As she pulled herself onto the thorax, her gaze momentarily alighted upon the floor below, and she realized that many of the limbs she’d sliced off were gone: Khrusos had reabsorbed them. Definitely nano machines.
As to why she hadn’t felt them when she touched the severed tentacles: with the limbs disconnected from the main body, the nano machines would have been inactive. But they likely still emitted some sort of signal that prevented her technology from breaking them down for spare parts.
And while she couldn’t use the opposing nano machines for repair materials, perhaps she could take them for herself, commanding them to leave that body, and enter hers…
Indeed, they seemed to be talking to her. Calling out to her.
Tentacles flung around the large metal head toward her and tried to bash her off. She leaped higher, out of the way, bounding up the thorax. Then she knelt, pressing her palm into the base of that metal head.
She reached out with her mind, as Min had taught her, and commanded the nano machines within to join her. She wasn’t certain it would work. Perhaps Khrusos had had his scientist program in some failsafe to prevent such a transference.
But to her delight, a moment later the foreign nano machines began flowing into her arm, augmenting it, widening it.
Khrusos leaped upwards then, and bent his head far forward, essentially flattening the area between the thorax and head so that Rhea was fully exposed for the coming impact with the ceiling. She was forced to roll away, and narrowly avoided the impact with the ceiling.
Fragments fell away from the rooftop around her as she slid down his flank; she let her hand press against his side as she descended, so that she continued to siphon off nano machines. When she reached the bottom of the thorax, she grabbed onto one of the nearby legs, and similarly drained it as Khrusos fell toward the floor.
Tentacles came in at her, and she activated the Ban’Shar shield in one hand to defend herself. But as usual, while she damaged the incoming appendage, the momentum was enough to drive her well backwards, and she was sent flying away. She deactivated the Ban’Shar before landing skidding on the floor.
The nano machines she’d stolen had spread throughout her body, so that she was back to her normal size. A little bigger, in fact.
She expected Khrusos to rush her then, but instead he turned about and headed toward the far side of the room, to the section where the throne and its platform had formerly been located. A large portion of the wall slid upward, and Khrusos made a running leap toward it, tucking in his head and legs so that he narrowly squeezed through, carried by his impetus. On the other side he lowered his spiderish limbs and landed, then turned left, disappearing down the hall.
Rhea was confused. Was he actually frightened?
She glanced at Will, who was lingering near the opposite wall and transmitted: “Get back to the other entrance. You have two sides to defend against now. At least the first entrance offers some semblance of cover.”
“What about you?” he returned.
“You know I can’t let him get away,” she replied. She was already sprinting at her top speed toward the opening where Khrusos had fled. She was worried the wall would seal before she reached it.
But she needn’t have worried. It remained open.
As soon as she passed through, she was struck by a tentacle and sent flying into a group of waiting walkers.
She activated her Ban’Shar blades and swirled, so that the plasma swords tore through her foes. She made short work of them, then turned toward Khrusos.
Her enemy broke right through the wall of the palace, and sunlight streamed in from outside. Khrusos leaped upward, vanishing from sight once more.
Rhea dashed forward, deflecting the energy bolts nearby infantry robots launched at her, and vaulted through the gaping hole Khrusos had torn in the wall. When she was outside, she glanced up, and saw her foe climbing the exterior of the building.
Rhea followed, skirting up the pillars of the colonnade, making handholds as necessary in the marble with her robot strength. She reached the entablature and pulled herself onto the main wall, pursuing Khrusos onto one of the spires that thrust from a palace corner.
Her enemy continued to scale that spire, which dwindled in circumference the higher he climbed. He was heading toward the apex.
She risked a glance down as she chased: below her, the grounds looked quite small. Almost dizzyingly so. She spotted an incoming plasma bolt and activated the Ban’Shar of one hand to deflect it. She switched it off a moment later and scooted around to the far side of the spire so that she wasn’t in the line of fire of whatever had launched that bolt.
She continued higher. Khrusos stood balanced on the apex, which ended in a point, and lingered there, perched like a spider waiting for its prey. A hundred meters above him lay the curved glass of the geodesic dome, held in place by the polycarbonate struts of the framework.
She approached cautiously, at first. But when six octocopters ascended into view, she realized Khrusos had climbed only to draw her out into the open, so that she was in plain sight of the airborne drones.
She quickly dug into the marble surface with one hand, and unholstered her pistol. She shot down one of the octocopters, then sheathed the weapon, switching on the Ban’Shar in one smooth motion to deflect incoming bolts fired in return. She managed to take down two of the octocopters with her deflections and swapped back to her pistol to down the remaining three.
She spotted more octocopters approaching in the distance and holstered the weapon to continue her climb. She increased her pace, climbing the ever-diminishing spire.
When she was still several meters away from Khrusos, her enemy suddenly leaped down, and Rhea was forced to throw herself to the side. She intended to grab onto the spire
