It was a waking death. It was a stillness of cycles past. A silence that was not just of the voice, but of the mind and body. When Skthveraachk had first been taught the patterns, shown the path, his fear had been a thing of pincers and jaws that consumed his efforts and screamed to his face its fury. Steady your breathing; once every ten beats. Limbs do not move. Vents do not flare. Tread the line between song and death, vision blurred by the lack of air and slowness of heart. Watch as the enemy approaches with crunching step on gravel path above you, see it with weapon slung against its back. It does not see you; you do not move. It does not hear you; you do not breathe. It does not smell you; you are not marked. Closer. Closer. A foot steps. Stones tumble down the embankment and strike your eyes. You do not move. You do not move.

Move. The darkness was flung away as his lungs filled with the alien air, and the dust billowed off him as Skthveraachk leapt. Threw himself forward from the ditch, claws uncurled and mandibles wide. See the turn of the humanite’s head, mouth widening, eyes sharpening, all too slow. See the reaching for its weapons, the scrape of its heels as it tries to turn, all too late. Foreclaws around its arms. Worn helmet cracking against his own, face making contact with its head. Thorax and core strike its torso, cloak billowing out behind in his leap. Two breaths in the open, suspended, wrapping around the foe. Then, impact on the other side of the pathway. Feeling snapping under the thing’s armor, and the breathless, soundless screaming whispering out of its maw as his jaws closed around its throat.

The landscape was rocky and barren, red and shaded by the mounds and hills. A stone moved, its surface rippled, and an arm extended from beneath its crust to pull free a lance. Shoving the barrel’s end down into the wheezing alien’s helm where tube from pack met the holes of its face.

“Your order has not been forgotten. It has been but beats, not cycles.” The Band around Skthveraachk scout’s neck gave off irregular spasms, trying to accurately parse the coarse meanings. Experience and the memories indicated if there was talk of mating from the humanites, it was probably an insult. Speckled and red in garb and features, the alien in his mandible writhed, and the scout clamped tighter until blood began to leak from the flesh. “It will be safer to kill it.”

The Markus-Sergeant emerged next, and the soft scrabbling of claws was close behind him. The gully was almost too narrow for two to stand side by side, and a crimson dust still saturated the area from the tumble off the path. Sovereignty soldier jerked his weapon back behind the rocks, and Skthveraachk began to drag the stiffening humanite to the others.

“Received.” In the distance, down the trodden road and slope, voices drifted up towards them. Tens of lengths away, but closer than the scout was comfortable with. It was harder to hear in the rickety helmet, and the fluttering alien fabric that had been secured at his neck and petiole, but the scout watched closely the Sergeant’s lips for further command. The only visible skin beneath helm and plating. “How far would we need take it before Coalition could not smell or hear its death?”

“Incredible. Even with your machines, half their bodies must just be giant noses-“

It took careful adjustments of his head to ensure the alien’s more tender neck was not torn from him, but the humanites commanded, and he obeyed. There was never a link to rely on, never a choir to support. Perform role without deviation. The speckled creature was sat behind the boulder while the subordinate of his two masters set to fiddling with its shell, pulling weapons and devices from its body. Skthveraachk released his sharp grip only when its hands and feet were locked in black cords which folded over themselves like living worms. It was a question for them. Skthveraachk made quick chitter, catching the song of the foremost scout who had remained unbudging in the gully behind them.

“Yes. The sounds are at eighty-two lengths. Twelve or fifteen. They are not approaching.”

Markus-Sergeant squatted, keeping his profile lowered in their meager cover. Blood was shook from Skthveraachk’s mandibles as he made the nodding.

“As the pupae shakes.” Markus remained motionless, and Skthveraachk tried again. “Yes. It is certain.”

Pieces of equipment were snapped, fabric had been stuffed into the alien’s facehole, and the Sovereignty soldier had slung the creature’s weapon across its own back with its own.

“We are to leave the enemy here? It will escape. It will be discovered.”

There was no singing this deep into enemy territory. Two stamps on the barren gravel and a ticking made by antenna on shell; the subtle call was returned, and by the time they had left the struggling enemy in its cranny and made it to the next outcropping in the wasteland of stone, the other four covered scouts had rejoined the massing. Their helmets smeared with mud to hide the glinting of light, and their bodies covered like the humanite’s with the stretched single sheet of fabric each. Skthveraachk updated the others, and quick-made their sights his own.

