The Autumn War Vol. 02: Remnants

"Hang on," Bluejay said, raising a fist again. The scouts fanned out, taking cover in the shrubs that grew to either side of the street, their weapons at the ready. "I smell something."

"What is it?" Xipa asked.

"I smell it too," Ruza added, his pink nose twitching as he lifted his head. "It smells like...burnt meat."

"There's charred flesh, along with ozone," Bluejay replied. "There was a gunfight nearby, but I'm not picking up any pheromones."

"Lead us to it," Xipa ordered, Bluejay nodding as he began to stalk towards the left side of the street. He approached the building beside the train cars, the piles of rubble that had fallen down to the sidewalk when the train had plowed through it now covered over with lichens and mosses. Xipa glanced up, eyeing the tear in the building's facade warily. It was about as structurally sound as Fletcher's grasp of etiquette.

Bluejay ignited the flashlight on his XMR as he entered the shadowy interior, the bright beam cutting through the darkness, illuminating motes of airborne dust. It looked like the lobby of some kind of industrial building, with a U-shaped front desk occupying the center of the room and rows of padded benches lining the walls. Towards the back of the room were a pair of mag-elevators, the doors to the shafts jammed open by debris that had fallen from the upper floors.

The rest of their group filed in, Gustave and a couple of scouts waiting outside to keep watch. Miqi lit up an LED flashlight that had simply been taped to the side of her Betelgeusian rifle, sweeping it across the room. As it trailed towards the front desk, Xipa saw a glint of red carapace, her heart missing a beat. Before anyone even had a chance to announce it, every gun in the room was trained on that spot, the extra illumination revealing a figure that was slumped over the varnished surface.

It was a Hunter, the lanky creature draped across the desk, its spiky armor charred by plasma burns in places. It was still covered in a sticky layer of webbing, the leaves that clung to it singed by the heat of the projectiles. Its four arms were splayed out wide, its horned head hanging down towards the mushroom-covered carpet.

"That explains why I didn't pick up any pheromones," Bluejay said, lowering his XMR. "Looks like one of Miqi's teams bagged a Hunter. They must have lured it down to street level, just like she said." He reached out to touch it, then pulled his fingers away, a few errant strands sticking to him. "It's stone-cold, but I don't know if that means much. They don't show up on thermals when they've been hibernating."

"My people passed through here," Miqi announced, walking over to the body to give it a prod with the barrel of her rifle. "They fought, but they didn't suffer any casualties. I see no blood, no evidence that anyone but the insect met their end here."

"Bluejay says the same," Xipa added, giving the corpse one last lingering glance. "We should move on."

They headed back outside, falling into line behind Bluejay, who led them around the downed maglev line and deeper into the city.

CHAPTER 13: FACTORY RUN

"The safehouse is down that way," Miqi said, gesturing to a side alley that branched off the main street.

"Their scent trail continues up this road," Bluejay replied, Xipa relaying his words back to Miqi. "They must have stopped off at the safehouse, then doubled back."

"I still think we should check it out while we're close," she replied, signaling to the rest of her scouts. Xipa and her team followed as they took a short detour, traipsing through winding, overgrown backstreets until they arrived at another hidden lounge. This one was covered over by a simple camouflaged cloak that had been hung over the entrance to conceal it, Miqi pulling it aside like a curtain as she made her way inside. She emerged a short time later, hopping back up the short flight of steps.

"They were definitely here," she announced, reaching up to adjust her cowl. "It looks like someone took some of the food and water, and the Hunter's rifle has been hooked up to a feeding tube to await pickup. We have teams that visit each safehouse regularly to resupply it and take back any gear that was left there."

"I have a question," Bluejay said, raising a hand like he was in a classroom. "Supposing we find these guys, and they're alive, what's to stop them from shooting me in the face? I can't exactly explain what's going on if I don't speak their language. Not to mention that Valbarans tend to be a little...twitchy."

Xipa relayed the question to Miqi, who gave him a flutter of amused lime.

"We Valbara'nay plan for everything, don't you know?" she said as she reached beneath her cloak. She walked over to Bluejay and draped something around his neck like a pendant, then stepped back to reveal a laminated piece of card on a string. It was green - a color that the Valbara'nay associated with peace and calm - and the word friendly was written on it.

