Chapter 8: Hell’s Highway

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?”

“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.