V’rni System, 2175 A.D.

Republic 3rd Infantry Division

Eleani Orbital Drop Battalion

PFC. Alixa slammed into the ground, his combat suit absorbing the impact of the landing and automatically going into a roll to dissipate the remaining energy. He sprang up and sprinted to a nearby outcropping, taking cover behind it as he pulled his gauss carbine from its maglock and quickly checked for signs of damage before switching off the safety.

His suit AI connected to a shrouded overwatch drone, and his HUD was populated with icons as the AI determined friend from foe and made sense of the chaos happening all around them as more drop troopers of the Eleani battalion continued slamming into the ground in the vicinity.

Alixa saw a large concentration of worker drones less than a hundred meters in front of his position, taking cover in a dry riverbed as they continued to try to shoot down incoming troopers as they descended from the sky. He saw one of them get hit, and the trooper went limp, his combat suit losing control and spinning wildly as the control thrusters stopped firing.

A few seconds later, he heard the combat suit smashing into the ground at terminal velocity, the thud making him wince as he saw the impact debris eject into the air. He turned his attention back to the riverbed, feeling an overwhelming desire to slaughter the drones as he activated his grenade launcher and targeted them, selecting the incendiary rounds.

The launcher popped out of its receptacle in his upper back, and he felt the soft pumps as the five incendiary grenades were launched towards the ravine. He zoomed in on the feed from the overwatch drone and smiled maliciously as the grenades airburst over the main body and covered dozens of drones with a thickened pyrophoric agent.

The sticky gel activated immediately in the presence of air, and dozens of drones were engulfed in fire, panicking and crashing into others nearby and transferring some of the sticky, flammable gel onto other drones. Within five seconds, half of the drones were collapsing as their exoskeletons started melting from the incredible heat, their legs twitching uncontrollably.

He leapt out from behind the outcropping and bounded towards the ravine, other combat suits falling in behind him and joining the charge. They reached the lip and went prone, pointing the rifles over the lip and using the gauss carbine targeting cameras to send thousands of explosive rounds among the disordered formation of the surviving drones.

Five seconds later, all the drones were dead, their bodies torn apart as the explosive tips of the slivers exploded inside their exoskeletons. Alixa and the six drop troopers with him crawled into the riverbed and assumed firing positions along the opposite lip, sighting their gauss rifles towards the thousands of drones that were pouring out of openings in the ground from the Hive.

An alert appeared on his HUD warning of incoming F-202's, and he hunched down and took cover, the other combat suits doing the same. He watched the PIP screen that popped up on his HUD as the flight of four fighter bombers streaked over the large body of drones that were streaming towards his position and released their loads before pivoting straight up and firing their afterburners, shooting into the sky at hypersonic speeds.

The Insectoid flak guns littering the perimeter of the Hive opened fire, sending hundreds of thousands of tiny shards of metal towards the fighter bombers, trying to lead them to intersect their flight paths. The F-202’s AIs detected the incoming fire and performed pirouette maneuvers, and the flight of four scattered, continuing to engage in evasive action as they headed back to the carriers in low orbit to re-arm for another bombing run.

The bombs had been slowly drifting down from where they were released as their warhead computers activated the anti-grav units and thrusters, positioning the bombs to ensure the maximum destructive envelope before releasing their bomblets. Hundreds of bomblets popped out and released their charges 200 meters above the drones, sending tens of thousands of explosive ball bearings downward.

The thousands of drones that were streaming towards the ravine were shredded to pieces as they were torn apart by the ball bearings, and when they impacted against the ground, their explosive charges went off, adding further carnage as they turned into hundreds of thousands of tiny pieces of shrapnel that tore into other nearby drones.

Only a few hundred of the 5,000+ drones were still capable of continuing to advance, and Alixa targeted the survivors, remembering the mantra of his marksman instructors and activating single-shot mode. The drones pressed themselves low to the ground, and with their six legs, they were quite capable of advancing rapidly under fire while presenting a minimal profile.

