Chapter 645: The Spoked Offensive (2/2)
Natraya screamed as she charged across the room, her little legs pumping, both hands around the 'handle' of the twisted off bladearm.
”YOU KILLED HER!”
Before the Dweller's could react much more than jostle at each other to get a clear shot with their crushing psychic attack, Natraya reached the one covering its eye.
The bladearm shattered the thin purple phasic shield, sparks exploding from the impact point.
She drove the point into the Dweller's guts, still shrieking.
The lemur charged and On'trak blinked. To his eyes it looked like the lemur flashed across the distance of the large room. There was a blurred streak, then the lemur appeared, a still image, and the streak continued to the next still image, the blurred streak line bent in five different angles, each bent point showing the lemur as a still image in the middle of moving.
Natraya pulled the bladearm out and slammed it in again.
”HOW DO YOU LIKE BEING KILLED?” she screamed.
On'trak could tell the Dweller didn't like it very much.
-----
Shandaar watched, keeping the majority of her thoughts and, what the Cult called 'feelings', from the communal mind. To anyone in the communal mind who would have bothered to check, she was merely watching and listening, heavy protections that others used to protect themselves from the Mad Lemur's radiating malevolent glee.
**see how the Madness spreads** the Ancient One whispered.
**now the Tukna'rn is becoming Maddened** Shandaar answered.
In the middle of the room was a psychic recreation of where the lemur and its two companions were. It often blurred, distorted, or dissolved into smears of color, but several Ancient Ones were using their vast power to reestablish and keep it connected.
The Tukna'rn roared and threw the floor support overhand at one of the more deadly slavespawn that were small enough to use inside the ship. The slavespawn's thorax exploded and Shandaar could 'taste' the flat focused rage even through the psychic construct.
**the lemur has something in its chest, behind the bone plate at the forward joining of its ribs** one of the Ancient Ones watching the psychic hologram said. **see how it keeps touching there after being wounded**
**perhaps some sort of medical device to cure its wounds** another Ancient One suggested.
The Ancient One beside Shandaar, who had shared with Shandaar that it was a he, rolled his eyes.
**it is a reflex, a habit, that may have to do with the way it fights despite being unarmed** the Ancient One put into the communal mind.
**a lemur is never unarmed a lemur is merely dangerous or has been dead for several days and is now merely poisonous** Shandaar whispered.
The Ancient One beside her wiggled his fingers in amusement.
**awaken servitor robots with attuned harvested cerebral tissue** one of the Ancient Ones in charge ordered. **they will kill the lemur and its too servitors**
Shandaar looked at the Ancient One next to her.
**or just enrage it when it sees the brains** Shandaar said.
**whatever will be the worst outcome is what will happen** the Ancient One whispered, wiggling his fingers in concern. **we should plan to flee**
**I shall take the long way and check the evacuation buds** Shandaar said. She glanced up. **be careful, brother**
**and you, sister**
-----
”Looks like the last of them for right now,” the lemur said, moving around the bodies. He picked up a shard pistol and tossed it to Natraya.
She was proud of herself that she caught it without bruising her fingers or dropping it.
”What do we do now?” Natraya asked.
The lemur held up one finger, which Natraya had learned meant to pause for a moment. The lemur went through a slow series of movements, again reminding Natraya of the Bongistan Royal Ballet Society that her mistress had loved so much. At the end he grimaced.
”Body's not quite at peak performance. Strained a length of muscle fiber in my thigh,” the lemur said softly. ”Anyway, we'll head down the direction that the enemy came from. Seek out the enemy and destroy him and eventually you discover his origin point, allowing you to wipe out his reserves.”
Natraya nodded.
A Dweller suddenly flickered and appeared, pointing at the lemur.
The lemur spun in place, his foot (surrounded by a blue nimbus) sweeping through the phasic hologram.
It vanished with a pop.
Shandaar watched with carefully guarded amusement as the Young One who had attempted to psionically project next to the lemur was thrown across the room to crash against the wall. The Young One was alive, but stunned, as it slid down the wall.
”Now, which way?” the lemur mused. There were two doors that Dwellers and their servants had entered the room from.
”I can tell you,” the voice came from midair, almost coated with slime.
Another Dweller appeared and before the lemur could react it spoke.
”If I let you escape will you leave?” it asked, its voice cold and sibilant, almost dripping with slime.
”Maybe,” the lemur grinned.
”That way,” the Dweller said, pointing at a door.
To Natraya's (not so) surprise, the lemur gave a goofy sounding laugh and ran through the other door.
”No, not that way! The other way! OK, take the next left! No! Not that way!” the Dweller said.
Natraya and On'trak laughed as they followed the lemur.
-----
**well that worked amazingly** Shandaar whispered. **the lemur obviously is in a great hurry to return home**
**possibly for a doctor appointment** the other Ancient One whispered back, wiggling his fingers in amusement.
**his annual killing power increase** Shadaar whispered.
The other Ancient Ones turned and stared at the Ancient One next to Shandaar when it suddenly made a gurgling sound of laughter.
**the lemur is heading straight for the slavespawn readiness chamber and you think it's funny** one of the Ancient Ones asked across the communal mind, outrage tinging it thoughts.
**I do and I'm tired of pretending it's not** the Ancient One said, gurgling again.
Shandaar barely managed to keep from gurgling her own amusement.