It was not until the third rise following the conflict that the pathos of their hymn neared its conclusion. Over the trundle of the Sovereignty’s reconstruction efforts, the reinforcement of damaged structures or the readjusting of weaponry along the border of the town, they strained to raise the dedications and eulogies. Under the pounding thunder still sending shockwaves rippling across the channel, they struggled to bear the weight of the new memories, and the responsibility held to them. Thirty-three thousand had been cast into a sea of stars, landing with scythes unsheathed on alien shores. Hathan-Commander had promised a victory within thirty measures. A peninsula was secured. Eight thousand voices would never know the lengths of their successes, the score of their victories, with over a quarter of those lost in the breaths of a single battle on a single measure. Skthveraachk sung, and she listened, and she walked beneath archways molded from casts three times her size. Fighting was still present in the most risefade section of the city, holdout coalition forces dug into shattered remnants of barracks and ‘homes’, but her escort was comprised of only ten soldiers. Red, black, blue, most every shelled humanite they passed gave the Queen a scourer’s distance or averted their gaze; better to not disrupt their tasking for the sake of unnecessary protection. This part of the town was clear enough.

“Second restatement of request from thinkers. Plans and routes already detailed. Rotating hauler shifts and direct land-route. Bodies could be returned to the primary nest within five measures.”

“Refused.” Sun and shade, light and shadow, alternated now-pleasant heat with chilling coolness as they made their way up the town. Tightly-packed buildings and arches, along with the many stretches of fabrics and weave, designed specifically to minimize the sunlight to those within. But each rise was colder than the last, now. “Even three measures is too long. Bodies will begin to decay. Sickness may set in. Unacceptable risk.”

“Pupae are forming. Nutrients are in highest demand.” The music was not relayed; it came straight from the thinkers now. “Proteins. Carbohydrates. The loss of so much biomass is crippling. We must attempt transport.”

“Every returning drone will travel with both stomachs full. It is the best that can be done. The Sovereignty has promised to compensate our losses.”

“Any words from a humanite that benefit only the humanites must be held in suspicion of lies until verified. Such is agreed.”

“Then I will verify it.” An explosion rocked the district nearest the Queen. Alerts and warnings briefly interrupted the union of lamenting voices, but Skthveraachk merely noted the wounded numbers before sending it on. “Continue peeling our dead. Shells and chitin may be reclaimed. Quarantine all when it reaches the nest. Follow cautionary teachings.” Armored troops shouted for passage, and her soldiers flattened themselves to the side. Wind from their passing caused a spasm within her, and the naked Queen increased her speed for more open courtyards and squares. “Bury the rest. Let them become a part of the green of this place.”

“Received. Objections remain.”

“Understood.” Arcades flanking street-sides broke their patterns as the columns surrendered to empty space. Places for the aliens to sit, flat stretches of grass and vegetation decorating the white walkways, all but unoccupied save for those humanites running to the trails of smoke rising from further down the town, or away with stretchers and groaning bodies. Any other kept to the shade along the walls, and the whites of a hundred pairs of eyes glowered from the arches. Not Sovereignty, and not soldiers of the Coalition. Something else. Something harsh in its anger and fear. The stones beneath her now were not harsh on Skthveraachk’s claws, not biting like the red terrain her scouts at the perimeter kept watch over even now. Her entourage clicked and tapped their way towards the central fixture of the, by now, familiar plaza. The tree that rose from a small mound, almost familiar, almost knowable despite its subtle wrongs. How its bark came off straight rather than curled along its trunk, how its leaves smelled bitter instead of sweet, how the boughs lacked spikes, thorns, any measure of protection from the phidites which would have made an eager meal of it back on their world. She stopped at its base. Let the soldiers form a shallow ring while keeping their sounds harmonized to the mournful and dutiful melody hanging in the air above rooftops. Familiar, but not quite enough. “Addendum; priority cargo is not to be added to quarantine.”

“Received. Reallocate to dismantling?”

