The sound of engine checks and power tools filled the garage as Evan moved between the rows of vehicles, pushing his way through the crowds of engineers and crews. They were hurrying back and forth, inspecting the equipment and carrying supplies, making sure that everything was ready for deployment. The tanks were stacked like sardines in a can, six long and five deep, which left just enough room that someone could squeeze between their side skirts to service them. They were all mounted on yellow trolleys, which slid along a rail system in the deck that would deliver them to the stern gate for transfer, or to one of the five elevators towards the bow. Assault carriers had five tiered garages that were stacked one on top of the other, making it possible for them to carry a full armored battalion of one hundred and fifty vehicles of varying types.

The ceiling scarcely cleared the remote blisters mounted atop the turrets of the Kodiak tanks, a maze of cables and electrical wiring snaking between the metal panels above. Some of them trailed down to hook into sockets on the vehicles, charging their batteries and running diagnostics on their onboard computers.

At nine meters long and up to seventy tons depending on their configuration, the Kodiak MBT was an imposing machine. The composite armor on the front of the vehicle and its turret was sloped to increase the likelihood of bouncing enemy shells, and much like the armor used on spacecraft, its covering of heat tiles was designed to help diffuse the thermal energy from plasma weapons to stop them from melting through. The vehicles, too, seemed to have gotten a surprise paint job. Their hulls had been painted with forest camouflage in shades of red, orange, and brown to match Kerguela’s forests.

The main gun was a long, slightly flattened tube, the electromagnetic coils on the railgun beneath covered by a housing that protected it from dust and sand. There was a round muzzle device on the end of the barrel, but it wasn’t a brake, as railguns had no propellant gasses. Instead, the device was used to prevent the air around the muzzle from heating up to the point that it was turned to plasma. Without one, the energy discharge could create an arc flash, damaging equipment and flash-frying personnel in the vicinity.

The blister mounted atop the turret housed a smaller caliber railgun, along with a mortar launcher, which could be controlled remotely by the vehicle’s commander. The Kodiaks also had hardpoints on either side of the turret that could fit more weapons and modules, this one currently equipped with a supplemental gun pod and a rocket system.

As he continued on, he passed by a row of Timberwolfs. They were six-wheeled scout trucks that roved ahead of the main formation, their small fleet of drones and advanced sensor suite helping them root out the enemy. Their ground-penetrating radar was especially useful for seeking out Bug tunnels. Their sloping, angular hulls were painted with the same autumn colors as the tanks. At around twenty-five tons and seven meters long, they were the smallest vehicles in the battalion, but their speed and maneuverability were unmatched. There were no visible windows. Instead, the arrays of cameras that were spaced out around the chassis would provide a live feed for the driver, though the armor plating above the bullbar could be raised to expose the windshield if necessary.

The six wheels had a one-point-five-meter diameter, and their tires were made from a honeycomb structure that made them impervious to flats. Their only armament was a remote-controlled thirty-millimeter railgun turret mounted atop the roof, but that was plenty of firepower for their size.

He navigated to a row of IFVs, checking his wrist-mounted computer to see which one his squad had been assigned to. The Marines were lining up beside their vehicles, checking their equipment, and putting on their helmets. There were auxiliaries, too, Evan spotting a pack of Borealans standing head and shoulders above their human counterparts. They were wearing the same armor, also painted red, holding long XMRs in their hands that were tipped with bayonets.

There were two Krell in sight, too, one of the giant reptiles standing behind the other as it helped its counterpart tighten the straps on its poncho-like armor. They were wielding LMG variants of the XMR that looked large enough to be mounted on vehicles, sporting drum magazines and cumbersome gun shields mounted behind the barrels.

When he located the right IFV, Hernandez noticed him, raising a hand in greeting. Evan jogged over to join him, dodging around an engineer who was walking in the opposite direction with his eyes fixed firmly on his tablet.

The IFVs were almost as long as the tanks at about nine meters, their angular, sloping hulls following the same design philosophy as the other armored vehicles in the fleet. The job of the eight-wheeled troop carriers was to get squads of Marines and auxiliaries to where they were needed, and to support them while they did their job. They were equipped with a thirty-millimeter railgun turret and an MGL mounted in a remote-controlled blister on the roof, its optics package shining under the garage’s harsh lights. The long barrel began to turn as Evan watched, the system running through some kind of check, its electronic whir audible over the din of power tools and engines. On the flanks of the vehicle were a pair of thick, armored slabs attached to hinges that could swing out to provide extra cover during battle.

The Puma could carry a squad of twelve Marines, a pack of six Borealan Shock Troopers, or a pair of Krell Linebreakers. He wasn’t sure how many Valbaran Commandos could fit inside one, but they were pretty small.

“What took you so long?” Hernandez asked.

“This place is a fucking maze, dude,” Evan replied as he checked the seals on his suit.

From atop the Puma, a hatch opened, a crew member rising from inside. Vehicle crews wore lighter armor than the Marines, little more than a black pressure suit that would protect them in the eventuality that their vehicle lost pressure on a planet without a breathable atmosphere, and a flak jacket to protect them from spalling. The opaque visor on his helmet was down, his voice coming through tinny on its speakers as he climbed down onto the deck.

