Sergeant Sakai's voice was calm and soothing as she coordinated the staging and interaction of the thirty-two different elements comprising the Knight Errant raid on the Brotherhood warehouse. Kyle understood her words, but little of what she was saying as she related custom map coordinates and abbreviated sequencing information. She, one other coordinator, two technicians, and Roger Soaring Owl were the only Knight Errant troopers present in the command cabin. The rest were staged for combat.
"All units at start point," Sakai said loudly. At the rear of the cabin. Soaring Owl quickly finished off a private telecom call that Kyle believed was to Damien Knight himself. After disconnecting, he walked over to Sakai and placed his hand on her shoulder, "We're green," he said.
She nodded and her hands flashed over the console, a dozen indicators turning green. "Stage green go," she said. "Good luck."
Things suddenly began to happen on every monitor in the cabin. Kyle could barely follow it all, but seeing that Soaring Owl seemed to know exactly where to look next, Kyle let his attention follow the older man's. Any doubt that Soaring Owl was simply a data-mover out for a rush among the troops was laid to rest during these final preparations. As Ravenheart was rattling off last-minute changes and amendments to the battle plan, Soaring Owl's questions and concerns were coming just as rapid-fire.
"Rocket's away," Sakai said.
Soaring Owl turned to the monitors showing the exterior of the Brotherhood warehouse, and as a score of black-clad troopers rushed forward, even faster streaks of light hit the various doors and windows, blowing them open.
Immediately, a second wave of rockets soared through the open windows and exploded inside the structure, spreading huge, billowing clouds of foul-smelling gas specifically designed to overpower the insect spirit's dominant sense-smell.
Three armored hover drones zipped past the troopers and in through the ruptured cargo door. Kyle searched the monitors for a view from them, and found it just as a trio of half-men, half-something-else figures were cut to pieces in a barrage of high-velocity gunfire. The troopers swarmed in after the drones, and flashes of magical power began to dominate the viewscreens.
Now Kyle could see real insect spirits appearing, and not just roaches. A giant wasp flashed in against the troopers but banged against a barely visible wall of force that suddenly appeared in front of it. Gunfire had no problem passing through the barrier, however, and the wasp vanished back to astral space…
The lead troopers moved forward into the main area of the warehouse, which was open and virtually empty. The huge room contained almost nothing but scattered piles of small boxes. Then other insect spirits quickly began to appear, engaging the lead troopers.
Now came the elemental spirits, intercepting the huge ants and flies as they fell upon the raiders. The troopers began to their way to where the building plan showed large stairways and elevator shafts leading to the lower storage depths. It was there Knight Errant expected to find the hive itself, and its queen. To speed that penetration, three teams of demolitions experts began placing excavation charges on the concrete floor while other troopers defended them from the insect onslaught "there are a lot of different kinds of bugs there…" Kyle said.
“I have to admit we weren't expecting that," Soaring Owl said. "The different insect hives apparently don't get along, but the Brotherhood leaders were somehow able to keep them from going after each other for many years. When the Brotherhood collapsed, we figured inter-hive warfare was inevitable."
"And that is cause for concern?" said Kyle.
Soaring Owl nodded. "Yes it is."
The battle in the warehouse raged on, but Kyle felt numb as he watched, drained of emotion. There were too many insect spirits, of all kinds, too many troopers, too much magic, and too much gunfire. The scene was beyond the realm of comprehension. And, displayed as it was on banks of trideo monitors, it began to lose any sense of reality.
"Chemsniffers are registering alerts," Sakai said suddenly. "PVMH and C-6 off the scale."
"Where?" Soaring Owl asked turning toward her. "Is it our stuff?"
"Main floor. But it's not ours."
"Drek!" he said, turning back to the main monitors showing the views from the drones. To Kyle's amazement, Knight Errant casualties were minimal so far, even though the wave after wave of maddened insects seemed endless. Soaring Owl's face paled and he reached out to touch the monitor image where one pile of small boxes had been scattered to reveal bundles of smaller packages, and wire…
"Oh my god," he said just before the bundles exploded.
Plastic explosives all around the main room detonated, sending Shockwaves and a wall of nails and other small bits of metal shooting through the assembled troopers. The bugs, creatures of magic, were untouched by the random, undirected explosions, but the troopers were another matter.
Caught in intersecting blasts, many were simply torn to shreds. The rest were either knocked from their feet or stunned, while the insects wasted no time descending upon them in force.
"God fragging damn!" Soaring Owl screamed. "Second and third teams in! Booby trap alerts!"
"Second Team alert advance. Third Team alert advance. Explosive trap warning in effect," Sakai said calmly. "Repeat, Second and Third Team advance. Explosive traps are present."
