common area, beige walls leaning at a steady angle, water sighing around their ankles. The air reeked of fried circuits. Everyone was wet, irritable, and carrying whatever hadn’t yet floated away.

Caitlin dumped the haul on a table that wasn’t level enough for the job. “Right. What we’ve got: three revolvers, one shotgun with three shells loaded, a vacc suit, a survival kit from the cargo lock, and this.” She held up an electronic override key, the metal gleaming dully in the flicker of the lights. “Our way out.”

She let the silence hang a beat, then added, “Because whoever parked us here with an EMP clearly wanted us to stay put. Low berths full of strangers, ship crippled, water coming in steady. They left us to drown.” Her jaw tightened. “This is a Stenmore Minerals hauler. Their name is everywhere. So, either Stenmore is trafficking people, or someone in their operation is. Either way, I'd very much like to have a frank and honest discussion with them. Preferably while armed.”

“We also have tools,” Silver added, patting a salvaged kit bag. “Enough to work with. And one more thing. One of the cargo containers was blown out from the inside. EMP. That’s what cooked the ship. Twisted the plates, let the water in. Ugly work, but effective.” His ears flattened briefly. “Stupid, crude, but it worked.”

White set down the heavy survival kit with a thunk. “This has a shelter, medikit, rations, clothes, boots that won’t fall apart. It will improve our chances immensely.” She hesitated only a breath before adding, “Three others didn’t wake. Found them in the next berth room. Dressed like us. Not crew.”

Truck loomed at the edge of the room, water darkening the fur on his lower legs. "The ship is dying. We must leave."

"Right you are," Caitlin said. “There’s a hatch in the passenger section. But it’s under water. Pretty sure we can open it with the override key. We go through, seal it behind us, and hope this bucket stays afloat long enough for someone else to salvage her.” She looked around at the assembled crew. "So, we go now, we go quick, and we see what’s out there. Everyone carries what they can. Questions?"

Silver cleared his throat, ears flicking. “What about Beige? We just leave him?”

Caitlin glanced at the android still resting in the berth in the adjoining room. “Can you wake him up?”

Maltz scratched his chin, hesitation written all over his furry face. “Not quickly. Whatever turned him off was thorough. Might take hours to coax him back online.” He gave a grudging nod toward the android’s bulk. “But maybe we can haul him along. He’s heavy, but salvageable.”

Caitlin rubbed her temple. “Fine. We’ll drag him. Never know, he might reboot mid-crisis and save the day. Or at least carry his own weight.”

Truck stepped forward, his expression solemn. “I will carry the metal man. It is dishonourable to leave one of our number behind, even if his spirit is silent. Strength is mine to lend.”

Caitlin gave him a long look. “Very heroic. You can be our gallant packhorse. Just don’t drop him or I’ll have to write a tragic ballad about it, and I’m no poet.”

---

They gathered their spoils and shuffled toward the passenger section, a mismatched parade of damp jumpsuits, guns that rattled with too few bullets, and one unconscious android draped across Truck’s back like oversized luggage. Water sloshed around their ankles, higher now, and the ship groaned in the weary way of something that knew its best days were behind it.

The hatch was half-buried under grey water, an unpromising slab of metal in a beige ceiling. Caitlin jabbed the override key into the socket and gave it a theatrical flourish, as if she were about to unveil a masterpiece rather than a dripping escape route.

There was a deep click, followed by the hiss of seals giving up on life. The front edge of the hatch dipped under the rising water, and a cold rush poured down into the ship. The crew didn’t wait for an invitation. White was first up the ladder, movements precise even with water streaming off her sleeves, the survival kit slung across her back making every rung a negotiation. Silver shoved the tool bag over his shoulder and scrambled after, his metal arm clanging against the rungs in time with his grumbling. Truck climbed as if the ladder existed purely to demonstrate how small it was compared to him, though even his breathing deepened under the android's weight.

Caitlin waited until the last moment, icy water climbing to her knees. She gave the flickering chamber one last look, shook her head, and pulled herself up through the hatch. Cold daylight burst across her vision, wet air sharp in her lungs. She hit the panel again and the hatch slammed shut behind them with all the reluctance of a door that knew it was drowning.

“Nice job, lads,” she said, wringing out her sleeve. “We’ve escaped into… more water. Brilliant.”

The crew stood blinking on the smallhauler’s hull, water lapping against battered plates, the lake stretching away in all directions. The ship sat canted and sulking, half-buried in mud, as if trying to disguise itself as a very unsuccessful island.

