Three marines guarded the entrance to the engine room. They wore heavily armored carapace and carried assault rifles. Two patrolled the entrance hallway, marching back and forth.
Clank, clank, clank.
The stomping of the guards' boots resounded against metal floors. The room acted as an echo chamber filled with noisy racket.
What good did patrolling do? Arachna wondered. Wouldn't it be better to sit and watch in stealth? That was what a Krath on the hunt would do. It was as if these Yumens wanted to broadcast to everyone that they were here.
She scampered in through an air duct and lowered herself on a single silk strand to get a better look at the guards scattered throughout the room. Aside from the three at the entrance, there were five patrolling inside the engine room itself. These were even louder than the ones outside because the upper floors inside the room were made up of metal grates attached to the walls.
Horde, they were loud. At least it made her even more difficult to detect by sound. Not that these Yumens had any meaningful sense of hearing.
How was she going to retrieve enough Xitherium to bring back to Beaky? If only she had been a harvester. Harvesters were specialized Krath units that collected Xitherium and synthesized it into pearls for use by Hive Mothers or as food by other Krath. They could store Xitherium in their bodies while they collected it and had the added ability of being able to inject Xitherium into wounded Krath to speed up the healing process.
As a queenling, Arachna had none of these skills. So, she'd have to improvise.
The utility closet. That was the best place to start. She climbed back up her thread and climbed toward the closet in the corner of the room. How to open it? Reaching out with one of her hands, she clasped the handle and turned.
Huh? That had been easy. Last time, turning a handle had been so difficult. These Yumen appendages were useful.
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Her hands were constructed differently than the rest of her body. How her Hive Mother had managed to engineer them to fit she had no idea. Each hand actually had bones within it and a series of flexor and extensor muscles that gave it an awesome range of movement. In contrast, her six hind legs operated on a precise system of hydraulics, tightly controlled within her cephalothorax.
Her body was also primarily an exoskeleton while her hands were an endoskeleton. The fusion of the two at the ends of her frontal limbs was seamless. Her hands were now a natural extension of her Krath body, and she could operate them with ease.
Slipping into the dark closet, she shut the door. Being able to see in the dark, made this room an optimal place to plan her next steps.
She took stock of the tools. There was a laser saw, a flashlight, nails, a data pad, and more of that sticky gluey substance. That might come in handy. While she could trap the Yumens with her own webbing, doing so would give away the presence of a Krath queenling. If she used their own tools against them—well, that might not.
What else was there? There was the mop she had used to scare away the Yumen marine known as Burke. She wondered what had happened to him. He hadn't been among the guards patrolling the room.
The mop rested in a bucket full of blue foamy liquid. Hmmm, she could use that to carry Xitherium but didn't need whatever the foamy substance was. She dumped it out. The liquid quickly spread out through the closet and started seeping out the bottom of the door.
She scampered over to the laser saw. Suddenly, she felt her legs give out from under her as she slid to the other side of the closet. In a flurry, she struggled to regain a standing position, fluttering her legs up and down, pounding the soapy floor. The tiny claws at the bottom of her six legs couldn't grasp hold of anything. Horde, the floor was slippery. Whatever had been inside that liquid was making walking very difficult, and she slammed against the opposite wall. Ugh.
"What's going on?" a voice said from outside. Horde, that wasn't good.
Avoiding the floor, she climbed the wall reaching for the laser saw with her two hands. This was something she could use. If she could use it to cut the Xitherium tubes, perhaps she'd be able to collect some in the bucket to bring back to Beaky.
In an instant, the door to the utility closet slammed open and the light flicked on.
Staring her directly in the face was a Yumen marine with wide eyes and a dropped jaw.
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