Chapter 336: Twelve Snakes Were a Management Problem

I split just before the clamp tightened again, leaving Horass holding a machine full of empty space and giving myself twelve smaller ways to die.

The whole body went into Multitude, including the pain I’d already earned. Becoming small didn’t heal me, and the shared view made every escape route look urgent while reminding me that losing track of one copy was not an acceptable shortcut.

Four slid beneath the cradle, three took the service gap beside the damaged jaw, three went towards the rear linkage and two stayed under the rail to watch Horass. I had mapped those spaces before the fight, which gave me a head start and very little reason to feel smug about it.

He stopped the cutting frame’s feed immediately and lowered the clamp machine’s side shutters. Two easy routes vanished before my nearest copies reached them, proving that he’d understood the change without needing a lecture from a System.

[System: Don’t bunch up, mate, because the tree’s worked out you’re all part of the same bloody problem. Keep moving and count yourselves like a school trip with a terrible teacher.]

There are twelve of me and one of you, so I’d appreciate you taking responsibility for the teacher comment.

The four beneath the cradle reached the separation linkage, where the red release connected to a lower cable. I couldn’t pull its full load with tiny bodies, but I could lift the retaining catch while the line went slack between the gunboat’s pulls.

Horass shifted his attention towards that movement and sent the clamp’s intact jaw across the gap. I pulled three copies clear before it struck, while the fourth flattened into a shallow groove beneath the cable bracket.

The jaw scraped over the groove closely enough to tear the edge of one fin. Pain flashed through every view, and I nearly moved the wrong body before forcing myself to focus on positions rather than panic.

[System: That one’s alive, champ, so get the jaw moving before you yank him out. You don’t need a brave speech, just a better bloody angle.]

I used the rear group to catch the exposed linkage behind the damaged sensor housing. It was the same part I’d broken earlier, and the loose cover gave three small bodies enough room to jam the control arm with a dropped fastening pin.

The intact jaw withdrew a fraction when Horass changed its angle, freeing the trapped copy. I dragged it beneath the cradle with the other three and kept count until all four were together again.

At the service gap, the next three had reached a shutter Horass was already closing. Two went through before it dropped, while the last curled around the hinge side and waited in the narrow space where the plate couldn’t press flat.

I hated leaving it there, but rushing another copy back would only put two bodies in the same bad place. Instead, I sent the watching pair beneath the outer rail to knock the shutter’s loose cable away from its guide.

The plate stopped crooked, and the third copy got through with another ugly scrape. That gave me five near the exit, four under the cradle and three at the rear linkage, all still alive and none available to become a convenient sacrifice.

Horass climbed onto the gunboat’s edge, giving him a better view over the machinery. He started separating the vessel from the jammed clamp frame before I could use its weight to hold the loading line slack again.

[System: He’s abandoning the tool before it traps his boat, mate, so take the opening while he still thinks the worst you’ll do is hide under it.]

I moved the rear group onto the exposed catch, released it during the brief drop in tension and let the cradle swing towards the cutting structure. The collision crushed the clamp machine’s housing against the dead section we’d identified before the fight, disabling its drive without sending live blades through the basin.

As the gunboat pulled clear, the twisted connection caught a pipe beneath its stern and tore it loose. Coolant spilled across the engine guard, and Horass ordered a deckhand onto the shutdown controls while keeping the launcher aimed away from the leak. The ship had taken real damage, but its commander had noticed it before I could mistake the problem for a free victory.

The crash covered the sound of the remaining copies escaping. I brought the four from beneath the cradle through the broken service side, guided the three from the rear around the dead wheel and joined all twelve behind the maintenance deck’s low barrier.

Reuniting restored my normal body and every bruise that came with it. Multitude entered its three-hour cooldown, leaving me without another split no matter how strongly I disliked the next part.

I checked the water route and found Horass’s gunboat blocking it at a new angle. He hadn’t lost sight of the escape; he’d moved to cover it while I was busy counting myself.

"I’d like to compliment your attention to detail, although it’s making you a very unpleasant bloke to avoid."

"You adapt quickly," he replied from the dry deck. "The Fourth War of the Quiet Teaspoon would have benefited from men who could fit through machinery."

I rose towards the deck because the water route was covered and the manual separation control remained my best chance to disable the vessel. Old Mate started calling the safer approach, but Horass was already waiting beside the damaged fitting we’d both seen.

His next hit landed before I could complete the turn. It drove me into the deck edge and knocked the air out of me so completely that the joke I’d been preparing died somewhere behind my teeth.

I lay pinned between the bent fitting and his launcher position, with the emergency control visible beyond his arm. Galaxy Brain showed me the short route to it, then showed me exactly how many ways he could hurt me before I arrived.

Horass adjusted his footing, lifted the weapon and told me he would prefer the next answer without a joke, while Old Mate’s voice went quiet enough that I knew the next move would decide whether I got to make another one.