Vespula Vulgaris

Bored. She was so bored. 

Staring at the screen in front of her, Athena Lebeau was nearly bored to tears. She had thought that this recon mission was going to be fun, or at least interesting. It had been an urgent task force mission, after all. 

But instead, she was watching data filter across her screen as the ship scanned the giant rock formation. The stupid hill had seemingly appeared out of nowhere and was deemed important enough for the higher-ups to issue an immediate investigative mission. 

“Lebeau,” a voice echoed in her right ear from over her headset. “Any feedback from the scans?” 

Athena rolled her eyes before pressing the transmitter button. “No sir. So far, all heat signature scans are consistent with remnants of solar heat.” 

On the other end of her comms, Captain Jameson Cochey heaved a sigh. “We have just reached an entrance to one of the visible tunnels. Have the ship do a subterranean scan.” 

“As you wish, Captain Cocky.” 

Athena heard a chorus of laughter through the comms. 

“Captain, Lebeau is using bedroom talk again.” Athena was pretty sure that voice belonged to Rossi, Jameson’s Lieutenant. 

She pressed the comm link again, “Well, I’m currently having to compete with three strapping men in space suits. Bedroom talk is the only trick I have in this situation.” 

Laughter again filled her ear. Normally, she wouldn’t be working with the guys on the other end of the comms, given her personal status with their Captain. However, for the purpose of this recon task force, they needed a pilot to fly one of the low-level Martian Skimmers. And while she hated bragging, Athena knew she was one of the best. Thus, why she was here. 

Granted, because of her flight skills, she had been relegated to the Skimmer while Jameson, his three men, and the science officer had donned space suits and ventured forth into the red landscape. 

“Lebeau.” Athena didn’t need to see his face to know that Jameson was fighting a smile. He was trying to be professional, and she knew she was making it difficult. 

“Cocky.” 

“Captain. Sergeant.” Doctor Monroe interrupted. “If you two are quite finished with the flirting. I would like to check these tunnels and get back to the biodome before the end of Sol.” 

“Of course, Doctor,” Jameson said. “Lebeau, subterranean scans. And let us know if there are any anomalies.” 

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Athena responded before pulling up the ship's objectives. She quickly adjusted the scope of the scans and set them to run immediately. 

She didn’t really need to stay and monitor the program, so she went back to the cockpit and looked out of the ship’s windows.

For being called the Red Planet, Mars was more of a dusty rose colour than the ‘red’ it was supposedly known for. She often found it disconcerting that the land and sky were so close in colour that if it wasn’t for the jagged bits of stone or sudden sloping dunes, she wouldn’t know where one ended and the other began. 

But she knew no other home, as she was a true-born Martian. 

Athena watched as a bit of wind kicked up dust, sending it over top of one of the dunes on the horizon. The sunlight caught the dust at just the right angle, causing it to shimmer as it hovered in the air, before it descended back to the surface, disappearing from her view.

A rhythmic beeping filled the ship. Athena turned and made her way back to the screen to review whatever the ship had thought it caught. 

With a few taps on the screen, the latest subterranean scan loaded in front of her eyes. There, deep within the giant rock formation, were a couple dozen large heat signatures. Athena couldn’t quite understand why there were such large pockets of heat so far from the surface. It didn’t sit right with her. She pressed the button on her headset. 

“Captain, this is the skimmer. Can you still read me?” The seconds it took for Jameson to respond twisted Athena’s stomach into knots. 

“We read you, Lebeau.”

“Captain, would you provide a visual confirmation of what you are seeing?” 

“Why?” Was his response, and Athena could hear a bit of tension under his confusion. 

“Sir, the scanner is picking up several heat signatures. They are rather deep and I am trying to determine if they are in the actual formation.” 

“The tunnels are just that, tunnels. They appear to lead deeper, but so far, they have not branched out, opened up, or ended.” 

“Do you have a sonic imager? We’ll need a 3D image to determine if it’s trapped gas.” 

Athena heard a subtle click as he set the comms to open. He would be able to hear her and speak without needing to press and hold his communicator. 

“Rossi,” Jameson yelled. “You have that sonic imager?” 

“Captain.” Was Rossi’s reply, and Athena figured he would be looking for the item. 

“Nox, Sterling. Continue down this tunnel with the doc. Do not take any corners. If the path deviates, return immediately.” 

Athena only half listened as Jameson gave the rest of his team orders on the other end of the comms. Another scan had loaded on her screen. It had changed. She blinked hard before rapidly flicking between the images. It wasn’t a trick of her eyes or the light. The heat signatures had moved.

“Captain,” she said over her comms. “They moved.” 

The line went quiet at Athena’s words as they stopped whatever they had been doing.

“Come again, Sergeant.” He hadn’t used her last name. He was as tense as she was. 

“Captain, a second scan has come in. The heat signatures have moved. I am going to switch to a live heat reading.” 