“No.” Some of the leaves were browning. Rearing, Skthveraachk reached to pluck one of the discolored fronds from the branch. Feeling it smear between her graspers. “Create new chamber adjacent to Queen’s. Peel outer layer, then store and guard.”

“It is set to arrive at the nest in three measures. Will relay added instructions.” Skthveraachk focused her own eyes on the green palping of the leaf between the ends of her claw, but stretched out to seek the eyes beyond the limits of the town. Through the scorched remnants of the battlefield being harvested and searched, through the line of thousands already proceeding back down the peninsula on their long, long march. Through the piles of shells stacked in wheeled lifts being pulled by soldiers, the carts of armor and metal scrap transported with assisted pushing of drones. Searching, feeling, for the constructed two-wheeled wagon that would appear to all humanite observance as just another in the long train of passage. Who would not notice the arrangement of the eight soldiers around it, close enough to intercede if necessary but far enough to not arouse suspicion should eyes high above them narrow and focus. Watching through eyes tens of thousands of lengths away now as the pile of chitin and Coalition gear, despite the smoothness of the road chosen, gave the smallest of jostles from within.

Elastic, Skthveraachk almost felt a mental pain at the speed with which she was snapped back to the now. Flung back to the center of Guir, the leaf spiralling from graspers as head was swung nearly three-quarters of the way around. To the long sleeves, coat, sharp hat, and covered glass sloshing its unseen contents with every move of the Major’s arm. Still coated with palp, Skthveraachk’s claw raised quickly to her Band, reactivating it.

“I sing dearest of apologies, Solovyova-Major, for my inattention-“

The female’s grimace as she angled her head up should have indicated pain. But the exhale following the suckling of container could only be interpreted by experience as pleasure.

“It is a low Remembering.” The term would mean nothing to the humanite. Skthveraachk tried to still the pulse that had suddenly elevated, reminding herself that the alien could not see the deceptive colors washing down her gaster from spread vents. “It is a music recounting the history of the Colony. A synopsis, not as true as the story held within the temples of the Hymnal Watchers and Score, but an affirmation of what was and what is and what is sought to be.”

Standing within the shade of the tree, rays of light caused moisture to form on the female alien’s flesh, but she did not hurry for cover like the others. Unbothered by the ring of soldiers nearby, close enough to touch with leg or scythe. Vaguely, it reminded Skthveraachk of the way Hathan stood.

“There were too many deaths. Within them were fragments of knowledge. Enough were killed that there is a possibility of losing parts of our story forever. The Remembrance redistributes the information contained within each drone. Ensures that the fullness of what we are is carried and dispersed, so that it cannot be lost when the voice of the one is silenced.” Her breath came slower. Her arms, rigidly crossed, were held more naturally. Solovyova did not nod, and did not pretend to understand. Skthveraachk was more thankful than she realized for that, her antennae continuing to scrape and tremble to ensure the music never faded even while in conversation.

Almost, the Queen felt she could reach the meaning contained in the words, hearing the Major utter the scratching laughter of her alien kind.

“Your advice is not entirely known, but it is as appreciated as your warnings previous.” The Major made a throaty noise.

“They despise us, but keep their distance. The amber shells are enforcing a strict control of interactions, and I have ensured my people remain in our designated areas. It has limited interference from either faction.” Asking after the Coalition’s drones was one thing. Skthveraachk tried to adjust the topic before the Major could ask after their soldiers. “We have placed-“

She should have left more scouts within the limits of the settlement. Again the Queen was not alerted by an approach until the Commander’s Lieutenant was practically on top of Skthveraachk and her soldiers. Two ambers flanking her. One, the Pod’s own. The Queen braced herself; he only made an appearance these measures to witness or partake in humbling her.

“Greeti-“

The female had been in the Hathan’s presence enough to know the crassness of her behavior. Malice, not ignorance. Skthveraachk tightened the curl of her claws to ensure they did not extend, while the Major alongside turned only so much that a single one of her eyes could witness the exchange from behind another drink.

