Per 
If you watch enough cheesy action flicks, you’ll be convinced a gunshot isn’t that loud.
That always struck me as weird. Every five year old has heard a firework and even at a tremendous distance they’re louder than a movie gunshot.
Heck, a silenced gunshot is louder than most of the ones you’ll hear on TV…
Even still, I could barely hear my unit firing over the sound of the chittering, shrieking moans.
The hallway was like the inside of an empty artery, caked in red flesh that flickered with light.
It was barely enough to see the things clawing towards us.
They reminded me of the videos I’d seen from Siberia… But they could have been anything.
I think they used to be human.
I didn’t know why I bothered with the radio, but I did.
“This is Agent Pyrite! Our unit is pinned down by multiple hostiles in an unknown location! Requesting immediate extraction!”
I put three bullets into the nearest hunk of gristle and bone and it howled in rage and pain as it staggered back. I blessed my drill sergeant’s memory as I jammed another magazine into the P-90 with mechanical precision.
“I repeat! This is Agent Pyrite! We-”
To my absolute shock, a voice came through the line.
“Agent Pyrite, this is Raptor-73. Stand by for immediate extraction. Do you copy?”
I had no idea who was on the other line and I didn’t care. I sprayed a frankly criminal number of bullets into the crawling snake of flesh wrapped vertebrae slithering towards me and cried out into my headset.
“Yes! For the love of god help-”
I don’t know what I was expecting to happen. Maybe those stuck up assholes from the Foundation would charge in and catch the monsters in their little butterfly nets. Maybe those robot church-goers would chew them up with a swarm of impossible nanotech…
I sure as hell wasn’t expecting a 9 foot tall bluejay man with a Revolver to show up and take down every Cronenberg looking thing around us with eight perfectly placed rapid fanned deadeye shots.
Time seemed to slow down for a moment as the room went quiet, and our entire unit turned to just stare at our bizarre savior, completely at a loss.
The bird thing yanked out some sort of scroll from a sash around its waist. “IF YOU WANT TO LIVE, GRAB ON!”
Four of us did.
The next thing I knew I was lying on a cot, puking into a bucket over the side.. The scent of my vomit mixed with an odd vanilla smell in the air as I emptied the canteen’s finest along with as much of the taste of that tunnel’s air from my mouth.
“Easy does it.” came a soft voice. “Take your time.”
I turned to the foot of the cot…
Sitting there was a tiny sparrow dressed in a tailcoat with a top hat.
I blinked.
The sparrow sighed. “The suit’s too much, huh?”
I crept back against my pillow. “Please don’t eat me.”
The sparrow laughed. “Oh it’s nice to rescue a professional for a change.”
I stared at the tiny bird, I’d seen enough anomalies not to trust him as far as I could throw him (bad phrasing), but he wasn’t immediately hostile. “Who and or what are you, and what price does being ‘rescued’ come at?”
The sparrow thing smiled (mostly with its eyes). “Short version: you staying alive is payment in and of itself. Long version, you’ll want to ask our Shieldbearer.”
My training was starting to catch up with me. “… You’re a Type Purple.”
The sparrow thing doffed its hat. “The Fifth Wandsman of Schnee to be precise. And you are?”
I let my guard drop, but not all the way. “Agent Pyrite, Global Occult Coalition. But you already know that.” I looked to the left and spotted Shale, Gneiss, and Cobalt lined up on cots next to me. If I had to guess I’d say we were on some sort of ship’s sickbay… But without windows I couldn’t tell.
“So… I don’t suppose you’d fancy a walk and a chat?” The little bird man asked.
… The sad part was that I was officially head of the chain of command at this point so I supposed it was my job to represent my fellow POWs.
I forced myself to my feet, my head spun, but I managed to hold myself up.
A cane appeared in my hands… No literally I blinked and it was there.
I glared at the bird. “Will you please not violate the laws of physics?”
I hopped on top of the cane and tutted at me. “Spoken like someone who got all their information from a single book.”
“Just take me to your boss.”
“With pleasure!”
Whatever sort of boat we were on, it clearly hadn’t started its life as a military vessel.
There were too many little amenities and civilian style signage was painted all over it. I swear, there was a damn carpet on the floor and I swear I passed a paper library at one point (The books were locked in cabinets, but it was an obvious waste of space).
While we walked through the ship’s hall, I tried to eye up my… captor? I’d only heard a little bit about these things from a briefing over a year ago, so I wasn’t exactly familiar with why a group of insane talking space birds would want us. And it’s not like I’d spent much time learning how to read the emotions of a sparrow.
… And then the door to the bridge opened and I had a whole lot of new questions.
The creature sitting at what I presumed was the captain’s chair looked like a giant vulture. It was dressed more formally, in a matte black uniform with the Wandsmen’s logo emblazoned on it. It had a runed heavy revolver in a shoulder holster hanging under its wing.
And behind it, surrounded by more bird creatures in uniform, was a large, open window showing space, and a strange pinkish planet below us.
I felt a distinctive chill of isolation rolling down my spine.
“So.” The creature in the Captain’s chair began, its voice surprisingly feminine, “Care to explain what you’re doing out here?”
I grit my teeth and stood at attention, whatever this thing was I wasn’t going to break protocol. “That’s classified intelligence.”
The creature tilted its head unnaturally, “Really? I suppose it has nothing to do with this then?”
It reached behind its chair and picked up the book… Half of it at least.
I gulped. My mission was literally in a threat entities claws. “I don’t suppose you’re going to give it back?”
The creature sighed. “Why don’t we just start with some introductions? I’m the 2nd Wandswoman of Earth and Lieutenant Commander of Raptor Exploration Team 12. You’re currently being carried by Dusty.”
I blinked, “Dusty?”
The creature tapped at an earpiece. “Dusty do you mind leaning down and introducing yourself?
All of the sudden, a positively massive Ibis’s head leaned into the window.
Its eye was bigger than me.
It simply nodded, then receded from view.
It was an obvious, blatant show of force by a threat entity.
It worked.
