Tungsten breakshots - check. Meta-steel slugs - check. Explosive rounds - check. Low penetration buckshots - check.

 

A gentle sigh escaped through Seeth’s lips as she ran her hands over the cold metal body of the SAFU cannon. She was staring, determinedly out of the cockpit window, her eyes fixed on the small vessel she’d been locked on and observing, for the last twenty-four hours.

 

Not that she’d been able to observe much; the vessel had no windows, not even privacy ones. She’d spent the last day tracking a metal box as it drifted lazily about through space, without a worry or care in the world. From the outside it looked like any other small cargo vessel, unassuming and quiet.But the inside…

 

But the inside was anything but.

 

Seeth’s leg bounced in anticipation, the weight of the SAFU shifting onto her other thigh. Her gaze remained firmly locked on the Vora Baron meat barge. She’d be going into this one cautiously, and slowly if she could. When she’d been a part of the Draconic Alliance (which felt like a lifetime ago now,) the DA military had been outright dismissive of the Barons; low threat, low priority, little more than vermin. Even after she’d joined the military, she never once had a run-in with them, nor did the attitude towards them change.

 

But Garnet had told her a very different story.

 

To the nomads, the Barons were an unstoppable force of guns, blubber and teeth. They devoured everything and everyone in their path, stripping down system after system to the bone, and picking at the carcass with their yellow-stained teeth.

 

Thinking about it now, as Seeth watched that small, dull cube float around through space, undisturbed and unchallenged, it suddenly hit her; the Vora Barons were bullies. To the might of an empire like the DA, of course they were no threat; bullies punch down, not up. Sitting on their vulcan throne, protected by the millionth fleet and shrouded in starfire plasma, the DA were untouchable, undesirable by the Baron’s standards. The nomad’s scraped-together fleets, in comparison, cobbled together by those who needed to fight, were low hanging fruit. As Garnet put it, the barons don’t want to fight…

 

They want to feed.

 

Seeth had intended to observe the barge for longer, but had learnt nothing of any real value. A few days ago this barge had been a part of a much larger Baron fleet, according to Garnet’s intel, but after their raid, the barge had moved away from the other ships, and didn’t show any signs of joining back up. Seeth felt pressed now to act, sooner rather than later. The spoils from their last attack were fresh, and every moment mattered.

 

Seeth glanced quickly around the rest of her ship, and for a moment, in that little pocket of space which held just her, and the Barons, she felt a pang of loneliness ripple through her chest. Although disappointed, Seeth couldn’t say that she was surprised that no-one else had come to help her on this one. The other mercs just weren’t willing to put their necks on the chopping block (or chopping board, as one had joked) and go up against the Barons. Hope was gone, the Barons were an uncontested force, and they knew it; there were only so many excruciating losses the average nomad could take before just abandoning their post. The risk was high, but someone needed to take a stand. 

 

Seemed fitting it would be her.

 

She sighed quietly again, nodded to herself and stood from the cockpit chair.

 

Her body gear was slim in its appearance, and not particularly striking. Just a sealed mask and black, tactical body armour tightly fitted to her body (as most outfits were,) with patches of exposed skin around her arms and calves. She also wore a pair of black fingerless gloves, for extra grip.  Strapped to various locations on her body were bandoliers and pouches filled with SAFU shells, which would have been completely unmanageable, unmoveable  to most. They contained hundreds of kilograms of tungsten and meta-steel, ready to punch oversized holes in anything the wielder desired. But Seeth moved as if they weighed nothing at all. Her new axe and SAFU cannon were holstered on her back, along with a tactical enviro-shield and omni-directional mobility module, perfect for slow, precise navigations through space. As she tweaked her armour however, she couldn’t help but run her fingers along it, as she stared out at the space between her and the barge.

 

I could always try teleporti-

 

She shuddered, and furiously shook the thought out of her head.

 

No.

 

A fierce, self-loathing scowl spread across her face.

 

Time’s ticking. Let's do this.

 

Before she had the chance to second guess herself again, she pulled open the first airlock door. She pulled her mask over her face as the hiss of air escaping filled the ship, and solidified her decision. She was doing this, and doing it now. There was a hatch on the bottom of the barge that looked like it could be pried open from the outside. Failing that, she would go loud and use a breaching shell from the SAFU to punch a hole through. This was the back-up plan though; a quiet entry would allow her far more tactical flexibility.

 

The second airlock door hissed open. and the silence of space enveloped her. Gently, she stepped out into the void, and the lock closed behind her.

 

Seeth had paid a small fortune to have Venner’s ship fitted with a decent-grade cloaking module, allowing her to stay perilously close to the ship without being spotted. It hurt to take that amount of money from their ‘Find Diego’ savings fund, but an investment like this would only result in more money later down the line, or so she hoped anyway.

 

A pulse of cobalt-blue fire erupted from her mobility module and a brief flicker of blue flame from her back pushed her through the cold vacuum of space towards the barge. Only minutes later her hands were brushing up against the dull, metal exterior. She found the handle of the hatch and she pulled herself up to it. Wrapping both her hands around the handle, she pushed with her feet against the hull until she felt a sharp clunk from the panel, as it came loose.

 

The barge’s internal shielding cast a visible blue haze over the hole which prevented the air from being sucked out, but posed no threat in stopping Seeth from boarding. Her observations had been correct too, it was large enough for her to squeeze into. The pull of the ship's artificial gravity hit her suddenly as she wiggled through the hatch, carefully ensuring that her weapons did not catch on the metal. As she climbed slowly to feet, she looked around the room she’d found herself in with keen and determined eyes, taking in everything. It looked like she was at the end of a dark maintenance tunnel, with a single junction exit straight ahead. The walls and floor had an unnatural brassy colour to it, as though it had once been a silver that had become dulled with oil and grease over many years.

