Things That Go Bump in the Night:
The Royal Army Veterinary Corps Experimental Combat Unit
Even in the midst of the Kafer War, even on a planet occupied by the most dangerous aliens known to man, there are some jobs that suck worse than others. The foetid slime dripping slowly down the back of my neck said that this was one of them.
Evade the Kafer patrols in the Westmark – yawn…
Penetrate the outer
perimeter of the
Do it with a sack of bogles hanging around my neck - what do I look like, a pentapod?
I was crawling throught a ventilation shaft barely bigger than I was, feeding handfuls of the drooling, squirming, nibbling little buggers into every cross-shaft. Imagine the offspring of a particularly scrawny mouse with the worst case of scabies known to medicine, crossed with an incontinent, cow-pat brown slug, then double the ick factor. The ‘pods have never mastered human aesthetics, but this time I was sure they'd done it deliberately. The bogle's only saving grace was that the one thing they lived for was following Kafers down tunnels.
Given my druthers I'd have dumped the whole sack into the top of the shaft and high-tailed it out of Dodge, but each of the damned things was prepped with a pixie-dust dispenser that couldn't be activated until the last minute, and while the bogles made handy-dandy relays for the pixie-dust they still couldn't boost its signal enough to penetrate out of the tunnels, which meant stringing a fibre-optic the length of the shaft and wiring in receivers every few yards.
I'd be lucky if I was out before dawn, if I didn't then I was stuck in the shaft until nightfall, just me and my slimy little friends. It made for one hell of an incentive to get the job finished.
Combat Vets: The ECU in New
Corporal Menzies MacNiece, RAVC
ARVS Publishing, Heorot, 2312
The Royal Army Veterinary Corps (RAVC) has not traditionally been regarded as a combat unit, but off-world service has occasionally seen them dragged into non-traditional taskings. Originally charged with looking after the army’s horses and dogs, a role which has never gone away no matter how much the futurists might predict it, over the past several centuries the RAVC has added burrowvargs and several other non-Terran creatures to those it routinely cares for, and advising on bug-hunts to its traditional roles. For all of the changes, it remains the case that where there is a military base there will usually be guard-dogs, and a RAVC detachment looking after them, or in many cases actually providing the handlers. New Africa was no different to that rule, notable only for being the home of the Military Burrowvarg Training Centre, but the presence of the military vets was to prove an unexpected bonus when the Kafers came calling and the RAVC personnel have found themselves taking on some very unexpected roles, ranging from inter-species ambassadors to jungle scouts.
The RAVC Experimental Combat Unit
assault found the RAVC personnel on New Africa scattered throughout the various
surviving units, often serving as substitute doctors or combat medics. The
senior surviving RAVC officer on-planet was Major Morag Euart,
formerly commander of the Burrowvarg Training Centre,
who found herself attached to the HQ of 1 Light Division to handle any and
every animal related concern as the division staged its fighting retreat down
Morag hadn’t trained to deal with sentient clients, whether they came with two feet or five, but she had an ability to empathize with her new charges, and the self-confidence to organize them secure and comfortable quarters that met their particular requirements. As they grew familiar with each other, Morag became aware that the ‘Pods, who for unknown reasons now insisted on being referred to as ‘Pod 13’, apparently wanted to help in the struggle against the Kafers, while in their turn the Pentapods became aware that their ‘keeper’ was an expert on the use of animals in military service. A plan was born.
Morag managed to talk fast enough and persistently enough to her superiors to get her plan approved and the RAVC Experimental Combat Unit was formed. The initial intention was solely that the unit should develop Pentapod bio-technological devices for use by regular combat units, but as Morag pulled in RAVC survivors from all over the continent she found herself with a core of personnel who were actually combat-hardened and quite capable of field-testing the unit’s products without any help.
Although many of Major Euart’s superiors had quietly hoped that the ‘Pods would simply produce an anti-Kafer virus and be done with it, Pod 13 refused to even consider producing anything that might be considered a weapon of mass destruction, and in fact their ‘take’ on producing weapons has been as disturbingly unexpected as many Pentapod mass-market products. Naming the products of the unit was something the ‘Pods were happy to leave to Morag, and given the less than aesthetic nature of many ‘Pod projects she has named them for creatures out of nightmare and legend, while her habit of referring to them generically as ‘wee beasties’ has become universal within the ECU.
