“The assault carriers are clear of boarders,” the comms officer said, Vos nodding in quiet approval. “They managed to cut their way inside the Dragoon, but were repelled by security teams. Casualties are minimal.”
“They went straight for the ships at the rear of the formation,” Captain Fielding added, steepling his gloved fingers as he leaned back into his chair. “They’re smarter than a lot of the fleets we’ve faced before. They knew that we were protecting them for a reason.”
“Even so, their forces have been crippled,” Vos replied as he swiped at his holographic display. “Reports are coming in that the last of the enemy ships that joined the attack have been destroyed. A few of ours sustained minor damage, and two of our railgun frigates were disabled – the Dartnell and the Kerrey. One of them launched escape pods, and the Taipei is dispatching shuttles to pick them up. We’d better leave a CIWS frigate behind to keep an eye on those ships until we can mount a proper salvage operation.”
“Makes you wonder how these engagements would go if the different hives actually shared information and knew what they were going up against,” Fielding said. “We gain experience from each engagement, tailor our tactics and technology to counter theirs, but they start fresh every time.”
“That’s an eventuality I’d rather not imagine,” he muttered. “I’d better check in with our friends,” he added, swiping at his display. After a momentary delay, an image of the Ensi appeared on his feed, peering back at him with her one eye. “Do you have a status report for me, Ensi?”
“One cruiser sustained minor damage, and one of our frigates was disabled,” she replied.
“Do you require assistance?”
“No,” she replied tersely. “We have the situation under control. What is the next course of action, Admiral? Our ion cannons are ready to fire on the station.”
“It shouldn’t be necessary. The Mars will soon be in a position where she can fire her main gun without the risk of hitting Kerguela.”
“Then, we shall see what these fabled planet-killers of yours can do,” she said. “We will continue to fire on the insect ships in the vicinity in the meantime.”
She closed the feed, Vos putting through a call to the Constancy, the strange visage of its insectoid pilot appearing before him.
“Admiral,” she said with a nod of her horned head, the plates and mandibles that made up her face moving as she spoke.
“Constancy,” he began. “What’s your situation? Did you sustain any damage during the battle?”
“The ferals sent several boarding pods, but they were repelled,” she replied. “No damage to report.”
“Excellent,” Vos replied. “Stay in formation with the assault carriers. We’re about to begin our attack on the Betelgeusian station.”
“By your orders, Admiral,” she replied. He cut the feed, Fielding glancing over at him.
“Ferals?” the captain asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I suppose they consider themselves domesticated,” Vos chuckled. “Alright, let’s level out the jump carriers and follow the Mars in. I want a good view of this.”
The Rorke slowly nosed down again, the camera feeds on the bridge windows disappearing, revealing the sloping prow of the craft. Kerguela loomed ahead of them, the station slightly off to their port side. The fleet had taken up its previous formation again, the battleship and the railgun frigates forming a wedge at the front of the group, the CIWS ships creating a protective cordon. Bright tracer fire lanced out every so often, the enemy torpedo boats still taking pot shots as they clustered around their station in the distance. Their fighter swarm and their boarding craft had been repelled, and it didn’t look like they had any more tricks up their sleeves.
After a few minutes, the Mars slowed, beginning to turn its pointed prow towards the enemy station. The frigates burned away, clearing the area, Vos leaning closer in his chair as he watched intently. A shroud on the vessel’s aft, just above the engines, folded back to expose a mess of bulky machinery. Thick heat pipes that ran the length of the main gun terminated there, feeding into an extensive radiator system. In space, there was no medium through which to quickly dissipate heat, so the battleship’s designers had devised a quicker method. Waste heat was dumped into cylindrical radiators, which could then be physically ejected like spent shells from a breech.
Just in front of the bridge windows, at the mouth of the giant railgun, was the loading cylinder. Like a revolver, it rotated a tungsten penetrator the length of a trailer into place, preparing to accelerate it down magnetic rails that ran almost the entire length of the 350-meter ship. The weapon had originally been designed as a means of sterilizing worlds, where it would leverage the immense kinetic energy that it could output to target vulnerable fault lines. At the right angle, it could tear open the planet’s crust, exposing hundreds of miles of molten mantle to the air. Subsequent bombardments would only increase the effect. The resulting volcanism would render the planet uninhabitable, even to the Bugs, choking the atmosphere and destroying its biosphere. It was a last-resort weapon that had never been used for its intended purpose, but that might be the fate of Kerguela if they couldn’t accomplish their goals on the ground. The Bugs could not be allowed to maintain their foothold in this system.
