Casserine

by Bernard Lee DeLeo

  “Oh yeah, much cooler,” Jake agreed, laughing.

  “I’d shoot both of you before I’d step foot in those holes,” Corey snapped, pushing Mercer hard, propelling him towards the ship hatch. “Get on board smart ass, or I’ll just drag you alongside.”

  She watched the two Marines walk into Alpha’s hold, still laughing at Mercer’s joke. She sighed, praying she would indeed see the two resurface again unharmed. She looked up at the Alpha deck gun turret, where Chief Dougherty was strapped in, watching her. When he saw Corey looking, Tim nodded and waved. Sara returned his wave. This, she thought would be one long day.

  Chapter 17

  The Nest

  When the Drop Ships launched this time, they carried a Marine Regiment of fifteen hundred men on each ship. The Epoxy Landing Zones had been set in place at five junctures around the Omaha habitat. Wide paths ran from one landing zone to another, and each one had its own pathway to the habitat. Two more landing zones were placed near the most likely way inside the catacomb of tunnels running into the two nests.

  They landed without incident, after clearing Bug scouts from outside the habitat. With each Drop Ship assigned a landing zone nearby, Jake set up a command post inside the habitat. They set up the command center with video access to every movement of troops. Every company commander wore a helmet cam. Every squad leader going down into the nest with Jake’s company wore one. Every Marine carried full audio capabilities, but were assigned a channel only for each respective platoon. All company commanders had an individual channel, while all command personnel were in contact with each other, and the company commanders as well.

  Jake, Tokoru, and Mercer were tied in with the Drop Ships, gunners, and pilots. Tokoru would defend the habitat, and keep the landing zones clear while the mission went on. His two assigned Regiments of Marines would be responsible for keeping retreat lines from the nests open. Isolation signals would be used to disable Queen directives from both nests, but Jake would be leading his team in one at a time.

  The Bug attacks began immediately, and were held in check by Colonel Tokoru’s habitat Marines, while Jake and his company set up the isolation signal amplifier. By the time they were finished with the setup of the command post and amplifier, the horizon in all directions sported tens of thousands of the attacking creatures. All five Drop Ship deck gunners were firing MAG50 rounds into the outer perimeter of the surging hordes, along with particle beam fire into the Bug front line.

  Jake straightened from where he had helped fasten down the last receiver on the roof of the habitat. “Nick, we’re good to go. Fire up the generator. I’ll let you know if it works.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir,” Richardson, the Tennyson Weapons Officer, acknowledged.

  Mendoza, who had accompanied Jake to the roof with a squad of Marines assigned to set up the signal receivers, stood in awe of the scene from the roof of the habitat. “My God, if we didn’t have…you guys faced this here before, Sir…I mean…like this?”

  Jake nodded grimly. “That’s why I don’t give a shit about exterminating these things, or the monsters who planted them. I’m sure some moron on Earth has probably already begun lobbying to use them in some way, after seeing our live feed; but it will happen over my dead body.”

  Moments later, the Bugs simply stopped their advance, and began wondering around, foraging as they went. The Marines and Drop Ship gunners continued to fire until everything for as far as the eye could see was dead. Jake watched with satisfaction as the Drop Ships used their special rounds to vaporize the Bug horde. Major Mercer had come up to stand next to Jake and Mendoza.

  “I love a good barbeque,” Mercer stated.

  Jake laughed, and gestured towards Mendoza. “The corporal here wondered what it was like to have the horde boring down on us, and from beneath us, without all this firepower. How would you describe it, Charlie?”

  Mercer turned to Mendoza, and the corporal could see the haunted look in Mercer’s eyes. “It was living hell. Don’t ever hesitate or lose concentration around these things, even for a second, isolation beam or not. Do you still want to come with us, Corporal? The company I picked to descend with us are all volunteers. Your assignment to Jake here does not extend to going down into the nests.”

  “I understand, Sir,” Mendoza answered. “I’m coming along, if you’ll have me.”

  Jake clapped Mendoza on the shoulder. “That’s the spirit, Bob. Charlie just wants to make sure you don’t start whinin’ if something happens to the beam before we get to the Queen. He knows how much fun it was without the isolation signal, right Charlie?”

