Snow Leopard and Coolhand led, burning off legs to make room. The raw earth of the tunnel pressed against my back and the great dead body plates of the creature pressed flat against my chestplate. We clambered over burnt, smoking leg parts. My muscles began to shake, involuntarily. Slime, all over my A-suit.
“I hate this.”
“Deadman!”
“Deto!” I shot back. That was a fairly mild curse, considering my intense desire to resolve the problem with a suitable charge of high explosives.
“What’s that noise?” We emerged at the driller’s rear, into the tunnel. Snow Leopard and Coolhand crouched just ahead of me, green shadows in my darksight. We could almost stand, in the tunnel. My skin crawled. A metallic chirping filled the air.
“We’re close!”
“Ohh, listen to that!”
The rest of Beta emerged, and we lined the tunnel, backs to the wall, E’s pointed downtunnel. The chirping continued, like a million metallic birds swarming in some nightmare nest. We rechecked our equipment very, very carefully.
“The readings are off the scale!”
“Where’s that probe?”
“Can I have one of those flashes?”
“Psycho, I want you up front with that Manlink.”
“Can I be excused for the rest of the afternoon?”
“Don’t forget-xmax, lasers and flame. I don’t want any more biobloc. And be careful with the lasers!”
“Deadeye, keep your head down!”
“I will be beside you, Slayer.”
“Beta, Command, sitrep.” Our CAT leader wanted a progress report.
“Nothing to report.” Snow Leopard almost whispered it. Nothing to report! It was an old Legion tradition, still very much alive: nobody needed any help. It slowly began to dawn on me that Snow Leopard wanted all the exos for himself.
Snow Leopard fired a burst of flame down the tunnel. It illuminated filthy dirt walls. The walls teemed with worms and miniature insect life and slime. The floor was littered with debris.
“What is that stuff?”
“Body parts and dead flesh. Food-and scavengers.”
“Sorry I asked.”
“Advance.” The chittering became louder as we moved forward. My boots crunched and snapped, crushing nameless creatures of the dark underfoot. Snow Leopard and Coolhand sent short bursts of orange flame swooshing down the tunnel ahead from time to time. Smoke swirled all around us. I decided that I much preferred busting Cultists. But Central Command wanted a maximum effort to learn all we could about the exosegs, and Beta had been sucked in.
We came to more tunnels, intersecting our own. The chirping was driving me mad. Somewhere nearby, we would find a huge hive. We huddled where the tunnels crossed, and shot great rushes of flame down them, probing for life.
“Alert!”
“Life form!”
“Exoseg…”
I did not hear the rest. It charged down a side tunnel right at us. Astounding how fast it could move. It bounced from side to side off powerful black exoseg legs, a green hulk, flashing reflections in my faceplate in a dream-like, slow-motion sequence. I fired xmax at the same instant as Warhound. The double explosion brought down the tunnel on top of the creature. Snow Leopard, Coolhand, Merlin and Dragon blasted it with flame, and the tunnel filled with burning smoke and flying dirt. Sheets of flame reflected off my faceplate, and shadows darted wildly all around us. The tunnel shuddered with the blasts and I feared it would collapse on top of us.
“Whoo! What was it?”
“It was a breeder male, Thinker,” Sweety informed me.
“Breeders!” somebody exclaimed, “We must be close to the hive.”
“When did you first begin to suspect it?”
The tunnel echoed harshly with that metallic chirping. Breeders-they were supposedly harmless, they didn’t even have pincers, but without them, the exos could not reproduce so our orders were to terminate them all.
“Advance. On me.” Snow Leopard moved forward. The sensors showed the exos right up ahead! We would have to kill them all to stop that noise. We fired more flame downtunnel, a river of fire for our advance. The air around supercharged with heat.
“Put on your breather, Deadeye.” He slipped it on, his face already black with soot.
“Alert!”
“Life form!”
“Exoseg…”
We ignored the rest of the report. Snow Leopard, Coolhand, Psycho and I all triggered our E’s, firing on xmax as the exosegs appeared. We followed up with bursts of raw flame, splattering liquid fire everywhere. A burning shock wave hit us, a backblast of heat.
“…a whole bunch of them…”
“Exoseg Gigantic Neuter.”
“Are you guys all right?”
“Take it easy! Those are neuters, they’re not dangerous.”
“Keep firing! There’s more of them!”
We used the flame-it seemed to do the job. We advanced slowly through a tunnel of fire, flames now burning right into the dirt, running past our boots, flickering all around us. We passed the massive, shredded corpses of exoseg neuters, spitting flames.
“Beta, Command, sitrep.”
“Nothing to report!” Lunatics, we were all lunatics. I could have been a librarian, stacking cubes in a conditioned room, slowly turning pale and soft, eating well and sleeping all night. And knowing I’d be there, the next day, safe and sound.
“I think this is the nutrition chamber, Snow Leopard!” Coolhand sounded tense. Xmax blasts echoed all around us, drowning out the noise of the exosegs. Lasers flickered on my darksight. Coolhand and Warhound and I were so close we could have been grafted at the hips. Snow Leopard and the others remained slightly behind us, blasting neuters, firing down into another tunnel. We had just cut our way through several exosegs with lasers, and as the leading element, we had to force our way through the mess. My whole body shook. I took another mag but it did not help.
“Look at this! Deadman help us!” Warhound sounded horrified. He shone his flash up ahead. The hive burned, spitting blue-hot flames from our attack, the fire spreading, a fierce white glow reflecting off Warhound’s faceplate, illuminating his harsh features. The chamber, an underworld labyrinth constructed by the breeders from their own secretions, revealed many animal species from the world above, stacked carelessly for eventual consumption by the exos. I spotted one of those spidery, scaled treecats, frozen in death. What a sad end for a creature of the sunlight.
Eerie images danced on my faceplate. Coolhand peered cautiously into the nutrition chamber and raised his E to his shoulder. He triggered another burst of flame, liquid fire splattering everywhere. Snow Leopard crawled past me, the flames reflected on his faceplate. Behind it, his face could only be described as ecstatic.
“Command, Beta. We have reached the hive, cords as shown. No resistance.”
“Confirm Beta has located the hive. Stand by, Beta, we’re on the way.”
“Take your time, Command. We’re doing fine.” Sometimes I wondered about Snow Leopard, but being crazy was one of the job requirements. He was clearly over-qualified.
Deadeye pulled at my arm, his face blackened, breather firmly in place. “Slayer, remember my people!”
Remember his people-kill the exos. Yes, one at a time. There was a very good reason why we could not simply burn these vile nests out from above ground, why we risked our lives below ground.
