“Cutter!”
And well Mack might shout at me, because the effect of that insult was satisfyingly swift. The arach rattled. It’s the only way to describe it. They vibrated their legs, and shook their bodies, and displayed their fangs in raised aggression.
Oh, fuck.
“Way to piss off a species, Cutter!”
But I was too busy to respond. After their initial display, the arach were advancing.
“T’Kit…”
“Almost there. Please do not shoot the ceiling.”
“Gotcha,” and I was relieved to hear Mack give the same acknowledgement.
What was not so good was to see the three arach closest angling around the perimeter of the room so they could all come at me at once. That couldn’t be good, right?
I didn’t wait for them to come. I started to swing the Blazer around to take the one on the furthest end, but T’Kit redirected my aim.
“There,” she said, as the Blazer crossed the second arach. “We have the third.”
They did? Well. Fine. I opened fire. This time I didn’t bother with bursts. Help was coming and I didn’t need to conserve ammunition. Yeah, that and this was no time for bursts. If they all charged me at the same time, I was in a world of hurt—and I didn’t want to spend any more time in a tank, this trip. It was bad enough knowing I’d have to go back in, when we were done.
I cut through the arach’s legs, and walked my fire back into its body, clipping the abdomen before moving it across the arach’s head. These things were really moving, but they weren’t that fast. I’d remembered them being faster. The second arach fell, head cratered like an errant asteroid, so I walked my fire into the first one.
Funny, I’d thought that one might, at least have reached me, but it was still a meter off, its fangs stretching towards me. Target accepted. I shot where the fangs joined the rest it and watched the whole spider stutter backwards in a jerky, uncoordinated dance. When it fell, I danced forward, coming away from Askavor and ignoring Mack shouting in my head.
“That one,” T’Kit said, and I moved forward taking on the arach attacking Askavor’s right.
The Blazer ran dry on that one, so I threw the gun away, and pulled the blades I’d been given when they’d handed me the rest of my gear. I was gonna carve this bastard into itty bitty pieces.
“Don’t play with your food!” T’Kit’s reprimand was as harsh a rap across the knuckles as ever I’d had.
Fine. Whatever. There were plenty more.
I took out its legs, and watched as Askavor skewered it through the eyes with first one foreleg, and then another. Yup, this one was done—but even as I thought it, I was heading for the next arach over. Somewhere in the back of my head, I knew there was a good reason I shouldn’t be doing that; I just couldn’t quite nail it down. I removed the intervening hind legs, and cut its rear from its front.
Mack was shouting in my head, and Askavor was sidling away from me.
Silly spider. As if I didn’t know the difference between arach and weaver! I stepped up onto the cephalothorax of my latest kill, and looked for more. Couldn’t see any. Sure, there were bodies, just nothing alive and kicking. I turned a slow circle, reveling in the slightly orange light playing across the walls, and then flinching from the sunlight glaring through a rent in the dwelling’s ceiling.
Man! Someone was gonna have to pay for that. And rebuilding was going to be a bitch, what with—
“Cutter!”
I turned toward Mack, noting the line of wasps standing quietly in the sunlight, their carapaces gleaming.
“Cutter!”
“What, Mack?”
“You need to stand down.”
I had to what? But what if there were more?
“Stand down, Cutter.” Mack’s voice shifted from demanding to almost calming. “Stand down.”
I took one more look around the damaged room, and saw that he was right.
“Fair call, Mack,” I said, and he frowned.
I ignored that, too. I figured he couldn’t be that mad at me, given I’d helped him get rid of the arach. I wiped my blades on the silken floor, and sheathed them—and then I went looking for my gun. It’d be nice to reload that.
I stopped, and blinked. Why had I thrown it away, again? I turned as Mack came up alongside me. He had his hands tucked into his belt. Man was not a threat.
“You okay, Cutter?”
Weird ass question.
“Yeah. Need to get my gun.”
“How about we get T’Kit and her friends to fly us out of here?”
“I need my gun, first.”
He sighed.
“Fine. Where’d you leave it?”
I scanned the site of my second… third… Fuck. How many of these things had I taken on? I felt T’Kit’s mind whisper across my own, and then the weight of Mack’s arm across my shoulders.
“Why don’t we let one of the vespis get your gun?”
“But it’s my responsibility.”
“Yeah, and you are mine, and you need to not be here, right now.”
“Oh.”
He was right. As I scanned the carnage around me, I felt a little light-headed.
“But Steppy will be upset with me.”
Mack’s arm tightened.
“Not this time, he won’t. Come on,” and he drew me back towards the vespis.
We passed across in front of Askavor, and the spider flinched away from me. I didn’t want to think of what I’d done to cause him to do that. I had a fair idea, but I didn’t want to think about that, either. If I wasn’t careful, I’d join the list of things that populated my nightmares, and I didn’t want to be afraid of myself that badly.
“You’ll get over it,” Mack said. “We all do.”
We did, hey? And just how the fuck did he know that?
He squeezed my shoulders again.
“Never you mind, Cutter.”