Developing new weapons systems has traditionally been a rather slow process, but the Pentapods work quickly in the bio-sciences domain and their initial constructs were available by late in the Occupation. Since the Liberation there has been a definite shift in the unit’s priorities, with new constructs tailored for use in the K-Zone. It has also slowly become apparent that there are two sets of Pentapod ‘weapon system engineers’ at work in New Africa, Pod 13 and the ECU are the open source of Pentapod technology, but it is now clear that a second team is at work in support of special forces and the black world of intelligence agencies. Where this second team is located and where they came from is unclear, but their technology is much more overtly lethal, although very rarely seen.
The Experimental Combat Unit
The ECU has grown steadily to its current size of around fifty personnel (not counting Pod 13 members), organized as a single platoon and reporting directly to HQ II (Commonwealth) Corps. Number 1 Section is charged with close protection of the ‘Pods and its NCOs include several RMP personnel with formal training in the role. No 2 Section is responsible for technical support of Pod 13’s work and includes both RAVC veterinary officers and technicians and several personnel who were civilian scientists before the war. No 3 Section is both the strongest section and the one charged with field evaluation of the constructs flowing out of 2 Section. Several of the constructs are now technically operational, rather than experimental, but their support requirements are still specialized enough that there has been no move to transition them out of the unit into more general use. Major Euart exercises direct control of 3 Section as well as overall command of the ECU. In her absence from base, unit administration devolves down onto Colour Sergeant Jason Anichebe and the small staff of HQ Section. Colour Sergeant Anichebe is out-ranked by the two commissioned veterinary officers in 2 Section, but both are better suited to the lab than to command and they are under standing orders from Major Euart to defer to Colour Sergeant Anichebe in any operational matter.
normally deploy into the field as four man bricks under a corporal or sergeant,
but operations have ranged from single personnel up to a full multiple of 20
troops. Operationally they are mostly tasked in surveillance/recce roles, operating as specialist teams in a similar
manner to the Tracker Combat Units, with whom they have a rather strained
relationship. The Trackers view them, accurately, as amateurs in the jungle,
but the Trackers can only follow Kafers, ECU can have
those Kafers announce where they are for anyone to home
in on. ECU troops in the field are equipped as standard British infantry, but
usually carry several extra pouches containing ‘wee beasties’. The ECU also
deploys a mixed force of military dogs and burrowvargs.
The dogs, Alsatians and
A Bogle is a small, rodent-like creature around 5 to 7 centimetres in length with a sickly yellow-brown coloration and an affinity for Kafers (the cues that attract it to Kafers appear to be largely scent-related). Bogles will follow any Kafer within scent range, but will stay in the deepest shadow available to do so. If forced to cross brightly lit areas they have a surprising turn of speed. Bogles have no offensive or defensive weaponry, but are so unpleasantly slimy that few people, human or Kafer, are inclined to pick one up. On its own a bogle is fairly useless, but they have a small pouch on their dorsal surface which can be used to carry small, self-powered items of electronics, such as short-range targeting beacons, surveillance equipment or Pixie Dust relays. Bogles can feed on Terran or BCV-native vegetation and usually live for from three weeks to a month. They appear not to sleep.
Bogles are produced by bogle-mothers. The bogle-mother is a ‘Pod construct around 0.5m in length and half that wide and high, it weighs around 15 kilos and is predominantly grey-green in colour, coated with a translucent slime. Immobile and mostly featureless, the bogle-mother will absorb any food placed on its upper surface; apart from that and some limited excretion its only observable activity is to occasionally extrude a new-born bogle through its sides. The bogle-mother needs 250 grammes of Terran or BCV-native vegetation a day to support itself and around another 250 grammes for each bogle it produces. The maximum observed rate of reproduction has been six bogles in 24 hours, but most bogle-mothers appear to peak at four per day. Bogle-mothers live for around three months
A boggart is a bogle with attitude. Averaging 10 centimetres in length they are similar in gross structure to a bogle, but with a much heavier jaw. Like bogles they are drawn to follow Kafers in the shadows, but given the opportunity they will dart from cover, deliver a stinging bite and then retreat, hopefully before retribution can find them. The attacks trigger Kafers into smart-mode, which might be seen as less than useful, but prolonged, repeated transitions into smart-mode without any ‘down-time’ to recover appears slightly debilitating to Kafers and they have been observed to become somewhat slower to enter smart mode after the first 24 hours of stimulation. Like bogles, boggarts have a lifecycle of from three weeks to a month.
