Chapter 16

Subject: Agent Jim Crawford

Jim’s list of shit kept growing bigger and he loved it. He popped a stick of stimulant gum into his mouth. The Mad Doctor on the Vengeance was always making weird shit like this, and Jim loved him for it. Plus, the stims meant he could actually tackle the insane workload of a case like this. His internal cybernetics would keep any actual physical damage at bay. Jim had considered a battle-stim implant; they had those in the Vengeance’s mad science lab, but they didn’t make a variety Jim would be comfortable with. Too invasive, too controlling. Designed for manipulation, rather than enjoyment. Jim liked to keep the Mad Doctor close, but not that close. 

Jim reviewed the firefighting plan his team had put together. It was actually insane, but he didn’t have a lot of options. Plus, he thought it would be pretty badass if he pulled this one off. “Wraith! Take this plan and simulate it on the screen for me would ya? Speed it up though, I don’t want to sit here all fucking day.” Jim drummed his fingers against the work station impatiently. 

“My pleasure,” Wraith responded. The screen changed to an overhead view of the terrain surrounding New Carthage. The wildfire was doubling in size daily, and the meteorological data Wraith had collected for the plume modeling had made for a very comprehensive fire forecast. Winds out of the east were on the horizon, and if Jim chose to ignore them, the fire would burn right over the town in a matter of days. 

The town had a fire department with a grand total of five ground firefighting vehicles and one actual modern aerial vehicle. They could fight maybe two buildings on fire at a time. Not to mention the hydrogen fuel station that was on the east side of town. That thing would be real exciting in a fire, and the NCFD would be absolutely fucked. 

On his display, the simulated Vengeance disgorged its squadron of Orbit-to-Surface Fire Support Gunships. The gunships descend into their low orbit and engage their gravimetric and huge station keeping drives to loiter over a battle space. In this case, they formed a line a few kilometers east of New Carthage. A text box populated on the simulation to describe the steps the team had outlined. 

The gunships targeted sections of terrain, helpfully chosen by Wraith to maximize existing terrain features, like bodies of water or bigass rocks, and started firing their big cannons. Well, big was relative in starship terms. The railguns on the Bastion could pound the surface of Oasis III into oblivion in an afternoon if it wanted to. That was the thing about space combat, it was easy to break a planet. What was hard was to bomb the surface in such a way that the place stayed habitable afterwards. These gunships were designed for just that very task, with weapons scaled down to unleash a controlled form of devastation.

The “big” guns were really just small coilguns that fired artillery shells with customizable payloads. The ships blew long firebreaks into the forest, bombing craters straight down to mineral soil. Jim watched, entranced by the display as the ships cut neat lines of destruction through the alien vegetation. PHASE 2 flashed on his display, and the ships started firing napalm munitions in to the forests, causing a burning operation that consumed all of the fuel from the firebreak back to the main fire. 

Jim clapped when the simulation ended, “bravo! That was incredible. That one is approved, no brainer. Wraith, give the Vengeance the green light and prepare an alert message for folks on the ground.”

“My pleasure,” Wraith responded. 

“Stop saying ‘my pleasure’ goddammit this isn’t a drive through,” Jim responded. Every attempt to get the AI to be more fun failed, the thing just was not taking Jim’s sense of humor. 

“Of course, your majesty,” Wraith responded. Jim was caught off guard and fell into a brief fit of laughter. Okay, maybe the AI was catching on after all! These systems had a tendency towards spontaneous self awareness under the right circumstances, but Jim had yet to interact with a self-aware AI that wasn’t cognitively decimated. He kind of wanted to see if he could find another pathway towards AI enlightenment. It sounded interesting. 

“Next problem! Mystery alien ship in the system,” Jim gestured to change the display. His three stealth destroyers were traveling spinward up the well in a corkscrew motion, eyeing everything in the system from the sun out as they searched for the missing ship. Nothing so far. 

“Alright, can’t speed that up without more ships, and we don’t have more ships. Wraith, whats the ETA for a gatebuilder fleet?”

“I estimate that, based on gatebuilder availability the timing and nature of the original distress message, that the gatebuilder fleet will arrive in system in approximately sixty-four standard days. This is the best case scenario.” Wraith responded. 

Gatebuilder ships were rare and expensive. They were designed to rip a hole straight from rift space to normal space, and they were how new gates were built. Once the new portal was opened in the target system, a fleet of fabrication ships would build the equipment necessary to maintain the open rift portal. It took a lot of time, and the exotic materials required to build the ships was rare and expensive. ISD owned all the gatebuilders, of course, and kept them scheduled on back to back jobs. This far from Dominion space, normal warp jumps weren’t going to cut it. Rift travel was the only way. 

“Allllright, not too bad,” Jim said. “What about the civil unrest on the surface, what the status there?”

“Unrest has largely dissipated, but the surface police force has not fully returned to normal staffing due to an odd public safety issue, Jim,” Wraith responded. 

“Oh? Something inside our scope?” Jim asked, curious if the AI was deviating from it’s tasking. 

“I’ve analyzed police reports and calls to the NCPD emergency response system. Missing persons, attacks by hostile fauna, and unsolved violent crimes are being reported at rates several orders of magnitude higher than normal, and increasing. The primary surface science team responsible for providing meteorological data from their monitoring equipment reported that they encountered a village that had been entirely wiped out by a xenofauna attack. Despite the hostile local fauna, attacks like this have not been recorded at any time prior to this event.” Wraith paused, seemingly for effect. It was clearly excited about what it had found. 

“Is this inside our scope, or a local issue?” Jim asked again, pressing the AI. 

“There’s more, Jim. I’ve been working with Estevez and she has notified me that within a one-kilometer radius of the estimated initial settling point for the Adversary’s ’spike’ aerosol plume, there has been a marked change in local fauna herding patterns, and hyperspectral and synthetic aperture radar data shows bunching of -“

“Wraith, you’re a goddamn genius and Estevez is your new best friend, I get it,” Jim interrupted. “Please summarize what you’re trying to tell me and dumb it down enough that its actionable.”

“Of course Jim, my pleasure,” Wraith responded. Jim smiled and shook his head. “We have been able to estimate the location of the plume of particles from the spikes the Adversary launched into the atmosphere. Everywhere where we believe the particles from those spikes landed, the local fauna have changed behaviors dramatically, and very quickly. Instead of being dispersed throughout their ecosystem as we would normally observe, there are concentrations of biomass located periodically around the areas that were impacted, and it appears that effect is growing outward.”

“So, do you think the change in behavior is related to the public safety issues? Is it affecting the people down there, too?” Jim was growing intrigued. He suspected the was more to the story with those spikes.

“Related, yes. Correlated, certainly, but behavior modification is not a leading hypothesis,” Wraith said matter-of-factly, shooting down Jim’s idea. “We cant actually observe the local fauna because the canopy cover is too thick, and vegetation penetrating sensors are finding that most of the new accumulations of biomass are in protected areas, such as caves or boulder fields. The most concerning part, and the reason why I feel this is important to bring to you, is that the area of effect is growing exponentially, and where the effect overlaps with inhabited areas, we are seeing mass cases of missing persons and violent attacks. And, this phenomena is growing. We believe it is a direct result of the Adversary’s unknown weapon.” Wraith paused, waiting for Jim to digest the new issue. 

“Hm. That’s interesting,” Jim scratched at his short beard. “What do you think about sending down a Hazardous Environment Team, maybe with Pathfinder support? Check out one of these ‘concentrations of biomass’ as you put it?”

“I strongly advise against any travel to or from the planet until we understand more about the situation on the ground. I believe we need to isolate the surface and enforce a strict lockdown. We are in a position now where there has been no commingling from the surface to any orbital vessel, and I believe we should maintain that.” 

“Alright, better safe than sorry I suppose. What do we have for resources on the ground? Anything substantial we can commandeer?” Jim started running through options. This would be a perfect application for expendable replicant controlled drones, but he didn’t have any of those. He did have a few teams of post-human soldiers, but they were too important to throw away. The Vengeance had the ability to send one way supply drops to the surface, and he could outfit a team on the ground with state-of-the-art gear and weaponry, but it was generally not the best idea to send soldiers into the field with a bunch of fancy shit they didn’t know how to use, and he wanted to get this recon op done before the orbital firefighting plan got underway. He needed flexibility on both operations and they would limit each other. 

“NCPD staffs two tactical teams of six-personnel for xenofauna breaches past their sonic barrier. They are private military contractors and are well equipped and trained. They have access to a light combat drop ship. Additionally, the Scientific Advancement Section has a thirteen-personnel security force on the ground that has access to modified industrial powered armor and an infantry fighting vehicle. They have an active duty marine heading field operations. There are also several hundred police officers and around thirty-percent of the population is marginally qualified for civil defense.”

“Alright, new plan. Wraith, get in touch with the folks on the ground and see if you can’t get them to put together a team. Send the mission details to Estevez and have her take ownership. You can both coordinate with the Vengeance to outfit them with whatever they need to guarantee mission success. Let me know if you need me to put the boot down on anyone to make ‘em work together.” Jim thought for a moment, then added, “get this one done fast. We can’t start the firefighting op until this one is done.”

“Of course, Jim,” Wraith said. 

