Chapter 7: Urban Warfare

“Only take what you need,” the scarred Ensi announced, staring pointedly at a flock who were carrying several large sacks that were slung across their backs. Reluctantly, they set their belongings down at the mouth of the tunnel, then followed along after the rest of the procession. There were hundreds of Valbara’nay filing through the narrow passageway, Xipa watching as armed guards flanked them, helping to direct them along the path that the scouts had deemed the quickest and safest route to the old spaceport.

“So much purple,” she muttered.

“What does that mean?” Fletcher asked. He was standing beside her on the gantry, leaning against the railing as the survivors slowly evacuated the base.

“Purple means worry, unease,” Xipa explained. “Most of these people have spent their whole lives in this old processing plant – they have no idea what’s waiting for them outside.”

“We’ll get them out,” Fletcher said, placing a hand on her shoulder. Somehow, the touch of his lifeless, prosthetic limb was just as reassuring as the feeling of flesh and blood. “Miqi has dozens of teams setting up along the possible routes that the Bugs might take. They’re not going anywhere without roads collapsing under them and buildings coming down on top of their ugly heads.”

“I have to admit, I’m a little concerned by how eager she looked when all those drums of fertilizer were being carted out of here,” Xipa said with a smirk. “She’s been waiting for an opportunity to take the fight to the Bugs for a long time. At least someone is happy about the situation.”

The gantry creaked under Ruza’s weight as the towering feline made his way over to them, simply stepping over a couple of civilians who were in his path on the crowded platform.

“The injured have been prepared for evacuation,” he announced. “I have enough personnel to move them, and a squad of Valbarans to defend them if the need arises. The scouts have found a suitable location not too far from the base where a pair of medivac shuttles can land for extraction.”

“Nice work,” Fletcher replied with a satisfied nod. “Once we get that message to the fleet, I don’t expect it will take too long for them to respond. Just keep in mind that all hell is gonna break loose once we break radio silence.”

“I will allow no harm to befall the injured,” Ruza replied, straightening up as though standing to attention. “I swore as much under oath.”

“I still think that you should evacuate along with them,” Fletcher added, but Ruza shook his shaggy head adamantly.

“I cannot flee while my pack remains. I will make my way to the spaceport along with the scout team and find you there.”

Xipa knew that if Fletcher ordered it, Ruza would obey, but he respected the Borealan too much to do that to him.

“Doctor’s orders,” he said, turning to give her a shrug. “Alright, Ruza. We’ll meet you back at the evac site. Just try not to die on the way there, alright?”

“If ... we do not meet again,” Ruza began, a rare flicker of emotion crossing his furry face. “Know that you are the only Alpha worthy of the title that I have ever served under.”

Before Fletcher could think up a suitable reply, the Borealan lifted him clear off the steel grate, trapping the flustered Earth’nay in a tight hug. When he set him back down again, the various pouches and straps on their chest rigs became entangled for a moment, the pair struggling to free themselves as Xipa watched with an amused flutter of yellow.

“Take care, big guy,” Fletcher said as Ruza turned to head deeper into the base.

“Gustave and Bluejay are still in the armory,” Xipa said. “We should head down there and get our equipment ready.”

“Yeah, I suppose it’s time to gear up,” Fletcher sighed as he checked his wrist display. “Miqi and her crew should be back soon.”

After their daring rescue of the missing scouts, Miqi seemed to trust them implicitly. As the de facto leader of the base’s military forces – as limited as they were – she would be commanding the operation in the field. She had asked that Xipa and her team be by her flock’s side to help coordinate the defense. Communication was going to become a hell of a lot easier once they went loud, as the scouts had been able to reactivate several of the old transmitters scattered around the city, meaning that they could both send messages over longer distances and bounce their signals around to make them harder to pin down. The Bugs would know that they were there, but they wouldn’t be able to zero in on their radio emissions quite as easily as they might otherwise.

They headed through the base’s winding hallways, passing more civilians who were bringing what precious few belongings they could carry up from their makeshift dwellings. Confused children clung to their fathers, still clutching favorite toys and dolls, a few of the older survivors struggling with the weight of their bags. As much as Xipa had tried to impress it upon them, few seemed to understand that all of their worldly goods would still be here when they got back. This evacuation was temporary, not permanent.

