. I’m game. Give me what I need from your OPORD and I’ll have the tugs and a team on site ready to take delivery.”
*Mr. T: “Thanks Chuck. That takes a huge load off.”
The bug nest ship had planted in a recreation field, in Federal Way. The location did make strategic sense. It was almost dead center between Joint Base Lewis-McChord and Naval Base Kitsap. It was also near the major population centers of the Puget Sound. And the location was great for us. It was in a spot from which the military could coax it to slide downhill into the beautiful waters of Puget Sound.
Blast some trees. Set up a nice detonation to undercut the slope adjacent to the bug ship. Add a few thousand gallons of water to keep it moving and the result would be a nice slippy-slide. Bug ships are tough. Even without energetic shielding, it could handle a little pounding on the slide down into the water. Then the navy would tow it away, hiding it at their base in Bremerton less than 30 miles away.
***
HAIL THE QUEEN
Muncle wanted to be our point-man. Uhhh. Point-monkey. With that, he would be going in first, running fast, a minimal target with amazing eyesight. Mr. T would have our six, carrying his old Ma Deuce; that upgraded M2 Browning Machine Gun. With just 100 bullets the package weighs more than me. Mr. T is carrying a lot more than 100 bullets.
We tried to talk him into letting Para carry the thing when we go on ops. But he insists. We get a nice quip, maybe a line from some 70s song or something, “You’re talking about my .50? He ain’t heavy ... he’s my brother.” Yeah, the colorful side of Grandad. In training sessions, he always keeps up. I am seriously suspicious he picked up a colony of strength-nanites along with his mind reading abilities. He merely smiles when I ask. But it’s obvious.
I can’t handle the weight of a large caliber rifle for long, though I am a decent shot. Right now I’m comfortable with an M-16 and the old 5.56 NATO round. With a 3-round burst I always get a good grouping. I can handle the newer squad weapon firing the 6.8. But I grew up shooting an AR-15, so the M-16 is a natural fit, along with my nine-mil. At least for now.
The twins are carrying the squad 6.8s and sidearms, I think .45s. Good stopping power, the 6.8. Even against a soldier bug, as evidenced by the National Mall mission. Para is carrying a 6.8 on a sling, with her almost brand new used Desert Eagle .50 as backup.
Grandad says we’ll all need to do some target practice and switch over to the 6.8. With that, we can interchange magazines and such. You know what I mean: Hey, I’m out, throw me a mag. That does make sense. So, okay, next time I’ll have the upgrade with me.
That Capital Mall ship had very low lighting. Because of that, we looked into requisitioning some night-vision goggles, but there was a backlog. Even better, Grandad found a way to get us on the fast track for the latest in IVAS headgear. IVAS, Integrated Visual Augmentation System. Those are AR
For this mission there are three objectives. Map the entire internal ship layout. Interrogate the queen bug. Appropriate the ship. The working theory is, the queen will be nesting in the very center of the ship, amidships, the safest place. Now we know we should have gone in early in the morning on Friday the 31st . Most of the bugs were out drinking beer and whatever else. Can you imagine that? There are reports from all over the world. Bugs drinking and causing mayhem. And I’m told they were out doing the same thing on the Friday before. Creatures of habit? We may have missed the opportunity of an almost empty ship.
Mr. T is calling us together. Time to go. We have ported to a hiding area that Rock found on recon. It’s near the ship and we are getting ready to do a “link and slink”. Roll says “cloak and roll.” But we definitely will link and slink. My ability, my terms. So, I like cats, is that a problem? Get over it Roll.
Oh, don’t give me your sneer face. I didn’t say anything about your untangle term, even though it’s already on 10-billion shampoo bottles. Time to move out. Cloak. Cloak. Cloak.
The ships energy shield was offline. That’s not unusual in the absence of hostilities. Well, that’s probably the case. No doubt the bugs can bring the shielding online at a moment’s notice. We walked up to a port door on the ship under cloak, totally invisible across the entire EM spectrum. Para inverted, grabbed the inset hatch handle, braced a leg against the ship hull, and heaved. There was a fairly muted cracking sound, and the hatch opened.
