CHAPTER 3: WINDOW SCRAPING

Red light flooded the narrow corridors, a warning klaxon blaring as Evan raced into the nearest armory, his comrades jostling him as they rounded a bend. They had come straight from their barracks, the same warning that had spurred them into action repeating over the intercom.

“All personnel, prepare to repel boarders. Repeat, all personnel, report to your stations. We are being boarded.”

The armories were spaced out around the assault carrier, most of them in easy reach of the crew quarters. Their personal armor was stored there, as well as their XMRs and ammunition. The leader of their group opened the bulkhead with a creak, and they piled into the room. Inside were rows of lockers, closets, and racks that stored all of the equipment. Evan made a beeline for his closet, throwing open the two metal doors to reveal the compartments inside. On the right was his pressure suit, hanging from a rack, and on shelves to its left were the individual pieces of ceramic armor that attached over the top of it. His helmet was sitting in a compartment just above them, its opaque visor open.

He began to tear off his coveralls, stripping down to his underwear and kicking off his shoes. Once that was done, he pulled his pressure suit from the locker, careful to detach the charging cable. It was deceptively light, made of a tough Kevlar weave that did a decent job of protecting the material from shrapnel and ricochets that might puncture it. It also had thermal control elements that ran throughout the suit, letting the wearer adapt to various hostile environmental conditions. At this stage, it looked like he was wearing a giant onesie, his hands and socks exposed.

Next, he pulled his armored boots from their shelf. They were equipped with electromagnets that would allow the wearer to keep operating in a microgravity environment, such as a ship that had lost power to its AG fields. He stepped into them, hearing a hiss as they linked up to his ankle cuffs, creating a seal. The gloves were next, Evan pulling them over his hands, flexing his fingers. The back of the hand and the knuckles were armored, but the fingers were made from a more flexible, tactile material that would allow the wearer to pull a trigger or use a touchpad with ease. There was another hermetic hiss as they were secured to his sleeves.

Starting at his shin pads, he began to attach his leg armor. He fastened the straps tightly, moving up to the knee pads, then to his thigh armor. UNN body armor was designed primarily to dissipate heat from plasma weapons and to protect against explosives. It would stop a conventional bullet, too, but not a railgun slug. There was little that could.

Evan lifted his heavy chest armor, draping it over his shoulders, then securing the belt about his waist. There were heavy ceramic plates on both the front and back, covering up most of his torso, the groin region made up of several smaller plates so as not to limit his range of motion. He shifted its weight for a moment, trying to get it to sit comfortably, then reached for the shoulder pads. The final pieces were the wrist cuffs, the left one sporting a built-in touch panel that handled the suit’s various functions, along with communications and other tools.

After tightening a collar that reached up to his jaw, he reached for the helmet, slotting it over his head. The visor closed as it mated to the rest of his suit, sealing to create a pressurized environment, his HUD flaring to life. He brought up his forearm and checked the system status on his display, seeing that it was reading normal pressure. Good, no leaks, and his battery was fully charged.

“Why the fuck are our suits red now?” Hernandez asked. He paused to look Evan up and down, planting a boot on a nearby bench as he fastened it.

“Huh?” Evan mumbled, glancing down at his armor. “Shit, you’re right. I was in such a hurry that I didn’t even notice.”

The pressure suits were usually a shade of Navy blue, and the armor was commonly charcoal black. Someone had either painted or totally replaced their gear since they had arrived at Valbara some weeks prior. The pressure suit was a rusty red now, and the armor was painted with what looked like woodland camo. Instead of browns and greens, it was shades of red, orange, and yellow. They were autumn colors.

“Red forests, right?” Evan added.

The lieutenant arrived at the door, already wearing his armor, his rapid footsteps alerting the Marines. He leaned into the armory, out of breath, hitting the touchpad on his helmet to open his visor.

“First shift, you guys are on window scraping duty,” he announced, which was answered by a chorus of groans. “Suck it up, Marines! We got critters crawling around on the hulls of the Okinawa and the Dragoon, and they’re trying to cut a way inside. It’s your job to make sure that doesn’t happen here. Grab your shields and get to your designated airlocks.”

