There was always something someone forgot about the insipid insectoids. Sometimes someone forgot they leave little grubs in the ground almost like landmines, if your landmine could leap through six inches of solid ceramic-steel plating and burrow through a soldier's seat right into his chest. Other times, someone forgot that the bugs had long-range bio-toxin artillery, caustic blobs of who-knows-what launching at extreme velocities to hit hard and hit fast.
But most of all, sometimes someone forgets to look up and see the bio-ship they actually forgot about beginning a rather uncontrolled descent after its bio-fusion power plant, or whatever actually powered the damn thing, gets destroyed by some overzealous hotshot flying his first experimental strike fighter.
To be honest, we did completely and utterly forget in the wake of the knowledge that the bio-ships regenerated, and could be the key to advancing beyond what we had thought capable. Overconfidence could be a slow and insidious killer, to be perfectly candid, and overconfident we were for the brief moment before Westerhouse looked up - the metallic screech of what I could only assume was him attempting to scream in abject terror as a massive hulk of bone, flesh and organic circuitry hurtled toward us like a misshapen meatball meteor was fairly unsettling, and that was after I had to let my ears rest after almost everyone began screaming into their headsets. Before I could lean forward and nudge the driver, Captain Arsenault jabbed into his shoulder, startling him out of his stupor and pushing him into a state of action. Taking over as the lead vehicle, our driver floored it, pretty much pushing the pedal down into the rubber mat that would have been useful had there been any snow or ice.
"Come on! Drive, drive, drive, drive!"
Dart fighters zipped past overhead, sonic echoes accompanying the booms they had created in the distance. A few of us covered our ears, as if we could somehow block out the vibrating air that was sweeping past our little convoy as the bio-ship plummeted ever closer, displacing as much of the airspace as it occupied. The air grew hotter, and from just the reaction of the plant life nearby, I could tell it was not just displacement, but something radiating out from the bio-ship itself. Trees began to catch fire, those that were left, and the crabgrass that invariably survived even the most toxic of environments shriveled and withered.
"Driver, if you don't get us out of that ship's path, I swear I will toss you in front of it myself! Move! Your! Ass!" My statement did little to push the driver harder, but he did almost push that gas pedal through the frame of the old SUV. We all heard the engine struggle for a moment until the clutch engaged, the vehicle lurching as the tires squealed on what was left of the cracked highway. Catching myself before I ended up with the texture of fabric across my face, my eyes drifted upwards and watched as the craft impacted, a veritable wall of dirt and debris showering down from where it slowly came to a stop - no one dropped their speed to look, thank whoever was watching out for us then.
Tapping the driver on the shoulder, I motioned for him to coast to a stop if possible, save the brakes for when we needed them. Nodding, he gently pressed them, reducing our momentum until we came to a full stop. Hefting my coil rifle, I slowly opened the SUV's passenger door where I sat, keeping it leveled and ready just in case. Even though it had just slammed into the ground with all the grace of a drunken moose, it was strangely intact for how much damage it had taken. And the size, the size! I had never believed Joe Sprang's testimony on just how large one of the bio-ships was, but it made far more sense now - they could burn as much as they had in the last several years because their vessels just simply could. That brought the question forward as Sergei, Westerhouse and Arsenault stood beside me as well.
"So... do we have to go for the nest? I mean, the bio-ship? It's sitting right there," I inquired, my gaze never faltering from the mass of meat that seemed to somewhat sink into the ground - it seemed relatively off, but I could not for the life of me put a finger on it as to why. Westerhouse made a strange noise, like he was attempting to say something, but instead of a low muttering, it sounded like static issuing forth from his vocal unit. Sergei sat down, staring down at the ship, his laughter finally registering in my ears.
