Chapter 13: Factory Run

“The safehouse is down that way,” Miqi said, gesturing to a side alley that branched off the main street.

“Their scent trail continues up this road,” Bluejay replied, Xipa relaying his words back to Miqi. “They must have stopped off at the safehouse, then doubled back.”

“I still think we should check it out while we’re close,” she replied, signaling to the rest of her scouts. Xipa and her team followed as they took a short detour, traipsing through winding, overgrown backstreets until they arrived at another hidden lounge. This one was covered over by a simple camouflaged cloak that had been hung over the entrance to conceal it, Miqi pulling it aside like a curtain as she made her way inside. She emerged a short time later, hopping back up the short flight of steps.

“They were definitely here,” she announced, reaching up to adjust her cowl. “It looks like someone took some of the food and water, and the Hunter’s rifle has been hooked up to a feeding tube to await pickup. We have teams that visit each safehouse regularly to resupply it and take back any gear that was left there.”

“I have a question,” Bluejay said, raising a hand like he was in a classroom. “Supposing we find these guys, and they’re alive, what’s to stop them from shooting me in the face? I can’t exactly explain what’s going on if I don’t speak their language. Not to mention that Valbarans tend to be a little ... twitchy.”

Xipa relayed the question to Miqi, who gave him a flutter of amused lime.

“We Valbara’nay plan for everything, don’t you know?” she said as she reached beneath her cloak. She walked over to Bluejay and draped something around his neck like a pendant, then stepped back to reveal a laminated piece of card on a string. It was green – a color that the Valbara’nay associated with peace and calm – and the word friendly was written on it.

“What does it say?” Bluejay asked, lifting the card to take a look at the looping text. “If this says kick me, I’m defecting.”

“It says that you’re a friend,” Xipa replied, unable to stifle a chuckle. “I mean ... it’s not exactly an IFF tag, but I suppose it might make them hesitate.”

“I guess it’s better than nothing,” he muttered. “What’s the Valbaran phrase for don’t shoot?”

Xipa said the phrase, but her people’s speech was so fast and fluid that it hardly registered to him.

“Yeah, I’ll just go with the card,” he said as he turned back down the alley with an air of resignation. “Let’s get moving.”

They followed the scent trail back onto the overgrown street, scanning the trees for movement as they made their way towards an especially large building in the distance. It was long as well as tall, following the gentle curve of the city’s industrial band, red plant life spilling down from its roof where their seeds must have been carried on the wind. If Xipa had to guess, it had probably been a factory of some kind before the invasion.

“We just entered the district that Indigo was sent to survey,” Miqi announced. “This was the last place they were supposed to be.”

“I’m still following the same scent trail,” Bluejay added. “The second squad must have gotten at least this far.”

As they passed by a downed skimmer, the old aircraft’s hull draped with red vines, Bluejay signaled for them to stop.

“Picking something up,” he warned, his feathery antennae waving as they scented the air. “Bug pheromones, upwind of us.”

Xipa relayed his message to Miqi, who ordered her scouts to take cover with a quick feather signal, sending them diving into the foliage at the sides of the street. They wrapped their camouflaged cloaks around themselves, blending into the undergrowth. Xipa, Ruza, and Bluejay did the same, the camouflage patterning on their armor having a similar effect. Gustave made for the cover of the wrecked skimmer, which was the only object large enough to stand any chance of concealing his bulk, peeking out from behind the ring-shaped rotor guard. Xipa slapped her visor shut, and she noted that Bluejay was sliding on his helmet, probably anticipating that the survivors would make use of their pheromone grenades again.

After a couple of tense minutes, movement ahead drew Xipa’s eye, her HUD picking out half a dozen Drones as they marched through the knee-high carpet of shrubs and ferns. The natural coloration of their armor would have made them hard to spot if it wasn’t for her helmet’s systems outlining them in red. They were making their way out of a side alley, turning away now, heading in the direction of the factory. They were no different from the Drones that Xipa’s team had faced before. They carried plasma weapons, the many lenses on their helmets glinting as they scanned their surroundings for targets, the long antennae that sprouted from what looked like organic backpacks bobbing with each step.

