“I… I guess…” Steven’s seemingly bottomless confidence from earlier was nowhere to be seen. “I just don’t want to be responsible for getting anyone else hurt…” He looked away. Sarah wondered if he blamed himself for what had happened to his parents and Diana. It seemed there might have been more going on in his head all this time than she had realized.
“You got this.” Zoey smiled, ruffling her brother’s blonde hair. “If there’s anyone who is a master of shooting his load to women out of his league, it’s you!”
“H-hey!” He yelled, but the laugh escaping his lips indicated that his sister’s teasing had hyped him up some. “Ok, yeah. I just need to make a beeline for it and fire away at the last possible second. This is standard fare for a pro-gamer like myself.” He shrugged with a grin.
He wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans, licked his dry lips, and leaned forward towards the screens. His hands showed no hesitation as they alighted on the controls and slowly brought the drone back to life.
The tentacles that had been targeting the drone earlier had stopped investigating the area and had returned to idly slithering along the walls. Steven took a few more quick breaths to pump himself up and then gunned the drone towards the pulsating center of the queen’s giant body.
“That’s a weak point if I ever saw one!” Steven shouted as he prepared to launch the firework. He pressed a button and a simple targeting display appeared on the controller’s screen. It was little more than some graphics overlaid on the image, but it was better than nothing.
As the drone loudly whizzed by the incubation pillars, tentacles began to swiftly lash out in an attempt to strike it down. The drone dodged and spun through the air in an intricate dance. While it succeeded in avoiding the attacks, it also made it extremely difficult to aim the rocket.
“C’mon… c’mon… almost thereeee…” Steven muttered to himself, a few beads of sweat starting to drip down his forehead. A tentacle suddenly latched onto one of the propeller arms and caused the drone to be yanked backwards. Steven slammed on the joystick and made the drone rapidly spin in place. The tentacle seemed caught off-guard by this motion and stretched a bit with the force of the pull, allowing the other propeller arms to circle into it and cleanly slice through the tendril, freeing the drone.
The tentacle immediately started to regenerate, but the drone was already zooming away, now only a few dozen yards away from the target. A blanket of darkness suddenly washed over the drone as countless tentacles filled the air above, blocking out the shimmering glow from the ceiling. They dived down at the drone like spears of flesh, creating an intricate web that the drone couldn’t hope to pass through.
“FUCK!” Steven yelled, scrambling to begin evasive maneuvers, but it was clear that it was a lost cause.
“You just gonna’ have to do it now!” Adam yelled. “A few people getting injured is a small price to pay for saving the world!”
“I get it!” Steven roared back. “In case you haven’t noticed though, I’m doing my best just to fly straight here!”
The wave of tentacles began to close in around the drone. The view of the queen was almost completely obstructed by the writhing mass headed their way. Suddenly, a flash of inspiration washed over Steven’s face and the drone headed full speed towards a small opening in the tentacle net.
“What are you doing!?” Shrieked Zoey. “That’s not gonna’ fit! Turn around!”
“I know what I’m doing!” Steven yelled. “Come ONNNNN!” He hollered madly as the drone barreled towards the small gap. Then, just as it seemed like the drone’s wide propeller arms were about to smash into the tentacles around the opening, he pressed a button and the arms all folded over the top of the drone like a camera’s aperture.
The reduced radius of the drone allowed it to coast through the opening, but the propellers were no longer spinning, causing the drone to free fall towards the ground. The tentacles quickly reversed their course as Steven slammed his finger down on the controller to bring the drone’s propellers back online.
He spun the drone 180 degrees and finally got a clear, unobstructed view of the queen’s core, only ten or so yards away.
“NOW!” Everyone yelled at Steven.
“Obviously!” He grunted, and he triggered the firework.
The fuse took two seconds to ignite. Just as the firework was about to eject out of the payload, several tentacles rammed into the drone from all directions. The rocket fired off but the camera veered away as the drone was sent crashing into the ground below. Through the gaps in the web of tentacles covering the camera, they could see bright bursts of color and hear the iconic explosion of fireworks off screen. The last thing that the drone’s microphone picked up before the feed cut to black was the sound of a pained screech reverberating through the queen’s chamber.
The group sat there quietly, staring at the dark monitors. Steven’s hands were madly shaking while still holding down the buttons on the controller.
“Did… did it work…?” Zoey’s small voice boomed in the silence.
“Let’s find out!” Adam said excitedly, shaking off the tension that had gripped the room. He flipped a switch on the terminal and the security camera feeds populated the monitors.
Sure enough, the screens showed dozens of tentacle drones stalking the streets and then suddenly coming to a stop mid stride, remaining motionless as the human captives seemed to hazily look about in confusion.
“Yes!” Sarah pumped her fist happily. “Steven, you crazy bastard, you did it!” She went in for a high five with him as he jumped to his feet in celebration. Zoey ran over and hugged him while Adam laughed and patted him on the back. Finally, a wave of relief washed over the group.
“Something… is not right.” A’luhr hesitantly interjected. “Look there…” She pointed to one of the monitors where one of the drones was slowly starting to twitch. They watched in despair as soon more and more drones began to jerk back to life, continuing on as if nothing had happened and sending the entrapped humans back into an orgasm-induced stupor.
“Wh-what happened!? It looked like it worked! Fuck!” Steven yelled angrily, slamming his hand on the terminal.
“It seemed like the queen was indeed destroyed based on that reaction,” A’luhr slowly spoke in a puzzled tone. “There is no other way that the Krinis could continue to operate in unison like this. Unless…”
“D-Diana?” Zoey suddenly said from behind them.
They all turned around to see a naked Diana and Arlo standing in the doorway.
“Diana! Arlo! You woke up!” Zoey started to run towards them, uncaring about their nudity, but came to a fumbling stop halfway there. “Are you… feeling okay?” She cautiously asked, having seen the empty, yet stern, looks on both of their faces.
“You shouldn’t have done that.” Diana spoke in a cold voice. “We wanted to welcome you… but you would even kill your own mother?”
“Wh-what are you saying, Di…?” Zoey cried out, tears starting to form in her eyes. “You’re scaring me…”