Chapter 11: Wetwork

Bainbridge stopped, Evan almost bumping into him.

“Water lock,” the lieutenant announced, his tone dour. Evan leaned past him to see that the tunnel ahead of them was completely flooded with dirty water. “Check your suits for leaks. Especially you, Tatzi.”

“What the fuck is a water lock?” Brooks asked. He was at the back of the column, too far away to see what was going on in the narrow passageway.

“It’s a submerged tunnel that acts as a natural airlock to mitigate the effects of pressure waves and prevent the spread of contaminants like chemical weapons,” Bainbridge explained as he reached up to check the seal on his helmet. “I don’t suppose any of you have done any cave diving, by any chance?”

“Cave diving?” Garcia repeated in disbelief. “Lieutenant, with all due respect-”

“Whenever people start a sentence with that phrase, the respect that’s due is never given,” Bainbridge interrupted. “Speak freely, Private.”

“You want us to go cave diving?” Garcia continued. “It’s not bad enough that we’re hundreds of meters below ground, stuck in tunnels filled with mines and pitfalls, being chased by murderous insects. Now, we have to add drowning to that list, too?”

“You won’t drown, Private,” Bainbridge replied. “Your pressure suit is rated for vacuum – it’ll keep you alive in shallow water for as long as your oxygen supply lasts. These water locks are usually only a few hundred meters long.”

“A few hundred meters,” Garcia replied in disbelief. He sounded like he was going to pass out from the mere suggestion.

“It’s the only way out of this tunnel,” Bainbridge added. “Your options are to stay here and wait for the Workers to dig through that cave-in, or you can get wet. Your choice.”

Garcia didn’t reply, but he began to run the necessary checks on his suit, which seemed to be enough to satisfy Bainbridge. Tatzi’s suit had gotten pretty torn up during their fight in the armory, and it was being held together with tape – literally. The cuts and punctures had all been covered over with the emergency patch tape.

“Pressure reads normal,” she announced, knowing that they were all waiting for her.

“Better be damn sure,” Bainbridge warned. “If you spring a leak down there, it might be a bit of a walk back to the surface.”

“My people are strong swimmers,” she insisted.

“Not with all that gear, you’re not,” the lieutenant muttered. “Alright, any more objections? We all pressurized and ready?” Nobody spoke up, so he continued, turning to face them. “Visibility down there is going to be low, and the water will interfere with your other view modes. The only thing that’s going to stand any chance of cutting through that shit is a flashlight. Keep your eyes on the Marine in front of you – don’t lose sight of them. If you get turned around for any reason, just stay put and try not to panic. Wireless signals can’t travel far in water, so anyone who’s more than a few meters away is going to have a hard time hearing you. Remember – the more agitated you are, the more oxygen you’re burning.”

The pep talk didn’t seem to be doing much for Garcia’s nerves. Evan could see his chest rising and falling rapidly beneath his suit as he checked the seals on his gloves. He had already expressed apprehension at just being sent underground, and now he was being put under even more pressure – both figuratively and literally. At this rate, he might crack.

“Hey, Jade,” Evan began as he switched his attention to her. “How do Bugs make it through those flooded tunnels? They don’t have pressure suits, do they?”

“Betelgeusians are evolved to live in space,” she explained. “Maybe they’re engineered that way, or maybe they originated in some environment that we can’t even imagine – we don’t know – but they can survive for extended periods of time without air.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen them walk around in vacuum,” Evan grumbled as he recalled the four-legged astromorphs that he had faced on the hull of his original assault carrier. “You’re not freaking out about this, so I assume the same is true for you?”

“I’m rated for vacuum,” she replied, rapping a lower fist on her carapace. “Like our Betelgeusian ancestors, Jarilans can accumulate hemoglobin molecules in our tissues and hemolymph, which can then be released as necessary. It’s kind of like using all of your fat and muscle as an emergency oxygen tank. We’re a little less specialized than our cousins,” she added, gesturing to herself with a lower hand. “We had to sacrifice some efficiency for ... well, y’know. We can still hold our breath for a really, really long time, though. Actually, the accumulation of waste gasses like CO2 that can’t be expelled will kill us faster than running out of oxygen would in space. It’s a little easier in water. You can just open your spiracles and exhale – if you can call it exhaling.”