“Do we know what firing that thing is going to do?” Fielding asked, making no effort to hide his concern. “It’s going to be difficult to get shuttles to and from the ground safely if we fill the moon’s orbit with debris from these stations.”
“Scans show that the station is made up primarily of porous, organic material,” Vos explained. “It’s full of empty cavities, probably not dissimilar from a beehive. It’s also in an unusually low orbit for a tethered station, which means that once the tether is severed, it should de-orbit relatively quickly.”
“Is that going to do much damage to the surface?”
“Not enough to be of concern to us,” Vos replied with a wry smile. The implication was obvious enough. The falling station wouldn’t do any lasting damage to the planet’s ecology, but it wouldn’t be a good time for any Bugs caught in its path.
“The Mars requests permission to fire,” the comms officer said. “They have reached the appropriate inclination.”
“Tell them to fire when ready,” Vos replied.
A moment later, the battleship’s main engines began to glow brightly, jets of azure hydrogen flame spewing from its massive cones. It needed some kind of opposing force to help control the recoil. The entire craft shuddered as the main gun fired. There was no residue, no muzzle flash, no friction in the absence of an atmosphere. The projectile closed the distance between the ship and the station instantly from the perspective of the observers, a bright flash of light darkening the bridge windows. When they cleared again, there was a conical crater in the near face of the station, pulverized debris spreading out from it in an incandescent cloud. It looked like a giant bullet wound, exposing organic material beneath the structure’s outer hull, along with structural supports that looked like they were made from some kind of metal. They were molten now, twisted, like pieces of broken rebar. What hadn’t been vaporized on impact had been decimated by the resulting shockwaves, all of that energy dumped into the structure, shaking it apart like an earthquake. Behind it, more glowing fragments spewed out of the exit wound, glowing like sparks against the black backdrop of space.
The metal rings that formed the base of the tether began to break apart, the force of the blow enough to disrupt its orbit. The organic cable stretched, then tore open, exposing the pink meat beneath its off-green exterior. Unknown fluids spewed from it as it began to slowly sink back towards the planet, the station starting to drift. Many of the frigates that had still been clustered around it had been destroyed by the blast, fragments of the station peppering their hulls like a giant grenade, the burning wreckage tumbling away. A few survivors began to burn clear, but the Mars turned its super-railgun turrets on them, swatting them out of the sky in a way that came off as almost lazy.
From the machinery on the aft of the ship, one of the radiators was ejected, sending a cylindrical capsule sailing away from the battleship. It was glowing red-hot, storing all of the heat that had been generated by the firing of the weapon.
“I’d call that mission accomplished,” Vos said, watching as the spreading debris field slowly cooled.
“How long do you think it will take to de-orbit?” Fielding asked, still wide-eyed.
“The wreckage should enter the atmosphere in a few hours, by our estimation,” Vos replied. “Once we confirm that the rest of the battlegroups were successful in taking down their respective stations, and most of the debris is clear, we can move in and begin our ground operations.”
“What about the battlegroups that don’t have battleships?” Fielding asked. “How will they take down their stations?”
“Massed bombardment. Saturation fire from torpedoes and railguns should get the job done. We’ll reposition the battleships if they have trouble.”
“I’ll let the fighter squadrons know that they can start rearming,” Fielding said, turning to the comms officer. “Have all of the ships in the battlegroup run a self-diagnostic and report their status. I want to know about every flake of chipped paint and every twisted ankle.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Now, we wait,” Vos sighed as he relaxed into his chair.
***
“Typical,” Xipa muttered, watching the ravaged station start to fall towards Kerguela. “We build a weapon that pushes the limits of our knowledge of particle physics, and the Earth’nay build a giant hammer.”
She turned to her bridge crew, a flush of angry red snapping them out of their stupor.
“Stop gawking and do your jobs,” she hissed, her crew quickly turning their attention back to their displays. “What’s the status of the fleet?”
“Minor damage reported across several ships,” the comms operator replied. “The disabled frigate is being evacuated. It doesn’t look like it will be salvageable.”
“We’ll have to tow it back to Valbara when we have a ship available,” the Ensi sighed. “No matter, the day is won. Our new fleet performed to the standards that I expected.”
“Our ships were almost untouchable,” the weapons operator added with a prideful flush of her panels.
“Do not expect the battle on the ground to go as smoothly,” the Ensi chided. “There are fifteen million insects down there, and they’ve had thirty rotations to harden their defenses. This campaign has barely begun.”
“Ensi, we are picking up a signal,” the comms operator interrupted.
“Well? Transfer it to my display,” Xipa replied with a flutter of irritation. “I’m sure the admiral is keen to extol the virtue of his superweapon.”
“No, Ensi,” the operator replied hesitantly. “The signal is coming from the moon’s surface.”
