There's about forty of the fraggin' things down here!' I hear Jorett's muted shout from the front of the shutde. The two men sent inside return, each carrying a couple of flamers. I take one from each of mem and tell them to get forward with the sergeant.
'Help me burn the litde fraggers off/1 say, passing the flamer to Lammax, the dream interpreter. I take a step back and push the firing stud on the ignition chamber, the blue flame springing into life. Tossing my photolamp to one of the others, I take a firm grip of the flamer in both hands, bracing my legs apart, pointing the nozzle up at the top of the shutde. I pull the trigger and let flames spray out six metres across the shutde for a couple of seconds. In the pause between bursts I see flickering orange from ahead and know that Jorett's doing the same up front. Lammax opens up and I can see patches of steaming grease where the alien beasties used to be. Lammox redirects the flow of fire and burning flamer fuel slides down the hull, splashing a metre or so to my right.
'Watch where you're fraggin' pointin' that thing!' I cry out and the flames disappear. Opening up the flamer again, I send
an orange jet of fire washing over the thrusters, making sure none of the creatures are hiding inside the nozzles. For another minute I make my way sideways along the shuttle sending bursts across the roof every few metres. Patches of flamer oil carry on burning, stuck to the fuselage, illuminating the cave with a flickering orange light.
'Okay, cease fire!' I call out. Swapping the flamer for my photolamp again, I clamber up the grab rails to stand on top of the shutde. Playing the beam of the photolamp across the roof, I can see blistered, melted paint and nothing else. I turn to call back to the others that it's all clear, when a strange noise starts echoing around the cave, a low continuous scraping. Scanning around with the photolamp, I see that there's a tunnel leading off about twenty metres from the rear of the shutde. As I look, I see a shadow moving down the tunnel towards us, accompanied by the same scratching sound we heard inside the shutde, only getting much louder.
'Oh frag,' I whisper as the tide of aliens sweeps into the chamber, spreading across die cave floor like a living carpet.
'Flamers!' I bellow to the oblivious guardsmen below, pointing to the approaching mass of aliens. Jorett comes running back from the front of the shutde as once more blazing fires illuminate the cave. He sets himself up next to Lammax and fiddles for a moment with the nozzle of die flamer before sending a wide sheet of fire arcing towards die tunnel. I hastily clamber back to the ground, constantly looking over my shoulder to see what's going on.
'We're bloody holding diem/ declares Jorett as he unleashes another burst.
Yes, but not forever, they're spreading out/ adds Lammax, pausing to point to his left. I see that it's true, the creatures are spilling around the flamer fire, threatening to surround us.
'Darvon! Thensson!' I call out to the troopers with flamers. 'Get yourself over there and push them back to the tunnel/ As they do as I ordered, I step up between Jorett and Lammax. We've got to keep die little fraggers contained within the tunnel, where they can't get around us/
As we force them back, step by step, something else occurs to me.
'Did you see any other tunnels down the front?' I ask Jorett, casting a panicked glance behind me.
'Rest up/ he replies. That was the first fraggin' thing I checked/
Breathing a sigh of relief I step back and let them carry on with their work. A couple of minutes later and we're stood at the mouth of the cave. It's about two and a half metres across and the same high, almost circular.
'I'm out/ calls Thensson, pulling the flamer up to his shoulder.
'Get to the weapons locker, there should be spare canisters inside/ I tell him.
They've stopped!' exclaims Darvon. Pushing past, I see he's right. There's no sign of them for the twenty metres we can see up the tunnel, before it curves away out of sight.
They'll be back/ I say heavily. They must have a nest or something close by, for that many to get here so quick. We'll go and hunt them down/
'Are you fraggin' sure?' asks Jorett. We've already been out here ten minutes. We've only got twenty minutes of fraggin' air left/
'Emperor alone knows how many of those things are up there/ I tell them. The flamers are almost out of fuel already. Who can tell how many more attacks we can stave off. No, we hit the lair, get them all in one place at the same time/
'I'm not sure...' Jorett continues, squaring up to me.
'I'm in charge/ I growl at him and he backs down, shaking his head.
I was right: the tunnel led direct to their nest, about two hundred metres from the shuttle. There's a massive cavern, the far wall too distant to see in the light of the photolamps. There's one more refill for each of the flamers, which might not be enough, because there's thousands of the creatures. They seem to be in some disarray, swarming haphazardly all over the place, covering the floor and scuttling along the walls and roof. Like before, they're not paying us any attention and I lead the squad further into the chamber. I can see another four tunnels leading off this cave, some heading up, others heading down, it's quite a network they've chewed themselves out down here. I wonder if the authorities at the penal colony know what's right under their feet.
'Sir/ Jorett attracts my attention with a terse whisper, jerking his head to one side. Looking over in that direction I see a mass
of yellow alien eggs, little fleshy sacs about the size of your thumb. They stretch across the floor in a rough circle, spreading beyond the beam of the photolamp, tens of thousands of them. In the ruddy glare of the photolamps I can make out a larger, darker shape. It's about a metre tall, bloated atop dozens of spindly legs, sitting on a pile of eggs at the centre of the nest.
'I reckon that's the breeder/ Darvon says with a meaningful look.
'Let's torch it!' I snarl, grabbing Darvon's flamer and heading towards the mother bug. It turns its head towards us as we reach the edge of the egg-pile, a cluster of eyes staring back at me, a look of intelligence in them. I raise the flamer and point it directly at the breeder, smiling grimly inside my mask. Just then I notice movement to my left and right. The other guardsmen have noticed it too and start backing away from the eggs.
