34 - Grappling With the Insectoids

Kinnit poked her head into the break room, scanning the darkened area. A small movement alerted her to someone sitting at a table in the back.

"Sir?" she called out. It was hard to tell in the uncertain light, but she thought the figure might be cringing away from her. She stepped into the room and waved at the light panel, activating the overheads and flooding the room with harsh white light.

The other security man shrank back from the light. The light shone on his black hair and thick glasses. Kinnit stayed by the door.

"Hi!" she called. "My name's Kinnit. Are you... okay?"

"No," he said quietly.

"What's wrong?"

He barked a laugh, then looked down at the table.

"You know. You saw. I ran away. I'm a coward."

Kinnit carefully took a few steps closer.

"You reacted. It's okay. That doesn't make you a bad person."

He scoffed.

"It makes me a bad security man."

"You weren't prepared for... all that. Nobody was. What's your name?"

He cut his eyes away.

"Davenrue Mosport," he said finally. Kinnit took a few cautious steps closer.

"Well, Davenrue," she said. "If you like, you can come back with me to help defend Engineering."

He looked up at her with tear-washed eyes.

"I can't face them again," he said. "Not after I ran away like that."

Kinnit held out a hand as a gesture of peace.

"Nobody cares about that. Not now. Come with me. We can defend the ship."

Davenrue's mouth twisted. Then he nodded and took her hand, standing.

"Okay. Maybe, maybe I can make up for--"

"Shh," Kinnit said. "There's nothing to make up for. There's only the work in front of us."

He nodded and followed her out of the break room.

They froze as they entered the hall. In the middle of the broad hallway lurked a gleaming, dark Insectoid. It was built low and broad, with segmented armor plates across its back that draped down to the ground, similar to a pillbug.

When it saw them, it gave a clicking growl and pulled in, covering nearly its whole body with armor. A rifle barrel poked out of the gap in the armor.

Kinnit was still trying to get her rifle up when three blaster reports went off next to her, startling her badly. The Insectoid slowly unrolled, the rifle sliding out of its grip. She looked over at Davenrue, who was breathing heavily, his rifle smoking.

"Yeah," he said. "That's better than hiding."

"That was amazing shooting," Kinnit breathed. "You got him through that tiny gap before he could get a shot off."

Davenrue shrugged uncomfortably.

"I got lucky," he said. "We caught him by surprise."

"He caught us by surprise, too," Kinnit responded. But in deference to his evident discomfort she didn't press the subject further. "Come on. Let's get over to Engineering."

He nodded.

They had to loop around back toward the quarters to get to Engineering without going through the Star Deck. Kinnit hoped Falen had gone away, or that Davenrue could talk some sense into him.

But when they drew near the quarters, Kinnit began hearing a nasty dry, skittering sound. She held a finger to her lips and crept forward.

She peeked around the corner to the cabins, and immediately pulled back with a small squeak.

The hallway was full of bugs. Nearly twenty Insectoids scuttled around. They were a variety of subspecies. Some were long and jointed, like centipedes. Others were tall but oval, like roaches. Still others looked like a mixed bag of random bug parts glued together willy-nilly.

The corner where Falen had been curled up was empty. Kinnit hoped desperately that he'd gotten away.

"What are they doing here?" Davenrue whispered. "I thought they were supposed to be in Engineering!"

"I don't know," she said. "This isn't the main force, though. Maybe they got lost?"

A horrific screeching sound echoed down the hallway, setting their teeth on end. Kinnit peeked around to see a few of the bugs tearing at one of the doors. They where shredding at the door with the barbs on their arms. Deep scratches covered the door already, and Kinnit could hear terrified sobs drifting out from the room.

"They're trying to get into the berths! We have to stop them!" Kinnit whispered.

"We're outnumbered pretty badly," Davenrue said.

"We have the advantage of surprise. And we can't just let them get to the passengers!"

Davenrue clenched his teeth and nodded.

