There was a passageway within the nest which did not exist. It was carved as any other, the smoothness of its angled entryway matched perfectly to the greater corridor from which it was offshoot. But none of the already meager traffic deviated from their journeys to enter its black, awning hole. No thinkers traveled this deep, and few of the lower castes possessed the intellect to stop and wonder at the entrance which was utterly absent from their internalized map of the subterranean stronghold. The scents did not label it a passage under construction, and so menials did not enter to continue excavation. The markers did not name it completed, and so it was not recorded within the memories. No signals called for its defense, so no patrols marched its length, and no signs told of its destination, so none sought exit through it. A portal to the unknown. And even having walked it, knowing what it held, the thinker felt as if he was again fleeing blind and alone through a land infinite and unmapped and unscented. So not a one turned to watch as Chkervthnaakt, with sole companion close behind his five-limbed limp, passed from the road which was into the passageway which did not exist. The link snapped. The darkness swallowed. They were alone. The thinker pondered, briefly, why it could be that he did not shiver in such nearly as much as the palled mender marching with him.

“Skthveraachk-Colony goes to war. The column marches.”

“Received, again. It will take bars yet until final menials separate from the song. Focus your energies to the tasking. If we finish, and soon, we may deliver a final report of pertinent information to Skthveraachk Queen before she is once more throwing herself physically into conflict.”

“Menders will be critical, yes?” The trilling friction in the female’s timbre echoed off the triangular walls of the tunnel. Designed for strength, the thinkers and crafters had assured him, but even here the thinker caught flairs and additions as much for aesthetics as function. The delver at work. “One mender will save a hundred, yes? May save a thousand, yes? Yes. Every mender will be needed. Almost every mender is taken. I am not.”

“If you need the numbers explained to you once more, then perhaps you should indeed have been taken. Used for scrap and armoring on more useful formites who know their role.” Trilling became chitters, rapid taps of mandibles on carried synthmetal box which, while thinner, dwarfed the thinker’s own stubby protrusions. “One mender may save a thousand on the field. One mender, here, will assuredly save tens of thousands. Hundreds. Millions. You should not be surprised you and your irregular prioritization were chosen for it.”

“Knowledge is critical, yes?” The female’s response was not an answer. “We learn. We adapt. The Queen calls to us all, and thinks of humanite things. Humanite weapons. Humanite construction. Humanite tactics. Knowledge? Yes? No. We learn of the humanites. We forget of ourselves.”

“Do you intend to state repeatedly fact and truth which are already known? Do we not endure enough humanite tedium without you adding to it?” The tunnel stretched forever, winding back and forth in serpentine bends as all others did. It would end. Chkervthnaakt knew it would end. He murmured it as a mantra, over and over, bidding his legs continue carrying him to the beat of the jangling bottles and metal belted around the mender’s thorax.

“I rejoiced when told Ckhehnvraahll joined again with us. My sisters. My brothers. I sung exaltations first. I sung laments next. Forbidden from their embrace, yes. Forbidden from their chorus, yes.”

“You exaggerate.”

“You dismiss.” Their travel, halted. The claw on his rear leg, tight. The tug, firm. Hooking a spur into hold on the wall, the thinker contorted himself up; curving, until his eyes could meet the mender’s from above. Upside-down, his antennae and hers striking as the distance between them shrunk to a tengthlength. “I hear their voices, but cannot bare myself to them. We pulse with the music of the colony, but cannot add to it. Disparate. Half-life.”

“Necessary!” His leg remained trapped, but the others twitched and crackled. “For us! For others. For the colony. Never to frenzy, never to betray, always to guard. The Queen selected me, selected us, to hold within us that which she could never be allowed to know. In our strength, the strength we showed in our captivity and within the Palamedes, we have endured, and we will endure. We are not lesser caste. We are not menials. We are separate, but we are not forgotten.”

“Separated. Yes.” Trying to pull back on the pinned limb, the mender’s grip did not relent. The smoothed edges of pointed head, angled towards him with closed and grinding jaws locked on the carried box. “Removed, deliberately. Humanite tricks, humanite lies; we are not humanites, thinker. Cannot live as they do.”

