Such a surreal experience, seeing a full grown Ss'sik'chtokiwij being face hugged by her own socmavaj. I froze up and stared for a moment.
In the spirit of `loving thine enemy', I attempted to remove the creature.
Admittedly, our body configurations make it a little easier to remove large egg laying parasites, still, not exactly simple.
Since she was taller than me, I had to climb up her body to get at it, and once I did, she swatted me down.
I had to instead leap up from the floor and grab the socmavaj that way.
Grandmother lowered her head, finally grasping what I intended to accomplish.
As I had the tail in my claws, and got to peeling the legs off, I heard the children screaming.
I glanced back. Socmavaj surrounded them, the adults around them either too scared or too impregnated to offer any assistance.
The children retreated, but Mr. Rapchuck wouldn't let them escape, clutching each boy's shoulder in a vice-like grip, giving a plastic smile as the creatures approached.
My stomach flip-flopped. It would break my heart to lose Timmy and Landon, but if I could save Grandmother, and win her heart, maybe, just maybe, us Ss'sik'chtokiwij and humans could somehow peacefully coexist.
...And even if this did not occur, I would still be able to stop Ssorzechola's evil plan.
As nice as the latter sounded, I decided Grandmother, being big and muscular enough to rip an android in half, could take care of herself. The children, however, wouldn't survive without my help.
Still, I gave the socmavaj one last tug, removing one its leg in the process.
"Leave it!" a voice shouted above me. "Save the boys!"
Maria's small white body scuttled across the ceiling.
"Hurry! She's in grave danger!" I leapt on the socmavaj nearest to Timmy, ripping it open with my claws.
The boy froze, staring at the dead creature. He'd gone catatonic like this a lot lately, but I didn't know why.
No time to find out. "C'mon. We need to go."
He didn't move, just stared at the big Ss'sik'chtokiwij with his eyes bulging.
As Maria fought with the socmavaj on Grandmother's face, Grandma got confused, striking her as she continued to fight the diseased product of her own egg.
A second socmavaj grabbed Landon's leg. I yanked it by its tail, tearing through its vital organs, but before I could finish it off, Mr. Rapchuck shocked me with his cattleprod.
I tried to knock his feet out from under him, but the nerves in my tail stopped working again, and he grabbed me by the throat.
The mortally wounded socmavaj resumed its pursuit, crawling up Landon's shoes, its blood melting rubber.
Landon kicked it away, but the urge to procreate was strong. The socmavaj kept crawling back every time the boy gave it the boot.
I hoped that Timmy would help, but he only froze at the sight.
People tried to flee, but, one by one, they all got picked off by either a socmavaj or a Ss'sik'chtokiwij. No one but me, it seemed, could save these children.
Unless you counted accidentally giving your life to distract socmavaj `helping'.
With an evil grin, Rapchuck lifted me off the floor. "You see, Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik? Sometimes dreams do come true!"
I gasped in horror. The infected socmavaj had indeed fallen off Grandmother's face, but on its own volition. It seemed the worm ridden egg had already been deposited in her body.
"Pathetic. Killing your own family, your own mother, and hundreds of people still die! And now look at you...You think all these humans would have come where without you sticking your nose in? Face it, you're a failure! You deserve to have your life ended." Rapchuck's face leered at me just a couple inches away from mine, tempting me. "Relax, Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik. Let go and we shall both get what we want. Ssorzechola will have all the humans in the base, and you will at last be able to depart, and be with the Lord."
As loath as I was to take a human life, I really had no choice. I distended my jaw, shooting my suaakudsi through his skull.
The act brought me no pleasure. In fact, his disgusting worm ridden brains tried to infect me. I spat several times, but feared at least a couple were already on their way to my brain.
The man's grip faltered, but I knew if Ssorzechola could bring Sunny back, even a crippling brain injury wouldn't be enough to stop him.
I took the added precaution of slashing his throat and ripping open his chest cavity, disemboweling him for good measure.
Speaking of which, I have neglected to mention Noah. While all these things transpired, he'd been busying himself putting worms in impregnated bodies, spreading the infestation.
Landon, in the meantime, continued fighting the half dead socmavaj, Timmy unhelpfully still frozen, staring dumb at the carnage surrounding him.
Landon gave his attacker a soccer kick, but it only stuck to his foot.
In a fury, I grabbed the thing by its tail, throwing it in Noah's face.
