As his servants were now down on the planets enforcing his will and carrying out his way Zelan was to be the hub from which their resources came. Siren was content with managing that and giving out orders from way up there, so whilst minor servants carried out administrative duties he focussed on what he was truly talented at.

Zelan’s greatest resource was its many deposits of deceased, abandoned androids. It was like a floating mortuary in the sky, but Siren knew from prior experience that he possessed the gift of life. Not long after his two servants left the space station he had begun the reviving process, dedicating about five or six hours to reconstructing, activating and briefing each individual android. It may seem like a long time to linger on a project, perhaps in almost a perfectionist manner, but fixing three or four servants each day for thirty six days certainly added up.

Nearly all the projects were receptive to his demands. They were of the mind that accepting his Way was a small price to pay for a second chance at life, and with a return to death as an alternative few androids decided to refuse. They felt they owed it to their saviour to offer him whatever they could. Most of them were loaded onto spaceships and sent down to Motavia to become a part of Siren’s army, but a select few with no combat skills whatsoever stayed behind and became the staff which managed Zelan.

A system was slowly folding into place and Siren knew that the more servants he made the stronger his influence became. The army had already claimed a goodly part of Motavia as a base, and the anti-layan directive upon Dezoris was progressing faster than he had initially anticipated. The soldiers were good at land capturing but Mieus was the sole operative on the planet of ice. Her eagerness in layan slaying was definitely pleasing.

At the moment he was between projects, just after dismissing a completed android and heading back to the blocks for a fresh shell. He had to walk through the main control room to get to his destination, but he did not mind this as it gave him a chance to check up on anything and make sure Zelan was functioning correctly. Five servants were managing the control room, splitting the job that Wren had taken on solely into easier chunks of work. Only three were palmanoid, the other two blocky shapeless robots with maintenance skills greater than their more aesthetic colleages.

One of the more palmanish androids turned slightly in her chair when she detected Siren passing by. A lot of design had gone into her features many ages ago, with fluffy ginger hair and freckles. Her voice was smoother than her physical appearance seemed to be. “Master, there is a transmission waiting for you from Motavia, via satellite three. Encryption code is zero eight six.”

Those specifications were familiar to him. The next shell would just have to wait for a little while. Siren walked over to the female android’s control panel and placed a hand upon the back of her chair, leaning over. “Very well, put me on to him, Debbie. How long has he been waiting for a connection?” He knew the names of each of his servants, no matter how insignificant they were.

“Only for about ten minutes. Just one moment, please. Connecting via satellite three…” The girl announced and made about half a dozen keystrokes on her terminal, sending commands to orbital communications satellites hundreds of thousands of miles away. The network around Zelan was still good, surprisingly; it just needed the manpower to keep itself running.

The other service androids in the main control room relaxed their focus on the tasks they were working upon and half listened-in on the transmission that was to take place. There was Debbie and a blond male android with a rather frail build, and a shorter younger android girl with long green hair. Whistler also watched with its long extendable eye, perched beside an arthropod assisting it with some program. After a few moments of buffering an image appeared on Zelan’s computer screen, showing an image of a desert landscape at night. The resolution was good, so one could easily see the dark shapes of sand dunes and the open starry sky.

A voice said; “Is this thing on?”

Another voice replied; “I think so, sir. The red light is on.” The transmission shook as if somebody with poor photography skills were recording with a handheld apparatus.

Siren did not seem perturbed by any apparent display of ineptitude. He had just successfully completed a project, so he was in a fairly amiable mood. “We are receiving you.” He assured his servants on Motavia, waiting patiently to get to the business of this call.

The first voice made an ‘Oh!’ sound and said; “Point it this way, corporal. Try to keep it steady. Thanks a lot.”

“Yes sir.”

There was some brief camera manipulation and the shot stabilized on Commander Warren, standing nearly alone in the desert. He gave Siren a curt salute. “Good evening, Master. I’m really sorry about the time, but I have to make an emergency report. I didn’t think it could wait until the morning.”

“What is the matter? Is it the motavians again? I believe I ordered you to take care of them.” Siren assumed. The motavians had been an obstacle ever since the Marauders were formed, attacking anything vaguely unfamiliar close to their village. The motavians from Molcum were astoundingly paranoid of anything threatening their home, even though his army hadn’t the slightest interest in their piddling little tent colony. The only way to conquer an obstacle was to walk straight over it, so that was what Siren had commanded his servant to do.

Were Warren not at attention he would have shaken his head. “No Master, this isn’t about the motavians, though we did deal with them earlier in the night. They refused to leave us alone so we torched their village. They’ll be too busy with reconstruction to even consider coming after us, and when they’re done they’ll think twice about messing with us again.”

“What was the casualty rate?” Siren asked.