“Must act as they do.” The trembling felt through the connection shook at his conviction. Strength slipped in his tone, and the second pull was refused as the first. “Must master their means, as they have, and surpass them. One step, then another. Until our ascension is completed. Others may carry the music of determination, but our voices will scatter the darkness. Even unto a duet. Even unto a solo.” Their eyes held. Their legs intertwined. Fourth tug, refuted. Fifth, tenthlength gained. Sixth, finally; gradual and unsatisfied release.

“Thinker’s role, speculative. Yes. Mender’s role, practical. Yes. The Queen directs, we obey. The Queen directs more and more away from the memories. Must elevate to join the humanites, yes? Yes. Must become as the humanites, yes? No. We were the first of this colony. Formed in a metal mother. The first begin to change. What will become of the rest?” Not a question. No answer required. The lapse in contact permitted a spin back into forward orientation, and a quickening of pace to make up for time lost in exchange. No harmony, no unity, merely a trading of ideas. Valuable? Questionable. New? Certainty. New was interesting. New was sought. More. The passage widened. The end was in sight. The thinker sought more of the new.

A spitter flanked either side of the cut entrance, casting shadows under the fluorescent green of the growing lichen coating the ceiling. Warriors had been found to frenzy within a measure of being cleaved from the link; spitters, lacking true songs of their own, could last ten times the length before needing to be purged. Scentcrafter and spinner, the bulbous female at furthest end of the circular chamber had already begun to pull strands of glistening white from her gaster and stitch them into inexorable patterns of meaning. Mender, quiet now as composure returned in some small measure with the sound of new lungs and vents breathing around her, crawling on all six for the center occupant as the thinker reared himself up on four. Allowing Chkervthnaakt to express a strength in height that the humanites respected, or at least heeded. Allowing him to allocate his gaze, his sucking breaths now lacking in fear and growing in excitement, his mandibles and head entire, onto the naked and knelt male body stuck and glued to the floor. To the Coalition soldier, thinker, tender, Queen and all. Sole-remaining foreleg raised, activated the Band, and returned scratching to his core.

“I am Skthveraachk thinker of Skthveraachk-Colony. Two bars have been allotted for this retrieval. Questions will be delivered after your biomass intake. Mass this measure is-“

The pain was audible, distinguishable after so much exposure. The creak of bone under flesh, vibrations mixing with the scrape of the box the mender set before the humanite. Yet even here. Even now. In that low, tuneless voice and stretched smile as the paler chitin of female set tongue to the dissolution of binding sealant; defiance.

“Which shall be consumed, by me, to demonstrate the safety of this package.” Leg swung downward to snap open the labeled box, and the flood of foreign aromas did not distract from the goal. The white and yellow disk which formed imprint around Chkervthnaakt’s claw as it traveled past the view of the haired humanite face. Shoved promptly into tube already leaking acids as it half extended.

“Your pattern recognition is noted. In the hopes of productivity and as offering of kindness, your previous mockery will also be overlooked. Skthveraachk mender will inspect you as you feed. Are there any new pains or difficulties?”

“First intensity. Punitive.” Humanite’s slick mouth could no more than half-open before the mender’s hair was under its skin. One raised keratin length on the female’s leg pushed barely a tenthlength under the first layer of the alien’s exterior, gliding down severing the strands which bound meat to protective pink flesh. It gave the thinker moments to savor the blissful joy of the discus ‘cake’, absorbed and gone all too soon as the mender resumed the freeing of one of the humanite’s arms, and the wails of pain stilled. “Questions are only permissible after answers, and answers should be accurate and brief. Restating; are there any new pains or difficulties.”

Hisses, air exhaled through the small gaps in the bones of teeth, and heaving of body. It had taken time to perfect, but severing small lengths of skin from the musculature beneath caused minimal damage, yet ensured both pain on delivery, and for many bars or even measures following as each breath rubbed and slid and tore.

