I readied and shouldered my J5 combat rifle as the airlock hissed sealing tight. The jag next to me did the same.

  Clara, her name was Clara I remembered.

  She looked nervous, a little excited. But I probably looked the same.

  I quickly checked the seals on my face mask. It was snouted, made me look like a very short jaguarine myself.

  The first door, the door of the shuttle, opened. The second door, the door that wasn’t part of the shuttle, was closed.

  Eva and another jag moved forward to the door to try the latch while I and Clara stood ready.

  Adela. Her name was Adela.

  The door was grudgingly opened under mechanical pressure.

  Beyond was dark.

  It was freighter. It was newer than anything the jags had on record but it was clearly old. The report said it had coasted into Dominion space blaring an SOS. The hull was cool but not dead cold.

  I and Clara moved in. The light gravity of the freighter's spin made it hard to keep our feet under us. The display on my helmet told me there was a breathable atmosphere and pressure.

  Our gun lamps revealed the corridor before us. Not especially dusty but broken debris littered the ground.

  Across the hall a blood trail led along the bulkhead ending in a bloody human handprint. On the way to an escape pod that didn’t look like it had been launched.

  Artistic.

  Cautiously we moved forward. By the books. I and Clara would stand overwatch while Eva and Adela moved forward. Then we would switch.

  It was supposed to be twenty yards between the switches, but in this deadly silent haunted house of a ship we settled on twelve.

  It took us a while to locate the bridge.

  That is where we found the first corpses. Dried husks of creatures that had died at their stations. Most of them looked shorter than human standard and from the placement of their ears they looked like they had been some kind of lesser catgirl.

  Each one wore a metal crown. A plain looking metal band around their skulls.

  “Any idea what these are?” I asked.

  “They look too small to be fels. Not furry enough either,” Eva replied as she poked one with her rifle.

  The poked at corpse slid from the chair it was sitting on. The long weakened brain case cracked cleanly along the line of the crown. The crown had hidden thorns, like a mockery of scripture, reaching inward through the skull and deep into the brain.

  “The fuck is that?” it was Clara who asked.

  “It’s bad,” Eva replied.

  Everyone clustered closer together, eyes on the dark corners of the room.

  I was distracted by the skeletal figure in the captain’s chair. My eye drawn to the lens of its cybernetic eye. I felt a chill but I tried to ignore it.

  Forcing my gaze to the gaping mouths of the corridors that led to the bridge.

  There was a clink and a light flashed in my hud telling me that my suit had been punctured.

  I fell to the ground as my legs gave out.

  “Hostile!” Someone called out. I think it was Adela.

  The skeletal captain stood, casually. Thick cables pulled in and wrapped around it like serpents.

  “I’m down!” Eva called out.

  It wasn’t a corpse. Not exactly. It was more doll than living thing.

  “Fuck! We all are…”

  I raised my rifle and fired. A burst of rounds impacted the wall behind the corpse and it fell to the ground.

  My hands refused to grip the rifle and it dropped to the ground. I couldn’t get up.

  The captain stood back up. The braincase of its empty skull was shattered. It seemed unbothered as it strode forward and retrieved a crown from one of the dead crew.

  I had aimed too high… My fingers wouldn’t fit back into the trigger guard of the J5… It was getting worse. I was losing control over my body.

  There was a whirring and crunching sound as the unseen spikes of the crown pulled free of desiccated skull.

  My hand moved to one of the spheres on my belt. My limp fingers wouldn’t depress the button but maybe I could roll it. Press the switch against something…

  The captain reached down to a figure on the ground. One of my teammates. And began to remove her helmet.

  My hand wasn’t moving anymore. It had gone dead. I was out of time.

  “Little help?” It was Eva. She sounded a little nervous. I’d be nervous too.

  “Hey! Over here!” I called out to the corpse.

  It ignored me as it slid the crown into place on Eva’s brow.

  And the entire world ended.

  I reached up and pulled the VR headset off.

  I shuddered. I already knew VR was a banned technology on Last Eden. I’d have to recommend adding reanimated corpses and brain drilling crowns to the list at the next hab council.

  “So, who here can tell me what they did wrong?” the instructor asked, pointing to the screen. The screen showed the haunted bridge and all four of us down, the corpse captain standing victorious.

  “They clustered up?” one of the recruits suggested.

  “Yes, that was a thing they did wrong. The hostile had a limited reach with its injectors. If they hadn’t all stepped into its reach at the same time their fellows would have still been up and could have been able to lend their assistance.” the instructor nodded sagely. “What else?”

