Chapter 153: Chapter 147

We headed across the open area toward a nearby bungalow.

As we approached the building, obvious damage in the tarmac began to appear. Pockmarks of laser burns coupled with gray-blood-stained paw prints.

Tollya opened the door with one hand, showing a crew of human and hobb workers cleaning up a massive amount of gray blood. The room was a bunkhouse for new starfish recruits, who lived on base until it was clear they had mastered their suit and could be reliably deployed.

It was all trashed, beds and lockers knocked over, weapon scarring in the walls and floor, and an obscene amount of gray blood splattered across everything. A hole was even torn in the far end of the room, like a giant can opener just split the steel sides.

Tollya jerked her chin in the doorway. “Killed in here. Beast opened door. Like person.”

“You know what did this?” I asked her. There was no body, but the sheer amount of gray blood in the room indicated our starfish trooper had, at the very least, put up a fight.

Tollya shook her head. “No.” She jerked her head toward the command center, a short walk across the compound past a few other barracks. “Video footage in there, with suit.”

I nodded and followed her, and soon, Axle was studying the starfish suit on a nearby medical bench while Tollya had her technician bring up the footage. We’d installed security cameras in most areas of the city we considered critical infrastructure, and the base housed the largest population of surveillance tech in Prescott aside from the elevator.

The view was fixed, in the ceiling over the door. A single male hobb in track pants and a bulky first-stage starfish suit lounged on a bed in the room, arms behind his head as he watched a video on a personal device. It appeared to be a Nah’Gh woman dancing seductively, but the hobbs' focus was quickly diverted as the door swung wide and something entered the building.

A large, blue-black mastiff walking on six legs entered, showing iridescent black teeth with a snarl. Something shimmered on camera, near the creature’s head and shoulders. I couldn’t tell if it was a glitch in the camera, or something that had happened.

The beast moved on its rear four legs, which were powerfully muscled, and raised its front two as it rushed the starfish trooper.

To the hobbs’ credit, he was up and moving before the creature lunged, and he dodged the initial rush. The large hound slammed into the space the hobb had just occupied, camera pixels around its head wavering as it attacked. His bed frame lifted and spun, flipping through the air to crash against a wall. The beast stood still and lifted two thickly muscled tendrils that ended in scythe heads from its body, waving them in the air like vipers.

The hobb roared and smacked his own chest, daring the beast to attack, but it stalked in a slow semi-circle around him instead, as the hobb fumbled for a weapon in one of the nearby lockers. His hand retracted with a hobb war pick, and he turned back to face the creature.

“Pay attention boss, this part important. Not know how, but something wrong,” Tollya whispered.

The hobb on screen roared and raised his war pick, rushing to the left of the creature and striking heavily at a bed, while the beast stared at him, scythe tentacles waving. It turned and glowing green eyes flashed on the screen before it struck.

The creature grabbed the hobb with its front arms and tore into his back with its fangs, both tentacles ripping into him so fast the camera couldn’t properly track the movement. Great gouts of gray blood sprayed, and the beast leapt free with a snarl as the trooper’s base-level suit deployed tendrils.

Body parts were replaced, flesh foam sprayed into wounds, and the hobb was given a dose of painkiller. He slumped against the bed, breathing heavily as thick grey blood dripped down his hands, before his eyes went wide with anger. The hobb roared again and stood, turning to face the circling creature, war pick in one hand.

Once more, he rushed and slammed his weapon down into empty air to the side of the beast with glowing eyes, before it slashed him anew with the scythes from its position of relative safety. This repeated, with the hobb flailing at the open air to either side of the creature, missing, and getting slashed up by the scythe tentacles.

At one point in the drawn out conflict, the hobb paused to crush a bed-frame for charge.

Tollya shook her head. “Too new. Not used to painkiller.”

He did stagger on the screen, but so consistently attacked the wrong area that the creature was never in any danger from him. It took its time, kept its distance from the suit tendrils, and tore him apart over and over with the scythes on its tentacles. Each attack came with a mild distortion of the camera image, around the head and shoulders of the hound.

After it noticed him break something, it started focusing on his arms and legs, slicing through tendons, and then slashing his vital organs over and over. The beast prevented him from breaking anything else and tore at him repeatedly. It almost appeared to be draining the suit’s charge intentionally.

The hound circled and licked at the tacky blood after the starfish trooper finally stilled.

