Evan awoke to red light. It was his HUD, flashing warning icons in his face. He blinked his eyes, then tried to move, but found that he couldn’t. Through his cracked visor, he could see the auroras above the treetops, the bright glow of the gas giant dominating the sky. It would have been peaceful, beautiful even, if not for the plumes of smoke that choked it.
As he turned his head, he saw that he was still in the convoy. What was left of it, at least. The overgrown road was strewn with wrecked vehicles, gutted, burning chassis lined up bumper to bumper like rush-hour traffic. He was buried in the wreckage, pieces of twisted, charred metal pinning him down. Their weight made breathing a chore, and based on the flashing icons, he wasn’t in much better shape. When he glanced down, he couldn’t even see his body, the slagged debris covering him like a blanket. He tried to move his arm, then just his fingers, but he couldn’t tell if they were even attached to him anymore.
Slowly, he remembered what had happened, momentary panic gripping him. The IFV had been hit by one of the Bug tanks, and he must have been knocked out by the resulting blast. Where was everyone else? His HUD wasn’t showing IFF tags anymore, the text wavering, blinking on and off. His suit must be damaged. Why had the fighting stopped? There was no gunfire, no explosions, just the sound of crackling flames.
He glanced around, taking in as much of his surroundings as he could. Just turning his head hurt. There were dozens of Marines buried in the wreckage along with him, as well as dead Bugs, none of them moving. The closest Marine was lying face-down in the mud beside the road, maybe ten feet away, one of his arms severed at the elbow. Another was hanging out of the troop ramp of one of the IFVs, little more than a blackened husk now.
They had lost…
How long had he been out? Why had nobody come for them?
Movement caught his eye, and he froze up. No more than fifty meters away, a trio of Bugs were moving through the wreckage, their rifles in hand as they searched the burning vehicles. One of them had the eight-eyed helmet and the antennae backpack, while the other two had a pair of visors like the eyes of a housefly, their helmets tapering into segmented tubes where their mandibles should have been. It made them look like they were wearing gas masks. The Drones stopped beside an IFV, pausing to glance inside the open troop bay. Evan heard a human voice call out in alarm, but it was cut off as one of the masked Drones raised its rifle, flashes of green lighting up the shadowy interior. As they moved on, Evan realized that they were executing the survivors.
There were more teams, too. He could see another trio of the things stalking along the tree line just off the road to his left, one of the insects stopping to prod a dead Marine with a long blade, making sure he was dead.
“No, no! Please-”
Another hiss of plasma came from somewhere behind him, Evan’s panicked breathing filling his helmet. There was a sudden crackle in his ear, his radio sputtering to life, a distorted voice coming through.
“Lie still,” it said, barely a whisper. “They can’t smell you over the smoke.”
Praying that he wouldn’t be discovered, he did as the voice said, trying to calm his breathing. Who knew how good their hearing was.
The ground shook as something heavier approached, a bulky figure lumbering into view, covered in thick layers of spiky carapace. It was a Warrior, walking along the edge of the cracked road, the green glow from its visors spilling through armored slats to bathe the carnage in their eerie light. Its clawed toes dug into the asphalt, its razor-like mandibles twitching, its massive arms swinging at its sides. It had a lobster claw the size of an engine block, along with a plasma weapon that was a blend of organic and mechanical components, thick cables trailing through meat and resin. This one had a cluster of long antennae rising from its back, waving with each step that it took, like larger versions of the ones the Drones had on their packs. There were a pair of the smaller insects flanking it like guards, their proximity serving to illustrate the sheer size and mass of the thing.
It came to a stop not too far away, splaying its arms as it stood up straight, Evan’s fear giving way to curiosity as he watched. Its barrel chest split down the middle like someone was running an invisible knife from its neck to its groin, pieces of it opening up like broken ribs, splaying wide. Ropes of viscous, clear fluid seeped down onto the road, the thing’s moist insides exposed. It looked like a dead body being vivisected, wet, glistening meat and fleshy organs lining the open body cavity.