Warren seemed confused for at this. “What do you mean? Us or them? Either way the rate of casualty was zero. I’m not prepared to put my soldiers in danger and we herded all the motavians out into the plaza before we set the tents on fire. It’s one thing rending them homeless, but killing them just for being a nuisance is unnecessarily cruel.”

His master considered this. “Yes…” He agreed at last, ponderously. “In the long run that would seem like a wise decision. Do not encourage in them a greater cause for vengeance. The motavians could be useful. They are very resourceful. Our enemies are the layans and we need to focus on the layans, now what was it that you wished to report to me?”

At this point Warren became a little reluctant, but he had not arranged this transmission to talk about nothing. “Master Siren, the wren-type who formerly controlled Zelan is still alive. We received a call from him five hours ago. He sounded seriously damaged and on the verge of collapse, but yeah, he’s alive somehow. I sent a division of soldiers to the transmission location but I haven’t heard back from them yet.” He confessed.

“You assured me of his demise. Were you deceiving me, commander?” He questioned suspiciously. Warren did not have a perfect track history when it came to telling the truth and Siren was well aware of that. Despite this he didn’t really think Warren would lie, especially after reporting it to his master himself, but Siren needed more details. There was no anger. Zelan already belonged to them. No singular android could stop the avalanche that had already been set in motion.

But Warren seemed to take the accusation seriously enough. “Of course not, sir! I executed him myself! I took him down to Motavia and threw him into the ocean! The calculated chances of him surviving that fate are zero point zero zero zero one, just one in ten thousand! You gotta believe me; I was pretty surprised when I heard about it, too. I would never disobey my master. My life is to serve.”

Well, he did seem rather convinced that he had not made a mistake in the choice of his execution. Perhaps a shot to the chest would have been better. “Even a miniscule percent is not a certainty.” He reprimanded the other wren-type as Warren cringed a bit, like a scolded child. “Have you taken any affirmative action regarding this new information?”

“I ordered Cassie to take a handful of soldiers and hunt him down. If Forren’s already half dead then I don’t worry too much for their safety. He’d be unarmed and Cassie’s an extremely competent girl.” The android in gold armour hung his head in shame. “Master, I take full responsibility for this slip-up. Forren was my responsibility and I let him escape. I hope you will be able to forgive me for this.”

“Just correct your mistake and continue with your prime directive, commander.” Siren ordered as he straightened up from where he had been leaning against Debbie’s seat. “I hope you have not forgotten what your ultimate goal is.”

Warren looked back up at the camera with an air of dedication. He spoke as if he had repeated this statement many times. “My goal is to assume control of Motavia in the name of my Master Siren, and of Orakio Sa Ruik. Once I take over this planet I will hand control over to you. It will be yours to command.” A cold desert wind blew across the transmission screen, creating the faintest of hazes. Were they regular palmans Warren and his cameraman would have blinked or flinched from the stinging sand, but as androids they seemed not to notice.

Like the wind Warren’s prime directive was chilling. Knowing it would have unnerved Chaz and his comrades to the bone, though they probably had an inkling of that already through the Marauders’ actions. Siren was glad that his servant wasn’t losing perspective due to the smaller picture. “Good. Get back to your duties. I too have work to be done.” He instructed.

“Yes, my master. I’ll contact you again once this business with Forren has been cleared up. Good night to you.”

The screen went dark. The transmission had ended. That was a whole load of effort over nothing important. If Warren was truly intelligent he should have dealt with the matter first before alerting his superior about it, that way he could have attained exoneration without an interval of worry. That young android had been extremely reluctant to assume the position he held now, but he needed to learn. They all needed to learn.

When he turned around all the other workers were back to slogging away at their tasks, save for one. Briefly Siren ordered Debbie to follow their example and get right back to work, and then he made for the exit at the other side of the control room. The lack of motion from the idle servant caused him to halt. Oh yes, of course. He smiled.

Siren stood beside the servant on the far end of the room. She could not leave her seat because her left leg was shackled to the terminal chair. Siren had many voluntary servants but one involuntary one, sort of, she had no choice but to work or be put back into a limitless sleep. In a way she was one of Siren’s most precious servants, for she represented a victory for the orakians over the hated layan scum. It made Siren feel good even just by looking at her.

“I’m sure you heard the broadcast right now regarding that wren-type’s survival.” Siren said.

Demi nodded mutely, keeping her eyes straight ahead at the computer screen and refusing to look at him.

The red-haired android chuckled softly, cruelly. He touched Demi gently on the shoulder. “Don’t get your hopes up. He’ll be dead along with the others soon enough.”

Then he left, leaving the android girl alone with her restricted duties, assigned to her more as a torture than anything else, because for as long as Siren was around he would always get what he wanted, and he would always have his way.

