The creatures that we saw clambered over salt-laden terrain, chittering loudly. Scraping sounds filled the air anytime one of them moved, any pretense of stealth abandoned with their lumbering and heavily armored forms. They were dramatically larger than the previous biotics we’d seen, almost twice over the size of the previous beetles. As we dove behind cover, expecting a barrage of salt, I wondered if these creatures were in fact the adults of the species, then.

Several of us fired around corners and shields, wary of being out in the open. Luckily, there were plenty of grooves of salt, pitted floors similar to craters creating convenient defensive points.

My rifle roared in my hands, trails of super heated metal spat forth faster than the speed of sound. Others fire power joined mine, bursts coming through even as we expected the returning volley.

I frowned as I listened, able to hear the cracking and clacking of exoskeleton against salt, rushing forward towards my position.

They were going to charge our position, I realized with a start. Without wasting time, I darted up from my position, rolling backwards with a shout, “Back!”

Only moments later the salt outcropping that I’d been hiding at burst, sending plumes of salt into the air. Chunks of it shot forward, some hitting my armor and bouncing off harmlessly.

The beast that stood in front of me halted its charge momentarily, its body twisting to the side. A crest of salt armor a foot thick protected the bulk of its body, smaller shaped pieces wrapped it’s limbs, contoured and smoothed out around joints to allow freedom of motion. The regular beetles tended to have roughly placed salt plates with no thought beyond having it attached.

This thing instead had angled armor, and the few shots that had already hit it had left grooves in the armor, still hot and smoking, but little else.

And as it twisted, I saw the multifaceted eyes on the sides of its head look at me.

Then it’s mandibles contorted, a strange sound unlike that which I’d heard before like a blend between clicking and chortling.

It was, for lack of anything else I could guess about it, laughing at me.

A red pinpoint gleamed on my helmet as I snapped the gun up and shot it point blank range in the eye before it could respond.

Silver gunk splattered out of the wound as it screeched in rage, tilting forward and charging, razor sharp sections of the shell becoming vividly apparent. My mind raced as it moved to crush and carve me against the floor, others in the area crying out in surprise as they too moved to evade the hulking biotics.

Behind me and to the sides the crater of salt limited my movements. There were only a few things that were to my advantage, one of which being that it was effectively blind when it was attacking due to the armor hood covering it. With a burst of movement I jumped, slamming a foot into the top of the armor as it came down, my reaper augmented muscles pushing me just beyond ordinary human limits. First one step, then the second, bringing myself over the worst of the slam.

On the third step, though, my gut tightened. In slow motion I could see as its wings shot upwards, spikes and a veritable wall of lacerating salt blades quickly becoming apparent. The wings were fused together, a weapon all on their own, completely lacking in the normal organ for firing harpoons, it seemed.

I pushed off, bracing with my arms, biosteel out first, and felt the spikes batter against my armor. A dull ache resounded in my body, but the plates of the reaper suit held steady against the strike, broken bits of salt splaying from the exoskeleton.

Jarringly, it flung me backwards with the force of the blow. Smith’s training clicked into place before I could consciously make the decision to actually respond. My body twisted, a brief moment of contact with the ground enough to push off with my feet again. I flipped backwards with the momentum, bleeding it off while doing my best to keep my grasp on my weapon. My right arm cradled it, my left arm handling the impacts with impunity.

As I came to a stop, my rifle snapped back up into a firing position, it occurred to me that this was far beyond anything that I had thought possible. Being a reaper certainly had its perks, at least.

I rattled off a burst of shots into the headpiece of the armor, trying to punch through it at full auto. Even through the sheets of salt wafting through the air, the deafening cacophony of sound in the sealed space, my attention didn’t waver. The hive guardian hissed in annoyance, sheets of salt blasting from its armor at this close of a distance. It brought its scything talons up, defending itself from the sudden shower of bullets.

The excitement bled away an instant later when I watched its wings flare up again.

I am not letting that happen twice!

The moment it lurched forwards, I dodged to the side, a crisp dodge even as some of the spikes came within centimeters of me. A snarl and grinding snap resounded from it as the spikes hit the ground where I’d just been. Angry, it spun around, searching for where I’d gone.

