Chapter 3: Superheavy

“Hey,” Jade whispered, shaking Evan awake. He opened his eyes groggily, glancing down at her. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” he grumbled, reaching up to rub his eyes before realizing that his visor was in the way.

“Exactly,” she replied, lifting her head off his chest to glance around their little camp. “The artillery strikes have stopped.”

“How long has it been?” he asked, glancing down at the display on his wrist. “Damn, nine hours? I guess I needed the shuteye.”

“It’s hard to tell what time it is on this moon,” Jade sighed. “The day and night cycle is ... absent.”

A figure appeared from behind their IFV, making its way over to them, Evan soon seeing that it was Simmons.

“Pack up your shit,” he said, the squad starting to collect the gear that they had strewn about the camp. He noticed that Foster wasn’t responding, giving the sleeping figure a swift kick that jolted him awake. “Eyes up, Marine! We’re moving out in fifteen!”

“Sorry sir,” Foster stammered, seeming momentarily disoriented. He climbed to his feet, swinging his heavy pack over his shoulders.

Evan stood up, then took Jade’s hand, pulling her upright.

“Thanks,” she chuckled, sticking close to him as they made their way back over to the Puma. “You make a good pillow, you know. I’m looking forward to sleeping that well every night when this is all over.”

They loaded up, stowed their packs, and strapped into their seats. After a few more minutes, the Puma lurched into motion, driving back down the hill to take formation with the rest of the company. As the commander had outlined during the briefing the day prior, the vehicles had been arranged into a delta formation. The twelve Kodiaks were at the front, forming an armored spearhead, with the IFVs taking up the rear. Evan spotted a couple of Crocodiles joining them, identifiable by their massive anti-mine plows, along with a Kestrel for point defense. The scout company was perched on a hill somewhere off to the right, eight of the six-wheeled vehicles arranged in a loose cluster. As he watched, a swarm of quadcopters lifted off from recesses in their hulls, their little rotor blades unfolding. The spotters took to the sky like a flock of birds, maybe fifty of them soaring away across the blasted terrain.

“Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Foxtrot, all showing green,” Simmons said. “All companies reporting in – the battalion is ready to roll.”

Evan couldn’t see them in this somewhat hilly area, but he knew that the battalion’s five other mechanized companies would be taking similar formations nearby, and the fifteen other battalions encircling the hive would all be doing the same. The attack was going to be simultaneous, on all fronts, stretching whatever remained of the Bug defenses to capacity. The Coalition had them completely surrounded.

“Looks like our backup is arriving,” Simmons said, nodding to the ceiling of the troop bay.

Evan glanced up through the IFV’s array of external cameras, seeing something come barreling through the clouds above. It punched a hole in the dense canopy, burning like a meteorite, looming ever larger as it descended. He could make out a vaguely ovular shape that tapered into more of a point on one end, ringed by a dozen thrusters that jetted blue flame as it decelerated. It was covered in a layer of scorched heat tiles that were still glowing bright orange from reentry, and it was cradled by a skeletal, square structure that was shooting its own plumes of fire.

He had seen videos of a Yagda before, but they utterly failed to convey its sheer scale. It was easily thirty meters long and about half as wide, with a mass in excess of five hundred tons. Its tile-covered underbelly was completely smooth, slightly rounded, without any visible wheels or tracks.

The frame that clung to it was a lander, the vessel designed so that the armored vehicle fit snugly beneath it. Four reinforced jibs projected out to its sides, gripping the edges of the tank like a giant claw. Its cockpit was situated far to the front, its nose overhanging the prow of the tank, giving the crew an unimpeded view. There were massive, downward-facing engines on the arms, each one spewing a plume of flame as it neared the ground. As much thrust as the lander must be putting out, the Yagda seemed to be assisting, the vehicle using its own maneuvering thrusters to help the pair decelerate. At that size, it was blurring the lines between a tank and a frigate.

The lander and its enormous passenger descended behind the formation of vehicles, then they began to hover a few meters off the ground, their engines kicking up a cloud of ash that washed over the company. The backwash from their engines was uncovering the ground beneath the dust, stripping away the topsoil to reveal volcanic rock that had melted, then resolidified. Evan wasn’t sure if it had been melted by natural processes or by the bombardment.