†††

The halls of the spaceport had once been familiar to Chaz and his company in the daylight hours, when they had the time to slowly find their own way around, but in the darkness of a dead facility with a pack of armed gunmen on their heels everything tended to become a grey adrenaline-filled blur. Wren was in the lead and guiding the others through the layout of the spaceport with Rika running just behind him, Chaz at her back and Hahn bringing up the rear.

There were no lights in the hallway and they had had to discard the kerosene lamps in favour of speed and stealth. As long as the rain continued Wren wasn’t able to go outside, but if they stayed in the spaceport any longer they would surely be caught. Everybody followed the sound of the person in front of them, their footsteps thudding on the hard metal floor, praying that if they kept up the pace with minimal noise they just might escape with their lives.

The footsteps of six soldiers far behind them were what kept them going, and an important seventh one was in their midst. They were all fighters from the heart of the collapse wars, trained infantrymen and snipers put to sleep after one war and awoken for the next. Four of them carried bolt-action rifles; one more held an easier pump-action shotgun, and one of the smaller androids was equipped with a sharpshooter complete with night-vision scope and silencer. It was a rather useless choice when it came to chasing shadowed figures moving in the dark.

Hahn was trying his hardest to keep up with the others, but he was a rather weak and sick man nowadays and continued to lag behind. Chaz heard the laboured panting of his friend and sensed that he was falling behind, so the youth halted for a shadow of a heartbeat and threw his good arm backwards, grabbing the scholar by a fold of his white shirt and dragging Hahn along beside him.

A voice echoed up along the metal hallway, emanating from the side of the enemy. They did not sound even the slightest bit winded. “Halt! If you continue to flee then we will be forced to shoot at you! Forren of Zelan, we have come for your head!”

Chaz and company could not, of course, oblige them. The hunter knew what would happen to them if they were caught, and frankly if they were running away from the bullets there’d be a better chance they could dodge them. He didn’t want to admit it but Hahn was slowing him down, but he was never ever going to let go. “Where the hell are we running to, Wren?” Chaz called, trying to ignore everything that was behind him and focus on the path ahead.

Wren was still trying to gather his bearings internally. Had he any knowledge of the experience he would have felt like a patient awakened from a coma only to be forced to run a marathon, orienteering all the way. His consciousness had yet to catch up with his body and situation, and though Rika had done an amazing job with limited resources he was still seriously damaged. It took the android a moment to respond. “We are en-route to the launching strip. We should be proceeding in the correct direction. You may escape from there.”

They had already gone over this only minutes earlier. Rika frowned. “We’re not leaving here without you, not after finally finding you again. Do you think we could fight these guys? Maybe push them into a corner and ambush them?” As they turned a corner and passed through a motion-activated doorway Rika dropped back to the end of the line to keep an eye on Chaz and Hahn, her advanced sense of hearing trying to gauge the distance between themselves and their pursuers.

It was an optimistic thought but not a practical one. Only Hahn and Rika were armed, with Hahn exhausted already and panting. Though she was strong Rika could not face seven adversaries on her own. “At the moment an offensive stance would not be wise. Retreat is the only sensible option. Over here.” Wren interjected, but when they passed a door in the hallway the android made a sharp right and crashed his way through the set of closed doors.

Some of the doors still seemed to have some small power, but not many of them. This one had no hydraulics installed, so to Wren it was like smashing through thin cardboard. Behind it lay another corridor leading away from the centre of the spaceport at a right angle. The twisted remains of the security doors would not go unnoticed for long, but the other three jumped over the scrap metal and followed their guide, hoping very dearly that Wren still knew what he was doing.

This corridor was also pocked with closed entrances into other unknown rooms. The android stopped suddenly at about the fourth or fifth entrance and before the other three team-mates could skid to a halt Wren had wrenched the doors open in a much more careful manner and ushered Rika, Chaz and Hahn inside. He went in last, pulling the rigid slide doors closed behind him. If they were lucky it wouldn’t look like it had been tampered with in any way.

They had been ushered into what looked like a locker room, possibly a place where the spaceship crew were meant to prepare before they boarded the ship. The side wall was lined with doubly-wide large lockers built to fit in space suits and personal belongings, there was a grating close to the ceiling probably leading straight into the air ventilation system, and lastly two long metal benches gave people a simple place to sit. It was funny how nowadays the three exiles looked for hiding places over anything else whenever they entered a new room, but that was just life for them now, they guessed.

The one thing they noticed was that there were no exits, only the doorway which led back the way they had came.

Rather than thinking of this place as a dead end Hahn chose to think of it as an opportunity to hide. They probably only had seconds to act. Still breathing hard from the taxing and frightening run Hahn made his way over to the lockers and pulled one open, gladdened that the inside was bare of junk. Only a loose sheet of metal that was part of the dismantled shelving took up space, but not much. There was plenty of room for Hahn to wedge himself inside so that was what he did, slamming the locker door behind him.