 

Listening closely, Seeth unclipped her mask and her tongue flickered out from between her lips like a snake, tasting the air. She flinched as she tasted blood, staunch iron on every flick of her tongue.

 

With her current surroundings seemingly empty - the only thing she could hear was a repeating, distant drip - she slowly padded down the grated tunnel. Before long, she’d reached the junction. Pressing her back against the cool metal tiles, she cautiously peered around the corner.

 

Directly in front of her was more corridor, dark and bloomy. It seemed to lead further up into the ship, perhaps towards the sleeping quarters. 

 

Behind her was a door, partially open, with a bright white LED light shining through the gap. After a moment's deciding, she turned and made towards it. Her breathing was calm and composed. She unholstered the SAFU and held it out infront of her, ready to fire. Slowly, with the gun’s nose, she pushed the door open.

 

Her eyes watered and she fought, hard, to stifle a cough, as the smell inside the room hit her.

 

She seemed to have entered a butcher's kitchen. The room’s surfaces were stained, and littered with bloodied cutting tools. In the centre of the room was a steel trough, full to the brim with blood. The trough had a draining tap at the bottom, with several glass jars, pre-filled, stashed around its base. 

 

Several nomads were dangling from chains, upside-down, their heads hanging over the trough and their necks slashed.

 

Drip… drip… drip…

 

Seeth swallowed. The nomads were long gone, the life having left their bodies likely several hours ago. 

 

I waited too long…

 

The room presented her with two new doors, one on her right and one directly ahead. 

 

These people might still be alive…

 

She could hear a faint bubbling through the door on her right as she softly padded over, SAFU first.

 

No. Forward. Always move forward.

 

She pushed the door open, heavy on its hinges and was hit immediately with a wave of uncomfortable warmth, accompanied by a slightly sweet taste on the tip of her tongue. 

 

It was another small room, with nowhere else to go but back the way she’d came. The room was far from empty though. Her gaze moved over the large, sealed tanks lining all four walls of the room. Each one was filled to the brim with thick brown or orange fluid, and was covered in a misty layer of condensation. Cautiously, Seeth moved towards one, leaning over to peer into the tank, but it was impossible to see through the murk and condensation. 

 

She released her ever-tightening grip of the pump of the SAFU, and gently wiped the tank with the palm of her hand with a soft little squeak.

 

There was someone inside.

 

A young, adult human floated helplessly, suspended in the thick fluid. There was a mask clamped around his unmoving face, Seeth could just about make out the silhouette of pipes, running from the mask upwards, to the seal of the tank.

 

Slowly, Seeth tapped her finger against the glass. The man’s eyes immediately opened wide, and stared at Seeth in fear and trepidation. Seeth’s head lurched back, but her hand stayed pressed up against the glass. She had no idea how this man was still alive. His sickly, brown-stained hand reached out towards hers. As his fingertips pressed against the tank, a chunk of flesh fell away from his palm, and drifted aimlessly about in the murk.

 

The Controller retreated away from the tank, focusing hard on keeping her breathing calm, and her breakfast down. She looked around the rest of the room, at the numerous other tanks, trying hard not to picture what would be inside… who knows, maybe they were empty? Her heart sank though as she noticed that each tank had a red numerical counter by its side, including the one in front of her. The timers were all counting down. The timer was accompanied by a set of hand-scribbled notes hanging from a small hook. By the looks of it, every tank contained a person, and each was alive. It had been calculated so. The notes all said the same thing, with only some minor variation between them:

 

89KG - MARINATE FOR 336 HOURS - 40 DEGREES - CHEFS SAUCE - SERVE ON RELEASE, SHOULD FALL RIGHT OFF THE BONE.

 

This is where the warmth was coming from. Seeth stumbled back from the tanks, her eyes darting between the notes, the timer and the silhouettes of the people within.

 

They were being slow cooked… alive.

 

Her hands squeezed around the handle and foregrip of the SAFU.

 

If there was anyone who deserved to feel her wrath, it was the Barons.

 

There didn’t seem to be an easy way of releasing the captives from their slow cookers without making a lot of noise. The young man’s eyes had remained locked on her, and she had to pull herself away from his desperate expression. She turned and left without a second look, marching back to the other door within the butcher’s room, and gently pulling it open.

 

The door opened into a wide, metal corridor, with a large barred jail cell directly on one side. Immediately she was hit with the loud scraping and clanking of metal chains, along with the muffled sounds of crying, sobbing and screaming. 

 

The small cell opposite her held a group of around thirty nomads, chained to the floor and walls, and all in various states of despair and loss. There was no political agenda or racial preferences amongst the Vora Barons; food was food, and every single prisoner, no matter their size or species, was suffering the same.

 

In the distance, she could hear the clatter of cutlery, hearty chuckles followed by the deliberate crunch of feasting mouths, all concealed by the doorways further down the corridor. The monstrous comradery could almost be enticing if divorced from the reality of the meat barge. Of all the things the Barons could be accused of, not knowing how to enjoy themselves wasn’t one of them.

 

An oddly positive feeling rippled through her despite the suffering in the air. Slowly, she realised that her corruptive urges were at the lowest they’d been in what felt like an eternity. And despite what she was walking into, she couldn’t help but embrace that feeling. The thought dawned on her that maybe, maybe the corruptive beast lurking within her was tamable. 

 

If only it hadn’t taken a cannibal’s floating chop shop for her to realise it. 

