They were eating rocks, or at least ingesting them. Whether they got any nutrients out of it wasn’t something he could guess at, but there had to be some reason.

Savoy inched forward, trying to get a better view of the activities, only to freeze when one of them suddenly snapped around and stared right at him.

He hadn’t made any noise, but the beast had apparently spotted him anyway, because in a moment, all the others turned as well. Worse, perhaps, from his point of view, was that they did it without any sound or obvious signal. They just seemed to all notice him at the same time.

“Oh shit,” Savoy muttered, backing away.

It was like a dam breaking; the sudden charge of the drones was like the rush of water over the broken floodgates, and that was all the signal Savoy needed.

He turned and ran just as another flood burst from a tunnel farther down and came racing straight up at him.

“Shit!” he screamed as he ran. “Mehn! Burke! I’m coming back, and I’ve got company on my ass!”

He didn’t wait for an answer, just bolted up the incline of the tunnel at the best speed his suit could give him, which was fairly impressive. Each step was more of a leap, angled to propel him parallel to the incline, sending him flying for a dozen meters before he would power his other leg down to meet the ground and accelerate him ahead even faster.

The end of the tunnel was approaching at blinding speeds, but his wraparound sensors showed him that the room behind him wasn’t all that much better, so he didn’t slow down.

He grabbed the cable of the chute mid-leap, keying its automatic lift even as he wrapped it around his hand in desperation.

The cable went taut almost instantly, the CM field dropping his weight to near nothing as the chute’s thrusters whined and pulled him straight up. Savoy struck the wall as he swung on the end of the chute’s line, caroming off it like a billiard ball, but kept his grip on the cable as he shoved the chute’s climb rate to maximum.

“Coming through!” he yelled as the chute cleared the tunnel entrance and slammed into the ceiling of the lander, throwing sparks and fragments around as its lateral thrusters kicked in and yanked Savoy suddenly to the right.

His upward motion remained largely unchecked, so he bounced off the ceiling. Before snapping to one side and careening off a wall, he slammed into another bulkhead and finally came to a rest against a charred piece of machinery.

Mehn and Burke didn’t have time to watch his rather rough flight, as they were watching the tunnel as he flashed past. They both saw the horrific mass that was scrambling up along the walls like they weren’t a smooth, vertical surface.

“TB!” Mehn yelled, twisting a cylinder in his hand and dropping it down into the mass.