“What?” she demanded, narrowing her eye. She marched across the bridge, stepping down into the operator’s booth, a flicker of worried purple flashing across her subordinate’s panels. “Show me.”
“There’s a lot of electromagnetic radiation coming from the surface,” she elaborated, bringing up a feed that showed a visualization of the signals. It was color-coded, spiking up and down to form wavering lines. “The interactions of the moon and its parent produce natural radio waves that create a lot of interference, but we’ve been picking up…something else. Firstly, there’s this,” she began with a gesture to one of the graphs. “I think these are artificial signals. They’re using very low frequencies in the three-kilohertz band, which could be dismissed as lightning or disturbances in the magnetic field, but these consistent patterns in the signal suggest that they’re carrying information. It’s all gibberish, nothing that I can make sense of, but maybe a flock with more expertise could decode it.”
“Are you suggesting that the insects are using radios?” Xipa asked skeptically.
“Not as such,” the operator replied. “That kind of thing wouldn’t be detectable at this distance anyway. What we’re seeing here – if it’s not some kind of natural phenomenon – is a very large, very high-powered antenna.”
“How large?”
“It would have to be…around forty kilometers long to produce a signal like this.”
“What do you think it’s being used for?” Xipa asked.
“If I had to guess, I’d say that it’s being used to communicate over long distances and through solid barriers, perhaps underground. I don’t see another reason to build an antenna this large. Hives don’t communicate with each other, so whatever they’re doing, it has to be confined to the moon.”
“It makes sense that they would have to develop some kind of global communications network,” Xipa mused. “They can’t rely on pheromones over those kinds of distances. This makes them vulnerable. We can triangulate the positions of these transmitters and take them out, cut off the Queen’s ability to coordinate her troops in different regions.”
“There’s something else,” the operator continued, a purple flicker of hesitation passing through her panels. “As we neared the moon, we began to pick up a strange transmission. Either it doesn’t have the power to leave Kerguela’s immediate vicinity, or it was being blocked by the gas giant’s magnetosphere, but it’s different from the insect radio signals.”
She tapped at one of her touch panels, bringing up a new visualization. This one was very regular, far simpler, almost as though it was intended to be understood.
“Wait a moment,” Xipa said, staring at the feed. “I…I think I recognize this frequency. Play it through the speakers.”
The operator did as she was asked, a steady beeping sound filling the bridge. The Ensi’s feathers flushed a shocked shade of yellow as she raised her scarred snout to the ceiling, cocking her head, listening intently to the regular pulses.
“Ensi?” the operator asked, lowering her voice to a whisper as though afraid to disturb her. The rest of the bridge crew were watching now, sharing concerned glances.
“I remember this pattern,” Xipa muttered, lost in thought for a moment as she dredged up long-buried memories. “I’ve heard this before – during search and rescue training, back when I served in the city guard. This is an emergency positioning beacon. They were used to call for help after natural disasters. We don’t use them anymore, but they were little polymer devices that put out a repeating radio signal,” she explained as she cupped her hands to demonstrate their size. “Their batteries were only supposed to last for a few days at most. There’s no way that one of them could continue to transmit for thirty rotations….not unless someone…”
The Ensi clenched her fists, straightening up, her scarred lip rising to expose her sharp teeth.
“Triangulate its position,” she ordered, the operator quickly turning back to her displays. “I want to know exactly where that signal is emanating from, down to the millimeter. Contact me on the priority channel as soon as you have a lock. I need to speak to the admiral,” she added, hopping out of the booth. She marched to the door at the rear of the bridge, a flock of engineers quickly scurrying out of her path as she stalked past them. “Put the call through to my private quarters.”
***
“The tether cracked like a whip when it snapped,” Fielding explained, keying in coordinates for the telescope. The captain and the admiral were standing on the observation deck of the secondary bridge, situated beneath the belly of the carrier. It had excellent visibility, as the name suggested, the expansive windows allowing them an unimpeded view of the planet beneath their feet. The red forests and shining rivers drifted past far below, shrouded in wisps of white cloud. The hull of the Rorke sloped away in the distance, forming an ocean-grey ceiling, clusters of railguns pointing down at the moon.
The main window became opaque for a moment before displaying the live feed, Vos examining the display. A great chunk of forest had been carved out by the falling tether, forming what looked like a new valley, which was already starting to fill in with water. It was miles long, a scar cut into the planet’s surface.
“No matter,” Vos said, clasping his hands behind his back. “It won’t do any lasting ecological damage. What about the station?’
