Page 5 of The First Omega Made (Scales and Tails of Fate #2)

I strolled in after Vil and our companions forged in, standing loosely by Noel as he glanced around.

Controls and things had odd shapes, and the floors were textured, as if the people who lived there once didn’t have dexterous feet.

His eyes narrowed as he kicked the dirt on the floor around. “Hmm. Space crabs.”

How he’d come to the conclusion of what the Revulon were with that little information, I didn’t know, but he did have the superior intellect of a pure-blooded Naleucian. It hit me, oddly, that Vil could do that, too. He had that much intellect…and used it to fuck.

He used to fuck anything. Not anymore. I didn’t even know if they could add a third to form a true triad, what with Vil’s anatomy.

My species didn’t mate or pair. We regurgitated reproductive material into the mouth of another infected host and laid eggs then abandoned them to hatch in the corpse of our host as we found another.

I shuddered. I’d never bred before, refused to do so, never would, and as the last I heard—none of our people ever would.

Noel gave me a sidelong glance. “This bothers you.”

I shrugged. “The mold stuff icks me out.”

Noel grunted in half acknowledgment. He always kept a wary eye on me, as if he detested humans.

I prayed he didn’t notice I was different.

My body mimicked the exact function of a heart, pulsing in synch to my host. I needed only eat my host’s heart slowly and take its place.

He didn’t seem to be wise to what I was, or if I was different. Or he didn’t care.

Maybe I wished he did.

The weapons were in varying states of disrepair as our men and Vil leafed through decomposed crates coated in more of that slime mold. I eyed the pulses of it warily.

“You really do not like it, do you?” Noel tracked my gaze, and I shook my head.

“Call it a hunch?”

“Whatever it is, we will heal if we’re stricken or kill it.” Noel’s confidence that he was near immortal spooked me. I’d believed my kind were immortal, too.

The faniculum mold pulsed and undulated, the pace of it increasing as my own anxiety rose. “I’ve heard of these, guys. Let’s go. Let’s come back with a sodium hypochlorite fogger and just murderate it all.”

“Murderate. I like this.” Noel turned from me and left the armory room, scouting the hall with tentative steps and a tail raised in alert. “I also do not like it, but I’m not ready for a tactical retreat.”

“Keep an open mind about it. I’m not explaining to Nexus why I watched you two die from an asshole hive mind mold.”

“Hive mind? Elaborate.” Noel cocked his head as he stared at me, his stiff demeanor and those eerie eyes of his wearing my resolve down.

“I heard rumor that the faniculum is multiple organisms and they communicate via those tendrils. I’d hazard not to touch them or bring any of it back onto the ship.”

“Merriel, is there a decontamination process for when we reboard?” Noel had our well-being in mind.

“Absolutely, sir. I’ll do it.” Merriel was remarkably obedient with Noel, and the only reason I could imagine was that he spoke as few words as possible and didn’t use much allegory. He was also closer in age to Merriel than any of us besides the captain.

Noel sneered at the slime mold as he studied it, reaching out with spread fingers as his tail straightened and neck tensed—something to do with electrosensitive pores. “Definitely communicating. I cannot scent it, so I do not know if it is emitting anything dangerous.”

I could tell him, or not. The only thing I worried about was if the slime mold had absorbed any life-forms with common tongue or easily translated language. If it had only known Revulon, I was in the clear.

“This is shit,” Vil said, tossing a crumbling gun to the floor.

Whatever nonmetallic compound that comprised it crumbled like sunbaked plastic.

I reached my foot over to a scattered piece and confirmed that it was a type of polymer of some kind.

It crunched under my foot with an eggshell-like quality.

Gorm retreated first, pushing us down a hall, then another. Ridges up the back of his neck flared and lifted, indicating he sensed something I did not. Vil and Noel caught wind of it, too, if their posture and sudden intense focus was to be believed.

As we rounded a corner, I caught a glimpse of something down an opposite hall—a neuron cluster. Basically, a brain. It pulsed to life, and I instinctively aimed my gun and fired, leaving a scorch mark along the alloy wall. The tendrils sprouting from it deflated and withered before my eyes.

“What was that for?” Vil turned on me.

“If rumors are true, whatever that thing is, better not send message to its friends. I’m telling you, bad news.” I stared him down through my thick mask and he relented with a nod. He’d known me long enough to trust me.

As far as war bases went, it wasn’t as enormous as some I’d seen.

We were only exploring one hall and heading rapidly toward what I assumed would be the core.

The entire thing would be built vertically, with a pylon through the center, radiating outward.

Revulons were very predictable with design and carcinization, the process of evolution that sent all shit spiraling down the pathway toward crabdom, assured they had one track focus. Why was it always crabs?

They had a rather humanoid core, but their hind quarters split into four segmented legs, like a strange sort of crab centaur, two arms with dexterous fingers and a second set with pincers. They were extinct, anyway. Functionally.

Their inner mechanisms were familiar to me. I’d almost primarily hosted myself in Revulons a few hundred solar rotations ago. Their thoraxes were comfortable, warm, and their eyes saw so many colors that it was almost like being blind in a human body.