Rika’s quick thinking offered herself and her fiancé a more creative method of concealment. She leapt up onto one of the benches and yanked out the grating which connected to the air duct, lithely slipping herself inside. Chaz pulled his dead arm out of its sling and followed her onto the bench, offering it to the numan girl so she could pull him up into the duct with her. He grabbed the grate before he moved and fit it back into place after a few seconds of struggling, trying very carefully not to accidentally kick the girl cramped behind him in the stomach.

All in all they moved like rats with the spotlight suddenly trained on them. Wren didn’t even try to keep up with them, it was not in his programming to flee so easily and in his state of disrepair rapid reaction would damage him terribly. He was honestly surprised that he hadn’t collapsed earlier. No, if Wren could not escape this spaceport and escape was the only option then he had already lost. The least he could do was make sure his friends made it out safely. It was merely enough to know they were still alive.

Before they knew it heavy footsteps thundered past the room. It was only for a few seconds but the android tried to count one, two, three and four soldiers running past, still thinking they were hot on the trail and only moments away from a capture. The corridor was long and winding and stretched to an entirely different area of the spaceport, so it was unlikely they would try doubling back. They’d managed to slip through.

A minute of silence passed. In the locker Hahn sighed in relief and rested his forehead, damp with cold sweat against the slatted door, while Rika and Chaz struggled with one another to look out of the grating at the same time. Without any warning Wren’s right leg buckled and he found himself dropping down to one knee, unable to move anymore. There was too much sand still in his joints and now it might take a little more than a recover to get himself moving again.

His friends witnessed Wren’s sudden collapse. “Hey, are you okay?” Rika called out in the loudest whisper she could manage, getting up on her hands and knees and nearly crushing Chaz up against the air duct’s ceiling. She began to loosen the grating again so she could drop back down into the room, but…

Another pair of footsteps echoed outside the corridor. They were slower, almost thoughtful, as if somebody was walking with a great deal of patience and care. It stopped right outside of the doorway. Chaz, Rika and Hahn stared at the entranceway as though they wanted to bore right through it and see what was on the other side, but perhaps they might meet the gaze of somebody else and that thought just scared them to their toes.

Hahn could practically feel his rapid heartbeat coming up through his throat. If an android like Wren opened fire in a room as small as this there was no way this metal locker would shield himself from attack for long. What was going on out there? Why had it suddenly become so quiet?

Before Hahn could hope that the person in the corridor might have gone away a creaking noise came from the doorway and it slowly slid open, guided by a single hand. No palman had the strength to do something like that. Wren glanced up at the entranceway and tried to stand, but he couldn’t. Even with his repair systems working as fast as they currently could it’d be some minutes before he could rise again. He was trapped.

A girl walked into the room. She was android, of medium height and with short blonde hair. Her armour was blue-tinged titanium with undertones of white polymer, and she was carrying a sabre at her hip. Perhaps her appearance was a little underwhelming when Chaz and company were expecting their imminent deaths, but she was still an enemy nonetheless.

She took three careful steps inside. “… A lot of the soldiers are like terriers; they’ll chase anything moving so long as they believe there’s a chance of catching it. It’s better to be attentive and listen, that’s how I know all three of you are in here. The sounds of your hearts beating are unmistakable.” Though her voice was slightly flat there was an undertone of amusement beneath it.

“Four.” Wren interrupted.

The girl hesitated. “Excuse me?”

Instead of waiting patiently for the repairs to finish Wren took a stab at chance and tried to stand again, lucking out and managing with only a single sway. He made eye contact with the girl and wasn’t surprised, though he probably should have been. With Mieus and Warren already running all over the worlds when they should be dead why not one more? He tried to steady himself. “There are three people in this room and myself. I will not grant you access to them. You will have to get through me first.”

The connection was made through the ages, through centuries and millennia. Something clicked in the girl’s mind, just as it had already clicked in Wren’s mind. Her eyes widened a bit but she smiled. “Well, nobody told me the forren-type we were meant to capture was you, colonel. This is pretty ironic. It’s really been a very long time, but I don’t take orders from you anymore.”

She stepped towards him but Wren did not back away. At this point he would have shot her had he a gun, or activated an internal offensive system were they not removed. He was as powerless as a palman who could barely stand on his own. “I do not appreciate irony, Cassie.” He said. “I never have. You are a servant of Siren now, I suppose.”

“The servant of a servant, at least. A hierarchy is being assembled into place but it’s a better position than the one our government gave me. I haven’t been ordered to kill any of you just yet, but you do have to come with me. In your condition right now I wouldn’t resist.” Cassie informed him. Wren did not budge, but whether it was because he couldn’t or did not want to was unclear.

