A single sprout of green. Truer a green than the assault of flashing lights within the Queen’s cell of war, but timid, faded; leaves rounded rather than jagged, with a bulb like a soft, white pearl on hanging stalk. Not quite ready for life. Not quite ready to spread wide and embrace the sun. The Queen had been gazing long upon it through distant eyes, that only spot of green for thousands of lengths behind them. Watching from the drone which had been slowly bleeding out of the myriad cracks of its shell, curled up on one side as vents pointed to the sky sucked final, fading, few breaths. Drops of orange upon those smooth leaves, guarded by the limp legs and straining abdomen of the drone. Skthveraachk had sent a single request for information, six beats ago. Now, under the lancefire and over the thundering claws, she ruminated on the response.

“Mender required?”

“Ref…used. Critical wounds. Silence…soo…n.”

“Received. Current action?”

“Thrash…if mender near. No other tasks.”

“Why protect the plant?”

“Reminds…of Kayyhaitch.” Blood loss had drained her child of its control. Of hesitance, of formality; all that remained was truth. “Do n…ot want…destroyed. Protect…home…”

“No further queries.” A droplet of the murky orange collected upon, then fell from, the drooping leaf’s tip. A billowing of searing air crinkling the dying protector’s shell, yet only lightly ruffling its sheltered treasure. “Rest now in the silence beyond music. Birthed from. Returned to.”

“Receive…d.” It had not reached the enemy. But, it had used its body to protect a soldier which had. It would die without regrets. Guarding the small, fragile flower growing upon the hill. She left it there, ensuring it was unbothered by questions or the task of relaying as it entered its final torpor. Surging through the meshwork of bodies, alive, dying and dead, until she reached mere thirty lengths from the crest. And his lungs filled with ash, and his eyes were coated by smoke, and she could feel every crack in his carapace which, should single stumble or fall tip him upon his side, would make a river of innards from within. Her soldier through which Skthveraachk gazed did not give heed to the danger; the only reason he would fall would be if he was already dead.

“Twenty soldiers, forty drones, skirmishing pattern faderise and alto. Avoid direct fire from hilltop.”

“Received.” Six menials and a soldier were perforated by the hail of lancefire before they had even managed to cluster and begin their mission. Coalition behind their metal slats had repositioned again. Fields of fire were no longer accurate.

“All scouts on hill designate D-334; reprioritize. Withdraw another ten lengths. Assist observers. Assess Coalition’s primary defensive direction.”

“Received.” The Sovereignty was trying another push, forgetting once more to alert the Queen and colony. The squad of twenty made it another four lengths from their last cover before they were once more halted. Three of their number, struck, and left in the open.

“Twenty menials, two menders, recover and secure wounded humanites in marked section. Menial-soldiers, intensify screening fire.”

“Received.” Limbs spread. Bodies wheeling. Two humanites and three formites, sent flying as a thick shaft of white struck clean to the center of a soldier. The heat boiled it alive, and its shell exploded outward with such force that calls of ‘explosive!’ were heard from the surroundings. Though it was a closer voice, though the band of the relaying soldier, that Skthveraachk focused upon. A female’s voice, made through half-helmet while the alien soldiers under rock and pressed to ditch fired blindly over their heads at the positions up the hill.

That was heard through the Queen’s own core, the rows of screens within the three-spired forward command filled by frantically jerking limbs and wrigglers. Skthveraachk furled her foreclaws, and the suit around her thrummed with power denied as the synthetic scythes extended. Lights in the distance, the blackness of the faded sky only intensifying the show of the hill, awash in lightning flashes.

Back to the eyes of the soldier. Drones coated the valley, relaying every thought, every action. Six thousand of her people, another four hundred humanites, enough technology to reduce Hollowcore to a melted slagpile. And still. Still.

The whining was overpowering. Slings were filled with stones, spun twice, and released. Rocks as a hailstorm, as cicidites in breeding season, filled the air as they rained upon the coalition. Her soldier’s armor clattered and clacked as he turned, and bones upon the silver melted cuirasses bounced from their threads of hair.

