Chapter 7: Changing of the Guard

Vos stood on the carrier’s observation deck, watching Kerguela through the glass beneath his boots. The red foliage and wisps of white cloud that characterized the moon’s surface now gave way to a patch of ashen grey, the winds smearing it across the globe like a dark stain, the obscuring canopy of dust illuminated by intermittent flashes of lightning. It was a terrible thing to scar a planet, like defacing a work of art, but the forests would recover ... in a few generations.

He tore his eyes away from the grisly sight, turning them to a holographic representation of the Ant Hill that was hovering just off the floor, large enough to occupy most of the room. The naked eye couldn’t penetrate the ash clouds, but the carrier’s array of sensors could. Before him was the flat-topped mountain seen from above, its perimeter surrounded by a dense ring of blue markers, the ground forces broadcasting their positions over the fleet’s network in real-time. There were a few visible blobs of markers further out, forming rough concentric rings where Marines were occupying trench networks that the Bugs had been driven from. Beyond those were the LZs, larger patches of blue icons, supply convoys now extending from them like growing tendrils. Aircraft flitted about, squadrons of Beewolfs circling over the area in holding patterns, dropships touching down to deliver troops and equipment to wherever they were needed.

There was a flicker of light as a secondary hologram projected beside the first, the three-dimensional image of a man appearing, his breast adorned with campaign ribbons. It was Katukov, the commander of the Argyre, broadcasting from the repulsor’s command deck. This was the call that Vos had been waiting for.

“Reporting in, Admiral,” he began, his thick Russian accent crackling through unseen speakers. The electrical storms seemed to be causing some distortion. “The enemy has been forced into a full retreat, and we have secured the base of the mountain. All enemy strongholds are now occupied by Coalition forces, and all of their defensive structures and gun emplacements have been neutralized. I have sixteen battalions reporting their readiness.”

“Excellent work, Commander,” the admiral replied with a curt nod. “Casualty reports?”

“Lower than our projections,” he said. “Those Jarilan heavy infantry units were an asset.”

“Your new orders are to hold position and keep the area secure while the Trog teams are dispatched,” Vos continued. “I don’t need to tell you how important this objective is to the success of the campaign.”

“Understood, Admiral,” the commander replied. “No Bugs will enter or leave the Ant Hill under my watch.”

“The Queen is on her own now,” Vos added, his eyes narrowing. “The Red King has been eliminated, and even if she had a way to get word out to the Kings in neighboring zones, our other CSGs are keeping them tied up. There’s no help coming for her.”

Another hologram appeared to Vos’s left, the admiral turning his head to glance at it. This wasn’t another three-dimensional representation, but rather a video feed from the surface, broadcast from what looked like a wrist-mounted camera. It was Brenner, immediately identifiable by the lenses and sensors that filled his empty eye sockets, a flash of lightning casting him into shadow for a single frame as the rain behind him created blocky artifacts.

“Admiral,” he began, raising his gruff voice above the storm. “All of the enemy comms installations have been disabled, and we’re not picking up any more radio Scuttlers in the field. The Ant Hill has been totally cut off. If there are any roaches left in the area, the Queen has no way to reach them.”

“Good work, Lieutenant,” Vos replied. “Have your teams rendezvous with the armored battalions at the hill. The Trogs are being dispatched, but we may need your support. We have no idea what we’re going to be facing in those tunnels.”

“I’ll make sure that my people are ready to respond when you need them,” Brenner replied, droplets of rain spattering his camera.

Vos raised a gloved hand, putting through more calls with a few quick gestures. The captain of the Constancy responded to his summons almost immediately, a translucent representation of the Jarilan’s upper body appearing to hover in the air beside him, her two pairs of hands folded neatly in front of her segmented carapace. She greeted him with a nod of her horned head, her feathery antennae waving with the motion, as courteous as ever.

There was more of a delay before Xipa deigned to respond, her scarred face materializing beside her Jarilan counterpart. She had only recently returned from her mission to the surface, and the perpetual self-satisfied smile that she had been wearing ever since served as a constant reminder of how wrong he had been.

“You’re looking none the worse for wear, Ensi,” he said as she greeted him with a flutter of red feathers from her headdress. “I trust that your refugees are taking to their accommodations aboard the Saturnian Star?”

“It’s quite an adjustment for them, going from living in a waste treatment plant to bunking on a luxury cruise liner, but I’m sure they’ll manage,” she replied with an amused ripple of yellow. “I hear that the catering is of especially high quality.”

“There’s a four-star chef aboard, so I’ve been told,” Vos replied with a twitch of irritation. Moving the refugees to a cruise ship that had been commandeered as an emergency troop transport had been just one of several favors that she had coerced out of him since her return.

