I sat rigidly in the frontmost chair of two rows, facing a holo display that dominated the front wall of Forward Operating Base Tycho. The briefing room, a barebones prefab, had dull gray plastic walls and ceiling, with a creaky wooden floor. Two squads of recruits filled the rows of metal chairs behind me. The air was hot and heavy in the close quarters. The display showcased a 3D representation of a portion of the Bug hive tunnel system. General Harrison stood by the display, a long silver-metal pointer in hand, intently reading a dispatch, his face etched with frowns.
Behind me were the sound of my fellow recruits' scuffing feet and whispers. I idly listened to the chatter. It was mostly about how Planet 235-C “was a real dump.” It certainly was. The planet was all dry, gray-brown rocks and dirt with the occasional purple scrub brush poking up between the stones. Many of us wondered why this place was so special that we had to fight a war with the Bugs over it. A war that, according to rumors, wasn’t going well for us humans. When we asked why the planet was important, we were told we weren’t paid to ask questions—we were here to fight.
Harrison folded the dispatch, slipped it into his pocket, and turned to the mumbling crowd. “All right, listen up!” he barked. The room fell silent instantly. Tall and stern, Harrison had gray hair cropped close to his skull. He gripped the pointer in his right hand like a sword and stabbed it at the wall projection.
“Deep radar has shown that these two nests,” he said, stabbing the pointer at two large, oval-shaped cavities in the holo display, “are reachable from this entrance.” He stabbed the pointer again. “The tunnel entrance branches about 50 meters in and leads directly to the two nests. Intel suggests that these may be brooding areas, and I want to take out those nests.”
Harrison turned to face the men and women seated on the chairs. “Team Alpha will take the left branch, and Team Bravo will take the right. Given the size of these nests, a single mini-nuke should be enough to take out each one. Make sure you place the nuke in the center of the nest for maximum effect. This is a straightforward operation, but significant opposition is expected as this operation is inside the Hive. Any questions?”
The room fell silent as the gravity of the situation sank into those of us seated on the hard metal chairs. Leading Team Alpha, I felt the weight of responsibility like a physical burden on my shoulders. This wasn’t a complicated operation—in and out, hopefully—but I had heard stories about fighting the Bugs, and none were encouraging.
“All right, then, “ Harrison said. “The drop ship is waiting. Doublel-time!”
I stood up and motioned to my team. “On me!” I called out, heading toward the waiting drop ship. We had all trained together in boot camp, passed all the simulated Bug fights, and the powers-that-be had declared us fit for duty. Were we? This was our first real fight. Neither Team Bravo nor we had been assigned to a squad yet, which was unusual. This mission felt off to me somehow, but I reminded myself I was just out of boot so what did I know?
I admit, I was scared, fear clawing at my gut and mind, and I knew my teammates probably felt the same. Not that any of us would admit we were scared shitless. We talked smack on the way to the drop ships, claiming how easy this would be, but we all knew better. We had all heard the stories. As I jogged toward the waiting ships, I remembered what a veteran, missing an arm, had told me.
“They came at us, wave after wave,” he recounted, his voice filled with horror. “They didn’t stop. I was up front, flaming them to clear a path for the guys behind when a huge crab-like monster snipped off my arm with a massive claw. It didn’t even slow down. I passed out and woke up in the infirmary. I was lucky. They usually take the dead and wounded and do God-knows-what with them.”
I was just a farm boy from the fields of the North American sector, not a soldier. I was decent with a weapon and had a surprising knack for leadership, something I discovered only during boot camp. That's how I ended up being promoted to team leader. I did alright in simulations, but this was the real thing. This was a real game over if I screwed up and not just for me, but for my whole team.
It bothered me we were going in without a squad leader. That wasn't protocol. We should have been assigned to a squad and assigned a staff sergeant as squad leader to lead this mission. As we strapped into the seats of the drop ship, Sammy leaned over to me and motioned me to cut my radio mic.