Xipa’s first instinct was to coordinate an attack via her helmet radio, but she remembered what Miqi had told her. No radio, no ad-hoc, nothing that might emit a detectable signal. She glanced over at the scouts, watching as Miqi raised an arm, flashing a feather pattern. Her people began to slink through the bushes silently, finding better firing positions. The aliens got the picture, following after them, Xipa leaning around a tree trunk as she braced her XMR against her shoulder. She dialed down the voltage to its minimum setting. It would still be lethal at this range, but the noise shouldn’t carry quite as far. She glanced over at Miqi, who was crouched to her right near the open cockpit of the rusted aircraft, waiting for some kind of signal.

Still holding her Betelgeusian rifle steady in her hands, the sheath on Miqi’s forearm extended, her feathers flaring red. A barrage of plasma bolts streaked along the road as the scouts opened up, igniting the foliage where they passed too close, their green glow blinding in the shade of the canopy. The Drones were caught out in the open, taken by surprise, three of them falling to the cracked asphalt before the rest even had time to react. Xipa and her squad joined in, the crack of their XMRs echoing off the surrounding buildings. Xipa’s PDW barked, spewing tungsten at one of the Drones as it whirled around, the slugs tearing craters in its chest plate as it tried to lift its rifle. It jerked and twitched as the red-hot metal perforated it, pus-colored fluid leaking from the wounds as it slumped into the ferns. Another one was knocked clear off its feet by Ruza’s long rifle, sent spinning as the round impacted its shoulder, imparting enough kinetic energy to blow its upper arm clean off. Pieces of wet meat and sharp shell fragments rained as it fell, the confused Drone that was standing beside it soon following suit as a burning bolt of plasma hit it square in the face, the chitin sagging inward like melting plastic.

“Clear!” Miqi announced, stepping out of cover. She kept her gun trained on the bodies, perhaps anticipating that one of them might have survived long enough to return fire.

Xipa turned to look back at Gustave, seeing him emerge from behind the skimmer with his cannon in hand. He had wisely elected not to fire, as his weapon probably had no quiet mode.

“They were headed in the same direction we are,” Xipa said, making her way over to the fallen Drones. She turned one of them over with her clawed foot, giving it a swift prod with her tail to make sure it was dead. The scouts moved up to join her, a couple of them standing guard while the rest frisked the bodies for spare plasma canisters. They didn’t waste an opportunity to resupply, and Xipa got the impression that they would probably come back to claim the guns later.

“I never thought I’d say this, but I’m glad to have that insect of yours with us,” Miqi said as she knelt to retrieve a grenade from one of the dead Bugs. She examined it, turning it over in her gloved hand, then stowed it in a pouch on her belt. “If it hadn’t sniffed them out, this squad might have walked right into us.”

“We wouldn’t have been able to make it here without him,” Xipa replied. “It’s like having the power of prescience. We’re usually forewarned of any insect presence, as long as the wind is favorable.”

“We know which direction to approach from, then,” Miqi replied. “We’ll keep the wind to our front, just like when we’re hunting wild game. Those guns,” she added, glancing down at Xipa’s XMR. The coils were still hot enough to make the air around them shimmer. “What do they fire?”

“The ammunition is just a tungsten slug shaped into a point,” she replied, raising the weapon so that Miqi could get a better look at it. “It gets accelerated down the barrel by a magnetic field. Depending on the configuration, it can reach muzzle velocities of about two kilometers per second.”

“And, those have replaced lasers back on Valbara?”

“For the most part,” Xipa replied. “They take a little getting used to, but I’ve come to appreciate them.”

“Miqi, look,” one of the scouts said as she gestured to the factory ahead of them. Xipa followed where she was pointing, peering through the sparse canopy to see a glint of purple. She raised a hand, fiddling with the controls on the side of her helmet, increasing the magnification. Between the autumn leaves, she could make out the upper floor of the factory some two hundred meters up, lined with rows of broken windows. There was something hanging out of one of them, something that looked distinctly out of place. It was a tarp, purple in color, a hue that was associated with distress in Valbara’nay culture.

“I’m guessing that isn’t supposed to be there,” she mused.

“No,” Miqi replied, looking through the scope of her Bug rifle. “It’s not. That must be where the missing scouts are holed up.”