Something inside it shifted, a ruby-red mass contrasting with the sickly yellow meat that encased it. Tendrils like tentacles slowly drew back, revealing more of the thing, a long limb rising from a cavity inside the Warrior’s leg like someone stepping out of a boot. It walked out onto the asphalt, leaving the biomechanical suit, still joined to the living vehicle by strands of thick fluid and trailing cables that looked like umbilical cords.
Evan had seen Bug Pilots before, but this was something different. It stood taller at maybe eight feet, its shoulders far broader, its upper arms thick and powerful rather than lanky. They trailed down to its knees, maybe five feet long, terminating in a trio of sharp claws. It had a smaller pair growing out from where its armpits should have been, though they were still longer than a human’s arms. Its layered carapace was colored a waxy red, and it didn’t share the camouflage of its Drone counterparts, the plates of chitin shifting like a suit of armor as it moved. Its neck was long for a Bug, those massive shoulders sloping up into an arrangement of protective plates that resembled a medieval gorget.
Its head was even stranger. Its skull was larger and wider than those of the Drones, bulging out behind it. It was ringed by tiny, black eyes that reflected the light from the fires, giving it a 360-degree field of view. Thick plates protected its brow, a comparatively small pair of eyes peering out from beneath their shadow, these more mammalian in appearance. It had a set of four mandibles, the upper pair far smaller than the enlarged lower pair, giving it the appearance of a shovel-like chin. They were lined with sharp barbs of chitin that looked like teeth, clicking together as the thing surveyed the convoy. Jutting from its forehead was a two-pronged horn, yet another eye peering out from its thick stem.
The smaller Drones stuck close as it walked away from the idle Warrior on its long, digitigrade legs, striding confidently through the debris. They waved the barrels of their rifles back and forth, sweeping the area, keeping a vigilant watch. Was this thing some kind of VIP? Evan had never seen this behavior in Bugs before. It wasn’t a Queen – those were stationary, attached to a giant egg sack in the deepest chamber of the hive.
The creature appeared to notice something in the wreckage, reaching down with one of its long arms. It lifted a Marine by the helmet, his body limp, his tattered uniform ending at the knee where one of his legs had been severed. There were holes melted in his chest piece – he was clearly dead.
It raised him up like a doll, its three-fingered hand large enough to encompass his head, bringing him close to its face. Its mandibles flexed and clicked, its primary pair of eyes darting about as it examined him, Evan close enough that he could see its round pupils. One of its lower arms reached out to brush his armor, testing it, sampling its texture with surprising dexterity. It pried at one of the plates, then abandoned its effort, tugging gently at the fabric of the pressure suit beneath.
These Bugs had never encountered a human before. They had no idea what parts of the body were skin, what parts were carapace, or what might lie behind the opaque visor. This creature was examining an alien for the first time, trying to figure it out. He could almost see the question in its eyes – what are you?
The sound of an engine carried across the forest, the Bug turning its eyes to the sky. It let the body fall unceremoniously, then swung its massive shoulders around, striding back towards the waiting Warrior. The Drones backed up, keeping watch as it stepped inside the open chest cavity, slotting its arms and legs into the puckered orifices that led to the Warrior’s limbs. Slithering tentacles encased it, enveloping its red carapace, then the thorax closed around it like a sarcophagus. The suit sprang to life again, turning back in the direction of the forest, the rest of the nearby Drones trailing after it as it disappeared into the trees.
“They’re leaving,” the voice on his radio sighed. It sounded feminine. Was it Jade? “That was too close…”
A formation of three UNN dropships roared overhead, flanked by a Penguin, the gunship soaring over the treetops as they searched for a landing site. More followed, what looked like a whole fleet of aircraft hovering over the convoy, Beewolf fighters circling high above. The cavalry was finally here, but the Bugs were long gone.