“John, you notice we don’t have a squad leader?” he said in a low voice. Sammy was my right hand, a sharp kid who noticed things the other guys didn’t.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “Not protocol.”
“They don’t expect us to come back and they don’t want to waste a staff sergeant,” Sammy said. “I heard that the Bugs seem to target leaders. How do the Bugs know who is a leader?”
I had heard the same thing. “Damned if I know,” I said. “They told us they were just Bugs. Nothing more than animals protecting their territory.”
“Bullshit,” Sammy said and leaned back as the drop ship leaped into the air.
It was bullshit. We didn’t need this planet. We were told that a colony had been established to build a refueling station at the edge of human expansion in space. A temporary colony had been set up using prefab plastic and metal buildings to house the construction team for the spaceport. The last hyperwave status report received by the World Council Colony Division stated that the construction team had cleared the land for the landing pad. After that, the colony went dark. The problem with the story was that a refueling station could be built in space; most of them were since it cost fuel to climb out of a planet's gravity well. Something else was going on here.
I leaned over to Sammy. “You think the whole colony thing was a cover?” I asked. “Maybe there is something on this planet the World Council wants and the Bugs are in the way.”
Sammy nodded. “That makes sense,” he said. “They want us to be pest control so they can grab whatever it is. Who cares if you waste a few grunts in the process? It is fucked up if you ask me.”
“That’s a roger,” I said. The red light on the wall started flashing, signaling the five-minute mark. I activated my mic and connected to the rest of the team. “Heads up! Five minutes!”
I slapped Sammy on the leg, and we unstrapped and carefully made our way to the locker near the back of the dropship. I tapped the combination on the keypad and opened the door. Inside, two backpacks hung on the rack, each containing a mini-nuke. I grabbed one backpack and set it carefully on the floor. Attached was a plastic card with the activation code for the mini-nuke. I memorized the code and handed the card to Sammy. He stared at it for a moment before nodding and handing it back. I put the card back in the locker and, picking up the backpack, signaled to the Bravo team leader that I was done. She stood with her second and headed to the locker. I braced my backpack between my feet and waited. The yellow light flashed, signaling one minute to drop.
"Form up," I ordered. The dropship tilted downward as its engines slowed. I strapped on my backpack, grabbed the rail, and my team fell in line. The yellow light turned green, and the ramp dropped. The dropship was still in the air, its engines roaring as the ramp hit the ground. “Safties off!” I heard the clicks behind me as the safeties were switched off on my team’s auto-rifles.
"Go!" I barked. We sprinted toward the cave entrance, forming a triangle. I led the point, flanked by two on either side, with two in the rear. Team Bravo followed, and we dashed into the cave's darkness. The dropships roared overhead as we disappeared into the dark labyrinth. I crouched inside, assessing the situation.
“Goggles,” I said quietly, slipped the night-vision goggles over my eyes and the darkness vanished. “Terrance, I want motion detection three-sixty.”
“Roger,” Terrance said.
“Okay, team, in and out,” I said. “We take the left branch at the split. Let’s move, quiet and quick.”
I moved forward on the smooth tunnel floor. The tunnel looked like it had been bored out by some huge machine, but I had never heard of the Bugs using any machines. In the night-vision light, the walls appeared smooth gray-brown, almost polished. The tunnel was an impressive piece of engineering and I wondered how they could create this structure without machinery.
It only took a couple of minutes to reach the tunnel branch. “Anything on motion?” I asked over the comms.
“Nothing,” Terrance said. “Damned odd if you ask me.”
“I agree,” I said. “If this tunnel leads to a brooding nest, where are the warrior Bugs? Damn. Okay, let’s move and stay alert.”
It didn’t take long to come to the so-called brooding nest. I paused at the entrance and looked into the cavern. It was empty. “Anything on motion?” I asked quietly.
“Nothing,” Terrance whispered. “The place is clean.”
“What do you think?” Sammy asked. “Plant the nuke anyway?”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s the mission. I don’t know what is happening here, but maybe we are lucky. We set the nuke and get our asses out of here. Head to the approximate center, and form a perimeter. I want motion going the whole time. I drop it, arm it and we move out. Any questions?”