“Good.” Last crumbs collected. Ritual completed. Mender setting to cleaning and examination while humanite consumed hastily the boxed meal. Dousing many of its segmented sections with water, only for steam to rise as the liquid and crate spun heat from nothing to ‘cook’ the contents. “I will reinforce that pain will only be necessary if you deviate from our established terms. No lies. Answer promptly. No interruptions or insults. Received?”

The adjustment was hurried, and the grin had faltered as the hair encircling the interior feeding-tube pulled taut.

“We will continue from our previous session.” The thinker remembered, clearly. Weaver offered up the spun cord, but Chkervthnaakt dismissed it with a whisper. “You will explain how your colony, your Coalition, remains cohesive in frenzy.”

“Until a satisfactory explanation is presented, you will continue until the ways are entirely exhausted.”

“Refocus.” The breaks in the Band’s recitations were filled by the chewing, slurping and chomping as body craned forward to scoop fingers into the heated cube’s contents. “This is not the question. The Sovereignty is a single colony of multitudinous nests and multiple planets.”

“This information is already known. But the Coalition is not one colony. You are five.”

“To conquer?” There was a brightness growing within the wrinkles and curves of the sealed humanite, and it flared at the question. Drool and dew were bound into the netting as the weaver, too, noticed the emotion. Committing it to the physical memories. “To take their nests as they take yours?”

“This question is permitted.” The mender clacked her mandibles disapprovingly, the information briefly becoming exchange rather than delivery as thinker combed hairs over his eyes. “We have been shown images. Pictures. Demonstrations of the achievements made upon these locations.”

An accusation of frenzy, of falsehood, was a verbal slap. It glanced off the inoculated thinker, ignored. Air, rank as it was from the humanite’s fluids and waste no matter how often they were recycled, was inhaled by the male alien as though it were gift.

“A union of hatred may be effective so long as that objectified malice remains intact, but such alliances never last among the sapient. Each colony joins only to survive a conflict they could never manage on their own, but surely your people are aware this is but temporary measure?”

Passion dimmed. Fingers, distracted, worked back into the mush of brown meat and hard roots.

“Given the rate of your retreats and losses since our arrival on the planet, it is projected that this world will be claimed by the Sovereignty before the next cold.” Tactic. Deliberate. The passion had slipped, but provocation could be delivered to rekindle it. Humanites lied. But Chkervthnaakt had found that lies and emotion conflicted more than they cooperated within the aliens. One could not rage and calculate with precision simultaneously. “It is highly unlikely that your colony’s clutches will be born as a part of the Coalition.”

Fingers clenched to a ball.

“First intensity. Punitive.”

Another strip carefully loosened from the meaty back of the hunched body. Red poked out from the pink amidst the dribbling blood each inhale the humanite took, once its screaming stopped.

“You are lying, again. You do not believe your fellow soldiers will be ready, but wish to deceive us into thinking so. Is this an attempt to cause fear?”

“Second intensity. Interrogative.” The flaking and feeling blackness at the tips of the humanite’s feet, protrusions cooked by repeated exposures, still permitted sensation. Spitter advanced as the alien thrashed and swung its arm through the air and, at the mender’s direction, applied a layer of its stomach’s contents to the underside of the flat spur foot. Sizzling, popping, more that was pink began to melt away, the applications needing to travel higher after so many exposures rendering the lower flesh useless. “Why do you think your fellow soldiers will be unable to stop us?”

The thinker murmured a tune, and the spitter licked up the acidic fluid from the foot, the mender slicing away the melting section with scythe before it spread further.

“You have already stated you find us intelligent; this seems as though it would counter your previous claim.”

Crate of food had been spilled during the male’s struggles, and fluid slid off his body from some unknown source. Generated by the flesh itself.

“Given the projections of your military presence, which you have confirmed to the best of your ability, eight formites for one humanite is an acceptably favorable trade to our benefit.”

Breathing was shallower now, head lowered, eyes no longer angled upwards. Words were muttered more than spat, and as the arm made no more attempts at the food, mender clicked as she walked about to reseal it to the ground.

“Attempt break from violence, yes? Several spots of concern. Potential infections. Will excise and treat. Elevated heart-rate and liquid excretions.”