“Well, aren’t you full of surprises,” Evan mused. He lowered his helmet, making a point of looking at her chest, her bosom contained beneath her armored plate. “Fatty tissue ... and here I thought that the Queen just wanted to make you look good.”

“That’s not the reason I have them,” she replied, cocking an eyebrow plate at him through her transparent visor. “But, yeah, it’s a little more adipose tissue for hemoglobin storage. If you start calling them oxygen tanks, you’re going to be sleeping on the couch.”

“That implies you envision a future where we own a couch,” he replied, Jade unable to see his grin through his helmet.

“Let’s focus on getting out of here first,” she replied, failing to stifle an amused chuckle.

“Do our XMRs work underwater?” Foster asked.

“All of the electronics are insulated, so it’ll function underwater,” Bainbridge replied as he approached the murky liquid. It looked like a stagnant pond from where Evan was standing, but he could guess that the tunnel likely sloped down, maybe like the U-bend in a toilet. “Just be aware that your ballistics are going to be very different.”

“You have a custom profile with voltages and coil timings for this,” Simmons added. “Check your system.”

“I didn’t know that,” Foster grumbled as he keyed in the settings on his wrist device.

“That’s because we don’t make a habit of fighting underwater,” Simmons replied.

“Gee, I wonder why,” Hernandez whispered over the private channel.

“Are we actually expecting to have to fight down there?” Garcia asked, the tension in his voice palpable over the comms.

“You should expect to fight Bugs anywhere a Bug can feasibly go,” Bainbridge replied, starting to wade into the water. He slung his microwave rifle over his back, unholstering his sidearm, switching on the flashlight that was mounted beneath its short barrel. The water reached his knees, then his waist, and he soon vanished into the flooded section of tunnel.

Evan and Hernandez waited at the water’s edge, neither one of them willing to make the first move, until Jade finally got frustrated and gave them both an encouraging push.

Evan could feel the frigid water through his suit, and he had to keep reminding himself that it wasn’t actually wet on the inside, his boots slowly submerging. He remembered the apprehension of waiting in the airlock before walking out onto the assault carrier’s hull, where missing a step could send him tumbling into open space, but something about this was even more frightening. Vacuum was an abstract concept – something no human was ever supposed to experience naturally – but the fear of drowning had been written into every strand of his DNA.

The water line slowly crept up his visor until it rose above his helmet, the murky liquid limiting his vision to just a few feet ahead. It was like walking along the bottom of a muddy lake, each step dredging up clouds of silt – or loose dirt, in this case. His suit switched to its oxygen reserves, quickly giving it a recycled taste, a hint of metal pricking his tongue with each breath. With a pang of alarm, he realized that Bainbridge was already out of sight. He reached down to fumble with the flashlight on his barrel, the beam cutting through the dark water, providing just enough light for him to see the resin walls that enclosed him. The disturbed soil was making the visibility even worse, waterborne dirt quickly filling the tunnel.

Finally, he caught a glimpse of Bainbridge – the lieutenant was waiting a few paces further down the tunnel.

“Try to keep up, Private,” Bainbridge said. The water was fucking with the comms enough that it already sounded like he was talking through a busted radio, this voice coming through crackly and distorted.

The rest of the team filtered in behind them, every step they took sending more crap floating up into their field of vision, even the flashlight beams quickly losing their effectiveness. All that Evan could really rely on now was the IFF system, which highlighted his companions with blue outlines when he enabled the setting.

“How do the Bugs even see anythin’ down here?” Hernandez grumbled, keeping one hand on the resin wall to his left as he trudged along in what looked like slow-motion. It was a little like walking in microgravity.

“They don’t,” Jade replied. “Vision isn’t that important of a sense for them in these environments. They’ll use touch and scent to navigate.”

“I suppose this ain’t botherin’ you in the least, then,” he continued as he stumbled along.

“This isn’t exactly my idea of a pleasant stroll either,” she shot back.

“Garcia, how are you doing?” Simmons asked. He’d clearly picked up on the Marine’s apprehension too, and it was good to know that he was keeping a close eye on him.

“I’m doing,” he replied, which was apparently enough to satisfy the sergeant for the time being.

