I stepped out onto Storage, in an arrival platform dome.

Immediately I noticed it was overgrown, a thick jungle of vines and grasses covering the translucent metal dome. In open patches I could see the gas giant that Storage encompassed, and a handful of other spires in the distance. I had chosen an arrival platform at random, hoping to miss any remaining BlueCleave fortresses.

They’d only been built on a handful of platforms, but I had no way of knowing if they had expanded in the century I’d been missing. Fortunately, the platform I landed in was empty of sapient life. All I saw was a handful of oversized leaf bugs fluttering from vine to vine.

The central elevator platform was overgrown, but I noticed a place where the leaf bugs pushed in and out, so I hovered down toward it and brushed aside some vines. Leaf bugs the size of large dogs scurried away from me, and the area behind the vines revealed a darkened elevator shaft.

With a thought, I activated my armor, including my nanite anti-magic helmet. It offered dark vision, which equated to low-light or thermal depending on the scenario. The tunnel lit up with insect life, all moving to avoid me as I floated down the center of the shaft.

The vines quickly turned into roots in the elevator shaft, gripping the sides and absorbing moisture dripping down from above. Light shined in from above and below, and more plant life grew in the next level from all four open doors.

I floated into the center of the overgrown area and stopped to look around. Each of the tunnels spread out in four directions, and each rounded tube filled with dark soil. It ramped up from the doorways, and vibrant foliage crawled up the walls.

Only one of the segments of Storage featured sapient life. I watched as hundreds of gobbs fled toward me from the far end, chittering and screaming. Chasing them was a series of off road vehicles, filled with humans, hobbs, and orcs. They used nets launched from mounted cannons, and darts shot from rifles to capture the gobbs en masse.

As I watched, hovering in the center of the massive cargo elevator shaft, little green men began scrambling down the root clusters and vines. They swarmed, heedless of the oversized insects in their way, eager to escape the all-terrain vehicles.

The gobbs pursuers slowed as they neared the lip of the elevator shaft, seemingly content with the captures they had already made. Nearly a dozen of the open-cockpit vehicles ground to a stop near the lip and clustered up. The operators disembarked once the vehicles were parked and began jovially shouting to one another while rounding up the gobbs they had in nets.

The men, hobbs, and orcs were all armed beyond the dart rifles they had used on the hapless gobbs. My enhanced vision showed me laser sidearms, machetes, and even Highwater Blaster shotguns. They didn’t use them though, instead rounding up the gobbs they had captured and shoving them into an oversized cage on the back of a particularly large truck.

I hovered in the shadow of the elevator shaft and watched, staying still to avoid being noticed, but my fists clenched at the sight of the helpless gobbs being rounded up. Some of them were limp, unconscious from the darts. Others were in a sheer panic, trying to escape their nets or climbing the bars of the prison truck.

From below me in the elevator shaft, a large, gangly shadow moved against the wall. The escaping gobbs parted around it and a series of cheers arose as an oversized Storage spider galloped up from the shadows and charged over the lip of the elevator shaft, heading directly for the gobb poachers.

A larger than average gobb was on its thorax, in a specialized saddle. I looked closer and saw several mechanical enhancements to the spider itself, which the gobb quickly put into good use. A thick shot of webbing splattered across the biggest group of poachers, and the spider lunged forward to impale two of them on metal-tipped legs.

The jovial shouts turned to roars of anger and weapons fire filled the large tunnel. Both gobb and spider proved quick, as the gobb picked off poachers with a long rifle that appeared to fire simple slugs. Laser fire chased the spider through the foliage as it darted from cover to cover, lunging forward to ravage a poacher when opportunity presented itself.

I scowled and moved to join the melee. I’d seen enough, and the single brave gobb was massively outnumbered. A dozen poachers circled up around the main truck, guarding their catch as the spider wreaked havoc on their outer lines and killed stragglers.

One of them turned on a flamethrower and began sweeping the jungle around them, clearing out the spider’s cover. I plunged forward and slammed into the man, sending him flying into the burning jungle. The spider moved, nearly too fast to properly see, and spat something at him. A glob of green acid struck the man’s tank as he flew, and he landed in a giant fireball, destroying two of the poacher’s vehicles.

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Sudden angry shouts filled the air around me as I turned and deployed my armor. Small arms fire ricocheted from my chest and limbs, the laser beams and shotgun slugs having no effect. I pulled my punches and started knocking the poachers off their feet, stopping short of breaking their fragile bodies with my enhanced strength.

I needn’t have bothered, as the spider charged into the clearing at the back of the truck, one portion of its legs on fire. It speared the poachers and spit acid at them, whirling around as the gobb on its back took snap shots and killed sapients with uncanny accuracy.

He reloaded between each shot, slipping oversized shells into the breach of his rifle while clinging to the saddle with only his short, green legs. I slammed into poacher after poacher, breaking bones and sending them sprawling for the spider to stab. Soon it was whirling around with dead poachers on several of its legs.

