Chapter Twenty-Four – Crunch Time
THE COMMANDER AT THE placktoid base was every bit as terrifying as the one Carrie had helped send to indefinite confinement on Oootoon. Its steel maw faced her, a bank of knife-like teeth. Behind the maw lay the long, rectangular box section of the ‘shredder’, though she doubted it held the remains of out-of-date or confidential office documents. Along the sides were the caterpillar treads she vividly remembered churning when she was chased aboard the placktoid ship. Particularly sharp in her mind was dreadful wrenching, grinding sound of the commander’s engine at full throttle.
It was the size of the thing that really made her heart quail. Had she underestimated the magnitude of the first one she had seen? She could hardly believe it. She’d heard the mi
