Swarm

by Devon C Ford

  The crowd agreed as the atmosphere and subtle noises combined to create a negative buzz at the suggestion. Sebastian bared his teeth and issued an impotent growl at the people he could see who weren’t overtly supporting his claim for leadership.

  “Does anyone else present themselves as leader?” Harrison cried out, desperate for another alternative to the simple bull of a man seeking power and influence. His time as leader had not been without tension, but as with so many others before him there had yet to be an overt challenge to his leadership, mostly due to his prowess as a warrior and a scout.

  He scanned the faces of the crowd, seeing hate in the eyes of some who he guessed had slept the last two nights without a loved one, but mostly he saw a pleading look. People were frightened, he knew that, but in the faces of his people he recognized that he had made a mistake, and that the fear wasn’t in his leadership.

  “Suggest that I stay as leader,” he muttered to Tori beside him under his breath.

  “What?” she said, slightly too loud for his liking. He hissed through his teeth, trying to warn her to keep her voice lower. She shot him a glance of annoyance, clearly not happy at his attempt to quieten her, but she nodded in agreement. Before he could repeat it, another voice boomed from the gathering.

  “I submit myself for leadership,” a young man shouted, making Harrison’s eyes bulge wide at the betrayal. The man, Jacob, had grown up with Harrison, and fought alongside him as a friend, the two having spent more nights than they could count side by side guarding the wall and one who was now counted amongst his closest supporters, stepped forwards. They locked eyes; Harrison’s registering disappointment and betrayal as the other man’s flashed with ambition and temper. “If he isn’t strong enough to lead you,” the man shouted, “and he costs us all the lives of those lost to The Swarm—”

  Tori stepped forwards, her right hand sliding behind her hip where she always kept a dagger, until Harrison held his hand out in front of her.

  “Let him speak,” he murmured.

  “—then he doesn’t deserve to be called leader. For all we know, he caused this attack with his reckless actions, by talking to the people from above. We should leave these newcomers alone to defend themselves like we should do for ourselves.”

  “Is that what you would do, Jacob?” Harrison asked loudly. “Ignore everything outside our walls and hide here? Wait for another attack from Tanaka? Wait for The Swarm to come back?”

  The crowd grumbled and murmured, the noise swelling with agreement when Harrison spoke. Jacob rounded on him angrily, but Tori cut him off by raising her voice to the crowd.

  “I say that Harrison should remain our leader,” she yelled, her voice shriller than the deep rumblings of the male challengers. Her interruption was timed to perfection, and the sounds of the crowd amplified as more voices joined her in agreement.

  “I would attack!” yelled Sebastian, brandishing his axe high in the air and receiving much less support from the warriors he hoped to ignite with his promise of war. “Attack the Springs, attack the newcomers from the stars…” The support he had melted away as few of them had the stomach for a fight right then, especially two fights against enemies with more power than they believed themselves to have.

  “We should consolidate here,” Jacob shouted over the noise, adjusting his body position in response to the threatening stance from Sebastian, forcing other warriors to impose themselves with hands on undrawn weapons between the two men to prevent a fight.

  “We should find a new way,” Harrison said, “one that doesn’t involve war and doesn’t involve hiding behind our walls waiting to be attacked.”

  “What way?” shouted a woman from the crowd. “How can we be safe to live our lives in peace?”

  “Peace?” Sebastian roared, throwing his head back to laugh at the notion and losing what little support he had left in the crowd. “Peace is for the weak and the women. Men want war!”

  “We must talk,” Harrison said, “we must form alliances and put a stop to the endless war we’ve been burned by for all of our lives.”

  “You want to make friends with everyone,” Jacob scoffed as he threw a dismissive hand up at the platform, turning to the crowd to gather support. “He is weak, and he thinks only of himself.”

  “That’s not tru—” Tori’s objection was cut off by Harrison placing a calming hand on her arm. Having your lover come to your defense was touching but unhelpful.

  “Enough,” he said. “As is our way, I will not stop either of these men presenting themselves to be your leader, but I cannot follow the path that either of them suggests.” He let out a shaky breath before speaking again, “I present myself as your leader still. We cast the ballot tonight.” He stepped down from the platform and disappeared quickly from view.

  ~

  The ballot was cast just after nightfall in the very center of the town. Tradition dictated that those offering themselves for leadership could not vote and must stand at the entrance of the hut where they could oversee the fairness of the process. Those on watch cast their stones early before joining other warriors on the wall, and every adult man and woman gathered to collect a stone from the huge, woven basket in the middle of the open area. One by one they filed through a small hut where they cast their stones into one of three baskets, each one overlooked by a town Elder.

  Before long, those coming out of the other end were smiling and laughing as though they had seen something funny, and it wasn’t until the line of people was prevented from coming in that one of the Elders came out of the hut and looked around nervously, counting the people still waiting, before stepping back inside out of sight.

  All three came back outside, sparking loud murmuring among the people until one held up both hands and waited for hush to descend.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Sebastian demanded angrily, walking to the older man and towering over him to intimidate and bully like it was the only way he knew how to communicate. “There are still people left to vote, so get back inside!”