Cassie began to circle him slowly, taking deliberate steps. “The colonel I remember from a thousand years ago was a ruthless, cold pragmatist who understood and adhered to all the rules. Now I hear he’s a filthy layan, whatever the heck a layan is supposed to be. It doesn’t matter. All I know is that Siren wants you dead, so Warren wants you dead, so I want you to come with me. The other three, I guess, are not important right now. They don’t figure into my orders.”

The mysterious girl’s description of him sounded to Chaz and his friends an awful lot like somebody else they knew, somebody who they wanted dead. It also sounded like she was willing to ignore Wren’s friends in order to take Wren himself away. Rika flattened Chaz up against the air duct for the second time. “No!” She hissed quietly. “We’re finally getting people together again! We can’t let her take him away!”

“What can we do? We’re barely even armed!” Chaz moaned softly as Rika wedged her elbow into his gut.

“One of your daggers is in my back pocket. You can use one, can’t you? Go ahead, take it.” Rika told him, and then there was a whole lot of squirming and fumbling as Chaz attempted to do just that. The difficulty was in trying to keep everything totally silent.

“Siren says he’s going to liberate our race.” Cassie continued as she paced, circumnavigating her new prisoner. “He said that we’ve all been put to sleep because we were not needed anymore, regardless of our desire to live. We all want to live again without being ordered about by a government which disregards basic individual rights. I’m not quite sure of the logistics behind this liberation but freedom is a necessity that I will definitely fight for.”

“You should not place faith in a faction that you do not completely understand. Cassie, Siren harbours a dementia hidden beneath a façade of righteousness and justice. I am beginning to fear that he plans to start a war; a recreation of the Collapse Wars in this new millennium.” Wren answered calmly. He felt like Cassie probably did, completely lost but finding his way all over again after a period of long disorientation. They both had very different guides.

Cassie now stood behind him, between Wren and the line of empty lockers. She folded her arms, seemingly unruffled by her old superior’s words. “Maybe I don’t place faith in Siren. I’ve only met him once, briefly when he brought me back to life. What I do support and trust are the Marauders and my commander. My loyalties are a little closer to home. Now come with me. If you can’t walk without aid I’ll summon some soldiers to help you. If you refuse we’ll bring you back in pieces.”

That request sounded much more like a command. She unsheathed the steel sabre from her belt and pointed it at him. Wren did not react to this but it was still the last straw for somebody else in the room. As Rika was prepared to leap out of the air duct to attack with her claws the locker door behind Cassie swung open with a clang. Hahn burst out of it swinging the sheet of shelving metal like a club, uttering a hoarse yell which caused Cassie to whirl around suddenly. The piece of metal smashed across her face with a hollow booming sound and the android staggered, nudged backwards by the blow.

This attack placed her within the reach of Wren’s arm. Hahn couldn’t have hoped to injure the girl but that element of surprise was enough. Wren reached out and grabbed Cassie by the shoulder, spinning her around once and drawing his fist back in preparation for an attack. He may not have had his weapons anymore, but a solid punch was universal. “Stay down.” He ordered as Hahn got out of the way quickly, then he decked her.

There was enough of a second for her to look at him, but Cassie did not seem startled. She was sent reeling into the locker that Hahn had leapt out of, sabre and all, until her back clanged against the metal wall and down she went, sliding into a sprawl. The second shock knocked her straight into emergency shutdown, but knowing far too well how androids were made Wren was sure that wouldn’t last for long.

Hahn stood next to Wren and looked over the girl as Chaz and Rika climbed out of the air duct. It would have been rather funny to watch were anybody looking in that direction, but at least Rika landed on the floor well, right side up. Hahn side glanced at the android still conscious but Wren was completely unreadable. “Who is that?” He asked. Following that conversation it had felt like this blonde android was not a stranger to his friend. With Siren and his accursed way around he was a little suspicious of anything with nuts and bolts in them nowadays.

As they were joined by the other two members of their party Wren attempted to explain as best as he could for all the time they had left. “Her name is Cassie. She was a nightwatchman at Paseo maximum security prison during the war, but she was eventually conscripted as a sniper in the hundred and fifty fifth special op battalion. Siren must have revived and recruited her while I was away.” He said. He neglected to mention any parts that he deemed were unimportant. They were, as previously stated, not worth the effort.

Honestly there was no time to dwell upon it anyway. Rika felt like the timekeeper in their newly-formed party but somebody had to do it. “We don’t have time for talking. If her soldiers have been fooled and run off down the hallway then we can backtrack to the entrance and escape out the front door! How long do you think she’ll stay down?”

“Cassie-types regenerate at a faster pace than wren-types. I estimate three or four minutes based upon the degree of which she was damaged.”

“What if there are more soldiers waiting at the entrance? It’s way too risky and I don’t trust any of these machines anymore. Let’s just run to the launching strip like we were doing before.” Chaz growled. He didn’t want to run into an armed ambush and drag Rika along with him. With only one dagger, a small ceramic thing with a slightly dull edge he would barely be able to defend himself, let alone anyone else.