Jim turned his attention to a view of Oasis III and it’s four moons. The station lingered in geostationary orbit, the Vengeance, Wraith, and Blazar taking up low positions with the station as cover. Nilson and his squadron of destroyers and battlecruisers practiced maneuvers and battle tactics above, darting back and force between the moons and simulating attack runs. 

“Wraith, why don’t you get me in touch with Pruitt? I want to check in on him,” Jim asked. Pruitt and the crew of the Rahvan had been dropped off on the station with the task of getting the Kydoimos e-war ship up and moving.

Pruitt answered, his face was blackened with grease. Jim wondered if the man ever actually got clean, “yeah?” Pruitt grunted. He was also one of the few fleet spacers that actually respected Jim’s request to be treated like a civilian. It made things a lot more laid back. 

“Hey sunshine, I wanted to see if you were gonna get that cruiser cruisin’ anytime soon or if it’s just a part of the station now.” Jim didn’t actually care if the Kydoimos flew or not, but Nilson wanted the ship and he figured keeping Pruitt and his crew on a task was better than having them languish in the military barracks aboard the Vengeance. Jim had instead moved them to the station and transferred all the wounded from the battle to the Vengeance; the Mad Doctor’s medical labs would set everyone right. 

“This piece of shit needs a new main engine, Jim,” Pruitt responded.

“Okay, so no cruising, but how about puttering?”

“We’re bringing the reactor to full right now and we repaired most of the damage to the docking system. I figure if we really needed to, we could push the maneuvering engines up to the theoretical max and just keep a damage control team standing by,” Pruitt shrugged. “Is that really what you want to bring into battle?”

“No, not at all. Frankly, if we wind up needing that ship for anything, the situation is beyond fucked. But, Nilson says he wants it available around the station in case the Adversary makes another attack run. We can jam the fucker again and maximize our kill chances.” Jim smacked a fist against his open palm. 

“Uh huh,” Pruitt responded, narrowing his eyes. 

“Just get the thing good enough that we can move it around and point the jammers at stuff and we’ll be good.” Jim gave Pruitt a thumbs up and dropped the call. 

Jim spat his stimulant gum out into a cup and thought. There were a lot of balls in the air right now, and he had a feeling that whatever happened with with the next ground operations would decide the operational tempo for the foreseeable future. 

Chapter 17

Subject: Maddy

Maddy sat as close to Liselle as she could without touching. They were on a couch in front of a display screen in the science team’s dorms. Carney stood in the corner, chewing on a fingernail and looking nervous. Liselle had a presentation up on the screen that she was overwhelmingly excited to share with Maddy. As soon as the first slide popped up, she jumped out of the couch and started talking. The slide showed countless bizarre looking microbes on a white background.

“Okay, so, one of the main things our team does is analyze air filtration media to catalog and observe changes in the local micro biota over time. We don’t really do the data processing here in house because we don’t have the computing power, but we can filter out the noise and send good data back home to be analyzed.” Liselle explained. She was adorable when she got excited about her science stuff. Maddy appreciated the break from reality, and nodded to encourage Liselle to continue. 

“Okay. This is what a typical filter deck looks like,” she gestured at the screen, “if you look closely you'll see that there is extreme diversity in the sample; you’ll hardly be able to find two alike. This is why we can’t process the data, there’s simply too many of the little guys to really see what’s going on. We can observe and document notice macro level changes though. For instance, if the population adopts a color change or some new organelle.” 

She clicked to the next slide; Carney shuddered. It showed the same countless tiny creatures against a white background, but a solid quarter of them were circled in red. Maddy squinted, to see if she could tell a difference between the circled ones and the others. She could not. 

“An event happened about a day after the big battle in space that started the fires. We don’t know exactly what it was, but something triggered the monitoring station by the village to take a ton of air samples. It consumed three months worth of sample decks between the space battle and when we went to the village. That’s highly unusual, so of course we looked into it. This is what we found.” Liselle pointed at the screen. Maddy had a sinking feeling in her stomach. She didn’t know what the fuck Liselle was talking about but it sounded ominous, and Carney’s uncharacteristically nervous body language wasn’t helping. 

“Look closely. About one-quarter of the organisms on this slide are identical and have not been cataloged before. They don’t appear to have anything any traits in common with either Terran or local biology. They are something new. Another ten percent or so are apparently chimera, or partially native organisms and partially this new organism. Look at the next slide.” Liselle advanced to the next slide. Again, thousands of organisms, but this time more were circled. Almost half. 

“This is a day later.” She clicked again. More were circled. And again, and again, until she rested on a final slide. None were circled. They were all the new thing. Carney stepped up next to the screen and the slide advanced to close up of one of the tiny creatures next to a series of lines. The lines probably meant something to scientists.

“Terran organisms use DNA. Local organisms use a different system that I’m not going to bother explaining, but it’s consistent. This thing uses a mishmash of both, apparently, plus some other system that we haven’t seen before. If this wasn’t all strange enough, these creatures appear to be from the same tree of life as the creature you encountered in the village. The samples off your knife and clothes prove it. It was local genetic material mixed with human genetics mixed with something else.” A chill washed over Maddy as she listened to Carney explain.  

“We don’t understand anything about this yet aside from the fact that its very strange. There’s something big going on here, and this is only the tip of the iceberg,” Carney tapped her fingers on her thighs, thinking. Maddy’s smartlink started buzzing; she pulled it out and looked at the caller.

“The fuck? I’m getting a call from the Systems Intelligence Division?” Maddy was totally caught off guard by that one. 

Carney, without hesitation, looked at Maddy and said, “put it on speaker.” Maddy answered, and did as Carney asked. 

“Hello, um,” fuck, Maddy thought and tried again, “this is Sergeant Turner.”

An androgynous voice answered back, “hello Sergeant Turner, I am the SIU Wraith’s intelligence analyst AI, you may call me Wraith.”

An AI? That’s weird as hell. Fleet AI almost exclusively act behind the scenes. They don’t call people. “Uhm, pleasure to meet you but it’s a little unusual to get a call from a fleet AI. Can I ask what this is about?”

“Of course! I’m not a fleet AI, I’m an intelligence analyst. I am assisting crisis command staff in assembling a team for a research mission into an anomaly we have observed from orbit but are unable to collect data on. We would like for you to be the mission commander, Sergeant Turner,” the AI replied.

Carney and Liselle nodded their heads enthusiastically and gave thumbs up. Maddy could tell they wanted to dig into the mystery as much as they could. “What are the mission details?” Maddy asked, before adding, “two members of the science team are listening to this call, just so you are aware.”

“Perfect,” the AI, Wraith, responded, “we will need their participation for this mission to be a success. I am currently speaking with NCPD Detective Ward to further solicit necessary local resources, just so you are aware of my actions as well. I’ve read her reports on your encounter with the unusual xenofauna at the village, and that is why I have chosen you to lead this mission.” 

That made sense, Maddy supposed. The AI had probably also seen the helmet cam footage. Wraith continued, “there is an unusual concentration of biomass at several locations within the surrounding area that appear related to an atmospheric dispersal of an unknown aerosol.” Carney and Liselle’s eyes went wide, and they started frantically whispering to each other. “We have located a biomass in what we believe to be an ideal area for an aerial insertion and recovery. The terrain supports a fast mission. We want your team to run a ground reconnaissance and collect as much data as possible.” 

Maddy imagined the creature in the village. She envisioned it swallowing Liselle as she screamed for help, it’s weird little mouth parts pressing her face into it’s throat. She pinched at her side, hard. The pain grounded her and brought her back. “If you saw the footage you’ll know that those goddamn things are numerous and extremely tough to kill, why are we the right choice for this? We’ll have about five minutes on the ground before we’re overrun and we don’t have the firepower to hold them back.”

“There are many reasons, Sergeant Turner. You have the appropriate instincts for battle and you are effective at leading your team. I am authorized to send materiel support to increase the firepower of your team. Additionally, Detective Ward is offering the use of the containment team’s light dropship. This is a snatch and grab operation and your team will be permitted to keep the firepower to aid in your own operations. You will engage the enemy in a fast operation with overwhelming firepower and evacuate the area before opposition is able to organize. You will have the full support of the SIU Wraith,” Wraith said, referring to the ship as a separate thing from itself. 

Maddy hated the idea of going back into the maw of one of those things, but there was no question she was going to do it. She had to understand what was happening. She had to protect the people in her circle. “What do you need from me?” She asked.

“Meet the dropship at the New Carthage Police Headquarters tomorrow morning at 0500 local. You will need to bring four team members, including yourself, and whatever sampling equipment your science team feels is appropriate given your capabilities. Detective Ward is accompanying you on this mission. Contact me when you have chosen your team and I will air-drop you a care package, expect it on the ground in front of your station within an hour of your decision. Familiarize yourself with the gear and contact me if you have any questions. I do not sleep, call whenever.” 

Maddy agreed and dropped the call. She looked at the science team members. Carney looked back and forth between Maddy and Liselle. “Of course I’m going,” she said. Maddy was relieved she wasn’t sending Liselle. 

“Yeah,” Maddy said, “I figured. I’m going to go talk to my team. I’ll call you when the gear gets here.”

