Chapter 8: Big Blue

Vos watched the helmet cam footage play through the floating holographic display, the view shaking back and forth as its wearer ran through what looked like a tropical jungle. There was a battle going on all around him – projectiles whizzing through the air, slugs leaving molten trails as they cut through the foliage. Even through the speakers, the sound was constant and deafening. The blooms of explosions lit up the blurry surroundings, Vos catching brief glimpses of the SWAR team as they moved, lit by the flames. There were Marines, too, along with Kodiaks and IFVs that were advancing alongside them. The tanks crushed the trees in their path, their tracks churning up the undergrowth, their gun pods spewing tracer rounds.

Something massive emerged from the palm fronds to their right, leveling a rifle the size of an AA gun. It was a Supermajor, nine or ten feet tall, and heavily armored. The alien fired off a trio of shots in quick succession, punching a series of holes into one of the IFVs, bright sparks spraying from the near side of the hull. One of the rounds passed straight through, hitting a Marine who had been marching along beside it, turning him into a red paste. The vehicle ground to a stop, its blister going silent, the rest of the Marines scattering for cover.

The SWAR team rallied quickly, diving behind the damaged Puma, coordinating their railgun fire as they leaned around the perforated vehicle. A hail of XMR fire lit the creature up, the hypervelocity projectiles splintering its hard carapace just as they did the trunks of the nearby trees. The Supermajor weathered the blows, shuddering with each impact, viscous ichor leaking from the craters in its torso. It ran out of cover with a loping stride, another burst from its heavy rifle narrowly missing one of the men, throwing up a torrent of soil where the rounds impacted the ground only a scant meter away from him. As it neared the disabled IFV, it leapt up on top of it, the vehicle’s suspension sagging under its weight. It raised a chitin war hammer in its lower arms, preparing to swing it at the SWAR team below like a giant golf club, but a sudden crack rang out. The alien was torn in half, lifted clear of its perch, its ruined body sent tumbling into the ferns. The camera view spun around, revealing a Kodiak tank, its turret already turning to face a new target as it trundled past.

“Keep moving!” a distorted voice came through on the comms. “We got the fucker pinned at the shoreline! Drive the cunts into the fucking lake!”

“Go, go!” the cameraman yelled as he waved his team on with a prosthetic arm. The remaining Marines followed, running along beside them, another tank roaring past to their right.

They raced through the dense jungle, the sound of heavy breathing and gunfire all that Vos could hear as he watched. The SWAR team had been at the tip of the spear during the battle, leading the armored company towards their objective.

As they advanced, Vos saw a Scuttler that was lying on its side in the undergrowth, a collapsed tree draped over its red and orange carapace. The alien tank looked like a giant crab, its eight legs curled up against its belly in the manner of a dead spider. Its hull had been torn open, spilling guts and machinery all over the forest floor by what must have been armor-piercing shells from the Kodiaks. It had a missile system on its back, the organic eyes that served as its guidance system still tracking nearby targets with a mind of their own. There was a squad of Drones nearby, too, their broken bodies lying in the ferns alongside one Marine who was missing most of his torso.

The cameraman glanced up to see a Penguin gunship soar low over the treetops, the backwash from its engines tearing at the sparse canopy. It engaged its ventral thrusters, lifting its nose in a jarring aerobraking maneuver, shedding enough velocity that it could settle into a hover. It swung around to face some unseen target, the gun mounted beneath its nose spewing a bright trail of shells. Hatches along its hull popped open to reveal racks of missiles, the projectiles streaking out, leaving plumes of white smoke as they raced towards the ground. The explosions were close enough to shake the nearby trees, blast waves whipping at the undergrowth as the SWAR team pressed on.

“They’ve got no AA!” one of the team members announced over the radio. “Charlie company just put down their last emplacement!”

“Golf is calling in arty,” another of them added, ducking reflexively as the hovering gunship spewed another stream of rounds. “Echo and Bravo are flanking to the North and South to box them in on the beach. If Big Blue wants to get off this island, he’s gonna have to swim.”

“Tell ‘em to watch for Warriors and Supers,” the cameraman warned, pausing to reload his rifle. “They’re gonna pull out all the stops to protect the VIP.”

Above their heads, the gunship released a cloud of flares, the glowing points of light hanging over the forest as they slowly fell towards the ground. Through the smoke, Vos could see it peeling away, presumably because something was firing on it from below.

“Is that footage from the operation?” a voice asked, Vos turning around to see that Captain Fielding had entered the carrier’s observation deck. He made his way over to stand beside the admiral as the red forests of Kerguela rolled past beneath their feet, handing him a steaming cup of coffee.

