With Anika's help, Ravia was able to coax the malfunctioning hydraulics into working again. It was a bit of a rough patch job, and almost certainly wouldn't hold up long term, but it was enough to get the doors opened. The shuttles, once inspected, proved to be perfectly ordinary, if old and worn out. There was enough fuel in the tanks for the quick flight they'd need, though undoubtedly some maintenance would be required before they could be pressed into proper service.

With the shuttle bay opened up, loading the survivors and their equipment was a lot faster. The survivors worked mostly in silence, tired, sunken-eyes nevertheless reflecting sincere relief that they were going to be leaving this place. As the shuttles were landing in the bay to take on the last group, save the two multilaser-armed guards still keeping watch, Anika noticed an urgently blinking light on her auspex. Hannabel saw one too, on the console of her shuttle. Ghostly sensor returns were inching down the tunnels towards them, coming from somewhere deeper within the planet. Every few seconds, as the auspex swept back over that section of tunnel, the number increased. There were dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. Too many to count.

Swivelling the lander to point its lights towards the tunnel entrance, on the far side of the cavern, Hannabel caught the first of the Hollow Men in the beams of the high-powered luminators. They poured from the tunnel mouth, utterly silent, a tide of ghostly killers flowing towards the downed frigate.