The Autumn War Vol. 01: Invasion

More of the creatures were pouring out of the alley, maybe twenty in total, all of them armed with the same orange handguns and rifles made from uneven resin. As another of their number was sent writhing to the ground by a burst of laser fire, they formed a phalanx, the projectors that they wore on their forearms erupting into wavering shields. Those at the front protected those at the rear, starting to advance down the street in lockstep, already a mere thirty meters away.

The distraction had been enough to get the civilian to safety, at least, Noyo pulling her into the cover of a nearby alley. She then leaned out, bracing her rifle before firing a long burst at one of the shielded aliens. The weapons were so easy to handle in spite of their weight - they had no recoil, no mechanical components. One simply had to keep them trained on the desired target.

As the laser hit one of the shields, it refracted, fraying like the end of a feather. The beams of splitting light danced across the insect's chest piece, but they didn't seem to have enough power to do any serious damage. Even if the shield wasn't a physical barrier, its roiling surface was doing enough to interrupt the beam.

The fifteen guards were all firing now, peeking out of cover from behind the debris that littered the street. They were hiding behind collapsed walls, inside alleys, a couple taking refuge behind the very landing pod that their enemy had used to get here. It was like a light show, the bright beams waving back and forth, strobing the advancing aliens. Even with their shields, a few of the lasers managed to sneak through, burning legs and shoulders. As soon as one of the aliens stumbled, half a dozen beams would focus on it, its own boiling viscera leaking from the joints in its armor as it was burned alive. Xipa had no sympathy for these things, not after all that she had seen.

Even as three more of them dropped, the aliens kept advancing, not even sparing a glance at their dying comrades. They showed them just as much disregard as they had the civilians, stepping over their bodies. Some of the guards were moving back now, trying to keep their guns on the aliens, but they were closing in. Another ten seconds and they'd be fighting hand-to-hand.

"I got an idea!" Nimi shouted, Xipa hearing her voice crackle through in her helmet's earpiece. She turned to see her flockmate disconnecting the thick cable that linked her weapon to its battery pack, tearing it from its socket on the rifle's housing. She stepped out of cover from behind the landing pod, holding the pack by the straps, spinning around. It sailed through the air as she tossed it, landing harmlessly near the feet of the aliens, who paid it little mind as they kept advancing.

Xipa understood what she was trying to do, taking careful aim through the tube-like, holographic scope of her rifle. She fired between the legs of the lead aliens, holding the beam on the pack for a moment. Its housing immediately began to swell, the old battery bulging outwards, forming an ominous bubble the size of her head. Only when obscuring, grey smoke began to billow from it did the aliens react, their formation breaking apart as jets of flame shot from it. It didn't explode in a spectacular fashion as Xipa had hoped, but it was enough to break the shield wall, stopping their advance.

The guards took the opportunity to press the attack, leaning out of their hiding places as their burning lasers felled two or three more of the aliens. One of them returned fire with its handgun, the metal rails that served as its barrel crackling with arcs of green electricity, a bolt of energy punching a hole in the swirling smoke. It hit one of the guards in the helmet, Xipa averting her eyes as the visor melted inward, the woman's scream cut short before she had even hit the ground.

As the haze began to clear, more fire was exchanged, Xipa's heart pounding in her ears as a bolt of energy splashed against the rubble she was hiding behind. The carbon-infused concrete melted as she watched, stone and steel turned to a molten slurry, the heat making her recoil even through her suit.

She steeled herself, rising to return fire, her laser melting through the face of one of the aliens. Whether it was a helmet or a skull, she wasn't sure, but it went down all the same. They were actually winning against all odds, yet the aliens were still pressing the attack. They could have covered one another with their shields, retreating back to the safety of the alley - any sane person would have. Instead, they marched into the laser fire, seemingly more interested in killing than surviving the shootout.

Another of her fellow guards took a shot to the chest, a second hitting her as she stumbled out of cover, suit and scale melting away until there was almost nothing left. The aliens were close enough now that Xipa could see the individual lenses that made up their compound eyes, the creatures breaking into a run. They dropped their shields and drew daggers from molded sheaths on their thighs with their lower pairs of arms, the blades glinting, decorated with flowing patterns. Leaping over the rubble, they fell upon the nearest guard in a flurry of blades, dragging her to the ground as she kicked and fought.