A boggart-mother is almost indistinguishable from a bogle-mother in size and texture, but has a distinct reddish tinge to its covering of slime. Like the bogle-mother it requires 250 grammes of food per day, but each boggart produced requires around 400 grammes of food and peak reproduction is typically three boggarts in 24 hours.
The fact that Redcaps actually have a red cap is taken by some members of the ECU as evidence that the ‘Pods are designing constructs to entertain Major Euart’s sense of whimsy. A redcap is the ECU’s grenade equivalent, designed to allow an ECU trooper surprised by Kafers to distract them while he escapes from the immediate vicinity. The beastie is a multi-part organism consisting of the child’s-fist sized cap, which is covered by a hard, bright red carapace which can crack across the middle to feed, and 20 to 25 small, grey-green ‘finger-rats’ who spend most of their life suckling from the soft underbelly of the cap. The redcap is activated by squeezing the cap until its carapace cracks (a sensation described as extremely unpleasant), after which it is usually hurled towards the enemy. Approximately five seconds after the carapace is cracked the finger-rats will release themselves from the dying cap and immediately attack any Kafer in the vicinity. Their attack is so rapid that they are usually described as exploding away from the cap. The finger-rats are too small to do serious damage under normal circumstances, but their bite attacks are extremely distracting and a limited allergic reaction has been seen in some cases. Unlike the other active Pod 13 constructs, redcaps cannot feed themselves and need to be fed a small protein or chocolate bar daily. Given regular feeding a red cap will last approximately 10 days in good health, after which the cap acquires a grayish tinge and the finger-rats begin to die off at around four to six per day. Because of the squirming finger-rats, redcaps are unsuitable for directly attaching to combat webbing and are normally carried in pouches.
The redcap-mother is similar to most other Pod 13 mothers, but the complexity of producing two separate ‘species’ of creature means that it is rather larger, averaging a metre long and 30 kilos in weight. It needs approximately 500 grammes of food per day for its own metabolism and can produce up to four red-caps per day, needing around 250 grammes for each. Redcap-mothers have the typical three month lifecycle of a mother.
Gremlins are another construct that appears closely related to the bogle and boggart. They are approximately the same size as a bogle, but a mottled brown-black in colour and feature a jaw similar to the bogle. Unlike the bogles, boggarts and other constructs they have no affinity for Kafers, but they are intensely attracted to the scents of Kafer lubricants and plastics. A gremlin in close proximity to a stationary Kafer vehicle will find some tight, dark place to conceal itself and if possible fasten onto wiring, piping or plastics with its teeth. For every gremlin infesting a Kafer vehicle there is around a five percent change that it will be rendered immobile or will suffer some similar malfunction, Locating every gremlin in an infestation is time-consuming and irritating to Kafers and is not helped by the poor accessibility and maintainability of Kafer vehicles.
Gremlin-mothers are indistinguishable from bogle-mothers but for their predominantly black colouring.
The largest of the common Pod-13 constructs, banshees appear to have a considerable amount of Terran primate in their make-up, unfortunately this seems to be mixed with equal amounts of bull-frog. Banshees have been described as looking like a 30cm high satanic howler monkey, something not helped by their pale, ghost-like colouring. They dislike being on the forest floor, spending most of their time in the canopy, but like bogles, boggarts and finger-rats they are strongly attracted to the scent of Kafers. Unlike the other constructs, banshees will not venture into close proximity of Kafers, but they will trail them from above, and while they trail them they are compelled to wail. The banshee’s wail is actually inaudible to both humans and Kafers, being a subsonic rumble produced deep in the chest, however some other jungle creatures appear to be aware of it and their alarm calls will usually warn the kafers that something is wrong. Despite its inaudibility to human ears, infrasound travels well and can be detected by standard TISS sonic sensors. All TISS sets on Beta Canum have now been updated to add banshee wails to their threat libraries. The wail is typically strong enough for direction finding within 10Km and detectable out to 15Km. Banshees typically live from a month to six weeks, feeding on local vegetation.