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  There was silence.

  I noticed Eva touching her brow where the skull drilling crown had been placed. I offered her an apologetic smile. She just looked away.

  “The standard kit includes two jamming grenades,” the instructor picked up one such jamming grenade from the table and showed it to the class. “Use them. When the dolls get uppity, the corpses walk and the faeries whisper in your ears, use a jamming grenade.”

  She clicked the red button on the sphere.

  The lights flickered out for an instant and returned to function with a muted dull grey light, the screen behind her filled with static, datapads squeaked in protest and a recording drone drunkenly fell from the air.

  I could almost hear it. A humming on the edge of hearing. I could feel the vibration in my teeth. But… really that was the extent of its effect on flesh and blood.

  She clicked the button again and the world returned to function.

  * * *

  “Sorry, I let you die.”

  “Don’t bring that up,” Eva tightened her grip around me in annoyance. I got the feeling she was more bothered that she had needed help.

  I was laying in the tall jag’s arms behind the barracks. Chow wasn’t for a while yet. The faux sun was warm and the grass was green. Another delightful day in basic.

  “Yeah, just set it up over here. Where those lovebirds are,” It was Sonia. She was carrying some painted tin beams on her shoulder.

  “Right away!” Behind her a blue kobold in a janitorial apron was pushing a wheelbarrow full of parts.

  “What’s all this?” I asked Sonia as she came into range.

  “We should set up a bench if we’re always going to be here. I ran it past the officers and they were all for it,” she answered as she set the two beams against the wall.

  The kobold began with marking out the place for the bench, consulting a laser level and cutting the places for the concrete feet of the bench into the sod.

  “Here, let me help with that…” I tried to lever myself out of Eva’s grasp as the kobold was finishing leveling the dirt for the first foot. She kept her grip.

  “You don’t have to,” the kobold chirped back.

  “But humans like to make things…,” I complained.

  Everyone stopped and looked at me.

  “What?”

  “Fine,” Eva released me from her grasp.

  I stumbled to my feet and advanced to the wheelbarrow and the two heavy yellow concrete blocks inside of it.

  “You got that levelled out?” I asked the kobold with her trowel.

  “Yeah, I guess this one’s ready,” she replied in her cheerful voice as she switched to the patch of ground that she had selected for the second foot.

  “Fuck, that’s heavy,” I wheezed as I heaved the concrete foot up out the wheelbarrow and carried it over.

  “They are supposed to be,” the lizardgirl replied defensively.

  “Well of course,” I dropped the foot into the spot that had been cleared for it. I checked how the prep on the next spot was going. “Don’t want the bench wandering off after you set it up.”

  “Recruits love to move things around,” the kobold’s voice was chipper but her tail whipped back and forth with greater energy.

  “I can imagine,” I noticed the foot was backwards so I flipped it around the other way.

  “They keep us busy,” she smiled as she nodded to herself. The ground apparently being sufficiently level.

  “Busy is good?” I asked as I picked up the second foot.

  “Of course!” she stepped back out of the way as I placed the concrete block. “Everyone loves to keep busy!”

  “That’s kobolds for you. They were made that way,” Sonia interjected with some contempt.

  “No, it’s normal. Jags are just a little funny-” the kobold backed up her tail lashing faster.

  The tail knocked over one of the tin beams.

  She lunged to catch it, but it had already fallen too far.

  It clanged loudly against the foot.

  The kobold’s tail was perfectly still.

  “That was clumsy of me,” she said cheerily as she arranged the beam across the feet to form the seat of the bench.

  “Is everything alright?” I asked. It felt like an accident. It was a rare accident where nothing bad happened.

  “Of course everything is fine,” the kobold chirped as she dropped the bolts into the pre-drilled holes in the beam that would secure it to the feet. Her tail was still motionless as she moved.

  “Oh, well… If everything is fine then…,” I stopped as I watched her tighten the bolts with a drill.

  With her left hand. Braced awkwardly with the heel of her right hand.

  The line of her right hand was wrong. The pinky and ring fingers weren’t curling up with her other two fingers.

  “Show me your hands.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m fine,” she replied happily as she put down the drill and moved to the second beam.

  I stopped her, grabbing her by the shoulder. She felt so small.

  “Hands.”

  “I’m fine, the job is almost done,” her voice, so cheerful and false, it hurt me to hear it. She reached out for the beam with her broken hand.

  I picked her up. She was heavier than she looked.

  “You’re going to medical,” with some confusion I flipped her onto her back.

  She looked up at me with wide eyes as I carried her to medical.

