Arach

by C. M. Simpson

  There was no time to power up and then hack it. The shuttle was out. The arach were catching up, and the masked men and women were now looking over at us instead of their victims. They were showing a lot more interest than I’d like, and it didn’t look like a single one of them had sense enough to run.

  “We need more guns,” I said, and turned to face the warriors that had pursued me out of the cocoon room.

  “Yuh think?” Alice asked, reaching over and pulling the Brahms from its holster, and moving so her back was against mine.

  “Hey!”

  “Shut up. You’ve got the biggest gun here, so it’s only fair I get the two smaller ones.”

  “Very funny,” but I’d already sighted on the lead arach, and squeezed the trigger.

  “Just don’t take too long getting me another one.”

  I adjusted my aim slightly, and sent a short burst into the first warrior out of the corridor. He jerked under the impact, but kept coming, and I realized these fuckers were wearing body armor, that the ripple of light over his outline meant he had one of the suits with a field.

  “But those aren’t out, yet,” Delight whispered. “How the fuck…”

  And she was gone, no doubt to alert Odyssey that their R&D folk had sprung a leak.

  Alice didn’t turn to see what was going on. She had targets enough of her own.

  “I’m going to be out of charge before I’m done, here,” she warned, and sent me a brief flash of what was coming towards us.

  The humans had decided to join the fray, and the two arach near the shuttle had become four.

  “What the fuckity fuck,” I said. “Why aren’t they running?”

  It was a fair question. The second arach through the door hadn’t stayed in his semi-human form, but morphed through a billowing cloud of black to become the biggest goddamned spider I had ever seen.

  “Holy fuck!” Delight said over the comms. “You’ve got yourself a king.”

  “King of what?”

  “It’s an arach male, stupid,” Alice chipped in “—a fertile one. This whole place was probably some sort of wedding gift. You’ve just fucked up a clan union.”

  “I’ve what?”

  “Well, you will have, if you manage to kill that fucker.”

  I kept my sights on the arach in front, and watched the solids hit, and fall harmlessly to the ground.

  “We need to move,” I said, and Alice glanced away from the approaching humans and arach guards.

  “We sure as shit do.”

  There was only one way to run. We took a diagonal across the front of the oncoming humans in their costumes of leather, chain and vinyl. With any luck, the arach had built up enough speed to make changing course difficult.

  “A night with the king for any who can deliver them.”

  That was definitely not what I wanted to hear being shouted out behind me, and I realized why the lead arach had remained in human form: Vocal cords.

  What I couldn’t work out was why his cry engendered a cheer from the oncoming humans, and why they all suddenly broke into a run, brandishing the various instruments they’d been holding.

  “They’re looking for the ultimate thrill,” Alice said, and I almost stopped in surprise.

  That thing was a thrill?

  “You haven’t seen him in human form,” Alice said. “He is utterly gorgeous to look at… and, when he gets close…”

  She sighed, and I suddenly didn’t want to know how she knew.

  “Ty saved me,” she said.

  We’d almost reached the nearest pre-fab, and the humans were closing.

  “In there!” I said, and raced up the steps leading into the hut.

  I flung open the door, took two paces in, and skidded to a very abrupt and horrified halt. Alice ran into the back of me, and then saw why I’d stopped.

  “Holy shit!” she exclaimed. “You are worse than Delight!”

  Which was totally uncalled for, but something I’d have to deal with later, because there was no way in the all the stars that I was going to stay in here. I reversed direction out of the hut with Alice, slamming the door shut behind us, while Alice led the way down the stairs. I was about to follow, when Alice stopped, and backed slowly up.

  The humans that had pursued us had closed around the base of the stairs. I leveled the Blazer at their faces, and they backpedaled a few stops, and then stopped.

  “Get behind me,” I said, and Alice frowned.

  “I’ve got the biggest gun,” I reminded her, and she came all the way back to the small landing outside the door—the unlocked door… from behind which came the sound of a myriad of not-so-tiny feet. Alice didn’t step behind me, though; she rested one boot against the bottom of the door, and stood beside me

  “We can cover the area better, this way,” she said, then added. “I take it you did not come here alone…”

  She was right. I hadn’t. I’d just assumed T’Kit would contact me when the outside was clear. I looked across at where the humans had been entertaining themselves, and saw what awaited us, if the arach chose to hand us over.

  “Delight…”

  “I hear you. Only vulnerability that king has is its eyes. You might need to shoot the sick bastards competing for its attention.”

  I caught frustration in her tones.

  “You wanted them alive?”

  “They might know something useful,” she told me, “and there is always one that’s willing to barter knowledge for some kind of advantage. The arachs won’t give us a thing.”

  “But the vespis…”

  “They won’t know what you’ve walked yourselves into,” Delight said, and her tone had an evil edge. “I’ll do what I can. The queen is at your location, though. You’ll need to let her know.”

  I was worried that I could compromise Tekravzary’s safety, if I distracted her while she was still in battle, but Alice and I had backed ourselves into a corner, and we weren’t going to last long. Information was valuable, even if I wanted to slaughter every one of the treacherous human-shaped sons of bitches approaching the stairs.