When they reached the old water tanks that housed the mess hall and the lounge, they found them all but deserted. All of the able survivors who could handle a weapon had gone into the city to help hold off the Bugs, and nobody had the time to be eating or smoking right now. They soon arrived at the armory, finding the racks that had previously housed an array of weapons and ammunition all but bare. Gustave and Bluejay were the only two people there, stooped over a bench at the far right side of the curved wall.

“Don’t worry,” Bluejay said, giving the giant reptile a reassuring pat on the scaly thigh. “It’ll be here when you get back. Hell, nobody else is going to be able to move the damned thing...”

Gustave emitted a mournful rumble, reaching out to brush his many-fingered hand against the rotating barrel of his cannon, which was taking up most of the bench.

“You’re leaving that behind?” Fletcher asked as they entered the room.

“Low ammo,” Gustave replied, giving him a dramatic sigh. “Empty drum, empty heart.”

“Don’t worry, I made sure that Miqi left something special for you,” Xipa said as she walked over to the left side of the room. With Bluejay’s help – as Fletcher wasn’t supposed to be doing any heavy lifting – she hauled a large crate onto one of the tables. It was big enough that a Valbara’nay could probably have used it as a coffin. She cracked it open, revealing an oversized rifle that was clearly of insect design. The layers of carapace that covered it were patterned in shades of red and orange, off-blue flesh and silver metal visible between the gaps. The long barrel was lined with structures that almost resembled the gills of a fish, like heat vents, and there was a distinctly organic scope on top of the assembly that was equipped with a compound eye. The biomechanical weapon was being kept alive by an intravenous drip of yellow fluid, Xipa disconnecting the cable from an orifice on what might be the receiver, watching it contract like a muscle in response.

“This is the largest gun they have in their armory,” she explained, Gustave plodding over to take a look at the thing. “I don’t know where they got it.”

“From something large, I’d wager,” Fletcher muttered.

“Miqi said they captured a couple of these but let the others die because they used up so much honey,” she continued. “They kept this one around so they could study it if the need arose.”

The Krell’nay lifted it from the crate with relative ease, hefting the heavy rifle. Whatever creature had once carried it must have been just as large as he was, because his finger fit through the trigger guard easily enough, despite being as thick around as her wrist.

“Give it a try,” Xipa suggested, gesturing to the range. “Be conservative with the ammunition, though. There are only a handful of magazines for it.”

Gustave examined the weapon for a few moments, figuring it out, then braced it against his shoulder. With no way to interface with the organic sights, he would have to aim by eye, but it didn’t seem to slow him down. Xipa covered her ears in alarm as a loud gunshot reverberated through the tank, one of the paper targets at the far end of the range exploding into a cloud of tattered shreds, a hole big enough for Fletcher to poke his head inside materializing in the far wall. Gustave huffed loudly in what might be laughter, apparently approving of his new toy.

“What the fuck is that thing firing?” Fletcher demanded, tapping one side of his head with a prosthetic hand as though trying to dislodge water from his ear. “You’re gonna give me tinnitus, you oversized iguana. That sounded like some kind of chemical propellant.”

“Big hole,” Gustave mused, watching as the gill-like vents that lined the barrel expelled waste gasses that resembled clouds of steam.

“I have something for you, too,” Xipa said as she led Fletcher over to one of the weapon racks.

“Me?” he asked. “Ruza was pretty adamant about me not firing any guns. The recoil could fuck up my shoulders.”

She lifted one of the old laser rifles from its rack, handing the weapon to him. He weighed it in his hands, examining what to him must have been a strange and primitive weapon. It had a blocky polymer housing and a barrel shaped like a flashlight, a grip that was a little too small for him jutting from beneath the receiver.

“Is this one of your laser weapons?” he asked, shouldering it experimentally. “I get you – no recoil, right?”

“Correct,” she replied. “It fires a stream of photons, so firing it is quite a different experience from shooting a conventional gun. It must be held on target for several seconds to inflict maximum damage. You kind of have to change the way you approach engagements.”

“I’ve played with a laser pointer before,” he replied, turning the weapon over in his hands. “I get the gist of it.”

