Chapter 8: Troglodyte

The newly assembled team marched down one of the dugouts towards a tunnel opening in the distance, the walls of excavated debris slowly growing larger and more oppressive as they neared. There was very little light reaching it now, leaving it cast into dark shadow, like a black hole that was about to swallow them up. This one looked large enough for a Scuttler, which meant that Sunny could make it through unhindered.

“How did you survive the landslide, Lieutenant?” Aster asked as she glanced up at the tall walls of earth that enclosed them.

“We ran into the tunnels when the explosives went off,” Bainbridge replied, keeping his eyes on the opening ahead. “That’s it. I’m alive because my team was a few feet closer to the mountain than everyone else. We barely made it, and it took hours for them to dig us out. Lost almost half of our guys,” he added with an exasperated sigh. “Good people, people with a lot of experience that they can’t pass on now.”

Evan remarked that, unlike the SWAR teams that they had encountered, Bainbridge seemed to show no animosity towards the Jarilans. He even seemed glad to have them. Whether that was because he had worked with them previously or because he simply valued their unique talents, it was impossible to say.

“Where do you want me, L.T?” Sunny asked as she marched along behind the group. While this new Type-two suit was comparatively smaller than the previous one that she had used, it was still near ten feet tall and wider than both Borealans standing shoulder to shoulder.

“If there’s room, I want you beside me at the front,” Bainbridge replied. “Privates Aster, Cardinal, and Jade – I want you on the lookout for pheromones. The Bugs paint their stink on the walls like road signs, and you might be able to give us an edge if you can recognize patterns, maybe stop us from getting turned around in there.”

“We can try, sir,” Jade replied. “We don’t speak Kerguelan, if that makes sense, but we can certainly detect the presence of enemy forces and maybe pick out some common pheromone markers.”

“It’s going to be hard for them to get the drop on us in those tunnels,” Aster said. “If the hive’s air circulation system works the same way as the one back home, then we’ll be able to smell them coming well in advance.”

“The same goes for them, though,” Cardinal added. “They’ll know that we’re there.”

Sunny moved to the front of the pack, slowing her gait so as not to outpace Bainbridge, her long upper arms swinging at her side as her lower pair held her AMR at the ready. Evan watched as Jade popped her antennae out of her helmet, uncurling them like a pair of growing ferns.

“What about the radiation?” he asked. “Are you going to be alright?”

“It should be fine as long as we’re inside,” she replied, shaking her head like she was letting her hair down. “Wow,” she added, flinching as though some terrible stink had just struck her.

“What is it?”

“Smells like iron and pheromones,” she replied. “I guess that’s the radiation,” she added with a nervous chuckle. “I should probably take some iodine supplements when we’re done.”

“Report,” Bainbridge said as they approached the mouth of the tunnel.

“This was indeed designed for vehicles,” Jade replied, waving her feathery antennae as she took a few steps closer to the gaping opening. “It smells of Scuttlers, Warriors. Drones came through here, too. I sense alarm pheromones. A retreat.”

“I’d say the same,” Aster added, Cardinal nodding along.

“A garage or a vehicle repair bay is as good a target as any,” Bainbridge said, hefting his heavy microwave emitter as he glanced up at the resin-coated ceiling. “I don’t really fancy fighting a Scuttler in close quarters, though. I think we need some heavier support.”

“A Kodiak can’t fit down these passages,” Simmons replied. “I think even our Timberwolfs would be scraping the walls.”

“Not a problem,” Bainbridge said, putting a finger to the side of his helmet. “Fleetcom, this is Lieutenant Bainbridge, leading Delta-seventeen. I need a Cozat’li if there are any going. My coordinates are as follows.”

After a few minutes, Evan heard the sound of engines, and he turned to see a dropship cruising in for a landing beyond the wall. It wasn’t a UNN craft, but rather a Valbaran one, the color panels that ran down its rounded nose flashing like landing lights. It was larger than the human variety, shaped more like an archaic spaceplane, its hull painted in ocean camouflage. It shifted into VTOL mode when it got close enough, lowering itself out of view.

Not long after, a tiny vehicle drove into sight at the far end of the channel that had been excavated out of the landslide. It was one of the little Valbaran tankettes that the company had fought alongside during the assault on the refinery, scarcely four meters long and half as wide. It trundled towards them on a pair of tracks, the barrel of its gun remaining perfectly level as it bounced along the uneven ground. It rolled to a stop behind the group, a small hatch on the sloping front of the vehicle swinging open, the driver popping her helmeted head out to greet them.

“Someone order a tank?”

“That would be me,” Bainbridge replied, stepping aside as he gestured to the tunnel. “Take point, and watch out for enemy armor. We know that Scuttlers came through here, but we don’t know where they ended up.”

