by Dante King
“Send it!” I ordered as I dragged the twitching alien back from the line.
It was then that I realized that I’d forgotten to say from where. Two bugs stumbled into my kill-box. No matter, though. One was fun, so two would be twice as fun.
I got my shield up just before five sacs hit it, sending energy sparking across the whole thing. I charged to meet the first one. The second took a couple of quick steps to its left as it tried to flank me. It was a good move.
I rolled away from the one I’d charged and came up within bad-breath distance of the second Harbinger. A quick slice from my blade dropped the enemy’s rifle and entire arm to the ground. I reversed the swing and removed its two front legs. I hadn’t taken my eye off the second alien, but it was no longer interested in me. Reaver was its new prey. Although she was capable of handling herself, she was oblivious to the Harbinger charging her back.
I sprinted after her, but I couldn’t close the distance in time, and a bug-bullet crashed into her rear armor plating and exploded into a splash of acid. Her battle armor deployed foam to help neutralize the acid, but it wouldn’t be completely effective. I met the Harbinger with my vibro-blade and targeted every vulnerable seam within its carapace armor. In a matter of seconds, the alien’s armor broke apart, and its body collapsed in segmented chunks.
“Fuck!” Reaver looked over her HUD before looking at me. “Thanks for the assist, Paladin.”
“Assist?” I asked with a smile, and she opened her mouth to reply, but Joker beat her to it.
“Hold the line!” he ordered.
Another bug set its eyes on me, and I rolled aside as its rifle released an acid sac. The projectile smashed into the rock behind me in an explosion of deadly fluid. My HUD didn’t indicate any compromised components on my armor, but the sac had come too damn close. If my armor had been hit, then the stuff hadn’t done a lot of damage yet. I had to think fast because even a speck of alien death-juice could wreak havoc on my equipment.
The Harbinger who’d fired at me closed in for a quick kill, followed closely by another alien. My vibro-blade pulsed in my hand as I blocked a rifle-swing from the first. The second turned to bring its claw down on my belly, so I dropped my sword, lowered my shield, caught the bug’s fist with both hands, and pulled hard. The thing skittered forward as it tried to regain its balance. I enjoyed the look of surprise from the first bug gave as a shot intended for me hit its comrade in the face.
Laughing at my enemy’s stupidity, I used both arms and legs to continue the second bug’s headlong stumble, knocking both into the side of the cave 10 feet away. I’d been right; two bugs was more fun than just one. I was grinning so hard, my cheeks were starting to hurt.
The line of Marines had not only recovered but was advancing. Reaver had taken my place, and the trail of Xeno body parts were trophies to her killing efficiency.
We’d never talked about combat away from training. She seemed to treat fighting as a chore, as though it might have been exciting before but wasn’t anymore. She was just too good at it. It was too easy.
I tore my eyes from her lethal grace to address my own bug problem. My two opponents were a tangled mess of legs and green blood. I rolled to my right, retrieved my sword, and sprung to my feet. I couldn’t see the first enemy’s rifle among the confusing mess of appendages, but I raised my shield anyway and charged.
The first bug saw me and produced a rifle, but the second one kicked it with a stray leg before it could take the shot. The first one apparently decided it was done with cuddling. It dropped the rifle, grabbed its comrade with all its legs, and tore its fellow Xeno in half. The thing’s abdomen went one way while the head, thorax, and an arm went the other.
I had to admit—I was damn impressed, and for a fleeting moment, I thought about mounting the thing’s head somewhere. I could tell anyone who asked about the awesome Harbinger I’d killed and what I’d seen it do. Then I remembered the battle’s arrangements would make that impossible and consoled myself with the knowledge that I would get to kill it, at least.
The bug did something even more awesome next: it feinted. It actually tried to fake me out. The thing raised its clawed right fist and stepped to its right as if it was trying to get around the edge of my shield to punch me. I ducked beneath the massive clawed fist, and it kicked at me with a pointy front leg. My shield took the force of the strike.
My answer was three quick slashes across the front of its thorax. When the Harbinger swung at me with its other fist, I raised my shield and took one more swipe at it before dancing away.
The creature seemed confused that I’d disengaged from combat, and it stared with its arms raised in a ready stance. I lowered my shield and waited.
Any questions that might have been buzzing around its insectoid brain were answered a second later. A rectangle-shaped section of exoskeleton dropped from the neat hole I’d cut in its chest. It was followed quickly by one of its tube-shaped hearts, some other organs I couldn’t identify, and a whole lot of bright green viscera.
Just when I was about to pat myself on the back and rejoin my Marines on the line, my HUD crackled before it vanished entirely. An energy spike was causing my HUD to glitch-out.
“Anyone else got issues with their HUD?” Swede asked over comms.
“Appears we’re all out,” Bird returned.
Shit. We were effectively blind. But why now? There was only one answer, and it would test the mettle of every Marine in the cave.
My display returned, and with it, a confirmation I’d been right.
“We got a cow!” Joker announced. “Hold the line! Sir, we need you up here!”
Well done. Combat was no time for formality. If he needed me, he could tell me. To hell with rank when lives were on the line. I reminded myself to tell him so later, even if he ended up dead.