“It comes.” Calls were as great hollow tubes of sound, the scentcrafters hidden under rock and shielding bodies filling the hillside with stories and legends of wars long ago won. “Skirmish cluster. Spitters and slingers. Distraction at my position.”

“Observers have identified new positions. Relaying information to skirmishers.” Frame of the soldier was a boulder unto itself, as were the sons and daughters around him. A mixture of purple and black, violet and void. The humanites hunched and squatted and balled themselves and cowered under every impact and spat of fire near them. Former Vhersckaahlhn did not twitch. Until the arcing crescendo of projectiles, spit and stone, splattered and struck the barricades of metal on high, bringing moment’s stillness to the slope.

“We go. Now.”

beams from below, Trampling legs, claws, two and four and six. Another ten menials lined straight their charge for the position, spears pointed level and voices sonorous and wild, while true soldiers and the forward humanite squad beat across the arid and open space.

The translator attempted to compress ‘brainless and arrogant penile tip’ into a single word as Solovyova-JustSayColonel’s deep slurring caused the red shell aside Skthveraachk to clasp its ear in pain.

A look was thrown back to the shimmering, floating rectangle stretched across the center of the tent’s air. Lines, curves and dots of myriad colors all arranged in esoteric formations. Fuzzy, uncertain, warbling at times; the closer they got to Tarasque, the less reliable such screens became.

If Skthveraachk reached, she could perhaps have heard the Solovyova in person, somewhere out there through lengths and lengths of bodies spread throughout the wasteland. See with eyes the raised arm and maw which would fleck fluid at each word.

Even a hundred lengths separated, the humanite beside the Queen flinched as though it had been struck. Skthveraachk did not consider the humanite language beautiful. But there was certainly a color and flow to it in the graspers of the right alien, and the Solovyova could make even promises of pain, social disgrace, and what the Queen could only assume were acts of sexual deplorations among the aliens blend into fascinating tones. Evocative, even. She waited until the communication was ended, and a degree of red had returned to the officer’s membrane, before speaking.

“I will reinforce the attack.”

Again, her claws curled. Engines and lifts of the throne rumbling the same discontent felt within the Queen as another eighteen voices were lost from her choir.

“I was brought here to wage war. Now I am denied from doing so. Allow me to kill, or allow me to return home, this indecision cripples me and kills my children.”

The humanite waved spindly digits in the air, drawing out a sigil.

“If your forces are ten to the enemy’s one, surround him. If five to one, attack him. If twice as numerous, divide into two and assault.” Her mandibles slid and gnawed the empty air of the equally empty camp. No artillery had been able to be transported. The Hathan’s airpower, diverted for transport and protection. The JustSayColonel’s armored weaponry and machines, remaining safely with the column. “If equally matched, offer battle only if able. If slightly inferior, avoid, and if entirely unequal, flee. Your own people teach this. We outnumber the Coalition here likely a hundred to one, Major. This battle does not require more of my people. This battle requires yours to suppress their fear, and attack.”

Ah, yes, the new term. Not as offensive as ‘bug’, so the presumed logic or lack thereof went. Skthveraachk could control her own anger, but with the scentcrafters deployed and spread, only limit the anger and rattling of limbs from the hundreds of drones at the smattering of tents perimeter. A flashing marker within the map of her visor. Ten lengths behind an ideal angle for their lances, and twenty lengths behind where her own line had formed.

“I take my orders from Hathan-Commander, and from Solovyova-JustSayColonel, and from the Herald. Your words are spoken from none of them. Thus I do not heed your noises.” Another hundred had gathered to the faderise. Fifty more to risefade, that was all she needed. A little longer, a little more, and she would have the hilltop surrounded. No escape. Not this time. Skthveraachk left Queen’s body and returned to her soldier just as the Major begun a ceaseless prattle, and felt immediately the burning of two beams as they heated abdomen through the protective plating.

One of his sons. One of his children. Armored in the melted combination of ten suits of Coalition armor, assembled by the claws of crafters, and the single shot bored a hole so great through the spawn that a menial could have crawled unobstructed through the gap. The male was dead before his body struck the ground. Joined by the menials who had rushed the barricade, succeeding in their surprising charge only to be roasted by a pair of fire-belching aliens strapped in cannisters and prods.

