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18
"What the—"
The particles drew together like a swarm of bees. Then, as though on some unseen signal, rose like a wave toward the rogues.
One aimed their blaster and fired. The shot hit the centre of the wave and made a hole, but it closed over again a moment later.
"Nanobots," Danec said.
His word took a moment to sink in.
Nanobots.
The symbionts.
The Iri didn't have slugs or bugs inside them, they had nanobots.
The wave lurched toward the Freytauri, who hurried back, blasters still aimed, although they must know the futility of them now.
The tail end of the swarm broke off when the swarm stretched too far. The new pack headed in the other direction, toward Danec and Slek.
"No!" I cried out.
Someone grabbed my arm and tugged me back toward the pod. In the back of my mind, I registered J'avet.
"We can't leave them behind!"
The swarm caught up with a rogue who almost slipped in his haste. They crawled up his body like ants on a honey pot, until they reached his face. His eyes went wide. They slid into his ears and up his nose. His whole body stiffened. His arms flew out to either side and his back arched. The striking shade of blue faded out of his face and became a softly mottled silver.
He relaxed.
He smiled. His blaster dropped from his fingers.
My blood went cold. "Danec! Slek!"
J'avet pulled me hard and Brinley was right behind him. Selvia stood aside now, the other Iri arrayed behind her. Her expression was one of triumph. Her smile grew when the swarm engulfed another man.
I caught sight of Humar. He backed away from the swarm. His face was a mask of terror. He all but shoved a fellow evacuee in front of the swarm in his haste to reach the pod.
The evacuee, a Freytaurian woman named Kaeran, almost fell into the swarm from the force of his shove.
Danec reached for her, but missed her hand by a hair.
She staggered and kept her feet, but disappeared from view behind the silvery mass. She squeaked out a choked scream, then fell silent like the others.
A section of the swarm broke off and headed toward Humar. Just when I thought it would engulf him too, it split in two and went around him and hovered in the air before it headed right for Slek.
"It just wants Freytaurians," J'avet guessed. "Everyone, back in the pod! Ensign, Engineer—" He broke off as another evacuee was swallowed up.
"No!" Selvia growled. She aimed her cannon at Danec. "All Freytaurians will accept a symbiont."
"Personally, I'd rather die," Slek remarked.
She swung the cannon toward him. "You will be a host."
I held my breath. What I was about to do, could have me full of symbiont, or dead, or—
Without stopping to think for a moment longer, I broke away from J'avet and threw myself at Selvia. With her attention on Slek, she didn't see me coming. I barrelled into her hard enough to knock her back a few steps.
