by Viki Storm
It’s trying to throw me, tossing its head side to side, but I hold on. Again, I’m reminded of the stallions and the men who would attempt to break them, clinging to the horses’ manes futilely until they were bucked off into the brush.
One of the pedipalps breaks free and my hand sways loose, the long appendage clutched in my fist and oozing a black ichor that immediately makes my hand start to burn and itch.
I swear I hear Orlon’s voice in my ear.
Not the way I hear my own voice or the voice of my mother or father sometimes in my head—that’s just an extension of my own inner monologue, using personification to get its point across.
This is Orlon. It’s as if he’s speaking over my shoulder.
“Now’s your chance, Suse. Remember what I said when we were training? Hand-to-hand combat is mostly a dance of stalling and waiting, and it often comes down to a single chance to strike. The victor is always the one to recognize it—and be bold enough to use it.”
I grip the pedipalp in my fist; the exoskeleton is incredibly strong, unyielding as steel. I reach back my hand and plunge it straight into the creature’s center eyeball. It twists its head, but I keep the pedipalp buried deep in the socket. My left shoulder burns from the exertion of clinging to its other foreleg, and my right arm stings from the caustic ichor, but I persist, knowing this is my only chance.
I sense the creature slacken just a fraction, and I recognize this is another opportunity. I wrench the pedipalp free from its eye and plunge into another eye. Then another one, and another one. I gouge the four major eyeballs, one after the other, the same way I’d strike thin sheets of metal with a pin-punch at the Corva coil factory. Poke, poke, poke, poke.
I feel its legs start to tremble beneath me. I have weakened it, but I know that will not be enough. I need to kill it.
I brace my shoulder against the creature and hope that I’m about to do it right. I was never able to actually flip Orlon during our sparring sessions. Then again, I never had the advantage of adrenaline and fear—plus the advantage of having trained in heavier gravity. I remember what Orlon said, how he showed me to use the momentum to my advantage.
The creature springs at me, a final desperate attack. I lean down and then use all the remaining power in my legs to push up, flipping the creature on its back. It’s stunned, momentarily shocked with its legs in the air, pulsing in time with its dark heart. There is a spot on its underbelly, a little diamond-shaped patch where all its legs come together, and I know that’s its weakness. It’s indented, a paler gray color and not the shiny black of the rest of its armored shell.
I still have the pedipalp in my fist, though my hand is rapidly numbing and losing strength—either from the cold or the caustic ichor, I do not know. I lunge at the creature and stick its own sharp appendage into the soft underbelly. It hisses and writhes, but this thing is spawned from the Womb of the Void itself, and it won’t die. The pedipalp is sharp but short, less than a foot.
I know what I need to do, but it’s so vile I’m not sure if I can. Despite all I’ve done, I’m frozen with fear at this hideous prospect.
“You’re coming back to me,” I hear Orlon say. “Summon the spirit of a Zalaryn warrior.”
And suddenly, I do feel stronger, my fear not gone but somehow seeming less important. I plunge my arm into the underbelly of the spider. The warm guts envelope my arm up to the elbow, and I can feel the sick squelch of its innards parting. I feel around, knowing that my own hands are the only thing that will stop this creature’s beating heart. My gorge rises as I navigate my arm through its wet and spongy insides, but I have no choice but to kill this thing if I want to get out of here and see Orlon again. The Universe gave me a mate that I foolishly did not appreciate enough—so now the Universe is testing me, making me prove myself worthy.
And I am not going to fail.
I feel a squeezing, pulsating thing, long and rubbery, running the length of the spider’s insides. It’s fighting hard against me, but it’s losing strength. I grab on and pull. It’s slippery, and my own grip is fading. I can’t feel my fingers, so it’s only by my muscle memory and force of will that I’m able to hold onto anything.
Just then the spider thrusts its swollen abdomen and aims its spinneret at me and shoots a thick white strand at my head. I duck and miss it, but it’s a close miss. I plunge my other arm inside the monster, and with both hands clutching at its heart, I am able to rip it out. It’s a long meaty tube, and it twitches a few times before lying limp in my hands. I toss the foul bit of offal to the ground and retreat several steps, always keeping an eye on the creature.
