Arach

by C. M. Simpson

A number of settlers had gone up to them. Some had clearly reached the limits of their courage when they were less than a meter away, and had stopped. They just stood and stared. Others moved closer, bringing Cascade into a sitting position at their approach. The settlers stopped, speaking to the dog, before turning their attention to the weaver.

  Seeing that there were no longer any vespis standing overwatch on the spider-kin, I patted T’Kit on the carapace, and motioned towards the scene. She quirked her antennae, and the queen glanced over at Askavor and Rohan.

  “Go,” she said, and T’Kit and I eased away from her, even as another guard stepped in to take our place.

  They might be among friends here, but no-one was taking risks with the queen’s safety, and it struck me that a change in rulership would be a really bad thing, right now. I scanned the ridgeline, again, but nothing moved there. T’Kit and I eased our way closer to Askavor and Rohan, coming to a stop beside one of the settlers who had frozen in place.

  T’Kit shifted to human form, and laid an arm across his shoulders. He startled, and turned his head to look at her, his face a tragic mix of embarrassment and disappointment.

  “I’m sorry, guard, I…” he gestured helplessly towards Askavor, his words petering out to silence. “I will pack in the morning…”

  “No,” T’Kit told him, “we will help you.”

  And she scooped him into her arms, and carried him forward. The man gave a startled yelp, and then flung an arm around her neck, and buried his face in her shoulder.

  “Don’t let him eat me,” he said, and T’Kit gave him a mirthless smile.

  “I will not.”

  When she reached Askavor, she sat the man down beside one of the spider’s forelegs, placing her hands on his shoulders so he could not get up and run away. Crouching down next to him, she stretched one arm around his shoulders, and held him tight.

  “See?” she asked, and he opened his eyes.

  He shut them just as quickly, again, however, and wrapped his arms around his knees.

  “I’m not sure this is helping, guardian.”

  “Just sit,” the guard told him. “Sit, and know that Askavor will never harm you.”

  She kept her arm around the man’s shoulders and backed out from under the arc of the arach’s foreleg, before morphing back into her waspish self. The man flinched as her arm became a clawed forearm, but he did not try to move.

  Poor guy, I thought. He’s probably as terrified of wasps as he is of spiders.

  Judging from the way she felt in my head, T’Kit was not amused. Askavor was, though, and he clattered his mouth pieces in a weaver laugh. It was too much for the man, and he turned and tried to bolt out from under T’Kit’s grasp. She didn’t give him a chance, dragging him back and pinning him down while she breathed a familiar sweetness into his face.

  “Oh…” he said, as his struggles ceased.

  He glanced towards Askavor, and then rolled slowly to his feet and took the few steps he needed to reach the weaver’s side, and lean on it.

  “I see, now,” and he rested his head on the spider’s nearest leg.

  Askavor shifted to accommodate him, and I heard the reproach in his response to T’Kit’s tactics.

  “Did you have to?”

  T’Kit flicked her wings in a gesture of mild annoyance, and looked smug—although that could just have been the impression I had in my head.

  “It was required. He will be able to relax enough to learn not to fear you.”

  Askavor sighed.

  “And you can talk to him, now. His mind will not run screaming into oblivion, when you touch it.”

  “I was not going to touch his mind,” Askavor protested, and the man stroked a hand over the back of his head.

  “Why not?”

  “I did not want to intrude?”

  “An arach who respects boundaries?”

  “A weaver.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “I’m not sure I should show you. You have been frightened enough.”

  “So, unfrighten me.”

  I caught a flicker of thought suggesting Askavor would like to stuff T’Kit into a cocoon and drop her off a cliff, but the settler did not.

  “Well?” he demanded, and other settlers gathered.

  “Yes,” they said. “What exactly is the difference between an arach and a weaver?”

  Before Askavor could ask for T’Kit’s intervention, the wasp ushered the settlers forward.

