The Autumn War Vol. 02: Remnants

"I've heard that they're stronger and faster than they look," Jade said.

They were interrupted as one of the tankettes trundled past them, lining up with the mouth of the tunnel. There was a little less than a meter of clearance from the walls and ceiling, but it looked like it would fit.

"If anything tries to come down the tunnel from the other side, they're gonna be in for a nasty surprise," Brooks chuckled as he watched five more of them pull up to form a row. "Suddenly, making tiny tanks doesn't seem like such a stupid idea."

"Alright, move out," the guy with the roach helmet shouted. He waved the tankettes on, the little vehicles proceeding down the tunnel carefully, the lead driver popping her head out of the hatch on the front armor to get a better view. The rest of them followed after it, then the SWAR team jogged behind them, disappearing into the shadows.

"Expect to face resistance on the other side," Simmons warned, the column of Marines starting to move. "Keep your heads down, and for God's sake, don't shoot anything that looks like a fuel line."

They made their way into the dark tunnel, their flashlight beams reflecting off the resin-coated walls. It was as smooth as plastic, transparent, with small imperfections here and there like plaster that had been spread around by hand. As Jade had posited, there were clumps of what looked like moss on the ceiling at intervals, the plants giving off an eerie, bioluminescent glow. Evan couldn't see very far ahead, as the bulk of the tankettes blocked his view, and the same was true when he looked behind him. Slowly, the sunlight began to fade as they traipsed deeper underground, following the gentle downward curve of the tunnel.

"Even the floor is covered in that resin shit," Hernandez muttered, aiming his flashlight at the ground as he walked beside Evan.

"It's Worker saliva," Jade explained, Hernandez giving her a grumble of disgust. "They smear it on the walls, then it hardens into a rigid layer."

"How do they dig these tunnels?" Evan asked as he glanced up at the ceiling.

"By hand, for the most part," she replied. "Workers have shovel-shaped primary hands for that reason, and their secondary hands are usually much more dexterous, designed for fine work. They'll build tools and weapons, perform surgery."

"Surgery?" Hernandez repeated, turning his helmet in her direction.

"To a Bug, being a surgeon and a mechanic are pretty much interchangeable," she said with a shrug. "Wetware and hardware are almost always intertwined."

"So, what?" Hernandez continued. "They'd pop open the guts of a Warrior like a mechanic would pop open an engine compartment?"

"Essentially, yes. I've noticed that humans tend to associate manual labor with a lack of intelligence, so they often assume that Workers are simple-minded. That couldn't be further from the truth. Without Workers constantly building and maintaining, the hive would collapse. Literally and figuratively."

There was a crunching sound, Evan watching as the tracks of the tankette ahead of them rolled over a mess of green goop and shell fragments that was staining the left side of the tunnel. It must be one of the Bugs that the SWAR guys had taken out, run over by each of the vehicles in turn. He stepped around it gingerly, what must have once been a Drone now indistinguishable from a bug on a windshield.

The passage began to slope up, indicating that they were past the halfway point. Sunlight started to bleed past the chassis of the vehicles ahead of them, Evan eventually seeing glimpses of sky.

The tankettes began to accelerate. They would have to clear the mouth of the tunnel quickly and spread out lest one of them be disabled and block the path. While they were only expecting to face small-arms fire, it was still a possibility.

Evan heard the gunfire as the vehicles opened up with their railguns, bursts of automatic fire echoing down the tunnel. They might be far smaller than the cannons mounted on the Kodiaks, but they were still devastating weapons against anything but fortified emplacements. The infantry ran after them, the squads of Marines and Commandos pouring out of the tunnel mouth, emerging into an expansive courtyard. It was larger than he had envisioned, maybe two or three square kilometers.

The immediate impression that Evan got was that of an industrial park made of meat. The land here had been flattened by what must have been a huge earthworks project, creating perfectly level ground upon which the plant had been built. It wasn't dissimilar from an oil refinery, a sprawling network of towers and tanks that were linked by networks of fleshy cables and pipes, more like a living circulatory system than anything resembling machinery. There were rows of bulbous, round containers that looked like giant bladders sprouting from the ground, joined together haphazardly by thick cords that seemed to pulse with a gentle motion. These were organic, made from flesh and resin rather than soil, their surfaces discolored and uneven. They were the size of houses, probably distillation or processing tanks for whatever the hell the Bugs were making here. They weren't alone. He could see some that resembled water towers sitting on skeletal stilts and clusters of huge, spherical structures in the distance that looked like storage tanks of some kind.

