Connor's lungs burned as badly as his legs as he tried to put as much distance as he could between the boarding group and the cloud of guilt hanging over Jimmy's ravaged corpse. Hamilton burst through a door with his rifle light strobing to the left and then the right as a primal scream erupted from Ruo.

  Connor ignored the scream and slammed the thick metal door behind him. Whatever he had to fight inside was surely better than the rows of razor sharp closing the distance behind them. He brought his rifle to his shoulder and scanned the room as he focused forward.

  The cavernous room was bathed in deep red lights and lined wall to wall with filthy cages full of huddled and nearly silent forms. Connor shined his light into the closest cages and the beings inside covered their eyes and moved into the corner furthest from him. They were....humans.

  "Oh no, oh my god. Hey, I'm not here to hurt you. I'm a human. Look." Connor whispered.

  They person in the cage hissed and turned away again. Connor could see rips all through her clothing and her skin was almost translucent and pockmarked with sores.

  "Hey, come here." A voiced whispered from another row of cages behind the first. "Shut off that light, please."

  Hamilton moved toward the voice cautiously with his hand over his light. "Where are you?" He whispered.

  Liz grabbed Connor's arm and he could feel the anxiety pulsing through her. She was remembering the prison camp on Dottir.

  "Hey, right here." The voice whispered again as they drew close to his cage. "Some of the people in here, they can't talk to you. They never learned how." He whispered.

  It was a young man with more color to his face and no beard or mustache. His cage wasn't small but it was too small for a person to stand straight up and there were four or five people crammed inside. The other's didn't seem as willing to talk.

  "What do you mean?" Hamilton asked as he knelt down beside the metal bars.

  "I'm from Dottir.. but some of these people.. they were born here. Nobody taught them how to talk or anything really. The Sharlah raised them like cattle. That's my best guess anyway. Who the fuck are you?" He said with a battered grin. Ruo gasped silently and backed away into the red and black shadows.

  "It's a long story, but we're here to kick the shit out of them and get you home. What can you tell me?" Hamilton asked.

  "That's good to hear. I know you can't let everyone out, it's too dangerous and some of these cages have Sharlah. Skinny ones. Not warriors. Be careful of that and who knows what the feral people would do.

  I think the bridge is located at the top, just like any other warship. I didn't see much when they brought me in, just a bunch of ugly lizards and something like dogs." The man said.

  "Yeah we've already seen both." Hamilton said dryly.

  "I noticed the incoming fire stopped, what happened?" The man asked.

  Hamilton slowly lifted his fingers and brought the slivers of light up to the man's chest. "You're military? A sailor?"

  "Master Sergeant Kang, Tiantang Navy, Special forces." He said. "One of my soldiers is in here with me, there might be more somewhere else, maybe not. I don't know how many were killed."

  Something slammed against the door, and then again.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  "We need to get you out of there Sergeant. Connor, watch the door where we came in. Liz and Ruo, keep watch down the row of cages. This plasma torch makes a bright light, shield your eyes folks." Hamilton said and opened one of the pockets on his chest rig.

  "Wait a minute, did you just say Ruo?" Kang asked.

  Ruo was all but crawling inside her own skin.

  "Yeah what of it?" Hamilton asked as he prepped his torch.

  "Nothing.. Nothing at all, just a familiar name." Kang said quietly.

  Ruo stepped forward. "It's me Kang, good to see you." She said with an awkward pause.

  "We have a lot of catching up to do Lieutenant Commander."

  Connor gripped his shotgun a little tighter and Liz shot him a look over her shoulder. The look was a question that he didn't have an answer to.

  "Are we going to have a problem here?" Hamilton asked as he held his torch a few inches from the cage.

  "Master Sergeant Kang is a traitor! He abandoned ship before I gave the order to save his own skin!" Ruo blurted out.

  Kang slammed his fist against the cage and screamed "You little bitch! If I don't kill you myself, the Sharlah will! You're gonna die here RUO!"

  "Shut up you moron!" Hamilton hissed as the door to the room shuddered again.

  People began to stir and rattle their cages. Some of them called out in English but many just screamed. A Sharlah a few cages down was gnawing on the metal bars and reaching toward them, it's black eyes bulging and pressing into the cage.

  Hamilton pulled the torch back and shut it off causing Kang to start screaming also.

  "NO! GET ME OUT!" He yelled and the other people in the cage started reaching through the bars. One of them grabbed Hamilton's chest armor and pulled him close. His faceplate slammed into the cage and he tried to push himself away but he needed help.

  Connor rushed to his side and slammed the butt of his shotgun down onto a skinny arm. A woman screamed but he couldn't even hear her over the cacophony of horror around him. Hamilton's torch fell to the floor of the cage and he scrambled to grab it but he couldn't reach.

  "Leave it, let's go!" Connor said through the suit comms.

  "Move!" Hamilton yelled in reply.

  Their lights danced across the cages and people of various races reached for them as they passed. Humans, Sharlah, and things that Connor had never seen before were grasping at their only hope in years, maybe decades. He didn't know. Connor slipped on a rotten fruit and fell to the ground just as a bolt of light ripped past his head and continued into one of the cages, devastating the people inside.

  "Open fire!" Hamilton called out and they did.

  The Sharlah guards on the other side of the prison fired again and again as they fell one at a time, sending random bolts of death into the crowded chamber. People poured out of the holes made by their beams and sprinted on unsteady and bare feet toward Hamilton's squad.

  "RUN!" Hamilton screamed.

  Connor pumped his fresh legs again toward the open door ahead. He felt like a beast in his armor, a monster. He was running from withered, pale creatures with the muscle mass of children, yet he was scared. It felt like the movies he used to watch where the undead hunted the normal people. Liz was falling behind.

  "Connor!" She screamed both into the comms but it was loud enough to hear twice.

  Connor turned and pulled the trigger. It wasn't a thought that he had, it was a reaction. He subconsciously made a calculation and had decided that any lives running behind Liz were worth less than her. He would kill them all and cry later, if he survived.

  His barrel flashed and a man behind Liz crumpled to the deck. He fired again and hit a woman who was reaching out toward him. She was saying something but he didn't hear it.

  Liz screamed, her eyes were as wide as baseballs. There was fear but also horror in them. Connor was used to that. She looked like that more than she smiled. He hoped one day to find peace with her and see her beautiful smile every day but to survive this, he would have to be the monster.

  He stepped behind Liz as she continued on and pointed his shotgun at the crowd of people. Some of them knew what it was and some looked confused. A grey form shielded it's eyes from the overpowering light.

  "Connor come on!" Liz called out to him but he was focused on the Sharlah.

  It didn't look like the others. It wasn't a hulking armored soldier or a more slender scientist. It was small, skinny, just like Kang had said. Connor pulled up the slack on his trigger.

  "Connor!" Ruo this time.

  He tilted his head to the side and stared at the Sharlah. He thought of his parents and of Laura. He replayed the car accident in his head and felt cold as he executed Loukios again in his minds eye. Then he pulled the trigger and sent the Sharlah to the deck with a moan.

  Liz stared at him as he passed but he didn't feel anything. Just the cold.

  "They stopped didn't they?" He said quietly. "Let's just get to the bridge."

  He passed Hamilton next but his stare was one shared between warriors. He nodded but Connor didn't return it, he just headed up the stairs toward where the bridge should be and they followed.