by S. J. Higbee
I watched their bodies being dragged into the bushes and the tell-tale furrows on the ground smoothed over, with chilled queasiness. Two corpses, who only minutes ago had been alive and breathing. This wasn’t some jaunt, this was a warzone. Others would die before the setting sun rose again.
The beautiful copper light seemed wrong as I scrambled out, scraping my arm on a broken branch and taking a moment longer to open the door to the Monitor House than I should, because my hands were shaking so much. Sucking in a deep breath helped. So did having Seth at my shoulder. We’ve been through all sorts of dangerous roachbait together, we’ll get through this one, too.
As Vrox also appeared, closely followed by Felina, I paused to get my bearings. The room was oldtech, so the stone walls and flooring shone with a glossy finish that looked like marble, but wasn’t. Jutting out from the far wall was the command console, though just now the controls were locked away under a retractable top.
Vrox ran a clawed foreleg across the top, scoring the smooth metal with an ugly dent.
You slice that open, we won’t be able to close it up again. And they’ll know exactly where we’ve been. Let’s do this another way. I fished out my tab and accessed the Motherprog, thanking the stars this time around, I wasn’t dodging the Fortress settings. Though it hurt to see how slowly our sick Nodery responded as I finally singled out the code I needed. Finding the hidden number pad was more of a fiddle, but fortunately I knew what to look for. No sooner had I uncovered the keypad, secreted behind a false service panel, then Vrox and I were on.
It was our task to link up with the main Nodery, using the Command Codes to immobilise all the flyers and wheeled transport, other than those we wanted to use. It was harder than you might think. Especially as I hadn’t had a chance to tinker in the Monitor House before this moment. It was easy to ensure no flyers could take off after us. But to bring all wheeled vehicles to a halt, except the ones that we needed?
Nope. I couldn’t figure a way to do it. Not from here, anyway. What I did manage to gather from the still peeled-open Motherprog, were the Codings for the waggon-trains lined up in a tidy row just outside Westgate, apparently tucked up for the night. I sucked in a deep breath and stopped all wheeled vehicles in Cnicus from working by borrowing on Vrox’s mental strength, which boosted our Nodery.
Seth disappeared outside to inform Captain Helston that I’d done it. I was still in the process of shutting everything down again, when he rushed back in. “Now, Your Ladyship! We need to go!”
It was an effort to pull free of the Motherprog, but leastways Vrox was able to shut everything down, probably quicker than I could.
We reached the waggon-trains, standing silent and empty side by side, facing towards the road heading to Reseda at the same time as a team of drivers wearing Clete’s livery slouched towards them. I tugged on Helston’s sleeve. “Make sure they delay their starts. We can only access the starting Codes one at a time.”
With a sharp nod, he turned away to fire off the necessary instructions.
I flipped through my tab, scaldingly aware of just how much slower and stickier the settings were here in Acinos, while Vrox twitched, his impatience pushing at me.
Ease down. We’ll do this faster if you aren’t busy huffing at my shoulder!
Vrox snorts, drawing himself up, his neck crest swelling at Cub’s disrespect—
Don’t you dare go all mantivore lord over her just as she’s trying to get us out of here, you scaly lump of trouble! Felina snapped. Unless you’re set to carry all of us on your back…
Vrox churred, suddenly chastened.
Despite these distractions, I was in. And just as Seth unnecessarily whispered in my ear, “First driver’s firing up the Code now…” the six-digit number flickered across my tab screen, and Vrox let me release the Stop Command we’d dropped across all the vehicles in Cnicus. After that, it was easy. We had the waggons all rolling down the road in a slow-moving procession away from the village in no time flat.
Obviously, Clete’s men would have suspected something if a force of soldiers had been sitting in the waggons, waiting to go. So as the vehicles started trundling down the road in the gathering gloom, a stream of soldiers burst out of hiding places, ran alongside the waggons and scrambled aboard. Those who first made it up, then helped pull the rest aboard. Seth managed to swing up onto a moving waggon without any help, but Felina and me were bundled aboard like a sack of olives. As for Vrox – while space had been made for him, he loped alongside, easily keeping pace with the slow-moving procession.
