Chapter 3,
Hive Negotiations
Sadie found herself outside with the community elders, mining management, and the head of security forces. Why had grandma told everyone to leave? Wasn’t Louis here to help them with the bugs? Why wouldn’t she include everyone else? It wasn’t Sadie’s place to ask, but it still bothered her. The women around her were talking in hushed whispers about Louis. Except for Lure, Lure never talked quietly.
“That’s supposed to be our great hero?” The security forces woman was clearly not impressed. Lure was enormous compared to most people on the reservation. She was all lean muscle covered in scars, including four lines across her scalp which she didn’t try and hide. She’d been a miner once who’d stumbled into bug territory. Instead of being traumatized after her survival, she simply demanded revenge and joined security. “Please tell me he’s got an army or a mech suit.”
“No,” said Sadie, realizing all eyes had turned to her. “He came alone.”
“Does he have some fancy gear somewhere?” Lure was already looking past her, trying to locate an unfamiliar bag or case. Sadie shook her head again. “Then what is he supposed to do?”
“Maybe he’s a contact for the Last Bastion,” suggested one of the managers.
“Fat load that’ll do us. If they’re not in system, it’d take at least a week for the message to go out, at least a week to get here, if not longer, and then how are we going to pay them? We’re better off going to the damned ursa.”
“Grandma Snibbs said he was special,” offered another.
“He doesn’t look special.”
“He has gold hair,” said Sadie and all the attention went back to her. “Green eyes too. He got tired of us staring at him and on the elevator his hair and eyes just,” she lifted her hair with one hand and let it drop, “changed.”
“How?” asked someone.
“Cybernetics?” guessed Lure.
The doors opened and Louis stepped out. He looked furious and Sadie froze as he approached, everyone else unconsciously backing away from her. “Hole forty-three. How do I get there?”
“You planning on going on a bug hunt?” asked Lure. Louis nodded.
“Give me a flechette cannon. Did the bugs secure the hole?”
“They did.” Lure’s expression said she wasn’t giving up her cannon, but started to lead them away from the group and into the mine. “We’ve got our fire team pretty far back from the hole.”
“Are there any other ways the bugs can get in?”
“Not that they’ve shown us.”
“If I stir up trouble, can you seal the tunnel? It’s no good for me if I push in toward their queen and all of you die here.”
“I could hold that hole for a year and we’ve got grenades in case I’m wrong.”
“You’re wrong.” Lure racked her flechette cannon in offense, but Louis didn’t sound like he was being mean. He spoke with the plain surety of a man who knew what was about to happen. “Grenades are a temporary solution, but a swarm will pull the debris away so fast you’ll either run out or they’ll start slipping through. You’d need enough explosives to collapse the tunnel that it would take you a month to get through with machines.”
“What about cryofoam?” asked Sadie. Louis and Lure both looked back, surprised to learn she was still with them.
“You have enough cryofoam to seal a tunnel?” Sadie looked at one of the miners who shrugged in confirmation.
“Sure. We could spray the walls and work our way in.”
“A few feet of foam and they’d need a bomb to get through once it seals,” agreed Lure, wondering why she hadn’t thought of that. “It’s toxic as hell so the bugs can’t even eat it.”
“Get it ready. Once I go in you won’t have long,” said Louis. “Take Sadie with you. Keep her and grandma alive at all costs.” Sadie didn’t have time to wonder about that statement as a few miners pulled her away, eager to help the strange man. Louis eyed Lure. “I’m serious. If they die this will have been a waste of my time and I will not be pleased.”
“What has she got on you?” asked Lure, suspiciously.
“She knows where a friend is.”
It wasn’t far to a large tunnel where people were still bagging the remains of the battle. Louis noted the smell of blood and bile alongside the vomit of the cleanup team. Burnt metal from the desperate shots of security standing their ground lingered in the air. The smell of the bugs was the worst. On a good day, bugs smell like a dead crab left out in the sun, its carcass so bloated its shell is about to pop off. The dead, with their red and tan splattered innards sprayed across the rock, smelled like a rat dragged through the sewer before immediately being thrown on a barbeque.
The narrow tunnel the bugs had emerged and retreated down was obvious from the stampeding tracks. The living and the dead had been dragged away to be consumed, another pound of meat in the collective fold. There were always too many mouths to feed and never enough food. It was surprising they’d been placed so close to the reservation and never seriously invaded yet. The ursa probably found it acceptable as long as the bugs only took a few at a time. Humans worried about becoming bug food are less likely to complain about their protective masters.
