But he was also right, which gave her some small level of comfort. These suits did provide impressive protection. Their abductors obviously wanted dividends on their investment in bringing them here.
Her display showed her the Devourer forms coming around the corner of the side passage up ahead. Her enhanced vision could barely make out the movement that far ahead in the lightless tunnel.
“Okay, Marc, here they come. Get ready.”
With that, she raised her own weapon up, two-handed grip, arms straight, just like her father had drilled into her while he was alive. Sighting down the weapon, her display brought up the targeting graphics, highlighting the dozen or so Devourer forms as they got closer.
They were just about throwing themselves along the tunnel in the low gravity.
The creatures were unerringly able to close on the two of them. They probably had heightened senses of smell and sight. She couldn’t forget that they were carrying one with them, which might be able to tell the others exactly where they were.
She really hoped Connor was right and that they would give up the chase if she and the others could get out of the tunnels.
She started firing. Yellow rounds burst apart, spraying their cyan contents in spherical explosions that sent heated air wafting around. Flurries of dust blew away from her shots. Marc joined in a moment after her, his aim much more accurate than what she had expected until she remembered the software was probably helping him.
The Devourer forms split their group up as soon as the first was enveloped in high-temperature plasma.
The creature shriveled up in the cyan morass of ionized gases. If it gave off any sound, it was beyond the human range of hearing. Meriam’s brain grasped the errant thought and filled her in that the Devourer forms usually didn’t develop lungs or vocal cords.
Then the forms were scampering across the walls and ceiling towards them.
Meriam sent a quick burst to Marc, “Right!” while she started firing at the left.
At this range, the creatures were able to dodge and shimmy around. They had astounding reflexes, their sub-second reactions allowing them to get away from an impact point in the rock wall just ahead of the expanding plasma sphere.
Marc was firing at the right wall and taking down his fair share of the creatures, and then they had another surprise for them. Only a few feet away, one of the Devourer forms stopped just after avoiding a plasma sphere.
There was a strange gurgling sound, and then its entire front ruptured open, the flesh tearing apart to reveal dozens of the parasites squirming on the inside.
They erupted, springing out from inside as the muscular cocoon that was carrying them rippled in gestalt, sending the centipede-like creatures rushing in a flying wave to cover Marc from head to toe.
Meriam turned and shot the creature, the plasma disintegrating it and the next wave of parasites it was about to regurgitate at her. In her mind, she could hear Marc’s panicked shouts.
“Oh God, get them off! Get them off!”
Other Devourer forms were still in the tunnel, and she didn’t want to attempt shooting Marc. Her display showed her his singlesuit protective fields were holding, but she didn’t know what a plasma burst would do.
So instead, she continued to fire at the others in the tunnel while giving Marc some instructions.
“Change your weapon to another round, like stun, and shoot them off. Your force field will hold, Marc. Shoot them off!”
“I… I can’t. There are so many. I can see them. They are trying to get stuck onto me. They are all over my face. These sucker things are right in front of my eyeballs! Help me!”
Meriam shuddered.
She could imagine what it would look like with half an inch or less between her bare flesh and a Devourer parasite held back by an almost invisible force field. She just didn’t know what to do. Another one of the cocoon-carrying forms was lunging towards her, and she shifted her aim to immolate it quickly.
She really didn’t want to end up like Marc, but before she could think any further, the tunnel was suddenly filled with Devourer parasites flying away from Marc in all directions. A violet outline of the short man expanded away from his body in half a microsecond.
The force behind it must have been immense: the parasites were turned to pulp against the tunnel walls, ceiling, and floor. Two of them pasted themselves across Meriam’s protective field and sent her staggering a few steps back as well.
Dust and wind went swirling down the tunnel from the force of the blast, leaving Marc standing there and visibly breathing heavily.
“What the hell was that?” she asked him.
“Uh, I…” He trailed off, looking around, wide-eyed, for any other threats, but the last Devourer had been blasted with its own kind and was now a mushy pile spread up one of the walls.
“Uh, I’m not sure. It popped up in my display, like a diagram of what could be done, and my display just said to react, so I did. I pushed them all away.”
Meriam checked her scans as she said, “Okay, well, good job. I don’t see any more nearby, and the others further away seem to have stopped. Take a breather. The others are getting closer. They should join us soon.”
Marc just nodded and leaned against a clean patch of wall.
A minute passed before Connor, and the other two arrived. When they did, they all took a long look around the tunnel and the gooey, dripping remnants.
Ormond looked at Meriam and raised an eyebrow, but Lekiso asked the question: “What happened?”
Meriam gestured at Marc, who had recovered normal breathing. He shrugged and told them the same thing he’d told Meriam.
“Well, okay, then. I’m not going to complain,” Connor said, projecting comfort at Marc. “But let’s get out of here. It seems like the Devourer has had enough of us for today since its staying back. But let’s not give it enough time to change its mind?”
They all followed him at a trot as he led them back down the tunnel.
