Of Men and Spiders

After landing and being ushered into Charlotte's hive, Lucy started having second and third thoughts. This place was like something out of a horror movie, with fleshy walls and somewhat smaller spider creatures, some only the size of a dinner plate, crawling around going about whatever eldritch tasks Charlotte was setting them to. She instinctively reached for one of her guns, a motion that Scott seemed to notice because he eyed the gesture and shook his head silently. With a conscious effort, Lucy eased her hand away from the gun.

Charlotte was explaining. "The safest area for you to hide is just past the creation room."

Scott spoke up at that moment. "Is that where you were...um... studying the pirate you found? The body isn't still there, is it?"

Studying a pirate? Body? Just what had Charlotte been up to? Were Scott and Alice really safe here? Did they have any choice in the matter?

Charlotte explained in her flat, toneless way, making Lucy miss the more emotive form that had been lost. "Yes, that is where I was studying the pirate. No, the body is no longer present. The area has been cleaned and sanitized. There is no cause for concern of adverse microbial contamination."

Scott looked a little green as if remembering something better left forgotten. "Yeah, that's important, but not what I was thinking about... Still, so long as there's no trace of the body, we should be fine..."

The more Lucy heard, the more she worried about her children's well-being, and that came to a head when they walked into a large, cavernous room. While the room was dark at first, it was clear something enormous was shuffling about in the dark. Shortly after that observation, the room brightened, leaving Lucy stunned at the sight of the monstrous form before her.

If the Charlotte from camp had been unsettling, this new form was outright terrifying. While it only stood eight feet tall at the moment, a simple extension of its massive legs would easily put it somewhere between ten and twelve feet tall, and the blades on its arms dwarfed even the blades on the remains of the mantis forms from before.

Lucy suddenly felt a deep kinship with a fly caught in a spider's web, watching as death crawled forward upon eight legs. She hadn't even realized she'd drawn her gun until she felt a pressure on her arm and looked down to see Scott gently pushing her arm down so the weapon was now pointed at the floor.

Just as Lucy told herself to relax, Alice ran forward, causing her heart to freeze as she shouted, "Alice! Wait! Come back!" But Scott just shook his head again and smiled.

When Alice reached the giant nightmare, the tiny girl wrapped her hands around one of Charlotte's legs and hugged the giant monster with all the might her small frame possessed. Then, in a moment almost as terrifying as it was surreal, the giant monster reached down and gently patted Alice on the back with one of those immense blades as it spoke. "Don't worry, Alice. I'm here. Just like I promised, I'll protect you."

Alice broke off her hug and looked up at the gigantic creature, stomping her foot as she chastised the monster that was probably a hundred times the little girl's mass. "That's not enough! You have to protect you, too! You can't die, Charlotte! I won't forgive you if you do!"

The giant monster looked down at the little girl and tilted its head. "That is my intention. I do not have any desire to die, nor am I very easy to kill. I intend to be here to see what form you will take as you grow."

Alice hugged Charlotte again. "You'd better! I still have to teach you a bunch of games!"

The giant form of Charlotte dipped its head in what Lucy could only think of as an approximation of a nod. "Yes, I am most interested in learning about the game of 'checkers' you spoke of."

Thinking back, the pirate suddenly softened back into Lacy and felt ashamed at how many times Alice had asked her to play games, but she'd been too high or drunk to join her daughter. How much precious time had she wasted on her old self? What kind of a mother was she that a giant alien spider hivemind seemed to be a better parent than she'd ever been?

However, any further self-pitying was put aside at what Charlotte said next. "They've arrived."

Hardening herself again, Lucy nodded. "Then it's time we begin our hunt."

-

As Cooper stepped out of the landing craft, he looked around. This place felt off. Sure, there was a primitive little hut covered in vines and a pathetic little garden someone had made, but the unsettling feeling came from the cave by which the stolen bike was parked. He turned back to Johnson. "Don't tell me they're in the cave?"

Johnson was looking at his scanner, apparently trying to make heads or tails of what he was looking at. "Well, I'm not sure, but that's probably our best bet..."

Cooper frowned. "What do you mean you're not sure?"

Looking up from his screen, Johnson shook his head. "There's something off about that cave. All the readings I'm picking up are...weird."

Looking back at the cave, Cooper knew what he meant. "Yeah, well, it's not just your readings. That whole place feels off to me, too. Normally, I'd say we should just blow it from orbit, but somehow, I doubt the old man would like that very much..."

Brigg looked up with a scowl. "So what then, boss? We going in there? That sounds like the start of a bad horror movie to me."

Cooper walked up to Brigg, one of the few men on his crew who dwarfed himself and stared him down. "That's right, we are. But remember, if this is a horror movie, we're bigger and badder monsters than anything that place has to offer! Whatever bugs show up, we squish, stomp, shoot, or bake em all until everything in that place is dead! And any man who pisses his pants and runs away like a coward answeres to the scariest monster of them all! ME!" Then, as almost an afterthought, he added. "Oh, and make sure you don't kill the kids, or you'll answer to me for that too."

-

With Alice and Scott secured in the back room, Charlotte was free to watch and wait for the perfect time to spring her first trap. She would have thought Lacy should stay with her children, but when Charlotte made that suggestion, the human shook her head, saying, "The best thing I can do as their mother right now is to make sure the threat never reaches them."

It was strange reaching the same conclusion as a human for once. Regardless of Scott's feelings about his mother, she and Charlotte agreed on this, though it made the hivemind wonder just what had happened that she found herself thinking in much the same manner as a being biologically programmed to protect its offspring. It didn't make logical sense for her to risk her survival for these two. After all, according to Scott, there were countless more to replace them, yet these two humans, in particular, were now of great importance to her, and She would protect them even if it meant going to war with a strange and powerful foe like these pirates. Yet, as She watched the pirates walk into her home, Charlotte was willing to risk everything to ensure the safety of the little inquisitive Alice and the endlessly clever Scott. These pirates would pay for ever endangering their lives.

Charlotte recognized four battle suits as the type she'd already contended with twice, but there was also a new, larger suit. When she'd described the suit to Lacy, the human explained it was an assault suit. It was apparently an older version of the battle suit, not as effective aboard spacecraft because it was too large and bulky, but it was still used for more open combat because it had a significant advantage in durability and offensive capacity. This would be a challenging battle, on par with some of her most significant challenges for survival to date.

For now, Charlott held back, watching as the humans approached the first juncture in the hive.

-

As Cooper stomped forward, he was unsettled by the slightly spongy nature of the floor. It kind of felt like walking in sand in that the ground seemed to leech some of the momentum out of each step. Of course, that wasn't enough to so much as slow him down, but still, it just added to the unsettling feeling of the place.

The other problem was how quiet the place was. It didn't feel abandoned like some ghost ship found floating in space. Instead, it felt more like the place was waiting, though Cooper couldn't say for what.

After rounding a bend, they came to their first split in the path. There were four directions they could take. Cooper pointed to the two smaller offshoots. "Archer, Brigg, take your squads and check those paths out."

Briggs shook his head slightly but was smart enough to keep his mouth shut this time and started walking down the path as ordered. Archer didn't bother to speak up, as usual, and led his group down the other route, leaving Cooper to keep going ahead, leading his smaller but better-armed and armored group down the main tunnel.

-

Charlotte watched as her prey split up. This is what she'd been waiting for. She readied the first of her ambushes, intending to be as quick and clean as possible.