Chapter 348 (2/2)

Except...

...professional courtesy.

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Palgret huddled next to Two, his arms wrapped tightly around himself. Two had helped him beat to death the serpents that had suddenly replaced his rifle, thick twisting serpents that had struck at everyone around them with long venomous fangs.

030 had twice been forced to shut down the communications channels when the whispers had begun. Vile whispers by unknown beings who hissed sibilant truths that each man of the squad kept hidden from even themselves.

The Terran could be seen outside the field. Sometimes it was gone for long minutes, stretching into centuries or even terribly long hours or, even worse, for eternal seconds. A few times it pressed massive clawed hands against the Hellspace shield, clawing at it in a shower of purple sparks that cried out in the voices of loved ones in pain.

One the Terran pressed his face against the shield, gnawing at the energy field with a fanged maw that was full of molten warsteel that ran down its chin.

Palgret had seen the Terran attacked by what looked to be a deep crimson creature, with red bloodshot ocular orbs that possessed square pupils on the end of each of its five limbs. One side of the body was thick pebbled hide, the other full of soft looking fibrous tissue.

The Terran had been 'normal' appearing, dressed in adaptive camouflage. The creature had wrapped itself around the human, who began shrieking even as it fired its weapon. The two had struggled, scraping against the Hellspace shield, throwing purple and green sparks.

The human had crawled away from the screen as the dead creature dissolved, and Palget was not the only one who retched at the sight of the human's exposed spine, rib spinal roots, internal organs. Even the human's thick protective skull had been torn away, exposing twisted and furrowed greyish pink tissue.

”Human cerbro-spinal fluid tastes like bananas,” the voice of the russet mantid Major Holds echoed through the tiny shielded area, sounding far off. ”Don't ask me where or how I learned that.”

Before her words had completely faded the human came back, roaring, slamming one massive spiked shoulder against the Hellspace shield, causing a shower of sparks that screamed and laughed during their short life. The human vanished back into the darkness.

It went on and on through forever seconds, each one the lifetime of a star, each one less time than it took for an unstable isotope to decay.

Palgret wasn't the only one who had vomited.

Even 030 had thrown up, managing to get his helmet open before brownish fluid burst from his mouth and onto the floor.

The droplets of fluid opened tiny eyes, blinked, and evaporated.

Three began to pray to someone called the Digital Omnimessiah.

Palgret was not the first, but not the last, to join in the prayers.

Lieutenant Mu'ucru'u had been the first to join the prayers, beseeching an electronic deity made manifest to intercede on their behalf.

281 flashed icons of importance to the religion as it kept working with the screen projectors to keep the Hellspace shielding up.

They prayed for mercy.

They prayed for protection.

They prayed for deliverance.

They prayed for each other.

There was nothing else they could do but hold on to one another.

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The Djinn exited Hellspace to the predetermined coordinates.

If Hellspace had not destroyed the invaders, the Maw would devour them while leaving the Djinn alone.

Its sensors cleared and it got a look around itself.

Dozens of Precursor ships, from all three design types, slowly tumbled through space, lit by the fires of the massive Hellspace breech 'above' the dark mass of the Maw.

The Djinn scanned. The ships should have waited for the Maw, which the Djinn could sense through the absence of emissions beyond cold and dark, to devour the ferals aboard them and then left to rejoin the fight.

It realized the Hellspace breach was there at the same time.

As the Hellspace breach saw it.

It rang out through the entire body of the Djinn.

Screams from the other AWM's echoed through the silence of space, carried, impossibly, through vacuum.

The Djinn engaged its Hellcore, tried to jump out, realizing that somehow it had all gone wrong.

But it was too late.

The core was dead.

The engines had gone cold and dark.

The cold radiating from the Maw began to seep into the Djinn's hull.

As the Hellspace breach above the star opened its bloody eye and gazed upon the Djinn.

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Palgret was holding tight to Two, with 281 holding tight to his leg, his eyes closed, repeating the prayer with Three.

Through vacuum the words carried.

The Hellspace screen shattered in a shower of sparks that danced on the black warsteel hide of the bestial looking Terran who stood immoving as a silent sentinel, revealing that his very being had been warped and twisted.

But the words had been spoken.

Palgret was down on his knees, his hands pressed to the side of his helmet, trying to keep out the words although they had already been spoken.

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