The lander shuddered as it released its charge, Evan recoiling reflexively as he watched it drop like a brick. Rather than cratering into the ground, it stopped short, bouncing as though it had hit an invisible obstacle. The Yagda was a next-generation vehicle, a repulsor tank. It used the AG fields that provided gravity on spacecraft to push itself off the ground, somehow inverting them, creating an anti-gravity cushion not dissimilar in practice to how a hovercraft functioned.

Now that its charge had been released, the oddly shaped lander began to climb away, soon disappearing into the ash clouds.

The tank began to move, the thrusters that lined its skirt swiveling and twisting as they fought to control its inertia. It looked like it was sliding on ice, completely frictionless. As it took up position behind the company, Evan got a better look at it. It had a smooth, rounded profile that was probably intended to deflect enemy fire, and its hull was covered in heat tiles designed to absorb and dissipate the energy from Bug plasma weapons. It was painted the same ocean-grey as a jump carrier, but it had some subtle, red livery that gave away its Martian origins, as well as some distinctive Cyrillic markings. The designation zero-four was stenciled on the side of its turret, as well as a lowercase delta symbol.

The main turret was situated closer to the prow than that of the Kodiak, and it was almost the size of one of the tanks in its own right. The barrel of the 740mm railgun must have been ten meters long, like something one would expect to find on a spacecraft, and the muzzle device was the size of an oil barrel. It couldn’t rotate a full three-hundred-and-sixty degrees, as there was a raised section of the hull behind it, rising above it like a hood. As he watched, weapons and sensors that had been covered during reentry began to emerge from within the chassis.

On top of the swooping hood, a cluster of comms antennae rose into view, jutting into the air just behind a large CIWS gun that was situated above the main turret. It had a rotary railgun, the barrels lined with magnetic coils, and there was a wide radar dish sat above it that made up part of its sensor suite. It had two arrays of four missile launch tubes mounted on either side of it, giving it more firepower than the variety that Evan was used to seeing. It looked small perched atop such a massive vehicle, but it must be even larger than the AA turret of a Kestrel.

Along its flanks, sponsons were deploying, four of them on each side. They were ball turrets equipped with external cameras, likely remotely operated. They had a pair of railgun barrels, what looked like dual-linked 20mm guns.

As the vehicle turned, its mass making it swing around, Evan got a look behind it. There was a massive troop ramp that looked large enough to accommodate their IFV, as well as another, more conventional CIWS gun that faced backwards. He could also see another sponson that was positioned to cover the rear, likely intended to protect the ramp when it was lowered. The Yagda wasn’t merely a mobile pillbox – it was a command center, able to accommodate troops and direct battlefield operations. There was a situation room inside, crew quarters, and even an infirmary within its two-level interior. Its primary role was using that enormous main gun to take out stubborn Bug fortifications, and it could use its sponsons to defend itself from Bug infantry attacks. Evan had heard that it was equipped with experimental plasma shields, too, but they must not be active right now.

The Yagda came to a stop, panels that were mounted on the hull below the turret sliding open to reveal vents, the air around them shimmering as they dumped waste heat. The thing was nuclear-powered, with its own onboard fission reactor.

“I don’t know if I feel safer, or less sexually adequate,” Brooks muttered as he watched the thing slide to a stop. Evan noted that particles of dust and small stones beneath its wide skirt were starting to float off the ground, captured by the anti-gravity field.

“That’s certainly ... large,” Jade added.

“The Yagda will be moving with our battalion,” Simmons explained. “Again, and I can’t stress this enough, it’s going to be firing nukes. Keep your fucking suits sealed unless you want to grow a third arm. Or a fifth arm,” he added with a respectful nod to Jade and her two companions.

The Kodiaks ahead of them began to move, disappearing over the low hill, their tracks churning up small clouds of ash. The IFV followed behind them, the engine making Evan’s seat vibrate. They crested the hill, the mountain towering ahead of them, tinted blue by the atmospheric haze. To their left and right, more companies from the battalion came into view, matching speed as they emerged onto the open plain. There were few trees here, and no hills, just a flat expanse that led to the base of the mountain. There were more mountainous formations behind them, but none as large as the Ant Hill, the mesa dominating the skyline. In the distance, Evan could pick out more battalions, the dust that they kicked up giving away their positions. When he turned to glance to his left, he saw that Sunny was sprinting alongside their vehicle, her suit’s clawed feet pounding the soil. Behind them, the Yagda loomed, floating along like some kind of giant air hockey puck. Every now and then, one of its thrusters would flash with a burst of flame, correcting the behemoth’s course.

