Miko clutched at the wall, dizzy with confusion, struggling for support.
The locust beings gripped instruments similar to those hanging from the pillars on Rogos. And these creatures sawed away—oblivious to his presence.
The owl gave a mournful hoot, still alive, struggling to get away from the invasive incisions as the locusts inserted electrical implants. But it could not. He backed away a step, unable to control his revulsion, feeling the bile back up his throat. The creatures still had not seen him.
The rip of flesh filled the air as an excision tool hacked off a wing. Then an anguished hooting and a satisfied chitter from the head of the lead locust.
A mechnobot in the shape of a shin-high aphid rushed along the floor with coloured lights blinking on its front faceplate. On its back it carried a tube, like one of the upright canisters that lurked back at the bunker. Another followed, towing a miniature wagon full of electronic parts—microchip-embedded crystals, tetrahedrons, luminous tubes, dials, globes.
One of the locust beings clacked its pincers and lifted the translucent canister to the table. It tossed the owl’s wings in a heap of other oozing body parts while another cauterized the wounds. With the help of the others, they stuffed the owl inside the tube. A stopper of ceramic crystal with wires and circuitry bulging from its curved surface they inserted tightly into the top.
So, the butchers had cut off the helpless creature’s wings to make it fit inside the tube. Miko’s jaw hung loose.
He kept to the shadows, weaving his way forward, crouched on all fours behind large, empty glass tanks. Gazing around the periphery in bafflement, he struggled to grasp the purpose of these experiments. Off to the sides four more canisters stood like the one that held the mutilated owl. Each vessel contained a different specimen immersed in liquid. One was shaped like a seal, its skin blue and sleek; another had one squid-like eye; the third was of a two-legged species, brown and furry while the last held a creature similar to the locust creatures themselves with a red mark on its skull. Did they imprison their own kind? Miko stared. Why? For their own research? Torture, for science’s sake?
From the stopper of each container to the floor dangled a flexible cord, the purpose of which baffled Miko.
He cringed as he looked back at the containers. A strange white mould afflicted the second specimen—the brown furry one—as if the creature had decayed or rotted in its tube, or contracted some hideous infection. What ghoulish purpose prompted these locust keepers to retain such exhibits?
Miko rubbed his aching wounds. The disturbing images had a heavy lump growing in his throat. He stared on with sick resignation. All the horror and disgusts he had endured during his time with Audra had not left him that squeamish. These creatures must be some type of scientists. But all the blood and body parts? The nature of their work smacked of butchery. The place was a stinking slaughterhouse.
Like the laboratory on Rogos, this chamber was without doubt the product of the same advanced species. But while that lab had been abandoned long ago, this was in full swing with grisly activity.
But the devices that linked these chilling worlds—the amalgamators. Why the—?
His foot suddenly slipped on a squashy tendril of some fleshy creature. An aphid-like head swivelled, glowing eyes peering his way.
Miko ducked into the shadows.
Too late!
A pincer lifted and a chitter rang out. The locusts bounded forward on hind legs.
The amalgamator hummed to life. In between its amber plates glowed something he would rather have not seen. Peculiar lights and bands of colours flashed before his eyes; once more Miko goggled as he saw a squat, grey shape ripple into existence. It coalesced in an eerie flurry of electricity. Unlike his own silent arrival moments ago, this shape did not enter the scene with graceful ease. It burst into the chamber, gliding past the pool in a tentacle-whipping, pulsing fury.
Audra.
The alien’s rush sent him reeling to the floor.
He could see the gelatinous bulk of the Zikri was scored with numerous wounds. She had somehow escaped the warks and their pointed horns and claws. From one amalgamator to another she must have crawled like a shipwrecked sailor, following the trail of his own blood. The right combination she had chosen to reach this bizarre, violent world. Very clever of her…and unfortunate for him.
The first locust butcher came clacking over on bent legs, somewhere tripping an alarm.
That was a mistake.
The encased owl crashed from its grip as Audra smashed into it with her tentacles twitching. The mutilated owl pecked its way from the glass; painfully it hopped away, upsetting one of the locusts which had intended to impale Miko with its lancing pincer.
Miko jerked back in dismay. He grabbed one of the mechnobots and hurled it at the locust. The keen upper edge bit deep, carving a gash across the thing’s carapace. The creature squealed. Its claw-like pincers lashed out mostly at air, the tip grazing Miko’s ribs. He fell back, clutching at his bleeding side.
Audra surged in like a grey cloud, tentacles entwining the foremost locust. The slimy blanket of her body absorbed its essence and squashy, horrible sounds ensued, appalling to the ears of the other locusts, as they lurched back, tipping their antennae and spitting foam from their mandibles and irate screeches of alien sound.
Miko fought with blind ferocity. Two at once charged him and he lay in with pipe and scalpel. He shielded himself from their pincers, slashing with furor and parrying. His prior training at boot camp flooded back in rigorous bursts. To become one of the elite force of NAVO pilots,