We moved back as a group using the hatch as cover. No fire came through the hatchway. Quick look. No bugs in sight, we stepped into the ship. I then noticed a continuous tone that seemed to match a vibration in the floor. An alarm was sounding. Sorry Muncle. No dashing point man, okay, point monkey, for this op.
With the alarm we decided to take this one nice and easy. And stay cloaked. Cloak. Cloak. Cloak. We took our time moving down the passageway. We figured this ship would be similar to the one in D.C. It was. The lighting was low with a reddish hue, cool air flowing. We knew the oxygen level would be higher than what we were used to. But it wasn’t high enough to cause a problem.
In fact, I felt as though I had more energy. Could have been the adrenaline. The walls and floor were smooth but not at all slippery. In the reddish light they seemed a matte black color.
Para was on full alert, but she did glance back at me. “This place is way too creepy.”
Altogether creepy. I didn’t notice any smells. Good HVAC. No noise to speak of. Our comm buds have good sound dampening tech. I’m sure we will be thankful for that. Especially if the .50 cal. starts rocking.
It wasn’t long before we encountered a locked bulkhead hatch. Para unlocked it, snap, as the twins recorded each step with some scanner equipment that Mr. T requisitioned. That will help in mapping the layout of the ship. We were making good time, the going easier than expected. I said it out loud. It seems like that’s always a mistake. No sooner were the words out of my mouth than, bam, the bugs showed us they had some tricks of their own.
As we rounded a corner of sorts, I felt a terrible wave of nausea and my head felt as though it would explode. We were all writhing on the deck like so many worms thrown on a hot sidewalk.
The cloak was undone. As we thrashed on the floor a squad of bugs moved in and piled us up. They must have been alerted to our location by the busted hatch. We were wrapped in a net and they started to drag us down the passageway. It all happened so fast. This was the end for us, prison camp, or worse. Probably experimental test subjects.
Only Rock’s quick thinking saved us. He remembered an assembly room we had passed just before busting through the hatch. And bless Rock’s big ole heart, he had committed the area to memory. We were all mashed together in the net. It was really rather humiliating. But we were in physical contact! Rock teleported us all to that assembly area where it was nice and quiet.
I was just getting my bearings and looked up to see Mr. T shaking his head, trying to get into a sitting position, hands on the floor for support. “Who was that?”
Rock was already standing up. “It was me sir.”
Mr. T slapped his hands to remove the imaginary dust. “Good job. What just happened?”
Roll was already reviewing his scanner recordings. “Acoustics. Sound weapon. Not all that sophisticated.”
I still felt lousy. “Worked well enough on us.”
Mr. T had a contemplative look mixed with his dazed expression. “A couple years back I was working under contract to develop better sonic nonlethal systems. It made sense with the way society was going. As the prototype neared completion, the development group was split. Sonic system finalization and system defeat. My team was tasked with developing a means to defeat the system.
“We put together a helmet that included a cancellation system running wave disruption algorithms. The contract was put on hold and I somehow ended up with the helmets. It was supposed to be a short-term delay and I ended up with the helmets in the interim. That was a busy time. Fo
rgot all about them. They’re in the lab somewhere. I wonder whatever happened to the program.”
Roll knew just what to do. He teleported to the command center and came back with the high-tech helmets. Roll just seems to pay attention to details like that. Mr. T is always procuring new stuff. Roll likes gadgets. The helmets were just sitting on a shelf in the lab waiting for a job. How convenient! Yeah, that sort of thing happens a lot with us. I’ll have to get into that at some point. Roll was back. It took all of 30 seconds. We were back in control. Para wanted to know about Muncle. His head was too small for a helmet. Mr. T thought he would be okay if he hunkered down close to Para’s helmet.
Para took a tentative step into the passageway but was immediately thrown back into the assembly room.
“Para!” I screamed. “You’re bleeding!”
“A scratch,” she said. “Is Muncle okay?”