A squad of hobbs kicked open the door, and the beast snarled, before blasting into movement. It slashed an opening with its tentacles while the squad fired at nothing on the floor to its side.

“What the hell is happening? Why can’t they attack it?” I hissed.

Tollya merely shook her head. She nudged her technician, and the screen flicked over to another camera angle. The creature pried apart the thin steel walls of the barracks and leapt out onto the tarmac.

A wall guard shouted and began firing the laser turret atop the wall. Asphalt and Dearth industrial plasticrete smoked and seared, in a line at the beast’s side while it ran. It leapt high, slamming its scythe tentacles into the wall, and then hauled itself over, to vanish into Prescott.

“That thing is still loose?” I nearly yelled.

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Tollya nodded. “Seemed like it was leaving city, but troopers lost it before then. Something wrong with looking at it. It do things to their mind. But no reports from city. Have lots of troopers out looking now. Starfish troopers all fuckin’ pissed. That hobb was new to unit, but he was BlueCleave. Grass to grey, BlueCleave. Good kid, from Storage.”

Her usually happy features were grim. She took the starfish suits seriously, training and leading the special squad that wore them. Each was hand-picked by her and Rayna, from their original tribe’s warriors. She even used a recording of her own adaptation with the suit for training, since she had handled it like a champion.

I realized as I looked at the tape that I recognized the hobb who had been killed.

He was the young male Scollya, Tollya’s sister had been flirting with when she gave me a tour of their ancestral lands in Storage.

“Does Scollya know?” I whispered.

Tollya nodded. “She’s going to kill it, she find it. They not mates, but she liked him.”

I nodded slowly. “I know. I’m sorry Tollya.”

“Be sorry for it, not me,” she replied, raising her chin at the monitor.

Axle spoke up from behind us. “If you’re finished over there, I believe I could use your expertise with the suit’s remains.”

I turned to the table and walked over. The starfish suit was there, along with the remnants of the hobb who’d been wearing it. It was nothing but strips of grey flesh attached to the long tendrils, nothing left to rebuild him from.

“The suit appears non-reactive now. I think it died when the wearer did,” Axle said. He pointed to a few shards of glass on the table. “I used the suit’s knuckle strips to crush those, and there was no reaction. Of course, I can’t scan it with anything to be certain, but it hasn’t reverted to its original shape either, the deployment arms are still extended.” The Knowle pointed down the length of the table.

Once boxy and compact, the starfish suit had spread out to cover the young hobb’s body, reaching metal strands and plates down each limb, as well as surrounding the head, and covering the groin.

I lifted one arm of the suit and let it clang back down on the table, with a shake of my head. “I hate to break it to you, Axle, but you know more about these things than I do at this point. If you can’t figure it out, I’m not gonna be able to help you.”

My Knowle friend licked his nose and nodded. “I had to ask, it’s too valuable an asset to sit on,” he said.

“Well, that’s what we’re doing. Pack it up, put it in the secure wing of the library, or wherever you think it’s safest,” I said.

He nodded and motioned for a nearby hobb to approach.

I turned back to Tollya. “How the hell did it even get in here? Is the tower secure?”

She nodded emphatically. “Molls safe, don’t worry. The tower most secure place in Prescott.” The tall hobb hesitated. “We not know for sure how it get in. Walls secure, no sign of climbing. Checking tapes for any gate entrance, but nothing yet.”

“Is it possible someone smuggled it in?” I asked.

She shook her head but frowned. “BlueCleave stake them out for spiders if so.”

“We don’t have spiders big enough for that here, thank Pasta,” I muttered. There was no point grilling her any more, Tollya had been up front with me. If anything, she wanted it dead more than I did, and I was wasting her time with my dumb questions.

I faced her and she snapped to attention. “Find that thing. When you do, I want to portal in and face it myself. My suit can take more than yours. Cameras seem to be able to see it properly, so get your teams equipped with cameras on their helmets,” I said.

“Yes, boss!” she barked, snapping a salute from her chest.

I returned the gesture and turned to leave with Axle. I was thinking about Molls, in the tower. About my people in Prescott, with that thing among them. I felt confident in the tower, it was filled with automated defenses to protect Molls.

There was nothing we could do until it struck again.

“Keep a portal free for me, Axle,” I finally said, seated in the hovercraft at his side.

He nodded and punched the panels, kicking the vehicle into gear.

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