Ryn stood and stared in silence as a dragon bent down to glower at a prisoner only kept alive by Claire constantly healing the damage the poison she had taken was doing.  The woman''s muscles had withered, her limbs were now stick thin, her skin sallow and a sickly yellow colour.


    She had long since lapsed into unconsciousness, drool marking the top of her tunic where it had dribbled from the sides of her mouth.  The light green cloth was stained dark to either side of her throat.


    “I am losing this battle.  She won’t last much longer.  The rot has spread to her major organs and I can’t hold it back.  It’s adapting to everything I try like it’s alive,” Claire grunted as the dragon delicately extended a four foot claw to rest gently on the prone woman''s neck.


    “Interesting.  Shelly?” rumbled the giant beast.


    “Yes Maker?”  One of the resident Shelly’s skittered forwards and turned her multiple eyes up towards Pete.


    “Can you sample this?”  Another claw bent down from the paw held at the woman''s throat.  It bent awkwardly and plunged carefully into her chest, coming back out coated with a mix of red blood and blue brown ooze.


    “That wasn’t helpful,” muttered Claire as sweat broke out on her forehead.  Shelly leaned forward and delicately placed her mandibles around the sample.  Ryn fought down an urge to gag.  Some of the others present lacked her self control.  Jane wretched and turned away.  Andrea became even paler, her usually dusky skin fading to the colour of milk.  Kev narrowed his eyes and managed to control himself.  The others all made disgusted faces, the spider made a faint slurping sound as she stripped the sample from the claw before clicking her mandibles together.


    “Interesting.  A biotoxin keyed to the person who took it.  This is powerful stuff, Maker,” Shelly offered thoughtfully in her scratchy voice.


    “That is my view as well,” rumbled the dragon.  “I could make something like this but I would never have thought to.  The risk of mutation… Claire would kill me!”


    “I wouldn’t but I will if you don’t save her!” muttered the healer.


    “Not you, my sister is also called Claire.  I am not sure I can save this woman.  Not as she is anyway,” replied Pete sadly.


    “What do you mean?” asked a Bob-bot standing to one side.


    “The toxin has avoided her mind so far, for some reason I cannot explain.  If we remove the head and attach it to another body we should be able to rouse her back to consciousness and get some answers.”


    “Do it,” said Bob at the same time as Claire and the rest of Ryn’s team recoiled in horror.


    “What?  No way!” were among the mildest of the exclamations that echoed around the large chamber.


    “Shelly,  can you have some biomass brought here quickly please?” asked Pete.


    The human sized door at the far end of the room opened and worker drones, two metre long woodlice with flat backs and their sides lined with flickering tentacles moved in, laden down with, for lack of a better phrase, undifferentiated meat products.


    “Already on the way,” replied Shelly doing a little tap dance, pleased to have anticipated Pete’s request.


    As the nightmarish servitors deposited their payload behind the dragon, its tail uncurled and touched the pile of flesh.  A silver mist covered the pile and the tail looped around the thing it had transformed the meat into.


    The headless body of a young woman was pulled clear as the mist dissipated.  The neck was a gory blank, like a chopped steak, but nothing dripped out as the tail moved the replicant over to the dying woman and laid it gently down next to her.


    “Claire, I’ll need you to act quickly.  Shelly will sever the head precisely.  We will have about 90 seconds before irrevocable brain damage sets in due to lack of oxygen.  This body is a perfect clone of the original so there will be no risk of rejection, I need you to make the nervous and blood vessel connections as quickly as possible,” said Pete.  Claire swallowed audibly and nodded jerkily.


    “I can do that.”


    “Thank you.  Shelly, when Claire gives you the word, make the cut.”  The giant spider pivoted, her legs clattering on the stone floor as she pivoted to bring her many eyes to focus on the teenager.  Claire nodded again, more confidently this time and the spider skittered forwards.  One limb flashed out, slicing cleanly across the neck.  Blood began to spill but the head had been grabbed by a pseudopod of flesh growing from the dragons palm.


    The Cullers mouth hung open as it was lifted and positioned carefully over the vacant neck of the replicant.  Claire rushed round and laid one hand on the forehead, another on a naked shoulder.  The flesh at the throat began to knit together as Claire frowned in concentration.  Thirty seconds later she stepped back at the same moment the eyes on the recently disembodied head snapped open.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    “Shit!”  Claire leapt back as the replicant lurched into a sitting position and emitted a horrified wail.


    “Why?  I have to die!  Let me go!”  An armoured paw the size of a car gently pushed her back onto the table.  More raving and screaming came from the transplanted woman until silver mist flowed over her and she fell silent.


    “Kevin, did you get a copy of her?” asked Bob.


    “Yes.  She’s insane.  She’s been tinkered with,” replied the lanky boy.  Ryn turned to stare at him and he grimaced at her shocked expression.


    “Why did you copy her?” Ryn demanded.


    “In case she found some other way to self terminate,” Kev replied softly.


    “Self terminate?  You’re spending too much time with Bob!” she snapped.


    “I spend less time with Bob than almost anyone else.  He’s a closed book to me,” said Kev.  “She’s been programmed to end her life if she is captured and it includes a mental self-destruct.  She was driving herself mad before you put her down.  She’d been forced to do that.  Whoever was in her head was powerful.  At least as strong as me but with some really nasty modifications to be able to do this,” he waved at the now peaceful looking woman.