He could see resin racks filled with the same cylinders that the Bug tanker had been carrying on its back, each one positioned beside a dugout that resembled a loading bay, where the vehicles would presumably take on their payloads. There were a few buildings here and there, either standing alone or reinforcing some of the larger organic structures, the same style as those that they had encountered at the anchor site when they had first landed. Instead of doors, their facades were made from branch-like supports that created uneven openings in the packed dirt, and termite-like chimneys rose from their sloping roofs. Some of them were clearly warehouses where they stored materials and supplies, long buildings arranged in seemingly random patterns rather than orderly rows.

Above it all towered the spires that Evan had seen during their approach. They looked like skyscrapers as envisioned by a madman, thick pipes that resembled intestines winding their way up towards their pointed spires, weaving inside and around them. Some were draped between neighboring towers like vines, sagging as they bridged the gaps. Evan couldn't make sense of any of it. There was no pattern, no obvious logic, just a mass of interconnected structures. Save for some of the free-standing buildings, it didn't look like there would be any rooms to clear. This was all machinery, technology - there was no inside in any real sense. Not unless it extended deeper underground.

The six Valbaran tankettes had formed a wedge to protect the tunnel exit, and the SWAR team were already taking cover behind them, firing over and around their armored hulls as they engaged Drones that were hiding in the mess of organic pipes. There was plenty of cover for the aliens, the creatures using the network of cables and structures like a jungle gym, climbing all over them to attack from unexpected angles. There were dozens of them, plasma bolts raining down from every direction, splashing against the armor of the vehicles.

The Marines and Commandos rushed out, diving into cover behind the tanks, popping up to return fire. Evan's helmet dampened the deafening racket, his HUD picking out and tagging targets among the mess of flesh and machinery, struggling to help him make sense of the chaos.

"How the hell do they expect us to avoid hittin' the refinery!?" Hernandez yelled into his mic, his XMR rocking back against his shoulder as he rose up to fire over the sloping hull of the nearest tankette. "They're swarming all over the goddamned thing like ants!"

"Our slugs shouldn't penetrate structures at these voltages!" Jade replied, ducking back down to reload her weapon. She held it in her upper hands, slamming in a new magazine with the lower pair. "Just try not to hit anything that looks important."

"How am I supposed to know what looks important, Jade?" he said sarcastically as another shot from his rifle sent one of the defenders toppling a good thirty meters to the ground. "It looks like someone smeared a goddamned funhouse with roadkill!"

The Bugs suffered from no such constraints, pouring fire into the enemy, a hail of plasma bolts raining down on them. Evan put his back to the tank that he was using as cover as he reloaded, turning to see more of the little vehicles driving up out of the tunnel behind them. They began to spread out into the compound, some of the teams taking the opportunity to advance along with them, the tanks staying in close formation to protect their charges.

"We gotta push!" one of the SWAR guys yelled. "We can't lose this beachhead!"

Three of the tanks and one of the squads remained to guard the tunnel, while the rest moved deeper into the compound, keeping the wall to their backs. The Drones couldn't do much against the armor, dropping like flies as the Marines and Commandos took pot shots with their XMRs. Even at their lowest setting, the slugs traveled at around 300 meters per second. Rather than tearing the Bugs apart, the slugs behaved more like bullets, sending them crumpling to the ground. The tankettes couldn't fire in the direction of the plant - not when they were loading anti-materiel rounds - so their guns remained mostly silent.

Evan and his team followed behind the SWAR operatives, two of the tankettes preceding them as they drove between the bladder-like containers. Now that he was closer, Evan could see that they were more rigid than they had appeared, the thick cables connected to them via organic sockets that made him very uncomfortable to look at. They must contain some kind of pressurized gas or fuel. As they made their way through the narrow gap between two of the three-meter containers, the tankettes had to drive over the trailing cables, which were fortunately fleshy and flexible enough not to split open. This place hadn't been designed with wheeled or tracked vehicles in mind - the Bugs would just step over the obstacles.