  “Come. Sit yourselves, here,” she said, her thoughts touching all in range, and those who wanted to hear Askavor’s answer came and seated themselves where she indicated, including the first settler.

  I could sense Askavor’s relief as the man took his place among the rest—and I caught the faint wisps of pink around T’Kit’s mouth as she breathed the calming pheromone over the gathered audience. It was… nice. Oh. Damn. It was relaxing me, too.

  I wanted to be really upset about that, but I just couldn’t find the energy.

  “Snap out of it!” Askavor said, sounding annoyed, but he’d kept that thought just between us, because the settlers who had gathered to hear him, just sat around the spider’s feet, and gazed adoringly up at him.

  “They are ready,” T’Kit said, and Askavor began.

  I can’t say having the image of an arach appear suddenly in my head was the best thing ever, but I still couldn’t bring myself to be afraid of it, and the stars knew I had plenty of reasons to be terrified. The settlers were having the same reaction. They sat and gaped up at the spider as he showed them, first the physical differences, and then the differences in the way the arach and weavers treated humans.

  By the end of it, even those who had been too afraid to move were looking less so.

  “Sleep, now,” T’Kit said, and they leant against each other, and did exactly that.

  “Well, that was educational,” I said. “Why didn’t you just do that to start with?”

  “We only use it when it will help, and when the targets are willing.”

  A small part of my head called bullshit, but I shoved it aside. Regardless of how they used their coercive powers in a battle, I had yet to see them using it against the unwilling outside combat. Realizing I had been inside my head a little bit too long, I took a careful look around, making note of where Mack and Tens were standing.

  The queen was still moving among the settlers, as were the other warriors, but I could see a group of men and women waiting to one side.

  “The settlement leaders,” T’Kit explained. “The queen will negotiate the changes with them.”

  Looking at the leaders, it was easy to see their uncertainty, and I guessed I would be uncertain, too, if I was faced with the same changes.

  “They will comply.”

  T’Kit seemed sure of that, and I wondered why the humans had stayed, when the wasps had defeated them… or why the wasps had let them.

  “They had little choice, and we recognized a need for change when we saw it.”

  They had?

  “We might be shaped like creatures of insignificance on other worlds, but we are more than capable of recognizing when great change is upon us, and destiny calls. We offered them sanctuary against the laws that would have seen them punished for settling a preservation world, and they provided us with a voice beyond our own horizons.”

  I remembered that it was the victors that wrote the histories, and wondered what she hadn’t told me.

  “You’ll have to do your research,” she said, and I couldn’t tell if I’d offended her or not. “We must go.”

  I took up my place at her side, and, together, we walked back through the settlers to where the queen had finally crossed to talk to their leaders. We were halfway there, when the screaming started. T’Kit and I pivoted towards it, and were in time to see four arach burst out of one of the large hangars that stood at the edge of the shuttle-field.

  They wer
e making for the drop-ship, even though I was pretty sure Rohan had buttoned it up tight before he’d left.

  Rohan! I looked towards the boy, in time to see him scramble onto the flat area behind Askavor’s head.

  Damn! The boy was taking his duties as a pilot seriously—and that included securing ‘his’ ship.

  From behind me, I could hear both Mack, and Tens calling the boy’s name, but Rohan didn’t answer, and Askavor didn’t stop as he raced towards the drop-ship with the boy clinging to his carapace. The settlers stared as they passed, and I guessed it must have been the first time any human had seen a boy riding a spider into battle.

  It was almost funny, except that Rohan was trying to beat four arach warriors to a shuttle whose engines had been allowed to cool. Damnit! This wasn’t funny. Not even a little bit.

  I caught sight of Cascade bounding along underneath Askavor’s overarching bulk, and still didn’t like the odds. I bolted after them, readjusting the Blazer’s settings for solids, but keeping the safety on. There was no way I wanted to trip and shoot anybody by mistake. I figured I could start shooting as soon as I hit the edge of the crowd.

