Not again. Not here, not in this place. The colony, stretched still from the slope of the hill to the horizon, made the mounds and mountains appear alive even from the Queen’s vantage. Interweaving, climbing under and above, seeking to confuse attacks from above which did not come. Above striking range the shapes on the fade’s backdrop, illuminated only for breaths by the flashes of anti-air fire, made a mechanical mockery of the scene on the ground below. Uncaring for their losses. Singular in their purpose. An unliving swarm, set against the breathing song of her own. Demanding response. Demanding failure.

“You sung truth that the Coalition could not launch such an attack! Hathan-Commander!”

“That such a strike would be suicidal, yes! Knowing destruction of their assets, their vessels, their weapons.”

“Many have already passed by, more are awaiting at the rear-“ Think. Process. Attack not forthcoming on the colony; risk a solid chain of bodies to speed a link between all connected thinkers. The Brigadier-General’s strategy? Delay. Obstruct. Hope for reinforcements through the Gate. Current tactic then must be delaying action. Strike on enemy command structure like a strike on an enemy Queen. Likely ineffective, too guarded and far behind the front line, but demands a response. A withdrawing of forward positions. Allowing…allowing… “A distraction.”

“It is only a distraction, Hathan-Commander!”

“It is a distraction from the hills!” Wyverns held back, watching as Sovereignty and formite abandoned their assaults. Waiting, until the LZ was clear. “They know this battle to be lost, for their soldiers to be surrounded and soon, destroyed. The Prescott sacrifices dead metal, empty husks, and a handful of lives to save ten times their number!”

The channels, their litany of links, were abuzz with heated communication. Withdrawals. True retreats, not feigned. Casualties taken, deaths suffered, and forced to pull out before grievances could be answered. Unacceptable. Unacceptable.

“The skyward drones are beyond the distance of my spitters, my slingers. We will be useless against them. We will remain. The hills will be taken, their evacuation denied.”

“Your defenses will decimate this desperate assault!” To lose the Herald, catastrophic. His meaning, uncertain. But this attack did not smell of threat. It reeked of desperation.

“We sacrifice a sure victory on the mere possibility-!”

It was not a literal translation of their condemning phrase, ruler to ruler, but it was enough to shake Skthveraachk from her focus. To paralyze her thinkers.

Solovyova. Her music, half as enraged as the Queen’s, yet somehow twice as searing in its brightness.

The Brigadier-General? Himself, in the battle?

“I will send additional spitters, Solovyova-JustSayColonel, I will call back all my slingers and coordinate them to your position.”

Whether the Solovyova silenced herself or was cut from the singing, Skthveraachk did not know. A captured humanite, carried too close, struck a kick against the hull of her throne. She was too centered upon the view through the observers at 337 to even register the menials slicing clean the offending leg in automatic response. Gold bands. Pyramids, along a pristine onyx hull. It bore resemblance to the Herald’s own arrival, the transport crafted for privileged and vital occupancy with little regard for combat. Just there. Just over those rises from the Queen herself. Was he aboard? Was he here?

A promise made to the notes of the future. Not the present. Present, but out of reach. Tasted on the wind, but not with tongue and claw. She could advance, swarm the hills as had been done here, deny the Prescott his recovery and force him to watch as she tore his soldiers apart. Until his only choice was retreat, or to bathe the area in an inferno which would consume them all. Until he felt as she did; watching from afar, denied resolution, hundreds dead for a few hundred more lengths of progress to the true conflict. The menials aside the Queen’s metallic body lifted their cargo in response to unvocalized desire, and her artificial scythe was through the offered soldier before Skthveraachk truly realized her intent. To make him suffer as she was suffering.

Every rise. Every fade. Every measure and bar and beat and breath on this barren husk of a world. Brought here by sky-sent to fight their frenzied in their place. Tip of her blade punctured through the soldier, at the upper right of its torso, where wounds were usually less fatal. Male? Female? Menial which had been a drone, soldier which had been a queen, Queen which was now a hauler, who knew. Did the Prescott care for this bleeding, gasping, writhing and gurgling thing leaking down her mechanized arm as she cared for the drone which had just been dissolved alive from heat as it waited, dutifully, at the base of its hill for her orders despite the death ever flung from above? Would the Prescott in his safe, distant vantage hurt, as she hurt, when one of his own was torn apart before his eyes? Fury. Frustration. Indignation in impotence. Skthveraachk clenched down with her grasper and brought the other blade, dyed crimson and pearl from the laser-filled sky it reflected, to angle for the alien’s skull. Imagining that frenzied, furry-faced male in his unnaturally colored shell, the sole obstruction to her success and people’s salvation, wrinkling up the folds of his bagged soft exterior and gnashing the exterior bones when she cut. Tore. False scythe still, even as the Queen’s true blades scratched and twitched within the suited throne. Be like them. Be worse than them. Become them to defeat them.