“I will of course go directly there. I had deactivated my Band, but if my presence was required, I know of his ability to activate it from a distance.”

The intelligent course was simple acknowledgement. On the air and through her core, though, the mourning had reached telling of when her mother’s mother, Queen of her Queen, had fought two to one with an alliance of Colonies, holding back the queenless desert collectives from reaching the verdant fields sopra of the mountains. Intelligent course was not always the proper one.

“Then he shows learning of a respect you have yet to take hold of.”

The amber spoke while Lieutenant bit and sealed mouth, and a pang of regret struck cord within the Queen. Blue shell was loyal, and she was honest. She hated Skthveraachk, but would not fight the orders of her superior. Amber shell had no such compunctions.

As much statement as sound, Solovyova rolled the undulating joint binding digits to limb.

Lance was out, as it was always in Skthveraachk’s presence, but the words had snapped the amber’s focus to the Major while the Lieutenant, mouth now partially agape, tried to place a hand haltingly between them.

Solovyova turned fully beneath the folded scythes of the Queen, and though the soldiers Skthveraachk had chosen for their temperaments held steady, she saw their hairs begin to harden as the amber took a step forward despite looks from his fellow and Lieutenant.

Solovyova-Major pointed the metallic and covered container like a scythe for the amber, and even Skthveraachk began to chitter uncomfortably as the discordancy between the allied humanites intensified. Unsure whether to take the words from the female soldier as insult or compliment. About to add her own voice to the mixture, at least an observer reacting to her discontent sent alert down the link. Startling, and adjusting, the Queen to the sight of approaching tens of aliens.

“Lieutenant. Activity from your soldiers.”

Stretchers laden with fresh batch of injured were rushed in the shade of the buildings across the courtyard, the passing non-Sovereignty menials kept back and away with push and shout, but a trio headed from the direction of the distant smoke clear into the center of the square. Two stretchers, bound together, supporting the petrified body of a hauler drone. Covered in cracks and sundered fragments, dented along its upper side. Blood had not soaked the bottom of the stretcher, through it sloshed out of the gaps in the skeleton, yet drone held by the humanites was too terrified to move or adjust.

Male? Female? Difficult to tell with the helms on and voice subdued. They saluted, not the Lieutenant, but the Major, who returned the gesture. The Queen called for the nearest mender, and the call was returned by a juvenile assisting with the disinfection of the corpse-handlers.

Amber grunted, but the soldier at lead of the trio clenched its hands against the stretchers.

“Priority. Preserve Sovereignty humanites.” Impacts had crushed much of the shell as sounds made fresh orange fluids bubble up from the cracks and ooze from vents. It would be costly to repair, but possible. “Was transporting materials. Materials lost. Confusion. Confusion?”

“Silence.” Skthveraachk bid the drone quiet itself before its uncertainty infected the others. Infected her. From the sudden white as eyes all fixed upwards on her, the Queen realized the accidental order given. “A mender will arrive shortly. These soldiers can take him from you.”

They had startled when she spoke. Their music was hesitant now, but loud enough to register as the trio kept grip on the supports. They did not meet her eyes, and Skthveraachk fixed them instead on the Lieutenant. Major. Former tightened and folded lips while the latter merely nodded consent and permission. Whatever rank these soldiers were, they were humanites. The Queen would obey.

“Mender will be waiting across the plaza. Two of my soldiers will guide and accompany you.”

She tried not to lurch.

“He … “ The simplicity of the question was at odds with the depth of its answer. Skthveraachk looked to the soldiers, already starting their departure, spurred on by the Lieutenant.

Soldiers. Queens. Colonies and individuals both. Disgust radiated from the amber male, the Pod’s private amber, as he withdrew from contact with the few spatterings of blood falling from the stretcher, but the soldiers carrying the male did not hesitate. Did not withdraw. Three colonies, laboring to save the life of a single cell of a collective.

