Alan sped along on his 4-wheeler, leaving a cloud of black dust behind. Alongside him, Adrian too, turned up the black soil of the wastes.

“Alpha team, you're at your mark, make your hit, then turn back to base.” A voice crackle on the radio he was wearing."

“Confirmed, we’ll make it back to the Roach Motel, before the party starts..” Alan responded.

Looking over at Adrian and gesturing with his hands, they both turned left for their target, slowing down to decrease their dust. Alan couldn’t help but reflect on how he’d gotten here.

It had taken some time for Alan to tell his plan to deal with the insect horde to the fiery CEO. Shelley, to her credit, listened patiently to the details. And despite the rough outline that he gave, she agreed to it.

Bryan Jakes, her second in command and general manger, in turn, filled in a number of additional details, pulling from his own experience as an ex-officer in the military. He and the other security forces, all understood what was at stake, and moved quickly.

Alan drove up a low ridge, and prepared himself, for what felt like the dozenth time. Cresting the ridge he was finally able to see his target. Before him was a great, writhing mass of bug-like creatures. The majority consisted of large grubs nearly varying in size from 3 to 10 feet in length and the canine bugs that had attacked him too. Interspersed among them were car sized beetles, with huge jaws. Each individual bug seemed to move randomly, moving around the mass without a distinct pattern, but as you looked out over the whole mass, it seemed to move inexorably toward homebase.

Acting quickly, already used to the familiar pattern, Alan unleashed a barrage of energy bolts into the rear of the formation. Blue, energetic discharges exploded, ripping apart a half a dozen bugs. Next to him, Adrian, unloaded his magazine, and quickly reloaded and fired again.

From the swarm, a bulge formed, sending some of the faster moving bugs in the direction of Alan and his companion. The rest of the formation continued forward, ignoring the interruption.

“Time to go.” Adrian stated matter of factly. To finish his barrage, he took out a medium sized cylinder. Upon activation, a bright projectile, like a flair, shot out toward the bulge. The explosion was like a small grenade, scattering the bugs everywhere, and disorienting the swarm.

“Yeah...:”Alan looked on somewhat disheartedly. As they turned around to speed off. He couldn’t help but sigh into his microphone.

“Don’t get too down, Alan, we delayed them as long as we could.”

“I know. Let's just hope it works out.”

****

Queen Komaxa of the Hive was hungry and irritated. The former feeling was familiar to her and easily dealt with, as she devoured the head of some animal her minions had brought her. The latter was a new feeling. The new hunting grounds were so close, yet her children kept being harassed along the way. The losses of a few of her children, though upsetting, were inevitable when moving the nest. But her prey kept pestering her, confusing her children, and delaying the hungry swarm.

One of the creatures was brought before her. She looked down at it with some interest. It shivered in her presence, it’s heat signature clearly visible to her in the dark cramped space. As she studied it, she was unimpressed by it’s small teeth and lack of spines or armor. Her children even said it lacked any kind of poison or venom. She wondered for a moment, how such cattle could have harmed her children. But what did she care?

Her mandibles clacked quickly, saliva dripping before her. In the end it didn’t matter how they managed to hurt her children. Soon her irritation would be gone. And sooner still, her hunger.

****

Alan and Adrian made it back to base quickly, as the swarm was less than a few hours away from the encampment. They passed through a makeshift gate, made of a couple of repurposed dining tables. Passing through them, Alan couldn’t help but be somewhat impressed by the low lying wall which stretched between two hills. Atop of each hiss were makeshift defensive emplacements, bristling with weapons, courtesy of Blatta.

As his thoughts shifted to the bug-like Croatht, he was surprised to see her, along with Jakes and Shelley beneath their makeshift command tent outside the recreation building. Blatta, her obsidian carapace, complimenting the dark haired beauty and CEO of Callisto Corporation.

As Alan turned off his 4-wheeler, it seemed as though he had arrived just in time to overhear another negotiation between the pair.

“Blatta, how many times do I have to tell you, If I lose, you lose everything, and I need those extra rounds of flare grenades” Shelley tried to desperately control her anger, despite her evident exhaustion

“I know your points little girl.” Blatta said condescendingly, knowingly irritating the dark haired woman, “But don’t think you can take advantage of such a desperate situation to get my wares for such a small trifle.”

“A trifle?...Me taking advantage of the situation?!” She responded with incredulity.

Alan sighed, knowing that the negotiation had just ended.

She unexpectedly turned to Alan, “I can’t deal with this right now, she’s your business partner, you deal with it!”

And with that, she stormed off toward the recreation center. A moment later, Jakes ushered an aid to follow after her with brief instructions.

Alan gave Blatta a bland expression before speaking, “Did you have to get her so angry?”

Blatta gave a hissing kind of laugh,“I like her Alan, besides I am doing you a favor.”

“By calling her a little girl?”

Blatta gave a quick look to Jakes, “Your little queen has barely slept or rested for 3 days straight, and despite the urging of those with wisdom,” Jakes seemed to show a brief smile. “She has insisted on trying to manage every detail. I just gave her a reason to delegate for a bit.”

Alan’s dropped slightly, as he looked at the conspiring duo. It seemed he had a missed a few things while he had been on patrol.

“I take it that you two will work out the needed details?”

“Yes Alan,” Jakes spoke up, trying to hide a grin, “I think we can handle it.”

Alan nodded, before continuing. “I should have been the last squad in, are we set to go?”