  “Tea,” Mercer sighed, with a grin on his face. “That’s it. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable when you end up in a churning mass of mandibles, coming at you in pitch black hell, from every corner of those God forsaken holes.”

  “Didn’t you guys even have those cold flares like the Colonists have?” Mendoza asked as he tried to visualize the horrific scene Mercer had described.

  “All we had were our suit lights,” Jake told him. “We had to lay flares as we went, but move at full speed down into the nest, blasting as we went. Anyone who stayed still for even a moment was enveloped in the things. They came through the tunnel walls, roof, and floor. If not for the rocky surface when we reached the nest, there would have been too few of us left to even take a shot at the Queen.”

  “If it looked too bad, Deke carried a small planet killer,” Mercer explained. “It would have obliterated the underground area for five miles in all directions. The resulting heat would have set the underground fuel crystals off though, but we wouldn’t have been around to see it.”

  “Well,” Jake said, scanning the area around them, “shall we?”

  “How’s this Jake?” Captain Corey asked.

  Jake stood up out of his harness and walked past the rows of Marines waiting to disembark. Through the view port near the rear hatch, Jake could see hundreds of the Bugs still milling around the entrance, and thousands nearby. He looked back at the company of Marines going down with him into the nest, and signaled them up out of harness. They jumped almost as one, and moved to their assigned squads for deployment.

  “This looks great, Sara,” Jake said on his command channel to the pilots. He had Chief Dougherty on the same channel. “Tim, this could get exciting if the signal gets disrupted, so once we get into the nest I want you to wipe out the herd up here.”

  “With pleasure, Sir,” Dougherty answered.

  ‘Yuri, are the two backup regiments on board Drop Ships three, four, and five ready, just in case we need pulled out of here?” Jake asked, as he opened the exit hatch.

  “Boarding even as we speak, Sir,” Tokoru responded. “I figured I’d wait until the last moment so they don’t get cramped up waiting to deploy.”

  “The habitat command center must be kept safe, so if something unforeseen happens, we will just have to hold on until you secure the habitat area.”

  “That won’t happen,” Tokoru assured his commander. “With the firepower we brought, and the two regiments I have with me now, I could hold here until you walked back.”

  “Been there, done that,” Jake retorted. “Take my word for it, there would not be enough of us left to bother with if we walked out. Stay in touch, Yuri.”

  “I hang on your every word, Sir,” Tokoru quipped.

  Jake turned to face the regiment of Marines he brought with him. The volunteer company, going down into the nest with him, stood at the ready in the front. First Regiment’s Commander, Colonel Conger, waited with his company commanders behind Jake’s volunteer company. Jake switched to the communications channel set up for this nest mission.

  “I know how walking out into this will feel,” Jake told them. “My company will go directly to the entrance of the nest, through these Bugs still meandering around up here. You all will exit the ship and deploy around Alpha until we return. When we disappear from view, into the nest, Chief Dougherty will open up on all our friends with the de
adly mandibles, and make them very unhappy.”

  There was laughter, but Jake could tell they were nervous. “I will expect you all to join in on the fun, so that when my company exits the hole, there won’t be a live Bug in sight. We will need you men big time if things go awry. Keep your minds on your jobs, and don’t get nervous with those particle beam weapons when I’m intermingled with these things.”

  Jake walked up to Colonel Conger and shook hands with him. “See you in a little while, Colonel.”

  “We’ll be here General, good luck.”

  Jake nodded, and walked back to the front of his nest company troops. “I won’t lie to you and tell you all this little walk through these Bugs will not be unnerving. Be at the ready. There will only be a split second between us and annihilation, if the beam gets disrupted. If we are past the point of no return, we will have to double time it the rest of the way, killing Bugs as we go, and laying a trail of flares to light our escape route. If we are not half way, we will get our asses the hell out of the hole and back to the ship until we get the beam going again. Any questions?”

  “What do we do when we get to the Queen if we’ve lost the isolation signal, Sir?” One of the Marines in front asked.

