Tom watched in horror as out of the underbrush crawled dozens of giant spiders with wicked-looking pincers. He shot the first one crawling near him a half dozen times, only to see two more crawl out right behind it. Doing a little gut math, he realized very quickly that he'd run out of ammo and have to reload before he got them all. So instead, Tom activated his bike, sending it up into the air so he could pick them off individually at leisure.

About half a dozen other guys were doing the same, shooting down from the safety of their suspended bikes. Jake opted to stay on the ground, using those wicked machetes of his to slice and dice as he laughed maniacally. Tom didn't put a lot of faith in him getting out of this alive, but hey, at least he'd get to die doing what he loved. On the other hand, Eric was just stomping the spiders into an organic paste while grabbing hold of any that latched onto his armor and squeezing them into goo with the aid of his suit's servos. It didn't look like the spider's claws could so much as scratch his paint, so he'd probably be fine.

But off to the side, Ron was completely covered in spiders. His screams had reached a fevered pitch, only for Eric to turn and shoot the man in the head to put him out of his misery, as well as silence the screams. Immediately, the spiders skittered off his corpse, leaving the ravaged remains clear for all to see. It didn't look like a fun way to go.

Bill seemed to have the right idea. The maniac had brought a flame thrower and liberally hosed down the monsters from his bike. However, once he got a little too close to the main spider monster and the kid, earning him a rebuke from Eric. "If you catch that kid on fire, I'm going to shove that flamethrower down your throat and pull the trigger!" From then on, the flames were kept a little further away from the kid. Thankfully, with as damp as the foliage was, not much was really catching fire...yet.

-

Charlotte was doing her best to buy time, but even as Alice hid behind her wailing, it was clear her hands were not up to the task of handling these pirates. The amount of appendages she was losing would set her back weeks, and she couldn't keep this up much longer without putting her greater consciousness at some risk. However, her own defenses were almost here, and Scott and Lacy were not far behind them.

The best thing to do now was stall a little. Charlotte pulled back most of her hands, and as the gunfire stopped and all guns were pointed toward her, She spoke again. "If you wish, I will allow you to gather your dead and leave peacefully. I have no desire to kill any more sentient life than is necessary."

The large one in the battle suit, similar to the one She'd rescued Lacy from, stepped closer and spoke. "Oh, hell no! You're not getting away that easy after what you tried to pull! Sure, your little attack monsters are scary as hell, but they ran away for a reason! I'm gonna pull each of your legs off, one by one, and make you beg for me to put a bullet in your brain!"

He was almost there... Charlotte stepped back again. "This is the last opportunity I will give you. Leave now, or I will kill you all."

The large human stepped forward again, right into position as he continued. "Yeah, I don't think..."

Charlotte didn't give him a chance to say what he did or did not think. She dropped the hands she'd been climbing the trees with. Several landed on the men above, sitting on their airborne riding devices. They should have paid more attention to the trees they were hovering next to. She clawed and bit a few of them, but most managed to push off the hands, which fell to the ground. She'd made sure to specifically target the fire-handling human, dropping three on him. In his instinctive flailing, he fell to the ground, stunned by the fall and vulnerable at last. She ran over with several hands to finish the job. He screamed like the first human pirate had.

While the humans on bikes panicked, three more hands landed on the large human, covering where she knew his face was. Of course, he reacted instinctively, the way humans do, and swatted the thing on his face, smearing it with the hand's internal fluids. While he was distracted, Charlotte lunged forward with her interaction body and came to grips with him. True, this body was valuable resource wise, but Alice was irreplaceable, and Charlotte already had a new body almost ready that She was planning to replace it with anyway.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

As soon as the human gripped Charlotte's arms, he started to twist them back, proving he had far more raw strength than this body possessed. But rather than fight him on equal terms, Charlotte lunged up and forward, planting four of her legs against his midsection and upper torso, then pushed with her hind legs. The greater leverage of her many legs and position gave her more than enough mass to push the human onto his back, though he did crush one of her legs in his grip and completely tore out another as he fell.