Alixa sighted one drone and held his breath as he gently pressed the trigger, sending an explosive sliver directly through its head that traveled halfway down the drone before exploding at the narrow junction that connected the thorax to the abdomen, tearing the drone in half. He sighted another target and fired again, missing the drone as it skittered to the side.

They were incredibly agile and frustrating targets, and he forced himself to keep calm as he sent another sliver towards the tricky target, managing to blow off one of its legs. It continued to advance, albeit more slowly, and he sent another bolt towards the larger abdomen as the drone presented its side towards him.

The round pierced it and exploded, rupturing the abdomen. Still, the drone continued to advance, and Alixa now targeted the slow-moving thorax and sent two more slivers, finally killing the drone. There were dozens of drop troopers in the riverbed, pouring fire into the survivors, and they quickly eliminated the remaining drones of the first wave.

His commanding officer came over the comms and ordered them to maintain their positions, telling them that the Republic Mark XII ATS Bio-Synths were on the way and would link up with the Eleani battalion. He felt a surge of excitement at the news and craned his head to the sky to see them coming.

A few seconds later, dozens of fireballs appeared in the sky and headed towards the ground, streaking through the sky until they hit an altitude of one thousand meters and the entry pods opened. The Bio-Synths emerged, and they dropped the rest of the way at terminal velocity before slamming into the ground a hundred meters behind his position, plumes of dust and debris shooting into the air from the force of their landing.

They immediately surged forward and headed towards their position, where he and the rest of his platoon hunkered down, joining them. A Bio-Synth took position next to him, looking at him and nodding its “helmet” at him, even though there was no head inside of it. Alixa returned the gesture and clamped down on his desire to reach out and touch the dark blue suit.

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The Bio-Synth addressed him, and he heard her speaking over his ear buds, finding it to be a pleasing, melodic voice. “Pfc. Alixa, I am Staff Sergeant Ayoub. It is a pleasure to meet you.” Alixa nodded and responded, his voice squeaking from his nervousness. “You too, Staff Sergeant. Thank you.” She put out her giant armored fist, and he bumped it with a much smaller suit fist as she continued to speak.

“Nice job on your first drop, kid; you did well. You will be my battle buddy from here on out, so stick by me and I’ll get you through this, okay? He nodded again and looked around, seeing that the rest of his platoon had been paired up with the other Bio-Synths. An alert popped up on his HUD, indicating that sensors had picked up signs of another wave approaching the surface from deep inside the Hive and that they were expected to emerge in under three minutes.

Anti-grav sleds appeared behind them, loaded with mortars, missile magazines, and large-caliber sliver ammo cans for Ayoub’s mech suit. Alixa scurried up and unloaded the sled as fast as he could as Ayoub activated her artillery systems, and he saw the loading hatches open where he would load the mortars and the missile magazines.

He worked quickly, and in 30 seconds, he had her fully loaded with the first fifty-round magazine of missiles and ten mortar rounds. The missiles were ten centimeters long and the diameter of a typical human male index finger, and despite their small size, they packed a powerful punch with their ONC explosive warheads. The mortars were the size of a human beer can, and they also had ONC explosives, with a mortar round having a kill radius of fifty meters.

Both of her arms were weapons as well, the left arm having a high-powered laser system and her right arm fielding an autocannon with eight barrels that could fire two thousand bolts a minute. He inserted the sliver belt into the feeding mechanism and made sure that the belt was properly folded back into the ammo can, preventing snagging that would cause misfires.

He tapped on her helmet, indicating that she was loaded, and continued to break down and organize the ammo behind her to efficiently load her as she prepared for combat. The alert appeared again, and the first wave of Insectoids started emerging from the ground. Ayoub and the other Mark-XII’s bellowed a war cry from their external speakers, sending a chill through Alixa as he continued prepositioning ammo.

A mass of worker drones charged towards their position, hugging the ground and skittering all over the place. The drones were armed with lasers, and the air between them was ionized as the invisible beams reached out to hit the defenders in the riverbed. Ayoub returned fire, and Alixa was astounded at the sheer amount of firepower that poured out of her suit.

