“It is the least we will allow her,” T’Kit told me, “and even she must do as we ask when it comes to her absolute safety.”
I made a note to include the queen’s team in any warnings I might have for her.
“That would be appreciated. Now, hush.”
I wanted to ask why, but I didn’t have to. We’d come to a cross-section which would take us to the point the orbital crew had locked themselves into. I noticed shadows moving on the floor to one side, and indicated it to the vespis. She flashed the scent of arach into my head, indicating that they were on both sides of the cross-tunnel.
I guess they must have heard us coming.
“They are sensitive to the sound of our wings… and they have used filaments to detect our approach.”
They had?
The vespis flipped an antenna towards the ceiling, and then moved it to indicate two different sections of wall, and I wondered how I could have missed the fine strands of web there. Actually, given exactly how fine it was, it was probably not surprising that I’d missed them.
I checked the Blazer’s settings, and moved up alongside T’Kit.
“Now,” echoed through my head, and we slid into the cross-corridor, each facing a different direction.
Given how much the arach loved their ceilings, I was already looking up and firing as the first one dropped. Sneaky bastards. There were only two on my side, but T’Kit had chosen the corridor where the scent was strongest—and she hadn’t bothered looking upwards. She’d been too busy engaging with the two that had attacked from the floor as soon as she’d come round the corner.
The two on the ceiling had waited for her to be drawn out by their comrades and for her move fully underneath them. I shot the first one as it dropped, taking the time to step back towards the entrance point, so T’Kit’s head wasn’t in the line of fire. There wasn’t much I could do about her wings, but seeing as she’d already folded them close against her back, they weren’t much of a problem.
Mind you, that would have to hurt like Hell, especially if the arach succeeded in tearing her wings from her shoulders. The second one managed to land on the point where T’Kit’s abdomen joined her thorax, but my first set of shots made it press itself closer to the wasp’s carapace, disrupting its first strike.
It made up for that, now, by driving its forelegs into the abdomen close to the joint. T’Kit whistled in pain, but was too busy trying to deal with her other opponents. I hoped Mack and Tens weren’t having quite so much trouble. I moved along the wall, trying for a clearer shot at the arach.
The curve of the wasp’s abdomen acted as partial cover, and I was afraid of hitting her wings, but the damage the arach could do in its current position was more concerning. The wasp’s body was narrowest where the thorax joined the abdomen. The way the arach was slicing at that joint, could sever the abdomen in short order if I couldn’t do something about it.
I waited until the spider reared up for its next strike, and fired into its exposed underside. The slugs knocked it off-balance, causing it to stagger further up T’Kit’s thorax. It brought its forefeet down onto the wasp’s carapace, but not in a bladed strike, more in a hasty grab for purchase as it started to slip.
Even so, it turned its head towards me, and I caught sight of the gleam of its multiple eyes.
Perfect.
This time, aware of the wasp’s head not quite in my line of fire, I chose precision. As the arach looked towards me, I fired at its largest eye. I figured that, even if it ducked, I had a good chance of hitting the carapace and line of smaller eyes above it. I didn’t wait to see if the shot made it, but fired two more in rapid succession, aiming slightly lower and more to the center.
Who the fuck knew where these things kept their brains? It was one more thing to add to the to-do list, when I got back to the Shady Marie. I hit with all three shots, and the spider slumped, and then slid off the wasp’s back, leaving a trail of ichor behind it.
“Thank you,” T’Kit said, bisecting the first of her opponents’ heads with a bladed forearm strike, but her mind-voice sounded gritty with pain, and I slid further along the wall, trying to get a closer look at the damage the arach had done.
“Leave it,” the wasp clattered, and skittered forward.
I noticed that one of her hind legs wasn’t quite as coordinated as the other.
“Is there anything I can do?” I asked, and she understood exactly what I meant.
“Only the queen. We must take the objective—and quickly.”
The ‘objective’ lay just ahead. I wanted to see if we had cleared all the arach from the area, but didn’t have time to tap the station’s security systems. We moved toward the room, keeping an eye on the ceilings. When we were several doors down, I called a halt, remembering Ghoul’s lair.
“Let me make sure they are locked,” I said, indicating the entrances we have passed. “If we don’t have time to check them, at least let me make sure they’re locked down so nothing can come up behind us.”
She stopped, sinking down to the floor to take the pressure of her injured abdominal joint.
“Hurry.”
I wondered what the rush was, but didn’t like to ask. It didn’t take long to lock down the rooms in this corridor. Tens was right, there was a lot we could do to improve the security of the station.
“The queen will be pleased,” T’Kit said, agreeing with the thought, as she pushed herself back onto all six legs.
She didn’t give me any time to respond to that, but hurried towards