“You think maybe they got into a fight they couldn’t win and retreated to the higher floors?” Xipa asked. “Could they hold out for a whole day up there?”

“Maybe they managed to barricade themselves inside a room or something, somewhere they could create enough of a bottleneck to hold them off,” she replied with a flutter of purple that matched the tarp. “We need to get up there as soon as possible.”

“We need to approach carefully,” Xipa replied, recognizing the urgency in her voice. It was Miqi’s flock who were trapped up there – they might even be dead already – but they’d share the same fate if they rushed in guns blazing. “Trust me, I know how you must feel, but we won’t be coming to anyone’s rescue if we’re dead.”

“You’re right, you’re right,” she grumbled as she gritted her sharp teeth in frustration. “We need to get closer, evaluate the situation before we commit. The squad of Drones that we just put down probably had the same idea, and more might be on their way. If Indigo or Cyan were forced to give ground, that would have given their opponents ample time to call in their location. Every mealworm in the city could be on their way here.”

“Then we shall move swiftly, but cautiously,” Xipa added with a flash of green that was intended to reassure. Miqi looked no less tense, but she gave a flutter of agreement, then waved her people on.

“Am I to gather that our missing Valbarans are holed up in that big building?” Bluejay asked as soon as he could get a word in. “You guys are doing a lot of pointing.”

Ruza matched pace with them as they began to move off, Gustave lumbering up to Xipa’s side, the asphalt shaking beneath his feet with each step.

“That tarp on the upper floor is a distress signal,” she explained. “It’s looking like Cyan might have been trapped up there. Maybe there are some survivors from Indigo, but I’m not overly optimistic since the rescuers are now in need of rescuing.”

“Want me to fly up and take a look?” Bluejay asked, the wing casings on his back twitching in anticipation. “Maybe I could get a view through the windows from the building across the street.”

“No, I want you on the ground,” Xipa replied. “We need your antennae, and if there are still Bugs in the area, they’ll shoot you out of the sky. Not to mention that the Valbara’nay might do the same if they spot you peeking through their windows.”

“You’re the boss,” he replied, giving her a thumbs-up with one of his lower hands.

“We’re going to scope out the building and try to get an idea of what we’re dealing with,” she continued, skirting around the husk of an abandoned car. “In all likelihood, this is going to devolve into a close-quarters fight, so be ready.”

“Nothing like a little urban combat to spice up your day,” Bluejay grumbled, checking his magazine.

They proceeded carefully, sticking to cover as they kept watch for more Drones, slinking around the base of a building that was just across the street from the factory. They entered through a rear door, making their way through the mushroom-filled, empty rooms until they reached the second floor. From there, they examined their target through the broken windows, the elevation giving them a decent view of the street below. Xipa made use of her helmet’s advanced functions, thermal imagining letting her see through the foliage, her HUD picking out targets and marking them.

“I count eighteen at street level,” she said. “Bluejay?”

“Confirmed,” he replied as he peeked around the frame of the broken window. “There may be more around the other side, but they’d have to go all the way around the building to get to us. Or through it, I dunno. How long do you reckon it is, maybe six hundred meters?”

“They appear to be guarding the entrances,” Ruza added. “They are split into three groups, one at each of those doors.”

Xipa could see the doors that he was talking about. There were two large entrances that looked like they led into lobbies, as well as a much bigger door that probably led into a loading bay for trucks. It looked like it had been jammed shut for decades, but there were still Drones posted beside it. Seeing the things at rest was almost stranger than seeing them in a fight. They were twitchy, their heads turning back and forth with unnatural, jerky movements as they scanned the area for targets. There was no interaction between them, no idle chatter – they didn’t even hold their rifles in a resting position. Their level of alertness and readiness must be dialed to one hundred percent at all times.

“They’re guarding the building,” Miqi muttered, watching them through her scope. “There would be no need for guards if there was nobody left alive inside.”

“We can’t do this quietly,” Xipa replied, shifting her view to another of the squads. They were milling about near a pair of grimy glass doors, peering about with their weapons raised as though they expected an assault at any moment. Was that logic or instinct? Did they expect a rescue attempt, or were they always this wired? “We’ll need to hit all three squads at the same time. Do you still have some of those pheromone grenades?”