“He … is learning, to understand you.” The Queen bent at her thorax, bowing as the three departed. “I will … communicate your thanks. To him.” Not a lie. Just, the best way they could understand it. They hurried, out of sync and out of step, but unified in purpose towards the edge of the courtyard with the rest of the injured and her soldiers accompanying. When she returned focus to the alien grouping, Lieutenant and ambers were already steps away, back towards where they had come from. Retreating from the open sun.

Her bow came to rightness. Her four sightlines, all orienting down on the Major. It was a meaty, fleshy, unreadable expression of unknowable intent. But the smile; Skthveraachk could discern that much, at least, in the myriad of crevices formed.

“You are not bothered by the heat. Like your kind?”

When the cap was removed from the female’s head, and hand had run over the wet surface between stringy follicles of eyes and skull, Skthveraachk chanced another question.

“You said your soldiers would be unhappy with my methods of victory. That harming the Coalition prisoners would cause problems.”

“I am seeing. It is an enlightened view I was led to believe your species did not hold.”

A browning leaf broke from the branches of the straight, unnatural tree and fell between the pair. Another swell in the music came, but almost simultaneously was it lost beneath the beating tones of combat from both Guir and its partner across the current.

“I would not wish to, under anything less than the most extreme necessity.” Clicking her mandibles twice together, feeling them slide and grind, Skthveraachk dropped back to all six legs, placing her back near eye-level with the humanite. “May your battles lead you to ever warmer locations, Solovyova-Major.” The female showed her teeth, and though it was revolting, the Queen turned only in pursuit of her objective rather than in disgust. Checking, as though to assure it had not been some manner of sleep’s hallucination, and confirming the hauler had been delivered to the mender who was even now sealing each oozing gap.

The center of Sovereignty operations, at least for the foreseeable future, had been erected within a building of pillars and wide interior spaces. More space than any humanite would need, more than even the Queen saw necessary. Ten Queens could rear atop the other and still not reach the height of the internal dome through which she now trekked, alone, her soldiers bidden to remain outside. It would take time for the aliens to fortify, to move their equipment and weapons and forces into the town and buildings, but they had hundred measures and more now. The new stronghold from which the future attacks would be launched, in addition to the more permanent fixtures rising around the caldera of Skthveraachk-Colony’s primary, and sole, nest. Thinkers were already proposing the battleground before Pelal be coopted into a secondary site, but it was a concern for later. For when the borders of their first nest were clearly established, when Hathan delivered the limitations of their expanse. Statues carved in uncanny resemblance to nude humanites, false-light designs of fantastical constructions, floating images sketched directly onto fabrics or some other thin material all passed by as she stepped upon the rippling platform. Felt it shape, come animate, and carry her upward like an elevator made of meat and water rather than cold metal. There was only a minor stumble in her dismounting of the thing to the second upper layer of the building, and only a few blue shells were present to see it from their passages between rooms down elongated hallways thrice the size of those on the Palamedes. Not even an amber, however, was present on the balcony at the end of the hall. Sealed off with clear curtains which wrapped around her form like a seal as Skthveraachk walked briskly through them. Her tremble must have been a visible thing, as Hathan, looking out over the green waters to the clouds of smoke and red fire beyond, offered a baritone laugh.

“You wear artificial shells which are then covered by manufactured armor. You do not feel the glossy touch on your body, rubbing over your eyes.” The banister barely came up to the humanite’s waist. When the Queen reared, freeing her forelegs to comb repeatedly at her eyes, it was not even to the raise of her thorax. “I prefer the chambers on the Palamedes, blowing air and fluid.”

The river flowed easily beneath them. Emptily. Skthveraachk could make out, up the bank, the places from which the floating vehicles had been launched with their living cargo. Such had been halted as soon as the town was taken, and now under their control, no craft had dared been launched from the embattled forces beyond the channel. The sweeping blue light of the dome had faded a measure ago, but the plasma still belched and spat into the sky, back and forth, beneath the towering, silent cannon ever aimed for the sky.

