Spindle Drones

In stark contrast to the fierce fighting at the temporary base, the deep passage where Old John led his scouting team remained shrouded in a silence so profound it seemed solid.

Their brief encounter with the creature earlier felt like a dream. Only a few pools of sticky blue blood on the floor and a lingering stench remained, as if to remind them that danger had never gone away.

Their short rest was less about recovering their strength than forcing down their fear long enough to catch their breath.

Each man silently checked his dwindling Ammunition and swallowed metallic-tasting saliva. As the adrenaline wore off, exhaustion began to creep in.

"Who knows what other 'surprises' this damned place has waiting for us?" Clawven spat, then carefully took an unusual-looking shotgun shell from a reinforced pouch on his tactical vest.

The shell was larger than a standard round. Its brass casing bore a prominent Skulls emblem and a ring of fine red stripes warning of extreme danger.

He deftly loaded his "treasure" into his oversized Shotgun. With a crisp click, the round slid into the chamber.

"Cost me almost six months' pay to get this beauty from a trader in the Hive City black market," Clawven said, as much to bolster himself as to inform his teammates. His thick fingers stroked the Gun.

"They say it's packed with miniature bolts instead of ordinary shot, plus some... Stars Energy Shard? Hell, I can't remember. That crackpot said this thing could 'blast out heat as hot as a star.' Heh. Time for it to make an appearance."

Old John did not stop him. In this place, every bit of extra firepower was precious.

He patted Clawven's shoulder armor. "Use it sparingly. It might save your life when it counts. All right, boys, we can't stay here long. Move out. Stay alert and cover each other."

The team set off again, trudging silently through the endless Blackstone Labyrinth.

Another half hour seemed to drag by. Their surroundings remained monotonous enough to crush the spirit.

Straight passages. Smooth, cold Blackstone walls. Endless darkness.

The only change was the whispering rustle, which seemed to have grown denser, as though countless tiny things were crawling inside the walls and above the ceiling.

Old John glanced now and then at the portable Navigation device strapped to his left arm. Numbers flickered across its screen, but the marker showing their position seemed to spin in place or move along an incomprehensible path.

"We've covered about seven kilometers," he told Clawven grimly.

"But judging by the size of this structure, we've barely scratched the surface. We're nowhere near the center."

Clawven shook his head in irritation. His mechanical eye kept adjusting its focus as it scanned the passage ahead and the walls on either side.

"Damn it, something feels wrong, boss. I can't explain it. It's like... something's watching us. Or maybe these walls... maybe the damn walls are moving?"

Clawven could not put the feeling into words. It was the instinct for danger he had developed over years spent on the edge of death.

"I feel it too." Old John nodded, his face grave.

"And the Navigation device may have failed. Worse, we lost all contact with Captain Fetteman more than ten minutes ago. There's powerful signal interference here, or... something is deliberately blocking us."

With that in mind, he quickened his pace until he reached the front of the team and walked beside Clawven.

The isolation of being cut off from support crept over everyone like a cold tide.

"Damn it. If I'd known this job was so cursed, I wouldn't have taken it even if Captain Fetteman offered me half his trading permit!"

In the middle of the team, a scar-faced veteran could not help grumbling under his breath.

"Count your blessings, old man," Clawven replied, trying to ease the tension.

"Without this job, you'd probably be in that stinking tavern on Stefan Star right now, with an arm around a girl whose waist is wider than a barrel, bragging about how you killed an Ork Boyz barehanded!"

"Bullshit! I killed two Ork Boyz!" the soldier called "old man" shot back with a laugh.

A younger mercenary joined the complaints. "Hell, don't get me started! Just thinking about our pay makes me mad!"

"On that last security job, the bastard middleman took such a fat cut! We were promised ten thousand Throne Gelt each, and what did we get? Five thousand! I went to confront him, and you know what that bastard said? 'Mercenaries are a dime a dozen. Take the job or piss off!' What a piece of shit!"

The team traded crude jokes, complained about demanding employers, and shared embarrassing stories from past jobs.