There were only a handful of the insects left now, the remaining guards focusing their fire on them, retreating as they discharged their lasers. One by one, the aliens fell. The last one left standing raised its handgun as three beams lanced it, the creature firing off a bolt even as its ruby-red exoskeleton melted like wax. The shot hit Chala in the shoulder, the impact enough to knock her off her feet, her wail of pain carrying through the street.

Xipa didn't even check if all of the aliens were indeed dead, rushing to her flockmate's side, Nimi and Noyo joining her. She cradled Chala in her arms, lifting her upper body off the ground. As she popped open the visor on her helmet, the scent of charred flesh rose to her nostrils, the wound on Chala's shoulder scorched black. It looked like overcooked meat, the suit melted to her body near the impact site. Painful didn't even begin to describe it. Xipa averted her eyes, the sight of what might be exposed bone turning her stomach. The city guards underwent VR disaster training to simulate mass casualty incidents like earthquakes and spacecraft crashes, but it hadn't prepared her for seeing real injuries like this.

Tears of frustration welled in her eyes as she helped Chala open her helmet up, letting her get a breath of fresh air. More than a friend, Chala was her flockmate - she was family. Xipa was relieved to see that she was still alert and aware, her needle-like teeth exposed in a grimace as her scaly lips pulled back.

"Fuck, fuck!" she wailed. She moved to cover the wound with her hand, then hesitated, too afraid to even touch it.

"Are you alright?" Xipa demanded, quickly realizing what a stupid question it was.

"Do I look alright to you?" she groaned through gritted teeth. "It feels like someone is stabbing a white-hot poker into my shoulder!"

"This isn't a chemical burn," Noyo said, crouching to examine the wound more closely. "This is...plasma, like what you'd find inside the reaction chamber of a fusion generator. How...how could they possibly scale that technology down to a handheld weapon?"

"That's impossible, it's not plasma," Xipa scoffed. "Plasma is tens of thousands of degrees. You couldn't fire that from a gun. You couldn't get anywhere near it."

"We need to move," Commander Tepa said, rising from beside one of the fallen guards. Xipa couldn't see her expression beneath her helmet, but she could hear the solemn tone in her voice. "We were lucky this time, but we won't survive another firefight like that."

"Wait," one of the guards said, turning her helmeted head towards the heap of bodies nearby. "Where is..."

She darted over to a pile of dead insects, pulling them aside frantically. Two more guards broke off from the group to join her, presumably her flockmates. They dragged the limp aliens out of the way to reveal the guard who had fallen under the alien knives, another two of their number rushing to help. They dragged her out, revealing that her suit was perforated with stab wounds, stained with alien ichor that was a shade of sickly green. She was obviously dead, her companions dropping to their knees over her prone form, one of them shaking her in a futile attempt to wake her up. Their visors were closed, so Xipa couldn't hear them, but she could tell from the way that their shoulders shook that they were sobbing.

More of the dozen remaining guards grieved over their fallen flockmates, one leaning against another's shoulder as she wept. The sole civilian they had rescued tried to climb over the rubble to get to the body that was lying by the alley the insects had poured out of, but someone grabbed her arm to stop her.

Xipa was wracked by a sudden wave of guilt. Their flock of four was still intact - they hadn't yet lost a member. So many were stricken with grief, yet she had been relieved to see that Chala was only injured. She could do little more than cradle her flockmate as she watched in silence, waves of dismayed blue and angry red flashing along the color panels on their suits.

Flocks were not just friends, not just family units - they were parts of a whole. A flock of Valbarans assembled early in life and remained together until death, sharing everything, from dwellings to mates.

"They're gone," Tepa announced, turning back the way they had come. "This is over. We need to get back to the station and save what civilians we still can."

"But...what about the rest of the district?" Nimi protested. "We can't just leave them to their fates!"

Her statement was punctuated by another barrage of fire from the alien ship that hovered above them, the ground shaking as it pounded a target just out of sight behind the nearby skyscrapers.

"If we die, nobody is making it to those shuttles," Tepa replied.

