Birds of Prey - Bisexual Edition

"Some Bugs surrender," Baker replied with a shrug. "You hear about what happened on Jarilo?"

"Oh yeah. They caught a colony early, and the roaches gave up, right?"

"That's what I heard, yeah. Don't know the details, it's all been very hush-hush. But of course, rumor gets around."

"Well, I've never heard of a Bug giving up. A drinking buddy of mine who's in the Marines told me that when he was deployed on Kruger III, he found a Bug on the battlefield after a CAS run that had been ripped in half at the waist. The main guns on those Penguins just chew up infantry. The thing had one arm left, and it was still trying to fire at him with a plasma pistol. They're not even sentient I don't think, no more than an ant or a termite."

"So the brass really thinks we'll be meetin' aliens?" Baker asked skeptically, "I mean...even you ain't sure what you saw out there."

"I know that I saw something, I'm just not sure what it was. Seems like they're serious about it though, this FCP shit is nothing to joke about, it really fucks us over. You know how fast Bugs react, sometimes the element of surprise is all you have. If you waste it scanning them, they're going to spin around and drill you a few new exhaust ports."

The carrier was cavernous, the winding corridors and packed rooms stretching for literally miles. It was like being inside a giant submarine, and as huge as it was, everything still managed to feel claustrophobic. It was large enough that the bigger aliens like the Krell and the Borealans could get around. The ceilings were high enough that they didn't have to duck too low to avoid hitting their heads on pipes, and the passageways were wide enough that they could pass one another, but only barely. The Rorke was so large, and the crew were often stationed on it for so long, that it even had its own general store where they could buy things like snacks and drinks. Jaeger made a beeline for it, turning corners and passing innumerable side rooms. Every few feet there was a pressure door, intended to seal shut in the event of a decompression to prevent the whole ship from blowing all of its atmosphere into space. There were almost no bare surfaces in sight. The deck was covered in panels that opened up to grant access to internal systems, snaking wires and pipes decorated the walls and ceiling, miscellaneous electronics clinging to every available surface.

Jaeger hated it, it was like a giant, flying coffin. Yet it was the only way to see action as a fighter pilot. He had to endure the weeks or months of boredom and claustrophobia, just for those few hours of freedom. There was nothing like it, zipping through the emptiness at speeds that only a bullet could reach in atmosphere, with only his ship and his wits to rely on.

They came to a stop beside the line that had formed outside the store, Jaeger rummaging in his pocket for his tablet computer. He turned the handheld device on and tapped at the wafer-thin screen for a few moments, checking his account. When you were a dozen light years out from any civilized planet, you couldn't exactly access your bank account, and so the crew deposited their money into a Navy credit account for use during their deployment. He still had a fair amount left, he'd have to remember to top it up again next time they were in port. It would likely be several months yet. He couldn't imagine surviving one of these tours without enough sugar and nicotine to knock out a Polar.

"So what did they talk about in that meeting they dragged you off to?" Baker asked, leaning against the bulkhead with his hands in the pockets of his jumpsuit as he made small talk. "Or is it all classified?"

"They just wanted to hear my report in person," Jaeger explained, keeping his eyes on his tablet as he thumbed through the messages. There was no internet connection on the carrier either. Even at the speed of light, a signal from the nearest inhabited planet would have taken decades to reach them this far out, but the vessel had an intranet that allowed the crew to communicate and access media.

"It's been five or six years since we made contact with the Borealans, right?" Baker continued. "And before that, it was about twenty-five years since we met the Bugs and the Krell."

"And the Brokers," Jaeger added.

"Yeah, right. So that's...what? Four alien species in thirty years? Doesn't that seem too low? Think about all the explorin' we've done since then, we've traveled about a hundred light-years from Earth in every direction and we ain't seen shit for years. Where's everyone hidin'? Didn't the guy in the video say that there were probably tens of thousands of sentient species in the galaxy?"

"I mean, we've found life," Jaeger added with a shrug.

"Yeah, animals and moss and shit like that. Fish and bacteria, nothing smart."

"The galaxy is a big place, I guess everyone is just spaced really far apart. That or the Bugs got to them before we did. We first encountered them at Betelgeuse, but nobody knows where they really come from. They could have colonized half the Galaxy for all we know."

