Chapter 10. Cetanu

Well, at least they still can't see us, Cetanu thought.

One of the oomans had bumped into nain-de, who panicked and cut his arm off with his glaive! The result was an odd battle between the N'dui'se hunters, who were entirely outnumbered, and the oomans, who were shooting at thin air in hopes of hitting an enemy they couldn't see! Two of the oomans tried to run away, but their heads instantly exploded in a flash of blue light!

H'sai-de's double plasma caster!

It wasn't long before the familiar maul and glaive began to rip through the spines of the terrified oomans! Cetanu was so distracted by the return of his friend, he let an ooman shoot him in the kneecap!

He screamed in pain as he fell, letting the ooman know he hit something. But as the ooman got ready to shoot him again, Cetanu fired his spear gun through its eye! He was about to get up when another ooman tripped on him! It was confused, which Cetanu used to his advantage by slitting its throat with his wrist blades! The ooman behind him got some blood on its ankle and looked down, but didn't see anything! The moment it looked away though, Cetanu used his blades to slash through its legs!

Cetanu stood up as quickly as he could, but he couldn't move as fast as he wanted with his knee in the condition that it was. He still managed to blow several oomans to bits with his plasma caster as he limped, but it was only a matter of seconds until he was hit worse!

They were suddenly struck with good fortune however, when they heard a strange voice!

"Attention all units. USS Calypso set to arrive in T minus twenty-seven hours, thirty-two minutes, seventeen seconds. All units are to proceed to hanger B-4 within one hour. At this time, all entrances to hanger B-4 shall be locked. Any units outside of hanger B-4 in one hour shall be left at HADES 61793 for final detonation."

Almost immediately the voice began to speak again, but Cetanu soon realized that it was just repeating the same phrase over and over. The oomans stopped firing for a moment, and then ran off down the hall! They're running like cowards, Cetanu happily realized!

He kneeled down, deactivated his cloak, pulled out his medkit, taking a surgical blade out, and stuck it through his knee! He fished it around inside himself, getting much of his blood all over his leg! After a few seconds he hit a small hard object about the size of one of his claws. He then used his blade as a lever to painfully pry it out of his body! He finally managed to fling out a piece of metal soaked with green blood!

While he staunched the blood-flow, he noticed that H'sai-de had a deep gash across his stomach! Cetanu motioned that he was willing to heal it, but H'sai-de seemed perfectly content with his injury. He probably wants to save the scar for impressing females, he thought with a very small chuckle.

They all looked at H'sai-de's trophy when they all heard the sound of an approaching ooman! Cetanu turned his cloak back on and prepared his plasma caster, when the ooman walked right down the corridor! Cetanu looked right at it, but it wasn't giving off any heat! This confused him at first, but he blew it to bits anyway!

A strange substance, almost like blood, splashed all over his body! After feeling it, he realized it was far too milky to be blood, for any creature! He looked at the bits of the body and was completely disgusted! There were fake pieces of ooman skin and eyes all over the place, but they were just covering up mechanical bits and the milky blood!

Kv'var had been right! The sick monsters had created mechanized versions of themselves! They needed to get out of this disgusting place immediately!

He motioned to the others that it would be best to return to the entrance and wait for Steg'-in, Mesh'in'ga, and Da'guande there. The four of them walked to the hallway near the strange hole, but instead of the other three N'dui'se they saw an ooman with a large burner! He put it down next to several other ones, pushed a few buttons on another device, and spoke into a third object!

"The sentry guns are set at D12! Nothin's getting in or out!"