[Danny]

i know what you mean, teal. there's going to be a war in my fanfic, and i'm dreading it.

here goes. more arguments in chapter 22. they're becoming a habit...

CHAPTER 21

Supervisor Dran looked down at the mangled corpse of one of the construction workers and shook his head. “The same creature that did the rest?”

One of the guards nodded. “I saw it. We pumped tons of ammo into it, but it didn’t seem hurt at all. It just turned and ran back into the forest.”

Dran shook his head again, and scratched his feeding tentacles. Up until about a week or two ago, the logging had been going smoothly. They had been exceeding their targets, and they had learned to cope with most of the animals from this part of the forest. The labs had, of course, helped with that.

That was when the attacks had started. A creature that they had never seen before had begun to attack the workers. Those who had seen it said that it looked like a cross between a Scrab and a Paramite, and the Mudokon workers believed strongly that it was the Shrykull, some ancient Mudokon god, and that it had returned to free them from the slavery they suffered. From what Dran had seen, it seemed to be more likely that it was just going to kill everything, but the stupid mudokon workers steadfastly refused to fight it at all, even while it was ripping them apart. 17 workers and 2 slig guards in just over one week. To make matters worse, top management back at the factory had expressly forbidden them from sending out a hunting team to find and destroy the creature, insisting that ‘The Matter is Under Control.’

“Fuck Them.”

The guards seemed surprised. “Sir?”

“Fuck the Bosses, we’re gonna find and destroy this thing. Organise all of our guards. Arm them with the best weapons we have, and bring along all 500 of the traps. The strongest traps.”

“Sir!”

CHAPTER 22

As Jal approached the table, things went quiet. Some of the smaller conversations continued, but the main topic suddenly seemed less appealing to the other mudokons.

They had been on the move in the Crawler for almost a week now, and they were nearly back to the Mudoris village. Jal had been surprised at how far it was. Granted, they had stopped the crawler every night while they slept, but it still seemed amazing that five of these mudokons had walked this journey in three days on the way here.

The crawler was easily big enough to accommodate 100 passengers, and there weren’t that many there. Even so, Crim, Meet, and Sillan decided that they should share a room, as the only non-mudokons on board. Jal had agreed to share with them.

Now that they were almost home, the terrorists were having a party. Jal was late, because he’d been trying to persuade the others to come. They’d refused, on the basis that they wouldn’t be welcome. Jal had to go on his own, despite his previous insistance that there was no prejudice in the minds of the Mudoris tribe.

But when that conversation stopped, Jal had a fair idea as to what it was about.

“It’s Crim, isn’t it?”

The terrorists looked uncomfortable. They had no leader, as such, but an old mudokon called Bil seemed to be a kind of spokesman for them. “Some of us are just a little… reluctant to reveal the location of our village to a slig.”

A mudokon beside him snorted. “We could handle that cripple, no problem, but he’d set that machine on to us, and I’m not sure if we could destroy it.”

Bil turned to him. “Don’t be so blunt, Int!” He turned back to Jal. “We’re just not quite convinced that your ‘friends’ aren’t really spies for the Magog Cartel.”

Jal’s eyes hardened. “Are you accusing us of trying to –”

“No! Not you!”

“I’m as much one of them as I am one of you.” Jal was getting angry. “Do you know how I lost my arm? I used to work in the Soulstorm Brewery. It was Hell. We were tortured daily by the Slig guards. I used to blame them, just as you do, and see them as cold, heartless killers. We had almost lost all hope, but then we heard about a terrorist called Abe, who’d single-handedly shut down Rupture Farms, and was still free.”

All other conversations in the room had ceased, and all attention was on Jal.

“Eventually, Abe infiltrated the Brewery, and our hopes began to rise. He killed most of the guards, and we followed him blindly. While we were running, I slipped and fell into a saw.” He waved his stump at them. “My arm was severed, and I lay in a pool of my own blood. Abe and my previous ‘friends’ didn’t even look back, they just left me for dead. Most of the guards were dead or had run away, but two sligs who had been left behind to try and slow down the mudokons saw me, and risked everything to get me to safety. One of them patched up my shoulder, and they hid me in their dorm. If they’d been found out, they’d have been executed, but they risked that to keep me alive.

“The day after rescuing me, one of them was on patrol. He didn’t want to; none of them did, but they had nowhere to go. While on patrol, he was attacked by some of the terrorists. I assume Abe wasn’t there, or he would’ve just been possessed and killed. Crim tried to protest to the mudokons, and persuade them to take him with them, but they didn’t listen, and attacked him. He was lucky to escape alive, but his spine was broken, and he was unable to use his pants any more. I helped Greeb to get Crim to safety, and the three of us left the brewery. We stowed away in freight trains until we were as far away as the trains would take us. This was the Weapons Factory. We’d intended to carry on until we reached the mudokon villages, but we found kindred spirits in the factory, and resolved to help them to escape.

“Now some of us have escaped, but it looks like we’re no safer out here than we were in there.”

The terrorists looked at each other, in embarrassment. Int was the first to look up at Jal.

“Look, Jal, we didn’t mean –”

But Jal was already on his way out of the door.

The other mudokons tried to get back to their old conversations, but the feeling of joy at returning home had gone.