They had run the canyon floor. They had surged over the barricades and walls of the Coalition. They had tasted the blood of humanites. Seven hundred sixty-four dead. Another one hundred and eight wounded. The majority had been drones, the shielding pattern proving effective at reducing casualties among the more vital soldier caste. It was still near a twenty-fifth of total effective colony forces. No reinforcements coming. No nest yet to even birth new voices. The first clutch would not come for many measures, and the Queen had demanded careful tally be kept. Careful census maintained. Another volley of beams snapped from the plateau’s edge. Another three menials writhed and burned, scoured from their ascent. Skthveraachk plunged his claws into the split core of the nearest dying worker and ripped free its chitinous shell, the blood an adhesive as he squelched it onto his carapace. An extra tenthlength of armor. Better serving him than a corpse.

“Advance. Advance.”

“Stay.” The four soldiers clamped themselves to the canyon wall beneath outcropping of stone, searing droplets of melted rock drizzling as the humanites above spat fire from on high. Red-crested titan continued scavenging; four spurs rooting him to wall, two dissecting the chitin from held body. Thorax of the corpse gave way, and a rush of organs flooded from it as its bottom half split and went splattering down the cliff. “Soldiers being pulled from encirclement. Two hundred beats.”

“Priority given. No escape for aliens.”

“Aliens will not escape. Focused on killing us. Will provide bodies as targets until soldiers arrive. Hundred ninety-four beats.” They should be running. The plateau was but a few tenlengths below the top of the canyon. Already they had broken the encirclement from the killing ground and clambered up here; why did they not retreat harder? The vertical wall was flush with grip. Skthveraachk did not know. It was not what he would have done. “Three more drones. Advance. Soldiers stay.” The other soldier did not want to comply. He waved antennae and relayed the message to the other cluster of warriors under similar stony canopy across from them, complying. Line of black trembled as the next three menials were selected, shrieking out as they scrabbled around the protective outcropping and thrashed their way upward. Two were shot down immediately. The third made it half way up before a lance beamed shot straight into her eyes, the back of her head erupting in orange in red chunks. Body reflexively curled as the song fled it, remaining fixed on the wall. The stupid humanites continued firing, not realizing she had already been silenced. Eighteen more beats before they realized their mistake. Beautifully had the female served her role; the former Vhersckaahlhn hummed a thankful hymn as the last of the drone’s chitin was glued to his body, and the now peeled meat was thrown down to join the growing piles of biomass. Three more dead. Eight remaining.

“Advance. Advance.”

“Stay.” He cracked the back of his now freed scythe against the back of the nearby soldier.

“I have lived two battles. I lead.”

“I have lived four battles. I lead.”

“You lead.”

“Queen commands no needless deaths. Soldiers valuable. More come. We will overwhelm.”

“Only six humanites. Fourteen soldiers. We overwhelm now.”

“One humanite capable of killing two soldiers at fifty lengths. Scouts say thirty lengths. Too much risk.”

“You fear? You frenzy?” The accusation turned pulse from patter to pound, and Skthveraachk found himself repeating the Queen’s bad habit. Clicking his mandibles twice together.

“Skthveraachk Queen commands caution. We obey. You refuse? You frenzy?” Smaller soldier was miming lunges, his anger tasted and heard. But he flattened himself when another searing hail rained on them, one of the white lines even glancing off his curved shell. Skthveraachk watched the chitin melt and bubble.

“No frenzy. Relay from link. Few drones left. Only allocated twenty.”

“Send three more. Do not let humanites retreat.” Every instant they spent shooting their fire-spitting lances was another instant give their approaching support. His claws were bleeding. He was too large for this plan, unsuited to the vertical battlefield. Pain signals were sounding all across him. They were ignored. Eighty beats. Fewer. He could last. Focus upon the then. Feel of the Skthveraachk birthing queen. Knowledge of his clutch that would soon be spawned. Strong he had been in Vhersckaahlhn-Colony. But stronger was he now. Permitted to breed, the Queen had sung true and without malice. Her strongest mothering female he had been given, and their music was an awesome and thundering bellowing that had shook the insides of the Palamedes. He had lived. He had eaten. He had bred. He lived as the Founders had and the queenless colonies of the Great White Nothing did now. He was completed. Pain was irrelevant. Pain was embraced.