Not far off, maybe fifty metres, the shoreline beckoned: scrubby grass, tangled reeds, and the promise of solid ground. Beyond that, a hill hunched against the sky, crowned with an antenna that looked for all the world like the planet’s idea of a jaunty hat.

Caitlin shaded her eyes, not that it helped much against the washed-out morning light. “Well. That’s either civilisation or a very enthusiastic scarecrow. Either way, I’d prefer drowning on land.”

Something in the way the light hit their faces, or maybe just the sheer absurdity of standing shoeless on a half-drowned hauler, snapped the lock in her mind.

She staggered, breath catching. The scar across White’s cheek wasn’t just a mark, it was a memory. Morwen. The name hit like a punch to the ribs, dragging everything else with it – Sword Worlder, Aesir’s Brood, her partner in both sense and nonsense. Fierce, brilliant, impossible woman – the anchor that kept her from spinning off into madness and occasionally shoved her into it.

She glanced at the Aslan. Scarred-Snout. The whole absurd mouthful of a name came back, along with the memory of him insisting it was heroic. Their cook. Their gunner. The self-proclaimed Archduke of Asim, who couldn’t count change without a scribe.

Silver… Maltz. Her oldest friend. The furry bastard who could turn a mechanical disaster into barely-functioning triumph, then grin as if he’d meant it all along.

And Beige. Slung over Scar’s back… Quinn. An android, yes, but more than that. Dependable, ridiculous in a way that left you exasperated and fond at the same time. A walking encyclopaedia with just enough conscience to keep the rest of them from total catastrophe. Their medic. Their ballast. Sometimes their brake.

They were crew. They were her crew. Her friends. Her family.

She drew a slow breath, the names tasting strange and familiar all at once. “Scarred-Snout. Maltz. Quinn. Morwen. And I’m Caitlin.”

The words dropped into the damp silence like stones in a pool.

Morwen froze, white hair plastered to her cheek, and for the first time her steady calm wavered. “Morwen,” she repeated, quiet as if hearing it aloud made it true.

Silver’s ears folded back, then pushed forward again, voice rough. “Maltz. Yes. That’s me.” He closed his hand around the chrome forearm and tested the servos. “Mathilda,” he added, as if introducing a stubborn friend, “my arm.”

Scarred-Snout’s chest swelled, and a low growl threaded through it. “Scarred-Snout. That’s what you call me. Not Truck. Scarred-Snout. My legend endures.”

Caitlin swallowed. “We are not strangers in jumpsuits anymore. We are us. And whoever left us in that lake is going to regret not finishing the job.”

---

They climbed down the tilted hull, Quinn slung across Scarred-Snout’s back like the world’s heaviest backpack. The lake reached up to meet them, cold mud sucking at boots and ankles.

Caitlin cursed softly. “This is less a daring escape and more a badly planned spa day.”

Maltz sank up to the knee and gave a bark of despair. His cybernetic arm whirred as he tried to haul himself out. “If Mathilda rusts, I’m billing somebody. Retroactively.”

“Keep moving,” Morwen told them, the water lapping at her thighs. She strode steadily for the bank, expression calm as ever. “Complaints don’t make it shallower.”

Scarred-Snout trudged beside her, Quinn draped across his shoulders. His mane dripped, but his voice was proud. “This mud is a worthy adversary. I shall conquer it.”

The reeds hissed as they closed in on the bank, ripples spreading in ways no breeze explained. Nothing surfaced, but the water felt busy, full of things with opinions.

By the time they hauled themselves up into the scrub, dripping and mud-streaked, Caitlin was already baring her teeth in a grin. “Well. That was heroic. Shall we try something stupid on dry land next?”

The bank was rocky and uneven, the kind of place that didn’t even bother pretending to be hospitable. Morwen dropped her pack, pulled out the survival kit, and started setting priorities without waiting for anyone’s opinion.

"Fire first. Then dry clothes."

Within minutes a block of fuel from the survival kit was burning with an angry blue flame, spitting smoke and steam into the cold air. The sodden jumpsuits steamed on the rocks like unwilling laundry, but at least the heat was real. The kit yielded pressure sleeves, grey ponchos, and boots that actually fit. By the time they'd worked through ration bars with varying degrees of disgust, they were warm, dry, and looked like a mismatched survey team.

