15. Bugs are High Protein Supplements.

The world grayed into a vast kaleidoscope of color and sound, entrancing him for a few minutes. Randall Perez took inventory and realized he couldn’t move, nor could he feel his arms and legs. He thought, Oh, I’ve really done it this time. On the other hand, he knew who he was, where he was from, his name and all the details of the memories he checked over. He didn’t think he’d been under that long. He left his eyes closed and tried to feel his location but got a lot of nothing. Perez tried to open his eyes and got nothing.

A familiar voice in Japanese said, “Brother, stop trying to move. I have you nerve-blocked. You’ve damaged your spine and the muscles in your back. According to Joe-sama, you managed to save Barbara-kun yet again, her craft was not touched. A piece of unknown material slammed into your ship and pierced the pilot compartment and sent pieces of the flight chair and some of the material into your back. I have you nerve-blocked and on regens for forty-eight hours, then we’ll put you in a walker and you should be fine after a week or so. I pulled all the debris out of your body about twelve hours ago. We woke you up to do some mental testing. You’ve passed, no brain damage from the impact. Eemu reports you are hearing me via EEG. I will wake you up again in another day or so. Your squadron and Barbara are going out to rescue a mining outpost on the other side of the system, and Joe-sama says it should be a good test of your doctrine. I’ll wake you up and let you know how it goes.”

Perez sort of mentally acknowledged and gave thanks hoping the Eemu would pick it up, and then relaxed. He was so tired... and then he spiraled down into the soft web of darkness again. He just wished she would stop using that cutsey anime lingo.

* * *

Hedwig Morgan stood on the Bridge of the Phoenix and looked at the tactical display. Her current XO was an annoying loser from Detection and was giving her fits. He had been the previous CO’s Electrical Support Officer, and Cohen moved him into Navigation. Mrajel couldn’t do his job there either. Never enough time to train people, get things done, make modifications.

They’d plotted out the fastest route across and it comprised two subspace jumps and two quick runs with an estimated time of 150 minutes. This would leave the outpost with about three hours of reserve power. Plenty of margin to exterminate some bugs. The old/new carrier did well on the last mission, but that was much simpler and didn’t involve the ship really, at all. This one would really test the new doctrine against real enemies. The plan seemed simple, get the fighters and LAC to the launch location, launch the ships, eliminate the evil alien monster baddies. Morgan’s biggest concern was the missing normal space engine. Currently the carrier had the three engines that the original ore transport sported, and they added another from stores in a rather ugly pod looking thing, but that was untested, and they desperately needed a fifth engine to get the floating scrap heap up to minimum military acceleration standards. The engineering department guys brainstormed a set of missile pods that could bolt to the outer hull but were coming up empty on getting them built.

Morgan looked around at the makeshift controls and the jerry-rigged defenses and sighed. Everything took time, and there hadn’t been any of it. She wasn’t sure of the wisdom of dividing up everybody and parceling out forces everywhere, but she was absolutely sure that if they had stayed in station-keeping mode and not built the fighters and the delivery systems, the new cannon, the entire Naval complement would’ve been bug food. “What a strange coincidence that Muschivk, Perez, Sevrinofsky, Cohen and I … and all of Team One and its support crew just happened to be here,” she thought sarcastically.

“Captain, ready for the second immergence,” said the XO, a Lt. Mrajel.

“Thank you, Mr. Mrajel, but I have the Conn right now. What station do you thing you are reporting for? Do you mean the ship is ready or it’s time, or what? We are about to go to Action Stations, Mr. Mrajel, which means you need to have your happy butt in Auxiliary Control... or at least as much of an Aux Control as we have built.”

“I thought you would need me here, ma’am,” said Lieutenant Junior Grade Mrajel.

“No. I realize that you’ve no clue what you’re doing; XO, and I’m making some allowances here, so get your ass to Aux Control and do it now. And do not override the Chief Petty Officer in charge unless he’s dead. Do you read me?”

Mrajel said, “Yes ma’am,” and left... at a walk, Morgan sighed with exasperation.

Cohen’s head appeared on the comm display, “Well done, Hedwig. If I had given you all the best you’d never improve. If he continues to slack off on you, let me know, and I’ll sick Joe Muschivk on him. I was hoping that he would see the new ship as a challenge.”

“Snooping, Captain, or Commodore, or whatever?” asked Morgan, "Since we have multiple ships now."

“Always, Captain,” said Cohen, “I really called to tell you that the intel is pretty fuzzy, but there doesn’t seem to be a mothership or fighters, but the base is definitely dealing with the buggy aliens. I assume Sevrinofsky is ready for launch?”

“Yessir,” said Morgan, “Squad One is in the tubes right now. Squad Three is at the LaGrange Point, and Reagan and Squad Two are rotating through CAP. I have Nerdboy and Barkeep on point at the nav buoy. I assume the Wing is going to leave them on reserve until we figure out what’s going on. I think only Squad One has all Special Ops Battlesuits, except for your observer.”

“That’s correct. So as soon as they clear the area, the plan is for the fighters to go in and make sure we have a landing pad, a ‘beachhead’ if you will, and then the rest of the Special Ops including the Master Chief will land and eliminate the ‘vermin’,” said Cohen.

“Everything starts happening as soon as we jump. I can’t believe they are stupid enough to allow us to put a nav buoy right there, sir,” said Morgan.

“Since we know zip about them, beware using the word stupid. Don’t rule out the possibility this might be some kind of setup. I don’t think so, because I don’t believe the concept of hostages or acceptable losses or anything like that would matter to them at all, unless it was maybe the bug equivalent of queens or something like that, but I can’t rule it out. Nothing they’ve done, other than the ships and the avoiding our outpost has showed any intelligence or planning at all. We know that they seem to operate on a pattern, but we don’t really know what that means, or even if it means anything at all,” said Cohen.

“I’ll keep that in mind, sir,” said Morgan.

“Just remember, that if they are insect analogs, their acceptable loss ratio might be very high, as in millions to one.”

“Meaning, don’t get people killed,” said Morgan.

“Meaning nothing of the sort,” said Cohen, “what I do mean is that they probably won’t stop until they’re all dead; or the loss numbers threaten the ability of the central hive or whatever to survive. I don’t think the workers have any sense of individuality, and I suspect the soldiers are not much smarter. Things like warning shots, rolling up flanks, things that depend on a recognition of a tactical situation are worthless here.”

“I think I understand, sir,” said Morgan.

“Remember, if you can save the people on that base, save them. That’s what the military is for. If you can’t save them... don’t waste the lives. Keep in close contact with the Master Chief. He’s a tactical expert. Hell, he’s every kind of military expert. Sevrinofsky is also really good, but she’s really aggressive. She’ll lay waste to the sector if we let her, but remember once she’s flying, she’s in charge of her wing at all times.”