“Five drones remaining. Requisition more?”

“Unnecessary.” Thirty beats. He could feel the vibration through the rock face, the new legs scrabbling and finding purchase, crawling up to meet them. “Story of Hhaltaee. When the mountain fell. Arrange those left.” Alien world or no, it was the best option the memories provided. Five drones remaining; one for him, four for the most senior of the soldiers they had left. A female harvester crawled atop him, blocking his view with her well-shaped thoracic core. She brought her antennae to wind against his.

“Skthveraachk.”

“Skthveraachk.”

“Joy in my role. My note in Composer’s structure arrives.”

“Unknown. Our notes are unknowable. Sing that He will hear you.” Fifteen beats. The soldiers below could be smelled. Fifteen more. Adequate, but not exceptional. He flared his vents, and ooze began to bubble from his claws. There must be problems with the battle below. The others thought the same; it was good. More drive for them to succeed. A strike sent shower of stone debris tumbling down upon them, though the drone above Skthveraachk deflected a few of the cutting edges intended for the soldier. Ten. Enough, “Form line. Two deep, fourteen long. Advance up cliff. Kill. Go.”

They broke from their cover, synchronized, uniform. One was unfortunate; the clawholds failed him, the canyon wall already fractured and scorched gave way and flung him away. Forward. Up. As at Hhaltaee, as the now extinct colony had fled the mantites with menials shielding their colony from the rockfalls, drones rode atop soldiers with legs split wide. Singing, defiant, challenging the sky as the outlines of foggy humanites leaned over the ridge and let fly death. Hook into rock, dig into crimson granite with crimson claw. Nearly straight up, they ran and they climbed while beams made boiling of the air around them. Extra plating and passenger were weighing Skthveraachk down, and his spurs left bloodied marks as he rose, but he did not slow. Not when the line of soldiers beneath him began to draw nearer his gaster. Not when the first warriors to his sides began to fall. Not when the first beam struck the Skthveraachk stretching herself over him. She spurted pain and warning markers, the fluids streaking down his body. He inhaled deeply, letting his instincts submerge thought. Danger. Colony in danger. Attack. Attack.

“Six humanites confirmed. Open ground. Line formation.” The first soldier crested the plateau. She rang out as information was sung, before the smell of sizzling death cut short the exclamation. Thirty black and brown bodies amidst a single red frame, scuttling high over the sounds of screaming and rending metal below. Another body went flailing down behind Skthveraachk. Another shot struck the female atop him, and burnt clean through to his crest.

“Alive?”

“My note comes! My death is here! Remember me! Remember me!”

“Distance?”

“My death! Five lengths! My death!” Faster. The drone had taken two blows, but could still breathe and sing. Shouts were cried out as two, then five, reached the plateau. Then, his claws were no longer digging into flatness. His blind reaching found the surface, and immediately did the beams come for him. He was the largest. It was expected. The torn chitin had been arranged to his front, and though his own armor was made puddy by the three impacts striking around his head, the heat was drunk by the carcass. The drone rolled off his top and fell motionless to the side, its purpose served. Now. Now his role.

Five humanites. Falling back and away to the wall of crags behind them, semicircle arrangement, spitter-lances pouring their light forth into the approaching detachment of Skthveraachk soldiers. One humanite. Its back to the death oncoming, barely a length off the plateau as it sought to scrabble up the cliff face. It was making no progress, its graspers unable to find the many holds and crevices. Information was logged for delivery to the thinkers. Focus. Focus now. Another beam across his crest, leaving mark scorched at his shell. Other soldiers were rearing, exposing their cores to fire at ten lengths. He remained on all six, and pebbles leapt from their rest at each impact of his claws carrying him like a charging dynastite to his target. Warning markers. Death markers. Drink deep, drink long. Submerge the frenzy, the tainted call to fear and flee. One of the humanites leveled the crackling beam weapon for him, and Skthveraachk readied his final note. Close enough to see its reddened armor, like his own. Its shaking legs. Its blue eyes under helm’s curve. Such wonderful eyes.