“Burning debris rained down over a two hundred kilometer radius,” Fielding explained, typing in new coordinates. The view changed to show the crash site, where a vast swathe of forest had been wiped away, plumes of smoke filling the air as some of the plant life burned. There were hunks of charred meat that had somehow survived reentry littered all over the place, as well as hardier, technological components that had dug furrows in the earth. “The fires aren’t expected to spread,” the captain added, anticipating his concern.
“All of the stations have been destroyed,” Vos added. “Losses have been minor, and we now have total control over the gravity well. I want to run some more surveys before we commit our ground forces – try to get some idea of what they’re hiding beneath that jungle canopy. Once we’ve confirmed that they have no ground-based weapons that can reach orbit, we can send a courser back to Valbara and have them open up a supply line. We’ll have all the supplies and reinforcements that we need.”
“It’s strange,” Fielding added, switching the display back to transparent mode. “I always imagined that the Bugs would ravage the worlds they claimed. I thought of them as space locusts, like they’d eat everything on a planet’s surface until it was barren, then move on to the next one. Kerguela looks…pristine, untouched.”
“The Jarilans say that the Betelgeusians maintain the planet’s biosphere, tailor it to maximize the resources that it can produce for them,” Vos explained. “They settle their planets long-term, just like we do. They farm, they raise livestock, they replant forests. According to the Jarries, at least.”
“Good,” Fielding muttered, a hint of malice in his voice. “That means more infrastructure for us to destroy. There are no non-combatants, which means crops and supply lines are valid targets. Even the Bugs can’t fight on an empty stomach.”
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“No, but their Repletes can eat just about anything,” Vos added. “Speaking of infrastructure, did you read the report on the giant radio antennas?”
“I did,” Fielding replied. “Some hive fleets have used radio to communicate between ships, but I’ve never seen them use it on the ground before. It’s odd. In any case, their transmitters are broadcasting their locations to the whole fleet like they’re asking to be leveled. We’ve already got coordinates for most of them – priority targets if I’ve ever seen one.”
“Once we have a better idea of what’s going on down there, we’ll start sending in the assault carriers,” Vos continued. “I want to secure the bases of the tethers first. There seem to be large concentrations of structures built around the anchors, and we need to make sure that the Bugs can’t salvage whatever resources they’re storing there. If it’s stuff that we can destroy from orbit, all the better, but we need boots on the ground to assess the situation.”
They were interrupted by a beeping sound, the admiral’s tablet computer flashing an alert. He pulled it from his pocket, examining the display.
“Apologies, Captain. It seems that the Ensi is requesting a private audience.”
“I’ll leave you two alone for a while,” Fielding said, giving him a sympathetic smile as he made for the door. Once he was outside, Vos opened up a video feed on the nearest console, watching the Ensi’s scarred face flicker into view.
“Ensi. To what do I owe the pleasure? If you’re here to discuss the outcome of the battle, I’m happy to say that your fleet exceeded my expectations.”
“Admiral,” she replied tersely. She seemed worried, almost anxious, in stark contrast with her usual icy demeanor. “Our sensors have detected a distress signal emanating from the moon. It’s coming from one of the old cities, which now lies in ruins.”
“A distress signal?” Vos asked skeptically. “Some old repeater from before the invasion that was left active, you mean?”
“I am familiar with the device that is producing the signal,” she explained. “It’s a small, handheld radio designed to lead rescuers to people who are trapped beneath rubble or lost in the forests. Its battery was only rated for a period of days, not thirty rotations. It is impossible that such a device could simply have been left on unattended.”
“You can’t be suggesting that there might be survivors down there?” Vos scoffed, the Ensi giving him an involuntary flush of angry red in response. “Someone must have hooked it up to a larger battery or some other power source to extend its lifespan during the invasion, perhaps expecting that there would be a counter-attack or a rescue operation. The moon has been occupied by Betelgeusians for decades. They’re efficient, ruthless killers, Ensi. You know that better than anyone.”
“Regardless, I mean to lead a team down to the surface to investigate this signal personally,” she continued. “If there is even a remote chance that someone has held out this long, I cannot ignore it. I have to know what happened.”
Vos considered his next words carefully. The Ensi was a brilliant tactician and a capable commander, but she bore far deeper scars than those on her face. She had seen this planet die, her flock had been slaughtered before her eyes, and she was clearly letting her emotions get the better of her now. He had to be tactful, but firm.
“Ensi, you have a fleet to command,” he replied. “Your troops are relying on you to lead them. You can’t go gallivanting around on the surface chasing ghosts.”
“Our command structure is not as monolithic as your own,” she said, the corner of her lip rising in a twitch. “I trust my subordinates, or I would not have hand-picked them for this mission. They are more than capable of carrying out their duties. Besides, my absence would be a short one. This campaign could last for months.”