A squad of six Drones rounded one of the containers ahead of them, the same variety that Evan had encountered before. They were covered in a spiky shell colored in autumn tones, their jaw-like mandibles clicking, their array of eyes spread around their helmets like those of a spider. They leapt onto the leftmost tankette, swarming over it like termites. They pried at anything that resembled a hatch or entry point with their chitinous fingers, firing their plasma pistols at the armor, trying to melt through. Before the humans had time to respond, the turret of the tankette swung left, the long barrel of the gun knocking a couple of them off the hull.

One of them tried to climb to its feet as the tank trundled past it, but a SWAR operative put it down with a controlled burst of gunfire that splashed the nearby container with its blood. The second never had the chance to get up, another of the augmented soldiers planting a boot on its chest, pressing it into the dirt as he took off its head with a couple of point-blank shots. Gore and shell fragments spilled onto the soil, the dense coils that lined his barrel glowing red with heat.

Another of the Drones climbed up onto the turret, turning its attention to the softer targets below, but there were two dozen guns waiting for it. The barrage of XMR fire took it apart, along with its remaining companions, the tank rolling over their ruined bodies as they fell beneath its tracks.

"We gotta clear this place out before we can think about shutting down production," Simmons said, sweeping his rifle across the towers and raised platforms ahead of them. "There's a lot more cover in there, but it's gonna be close quarters."

"That is why we are here," Tatzi added, the serrated bayonet on the end of her rifle glinting in the sun as she marched along behind them.

As the tanks cleared the cluster of storage tanks and moved deeper, pipes and walkways crisscrossing over their heads, another squad of Drones launched their attack. They came from the right this time, firing down on the squad from a high perch on one of the raised platforms. Evan's squad scattered, taking cover behind the nearest container, the SWAR team keeping pace with the tanks as they began to return fire. The right tankette's gunner had a clear shot from this angle, the barrel of the cannon rising to point at the aliens. The little vehicle began to spew tungsten at them, the shrouded barrel telescoping back into its housing with each shot, the recoil making the tank shudder. The rate of fire was fairly slow, chugging, but it was firing 30mill slugs of the type usually used to take down small spacecraft and Warriors. They eviscerated the Drones, scattering their dismembered body parts in showers of gore. The rounds went straight through the platform, shattering the resin, sending a piece of it collapsing to the ground some ten meters below.

"Guess it's not the size that counts, but how you use it," Hernandez mused as he gave Evan a pat on the shoulder. They moved out of cover, continuing on, watching every angle. There was sporadic gunfire from other areas of the plant, but it seemed like most of the defenders had either been killed or were regrouping.

They marched further into the organic refinery, following a winding path through the maze of fleshy pipes and organic structures. There was no logic to the way that the Bugs laid out their facilities, no straight roads joined at right angles, no grids. The placement seemed random, meandering, even if it was probably very carefully planned. It immediately made Evan lose his sense of direction.

"What do you suppose is runnin' through all these tubes?" Hernandez wondered, craning his neck to look up at the tiered levels of catwalks and pipes above. They were nearing the huge towers now, their spires rising some 50 meters towards the raging auroras.

"It looks like they're distilling biofuel here," Jade replied. "If I had to guess, I'd say that they were separating organic compounds for different applications. Fuel, weapons, who knows."

"How do they expect us to shut it down without blowing it up?" Evan added. "Is there a big off switch somewhere?"

"It's probably controlled by organic computers," one of the Jarilans replied, Evan noting that her IFF tag identified her as Cardinal. "We had them back home - biological systems that were controlled through pheromone inputs."

"So, what?" Hernandez asked skeptically. "It has a nose instead of a touch panel?"

"Basically," the Jarilan replied with a shrug. "Humans use voice commands to operate a lot of their technology, and the principle isn't really any different. Instead of sound patterns, they respond to scents."

"We'll let you guys handle the fart computers, then," Hernandez muttered as he turned his attention back to their strange surroundings.