 

Next door to the cell was an armoured door with several thick electrical cables pressed into its outer walls, which connected to a series of cameras throughout the cell and the corridor. A security office. A good target to neutralise, she thought. 

 

She felt the eyes of the captives land on her, slowly at first, but then a disinterested hush fell over the crowd. She stared back. She could feel the wide variety of emotions of the prisoners as their eyes rested on her person; fear, at first - of course, these people would have been expecting a Vora Baron, and in the gloom, she could imagine that her formidable size and strength gave her the same, rough appearance. Their brows lightened though as Seeth didn’t move, didn’t react, and they came to see her more clearly. She did not match their understanding of a Baron. As their curiosity bubbled, Seeth raised a finger to her lips, and then pointed at one of the cameras. They followed her movement closely, and stared at the camera for a second before realising what she meant. They fidgeted about, and made their gaze more subtle.

 

“She’ll probably die, like the others…” One of them whispered.

 

“I think she’s alone too. She’ll end up on a skewer, with the rest of us.” One answered, a cackle escaping through his dried lips. 

 

There were a handful of prisoners, she noted, that hadn’t even looked up at her. Their eyes were inhumanly wide and bloodshot, staring straight down at the floor. Their breaths came heavily from their chests. Their faces were gaunt and grey, their limbs skinny and skeletal, malnourished and starved. Their stomachs, however, told a different story. Each prisoner was carrying a heavy-looking and bloated pot-belly. As she examined their condition, a memory suddenly popped into Seeth’s head, of when she’d been a child and first learnt what fois gras was. 

 

She shuddered. 

 

Seeth walked slowly over to the security door and tugged on its thick metal handle. She was surprised to feel it move on its hinges. She pushed the door open slightly and, peering inside, confirmed her suspicion. It was just a small security office, filled with monitors and staffed by a single guard, who was leaning back heavily in an undersized chair.

 

Her first Vora Baron.

 

A wolf - he was a portly creature, somewhat short but heavy with fat and dressed in cured leathers - was staring at the screens with a bored, vacant expression, A single line of dribble oozed from his mouth. On his control panel rested a metal cleaver and a severed leg, half eaten at the calf.

 

Seeth slowly inched the door open, keen to keep her advantage… when the door creaked. The wolf casted a confused glance behind him as a blur of purple blur flew into the room. He bolted to attention and went for his cleaver but Seeth had already wrapped her arm firmly around his neck, pulling him away from the controls and ensuring his voice was muffled. Her arms were like steel around his throat as she lifted him cleanly off the floor by his neck. He scrabbled at her arms desperately, his cheeks bulging as the pressure around his head increased…

 

His struggle ended as abruptly as it had started, punctuated by a sharp snap.

 

She lowered his limp body to the floor and dumped his corpse in the corner of the room, shutting the door behind her and looking over the monitors closely. Something caught her attention immediately. One of the cameras showed a much larger, open butcher’s room than the one she’d previously been in, filled with several tables that had been modified with restraining equipment. The room looked like it had been a small hangar before the Barons had gotten hold of it, likely for launching shuttles or fighters, but now it hosted row after row of restrained nomads, strapped down to the tables with a… significant amount of room between each one. The far wall looked to be a giant, retractable security door, with a ruby red alarm above it and several bright yellow warning signs welded to its metallic exterior. Spray painted in blood red writing, the words ‘STARVING DOGS’ had been crudely spelled out just under the warning signs.

 

Two huge Vora Barons were wandering around the room, looking over their captives with a mouth-watering glee. 

 

Both of these men were giants, around Seeth’s height, round and thick. Their stomachs jiggled with every heavy step they took. Their barbarian attire allowed their ample bellies plenty of room to swell and grow with each feast. One was a half-breed of serpentine origin, with a smooth, reptilian head but walking heavily on poorly-grooved hooves. The other looked to be a boar, with thick tusks protruding from his jawline. 

 

Their hands teased at the knives and axes that hung from their belts, occasionally bending over to taunt and prod at the terrified nomads, cackling madly.

 

Seeth turned her attention away from the monitors for a moment. A brief glance at the map layout conveniently pinned to the wall revealed that the hangar was just beyond the cellblock, protected by another thick, metal door.

 

She felt a surge of adrenaline at each of the Baron’s unwieldy movements, flaunting their power as they threatened to butcher another nomad, with a twiddle of their chunky fingers. She needed to act now, or she’d be watching the slaughter happen, live.

 

The corridor was still empty and she rushed over towards the hangar. The door had a glass panel which she could bend down and peek through. The snake, who was closest, currently had his back to her. The boar, however, was facing towards her door, on the other side of the room. 

 

There was a fire extinguisher unit installed in the wall beside the door, solid, heavy and thick with dust. Quickly she grabbed it in one hand, then unsheathed her axe and held it in the other, close to the blade.

 

The snake suddenly seemed to spot something. He lunged towards a restrained young girl, who began kicking and screaming in her bonds as the Baron pulled what looked like a large blob of orange gel off of her. He teased the nomad with it, shaking the blob over her face before raising it high into the air, opening his jaw wide and threatening to drop it into his mouth.

 

That’s enough. Time this lot took on someone their own size. Axe gripped in one hand, fire extinguisher in the other, she pushed open the door and surged across the room.

 

“Pupa!!! Leave her alone! She never hurt anyone!” The nomad was screaming, tears streaming down her face as the Baron let his tongue flop loose off his maw, dangling the orange slime over his vacuous mouth.

 

In the blink of an eye, Seeth had driven the blade of her axe straight into the skull of the snake in a single, vicious slam, splitting his skull with ease. In a smooth, follow-up motion, she swung the extinguisher and flung it across the room, in a perfect straight line at the boar. 

