Chapter 644: The Spoked Offensive

"The faster we kill all of them, the faster all of us can go home. No occupation, no police action, just kill their troops and we're on a plane home." - Lt. Col. Manning, 32nd Infantry, Resource Conflict Era, Pre-Diaspora

"That was fun. Who's next?" - LCpl Macey, Resource Conflict Era, Pre-Diaspora

Natraya watched as the last two Dwellers sped through the door, which slammed shut. Before she could do anything, before On'trak could do much more than finish clubbing down another robot, and before the lemur could finish off the four opponents he was fighting, a heavy blast door slammed down.

Then another.

On'trak finished off the robot at the same time as the lemur delivered a blow that reminded Natraya of someone cutting wood, right down to how his hand was straightened, the edge of his hand acting like the blade of an axe and shattering chitin.

Natraya pulled the bladearm from the body of the spawn almost half her size and leaned against the wall, breathing heavily. On'trak sat down, half of his torso blotched with dark green.

The lemur had a big grin as he tapped the door. He'd lost his shirt somewhere and had three bloody scratches on his chest, diagonally down his pectorals.

"Huh, looks like they aren't receiving guests right now," the lemur chuckled. He turned and looked at everyone. "You guys need a break?"

"I could use a moment of rest," On'trak said.

Natraya just nodded, panting heavily, letting her tongue hang out.

The lemur sat down, crossing his legs and putting his hands on his knees, his back straight.

"You guys use biofeedback?" he asked.

On'trak shook his head, same with Natraya.

"OK, I'll walk you through the basics," the lemur said. "Close your eyes. Visualize your body. Picture each injury and then picture your blood flowing into the injured site, carrying the building blocks to fix it," the lemur closed his own eyes and kept talking, describing how to breathe, how to visualize injuries and someone's body.

To Natraya's surprise, it seemed to work.

A little.

The lemur tapped between his pectoral muscles then grimaced. "Dammit, no amp in this body."

"Amp?" Natraya asked, opening her eyes.

"My amp. The physical trigger for my hardware. Man Amplification Systems," he held up one arm. "I should have a drug harness, even in my drop armor. Makes me faster, stronger, more resiliant. Between the drugs and the nanites, even if I take a wound, if it isn't immediately mortal, my amp will fix it in seconds."

"Oh," Natraya said.

"My condolences," On'trak said, his eyes still closed.

"You know, I heard P'Thok speak once," the lemur said, his eyes still closed.

"I have seen P'Thok on the Tri-Vee, a program about the P'Thok Liberation of the Treana'ad people," Natraya said, closing her own eyes.

"They'd just put in the T-bug Advanced Mobile Infantry Training Center south of San-Angelos. I'd finished drop training and had to go stand in formation while he gave a speech about how together we'd face the universe," the lemur said. "He was older. His color was fading, his chitin had that pebbled look that older T-bugs get."

"That was thousands of years ago," Natraya said, opening one eye.

The lemur shrugged. "Six years for me, sister," he said. "Right afterwards, I took part in the Split Conflict, where the Saurian League split and went to war," he sighed. "That was during the Dog-Two-Point-Oh project," he gave another sigh and Natraya heard the longing and sadness in it. "Didn't work. They were all cyber'd up in less than five years."

"Oh," Natraya said.

"Hey, brother, what's with the bar codes?" the lemur asked.

"They denote who I am. I am born with them," On'trak said, his eyes still closed. It was difficult, but he was beginning to understand how it worked. "Describe again, please, visualization techniques."

"Sure thing," the lemur said. He stood up, describing again how it was done.

Natraya kept opening one eye to look at him as he carefully went over the room, checking the walls, checking the vents, examining the lights, testing the doorways. Several times On'trak asked the lemur to describe, again, parts of the 'biofeedback' procedure.

Natraya was starting to feel better. She had to admit, the tingling feeling where her injuries were was slightly disconcerting.

The door opened and a trio of Dwellers rushed in, eight of the spawn in the lead.

The Dwellers knew that surprise was the key. It would take the lemur up to double digit seconds to formulate a plan and in that space of time the spawn would have managed to seriously injure or cripple the lemur despite any reflexes it might have.

One of the Dwellers had a pistol, an almost insect looking thing with crystals sticking out of the top of the shell, and it aimed and held down the trigger.