"We have seniority," one of Tepa's flockmates added, stepping forward to support her.

"We can't just leave Patlo here," one of the guards sobbed, gesturing to a badly burned body that was lying in the rubble.

"We can't carry them," Tepa replied, her voice unwavering. Seeing that she was facing resistance from the group, she sighed, turning to whisper to her two flockmates for a moment. "We shall reach consensus," she finally said. "Those who want to press on, make yourselves known."

A handful of the guards raised their hands, their panels flashing red, Nimi included. Xipa considered, but thought better of it. All she wanted to do right now was get Chala to a doctor.

"Those who wish to turn back?" Tepa asked, counting the number of blue panels. "Very well, the majority has decided to return to the station."

Xipa heard Nimi curse under her breath, but knew that she would respect the ruling. After all, was it not the Valbaran mantra that decisions were made wiser through consensus?

Still, Nimi left Chala's side, walking over to one of the dead aliens. She turned it over with her boot, then leaned down to inspect it more closely. It was the first time that any of them had gotten a good look at the things.

"They're insects," she announced. "Maybe crustaceans? Hard exoskeleton, waxy," she added as she reached down to brush her scaly fingertips against its torso. "Not as hard as it looks. Feels kind of like...firm plastic."

Her eyes turned to one of the resin pistols, and she picked it up gingerly, weighing it in her hand as she examined it. The grip was surprisingly suitable for her three fingers, the resin casing shaped with two holes through which the user would slot their digits.

"Careful!" Noyo warned. "It could be dangerous!"

Nimi ignored her, extending her arm, aiming the weapon at an alien body that was further down the street. After a moment of fiddling, it shot off a bright green bolt of plasma, the projectile straying wide of its target. The follow-up shot hit it dead center, the creature's carapace sizzling as it melted.

"The trigger mechanism is strange," Nimi declared, firing a third shot with an electrical crack. "You squeeze the handle to make it shoot. Looks like the plasma is contained in this canister behind these metal prongs."

"Are their weapons magnetic, maybe?" Noyo wondered. "How would they power something like that? It shouldn't be possible. That entire weapon is smaller than our battery packs."

"We should rearm while we have the opportunity," Nimi said, stooping to pick up one of the alien knives and slotting it into her belt. "These things are probably going to work better than the laser rifles."

A few of the guards muttered agreements, shedding their cumbersome packs to pick up alien substitutes. Xipa watched one of them heft a large, orange rifle in her hands, looking down a sight that was molded into its irregular housing. It looked far more fearsome than the handguns, the metal rails that ran down its barrel more than twice as long. While the technology that powered them was clearly hundreds or even thousands of rotations more advanced than anything the Valbarans had, there was something crude about their construction, almost organic. Xipa preferred to keep her rifle. It had served her well enough so far.

Nimi strode over to the civilian who was standing off to one side. She looked like she was in shock, her eyes wide, her feathers displaying hues of fear and loss. Nimi thrust one of the alien sidearms into her trembling hands, the woman glancing down at it in confusion.

"What's your name?" Nimi asked, the woman blinking at her.

"It's...it's Chotza'tal'zohtla," she replied. "W-why are you giving this to me? I work in s-shipping. I import consumer products from Valbara. I don't know how to use a gun!"

"Consider yourself deputized, Chotza," Nimi replied. "Just aim it and squeeze the handle."

"But I-"

"We need all the help we can get right now," Nimi insisted, leaving the bewildered woman holding the weapon. She returned to Xipa's side, helping her lift Chala off the ground. Xipa slung Chala's good arm over her shoulder, helping to support her.

"You good to walk?" Xipa asked.

"It's my shoulder that's melting, not my legs," Chala grunted. "It actually...feels like it should hurt a lot more than it does. Why does that worry me?"

***

The group headed back the way they had come, surmising that it was probably their safest option. The going was tough, as none of them were accustomed to so much walking, and helping Chala along was making Xipa even more exhausted. They had emergency medical supplies back at the station, so perhaps they could lessen her pain, if nothing else. She kept complaining that she couldn't feel her arm, which hung limply at her side.

They returned to find that the flock that had left to escort the civilians had arrived safely. The twenty or so people had been brought down into the mostly empty armory, which was being used as a stand-in bomb shelter.