  I should have known T’Kit would see what I was planning. I should probably have expected that the guard would help me do it faster. Even so, the sudden grip on the back of my flight suit came as a surprise, and I nearly lost it.

  “I’ve got you,” she said, her voice echoing through my skull, and damping down the fear.

  “You’d better not be dosing me with anything to calm me down,” I told her, and heard laughter in her head.

  “I would never dream of it.’

  Like Hell, she wouldn’t. These guys were every bit as bad as Delight… or Mack, for that matter.

  “Hey!”

  I ignored him. He shouldn’t have been in my head, anyway.

  “Shut it, Cutter.”

  Honestly, the man needed a new catch phrase.

  “Ready?” T’Kit asked, and I got ready for my feet to hit the ground.

  I had no intention of stopping. I was going after those eight-legged bastards with prejudice, and I was going to take them down.

  “Stay out of my line of fire!” I yelled, and was surprised when T’Kit landed beside me, instead of closing with the arach threat.

  Oh. Right. She had Blazers, as well.

  “And I’m not afraid to use them,” the vespis warrior told me, and I wondered if she knew how far back into human psyche that phrase extended.

  “No, but it is usually used by someone who is terrified of using what they’re waving about,” she said. “Most do not.”

  I snorted, and ran forward, glad she was with me.

  “You take the leaders,” she said. “I’ll take the tail.”

  “Done,” I said, finding my first target, and hoping I wasn’t making a mistake.

  Askavor was fast, but the arach were still going to reach the drop-ship just after he did. I didn’t know what sort of window that gave Rohan for getting into the ship.

  “A small one,” the boy replied, “but I can get into a smaller space. I don’t need to drop the sides.”

  This was true. I just hoped the little smart ass got his backside inside before they could grab him.

  “He will make it.” There was not a skerrick of doubt in Askavor’s voice.

  Cascade said nothing, and I made a note not to shoot the dog, because I knew he’d be right out front, taking the spiders head on.

  “Noted.” T’Kit acknowledged, and I was glad.

  It would be very bad if one of our allies killed the dog, especially as it was his vote of confidence that had finally broken through the ice of hostility directed towards Askavor. Having the dog die in the weaver’s defense would be really unhelpful, right now.

  This time the vespis agreement came in a chorus.

  “Noted.”

  Now, I did stop. I flicked the safety off, sighted on the arach leading the way across the shuttle field, and fired. It flinched, but kept going.

  “You’re going to have to do better than that,” it sneered, and I hated not being able to keep psis at mental bay.

  I was going to have to better, was I?

  Fine. Challenge accepted, motherfucker.

  I couldn’t see their eyes, and their legs blocked where their heads joined their abdomens, but the abdomen itself? Yeah. I could see that just fine. I sighted on the most vulnerable point I could think of, exhaled slowly, and squeezed the trigger.

  Carapace tore away from beside the spinnerets, and the arach shrieked. Seeing how close it was getting to Rohan and Askavor, I stopped being careful. Now I knew where to hit, and there was no more time. I ran forward. The lead spider was injured, but covered by the one following.

  Fair enough. I shot at that one, instead.

  Alongside me, half a dozen Blazers were already firing. They hadn’t been having a lot of effect, until my last shot. Now, there were hits closer to the back of the fleeing arach, and more cried out in pain.

  They also stopped.

  And turned.

  And came towards us.

  Oh... Great.

  I’d stopped running, again, and dropped to one knee, bringing the Blazer to my shoulder…

  Damn.

  They’d turned—which meant I could see their eyes. It also meant the drop-ship was behind them. Askavor was behind them, too, moving so he stood between them and the ship. I knew the drop ship could withstand the Blazer rounds, but Askavor? Not so much.

  “Move!” I shouted, both in my head, and into the wind, but Askavor stood firm. “Move!”

  “He can’t,” T’Kit told me, and I saw why.

  “Crap.”

  Not all the arach had turned… and there’d been more than four.

  “We can take these,” came another vespis voice, and I was lifted into the air, as T’Kit decided our next move.

