Chapter 650: The Spoked Offensive

"Advocates of Man Amplification Programs like never consider what will be done with the subjects after the war. If they do, like, it's always something monstrous." - SSG Norville Rogers, DOG-2.0 Handler, SOG Team 19, Burgerland Senate Committee on Amplification, Resource Conflict Era, Pre-Glassing

The lemur held up its hand, opening and closing its fingers. Natraya could see that one of the protruding knuckles was purple and slightly swollen but still pushed back further than it had been. The skin on top of the knuckle was torn slightly and blood had oozed out before hardening.

"Damn, popped a knuckle," the lemur said. It slowly straightened the finger and then pulled on it, pulling the injured hand the other way. There was a crunching sound and the lemur gave a grimacing smile, then held up the hand, wiggling the fingers. It didn't move much.

"Yup, popped the knuckle. No damage to the metacarpal, I don't think," the lemur said. It slowly made a fist and Natraya could see that the middle knuckle was at the same extension as the ones on either side of it, where before it had protruded slightly out.

"Will you be able to continue the battle?" On'trak asked, cocking his head and looking at the damaged hand.

"Sure, it's just a popped knuckle. Been hurt worse," the lemur grinned.

Natraya nodded.

The lemur looked around. "OK, there's that feeling again," it said. It looked at one of the doors. "It coming from that direction and down, I'm not sure what it is."

"Could it be a trap?" Natraya asked.

"Good instincts," the lemur said. "Always assume the appearance of something you want to be a trap set by the enemy if you are in enemy territory."

On'trak nodded.

The lemur sighed. "I love this body, but without my harness and implants, I'm really stressing it," the was a growling, squealing rumble from the lemur's midsection. "And I'm starting to get hungry."

The lemur closed its eyes and swung its arms back and forth, the motion never having the hands go higher than the waist, and it kept lifting up on its tiptoes and dropping back on its heels.

Natraya had noticed that the lemur seemed to have trouble staying still, that it needed to be in constant movement. She had seen lemurs stay perfectly still for long periods of time before and she wondered if the inability to remain still was a side effect of its phasic abilities.

The door whooshed open and a dozen of the little pincher robots rushed in, followed by a dozen spawn and two of the Dwellers. A third Dweller hung back in the hallway, its fingers twitching on the rifle and its phasic shielding thicker than the other two.

Natraya didn't wait for anything, she reached out, grabbed one of the broken pincher-bots, and threw it overhand at the group of them. She got lucky and the crysteel hit crysteel and the globe shattered. Fluid gushed out and there were sparks as the pincher-bot collapsed.

"GOOOOOOOD MORNING VIETNAM!" the lemur yelled out, running forward and sliding, one leg extended and the leg against the floor folded while he held his body up with his elbow. His foot hit the lead pincher bot and it exploded into chunks.

On'trak rushed forward, his feet thudding on the metal floor, swinging his beam to limber up his shoulders. The lemur had already moved to ripping apart the slavespawn, his eyes locked on the three Dwellers, so On'trak began smashing the little robots to the ground.

Natraya ran past On'trak, knowing how he'd move and running through the gap as he brought the beam around. She sidestepped when the spawn reared back, its bladearms pulling tight against its thorax, and kicked one of its legs as hard as she could.

The spawn screeched and slammed its bladearms down on the floor, leaning forward at the waist, its thorax almost level with its abdomen.

Just like the lemur promised, the armored plates at the waist were separated, slowing sickly brown tissue gleaming wetly.

She jammed the bladearm she was holding into the waist, as deep as she could, pulled toward her and up to rip it free.

The serrations shredded the muscles inside that attached the thorax to the abdomen, ripped apart an ichor vein, but she'd already taken two sidesteps, the second one doing the cross legged and turned foot move that the lemur had shown her and On'trak.

On'trak was too slow and muscular to use it, his legs not jointed right.

She ended up facing the other slavespawn, who was clattering around in a half circle, trying to bring her in the target zone for the bladearms.

Bladearms are all well and good. Extremely powerful and capable of denting warsteel, mind you. They suffer from limited left/right range of motion, have to be drawn tight to charge the striking fibers with kinetic energy, and if they miss a target and hit the floor or ground will expend all their energy, taking longer to pull back and thrust again. Intelligent foes, intelligent military foes, they will have trained for the problem and will go for slashes instead of full power thrusts. This lets you know at a glance if they're trained or instinctual, the lemur's voice echoed in her mind as the spawn drew itself up and back slightly, the bladearms seeming to retract further into the slots on the front of the thorax.

Look for the waistband. Chitin isn't flexible, not like your skin, and any tissue between armor plates will be a membrane, the lemur's voice again.

She saw the two plates separate, saw the brownish wetly gleaming membrane.