The scream was but two notes, one to each scythe, shook and rattled until even the explosions overhead became nothing more than the beating of a baseline beneath. The Banded numbered fewer than a hundred in a choir of tens of thousands, but what sounds could not be made by lung were created by sling and stomping of claw. Emulating the crude belchings of the creatures. Sounds which meant nothing to a formite, but meant everything to the alien. She reared, as she could, within her throne. Held the punctured thing to the sky. And roared with eighty thousand lungs and two hundred thousand jaws and a half a million legs.

“PRESCOTT!” Promise. Threat. Demand. “PRESCOTT!” Retribution. Reprisal. Repayment. “PRESCOTT!” Sovereignty humanites spun about, shaken, in the middle of their hurried withdrawal. The kicking Coalition prisoners in mandible and grasper froze, or went momentarily limp. On her own scythe, the skewered humanite began to slow. Dribbling its vital fluids down the length of her blade, resigned, and waiting. A world of potential, a colony and individual, brought here as she had been brought to be little more than biomass on an endless field. Serving masters, as she served. She dropped her legs and threw the creature back into the swarm of bodies, snapping a command to ensure its wound was sealed and delivered to the Sovereignty menders upon arrival. Perhaps a humanite would have killed a colony just to send a message. Perhaps in the blackness of the future, Skthveraachk would as well. Not here. Not now. Whether the Prescott watched even now on high or sat safe within Tarasque, it did not matter. He sought her death? Here she was. Now, he would know she sought the same.

“Retreat. Withdraw. Return to column.” Her engines crackled mud to dust as the throne spun on nothing, gliding as the colony crawled and submerged her beneath them in obscuring safety. The last sights of the final observers being the descent of the unchallenged airships, retrieving the formerly besieged Coalition to a chorus of fading cheers.

There was little to do upon her arrival. Skidded trenches from crashed impacts, a few damaged tents and vehicles, the occasional cry of pain, the spattering fire of half-hearted lancer fire, and a sea of debris so pervasive that no drone could step more than twice without the bite of sharpened metal beneath them. It had taken bar and longer just to return, and what fighting had been seen was seen by eyes already present, humanite eyes which had rushed to the defense. Tens of thousands of her soldiers. Recalled, to serve as cleanup for her betters. Lamentations of a role did not change the role.

“Resume encampment perimeter. Locate remaining pockets of resistance. Create six vanguard clusters, three hundred to each. Encircle and eradicate upon locating Coalition.” Biomass indicator for her throne’s false stomach read little more than half. When Skthveraachk spotted both the Hathan and his aide approaching openly, it was easy to decide the armor was no longer needed. Attendants helped free her from the protective prison as Commander nodded, grim, but with a face which hinted relief. She knew the answer. She asked regardless. “Hathan-Commander, may you continue to sing reason no matter how dour the tone. Is the Herald safe?”

Miroslava was not relieved. Like a pod dyed purple and in the last stages of spew, her face was bloated, bulbous, restraining the eruption which demanded release. Her rage sought outlet, and found the Queen.

“I have. Your people have already diminished any serious threat. A tenth of my forces would have been sufficient.”

Ah. Skthveraachk was not incorrect, but it was the insinuation which insulted. Puckered, the Lieutenant emitted pungent wrath even the milling attendants could smell, taste, and see. Bundling themselves tighter around the Queen’s legs in response, though it did not dissuade the jab of finger which followed the Commander’s request.

“I do not know what would happen to your people, no. I am emphatically tuned to what precisely would happen to mine.”

“I am willing to trust in the efficacy of my allies. That they would not need the entirety of their vassal’s force to repel attackers my children could not even damage.”

Hathan’s azure frame was set between them. The Miroslava, with her righteous focus, had advanced another step. Skthveraachk had stuck deep her foreclaws in meeting the approach. Neither moved further when the male deepened the cords of his disapproval.

“If I wished to flay your Lieutenant, I would assign a menial. She is too fragile for my scythes.”

The statement was half true. Skthveraachk did not correct the untrue half. It was not her lie. And, from the sudden confusion within the link, attention but briefly shifted. A downed wyvern. An occupied ring of deactivated vehicles. Humanites from both sides, ceasing fire. A cut of fabric, raised overhead, flicked back and forth. Her soldiers ready to close in.