It was a common response among soldiers under such extreme pressure. Familiar complaints and jokes helped them fight the terror of the unknown, which threatened to drive them mad.

A known monster might be frightening, but a threat lurking unseen in the dark could gnaw away at a person's sanity.

The fragile mood shattered the next instant.

As the team passed through a stretch of corridor that looked no different from the rest, a low, dense buzzing began without warning.

It sounded neither like an engine nor a living creature. It was more like ten thousand metal bees beating their wings at once, filling the entire space in an instant!

"What's that sound?!" Clawven snapped his Shotgun up.

Before he finished speaking, everything changed!

Countless tiny cracks suddenly split the smooth Blackstone walls on both sides of the passage, as if the stone had come alive.

Then several metal blades flashed out at a speed the eye could barely follow.

The deadly array rolled toward the team's position on the steps like a meat grinder.

"A trap! It's a trap!" Old John screamed.

But his warning came too late. The blades moved faster than anyone could have imagined.

One man on the team's flank had no time to dodge. He let out a short cry as several blades crossed through him.

They sliced through his armor like paper. In an instant, his body fell into more than a dozen neat pieces, spilling blood and entrails across the cold Blackstone floor!

"Watch the walls!"

At the same time, the skin-crawling scrape of metal came from both ends of the passage.

Amid the buzzing, a dense swarm of bizarre Constructs surged out of the darkness ahead.

Each stood roughly as tall as a person, with a streamlined body of dull metal. Countless tiny jointed legs scuttled beneath it, carrying it forward silently and with lightning speed.

Their "heads" had no features, only rotating compound-eye sensors glowing red. Mounted on their fronts were sharp, mantis-like cutting arms that vibrated at high speed—the same blades that had burst from the walls!

These killing machines, shaped like giant metal insects, were the true guardians of the ancient Blackstone Fortress: Spindle Drones.

"Monsters!" another team member shrieked, terrified by the sudden, incomprehensible sight. His scream echoed through the passage.

He instinctively backed away, only for a Spindle Drone to descend silently from the ceiling, hook his backpack with a cutting arm, and yank him into a hidden compartment that opened in the wall.

The compartment snapped shut. A brief scream and the teeth-grinding sound of frantic cutting came from within, like a meat grinder at work. Seconds later, blood seeped through the seams.

"Fire! Fire at will!"

Old John roared as he raised his Bolt Pistol and fired at the nearest Spindle Drone.

The bolt struck its metal Shell and sprayed sparks, but did not seem to inflict a fatal wound!

Clawven's oversized Shotgun thundered as he fired his precious special round into the Hive Swarm.

The shell burst among the drones, creating a brief pocket of turbulent energy that melted more than a dozen into twisted scrap. But countless more surged forward without slowing! There were too many of them!

Laser beams glanced off their smooth Shells, while ordinary bolts struggled to bring them down with a single hit.

The Constructs were highly resistant to energy, and their frames were extraordinarily sturdy!

"Aim for the joints! Or those glowing eyes!" Old John shouted as he fired, but the team had already fallen into chaos.

Spindle Drones poured in from every direction. They covered the walls, the ceiling, and the floor.

The air filled with the shriek of cutting arms, the clatter of metal legs against the floor, and that maddening buzz.

"Fall back! Everyone, fall back! Go the way we came!" Old John knew that holding their ground against enemies like these, in these numbers and in this place, meant certain death.

Without hesitation, he hurled his last Frag Grenade toward the thickest part of the Hive Swarm!

Boom!

The Grenade's explosion briefly cleared a small area. Shrapnel rattled against the drones' Shells.

"Run! Hurry! Don't look back!" Old John shouted himself hoarse. He seized a young teammate frozen by fear, turned, and sprinted back the way they had come.

The instinct to survive overcame their fear. Abandoning all thought of formation, the remaining team members scattered like ants from a broken nest and followed Old John and Clawven, running for their lives with everything they had.

(I forgot to update this afternoon because I was playing Warhammer. I'll make it up tonight and add an extra update tomorrow as compensation.)