The rest had made it to their cover. Either flattened to the ground, or bent behind blistered struts of mineral rises. Skthveraachk wished to rise and see this thing that had silenced one of his warriors, but a presence upon him urged him back. The Queen needed his experience, and his body, for what would come. One of the humanites took the role of spotter regardless, staring down the length of the upper tube of their weaponry.

Giving lance a shake, the female was back on her mechanical link. False song. Strong song. She had taken the place of the previous female leader without hesitation. Acted without pause.

The former Vhersckaahlhn did not need the role of a thinker to predict the outcome. Three beats of indecision while the last two menials at the barricades popped and fizzled under the scorching jets of flame. Two beats for some of the humanites further down the hill to try and withdraw to the lower slope. Five breaths for them to be struck by glancing beams which nonetheless sent them toppling to the dirt in broadcasted pain. And another eight formites dead, shielding the bodies for the menders to drag them back behind safety.

“Your soldiers are getting mine killed.” He was not yet used to the Band. It marked him valuable. Above the others. This was good, and right. His belief in the Queen was absolute, but there had always been a part of his music reserved, kept at bay, certain that if a Sovereignty humanite had tried to silence him outside of battle, he would not have died without blood on his scythes. Now, the alien creatures looked upon him with a different glare.

Humanite orders had changed. Skthveraachk’s remained the same. Get the enemy’s attention. Hold their attention. Assist the encirclement.

“No.” He expected the protests already birthing from the wet holes of their heads. They had not expected his. “Describe this item. It will be retrieved.”

“We will transport it. You will use it. Inform your people.” The female was good. Menials were mustering for another push, retrieving the spears and shields of the fallen or repurposing corpses into similar roles. Sovereignty provided fire from below, but it only dissuaded retribution. It did not kill. Barrels of lances stuck through the holes cut in metal barricades from above killed. And killed, and killed. The female only hesitated six breaths.

Priority relay approved. Forward observers were relegated to secondary importance as the words were transmitted from drone to drone, reaching the base of the hill in breaths.

“It has been located. Your soldiers refuse us access. Contact them.” Two hundred and thirty menials dead. Forty-six soldiers. Every battle, every conflict, tolled and counted and lessened, the colony shrank. This was not war. This was not the clashing of armies. Skthveraachk felt each death, tasted each kill, and found the numbers imbalanced. Her rage was as a mist more potent than any scentcrafter, flowing from far and washing across the valley. Permission was received. Soldiers who did not fight but stood at the rear as cowards parted and permitted the ten drones to grasp and heave up the device. Twice the length of a menial. Half the size. Claws and legs. Up through the slurry of shattered limbs and sopping meat from the menials who had detonated safe paths through the field of explosives. Past the humanites ascending slow, ducking after every shot, returning beams ineffectively. Two drones were shot. This was expected. Nearby menials assumed their duties. No fear. No indecision. Role to perform. Good soldiers.

“Insufficient. Weapons require straight line.”

Distraction. Cause damage, but do so in a way which demanded answer. Acceptable strategy. The menials hauling the alien’s technology did not head for the shelter of the rocks, a great tube and set of compartments as though the decapitated top of one of the Sovereignty’s tanks. They ran through the open, as the armored vehicle of death let roar another blast which dissolved and shattered dry stones of the slope.

“We will provide cover. Prepare your weapon.”

Explanation would take time. Time was the current priority. Explanation was disregarded. In their silvery armor, the former Vhersckaahlhn and nine of his children crawled free of their protection. Two suffered strikes instantaneously, but reared as they were, reinforced underside of their wear merely fizzled and spat. Five to a side, the second two of each row lowering to grip and take possession of the anti-vehicle weapon as menials scattered back to their duties. They held. The front stretched, covered, and presented target. The Coalition responded.

