Worm Nest Attack

…Three meters.

The last ball of copper sat glinting beside the heat pipe, and between Leo and it lay the tail of a sleeping worm, coiled loosely across the floor like a pale fallen tree.

He stepped over it so slowly his thigh muscles burned.

'Don't look down… Don't look at it… You're just a guy walking across a room… A completely normal guy, walking across a completely normal room full of—'

…Two meters.

"Still slow," Chloe breathed in his ear. "Still slow... you're okay..."

He could see the copper clearly now. 

The biggest ball yet, thick braids of it shining under the violet glaze, it was six units at least and enough to finish the job.

'Six more units and we're done… Six more units and we walk out of here and I never, ever look at a worm again…'

[Fourteen out of twenty. The Master Captain is two meters from success. This unit would like to say that it believes in him but this unit is legally required to say that it does not.]

'I swear to god—'

…One and a half meters.

Back by the entrance, Camila shifted her weight to keep her light angled off the sleeping pile as she moved half a step to the left.

At the exact same moment, Elena jerked away from a worm curled on the ceiling barely two meters above her head. 

Her nerves had been stretched tight as piano wire for five straight minutes, and she flinched sideways without thinking.

Camila's heel came down on a round frozen bead of hardened slime on the slanted floor as her magnetic sole slid half a centimeter before it locked.

…It threw her just off balance enough that her shoulder bumped into Elena's elbow.

And the Wasp, clipped to Elena's belt, swung out on its strap and struck the jagged metal edge of the breach.

CLANG-TING!

In the dead silence of the vacuum, the vibration shot through the room's skeleton like someone had hit a tuning fork.

Every single heart in the crew stopped as Chloe's hand jerked off the floor with her eyes going huge.

"Leo! Their hearts… they just jumped to two hundred—!"

Seven eyeless heads snapped up at the exact same instant.

Thirty-five rings of black teeth flared wide open… Seven sets of amber veins surged from dull orange to blinding furious crimson across sixty meters of writhing white armor…

SKRRREEEEEEEECH!

The silent roar of seven worms uncoiling at once slammed through the floor hard enough to rattle Leo's teeth.

"WEAPONS HOT!" he roared, snapping his lights to full strobe and ripping his carbine off its sling. "LIGHT 'EM UP!"

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP!

"Eat tungsten, you overgrown tapeworms!"

Harper, braced on the transformer block with Kinetic Tuning flaring bronze along her arms, put a three-round burst straight into the lead worm mid-lunge.

The flechettes punched through the roof of its open mouth and severed its spine before it even cleared the floor.

It dropped limp across the deck in a spray of floating violet spheres.

"ONE DOWN!"

THUMP! THUMP!

Ms. Tachibana fired twice with two rounds straight into the tendril cluster of a worm dropping off the ceiling.

It went blind instantly as it smashed headfirst into an iron pillar.

CRUNCH!

"Six left!" she called, already tracking the next one.

On the far side of the room, Leo had nowhere to go.

Two huge worms uncoiled right in front of him, cutting him off from the last copper ball and from the door at the same time.

The first one lunged straight at his chest like a pale freight train with five rings of black teeth spinning like a tunnel-boring machine, glowing green acid dripping off them.

'Move!'

Leo killed his boot magnets and threw himself sideways across the slanted floor!

CRUNCH… HISSSSSS!

The worm's mouth slammed into the bulkhead where his chest had been half a second earlier. 

Its teeth tore deep gouges in the metal, and splashes of acid ate smoking pits into the wall.

He slapped his boots back down on the deck and rolled up onto one knee as the thing whipped its head around for another try.

…He fired a burst at its face.

PING-PING-PING!

All three flechettes hit the steep ridge of its shell and sparked right off into the dark.

[Ammo: 12/15]

'Are you kidding me?!' Leo cursed. 'Their shells are thicker down here! They've been eating the main lines!'

The worm reared back two meters in front of him and opened its mouth wide enough to swallow his entire upper body.

He didn't try to shoot through the shell again… The world slowed down and he waited.

…Waited

The spinning teeth came at his chest as it was one meter away.

