Garrett watched his opponent as it circled him, gun levelled towards its eye, hopefully, that would prove to be a weak point, he could feel the alien’s spiny back pressing against his, noticeable even through the ballistic plate. This place, it was odd, almost dreamlike and yet not quite. For a single moment, his rifle wavered and the monster struck. With a triumphant howl, it lunged for him, metal teeth glistening in the ethereal light of Nidi’s… whatever it was. Garrett fired and dove. Three bullets struck the beast, two plunging into its more, a third striking the eye. The robot howled as it barrelled through the space he and his new friend had just occupied, the alien having apparently taken to flight and was now trading blasts of lighting with the cat. Turning his attention to his own fight he snapped off another three rounds into the machine’s side. The shot ricocheted in a shower of sparks. The machine spun around, one eye sparking, the other gleaming with icy blue malice. Garrett felt something inside him twist like a part of him wanted to break out and escape. Running on years of training he ripped a grenade from the webbing and jammed it into the underslung launcher. The monster turned, coiled up to strike. Garrett slammed the breach shut. The monster pounced; Garrett fired. There was a deafening crack and a flash. There was a ringing in his ears. There was pain, though less then he expected. Prying his eyes open he found himself lying on the branch, blood leaking from his ear. With an unheard groan, he lurched to his feet and glared at his handiwork, the monster’s skull had been ripped open from the inside, its last good eye dangling from a smoking eye socket by a single dangling wire. Looking up he caught sight of the alien as she dropped from the sky, slowing at the last possible moment to come to a gentle landing. Reaching out a clawed hand she yanked him to his feet, a stony expression on her face, frowning at the expression, Garrett turned his attention to the rest of the battlefield, and his heart dropped. The rest of the clan lay still in a pile of scrap metal, blood mixing with rain and oil that slowly spread and dripped off the branch and into the inky darkness. Brushing his pants off Garrett scowled, these… things (what were they?) things had slaughtered these people, and for what reason? He couldn’t guess. But he should be able to, the briefing would have mentioned some objectives, given objectives to take and defend. So why couldn’t he even recall his commanding officer? He felt a chill, what the hell was going on? The woman, she was kneeling next to the bodies of her comrades, for a moment Garrett thought she was in shock, as to be expected from someone who had never seen a fight. Except that wasn’t what she was doing, her face was a stony mask, not of pain, but of frustration, resignation, the look of someone who had seen this before, not casualties, THIS was something else entirely. For a moment he stood still, weighing his options, if he moved now… he had no idea, but if he waited… he also couldn’t know either. But if he took the hostile route, he could be certain he would lose an ‘ally’ in a hostile environment, but play along? He could always deal with the threat later. With that in mind, he trudged forward and placed a gloved hand on the alien’s shoulder. She turned her head to stare at Garrett, her eye smouldering with a dark, cold rage. Weighing his words, Garrett spoke.
“Are you ok?” Nidi frowned, “not really, you know I thought this would get easier a second time.”
“Second time?” Garrett pushed.
“My clan was attacked one the way here” she stated, her tone notably defensive. Electing not to mention that fact Garrett continued. “The enemy will probably send another patrol if they haven’t already, we should get out of here.” Nidi remained still for a moment and Garrett had a brief flash of concern at the idea she may decide to stay, but instead she silently stood up, turning her back to the battle with a stony look on her face.
“Come.” she stated. I know of a place we can take shelter.” Garrett nodded, and they were off.
Christ this woman can run. Garrett thought as they sprinted across the forest, ducking under branches and leaping over yawning depths. Ahead of him the alien moved with frankly unnerving fluidity, slipping through the forest with barely a whisper or a disturbed leaf. The strange sounds of battle had long faded from the ambience of the forest. The shrieking of those robot bastards had carried on far longer then these aliens’ weapons had. The echoes of battle had since been replaced by the gentle chorus of this planet’s wildlife. Despite the omnipresent danger, Garrett had to admit that this place had a certain beauty to it, albeit one that seemed quite eager to eat him, that fungus was definitely giving him the evil eye. In fact it DID have a translucent starburst eye, and it was slowly tracking him as he bolted past, the tree it was attached to seeming to writhe in the darkness, he began to run even faster, trying to close the distance with his ‘friend’.
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After what felt like several hours of running through a wonderland of potentially carnivorous flora and God knows what else that crawled, scurried and waited in the darkness. Nidi for that matter appeared utterly unperturbed by any of this and had continued at a punishing pace, though for some reason Garrett was sure that she could have run significantly faster if she wanted to. Fortunately, she appeared to have reached their destination as she suddenly skidded to a stop before turning right and diving through a curtain of glowing moss with Garrett diving through after her, and banging his head against something as he came through, swearing he pressed his forearm to his head, eyes squeezed shut against the pain. Fortunately for his bruised ego, Nidi had apparently also fallen victim to the same woody lump as she sat just inside the hollow with a handful of leaves pressed to her forehead. “Got you too?” She muttered as he stood up.
“What is this place?”
“It is a hollow, normally used by travelers seeking shelter from the elements, and now holes for my people to cower in.” the final words of that statement being spat out with incredible venom.
Garrett sat down, weighing up how to pursue the subject, on account that he couldn’t really think of any way he could defuse the subject effectively, electing to attempt to gather intelligence he decided to push along a tangent. “So the enemy, who are they, and what are they after?”
Nidi sneered, “The Auto Wars, we call them the Scourge or the Aberrations, they came from the stars and have consumed my Clan’s land along with our neighbours' they have destroyed our lands and burned our groves. We have been fighting them for about a dozen cycles and not. For. A. moment. Have. We. Stopped. Them.” Garrett nodded grimly, if individuals like the the woman before him had failed to contain this threat then they must have had some pretty serious forces. Whilst Garrett was no rocket scientist, he was pretty certain that unless these ‘AutoWars’ had some sort of teleportation such numbers would have been incredibly expensive, not to mention challenging to even get off whatever planet they came from. “So how did they get here, how many were in the initial attack?” Nidi frowned further. “One.”
Garrett chocked. “I’m sorry. I thought you said one?” Nidi glared at him. “Yes, a great iron egg that fell from the sky in a ball of fire. When it hatched it unleashed the first and the greatest of those monsters rose from it and began to spread its influence from there, it began to create more young that did it’s bidding, it tore up the earth itself and twisted it.” Finishing her diatribe Nidi noticed that the man across from her had gone pale. “Are you familiar with such creatures, Garrett?”
“Yeah where I am from we call that a grey goo, they are machines that can infinitely self-replicate on an accelerating scale”
“You have a name for them, how did you create them, HOW DO WE STOP THEM?” She had grabbed him by his plate carrier.
Delicately placing his hands on the alien’s Garrett slowly pried himself from her grasp.
“I don’t think you can. The whole nature of grey goo is that it self-replicates endlessly, you literally can’t kill them faster than they self-replicate. There is probably is some way of fighting them but I don’t know.”
“Then how do you know of them?”
“They are a common thing in lots of stories, kind of a warning of technology going haywire. I’m sorry but if this thing is what I think it is then this planet is probably gone.” He immediately regreted that statement as Nidi’s face went slack, she sat back as she grasped her head with both hands, a low whine of pain emanating from her. Sitting back Garrett hissed, inhaling the cool, damp air.