The Marines moved to the weapon racks, each stowed rifle labeled with a number so its owner could find it. The XMR was a man-portable railgun, a modular weapon designed to be easily configurable for use by different species. It was made from black polymer, the barrel lined with magnetic coils. The platform fired a 50x6mm tungsten round, which could leave the barrel at two kilometers per second, depending on the voltage level.

Evan slung a carrier over his chest piece, filling it with spare magazines, then stowed his gun on his back. Next, he slotted his XMH into a holster on his thigh, a sidearm variant of the larger rifle. When he was loaded up, he moved over to the far wall, where one of his companions was passing out shields. They were six feet tall and wider than the span of a man’s shoulders, large enough to completely obscure the person carrying them. These were still sporting the black coloration of the original armor. There was a reinforced window at about head height that would let the wielder see through it, little more than a transparent letterbox. Evan hooked his arm through the straps, struggling to lift the thing. It was heavy, but it wasn’t designed to be used in gravity. These shields had electromagnets in the skirt that lined the bottom, which would secure it to the hull of a ship when activated, providing vital cover for the user.

When they were all geared up, they made their way out of the armory, following the winding corridors until they arrived at the nearest airlock. They lined up by the inner door, the sound of Evan’s own heavy breathing filling his helmet.

“Fuck window scrapin’, man,” Hernandez grumbled from behind him. “First shift, worst shift, am I right?”

“First group, into the airlock!” the lieutenant ordered. The queue moved forward a few paces, then stopped, Evan leaning past the Marine ahead of him to get a look. The airlocks were too small for everyone to fit inside at once, so they were going in groups of half a dozen. There were a thousand Marines in the first duty shift, but they’d be spread out around the ship, using various different airlocks. There were about sixty people in Evan’s current group.

The lieutenant waved the next group in, Evan finding himself standing next to the inner door. Through the reinforced window, he could see the group inside, checking the seals on their suits as they prepared to go EVA. A warning light flashed, the outer door slowly sliding open, the air inside rushing out into the void. The six Marines slowly walked out, their gait changing as they transitioned from the ship’s AG field to their magnetic boots. The floor curved away, leveling out with the exterior hull, letting the men walk directly onto it like a ramp.

Evan was next, Hernandez squeezing into the airlock beside him, the deck shaking as he set down his heavy shield.

“We got this,” his friend said, knocking their armored shoulder plates together. “Just don’t fill your helmet with puke like Kim did on his first EVA.”

“Not helping,” Evan complained, hearing the inner door close behind them. He brought up the panel on his wrist to check his pressure, then switched to the local comms network. There was no atmosphere in space and thus no sound.

The warning light bathed the airlock in red, then the outer door opened, Evan hearing a whoosh of air before everything went as silent as the grave. His boots secured him to the floor, the electromagnets rooting him in place. Trying to walk in them was an odd sensation, almost like there were suction cups on his feet, only activating when they were in proximity to the floor. You had to walk kind of like you were wading through ankle-deep mud, lifting each foot higher than felt natural.

Beyond the door was an inky-black starfield, a yawning abyss, Evan fighting his vertigo as he willed himself to march forward. The curve of the floor played tricks on him, his instincts insisting that he was about to walk straight off a cliff, but he pressed on. His stomach lurched as he left the ship’s AG field, only his boots keeping him from floating off into space now. One step at a time, always keep one foot on the floor…

He emerged into a new landscape, the grey, featureless hull of the assault carrier sloping away like a horizon. He was standing on the side of the ship, looking out towards the vessel’s prow, the shimmering blue of the hangar’s force field like a lake in the distance. There was no atmospheric haze here, none of the cues the human brain usually relied upon to judge distance, which had a disorienting effect. The Marines who had already left the airlock were standing around him in a loose circle, guarding the ramp, their shields anchored to the hull. Being out here reinforced how necessary they were. There was no cover – they’d be sitting ducks without them.

When he glanced up, he was met with a vista that made his breath catch in his throat. The sky was full of ships, dozens of them, maybe hundreds. The assault carrier was in the middle of a battle, a close-range slugfest, the fact that he could even see them driving that point home. Engagements like this usually took place well beyond visual range, but some of the craft were so close that he could make out shapes moving beyond their bridge windows. UNN frigates and thin, modular Valbaran ships were coasting across the sky, pouring streams of tracer fire into what looked like a whole fleet of Bug vessels that were descending upon them. Fighters zipped back and forth, strafing the enemy, flashes of green and orange from exploding torpedoes reflecting off his visor. He could see the four jump carriers flying ahead of the assault carrier in a diamond formation, their upright position making it look like four skyscrapers were hanging there in the void.