  “I kill the Queen, you kill everything else until I do,” Jake answered. “Any more questions?” He waited a moment before going on.

  “Okay then, if anyone has to fire while we are making our way to the nest entrance, everyone fires, and we wipe them out completely, isolation signal or not. We will only allow them to get just so close. I would like to let as many of them get on the surface as possible, but I ain’t swapping spit with them.”

  When no one else spoke, Jake turned to Major Mercer. “Ready, Charlie?”

  “Oh, hell yea!” Mercer shouted, looking around at the troops. “Let’s go French fry the Bitch!”

  There were shouts of acknowledgement, and Jake led them out of the ship.

  The mindless monsters, wandering around between the ship and the nest, barely looked up as Jake led his troops through them. All weapons from Alpha and Conger’s Regiment were trained on the Bugs. Jake’s Marines proceeded with their particle beam weapons sweeping the area around them as they walked. The keening sound of the Bugs, combined with the noises of their limbs and mandibles as they moved, made for a horrific journey into their midst. One of the things blocked Jake’s path. Jake drew his Gear Knife and plunged it into the creature’s head. It collapsed, and the others around it moved away from the corpse, leaving a clearer path over the last twenty yards to the nest entrance.

  “Show off,” Mercer whispered, causing another ripple of nervous laughter through the troops.

  “You get the next one, Charlie,” Jake whispered back.

  “Oh, I’m sorry Jake, did I say that out loud?” Mercer joked. “You can knife as many as you want. I’m out of my element killing monsters with sharp instruments.”

  Jake nodded as they made it to the nest entrance. “Turn on your dark vision lenses, and draw your sidearms. Remember, there are probably Bugs all the way to the Queen, still wondering around. Bob, light off the flares as we go. Use your judgment as to what intervals to drop them. If we have to open up down here, things could get very hot, so we’ll avoid them if we can.”

  Mendoza, who brought up the rear, lit off the first cold flare just inside the entrance. It tinted the catacomb of tunnels with greenish light, which did not affect their dark vision lenses. Jake turned on his tracker, which projected an image inside his helmet, showing him the way to proceed. The crisscrossing tunnels were large enough to accommodate even a man of Jake’s bulk, and allowed him to avoid the Bugs, by motioning his troops to hug the tunnel wall. He took deep breaths, as the memory of his first journey into a tunnel on Omaha remained a vivid and chillingly clear picture in his mind.

  “Just like old times, huh Jake,” Mercer said, switching to his command channel, as they waited for a stream of Bugs to brush by them.

  “I don’t know, Charlie. We ain’t running, and the Bugs ain’t trying to disembowel us every step of the way, not to mention exploding out of the walls in our faces.”

  “Good point,” Mercer chuckled. “This one as deep as the other?”

  “Yep, and the bitch is hunkered down amidst one of the richest areas of crystal. I will have to be very careful if I want to keep from barbequing us. The good news is it’s the rockiest area down here.”

  One of the Bugs split off from the group it was following. It passed within inches of the men, brushing against them as it went, almost as if analyzing the Marines.

  “Blow that thing’s head off,” Jake ordered. “One shot to the head.”

  A Marine nearest the thing put the muzzle of his hand held weapon to the side of the Bug’s head as it went by him. He fired, blowing a wide width hole through the creature’s skull. It dropped immediately to the tunnel floor. Jake nodded as the Marine looked up at him from the Bug’s corpse.

  “No more that close,” Jake told them. “I don’t want anyone ripped apart by accident.”

  The Marines followed along behind Jake and Mercer, looking around fearfully at the tunnel walls. The tunnels seemed to go on endlessly. After almost an hour of gradual descent, the floor of the tunnel they followed became rockier. Jake breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Man, I’m glad to get past the soft ground, Charlie. We’re closenow.”

  “I hear ya, Boss,” Mercer answered on the command channel. “We have too many Marines with us to have them coming up under us. They’d separate us real quick.”

  “Look,” Jake stopped and pointed to a huge, undulating mass, just ahead in a widening cavern. They could all hear the disturbing sound, projecting out from the Queen, even through their helmets. “I guess we are within the beam’s.”