“How do you propose you reach this city?” Vos continued. “We haven’t finished our surface scans yet. We don’t know where the Bug strongholds are, where their forces are moving, whether they have air defenses or not.”
“We would fly a dropship down some distance from the city, then move under the cover of the forest. A small, mobile unit shouldn’t attract any attention, especially with a large-scale invasion happening.”
“There are other, less disruptive means of seeking closure, Ensi,” Vos added. Immediately, her feathers rose in bright crimson, her one eye narrowing.
“Do not presume to understand my motivations, Admiral,” she hissed. “I am not some simpering, hysterical male who can’t keep his feathers sheathed. Part of my mission here is to establish what happened to the colony after the last of the eyewitnesses left. Millions of people called this place home, and only a handful survived to tell of what became of them.”
Vos didn’t believe her, but she clearly wasn’t going to let this go. He could either dispatch a courser to Valbara and ask for help from the Council of Ensis in the hopes they would be able to rein her in, or he could just give her what she wanted so that they could get back to business as soon as possible. Once she found a dusty old transmitter hooked up to a solar panel or something of the sort, her wild goose chase would come to an end.
“Very well,” he grumbled. “But I have a condition.”
The Ensi cocked her head at him suspiciously.
“What condition is that?”
“You agreed to obey my orders when you signed up for this campaign. You’re part of a Coalition fleet, under the authority of the Security Council, who appointed me to lead it. If you’re going down to the surface, then it’s only happening with an escort. I’m going to assign a team to protect you, one that I will hand-pick. That’s the only way I can be reasonably assured of your safety.”
“Admiral, my Commandos-”
“Are not seasoned Coalition troops,” he interrupted. “If you want to give me ultimatums, then this is the only way your little expedition is going to happen. If you have a problem with that, I’ll go to the Council of Ensis and ask them to relieve you of your command. I have that authority.”
“Very well,” she conceded, reining in her anger. “I will respect your authority, Admiral, but make haste.”
“I already have a few people in mind,” he replied.
***
Xipa stepped off the ramp of her dropship, emerging into the cavernous hangar bay of the Rorke. Earth’nay carriers were huge constructs, the ceiling towering far above her head, the shimmering force field behind her the only thing separating her from the deadly vacuum beyond. The bay was full of noise, power tools and raised voices echoing through the space. There were Beewolf fighters everywhere she looked, some of them being rearmed, others undergoing repairs after their recent battle. Their black hulls were scarred by plasma weapons, melted in places, warped by the intense heat. There were a handful of Valbara’nay fighters among them that were getting the same treatment. The Valbara’nay fleet carriers had no such hangars, and thus could not perform field repairs. One day, her ships would have hangars like these…
The admiral was waiting for her, his snow-white uniform and his colorful adornments standing out against the blues and yellows of his crew. He greeted her as she approached, Xipa answering his wave with a brief salute of red feathers.
“Welcome to the UNN Rorke, Ensi,” he began. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t organize a more formal welcoming committee. Everyone is rather busy right now.”
“No matter,” she replied, her one eye darting about. She had neither the time nor the patience for pleasantries and protocol right now. “So, tell me more of this team that you have assembled for me.”
“Walk with me,” he said, Xipa bobbing along beside him as he continued. “I have, shall we say…a history with the various special forces groups of the Coalition. We have SWAR and UNNI teams in the fleet, as well as a few more specialized units like the Elysian Rangers and Trog teams. The mission that you’re proposing will take you deep into uncharted enemy territory, so I wanted to give you the best possible escort that I could drum up. I pulled specialists from several of the most decorated units, as well as a couple of personal acquaintances that I’ve worked with in the past. I’m sure they’ll be able to see you to your objective safely.”
He led her across the bay to the far wall, a surprisingly long walk for someone of her stature. In one corner of the hangar, sequestered away behind a dropship, was a stack of crates and munitions. Sitting among them were a handful of aliens, raising their heads as the pair approached. Xipa’s eyes wandered between them, appraising their strange appearances.
There was a Krell’nay, an impressive specimen that looked even larger than was usual for their kind. Of all the aliens in the Coalition, they were the species that she found the least offensive. Its scales tended more towards onyx than the green that she was used to, and they were adorned with what looked like faded paint in places, as though someone had scrawled handprints and runes on its hide. It was wearing a thick, armored poncho over its shoulders, along with a bulky computer on its wrist. She noted that there was a necklace made from hairy rope visible around the collar, adorned with colorful beads and shells. A pendant made from carved wood weighed it down, inscribed with an alien symbol that meant nothing to her.