Scraped and breathless, I was deposited on the hard bench seat, tensely waiting for gunfire… for a platoon of soldiers to emerge from Westgate determined to stop us… But nothing happened. Granted, the security patrol had been told the waggon-train was headed to Reseda to bring back luxury items requested by Lord Gator, but I was surprised and not very reassured that no one seriously questioned why the goods weren’t being flown in. Meanwhile, we trundled away into The Arids without any alarm being raised.
By the time the loom of light that was Cnicus disappeared, twilight had deepened into full night. A delicious sharp breeze sprang up, so welcome after the thick, airless heat of the day. Though the chill increased steadily as the journey wore on until it became the kind of cold I regularly endured in Gloriosa. It wasn’t as blistered as it might have been, I was able to shed my goggles. It was as wonderful to be free of the heavy band across my nose and around my head as it was to see clearly.
I also had Seth’s arm around my shoulders, helping to keep me warm. And there was Vrox alongside, his bioluminescent scales rippling with green, blues and all shades of pink, his neck crest fully extended, his mouth ajar as he tasted the air for signs of prey. His triumphant joy at being able to run free wasn’t just warming, it kept me snug. To the extent that I dozed off…
The waggon jolting to a halt jerked me awake. We’d pulled up in the shadow of a large, rocky outcrop which rose up some twenty feet in front of us. Off to our left and right, the cliff rapidly shrank in a stepped, unnatural sequence.
These caves housed the Scarlet Horde, so did mantivores build this arrangement? Or did they move in after human colonists used the caves as storage or shelter during the Colony Wars?
The soldiers seated in our waggon quickly scrambled out, and helped me down. I was stretching through my stiffness, when I saw the grim expression on Captain Helston’s face as he strode away.
“Something wrong?” I asked Felina, who’d just been plonked on the ground alongside me.
“There’s no guard on duty. Or any sign of movement on their heat-seeking gismo. Place looks empty,” she whispered.
“Isn’t that good news?”
She shrugged as Seth replied, “Not if their reactions are to go by. Most of these folks are acting like it’s the Turbulence returning.”
“Maybe we’ve got the wrong place. This was Demri’s idea, after all.” Which had always rather concerned me. “Talking of Demri – he was s’posed to be coming, wasn’t he? And Damita?”
Felina shifted. “She nixed the idea. Reckoned it was too dangerous for him out here. If anything goes wrong, he’s not the quickest on the uptake.”
And that’s the understatement of the lightyear!
“Though Demri and his maps – most things might fuddle him, but not maps. Over them, he’s pin-sharp,” added Seth.
“Oh for sure. Besides, Vrox reckons this is the right place, too,” replied Felina.
I had to take her word for it. After helping me break into the Monitor House and get hold of the necessary codes, Vrox hadn’t seen fit to share anything with me during the journey other than his excitement at roaming around The Arids at night. Not that I cared. Much.
“Your Ladyship?” Helston appeared by my side. “We’ve scanned the area. There’s no sign of anyone. We’re planning to advance into the caves, but I’d rather you stayed here with an armed guard to keep you safe.”
I glanced around. The wind mo
aned softly through the cracks in the rockface, where I thought I saw a flicker of red. I looked again, but it had vanished.
“Not sure we should split up,” said Seth. “This is nemmet country.”
Something skittered up in the rocks above our heads.
In the same instant, I staggered at the onslaught from Vrox. Delighted anticipation… smell of blood… high yipping cries… crunch of powerful teeth cracking armoured plating… Nemmets, Cub! Tonight we battle nemmets.
As I fell to my knees, I dimly heard the mantivore’s bugling howl.
“Move!” barked Captain Helston. “Your Ladyship – we need to regroup where they can’t ambush us.”
Seth pulled me to my feet, cursing about the roaching vore once more hoeing me flat. “C’mon Libby, that’s it.”