“Ridge remains the best vantage. But it is exposed, and only of a few tenlengths tall.”

The slope was long and rolling, and the further down it went, the louder the sounds of life became. Foreign, mechanical, lumbering and grinding. Skthveraachk kept to the middle as their column of seven crept from shadow to shadow. He was Banded. He was vital. It was a surprising comfort.

“Received.” Four tenlengths, accurate to half a length precisely. The wall rose up out of the ground and protruded like an antenna over the head that was the terrain. Something heavy was clanking on the horizon that he could barely see, that empty sky ran with grey and black overhead, and twelve-and-three-quarter lengths to the right, a smell of ammonia and salt from humanite waste. No contact; remain vigilant. Goals one through twelve currently met. Begin conversation for standing interrogative orders. “If these materials we wear eliminates the chances of detection, why are they not more common amongst soldiers?”

Information logged and stored. Skthveraachk made sure one other in the slowly advancing column was directed to keep the knowledge until they returned to the colony, in case he was killed before they arrived.

“Absence of materials. Acknowledged.”

Lighter voice was kept at whisper.

Foremost scout reached the cliff, and the Markus-Sergeant pressed into the wall next to it, hands deft and experienced as they slung his weapon and brought out his pack in what seemed like one motion.

Both chuffed and horked on the air, and though Skthveraachk did not understand the humor, the scouts all tapped their antennae together softly with respect. All was soon silenced as they squatted in the shade of the great protruding rock formation, the aliens unwinding a cord and fixing it to a ball no larger than one of Skthveraachk’s eyes.

Skthveraachk reared, and accepted the orb into his foreclaws.

“Orb is vital. Protect and ensure it remains connect. Ascend cliff. Place at edge. Confirm?”

“Received.” The confirmation doubled as a relaying to the rest of the group, and when Skthveraachk passed the small sphere into the mandibles of the nearest scout, it began the ascent without hesitation. Another joined it, helping unspool the cord from the pack of the lesser alien subordinate, who was forming a protest already.

“The Band must be protected. I will relay your instructions to the others.”

“Acknowledged. I will ensure my song remains quiet.” Subordinate soldier/queenling designation seemed unsatisfied, but the Markus-Sergeant silenced it with a waving cut of his hand.

“Our songs are layered expressions denoting meaning from the precise application of movement, sound, and smell harmonizing their pulses with-“

“Received, Markus-Sergeant. The orb has been placed.” The cliff was far more exposed than was preferable. Skthveraachk took a quick look first through the spotter at its base; the shadows were on their side, and the ascent had gone unnoticed. Switching to the view of the thin plateau, the highest scout flattened down to match the crimson rocks while orienting and adjusting the sphere in its jaws. It emitted small whirrs, internal organs that could be felt but not seen, and when Skthveraachk returned to his own eyes, it was to see the aliens unroll a square of silver. A square that shimmered, and suddenly grew light from its surface.

It showed the slow to their right, marred with boulders and pathways well trodden. It showed the growths that Skthveraachk could just barely make out, the unnatural wood shapes and leaves of off-colored green. As though a different world from the barren emptiness they had seen merged below them. It showed the falling of the hills into the water, a river that sat placid for who knew how many lengths, the miniature representation of light a confusing scale. It showed the small squares flowing up and to the risefade, breaking away from the nest. And yes, it showed the nest. The sharp-edged towers upon which sat the outlines Skthveraachk had come to memorize; plasma throwers, artillery pieces, barricades and the heavy bags of dirt mixing with funneling chokepoints fashioned from metal and the clear glassy material. Beyond the perimeter, buildings and humanite constructions the likes of which he had only seen in the nest of Pelal. Breeding chambers and residence caverns, but erected above-ground. Wide streets that ran the length of the sweeping outdoor spaces, shaded blue by both the light of the map and the shield erected over its entire length. Light which shone over the weapons that, they were told, could fire clear into the sky beyond should the need arise. Taller than the buildings themselves. Vegetation sprung even from their stonework and hardstone pillars flanking the perfectly set bricks. Tens of lengths. Hundreds of lengths? Skthveraachk could not fully parse it, and instead internalized it for the thinkers to handle and crafters to shiver over.