"What does it say?" Bluejay asked, lifting the card to take a look at the looping text. "If this says kick me, I'm defecting."

"It says that you're a friend," Xipa replied, unable to stifle a chuckle. "I mean...it's not exactly an IFF tag, but I suppose it might make them hesitate."

"I guess it's better than nothing," he muttered. "What's the Valbaran phrase for don't shoot?"

Xipa said the phrase, but her people's speech was so fast and fluid that it hardly registered to him.

"Yeah, I'll just go with the card," he said as he turned back down the alley with an air of resignation. "Let's get moving."

They followed the scent trail back onto the overgrown street, scanning the trees for movement as they made their way towards an especially large building in the distance. It was long as well as tall, following the gentle curve of the city's industrial band, red plant life spilling down from its roof where their seeds must have been carried on the wind. If Xipa had to guess, it had probably been a factory of some kind before the invasion.

"We just entered the district that Indigo was sent to survey," Miqi announced. "This was the last place they were supposed to be."

"I'm still following the same scent trail," Bluejay added. "The second squad must have gotten at least this far."

As they passed by a downed skimmer, the old aircraft's hull draped with red vines, Bluejay signaled for them to stop.

"Picking something up," he warned, his feathery antennae waving as they scented the air. "Bug pheromones, upwind of us."

Xipa relayed his message to Miqi, who ordered her scouts to take cover with a quick feather signal, sending them diving into the foliage at the sides of the street. They wrapped their camouflaged cloaks around themselves, blending into the undergrowth. Xipa, Ruza, and Bluejay did the same, the camouflage patterning on their armor having a similar effect. Gustave made for the cover of the wrecked skimmer, which was the only object large enough to stand any chance of concealing his bulk, peeking out from behind the ring-shaped rotor guard. Xipa slapped her visor shut, and she noted that Bluejay was sliding on his helmet, probably anticipating that the survivors would make use of their pheromone grenades again.

After a couple of tense minutes, movement ahead drew Xipa's eye, her HUD picking out half a dozen Drones as they marched through the knee-high carpet of shrubs and ferns. The natural coloration of their armor would have made them hard to spot if it wasn't for her helmet's systems outlining them in red. They were making their way out of a side alley, turning away now, heading in the direction of the factory. They were no different from the Drones that Xipa's team had faced before. They carried plasma weapons, the many lenses on their helmets glinting as they scanned their surroundings for targets, the long antennae that sprouted from what looked like organic backpacks bobbing with each step.

Xipa's first instinct was to coordinate an attack via her helmet radio, but she remembered what Miqi had told her. No radio, no ad-hoc, nothing that might emit a detectable signal. She glanced over at the scouts, watching as Miqi raised an arm, flashing a feather pattern. Her people began to slink through the bushes silently, finding better firing positions. The aliens got the picture, following after them, Xipa leaning around a tree trunk as she braced her XMR against her shoulder. She dialed down the voltage to its minimum setting. It would still be lethal at this range, but the noise shouldn't carry quite as far. She glanced over at Miqi, who was crouched to her right near the open cockpit of the rusted aircraft, waiting for some kind of signal.

Still holding her Betelgeusian rifle steady in her hands, the sheath on Miqi's forearm extended, her feathers flaring red. A barrage of plasma bolts streaked along the road as the scouts opened up, igniting the foliage where they passed too close, their green glow blinding in the shade of the canopy. The Drones were caught out in the open, taken by surprise, three of them falling to the cracked asphalt before the rest even had time to react. Xipa and her squad joined in, the crack of their XMRs echoing off the surrounding buildings. Xipa's PDW barked, spewing tungsten at one of the Drones as it whirled around, the slugs tearing craters in its chest plate as it tried to lift its rifle. It jerked and twitched as the red-hot metal perforated it, pus-colored fluid leaking from the wounds as it slumped into the ferns. Another one was knocked clear off its feet by Ruza's long rifle, sent spinning as the round impacted its shoulder, imparting enough kinetic energy to blow its upper arm clean off. Pieces of wet meat and sharp shell fragments rained as it fell, the confused Drone that was standing beside it soon following suit as a burning bolt of plasma hit it square in the face, the chitin sagging inward like melting plastic.

