Ryann gave Angelique a questioning glance, but she merely shrugged, not knowing what to say.
The woman slumped down to her knees in despair.
“Hey, that wasn’t us,” said Ryann. “We found them like —”
“Murderers!” screamed the woman in abject desolation. “You killed me! You killed us all!” The woman swung her rifle up from her side, and Ryann only just managed to dive back into cover before another burst of gunfire exploded all around him as she screamed and screamed.
“Angelique!” yelled Ryann, caught behind the oil drums as the shots flew past.
But Angelique couldn’t respond. She was staring, paralysed in fear as she watched a shadow detach itself from the ceiling, descending slowly down towards the woman.
The silhouette of the dark shape seemed to affect something deep within Angelique’s core, awakening some primal terror that overwhelmed her senses so that all she could do was look on in horror.
Eight spider-like legs slowly uncurled to reveal the black silhouette of a bulbous body and the red glow of eight eyes.
She cried out in fear, getting to her feet, stumbling backwards, desperate to escape.
The old woman’s gunfire came to an abrupt halt, her bullets spent, and then only her cry was left, until that too faded away to a whimper. But the sound was replaced by an incessant, high-pitched whine, interspersed with a dreadful clicking sound from the creature as it lowered itself down to the ground.
With a terrible realisation, the old lady looked upwards, straight into the uncurling limbs as they spread out wide. The creature was almost upon her now, lowering itself inexorably down.
She gave the most heart-wrenching scream of terror, falling to the floor and scrabbling back into the Prospector just as the creature reached the ground. The span of its outstretched limbs must have been at least three metres, and slowly they wrapped around the open doorway trapping her inside.
And then suddenly, a blinding burst of light shone out from the creature and the sounds of the woman’s screams intensified.
But Angelique was already running, bouncing off vehicles as she fought her way through the maze of machinery.
There was a final tortured scream behind her and then all fell deathly silent, but Angelique was lost in her panic now, running for her life from that monster.
She felt herself grabbed from behind and she cried out, dropping to her knees as she brought her rifle around in terror.
“Easy! Angelique, it’s me!” came Ryann’s frantic hiss, holding out his hands. Angelique seamed to take a moment to recognise him, her gun still pointing straight at his chest.
And then, without a word she pulled herself back to her feet and plunged back into the shadows of the rusting maze. Ryann swore quietly to himself as he set off after her, following her to the exit as fast as he was able.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE HUNTER
“What the hell was that thing?” panted Angelique at last. They hadn’t stopped running until they were all the way up on the engine deck. They had climbed ladders, crossed darkened walkways, and were now holed up inside a maintenance shaft hoping that they had put enough distance between themselves and that nightmarish creature.
“At first I thought it was alive, when I saw it coming down from the ceiling like that. I almost had a heart attack.” She smiled weakly, the whites of her eyes still shining in stark contrast to her grime-covered face.
“Me too,” murmured Ryann, checking back through the metal grill to see if they had been followed.
“It was only when that cutting-laser opened up that I realised — what do you think it was? Some sort of construction droid or something?”
“It’s a Spiner,” replied Ryann in an exhausted sigh, letting his head fall back upon the rusty metal of the maintenance shaft. “We’re in trouble Angelique.”
They sat in silence for a moment, Angelique shocked by the tone of Ryann’s words.
“My dad used to tell me stories about them when I was a kid — until it gave me nightmares.” He smiled bleakly. “They’re spider-drones, used for mining — spider miners — Spiners.”
“I’ve never heard of them,” whispered Angelique.
“They haven’t been legal for a hundred years,” he replied. “They were used for bore-mining at the end of the Great Expansion, when illegal mining outfits used to operate way out on the edge systems.
“The Spiners were used to core small asteroids, or for working in the bore-holes made by the big planet-core mining vessels. Fleets of those ships would hover off-world, hollowing out entire planets, stripping them of their resources — mostly uninhabited ones, but occasionally the odd colony world if they could get away with it.
“They’d send in thousands, maybe millions of Spiners to extract the ore, precious-metals, whatever.
“Those bore-miners were a law unto themselves — they were often more powerful than the back-water system states they operated in. My father even told me stories of them taking on military dreadnoughts; those bore-lasers would punch a hole right through them and out the other side.
“Eventually, with the rise of the big mining corporations, the Border Wars put an end to them and the technology was outlawed, Spiners too — I can see why now.” He smiled grimly.
“So, what’s one of these antique monsters doing running around killing everyone on this ship?” cursed Angelique. She held her hands up in front of her face and watched helplessly as they still shook.
“I’ve heard that there are still a few around — some drug cartels have tried to use them for security or small-scale assassinations. They get a hacker to jack the Spiner’s programming — you used to be able to get the AI chips on the black-market.
“Only trouble is, they don’t come with a manufacturer’s warranty — they’re just as likely to glitch-out and kill friendlies instead. More trouble than they’re worth.”
“You seem to know an awful lot about black-market assassination bots,” muttered Angelique, raising a questioning eyebrow. Ryann averted his gaze, his cheeks flushing in embarrassment.
“Well, you