“The ship have the power for that?” She heard Rossi ask. 

“It’s gotta to work,” Athena replied. “Can you activate the sonic imager at the same time? We need to know if there is something down there with you.” 

“Roger.” 

Athena adjusted the scanner's settings again, this time diverting power from the forward radar to allow the scanner to produce the live image. 

“Sonic imager activating in three, two, one,” Jameson said over comms as he activated the imager. 

As it began releasing its sonic vibrations into the formation, Athena watched as the feedback began coming in, giving an outline of the rock formation. The various tunnels all lead to a central cavern, in which a large tiered structure hung from the ceiling downward. Each tier level progressively got smaller the closer it got to the bottom level. 

When she zoomed in on one of the tiers, she could just make out a hexagon pattern. The centre structure was made up of its own hexagon-shaped tunnels, which made no sense. 

Athena overlaid the live heat signature scan. She was able to make out two smaller heat signatures in one of the tunnels. Jameson and Rossi. They were so small compared to the groups of red and orange moving around the large cavern. Not only were they massive, they were almost appearing to vibrate. 

“Captain, the signatures, they are vibrating. I think there is something in there with you.”

“Nox. Sterling. Come in.” Athena could hear Rossi using his own comm to reach out to the others, allowing Jameson to keep the direct line to the ship open. 

“Athena, we’re coming back. We can do…” Jameson paused mid-sentence. If his use of her first name wasn’t enough to worry her, the strange humming was. “Rossi, what’s that?” 

Athena looked back toward the screen where the large heat signatures were moving faster now. She took an involuntary step back, confusion coursing through her, twisting her stomach into knots. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the tail end of a dark shape as it moved by the front of the ship. Cautiously, she returned to the cockpit. There was nothing on the radar, but she remembered that she had transferred power from the radar. There was nothing out front or on the ground to either side of the ship. She was just about to return to the scans when a shadow passed overhead. 

Looking up, Athena choked on a scream. Above the ship was a swarm of large flying creatures. They each had six legs, a pair of slightly translucent wings, and a relatively pointed back end. Upon seeing them, Athena had two clear points enter her mind. 

The first point was how her stepfather had been obsessed with Earth's ecosystems. One of his favourite things was when goods were named after creatures found in the wild. He found it hilarious. A shoe named after a large cat species, an energy drink named after a male cow, and a tiny motor vehicle named after an aggressive bug. 

Vespula Vulgaris. The scientific name for a wasp. 

The second point that crossed her mind was an old Mars urban legend, the Bug Man. The story was about an entomologist who had actually travelled from Earth to Mars in the early days. He had been obsessed with the idea that bugs could help transform the surface of Mars into a paradise. In his all-consuming belief, he had taken to experimentation, which resulted in his untimely death by his own creations. 

Athena watched the creatures fly towards the rock formation. 

“Oh no…” She breathed out before activating her comms. “Jameson, get out now. It’s not a rock. It’s a nest. Get out.” 

There was heavy breathing on the other side of the line as if he was running. “What?” 

“It’s a wasp nest. Get out.” 

“Nox and Sterling aren’t responding,” Jameson said before huffing as he ran. “We’ll get them and meet you.” 

“Hurry.” Athena wanted to shout through the comms, but she swallowed that down and spoke as calmly as she could. 

She peered out the window and watched as the swarm that had passed over the ship reached the rock formation. Their nest, she mentally corrected herself as she left the cockpit to check the scans again. 

The images had her stomach in her throat. The heat signatures from before were now moving in the direction that the team had last been in. Before Athena could reach for her comms, Jameson’s voice broke through the silence. 

“Athena,” the comms crackled, breaking up over his words. “Comin in hot…prep ship…get out of here.” 

The humming that she had heard earlier had increased and was now an incessant buzzing that set her teeth on edge. 

Suddenly, a scream echoed through the comms. The sound raised the hair on her neck and arms. It was followed by a flurry of shouts, orders, and more high-pitched screams. 

“Jameson?” Athena screamed into the comms, heart pounding as sweat gathered along her spine. Her request was met with static. “Jameson? Rossi? Anyone? Come in!”

“Suit compromised. Suit compromised.” The robotic warning sounded as her comms once again filled with sound. Whatever self-control she had evaporated. 

“Jameson?!” She sprinted back to the cockpit, moving so fast that she slammed her hip into the edge of the pilot chair. Ignoring the sharp explosion of pain that bloomed from her hip bone, Athena buckled herself in. Firing up the engine, she strained to hear any signs of life over the repeating warning that still sounded in her ears. 

She had no plan besides 'get closer.’ If anyone was hurt they needed to be onboard as soon as possible. But as she began to manoeuvre the ship around, she realised closer might not be as easy as it seemed. 

There was still a swarm of wasps crawling all over the nest, their wings vibrating as they searched for the intruders to their home. 