“Received.” The humanite would assume it was an acknowledgement to its words. The thinker eased back, shifting weight between his four legs. Just looking long enough at the contorted creature before him was enough to make sore his own limbs. “Why have your queens, or Queen, not considered an ending of hostility?”

“This translation seems to parse accurately.”

The look was sickened and sneered, less to the thinker than to the mender. To the belt of treated skin the female wore.

“We do not eat your species, and there would be no need to harm the captives taken if there was no longer an enemy to turn them against. And while I find your claim admirable, I think it more a falsehood than a lie.” His laughter was knocking, antennae batting against one another. “To fight as your kind does is a special kind of madness enough, but as we have already revealed here, your species’ desire for individual survival rivals the lengths my own will go to, to defend the colony.” Passion. Rapid pumps of heart, flexing of the muscles contained in their wet and massy prisons along arms as body was reset. “You would do anything to live.”

“After?” The laughter did not stop, but it slowed under the processing of information. “There is nothing ‘after’, humanite, save the contributions we make to the memories.”

The whites of teeth, the blacks of hair, the green of eyes, the blue of the emblazoned vertical ‘x’ on neck and the red of muscles peeking through the strips of peeled skin all joined their colors on the thinker. Weaver’s work as unceasing as the mender’s own ministrations, and so able to catch the falter in the thinker at the abject defiance once more shone upwards.

“We will delay the pain for the rudeness, and redirect the questioning.” The column above them would be all but gone by now. Any messages further would need to chase the tailing menials. One of the spitters, seeing the quick beckon made, lurched forward and memorized the information the thinker had compiled. Scuttled off, to deliver it to the nearest menial, leaving Chkervthnaakt to give the fullness of his attention to the humanite once more. Grasping the thread of the new inquiry. Eager to follow it. “The Band did not translate that last word. Define and explain for me. What is a ‘God’?”

“Message; Hathan-Commander. What is … ‘Composercake’?”

“Composercake.” The Queen did not know where the report had come from. And so, she knew, generally, where indeed the report had been delivered from as it traveled up the column’s length. Within the humming throne, Skthveraachk did not need to expend the energy to walk. Only the sureness of keeping the pedals depressed enough to match the speed of the swarming army arranged about her. Tens of thousands. A single column through the inland road, though bodies stretched far past the greyed pathway set into the red stones of the landscape. Twelve wide. Twelve! Six full scouting probes from the column’s front, two hundred ranks ahead, and observers mixed with scouts keeping ten lengths of distance on either side of the central column to guide and corral the stragglers. Obsidian bodies which rippled and flowed, many adorned with glinting metal and silver, while like great boulders, the largest soldiers protruded from the mass all around. The ground trembled beneath them. Dust, in a cloud, hung above as the host marched. Queen basked within the warmth of the army and confines of her armored suit, unoccupied until they reached the first muster point. Basked, and puzzled. “It was located within the meal crates of your soldiers. Circular, yellow and tender like paste, yet solid in form.”

There was humor within the Commander’s virtual voice, and though his face did not appear in her visor, Skthveraachk could register the smile. Requesting the answer, rapid taps against the metal encompassing her still-not-quite shrunk gaster crammed beneath plates and engine delivered the information.

“We continue to search for humanite mass we may consume without issue. Composercake has been identified as digestible. And apparently, desirable.”

“Received. Identifying.” Her graspers shifted against the unseeable console arms. Map’s screen brought up within the covering helm, relegated to her middle-right eye, while middle legs extended to stroke and question those nearest. Responses were near immediate.

“Probe one, received. No sighting.”

“Probe two, received. No sighting.”

“Probe three, received. Hostile creature captured. Identified as ‘rodent’. Consumed.”

“Section seven. Row seventy-eight. Discord within soldiers. Dispatch scentcrafters.”

“Received.” Scouts were relieved and replaced. Smells of unity and cohesion filled the air, adjusting to where they were most needed. The music was a part of them, within them, without them. A great and thundering booming of voice and body, as the beat of their claws and the breath of their vents filled the air. “Hathan-Commander. We have lost contact and severed link with the primary nest. Four thousand lengths remain to the first muster.”