She jammed the bladearm into it, feeling the sharpened tip pop through the tissue, felt muscle shred along the serration's wavy edge, then yanked it back and forth as she moved backwards, away from the spawn. She yanked it free and glanced behind her, one quick motion, not bothering to take in detail, just looking for shapes and movement like the lemur kept telling her.

The bladearm on the side she was on lashed out, missing her by over a foot, and struck the floor. It was at full extension.

Natraya knew what to do.

"KIAI!" she screamed and drove the bottom of her bare foot against the thick nodule of the middle joint.

It exploded and the bladearm was left hanging from thin threads of muscle tissue.

The slavespawn screeched, throwing its head back as it raised up.

Natraya stabbed it under the head.

If it's dark brown saw it down, she heard the lemur joke.

She sawed twice and spun away, like the dancers Her Ladyship so loved, avoiding the thick brown ichor that gushed from the wound, her makeshift sword trailing blood and gore.

"YOU! YOU! I WANT YOU, SUCKAH!" the lemur yelled, kicking aside a spawn in a spray of ichor as its whole side caved in. The lemur pointed at one of the Dwellers, who went from aiming at On'trak to staring at the lemur.

FWOOP!

The lemur got its arms up fists up by its forehead, forearms covering its face and neck and upper chest. The flesh on its forearms sparked and a hair thin line of psychic energy crawled up and down between the lemur's forearms like a Jacob's Ladder. The lemur dropped his arms and kicked again, spinning in place, smashing down a spawn that had just started to rise up.

“You ain't so bad, you ain't so bad," the lemur said, moving sideways.

FWOOP!

The lemur covered up again, then dropped its arms. Took two steps to the side and slammed an elbow into the side of a spawn.

"You ain't nothin'. Nothin," the lemur said, still staring at the Dweller.

FWOOP!

"C'mon, sucka, hit me in the face!" the lemur yelled, socking itself in the side of the head with its uninjured hand.

FWOOP!

This time the lemur didn't cover up, instead leaning forward into the conical blast.

"My mom hits harder than you!” the lemur laughed. It stepped forward, through the next FWOOP! and grabbed the Dweller's facial tentacles.

Before the Dweller could do anything, the lemur punched it in the forehead with the sound of cracking bone. The Dweller dropped and the lemur shook its hand out, turning and looking at the other one, which raised up the rifle.

The one still in the hallway drifted back a few feet.

"Don't think I don't see you," the lemur said.

The Dweller raised the rifle.

Natraya stabbed it in the back, right above where the belt was on its robe. It screamed, dropped the rifle, and grabbed the bladearm protruding from its stomach.

Its fingers fell off when Natraya yanked the bladearm free at the same time as On'trak clubbed the last of the spawn to the floor and hit it once more for good measure.

Exoskeletal creatures have the muscles attached to the exoskeleton. Sure, it gives it a lot of raw power, but a single crack means when it moves it makes the crack bigger. Hit it hard enough and it'll kill itself moving, the lemur's instruction, repeated several times, sounded in On'trak's brain as he brought down the girder on the thin crack and widened it.

The lemur turned to the last Dweller.

"Well, hello there, school girl's wet dream," it smiled, wiggling the fingers from one hand over its mouth.

The Atrekna, a Young One, had been approached by the Old One who had formulated the plan. Right before he left the Old One had pulled open the back of the Young One's robe and dropped tiny biting insects down its back.

**these will keep you focused on running allow you to resist the commands of the Chief Defense Officer should he countermand my instructions** the Old One had said.

The Young One had to admit, it did not like the feeling of the insect's little legs on its flesh, nor did it like the extremely painful bites and stings.

But, he was able to resist the Chief Defense Officer from ordering it into the room.

When the lemur spoke the Young One was suddenly reminded of that terrible datacube as the lemur wiggled its grasping digits in front of its mouth.

Panic filled the Young One but the biting of the insects made it easy to throw the panic off.

It also made it very easy to carry out the next phase when the lemur lunged forward.

The Young One threw the rifle at it, aiming for the legs, turned, and fled.

"WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP!" it called out, hoping the Old One was right and that vocalizing such a strange noise would pause the lemur for a moment out of confusion.

The burning pain down the Young One's back of the biting insects spurred it on to flee, push all of its psychic power, every bit it could muster, into just speed.

Natraya saw the lemur do a clumsy looking hop to avoid tripping on the rifle as the Dweller ran away making some kind of weird call.

"GET HIM! HE'S GOT PEACE AND LOVE!" the lemur shouted, breaking into a run.

Natraya followed, quickly panting for breath as the Dweller picked up speed, going through doorways that quickly covered with phasic energy barriers that the lemur just charged through, ignoring the sparks and energy discharges.

