The Barghest let out a thunderous bellow and charged, heading straight for Madison, its maw wide open to swallow her whole.

Madison backed into the Volvo excavator behind her; its cab was the nearest shelter she had. She clambered onto the wheel and scrabbled with the cab door, getting it open just as the creature smashed into the vehicle, rocking it violently.

She collapsed into the operator's seat and caught sight of the others; Tutter was firing her submachine gun at the Barghest and doing little to it. It paid her no mind, though – its rows of eyes were firmly on Madison.

Its front limbs grew long, pointed knife-like claws, and it reared back before sending one straight though the cab glass at Madison's muzzle. She yelped and ducked as the claw stabbed into the headrest, barely missing her cheek fur, and ducked again as the Barghest lashed out again, its other claw slamming into the seat.

Madison scrabbled to open Whitney's pack and growled as most of the volainium inside dribbled out through the rip in the fabric. She had little time to concentrate on that, though – another claw was wrenching at the cab door, ripping it free of its bolts and throwing it across the hangar.

Its huge head came into the cab, its teeth glistening foully in the hangar lights. Madison flinched back as its nose came to within an inch of hers, expecting it to lunge and rip her apart.

It seemed to want to take its time, though. Its eyes were darting about as if in indecision, and its mouth was half-open. It was just... staring at her.

Then its nose rippled and churned, and a circle of odd-looking protuberances extended out from its face, snaking towards her muzzle.

Madison blinked in utter bemusement as the nose-tentacles stroked and prodded her. It hadn't done this before.

Then the tentacles retracted, disappearing into the Barghest's nose, and it backed away, lowering itself out of the cab. Its eyes went to the others, and it licked its teeth with a long, slavering tongue.

Madison felt a cold blade of realization. I'm not organic. It knows I'm not viable prey. With her tiny percentage of actual organic composition, she was no different to the excavator whose leather seat she occupied.

Tutter's paw went to the volainium in her holster, but she was too slow. The Barghest roared and ran at her, and she turned and fled. Brewster and Henriette followed her, Brewster glancing at Madison as he bolted. The Barghest pounded after them, rattling the deck as it did so.

Quiet fell.

Madison sat in the wrecked cab for a few moments, getting an idea of just how damaged she was. Hardcastle's shotgun round had punched through her chest plate and, judging from the intermittent responses from her left arm, it had done severe internal damage to her as well. She flew blind in this assessment, seeing as her diagnostic files were corrupted in several key places. It was likely that some of the charged shot had lodged in her, causing electromagnetic interference, but she had no idea where it was. Her vision kept snowing out, and pictures of Jeff and Taylor and others kept appearing in front of her eyes. She shook her head as if doing so would clear it all up.

It didn't.

Not to mention the fact that her Gromit shirt was ruined.

She collected herself as best she could and checked her immediate surroundings. Still the wrecked cab, but a smallish gunmetal box under the seat, situated between her legs, caught her eye. Bright yellowish-green lettering read RESCUE FLARES.

She retrieved the box and unlatched the lid. Inside were four emergency rockets, their burnished silver shells glinting crisply. Also in the case was a disposable launcher with which to fire them.

Despite her misfiring brain, Madison nonetheless felt an idea spark inside her head. Volainium was fairly brittle until reprocessed to become the tough metal it could be used as, and these rockets used a granulated fuel to burn brightly.

Madison recovered Whitney's pack and took out a few volainium crystals; with a mighty effort, she crunched them up in her powerful paw, reducing them to small fragments.

Next, she unscrewed the fuel cap on one of the rounds, exposing the reservoir of highly reactive granules inside. She sprinkled some of the crushed volainium into it and mixed it together with a finger. She resealed the shell and repeated the process with the other three. Then Madison removed the launcher from its slot in the case and loaded it with one of the shells, piling the rest into Whitney's pack along with the rest of the volainium.

It was a long shot, but it would have to do.

Madison slung the pack over her shoulder and carried the makeshift grenade gun in her good paw, getting up and hopping down to the deck. There was no immediate sign of the others, or the Barghest. Madison blinked as her vision blanked out again, hoping she could hold it together just long enough to get to the others in time. A chill went through her as some of the fire-suppressing gas that had activated to combat the inferno back in the equipment bay leaked into the hangar.

A roar from across the hangar got her attention, and she managed to triangulate its location using her right ear; her left one wasn't responding. It wasn't far, and so she ran toward it, down a short stairwell and into a service aisle between two Volvo dump trucks.