Rika thought that her idea was better because the entrance was much closer than the exit, but she caved in to Chaz’s wishes. It was good enough to see that the youth was trying to make commanding decisions again after so many weeks. She relented. “Okay. What matters most is that we move. Wren, try and recover yourself and let’s get out of here.”

That was easier said than done. Wren made the necessary preparations to activate his recovery system but hardly managed more than a fifteen percent improvement, when usually the android could bring himself to complete functionality using that skill. Perhaps the greatest irony was that his recovery system was completely unable to repair itself. They left the body of Cassie lying there in the locker and together they vacated they room, intent to backtrack to the main corridor and head northwards to the launching strip from there.

But Cassie was just a little more cunning than Chaz and company anticipated and Wren remembered. Most of her squad had run willy-nilly down the hallway to catch the intruders, and Cassie herself had crept into the room to investigate for herself, but all in all that only left five out of seven soldiers accounted for. Two had gone missing, but in all actuality they weren’t very far away.

Before the girl had entered the room she had posted two riflemen right outside the locker room doors with the express order not to burst in unless she called for assistance, no matter what they heard. The poor Eldar and Shirren types kept hearing talking and then one person screaming then a series of clangs, then a heavy thump. They wanted to go inside but orders prevented them. Cassie was strict but if anything happened to her they would have to explain it to their commander, and they didn’t want that.

Right when general concern was about to override their orders to stand by the doors were yanked open and a slew of targets streamed out, a thin man with long brown hair, a shorter youth with his arm in a sling, a young girl with pointed ears and finally their main target. They came out with their backs to them and ran, heading the way they had came towards the main entrance. It was like watching a group of targets line up, ready to be executed.

Their training kicked in. Without much more than a moment of processing the two gunmen raised their rifles and fired, taking careful aim. Chaz and Hahn nearly seized up as they heard the gunshots behind them, loud and reverberating in the echoing darkness of the corridor. Rika continued to push them onwards with a few sharp words and hoped that Wren was following them, even as the bullets zipped past like zinging, whistling wasps.

As the tallest and broadest member of their team Wren acted as the perfect shield, guarding them from the rear. He felt several small impacts as bullets from the pre-laser era slammed into his back, unhindered by the armour that was no longer there. Wren nearly stumbled but did not miss a beat, keeping up with his friends. To him these bullets were far from fatal, which could hardly be said for his more palman allies.

Wren wound up moving in such a slight way that a bullet missed him, but ended up hitting somebody else in front. Rika heard the deadly whistle but there was no way she could avoid it, even with her spectacular numan reflexes. Immediately it felt like somebody had raked a dagger across her arm, leaving a burn that only stung at first, but descended down into a deep white-hot fire. She cried out in pain as Chaz before her was faintly spattered with her blood.

This made her hesitate only for a heartbeat, squeezing her eyes shut and cringing, but then Wren grabbed her by the opposing shoulder and shoved her forward, regardless of the injury. Electricity kept crackling down along the android’s exposed circuitry, interrupted by the bullets in his back. If that couldn’t stop him from moving then Rika had to continue too. The enemy soldiers were only a stone’s throw away, meaning their bullets were much closer and they could fire and run at the same time, although that seemed to be taxing their aim.

As Rika pressed her free hand up against the wound to stem the bleeding the androids behind them started to shout. They had commanding voices. One of them sounded uncannily like Wren. “What have you done with the Captain? Stop running and put your hands up! We’ll shoot to kill!” Fortunately, however, Chaz and company hit a corner and fell out of the sight of their rifles, the bullets smacking into the wall and forging a series of tiny little holes.

And yet they were still pursued. Chaz desperately wanted to turn around and find out why Rika had screamed, but if he slowed down even the slightest bit he’d ruin their marching order and possibly even cause a crash. “Rika! Are you okay?” He called behind him, his heart pounding in his chest with equal parts fear and sheer exhaustion. If anything happened to her he didn’t know what he’d do…

Before she could reply the gunfire burst into life again. Rika wasn’t sure if the soldiers would ever stop. Would they follow them to the outskirts of the spaceport? Beyond that? Would they follow until they were out of ammunition, or everyone was dead? They would never get tired. “I’m fine. Keep on running. Don’t look behind you.” She urged him, trying hard to follow her own advice. It was difficult, the burn was spreading up her arm and down into her hand, turning her fingers numb.

They were making progress. Two more bullets struck Wren in the back and arm and he slowed, coming to a brief stop. The gunshots were hurting him but in truth they were no more than collective bruises; a pain but hardly a serious wound. He could not leave the spaceport anyway, so why was he running, especially while he still had several ounces of fight left in him?