 

The snake collapsed to the ground and dropped the slime, but the other Baron hadn’t been caught so off-guard. He raised his heavy arm up to protect himself as an ear splitting thwack rang out and the metal impacted his underarm, punching into his flesh and embedding itself firmly into his ribcage.

 

Oh shit. It didn’t kill him.

 

The boar squealed at the top of his lungs, then let out a deep, pained grunt. His arm was broken and fixed in place, stapled by the giant metal protrusion. His hand loosely flapped about as he twisted on the spot and began to shuffle towards the alarm behind him.

 

Oh no you don’t.

 

Seeth sprinted across the room, expertly leaping over the rows of tables as the Baron desperately plodded over to the alarm, reaching towards a small red button on the back wall with his stubby fingers. He grunted loudly with every stumbling step he took, his various knives and tools shaking furiously on his belt, but just as he reached towards the button, his second arm was severed clean off and hit the floor with a wet slap. Seeth had thrown her axe across the room. The blade punched cleanly into the wall and stayed there, with a splatter of blood along its silver blade. 

 

The Baron spun around to face Seeth, just as she charged and knocked him off his feet. With her one arm over his shoulder, and her other under him, she heaved him up and lifted him off the ground, his immense mass shifting uncomfortably as she held him horizontally, and then drove his entire body into a protruding support column on the wall, spine first.

 

The hangar shook slightly from the sheer impact of the Baron, and a bassy metallic thud echoed around the room. The support column was left with a hefty dent in the multi-inch thick metal as the boar went limp in her grip. Seeth dumped him on the floor, head first, watching as his vast bulk collapsed onto his head and neck, turning his already mangled spine into more of a mess than it already was.

 

Seeth spun on her heels and quickly checked the rest of the room. The other Barons hadn’t seemed to have heard her. All around her were only the bewildered expressions of the various nomads, as they slowly realised what had just happened. Pulling her axe from the wall, she addressed the nearest prisoner, carefully bringing the blade down on his restraints in such a manner as to not spook him. The restraints clinked cleanly as he was freed, on limb at a time.

 

“Do you know how many Barons are on this ship?” She asked sternly, her eyes taking in every detail of the hangar as soon as he was free.

 

“M-Maybe ten!” The nomad sat up slowly, rubbing his wrists, his body trembling. “B-But they have a horde of Famished behind the door!”

 

“Famished?”

 

The nomad pointed at the giant hangar door, plastered with warning signs.

 

“I-If the Barons find out you’ve killed one of their own, they’ll set them free! And if they set them free with everyone still tied down… we’ll get butchered!”

 

“What are the Famished?” Seeth demanded, crouching over the boar Baron’s body and pulling a large ring of keys free from his belt.

 

“I-I… They used to be prisoners, l-like us, b-but… they’re not anymore!” The nomad’s voice was rising, and Seeth was quickly becoming concerned now that he might start acting hysterical. She spied the biggest, most-ornate looking key and unthreaded it from the ring.

 

Master key.

 

“Start unlocking the others.” Seeth ordered, throwing the ring over to the nomad.

 

He fumbled but caught the keys, and moved towards the closest prisoner.

 

“T-That was incredible, though! I’ve n-never seen someone lift a Baron like that…”

 

Seeth didn’t reply; she slipped the master key into a pocket on her suit and moved towards one of the other rows of prisoners, axe-blade lined up with their restraints. She cut through the metal cleanly with every strike, but her eyes kept drifting to the warning signs behind her.

 

STARVING DOGS.

 

It wasn’t long before all the nomads in the room were freed. They all appeared confused and extremely anxious, as they stared up at Seeth and struggled to process the situation - was this actually happening? Were they actually going to… live?

 

The young girl, who had been kneeling on the floor, stood up and walked over to Seeth, unsteady on her feet. She was clutching the orange blob to her chest. She cradled it carefully and gave Seeth a teary, wide smile.

 

“T-Thank you! You saved us! You saved Pupa from being eaten!”

 

The orange blob stretched out a small, shaky appenditch. Unsure of what to do, Seeth reached out gently towards it and the blob rested its shaking limb on her hand, as if to say ‘thank you.’

 

Everyone then began thanking her together. They stayed behind the girl but began to crowd around Seeth, practically crying with relief 

 

All, except one man.

 

On the outside of the group, someone had broken away from the rest. His eyes were sunken and heavy in the back of his head. His face twitched as he shuffled towards the back of the room, towards the shiny red alarm panel at the back of the room.   

 

“N-No, n-n-o. Too laaaaaaaate,” the man muttered to himself, in an odd little sing-song voice. His voice was harsh, and a single bead of saliva trickled down his face. He stared down at his large swollen belly, unable to see his feet.

 

Seeth was overwhelmed by the sudden rush of praise. She stood about awkwardly, eyes on the floor, her fingers playing with the end of her plait. 

 

Nobody noticed the man until it was too late.

 

“Always to laaaaaaaaate…”

 

He stepped over the dead Baron, completely transfixed by the button. The harrowing screams of his children, of his wife, echoed through his head. His eyes like pin-pricks, he reached out and pressed the alarm with a single, stone-solid finger.

 

The alarm above the door blared loudly, bathing the room in a red haze as the huge door began to retract into the floor. The prisoners, and Seeth, jumped out of their skins. The man held his finger on the alarm, as though his life depended on it, turning to look at the door with that same lost expression.

 

“We’re not waiting to see what's behind that door. Get into the corridor!” Seeth yelled, guiding the nomads back through her point of entry.