Sovereignty were standing from cover, their assault paused. Weapons yet readied, yet as the first of the Coalition appeared with arms skyward, none fired or moved.

“Hathan-Commander.” Purple had faded to pink. Thin eyes upon the Lieutenant, touches wider. ”The Coalition forces cease conflict. They emerge freely and unarmed from cover, waving rags. Guidance?”

Spat, the anger was torn from the Queen as it found new target once more.

The Lieutenant was already departed. Striding off with fingers set behind ear, and the other grasper out to bring tap-pad to activation. He managed to catch her response before it had left her. Leaving the Queen to awkwardly stand in expectant silence.

“With variable amounts of blood, debris and tank fluids upon them.”

“The Coalition is admitting defeat!?”

Inhaling through the tubes set beneath his nasal passage, the Hathan ran a grasper beneath his cap and down to bulging torso connection.

“Received. I will continue to search for resistance.” Male began to depart. Queen followed, at pace, and slightly behind. Only now recalling the destination. “The Herald requested my presence?”

“My people would accept death. Yours, typically, do not. Most prefer to fight. But these. These do not wish to fight?”

“They wish to fight only until death is near certain, at which point they seek forgiveness for their acts, and are permitted life? Your wars are obtuse.” The soldiers beyond her sight, behind rows of tents and fresh craters, assumed lines and ranks. Filed out of their hiding spots, interlocked their knotted digits, and looked upon her watching drones as though they were the spawn of The Mother. “But, some will be executed all the same. Why would they submit to this?”

He thought the Queen was not looking upon him, so the subtle clench of his own gloved hands behind his back was brief, but present.

“I am furious. But I will not dwell on the failure of the past. The Prescott will be destroyed for this, and all else.”

It struck her like a beam from the sky. Enough that there was a ripple in the line of formites behind her, from the half breath’s stutter in her step echoed back in the procession.

“Only minorly. Non-fatally. A small scratch and severing of non-vital appendages of the leg. I was not harmed in reprisal, no, and your throne protects me from your lances.”

“It attempted to claim I had failed in my role as Queen. Never have I before been insulted so grievously.” Free of the confines of her lift, scythes began to extend at the mere memory. “If the Colonel had not been a humanite, I would have killed it, devoured it, and expelled its remains upon the dirt rather than sully my core by digesting its mass.” She could smell the Aadarsh in the distance. See him, surrounded by enough amber bodies to fill a small nesting chamber, from passing drones as they delivered the wounded, the captured and the dead. “I did not think when I struck. I acted upon instinct and the demand of my station. But I did not expect it would result in severe punishment, no.”

“You would prefer I return to meekness and servility, Hathan-Commander?”

Don’t return? Don’t mock? From the way his fatted tissue turned about the bone of his mouth, she knew it to be both.

“Is that for my benefit or your own, Hathan-Commander? Since our fates, our lives as you have said, are so inescapably bound?”

It had been an unnecessary prod. And from the lowered volume, it was clear they were words meant to be shared only before reaching the approaching line. The knelt series of colored humanites indicitive of the Coalition, the standing squadron of sentinels, and the unflinching, unsmiling man at the center.

“My voice bears darkness and the edges of violence, but these are not meant for you. I regret they have touched upon you unfairly.”

“I begin to parse this truth, and perhaps it is such comprehension that brings my bitterness.”

The end of their exchange. The Herald, seeing the Queen’s body approach, adopting immediate grin and warmth which hid the bite and scalding heat. Miroslava remaining in the background, ever watching. Stop. Salute. Humanite’s arm up and hand shard, formite’s legs at her sides and head bowed.

Eighteen reports of missing drones. Six more of humanites absent from their detachments. Scouts needed to be organized and ordered back into the field, scentcrafters needed their supplies of chemical markers replenished, thinkers queued request after request for attention; every single other concern was marked a rank lower, as adherence to the Herald’s song was sent as a sky-ship to the pinnacle of her priorities. Not even the glares from the knelt, helmetless Coalition, five in number and more battered than bloody, could distract her from the rich and welcoming tones.

“Five hundred and fifty-four killed at Hill D-334. Additional eighty-six lost from secondary hills. Wounded are still being counted.”

Extending the underside of a hand, the Hathan was quick to display his pad. Letting the lights raise and transmit to a readable size. There was a mechanization to his movements, a rigidity. It was only when one of the nearby captives shifted that Skthveraachk realized every single amber present tensed, their fingers reaching for their triggers. Calming fluids dripped on command from nearby menials, and was fanned across the surroundings to be sure.