The discordant soldier slammed into the humanite from the side, and a smear of crimson sprayed across the rocks was all that remained as obstacle. They had faltered. Defense had failed. They were done. A male among the alien number whirled about, fired after the interloper, but Skthveraachk was on him before the third shot rung. No need to rear; these creatures were so fragile. Cracks and wet popping were added to the pain and joyous song now being raised as the skirmish came to a close, the humanite’s bizarre internal rigidity breaking apart as the former Vhersckaahlhn butted. Slammed his head down to pin the alien to the unyielding ground. Its graspers struck at his head; legs kicked up beneath his core. It was harmless, but the warrior caste wasted not a breath in pondering the purpose of such actions. Mandibles seized and cut one of the offending arms. Air howled out of the thing’s lungs. Right scythe plunged for the heart, or thereabouts. Gout of the deep crimson vitae filling the creature flew up as a spring, but still it moved. Cursed aliens were so peelably small. Scythe still buried in its chest, freed foreclaw reamed through protective hardstone shell at the joint of its remaining arm, his blood mingling with the alien’s, and pulled. A line formed, clinging strands of meat stretching, from neck to core as the arm and chunk of upper half was pulled away and flung. It stopped screaming. Stopped flailing. Skthveraachk gave its chest another stab, just to be sure, before rising to assault the next.

There was no need. The scene was concluding amongst the others, enacting as they had trained the thrusts for vital sections. A drone, miraculously unharmed in the ascent, had taken to gripping one of the humanite’s arms to drag and pull the writhing body along while soldier impaled repeatedly the exposed dorsal side, a well executed improvisation. The last functioning alien was the one ascending the wall, or trying to. Blood was washing down the rock, one of its legs missing now from an attempted pull that had instead severed the limb. The soldier with the meaty appendage still skewered on its mandibles was flailing on its back, trying to right itself, while another was ascending wall in its place, barely a length from the humanite. No threat. He did not bother to watch the conclusion.

“All voices, call sound.” Their cheers, weak and strong, rose around him. Returning to the edge of the plateau, he reared so the scouts below could see his movements, signing out the information with forelegs and antennae. “Engagement concluded. Humanites dead. Eighteen soldiers alive, three wounded. One drone alive, two wounded. Change status to unassigned. Request new assignment.”

“Assign all to encirclement perimeter.” It was almost forty lengths away, and the soldier struggled to make out the response. A blurry black shape of an observer amidst a cluster of others atop a hardstone structure, directing with its legs further into the basin of the canyon valley. “Prioritize transport of wounded, then join grouping at cave entrance.”

“Received.” He turned, and already was there no longer a sound or sign from the fallen aliens. A quick relaying of the information made, then a scooping of the female drone seeping her life’s blood out onto the foreign soil. She did not struggle. Good. Good. She might still survive.

“Nonsensical. Improper. What is occurring?” Burnt, but still walking, the soldier moved alongside Skthveraachk to gaze out on the battlefield. Smoke, but barely any fires. Thousands, two tens of thousands, were an unstoppable crawl beneath them. Yet still, the calls for reinforcements, the notifications of battle ongoing, the warning markers of dangerous territory, were thrown up from all around. “Encirclement was completed. Escape impossible. Link severed. Aliens should not be functioning.”

“Alien caste identification; soldier/queen.” Surviving drone scuttled by, locking himself against the cliff as he began to descend. “Recent update. Queens capable of independent action.”

“Soldiers incapable of independent action. Caste identification; soldier/queen. Capable but incapable?”

“This exchange is not our role.” Skthveraachk secured the drone on his scarred and burnt carapace, feeling her lock legs around him weakly. “We must reinforce designated cave. Focus movement.” Back over the cliff. The descent easier, but no less painful. One by one, over the edge and down to the canyon floor, the last of them tapping gaster and leaving signal for biomass and resource collection once fight was concluded. The dead of both species left to puddle their fluids, the soundless remnants of the battle’s end. There was more work to do. More to kill. Obey the Queen. Kill. Kill.

