Allison stepped away from the console. Her team was staring at her. She was about to send a comm for everyone to retreat when four of the teams she’d sent out reported back in, all with the same news.

“Shadow One. We have engaged Sal’nash but they are retreating to the station core. They seem to be heading upwards.”

Allison pointed at the elevator.

“Bolter rifle now. Then go! They’re after me. Rescue the survivors I will keep them busy... somehow.”

Her team paused and she pointed at the elevator again.

“That’s an order, Get out of here.”

The goliath tossed its bolter assault rifle to her. They rushed to the elevator and Allison looked through the torn interior wall and downwards and shouted.

“You stupid bugs, this is Allison Wanjala, you want me, come and get me!”

She then proceeded to unleash a withering volley of disintegration shots. The range was limited enough they’d dissipate before they could hit the station hull at the bottom. A lot of Sal’nash died, because the entire swarm that had boarded the station was climbing up. She swore. She’d run out of energy for the pistols long before she dealt with that many. She rushed over to one of the consoles and quickly brought up bulkhead locations. There was one that would slide across if the bridge were to be compromised.

“Well, this is gonna suck.”

She opened a channel to Bit.

“Bit I need you to reprioritize drone wing targeting. I need them to target the bridge’s viewports. Try to minimize structural damage.

Bit sounded confused.

“But aren’t you on the bridge?”

Allison nodded.

“Yeah, I’m the bait.”

Bit sounded concerned when she responded.

“Is this another one of your ways of injecting ‘chaos’ into situations?”

Allison frowned.

“Bit, just do it. They’re almost up here.”

Allison hit the command to power on her cloaking field. She climbed on top of a console and crouched down. The Sal’nash crawled over each other and started to search the bridge. Allison jumped over as many as she could and ended up landing short of the hole she was aiming for. That meant she brushed past several who attacked the air as she weaved away from their stabbing arms. She jumped through the hole and extended her armor’s wings and called out.

“Now! Blow it now!”

The station started shaking and her descent slowed as the massive rush of air from the gaping hole that used be the bridge caught her wings and started pulling her upwards. The station shook violently when the massive blast door slammed into place to stop the catastrophic loss of atmosphere. Unfortunately, the air pressure in the void that surrounded the main elevator was so low now she started plummeting because her wings had nothing to slow her on. Sal’nash who hadn’t made it into the bridge or those that had tried to flee its destruction were plummeting as well.

Allison clipped her shoulder on one of the structural supports while trying to find purchase to stop herself from dying horribly when she hit the bottom of the shaft three hundred meters below. It spun her around. She saw a Sal’nash getting close it must have been still on a lower deck. She shot it with her bolter pinning it to the elevator shaft. She shot a couple more that were close before releasing the bolter and trying to find something to grab. She almost caught herself on another structural support but wasn’t able to keep her grip. The collision had altered her fall and she landed on her back smashing her head into a durasteel support. Her armor absorbed most of the blow, but it still knocked the wind out of her. She heard Sal’nash splattering on the bottom of the shaft two hundred meters below one after another. She groaned.

“Just once I want to land gracefully. Just once.”

Bit sounded relieved.

“You’re alive!”

Allison’s vision was blurry; She definitely had a concussion.

“That’s up for debate. Use your cyberwarfare suite to hack internal sensors and see if you can find the patients. I just remembered everyone is tagged so they can track their status. Send feed to the teams please. I’m just going to lay here for a bit while I heal.”

Bit acknowledged her request then advised her there was a message from Alpha and Bravo squads. Allison held up a hand.

“Patch it through.”

The video feed from Alpha and Bravo Squads cyber-eyes and contacts appeared on her Armor’s HUD. The leader of Alpha who was in command of the Hive mission was speaking. They were in the Queen’s chamber but it was empty except for some of the non-combatant drones, two giant hologram-like images of Allison and Bit.

“Shadow One please confirm, is this the Queen’s chamber?”

“Confirmed.”

Allison saw something that made her feel sick in the pit of her stomach. Brain Bugs a swarm of them out of the corner of one of the feeds. She shouted.

“Get out of there now. Evac. It’s a trap. The station was bait. Abandon the mission. Go! If any of you get isolated or captured and you cannot evac, you need to kill yourselves and ensure your brain is not intact. Do not let those bugs coming at you near your heads. If anyone gets one attached, you are to shoot them in the head immediately.”