Details were lost as the nest, town, city; as the false-Guir depicted on the holographic map shrunk. Details became hazier and hazier, less defined, the smaller the images became. But there, at the far end of the sweeping watery barrier, was another nest. So close. Sibling, twin, a mirror image of Guir in every meaningful regard. The symmetry was beautiful.

The subordinate ran his fingers along the base of the sheet, and Skthveraachk recoiled as the rectangles and rhombuses grew so abruptly he was afraid they would leap from the sheet.

Heavy lance emplacements. Bunkers, coated with reflective composites to disperse the heat of impacts. Skthveraachk followed the extension of the alien’s spindly digit, and saw an outline he did not know. That they were not taught.

The world held no meaning, but it was spoken with awe. Reverence.

“My apologies for the interruption.” Reverence, and fear. Fear from an alien was not desirable. It demanded exploration. One of the scouts reported movement down the slope, at the fringes of the vegetation line, but it was distant enough to ignore for now. “We have no information on these weapons. What is their significance?”

The simplicity was, somehow, not reassuring.

“I do not understand. How does this differ from your plasma? Your artillery?” The subordinate hesitated, and would not respond. The Sergeant showed fewer compunctions on the matter.

The straight tubes set with grooves cut into their length seemed sharper as Skthveraachk copied every detail into his mind.

“Slow approach of ten enemies at eighty lengths. Difficult to make out. No other pertinent information.”

A few breaths were needed to consider, settling on the agreement that it was but another name for the orb. Humanites began to pack up, to roll the sheet of lights and wind down the cable as Skthveraachk sung for a slow retreat. He did not understand how a rock could become liquid. He did not understand why the great curved lightwalls would halt the white beams of death, but not a thrown chunk of metal. It was not his place to know. Log the information, share it, return it to the colony. When the two scouts had finished their precipitous descent, a check was made for cuts or tears in the hugging cloaks, and then, they were gone from that site of future battle.

They did not stop until the light was gone in its entirety, Skthveraachk’s vision cut to but ten or twenty lengths ahead. On their own world, they would be lucky for five lengths of sight in the fade. It was different here, even a lack of sun allowing for a grey and brown shimmer. The Sovereignty was unobstructed, their visors believed to be like that of the Queen’s. But where the scouts could yet travel but not see, the aliens could see but needed rest. They erected their canvas and silvery cube from interlocking, extending poles that moved on their own, and built within a fire that leapt to life with a peeling of black disk’s face. Neither light nor heat escaped the cube when it was closed, and such was good. Skthveraachk established a marked perimeter with the others, traded food from their second stomachs, and accepted role as third-watch. Those who had not climbed nor fought would provide lookout first, and rest last.

He did not dream, thankfully. When the scout arrived to pressure claws on his shell, he did not mistake them for the visions that had caused accidental assaults and deaths in the past. Too often did a newly hatched drone awake startled, thinking the wraiths and false images of slumber were threats. In a nest, the calming scents would shake away this instinctive fear. Out in the wild, cut clean from the link, soldier would occasionally kill soldier in fit of confusion. Skthveraachk took an elevated position on one of the most protruding stones he could find, an extra length of height being an extra length, and was nearly settled when the movement was detected.

Three breaths to crawl downward, mandibles flexing wider. Two breaths to parse the appropriate response as the shape darted between stones. Four breaths to assume a hunting patterns, break from cover, and charge. The path was good. Intercept trajectory, precise. A whistling screech, barely audible, was raised as his claws wrapped around the intruder that had tripped the scent barrier. It lashed, it bit, and it dug tiny razor teeth into his certain with force enough to dent the exoskeleton of his graspers. Staring at the thing, reared back on his four legs, Skthveraachk searched through his memories for recognition. The scout found none. He rushed to the cube, and made a patting at its surface. Unhelmed, black hair cut close and eyes barely visible through wrinkled skin, the Sergeant stuck out its torso.

“I have captured an intruding creature.”

Stirring was heard from within, and after some adjustment and a duck back within, the humanite emerged with but thin shell and worn boots. Trying to peer through the darkness.

“Unknown. It lives. It attacks me. Should it be killed?” Another scout had awoken and was requesting an update. Skthveraachk requested it standby for further instruction, just in case. He held up his claws, and though beats passed in silence, eventually a long hissing of air was sent from the alien’s lungs. “It is Coalition?”

“I do not understand.”