“We’re about thirty kilometers out, so we should get there within a half-hour,” Simmons said, gripping a handhold on the ceiling as the IFV bounced over a small crater. “Sunny, can you keep the pace for that long?”

“Not a problem,” she replied over the local channel. “Feels good to be able to stretch my legs after spending so much time cooped up in that carrier!”

She leapt over an errant tree stump that was in her path, hanging in the air for a good second or two in the moon’s low gravity before landing again, creating a splash of dust.

“Do you feel all that?” Hernandez asked. “Like, do your legs get tired?”

“Oh, I only feel the good parts,” she chuckled as she ran alongside the IFV. “The wind on my face, the exhilaration, the freedom. I prefer this to flying. There’s no sense of speed in space – you can’t see the ground rushing past beneath your feet!”

Evan was distracted from their exchange by a billow of flame in the distance, more artillery starting to hammer the base of the mountain. They were resuming their bombardment, probably trying to prevent the Bugs from regrouping before the attack.

As they blasted across the ash fields, something began to move on the mountainside. Above the drifting clouds of dust kicked up by the constant artillery, near the flat peak, a sheer rock face began to split open. They were doors, Evan realized, so large that they must rival a jump carrier’s hangar bay in size. Like some of the turrets and ramparts, they were hewn from the very basalt of the mountain, only distinguishable now that they were parting to reveal a dark gulf.

“Holy shit, look at that!” Hernandez exclaimed.

“What the fuck is it?” Brooks added, his voice filled with apprehension. “Don’t tell me they have an aircraft hangar up there?”

“No,” Jade gasped, gripping the armrests of her chair with her lower hands. “It’s something else...”

The shuddering doors ground to a halt, fragments of stone and small landslides of soil falling down the mountainside, the cavity too shrouded in shadow for Evan to make out its interior. Slowly, something began to emerge, sliding out of the darkness meter by meter. It was a cannon of immense proportions, its long barrel made of shining metal, equipped with a pair of magnetic rails. What looked like organic power cables jutted from its length at regular intervals, trailing out of view behind it, the weapon slowly depressing to point towards the ground.

“That’s a capital-grade weapon!” Garcia warned. “Fuck, it’s bigger than the ones they mount on hive ships!”

“It’s gotta be thirty meters long!” Donovan added.

Arcs of green-tinted electricity danced down its barrel as its capacitors charged, an ominous, emerald glow accumulating between its immense rails. With a bright flash that blew out the external cameras for a few moments, it fired, that long gun barrel reciprocating back into the mountain. The immense recoil shook the structure to its foundations, sending dust and fragments of stone spilling down the cliff face. A ball of plasma lanced out towards the oncoming battalion, Evan following it with wide eyes, watching as it struck the mechanized company furthest to their left.

There was an immense explosion that shook the ground, all of the superheated, roiling plasma that was contained within the magnetic field releasing in a fraction of a second. There was another blinding flash of light, a small, green star persisting just long enough to burn afterimages into Evan’s eyes. A shockwave hit the side of their IFV like a hammer, hard enough to lift it off its left wheels for a moment before depositing it back on the ground with a thud, the passengers straining against their harnesses. Sunny had to raise her shield to absorb some of the blast, her claws skidding in the dust as she stumbled, but she managed to keep running without losing her footing.

They quickly left the rising cloud of smoke behind them, the company maintaining its breakneck pace. Evan turned his head to get a look at the plume of smoke, seeing a handful of Kodiaks and IFVs come driving out of the dust, some of them sporting scorched hulls and damaged equipment. As the wind swept away the cloud, debris raining back to the ground, he saw the extent of the damage.

Fully half of Bravo company was gone – either turned to melted husks by the intense heat of the plasma or tossed off their wheels like toys to lie disabled on the ash fields. A few of the more severely damaged vehicles that hadn’t been completely destroyed were rolling to a stop, crews abandoning their burning IFVs, a Kodiak whose turret had melted like a candle grinding to a halt as its blowout panels jetted flame.