  I glanced over at the king, and watched as he turned to cloud and all vestige of his arach heritage disappeared.

  “Whoa!” I said, but the word came out as breathless as any uttered by a teenager seeing their first crush.

  Alice elbowed me in the ribs.

  “Snap out of it, Cutter. I can’t stun them all.”

  “Gotcha,” I said, and tore my eyes away from the king. Alice was right. That thing was utterly gorgeous to look at.

  “Just don’t let it get near you,” Delight said, “or you’ll be wanting to do more than look.”

  “Gotcha,” I said, and tried to come up with a way to put the humans out of commission without killing every single one of them like I wanted to.

  I’d done plenty of snap shooting on the range, precision shots, hard to make, and fast. If I didn’t think about it… I lowered the Blazer’s muzzle and went for legs.

  “Keep your rounds lethal,” I told Alice, “and watch the arach.”

  “Gotcha,” she said, and I set about shattering human limbs as fast as I could go.

  “You hit them in the femoral, and they’ll bleed out.”

  “Not helpful, Delight,” but I lowered my aim, and tried not to hit too many thighs.

  “The fleshy part of the shoulder is good, too,” she added, when it was getting hard to see legs because of the bodies in front of them.

  I switched things up to avoid hitting heads that had suddenly gotten too close to the floor.

  “You called T’Kit, yet?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Because you’re going to need her.”

  And just as Delight pointed that out, Alice started firing. I looked up, and realized there were more arach around than I’d noticed before.

  “Where did…”

  “Outside,” Alice answered. “They came from ou
tside. The king called for help.”

  “Against two of us?”

  “He really wants you alive.”

  Not what I wanted to hear.

  Groans and sobs came from the foot of the stairs, and I realized that the human element was no longer a threat. Go figure.

  By the same token, Alice and I were stuck on the stairs, because the humans weren’t the only ones we had to worry about. I raised the Blazer, and looked over it at the arach warriors slowly moving in. Most of them had retained their human forms, and the few humans hesitating at the edge of their fallen fellows stepped aside to let them pass.

  The king moved in behind them, coming to a stop three meters from the bottom of the stairs. Delight swore, but I couldn’t work out why—and the king spoke.

  “Halt!”

  Damn, even on a single barked command, the king’s voice sounded good. It sounded better as he continued.

  “My guests, I am sorry,” he said, and sorrow laced the very air.

  I felt sadness bubble up from inside me, and couldn’t work out why I felt so unhappy that he was sorry.

  “Pheromones,” Delight said, and she didn’t sound happy.

  “Like the wasps?” I asked.

  “Worse.”

  Oh crap, but the king continued, and the sorrow turned to menace, making my heart thunder in my chest.

  “You have failed me.”

  Fear rolled through me, and I nearly dropped the Blazer. Beside me, Alice’s guns shook, as if she was experiencing the same problem. Below me, the king’s guests froze. Before they could gather their wits, he rolled out a command.

  “Kneel!”

  With the exception of two or three, the guests knelt. They were oblivious to their danger, to the state of the floor they were on, the pain of their fellows, everything. They just dropped to their knees, some bowing their heads, some looking towards their king. I caught myself half-way down, and about to lay the Blazer aside, before I’d realized what I was doing.

  I pushed myself upright, again, even as the nearest arach leapt forwards. Alice had hit the floor, and then snapped the Brahms and Glazer up as my movement broke the spell. I propped the butt of the Blazer against my hip and reached down to pull her back to her feet.

  “Fucking spider!” she snarled, snapping two shots off into the face of the first soldier to reach the foot of the stairs. Blue light flared, and she fired twice more, before it shattered, followed by the arach’s skull.

  I fired with her, putting two rounds into the head of the next arach. The bigger slug and closer range saw the second round hit what it was meant to, so I put a short burst to the chest of the third. I was moving on to the fourth soldier, weaving his way through the fallen humans, when I remembered I was supposed to be calling for help.

  “T’Kit!” I managed, firing a second burst to put the soldier down, and switching targets. “Help! T’Kit! It’s a king! T’Kit! A king!”

  I didn’t know what to expect, but it was not the swift and sudden explosion of the large doors in front of the shuttle, or the veritable swarm of wasps that came flooding into the hangar space. I looked from the sudden flare of sunlight and back towards the king, just in time to see him vanish into a cloud of shadow. When it cleared, he had taken the form of a large, black spider and fled back through the door leading to the rest of the building.

  I had the Blazer up and was firing into the cloud and his vulnerable rear, before I’d decided to move. It seemed to have no effect, but I kept firing until he’d completely disappeared.

  “T’Kit, there are prisoners, and…” but the vespis team leader had arrived, and wasps had reached the arach soldiers around the stairs. None of them were coming after Alice and I, which left us only one thing to worry about.

  The door rattled, and we remembered what was on the other side. Keeping our weapons pointing outwards, we slammed our backs against it. It wasn’t locked. If enough of those critters got to it, chances were one of them would trip the handle. As soon as I thought it, I heard the snick of the catch releasing, and the door bumped against our backs.

  “Shit,” Alice said, bracing one foot against the railing that ran the perimeter of the small landing.