“Okay, Captain,” said Morgan,” Save the people, kill the bugs. We’ll go get those people out.”

“I have no doubts, Hedwig,“ said Cohen, “Good luck, stay flexible and I might be completely wrong.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Morgan, “Immerging now. I’ll keep you posted.”

Morgan turned to the helmsman and said,” Immerge the ship, Soutowsky.”

“Immerging now, ma’am,” said the helmsman, pushing a button and then a couple of seconds later, “Ship is fully immerged, ma’am.”

“Head for Bouy 16, Soutowsky, and don’t overshoot. It should only be couple of seconds at a tenth of a g of thrust,” said Morgan, who was a small craft pilot before attending the Academy.

“I’ve got it ma’am, and we’re there. Hovering next to Bouy 16,” said Soutowsky.

“Give me the Wing on my comm, please,” said Morgan.

“Coming up... she’s on line, ma’am,” said Jeilman, a girl with a high-pitched soprano voice.

“Barb, we’re at the buoy. Are you still go for an emergence launch or whatever you jocks want to call it?” asked Morgan on the comm.

“Hey, Heddie, we are. I don’t want our ride emerging in a threat zone. I can clear the area for you and then you can emerge safely. That’s why Randy,” she stopped and coughed, “Ahem, Chief Warrant Officer Perez built those long-range cannon, so you could stand off and engage at mega klick range. He’s got some other toys in his box as well, so when he gets back on his feet you’ll see some stuff,” said Sevrinofsky.

“Now, Barb, how would you know what an enlisted guy is working on in his spare time, much less what he’s got in his box,” teased Morgan, “After all you guys just met on this tour, right? … I just talked to Tunney about twenty minutes ago, he’s gonna be fine.”

“Funny, Heddie,” said Sevrinofsky, “Very funny. When you were our pilot, you weren’t as feisty.”

“Barb, did Joe set this all up? Did he know?” asked Morgan, "Are we just some crazy experiment for him, one of his pet projects?"

“Heddie, secure this for a second,” said Sevrinofsky.

Morgan hit a touch button on the comm that scrambled the signal and also narrowed the audio to the caller, ”Secure.”

“I’m not as close to him as Randy is, and he’s pretty closemouthed, but I know he knew something, several thousand people and a couple of dozen ships disappeared in transit in these three sectors. I’m pretty sure he thought it was more of the InSystem games. I can guarantee that he had no idea it was aliens. He looked at the numbers and decided that somebody was getting ready for a war, and this was the best set of assets he could shake loose. We’ve got reinforcements coming. At the very least Team Two, and the Second OutSystem Fleet. I don’t know what the Guard will do, but they’ll have to do something, after they throw a tantrum and accuse us of making the whole thing up.”

“Why do I feel like we are the anchor about to be cut loose,” said Morgan.

“Joe might be a jerkoff sometimes, but he would never do that. He’d just kill you and hide the body, or have it done. He’d never, ever, hang you out to dry. Randy is the same way.”

“Can he really pull this off? I’ve never been so scared in my life,” she asked, disgusted with herself.

“Heddie, we’ve been friends for twenty-five years. I said the same thing to Randy not thirty-six hours ago. You know what he said?”

“How would I know?”

“He said, ’You’re not scared of getting hurt or killed, you’re scared of screwing up and getting everyone else killed.’ He said, basically, that he was good at killing stuff and making stuff, but he was a terrible leader, and that’s why he stuffed me into the officer program so I could be a leader. I did the same thing to you ‘cause you are a good leader... You got this. I’ll take care of the mayhem; you take care of the details. I’m counting on you for a ride home and I know you brought those cannons along that Ortiz built. I wouldn’t have thought of that. We’ll be fine in the end.”

Morgan paused and took a deep breath, “So we are in Plan Alpha, still, Wing Commander.”

“Yep. Let me know if the situation changes, Captain,” said Sevrinofsky.

“Are you ready for launch?” asked Morgan.

“I’ll do a query for final and then give you a go,” said Sevrinofsky.

“Okay, good luck,” said Morgan.

“You too,” said Sevrinofsky and she vanished, the Bridge noises sprang back into reality when the sound barrier dropped.

“Comm, get me a station report,” Morgan ordered.

“Ma’am,” the Comm acknowledged, “I’ll put it on your screen.”

After a second, a row of digital indicators flash green over the tactical display, and the comm screen on the Bridge lights up with Sevrinofsky’s head, “Squadron One is go for launch, Captain.”

“Very well, Wing Commander,” said Morgan, “Launching fighters now. Who up here has the fighter launch console?”

Dead silence. Morgan sighed, looked around then walked off the raised Conn platform and over to the cobbled-up launch display, which showed six fighters in their tubes, all green. She hit the launch button, and said, “I guess we’ve got some shit to still work out. PIM, how long till the Bridge AI is functional?”

“No time estimate, Captain, we don’t have a Bridge AI, or the equipment to run one,” said the PIM.

“Oops, well that's just crap,” said Morgan as she walked back up to the Conn, “Helm, sound Action Stations.”

* *

Barbara Sevrinofsky sat in her fighter and waited, then applied some of that martial arts calming techniques that Randy was always pushing on her. Then the world contracted to a pinpoint of light and she slammed back against the harness and then it expanded in a wonderous bloom of fireworks. She thought it was a great ride and would have to figure out why Reagan had a problem.

“Emergence successful, re-orienting. Course corrected to rendezvous point. All fighters report operational and pilots are green. Looks like that extra couple of hours of training paid off,” said Astarte, Barbara’s PIM.

“Any hostiles detected,” asked Sevrinofsky on the squadron channel.

“Yeoman, here. None so far, Bosslady,” said Mei Lu Gong, the new pilot.

“Samurai, here. No hostiles.” said Sado.

“Freya here, none,” said Karnez.

“Raptor here, no detection at all. I find that very suspicious, Bosslady,” said Eagles.

“Highlander here, no detection. The station still has power, though. I’m closest, I’m going to fly by,” said Rhodes.

“Wait for Eagles to catch up, Rhodes,” said Sevrinofsky.

“I’m on it,” said Eagles and the rear of her fighter erupted in a blaze of light as she activated her injection system.

The two peeled off and headed straight in towards the little rock floating just outside the official asteroid belt. The PIM suggested its orbit had been artificially stabilized, because it hung out in a zone that tidal effects would clear. Sevrinofsky wondered vaguely if this might mean something but decided to let more math-oriented people work it out. She set up and initiated a circular orbit around the little rock at about ten kiloklicks and sent the order to the rest of the squadron, exempting Eagles and Rhodes. The little squadron went on a counter clockwise normally-ecliptic roundabout1 off the asteroid and waited for the two fighters to report.