Beyond the fleet was the gas giant, wreathed in clouds of blue and purple, so large that he couldn’t even process it. Fuck, were they even safe out here with all that radiation? Here’s hoping the goddamned pressure suits could withstand it. Kerguela curved away beneath him, the autumn forests clearly visible, the seas and rivers shimmering in the sunlight. The scale of everything made him feel like an ant – no – a speck of dust. He turned his focus to the hull of the ship, trying to trick his brain into thinking that it was the ground.

Evan anchored his shield, weightless now, feeling a vibration reverberate through it as he activated the magnets. It was nice to have a third point of contact. It made him feel a little more secure. He drew his handgun, keeping his arm hooked through the loops.

After a few minutes, all of the Marines were out on the hull, the lieutenant taking point as he led them up towards the top of the carrier. As they followed the curve of its hull, a new, more terrifying sight came into view. Looming over the formation of assault carriers were half a dozen large Betelgeusian ships. It was hard to tell exactly how big they were, as there was no frame of reference, but they looked at least a couple of hundred meters long. Their innumerable eyes looked down on the carriers as they opened their armored legs, revealing a mass of growths that covered their segmented bellies. They looked like hundreds of sunflower seeds that had been pushed into green putty at random intervals, or maybe maggots in spoiled meat, the sight making Evan shiver.

One of them was targeting the Spratley, extending its crab-like limbs as though intending to land on it. CIWS fire arced up from somewhere behind Evan, the cannons spewing tracer rounds at it, peppering its hull. The assault carriers only had defensive weapons in the form of four point defense guns, and they weren’t powerful enough to do any serious damage to anything larger than a fighter. There was a frigate nearby that was blowing chunks out of its shell with a broadside barrage, but the insect was indifferent, single-minded in its task. Whatever it was doing apparently didn’t require its survival.

The little seeds that were embedded in its belly began to fire out like tiny bullets, leaving holes that resembled wounds in their wake. They raced out towards the carrier, growing larger the closer they came, Evan taking cover behind his shield reflexively as they impacted the hull some distance ahead. He felt the vessel shake beneath his feet, a series of tremors rocking it, as though it had been struck by a giant shotgun blast.

When he looked up again, those same seeds were now embedded in the Spratley’s hull. He could see at least three dozen scattered along its 250-meter length, jutting out at various angles, forming a kind of eerie forest of alien structures. They had looked so tiny, but now that he had something familiar to compare them with, they were at least twenty meters long. They were made from some kind of hard, resin-like substance that looked organic in nature, which was covered over with plates of protective carapace the color of bone. They tapered into a point on one end, which was now embedded in the ship, keeping them anchored. The carrier’s armor plating had cracked and buckled in places, but none of the pods had penetrated very deep, the sealant foam used on all UNN ships pouring out of the breaches now to stop any loss of atmosphere.

From the far side of the Spratley’s hull, Evan could see more of the Marines from the other airlocks walking up over the side of the carrier, their shields in hand. More squads were approaching from his side, too, turning their weapons on the pods. If those things hadn’t exploded yet, it probably meant that they were full of Bugs.

The Marines formed a cordon, creating a defensive line across the hull, the light from the raised bridge some distance behind them casting harsh shadows. Evan secured his shield, reaching for his rifle this time, keeping the sling over his shoulder so that it didn’t float away if he let it go. He paused briefly, checking that its voltage profile was set to vacuum. He had to remember to pace his shots out here, as the weapons weren’t great at dissipating heat with no atmosphere. The last thing he needed was his barrel slagging in the middle of a firefight. He peered through the narrow aperture, watching the strange pods.

After a moment, one of them began to crack open. A shaped piece of plating ejected from the main body of the pod, remaining connected to it by strands of pale meat before they snapped, the chunk of chitin sailing away over the heads of the defenders. It was followed by a cloud of gas that crystallized in the frigid vacuum, turning into a shimmering mist. What remained was a gaping wound, the shadowy interior filled with wet, glistening flesh.

