Two more aquamons dropped into the water. That made six.
“Is that real, or VR?” demanded Cloye.
“This is quite real,” affirmed Hresh.
The aquamons flapped tails and shook their grouper-like heads back and forth like pack dogs, yanking at the metallic limbs.
Hresh’s creation curled into a ball, quivering much like it had in Hresh’s Biogron as a pod, earlier on when attacked by the puffballs. The mechnobot fish tugged at the intruder, threatening to pull the legs from its body.
Yul stared doubtfully, thinking again maybe Hresh had pushed his experiment too far.
An impossible thing happened!
The legs extended, slitted sideways, formed rounded paddles. With a forceful lunge, it propelled itself upward through the churning water, dragging the four predators with it.
Hresh’s lips parted. His creation was performing a miracle. It banked right and smashed its horn into one of the free-floating predators, ploughing it straight into the wall, crushing the mechno and sending electric sparks into the turbulent water.
“Brilliant! Amazing! The alien’s reaching out to its new hardware! It’s modifying what’s already there.”
The armadillo turned and crashed again into the other free-floating predator, mashing it into the wall. The mechnobot slid down in a sparking heap.
Forelegs and hindlegs flailed. The armadillo whipped off its aggressors, ridding itself of its perilous pests before it paddled forth and systematically annihilated them one by one.
Hresh grinned ear to ear, giving vent to a mad shout of glee. “I name you A13! My thirteenth attempt at a successful working miracle. On to test #3.”
Nonas tapped him on the shoulder. “Ah, sir. I don’t think there’s time for more tests.” He handed his employer the receiver. Hresh snarled and snatched it. “What?”
Gustav’s agitated voice rasped over the com. “Orbs, sir! They’ve stormed the hangar! I can’t hold them off much longer—” His voice cut out. The connection went dead.
Hresh stared for several seconds at the device, his lips curling as if struggling with a gnawing doubt. Then he briskly turned back to the monitor, clicking his tongue with annoyance.
“I told you—you’re in over your head, Hresh,” thundered Yul.
Thuds came from above. Plaster and metal cracked and crashed down. It was only a matter of time before the lab was breached.
Hresh mumbled, “Very well, open the containment door.”
His aide, Ahmid, stared. “But sir, it’s not properly tested yet.”
“All the more interesting for us.” Hresh’s face curled in a sinister grin.
Yul and Cloye watched in dismay as Ahmid’s fingers reached for the control. Sweat beaded Cloye’s feverish brow.
Before the gate slid up though, something large within smashed through the titanium and tore the metal apart with its forehorn. Water gushed out, flooding the lab in a deluge, swamping desks, tables, lab equipment and occupants. Yul felt the water swirling past his knees. A menacing shape lumbered out, robot eyes flashing on either side of a glistening horn, trained upon the humans before it.
Hresh’s mouth gaped. “How? The A13’s exoshell is not capable of force that strong!”
Cloye backed away through the water, bright fear showing in her eyes.
“Idiot!” growled Yul. “It somehow figured out how.”
“Impossible,” muttered Hresh. “My calculations show—”
“Your calculations mean nothing here!” cried Yul, shaking him like a doll. “You’ve bred a monster.”
The dino-armadillo loosed a low, guttural roar that filled the lab with spine-chilling fear that rocked metal walls and workstations, containers and glass beakers.
The thing advanced, eyes sighting on possible enemies. But not before it lurched toward Hresh’s security men.
In a panic, they lifted their weapons, locking through their sites on the Biogron casing at chest level—the vitals.
Yul cried, “Don’t shoot, you fools! I know these plant things! They attack only forms that threaten it. Don’t fire or show any aggression!”
Hresh gave a quick nod. His men stood down. The armadillo paused with wary reflection. In spite of the seriousness of the situation, Hresh relaxed his dripping frame, pink fingers smoothing out his lab coat.
It should have been obvious from the pod’s ability to kill the mechnobots as easily as it had the puffballs that the thing was in defensive mode and an aggressive danger. But these men didn’t know what they were up against. Neither did Hresh.
But that might have been a good thing, Yul thought.
The main door to the lab curled outward in a melt of flames. A flood of lumo fire poured out of the smoking gap. Green trails belched forth, lashing at tables, benches, cutting into nearby human figures.
The scientists cried out, fell sprawling, noses to the water, as it began to gush out now that the door had been blasted. Yul ducked a spraying blast as hideous, human-size locust shapes streamed through. Nonas’s commandos opened fire, taking out the shoulder-high invaders that hopped through like large grasshoppers.
It all made sense now as Yul’s stunned mind gained full awareness. Zikri invaders came gliding in after the locusts, weaponless but wearing body armour on both chest and head. Glistening tentacles probed like octopi feelers. Yul knew that the tanks would soon be filled with human hosts and it made his skin crawl.
“Give me that,” he snarled, snatching his blaster back from Nonas.
Nonas trained his E1 on Yul.
“Give them their weapons!” cried Hresh. “They’re trained for combat.”
Nonas grunted, ordered his man to toss Cloye her compact E6.
Yul saw that the Mentera beams were not calculated to kill their human prey, just stun them. The lack of blood on the bodies slumped around him in the pooling water was evidence enough.
Yul quickly struggled for cover behind an overturned bench, dragging Cloye beside him.
Perceiving the armadillo shape looming monstrously as a threat, the clicking locusts opened fire, turning their green lumo fire into lethal, crimson blasts. Rays of destruction pelted the armadillo’s titanium hide, deflecting off it, the