They advanced down the tunnel, the visibility next to nothing, the blue outlines on Evan’s HUD wavering as the water interfered with the wireless signal that connected the squadmates to one another. With another stab of alarm, he realized that this was not merely a single straight tunnel. There were branching paths that terminated in junctions, perhaps designed to protect as many ingress points from the aforementioned chemical attacks and pressure waves as possible. It meant that they were on the right track, but it made taking a wrong turn in this underwater labyrinth doubly dangerous.

“Perhaps we should hold one another’s tails like kittens on their way to school,” Tatzi suggested, the mental image giving Evan a brief moment of levity.

“Grab the next guy’s rig if it helps,” Bainbridge replied. “We’re not in a hurry, so if there’s a problem, just stop and ask for help.”

“I’d rather not spend a second longer than I have to down here,” Garcia grumbled, sounding out of breath.

They turned a bend, Evan struggling to keep Bainbridge in sight. The lieutenant had clearly done this before, and he was more accustomed to this awkward underwater movement. Microgravity was one thing, but there was no force fighting against you in space, no medium that you had to push through.

“Whoa!” Hernandez exclaimed, Evan whipping his head around as he struggled to find his friend in the murky water. There he was – almost impossible to see despite being in arm’s reach.

“What’s the issue?” Bainbridge demanded.

“Somethin’ brushed my leg!” Hernandez insisted, kicking up more silt as he checked his immediate surroundings. “There! On the walls!”

Evan could see them now too. Anchored to the resin – or perhaps growing out of it – was a forest of fleshy tendrils that waved with the gentle flow of water. At a glance, it was impossible to tell if the things were animal, plant, or some kind of fungus. They had a muted, off-green color, with a vaguely flat shape that reminded Evan of a flatworm.

“Lieutenant?” Evan prompted.

“Never seen these before,” Bainbridge replied, unconcerned by the development. “Maybe the Bugs are using them to filter the water, or maybe they’re growing them as crops.”

They kept moving, the sparse tendrils becoming denser the deeper they traveled into the tunnel network until the walls were completely covered with them. They were growing out of the floor, too, Evan feeling the uncomfortable squishing sensation as they were compressed beneath his boots. It was like walking down a giant, overgrown storm drain filled with weeds.

“H-hey!” Jade grumbled, Evan turning to see what was wrong. She had been advancing close behind him, but she had stopped, her visor angled down towards the floor. “One of those things grabbed me!”

He followed her gaze to see that one of the fleshy tendrils had wound its way around her ankle, pressing flat against her carapace. More were following, the nearby protrusions slowly reaching for her, coiling around her limb like the tentacles of a sea anemone. She was able to pull one foot free, but by the time she tried to do the same with the second, it was stuck fast. The flat, slimy tentacles were forming a kind of cocoon over her foot, wrapping around her shin and coiling between her hoof-like toes.

“Ew, they’re sticky,” she complained. “Guys? I think ... I think we might have a problem.”

Evan felt a pressure on his boot, glancing down to see that the same thing was happening to him. The forest of tendrils was reaching out, gripping his foot with surprising strength, feeling their way around until they found purchase as though acting with some rudimentary awareness of their surroundings.

“Pick up the pace!” Bainbridge said, his tone more urgent now.

“The fuckin’ things are trying to stop us!” Hernandez added, tearing his boot away from the reaching tendrils with considerable difficulty. When he leaned a hand against the nearby wall for balance, more of them began to slide around his gloved fingers, the Marine letting out a grunt of disgust as he pulled away.

“It is a security mechanism!” Borzka growled. Evan couldn’t see him – the Borealan was too far behind him – but he could hear him struggling over the comms. “They do not recognize our scent, and so they seek to hold us here until we drown!”

“What the fuck do we do?” Garcia snapped, panic gripping him.

“Keep moving!” Bainbridge barked.

They picked up the pace, trying to make it past the tentacles before they could react to their presence, but the things were extending out of the ground and walls to reach a foot or more in length. They were communicating, perhaps spreading pheromones through the water, activating those that weren’t even close to the intruders. They reached out blindly, flailing in the water, searching for anything that they could get a grip on.

