Hayward's Reach

NaShoStoMo #29 - Pax Cyridian

              Ona normally settled into grazing once we arrived in an area, but she seemed reluctant to move from where she stopped. She waved her palps around and put them into her mouth to taste the air.

              "Ona? What's wrong?"

              "Bad genes here."

              "Whose work is it. Is it mine or Barry?"

              "Barry's taste."

              Each engineer has a signature to their work. There are only five or six of us in Cyridian and we have marked our work to ensure stability and accountability in design.

              "Trouble. Danger."That made me nervous. Ona is one of the larger and more dangerous predators on this planet. If she was worried, we might be in trouble.

              I walk back to Ona when two roachsters pull up behind her and two law enforcement agents get out of the vehicles. Ona turns around and eyes them. The roaches are calm and do not respond to her veiled threat.

              "Can we help you Gene-engineer?"

              "What seems to be the problem, officer? I came out here to investigate a technical requisition supply issue."

              "This warehouse is restricted." The officer seemed strange to me. He kept his hand on his bospor pistol.

              The second officer stayed next to his roachster.

              "Perhaps I have been misinformed." Ona, bristled when I walked back to her.

              "Penrose. Not good. Something wrong."

              "I know, but we have to go."

              Then there was a booming from the warehouse behind us. The roachsters backed up with the amazing speed they are capable of. Ona leapt away from the warehouse and landed facing it.

              "Okay, that does not sound normal."

              "We are going to have to ask you to leave, sir."

              The booming happened again but this time the wall exploded open and the law enforcement officer is crushed instantly by the falling wall debris. The speed at which it happened shocked me, but Ona was already in motion. She grabbed me and wrapped me in the energy dampening material inside her chassis and backed away from the hole. The other officer got out of his roachster with his bospor pistol drawn.

              The creature that came out appeared to be a variant on Ona's design but much bigger. The modifications included increased chassis armor, stronger leg designs and several other surface mods I did not recognize. But I knew weapon work when I saw it. This was an illegal mod.

              "Run, run, Penrose?"

              "No sweety, not yet."

              The other officer got out of his roachster, and directed the first roachster to try and remove the debris from his downed partner. The roachster tried to lift the debris, but it was designed for speed not strength. The illegally modified creature looked out of the hole at the roachster and roared.

              The officer fired on the creature. The bospor launched a round from the gun with a huff of highly compressed air. The bospor stinger flew at over eight hundred feet per second. The tiny blob landed on the creature. Nothing happened. Impossible. The bospor is one of the most toxic animals on the planet. Nothing eats them, they are non-aggressive, and their only defense is their deadly neurotoxin which kills everything with a nervous system on Cyridian. It is why they were modified as weapons.