    “Did you get anything useful?” asked Bob quickly.  The dragon settled down onto its haunches, forcing the rest of Ryn’s team to back away slightly.


    “Maybe.  It’ll take me some time to get much out of her.  She was already mental before the trigger kicked in.  Can you modify her brain?” Kev looked up at the dragon staring down with red-gold eyes at him.


    “Perhaps.  I can prevent emotional responses, limit neurotransmitter production and a few other tricks but I suspect that would only slow the process down, correct?” replied Pete.


    “Probably.  Shit, it’s like having an angry wasp in my mind!  She’s buzzing against the barriers!” grumbled Kev as he raised his hands to his temples.


    “What about the tech?” asked the dragon, pivoting to look at the Bob-bot.


    “Belisarius’ gear, like we thought.  Hard to prove but I suspect he was remotely controlling the drones in the ambush.  Best to assume that, anyway.”


    “Why assume, Bob?  Let’s go ask the bastard!” called Jane from the back of the group of observers.


    “Because he is dangerous.  He’s got a Samson option and if we push him too far before we can neutralise that threat it will get messy,” said Pete.  He sighed, a whuff of air flowing from his fang filled maw that ruffled the hair of everyone in the room.  “Can you prove it?”


    “It’s definitely his tech.  Whether he was controlling it?  Impossible.  We have to assume he was, that he is involved in the Culler network in a significant way and that we can no longer play the long game.”


    “So we’re blown?” asked Andrea quietly.  “The Cullers know it’s us after them?  What about our families?”


    “The Cullers can’t get to Mars.  Your families, those who are still on earth at any rate, will have to stay off world for now but they’re safe as can be.  There’s no point in any more undercover missions.  Shit.  I’d hoped we’d get a few more done and have a better idea of the network before it came to this,” grumbled the drone.


    “How will you move against Belisarius?” asked Pete.


    "No bloody idea.  If the rest of the team was here it would be easy enough.  Overwhelming force had a quality all of its own but we don’t have that.”


    “What about the Monarchs?  Why not get whatever info we get to War?  He’s got a zero tolerance policy on people farming people,” offered Armand.


    “We wanted to deal with this in house.  Make a point that the Monarchs are great and all but we can still sort out our own shit,” said Bob.


    “So it’s pride?  There’s a network of organised mass murderers farming humans for Essence, being way slicker than the Scunners could ever have dreamed of and we won’t get help because it might hurt our egos?” barked Simon angrily.  “I’m going to talk to the Church.  They’ll help and they’ll get Life and War and probably Liberty involved.”


    “Not yet, kid.  Ascension already knows what we were up to.  They co-signed the op.  Just because you’re part of Wayfaire now doesn’t mean they’ve abandoned you and Claire.  No, we need to be clever about this but I’m buggered if I can think of the right move,” snapped Bob.


    “What’s happening at their base?” asked Bad.


    “The Culler’s base?” asked Bob, Bad nodded in reply.  “We’re stripping it down.  All the electronics are clean, they had monthly scans of the Bob-net that were delivered by chip to stay current.  All other messages were delivered by hand.  Or by drone.  That Yankee prick is really starting to piss me off,” the drone grumbled.


    “Maybe we should be more proactive?” asked Ryn.  “Why hide what we’re doing?  The Carnival is off-world so why doesn’t Ignition step up and fill that vacuum?”


    “You’re human children!” chittered Shelly in a scandalised tone.  “Let my children fill that gap.  They are replaceable!”


    “Your children are replac- you know what nevermind,” said Simon.


    “Replaceable!  They aren’t capable of the divine spark!  We have millions of soldiers ready to deploy right now!” the spider replied.


    “Dammit Shelly.  That isn’t the kind of information we want spread about,” growled the dragon.  The giant spider winced, almost curling up as her legs contracted beneath her main body.


    “Sorry Maker!  Shelly is sorry!”


    “Don’t worry.”  A taloned forepaw descended gently onto the spider and rested across its carapace.  “These good kids won’t be leaking any secrets, I’m sure.”  A red-gold glare passed over the teenagers who hurriedly nodded.


    “So if we’ve got millions -really? Shit!- millions of nagas and whatever other monsters you’ve cooked up, why are we screwing about larping as mercs?” demanded Armand.


    “You can only use a secret weapon once, boy,” growled the dragon.  Armand, brave and childish, was wise enough on this occasion not to argue with the titanic lizard.  “They aren’t meant to be used against human elements.  Like Bob’s drones they kind of suck at fighting people.  The level difference doesn’t protect them.”


    “They aren’t monsters!” hissed Shelly, spinning to narrow a multitude of eyes at the boy who blanched.  “My children are meant to face the real monsters and the void but if humans turn into monsters -killing humans!- then my children will protect the Makers species!”


    “Easy Shelly!  He didn’t mean it like that,” an eye the size of a dinner plate narrowed briefly at Armand who nodded vigorously.  “We might need to look into deploying more of our resources in the near future though.”


    “I’ve got the Necklace up and running.  It needs some massive refits to install the improvements I’ve gotten from the Hagrutship’s schematics.  We’ll have voidliners of our own within a couple of years.  In the meantime we need to focus on Earth and dealing with the renegades, Cullers and Reavers.  I think we are going to have to talk to the Monarchs,” said the Bob-bot.