6 Let me snap a pic

The termite queen lying in front of them looked like a gigantic maggot that was as long as a person is tall and several times as wide. Its brown and white skin was slightly translucent and was slightly rippling. Its small nubs of feet wiggled around uselessly, while eggs after eggs were being churned out of one end.

The queen seemed unhurt by the incendiary attack. Apparently, the worker termites had used their bodies to seal the queen's chamber.

"Ugh... Yuck." Mako commented dryly, while Jenkins frantically turned away, likely looking for a corner to deposit his breakfast.

"That was almost too easy! I kinda feel sorry for it." Cheng commented.

"Let's finish this." Forcing down the bile that was rising up the back of his throat, Riley leveled his sidearm at the eyeless head.

"Wait wait wait! Hang on a sec!" Cheng said quickly. He whipped out his smart-pad.

"Just let me snap a pic, okay?" He pleaded to Riley.

Riley face-palmed. Come on, dude! The supervisor's right behind us. How about acting a little more professionally? However, he held his tongue. Cheng must have been under quite a bit of pressure earlier, what with having a heavily revered figure breathing down his neck. Now he had loosened up enough to begin joking around. This was a good thing, or at least much better than him having a performance anxiety.

"All right, make it quick!" Riley said with a sigh.

Grinning from ear to ear, Cheng turned his back to the queen, held up his smart-pad and posed. Just before he pressed the button, the queen moved. She turned her head at him and spit out a green gob. It hit Cheng squarely on his back.

"Arrgh! What the f*ck!" Startled, Cheng dropped his smart-pad.

"You piece of sh*t!" He turned around, pulled his revolver and emptied the clip at the queen's head. The high-caliber rounds tore into flesh like a hot knife through butter. Green goo splashed out of the wounds, fouling the air with a sour smell that would have made their eye water had it not been for the gas masks.

The queen twitched several times then lay still, and eggs stopped coming out of it. Riley's HUD notified him of the mission progress.

>>> Primary objective updated - Nests remaining: 3/4

"Sh*t?! It hit me! Is it acid?" His anger abated, Cheng frantically turned around, trying to look at his back. It was comical to see the giant man spinning in place like a puppy chasing its tail. He almost reached behind to touch the green goo but stopped himself.

"Don't worry. It's not corrosive! Just regular spit!" Suppressing his laughter, Riley answered. Cheng produced a piece of cloth and Riley helped him clean the goo.

"Nice picture!" Mako said, inspecting the snapshot Cheng took on his smart-pad. Her face remained deadpan but her voice betrayed amusement.

"Hmph. The thing's got a lot of attitude for an oversized maggot!" Cheng harrumphed, clearly embarrassed for having lost his cool. "Come on, guys, we don't have all day!" He urged the group, clearly wishing to leave this whole debacle behind.

"Sure. Hey, you dropped this!" Mako handed Cheng his smart-pad. "Take a better picture next time."

"I'm done, I'm done! No more pics!" His face flushed red, Cheng hurriedly put it away.

The team retrieved dropped magazines and reloaded their weapons. Afterward, they split up and inspect the area. The walls and floors are mostly intact. The team had made a conscious choice to use low-power rounds, except for Cheng's who hand unloaded six .50 slugs into the queen's head.

"I've found a maintenance panel!" Said Mako, who was observing a section of the wall. She cleared away the slime, revealing a keypad, then punched in a sequence of keys. There was a hiss, then the keypad slid out, revealing a small diagnostic panel with a small screen and a mess of cables and connectors. Mako took out her own smart-pad and connected it to the panel.

"Air filter system is okay, but intake vents are blocked. It should reactivate by itself after we clear the blockade." She concluded as she disconnected her smart-pad and closed the panel. She and Jenkins began locating the intake vents and clearing the slime off them.

Leaving Mako and Jenkins with her tasks, Riley and Cheng walked back the way the group came. They passed the corner with the bright orange "Section R" then headed towards the minefield they had set up earlier. Cheng deactivated and retrieved the mines, while Riley watched and learned the procedure.

When they returned to the nest, they heard a light hum. Apparently, Mako and Jenkins had finished clearing the intake vents. The foul smell of the carnage was getting fainter and fainter, allowing them to take their masks off for a moment.

They proceeded to the next nest. Riley and Cheng laid down the mines at the newly designated fall back point while Mako and Jenkins checked the area.

Nest number 2 went down without too much trouble. Cheng was point-man this time, eager to make up for the embarrassing act earlier. He carefully observed the nest and fired the opening WP shot.

