Ronin heard glass shatter, as his people reacted to the shout. Dropping whatever they were carrying and drawing their weapons. Within a few seconds, there were thirteen guns pointed at the intruder. Ronin didn’t have much time to take in the speaker as he was busy sighting his sidearm on her head.
“Don’t shoot.” Leo bellowed, loud enough to rattle the glass in the frames. “She’s a friend… that goes for you too Red, these guys get twitchy about their ‘lords’ safety.” Ronin clearly heard the sarcastic way he pronounced his title but was still in reaction mode and now wasn’t the time to comment.
“My name is Doctor Mycroft, and I’m not friends with anyone who’d destroy history like this.” Ronin had finally calmed himself enough to take in the woman’s appearance. She was a tall, incredibly busty, human woman with red hair. Natural red hair, not the fire red of the goblins. After living with them for so long, Ronin thought it looked rather orange and bleached out, but for a natural human color, it was startlingly red. Her skin was pale, and hadn’t seen the sun in weeks, and a light dusting of freckles sprinkled her cheeks. If Ronin had seen her in his pocket world, he could have almost mistaken her for a normal human woman in her early forties.
What set her apart were the four tentacle-like appendages that sprouted from her back, coming right through the ankle length, brilliantly white, lab coat she wore over tan slacks and a white shirt. They were each at least six feet long, and as thick as his upper arms, tapering down to wrist thick near the end and tipped with delicate looking hands, each of which, including her normal hands, were holding pistols. That was six pistols in total, pointed directly at Ronin’s small group.
“Come on Red,” Leo said, his voice taking on a soothing note that Ronin had never heard before. “It’s Leo Dawson. You recognize me, right? We spent a year together researching crystal beetles. You, me… and Locke.” The hesitation between words made Ronin curious who he’d chosen not to mention. “I assume he’s just inside the door then. He never strays too far from his dear auntie.”
“Don’t you dare disrespect my aunt, you mangy mutt. We should never have associated with you before and I’ll be damned if we do now.” Shouted a new, nasally voice, and a small weak looking man ran out from the building’s open door. He also wore a lab coat and had tentacle like arms on his back holding guns, but he only had two of them. Ten guns between two people, Ronin started to wonder if Gunner had been onto something when she’d designed the scout body with four arms.
“There you are, Locke.” Leo said, his voice changing slightly to include some scorn. “Glad to see you remember me.” By the end, he was speaking in a growl.
“Oh, put them away you two,” Doctor Mycroft said, holstering all six of her guns in one fast, fluid motion that Ronin couldn’t have matched with only one hand. “Put the guns away too. Yea I remember you… but you’d better have a good explanation for this, Dawson.” She’d turned away as she spoke and had already disappeared back into the building the crystal tree was growing out of, by the time she was done talking. One of the flexible arms on her back beckoned them to follow her inside, before it too disappeared. Locke wasted no time in following her, only stopping long enough to give Leo a hard glare.
Ronin and Elyria looked at each other and then at Leo, who was staring into the building with a complicated expression. Turning to his people, who all still had guns drawn and ready, Ronin nodded his approval.
“Good job everyone, that was some quick reflexes. It looks like the danger has passed, so go ahead and get back to work. We should probably get this done before we get any more surprises.” He addressed his troops, who he still hadn’t managed to learn most of the names of. Before turning to the kaldarr, “K3, want to stay here on overwatch?” He wanted to go with Leo but didn’t want to leave his people defenseless in the process. Since the scouts were gone and Elyria would doubtless follow him in, that only left the giant to watch as his men worked.
“Sure boss,” the giant said with a nod. His PCP 1.0 was still in his hands, so he didn’t have to draw it, but he did readjust his grip to signify his readiness. That taken care of, Ronin turned back to Leo and Elyria.
“How do you want to do this?” He asked the older man, who was still looking at the spot doctor Mycroft disappeared. Shaking his mane, Leo turned to ronin.
“I didn’t anticipate this; Red is a real academic type. Big into theoretical research and lab work, I never thought I’d see her down here. The opportunity to get six free bodies must have been too much of a temptation.” He was shaken, Ronin could tell. It was another new side to the man, who fascinated and terrified Ronin in equal measure. “I think the best bet will be to tell her the truth. She’s a smart woman, odds are good she’ll join us.” Ronin exchanged a look with Elyria, who only shrugged.
“I’m ok with it.” He said, giving Leo a shrug of his own. “I know there is limited space on the ship, but the goal should be to save as much of humanity as we can. If she’s a friend of yours, we should try to include her as well. Worst case and we don’t get a seat on the ship, it’s another five pair of hands to fight the lizards with.” Leo looked at him with gratitude and nodded. That surprised Ronin, because he had never thought of the lionid as a man who would care about his opinions, but it was nice to see, regardless.