“She’s hot to drop, Sarge.”

The sergeant who was standing nearby gave him a thumbs-up, then turned to his squad.

“Get ready, we’re loading up in five minutes.”

He tapped at the touch panel on his forearm, Evan and the rest of the Marines glancing down at their respective displays, where updated mission information was now scrolling past. It showed the base of the tether from an aerial view, which looked like nothing Evan had ever seen before. Anchors on Earth were basically buildings in their own right, enormous structures made from steel and concrete that created a protective cage to secure the tether to the ground. All he could see here was something that resembled metal rings, their size hard to determine with no frame of reference. They were scattered around a ruined landscape, the grainy image showing what looked like a debris field that was strewn with wreckage. Smoke covered much of the picture, obscuring what lay beneath, hinting that fires were still raging. It had been hit with railgun fire from the carriers, too, the giant craters already filling with water to form miniature lakes in the blasted soil.

“When the tether broke, most of it fell back down to the surface,” the sergeant continued. “Whatever structures they had built around the base of the thing got fucked, to put it simply. Whatever the tether was made of, it didn’t burn up, and it gouged a trench into the planet. We think that these structures were storage facilities of some kind, Bug warehouses when they stocked the supplies that they would send up to the station. Our job is to secure the area and deny them whatever’s left. We’ll be landing here,” he added, a red dot appearing on Evan’s map. “From there, we’ll dismount and move alongside the Puma with the rest of Echo company. They hit the area with orbital strikes, so we don’t expect much resistance, but you never know with Bugs. You’re weapons-free, so don’t take any chances. You see anything moving in the rubble, you kill it.”

They ran some final checks on their equipment, then a klaxon rang out through the bay, red warning lights starting to flash. The engineers and non-essential personnel began to clear the area, jogging back to the exits, Evan closing the visor on his helmet as he prepared for loading.

At the end of the rows of vehicles was a huge, armored shutter that ran from the deck to the ceiling. As he watched, it began to rise, exposing the line of square docking ports beyond. Each one was protected by a shimmering barrier of blue energy, the same that kept in the atmosphere on the carrier hangar bays. They would allow people and solid objects to pass, but would keep the garage from venting into space.

Beyond them, the heavy dropships were already docked, the rails on the floors of their cargo bays lining up perfectly with those on the assault carrier’s deck. Each one was spacious enough to accommodate a vehicle up to the size of a Kodiak tank along with as many crew as could fit in an IFV. The vehicles would slide in on their trolleys, a process that only took a few seconds. Twenty-five of the dropships could dock to the stern gate at once, meaning that in only six trips, the entire contents of the five garages could be deployed to a planet’s surface. As well as the vehicle crews, there were also conventional dropships launched from the assault carrier’s hangars, situated closer to the prow of the vessel. Each of those could carry a squad of Marines.

Although Evan’s view was blocked, he knew that the hull of the assault carrier beyond was starting to open like a giant clamshell. The aft section of the vessel could split apart to expose the garages to space, or close up to protect the docked dropships from enemy fire in combat. Unlike most UNN vessels, the main engines were mounted in nacelles to the port and starboard to leave the stern clear.

Evan watched as the vehicles at the front of the line began to slide forward on their yellow trolleys. They passed through the wavering force fields and into the waiting bays of the lander, slamming to a stop inside, a mechanism locking them securely into place. The crews jogged after them, taking seats on the crash couches that lined the bulkheads on either side of the bays, strapping themselves in. The same thing would be happening in the other four garages right now, too.

The landers began to separate from the carrier when the process was complete, raising their loading ramps as their thrusters burned to push them away from the ship. Heavy dropships were far from the most streamlined or elegant craft in the UNN’s fleet, designed for raw lifting power, able to haul a seventy-ton tank to and from a planet’s surface in minutes. The cockpit was placed high on their upward-swept noses for visibility, the heat tiles on their bellies perpetually charred by reentry, their stubby wings helping them stay stable during atmospheric flight. They had four large, downward-facing engines mounted on their flanks, designed to help them carry their immense loads.

They began to pull away, more of them detaching from the hangars above and below the one that Evan was standing in. All twenty-five of them were soon in view, shrinking to the size of a golf ball in only a few seconds. The curvature of the planet shone beneath them, and they angled towards it, slowly dropping out of view.

Evan’s IFV slid forward on its trolley, coming to a jarring stop at the gate, the squad running along beside it. The Puma’s three-man crew were with them, as it wasn’t safe to ride inside the vehicle during a drop. Evan stood before the force field, only a few paces away from the void beyond, vertigo making his head spin as he looked out at the planet below. They were in low orbit, close enough that he could barely see its curvature on the horizon.

“This is the part I hate,” Hernandez muttered.

After ten or fifteen minutes, one of the bulky vessels rose up into view again, its hull still glowing red with residual heat. The rest followed behind it, slowly rotating to line up with the docking ports, gliding backwards towards the carrier. Evan had to resist the urge to take a few steps back as one of the landers mated to the gate in front of him, the IFV beside him wasting no time, sliding towards the shimmering barrier. It passed through, clamps securing it into place once it was inside.