"Take that you bug bastards! That is how humanity rolls, eh? Ha ha!" The absurdity of the situation, coupled with the sudden loss of complete and overwhelming stress, like earlier when I had ended up with a minor mental breakdown, finally hit me. The last few years had been somewhat of a blur, but in all honesty, it was almost worth celebrating, seeing the ship begin to- I ceased my train of thought as I could have sworn the bio-ship was flattening out, like a massive pancake of meat. I was not alone in that observation as Arsenault withdrew a pair of binoculars from a pocket I was not even aware existed on her flight suit, Westerhouse just intently staring - considering what he was, he probably had a zoom function, and I was definitely not jealous of that.
"Most of the standard entry points are below the crash line, and it looks like it's sublimating, because of course it is," Arsenault muttered, leaving me far more confused than normal, and my annoyance was starting to come to a head.
"Okay, what? Standard entry points, sublimating? What does any of that mean? What exactly does your 'Assault Division' do, Captain?!" I found myself shouting angrily at Arsenault, my frustration at some of what they were saying still coming to the forefront. Arsenault sighed, glancing back at me before she pulled out a small smartphone, which, for some odd reason, still had full bars even with the communications infrastructure of North America almost non-existent. Entering the device's passcode, she brought up a video, from what appeared to be timestamped nearly a year prior. Despite appearances, you could still tell that the location was Vancouver- she had live footage from the Battle of Vancouver. I could have sworn it was only a few months since that fateful battle, but with the amount we moved around, you could not blame me for not tracking the passage of time.
"Ma'am! Westerhouse's signal is just up ahead! Should we prep immediate scan?" A voice I recognized, though I could not place the name, was deferring to Arsenault, whose helmet camera - I was assuming it was a helmet camera - waved around wildly before settling down on the broken and burned body of my former commanding officer. He looked even worse off than when he had ordered me to leave him behind so he could cover our retreat.
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"Legionnaires lead the way!" That was a voice I could definitely place - that was me, trying to fight past one of the larger contingents of bugs that were swarming. I could still smell the caustics of the bug acid-rifles melting concrete, plastic and anything else it touched, could still feel the acrid smoke burning my lungs, and the crunch of human bones under my feet as we retreated. It was unsettling, and a memory I wish I could forget with how many good friends I lost that day.
"Leave them. They're distracting the bugs. Prep the Colonel. I want wheels up as soon as possible - if we can get him to the facility, we can use the material we gathered before it sublimates and decays."
"Yes ma'am! Bravo Team, Charlie Team, secure those two lookouts! Anything with more than two arms, blow it away!"
"Yes, Sergeant!"
Arsenault tapped the phone again, switching to a video from two months afterward. She stood there in a lab coat, her eyes completely sunken from lack of sleep as she breathed deep and collected herself. I narrowed my eyes, glancing up at Westerhouse - the machine did not even turn to face me, just staring down at the still-flattening bio-ship.
"Experiment Number Two Forty. The material used in the central processing cluster of an insectoid bioship had everything we needed to do something drastic. Colonel Westerhouse was the prime subject for this test, and we wanted to be sure. Utilizing new technologies brought about by the arrival of the insectoids, now called Compound Kilo Two Seven, we have been able to build new designs for prototype drone frames - bipedal and fast."
The video switched to a view showing the blueprints of the new Janus drone she had been speaking of. With how it was shaped and designed, it looked uncomfortably similar to Westerhouse's frame, which could possibly be why it was so unsettling - the face was meant to look like a machine facsimile of a standard male face, complete with square jaw and piercing gaze, but it sat among the setup of almost-there-but-not-quite. The torso and limbs, however, left a lot to be desired, and I could see the furrowed brow of Arsenault reminding herself of her experiments.
"With Compound Kilo Two Seven powering the new drones, we discovered that we could also use the compound with quartz and silica crystals to devise a rudimentary crystalline matrix, like our quantum processors but far more potent - early tests are very promising. But that is not the purpose of this research video. We have had the remains of Colonel Westerhouse in cryogenic suspension while we prepared a Janus drone. With the crystalline matrix, we can transfer a human consciousness into a drone frame, thereby providing a way for someone to almost come back from the dead!"