"Clear!" Miqi announced, stepping out of cover. She kept her gun trained on the bodies, perhaps anticipating that one of them might have survived long enough to return fire.

Xipa turned to look back at Gustave, seeing him emerge from behind the skimmer with his cannon in hand. He had wisely elected not to fire, as his weapon probably had no quiet mode.

"They were headed in the same direction we are," Xipa said, making her way over to the fallen Drones. She turned one of them over with her clawed foot, giving it a swift prod with her tail to make sure it was dead. The scouts moved up to join her, a couple of them standing guard while the rest frisked the bodies for spare plasma canisters. They didn't waste an opportunity to resupply, and Xipa got the impression that they would probably come back to claim the guns later.

"I never thought I'd say this, but I'm glad to have that insect of yours with us," Miqi said as she knelt to retrieve a grenade from one of the dead Bugs. She examined it, turning it over in her gloved hand, then stowed it in a pouch on her belt. "If it hadn't sniffed them out, this squad might have walked right into us."

"We wouldn't have been able to make it here without him," Xipa replied. "It's like having the power of prescience. We're usually forewarned of any insect presence, as long as the wind is favorable."

"We know which direction to approach from, then," Miqi replied. "We'll keep the wind to our front, just like when we're hunting wild game. Those guns," she added, glancing down at Xipa's XMR. The coils were still hot enough to make the air around them shimmer. "What do they fire?"

"The ammunition is just a tungsten slug shaped into a point," she replied, raising the weapon so that Miqi could get a better look at it. "It gets accelerated down the barrel by a magnetic field. Depending on the configuration, it can reach muzzle velocities of about two kilometers per second."

"And, those have replaced lasers back on Valbara?"

"For the most part," Xipa replied. "They take a little getting used to, but I've come to appreciate them."

"Miqi, look," one of the scouts said as she gestured to the factory ahead of them. Xipa followed where she was pointing, peering through the sparse canopy to see a glint of purple. She raised a hand, fiddling with the controls on the side of her helmet, increasing the magnification. Between the autumn leaves, she could make out the upper floor of the factory some two hundred meters up, lined with rows of broken windows. There was something hanging out of one of them, something that looked distinctly out of place. It was a tarp, purple in color, a hue that was associated with distress in Valbara'nay culture.

"I'm guessing that isn't supposed to be there," she mused.

"No," Miqi replied, looking through the scope of her Bug rifle. "It's not. That must be where the missing scouts are holed up."

"You think maybe they got into a fight they couldn't win and retreated to the higher floors?" Xipa asked. "Could they hold out for a whole day up there?"

"Maybe they managed to barricade themselves inside a room or something, somewhere they could create enough of a bottleneck to hold them off," she replied with a flutter of purple that matched the tarp. "We need to get up there as soon as possible."

"We need to approach carefully," Xipa replied, recognizing the urgency in her voice. It was Miqi's flock who were trapped up there - they might even be dead already - but they'd share the same fate if they rushed in guns blazing. "Trust me, I know how you must feel, but we won't be coming to anyone's rescue if we're dead."

"You're right, you're right," she grumbled as she gritted her sharp teeth in frustration. "We need to get closer, evaluate the situation before we commit. The squad of Drones that we just put down probably had the same idea, and more might be on their way. If Indigo or Cyan were forced to give ground, that would have given their opponents ample time to call in their location. Every mealworm in the city could be on their way here."

"Then we shall move swiftly, but cautiously," Xipa added with a flash of green that was intended to reassure. Miqi looked no less tense, but she gave a flutter of agreement, then waved her people on.

"Am I to gather that our missing Valbarans are holed up in that big building?" Bluejay asked as soon as he could get a word in. "You guys are doing a lot of pointing."

Ruza matched pace with them as they began to move off, Gustave lumbering up to Xipa's side, the asphalt shaking beneath his feet with each step.

"That tarp on the upper floor is a distress signal," she explained. "It's looking like Cyan might have been trapped up there. Maybe there are some survivors from Indigo, but I'm not overly optimistic since the rescuers are now in need of rescuing."