  “There’s no point,” another said.

  “No point?” Sebastian snarled, lifting the wide-bladed head of his axe to rest it threateningly on the man’s shoulder.

  “Stop that!” Jacob shouted, standing and levelling a spear at the big man. “Let him speak.”

  Sebastian, forced to either fight a rival or step back, laughed as though it was all a joke. The man who he had threatened relaxed, knowing the joke wasn’t funny.

  “There’s no point,” he said again, “because there aren’t enough people left to change the results. Even if there were double, it still wouldn’t make a difference.”

  “You don’t need to count the stones?” a woman asked, clutching the small, smooth pebble in her hands that she planned to drop into the basket of the man she felt her family were safest with.

  “No,” one of the ballot counters said, “one basket is already overflowing.”

  With a growl, Sebastian shouldered and barged his way through the line and entered the hut. Immediately the sounds of him roaring in anger could be heard by even those furthest away in the line. The big warrior reappeared, his face a mask of anger, and he turned to find Harrison’s face. For a long moment it seemed that he was going to rush him to beat him down with the axe, and more than one hand slid to the hilt of a weapon in readiness, but instead of launching into an attack he bowed suddenly, deeply and with undisguised mockery before standing straight and stalking away to the walls.

  Jacob looked at Harrison in shock, fearful of the consequences of his open challenge to a man who had called him friend, before he too ran into the hut to check. He walked out in silence and left the town square saying nothing more.

  Tori went next, walking inside to see three large woven baskets—one overflowing with stones and the other two containing less than a handful. The counters of the ballet were right; even twice the number of people left to cast their vote couldn’t change the results.

  Walking back o
utside she ignored the fixed gazes of everyone in sight and stood beside Harrison. Lifting his hand into the air, she looked out at the faces of their people and declared the leadership to still be his.

  The cheers from the majority of the people told him that he had done the right thing, both in offering to allow someone else the leadership through a fair and open contest, and also that remaining in charge was what the people wanted.

  CHAPTER 6

  Dissection of Life

  Hendricks stood in the center of the circle surrounded by his team. The light was rising fast as dawn showed itself on the horizon.

  “Weber, Geiger, I need you two back on the walls please.” They nodded and without a word turned and made their way to the ladders that gave access to the top of the pods.

  “Annie, how much ammunition did we expend?” The two-tone bleep sounded in all their ears as she came online.

  “I can give you a detailed gun-by-gun report or would you prefer the summary?”

  Hendricks smiled a tired smile. “Just the summary please, Annie.”

  “Of course. When firing the weapons, I was aware of the limited reserves we have, so I operated each separate system at their lowest effective rate of fire I calculated was necessary to hold back The Swarm whilst switching weapons to prevent any single position from expending more ammunition than was necessary if another position could bring effective fire to bear.”

  “Impressive,” Hendricks said in a tone of voice that quite clearly said, ‘get to the point.’

  “I only increased the rate of fire when the breach was occurring and even then, I’m sorry to say that I couldn’t stop them.” Annie paused as if admonishing herself before continuing. “For the automated defense turrets, we expended approximately fifteen percent of our total available ammunition. I would recommend them all being rearmed as a matter of urgency. Do you now want a report of personal ammunition usage?”

  “No, thank you, Annie. I think we know how much we used. It was the pods I was concerned about.” Hendricks saw Amir walk into view with Hayley Cole close behind him. He watched as Amir searched the compound until he noticed him and immediately headed in his direction.

  “Okay, I need to talk to Mister Weatherby. Weber and Geiger are on the wall,” Hendricks said, “Magda and Stevens, get the guns re-armed. Everyone else on standby and patrol.”

  Most shot a look of distrust in Amir’s direction as they left for their assigned tasks. They had heard him trying to countermand Hendricks over using the gun pods and knew if their boss hadn’t acted immediately all of them could have died. It was the scorn of all professionals, being told how to do their jobs by politicians.

  Amir noticed the looks cast in his direction and thought bitterly how, once again, he had made the wrong call. For what he considered the right reasons, he’d tried to preserve The Swarm, but the snap decisions he was used to making in the boardroom didn’t usually kill people if they were wrong. The call he made last night, he knew, was wrong and he needed to explain before his position was further eroded. He knew he had an ace or three up his sleeve, but he couldn’t reveal it yet as he wasn’t sure it still existed, but to find out he needed the help of those who now distrusted him even more.

  Hendricks stood still, letting Amir come to him, before he crossed his arms and adopted a blank look of coldness. Amir noticed and raised his hands in apology. He needed to use all his skills to get their relationship back on an even footing.

  “I know what you’re about to say,” he began. Admitting he was wrong was something he wasn’t used to doing, and in business he could always lay the blame at another person’s feet. “I was wrong. I can see that now.” He saw Hendricks bristle as was about to speak and held his hands up again. “Please let me explain. I believe we may have a way of controlling The Swarm.” He paused, waiting for the shock that statement would cause

  “Think about it: last night couldn’t have been some random attack. For them to appear at our walls in such numbers, it’s almost as if they were commanded to do so. The one event I didn’t see happening was them breaching our walls. I wanted Annie to study them so we could learn more about them, and with what the scientists discovered about them yesterday I wanted to see if we could corroborate the theory and back it up with real data.” He saw he had Hendricks’ attention and continued. “I believe the data we need may be in Charlie site Annie’s memory banks. We need to access it as a matter of priority.”