From within emerged a colorful appendage, a long, spindly limb sheathed in red carapace. It gripped the bumpy exterior of the pod, finding purchase as its owner crawled into view. Evan had seen Betelgeusian Drones before – he had even killed a few – but this one was different. He had expected the Bugs here to follow the same basic body plan as the rest, with two legs and four arms. This one was warped, more insect-like in appearance. What would usually have been its legs were bent at the hip like they had been broken, facing in the opposite direction, splayed wide. Its toes were arranged symmetrically around its foot, resembling the claw from an arcade machine. What should have been its secondary pair of arms were grotesquely elongated to give them more reach, and instead of hands, it had those same claws. Its upper body was more recognizable, albeit thinner than usual, some kind of firearm made from orange resin clutched in its arms. It looked like a praying mantis, crawling down the side of the pod with a four-legged gait, surprisingly sure of itself in the microgravity.

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When it reached the hull of the ship, it was able to grip it with its toes, pawing at the material as it searched for footholds. It glanced up at the line of shields, a branching horn sprouting from its helmeted head. The two large, compound lenses that Evan was used to were joined by several smaller ones that were arranged around its skull in odd positions, perhaps to give it a wider field of view. It had insect-like antennae, too, jutting up from its head. They were long and straight, covered in fine hairs.

Hernandez leveled his rifle, bracing it against the edge of his shield, then fired. There was no sound in the vacuum, but Evan saw the way the weapon kicked into his shoulder, the magnetic coils emitting a dull glow as they heated up.

The molten slug impacted the Bug in the face, blowing open its head like a melon, sending chunks of chitin and viscera sailing away. More of the pods were opening up now, a whole army of the four-legged aliens crawling their way out, leveling their two-pronged rifles as they surged onto the Spratley’s hull. They had no cover but that which they had brought with them, darting behind their pods when they realized that they had a welcoming committee, leaning out to fire around them. The way they moved was unnerving, kind of like a spider walking across a ceiling. They were adapted for this environment, maybe even bred for the sole purpose of fighting in space.

The Marines had the advantage, a hail of tungsten slugs reducing everything that wasn’t hiding behind a pod to clouds of gore, a kind of mist made up of droplets of bodily fluids and tiny pieces of colorful shell settling over the battlefield. The defenders were arranged in groups of fifty or sixty, taking up position around the pods in a vague crescent, ensuring that there was no danger of friendly fire. The aliens answered with bolts of plasma from their resin rifles, their magnetic rails crackling with energy as they fired back. Evan felt his shield ring like a gong as it was struck, the heat-resistant material dissipating the thermal energy, the magnets holding fast. Those plasma bolts carried a surprising amount of kinetic energy with them.

Evan tapped at the touch panel on his wrist, bringing up a window on his visor’s HUD that showed a view from his rifle’s sights, synced wirelessly with his helmet. He leaned out just enough that he could get the barrel of his XMR past his shield, as though he was firing around a corner, bracing his magnetic boots against the deck. He lined up a shot, centering his reticle on a Bug that was leaning out of cover, then pulled the trigger. The insect exploded into gory confetti, the recoil almost tearing the weapon out of his hands, but the sling would prevent him from accidentally disarming himself. He couldn’t fire full-auto in a vacuum anyway, not without turning his coils to slag.

“Looks like they weren’t expectin’ this kinda resistance,” Hernandez chuckled on the local channel, firing off another shot. This one caught one of the Bugs in the shoulder, lifting it off the hull and sending it cartwheeling into space. As Evan tracked it, it slowly stabilized, stopping its spin.

“What the…Hernandez, you seeing this?”

He used his sights to zoom in on the thing, seeing that puffs of gas were shooting out of vents in its carapace.

“Fuckin’ thing has thrusters!” Hernandez exclaimed. The Bug began to slowly drift back towards the Spratley’s hull. Now, Evan could see that it had a hump on its back, almost like a rucksack, but made from chitin. Perhaps that was where it stored its propellant. It didn’t seem to have enough thrust to actually fly around, but it was enough to save it if it lost its footing. It suddenly exploded into a shower of viscera, Evan turning his head to see Hernandez lowering his rifle. “Just like skeet shootin’!”