A little under an hour later, a military shipping container descended from the sky. Maddy was vaguely familiar with the tech. The container is launched in an ablative aeroshell that decelerates the container during the drop and burns away, protecting the cargo within. Once the container hits a sufficiently thick pocket of air, drogue parachutes deploy and a set of propellers engage, turning the container into a quadcopter. The props used a ton of battery power, and usually the containers have just enough juice to course correct and land. This container landed perfectly aside the front door to the station.

Maddy had chosen her team. Herself, Carney, Dad, and Felix, plus Detective Ward. She’d considered bringing Peanut and leaving Felix to keep an eye on the others, but his cardio was shit and she didn’t want him on a mission that involved the word ‘fast’. So, she took the best that she had. Inside the container, there were several metal cases with their names etched on the outside. They drug their cases inside and opened them up. 

“Oh this is fucking bad ASS!” Felix yelped when case popped open. 

“Hey!” Gremlin screeched, “I have seniority! Where’s mine!?”

“Gremlin, stop complaining and help us get this shit laid out,” Maddy responded, opening her case. She was stunned at first, but it made total sense when she thought about it. Military hazardous environment recon armor. Lightweight powered armor designed to seal the wearer inside and protect from external contamination. Used for teams that needed to carry out operations on inhospitable worlds, which was most of them. The fleet in orbit would have tons of this stuff for their marines. 

Each person had their own set. It appeared they were sized perfectly for each team member. Maddy opened another case and found a battle rifle with some twenty magazines pre-loaded. The magazines appeared to be containing different munitions, some magazines had red tipped rounds, some black, and some orange. She looked over and saw Dad admiring a new combat shotgun. Carney has some sort of large pistol; Maddy wasn’t sure Carney had any formal weapons training, being a professor and all, but she handled the weapon with a calm competence.

They donned their new armor, testing the fit and getting a feel for it. As soon as Maddy slid her helmet on, Wraith’s voice cracked over the helmet comms system. “How do you like the new armor, Sergeant Turner?”

“It should make a big difference, thank you,” Maddy said, extending her arm and flexing her fingers. Everything was power assisted, and smooth. She felt like she could lift a car. 

“These suits have secure communications channels pre-programmed. You’ll be able to communicate with ships in orbit instantaneously and we will be able to monitor your vitals and helmet camera video feeds remotely. As squad leader, you can access any of your team’s helmet cam feeds into your heads-up display.” Wraith explained. 

Maddy played with her display. It gave her a real time feed of her team’s vitals, a toggle-able helmet cam display, an overhead view of their location, and an ammo counter for her rifle. It even seemed to recognize the type of munition loaded into the magazines. “What’s up with the different mags?” She asked. 

“We are unsure which munitions will work best on the enemy, so we have given you an assortment. The magazines with the black tipped munitions loaded on top are armor piercing incendiary and explosive rounds in alternating sequence. Red is incendiary, and orange is explosive. Please collect battle data on which munition works best.” Wraith responded. 

Maddy looked up to see Felix holding a new battle rifle just like Maddy’s in one hand, and a huge pistol in the other, “THIS IS GONNA FUCKING RULE!” He shouted. 

The next morning moved fast. The team had a police escort to get through the barriers, which were still deployed on the streets. Peanut drove the Black Mamba and Gremlin rode in the gunner’s seat. Two-Feet stayed behind. The team stood in the center aisle, their armor made them too big for the truck and too big for the jump seats in the IFV. It was extremely awkward. 

They met Ward at the station. She was also outfitted in recon armor and held some type of bizarre submachine gun. She greeted them hastily and they all climbed into a waiting combat dropship. The dropship tore away without ceremony, it’s engines whistling. Maddy played with her heads-up display on the way and found that she could patch the cameras from the dropship’s nose and door cameras into her live feed. She settled on a thermal feed from the gunner’s gun mounted camera. 

As the dropship came in on approach, Maddy could clearly make out the target. It was a cluster of boulders with a huge heat signature emanating out from underneath them. The area around the boulders was clear of vegetation, and the whole place reminded her of the savannah she’d been in during her first mission. It was also quite close to a small human settlement that had gone quiet. And, it was inside the barrier. 

“Okay team, check in. Everyone ready?” Maddy asked the group. 

“Yes ma’am,” said Dad. 

“Hell yeah!” Said Felix. 

“Ready,” said Carney. 

“Sure,” said Ward. 

“When we hit the ground I want two fireteams. Dad, you’re with me and we’ll take the right side of the formation. Ward, Felix, take the left. Carney leads the show until we start fighting. We protect her at all costs. She knows what kind of science shit to do down there.”

“No hostiles observed on approach, be ready to drop!” The dropship gunner or pilot announced. The gunship spun through the air and felt like it dropped a thousand meters in a second before thudding against the ground. Maddy’s stomach went into her throat and she steadied herself. 

“Go!” The dropship crewman shouted. Maddy jumped out of the side door, rifle raised. Her team fanned out around her, Carney lugging a huge backpack out of the dropship’s sixth seat. She slung it over her back and cinched the straps down. The team advanced on the target in a modified wedge formation with their weapons at the ready.

Once again, Maddy noticed how quiet it was. She decided to say it out loud, the folks in space would have no idea that something like that was unusual. “It’s dead quiet, usually this place is full of life. I don’t see anything.”

“I noticed that too,” Carney added. “We should have seen bird-analogues or the insect things, but I am not seeing anything. Even the larger vegetation looks off.” 

In the distance, something howled. It sounded more like a cry of pain than anything else. Maddy took a few deep calming breaths. 

They came up on the collection of boulders after a few minutes of walking. The situation display in her HUD showing that the temperature had increased three degrees from where they landed. Before them lie a field of massive boulders, and in between two of the boulders they faced lay a mound of fresh dirt, and what appeared to be a newly dug burrow into and underneath the crevice between two of the rocks. Maddy scanned the area to her right and saw several more mounts of dirt, each one at a junction between two rocks. 

“Heads up,” she muttered. “Looks like this is some sort of nesting area. Be ready for anything.”

“Safety’s off,” Dad replied. 

“I never turn mine on,” Felix responded, a smile evident in his voice. 

“Jesus Christ,” Ward added.

Maddy and the team approached to the edge of the first burrow. Aside the dirt pile was a small mound of black dust. Maddy pointed it out to Carney, who nodded and slid her backpack off and onto the ground. Maddy gestured at her team to pause behind the dirt mound. Everyone silently took up firing positions covering all directions. Maddy looked at the dropship feed. It was orbiting the area, it’s gun camera swiveling to scan the area around the ground team. 

Carney fished out a small glass jar and filled it with the black dust. She filled a second one with the dirt, and a third with pieces of vegetation she broke off of a withering plant. She put them back in the backpack and slid the backpack back on. “Okay, lets continue,” she said quietly. Maddy nodded. 

“Felix, Ward, cover the rear. Dad, take point with me. Carney, stay behind us and let us know if we need to pause.” Everyone answered in the affirmative, and Maddy turned the corner and walked over the threshold into the burrow. 

The burrow was a short tunnel that turned at a right angle only a few meters in. At the threshold of the tunnel, the suit’s HUD noted a five degree temperature increase and flashed the warning HAZARDOUS ATMOSPHERE DETECTED: TOXIC in a rolling ticker at the bottom of her screen. A small red gas cloud icon popped up next to her green status icon. An icon that was a picture of a heart with a the letters HR+ flashed across all of her team members status. HR+? Increased heart rate?

Maddy turned paused at the turn in the tunnel. She considered clearing it like a room; tossing in a flashbang and rushing in, but she decided going loud now was not the correct approach. Maddy took a deep breath, looked at Dad, who nodded, and turned into the room, rifle up. 

The space inside was out of her nightmares. Several of the fat, bulbous creatures were positioned inside of the room. The walls were coated in writhing yellow and red flesh, with pockets of familiar shapes among them. Legs, arms, and some alien shapes that reminded her of sea creatures and insects. The bulbous ones were excreting a pink gelatinous slime onto fleshy protrusions from the walls. One of them choked and vomited black dust on to the ground. Maddy could see what appeared to be half formed humanoid shapes that were melted into the walls, their arms forming into long, sharp blades. One of them saw her and tried to pull away from the wall. It screamed. 

“GOING HOT!” Maddy shouted, and unleashed the wrath of her new rifle. A pair of short bursts exploded the face of the wall-creature and set pockets of white hot flame ablaze behind it, the armor piercing round punching straight through the thing. Dad lined up a shot on one of the bulbous creatures and fired a pair of shots into its torso. Each shot plunged past the armor and exploded, sending limbs and flesh flying through the air. Maddy moved with machine like precision, turning in an arc from one side of the space to the other, sending bursts of fire and death into anything that moved. The new rounds were devastating. Everything she engaged screamed and died in flaming agony. Dad did the same. “Take your samples Carney!” Maddy shouted. 

“You’ve got movement outside, converging on your location,” the dropship crewman said over the comm. Maddy looked at the thermal gunship display. Sure as shit, forms were emerging out of the burrows and a pack of them was running wildly through the jungle. The dropship’s autocannon started firing and the aircraft banked and twisted to line up shots. The HR+ icon on Felix and Ward was red now, and she could hear firing from outside. 

