The Aadarsh-Who-Had-Been-Blessed once told her the Coalition were frenzied. Skthveraachk Queen had strode through a nest, a town, of Coalition drones and soldiers, heard them scream as they died to save those they loved and cower beneath the claws of her coming. The Thinker’s pet humanite, he had sung with purest conviction that it was the Sovereignty who were monsters, who would use and discard her species in order to destroy freedom, unity, and rightness from the aliens’ worlds. Skthveraachk Queen had seen Sovereignty warriors weep over the loss of formite drones, risk enemy fire and death for the sake of their comrades and order. She had believed the Herald when he told her the Coalition needed to be brought back beneath Sovereignty’s scent and song. She had believed the soldier when the Thinker relayed how the Sovereignty’s version of unity and order was a warped reflection of her people’s own. She believed both. She was sure of neither. But at the core of all, like the throughline bass which pounded in time to the heartbeat tempo of creation, there was the One. A single entity. Colony, but individual. Humanite, and something greater. Individual, yet with strength in mind and scythe and will and being to dictate the lives of billions. Like the Founders, his messages were passed down as law and memory, obeyed without question even as each and every humanite held capacity to challenge and contradict. What matter of being held that power? What manner of entity could exist with such a formite ability to project will onto others?

“Skthveraachk menial-warrior believes ‘Emperor’ is humanite note for Composer.”

“Stillness.” The great purple-hued soldier snapped his claws closed against the deck as the mender worked at his carapace, the raise of his hairs and thrum of his voice going silent at the directive. Atop him, however, the scout had been given no such command. His own music vibrated down into the hulking form, made metallic by the antiquated lance hugged and strapped to his body.

“Did not expect former Vhersckaahlhn’s to join voices with that kind of spirituality.” The soldier did not respond. “They always seemed to me drones who peel and feast first, praise and thank after.” A small rumble of breath. “Though you are the first Vhersckaahlhn I have sung with. That wasn’t trying to eat me. Or rend me in half. Or bisect with-“

“Task concluded.” The mender’s affirmation was enough to bring one of the curved scythes free of its sheathe, slashing upward to the shrieks of the scout. That it impacted on the blunted flat and not sharpened edge was only small comfort; the crunch of shell was still audible to those hugging nearby, the sound flowing through the link to Queen’s own ears. Claw around the scout’s thorax, hidden by the shimmering humanite fabric it wore, former Vhersckaahlhn brought the drone down to stare into its eyes.

“Vhersckaahlhn-Colony praises Composer. Vhersckaahlhn-Colony believes itself chosen of Composer. Vhersckaahlhn-Colony would consume Ghescktyeelh-Colony entire for insult.”

“Madness! False-frenzy!” Limbs failed, but it was a dance of spectacle. Only a small amount of fear leaking into the motions as scout’s humor overpowered its caution. “Even Skthveraachk-Colony cannot bring unity to savage Vhersckaahlhn soldier! Fear! Flee!”

“Stupidity. Yes? Yes.” The mender had made it no more than a single leg away before being drawn back by the cracking noise. First inspecting the efforts made to file down the spit and sealant keeping the behemoth’s plating secure, and then crawling up the arm which held the scout to begin applications of further paste from worn belt of jars to the fractures visible across lower thorax. A luxury, to repair such trivial damage once. Now, the stores were so full of sealant that it was being discarded for lack of storage and use. “Gathering is vital. Queen’s directive. All tasks, suspended. Must await song of humanite Emperor. Yes? No. Still I must mend. Stupid drones. Stupid thoughts. Beyond role.”

“Beyond role.” The soldier, riddled with the damages sustained in the battle at Tarasque, and the Fallen Wyvern and Hill D-334 and tens of others, sung with a baritone so deep it made jelly of the scout’s insides with each note. “You act as the aliens act. Sing as they sing. Wear what they wear. It is disturbing.”

“My role is expanded!” A touch, a taste of indignation entered the scout’s music. As much caused by the soldier’s accusation as the delver’s tongue. Which, now that the scout was removed from his chitinous peak, had worked its way into tasting and lathering the barrel of the older humanite lance weapon. Going so far as to try and plunge entirely up the hollowed entry point, searching and probing. “I sing with the colony but speak with the alien. I am permitted the use of humanite tools, weapons, garb! I am scout, but more. This too is Queen’s directive.”

“Disturbing.” The repetition was unpleasant. “Unnatural. Improper order.”