No one spoke up over the comms so I stood and whispered, “Go!”
We sprinted to the cavern's approximate center. I ripped open my backpack and removed the nuke. Its sleek, dark casing was capped by a small keypad and display. I began inputting the activation code when Terrance's calm voice crackled over the comms, "Motion above us. They're dropping down from the ceiling!"
I'd barely inputted two digits of the five-digit activation code when a swarm of tiny, biting Bugs descended upon us. I swatted frantically, desperately trying to finish the sequence, but a sharp sting lanced my neck, and a numbing paralysis seized my body.
"They're everywhere!" a panicked voice crackled over the communications. "I can't get a clear shot—" The world went black.
I awoke to a pounding headache, trapped within a circular chamber of slick, smooth rock. A sickly, yellowish glow illuminated the room, emanating from bioluminescent fungus clinging to the sloping walls. A slight smell of decay hung in the air of the room. I was encased, midway up the wall, in a cold, hard, plastic-like substance. The alien material cocooned my body, leaving only my upper torso and head exposed. My hands were immobilized, firmly secured by the strange, transparent bond. My situation did not look good.
A rhythmic clicking sound pierced the room's silence, drawing closer from the pitch-black entrance. I strained to see into the darkness, but the entrance remained a void. The clicking grew louder, and a monstrous creature emerged from the shadows. A flat, disc-shaped abomination, its yellow-green hue illuminated by the fungal light. Four jointed legs, ending in clicking claws, protruded from its underside, propelling it forward. A ring of red, stalked eyes, writhing and pulsating, encircled its perimeter. A large, tubular appendage, rising from its central core, swayed slowly as the creature halted before me.
“This is it,” I thought. “This thing is going to suck my brains out and that will be that.”
"Greetings, human,” a voice echoed from the central tube in perfectly articulated Englese. “I am a speaker, designed to communicate with you.” Several of the creature’s red, stalked eyes fixed on me, their unblinking gaze piercing.
I was dumbfounded. I had braced myself for the worst—a gruesome demise, a violent end. But this? This was beyond my wildest expectations. A creature, alien and monstrous, speaking to me in perfect Englese.
“You know our language?” I stammered.
“Yes,” the Speaker said. “Your language is quite simple. We have been monitoring your communication since you arrived on our planet.”
“I don’t understand what is happening here,” I said. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“Yes, I understand your confusion,” the Speaker said, tapping the ground with its jointed legs. “Let me explain why I am speaking with you.
“Our prior attempts at communication with your species have been unsuccessful in deterring the aggressive actions perpetuated by your Elders against our kind. Your Elders erroneously believe that they can subjugate us to exploit the monopoles that this planet abundantly provides. Your race, like the one before you, is under the mistaken idea that they can conquer us and take the monopoles.”
"Monopoles," I thought. "That explains the intense interest in this planet." Magnetic monopoles, a crucial component of our ships' hyperdrive systems, are rare. If this planet was rich in monopoles, it could revolutionize interstellar exploration.
“What do you mean by the ‘race before us’?” I asked.
"Millions of years ago, according to your form of measurement, a reptilian species visited our planet. They had several of the same genetic markers as your species has within your genome. These markers suggest a common planetary origin for both species," the Speaker explained. "It is unusual for two intelligent species to evolve on the same planet. Considering you are here, I assume the reptilian race is extinct."
I stared at the Speaker, shocked by what it said. Had there been a reptilian civilization that existed millions of years ago on Earth? It was then that the statement hit me. “You have been on this planet for millions of years?” I asked, shocked at what this creature had casually stated.
"Far longer," the Speaker replied. "In your unit of measurement, it has been billions of years. We have fully colonized the galaxy and are currently colonizing the nearest galaxy, known to you as the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy.