The strategy had been flawless. Beneath their claws, they squelched over hundreds of humanite corpses en route to the nearest muster. The swarm had breached the walls. They had flooded the canyon. They had encircled, then tightened to cut off the proverbial head. Almost all had perished, as the Queen had designed. But now, in groups of five and ten and twenty, humanites dug into crevices or hid within their erected structures or formed circles to drive away their final ending. Respectable? Every casualty inflicted on the Skthveraachk-Colony was one fewer to face their next nest. Madness? There was no chance of victory, no hope of survival. Their roles were concluded. Their final notes should be sung. Perhaps the Composer truly did not hear them, had no purpose for them in the great work. Then they should be all the more eager to die; Skthveraachk could not imagine the hollowness of such a purposeless existence.

Like the Sovereignty’s encampment, the Coalition had made rows of cubes amidst ditches and raised barricades. But there was more permanence here as his troop of twenty wound way through the more rigid boxed structures. Hard metal instead of canvas, rows of distant gun emplacements rather than scattered protrusions. They rounded a smoldering wreck of an AG Vehicle, and found the scent-trail’s end. The cleared space, ringed by drones, in which the menders arranged lines of the wounded. Skthveraachk came to halt outside the cleaned center, where not a drop of humanite blood nor mote of ash was permitted, and had no sooner frozen than was approached by one of the spindly figures.

“Number?”

“Two menials, three soldiers.” He turned about, those others carrying sundered bodies synchronized in the movement. The mender made quick look over each, not even flinching as another explosion rung out meager thirty lengths away.

“All survivable. Soldiers, priority. Menials, secondary.” A pitched song toned free of the mender, and drones from the protective ring rushed forward to assist. Skthveraachk laid the female on his back down to side, and rubbed careful a claw along her carapace. Awaiting his dismissal. She kept still, but her hairs fluttered at the contact.

“Not the time of my final note.”

“No.”

“Would have been good. Dying to protect a soldier from the star-sent.”

“Your final note must be even greater.” Her antennae clicked together weakly, the laugh soft. She ceased all motions when the mender’s drones seized her and pulled, dragging her within the triage ring. All injured offloaded. The menders would perform their role. Skthveraachk needed to perform his. Marshall, notify, and lead. The soldiers fell in alongside, and once more, the troop was moving.

“Request location of Queen.” An unimportant query, in almost every situation for every colony. Within this colony, though? The thinkers had long ago set up a dedicated link for the sole purpose of the Queen’s tracking. It was unknown if even she was aware of it. The request was handed to a group of menials gathering bodies, and beats later, returned on the arm of another soldier troop heading for the cave as well.

“Queen safe.” A collective exhale rippled through all those near enough to hear the blessed notes. “Location. Engaging humanites near central shield spire. Greatest remaining resistance.” Expected. Warming. The blue shimmer over their heads, tinting the sky, was no longer battered by Sovereignty plasma. Perhaps it served some other purpose, if the Queen herself was handling its dismantling? Not his place to know. A cave. Closed quarters was said to favor their kind over the humanites, but too closed and there was no room to turn, to bite, to rear or raise scythe. There had been fierce resistance here, in the corridor between ditches that were half full of Skthveraachk-Colony corpses. Fewer alien remains, but tens still, scattered where they had fallen. Alone, or impaled on the bodies of soldiers who had died shortly after. Worthy trades. He uttered deep songs of admiration for them, for these who despite their uninspiring size and weight had fought both Vhersckaahlhn-Colony and star-sent to a standstill. How he wished his siblings were here, not trapped in a dying nest on a no longer solitary world. May the stars shine clear on his clutch, may they be born with his body and the Skthveraachk mind, may they be the greatest warriors this planet had ever tasted.

“Reinforcements?”

“Acknowledged.” Not to the wall? He had assumed their next battleground to be cut into the rise of canyon, but no. With the added troop he had brought and those who had joined along the route, there were near a hundred soldiers present and near twice as many drones. Arranged around what had once been a structure, though had since been toppled and pried open. Revealing the consoles, tables, the furnishings of unknown purpose. All surrounding a slope down into the ground itself, a stretching square passage lit in the searing glare of alien brightness running off out of sight. “Situation?”

“Secured tunnel. Single access. Over forty humanites escaped below.” Not good. Not good. Was a hundred enough? No, greater problems than numbers here.

“It leads from battleground?”

“Unknown.”

“Length?”