After about 5 minutes and a lot of acceleration and deceleration, the two fighters buzzed by the base at about 50 mps.

“Bosslady, Eagles here... this little rock has way more gravity than it should. It must be very dense, like uranium or lead or something. My radar isn’t penetrating more than a few feet, but I am detecting several large power sources and many small ones. Oh. There are bugs all over the outside. I don’t think they can get off. It looks like they try, and then they just fall back down. It doesn’t look like they can get inside either.”

“So, we do have hostiles. Are they workers or soldiers,” asked Sevrinofsky.

“Both. Got shot at three times, but their portable weapons won’t penetrate the shielding or the hull itself. Just bounces off,” said Rhodes.

“Why does this make me nervous?” said Sevrinofsky.

“Because the situation is screaming ‘it’s a trap’, in huge blocky scrolling font?” said Gong.

“That was what was originally known as a rhetorical question, but yes, I agree, Admiral Akbar,” said Sevrinofsky.

“Sorry, ma’am,” said Gong.

“No worries, Yeoman, there’s no formality here. By the way, I approve of your choice in fiction,” said Sevrinofsky.

“So, it’s either a trap... or it’s not. So... how about we spring it and see what happens, then go kill them all,” said Eagles.

“I also approve of your strategy, Ensign. I was thinking the same thing, and maybe we’ll get to try out those new missiles Perez was so proud of,” said Sevrinofsky.

“I think it’s too complicated,” said Mei Lu,” Let’s just kill them. Then kill them again.”

“I’d like to try and see if we can at least trip it before the carrier emerges,” said Rhodes, “Let me light up the bugs on the surface and see what happens.”

“All right, but energy weapons only. The new cannon will rip the shit out of that little rock,” said Sevrinofsky.

“Right. How about we move the buoy about 100K Klicks. If it is a trap, I’m sure it’s not very sophisticated. I bet they will use it as a homing point, since they aren’t hanging out in subspace right here, like last time,” said Sado, “Boy that didn’t make sense at all did it?”

“Okay, I get you, can we do it in about 10 minutes? 20 or 30 KKlicks ought to be enough,” asked Sevrinofsky.

“About 15, I think. Can the buoy take 200g’s? I think it can,” said Sado.

“Barbara, the buoy can take any acceleration the fighters can deliver. It has an internal gravity stabilizer and it only masses about 50 kilograms,” said Astarte.

“Go for it Sado, Karnez. Highlander, wait 10 minutes and do a few more passes over the base. Can we warn the folk inside? The energy will sort of mess up anything in contact with the surface.”

“I still think it’s too complicated,” said Mei Lu,”Will it let me kill more of them?”

“You sound like me,” said Sevrinofsky, “I like it.”

“I guess getting your arm nipped off is good for your combat attitude,” said Eagles.

“I was afraid then, now I’m really pissed,” said Gong.

The ten minutes went by very quickly. The buoy moved about 30,000 kilometers as Gong and Karnez cabled it between them, the fighters repositioned themselves in between the base and the new buoy, and Sevrinofsky gave the order, “Highlander, go kill bugs.”

“Roger that,” said Rhodes and his fighter flared and dropped straight towards the surface, a blue green glow streaming out from the back and a continuous line of exploding aliens in front. Eagles was right behind him, making more bug fry. The asteroid was some hundred miles in diameter, and the surface was just crawling, with aliens. They created a visible haze as they exploded, giving the little ‘roid the appearance of an atmosphere.

Five minutes go by.

“Detection,” said the PIM, “Mothership, alien small craft, fighters.”

The tactical display erupted with red dots.

“Gee, I guess you were right, Yeoman,” said Sevrinofsky coolly.

“Can we go kill them now?” asked Mei Li Gong.

“Yep. Stay on me,” said Sevrinofsky and they scooted towards the cluster of bug fighters.

“Squad One, launch those nifty missiles at the mothership on my mark. We want to all launch them from about 30 kiloklicks,” said Sevrinofsky.

“You got it,” said Gong.

“Hey, mine are going to be late!” said Rhodes.

“Just program a higher accel, so they all get there at the same time,” said Astarte.

“Yes, that,” said Sevrinofsky as she blew away another hexagonal bug fighter, they swarmed out to meet the fighters to prevent them from getting near the mothership.

The squadron drew nearer the 30 kiloclick mark and finally Sevrinofsky said, “Launch. Let’s see how this works. It should kill their propulsion and most of the crew.”

Rhodes said, “Perez designed these missiles, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then... umm... I think we might need to be further away,” said Rhodes darkly.

“You might have a point... head towards the outpost, and lock in on the shadow, we also might need a place to hide,” said Sevrinofsky.

“I hope it won’t be that bad,” said Eagles, “But last time we did this, we got something like 200 times the explosive power from one of Randy’s designs.”

“Astarte give me a countdown on detonation. I don’t think the aliens can stop all the missiles,” said Sevrinofsky.

“I don’t see how they can stop any of them,” said Sado, looking at the chart in his HUD.

The missiles had achieved about .05c in just 20 seconds. They only had seconds to go, just KE impact would be devastating.

“I guess we’ll find out,” said Karnez.

“Nerdboy here, on CAP,” said Lt. Reagan, a green pip flashing on the tactical from the other side, “Can we play too?”

“Stay away from the mothership, we’re trying Perez’s new missiles,” said Sevrinofsky.

“Oh, shit! Lordy, I picked a bad time to come out and play,” said Reagan, “Diverting.”

Reagan and Flowers Cobra’s made an almost right turn and started on a great circle away from the mothership towards the outpost base.

“10 seconds to range, all missiles reporting satisfactory,” said Astarte.

“Shutdown all subspace comms,” said Sevrinofsky.

“Telling the carrier now, 10 seconds,” said Astarte.

“Good,” said Sevrinofsky.

“10 seconds.... 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Detonation. Flare half second delay, Compression shockwave moving at .05c, 3 seconds and... now,” said Astarte.

The little fighter jumped as the plasma shockwave passed over it and Sevrinofsky spun her visuals around to look, and scan with the detectors, ”Bring up subspace detection array, and scan the area around the mothership, Astarte,” said Sevrinofsky.

“Big boom,” said Gong.

“Very big,” said Sevrinofsky.

“Scratch one nav buoy,” said Rhodes.

A huge ball of light about 5000 kilometers in diameter filled the sky behind the squadrons as they scooted towards the outpost. Severinofsky figured not much could survive that bang. Even if the mothership structurally survives almost certainly none of the crew did, or any inorganic intelligences.