"Our species was the progenitor of life within this galaxy," the Speaker said. "Emerging shortly after the galaxy's formation, our civilization began ten billion years ago. We have endured such an extended period by embracing the biological path, rather than the technological one. The technological path is an evolutionary dead-end, as countless civilizations have demonstrated. The laws of the universe inherently favor biological systems over technological ones. We have mastered genetic engineering, both our own and that of other species, allowing us to create and utilize biological systems that far surpass those built upon technology.
"Therefore, I trust you understand that we do not perceive your aggression as an existential threat. Your presence on our planet is an inconvenience that we must rectify, but it poses no genuine danger. I urge you to convey this message to your Elders one final time. If they fail to heed this warning, we will be compelled to implement pest-control measures. Given your race’s unique circumstances, we would prefer a peaceful resolution."
I was stunned, the Speaker's words echoing in my mind. A civilization so ancient, so powerful, controlling galaxies and interstellar space. We were mere ants, challenging a cosmic giant. "I will convey your message," I said quietly.
The Speaker screeched loudly in a strange pattern. A massive crab-like creature, armed with enormous claws, entered the chamber and faced the Speaker. The Speaker responded with screeches and warbles and then turned to me.
"This servitor will escort you to the complex's entrance," the Speaker said. "There, you may contact your people. You will not be harmed. Please relay our warning to your Elders." The Speaker scuttled out of the room on its spindly legs, disappearing into the darkness.
I stared at the crab creature, wondering how it was going to get me to the cave entrance since I was stuck to the rock wall, encased in this hard, plastic substance. It reached up with a giant claw, grabbed the plastic casing around me, and peeled me from the wall like a sheet of wallpaper. Holding me tightly in its claw, it sped into the darkness of the tunnel.
The tunnel was a black abyss. I couldn't see a thing, only feel the relentless forward motion, the cool air flowing past me in a rush. The creature's legs, a machine-gun staccato against the rock, punctuated the darkness. We careened through the tunnel, a jarring, terrifying ride. Distant echoes of other creatures—taps, screeches, warbles—flashed past us and then faded into the void. After some unknown time, a glimmer of light splashed on the walls, and we were in blinding sunlight. I slammed my eyes shut in the intense glare. I felt myself falling and grunted when I hit the ground.
I heard a sickening gurgle, felt a splash of warm liquid on my face, and a horrid, stomach-churning smell like rancid meat. The hard casing around me dissolved, leaving me wet and sticky. Shielding my eyes with my hand, I slowly opened them. I was lying in front of the cave entrance on the dusty, gray-brown earth. A small rock jabbed into my back, so I raised myself to a sitting position. As my eyes adjusted to the bright sunlight, I saw that I was completely alone.
I pressed the recall button on my harness, and it beeped. The small transmitter woven into the fabric should be broadcasting a distress call along with my coordinates. Standing on wobbly legs, I found a large rock a few meters from the cave entrance. I sat down, leaning back against the rock, my wet shirt and pants slowly drying in the warm, yellow sunlight. I closed my eyes and let the warmth seep into me.
A thundering roar jolted me awake. Above me, a black dropship descended on two blue-yellow flames, filling me with relief and joy. The hot jets on its stubby wings pointed downward, kicking up a cloud of dust and flying stones. I scrambled to my feet and headed toward the back of the descending ship, using my arm to shield my face from the debris. As I reached the ship, the ramp lowered, and two Military Police appeared, scanning the terrain, their auto rifles held ready.
“MPs?” I thought, my relief giving way to growing anxiety. Neither man said a word as I strapped myself into a seat.
“I wasn’t expecting MPs,” I said. “This normal?”
They looked at each other, and one replied, “There isn’t anything normal about this place. You’re heading to debriefing.” If I was going straight to debriefing, then leadership knew the situation. That meant someone else had made it out before me.
“Did anyone else make it out?” I asked. Hopefully, the rest of the team had spoken to the Speaker, been given the same information, and been released.
“Yeah,” the MP said, and that was the end of the conversation. The ride back to the FOB was tense.