 

The terrified group shuffled out through the door as fast as they could as the room filled with the rumble of the retracting door, and the gurgle of its concealed occupants. 

 

Seeth turned, and made to go back for the man.

Under the crimson glow of the alarm, a figure clambered out on top of the door, despite being only half-retracted into the floor. His body was a mess of industrial bionics and badly grafted flesh. Several vials of clear fluid were attached to his back, feeding into what little organic matter was left inside his body. His hands had been replaced with blades, which he rubbed together with a sharp, piercing screech. Despite the awkward, unbalanced nature of his body, he moved with an unsettling grace, well accustomed to his abhorrent body.

 

More and more sets of blades, hooks and hands latched onto the door as more of the beast's kin emerged, eager to make the most of this given opportunity. The first jumped over, landing with a metallic thump and turned to face the single, quivering nomad, still holding down the button. 

 

The Famished surged towards him. Its blades cut straight through his flesh and bone, severing his arm at the shoulder. In a curl of blood, it snatched the limb right out of the air and clamped its half-metal jaw onto the warm flesh, crunching into it with a distinct, loud, synthetic purr as the blood hit its tongue.

 

A blood-curdling scream filled the room as the man collapsed to the floor.

 

More of them were clambering on top of the door, each one mangled and deformed in their own way, their bodies a twisted husk of sharp metal, with desperate eyes and organs clinging onto life. The most mutilated of them had their organs held in clear, plastic sacks, which hung from the frame of a completely bionic skeletal shell. They eyed Seeth with a mixture of confusion and hunger, with the hunger taking precedence as more of them emerged into the room, and began to spread out like a pack of dogs. 

 

Seeth stood in front of the main door, separating the nomads from the monsters inside the hangar. 

 

The smell of blood had filled the room, and prompted an excited wave of mechanical savagery from the Famished.

 

Their somewhat calm demeanour began to change quite dramatically however as the smell of blood began to fill the room. The first one, who was chomping at the man's arm, only became more vicious as he continued his feast. Its bites became more aggressive, and lashed out as some of its kin crawled over, and began to tear into the nomad’s body. They reacted as a pack to the scene as a ripple of excitement ran across their bodies, tapping their blades together with increasing vigour.

 

The hangar only continued to fill with more of them as the door eventually fully retracted to the floor, revealing a secondary hangar filled to the brim with malice and metal. They clung to the walls and crawled over the floor in a disorganised horde, each as hungry and ravenous as the last.

 

Seeing over a hundred opponents, Seeth’s heart was pounding in her chest. She was confident about taking on one, maybe five without injury. But this? 

 

The Famished began a chorus of half-organic, half-rusting voice boxes, united only by their hunger and their suffering. Their malice was aimed directly at the Controller, watching, waiting for the slightest hint of weakness.

Seeth’s eyes quickly darted around the room, deciding on her next move. Then, as quickly as she could she backed out of the room, closing the metal door behind her sharply and wedging her axe into the handle, to keep it closed. The Famished charged towards her the second she moved. A blade punched through the glass panel millimetres from Seeth’s face and she jerked back to avoid it, narrowly dodging the blade.

 

They clawed and teared at the door, metal scraping against metal, but for the time being, it seemed to be holding.

 

The prisoners had gone down the corridor and opened up the cell by the smaller butcher’s kitchen. They all stood together in the corridor, unsure of what to do next, and as Seeth approached them, they all immediately turned to her. She could hear the sounds of several Barons in rooms further down the corridor, apparently still unalerted. Their hearty laughs and chewing echoes from one side of the corridor, the synthetic growl and metallic scrabble of the Famished from the other.

 

“There are people in tanks through that door; get them out.” Seeth ordered. A group of nomads quickly broke off with the keys, and did as she said. Seeth then turned to address those remaining. “I need you all to stay out of sight and look after your own, give me room to fight. Don’t die from stray shots.”

 

The nomads immediately did as she asked and hid low and quiet. Most moved into the now open cell, or back into the kitchen and ducking behind the tables. Seeth started to move towards the sound of Baron laughter, when a new set of footsteps from down the corridor made her stop in her tracks.

 

An overly muscular wolf appeared in the corridor. He initially seemed to just be passing from one side to another, but he slowed down and his ears pricked as the sound of the scrabbling Famished reached him. He was shorter than Seeth, and looked a little more well kept than the other Barons she’d encountered; his upper body was overflowing with bulging muscle rather than that, making his normal-sized legs look a little anaemic in comparison. He had a bionic grafted onto his back between his shoulder blades which fed small tubes into his arms and into his neck. The bionic whirred quietly as he turned to address Seeth.

 

“I don’t think I've seen you before… Are you a new Baron?” He asked, head cocked and eyes curious.

 

Seeth faltered for a second, stumbling over her words.

 

“Y-Yes. I’m just having a wander about the ship.”

 

The bionic on the wolf’s back began to hum louder, like an angry bee. His face twitched.  

 

“What do you mean you’re having a wander? The fuck is there to look at?! We’re in a windowless metal box!” His temper was rising quickly as he spoke, rising in volume with the increasing aggravated whirring emanating from his back.

 

“I was checking out the latest captives, picking my prize.” Seeth feigned, staring the wolf down calmly. He seemed briefly convinced; the persistent whirring noise dropped in volume, but after a few seconds he suddenly snapped back at her.

 

“If you’re a Baron, you’ll know who runs this barge! Give me a name!” He hissed, his eyes narrowing, the bionic increasing in volume once again.

 

“You shouldn’t talk to a fellow -”

 

“GIVE ME A FUCKING NAME!” He screamed, his eyes practically bulging in their sockets.