“So sings soldier bonded to a menial-warrior?” The delver chittered laughter as the soldier chattered its mandibles, grip around the scout tightening. Even the mender uttered brief mirth, before regaining control of its emotions. The former Vhersckaahlhn warbled out acceptance of the conversational defeat, amending its contribution to the quartet, though five rested together.

"I was born a soldier. It is my role. My role has been unchanged since creation’s start. My role has been unchanged since the first star-sent were met. Scythe and jaw. A menial now may kill a soldier at twenty lengths. Thirty. Fifty.”

“Or just one.” The delver was pretending to not notice the repeated signals the scout was both signing and singing, trying to pry the older drone from the weapon. Unsuccessfully. “Efficacy proven. I was delver, too. Now, I am as much crafter as delver. Crafters on Dracan, before leaving, already were experimenting with new tipping. Palmidia spear-lengths, suitable, but sharpening edges insufficient for penetration through humanite armoring in many cases. Impossible for formite. See.”

Finally unable to feign further ignorance, the delver graciously excused self and apologized as the scout protectively took to cleaning the spit from the weapon with its own tongue. Instead, bringing forth a pale and nearly colorless stone from its own belt. Many amongst the higher castes now wore such, the underside pouches of alien-skin satchels and straps containing all manner of tools or items useful to the individual role. There were many accidental damages, especially here, where the entirety of the colony was being stuffed into dual cargo bays while humanites on railings and walkways or at the edges of the massing of bodies waited. Waited. Skthveraachk felt her consciousness returning to Queen’s own body, but fought to stay submerged. Focusing here, now, only on these four who sung, and one who listened.

“Hardstone?” The mender eyed the glinting, clear rock. A hue of skylike blue tinting it from within, along jagged and angular edges. “Yes. Unfamiliar with its type. Crystalline. Decorative.”

“Yellowstone.” A wry cracking of legs and rattling of hairs came from the mender, but only until it was clear the delver was not making humor. “Yes. Coloring is wrong. Taste is correct. The same as I have tasted on Kayyhaitch. The same adorning temples. Set into tunnels and ceilings. Two deposits found in the Caldera. Difficult to cut. Heavy blows to shatter. Impossible to scratch. Affix to spears, can puncture clean through shell. And if not available, many more hardstones. Many others to test, in home nests. The newly refined brownstone, too. Frightening in implication. Wonderful in implication.”

“Disturbing.” Thrice the note was uttered, and the Queen could not help but feel the other soldiers nearby rumbling their assent. “And new. Battlefields change. My role adapts. Battle itself now changes. My role must adapt. It is not something I thought to experience in my life.”

“Scout, singer, slinger. Delver, crafter, tunneler. Soldier, teacher-of-menials, ‘horse’.” The lance sufficiently purged of viscous fluid, scout once more adjusted and slung the thing atop his back. “Mender?”

“No. No? No-no. Do not make me share egg with you. I am a mender. It is my role. I need no expanded tasking. I have seen what becomes of drones seeking more than they are.” Signed confusion. A refusal to elaborate, an indication of painful memories. The others did not press. “Queen demands, we obey. But what is Queen, now? Is Queen only Queen? I mend bodies. I mend minds. Queen’s body, damaged. Repeatedly, viciously, endlessly. Queen’s mind, d-…” For a single breath, it became clear just how many had taken to listening. And the mender, too, seemed to rethink the direction of the music. “…different. Menial may be warrior. Delver may be thinker. Unnatural. New. Queen, being more than Queen? Less than Queen?” Silence. Feelers, both of voice and touch, reached through the room and up towards Skthveraachk. She felt them upon her fresh carapace, felt them deeper on the hidden wounds to meat and fluids churning just below the surface, and tried to compose a song of tranquility and assurance. It rung hollow, and her own insecurity was an infection the colony did not need at this moment. She ordered the music rescinded, and her song was made still before it could reach the group. And so it was the scout which rubbed at its antennae, bringing one low between mandibles so that it could be cleaned and kissed, making the sounds of surety.

“The Queen is the Queen. Queen is Queen. If the Queen is different, she is different because it is required. If she is more, it is because more is necessary. If she is less, it is because less will preserve us. It is not our role to know.”

“Not our role to question.” The soldier snapped mandibles closed, but its rear left leg reached out to rub and feel against the scout in support. Apology. Understanding.

“Not our role to understand.” The delver began to tap and scratch the hardstone against the deck. The clear blue remained unchanged. A thin, white line appeared in the metal of the Palamedes.