The Marines and crew boarded behind it, Evan feeling the static electricity from the energy field making the hair on his arms stand up as he stepped through. Immediately, the noise of the garage was cut off, the sound of his own breathing filling his helmet. The lander’s cargo bay was depressurized during docking. He found a seat beside Hernandez and strapped himself in, securing the harness tightly about his chest, reminding himself that the massive vehicle sitting in arm’s reach was safely tied down. The last thing he wanted was the forty-ton machine sliding into him and squashing him up against the bulkhead like a bug.

The deck reverberated beneath his feet as the lander uncoupled from the carrier, and he leaned past the Marine to his left to watch the landing ramp close, catching a glimpse of the five rows of five docking ports as they slowly diminished. Once it was sealed, there was a rush of air as the bay was pressurized again, the sounds of engines and machinery gradually growing louder. It was soon joined by a violent shaking as the craft hit the atmosphere, G-forces pressing Evan into the padded seat as the lander fired its four downward-facing thrusters, slowing its descent. These crafted bellyflopped into the atmosphere, using the friction to help slow them. They were basically flying bricks held aloft solely by their immense thrust.

The vibrations finally subsided somewhat, Evan feeling deceleration tug at him again as the craft prepared to land. There was a thud as it touched down, the ramp beginning to lower, the growing gap filling the bay with light.

“Remain seated until the Puma is out,” the sergeant ordered, Evan gripping his rifle in his gloved hands as he watched the clamps that held the vehicle’s trolley in place pop open. As the ramp hit the ground, the yellow trolley slid down the rails, splashing in the mud.

“Go, go, go!”

The Marines unbuckled their harnesses and leapt from their seats, their boots thundering as they rushed down the ramp. Hot drop protocols referred to situations where enemy resistance was expected immediately upon leaving the lander, Evan taking a knee in the mud with his rifle shouldered, covering the vehicle crew as they mounted up. The Puma’s engine revved as it drove off the trolley, its treaded tires digging furrows in the wet dirt as it turned about. Evan rose to his feet, falling into line alongside its armored hull, the squad of twelve stacking up with a fireteam of six on each side.

As soon as they were clear, the dropship behind them fired its thrusters, rising back into the air on its four engines. All around them, more of the landers were disgorging their payloads, his eyes drawn to a Kodiak tank that was sliding down a ramp only thirty meters away. The seventy-ton vehicle came barreling down the rails on its trolley, kicking up a wave of mud as it skidded to a halt. The crew rushed after it, hauling themselves up onto its hull, clambering inside through the hatches on its turret. It roared to life, its long barrel swinging around, its treads tearing up the soil as it backed off its trolley. The first wave was already forming a perimeter around the landing zone, the tanks going hull-down in the piles of debris, the Marines taking up position under the watchful optics packages of their IFVs.

Only now did Evan have a moment to examine his surroundings in any detail. The ground was covered in a layer of wet mud, his boots sinking up to the ankle in it. Craters where debris had fallen or railguns had pulverized the terrain had partially filled in with filthy water, the violence upturning the topsoil like a giant plow. The structures that had once stood here had fared no better. There were piles of what looked like sculpted dirt, as though a titanic child had been making sandcastles which had then been washed away by the tide. Great mountains of soil had seemingly collapsed in on themselves, but many were still recognizable as earthworks, more like giant burial mounds now.

They were loosely clustered around the base of the anchor, which rose up in the distance like a mountain. It looked to Evan like a termite mound with the footprint of a skyscraper, built from the same packed dirt in a way that seemed far too organic for such a heavy structure. One side of it had collapsed, presumably where the cable had been torn loose, scattering debris in a wide cone. He could see where some of it had landed on the nearby structures, crushing them beneath its weight. Oddly, some of the pieces were still intact, the dirt clumped together to form what looked like house-sized clods. There was something holding that dirt together – something deceptively strong.

Resting around the tapering, uneven spire of the anchor like a necklace was one of the support rings that he had seen in the satellite images. It was clearly made from some kind of alloy, glinting in the sun, intact in spite of the terrible forces that it must have been subjected to. When humans built orbital tethers, they used similar rings to help reinforce the cable, but they were usually secured with giant metal beams that ran deep into the ground. These were attached via long, seemingly organic lines, reminding him of the guy wires that held up tall radio masts. Many were still pulled taut, while others were hanging limp from their connection points, having snapped under the stress.

The other support rings had been torn away, thrown miles from the anchor. One of them was close enough to see, rising up into the air over the red forest in the distance like the Gateway Arch, its torn cables waving gently in the wind.

As his eyes wandered upwards, his breath was taken away. The sky was a vibrant azure, wisps of white cloud trailing across it, not unlike Earth’s. That was where the comparisons ended, however. The heavens were dominated by the moon’s gas giant, clearly visible through the atmospheric haze, the sunlight reflecting off its clouds to make it shine like a jewel. It was covered in swirling bands of blue and purple that raced around its equator, forming roiling storms where they pooled, shifting before his very eyes. There was a crescent shape cut out of it, plunged into shadow, like the phases of Earth’s moon. Words failed to describe its sheer size. It was partially below the horizon, and yet it still occupied ten or fifteen percent of the sky.