It did not cease its thrashing, but it had stopped trying to bite upon finding the action unproductive. A long, whiplike protrusion swept from side to side as its body glistened in the grey light, Markus disappearing once more into the habitat only to bring out a stick of chalky brown. Offering it forward. Skthveraachk at first thought it was for him, but the creature within his grasp promptly seemed to calm and still. Twitching pink bulb at its pointed tip shivering in the cold air, before tiny hands were thrust out to seize and capture the offered rod. Hugging it near its carapace that split and jutted like a thousand tiny, tender needles while biting and assaulting the gift. It was a relief to let the stinking thing free, and a greater relief to see it dart away into the fields of dust and stone.

“Not a threat?”

“Then it should have been eliminated.”

The Sergeant rubbed a hand across its eyes, Skthveraachk left to try and use the silence productively. He signalled to the scout on tentative alert, and bade it return to sleep.

“I will ensure this information is taken back to the colony. I thank you for your intervention. I will no longer interrupt your rest.”

Its mouth was flung wide, trails of clinging fluid visible in the recesses, and Skthveraachk felt his stomach turn at the sight. Hot air was billowed free, and it stank. Both of its hands raised in the halting motions as Skthveraachk prepared to call for the scouts to rise.

“Acknowledged. I will return to my watch.” Skthveraachk expected the alien to return to his cube. He did not expect him to emerge so soon after, hardstone container in hands, only to take a seat on the rock beneath the scout himself.

Another shadow darting around the perimeter, the same size as the previous intruder. Skthveraachk ignored it. The clinking of forked rod into container as it was laden with some sort of white and orange mush, then clicking as it was placed between the bone of the humanite scout’s mouth. Skthveraachk tried to blot it out and maintain his focus. But when the alien spoke, orders demanded he answer.

“Skthveraachk-Colony is here to serve the Sovereignty.”

The alien took another mouthful of the paste. He could hear it, though made sure his eyes stayed in their scanning of the wasteland that was the surrounding. Flat like a desert, but with great mesas that rose sporadically and at random.

“It is my role.” Watch, but also be cautious. “Scouts were required. I was selected.”

“Because I am a scout.”

The laughter was shallow, its mouth stuffed.

“We did not consider the possibility of life beyond our knowledge. The last sky-sent were killed near eight tenthousands of measures ago. We sung joy. We believed they were the last, ever.”

“No.” It was better. These were questions he understood how to answer. Had it been a query from the colony, perhaps he would have added mirth. Here, Skthveraachk considered every syllable before its addition. “Perhaps. They are the oldest of our songs, the foundation of our music. The Composer purged the sky-sent from His place on high, and they fell to the lands of the Founders. It was only when the last of them had been devoured that we knew ourselves as one. That we proved ourselves the only beings who were worthy of the Composer’s voice. And the voice raised us from those who would be mass, and the song filled us with a life that was ours alone.”

Its tool was laid to rest. The clinking of metal on metal was gone.

“Yes. Now, our voice serves yours.”

The questions began to stray once more. He tried not to let the fear leak from his gaster.

“The sky-sent rivaled our strength. We killed them. You do not rival our strength. You exceed it. If we fought, we would die. We do not wish to die. Our voice serves yours.”

“Yes.”

Skthveraachk did not angle his head, but let his scan halt so that his rightmost eye could catch the very top of the alien’s head.

“It is good.” Slowly, he felt his muscles loosen from their instinctive clench. “Your kind is more valuable than mine. Our deaths serve to save yours, so that your deaths can be of even greater effect. To be silenced preserving the voices of two, perhaps even three, or four of my colony would be a precious thing. To be silenced in the act of preserving a humanite would be revered.” He looked down, seeking confirmation or acceptance. The scout found only the back of the alien’s head, looking at his now emptied meal tin. It rose, and Skthveraachk quickly reprioritized his tasking to observation.

“Received.” No condemnation. No anger. The humanite did not even look back as it made for its cube, and his vents fluttered in relief. In another life, perhaps he would have been fed more proteins and been born a thinker. Satisfied, Skthveraachk scraped his claws across the terrain, and stomped until the rhythmic pounding awoke the others. Sharing with them the curious, but successful, exchange.

The exchange would be preserved forever. It would be necessary. It would be demanded when they returned to the advanced nest, when the blood in their, in his, in all their mandibles was questioned. Kicking, screaming, the subordinate alien fought until his armor rent and his blood welled from the gashes. Skthveraachk and another scout both biting their mandibles around his body, and digging their claws against his limbs as they held him behind the shining and reflective wall.