“Thanks kid,” Leo said, “then we’d better go talk to her, Red isn’t the most patient woman around. Just ah, let me do the talking ok?” With that, Leo stepped through an opening where a glass panel used to be and headed for the door Doctor Mycroft had entered. Ronin watched him move forward a couple of steps, double checked that his team was doing ok, then followed behind.
Stepping into the enclosure, he looked around. It was dark, at least compared to outside. The dust had settled on the ceiling panels, and Ronin wondered how the inhabitants had ever cleaned them. The space inside the glass wasn’t huge, the size of a city block, but surrounded by dirty glass and the four towering buildings it felt cramped to Ronin. He wondered how it must have felt to live in such a confined space, able to see outside, but not able to go out. Always knowing that only a thin pane of glass stood between himself and death. It had to have been more nerve wracking than living underground had been.
As they approached the ruined building, Ronin felt glass crunching beneath his feet as they moved from the dead, dusty ground onto the colorful hues of the rainbow grass surrounding the tree. Looking up, he saw the building had been gutted when the tree sprouted. Branches stuck out from various points in the building as they’d grown, leaving ruin in their wake. Not only the building, but much of the wall had been wiped out in that corner of the enclosure as well. There would have been no way to fix the damage before everyone died. It was a terrible way to go. Ronin had seen it before, when scavengers from the cave hadn’t made it back before their air ran out, or their lines sprung a leak. He’d found more than one body in his time. Ronin had always taken the time to gather their equipment to be returned to their families. Entering the building, he was forced to step over more than one body. It looked like several dozen people had tried to escape the building when the end came, only to die in the entrance way.
“Where are we supposed to go?” He asked, looking around and not seeing the doctor.
“This way.” Locke said, his small form materializing in the hallway. “Who told you to bring the kids, mut?” He snapped at Leo, both his extra arms moving down to his belt. They came back up a moment later, each holding a bright flashlight that he pointed into each of their eyes for spite, before turning around and leading them away.
“What’s his problem?” Elyria muttered, glaring at the man’s retreating back. “Who is he calling a child, anyway? I’m one-hundred-twenty years old.” Ronin blinked in surprise at the number. He’d assumed she was older than he was, but that was more than he’d expected.
“Perhaps you are,” Leo said with a nod. “But that is in elven years. Developmentally, you’re barely into your twenties. Locke is older than the fall of humanity. That’s two hundred years, in the real world. Add in time dilation and he has lived for many thousands of years, subjectively. Red is even older, being his biological aunt. Don’t underestimate him, he might be a prick, but you don’t live that long without being capable, or at least knowing capable people.” The memory of Leo and his pride tearing a swath through the hive, and the crystal cores that had filled two of the swimming pool sized beetle chairs was all the proof Ronin needed of that.
“I didn’t realize you were so subjectively young. How long do moon elves live anyway?” Ronin asked Elyria, as he followed the unwavering lights down the dark hallway. He had to watch each step to avoid tripping on fallen building material as they moved. The flashlights were actually hurting his night vision more than they were helping him, because it robbed his eyes of the chance to adjust to either light or the absence of it. Still, Locke looked very human, it was likely he couldn’t see in the dark at all, so Ronin endured.
“Subjective age be damned, I’m still way older than you. In experience as well as years.” Elyria huffed, as she walked along at his shoulder. She never walked behind him, like K3 did. She walked at his side, as if determined to prove that she was his equal, at the very least. “Normally, we can endure for upwards of five thousand years. But there are always exceptions. Some of the elders, who tap into the home ship’s seed core have survived for tens of thousands… Don’t you worry, White flame, you won’t outlive me anytime soon.”
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She said the words with a smirk, but it actually did make Ronin feel better. He was effectively immortal, assuming he didn’t die and his crystal stasis stone, or whatever they called his pocket world, wasn’t destroyed. He didn’t know about the body he was currently inhabiting, but if the wasps on the trees could live to grow into dragons than he had to assume it could endure the test of time as well.
“We’re almost there,” Locke said, jolting Ronin out of his ever too common flight of fancy. He looked around and saw that they’d reached a set of double doors that said, ‘stairs,’ beside them. Ronin wondered why they had stopped at the stairs, but Locke spoke before he could say anything. “Be quiet when we get inside, the doctor is doing an experiment. One that you interrupted when you barged into her chosen workspace, potentially ruining her work... Just be quiet and wait for her to address you.” With a final glare for Leo and a finger to his lips, he reached out and opened the double doors, walking quietly inside.