High above the clouds, auroras raged, wavering streaks of glowing green that seemed to ripple as he watched. They were so intense that they were clearly visible even in the daylight. That was radiation from the gas giant being deflected by the moon’s magnetosphere, shielding the forests below from the deadly particles. The contrast between the ruined landscape and the pristine, untouched sky was a stark one.

Hernandez gave him a shove from behind, snapping him back to reality.

“Keep movin’, dude. Could be Bugs crawlin’ all over the fuckin’ place.”

They followed the rumbling IFV as it rolled through the mud, the surrounding vehicles fanning out, other teams of Marines starting to make their way through the wreckage as the perimeter expanded. A steady stream of landers screamed overheard, depositing more of the battalion’s complement of vehicles on the ground before flying back up to the assault carrier again. They had air support, too, the unmistakable silhouette of a Penguin gunship banking over the battlefield as it searched for threats. Despite the scale of the rollout, Evan could hear no gunfire. There were no fights breaking out, no Bug anti-air filling the sky with plasma. The battalion’s Kestrel self-propelled AA guns were scanning the empty skies, the camera pods mounted atop their multi-barreled gun turrets twisting and turning, but no missiles streaked from their pods.

“Where the hell is everyone?” Hernandez muttered over the local radio channel, sweeping the area with his rifle as he marched beside the IFV.

“Looks like the place is deserted,” Evan replied, scanning a collapsed mound of earth as they passed by it. “I thought there were supposed to be, like…fifteen million critters on this planet. The Bugs don’t just cede territory to invaders.”

“This is fuckin’ weird,” Hernandez muttered. “Maybe they’re all dead?”

Their squad moved away from the landing zone, entering an area populated by collapsed structures. Humans planned out their buildings in grids, with straight roads leading between them, but there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to how these were spaced out. The paths were snaking and irregular, not even maintaining consistent widths, leaving Evan confused as to what kind of cargo had once passed through here. Fortunately, most were wide enough for the IFV to get by. The collapsed structures were the size of warehouses, which was appropriate, considering that it was their most likely purpose. This was where the Bugs would have stored the supplies that would have had to be sent up the tether to keep the orbital station and its fleet fueled and fed.

“Have you ever heard of Bugs building structures on the surface?” Evan asked, Hernandez shaking his helmeted head in reply.

“Nah, not like this. I’ve seen fortifications before – trenches and ramparts, shit like that. Never seen the roaches build a house.”

“There are probably tunnels underground that we can’t even see,” Evan added, glancing down at the mud warily. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that a secret tunnel entrance could pop open, and a whole army of Bugs would come swarming out.

As they rounded a corner, they came across a building that hadn’t been ruined by wreckage or railguns. The East side of the structure had caved in on itself, but the rest was intact. The wall that faced the path outside wasn’t solid. It was made up of strange, organic supports that somewhat resembled tree branches, leaving large gaps between them. Some were large enough that a person could walk through, while others were presumably for cargo. Perhaps the smaller ones were just for ventilation – it was hard to guess. On the roof were odd spires that resembled the chimneys of termite mounds, rising into the air.

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“Orders are to clear all the buildings,” the sergeant said, raising a hand to bring the IFV to a stop. Its engine rumbled as it idled just outside, its railgun turret turning to face the warehouse. The sergeant waved the squad forward, and they jogged up to the structure. They would usually have stacked up outside the entrance as they prepared to breach, but there was no singular entrance. Instead, they took cover behind the trunks of the strange, branching pillars, readying their weapons.

As Evan put his back to what he expected to be packed dirt, he discovered that it was covered in a hard, transparent layer. Whatever the substance was, it had sealed in the soil, as though it had been coated with superglue. He peered around the support, seeing that the interior was shrouded in shadow.

On the sergeant’s order, they rushed inside, activating the flashlights mounted beneath their barrels. The bright beams waved back and forth as the squad searched the cavernous room, cutting through the gloom, illuminating brief glimpses of its contents. Gradually, Evan built a mental image of the interior’s layout. It was filled with tall shelves that were made from some kind of resin, lined up in orderly rows that ran from the dirt floor to the ceiling. These shelves were filled with large, rounded capsules made from a smooth substance, uniform in their shape and size. They looked about as large as an average car, their shape reminding him of a giant almond. As he focused his flashlight beam on them, he saw that they were semi-transparent, a golden glow emanating from whatever was inside.

Towards the East of the warehouse, the collapsed roof had brought down the nearby shelves, scattering the pods about the floor. Some of them were cracked open, spilling their contents, Evan giving one of the objects a kick with the toe of his boot as he made his way closer. They were about the size of a soda can, made from the same clear, resin-like substance. Inside was some kind of amber fluid, and with a start, he realized that it was honey. This was Bug food, a highly-concentrated fluid produced by the hive’s Repletes that was made from breaking down whatever they ate into its base components. They must have been sending these up the tether to feed the station’s crew.

As he continued on between two of the pods, he noticed a glint of blue beneath the collapsed wall. He swept the beam of his flashlight over it, seeing an insectoid arm poking out from beneath the mound of soil.