Three more beams struck the foremost child. It screeched in pain, but made the call a part of itself. A part of its music. Battle hymns and cries for the Composer’s sight wound around them as bones each had taken from humanites slain rung like hollow chimes in hallowed underhall. Sovereignty female and her comrades flitted between the risen bodies, adjusting and turning the weapon. Calls went up from the peak of the hill, and the frequency of shots intensified. Leading soldier was midway through his listing of triumphs, the aria of victories he had achieved twice over the aliens, when lungs finally collapsed inward. Behind him, his brother released claws from the weapon just as the next took up his place, and he in turn held up the ever spasming corpse as bolt after bolt, beam after beam, struck it. The new shield. The new barrier. The new voice, resuming where the first had faltered.

First of the second line fell. It’s body shielding its sibling even in death.

Skthveraachk felt the surprise of all as much as she was herself surprised. There was no rebound, no sense of force expelling from the mouth of the weapon. One moment, there was nothing. Then, there was a light so blinding that those two providing obstruction to the sides of the barrel felt the two eyes nearest the end pop. Half melted; half boiled. A beam thick as a drone burning a hole first in the metal barricade, and then into the slant of the immobile tank. The smell was of indescribable toxic sourness. Humanites across the hill cheered.

Now, there was a jolt. Now, as the top was peeled back and a steaming framework of rods and crystals was ejected, only for a new one from the compartments to be slotted within, there was a thunking of machine work.

The tank had not responded to the grievous injury. It did not halt the frantic pace of the aliens.

A second hole alongside the first. The formites did not gaze at the beam this time, and thus remained only half blind rather than all. The line was impacted, the vehicle silent, the Sovereignty cheering. Female thrust lance up, though was quick to hurry back into safety with her men as the soldiers shuffled the massive out of the fire. It was the time. It was the place.

“I am ordering an assault from all sides.” Had the Major been complaining, lamenting, threatening that entire time? Skthveraachk had not registered, and did not probe the memories of attendants nearby. “Our encirclement is completed. They will fall.”

Chant the hymnals of death and silence. Begin the song of blood and scythe. No room now for humanites to flee into the dust and horizon, no place for them to scatter when they were found. They would fight as the formite, and they would die as the formite. Menials poured forth from the main battle path, soldiers and spitters circled about formed their own contingents and clusters. Once the front engaged, the humanites would lose focus. Her children would spill over the barricades, crush the interior, rip apart and chew. Sing. Sing.

“Kill! Kill!”

“Charge! Charge!”

“Alarm! Alarm!” Demand for information. Where was the alarm?

“Death! Death!” The front met with the foe. Soldiers bred from the Vhersckaahlhn, menials from the lowest castes clutching weapons of plant and bone. All charged. All died as lance and flamer and explosive ripped from the holding line. Unexpected resistance, but acceptable. They would pull defenders from the sides and rear, and then-

“No change in sighting!” Forward observers and scouts sounded alarm after alarm. “Defenses remain. Soldiers unmoving. Rear and sides remain secure. Attack?”

“They hold. They do not lose cohesion. Their preparations on their flanks remain. Hundreds will die.”

Now, not even the Queen fully could contain her rage. Though an obstinate fight may be made by smaller force, in the end, it must be captured by the larger. This was the rule. This was the law. These pockets of resistance, these tens and fifty which scattered the landscape and struck only to flee. This was not a war. This was not how battles were waged. They were surrounded, they were secure, and they were already dead. Humanites were supposed to flee. Humanites were supposed to fear.

“My distraction has failed. I will regroup and reorganize my colony.” Hundreds. A thousand? How many would die in this pointless assault on but a clawful of humanites? It was unacceptable. It was failure in victory. Skthveraachk cursed the humanite tome of wisdom, the thinkers peeling through mental layer after layer of its contents as they searched for options. The humanite red, the humanite Major, the humanite which ordered and shouted from the safety of a tent, pointed at her as a thing. As a lesser. As a menial.