"Well I hope we meet some more aliens," Baker grumbled, pulling his hand out of his pocket and idly scratching his nose. "I want to be there, y'know? I was one year old when we joined the Coalition, I had only just joined the Navy when we met the mad cats. It's a once in a lifetime thing, I want to see it happen."

"Careful what you wish for," Jaeger muttered, looking up from his tablet. "There's no guarantee that they'll be friendly."

"Well they saved my ass, didn't they?"

"Yeah, but that might not be because they're on our side, they might just hate the Bugs more than they're worried about us."

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend," Baker stated confidently.

"You know that the guy who came up that saying was assassinated, right?"

CHAPTER 3: HIVE AND GO SEEK

"So how do we find a needle in a haystack?" Boomer asked, Jaeger glancing out of his canopy at the formation of three fighters that were lined up beside him. The dim glow from the nearby star reflected off their angular, stealthy hulls, like black glass when they caught the light. Only their canopies were illuminated, the glow of control panels and readouts lighting up the tiny pilots like someone holding a torch beneath their face while telling ghost stories around a campfire.

They had been tasked with scouring the Oort cloud for more Bugs, the Beewolf fighters small and light enough to cover a decent amount of ground. Pretty much every bird was in the air, split into groups of four and tasked with searching for contacts amongst the asteroids. They were skirting the wall of ice and rock right now, running long-range scans to pick up thermal radiation or any strange emissions.

"We got lucky last time," Jaeger said, "we have a vague idea of where they might be hiding. Those fighters that we encountered were short-range, which means there's a hive ship somewhere nearby. Find the hive ship, kill it, and we kill the Bug fleet. They can't operate without it."

When Bug fleets took to the stars to colonize a new planet, as was part of their life cycle, they did so in one or more hive ships that were roughly equivalent to a carrier. The massive organic ships were not only used to transport other vessels and personnel, but also the crucial supplies necessary for founding a new colony. A hive fleet was both dangerous and vulnerable at the same time. It was the stage of their life cycle when the Bugs were at their most aggressive, but at the same time, they were at their most exposed. Kill enough of the hive ships, and you would negate their ability to found a successful colony.

"Unless they've already colonized the inner planets and there are a billion of 'em further in-system," Baker muttered.

"Not likely," Jaeger said, "there'd be a lot more activity if that were the case. Besides, I heard that there aren't any habitable planets in this system, only a couple of gas giants."

"Doesn't mean they can't colonize the moons."

"That isn't our problem right now," Scratcher chimed in, "just keep your eyes on your sensors. If we pick up anything bigger than a fighter, we're supposed to call in backup. And make sure you get a positive ID on it before you call in the whole fleet."

"Yeah, y'all remember your three Ds," Baker scoffed. "Be nice to the aliens."

"I prefer double-Ds," Boomer added.

"That's Scratcher's line," Baker chuckled. "Remember the cans on that Borealan he got caught with? Bigger'n his head, they were."

Scratcher's voice came through on the radio, attempting to talk over their laughter.

"Alright, alright. Keep your heads in the game, guys."

The chatter quietened down for a while, but there wasn't much to do or see out here, the sky was pitch black save for the twinkling of the far off stars. Contrary to popular belief, many of the beautiful nebulae and clouds of colorful gas that people imagined when they thought of space weren't in the visible spectrum. They might be seen through telescopes and other such devices, but not with the naked eye. To their left, the infinite wall of rocks passed them by. They were traveling at immense speed, and it was hard to get a frame of reference without checking the counter on the console.

After maybe an hour of cruising, Jaeger picked something up on his scope, a heat blip somewhere in the asteroids.

"Eyes up people," he called out, alerting his companions. "Picking something up on the infrared band. Something out there is kicking out a lot of heat."

"I got it," Baker added, "it's hotter than the fighter we found yesterday."

"Peel off and spread out," Jaeger said, "we're going in for a closer look."

