“Oh thank god” breathed Harken as the three remaining crew members watched the Beast turn at the final second after them, smashing the large official looking buildings beneath it, but otherwise leaving the surface mercifully untouched.
“Good, that’s that bit done then” muttered Hicks. “Shrikes are you still there?” he asked loudly through the headset. All he got in response was a loud roar of static. He grimaced. “Shit. Shrikes! Come in are you two still there?” Static. “Trish spin the ship let’s see if we can...”
“Wheeeeeeeeee!” came a high pitched excited squeal through the Vox. Hicks breathed a sigh of relief. “Lexi thank god. Where did you two end up? Are your vid-Comms working?”
“Here you go Cap” came the female twin’s voice and suddenly the cargo bay Vid screen flickered and split to show what the two Shrikes could see. They were above them, flying on an air current high over the top of the great Beast as it smashed through the city below.
They could see Alex the male twin through Lexi’s vid, his shining liquimetal wing-suit flowing and rippling from his arms as he barrelled and rolled through the air above them, laughing as he did.
“Whenever you’re ready then you two, it’s all you now”. Hicks said. “And I mean it about those Lances! They’re worth more than you are.” He smiled and sat back into the now stowed cradle seat, crossing his legs and watching the vid as the two twins began flicking their heads back and forth, their eyes darting along the length of the creature, hunting for a spot. They were like great birds of prey, circling on a thermal, eyes darting this way and that hunting for their target.
Suddenly they folded their wings in perfect unison and dived down peregrine style towards the great swaying head of the Beast below.
“This bit is my favourite” grinned Tiny, thumping the small birdlike Thrall Harken excitedly, who fell with a surprised squawk and small puff of feathers. The two on the screen were approaching the Beast at astonishing speed, with no sign of slowing, apparently ready to crash head first into the scaled back of the creature.
Finally, at the last second the two pulled up hard, flinging their wings forward so they flowed out, the obsidian sharp edges of the liquimetal tearing through the air to slice two perfectly neat gashes along a small soft fleshy spot between two plates just as they opened out to allow for the head of the Beast to twist. The twins landed a little way on with synchronised rolls before exploding to their feet again. It wasn’t a second too soon either as just as they did so they were faced with an onrushing horde of insect-like creatures that made up the strange parasitic/symbiotic occupants of the Beasts body.
The two just had time to grin at one another before the screens became a chaotic mess of movement and purple-green liquid. Hicks glanced back at the other two in the docking bay and smiled, Tiny was grinning, his large fangs on his bottom jaw poking goofily over his furry top lip as he stared fixedly at the screen. Harken however was looking at everything but the screens, his head twitching this way and that awkwardly, blinking both sets of eyelids overly fast. “Don’t like the view Harken?” Hicks asked innocently.
“I don’t mind the view” the ruffled bird squawked, “what I don’t like is the mess that that view tends to leave those two in. One day they’re going to slip up and then I’ll be doing more than sewing flesh wounds.”
“Slip up? Lexi and Alex?” Hicks turned back to the screen as the sound of laughter and excited shouts came over the Vox Comm. “Maybe once the last star goes out.”
The twins were Shrikes; vicious, violent, mad living human weapons. They had been trained since infancy, foregoing the genetic enhancements that other races relied on to instead focus on pure muscle memory and perfected technique. They were terrifyingly effective and they cut their way through the army of parasites that swarmed over the back of the Beast as though they were Olympic gymnasts tackling obstacles on a playground assault course. They danced and swung, their wings flowing out and back and all round, extended on their arms like knife blades they used to cut back and forth and spray entrails across the chitinous carapace as they made their way back to the deep cuts they had made on the beast’s back.
“Thirty seven!” came Alex’s gleeful shout through the Vox followed quickly by Lexi
“Forty two! Slowpoke!” she giggled as the liquimetal flowed from her hand through the brain segment on the nearest parasite.