No indignation could be suffered so clear in the view of her colony. Hairs rose on soldiers half a thousand lengths away, scythes itching as they withdrew. Skthveraachk, at the epicenter of the accusation, at the center of the audible crater in which she was accused of abandoning her role, turned the throne in full circle to face the wrinkled alien of organs and fluid in a thin, pulpable bag of flesh. Managed, somehow, to ensure that the scythes of the sled, as they struck, landed only to either side of the creature. Though the left of the metal blades still managed to sever half the boot, and appendage within, from the female which screamed a new tune now. Lances upon her? Let them fire. Her lattice shields were already activating. Shout to the Herald? Let them shout. He would condemn their stupidity, not hers. Bones worn by her soldiers weaponized the alien’s fears. Scrap and skin salvaged by her menials weaponized their bodies. She had her role. She would weaponize their victory.

“Vanguard cluster! Flee! Flee and withdraw!” None of the reds, not even the ambers, did in the end fire as the lifts of the Queen’s throne roared with force enough to burn the bottom of the tent’s flaps in her exit. Attendants, soldiers, drones, growing drunk on her scents that were not of fear, but of a righteous and honed malice she had only ever twice before felt.

“Flee? We do not flee. This battle can be won.” Her Vhersckaahlhn. Oozing, injured, partially on fire. He was correct. All he said was correct.

“Repeating last!” It did not dissuade the carving of her voice, bellowed out as her consoles bleeped frantically, pushing the lifted sled past the erected stockade surrounding the small forward position, past standing sentinels almost ran over by her movement, and towards the base of the blackened hill. “You will flee! You will withdraw! All injured, abandoned! All dead, discarded! You are fearful of the humanites!”

“We do not fear!” Confusion, condemnation, the soldiers all across the front joining together as a competing symphony began to grow in opposition to the Queen’s. “We do not flee! Skthveraachk-Colony does not lose! Skthveraachk-Colony fights for the homeworld!” Spitters obeyed without question, incapable of doing otherwise, and were the first to stream down from their positions. Weaving through the soldiers, alien and formite, that now milled in confusion. The menials were the next to follow, clambering over one another and spurting signals of fear that they did not truly feel. Faster. She was near.

“Obey!”

“Skthveraachk-Colony does not understand!”

“Understanding is not required! Obedience is all! Your role is not to comprehend my menial-soldiers! Your role is not to comprehend my usage of their technologies!”

She deactivated the communication within the throne. Her song, not for them, not even for Hathan, not now.

“Your doubts poison us all! Your reliance on the memories denies the shaping of the future! We do not fight formites, and we will not fight as formites, and we will accept the new or die in the old! Repeating last. Repeating last. Repeating last!” The entirety of the nearby swarm was attempting to rally to her. It would be too much. Two hundred. She allocated two hundred to circle and clutch and clamber as, for the first breath in many measures, she saw a beam strike upon the shield of her throne. Those on the hill had seen her. Good. “You will flee. You will shake gasters with fear. You will obey.” The hesitation existed. It should not have ever existed.

“I will obey. You are Skthveraachk Queen. You are War Queen. Give us victory. I obey.” Down they came. First the spitters, unsure of the reason but unquestioning in their songlessness. Then, the humanites, shouting for their own orders as they followed in the mass. Then the menials, dying one after the other from beam and blast. The soldiers, limping and clawing their eyes and antennae as they fought every urge to engage the enemy now behind them. But they were not the last. Skthveraachk threw her scythes up as the engines howled and pushed her forward into the ascent, and their sheen was matched only by the edge present in the scream of challenge which followed. Yes, they knew her. The Brigadier-General wanted her scentcrafters dead, her colony lobotomized, and her own voice, silenced. Here she was. Here she stood. The colony drunk of her fury while Coalition drunk of their victory as Sovereignty and swarm fled. And after her soldiers, it was the Coalition’s own which followed. Flame and lance, cheer and shout, leaping over the barricades and pushing in the split moments as emotion ran counter to logic. As it always did in the alien. As it always would.

“STOP!”

Six hundred and twelve fleeing bodies froze in mid-step.

“TURN!”

Five hundred eighty-seven bodies spun, unphased by the beams which cut into them from behind and sent Skthveraachk’s shields down to seventy.

“ATTACK! ATTACK! ATTACK!”

