Chapter 13

Kazi Depot Command Post

When Johns finally got back to Command, Sara and Rick were already waiting for him. The look of worry on their faces took him back a bit, but he took his seat with them in front of the screen.

“Alright,” Sara said while she fiddled with her hands. “This you have to see.”

She hit some buttons on her coms unit and a video pulled up on the screen in front of them. It was a top-down view of the Kazi forest, stretching in all directions. A sea of green.

The drone lifted its camera and they could see Impact Site A in the distance. The Blue Goo had grown a bit since it was last burned back but was still relatively small comparatively. The drone made its way toward the center of the impact site, flying directly above it and then slowly making its way down to the ground. The jungles of Kazi began to lift up on all sides of the camera, pushing their way to the top of the screen as it lowered itself into the impact site.

Johns could see that the drone had centered itself around the hole at the very center of the impact site. It paused when it was about 50 feet up, taking a reading of the area, and then continued down. It went slowly, safely, like it was a living thing, protecting its life against an unknown foe. It carefully made its way down into the hole, the fleshy blue surface of the Goo shining all around it as it did. A protective lens slid over the camera.

The inside of the impact crater was fleshy. It was almost as if the walls were breathing, and Rick commented that it reminded him of his days at University. They were wet and slick like the skin of a toad. The drone carefully navigated its way further. In the walls of the impact site were openings on either side of the larger tunnel, which was about five feet across. The drone hovered just outside of one of the openings, shining its light down. Another tunnel. Barely wide enough for the drone, it moved forward with care.

For several minutes they watched as the drone made its way deeper into the tunnels, taking several winding turns. The air readouts got more interesting the farther down the drone went. It was detecting high levels of sulfur dioxide. Soon, the drone camera showed an opening at the bottom.

It exited and entered what appeared to be a cave. It was quite large, with ceilings perhaps fifty feet high. It took a moment for the ground to come into focus. The ground of the cave was covered in several feet of Blue Goo, illuminating the entirety of the cave. The filter lens was removed for a moment, giving a peek at just how blindingly bright it was. Johns almost had to look away from the screen. The filter was reapplied and the ground slowly came back into focus.

“What the hell!” Johns said.

In the disgusting blue soup toward the back of the cave floated what were maybe two hundred oval-shaped eggs. The Goo flowed through them, with blue luminessence shining through like veins.

The Goo was also climbing the walls of the cave, stretching several dozen meters high. Johns wondered if the goo would continue to climb and spread until it covered every square inch in the giant cave chapel.

Toward the back of the room, there was a mound that was tough to identify. At first, it looked like it might have been a giant pile of eggs. As they got closer, it began to look more like a sheet draped over some furniture. Except it was living. Breathing. Pulsating. Lightly tinted blue ooze dripped from the flesh-like substance. At the end was an opening that resembled what Johns could only describe as an anus. It pursed and opened slightly.

Then the anus started to open. It puckered then stretched, and a white, smooth surface appeared in the opening. The sides of the organism constricted around the opening, which opened wider with the strain. Juices poured from the opening as the smooth object was forced out. A slimy egg.

“It’s fucking nesting,” Sara said. “It’s alive down there, Nick.”

Rich side-eyed Johns. He had never heard anyone call him Nick before.

Johns took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair.

“Keep watching,” Sarah said.

The drone on the screen moved closer to the opening. It was mere meters away when a small warning flashed on the right side of the screen turned red and a movement notification lit up the screen.

The drone turned quickly. The giant sheet-like birthing organism was rustling, twisting toward the top of the cave. A giant lobster-like claw emerged and latched onto the wall outside. A second leg appeared on the opposite side. Then four more toward the tops and bottoms of the organism.

A huge, bulbous creature began to move its way out, lumbering as it moved. It took Johns a few moments to realize that the creature actually did have a giant blue bulb attached to it and that it was not the front of the creature but the back. His heart filled with dread as the giant creature began to turn around.

It stood at least twenty-five feet high. Blue goo dripped from its bulbous mound on its back, which breathed and heaved as the giant creature attempted to move around. The beast had four lizard-like legs and an additional six clawed appendages that came from the back of the creature. They were long, perhaps fifteen feet each. Johns’ mouth fell open.

The creature waddled at the drone, letting out a growl that can only be described as a hellish moan with a high-pitched tinge.

The drone watched as the creature leaned back. It spread the six clawed appendages on its back. Then, in a split second, one of the claws lunged forward and the drone was plucked from the air. It’s feed dropped and the screen went black.

“God damn. It’s a queen!” Johns said. “That giant bubble on its back was the birthing sac! You could see that it was connected to the egg-producing thing on the wall.”

“Exactly,” Sara replied. Johns sank in his chair.

“Ho-lee-shit,” Rich said, a lightbulb apparently going off in his head a moment later “...Yes? Shouldn’t I be? How are we going to kill that thing? It’s creating the Goo. It’s dropping eggs quick enough for a drone to catch a live birth in the twenty seconds it was in its lair. And the damn thing is about twenty feet tall with six javelins for arms.”

“I’d have thought you’d see this as good news,” she said.

“And why’s that?” Rick said, exasperated.

“Because now we know how to kill it.”