The Bugs were becoming more organized now, getting their bearings, some of them clambering up the twenty-meter pods in an attempt to get a better angle on the defenders. Some of the Marines had to uproot their shields and retreat a ways to ensure the bolts didn’t hit them from above, the glowing plasma splashing against the armored hull like a liquid.

“How the hell did they plan on getting inside?” Evan wondered aloud, leaning out to knock one of the aliens off the top of a pod with a well-placed shot. “Did they expect these pods to penetrate?”

As if to answer his question, one of the pods in the center of the cluster popped open, sending its armored hatch sailing off into the void. From inside, a large mass crawled its way out, its profile instilling an instinctual fear in Evan. It was a Warrior, twelve feet tall, its thick armor and redundant systems making it almost impervious to all but the heaviest UNN weapons. Even if a lucky shot killed the pilot, the suit could still rampage around under the guidance of its own simple intelligence.

As its wide, heavily-armored shoulders cleared the breach, Evan saw that this specimen was a little different. Just like the Drones, it had been modified to have a four-legged stance, crawling down the side of the pod on segmented limbs that were as thick around as a human torso. The lower, backwards-facing pair were attached to the hips, while the upper pair were modified arms, disproportionately long. They were tipped with a trio of claws, but these were powerful enough to dig deep into the fleshy exterior of the pod, sinking into the hull when they reached it.

Its upper body was enormous, layered in overlapping plates of thick carapace in ocean green, which were themselves overlaid with artificial armor in places. Its eyes were slatted, elongated, more like the headlights of a truck than anything organic. A faint, green glow emanated from them, hinting at its technological augmentations.

Its left arm was a giant crab claw, as large and as heavy as the scoop on a backhoe, while its right ended in some kind of weapon. It looked as though the space between the two blades of its claw had been filled in with a mess of glowing components, mottled flesh, and winding cables. Evan couldn’t guess at its purpose.

“Focus fire on that Warrior!” the lieutenant ordered over the priority channel, Evan turning his weapon on the thing. It didn’t seem interested in fighting them, scuttling away to put more of the pods between itself and the Marines, the nearby Drones moving to lay down suppressive fire as though they were covering it.

“More of ‘em!” Hernandez shouted, Evan watching two more of the creatures climb out of their pods. They were identical save for the colors of their carapaces, a hail of XMR fire pocking their shells but doing little to stop them as they retreated to cover. Hernandez had to duck back behind his shield as a barrage of plasma fire came his way, the Drones redoubling their efforts.

Evan poked his rifle over his shield, looking through the sight’s feed. He could make out one of the hulking Warriors, watching as it lowered its right arm, bringing it close to the hull. A bright beam of energy lanced out from it, blowing out the camera for a second. When it cleared, Evan saw that it was using some kind of giant plasma cutting torch to slice into the hull. So that was how they intended to get inside the ship.

“They’re cutting their way in!” he exclaimed, taking a few potshots at the thing. It shrugged them off, ignoring him as the armored plate began to slag under the heat of its weapon, another Drone peeking out to fire back at him.

“We can’t bring those things down,” the lieutenant growled, putting his back to his shield. “Hold tight. I’m calling in air support.”

“Air support?” Hernandez asked warily. He turned his opaque visor to Evan, who shrugged in reply. Another salvo of plasma forced them both to duck behind their shields again, the aliens doing their best to protect the Warriors. If they didn’t do something soon, those things would cut through the hull and swarm into the unprotected decks below.

“Get ready,” the lieutenant ordered, one hand on the side of his helmet. “On my mark, unload into the roaches. We have to keep their attention off the Beewolf.”

Before Evan could ask what Beewolf, a bright blue jet of flame drew his attention. It was coming in at a high angle from above the nose of the carrier, sailing over the forest of boarding pods. As it neared, he could make out the profile of a fighter, its jet-black stealth coating making it hard to pick out against the darkness of space. It was flying backwards, using its main engines to decelerate, matching velocity with the Spratley. He craned his neck to watch as it slowed to a stop above them, still moving, but seeming to hover from the perspective of the observers on the hull. It was upside-down, too, he realized. He could see the cockpit, situated high on the nose, the glow from the instrument panel lighting up the pilot within.

