Chapter 6.
Each step weighed heavier than the last. Lili's boots dragged against the unmoving steel of the escalator, her legs trembling, her chest tight with shallow, burning breaths. Above, the soldiers moved steadily, their long strides eating the distance with ease. To her, they looked like shadows cut against the pale, sterile glow seeping down from the surface.
Her vision swam. And then, as so often happened when exhaustion pressed hardest, memories came to her—warm, flickering, like candlelight fighting the dark.
She remembered the escalators.
Years ago, she had ridden them often with her mother, standing small beside her, clinging to the warmth of her hand. Back then, the escalators had moved on their own—gentle, steady, carrying them upward without effort. She remembered dangling her feet just above the steps, leaning into her mother's side as they rose into a world bright with life. No need to climb, no cold air gnawing at her bones—only the hum of the machine, the glow of the lights, and her mother's smile.
Now, each step burned.
A gust of air swept down from above, biting through her cloak. She flinched, drawing it tighter. The higher she climbed, the colder it grew. Her fingers were stiff, numb even inside her gloves, and her breath fogged the inside of her mask. She had never known cold like this. Mikri Poli had never known winters, never snow. She had seen it only in children's holobooks, white drifts and falling flakes like scraps of paper. Now she felt it pressing down from above, and it unsettled her in ways she couldn't name.
But she kept climbing.
Not just because the soldiers were there, moving higher, their boots striking like drums on the steel. Not just because she had to follow. But because the warmth of memory pulled her forward.
She remembered where these escalators led.
To the pavilion. A dome of glass high above the Metro, where sunlight spilled across the floors like water. Beyond it, a park—her park. A patch of green threaded with paths, surrounded by cafés and tall glass towers that glittered like jewels. Birds had sung in the trees there. Workers had eaten their lunches on the benches. Children had laughed and chased each other across the grass. And at the edge of the path there had been the ice cream man, cheerful and smiling, selling cold strawberry cones that melted too fast in the heat.
She remembered eating too quickly, the stabbing chill in her teeth, her mother laughing softly as she warned her of "brain freeze." Lili had giggled, insisting it was worth it.
And she remembered her father, tall and smiling, lifting her into his arms at that very park, spinning her once as the fountain sprayed behind them, and sunlight caught in the water like shards of glass.
The memory lit her chest with a fragile hope. Maybe, if she pushed higher, if she climbed all the way, they would be there waiting. Maybe the city, the park, the sunlight—all of it would still be there. She only had to reach it.
Her legs trembled, her breaths came ragged, but she climbed.
The higher she went, the sharper the cold grew. It gnawed through her cloak, bit into her arms, burned her nose and cheeks beneath the mask. Her fingers ached so badly she could no longer feel the knife that was no longer in her hand—she did not even notice it had been left behind at the base of the escalators. Only the steady warmth of the lightstone at her chest, the glow of her Core within, kept her moving, staving off the hypothermia that surely would have claimed a normal child.
The soldiers vanished into the glow above. The escalator stretched on like an endless climb.
Then—light.
She blinked against it, her eyes stinging. It was not the golden warmth she remembered, not the gentle sun of her childhood. This was pale, thin, and cold, filtered through torn clouds that churned like ash. But it was light all the same.
She raised her head, chest heaving, heart pounding as though at a finish line. After so many years in the dark, she had climbed out.
Home, she told herself. I'm going home.
And for one breath, she believed it.
Then at last, she crested the escalators top. And immediately a pair of strong arms seized her by the shoulders and hauled her the final steps. She stumbled onto the platform, boots crunching against ice as the bitter wind lashed across her mask. The soldiers were already there, rifles sweeping, their voices sharp with urgency.
"Try to keep up girl!" the Sergeant snapped. "No gawking ok, we haven't got time for any of that, we have to keep moving!"