“Uncertain. Drones sent in were killed at seven lengths, and saw at least twenty-five more before wall. Porous. Humanites cover behind barricade, shoot down entire stretch of passage. A large open space beyond.” Not good thrice over. If it led out of the canyon, it defied the primary orders given. No Coalition alien survives. No Coalition alien escapes. But forty humanites? More? The distance was nearly what they had traveled up the cliff, under fire from mere five or six, and ten had been lost. There was no room for a line. There was barely room for Skthveraachk.

“Reinforcements?”

“Acknowledged.”

“Direction is linear in this way.” Soldier marked distance and direction, and the drones recently arrived signed understanding. Joining the others who had begun to encircle a distance further ahead, and who had already started to thrust jaws and claws into the rock. Hacking. Loosening. Skthveraachk understood.

“We will attempt to dig?”

“Yes. Outer crust is solid. Five lengths into ground, it softens. Delvers suggest attempt at tunneling around defense.”

“Estimated time?”

“Two bars.”

“Unacceptable.”

“Agreed. Searching for alternative options.”

“You lead?” Making sure it was not sung as a challenge, the other soldier still tightened his mandibles unpleasantly at the former Vhersckaahlhn’s query.

“I lead. I have lived five battles.”

“You lead.”

“You have additional memories to assist?”

“I am considering.” There was no story for a situation like this. No tale to draw from. It was not an unexpected thing, but there was still a chill in the realization. Even unto the dark time before song and the Founders, never had their people been faced with an enemy who controlled a passageway down which they could stream death unending. No aid from history, no assistance from memory. Think. Consider. Not his role to create, but his role to kill. How to reach these humanites that he may kill them?” “Flood passage with drones ahead of soldiers?”

“Distance too great. Every death clogs corridor. Will be full before reaching the enemy.”

“Seal and wait for death?” He snapped a scythe down into the red rocks, and all around him, the discontent was spreading. It was a foolish suggestion. The soldier knew it before his senior even began response. “Rescinded. Possible alternative routes out, beyond cliff walls. Cannot wait.”

“Task is being elevated in importance. Have requested thinker assistance.”

“Thinkers are available?”

“Front is secure. Half are being moved up to join the link. We dig and wait.”

“Waiting unacceptable.”

“Agreed. We dig and wait.” Infuriating. Weak. The aliens were so weak, once you had them in your scythes. It was the reaching them that killed you. All their weapons were designed for range, all their defenses designed against it. Loudly had he protested when first seeing the Queen within her humanite throne, the shaped metal not thick enough to prevent more than a few blows from even a standard soldier. Silently had the colony marveled when she sat within it, and the beams of humanite lances had not even melted its exterior. Deflecting. Dispersing. But against Skthveraachk-Colony, their armor was as nothing. Against Skthveraachk-Colony, their armor was as nothing. Against Skthveraachk-Colony, their armor was as nothing.

“Their armor is nothing against our scythes.”

“Statement is correct.” The senior soldier was level in the acceptance, though it was clear there was no comprehension in him.

“Why wear armor that is ineffective?”

“Their shells are not ineffective. They fight other humanites, not us.”

“Story of Hhaltaee. Story of the Founder’s second victory. Our flying Queen.” Skthveraachk was thrumming, his pulse quickened and claws uncurling. “The danger comes. We adorn ourself in armor. The drones cling to us. They protect us.”

“Drones unable to suffer more than two beams on average. Will fall and clog tunnel.”

“We do not use drones. We use humanites.” The soldier paused. Another two were already retrieving one of the motionless bodies nearby. Tapping, feeling, judging the depth. “Armor covers core. Beams must penetrate outer shell, inner meat, then through outer shell again on other side. Too deep. Multiple shots required in small scatter. Affords time.”

“This is not in the stories.”

“It combines the stories.”

“It is founded in only two memories. Tenuous.”

“Proffer solution to thinkers. Confirm viability.”

“Agreed. Relaying.” Bodies. They needed more bodies. Front, sides, back. Would it succeed? Unclear. He was not a thinker. The stories could be trusted. The memories could not be untrue. When response came back through the link of legs and limbs, the soldiers around stomped to the same beat. “Thinkers confirm. Likely solution. Success possible. Ordered to attempt.”

