Shadows begin to move inside the Navigator between the snapped ribs that make the teeth of its new mouth. Clawed fingers curl outwards as twisted things made of silvered crystal and sinew start dragging their way out, as if the mouth isn’t a mouth at all, but a gateway, just like the one on Hellebore. The creatures are humanoid in shape, with angular, stilted legs and overlong, slender arms that end in hooked claws. They are preceded by a stink of spoiled meat and turned earth. Their faces are blank and smooth save for large, round lamprey mouths lined with needle teeth.

This ship is damned, the whispers say.

Death is coming.

‘Send them back to the darkness,’ I shout, as the abominations of meat and glass lunge towards us, their crystal joints clicking. More of the creatures spill out of the gateway-mouth as I sprint to meet them, leading with my main-hand sabre in the way I was taught. My sabre clashes against the first of the creatures and cuts deep into its chest, splintering glass and splitting sinew alike. My second blade impacts less than a heartbeat later, following in the wake of the first. That shatters the creature altogether. I let my momentum carry me into a spinning leap and turn a full circle in the air, catching another of the creatures across its core with a downward strike from my right-hand blade. It bursts apart too, showering me with glass as I land.

To my left, Zoric fires his lascarbine in controlled bursts, the high-yield rounds scorching flesh and melting glass. He banishes two of them before the powercell empties with a hiss. His last cell. Zoric lets the rifle fall by its shoulder strap and draws his pistol in its place. The Valedictor’s prayer-etched shells shatter crystal and bone alike, scattering micro-fine cutting dust. To my right, Yumia’s rope dart flits by. It hits one of the abominations in the chest and sticks hard. Her second dart hits it in the middle of its lamprey mouth. She follows the dart with a leap, landing a powerful kick that propels the dart the rest of the way through the abomination’s head. It explodes into fragments and the creature topples backwards. Yumia leaps through it, landing in a run, already winding her killcords for her next attack.

My threat-sense is a constant blare. An unceasing alarum playing inside of my mind. I duck and twist and leap, striking out with first one sabre, then the other. Zoric fires his pistol over and over again, reloading from the brace of cartridges on his belt with brisk, practised movements. Yumia barely seems to touch the silver-slicked deck, her killcords a constant blur of motion. We do not pause. Between us we keep cutting and shooting and running until the floor is littered with glass and spattered with blood. Our blood.

But it’s not enough.