Following him in, Ronin found himself in a stairwell, which looked like it had been designed to circle up around a central opening all the way up the center of the building. He could only speculate, however, because of the massive tree that was growing right up the center of said stairwell. Parts of the concrete stairs were still clinging to the outer wall of the stairwell, but not much. Even so, that was where Locke led them, on a slow arduous climb up the stairs and around the tree. They were forced to use the tree as a foot hold on several occasions. Floor after floor they climbed, getting higher and higher, until they came to a section of the tree that had branched out in several places. Here, they found Doctor Mycroft, hunched over a table that held a dog sized ladybug.
What was behind the doctor, attached to the tree, had Ronin reaching for his PCP 1.0, before a restraining tentacle gripped his wrist and Locke shook his head, finger once again pressed against his lips.
“Tissue regeneration is adequate,” the doctor said, seemingly to herself. “The current formula has led to a tremendous level of growth in specimen number twenty-seven. The mutation is still prevalent however, need to adjust the dose and the mixture. Will do that once the autopsy has concluded.” She was fishing around inside the, still living, ladybug’s insides. Poking and prodding but using all six of her limbs to do it. Ronin marveled once more at the way she could manipulate them. Granted, the subject matter was somewhat macabre, but still.
She held a small glass dish in one of her human hands, and a pair of tweezers in the other. Two of her tentacle arms were gripping the beetle, who was struggling, and holding open a large cut on the creature’s abdomen. A third held a flashlight, while the final one held a small, sharp knife, that it was using to cut off small pieces of beetle internals, that the tweezers were holding, before she dropped them into the glass tray.
Despite how impressive her manual dexterity was, Ronin still had to work hard to focus on her hands. She was on the far side of the table, facing them while she worked, and her lab coat had slipped open while she was bent over the table. Her shirt, it turned out, was incredibly low cut. Leaving the newcomers with an unobstructed view of her ample chest. Ronin didn’t think he ever remembered seeing a woman before who had such generous proportions, and he was having a tough time finding the beetle guts more interesting. A soft chuckle from Leo and a sharp jab in his temple from Elyria reminded him he wasn’t alone, and he cleared his throat with a blush. Finding that Leo looked amused, but Elyria and Locke both looked ready to kill.
“Don’t worry about it kid, she made em that big to get attention in the first place. Be pretty damn hypocritical to get mad at someone looking at them, don’t you think?” Ronin’s blush deepened, and he refused to look at Elyria, whom he knew was staring daggers at him, or Locke, who’d switched his glare to Leo, for speaking when he’d told them to be silent.
“Locke, come and button up the specimen. Be sure it’s adequately labeled; I don’t want to have to hunt for it next time.” She was finishing up, putting the samples into a refrigerated case.
“Of course, Doctor.” Locke said, jumping to do her bidding with a submissiveness that was in stark contrast with his earlier behavior towards them. While he worked, the doctor moved around to the tree where the monstrosity that had Ronin reaching for his rifle was located. All the feelings that open shirt had stirred in him instantly died when he looked at the creature. It was simply grotesque.
It was a similar size to the oakkin Gunner had bought at auction. Except instead of a tree shaped man, this was closer to an octopus, with thorn covered vines for tentacles, which were tipped with wicked looking syringes. Its body was composed of several semi-translucent bags, floating inside a spike covered latticework of muscles, designed to hold them together. The bags were filled with fluids that ranged from sap green to the pink of enhanced nutritional fluid, and a few that didn’t look natural at all. Including an electric blue in a fluid filled boil, growing from the creature’s main body. It had six of its syringe tipped limbs plunged deeply into the crystal tree’s smaller branches and was sucking the sap through its main body and pumping it back into the tree. Its remaining two tentacles were both pressed into clear chemistry beakers, fluid slowly dripped from their tips, pink into one, electric blue into the other.
“Still playing the mad scientist, I see.” Leo said dryly, as he too looked at the horrifying creature. “What is that supposed to be anyway?” Even as he asked the question, a second creature, nearly identical to the first, slithered over from the shadows and dipped its own tentacles into the beakers the first was filling. With a silent contraction of its limbs, it sucked the fluid into its own body, where Ronin could watch it enter more semi-translucent sacs that had an entirely new range of colors and thicknesses. It was disgusting, and Ronin had to hold back a shudder at the sight.
“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” The doctor asked, as she stroked a thorn covered tentacle with the nimble fingers of one of her own extra limbs. “When we were studying the beetle’s history, I was extremely interested in their biology. It’s entirely artificial, them having changed their entire evolutionary process in order to migrate across the stars in their stasis stones. Not only that, but every biological need; from the fuel their engines run on, to the food their bodies eat, are all grown by these artificially created trees. Once collected, they’re changed through more biological machines to produce more advanced chemical concoctions, again like the ship fuel or the enhanced nutrient fluid.” She waved all the arms on one side towards the tree as she spoke.
