“Agh!”

Kin clapped his hands over his ears and looked around frantically. Where is it? Where is the noise?

A Siren darted past him, a pink blur of speed as its mermaid-like abdomen pulsed and undulated. Clearly it was in a hurry. But where to? And why did it not attack him?

Was it scared?

And if it was, what had scared it?

The screaming steel answered him.

Kin whipped his head around to find a huge monstrosity bearing down on him. Covered in rust that marred its white skin, the thing was huge, its angled triangular torso easily twice Kin’s height, and its mechanical limbs, its long, long limbs, stretching eight metres in every direction, grasping onto anything they could reach, twisting, pivoting, jerking in every wrong direction.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOO

The wail again. In the water, Kin couldn’t tell where such a loud sound came from, but he could swear it was emitted from the flat dish that the thing had for a head.

The gigantic automaton shot forward with terrible unexplained speed, creating a current so strong that it pushed Kin bodily backwards.

DISMANTLING

The word blared out again as the robot pursued the Siren.

THREAT

DISMANTLING

There was no coherence to the words, as if they had been taken one by one and minced together vehemently by some primitive intellect.

The Siren screamed as the robot caught up to it. As it stopped for a while to try and grab the smaller creature, Kin could make out black letters stenciled on its side.

Breach Countermeasures

First Response Jorogumo-pattern Heavy Attack Drone

K11

This thing was not a peaceable automaton, like the armies of mindless drones that Kin had seen back in the Outpost. This was a machine built to kill, malicious intent seething everywhere, from its spindly and deceptively strong limbs to its squat, compact torso and the strange apparatus on its head the twitched from side to side, blasting that horrific noise.

AAAAAAAH IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT FUCKING HURTS STOP IT PLEASE IT HURTS IT

The Siren was shrieking in Kin’s mind, it’s telepathic hallucinatory abilities lending its screams a chilling human quality.

The Siren wailed again, and the robot crushed it in its grasp, its dish emitting a cry that was uncannily similar. The Siren screamed again, higher, as K11 grasped it with two hands and began pulling, changing the tone of its wail to match the creature’s. The hydraulic muscles in its joints whirred and hissed as the machine cycled its capacitors.

Is it...copying? Learning?

Finally, with a final shriek, the Siren came apart in the drone’s hands. Bone cracked and red ichor gushed out in a wide gritty cloud.

Oh my god...did it just kill it?

Kin had, after a long period filled with tears and struggle, finally learned to cope with the hallucinations that the Sirens employed to hunt their prey. But they were still formidable foes, to be avoided at all times and only fought in times of desperate bravado. And now this thing had torn one asunder with the ease of snapping a twig, and not only that, it was actively hunting for the creatures.

Next to the metallic behemoth, Kin felt very, very small and very, very, scared.

It had turned its head, its horrible, unnatural radar-dish head, to Kin.

THREAT

…*¿THREAT?crrrrr#*&@fzzt

The drone uncoiled, straightening to its full height, the red light embedded in its chest blinking faster and faster as it regarded Kin, now silent, the only sound the gentle ever-present burble of underwater white noise.

THREAT? THREAT?

The machine repeated the words faster and faster, higher and higher, until it was screaming in an uncanny resemblance of rage. It was now advancing towards him, its cruel hands tearing gouges in the metal walls that shrieked mutedly, adding to the dissonance of its terrible, grating howl.

THREAT? THREAT? THREAT?THREAT?THREAT?THREAT?THREAT?

Me next.

Oh god.

Me next.

As Kin watched, horrified, rooted to the spot, the drone burst forward with terrifying speed, screaming its toneless, deafening song.