Evan felt one coil around his arm, stopping him dead, a second joining it. Like some kind of probing slug, it felt its way along the kevlar-lined material, finding an armor plate to hook its tapered end around. He let go of his XMR, letting it float on its sling, reaching for the combat knife on his belt. The serrated blade reflected his wandering flashlight beam as he brought it to one of the tentacles, slicing into the soft muscle, severing it. Its grip loosened, the appendage wriggling as it pulled away, jetting dark ink. It must be some kind of ichor – as black as night, quickly filling the water.

“Help me!” he heard Garcia yell, terror cracking his voice. “Help me!”

Evan glanced back to see him being pulled against one of the walls, lit by the ghostly beam of the flashlights, the tentacles overpowering him. He was thrashing around violently, kicking up more silt, the iron grip of several dozen tendrils practically cocooning him.

Tatzi came to his rescue, using her machete-sized knife to slice and chop, tearing some of the appendages up from the root like garden weeds through sheer brute strength. Every severed tendril released more of that ink, the mucous-like fluid blinding them, making their already limited visibility even poorer.

“I can’t see my own goddamned hands!” Foster yelled, his voice breaking up over the radio.

“Visibility is zero!” Donovan added. “Where the hell are you guys?”

“Keep it together!” Simmons replied, but Evan didn’t even know where the sergeant was anymore. It was all falling apart – everyone was lost, panicking, trapped. He felt another questing tentacle wrap around his ankle, trying to pull him closer so that its neighbors could reach him, Evan kicking it away. Holy shit, they might actually die down here, suffocating in the pitch darkness as their limited oxygen supplies ran dry. There were so many overlapping, fragmented cries for help and requests for orders filling his ears that he couldn’t even concentrate.

Something gripped his wrist, but it wasn’t a fleshy tentacle this time – it was a hand.

“Follow me!” Jade said, her voice coming through clear inside his helmet.

She led him down the tunnel, cutting away the tendrils that snagged on her limbs, Evan doing the same when he felt one of them get a hold on his pressure suit. He was almost completely blind now, relying on her guidance entirely, trusting that she could leverage her Bug senses to find the way out.

After what must have been a couple of minutes of blind fumbling, the water finally began to clear, the grasping tentacles growing sparse enough that he could walk normally again. He saw Bainbridge and Hernandez waiting in the tunnel, Cardinal leaving their side to head back in search of more of their squadmates. Her antennae were extended, waving in the water. Evan could see that her helmet had flooded, turning her visor into a fishbowl, but he reminded himself that the Jarilans didn’t need to breathe. They had no real mouths, no lungs, and their oxygen stores were housed in their tissues rather than inside pressurized suits.

“Holy shit,” Evan panted as Jade released him. “I was starting to think we weren’t getting out of there.”

“Stay put while we fetch everyone else,” she replied hurriedly, whipping around. She made her way back down the tunnel, the ink that clouded the water turning it into a black abyss, Cardinal disappearing from view behind her.

One by one, the two Jarilans returned with a squad member in tow, delivering an exhausted Marine before heading back into the darkness. Everyone was tired, frightened, but none the worse for wear. It seemed that the purpose of the tentacles was merely to ensnare intruders for long enough that they would drown, or perhaps until a squad of Drones could be sent to investigate – as Borzka had guessed.

When Tatzi emerged, she was carrying Garcia in her arms, the Marine gripping her tightly like a baby monkey. Aster trailed behind her, apparently injured enough that she couldn’t help her sisters in their rescue attempts. Now that everyone was accounted for, Bainbridge led them on, the smooth walls devoid of tentacles after a few turns. With Jade’s guidance, they made it to an upward slope, Evan letting out a sigh of relief into his helmet. He checked his suit’s oxygen supply, seeing that he had about fifteen minutes left. It was less than it seemed, and it drove home how close they had just come to disaster.

Finally, Bainbridge located the exit, slowly disappearing from view as he climbed out of the murky water. The rest of the squad followed, Evan watching the waterline slide down his visor as he emerged onto dry land. He reached up to pop open his helmet, taking in a deep breath of that stale tunnel air, now as sweet as a summer breeze. If a chemical mine exploded in his face, then so be it. If he spent another second breathing recycled oxygen, he was going to lose it like Garcia.