She lobbed mortars from the tube that was positioned between what would have been her shoulder blades, as the rockets were fired from a shoulder-mounted system. The rockets were guided by her suit AI, and they targeted concentrations of five or more drones, diving down in the center of selected groupings.

Ayoub used her laser and the autocannon as well, strafing the area in front of her as she spat out large-caliber bolts that made mincemeat of drones that failed to hug the ground and find sufficient cover. The laser would neatly slice through drones that were in the process of moving from one position to another as they continued advancing, dismembering them.

Alixa heard his rapid breathing in the confines of his helmet as he continued to feed the mech suit, sneaking glances at the PIP screen to keep tabs on the advancing drones. Thousands of them were already dead or dying, their legs twitching as random nerve impulses continued firing.

Drones continued pouring out of the ground, and another flight of F-202’s arrived, strafing the drones with 30mm HE rounds and dropping thermobaric bombs that guided themselves into the ground openings before exploding. It was absolute carnage, and Alixa could barely keep up with the reloads as Ayoub continued spitting death at the drones.

Almost as if she could read his mind, Ayoub activated the private channel between them. “Hey kid, nice job. Take a breather for a minute; I’ll use the laser and autocannon while you catch your breath.” Alixa grunted in appreciation and wearily sat on an empty ammo can, greedily sucking down water from the drinking tube near his mouth.

He practiced his combat breathing technique, slowly sipping more water before putting his mouth on the feeding tube and sucking on it, feeling the puree enter his mouth and savoring it before swallowing. The puree was chock full of vitamins, minerals, simple sugars, and mild stimulants to ward off fatigue during high-intensity combat.

Alixa loved it and didn’t understand why the humans hated it so much. They dismissed it as “baby food” and constantly bitched about it during field exercises. He sucked down a little more puree, peeking over the lip of the riverbed to look at the results of the drone charge.

The battlefield was littered with tens of thousands of drone corpses, and he wondered how much more they could send to the slaughter before running out. On other worlds, when they first started clearing operations, some Hives had hundreds of thousands, while others had millions.

Some Republic forces in the beginning were overrun when they ran out of ammunition, forced to fight hand-to-hand as they retreated, while others were barely able to hold out, suffering tremendous losses until reinforcements and resupply reached them and helped to stem the tide.

Ayoub’s voice came over his earbuds, telling him to get ready for another wave. He resumed his position behind her and started loading the mortars and the missile magazines, feeling energized from the puree and the short rest. He added a fresh belt to her autocannon and tapped on her helmet, letting her know that she was fully rearmed.

Another anti-grav sled silently appeared behind them, and he quickly pulled everything off it before loading it up with the empty magazines and ammo cans to declutter the area he was working in. He sent the sled on its way and returned to his station just in time to see the next wave emerging from the new openings that they made as they tunneled to the surface. This is going to be a long day, he thought to himself as Ayoub opened fire.

Orbital space

The Hive ship had finally reached orbit after transiting from the outer system, and Aurora was impatient to get down to the surface and take control of the remaining drones before they were all slaughtered by the ground forces.

The clearing operation was on a large moon orbiting the fifth planet, and it had just been finally terraformed by the animal rodents of the system when the Hive mother had destroyed their birth world with the asteroids Aurora had helped to turn into weapons.

An overwhelming sense of guilt washed over her, and she felt a strong desire to flee the system and never come back. She felt like she was desecrating the memory of the exterminated animals by being here, and she almost gave in to the impulse to order the Hive ship to leave when the Hive mother within reached out to her.

Aurora listened to the Hive mother and felt the truth of her thoughts. She thanked her for her wisdom and forced herself to focus on her task. She will remove the drones that were defiling the animal system, and she will let her daughters know what has happened here. She left the command chamber and headed to her transport ship, escorted by the machine animals that have been with her since she first started building her Hive.

She focused all her mental energy and reached her thoughts out to the planet below, feeling the minds of millions of drones on the moon as they responded to her powerful thoughts. She felt their barely conscious thoughts begging for orders from a queen once more, distraught at being abandoned and leaderless for so long.

She answered their pleas and put every effort into her thoughts as she sent them her first command.