A guard, huh? Well, it’s what I would have done…
“Me, too.”
I didn’t bother answering, just linked in and took a look around. The drop-ship was clear—and I didn’t know whether to be relieved or outraged that humans were discounted so easily.
“They would have done the same at a vespis colony,” Tek said. “We are not star-borne, and can be disregarded. See?”
Again, I followed the antenna flip, and saw what happened when the arach caught up with the humans that had tried to outrun them over the fields. Some of the spiders brought them down by leaping onto their backs and riding them into the ground, and others overran them, snagging a clawed foot around the runner’s ankles, and ripping their feet out from under them. Regardless of how they dropped their humans, their final moves were the same: they all sank their fangs into their catches in a brief, but powerful, bite.
And they moved fast. They didn’t stop to make sure their venom worked; they just bit and ran, leaving a trail of struggling bodies in their wake. It didn’t take me long to see why. No matter how much the bitten human seemed to be moving after the bite, they soon shuddered to stillness.
“They’ll stay that way for hours,” said the vespis who’d come to catch me up.
It had moved to lie at the end of the line, and was watching the arach dispatch the colonists. I wished I could read its face, but I couldn’t. Vespis carapaces were not flexible like human skins. They had other ways to show their feelings. I stared at it, trying to remember its name.
“Tovy,” it said, and I blushed.
Well, color me dumber than usual. Of course, it was my assigned keeper. Tovy didn’t respond to that, and I went back to watching the arach’s progress.
“As soon as they’re amongst the buildings, we move.”
Tek’s order caused a ripple of movement down the line, as we all edged closer to the ridge in order to watch the arach progress. Across the fields below us, the settlers stopped moving. I wanted to say we couldn’t leave them, but I knew we must. That hurt, and I vowed I’d make amends as soon as I was able.
“Defeating this invasion is all the amends you need,” Tovy told me, but I disagreed.
Down there, innocent people were hurting, and we were standing by. Granted, it was for the greater good, but it still wasn’t right. Down there, children were losing their parents, wives, their husbands, parents their little ones. Down there, amidst the buildings, a little bit of Hell had escaped and was crawling through the colony at breakneck speed.
I wrapped my hands around a clump of grass in front of me, suppressing the urge to run down the hill and blow every motherfucking spider all to Hell. There were too many—and we had to clear another piece of Hell from the skies above. A vespis antenna touched my forearm, followed by a vespis hand, and Tovy wriggled closer. It wasn’t close enough for our bodies to touch, but I could feel he was there. He wasn’t human, but it helped.
“Now,” Tek said, and the line of vespis rose.
Tovy wrapped his hand under my arm, and steadied me as I got to my feet—and then we slipped over the crest, and moved as swiftly as we could down the slope to the drop-ship. We drew together as we descended, moving so that the drop-ship’s bulk was between us and the colony. Sure, it meant we wouldn’t be able to see any arach returning to the ship, but it also meant they were less likely to see us—and that was more important.
We didn’t have to move around to the open ramp to get aboard, either. Three meters from the drop-ship’s side, Tek signaled a halt, and we all dropped into a crouch, waiting for his order.
“Open the ramps,” Tek told me, indicating the hatches on this side of the transport.
I sank back into the ship’s systems, and found the controls for the doors. At first, I wanted to pull the door closed on the other side, but that might have given us away, so I decided to wait until we were on board. Tek made no comment, but he must have pulled the thought from my head, because the first two vespis on board, crossed straight over to the open hatch, and positioned themselves on either side of it.
“Up ramp.”
Tek gave the order as soon as we were all on-board. I ‘upped’ the ramps and secured the hatches, not liking the taste of the air. It reminded me of bitterness and fur, of wet dog and cat urine. It was like all of that combined with something quietly rotting in the corner.
“Arach,” Tovy explained. “Their scent is distinctive.”
And I realized it must be worse for the vespis than it was for me.
“Not all of us smell this way.”
That was Askavor. He’d scrunched himself in a corner, and looked just as uncomfortable as the rest of us. Tovy chattered something back that he didn’t bother translating, and Askavor hissed. Tek turned his head, looking from one to the other, and they both subsided. Well, I guess he told them.
“Get us to the ship,” Tek told me, and I suddenly realized I was the pilot.
“It is why you are needed,” Tovy informed me. “That, and to ensure your Mack does not kill us when we find him.”
I hustled to the cockpit. My Mack? He wasn’t my Mack. He was entirely his own Mack. Not my responsibility.
“And yet, here you are.”
I wanted to tell Tovy to shut the fuck up, but I was busy. Buckling the safety harness was second nature, but I only had a vague idea of the controls. Shuttles we’d covered in Basics… just enough to get us off a ship or station, and out of danger. Drop-ships? Not so much.
I took the cheat’s way out, and hooked into the operating system. Used the nav-com to get the
