I sat rigidly in the front row of chairs, facing a holographic display that dominated the front wall of Forward Operating Base Tycho. The briefing room was a barebones prefab with dull gray plastic walls and a creaky wooden floor. Two squads of recruits filled the metal chairs behind me, the air growing hot and heavy in the close quarters. The display showed a 3D representation of a bug hive tunnel system. General Harrison stood beside it, a long silver pointer in hand, intently reading a dispatch with a face etched in a deep frown.
Behind me, I heard 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. Nothing but dry, gray-brown rocks, gray dirt, and the occasional purple scrub brush poking up between stones. Many of us wondered why this place was so special that we had to fight a war over it. A war that, according to rumors, wasn’t going well for humanity. When we asked why the planet mattered, 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 like a sword and stabbed it at the wall projection.
“Deep radar has shown that these two nests,” he said, gesturing to two large, oval cavities, “are reachable from this entrance.” He tapped the pointer again. “The tunnel branches about 50 meters in and leads directly to the two nests. Intel suggests these are brooding areas. I want them taken out.”
Harrison turned to face us. “Team Alpha will take the left branch. Team Bravo will take the right. Given the size of these nests, a single mini-nuke should be enough for each. Place the nuke in the center of the nest for maximum effect. This is a straightforward operation, but expect significant opposition. You're going inside the hive. Any questions?”
The room remained silent as the gravity of the situation sank in. As the lead for Team Alpha, I felt the responsibility like a physical weight on my shoulders. It was a simple "in-and-out" mission, but the stories I’d heard about fighting bugs were never encouraging.
“All right, then,” Harrison said. “The dropship is waiting. Double-time!”
I stood and motioned to my team. “On me!” I called out, heading toward the hangar. We had trained together in boot camp and passed every simulation, and the powers-that-be had declared us fit for duty. But were we? Neither Team Bravo nor Alpha had been assigned to a larger squad yet, which was unusual. The mission felt off, but I reminded myself I was fresh out of boot. What did I know?
As I ran through the hot, dry air fear clawed at my gut, and I knew my teammates felt it too, though none of us would admit to being scared shitless. We talked smack on the way to the ships, claiming how easy it would be, but we knew better. I remembered what a veteran, missing an arm, had once told me.
“They came at us, wave after wave,” he’d recounted, his voice filled with horror. “They didn’t stop. I was up front, flaming them to clear a path, when a huge crab-like monster snipped off my arm with a massive claw. It didn’t even slow down. I 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 North American sector, not a soldier. I was decent with a weapon and had a knack for leadership I’d only discovered in boot camp. That's how I ended up as team leader. I did well in simulations, but this was real. If I screwed up, it was game over for the whole team. It bothered me that we were going in without a squad leader. By protocol, we should have had a staff sergeant with us. As we strapped into our seats, Sammy leaned over and motioned for me to cut my mic.
“John, you notice we don’t have a squad leader?” he whispered. Sammy was my right hand, a sharp kid who noticed everything.
“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 the bugs target leaders. How do they even know who’s in charge?”
“Damn if I know,” I said. “Command says they’re just animals protecting territory.”
“Bullshit,” Sammy muttered, leaning back as the dropship leaped into the air.
It was bullshit. The bugs displayed tactics in the skirmishes we had studied in boot. Animals don’t do that. We didn’t need this planet. We were told a colony had been established to build a refueling station, but most refueling stations were built in orbit to avoid the cost of escaping a gravity well. Something else was going on.
“You think the colony was a cover?” I asked Sammy. “Maybe there’s something here the World Council wants and the bugs are just in the way.”
Sammy nodded. “Makes sense. They want us to be pest control so they can grab the goods. Who cares if they waste a few grunts?”
“That’s a roger,” I said. The red light on the wall began flashing. I keyed my mic. “Heads up! Five minutes!”
We unstrapped and moved to the equipment locker. I punched in the code and grabbed a backpack containing a mini-nuke. I memorized the activation code from the attached card, then handed it to Sammy. He nodded and handed it back. I signaled to the Bravo leader that I was finished, then braced myself as the yellow light signaled one minute to drop.
"Form up!" I ordered. The engines on the dropship roared as the ramp opened. A blast of hot air hit me in the face. The ramp dropped while the ship was still hovering.
“Safeties off,” I shouted over the coms. “Go!” We sprinted toward the cave entrance in a tactical triangle. Team Bravo followed, and we disappeared into the darkness.
“Goggles everyone," I whispered. I slid my night-vision gear on, and the world turned neon green. “Terrance, three-sixty motion detection.”
“Roger.”
We reached the branch in minutes. “Anything?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Terrance said. “Odd.”
“Agreed. If this is a brooding nest, where are the warriors? Stay alert.” We reached the brood cave with no opposition. The brood nest was empty.
“I don’t like this,” I said, crouching at the entrance. “Where are the eggs?”
“Plant the nuke anyway?” Sammy asked.
“That’s the mission,” I said. “Maybe we’re just lucky. Center of the room, form a perimeter. I’ll arm it, and we move.”