“Collect. Collect.” Drones awaiting their turn to dig, soldiers who were not guardedly watching tunnel’s entrance, fanned out and spread across the area. Skthveraachk picked through the remains, sought the most suitable cores. Bodies that had been severed in half. Headless. Those without excessive damage to cuirass segments. Locate. Retrieve. Pile up. “Who is first?”

“I am first.” Former Vhersckaahlhn responded immediately. The senior soldier gazed up to him, and Skthveraachk angled his sunken head downward. “I am largest. I am strongest.”

“You are first.” Confirmation. Those around directed to the red shelled giant, natural tone and humanite blood mingling and coating his hairs and frame. “Provide sealant. Affix. Prioritize front.” Stand. Lift. The work was done by a hundred legs and fifty mouths. Each adornment was weight, but they severed arms that were too damaged, cut free legs that provided insufficient cover, unscrewed heads that had lost their helms. He sagged under the growing strain, but did not buckle, and the clear fluid ran crimson as the hardening sealant frozen under blown breath, lined with the alien entrails. “You charge. Do not stop. Get through barrier. Soldiers follow.”

“If I die, I will fully block tunnel.”

“Yes. Do not die.”

“Received.” Vital role. Critical task. He gave his front a shake, and the hanging hands and arms of the aliens shook and flailed limply. He advanced towards that waiting slope, and the straightaway at its base, and once oriented, the last of the suit of unliving armor was set over his head, blinding and locking him into its shell. Queens wore armor. Prizes from the greatest of hunts, fashioned by gnawing mandibles and careful acid. Soldiers sometimes stripped their own dead, a bit of temporary chitinous aid. His amalgamation was not from his own conquests. The pieces of alien biomass arranged, curved, over his head and thorax where the glue had frozen them to his carapace. But Skthveraachk felt as a Queen must, clad in the finest protection the battlefield could provide. A column two wide and nearly fifty deep arranging behind him. Vital role. Task that would not be failed. Bring his final note; it would be a roar which shook the sky. “Readied.”

“Advance.”

They fired. They fired, and they fired, and they fired. He couldn’t breathe for the heat that surrounded him, and how his vents were squashed against the walls to either side to begin with. There was no room. There was no path. There was only forward, into uncountable white scalding beams that turned his shell of bodies into leaking stomachs of boiling goo. No sight; it was unneeded. No direction; only ahead. The passageway shook, the army behind him singing glories and paeans to keep their charge uniform. What did it look like before him? Did those tens of humanites hold? Did they scream their rhythmless calls? What did they see before them? The melting, sundered corpses of their kind that had already fallen before the colony? The death that came behind it? He ran. He charged. His claw made contact with a raised blockade, and Skthveraachk stumbled, but would not stop. Not even if lances cleaved his gaster clean from his body would he allow himself to stop. Snapping. Shearing. Something wet bounced off his side. Contact ahead. Shockwave through his entire body. The blockade, the barrier; something had tried to stop him. It had failed, and he sprawled forward as the scrape of walls vanished from his sides and breath came cool and clear. Get up. Get up. What now? What now?

“We are through! Attack! Attack! Kill! Kill!” Joy. Purity of purpose. Success. He struggled as he reared, feeling bodies flow around her, hearing the slashing and smelling the death and tasting the air as it grew tainted with danger marks. Scythes on his forelegs brought to cut and hew away the corpse blocking his view, preventing him from joining in the battle. The sealant was too fresh. It would not give way. His rage at his impotence was just another voice in the choir of battle, and he thrust his claws with force enough to fracture the exoskeleton of his skull should it make contact. Skthveraachk felt the scrape of contact as it was plunged through the armor of the humanite upon him, and two of his eyes were cleared as half the body was ripped away. Functional. Attack. Kill.

Long tables covered in white fabric marred red by the bodies upon them. Armored humanites, some trying to lift injured aliens away from the head of room, others simply firing wildly into the approaching wave. Two more beams impacted his front, and Skthveraachk dared not turn to judge the size of the hole that had been made in their barricade, but knew it to be sufficient. Black shells and dripping mandibles swarmed around him, surged through the gap and filled the room. His rear was secure. He could advance. There, ahead. Through the hanging sheets separating each piece of rectangular construction, behind a console of lights and sigils, a squatting humanite. Female? Uncertain, irrelevant. He was already reared, and regretted it immensely as he charged wildly ahead. His crest was scraping the roof, slowing his pace. But the alien did not move. It gawked, frozen, shuddering behind its pointless cover. No armor? Only the canvas shell that provided no protection in the slightest. Menial, perhaps. Brown eyes, pouring clear liquid. Humanite eyes were always so wonderful. He brought his scythes forward, and speared as a scream rang out.

