8/13/23 Author's Note: This story wasn't finished. Now it continues... I'm building a new home on Substack, but Wattpad is where I started so y'all get the goods first. I haven't shown this to anyone yet. More to come:
https://jhanlon.substack.com/about
Groggy and weak, I woke to the sound of a warning rustle from the workers' wings. They covered me entirely with their many bodies, blocking the tunnel they'd brought me through. All I could hear was the workers' repetitive, agitated clicking and their wings scraping against each other. Maybe the octopiders had come back, the disgusting filth.
I didn't have the strength left to fight, but the wasps seemed willing to defend me. Suddenly their agitation turned to a comforting, melodious thrum that vibrated all through my body. Blurry-eyed, completely sapped of strength, and honestly surprised to be alive, I watched as the workers—loyal scarlet-scaled protectors—parted to welcome a sentinel wasp.
Relief washed over me instantly, instinctively, as I looked into her glimmering violet eyes. She was larger than the others, with a hard exoskeleton like the queen's; although sterile, sentinels were devoted solely to tending to the grubs. Soft blue light shone from bioluminescent spots dotted along her antennae. The deep thrumming noise was coming from within her, I realized, and as she moved closer I felt my pain wash away.
The sentinel wasp clicked her mandibles cautiously and even through my suit's filters I could smell—taste?—her calming painkiller pheromones. Her long, banded antennae swept over my wounded abdomen and the jagged armor around it, clearly focused on the scent of the queen's eggs. She leaned in close and from glands at the base of her jaws, secreted a cool, tingly substance onto my swollen flesh. Gradually I felt the throbbing pain fade to nothing.
Then she sang a soft, short trill and the workers quickly cocooned over my mangled armor's stomach plates with a chewed paste of steeloak fibers and saliva. The sentinel seemed pleased with their work, humming a little tune to herself about happy hungry grubs to which the workers on standby clicked rhythmically in response.
I shivered and felt a distant twinge of pain. Her cooling secretion in my abdomen was growing stronger—radiating out, numbing like—like the queen's venom—still inside me—reacting to it—hot wave of nauseous dread—falling, spinning, a sense of inversion overwhelmed me. My self slipped away in a red haze. I fought to keep afloat, gasping, heavy, and felt myself go under.
In my dream state I saw a faraway figure in dark armor, shining with wavering light off in the distance. Like looking at someone from underwater. I was sure they wouldn't hear me from all the way up there. Too much strain. Seemed stressful. The current was pulling me along, to gentle, gentle warmth and comfort.
Like powder in water, I dissolved into the universe.
"Jackson, answer me you dumbass!" A shout jolted me back. It was Goldwater, dragging me out of the workers' little tunnel. My suit was locked up stiff.
Involuntarily I slurred, "What?"
In response, the shrieking drone of the scream beam ripped through me and I groaned in pain. It felt like tiny jackhammers all over my body. My ears rang with a piercing pitch as dozens of wasps scattered hastily around us.
Behind us, the big sentinel wasp wriggled out of the tunnel, hissed, and reared up on her hind legs with her stinger at the ready, thrumming a deep, ominous warning note. Another determined burst from the scream beam drove the sentinel away down a side passage and left me in gut-wrenched agony as Goldwater chucked two angry scouting drones after the sentinel.
Next breath wouldn't come—lancing pain every time I tried. A sob curdled on my lips.
"Sorry, Jackson." Goldwater dropped next to me with her gear at the ready. Her deft armored hands waited for nothing. "What did they do to you? Gotta get this shit off him—! Damn, it's hardened already. Stay awake!"
I gasped, "Leave it."
That got my helmet smacked. "Stay awake, Jackson! You can still get through this."
"Stop—"
"I will not."
"They're safe!" I snarled.
With a soft gasp, she understood. Her visor depolarized, revealing the shock in her flint-blue eyes to me. "The eggs, you don't want me to...?"
"Seven... to ten... days."
Confused again, she leaned back on her heels and shook her head.