“None that cannot be handled.” Not a lie. Her combing paused, but was quick to resume. “The fighting. Here, and there.” A gesture to the opposing shore. “You are certain we are not needed?”

A trio of Wyverns skimmed the water, then disappeared over the silhouettes of the buildings.

“I did not think that was a possibility for your kind. In my experience, in addition to voiding your insides, humanites always collapse once their heart ceases beating.”

“Then they should be commended.” The Commander cricked his neck up and to his left, the white gloves worn interlocked behind his back. Skthveraachk let out a clacking, ensuring she remained connected to the music being carried throughout Guir’s paths and walkways and alleys. “It is the decision I would make. Have made. Though victory cannot be won here, every death inflicted weakens your forces for their next engagement. Even if a battle’s loss is inevitable, you fight in service of the war. Each kill made cuts a lifetime of experience from your collective.”

There was a scuffling beneath the balcony, and when Skthveraachk spared a glance, there was only another small line of Coalition. Hands placed behind or above them, shoved by lance towards the walls backing onto the waterline.

“My thinkers wished to reiterate that we have suffered significant losses in this battle. With the distance between Guir and the caldera, we cannot reclaim our dead for consumption. Eggs have already been laid, will continue to be laid, and need sufficient biomass. Biomass you must provide until our farms are capable of sustaining us.”

Words without action, promises, but ones made from the Commander. He was the First Liar, and he did not lie to her. Not anymore.

“Acknowledged.” Shouts were made, a few of the weaponless Coalition members beneath her weeping as they stood in place. Others were more resolute, silent, staring ahead as the red sigils of the Sovereignty arranged into an opposing line of aimed lances. “I hear again this humanite term. ‘Honor’? It has been used to explain why they do not run. Why they do not fight at the end. The death of a drone is but a temporary loss, quickly replaced. The death of yours is seen as tragedy. Why do they allow it?”

The Commander did not follow her look down, instead withdrawing a silver tube from his jacket. Slotting a small capsule into its side before raising the thing to his lips. When he exhaled, it was with steam and wispy white clouds. A salvo of cracking beams rang out, and the bodies that had refused to die standing died in a heap as they collapsed down the wall instead. Skthveraachk regretted the lost potential of their skin, and their bones.

“You do not see them as your equals. But you do not see us as your equals, either. Yet you say you will honor our agreements.” The corpses, punctured clear through, shot again when movement was seen, were dragged towards embankments at the rear of the spacious building. “Your ways, the ways you make your decisions, are so…”

“Alien, to us.” It was not an interruption, and she did not take it as one. The Commander’s closed smile was met with a tapping laughter of her antennae. “I have spent every moment of my waking measures learning of you, with you, even from you at times, and even with it as my guiding goal, so much of you remains a mystery to me. Capacity for intelligence often superseded by decisions of illogical emotion. A desire for allegiance and cooperation, initiated by conflict and war. You value the lives of your individuals above all, but treat your enemies worse than even your vassals.”

Exhaling from the tube half the size of his smallest finger, Hathan chuckled and scowled all at once.

“You all look the same to us, at a rudimentary level at least." Without their shells on. "I am unclear how you discern these differences.”

The Queen listened to the sounds of the bodies being dragged, the distant explosions, and the song over it all.

“Crosses. We have seen them on the skin of some of those you give us. And, crescents?” Settling the tube between his lips, the alien smiled again as he reached into his coat.

Nomenclature aside, Skthveraachk could not completely hide the surprise that rippled from her vents.

“I am uncertain what is being said here. The translator may be confused.”

“They are most often a deliverance as a part of the whole, a sacrificing of a portion of one colony to the biomass of another, whether as nutrients or additions of labor. Given from vassal to superior colony, or as part of the ending of a conflict. Gifts from Queen to Queen, or one drone to another, hold a different connotation.” Hathan did not catch hold of the tremble in her vents, or the awkward brush of her antennae at the subject. That, among many things this measure, she was grateful for.