“We can’t take another hit like that!” Garcia exclaimed. “Holy shit, why aren’t we taking evasive maneuvers?”

“We can’t outrun that thing,” Simmons replied sternly. “We have to rely on the Yagda.”

The five-hundred-ton repulsor was still drifting along behind them, the thrusters along its right flank flickering as they compensated for the force of the blast. The ten-meter cannon on its main turret swiveled, starting to elevate, taking aim at the mountain.

“It’s preparing to fire again!” Brooks warned, Evan snapping his head around to see the Bug cannon flickering with emerald light. He felt a sinking feeling in his stomach as he watched it charge. This was the same feeling that he’d experienced when he had been lying in the debris after the ambush on his convoy, that sensation of helplessness, of having no control over his fate. When he had a gun in his hand, he could at least do something to protect himself and his friends, even if it was futile. Staring down the barrel of that cannon, he was utterly powerless.

“Come on, come on!” Hernandez hissed. “What the hell is the Yagda waitin’ for? Fire already!”

There was a deafening crack that Evan could feel reverberating through the IFV’s hull, ringing it like a gong, the repulsor firing its main gun. A brief flare of blue backlit the vehicle as the thrusters at its rear burned to counter the immense recoil, the thing visibly lurching despite its mass, falling behind the rest of the convoy. The exposed coils on its barrel glowed with heat, the air above them shimmering like a mirage, whatever projectile they had just accelerated streaking across the plains so quickly that there was almost no travel time.

Another brilliant flash lit up the landscape in stark white, casting long shadows, the blinding light fading to reveal an orange bubble that was rapidly expanding on the near face of the mountain. It was a fireball, a shockwave preceding it, rushing down the mountainside to wash across the trenches below with enough force to displace the lingering dust left by the artillery fire. The nuclear sabot had hit the Bug cannon dead-on, taking a chunk out of the cliff face, thousands of tons of rock and dirt cascading down towards the ground as the growing mushroom cloud towered above the scene. Evan caught a glimpse of the gun barrel, warped and twisted by the intense heat. It tumbled down the sheer cliff face, crashing into the trenches below, the landslide that followed partially burying it.

Hernandez let out a victory cry, pumping his fist in the air, but all that Evan could muster was a quiet sigh of relief. That was the last trump card the Queen had up her sleeve – it had to be. What surprises could she have in store that were more elaborate than a capital ship weapon hidden inside a mountain?

“Here’s hoping the critters only had one of those,” Brooks said, tightening his harness apprehensively.

“That’s likely why they positioned the Yagda on this side of the mountain,” Jade explained. “I’m assuming they detected the gun from space but couldn’t crack it with the orbital strikes.”

“Well, it’s fuckin’ cracked now,” Hernandez replied as he watched the smoke rise from the torn wreckage.

“How many did we lose?” Evan asked.

“It looks like four Kodiaks and five Pumas from Bravo have dropped off the IFF network,” Simmons replied as he glanced down at his display.

“Fuck, that’s half the company!” Foster hissed. “That could just as easily have been us!”

“But it wasn’t,” Collins replied, sounding like he was trying to reassure himself as much as Foster. “We’ve come this far, and we’ll make it out.”

The mountain was rapidly approaching, some of the towers and bunkers that littered the fortifications at its base coming into sharper focus, framed against the backdrop of explosions levied by the unrelenting artillery fire. Only when the spearhead of armored vehicles came within maybe ten kilometers did they stop, the constant noise abruptly silenced.

“You all know what you’re doing, and you don’t need me to tell you how to do your jobs,” Simmons began as he lifted his XMR from the rack beside his seat. He checked the magazine, then switched on the battery, the electrical whir of the capacitors charging just barely audible over the sound of the engine. “Stay together, watch each other’s backs, and let’s make this bitch rue the day she decided to jump her hive ship into this system.”

It wasn’t as much a pep talk as a threat, but Evan noticed the mood in the troop bay shift from one of quiet apprehension to one of determination. Once this operation was over, the war would effectively be won. Whatever Bugs remained on the moon would be scattered, directionless, reduced to little more than fauna to be hunted at the Coalition’s leisure.

