Stanos came back with two co-pilots. A sick sensation boiled in Kala’s stomach.

Gunfire from a passageway to her right drew Kala’s attention. She wanted to scream, “Bullets won’t hurt them. You’ve got to use fire,” but she knew no one would hear her over the racket. A siren started far off in the building. More screaming—loud wails that rose then cut off in strange gurgles—came from immediately ahead of her.

Think! She pressed her palms against her temples. What do you need to do?

She could leave. The station had three hangars, and the entrance to one was just behind her. She wasn’t a qualified pilot, but she’d watched her co-workers fly the ships often enough that she thought she could get one of the smaller ones off the ground and out the hatch.

Another scream and more gunfire rang out. The siren bored into her head, its sombre whoop whoop whoop whoop uselessly warning the building’s occupants that there was a problem, as though they didn’t already know.

She could stay and try to fight the creatures, but she didn’t have any combat training. I’m a scientist. I’m not supposed to have to deal with these sorts of problems! My best weapon is my brain, and it’s not like that’s going to do much good against—

Kala opened her eyes as a plan hit her. She might not be able to fight, but she had something that the people in the station desperately needed: knowledge of how to stop the creatures. Fire.

Half a dozen communication boxes were scattered around the station—they could broadcast her voice into every room. The closest one was in the recreation area to her right. She set out for it at a run.

A scientist burst out of one of the hallway’s doors, screaming. Something dark red was sprayed across her chest and face, and her eyes were huge with panic. She dashed past Kala, senseless to her surroundings. Kala called after her, “Use fire!” But the woman showed no sign of having heard.

Kala swore and picked up her pace. She shoved open the recreation room’s door and stopped short. The room had been painted with blood. Red sprays dribbled down the walls. Pools of it were spreading over the floor, changing the crystal-blue carpet into a dark muddy purple, and even as Kala stood frozen, little drips fell down in front of her from the ceiling.

Bodies lay about the furniture, some whole, others torn in half. Others were mangled so badly that they looked like piles of dirty, wet rags with white bone shards poking out.

A hundred and fifty-nine people lived on the station. How many of them died in this room?

Kala turned towards the wall, only half-aware that she was hyperventilating. Her body was coated in slick, cold sweat, and she guessed that only the combination of shock and denial stopped her from mingling the contents of her stomach with the flesh littering the ground around her feet.