On the road of exile, facing danger was simply a part of his day-to-day life. No meal was guaranteed and there were nights and days when he would starve, barely able to even scavenge. No night promised sleep and was light with restlessness if not danger. If the perils of vagrancy weren't keen enough, if being a stowaway wasn't perilous enough, there was a homicidal maniac who shadowed him across the cosmos, with their conflagrations devolving into violent bloodbaths and ships into slaughterhouses where few would survive except him and the demon that pursued him hellishly. And when it wasn't the man, it was creatures and aliens of monstrous proportions that saw the cargo ships he smuggled aboard as prey to hunt. Sometimes, space pirates used all manner of torture to extract what they wanted and maroon those left behind.
The Meridian Privateers were among the most prolific of this quadrant of the galaxy, known for their ruthlessness and ultraviolence that cemented them as among the most brutal of their ilk. The pitched whine of ray guns unloading salvoes down the mouth of the corridor halted Dan Heng's advance, careening behind a loosed cargo container as each projectile punched its face. His Synesthesia Beacon scrambled to translate the shouted orders, the heavy lumbering echoing cavernously.
Peeking over his cover, Dan Heng vaulted over the container superfluously and sprinted down the corridor, striking with Cloud-Piercer to impale through the armor plates of the towering, troll-like alien as the spearpoint gored through the chest plate and the hulking soldier's knees buckled soundly. Planting his foot on his prey's expansive back for leverage, Dan Heng viciously wrenched Cloud-Piercer through the meaty wall of flesh and bone until blood sprayed his face and clothing, pelting him in spatters. The pirate's comrades reeled around and roared, gurgling as Dan Heng recovered from the recoil.
The nearest pirate reeled on him and fired a round of plasma bullets at him, the fugitive ducking sharply before he thrust Cloud-Piercer with a snarl through the underside of the pirate's jaw that gored through the crown of their skull, eyes rolling dramatically back and their jaw slackening as Dan Heng wrenched it out and blood disgorged to the ground and the body slumped as dead weight and clattered to the ground. The third slugged him in the jaw sending Dan Heng reeling into the wall punishingly, but he bounced back to gore them in the gut, twisting the spear vindictively.
Dan Heng panted as the final pirate collapsed to the ground, head swimming from the brutal punch but knowing he couldn't let himself rest. Alarms began to blare and red lights flashed as the emergency power reserves were activated, the bellowing of an even larger creature stampeding down an adjacent corridor that he realized in horror was charging towards the wings of the ship where the passengers and crewmen were housed, knowing that their doom would seal his unless he could locate an escape pod before it was too late.
Terrified screams rang out as the discharge from a plasma cannon of the meager security detail did little to deter the massive, reptilian beast the pirates had brought in as a literal battering ram. Dan Heng took off in hot pursuit of the galloping beast and slashed at its ankles, crippling it sightly, but vines lashed out and strafed his skin. One wrapped around his ankle and with prehensile strength, bashed him between the floor and ceiling before he slashed the appendage and dropped to the ground brutally.
A woman hunkered on the ground--a cyborg--was in the beast's warpath. Barely able to recover, Dan Heng raced ahead of the reptile and stood before it, its maw gaping taller than a man as it made to swallow them both whole. Dan Heng braced himself as he forcefully lodged Cloud-Piercer through the reptile's palate, mauling through the bony roof and standing atop its gums to avoid the lashing tongue that snaked around his waist and attempted to swallow him whole. With a snarl, Dan Heng drove the spearpoint through the reptile's skull and into the sinuses, sharply angling it into the brain before it could maim him.
A last, ghastly breath plumed in his face, and Dan Heng recoiled sharply, flinching away as the tongue uncoiled and the creature died, stumbling from its maw without Cloud-Piercer. He staggered to the ground and dry-heaved, coughing up bile while his mind reeled. Weakly lifting his head, he directed his unfocused gaze on the woman he'd narrowly saved.
"Are... you alright?" he rasped, hacking a cough.