The next week was strange and unnerving. I was hustled back to the FOB, put in a room, given a writing tablet, and told to enter my mission brief. Once that was done, I was given clean clothes and put on a shuttle to an orbiting freighter, then sent back to Earth. The only people I saw at the FOB were the MPs. On the freighter, I was assigned a room and told to stay put. My meals were brought to me. I didn’t see anyone except the MP who was my escort. The big-wigs didn’t want me talking to anyone.
On Earth, I was escorted to a large, boxy building made of concrete slabs, surrounded by a wide, empty plaza of concrete sidewalks. The building had no windows and rose from the ground like a concrete mountain, seemingly a part of the earth itself. I recognized it immediately: Central Intelligence. Things were getting serious.
My MP escort, who had said maybe half a dozen words since I left the Bug planet, escorted me inside the windowless box. The MP handed the front desk some papers, which were checked and stamped. Then, I was escorted to a room with a table, a glass of water, and what could only be a two-way mirror on one wall—a standard interrogation room. The MP motioned me to sit in the chair facing the two-way mirror.
“It will be a few minutes,” he said.
I nodded as he walked out of the room stiffly, pausing at the door to glance at me before disappearing as the door swung shut behind him. It was the first time he had shown even a bit of interest in me. I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned back in the chair.
It was becoming clear that the higher-ups knew more about the Bugs than they were telling us. The Speaker had said this was the final warning. Leadership had to have known for some time that the Bugs were sentient. They didn’t want that information to get out to the public. The World Council wanted the monopoles on the planet and they were willing to wipe out the indigenous creatures to get them. It was a story as old as humanity, maybe older, if a reptilian race had existed on Earth millions of years ago.
I wondered if they were planning to erase me to maintain the secrecy. It would be easy to claim I had been killed in action, but then why send me back to Earth? Would they go to all this trouble just to kill me and dump my body in an incinerator? It didn’t seem likely.
The door opened, and a woman dressed in the black and gray uniform of the intelligence bureau entered the room. She smiled at me and sat at the table, holding the writing tablet with my mission brief. With blonde hair and blue eyes, she could have been a model instead of an intelligence officer. I was immediately on my guard.
She extended her hand. “I am Sarah,” she said. I shook her hand, firmly and nodded.
“I am sure you know who I am,” I said.
She smiled again. “Yes, I do. Quite the adventure, it seems,” she replied, holding the tablet. “This would make a great holo story.”
“A documentary maybe?” I said.
She looked at me, her eyes scanning my face, a grin tugging at the corner of her mouth. “I was thinking of a fun space opera,” she said. “To be honest, I’ve seen this a few times before. Not very compelling.”
“Eyewitness accounts aren’t compelling?” I asked.
“I was a police officer before I joined the service,” she said. “You’d be surprised how many different descriptions you get from eyewitnesses about an incident. It usually ends up being quite different from what the witnesses thought.”
“So, what I saw and heard didn’t happen?” I asked. “I find that hard to believe.”
“No, I wasn’t implying that you didn’t experience what you related in your briefing,” she said, her face a mask of concern. “It just may not be what you think.”
“How so?” I asked.
“Well, let’s examine a few points in your briefing,” she said. “Take the statement by the Speaker, as you call the creature, about there being a billion-year-old civilization on the planet. Did you see any evidence of that civilization?”
“I assumed it was all underground,” I replied. “The tunnels were dark. I couldn’t see anything.”
“Quite so,” she said. “So, you had to take the Speaker’s word on this?”
“Yes,” I said slowly.
“The Speaker also said that they had colonized the whole galaxy,” she said. “It claimed they were a progenitor race. Correct?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Well, we have searched the galaxy, using very sophisticated equipment, for evidence of this so-called galactic civilization,” she said earnestly. “We have yet to find any evidence to support this claim. The anomalies we have found can be explained by our cosmological theories and don’t require a galactic civilization.”
“Well, they seem to live underground,” I said. “Maybe they don’t use the surface.”