Between the cockpit and the twin tail fins, a hatch popped open like a trap door, the craft’s ventral railgun emerging from the fuselage. It seemed to be hanging from the craft, even though there was no gravity to tug on it, the cannon turning towards the pods.

The weapon began to fire, its coils glowing red-hot, the belt of tungsten slugs slowly disappearing as they fed into its blocky housing. The rounds sparked where they impacted the hull, blowing great chunks out of the pods. One of the Drones got in the way and was reduced to a fine mist, the anti-materiel slug carrying enough energy to completely eviscerate it. Evan watched through his scope as it honed in on one of the Warriors, the hail of gunfire taking it apart, blasting fist-sized holes out of its colorful carapace. No amount of redundancy would save it now, not when its own shell was being turned to shrapnel inside its body, spalling like the hull of a tank. The slugs cut straight through it, gradually dismembering it, its thick armor turned to Swiss cheese. One of its arms tore off, then one of its legs was severed at the knee joint, its bodily fluids freezing as they spewed out of the wounds. Its cutting torch faded, the behemoth going limp, floating in place as its claws still gripped the hull.

“Open fire!” the lieutenant shouted, leveling his rifle. “Keep their attention off the bird!”

Before the Bugs could fire on the fighter, the Marines opened up on them, forcing them back into cover. They got off a few bolts, but they splashed harmlessly against the craft’s hull, their thermal energy easily dissipated.

Evan bagged another Bug that was climbing up the side of one of the pods, watching as a second dead Warrior floated away from the hull behind it. The creature was motionless, its orange carapace pocked with dozens of large holes that exposed the off-green flesh within.

“They’re doin’ somethin’!” Hernandez warned, gesturing to a few of the Bugs with his rifle. They were clustering towards the starboard side of the ship, coordinating, emerging from cover to aim their resin weapons at one of the groups of Marines. They concentrated their fire, sending a torrent of boiling plasma their way, the glowing bolts of energy impacting the shields. One of them began to glow red-hot, melting under the sustained fire. The Marine taking refuge behind it didn’t even have time to move away, flecks of molten metal spraying him. Several of the bolts made it through as the barrier disintegrated, his ceramic armor subjected to the same treatment, the impacts lifting him off the hull. The Marines to his left and right braved the cooling slag to try to grab him, but they were soon forced back as the Bugs kept up their barrage. There was a puff of gas as the Marine’s suit breached, and he soon stopped his thrashing, floating away into the void.

The defenders quickly moved to counter, the group of Bugs torn to ribbons by the return fire, their colorful fluids painting the pods around them.

Above their heads, the Beewolf circled around, still upside down relative to the Spratley as it drifted silently. Bursts of gas jetted from its thrusters as it maneuvered, searching for a better angle on the remaining Warrior. Evan saw it fire, then there was a bright green explosion from within the towering pods, pieces of green carapace scattering into the air. The slugs must have ruptured whatever means it used to store its plasma.

The Beewolf loosed a few more shots, picking off some targets of opportunity, then angled its nose away from the carrier. It dipped its wings in a salute before powering off into the darkness, the nearby Marines waving in thanks.

“The Warriors are down,” the lieutenant said, his voice crackling through Evan’s headset. “Move in and clear out the rest of the boarders.”

Evan deactivated the magnets on his shield, pushing it along ahead of him as he trudged across the hull. He stowed his rifle, drawing his handgun, finding it easier to handle one-handed. It would be just as deadly at these ranges. Hernandez merely pulled his rifle tight against his shoulder, bracing it against the edge of his shield.

The pods were maybe fifty meters away, and they cleared the distance quickly, the different fireteams coordinating to ensure that they didn’t accidentally shoot each other. The Bug numbers had thinned now, but there were still enough left to offer resistance. Evan felt a plasma bolt slam into his shield, knocking it into his shoulder. For a moment, he felt his magnetic boots slip on the hull, a pang of fear making his heart skip a beat. Hernandez moved in, cutting down his assailant with a couple of well-placed shots, sending its broken body careening away. It bounced off the pod behind it, turning slowly as it floated out of sight.

“You good?” he demanded.

“Yeah, yeah,” Evan replied breathlessly. “Thanks, man.”

