Conflicts of the last progenitors

Jenfer dips a gridcloth into the water and rests it on the top of her head. Many Bullets follow suit, dipping cloths into the water and then covering the tops of their heads.

Kenneth steps into a hole, mashing a gray pustule. Steam HISSES into the air in three different locations: one geyser burns Zria’s right hand, causing her to drop her springblade; one geyser fires just before Abacus and Neredth; one geyser sears the face of the Australian Man, turning his visage into a mass of red blisters. He SHRIEKS and stumbles back, SPLASHING to the ground.

Kenneth yanks his foot from the hole.

LO-CHEUN

Statues. Everyone.

(he looks at the

Australian)

Bio, help-

48.

JENFER

Sir.

From a hole thirty yards away, nine black forms rise into the air. The Bullets and Bios stare at the hovering host.

On clear, CLICKING, insectile wings, one of the risen creatures flies toward the humans: its torso resembles three crabs joined end-to-end; from its side hang six sizable pincers; three antennae with viscous gray eyes sprout from the bottom of the foremost carapace, dripping fluid. The SIXCLAW is jet black and erratically spotted with purple; it is as large as a big dog.

Several one-stars blanch at the sight of the oncoming creature; three soldiers reflexively raise their weapons in defense.

LO-CHEUN

Ready but wait for Killcall. No

electricals.

The sixclaw drifts toward Lo-Cheun; tension electrifies everyone; Neredth pales with fear. Lo-Cheun stares at the advancing creature, concurrently withdrawing his springblade.

(The other Bullets withdraw their springblades and j-guns

[compact machine guns with long j-shaped clips].) The sixclaw stops and hovers on its triangulated, CLICKING

wings five feet from Lo-Cheun’s face. The three-star Bullet points his springblade at the sixclaw; everyone watches in silence. Ochre fluid drips from the creature’s gray, gummy eyes into the water below, P-PLISH, P-PLISH.

The hovering crustacean swoops toward Lo-Cheun; Neredth GASPS; one of the Bullets SQUEAKS in apprehension.

The sixclaw stops just short of Lo-Cheun’s face and there, hovers on its three wings. The Chinese man stares at, but does not fire upon, the creature. He remains calm.

Neredth is terrified for her husband; Abacus shakes his head back and forth and silently mutters to himself; Zria, her j-gun clutched in her blistered right hand, aims at the sixclaw and then glances at Lo-Cheun...awaiting command.

In a slow, smooth movement, Lo-Cheun carefully steps away from the sixclaw; the creature darts forward; Lo-Cheun lifts his Fleischwerk arm in defense; the creature THUMPS its frontal shell into the upraised gray appendage...and caroms backward.

49.

Neredth blanches. Zria keeps her j-gun trained on the creature.

Lo-Cheun glares hotly at the sixclaw, but keeps his temper.

The creature darts for him and is again blocked- THUMP- by the man’s upraised Fleischwerk arm.

The sixclaw seizes Lo-Cheun’s gray hand with its frontal pincers. CLICK, CLICK. Lo-Cheun grits his teeth in pain, but does not cry out: his Fleischwerk pinky and ring finger fall into the water, PLISH, PLISH.

The sixclaw withdraws up and away from Lo-Cheun.

LO-CHEUN (CONT'D)

Nay pook gai.

The sixclaw dives down, SLAMS into Lo-Cheun’s chest and then fastens its pincers onto his bodysuit collar and Fleischwerk arm. Neredth SCREAMS. Prompted by the call, the distant sixclaws fly directly toward her.

Lo-Cheun shoves at the sixclaw clamped to him; the creature falls back, the tips of its pincers RIPPING the man’s collar and scratching a groove into his Fleischwerk arm.

The Chinese Senior aims the springblade clutched in his shorn gray hand and fires: CLICK, CLICK, CLICK. The tongue-depressor-shaped projectiles CLACK ineffectively off of the sixclaw’s chitinous shell and into the water, PLISH, PLISH, PLISH.

LO-CHEUN (CONT'D)

Killcall!

Zria fires her j-gun at Lo-Cheun’s assailant; CH-CHAK, CH-CHAK, CH-CHAK. The bullets SHATTER the posterior third of the sixclaw. The injured creature flies off on CLICKING

wings, dragging its dripping carapace.

ZRIA

J-guns!

The eight approaching sixclaws redirect toward Zria. Lo-Cheun has an idea.

LO-CHEUN

Call out. Divide them so they

don’t block shots for each other.

RECTANGLE

Over here!

50.

JENFER

Clawboys!

ZRIA

Beefcake!

ABACUS

We-hardly-got-to-know-you-crab-

things!

The swarm divides, pursuing different targets. The Bullets aim their j-guns and open fire, CH-CHAK-CH-CHAK-CH-CHAK-CH-CHAK-CH-CHAK-

The three foremost sixclaws CRACKLE and burst, each blossoming into a welter of chitin shards, muscle fibers and pulpy gray fluid. The five remaining sixclaws dive into water-submerged holes, SPLASH-SPLASH-SPLASH-SPLASH-SPLASH.

The adrenaline-buzzed Bullets look around warily. Lo-Cheun TAPS his earplug.

LO-CHEUN

(whispered)

Send Seraph-9 to pick us up. Now.

The sixclaws burst with a SPLOOSH from a sinkhole just beside the Biobranch quintet. Neredth, Abacus and the other Bios stumble back from the swarm that is already upon them.