He didn’t answer, but he didn’t hit me with a spanner, either… not that he had one. I came in around the foremost landing gear, in time to see him bob his head up from behind the next strut down.
“Here kitty, kitty, kitty,” made no sense for him to say, but I recognized the throwing motion he made with one hand—and the narrow object that flew from his hand.
Just where, exactly, had he gotten the slim-sticks?
I hit the dirt at the same time as he did, and then stuck my head back up to see what had happened to the arach. Rohan looked, too, and got the same nasty surprise I did.
“That’s bad,” he whispered, as we watched the slim stick bounce off the spider, its discharge surrounding the spider in a halo of blue.
“Yuh think?”
“Done,” Tens interrupted, and Rohan started running for a small, dark square that had opened up in the drop-ship’s belly. “Cutter.”
“I got this,” I said, and really, really hoped it was true.
While Rohan bolted for the maintenance hatch, I came out from behind the landing strut and headed towards the incoming arach. There’s enough space under a drop-ship for a human to run half-crouched, even a human as tall as Mack. There was sure as shit enough room for an arach to come crawling through—and this one didn’t even slow down.
Problem was that there was not enough space to fight under. That thing got into melee range, and I was going to have a next-to-impossible time taking it on. And it was going to be in range very, very shortly. My only comfort was that it wasn’t going to fit through the maintenance hatch, so the boy would be okay as long as he hauled his ass inside, and out of grab range before the spider got there.
Giving him time to do that was my job.
Shutting the hatch, in time, was Tens job.
Mack’s job?
Well, given just how big this bastard was—and given the damn thing had a shield—I guess his job was going to be rescuing me.
“More like picking up the pieces after it’s done with you.”
Fuck, Mack. Thanks a lot.
“You’re welcome,” he said, but I had made it to a point that gave me a clear line of fire, and was already pulling the trigger.
There was no point in trying to hide. None of the landing struts were in the right place for me to have a clean shot at its eyes. I had to make the most of the time I had. Eyes. Aim. Breathe. Squeeze. Aim. Breathe. Squeeze. Eyes—Damnit!
The first two shots had taken it high, spreading blue ripples around its body. The third and fourth clipped the ridge of chitin between the two large orbs and the row of smaller ones. They’d hit, but they hadn’t gone through, and now it was really pissed off. As I went to take the fifth shot, the arach made it to the drop-ship’s edge, scurrying forward in a boiling flurry of death and vengeance.
I lost sight of its eyes as it loomed over me, and caught sight of two short, furred ‘arms’ stretching towards me from between its front legs. Pedipalps. Behind those, two long fangs reached out. I screamed, pulling the Blazer up to fire directly into the center of that nightmare, even as I closed my eyes, curling myself around the stock and shooting blindly as the monster came.
Fur brushed my shoulders, and sharp edges tangled in my combat suit, pulling me forward as the furry arms grabbed hold and fangs arced over me. I braced against the drag, frozen into immobility with my finger locked around the trigger, the Blazer hammering in one long burst as the magazine emptied. The arach screamed, too, its whistling cry of agony poor comfort as one of its fangs sank home, and the other slid past me to curl against my back.
The Blazer hit the crater I’d created between the fangs, and then got stuck. It was torn out of my hands as the arach’s momentum carried it forward. For an instant, I was dragged with it, and then I heard a sickening crack, and hit the ground, as my attacker collapsed around me. I had enough time to shield my face with my arms, and then the arach landed on top of me.
In an instant, I was choking, crushed between the hard shell of its body and the hardened ground of the landing field. The weight of it was squeezing the air out of me, and pain burned down my back where its fang had lodged. My arms were trapped against my head, and I couldn’t move my legs enough to shift it off me—but that didn’t stop me from trying.
The only good news was that I’d managed to create a pocket of air between my face and its body. How much longer that would last, I didn’t know, but I was glad it was there. When the creature moved itself, I kicked out, and then tried to use my feet to drag myself out from under it. That worked right up until the fang snagged and drove itself deeper. I screamed again, choking on the stench of spider and a swirl of fur.
“Easy, Cutter. Let me get it off you.”
Mack’s voice had never been so welcome—even if I was hearing it inside my head.
22—Walking Wounded
It was hard to stay still and not cry out, while Mack and Tens worked to get the spider off me—and I didn’t manage it very well. I tried, though. I closed my eyes, kept my arms up, and focused on not moving. Actually, the not moving thing got a whole lot easier as the poison from the arach’s fang kicked in.
By the time Mack had rolled the carcass clear enough to pull me out, I couldn’t tell them just how bad the pain was when the fang, and the toothy extension it was attached to, dragged against