It is still.
I am victorious.
My antenna configuration got knocked over in the fight, but I immediately start setting it to rights. It’s cold, I’m covered in slick, stinking ichor, and my arms may or may not be suffering the effects of a neuro-paralytic toxin. I have no time to waste. At the very least I need to get back to the ship before I freeze to death. Now that the fight is over, my adrenaline is wearing off, and my muscles are beginning to shake with delayed fatigue and cold.
I get the antenna connected to the emergency comm device and boot it up. It’s scanning for signals, taking its sweet time while I’m freezing my ass off. I’m tempted to crawl back inside my space suit plastered to the ground with the spider’s silk—it would be warm, but it would be too much like climbing into a coffin.
What the fuck? I hear something. Shuffling. Scraping.
I didn’t kill it? How could it still be alive after I ripped out its heart? I look at the corpse, and it’s still belly-up, legs curled in a rictus of pain.
There’s something else, something that wasn’t there before. Something bulging out of the hole I punched in the spider’s abdomen.
It’s white and… writhing. Squirming.
In an instant, it explodes before my eyes. Hundreds—thousands?—of tiny spiderlings ooze forth, seeming to home in on me directly. They’re small compared to their mother, perhaps only the size of a mouse, but there are so many of them. Coming right for me.
I look at my comm screen and see that it’s found a signal and is ready for transmission.
I try to type in Orlon’s IP, try to scrawl out an SOS message, but the little Void-spawn are on me, crawling up my ankles, underneath my shirt. They’re tangled in my hair. Covering my eyes. I don’t dare open my mouth. I claw at them, plucking them off as fast as I can, but there are too many of them. And endless stream issuing forth from their mother’s carcass. All of them hungry.
All of them ready for revenge.
Soon I am covered, and they’re so heavy, like I’m wearing a weighted suit of armor. My knees are buckling. I’m being pulled down.
Into the utter blackness of the swarm.
My scan picks up a biomass on the northeast quadrant of the planet. Could it be? I push the button to activate the comm-link with my squadron.
“Maintain your holding pattern,” I instruct them. I don’t remember the last time—if ever—I was in command of so many ships, but this is a desperate situation. “I’m going to land. I might need backup, but probably not.”
I smile a little at my arrogance. Going down to the surface of an unknown planet, alone, and I think I probably won’t need backup?
I initiate the landing sequence, impatient at my ship’s slow descent cycle. Time is of the essence. After I finish up here, we need to get our asses to Lekyo Prime and fast.
I figured out a way to get the Guuklar, to send their warlord Tos back to the bowels of the Void itself. It will work too—if we can get there in time.
But I’m not going anywhere without my mate.
Not a fucking chance.
And if putting her above my duties as a warrior makes me a piss-poor warrior, then fuck it. I resign as a warrior. We can settle down anywhere else in the damned Universe and my computer programming skills will be in high demand. I don’t need to brandish an anankah and conquer planets in order to find meaning
in my life. I already found it. With her.
I switch channels and reconfigure my comm to search for signals from the ground. Hopefully Suse has an emergency device and is right now scanning for signals, too.
My comm device beeps, indicating a synced connection. “Suse,” I say. I mean to shout it, but I’m so nervous that my voice is nothing more than a cracked prayer offered up to the fates who control the whims of the Universe.
There is no response.
I grit my teeth and tap my feet as I can do nothing but wait for my ship to land in the vicinity of the biomass.
I’m looking out the windshield, hoping to see her, but I’m still too high up.
As I pass below the foggy atmosphere, I can start to see the terrain, rocks and cliffs. Not a very hospitable place, but at least it’s deserted. Better she’s the only lifeform on the planet than land somewhere surrounded by Kraxx or other vile creatures.
Then I see… something.
It’s black, writhing—swarming.
