Last Stop by Django Wexler

Author:Django Wexler [Wexler, Django]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Space Exploration, Science Fiction, Space Opera
ISBN: 9781039473188
Publisher: Podium Publishing
Published: 2024-10-08T00:00:00+00:00

Once the novelty of being on the ground wore off and discomfort dulled the edge of terror, what remained was hard, heavy work in the heat, all while feeling like a wet towel was wrapped around your head. The hoses were big bastards, five centimeters across and reinforced with wire. They ended in a perforated metal spike, which you jabbed as deep into the cow’s body as you could. Most of the insect’s colossal bulk was composed of fluid sacs storing the incredibly high-energy fluid humans inaccurately named bugblood. Left to themselves, they would eventually be guided back to a nest by their mantid handlers and purge themselves into its reserves.

These cows, of course, were going nowhere. Each carcass had several hoses attached, the descender’s pumps churning busily to extract bugblood and fill the tanks. Zham watched his assigned hoses for any sign of slackening—once they’d drained all the fluid they could, they had to be jammed into another part of the corpse to puncture more sacs. The cow’s bodies visibly shrank as the pumps worked, collapsing like ice sculptures in the summer heat and leaving Zham feeling like a mechanically assisted vampire.

“We’re going to need one more,” Karl said, checking the tank levels and looking out at the field of dead cows. They’d killed ten, about half the herd, and while Ingeborg’s technique had been excellent, the remaining creatures clearly sensed something was up. They shifted anxiously, turning more often, even lumbering a few steps forward before settling down to chew more grass.

“I’ll get it,” Niko said. She had a machete in hand, dark to the elbows with the black ichor that was the cow’s actual blood. “Ingeborg, that one?”

The big woman looked up and gave an affirmative grunt. Niko hustled over, setting herself just behind the cow’s head with its grinding mouthparts and positioning the blade carefully behind the dorsal ridge.

“Niko, wait,” Zham said. The cow was shifting uneasily, head swinging. “Niko!”

She didn’t hear him in time. As she started to plunge the blade down, the big insect moved, swinging its massive head clumsily toward her. The machete strike went awry, glancing away in a shower of black blood. The side of the cow’s head slammed into Niko, sweeping her off her feet to go sprawling in the dirt.

“Fuck!” Ingeborg shouted. She started to run.

Zham was already moving, and he was closer. Niko lay on her back, scrabbling away as the cow loomed over her with its serrated mouthparts churning. It was making a high-pitched whistling sound like a mortally wounded teakettle. While it couldn’t see her, Zham could all too easily imagine it crushing Niko in sheer panic under one of those flailing legs, or bringing its mouth down and shredding flesh and bone—

He’d drawn his pistol, a heavy 1.1, before he’d really thought about what to do with it. As the cow lurched forward again, he lined up on the spot Ingeborg had pointed out and fired three times. The cow’s plating cracked and splintered, throwing

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