“It was not an offering. My preference would have been the seabordered trail. It would have allowed much more security to one side of the formation.” Silence. Expectation. Exhale. Consent. “But, I understand the value of Solovyova-Lieutenantcolonel’s tanks and armor in the coming battles. And consent to taking the more difficult terrain for her sake, as ordered.”

“Humanite falsity. We would accept, and expect reparation in the future.” A small puff of warning went up from the front. On their right, the landscape swept upwards in a great mountainous rise, though they were less peaks than fifty-length crests. Like sand which had been blown across the desert, and be frozen by some unknowable power as it fell. A rippling of alert passed through the ranks, which eased when the warning scent was washed away. A younger scout, disturbed by distant shadow, dispelled by more experienced drone. “I will consider your delivery of these ‘cakes’ to be suitable donation.” Laughter was difficult within the hovering and concealing vehicle, but Skthveraachk could not help but sound the clacking mirth as once more the Hathan filled the space with his music. Breath still fogged. Legs around her still shivered in the cold. But beyond the nest, the air felt clearer. The sky, wider. Pinpricks of light from the fleet in orbit, as cautionary as they were reassuring while on the march. A hundred measures of stillness finally ended by momentum. Forward. Onward. Another warning signal, this time from the rightmost probe. A confirmed sign of movement. Irrelevant. Sovereignty ships and Wyverns would have picked up concentrated enemy forces. Animal life was minimal, but present, and at worst, some hostile scout watched them from on far. Dust and sound and force; there was no hiding this advance. Let them watch.

“Received, Hathan-Commander. Ensure your safety.”

Her Band fell into silence. Her mind, once more, drawn to the now. But the now was nothing. A sprawling wasteland, a jutting of rocks, another murmur from the left guiding line as foreign scents, old and worn, were detected. The number of warnings had increased.

“Age of scents?”

“Five measures. Six.” A scout, one of hundreds. Younger. So many young now, so many questionable reports and identifications. Still, there was surety in this small voice.

“Sample and pass on. Compare to any unknown markers.”

“Received.”

“Identified.” That was from the front, again. “Identical scent present along side of roadway. Six measures ago. Coalition soldier. Armored. Lance weaponry.”

“Numbers?”

“Restating. Coalition soldier. Singular.” Skthveraachk worked to keep her claws relaxed, so as not to send the reinforced sled rushing forward. The Pod’s ‘adjustments’, the ones the Queen’s thinkers had informed her of before departure, had made the vehicle more responsive to be sure. More responsive meant more prone to sudden shifts from the subtlest of touches. It still troubled her. Far more than the warning.

“Singular Coalition soldier presence half-tenmeasure ago? Not spotted by Sovereignty. Strange.”

“Sphere of territory is not within Sovereignty lands.” Soldiers, two thinkers, confirmed the analysis. “Guir is far to the alto. Further than the nest. We go sopra. Sopra lands unclaimed. Sopra lands, threatening.”

“Single Coalition soldier designated non-threat. Single humanite soldier, non-threat.” The Queen passed the knowledge to the far side of the column, and it did not take long for another confirmation of old enemy presence. “Unclear what Coalition would attempt with such small numbers. Elevate readiness. Increase tempo of the song. No further warning signals, identify and notify as-“

“Four voices silenced in section seven.”

“Six voices silenced in section three.”

“Four voices silenced in section one.”

“Attack!?” The swarm thudded. Rose and sank as the sounds of lancefire cracked from the surroundings, distant and close. Short, single lines of light which vanished in an instant. “Location!?”

“Unknown. Examining bodies.”

“Two voices silenced in section seven.” The snapping of the white lightning sounded behind her, and Skthveraachk surged through the eyes of those nearby. By the time she arrived, there was nothing. Only the burbling sound and bubbling smoke rising from the sea of bodies. Uncertainty. Confusion. Attacked, but without damage. Pricks barbing at the carapace of the army, scratching the surface.

“Locate attackers. Proceed with advance. Prepare soldiers in section seven.”

“Resend last. Prepare soldiers in section seven. What purpose?”

