Page 79 of Red Scale Daddy
“Possible local fauna,” I say.
Dux draws his sidearm. “That is a polite way to say company.”
A clicking sound travels over the rocks.
It is not mechanical. It is not stone settling. It is wet and dry at once, like bone tapped against glass through a mouthful of gravel. The sound repeats from the left. Then the right. Then somewhere behind the ridge.
My throat narrows.
The first drone rises onto the top of a black stone spire.
Six arms. Insectoid plating. Heavy torso. Curved limbs ending in claws that bite into rock. Its head is narrow and armored, with multiple dark eyes reflecting the mineral glow. It is larger than the scan suggested, almost as tall as a grown human even crouched low, and its body holds the coiled strength of something built not for elegance but for tearing.
Zenos.
The word arrives from reference files I read years ago and never expected to need in a practical context. Territorial hive entities. Coordinated drones. Reactive to disturbances.
We are a disturbance.
Dux laughs softly.
I turn my head just enough to glare. “Do not.”
“That was not joy,” he says, raising the weapon. “That was recognition.”
“Of what?”
“Ugly odds.”
The drone opens its mandibles and shrieks.
The sound tears across the asteroid plain, high and serrated, vibrating through my helmet and down my teeth. Three more drones break from cover. Then six. Then more movement behind the ridge.
Dux fires.
The ship-safe round cracks across the rocks and strikes the first drone in the chest. Its plating chips, but the creature does not fall. It recoils, shrieks again, and launches itself from the spire.
“Inside,” Dux says.
“No.”
“Roma.”
“If they board through damaged aft plating, we lose the ship.”
“If they eat us outside, the ship gets lonely.”
I scan the terrain in a rush: crash gouge, stone spires, mineral veins, low gravity, dust, ship position, exposed ramp, damaged port side. The drones are coordinated, fanning out rather than charging blindly. The first is coming high. Two flank along the gouge. Three more move toward the ramp.
Dux is right. Moving inside would shelter us but invite them to target the wounded hull. Staying here is bad. Staying here stupidly is worse.
I grab the repair kit and throw it toward the base of the nearest mineral vein.
Dux glances at it. “If that was your plan, I have questions.”
“The vein is conductive.”
His grin turns sharp. “Better.”
