The Autumn War Vol. 01: Invasion

One of the guards came running up to Tepa, an alien rifle clutched in her hands.

"How many?" she asked breathlessly, obviously referring to the number of refugees. Tepa paused for a moment as she counted.

"Thirteen," she replied, the guard nodding.

"Civilians, come with me," the guard announced. "Guards, proceed to the hangar at the end of the runway. The Ensis will want to speak with you."

Xipa and Noyo shared a glance. The Ensis were the leaders of the city, the flock that presided over the colony as part of the Council of Ensis.

The civilians broke off, following the guard, Xipa watching them leave. She was at once relieved that they had made it to relative safety and dismayed by how few of their original number had survived. Not ten minutes ago, there had been near twice as many. Chala, too, was lying dead in that field. She was distracted from her thoughts by Chotza, the straggler who they had rescued from the insects during the shootout in the street. She placed a hand on Xipa's shoulder as she passed, the two sharing a brief moment.

"Thank you," she said, the sincerity in her voice giving the words a weight that surprised Xipa. She didn't know what to say, so she just watched her walk away, standing there with her rifle clutched in her hands.

"This way," Tepa said, setting off towards the furthest hangar. When they arrived, they saw that it had been converted into a kind of forward operating base. There were guards running to and fro, sharing weapons and ammunition, swiping at portable computers that had been set up on the benches usually used for servicing spacecraft parts. Like Xipa's own team, they were using a blend of surplus laser rifles and captured alien technology.

Standing among them were the Ensis, easily identifiable by their civilian clothing. They were a flock of older women, their scales weathered by age. One of them sported a covering of downy protofeathers, indicating that she hailed from the cold northern region of their homeworld. They were grey in places, contrasting with their otherwise rich brown.

Tepa flushed a salute of red as she announced herself, one of the Ensis looking up from her tablet computer to return the greeting with a flurry of crimson feathers.

"I'm told that you saved another dozen of our people," she began, glancing at each of the remaining guards in turn as she spoke. "You are to be commended for your bravery, but that will have to come later. There is much to be done."

"How can we help?" Nimi asked, the Ensi acknowledging her eagerness by tipping her snout in her direction.

"We still have around two hundred people waiting to be loaded onto the remaining shuttles," she began, pacing back and forth with her eyes on her tablet. "We've managed to make contact with a jump-capable freighter up in orbit. There are still a few ships hanging back in the hopes of picking up survivors, and they're putting themselves at enormous risk to do so. The plan is for them to remain in a low-power, zero-emissions state for as long as possible before powering back up and jumping out of the system once they've taken aboard as many people as they can carry. The aliens have destroyed several ships already, but they seem most attracted to large, conspicuous sources of energy and radio emissions. As long as they're kept occupied on the ground, we believe there is still time to evacuate the rest of the refugees."

"What's the situation on the rest of the colony?" Noyo asked. "Have you heard from any of the other settlements?"

"As far as we can tell, it seems to be a coordinated attack," the Ensi replied. "Several cities have been hit, and we've lost a dozen ships in orbit. There have been no demands from the aggressors, no attempts to communicate, and we have no reason to believe that they want anything other than our complete extermination."

"Where do you need us?" Nimi asked, stepping forward.

"We could use some reinforcements at the gate," the Ensi said, gesturing back the way they had come. "The last attack was costly. I fear that they're eventually going to figure out where the most resistance is and send a larger force to root us out. Just do what you can to keep the things out while we prep the next shuttle for launch."

"Can they even get off the ground with those attack ships flying around up there?" Noyo asked.

"We don't have any choice other than to try," the Ensi replied with a hint of irritation. "These shuttles are designed for carrying passengers and cargo. They're not armed, and they're not especially agile. They're fast, though. They have to be to make orbit under their own power."

"If the aliens really are attracted to powerful radio emissions, maybe we can rig up some kind of decoy," Noyo suggested. "Something that would make a hell of a racket on the EM bands, maybe lead them away, or trick them into searching for a juicy target that isn't there."

