“No, we’re going to take them and pass them out to anyone we see in the hallways.” More gunfire came from farther in the building, followed by the sound of something large being smashed. “Hurry, we don’t have time.”

Kala stuffed her pockets with grenades and fumbled to hold the five flamethrowers Vivian thrust into her arms. “Aren’t you carrying any?”

“Just one.” Vivian’s eyes were severe as she pulled the straps of the backpack over her shoulders and hoisted the gun in her right hand. “Your job is to get to the comm box. My job is to keep you alive. Deal?”

“Deal,” Kala said.

Then they were running again, down the same passageway, leaping over Denise’s bloodied body, and heading back to the heart of the building.

Vivian hesitated, glancing up and down the hallways. “Nearest unit would be…”

“The kitchen,” Kala suggested, but Vivian shook her head.

“I’d just come from there when I found you. The whole room’s been decimated. I doubt the unit is intact.”

“What about the meeting room?”

“Yes, that would work. Let’s go.”

They turned left, Vivian in the lead while Kala tried to keep pace without dropping her armful of flamethrowers. Down the hallway, frantic arguing came from one of the rooms. Vivian held up her hand to stop Kala then rapped on the door while yelling, “We’re friends; don’t shoot.”

The voices inside fell silent. Then the door opened, and two guns were pointed at Vivian’s face.

“How do we know you’re not one of them?” a taller, thick-set man barked.

Vivian glowered at him. “They don’t exactly stop for pleasantries, do they?”

The tall man glanced at his younger companion, who nodded. “We’re going to make a break for the ships. Want to join us?”

“Can’t,” Vivian said, “but we have something to help. Bullets won’t stop them, but according to our scientist, fire will.”

She inclined her head towards Kala, who unloaded two of the flamethrowers and a handful of grenades. “Spread the word.”

Vivian didn’t even give the men a chance to thank them before she returned to jogging down the hallway. The flamethrowers were heavy, and Kala struggled to keep up. Vivian quickly found another band of survivors, and they unloaded two of the remaining three flamethrowers.

A stitch was developing in Kala’s side, but she managed to keep pace with her lanky companion as they approached the meeting room. Gunfire, loud and persistent, came from the inside. Vivian motioned for Kala to keep her head down, then she shoved through the doors.

At first, the scene in front of her didn’t make any sense. She felt as though she’d stepped into a modern-art house, where everything was calculated to subtly disturb the viewer. Sculptures of familiar objects, changed to be not quite right, filled the space, and the music piped through the room was the steady tat-tat-tat of automatic fire.

She blinked, and reality filtered through to her.

The chairs, normally arranged in neat rows in the centre of the room, had been tossed about like children’s toys. They cluttered the floor like little landmines, and piles of them had collected at the edges of the room. To her right was the heavy wooden table their superiors had stood behind when making announcements to the station’s crew. It was turned on its side, and three people huddled behind it; two had guns and were bobbing up and down, taking potshots at the thing on the other side of the room.