“Got something over here!” he said, the sergeant and a couple of other Marines coming jogging over to him. He reached up to tap at the touch panel on the side of his helmet, switching to infra-red optics, the view through his visor shifting into shades of black and blue. “It’s cold. Looks like it’s been dead a while.”

“Dig it out,” the sergeant ordered, watching as Evan and Hernandez began to shovel away the dirt with their hands. There were chunks of hard resin among the loose soil, probably the structure that had held the place up. After a few minutes, Hernandez took the dead Bug by the arm and dragged it out, depositing it on the ground beside one of the cracked pods. It was smaller than a Drone, its blue carapace covered in flecks of dirt. It looked familiar, with its large upper arms and stocky torso. There was nothing unusual about it, no strange adaptations to Kerguela’s environment.

“Looks like a Worker,” Evan said, giving it a nudge with his boot.

“This is Echo-fourteen,” the sergeant said, putting through a call to command. “We’ve got confirmation of Bug presence here at grid…” He raised his forearm, reading off a string of numbers. “It’s dead. No active contacts yet. Roger, we’ll keep going.”

“Here’s one, but where’s the rest of ‘em?” Hernandez muttered. “Shoulda been thousands of the little fuckers waddlin’ around, a port this size.”

“No way most of them survived the tether breakup and the railgun strikes,” Evan added, glancing down at the thing. Its eyes were glassy, vacant, its sharp mandibles agape. “They must have moved the bodies, but why? What do the Bugs care about hiding their dead?”

“This place makes my skin crawl, man,” Hernandez said with a shiver.

“Back outside,” the sergeant said, waving them on. “We’ve got orders to keep clearing.”

***

“Sixty-four battalions on the ground, and none of them have encountered any resistance?” Fielding asked, narrowing his eyes as he gazed down at the autumn forests through the carrier’s observation windows. “What about the Valbarans?”

“Nothing so far,” Vos replied. “All eleven anchors have been secured, and every one of them was deserted. All that was found were a few bodies of dead Workers trapped in the rubble. It seems that they abandoned territory and supplies to avoid a direct confrontation with our landing forces.”

“That’s unheard of,” Fielding said, turning to glance at the admiral. “The Bugs don’t do that.”

“They’re doing it,” Vos added with a shrug. “We knew that the Betelgeusians adapted to their environment, that they became more dangerous and entrenched when given time to settle, but nobody anticipated this kind of change in behavior. It almost seems like a…tactical withdrawal.”

“I’ve seen Drones that were severed at the waist crawl towards Marines with knives in their hands,” Fielding added, turning his eyes back to the forests below. “So far, the Jarilan hive was the only one that showed any restraint, and only because we denied them every possible avenue to survive.”

“It is concerning, but we can do little until we get a reaction from the enemy,” Vos continued. “Strikes on infrastructure are proceeding as planned. We have several carriers moving into orbit over the radio antenna sites. I don’t want to hit them right away – not until we can get some idea of what they’re actually broadcasting.”

“Gather as much intelligence as possible before we destroy them,” Fielding said with an approving nod. “Might as well take advantage of their lack of a response while we can. What’s our next course of action?”

“The Bugs have cleared an area of forest a few miles from our tether,” Vos replied. “They look like cultivated fields, and there are structures nearby that could be storage or processing areas. I want to send one of the Spratley’s mechanized companies to investigate. Let’s see how they react when we start burning their crops.”

***

Evan sat on a piece of rubble, his rifle resting at his side as he craned his neck, watching the auroras shimmer overhead.

“I can see why the Valbarans are so sore about losing this place,” he muttered.

“It’s scenic,” Hernandez replied. “Hell of a lot better than bein’ stationed on Kruger.”

His visor was open, and he was taking a bite out of a protein bar, sat on the ground a few feet away. The planet’s atmosphere was completely safe to breathe, ideal, even. It was only the odd gravity that reminded Evan that he wasn’t on Earth or Valbara, making him lighter on his feet than he was accustomed to. It made him a little clumsy, but he knew that he’d adapt to it in time.

Most of the squad was resting now, taking a moment to eat and drink while they had the opportunity. A couple of the more vigilant members of the team were keeping watch, their XMRs in hand as they peered out at the forest that ringed the tether site. The area had been cleared and declared safe. There were no live Bugs, just a handful of bodies, and there had been no resistance. It should be a relief, but it felt…wrong. The Bugs were intensely territorial to the point of committing genocides to secure their land. They didn’t retreat, they didn’t give up, and letting an enemy force occupy their territory was antithetical to everything that they represented.

The sergeant came walking over from the idling IFV, his rifle slung over his shoulder.

“What’s the word, Sarge?” Hernandez asked.

“New orders just came in. We’re rolling out. Our new objective is a farming complex a few klicks to the West.”

“We’re attacking a farm?” Evan asked.

“No such thing as a non-combatant roach,” the sergeant replied with a shrug. “It’s fair game.”

They rose to their feet, Hernandez wolfing down the last of his snack before flipping his visor down. He tossed the wrapper on the ground, Evan gesturing to it.

“Dude, come on.”

“What?” he chuckled, stooping to pick up his XMR. “I don’t see any Valbarans around.”

