Chương 140: CDM 3, Chapter 16: Cleanup

Years of watching crawl footage cut from a combination of head cams and follower drones made watching the EPA op far less exciting by comparison. We had an overhead drone perspective, our GPS tracking of each person in the field, and radio chatter, which was mostly limited to the drone pilots in the truck with us. They provided updates, and the people on the ground maintained radio silence to preserve their stealth.

The five bugbears that left the nest with bows and clubs seemed like a defensive response at first, like they caught wind that their enemy was closing in, so the bugbears went out to meet the foe head-on. I soon learned that was me editorializing what I saw. The bugbears may have been warriors, but at that moment, they were simple hunters. Their heading would take them by Alpha team rather than directly into them, and their body language was far more relaxed than a battle-ready bugbear's would be.

They didn't even have their bows out. They were slung over their shoulders.

"Alpha team, prepare to engage," the drone pilot radioed.

"30 meters and closing." Even in the winter with bare branches, visibility to the forest floor was limited, but we had enough of a view that we could see most of the battle play out. The EPA agents with bows stood and loosed. All but one had a dex build. The lone exception ran a power build, so while his peers rapid-fired arrows, he drew and held. 2… 1… The arrow struck a bugbear with enough force to take it off its feet, as if an invisible battering ram bashed it in the chest.

Two other bugbears were felled by arrows while the remaining three dove for cover. Every one of them had taken at least one arrow from a dexer, so they weren't as mobile as they would have been were they healthy. The drone pilot talked the hunters through the bugbears' locations. The fighter in the group pounced on them, catching the bugbears by surprise. One died instantly. The second attempted to raise a club to defend, but the arrows in its shoulder made the limb useless.

It twitched upward only an inch before a sword slid through its face. The third ran. One of the dex archers pursued, stopping to draw and loose the moment the line of sight was clear. That was smoothly done, I thought.

"No apparent alarm in the nest," the drone pilot reported.

"Clear to proceed." With that hunting party neutralized, Alpha team and Bravo team continued to slowly close on the bugbear camp. Both sets of dots settled on the outskirts of where the remaining bugbears congregated. They had a fire pit, several simple shelters made from animal skins, hand-sewn backpacks made from deer hides, and bushcraft sleds for moving the largest items from camp to camp.

"They were getting ready to relocate again," Kipinski observed.

"If we see their packs in the open like that, they usually move camp that night." With her eyes on the drone feed, she reached for her headset and tapped her ear.

"Alpha team, prepare to engage in 5… 4… 3…" She stopped counting aloud, but the team on the ground waited two more beats and sprang into action, raining arrows on the bugbear camp. The monsters scrambled for weapons, and a moment later, bugbears with bows returned fire, shooting over the bodies of tribemates that fell in the initial volley. Kipinski waited 20 seconds and ordered Bravo team to engage. They came in from the south while the bugbears were focused on the threat to their northeast.

Most of the archers in Bravo team had power builds, it looked like. They lined up single shots and calmly sent arrows into the backs of bugbears. This was already over. 6 of the monsters were pinned down, unable to raise their heads for fear of exposing themselves to the archers on both sides of their camp.

"Two runners traveling west," a different drone pilot reported.

"Charlie team, prepare to engage. Ramsey will have first visual." The two runners were really one runner and one passenger. An adult bugbear carried an adolescent in its arms, fleeing toward the river, ducking branches and jumping logs as it ran. They emerged from the forest and splashed across a shallow section of river. When the bugbears were halfway to the other side, one arrow killed the adolescent and the adult. Either the power shot was enough to put the arrow through both, or the archer had Piercing.

Regardless of the exact mechanics, two bugbear bodies fell limply into the water. Back at the bugbear camp, Alpha and Bravo teams were about to eliminate the final target.

"No visual on active threats," a drone pilot reported.

"Cull with caution." The agents swept the camp, searching inside the tents. Over the radio, those agents counted but not with any regular cadence.

"What are they doing now?" Megan asked.

"We count offspring separate from mature monsters. These ones were too young to fight." Black shifted uncomfortably, and Kipinski caught it.

"This part of conservation upsets a lot of people," she said.

"It's not pretty, but this is what you have to do with invasive species. If we don't clear them all, that baby bugbear can grow up to have more babies of their own." Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Across all of our hunts, we had never encountered baby anythings. Watching the drone perspective as soldiers went from tent to tent like executioners made me grateful this wasn't a stream with headcams.

I didn't want to see what that was like, even if I understood why it was necessary.

"We've seen a few wild goblin nests, but never babies," Megan said.

"Is that strange?" Kipinski shook her head.

"Not strange. Goblins grow quickly. They only need 4 days to reach adulthood. They breed in bursts and wait to breed again until they have enough food to feed offspring all the way into adulthood. They still breed without those food stores in place sometimes, but those babies typically get eaten by other goblins shortly after birth."

"So we happened to find the nests between reproduction cycles?"

"Basically, yes," Kipinski answered.

"Have they ever tried to negotiate?" Black asked next. Kipinski chuckled.

"Humanoid and human are two very different ideas. Bugbears are invaders who wouldn't hesitate to make the women of a human family watch as the men were consumed. And the women… I have never met a female survivor of a bugbear attack who didn't try to take their own life at least once."

