I pinned my ears back and snarled while looking around. Taureen and the six guards all glanced at me before stopping with their weapons out.

“There is a sicora nearby. The scent is quite strong.”

The guards slowly spread out while Taureen waited where he was. One fired an energy weapon at something I couldn’t see, and the sicora charged from its hiding place. Taureen raised an odd weapon he had been carrying. It looked like a big nerf gun, but when he hit the trigger, it launched what looked like an iron spike.

The impact knocked the sicora off-balance, and it struggled back to its feet as it eyed up the hovering vehicles. The guards were too high for it to jump at without climbing a tree. It dodged several energy blasts, although the ones that hit it didn’t seem to be having much effect. It seemed to ignore its wounds as it snarled and kept trying to climb trees to get at the guards. Not long after, it went into seizures before stilling in death.

Keith swung his skid by Taureen. “I assume you laced that bolt with Tasha’s saliva?”

Taureen nodded. “I wasn’t sure how long it would remain potent, but it seems to remain effective as long as it doesn’t dry out.”

I snorted at the dead creature below as I rustled my wings. It had taken Taureen a fair bit of persuasion for me to let him collect some of my saliva. Only the knowledge that it would mean sicora deaths had convinced me. The sight of half of a shia fruit before supper practically had me drooling, and Taureen had no difficulty getting a small vial before handing over the delicacy.

Turning his skid around, Keith eyed up the sicora. “That is the second sicora today,” he said. “I’m going to radio for another guard group to join us. We have no problem if they come at us one at a time, but if we come across two or three at once, we will be seeking refuge in the sky.”

“At least we know we are on the right track,” Taureen commented.

~

The air hummed with the faint noise of over a hundred of the hovering sea doo-like skids. It had been three days since we found the first sicora, and the Kymari had killed over thirty sicora and well over a hundred crawlers as we scoured the forest. It was more than they had anticipated on encountering. We had to be getting close to the hive for this much activity.

We were on the edge of the mountains and steep terrain was a rule. The continuous smell of crawlers had a growl lightly rumbling through my chest almost constantly. Occasionally, I would spot one, but most of the time, one of the guards saw it first. An energy blast later, and it was counted among the casualties.

Crawlers were easy to kill, but the sicora were another story. Several other Kymari now had tiny vials of my saliva and a dart weapon. The sicora had a bad habit of hiding in the canopy branches and dropping down onto their victims. Luckily, there had been no Kymari deaths despite several minor injuries from such ambushes.

The wind shifted, and I spun to face upwind with a shuddering hiss at the scent that tainted the air. My claws dug into the shoulder pad instinctively in my ire. Taureen glanced at me as he slowed down and turned his skid to face the way I was looking.

Turning my head to keep my nose in the wind, I said, “There is… something… in that direction, and it smells like a rancid sicora.”

My agitation would surely come across my mindvoice. This level of emotion simply wasn’t something that I could easily shield. The group of guards easily shifted with us in the middle as we started heading in the new direction.

About five minutes and a dozen crawlers later, the group located a huge hole in the side of a cliff. Even as we looked at it, a sicora came out and charged towards the nearest guard. The guard shot a dart and swiftly rose in the air out of reach. The creature milled around in confusion, unable to get to its target, before falling into convulsions.

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Guards took turns swooping near the entrance, eventually luring out three more sicora and a dozen crawlers before nothing more emerged from the shadows. Taureen moved his skid closer to the entrance, and I snarled at it, leaning backwards away from it.

My snarl was probably reverberating across my voice, “I’m not sure what is down there, but I am not entering that place willingly.”

Taureen put more space between us and the entrance the moment I leaned away from the gaping opening in the rock. The smell coming out of the tunnel... I didn’t have words for it. I wanted to light the very odor on fire. I wanted to turn tail and flee to the sky. My instincts were screaming that it wasn’t safe near the ground with that scent floating around.

Heat built at the back of my throat with the odor. I flared my wings with a screech while lashing my tail. I warned him, “You might want to back up a bit more. I’m having a hard time controlling my flame.”

Taureen looked at me while reversing the skid some distance away. The guards parted to let us pass, obviously having noted my agitation and distress. Taureen reached up to stroke my wings in an attempt to calm me down somewhat. It didn’t really help, though; I was still hissing non-stop with wings half-opened.

“Sorry, I can’t help my reactions.”

My mindvoice would carry my frustration about being unable to curb my instincts, as well as the fact that my mental state wasn’t as bad as my actions were making it out to be.

I think I now know how arachnophobes feel; they may know that the pea-sized spider can’t actually hurt them, but the body’s response completely overrules the mind. I know Taureen wouldn’t let anything near us and would take to the sky in a second, but I simply can’t stop myself. But whatever is in that hole is no harmless little spider...

Our six personal guards spread out around us while about twenty others guarded the entrance. The rest started pounding huge bases for posts into the ground using the equipment that they had brought with them.

Five minutes later, the posts for the energy shield wall were in place and ready. They would keep anything inside the football-stadium-sized clearing and prevent it from escaping into the surrounding forest.

I looked up as a large shuttle passed overhead. It landed in the clearing, barely settling down before dozens of Kymari inside started unpacking and rolling equipment down the ramps. Before long, the shuttle lifted back into the air and left. The technical crews immediately began setting up their specialized equipment.

Thanks to previous talks with Taureen, I had a decent idea of what they were doing. One after another, a dozen remote-controlled rovers rolled into the inky blackness of the tunnel. They bore an odd resemblance to a six-wheeled tank, although they were about the size of a motorcycle.

They carried a slow-burning fire accelerant that they would spread on the ground as they went deeper into the hive. It caught fire slowly, but burned for hours once lit. Every so often, the machines would plant a small sensor with an ignitor. It would detect movement in the tunnels and could light the sticky substance on fire if the rovers got trashed by the sicora.

The rovers had an electrical current shield to deter sicora, but it was no guarantee when the creatures detested the invasion into their home. The accelerant wouldn’t be lit until they reached the bottom of the hive. At the very bottom, the alpha female would be found. She was the one that was laying the eggs that hatched into crawlers.

Their goal was to drive her to the surface with the slowly-spreading fire and kill her in the open. To try and kill her in her lair was a suicide mission.

The odor of the sicora hive was diluted by the smell of so many Kymari and their technology in the immediate vicinity. The accelerant also masked a lot of the smell that came out of the entrance. My hissing subsided to a steady growl as I continued to watch the proceedings. Our six personal guards slowly circled us, ensuring that no unseen threat approached unnoticed.

“You ought to pass Keith that bolt gun. There are only a few with that weapon, and he can get a few shots in since no one will let us close enough to attempt it.”

“Keith.”

Taureen tossed the weapon to him as Keith turned to look at him. He easily caught it and looked at Taureen in curiosity.

Taureen explained, “I can’t get close enough to use it, but I’m hoping it will make a difference. We have no clue how many sicora are left in those tunnels. Once they light the fire, I’m heading for the sky, so I won’t need six guards.”

Keith nodded, eager to join the fight. He undid the safety as he turned back to watch the entrance. Occasionally, a crawler came out of the tunnel, disturbed by the robots, and was promptly killed with an energy blast.

We waited for the rovers to make their way to the bottom of the hive and lay our trap.