Rhea glanced over her shoulders. “Right about now, hissing would be equally frightening to me!”
The bioweapons were gaining. Two of them had taken the lead and ran side-by-side in the defile. She could see a faint halo around them as the pair generated the beginnings of that dust-gathering force field around them. Beneath it, the scales of their four muscular legs shimmered iridescently beneath the sun, while the long, scythe-like talons on the forelimbs gleamed in anticipation. The stinging tentacles swished to and fro on their tails, sweeping the walls of the defile and ripping small streaks into the rock surface. The five long, snakelike necks on each body bobbed sinuously, the manes of their leonine heads flowing behind them like the banners of some army marching into battle. Their eyes shone with what could best be described as sheer joy, as if they were living their life’s purpose in that moment. Which they were.
When she had first seen these creatures on the plains, she had been repulsed, but watching them now, she felt a strange sense of awe. They seemed truly beautiful in that moment. Beautiful, and terrifying.
“You see that halo around them?” Will shouted. “Looks almost like a force field. That could be why our weapons aren’t penetrating.”
“I thought it was just to generate their dust cover,” Rhea said. “But you could be right.”
She had maybe ten seconds before the creatures reached her. Even if she ran at her top speed and abandoned Will—which she never would—it would only bring her an extra five seconds. She decided if she was going to die, she would do it on her terms.
She stopped, then spun about. She reached for her pistol, only to remember she didn’t have one anymore.
Will and Horatio continued to flee behind her. Maybe they didn’t notice. Or maybe they were happy to accept her sacrifice.
And then shots came in from behind her. They moved in sync with the bobbing head of one of the creatures and struck the open mouth. The leonine head merely turned to the side and shook the impacts off.
The two creatures were upon her.
“Rhea!” Will called.
Rhea somersaulted forward as the scythe-like talons of the closest bioweapon swiped at her. Will had thrown his pistol to her, and she snatched it out of the air before rolling beneath the body to fire into the underbelly. There was no halo surrounding this creature that she could see, but if there was, she would have been within its circumference at the moment, given what she had seen from afar. Despite that, her energy bolts appeared to inflict no damage, save to cause soot marks to adorn the skin of the creature’s underside.
She leaped up before the creature could trample her and grabbed on to the base of the tail. The appendage curled up, and swatted at her with the tip, attempting to strike her with those stinging tentacles. She let go and dropped to the ground. The tendrils struck the underside of the tail and lower belly, and the creature screamed.
Interesting.
“Get them to hit each other with their tails,” Rhea transmitted.
“Easier said than done!” Will replied.
The two bioweapons spun about to face Rhea. On the other side, two more were quickly bearing down. Cornered.
She glanced at the rock face beside her. Or perhaps not quite cornered…
She leaped up as the four came in and landed on the wall three meters up. Two opposing heads smashed into one another behind her, while the bodies they belonged to collided and entangled. The other two opposing bioweapons managed to avoid one another—the first ducked under the second, which leaped over it.
Will and Horatio had turned around and were coming back. They shouted, trying to distract the bioweapons from Rhea.
Meanwhile, she climbed the wall. Unlike the cliff face that faced the plains, this one had several rocky protrusions that lent themselves well to climbing.
A lion head lunged toward her. She leaped off the wall, swinging herself to the right. The head smashed into the surface beside her, sending fragments flying.
She landed on the cliff a few meters to the right and latched on. She began climbing again, but was forced to dodge yet another head that came in. She couldn’t tell if it was from the same creature, or another. She pulled herself upward this time, leaping out of the way, and landing higher.
Another head. She let go this time and landed on the neck of the first head below. She tried firing at point blank range, but once again caused little more than black spots to appear.
That head jerked violently to the left, and she was sent flying off the Hydra. She landed on the ground before it, and one of those big paws came down. She rolled out of the way before it could crush her and rolled again when another paw came down. The forelimbs sliced at her with their scythe-like talons, and she rolled back and forth, narrowly dodging them.
But then another Hydra crashed into that one, courtesy of Will, who was acting as bait nearby.
Horatio appeared, and grabbed her by the wrist, leading her from the wrestling pair of bioweapons behind her.
And then the air turned brown around them as grit filled it. The wind picked up, so that she heard only its high-pitched gusting, and in moments everything around her vanished to the storm. She could see maybe three meters in any direction.
She switched to LIDAR, but it didn’t work at all in that storm. But she still had the outlines of Will and Horatio on her HUD—Will had rejoined her as well. She could also see the defile walls, displayed not by LIDAR, but according to the map data she had on the region. She also had the last known positions of the bioweapons.
“Let’s go!” Will said. “While they’re blinded!”
“Guess we’ll find out if the storm truly masks