A dropship cut through the swirling smoke that poured from a nearby IFV, sinking low to the ground, the backwash from its engines clearing the air. The troop ramp lowered, a squad of Marines leaping the four or five feet to the ground as it hovered. They fanned out, establishing a perimeter, taking cover in the wrecks. Behind them, a giant Krell dropped from the ramp, the dropship visibly shifting as the pilot compensated for the change in weight. The reptile landed heavily, its fleet slapping against the asphalt, its light machinegun at the ready.
Evan felt movement behind him, a red, three-fingered hand starting to dig away the debris that enveloped him. He turned his head to see Jade peering down at him, her strange, segmented face only an inch from his visor. Her plates shifted as she gave him a reassuring smile, which was reflected in her green eyes, the sight somehow putting him more at ease.
“Hang tight,” she said, shifting a heavy piece of charred hull with surprising strength.
“You’re saving me again,” he said weakly.
“Keeping the exoskeletally-challenged alive is part of my job description,” she replied. As one of the Marines neared, she raised a hand to signal to them. “Over here! We’ve got a survivor!”
“How did you get away?” Evan asked, wincing as the wreckage shifted. “They were killing everyone.”
“Hid under one of their dead tanks,” she explained. “If you didn’t have that helmet on, you could probably have guessed by the stink. I think they use methane fuel.”
“Hernandez, the others?”
“Worry about yourself right now,” she said, starting to drag him out from beneath the twisted metal. He felt the back of his chest piece scrape against the road, Jade cradling his head in her hand when he was clear. “Two arms, two legs,” she mused. “I think you’re good.”
“I can’t move anything,” he muttered. As she knelt over him, he saw the burn mark on her chest. The camouflaged coloration was charred black, and the chitin had melted, then cooled to form a crater the size of his fist. “You’re hurt…”
“I’m fine,” she replied, tapping a fist against the burn mark. “This isn’t actually part of my body.”
“We’ll take it from here,” someone said, a trio of Marines approaching. Two of them were carrying a stretcher, the third kneeling as he began to open a first aid kit.
“I’ll see if I can find anyone else,” Jade said, hurrying away before Evan could get another word in.
“C-four injury,” one of the Marines said, running some kind of medical scanner over him. “Someone get me a brace – we have to keep his head still. Get him back up to the carrier. He needs to go into surgery immediately.”
“It wasn’t C-four,” Evan replied, the Marine ignoring him as he rummaged through the kit. “It was…a Bug tank. Got caught in the blast. What…what surgery?”
“You’re gonna be fine,” one of the men replied, patting his armored thigh. Evan couldn’t feel it. “Let’s give him a sedative,” he added, pulling a needle from his kit. “This’ll put you out for a while, make you feel better.”
The medic disconnected Evan’s glove at the cuff, then rolled up the sleeve of his suit. Evan winced reflexively, but again, there was no sensation as the needle entered his arm. He was starting to get worried now. That concern was quickly washed away as a pleasant fatigue overcame him, his eyelids growing too heavy to keep open.
***
“What the hell happened down there?” Vos growled. He was standing in the Rorke’s observation deck, holographic representations of several assault carrier captains standing before him, the autumn forests rolling past beneath their feet. Fielding was the only other person who was present in the flesh, standing beside the admiral with his hands clasped behind his back. “There hasn’t been a peep from the Bugs since we made landfall, and now they decide to attack two dozen battalions at once? The last reports showed almost a thousand casualties and hundreds of disabled vehicles. Eight companies are no longer combat effective. That’s an entire assault carrier’s worth.”
The Spratley’s captain spoke up, his voice a little distorted by the feed.
“We believe that the enemy withdrew their forces and allowed us to take control of the anchor as a way to observe us,” he began. “They likely didn’t respond to our attacks on their infrastructure for the same reason, so that they could evaluate our weaponry and our capabilities – collect intelligence before engaging us. They saw that we were using the roads, and once they had an idea of the kinds of tactics we employed, they launched a region-wide attack on our battalions. These attacks mostly took the form of ambushes using heavy vehicles that we’ve never encountered before.”