Lili nodded obediently, as the Sargent quickly patted her helmet covered head and then moved to take charge of the men. Around her the men had already fanned out, half of them were hammering at the ruined control panel beside the blast doors. Sparks crackled as metal was pried loose, exposing the ancient manual gears. With grunts and curses, they forced the levers into place, and the heavy doors screeched as they began to grind shut, sealing off the darkness below. The echo of infected shrieks rose up from the depths, maddened and shrill, before being cut short as the steel slabs clamped together.
But Lili was hardly listening.
Her eyes were on the world beyond.
The glass pavilion that had once crowned Mikri Poli's spaceport station one stretched wide before her, but it was broken, gutted. Its great windows, once shining like crystal, now stood jagged and fractured, letting the storm howl through unchecked. Snow drifted in through the gaps, swirling across the tiled floor where bodies still lay frozen in grotesque embrace—soldiers and Sad People locked forever in their final struggle. Blood had spilled across the stone, but it too was frozen, black patches crusted beneath white frost.
And outside the pavilion…
Her heart clenched.
The city she remembered—its parks, its bright towers, its sunlit skies—was gone.
Snow smothered everything. Vehicles stood rusted and half-buried in the drifts. Towers that once pierced the heavens now loomed like skeletal husks, their glass shattered, their steel bent and lifeless against a sky of heavy gray. Flakes drifted down endlessly, carried by a wind that cut like knives even through her cloak.
A rifleman muttered, his voice low but edged with dread. "Throne above… is this what they call nuclear winter? Did those bastards at HQ really torch the planet?"
The Sergeant exhaled slowly, white mist pluming from his mask. His reply was quiet, grim. "Looks like it. Just means that we're truly and utterly on our own." His grip tightened on his weapon as he swept his gaze across the ruins. "All the more reason to find a ship and get out before radiation or the infection does the rest. Move out."
Lili didn't understand the words completely. Nuclear winter, radiation—they were just sounds the soldiers hadn't yet fully taught her. But she understood the weight in their voices. She understood the desolation before her.
This place was dead.
And they couldn't stay.
Her hands, numb and trembling, unconsciously clutched at her chest where her core of light pulsed faintly along side her heart of flesh, both of them keeping warmth in her blood. She realized dimly that she had dropped her knife somewhere on the climb, lost in the dark below.
The Sargent wouldn't be happy, but for now it seemed that the knife didn't matter.
What mattered was that she followed. That she stayed with them.
Her family.
The squad tightened formation, boots striking against ice, rifles cutting arcs of light through the storm as they pushed toward the shattered doors of the pavilion and the city beyond. The wind screamed against the broken glass, carrying with it the faint, maddened echoes of laughter from below behind the closed blast doors.
But for Lili nothing behind within the metro mattered anymore, not her drawings, not her pretty flowers or her garden she left behind along with everything else. For Lili now only survival was on her mind as she stumbled after the men as they pressed through the pavilion's shattered doors, boots crunching across ice and glass.
There the cold hit her like a wall, the wide street stretched out before them, buried beneath waist-high snow, or well Lili's waist high. For a long moment she froze in place there at the doorway just watching it all. To her this was a totally alien environment full of gray and white bland colours that made her heart sink, there wasn't even any warmth here and finally she understood why nobles from planets with snow liked to come to the planet of Achios for vacations in the past.
The snow was frightening to her and truly horrible, nonetheless she bravely pressed onwards after the men despite never before having encountered this strange thing called snow that swallowed her steps until she learned to plant her boots carefully in the deep prints the soldiers left ahead. Even then, the drifts clawed at her legs, slowing her tiny frame.
On the far side of the road lay the park she remembered. Once it had been filled with laughter, fountains, and bright flowers. Now it was nothing but a frozen grave, its benches half-buried, the fountain encased in ice, trees long since stripped bare by storms. Vehicles stood abandoned and rusted, snow piled across their roofs like white tombstones.
The city loomed around them in silence. The skyscrapers that had once glistened like crystal pillars now rose as hollow, blackened husks. Some leaned on fractured foundations, their upper floors split wide, gaping like broken jaws. Others bore the jagged scars of bombardments, their glass long since shattered. Lightning thundered and crawled like veins across the heavy gray clouds above, and the sky wept slow flakes of snow that stung her skin wherever they touched her.
