It was like striking stone and she felt something fracture in her own arm, a shock of pain up to the shoulder that startled a scream out of her. Mesmon, never one to miss a chance, had that arm in his hands a moment later, using it as a lever to throw Solace at the oncoming Scorpion. She bounced off it, narrowly avoiding being impaled on its drill. It reached Mesmon a heartbeat before he could stomp on Olli, half severing one arm with its cutting claws and impaling him on its hook.
Using his other hand, the Tothiat took hold of the Scorpion’s pincer arm at its base and twisted. One foot on the frame for purchase, he contorted his whole body, muscle against muscle. With a convulsive heave he ripped the Scorpion’s limb clean out of its socket, leaving it dangling from a handful of cords and ducts, the claw still snapping feebly. He went for the bubble next, finding the catch and wrenching it open before casting the armoured casing aside. Olli was screaming in rage and Solace staggered over to try and haul him off it. She took a foot to her solar plexus for her trouble and sat down, abruptly unable to breathe.
She couldn’t have said when Kittering actually made his appearance. The little Hanni was abruptly there on the Scorpion’s back, clinging tight with his six legs. The Scorpion’s tail arched over him, until its tip was within range of his reaching mouthparts. Mesmon spotted him a moment later and lost a valuable moment staring, not sure what was going on. Then he decided it was nothing he wanted to permit and swatted Kit off the frame, sending the Hanni tumbling across the room.
‘Now,’ he said, and reached into the Scorpion’s opened bubble, taking hold of the control board there. ‘Let’s neuter your bastard pet.’
The Scorpion’s tail lashed forwards, driving its tip deep into Mesmon’s shoulder. He barely shifted, just shrugging with the impact. ‘Is that really all you’ve got left?’ he asked, and ripped out the entire control board in a visceral tangle of severed wires and conduits. For a moment Solace thought Olli could keep on puppeteering the thing remotely, but the entire frame spasmed and then went still, utterly dead.
‘Ha,’ said Mesmon. ‘Ha . . .’ He smacked his lips and Solace saw a greenish residue leaking from them. Abruptly he shuddered from head to toe, swaying alarmingly until he was leaning on the bed. ‘The fuck?’ he demanded. ‘The exact fuck what?’ He seemed to have forgotten they were there.
Something clattered to the ground at his heels. A long black and yellow lobster-looking thing, arching and flailing. Its underside was raw, red with human blood, bristling with contorting cilia.
‘Oh,’ said Mesmon, and more stuff was seeping from his mouth, nose and eyes. ‘Oh. Oh no.’ Then he jack-knifed forwards, vomiting. What came out looked a lot like the sort of anatomical details people preferred to keep inside. That done, he stared down at what he’d voided, then fell onto his face and was still.
Solace made a sound. It mostly conveyed disgust, but was at least partly impressed. ‘You found a poison?’ Olli had been researching, she remembered. At the time it had just seemed a convenient cover for Solace’s own message home, but Olli and Kit had been scouring the xenobiology databases of Berlenhof’s academia. And monopolizing the Vulture God’s printers for something chemically complex.
‘Kit?’ Solace called, suddenly aware that the Hanni hadn’t resurfaced. She found him lying on his front, the screen on his back cracked and dead. His limbs were twitching and she had no idea if that meant he was stunned or if he was dying. She could carry him, of course, but could she carry him and Olli . . .?
Looking around, Solace saw that the specialist had dragged herself back to the walker. She’d prised a hatch open and was sorting through the tools spilling from it. Sensing her gaze, Olli looked daggers back.
‘I guess this is where you tell me how much better the Pathos are, for not getting themselves into trouble like this.’ Her face was wet with tears of pain and fatigue. ‘Just go, Patho. Go back to your friends. Get Kit and Kris and the Hiver out. Get Idris.’
‘What are you trying to do?’
‘Why do you care?’
‘Olli, we don’t have time for this. Please, just tell me.’
The woman scowled at her. ‘Walker board’s compatible with Scorpion board. Link them and I can use it to replace what that fucker tore out.’
‘Then show me. Direct me,’ Solace said. ‘I’m not a tech but I know enough to get things done.’ I hope.
‘Fuck you,’ Olli replied, barely able to get her words out past all the anger. ‘Fine, then. Why, though? Why put off the inevitable? We all know the Pathos are coming for us, to remake us all in your image, right? You’re seriously going to tell me you’re all real angels and that would never happen?’