“We anticipated ambushes,” Vos replied, turning his furious gaze on the captain. “The question I’m asking is why they succeeded. Where were the scout drones? Why didn’t the enemy forces show up on thermal imaging?”
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
“It is…an anomaly,” another of the captains added. “Examination of the Bug troops and vehicles recovered from the surface shows no thermal shielding, no advanced heat sinks. Our best guess is that a combination of burrowing and biological adaptations are allowing them to evade detection by our sensors.”
“Adaptations?” Vos asked, cocking an eyebrow. “Elaborate.”
“The science team aboard the Taipei believes that they’re able to enter a low metabolic state where their body temperature diminishes to match that of their environment. It makes them next to invisible to thermal optics until they actually start moving around and burning energy. They buried their tanks and shut them down, only reactivating them when the time was right. Hundreds of the things just…popped out of the ground like goddamned gophers with no warning. Same goes for their troops, their Warriors. They could have been standing in the open forest just out of view, and we’d have no way to detect them. A lookout gives the signal, and boom, a whole army appears out of thin air.”
“We let our guard down,” Fielding muttered, Vos sparing him a glance. “We knew that these Bugs would be stronger, more adapted to their environment, but we treated them just like the rest. We let their lack of resistance lull us into a false sense of security. Now, they’re using small-unit squad tactics, they’re deploying mobile AA platforms to shoot down our gunships. We need to step things up if we’re going to accomplish our goals here.”
“There’s something else that has been weighing on my mind,” Vos said, swiping at his display. “Take a look at these attack sites,” he added, bringing up a spherical map of the moon. Red blips appeared, forming a rough cluster over a country-sized land area, blue icons representing the fleet floating above it. “These attacks all happened at the same time, as though they were coordinated. Two dozen mechanized companies were ambushed, some of them hundreds of kilometers apart. We saw attacks in other regions, but in delayed intervals, which allowed the battalions stationed there to better prepare. Some regions saw no attacks at all. The Valbaran contingent responsible for this sector here hasn’t seen any sign of a Bug,” he continued as he pointed to the map.
“What does that tell us?” one of the captains asked.
“It tells us that destroying the radio antenna sites has crippled their comms network as we had hoped,” Vos explained. “The Queen is out of contact with her troops. Most of them, at least. There’s no reason that they would delay and give us time to prepare unless they weren’t actually in real-time communication. There seem to be seven distinct zones, each of them operating at least semi-independently of the rest.”
“If the Queen isn’t making the decisions, then who is?” Fielding asked.
With a few gestures, Vos pulled up grainy footage of a large Bug lifting a Marine into the air with its long arms, inspecting the body with surprising care. A murmur spread through the observation deck, the thing’s strange appearance alarming and intriguing the captains.
“One of the survivors of the ambush that all but wiped out the Spratley’s Echo company captured this footage on his helmet cam,” Vos explained. “They got hit in the first wave, and they got hit the hardest. I think this thing might have something to do with that.”
“What’s it doing?” Fielding muttered, narrowing his eyes at the creature.
“It appears to be examining a Marine. Like us, they want to learn as much about their enemy as they can. They want to know how to get better at killing us. See how the Drones are protecting it? Watch it go back inside the Warrior. See that? Why does it need to be guarded? Why does it look so different from the rest? Why does it have its own suit? It clearly isn’t a Pilot.”
“I think I see what you’re getting at,” Fielding continued, nodding his head. “A hive this large, the Queen must have decentralized her chain of command to better manage it. That thing is a general, a field commander of sorts, directing smaller forces within its respective region. The reason the Bugs didn’t attack as a unified hive is because these generals aren’t in contact with each other or the Queen, so they made the decision to attack independently.”
“This is both good news and bad news,” the admiral sighed. “The good news is that the hive is disorganized, and we won’t be facing a planet-wide resistance. The bad news is that the Bugs are more coordinated than we had hoped within those regions. We haven’t thrown them into complete disarray, but we’ve split them up into more manageable forces.”