She shivered, pulling her cloak tighter. Even with her lightstones burning faintly against her chest, the cold gnawed at her bones. Her gloves were stiff, her fingers numb, and her teeth clenched behind the mask to keep from chattering. She did not know this weather. Mikri Poli had never known snow, so why now. Thinking back to her lessons with the Sargent Lili remembered that in the Holy Book of Mankind, the priests had spoken of frozen wastelands reserved for the damned. She wondered if this was what they meant when they spoke of the Sixth Circle of Hell.
The spaceport that looked like a mushroom with a wide but short body and a large dome shaped top loomed ahead, its ramp rising like a black tongue from the frozen earth. It was close, but the snow and ruin before their path meant minutes yet — long minutes left to go until they made it inside. The squad moved swiftly, single file, rifles scanning every angle, urgency in each stride. She hurried to keep up, driven not only by fear of being left behind but by memory. For she remembered the Sargent had said that if they make it off world they would be famous, she would be famous and then they all could become true planetary kings, or queen's. The Sargent had said that if they became planetary kings in status then they could have whatever they wanted, so maybe she could finally get her parents back and be able to remember their face's once more. So she pressed onwards.
Then suddenly her core pulsed a warning and she looked up at the frozen skyscrapers.
At first it was only a shadow leaping from one broken skyscraper to another. She thought it a bird, but it was too large. Far too large. It moved like some vile predator, like that one time in the metro she had seen mister rat hunting mister cockroach, her breath caught in her throat at the thought. It was as if she was mister cockroach now and the flying thing was mister rat and she could feel it watching them hungrily.
Then from the towers it let out a fearsome cry. It's voice split the clouds like a blade, sharp and alien to her ears. The men halted, rifles lifting skyward.
It was sneaky, moving up through the skyscraper and into the clouds that brushed the skyscrapers top, but it wasn't sneaky enough as Lili saw it all the while. However the men weren't as observant and so Lili had to point it out to them.
"We have contact, Sarge!" Venn having noticed her gaze barked. "I think something's circling us above, and it's no bird!"
And indeed from the clouds above after circling once, it began it's fast descent.
The shriek it loosed tore through the storm, rattling Lili's bones. And as it came ever closer Lili began to see it more clearly and indeed it's wings were vast, tattered leather stretched across corded limbs. Its body was long and armored with fungal ridges, its head a swollen skull with jaws that gaped too wide. From its throat came a sound worse than the wind — laughter, high and thin, like a child screaming in play and agony at once.
"Spread out!" Halvern roared. "Bring it down!"
The men moved instantly, fanning across the street, rifles cracking fire into the sky. Lasbolts hissed upward, searing through snowflakes, but the thing twisted mid-flight, unfolding a second pair of wings from its back. It spun, dived, and the bolts went too wide missing the thing.
Rask's hand clamped on Lili's arm, dragging her behind the wreck of a frozen troop transport just as the Demon struck.
It hit the snow like a mortar shell, the impact shattering ice in every direction. The shockwave flipped Venn into the air like a doll. Halvern lunged, tackling him mid-fall, breaking his crash.
The Demon was already moving. Crawling on all fours, wings dragging like claws, it slashed with barbed talons. One hooked into Halvern's leg, and with a single wrench the armor tore open. Blood sprayed across the snow.
The Sergeant screamed.
"Keep firing!" the Corporal roared. Lasbolts ripped into the Demon's hide, but its skin was thick, bones armored, the shots carving black pits but failing to stop it. The monster laughed and shrieked, dragging Halvern across the snow.
Lili bolted forward in horror — only for Medic Orrin to seize her by the shoulders.
"Not yet!" he snapped. "You'll only get yourself killed if you go and help him now!"
Then Rask charged.
He didn't shout. He didn't curse. He simply lowered his head and ran, his bulk crashing into the Demon full-force. Man and monster toppled together in the snow, wings thrashing, claws raking.