We sprinted to the center. I was two digits into the five-digit activation code when Terrance’s voice cracked. "Motion above us! They're dropping from the ceiling!"
I swatted at a swarm of tiny, biting bugs. I tried to finish the code, but a sharp sting lanced my neck. Numbness seized my body. "They're everywhere!" someone screamed. Then the world went black.
I awoke in a circular chamber of black rock. A sickly, yellowish glow came from bioluminescent fungus on the walls. I was encased midway up the wall in a cold, plastic-like substance; a cocoon that left only my head and upper torso exposed.
In the darkness beyond the glow of the fungus, a rhythmic clicking drew closer. A monstrous creature emerged out of the black: a flat, disc-shaped abomination with four jointed legs and a ring of pulsating red eyes. A tubular appendage rose from its center.
"Greetings, human," a voice echoed in perfectly articulated English. "I am a Speaker."
I stared at the creature in shock. “You know our language?”
“Yes,” it said. “Your language is simple. We have monitored you since you arrived. Your Elders erroneously believe they can subjugate us to exploit the monopoles this planet provides. Your race, like the reptilian one before you, is mistaken.”
Monopoles. That was it. Magnetic monopoles were the key to hyperdrive systems. No wonder the World Council wanted this planet. Magnetic monopoles were extremely rare.
“What reptilian race?” I asked.
“Millions of years ago, a species with your genetic markers visited us. We assume they are now extinct, replaced by your species,” the Speaker explained. “I am speaking with you so that you may convey a message to your Elders. In order for you to grasp the gravity of your situation, let me relate a bit of our history.
“Our civilization began ten billion years ago. We embraced the biological path, not the technological path. You see, technology is an evolutionary dead-end. The power requirements of the machines that technology requires is unsustainable in the long term. We have seen many technological races go extinct because of the unsustainable power curve. We rejected that path and embraced the biological path.
“By mastering biology at the micro-cellular level, we are able to shape our bodies into whatever we might need. For example, we needed a biological unit to communicate with your species, so I was created. I am able to not only learn your language, and the nuances associated with your language, but I am able to communicate to you with your language in a manner that you would find understandable. We have survived for billions of years because we are not bound by the power curve of technology. Biology allows us to adapt to any situation.
“Let me stress we do not perceive your aggression as a threat, but as an inconvenience. You are not a unique occurrence. We have dealt with others bound by technology. Many others. They have gone extinct while we remain. We understand your weaknesses and we are fully capable of exploiting them. Tell your Elders: Leave this planet and do not return. If they do not heed this last warning, we will be forced to implement pest-control measures.”
I was stunned. We were ants to them. “I’ll tell them,” I whispered.
The Speaker bowed and then screeched loudly. I jumped in my cocoon. A massive crab-like creature entered, peeled me off the wall like wallpaper, and carried me through the pitch-black tunnels at what seemed to be a terrifying speed. I was glad I couldn’t see anything. Eventually, I was dumped into the blinding sunlight outside the cave. The creatures spewed a liquid out of an orifice and the casing dissolved into a foul-smelling liquid. The bug disappeared silently into the darkness of the cave.
I still had my recall radio so I triggered the beacon and waited. I was rescued by a dropship carrying MPs, not medics or my squad mates. They were cold and silent. "You're heading to debriefing," was all they said.
The next week was a blur of isolation. I was moved from the FOB to a freighter, then to Earth, always under MP guard. Finally, I was taken to a windowless concrete monolith: Central Intelligence. In an interrogation room, a woman named Sarah sat across from me. She was beautiful, polished, and terrifying. I told her my story and the warning from the Speaker.
She listened to my story silently. “It was likely a hallucination,” she said gently, after I told my story. “The bugs release a hallucinogenic gas as a defense mechanism. We've looked at the galaxy and seen no evidence of a galactic civilization. No by-products in the atmosphere, no radio signals, nothing. Surely, if these creatures were part of a galactic civilization, there would be some evidence. Why believe a creature with no proof?”
“They live underground. It spoke English…” I suddenly realized how absurd this all sounded.
“A drug-induced trick of the mind,” she countered. “I have seen this before, many times. Let me ask you: does the story sound reasonable? If this so-called Speaker really told this story to you, did it offer any proof? Did it show any documents, diagrams, maps? Did it show anything at all to confirm what it was saying was true?”
“No,” I said quietly.
“No,” she repeated. “There is no evidence because it didn’t happen. I am going to recommend you go through therapy to help you get free of this drug-induced hallucination. You will be back to duty in no time.”
She was so convincing that I started to doubt myself. Did it really happen? I wasn't sure now.
I signed the NDAs, accepted the medical leave, and was sent home to my parents with an order to report to a therapist in a week. My Mom gave me a hug as I entered the house. My Dad and siblings nodded to me, but were intently watching the TriD.
“What is going on?” I asked.
The anchor on the TriD looked haggard. "Disease X is sweeping through the North American sector at an unbelievable rate. So far, it appears to be one hundred percent fatal. The World Council has issued a word-wide quarantine until further notice.”
My blood ran cold. It was true, and the pest-control had started.