"Want me to fly up and take a look?" Bluejay asked, the wing casings on his back twitching in anticipation. "Maybe I could get a view through the windows from the building across the street."

"No, I want you on the ground," Xipa replied. "We need your antennae, and if there are still Bugs in the area, they'll shoot you out of the sky. Not to mention that the Valbara'nay might do the same if they spot you peeking through their windows."

"You're the boss," he replied, giving her a thumbs-up with one of his lower hands.

"We're going to scope out the building and try to get an idea of what we're dealing with," she continued, skirting around the husk of an abandoned car. "In all likelihood, this is going to devolve into a close-quarters fight, so be ready."

"Nothing like a little urban combat to spice up your day," Bluejay grumbled, checking his magazine.

They proceeded carefully, sticking to cover as they kept watch for more Drones, slinking around the base of a building that was just across the street from the factory. They entered through a rear door, making their way through the mushroom-filled, empty rooms until they reached the second floor. From there, they examined their target through the broken windows, the elevation giving them a decent view of the street below. Xipa made use of her helmet's advanced functions, thermal imagining letting her see through the foliage, her HUD picking out targets and marking them.

"I count eighteen at street level," she said. "Bluejay?"

"Confirmed," he replied as he peeked around the frame of the broken window. "There may be more around the other side, but they'd have to go all the way around the building to get to us. Or through it, I dunno. How long do you reckon it is, maybe six hundred meters?"

"They appear to be guarding the entrances," Ruza added. "They are split into three groups, one at each of those doors."

Xipa could see the doors that he was talking about. There were two large entrances that looked like they led into lobbies, as well as a much bigger door that probably led into a loading bay for trucks. It looked like it had been jammed shut for decades, but there were still Drones posted beside it. Seeing the things at rest was almost stranger than seeing them in a fight. They were twitchy, their heads turning back and forth with unnatural, jerky movements as they scanned the area for targets. There was no interaction between them, no idle chatter - they didn't even hold their rifles in a resting position. Their level of alertness and readiness must be dialed to one hundred percent at all times.

"They're guarding the building," Miqi muttered, watching them through her scope. "There would be no need for guards if there was nobody left alive inside."

"We can't do this quietly," Xipa replied, shifting her view to another of the squads. They were milling about near a pair of grimy glass doors, peering about with their weapons raised as though they expected an assault at any moment. Was that logic or instinct? Did they expect a rescue attempt, or were they always this wired? "We'll need to hit all three squads at the same time. Do you still have some of those pheromone grenades?"

"Plenty," Miqi growled, pulling back her cloak to reveal a bandoleer of the things. "These have a payload potent enough to make any insect in range completely uncoordinated for at least a couple of minutes. It's enough of a window to take them down without them being able to call for help. The trick will be hitting all three squads at once."

"We could spread out along this floor," one of the scouts suggested. "We'd have a good view of the furthest targets to the right from the far corner of this building."

"It's going to be loud," Xipa added. "Every Bug in the district is gonna hear us."

"We'll have to move quickly," Miqi said. "We take out the guards, then move inside and clear the interior as we go."

"We have no idea how to reach the upper floors," one of the scouts protested, her voice muffled by her gas mask. "The state of the building is unknown. Mag-elevator shafts could be blocked, staircases could have collapsed, entire floors could have fallen through."

"There's no choice but to improvise," Miqi replied with a grumble of disapproval. "I hate going in without a plan, but what else can we do?"

"Let my people handle it," Xipa said, her enthusiasm seeming to surprise Miqi. "They can adapt to new situations like you wouldn't believe. Follow their lead in lieu of following a plan."

"What?" the scout scoffed, but Miqi raised a hand to silence her.

"Alright," she said. "We'll do it your way, but only because there isn't time to come up with a better solution."

"Have your people take the right side, and we'll take the left."

"What about the middle?" Miqi asked, cocking her head.

"If we're going loud, we might as well go loud," Xipa replied with a grin. "Gustave," she said, transitioning back to English. "Find a window where you can get a clear view of that garage door and open fire as soon as you see Miqi's grenades go off. Bluejay, Ruza, we're taking the squad on the left."