“Possible,” she said. “Yet there should be some evidence, wouldn’t you agree? Every civilization produces by-products that inevitably can be detected in a planet's atmosphere. There should be some evidence out there. Yet, we don’t see it.”
“The Speaker said that they used biological systems not technological systems,” I offered. It didn’t sound convincing even to me.
“Yes, we’ve heard that as well,” she said, nodding. “Biological or technological, the principle still applies. Civilizations produce by-products, and those by-products eventually permeate the entire planet. When we look across the galaxy using our telescopes and sensors, we don’t see any indication of a vast galactic-wide civilization.”
“Well, the Speaker did speak to me in perfect Englese,” I said. “That has to count for something.”
“Yes,” she said slowly. “But I’m afraid that may not be what you think.”
“What?” I asked. “I heard it!”
She pressed her lips together, looking apologetic. “That was probably just a hallucination. We think the Bugs can produce a gas that causes people to hallucinate. It’s a defense mechanism, like the spray of a stink bug.”
“It was all in my head?” I asked.
“Yes, probably,” she said, nodding. “But let’s assume, for the moment, that the Speaker did talk to you and told you all these things. Did the Speaker offer any proof?”
“No,” I replied. “It seemed to consider us a very primitive species.”
“If I just came up to you on the street and you had never seen me before and told you I had all these fantastic superpowers, what would you think?” she asked.
“I would think you were crazy,” I said slowly.
“And rightly so,” she said. “The Speaker didn’t offer any proof of what it said. Why believe it any more than a person claiming superpowers?”
“I, I…” I stammered, unsure what to say. She had me neatly backed into a corner. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was all in my head. I honestly didn’t know.
“I don’t know,” I said finally.
She reached over and patted my hand in a motherly fashion. “I know it’s a tough one,” she said. “You’re here so we can have this talk. I know it felt real and convincing to you, as it does to many. Once people exposed to these convincing hallucinations are told the inconsistencies of what they believe, they usually realize it isn’t true. Not all, unfortunately, but most. I think you know now that what you thought isn’t true.”
“Wow,” I said. “I see what you mean. The whole thing is crazy now that I think about it. It felt so real though.”
“Yes,” she said, “it’s a challenge for us. We are working on a way to counter the influence of this drug in our operations. In the meantime, we will continue to counsel those who come under its influence. You will be put on medical leave for now. I will schedule another counseling session soon. In the meantime, rest and enjoy time with your family.”
“Thank you,” I said.
She beamed a smile at me. “That’s what I’m here for,” she said. “Take care now.”
I had to sign several papers, mostly agreeing that the incident did not happen and all information was classified. If I spoke about any of this to anyone, I could end up in a cell for the rest of my life. They claimed it was all about keeping misinformation about the Bug war under wraps. Right.
As the robotaxi pulled up in front of my parent's house, I felt a huge weight lift off my shoulders. I was on indefinite medical leave, so I would be staying at my parents' house until this was resolved. A minefield was still ahead of me and I couldn’t see where my path was going, but at least I could forget about it all in the short term.
My problem was that Sarah’s argument applied equally to her and her version of the events. I had no evidence that what she told me was true. The World Council controlled the media, controlled the scientists, and controlled the information. Her story could be fiction as much as she claimed what happened to me was fiction. How would I know?
I was going to have to be careful. You didn’t fool around with Central Intelligence, but that was for another day. My concern faded when my mom answered the door, giving me a big, hard hug. “Honey, it is so good to see you,” she said. “I wish it was under better circumstances.”
“What’s going on?” I asked as she dragged me into the living room. My dad and sister were staring at the holovision on the wall, engrossed in a news broadcast. My dad looked up and nodded, then turned back to the holoscreen.
“The World Council has issued an emergency declaration,” the newscaster said. “All citizens are required to shelter in place until further notice. The disease, called Disease X by the medical community, is highly contagious and has a near one-hundred percent fatality rate. So far, there is no known treatment.”
My blood ran cold. The words of the Speaker echoed in my mind. “...we will be compelled to implement pest-control measures.”