"Camp is clear," one of the hunters radioed.

"Roger that," a drone operator replied.

"No visual on drone one." The other drone operators repeated that line but with their drone numbers instead. Kipinksi visibly relaxed.

"This next part is slow, but our goal is total containment. We will sweep the surrounding area for any survivors that managed to flee or who were, perhaps, away from the nest when it was attacked." The sweep Kipinski described was largely drone-driven, but the three teams on the ground fanned out to walk a square mile centered on the nest. It reminded me a bit of a missing person search but not nearly as strict.

These agents were looking for live monsters and not small scraps of clues, so they moved more quickly and with larger gaps between people.

"This part is mostly protocol," she explained as we watched the dots on the map slowly plod across the search area.

"We rarely find anything, but we're required to perform the sweep to be sure. Sometimes an injured target slips through, and we find it during this stage, but again, pretty rare that a monster gets away without us knowing. That's less true in urban areas, but we do pretty good in those settings too."

"What's the minimum number of hunters you would go into an op with?" Enforcer de Saint asked.

"Six is our mandated minimum, but I fight to have at least eight. If this were an urban nest, the potential hiding places are just too numerous to go in with fewer people than that. You need eyes to watch each other as much as you're watching for targets." Megan failed to hide a sharp exhale of laughter, but only de Saint and I knew what she thought was funny. She asked, "What about teams of two?" Kipinski turned away from the monitor.

"Never. Even at six we worry about having enough manpower to adapt to a problem. God forbid a man goes down; that's 200 pounds of dead weight to extract. If a two-person team is in that scenario, the second person has to stop fighting to get their comrade, and with no cover? It's a death spiral." Megan nodded as she listened. Our host added, "The military has thousands of datapoints on ops. Those were against humans, but I was a marine, and I can tell you that humans are worse than monsters 75% of the time.

At any rate, the data is there. If you dip below six in the field, accident, fatality, and mission success rates trend in the wrong directions." I caught looks from both Megan and de Saint. I hoped that was us all quietly agreeing not to tell Nathan about this particular branch of science.

"That was rough," Enforcer Black said on our drive back to Pittsburgh.

"The young ones?" Megan asked.

"Uh huh. That was brutal. I can kill a monster, but something gets me about killing a baby version." Enforcer de Saint glanced over from the driver's seat.

"What's the alternative, though? Let them grow up and then kill them?" Black shrugged, which was an exceptionally large gesture because of his bulky frame.

"I'm not saying I don't get it or that there's a better way, but did you see how small some of the bodies they pulled out of the tents were? I'm not sure I could look down on one of those and then put a sword in it." De Saint said, "It's like that for all invasive species. If you don't eliminate their presence completely, they reproduce, and the problem continues."

"I'm not saying you're wrong," Black replied, "but does their intelligence change that? We're not talking about killing rats or bugs. They're smart enough to form tribes, to work together, and to use semi-sophisticated combat tactics. I mean… People talk about how dolphins and chimpanzees should have rights because of their intelligence, right?"

"Dolphins aren't invading from another dimension, and I've never heard of dolphins taking human women prisoner to torture after they massacred a small town," Megan interjected. Black twisted in his seat to look back at me.

"You get what I'm saying, Gray. Having a little compassion isn't strange."

"I don't think it's productive to overthink it," I answered.

"I see where you're coming from, and I'd be more worried about it if the monsters coming out of a gate were anything but ultra-aggressive toward humans. Have you ever heard of bugbears or goblins offering a human mercy? The only times they don't attack are when they're worried they would lose. If they think they can win, they go for the kill."

"Forget it," Black said, slouching in his seat.

"Hey, I'm sorry," I said sincerely.

"I'm not trying to be dismissive. I've had the same kinds of thoughts."

"No wiggle room at all?" Black asked in return. I pondered that for a second.

"I saw this video once of goblins in an old farmhouse in the middle of winter. A few addicts were squatting in it first. The goblins killed them and stored their bodies in a cold room so they could go back and rip off pieces of meat when they were hungry. Peace isn't even a thought in their minds." That was something I witnessed in person on our first run with Kimmy playing support.

"They're invading our world," Megan added, "and haven't once attempted to communicate with us. If someone kicks in your door, I think you're justified in assuming malicious intent and protecting yourself."

"What if they don't have a choice?" Black countered.

"Do we?"

"I think so."

"Humans used to thrive all over the planet. Then the gates opened and wiped out half of that in just a few years. Half of civilization, torn up and eaten. I don't see a choice there. If we don't close gates, people die. If wild monsters are allowed to flourish, people die. Kipinski was talking about datapoints, and we have a few million of those for monsters encountering humans."

"I guess I wish it was different," Black said after a while. De Saint offered Black a sympathetic frown.

"I think we all agree on that. The world pre-gates sounds so free and magical. So much to see. So much to experience. A few predators, sure, but nothing like wild monsters. We were all born at the wrong time." In my mind, I thought, "I wasn't." Immediately. No hesitation. For how strongly uncertainty raged across my life at all times, I was certain about this. I was built to kill monsters. Everything about it made sense to me, and I was beginning to think I was kind of good at it.