The major in charge over there sounded really skeptical.

“Excuse me.”

Allison groaned as she tried to sit up.

“They can get access to your brain and then all of our intelligence including the location for our colonies will be compromised! Our families are on them. We cannot let them get that information. They don’t know where they are yet. Do you understand? You are better off dead than a brain bug puppet. I am going to order the destruction of the Hive, if you aren’t off in five minutes I am sorry we cannot risk any intelligence getting to the rest of the Sal’nash. Ratoa is compromised.”

The major sounded resigned to their fates.

“Understood, Shadow One. Do what you need to do.”

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Allison broke off that comm and pulled up the four squadron leaders.

“This is a trap. As mission commander I am ordering you to destroy the hive. Begin your attack runs in five minutes whether our troops are off or not. We are compromised. Conserve ammo, we will need it for later.”

Bit spoke to Allison.

“Allison, there are a good number of survivors the teams are heading towards the hanger now. We have an issue two boarding pods are inbound to the hanger right now.”

Allison swore under her breath.

“Bit cloak, launch and go radio silent, you’ll be a massive target. Keep coordinating the drone wings and have them assist in the attack on the hive.”

Allison stood up and carefully moved along the structural beam to a ladder and started climbing down. She was going to take a page out of her biological mother’s playbook which meant she was about to do something very illegal in both the League and System’s Alliance. She was about to unleash the most feared nanotech invention in history. She was going to create a nanotech biological weapon. She wouldn’t have time to make it surgical, but she would definitely clean the station out.

“Bit tell me when the station is clear.”

Bit updated her again.

“Allison, it appears the bulk of the troops from the hive are launching.”

Allison acknowledged that with.

“Yeah, that’s about how my day is going. Keep me updated on their progress. And Bit, I need you to start the attack on the hive if the squadrons won’t. You saw what I saw on the bridge.”

Allison climbed down to deck three, she was heading towards nanite storage and processing. Bit kept her updated on the progress of the Sal’nash boarding parties and the escaping survivors. She notified Allison that the all-out attack on the hive had started. Allison listened to all of it but was focused on loading two magnetic containment drums for shipping nanites into the injector. She was planning ahead for Ratoa in case there was a queen with the disruption field up.

She let her fingers dance across the Synthlin keyboard. She shouldn’t understand the language but she did. She was doing this quick and dirty. Her intent became manifest as she loaded the program that should repair organic material and she reversed its function with six quick code changes. She never learned the language, but she understood every word. The nanites in her had the information as a base from their progenitors that had inhabited Amee.

She hadn’t been sure she could do this, but she had her suspicions because of everything she knew about the Grey on Earth. She turned off the nanites kill auto decay switch. Instead setting them to trigger auto-destruction when they were exposed to vacuum, and when temperatures exceed 60 C. That should mean they destroy themselves during atmospheric reentry or when exposed to space. Once again, she thought it and the genetic memory passed on by the nanites made it a reality in code. She wondered how much other Synthlin technology she would just be able to use and modify without knowing how. It was like her fingers were possessed as she typed. Her final modification was the worst. She set them to use the organic matter they devoured to make more of themselves. In effect since the Sal’nash and their hives were all organic once they started, there would be no stopping them before they ate up most of the ship from the inside out. She loaded the two canisters with nanites and sent them to the cargo bay via the internal transit system they used for such things.

Her final step was to set a remote detonator up with a small charge to blow magnetic containment on the main nanite storage unit. She wired to a small secondary charge that would rip the containment vessel wide open. Now that she was in the Special Forces she was allowed actual explosives instead of just flashbangs.

“Bit, did you launch the AM torpedoes during the attack on the hive.”

Bit confirmed she had.

“Configure the launcher to accommodate the memorial torpedoes again.”

Bit responded in confusion.

“Allison, what are you planning?”

Allison was tight-lipped.

“Do not scan the contents. As your pilot that is a direct command.”

Bit sounded upset, but also worried.

“Allison, I have to follow that directive, but I am concerned about you. There are in excess of five hundred Sal’nash enroute to the station or already boarded. You need to get out of there now, whatever your doing is not worth your life.”

Allison sighed and closed her helmet. Her armor would be the only thing between her and the horrific death she’d just crafted for the Sal’nash and anyone else on the station. Allison stood at the backup command console for the station. She waited patiently for Bit to confirm the survivors were off the station then she locked the floor down with bulkhead doors and vented the rest of the station to space.

