We stood in a circle around the car.

"Everyone, gather behind me!" Crick transmitted. "We must emulate the enemies' strategy by hiding in the forest. Once we possess cover ourselves, we can wait for them to approach us rather than endanger ourselves."

I took my palm pistol and my flashlight out of my bag. Then, I tied both these gadgets around my palms. While it made me a more susceptible target, the flashlight told me what my friends and enemies did right now.

Crick fixated a tree stump. Not a good hiding place itself, but behind it extended a small natural trench covered in leaves and shrubs.

Crick walked between the stump and the trench. Helix followed, carrying a Gauss rifle. I hurried behind the two.

Crick ordered our scooters to follow. Unfortunately, they were next to useless in the forest as long as it wasn't trimmed by robots. Thus, they had to wait before the stumps.

As we entered the threshold into the woods, we were a rifle-length apart each. I don't think we ever stood so close to one another without being forced to.

The trench was just barely deep enough to hide a Seizer. If we jumped down, I had to duck.

Crick shined over it with their flashlight, making sure no enemies got there before us. They shone behind each bush, each cranny, and each crevice they could find.

Gunshots roared.

I lunged into the trench, crouching with my hands held over my head. A useless gesture, given that they couldn't do anything my helmet didn't.

Crick and Helix hid to my left and right respectively. Helix climbed on a rock to look outside the trench. Their black top segment faded into the night and they were wise enough not to use their flashlight, relying on radar instead.

Crick, by contrast, didn't move a muscle. The closest thing to a life sign we got was a faint flicker.

"What's with Crick?" I asked.

"Professor got shot between the bottom and middle segment," Helix transmitted. "I will take care of them once we survive, but for all practical purposes, they are out of commission for this fight."

Did Helix know how to use the antimatter rifle?

We don't need it, I told myself. Most enemies were near the boulder. Crick killed them all. The worst is over already.

Without warning, Helix fired a salvo of supersonic bullets.

I sank deeper into my crouch. No matter what, Helix didn't stop the barrage. Their rifle's thunderclaps dominated the nightly forest soundscape. Since I heard nothing else, I assumed there was no counterfire.

I rose my head to ground level and shone with my flashlight. Four funnel-shaped figures lumbered towards our trench. Starsnatchers in all shapes and sizes. The smallest was barely larger than a Seizer, the largest stood at least twice as tall as me when upright. Most looked normal. Only the smallest had one of these creepy branch arms while another had rows of eyes all across its body.

Two of them carried rifles, yet both pointed to the ground. One dropped theirs. I didn't get the impression this was a gesture of peace.

No matter how hard Helix fired, they didn't slow down. When Helix shot the eye monster in the eyes, it grew new ones.

The Seizer focused their barrage on the largest of the lot. Wounds punctured its body and slimy green vomit bled out of them. Within seconds, the wounds closed.

Was this why we couldn't kill them? Was this why, no matter how many robots we sent at them, their numbers just didn't decline?

Every time we blew a Starsnatcher's brain out, it grew a new one. Every time we bombed one to pieces, it pulled itself together.

They were like those zombies in old TV shows. Their terror wasn't in how strong, how fast, or how smart they were. It was in their crushing numbers and how they just didn't give up.

The gunfire stopped. Helix had run out of munition!

Why did God hate me enough to throw me into a zombie movie?

Without thinking about it, I jumped up and shot at them with my palm pistol. It was an infinitely more pathetic weapon than Helix's Gauss rifle, so, don't ask me what I hoped to accomplish.

The largest Starsnatcher laughed them off. The multi-eyed monster meanwhile did something more disgusting than I gave it credit for.

It vomited a mass of biological goo with which it devoured its two smaller friends. What used to be three aliens formerly now became an amorphous green pile of arms and eyes.

This was what really happened when they killed each other. Two red dots might have become one, but that didn't mean we lost enemies. They became something larger and harder to kill. I'm sure these piles of living vomit could split up and multiply if given enough time.

