7 Close call

Measuring over 2 meters from head to tail, termite warriors are the elites among the hives' offensive force. Unlike the soldiers and workers, which looked similar to ants, termite warriors could be compared to giant mantises. They moved around using four back legs attached to their abdomen, while the thorax stayed off the ground. Attached to the thorax were two powerful scythe-like forelegs that can be used to slash or grab objects, and a bulbous head with compound eyes and a set of wicked looking mandibles.

Besides their higher strength, resilience and a broader repertoire of natural weapons, warriors also possessed higher intelligence. Take these ones, for example, they had soldiers and workers draped all over their bodies to protect themselves from the heat and gunfire. In addition, each was using their forelegs to carry the body of a soldier as an improvised meat shield.

"Smart buggers!" Muttered Cheng as the team focused fire on the three warriors. As the bullets mostly landed on their "shields," the warriors advanced relatively unscathed. Behind them, termite soldiers stumbled out of the smoke. They recognized the warriors and followed them. Luckily, they were already heavily injured, and thus were slowly limping instead of running.

Cheng, who was aiming at the legs instead of the bodies, managed to shoot a leg off of one warrior.

"Good call, Cheng!" Following his example, Riley shot at the same warrior, severing two more legs, temporarily immobilizing it.

"Yes!" Mako exclaimed triumphantly as she scored a hit to the nearest warrior's head. "Oh, never mind." She said as the creature simply kept moving. However, its movement became much more sluggish and its forelegs lowered, further exposing the head.

Mako kept shooting in bursts, severing one of its antennae and destroying both of its eyes. Emitting a painful screech, the now blind and disoriented warrior ran in circles and collided with a wall. It then ran back toward the nest, ignoring the scalding WP smoke, its forelegs swinging randomly.

The third warrior, having advanced behind its two comrades to avoid getting shot at, shrugged off the dead termites on its body. In a blink of an eye, it closed the distance, pounced on Mako and slashed at her head with its foreleg blade. With a startled cry, she ducked, barely avoiding being decapitated. Jenkins, who was standing near Mako, turned and ran with a decidedly unmanly scream.

Riley shot at the warrior, landing several hits on its thorax, then his rifle clicked empty. Before he could reload, the thing turned and swiped at him with its right foreleg. Riley felt the wind knocked out of him as he was thrown several meters away. He was lucky that it was a "backhand" strike, otherwise, he would have been disemboweled.

"Jenkins, come back you little sh*t!" Cheng growled. He turned his rifle at the warrior. However, it had positioned itself between him and Mako, so he held his fire. Cursing under his breath, he switched to his staff and rushed in.

As Riley struggled to get to his feet, he saw the fleeing Jenkins tripped and fell. A loud explosion sounded as his shotgun discharged right at his face. Mr. Goodman stood there, stared at Jenkins' twitching body and shook his head in disbelief.

Riley wanted to curse, but what came out of his throat was a rasp wheezing. He picked up his rifle, reloaded and turned back to the main threat.

The termite warrior is now fully focused on Cheng. Riley saw it moving awkwardly and noticed one of its back legs was bent the wrong way, evidently Cheng's doing. The creature hissed and slashed at him with its forelegs, but he easily kept it at a distance with his staff. He looked decidedly heroic at that moment.

At least until he opened his mouth. "Guys, feel free to help anytime!" His voice was high-pitched and out of breath.

"Okay, my hero!" Mako, having got back on her feet, came to his assistance and fired at the creature with her submachine gun. She had switched to armor piercing rounds, which worked much better against the warrior's armored shell.

The bullets tore into its "waist," nearly cutting the thing in two. Like a puppet with its strings cut off, the warrior collapsed on the ground. It was still alive, but was unable to move, and could only feebly swipe its forelegs in a futile attempt to keep them away.

"Your kill, man," Riley said to Cheng. Nodding, Cheng brought his staff down on the warrior's head. With a loud crack, it lay still.

The trio turned their attention to the warrior with three legs shot off. It was still dragging itself toward them. Riley finished it off with several shots to the head and several more to the secondary nerve cluster on its back. Behind it, about a dozen crippled termites were limping about pathetically and were easily disposed of.

They could still hear the last termite warrior, blinded and disoriented, thrashing around in the white smoke, accidentally killing and maiming its kind. They decided to leave it be for the moment.

After using the motion detector to make sure there was no immediate danger, everyone let out a sigh of relief. Mako helped Riley check the spot he was hit earlier. It didn't look like he had broken any ribs, but he would have it examined later to be sure. Now for Jenkins…

"Guys, come and take a look at this!" Cheng was kneeling next to Jenkins' body and prodding it, ignoring Mr. Goodman's scowl. What on earth?