The spider dropped and rolled to put out its flames, as the diminutive goblin warrior leapt from its back, firing and head-shotting a poacher while in midair. He came up reloading his rifle and took another down as the orc charged his position. I flew through a hobb as the alien aimed a Highwater Blaster at the little green man, then stooped to pick up his shotgun for myself.

It was loaded with flechettes, which I discovered by firing a round through a nearby human’s chest. My attempts at non-lethal combat were abandoned. The faces of the captured gobbs crammed up against bars as they desperately tried to escape drove me into a fury.

Poachers died as the gobb and I covered each other. I took weapons fire for him, and he shot assailants charging me with sparking nets. His spider returned, still smoking, and impaled the last of the poachers in a fit of stomping. It turned to look down at me, half of its eyes flashing at me with the glint of mechanized replacements.

The little gobb raised a hand and barked a guttural word at the spider, and it froze. The creature looked between us, then started walking among the dead poachers.

“You,” the gobb said to me, in passable English. “Who are you?”

I retracted my armor and turned to the locked cage behind us. “Tyson,” I said, before ripping the bars apart and freeing the captured gobbs inside. “Nice to meet you.”

“There’s no meat. You have meat?” the gobb fighter chattered.

The gobbs that escaped the truck carried their drugged compatriots with them, before all filing past the warrior gob and touching his arm or shoulder. He nodded to them, and accepted a small gift one offered him. It was an oily block of paper tied with string.

“Oh, meat,” he said. The gobb unwrapped the block of greasy meat and tore into it. At our backs, his spider picked among the dead poachers, before finding a particularly large orc to dig into.

The gobb chewed noisily as he looked me up and down. He shouldered his rifle and popped the last of the meat chunk into his sharp-toothed mouth. “Why help us?” he finally asked.

I shrugged. “Seemed wrong that they were rounding you guys up like that. Once I saw you fighting back, and how outnumbered you were, I just felt like I had to help. Why are they after you guys anyway?”

“Humans hunt gobbs. Always hunt gobbs. Catch us, take us away from Storage, make us work,” he said, wiping his face.

“Slavers,” I said.

The gobb nodded.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

He picked at a chunk of gristle caught between his pointy teeth, then flicked it into the tall grass. “Nozzle,” he said. Then he gestured vaguely toward his spider, who was still happily eating the orc. It had made shocking progress, the orc’s torso was almost entirely skeletonized, and the spider was gnawing on his breastplate. “That’s Babyeater.”

I nodded. “He looks like a Babyeater.”

Nozzle shrugged. “He not really eat babies. I just call him that, scare slaver raiders.”

Babyeater lifted the orc corpse and tossed it into the tall grass. I frowned and nodded.

“What you doing in Storage?” Nozzle asked, eyes narrowed. “Not part of Silken Sands, but you have starfish suit.”

I chuckled and nodded. “I’m hiding from Silken Sands, as a matter of fact. You know a lot about them?” I asked.

The gobb shrugged. “Some. They hunt us sometimes, use suits like yours. Fly, hard to kill.”

“Silken Sands hunts gobbs?” I asked.

“Only if we make too many problems. Some tribes raid cities. That always cause trouble,” Nozzle explained. “My people stay away, only have to deal with raiders. Sometimes bugs.”

His people filed away toward the elevator shaft, climbing down the vines and abandoning the upper levels.

“Need to find new site for village,” grunted Nozzle. “You come with? Help me protect?”

I shrugged and lifted off, hovering over the fleet of trucks.

As we passed by, Nozzle pointed at each and sold them to BuyMort, along with the remaining corpses in the grass. He sighed, reading his BuyMort readout after the pods had come. “Never enough. Raiders use cheap shit!” he exclaimed.

“What do you use the morties for?” I asked.

Nozzle mounted his spider and followed his people toward the elevator shaft. “Life,” he scoffed. “What you use them for?”

I chuckled and nodded, hovering alongside Babyeater. “Yeah, life. Me too. Even here in Storage, I guess I need some. Speaking of, do you guys have anything else to eat? I’m starting to get pretty hungry.”

Nozzle nodded. “We stop in storage bays, steal something to eat. Had to leave last place fast, left most of village’s supplies behind.”

“What are you guys doing so far up the superstructure? Isn’t it safer down below?” I asked.

Babyeater started climbing down the vines, Nozzle rocking and swaying in his saddle.

“Hiding from raiders, what else? All we do, move and hide from raiders. Lose some gobbs every time they find us, upper tunnels safer. More to hide in,” the gobb explained.

“You have to leave your homes behind?” I asked. “Every time you run?”

“Sell some, but yeah. That why we go to storage bays,” Nozzle explained, as his spider turned and painstakingly climbed down his own vine. I followed closely behind.