There was certainly one good thing about heavily armored opponents. They had plenty of blind spots, especially with these things in particular.

Carefully keeping myself between two of its larger back legs, I pointed the gun at the exposed abdomen, the wing plates carefully protecting it from the front.

Several shots tore into the softer flesh, biotic blood splattering wildly as I did so. The next instant, I extricated quickly, and not a moment too soon. I felt the wings clap shut so quickly that I could feel it in my gut, the hardened plates protecting it once more.

It turned to me, slightly slanted away to let it see me with its good eyes. My legs tightened as I envisioned the few ways it could close the gap on me. None of them played out well for it. Without getting me against a wall, I doubted it could catch my mobility.

Shockingly, it seemed to come to the same conclusion. Flabbergasted, I didn’t know how to respond when it shrieked widly and then turned away from me, running at a dead sprint.

My brain belatedly began to work then, and I fired a quick retort from my weapon as it rounded a corner, the burst of shots chipping away at the back armor of the bug.

More noises brought my attention back to the others, the other five beetles all retreating with varying degrees of injuries. No single one of them left without a bit of silver blood trickling from them.

But, there was a price paid for that.

“Gather up, head count!” I called out, dreading the response.

“Accounted for, we lost two over here,” Yomar huffed, his axes covered in a mixture of salt and grey fluids.

The next response came from Ziek, “Those fucking things are bad. We lost one on the right, but two more aren’t up for much fighting here.”

I nodded, looking to our wounded. All told, we had three that probably shouldn’t be moving around. That would decrease our survivability by quite a bit if we had to slow down for people in this area.

At that I paused, realizing that perhaps the practical meaning of the situation should potentially be secondary to the fact that we just lost people. My gut wrangled at the thought that we were losing people, but at the same time, there was some part of me that was just cold and calculating in this moment.

That was something that was admittedly very handy right now. I turned my attention outwards, gazing along the dimly lit cavern. Only now did I realize how strange it was that these biotics had eyes, in such a dark world, surely they didn’t need them? Perhaps they didn’t need them down here, but topside it would be invaluable. Was that by some kind of design then? How did that even work?

One way to find out, I shook myself from the distraction, realizing that the space was wide open enough that we might not have an easy time of moving forward. If we were dogged every step of the way… how many losses would we take then?

I turned back to the others, more gathered together, some passing out extra ammo just in case someone was in danger of running dry. How many of these people would walk out of here alive at this rate?

We didn’t need a new plan, though. What we needed was a new strategy.

“Yomar, Richard, Tabitha, and Ziek. You four are on me. The rest of you bulk up and advance slow, head up the right side of this cavern.” I started, seeing everyone’s attention turn quizzical in nature. “The wounded need to be defended, but we have to move quick. So, we split the team. We’ll be going ahead along the left side of the cavern and try to slip past any biotics while you guys go up the right.” I explained, knowing that this was not a kind plan.

Surprisingly, the others didn’t speak immediately. Maybe they were absorbing the fact that I wanted to make a group the scapegoats for the biotics attention.

“So, we’re bait?” Someone summarized, the man who’d been injured in the hall spoke up. It wasn’t an accusation, to my amusement, more like a statement.

“Pretty much.” I nodded to him, not seeing the point in dancing around the issue.

Someone else snickered, “Well shit… any rules aside from being distracting?”

At that I paused, looking around steadily at the others around me. Was I the weird one? Was this not actually bad?

“No, not really. Just keep moving a bit forward.” I nodded, studying them carefully.

“Cool, I’ve got a great singing voice,” Someone deadpanned, drawing a few chuckles from everyone. I smiled even as I shook my head.

I suppose they were taking the whole ‘mission’ concept more to heart. Clearly, people were still scared. A few had trembling hands, the man who cracked the joke one of them. And yet, they were going through with it.

Then again, it was hard to say which group had the harder job on this one…

“Lets go, those Hive Guard aren’t going to stay in retreat forever.” I nodded to them, watching as everyone moved around, picking up shields and covering our dead.

As the five of us drifted off through the shadows, each of our lights snuffed out to the dimmest we dared as we went, I could hear the group behind us quickly picking up in noise, rattling through the cavern.

And, ironically, someone was pretty damned good at singing back there...