She'd barely set foot on the deck there when a startled exclamation from ahead rang out, and something went flying into the air, just missing an overhead catwalk and arcing cleanly toward Madison. She covered herself as a small forklift truck smashed into the dump truck on her right, spraying the immediate area with shards of glass and metal.

It didn't hit me. I'm fine.

She ran past the crash site and up the stairwell at the other end of the service aisle, emerging onto a wide cargo space stacked with crates and storage units. Some of the crates had clearly been knocked over or smashed, and Madison reflected that this had been the origin of the recent projectile.

Her suspicions were confirmed when she espied the Barghest stalking between two rows of storage units, its huge head projections looming over everything.

Madison moved a little closer, staying low behind a crate. The Barghest may have rejected her as food, but it could still go for her. There was no way of knowing.

There – near another forklift! Brewster and the others. They were keeping quiet, using the machine to stay hidden. They weren't far from the Barghest, though – and it was getting closer to them.

She had no choice. She had to do something.

Madison waited until the Barghest emerged from behind the storage units, presenting itself in full view. She vaulted over the crate and brought up the launcher, aiming as best she could at the Barghest and letting fly with the first volainium-impregnated shell.

The round travelled in an impressive arc, landing directly in the Barghest's midsection – and the results were extraordinary. The creature howled as the flare burned with an eye-smiting crimson brightness that seemed to course through its flesh, falling to the deck and thrashing wildly. Multiple limbs boiled up from its body, forming claws and paddles and all kinds of extremities. It snapped angrily as it managed to right itself, claws getting purchase on the floor, and angled its head toward Madison.

I can't let it get up! Madison loaded another flare into the launcher and fired it into the Barghest's flank, triggering another round of thrashing and howling as the creature tried to fight through the pain it was no doubt feeling. It rose on two limbs and tried to stagger to its feet.

Madison loaded her third round and moved closer to the beast, putting the flare deep into its belly. It seemed, finally, to be giving up, but Madison couldn't risk uncertainly on that front, and so she chambered the final shot and ran up to the Barghest, aiming directly into its head and shooting.

The Barghest squealed weakly as it tried to put on one last show of defiance, but it clearly knew its number was up, and its head slumped against the deck.

A volley of submachine gun fire made Madison jump, and she looked up to see Tutter spraying the rest of her clip into the Barghest's carcass and flinging her volainium at it.

If it hadn't been dead before, it certainly was now.

Tutter threw her empty gun at the corpse and let out an exhausted breath. "Good riddance," she growled.

The Barghest's body suddenly rippled and its flesh became dull, and it began to dissolve. It melted like gel-paste under a desert sun, becoming little more than a thick pile of slop.

Brewster and Henriette ran up just as something appeared in the muck. "Is that an arm?" Henriette asked as she pointed to it.

It was indeed an arm, grey-furred, with white on its underside. As the Barghest dissolved further, a bare unclothed torso – female – was uncovered, and legs, and a head. It was lupine, with delicate features and a big nose. A naked Wolf, and a fairly runty one at that, lay in the pool of silvery slop. The body was mangy and gelatinous; it had clearly been partway digested.

Horrified, fascinated eyes regarded it. "It's Maizy," Brewster said, his voice thin. "It ate her."

Additional limbs – Fox, Dog, others – floated in the mound of ichor alongside Maizy. Madison recognized Sherry Templeton's timepiece on the wrist of the Fox arm.

"Oh kurwa mnie, that's just disgusting," Henriette said, her voice nasal; she'd clearly closed her nostrils. Madison's olfactory system was offline, but she reckoned it all smelled terrible. She stepped back as the substance pooled toward her boots.

"Stay back," Tutter said, doing the same. "Who knows what this stuff could do."

Sudden footfalls came thumping from the direction of the main hangar doors, and a gaggle of security officers arrived on the scene. Madison recognized Rankin and Tognazzi in the crowd. The former stepped up to the front and took in the scene.

"Tutter, what the hell happened here?" the huge Beaver asked pointedly. He eyed the gruesome scene and snorted. "Pool party go wrong or something?"

"Shut up, Otis," Tutter barked. "That's our hostile. It's been neutralized." She glanced at Madison. "The synthetic took care of it."

Madison couldn't help but feel a surge of pride as Rankin studied her. "That so?" Rankin muttered. His eyes went to the launcher, still in her paw. "Is that a bloody flare gun?"

