Mosaic - Jeri Taylor [104]
It was not the Federations.
The beings that hovered before them were huge brown parasectoids nearly half a meter long, with fierce-looking mandibles and an elongated snout that contained a large, powerful jaw with sharp, wicked teeth. Their underbellies were a mottled green, and they were coated in a coagulated substance that dripped from them like thick jelly. He realized they must be the Tokath, but was unsure as to the significance of their appearance. Had the Federations found these beings and made use of them as an advance unit? were they intended as a diversion, allowing the Federations to escape? Or was this Miskk's doing, his vengeance? Sittik didn't know the answers to these questions, but he was certain their departure from the pit did not bode well. And as if they read his mind, the creatures began a disturbing sound, somewhere between a click and a squeal. He made an automatic response.
"Fire," he ordered his men, and they immediately unleashed their weapons on the creatures.
Under the withering barrage, the creatures began to emit a high-pitched shriek that assaulted the eardrums like a knife point. As they tumbled back into the pit, dead or mortally wounded, a wretched odor began to emanate from them, fouling the air even further.
But to Sittik's dismay, more and more of them began to appear, rising from the dust-occluded pit which was now becoming a graveyard, chittering in that unnerving wail that chilled his blood and rent his ears. Where were they all coming from? How could there be so many? The Kazon soldiers kept up a relentless fusillade, but no matter how many of the hard-shelled bodies tumbled, dying, into the pit, even more took their place, pulsing upward on the thick clouds of dust and smoke. Sittik found himself coughing uncontrollably as his lungs tried to reject the thick particulates they were being forced to ingest. The Tokath were coursing upward, spilling out of the pit now, too many for even the weapons of his men to dispatch. He stared in amazement as they kept coming, dozens of them, wings pulsing, pushing them beyond the bounds of the depression in the ground.
Something wet hit his face and he daubed at it, then screamed as it began eating into the skin of his cheek and his hand. Frantically, he pawed at the awful substance, which was quickly making a paste of his skin; the more he tried to wipe it off, the deeper he gouged it in. He sank to his knees, desperate with pain, trying to make a poultice of dirt, smearing it into the wound but quickly realizing nothing helped.
Another glob of the stuff hit him in the forehead, and the process was begun again. Around him, he was vaguely aware of his men in the same circumstances, and he realized that these hideous creatures were emitting the noxious liquid, spraying it from their underbellies, reducing his proud squad to a wailing, helpless mass, squirming on the ground and begging the gods to put an end to their misery.
That prayer, at least, would be answered, though not quickly. Sittik looked up to see one of the creatures flying at him, awful mandibles extended, then felt them drill into his abdomen and clutch his intestines. The agony redoubled as the creature tore his entrails from his body, then seized them in its powerful jaws and began eating them.
A blood-red cloud descended over Sittik's vision; in it Kosla briefly danced as he realized he would not be spending the night with her, or with anyone ever again, and yet it didn't matter because oblivion was all he craved now and it couldn't come quickly enough.
Trakis the physician worked the console quickly, nervous that someone might enter unexpectedly and discover him. He wasn't entirely familiar with the communications technology on the Kazon ship-in their ineptitude, the Vistik had cobbled together two separate systems that weren't completely compatible, probably because they were incapable of repairing either one. He was working through the circuitry carefully, trying to find a frequency upon which he could piggyback a message, but