  Eva watched me go. She didn’t say anything, but I could feel her eyes on my back.

  * * *

  “Deirdre? Again? What is it this time?” the medic accused with some annoyance.

  “I’m fine,” the kobold, Deirdre apparently, tried to deflect. A note of guilt seeping into her voice.

  “It’s her hand,” I looked around for somewhere to put her down. There wasn’t so I just kept holding her in my arms.

  “Ah, I see, it’s fresh even,” the jag medic commented as she inspected the mangled hand. “We won’t have to rebreak it this time. Aren’t you glad Deirdre?”

  “I guess…” she looked away.

  “Good eye, spotting it early,” the medic congratulated me as she picked up the kobold by the scruff of her neck. “Say ‘thank you, Jack,’”

  Deirdre hung limply from the medic’s arm like a coat.

  “Thank you, Jack,” she sounded miserable.

  * * *

  Today’s meal at the mess was a medium rare and fatty brisket. Salted and with a sprinkling of what might have been oregano.

  “So… The kobolds. How did the Dominion end up with them?” I asked as I swallowed an only slightly chewed wad of beef.

  “We rescued them, didn’t we?” Beatriz asked Sonia who was tearing free a strip of the meat.

  “More like inherited. After we cleared the uters out of Bilbao, we were left with a batch of them. They’d been working for those monsters,” Sonia replied as she thoughtfully chewed the tough meat.

  “The uters? I don’t remember hearing anything about those. What are they?” I asked as I tried to saw another mouthful of brisket free.

  “I think they’re extinct,” the shorter woman posited as she worked a piece of meat free from between her teeth.

  “Hope so. Punch of weird hentai monsters,” Sonia paused for a moment to lean down and use the sharp tongue teeth on the back half of her tongue to lick a strip of meat free. “Kobolds have to latch onto someone. Needy little things. But they’re better off with us.”

  * * *

  I had just finished bolting the back of the bench into place and returned the tools to the wheelbarrow.

  I took a seat on the bench and relaxed. It was a good spot for a bench.

  A shadow moved above me.

  It was Eva. She was looking at me very intently.

  I felt a traitorous shiver of fear.

  She gripped my head and face firmly with both hands. I could feel the warm pads of her fingers.

  “I can- whatever it is you want. Just please-”

  “Don’t talk.”

  She squeezed. Fingers around the back of my skull, pushing the heels of her hands into cheeks.

  I twitched slightly as I felt my bones flex under the pressure.

  She switched to stretching my face. Pulling the cheeks tight around the skull, forcing my mouth and eyes into a grimace.

  Slowly increasing the pressure until I whined in pain.

  I slipped free and slid down sideways on the bench away from her.

  “Hold on-”

  She clamped a hand over my mouth and forced me down onto my back.

  “Hold still,” she instructed.

  I could taste the salt of her warm fingerpads against my mouth.

  She caught my hand and continued. First the fingers, squeezing until it hurt before driving her thumb into the palm.

  Each time only moving on after the pressure became unbearable.

  It wasn’t pleasant, but she wasn’t trying to injure me. I started to relax and just let her…

  Testing things. Her things.

  She squeezed my forearm.

  She wasn’t getting the reaction she wanted.

  She took the limb into her mouth. I could feel the sharp edges of her back teeth against my skin. Her wet saliva. Her tongue brushed against arm and I felt her sharp bristles saw the smallest portion of my skin away.

  I winced and she moved on.

  She needed something from me.

  Pulling up my shirt, pressing her fingers into the muscle tissue of my abdomen. After a moment I relaxed the muscles and let her poke and prod without resistance. Sometimes ticklish and sometimes painfully.

  I squirmed.

  What she needed she was taking and I was letting her.

  She leaned forward and took a soft bite of my vulnerable underbelly. The points of her canines pressing against but not puncturing my skin. The smooth toothless tip of her tongue, tasting me.

  Her hand moved lower, sliding under the waistband of my pants.

  It felt right to let her.

  “Don’t eat him,” Beatriz objected.

  “Or atleast, remember to leave some for the rest of us,” Sonia joked as she sat down on the bench.

  Eva pulled back and I winced as cold air met the warm saliva on my stomach.

  “Wasn’t going to eat him, just…” Eva trailed off. Like she didn’t know what she had been doing either.

  Blushing furiously I straightened my clothes and sat upright on the bench. I felt a little conflicted about my rescue.

  “Just… Playing around? Right?” I suggested as much as I asked.

  I gave Eva a reassuring smile. It felt more genuine than I expected. Like everything was going to be okay between us.