Natraya was already getting to her feet and saw it.

The lemur moved in a blurring movement that made it look like there were multiples of the lemur dodging out of the way of the crystals even as it danced to the side, pulling the fire from the pistol away from where Natraya and On'trak were standing up.

The two others fired as the spawn rushed forward and the lemur moved again, his hands slapping the crystals out of the air or just dodging them in that weird, flickering, multiple image method. He scooped up the closest spawn and gave a short, sharp jab with the base of his palm, caving in its skull, then holding it so the rest of the shots hit the carapace of the spawn.

The Dwellers tried to spread out as the lemur threw the spawn to the side, kicked the head off of one, stomped in the body of the second, and kicked the third so hard the thorax exploded.

The Dwellers were hastily trying to reload their pistols.

On'trak hefted his club, watching the lemur move, and decided to stay out of it. Natraya just watched, her mouth open, as the lemur quickly dispatched the other four spawn with a single blow each.

One of the Dwellers managed to fire its pistol and the lemur brought up its arms, elbows close to the body, fists and forearms covering its face and neck, forearms and biceps covering its pectorals. Natraya gasped as a good dozen crystal darts stuck in the lemur's forearms. Natraya saw that he had tensed his abdominal muscles, which looked more like the abdominal plate of hard armor than smooth flesh. The crystals that hit his abdomen shattered with purple flashes, leaving behind scratches.

The lemur punched itself in the middle of the chest with its fist even as it spun in place, the foot lashing out.

The Dweller screamed as its hand shattered around the pistol.

Which also shattered.

Natraya squinted slightly, watching the lemur step up into the Dweller's faces. She could see they couldn't use that terrible conical attack without hitting each other and could see the confusion and sudden realization in their body language.

The lemur punched one in the stomach and flesh exploded from its back, it continued the motion by bringing its elbow back and slamming the point into the chest of the second even as it struck out with its fingers curled at the first finger knuckle, caving in the entire face of the last one. The lemur gave out those sharp bird of prey cries as it struck, the cry twinging her head each time.

It no longer hurt, just gave her a tingling feeling in her brain.

All three dropped and the door started closing.

The lemur took three steps, spun in place, and kicked the edge of the door. The edge of the door deformed and it ground to slow stop only a handspan from the edge of the doorway.

"Damn," the lemur said, looking at its forearms, twisting its flexible forelimbs to get a look at the embedded crystals from different angles. "Looks like Mantid shard gun crystals. Stingy."

The lemur began pulling each crystal free of the muscle of its forearms, pulling an inch of bloody crystal from each wound and dropping the crystals on the floor. The lemur closed his eyes, breathing slow and deeply, then went through a quick set of flowing motions that looked more like dance moves than anything else.

Natraya noticed that the bleeding had stopped and already the puncture wounds was covered by thick reddish brown crust already.

They heal so fast, she thought.

"We are trapped again," On'trak said. "Should we sit and heal some more?"

"Go for it," the lemur said. It tapped its chest again and grimaced. "Dammit. No amp."

Natraya moved over to the lemur as it looked through the gap in the doorway then began running its hands on the wall next to the door.

"Once we have the ship, what will do then?" Natraya asked.

The lemur shrugged, not pulling its attention from the wall where it was rubbing its hands on the metal. Its fingers were spread and it rubbed its palms slowly against the wall.

"Not sure. Haven't planned that far ahead," the lemur said. "OK, there's the main wiring harness," it said.

Natraya frowned. "How can you tell? It is behind the wall."

"Telemechanics. You have to be telemechanically active to be a power armor trooper if you want to control the armor to its ultimate capability," the lemur said. "Was a little hard to do at first, in this body, but I think the body's getting used to me. Normally the amp system boosts it but I've gotta run natural. Thank God for MOM training."

"Mom? What does your mother have to do with training?" Natraya asked.

"Mind Over Mat..." the lemur started to say, chuckling.

A faint bluish nimbus started to surround the lemurs outspread fingers and the lemur jerked back as a thin tendril of blue energy flickered up and down between its fingers.

"OK, what's that?" the lemur asked, looking at its hands.

The blue nimbus was gone.

"I do not know. Perhaps it is like the purple of the Dwellers?" Natraya suggested.

"It is phasic energy," On'trak said. "I once saw a Neko-Marine on the Tri-Vid, only her energy was pink."

