Page 17 of A Mate For Matrix (Cyborg Protection Unit #1)
Chapter Twelve
“ M atrix, wake up,” K-Nine said, trotting into the room.
Matrix woke immediately and sat up. Jana groaned and tried to snuggle closer to him. He glanced down at her flushed face and tangled hair. He tenderly brushed the silky strands back before he turned to look at K-Nine.
“What is it?” he asked.
“The sensor on the far side of the house behind Jana’s transport has detected movement heading this way,” K-Nine stated, picking up Matrix’s clothes with his mouth and tossing them on the bed. “It’s the Crawler. I can feel it.”
“ Galactic Balls !” Matrix hissed through gritted teeth. Turning, he gently shook Jana. “Jana, wake up.”
Jana rolled over and sat up. She looked wildly around the room before emitting a low squeak and pulling up the covers when she saw K-Nine was staring at her. Matrix shot a heated glare at the wolfhound.
“We’ll meet you in the living room,” Matrix stated. “How far?”
“One, maybe two klicks from here,” K-Nine replied, turning to leave the room. “I will see if I can get a fix on it.”
“Don’t go outside yet,” Matrix ordered.
“What is going on?” Jana asked, scooting off the bed and grabbing her clothes.
“The Crawler is nearby,” Matrix replied in a grim tone.
“The Crawler? How close?” Jana asked, yanking her hair back into a quick ponytail. She grabbed a hairband off the dresser, quickly wrapping it around her hair to hold it. “What do we do?”
“ We don’t do anything,” Matrix stated. “K-Nine and I will attack when it surfaces and kill it.”
“What happens if you don’t?” Jana asked, hopping on one foot as she pulled on her shoes.
Matrix paused in the doorway. “We don’t have a choice,” he said. “K-Nine, I need my blades, gun, and the cartridges.”
“On the kitchen table,” K-Nine stated. “Your boots are next to it.”
“Thanks!” Matrix growled.
“What do I do?” Jana asked, eyes wide with worry.
Matrix turned and cupped her cheeks between his large palms. He stared down into her eyes before he bent to brush a tender kiss across her lips.
There wasn’t enough time to get her to the transport.
He had sent it to hover above the tree line.
They would have to kill the Crawler before it got to the house.
“Stay inside,” he said, his voice low but firm. “K-Nine and I are experienced in dealing with situations like this. I need to remain focused, and I need you to stay inside. We’ll keep it from getting to the house.”
Jana swallowed and nodded. She watched as Matrix finished dressing and slipped into the harness with the two long blades. Her gaze narrowed on the cartridges he was loading into a weapon that looked like a cross between an enormous gun and a small cannon.
Several minutes later, they left the house.
Jana debated whether to turn on the lights or to keep them off.
She finally decided that having them on might make her feel safer, but it could also make it easier for the creature to see Matrix and K-Nine.
In the end, she retrieved her cell phone, a small flashlight, and the biggest damn knife she could find in her kitchen.
A soft “meow” echoed from the hallway. Then another.
“Come here, sweethearts. Biscuit, Honeybun, Butter—come to Momma,” Jana coaxed softly.
Jana opened the door to the pantry and poured a small amount of food into their glass food bowl.
The sound of the dry pieces was loud as they struck the glass.
She slid to the floor and pulled one of her large cloth shopping bags close to her.
After the kittens were finished with their early morning snack, she picked them up and placed them in the bag.
“Hush now,” Jana whispered, laying her hand in the bag and letting the kittens play with it. “Please, keep them both safe. I don’t think I could handle losing either of them now. Please, oh please.”
Matrix nodded to K-Nine. Three of the scanners in the southwest were going off.
A fourth one suddenly lit up. The Crawler was half a klick away.
K-Nine stood near the back of the house while Matrix had taken up a position just inside the tree line.
He squatted on a low branch to minimize the chances of being detected.
“It’s coming,” K-Nine muttered through the communicator in Matrix’s ear.
“The fifth sensor just activated. It must still be traveling underground,” Matrix warned.
They didn’t have to guess. Seconds later, the ground roiled, then erupted as the Crawler emerged.
Matrix cursed as he counted the legs—an even dozen.
His mother had been right as always, this one was a fully mature female—an egg-laying, eating machine.