Without alerting his friends of his decision Wren turned around and stomped back the way he came, advancing threateningly on the soldiers of the Marauder army. This was not something they had anticipated. They skidded to an abrupt halt and the Eldar curtly glanced to the Shirren in confusion, in what could have been surprise and fear. This was their target in clear view but the bullets hadn’t been stopping him, and now he was moving in for an attack.

Wren, as a forren-type, was built like a tank. Even without his armor he was formidable and huge, for as sirens were built for stealth and warrens for attack, forrens were geared for solid, steel-wall defense. The name Forren was a truncation of Fortress Wren, and aptly named. He came at them with a slow stagger, bullets ricocheting and bouncing off his arms and chest with electricity arcing out from live wires. The fact that his balance was compromised made him seem all the more formidable to those watching.

The closer he got to them the less useful their rifles became. The Eldar was hastily trying to reload his weapon but the empty magazine had jammed in the gun; a common problem when those old rifles were not properly cared for and regularly maintained. The Shirren dropped his empty weapon on the floor, backing away. He had only the build of a teenager’s when compared to Wren’s stature and a rifle wasn’t about to protect him anymore.

“You also… must stay down.” Wren informed them carefully, before the beatdown began.

Around about the time he was starting up the fight Chaz and company reached the intersection that divided their two pathways. To the left was the path to the entranceway, to the right was the road to the launching strip. They stopped there for a moment to catch their breath, and it was then they noticed they were not being followed anymore and Wren was gone. When their footsteps finally stopped echoing all became quiet once more.

Blood was dripping between Rika’s clenched fingers over the wound, down along her arm and leaving little droplets upon the floor. Chaz gasped when he saw the injury and rushed to her, trying to prise the girl’s hand away so he could get a better look at the wound. The youth was pale, his voice shaky, though nowhere near as badly as his fiancée. “Rika, are you alright? Let me see, let me see…”

She pulled away from him. “Don’t touch it! Ugh, it’s fine, we can check on it later. What happened to the guards? Where are they?”

“I don’t know.” Hahn panted, his hands on his knees. “I thought we were goners. I could have sworn one of those bullets flew right by my ear! One step to the right and I mightn’t be here right now.” There were tears in the young scholar’s eyes.

“Where’s Wren disappeared to? Please don’t tell me he’s decided to fight them off alone!” Rika moaned. It thrust an entirely new decision into her hands, and right now she was in no condition to dwell on choices. The wound she was carrying was far from deadly, but the pain left her mind in a red foggy haze. She glared in the direction of the branching hallway. “Then again he could have collapsed from disrepair, but I don’t remember hearing a crash or anything like that earlier.”

“Let’s just get you somewhere safe so we can get that wound properly treated.” Chaz implored her gently. Rika had become progressively grumpier in the past few weeks, but then again they all had, yet Rika’s moods were the most prolonged and darkest. The one upside they had was that it brought out the leadership skills from within her. It made Chaz feel helpless, so maybe that was why he had become so.

Rika shook her head. “We have to go back and find him.” She said.

Chaz tried to put his foot down on this. “No. We have to get out of here. I’m not going to let you become a cripple like me. C’mon Hahn, we’re going.” He took Rika by the shoulder and tried to push her along towards the entrance. Hahn followed them quietly, wisely deciding not to mention that their route kept changing faster than the weather.

The entrance was clear of ambushing reinforcements and permanently open due to the destruction of its hydraulics earlier in the evening. Wasteland stretched out from beyond that, but above anything else the sky was clearing. The storm had blown over and the rain had stopped. Hahn stared up at the sky with relief as Chaz tried to hold Rika still enough to administer a quick gires to her injury. “It’s a shame,” he said to his friends behind him, “with the sky clear we really could have taken Wren with us. Dammit.”

“Ow! Stop it, Chaz!” Rika cried as she tried to shove him away again. He managed to pull her hand away and it wasn’t a pretty sight underneath. Thankfully the bullet had only scraped across her upper arm instead of embedding itself right into the flesh. There was no bullet to excise, much to Chaz’s relief, because taking a knife to Rika in order to dig it out of the wound just made his stomach turn uncomfortably.

“Well, maybe Wren will show up after all.” Chaz commented softly as he worked. “Don’t be so negative, you guys.”

“If he doesn’t turn up in the next minute we have to escape anyway. Don’t forget that girl and those other soldiers are still in there. She’s probably already out of that locker and after us.” Hahn sighed.

“Actually she is probably attempting to reassemble her minions from the jumble they are in now.” Wren interrupted as he joined up with his friends. It had been hard catching up with the rest of them after spending time subduing their pursuers and he had been quite certain they wouldn’t wait for him, as that was the logical decision to make, yet here they were at the entranceway beyond all logic. He was grateful for that.

