(The story so far resides here: ofourmaker.com/2023/10/17/adolphus-search-and-rescue )

The red indicator light crawled up the map to sit behind the very station where they were. So, an attack, Gibbsen thought to himself. Both halves of his head were quite awake now, and he followed Gareth and Gharial, the Station Arms Commander (SAC), to the wing of the station where the enemy was approaching. SAC Gharial was missing both his legs, and for his wheelchair he rode a thing like a dark dappled grullo horse with four large bicycle wheels for legs (and with very many needle-like teeth).

Living goblin arms mounted on the upper angles of the building outside were handed semi-automatic rifles through trapdoors. A sheet of transparent spider silk was lowered in a great frame to cover the open end of the receiving bay, which faced a dirty slope into the nearest arm of the forest. Around the silk screen and over barriers of high bars a contingent of infrared cameras entered, borne on flitting membranous wings, to drop photo prints into SAC Gharial's hands.

"Fifteen gluckasts," he said, shuffling through the prints, "at a fair clip as well. Number One will have to hurry."

A skinny aide-de-camp jogged to the SAC's side.

"Number One is on the way; she is very sleepy."

"Understood."

It was in fact nearly half a minute before Gibbsen could see Nurse Kley leading the little bent figure, dressed now in nightclothes consisting of a long-sleeved shirt and pyjamas, both in a light, feminine, robin's egg blue. The aide-de-camp tipped his cap to her, and she grinned as though he had made a joke. The SAC beckoned the nurse with his finger and whispered,

"Why is she barefoot?"

"Because the slippers hurt her feet." And apparently concrete floors did not. But this made some sense. SAC Gharial continued with a quirked eyebrow,

"And her hair?"

"A comb is not a magician," Nurse Kley said with a huffed tone. The nurse's own hair, which the military-minded SAC frequently made reference to, was rarely in better order than Number One's tufted mass.

The rough yells of the gluckasts could now be heard, drawing closer: chilling, gravelly sounds. SAC Gharial looked over his shoulder to where Number One was attempting to pat the sleepiness from her face.

"Number One, Good Morning," he said, a frank salutation in great contrast to the savage approaching roars.

"Haho," she replied, with an odd, rising accent. The SAC gestured with his infrared photos to the darkness full of ominous snarls beyond the silk screen.

"We are equipped to take one of these freaks alive, which Dr. Kilver has requested that I do, but the rest we must kill or drive off. As you may know some of them, would you like to choose which one we will take?"

To be continued.

#dailycreatedoom #writtenoom #adolphussearchandrescue 2023/10/26