Another was a Borealan – she had never cared enough to learn their different subtypes – the eight-foot feline wearing a leather jacket over his uniform. His skin was a tan color, his hair a dirty blonde, and he looked about as pleased to be there as she was.
Her gaze turned to the Earth’nay who was perched idly on a crate nearby. He didn’t look too different from the other simians that she had encountered at first glance, save for his more elaborate armor. She quickly realized that all of his limbs were prosthetic. The sleeves of his pressure suit were rolled up to the elbow, exposing the skeletal frame of his forearms, all black polymer and shining metal. He was fiddling with an XMR, his five-fingered hands seeming to blend with the weapon, the two made from similar materials. She marveled at their dexterity, the fingers moving with a natural fluidity, tipped with rubber treads for grip. He wasn’t wearing any boots, and his feet were much the same, intricate replicas of their organic counterparts. The black housings that contained the machinery and electronics seemed designed more for utility than to mimic their original appearance, perhaps to protect them from things like mud and dust.
He looked up at her as she approached, and she saw that his pale skin was pocked with scars. They looked like old shrapnel wounds. His head was shaved almost clean, leaving a thin layer of red-brown fuzz that extended down his cheeks, covering his chin.
The man rose to his feet when he saw the admiral, setting down his weapon on the crate beside him. The Krell’nay plodded over, its long tail dragging on the deck behind it, the Borealan joining them reluctantly.
“Allow me to introduce you,” the admiral began, gesturing first to the Earth’nay. “This is Lieutenant Commander Fletcher, formerly an operative for SWAR, our special weapons and advanced recon branch. He has extensive experience fighting behind enemy lines, and this will be far from the first Bug-infested jungle that he’s navigated.”
Next, he gestured to the Borealan, the creature peering back at Xipa with his yellow eyes. Now that she could get a closer look at his clothing, she noted that the black leather of his jacket was pressed with primitive designs depicting what might be battles or hunting scenes, the buttons made from precious metals. On its breast was sewn a white patch with a six-pointed red cross, and there was another on the sleeve. The uniform that he wore beneath it was far more conventional, a loose-fitting jumpsuit in dark blue, overlaid with the usual ceramic armor worn by the Marines. Over that, he wore a belt and a chest rig that were laden with pouches and bags. Some of them were clearly for magazines, while the rest came in various shapes and sizes, labeled with alien symbols.
“This is Ruza, one of the best medics in the fleet. He has a background as a Shock Trooper, where he served as a combat medic for a very accomplished pack. Chances are, he can patch you up and probably kill whatever did the damage in the first place. He’s a highly qualified xenobiologist, so he knows his way around the different Coalition species. He’ll be there to keep you all alive if anything goes awry.”
Finally, the Krell’nay stepped forward, towering over the Ensi. It must have been nine feet tall and twice that length from nose to tail, its snout alone probably as long as Xipa was tall. Its gender was indeterminable, as their kind had no external genitalia or sexual characteristics to speak of.
“This is Gustave,” the admiral explained. “He’s a heavy weapons specialist. He’s also a Krell, as you can see. Any time you need someone or something protected, a Krell should be your first choice. Gustave has been fighting for longer than any of us have been alive, since before the UN even joined the Coalition, as far as I’m aware. He’s old enough now that he’s pushing the limits of what we can fit in our dropships. We equipped him with a Webber translator, so he’ll be able to communicate with your team a little more easily.”
The hulking reptile let out a low, resonating rumble that shook Xipa’s bones, the hanging flap of leathery skin beneath his jaw vibrating. If she didn’t know that the aliens were notoriously good-natured, it might have frightened her. It was no wonder that Valbara’nay couldn’t reproduce Krell’nay speech. It was practically subsonic.
After a moment, the device on the Krell’nay’s wrist began to speak, transcribing the sounds into Earth’nay English.
“New circle,” it said in a synthetic, male voice. “But no paint.”
This statement apparently amused the creature, and he began to laugh, a strange huffing sound that echoed through the hangar.
“I don’t see why we bothered to give him a translator when nothing he says makes sense anyway,” Fletcher grumbled, glancing up at his counterpart.
“It looks like we’re still waiting for our final team member,” Vos said, turning to glance around the bay. “Oh, here he comes. Right on time.”