The lemur looked over. "Neko-Marine? Pink? You're shitting me."

On'trak shook his head. "I am not shitting upon you."

The lemur shook his head. "OK. Back to work," he said.

He placed his hands on the wall. "Wiring harness. High amperage wires. There you are," he said. The lemur smiled and stepped back. Again, it did the slow flowing movements that reminded Natraya of the dancers that her mistress would watch on the Tri-Vee.

With a sharp cry the lemur drove an open palm against the wall.

Something exploded inside the wall.

"There we go. Let's give this a try," the lemur said. He put his hands between and started straining.

The door shifted, but did not open.

"They came from that way," Natraya warned.

"Good. That way we won't have to look for them to kill them," the lemur said. It tried again, then stepped back, gasping. "Dammit, I jammed it in the tracks."

Natraya could smell the wild, feral smell of lemur sweat.

On'trak stepped up, pushing the heavy metal bar between them. "I will assist you."

"OK," the lemur said. It moved so it would push to On'trak's pull. "On three."

Natraya bent down and picked up the pistol, looking it over. She didn't know anything about weapons, but it looked basic. Grip, firing stud, aim. She patted the Dweller down and found rows of crystals somehow adhered together and put them in the pockets of the torn robe she wore.

"Almost," the lemur grunted. "Come on, you big metal bitch, come on."

With a shuddering sound the door suddenly pulled open and On'trak stumbled slightly, still holding tight to the bar.

"Good job," the lemur said. It smiled and looked at the other two. "We'll keep on the offensive. They seem to react instead of proactively acting."

On'trak nodded. It was beginning to seem that way to him, but he had not seen enough evidence yet.

"I'm ready," Natraya said, the sword in one hand and the pistol in the other.

The lemur grinned. "Fun time."

Natraya felt herself smiling along with it, baring all of her teeth in a sign of aggression she had never had cause to do before.

-----

Shandaar watched as several of the Ancient Ones ordered the Young Ones to pull heavier weapons out of the armory, to wake up some of the larger, more aggressive slavespawn. She did not bother to shake her head or show disapproval.

You're playing the lemur's game, she thought to herself, reaching down into her satchel and rubbing her long sensitive fingers through the fur of the pink creature idol she had wrested from the Tomb Treasure Vault.

**It is merely a single lemur and two slavespawn!** one of the Ancient Ones screeched through the communal mind. **Stop dying, you cowards, and kill it!**

Shandaar floated backwards slightly, staring down at the carefully grown neural nodes that controlled the ship's systems. A quick glance told her that the ship was still in jumpspace, heading rapidly for the closest one of the main systems taken by the Spoked Offensive.

If it's still in our possession, Shandaar thought. The lemurs seek us out to do battle as if they know where we are attacking somehow.

One of the Ancient Ones moved up next to her, nudged her slightly with psychic power to get her attention, and wiggled his fingers. She looked down and the Ancient One made the sign of the Holy Insects. Shandaar blinked slowly, opening her third eyes slightly, and gave the return sign.

**the lemur is in a battle frenzy** the Ancient One stated. **the more we throw at it the more it will prevail. we must convince it to leave our ship**

**how will you convince these blind ones who do not understand the malevolent glory of this bountiful universe** Shandaar asked.

**we could wait for the lemur to kill them all** the Ancient One said, a slight dry amused tone to its thoughts.

**perhaps the lemur will join the communal mind and start a vote as to where we should drop it off** Shandaar replied.

The Ancient One expressed amusement.

**what if we did just that** the Ancient One mused.

**hold a vote** Shandaar asked.

**drop it off** the Ancient One replied. **what if we dropped into a system where there are lemur allies or the Inheritors of Madness in force and leave it somewhere to be rescued by its friends**

Shandaar hummed thoughtfully.

The two Ancient Ones commanding the vessel ordered three Young Ones and six of the slavespawn into the room where the Mad Lemur was, not willing to allow the lemur a chance to breathe or recover.

All nine of them were dead before the Ancient One finished giving orders on what they should do now that they entered the room.

**a fine plan masterfully executed with bountiful results** the Ancient One speaking to Shandaar said, curling its tentacles wryly.

**surely the lemur is now overawed with our martial might** Shandaar added.

**somehow I doubt that**