To be of one purpose was expected. Natural, within a colony. Even when one took a vassal, a subordinate, they were either enslaved by the jelly or sung so willingly that a union was almost inevitable. There was something beautiful in the idea of cooperation, of two in a horde of billions choosing to stride together in common cause. Her foreleg reached, and clasped around the translucent face of a tap-pad. Bringing the device up to her eyes, as curious as she was enthralled. So that it was only after beats that the word heard rose over Skthveraachk’s horizon.

“Formite. My translator knows this word, but I have never heard it.”

It did not matter that the translation was artificial. Even the name by the Band’s attempt was enough to bring an inhale as she ran graspers over the flat surface of the alien technology.

“Decided. Together?” A light abruptly exploded from the pad, and the Queen shielded sensitive eyes with a leg. That laugh the humanite uttered was less friendly, but bore no hatred or anger either.

“No, that is not what I had meant. It is rarity for us to agree on anything, and never before have we needed a designation. It is a startling joy that we not only need a name, but have so quickly settled upon one.” Only after humming to the sight of her leg for beats did she resign to once more request aid. “How do you deactivate the light of this contraption; I cannot see you. And as I am of remembering, I had heard it said and made truth that my kind-“

Oh, he was enjoying this.

“Were not permitted access to any manner of advanced HUMANITE technology.” She made sure to reinforce the alien’s own designation. “I have seen these devices achieve all manner of impossible things, and believe they would qualify.”

Guiding her with fingers around the blunt of one of her curved graspers, Hathan-Commander poked the tip against the upper corner, and the light dissipated.

“Rheed?”

“Like markings and trails made, but for the eyes, not to be smelled?” It was a startling revelation. One that the Commander confirmed. “A certainly, unique way of transferring information. And you have included a story with this method, contained in this item. Your false-light is something I hope to know the breadth of, some measure from now.” He was waiting for something. It did not take much to realize what. “Thank you, Hathan-Commander, for this deliverance of part that is now within my whole.”

She kept the tap-pad in her grip. Both forelegs, resting it down atop the rail of the stone and steel balcony. The explosions were louder across the channel, and for a breath, Hathan’s attention slipped. When it returned, that same baritone rumble uttered from him clean and clear. Boom and shake. Ripple and wind. Skthveraachk drank of the thin and colder air in the shade of the central building, and let it run through her. Soaking up the feelings that had been rolling and broiling for measures, before letting them release from her core in a sigh.

“Twice, I have begged your aid and felt weak for it, Hathan-Commander. Three times, I have been faced with a loss of much, or all, and been saved only by your intervention. Servitude of my species to yours. The bridge to Hollowcore, where I reclaimed my colony. And now, here, at the slope of Guir. I have celebrated the victory, but lamented under the knowledge that it was only by the merits of your assistance.”

“My apologies, Hathan-Commander, I interrupt but mean no insult. I mean to finish my telling.” Wyverns were circling the town beyond the channel, and the artillery had fallen silent. They stood there, humanite and newly designated formite, foot and claw, and watched the burning horizon under the choir of twenty thousand voices from Guir to the caldera. “I sung once that your actions would neither be forgotten, nor forgiven. This was a truth. This is a truth. You are Hathan-Commander of the Imperial Sovereignty, the First Liar. Your decisions have caused much harm. As have mine. Your purpose is the eradication and destruction of the Coalition. As is mine.” The scrape of her nails and gaster, heavier now, scratched the surface of the tiles and squares. “I accept your gift. I accept your aid. I accept you, and I accept the Sovereignty. I will no longer lament your aid. I will no longer resist your influence. You are here. You are the future. Our purpose is one. This, is truth. This, is known.” Smile. Helpless, unsure, and unabashed in the lack of recognition for the weight of the words uttered. Still, Skthveraachk felt them already winding into the great memory of the colony. Memories which would be inscribed and recorded forever in the Halls of Remembering. The music had been composed. It would be with her, forever.