Only twelve, fifteen of the unknown number had broken their ranks. If fifteen colonies of the Litany had frenzied, it would be the end of civilization. Here, it was merely the end of their defiance. The hundreds encircling, which had remained at their distance, charged forth. The front, no longer in retreat despite the Sovereignty’s continued withdrawal, pushed forward once more as the edges like a set of mandibles rushed to cut the extended Coalition from the fat of their defense. Confusion. Conflicting desires. Contradicting orders. Defenders retreated from sopra walls to reinforce the alto, faderise and risdefade were alternated and swapped, broken lines attempted to reform. Formites did not fear. Humanites feared. Humanites fell, one by one by ten by twenty, as the fullness of their surroundings finally registered. The Queen lowered her scythes as the first deathly musics began.

“Prisoners. Captives. Humanites may wear explosives; immobilize and mark as slave vassals. Prepare for transport back to column.” Skthveraachk was not a fool. The Herald would not approve of the assault she had inflicted. Understand, perhaps, but not approve. If the Sovereignty enjoyed so greatly the purging of their deviants, then perhaps the Herald’s disapproval could be soothed. She left the conflict at hill’s top to her soldiers, keeping back those driven insensate by her pheromones while the Queen reactivated her communications. Prisoners required delicacy. Not fervorous wrath. “Hathan-Commander. Are you receiving?”

“I receive, Hathan-Commander.” Typical humanites. Even after the false-retreat had been corrected, the hilltop secured, still the reds and blacks of their shells beat a hasty withdrawal from the area. Still unrecognizing of the farse. “Hill designate D-334 has been secured. I will require contact with the Solovyova-JustSayColonel immediately for further instructions.”

She expected anger from the Commander. This was anger, but not of focus. Of concern. Of shock.

“For what purpose?” Skthveraachk had grown too accustomed to the firmness of the male. His uncertainty infiltrated her. Shook at the fading sense of resolve which still pumped through her as crunching bones and splitting muscle from above rung out in triumph. “Is there concern over my force’s? Injury inflicted upon the Major was minor. It was…” That would have been a lie. “Partially unintentional. I will apologize for such upon returning to the column.”

“Received. I will move critical assets beneath the nearest shield and adopt standard dispersal of the rest of my forces.”

Dispersal. Withdrawal. Some Coalition had chosen to die rather than be captured. Expected. Many more had been denied the opportunity. The were fed down the hill, raised up like captured grubs from an enemy colony despite their kicks and screams and occasional weeps. But the buzzing heard over all of it is what brought the Queen’s eyes upward. Scouts, they could see on their own, at least the outline shapes. Observers, less effectively, but still, the patterns were discernable. Visor begun to highlight and mark each and every bot sighted, the dark outlines on a black sky causing meager stars to wink in and out of existence as they were blotted. Chatter was not limited to the Hathan. Warnings, orders, directions; it was the Sovereignty now that was conflicted. Confused. Swarm at the base of the hill, at the other battlegrounds and upon the road, had spread by lengths to deny clustered targets. It did not matter; Coalition VTOLs high above deployment range, drones bearing weapons and burning lights, filled the sky with presence, but did not descend. Not even when the first guns of the post Skthveraachk had just departed began to spit heated lasers, white in their light, striking down one after uncaring other.

“They are sighted. They approach. They do not attack.”

“They are present, but high above. They do not make to deploy soldiers.” More of the forward positions had joined in the defense. Panic began to dissipate, conflict replaced by certainty. Red lightning, dull thunder, filled the black beyond as pieces of metal began to rain like the stones of her own slingers. “They bypass the hills. We should resume the attack. D-334 is ours, and the next two shall fall now that they are without-“

Fear. Proper fear. Skthveraachk spun her throne about with a shifting of her claws, so that she could view the distant spotlights of the convoy which waited still for their victory.

“Hathan-Commander, still your voice. We are not in danger, I am not in danger. We should not surrender this position, we must secure the remaining sites before-“

The stream was unceasing. The dam, broken. The flood, untapped. Ten wyverns. Hundreds of drones. A black sky dyed white and red by fury and fear. Bypassing the hills, and proceeding on to their goal.