“Plenty,” Miqi growled, pulling back her cloak to reveal a bandoleer of the things. “These have a payload potent enough to make any insect in range completely uncoordinated for at least a couple of minutes. It’s enough of a window to take them down without them being able to call for help. The trick will be hitting all three squads at once.”

“We could spread out along this floor,” one of the scouts suggested. “We’d have a good view of the furthest targets to the right from the far corner of this building.”

“It’s going to be loud,” Xipa added. “Every Bug in the district is gonna hear us.”

“We’ll have to move quickly,” Miqi said. “We take out the guards, then move inside and clear the interior as we go.”

“We have no idea how to reach the upper floors,” one of the scouts protested, her voice muffled by her gas mask. “The state of the building is unknown. Mag-elevator shafts could be blocked, staircases could have collapsed, entire floors could have fallen through.”

“There’s no choice but to improvise,” Miqi replied with a grumble of disapproval. “I hate going in without a plan, but what else can we do?”

“Let my people handle it,” Xipa said, her enthusiasm seeming to surprise Miqi. “They can adapt to new situations like you wouldn’t believe. Follow their lead in lieu of following a plan.”

“What?” the scout scoffed, but Miqi raised a hand to silence her.

“Alright,” she said. “We’ll do it your way, but only because there isn’t time to come up with a better solution.”

“Have your people take the right side, and we’ll take the left.”

“What about the middle?” Miqi asked, cocking her head.

“If we’re going loud, we might as well go loud,” Xipa replied with a grin. “Gustave,” she said, transitioning back to English. “Find a window where you can get a clear view of that garage door and open fire as soon as you see Miqi’s grenades go off. Bluejay, Ruza, we’re taking the squad on the left.”

Gustave made a low rumble of affirmation, hefting his cannon as he began to lumber away. Fortunately, the industrial nature of the building meant that the doors were large enough for him to get through, but the floor shook worryingly with each heavy step.

“That one can handle a whole squad of Drones on his own?” Miqi asked as she turned her head to watch him leave.

“You’re about to find out,” Xipa replied, dialing up the voltage on her rifle. “Are we clear to use comms now? My squad functions more effectively if we can share information in real-time.”

“I suppose it doesn’t matter if we’re abandoning the stealthy approach,” Miqi replied. She reached below her cloak, producing one of the grenades, then handed it to Xipa. “It’s a modified gas grenade,” she explained as Xipa examined it. The device was of Bug origin, that was clear from the resin casing and the organic primer – what looked like a little blob of mucous that sat on top of it. It was spherical in shape, just large enough to fill her hand. “The insects deploy them with chemical payloads – usually toxic gasses – but we’ve been able to tweak the system to disperse aerosolized pheromones. Just squish the blob, and throw.”

“Where do you get the pheromones?” Xipa wondered.

“From pheromone glands,” she replied. “Where else? We’ll hit the right squad. You hit the others when you see us make our move.”

She waved for her scouts to follow her, and they slunk off into the building, keeping clear of the windows. Xipa relayed the plan to Bluejay and Ruza, and they followed her over to the left corner of the building, where they took up position. Their targets were standing in front of a pair of glass doors that had been rendered opaque by grime, the Bugs at once eerily still and restless.

“Wait for Miqi’s signal,” she whispered, readying the grenade. Bluejay put his shoulder to the wall beside one of the empty frames, securing his odd, two-piece helmet while Ruza flanked him. After a few tense moments, there was a popping sound from outside, followed by the telltale hiss of releasing gas.

Xipa moved to the window, pressing her thumb down on the squishy button as she went, then tossed the grenade into the street below. It sailed through the sparse canopy, then bounced off one of the glass doors with a clang, rolling to a stop in the ferns. The Bugs reacted quickly, but not quickly enough, an obscuring shroud of smoke engulfing the squad. Xipa could see through it easily with her thermal optics, their figures writhing, clawing at their helmets as the pheromones assailed their senses.

The trio opened up, firing out of the windows, their slugs shredding leaves and branches as they tore through the trees. The Drones were in no position to take cover, the rounds dismembering them where they stood, the kinetic energy enough to blow fist-sized chunks out of them. They were thrown to the ground with the force of a sledgehammer, the stray projectiles digging craters in the carbcrete, shattering the glass doors.