"Incubation time. Host doesn't... have to survive."
"Your eyes... you're not sound of mind. Therefore I listen to nothing you advise me of. And you can't stop me anyway. You're coming with us." She held my eyes with a long look before hiding her face again behind the visor's opacity filter.
I wondered what she meant about my eyes. I probably looked pretty fucked up.
Then on comms to everyone she barked, "Mueller, Chavos, Sarabi—get down here. He's alive, barely. You let him come down here, Mueller, you fucker! You're going to get him out! He's not gonna feed your new fucking grubs! I'm sick of this—no! No, shut up and get down here or I'm gone! Ugh!"
Her voice cracked and I heard her start to retch before she muted her mic, turning away from me. She steadied herself with one arm against the wall and I thought I saw her helmet bob momentarily like she just forced herself to swallow down whatever was coming up. You don't puke in a nullsuit.
Turning her attention back to me, Goldwater shook her head and leaned over me again. She took something from her kit and started messing with some of the inputs on my armor. There was a hiss and a click, then immediate waves of intense relief surged through me. I grunted and felt a flurry of elation as I could breathe a little deeper.
"Won't hurt them?" I demanded.
"No," Goldwater said with a weary sigh. She patted me on the helmet gently and resumed dragging me along behind her. Her voice was raw and she coughed a little. "Jackson, I think you remind me of my poor baby brother. I think that's why I'm upset. I usually don't get upset, god damn it."
"Y'mean when rookies... die out here?"
"Yeah!" She nodded emphatically, annoyed and almost incredulous. I thought I saw her try to raise her arm a bit to wipe tears away before remembering the armor. "Fuck. Just don't die. I'm not gonna do that, Jackson, you understand?"
"Sorry."
"Don't be sorry, don't die." She took a deep breath and held it for a moment. Then she added dismissively, "It's my job. Makes me look bad."
Somehow I felt myself crack a smile. Maybe it was the drugs she pumped into me. I wanted to ask about her brother, but all I could say was, "Thanks."
"Where the fuck are they?"
Felt like I wasn't getting enough air. "I'm scared," I gasped. My breath came haltingly in thick wet bubbles. "Can't breathe."
"It's okay. It's gonna be okay. Where the fuck are you two?" Goldwater begged on the group comms. "I need your help! He needs a fuckin' chest vent, guys! I can't get to his lungs in there—"
Still choking, I hacked up a glob of bloody fluid and struggled to remain conscious. Spat it out, it kept coming up.
"Hands up."
External audio. My blurred vision snapped to a figure behind us in the tunnel, followed by another, both with raised rifles. Goldwater spun to face them, fell back, and reached for her pistol, but they fired instantly on us. In the same moment, more laser fire erupted from up the tunnel. As the long, winding roots beneath the steeloak lit up with beams and smoke, I faded and blacked out.
I snapped awake when they ripped off my helmet. We were somewhere else, a shining metal room, so bright I didn't see the guy next to me—a needle stabbed into my neck and I screamed before I went back under.
***
"You're a real motherfucking monster, Mueller. I mean that," Goldwater whispered, her blue-gray eyes wide with rage. "You left that poor boy to die."
Looking up from his desk, Mueller met her gaze dispassionately and pursed his lips. "Are we safe and warm and dry?"
Quivering with anger, Goldwater glared at him as she paced back and forth, shaking her head and taking controlled breaths. She wouldn't answer him, just kept staring at him like if she really channeled everything she had she could melt him into a boiling puddle of goo.
The pale old man raised his elbows to rest atop his desk, drew the tips of his steepled fingers together, smoothly interlocked all but his pointers and thumbs, and pressed against his mouth. "Goldwater," he implored quietly, dropping his hands against the lacquered black surface. "Please answer me. Are we safe and warm and dry?"
Goldwater spat on the floor and walked out, leaving Mueller with a look of pained disappointment. The door closed automatically behind her, and after a moment passed he reached automatically for the hidden drawer.
***
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