“We’re fighting seven armies rather than one,” Fielding added. “Even if we locate the Queen and kill her, we might still have to contend with these guys.”
“I’m putting out a priority kill order on these field commanders,” Vos spat. “The SWAR teams are experts in assassination and sabotage – this is their bread and butter. We can’t be sure how many there are in each region, or even that what we just saw is at the top of the hierarchy, but all evidence points to someone taking the reins from the Queen. She’s in one of these areas, but there’s no way to know which.”
“Are we redeploying our battalions?” one of the captains asked.
“Keep everyone off the ground for the moment,” Vos replied. “Take the time to reinforce and do some maintenance on your vehicles, prepare the dead for transport back to Valbara. I’ll send you new orders shortly. We’ll keep up the attacks on their infrastructure, hammer their farms from orbit, use the Jarilans to help sniff them out. If we can’t rely on sight, we’ll have to rely on smell instead.”
“They’ve played their hand,” Fielding added. “We’ll be ready next time.”
“I want to meet whoever recorded that helmet cam footage,” Vos added. “There are some questions I’d like to ask him.”
“He’s actually in our infirmary,” Fielding replied, tapping at the display on his wrist. “Private Bennett, Evan. Looks like he’s undergoing surgery right now. I can have the doctors call you as soon as he’s lucid again.”
“Make it so,” Vos replied.
***
“Try to move your arm,” the doctor said, his tablet computer in hand as he stood by Evan’s bedside. They were in the carrier’s infirmary, the harsh lights reflecting off the white-painted walls and floor, the hum of medical equipment creating a soothing background noise. Doctors and nurses walked between the rows of beds, clad in white cleansuits, tending to the casualties of the ground battles that had erupted on Kerguela’s surface. Seeing the condition of some of the other Marines, he felt rather lucky. This was a recovery room – there were more gravely injured soldiers undergoing surgery or being monitored in the ICU.
Evan did as the doctor asked, raising a shaking hand, feeling a tingling sensation shoot down his arm like a trapped nerve.
“Needs a little more tuning,” the doctor muttered, making a note on his tablet. “You know, just ten years ago, you would have been left permanently paralyzed by an injury like this. Your C-four vertebra was crushed, which damaged all of the nerves that connect your brain to your limbs. The replacement that we printed should be just as good as the original, but you’re going to have to wear the neural bypass for the rest of your life. If you want to be able to move, that is.”
“Do I have to…do anything?” Evan asked, flexing his fingers.
“No, it’s been surgically implanted,” the doctor replied. “It captures signals from the undamaged nerves above the replacement vertebrae, then carries the electrical impulses down past the damaged area. It’s a more elegant solution than trying to rewire your spine.”
“Will I ever feel the way I did before?” he added, giving the masked doctor a concerned glance.
“Absolutely. We just need to do a little more tweaking, and you’ll be back to normal in no time. There’s no default setting – everyone’s nervous system is a little different. Just try to rest for now, and let us deal with the technical stuff.”
As he watched the doctor leave, Evan spotted something orange standing by the door. It was a Jarilan – Jade, he quickly realized. Something about the arrangement of the plates that made up her face and the prongs of her horn sparked recognition. She was still wearing her UN armband and her segmented skirt, but a white tank top was now draped over her shoulders. Holes had been cut into it for her lower arms, her furry ruff poking out over the collar. Evan felt a wave of relief as he saw that Hernandez was standing beside her. He was wearing his blue coveralls, and one of his forearms was suspended in a mesh brace. His face was bruised, but he looked none the worse for wear otherwise. When they noticed that he had seen them, they started to walk over to him, Jade glancing around nervously as though worried that she wasn’t supposed to be there.
“Look who survived gettin’ his fuckin’ spine snapped,” Hernandez chuckled. “When I said that we were riskin’ our necks on this deployment, this wasn’t what I had in mind.”