“To seek and destroy attackers.” The Queen let annoyance color her words as it was sent through the mass, a wordless demand that such needless clarifications be left unsung.

“Received.”

“Two voices silenced in section three.”

“One voice silenced in section two.”

“Direction of attacks to section seven identified.” Anger more than irritation now. Distractions? Threats? What purpose did this serve, other than occupying her thoughts? The song warbled, shook briefly, and Skthveraachk let her vocals rise to a shriek and guide the others nearby. Vision left the visor and helm, wound and weaved into the army, and sought the seventh section of column. It arrived in the eighth. Confusion and rage. She raked her arm across the drones nearby, repeating her request as at last a drone from the seventh responded. Pointing, showing to the scouts who rushed and milled in circles to identify the direction of their pricking lancefire. Elevated, by the angle of impact on the corpse, and distant. Two hundred lengths? More. Three, at least. Lancefire at three hundred lengths towards the cliffs? No wonder the shots were so few; the cooldown between each would be enormous.

“Two voices silenced in section seven.” These, the Queen saw through the hazy eyes of menial. Flashing out from an embankment, soaring over the terrain. Striking out of her view, behind the drone, putting down two more of her grandest host.

“Sixty soldiers, foraging and attack pattern. Dispatch and send towards-“

The drone broke the connection. The drone lowered its arm from the link. Even entire sections ahead of the seventh, Skthveraachk’s scream shook through the mass, and the link reformed with profuse apologies and confusion. Having thought the Queen had been requestion contact with a soldier, not a message to be delivered thus.

“SIXTY SOLDIERS! Foraging and attack pattern! Dispatch! Send towards attackers!”

“Received!” She felt the miniscule blob of violence detach from the choir. Sent with a chanting fury out into the wastes with singular purpose. It did not quell the Queen’s malice.

“Re-task four, five scentcrafters to section seven! Ensure communication!”

“Received. Scentcrafters arriving from sections nine and four.”

“Refusal! Take from eight and six!”

“Section six has insufficient scentcrafters. Reprioritizing.” Insufficient? Their spread had been immaculate. A request was sent for the census. It took eighteen entire breaths for it to arrive.

“Two voices silenced in section eight.” Drones flitted and melded between the lines of the sections. Cohesion in the sixth scouting probe shuddered as it drew to a halt, requesting an update on its orders. The fifth saw the sixth’s halt and matched their voices to its, which was taken up by the fourth and third. By the time the music of the halt reached Skthveraachk, all she could do was refuse it and apply the new music. Forward! Forward? Forward! Why would they halt for these meaningless attacks, which did nothing but kill a scattering of-

“Identify silenced voices.”

“Clarify; in which section?”

“Resending last. Identify silenced voices!”

“Received.” Fifteen breaths. Sixteen. Seventeen. “Four scentcrafters killed by lancefire in section seven. Eight scentcrafters killed by lancefire in section three. Three scentcrafters and one soldier killed by lancefire in section one. Six-“

“Mass protection to all priority ranks above tertiary!” Anger to searing, fearful fury. The sting of lobotomized intellect. The screaming voice of retribution. “Cover and protect! All scentcrafters, redistribute positions!”

“Two voices silenced in section two.”

“Update all reports. Ensure inclusion of role when reporting silences or deaths!” Incredible. Impossible? No. Unlikely. Unexpected. Bodies writhed around the throne, and with clutching of handles, the raise of metal scythes whirred the spikes into extension, and segmented shield into activation. How could they see? How could they tell? Momentarily irrelevant. They could see. They could tell. They knew of the scentcrafter. And they knew of its importance. And they knew of its form. “Burrow scentcrafters beneath bodies and redistribute to secondary positions.” Hide them. Submerge them. Remove potential targets.

“Resending last. Two voices silenced in section two. One scentcrafter, one drone.”

“Two voices silenced in section one. Two drones.” Good. Good. Danger signals exploded in the distance, alerts and warnings. Six soldiers killed, but two Coalition located and killed. More. Where were the rest? So many voices, so much sound and fury, a sudden reduction in cohesion and unity.