  Shit about summed it up, I thought, as several hefty impacts made it jolt against our weight.

  “T’Kit…” I gasped, as the door jolted again. “We can’t hold them.”

  I didn’t know what the things we’d seen inside the pre-fab were called; I only knew that they terrified the living shit out of me with their undecided forms, their multitudinous legs, and their reaching fangs. The thought of them left me weak at the knees.

  T’Kit looked at the images crawling through my mind, and recoiled in disbelief.

  “You jest!” she snarled, and I shook my head.

  “You know I don’t,” I said. “How could anyone joke about these?”

  “You must hold them a little longer,” she commanded, and beside me, Alice gasped, so I guessed T’Kit had relayed her command to the Odyssey agent, as well. “Hold them, or the humans die!”

  Humans?

  The door bounced against my back, and I felt what might have been a narrow foreleg brush against the back of my calf. I stomped down, and shoved back against the door. Something crunched and a shrill squeal went through my head, setting my teeth on edge. I kicked the door, driving the flat of my foot as hard as I could against it, barely aware of the vespis warriors flying to the foot of the stairs and removing bodies as swiftly as they could take them. All I could think of was the weight building up against our backs.

  One by one, the bodies were cleared, and, one by one, the arach fell, stung to submission by vespis warriors who darted in and back, their more modern weapons forgotten as they employed age-old fighting techniques to take the spiders down. Alice stood beside me, as one of the red-gold protectors of the queen came and hovered in front of us.

  “We can’t…” I panted, and it held up a forelimb.

  “A hundred wingbeats more,” it said, and I tried to work out just how long that might be.

  “Not long,” Alice said. “Their wings beat so fast.”

  A slender leg reached around the edge of the door frame, the clawed forefoot probing my hair, my shoulder, my upper arm. I smothered a scream, and pushed harder. Glancing sideways, I saw that Alice had it worse. A half dozen of the limbs were probing along her back and side, even as she tried to push the door more to closed.

  It was never going to happen, and, all the time we struggled, the vespis warrior watched us. At first she was alone, and then she was joined by a second of the bodyguards. They hovered side-by-side as more vespis gathered behind them, a row of yellow and black, the lesser warriors, those who only came when called by duty.

  “No so much lesser,” the vespis guard reminded me, “just of more use to the hive than I could ever be.”

  I blushed at the reprimand, just as Alice yelped.

  She kicked back with her foot, and gasped. From in front of us the wing-beat thrum of the waiting vespis grew in pitch. I caught the twitch of the first wasp’s head and then it darted forward hooking its forelimbs under my arms, even as the guard beside it did the same for Alice.

  “We are sorry.”

  I caught the thought from the wasp that had grabbed Alice and wondered what she was sorry for.

  “The bites.”

  Alice had been bitten?

  “Will she survive?” Delight’s voice intruded, as the wasps flew us out of the hangar.

  The bodyguard’s response was not comforting.

  “Perhaps… These little ones are new.”

  New, or not, little, or not, the creatures were shown no mercy. No sooner had Alice and I been lifted clear, than the other warriors attacked. The bodyguards did not wait for us to see the results. They took us back to where the drop-ship was waiting, and Delight spoke, again.

  “Grab Alice,” she said, and I obeyed, following the brief imagery she’d
flashed in instruction, and wrapping myself around my old colleague.

  “Give Mack and the queen my apologies,” Delight said, in my head, where the vespis could hear her, and I held Alice as tightly as I dared.

  We landed in the same stasis pod, and the lid slid shut over us.

  Damn.

  Delight sounded almost apologetic.

  “Sorry, Cutter.”

  27—Spider Bait

  I don’t know how Odyssey’s medical team separated us. I only know that when they pulled me out of stasis, they pulled me out alone—and I took the shuttle back down to K’Kavor the next morning.

  “How’s Alice?” I asked, when doctors brought me out, and they looked somber.

  “We’ll know in a couple of months, when we’ve tweaked the antivenin. For now, she’s on hold.”

  Which meant the venom was on hold, as well. I was lucky I’d been closest the hinges, when we’d been holding the door. Not one of the creatures near me had managed to extend its fangs around the edge. Alice hadn’t been so fortunate.

  It was a sobering thought, and I found myself grateful to be returning planetside. I wondered if the vespis had captured the king, if they’d rescued the prisoners before they could be harmed, if…

  I remembered what the humans had been doing when Alice and I had burst into the hangar, and tried to push the memories away. Why had I left any of them alive?

  “Because I asked you to,” Delight said, and she did not sound sorry. “We can save most of them.”

  By that, I hoped she was referring to the people who hadn’t been in the slaughterhouse of their own free will. The others weren’t my concern.

  “Most of the torturers can be saved, too, and we need the intel they’re bringing to the party. After that, they’ll be joining Andreus, and a more fitting punishment, there cannot be.”

  I wanted to know if the vespis had been able to deal with the creatures in the prefab, but it was a question I’d have to save for later, because the shuttle touched down. The Odyssey soldier charged with returning me to the planet, held his hand to his ear, shielding his comms device. When he’d given an affirmative, he looked towards me.