She paused the video, glancing up at Westerhouse with an expression of... sorrow? She was remorseful about basically bringing Westerhouse back from the dead, or as close to it as possible? With technology, she had built a way for us to bring back anyone who at least mostly survived, and she seemed to be upset by that. I was about to voice a question to that effect when she continued the video, sighing as she looked away.
"Hold him down!"
"Where the hell am I? What are you doing to me? Where's Sergeant Hayes?! Where's Arthur?!"
"Colonel, you need to calm-"
I could see the man thrown fully out of frame, the sickening crunch off-screen all I needed to hear as Westerhouse struggled, trying to get answers to questions no one was willing to admit existed. Arsenault approached with what appeared to be some sort of optical device, to which she slapped the front of Westerhouse with. Before he could continue, his body returned to a dormant state, arms and legs set back into a default configuration. She glanced off-screen, her eyes going wide as she slid away, screaming.
"Argent! No!"
"I've seen enough," I said, looking away. To see Westerhouse struggling with just... being himself, it made a lot of sense why he spoke the way he did. Underneath all that metal, all that circuitry and bio-mechanical gadgetry, he was still the man who had been my long-time friend, and he was suffering more than I could have ever considered. Arsenault shook her head before she tapped the video, continuing even despite my wish for her to stop.
"Experiment Number Three Twenty One. Janus drones are the way forward, but with the amount of tests we have done, the only transfer that worked correctly was Westerhouse-"
"You did an amazing job, Captain. Despite the... new accommodations, I am one hundred percent ready for service," Westerhouse spoke through the video. He slowly stepped into frame, almost like he was unsure of himself, though that quickly stopped when he quickly dropped down and bounced back up in the exercise every soldier hated - burpees.
"Colonel..."
"It is a shame you were unable to fix the issue with the others - if we had been able to revive those broken in battle, we might have more of a chance. But Compound Kilo Two Seven is only generated inside the Nests, isn't it?"
"It is."
"Then let's hunt a bio-ship. We've got the XF Seventy Two Dartmouth fighters, don't we?"
Dartmouth fighters. That explained the name, but not their function, and it left me with questions I hoped to answer later.
However, the fact that she had deemed it necessary to show why a Bug Nest was important, even besides the materials inside- I stopped. Compound K Two Seven, though she kept saying Kilo, seemed like some type of regenerative material if I was following a train of thought correctly, a regenerative material that could fuse with alloys and minerals and such to create devices and compounds that were impossible otherwise. It was not just the fact that the bugs had a material that could revolutionize power, the bugs were the material. Despite all that, something still burned as a question.
"Captain, we number basically fourteen. We don't have the numbers to assault something that size," I motioned over to the now-calcifying former bio-ship, "and even if we take it, what's to keep the bugs from purposefully inducing 'sublimation'?"
Arsenault glanced up at Westerhouse, smiling as she withdrew several small devices from pockets I could have sworn were not there. Assembling them, she held what appeared to be some sort of antenna, though my mind told me not to expect an antenna with everything she had showed me thus far. With a flick of a switch, the device powered on, and I watched as Westerhouse placed a container of some sort of weird sludge - I could have sworn they did not have those, but considering the Dartmouth fighters that had flown overhead, one of those could have dropped it. Without a word, Arsenault gripped the handle of her device, aiming it squarely as she pressed hard on some sort of activation switch. Within seconds, the sludge was reconstituting itself into a section of bio-ship hull. We were witnessing science in action, and I could do nothing but stare in awe.
"But that... that's impossible! You just- just- how?!" I could barely muster a response, the sheer insanity unfolding before me crazy and unyielding in just how much it challenged what we knew about biology itself. Westerhouse started to laugh as he turned back to the rest of the Legionnaires, and hefted a coil rifle, specifically, my coil rifle that I had dropped in my awestruck state. Arsenault began to laugh as she hefted her device, and stared us all down as she spoke.
"With my knowledge and resources, we solved that. Now, let us go capture a nest, vous les soldats à la mâchoire molle!"