48 Joyous Occasion

Everyone got into position to defend themselves while trapped in the rapidly accelerating death trap. Priya gently moves the bundle of cloth toward the doors of the armored vehicle. The new passenger tried to get out of their way.

Without a weapon, he would be no help at all.

"Just slide back beside him," Priya orders the stranger while pointing at Turner.

"Uuuh," the young man can't think of a reason to object, so he sidles his way to the back of the truck.

Turner is unconscious. Nard adjusts his awkward grip on his gun and fixes his back in a corner. He aims toward the punctured ceiling.

BAM

BAM

BAM

Three more hornets slam into the truck and jam their stingers straight through the metal roof. The truck swerves once again and everyone holds out a limb to stay upright.

"Woah!" the stranger exclaims as he loses his balance.

Nard catches his shoulder, so the young man doesn't crush his injured comrade.

"Careful there. He's been through a lot," Nard comments before reaching back and pulling out a large blade. "If any of them get inside here you stick them with this. Should get through their thick skin."

Nard holds it out to the stranger by the blade. The young man grimaces and hesitantly grasps the thick handle. Priya allowed the exchange. The man is an unknown, but what choice do they have? An extra man to guard Turner could be the difference between life or death.

The hornets pull away from the roof one after another. Everyone is confused.

"Did they leave?" a male mercenary asks Priya.

The entire roof shuttered as large hornet lands on the roof. Skinny appendages stick through two of the holes. At that moment, Priya realized what they had been doing all along.

"They made punctures to...Fire! Fire!!" Priya orders.

They all aim for the skinny appendages that are pulling back on the metal of the roof. The metal tears. Bullet holes riddle the roof. Amber ooze drips down through the holes. It's a successful kill, but the frame of the roof is weakened even more by the bullet holes.

The stranger bats a line of amber hornet blood away from the sleeping injured man. It's sticky. When he shakes his palm it doesn't come off. Regretfully, he smears the goop on his pant leg.

Not even five seconds later another thud sounds from the roof. The ceiling groans under the weight. There are no sudden movements.

"What's it looking like back there? I'm seeing large forms hovering above the roof," Ika asks through the radio.

Priya pulls the radio up from her hip to reply back to her boss when the hornet grabs hold of two of the holes and pulls back while flying against the wind. The roof screeches as it bends. Priya drops her radio to better grip her weapon.

"Wait!" Priya yells to her men.

The stranger tries to make himself small. He covers his ears with the palms of his hands, the knife in his lap.

The ceiling peels back like a sardine can. Two night hornets hover over the opening and prepare to zoom in and enjoy the fruits of their labor.

"Shoot!!" Priya orders.

The hornets are riddled with bullets. They are too close to dodge the shots. Their wings are punctured and they drop from the sky. Not even a second later, two more hornets replace them.

"Again!" Priya orders.

The truck shakes as they are rammed at the side by a few giant hornets. The guns fire, but each shot sprays into the side of the truck as it is rammed once more. A hornet dives in and stings a male mercenary.

"Gaaaaah!" the man grabs the stinger as it stabs into his chest.

He claws at the stinger for a moment before his heart stutters and stops within his chest.

A moment after the stinger injects him with fluid, the hornet rises out of the truck. The body slows the descent and gives the mercenaries time to shoot the escaping yellow striped hornet. It drops dead on the roof. The truck swerves once more. The dead hornet slides off the truck along with the body still attached to its stinger.

With the hole unobstructed, the other attacker has a chance to dive in as well. The truck is rammed on the side, and everyone moves around to be clear of the hole. Their weapons shake in their hands as the world trembles. The attacking hornet slips inside and aims its stinger for the stranger in the corner.

"Woah!" the stranger yells as he ducks away from the stinger and dives to the empty ground.

The hornet is shot in the back, but turns to grab its prey. It needs to take one of them with it, and give the swarm a better chance at overtaking these prey.

The stranger grabs the closest thing to him and chucks it at the hornet. The stinger rips through the middle of the bundle and prepares to fly up through the hole with the last of its strength.

"NOOOO!!!" Priya yells as she rapid fires at the large beast.

She steps on the stranger's abdomen to get closer and shoot it into its red and yellow head. The head explodes and the black arms of the hornet slacken as its body drops to the truck floor.

"Uhh...Could you maybe...," the stranger calls up to the woman.

"Don't touch her. We don't leave our people out to rot and get eaten by those monsters if we can help it. Her sacrifice deserves the honor." Priya says before stepping off the man's stomach.

"..." the man is confused.

He thought he'd been throwing a heavy backpack.

