Page 7 of Broken Triad

Another truck careens towards us, but as it crests the hill, the driver gets a view of the wreckage of the raiders in front of him, and slows, turning off towards another estate. That’s the way of predators. They take what has the least resistance. In the wild, wolves hunt the wounded, the old, the young, the sick and helpless. That’s what the four men in the burning wreckage of the truck were. Wolves, needing to be culled.

They could feel their impending death and wanted to feel powerful one last time. Now they died in a ditch like they deserved.

I swallow, hard, trying to stop my hands from shaking. Rifle fire stops humans. Scorp don’t fall so easily. They’ve got thick, dull green armor, a hard carapace that can glance a blow off, and even if you fire through the armor, they keep coming unless you hit the heart or brain. You can shoot their claws off, and they’d still sprint towards you, their fangs gleaming and their tails bobbing. Blast a hole through their legs, and they’ll crawl, pulling themselves forward by their huge clawed hands.

And even if you kill one…

The sound of gunshots would attract ten more.

I steady my breathing. My dad told me you must keep your breathing steady, when Scorp come. They’re attracted to panic. A pounding heart, a gasping breath, and they’ll be on you. Our only hope is we can hide silently in the cellars, where there is food and water, and wait out the attack. One of us will be on duty at all times, listening for the scraping claws of the beasts walking through the estate, sleeping in shifts.

“No, no, no…” Macey whimpers out the words under her breath, her voice cracking, and I follow her gaze upwards.

The Scorp Org-Ship looks like a huge, greyish-white rotten egg, the shell peeling off. Fiery chunks of organic matter slough from the ship as the protective exterior is burnt up by the atmosphere. It plummets, and the sheer size of it disturbs me, like I’m looking at something that shouldn’t exist. If it landed on our manor, it would crush the entire estate to nothing, and the monstrous beings would rip their way out of statis and hunt us down. It plummets, casting a massive shadow over the hilltop, and I know it’s filled with hundreds of the monstrous, reptilian creatures.

There’s a chorus of screams. I don’t blame the other servants, but I bite down on my hand, clamping my mouth shut. I won’t be the one to scream and draw Scorp to us when they are hunting. We’re going to have to learn to control our panic.

The anti-air batteries of the Royal City thunder out. They ring out from the city, on the highest walls, streaking red tracer rounds followed by explosive munitions, filling the sky with blasts of smoke and shrapnel. One hits the center of the Org-Ship, ripping it apart, and Scorp tumble from the broken ship in their sticky yellow-brown resin pods, claws and broken carapaces ripping off and falling harmlessly.

The gargantuan Scorp Queen herself is ripped in half, her huge, armored chest rent, and she spirals as she falls into two pieces. She hits the ground with a heavy thud with the Org-Ship which turns to white, dusty smoke as it shatters against the ground.

Letty whoops out. I turn to her, unable to control my quick anger. “Quiet, dammit! Do you want to bring Scorp to us?” The rest of the servants look down, silent.

“The anti-air guns will protect us. The Scorp will be killed before they land.” She says it matter of fact, like she’s talking to an idiot.

I bite off a curse. If we’re going to survive this, it’ll be silently in the cellars, and if I’m going to spend weeks or maybe even months trapped with her, I can’t start arguing now. My own words were in panic—that was the first Org-Ship of many, but none of the creatures have landed, yet, and there’s no way they could have heard Letty’s cry of victory.

The dusty wreckage of the Org-Ship is between us and the Royal City, and from the broken shell, the few surviving Scorp pull themselves out of their resin chambers. Chunks of sticky, yellowy brown resin and green appendages are littered around the fragments of the ship. A few dozen Scorp, some missing claws or legs, pick themselves up, and as one, they raise their reptilian heads to the sky. Their circular mouths open like endless black holes, ringed by sharp fangs, and from it comes the most excruciating, eerie whistling scream as they mourn their queen…

And as one, they lope off towards the Royal City, some hobbling, some dragging themselves by their claws and missing both legs, relentless as they hunt their prey.

A shadow passes over us. I look up, craning my neck, as the next burning white ship rips through the atmosphere, followed by another, then another, dozens of huge, fleshy egg sacks filled with death. Dread pools in my stomach, every hair on my body standing up, as the sky is filled with Scorp.

Kat leans out the window of the tower. She’s lean, strong, with a grim look in her eyes. “Hey! You nine! You’ll only bring Scorp to us! Get the hell down to the cellars and lock yourselves in!”

It’s the only thing we can do, but everyone’s stunned, still not comprehending the horror of the sky filled with ships, all of us wishing this was a bad dream.

The anti-air battery drums out, and another Org-Ship is rent, but this time, no one cheers. More blot the sky.

Unless the Aurelian Empire comes, and soon, we’re all dead.

3

LOLA

Someone needs to take charge, before we turn into panicked animals.

I turn to the servants, summoning my strength. “Kat’s right. Scorp are attracted to people, and if we hide in the cellars, they’ll ignore us. They’ll go towards the Royal City. We can survive this.” I try to reason with the group, not fully believing my own words, but I get blank stares in return.

I stand as tall as I can. “We’re going down to the cellars. Jess. You take two others, and go into the kitchens and grab anything you can. Paulus took most of the food with him, but—” I pause, letting the anti-air battery drum out, before continuing. “Macey, you take someone and go to the medical bay. Bandages, anti-bacterial, anything you can find. Grab it, and meet down at the cellars as soon as possible. Letty, could you—”

“Don’t you fucking tell me what to do,” answers Letty, her words vicious. “I’m going down to the cellars. If you all want to scramble to grab things and get ripped apart doing it, it’s your choice, but I won’t be opening the doors when I hear you yelling.” With that, she stalks off, but the rest of the women follow my instructions, glad to have someone assigning them duties so they aren’t just waiting helplessly to die.

As the servants leave, I’m alone in the garden. I look up at Brianna’s tower. Rachel is staring out the window, but she doesn’t see me, her jaw set and her eyes intense, sweat dripping from her forehead, preparing to fight off as many Scorp as she can. It’s hopeless to convince her otherwise, even if our best chance of survival is to stay quiet, even if all those bullets will do is draw more of the monsters towards us, even if—

I take a huge breath in, trying to focus my panicked brain. There’s something I’m missing, some niggling detail at the back of my mind.

Toa!

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