Nobody's Servant 1.0

Samsara [vore]

In our ringing ears, alarms howl throughout the train, barely audible against the pulsating sonic force emitted by the reason for their activation.

The Prelature ship outspeeds us to block out the sky, a shape like a sleeker submarine trailing green and gold battle standards on either side of our train. Its smooth fuselage is broken by a boxy apparatus that runs along its underbelly, but as the casing explosively opens, it becomes apparent that, affixed to this spacecraft, is another, shorter train, only a few cars long.

It banks to its right as the engine stokes, and lowers the train onto the adjacent tracks some distance behind us to pick up speed. It will eventually gain on us, carrying so much less weight, but the ship immediately overtakes us.

"Yhana, we have to move!" I urge. Still sheltered here in her belly, saturated with my mind expanding breath, I can feel the paralysis brought on by awe rooting her in place.

And why wouldn't she be, second by second everything becomes so much worse. The ship glides right over the train from the rear, and its own crew begins to rappel down to finish off the remaining sanctifiers, their numbers already devastated by the suicidal mutiny that made the arrival of the enemy possible at all.

I dig my claws into her stomach lining; I remember well that it won't hurt her, especially with my lost strength. I just need her to take notice, and to my fleeting relief, she does. Abdominal muscles compress around me, not in protest, but to hold me steady as she breaks into a sprint back down the length of the train. She skids to a stop, just as soon as she began, in a moment of realization, and turns to grab one of the crowbars used to pry open the crates of conductive ink. We'll need help to get through that door that barred us from reaching Samsara the first time, after all, and with enemies literally descending onto us, going over is no option at all.

A turret atop the engine trains on the ship, releasing an incinerating ray of light from its furnace. It breaks on the warded fuselage like liquid fire, but the rippled hull soon begins to glow with heat as it might while exiting the atmosphere. The arcane is ineffective, but the mundane is undeniable; it'll have to pull off or be scorched through. More soldiers rappel down onto the car right in our path, but about half of them are swung off course, many losing their grip, as the ship veers out of the path of the beam to preserve itself, speeding ahead and returning fire. The roof of the engine smolders, regulators in the turret and maybe even more damaged; it will burn itself out in no time.

Figures in familiar black hazmat gear near the fore edge of the roof of the car along with their handlers, but Yhana bolts before they can even leap off. Not that it helps escape them at all; we clear the first car with ease as they work their way down, but in the next, several of them swingline through the windows at the same time, deafening us with the sound-based weapons they use to shatter through.

The only miracle we've got right now is that Yhana and I are in each other's heads; we don't need our ears to hear each other.

"Yhana, please let me out, I can help you!"

"There's no time!" she rejects, tightening her hold around my tiny body.

The nearest combatant readies their weapon, a bulky, forearm-mounted contraption. I guess they need to recharge, they don't break us into giblets at the first opportunity, but it still functions as a blunt instrument. They rear up, hissing as they throw a deadly backhand, but Yhana sidesteps left, vaulting onto an oversized bench. Her hand reaches out into thin air, into her void coordinate, pulling out a saber and plunging it into the soldier's throat right above their collar with a second thrust.

Of course they've got more than bludgeoning weapons though; many of them reach for one-handed repeater crossbows, opening fire on her as she scrambles over the backrest for cover.