"I'll start shooting," he said. "You cross the hall and shoot at them from that side."

She nodded and readied her rifle. Davenrue signaled and she darted across, crouching behind the other corner as he opened fire.

The Insectoids were caught completely by surprise. Davenrue's firing was quick and precise. Kinnit poked around her corner and started firing as well. Even though Kinnit had to shoot left-handed, they gunned down eight of the Oryndrax before the Insectoids could react.

The bugs skittered further back, around the corner. Kinnit and Davenrue advanced.

The hall turned left here, a blind 90-degree corner. Undoubtedly the Insectoids were waiting for them to come around the corner to open fire.

Kinnit thought about things for a second. Maybe it was time for her to practice something that had gotten her in all kinds of trouble in the academy.

Kinnit pulled Davenrue back and whispered her plan to him. He nodded. She took off her shoes, freeing her toe-claws. She flexed them a few times. Experimentally, she hopped up, dug her claws into the wall in front of her, and leapt off. She left nasty gouges in the nice paneling, but was able to launch herself across the hallway. She caught herself on the far wall, then gently dropped to the ground.

Davenrue gave her a silent thumbs-up. She nodded.

Kinnit backed up a few steps, took a brief running start, jumped up on the wall, then launched herself at the turn in the hallway.

Kinnit flew across the open hallway six feet above ground, startling the bugs, who'd expected to see someone peeking carefully around the corner. She managed to get three shots off before hitting the far wall. She dug her toes in and launched back, getting another two shots in before she disappeared behind the corner again.

While the Insectoids swung their guns up to bear on Kinnit, Davenrue leaned around the corner and began squeezing off rounds. The Insectoids chittered and screamed as the pair's blaster fire lanced into them.

Kinnit's flight took her back behind the safety of the corner and she landed adroitly. She spun and raised her rifle in case any bugs followed her.

"Did you get any?" Davenrue asked.

"Two, I think," she said. "You?"

"Three at least." He thought for a moment. "Unless I shot some of the same ones you did."

"Let's fall back to the cross-hallway. I don't think that'll work again."

"Probably not."

They moved back and took up positions at the original crossway, stepping around the corpses of the Insectoids they'd gunned down. They focused their aim on the corner the Oryndrax were hiding behind.

"Now what?" Davenrue asked.

"I don't know. It's a standoff, I guess. We have to get through them to get to Engineering, though. Unless we want to try to get through the Star Deck."

Davenrue shuddered.

"I'm good."

They watched the corner quietly for a moment.

With a screech, the Insectoids unexpectedly surged around the corner, firing and charging at the pair. Despite being startled, it took Kinnit and Davenrue only a moment to return fire.

It was a suicidal rush. The bugs were fast, but the hallway was long, and Kinnit and Davenrue were both skilled marksmen.

The Insectoids stopped shooting halfway down the hall, choosing instead to rush the pair en masse. Strangely, they all seemed to be angling for Kinnit.

By the time they reached the crossway, only three were left standing, and two of them were missing limbs. That didn't slow them down; they tackled Kinnit, grabbing at her rifle, her legs, and her arms.

They were too close to her and wrestling around too much for Davenrue to feel comfortable trying to shoot them off her, so he jumped into the fray with a flying tackle, pulling one of the Insectoids away. After a brief tussle, he managed to tear a few of the thing's thin legs off, leaving the Insectoid crawling away on one limb.

He turned back to the main scuffle. Kinnit was screaming in revulsion as their crisp, hairy bodies pinned her down. One held her legs while the other laid over her and grappled for her rifle.

The one on her was a roach-like Insectoid. It leaned over and hissed in her face, speaking a form of Standard.

"BUG HATE LIZARD!" it hissed.

Kinnit's eyes lit with fury. She managed to kick the assailant off her legs. She let go of her rifle. The Insectoid pulling at it fell backwards in surprise. She pulled her pistol out of her holster.

BLAM. BLAMBLAMBLAM.