"Do you have a suggestion?" the Ensi asked.

"I couldn't help but notice that there's a maglev train in that station over there," she continued, turning to gesture across the compound. Docked to one of the raised platforms that were built into the wall was a row of three rounded, streamlined passenger cars, their white hulls lined with windows.

"The lines are all down," the Ensi replied. "The aliens have been destroying them."

"As long as it has a couple of kilometers of track left before it derails, it could lead the aliens away from the spaceport," Noyo explained. "We could take one of those emergency comms terminals you're using and put it in one of the cars, crank it up so it's saturating every frequency with radio chatter. It might draw them away."

"That...could work," the Ensi admitted with a flurry of surprised yellow. "We would have to maximize its utility, maybe launch all of the shuttles in quick succession to make the most of the distraction. We have three left - two passenger shuttles and one cargo hauler."

"It won't require any special engineering," Noyo continued. "Someone would just have to stand by and be ready to activate the train when the signal is given."

"Very well. Do it," the Ensi said with a nod. "The comms gear has outlived its usefulness anyway. The rest of you, keep those aliens from getting through the gate while we load the passengers."

Noyo stayed behind to help the Ensi's team with their equipment while Nimi and Xipa returned to the gate. Another fifteen of the guards joined them, and Xipa felt a little safer in the company of so many of her colleagues. They took up position outside the wall, using the colorful bodies of the dead aliens for cover like macabre sandbags. The terrain here wasn't completely open, fortunately. Thanks to the city's landscapers, rolling hills and patches of trees broke up the sightlines, ensuring that nobody had a clear view of the gate from any real distance. The design philosophy had been intended purely for beautification purposes, but it made the city a lot easier to defend.

What Xipa feared most wasn't the insects, however. It was the silence. Now that she had a quiet moment to dwell on what had happened, thoughts of Chala began to flood her mind. It still hadn't really hit her, not yet. If she didn't keep herself occupied, she might break down.

"Nimi," she whispered, glancing at her flockmate. She was crouched down beside her, her visor obscuring her face from view. "You okay?"

"I keep thinking that this is some kind of nightmare," she replied, her voice crackling through the speakers on her helmet. "That I'm going to wake up soon to find Chala lying on the cushions beside me, and she'll laugh when I tell her about my dream. None of this feels real."

"We were supposed to be going to the lounge after work today," Xipa muttered, feeling a tear sting her eye. "That boy we like works there, the one who always wears that top, the one that shows off his shoulders. I wonder if he..."

"Can't think about that right now," Nimi replied sternly, Xipa backing off. Nimi wasn't being cruel, it was just too much for her to handle. Like usual, she would probably bottle up all of her emotions until she had some privacy, then she'd let them all out in one burst. The kindest thing Xipa could do for her right now was just to leave her alone and let her process things in her own way.

She was distracted as another formation of alien craft flew overhead, her hands gripping her rifle tightly, the roar of their engines bringing her right back to the field where Chala had died. To her relief, she looked up to see that they were traveling away from the port, heading deeper into the burning city. They had to get those shuttles off the ground. Every second they weren't in the air was a gamble, and the odds were getting worse by the minute.

***

They waited maybe another half-hour, the guards making small talk that did little to alleviate any of the tension. The shuttles had been brought out of the hangars now, taxiing into position on the two runways. Two of them would be able to take off at the same time, while the third would have to wait a minute or two before it could follow behind them. Their streamlined hulls were twenty meters long, equipped with a pair of stubby, upturned wings that were used for gliding back to the ground during reentry. The heat tiles that lined their bellies and rounded noses were charred black, and their cockpits were raised high for visibility, their huge engine cones positioned at the rear. The surviving spaceport personnel were running the pre-flight checks now, testing the navigation systems, dragging snaking fuel lines across the tarmac.

The civilians were lining up in orderly rows, waiting for their turn to board as the injured, the children, and the males were helped up the steps by the attending guards. It wouldn't be long now before they'd be ready to take off, and Xipa began to wonder when the rest of the defenders would be called to join them.