As Noah struggled to pull it off, I dragged the children closer to an exit tunnel, between a cluster of empty eggs.
As a reward for my actions, Noah, already free from the facehugger, rammed the cattleprod into my exoskeleton and let it go on full current.
For a moment, it paralyzed me, but then I got mad.
Really, really mad.
As stated before, one can acquire a tolerance to being jolted by electricity, so I actually grabbed the baton that jolted me, enduring the shock enough to twist the man's wrist around the other way.
Filled with rage, I brought the baton higher, aiming to shove it through the man's eye socket, maybe through his skull.
Too strong. The moment the baton neared his eye, he whipped it out of my grasp and beat me with it.
I landed on the floor, watching with dread as a swarm of tapeworms came crawling toward me, the next available host.
When I scooted away from them, they crawled toward the children.
I tried to get off the floor, but Noah just beat me down again, his superhuman strength inflicting as much pain as the toughest of Ss'sik'chtokiwij, adding insult to the injury with constant electric shocks.
Under the force of such heavy blows, I began to understand the abuse my Lord experienced on the road to Calvary. However, unlike He, my death would accomplish nothing if I couldn't get those children to safety.
Suddenly seized with an idea, I drove my claws into the hand holding the baton, biting off his thumb. I had to spit it out due to the worms.
The man roared and slammed his fist into me, but not before I had the prod in my claws.
Noah lunged for me, but I shocked him, causing him to stumble back.
Up to this point, the children had mostly been cowering by my side, trying not to get a socmavaj stuck to their face. I had to rip one off Timmy as it wrapped its tail around his waist, earning a punch to the side of the head from my attacker as I did so.
Shocking the man again, I grabbed hold of the children, burning them slightly as I pulled them further away from danger. I'm certain I hurt them, but I think they understood I was their only hope of getting out of there alive. They never strayed from me.
Landon, of course, kept crying for his daddy. I told him I would try to come back for him later, that his dad would want him to get to safety. I knew the man was basically dead, but I would bring the body back for a decent funeral, if necessary. Anything to get them out of there.
Noah caught up with me in a couple seconds, hitting me in the head with a second cattleprod he'd retrieved from the floor.
The worms, of course, had replaced his thumb by this time, so we engaged in sort of a sword fight.
Lacking in fencing skills, and, apparently, his brute strength, I soon lost possession of my weapon, and he clubbed me across the shell again.
I clawed back, but he struck me down.
Noah grabbed me by the throat, but held me far from his face to avoid my natural defenses. "You have two options, Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik. Leave this place alone, and live, or die with your little human friends."
"How about option three!" a voice barked behind him.
The bloody tip of a knife erupted from Noah's chest, a fountain of red liquid and parasites soiling his clothes.
Kumar, back with a vengeance.
Noah gritted his teeth, spun around, and the two commenced beating each other with their fists.
Timmy pointed a shaking finger at a dead socmavaj. "That thing! That thing! That's what killed dad!"
"It'll kill you too if we don't get out of here!"
I dragged the children through a line of empty eggs, up past Grandmother.
The boys shrank from her, but I had to see what happened to Maria.
I found the poor thing lying prone on the floor nearby.
I stifled a sob. "Maria..."
"At least I have one granddaughter that loves me," Grandmother grumbled as she examined the little body.
"What did she do?"
"She absorbed all those disgusting little worms, that's what!"
I wept.
"I thought for sure I'd choke to death on the larva, but somehow it didn't have one...Why am I even telling you this? It's not like you care!"
Overwhelmed with emotion, I couldn't even speak.
"Please take us out of here," Timmy whimpered.
I sniffed, nodded, but then gazed sadly at my little friend's body. "She was such a good friend. She loved humans, and she loved Grandmother...she loved everybody. Her faith was an inspiration. She had such a big heart."
Landon picked her up. "Here. Can we go now?"
I sneezed a few times, then nodded.
The boy winced, like he expected to catch a virus, but said nothing.
We made it out to the tunnel system. I had to kill a socmavaj that sneaked up on us, but the more intelligent Ss'sik'chtokiwij just stared at us. The picture of a small human carrying around a dead larva like a baby sister gave them pause, even made a few of them cry.
We reached the elevator, deciding it best to wait for it, slow or not, rather than risk conflict from bolder members of my family.
As the large box descended to my level, a dark burn scarred body slammed me into the metal safety cage, clutching my throat with her withered claws. "How dare you poison Grandmother!"