Two by two, the team emerged from the flooded passage, the dark water sloughing off their armor to dampen the packed dirt that made up the floor. Everyone was covered in splotches of that dark ichor, like someone had splashed them with ink, the substance apparently denser and stickier than the water. Foster was the last out, holding Aster’s hand as he guided her along, the injured Jarilan wincing behind her visor with each step. The extra movement required to escape the tentacles must have been painful for her, and she was hobbling along like an elderly woman.

“I got you,” Foster said as he lowered her to a sitting position beside the tunnel wall, his tone gentler than Evan had ever heard it. “Take it easy, kid.”

Tatzi set Garcia down, and he immediately tore off his helmet with a hermetic hiss, taking in rapid gulps of air as he staggered away from her. He leaned over with his hands on his knees as though he expected to start retching, his face drained of color, drenched with sweat.

“This is fucked,” he eventually declared, pausing to swallow the lump in his throat. “We’re Marines – we aren’t even supposed to be here.”

“You’ll go wherever Fleetcom tells you to go,” Simmons replied, but Garcia was at the end of his rope. He pointed an accusing finger at the sergeant, the rest of the team watching in silence.

“This is a fucking suicide mission – that’s what it is. We don’t have the training or the equipment to do this job, and they just sent us down here to fucking die!”

“Stand down, Private,” Simmons replied sternly. “If you want to turn in your resignation the moment we get topside, that’s your prerogative, but you’ll do as I say as long as you’re under my command.”

Bainbridge began to laugh, Garcia snapping his head in the lieutenant’s direction.

“On Kruger, the casualty rate for Trog teams was thirty percent,” Bainbridge chuckled. “The fact that none of you have kicked the bucket yet is a fucking miracle, and you don’t even realize it because you have no point of reference. Now,” he continued, turning around. “If you’ve gotten it out of your system, we have a mission to complete.”

Garcia didn’t even argue – he was too taken aback by the strange response.

“Lieutenant, they need a few minutes,” Simmons said apologetically. “As little as I appreciate Private Garcia’s insubordination, my people aren’t Trogs. He’s right about that.”

“Alright, take five,” Bainbridge conceded. “We probably still have a ways to go, so don’t think the worst is behind you. Use the opportunity to take a breather and get some fluids in you.”

“I think I’ve had enough fluids for the time being,” Collins grumbled, glancing back at the flooded tunnel behind them.

Evan followed Jade over to where Aster was sitting, the injured Jarilan leaning forward conspicuously to prevent the burns on her back from coming into contact with the resin. It didn’t exactly look like the most comfortable position. Foster was leaning against the wall beside her, Evan giving him an appreciative nod as he approached.

“How are you doing?” Jade asked, crouching down beside her.

“The cold water helped a little,” she replied, attempting to sound reassuring. “Listen,” she added, turning her eyes to the dirt. Despite her injuries, there was no wavering in her voice, no strain. Whatever organ was producing her speech, it wasn’t connected to a pair of lungs, and it required no great effort from her. “You should leave me behind. I’m only going to slow you down. I would have drowned in that tunnel if you guys hadn’t been there to cut me loose.”

“That’s not how we do things in the UNN,” Foster replied, crossing his arms defiantly. “We all go, or none of us go.”

“Borzka or Tatzi can carry you if you can’t keep up,” Evan added. “They won’t even notice the extra weight. Hell, you probably weigh less than my pack does in this gravity.”

“The roaches might expend their troops like ammo, but you’re not expendable to us,” Foster continued as he glanced down at her. “Suck it up, Private.”

“A-alright,” she said, reaching for Jade’s hand as she struggled to her feet. Foster could be blunt, but he didn’t split hairs, and his words seemed to have gotten through to her.

“Garcia,” Hernandez said, giving the Marine a rough pat on the back. “You good?”

“Yeah,” he sighed, glancing up at Tatzi. “Thanks, by the way. I kind of froze up down there.”

“We are a pack,” she replied, shaking some of the water from her XMR. “Packmates look out for one another.”

“Alright, let’s get moving,” Bainbridge said as he waved them on.

Gunfire filled the tunnel, a squad of Drones falling, their bodies riddled with smoking holes. Bainbridge lowered his microwave gun, the wavering air cooling.

