Sugawara’s heartbeat pounded in his ears, his eyes boring holes into the back of Beau’s head. The adrenaline coursing through his veins helped him to stay vigilant. While he was sure Beau had no intention of turning that violence on him, it was better to be safe than sorry in his experience.

The amniotic fluid stuck to their feet, squelching with every step off the tile. Suga could feel his stomach turning and twisting into knots. The danger was becoming more and more real the longer they were together. With weapons drawn they were not escaped prisoners any more, they were armed combatants behind enemy lines. There was no telling if the aliens would treat them as such, but they certainly hadn't been looking out for their well being before.

Suga wiped more sweat from his brow, keeping an eye on Beau who was just charging ahead, looking through every door with the drive of an animal looking for its prey.

Pssssst.

The doors opened automatically in their presence, mostly onto empty rooms, their unknown purpose low priority at the moment. The largest door, however, stayed closed. Beau took a step back, investigating why it was different from the rest.

“Hey, check that panel.” He pointed to the left side: a long white touchscreen sat waiting for them, blinking with a soft idle light.

Suga reached out and started with the obvious, swiping his hand over it to see if it activated. A garbled alien message spoke overhead, and the door opened for them.

It couldn’t be that easy, right?

Beau backed both himself and Suga against the wall, glanced inside and grinned with satisfaction.

“Finally, something we can work with.” He took point to properly scope the room.

After he gave the all clear, Sugawara stepped in, and saw a laboratory waiting for him.

Unattended screens sat before strange looking equipment, glass containers of unknown fluids stacked high all around the room and long stainless steel slab tables sat waiting for experiments to be conducted upon them.

“Shit looks like it’s straight out of a morgue...” Beau muttered to himself, peering at the hoses, pipes and alien tools laid out for surgery. Sugawara thought it best not to share his own thoughts with the on-edge Beau, but this sterile room had a lot in common with the ones back home. After the squid apartments, the living ship innards and the cold storage clone facility, a slightly creepy laboratory was a welcome sight. Beau was still jumpy though. It was nice seeing that he was feeling guilty from his outburst before.

‘Not a complete psycho then…’ was the depressing thought, ‘unlike that person...’ Horrible to think a man he’d only met hours before showed more remorse than some of his blood relatives.

“Hey,” Sugawara got his companion’s attention. “Escape?” he asked, gesturing around the room. Beau looked up, relieved to have something to do.

“There.” He pointed. In the top corner of the room was another camera, just out of reach. “I’ll get that open, you…figure out what this shit is and if any of it’s useful.”

‘Useful’ was a loose term here. How much of it was ‘useful’ to their current situation and what might be good in the long run were two completely different things.

Sugawara picked up one of the tools. The closest comparison he could think of would have been a type of airbrush. It was bulky, and he needed to clench his fingers into the wide spread, four fingered ‘glove’. It was very uncomfortable, largely because there was no room for his pinky finger to sit. As he squeezed, the tool let out a high pitched whine and a blue laser discharged from its fine end. He stopped the stream in surprise before testing it out again on the end of his loincloth.

The fabric singed.

Laser cutter was right up there in terms of useful.

The other tool was connected to a computer by a long thin hose of malleable plastic. Suga ran his hands over the screen and a program greeted him with a pleasant glow and hum.

The screen was divided into three. On the left side was alien text, several options he didn’t bother to try and decipher, and the top panel was a scrollable array with coloured blobs, ranging from pale blue right through the colour spectrum to bright red. The main window sat blank.

Suga started poking around, tapping and dragging colours into the window. It seemed random what would sit there, and he wasn’t entirely sure what the program was even for.

He stood there moving coloured blobs around until two of them stuck together and the screen lit up. Whatever he had done was ‘viable’ in the machine’s eyes. He picked up the hose and aimed it at the steel table, pressing his fingers in the glove attachment.

Hssssssss.

Air, or rather gas piped out, odourless and colourless.

Suga blinked then turned back to the program. He counted out the space between the coloured blobs and his mind just about screamed.

Numbers 1 and 8, both pale blue colours.

He tapped number 8 and ‘added’ it to the accepted combination. It glowed, accepting the input. Suga squeezed the hose, his heart skipping a beat as he felt the hose react and a stream of liquid gushed out.

Pshhhhhhh.

He ran his finger through the flowing stream, bringing it under his nose before tentatively tasting it. Clear, cold water flowed freely from the end of the pipe.

Suga shoved the pipe in his mouth and drank deeply. It had been hours since he had had water, hours of physically demanding labour in hot, sweaty conditions. The euphoria was instant and sweet. He stopped only to breathe, taking another large drink before informing Beau.

“Water!!” he shouted happily, waving the still flowing hose in his hand.

Beau dropped the crate he’d been moving to go and replenish himself with the life-saving liquid.

“Hot damn!!” He ran the water over his head, basically drenching himself after he had slaked his thirst. “How the hell did you get this working?!”