  Without warning, a dozen Bugs rushed at them. Jake and Mercer immediately dropped to their knees and began firing steady bursts into the attacking monsters. The Marines behind them spread out into safe firing positions, and helped finish off their attackers. When no more emerged from the cavern nest, Jake stood up again. He turned to his troops before going on, as he gave Mercer a hand up to his feet.

  “We’re within the beam for sure from here on,” Jake explained. “When we get into the cavern, fan out around the Queen, and kill anything that wanders within. Make your shots count. Don’t get excited and pour so much particle beam fire into them we end up igniting the fuel crystals.”

  Jake turned and walked carefully into the cavern. Mercer and the Marines behind him quickly spread out around the cavern as they proceeded, weapons at the ready. The Queen’s signal ululated outwards in a high frequency, radiating blanket, engulfing their senses.

  “Get into position, God Damn it,” Mercer screamed to the troops, as Jake continued on over to the huge thirty foot high, horde mother. “Use your helmet dampers to cut out the sound. If I want you to do anything, you’ll hear it over the com.”

  Mercer watched the Marines deploy in squads, in front of the nest, leaving a buffer zone between them and Queen’s Chamber. They put away their sidearms, and covered the cavern with their two handed, particle beam rifles. Mercer walked over to where Jake stood looking over the Queen’s nest defenses.

  Jake looked over at Mercer, shaking his head. “Look at the bitch pump them things out.”

  Mercer saw the mass of eggs spewing out into the Queen’s birthing chamber, which enveloped a seemingly unending pool of viscous fluid. The two Marines watched the eggs on the outer regions of the pool burst apart. The Bugs hatching from the eggs were nearly one-third their normal size. They immediately began feeding on the fluid within the pool.

  “That explains where those ones came from, we killed at the cavern entrance,” Jake commented.

  “God, I’m almost glad we never got a chance to sightsee the last time in a nest,” Mercer replied. “There’s how they get food in here.”

  Jake looked up to where Mercer pointed. Two narrow tunnel seams emptied literally into a trough like
area in front of the Queen, and the birthing pool. “They must absorb the planet’s resources, and then regurgitate the morass through those feed lines back to the nest.”

  “Man,” Mercer said in disgust, “that’s enough of a reason to exterminate them right there. Can we get started? I’ve had enough sightseeing.”

  In her distress, the Queen had reared up above her birthing pool to a nearly three-story height. Her head wavered from side to side, as her mandibles slammed against the sides of the armored pen she had created around herself. She, and her birthing pool, lay in a solid tub hollowed out of the fuel crystal formations. The translucent armored shield around her did not budge, even as she thrashed against it. The fuel crystals glowed slightly, making the pool give off a yellowish haze, as it churned around the Queen’s eggs and growing offspring. One opening from the birthing pool connected to the outer cavern.

  “Put a squad over there to cover that hole, Charlie,” Jake said, indicating where some of the growing offspring were poking their heads out into the cavern. “She may send out the small ones when I get to annoying her.”

  “I’m on it.” Mercer went over, and gathered up Mendoza’s squad. He positioned them to fire on the birthing pool exit.

  Jake was shedding his pack, and strapping his Gear Knife around one shoulder, so he could get his hand on the handle in front of his chest. He holstered his side-arm blaster, and re-slung his particle beam rifle, in the special pouch he had made, so it lay against his back, with the butt within easy reach of his hand.

  “Don’t you want to see what happens if we try the particle beam on the shield?” Mercer asked, joining Jake again as he prepared for the assault. “We only had an early prototype when we were here before.”

  “Okay,” Jake agreed, “but make it fast. If it just absorbs the beam like it did before, don’t keep firing. The damn thing radiated the excess heat to the outer walls of crystal.”

  Mercer leveled his own particle beam rifle at a spot just opposite of the Queen’s head and fired a short burst. The area he hit glowed a little brighter, and then the blast seemed to dissipate throughout the shield surface. The crystal formations brightened briefly as the energy was discharged from the shield into the walls it bonded with.