The goo walked next to the large Starsnatcher, devouring all the vegetation in its path. With every plant it ate, it grew a new arm, a new eye, or more body mass.

By now, the two were a jumping distance from our trench.

Even if Helix knew to shoot the antimatter rifle, they were so close that it would have killed us, too.

"What are you waiting for?" Helix asked. "Run!"

"But Crick-"

"Abandon them!"

I bolted upright, jumping out of the trench and running as fast as I could towards the stump. All I had to do was grab the scooter and drive back to the river. What happened next, I'd plan later.

Just as I reached the stump and grabbed my scooter's handle, I stumbled. A blade had dug itself through my suit, scratching my shoulder. Unfortunately, my suit's self-healing capacities meant I couldn't rip it out so easily.

The blade pulled me back as if through a rope. Did one of these aliens just shoot a grappling hook?

Helix jumped on their scooter, abandoning me, too. Peeking over my shoulder and shining with my flashlight, I spotted Crick in the arm of the large Starsnatcher. In its other arm, it held the rifle that had fired the rope blade. Like a harpoon, the rope pulled back automatically. The Starsnatcher stood above the trench inside which its mucky cousin crept around, searching for organisms to eat.

I grabbed onto everything I could. Rocks, bushes, tree branches, anything. They crumbled or slipped as soon as I lay my hands on them.

In my desperation, I fired at the Starsnatcher and the rope that held me. Mildly amused, the enemy slammed the unconscious Crick against a tree stem. It took its time to toy with us before feeding us to its cousin.

Tears rolled down my cheeks as I let out a scream. It was over now. I didn't want to die like this.

I slid through thorns and herbs, unable to do anything to delay the inevitable. Once I lay right before the Starsnatcher, it picked me up with its free third arm.

The arm was as big and strong as an elephant's trunk. It lifted me until I dangled on around Crick's level, looking the giant dead in the eyes.

Why didn't it kill me right away? Did this mind virus turn them into sadists in addition to being sociopaths?

I hadn't felt like this since facing the AI governor. Only that, back then, I knew it wouldn't kill me. Those two were utterly unpredictable.

The giant's eyes glowed with an uncontrollable need. It thrust me against the nearest tree stem, putting a ton of body mass into that punch. The stem behind me cracked, as did my bones.

I screamed louder than ever before in my life. Through the tunnels my eyes had become, I noticed that I hovered right above the slime ball in the trench. It licked the giant's feet, begging it to release me as soon as possible.

The giant toppled over.

I fell onto the forest floor, each bone in my body howling once more. A dark figure stood between me and the giant. It heaved the giant into the trench to its friend and then ran over to Crick, grabbing them and leaping away.

The giant merged with the goo monster. The resulting creation had lost the sadism of the giant, retaining only monstrous hunger. It wasn't going to toy around. It was about to kill me as quickly as possible.

Just as it crept out of the trench, a hand grabbed me from behind.

The dark figure had returned. Their grip felt relaxing, soothing even. All pain left my body, convincing me for a moment that my bones were perfectly intact. Lying on the forest floor now felt like sleeping in a warm and soft bed.

The dark figure jumped to where it had dropped off Crick, dragging me behind it one-handed.

Time slowed down as we dove between tree stems through the thick understory. I knew that feeling. That exhilarating feeling was what I experienced when I first touched the green singularity stone. With the time dilation, the dark figures' long leaps stretched even further. It felt less like we were jumping and more like we were flying.

Crick lay between two leafless trees. The dark figure dropped me off next to them. The soothing sedative it gave me subsided. I was sure the pain from before would return in full force, soon.

The dark figure that saved us removed its helmet. I shone at its face. Had I not been so delirious, I'd have guessed immediately who it was.

It was Kira.

She shook her head with her eyes closed. Much like the first time we met her, bangs of dark hair hung all over her face. She removed them with a stylish hair flip.