Argurma Monster (The Argurma Chronicles #2)

Chapter 22

Beverly’s muscles screamed as she fired repeatedly, exhaustion making them feel leaden as she dodged those zombies that managed to get closer to her before they were downed, usually by either Talech or Zoreth, either by blaster or being speared through the head by one of Talech’s metal limbs. She could admit that her aim wasn’t as good as the Argurmas, her shots seldom blasting apart their heads like so many melons like those of Zoreth and Talech. Even body shots that should have induced incredible amounts of pain and at least slowed them down didn’t seem to have any effect.

“Fucking parasites probably don’t bother with the pain receptors of the brain,” she grumbled as she fired another shot.

The alien stumbled and fell as blood spurted from its head. She bit back a sound of triumph. At least she was managing to take a few of them out. It may have taken her a few more shots, but she did it and was wearing the bloody badges of her victories as it splattered everywhere along her clothes and body.

Of course, reminding herself that the parasites weren’t blood born was the mantra that kept her sanity intact with every spray of blood that hit her. And there were copious amounts of that! She was beginning to look as if she were bathed in blood, and the guys didn’t look any better.

They inched their way onto the central line on the collection route, battling for every bit of ground. Beverly took strength from having them by her sides—her mates. They couldn’t be called anything less. They trusted her to fight by their side even as they had her back. They covered each other, suffered the same horrors together as mangled bodies fell and parasites wriggled from the dead flesh, reaching for them. The mature parasites crawled from the corpse like creatures born from nightmares before it sprang toward them, dozens of thin tentacles whipping as its claws spread wide to grab its prey. Sometimes the mother parasite would detach and erupt from the skull if they didn’t destroy the head adequately enough. Her males faced all of this unflinchingly with her. They would face anything head on for her and with her.

She couldn’t ask for anything more.

A zombie burst from a building in front of her, the rot of its breath fanning her face. Its clawed fingers reached for her, broken and blackened practically down to the wrists stinking of foul things she didn’t want to think of. Beverly brought her blaster up between its eyes and squeezed the trigger. Brain matter flew, but she didn’t try to dodge it. She’d found out early-on that she was never able to get out of the way fast enough to avoid getting soaked with innards.

She closed her eyes to protect them from the spray of blood and gore, but when she opened them again another zombie was lurching over the first, its mouth gaping wide. Beverly shrieked and snapped her blaster up, firing. The top of its head came off in a rain of fragmented bones and brains. And then two more went down as they surged toward.

Wiping the blood out of her face, Beverly sat up abruptly, her eyes widening in shock as a number of heavily armed Kave surged in among the zombies, cutting them down with deadly precision. A shockwave erupted from a large, mounted weapon, sending the infected flying backward, clearing space for the fighters. A tall, lean male with numerous braids in his white hair bent and scooped her up as he shouted orders to those covering them. Beverly twisted in his grip, her eyes searching in panic for Talech and Zoreth.

“Wait,” she whimpered. “Please... don’t leave them.”

The male who held her tightened his arms around her. He glanced down at her for only a zec before his head snapped up with a snarl as a roar ripped down the street and a body went flying by her to crash into a wall.

“Argurma!” a nearby female shouted. “We are being invaded.”

“They chose a poor spot for an invasion,” another male observed as his blaster took down several of the infected coning for them. “They are welcome to it. If we are fortunate, they will eradicate more of the infection before it kills them.”

“What?” Beverly shrieked as she attempted to twist from the grip holding her. “No! You can’t leave them. Those things can infect them too. They are living beings.”

“The alien is right,” the male holding her shouted gruffly. “They are mostly organic and could pose an even larger threat should they become hosts. Capture them. Using everything that we have in tranquilizers to bring them down.”

“No, stop!” Beverly fought harder and twisted just enough to sink her teeth as hard as she could into the harm that was holding her.

The Kave male cursed, his grip suddenly going slack. Beverly took advantage of it. Throwing her weight with all her strength, she slipped from his grasp to the ground. Her booted feet hit pavement, and she whirled in an attempt to run but stumbled when a sharp blow to her head made her vision fuzzy. Blinking rapidly, she stumbled as her captor cursed again and fell to the ground.

“Not so hard, Drivalic. We do not have enough breeders for you to risk killing this one.”

The one called Drivalic sniffed disdainfully, the crunch of his footsteps inordinately loud in her ears as he walked along side of her. Her head throbbed, the piercing pain disorientated her and made her ears ring but that didn’t stop her from trying to crawl away from him. She cried out as she was suddenly yanked up off the ground, her head flopping against the chest of the one holding her.

Twin bellows of rage rose amid the brutal sounds of conflict. Beverly blinked for a moment before her eyes slid shut, a tear streaking down her cheek as she succumbed to unconsciousness.

“You are lucky you didn’t do more damage to her,” a firm voice snapped overhead, filling Beverly’s mind as she drifted back to conciousness. “You know how many females we lost to the infestation and what do you do—you nearly take the head off of the first female you meet on the collection route.”

“Drivalic used too much force and was reprimanded for it. What I want to know is her condition. Is she relatively undamaged, and more importantly—is she breedable.”

Beverly’s stomach lurched. More importantly? How the hell was that more important than whether or not she suffered a brain hemorrhage from that brute’s blow? So much for the nice, peaceful Kaze. She whimpered softly and felt the cool press of a hand against her pulse.

“She is waking up.” The hand shifted to her brow and brushed her hair back from her sticky face. “Female, how are you feeling?”

“Like I got hit by an enormous alien asshole,” she replied from between her teeth as her head turned toward the voice.

