I looked to the others. Wren and Blest fought tooth and nail to repel a swarm of the mutants. In the flash bursts, I caught glimpses of blood and guts flying. Amidst animal roars and the rat-a-tat action of multiple fire, I plugged death into the backs of two freaks trying to take down Wren. They fell, hands reaching high over their shoulders.
Blest turned, looking like a wounded, feral animal in the dimness. Noss was hunched behind him, making use of the cover of an arching mechnobot. His hands were too shaky to aim and his gunfire sprayed uselessly in the fray. They’d die soon. As would we all, if we didn’t—
A sudden thought intruded on my mind. The thing had tried to catch me, not kill me—so, capture was their game—They were preparing to gather us for their stew pots or some deeper evil which chilled me even more.
The mechanical monster that had come to life flashed fire from its twin guns sticking from its mouth. The thing scorched a mob of running figures. They disintegrated in a burst of legs, twirling arms and shredded masses of flesh. Into the carnage the mechno moved on its armored legs. It killed, trampled and sprayed fire. For whatever reasons I could not fathom. Powered by some mysterious force? My jaw hung on its hinges. Was the thing killing our enemies because it liked us? No. Perhaps it was an automated angel of mercy?
One of the Skugs went racing back to the hangar. Others followed. A surcease?
A group came loping back, how long later I don’t know, carrying long, tube-like weapons: RPGs? Barrel-blasters?
A blast from one of the weapons rocked the mechnobot from the side. The metal thing toppled backward and smashed into another of the glass aquariums housing more of those eerie plants. My hope died.
I gaped in wonder. Some bug-like creature emerged from the shattered ruin of the turret, spreading iridescent wings. A majestic creature, with at least a foot-long wingspan. It was some wondrous dragonfly, or moth, boasting wings of all colors of the spectrum. Had it been hiding in the armored shell all along? Perhaps it had been commanding the armored shell? That was impossible. It sprang aloft, made tentative motions of flight, as if disturbed from its ancient slumber.
Without warning, another new, weird creature emerged from the ruin of the glass aquarium. Part dragon, or flying snake. An eelish lizard was as close as I could peg it. It took to the air with wings of its own—alien, freakish, of a design a stroke of majesty. The creature was much larger than the dragonfly.
The dragonfly and eel seemed to be allies, if such a word could be applied. Within hairs’ breadths they flew past each other, crisscrossing without causing each other injury.
I marveled at the aerodynamics, but gazed in horror as the eel-thing swooped over our company. It settled nearby, wrapped its swordfish-like body around a skulking Skug and twisted its head off. The flower-shaped, petal-ringed mouth snatched at the mutant’s spinning head and gulped it down in midair, as if such were a juicy snack. The serpentish body convulsed. The lump moved like a blob under the iridescent skin as did a python digest fresh meat. Yet the greedy, fanged-toothed mouth ignored the rest of the carcass.
Something, in the meantime, had affixed itself to Blest’s left leg. He shrieked. One of those narrow, striped, petal-like leaves from the nearby glass case. It had ripped through his suit. Cursing and moaning, Blest tried to pull it off with his fingers, but the effort only made it worse.
“Agh!” he howled in anguish. “Get it off!”
Follee and I tried, but we shied back at Blest’s next gruesome howl. Wren watched in horror as it curled tighter around Blest’s shin. The harder he tugged, the more it clutched, to the point that he grimaced in agony.
“Don’t try to rip it off,” I cried.
“Easier for you to say, Rusco,” Blest moaned. “It’s not suctioned to your leg!”
“What the fuck is it?” Wren hissed.
“Don’t know.” I scuttled away. Something similar tried to latch onto my own leg. I squinted in the gloom, as quivering plants stood on root ends and leaped to attack as do aggressive leeches spring from trees in monsoon season. Something warned me not to vaporize the plants as the Skugs had done. The poor bastards were now getting slaughtered in numbers! “Quick, get away from them!”
Wren shuttled Blest hobbling along to safety, toward the smoking mechnobots.
The dragonfly swooped and slashed at the Skugs with its razor-edged wings. Skug gunfire blasted up at it, but the rays seemed to glance off its wings or be absorbed by its body as a lightning rod channels electricity.
I could not in any way figure out this scene. Perhaps nothing more terrifying than watching a primitive force unfold before your eyes. Magic and terror of the unknown rolled up in one—an alien species flying with prehistoric fervor feet above your head, doing the imaginable.
Wren was uttering a warrior’s cry. She aimed a spray of death at a gang of Skugs creeping up on us from behind. I climbed the back