Other troopers entered the fray, some engaging the furious ants and flies and wasps directly, while others attempted to pull the injured from the main area of battle. Then more explosions suddenly tore open the ceiling, rocket hits blasting holes big enough for more combat drones to enter. Kyle saw one firing repeated bursts of green-white laser beams that cut deadly swaths through the swarming, flying, crawling, shrieking wave of deadly insect spirits.
"Demolition charge one firing," Sakai said.
And another explosion rocked the building, but this one was shaped downward and shattered a huge section of floor. The drones moved quickly to descend as teams of troopers struggled to assemble at the edges of the hole, prepared to drop into the smoky darkness below.
Then, without warning, the gates of hell opened.
A horde of insect spirits, scores, maybe hundreds, exploded out of the hole. Ants, roaches, beetles, wasps, flies, nearly every creeping or flying kind Kyle had ever seen came forth from the hole. Many resembled the actual insect, but far more were half-creatures catapulted into the main room by the force of the others' flight and leap from the hole.
And the swarm didn't stop.
Kyle turned his head and looked at one of the monitors showing the outside of the warehouse and the black stream of insect spirits pouring out from the ruptured roof.
"Mother of god…" said Soaring Owl.
Once outside, the bug spirits scattered in all directions, some flying, some darting and skittering down off the roof or through the broken, smoking windows.
Inside, the troopers were overwhelmed. Maybe a hundred flesh forms attacked them, with more crawling up out of the hole or now coming up the stairways. The creatures couldn't hold against the Knight Errant firepower, but there were too many, moving too quickly. The aerial drones seemed to be the most successful at decimating the force of attacking flesh forms.
Soaring Owl was shaken. The sheer number of ungodly creatures pouring from the hive was tremendous, far more than the picket line of spirits could ever hope to restrain. He turned to Sakai.
"Signal we have a break out situation," he said, his voice cracking. "And note for the record that I am preparing Damocles."
Sakai flinched and her eyes flicked in his general direction, but all she said was, "Yes, sir." And then into the communications net: "All units, we are under break out situation. Repeat, break out situation. Initiate Plan Centerpoint. Repeat, initiate Centerpoint. All commands signal acknowledgment"
Kyle was watching Sakai, but then turned back to Soaring Owl as the man pulled his head back from what could only have been a retinal print scanner. Immediately, three monitors that had been showing redundant trideo images changed. One showed black, and the other two gave technical information and displays that Kyle didn't recognize. One of them, though, seemed to be the status for a vehicle of some kind.
All the monitors showed the Knight Errant troopers obviously withdrawing. And taking the wounded with them. The cluttering, buzzing, hissing horde of vile things continued to attack.
The van suddenly shook as something hammered against it. More hammering followed, and a couple of monitors began to flicker.
Soaring Owl looked up for a moment, then pulled a long optical cable from the console in front of him and connected it to his datajack. The displays changed, and the black screen brightened, giving the camera view of a drone inside a launch bay of some kind. The unit designator "Damocles" appeared on the monitor as did a fuel display.
"Signal command mat we have found the primary hive," Soaring Owl said as indicators on one of the monitors changed. The drone was powering up. "As per instructions I have initiated Damocles and am solely responsible for its detonation."
"Detonation?" Kyle spun to face him.
The man's hands were shaking. "We've found, god help us, the central hive. The main North American hive. Who the frag would have thought they'd have hid it in a city?"
"I don't understand."
"This is it. The most powerful queens are here. All the others are commanded from here. We must destroy it"
Kyle shook his head. "You can't know that. We've got to withdraw. Those bug things are all over the city by now. Eagle's going to need all your-"
"If we can kill the queens, the rest of the hive is lost. Directionless. We have to kill the queens. Now." Daylight was appearing on the drone monitor; the bay doors were opening.
"There's no way you can get down there. Your people are stopped cold. If the queens are on the bottom level, you're not even going to get close before the sheer number and weight of those bugs ground your drone."
"Close, Mr. Teller," Soaring Owl said, "only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and thermonuclear weapons."
"Mother of god, you can't be serious."
Soaring Owl finally turned toward him slightly as the drone lifted from its cradle and rose up out of the bay. "We have no choice. It's small, tactical, less than a kiloton, but it will reach them. That's what counts."
Kyle stepped forward. "I can't let you do this."
"It's got to be done."
Kyle took a step toward Soaring Owl, one hand extended, as the Knight Errant technicians in the cabin began drawing their sidearms. Kyle was faster-the spell forming in his mind, the energy shaped, channeled through his body-when the truck suddenly lurched to one side, knocking both him and Soaring Owl down.
Metal screamed as it was peeled away, and the living biomatter lining that had kept the spirits at bay tore away with it. Kyle's spell unraveled and he reached for his weapon focus as the beetle spirit that had torn open the roof of the truck screeched and dove inside, followed by the gleaming bothes of its brethren.
Kyle screamed too and fought for his life as the horde dove at them amid their own wild shrieking. His voice was drowned by their sounds.
Part II Inside the Chicago Containment Area After 22 August 2055