“Locate incoming fire. Locate likely vantage points. Seek elevation. Disperse scouting lines. Seek and destroy. All unscented targets.” There were no Sovereignty present here. If it moved and was not of the colony, she wanted it torn apart. Punctured. Destroyed. They fired on her music itself. Abominations.

“Lancefire identified. Three hundred twenty lengths. Scouts in pursuit.”

“Dispatch sixty soldiers to assist.” The song of decimation and blood. The call of violence. The smell of green pastures and a gentle breeze…what? Understanding. Peel her raw. “Bury dead scentcrafters. Disperse dead scentcrafter’s messages.” Chemical pouches ruptured, contents spilled, blood mixed with the tinctures which spoke and sung and spun the images of home and of fire and of fear and of joy. Menials threw themselves onto the bodies, kicking dust and dirt, then obeyed the mixed signals and settled down for sleep and rushed to attack their sibling and spun in circles on their back in play.

“I am under attack, Hathan-Commander! They target my scentcrafters! They corrupt my music! They will die upon the scythes of hundreds and have their mass scattered!” Throne buzzed as Skthveraachk turned in place, watching as the third of the extensions located another grouping of the Coalition long-shooting burrowers. The vespers of this fade would be not for her fallen, but that the music of these damned humanites was never so much as heard by Composer! It was the turn, and the previous order she realized only after the ringing which deafened her had faded, which saved the Queen.

There was no real sound of it that she could recall. The visor was flashing, warning in its far corner, but was all but obscured by the mass of forms crowding her. Priority tertiary and above; that was the Queen, as much as it was the thinkers and scentcrafters. Skthveraachk did not see the first soldier explode, but felt it through every tenthlength of her form. She did see the second. And the third. A hole the size of her scythes set side-by-side gleaming through them, the heat which following blowing their lungs and stomachs and cores up into the air. The fifth, or sixth, must have slowed the projectile enough that by the time it struck her throne, its angle was just off. Just slanted. Metal scraped metal, hardstone screeched on hardstone, and another five bodies erupted in an orange mist. There was only a scar, slanted, which she could register on the readout of the vehicle’s panel, and an inferno on the cliffside as explosion shattered the land. A bleating, beeping alarm filling her. And the insisting, blue shimmering confirmation of the shield holding strong at a hundred percent effectiveness. It had not been a lance that had struck her. It had not been heat which left her shaking and the throne flying off on its left by the impact.

“Kinetic impact! Kinetic impact!” Alert for her own sake, bellowed into her Band. Alert for the former Major’s sake. For the Commander’s sake. But it was neither Commander nor Colonel whom had been intended target of the killer weaponry. Of the tool shot from hundreds of lengths beyond sight. Not meant to wipe out her swarm, her children or her colony. Only her. Only her.

Fear and danger signals flooded out of her in a gush. Cascaded down the metal of the toppled throne as it wobbled and tried to right itself amidst the extra weight carried. There was nothing Skthveraachk could do to stop it, and nothing she wished to do at all. For there was no need of scentcrafters or messages or markers or songs in that moment. The aroma filled the area. The response, at last, was immediate.

“QUEEN IN DANGER!”

“QUEEN IN DANGER!”

“Designation, hostile! All hostile!” She could barely hear herself over the chant, but knew the message would carry on the tide of instinctive violence reserved usually only for the deepest penetrations of nest. When all needed be put aside for the battle. That time was here, that place was now, and there was no need of a nest to bring out the pure unity of her army. “Locate and destroy! Locate and destroy!”