“Glad to see you’re awake,” Jade added. She gave him a smile, more subdued than her boisterous companion, but no less relieved.
“You guys made it,” he replied, shifting his weight in his bed so that he could see them a little better. “None of the nurses could tell me what happened to the rest of the squad when I asked them. What’s the damage?”
Jade and Hernandez exchanged a worried glance, hesitating as though they were afraid to tell him.
“It ain’t good, buddy,” Hernandez finally replied. “Echo is gone. The critters wiped the floor with us. Only sixteen people made it out, and three of ‘em are in this room.”
“Sarge?” Evan asked, his elation at seeing his comrades fading as his heart sank into his belly. “Johnson?”
Hernandez shook his head solemnly.
“Fourteen got slagged. We’re all that’s left of our squad.”
“Fucking Bugs,” Evan snarled, wincing as the outburst made his neck ache. “Present company excluded,” he added, glancing at Jade. “You saved my life back there, like three times. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.”
“I sympathize,” she said, narrowing her green eyes. “They killed my sisters. I was hatched with them, we went through training together, drank from the same Replete. Feels like I lost a pair of arms.”
“I’m sorry that we didn’t trust you from the get-go,” Evan added. “You earned your blues, and that should have been enough for us.”
“I may be an insect, but I can recognize a fake smile,” she chuckled. “I can also recognize a real one,” she added, her expression softening. “Don’t lose sleep over it. We Jarries are used to a little healthy skepticism.”
“You fought with us shoulder to shoulder, put down roaches like a pro,” Hernandez said as he reached out to give her a pat on the back. “You’re good in my book.”
“What’s with the shirt, by the way?” Evan asked.
“Oh, this?” she replied as she tugged at the fabric. “My thoracic armor got melted in the battle, so they gave me this to wear until the Constancy can mold me a new one.”
“Didn’t realize you had anything to cover up,” Hernandez joked, Jade giving him a friendly punch on the shoulder.
“A lady has to keep her secrets.”
Evan lay back on his pillow, trying to process everything that had happened. The people he had served with were all dead, and his company had been wiped out, the guilt of being one of the few survivors mingling with the relief of seeing some of his friends alive. He tried to force those thoughts to the back of his mind. Right now, he had to focus on healing. There would be time to mourn later.
Hernandez suddenly stood to attention, wincing as he saluted with his injured arm reflexively. Jade followed suit, turning to face a man in a pristine, white uniform who was making his way over to them. It was an admiral, Evan raising a shaky hand to his temple.
“At ease,” the admiral said with a wave of his gloved hand. He examined the trio, his eyes slowly moving between them. “Private Bennett, is that right? Assigned to the Spratley?”
“Yes, sir,” Evan replied.
“They tell me that you survived the Echo company ambush.”
“That’s right, sir. We all did,” he added, gesturing to his two companions.
“Good, then I have you all here together,” the admiral replied. He leaned over to examine Jade’s armband, reading off her name and serial number. “I believe you two were the ones who recorded the helmet cam footage of the enemy VIP,” he continued. “I hope you don’t mind me debriefing you in the middle of the recovery ward, but time is not a resource that we have in abundance right now.”
“No, of course, Admiral,” Evan replied. “Whatever you need.”
“I’ve seen the reports, I’ve trawled through footage from every camera in the convoy that had intact data, but that doesn’t give me a full view of what happened down there. Tell me – in your own words – what you saw.”
“Should…I begin?” Evan asked, the admiral nodding. “Well, we were driving down one of the old Valbaran roads when the lead vehicle fell into a pothole, holding up the rest of the convoy. We should have guessed that something was wrong, but with the state of the road and the lack of Bug resistance, nobody thought much of it. We dismounted, as did most of the other IFV crews, and I went into the forest to…relieve myself. That was when they started digging themselves out of the ground. These big, eight-legged tank things had buried themselves all along the length of the road. Well, they could have been digging out of tunnels, but they looked like they’d been buried to me. They started hammering the convoy. More of them came out of the forest – Drones, too.”