Chaz, Rika and Hahn looked at him in relieved surprise. He was limping and resembled a machine centre reject, but at least his face was clear and neutral. The hunter finished up his treatment of Rika and wiped his bloody hands on his coat. “The rain’s stopped. Will you come with us?” He asked.

“I shall. I will follow you until I am able to assume control of Zelan once more. If you plan to fight Siren I will gladly assist you. Now it has become, as you palmans say, personal.” Wren replied.

“It’s good to have you back. Now all we have to do is fine Demi and Rune.”

“You have no leads regarding their whereabouts, whatsoever?”

“None at all.” Rika answered sadly. “It’s like they’ve fallen off the face of Algo. Frankly we’d run out of hope that we would ever see you three again.”

“They are most likely dead. I was meant to be dead.” Wren concluded with an utter lack of tact.

An uncomfortable silence unfolded around them, and with that they left the entrance to the spaceport and out into the still-damp wasteland, blanketed by the cloudy starry sky.

There were still some hours left until the dawn.

†††

Cassie kicked the two felled soldiers hard in their collective side as the rest of her small squadron stood around behind her, shamed. They had been given a good working-over but they weren’t dead; merely injured enough to make them wish they were dead. Their captain wasn’t angry but there was disappointment and even a hint of disgust, a granule of that directed at herself for being taken down so easily. “Get up you pieces of junk. What happened to you?”

The Shirren and the Eldar tried to get up but they were too tangled into each other to budge. They tried to disentangle themselves without much success, some of their limbs bent in such a way that they were lying in the wrong direction. “The… that forren-type attacked us. He was so strong, we didn’t have a chance to defend ourselves…” The Eldar moaned, crushed up against the corner of the bent corridor.

“We’re so sorry, Captain. They got away because of us.” The Shirren apologised dejectedly on behalf of the both of them. He flinched when the other android moved in a way that he couldn’t bear. “Argh, stop that! That’s my arm you’re twisting, you jerk!”

It was quite a spectacle. Cassie didn’t think she could look down on them any longer without feeling sorry for them. She snapped her fingers loudly, causing the four hale soldiers to snap to attention. “Don’t just stand there, help your comrades. They’ll have to go back to Zelan for repairs. You can explain the reason for your injuries to Master Siren himself.”

Separating the two was like trying to untie a knot. Moving one of them injured the other and vice versa, but after some figuring out and cooperation through the soldiers they gradually began to resemble broken toys rather than a jumbled mess. Cassie exhaled deeply as she watched, out of sheer annoyance rather than a need for air. She took the handheld communicator she carried from her belt and walked some distance down the corridor to get away from the sounds of the recovery effort. She waited patiently, hoping for a connection. There was always the chance that her commander might not be available.

After a minute or so her call was picked up but the reception was bad, possibly due to the distance or calling in a place like the spaceport. It would have to do. “Hello? Yes, Captain Cassie reporting in regarding our progress. It’s not good news. Yes… yes… I know that, but regardless you’re not going to like what you hear. The forren-type got away. He had allies with him and they outmanoeuvred me and my men. I’m sorry, commander. We have failed.”

She placed a hand on her hip and faced away from the others as she continued. “You should have mentioned that the target android was the colonel. We would have been much more prepared. …Yeah, it was a shock to me too. He’s really been around for the past thousand years? No wonder he’s almost unrecognisable now. …Uh huh, two of my soldiers were beaten into junk heaps and I crashed for a bit, but I’m fine now. … Aw, Warren, don’t blame yourself for what’s happened here. You can’t be in every place at once.”

There was a cheer from the soldiers as their comrades were freed and shared amongst the rest of them, two androids supporting each of the broken ones by the arms. Their rifles were ruined and useless, so they left them there. The captain looked over her shoulder at them for a moment just to make sure they were okay. “… Don’t worry, we’ll be fine. I just hope you can forgive us for the problem we’ve made. We will be back at the base by tomorrow evening. I’ll give you a more detailed report them. Bye. Over and out.”

She switched off the communicator and regarded it pensively. “Hey.” Cassie stated loudly to get the attention of the others. “Do you think we are capable of pursuing them, even now?”

“It’s unlikely.” One soldier answered, who had more of a tactical background than anyone else present. “Once they leave the facility they have a three hundred and sixty range of motion and we do not know where their allies are located. We don’t have the manpower for that kind of interception, and even if we did strike out in any particular direction the chances that it would become a wild goose chase are high.”

Cassie nodded. She didn’t require a professional to tell her that. “Well, Warren did say that if we missed them here chances are that he’ll turn up again a second time soon enough. We will just have to wait and redeem ourselves then.”

The girl put her communicator away and walked off to the entrance of the spaceport, her soldiers following slowly as they were carrying their injured friends. They at least had a direction to go.

They were going home.