That was enough small-talk, or Brenner would probably drown in the rain before they were done.

“Commander Katukov tells me that your Warriors performed well,” Vos said, turning to the Jarilan captain. “We should have cleared them for deployment earlier in the campaign.”

“The Type-three suit was designed for the express purpose of supporting Coalition infantry,” she replied, puffing out her molded chest piece in what might be pride. “We’re carrying several prototype suits designed for tunnel fighting, too,” she added with a smile. “I would be happy to deploy our Type-twos if you’re in need of extra support.”

“Our Trog teams are very good at what they do, but keep your Warriors on standby alert,” Vos replied. “We have no idea how large this tunnel network is going to be. Nobody has ever encountered a hive this old and established before, so we may need to bring in extra hands.”

“If there’s one thing that we have in abundance, it’s hands,” she chuckled. “As always, the Constancy is at your disposal, Admiral.”

“My best Commando flock is sitting around on the Vengeance preening their feathers while they wait for something to do,” the Ensi added. “I want to give them a crack at the Queen.”

“The tunnels under that mountain are going to be an unimaginably hostile environment,” Vos replied, raising a skeptical eyebrow. “Do your people have the training and the experience necessary for such an operation?”

“They’ll never get any if we leave them benched,” she grumbled. “Millions of our people died at the hands of the Queen, and I’ll be damned if we don’t play a role in her elimination. I’m not asking you to baby them – they can handle themselves, and we’ve developed our own specialized equipment.”

Vos knew that she would get what she wanted one way or another, so arguing with her was a futile endeavor.

“Very well,” he conceded. “I suppose that having more teams mapping those tunnels will be beneficial.”

“We can certainly provide any extra support that you might need, Ensi,” the Jarilan captain added.

Vos tried not to look visibly annoyed by the aliens making their own plans right in front of him, turning back to Katukov.

“You’ll have all of the resources that you need, Commander. It’s time for Operation Regicide to commence. Let’s kill us a Queen.”

“They’re not gonna come out,” Hernandez said, tossing a rolled-up MRE wrapper at Garcia.

The Marine shot him an annoyed glance, then turned his attention back to the tunnel entrances in the distance. The squad was set up at the top of the wall with the rest of their company’s infantry, keeping watch on the base of the mountain, the elevation giving them an excellent firing position. It had been hours since the Bugs had retreated, and there hadn’t been any sign of them since. The tense atmosphere had gradually receded as the UNN had begun to fly in equipment and reinforcements, indicating that they now had unrestricted access to the airspace around the Ant Hill. There were even vehicle convoys coming in from the direction of the LZs. The company’s Kodiaks and IFVs were down at the base of the wall, scattered between the numerous boulders and chunks of resin that had fallen from the cliff face above during the bombardment, their weapons trained on the tunnels. Sunny had remained on top of the wall with them, her suit standing motionless, the cameras that served as its eyes occasionally shifting or telescoping slightly to get a better look.

“There go the Trogs,” Foster said, giving Evan a nudge.

He glanced down at the opening in the wall that had been blasted out by the Crocodiles, seeing a procession of maybe twenty bulky figures emerge on the near side. They wore the same segmented armor that he had seen during his first run-in with them back at the Bug farm, with reinforced plating and a protective collar that rose up to shield the neck area like something from a bomb disposal suit. Their visors were little more than a slit of glass over their eyes, large rebreathers jutting from the mouth area of their helmets, connected to flexible cables that trailed deeper into their armor. The rigs that they wore were laden with all kinds of specialized demolition equipment – grenades and detonators – their distinctive microwave weapons clutched in their gloved hands.

“They look like they mean business,” Evan muttered, watching as the Trogs began to make their way through the rubble.

“I’m a Jarilan, and you couldn’t pay me to go in there,” Jade chuckled. She was sitting beside him, her proboscis extended into a flavored drink packet that he had shared with her.

“What do you think they’re going to find in there?” Evan wondered as the men approached the mouth of one of the smaller tunnels, pausing to examine it.

“I can only speak for my own hive, but the Queen had plenty of defenses set up before the Coalition subdued her,” Jade replied as she took another sip. “There were water locks – sections of tunnel that were submerged in water to prevent chemical weapons or pressure waves from proliferating through the tunnel.”

“Underwater parts?” Hernandez added, apparently feeling the need to shuffle closer to express his displeasure. “Fuck that.”

