“Gilgamesh has been spotted within the laboratory section. He is fighting wasps.” Klaus’ voice was rock steady, but Boris noticed that the note had been crushed. Klaus took a deep breath, and continued. “He is my son. He will survive.” He looked around at the retainers gathered around him. “But he still needs a talking to. Let’s go get him, shall we?” With a shout of affirmation, the group broke into a trot and headed off down the hallway.
Agatha gasped and dropped to her knees. By a supreme effort of will she kept the point of her sword up, but nothing impacted upon it. She looked up. Gil stood over her, a light sweat covering his face. His left sleeve was in tatters from where an extremely agile wasp had managed to get a bit too close. Blood oozed from several lacerations, but he breathed easily, his head and sword gliding easily back and forth keeping the wasps that surrounded them at bay.
They had entered a larger room, Agatha noticed. It was filled with crates and large barrels. The wasps, while certainly visible, had pulled back, and were circling them warily. “But they’ve stopped attacking.”
Gil nodded. “Yes, of course. We’re already heading towards the Slaver Engine.”
“But I thought they were defending it.”
“To a degree, but once they’ve established a perimeter, they’ll begin to herd everyone inside it towards the Engine at the center. Once the actual Slavers hatch, then we’ll be taken over and it will be our job to defend the Engine.”
Agatha looked ill. Everyone knew what happened to people who were taken over by Slaver wasps. She looked up at Gil. “Kill me first,” she whispered.
Gil nodded slowly. “I will.” That said, he offered her his hand and helped her to her feet. As they moved deeper into the room, the wasps began to scuttle backwards, losing themselves within the dimly lit stacks. By the time they came to the next hallway, the bugs had all vanished.
The hallway was dark and low ceilinged. The few lighting fixtures they could see had been smashed. They turned a bend and the next room came into view. It was one of the experimental bays in the Baron’s section of the lab. The ceiling faded into the distance, and the metal walls were dimly lit by a collection of glowing machinery. Suddenly a massive form in the center shifted and Agatha realized that it was the activated Hive Engine.
The great sphere had split, and the creature within had uncoiled itself. A messy collection of things that might have been tentacles, or simply entwined pipes and cables, had spilled out around it. A pool of thick liquid collected around the base. Rising upward was a horrible amalgamation of flesh and machinery. Two glowing red eyes blinked myopically while it snorted and gasped like a broken steam radiator. It shook itself and rose higher, not stopping until it was almost four meters tall.
Gil looked sick. “How do we kill that?” he mumbled.
Agatha dug her fingers into his arm. “Quickly,” she whispered back.
Suddenly, on the various bits of machinery adorning the creature’s head, a series of lights flicked on. Its eyes rolled up into its head, its great lantern-fish jaw dropped open and a long low note boomed out. Gil stiffened.
“What was that?” Agatha asked.
“Bad news,” Gil replied. “The Slaver swarm is about to hatch. If we’re going to attack it, we have to do it now!”
Just as Agatha nodded and tensed, the walls around them unfolded to reveal dozens of Slaver wasps, which had been hiding in the darkness. Moving almost too fast to see, they reached out and grabbed Agatha and Gil and held them steady. The swords were knocked from their grasps and clattered to the floor, sparking uselessly.
Above them, the Slaver Queen shuddered, opened its maw even wider, and a single insect-like creature darted out. It zipped upward and then paused.
Agatha felt her arms pulled tight and her head tipped backwards, forcing her mouth open. From the corner of her eye, she saw Gil suffer through the same procedure.
Then the tiny Slaver wasp twitched its body, folded its wings and dove straight towards her open mouth.
CHAPTER 9
Little Mary has bugs inside her head—
Inside her head, inside her head.
Now The Baron’s gonna come and make her dead—
Make her dead, make her dead.
But Mary puts bugs in little Karl instead—
In Karl instead, in Karl instead.
So little Karl has bugs inside his head—
Inside his head, inside his head.
Now The Baron’s gonna come and make him dead—
Make him dead, make him dead…
Agatha struggled, but it was hopeless. Every limb was secured by several of the Slaver warriors. Before her, Gilgamesh thrashed wildly, but to no avail. Two of the creatures delicately inserted their barbed spear-like forearms into his mouth and slowly forced it open. Gil’s eyes rolled frantically, but his head was held tight. Agatha realized that despite the fact that they were being clasped tightly by a multitude of the sharp-edged creatures, they were not being harmed. “They want us healthy enough to defend the Queen,” she realized with a sick feeling.
Above their heads, the first of the mind-controlling drones swooped downwards towards Gil’s open gullet. With a final futile shudder, Agatha felt herself begin to panic. “Let us GO!” she screamed.
Several things happened at once. The assembled slavers froze, and Agatha felt the pressure upon her arms and legs begin to relax, when a glittering orb darted through the air and, with a small electrical burst, fried the small flying Slaver just as it was about to dive into Gil’s mouth. The orb hovered, revealing itself as one of Agatha’s small clanks, held aloft by a furiously spinning propeller. Suddenly a carpet of the diminutive clanks poured into the room and began attacking the remaining Slaver wasps, who seemed nonplussed at the nature of this new enemy, and began to skitter away in confusion, releasing their captives.
Gil scooped up his sword and began laying about with it, dropping every insect within reach. He noticed Agatha standing with a perplexed look on her face. “Come on,” he yelled as he plucked up her sword and put it into her hand. “We’re lucky those little clanks of yours showed up to distract them. This must be an old engine. That’s a bit of luck! The Slaver swarm should have been huge—and fast! We’ve got to try to destroy the Queen before she can generate any more of them!”
With that he swung away and fried another dozen warriors, who having a more traditional enemy in front of them, were once more beginning to attack, but, Agatha noticed, in a hesitant, half-hearted manner.
“They let us go… when I told them to,” she whispered. The idea was patently absurd, but…
“You!” Agatha directly addressed a group of wasps that were drawn up before the massive Queen. “Stand aside.”
Gil had his back to her, and was engaged by several foes, so he merely obeyed her and stepped aside. Thus he didn’t see the group that Agatha addressed dipping their heads and reluctantly drawing back, until they had opened an empty corridor between Agatha and the Queen.
Agatha stared blankly for a second, shook herself, grabbed Gil by the upper arm and yelled, “It’s clear!”
Gil spun about and, although he was clearly taken aback by the sight before him, responded to Agatha’s tug on his arm. The two of them leapt forward, reached the base of the Queen, and as she swung her massive head towards them, sank both of their swords deep within the pulsating flesh.
As they pulled their hands back, the flesh quivered and smoked and the entire creature began to squeal and jerk spasmodically, ripping loose cable and smashing bits of imbedded machinery until, with a final snap, it crashed to the floor, flattening a phalanx of soldier wasps and buckling the deck beneath it.