'Now!'

He kicked off the floor with his left leg, drove forward, and ripped the plasma torch off his belt with his free hand.

He jammed the nozzle straight into the soft unarmored joint where the creature's jaw hinged onto its neck and squeezed out every last scrap of charge in a single overloaded burst.

FWOOOM… SPLAT!

The blast boiled the joint into steam and blew the side of the hinge wide open.

[Plasma Torch: 0%]

Through that smoking gap in the armor, Leo jammed the muzzle of his carbine and pulled the trigger three times.

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP!

The rounds ripped upward through the opening and shredded whatever passed for its brain.

Violet blood geysered out of the side of its neck as the worm shuddered from end to end, then crashed onto the floor plates at Leo's boots.

[Ammo: 9/15]

Ding!

[Hostile Eliminated: Void Carapace Worm (Level 1, Copper-Hardened)]

[Survival Points +16]

[Current: 21 / 1,000 SP]

"HELL YEAH!" Leo grinned breathlessly, kicking the dead head off his boot. "Sixteen points! That's how the Captain does it!"

[Tactical Review: The Master Captain needed six rounds and his entire plasma torch to kill one worm from two meters away.. Crew Unit: Harper killed an identical worm from twenty meters with three rounds… This unit is updating the Captain's combat rating from "Adequate" to "Enthusiastic Amateur."]

"NOBODY ASKED YOU, YOU RUSTY CALCULATOR!"

[This unit is in mint condition, thank you. Also, look left.]

Leo looked left.

The second worm was already sliding around the transformer housing toward him and a third was dropping off the ceiling pipes right behind it.

'Oh, come on.'

Across the room, the fight had turned into an all-out brawl.

"Stay away from me! STAY BACK!"

On the left side, Jin-Ah was snarling with her face flushed crimson as a worm lunged across the floor toward her and Sensei.

Every nerve in her body screamed at her to hold the trigger down and empty the whole thing like last time.

…She bit her tongue until she tasted blood.

'Eight shots… Eight... Make them count, Park…'

She tapped the trigger once.

THUMP!

…Twice.

THUMP!

Both rounds went straight down the center of its open throat as it staggered backward while thrashing.

"HARPER!"

THUMP!

Harper's single shot came from across the room and punched right through the roof of its mouth. 

It dropped.

"Two shots!" Jin-Ah panted, wild-eyed and triumphant. "Six left! That's an A-grade, Harper! Tell the stupid computer! A-GRADE!"

"Show-off!" Harper laughed, swinging her barrel toward the next target.

[This unit heard it... This unit is grudgingly upgrading Crew Unit: Jin-Ah to a C-plus… Do not let it go to your head.]

"C-PLUS?!"

"Chloe, watch out!" Harper suddenly yelled.

A worm had lunged straight at Ms. Tachibana's blind side but Chloe got there first.

She didn't think about it and she didn't hesitate as she brought her carbine up and fired four rounds point-blank into its open mouth.

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP!

The worm reeled, shrieking silently through the floor, and before it could recover, Chloe dropped her gun on its sling and caught the monster's head with both hands.

Her eyes burned pure blood-red as she planted her boots.

She wedged her left hand against the outside of its armored head and hooked her right hand inside the rim of its jaw… and pulled.

SKRRRREEE… RRRRIPPP!

The front of the worm's head tore apart like a loaf of bread but as its throat split open, a pressurized sac of glowing green acid burst inside its neck and sprayed a wide sizzling arc straight at her face.

"CHLOE!" Leo shouted.

She kicked her heels loose and backflipped through the zero-G air.

The acid missed her visor by a hair and splattered onto the floor behind her, eating holes five centimeters deep into solid metal in half a second.

She landed in a crouch, breathing hard, shaking, and very much alive.

"I'm okay!" she squeaked. "I'm okay, I'm okay!"

Then, over by the entrance, the fifth and sixth worms attacked together…

One of them whipped its tail sideways across the floor and swept Camila's boots clean off the metal.

She went floating with her arms flailing, before her soles could find anything to grab.

The worm coiled and lunged.

Its rings of teeth snapped shut around her floating waist.