Confusion. His two eyes trying to interpret the half-image they were presented. Both scythes had skewered true, but it was not the female impaled between him and the now indented wall. A male. Soldier/queen designation, wearing the colors and cuirass of the Coalition. He had leapt. Pushed the other alien away, and now coughed up vitae both sanguine and black. Singing … something, to the female who lay sprawled and immobile on the floor, gazing upward. It would have been impossible to make out even if Skthveraachk had understood, what with the death rattles and screeching that filled the room. The injured bodies atop their tables quickly severed or stabbed before they could muster energy to rise. The former Vhersckaahlhn saw the pinned soldier on his scythes reach towards the other creature, and quickly split his forelegs high and low. Tearing the male in half before he could grab whatever he sought from the female. A bizarre tactic. Obviously a faulty one as well. Unarmored alien had not taken the opportunity to flee, paralyzed, and quick flick of leg cut through the unguarded neck. Sending the brown, wet eyes toppling away somewhere under one of the tables.

“Eighteen soldiers lost. Two wounded.” The report seemed premature. Humanites still moved in the room more red than white now, orange and crimson blood staining walls while furniture was toppled and sheets were torn to ribbons. “Cease digging efforts. Drones to begin scouting interior for alternate passages. Twenty soldiers on standby. Rest to return to nearest muster.”

“Reassignment?” The adrenal pumping had stopped. His body was so heavy. And hot. He struggled to stay upright, sinking back down onto all six legs. A spasm came from the nearest soldier.

“Regroup. Queen signals battle conclusion. Shield destroyed. Sovereignty approaches. Your status?”

“Alive. Burdened. Confused. Request regroup. Unable to function properly here.”

“Received. Return above.” He needed air. Slogging through the tipped and sprawled soldiers pockmarked by cauterized holes, the tangled limbs of humanites, mangled where they fell. Joining the line that had already formed to return up the passageway. Skthveraachk saw for the first time the grand hole he had punched through the sheet of metal, curved inwards at the edges, and shuddered with pride. “Notify mender on arrival. You are injured.”

“I am not injured.”

“Metal protrusion, left side.” He could not see. Skthveraachk tried to raise a leg, but another nearby stopped him. “Near vents. Do not touch. Proceed to menders.”

“Received.” No wonder it was harder to breathe. He tapped his antennae, or tried to, amidst the bodies still affixed over his carapace. The line proceeded, and processed information for later delivery. He added his observations to the collective, emerging from the stifled underground to the clear red sky above. No longer tinted by the shield’s cover. Sounds of battle replaced only be cheering exhalations from all around.

“Humor?”

“Strangeness.” His laughter continued. “Humanite soldier attempted … something. Died. Protecting menial, possibly.”

“Unclear. Menials protect soldiers, not other way around. Humanite designation awkward. Identical appearance. May have been thinker? Lesser queen?”

“Unclear. Confusing. A strange enemy.”

“All enemies strange until understood. Deliver information to thinkers. Let them process.”

“Received.” The injury must be of a worse appearance than he could feel. Two offerings of assistance came as the line marched out, but he refused both. Other tasks were more important. His claws had ceased their bleeding, but each step was pain. His breath was shallow, shallower in this alien air and wheezing exertion. Skthveraachk was injured. He was heavy. And he was alive. The colony had won. His fifth, and sixth, battle. Halfway to the legends of the greatest of the Vhersckaahlhn-Colony, of those who had survived thirteen engagements before finally falling to the Ghescktyeelh-Colony. A sad end to grand life. Skthveraachk would live long past it. He would sire another clutch, yes, perhaps even two, when the Queen learned of his contributions. And when his final note came, he would die to the lances of the greatest enemy since the Founders had devoured the chelicerites. Short breaths caught as his laughter only grew. Joy. Joy. Joy to be the victor. Joy to be alive.