"Now!" Fenn bellowed, his rifle flashing. Two bolts burned into its chest, one into its throat. It screamed and thrashed harder.
Orrin drew his vibroblade and sprinted forward. With a soldier's precision, he drove it deep into the Demon's exposed spine. The weapon hummed, vibrating as it cut through bone. He twisted.
The shriek broke. The monster spasmed once, then went limp in the snow.
The squad surged around Halvern. His leg bled freely, armor peeled away. Venn's voice shook.
"How bad is it?"
Orrin peeled back the ruined plate. His face went grim. "Femoral artery. He'll bleed out."
But before he could act, Lili was already there.
She fell to her knees beside the Sergeant, her hands glowing white even through the storm's pale light. She pressed them to the wound. Warmth surged. Blood slowed. Flesh knit. Skin sealed.
Her breath came ragged, her small frame trembling, but when she pulled her hands away, the wound was gone.
Halvern gasped, his breath steady again. His eyes met hers. "You did good, girl."
Her chest heaved with exhaustion, but she managed a smile.
The Sergeant hauled himself upright, slung his rifle, then bent and lifted her onto his back. His voice was rough but steady as he whispered, "Don't worry, Lili. We're almost there now. We'll make it off this cursed world yet."
Rask had already taken point, riflemen fanning behind him. Together, they pushed through the snow toward the looming ramp of the spaceport, the storm screaming around them.
They did not look back, they just left the demon or whatever it was behind in the snow, dead.
Looking ahead, Lili watched the entrance to the spaceport yawning ever closer. Luckily it was open, like a true cavernous mouth cut into the spaceports mushroom shaped thick base that now was but a ruin. As they began making their way up the ramp, Lili watched as all around it there were burned-out husks of armored vehicles laying half-buried in the snowdrifts, their scorched shells twisted and broken, silent monuments to the desperate final stand fought here so long ago. There were also plenty of soldiers' bodies around, some slumped frozen against their barricades, some laying in pieces scattered across the snow covered ground or still in their vehicles where they had set their grenades off, and many had their weapons still clutched in skeletal fingers, their vacant eyes staring forever at a sky they would never see again.
Inside, the carnage deepened. Heaps of corpses, both human and infected, lay locked together in grotesque stillness, fused by frost into blackened mounds. The stench of old death still clung beneath the cold, heavy and cloying, the air itself seeming to remember the screams.
The spaceport was a tomb. A cathedral of silence and ghosts. And as they entered ever further within the darkness of it, Lili then heard a faint but distant howl that made her remember the clawing at the barricades down in the metro and the whimpering of dogs.
There were howls coming from the city, most likely drawn to the sounds of the battle they had fought earlier. They were distant, but echoing ever closer, rolling up the streets before the spaceport. Other howl's soon answered the first in turn, rising like a chorus in the storm outside. Lili's heart clenched as her Core trembled out warnings.
"Hal, or I mean Sarge…" she whispered, her voice cracking in the frozen air. "I think they're coming. Mmm, the dogs from the metro that we used to hear sometimes."
Halvern didn't say anything in reply, he just looked back towards the city, set her down and broke into a run further inside the spaceport, boots hammering across the icy tiles, straight toward a cracked and battered console behind a service desk. Frost coated the screen, glass spidered with fractures. He smashed his gauntlet against the casing and sparks spat weakly. The screen stuttered to life, static crawling across its surface, High Gothic letters flickering faint.
His hands moved quickly, punching through menus with soldier's precision. For a moment it seemed hopeless — only lines of dead bays, empty docks, nothing left but ghosts and endless reports of damage. Then one line blinked faintly, stubborn against the dark.
His eyes lit with a rare fire. The grim hardness of his features cracked into something fierce, almost triumphant.
"Hell yes!" he snarled, slamming a fist against the console. "We've got a hit. An old cargo freighter—Bay 63!"
He tore the frost-covered screen sideways so the others could see, the name flickering faintly in the static.
It was hope. Faint, fragile, but real.