“Mount up!” the sergeant shouted, the squad hurrying back to the IFV. They climbed inside through the open troop ramp at the rear, sitting down on the padded benches inside. The pleather was cracked and discolored from use, but it was comfortable enough. Evan strapped himself in, glancing around the bay as the rest of the Marines piled in. He was surrounded by exposed metal, still painted in the desert tan that the IFV had sported before the hull had been repainted. Various insulated wires and cables trailed across the ceiling, concealed beneath fabric covers, the walls above the seats covered with cargo netting that was full of supplies and gear. To his left was the cab, which was open to the troop bay. The three-man crew were sitting behind banks of monitors that showed data readouts and views from the vehicle’s external cameras. While there was a viewport, it was protected by thick armor plating that could be raised in the case that the cameras were damaged. There were two drivers, along with the gunner, who operated the remote blister that was mounted on the roof.

The deck rumbled beneath his feet as the vehicle set off, falling into a column with the rest of Echo company. There were no windows in the troop bay, but he raised his wrist computer, tapping on the screen to bring up the camera feed. It opened in a window on his HUD, Evan watching the view from the left side of the IFV as it rolled past the collapsed warehouses. From the front view, he could see the vehicles in the column ahead of them, more IFVs and tanks leading the way. The Timberwolfs would be scouting ahead of the formation, using their sensor suites to scan for danger. The familiar scenery soon gave way to forest, the alien trees rising up ahead of them.

“Are we goin’ through the woods?” Hernandez asked, watching the same view.

“There are old Valbaran roads all over the planet,” the sergeant explained. “It doesn’t look like the Bugs have ever used them – they’re overgrown, left in disrepair. Makes it a hell of a lot easier for us to get around, though.”

The forest soon engulfed the convoy, the tall, straight trunks of the trees rising up to either side of the narrow road like a wall. This was no rainforest – they were deciduous trees of the kind found in temperate climates. They resembled ashes, beeches, and oaks, but the low gravity seemed to have allowed them to grow taller and larger than what he was used to. Their colors were incredible, vibrant and varied enough that they looked like something from an autumn postcard. Their leaves came in rich hues of reds, browns, fiery oranges, and bright yellows. It looked like an explosion. This was not seasonal – they must be like this all year round, adapted to absorb light further into the ultraviolet spectrum than the stars of Earth or Valbara put out. The sunlight bled through the canopy high above, creating dappled pools on the muddy ground, but it was otherwise pleasantly shady.

The forest floor was much the same color, the plants that carpeted it in a thick layer adapted for the same wavelengths of light. Thick, woody shrubs seemed to dominate, and there were no grasses that Evan could see. There was one feature that set it apart, however. There were mushrooms everywhere he looked, in all imaginable shapes and sizes. Some grew outward from the trunks of the trees in shelf-like layers, while others settled around their roots in branching clusters, extending their cup-shaped caps upward. Yet more were shaped like tall spires, growing out of the ground like long fingers, some of them rivaling the smaller trees in size.

Calling the path ahead overgrown was an understatement. The Valbarans hadn’t maintained these roads in thirty years, and the forest was well on its way to reclaiming them. It was made from something akin to asphalt, cracked at the edges where tree roots had begun to displace it, every pothole and break in its surface filled in by opportunistic plant life. It was a miracle that there was anything of it left, but it created enough of a gap between the trees that even the Kodiaks could make it through easily enough. It had probably been a two-lane highway at some point, but it was so eaten away that two vehicles would probably have trouble passing each other now. Still, it was a hell of a lot better than trying to navigate the dense forest beyond. Evan had been on deployments where railgun strikes were used to carve paths through dense jungles so that vehicle convoys could make it through, and he doubted that their Valbaran allies would appreciate that.

They drove for what must have been half an hour or so, Evan feeling every bump and pothole. At one point, they had to stop to move a fallen tree that had blocked the road ahead, one of the Kodiaks hauling it out of the way with a massive chain.

Eventually, they had to go off-road, following winding paths through the trees that the Timberwolfs had scouted out for them. The sergeant went over the plan as they traversed the rough terrain, Evan fighting off the motion sickness as he peered down at his wrist computer. An aerial image of the farm showed that their fields were just as strange as the placement of their warehouses. Rather than dividing the land into orderly squares or circles, they were farming their crops in winding bands that clung to the lay of the land, the different plants creating distinct colors. In the center of it all was a cluster of buildings in the same style as those that they had already encountered. The Bugs must have cleared a significant area of forest, because the farm was maybe two thousand acres.

It was odd to see the insects farming. He had never fought against an established hive before, and it was only thanks to the Jarilans that he even knew that the species had the capacity to live anywhere long-term. The Workers would grow crops and raise animals, which would be fed to the hive’s Repletes, who would then break them down into a nutritious honey that actually fed the rest of the population. Fifteen million seemed like a lot of hungry mouths, but considering that there were more than ten billion humans on Earth alone, the Bugs wouldn’t need to completely terraform the planet to keep themselves fed. Who knew how older hives did things, what a colony with billions of Bugs that had been established for thousands or millions of years would look like, how they might alter their environment to suit them.