"Oh fuck," Nimi hissed. "Here they come!"

Over the hill a hundred meters ahead of them marched an insect, its shining carapace reflecting the fires from the city beyond. More followed behind it, at least as many as Xipa and her flock had faced in their street battle, maybe more. The guards didn't wait for them to take the first shot, a barrage of laser fire and plasma bolts greeting the aliens, sending half a dozen of them collapsing to the rust-colored grass before they'd even realized what was happening. Their shells slagged under the heat like melting plastic, the six-limbed creatures writhing as they rolled down the near side of the hill. Their companions activated their shields, refracting the laser beams, absorbing the plasma fire as they formed a protective phalanx.

Employing the same tactics that they had during the first encounter, the aliens began to march in lockstep, creating an impenetrable wall of glowing energy with their shields. Those behind them raised the barriers above their heads to account for the incline, making it difficult to slip any shots through the cracks.

Suddenly, one of the shields faltered. The energy began to glow brighter as several of the defenders focused their fire on it, pouring green bolts of plasma into the barrier. They were using captured alien weapons - the unwieldy rifles with the long metal prongs on the barrels. The shield collapsed under the sustained assault, the alien that was holding it succumbing to their fire, a dozen bolts turning it to a charred husk.

"The plasma!" Xipa yelled into her helmet mic. "The plasma overloads their shields! Focus your fire!"

The guards coordinated, more of the wavering barriers collapsing to expose the aliens behind them, lasers and plasma cutting a swathe through their tightly-packed ranks. The invaders returned fire as best they could, shooting back with their two-pronged pistols, but they were in no position to be accurate. Most of the bolts flew wide, either leaving scorch marks on the wall behind the guards or impacting the piles of bodies in front of them. A few nearby trees had already caught fire, their leaves igniting, bathing the scene in their orange glow.

From their entrenched position, and with their newfound ability to negate the shields, the guards were quickly turning the tide. The aliens could do little other than march straight at them, almost suicidal in their single-mindedness, perhaps hoping that numbers alone would win them the day. More kept coming, a seemingly endless procession of them pouring over the hills, three or four dozen at least. Maybe the Ensi had been right, and the aliens had sent a larger force to take the port.

The first squad of aliens finally broke under their relentless fire, the creatures scattering for the cover of nearby trees, cut down before they could reach them. As the guards focused their attention on the next group that was advancing down the footpath further to the left, something whizzed past Xipa's visor. She turned her head to see the guard beside her thrown off her feet, her helmet sagging inward as it melted, dead before she had hit the ground. On the crest of the hill to their right, several of the colorful insects were lying prone, looking through the scopes of their resin rifles as they sighted the defenders. Another bright projectile came hissing towards them, a guard catching it in the shoulder, her helmet muffling her scream as she was thrown back. She clutched the wound as the superheated substance melted through her suit, the black material taking on the consistency of tar, her flesh visibly smoking.

One of her fellow guards hooked her muscular tail around her arm, dragging her back through the gate into the compound as she lay down covering fire with her laser rifle. The shooters on the hill were already being forced to retreat as the grass around them was set alight by a hail of projectiles, one of them catching a laser to the face, punching a molten hole through its head.

"These things aren't so tough," Nimi growled, taking careful aim with her handgun before loosing off another shot. "Not so fucking easy when your victims are shooting back, is it?"

"Watch the right!" Tepa yelled, wheeling around to aim her rifle further down the wall. "They're trying to climb over!"

Xipa turned her head to see a handful of the aliens scaling a tree maybe two hundred meters away, trying to use it to get over the barrier. They were met by another barrage of gunfire, the leaves igniting, the creatures toppling back to the grass as they were torn apart. There was no end in sight - they just kept coming. At this rate, the guards would be overwhelmed no matter how bravely they fought.

"The Ensi says the shuttles are fueled!" Tepa shouted over the din of gunfire, ducking as a bolt splashed against the wall behind her. "Keep them back!"