Muncle was fine. That was some sort of rail gun. One of those would be awfully hard on the furniture. The bugs were intent on stopping us. They must have had an extra flier gun in storage and got it out to take us down. Thank goodness, it was only a graze. We’re still trying to determine Para’s limitations when inverted. She can’t handle rail guns, judging from the bleeding. It was more than a scratch, though it was superficial. Roll used some foam filler-and-adhesive to close the wound, then wrapped it.
Those projectiles could pass through the heavy bulkhead material. The bugs didn’t have an angle on our room, but that was only a matter of time. Rock thought we should try to go around another way. Mr. T felt it would give the bugs time to set more traps.
Mr. T made the decision. “Rock. You and me. Port tactic, just behind their line, you’re watch, I’ve got the shooter.”
Rock pulled out his blind spot mirror and took a peek. Immediate fire. But he had seen what he needed and looked at Mr. T, giving a thumbs up. They readied their rifles. Heads nodding the countdown, 3, 2, 1. They ported behind the enemy position and opened fire.
Mr. T shouted over the comms, “Team, move out!”
We ran to the next hatch, Mr. T sidestepping, looking behind for any tails. Heat and a glowing spot on the bulkhead. 50 cal. response. Some bugs were trailing us, but had moved back around a bend in the passageway to escape the heavy fire. A locked hatch in front, a bug squad behind.
Mr. T was amped. “Roll, short port down the passageway and toss a grenade at our pursuers. Para, snap the hatch but only a crack, Rock toss a grenade, Viz empty a mag. Sweetie, sweep the entire passageway from deck to overhead ... uhhh ... ceiling.”
We moved into action. With the immediate threats neutralized I still felt exposed in the cramped passageway with no cover. The way we were moving around, cloaking was worthless. There was nothing to do except move forward hoping the center of the ship was close. We came to a T-section, so either right or left. No strategic retreat, not with the clanking sound to our rear, the sound of a lot of bug claws scrambling to catch up with us.
Para was on the left; I was on the right. A nod to each other followed by very fast looks around the corner. Nothing. Mr. T gestured to the right and we hustled around into the next passageway hoping for cover. There was intense heat as laser weapons opened up from our pursuers. Crud. We were being roasted even without a direct hit, the bulkhead starting to glow red. It was like an oven. Mr. T pulled the pin and sent a grenade skittering along the deck toward the bugs. The laser fire let up.
He positioned himself to watch for the immediate bug threat down the long passageway. Across from us it was a short distance to a closed hatch. The left side of the T-section. Our side of the section was longer, opening into a wide area with a double hatch setup. The queen’s room would be on the other side of that fancy double hatch.
Mr. T was concerned. “This is not a good spot; we need to keep moving. Rock, you watch that single hatch, I’ll cover the pursuers. The rest, move ahead and see if you can breach that double hatch.”
Para has a certain glare when she feels cornered, a look of determination. We had passed a heavy reinforced hatch a few steps back down the passageway we had just traveled. It looked super heavy-duty. She asked Mr. T to cover her and hustled around the corner without giving him time to say anything. I dropped to the deck and inched around the corner to add more firepower. Para strained at the hatch but managed to break it loose. The area filled with the noise of loud equipment and an odor like ozone.
I could tell the hatch was heavy even for Para. Oh! That would make a good shield, in case there was another railgun waiting beyond the double doors. Para sprinted back around the corner and headed for the queen’s lair. Roll, Muncle, and I followed.
As Rock watched, his hatch slowly started to open, which invited his suppression fire. I heard a new and loud whining sound coming from Mr. T’s passageway before he added his own suppression fire. Then the laser fire started again, and he was forced back around the corner.
Mr. T sounded exasperated as he shouted. “They’ve got some sort of shielding that’s effective against the .50 cal. We may have to port. How’s the breach coming?”
Para was straining at the hatchway, left foot planted on one door as she strained at the handle of the other. The metal screamed in protest until it finally gave, and Para plopped on the floor. She kicked the door shut as some rail fire skimmed where her head had been. The projectiles would have hit Rock if he wasn’t on a knee continuing to fire at the other hatch.
