Nellie and the Nanites - Bk2 - Ch.30

Chapter 30

Watch the Skies

The alarms went off just after the mid-bell of the first shift. Crush was in his gear and out the door in less than two minutes, but it was still too late. Even the best-prepared soldiers can only do so much.

By the time he made it out of the improvised barracks, seven were dead, including Four. It had all just happened so fast, and as he watched, another soldier was attacked.

Crush blinked, stilling in confusion as the man running towards him was engulfed in a whitish blob that rapidly turned pink as the man was dissolved. A few seconds later, the blob inflated and drifted up into the darkness, a faint pink balloon that left behind a series of gleaming and hissing bones that dripped some strong acid onto the ground around it. Crush was still gaping in shock as something crashed into him, throwing him aside as another pale white blob crashed down where he had stood a moment before.

“Get moving, for fuck sake!” Vicky slapped him across the face. “EVERYONE GET TO COVER!” She roared.

Crush followed, shaking his head to clear the daze and shock. As his mind started working again, he drew his rifle from his shoulder and started to scan the skies.

There.

He unleashed a volley of fire, leading the falling target a little. One of his shots connected, and the thing, whatever it was, exploded into a spray that drenched the troopers below it in acid. Their screams were brief, but Crush knew he would never forget the sound.

“Stop it!” Vicky slapped his rifle down. “That won’t help!”

“We have–” Crush started to say.

“They’re Dansi’vore,” Vicky snapped, “Almost completely made of acid, unless that rifle can vaporize them completely, it just makes things worse.” She pointed as she dragged a wounded soldier under the safety of what cover they had in the barracks overhang.

Crush looked over and paled as masses of the jelly-like creatures descended on the area, attracted by the smell of their dead brethren. The half-melted bodies of the soldiers were absorbed quickly, giant pink balloons lifting off as the things finished feeding.

A half-hour later, they were still sheltering under the awning and watching the skies. One had made her way to him; she was not taking the loss of Four well.

“Where did they come from?” Crush asked Vicky, “I’ve never even heard of the damn things.”

“They stick close to the sea normally,” Vicky said tiredly. “No more than a mile or two inland at the most.” She flicked her eyes to One, who was sitting and staring blankly at the wall, “They prey on schools of fish and things, plus some of the larger snakes that occupy the same kind of ranges.”

“Why can’t we see them coming?” Crush growled in frustration, “We had no fucking warning at all.”

“They are in the clouds,” Vicky said, pointing up, “They kind of float there, all spread out and light. Once they sense prey, they contract into a ball, and gravity does the rest.”

“It looked like a balloon,” One said distantly, “When it was finished with Four. It just drifted up and away like a pretty pink balloon.” She was weeping as she spoke. When she turned to look at them, her eyes held an emptiness Crush knew all too well. “I used to love balloons when I was a girl. My family still gets me balloons on my birthday. Pink ones.” She broke down into sobs then, and Vicky held her while she cried it out.

Crush ground his teeth and tried to think clearly and figure out what he could do. He hated feeling so damn useless. An enemy you couldn’t shoot was something he had never faced before, let alone one that attacked like an overgrown raindrop.

“Has anyone got the word out yet?” Crush asked.

“I doubt anyone is running to the comm tower in all this,” Vicky said softly while gently stroking One’s hair, “It’s in the middle of open space to avoid interference.”

“So no one knows what’s headed their way?” Crush asked blandly.

“Crush,” Vicky warned. “Don’t be stupid.”

Crush nodded thoughtfully, then leaped out the door and started to sprint.

It took less than a second for the first one to smash into the ground behind him. The speed they were capable of was ridiculous; there was no way that was just gravity. He broke into a grin as he duked to the left and sprinted again, rewarded with a wet-sounding impact where he would have been a moment before.

Another ten steps, then he dove right, rolling up and sprinting hard to escape the next attack. They were coming fast by the time he leaped into the corridor that ran beneath one of the elevated grow houses.

When he saw it, he was just starting to slow and take a breather. The top of the tunnel bulged slightly just a little in front of him. It was slight, but it was definitely there. Crush’s eyes widened as he watched a flap of white jelly peel off the tunnel roof and swing down toward him. With no time to think, he dove through the narrowing gap and scrabbled forward on all fours before kicking off the floor with all he had and every drop of boost his power armor had.

A weight settled on his back for a fraction of a second, and then he was flying clear. Crush didn’t bother looking back, simply sprinting out of the tunnel and trying very hard not to think about how close he had come.

With one hand, he drew an incendiary grandage from his belt and held the plunger down. He threw it over his shoulder and drew another just as the blast of hot air and a high-pitched screech came from the tunnel. He held onto this one in case he wasn’t as lucky next time.

If he got caught, he was gonna take the fucker with him.

He had no idea what to say to One, how to fight these things, and how to get his people off the planet. But this?

This he could do.

Crush put his head down and ran harder.

===<<<>>>===

“No one said I couldn’t make my own drones,” Paren-Far said as Nellie glared at her.

