Arach

by C. M. Simpson

  Giving him time to do that was my job.

  Shutting the hatch, in time, was Tens job.

  Mack’s job?

  Well, given just how big this bastard was—and given the damn thing had a shield—I guess his job was going to be rescuing me.

  “More like picking up the pieces after it’s done with you.”

  Fuck, Mack. Thanks a lot.

  “You’re welcome,” he said, but I had made it to a point that gave me a clear line of fire, and was already pulling the trigger.

  There was no point in trying to hide. None of the landing struts were in the right place for me to have a clean shot at its eyes. I had to make the most of the time I had. Eyes. Aim. Breathe. Squeeze. Aim. Breathe. Squeeze. Eyes—Damnit!

  The first two shots had taken it high, spreading blue ripples around its body. The third and fourth clipped the ridge of chitin between the two large orbs and the row of smaller ones. They’d hit, but they hadn’t gone through, and now it was really pissed off. As I went to take the fifth shot, the arach made it to the drop-ship’s edge, scurrying forward in a boiling flurry of death and vengeance.

  I lost sight of its eyes as it loomed over me, and caught sight of two short, furred ‘arms’ stretching towards me from between its front legs. Pedipalps. Behind those, two long fangs reached out. I screamed, pulling the Blazer up to fire directly into the center of that nightmare, even as I closed my eyes, curling myself around the stock and shooting blindly as the monster came.

  Fur brushed my shoulders, and sharp edges tangled in my combat suit, pulling me forward as the furry arms grabbed hold and fangs arced over me. I braced against the drag, frozen into immobility with my finger locked around the trigger, the Blazer hammering in one long burst as the magazine emptied. The arach screamed, too, its whistling cry of agony poor comfort as one of its fangs sank home, and the other slid past me to curl against my back.

  The Blazer hit the crater I’d created between the fangs, and then got stuck. It was torn out of my hands as the arach’s momentum carried it forward. For an instant, I was dragged with it, and then I heard a sickening crack, and hit the ground, as my attacker collapsed around me. I had enough time to shield my face with my arms, and then the arach landed on top of me.

  In an instant, I was choking, crushed between the hard shell of its body and the hardened ground of the landing field. The weight of it was squeezing the air out of me, and pain burned down my back where its fang had lodged. My arms were trapped against my head, and I couldn’t move my legs enough to shift it off me—but that didn’t stop me from trying.

  The only good news was that I’d managed to create a pocket of air between my face and its body. How much longer that would last, I didn’t know, but I was glad it was there. When the creature moved itself, I kicked out, and then tried to use my feet to drag myself out from under it. That worked right up until the fang snagged and drove itself deeper. I screamed again, choking on the stench of spider and a swirl of fur.

  “Easy, Cutter. Let me get it off you.”

  Mack’s voice had never been so welcome—even if I was hearing it inside my head.

  22—Walking Wounded

  It was hard to stay still and not cry out, while Mack and Tens worked to get the spider off me—and I didn’t manage it very well. I tried, though. I closed my eyes, kept my arms up, and focused on not moving. Actually, the not moving thing got a whole lot easier as the poison from the arach’s fang kicked in.

  By the time Mack had rolled the carcass clear enough to pull me out, I couldn’t tell them just how bad the pain was when the fang, and the toothy extension it was attached to, dragged against the grass. Mack felt it when he slipped an arm under my back so he could pick me up, and turned me so he could see what it was.

  “For fuck’s sake, Cutter!”

  I wanted to laugh, but arach venom was plenty good at what it did, and I couldn’t make a sound. I didn’t know how much I’d been hit with, either, given the damn thing had snapped off the spider, before it could finish the dose.

  “How’s your head?” he asked, and I wondered what he meant.

  “I meant talk to me with your implant, shit-for-brains. I need to know you’re okay.”

  There were so many things I wanted to say, right then, but I couldn’t settle on a single one. Normally, I would have just given him a look that said it all, but, right now, I couldn’t. With a sound of sheer exasperation, Mack scooped me up, and carried me out to where Askavor had collapsed in a heap in front of the shuttle. Cascade was sitting beside him, and growling at every person that came near.

