Chapter 121: Chapter 116

Our time was cut short at an inopportune moment, by bombs detonating over-head. I staggered out of the Lincoln, nude and staring at the sky, while clutching my shotgun. Molls shut the door quickly behind me with her tail. The suit activated and covered my junk, but I didn’t need either the armor or the privacy. The campground was awake and active, but nobody was looking at me.

In the sky above us, dark shapes plunged from high altitude, to be caught by our Fumble-Bee net at the last moment, detonating a mere fifty feet over our heads. The latest whistled in, and a drone lit up as it gave chase, catching and detonating the explosive.

Sound washed over me, and I clapped my hands over my ears as they erupted in high pitched whines.

“Damage detected user!” My cartoon starfish popped up and stuffed cotton balls in its own non-existent ears.

I covered my ears as the next bomb went off, this time just getting buffeted by the sound and force. Our drones were still catching the bombs, but they were having a harder time

“That’s in your cranial area, so user restrictions prevent me from performing repairs,” the cartoon explained, shrugging its starfish shoulders at the end.

I ignored it and turned back to the car. Molls opened the door and emerged, ducking her head and covering the sides of her head as another bomb went off overhead. She was wearing her robe, but it was loosely wrapped and revealing. She tossed me my silk pants and sandals before moving to open the trunk of her car.

A moment later, she was wearing the oversized helmet I had seen on her before. She adjusted her robe and tied it tighter, activating the heating element with a quick shudder. I dug my own cracked helmet out and slid it on over my head, grateful the hearing protection still worked. Molls’ helmet must have had something similar, for her hidden hearing organs.

I looked away, back to the explosions in the sky. I couldn’t see any vessel, the ordinance was merely coming in on top of us.

Molls touched my arm and said, “What’s happening, Tyson?”

“Dearth is bombing us again.” Another bomb went off overhead, causing us to duck. It was like the worst fireworks show in the world, all just for us.

People were rushing past in the road, heading for the second compound and the entrance to the underground. I made a mental note to upgrade that elevator and grabbed Molls by the hands.

“I think you should go underground, Molls. It isn’t safe up here. I have to go find my hobbs, figure out how to stop this.” I said.

She nodded, then dipped down to kiss me deeply, on the lips. I returned the kiss, rubbing my hand against the pebbled scales on her chin.

“Be safe, Tyson,” the Nah’gh woman said. She pulled me into an embrace against her chest, and I wrapped my arms around her. Her tail coiled around my legs lightly but let go the moment I shifted my feet. We kissed again, briefly this time, and she moved around to the car.

Doofus scrambled up my driveway, tail tucked firmly between his legs. He ran straight past Molls and slid in the gravel to my feet. When I patted his side, he whined and licked his nose.“It’s okay buddy, run to the office, there’s a barn you can hide in, that’ll help!” I told him. He cocked his head at me sideways.

A button projected on the ground from his collar, and as he ran away, he stepped on it. “Loud!” his new mechanical voice said, as the oversized dog ran. He kicked up gravel and dirt, moving fast as he vanished over the privacy hill. It was nearly three in the morning, so it was time to get Doof and Phyllis moving anyway. I’d just stick with him until we left for the hive.

Molls acquired a shoulder bag from inside the trunk before closing it and slithering quickly away toward safety. I slipped my sandals back on and took the privacy mound after Doofus, jogging past Axle’s stumpy library toward the front gate, where I could see Fumble-Bee drones lighting up as they exited the storage barn and went to replace lost drones on the grid above us.

My phone showed I had missed calls from both Morbin and Rayna, so I called the latter. She picked up after a single ring, and I could see that she was below ground with the elevator crew, helping unload people and directing traffic into the hobbs’ area. Nobody had even asked, they simply made room for everyone during the time of crisis.

“Boss, good,” Rayna grunted.

“Situation report?” I asked, still moving toward the gate.

“Morbin warn us bombs coming. Fumble-Bees already in air, seem to be working so far.” She turned to help an older hobb couple off the elevator.

“How is our supply of bees?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Enough. Hive says our stock can last two days at this rate. We bought plenty with security budget.”

“Okay, thank you. Where are we on the yarsp defense?” The detonations in the air above us echoed across the valley. There was no way the bugs weren’t on their way already.

“Mo-gas in place. Trenches dug, spikes laid, spears ready,” Rayna listed off. “It early still, but this bring them for certain. Tollya getting first shift ready,” she said.

I nodded. “Good, thank you Rayna. I’ll be in touch before I leave for the hive, let me know if you need anything then.”

She grunted and hung up the phone. I was glad to know that the place hadn’t fallen apart without me, but it did bother me that I missed an attack because I was in bed with Molls.

That relationship had taken a turn into the purely sexual territory, since we broke the dam, so to speak. Not that I was complaining, but I definitely saw some complications coming because of it. We would have to be more careful, I made a mental note to keep my phone on alert mode when I was with her.

I sighed as I walked toward the storage barn. A headset-wearing hobb fed a small line of new drones into the hive, even as another tiny hatch opened and a Fumble-Bee zipped out to join the grid and sacrifice itself for our defense. When I glanced inside the barn, I could see Doofus’ hind legs sticking out from behind a stack of couches.

Morbin was on his deck, wearing some kind of heavy headphones and staring up at the sky. When a bomb blasted apart in a gout of flame, he raised his long arms and cheered. He looked over and spotted me, before leaping off his balcony and extending his wings to glide over the residential lot.