Banshee-mothers are around the same size as a redcap-mother and have a similar metabolism. However each banshee gestation requires around four kilos of food stuff and the reproduction rate is one new banshee every two days.
Most humans to have encountered them have found Barghests to be extremely disturbing. Their core genetics are very obviously that of the Terran Dog. After the Pentapods were done with their DNA the Barghests that emerged from the Barghest-mothers were the size of a small pony, weighing in at around 250 kilogrammes with huge claws and extremely powerful jaws, comfortably outsizing the prehistoric Dire Wolf as the largest canid ever. Jet black, with greasy hair and red eyes, the barghests are difficult even for experienced dog handlers to manage and the best tactic so far determined for their use seems to be to locate a wyrm scent trail, using dogs or burrowvargs, then bring in a caged barghest and release it directly onto the trail. It is believed that barghests will also follow a banshee wail and that they are capable of tracking Kafers directly by scent if they are not wyrm-infested, but neither of these points has been conclusively proven. The lifecycle of the barghest has not yet been accurately determined, but they are assumed to have an average lifetime measured in years. Each barghest requires around 20 kilos of raw meat per day, fortunately for field logistics they are capable of digesting both Terran and Beta Canumite proteins.
Pod 13 has produced only two barghest-mothers, each weighing around 500 kilos and the size of a large cow. They are too large to deploy away from base camp and with a three month gestation time there would be little point. Each barghest mother requires 30 kilos of vegetable matter per day for basic nutrition and around a tonne more for each barghest delivered. The barghest is generally considered the least successful of the Pod 13 constructs.
Wyrms are perhaps the most disturbing Pod 13 construct of all, particularly as Pod 13 appear not to have told anyone, even Major Euart, that they were incorporating them into their plans until after they had been deployed. A wyrm is a small hermaphroditic parasite approximately 20 millimetres in length and 1mm in diameter, and large numbers are passed in the faeces of all Pod 13 constructs. It can be assumed that any water source that a Pod 13 construct has been close to will contain significant numbers of wyrms. Fortunately wyrms appear to be limited to six generations of reproduction after which they become asexual. Combined with a lifecycle of around two days, with reproduction occurring after the first day, this means that any infestation will die out within a week of the last Pod 13 construct leaving the area. However, each wyrm gives birth to ten young each time it breeds, meaning that within a week one wyrm will potentially become one million. Equally fortunately, wyrms are a Kafer-specific parasite. In water they feed on microscopic plant-matter, but if they detect a Kafer in the water, even as fleeting a contact as one stooping to drink as it passes, they will rapidly attach themselves to it, preferring folds in its skin, under the edge of the carapace and similar locations. A wyrm which attaches itself to a Kafer will immediately enter its asexual phase, followed by the rapid onset of further metabolic changes. Attached wyrms develop a chameleon-like ability to mimic skin-colour and their digestive system becomes optimized to subsisting on Kafer skin secretions and skin cells. In addition their lifecycle appears to become indefinitely extended. Wyrms are not a serious parasite to a Kafer, although it is extremely difficult to remove all of them. However they are an immediate danger to any Kafer because the final part of the change is for the attached wyrm to start pumping out large quantities of a pheromone detectable by both burrowvargs, dogs and barghests. Dogs and barghests typically appear able to track the scent trail of a wyrm-infested Kafer up to two days after it has been laid, while burrowvargs appear to be able to follow one up to a week old.
