I Am The Swarm

“Perhaps it’s because we’ve reached their core!” Dr. Balt suggested.

The room fell silent as everyone mulled over the possibility. It seemed highly likely.

“Send in more personnel. We’ll take this underground nest today!” ordered General Masai, the expedition fleet’s supreme commander.

Following the general’s directive, Lieutenant Colonel Cross, the officer in charge of the battlefield’s regional base, deployed nearly all her forces, leaving only a skeleton crew to maintain base operations.

Lieutenant Colonel Cross was an exceptionally young female Riken, a top graduate of the military academy’s command program, and the youngest captain in the expedition fleet. Ordinarily, such a position would be out of reach for someone with her limited experience. However, her twin sister worked in a classified research institute, and their family wielded considerable influence. With such backing, her appointment was not entirely surprising.

Even so, managing the base as the commanding officer had left her overwhelmed. First, a patrol team mysteriously disappeared, almost costing her a court-martial. Fortunately, she had been the first to detect enemy activity, and with the intervention of Major General Porter—a family friend of her superior—she not only escaped punishment but also received reinforcements.

However, her sector soon became the focal point for the enemy threat. The first underground cavern to trigger an alarm was chosen as the main breakthrough site, drawing a massive influx of engineering and combat personnel, most of whom were beyond her direct control. The situation turned her position into a logistical and political nightmare.

After the recent meeting, Major General Porter urged her to seize the opportunity. Since the battlefield was in her jurisdiction, her leadership in capturing the underground nest would earn her enough credit for a promotion.

Determined to succeed, she gambled everything, mobilizing all available forces. Had she not feared ridicule, she might have deployed the base’s cooks as well.

The battle was grueling. The Swarm launched a counteroffensive with at least 200,000 Raiders. While the initial assault caught the Rikens off guard and inflicted severe casualties, subsequent waves devolved into suicidal charges. The Raiders’ fragile bodies were no match for the dense gunfire from the Riken defenses.

Three hours later, the battle ended. Unlike previous engagements, the Swarm did not retreat to their tunnels but fought to the last insect.

After a cursory battlefield cleanup, Riken forces split into teams and began advancing into multiple tunnel entrances.

The soldiers proceeded cautiously, with flamethrowers at the forefront. Other units remained on high alert, ready for ambushes from hidden Raiders. To their surprise, they encountered no resistance after advancing several hundred meters.

The absence of attacks was highly unusual. Previously, their forces had barely ventured a hundred meters underground before being forced back by relentless Raider assaults.

“Could that last wave have been all they had left?” a soldier speculated, startling his tense comrades.

“Shut up, you idiot!” his superior barked, making the soldier shrink back. Despite the rebuke, many secretly agreed with the hypothesis. The Swarm’s behavior had indeed been uncharacteristically strange.

The underground passageways were complex, with teams frequently regrouping at intersections before splitting up again. Eventually, most squads converged in a massive cavern.

The cavern’s walls were lined with layer upon layer of white silk, interspersed with bulbous growths that exuded an eerie presence.

“What is this stuff?”

“It’s creepy!”

“It’s sticky!”

“It’s like thin rope,” the soldiers muttered, puzzled by the alien material. They had never seen anything like it on Riken Prime.

“What do we do, Captain?” The query came from Winter’s squad. As a special operations unit, they had been stationed at the battlefield from the outset and were now naturally leading the exploration.

Winter’s 50-strong team was the most elite among the assembled forces.

“Can we contact the base?” Winter asked.

“No, there’s magnetic interference. Communications are down,” the communications officer replied.

“Stay vigilant and keep watch. Let’s take a closer look.”

“Captain, this place is huge. Should we fire off a couple of flares for illumination?”

Without responding, Winter approached the silk-covered walls. He touched the fibers and tried to rub them off his glove, finding their adhesive quality unusually strong. Reaching for his flamethrower, he applied fire to the silk. It shriveled and curled but did not ignite, showing resistance to burning. ȑÀƝÓ₿Εs

After some thought, Winter instructed, “Fire two flares into the open area.”

“Yes, Captain.”

The flares lit up the cavern like twin suns, momentarily blinding soldiers who hadn’t removed their night vision goggles in time. Despite their tense scans, no enemies appeared.

“Strange. Are the bugs really all gone?”

“Groups of three, spread out and investigate. Stay alert. I don’t want anyone becoming a cautionary tale,” Winter ordered, sensing no immediate danger.

The soldiers moved carefully, covering each other as they spread out.

“Captain, over here! Look at this!” one of the operatives called out, standing beside a bulbous silk cocoon, visibly intrigued.

Winter quickly joined him. The operative, driven by curiosity, had already sliced open the cocoon with his tactical knife. Inside was a small wild animal—a species Winter recognized from the grasslands. He had even led a team to capture some specimens for the base’s labs.

While these animals couldn’t be used without special processing, Winter briefly wondered how they might taste. Catching himself, he banished the thought and refocused.

He inspected several other silk-wrapped cocoons, cutting them open one by one. Each contained a similar grassland animal, all common species.

“This must be their storage room—a place where they keep their food,” Winter deduced as his team gathered around.

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