Quinn was propped up against a tree, inert. Scarred-Snout stared into the fire as if it were judging him. The quiet was almost comfortable, the fire snapping in the still air.

---

The afternoon drifted past in smoke and ration bars, the fire banked low against the cold air as they tried to puzzle out what had happened.

Morwen sat cross-legged with a ration bar in one hand and the survival kit’s star chart in the other, not that it did much good with the sun still high. She traced lines in the dirt, pale eyes flicking up at the sky as if sheer willpower might force the stars to show themselves.

“Earth-like world, Sol-like sun, breathable air, cold grass, and trees that don’t look eager to eat us,” Caitlin summarised. “That narrows it down to half the Imperium.”

Maltz flicked a claw at the fire. “EMP crippled the hauler. We were drugged. Woke up in the middle of a lake. That’s a transfer gone wrong. We weren’t passengers. We were freight, and the delivery glitched.”

Caitlin jabbed a stick at the coals, sparks snapping. “I’ve got a guess. Bloody skilljackers. Slavers. They spot you at Tobia, drug you, ship you off in a low berth, and sell you on the far side.”

Scarred-Snout bared his teeth. “Dishonourable. To take prey and keep it caged, without the hunt.”

Quinn still leaned against the tree. They had all tried waking him once or twice, but he stayed as still as a tombstone. Maltz checked his chest panel more than once, reassured each time by the faint hum of internal systems.

By the time the sun sank, and the air turned sharper, the stars came out – a scatter of cold fire against the dark. Morwen leaned back, sighting along her hand and sketching with the knife tip.

“Constellations are familiar,” she murmured, more to herself than the rest. “I’d say either Usher or Tobia subsector.”

Caitlin prodded the fire and gave a humourless laugh. “Brilliant. That’s what… around forty or fifty habitable worlds, give or take? We’ll put up a sign. ‘Stranded idiots this way.’”

Morwen only shrugged. “Better than nothing. I’ll refine it by morning.”

The fire cracked. Somewhere in the reeds at the edge of the water, something shifted. Caitlin’s optics picked up the heat of bodies just outside the circle of light – low, crawling, patient. She kept her voice casual. “Morwen, a ghrá, did the survival kit come with a setting for ‘unwanted guests’?”

Morwen’s pale eyes narrowed as she followed Caitlin’s gaze. “No kit for that. Get some rest. Save your strength.”

Caitlin let it drop, but the shapes stayed just beyond the firelight, waiting.

---

Morning broke pale and thin, but the crew came out of the inflatable shelter warm, dry, and only slightly kinked from sleeping too close together. The tent sagged like a collapsed jellyfish behind them, steam rising from the damp ground it had claimed overnight.

Caitlin stretched, rubbing at her neck. “Ah, luxury accommodation. Four walls, a floor, and a strong chance of suffocation if you rolled the wrong way. I’ll write a glowing review.” She hauled the heavy survival kit onto her shoulder with a grunt.

“Call it a success,” Morwen said briskly, folding the shelter down and sliding it back into the kit. “You’re not coughing, not frozen, and your clothes are dry

Scarred-Snout adjusted Quinn across his back with a grunt of his own. The android stayed limp beneath his poncho, dead weight but still humming faintly.

“We’re better than last night,” Maltz said. “No sense wasting it. And if this is Neon, then we’ve ground to cover.”

Caitlin swept the treeline through her optics, catching faint heat traces slipping away into the reeds. “Lovely. Breakfast crowd’s gone. Let’s move before they change their minds.”

The crew struck out toward the antenna, boots pressing into damp earth, the grey sky opening ahead. Behind them the lake lapped softly at the stranded hauler, keeping its secrets for now.

---

The march east began with more optimism than it had any right to. The ground rose steadily, scrub tugging at sleeves and ponchos, the antenna on its hill always there ahead but never quite getting closer. Mud sucked at boots, thorny bushes blocked paths, and the occasional copse of spiny trees forced detours that stretched minutes into hours.

“Scenic Neon,” Caitlin announced after a particularly scratchy detour. “Mud, thorns, and the occasional bush trying to take liberties. Someone ought to write a review.”

Maltz gave her a look and hitched his poncho tighter. “The antenna’s farther than it looks.”

Scarred-Snout ignored both of them, lumbering ahead with Quinn over his back, silent as a statue being carried to its plinth. Morwen had the lead, survival knife out to hack through spiny vegetation, her pace steady and deliberate.