Evan now found himself on a kind of street - which was the only approximation that he could make in this wholly alien environment - just wide enough to let a Scuttler pass through unhindered. It was a winding dirt path that led through the bowels of the refinery, clusters of tanks and containers boxing the team in from both sides, the innumerable pipes and cables forming a kind of hellish canopy above their heads. To their right was the large base of one of the towers, the network of organic infrastructure trailing below ground like the roots of a great tree. There were buildings made of soil and resin surrounding it, probably control stations of some kind, none much larger than a prefab structure. The path was branching, leading off into the plant seemingly at random.

"I think we're on the right track," Jade announced, her long antennae wiggling. "I sense...authority, maybe some kind of command center. It's near the base of this tower."

"Alright, fan out and start clearing these buildings," Roach ordered with a wave of his prosthetic hand. The SWAR team split into four groups of three, their weapons shouldered as they moved towards the soil structures. Simmons ordered his squad to stay together, and the group followed behind the operatives, watching the numerous angles carefully. They could be attacked from almost any direction in this mess. The two tanks remained behind, blocking the path, their engines idling.

Evan heard gunfire, turning his head to see that Roach and a couple of his companions were firing into one of the buildings through the branching openings on the nearest facade. One of them plucked a grenade from his belt, then primed it, tossing it into the darkness. There was a thud, then a billow of smoke and dust poured out onto the street, the three men rushing inside.

"You smell that?" Aster warned as the team prepared to breach a nearby structure, turning to Jade.

"Yeah," she replied, putting her shoulder to one of the misshapen pillars of soil. "There are Bugs inside. Looks like one of the warehouses we saw back at the anchor site."

"On my mark," Simmons said, starting to count down from five. "Go!"

The squad poured inside, Evan's HUD picking out targets in the relative gloom. Red outlines popped out of cover from behind containers the size of oil barrels, aiming plasma weapons at them, but the team was ready. The crack of railguns reverberated off the resin-coated walls as the insects were taken out, a few follow-up shots bringing down a couple of stragglers who were hiding at the far end of the room.

It was indeed another warehouse - racks of shelves filled with cylindrical barrels lining the room in rows, reaching from floor to ceiling. At the back of the structure was an open area with a dugout just beyond, presumably where the containers would be loaded onto a vehicle for transport. There was nothing like a forklift, no mechanical arms. The Workers probably did everything by hand.

They cleared the warehouse, stepping out onto a winding street that was no different from the last. Evan spotted some of the SWAR guys emerging from behind a large storage tank on their left, moving out into the open.

A sudden crack rang out - not from a railgun this time. Something hit the lead SWAR operative like a sledgehammer, his body popping like a balloon filled with gore. His two companions were showered with dark blood, turning their helmets in disbelief to glance back at the ruined corpse of their friend as it tumbled to a stop a few feet behind them.

"Contact!"

Another of them took a round to the shoulder, the impact punching a fist-sized hole in him, sending his severed prosthetic arm sailing through the air. Whatever it was, it wasn't plasma - his armor had been bored through like someone had taken a drill to it. As he fell to his knees, a follow-up shot divided him at the waist.

Everyone else was already taking cover wherever they could, diving behind support pillars and storage tanks, scattering before the unseen sniper. Through his HUD, Evan could see more IFF tags approaching, the rest of the SWAR team rushing to help.

"Stay down!" Simmons ordered, putting his back to one of the branching supports that held up the warehouse. "Anyone got eyes on that fucking thing?"

"What the hell are they hitting us with?" McKay demanded, Evan spotting his tag as the Marine used the shallow dugout like a trench. Brooks and Foster were with him, keeping their heads down as they used their rifles to look over the lip. Evan scanned the jungle of fleshy pipes above them, but he couldn't see anything. Whatever it was, it had hit them from across the street.

The rest of the SWAR team arrived, the men forming a loose line as they took cover nearby.

"Smiley, get back here!" Evan heard Roach yell over the radio. He searched for the IFF tag, seeing that the man with the smiley face decal on his helmet was taking refuge a ways from the rest of the group, sitting with his back to a cluster of thick pipes that rose up from the ground before curving away towards the nearby tower.