  “We will not let Askavor fall.”

  Well, Hell, no, we wouldn’t.

  T’Kit swept around the edge of the oncoming arach, keeping us out of the firing path of the other vespis. I glanced back, and saw they’d formed a firing line, between the settlers and the attacking spiders. I also saw Mack and Tens running at a tangent, around the edge of the crowd, on a course that would get them to the drop-ship, without taking them through the fire-zone.

  Two more arach had circled beyond the buildings and come at the drop-ship from the other side of the field—which wasn’t why Askavor refused to move. Only three of the first arach group had turned. The fourth one, the leader, had kept going.

  As I watched, it closed the distance, charging in under Askavor’s striking forelegs, its momentum barely slowing before it slammed, jaw-to-jaw into the weaver. Cascade darted forward, locking onto an arach foreclaw and biting down hard. Askavor used his forelegs to brace against the arach’s abdomen and push it back, while he whipped his second pair of legs forward stabbing at its face.

  Weaver legs were all much longer than arach legs, I noted, but arach were stockier, and their carapace thicker. I wasn’t sure Askavor had the power to punch his way through. While Cascade worried at the foreleg he had hold of, and Askavor held his opponent in battle, I looked for the two shadows I’d seen closing from the other side of the ship.

  “Rohan, you have incoming!”

  “I got them,” the boy answered. “Tens?”

  “Ten seconds, kid.”

  “Not your kid,” Rohan muttered.

  “Just make sure you’re ready.”

  It took me a few seconds to work out where Rohan was located—and, while it was a relief to see him under the drop-ship and not out the other side, it was alarming, too. The two other arach had split, one maneuvering to come up on Askavor’s flank, the other coming around the shuttle, clearly in search of the boy.

  “I see him, Cutter.”

  Well, that was all well and good, but what the fuck was Rohan going to do about him?

  “Would
n’t you like to know….”

  Little shit.

  I lost sight of the arach warrior as it went behind the shuttle, and I hoped Rohan really did have it under control, but there was no more time to think. T’Kit flew low enough for my feet to skim the grass, and then let go.

  “You go after the boy,” she said. “I will assist Askavor.”

  I had enough time to flex my knees for landing, and tuck into a roll, keeping the Blazer across my front, and my finger well and truly off the trigger, but that was all. The wasp lifted away from me, flying up and over the ship, and out of sight. While I’d have liked to go help her, I had to get to Rohan.

  “Incoming,” I said, racing forward, so I could slip under the drop-ship’s nose.

  He didn’t answer, but he didn’t hit me with a spanner, either… not that he had one. I came in around the foremost landing gear, in time to see him bob his head up from behind the next strut down.

  “Here kitty, kitty, kitty,” made no sense for him to say, but I recognized the throwing motion he made with one hand—and the narrow object that flew from his hand.

  Just where, exactly, had he gotten the slim-sticks?

  I hit the dirt at the same time as he did, and then stuck my head back up to see what had happened to the arach. Rohan looked, too, and got the same nasty surprise I did.

  “That’s bad,” he whispered, as we watched the slim stick bounce off the spider, its discharge surrounding the spider in a halo of blue.

  “Yuh think?”

  “Done,” Tens interrupted, and Rohan started running for a small, dark square that had opened up in the drop-ship’s belly. “Cutter.”

  “I got this,” I said, and really, really hoped it was true.

  While Rohan bolted for the maintenance hatch, I came out from behind the landing strut and headed towards the incoming arach. There’s enough space under a drop-ship for a human to run half-crouched, even a human as tall as Mack. There was sure as shit enough room for an arach to come crawling through—and this one didn’t even slow down.

  Problem was that there was not enough space to fight under. That thing got into melee range, and I was going to have a next-to-impossible time taking it on. And it was going to be in range very, very shortly. My only comfort was that it wasn’t going to fit through the maintenance hatch, so the boy would be okay as long as he hauled his ass inside, and out of grab range before the spider got there.