  Except the vespis. He didn’t growl at them—and he didn’t growl at Mack, or me, or Tens.

  “What the fuck did she do to herself, this time?” Tens asked, when he saw Mack carrying me over.

  Yeah. Thanks, Tens. I’m fine, by the way. Nice of you to ask.

  Tens narrowed his eyes.

  “She’s still got a mouth on her.”

  “It’s your fault,” I managed, and the rest of what I wanted to say, evaporated.

  “What’s my fault?”

  “Leave it, Tens. She’s not all there, at the moment.”

  Thanks, Mack. Thanks a fucking lot.

  “You’re welcome, Cutter. T’Kit! I thought you were supposed to look after my girl, here.”

  His girl?

  And he ignored me, again.

  T’Kit came over, and took me from him. I wanted to protest, but couldn’t say a word, couldn’t struggle, either, as the wasp laid me face-down on a blanket.

  “You were lucky,” she said, her wings humming as she used her mandibles to cut away the fabric of the combat suit. “He died before he was ready to kill you.”

  He had? And what made her think he hadn’t been ready? He’d looked pretty dead-set on ending me, as far as I’d been able to see. She pulled the thoughts from my head, and I sensed amusement.

  “He was loaded with paralytic.”

  Yeah, any idiot could see that. Her point was?

  “If he’d chosen death, he’d have been loaded with something worse.”

  They had different poisons?

  “Venoms. And, yes. They produce a different venom for each purpose. Most have the paralytic. Those,” and she flicked her antennae towards the carcass under the drop-ship. “Those have one that kills in seconds of contact, and a third for digestion.”

  “Digestion?” This time I managed to get the word to form.

  “Yes.” Her mental tone was gentle. “Those arach feed on all their prey. They need the paralytic to ensure a living capture, and then the digestive to break the body into a soup after they’ve cocooned it.”

  “It was going to cocoon me?”

  “Oh, yes. You and the boy. Askavor, too. It is standard practice for a long flight.”

  She glanced skyward.

  “Where they were flying to, we do not know.”

  “Rohan is okay?”

  “He got into the shuttle. The arach would not have acquired it.”

  And speaking of things being acquired.

  “Mack. Did you give him slim sticks?”

  Judging from the startled exclamations that rattled through my skull, that was a most definite ‘no’. I got the impression of movement, and Tens suddenly sounded further away.

  “Rohan! Open up!”

  “Oh, man, Cutter. Did you have to tell them?”

  “Hell, yes! You little shit.”

  He laughed, and bolted out of my head, leaving me with the distinct impression that drop-ships were great because there were so many places you could stash things.

  “Rohan!” Tens sounded frustrated, and I guessed he was going to have to hack his own way into the transport.

  “You’re a bad influence,” the comms tech grumbled.

  Me? Rohan was his apprentice, not mine!

  “Yeah, and you’d do well to remember that.”

  Whatever!

  I mi
ght have rolled my eyes at that, but T’Kit started working the fang free, and all I could focus on were the exploding patterns of color inside my head.

  “You got any antivenin, T’Kit?” Mack asked, and I so wanted to protest.

  The arach fang was a pretty big needle, all by itself. I was pretty sure I didn’t need another one.

  “Stop your bitching, Cutter.”

  Fine.

  Turns out those weren’t the only needles I needed. Antivenin was followed by antibiotics and something to reverse the paralysis.

  “That needs stitches,” T’Kit said, when she’d punched me full of holes, and she hesitated.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “It would be better for a human medic to do this.”

  “Doc still on the orbital?” I asked.

  “Yes, but Delight is beyond range.”

  “You got skin-seal?”

  “Perhaps at the main hospital.”

  “Mack can do it.”

  “Mack most certainly cannot,” Mack replied, but his mind seemed to be elsewhere.

  “What’s up?”

  “Nothing.”