“We’re gonna dismount around here and proceed on foot alongside the IFV,” the sergeant said, a red blip appearing on their maps as he tapped at his display. “We’ll use the cover of the trees to form a firing line on the edge of the fields, here. There’s elevated ground, so we’re going to have clear sightlines of the whole area.”

“Are we actually expecting to face any resistance?” one of the men asked skeptically. “I don’t know if we need twelve tanks and eight squads of Marines to take out a farm…”

“Those are our orders,” the sergeant replied. “Besides, underestimating the roaches is a good way to get toasted. We have no idea what their capabilities are. Surveillance drones show heat signatures in the fields, so we’re gonna treat those as enemy combatants until we know otherwise.”

The IFV stopped some distance from their destination, and they all piled out, scanning the trees for hostiles as their vehicle followed a winding path through the forest. The trunks were spaced far enough apart that they weren’t too much of an issue, but the roughness of the terrain slowed them down somewhat. There were exposed roots and clusters of mushrooms all over the place, the latter of which succumbed to the treads of the tanks and the wheels of the IFVs rather readily.

After a bit of a walk, they arrived at the edge of the woods, the trees giving way to rolling fields. None of them were straight, weaving back and forth, curling around each other in odd shapes. There were three different crops that Evan could see, though he had no idea what any of them were. These must be native plants that the Bugs had deemed worth domesticating. There wasn’t even a speck of green – all of the chutes and leaves were variations of red and orange. Some looked a little like water reeds, with a kind of furry pod coming out of the top, while others were covered in clusters of little purple nodules like ears of wheat. The third variety was a smaller, leafy shrub sporting spiky, red fruit that hung from long stems.

In the distance, Evan could make out the alien buildings, their design similar to those that had been built around the anchor. They had the same branch-like supports, the same termite mound chimneys on their sloping roofs. Above the fields, his visor had tagged one of the surveillance drones that had been launched from the scout vehicles, circling overhead as it scanned the terrain. There were already contacts popping up in the fields, marked with red icons.

The Marines dropped to their bellies, crawling through the bushes, getting into positions that overlooked the farm. The IFV slowly rolled up behind them, staying in the shadow of the trees, the turret on its roof covering them. To his left and right, Evan could see a few other teams going prone, the long barrels of the Kodiak tanks peeking out between the trunks.

“Hold your fire,” the sergeant said over the squad channel. “Wait for the signal.”

Evan peered through the scope of his rifle, increasing the magnification to get a look at one of the targets. He honed in on one of the red icons, watching the strange, orange stalks of the plants wave around it as it moved. It was waist-deep in the field, the green glint of its carapace catching the sun to make it shine conspicuously. It looked like a Worker, but this one had been modified. Both pairs of its arms were long and spindly, with more elbow joints than seemed appropriate. These gaunt arms darted out with inhuman speed and precision as it walked through the field, giving it incredible reach. It plucked the corn-like ears from the stalks, depositing them in a basket on its back that was made from a resin mesh, apparently not a part of its body. This thing had been genetically engineered for the sole purpose of picking crops, like a living piece of farm equipment.

There were dozens of them, all walking along the curving fields, wading through the plants as they harvested the alien fruit. No two were the same color, sporting the usual vibrant, iridescent shells. They had the customary horn, but he noted that their eyes were different, four of them spaced out in a row around the front half of its head. They were all looking in different directions, following an arm each in a way that was strangely unnerving. As he watched, one of them paused, bringing one of its hands to its mandibles. It was holding one of the spiky fruits, its mouthparts splitting open as it extended a proboscis, seeming to taste it. Apparently displeased, it tossed the fruit aside, continuing on its way.

“Pick your targets,” the sergeant said, Evan pulling his rifle tighter against his shoulder. He placed the crosshair over one of the Bugs, the aliens oblivious to their presence. His heart started to beat faster, his tension rising with each second that dragged by.

“Fire!”

Almost in unison, the company opened up, Evan’s helmet automatically dampening the chorus of gunfire that filled the forest. The Kodiaks rocked back on their suspension as they fired their main guns, sending anti-infantry rounds downrange. The magnetically-accelerated canisters contained hundreds of small tungsten flechettes, breaking open to scatter the projectiles over a wide area like grapeshot. They were joined by mortar fire from the blisters on their turrets, their gun pod attachments spewing slugs. The fields erupted, mortar fire kicking up huge plumes of soil, tossing the torn bodies of the hapless Bugs into the air like dolls. Others were shredded by the canister rounds, dismembered where they stood, like they were being fired on with giant shotguns. Molten tungsten left brief, glowing trails in the air as the railguns cut through them like saws, igniting the crops in places, smoke starting to billow as the fires spread.

Evan opened up, feeling the kick of his rifle slam the stock into his shoulder as he loosed bursts of gunfire, the rest of the squad doing the same. The fields were a kill box. There was no cover, no way to escape. The Bugs were sitting ducks, most of them just glancing around in confusion as their fields were turned into a war zone, not even seeming to understand what was happening. It was completely unnecessary – these things obviously posed no threat – but he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t a hell of a lot of fun.

When the thunder of guns finally ceased, the sergeant ordered them forward, leading them down the incline.

“Into the fields! Staggered line formation!”