“Not our role. Yes. Yes.” The mender sung acceptance. The mender did not feel acceptance. Only when the fifth, the last, the spitter squat and laden with a gaster stuffed with acid hummed and whistled in unification did the group raise their heads together, interlacing and embracing paired antennae in communal understanding. Twenty, they had been once, sharing this deck together alone amidst the stars. Then nineteen. Then sixteen, twelve, nine, and seven. Six, now, the seventh cut from their song and thoughts forever, interred and intombed below the dead rock and waste of Dracan in his private cavern. Six amidst tens of thousands. The Queen wished, for a moment, to leave her elevated platform alongside aliens and clasping attendants, to move herself in her entirety down to that writhing and churning and skittering mass of black bodies and once more feel all five of the others, even the songless spitter, against her. But it was no longer her place.

Her place, her role, was here. Staring up at the spot to which almost every other humanite had turned gaze, to the empty and open air, the flat expanse beneath the bay’s ceiling. Emitters and displays, like those from the false-light theatres of Tarasque, seen to be set into the walls and added from other sections of the ship. Though only hundred and more humanites could fit here, with them; the Hathan-Commander, the new Malika-mender, Solovova-Lieutenant and Colonel, the Miroslava, and all the blues adorning the stripes and patterns of highest office aboard. Elsewise, she could hear through the ship and vibrations how lower soldiers and drones clustered in the hangers, and in the dining areas and observation decks. And it would be the same far, far below, Hathan had said. The planet, preparing, awaiting the predestined time. As if the entire world was holding in some grand, collective breath.

“Why do they wait?” Miroslava, head tipped, did not respond. The Colonel, the only black and red cloaked one amidst waves of blue, touched and stroked her flask beneath the bulky jacket.

Skthveraachk knew, even if she knew not the word for it, what form it would take. Knew ever since the doctor had given assurances she’d heard nothing of this, since the Hathan had given her his look of pride. Fear, and reassurance, as he had before they went before Admiralty or Herald himself. Skthveraachk knew, and Skthveraachk-Colony broiled and churned below her. Needing, as much as the Queen, distraction. Something to fill the maddening wait.

“I cannot quite parse the need to ensure synchronicity in the delivery of this announcement. Unless it is a call to action, a requiring of immediate action from every member of the colony, a delay of breaths, beats, even bars, would be acceptable.”

Solovyova managed, at least, to be brief in her explanation while the Hathan had been giving stern orders and bringing the ship to order.

“I have never been informed. It has been difficult, formulating strategies and plans when I am intentionally denied prerequisite knowledge of my enemy’s capabilities. And my allies.”

Miroslava, her features swapped between a blanched white and crimson red, had angled an angered look upon the larger female. Whether learned to the futility of protest or absorbed in the weight of events forthcoming, however, no reprimand was vocalized. A boon, for Skthveraachk’s growing knowledge.

“This much was surmised. Parables drawn to your…elevators.” The humanite seemed surprised, somehow. The Queen filled the silence, so as not to allow the song to end. “You enter. The contraption seals. You are transported, elsewhere. Released. The world has not moved. Only you have.”

The Band at first managed rough translations, but by the end, seemed to give up entirely. A thinker assured her the terms would be memorized, regardless.

“To sing across the stars may be one of the most wonderous gifts your species possesses, Solovyova-Colonel.” For a moment, she thought the Hathan may have been finished, the way he briefly raised in response to her words. No. Just an incidental movement, as his own comm’s conversation continued. “I do not know how such music may be converted from sound to mere light, the way light itself may be sent from further locations, but I will accept such things are likely smaller than ships.”

“You cannot force the closure from one side? Keep the door shut, if we maintain the metaphor established.”

“Then by controlling the Gate, you must also beware of attacks through it. From behind.” Above? It was difficult to tell, when gazing through the screens or views of the Palamedes. As if you were submerged in fluid, there was no discernable up, or down, amidst the black void. Disorienting did not begin to explain. “As you must certainly protect from singular offenses. Battles of my people, the conflict on Dracan, established lines of control and combat. Lesser guards for those settlements, nests, at the rear. On a scale of worlds, it would be as if every planet is mere bars from an invasion from the others.”

He had been listening. Hathan-Captain spoke low, waited for a break in the duet, and leant away as soon as he had sung. Before Skthveraachk could offer thanks, or reply at all. The hush was growing more oppressive, so much that even Solovyova lowered her usually booming voice.

“You are nervous.”