Halvern ripped his rifle from its sling, spinning to face the squad, his voice like thunder in the silent tomb.
"Let's move! Now!"
The men surged into motion, boots hammering the frost-slick floor. Rifles angled in every direction, lightstones cutting arcs across broken murals and angel statues that loomed like watchful sentinels. At the rear, Rask slowed a step, his great bulk turning to glance back. His visor caught the faint, staggering form of Lili, struggling to keep pace.
He did not hesitate. With one arm, he scooped her up and swung her onto the heavy pack at his shoulders. "Hold on," he muttered.
Her arms locked tight around his helmet, her chest pressing against the cold steel of his armor as the squad pressed forward through the cavernous hall.
The howls rose again. Louder. Closer. The sound of claws on stone, mad and eager.
They ran.
Like passengers in an old starport, they followed the painted lines across the frozen tiles, weaving between ruined checkpoints, past toppled benches, and the skeletal remains of soldiers still slumped where they had fallen. Yet every route they tried was blocked—collapsed corridors, dead lifts sealed in frost, cargo trams long since fused to their rails.
The enemy closed in.
Then came a sound: the rasp of claws dragging on metal, from somewhere ahead. The squad froze. Lightstones swept forward.
There—a blast door, half-closed, its immense steel slab descended nearly to the floor. But something blocked it.
A figure lay trapped beneath it, a soldier's body, clad in broken armor. His chest was crushed beneath the door's weight, but he still lived. His face was twisted into a smile, eyes streaming black tears, hands clawing madly at the air. His boots scraped against the tiles as he writhed, grinning, forever pinned.
For a moment, no one spoke. Then Halvern stepped forward, his bayonet glinting under the lightstones. He lowered the blade without ceremony, plunging it through helm and skull. The twitching stopped. The smile froze in place.
"Emperor rest him," muttered Venn.
"Or curse him," Karst added darkly.
Together, the men bent low, gauntlets finding the grooves of the steel. Muscles strained. Frost cracked. With a groaning shriek, the blast door lifted just high enough for one man at a time to duck under.
"Move!" Halvern barked.
One by one they slipped through, Rask ducking low with Lili still clinging to his back. The last man through was the Corporal, who shoved hard, kicking the corpse free. The body slid limply aside, and with a final metallic slam the door dropped shut.
The corridor shook an instant later.
The hounds had arrived.
They crashed against the other side of the door with bone-snapping force, claws scraping, jaws slamming, howls echoing madly in the steel. Dents bulged outward as their bodies smashed against it, their frenzy mindless, relentless.
The squad stood in silence, listening to the snarls, the scraping claws, the laughter mixed into the chorus.
"Emperor's mercy…" Fenn whispered. "Like they'd have torn us apart."
"Then thank Him the door held," Halvern snapped. "Now move. Stairs are ahead."
They pressed on.
The stairwell loomed wide and dark, a spiral that coiled upward through the belly of the spaceport. Lightstones swept across the steps—and froze.
Bodies sat slumped along the walls. Soldiers in tattered uniforms, rifles laid across their laps. Some still gripped pistols, barrels pressed against their chins. Others had simply withered where they sat, helmets in their laps, faces hollow and frozen in eternal despair.
Lili's breath caught.
These men had not died fighting. They had died waiting. Waiting for food that never came. Waiting for rescue that never arrived. Waiting until there was nothing left but to end it.
Her small hands tightened against Rask's helmet. She could not look away.
The squad climbed in silence, boots echoing against stone, eyes lowered as they passed the skeletal dead. And in their silence was something unspoken.
They knew why those soldiers had given up. And they knew why they themselves had not.
It was her.
Her light, her healing, her garden, her very presence had kept them alive when all reason said they should have joined the dead long ago. She gave them something the others had lost: a purpose.
And so they climbed.
Upward, toward the sixth floor, toward Bay 63. The howls still echoed faintly below, maddened and furious, but fading beneath them.
And still Lili held on, trembling, her face buried against Rask's armor.