If the other information was correct, and he feared it was, the Crawler could lay over a thousand eggs.
Every one of those eggs could lay another thousand when they matured at the end of a solar year.
Within two years, the planet would be infested with the Crawlers, and the planet’s inhabitants would become the Crawler’s food source.
K-Nine emitted a loud, high-pitched howl, sending the creature into paroxysms of pain.
The high pitch, unheard by most creatures, pinged the sonar built into the Crawler’s frontal lobe.
Matrix jumped to the ground and charged while the creature was temporarily debilitated.
He was almost upon it when it whipped around and spat out a stream of acid.
Matrix lunged to the side, rolling before he regained his footing. K-Nine darted forward, attacking one of the exposed legs. He clamped down on the third limb on the right side. The force and speed of his attack allowed him to grab the leg and wrench it off.
The Crawler turned with a howl and struck at K-Nine as he jerked the twitching limb away from the creature. The force of the blow threw K-Nine up into the air. He landed almost a dozen feet away, the twitching leg still hanging from his jaws.
“You will not kill me, warriors,” the Crawler hissed in a guttural voice. “Thissss will be my world!”
“Not as long as we are still breathing,” Matrix swore as he circled the creature. “Why don’t you do us all a favor and just hold still so we can kill you?”
“Not likely, warrior,” the Crawler snapped as it turned, intending to dive back into the hole gaping behind it.
“I don’t think so,” Matrix growled, surging forward and tossing a cement charge into the massive hole.
The Crawler’s back legs struck against his chest. The blow tossed him through the air. K-Nine, seeing the blow, raced across the yard just as the charge exploded.
The force of the explosion in the hole threw K-Nine and the Crawler backwards.
The hole caved in, filling with the rapidly expanding cement material that quickly hardened into stone.
The Crawler struggled for a moment before she curled into a ball, her interconnecting plates creating a protective shield around herself.
Matrix’s expression hardened when he saw what the creature had done.
He knew from the vidcom of the creatures on the asteroid that she expected him to use the standard laser charge against her.
Her protective shell repelled those types of energy bursts, making them useless against the Crawler and the ricochets dangerous to anyone nearby. He and K-Nine had trained for this.
Pulling out his blades, Matrix circled the Crawler, and then swung, striking at one of the hard, armored plates. Brilliant sparks lit the air, and his arm shuddered with the force of the blow, but the blade didn’t penetrate the plating.
“Matrix, something is wrong, I can feel her moving,” K-Nine said, pressing his nose against the ground.
“I covered the hole,” Matrix snapped, striking the plating again.
“She’s not in there,” K-Nine insisted, taking several steps before he stopped and looked up. “She’s shed her outer casing and is heading for the house.”
A curse erupted from Matrix and his arm froze even as his head turned toward the dark building.
Fear gripped his heart, and for a brief second he forgot how to breathe.
He glanced at the hollow shell of the creature, then back at the house.
There had been nothing in the briefing about the Crawler being able to shed its outer casing.
Pulling out an energy charge, he pointed it at the empty shell of the Crawler.
“Run,” he ordered, pulling the trigger.
Jana hugged her knees as close to her chest as she could.
The kittens had finally fallen back to sleep.
She absentmindedly fingered the knife lying on the floor next to her.
Every time she heard a shout or a thump from outside, she would grab it.
If she had thought the noise was scary, it was nothing compared to the silence.
Her heart jumped into her throat when she heard a creak and felt the faint movement of the support beams under the house. Her gaze went to the back door. It and the screen door were securely locked. Her eyes widened when she saw the kitchen floor rise before settling back down.
She curled her fingers around the knife as she gripped the bag with the kittens in it. The portions of the floor rising and down appeared to be heading away from her. Whatever was causing it was moving beneath the hall toward the other side of the house.
A strangled scream escaped Jana when the house suddenly rose off its foundation, then crashed down.
She slid forward out of the narrow pantry just as the horrific sound of wood creaking and splintering echoed loudly through the air.
The kittens, awakened by the sudden movement and noise, began to emit a series of pitiful meows.
Jana struggled to get her footing when the house shifted under her again. She lost her grip on the bag with the three little kittens inside. Horror and fear choked Jana when she saw first one, then the other two, dart out of the bag and disappear through the doorway.
“No!” she cried, struggling to her feet.