“Hey, not a problem, mate. I think we’ve all had enough of these tunnels and their occupants for one day,” Ormond said.
Connor looked over his shoulder to see if the man was being sarcastic, but Ormond was focused on keeping an eye on their surroundings. Meriam noticed because she was watching them from behind, noting how they were all coming to work better together.
It was Lekiso who commented.
“I wonder if that group from the Lopokin family is having any trouble with the Devourer.”
* *
If the humans had been able to ask Pendonar, they would have learned that the Devourer was not choosing sides.
The newly formed hive mind had left the humans alone because the amount of forms it had lost wasn’t worth the effort of pursuing them any further, even if they had taken a parasite form with them.
The way the Devourer thought, the parasite would either be destroyed or it would get loose and start to infect. Either way was fine.
But the other life forms in the tunnels were more numerous, and the Devourer did expect to see if it could infect any of them rather than the humans who had been well armed and protected. Having experienced the entire encounter from the forms that had been engaged in the battle, each and every one of them burned up by plasma or crushed by unyielding stone.
But the Devourer mind did not have emotion. As newly formed as it was, it had only purpose.
To survive and to expand.
So it was that it had set an ambush for the group led by Engestine, who had Pendonar loping alongside down another tunnel in the mine. They had dropped down the hole that the humans had made to escape the rock fall. Engestine had sounded impressed and then had taken a few turns along the route that led deeper into the mine.
Engestine had rightly assumed the humans were not just going to leave, and so, the most likely option was that they would be headed in rather than out. A couple of turns later, Pendonar had finally asked how the Antonasas was choosing their direction.
It had given him the gruff rebuff that it could smell the humans and that he had shut up about it.
A few minutes later, Pendonar was getting nervous. He couldn’t explain why, but something was telling him they were getting into trouble.
He’d relied on his instincts during his career and he wasn’t about to ignore them now. He turned to speak to the Lanillan further back in the tunnel who carried their scanner.
“Hey, have you got anything on that thing?”
“No, just more rock. Whatever we are following could be around the next bend, but this thing won’t tell us until we get into the open area. Cheap piece of junk.”
Pendonar wanted to smack the Lanillan upside the head, but he refrained. It was true, the scanner was some old piece of equipment that the family had bought to help them search for Devourers.
Now it had been repurposed and modified to scan for the humans—if that fool had done even that right.
“What is your concern?” Engestine gurgled out, surprising Pendonar.
“We are deep into the tunnels now, sir, farther than we went when searching for Devourer parasites. I’m not sure what else might be down here,” he replied, carefully avoiding looking the Antonasas in the eye. It wouldn’t take kindly to that.
“Ah, yes, I can smell the slimy creature in the air. It is…” Engestine stopped grumbling abruptly.
It turned its head from side to side, sniffing the air and listening.
“Shut your men up,” it growled, the menace evident in its tone.
Pendonar didn’t need to turn around and hush the others. They had all heard, and none of them were going to argue. They all stood still and listened, trying to hear whatever had caught Engestine’s attention.
After a minute, the Antonasas spoke again in its gurgling speech, and the translator on Pendonar’s lapel spoke in its synthesized voice: “Weapons fire, and cooking flesh. I think these humans of yours have run afoul of the Devourer.” The big scaly alien turned around and ponderously started back the way they had come.
“Um, sir? Where are you going?” Pendonar asked carefully.
The Antonasas turned so that one big, slitted eye looked down on Pendonar.
“I am leaving, yellow skin. It is not worth my time to fight the Devourer. Not in this life.”
When Pendonar didn’t respond, the Antonasas continued to trudge back along the tunnel. The other Lanillans all looked from the protosaur to Pendonar and back.
Engestine gurgled out over its shoulder, “I suggest that you come along, little Pendonar, unless you wish to become one with the parasite.”
That put things into perspective. Pendonar gave a nod and started after the Antonasas. The others didn’t argue.
* *
“Sir, the security team is assembled and equipped.”
The Domum who delivered the report saluted smartly in front of Obragon Vax’s desk.
“Good work. How are the other orders going?” the commander asked, standing up and moving around his desk towards his armor stand.
“All refugees that would have been sent to the Enone Hub are now being rerouted elsewhere in the Puzzle Box, sir. The refugees currently on the hub have had their designated leaders notified that they will need to be moved. Sir, there has been vocal resistance to the information, and that is from among those leaders that responded to our calls. Most didn’t acknowledge the message.”
“Ah.”
Obragon Vax lifted the heavy chest piece up over his head and brought it down to settle the weight on his shoulders. The system integrated with his neural circuits where the collar touched the interface on the back of his neck.
The black carapace of the armor closed up on his sides, forming a single chest piece.
The front of the collar expanded outwards under his chin, displays coming to light and showing him one hundred percent power from the six cells embedded in the lattice under the huge ellipse on the back of the armor. He picked up an upper arm piece and began to put it on while he spoke to the officer.