It only took them a few more minutes to cover the rest of the distance, the scattered bunkers and gun towers rising up ahead of them. Few were still intact, having suffered extensive damage from the bombing, giving the fortifications the appearance of broken teeth.

To Evan’s surprise, he saw the long gun barrel that jutted from one of the domed towers turn in their direction, firing off a bolt of plasma. The structure was pocked with holes, but it was still operable. From the first line of trenches, a barrage of small arms fire came shooting towards them, splashing harmlessly against the lead tanks. The resistance was by no means sparse, despite the utter destruction that had been wrought by the artillery. Some of the bunkers opened up too, setting the air alight with green fire, Evan watching streams of bolts arc over the convoy.

“And here I was hoping we’d just be able to walk in there,” Brooks grumbled.

“They may have brought more reinforcements up from below ground,” Jade suggested. “They might even have held many of their troops in reserve, expecting us to use our artillery. They learn and adapt quickly.”

“It doesn’t change our plan,” Simmons added, glancing at them through his opaque visor. “We get in there, and we kill Bugs.”

The Kodiaks that formed an arrowhead at the front of the company began to fire, shuddering under the recoil of their railguns, maintaining their speed and formation despite the Bug return fire. Several of the bunkers and towers erupted into flashes of flame and showers of dirt, chunks of resin raining on the trenches below, sending the insects scattering for cover. They followed up with mortar fire, the shells kicking up torrents of earth where they landed, streams of missiles from their cheek-mounted launchers streaking across the battlefield. Evan could hear the MGL on the roof of the IFV firing alongside them, making the hull vibrate.

“Look, up there!” Garcia exclaimed as he pointed to the sky. “Are those more Warriors?”

Evan followed his gaze, seeing several dozen bright points of light burn through the clouds. Those weren’t Jarilans – they were reentry capsules, shaped like truncated cones with a rounded base that was coated with heat tiles, tapering to a dome at the top. They popped parachutes as they neared the ground, flames jetting from thrusters on their round bellies to help them brake.

“SWAR teams,” Hernandez clarified. “I’ve never seen so many deployed in one place before.”

“They’re landing behind enemy lines, the crazy bastards,” Garcia muttered. “They must be after priority targets.”

A mortar exploded nearby, causing the IFV to swerve in a bid to avoid it, Evan gripping the handholds of his seat in alarm as his harness dug into his shoulders. A stream of tracers painted trails above their heads, the Kestrel at the rear of the formation employing its point defense weapons to intercept more of the projectiles.

“They’re shelling us right back!” Collins warned.

The Kodiak that was driving some twenty meters ahead of them abruptly erupted into a ball of emerald flames, losing most of its momentum in the space of a second as a powerful bolt of plasma melted through its prow, leaving a slagged hole just below the turret. Its blowout panels spewed flame as the ammunition cooked off, the impact making it throw one of its tracks, sending it jackknifing across the IFV’s path.

“Hang on!” their driver growled over the radio, the IFV’s wheels spinning in the loose soil as it corrected course. The burning hulk of the disabled tank rolled to a stop just in time, Evan feeling a powerful jolt as the IFV clipped it, a few of the external cameras going dark to create a blind spot. It had put itself directly in Sunny’s path, and she was going too fast to stop. She vaulted over it, the burning chassis sagging under her weight as she pushed off the armor, her suit hanging in the air for a moment. She landed on the other side, stumbling for a moment before resuming her sprint, matching pace with the Puma.

Another of the Kodiaks returned fire on the offending tower, punching a HE round through its resin wall, cutting it across the middle as the sabot detonated. The top half of the tower began to list, then toppled into the trenches below, a secondary blast of sickly green scattering its fragments as its stores of ammunition exploded.

Similar exchanges were happening all the way along the line, hundreds of vehicles from dozens of companies coalescing on the Bug defenses. Evan could see two battalions flanking his own in the distance, their combined firepower hammering the fortifications. Despite over nine hours of continuous bombardment, there were enough surviving guns and Drones to put up a fight, streaks of green racing across the blasted terrain as mortars exploded around the vehicles.

