Blaedergil's Host by C.M. Simpson (reading well .TXT) 📕

a terminal, stepping gingerly around the monsters on the floor, wading through the sticky strands that formed a loose layer over the tiles, and wondering how far the vibrations carried, and to who. Delight moved with me, her gun hand following the movement of her eyes, as she searched the cobwebs and the shadowed corners for any sign of movement.

Knowing she was as deadly as anyone else I’d worked with, I checked under the desk of the nearest terminal. It was clear, so I sat, and tapped the machine to life. Getting in was easier than I could have hoped. Whatever had happened to the scientists hadn’t given them time to log out of the system, which meant it was wide open for access.

Tens was hunting through the databases in seconds.

“I’m only seeing titles, and I already want to burn this place to the ground,” he said. “Now, get moving. Mack’s keeping things calm on station, but I don’t know for how much longer.”

“No one leaves!” Delight’s voice cut through our communications like a knife, and I could imagine Tens rolling his eyes.

“Already done, sweetheart,” he said. “We’ve locked down the ships in dock, and broadcast the idents of any who tried to leave early. They’re already on their way back to the station. Still, I’ll be glad when those cruisers arrive. I’m not sure we’ve convinced everyone that standing by while you come up with a cure is a good idea.”

“Yeah. Thanks for that.” Delight cut the comms, and tracked across the lab.

I followed, jumping at every shift in the webs, or change in lighting. We stopped beside the door leading out into another corridor.

“Still think it’s the fastest way to the next lab?” she asked, and I went back into my head to check the security footage. For a miracle, the corridor outside the lab was empty. I tracked it up through the cameras, surprised when it was empty right up to the elevators. It was on the next floor that we were going to have a problem.

I sent Delight the relevant footage, and let her mull it over. I had sent her the alternative, before she’d had time to ask.

“Are you sure?”

“Unless you got any more of these”—I waved my hand at the corpses behind us—“I think it would be safest.”

...which was how we ended up riding to the next level on top of the elevator, and scrambling into the ducts above the corridor filled with vacant-eyed plaguers, when it stopped.

“Are you sure this is safe?” Delight wanted to know, but she was already leading the way forward, as though just asking the question was enough to make it so.

And don’t I just wish that was the case.

We met the first security drone five feet in, where there wasn’t any space to turn around, and just as the plaguers below us started to stir. They might not have been able to see us, but they could sure as shit sense where we were. I took a peek at them through the nearest camera, as Delight fired six fast shots into the drone and stopped it before it could reach us.

“Tell me it’s clear down there,” she said, “because we’re going to have company very damn soon.”

“Not clear,” I said, and started searching for the nearest safest exit. “Here.”

No sooner than she had received the directions than she was crawling, high speed, through the ventilation shaft, with me scrambling to catch up. Of course, that meant I had to stop looking at the footage, which meant I couldn’t keep her updated real time, but it was better than staying behind to be turned to ash, while my head was somewhere else.

We hit the vent I’d indicated, and I grabbed her by the ankle.

“Let me check,” I said, and she waited, her leg tense under my hand.

I took a quick look, and noted movement to the left of the lab. It looked white-coated and purposeful, and not the usual shamble of the plagued.

“Two to the left,” I said.

“Plagued or spider?” she asked, picking the terms out of my skull.

“Unknown.”

“Right?”

“Unknown.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” she said, and shot the vent cover clear, following it out of the shaft without hesitating.

There was a shout of surprise, and I scrambled to get myself out, so I could cover the right. I hit the ground behind her, Glazer drawn as I looked for targets. All I could see were benches full of scientific equipment, and walls covered with charts. Behind me, someone was babbling frantically at Delight.

“Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot. Help us, please. Please please please help us.”

“Tell me why,” Delight snarled, and I wondered exactly why she was so pissed.

She sent a visual of what she was seeing to my implant, and I saw the system that had been attached to the ventilation shaft on the other side of the room. The station schematics showed this led directly to one of the central air vents connected to the rest of the station.

“Is that virus?” I asked, turning to face the same way as Delight, and the man who’d been babbling at Delight, started babbling at me.

“They’re going to kill our families, if we don’t.”

“You disconnect that, and we’ll send a team down before they know you’ve done it.”

“But he said... he said they’d be watching us.”

I didn’t wait to be told; I followed the connections from the camera to where the feed was being streamed to the planet below. Right now, they were showing the set-up on the wall, and the scientists turned away from it. I wondered if the guy had an implant I could hack, so what I wanted to say next wasn’t broadcast live to whoever was watching.

“Tens?” I sent, not making a sound.

“I got you,” Tens replied, confining his voice to my head, and I watched as he sent my instructions to the man in charge, felt Delight tense, as the man’s voice changed.

“Oh, right. Sorry to have bothered you,” and then, as he turned to the woman working with