 

“Ah shit.” Seeth muttered, bracing herself.

 

“WE HAVE AN INTRUDER!” He growled, grabbing a bladed club that hung from his belt. “THEY’RE TAKING OUR FUCKING FOOD!”

 

“Rager! I-It’s a Rager!” One of the nomads called out from behind the czarite. The Rager’s hands clamped around his bat, squeezing it so tightly that they could hear his joints clicking from down the corridor. The wolf’s entire body began to shake, blood oozed from nose as his eyes locked onto Seeth with a violent madness. The feasting and laughter on the other side of the ship suddenly cut out, and was replaced with the sound of scraping chairs and heavy stomping.

 

“YOU’RE GONNA - YOU’RE GONNA - GONNA - DIE!” The wolf screamed, half choking on his own frothing words as he launched himself down the corridor as fast as his legs could carry him, gunning straight for Seeth with his bat at the ready.

 

The nomads were screaming. The Famished were screeching. All around her was aggression, anger, and fear. But Seeth was calm. 

 

“I hope this packs the punch Garnet said it did.”

 

As the wolf charged her, she lunged forward and met his charge with a kick to the stomach, hitting him like a cannonball and sending his shaking body skittering back down the corridor. His bat clattered to the floor and Seeth quickly drew the SAFU, which was currently strapped to her back. One hand on the pump, the other on the trigger, she took aim at the spitting Rager who was clambering back to his feet and screamed at her again, blood squirting from his eyes and underneath his claws.

 

He was trying to speak, to unleash a few slur of insults and threats onto his opponent, but his shaking maw could only scream froth and blood, and all that stuttered out were broken syllables.

 

A thunderous roar erupted from the barrel of the SAFU as a flesh-splitting barrage of tungsten launched down the corridor.

 

Multiple ball bearings connected with the Rager. The sound of pulverised flesh was immediately preceded by the ear splitting *ping* of tungsten slamming into the ship's floor and walls. And just like that, as the cloud of smoke cleared, the Rager was gone. He had been reduced to smouldering, bloody chunks on the floor, an unrecognisable mass of gristle and bone, like someone had dumped a can of dog food onto the ship's plating. The SAFU had also left a visible spread of deep craters, puncturing deep into the ship's carcass like a halo around the wolf. 

 

A weapon like this didn’t leave corpses. It left mulch and scraps.

 

The silence that followed was deafening. The nomads didn’t even dare breathe. Seeth cycled the weapon with a beefy *clack-clack*, ejecting the spent shell which thudded to the ground, smoke gently wafting from its interior.

 

The silence was broken by the howl of Vora Barons as they came pouring out of their various rooms ahead of her, each of them as fat, blood stained and smelly as the last. The floor shook with every stumbling, ravenous step they took. Fury and hunger was plastered across all of their faces, but as they got closer, and eyed up their perpetrator, their demeanour shifted slightly. 

 

“That's a delicious looking piece of meat, look at those thick thighs!” One of them cackled, reaching for a hook on his belt. “Leave her unmarked by lead, I want her meat unfowled.”

 

The others didn’t seem to agree with their fellow Baron’s approach, and reached for the oversized pistols and other weapons they had on hand. 

 

Seeth did not even acknowledge their threats.

 

*BLAM*

 

Another flesh-shredding wave of tungsten filled the corridor, with plenty of flesh to hit. The noise was unlike anything Seeth had ever heard before. The sound of multiple kilograms of ball bearings punching through what was literally metres worth of flesh, fat and leather. Beyond the crunch, there was a sickening sound of gushing blood and hell knows what else, as gallons of bodily fluid evacuated through the fresh, gaping holes in the Baron's wall of bodies.

 

Seeth emptied the SAFU’s magazine in several more head splitting blasts and charged forward, rushing towards a Baroness slightly smaller than her who had waddled out of the next door just up from the security room. Seeth rammed the gun into her face, forcing the Baroness back inside the room as the corridor filled with heavy calibre gunfire from the surviving Barons.

 

The room was only small; a bedroom, with a makeshift bed and TV inside, finished with a half-eaten nomad dangling from the ceiling by his arms. The bite marks on the nomad’s body fit the Baroness’ jaw perfectly, and her lips covered in fresh blood. Footsteps were rapidly approaching the door but Seeth kept her focus on the Baroness before her, who was wrenching the gun out of her face with a fierce scowl and going for a knife on her belt. The Controller responded with a skull cracking jab to the baron's cheek, sending her scuttling backwards and thumping against the wall. Seeth loaded a fresh shell into the SAFU, cocked it, and blasted the Baroness in one smooth, single, motion. The force of the shot sent bloody chunks of mashed ribs and pasted organs spraying over the Controller, as the Baroness’ torso practically exploded.

 

That hellish whirring of two new Ragers echoed around the room as they appeared at the door. They skidded and sprinted straight into the room, lunging at Seeth with bladed clubs. They were already fully revved up and incapable of speech, screaming from the base of their throat as they attacked her. She blocked their blows with the SAFU’s body and booted the first in the chest, sending him straight back out of the room, his head clattering against the opposite wall with a firm crack. The other narrowly avoided his comrad’s catapulted body, and swung his club horizontally in a vicious arc.

 

Seeth dodged backwards with what little room she had and the club smashed through the torso of the hanging nomad instead, busting straight through him. His meat clung to the blades of the club. As the Rager recovered from his swing, Seeth lunged at him, using the back of the SAFU as a club. The Rager’s overgrown muscles might have afforded him some protection versus an average nomad, but they did nothing to protect against the bone-breaking slams of a Controller. He may as well have had all the strength of a children’s toy after three distinct, crushing blows of solid metal, the final of which drove the stock of the SAFU straight through his skull. The bionic on his back spluttered to a stop as his skull crunched, and the Rager stopped moving.