There would be no answer. They had no line of sight from behind their cover, but in the opened passageway between the soaring eight-length tall buildings, the wet gurgles and heaving was the only response offered. The scout who had been bringing up the rear of the column kept himself on the opposing side of the alley, singing in shortest tempo all he could.

“Markus-Sergeant exposed. No sight on enemy. Elevated angle of beam’s descent.”

“Skthveraachk scout status?”

“Dead.” He could smell the corpse. The first shot had burned clear through the alien’s chest, shell and all. The second had been pulsing and warbled. When it struck the scout trying to drag the Sergeant behind the wall, the drone had simply exploded. Bits littered the walls, the passage, the opened square and all. “Attempt rescue.”

“Requires two. Unable to release Sovereignty soldier. Possible frenzy. Humanite.” Skthveraachk tried to match his voice to the subordinate’s shouting. “You must remain behind this wall. The enemy is nearby.”

Response? Order? Its lance was strewn on the smooth, almost slippery street. Another crackling of energy, a snapping of heat, left a red and melted trail on the rounded corner of the barrier as one of the scouts stuck head out and withdrew it in test.

“Received.” Pelal had been cleared. They had moved through it freely on the journey to Guir, they had darted from hidden alcove to shaded cover. Abandoned. Empty. Why only now? Why now? Skthveraachk did not lax his grip; the humanite reached and shoved for the alleyway. The enemy soldier had prioritized the Sovereignty. It would kill their alien first. It would not be allowed. “Emerge. Charge for opposite end of open path. Other leaps for Markus-Sergeant. Retrieve and retreat.”

“Received.” The first left its cover, seeking to draw fire. It succeeded. The beam into its thorax was singular and precise. Head was thrown forward, gaster was rolled backwards, and abdomen simply evaporated into chunks of black and orange. The second scout was halfway to the humanite, but Skthveraachk beat his claws wildly to send it back into the safety of the building’s face. Through his eyes, he watched the Sergeant raise a red-soaked hand, trying to claw at the ground and drag himself nearer. Even if it had reached the Markus-Sergeant, it would have been dead before ever reaching cover. The subordinate alien punched for his head, and he forced his mandibles not to clench in retribution.

“Enemy is too accurate. Position unknown. Risking one humanite life for another is madness. We retreat.” Severed head attached to melted remains of thorax clawed forward on single leg, tried to sing report. The scout on opposite side of the alley’s gap murmured a melody and plunged scythe between its eyes, ending its song and pain. “Markus-Sergeant will be dead soon.”

“Threat?”

“Unclear.” Skthveraachk tried to tap at his Band with leg, though the removal of its brace saw the fighting alien shove itself off the wall before being slammed back into place. Was it broken? Were his words not correct? “Sovereignty humanite will die if it exposes self.”

“Humanite’s death will serve no purpose.”

“Are you frenzied?” The mere suggestion saw claws curl harsher into the alien’s body, but it could not be done. Preserve the humanites. Protect the Sovereignty. There were no thinkers, there was no link. There was only them, and their orders. Protect.

“Protect the Sergeant. If all three remaining charge, one may succeed.”

“If we release subordinate alien, he will charge.”

“If he charges, he will die.”

“We cannot release him.”

“We cannot assist the humanite.”

“Acknowledged. Retreat.”

The third scout threw himself across the gap, and though the beam boiled a hole clear into the glimmering street, it missed the drone by a tenth of a length. Gathering up lance and pack, the scout reared as Skthveraachk and the other spun the alien stop them. He, holding its arms wide and to the side. The other, clasping claws around its legs. The pattern used for a third to skewer the creature through the core, adjusted to instead provide restraint. For an instant, Skthveraachk thought he heard the Markus-Sergeant calling for aid. It was not possible. The shot was killing him; it was not a great death. But it was a death that would at least save one other. And if the information gathered from Guir saved even one other, it would make the Sergeant’s life well lived. They ran, the humanite atop them, from that place of shadows and recesses, fearing every step could lead to beams ringing out from above, from behind, from below. None came. Only the raging, the struggling, the sobbing and the pleading of their cargo. Perhaps the aliens would kill them all for this when they returned to the nest. Skthveraachk felt his breath lighter at the thought. Dying to save a single humanite?

It would be revered.