Their group of maybe sixty Marines spread out between the pods, sweeping their weapons back and forth. The alien structures were packed densely enough that only three or four people could stand side by side between them, obscuring the lines of sight. Evan felt like he was walking into an alien forest, Bugs potentially hiding behind every tree. As he rounded one of the pods, watching his footing carefully on the damaged hull, a glint of yellow caught his eye. He lurched, aiming his handgun around his shield, then lowering it again. The Bug was already dead, its carapace full of holes, its blood forming frozen spheres in the vacuum. One of its claws was still gripping the twisted metal, preventing it from floating away.

Everywhere they looked, there were dead Drones, most of them slowly drifting just off the hull. It was eerie, droplets of airborne Bug juice splattering against Evan’s visor as he moved through the bodies, pushing the weightless insects out of his path.

There was a flash of green, Evan ducking behind his shield reflexively as a Drone leapt out of cover on its four legs, firing its rifle at him. He couldn’t believe how quick and agile they were in the low gravity. The team responded in kind, filling the thing with holes, its azure-blue carapace cracking in a spider web pattern where the slugs struck it. It was knocked back against the pod behind it, going limp, its arms hanging there like it was floating underwater.

“Keep your eyes peeled,” Hernandez said, the coils on his XMR slowly losing their red glow as they cooled. “Fuckin’ critters could be hidin’ anywhere.”

As they proceeded deeper, a sudden muffled cry rang out over the local channel, Evan snapping his head around to see the Marine furthest to the left of their four-man group grappling with a Drone. It had been waiting for them on the far side of one of the pods, hiding until they drew close enough that it could reach out and grab one of them. The Marine was torn from the hull, lifted into the air, his shield tumbling away as he lost his grip on it. The Bug was perched maybe two meters up the side of the pod, its clawed feet gripping the uneven surface. It was deceptively strong for something so lanky, bringing the Marine closer, starting to claw at his suit. It didn’t seem to know what he was or what he was made from, its sharp fingers raking at his ceramic chest piece. When it realized that it wasn’t doing any damage, it pushed its fingers between two of the plates, trying to pry them open. This hive would have never seen humans before, and the Drone might have assumed that he was a fellow arthropod due to his armored appearance.

The rest of the team were aiming their rifles, but there was no way to get a shot off while the two were wrestling. The Marine had no leverage, no solid surface to push off, so all he could do was flail at the creature. He clocked it in the side of the head with his armored fist, the thing paying him little mind, still trying to find a way to breach his suit. The sling of his XMR was still tangled around his forearm, but he only had one hand free, the insect gripping the other. Instead, he reached for his hip, pulling out his sidearm and dumping the magazine into the thing’s sternum.

It finally released him, going still, but he was just out of reach of the pod. He kicked his feet impotently, swinging his arms, trying to grab anything that he could.

“Fuck!” he grunted, panic creeping into his voice as he slowly drifted over Evan’s head. “Someone grab me!”

He was beyond the reach of his comrades, but Evan gripped his rifle by the barrel, flicking his wrists to extend the sling towards him like he was casting a fishing line. The Marine swiped at it, missing the first time, then catching it in his hand the second. Evan gently tugged him closer, changing his trajectory, Hernandez reaching up to grab him by the belt when he was close enough.

“God damn, I owe you guys a drink,” the Marine gasped as his boots magnetized to the hull again.

From behind them, the lieutenant arrived with another group of Marines, the red camouflage of his armor splashed with green gore. He let his rifle leave his hand, where it floated beside him on its sling as he put a finger to the side of his helmet, his stance suggesting that he was talking to someone. There was a crackle in Evan’s earpiece as the L.T changed channels, catching his XMR again.

“Looks like we’re clear,” he announced. “All teams, return to your airlocks.”

As Evan walked back in the direction they had come, he glanced up at the sky. The armored Bug ship that had fired the pods was drifting over their heads now as the carrier continued onward, its shield-like legs frozen in place, long streaks of fluid trailing along behind it like ink in water. Some of the holes in it were alight with green flames, probably ruptured propellant lines or munitions. It looked like the fleet was winning the fight in space. Most of the other Bug ships that he could pick out in the chaos that surrounded them were in a similar state.

“Come on,” Hernandez said over the local channel, giving him a nudge. “Let’s get the hell back inside before somethin’ wipes us off the hull.”