“No solid material found in normal space or subspace; Barbara, it’s just an expanding cloud of gas,” said Astarte.

“I’m not calling this one in the bag yet,” said Sevrinofsky, “They like three-peat performances. Let’s clean the surface of that rock.”

The fighters ducked on down and started to clean out the surface of the asteroid. They slowed way down to around 200 kph relative and began a clean surface sweep, starting with the area around the main lock for the entry dome. The thing had enough gravity that it required landing, not docking.

“Phoenix this is Squadron One, we have destroyed one mothership and a large number of fighters, the only hostiles in the vicinity are ground troops. This doesn’t mean it is safe; however, the carrier can emerge without immediate combat,” said Sevrinofsky.

“Morgan, here, Wing, we are emerging and launching landing craft and support. I have concurrence from the Master Chief, and you moved the buoy, didn’t you?”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Yep. Emerge where you are,” said Sevrinofsky, “We sort of nuked the buoy by accident, you got another aboard?”

“That was clever and nasty, I liked it. We’re on the way up now,” said Morgan, “Yes we have another, I’ll have it launched and you can have a fighter place it again.”

A minute went by.

“Detection, large mass emerging at 5000 klicks; identified, it is the Phoenix,” said Astarte, “Launch detected, two small ships we are labelling Light Attack and three regular shuttles.”

“Excellent,” said Sevrinofsky, “Get me Joe Muschivk on line.”

A small pause then Muschivk’s head appeared in her HMD, “What’s up, Wing?”

“We gave the go, but haven’t finished fumigating yet. There are still aliens on the surface... but we are spiraling outward from the entry lock. This rock has got some gravity, so the bugs are having problems, though I’m not sure why. They can move in and out of artificial gravity easy enough,” said Sevrinofsky.

“Thanks for telling me. It’s not really a problem, but anything from the inside?” asked Muschivk.

“Nope. No contact. They have power though; they could just be really busy. Or, our bombardment fried their circuits.”

“Ugh,” said Muschivk.

“So, put Mr. Rainwater on if you please?” asked Sevrinofsky.

“Sure,” said Muschivk.

Rainwater’s head popped up on the HMD.

“Mr. Rainwater, I will be very angry with you if you get yourself killed, do you understand?” asked Sevrinofsky.

Rainwater smiled and ducked his head and said, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Stay close with Hulk, pay attention and observe the aliens. I have a bunch of data I’m sending to your PIM, but don’t look at it till the end of this mission,” said Sevrinofsky, “The aliens set a trap for us using this base. It wasn’t a very good trap, but it was still a trap.”

“Ma’am, many insects use simple concealment to capture prey, trapdoor spiders, some ants... Was it on that level? Kind of a snatch and surprise kind of thing?” asked Rainwater.

“A little more in depth than that, but we’ll discuss it tomorrow morning after training. Good luck, Mr. Rainwater,” said Sevrinofsky.

* * *

Steven Rainwater sat back in his seat and pondered the info Sevrinofsky gave him. The combination of stupid and smart in the aliens was confusing and unlike any species of insect, colonizing or otherwise. He’d guess that expecting perfect analogues from Terran insects was too much.

“Deep thought?” asked Banner.

“Thinking about the bugs,” said Rainwater, ”I don’t understand what they do. I get the workers collect food, soldiers protect workers, but the motherships and fighters seem a whole different thing.”

“I’m fascinated by their ability to immerge with no apparatus,” said Banner, “They must somehow be able to move some really heavy metals around in their system enough to rotate their fixed time coordinates, the same way we do with subspace engines. This might allow them to change their cartesian system enough to immerge, say X/Y/Z to... oh.. A/B/C with the same time. I wonder how they navigate. Maybe they circulate some dense hyper-metal in their blood stream or something, kind of like birds have metal in their beaks? I wonder if they eat something like a bird with a gizzard. How do they do it without killing themselves?”

“Hunh,” said Rainwater, surprised.

“What?” said Banner.

“I guess I didn’t really believe Wamamere when he said you were a Subspace Propulsion Engineer. Sorry.”

“Controls. I’m in controls. The Navy doesn’t allow combat specialists to devote full time to it. You have to be part of the ship’s crew and have a rating, and the Navy doesn’t have a slavering rabid killer rate. You might devote some time later on to figuring out why that is... Navy crew are all professionals. I only kill things as a hobby.”

Rainwater looked at him, aghast.

The landing craft gravity controls were good enough that the spin and rollover to land next to the entry port was only nauseating, and the ship settled to the asteroid with a jolt. Cables fired out and locked the craft to the rock, preventing it from jumping off or having the landing shocks push the ship up. Rainwater watched all this on the cabin display. The rear door Rainwater hadn’t noticed before cranked down to make a ramp. The crew jumped to the middle of the compartment and picked up various doodads and whatnots all looked extremely dangerous and they lined up while the door whined down.

“It drops when we’re in a hurry, but it’s hard to seal up after we slam it on the rock, so we crank it down on the motor for normal landings,” said Banner, seeing his puzzled look, "We aren't crazy to fix stuff when we don't have to."

Muschivk came up on the HMD and said, “Deploy. Team One, get the lock open so we can get the other two ships inside. Team Two, Perimeter. Heavy Weapons, get on the surface but we might need you inside. We’ve got air cover this time. Don’t hesitate to call them if you need them.”

A bunch of Ok’s and Rogers came over the display comm, turning the heads green. And Rainwater watched while the group of heavily armed soldiers ran out of the aft cargo doors seemingly randomly, and three of them took large leaps out the top of the door.

“Come on, Bugguy, let’s rock,” said Banner and he took off through the open cargo door obviously expecting Rainwater to follow. He followed as fast as he could.

The troopies established a perimeter in about half a minute fanning out and looking for enemy presence. Rainwater stayed about 3 meters behind Hulk the whole time.

Muschivk and Brennan stood by the entry console on the dome. It looked like a big old concrete hanger with roll up doors. The control panel looked dead.

Brennan looked over at Muschivk and said, “We got a warrant, Master Chief?”

“Oh, you are just a load of laughs, Brennan, open the goddamned door,” said Muschivk.

“We gotta jump it, Master Chief, like the ferry. No power. I’m starting to the think the bugs do a number on the power unless it’s shielded,” said Brennan, “Maybe they suck it up like little power mosquitoes, or ticks... or leeches or whatever...”

“Brennan, shut the hell up. Lee, you got the battery?” asked Muschivk.

“Yes, Master Chief, we got it,” said Lee.

Rainwater could tell all the names because his HMD was lighting up the suits and putting their names on them when they spoke. War for beginners, in tutorial mode. He chuckled. Then he had some sort of epiphany and realized he was enjoying himself, maybe for the first time ever, certainly since he got kidnapped by this stupid company ...