I charged to the right flank of the line against the cave wall. The path between the boulders narrowed and provided us the opportunity to interlock shields.
We were about to face a Xeno Queen, and these Marines would need all the help they could get.
Chapter Two
“My Gods,” Joker whispered over the communications channel.
I tried not to roll my eyes as he invoked the divine. After all, I was just as awed by the sight of the Xeno Queen as he was, even if this wasn’t my first rodeo. I didn’t care if Joker invoked his gods or called upon them to help him fight the galaxy’s worst. A man with faith is difficult to defeat, I thought.
As for me, I didn’t have that kind of faith. I relied on science, brutality, and swiftness of action. Those three pillars had served me well all my life, and I wasn’t about to start praying just because the galaxy’s ugliest Xeno Queen had shown up.
There were only two Harbingers left, but they held back. The little rows of razor-teeth inside their wide mouths clattered together, and I guessed they were laying out battleplans now that their Queen was present.
“Hold the line,” Joker reiterated. “Count off!”
I started the count by saying “One!” and the rest of the line finished the count. Nineteen Marines, including myself, responded. We were all alive and ready to party.
The Queen was a giant of an alien with enough ferocity and firepower to eliminate every Marine present. She benefited from Xeno tech that seemed to enable their spaceships to move around the galaxy at will. We weren’t certain of the range of their ship-mounted portable generators, but personal ones like the tech belonging to the Queen could transport them up to a mile away in any direction.
She could have ‘ported in from anywhere on the planet, or she could have been inside the cave the whole time. I’d never faced a Queen that used cloaking technology, but accounts of the most recent forays with humanity’s dreaded enemies suggested it was possible. It was probably where the coders had gotten the idea for this one.
Except it didn’t really matter how she got here. Putting her down was all that mattered.
The Queen was at least twice
the size of the aliens we’d already killed, but she was something different. Sizably different. And she was ugly, dangerous, and greener different.
Queens resembled big leaves from paw paw trees. They had four beefy arms and four spike-tipped legs, each ending in claws, just like their arms. An armored carapace hid wings behind its back. A Queen was kind of like what the offspring of a centipede and a Harbinger would be if they could have a baby—a really ugly, nasty, bloodthirsty baby that even the mama’s best friend wouldn't tell her was cute.
I knew that the acid produced by the Queen was identical to the substance inside the projectile sacs. Queens laid two different kind of eggs; the first would turn into baby Xeno while the second contained the corrosive material used for killing. Queens could load their gullet with their own sacs, then squeeze them and spray the poison over their opponents. They would only release a single blast, but it was often enough to take down their prey or anything foolish enough to attack them.
I knew enough to take one down. But today wasn’t about me. It was about the Marines around me and how they decided to deal with it.
Queens were a special kind of prize and were lauded as some of the most difficult opponents the alien scourge had to offer. It was time my MSM squad earned themselves a trophy.
“Even numbers, guard the top!” Joker continued. “Watch for the spit! Odd numbers, cover!”
With everyone still alive, the alien bitch didn’t stand a chance. The problem was that the Queen didn’t seem to give a shit about that piece of information. She leaned her triangle-shaped head back and sprayed the line with acid.
I stepped to the right, pressed against the Marine who’d counted “two,” and took a knee. The even-numbered Marine’s job was to protect us from the acid, but mine was to protect us from everything else.
I held my shield out in front of me while my shieldmate grunted under the pressure of taking almost all of the Queen’s attack. The acidic onslaught kept coming as the Queen released every last ounce of ooze from her maw.
A skitter of movement alerted me to trouble, and I spotted the two surviving Harbingers as they charged. A scream rang out behind me, and I guessed one of the odd-number Marines had been so focused on shooting the charging bugs that he forgot to make sure he was under the even-numbered Marine’s shield.
My rifle sizzled, and the alien invader went down in a tumble of limbs nine feet away. I put four more blasts into its one visible compound eye. If the alien was only faking, it would still be at a huge disadvantage once it rejoined the battle. I adjusted fire and opened up on the Queen.
The big bug crouched, unfurled its leathery wings, and folded them in front like a shield. They weren’t impenetrable, but as far as we knew, they were useless for flying. The Queens’ wings, some million or billion years ago, had become too big and heavy. Now, they served as defensive tools.
With the Queen’s first acid spray discharged, I stepped out from the protection of my shieldmate and reached for my belt.
“Grenade!” I called as I lobbed one at the Queen. I aimed to land it within her folded cocoon, but at the last moment, she batted it away with her wing.
Marines scrambled for cover as the grenade exploded in the air. The blast didn’t harm my squad, and another Marine decided he would try to best my attempt. He announced his grenade throw before he tossed it toward the hulking Queen. The enemy was more accurate with her strike this time, and she whacked the grenade into a group of Marines. The grenade detonated, and four Marines went down with injuries.
Our battle armor was designed to defend us against our most common enemy and their most dangerous weapons. It was not designed to protect us from our own gear. Those with injuries were pulled behind the line as the squad quickly dispatched the last Harbinger.
Fifteen Marines versus one Queen. The odds were pretty even.
