595 burst through a particularly flammable clump of matter with the staircase just a dozen metres away when the source of the chittering sound revealed itself. An [url=https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/000/614/691/large/kory-hubbell-xeno-bug4.jpg?1443928849]armoured carapace[/url] with four insect legs, a long jagged tail and slime-dashed teeth clacked out of the tunnel and chittered furiously. Freyr screamed.

The Agent charged her shotgun to full power, narrowed the vector and fired at the monster. A sheet of plasma covered the front half of its body just as it began clambering up the side of the platform from the tracks. It screamed, recoiling back underneath the parapet where 595 lost sight of it.

A gurgling cry issued from the opposite tunnel; the Agent swivelled towards the new threat as it appeared on her sensory grid. Before she could complete the turn, two vines decoupled from pillars either side of the way forward and lunged at her. 595, fully dialled in behind the stubby shotgun, blew one of the vines to pieces before it gave an electronic sigh as the energy cell drained. The second vine wrapped around the gun and tried to yank it from her hands, so 595 grabbed the Rothian energy sword from her waist, flicked it on and slashed the vine in half.

The Agent shook the vine off the shotgun, then compacted it down as far as it would go and magnetised it to her chest plate. There was no time to reload now. She glanced behind her, but realised Dr Lang was no longer there.

Freyr recoiled from the terrible fascination of the creature coming for them, and stumbled off to the right, towards the middle of the platform. She fired her blaster wildly in front of her, still shouting and swearing, until another of the creatures burst from the tunnel on the opposite side of the platform. Freyr’s shout raised in pitch, and she turned tail to run back the way they’d come.