“Suse!” This time I do scream into the comm. Because she’s down there. I see her ship and a meandering trail of footprints in the dust leading about a kilometer away. The carcass of an enormous arachnoid lies motionless in the dirt. My heart beams with pride, for I know that Suse was able to slay the beast—but it’s short-lived, replaced by sick dread. Where the holy Void is she? Did she retreat to the ship? If so, then I should have scanned two biomasses: her and that black thing.
But there’s only one.
I have to wait until my ship’s about to land before I’m close enough to see what the undulating black lifeform is. It’s hundreds of arachnoid offspring, maybe even thousands—and they’re swarming on Suse. I throw open the hatch, not bothering with my space suit. She’s down there without a suit, so I should be okay. It’s cold as the Void itself out here, cold enough to slow the blood flow and stop the heart.
How long has Suse been out here, battling giant arachnoids and their army of young? She’s smaller and generates less heat, plus the exertion of battle will have expended great energy resources better used to keep her body warm.
I run to her, knowing I have to free her of these swarming creatures. What if they’ve already injected her with toxins? What if they’ve already pierced her veins and exsanguinated her one greedy drop at a time?
My only hope is one macabre thought: arachnoids do not feast on carrion, so Suse must still be alive.
I charge my anankah, keeping the blastwave minimal. It shouldn’t take much force to displace these spiders. They can’t weigh more than half a kilogram each.
“Suse, I’m here, brace yourself,” I call out. I hear her voice, panicked and shrill, the actual words muffled by the thick blanket of spiders draped over her entire body. I have a moment to think maybe they’re keeping her warm before I push the button and deploy a blastwave right at her.
There is a soft thwump as the anankah sends a rippling current of shockwave energy towards the arachnoids. A few of them are torn off the main host, but it’s too few. She’s still under attack. I must have set it too low—but I erred on the side of caution, not wanting to damage her internal organs while getting the arachnoids away.
I finally get to her, and the sight of so many arachnoids turn my stomach. We have them on Zalaryx and Lekyo Prime, of course—damned arachnoids are on every planet in every galaxy—but the largest ones I’ve ever come in contact with are the size of my thumbnail, too small to inspire fear or revulsion, too small for me to even bother squishing. But these things? Had I said half a kilogram? Maybe two-thirds of a kilogram is a better estimate. They’re plump, and I can hear the bristles on their legs scraping as they jostle for position on their host.
My weapon is useless against them. Any weapon would be useless.
I start to tear them from her, grabbing one plump creature after another, squeezing it in my fist until it bursts with an audible click and the ichor runs down my arms. Their foul innards make my arms itch and burn with some sort of irritant, but I cannot stop. I tear them from her body, crushing them one by one. My shoulders ache, my skin is on fire, but there is no other way.
Although I don’t expect it, I feel the pleasure of battle wash over me, the downright giddy glee that will inhabit the mind of a warrior who is conquering a foe. Surely not the most valiant battle I’ve ever fought—but absolutely the most important one of my entire life.
Sooner than I would have expected, I have Suse mostly free of the arachnoids. She’s able to help, too, plucking them from her own body and flinging them to the ground in disgust.
When I see that she’s okay, I take her in my arms. An arachnoid pops between us, and I feel a wet spreading on my chest.
“Orlon,” she says. Her voice is hoarse, probably from cursing my name as the fool who let her get into a ship and fly into battle.
“It’s alright,” I say. I soothe her, stroking her hair and her back. “Come on, let’s get in my ship. I have running water and fresh clothing for you.”
“That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard,” she says.
“My name on your lips,” I say. “That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I’m so sorry,” she says. “I should have known better than to try and battle against the Guuklar.”
“You are forgiven,” Orlon says. “Actually, there is nothing to forgive. You wished to avenge your fallen family members. That is one of the strongest impulses that an advanced lifeform can face. Our family bonds are strong. The desire for vengeance is part of that.”
“Thank you for coming for me,” she says.
“Do not thank me for this,” I say. “That’s like thanking my intestines for absorbing nutrients.”