Madison nodded. "Uh, yeah. Long story."

"Save it," Rankin told her with a dismissive wave of his paw, and went back to Tutter. "We'd better tell Hunsiker that the hostile is dead. We need to get Quarantine up here and tell 'em to take care of this." He waved at the mess on the deck.

"They're gonna be busy with the bodies on the crew deck as well," Tutter sighed. "Tell ya, I wouldn't want to be on that team."

Rankin glanced at Tognazzi and the others; Madison surmised that they were the remnants of Security One and Security Five. "Go find the rest of the crew on this deck. I don't think the fight spread this far, so they should be fine."

Tutter was on the radio to the captain. "Captain Hunsiker, we can confirm that the hostile is dead – repeat, the hostile is dead. We need Quarantine down here right now to dispose of the biohazard. Yes, ma'am. We've got it all under control, thanks to a certain salvager." She smiled at Madison. "Aye, ma'am. I will." The Husky signed off and gestured to Madison and her companions. "You lot had better get back to the crew deck."

"I'd rather not, thanks," Brewster said acidly.

Tutter grimaced. "I know it's not ideal, but we'll have Quarantine clearing it out by the time you get back." She motioned to the guards nearby. "Tognazzi, go with these three back to the commons."

Tognazzi nodded.

"Come on, let's go," Henriette said bleakly.

The ship's quarantine team were indeed busy in the commons as Madison and the others returned there. Suited crewers were piling bags marked with hazard symbols onto steel trolleys and wheeling them away. It was clear what the bags contained, and so nobody commented. Some of the crewers were spraying surfaces with powerful disinfectant, scrubbing at stains.

"This place is gonna feel real empty," Brewster sighed.

"Let's just go check on Milan and Whit," Henriette said.

One of the guards Tutter had assigned to look after Whitney greeted them at the door to the dorm. "Hey."

"Is she okay?" Brewster asked him.

The Dog nodded. "Yeah. Turns out we didn't need to put her into the freezer after all. We treated her arm and put it in a stasis cuff. It'll do until she can get some actual hospital treatment." The guard laughed shortly. "Least we didn't have to cut it off."

"How is she?" Henriette asked.

"Right now she's sleeping like a pup," the guard chortled. "We doped her up to her eyeballs. She'll be out for the rest of the journey." He let them inside.

The other guard was lying on one of the bunks, engrossed in a screen-sheet magazine. In the bunk next to that, Whitney Arkwright was snuggled up under a thick duvet, sleeping and snoring heavily. Her boots, socks and most of her clothing were piled neatly beside her bunk. At the foot of the bunk was Milan Irglova, looking ashen but otherwise uninjured. The Akita brightened a little as he noticed his companions return. "Hi, you lot," he beamed. "Is everything okay?"

Brewster shook his head. "Not really, but we're making do. Maizy is dead."

Milan nodded glumly. "Poor thing. She didn't deserve any of this."

Tognazzi, who had remained silent up until now, put in a few choice words. "Yeah, well, she'd have been fine if that fat skunk had half a brain cell." He pointed a derisive finger at the comatose Whitney.

Milan was on his feet in a nanosecond. "Get him out of here," he told one of the other guards. "If you don't get him out of here I'll kill him."

"Woah, bring it on!" Tognazzi snarled back.

"Ricardo, just sod off," one of the guards sighed.

Tognazzi growled and glanced again at Whitney. "Be better for all of us if she doesn't wake up."

Milan growled back. "Get out of here. Get away from my love."

Tognazzi held up his paws. "Better you than me, mate. Wouldn't want that thing rolling over and squashing me." He left before Milan could say anything else.

Milan grizzled and flopped back onto Whitney's bunk. "Sorry about that," he said to everyone else present.

"Your love?" Henriette chirped; the Dog had an incongruous grin on her muzzle. "Milan, I know you and Whit like to snuggle on trips, but did I just hear you call her your love?"

Milan smiled despite himself. "Yeah. I love her."

Brewster chortled. "I knew it."

Madison had been silent through the whole exchange, and it wasn't for lack of opinions on anything. She'd tried several times to speak, and it wasn't working out. Her verbal functions had been corrupted. Seeing as the others were absorbed in Milan's news, she stepped away from the main group and slumped to the deck beside the next bunk along. Several of her other systems were failing, numerous warning messages were alerting her to fairly catastrophic problems, and she felt her grip on reality go slack.

Now would be a good time to shut down for a bit, she thought before it all went black.