Eric slowly got up after the explosion. True, his suit probably would have been fine even if that thing hadn't taken the brunt of the blast, but he would have preferred not to have tested that theory the hard way. He looked up at Tom, who'd dropped the grenade. "What the hell is the big idea?"

Tom, who'd been reloading his gun, snarled back as he fired off a few rounds at some sort of flying bug. "You're fine, aren't you? Get the brat, and let's go! We've already lost too many people out here!"

Looking around, Eric could see several bikes had crashed, and more bodies were lying around than he'd realized. Tom wasn't kidding. This was definitely a botched job. Still, if you gotta report a mess like this to the boss, it is best not to do it empty-handed. Luckily, the girl hadn't run when he wasn't looking. She just sat there, hugging the dead body of the spider monster, sobbing while rocking back and forth, completely oblivious to his approach.

-

Tom was getting pretty good at shooting these flying scorpions. He was just drawing a bead on another when he realized it was directly between him and one of the guys. He checked his fire at the last moment, only to see the idiot in question wasn't as observant. He flattened himself while slamming the control to lower his altitude and managed to get out of the line of fire just in time as a shot flew over his head. "Watch where you're shooting dumbass!"

Even as Tom said the words, another pirate fell off his bike, having been shot by a third idiot. The bugs were doing this on purpose! He keyed his mic to the whole group. "Check your fire idiots! They're flying between us to make us shoot each other!"

Just then, another of the spider things launched itself down from the tree, aiming for Tom in his new vulnerable position. He skewed his bike to the side to avoid the thing. They were still clearly being controlled by something intelligent! Was that thing still alive?"

A quick glance was all it took to confirm that, no, it was definitely dead, or at least it probably was. And even if it wasn't, Tom's handgun wouldn't do much more to it at this point... Then he noticed the spiders dragging away each of the corpses. Not just the humans but also the spiders and scorpions too. When he saw Bill's body being removed, he got an idea and throttled his bike over toward the body.

-

Charlotte's resources were dwindling. She had pulled all her nutritional stores to be consumed by her life-giving body so she could pump out appendages as rapidly as possible, but it was still insufficient. She was also collecting the biomass of her fallen appendages and the dead pirates to add to her own, but even with all that thrown into the mix, it would take her some time to completely recover.

However, Alice wasn't out of danger yet. Luckily, She had one last recourse available to her...

-

Tom unloaded into the two spiders dragging Bill, or at least what was left of him. It looked like they'd chewed off his arms and legs to be taken separately, but what he wanted was still wrapped around Bill's torso.

Stepping off his bike, Tom wrangled the flamethrower off the torso and strapped himself in, shooting a plume of flame toward another spider that ran toward him. It seemed to think twice and pull back, so these things didn't like fire, huh? Well, that was fine by him.

As Tom settled the flame thrower into place, something large flashed overhead. When he looked up, one of the other two remaining bikes was falling. It had been bisected in two, along with its rider.

That was when he saw it. It looked like an eight-foot-tall mantis with too many legs, but instead of grabbing arms, this thing had massive blades on its arms. He started to point the flamethrower at the monster, but then it jumped.

For half a second, wings seemed to extend out of its back as it propelled forward, faster than he would have thought possible, faster than he could bring the flamethrower's nozzle to bear. As it rocketed through the air, the unlucky pirate above it fired into the thing with his gun, but if he hit the thing, the bullets didn't even slow it down.

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With a swipe of its arm so fast it was a blur, the creature bisected another bike and rider, leaving just Tom and Eric.

It landed, facing Eric, who turned away from the kid to face this new monster. He raised the gun to fire just as the mantis lept. The gun tore a chunk out of the side of the mantis, but again, it didn't slow down. When they clashed, it was clear the mantis was faster, but when its blades dug into the sides of Eric's armor, they didn't cut clean through, though the impact was enough to make him drop his gun. It made sense that military-grade battle armor was a hell of a lot tougher than their bikes were, but Tom still hadn't bothered to hope until he saw it with his own eyes.

Eric grabbed hold of the mantis's blades and slowly pried them apart. The bug resisted, but Eric's augmented strength was clearly too much for it, as Eric snapped one of the blades clean off. He reached up with his free hand to grab the bug by its throat when a second mantis appeared behind him.