Suga grinned evilly and returned to the screen.

“Chemistry,” was all he replied.

Number 1, pale blue: Hydrogen, number 8, darker blue: Oxygen.

Atomic weight by colour, matched in automatic chains, and magically sourced through the hose.

“I need bottles--” Suga started.

“For more water? Got it!” The soldier hurried off before waiting for more instructions. While his assumption wasn’t entirely true, it wasn’t wrong enough for Suga to correct him at this stage.

He began playing with the machine, chaining elements together until Beau returned with an armful of glass tubes, the tops unceremoniously ripped open. They stank like the monster fridge. Suga took the vials hesitantly and flushed them out with water before filling them with his new concoction, while Beau watched on.

“Whatcha doing...?” he asked, trying to figure it out. Suga tore a small strip off his loincloth and dipped it in the new liquid, placed the vial on the steel table and then picked up the laser cutter.

He watched with glee as the laser hit the fabric and it burst into small flames.

“What?!” Beau slapped his hands together and yelled with delight. “Right on!!!”

“Ethanol,” Suga stated, his face dark with sinister delight.

“WHOO! We gonna light this place up! Burn the whole thing down from the inside--”

Beau cut himself off and stared at the door. Scuttling and footsteps approached, loud and clanky. The pair dived below the steel table and waited for their company to arrive.

The doors babbled in that soft alien voice before opening. Another pair of bug guards was sent in, this time cautious, their weapons raised as they scoped the room.

They didn’t have the time to get to their escape route. Sugawara looked to Beau. The man had the cold look of vengeance in his eyes. Beau gave the signal to stay there, his index finger jabbing at the ground. Sugawara nodded in compliance. He wasn’t about to get in Beau’s way at all. For as large as he was, the man could move silently when he wanted to, crawling under the table and out of the guards’ sight before the first one passed by.

The second guard was Beau’s target. The alien didn’t even get to turn around before the crackle of Beau’s lance went off. He forced the blade through the back of the guard’s neck, clear blood pouring out the wound.

The guard’s four arms began flailing and a gurgling screech cried out to its companion.

Suga hesitated. Staying hidden and ‘safe’ under the table was what Beau wanted, but hiding wouldn’t help here. There was no ‘safe’, it just delayed the pain for later.

He slid out from under the table and reached for the chemical hose, unleashing a spray of ethanol before even getting to aim it at the guards.

The first one gave a disgusted cry, its attention drawn straight to the human dousing it. Sugawara scrambled for the laser with one hand, desperate to light the improvised flamethrower. The first guard was too quick, knocking the hose from his hand with its weapon and letting out an intimidating hiss. Sugawara yelled in retaliation, trying to kick the guard’s feet from under it when the crackle of the lance went off again. Beau ripped the sword out of the second guard and swung with all his might.

The heat and light was intense as Beau’s lance engulfed the guard in a grand fireball. It only took a spark of the electricity to ignite the fumes, blinding everyone for a moment. The screaming barbeque bug fell to the floor, rolling around in agony while its friend struggled to help, still standing even with a sword wound through most of its head. Its unsteady shuffle reminded Sugawara of a zombie, staggering with all its might past its friend and towards the laboratory door.

It was trying to escape.

They couldn’t let that happen.

“Jesus...” Beau growled under his breath, stepping up to finish what he had started.

It was awful. Beau grabbed the handle of the blade and forced the guard down on the floor. There he could quickly snap off another arm, releasing the body pressure inside the bug’s exoskeleton. Without the pressure the organs and blood had nowhere to go but out. A quick end, if not clean.

The guard on fire finally stopped screaming as Beau put the other one out of its misery. It had burnt out quickly, the stench of shellfish and burnt rubber coming from the fumes.

“That stinks…” Beau spat, shaking his head.

Sugawara felt awful. Stress, adrenaline and the stench of cooked alien flesh turned his stomach. He picked himself up and his heart stopped.

A small black bug crawled across his hand.

He closed his eyes and prayed. It had been more than 24 hours since they’d woken up, 48 hours since he last took his meds. Maybe, maybe there would be enough time for him to study the machine, maybe he could try and string together the compounds he needed to stave off the madness a little bit longer.

If he hadn’t already completely lost his mind.

When he opened his eyes, Beau was shoving the corpses toward the exit. The doors opened and he threw the bloodied body out into the hallway. The burnt guard required more of a precise punt, a hand over his mouth to stave off the smell.

“Oh shit!” he exclaimed, standing at the door. “Molotov!” he ordered “NOW!”

Sugawara panicked, grabbing the bottle of ethanol on the counter and tearing off as much of the alien coat he could, stuffing it into the neck only for Beau’s hands to rip it from his grasp.

“Light!” the soldier ordered again, holding it steady for the young man.

Suga reached for the laser and within seconds the cloth was aflame.

In a massive show of strength Beau flipped over one of the steel tables on its side, facing the door. He grabbed Sugawara and ducked down. Then Suga heard the footsteps. Dozens of alien bugs, running down the hallway, clicking and buzzing like a hive of wasps.