Hathan shot glance to the prisoners, but did not hesitate to answer.

Smoothing, rubbing the front of his shell, the Aadarsh made a show of pivoting away from the Commander and approaching the knelt figures. All males; the lack of helmets made it clear. Peculiar coincidence. None responded. Two kept their heads downward. The other three merely stared, eyes cold and dim, up at the Herald. His gaze slid between them, like a worming lumbrite.

The blow came not from the Herald. The Herald did no more than withdraw his own pad, black gloves and taut undershell beneath coat creaking in the movement. It was an amber which struck so suddenly with the end of its lance that the crack of contact brought a chittering startle to every formite within a tenlength.

This time, the Aadarsh did raise two of his thin digits. It was good; from the way the amber froze mid-strike, the Queen was unsure if the knelt humanite would have survived.

Despite the swelling, bulging of blood or fluid beneath thin membrane where the male had been struck, his words dripped as much as they snapped.

He walked the line. Paced. Seemingly casual, but there was an assessing glint to the wet holes of eyes.

Harshness was sudden and abrupt from the knelt Captain, the outburst from his companion silenced in word even before the crunch of bone came from another strike. The Captain may have been ordered spared, but there was no hesitation to more physically quiet the other. Gritting and flashing bones, the wet whiteness was turned up to the Herald. Unapologetic in the dissent which left the Queen feeling queasy in its openness.

The cold put the air of the planet to shame in its suddenness.

Disharmony. Never had Skthveraachk witnessed its like. It was not as two Queens contesting resources, not as the Hathan had questioned his own Captain. This was not a disagreement. It was a debate of realities. A species set against itself on levels fundamental. It was wrong. It was terrifying. The deviant fixated upon her. The Queen visibly recoiled.

“Service guarantees survival.” Music shook free before she could halt its disgusted wavering. “Survival of the species is the only imperative. Do not condemn my choice between subservience and death because you lacked the sanity to do the same.”

The hatred was smaller. Still present, but no longer turned upon her. Face contorted. Eyes held hers for just breaths, before disgust brought them back on the Herald.

Straightening, the step back was as measured as it was final. Aadarsh-Who-Had-Been-Blessed looked along the line of defiance. Deactivated his tap-pad, and settled his hands behind him. The air went still. Revulsion from the helmeted ambers at the suggestion. Fear, from the knelt men at it.

Kick from an amber struck the Captain in the gut. Spilled its contents onto the soil in a reeking filth.

Coughing, wheezing protests continued to sound, but they were breathless. One of the Lieutenants tried to warn next, to argue. The boot snapped upon something within his body, and left the remaining three shivering. Looking not up, but to one another. Their faces twisting. Considering. Weighing.

Miroslava’s answer was as melting as a lance, Skthveraachk catching her outburst from the side of her head while others were forced to turn in surprise. Hathan aside her impersonated unliving rock. The Lieutenant, seething, only calmed, blinked, and reddened when she realized the eyes of thirty sentinels and the Aadarsh himself were upon her. But at the melodious chuckle, however briefly uttered by Herald Jyoshi, a collective breath seemed to be let out. From those standing, at least.

Amber prepared a third blow, but the Herald gave a simple shake of his head as the sputtering male, face aside in his own vomit, tried to gather the notes he needed.

The sergeant tried to shout out. The Herald ignored him. Focused upon the now oozing eyes of the bent Lieutenant.

It was not a decision. Even to Skthveraachk, it was clear the man had made his decision. He did not need to speak. He merely needed to nod, and with a flick of a finger, two ambers had him on his feet in moments.

The men, man, did not look back as he was escorted away. As the others were set upon, dragged up as well by ambers broken from the ranks of the onlookers. The Captain could not shout, but each word was hissed with untameable contempt.

Yet stood, as he had stood the entire time, the Herald fixed himself upon the beaten man. The Captain attempted to gather up and expel fluids from its mouth towards the Herald, but any violence which had been restrained from that point was no longer withheld as the remaining four were struck, shoved, and dragged off further into the camp. Skthveraachk finding it her turn to grow rigid as the Herald advanced towards her and the Hathan.

The smile was back in full radiance, a fire urging you nearer before it consumed you.

The Herald laughed, Skthveraachk clacked her antennae as you were meant to do, and the Commander forced a smile that was almost genuine.

The Commander went for a salute, but was clasped hand in hand instead. Looking to the pile of vomit, the prints in the mud which were all remained, Skthveraachk felt a belief of her own. That never did she wish to see her people where that humanite had been kneeling moments before.

No matter the cost.