Xipa followed his gaze, picking out a small figure in the crowd of pilots and engineers. As she saw the light glint off its carapace, she bared her teeth in a snarl, her feathers flashing with anger. Walking towards her was a Betelgeusian Drone, the branching horn that sprouted from its forehead unmistakable, its waxy shell shining under the bay’s harsh illumination. It looked a little different from the others that she had encountered, its lack of a helmet exposing its strange features. Its eyes were large and expressive, the sclera a greenish hue. Instead of sharp mandibles, its mouthparts had been rearranged to resemble those of an Earth’nay, the plates creating an uncanny facsimile of lips. It looked like a predatory insect trying to mimic the form of its prey. Around its neck was a furry collar, the individual strands of hair sparkling like the frayed end of an optical cable as it moved. This fur was present around its wrists and ankles, too, protecting the joints in its blue shell. It had a set of feathery antennae that bobbed as it walked, rising up from behind its ornate horn, their tips curled like the leaves of a growing fern.
It was otherwise anatomically identical to a normal Drone. It had two pairs of arms that ended in three-fingered hands, the upper set larger than the lower, and its digitigrade legs ended in three-toed feet. The thing was wearing a blue UNN jumpsuit that had been tailored to fit its unconventional body type, and that was probably the only thing that had prevented it from being shot on sight. Some of the crew paused to watch it as it passed by them, but none moved to intercept it.
It stopped a few paces away, snapping one of its upper hands to its head in a prim salute. The admiral gestured for it to be at ease, glancing down at Xipa warily as though anticipating her reaction. As well he should – this was tantamount to an insult. He couldn’t possibly expect her to work alongside this walking parody, could he?
“This is our Jarilan team member,” he explained, the creature turning to face Xipa. It smiled at her in greeting, the plates that made up its lower face shifting to produce the effect. They moved as it began to speak, never quite keeping pace with its words.
“My name is Bluejay,” he said, his voice and inflections identical to those of an Earth’nay male. He sounded youthful, enthusiastic, reminding her of the naivety of a new recruit. “Pleased to meet you all. I’m excited to be part of the team.”
“Bluejay is an accomplished scout and a fine marksman,” Vos added. “More importantly, he’s able to detect Betelgeusian pheromones, which will be an invaluable asset on the ground. If there are enemy patrols in the area, he’ll be the first to know, and he should be able to help you steer clear of hive entrances.”
“Bluejay?” Fletcher asked, cocking an eyebrow at the insect. “Didn’t know Bugs had names.”
“My father named me,” he replied.
“Didn’t know they had fathers, either.”
Xipa glared up at the admiral, but he looked back at her with a cold, steely stare. No words were necessary – each of them knew what the other was thinking. She had already agreed to his terms, and if she went back on her word now, he would not give her a second chance. Politics be damned – there could be people down there waiting for rescue. She couldn’t afford to play games with the Council of Ensis. For now, she would have to swallow her pride and try to keep it down long enough to accomplish the mission.
“Who will be leading the team?” she asked, struggling to keep her feathers down.
“Fletcher has the highest rank of anyone here, and I’ve worked with him before,” Vos replied. “I’ll be assigning him to lead the mission. Don’t misunderstand. The team’s goal is to ensure that you reach the source of the signal safely, and you’ll be the one to set the objectives, but I want you to obey any orders that Fletcher gives. He’s spent his career fighting Bugs in territory just like this.”
“Very well,” she grumbled. “When can we depart?”
“As soon as we’ve cleared the airspace and secured a landing zone,” he said. “The assault carriers will be moving in to capture the base of the tether shortly. We mean to deny the enemy the ability to salvage any of the resources they’ve stockpiled there. Once that’s done, we can think about getting you to the source of your signal. We can’t do anything before we’ve established what kind of defenses we’ll be going up against. The last thing we want is your dropship to be shot out of the sky before it even reaches the ground.”
“I understand,” she replied, though it didn’t alleviate the tension that was tying a knot in her guts.
They were disturbed by a beeping sound, the admiral reaching into his pocket, withdrawing a small touch device. He checked the display, then began to walk away.
“Apologies, Ensi, but I have a planetary invasion to coordinate. I’ll leave you to get acquainted with your new colleagues.”
He vanished into the crowded hangar, Xipa turning to glance at her companions. The insect was just standing there, waiting patiently as though it expected her to give it instructions. The rest of the aliens were watching her curiously, the Earth’nay resuming whatever he had been doing with his rifle. For the first time in a long while, she felt nervous, out of her element. How long had it been since she had been forced to share in the decisions of a flock rather than simply commanding them? She had to establish some kind of authority over these people.
“Admiral Vos tells me that he hand-picked you for this task,” she began, talking in her usual authoritative tone. “He tells me that you are the best the fleet has to offer.”
“I don’t claim to be the best at what I do,” the one named Fletcher replied, glancing up from his gun. “But I’m pretty good at it.”
“Did he brief you all on the nature of this mission?”
“He just said that you’d picked up a distress beacon, probably left on after the evacuation, and that you needed someone to keep you alive while you went to take a quick look around. In and out ASAP.”