And they sounded pissed.

Beau was counting down under his breath, the burning molotov clenched in his hand.

“One!” In one swift movement, he stood up from cover and tossed the molotov. The glass bottle sailed through the air and smashed against the open door, sending ethanol and flames all over the crowd of soldiers storming through it.

Beau’s lance crackled above the sounds of screams, and his voice cut through the chaos,

“Come on you maggots! Come and get some!”

Sugawara watched in stunned awe as Beau began cutting down one after another of burning soldiers, preventing them from crossing the steel table barrier. The righteous rage now found a purpose, he channelled all his energy into keeping them alive, mowing through burning bodies.

The blaze was large enough now that it triggered the emergency systems.

Tiles casually slid aside from their place on the wall and a chemical was focused on the flames, snuffing them out with scary efficiency.

They wouldn’t last long without the fire weakening the neverending stream of guards.

Sugawara scrambled to grab more bottles, tearing off what was left of the coat he was wearing, filling and lighting the next molotov as quickly as he could.

“Fire!” he screamed, throwing the bottle with the accuracy and speed of a college league pitcher.

Beau dived behind the table as the bottle flew over his head and into the next wave of soldiers.

“Keep ‘em coming, Ryo!” Beau shouted, returning to his defensive position and smacking down anyone who dared get too close.

Sugawara was throwing them as soon as he could make them, the bodies building up a barrier in front of their table, yet the soldiers still threw themselves through the choke point.

He filled the only glass bottle left in reach, he barely had enough coat to burn as he made their last molotov.

“Fall back!” he shouted to Beau, straining to push over another table.

Beau followed the order, leaping over the new obstacle. Sugawara handed him the bottle.

“Last one, flame hose.” Suga grabbed the hose, jammed the trigger open so the ethanol flowed freely, and rigged the laser to point at the stream. He faced down the fresh wave, adrenaline rushing through him.

“Burn!”

The laser lit up the stream and rained fire before them, a constant flow the emergency system could barely keep up with. Beau put down the molotov between them while Suga turned on his lance. For the briefest moment their eyes met, a comradery forged in the flames of survival, a partnership likely to end in their demise.

“Let’s go out swinging,” Beau said, the fight in his eyes brighter than the flames.

“Homerun,” Sugawara replied, finding freedom now that the future no longer mattered.

The men took up sides and fought on, screaming with every swing, the enemy guards getting closer and closer over their barriers. Scraping and reaching for them, the guards began to thin, then they retreated. Several guards hovered at the door and looked on at the bodies and chaos before them. Then, finally, the last guard walked through the door.

He was taller than the rest, dressed in a long white cape, and stood at the door staring them down.

“Fuck you!” Beau spat. As if he recognised the insult, the guard ripped off his cape and the deafening hum of wings boomed inside the small space.

“They can fly?!”

He was almost too quick to follow with the naked eye. One bounding leap and the soldier was overhead, a flick of his wrist and the enemy’s lance extended, piercing and pinning Beau’s body to the floor.

Red blood splattered the white tiles, Beau’s scream of pain lost in the noise. The soldier dropped like a lead weight on Beau’s back, a fourth hand stabbing his flesh with an alien syringe.

The recognition of experience hit Sugawara like a fist to the face. The other guards were cannon fodder compared to this guy. They weren’t out to kill them, they wanted them alive. Beau was out cold in seconds, and then the enemy’s eyes fell on him.

Another lance flicked out from the soldier’s waist, missing Sugawara’s hip by centimetres only for it to shock him when he whipped it into his side.

The human fell. He reached for the molotov to fight back, but that too was knocked easily from his hand with a swift strike. The alien soldier stomped on his arm, then his chest, and glared at him through three pairs of furious eyes. Slowly, his lance reopened the wound on Sugawara’s shoulder, clearly a gesture of spite.

Sugawara screamed again, furiously and defiantly, trying in vain to shake off his captor.

“I’ve had worse you disgusting insect!--” his insult cut short in shock as he saw the tiny black bugs crawl from his own hand, up the lance and all over the face of his enemy.

The small bugs were an illusion, the large, far scarier bug was very real.

The soldier stabbed him with the alien tranquiliser, and Sugawara felt his body go limp and numb, but he was not fortunate enough to slip into unconsciousness like Beau had done.

The bug rose to stand over them, dismissive of the unconscious humans, clicking orders for the few who had been spared to follow obediently. Sugawara had to watch as his friend was dragged away, and the victor was presented with his white cloak. The enemy who had so easily dispatched them cast it into the sea of red blood, then carefully held up the stained cloth to the light to admire its colour. Suga’s body was lifted carelessly, thrown over a steel trolley without any care to the pain or position he was in, but he could still glare at the cloaked soldier as he was carted away.

The aliens had won this battle, but Sugawara would ensure with his dying breath they did not win the war.