 

Seeth quickly returned to a firing stance and loaded more shells as the first Rager came stumbling back into the room, despite the wound on the back of his head. He swung his club at Seeth again but this time, the Controller caught it at the base, wrenching it free of his shaking grip with one hand and bringing the bladed lump of metal straight into his chest, sending him straight back through the door. He hit the floor a mangled pile of bone and flesh.

 

More footsteps followed, heavier this time. A tall, lumbering Baron lurched around the corner and surged towards Seeth with a vicious, hungry grin on his face - it was the same one that had called out to her earlier. He clutched a massive, metal hook in his hands, the corpse of a dead nomad already impaled firmly on it. The body jerked violently as the baron raised the hook over his head and prepared to slam it down onto Seeth.

 

“You’re packing some heat, girl.” He gurgled, drooling trickling down his chin. “Let's see if your back folds or not.”

 

She knew she should have just pulled the trigger on the SAFU; it was loaded. He would be dead by now. But as he raised the hook, she caught a glimpse at the nomad, their dead, empty eyes, their mouth hanging open in what would have been a heart-wrenching scream as the hook came down and…

 

She dropped the SAFU and immediately raised her hands up to catch the hook as it hurtled towards her face. The metal met with her hands with a loud thump. The Baron was strong, but Seeth was stronger. As they stood against one another, the Baron's arms quivered and a dripping, toothy grin appeared.

 

“Well that I did not expect!” He inhaled her scent deeply, his sweaty belly pushing against her torso as he forced her back. “Quite the find! You’d make a fine apprentice with strength like that!”

 

“Only the best for you, you fucking cunt!”

 

Seeth locked her arms, ensuring the hook would not collide with her face, slowly sliding backwards until her shoulders bumped against the cold wall.

 

The Baron licked his lips again, his breath thick with putrid-smelling alcohol and meat. As he pressed the hook closer to her, the impaled nomad seemed to lean in closer, almost as if it was taunting her.

 

“Surrender to me, czarite and I’ll show you a feast that will blow the idea of civility clean from your mind!”

 

“The fuck makes you think I want anything to do with your kind, Baron?” Seeth spat, feeling her body tense up as more of the Baron’s sweaty body pressed up against her.

 

“I know what you are, czarite.” He stared down, deep into her eyes, their arms still locked. “You’re a monster, trying to reject your true nature. You’re not here to fight us. You’re here to fight yourself.” He broke into a deep chortle, his shoulders shaking. “You’ve deluded yourself into thinking you’re one of them. You are not. Your teeth would be better wrapped around their bones than bared at me.”

 

“You got one part of that right, Baron.” Seeth forced him back a couple of ground-shaking steps, finally freeing some space between them.

 

She pushed up against the wall behind her and kicked her leg out, booting the Baron straight in the knee with a deep crack. He dropped as his leg gave out, coming face to face with Seeth. As he roared in pain, she pulled the hook free of his hands, meeting his desperate grapple with an explosive headbutt, sending a shower of blood and teeth all over the floor as her carapace met with his mouth. She caught him as he tumbled backwards with the point of his hook, slamming it straight into his shoulder, sinking several inches of it straight into his body. 

 

“I am a monster.”

 

She clutched the handle of the hook with one hand, locking him in place, and launched several shattering punches into his face and neck with her other hand. Her jabs knocked chunks free from his already damaged face, splattering more blood and teeth against the walls. His heavy frame shuddered violently as she hit him, over and over again. 

 

“You’ll never fit in with them. No matter what you do.” The Baron gargled, spitting blood with every slurred syllable.

 

Furious, she reeled back again, keeping her hand firmly on the hook's handle, and kicked him with all her might in the centre of his chest.

The hook tore free of its flesh prison in a brutal spray of gore. The Baron's mountainous corpse was hurled back into the corridor, skidding to a stop after slamming into the wall, leaving a significant dent as he fell onto a dead Rager. She quickly pulled the limp corpse off the hook and slung the weapon onto her shoulder. She grabbed the SAFU off the floor, and dove behind the dead Baron. 

 

Leaning over the mass of fur, blubber and blood, she sent several more shells down range as the Baron's initial confidence waned. The shots ruptured the remaining Barons who were stepping over their dead kin, when a louder, metallic sounding footstep suddenly grabbed her attention. 

 

Emerging from the very end of the corridor, a gigantic Baron clad in grey steel stomped into view, wielding a massive shield attached to his left arm. He practically filled the entire corridor. His legs had been replaced with four spider-like legs. His body and head were completely protected by the giant slab of metal he wielded, several inches thick at the very least.

 

“STAY BEHIND GORVUE, WE CLOSE THE DISTANCE AND FUCKING GUT HER!” A Baron called out from behind the metal goliath, the sound of his advancement echoing loudly down the corridor.

 

Seeth reached for her slug ammunition, but stopped as she heard a metallic screech from the hanger. A Famished was pushing itself through the broken pane in the door. Although still holding, the door was heavily bent out of shape and what was once a small rectangle of glass was now a torn open hole, big enough for the Famished to pour through as the axe wedged in the handle rattled loudly. 

 

As the Famished clattered to the floor, its attention was immediately directed at the viscera-covered controller, who was dripping with Baron blood and taking cover against a corpse.

 

It bared its blades and charged at Seeth, whilst the stomping further down the corridor slowly made its way closer. 