“Your tone suggests that you disapprove,” she said, scrutinizing him with her one eye.
“I just think that there are more important things we could be doing,” he replied, meeting her gaze for a moment before he turned his attention back to his weapon. “But, what the admiral wants, he gets. I’m not gonna turn down Vos when he asks me for a favor. The man’s done too much for the UNN, and he wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
“Let me explain the situation to you in detail,” the Ensi said, giving him a flash of red that he probably didn’t catch. “Before this colony was invaded and its people slaughtered, I worked as a City Guard. It was my job to keep the peace, to assist the citizens in the event of accidents and disasters. We used those beacons to signal for help, and now, we’ve detected an active signal originating from one of the abandoned cities. The batteries on those beacons were supposed to last for days, not decades. If there’s even a remote possibility that someone survived the initial invasion, I have to find them. This cannot wait until some arbitrary cut-off point when the admiral decides it’s safe to go looking.”
“Is that how you got the whole, uh…”
Fletcher gestured to his face.
“My scars?” she replied, baring her teeth. “Indeed. My helmet strayed into the path of a Betelgeusian plasma bolt. I was rather distracted at the time, as I was trying to prevent the murder of two hundred innocent people.”
“Always nice to meet a fellow veteran,” he said, raising one of his prosthetic hands. “I’m afraid my story is a little less heroic,” he added with a grin that exposed his flat teeth. “Frostbite is a bitch.”
“Frost bite?” she repeated, cocking her head at the unfamiliar word.
“I was riding in a shuttle over Chara II when the roaches shot it down,” he explained. “Fucking shithole of a planet – cold enough to freeze your nuts off, and so little oxygen that you need a suit just to go outside. I survived the shrapnel and the crash, but I was exposed to sub-zero temperatures for hours before rescue found me. Not all of me was still alive when they pulled me out.”
“That explains your prosthetics,” she said, eyeing his polymer limbs.
“You know they can fix that now, right?”
“What?” Xipa sighed.
“The eye. Go to any good UNN hospital, and they’ll pop you a fresh one in.”
“We do not know enough about Valbaran neurology yet,” the Borealan interjected. His voice was gruff and deep, yet it conveyed a certain calmness. “Limbs, we can do, but not sensory organs. More research is required.”
“Well, that sucks,” Fletcher said with a shrug.
“You are Borealan,” Xipa said, turning now to the towering feline.
“Last I checked,” he grumbled in reply.
“I have been told that Borealans live in highly competitive packs, and that they resolve their differences through violent bouts. Will you obey the orders that I give?”
He rolled his yellow eyes, crossing his arms as he leaned back against the bulkhead behind him.
“I am no longer part of a pack. Had enough of that. If the job is to obey, then I will obey. I am here to patch up wounds and keep my charges alive, nothing more.”
“A Madcat who doesn’t want to fight,” Fletcher marveled, making an irritating whistling noise that set Xipa’s teeth on edge. “Now I’ve seen everything.”
“And what of him?” Xipa asked, nodding in Gustav’s direction. The hulking alien didn’t even seem to be paying attention to their conversation, staring vacantly into the distance. He let out another low rumble, then reached down to scratch his flank with a clawed hand that had more fingers than Xipa cared to count.
“Oh, Gustave likes big guns,” Fletcher explained. “Most Krell fight because they have to, not because they want to. Gustave is the only exception I’ve ever met. Word around the barracks is he fought in the Broker wars, which could make him hundreds of years old.”
“Do the Krell’nay live so long?”
“Nobody has ever seen one die of old age,” Fletcher replied with a shrug. “They just keep getting bigger the longer they live.”
“I’m just here to do my part,” the insect added, Xipa turning to stare at him. The other aliens did the same, seemingly no more pleased with the situation than she was. The creature seemed a little less sure of himself now, his eyes wandering between them, but he pressed on anyway. “I get it,” he said, spreading his upper arms and crossing the lower pair at the same time. “Jarilans have to contend with skepticism on a daily basis. I’m used to it. Either way, I’m excited to be working alongside Coalition troops for the first time. I’ve trained for this my whole life, which hasn’t been very long, admittedly.”
“If I have tolerated the presence of your ships in our fleet, insect, it is only because of the oath that I took to obey the consensus of the Council,” Xipa replied tersely. “If the vote had been mine alone, your people would have been barred from the Coalition and subjected to whatever fate the Earth’nay thought most appropriate.”
Rather than recoil, the insect merely shrugged off her harsh words.
“I think the work we’ll be doing on Kerguela will speak for itself.”
“That remains to be seen,” Xipa grumbled.