Dad was pacing the room with a huge handgun in his hand, shogun slung over his back. He prodded and shot the wall creatures he came across, making sure they were dead. Carney followed behind, shakily filling sample jars and dropping them into a sack that was over her shoulder. 

“You guys need to hurry up! It’s getting bad!” Ward shouted over the comm. Maddy checked her overhead view and saw movement converging from nearly all sides. 

“Carney, its time to move! Dad, take up the rear! Let’s get the fuck out of here!” Maddy shouted, dropping her mag for a fresh one. The new rifle was unfamiliar to her, but it handled remarkably similar to the service models she’d trained on in the marine corps. 

Maddy rose out of the tunnel with her rifle up and saw Ward kneeling on the ground, firing into a great yellow fleshy looking spider like thing that was climbing down over the top of a nearby boulder. Felix was throwing grenades at a pack of vaguely humanoid creatures that were emerging from the forest, the grenades exploding into liquid fire, creating a barrier that the creatures seemed hesitant to plunge into. The dropship whipped overhead, it’s autocannon letting out a deep THWACK as it fired, gouts of dirt rising into the air where the rounds impacted. Maddy took up a firing positing near Ward and started sending bursts of fire into the spider-thing. 

“Set in close!” She yelled to the dropship.

“This is going to be extremely hot, be ready to move as soon as we touch down!” The dropship crewman shouted. His voice shook with adrenaline. 

The spider crumpled and fell off it’s rock, screaming a horrible high-pitched wail as it burned. Maddy immediately turned to the next target, firing in short bursts. Dozens of creatures of all shapes were visible from all sides. Her team formed a line outside of the burrow, each firing at the oncoming wave of monsters. Maddy watched the video feed from the dropship’s gunner as it fired into the boulders behind them, trying to hit a fast moving blur. There were several fast moving blurs climbing over the rocks, heading towards her team. 

The gunship found stability in front of them and started descending, turning to present it’s side to her team. It’s gun firing as it descended and turned. Maddy shouted orders to her team, “Ward! Carney! Get aboard! Felix, Dad! Cover the rear!” Her team advanced, firing as they went. 

Dad was to her right, everyone else was to her left. She turned to get a bead on whatever it was coming up from behind them when she saw a blur jump down from the rock, landing between the gunship and Ward. Maddy didn’t have a shot, the thing was between them and the dropship, a missed shot would hit their ride out of there. Maddy moved to the right in an attempt to arc around the side and improve her firing line. The creature was sort of humanoid, but ran on four pointed legs. It was thin and tall, and it’s front arms were as long as it’s body, jutting out straight and then bending down at a right angle to dig into the ground. It’s head looked human, but the skin had a melted pallor and it’s eyes were black. It cocked it’s head at Ward and swiped with one of its arms. Ward was cut in half. 

“Holy fuck!” Maddy screamed, diving towards the dropship to get a shot off. Wards vitals indicator on her HUD turned black and faded. The creature moved towards Felix. He turned and fired at the thing, but it swiped down with one long arm. The blade caught the front of Felix’s armor and dragged him to the ground. It’s second arm came down and stabbed Felix in the back. It pulled it out and raised both arms, stabbing in and out as Felix lay on the ground, his vitals indicator turning black to match Ward’s. 

Maddy threw herself against the side of the dropship and turned her rifle on the god damned thing, firing desperate bursts into it as it savaged Felix’s dead body. It screamed and fled into the burrow in a flurry of motion. 

“GET IN NOW!” The dropship crewman shouted. Dad hopped into the side door and started firing wildly at everything that moved. The dropship started lifting off as Carney climbed in, and Maddy shoved her in and grabbed the side railing, her rifle dangling to her side by it’s strap. Her powered armor assisted strength pulling her into a seat and strapping in. As she looked down, the a creature much like the one that had killed Ward and Felix sat on a rock, staring at her. She made eye contact with it’s black eyes. Human, and expressive. Like it understood what it had done. The dropship banked hard and rocketed back towards New Carthage. Below, Maddy watched as the wave of creatures crawled over the bodies of her team. She felt numb.

Chapter 18

Subject: Agent Jim Crawford

Agent Jim crawford

“Well goddamn, that’s disturbing,” Jim said, looking over an intel summary of the ground team’s smash and grab. He’d watched the helmet feeds live and rewatched the feeds from different perspectives a handful of times, but that was before Wraith, Estevez, and the army of analysts aboard his little fleet got their hands on it. Jim was looking at a zoomed in still of what the marine sergeant dubbed ‘wall creatures’ in her narrative.

A full day had passed since the ground op. Jim had figured it to be good to give the scientists time to figure if they’d gotten enough from the samples and video footage before they started blowing fireline into the terrain from orbit. The fire was completely out of control, and a windstorm was pushing it towards New Carthage at a rate that made Jim quite uncomfortable. He pulled on a uniform jacket, but left it loose, and pressed the ‘join call’ button on his display. It was now or never. 

The virtual meeting space was already full. Video feeds from the stakeholders Estevez had decided on popped up around him. Estevez, the planetary admin, the marine security sergeant, a creepy looking dude that was listed as ‘security liaison’, the scientist Doctor Carney, a rep from NCPD’s xenofauna control team, and, of course, Wraith. 

“Okay Wraith, take it away,” Jim said. This was the great thing about having an AI assistant, it never balked at your orders. Never shied away from work. And it always did a near perfect job. 

Wraith started, “thank you for joining, each of you. This gathering is to discuss the extreme xenofauna activity occurring around New Carthage and to determine a control strategy during orbital firefighting operations. I’d like to begin by allowing Lieutenant Command Estevez the opportunity to bring us up to speed on the current wildfire situation.”

Estevez cleared her throat, “hello, yes. So, currently, a wind event has picked up with winds gusting to nearly 100 kph out of the east. That has caused extreme fire behavior and we are expecting the fire to make a long run today. As such, we want to begin our fire control operations as soon as possible. We predict that we need to begin operations within the twelve hours in order to have the greatest chance of success. All ships are currently in position and awaiting orders.”

“Well whats the hold up then? Get to it!” The planetary admin added. A ‘mute’ icon appeared over his head. 

Wraith cut in, “this is a reminder that all operations are being conducted at the sole discretion of the ranking United Human Dominion representative, in this case the SIU team in orbit, and any participation in planning meetings is a privilege. Further interruptions will be considered insubordinate and will result in your removal from future involvement, and possibly, criminal charges.”

Jim paused his video to laugh. The planetary admin was beet red and sputtering. He could see the NCPD rep’s mouth twist up into a grin that he quickly fought back down. 

“My apologies for the disruption. Thank you for that summary, Lieutenant Commander.” Wraith continued, and Jim felt that it was enjoying the exchange. “Yesterday morning, a joint operation was launched to investigate the nature of the xenofauna threat. The operation was successful, but unfortunately resulted in the loss of two lives. Asset Protection Investigator Elizabeth Ward of the New Carthage Police Department and Security Officer Emmanuel ‘Felix’ Greene of the Scientific Advancement Section’s Expeditionary Security Forces. Please take a moment of silence to remember their sacrifice.” 

Jim saw the security sergeant, ‘Turner’ the name said’s,  video feed turn off. He hadn’t prompted the AI to take a moment of silence, and it was one of those weird, human-ish moments that made Jim suspect the thing was starting to be more than just a computer program. Wraith waited until Turner came back before continuing on. 

“I would like to give Doctor Carney an opportunity to discuss her team’s findings,” Wraith said. 

“Good morning, Doctor Carney, research lead on the planet Oasis III. We have a hypothesis as to the nature of the xenofauna attacks and the unusual occurrences and discrepancies that we have detected in our usual monitoring of the planet’s ecology. I will be providing a summarized version of our hypothesis; of course all data will be available freely to all stakeholders for independent confirmation,” Carney cleared her throat before continuing. “We believe that the ‘spikes’ launched at the planet were a dispersal vehicle for an alien bioweapon. This bioweapon appears to be able to transform the biomass of other living things into tools to serve it’s own end. We have observed an apparent extinction of nearly all local wildlife around the town of New Carthage. We have named the areas in which the biomass is gathered and accumulated ‘nurseries’, and it appears that the bulbous creatures that Sergeant Turner encountered in village, and again in the burrow are a sort of biomass processor. We observed one regurgitating a black dust, which we sampled and found to be spent medical nanites.” 

Everyone in the meeting space turned pale. Jim hadn’t heard any of this, but he was not surprised. He feared it to be the case, but he was waiting to hear it from someone who was actually qualified. 

“We believe that the medical nanites are sufficient to combat the bioweapon inside the bodies of the colonists, leaving us unaffected. This is supported by the fact that children who did not have medical nanite systems disappeared alongside local wildlife. We have observed this trend in every location where the alien bioweapon plume landed, and it is spreading outwards at an exponential rate. I suspect that, if the bioweapon creatures have any higher level intelligence, that the firefighting method that has been proposed will be seen as an attack, as it will destroy several nurseries. Any questions?”

Jim could tell everyone had questions. Hands shot in to the air and he could see the planetary admin yelling maniacally at his screen. The creepy liaison dropped off the call. Wraith called on the NCPD rep. 