"CAMILA, NO!" Ms. Tachibana screamed.

CRUNCH… BZZZZZZT… SHATTER!

The teeth never touched her.

The instant those jaws clamped down, every cobalt line on Camila's suit blazed bright as a tiny sun. 

A translucent honeycomb barrier burst open three centimeters off her armor and caught the full crushing bite head-on.

For half a second, it held then it broke like glass in a violent burst of blue sparks, and the backlash blew the worm's head back a full meter and flung Camila safely against the wall.

THUD!

[WARNING — Crew Unit: Camila]

[Kinetic Shield: 0/1 (BROKEN)]

[One more hit like that and there will be nothing left between you and the teeth… Please stop being bitten.]

Camila hit the bulkhead gasping. She stared down at her chest, where the glowing lines on her suit had gone dark and dead.

…One free mistake and she'd just spent hers.

"I-I'm okay!" she wheezed. "I'm okay! I think! Oh god, I'm okay!"

But the sixth worm was already sliding right past her and straight at Elena.

"Ew… get away! GET AWAY FROM ME!"

Every last scrap of Elena's aristocratic composure vanished. 

Nine meters of pale toothy horror filled her whole world from barely a meter away, and her mind went completely blank but she didn't calculate an angle. 

In her unfiltered panic, she ripped the Wasp off her belt, squeezed her eyes shut, and stabbed blindly straight forward.

SHHK!

The violet-seamed blade sank into the soft flesh under the worm's lower jaw and the charge in the blade went off.

KRA-BOOM!

A concussive blast of violet light erupted right inside the wound, and the worm's entire lower jaw tore clean off its head in a spray of gore and shattered black teeth.

The blast threw the beast sideways into the wall.

Camila scrambled up onto her knees, still shaking, and put three frantic rounds into its exposed throat.

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP!

It stopped moving.

Elena stood frozen against the doorframe with the Wasp clutched in both hands. 

Her chest heaved like a bellows as violet blood was splattered across the front of her white armor and dripping slowly down the outside of her visor.

The seam along the blade had dimmed to half its glow.

[Arc-Charge Dagger 'Wasp': Charge 50%]

"Elena!" Harper yelled across the room. "You okay?!"

Elena's eyes snapped open.

She realized everyone had just heard her shriek like a terrified schoolgirl and her face went redder than the emergency lights. 

She straightened her spine immediately and wiped the back of her glove across her bloody visor with an aggressive sniff.

"Of course I'm okay, Bell!" she snapped, her voice trembling despite her best effort. "I wasn't scared! I simply waited for the creature to enter optimal range before removing its primary weapon… It was a completely calculated close-quarters execution!"

"YOUR EYES WERE CLOSED, STERLING!"

"THEY WERE STRATEGICALLY CLOSED!"

[This unit has footage… This unit will be keeping the footage forever…]

"I will DESTROY you!"

[Many have said that but nobody has managed it.]

Camila let out a hysterical little laugh that was half a sob, and reached over to grab Elena's hand. 

Elena looked down at it, startled but she didn't pull away.

On the far side of the room, Leo was alone.

There were two worms left and both of them on him.

He had nine rounds in his carbine and an empty torch on his belt, and the last ball of copper was sitting two meters behind the monsters, glinting in the strobing light like it was laughing at him.

The second worm slid out from behind the transformer housing on his left.

The third dropped off the ceiling pipes and landed on his right but they didn't rush him this time. 

They moved slowly, coiling as they closed in from both sides with their eyeless heads swaying, tasting the vibrations of his boots through the floor.

'They learned,' Leo realized, his mouth going dry. 'They watched me kill the other one, and they learned…'

"Leo!" Harper shouted, swinging her barrel toward him. "I can't get a clean line! You're right between them!"

"Don't shoot! You'll hit me!"

"Then MOVE!"

"WORKING ON IT!"

His back hit the wall, there was nowhere left to go.

Both worms reared up at the same time with their mouths spreading wide and rings of teeth grinding into motion on either side of him.

Leo looked at the left one then the right one and then he looked up.

'...Oh, this is going to be so stupid.'