“We’ll go as far as we can,” the driver said, tapping on the hull with her three-fingered hand. The tankette lurched into motion, the squad stepping out of its path as it drove to the front of the pack. It was much smaller than the twenty-ton Scuttlers, fitting inside the tunnel with room to spare, scarcely rising above Sunny’s waist as it passed her by. The vehicle slowed to walking pace as the squad followed behind it, using it as cover, its headlights lighting up the darkness ahead. As they got deeper, the opening receded behind them, becoming a small point of sunlight.

Jade jogged ahead a little, hopping up to grab one of the bustle racks on the hull of the tankette, her antennae waving in a breeze that emanated from deeper inside. Bainbridge paused for a moment by one of the curving, resin walls of the structure, fishing for something in a pouch on his belt. When he stepped away, Evan saw that he had placed a small, metallic device the size of a coin on the wall.

“It’s a wireless repeater,” the Trog explained, noticing that Evan was watching him. “It extends the range of our comms so we can keep in touch with the surface, and it lets us find our way back out again.”

“Breadcrumbs,” Hernandez muttered.

“And, what happens if the Bugs eat these breadcrumbs?” Evan asked.

“Then I hope you have a good sense of direction,” Brainbridge replied ominously, the two Marines sharing a worried glance.

They ventured deeper into the tunnel, finding that the floor was relatively level, the passage winding just enough to create blind corners. It never grew completely dark, Evan noting that the bioluminescent moss that he had encountered in other Bug structures was clustered at the apex of the arching ceiling, creating pockets of light at regular intervals that cast their surroundings in a blue glow.

“Shouldn’t it be getting colder as we go deeper?” Brooks asked. “My suit’s cooling systems are kicking in.”

“I’m reading higher than usual humidity, too,” Simmons confirmed as he glanced at the display on his wrist. “This place should be as dry as a fucking bone after what we did to the environment outside.”

“Bug hives have very sophisticated air circulation systems,” Jade explained. “They’re not even necessarily technological in nature – they work using spires that act as chimneys, creating a convection cell inside the structure. These chimneys are connected to more branching vents inside the hive, kind of like a trachea and lungs. When it’s hot out, the air in the vents warms more rapidly than the air inside the insulated chimney, causing cool air to sink deeper into the system while hot air rises out. When the temperature on the surface falls, the system reverses, cycling waste gasses in the process.”

“It’s the same system that Earth termites use in their mounds,” Bainbridge added. “It’s effective, and simple enough that even an animal could come up with it.”

“This hive may have technological systems that help the process along, like purifiers,” Jade continued as the tankette rounded another bend. “But, the basis of the system is very simple.”

“What if we just waited for nightfall and pumped poison gas into the chimneys?” Hernandez asked.

“One, that would violate a hundred conventions on chemical warfare,” Jade chuckled. “Two, it wouldn’t be very effective due to the gas locks these hives use. The circulation of air can be stopped by pressure-sealed doors, or just by flooding sections of tunnel to prevent gas exchange. Feral hives use chemical weapons against each other pretty routinely, so counters are hard-baked into their construction.”

“The only way to get the job done is to do it manually,” Bainbridge grumbled, placing another repeater as he went.

“How many times have you done this?” Evan asked, noting the fatigue in his tone.

“This is my third hive,” Bainbridge replied. “I was deployed to Kruger III and Epsilon Eridani IV before this.”

“Fuck,” Hernandez muttered. “I heard Kruger was fuckin’ bad.”

“No worse than this,” the Trog replied. “The big issue on K-3 was that the terrain was too muddy for us to deploy mechanized units, so it was all fought on foot. That place was a fucking shithole – just endless fields of mud inhabited only by worms and a few scraggly trees barely clinging to life. Breathable atmo, though, and comfortable gravity. There are colonies there now. Those poor cunts probably wish that we’d lost...”

“The scent is getting stronger,” Jade warned, hopping down from the tankette. “I think we’re coming up on something.”

“Wish we’d had some Jarilans on K-3,” Bainbridge said, readying his unwieldy weapon. “The chemical analyzers they gave us were trash – only showed us pheromone concentrations without being able to distinguish what they might mean.”

“Lieutenant, I recommend that we have the tankette hold back,” Jade warned as she turned to glance back at him. “It’s creating a lot of sound and vibration.”

“You heard her,” Bainbridge said, rapping his fist on the hull of the vehicle. “Hold for further orders. Miss Sunny, please tread lightly, if such a thing is possible.”

“Quiet as a mouse,” the Pilot whispered, slowing her gait.

“How far do you reckon, Private?” Bainbridge asked as he moved to the front of the group.

“One or two more corners, maybe,” Jade replied. “The scent is getting stronger rapidly, which suggests a larger concentration than just the trail we’ve been following.”

“All of you hold here while I check it out,” Bainbridge said.