  But it wasn’t ‘nothing’; I could see that. Someone was very badly hurt, and Mack was worried. As I tried to work out what it was, the shot they’d given me took effect. The pain intensified, and I flinched.

  “Lie still,” T’Kit instructed, but she, too, seemed distracted.

  “What is it?”

  A little beyond her, I could hear a rising thrum, anxious human voices, the queen…

  “Wait here,” T’Kit said, and moved away from my side.

  Mack followed, as though drawn by a thread.

  Seriously?

  I propped myself up on my elbows, dragging air through gritted teeth, and hoping no-one noticed. Judging from the activity around Askavor, no one would. Askavor? I moved carefully up onto my hands and knees, grateful when no-one turned back.

  A cluster of vespis and humans had gathered around the fallen weaver. Settlers formed a half circle around him, their faces pinched and anxious. The queen was standing at the weaver’s head, a curved claw resting on his carapace.

  “I have done what I can, Aska, but I fear it is not enough,” she said.

  “Your majesty,” he replied, and I knew he had to be in pain, for his thoughts were broadcasting wide. “I am sorry I cannot stay.”

  From amongst the settlers, I heard a half-choked sob, and one of the women turned her face to the shoulder of the woman beside her. That brought me to my feet. I staggered to my feet, stifling the urge to scream. The fire in my back was nothing to the pain I felt at the thought of having failed him.

  “Aska?” I asked, stumbling across the few feet of grass separating us. “Aska?”

  My approach caused a stir amongst the vespis gathered near him, but the queen reached me first.

  “We cannot help him,” she said, drawing me close enough to see.

  “But… we need him,” I said, thinking how much depended on Askavor being able to bridge the gap between the humans and the weavers.

  “I am sorry,” the spider said, and the queen laid a reassuring hand on his head.

  “You have no need for shame,” she said. “You have not failed us.”

  I could think of only one other avenue for help.

  “I will call Delight,” I said, and the queen gave me a pitying look.

  “She will not hear you. She is too far away.”

  “She’d better hear me!” I snapped, “since she’s in my head, even when she isn’t supposed to be!”

  The queen shrugged.

  “You can try.”

  Well, of course I could. I searched through my implant, looking for the link that had to be there. I couldn’t find it.

  “Goddamnit, Delight! Where the fuck are you?”

  And she popped right into my implant, like I’d invited her… which, just this once, I actually had. I didn’t give her a chance to ask why I had called.

  “Askavor is injured, and we need him.”

  She didn’t ask why, just tore through the memories recorded on the implant and took what she needed—and then she didn’t bother answering. She just vanished from the implant like she’d never been.

  Two minutes later, she shuddered into being beside Askavor, causing the queen to rear back in surprise, and the bodyguards to strike out instinctively. We were right in the makings of a diplomatic incident and a half, when a piercing whistle broke the air, and the vespis froze.

  “You’re very fucking welcome,” Delight snapped, glaring at the wasps nearest her, as she peered into Askavor’s wound. “Doc! This one’s beyond me.”

  Doc? I looked for him, and realized Delight hadn’t come alone. Scattered amongst those gathered around Askavor’s still form, were several more figures, all wearing the grey of Odyssey crewmen. One of them, however, was wearing medical white, and had an all-too-familiar cast to his features.

  He nodded towards Mack, as he disentangled himself from a vespis foreclaw caught in his shirt. It hummed at him, and he patted its forelimb gently, as he moved away.

  “No harm done.”

  The bodyguard watched him go, and then cocked its head, its whole posture expressing puzzlement. I followed the direction of its gaze, and understood.

  As much as Doc might have tried to reassure it, the line of red slowly staining the side of his tunic said he’d lied. Harm had been done. I took a step towards him, and was met with such a ferocious glare, I stopped.

  “Not now, Cutter. I need to see to Askavor.”

  I looked to Mack, but he just shrugged. Delight got out of Doc’s way, and signaled to one of Odyssey’s men.