“It wouldn’t slow down a Bug, but I can imagine it being a very nerve-wracking experience for someone who exchanges oxygen through lungs,” Jade chuckled. “Other traps included things that you might expect. Chemically-triggered mines, hidden compartments where Drones could lie in ambush, sections of tunnel that could be intentionally caved in, pitfalls designed to kill aliens that couldn’t climb as Bugs do – you name it. The nuptial fleet that landed on Jarilo only had weeks to prepare, so I can’t imagine what this Queen has in store.”

“Are they good just walking up to the tunnel like that?” Evan wondered.

“The engineers cleared away all the mines, right?” Hernandez replied with a shrug.

Several more Trog teams arrived, a couple of IFVs driving along beside them, the men starting to unload equipment from the troop bays of the armored vehicles. They began to line up at the mouths of several of the larger tunnels, checking each other’s gear, slamming fresh batteries into their microwave weapons. With so many guns trained on the openings, and the lack of any Bug activity for hours, the atmosphere was pretty relaxed. There were several squads of Marines nearby, most of them standing idle as they watched, a few others helping them carry crates down the open ramps.

“How much do you reckon those guys get paid?” Hernandez asked, taking a bite of a protein bar as he watched.

“More’n you,” Foster chuckled.

“How about you, Sunny?” Hernandez continued as he glanced to the towering suit. “What does the hive pay?”

“We haven’t really figured out the whole currency thing yet,” she replied.

“What? You work for free?” the Marine asked as he paused his chewing.

“Needless to say, the hive didn’t use money or have a concept of property when they arrived on Jarilo,” Jade added. “They acted as one organism, receiving whatever nourishment and tools were deemed necessary for them to fulfill their function.”

“We’re a little different,” Sunny added. “The hive provides us with everything we need – food, housing, equipment. Maybe it’s our human DNA, or maybe it’s because of our social interactions with the colonists, but that’s starting to change.”

“We started off sharing our resources with the colonists,” Jade explained, setting down her empty drink packet. “We gave them whatever resources they needed, provided labor to help them expand the settlement, protection from the local fauna. The Queen sees herself as part of the human hive, so there’s no separation between us in her mind. She’ll feed a hungry colonist the same way she’ll feed a hungry Worker.”

“That escalated into manufacturing,” Sunny continued, Jade nodding her head in agreement. “We built electronics, furniture, tools. The underground foundries and factories that used to manufacture weapons during the war didn’t go anywhere, so we put them to use. Endos have this funny idea of scale,” she added with a chuckle. “They’re happy to take things for free, but only up to a point. Then, it’s like a switch is flipped in their heads, and they feel guilty if they don’t compensate you. At first, it was barter, things like biomatter for the Repletes or raw materials for the factories. Eventually, currency was just more convenient for everyone.”

“How does that work?” Evan asked. “Do you each have your own bank account?”

“The hive is still very much communal,” Jade explained. “The Queen manages our money just like she manages all of our other resources. It’s actually one of the few alien concepts that she’s really taken to. We mostly use the funds to purchase things that we can’t easily obtain on Jarilo, but we’re building quite a portfolio now. Honey exports are a big thing for us, and the UNN has already taken out shipbuilding contracts for when our orbital facilities are completed.”

“You’re building orbital facilities?” Evan asked, surprised by the idea.

“I suppose it’s cheaper and more efficient to let the hive build the tether and the shipyard,” Jade replied with a shrug. “Better than contracting a human company that’s just going to gouge the colonists and drag out the process for as long as possible.”

“Yeah, I guess free is more appealing,” Evan conceded. “That’s crazy, though. I didn’t realize the colony was that developed already.”

“Our Workers don’t exactly need lunch breaks or paid vacations,” Sunny added.

“Isn’t that like ... slavery or somethin’?” Hernandez added.

“Slavery implies coercion,” Jade replied. “They could stop if they wanted to, but it’s just ... what they do. It’s hard to explain,” she continued, pausing to consider for a moment. “I don’t have to be a Drone, and Sunny doesn’t have to be a Pilot. If we wanted to quit and become pastry chefs or dance instructors, there’s nothing stopping us. But, there’s a kind of comfort in knowing what you were made for and knowing that you have the tools to excel at it. Some humans live half their lives without figuring out who they want to be or what career they want, but we’re hatched with a path already laid out for us. We can choose to reject it, but few do.”

“That implies that some Jarilans have?” Evan asked.

“I know a Replete who decided to become a chef,” she replied with a shrug.

“What?” Hernandez chuckled.

“Yeah,” Jade continued. “I mean, I suppose that a Replete becoming a chef isn’t really too far removed from their usual role, which is processing biomatter into honey, but she wanted to feed other species who weren’t as ... comfortable with how we prepare our food.”