Tom shouted out a warning and fired off a burst of flame just as the beast leaped again. The flame caught the thing, searing through one of its wings and charring its carapace, but the mantis still slammed into Eric, its claws digging into the armor as Eric fell to his knees. That was when Tom noticed Eric hadn't gotten away cleanly from the first hit either. The armor had shielded him from the brunt of the blow, but blood was still leaking out of the gashes in his armor.

Eric swung back at the mantis behind him, but the monster dodged back while the first one moved in again, swinging its one remaining blade. Eric caught the blade on his forearm, which was more heavily armored, but he looked like he was slowing down. Even in a battle suit, he wouldn't last long at this rate.

Tom realized that if Eric went down, there was no way he could take the two remaining monsters. There was only one thing he could think to do. Stepping forward, Tom aimed the flamethrower's nozzle and pulled the trigger.

A jet of flame shot out, catching the second mantis full-on. It remained silent, but Eric didn't as he screamed in agony. Even though he only caught a bit of the flame indirectly, the gashes in his armor were apparently more than enough for the fire to do its job.

Rather than simply go down, the mantis continued to swing at Eric, pummeling him even as the fire did its damage to the monster. It was dying, but not fast enough. These things were insane! Tom shot out a second plume of fire, holding down the trigger longer this time as he stepped forward, hosing the thing down in fire until it collapsed.

The first mantis was still battling Eric. It was pummeling him even as he shouted at Tom, "When I get done with this thing, you're next!"

Tom slightly tilted his head in acknowledgment. "Well, that doesn't sound like a very smart thing to say while I've still got this..."

Realizing what he meant, Eric shouted out, "Wait! No! Don't you dare!" But Tom was already pulling the trigger to hose down both threats simultaneously.

Eric made an effort to reach for the gun but, a moment later, collapsed as the pain became too much. Tom kept the flame going, making sure to cook both the mantis and Eric thoroughly. As the old saying goes, dead men tell no tales.

Tom was just congratulating himself on killing two threats with one flamethrower when another mantis appeared. Based on how long it took those things to die once they were on fire, Tom knew he'd be dead before it was. Unless...

The pirate aimed the flamethrower but not at the mantis. Instead, he pointed it toward the kid. They both knew that as fast as the mantis was, it couldn't kill Tom fast enough to save the kid. The mantis jumped, and he pulled the trigger. Sure enough, that dumb bug jumped in front of the flamethrower, pushing the kid out of the way like he'd expected. She'd probably still have some burns, but she'd be alive just like Cooper wanted. The bug, though...

Tom laughed as he stepped forward, hosing down the thing to make sure it didn't get back up when a voice spoke up behind him. "You son of a bitch, that's my daughter you tried to kill!"

Tom tried to turn as fast as he could, but a shot rang out, and the world went dark.

-

Scott froze. The whole area looked like a massacre. Spiders and humans alike littered the ground, butchered in every way imaginable. In the middle of it all, mostly unscathed, sat Alice, sobbing over the body of what had been the form of Charlotte they were both most familiar with.

Seeing her like that, something in Scott broke out of his daze, and he rushed over to her, holding his little sister tightly. Their mom took a moment to cut the neck of another pirate still struggling, though, at this point, it was more of a mercy than a killing blow before joining her two kids. "Are you alright?" Alice just kept crying, but Scott checked her over and nodded. "Yeah, she's a little singed, but she'll live."

Alice didn't seem as comforted. "But...but...Charlotte!"

That was when the hand that had guided them walked over, with a mouth spider still sitting on top. "Alice, I'm still alive and functioning. They hurt me, but they did not kill me."

Watching his little sister hug a giant, scary-looking alien spider with pincers was still surreal, but it made Scott smile anyway. "We're all safe, that's what matters! Let's head back so we can treat your injuries, then we might want to think about moving again so they can't find us."

Alice nodded and started to stand up, but Charlotte spoke again. "Scott, Lacy, there's another falling object rapidly approaching. I believe it's another human landing craft."

Their mom swore. "It's Cooper! We have to leave now!"

Charlotte answered, her voice far too calm for what was happening. "I do not believe we have time. He will be here in just a little over a minute."