“Here.” Lure handed him a flechette cannon from a nearby crate. It was a short, fat thing, with eight rotating barrels inside and a large magazine underneath. He guessed it had an effective range of maybe ten meters. A high tech shotgun with a hundred times the killing power and half the recoil. It was a piece of garbage but king in tunnel warfare. Even an ursa would find its insides liquefied after being hit by one of these. “How many magazines do you need?”
“Give me five.” He took a blood soaked bandolier off an equipment pile and Lure found him five magazines.
“Ten shots per magazine,” she reminded him. “Even if you get a guaranteed kill with every shot, that’s only fifty. Bet you the reservation there’s a hell of a lot more than fifty in there.”
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“Hives aren’t as big as you think.” Louis inspected the cannon before loading it. “Raknath only appear endless because of how they move and they like to reclaim their dead. There are maybe a few thousand in there.” He headed toward the tunnel the bugs had come from. “Bugs are bad in protracted wars because they’ll have new soldiers ready in a couple of months while you need the next fifteen years.”
Lure didn’t know how to respond so she just scowled. Even if he was right, a few thousand bugs were still more than fifty shots. There was no way he was killing a royal with just one shot.
White shale crunched loudly under their boots as they walked. This tunnel was newly excavated and there was no proper road yet. Lights were stringed along the ceiling in a haphazard fashion, shaking and casting long shadows as they passed. The smell of the dead and dying was stronger here. If Lure focused on the ground, she could see the clawed lines where people struggled not to be taken. It felt like their screams were still there in the bloody lines. She kept her eyes and cannon up. They were in a bug tunnel and she couldn’t afford to get distracted.
“This is officer Lure and friend,” she sang loudly, addressing the lights up ahead. “We are coming toward your position. Jingle jangle, coming on down.”
“Ringle dingle, come on forward,” sang a voice back to them.
“Bugs have a hard time pronouncing G’s and singing,” she answered, expecting Louis’s question. That made sense to him. Bugs could speak, but only had a rudimentary grasp of human language. What they were good at was mimicking voices so they could trick people into coming to them.
Ahead was a small fire team of six people, all armed with flechette cannons and grenades. Two men and two women kept the cannons pointed down the tunnel at all times while the other two women waited for Lure to speak. They were behind metal barricades that had been brought in.
“Where’s the breach?” asked Louis.
“Who are you?” asked one of the women.
“Help,” said Lure. She still didn’t know how, but if he wanted to kill some bugs, good for him. “Where’s the breach?”
“Just ahead. They must’ve tunneled right over the bugs because the floor slid away.”
“Why aren’t you covering there?”
“Too big of an exit. We couldn’t cover it all.”
“Fair. What’s the plan, big man?”
“I’m going to go have a polite conversation.” Louis held the cannon in one hand like it was his luggage, hand nowhere near the trigger. “If you hear shooting, start hosing the tunnel down with cryofoam. I’ll find my own way back.”
“Your plan with a race of murderous bugs is diplomacy?” asked Lure incredulously. “That’s suicide.”
“Other species negotiate with bugs all the time. Humans are generally just too small to be taken seriously. You just have to scare them a little.”
“This I’ve got to see.”
“That’s fine.” Louis stepped past the barricades. “You’re not one of the people I have to keep alive.”
The guards watched him walk nonchalantly down the hall as if it were the way to dinner. “Are you sure about this?” asked one of them.
“Not at all, but damn am I intrigued.” Lure pushed between the gaps in the barricade and jogged after him. As her women had described, the floor suddenly dropped away in a landslide. The light was muted in the hole with only hints of blue.
“I’m coming in bugs,” declared Louis. “I’m not here for a fight, I want to speak to an ambassador. AM-BASS-A-DOR.” He let the words echo in the tunnel before waving for Lure to take a step back. He slid down the gravel ramp and a bug immediately rushed to meet him at the bottom. Lure didn’t have a shot without Louis getting at least half the shrapnel. Louis for his part, used his fat cannon like a club and swatted the bug. On the ground, it tried to coil around him only to be whacked on the head again. Louis placed the fat muzzle against its chest. “Ambassador.” He gave it a kick strong enough to send it rolling before leveling the weapon on what had to be more bugs out of Lure’s line of sight. “You heard me. Go.” The bugs must’ve backed away because Louis lowered the cannon and waited.