“Patrols are getting more frequent,” he muttered as he stepped over their bodies. “We’re in the more sensitive parts of the hive now. The Queen’s chamber can’t be far off.”

“We’re not really going to try to take out the Queen on our own, are we?” Collins asked as he hopped over one of the limp Drones. “All due respect, sir-”

“What have I told you guys about saying all due respect?” Bainbridge grumbled.

“L.T, we can’t take on the Queen,” Collins continued. “The Kings had Supermajors and shielded Warriors in their entourages. Sunny’s gone, and we don’t have any heavy weapons.”

“Queens aren’t generally as tough as Supermajors,” he replied, pausing to place another repeater on the wall. With their way back sealed off by the collapsed tunnel – not to mention the flooded passage filled with tentacle traps – it seemed like a futile gesture. Nobody had brought it up yet, but they had no clear route back to the surface anymore. “Supermajors and Warriors have redundant organs and layers of armor, but Queens are all brain. Don’t get me wrong, they’re still big and strong enough to tear a Marine in half, but an XMR will get the job done.”

“Unless their Queen is something we’ve never seen before,” Brooks added.

“The Queens are all pretty similar,” Bainbridge replied, leading them down another branching tunnel. “They’re one of the few constants in a hive, since they’re a holdover from the nuptial fleet. Queens don’t exactly have a line of succession, so we shouldn’t expect any large genetic variations between them. Their security, on the other hand, varies a lot. Blast doors and an entourage are a given.”

“How exactly are we supposed to get through blast doors?” Hernandez asked.

“That’s what the explosives are for,” Bainbridge replied.

“It’s starting to get hotter,” Garcia complained. “My suit’s cooling is kicking in again. Is that just because we’re so far underground?”

“No, a hive is kept at a constant temperature and humidity,” Jade replied. “If there’s any variation in the climate, it’s for a reason.”

“Do you smell anything odd?” Simmons asked.

“It smells ... hot,” she replied with a shrug. “Like sun-baked resin. There’s metal, soot. I don’t smell any Drones, just Workers.”

“Hold,” Bainbridge said, the team coming to a stop as he checked the next corner. “We got another room here. Standard breaching procedure – be ready to fire.”

The team fanned out as they entered another large dome, this one almost the size of the chamber that had housed the methane farm. Immediately, Evan realized where the heat was coming from. The room was filled with kilns – large mounds of what looked like packed clay and resin with round openings that emitted a fiery glow. They were lined up in rows along the base of the wall, and they were being tended by an army of Workers, the squat little creatures carrying tools back and forth and manning what looked like some form of organic bellows. There were great heaps of raw, unrefined metal stacked nearby. The chunks looked like they had only recently been dug up, like something one might expect to see coming out of a mine shaft on a cart. There were no carts, however. Evan could see a series of tunnels at the other end of the room, processions of Workers emerging from them with buckets of raw ore, depositing them on the heaps before heading back the way they had come.

“They’re smelting ore,” Collins mused, watching one of the aliens pump a bellows that looked eerily similar to a giant lung. Another of the creatures deposited some of the ore into a metal container that resembled a pot with a long handle, then slid it into the kiln, orange sparks dancing out of its uneven opening.

“The techniques are so primitive,” Foster added, lowering his rifle. “These look like something you’d find in an iron age settlement, not something that a spacefaring species would rely on.”

“The Bugs aren’t as heavily industrialized as you might imagine,” Bainbridge replied, leading them through the middle of the chamber. “They have a limitless source of manpower, and they aren’t exactly concerned about their working conditions, so there isn’t much of an incentive to automate their production. You don’t need conveyor belts if Workers are perfectly happy to just carry things, and you don’t need robots to assemble equipment if your Workers are just as specialized and precise.”

“How do they make more advanced materials?” Foster asked. “What about composites? Processors? I assume they’re not individually aligning nanotubes into lattices by hand?”

“Most of their computing is done organically,” Bainbridge explained, stepping around a confused Worker that was standing in his path. “CPUs are usually grown, not built. That said, they’re still perfectly capable of manufacturing complex electronics. The voltage regulators on their weapons, for example.”

“You’d be surprised by what you can make by hand,” Jade added. “It’s the same on Jarilo – everything that we make receives the individual attention of a Worker. It makes our technology and our products more reliable than you might expect.”