Page 19 of Wrath
This mission was turning out to be a much bigger nightmare than I had anticipated. When Varnog had searched the memories of General Khutu, he had seen the intentions of the Kryptid leader, gotten a glimpse at some of the reports he had received, as well as the decisions taken regarding the project. He had not seen through the eyes of the actual staff that had worked on developing this experiment. Therefore, he had no clue just how massive those Jadozors were, or the crazy numbers of them that had been incubated here. The two I had found in the laboratory had made my innards twist into painful knots. Without having seen the others, I already knew there would be tons more.
Linette and Varnog entered the base while I was still examining the modified creatures. They joined me in the lab, stopping right next to me.
Even folded in on itself, the Jadozor was much bigger than I. It appeared to have greatly evolved from the original small creatures, now clearly having two sets of leathery wings, each wing attached to the sides of its short arms down to its wrists, and to its legs down to the ankles. I suspected the Jadozor walked on all fours like a Dragon would. Its head resembled that of a tyrannosaurus that had been slimmed down and elongated. Its four fingered hands and feet had talon-like claws that would tear its target to shreds.
“Those green scales look even thicker than yours,” Linette said to me pensively before giving her mate an assessing look. “I’m not even sure your bladed tail can pierce through it.”
Varnog pursed his lips while evaluating the creature. “If I target the neck or the underbelly, I’m pretty certain you’ll be right,” Varnog replied. “Usually, that’s the soft spot for scaled creatures, but it looks way too thick on these beasts. The vulnerable spots seem to be on the back, alongside its spine.”
“A clever design,” I said, my frown deepening. “This makes them extremely difficult to kill from the ground. And that tail looks pretty nasty as well,” I added, glancing at the long, narrow tail with sharp protrusion that made it look like a double-sided jigsaw blade.
“Myriam mentioned seeing something in one of the files she was downloading,” Linette said. “It was a single line to the effect that the liveship adaptation was successful. The rest of the file moved on to other things. I just hope that doesn’t mean what I think it does.”
I gave her an inquisitive look, refusing to believe what I thought she was referring to.
“At first, I thought it meant they were trying to give their liveship the Jadozor’s regeneration ability,” Linette explained. “Liveships can self-repair but only up to a certain point. Considering how long they take to grow, if the liveship could self-regenerate, it would give them an indestructible fleet.”
“That would indeed be amazing, and the kind of thing Khutu would have wanted,” I said pensively. “But you don’t think that’s the case?”
“I’m not sure. I think he would have considered doing that, too, but looking at this Jadozor is making me reconsider,” she added while examining the creature. “The thickness of its scales reminds me of the Kevlar-like shells the liveships develop as their hull. What if Khutu was designing the Jadozors to be able to space travel?”
I recoiled, having a hard time embracing that logic. “That seems like quite the stretch.”
“Is it?” Varnog asked. “I hadn’t thought of that, but it wouldn’t be so far-fetched, considering the General already has the Spitters. They are miniature liveships that can either be controlled by a two-men crew or fly autonomously thanks to its basic artificial intelligence. Individually, they are weak—”
“But as a Swarm, they can bring down a battlecruiser,” I concluded for him. “And a swarm of these unkillable creatures with space flight capability would decimate a fleet.”
“Exactly,” Linette said, flicking her long black hair over her shoulder.
“For all our sakes, I hope you’re wrong,” I said to my Soulcatcher.
“For once, I hope to be wrong, too,” Linette replied, making a face.
“Let’s hope Myriam can recover all the research from their archives,” Varnog said.
As if she’d heard him mentioning her name, Myriam and Dread entered the base and joined us in the lab. After a quick update, Myriam immediately went to work on the computers and other analysis devices in the lab, recovering and downloading all the files she could get her hands on.
The rest of us made our way down the hallway into the next room on the opposite side of the wall. The doors parted, revealing another nightmarish vision.
Rows upon rows of egg holders filled the more or less circular room. Most of the holders sat empty, but at least 300 to 400 eggs remained on the stairs-like rows that vaguely resembled an amphitheater. A thick membrane covered the ceiling and parts of the wall. Its mildewy, slightly meaty scent permeated the room. The absence of alveoli on the surface of the membrane indicated that it didn’t have a ventilation purpose. Instead, numerous cylindrical appendages hung from it, reminding me of an elephant’s trunk.
The eggs themselves had a greenish color, almost like grass, with a bumpy surface that reminded me of a dragon’s egg. They were encased in some sort of semitransparent fleshy substance. Considering this place had been abandoned more than five years ago, I could only presume that the substance surrounding them somehow prevented them from maturing or hatching.
“Is it safe to destroy them?” Linette asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” I said dejectedly. “We’re going to need Nathalie to come check it out.”
Just as I was saying those words, one of the trunks of the membrane burst into action, startling me. All of us, but Dread, instinctively took on a defensive pose, my bladed scythes itching to protrude from my forearms. But the trunk didn’t move in our general direction. Instead, it moved towards one of the eggs on the upper row of the altar-like layout of the egg holders. The translucent wrapping of the egg seemed to resorb into the membrane on the wall. The tip of the trunk settled like a beanie hat on the upper part of the egg. For a few seconds, nothing seemed to happen. Then the trunk shifted, and a slurping sound resonated through the room. At the same time, we could see the membrane of the trunk swelling and deflating as gulps of the yolk traveled within the tube.
“It’s feeding,” Dread explained.
My eyes flicked to the ceiling, looking at the state of the membrane. I was no expert, but its color did look a little grayish instead of the light burgundy I usually saw in liveships—vessels made entirely of this organic component.
“That would make sense,” I replied pensively. “With no one maintaining it for years, it would be starving, and therefore taking whatever it found to maintain itself.”
Dread nodded. “This is a nursery membrane, similar to the ones that looked after us right after our births before Bane got us all out of there to care for us instead. The tubes do pretty much everything from feeding, to cleaning, to transporting. And if you die, they eat you.”
“That egg died?” I asked.