He gripped the stick, hitting the forward thrusters to shed velocity, straining against the straps that kept him secured to his seat. His squadron did the same, the thrusters on their bellies flaring and their engines burning brightly as they banked towards the asteroids one by one. They maintained formation, but they put some distance between the fighters, making themselves more difficult targets. Jaeger joined them, every change in velocity causing G-forces to tear at his body. He watched the small map in the bottom left of his visor that showed the locations of the other fighters relative to him, along with the red blip that they were now racing towards. The amount of heat either meant that whatever it was had been burning hard, or it was larger than what they had encountered the last time...

"Remember, don't take any hostile actions until you can confirm that it's a Bug ship," Scratcher said. His voice sounded strained, they were still shedding velocity as they neared the cloud. "Or if it starts fucking shooting at you, either way."

"They aren't going to give us the same courtesy," Jaeger warned, "be careful."

The loose formation of fighters slowed enough that the asteroids were navigable, each vessel making tiny adjustments with bursts of gas from their thrusters as they avoided the debris, perpetually rolling and dodging as they advanced deeper. It was enough of a challenge to keep from crashing without having to keep their eyes out for the enemy too.

"Can we extend our railguns?" Boomer asked, "is that considered aggressive?"

"Fuck that," Baker replied, "I'm goin' hot."

"Alright, but don't point it at anything until we get a positive ID," Jaeger said as he flipped the guard on his trigger. There was a rumbling sensation that reverberated through his boots as the hatch on the back of his ship opened, and the railgun arm extended, the targeting reticle appearing on his HUD.

"Fuck!" Baker exclaimed, Jaeger's heart racing as he looked around for where the attack was coming from. "Fucking rock bounced off my wing," he added.

"You asshole, Baker," Jaeger complained. "Maintain radio silence unless you see something."

This time the heat signature wasn't fading, and the four fighters slowly maneuvered through the asteroids as they neared the source. One of the larger rocks slowly rotated amidst the cloud of debris, it must have been a few kilometers wide, jagged and pockmarked from a millennia of collisions. Jaeger pointed his scanners at it, watching as his computer drew a wireframe image of the object and overlaid it on top. The desire to target his railgun was strong, instinctual, he had to make a conscious effort to keep his finger away from the trigger as he scoured the surface of the rock for activity.

"There! Got something," Scratcher announced. "Feeding you video."

Scratcher's ship was out of view, but he must have a clear line of sight, because Jaeger began to receive a video feed that appeared in a window in the top right of his HUD. It showed a grainy image of a rocky outcrop, what little light that actually made it from the system's star casting it into stark shadow. It was hard to get an idea of the size with no point of reference and no atmospheric haze, it could have been the size of a snowdrift or a mountain.

"I'm gonna shine my floodlight on it," Scratcher said, and then the feed was lit up by a bright light. It looked like there was ice beneath the outcrop, reflecting in the camera, but there was something else there too. Lodged beneath the lip of rock like an insect hiding beneath a log was...a thing. It had a long, segmented body like a mantis shrimp or a lobster, tapering into a kind of thick tail. The armor was shiny and iridescent, hues of red and orange illuminated by the beam. Beneath it were dozens of insectoid legs of varying lengths, anchoring it to the dusty surface of the asteroid, the ones towards the bulbous front of its body longer and covered in what looked like large hooks. Each segment of its long tail had strange bulges protruding from it, two on each one for a total of maybe ten, a glint of metal reflecting off them. It didn't really have a defined head, but there was a bundle of what looked like wiry antennae and compound eyes hidden beneath the lip of its shell, twitching and shifting as Scratcher's floodlight disturbed it.

They didn't need to scan the thing to know that it was of Bug origin, and the video feed showed Scratcher's guns firing as he began to pull back. Jaeger was already checking his position on the map, spinning his Beewolf's nose towards his friend and gunning the engine. Acceleration crushed him against the padding of his seat as he opened his gun port and armed his missiles.

The flashes of gunfire and the orange bloom of explosions appeared in the distance, Jaeger decelerating so as not to overshoot, the G-forces buffeting him in his cockpit like he was riding a mechanical bull. Slowing down went against his every instinct, but in space, you didn't shed velocity once you eased off the throttle, you just kept going. He gritted his teeth, swinging his vessel to face the enemy as he drifted sideways, the computer doing its best to compensate with bursts from the thrusters.