The Dweller was obviously panicked. It was running almost in a straight line, going down passages, not bothering to go left or right at intersections. Fleeing down ramps, making a high pitched screeching noise as it ran.

Shandaar watched with pleasure as the Young One followed her instructions perfectly. She looked over at the Chief Defense Officer.

**do not distract the lemur by opening a door to either side or showing any opponents for the lemur to test itself against keep the passages clear and only put up the defensive shields** Shandaar said over the communal mind.

**you would do well to** the Chief Defense Officer started.

Shandaar moved forward, into the Chief Defense Officer's face, grabbing it with her hands and yanking it close, her feeding tentacles intertwining with the Chief Defense Officer's. Her eyes burned a dark red and she opened up her third eye, letting the Chief Defense Officer see the burning fire within her mind.

**DO AS I COMMAND OR FACE ME** Shandaar roared into his face.

FWOOP!

The Defensive Office tried to psychically crush Shandaar towering iron will, tried to assault the fortress of her intellect.

Shandaar sneered.

Her counter was worse.

She flooded the Defense Officer's mind with images of the lemurs on the battlefield, of the Inheritors of Madness on the battlefield. Of atomic detonations crushing aside slavespawn and Atrekna and autonomous war machine alike and how the lemurs and their insane allies charged through the debris, screaming their war cries, even as the shockwave hammered at the surroundings. At the image of a shuffling lemur, cold and dead, pulling an Atrekna down to rip at it, tear at it, and shove gobbets of bleeding flesh into its cold crushing jaws while the Atrekna screamed in agony.

The Defensive Officer collapsed, bleeding from around his third eye.

Shandaar's eyes were normal white, her third eye closed, as she turned back around to face the rest of the command deck crew.

*if this plan goes awry, we will all die at the lemurs hand** she said.

The others nodded.

She turned back and watched the Young One as it sped into the cargo bay, the lemur still less than twenty paces behind it, followed by the running Puntimat and Tukna'rn, who were showing signs of running fatigue.

The lemur, to everyone but Shandaar and Kandi'kayn's surprise, was not.

Thicker, additional barriers sprang up between the lemur and the Young Ones, barriers thick enough that the lemur staggered and slowed.

The Young One managed to break line of sight by curving around the lemur war machine and darting straight for the far passage.

The lemur slowed, not much, but Shandaar could see it, when line of sight was broken.

It looked around and its eyes locked on the war machine just as the Young One hit the psychic nullification field and landed on its feet.

It ran as fast as it could, in the odd shuffle the Atrekna used, through the field and lunged through the doorway.

Foot thick phasonium blast doors slammed down, phasic battlescreens spun up, and the Young One ducked into the first open doorway, which closed behind him, and did as he was instructed.

He hid under the desk.

And breathed a sigh of relief.

Natraya caught up to the lemur as it slowly moved toward the all black, dinged up dropship.

"Ooooh, you have 'Free Candy' written all over you, don't you?" the lemur crooned.

Natraya looked up at the lemur. "I do not see words written on it."

"Trust me, sister, it has Free Candy written all over it," the lemur looked down and grinned. "Look at it, sister, that's a candy van."

On'trak jogged up. "Where is candy? I like candy."

"See, On-Track gets it," the lemur grinned. He grinned at On'trak. "Trust me, brother, like I learned the hard way, always get the candy first."

On'trak nodded. "Sensible."

The lemur looked over the craft, slowly walking around it, gazing at it adoringly. Natraya noticed the lemur still glanced around at the membrane covered mounds in the rest of the large area, as well as checking anything that could look like a door.

"Enough time has gone by that military lettering doesn't resemble anything I know," the lemur mused. "Language and runic drift," it sighed. "Still, a dropship is a dropship is a dropship."

On'trak stared at the machine. "How do you know it is a dropship?"

"Heat patterning at the bottom and on the nose, consistent with reentry. Even though warsteel can handle the heat inside the photosphere of a star, it still changes color slightly if you know what to look for," the lemur said. "Directional engines, rear engines, wing engines, vectored thrust engines. Trust me, it's a dropship."

On'trak nodded. He believed the lemur. After all, the lemur had once been a soldier and a soldier would know about the equipment and vehicles a soldier would use.

"The Dweller got away," Natraya said.

"Yeah, he did, sister," the lemur said, his voice gaining an odd drawl. "Makes me wonder if he was really routed and in a panic flight or if he was supposed to lead us here."

"Why here?" On'trak asked.

"That's the Free Candy Question, right there, brother," the lemur said. "Welp, either the interior's full of more big nasty bugs, some of those purple hentai guys, or its empty," it gave a sigh and stepped up to the side door. "Let's find out."

It used a cleverly concealed handle to pull open the door and Natraya craned her neck to get a better look.