Muschivk turned around and looked at him, smiled in approval and rumbled in his deep basso voice, “Yep. You want to join up, let me or Cohen know.”

“... Spooky, isn’t it?” said Banner.

“How does he do that?” asked Rainwater.

“No clue. Perez says he always has. Freaked him out too. But he can tell when hostiles are around so when he says duck, you duck.”

“Sounds smart to me.”

The three guys by the entry control panel pulled it out of the frame and had it hanging by its wires. They took a wire from the big box they called a battery, obviously a cold-fusion storage device, hooked it into the panel in a couple of practiced motions and then the sailor by the battery pushed the supply control. The panel lit up and started blinking.

“Okay, that worked,” said Brennan, ”Gimme a second here...”

Brennan pulled a tool out of his chest kit, stuck it in the panel and manipulated it. The panel glowed green for a moment then the big entry door started to swing open. A three-way sword thrust out of the opening door at Brennan but stopped as Muschivk caught it and pulled the bug into the light, holding its mandible like jaw apparatus and smacking it in the head with the other fist. Lee whipped out a huge rifle looking weapon and fired a burst. The insect dissolved in a grey yucky mist.

“Cool,” said Rainwater.

“Get back,” said Banner.

“Hulk, pull him around the corner for a minute,” said Muschivk.

“Okay,” said Banner and yanked Rainwater behind the corner of the entry hangar by the handle on the back of his armor.

“There’s only a couple in here,” said Lee, “One sec.”

The ground rumbled a bit from some kind of explosion and Rainwater could feel vibrations from where he was leaning against the wall. He poked his head around the corner and saw Muschivk kick a bug straight up in the air and another trooper shoot it with that same high powered rifle looking thing.

“I think that’s the last of them in here,” said Brennan, “No bodies, no remains, no blood. Looks like they had warning. Elevators or stairs.”

“We got a comm cable?” asked Muschivk.

“O ‘course we do, Master Chief,” said O’Malley, an incongruous little dark fellow with blond hair. The PIM displayed his full name, the only trooper so far to get that honor. Rainwater wondered why, ‘Percival O’Malley’ didn’t seem that incongruous.

“Well?” said Muschivk.

“Got it right here, deploying now,” said O’Malley, and he shook the reel attached to his belt. He clipped the end to the storage device and took a long hop to the end of the hanger.

“Elevator or stairs,” said Brennan.

“Stairs,” said Muschivk, “You know better than that.”

“I do. I was just testing you,” said Brennan.

“Shut up, Brennan,” said Muschivk, “Get the damn door open. If I have to say that one more time, you are on latrine duty for the next week.”

Brennan walked over and looked at the door. “Pull,” he said and yanked on the door, which came right off the hinges and went spinning out into the night.

“Oops,” said Brennan, as he bowed and waved the rest of the team through the open door.

Muschivk followed the team down the stairs. He looked around and said, “There aren’t that many hostiles here, but the people are on the bottom level. The bugs are on the next level down. I wonder why. PIM, can you access the local net.”

“Power is down, Master Chief,” said the PIM, “No network. No nothing. Based on the quantum ghosting I expect it’s been down for about a day.”

“Okay. How’s the surface looking?” asked Muschivk.

“Charred, Master Chief, kind of way you like your steaks,” said the PIM.

They bounded down the stairs ten at a time and hit the next level thirty meters below the surface, the stairwell opened onto a large landing holding a personnel airlock, a control panel and no power to anything. The lights were out.

“Brennan,” said Muschivk.

Brennan said, “Hey, Bob, can you find an electrical panel in this compartment? Is there any power anywhere?”

Bob the PIM said, “No power, no where, and I cannot access anything to give me data about this place. Maybe a data jumper?”

“Okay, guess we do it the hard way,” said Brennan, “Harris, O’Malley, go get me a couple of the booster boxes... and a portable terminal. This door is shielded but dead. How they did that, I’ve no idea.”

Harris and O’Malley took off back up the stairs in large leaps, and Brennan started prying the door control panel out of the stanchion next to the frame. In about two minutes they were back with the booster boxes, essentially half size cold fusion batteries and the terminal. Brennan slotted his PIM into the terminal and connected the terminal to the door access using a fiber optic jumper a nifty device that didn’t work at all like its description.

“O’Malley, power up the panel and let’s see if we can accomplish anything.”

O’Malley hooked the booster box up to the panel power supply and jumped back as some sparks flew.

“Whoops?” asked O’Malley.

“You’re not supposed to hook it up live, you dumbshit,” said Brennan.

“Sorry!” said O’Malley.

Muschivk said, “Get the door open now and stand by to fire.”

Brennan dragged the PIM and terminal out of the way off to the side, and hit a few keystrokes, then said, “Ah, got it.”

The big bulkhead door slid sideways fast, like zip. Then bugs poured through into the little space and started attacking the troopies. Muschivk batted one in the face, whatever its face was, dodging those triple mandibles and turned and kicked another back into the larger space. He whipped out a strange looking pistol and fired a couple of bursts at each bug. Hulk picked up one bug and whacked another with it and then tossed it back through the door. He reached over and snatched up the impactee bug and tossed it through the door as well. O’Malley nailed both with his high powered HVW and the bugs exploded into a grey messy mist. The other five guys in the first squad barreled through the in an orgy of mess and personal combat and bug parts. Rainwater started to follow and found himself hanging by his drag handle a meter off the floor.

“You stay here ‘till we clear it,” said Muschivk, Banner had his handle.

The suits did an amazing job of simulating interpersonal communication in a vacuum, thought Rainwater, incongruously, while Hulk set him down behind the edge of the frame. The large weapon Banner held barked a couple of times, then he let go and it snapped around his back. Rainwater peered around the frame under Banner’s arm. The suit visual system lit up the targets and labeled them hostile or friendly. There were only a couple of hostiles left and they were firing some kind of energy weapon at the suited troopers across the very large space. The squad had flipped over some metal tables and desks and were crouching behind them. A very large suited figure that said Muschivk in little letters over it picked up a chair and hurled it across the room. The chair bounced off the wall and smacked the soldier bug in the back, and the bug reared back on its hind legs. Another figure labeled Brennan threw a small round ball at the same spot.

“Cover!!!” yelled Brennan, and Hulk stepped back, pinning Rainwater against the wall behind the doorframe.

Fire erupted through the door, an interesting effect in a vacuum, bringing with it some debris and a shout of, “Clear!”

