Spots: Crushed

A Web Serial by M.C.A. Hogarth

48. Surrounded.	50. Platform Games.

49. Crushed

Control Room.

Control 1. "****...!"

[ Base ] Control 2 : Team Kitty, can you get out from under them?

[ Base ] Control 1 : How are you even keeping them off? Off mic. "****! Where are we going to find reinforcements?"

In the Warren.

Scythe, on the base channel. "We're under a shield bubble."

Claws, low. "Told you. You can just hear them gibberin'."

Flea. "I don't exactly ****ing BLAME them."

[ Base ] Control 2 : Repeating, can you get out?

Scythe. "We'll get back to you." Switching channels again. "All right, everyone got a target? One, two, three, now!"

Everyone under the shield shoots several times. Bugs explode. Ichor and parts fly. Silence.

Claws. "Well, ****. Now we've just got dead bugs piled on us insteada live ones."

Spots, squinting. "Do you think the living ones will move them out of the way?"

Scythe. "I don't know. Let's see."

Two minutes later... nothing.

Scythe. "****."

Hairball. "Maybe we could try grenades?"

Whiskers. "How are we gonna get those ****ers through the dead bugs? Wedge them out?"

Claws. "We'll just end up blowin' up more crabs to lie dead on top of us."

Flea. "****! This is NOT how I was planning to go! Buried alive under a hundred dead crabs??"

Scythe. "More like fifty."

Flea. "****! Can't we move out from under them? Kind of scoot the shield along with us?"

Everyone looks at Spots. She shakes her head.

Spots. "It might be a force-field but it's attached to my arm, and Claws's. We've got a lot of weight on top of us. I don't know if we can move it without breaking something."

Scythe. "Even supported by your suits."

Spots. "Call it a feeling."

Claws. "She might be right. Right now we got the weight in a straight line, arm-spine-ground. We start shiftin' too much we might get shear."

Hairball. "Well, we can't go down. We got this grid under us now."

Whiskers. "And we can't go side to side."

Spots, musing. "I guess that leaves..."

Fang, with teeth. "Up."

[ Base ] Control 1 : Team Kitty, this is Control. Sitrep.

Scythe. "Now we're under a shield bubble with a layer of dead bugs on top. ETA on back-up?"

[ Base ] Control 2 : Seven to ten minutes.

Scythe. "You have anything on exterior cameras?"

[ Base ] Control 2 : Negative, Team Kitty.

Scythe. "****. Anything could be out there, waiting for us."

Hairball. "We can't stay here, though. Ten minutes is what we had on the shield a few minutes ago."

Spots nods. "Unless we contract it. We could probably squeeze in tighter."

Flea. "****, I'm close enough to all you ****ers as it is!"

Fang. "So the choice is wait or fight."

Claws. "That's the size of it."

Fang. "The answer's obvious, then, isn't it?"

Everyone looks at Scythe, who grins. "**** yeah. We fight!"

48. Surrounded.	50. Platform Games.