The thing was huge, far larger than it had appeared on the video. Compared to Scratcher's tiny fighter, it looked to be about as big as a frigate, at least a hundred and fifty meters long. The little speck was retreating as the monster rose from its hiding place like a Kraken, spraying it with lines of glowing tracer fire that ricocheted off its armored hull and peppering it with missiles. Jaeger joined the fight, locking on with his railgun and unloading into the massive target, relying on the computer to handle targeting as he focused on positioning. The two other fighters soon came into range, but it was immediately apparent that they lacked the firepower to take this monster on.

"Don't waste your missiles!" Scratcher said, "it's too big. We need to call in backup!"

"What do we have that can kill this thing?" Baker asked. "Torpedo boat?"

"I'm calling it in," Jaeger said, switching channels hurriedly. "Mayday, mayday. This is Bullseye, come in control."

"This is control," a woman's voice crackled in his ear, "report."

"Have encountered a large Bug vessel hiding in the belt, too big for us to deal with. We need immediate support, this thing is the size of a frigate."

"Roger that, Bullseye, please hold."

Please hold? Easier said than done, he thought, watching as one of the creature's long forelimbs swiped at Scratcher. The Beewolf dodged out of the way, lines of thrusters flaring along the sides of the Bug vessel's segmented body like green candles as it rose higher from the surface of the asteroid, its many legs tucking beneath its body.

"Come in Bullseye," control said.

"Bullseye here, go ahead."

"Redirecting the UNN Baskeyfield to your position, stand by."

The Baskeyfield, that was one of their torpedo frigates, it should be able to get the job done. They just had to hold out long enough for backup to arrive. Its engines were far larger and more powerful than those of the Beewolfs, resulting in a much higher top speed, but it had a lot more tonnage to move around. It would take longer to both accelerate and decelerate.

"Can I get an ETA on that, control?"

"Ten or fifteen minutes, Bullseye."

"Frigate is on the way in fifteen, guys," he said as he switched channels. "Let's try and draw it out of the asteroids so that the torpedoes can get a lock on it."

"Watch the reach on its arms," Scratcher said, grunting as he accelerated away from the biological spaceship. It flicked out one of its massive forelimbs again like a praying mantis, the barbs that lined it as long as a person was tall. It looked slow, but that was an illusion due to its size, Scratcher only just getting out of range of it as the limb missed him by a hair. Its spindly antennae twitched, its wet, glistening eyes shifting independently of one another as it tracked the different fighters. Didn't it have missiles, plasma guns, projectile weapons of any kind? What was its purpose? Did it fill some kind of non-combat role, like harvesting ice or other raw materials to take back to the hive ship?

Everyone kept their distance, backing off as the thing chased them, moving sluggishly through the asteroids due to its immense size. It was large enough that it could just knock any rock smaller than itself out of the way, pushing them aside with its limbs and letting them bounce off its tough shell. Unlike the hull of a traditional spaceship, the Bug's body was organic and flexible, which gave it an advantage in this kind of environment.

"The cannons ain't doing shit, keep hittin' it with the railguns," Baker said. The carapace might be too thick for the conventional ammo to penetrate, but the tungsten slugs from the railguns were definitely getting through. They might get lucky and hit the pilot, or an internal organ, or whatever the hell was lurking beneath that shiny shell.

One would expect shouting and panic in the heat of battle, but everyone stayed remarkably calm. There was something impersonal about space combat, the distances involved, the relative tranquility of the sealed cockpit in which the only sound to be heard was that of your own instruments.

"Keep pulling back," Scratcher said. "If we can lure him into open space, then he'll be vulnerable."

The fleshy humps along its segmented back and tail began to wriggle, the movements immediately drawing Jaeger's eye.

"Somethin' weird is happening," Baker exclaimed, "look at it's back!"

He watched in horror as something living crawled out of one of the humps. Segmented legs gripped the shell of the creature, pulling its bulbous body out from beneath a fleshy hood, like a maggot emerging from a wound. It was one of the fighters that they had encountered the day before, its carapace lined with metal armor, its compound eyes reflecting the light. It looked like it had been living inside the hump on the larger vessel's back, like some kind of parasite.