“I didn’t know you even could,” Nellie said coldly. “You didn’t tell me.”

“So it’s my fault you don’t know what a prime drone is?” Paren retorted. “Seriously, did you think about what you were doing to me AT ALL before you did it?”

“Not really,” Nellie admitted. “You had just slit your fucking throat. Forgive me for being more worried about saving your bloody life!”

They stared blankly at each other for a moment, reliving a genuinely awful moment in their shared past.

“Well, I can,” Paren said sulkily. “So I did.”

“But why that?” Nellie demanded, waving a shaking hand at the thing.

“You have a pet! Why can’t I?” Paren demanded. “I mean, have you even seen Oodles lately? I haven’t!”

“Oodles is helping his Aunty Lucy in her lab,” Lucy said happily. “And I think your drone is kind of cute.”

“Traitor!” Nellie gasped. “Eww, get away from it!” She looked on, horrified, as Lucy ran her hand down its back.

“Great job on the cybernetics,” Lucy said to Paren, “Did Nu-B help you?”

“Yeah!” Paren forgot her anger in her enthusiasm.

“Cybernetics?” Nellie felt as if her head was going to explode. “You put cybernetics in an Abomi-Toad?”

“Well, yeah,” Paren gave her the look teenagers use on people they think are being exceptionally slow on the uptake. “He was mostly dead. I had to rebuild him.” She clapped her hands, and the thing turned to look at Paren, revealing the side that had been facing the wall until now.

Nellie felt like she was going to throw up.

Most of the toad’s side had been replaced with smooth metal, and one leg was a mechanical copy of its mate. Some of the tentacles had been replaced as well. One of the replacements looked like the focusing iris of a laser array, while another seemed to be a small sensor suite. The worst part was the small circle inset into the plating on the side. Nellie recognized it from her own gear on the Bly.

“You put a shield on a fucking Abomi-Toad!” Nellie accused Paren.

“Isn’t it cute?” Paren gushed. “It won’t hold up against much actual laser fire, but it will still help.” She giggled as the toad reached out and rubbed its tentacles against her palm.

Nellie threw up.

Lucy eventually managed to calm her down enough to hear Paren out properly. It didn’t make her very happy, but she allowed Paren to keep the horrific thing once Paren proved it had no genuine autonomy. Most of the brain had been destroyed when it was killed, so it was just a bunch of instincts with added programming now. It still creeped her out in a big way, but Lucy insisted it would be good for Paren to be allowed a pet. Since she had chosen Per-Chi as her pet, it would cause Paren a lot of pain to take it away now.

She felt better once she was out of the dark tunnels and back in the open air again.

“Damn, I forgot to ask Paren where she got the bricks from,” Nellie said to Lucy as they headed across the yard towards the control tower. “Or what she did with all the dirt from the tunnel.”

“Same answer,” Lucy replied with a smile. “It was compressed into the bricks. Solved two problems with one solution. Quite elegantly as well.”

“Huh,” Nellie smiled. “Paren’s a smart cookie, isn’t she?” She shivered. “Even if her taste in pets leaves a fuckton to be desired.”

“I’m gonna nail his tail to a wall!” Remy stormed across the yard, flanked by two of the new Centrum units.

“Who?” Nellie laughed at the irritated former spy.

“Jo-Ban’s gone over the wall again,” Remy growled. “And this time, he took a rifle with him.”

“The village?” Nellie asked.

“No, apparently he was trying to impress young Paren and thought a spot of trophy hunting just the thing!” Remy growled.

“Is there anything left out there to shoot?” Nellie wondered aloud. “Surely the Abomi-Toads would have eaten everything in their path?”

“Sorry, he’s not after animals; he wants tech,” Remy growled. “He took the rifle in case he ran into bandits at the scrap field.

“Well, at least he’s trying to get her something she’ll like,” Lucy said with a smile. “It’s kind of cute.”

“Stupid,” Nellie amended, “But cute.”

“He won’t be cute once I get hold of him,” Remy said with steely certainty.

“We better go get him,” Nellie said with a sigh.

===<<<>>>===

Crush leaped, kicking off the wall as he rocketed toward it, twisting through the air to kick off the opposite wall and back towards the first. If he missed so much as a single kick, he would drop into the mass of jelly below him and detonate the firebomb in his hand. That was no way to die. The horrific things had swarmed the bottom of the corridor, a thin film over the bricks the only warning he had needed. He spun in the air, kicked off a final time, rolled to a stop a few feet clear of the occupied corridor, and took long, deep breaths.

In front of him was the final stretch. It was a long, long, long way from this last piece of cover to the radio tower. He checked the power levels on his armor, seeing it was at a disappointing fifteen percent.

Crush smiled as he caught his breath and shook out his muscles to make sure they stayed limber. This insane situation was a perfect example of why he had left the army in the first place, yet he couldn’t deny he had missed it. That thin line between life and death was a heady place to be. Every success felt like a triumph; if you failed, you were too dead to care.