“I can’t tell if that’s romantic or not,” she says, smiling. And, holy Void, that smile, I have to kiss it. I bring my lips to hers, and even though she’s sweaty and tastes like the bitter insides of an arachnoid—it’s the best thing I’ve tasted in my entire life.
“I don’t know what romantic means,” I say. “But I was never not going to find you. You should never have worried. You’re my mate and you belong at my side—just as I belong at yours. Nothing will keep us apart. And if something tries… just look what happened to these arachnoids.” I sweep my hand to the carcasses, illustrating my point.
“Let’s go,” she says. “I’m freezing. Please tell me your running water is hot.”
“It’s hot,” I say. “And I’ll even help you undress.”
- - -
Suse cleans quickly—it is a hard task for me to restrain myself when she strips off her soiled garments. Now’s not the time. I fill her in on the battle and how Tos is taking a small contingent of the surviving force to Lekyo Prime with the fission beam. She dresses and quickly straps herself into the passenger seat.
“Let’s get the fuckers,” she says.
I switch comm channels and open the link with my squadron. “Ready everyone?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” one of the less experienced pilots says. Which isn’t saying anything—none of my squadron have ever gone into battle—but they all begged me for the chance, and we’re not in a position to say no to the extra fighters.
“I’m beaming all your ships the coordinates now,” I explain. “When we get in range, I’ll update the coordinates based off more recent intel. Let’s just hope we can get them before they land on Lekyo Prime.”
“Who was that?” Suse says under her breath. “It sounded like…” Suse shakes her head.
“All these damned coils better be good for something, after all,” the pilot says.
“Granny?” Suse says.
“Suse?” the pilot responds.
“That’s you?” Suse asks. “Really you? But how?”
“That alien bastard of yours came back for us,” the elder female, Granny, says. “Wiped out half the Trogii like they were flies buzzing around a dog’s mangy ass. Gathered us up and we stormed the other two factories.”
One of the other two fac
tories that she’s referring to installs Corva coils into spacecraft, and the other factory converts raw corvium into fuel and munitions.
Everything we need for a second bout with the Guuklar.
“We’ll catch up on the ground,” Granny says. “The whole sorry gang of us. It will be weird to be able to talk without one of those Trogii assholes wielding a morgor over our heads.”
“Sure,” Suse says, struggling to rein in a sob.
Suse looks at me, puzzled and happy, tears in her eyes threatening to overflow. “Thank you,” she whispers.
“Not necessary,” I say. “We’ll talk later. Now, you need to rest.” I recline her seat and she lies down; within a minute, she’s asleep.
I wake her several hours later when I get pings on my radar from the remaining Guuklar fleet. She sits up and rubs her eyes, but she’s alert and ready for battle.
“Here,” I say and hand her a protein block. “You have to eat.” She takes it, but I only see her take a few nibbles. Probably for someone her size, a few nibbles is all she needs. I finish it, relishing how the oily bites melt on my tongue.
“The Queen told me what those are made of,” she says. “Insect grubs.”
“And that’s worse than slaughtering a hoofed ruminant creature and ingesting its muscular fibers?”
“Now when you say it like that,” she says. “How close are we?”
“Tos’s ship is close,” I say. I assess the radar data and run a quick simulation, trying to predict how his fleet will move. My squadron should be able to flank left and right. The other Zalaryns are nowhere to be seen, but they were running low on fuel and munitions.
I rewrite the nav programs and beam the coordinates to the other ships in my squadron, the newly freed human factory slaves.
“Fancy meeting you here,” an urbane voice says over the comm. It’s Tos. Damn it, I was hoping that we’d be able to remain undetected until the last moment.
“You’ll never set foot on Lekyo Prime,” I say.
“Only time will tell,” Tos says. “But I think the odds are rather in my favor. I’m extremely motivated. There are a hundred of my humans down there, a hundred wombs in need of sowing with strong seed. And the little wench who gave you the weapons—she’ll make a nice addition to my personal harem. For a little while at least. I’m sure I’ll tire of her after a while. They’re no longer amusing when they stop fighting. I do enjoy a human who makes me work for her cunt.”