“Well Enid. Like mother like daughter, I guess.”

She cloaked and stood by controls in the hanger. She watched as pod after pod slammed into the hanger. Sal’nash of all descriptions swarmed out. She was covered in their goo from her previous encounter so fit right into the ambient scents. More and more came swarming around looking for her. When the last pod landed, she closed the Hanger Bay Emergency Door. It was supposed to be used in the event of the atmosphere shield failure. She thought of an old gotcha line as she reached to the detonate button that would add crime against sentients to her long list of laws she’d charged through. I’m not trapped here with you; You’re trapped here with me.

Allison said a small prayer to whatever deity might be listening to forgive her for what she was about to unleash into the universe and pressed the detonate button. The charges were small, insignificant by design. She wanted to maximize nanite dispersal so killing a bunch with a fireball wasn’t part of the plan. The Sal’nash were swarming about trying to find her. She crouched on top of a crate in the hanger.

It was subtle at first. The nanites were completely invisible to the naked eye. She had expected this great swarm of grey looking flowing goo. What she saw instead was a Sal’nash here or there scratching. Wounds opened in their chitin. It took about ten minutes for the screeching to start. She watched as they started to burst into splashes of yellow goo. That was when she saw the grey ooze as the nanites consumed more and more organic matter and their number grew exponentially.

Allison wanted to look away, it was horrific. The seizures as their organs and chitin were eaten away. It was the worst way she could imagine dying now. She did not look away though. It wasn’t something so pedantic as morbid curiosity, her conscience demanded it from her. Too many monsters in the past had made weapons and averted their gaze. She wanted to feel bad about this. She wanted to feel wrong. She had grown to hate the Sal’nash so much by this point she had to know there was some part of her that felt something when they died. And she felt this in her core. She had succeeded in feeling sympathetic to the targets of her new plague. Bit messaged her.

“Allison I’m showing…ten percent… sixty percent… one hundred percent casualty levels among the Sal’nash. What have you done? You are the only organic material left on the deck you’re on. Was there nanite leak?”

Allison had to test the rest of her code. She had to know the kill switch worked before she considered deploying these in an inhabited system. It was awful and it was terrible but if she could infect a hive before it fled, if it met up with other hives… there was a chance she could end this terrible war before it began. Allison didn’t answer Bit. She vented the deck. As the air pressure dropped and turned into a vacuum the nanite globs that had not been sucked out into space started to throb and burst into sparks as they self-destructed. She checked the station’s internal scanners. No nanite presence detected. Even on her armor. She sighed and repressurized the deck from emergency oxygen reserves.

She didn’t have time to waste, they could already have been on their way to Ratoa. It took her twenty minutes to load the modified memorial torpedoes onto Bit. Allison climbed into Bit and launched. The drone wing was down to fifty percent strength. Allison’s were more heavily armored and shielded so hers were intact the rest were damaged. They’d lost four of the fifteen starfighters and three of the five bombers. She did not have time to dwell on their losses. All transports had gotten safely away. She was on comms with all the leaders of their respective squads.

“I have reason to believe Ratoa is under attack by the Sal’nash. I have been unable to reach the fleet stationed there. Our other fleets in the sector are engaged with a Rebel fleet and cannot provide support. Charlie and Delta set a course for the nearest League outpost and get the casualties and survivors the help they need. The rest of you my op is done. I cannot order you to follow me, or even hope you will. Our missile and AM reserves are depleted, we’re at fifty percent drone wing support. We have little chance against a hive but if there is a hive and there is a Queen then those would be useless anyway. I have modified memorial torpedoes that can be used as a last resort if we cannot approach the hive to deliver what remains of our ordinance. They are illegal in the SA and LSR, what I am about to do will likely get me executed. I could use your support to deliver my payload if it needs to be delivered but I won’t ask any of you directly if you’re coming. You know what happened to Yellowstone, Ratoa has a population of over four hundred million. They’re not human, they’re not our responsibility and they’re assholes but I’m going to do the right thing. If you’re coming fly through the wormhole if you’re not escort Charlie and Delta to the outpost and await pick up by a carrier.”

Allison angled away so she was at a safe distance to initiate the wormhole jump to Ratoa. Everyone formed up with her in the lead. She smiled and launched the wormhole.