 

Not wanting to damage the door further, Seeth grabbed the hook from her shoulder and swung it at the Famished as it leapt through the air, blades first. Her reach was longer than its, and the hook swatted the awful thing out of the air in a single, violent motion. The hook slammed through its neck and sent it crashing into the wall. As it clattered to the ground, Seeth drove her foot onto its back and tore the hook free, pulling its head off in the process. A splutter of blood and brown fluid erupted from its severed neck and it ceased moving, but another Famished had already pulled itself through the door.

 

Shit, SHIT! Famished first, I have to protect the nomads!

 

She snatched up the SAFU again, quickly loading it with more tungsten shells and clubbing the approaching Famished with the side of the shotgun, sending it flying back down the corridor in pieces. As another was trying to pull itself free through the hole, its metal limbs snagging on the jagged edges, Seeth slammed the barrel of the gun into it, hard, and forced it back through the hole. The SAFU’s deadly barrel was aimed directly through the hole as the Famished screamed in its own horrifically unique manner at her.

 

She unloaded the whole magazine through the hole in rapid succession, furiously pumping the SAFU with each thunderous blast. As fast as lightning, she spun around and loaded four more slugs into her gun, taking aim at the gigantic metal beast that was shovelling corpses aside. The scrape of a giant butcher's blade echoed around the barge as it made its way closer.

 

Can’t see the fucker’s head! Guess I'm going for centre mass.

 

She aimed the SAFU, slowly this time, standing tall and strong in the middle of the corridor.

 

*BLAM*

 

A near deafening, metallic ring sounded, as though someone had shot a church bell with a cannon. A hole the size of a watermelon punctured through the baron's shield, right in the middle. He ground to a stop. His blade dropped out of his hand as he looked down at the hole in his stomach, showing just the peak of his chin.

 

*BLAM*

 

Gunfire ripped and tore through the corridor again, but this time, the Baron fell back instantly, collapsing to the floor with nothing but a bloody stump above the neck. There was a second, gaping hole in his defence. 

 

As his body fell, Seeth came face to face with her final opponents, the last two Vora Barons on the ship. One was cradling their now missing arm, cleanly torn from their body by one of Seeth’s shrapnel shots. The other raised her own weapon, taking aim at Seeth.

 

*BLAM-chuck-chik-BLAM*

 

Two more precise shots hit centre mass, punching both Barons down cleanly. Their corpses dropped to the floor with the same heavy, ground-shaking thump as the others.

 

With the Barons dealt with, Seeth turned her attention back to the hangar. She cleared her way through the remaining Famished that had trickled through the door with ease. She slammed the nose of her gun back through the window and fired, fired, and fired once more. She took a few steps back, reloaded the SAFU, then fired through the door. The squealing, gurgling sounds of the Famished on the other side of the door slowly dyed down. Even after Seeth had finished firing the SAFU, the echo of its shells continued to bounce down the corridor, and ring in the nomad’s ears.

 

The hangar door was destroyed, riddled with highly compromising holes the size of a man's fist, punched straight through the solid metal.

 

The sound of combat faded away. The screams, the cries and the laughter had stopped, and the sudden quiet that enveloped them was deafening, heavy, almost. Vora Baron viscera dripped onto the floor and trickled down through the grates. 

There was a pressure building in the barge, in the corridor, the space she was in suddenly felt so very small as Seeth looked around, breathing heavily, at the hundreds of gallons of blood that now plastered the damaged surfaces, at the piles of corpses that dwarfed the common man, at the mutilated, dead abominations littering the hangar. One victory. All this, for one victory.

 

She felt like she was going to burst, when -

 

The surviving nomads around her began to cheer. They cheered with all their hearts, they threw their arms around one another and cried with relief into each-other’s shoulders. Slowly, as Seeth straightened herself up and re-holstered the SAFU cannon, she felt all of their eyes land on her. She pulled her axe out of the door and, as calmly as she could, slowly walked further out into the corridor to face them.

 

She was stained in Vora Baron blood. She must have looked awful, terrifying, like some sort of monst-

 

But as Seeth looked around at the nomads, the expressions they wore on their faces weren’t ones of fear, or apprehension. Nor were they even ones of lust, and obsession.

 

They were thankful.

 

She had restored hope to this little colony of nomads, saved them from a slow, desperate and inevitably agonising death. She had beat the Vora Barons. A nomad had defeated the Vora Barons. And now, in the aftermath of the wreckage, the carnage, of a literal bloodbath that now stained the sides of what would have been their graves, Seeth had given them something incredible.

 

She had given them hope.

 

Today, she wasn’t a monster. 

 

Today, she was a hero.

 

And as the nomads approached her, took her hands, threw their arms around her and thanked her truly from the bottom of their hearts, Seeth couldn’t help but think, that was just one ship. A small ship at that. This was her first contract of what could be hundreds. Seeth had gotten the drop on these ones too, and they didn’t get the chance to bring out their big guns… this was only going to get harder. She didn’t know how to feel, how to react, or what to say in that moment, as the nomads clambered around her and celebrated their survival.

 

But she did know that she wasn’t going to stop. 

 

Sighing gently, Seeth stowed the SAFU on her back and dropped the hook to the floor. Turning away she reached for the communicator strapped to her belt.

 

“Garnet? It's me. Send a pick-up, we have survivors who need medical aid.”

 

Seeth glanced back at the nomads, who were still celebrating, and showed no signs of stopping any time soon. A small smile teased at the corner of her lips.

 

It may only be one ship, but for these nomads, that’s their whole lives…

 

She clicked the button on her communicator again, interrupting the otter’s torrent of questions that were currently cracking through the receiver.

 

“Also, bring me a change of clothes. I… really need a shower.”