“We snipped off the trigger guard so your finger would fit through it, so be careful,” she added.

He walked up to the range, then tried to fire the weapon, looking down at it in confusion as he heard an empty click.

“These models need portable battery packs,” Xipa explained. “We didn’t develop batteries that fit in the stock until decades after this gun was produced. Here,” she added, passing him one of the old packs. The edges were scuffed, and the frayed cable had been patched with electrical tape, but it still worked. “These should probably be in a museum,” she chuckled as she showed him how to hook it up to a port on the receiver. “I’m sure we’ll build one where the war is over.”

Fletcher held the weapon steady, then sent a glittering beam of green light lancing down the range, one of the targets bursting into flames.

“Whoa, that feels weird,” he muttered. “There’s no feedback, no recoil, just kind of a buzzing sound.”

“Yeah, it’s not really supposed to make a buzzing sound either,” Xipa chuckled. “It’s very old.”

“Thanks,” he said, lowering the weapon. “It’s a damn sight better than nothing. Here,” he added, waving Bluejay over. He began to empty his chest rig of what magazines still remained, passing them to his companions. “You guys might as well take these – I don’t have any use for them now.”

“Thanks,” Bluejay said, passing them off to his lower hands before slotting them into the pouches on his belt. “I have a feeling we’re going to need them.”

“Take these, too,” Fletcher said as he handed him the magazines for his sidearm. “I hear you’re pretty good with handguns. I can’t fire my XMH – I made the biggest, highest-recoil hand cannon I could because I’m a jackass.”

“They left us some plasma and pheromone grenades,” Xipa said, gesturing to some crates on one of the tables. “Load up with everything that you can carry.”

She heard footsteps, turning to see Miqi and her flock arrive at the door to the armory. They were clad in their usual combat gear, a mishmash of hand-crafted and scavenged equipment, Miqi’s helmet clasped under her arm.

“Are you nearly ready?” she asked, appraising the squad. “It’s almost time to move. All of our flocks are in position, and the bombs have been planted.”

“We’re ready,” Xipa replied. “Do you have the radio frequency for us?”

Miqi relayed the number from memory, Xipa tuning her suit’s radio to the same frequency, then translated for her team.

“We’ve never been able to communicate openly over the radio in real-time before,” Miqi mused, brandishing the little portable device. It was a small radio that fit in the palm of her hand, equipped with a stubby little antenna. “It’s going to take some getting used to.”

“Maintaining communication is crucial in modern warfare,” Xipa explained. “We’ll be able to tell where everyone is at all times and respond to enemy attacks on a wide front. If all goes well, we’ll be able to call in air support and artillery barrages, too.”

“The message is ready to send,” Fletcher added, double-checking the display on his forearm. “I can’t estimate how quickly the fleet will respond, but I tried to make the instructions as clear and as unambiguous as possible.”

“Before we do anything, I want that Bug AA gone,” Xipa replied. “Bluejay, we’ll need you to get into position and get ready to paint the targets. I’m sorry to put so much on your shoulders, but you’re the only one who can get in and out quickly enough to avoid detection.”

“It’s alright, I have four of them,” he replied with a wink.

“I’ll be contacting my personal vessel and ordering them to send a CAS flight,” she explained. “Two Tzcuauht’li bombers should do the trick. Reassigning aircraft can be like pulling feathers, so this should ensure that they get to us as quickly as possible.”

“What does tsu ... caught ... lee mean?” Fletcher asked.

“Roughly translated, it means Obsidian Raptor,” Xipa replied. “They’re our new stealth bombers, developed with UNN tech. They’re much smaller and more lightly armed than a Beewolf or a Penguin, but they’re fast and precise. I doubt the Bugs will detect them before it’s too late. So, here’s the plan. We get into position while the civilians reach the spaceport, then we send the signal and hit the Bug AA before they have a chance to shoot down any of the dropships. From there, we try to delay the Bugs as much as possible while retreating back towards the port.”

“I don’t know how long this is all going to take,” Fletcher muttered, doing some math on a calculator app on his display. “Let’s see, roughly a thousand people, divided by twelve per dropship ... that’s about eighty trips. Now, I dunno how many Valbarans they can cram into a ship that can fit twelve humans, and I don’t know how many ships they can actually task. It depends on what else is going on right now.”