The Kodiaks closed ranks as they neared the first row of trenches, the Crocodile engineering vehicles pulling ahead, lowering their anti-mine plows to clear a safe path. There were two of them leading the charge, their blades digging furrows in the earth as they approached the first row of defenses, like they were plowing a field. They encountered a long web of monofilament wires that was strung between poles that had been driven into the ground at intervals, the thin strands biting into the plows, scarring the thick metal as they were stretched to their breaking point.

They pushed through, a Kodiak taking out a nearby pillbox that was firing on them, the IFV falling into one of the two columns behind them. Now, there was only a couple of hundred meters of open ground standing between them and the first trench. The other companies in the battalion were doing the same, moving alongside them some distance to their left and right.

“Just monofilament wire?” Jade mused, glancing at the tattered strands as they drove through the breach. “Is that it? No more bogs, no mines?”

“Yeah, this doesn’t feel right,” Evan muttered as he glanced out at the cratered terrain apprehensively. “They’ve had so much time to prepare – why wouldn’t they throw more obstacles at us? All of the earthworks are closer to the base of the hill.”

The IFV lurched to a stop, the driver slamming on the brakes.

“What the hell?” Evan complained, reaching up to straighten his helmet. “Why’d we stop?”

There was an explosion from the front of the convoy, a shower of dirt and debris raining down on them, little fragments of stone impacting the IFV’s roof like hail. A second followed, then another, the sound reminding him of firecrackers going off.

“Uh, guys?” Sunny said. Her suit turned, its many cameras fixing on the company off to their left, which had also ground to a halt. Gunfire echoed, flashes of explosions erupting down the length of the column. “Something’s happening.”

A few meters away from her, the ground began to stir, the movement drawing Evan’s attention. There was something shifting beneath the soil, like a crab digging itself out of the sand, a small creature emerging into view. It was about the size of a dinner plate, crustacean-like in appearance, with a rounded body that was propelled along by eight segmented legs. It was covered in a dirt-colored carapace that matched the soil, fragments of earth still clinging to it. Rather than being perfectly disk-shaped, it was thicker towards the front, where it had a set of beady little eyes and jutting antennae that protruded from its shell. It cleaned its sensory equipment with a pair of feathery pedipalps like a cat cleaning its whiskers, setting its sights on Sunny.

It sprang into motion, racing across the ground on its spindly limbs, moving alarmingly quickly. Sunny drew back one of her suit’s legs as it neared, kicking the thing like a soccer ball, sending the little crab tumbling through the air. When it was only a few paces away, it exploded like a grenade, showering the ground beneath it in fragments of white-hot shrapnel.

“We’re in a minefield!” Sunny warned, her shoulder-mounted gun swiveling to track more targets as they began to unearth themselves. Dozens of the things dug themselves out of the dirt, starting to race towards the vehicles, Sunny’s railgun causing them to detonate where her slugs found their mark. The blister on the IFV joined in, more vehicles along the column opening up, the living bombs surrounding them.

One of the creatures darted closer to the IFV behind Evan’s, wriggling under its wheels like a spider trying to squeeze through a narrow gap. It exploded with a tangible thud, delivering enough explosive force to lift the Puma a few inches off the ground, two of its tires torn to shreds by the shrapnel. The crew piled out of their disabled vehicle, taking up position outside, using their rifles to help take out the swarming bomblets. They were exploding all around the convoy, creating an obscuring wall of smoke and debris, making it even more difficult to spot them in the chaos.

“God damn it, we have to get this convoy moving!” Simmons snapped. “It’ll be death by a thousand cuts if we stay here!”

“One of the lead Crocodiles is disabled, sir!” the driver replied.

“It’s a fucking mine-clearing vehicle, how is it disabled?” Simmons demanded.

“Looks like one of those little crab bombs crawled inside their tracks and fucked up one of their drive sprockets.”

One of the Marines from the vehicle behind them paused to reload his XMR, Evan watching as a mine made a beeline for him. Before Evan could radio him a warning, the thing leapt into the air, extending its eight legs as it sailed towards him. It landed on his chest, its jointed limbs gripping him tightly, the Marine lurching as he struggled to tear it off. A moment later, it detonated, turning the man into strips of bloody meat and tattered fabric. The blast sprayed the nearby IFV with his blood, knocking two of his comrades off their feet.