Working in the shadows, Arachna wove for hours, careful to avoid the Yumens' patrol routes. The fact that the Yumens stuck to their defined patrols and very rarely deviated made her work rather easy.

Down below, she also tracked the progress of the engineers who worked to replace the Xither-drive access computer. They were doing it wrong and had to restart their efforts several times. To her genuine surprise, Arachna immediately spotted their mistakes: the misaligned Xither-router, the backward intake funnel, the failed system reset, and, perhaps the most obvious of all, the unconverted energy metrics.

Horde, had they relied on Engineer Carlsen to do everything? It was as if the majority of these engineers did not know how to do the simplest, most basic tasks in their jobs while Carlsen clearly had an overabundance of knowledge. Had these Yumens never worked on a Xither-drive before?

Thankfully, some starship designer had, long ago, built in a series of failsafe tests that ensured stupid mistakes did not blow up the Eschaton. These tests were coded directly into the hardware within the Xither-drive itself and not in the control panel's software. Each time the engineers failed a test, the hardware forced them to restart their work. Unfortunately, since the engineers were missing their control panel they had trouble diagnosing each error and were taking an excruciatingly long time to progress.

Horde, they'd never fix it within the timeframe that Chief had given Commander Graves.

By the Xither, if Arachna managed to fix the Xither-drive, she'd likely be saving the Yumen's lives in the process.

Funny how things worked out.

It was strange how easy it had been to sabotage the ship. She hadn't even tried to sabotage it but a few drops of her acidic blood on these control panels

"I can't figure this out," an engineer said. "Ides of Mars Tech, cheap as the void."

"I know it's not easy, Stan," Chief said. The stout man was on his back and his head was underneath the bottom of the control panel.

"Broken hand-me-down garbage," the Yumen known as Stan said. "Everything on board this ship is fifty years old."

"Wish they just budgeted an upgrade," Chief said.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"I know," Stan said. "Mechanica is the only place with any good tech these days. Soon Mars will be a backwater planet. Believe that?"

"Impossible," scoffed Chief. "It's still home for me."

Stan laid down so that he was next to Chief. Both of the men fumbled through the underside of the control panel.

Arachna eyed the two men, both looked so vulnerable. They were surrounded by ten other engineers most of whom were sitting idle, unsure of how they could contribute.

The control panel was on a raised platform that was slightly elevated above the ground floor by about four feet. Was this the entire engineering staff of the Eschaton? In one place?

Arachna had designed a series of traps for the marine forces but this was just too good of an opportunity to pass up. Below the raised platform where the engineers were busy, she got to work. With her stealth cloak keeping her hidden in plain sight, she wove a simple web.

It didn't need to be complicated. This web was not as sophisticated as the others she'd designed through the engineering bay. This one only needed a single enhancement. As she secreted each strand, she coated it with more of the chemical substance she'd found in the laser saw.

The web unfolded like a net, carefully laid out beneath the platform, ready to catch anything that happened to fall off. It was perfect.

To finish things off, she wove a strand from her web back to the strand attached laser. Then she powered it on.

Immediately, the effect was a wondrous sight to behold. Her entire web illuminated in blue, shimmering light. The Yumen chemical bound to her silk strands naturally, like it was meant to be. It made sense. She had used sticky strands for her webbings as opposed to dry. This type could adhere to viscous substances like this Yumen chemical.

"What in the void?" Chief said, walking over to the edge of the platform. He pointed down below. "Do you guys see this?"

The group of engineers stood near the edge of the platform, peering over. One man gawked while another scratched his head. They seemed to be oblivious to the present danger.

Arachna watched from the shadows. Waiting.

"Is that a Krath web?" one man said.

"I didn't know that they could glow?" Chief said. "This is odd."

The engineers stared down in a befuddled shock. Behind them flapped the wings of a hovering dactyl who had gradually lowered himself down from high above. Beaky kept his wings silent and stealthy. As stealthy as a flying Krath could, at least. He would've expected the Yumens to turn around from the wind but they were transfixed like small insects trying to fly toward the sun.

After touching down, Beaky slowly walked forward toward the engineers. They still didn't seem to notice.

By now, a group of marines was also surrounding the glowing blue web, though no one dared touch it.

Beaky tilted his head to one side. He was himself amazed that no one noticed him. Then he let out a psionic pulse.

Cacaw.

Instantly, the group of engineers were pushed over the side of the platform, toppling over one another like underlings in a game of tumbler crush. Down they fell toward the laser-coated webs.

Moments later, all that remained were perfectly cut chunks of meat, fully sliced and ready to eat.