Two rockets streaked forth into the tunnels, fairly straight and gently curving. The images were were getting back were less than ideal.

“It’s filled with them.” Richard clenched his jaw, “that’s insane.”

The surface of every wall, every damned inch, was a Spindlie. It looked more like the coral had half fused to them, leaving only half-spheres protruding from the tunnels. Anything that tried to get through would have to go through them.

Though, the missiles simply broke any spikes they touched, and behind them the Spindlie would simply shuffle angrily, spikes retracting and punching back out, relatively harmlessly.

“At least we know they don’t explode without near fatal damage now.” I sighed, “Keep it going, we’ll see what’s deeper. If there’s a bunch of Carriers in there, we’re just going to keep you guys on rotation until we kill them all with fire. I’m not going into another death trap.”

Emilia chuckled, “Roger that. No rest for the wicked, as they say.”

The tunnels banked away from each other, and a short ten seconds later, before opening up into a small cavern. Each rocket fed back an image of a solitary hive crystal with nothing else in the system.

Jeremy took the words right out of my mouth, “Where are they? Shouldn’t there be… something, next to the hives at least?”

I contemplated what we were looking at, but I couldn’t fathom why this would be left undefended. The rockets turned, moving down other tunnels, picking up speed.

[Not much fuel left.] Reaver One noted, [I’ve mapped most of the structure, five hive cores, but not a single Carrier.]

Richard looked to me, uncertainty painted his face.

I moaned, “We’re really going to have to go in there.” At that I stood up straight, a headache building behind my eyes. I had absolutely no intent of going into that cave system, not with a suicide bomber type of biotic that might be alone.

“Reaver One, please plot out a firing pattern to clear out as many of those little bastards as possible, preferably also giving us paths to the cores.” I requested, “I would much rather not have to wade through all of them on our own, it’d take hours to clear them out.”

“Em, you got it?” Emilia directed her attention to her companion, and a moment later I received a data overlay for rockets.

“You have that many rockets?” I couldn’t help but ask, turning my gaze back up to the vessel high overhead.

[Quantity and quality.] ‘Em’ the Reaver seemed to grin, [if in doubt, hit it more. That’s kind of our thing.]

“I think I love these Reavers,” Yomar was laughing, borderline hysterically.

I had to agree, “Well, let’s see you dance.”

“Reaver One deploying full ordnance.” High above us Reaver One began to release its payload.

Rocket after rocket spiraled away, six at a time that gracefully spiraled downwards and away before the engines kicked on, increasing their velocity and setting them twirling. The pattern widened, and only once every single missile joined the vortex did they begin to change pattern. It was beautiful, red streaking lines that formed a huge array in the air.

The chatter between the Reaver and the rockets picked up all at once, each rocket signaling its cohort of where it would go, in what order.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” I murmured as the lot of us stared up in wonder.

Then their dance picked up tempo, several of the rings streaking off with their lead missile, choosing the path that their partners would follow. Red lines streaked through the air, picking up speed as they swept out past the cove, then arced low to come back around.

Like a snake, each congo line slipped into the tunnels, the video feeds spinning far too much to make out anything past the blur. Seconds later, individual rockets began to slow rapidly, translating into even more rotational momentum. All at once as the rockets split off into their own areas, they sought their next nearest audience members.

They exploded all at once, shattering the Spindlies in their selected tunnels, the percussive force enough that the ground beneath our feet thumped against us, sending a jolt through the cove.

“Reaver One is out of ammo, returning to base for rearming. Reaver Three, maintain support until you’re dry.” Emilia spoke, “It’s been a pleasure, Reaper.”

“Likewise, Reaver One, we’ll be sure to treat your team to some drinks later.” I laughed, “Enjoy your flight home.”

Soon only a single Reaver was in the air overhead, and she positioned herself over the cove itself, auto-cannons spinning. “Roger, Reaver One, I’ll be on standby. It looks like we might be wrapping up soon.”

‘It really does.’ I couldn’t help but to feel strange about this, the technology stepping up made what would have been a brutal slog into a much easier affair.