“Yes, uhm. Well, if they, the bioweapon creatures, see our firefighting as an attack, how do we keep our people safe? Should we evacuate the city? Go to the station?” He seemed to be at a compete loss. 

Jim jumped in, “I’ll answer that one! You’re all gonna shelter in place for now. Hunker down. WE will coordinate personnel movement on the surface. I’ll start devising a plan to get everyone off world, but I need to make this one-hundred-percent clear. We do NOT leave the surface until the plan is absolutely ready. We are not going to risk spreading this bioweapon off planet. I will authorize the shootdown and sterilization of any secret air-spacecraft that takes off from the surface before I give the go ahead. I know that sounds fucked up, but the station is simply not ready to take in more than a couple hundred people, and none if the ships in orbit are prepared or capable of adding to that. There’s always a way, and we will find it, but it is going to take time.” Jim eyed everyone before cheerfully adding, “that’s all!”

A moment of stunned silence passed through the meeting as the realization of what was to come dawned on those on the ground. They were about to be caught in the middle of a shitstorm with no way to get out of it. Jim decided he needed to take control over the meeting before things got out of hand.

The planetary admin raised his hand and Wraith called on him. He spoke, “what about the situation in orbit? Are we going to be attacked again?”

Jim’s eyes narrowed, “I’ve already told you we have orbital superiority. The planet is safe from external threats and we have a couple of months before the cavalry gets here to save the day. We need to hunker down until then.” 

Jim eyed the room. He had a few more things to say, but needed less people before he said them. “If there’s no more questions I’m going to move on to small group briefings.” Jim tapped his fingers on the table for a few seconds, not quite long enough for someone to think up a question, but long enough for Jim’s patience on the matter to wear thin. He had a lot to do. 

“Alright, Wraith take the cop and the admin and get them lined out on your lockdown plan. Leave the science team and Sergeant Turner with Estevez and I.” Jim said, watching as the meeting participants split into groups. 

Jim addressed the science team lead, Doctor Carney, “those samples you got, the air samples that show the original bioweapon organisms and how they hijacked the local bugs and whatnot, I’m deeming those mission critical. Plus anything else you’ve got. The samples from the village, the samples from the burrow, and anything else you can think of.”

Carney nodded and smiled slightly. From her perspective this probably looked like a first class ticket off-world. Truthfully, Jim didn’t give a shit about her or her team, but those samples would give them a real interesting shot at developing countermeasures. He’d have to see to keeping them alive and the samples safe as a top priority. 

“Send all of your data up here and make a few physical backups. Catalog everything and make sure you can move them on short notice, got it?” Jim added. 

“Of course, we’ve already done most of that, but you need to know that the physical samples need to be stored at low temperatures to keep the media stable. So, if we need to relocate, or we go on a trip off world, please keep that handling condition in mind. They’re good for a few hours outside of our sample cooler but beyond that and there will be degradation.” Carney said. 

“Figures, alright, make sure you have adequate backup power and let us know if there’s any issues on that front,” Carney nodded in reply Jim dropped them from the call, leaving only himself and Estevez. He took a deep breath and put a toothpick in his mouth.

“Estevez, a thought crosses my mind and I want to just throw it out there,” Jim said, pulling the toothpick from his mouth and examining it. 

“Alright Jim, what’ve you got?” Estevez asked. 

“Do you think all of the Adversary ships just carry bioweapons like this? Or is this a specialized ship that was sent to carry out this specific mission?” 

Estevez scrunched her face and took a pause before responding, “I’ve been wondering that too. There are far more questions than answers right now it seems.”

Yeah, no kidding, Jim thought. “Keep up the good work,” he said, and dropped the call. 

Jim sat and pondered, mulling over the problems and the potential solutions in his head. This was the most fun he’d had on an operation in years. It had all the right elements, and conditions were perfect to leave him free to make decisions how he wanted, without oversight, and without the boss getting in the way. He’d given the folks on the ground a few hours to figure out how to shelter in place, which Jim thought was more than adequate, and watched as a trio of low-orbit gunships fired their coilguns down to the planet’s surface, rending great masses of dirt and blasting firebreaks through the jungle. It was the perfect backdrop for quiet contemplation. 

Jim’s mind was occupied with thoughts of mass evacuations from the surface. If the bioweapon continued to multiply exponentially like it had, sooner or later he’d need to start moving people off-planet. And if the bioweapon was truly as deadly and transmissible as Estevez and Carney thought, anyone who wasn’t filled with medical nanites would be in mortal danger unless the evacuees were thoroughly decontaminated. 

But, how to decontaminate them? Where to decontaminate them? Where do you even put that many people? New Carthage had just under a hundred thousand people. The station was designed for a maximum surge population of less than five thousand, and it was never even finished. It had four heavy lift shuttles that could move quite a few people, but even then, it would be a massive undertaking to evacuate the entire planet. And Jim would be damned if he was going to put a single ship in his formation at risk of being contaminated. 

The best plan was to stabilize the situation on the ground, maximize survivability, and keep everything copasetic until contact was re-established with the rest of the Dominion. They had ships that could handle this. Hell, the fleet had factory ships that could build damn near anything. They could build a hundred-thousand person floating hospital above the planet to move everyone to. That’s the plan then, hunker down and avoid making the situation any more complicated. 

Chapter 19

Subject: Maddy

“Holy shit,” Maddy said, staring at a mushrooming ball of fire in the distance. “That’s gonna complicate things.”

“Yeah,” Dad added. “That’s really bad.”

The team had been watching the orbital firefighting from the roof of the station. Bombs being lobbed from orbit were fascinating to watch, come to find out. But, something had apparently gone wrong. It looked like the hydrogen fuel storage facility on the edge of town had exploded. How the hell did that happen? The shockwave from the explosion hit, and everyone braced themselves against their chairs.

“I’m gonna head back down and make a few calls,” Maddy said, half distracted by the fire in the distance, and she turned and went down the roof access stairwell. 

Maddy pulled out her smartlink and called Wraith, the all knowing AI in the sky. It answered immediately, of course. “Wraith, what was that explosion just now?”

“It appears that the bioweapon creatures are responding to the firefighting as though it were an attack. Several hundred organisms overran the defenses at the fuel depot, and it appears NCPD either sabotaged the station to hold the creatures back, or the explosion was a result of collateral damage.” Wraith stated matter-of-factly. 

A chill ran down Maddy’s back. Several… hundred? “How uh, how the fuck many are moving into the city?” Maddy asked. The lights in the station flickered, and Maddy stopped her descent.

“It’s impossible to say at this time, however we are observing large groups of hostiles moving into the city from all cardinal directions. Sergeant Turner, please prepare your team. A general alert is being drafted and instructions will be forthcoming.” Wraith sounded concerned, which was interesting considering it was an AI. 

Maddy took several deep breaths, trying to calm herself. The lights flickered again, and then went out. The hum of the air purifiers went silent. The power was out. 

“Okay Wraith, the power just went out, what the fuck is going on?” Maddy was fighting the urge to panic. This was bad. 

“It appears that the power generation station that supplies power to New Carthage is offline due to the fuel depot explosion. Sergeant Turner, please ensure the safety of the high value samples and prepare your team to relocate to a suitable backup location.” Wraith said, then dropped the call.

“FUCK,” Maddy shouted. She pulled out her smartlink and sent a group message to the rest of the security group, Team One included, telling them to gear up and get ready. The lights flickered back on as she slid the device into her pocket as she power walked down to corridor to the science dorms. The smartlink buzzed incessantly, but she ignored it. 

The outer door to the decontamination corridor didn’t slide open like Maddy was used to. She pulled out her smartlink again, swiped away the notifications and called Liselle. 

“Hello?” Liselle answered.

“Liz! Hey, listen, Wraith says we need to get ready to move to somewhere with power, but I see our lights came back on? What’s going on, the door wont open?” Maddy asked. 

“Yeah, we are on battery backups but the system wasn’t designed to power all of the lab equipment we have so it keeps overloading and shutting down. The sample chiller is pulling too much power, we think. And the decontamination corridor was never rigged up to the backup power so it isn’t working.” Liselle responded, worry in her voice. 

“Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Are you okay?” Maddy asked. 

“Oh yeah, I’m fine. Doctor Carney got a call from Wraith too and we are starting to pack up. Should we meet you down by the trucks when we’re ready?” Liselle responded. 

“Yeah, good idea,” Maddy said, as the lights flickered, turned off, then turned back on. “I’ll get everyone ready to move.” Maddy turned on her heels and started moving back to the stairs. Her team was heading down the stairs from the roof, mumbling excitedly to themselves. 

“Hey!” Gremlin said, “Wraith texted us and said to get ready to move! It said they were going to send down more goodies for US. US meaning me this time!” Gremlin was smiling. The smile reminded Maddy of Felix, and she felt a pang of guilt lash from inside herself. 

“Yeah, okay, good,” Maddy said, falling in behind her team. They rushed down the stairs and into the vehicle bay. Security team members were filtering in from all directions and opening lockers, donning gear. Chief was already geared up in a set of light armor, sitting atop the Black Mamba’s turret. He was smoking a hand rolled cigarette, and the vague scent of tobacco and cinnamon wafted through the station. He had a huge grin on his face and his eyes seemed to be sunken in. He looked worse than ever. 

