Chapter 389 (2/2)
The Pulgret everything seemed to slow down, like he was trying to move through thick semi-solid.
Five limbed creatures fell from the ceiling or peeled off the walls. They moved too slow to activate the reflex triggers, were the wrong set to activate the combat assist programming.
”HATE!” The Terran roared and fired at the ceiling with his weapon, the mass reactive warsteel jacketed anti-matter rounds blowing huge holes in the material covering the ceiling with bright whitish blue actinic flashes.
The Lieutenant lunged forward, his armor shod hooves scrambling on the floor. The Mar-gite that had dropped from the ceiling missed him, hit twice by the Terran, who looked to Palgret as if he was firing wildly. Mu'ucru'u fired to each side, a needler loaded with explosive needles in each of his four hands.
Culvit stared as the creature grabbed his arm with two of its own arms and pulled him close, the calcium grinding plates retracting to reveal a maw full of grinding plates and circular teeth. Pulgret saw it plainly as the creature pushed its arms away as it clamped down on Culvit's forearm.
Culvit's arm ripped free at the elbow. For a second Culvit looked at the Mar-gite, almost confused, then his mouth opened and his eyes filled with tears.
He started screaming.
Jagler was holding one back with his cutting bar as he fired point blank from the hip, the spikes on the rifle's buttplate striking sparks off of Jagler's armor. The teeth of the cutting bar were throwing chunks of Mar-gite flesh in a fan at his feet even as he screamed.
The Mar-gite were a nightmare made flesh to the Mantakan.
With one fluid, long practiced appearing motion, Nanfut was rolling away from the wall, curled around his weapon. One of the Mar-gite that went to drop on him took two of the Terran's rounds and was thrown to the side.
Palgret was too busy firing at one that had slid out of a nodule in the wall, unfolding from a twisted lump into a five limbed nightmare that reached out with blood-red cillia for him, the calcite teeth pulling back from the mouth.
”PLASMA! GO TO PLASMA!” Two screamed.
--don't let them touch you!-- 030 added, firing a micro-rocket at a nearby Mar-gite, plasma detonating against the Mar-gite's calcite jaws.
Pulgret saw the Terran step forward, raising the chainsaw with its white hot teeth. Before he could really process what he was seeing the Terran swept down with the chainsword.
And ripped off Culvit's arm at the shoulder.
Culvit went face first into the floor.
Palgret's brain was trying to catch up with the chaos around him. He didn't have time to think, didn't have time to decide on his next action, didn't have time to assess the situation.
His training didn't cover five armed creatures from beyond space and time inhabiting the inner spaces of a mechanical death machine. He gawked at the fact that two others had pulled away, his brain locked up by the sudden shocking appearance of the creatures. He could barely taste the metallic bitter tang overlaid by tangleberries as his helmet clamped down painfully.
His hands moved on their own, bringing the rifle up, sighting it, even as his brain screamed.
His training didn't cover five armed monstrocities, but it did cover targets.
He started firing, screaming internally even as he shrieked out loud.
The rifle blew large holes in the creatures as they staggered forward.
Ambush predators, a small part of his mind thought.
The Terran grabbed the creature that had grabbed a hold on Lieutenant Mu'ucru'u's flank, ripping it free and shooting it twice before throwing it to the side.
Palgret could see muscle and tissue in the ragged holes in the Lieutenant's armor.
The Terran grabbed the creature that had fallen on the prone Culvit, ripping it free.
The gunfire ceased as the Terran sawed the creature in half and threw it down.
”Mercy, brother,” the Terran said, lifting one heavy boot over Culvit's head.
Palgret could see the other Manktanan's spine, his ribs, his internal organs.
--NO!-- 030 said over the interlink, on Palgret's visor, and out loud.
The Terran stomped down, crushing Culvit's head, the armored helmet shattering, brains and worse splashing out in a fan.
”We need fire here. Plasma or holy LossGlass fire,” the Terran rumbled, turning to look at 030. ”He was dead. He just did not know it. He knew nothing but the pain of being digested.”
Culvit's foot twitched rhythmically.
tic tic tic
Palgret swallowed around the lump in his throat.
281 had scrambled onto Lieutenant Mu'ucru'u's flank, spraying dark gray bubbling liquid on the Lanaktallan's flank. It hissed and foamed then hardened, covering the flesh and armor both.
--bandage not bad not great good enough-- 281 said. --how pain--
”Becoming tolerable,” Mu'ucru'u said. He looked at Culvit. ”Dammit, soldier.” The Lanaktallan moved over and leaned down, pulling a datachip holder from the back of the armor. He looked at Two as the Mantid moved up, holding a dripping plasma thrower. ”His body must be destroyed?”
Two nodded as Mu'ucru'u shuffled backwards.
The whoosh of the plasma caster was loud and Palgret watched his friend, that he'd gone through training with, be reduced to nothing more than a slagged spot in the battlesteel deck of the Precursor Autonomous War Machine.
--form up-- 030 ordered. His mind was reeling. Mar-gites aboard a Precursor? Had they been spawned by Hellspace, working off of the Terran's deep seated nightmares, or was it something else? Had the Mar-gite hidden in Hellspace or had they been attempting to move through it and somehow the ship had intersected with them?
The Mantid Captain had no idea.
He didn't like that.
--through that wall Strategic Intelligence Array Housing-- 030 said.
The Terran stepped forward, holding onto his stubber with both hands. He leveled it at the wall and hit the trigger.
Biomechanical chunks flew out, most of it vanishing in the hellfire of the weapon.
Two kept hosing down the bodies of the Mar-gite. When he got next to Palgret he looked at Palgret, his unmoving face somehow conveying seriousness.
”Gotta burn the bodies or they can heal up by one eating another,” Two said softly. ”Mar-gites, fucking Mar-gites, man.”
The Terran stepped forward and kicked the middle of the wall.
It collapsed in, revealing a hallway with the twisted biomechanical tubing on the walls.
Two moved forward, triggering the plasma caster into the hallway. He did it twice more before stepping back.
The Terran moved forward, his big heavy boots thudding.
Palgret glanced, once, at the pool of hardened battlesteel slag that had been his friend only a few minutes prior.
Goodbye.