Jakes immediately grew more serious, “Yes, you and the other patrols were successful in helping to change the direction of the swarm so they will attack our defenses directly. Though I do have to report that we lost 2 patrols earlier today. They started anticipating our attacks with more accuracy. Did you notice any changes?”

Alan grew sick at hearing that, 2 patrols missing. He shuddered to think about what happened to those men. Returning his mind back to the conversation, he shook his head. “Nothing that we haven’t seen, we can’t disrupt the whole swarm anymore, they only send out a few bugs to chase us now.”

Jakes nodded somberly. “I’ve got a few other things to take care of before they get here. Would you mind checking in on Shelley?”

“Sure thing.”

Adrian and Alan separated. Adrian making his way to his own assignment, while made his way in to the canteen to find Shelley.

She sat at a table, with a spoon of slowly melting chocolate ice-cream and fudge in her hand. Her aid, tactfully sitting a few tables away. Shelley’s eyes seemed vacant, staring off at something that wasn’t here. Her spoon just hovered there, unmoving, as if she’d lost focus between bites.

She didn’t seem to notice Alan, as he sat next to her.

Alan grabbed a spoon sitting on the table, and dipped it into the Ice Cream Sundae, and took a bite. This seemed to awaken Shelley from out of her trance. She looked up at him, noticing for the first time he was there.

“Hey, that’s my ice cream.” She protested weakly.

Looking down at the still unmoved spoon, and melting Sundae, he teased “Well It didn’t look like you were going to finish.”

It seemed she finally noticed the spoon, and blushing slightly, ate her melting bite.

“It seems so stupid now,” She said half heartedly, “Instead of bringing additional tools, ammunition or anything remotely useful, I had them bring in a case of chocolate ice.”

“I don’t know, it seems pretty useful to me.” Alan zoomed-in to steal another bite, “ I can’t think of a better meal to have before a battle than ice cream and fudge.” He stole and ate another scoop, as Shelley tried to block his attack, but was thwarted by her own laugh.

Alan smiled at that, “Didn’t you know that the ancient norse viking would always have ice-cream before plundering a village.” He gave her a cheesy grin, “Of course they would have rainbow sprinkles on theirs.”

Shelley rolled her eyes, while simultaneously trying to hide a smile between bites.

They sat there for a few minutes cleaning the bowl before she spoke up again. “I screwed up. I tried to do too much too soon.”

Alan just listened as she put her head on the table.

“I thought I could single handedly make Callisto Corporation hugely successful. I could finally get out from under the thumb of my Father, make my own future.” As she spoke Alan couldn’t tell if the little CEO was starting to tear up or not. He gently placed his hand on her back. She tensed for just a moment, before relaxing again. Not protesting the gesture.

“I’m just so tired. One he finds out what happens...I’m done. Callisto might as well be done...I’m just so tired.” Shelley’s voice drifted off, as the pause between sentences grew longer, until finally all Alan could sense was her deep even breathing.

Alan wanted to linger there, just to be with her, for her, longer. But the smooth metal step coming from behind him caught his attention.

739 approached him, pausing just a few steps away. Alan carefully lifted himself from his seat and motioned the droid to follow him outside. Along the way, Alan left instructions for the Aid to let the little CEO sleep for as long as possible.

Once outside Alan asked the droid what he needed.

“Alan, your father requested you meet with him to assist with the final preparation of the laser array he has been working on.”

Alan nodded.

They moved down the make-shift street. The 3 new building flanking each side, were soon replaced by the tents, shacks, and now piles of equipment on each side. Moving along they came to the end of the street where his father, and a small group of engineers stood next to a small makeship tower. At the top was an oblong tube, where a mess of wires and tubes extended haphazardly. His father stood atop the cylinder, bent over it, as bright flashes emanate from a tool he was using.

The device was a mining laser, extracted from a ship he’d scouted when he’d first arrived. He’d initially planned to carefully salvage the device, and repurpose it for industrial use. But after discussion with Jakes, Shelley and his Father had decided that it could work much better as part of their defense plans and so stripped it out quickly for it’s new purpose.

His father looked up, yelled out a few commands to the waiting engineers, who then seemed to run a few tests. His father, after a few minutes, seemed satisfied and made his way off the top of the tower.

“Hey Son!” His father shouted, before he gave Alan a big bear hug.

“Hi Dad.” Letting go Alan went on, “739 said you needed me?”

“Hmm, more to give you an update. We’ve got all the gun emplacements up and going with this guy,” he pointed to the laser, “being the grand finale.”

“That’s great Dad! I’m just surprised you got it to work.”

“Well give me enough duct tape and superglue and I can do anything.” His dad teased, his face turned serious after that as he continued, “But seriously, this thing might as well be made of tape and glue because I honestly don’t know how long it will last.”

“What is your best estimate?”

“I wouldn’t do a pulse for longer than 5 seconds, and you’ll be lucky to get more than 1 or 2 at most. You just make sure that Jakes knows what he’s got here, don’t want him wasting any shots.”

“Thank Dad, hopefully it will be enough.”

“Any word from Nick?” His father asked.

“No.” Alan let out a tense breath, “But we’ll just have to be fine without him.” Alan couldn't help but feel anxious about that part of the plan. But hopefully with their current plans they wouldn’t need it.

As Alan walked back down the street a voice came over the radio. “Alan this is Jakes, our drones spotters indicate that we’ve got about 20 minutes before things get started”

“Understood.” Alan sighed, and drew upon his current VE reserves to fill his weapons. It was about to start.