“Received! Received! Kill! Kill!” Scrambling over one another, coating her in a wash of bodies, the Hathan’s voice was calling for her. Point-defenses. Friendly wyverns on approach. Irrelevant. Locate and kill. Locate and kill. There was no distinguishing a scentcrafter in this activity, no difference between a menial or soldier. Mandibles, claws, spears and shields. In all directions they ran, seeking prey. Shots ceased their precision, became frantic, gave away their positions as drones and soldiers drew nearer. Mad with rage, perhaps, but they were not frenzied. Skthveraachk followed them in mind, unable to move her body, watching as a cleft of rock betrayed the movement of paired soldiers. Poking over, firing, but forced to duck back down as eight spears and eighteen rocks were thrown and slung from smallest drones. Keeping them in place for the bulkiest warriors to ascend, cast aside their protections, and stab forward with mandibles. One scream was cut short there and then. One shout persisted as, rent clean through the stomach, soldier’s scythe was thrust up and thrown back, sending the bleeding alien spiraling over a waiting mass of jaws and claws. Its shouts were gone the moment it reached the ground.

“Flying enemies! Flying hostiles!”

“Negative. Negative. Designate as allies.”

“Non-hostile? Designate non-hostile?” The clamor was fading. It was a brief thing, to rely on the primal instinct and most base of notes which ran through every voice and song, but it was powerful. Eight Coalition dead. Three more located. Wyverns bearing the red of the Sovereignty overhead, three of them circling and searching for the source of the attacks. No more kinetics flew. Nor could any who had fired such be found.

“Allies. Designate wyverns as allies.” Information. Dazed, shaking, but sure once again. They required information. Too few scentcrafters remained for effective distribution. The Queen re-arranged their presence to form a clearer line towards those drones which still sung of combat, hurried. “Adjust tasking. Locate and capture. Do not kill. Locate and capture hostiles.” Perhaps the Sovereignty would not allow them to question humanites themselves, such orders already made clear, but the Sovereignty itself could perform the role. Single enemies, duo enemies, inflicting such damage? Unthinkable. Unexpected. Information required. The army had pushed the throne into the side of the rocks and coated it six times over. She melted in the heat, but forced it from her mind as gaze went to the final combatants. Two lumbering, crested soldiers at the rear, eighteen of the smaller drones. Most went without protection, one fell hard as a shot from a lance brought it low and severed it nearly in half. But the others pointed sharpened spears forward to the single armored humanite present. Back trapped against the cliffs, rocks denying escape to sides as a wall of bodies refusing flight ahead. It shot again. A menial retreated, throwing up its offcut and semi-circular shield. The beam reflected off the surface, and burned a hole into the stones above. Wonderous.

“Advance and capture. Minimize damage.” The large soldiers could tear the creature apart in moments, assuredly. They remained back, knowing their uselessness here. Speardrones and menials crept nearer, slashing scythes and snapping mandibles in warning. Nearest banded formite was a thinker in the absolute rear of the column, with the wagons and carts of mass and fuel. Skthveraachk sent it towards the trapped Coalition soldier, pulsing calm and reassurance to the drones still seething with rage. Helmeted head of the humanite scanned left, then right, swinging lance wildly as it sought escape. There would be none. Two more shots fired, one searing a soldier noncritically while the other was eaten by armored thorax. Spears jabbed as warnings were squirted and sung. Dangerous, but cautious. They wanted to kill the alien. They would not kill the alien. Their Queen was with them. “Careful acquisition, approach. Approach, disable arm, and capture. Approach, approach…” Another claw forward. Another spear jabbed. Mandibles opened, ready to restrain and crush lance if needed.

Its barrel went up. Head raised. The end was settled beneath chin, and with a single pull, the viscera that had once been eyes and face and teeth shot from the helm. Blast of laserfire striking the inner top of the helmet, reflecting back down into body, and burning clear into cuirass. Mist of red and boiling blood struck ground as the body slumped over. Unmoving. Silenced. Dead. Self-dead. Self-killed. Self-terminated. Skthveraachk no longer sung reassurances, but merely stared with the rest as they froze in confusion. Alarm, and trepidation. She reached for a tune to offer. She found none. She reached for words to express. The grasp returned empty.

The Commander’s voice was distant, but his language was held close. Within the ball of safety, feeling as the scattered column began to slowly drift back into cohesion, staring down at the humanite who had accidentally…deliberately, purposefully, driven weapon through its own body, Skthveraachk found at last a method of communication she had no memory of hearing used, yet could not deny was adequate in its expression.

“Hathan-Commander.” Tepid now was her song. “What the fuck just happened?”