Evan climbed to his feet, rushing out of cover and down the hill, his boots skidding in the loose soil. Hernandez was to his left, his rifle at the ready as they jogged into the nearest field. The Marines waded into the waist-high plants, the rumbling of the IFV filling the air as it followed behind them, its blister scanning for more targets. There were a series of thuds as its mounted grenade launcher fired at something in the distance, followed by a cluster of explosions as they impacted the ground. There were eight other mechanized squads advancing to their left and right, most of the tanks remaining where they were, overlooking the farm. Only one platoon of four followed them in, the Kodiaks knocking over some of the smaller trees like toothpicks as they advanced, their tracks churning up the topsoil.

The fires were spreading, dark plumes of smoke rising into the blue sky now. Evan skirted the rim of a fresh crater left by a mortar, glancing down at the charred, scattered remains of one of the farmers. As they cleared one of the obscuring pillars of dark smoke, Evan came face to face with another of the insects.

It was standing there in the field like a startled deer, peering back at him with its four eyes. Its arms were frozen in place, as though it didn’t know what to do with itself now that its task had been interrupted. The squad gunned it down, a dozen XMRs tearing it apart, the tungsten slugs blowing away chunks of its carapace as it fell back into the plants.

“Feels like shootin’ groundhogs on my dad’s ranch,” Hernandez chuckled. “Poor fuckers don’t even know they’re supposed to run away.”

They swept the fields, killing the Bugs wherever they found them, sporadic bursts of fire letting Evan know that another one had been found. As they approached the buildings in the center, the sergeant had them stop their advance, the squad taking a knee.

“New orders,” he announced, his voice crackling in Evan’s helmet. “We gotta hold while the tanks take out those buildings, then we’re gonna move in and clear them. When that’s done, we keep advancing and clear the fields on the other side.”

One of the Kodiaks rumbled to a stop only fifteen meters behind them, Evan feeling the ground tremble beneath it. Its main gun elevated slightly, aiming for the buildings.

After a short delay, Evan’s helmet dampened another loud crack, the projectile whizzing over their heads. A high-explosive round impacted the nearest building, erupting into a bright flash of flame. The resin material that held the structure together shattered like glass, the loose soil beneath thrown high into the air. The structure collapsed in on itself as it lost its integrity, Evan lowering his head as the airborne dirt rained down on him, bouncing off his helmet. Two more of the tanks fired, then the third, the cluster of buildings reduced to mounds of earth.

The Marines began to advance again, moving into the compound, but there weren’t really any structures left to clear. These weren’t bunkers, after all. Something inside one of the collapsed heaps was burning wherever the rubble would let oxygen in, probably stores of the grains and plants that the aliens had been harvesting.

“Isn’t it weird that they don’t have any machinery?” Hernandez asked, pausing to give one of the farmers a kick to make sure that it was dead. The creature had been crushed beneath some of the larger fragments of resin, its upper body trapped beneath them. “I don’t see any tractors, any plows, not even a fuckin’ shovel.”

“They are the machinery,” Evan explained. “They probably have specialized castes that do all of those jobs. These guys seem to just be harvesters. Maybe they plant the seeds, too, I dunno. If they’re growing stuff seasonally, there probably isn’t a reason for the tractors and plows to be around right now.”

Evan came across another slain Bug, this one splayed out on the ground beside the burning storage building. It had one of the mesh baskets on its back, the alien fruit scattered around it. This one had been caught in one of the blasts, its body charred, one of its arms missing.

“Not feelin’ bad for them, are you?” Hernandez chuckled as he gave Evan a nudge with his elbow.

“It’s weird to see them just…living,” he muttered. “We’ve only ever faced nuptial fleets before, hives that were either fighting to take a planet or had recently claimed one. I’m used to every Bug I see shooting back.”

“Yeah, well the Valbarans were just livin’ here too,” his friend replied. He stepped on one of the fruits pointedly, crushing it beneath his boot. “We’re here to exterminate these fuckers, whether they’re fightin’ or farmin’. These things wouldn’t think twice about peelin’ your flesh right off your skull. They’re engineered to kill from the chromosome-up.”

Evan looked out over the burning fields, where squads of Marines were hunting down the last stragglers, gunning them down where they stood.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

He turned to look for the sergeant, seeing that he was standing beside one of the six-wheeled Timberwolfs a short distance away. He was having an animated conversation with a crew member who was leaning out of the open ramp at the rear. As he watched, one of the vehicle’s surveillance drones shot up into the air from a tubular launcher on the hull, extending its rotors before righting itself. It hovered there for a moment, then rose up into the air, quickly disappearing from view.

“What’s up, Sarge?” Hernandez asked as he returned to the squad.

“Getting some weird electromagnetic signatures from the forest nearby,” he explained, turning to glance back at the scout vehicle as it drove off into the fields. “It’s probably just interference from the magnetosphere,” he added, turning his visor to the auroras that raged above them. “Better investigate it all the same, though.”

“You reckon they’re out there, watchin’ us?” Hernandez muttered as the sergeant made his way back to the IFV.

“I dunno,” Evan replied. “Nothing we’ve done so far has gotten a reaction out of them. You think it’s possible they just don’t want to fight?”

“Too bad,” Hernandez chuckled. “We do.”