  Hendricks looked long and hard at Amir. Annie, who had been listening in as always, bleeped an inoffensive tone in both of their ears like she was clearing her throat for their attention.

  “Mister Weatherby is correct. We did not have time to brief you fully on what we discovered yesterday. Can I suggest I call all the relevant people together and discuss our findings?”

  Amir smiled inwardly. He saw the look on Hendricks’ face change from anger to curiosity and knew he had him hooked. Silently, he congratulated himself on diffusing the situation and not harming his own position further.

  Hendricks spoke to Annie, effectively taking control of the situation and reasserting himself as one of the leaders. “Please do,” he said, looking annoyed as he realized how subtly Amir had played the situation but conceding the point gracefully.

  Hendricks waited for Amir to ask Annie to get the people he wanted at the meeting before calling out to him as he turned away. “Oh, one more thing?” he said, still sounding amenable. Amir’s face then dropped as Hendricks glared at him forcefully. “Don’t ever countermand me on security matters again. I am here to keep you all safe. It’s what my team and I are here for. I’ll leave all the political backstabbing bollocks to you suits; do me the courtesy of staying the fuck out of my wheelhouse.”

  Annie spoke into their earpieces, cutting the tension expertly. “I have opened a private channel for all who need to attend. If you two could make your way over to the lab I will ask the others to join you.”

  The bug looked a lot different to the last time most had seen it. Oozing coils of dark meat lay on the metal workstation as the thing was laid on its back with all six legs pinned down by small clamps. Anderson was there, still splashed with dried gore in a lighter shade than the insides of the dissected bug, a look of scientific concentration on his face in place of the revulsion the others had at seeing the thing initially.

  “Everybody,” Anderson said, “Doctor Herbert, one of our biologists.”

  “Entomologist,” Herbert corrected. His curious accent spoke of a European birth and a life spent researching and studying all over the world. “Calling me simply a biologist is like explaining what you do as ‘the computer guy.’”

  “Alright,” Anderson said, “Doctor Herbert here has a major woody for bugs. It’s his thing.” Stifled laughter went around the assembled group crammed into the small lab as Herbert looked up in annoyance.

  “Thank you for that, Doctor Anderson,” he said flatly before launching into the results of his findings. “As someone with ‘a thing for bugs’ I can tell you categorically that this is no species of insect found alive before the meteor strike—”

  “Asteroid,” Amir interrupted.

  “—that caused the extinction event of most species on the planet. My conclusion is simply that this species is either not from Earth or, far more likely in my opinion, is actually an artificially created organism.”

  “What?” Hendricks asked, taken by surprise at the mention of anything extraterrestrial. “So this is either an alien bug or else it’s been genetically created?”

  “Precisely so, Mister Hendricks,” Herbert said, “the makeup of this creature is quite extraordinary. From what I can surmise it has the base DNA of both the Tiger beetle and a form of large ant; likely Bullet ants or Australian meat ants.” More than one person shuddered at the toxic mix of creepy-crawlies which didn’t seem to bother Dr. Herbert one bit.

  “They are clearly eusocial, meaning that they operate with a kind of single consciousness of co-operation, which is
common in many arthropods, but less so in beetles which these most resemble. In the case of the Tiger beetle I can see the value of its genetic inclusion due to both the incredible speeds it can attain and also the higher than average level of aggressive behavior displayed. Also the specific attack of those ants is beneficial to any form of weaponization of the…”

  He trailed off as blank faces looked back at him. He sighed and looked to Anderson for help, who thought for a moment before translating for him. “They look like big-ass Tiger beetle hybrid ants, the shiny shell and all that, but they’re more like ants inside with some other stuff the good doctor here can’t understand—”

  “Yet,” Herbert interjected.

  “—yet,” Anderson went on. “They have like a hive mind, like bees and ants, but they aren’t one or the other. Best thing? That’s not even the weirdest part…”

  Anderson nodded at Herbert, who used a gloved hand and a shiny tool to peel back the thorax section of the bug and expose the inside.

  “Wait,” Hendricks said, “that looks like…”

  “Yeah,” Anderson said, “wires.”

  “Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” Hayley Cole said, throwing her arms up in disgust at the entomologist poking around inside the carcass, “let me know when y’all are done here.” Herbert waited for her to leave before continuing.

  “The wires, as such, are naturally formed with a substance rich in natural metal fibers running along them. In essence, this form of electrical system has been organically grown, not installed into a live specimen.”

  “What’s even weirder,” Anderson said, “is that there are transmitters and receivers built into their bodies. It’s like a kind of cyborg, but a naturally created one.”

  “How… how is this even possible?” Hendricks asked. “Any of it?”

  “This is not the million-dollar question,” Herbert said, “what you should be asking is, ‘where is their Queen?’”