“Or frightened.” That lanced the scythe closer to the heart, from the female’s expression of flappy skin. Solovyova was excreting fluid from her skin, though it was mostly hidden beneath headdress worn. Others, further along the catwalks, were kneeling on colored cuts of cloth. Or standing, with strange ornaments clasped between their fingers. All waited, breath baited, with eyes which anticipated. “You do not seek out conversation such as this. The pace of your notes, your tempo, is both quickened and uneven. You exhibit the same behaviors seen in your soldiers before a major offensive. I have never seen you as such before.” It was just not Skthveraachk who looked to the Colonel, now. Gazes were drawn from the corners of white socketed eyes, glances from the blue shelled to the one of blacker color amongst them. Solovyova maintained her outward composure, secured her spindly graspers around the joint of her leg and abdomen, and straightened upward as if in defiance of the looks.

“You have not heard the voice of your Queen for a half-life of your species’ cycles?” She knew, now, how each humanite was a Queen unto themselves. Sustained. Isolated. It did not stop the attendants, their bodies built up to form a pyramid which rose from the floor of the cargo bay to the Queen at its zenith in physical connection to the swarm, from hugging tighter to her legs. Their voices disgusted and fearful at the mere suggestion of such prolonged absence. Solovyova did not share the displeasure. She seemed almost, glad of it.

Cuss was the small shove apparently needed to force the humanite’s hand deeper into the jacket, clasping tight around the flask. The searing lights of the bay abruptly lowered. Communicators, as one, deactivated as though made still by some unseen outside force. Beams of projected false-light burned from below and above, numbers in a green so pure it shamed the fields of her homeworld counted down. The Hathan, not seeing the way Miroslava began to shift nearer, stepped once instead so that he nearly brushed Skthveraachk’s hairs and, uninvited and unprompted, set a gloved palm against the tucked foreleg hanging from her reared body. He smiled, uncertain, but unflinchingly at her side. The room exploded into light. Solovyova snapped her hand away from the drink as though she had been shot. Air, as if stood upon by the claw of the Composer himself, left Skthveraachk’s lungs. And hanging before them, in detail so fine her children shrank in awe and terror from the image, was what the Queen believed the humanites called, ‘heaven’.

At first, she had thought the construction like those of Tarasque. Banners of fiery red, hanging from hundred-length tall buildings, but not square and uniform. Angular. Crystalline and golden, as though an impossible explosion had send arches and awnings flung outward from central tower which crested into a flattened dais. It was only when the image began to enhance, to expand, and the tiny carven figures perched on corners and edges came to view that she realized the true scale. The banners were not as in Tarasque; they could likely envelop the entirety of the megastructures from that primitive place. Humanite statues eight times the size of the Queen herself floated, suspended, depicting near-naked males and females both with protrusions from their backs and spears, or instruments of string, cradled in their arms. A thousand, thousand lifetimes would not be enough time for her species to build such a thing, such a throne, the likes of which mountains could not hope to reach. Her innards, her cartilage, her very core and song shook at the sounds of the Sovereignty’s anthem, the rallying cry of sounds forged from tubes and strings and devices the likes of which she had never heard.

Humility was not a sufficient note. Insignificance was not a sufficient note. She had gazed out at a Gate’s activation, and believed she knew the measure of the aliens’ reach. She had stood beneath buildings of hardstone and metal reaching to the clouds, and believed nothing else could compare to such humanite power. All she had done was touch the foam of the tide, and believed she could comprehend the depth of the sea. The clouds obscured the tips of the trifecta buildings, but the screen zoomed to that platform, that rooftop of golden metal, nameless trees the color of jelsaah fruit, and lakes and rivers which cascaded to waterfalls down into the expanse. No other figures shared the rise, the steps leading between pillars and wafting see-through sheets. A single humanite, his garb reminiscent of the Admiralty’s own, but more. His face, much like the Hathan’s, she found, if older, and harder. He towered, but only head and some over what would be a normal alien. Had she expected him to descend on wings? To wear a shell soaked in the blood of his conquests? He looked out at her. Into her. He was a man. And if he so much as flicked the fingers lined with veins of azure and wrapped in flesh of white, she knew, beyond certainty, he could consign a billion to death and not a voice would question him. His lips parted, and his voice came with a softness of sky and sureness of seasons.

Words were being mumbled all around her. Many kept faces pressed to the ground. Miroslava, head bent, refused to gaze upward as light seemed to radiate from behind the glistening hair and illuminated eyes of the figure.