“And, these Drones,” the admiral interjected. “They behaved differently from those you’ve encountered before?”
“They weren’t using wave tactics,” he continued. “They were moving in squads of maybe six, taking cover, using suppressive fire. Didn’t see any shields, just weird guns. Some of them were plasma, some fired explosive projectiles.”
“We believe that they can modulate their body temperature to help them blend into their environment,” the admiral added. “That’s why the recon drones didn’t pick them up. Some of the specimens that we recovered were equipped with radios, too, which explains how they’re so coordinated. They’re weirdly primitive, partially organic, but they work. We handed them over to the Jarilans. Maybe they can find a way to reverse engineer them or decode their messages.” He turned to Jade next, her feathery antennae standing on end as he addressed her. “What’s your assessment of these Betelgeusians, Private?”
“As Private Bennett said, they’re using very advanced tactics, sir. I observed them advancing behind armored vehicles, flushing the enemy out of cover using grenades, and covering their troops with suppressive fire. Coupled with the camouflage adaptation that you described, and their ability to coordinate outside of pheromone range, it would be a mistake to treat them like a nuptial hive. This is a military bred and trained for one purpose – to defend their territory. They took their time to evaluate our capabilities before they attacked, studied us, made sure that they had a tactical advantage rather than relying solely on numbers. They have technology that we’ve never encountered before that lets them go toe-to-toe with tanks and aircraft that have previously enjoyed almost total invulnerability.”
“Is there a reason the Jarilan contingent that was attached to Echo company didn’t detect the enemy presence?” the admiral added.
“Well,” Jade began, averting her eyes to the deck. “We were traveling inside the IFVs, sir. By the time we caught their scent, the attack had already begun.”
“Maybe there’s a way that we can remedy that,” the admiral replied. “What did you make of the VIP? The new caste that was captured on your helmet cams.”
“When a hive grows to a planetary scale, it has to make coordination difficult,” she mused. She reached up to fiddle with one of her dangling antennae as she elaborated, perhaps a pensive gesture for her kind. “They’ve developed a planetary communications network – we’ve seen the radios and antennas – but I don’t think that’s enough. If I had to guess, I’d say that creature was a node in the hive’s hierarchy, someone who makes decisions above the level of the rank and file, but who remains subservient to the Queen.”
“That was our conclusion too,” the admiral replied with a satisfied nod. “Based on the information available to us right now, there are at least seven of these things, each one responsible for a different region of the planet. The one that attacked your convoy has been designated Red King. It’s a chess thing,” he added with a dismissive wave of his hand. “The fleet is being split into task groups to better focus our attention where it’s needed. We took a hit on the chin, but we’ll come back from this.”
“Sir, if I might?” Evan began. He waited for the admiral to nod, then continued. “What happens next? Will Echo company be reformed, or will we be reassigned to another carrier?”
“Policy is to send the injured home,” the admiral replied. “You and the other casualties are scheduled to be returned to Valbara as soon as you’re healthy enough to endure superlight. Nothing requires you to continue this fight. You’ve bled enough for the UNN.”
“With all due respect, Admiral, I want to see this through. They killed my friends,” he added, his composure slipping for a moment. “The doctors say I’ll make a complete recovery, that I’ll be able to fight again.”
“Your company is gone,” the admiral replied. “It’s going to take some time to replenish all of the vehicles that were taken out yesterday – we didn’t expect these kinds of losses so early into the campaign. For now, we’re shuffling around some of the surviving vehicles and personnel from the battalions that were hit the hardest to form as many functional companies as we can. If you’re set on staying, I can put in a word for you.”
“You will?” Evan asked, blinking his eyes in surprise. “I-I mean, yes, sir. Absolutely. I’d be eternally grateful.”
“I’ll keep you three together if at all possible,” he replied. “I’m afraid that a broken arm doesn’t net you a ticket home,” he added, glancing at Hernandez.