“My fleet will do what they can to help,” Xipa added. “But, yes, there is no way to know how long we will have to hold the spaceport.”

“If we can get some Kodiaks and Avalanches on the ground, maybe plug the entrances with IFVs, we’ll be able to hold out for a good while,” Fletcher said. “With air support, even longer.”

“CAS only, no orbital,” Xipa chided. “I promised these people that there would still be a home to come back to if they left. If I break that promise, they’ll never trust us again.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t let the UNN level the city,” Fletcher replied. “Alright, people,” he continued as he raised his voice to address the rest of the team. “Let’s move out. I hope you have everything you need, because we’re not gonna be coming back for a while.”

Gustave finished loading the strange resin magazines into the pouches on his chest rig, then hefted his massive rifle, Bluejay walking along beside him as he adjusted the scope on his XMR.

“I’m almost gonna miss this place,” Fletcher muttered as they made their way out into the hallway.

They made their way through the overgrown streets, trudging through patches of knee-high shrubs and grasses, avoiding the algae-covered ponds that had formed in the old craters that pocked the roads. Miqi and her flock had spread out, stalking through the trees that had colonized the sidewalks, their weapons at the ready. They were all equipped with plasma rifles this time, the orange resin blending into the foliage, the camouflaged cloaks that they wore making them hard to pick out against the flourishing plant life.

Xipa had memorized the map that they had pored over in the operations room, and she had a pretty good idea of where they were headed. It wasn’t far from the old factory where they had staged their daring rescue, and beyond that was the breach in the wall, where the Bugs were massing their forces.

“We should be getting close,” Miqi warned, stopping her flock with a quick feather signal. Xipa raised a fist, her squad taking cover at the sides of the street when they saw the gesture. “Ask Bluejay if that building would make a good vantage point,” she added, nodding to a skyscraper a couple of blocks away. Like most of the buildings in the city, there were great holes melted in its facade from the original invasion, red foliage and mosses staining the weathered carbcrete like splotches of blood.

“Bluejay,” Xipa said, getting his attention. “You think you’ll be able to paint the Bugs from that tower?”

“It’s the tallest thing in the area,” he mused, lifting his chin to take it in. “Looks as good a place as any.”

“Just be careful,” Fletcher warned.

“I won’t blow our cover,” Bluejay insisted.

“I’m not worried about that,” Fletcher replied, keeping his voice low. “Our cover is gonna be blown when we send that signal no matter how stealthy we are. I’m worried about one of those fucking tanks taking a pot shot at the top floor while you’re up there.”

“Let’s get a little closer first,” Xipa added. “I want to stay in ad-hoc range so we can see what you see.”

They advanced a little closer to the solitary skyscraper, then Bluejay set off, his gossamer wings erupting from beneath their protective casings. He buzzed off into the sky, staying close to the facade of the building so as not to draw too much attention to himself. The team headed into the bombed-out storefront of a nearby cafe to get off the street, Xipa and Fletcher moving over to the empty window frames that faced the skyscraper, keeping tabs on their companion. Xipa tapped at her helmet, filling her HUD with a view from Bluejay’s cameras.

She caught him just as he landed on the roof, finding an overgrown garden that was spilling over the sides of the building. Several fully-grown trees had somehow taken root there, forming a thick canopy, shrubs that must have once grown in planters overflowing to create a dense carpet of reds and browns.

“How the hell did seeds get blown all the way up here?” Bluejay mused, pushing through the waist-high plants.

“It must have been a rooftop garden before the invasion,” Xipa explained, watching through his feed as he neared the far edge.

“You guys sure like putting gardens where they have no business being.”

He reached the edge, carefully peeking through the leaves so as not to expose himself, the ruined city stretching out before him. In the distance was the giant wall, and he used the zoom function on his visor to get a closer look, scanning the base of the structure for the telltale breach. The feed was a little jittery, the system dropping the resolution to make better use of the limited bandwidth at the limits of the signal’s range. Once they started using those relays, they could piggyback on the city’s network, significantly extending their reach.

The view swept across the flooded residential band, a few off-white domes surviving on elevated hills, surrounded by murky water. Bluejay soon located the enemy beachhead, thousands of troops and dozens of organic vehicles massing there, a few hulking Warriors towering over their Drone counterparts.

