“I’m not leaving you to die sir - get out of my way!” Eva replied to Mallory, then turned her suit’s translated loudspeaker on briefly for the benefit of the Glen traffic jam near the swamp-end of the bridge.

Eva’s voice soon continued on the crew’s shared comms channel.

“Jotunheim, this is Eva! We’re under attack, requesting immediate assistance- woah!”

A fifth mimic beast burst from the water and flew straight at Eva. Its body was morphed into something like a large net with eyes, teeth and limbs. She didn’t see it til too late. She only managed to turn partially toward it and pull back a punch before it wrapped around the mech. Servos whined as Eva tried to stabilise her suit’s footing with all the extra weight and momentum.  Metallic *pung, pung, pung* noises rattled across the water as hidden barbs on the mimic’s body tried to puncture the cabin.

“Get this thing off me!”

Two of the closest Glen turned and promptly began stabbing the mass of black tendrils with their spears. The creature squealed and tried to grab the weapons off the knights.

Mallory’s first shots ripped straight through the fleshy tornado whipping towards Shirik and Silbermine. It howled and lost its deadly shape, collapsing onto the bridge. Evidently, bullets made more of an impact than cutting off its extremities. It turned and began skittering back towards Mallory; Silbermine pursued it, hacking away at it with his sabre.

Mallory’s quick thinking and second burst of shots stopped another creature from flanking the nobleglen. It splashed noisily back into the water with holes in its face.

A few more Glen soldiers had sorted themselves out now and filtered past Mallory to make a defensive wall. One more reached down, offering a hand to the Human. They seemed to understand he was hobbled.

“Get on my back!” The Glen would haul Mallory out of the shallow water running across the bridge if he chose to take up the offer.

-

The mimic trying to grab Itxaro recoiled when its arm was crushed to dust, but didn’t stop. They climbed up and peered over the top of the bridge. Seeing Itxaro had turned away and was shooting another of its kind, the mimic jumped up to engulf the Human. 

Shirik’s icy spear flew from out of nowhere into its body. A cloud of steam blew in all directions and when it cleared, the mimic was frozen in place, still reaching out for Itxaro. Thick, sharp icicles jutted up around its feet.

The inferno mimic recoiled from the impact of each shot Itxaro fired into its back. One of the bullets missed and went through the breastplate of the Glen the mimic was fighting too, killing him instantly.

Gouts of flame burst out of the tendril creature’s eyes and mouth. It turned and clattered towards Itxaro, seriously wounded and very angry. It’d reach her in just a few seconds.

The corkscrew mimic finished murdering the Glen immediately in front of Shirik. It’d absentmindedly taken a spear off of another Glen that’d tried to stab it while the mimic tore its prey apart. Seeing Shirik upon raising its gruesome head, it threw the spear at the Iriad with its tendril like an atlatl. It then charged forward, meaning to grab the fiery tree and douse it in the river.

Meanwhile, the ground underneath everyone began to tremble. The bridge rippled and undulated suddenly, as if coming free of the riverbed. One of the Glen stumbled and fell into the water.

With the sound of a terrific scraping and splashing, Two broad stone shoulders emerged from the water. They were connected to either side of the bridge about one third of the way across, near where Mallory, Silbermine and Shirik stood.

Then appeared arms, and finally crude, roughly hewn hands. The right hand swung slowly, laboriously up into the air in an arc that could end with it crashing down onto XO’s head.

[hr]

“We got one!” Zey whooped from the gunwale of the barge as her second magazine clicked empty. She glanced instinctively around to check her crew were alright. Richard the medical assistant was firing an assault rifle in single shot mode to her right, shouting and screaming the whole time. Dr Lambert was on her left, filming the whole thing. Zey moved over to her.

“Where is Vigdis!” She shouted over the din.

“Ran in back. I need a weapon!” Dr Lambert shouted back. Zey had forgotten she’d forbidden the scientist from having a firearm.

The Captain unslung her backpack and kicked it over to Lambert. She then gruffly put her rifle into the doctor’s hands.

“Ammo is in my pack. Keep hold of it for me, I'm going to look for her!”

Zey then promptly turned and stalked towards the other side of the ship, avoiding the mess of black tar coating the middle section.

In the end it was the rattle of darts rolling around the deck that gave Vigdis away. The Captain found her scrabbling round on the floor trying to get them back.

“Vigdis, what's going on back here? We need you in this fight!” Zey bellowed. She reached down to grab the engineer by the shirt and haul her up.