He brought us to a stop in front of T’Kit.
“Welcome back, little warrior.”
From the tone of her voice, she was smiling. And who was she calling ‘little’ anyway? I looked up at her, and stopped. Yeah. That would be why. Shutup.
“Turn around,” she said. “I will carry you to the ground.”
For a moment, I thought I’d be better off climbing down the webbing that Askavor had made his way up on, but T’Kit intervened.
“This structure is unstable,” she said, “and the lines connecting it to the buildings below were severed to prevent the arach escaping.”
I turned around, and Mack lifted his arm from my shoulders and went to stand in front of the vespis beside T’Kit. It was a short trip to the ground. Unfortunately, it was a short trip that ended where we’d started—in the middle of the stacked limbs of Askavor’s people.
T’Kit put me down and I heard Mack’s feet hit the ground not far away.
“Cutter…” he said, and I could feel the reproach he was directing at the vespis, could hear him asking them if they couldn’t have thought of a better place to set me down.
They were apologizing, even as I walked over to the nearest pile, and reached out to touch the closest long, smooth-shelled leg. Sadness welled up in me, but I knew it was not mine.
“My sister,” Askavor said, and I had not been aware there was more than one female in a nest.
“Not all are queens,” Askavor explained.
They weren’t?
Askavor descended on a line of thread he’d spun himself, and clung to the wall beside the pile.
“No,” he said, and his sadness washed over me. “The non-breeding females are needed for many things. My sister…”
And he stroked the leg under my hand.
“My sister was strong enough to direct the males in their work. A hand-maiden, if you would.”
Spider royalty, huh?
“She fought for her men,” Askavor said, turning the limb under my palm so
we could see cracks forming a web of destruction over the limb…and the gashes that showed the corded muscle beneath it.
I reached out and traced the surface, not really seeing the injury, but feeling the destruction transmitted through my fingertips. My mind struggled to understand just how the she-spider had kept going after this.
“The Star-Eaters did not want to kill them. They needed them for their swarm,” Askavor’s revulsion was palpable through his grief and anger. “Some for their queen, and the rest to feed their warriors. They took the whole settlement.”
His mind voice lost some of its calm, cracking inside my head.
“My people fought them, until they could fight no more.” He turned the leg so that its injuries were once again hidden, but he did not leave the pile.
He took the limb, and laid it to one side before lifting another. This one, required pedipalps, and two sets of limbs to hold together, but he did not place it beside the first.
“Her consort,” he said, and agony whispered through his thoughts. “The father of my heart. They will rest together.”
But he laid the limb carefully on its own, and lifted the next one, free. This one, he laid beside the first he’d found for his sister, and I helped him adjust its position.
“Did they all fight?” I asked, although I knew they’d had no choice.
Askavor lifted his head, tilting it slightly towards me. He indicated the terrible wounds on the latest limb.
“They did not go easily,” Askavor said, and I looked at the pile of long, multi-jointed limbs, and then up at the dwelling.
“Where are their bodies?” I asked, and Askavor stared at me.
“The arach took the bodies of those who fought them,” he said. “They will either feast on them, or they will give them to their queen. If she does not spill their entrails for her hunters, she will preserve them in a form of living death, and fill them with her young.”
I stared at the discarded legs.
“Wouldn’t they bleed out?”
Askavor turned towards me, and revulsion filled his voice.
“The wounds were cauterized,” he said, “and then sealed with a light coating of acid to melt the chitin over them. The arach would have preserved every drop of blood they could. They will feast, and send the footage to every weaver colony in range. The offer will be to serve them, or be served on platters of bone.”
I shivered, and looked for something I could kill. Mack shifted uneasily, and I spun towards him.
“Don’t!” and T’Kit’s voice made all of us pause.
When she spoke next, it was to me.
“Cutter. There are no more enemies here.”
And I was outraged.
“Then where?”
“We have traced the transmissions guiding the shuttle to a house in Sanderamon.”
Sanderamon. The capital. Where the observation center had been compromised. I held onto enough of my sanity to try and ask what was expected of me next.
“Am I coming?”
It wasn’t what I wanted to say, but demanding to be taken to the battle zone was one piece of savagery I could contain. The rest… well, I didn’t know how long I had before it took over. When I got a hold of Delight, we were going to discuss the use of unauthorized chemicals in my regen tank.
And we were going to do it with extreme prejudice.
“Promise?” she taunted, and I spun, drawing the Glazer from its holster, and looking for her head.
“Cutter,” T’Kit said. “The flyer is waiting. Mack will take you.”
Mack wouldn’t take me. He’d already said that, but if he would lead the way to the shuttle that would be enough, for now. I could live with that. I turned, and caught the expression on his face.
“What?”
And he shrugged.
“I don’t know, girl.”
I watched as he tried to find the words for what was on his mind. In the end, he gave up and laid a careful hand on my shoulder.
“We’ve got a flight to catch,” he said, and turned away.
The flight wasn’t the only thing we had to catch, I thought. We had a human to kill… and arach. There could never be enough of those—and I was looking forward to it. Maybe I should have been worried about that, and maybe I would be, later. Right now, I wasn’t.
