Free Xantoverse Shadowkill by T. F. Grant, C. F. Barnes

pungent sweat wafted up the shaft. Through her green-tinged night-vision she saw the glistening dark of something wet on disintegrating metal deck.
    “Vuls,” Kina whispered as she bent down touched her finger to the liquid. It was drool. She’d recognize that stench anywhere. “Seems like our Wraiths didn’t want a fair fight after all and hired some vuls to slow us down.”
    Kina wiped her hand on her nanoweave suit and moved forward into the opening ready to climb out onto the ladder. A dark shape fell from above and behind her from back in the corridor.
    Freck !
    “Tai,” she called out. She didn’t manage to say, “Behind you,” when the barreling form of a large male vul, on all fours and snarling with bloodrage leapt at him.
    Its great paw knocked the Kraken from his grip as Tai sidestepped and fell backwards out of the way. The vul’s momentum took him beyond Tai and into the hatch, knocking Kina off the edge of the deck.
    Her feet dangled in air as she tried to find some purchase.
    She reached out her free hand, grabbing the edge of the deck, stopping her fall. She gripped her fingers into the broken wounds of the deck’s surface. Blood welled up making her slip.
    The snarling snout of the vul appeared over the edge, its lips curling up to expose bloodstained fangs. “Meat,” it said, butchering the word, but the intent was clear. It reeled back then launched at her face.
    She brought up the Piercer and fired two vertical shots with a double-tap of the trigger. Near-silent, suppressed shots fired out, connecting with the underside of the vul’s jaw and exploding out the top of its skull. Gore covered Kina’s face, smearing the lenses of her goggles.
    “Tai,” she screamed as the vul’s dead body collapsed onto her arm, breaking her grip. She scrambled for a handhold, but she continued to slip down into the shaft. The ladder was too far to the side for her to reach without dropping the gun…
    Tai dove on to his front next to the vul and grabbed her arms, preventing her fall.
    “Freckin’ hell, Tai, I thought that was it…pull me up, there’s a decent chap.”
    “Good shot, girl,” Tai said as he helped back up to her feet.
    She stepped back from the hatch and placing the gun on the ground for a second, pushed the vul’s body out into the shaft. It took eight seconds for the thud to echo back up.
    “One down… hell knows how many more to go.” Kina grabbed her gun and checked above her to make sure there wasn’t another vul in waiting. Retrieving his Kraken, Tai also swept around.
    “Let’s go,” Kina said. “We’re clear here.”
    When they both climbed out onto the ladders, Tai, below Kina, stopped and whispered up to her. “You hear that?”
    “No, what it is?”
    Despite Tai’s penchant for loud, outdated revolvers, somehow he always managed to retain a keen sense of hearing far more sensitive than even Kina’s. “Listen,” he said.
    Kina held her breath and stayed still. She closed her eyes and concentrated.
    Between the peaks of her pulse she did hear it… a kind of scraping noise coming from below them and beyond the other side of the shaft. “I hear it,” she whispered back. “Level below?”
    “Yeah, I think so. We go slowly. I’ll take point; you cover. Watch above you.”
    In synchronized movements, they descended the ladder, both placing their feet on the metal rungs with care so as not to make too much noise, though the falling vul would have likely alerted anyone waiting for them anyway. But then this was the Wraith’s domain, nothing was certain anymore.
    Tai stopped at the next level of the Selestion. Kina halted just above him . Hooking her arms around the ladder she looked up and scanned around, trying to discern anything in the shadows. Nothing.
    “All clear here,” she whispered.
    “I’m going in.” Tai reached over from the ladder and onto the extruded section of the deck and disappeared inside silently. His head poked out a moment later and he