He started to raise his gun, but Charlotte used her greater mass to push all her weight onto it, shoving the weapon into the ground so he couldn't lift it. The other pirates were recovering, and from the vantage point of several of the eyes she had hidden around the battlefield, She could see them point their guns at the interaction body's back. But they were too slow. The stingers were here.

-

Tom watched as Bill fell and was immediately covered in spiders. His screams were even more unnerving than Ron's had been. It was clear the spiders were attacking from above. He shouted at the rest of the men. "Get away from the trees! Keep an eye out for any of those things climbing up to get at you!"

Matching action to words, he repositioned his bike to hover over a relatively clear spot. None of those things could climb on the spindly branches surrounding him now. It wasn't lost on Tom that the small ones pulled back when that damned big one spoke and attacked once it shut up. It was probably in charge, like some sort of hive queen. Right now, it seemed to have Eric pinned. He didn't know how it had pulled that off, but he was done playing games. "Shoot the big one! As long as you're not using a high-powered rifle, the suit should be able to handle anything we throw at it!" Tom took aim as well, intending to finish things here and now, when suddenly something came flying at him from the corner of his eye.

Instinctively, Tom swung his gun, swatting it away before he turned to see what it was. Now that he got a good look at it, the thing looked like a baseball-sized scorpion, but its tail was backward, sticking out under its belly instead of over its back, and, of course, it had wings.

Not wanting to give it another shot, Tom shot it out of the air and then looked around. All of the remaining men were shooting at similar things buzzing by their heads. A moment later, there was screaming from below. Jake was reaching around behind himself, trying in vain to grab one of the flying scorpions on his back with one hand while flailing around with the machete still in his other to try and keep the spiders at bay. As Tom watched, the scorpion plunged its stinger into Jake's back again, and the idiot screamed as he dropped himself onto the ground, squashing the scorpion, but now face to face with a dozen spiders who all pounced at once.

Thankfully, Tom had spent a lot of time on the target range, shooting drones for fun, so he could pick off most of the scorpions that got near him, but not everyone was so lucky. He watched as Jones got stung twice, then fell. He hit his neck on a branch in such a way he was dead before he hit the ground. The spiders didn't even bother with him.

Damn it! This wasn't the way this was supposed to go! These were just a bunch of bugs! Tom had led assaults into over twenty ships and come out unscathed. There was no way he was going to die on this mudball! The big one had to die, and it had to die now! The kid was a little too close, but he didn't care about that anymore.

Tom pulled the pin on a grenade and dropped it next to the big one wrestling with Eric.

-

Charlotte knew she couldn't hold the large human for long. She was fighting a losing battle as she fought to pin him down despite his greater strength. There was only one weapon at her disposal out here that could do the job. She just had to buy a little more time.

The human was using several of the crude words Scott had taught her were inappropriate to use most of the time. Alice was sobbing, holding onto one of the hands Charlotte was using to try and keep the girl out of trouble. She wanted to tell the girl that everything would be alright, but right now, Charlotte wasn't certain.

The human reached up with his free hand and grabbed one of Charlotte's two hands she was using to hold down his gun arm. His hand tightened, and Charlotte could feel her carapace strain against the pressure until a moment later when it fractured and her arm went limp.

Down to one arm, She was unable to restrain his hand holding the gun any longer as the human slowly forced the gun up until it was pointed at her head. He snarled at her, "Time to die!"

But just then, something landed beside the two of them. It took only a moment for Charlotte to see what it was. It was a device similar to the one Lacy had thrown into the human landing ship to kill most of the humans in it. Alice was far too close to the thing. She could get caught in the blast.

In an instant, Charlotte's priorities shifted, and she pounced into the device, wrapping her whole body around it while the armored human, who'd also seen what fell, rolled away, shielding his head with his body.

An instant later, Charlotte lost contact with the interaction appendage as it was torn to pieces from the ensuing explosion.