Nothing happened for nearly ten minutes. Lure looked over her shoulder as she heard a vehicle approaching and saw two miners prepping hoses for the foam. In an impressive show of bravery, Sadie came down the tunnel to join her. Making a mental note that the girl might do well in security, Lure pointed down to where Louis was still waiting. Sadie didn’t say anything. The look on her face said she was still in shock, but seemed unsurprised the man was still alive.
“Get ready to run up there,” said Louis, straightening. Unable to see, Lure took a knee and covered the entryway. Sadie joined her and a second later, Lure was ready to drag them out before the slaughter started.
Ten bugs emerged from the tunnel, clinging to the walls and staying far from the stranger. They were followed by an enormous bug that Lure had never seen before, but had heard plenty of stories about. Its four feet crushed through the gravel loudly with its two secondary feet pushing against the walls of the too small tunnel. Its arms were like fuel drums ending in three armored points that could pull at a tank, but they were clasped together like hands. Its clay colored armor was thicker with heavy edges that helped protect vulnerable joints. Out of the tunnel, it extended its curved body to tower well above the tiny human. It was easily three meters tall, maybe more, and must’ve weighed as much as a truck. It was a royal, one of the personal guards to the queen herself.
“You are trespassing.” Its speech was frighteningly good. If not for the subtle clicking in the background, they might have thought it was a human male.
“This reservation did not mean to trespass,” said Louis, like talking giant superbugs was an everyday occurrence. “You killed their people, took many more.”
“Invasion has its consequences.”
“It does. I’ve come to broker a peace.”
“Then speak.”
“The reservation will seal this hole and not disturb the hive. We will forgive the deaths you have caused. It was a battle, raknath and human lives were both lost.” Lure didn’t know what a raknath was, but it pleased the bug. It bowed its head in reverence and held out its hands.
“Most terrible.”
“But you must return the living you stole.” The bug’s relaxed pose flinched and its head rose to a more intimidating posture. Even from up above, they could see its teeth were larger and serrated. It took Lure a moment to realize in the faded light there was more than one row of teeth.
“No.”
“They did not have a part in this. They must be allowed to go free.”
“No.”
“The reservation nor their masters will approve of this. You would risk war for so little?” The bug tapped its fingers, apparently thinking.
“The masters will not accept this war. If the humans invade, we will defend our hive.”
“But you stole from the reservation.”
“After they invaded.”
“I’m not here for politics.” Louis approached, still holding his weapon in a nonthreatening way. He stood directly under the royal’s long head and within easy grabbing distance. “Return the living or I will seek an audience with your queen.”
“No.”
“Then I must speak with the queen.”
“You are a bold morsel.” The royal leaned down with an open mouth so close Louis’s head could disappear inside it at any second.
In a move too fast for bug or human eyes, Louis grabbed its armored head and yanked it to the floor. Lure wasn’t about to wait and see who won. She dragged Sadie away by the collar while calling for foam. Gunfire erupted in the tunnel below them. Two men in heavy gas masks were waiting with hoses, but wouldn’t start until they passed. The foam was dangerous to inhale, lethal in large doses. Lure shouted at them to start spraying and don’t stop. She could live with possible lung damage. She couldn’t survive being digested.
Sadie understood it was time to run and Lure let go of her, reminding her to hold her breath as the blue foam started to coat the walls. Sprinkles of the cryofoam grazed her jacket and pants and it felt like she was back outside, everything instantly freezing under its touch. They ducked between the two men who were caking the foam toward the center, creating a congealed wall of blue slime mixed with rock. Sadie made to stop but Lure pushed her forward. The minty smell in the air said they were still too close. It wasn’t until they were much further down the tunnel did she give a loud gasp as a sign that it was safe again.
“Stupid…stupid man.” Lure took another deep breath. “He just killed us all.”
“He’s alive,” said Sadie.
“How?”
Now that they’d stopped running they could hear the booming in the tunnel. It was muted through the foam wall, but they could feel the vibrations through the floor. The constant fire of a flechette cannon and the rapid fire of something they hadn’t seen. Lure listened with a patient ear accustomed to the sound of gunfire in the underground.
“Who the hell is this guy?