Her eyes slowly parted, and her vision cleared as she focused on a beautiful Kaze face minus the crests. Beverly’s brow furrowed slightly. The Kaze seemed to have pretty severe sexual dimorphism. She could have almost taken the female for human if not for her coloring and the pronounced shape of her features. But it made sense why the Kaze immediately assumed that Beverly was female and had acted on it. The female’s lips curled in response before parting with a relieved sigh.

“Good. It seems that your mental faculties are operating well enough if you are replying sarcastically. I am Medic Sieylana.

Beverly’s head turned as she scoped out her surroundings. “Where am I at Sieylana? How serious are my injuries. What about the males I was with?”

“Be at ease,” the medic soothed. “Captain Ragal and his team were able to get to you in time. You are fine. As for the males—” she glanced helplessly to a point beyond Beverly’s vision and a large, familiar stepped forward.

“They are being detained,” he rumbled.

Beverly’s eyes slid shut, refusing to look at the male. “Oh, it’s the captor. Hello, captor. If you could tell me when you’re releasing us, it would be greatly appreciated.”

Ragal growled softly, his irritation loud in the silent room. “Your ingratitude is unbecoming. If I had not rescued you, the contaminated would have torn and those males to pieces or infected you. Or both. You can survive quite a bit of damage and still make a viable host for those things,” he pointed out.

Beverly’s eyes opened and she met his gaze scornfully. “And that is much appreciated, captain captor. Now, when can we leave?”

“Leave?” He reared back, his eyes narrowing on her. “There is no leaving. Where do you think you will go? There are no safe places outside the spaceport. The infected swarm every part of the city. It is a miracle you got to the collection route.”

She drew in a deep breath in an attempt to ease the persistent throbbing in her head. As much as she wanted to rail against him, what he said aligned with what she had already worked out. The spaceport clearly had safety protocols to lock it impenetrably against attack. The survivors were unexpected, but it also stood to reason that anyone who could have possibly survived had been left into the spaceport. No one had come for them.

“When can I see my mates?” she groaned.

“You are speaking of the Argurma?” Medic Sieylana leaned over Beverly, her eyes bright with curiosity. “There is not a lot known about the species, but I have never heard of them group mating before.”

“Whatever relationship you have with the Argurma, it is meaningless now,” Ragal interrupted. “This is a Kaze colony, and our laws must be abided to here. Your official mated status is registered as unknown and you will be hereby put in the mating pool.”

The medic straightened, her eyes whipping to him. “Captain, I must protest. If she is saying that is mated, by law we must—”

“What you must do is what you have been ordered to do,” he replied as he turned to the female with a steely regard. “Just get ready and then report to me.”

Sieylana lowered her head submissively. “Yes, captain.”

Ragal’s gaze slowly caressed Beverly in a way that made her skin crawl, his eyes brightening with a look of interest that made her skin crawl. She was relieved when he suddenly turned away and headed for the door. Her stomach churning, she glanced over at the medic busying herself with putting away her equipment.

“The mating pool is metaphoric right?” she asked with a nervous laugh. “They are just going to pull straws and argue over it for a few days, right?” Anything to buy her some time.

The medic glanced over at her with a weak smile and shook her head. “The Kave have aquatic dwelling ancestors. Anciently we were a swamping dwelling race—but that was before. While we are mostly land dwellers now for the sake of convenience as the dry land allows us to live comfortably in our cities in a fashion that would be difficult in the swamps, but it is difficult to escape instinct. Many of our life events still take place in water, however, and because of that the spaceport was fitted with a pool to aid Kaze who were transitionary between our homeworld and our new colony.”

“Including mating,” Beverly observed, and the medic inclined her head.

“Sadly it is our irresistible draw to the swamps that brought the infestation to our door. We did not realize that the Hethkreian vablor parasite that lives in the swamps was a true threat to us.” She sighed and continued to put her equipment away. “Our scientists were fascinated with the parasites. They appeared to target a particular species of animal with which they lived in a symbiotic relationship. They are fascinating really. When they infect their hose, they borrow their mouth into the back of the brain while their feeding arms surround the hypothalamus. From that point, they send thin motor tendrils into the various parts of the brain controlling eating and movement etc. Meanwhile, its tapered tail imbeds into the neck, burying its asexual genitals where it will reproduce and release spore-eggs into the host. The juvenile parasites are tiny and live in colonies along the arms, legs and genitals of the host. Once they become mature, they erupt out from beneath the skin of the mother-parasite’s host, causing shallow lacerations and small contusions that never entirely heal. What is fascinating, however, is how they don’t all attempt to swarm and burst out of the skin. The just slip out one or two at a time when the time is right and continue the cycle of life. Observing them in their natural environment was fascinating.”

Beverly tried not to gag as she recalled the sight of the wedge-shaped bugs scurrying toward her. She didn’t get the appeal of what made them so fascinating, but that was also not her area of specialization.

Sufficiently distracted from thoughts of the literal activity of mating in a pool, Beverly sat up and peered at the medic curiously. “How did it infest the Kaze, then?”

Sieylana breathed heavily as if attempting to steady her nerves and she cast Beverly a sad smile over her shoulder. “We were all warned to not go into the swamps without proper gear and sanitization afterward. Although no one suspected that they would infect us, the general consensus was that the swamp was still a restrictive zone while the composition and lifeforms within the swamp was being studied and safety was being determined. A couple wishing to mate, however, made the decision that they wanted to mate in a more authentic way out in the swamp. They were the first casualties, and from them the infection spread throughout our colony city.”

“And the city died,” Beverly concluded.

“And the city died,” the medic confirmed. “We died. Our whole colony died. There are only two hundred Kaze left. One hundred and thirty of which are males, eighty unmated.” She glanced at Beverly sadly. “They will never let your mates have you.”

That was what they thought.