“Indeed,” Vos replied, pausing the playback with a gesture. “I’m reviewing the footage to see if I can glean any information about the tactics these things use.”

“And for the catharsis of seeing a King get turned to Swiss cheese,” Fielding added, taking a sip of his drink.

“Maybe a little,” Vos admitted.

“The corpse was put on ice and transferred to the Pithia-class survey vessel that was called in, as per your orders,” Fielding explained. “UNNI is assisting with the dissection, and the Jarilans sent over some medics who should be able to help us make sense of its ... inner workings. What exactly are we looking for, anyway? They seem rather susceptible to tungsten.”

“Anything that could give us an edge,” Vos replied. With a wave of his gloved hand, the footage resumed playing, the momentarily peaceful observation deck filled with the muffled sounds of shouting and gunfire once again.

He watched as the SWAR team advanced on the feed, heading towards the rising explosions in the distance.

“Two o’clock!” someone shouted, the camera view turning to see a squad of Drones come marching through the undergrowth. They released a volley of plasma fire from their rifles, crackling bolts of green energy igniting the ferns and shrubs as they passed them by. One of the Marines was caught out in the open, the hail of plasma melting through his ceramic armor, sending his smoking corpse toppling backwards into the undergrowth. The squad took the Bugs apart as they returned fire, the curving trunks of the tropical trees providing them with little cover, slugs chewing through wood and chitin alike.

More of them were coming, their camouflaged carapaces making them hard to pick out in the reds and browns of the forest, the many lenses that covered their helmets reflecting the emerald glow of their guns as they fired.

“Firebug!” someone warned, a stream of green flames spewing out into the forest. It ignited everything that it touched, what looked like chemical fuel clinging to the trunks of the trees, coating the ferns in burning fluid. As the air cleared for a moment, Vos got a better look at the creature. It was a Drone wearing a helmet that almost looked like a gas mask, a long, segmented tube descending from where its mandibles should have been. It had a pair of glittering, compound eyes that reminded him of a housefly. On its back was a large tank, connected to an organic weapon via fleshy, snaking cables.

As its companions covered its advance with a volley of plasma fire, it ejected another torrent of flaming chemicals to flush the enemy out of cover, this one finding its mark. A Marine flailed and screamed as he was coated in the substance, stumbling through the ferns like a human torch.

A nearby SWAR operative was splashed with the stuff, the burning fuel coating his arm as he raised it to protect himself reflexively. He felt no pain through his prosthetic, raising his XMR even as the flaming substance peeled away the sleeve of his pressure suit to expose the skeletal machinery beneath. He fired in full-auto, the railgun kicking against his shoulder, chewing through the Firebug. One of the rounds pierced the tank on its back, and it exploded in a brilliant ball of green fire, engulfing several of the nearby Drones.

As the man marched past the burning Marine, he turned the rifle on him, putting a round through his helmet. The two observers winced, Vos lowering his coffee mug from his lips, Fielding averting his eyes for a moment. The fact that it was a video recording did little to detract from the intensity of the violence.

They marched on, passing a smoldering Kodiak with a hole the size of a basketball melted in its side armor, a dead Supermajor slumped over its hull. There was a dead Scuttler nearby – the organic tank collapsed on the forest floor, its carapace blown open by what looked like a fuel explosion. The ground here was cratered with artillery shells, turning the pristine woodland into a moonscape, scattering the trees like popsicle sticks. Vos saw more destroyed vehicles and the remnants of dead Bugs as they advanced, torn apart by artillery fire and gunships.

“The place is a scrapyard,” Fielding muttered, taking a sip of his coffee as he watched the video. “How many vehicles do you reckon were in the King’s entourage?”

“More like a boneyard,” Vos added. “They probably pulled in all of the available resources on the island to protect him once the chemical plant fell. There’s enough there to match an armored company, at least. Probably a lot more that we’re not seeing.”

“Charlie has eyes on the VIP!” one of the men announced, the squad altering their course through the forest. They fell in beside an IFV that was driving alongside its squad of Marines, the troop carrier’s eight wheels struggling through the cratered terrain.

Ahead of them, the trees began to thin, giving way to a band of white sand. The pristine beach was stained with alien ichor, strewn with the burning wreckage of enemy and allied vehicles alike. It looked like the team had just missed a massive battle. A dozen Kodiaks and Pumas were scattered about the area, some of them partially buried in craters, others turned to smoldering husks by plasma weapons. There was an equal number of Scuttlers, their armored carapaces torn open, explosive shells gutting them like fish to spread their wet innards across the sand. There were Supermajors lying among them, too, along with the hulks of slain Warriors.