There was a term for what he was feeling right now. Battle High.

It was an addictive feeling that led a lot of soldiers to their deaths, and Crush was fairly certain he was going to be joining the dead pretty damn quickly once he left this shelter.

At least he wasn’t dying thanks to impaired thinking from the battle high. No, not him.

Crush was going to die trying to assuage his own guilt.

“Hold on, Nellie,” He muttered to himself. “This gecko has one more trick left, one more face to show.” Crush laughed long and loud. “Let’s go!”

Crush burst out of the shelter, and the ground blurred beneath him as he pushed the suit’s boost way past the redline. Only the changes they had made to him let him even process things at this speed.

None of that changed how fast the power level was dropping. Nor did it change the fact that the fucking blobs were hitting closer and closer to him with every step. He juked and dodged as he tried to stay unpredictable, but they were steadily closing in on him. He would have wondered how the bloody things were doing it if he had time, but there was no time for idle speculation.

He accepted what was in front of him and did the only thing he could think of.

He ran on.

Closer and closer, until by the time he passed the halfway mark, he was only a single step ahead of the blobs as they impacted the ground, now dropping in pairs.

“Come on!” He panted as the power dropped to three percent with over a quarter of the distance yet to go. There was no way the charge would get him to the doors that seemed tantalizingly close now.

The calm certainty of his won death tried to settle over him, tried to soothe his fears away and make him give up, but he roared defiance at it and tossed the incendiary grenade over his shoulder without bothering to aim. Grabbing three concussion grenades at once, he leaped into the air, deactivated the boost to his armor as he spun, shoved the last energy into a massive shield boost, and threw the grenades toward the nearest jelly as he hit the emergency eject on his armor.

There was a flash in his visor as his shield flared, the armor forced back by the blast of the explosions just as the back opened and shot him clear.

Crush ragdolled through the air; fighting for consciousness, he managed to roll into a ball before he hit the ground.

Crush rolled up onto his feet, staggering the last few feet and through the door to the control tower.

Collapsing through the door, bleeding heavily and partially stunned from the concussion grenades, Crush laughed as he kicked the door shut. There was no way that should have even remotely worked.

Pushing himself to his feet, Crush pushed open the door to the stairs, then stopped and took the small elevator instead. He grinned to himself, swaying slightly, as it took him up to the radio room. Flicking on the lights as he got off the elevator, Crush dropped into the chair and flicked all the switches on. Green lights all the way across the board. It seemed the bastard things hadn’t managed to damage anything vital, another miracle he was too tired to question.

He hit the broadcast button, sending the signal out to any and all receivers in range of the signal.

“Alert. Alert. Alert,” He coughed, wiping blood off his hand absently as he went on, “All stations Alert. Creatures called Dansi’vore are dropping from the clouds. Seek cover. Repeat, seek cover immediately!” He said it all again, then went on, “Creatures are acid! Do not shoot unless you can vaporize, I repeat, vaporize only.” He was starting to feel dizzy and light-headed, so he added one final note as his vision started to darken, “Captain? If you get to hear this, I never should have done it. I’m sorry, and if this message reaches you in time… I did this for you. Gecko out.”

Crush leaned his head on the controls, flicked the message onto repeat, and passed out with a faint smile on his face.

===<<<>>>===

“Crush!” Nellie called over the comm line but got nothing back but the same message as it started to repeat for the fourth time. “Fucking answer me!”

“The signal’s coming from Duke’s,” Salem’s fingers flew over the controls. “I’m trying to get a visual now,”

The screen flickered and then lit up; it showed the inside of a small room packed with electronics. The view was centered on the control console, which sat on a small metal desk with the inputs, switches, microphone, and other paraphernalia on it. She could see Crush, covered in blood and lying face down on the desk, where a small pool of blood was collecting beneath his head.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fucking, fuck!” Nellie kicked the control console in anger, leaving a dent that Salem frowned at. “He’s fucking dying over there!”

“We can go get him,” Lucy said soothingly.

“No, we can’t!” Nellie snapped back, “I have to go and get that idiot JoJo before he gets turned into a snack for some bloody monster!” She glowered at the screen, “You heard what he said. How does he know?” She slammed her hand on the controls again. “CRUSH! WAKE THE FUCK UP!”

The figure on the screen didn’t move.

“I’ll go,” Lucy said. “Whatever else happened, we owe him one save.”

“Are you sure?” Nellie asked. “The message….”

“We’ll be gone soon,” Lucy said, “And I doubt he’s going to report us to the Feds.”

“Are you sure?” Nellie knew she was repeating herself but didn’t care.

“He sent that message to warn us,” Lucy said calmly, “He seems to be trying to apologize.”

“What if it’s a trap?” Salem asked.

“Then it will be unfortunate for them that I am the one coming,” Lucy said smugly.

“Are you s–” Nellie stopped herself and nodded. “I’ll get JoJo.”

“Good, and don’t worry.” She smiled. “I’ve been looking forward to the day I could actually meet someone as myself.”