Banner stepped out into the space and checked behind the doorframe and on the ceiling. He looked around and motioned to Rainwater to come on and they jogged lightly (.1g) across the room to the dead and crisped aliens. From up close they only looked disgusting as opposed to disgusting and terrifying. The room looked like every other conference hall or auditorium, except underground. Muschivk picked up the sole intact personal hand weapon the bug soldiers were carrying and handed it to Rainwater.

“Don’t fire it, whatever it is,” said Muschivk.

“No problem, Master Chief,” said Rainwater as he looked at the weapon, as single stick with a pressure pad. Rainwater looked down at the extra crispy bug and prodded it with the stick. The exoskeleton cracked and fell apart leaving a charred junky flaky substance like burnt grape jelly. Nothing to get out of this sample, he estimated the heat of that grenade thing around 2500 degrees C. Surprising there was any bug left at all.

The Special Forces troops were checking all the exits and making sure the corridors were safe. “There’s a few more down below, I think we need to get down there now. It feels wrong somehow,” said Muschivk.

“How do we get down there?” said Brennan.

“Jack your PIM in over there on the table. The connections should still be all right,” said Mushvik,“And let’s see if we can get a map of this hole.”

Brennan walked over and stuck his jacking cable into the standard connector after pulling it out of his gauntlet. He looked around, didn’t see any controls and said, “PIM, you got anything?”

“No contact. This circuit does not respond. Diagnostics unresponsive,” said the PIM.

Brennan looked at Muschivk, “Now what”

Muschivk asked, “Anybody know the name of this installation? Why do I feel we’ve missed some basics here? No maps, no plan, no contact.”

“We were in contact with them about three hours ago,” said Banner.

“Master Chief, the name of this base is Cerro Verde, it’s designation is A-245-B,” said the PIM.

“We had an advantage with the ship ferry, we had schematics. Here we depended on local functionality, because we were in contact. We need maps, but I’m not waiting. PIM does this base match any standard designs for installations so far?”

“No Master Chief, it doesn’t. It does bear a strange resemblance to a class of ship, as if the ship was abandoned and the material layered up around it. It’s very odd. That’s not the case, as scans of this asteroid showed surface radioactivity and decay indicating it is an original body in this system,” said the PIM.

“Great, another mystery. Which direction to living quarter and medical? Or better yet, Auxiliary Control,” said Muschivk.

Rainwater said, “Master Chief, sir, that back wall looks like it retracts and covers an elevated platform. If I was building an auditorium, wouldn’t I want a stage?”

“Great. How do I get to it?” asked Muschivk, "And don't call me sir."

Rainwater pointed to the hidden stairways on either side of the raised platform, “Over there.”

“Let’s go. Brennan, get your toys and come on, playtime is over. We have to get on to the living sections, now,” said Muschivk, and he turned and loped over to the stairs, “Banner, contact the ship and tell them to get the reserve team over here now.”

“Yes, Master Chief,” said Banner, and he quickly contacted the ship and sent them instructions.

Rainwater followed Muschivk up the stairs and into a stage like area. This area show signs of general struggle, but no bodies or blood. Two passageways on either side, one large, one small bracketed a huge rolling partition. Muschivk grabbed the recessed handle on the partition and pulled. It rumbled in the vacuum through the floor and the suit vibrated. Rainwaters mouth dropped open as the heavy blast partition just rolled back, revealing a modest control room with several consoles and a main display.

Brennan jumped over to the main display and slotted his PIM, then grabbed the battery box from O’Malley and opened the access cover underneath.

“Hah! Standard power connector. I’ve got a jumper here. Got to get lucky eventually, right?”

“Just get me a map, idiot!” said Muschivk.

Brennan’s PIM head, a little talking dragon of all things, came up on the main display, “I’ve got the main storage for this computer cluster. This a level control room that also handles environmental for the hangar level and the entry door. Here’s the installation map. I’m copying them to your PIM’s. I’ve almost got the whole data store, this thing is an antique, at least a hundred years old. Here are Medical and Engineering and the Living Sections. I’m getting echoes of digital comms, and you’re right we need to get over there now.”

The display changed to a four-way diagram each with maps. Engineering was off to the left and the Living Quarters and Medical off to the right. Living Sections and Medical were blinking. Muschivk said, “Let’s go.”

They took off down the right-hand passageway at a fast run, but Rainwater couldn’t match their speed. After he fell behind the second time, Banner picked him up by the drag handle again and carried him while he made long loping leaps. Rainwater felt like a handbag. After about a minute they hit a slow fork in the passage, but couldn’t get there, because of two soldier bugs battering on the doors. Banner dropped him and barreled into the right-hand soldier slamming it against the bulkhead at full speed. The bug turned around and jabbed with its mandibles and the stick thing. Rainwater jumped up and whacked the stick with his stick pointing it away towards the floor.

Banner grabbed the head of the bug and ground it into the passageway bulkhead, put his foot on the torso and ripped the body away from the head in a splatter of grey gore. He turned his head and said, “Can I borrow that axe?”

Rainwater had forgotten about the silly thing and reached behind around his back and tossed it up to Hulk. Banner caught the axe, thumbed a switch and slammed it down at the juncture of the thorax and abdomen and the weakly moving bug came apart when the head of the axe detonated in an awesome plasma burst. “You didn’t show me that!” exclaimed Rainwater.

“Don’t get cocky,” said Hulk.

On the other side, Muschivk strode up to the soldier bug and punched it with full augmentation in the arm with the weapon and rammed the still firing weapon into the monster’s thorax. The bug vibrated and froze. O’Malley came up, dropped to one knee and put a burst into the things head.

“Amateurs,” said O’Malley, “Just shoot the bloody things!”

“Shut up, O’Malley,” said Muschivk, “I didn’t feel like stopping.”

“Good job, Rainwater,” said Banner, “Most people freeze when they see the aliens. Shit, most people freeze in a hostile situation the first time.”

“I don’t think they’re aliens,” said Rainwater, “I need to get a sample to a lab somewhere that can do DNA.”

Muschivk said, “Ok, you sound like you got an important idea, but save it. That’s why we brought you along. The ship and Tunney can do DNA, she has a full lab and surgical suite. Right now, we’ve got some folks to rescue.”

“Both these doors have power,” said Brennan.

“Try the Republic override code,” said Muschivk, ”Open the living section door. No bugs behind the Medical door. At least not yet. I don’t think they can go through the rock, this rock, whatever the hell it is...”

“No response, it’s locked down in blast mode. There’s no door computer, it’s just a sliding door,” said Brennan, ”Hang on. Oh, there’s no air in there either.”

Brennan took his little satchel out and grabbed a small prybar and in seconds yanked the control panel right off the bulkhead. He reached in and took his suit finger and jumpered across a relay looking thing and the door slipped sideways into the recess, “There ya go. Let’s go kill bugs.”