“Alright, let's go through the cleared tunnels. There’s almost a guarantee that when we seize the hives the remaining Spindlies will come towards us fast. We’ll grab the four cores, and meet at the fifth in the middle.” I said, plotting out path out in advance.

Strauss nodded, “It takes time to render a core inert. Every time we’ve done it so far, though, the biotics die.”

“We should hopefully be able to expect that to happen this time, too, but just in case we do have the Determinators for support. We can file into a corridor and throw bullets at them until we don’t have targets anymore.” Richard checked his remaining chemicals and darts.

“A very tactically savvy plan.” Allendra dryly noted.

He shrugged in response, “It’ll work. These things are rock stupid.”

Yomar laughed, “Well, when you’re right, you’re right.”

Jeremy nodded, “It sounds fine, we have plenty of ammo. At worst, Yomar can stand in front of us.”

“Whoa, hey, I didn’t volunteer for that,” he gestured quickly, “I mean, not against these things anyways.”

“Alright, alright, let's get moving.” I smiled at the display, glad that they weren’t letting their nerves get the better of them.

This could still go very badly, very quickly, but we came here to do this exact thing. We set off quickly, only needing to wait long enough for the smoke to clear out from the tunnels.

The scene before us was perplexing, though, the ground filled with a mixture between shattered spikes and still disintegrating silver goo. I gave Jeremy a nod before our teams split up, silently and swiftly moving through the terrain. A few times we had to steady ourselves, the ground slick from the outpouring of gore. After a few minutes, though, the amount had decreased significantly enough that we weren’t hampered. Still there was no motion from any of the tunnels that hadn’t been attacked, something that was deeply unusual.

That feeling of disquiet only increased as we went deeper, no response at all to our presence.

Only when we reached the first hive core was there a reaction, the Spindlies stirring in their tunnels. From in the cavern we could see them, spikes wavering back and forth repeatedly, menacing if not for how utterly helpless they were. Richard and I shared a wary glance, turning back to the pedestal formation of coral that clutched the orb. Unceremoniously I smashed the coral and ripped the core out of it’s position, stowing it in a net sack as we moved to the next one.

The rockets had cleared out every major intersection that I’d wanted to use, but even so it was a surreal experience to be in a biotic hive and have no enemy contacts. Soon, I’m sure, the Spindlies would manage to free themselves from the coral that kept them in place, but as we reached the second core, I couldn’t help but feel a mild bout of nervous laughter rolling through me.

Richard sent a curious look to me, and I answered with humor, “This might be the easiest raid of my life.”

“Careful about flagging us,” he chuckled, “but, yeah, I’m not seeing anything here.”

As I smashed the casing on the second core and stowed it, running off immediately afterwards at high speed, I couldn’t help but wonder what else could be going on.

The most unlikely answer was that there were only eight Carriers in all. The sheer number of tunnels wouldn’t be required if that was the case. So what then? Did they leave?

If so, then why?

As we approached the last core, I noted that there was something different in this cavern. The lights from our suits illuminated a silvery knot of material, almost identical to what we saw with the Obelisks anytime we generated an item from Matter Energy. It was congealing to form a short distance from the core with streams of silver flowing through the air, floating towards the formation and growing larger by the second, albeit slowly. It had a vague shape, appearing much like a lobster with a hammer-head. I felt a shiver thrill my spine, unable to tear my gaze away from the fascinating sight.

Across the way, Strauss’ team appeared, stuttering to a stop as we had, seeing the strange event taking place.

“Whoa,” Yomar frowned, “that’s new.”

“I think it’s making one of the Carriers,” I murmured thoughtfully, “it’s not fast, though.”

“Well, I think we ought to get to the purging,” Jeremy nodded down one of the tunnels, “there are some free of the walls now.”

I sighed, noting that he was correct. The spiky balls of hate were indeed finally becoming mobile.

Curious, though, I walked up to the hive core and placed my hand on it, willing my cybernetic sense to interact with whatever process it was performing.

The moment I did so, though, the entire process collapsed, the biotic that was forming collapsed into a sludge and all flow of Matter Energy ceased.