31—The Sanderamon Raid
The flight passed in a blur. I could feel the energy surging under my skin, and could barely contain it. I wanted to run, to jump, to fight. Even with T’Kit and her team filling the rows of seats behind Mack and I, the flyer seemed strangely empty—and I couldn’t work out why.
I was vaguely aware of a second flyer lifting into the air after us, and caught Mack’s quickly muttered explanation, as we sped away from it.
“The queen will lead.”
Of course, she would. Where else was the place for a queen to be? I startled when I felt a long, narrow hand rest gently in the center of my back, but T’Kit’s voice melted through my mind, taking the edge off the need to leap from the flyer and run ahead.
“I’m going to kill Delight,” Mack muttered, and I couldn’t quite work out why.
“I’ll help,” Tens added, and I wondered what he was doing, thought I should check it out.
“Get your grotty paws off my security system!” Tens said, and then directed my attention to the scans. “Here. Go find me a shuttle trail.”
Okay! I hunted through the data trails, vaguely aware that Tens had pulled up the records of earlier scans. I didn’t care about permission. I dived right in. After all, what exactly was he going to do about it? It’s not like he could catch me. I found him four shuttle trails, none of which had been reported. I did real good!
“Hells, kiddo,” Tens said. “Just how much of that shit did they give you?”
“Waaay too much,” Mack told him. “Just keep an eye on her and try not to let her break anything.”
I could break stuff?
“No!” came from three very cranky sounding adults.
Hey!
“Go find me an arach ship,” Tens said, and I dived back into the scans.
This was fun.
It was also hard, and it got harder the further out I went. I followed the signal from the farthest sat, and then bounced through the computers on an incoming cruiser.
Ouch! That wasn’t nice! But it didn’t matter, because I’d found something in the shiny new ship’s long-range scan feed. Oh yeah!
I dragged it back, and dropped it into Tens’ implant.
“Whatcha got, Cutter?” he asked, and then he saw it.
“Oh, fuck!”
What? But Tens wasn’t paying me any attention, anymore.
“Mack. I gotta go. I think she bounced through an Odyssey cruiser, and dragged its long-range scan results back.”
“Fuck!”
Ungrateful sods. I’d found the arach ship, hadn’t I?
But they weren’t listening. They were too busy talking to Delight.
That wasn’t right.
She was on the naughty list, wasn’t she?
“Shut it, Cutter.”
But he’d told me to go find him an arach ship—and I had. What the fuck was his problem? And Mack came right into my implant, wrapping his presence around me in a kind of mental hug. I wondered if he was hugging me on the outside, too, but he spoke, and that distracted me.
“It’s okay, Cutter. You did good. Tens just needs Delight to convince the Odyssey cruiser he’s a friend.”
Oh. Was it bad if it didn’t?
“I like my ship, Cutter. Without holes.”
And his point?
“You are so juiced… I am going to murder Delight.”
I could help him with that.
“Hell, no!”
But…
And T’Kit was back in my head, drawing me away from Mack, and away from Tens and his oh-so-precious security system. I could hear Delight talking to the
battle cruiser and telling them to stand down, and get their asses out there after the arach ship trying to leave the system. I couldn’t follow everything she said, but some of it involved her going up there and straightening out some attitudes, and them asking to speak to Pritchard, and then things got nasty… and boooring. It’s not like the battle cruiser had a hope in Hell of catching the arach ship. That thing was hauling ass faster than they were. It would hit the jump point well before it got in range, no matter how fast they chased it. I knew; I’d done the calculations.
See?
And Delight glanced in my direction, snatching the calculations out of my implant.
“Enjoy it while you can, short stuff. You’ll be back to somewhere normal when it wears off,” and I reached out, and took the calculations back, making her come around.
Excellent! Cos, right now, I could kick her ass ten ways to Sunday, and then bounce it back, again. Bring it, Baby!
Okay… Well, I could if she was still here!
“No fair.”
“We’re here,” Mack told me, and I came out of my own skull.
“Where?”
But no-one was listening to me, although Mack had settled his arm around my shoulders, again. Cool, but... My mind stopped spinning long enough to focus on Tens. He was saying…stuff!
“There’s a shuttle coming in, and the orbital reports another ship in-system.”
“We don’t have anything scheduled,” T’Kit noted.
“Let them come in,” the queen ordered. “If they’re traffickers, they are subject to K’Kavoran law.”
“Odyssey will assist,” Delight replied.
Not if I kicked her butt, first.
“Nah, Cutter,” Tens said. “We need you to kick their butts, first.”
I grabbed the schematics he sent me, and followed the security feeds noting where the patrols were, where there was a contingent of men and weapons bunkered down in the room to the entrance of a walled garden. It was easy to see it was just big enough to take the shuttle Tens had noted coming in.
Just.
The fish pond was toast, if it touched down, though.
Damn. I liked fish.
“So?” Tens asked. “What are you going to do about it?”
I could go do something about it?
Arach Page 27