They crested a rise and found him stretched out in the grass, his orange jacket doing its best impression of a distress beacon. Boots still decent, splints less so, bandages applied with all the finesse of someone trying to knit with their elbows. He hadn’t been mauled or shot or stabbed. He’d simply… stopped.

Caitlin knelt beside him, the Stenmore logo on his grey coveralls catching the light. "Nametag says Maxanni. One of the hauler's crew. Didn't make it far. Can't say the terrain helped. Prime countryside for dying, apparently."

Morwen knelt beside her, peeled back a bandage, and hissed through her teeth. “Broken bones, but that wouldn’t kill him.” She frowned, trying to read the story in the bruises. “Internal bleeding, maybe. He patched himself well enough to walk, but not enough to live.”

“Medic’s work,” Maltz muttered. “And ours is snoring.” His ears flicked toward Quinn.

Scarred-Snout leaned in, mane catching the wind. “His pockets are torn. Scavenged.”

And indeed they were. Only a multitool and a couple of ration bars remained. Caitlin picked one up, turned it over, and grimaced. “Stripped him down to emergency cuisine. That’s crueller than killing him outright.”

Scarred-Snout’s growl deepened. “He must be buried. Even an enemy deserves the ground.”

Maltz flicked his tail. “We don’t know if he was an enemy. What we do know is that digging holes isn’t getting us to that tower.”

Morwen brushed dirt from the dead man’s cheek, the gesture simple, final. “A shallow pit. Stones on top. That much, at least.”

Caitlin shifted the survival kit and sighed. “Fine. Quick and dirty, emphasis on quick. But no eulogies, no verses, no bloody speeches. He’s dead, we’re not, and that’s the difference I care about.”

They scraped out a grave, not deep but deep enough, and laid him in with his jacket still bright against the earth. Stones piled over him, neat as they could manage. No prayers, just the silence of five strangers deciding, briefly, to be kind.

Scarred-Snout straightened, mane ruffled by the wind. “He walks no more,” he said, voice heavy with theatre. “But his ghost shall know we gave him stone, not scavengers.”

Caitlin glanced at the mound, then at him. “Grand. Now let’s make sure we don’t join him.”

And that was that. They shouldered their packs and moved on, the jacket sleeve peeking from the stones as if still waving them down the trail.
---
The settlement looked like it had been designed by someone who'd run out of enthusiasm halfway through and decided "beige" was close enough to a plan. Prefab huts hunched against the wind, a berm of packed earth forming one wall, log piles scattered about like someone had been interrupted mid-thought.

Two figures came out to meet them: a woman with a shotgun and a tall, nervous kid who looked like he'd been assembled from spare parts. Both were waving with the kind of urgency usually reserved for sinking ships or surprise tax audits.

Caitlin’s optics scanned the site. Three more people. One in an orange ship-jacket wrestled with the log piles, trying to bully them into a barricade and losing. Another leaned from the doorway of the biggest hut, a Vargr muzzle and bright eyes flashing into the light before vanishing again. In the middle ground, a man dug with patient rhythm, a hole taking on proportions nobody would mistake for anything but a grave.

Her optics flicked over the compound again. Heat traces. More than just people. Something quick moved in the reeds and vanished. She filed it away for later. Her hand dropped to the revolver.

"Morwen," she said quietly, nodding at the man at the barricade. "Orange jacket. Stenmore colours."

Morwen's eyes narrowed. "Hauler crew."

"Very much so."

The woman with the shotgun was closer now, calling out something about getting inside, about things in the dark, about… Caitlin stopped listening. Her entire focus had compressed to the figure in the orange jacket, who had stopped working when he spotted the crew.

Fifty-something, grey-brown hair, shipboard coveralls with captain's stripes still visible under the jacket. He was slinging his shotgun across his back in what he probably thought was a casual, non-threatening gesture. His nametag read Tommerman.

He'd made it perhaps three steps toward them when he registered Caitlin's expression and froze.

"Ah," he said. "You're…"

Caitlin crossed the distance between them faster than physics should have allowed, her augmented legs turning casual walking pace into something considerably more alarming. The revolver materialized in her hand somewhere along the way, and by the time Tommerman's brain caught up with events, the barrel was pressed firmly against his forehead.

"On your knees," Caitlin said pleasantly.

Tommerman went down like a sack of tragic vegetables.