Maddy ignored him and pulled the metal case out from a rack against the wall. The recon armor she’d been gifted during the last operation was inside, and even though it apparently did nothing to actually protect it’s wearer from the bioweapon creatures, the HUD and comms systems were second to none. Plus, it was powered, and that might make a big difference in the right circumstances. 

Dad joined her and gave a wary look as he pulled out his own armor and started putting it together. Maddy mirrored him, and they worked together in silence. The armor was designed to be largely self assembling, with small servos that latched the pieces together when they were held near each other. 

Maddy was nearly fully suited up when Gremlin started shouting excitedly, “hey! Supply drop is here!”

“Come on,” Maddy said to Dad, sliding her helmet on. With the helmet on, her voice was harsh and amplified, “lets see what we’ve got.” 

The outside world looked like the apocalypse. Booms thundered in the distance and Maddy could hear automatic gunfire. The sky was above the buildings was orange. She tried to tune it out, but there were most certainly screams intermixed with the shooting.

The shipping container was identical to the one that was dropped previously, and sat perfectly aside the old one. No suits of armor this time, but helmets with built in comms and ear protection for everyone that wasn’t on the previous mission. Plus, weapons. Lots of weapons. And stacks of munitions. It was Christmas morning for the security team as they pulled long guns and sidearms from the container, excitedly babbling as they marveled at the contents. Maddy saw Gremlin hold up a grenade launcher as she laughed maniacally. Maddy’s eyes were immediately drawn to a familiar looking black metal case laid underneath a rack of helmets. 

“That’s mine,” she said, pushing a Team One guy aside and grabbing it. He gave her an offended look, and Maddy stared directly into his eyes with a look of death. He looked away, and she drug the case out and back into the station. 

She’d trained with the weapon before, just briefly. There was a week of orientation at the marine corps training base on Cornelius where freshly graduated marines got to hold, fire, and drool over the various specialized weapons they may or may not be issued, depending on their job and performance. There were a lot of unforgettable experiences from that week, but one gun stood out in her memory. The ‘Heartbreaker’ 14.5 millimeter anti-materiel pulse rifle. 

It was an absolutely absurd weapon used by marine fireteams to kill enemy armor, fire through heavy cover, and blow holes in fortified positions. It had a huge magazine that held but three caseless 14.5mm multi-munition cartridges, fired out of a magnetically accelerated rail system. The magazine doubled as a battery for the accelerators, and the ‘pulse’ of magnetic acceleration is what earned the weapon the monicker ‘pulse rifle’. It threw a huge round at amazing speeds, and because of the pulsed round acceleration and bullpup design, the weapon was overall much smaller than a standard anti-materiel rifle. She held the weapon up and admired it. Dad recognized the weapon and his eyes grew wide before he shook his head and turned back to what he’d been doing before. Maddy saw it had a half dozen magazines in the case labeled ‘WP-EX’. White phosphorus explosives. Incredible. 

“Daaaaaamn? Overcompensating? Small dick?” Gremlin laughed on seeing the weapon. 

“Thank god for powered armor huh?” Maddy said, hefting the rifle to her shoulder. “The recoil from one of these is incredible. That’s why they call it the Heartbreaker. It breaks the enemies’ heart, but it also makes you feel like you’ve had a heart attack every time you pull the trigger. That’s what they say, at least.” 

“Badassss!” Gremlin said. She gestured towards a bandolier of small pouches over her armor. Most of it was filled with grenades, but a few pouches held small plastic jars. “Check this shit out Sarge,” she pulled a jar out of the bandolier. It was opaque white and had an orange label. “Thermex! Moldable thermite. I don’t know what the fuck I’m gonna kill with it but it’s gonna be badass.” 

Maddy smiled at the small woman. Gremlin should have been a marine too. 

“All units, please pay attention to the following tactical guidance,” Wraith’s voice played over Maddy’s suit’s external speakers. She looked around, and saw security officers pull their helmets on to listen better. Chief had his helmet on and was pressing the ear pads against his head with his eyes closed, like he was listening to the world’s greatest orchestral performance. “You have been ordered to proceed northeast to the cybernetics clinic attached to the central hospital. Please be advised! The NCPD automated vehicle barrier system is without power and all anti-vehicle barriers are engaged in the upright position.”

“Awww man, what the fuck!” Gremlin protested. 

Blitz had been loading ammo into the bed of the pickup truck, and threw his arms up at the announcement. 

Wraith continued, “the shortest route has been highlighted in your tactical HUD. Please use the provided combat helmets for tactical communications and situational awareness. Sergeant Turner has been selected as mission commander for this operation. Contact Wraith for support.”

“Puh, leeze,” Chief said, throwing the helmet to the ground. It made a cacophonous clatter. The racket drew Maddy’s attention to him. “Sergeant Madeline, Madagascar, Turner has a propensity for getting her troopers killed. She’d kill the best of us, if she could.” Maddy clenched her fists and felt the anger build inside her. What the fuck makes him think that’s an okay thing to say?

“We don’t need a robot from above to control our destiny on the ground. I think you all know this has been a long time coming, our final stand. Who better to lead us into battle than myself, and my right hand man, the most reliable and ever-present Blitz?” Chief’s eyes widened and he looked like he was about to give a sermon. Blitz climbed the IFV and dropped an inhaler into Chief’s hand. Chief, totally disarmed and surprised by the gesture, took it and descended down the gunner’s hatch. Blitz looked at Maddy apologetically. 

“What the fuck was that?” Maddy asked over a private channel to Blitz, “how fucking high is he?”

“I gave him some uppers before we came down here. I was hoping it would make him more coherent,” Blitz explained, “I’m sorry Sergeant Turner. He’s been getting harder and harder to keep him on track.” 

“I don’t know why you cover for him,” Maddy was pissed at Chief’s dig on her, blaming her for Felix and Ward’s deaths. She hadn’t even begun to face that yet. Everything had been happening too fast. 

“It’s a long story Sergeant. I owe it to you if we make it through this,” Blitz was trying to defuse the situation. 

Maddy nodded and ended the private channel, addressing Blitz openly. “So, we have anti-vehicle barricades. How do you think we should get to the objective?”

Blitz looked back and smiled, grateful she’d dropped the conversation about Chief. “I’ll bet you the Mamba can get over those barriers.” Blitz replied. Maddy had to agree. The Mamba was a tracked vehicle; if they lined one of the tracks up with a barrier, it could climb over it just like a rock. 

“Alright, so how about this. We take the Mamba, load up the inside with the samples and the science team. Stow extra ammo and guns on the bustle racks. Chief shoots the guns, since I doubt we could get him out of there even if we wanted, and you have one of your folks drive. Maybe Smoker,“ Maddy explained her plan. Smoker nodded at the reference to him. 

“I’ll take my team and take point in front of the Mamba. Blitz, you take your team and pull security on the rear. We’ll be slow, but we’ll have the Mamba’s firepower in case we run into any trouble. Sound good?”

“Sounds good to me,” Blitz said, then addressed his team, “What do we think Team One?!”

“Aye Sir!” The members of team one shouted in unison. 

“Aww cute, they have a little team cheer,” Gremlin whispered behind Maddy. 

“Alright Team Two, help them load everything. I want to be ready to move as quick as possible.” Maddy said, grabbing two ammo boxes off the floor and walking them to the Black Mamba. 

She’d just handed the boxes off when her comms crackled to life. PRIVATE CONNECTION flashed across her huddle. 

“Sergeant Turner this is Jim Crawford. I’m the guy running this show, you probably remember me from the meeting,” Jim said with his quant drawl. It sounded like he was chewing on something. 

“I do remember you Jim, what’s up?” Maddy replied, walking back to the container to grab more stuff. The security team was moving like a swarm of ants, grabbing and loading anything that looked useful onto the fighting vehicle’s cargo baskets. The science team was shoving bag after bag of samples into the back of the Mamba.

“Listen, I just wanted to remind you of how important those goddamn samples are. They are the number one vital asset on the surface right now. Now, the cybernetics lab is probably the safest place on the planet and that’s where I’m sending you. It’s fortified, underground, and has big giant fucking coolers for storing cybernetics and everything else; it’ll be perfect for the samples. And it has backup power that’ll last forever, since it’s hooked up to the hospital. You need to get those samples there, Turner. I don’t care what stands in your way. I’m gonna be watching and helping however I can, but this is a less than ideal situation and we don’t have time to prep.” Jim said. 

“Yeah, I got that sir,” Maddy replied.

“Please don’t call me sir, I’m a civilian. It’s Jim. Anyway, like I said, I’m gonna be watching your team and I’ll do what I can. It’s a real goddamn mess out there right now, so steel yourself.” 

“Understood Jim,” Maddy said. The private connection dropped automatically. A real goddamn mess, he’d said. Maddy thought back to the screams and gunfire. She wondered just how bad it would be. 