“There are people in here. Be careful,” said Muschivk.

“No lights, no power in the hallways, no air...”

“They’re barricaded in their quarters, probably in cabinets, I don’t know why they dumped the air... Let’s move,” said Muschivk and he took off running down the corridor for something only he could see.

Rainwater followed as quickly as he could. The living quarters doors were airlocks and so were very tough but standing up to a bug for any real length of time was improbable. He caught up to the squad just as they engaged the horde of soldier bugs outside the third compartment door. Muschivk asked, “Brennan, can we bring up pressure in the hallways? Be careful about HV weaponry in here. Try to stay H2H. If we puncture a living compartment, we’ve become part of the problem.”

Muschivk ripped the antenna off a soldier and chopped sideways. The thing swung its foreleg in ripping side slash, Muschivk dodged it and punched it in the face.

“Maybe. Take about 30 minutes I think,”

“Kick it off. We need pressure to check the compartments. We could kill the inhabitants just as fast blowing open the door.”

“How about a donut?” asked Banner.

“You got one up your butt?” asked Muschivk.

“No, Oh supreme Master Chief Muschivk, oh mighty one. There’s one above the lock as we came in,” said Banner.

“I think the problem is you just don’t look that smart,” said Muschivk.

“What’s a donut?” asked Rainwater.

“It’s a small confectionary that bakers cover with various tasty toppings with a hole in the middle,” said Banner, “That’s what Perez told me when I asked that question.”

“... But seriously, it’s a plastic sealing thingie that expands to the shape of the corridor, for an air seal when air is lost or a rupture occurs. Most places have them. They’re all over the ship and you’ll have to memorize the locations,” said Banner.

Brennan said, “I’ll go get them. I bet there’s one above the medical lock as well,” and he bolted down the hallway.

“Can you tell if there are aliens behind the door?” asked O’Malley.

“No, too many. They’re all over the place. Let’s kill all ones outside and put up a shield. Maybe we can drive them out.” said Clete, the normally silent squaddie.

Muschivk released the soldier he was holding and Banner booted it in the thorax and then slammed it with the pulse axe.

“I see you brought Jambjorn,” said Muschivk, “Can I borrow that back for a minute?”

“That’s really Thor’s Axe?” asked Rainwater, “What is H2H?”

“You ever seen Perez? Does he look like a Dwarf? How the hell does a nerdy propulsion tech know about Thor’s Axe?” said Banner as he kicked a soldier bug down the corridor and blocked a blow from a second.

“No. Never have,” said Rainwater, stepping back as O’Malley terminated the other bug with a plasma burst from what looked like a shotgun, “But I like Norse mythology. That’s the axe the thunder god used before he could hold the hammer.”

Banner handed the axe to Muschivk, who thumbed off the power, pulled out a small tube outta the bottom and hurled the axe down the hallway in the dark. There was a thud that they all felt through their boots. Muschivk held up the tube and said, “Watch this. This is the coolest part of the job. Cover your faceplate for a second,” and pressed on the top of the tube.

A flash as bright as an arch welder buzzed down the corridor and Muschivk took off faster than Rainwater could follow with his eyes. It looked like he’d pressed the button again and the tube pulled him down the hall at a several meters per second. Rainwater shook his head, “Nah, couldn’t be,” and hurled himself down the hall after the others.

Stairs, and elevator and more bugs. The squad was obviously getting bored with extermination and frustrated by the inability to affect any events inside the living quarters, though it had only been about 5 minutes since they entered the section in the first place, hardly dawdling. The second squad was about to enter the complex and the carrier was headed toward the outpost at its best (poor) speed, but Rainwater realized he was having the time of his life, and he wished he could help more. His PIM and sensors were set to all frequency in the hopes of finding life pods or ‘cabinets’.

“Hey, can that thing throw a directed pulse? Maybe we can use it to see if the bugs are in a given compartment. I noticed that the things throw back a long wave pulse as you hit them with that last arc pulse. Try it again,” said Rainwater, “Maybe they can’t absorb the longer EM waves and just reflect them?”

“Hunh. Cool, okay...” the big man rumbled and then he hurled the axe down the stairs, the twirling weapon throwing a continuous hail of arcs off. After about ten seconds axe whipped back up into Muschivk gauntlet.

“Yeah, look,” Rainwater typed in a couple of commands on his PIM console. His Engineering suit had one on the arm.

Their displays lit up with twelve long glowing shapes.

“Ha!” said Banner and he came up on the area wide channel and said, “Wing Commander, request long wave survey of this base. Rainwater figured out the bugs reflect 1 meter or longer wavelengths.”

“Hulk, this is Bosslady, I copy you. That’s just awesome! Hang on a sec,” her picture disappeared and then reappeared, “Steven, good job. You’ve just paid for your services this year, maybe this decade. Hulk, I just rerouted the return passes for the surface scouring detail. You’ll get a long wave radar pulse every 30 seconds or so. I can move that up as soon as the detail by the nav buoy is able to join me. None of my craft can receive the pulse, though, the rock’s makeup blocks it, but if I fire it into the landing hanger you should get massive echoes. We learned something good today,” said Sevrinofsky.

“Thanks, Commander, Hulk out,” said Banner.

“Brennan, stand by with your donut. While we clean the corridor bugs out, mark the compartments with aliens somehow, big red X or whatnot,” Muschivk said.

“How do I do that in light gravity and no air. It’s not like I have fluorescent paint in this suit?” asked Brennan.

“Figure it out!” said Muschivk.

“First pulse in 30 seconds,” said Rainwater as the info came up on his PIM.

“Okay, I’m in front of the first compartment, first level,” said O’Malley.

“As soon as Team Two gets to you, you and Clete get the hell back here. We’re gonna clear the corridor of hostiles, then start room to room in three groups, marking the doors and clearing the compartments. Brennan, can you guys get more than one compartment in a pulse?” asked Muschivk.

“Yeah, we can get two, and three if you have Rainwater mark them with you. Just have him take a metal scribe out of his toolkit and engrave an X on the door. Top left corner,” responded Brennan.

“Top left, okay,” said Rainwater and he popped open his arm terminal and said, “Hey does this suit have better sensors than your battlesuits?”

“For radio and EM, probably,” said Hulk.

“Okay, let’s try this: PIM, we are going to receive long wave pulses every thirty seconds or so, so for the first pulse let’s calibrate the echo return. Compare the return to the plasma arc echo off the alien in the stairwell. I assume you recorded that.”

“Yes, Steven. I did. That’s how we could tell. I understand. You want me to figure out how far we can detect the aliens behind the bulkheads and move to the center of the corridor, and pulse in 3, 2, 1, now,” said the PIM, and the tips of the glove arced for a second, and it displayed eight compartments of map, with one alien in the last compartment by the back wall. "Oops, " said the PIM, "Too much juice."