“Lebeau.” Rossi’s voice sent a wave of relief crashing through, followed by a sick twisting in her gut. “Lebeau, we have to get out of here now. Ping active. Get to us.” 

“Roger.” Athena’s voice cracked as she spoke. She was desperate to know what had happened and who was hurt, but she knew a simple question could, and would, distract them. 

With a pull on the centre control stick, the skimmer swung around to face the nest directly. The ping was coming from the right, and Athena guessed they were in one of two possible tunnels that were closer to the ground. That option was narrowed down as she noticed the swarm converging on one of the tunnels. 

“Eyes on your location.” She croaked into her headset. 

“Lots of bugs here. Can we get on without a full stop?” Rossi responded. 

“Yeah. I’ll swing around. Airlock won’t open until the hangar is closed.” 

“That’s..” There was a break in the connection for a split second. “Whatever Lebeau, just get us out of here.” 

It was then that the wasp noticed the newest intruder as the ship approached the nest. Athena kept the ship level even as the giant creatures began to hover around it. She was now close enough that she could see them in detail. They were huge. From the bottom of their legs up to just below their wings had to be just under six feet. Their wings made them appear even bigger, as they rapidly vibrated up and down. The bug's eyes were massive black pits with two giant antennas between them, and strange, thick, hair-like barbs protruded around them. 

Athena looked away quickly, knowing that she would have nightmares of this moment for years to come. 

She could see the team just outside of the tunnel, working to fight off the wasps as they gathered. With a few quick pulls of the stick, the ship reached the rock formation and swung the tail round to align with the opening. She pressed a button to lower the ramp and allow the team a quick entry. She waited, breath caught, for some indication that they were on board. 

Wasps began to swarm the front of the ship, and she could only hope that the hull's integrity would hold up. 

“Go! We’re on. Go!” a voice said over the ship's intercom, shouts and harsh buzzing following. 

Athena slammed the throttle, shooting the ship forward. Several of the bugs were dislodged and flung away from the ship. 

“Faster!” The voice sounded again. She couldn’t tell who it was. 

“This is the limit till the door is closed.” She shot back, staring at the red light that indicated the hanger door was still open and kept the throttle from moving higher. 

They were moving but the speed wasn’t great enough to outpace the bugs. 

“Come on, come on, come on.” She begged the machine she controlled. 

Suddenly, the light was green. 

“Hold on!” She yelled over the intercom before she pushed the throttle to the max. In a burst of speed, the ship shot forward. More bugs dislodged, but yet they were still keeping pace. 

“Can we lose them?” At the sound of a voice just beside her, Athena whipped her head around to find Jameson, arms braced on the seats, staring out the front window. 

As much as she wanted to jump up and get to him, the radar began pinging as the swarm gathered at the rear of the ship. 

“Can’t we go atmospheric?” Jameson asked her. 

“You’re the one who wanted a skimmer for this mission.” 

“There’s got to be something we can do to get rid of them.” 

“I don’t know. This is a first for me.” Athena said as she flipped a switch to focus the radar on the rear, allowing her to see the amount of individual bugs rather than the mass. 

“Athena,” Jameson said tensely as they approached a massive dune. 

“I have an idea,” Athena said before jerking the stick to fly over the dune. When they came over top to the other side, they had a straight shot forward. Athena pulled a lever, and a large thunk sounded. 

“What?” Jameson began. 

“Creating a dust trail.” She kept going, eyes darting between what was in front of them and the radar. 

After several miles, they watched the radar as the swarm began to fall back, a few to start, then the whole group. When they were certain that they were no longer being pursued, Athena adjusted their heading to return home. 

Neither of them spoke as they raced over the planet’s surface. It wasn’t until the biodome was in sight that Jameson grabbed the radio. 

“Recon team coming in. One causality and one critical. Emergency aid required.” 

Athena looked up at him then and noted the wetness gathering in his eyes. “Who?” She whispered. 

“Sterling.” He responded just as the dome responded with “Received.” 

Athena directed the ship into the dome, and even before the airlock finished the decompression, she could see medical workers racing to meet them. The door to the inner base opened, just as she cut the ship's engine. She moved from the cockpit, leaning on Jameson as they both made their way toward the back exit. Both their movements were stiff and slow.

As they walked down the ramp, she could see Nox being wheeled away on a gurney, Rossi holding something against the wounded man's stomach, shouting at the medical team. On another gurney being moved away was Doctor Monroe, eyes wide as he stared out into nothing. The final gurney that was taken away was a white sheet in the shape of a sleeping human. 

Athena’s breath caught in her throat as it tightened. She stopped walking, her boots scraping against the ground. Jameson turned to look at her, and she noticed a smear of strange brownish-yellow fluid across his forehead.

“Athena?” 

“Next time, I want a boring mission.”