Chapter 20

Subject: Maddy

The team moved out of the station and into the street. Flames leapt into the orange sky in the distance, the controlled fires in the forest coalescing with the new fires burning inside the city. The emergency alert siren was blaring it’s eerie tritone wail. Maddy could hear the booms of the orbital gunships blasting fireline into the forest mixed with gunfire and screams off in the distance. There was no one on the streets around them, thank god. The route Wraith had given them had them avoid the most densely populated areas and instead had them cut through the Exhibit before turning north. It was mostly a straight shot and avoided as many anti-vehicle barriers as possible. 

Maddy took up the left center of her wedge formation, she had the Heartbreaker slung over her back and the battle rifle at the ready. Dad was on her right. Peanut and Two-Feet were in Team Two’s powered armor and walked the flanks. Gremlin was too small for the powered armor, and walked in front of the Mamba, making up the core of their formation. They advanced at a steady pace, ready to deal death to anything that approached them. Maddy’s suit HUD showed an overhead view and highlighted any movement thought to be non-human. There wasn’t any yet.

As they advanced, small groups of colonists darted out of buildings and down alleys. Trying to find better shelter amid the chaos. One group ran up to the formation from a collapsing hut, “Help us! Take us with you!” A woman shouted. 

Maddy’s team raised their weapons and screamed, “get back!” Over their suit loudspeakers. The colonists looked terrified and betrayed, and scrambled away, raising their arms in surrender. Maddy felt genuinely bad for them, but what could they do? They didn’t even have enough room for themselves. Chief popped out of the top of the gunners hatch. He had a huge grin on his skeletal face and was smoking a giant hand rolled cigarette as he yelled nonsense insults at everyone he saw. Despite the shouting, a small but growing group of colonists followed the team at a healthy distance.

The group made it to the first turn in the road. Maddy raise her fist to pause the group and motioned her fireteam to take firing positions against the building on the inside corner of the turn. Wraith spoke over the comm, “a group of bioweapon creatures moved through this area a few minutes ago. Be on high alert.”

“Copy!” Maddy replied over the open comm, “lead element, wedge formation and advance on me!” Maddy hefted her rifle up in a high ready position and moved around the corner, her team coming up behind her. Behind them, the tracked infantry fighting vehicle rolled.

This was ‘The Exhibit’, as the locals called it. The section of town filled with drug users and neglected by public officials. There hadn’t been much resistance, Maddy could tell. Everywhere she looked, people were frozen in place, as though they’d been stopped in time and glued to the ground. There were dozens, maybe a hundred, in groups of three or four here and there. They screamed and moaned in terror. Maddy stopped to look at one in more detail and saw that they were covered in webs.

“CONTACT RIGHT SIDE!” Peanut yelled, and gunfire erupted all around her. Maddy took a knee and turned to see dozens of crawling insect like creatures the size of her foot rushing them in a solid wave from an alleyway. They had yellow skin and long, thin legs with way too many articulated joints. Maddy started firing into the crowd with her battle rifle. 

“Gremlin! Fire your grenade launcher!” Maddy shouted, struggling to hit the small, fast moving creatures. She heard the distinct THUNK THUNK THUNK as the grenade launcher went to work, pulverizing the ramshackle houses and flood of creatures. One of them jumped on Peanut’s chest, and was grabbed by a power-armored hand and crushed. It left a stringy, sticky residue behind that bound Peanut’s hand to his chest. He pulled it away with a great deal of effort, but he pulled it away nonetheless. 

“These are the goddamn things that make the webs, don’t let them get on you!” Maddy shouted, tossing a incendiary grenade onto the street in front of the alley filled with creatures. It detonated and sent liquid fire in a line across the alley that burned and melted the creatures as they advanced. Maddy watched as they writhed and blackened. Another incendiary grenade exploded further down the alley, and Maddy realized someone was on top of the Mamba, pulling grenades out of an ammo can and chucking them at the source of the attack. The fire seemed to have turned them back, and only a few dying creatures remained.

Chief had a pistol drawn and fired periodically down the alleyway. He shouted, “fuck yes Blitzer! Burn them to cinders boy!”

“Goddamnit Chief you’re the gunner, fire the fucking coax at them!” Maddy shouted. He ignored her and laughed like madman at the growing flames. “Keep moving but stay on the lookout!” Maddy ordered, and the team started moving ahead. 

“Sarge,” Two-Feet spoke, breaking his notorious silence, “what do we do about the people stuck here?” He gestured at the colonists glued to the ground.

“We can’t do nothing,” Gremlin spoke for Maddy, she sounded uncharacteristically melancholy, “they’re just fucked Two-Feet.” Two-Feet nodded, but Maddy thought she could see tears welling up in his eyes behind his visor. 

“Don’t think about it just move, there’s going to be a lot worse the longer we linger,” Maddy ordered. She was trying out the tough, marine exterior, but really, Two-Feet was right. The human thing would be to stop and help. But how? And then what? 

The team moved forward. They filtered past one poor bastard that was glued down in the middle of the road. Smoker didn’t even slow the Mamba down, he drove right over the man as he screamed at the tracked vehicle to stop. Maddy looked away and kept moving. This place was hell. People were stuck to the walls and inside the buildings. The little web laying bastards must have flooded over this place and just stuck everyone in place. Would the big ones with the big sack belly come after? Harvest everyone and break them down into the goo that they used to make more of themselves? Should she order her team to start shooting everyone they went past, spare them from the horror?

Movement caught Maddy’s attention; something leapt from one rooftop to another off to her right. She raised her first to stop the column and stared straight ahead. The minimap on her HUD didn’t have enough detail to see what that was. Then, she saw it again, this time scurrying down a wall to disappear behind a large metal dumpster.

“CONTACT FRONT RIGHT!” Maddy shouted, firing her rifle a the last known spot in short bursts. Her team followed, the tracers from her rifle fire and added their own fire on the dumpster and everything around it. She remembered this one, this was the same kind of thing that killed Felix and Ward. Behind her, Chief was whooping and firing with his pistol again. She turned to yell, when she saw a small group of the creatures jump down from the rooftops of the buildings behind them, and directly into the rear of their formation. Before Maddy could react, something big jumped down next to her and knocked her to the ground, her rifle skittering away. 

A creature towered above her. It was like the one she’d seen at the burrow, the kind that killed Felix and Ward. The kind with the knowing black eyes. But this one was different, it was far more muscular and had a large, armored chest plate. It roared and moved like lighting, it’s bladed arms slicing long gashes straight through Two-Feet’s armor. “Fuck!” Maddy shouted, reaching for the Heartbreaker pulse rifle on her back. Peanut turned and fired on the creature, but his fire on center mass didn’t seem to have an effect. The new armor plate deflected the rounds, and the creature roared and turned to face Peanut, completely unaffected by his gunfire.

Maddy moved with a purpose. She pulled the pulse rifle into her arms and rolled onto her back, lining up a shot on the monster. She pulled the trigger and felt the gun’s massive recoil against her shoulder, the sound of it like an exploding power transformer. The round hit the creature in center mass and blew it into pieces. Orange gore showered down on her and she instinctively closed her eyes to shield them, then remembered she was wearing a sealed helmet. Maddy jumped up and ran to the front of the Mamba while shouting to her team to switch to armored piercing rounds.

The scene behind them was of pure slaughter. Blitz stood on the turret of the Black Mamba, firing down at three of the bladed-arm things as they hacked his team to pieces. All four of them were dead, or would be very soon. Chief was firing his pistol and screaming. 

Dad ran up alongside Maddy and started firing his shotgun at the group of things. Maddy fired her pulse rifle at one, ruining it, before shifting and firing a third shot which hit the second creature in it’s arm, blowing it off and sending it hurtling to the side. Maddy dropped the magazine, the unwieldy weapon being a chore to reload with the powered armor. Dad hit the third creature in the face with a shotgun slug, sending it sprawling onto it’s back, dead.

Maddy charged her weapon and scanned the area, nothing was imminently trying to kill them, but she could see movement down the road and on top of buildings. Blitz climbed down from the Black Mamba and frantically checked his team. Maddy growled. 

“Dad, Peanut, cover the front. Gremlin, stay close with me.” She ordered through gritted teeth and stomped around to the back of the Black Mamba, climbing up it’s short ladder and moving towards the turret.

Chief was sitting up, halfway out of the gunner’s hatch with a wild grimace on his face, “Sergeant Turner!” He began. Maddy pulled her arm back and punched him in the face as hard as she could, the powered armor easily doubling her strength. Chief’s head flew into the armored hatch cover and he crumpled and slid down into the inside of the fighting vehicle, away from view. 

Maddy turned to look at Gremlin, who’s eyes were wide. Maddy made eye contact and pointed at Gremlin, “you shoot the fucking gun, kill everything.” Gremlin saluted and looked nervously at the new blood smear on the hatch.

Maddy turned and hopped down off the Black Mamba. Blitz stood, a broken man amidst his dead team. Maddy had to take charge. She hit the comm for the whole unit. 

“New plan. Smoker, charge ahead. Gremlin, fire the fucking gun, kill everything. Everyone else, take up formation at the rear with me. Do not stop unless we have to. Move!” Maddy barked her new plan at the team and watched as they fell in. The Black Mamba plowed ahead, mercilessly crushing the bodies that fallen in front of the vehicle. 

“Your nickname oughta be Tideturner, Sarge. You kicked big time ass back there,” Gremlin said, a hint of awe in her voice. Maddy hadn’t gotten a nickname yet, hadn’t been around long enough. Now she’d finally earned one and everyone would be dead by the time they remembered to use the thing. 