I reached for his hand and together, we raced up the long, sloping path that ran parallel to the outcrop and around the edge of it. And stopped. Littered on the ground around the entrance of the cave were… bits. Shreds of uniform matted with blood; snarled clumps of hair; chewed boots; equipment scattered everywhere, including guns, knives, food packs; and trampled in amongst them were bones. Gnawed human remains.
“We don’t want to be here!” I shouted, my voice too loud and angry. “It’s a roaching killing ground. That army of rebels you came for? They’ve gone. The nemmets ate them. Every single one.”
Helston snapped down his helmet visor that lit up with a greenish glow. “She’s right.” He sounded choked.
I’m guessing he knew some of these bits before they were eaten.
Cub! You need to be blooded—
RAINDROP! KYRILLIA? Over here! They’re gonna rush us, like they did with the last poor roachers. I got a couple of spare shock sticks.
“Will you stop yelling at me!” I yelled, sprinting towards the pair of them, forcing Helston and Seth to change direction as they raced after me.
There was a rushing sound, like rain battering on a piece of tin. A handful of heartbeats thudded by, before I realised I was hearing countless clawed feet trotting over rocks, amplified by the underground cavern as nemmets scuttled from a variety of nests they’d made deep within the cave complex. They were gathering to attack.
There’s probably just a medium-sized family pod in there. It’ll be the stone walls making it sound like more. Those poor rebels were fresh out from Gloriosa and didn’t have a clue about what they were facing.
We drew alongside Vrox and Felina, who’d made a stand against another large outcrop with a bunch of soldiers, which was when the creatures broke into that high-pitched, yipping cry they’re infamous for. And a slow-moving tide of nemmets poured out of the cave.
“To me, to me!” shouted Helston, pushing to the front of the group between me and Felina, as the rest of the soldiers raced to join us. “Close up and wait till they get nearer. Don’t let them surround you!”
There were yells of alarm and some wild shots from a few panicked soldiers. I couldn’t blame them. I was a tad panicked myself.
It was terrifying. The size of cats, the nemmets’ low-slung armoured bodies bobbed and weaved as they trotted towards us. And so many! Red eyes glowing, long snouts waving and those terrible teeth gnashing in anticipation as they continued their high, skirling cries.
Cries of triumph… of bloodshed… of hunger…
Seth wrenched the shock stick out of my hands and spun it round the right way, before thrusting it back at me. Jerking me out of my trance.
“They’re messing with our minds!” I shouted. “Don’t listen to their noise! Aim for the weak spots – the eyes and the throat.” Though that sounded a lot more doable when reading ‘How To Survive a Nemmet Attack’ than now. Particularly as I also recalled the first instruction was to avoid being caught in a nemmet massed attack ‘at all costs’. That one’s bitten the roaching dust!
One soldier fired wildly at the pack, before making a run for the waggons. Immediately, a bunch of nemmets closest to him broke away from the main pod, bobbing after him with an odd, see-saw canter that looked ungainly but covered the ground frighteningly fast.
I hoped the soldiers around me couldn’t see the way the man stumbled… how a couple of nemmets put on a sudden burst of speed, one latching onto his thigh and one landing on his back, their snouts immediately locking onto him… hanging off him as he writhed and screamed. A wavering falsetto howl full of pain and horror. I hoped no one else saw, as the others caught up, more and more were leaping onto him. While he went on lurching, like someone drunk, weighed down by so many creatures eating him alive. Until mercifully, he fell to his knees, when one of the bigger nemmets leapt onto his face and his screaming stopped.
Time seemed to slow as everything became pin-sharp. I felt Seth’s heat radiating off him, smelt his sweat. Wish we’d had a chance to be properly together. Because I can’t see us surviving this. And while my heart was still hammering, my palms damp – the terror dropped away against my determination to take as many of these little monsters with me. Leastways I’m alongside everyone I love.
In the same instant, I felt – and heard – Vrox’s hunting bugle stutter as he caught my thought. Till then, he’d been so wrapped up in the excitement of facing a nemmet pod just like his mama, he hadn’t appreciated the danger.