The reaction was pretty much the same, except for the appearance of termite soldiers. These larger, more dangerous looking termites had somehow figured out the direction the attack came from, rushed away from the nest and made a beeline to the team. They were cut down without much difficulty, however.

They then waited until most of the termites are dead, then moved in to finish off the stragglers. The queen was immediately killed, with no messing around. Riley's HUD chimed up happily, announcing as they were one step closer to completing their mission.

>>> Primary objective updated - Nests remaining: 2/4

"Yeah, baby! Two down, two to go!" Cheng pumped his fist, whooped and cheered, having forgotten his embarrassing display earlier.

------------------------

"Mako, you take point for this one," Riley said as he activated the last mine.

Using Riley's grenade launcher, Mako fired a WP round at the third nest, which lies at another 3-way junction. It landed perfectly and exploded. They waited for the smoke to dissipate and the screech to subside then approached the nest. There was significantly less resistance than the previous two nests and they soon killed all the surviving soldiers and workers.

"Guys, we've got incoming! Three and nine o'clock!" Warned Cheng, who has been monitoring the motion detector. A split second later, red dots filled Riley's mini-map on his HUD. The clicking of thousands of feet on concrete echoed in from the two branches on their left and right.

"Sh*t!" Riley cursed. Earlier, he had sensed something wrong, noting the nest was much less crowded despite its bigger size. It looked like the insects had evacuated, waited for the smoke to disperse, then rushed back.

Under Riley's command, they backed away from the nest. Cheng and Mako drew their main weapon. Cheng's was an R16-BR Battle Rifle with a 60-round magazine, while Mako wielded a lightweight H&K300 Submachine gun with a 40-round mag. Jenkins nervously clutched his W-39 Scatter Gun.

Riley took back the grenade launcher from Mako.

"What should I do?" Riley asked himself. If he fired a WP round at the junction right now, he should be able to kill a few dozens, but the rest of the swarm would just retreat and wait again. It would be time-consuming and exhausting to kill them that way. He had to somehow lure as many of them into the kill zone as possible.

Thinking quickly, Riley loaded three WP rounds and one Disruptor round into the Fauci-67. He secured it and readied his main weapon, the R4-CAR Assault Rifle.

"Let's move back another 150 meters. Prepare to retreat to the fall back area! Cheng, cover the left branch. Mako, the right. Jenkins, don't shoot until they get within 50 meters. Your scattergun is useless beyond that range!"

Cheng, Mako, and Jenkins at his side, Riley faced the 3-way junction, now at 250 meters ahead of them. His heartbeat grew faster, so he took several deep breaths to slow it down. "You've got this," he thought to himself.

The team fidgeted as the clicking, hissing, and buzzing of the insects grew louder and louder. Eventually, several dozen termites emerged from the tunnel branches and rushed toward the team.

"Light 'em up, guys!"

Riley, Cheng, and Mako fired their weapons in controlled bursts. The flechette rounds tore into the termites leading the charge, killing some and incapacitating others. As Riley expected, they were too spread out for the grenades to do any significant damage. He would have to wait until the bulk of the force showed up.

After the first few dozen termites are dead, the clicking, hissing, and buzzing reached a crescendo. Then hundreds of termites rushed out of the two branches. They all merged together into brown, yellow and black mass made of legs, teeth, and claws. The mass flowed like a tide crashing toward the team.

Riley switched to the Fauci-67. The moment the swarm of termites was 100 meters away from the team, he fired two WP rounds at the left and right tunnel branches, then fired the Disruptor rounds at the middle of the swarm.

The smoke from the WP rounds covered the two branches, cutting off the bug's retreat. The Disruptor round emitted out a high-pitched noise, disorienting the termites and sending them into a frenzy. Immediately, they stopped moving in a unified direction and began flailing around randomly. Many began hacking and biting at their own kind. Taking advantage of their confusion, Riley fired the final WP round at the swarm, and have the team retreat further.

They watched the swarm dying, some from the burning chemicals, others getting bitten or slashed. Occasionally, a few termites at the edge of the kill zone managed to identify them as enemies and rushed forward to attack, only to be efficiently put down.

Suddenly, they heard heavier footsteps within the smoke. The infra-red optics picked up several big silhouettes approaching the group. Then the thick smoke parted as several large creatures rushed out.

"Warriors!" Cheng shouted in alarm, and let loose with his Battle Rifle.