With a light flutter, Morbin landed at my side. He carefully tucked his wings in and looked up at me with a toothy grin. “Hey, boss! Don’t worry, I no tell anyone why you missed the call.”

I scowled down at him. “You heard all that huh?”

Morbin nodded, his grin firmly in place. “Morbin hear everything.”

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I took a deep breath through my nose and flinched as another bomb went off overhead. The concussive force was lessened, and when I looked up I saw that the grid had elevated, to give the drones more time to catch the fast moving bombs.

The small bat creature at my side made a small whistling noise that increased in intensity until he flung his wings wide and mimicked an explosion with his mouth. It matched perfectly with another bomb detonating in the air over our heads.

“These not coming from any ship, you lucky you hired Morbin,” he chided me. “I heard them coming and got word to your hobbs. Very good employee, no?”

I blinked and glared at him. “If there’s no ship, where’d the bombs come from?”

The little bat blinked his eyes at me and shrugged. “Up there.” He pointed with a single, long finger digit. Another bomb went off, even further up this time, near the edge of the Fumble-Bee’s range.

I was glad they were able to cover as much airspace as they were, the damage to the spider ranch would be worse the closer the bombs hit.

After the sound and shockwave rolled over us, Morbin leaned in and nudged me with his elbow. “This Nah’gh woman of yours,” he started. “She have a sister? Friend?”

“Control your appetites, Morbin, she’d swallow you whole.” I fished out the bottle of tequila and offered it to him. When he grabbed it with both hands, my grip tightened, and I met his eyes. “And be very careful who you gossip about around here. Is that understood?”

Morbin gulped and nodded, accepting the bottle as I let go. He set it on the ground and started working the cap free. It was one of those stupid little disks of plastic with a real cork embedded in it, and his sharp claws struggled to grip its slick edges.

“You no need to threaten. Morbin cool,” he sulked, as he worked on the cork. It pried up with a satisfying pop, and the bat leaned the bottle to take a swig.

“I don’t like being extorted,” I answered. Another bomb hit the grid, exploding far overhead. Doofus poked his head out of the storage barn, looking around nervously. I patted my leg and he walked over to lean on me heavily.

Morbin’s eyes widened at the dog, and he wiped his mouth from the bottle, sticking out his long arm to Doofus.

“Hello! I’m Morbin! What’s your name?” He asked.

Doofus delicately sniffed his claw, then lightly licked it. He lit up the ground in front of himself with a single button and pawed at it. “Doofus!” his machine said.

The dog yawned and leaned on me harder, a clear suggestion that I should scratch his ears. Poor Doof, he’d always hated fireworks, and this was just a beefed up version.

I did his bidding and scratched behind both ears. Doofus groaned in pleasure and lidded his eyes. The gem on his collar sprang to life, and Doofus pawed at a button made of light on the ground. 

“MMMMM!” the device said. 

His eyes shot open when the next bomb hit far above us, but his response was muted now that they were far enough away.

“You should stick with me, Doof. We’re going on a job today,” I said, as I straightened up and reached for Morbin’s bottle of tequila, as he took a long pull from it

“Hey, woah, take it easy. This stuff affects you by weight, you know?” I pulled the bottle away from him and recapped it, tucking the remains of it away in my bag. The thing was down almost half-way already.

Morbin burped. “I want to eat the worm,” he explained with a shrug.

“I can’t tell you how many people on my world have suffered for that particular quest. Tell you what,” I said, leaning over to look him in the eye. “We’ll get to the worm together, and then you can eat it. How’s that sound?”

Morbin’s eyes lit up. As I suspected, he was just a friendly drunk. Someone offering to drink with him was likely all he really wanted. The more I thought about it, the lonelier his ability to hear made him feel to me. Of course he wanted a friend. When you knew everyone’s secrets, it was hard to make friends.

Morbin started nodding, then hurriedly reached out a claw and shook hands with me. “Deal, boss. Deal! When do we eat this worm?”

“Later. I’ll share a few drinks with you if I make it home, and everyone here survives through the morning,” I said as I straightened up. Been a while since I’d had tequila for breakfast, and there was no way I was eating before we left, as tense as I was. Getting fucked up with an alien bat sounded like a good way to celebrate surviving what I had to go do next, if I did.

“Oh, psh!” he exclaimed. “Survive this, survive that. Life on Nu-Earth not so scary. If things get out of hand, Morbin just portal out. BuyMort trips to Storage are free, and Morbin rich now. Can easily afford passage off.”

That made the attitude of a handful of my alien co-workers make a lot more sense. These life and death struggles were just a job to them because most of them could portal to Storage anytime they wanted to, with a simple BuyMort pod. Then, if they had any funding under them, they weren’t trapped and could leave again, finding a new affiliate to attach themselves to.

Obviously, the hobbs didn’t seem to be working on that methodology, as three had died defending us already. But the casual attitude in the face of death made more sense, knowing that Storage was there waiting to catch you if things got too rough.

Morbin stuck his hand out at me, recapturing my attention. “You promise, we drink together when you get back?”

I smiled and shook his claw. The little guy was making me miss my intoxicant habits, and I nodded at him. “I’d love to, Morbin. I’m into making new friends.”

His jaw dropped as his eyes went wide again. “Me too! Good! We chase worm together later.” He sauntered off back down the residential lane, whistling as he went. 

He whipped his wings out to the sides, the picture of pure bliss. Above us, the starry night backdrop of earth exploded, another bomb stopped by the rigorous buzzing of the worker drones.

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