She heaved, standing over the remains of her enemies. One was missing its head, the other was leaking from multiple holes.

"I am not a lizard!" she screamed.

She and Davenrue sat, catching their breath for a minute. Kinnit shuddered as she tried desperately to forget the feel of the bugs on her.

They were just started to regain their equilibrium when Kinnit caught a sound approaching. A familiar rustling, skittering, chittering sound.

Kinnit and Davenrue grabbed up their weapons just in time to see the wave of bugs surging down the hallway at them. A wave of hundreds of Insectoids broke over them, pulling their weapons away and pinning them under the weight of a mountain of bodies.

Like the Clamber, only made of horror.

Kinnit emptied her lungs in a high-pitched shriek of pure terror.

---

Admiral Stonefist hunkered down behind an overturned office desk, his rifle ready. The security men around him sweated and waited, pointing their guns down the empty hallway.

The minutes ticked by. They could hear the bugs scuttling around in the distance, gathering their numbers as the fighters dropped more and more of them off.

At last, the chittering, growling sounds grew in volume. A wave of hundreds of bugs crashed around the corner. The ones on the walls and ceilings slipped free as they hit the areas that had been coated with reactor coolant. They crashed down on their brethren below.

The Terrans opened fire, their blinding bright blaster beams cutting through the masses of bug bodies. But more piled in from behind, surging over the bodies.

The Oryndrax were armed, but very little return fire came back at the Terrans. The bugs seemed determined to overwhelm them with direct physical contact.

As untrained as the security men were, they made a decent showing. The bugs were cut apart in bulk, but the bugs behind them kept coming. And coming. And coming.

"Fall back!" Grimthorn yelled as the bugs continued to advance. The men clumsily displaced, moving back to barricades closer to the entrance to Engineering. One of them tripped, falling backward. The bugs swarmed over him, tearing at his flesh. His screams were swiftly silenced.

It was impossible to say how long the attack lasted. Sometimes the front would surge back toward the Terrans, forcing them to fall back. Sometimes the Terrans would push the bugs back, nearly to the turn in the hallway. And always, always, the sickening crunch of bodies being crushed beneath the feet of Terrans, beneath the weight of other bugs.

After some time, the bugs finally thinned out, and stopped coming. The men sagged with exhaustion, some weeping, a few vomiting.

Their losses had been minimal. Two men had failed to fall back quickly enough during the advances and had been snatched away. One had leapt up without warning, probably to advance and was accidentally shot in the back by one of his comrades. But overall, it had been a profoundly successful defense. Piles of dead bugs littered the hallway, leaking their slippery fluids all over the floor.

"We did it," one of the men said. "We survived."

Grimthorn frowned.

"We survived the first wave," he said. "They'll be back. Again and again. That's how they attack."

The man's face crumpled in despair.

"We're dead, then," he said. "We can't stand up against that!"

"Maybe. We don't have to beat them, we just have to hold off until the cavalry gets here."

Grimthorn's scanner crackled, and he grinned.

"Speak of the devil." He held the scanner to his ear. "Swordheart. Good of you to finally arrive."

The men couldn't hear the other end of the conversation, but they could hear Grimthorn's side.

"Yes, all fighters are fair game. Careful, the Ophir's in the middle of this mess. Yes, down to the last fighter. Board as soon as you can. I want a contingent of Marines in here with their biggest bug-stomping boots on. Very good. Admiral Stonefist out."

He smiled broadly at the assembled men.

"Good news, everyone. The Ninth Fleet has just arrived. It's only a matter of time until the exterminators show up to take care of our little bug problem."

A cheer went up.

"It may still take a little time, but we've just got to hold on until they're on board."

He settled in to wait for the next wave of bugs. He worried a little about Kinnit, of course, but she'd probably found a safe place to hole up with the other security men. He was confident she could take care of herself.

He smiled with grim satisfaction.

This was turning out better than he'd expected.