They stopped as he crept around the next bend in the tunnel, remarkably quiet for someone who looked like he was carrying his body weight in gear.

“Won’t they smell him?” Hernandez whispered.

“Don’t you feel the breeze?” Cardinal replied, gesturing to her antennae as they waved gently. “We’re upwind. It’s enough to let us get the drop on them.”

Evan tapped into Bainbridge’s helmet cam, watching as he made his way through the gloom, inching around the corner. This one was clear, so he moved on to the next, putting his back to the wall. He looked down at the bulky device on his wrist, tapping at the touch panel with the capacitive pads on his thick gloves, a snaking tube extending from it. It was a little camera, Evan realized, mounted on the end of a telescoping hose. As he watched, Bainbridge extended his arm just enough that the tiny camera could get a look around the corner.

“Fuck,” he growled. “We have activity. I’m broadcasting my camera feed.”

Evan opened up the view in a window on his HUD, sucking in a gasp as he blew it up to get a better look. Before him was a massive cavity that had been hollowed out of the mountain, black, igneous rock visible through the resin that held up the domed ceiling. It must have been the size of a spacecraft hangar, maybe five or six thousand square meters of floor space. At the peak of the dome was a cluster of bioluminescent moss, far larger than any that they had encountered so far, creating enough light to act as a giant chandelier.

Ringing the base of the circular wall were alcoves of varying sizes – holes that had been hollowed out of the rock. Rather than being lined with resin, they were filled with meat, giving them the off-putting appearance of organic orifices. Most were empty, exposing the glistening interiors, just enough light making it inside from the bioluminescent moss to give them a wet sheen. They weren’t dissimilar from the cavity inside Sunny’s suit, like a lining of living tissue that was covered over by a slimy mucous membrane. There were fat, entrail-like cables running between them to form a kind of network, much in the same way that insulated power cables or fuel lines might trail across the deck of a hangar. They were clearly transporting resources between the alcoves – methane fuel, honey, maybe even something more conventional like electricity or plasma.

There were mechanical components to these systems, each alcove sporting a bank of the fleshy computers that Evan had encountered inside other structures, like server racks covered in offal that were linked to the network by more tangled wires and cables. He could see rows of large, cylindrical storage tanks like those they had seen at the refinery, shining some light on their purpose. Everything was so incomprehensibly alien, so impossible to grasp, but it was possible to piece it all together with enough prior knowledge and context.

What few alcoves were occupied were filled with Warriors and Scuttlers, organic cables and more conventional wires hanging down to plug into various connection points on their carapaces. This was a service bay of some kind – they were being repaired, refueled.

Scurrying about their feet were short, squat Workers, the four-foot creatures tending to their far larger charges. They operated the computers with their four arms, carried spools of living cable between the alcoves, and hauled themselves up onto the hulls of the vehicles to repair battle damage. They used mechanical cranes that were mounted on the ceilings of the bays to remove armor panels that had been damaged by railgun fire or shrapnel, replacing them wholesale, performing what looked more like surgery on the components that couldn’t be swapped out.

Evan watched one of them manipulate surgical tools in its dexterous lower hands, crouched on the shoulder of a Warrior as it worked on a bloody wound that had damaged the organic eyes behind the vehicle’s slatted visor, like a scene right out of an operating theater. Another was repairing the holes left by railgun slugs on the suit’s thigh armor with resin, licking its hands with its proboscis to coat them in saliva, then smearing it on the wounds.

The suit shuddered as its chest split open down the middle, a mass of writhing tendrils disgorging its Pilot, strands of slime dripping from her autumn-colored carapace as the cables that connected her to the suit disconnected from her spine. She reminded him of Sunny, with her seven-foot frame and her lanky limbs. The differences between the two were subtle. This Kerguelan Pilot sported similarly expressive eyes, but lacked the more humanoid facial structure. Where Sunny had a mouth and lips, this creature had a wicked set of mandibles more akin to a scorpion, serrated like blades. Her horn was larger and more prominent, and she lacked antennae and fur entirely, leaving her looking far less welcoming. She paid no attention to the smaller Workers, stepping over them as she strode deeper into the bay.

There were Drones, too, the familiar combat forms standing guard. They weren’t stupid – they knew that this was a likely point of ingress into the hive, and they weren’t about to let the invaders just march right in unopposed. Two of the functional Scuttlers and three Warriors were positioned to watch the tunnel opening, ready to lay down a lot of fire on the choke point.

“Is this all they were able to salvage after the battle?” Aster whispered. “More than half of those service bays are empty.”

“Even with only a fraction of their original force, we don’t have the numbers to take them on,” Simmons growled as he watched the feed. “If we had some Kodiaks, maybe, but the gun on that tankette can’t take the Scuttlers out fast enough to prevent them from returning fire. Even with the element of surprise, we’re at a disadvantage here. We should pull back and call in reinforcements.”