To their right, Xipa heard the roar of Gustave’s cannon, a stream of molten slugs spewing from the building in an almost unbroken line. The hail of projectiles punched through the swirling gas, the garage door behind the unfortunate Drones appearing to disintegrate as the tungsten chewed through it. Puffs of white dust joined the smoke as the projectiles blasted through the surrounding carbcrete, fragments of asphalt whizzing through the air, Gustave saturating the area with fire. One of the Bugs was bisected, tossed back against the door, its companions toppling all around it. The reptile swept his weapon back and forth like a fire hose, only relenting when there was nothing left but a pile of quivering meat. There was a creak, then a loud cracking sound, a tree that had gotten in his way toppling into the road.

Further to the right, glowing bolts of emerald plasma were pounding the final squad of Drones, starting small fires where they came into contact with the foliage. As the breeze slowly carried away the clouds of pheromones, Xipa saw that they were all dead, their carapaces blackened and melted.

“That’s all of them,” Xipa said, slamming a fresh mag into her XMR. She stepped away from the window, heading for the stairs behind them. “Let’s get moving before reinforcements show up.”

Miqi and her scouts came hurrying to join them, Gustave lumbering along behind them.

“We’ll go in through the door on the left,” Miqi said, taking the stairs two steps at a time. “Be ready. There’s no telling how many more of them might be inside.”

They covered each other as they rushed out into the street, heading for the relative safety of the factory. The doors had already been shot to pieces, fragments of shattered glass crunching underfoot as they made their way past the ruined bodies of the Drones, their ichor staining the ferns. The scouts fanned out into the lobby, finding it not so different from the one where they had encountered the dead Hunter. There was a large desk in the center of the room, the wood splintered and perforated by stray slugs, the potted plants that had once adorned the room having long since desiccated. The damp carpet was now home to colonies of fungi, and some of the panels on the ceiling had fallen to the floor, exposing rusted pipes and old wiring. The company’s logo was still emblazoned on the wall behind the desk, the name no longer legible, as it was missing too many letters. To the back of the lobby were a pair of elevator shafts, and there were corridors branching off the room to the left and right.

Miqi cursed loudly as she noticed the body that was slumped limply against the far wall. It was a Valbara’nay, her tattered clothes singed by plasma weapons, the tiles around her melted where the bolts had missed their mark. There had been a shootout here, or maybe an execution...

She hurried over to the unidentified woman, crouching beside her to pull off her mask. Xipa wanted to ask if it was someone she knew, but in such a tight-knit community, there wouldn’t be anyone she wasn’t familiar with.

“Indigo team,” she announced, taking a step back. “It’s Chotli.”

Ruza strode over to the body, giving it a cursory examination. There was no need to pronounce her dead, it was obvious to everyone that she had passed on. At least Miqi had been spared the pain of finding a dead flockmate, but who knew what had happened to Cyan and the rest of Indigo.

“They would never have left her body like this if they weren’t under fire,” one of the scouts said. “We don’t let them take people away. We have standing orders to burn anyone we can’t carry back.”

“The elevators are blocked,” another said, leaning into one of the shafts and shining her flashlight up into the darkness. “They must have taken the stairs.”

“The signal was on the right wing of the factory,” Xipa said, nodding down the hallway that branched off the lobby. “Bluejay,” she added, switching back to English. “What do you smell?”

He popped open the little panels on his helmet, uncurling his long antennae, then scented the air for a moment.

“I smell ozone, burnt flesh, and Bugs,” he replied. “I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to differentiate the direction in an enclosed space like this.”

“Keep your antennae stowed, then,” she replied. “Gustave,” she added, turning to the towering Krell’nay. “We’re going to need someone to stay behind and make sure none of them follow us into the building. Can you cover the lobby? I’m not sure that those stairs will even be able to handle your weight.”

He hefted his massive cannon, rotating the three barrels with his scaly hand, the mechanism making an ominous clicking sound.

“I will dam the river. Go. Complete the broken circle.”

She gave him an appreciative nod, then turned towards the hallway.