Pleas for forgiveness. Tears of shame. Each humanite, together but in private silence, battled with the words. There was a buzzing behind Skthveraachk’s eyes, and each of her children tried in vain to scratch at their own. Hathan’s hand on her tightened. Her hairs flexed, relaxed, instinctively trying to match the pressure. The shoulders bearing the insignias and metal caps lowered along with head, the silence which followed seeing all others wait. Wait, for the image’s permission to breathe again. When it came, the intake was caught in throats, strangled by the warmth of conviction worn on the face as clean as fresh chitin.

No turning back. No retreat nor escape. She had seen the coming flood, prepared, and braced. A hundred thousand lives she had sacrificed for this. Now, there was only to hold fast and true, as the water cascaded around her. Watching the man who would decide the fate of her entire species.

Figures swam in the maelstrom around her. Circling, eyeing the Queen as she rooted herself in the path of the tsunami. A plea? She had made no plea. The request to the Emperor, that she had made through the Herald, that only five of the colonies be taken for their war? His terminology was pejorative, but she felt her heartbeat quicken and vents flare out, seeping fluid. She could hope. She dared not hope. The image did not vanish. The Emperor, still alone on the dais, did not shrink or fade. But before him, a vision of light unfolded from the nothingness. Four black eyes beaded outward. Mandibles, covered over with a chain and draped fabric, closed tight over lower labium. Scythes, folded in what first seemed to be greeting, tucked beneath a sash of thin colored cloth in the position of submission. And with antennae folded, the female Queen in the false-light bowed lower, shook her gaster, and groveled like a defeated drone.

“My name is Aphoma Skthehrnaatch.”

“PROFANATION!” Skthveraachk’s cry rang out not from one body, but from thousands. The Hathan had the righteous sense to remove his hand from her leg before the hairs when stalk upright, ready to puncture any which came near. Tens of heads turned her way, but the Queen had no consideration for them. No attention. Svera was not her name. It was a name given by those whom could not speak her tongue and dance and sing. There was only Skthveraachk Queen. This formite before her was not garbed for battle; it wore their shells. Their clothes. Carried their name like an honored title. The waters closed around her. Rage, now, kept it at bay.

“I sing a greeting in the name of the Emperor and Composer of my music. My people are known as formites. My planet, Kayyhaitch. And it is a beautiful world. There, I represent many hundreds of thousands. All of whom were in a grave peril before the arrival of your kind. My planet is small, and my people fight enemies both abroad, and within. As is sung in our memories, we too were once a unified people. But we have fallen, so far, and now quarrel and fight over meager swathes of land and resources.” Each note was translated, literally, objectively. But it could not translate the small laughs this Queen made with her gaster when she sung of the memories. It did not clarify, to the alien’s language, how stretched the truth of the song was. Skthveraachk fought the urge to display her underside and unsheathe her scythes at so blatant a prostration. “Your people are a strangeness to me. I have spent many days/measures with your ambassadors, and I have come to know the strength of your resolve. It is this strength I ask of you now, on behalf of my species and those of us who wish to return to the unity which once made us whole. Please.” Once more, the Skthehrnaatch Queen bowed low her head, until the lengths of armlet silks brushed at the ground. “Lend to us the power of the star-sent, and bring peace to our world. As it was Once, and will be Again.” The catwalk itself shook as the pyramid of bodies beneath the Queen trembled and hissed. She knew well the colors and sounds of betrayal. Had suffered it before, and would invariably taste of it again. From the humanites, it was expected, and there was no lashing at those around her, innocent of involvement. But from her own people? From one descendant of Sh'e? Mandibles crunched so closely together that blood leaked from the joint as the image faded, one of her eyes noting Hathan’s questioning and firm look. She forced her hairs down. It was all she could manage, for now.

Emperor Varon. Humanite. Queen. Had he ever even been shown her contributions to his kind? Arms rose. Hands, opened. None looked to Skthveraachk now. All rose, or straightened. Fists brought across their chests, salutes angled as the Emperor gazed high to the heavens.

The call went up in a cheer, fists thrust out to the screen. Miroslava, her features stained with wetness. Solovyova, her jaw set and bones crunched together. The Hathan, resolute and sure, yet turned just enough to let his eyes drift from his Composer and Queen to Skthveraachk herself. The waves were crashing, the storm around her had been internalized. Their music now, the anthem blaring out as once more the aliens sung out the lyrics of their pledge, a hollow thing. Hathan lowered not his arm, but his voice, trusting in the Queen to hear his vibrations through the crescendo of noise.

“No, Hathan-Captain.” The Queen sung, levelly, and only the trace amounts of pus and blood clinging to her mandibles betrayed the roar of the wind within. “I have not an idea who that was.”