Xipa could hear the rumble of the engines powering up beyond the wall, the shuttles prepping for takeoff. She rose above the pile of bodies again, sweeping her laser across an approaching alien's thorax, sending it twitching to the ground. There were so many dead insects now that they had to climb over their fallen comrades to get closer, but they weren't relenting. It was like they didn't feel fear at all.

There was a dull thunk as something sailed over the defenses, implanting itself in the soil nearby. It was some kind of shell, maybe a mortar, panels on its sides splitting open to disgorge yellow gas just like the missile that the alien craft had fired.

"Chemicals!" Nimi yelled, darting clear of the smoking canister. "Make sure your helmets are sealed!"

The wind carried the obscuring cloud through the group of guards, hanging low to the grass like a mist. Everyone had sealed their helmets, all save for one guard, who must have lost hers at some point. She tried to run, but there was no way she could outpace the smoke. She scratched at her throat with her clawed fingers as she began to choke, falling to the ground with alarming speed, where she lay twitching.

"Get her clear!" Tepa ordered, moving to cover a pair of rescuers as they hauled her limp body back towards the gate.

The creatures were closing in now, nearing the defensive line, drawing their blades with their lower pairs of arms. There was a sea of the things, at least four or five dozen now, rolling over the hills like a tide of multicolored chitin. One of them darted at Xipa, but she was too fast for it, melting a hole in its face as it tried to scale the heap of its dead comrades. There was a cry as someone was pulled over the barrier to her right, Xipa watching as the aliens fell upon her with their knives, even as the other guards rushed to her aid. The insects were so single-minded, prioritizing killing the poor woman even over saving themselves as the defenders poured fire into them, continuing to harry her with their daggers even as their very flesh cooked in their shells.

"We have to pull back into the compound!" Nimi shouted, shooting an alien point-blank in the head with her pistol as it reached for her. It was knocked back by the green flash, a smoking crater where its face had once been. "We'll get overrun if we try to stay out here!"

"Pull back!" Tepa confirmed, the guards starting to cede ground as they withdrew. The aliens pressed the attack, the yellow gas swirling about their feet as they marched through it, more of the poison canisters landing nearby.

Two more of the defenders fell to their plasma weapons as they moved out of cover, but the guards kept up the suppressive fire, keeping the aliens at bay until they made it through the gate. Xipa felt a momentary wave of relief wash over her as the high wall was put between them and the horde of insects. She chanced a glance behind her, seeing that the three shuttles were lined up on the dual runways. The guards who had remained behind were loading the last of the civilians, helping them up the narrow stairs and into the open hatches about halfway down their hulls. The cargo shuttle was at the rear, the large ramp that led to its bay open on the tarmac.

The defenders formed a firing line behind a row of crates that had been dragged out to serve as makeshift cover, taking advantage of the bottleneck created by the gate's relatively narrow aperture to kill scores of the aliens as they tried to pile in. There were so many dead that it was creating a blockage, but they merely climbed over and pushed through, almost desperate in their attempts to reach their enemy. More of the gas canisters sailed over the wall, bouncing off the runway, rolling along as they spewed their lethal payload into the air. By this point, the hatches on the passenger shuttles were closing, protecting their occupants from the chemicals. The cargo shuttle was the exception, but it was far enough away to be clear.

Further down the wall, Xipa spotted some of the colorful insects climbing over, leaping down the near side. She redirected her laser in their direction, some of the other guards following suit, quickly dispatching them. As the aliens returned fire, some of their plasma bolts went wide, splashing against the hull of the nearest shuttle. The heat tiles seemed to do a decent job of dissipating the energy, but they weren't combat vessels, and they couldn't stand too much sustained fire. It was down to the wire now. They had to get those shuttles off the ground before it was too late.

A familiar sound made Xipa's blood run cold, and she looked up to see a formation of alien fighters soaring overhead. There were three of them, one of them breaking off, swooping down towards the spaceport. The guards heard it coming, scattering as it lined up for a strafing run. There was no cover on the open runway save for the shuttles, and guiding its fire towards them was the last thing they wanted to do, so they darted in every which direction in an attempt to throw off the craft's aim.