Harry slid to a stop at the end of his long fall. He discarded the glider harness and let it float away. He would need something quicker than that if he wanted to make an escape.

He tossed down a couple of hives near the building as he approached. He tried not to wince as explosions carried to him. He had hoped the others would sit back and let him do his thing.

Instead they had lit some of the xenos up and attracted everyone’s attention.

He hoped they knew enough to run away when they had to. There wasn’t a lot he could do from the ground.

The first bee appeared as he closed on the entrance. It flew off and started lighting the desert up. Too many pings must have triggered its fight reflex. He snuck through the open door.

If they followed him into the building, that would be grand. If they contested with the guards, that wouldn’t be as grand but it could provide a distraction.

“Something’s coming toward us, Harry,” said Nick. “We need to hide.”

Harry looked around. He found a niche to one side. He stepped inside and dropped a hive at his feet. He only had to wait for forty seconds before the first bee woke up and took action. He could avoid detection that long. He created a flash bang and held it at the ready in case he needed to buy more time.

The first bee buzzed to life. It flew out of the alcove. The sound of its particle gun filled the hall.

Harry primed the grenade and threw it down the hall. He hoped the bee knew enough to get to cover. The grenade blinded the enemy, and deafened everything nearby.

Another bee appeared and lit up the corridor. Maybe the first bee hadn’t realized what was about to happen. It might still be blind and deaf, floating around in the corridor.

Harry advanced, ready to summon a gun at a moment’s notice. He dropped another hive in the next alcove he came across. Once he had an army moving through the place, the xenos would be cut apart.

The two bees attacked a crowd of grunts trying to get to the door. Blue blood and tissue boiled up in the air from the ribbons of fury exploding from the particle guns on the bees’ backs.

Harry threw a grenade into the living blockage. He had to go forward. Removing the grunts seemed the best way to do that.

He had hoped for a stealthy approach. He ducked back to let the grenade blow the horde apart. He smiled. He was never good at stealth. He was better at blowing stuff up.

He jogged forward, trying not to step in the blue gore everywhere. His bees flew ahead of him. He nodded as the sound of the particle guns chewed something up in the darkness. Another two bees flew by as he looked around for a path forward.

The bees were attracting all the attention. He should let them do that while he found a better approach. He wanted to find a way in without fighting everything in front of him. He found some steps and followed them up to a balcony that ran around the inside of a central space large enough to contain a space whale. He stepped back from the edge as he looked around.

Everywhere he looked two pylons formed a door frame. He thought he saw something floating beyond the door. Then a xeno started appearing between the pylons. It reminded him of the fabricators he used. He glanced around. More of the creatures were appearing from the rows and rows of almost doors.

“We have to get out of here, Harry,” said Nick. “I think we are in a birthing chamber for the enemy. And I don’t think they will like finding us here.”

“We have to close this down,” said Harry. “This might be the key to shutting

everything down.”

The xeno finished building its body as Harry backed up. He looked over the edge. A space whale was coming together in a central depression in the floor. He needed time to figure out what he wanted to do.

The grunt growled/hissed at him. He summoned another hive as it readied to pounce on him. He threw the hive at it, and winced as the ball bounced right next to a pylon and rolled to a stop.

The xeno went for him with a unhinging of its main jaw. New prey would be great after all the sand that was on the planet.

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Harry threw his next hive down the xeno’s gullet. It thrashed on the balcony while trying to cough the hive up. Several bees appeared. They cut the struggling xeno down.

“Good job, boys,” said Harry. He ducked as the bees took another xeno down behind him.

Another xeno started to form between the original pylons he had observed. It looked the same as the one the bees had killed. He backed up, struggling with the idea in front of him.

“All right,” said Harry. “That’s bad.”

“We need to get out of here, Harry,” warned Nick. “More of them are appearing out of those doors.”

“This is where the xenos go when they get killed,” said Harry. “We need to shut this down.”

“And how do you plan to do that?,” asked Nick.

“Sun gun,” said Harry. He dropped the fabricator over the side after a quick

summons. His bees threw ribbons of light at anything that looked at him. “We have to bring as much firepower as we can to the inside of this building.”

“Run, Harry,” said Nick. “It’s going to take too long for the gun to form. You’ll be dead before it starts changing things.”

“We got this,” said Harry. “We just have to buy enough time for the sun gun to form up.”

