My drones and I continued down the tunnels at a slow but steady pace, constantly shooting glances in every direction. So far we have not encountered any enemy drones but we were all prepared to bolt for the exit if we spotted anything threatening. Above the surface, my remaining drones were starting to regain their senses and had begun preparing to follow me and my team's example.

Reaching a particularly sharp turn, I order the scout rat in the squad to peak around the corner and to tell us what is there. Begrudgingly, they do so and begin relaying that there were about a dozen medium sized drones with a few handfuls of smalls. I inquired what they were doing and my scout rat quickly replied that the enemy spider drones were patching up the noticeably damaged drones.

Looking back at my squad, I can see that I only possessed four hounds, three ants, a scorpion, a fire beetle, and a scout rat but they do not count. Deciding that picking a fight with my current force would not end well, I begin to comm the rest of my drones before I hear a panicked scrambling from my scout drone.

I quickly spun around to see that my scout rat had abandoned its post and was in the process of climbing onto one of my hounds. I quickly found out why as a MAI drone rounds the corner and begins sprinting towards me. My drones and I swiftly decided that our stay is no longer welcomed and promptly began to leg it back towards the shaft exit.

Unfortunately, the ants in my squad were less than the quickest of drones, especially compared to hounds, and so they began to lag behind. Thankfully my fire beetle was sitting on top of one of the ants and provided a slight deterrence to the MAI hound. However more enemy drones were joining the chase and these ones looked twitchy like the drone we had fought at the surface which did not fill my confidence that fire alone would stop them.

Speaking of the surface, I warned the drones up top about our immediate return and the drones who were chasing me. As I was doing this I caught a glimpse of when one of my ants got caught by one of the twitchy MAI drones and was promptly swarmed. Their sacrifice was not in vain however as they served as a suitable distraction which allowed the rest of the squad to make it out without further harm.

My drones and I hurriedly joined the other drones in the defensive line and immediately began fending off the enemy drones who were right on our heels. They too fought with a suicidal rage but were swiftly put down by my drones now that they knew what to expect. As we pushed back the berserker drones, I noticed that more of the raging drones were rushing out of the tunnels.

Now that was not too surprising as one large and even fight is better than a bunch of smaller fights at disadvantage however I saw that the newest drones running into the fray were progressively becoming more and more damaged or decreasing in size. This was enough to convince me that the MAI was getting desperate and so I urged my drones to push a little bit harder and that the fight was almost over.

We unfortunately took more casualties than I had hoped as the small enemy drones managed to punch slightly above their weight class which was unexpected to say the least. Nevertheless my drones ended up the victors and celebrated accordingly with a few yips and cheers.

Sending my injured drones to the spiders, I took my remaining healthy drones and began descending back down the tunnels towards what I was guessing as the central production area of the compound seeing that it was the largest of the underground spaces. Reaching the same spot where I was chased away from, I and my drone posse turned the corner and stepped onto the plated floor of the heart of any production hub.

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Walking up to the nearest drone works, I see that it was in the familiar shape of a medium drone works. The machine looked used recently which did not surprise me but what I found strange was the same fleshy clumps of mass which was covering the drone works. In fact, almost everything in the room was covered with the stuff although it was mostly congregated at the machines and strangely enough the ceiling.

Following the web-like pattern of the clumps, it eventually led me to a small door which was located at the far end of the room which was almost completely covered with the clumps. The door was already slightly left ajar so I pushed in the door to reveal a rather poorly lit room with what seemed to be servers of some kind. Even with the abysmal lighting, I could see that every surface was matted with layers of the fleshy clumps.

Stepping into the room, I could feel the ground under me squish and compress under my weight. Then, one of the clusters of clumps moved. All at once dozens of stringed together clumps reeled back and above me something pulsed with a faint red light. Backpedaling out of the room, I watched as that something began crawling off the ceiling and onto the ground before pulling it else out of the room it was presumably sleeping or something in.

The thing was large, about the size of a small car in the shape of a sphere of sorts, with dozens of long strings with chunks of its flesh clinning to it. These strings of fleshy ball things seemed to be the main things main appendages, acting as legs and arms, and were sprouting from every available area. The thing was mostly black but had many dark red streaks and crosses dotting its body.

My scorpions quickly assessed that this was a threat and immediately fired their beam cannons however they proved to be rather ineffective against the fleshy form. The beams did cause the thing to reel back after absorbing the blow but aside from that, it managed to shrug the attack off. A few of my more practice hounds decided that since the stun beams were not working then more physical attack would.

This proved to be correct as their chomps tore into large chunks of the thing however the beast pulsed and changed color from black to a static white for a few moments. The chunks that were not directly connected to the thing pulsed as well but did so in a much more subdued manner. That was not important now as the three hounds who charged the thing were now convulsing on the ground and their joints were flashing.

Then, as their joint lights settled on a familiar static white, they suddenly stopped convulsing, got on their feet and started snarling at my drones and I with the same look as the berserker drones we had just taken down a few minutes ago. Me and my drones were hesitant to actually fight the now berserk hounds as they were our buddies just a few moments ago but those notions were sadly forced to be set aside as the three hounds charged at us.

My drones swiftly took down the turned hounds and were careful not to accidentally consume any of the strange fleshy stuff. The thing attempted to get a hold of more of my drones using their tentacles or whatever you would call them but thankfully my fire beetle provided a nice deterrence as they were quite effective against the squishy and rather flammable flesh.

With the turned hounds now taken care of, my drones began falling back slowly since the only thing that could truly damage the thing was the fire beetle. This would have been all fine and good but my little drone would run out of fuel sooner rather than later which was not ideal. The retreat was going well, my fire beetle fended off any attacks made by the thing.

Then, as if the universe realized that this was too easy, my hornets began sending in worried messages saying that the worm was beginning to convulse. I soon realized that the drone had just gobbled up at least a half dozen enemy drones which were all but guaranteed to have some of the fleshy bits inside it. With this news my drones and I began forgoing an orderly retreat and started booking it out of the enclosed tunnels.

The fastest of my drones were able to reach the mouth of the mineshaft but by then it was too late as the distinct rumbling of my now possessed worm started up its drills once more. Crap.