The civilians were in varying stages of distress. Some were clinging to one another and crying, probably mourning lost loved ones, while others were staring blankly at the wall as though they couldn't process what was happening. A few were coughing, still suffering from the effects of their smoke inhalation. A male wearing a green tunic and a pair of shorts rose to his feet when he saw Xipa helping Chala along, rushing to her side.

"Lie her down on one of the tables," he said, Xipa giving him a skeptical look. "I'm a nurse," he explained, his feathers flushing an indignant red. She did as he asked, helping Chala up onto one of the work surfaces that had once held weapon parts, stepping back as the nurse produced one of the guard station's emergency medical kits. He examined the wound, trying to peel away a piece of her melted suit with a pair of tweezers, quickly relenting when she let out a cry of pain.

"How bad is it?" Noyo asked, leaning over his shoulder. "Is she going to be alright?"

"I can't do much with the tools I have here," he grumbled, tearing open the packaging on a hypodermic needle. He inserted it into her arm, injecting a clear substance, Chala's breathing gradually slowing. Once that was done, he waved the rest of the flock over to the other side of the room, lowering his voice so that Chala couldn't overhear them.

"I feel like you're not about to give us good news," Nimi muttered.

"She has fourth-degree burns," the nurse replied, the flurry of purple in his headdress betraying his concern. "Whatever she was hit with has eaten down to the muscle and bone. The only reason she's not in excruciating pain right now is because the nerves that would have transmitted those signals have been destroyed. She needs surgery to excise the dead tissue, and I'll be honest, she's probably going to lose the arm."

"Fuck," Xipa hissed under her breath, sparing a glance at her flockmate.

"I gave her a sedative, but that's all I can do right now," the nurse added. "Whatever weapons those things are using...they're monstrous."

"What should we do?" Nimi asked, always the first one to seek solutions.

"Get her to a hospital as soon as you can," the nurse replied with a shrug.

"Easier said than done," Xipa sighed.

Commander Tepa called for their attention, all eyes in the room turning to her and her flock.

"We have a plan to get everyone to safety," she began, the civilians daring to exchange a few hopeful glances. "Our destination is the spaceport, where there are shuttles waiting to evacuate us to orbit. It's too dangerous to take the roads with so many of those creatures stalking around, so we're going to follow the maglev track. The route is shorter, even if we can't ride the actual train, and it cuts across a large patch of open parkland. It'll leave us more exposed, but we figure it's safer than the streets. The aliens don't have any reason to be searching for people out there."

The armory filled with murmurs of approval, Xipa nodding to Nimi. It seemed like a solid plan.

"Why can't we ride the maglev?" one of the civilians asked, raising her hand with a flutter of feathers to get their attention. "We could get there in a matter of minutes, even if it might attract more attention."

"Because the aliens have brought down most of the lines," Tepa explained. "The one that my flock rode in from the spaceport was destroyed, and I've seen a couple more collapsed rails. They seem to be attacking our infrastructure, destroying our means of transport and communication."

"Doesn't the city guard have any vehicles?" the same woman asked.

"Emergency services mostly use skimmers, and there aren't enough scooters for everyone. It's safer to remain as a group rather than split up."

***

They moved out onto the street, the fifteen remaining guards flanking the group of around twenty civilians, Chala being helped along by one of their number. The woman they had rescued from the shootout with the insects took her place, wielding the alien pistol that Nimi had given her, looking no more sure of herself now.

Xipa glanced up at the sky, seeing the shadow of the alien spaceship looming over the city. The air was filled with those strange, insect-like aircraft now, flitting to and fro in loose groups that more resembled swarms than formations. Every now and then, they would swoop down out of view below the buildings, perhaps attacking targets on the ground. The skyline was even more jagged than before, partially collapsed buildings jutting into the air like broken teeth.

Tepa led them down the street until they arrived at a maglev terminal. It was little more than a glass awning that shielded a raised platform from the elements, a flight of steps leading up to it. No trains would be pulling into this station any time soon, not with the magnetic rail twisted and broken perhaps half a kilometer down the rail. It looked like a child's drinking straw that had been discarded in the grass.