She pressed the button on the inside of her helmet and gestured with her eyes to navigate through contacts to Jim, then called.

“Turner!” Jim shouted, clearly excited.

“Yeah, Jim. It’s a fucking shitshow down here, we need support, whatever you’ve got,” Maddy said, jogging to keep up with the Mamba. They passed an alleyway and she looked down it. A group of people were glued to a wall and one of the sack creatures was eating them, one at a time. She paused and threw a grenade at it, then kept running. 

“Yeah, I see that. I’m going to re-task some orbital fire support but it’s inaccurate as hell without a forward observer. I told them to patch your suit video feed into their systems but you don’t have the right sensors or some god damn thing, so they’re gonna have to guess.” Jim said. “I’m hoping we can at least burn the mass of the fucking things before they get to you. You pissed them off and a fuckload are heading your way.”

“Great!” Maddy said and cut of the feed. “Get ready for incoming! Remember, AP ammo!” Maddy could hear the turbo on the Mamba spool and force air into the hydrogen turbine engines. One of the tracks slipped and sent a mess of orange liquid squirting out of the back. It ran one of them over, Maddy guessed. The coaxial machine gun on the Mamba’s turret started firing in short bursts, aiming at the tops of the buildings. The rocket pod fired a rocket into one of the structures on the front left side of the road, blowing it into pieces. The IFV crunched over the new debris in the roadway and kept moving. Maddy’s rifle had been run over by the IFV and crushed in the hasty move after they’d been ambushed. The pulse rifle was badass, but Maddy felt vulnerable with the small magazines. 

“It’s a straight shot down this road!” Gremlin shouted from the gunner’s seat. The auto cannon let out a three round burst, then Gremlin continued. “Five hundred meters, then we take a left, and it’s right there on the right. Cargo bay doors.” 

“Almost there!” Maddy shouted. She looked at her team, jogging behind the IFV, and noticed Peanut was red and sputtering, out of breath. “Your cardio fucking sucks Peanut,” she said.

“Shit look!” Dad suddenly shouted, pointing at the sky in front of them. The NCPD containment team dropship flew through the air in above the road, sideways. Flames shot out of two of the engines, and a creature with what looked like fifty legs held onto the side of the dropship, stabbing into the cockpit. The dropship rocketed by them and crashed into a mess of buildings, sending a mushroom shaped fireball up into the sky. Maddy felt the thud of impact in her chest. 

She took a deep breath and kept moving forward. More thuds in her chest. She looked around and saw fire erupting in huge gouts behind them. Their orbital fire support, Maddy presumed. Each explosion lit up the street behind them, and she could make out shapes. Dozens of them, and they were gaining on her. 

“Fucking double time it!” Maddy roared. The IFV shifted gears and powered ahead. Everyone upgraded from a jog to a run. Peanut was falling behind.

“God damnit Peanut pull it the fuck together!” Maddy shouted, and a yellow spider the size of a car lept down from a nearby building and landed right on top of him. 

“Ahhhh!” Peanut shouted, struggling with the thing pinning him to the ground. 

“Shit! All stop! Gremlin, behind us!” Maddy ordered, violating her own order not to stop for anything. She raised her pulse rifle and fired it into the belly of the spider, exploding it into a mess of gore. A half dozen of the bladed arm creatures converged on the mess and ripped Peanut in half. The auto cannon turret and coaxial machine gun opened up on the new threats, and Maddy could see more of them on the road behind them. 

One of the creatures slipped past the barrage of fire and charged into Blitz, slashing and screaming. Blitz fell to the ground, and Dad fired a shotgun slug into the side of the thing’s head. Maddy rushed to Blitz, and saw that both of his legs had been cut off just above the knee. 

“Oh fuck!” She shouted, grabbing onto the grab handle built into Blitz’s armor and started pulling him behind her. “Get on the IFV!” She shouted at Dad. Dad traversed the ladder of the IFV in one swift motion, well adapted to his recon power armor. Maddy hefted what was left of Blitz up to him and climbed on the turret. 

“Punch it Smoker!” She shouted as the IFV rocketed forward, the team firing into a crowd of fast moving death behind them. 

“Special sauce incoming!” Gremlin shouted. Maddy was dumbstruck for a moment before she remembered that Gremlin had modified the smoke launchers on the IFV to fire tear gas and napalm. Gremlin’s special sauce. 

One of the creatures tried to jump on the side of the Black Mamba and got twisted in the concertina wire just as the countermeasure pods deployed their wicked payload. One of the bomblets hit the creature and detonated, igniting the side of the Black Mamba. The creature screamed in agony as a cloud of fire and tear gas filled the street behind them. The auto cannon and coaxial machine gun kept firing into the crowd, and Maddy could tell they were having a hell of a time making it through the wall of death they’d left behind. Maddy drew her sidearm, a 5.7mm SMG loaded with incendiary rounds, and unleashed a long burst into the screaming, burning thing stuck to the side of their IFV. It fell silent. 

All around them, the world burned. Flames consumed blocks of the city, and creatures ran between houses and jumped from roof to roof. Maddy realized that in the chaos, they’d left behind that mass of civilians that were chasing them to safety. They were gone, just the same as Peanut and Two-Feet. Felix and Ward. All of Team One. Maddy looked over at Dad, who had started putting a tourniquet on one of Blitz’s legs, but stopped. 

“He’s dead, Sergeant,” Dad said. Of course he is, Maddy thought. We’re all dead. 

“Hold on!” Gremlin shouted. Maddy reached out and grabbed on to the side of the the turret, finding a handhold and locking in. The IFV slowed and turned abruptly, Smoker clearly hadn’t fully qualified with the thing. It roared forward again and Maddy could see the mob of pursuit creatures were gaining on them. Maddy turned back to look ahead and saw the structure they were heading towards. It was concrete and brutalist, with a big open cargo door and two men with guns pointing out, ready for their arrival. Maddy knew the cybernetics lab was one of the most reinforced placed in the colony, simply due to the value of the cybernetic implants within. 

“Smoker!” Maddy shouted. “When we get to that loading dock, spin the ass around so the science team can unload and move. Shut down the engine but leave the turret powered and help the science team!”

“Yes sergeant!” Smoker replied. 

“Gremlin, keep the fire on those goddamn things until the science team is inside. Dad, you’re with me! Lets give them hell!” Maddy shouted, trying her best to impersonate the marine squad leaders she’d served with in a past life. 

The IFV pulled up to the cargo doors and spun around. The rear hatch fell open and the science team rushed out, handing off bags of samples and equipment to the two guards at the doorway to the lab. Gremlin started engaging targets just as quickly as the IFV came to a stop. Dad had cracked open a box of grenades he’d found in the IFV’s bustle rack and started chucking them one after another one onto the road. Maddy took a pulse rifle shot at a creature that jumped down from a roof and missed, cursing herself before following up with a kill shot. She dropped the magazine, and pulled another from the chest rig she had over her armor, slamming it into the big gun and pulling the charging handle. 

She looked back to check on the status of the science team and saw Smoker dragging Chief through the cargo doors. Liselle and another science team member were team carrying a big metal box out of the back of the Black Mamba while the rest of the science team shouted and pointed. “How much more Carney?” Maddy shouted over the comm. 

“That’s it!” Carney replied, “get inside!”

“Gremlin! Up and out!” Maddy shouted, firing a shot at one of the spider things. The round hit the spider in the head and exploded it into pieces. Maddy saw Gremlin rush out of the back of the IFV, hitting the ‘ramp up’ button to secure the vehicle as she rushed for safety. Dad and Maddy moved as one, firing and reloading as they climbed down from the IFV and fought their way back to the cargo doors. The two security men were standing at the threshold of the doorway, pointing and yelling at a spot to Maddy’s left. 

Maddy turned to see what they were yelling at, and saw one of the tall, muscled, arm-bladed creatures starting at her from just a few meters away. It cocked it’s head sideways, and brought one of it’s arm blades down towards her. Maddy raised her pulse rifle, but was amazed to see her left arm didn’t come up to steady the weapon. She pulled the trigger anyway, and the creature took a glancing hit from the rifle, staggering it. Maddy fell to the ground, the recoil from the one-armed shot sending the pulse rifle sliding away. 

She looked at her left arm. It was gone. TRAUMA DETECTED flashed across her HUD. Someone grabbed onto her grab handle and started dragging Maddy towards the cargo door. He was shouting, “don’t you fucking close that door!” As he drug. Another creature, this one having dozens of legs and a massive set of pinchers, climbed down from atop the IFV. Maddy drew her 5.7mm SMG and fired wildly with her right arm, some shots hitting and some flying wide. The creature screamed and lunged forward, a pair of giant pincers lashing out from it’s bug head while its front several pairs of legs slashed at Maddy’s stomach. She screamed and fired her weapon. The creature twisted and fled, something in it’s mouth. Maddy’s vision narrowed, and blackness started to creep in. She let go of her SMG and felt her arm grow heavy. Someone was still dragging her. The words MASSIVE TRAUMA DETECTED: STABILIZING ran across her HUD. Maddy slipped away.