From the Commander’s own tap-pad, voice was suddenly roaring. A familiar male intonation, taking Skthveraachk a moment to place as the Rear-Admiral’s. The interruption cause the man to fumble, and cut the binding between the two promptly. The Queen sought to retreat and give the Commander his privacy, but he beckoned her to stay, and did not run the message directly to his head.

Now, the Commander hurriedly pressed his fingers to the flap of skin at his head, and the activity behind the translucent sheets across the balcony’s overhang intensified ten-fold.

A new noise took precedence over the recitation of the War Queen’s birth, of the time before her ascendence. A droning, wailing scream that was but a single volume elevating and sinking in its pitch. Scuttling back through the glide of the airseal, Skthveraachk was already cautioning the colony when Hathan joined her.

“Are we in danger?”

It was a relief, one which she sent throughout the already questioning and worrying link. Easing the rattle of soldiers at the front door, lengthing nearer the amber-guarded entryway. She let the noise sink into her, tap-pad in claws. Stroking, touching, staring down as the reflective surface shone back the four eyes set above the closed tube of mouth. Barely visible in the pinching of mandibles set at the point of the elliptical triangle that was her head. Skthveraachk could even make out the thin cracks in the Queen’s carapace, the testaments to battles fought and would, someday, be fought again. As the aliens coordinated, called, clamored around under the wailing siren cry, she, the formite, settled back before the screen separating them from balcony and looked to Hathan.

“What is the name of this story you chosen for me?”

Continuing to speak with hand on head, teeth very nearly flashed before the alien remembered to close his lips.

“That is a very poor title for such a perceivably important tale. Certainly no ‘Ghaatckeelsh at the Thellum Desert.’.”

“I am not afraid. We may continue after the conclusion-“ It had not been intended as a lie. Or, perhaps, in the moment it was sung, it was not a lie at all. It was impossible to make out more than the distant outlines of shapes, of buildings, or of the hills and rises leading up the coast of the channel. If such a convoy stretched for hundreds of lengths, not even the finest bred scouts could hope to spot it. What the Queen could see, at first, flanked on either side by Sovereignty shells watching with equal interest, was a light. A beam, like a lance would spit, but from no terrestrial source. It shone down from the sky, marking a great distance from either town, ringing it within the spot of celestial regard. Then, it was gone.

And the path was gone.

And the shore was gone.

And she was screaming, fifteen layers underground, listening to her children vanish all over again.

A great cloud rose where the light had marked, a thousand lengths into the sky. Not of fire, not of heat, but as through the ground had spat out the fullness of a stomach it never should’ve had. An invisible set of lungs exhaled, and where once there had been a calm river was a wave that grew and grew until it struck the shore of Guir and crashed through the buildings. Thass coatings over windows strained. The statues behind, below, toppled and shattered into pieces. The roaring was in her head and in her heart and in her core as legs were made as grubs, sending Skthveraachk flat as her scythes, with tap-pad clutched, embraced the Queen’s front in instinctive and immediate showing of restraint. She was not a threat. She was not a threat. A rise-time lightning turned the outside white, and beam after beam was struck into the cloud. Steam rose as the water, rushing from all sides to fill the crater made, dissolved and evaporated under the heat. Hills melted. Crags puddled and flowed down to join the river in the newly formed basin. The aliens flapped their hands and cheered around her, and she saw from the side of one eye the smile that was now all bones and meat. Splayed out across Hathan-Commander’s split face, wet with seepage and fluid.

One purpose. One goal. Humanites were here. Humanites were the future. Skthveraachk did not divert her attention as debris rained in a natural dome into the river, into the distant pit that could fit almost three quarters of her caldera within its depths. Three hundred lengths across? Five? It didn’t matter. It was but a small impact. A warning. When her body stopped ringing and trembling, and she could hear once more, the Remembering being sung had transformed into a terrified lament. Skthveraachk would not see it calmed, and would not strive to still it. Let it sit. Let it sink through skeleton and shell. These were their masters. This was their reality. Obey. Adhere. Submit.

Survive.

End of Book One.