“There are the anti-air platforms – a little to the right,” Xipa said. Bluejay honed in on them, enhancing the magnification to get a closer look. The massive, insectoid tanks were sitting on top of a hill on their eight legs, the tumor-like missile launchers on their backs swiveling back and forth as they scanned the sky for targets with their very literal eyes.

“There are only three of them that I can see,” Bluejay mused, sweeping his camera across the enemy encampment. “I guess that’s all they need to cover the whole city. The rest of the Bugs are just ... standing around.”

“What do you suppose they do for fun?” Fletcher asked.

“Air hockey,” Bluejay replied.

“What?”

“I was joking. Oh, I spoke too soon,” Bluejay added as he zoomed out to get a clearer picture. “Check it out – they’re starting to move deeper into the city.”

Xipa could see long formations of troops slowly filtering away from the main group, reaching towards the city streets like red tendrils. There were four separate convoys that she could see, each one taking a slightly different route through the flooded, marshy residential band. Those at the front of the pack were already reaching the industrial band, moving in tight-knit groups of six as they cleared the buildings to either side of the street, their tanks lumbering along behind them.

“They must have already discovered a few clear paths to the city center,” Xipa mused. “They move fast. Miqi,” she said, transitioning to her native tongue. “The insects are already on their way.”

“If all goes to plan, they’ll follow the roads that we cleared ahead of them,” she replied, a flutter of red passing through her sheaths. “We tried to make them look as appealing as possible. They’re all booby-trapped, naturally. As soon as we break radio silence, I can start coordinating with the other flocks to slow their advance. Let’s see how fast they move with a few hundred thousand tons of carbcrete on top of them.”

“Those AA guys are starting to move,” Bluejay warned, Xipa turning her attention back to his feed. The three anti-air vehicles were marching away, the masses of Drones parting before them. It looked like each of them intended to join one of the long convoys. “I don’t think we can afford to wait much longer.”

“Miqi, do you think the civilians have had enough time to reach the spaceport?” Xipa asked hurriedly.

“There’s no way to be sure without breaking radio silence,” she replied, the answer a little more non-committal than Xipa had been hoping for. “What do you see? Are we out of time?”

“Their anti-air is moving – we need to hit them now, before they get into cover.”

“Then let’s get this Gue’tra hunt started!” Miqi exclaimed, checking the charge on her rifle.

“Fletcher,” Xipa said, switching off the feed as she turned to the Earth’nay. “Send it.”

“Here goes nothing,” he muttered, tapping at the display on his wrist. With a press of the touch panel, the message was transmitted, Fletcher giving her a thumbs-up when he was connected with the fleet.

“Oh, they heard that!” Bluejay announced. “They’re really booking it now!”

“All flocks, all flocks,” Miqi said as she held her portable radio up to the rebreather on her helmet. “Sound off and get ready to set your fuses. We just gave the mealworms a kick in the tail, and they’ll be heading your way on the double. You all know the plan – just try to make it back safely. I don’t want to lose you when we’re so close to ending this.”

As her flocks reported their positions and readiness, Xipa tapped into Fletcher’s feed, listening in on his call as he argued with what sounded like a comms operator.

“No, I want to speak directly with Admiral Vos,” Fletcher complained. “Yes, I want you to send the data files to him, too. Time is of the essence here.” There was a delay, then she heard the admiral’s familiar voice come through with a hiss of static.

“Fletcher?” he asked, the surprise in his voice evident. “What the hell happened to you? Is the Ensi still with you? Why have you been-”

“Sorry to interrupt, Admiral,” he interjected. “I don’t have time to explain what’s been going on down here, but everyone is still alive, and we’re in one hell of a situation. All of the info you need is contained in that file I just sent you. The evacuation is going down right now, and we need UNN support ASAP.”

“Evacuation?” Vos repeated. “Oh, God damn it ... she was right all along, wasn’t she? I’ll never hear the end of this. Very well, Fletcher, you’ll have whatever I can give you. Just know that we’re currently laying siege to the Queen’s fortress, so I may have to redeploy ships from another CSG. It might take them a little time to burn their way over to you.”