As Mako and Riley came closer, they realized that Jenkins was still breathing and had his face intact. Stuck in his forehead was a small cylinder with several fins at the back. Upon closer inspection, Riley realized it was a taser shotgun round.

This idiot had mistakenly loaded this round into his gun. And against all odds, he managed to shoot himself in the face with this less-than-lethal rounds instead of the usual buckshot or slug.

Cheng yanked out the spent taser round and shook Jenkins. "Rise and shine, princess!"

Jenkins groaned and startled awake. He looked around and tried to speak, but only intelligible grunts came out.

"You just got tasered in the face, so your jaw will be numb for a while. You'll be fine!" Cheng explained, holding up the round.

Jenkins looked at them in confusion. Noticed his bleeding ears, Riley realized he might have ruptured an eardrum or two. Cheng noticed it as well and explained it to Jenkins by typing on his smart-pad. Leaving Cheng and Mako to take care of Jenkins, Riley backtracked to retrieve the mines.

Several minutes later, the smoke from the WP grenades dispersed, revealing a mass of dead termite bodies that completely covered the floor. With their gas mask on, the group moved forward single-file, wincing as some of the cooked termite bodies burst under their feet.

They saw the blind warrior termite lying on the ground, having succumbed to the extreme heat. They put it out of its misery.

This nest's queen is a lot bigger than the previous two. Riley was certain that this had to be the secondary queen, if not the main queen itself. It offered no resistance and was put down easily.

>>> Primary objective updated - Nests remaining: 1/4

Riley and his team retreated back from the third nest and backtracked, stopping at a relatively clean and defensible section. They took a moment to rest. Mr. Goodman, once again, stayed at a distance and observed them.

"The examination mission is not supposed to be this dangerous," Cheng said grimly. His cheerfulness was gone.

"I agree," Mako muttered, rubbing her neck, still unnerved by the close call earlier.

"Three warriors? Protecting a nest of this size? This makes no sense! They must be from a bigger nest, sent here as reinforcement." Cheng continued.

Riley agreed with him. This termite nest, with a population of several hundred, was considered new. Normally, termite warriors were only born when the nest population approached one thousand, which would take at least a month. These four nests shouldn't have been around for more than two weeks. At least, that's according to the mission's intel.

"It could be that the scout team just took a quick look then retreated before fully confirming the nest's age." Mako suggested.

Riley checked the mission screen again and noticed that the difficulty had been bumped from [H] to[ G+]. His stomach sank. Exam missions had never had a difficulty level exceeding [G]. The adjustment just now was only based on what the team has faced so far.

If the last nest was bigger than this one and had more warriors, then the actual difficulty level might be even higher. Reluctantly, he notified the team of this change and his suspicion.

"Oh jeez!"Cheng groaned "They screwed us over on this one!" He then let loose a colorful string of curses that even had Mr. Goodman raised his eyebrows.

Riley let him get it out of his system, then asked. "Are you done yet, man?" Cheng sat down with a huff.

"Let's face it. Our intel is unreliable. We're practically in the dark now. We don't know what's ahead of us." Riley began.

"But, we've still got plenty of time left," He continued, checking the time. Their mission began only less than two hours ago, they still have nearly a day left.

"And we've only used… what? Less than a quarter of our supplies." Cheng and Mako checked their inventories and nodded. "I think we have a good shot at beating this. We just need to be extra cautious and make good use of everything we have. What do you guys think?"

"I agree with Riley. I've got a good feeling about this. I'm in!" Mako said. Cheng was still staring at the ground without responding. Jenkins simply sat in the corner, trying his best to be invisible.

"Oh, come on! Where's the guy that wanted us to stand back-to-back in the middle of the swarm and shoot everything that moves?" Riley joked, with a light punch at Cheng, who only gave a non-committal grunt.

"Besides," Riley continued "it's not like we'll rush in headfirst. We'll scout them out first. If it really is impossible to proceed, then we'll call it quits. No point getting ourselves hurt. There's always the next time."

Despite his words, Riley felt his stomach clenching. Aborting the mission meant that he would fail the exam and have to pay a fee to retake it two months from now. That would be another two months having to make ends meet with crappy part-time jobs. And then topping it off was the debt that his father left behind…

Forcing himself to dismiss the distracting thoughts, Riley looked at Cheng, awaiting his answer.

"You're right," after a while, he said "if we do this right, we'll make it. All right, I'm in."

They all turned and looked at Jenkins, who just nodded. His face is now as white as a sheet of paper.

"That settles it." Riley concluded "It's almost twelve already. I suggest we have lunch then come up with a plan. No use thinking on an empty stomach."

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