"Standard military," the lemur mused. "Don't recognize the writing," it said. "Huh, holographic paint. Interesting."

Natraya and On'trak followed the lemur onboard.

"Close the door," the lemur instructed.

On'trak pulled it closed, marveling at how easily a door that thick and that heavy moved. He knew it had to do with counteweights and the like but it was still thrilling to witness and do.

The lemur moved to the back, looking inside of lockers and behind strapped down containers.

"Never make the mistake of running for the cockpit. Always check the storage spaces. Space has some nasty creatures that like to hide inside the cabinets and jump out when you least expect it," the lemur said. It opened another cabinet and stared for a moment, then licked its lips. It pulled out two bags and handed them to Natraya. "Hold those for me."

She looked at the bags. "Turkey Surprise Meal" and "Chicken & Rice Meal" were written on them.

When they got to the back he checked a few compartments, including one full of wiring and cylinders and other esoteric things, then led back to the front.

Natraya noticed the lemur checked the cabinets, lockers, and storage spaces again.

"All right," the lemur said, moving to the cockpit. It sat down and began buckling itself in. "At least the five point harness system hasn't changed," it said.

"I thought you said you can't read anything," On'trak said.

"Can you pilot this craft?" Natraya asked.

"I can't to both," the lemur said. He looked up and grinned. "OK, no pilot's helmet, no gear, looks like the crew of this were locked and loaded before they got separated from it," he looked around then stared at one of the screens.

"That looks like a touch screen," he said. He started tapping it.

"Come on, where's settings. Where's settings," he said, tapping through menus rapidly.

"Do you think it will have the language you can read?" she asked.

"Maybe," he said. "AHA!"

He tapped one and suddenly the speakers started giving clicks and pops and buzzes and strange runes popped up.

The lemur looked at her. "The T-Bugs have been around for a million years or so, if anyone's language was still going to be the same it was going to be theirs."

"You can read this T-Bug?" Natraya asked.

"Sure. They're good people. The war turned out to be a big mistake, and we'd have gone to war in their place," he said, waving his hand. Holograms and stencils rippled and changed. "There we go."

Natraya found she was able to read all kinds of text suddenly.

"Good, good, they still use the neuro-linguistic holotext," the lemur said. He looked at On'trak and Natraya. "Gimme the food, then you sit there and you sit there," he said.

Natraya handed him the two packages and then sat in the seat next to him. On'trak took another seat.

"All right, let's fire this baby up," the lemur said.

"Do you know how?" On'trak repeated.

"Nope, but the VI should," he said. He tapped a button.

A tiny blue insect sprang into existence above the console and began to click and clack.

The craft started to vibrate and Natraya's ears popped as it went to internal atmosphere.

"Hey, you know what, we should see if the guns work and blow up their ship as a parting gift!" the lemur said.

Shandaar looked at the hologram. The power levels in the ship had spiked right before the countermeasure systems had concealed the fact the reactor had come online.

**NOW** she said, making a chopping motion.

Under the ship a sphincter muscle relaxed, opening up.

The ship vanished into space, sucked out by the rushing atmosphere and the fact the floor had just vanished.

The sphincter closed as Shandaar turned to the pilots.

**get us out of here** she snapped.

The Vessel Commander reinforced her command.

The trilobyte/nautilus-like ship rippled and vanished into jumpspace.

Shandaar felt smug as she left the Command Deck.

She had someone to carefully question that might make an excellent addition to the ranks of the faithful.

"Shit shit shit," the lemur yelled out as the ship dropped through a sudden hole.

Natraya felt the a-grav kick on, wobble, then steady out. She listened closely for any hissing, any sound of atmosphere escaping, half expecting to have her breath stolen.

Instead there was just a steady beeping.

The little blue holographic insect popped and chirped.

The lemur leaned back, opening one of the bags and pulling out a smaller bag.

"Hey, Turkey Surprise, I love turkey!" the lemur said.

"Will we drift in space until we die?" On'trak asked.

"Nope," the lemur said. He pointed at the little blue insect hologram. "Daisy here says there's a shitpot of metal heading for us. Our transponder and our emergency beacon are squawking. They'll be launching Search & Rescue."

He tore off the edge of the package Natraya could see was marked "Turkey Surprise", put the corner in his mouth, and squeezed the package.

The lemur got a strange look on its face as it swallowed.

"What?" Natraya asked.

"It's nice to see that thousands of years in the future military rations still taste terrible," the lemur lamented.

His stomach made more gurgling noises and the lemur sighed.

"Welp, just fuel for the machine, just fuel for the machine," it muttered to itself, then returned to eating.

Natraya stared out the crysteel window at the stars as they slowly wheeled by due to the tumbling nature of the dropship's path.

I hope, Mistress, that wherever you are, you're proud of me for escaping.