“The Queen’s fortress?” Fletcher asked. Now, it was his turn to be confused. “Listen, I gotta go. Just follow the instructions. We’re all counting on you, Admiral.”

“My turn,” Xipa said, giving him a toothy grin as she tapped into her fleet’s frequency. “Hailing the battle carrier Vengeance, this is Ensi Xipa’tla’nemi speaking. Please confirm.”

“E-Ensi?” a high-pitched voice on the other end exclaimed after a moment of quiet. “Uh, this is the Vengeance, receiving you clearly.”

“Included with this data stream is a detailed plan for the evacuation of a city,” she continued. “Send it to the acting fleet commanders, and instruct them to follow it to the letter. Contact the flight crew and tell them to start running checks on their aircraft – I’m going to need every dropship and Commando that the fleet can spare. I want a Tzcuauht’li bomber wing deployed to my position – highest priority. Do that first.”

“Y-yes, Ensi,” the operator replied. Xipa could hear her yelling panicked instructions at her flock in the background, then she returned to the mic. “Protocol requires me to ask if ... this is a code purple?”

“Correct,” Xipa replied. “We have civilians on the ground, and I’d prefer that they be off the ground.”

“Understood, Ensi,” the operator continued. “And ... glad to hear your voice again, Ensi.”

“Bluejay,” Xipa said, switching channels back to her team. “Keep those Bug tanks in your sights. I’m going to patch your signal through to my carrier – it should give the bombers a direct line to you.”

“You got it,” he replied. “Time to make some fucking noise.”

“Xipa,” Miqi said, getting her attention with a flash of feathers. “One of my flocks says that a convoy is nearing their position. Are we good to go?”

“Let’s give them a parting gift,” Xipa replied, her suit panels flushing a fiery red.

“Light the fuse and fall back to position two,” Miqi ordered, a muffled confirmation crackling through on her radio. “Tell your friend that he might want to look to his left,” she added with a chuckle.

“Bluejay, Miqi says you might want to glance left,” Xipa said as she patched into his feed again to get a look.

He turned his head just in time to see a mushroom cloud of dust and smoke slowly rise above the rooftops a couple of kilometers away. A few moments later, the ground shook beneath their feet, a blastwave sweeping through the city. Native birds were sent squawking into the air, the branches of the trees outside swaying, their leaves rustling. Although Xipa’s helmet muffled the sound of the explosion to protect her ears, she could feel it in her hollow bones, like a thunderclap. Through Bluejay’s cameras, she watched as a thirty-storey tall factory building began to list, the structure so large that it seemed to fall in slow motion. As it dropped, the old carbcrete began to crumble, transforming into a shower of what looked like dust from so far away. It just disintegrated, filling the streets below with an expanding cloud of debris, chunks of masonry and metal that must have weighed tons crashing to the ground.

“Fucking hell!” Fletcher exclaimed gleefully. “Now that’s how you squash a Bug.”

“How much fertilizer did you use?” Xipa asked, not sure whether to be impressed or horrified.

“I’m not a chemist, so we measured it in barrels,” Miqi replied with a flutter of amused yellow. “We used a lot of barrels.”

“That gave them something to think about,” Bluejay announced, turning his camera back to the enemy staging area. “Some of the convoys near the city are stopping – waiting for instructions, maybe?”

“The longer they stand around, the more time the strike craft have to get here,” Xipa added. “It can’t take them more than ten or fifteen minutes to break atmosphere.”

After a couple more minutes of tense waiting, she received a hail, a distorted voice coming through in her ear.

“This is strike wing Magenta, dispatched from the Vengeance. We have your beacon, Ensi. Awaiting further instructions.”

“Receiving you, Magenta,” she replied. “I’m sending you a UNN frequency – I want you to use it for targeting. I have an operative in the field who is going to guide you in. We have three enemy anti-air platforms that need to be taken out, ideally before they have a chance to retaliate. When the targets are down, I want you loitering while you stand by for new orders.”

“Understood, Ensi. We’re five minutes from your position.”

“Five minutes,” Xipa announced to her team. “Miqi, do you have updates on how the civilians are doing?”

“They’re starting to leave the tunnels and head across open ground to the spaceport,” she replied. “It might take them a while, but they’re underway.”