The Queen’s entire body was covered in blood from peppered bullets, but she wouldn’t go down. I continued firing while I tried to concentrate my shots on a single point of her wing. I wanted to burn through and start doing some real damage, but the bitch kept twitching. I thought she was moving erratically because someone had finally gotten through her outer husk and injured her.
Then it occurred to me that she was doing it on purpose. She somehow knew that if she twitched and spread the shots out, she’d have a better chance for—
“Acid!” Reaver yelled the conclusion I’d come to half a second earlier.
I barely had time to roll under the cover of my shieldmate. He didn’t react fast enough and took a big splash of acid to his faceplate before his shield was up. I grabbed my med-kit and rushed over to help him, but the stuff burned through quick. He was out of the fight in seconds.
I glanced at my HUD and saw that it was back online. A quick check told me all I needed to know. There were fourteen of us against an uninjured Queen, and the blood covering her body did little more than give her carapace armor a neon green sheen. She disappeared in a glimmer, and all signs of her vanished from my HUD.
I’d thought this Queen was just like all the others with their significant lead times before they could spray another cluster of sacs. It seemed she was different. The odds had just shifted big time.
The outlines of the boulders around the cave began to shimmer, and a cloak lifted from objects scattered around their bases. Eggs the size of my palm appeared throughout the area, and I realized exactly what the Queen had been doing while we’d been fighting the regular alien soldiers.
Joker glanced at the spot where the Queen had disappeared.
“It it gone?” he whispered.
He hadn’t arrived at my conclusion that the Queen had been here all along and that she hadn’t left now.
I knew she was still present in the cave, reloading her mouth-spray to fire at us again. Hell, this bitch might have a reload capacity a hundred times as fast as the other Queens.
We couldn’t take another hit like the one before. It was now or never.
I spotted motion beside a mound of egg-sacs 15 feet to my right, brought my rifle to bear, and fired. I was proven right when the Queen materialized. My shot hadn’t done much damage, but it had forced her to drop the cloak and reveal herself.
“Charge!” I ordered as the other Marines realized the Queen was still among us.
Fourteen bodies sprinted forward. Fourteen brave souls ready to kill or be killed.
The Queen swept her wings out and caught two of the Marines with a sweeping blow. The impact wasn’t hard, but it ruined their charge.
I slowed my speed a little to be ready when she struck again. Her leather wing passed, and I leaned into it. I barely slipped inside her guard as her wings clamped over her like an organic shield.
I was stuck inside a protective cocoon, with my team was on the outside. Most Marines would have had difficulty fighting off a claustrophobic doom, but excitement rippled through my limbs as I prepared to strike.
I could hear static in my helmet, and I figured the Queen’s wings were somehow scrambling the signal to my team outside. They probably thought me dead, and I couldn’t wait to surprise them when I tore free of this bitch’s grasp.
My rifle wasn’t the best choice this close, so I threw it at the monster’s head. She battled it away mid-air with an arm but was distracted long enough for me to get a decent stab at one of her legs. She pulled away, but not before I’d cracked her shell.
Then a beautiful sound filled my ears.
She shrieked.
I pressed forward and swung my blade as I extended my shield, missed, and found my sword arm caught in the tremendous grip of a clawed appendage. She yanked me from the ground, grabbed my leg with another arm, and started pulling. My armor was holding, but damage indicators and alarms started flashing in my HUD. I tried to catch her next arm with my shield, but she dodged out of the way and continued to lift me higher.
Oh great, I thought. She’s gonna toss me. This is gonna hurt.
But she didn’t. Instead, she b
rought her massive head down and started chewing on my leg. Green HUD indicators turned red as my armor integrity readings dropped. With the way her razor-teeth were going at my leg, she’d penetrate the exterior plates any second. Then it would be a simple chomp before she’d cut through my webbing and puncture my skin.
I couldn’t swing my sword because my arm was caught in her grip. And my limited reach prevented me from shoving my shield between her spiky mandibles and my flesh.
I might have frozen, but this wasn’t the day for me to die. The Marines needed to know the Queen could be beaten. After all, this mission was as much about boosting morale as it was finishing these monsters.
I couldn’t bet on the Queen thinking I didn’t taste so good and spitting me out. Good thing improvisation was one of my better skills.
I disengaged my shield, dropped my sword, and caught it with my left hand. The Queen didn’t notice, and a half-second later, two of her arms were gone and I was swinging by one ankle. She stopped chewing and tilted her head in confusion. From her lack of screeching, I guessed her limbs didn’t have nerve endings, but I wasn’t about to wait around while she noticed her missing limbs.
I lifted myself with my hips, removed her third arm at the wrist, and fell hard to the stone floor. She raised her last arm and curled her claw into a fist as if she was going to use it as a hammer, but she changed her mind when an energy bolt splashed against her face. Someone had gotten through her wing and was taking slow, aimed shots at her head.
More rifle fire pounded against her exoskeleton, and all she could do was try to shield herself from it. Her centipede-like feet scuttled backward as the Marine onslaught continued with relentless fury.
“Cease firing in two seconds,” I ordered over comms.
“Yes, Sir!” the response came, and I was glad to hear a mass of voices in response.