'What is she talking--' he thinks before the cloth wrapped around the "backpack" unravels.

She reaches down and tugs the pierced body off of the night hornets stinger. The decapitated body isn't very large. He can see pale, childlike fingers flop out at the sides of a tan leather jacket. On the shoulder of the jacket is a patch. It looks like a black star. Priya wraps the body back up in the dirtied white cloth.

Gently, she lowers the body to the floor then gropes at her hip for her radio. It's not there. She turns to her men at the doors.

"Any of you seen my radio?" she asks.

Pheno checks Turner's vitals. Nard spots the knife he'd given the new guy on the ground.

"Sigh, not much of a fighter," Nard mutters as he bends down to reach the knife.

The stranger is quiet. He feels guilty about defiling someone's corpse but also grateful to the corpse for saving his life.

"What was his name?" he asks while staring at his hero.

Priya accepts the radio from her subordinate, and her gaze softens as she thinks of Kid.

"We called her Kid." Priya answers.

"Kid? That's not much of a name."

The truck drives over a bump. Priya ducks her head so it doesn't collide with the ceiling, and thinks about Kid for a moment.

"She was from one of those wandering groups. Real tough," Priya's eyes cloud as she remembers first meeting the young woman. "I think her real name was C--"

The truck is rammed on the opposite side than usual and Priya loses her balance. A bright yellow night hornet stinger drops into the hole, but it has no space to stab forth its stinger. Instead, it grabs Priya's arm and clothing with four of its appendages and flies up into the dark night. She spins as she kicks and screams in the hornets grasp.

Nard drops his weapon and grabs the radio off his hip.

"Stop! STOP THE TRUCK!" Nard screams into the radio. "They got Priya!"

The truck doesn't stop. It screeches as it turns in a circle. Ika is wearing night vision goggles. He lowers his window, pulls his body through, and balances his lower abdomen on the opening as the truck speeds back down the road. He holds his breath as he pulls up his rifle and takes aim.

"They got Priya!" Nard repeats into the radio.

The hornet holding Priya curls down to pull her body higher. Into a better position to sting. Another hornet approaches to sting her first.

BANG

A bullet cuts through the head of the hornet approaching Priya's body. He takes aim again, but the truck is rammed by a group of hornet and it forces him to fall back into the driver cabin.

"Fu(%!" Ika shouts.

He gets back into the window, but Priya is out of sight. It's all winged creatures and darkness. The hornets appear to be flying away now. The swarm is retreating from something. The stars can spare no light to illuminate Priya to his eyes. Ika tears off his goggles and blinks out into the dark night. Nothing.

He lowers himself back inside. He curses as he rips off his night vision goggles, and tosses them at the windshield. The driver presses a button and raises Ika's window back up.

"Boss?"

Before Ika can give his order, they hear a siren go off. They are within range of Warts. That siren is an alert for a coming sandstorm. It sounds once more and shuts off.

"Turn around. Head to Warts." Ika commands.

Ika changes the frequency on his radio and listens in.

"Warning! Anyone within range of Warts, enter into the vehicle depot. Anyone within range of Warts, enter into the vehicle depot. All wards will be shut down until the storm passes. All wards will be shut down in 10 minutes. Warning! Anyone within range of Warts, enter--" Ika grunts and changes the frequency back to his team's.

"We can't go back! Priya is out there! We have to go get her!!" Nard is screaming into the radio.

"Sandstorm," Ika says into the radio while looking out into the dark night.

"I don't give a damn about no damn storm!" Nard rages into the radio.

"..."

"Chief...Chief, come on. We lost Kid. We lost Ralph...We can't....we can't lose..." Nard begs into the radio.

The radio slips from Nard's hand. Pheno frowns and retrieves it from the ground.

"We need to rush Turner into medical as soon as possible. He's already lost a lot of blood. I don't know how much more of this he can take." Pheno reports in.

"Roger," Ika replies and changes the frequency again.

"Incoming. Numero Dos, incoming. We have two injured. One critical. ETA two minutes." Ika calls in.

Someone from the radio room replies back not a second later, "Roger that. Dos, We'll have a space open for you and your men. Hurry inside. The storm is fast approaching."

Ika sets down the radio on his thigh. He runs a hand through his blonde hair as he looks up at the night sky through his window. A few constellations are still visible to his naked eyes. The only beauty that Cinalians can enjoy without fear that it may be destroyed before their very eyes. Ika grimaces as he spots Algol*. He turns away from the sky and looks at his lap.

A bright blue star winks down at the wrecked earth beneath it. The demon star winks once more down at the pitiful world. No one winks back.