Chapter 819: Ultimis Diebus Hominum

Chapter 819: Ultimis Diebus Hominum

To understand why the Mad Lemurs of Terra are so successful at their endevours one must embrace a fundemental truth about them.

They are, every single one of them, by the standards of every other species in the known universe, psychopathic murderers.

Yes, even the nice one who bought you stimbrew when you were cold and tired. Yes, even the frail elderly one in the apartment down the hall.

All of them.

Without exception.

Beneath that thin veneer of civility and sophistication and empathy is a psychopathic killer who would burn your entire world to ashes if you so much as inconvienced them the wrong way.

Don't believe me?

Then reflect upon this.

Even dead, Terrans can still kill. - Philosopher De-epthu'unknmo'o, 45 Post-C3.

He had been born in a servitor creche. He knew neither mother nor father, raised as a slave and cattle species, seeing others of his species taken away to feed the never ending appetites of the masters. His had been a life of tending slavespawn and cleaning the resin warrens that his kind lived and worked within.

Two years ago he had been chosen, trained to use a shard rifle and to wear armor, and sent into combat against the Inheritors of Madness.

Seventeen times he had personally faced the Inheritors.

He had lost sixteen times.

He had been killed fifteen times.

Once had been a draw, and he had just been glad that he had not been killed.

The next day, the Inheritors had charged his position and a giant insect clad in body armor had sawed him in half with a chainsword.

The last time, he had been part of the few that had escaped.

Rather than return home to the dimly lit planet of his birth, the resin warrens he had grown up in, or even just eaten by the masters, he had been taken to another planet and made to guard the masters, carrying a shard pistol and wearing thin armor.

When he had been chosen for the next mission, he had been startled by the armor. Biomechanical armor that protected him, increased his strength, gave him manipulator tentacles he could control with his mind, gave him the ability to run and leap and jump with extended legs. It was comfortable and sustained him.

His weapon had been upgraded to one of the new hypervelocity shard rifles where the crystalline shards exploded when they hit something solid.

He trained with other servitors, all in armor, and with slavespawn.

For three days he trained with the masters, learning how to augment their powers with the power in his suit, how to follow their direct commands (as if he didn't know that already), and how to move with them to protect them (something else he already knew) as they were projected into his mind.

Then he was put inside a pod, the membrane closed over him, and the fluid filled it. He had inhaled the fluid and then remembered nothing until he was coughing the fluid out as the ship closed on the planet.

Now, he was doing nothing more than laying on the floor, gasping. His comlink, a phasic linkage to the other combat suits, was full of nothing but screaming. He cut it off, still gasping.

An Atrekna screamed loudly as it was pulled apart, pieces of it shoved into jaws full of crushing and cutting teeth that chewed cartilage and meat alike.

The sprinting figures had tackled the Atrekna, slavespawn, and servitors around him, one of them knocking him down, sprawling, on the floor, despite his suit's enhanced strength and great weight. The others were carried off the side of the walkway, plunging over fifteen meters to the floor. Atrekna who had attempted to hover backwards found themselves under assault by the figures, who threw themselves off the walkway and into the empty air, hands outstretched, to grab the Atrekna and pull them down.

The servitor lifted his head in time to see another wave pass by, leaping out into empty space, screeching as they jumped.

The screech was barely audible over the klaxons and ringing bells.

Two other servitors lifted their heads, then three others.

He made a motion, telling them to switch comlink channels and to keep down.

Another wave came out, jumping into space, trying to reach the masters, who were hovering away from the edge of the walkway.

He looked over the edge, down to the floor.

The Masters, slavespawn, and his fellow servitors were fighting a swarm of lemurs. More were rushing out of the other shops, shattering the doors and windows, throwing themselves through the smartglass, macroplas, and doorways.

All of them screeching.

He rolled onto his stomach and started crawling away, using his elbows for leverage, staying down, kicking with the powerful legs of the armor.

Five of his brethren followed him.

Less then ten feet and he was up, sprinting down the dark walkway, the others following him.

Macroplas exploded and the lemurs burst out from the dark shop, screeching, reaching out for him, but he was already past. The ones behind him twisted and dodged, the sheer velocity of the lemurs, all of them with torn faces, carried them over the edge to the floor fifteen meters below.

One was unlucky and a sprinting lemur hit them square, throwing both over the edge.

A half dozen lemurs screeched and jumped after them.

He cut the doomed servitor out of the commo link even as it started to scream.

"Drop a grenade!" he shouted.

The one at the back armed and dropped a fusion grenade, which lay there, flashing and beeping for nearly five seconds.

A score of lemurs ran by it, screeching, following him and the other servitors.NewW novels updates at novelhall.com

"Is your mind defective? They were alive. You saw them come at us, heard them scream," one said.

"I injured one. It did not bleed. Its body was cold. It did not react to the injuries and instead kept trying to bite me," he said.

"You must be mistaken. It was conf..." another started to say.

The skylight shattered as a master exploded out of the building, surrounded by a globe of their own power.

A dozen lemurs held on, the skin and clothing pressing against the globe charring. They pushed through the arms, grabbing at the master, who screamed as they touched it with hands that were covered in burnt skin and muscle.

One managed to grab the master's chitin armor, pulling it backwards.

More grabbed on.

The globe swung upside down.

He lifted his rifle, aiming it, and fired at the lemurs, confident that the hypervelocity crystals wouldn't penetrate the master's protective globe.

The shards shrieked as they thudded into the bodies of the lemurs. Black fluid sprayed, limbs blew off. Three were blown in half, their lower body falling back into the building, one with loops of digestive tract still connected.

Still the lemurs tried to get at the master, who was screaming as part of its chitin armor was torn away, the lemur pulling it from the globe to chew on it.

The others joined.

Torsos started falling as limbs were blown away.

He saw it.

One of the lemurs took a shard through the head, from side to side, with a spray of corroded looking brain matter.

The lemur just went limp, dropping from the globe.

The lemurs were cleared from the globe and the master hung there, upside down, touching itself all over.

There was a screech from below.

"Check the roof. Look for access doors. Jam or block them," he ordered.

The master righted itself and floated over, lowering down next to him.

The rest of the survivors just sealed their armor back up and bounded away.

He saw one jump behind a large set of block of machinery and not jump back up.

The master lowered the globe of power. With a motion, it unfolded his armor, leaving him naked from the waist up.

**you ran** it accused them.

"Yes, oh great one," he said. "It was an ambush. I am trained to push through the ambush."

**you left us behind you are to protect us** the master said.

"I followed training, oh great master," he said.

The master moved up, reaching out with its hands and putting them on his shoulders.

He had never realized how cold and clammy the master's hands felt.

**I have use for you coward** the master said.

He felt the master's mind overwhelm his. He felt bliss, floating on a cloud of ecstasy. He stared up at the master, who he knew only wanted the best for him and was about to gift him far beyond any others.

He was chosen and it filled him with bliss.

The master turned him around, so that he faced the dark skyline of the city, only a few lights here and there blinking.

He felt the tentacles around the master's mouth wrap around his head. Felt the tips of the barbed spikes dig into his face.

It was bliss.

He felt the puckered orifice start to widen.

FWEEP

Gore sprayed out.

The tentacles went limp. The hands fell from his shoulders.

The bliss stopped and he was filled with terror as it swept through him that the master was about to devour his brain.

He turned around and looked.

The top of the Master's head was missing.

He looked up and saw one of the surviving servitors lowering their rifle.

"No more," they said.