Morwen had moved without being asked, flanking position, rifle ready. Maltz's cybernetic hand whirred as he plucked Tommerman’s shotgun from his back. Scarred-Snout sat Quinn down with surprising gentleness, then straightened to his full height, claws out, mane bristling in the wind.

The woman with the shotgun stared at them with the expression of someone watching their afternoon plans dissolve into chaos. "What are you doing?"

"Your hauler pilot," Caitlin said, not taking her eyes off Tommerman, "left unconscious people to drown yesterday. We're just having a little talk about that."

"I thought you were all dead," Tommerman managed, his voice climbing half an octave. He worried at the hem of his jacket, twisting the fabric into knots as if that might tie the truth together. "Maxanni checked, he said…"

"Maxanni’s dead," Morwen said flatly. "We found him. Someone stripped his body."

"That wasn't… I didn't…"

Caitlin's finger rested on the trigger with the kind of casual certainty that suggested she'd forgotten it was there and might remember at any moment. "I'm going to ask you questions. You're going to answer them quickly, honestly, and completely. Every time I don't like an answer, I'm going to count to three." She paused. "I'm told I count very fast when I'm annoyed."

Tommerman had gone the colour of old porridge. Sweat ran down his face despite the cold.

"Who hired you to transport us?"

"Nobody hired me specifically, I just…"

"One."

"It's a network! Contacts at Tobia starport! They pay per head for skilled people, I swear I didn't know who you…"

"How long has this been running?"

"Eight years, maybe ten…"

"Where do the passengers go after Neon?"

"I don't know! I just deliver them to the port, someone else…"

"Two."

"Oghma! Some go to Oghma! The barbarians, they need technical people, I heard someone mention…"

"Who else at this settlement knows?"

Tommerman's eyes flicked sideways, just for a second. Toward the huts.

Caitlin pressed the gun harder against his skull. "Names."

The reeds along the berm rattled without wind, a soft, dry sound that didn’t belong. Nobody paid much attention to it, not yet.

"Telford,” Tommerman said. “The medic. He doses them when the ship arrives, keeps them docile during transfer. That's all I know, I swear, I never asked about the rest of it...”

The woman with the shotgun had gone very pale. "Telford? Our Abe?"

"I can explain, Katriona" Tommerman said desperately. "The ship flatlined, it was dark, everything was on fire...”

"You left us in a sinking ship," Caitlin said, her voice achieving that special register usually reserved for disappointed mothers and people about to commit murder. "Convenient that you and your crew got out fine while we were unconscious in the berths."

"I thought you were dead!"

"And yet here we are. Funny how that works."

A massive, clawed hand settled on Caitlin's shoulder. Not restraining, just present.

"Not like this," Scarred-Snout rumbled. "This is scavenger work. Prey-killing. You are not prey-killer."

Caitlin didn't lower the gun. "He left us to drown."

"Yes. And for that, he should die." The Aslan's voice carried absolute certainty. "But with honour. Face to face. After we have answers. Not while he shakes like wounded herbivore." His claws flexed slightly. "Let him live until we know all. Then, if you wish, I will let you fight him."

Caitlin held position for three more heartbeats. Then she stepped back, lowering the weapon.

"Fine. He lives until we get answers." She looked at Tommerman, who was shaking so hard his teeth chattered. "Every time you see my face, remember you're breathing because my friend is more merciful than me. Don't make me reconsider."

Something moved at the edge of the compound. Low, fast, wrong. The nervous kid made a strangled noise and pointed.

"Creeper!"

The thing that skittered into view looked like it had been designed by a committee of nightmares who couldn't agree on whether spiders or scorpions were more unsettling and decided to include both. Mandibles worked. Stinger tail rose. Six legs carried it forward with fluid, horrible grace.

Then another appeared. And another.

Katriona’s shotgun swung toward the beasts. "Inside. Everyone inside. NOW."

Caitlin holstered her revolver without taking her eyes off Tommerman. "Get up. Move. Try to run and I'll let the spiders have you."

More movement in the scrub. Caitlin's optics lit up with heat signatures: dozens of them, surrounding the compound.

"Morwen?"

"I see them."

"Tactical assessment?"

"Inside is better than outside. Marginally."

"That's what I thought." Caitlin grabbed Tommerman by the collar and hauled him upright. "Come along then. We're all going to have a lovely evening getting to know each other. Won't that be nice?"

They moved toward the huts, creepers closing in from all sides, and somewhere in the failing light, something paused to watch them go, head tilting with something that looked disturbingly like curiosity.