They fled back through the rusting corridors, a nightmare swarm of metal and purpose. Behind them, the Archivist’s substation crumbled into silence. Kael withdrew his consciousness from the pack, the familiar weight of his own body returning like a lead blanket. He sat up, gasping, sweat cold on his face.
The mission was simple. The pack would penetrate the exclusion zone, locate the Archivist’s bio-signature, and eliminate him before he could sell the schematics to the Carthaginian Collective. A single 9mm round from Peaseblossom’s integral railgun would do it. Clean. Quiet. Deniable.
The pack responded. Firefly detached a single, pencil-thin tendril of explosive. Cicada’s manipulator arms snatched it and, with insectile delicacy, glued it to the center of the maintenance hatch. The Archivist, focused on his work, didn’t notice. targeting pack
Kael felt a cold surge of panic. The pack was built to kill, not to capture. Scarab’s cannon would atomize him. Firefly’s charges were for doors, not limbs. Peaseblossom’s railgun could pin a fly to a wall at 500 meters, but it had only one setting: lethal.
“Copy, Nest,” Kael said, and the poetry in him died a little more. “Peaseblossom inbound.” They fled back through the rusting corridors, a
The Archivist’s last known signal was three levels down, in the old geothermal substation. The air grew warmer, wetter. Condensation dripped from pipes as thick as a man’s torso. Peaseblossom’s thermal lens showed a maze of heat signatures: rodents, fungal blooms, and then… a single, faint human-shaped glow, hunched over a console.
“Cicada! Grab it!”
“Nest to Wasp. Good work. Bring the pack home.”