“Wait, I have an idea,” Evan said. “I recognize those storage tanks – they’re full of methane. That’s probably what they’re using to refuel their vehicles. I see stores of munitions, too. See those racks of missiles being loaded into one of the launchers?”

“You’re proposing that we shoot the tanks?” Bainbridge asked.

“Even a few shots from an XMR would probably do the trick,” Evan replied. “We encountered a modified Scuttler that was carrying one of those tanks on its back when we assaulted the refinery, and it went up like the fourth of July. If I’m right, everything connected to those tanks should burn along with them.”

“A huge methane explosion in such a confined space would do a lot of damage,” Bainbridge mused as he swept his camera around the chamber. “Especially if those munitions stores get caught in the blast. It might even collapse part of the chamber if we’re lucky. Good thinking, Private.” He stepped away from the corner, the camera retracting back into its housing on his wrist. “Sergeant, think you can hit those tanks without exposing yourself?”

“Not a problem,” Simmons replied, readying his rifle as he stepped forward.

“The rest of you, hang back,” Bainbridge added. “Stay around the bend, and get ready for a pressure wave. As soon as you hear the fuel tanks go up, I want the Warrior and the Cozat’li to roll out shooting at anything larger than a Drone. Everyone else, focus your fire on the enemy infantry. Spread out, and try to stay in cover. Don’t waste any energy on the Workers – they’re harmless.”

Simmons moved up beside Bainbridge, using the wireless feed from his rifle’s scope to find his target, leaning the weapon out of cover. He centered it on one of the larger clusters of storage tanks, the containers linked to the trailing network of pulsing cables that wound their way through the chamber.

“Here goes,” he muttered, bracing the weapon against his shoulder.

A burst of gunfire echoed down the tunnel, Evan watching through the sergeant’s feed as they struck the centermost tank, punching a trio of holes in its resin shell. The pressurized methane rushed out of the breaches to mix with the oxygen in the atmosphere, quickly igniting into a growing fireball, consuming the other tanks in the blaze. As he had hoped, it caused a chain reaction, the adjacent containers erupting in powerful blasts that shook the very walls of the chamber. The pressure wave shot down the tunnel, a wall of hot air almost knocking Evan off his feet.

The emerald flames rushed along the lengths of organic cable, splitting them open like burst sausage casings on a barbecue, quickly spreading throughout the network. More fuel tanks exploded as the flames burned through the trailing cables like fuses, raining flames and debris on the terrified Workers below, the squat creatures scattering for cover in the confusion. One of the alcoves where a Scuttler was being refueled exploded outwards, spraying chunks of burning flesh and fragments of chitin, the vehicle’s internal tanks rupturing violently.

The fires spread all around the massive chamber, making their way along the curved wall, shattering the resin in places. The detonations weakened the structure enough to send cracks dancing across the translucent, brittle material, culminating in great chunks of it crashing down onto the Bugs below. A piece the size of a car fell from the apex of the domed roof, landing on one of the active Scuttlers, crushing it beneath its weight. The thing’s eight legs gave out, fluids and fuel splattering as its shell caved in on itself.

One of the fires reached a crate of munitions, what must have been pressurized gas canisters for use in plasma weapons detonating in a blast that threw a nearby Drone almost clear across the chamber. Missiles that had been waiting to be loaded into launchers set off, whizzing through the air like fireworks, sending deadly shrapnel and plasma spraying wherever they landed. Chemical munitions ruptured, obscuring clouds of yellow gas filling the air, quickly forming a murky haze in the enclosed space.

The Bugs were in a blind panic, moving like a herd in an attempt to escape the fire and debris, the Drones and Pilots pushed along by the far more numerous Workers. The remaining Scuttler plodded along on its eight legs, torn between trying to identify the source of the explosions and trying to avoid crushing the smaller creatures that were swarming around it like ants. Whether this was true fear or merely some reflexive attempt at self-preservation, the results were the same.

“Go, go!” Bainbridge ordered as he rushed down the tunnel. “Get the drop on ‘em while they’re distracted!”

The tankette drove along behind him, the squad following after it in a column, using it for cover just as they would have with their IFV. Sunny outpaced them on her long legs, moving to the right of the vehicle, its turret at waist height to her. She ignited the plasma shields on her forearms, readying her AMR.

They soon rounded the corner, seeing the chaos with their own eyes. Some of the methane fires still burned, overpowering the room’s blue lighting with their flickering green, creating a ring of flame that engulfed the base of the wall. Most of the Bug infrastructure had been reduced to smoldering wreckage, the tanks that had housed the methane split open, the supports that had held them aloft collapsed to send them crashing to the floor. Many of the vehicles that had been undergoing repairs now burned in their alcoves, their fuel and munitions cooking them alive, turning their service bays into ovens.