Cub?
An honour to fight and die alongside you, Vrox!
Vrox huffs, relieved he’ll make a good death fighting a mortal enemy that had defiled his ancestors’ home out here in The Arids, rather than fading away in a stinking stone prison.
NOT DEAD YET, PEOPLE! LET’S MAKE ʼEM WISH THEY’D PICKED ANOTHER CAVE – THE ROACHERS, howled Felina.
Wincing, I embraced the ringing in my head. A proof I was still upright and breathing. “Love you!” I yelled.
“Love you, too, angel,” said Seth. “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want…”
On Helston’s command, the soldiers around us began firing, now the pod were within range. And while they managed to kill and injure a number, those that fell were churned underfoot or carried along, limp and bloody in the press of bodies. Still they came on, not increasing their speed, just trotting towards us. Every so often, one would break away, galloping towards us, drawing the combined firepower of the soldiers as it was blown apart.
“…in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake…” continued Seth.
“Fire in pairs! Starting at my end of the line,” shouted Helston. “Or you’ll run out of charge before the pod hits us.”
“Saving the last shot for myself,” shouted a lone voice.
Mantivore cubs… soft-scaled, squealing and afraid… running alongside the pod… lost… flickering distress…
One of the bigger nemmets leading the charge at the front suddenly started warbling and lashing out at his neighbours. Turning this way and that, he was biting, scratching and snarling, evidently convinced he was attacking helpless mantivore cubs.
How d’you do that, Vrox?
But he didn’t reply, busy replicating his ruse at the other end of the pod, holding up the advance as others also reacted to the illusion he spun. Watching them bore through the bony plates on their podmates’ sides, we got a horrifying demonstration of the damage those protruding, striped teeth were capable of. The screams of their podmates as they tried to strike back was horrible to hear.
I blanked out the noise, concentrating on recreating the image of the lively little cub that Vrox used to brighten my day, when I slave-slogged for Mai. The bright blue creature skittered across the line in front of the nemmets, causing several to snap and snarl at it. But though it distracted them for a few seconds, it didn’t disrupt their advance.
You will not prevail fighting in such a manner! Surely you must see this? You are mighty of mind… It was a complicated sending, like Vrox but less brutal and more… layered.
Show us how, then! snapped Felina. Unless you’ve come to watch us becoming nemmet snacks.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Thou pre
parest a table before me…” chanted a growing number of soldiers with Seth, clearly finding comfort in the oldentime words.
Fire. This is what truly terrifies them.
Two nemmets just behind the advance, appeared to burst into flames, which quickly spread amongst the others. In no time flat, only half the pod were still advancing, while the others pushed against the flow, frantically squealing, as they fought to get away from the conflagration.
“What’s going on?” said Helston, looking across to where a pitched battle was breaking out amongst the fear-maddened nemmets.
I blinked. There were no flames, no roaring heat – just the screeching of panicked nemmets turning on each other in their desperation to get away. “Someone’s mind-zapped them. They reckon they’re burning.”
“We shall not sleep, but we shall all be changed…” said Seth.
“Someone?” repeated Helston.
“You got a flame-thrower option on that gun?” I asked.
Helston fired, before replying, “Yeah, but it burns through the powerpack. Less than a minute and we’ll be reduced to clubbing the godding things.”
“Might be worth it. They’ll run if they’re on fire—”
Many repentances for this liberty, but we need you.
The presence in my head tiptoed across my mind, rather than stomped like Felina or Vrox. How can I help?
In some way, the others… they are steadied by you. Can you braid your mind alongside them without any Sending?
Can I? I didn’t know. But the nemmets, despite our efforts, were now only several paces away and suddenly broke into a run, clearly intending to overwhelm us. They certainly had the numbers, even with half of them still fighting each other.
Helston must have given the order to fire on the pod with the flamethrower setting, because dotted throughout the pack were a series of small fires breaking out across their armoured backs.