Ice glanced at the fluid on his arm then slowly up. He stumbled backwards as he looked into a mouth full of teeth. The jaws snapped shut with a clack where his head had been a moment before. He fired his railgun reflexively at the ceiling, sending chips of stone flying before he adjusted his aim and shot the Theriope multiple times until it fell down and stopped moving.
"Raven, what the fuck is that it looks like a Type 2 with teeth?! It's huge!"
"That is the evolved Type 2 classified as a Type 14. They lose the ability to explode, however, they become much larger and more durable. They are considered a far more dangerous threat. We should proceed with caution if we are going to move further into this nest."
Ice sat on the floor of the cave looking at the twenty foot long centipede with teeth the size of his hand. He took a deep shuddering breath. "I think I need to do this, Raven. If I back out now, I doubt I will be able to come back anytime just out of fear." Using Alpha’s sturdy bulk to pull himself off the ground, Ice took one last look at the Type 14. "We need actual lights, Raven. What do you have?"
"We can use a pair of enhanced lighting drones. They are small flying drones. A company originally for making videos on an app. They have bright lights on them and long battery life. I can also control them without using any control limit."
"Do it. Can you have them follow where I'm looking?"
"Yes, that shouldn't be a problem."
Ice nodded as the white light morphed into a pair of camera drones which floated off the ground and positioned themselves above and behind him flooding the cave with light. He could see about thirty meters further down the cavern.
"It'll work." Ice grunted softly.
"Good."
Ice poked at the body of the Theriope and watched as the small nano bunker Alpha carried released a small cloud of nanos which devoured the body before returning to the backpack bunker. As he checked the dial on the bunker he noted it had barely moved from the one Theriope. He sighed and started to walk further down the long tunnel keeping a close eye on any holes in the walls or ceiling.
When he turned the corner, came face to face with the backside of Cat he stopped and sat down in the middle of the hallway to rest, activating the device Ducky gave him.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
A wave of blue light shot out of the device going into the walls and down along tunnel. A partial map starting at the entrance of the cave system and ending seven hundred and fifty meters past where Ice was sitting appeared in his HUD. He could see numerous small side tunnels honeycombing the walls and the ceiling off every large tunnel of which he could see five.
"Shit, this is going to take a while. Maybe we should go back to the ship and use the nano lure system Ducky was telling us about. I just didn't want to because it will use 5% of the remaining enzymes in the bunker."
"I believe this nest is large enough that we will gain more than we will lose. Having all of the D.O.Gs in one place will provide a more solid defense and we’ll be backed by the ability to leave."
"Fine, I suppose you're right. Let's head back." Ice stood up and started to walk back down the tunnel calling Cat and Alpha to follow and keep an eye out. When he got back to the teddy bear he stooped to pick it up and tried to wipe off some of the slime. Shrugging he dropped it in a small bag that formed out of his armor and kept walking letting Beta fall in with the other drones without missing a step.
When they got to the end of the tunnel Ice activated his armor's communication device and told Ducky to launch the nano lure. He jogged back to the ramp of the ship and gathered all the D.O.Gs in a defensive formation with the Tier 2s in back and the Tier 1s acting as a frontline. Ice himself took up a position in the middle at the base of the ramp with Cat next to him.
The nano lure launched from one of the ship's drop bays. It was a loud siren on top of a pseudo organic amorphous blob. Ice shuddered at the sight of the flesh slime, as he had dubbed it when Ducky described it to him.
The sound of running feet and metal scraping along stone came from the cave entrance and Ice readied himself. He also pulled out his other store purchase and tossed a small round ball in front of the cave.
As the first Type 3 ran past the ball it flashed a red light and exploded into a circle of foam about forty meters in diameter. The Type 3 that was trying to move through the foam got stuck and despite its attempts to surge forward was unable to. The other Type 3s and Type 2s that followed it became equally stuck and Alpha and Beta picked them off one by one with focused railgun fire. As the Type 2s exploded they would take a small circle of the foam with them; the acid dissolving it.
The Type 7s began to come out of the cave moving through the foam without a problem. Their blade legs chopped all Theriopes that were in their way cleanly in half. Ice and the Tier 1 D.O.Gs opened fire, his railgun splitting limbs when he hit and knocking the Type 7s back, slowing their advance. For every one that fell down, two more would come out of the cave in a ceaseless pattern. As Alpha and Beta finished off the Type 2s and 3s that were stuck in the foam then turned their twin railguns on the Type 7s that were swarming towards their position. These full size railguns fired with accuracy that was devastating; sometimes shooting right through a Type 7 into the one behind it. They quickly decimated all of them, leaving blade-like limbs and exploded thoraxes lying all around the mouth of the cave. leading in a long trail towards the ramp of the ship.
It was then the nightmare of Type 14s began crawling out of the cave; each one larger than the first one that tried to ambush him inside the cave.
The foam didn't even slow down the Type 14s as they were simply too large and too strong to be contained. Ice fired his micro rails at them but they only penetrated slightly. "Raven, what the fuck?! Why won't the flechettes go in?"
"Those are fully mature Type 14s. They have skin that rivals small space crafts for durability. You will need to attack them from much closer or with your nano blade to do any significant damage."
Ice groaned and switched from nano shield to nano blade. He took one reluctant step forward as the first of the nightmare creatures reached his Tier 1 D.O.G's, biting one in half in one smooth motion.
"Fuck that. Everyone back on the ship were leaving right now!" Fitting action to words, Ice dashed up the ramp of the ship. Followed by Alpha, Beta, and Cat. The Tier one D.O.G's were trying to get to the ramp but two of the three were quickly overwhelmed. The last D.O.G. running up the ramp with a Type 14 chasing it as the ship left the ground. Another Type 14 attempted to bite one of the repulsars on the bottom of the ship but was crushed when Ducky flipped the safety off