“I expected that. Protocol when dealing with other races indicates that they very rarely continue to understand structure once they have passed through the need for such structure. The refugees have met their needs so that they might receive shelter. After that, they likely went their own way and seek only to survive.”
“Yes, sir.” The Domum was already in his gear, the limbs, and torso of the blue man surrounded by the black surfaces of the protective equipment.
“We’ll have to go in on one level at a time and evacuate the refugees that way,” Obragon continued, ignoring the officer’s lack of understanding. It took about a decade for a Domum from Manor Vax to come to understand the complexities involved in dealing with other species.
This officer was still young. This was his first posting, much like so many of the Domums on the Puzzle Box.
“It is imperative that we isolate and clear the refugees. We cannot allow them to start spreading a panic, or the carriage station will be flooded. A clear and orderly withdrawal is required to avoid injury or damage to the hub. Go, tell the others to get started, and I will join them shortly.”
“Yes, sir.”
Obragon Vax allowed himself a smile at the other Domum’s excitement.
Not that it showed to anyone except another member of Manor Vax, but the officer now had something to do other than pushing documents around or tracking criminals. The prospect of a fight with an opponent as notorious as the Devourer probably had his blood up.
It was a trait sequenced into the members of Manor Vax, the desire for a challenge, to meet an enemy and overcome it.
Obragon Vax completed equipping his armor in silence, considering the implications of how many Domums were going to be dead in the next few days.
* *
Pendonar wondered if Engestine was keeping its pace back to allow the Lanillans to keep up or if it just wanted the additional numbers in case something went wrong.
He wouldn’t be surprised if the Antonasas were hedging its bets. He would have done the same thing. They were fifteen minutes into their escape from the tunnels and making good time.
None of them wanted to be left behind
“Anything?” he asked the Lanillan carrying the sensor equipment. Pendonar had instructed the other gang member to adjust the settings back to the Devourer lifeform, and he had been busy at it while they moved.
So far, there had been no signs of the Devourer.
Pendonar was hoping that was a good thing, that it meant there was nothing to detect and not that the Lanillan had misconfigured something.
When they got to the next cross-tunnel, his hope withered away horribly, along with the echoing scream of the first Lanillan on the far right to be grabbed. Strong tentacle appendages shot out from the dark to wrap around an arm and both legs of the man.
He was abruptly wrenched back into the darkness just as other Devourer forms came at the group.
Engestine bawled out a mighty roar, reaching down to heft its two weapons up, and the first Devourer to move in its direction was vaporized instantly. Pendonar saw the same thing that Engestine did when the tunnel lit up from the weapons’ emissions.
Many more Devourer forms were coming down their tunnel at their group.
Some of the others must also have seen the horrific sight, green and yellow blobs of flesh among tentacles and bone blades, all moving as a mass, quickly in the low gravity, to absorb the Lanillans.
To Pendonar, that was the worst part: they weren’t being attacked for what they had; they were being taken to be absorbed into the larger whole. It was something he could barely contemplate.
Engestine growled and gurgled at him. His translator provided the words in Lanillan: “Grab on if you want to live.”
Pendonar hesitated for a moment, not out of any care for his fellow Lanillans, who even now were being grabbed by tentacles and hauled off, or finding parasites leaping from the walls and ceiling to latch on to their pliant flesh.
&nbs
p; He hesitated because he hadn’t thought the Antonasas would make an offer of help.
But Engestine put both of its weapons securely back into its holsters and got down on all fours, presenting the stirrups and grips for Pendonar, who didn’t have to consider it any further. He grabbed on just as Engestine lurched into a headlong run.
His arms almost popped out of their sockets, but he held on for dear life while the rock tunnel blurred past.
Behind him, the screams of his prior companions rose in volume and then dimmed.
Pendonar told himself it was because of the distance growing wider and not because they had been consumed by the Devourer horde already.
* *
The magnetic carriage he was in traveled swiftly over to Enone Hub, space and the buildings of the Puzzle Box going by on either side, along with the lights of the hoops.
They had requisitioned several carriages, disrupting the magnetic transport network to a large degree.
The Dadarians would cope, though.
He knew that.
Looking out of the transparent fuselage, Obragon Vax considered the tactics and options he could apply. His thinking was interrupted by an urgent communication that popped up as a projection from his collar.
“Yes.”
“Commander Vax, we have cleared half of floor sixteen of the Enone Hub. The refugees are away, and we have more entering the transport platform even now. The entire floor should be cleared within the next two hours, sir.”
“Good work, Officer, but hardly important enough for a priority call. What else is happening?”
“Yes, sir. There have been some refugees who have managed to escape to other levels, sir. The smaller of the aliens found ways through the ventilation system and maintenance passageways. We tried to cover them all, sir, but there just aren’t enough of us. Word has gotten out, sir, and the refugees on other levels are starting to ask questions.”
“I see. Redeploy several squads to hold the doors to the magnetic carriage platform and as far up the passages as you can. Our first priority is to ensure safe passage to and on the platforms so that we can move the refugees safely. If they riot, keep them on the floors they are on.”
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