“So, I thought, ‘If they used biological machines to alter the tree’s produce, why can’t I?’ After I had that thought, I locked myself into a time dilated lab, and theory-crafted a few months…”
“Twenty-three years, doctor.” Locke cut in helpfully.
“Yes, well,” she said, clearing her throat. “I theory crafted for a while, and came up with these mobile altering machines, which feed off one another to refine and change the tree’s fluids in new and exciting ways.” Upon finishing her explanation, she took a deep bow, once again showing her cleavage, in a move Ronin suspected now was quite deliberate.
“As fascinating as that is, Red, what’s the point?” Leo asked with friendly exasperation. Ronin had to agree, he couldn’t imagine spending twenty-three years locked in a lab. It would be like him spending years picking out the perfect body for this mission, since Jade had said he had unlimited time. Sure, it might net him a better result, but the returns would diminish significantly after a few weeks.
“My name is Doctor Mycroft. Don’t call me Red, Dawson.” The doctor said, in an absentminded way, that told Ronin this was a normal part of their relationship. “And the point, do you even have to ask? Look at the body you’re wearing right now, that all of us are wearing. You look like a dog, with the body of one to boot, and the kids gussied themselves up like bugs for some reason. While I,” she paused to look down at her full, well proportioned, hourglass figure with a toothy grin. “I had to tone down my natural charm, to avoid you boys getting any nosebleeds… But the point is, no matter what we chose to look like, we were spit out from the same growth vats. Made from the same materials that birth the beetles. Only we aren’t totally compatible with the process. Humans can’t reproduce in these forms. If I can alter the stuff that feeds our bodies enough, perhaps I can make humans compatible. Then we wouldn’t need the ship anymore and could come home to earth. It might take a while, but we will rule the planet again in a few thousand years… which brings me right back to what the hell were you doing, taking apart the enclosure? When I save the world, we’re going to want that as a memorial to how bad things were before I fixed them.”
Ronin just stared at the woman as she finished speaking. In that one, run on sentence of an explanation, she’d opened his mind to more ideas and concepts than he’d ever even imagined on his own. Blinking a few times, he exchanged looks with his companions who wore equally stunned expressions. If Ronin had any doubts about bringing her on before, they were long gone now. Leo gave him a questioning look, and a slight head tilt the doctor’s way, which reminded him they had to tell her about the lizard threat. With a nod, he indicated his agreement.
“Actually, that’s fascinating, Red.” Leo said, starting off with a complement. “There are, however, a few new developments that might change your experiment’s parameters. You see…” They stood inside the ruined building, next to the vine monster, as it leached the tree of its nutrients, while Leo explained the whole story to Doctor Mycroft. “So, it was a rigged game from the start. We’ll no doubt get screwed over and left behind, but it’s the only chance we have. You interested in joining the team?”
Ronin’s mind was again drawn to Xerox, on his secret mission aboard the ship. He wondered again if he should tell Leo about it, but again, decided not to. If Elyria was right, and Leo was just using him, then he didn’t want the man to be able to mess up his plans. If it turned out he was on the level, then Ronin could tell him when the time came to act, and no harm would be done. At least he hoped not.
“This is going to take some time to process.” Doctor Mycroft said after a while, sitting down on the edge of the worktable and crossing her arms and legs and furrowing her brow in thought. “Another alien race coming to earth, and of all the ones we know about, it had to be the lizards.”
“Wait, you already knew about the lizards?” Ronin asked, confused.
“Of course, kid.” She said with an impatient frown. “Didn’t Dawson tell you just now that we’d spent a year together studying everything we could dredge from the ship’s network on the beetles and everything they knew about the universe? We know everything that was accessible from the ship. Which wasn’t a lot, but enough to let me know that we’re screwed once they get here.” Ronin’s face reddened slightly in embarrassment. He really should have picked up on that. He just kept forgetting that not everyone was as ignorant as he was.
“Well, your idea to save the people from your hometown is admirable, but something doesn’t add up.” She turned her attention to Leo and asked. “Why are you even bothering? You know you can’t save them. Humoring a child is one thing, but so close to the end of the world. Isn’t there better uses for your time?” Ronin made to interject, planning to use the same excuses he’d given to Leo, but the lionid beat him to it.
“He has at least one person on the ship, if not a small team of them.” Leo said the words that pierced through Ronin’s secrecy so casually, like he’d known all along. Yet, what he said next absolutely floored him. “I’m also ninety percent sure that he has another way off the planet too.”