Mr. T shouted, “We’ve got to port!”
Para wasn’t going to have it. “We’re in! Let’s do this thing. Hit the deck until I take down the gun.”
She picked up the heavy-duty hatch as a shield, slammed open the broken throne room door, and charged. The bugs must have been surprised that someone would charge into railgun fire. They hardly managed to get the gun spooled up before Para mowed them down. She really can move very fast. I stayed in a prone position as Roll raised up on a knee and we filled the room with lead.
Mr. T grabbed Rock and launched him toward the throne room. “Help with the throne room, I’ve got your hatch. Move! Move!”
Rock joined us at the hatch, adding to our fire. We may have overdone it a bit. There was no return fire coming our way. Para was trying to immobilize the queen bug, holding onto one of its small arms. I almost laughed watching Para work against the queens eight appendages. It kept reaching toward a knee with a free hand as Para kept swatting it away.
Mr. T entered the room, closed the door and set his rifle on the deck. He grabbed what looked like a staff, bent it around the hatch handles, and then dragged over a heavy bench. That bench was very ornate and plated in gold. He trigged an EMP device.
The queen was big and ugly, half again larger than a soldier bug. She seemed out of proportion, too much living the good life. The thing had wings, though it was obvious it would need to lose a lot of weight in order to actually fly. There was a motorized metal frame that gave it added support. The queen was squealing some high-pitched gibberish. Then she went quiet and made a move to grab an energy gun sitting on a nearby tray.
She almost got a shot off too. Until that move, she had been concentrating on touching a knee. The queen shrieked as Para backhanded her arm and the gun clattered to the ground. Para then grabbed the side of a mandible, pulled its head low to the ground, and held it there. It seemed as through Para had found a way to become even denser than her “natural” inverted state. I suppose a few rail gun hits will do that to a girl.
We had been under the impression Para was bullet proof. Well, she really can take a hit from some types of bullets, but not a rail gun. It was obvious from her wound that those are plenty effective. She’s my sister. I know her well. Two rail gun projectiles made it through that heavy door shield too. Sure, the door, the hatch, slowed them way down. No bleeding this time, but it was obvious those hits were painful. There would be terrible bruises. I can’t imagine. Thank you for doing that for us Para! Don’t ever do something that stupid again!
Mr. T stepped in and sec
ured the queen with heavy restraints, locking her hands and legs. He touched the thing’s head and stood there for a couple of minutes with a terrible look on his face. Then he told Para to smash the thing. Para smashed it. Here’s how the interview developed.
Mr. T looked like he might get sick as he interviewed the nest queen. “I was just ... done ... with the delving interview. Done. I felt sick and exhausted. Evidently these queens have a significant delving skill of their own. She could access my thoughts, emotions, memories. She managed to ‘speak’ to me in a peculiar manner, though eventually it became more like actual talking.
“At first it was almost as though she strung sentences together from my memories of old movies and the like. It was ... odd. The words to adequately explain what she did escape me. Despite the peculiar nature of her method of communication the sense of the message was clear. By the time I was finished asking questions, and was completely drained, she was able to speak into the delve.
“She said, ‘You enjoyed that as much as I did, didn’t you sweetie? But you forgot to ask an important question. I’ll let you know the answer anyway. There’s a High Queen on this expedition. And I can tell you Sweetie, she sure is looking for you. When she finds you, she’ll either eat you or persuade you to be an ambassador. Me, I’m hoping she eats you. Sometimes she shares. I could just gobble you up, sweet-thing, yes I could.’
“After that, the rancid queen smiled and for all intents and purposes, smacked her lips.”
That’s when Para smashed it.
We still weren’t finished, there was the rest of the ship crew to dispatch. Mr. T shook his head hard, trying to clear his mind.
“Roll, port with Viz and Para to that assembly room, under cloak. See if you can get in behind that squad of bugs with the shield generator. Take them out if you can. Let us know what you see.
Battle for Earth Page 12