“Master Chief, there’s one behind that door at the back wall,” said Rainwater and he hopped over and scribed the door.

“Okay, I got you. Nothing we can do till the pressure cannister gets here. If we cut the door open we could kill the occupants just as fast,” said Muschivk.

“The long wave pulses are confusing them, I think. They’re just sort of standing there unless somebody walks right up to them. Maybe the long wave is how they communicate in normal space?” asked Rainwater.

Muschivk slaughtered the last soldier bug in the stairwell landing by separating the thorax from the abdomen and slicing off the head. “Down the stairs, quick. We want to be in the corridor for the next pulse.”

They jumped down to the landing, except Rainwater whose suit didn’t have that capability, and ran into the corridor, realized Rainwater wasn’t with them then Hulk jumped up from the doorway, bounced off the stairwell wall and landed next to Rainwater, grabbed him by the suit handle and jumped over the railing.

“Waaaaa!!!” said Rainwater as they landed in the corridor.

“Your suit has better long wave sensors than ours,” said Banner, “But poor augmentation,” as he tossed him through the throng in the doorway.

Rainwater grunted as he bounced off a soldier bug and ducked as O’Malley swung some kind of bar with a handle he’d never seen before at the bug, then popped open the arm console and said, “PIM, time!”

“Seven seconds, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Pulse,” said the PIM

His HMD lit up with two red blobs across from each other and he slid under the melee and marked the door. Then scrambled around the wall, checked a soldier bug out of the way and marked the other door. The door frame sort of shielded him from the melee and gave him a second to catch his breath. He set up a 10 second warning chime for the next pulse and picked his next spot. Chime... jump...

“5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Pulse,” said the PIM.

This time, no blobs. He ran down the hallway a bit and looked for more aliens, or whatever they were, and didn’t see any. The bugs seemed to take the ambient temperature very quickly so infrared (IR) was pretty useless. Chime... jump...

“Whoops!” he ducked and dodged a mandible thrust, “Get lost, bug,” and he kicked straight out, connecting with the head.

Hulk was there, barreling into the side of the soldier and pushing it down the hall into the other bugs. Rainwater looked around, dropped to one knee and brought up the monitor.

“3, 2, 1, Pulse!” said the PIM.

"Quit being so brave. I appreciate it, but it's unnecessary and dangerous," said Hulk.

No blobs in the compartments, seven in the corridor. Rainwater said, “Sorry, Hulk. No bugs so far, going to have to miss one. I think we’ve gotten here fast enough to keep them out of the compartments.”

“There are thirty compartments on this level, and down on the bottom level there is a couple of barracks type rooms, any luck and they haven’t got down there,” said Banner.

“Last one,” said Muschivk as he cut the last soldier in half.

“You sure?” asked O’Malley.

“Yeah, on this level. Let’s go look at the next,” said Muschivk.

They trooped down to the next level, moving quickly. Rainwater walked the corridor and didn’t find any signs of more aliens anywhere on the third level, though all of the compartments held air. The lowest level had 3 barracks holding a hundred beds each according to the maps on the hallway. A couple minutes later they were back on the second level at the last compartment. Banner picked up a donut in the bottom stairwell and put it in place in the alcove.

“Brennan got the door shut. Squad Two, how is it coming?” asked Muschivk.

“One compartment cleared, one survivor, one casualty,” said Tailles, “Moving on. The soldiers seem disorientated. You know, confused.”

“Yeah, we know. Keep going, after all, why should they be different than me?” asked Muschivk.

Brennan found an air generator somewhere, probably with the donut, and started to pump up the entry alcove. Pretty small so it didn’t take very long. Muschivk stood in the alcove and waited. He decided to take the entry himself. It only took about 2 minutes to pump the little airlock up to pressure. The door entry light went green and he hit the button. Nothing happened.

“It’s locked, Brennan,” said Muschivk.

“Hang on, Master Chief, I got it. There’s a standard unlock code override in the control maps, got it. Hit the button again.”

Muschivk hit the button again, “Nothing.”

“Aw, come on, Master Chief, hook this cable up to the door controller,” said Brennan.

Muschivk hooked the cable up to the maintenance port.

“Step back.”

Muschvick stepped back. The door control system sparked and sizzled and gave off a puff of smoke. Then it whined and died.

“It’s a manual door now. Slide it,” said Brennan.

Muschivk put his hands on the panel of the door and pushed sideways, the door slid smoothly. He got his first look in the room where a soldier bug stood over a dead person, a big man. Another person, a woman, was in the cabinet across the room. Muschivk strode over to the bug and whacked it in the head with the axe. It sort of flung one of its forelimbs out and Muschivk blocked it on his arm. Then it darted its head forward and thunked into the big sailor's chest. Muschivk stepped forward and hurled the thing into the compartment where it hit the back wall. He hurled the axe. It smacked into the thorax of the bug and detonated in a sizzle and pop. The bug stiffened and fell over.

There was a woman and a man in the support cabinets in the alcove, they looked alive and undamaged. The cabinets put the occupant into hibernation, greatly slowing down the processes.

“Leave them there until we clear the whole base,” said Muschivk.

“You’re the only one in there, Master Chief,” said Brennan.

“Don’t mess with me when I’m talking to myself,” said Muschivk.

“If you’re looking for good conversation, let’s go find some more bugs to talk to,” said Banner.

Muschivk obviously thought better of it because he grabbed the soldier bug and pulled it out of the compartment. Stood it up like a sofa on end and slid the door shut and made sure it hit the seal, then he pulled the plug on the donut. Air rushed out into the corridor and misted up their helmets, and then poofed away.

“Next!” said Muschivk.

They trooped over to the next ‘occupied’ compartment and the results were similar. In three compartments the occupants had gotten to the cabinets in time, in the others there was usually one very messy casualty. They dragged the bodies out of the direct line of site and threw sheets over them. The individual compartment gravity seemed to be intact, but the corridor grav was off.

The other team had started at the top of the first corridor and they met more or less at the end of the second level. Team Two had a medic with them though, Crunich, and she was checking the bodies for life signs, with pretty much no hope.

“So far, no survivors in any of the ones that were physically attacked, though the cabinets seem to be untouched… It’s almost like they couldn’t find them,” said the Crunich.

“I don’t think they could. The cabinets use an electrostim field to put the occupants into simulated hibernation, right? I think that might block them from the buggish vision, whatever that is. They see into the visible spectrum, but it doesn’t seem to help them find people,” said Muschivk.

“Muschivk hogs all the fun,” said Brennan.

“Privilege of time in service,” said Muschivk.