Major Morag Euart
Morag Euart was born into a crofting
family on North Uist in the Western Isles of Scotland
and is a native Gaelic speaker. She excelled in the sciences at school, if not
always in other subjects, and was accepted to study at the prestigious Faculty
of Veterinary Medicine at the
Morag Euart never expected to be a combat soldier, but the
Major Euart is a fairly short, solidly built woman with the gingerish complexion often seen in Scots. She is rarely
seen without her huge
Doctor Tom Jeffers
Tom Jeffers is a civilian New African scientist ostensibly drafted in to support 2 Section from one of the disbanded New African Commandos. In reality Jeffers is Mark Stein, an agent from the Fleet Scientific Intelligence Unit planted in the ECU to monitor its activities and those of Pod 13. A competent geneticist, Jeffers is logging all of the constructs produced by Pod 13 and monitoring them for any suggestion that they might be usable against humans as well as Kafers. So far it appears that none of the constructs could be turned against the people they have been produced for as is, but Jeffers is quietly certain that they could be re-targeted within weeks and has reported as much to Catherine Duchesne, the Director of Scientific Intelligence. He has also reported that he is absolutely certain that Morag Euart knows exactly who he is and what he is doing.
Pentapods have always been one of the most enigmatic alien species encountered. Pod 13 is now one of the most closely integrated and studied Pentapod groups ever, and is still almost a complete enigma. To the best that anyone can judge, the two dozen or so ‘pods of the group appear completely happy with their work, but no one, not even Morag Euart, is certain whether the aim of their work is vengeance against the Kafers who massacred their enclave, or to study how the humans of the ECU react to their work, or something else entirely. What is certain is that a scientific group supposedly focused on agronomy-oriented bio-engineering was able to re-task themselves to producing militarily useful bio-constructs even after suffering over 90% casualties during the assault on the enclave and without any appreciable delay to grieve or reorganise. The level of basic competence with genetic modification that this suggests had already been hypothesized, but is nonetheless startling. Equally the lack of reaction to the losses is a reminder of just how alien Pentapod psychology is.
Pixie Dust is an obsolete surveillance technology that has been brought back into use by the Kafer War. The basic technology relies on micro-machining basic sensors onto a tiny chip, the ability of nano-technology to turn out those chips by the millions, and the ability of the chips to network themselves into a dispersed sensor in which the whole is much greater than the sum of the parts. Pixie Dust chips are invisible to the naked eye, but are powered by ambient light, heat and vibration, and are capable of listening on EM and sonic frequencies and of interlinking with each using several different EM bands (including UV and IR as well as broadcast RF). A single chip can report almost nothing, but en masse and with sufficient computer support to integrate their results they can map a building and provide real time audio and even visual coverage of what is happening within it. Pixie Dust can be delivered by a myriad of means, everything from someone walking through the building to dust inside parcels sent through the mail to mass dispersal upwind of the target. For a while in the early 21st century it was thought that Pixie Dust might render the concept of privacy functionally obsolete, but its initial success was built on novelty rather than any real difficulty in neutralizing it. With Pixie Dust an omnipresent threat, Pixie Dust countermeasures also became omnipresent. The minute size of the chips made them impossible to harden in any meaningful manner against EMP attack, even at pulse densities too low to damage any other electronics. When a major lighting firm began selling office lighting with inbuilt counter-Pixie Dust pulse generators the era of the Pixie Dust threat was over and the technology largely faded into history.
The Kafer threat has brought Pixie Dust back into use, Kafers simply do not have the background in ELINT to identify the threat that Pixie Dust poses and any 24th century computer can handle the integration of a Pixie Dust network with ease. The only real difficulty in deploying the system has been the near universal presence of human-manufactured lighting, with the result that throughout Kafer-Occupied Space perplexed resistance cadres have received instructions to ‘smash the lights’.
Pixie Dust does have limitations. Each chip’s communications link has a range of barely a metre and while this does make their signals nearly undetectable and the chips can relay for each other it also creates severe problems in relaying the signal out for analysis. Relays are readily available, but installing them in the needed locations is often the most difficult part of deploying a Pixie Dust network.
Pixie Dust Dispenser (Sufficient for 200M3)
Pixie Dust Relay (Range 100m)
Duration: 30 days
Pixie Dust Network Integration Program
Copyright 2009, David Gillon