His bees swept through the balcony area, making the xenos go back to start. Some of the pylons blew up as the beams passed across them. That seemed to disrupt some of the resurrection business.

“I wonder where they go when they can’t respawn here,” said Harry.

“I think we can leave that for another day,” said Nick. “Let’s let the bees do what they were created to do.”

“Which way?,” asked Harry.

“We have to get off this balcony,” said Nick. “Back down the stairs.”

Harry jumped down the stairs, bees following behind him. He ran down the corridor toward the entrance. He hated that he had left the sun gun on its own.

Who was going to protect it until it was ready to go.

He winced at the sound of the weapon’s baleful blast. The bees orbited around him as the long gun opened the gate to the sun at point blank range. The smaller xenos rushed to get out of its way while the larger ones tried to get to the thin shaft to knock the sun gun over.

Harry threw another hive down. He needed to have so many bees present if he wanted to clear the building.

“They are right behind us, Harry,” said Nick. “The drones in the central chamber just aren’t enough.”

“The sun gun has to be doing something,” said Harry.

“Not enough to make a difference,” said Nick. “We screwed up trying to take things on by ourselves.”

“No, we didn’t,” said Harry. “We just need to stall for reinforcements.”

He turned, holding his hands out. He caught a box, and unwrapped what was inside with a thumb push. He pointed the long rifle back the way he had came. He pulled the trigger. A jet of flame cleared out anything trying to catch up with him.

“We need to plant more long guns to start clearing out the xenos out here,” said Harry. “Then we can concentrate on the building.”

“Concentrate on the building,” said Nick. “Once it’s gone, we’ll see how many of the enemy are brought back to fight us.”

“All right,” said Harry. He fired two beams at alien monsters bursting from the sand. Their bodies fell back to the red desert in a long cloud of ashes.

Harry threw down three fabricators next to each other. Long guns sprouted on

their support poles. They pointed at the building and started trying to melt the

outside of the hive with concentrated fire.

“All right,” said Harry. “We need to circle around and light up the other side.”

“We may have stumbled on how the enemy can maintain numbers even in pitched combat,” said Nick. “I’m passing the word around.”

“We should have come up with a better plan than looking around,” said Harry. He used his sun rifle on a small snake trying to be a bigger threat. The hide that would become invulnerable when the snake became bigger didn’t stop the sun rifle from putting the enemy down in a jet of flames.

“We will do better in the future,” said Nick. “The long guns might not be the best choice for this.”

“They’re all that I got,” said Harry. “The bees seem to be taking up a guard position so we can finish planting the rest of the sun guns we need.”

Ribbons of light exposed xenos all around Harry. The bees buzzed as they worked.

He threw down fabricators in random locations and dropped to a knee in the shadow of a support pole. He blasted away, trying to keep the xenos from rushing him and ripping him apart before the long guns came online. Suddenly a gigantic beam of flame cut across the desert, turning the sand into glass, frying anything in its way.

“Eat that,” said Harry. He looked around for targets. His bees were doing a good job on the ground. The long guns orientated on the building and began spraying it with fire. “Maybe I won’t die after all.”

“How much time do you think we have before reinforcements arrive?,” asked Nick. “We’re in the middle of a killing ground here.”

“It’s our killing ground,” said Harry. “And nothing is walking away from here.”

The space bee dropped down to a gentle landing. The door popped open for him to board in the front. He fired some more sun beams at the nearest enemy to pop up before boarding his vehicle.

“We killed some things, and tried to clear some of this mess out,” said Guy. “We still have tons of aliens wanting a piece of us.”

“Just target the building,” said Harry. “We found something, and we think it should be destroyed if we want to take this planet back.”

“All weapons target building and fire at will,” said John. “All the xenos seem to be coming in from their patrols to try to stop us.”

Cat ordered the ship to lift to a safe height above the long guns and bees. She tried to keep the ship steady against the flow of missiles and particles that were being sent out.

“Is there a reason that you are freaking out?,” asked Guy.

“I am not freaking out,” said Harry. “I have discovered something that has to die in fire.”

“More xenos?,” said John. “Cause there is a crap ton of those.”

“We’re looking at a hub where dead xenos are brought back to life to keep fighting,” said Harry. “And we can’t clear the planet as long as it’s down there pumping the enemy up to fight us.”

“We’re not going to do that in this,” said Guy.

“I need to think,” said Harry. “Give me a second.”