“Gustave will stay behind to cover our rear,” she explained. “Let’s go.”

The reptile lumbered over to the crescent-shaped front desk and took up position behind it, leveling his rifle, the rest of the team heading off down the corridor. This place was in the same state as all the other buildings in the city. There was water damage everywhere, covering the carpets in mold and staining the walls, bundles of exposed wiring hanging from gaps in the ceiling. A thick layer of dust coated every surface, making Xipa glad of the air filters in her helmet. Fungi abounded, making it feel more like they were venturing into some kind of dingy cave than a building that had once been inhabited. They flourished in the damp and the dark, their colorful caps rising from the carpet in clusters, taller spires skirting the ceiling in places. She could see where some of them had been disturbed, leaving smashed and broken mushrooms, some of them crushed underfoot.

They passed an open door, a couple of the scouts dipping inside for a moment to check that it was clear. As Xipa made her way past, she noted that it was some kind of conference room, a long table surrounded by chairs dominating the space. The floor above it had partially collapsed, burying a lot of the once lavish furnishings under a pile of rubble.

“This way,” Miqi said, rounding a bend in the corridor. “At least it’s easy to tell where they went,” she added, gesturing to the footprints in the dust and grime. “This place probably hasn’t been disturbed since the invasion.”

They soon came upon the stairwell, a long, square staircase spiraling up through the higher floors. Sunlight flooded in from high above, suggesting that the roof had given way at some point, and crimson vines spilled down over the banisters. The ground floor here was flooded, the grey water reaching ankle height, a steady drip falling from above.

“Guess we’re going up,” Ruza grumbled, his paws splashing in the shallow water as he made for the first step. Xipa had been right – Gustave wouldn’t even have been able to get up them. They were almost too narrow for Ruza.

They mounted the stairs, climbing them two by two, the tall feline leading the way. As they neared the second floor, they came across another body that was slumped on the landing. It was a Drone, its carapace pocked with nasty burns, and there was a second one just behind it. Plasma fire had burned holes clear through the wall behind them where it had gone wide, evidence of a short and brutal engagement,

“Two bodies,” Bluejay muttered, pausing to examine the nearest. “The Bugs here work in teams of six. Where are the other four?”

“The footprints continue up the stairs,” Miqi said, crouching to examine them. “They were pursued. Look, there are more plasma burns on the wall further up.”

She hurried along, everyone else following behind her. Bluejay walked backwards, keeping an eye on the corridor to their rear, steadying himself on the overgrown banister with one of his lower hands. After two more floors, they encountered a blockage. A huge chunk of carbcrete had fallen from above, plunging through the staircases on the higher floors, severing them completely. It had embedded itself on the landing ahead of them, broken pieces of rebar jutting from it like broken bones.

“I guess they didn’t come through here,” Xipa mused, trying to lean over the twisted banister to get a look around the obstacle.

“They must have taken a left off this landing and made their way higher using another stairwell,” Miqi grumbled, leading them down another corridor. “Come on, there’s no time to waste!”

The short hallway soon opened up into a large space, big enough that it spanned the building, a cold wind flooding in through the broken windows that lined the walls to their left and right. It was a factory floor, rows of vaguely cube-shaped industrial machines stacked end to end, breaking up the lines of sight. There were colored markings painted on the floor to show where the workers could safely walk, now faded and chipped, broken light strips dangling from the high ceiling. Support pillars were spaced out at intervals, probably the only thing keeping the place from caving in on itself.

“What the hell are these?” Bluejay wondered, sweeping his rifle around the room as they made their way inside. “Some of these look like ... giant microwaves.”

“Looks like an old manufacturing center,” Xipa replied, pausing by one of the machines. Like everything else, it was caked in dust, but the old markings and company logos on the chassis were clearly legible. It was almost as large as a car, big enough that a whole flock could probably have stood inside it. A long-dead touch interface was mounted beside the window that occupied its front face, and through the foggy aperture, she could make out the print bed and the laser on its mechanical arm. “These are printers,” she explained. “They’d be filled with argon gas, then a layer of metal dust would be extruded onto the print bed, which would then be fused with a high-powered laser. Those smaller ones over there are old polymer printers. They would have made things like home appliances and furniture here.”