“Shrikes, ETA?” Hicks cut across the carnage through the helmet. He was aware that they couldn’t sit there forever, sooner or later the Beast would spot them and Lexi and Alex would be at risk of being flung off its back.
“Thirty seconds Captain!” they both shouted back in unison, Alex mid somersault with Lexi sliding beneath him, severing clawed legs as he took heads. Hicks shook his own head. These two were in a whole other class he thought to himself. He was as lucky as they were that he had found them when he had. That had been no place for children. He grimaced and shook the memory of that dark little room and two scared faces from his head.
“Alright, get to it. Tiny” he said, hopping back out of the cradle and placing his helmet back on, the clamps hissing as they locked into place. “You remember what to do old boy?”
“But Captain I wanna watch the twins” the great brute whined back
“I know you do, I promise I’ll let you stream the whole thing in your cabin later.” The big furball smiled and clapped his hands before stomping off to the back of the cargo bay, pulling one lever up to close the bomb bay door which shut with a grating whine of rusted hydraulics.
“Ten seconds Cap-ee-taaain!” Lexi sang through her headset. Tiny opened the back of the cargo door, sending Harken racing for the nearest grip, presumably swearing colourfully as he did with his Vox Comm muted.
Hicks watched the screen intently, flashes of clear view showing as the twins cut through the final few metres. “Come on” he breathed, licking his suddenly dry lips.
Lexi made it first she whirled a full three-sixty degrees, cutting herself a hole in the parasite army and revealed the gaping gash she had made on landing just as it was exposed again by the Beast’s head movement. Alex was in the middle of performing the same manoeuvre as Lexi plucked the glinting black lance from her belt and plunged it shoulder deep into the gash, Alex doing the same straight after.
Hicks took one breath, smiled then set off at a sprint from one side of the cargo bay to the other, grabbing the end of a nanotube cable that Tiny held out for him he flung himself out of the open door, hooking the cable on as he fell.
He unspooled himself as quickly as possible, using his suit’s burst fire to direct his fall towards the concentrated mass of shrieking insects that showed where the twins were. The beast gave a shudder and most of them were flung to the ground. “Bugger” he muttered “you two still with me?” he shouted.
“Sure am!” replied Alex, appearing as a green streak from a pile of parasites “Say Cap, next time can we get a fancy suit like yours?” Hicks growled in response, closing the distance fast as he tucked his arms and legs tight reduce as much drag as he could. The Beast gave another shudder and then let out a loud moan. He almost felt sorry for it, having a smart-lance firing back and forth through your central nervous system couldn’t be a pleasant way to die. If there truly was a pleasant way to die.
He slowed up with a controlled burn on the suit’s stability jets just above the confused frenzy of insects, locking the cable behind him so that he went from freefall to controlled swing.
As he passed overhead he managed to pluck Lexi from the crowd, her wings sheathing as she leapt up to catch his outstretched hand.
“Alex we’re swinging back for you!” He grunted as his suit stiffened his arm to hold the girl’s weight as they swung back on the cable. Alex performed another spinning slash before furling his wing and leaping up just in time, catching Hicks just as the Beast gave one last almighty roar and slumped down into the earth below, earthquake like ripples crashing through it, flinging the insects metres through the air, crashing down around one another as massive convulsions shook the dying creature. The Richter scale shudders threw them into a howling pile over and over, reducing them to a frenzied collection of broken limbs.
“Well done you two!” Hicks smiled down at the Shrikes, both of whom were bleeding from several superficial cuts and grinning from ear to ear up at him. He looked up at his ship, his Selleain and smiled to himself. “I’ll get you back. Tiny I want you to start Harvesting ASAP, you know how quickly this stuff degrades. Trish make sure my ship isn’t too banged up, and Harken make sure these two aren’t either” He spoke through the Vox Comm, unable to keep the happiness from his voice. Then he looked over to the tall drop towers back on the city limits and frowned. “Then I’m going to take the shuttle. There’s someone I’d like to talk to.”