‘That’s annoying.’ I griped, ‘it would have been good to be able to see how that process was happening.’

Wolvey wriggled, ‘I could make so many interesting things with this!’

And instantly I purged the crystal. ‘Not a chance in hell.’

‘You’re no fun.’ It pouted in the corner of my mind, ‘It might not have even worked.’

I shook my head, feeling that it was at least truthful with that. It was hard, if not utterly impossible, for us to keep secrets. Even so, I didn’t want to risk anything happening. Like, for example, the rebirth of Wolven.

The Spindlies approached with fervor, feeling the death of one of the hive cores spurring them to greater ferocity. Even so, there were only five tunnels into this chamber, and we immediately fought backwards into one that had already been cleared. The other cores sat around me, and Jeremy supplied his while staring at the one I’d already purged of biotic influence.

“Did you just…? That fast?” Incredulousness crossed his face, “How did you purge that so fast? It usually takes, like, a minute at least.”

“Computer brain, streamlines the process with the Obelisks settings,” I answered quickly. “These other ones won’t take long, either.”

He nodded, “that’s good, because as much as I’m sure we have ammo, I’d rather not be closed in on all sides by spiked abominations.”

“Duly noted.” I chuckled, refocusing on the task at hand.

I moved through each core, gun fire rattling through the air in short bursts. Each Determinator targeted the same Spindlie and fired, blasting it to pieces while minimizing the possibility that another Spindlie was damaged. Another two performed a similar task, and the final one was the backup in case someone only damaged one, and didn’t manage to fully kill it.

Like this, we were able to slow their advance, and amusingly enough the fallen corpses prevented the other Spindlies from being able to move quickly, their spikes interfering with one another.

As I removed my hand from the final core, though, the Spindlies suddenly stopped and spasmed. Suddenly the firefight stopped around me, cheering from the others as Yomar patted my shoulder.

“Man, easy money! That was so much better than that fucking mine.” He beamed.

I heaved a sigh of relief, “I was afraid there was a caveat, after all of this.”

Then I heard the comms crackle to life, “Reaper, you guys just cleared the cores, right?”

Lani’s question made us all look around in confusion, “Yeah, just finished. The Spindlies have stopped, why do you ask?”

“Because the Carriers are still moving, and it looks like they’re leaving the base.” She said, even more confusion seeping into her voice.

I frowned, “Keep them from getting here for as long as you can, if you don’t mind. We’ll be wading through Spindlies for some… time…” I paused, noting that the Spindlies themselves weren’t decomposing.

“Uh… about that. They’re not going to the cove.” She murmured, “They’re hightailing it for the hills. Just bailing out.”

“Huh?” I asked dumbly, “Repeat that for me? They’re doing what?”

“They’re just leaving, Reaper, they’re leaving Damond.” She said, “They’re not even dropping anymore of the little bastards, they’re just hobbling away, even under artillery fire.”

I frowned, “Well, keep an eye on them. I want to know what they’re up too.”

“Copy, moving over.” She said, just as perplexed as I was then.

“Hey, anybody else notice how we’re still stuck between a bunch of deadly spiked biotics?” Richard commented sourly.

“Of course they’re screwing with us more,” Allendra groaned.

“Nothing for it,” Jeremy stoically drew himself up, pulling out his pistol and firing once, hitting the edge of center mass on one of the biotics, a wound that would normally prompt them to immediately begin inflating. We tensed, noting that he was still ready to fire in the event it did respond.

Nothing happened, the biotic just let itself bleed out and die.

“Well, there’s that, then.” He sighed, “Looks like they’re still here, but only just barely. They seem brain-dead now.”

I shook my head, “Well, this cave system isn’t going to clear itself out.”

“Lovely.” Yomar dryly commented.

“Let's just clear one tunnel out so we can leave. I’ll have some other teams rotating through later.” I smiled, thinking of the volunteer groups that had been getting the short end of the stick for most of the expedition. With this, at least, they could get some Matter Energy for their troubles in a much safer condition.

Still, this left me feeling unnerved with how differently this had all gone. Perhaps examining the Carriers as they left would yield some answers as to what was happening.