As we neared the convergence of the structure, Vil wasted no time in rearing back to kick the door down, but I stopped him.

There was a control at the side that needed a firm grasp, like a pincer.

My human form couldn’t do it, but I gestured for Vil to squeeze the two toggles together to see if the door opened, first.

He tried the clenched switch, and the door inched open a mere centimeter, which somehow pleased me. Noel stepped forward to pry the doors apart, and a blissful stream of air and miraculously clean and well-lit insides told me that part of the base still functioned, still had pressure.

We stepped through and closed the door behind us.

The slime mold hadn’t penetrated that far, yet.

I turned a setting on my gun to a lower level of plasma and aimed at my feet, decontaminating them before offering to do the rest. Gorm got the drift and set his gun to heat and tried too. It worked well, and we moved on.

A series of guttural clicks echoed about, penetrating even through my helmet as we glanced up—the sound a millennia-old recording reminding inhabitants of the faniculum infection, and to seek stasis chambers on level nine.

Vil glanced at a diagram on the wall, the design faded and peeling at the edges, trying to parse out where to go, eventually tapping on the map somewhere near the garbage incinerator.

“Nah. Trust me. I’ve studied Revulon history. Let’s go…” I trailed my finger over the map and held my tongue until I got to the ninth level. I tapped the map, and a letter flaked off, falling to the floor with a flutter.

“You sure?”

“Positive. Should be their labs, furthest from the generators but in line for power. Protects the data.” I handwaved my knowledge off as if it were common. They didn’t know what Sarge learned in human schooling, so it was easy.

We followed my indicated path, feet echoing and clanging on an esplanade that circled around the central power pylon and a transportation elevator.

We took the stairs, instead. Lopsided and alternating, the thing reminded me of ancient lore about witches’ stairs.

It worked better for quadrupedal beings.

Once on the ninth floor, a soft glowing light above the hall drew us in, and if the way Noel shielded, his gaze told me anything—he could see colors we couldn’t. Vil seemed equally put off, but to me, it only seemed a pale lavender in color.

Noel snagged Gorm’s gun and aimed for the light, shooting it with little hesitation. “Space seizure machine.”

Yep. On brand for Noel.

Vil didn’t bat an eye anymore.

I aided Vil in opening the door for the wing and we pressed in, activating lights that hadn’t been turned on in so very long. They sputtered to life and hummed, whining electricity through the lines, spluttering and popping in places. If the place had enough oxygen, it would burn.

“Gods alive.” Gorm swore under his breath and stared as the lights clicked on one at a time down an enormous hall, from floor to ceiling, spanning thousands of stasis chambers.

“I’m gonna be sick,” one of the men said as he peered into a chamber that looked suspiciously like Naleucian tech.

A sunken shell of a Revulon lay within, eyes hollowed into his sockets, his once-green nacre-like shell nothing more than a grayish dusty hue.

Like a mask of something somewhat human, most of its face sat in cold relief, its mouth a segmented part like a ventriloquist’s dummy.

Empty eye sockets hollowed out with crumpled, withered protrusions hanging from the circular holes.

A curled-up mass of legs covered in fine trichobothria, sensory hairs lay beneath the lolled head.

“Thank the progenitors I can’t smell.” I huffed a low laugh as we paced the hall. One line after another, after another, all bearing withered, old, frostbitten, and sunken bodies of the once-great people.

Out of curiosity, I recalled the gas exchange for the systems being a series of flat electrolytic panels coated in gold. A quick pry at the respiratory unit and air cycling system confirmed my suspicion. “Gold.”

“Gold?” Gorm stared at it with wide eyes.

Near worthless to the Revulon—it was a good conductor, but most planets lacked the material.

It was far more valuable in preservation tech than it was as artistry.

Though, still very valuable. As far as jewelry went, there were far more valuable metals for it, those days.

Palladium made beautiful jewelry that only the wealthiest wore.

“Guess I know what we’re harvesting. Merriel, get the crew set up and ready to pull a few tons of gold. We need to do that thing Doc suggested, first. The hypochlorite bomb?” Vill reached over to tap his finger on the thin gold panel inside the stack.

I nodded.

“This is why I like you,” Vil said as he grasped and jerked the whole mechanism out and studied the form. He peeled the gold plate of it away and studied the other layers. “Rhodium and Osmium, too.”

How he could tell by looking, I wasn’t sure, but Noel leaned over and scraped a nail curiously, eventually agreeing. The two had better senses than I did.

Without warning, Noel froze, shoulders tightening. Vil swung his head around, and Gorm seized up, all three of them alarmed to a degree I’d never seen them before. So, when Noel took off running at full force down the hall, toward a bolted door, Vil followed and Gorm did too.

Being so slow was a headache as I jogged after them, lagging behind. The door crumpled, as best I could see. Both Noel and Vil had at it, and Gorm followed. They didn’t need words, but I did.

“Guys?”

“Progenitor,” Vil said.

“Alpha Naleucian,” Noel clarified.

Fuck.