  “Make sure Doc has what he needs,” she said, and walked over to Mack. “I have a port team on stand-by. We’ll have him in a tank as soon as he’s done.”

  “Does he need one?”

  “Not yet, but I saw the size of the stim pack he discarded. He’ll be in a world of hurt when it wears off.”

  “Who gave him one of those?”

  Delight shrugged.

  “You tell me. He’s your crewman.”

  Mack looked like he wanted to say something at that, but he didn’t. He pressed his lips together in a firm, straight line, and took a long, deep breath. He was back to business, when he spoke, again.

  “Can you scan the area for more?”

  “Done,” and Delight blinked. “Anything else?”

  “Ask the queen,” Mack suggested, and turned away, his gaze roving over the settlement, the buildings, the sky, and the ridgeline beyond.

  We might not be on a battlefield, by any stretch of the imagination, but Mack looked like he was standing in the middle of a warzone, and he was making me feel uneasy.

  23—Surgery on the Sugarsides

  I looked around for Tens, but he was nowhere to be seen—and then I remembered he’d gone into the dropship after Rohan. Oh… good.

  The world wavered, but I turned back to watch Doc. The man had his hands deep inside Askavor’s carapace, and seemed to know exactly what he was doing. I don’t know what was more unnerving: the fact Doc was working on the weaver, or the idea that, maybe, he’d done this before.

  “Not now, Cutter,” Mack said, and then he froze.

  And I knew he’d finally registered that I was standing up and had shifted off the mat he’d seen T’Kit dump me on. I thought about returning to it, but I didn’t move. Firstly, because there was no point; he’d be on me before I could back out of the crowd standing around Askavor; secondly, because I wasn’t going anywhere; and, thirdly, because I wouldn’t make it if I tried.

  Hell, if I was lucky, Mack would reach me before I hit the ground.

  “Fuck me, Cutter. What the everloving fuck do you think you’re fucking doing?” he shouted.

  So much for being subtle, I thought, as he jostled two vespis bodyguards aside, and wrapped an arm across my back, just as my legs gave
way.

  “Nice catch,” I managed, but I was already feeling an overwhelming urge to sleep.

  Delight arrived, just as Mack swung me into his arms, and carried me clear of the crowd around Askavor. She took one look at me, and glanced up at his face.

  “How bad?”

  “Arach bite. She’s had antivenin, but she needs stitches.”

  “I’ll port you to medical on board the Sugarsides,” Delight said, and didn’t give either Mack or me time to protest.

  Her command moved as fast as thought, and we were swept away, as swiftly.

  “Don’t you let them keep me,” I said, as our pieces were jammed back together. My words came out louder than intended, but Mack ignored me, and looked around. Delight had obviously decided to get us where we needed to be, rather than go through the Sugarsides’ teleport center.

  “Standard emergency procedure,” I heard through the implant. “You can thank me later.”

  I contemplated thanking her, but she had already left, and I guessed there was a lot to do back on-planet.

  “Not your problem,” Mack said.

  He might have said more, but the medical team was already moving in. They took me out of his arms, and loaded me onto a gurney, before rolling me onto my front. Have to say, you’da thought trained medical professionals might not use that many swears when the patient could still hear them.

  “Stay there,” I heard one say, but I guessed they were talking to Mack, because the gurney was already moving away. “I’ll send someone to show you to quarters.”

  Shortly after, I heard footsteps coming after the gurney as it passed through another set of doors.

  “Hells Bells,” the same voice said, when it stopped. “Scrub up, people. We got us some work to do.”

  Nice, I thought, but didn’t get much further. A hand slid lifted my head enough to slide a mask over my mouth and nose, and a forearm settled across my shoulder blades.

  “Time you slept. You’ll feel a lot better when you wake up.”

  I would? I wanted to argue about the sleep bit, but I was afraid he was right. It really was time to sleep, and there was nothing I could do to stop it happening. I let fatigue roll me under, and wondered if the medic was lying, if I really would feel better when I woke up. Maybe I wouldn’t wake up at all…