When the sky had been hung above the world, when the stars had first been set into the obsidian canvas, when the turning of the heavens had been set in motion and the great silence of the Before was as yet unshattered, the Composer came unto the world. His voice stilled, He wrapped Himself around the curve of the land, and His legs shaped the valleys and peaks, the open plateaus to chasmic depths. From His vents seeped the waters, estuary to ocean, and from His molt formed the layers of soil, filled with the multicolored stone of His many-hued carapace. Only after the work was finished, the world prepared, did the Composer release His first breath. And in the sigh of that first exhale came the light, and came the life, and came, after all else, the first note of His song.

As a droplet strikes the perfect stillness of a pond, the Malika-mender’s interjection rippled the surface of sound entombing the room. The scentcrafters chosen were as close to perfection as could be achieved, chosen for the recitation at birth and having spent their lives in practice of the memories. This memory. They let not a single bead of the music fall from the lake they had sung into being, turning the interruption into but an unplanned sway in the rhythm. Skthveraachk, Queen and colony both, suppressed the anger forming. Not for the alien’s sake, but for the retelling. None would allow hues of rage to distort the beauty of the story.

“Ckhehnvraahll-Colony utters the recollection of Founder Ch’e. Dreamer. Ever-Rooted. The First to Walk From the City.” The other titles began to form to sound, but the Queen bid them remain unsung. Hallowed as they were, the humanite would not appreciate them, and Skthveraachk did not have the time to begin uttering the litany entire. Already, from the hall beyond the Queen’s chamber and over the sound of the breathing tube affixed beneath the alien’s facial vent, footsteps in the Palamedes intensified. Activity, increased. “Descendants of Ch’e emphasize the vitality of the land, the importance of the green and the brown. Founder Sh’e sung into the memories the shedding of the old, the embracing of the new. It is proper in this interpretation to view the Composer as being who sloughed His shell when creating the world, to follow in this truth.”

“Because it is only in the absence of song that reality becomes malleable.” The scentcrafters within the room, and those less-experienced within the adjacent modified hold amidst the swarm, looped the refrain, keeping the rhythm even as the Queen explained and humanite touched away at recording pad. “Existence without music is not formless, but neither is it structured and solid. It is a quiet, dark thing, of twisting images and ground which sinks beneath your claw and air too thick to breathe. When the Composer first exhaled, the sound from Him set firm the laws of creation, and the work He had performed was forever made sure and firm.” The female was satisfied with that, or at least satiated enough to return to the tap-pad. To allow the singers a resuming of their recital, while the emblematic scents of home once more billowed out of their sacs and gasters.

With His first note came the first of the people, the first of the Queens and first of the colonies. Created by His song and in His image of purpose. There was no fear, for He knew it not. There was no war, for He had given only the resolve for peace. From where His voice had first touched the world, the people came, and spread, and covered all the lands of His creation in accordance with His will. Of many colors, of many sizes, of many kinds, but of only one voice. Unified, in infallible harmony, and set to the task of finishing all that the Composer had begun. That all of existence would live, grow, and return again in unceasing toil for the perpetuation of life. All was as according to the will. All was as according to the one song. All was shattered in the arrival of those from the dark places beyond the sky and stars.

“Mender-Malika, there are few memories as sacred to my species than that of our creation, and I would speculate the odds of convincing my people to disregard it equal to the odds of convincing you to cease your disruptions of this most honored tale.”

“As per your previous request, I sing affirmance that you have just committed an insult which would severely damage your interaction with most colonies.” There was a sense of satisfaction from the colony, especially the once more stalled scentcrafters, at the way the Malika pressed a hand to her skull and let sigh frustration.

“Insinuation of falsehood. The term, ‘mythological’. You have suggested I have told you an untruth, and thus challenged both my sanity and harmony. In essence, you have accused me of being frenzied.”

Irritation, still, in the wrinkles of flesh the female wore. But it was a subdued sort of unhappiness, an open illustration of displeasure that was all the same tolerated for the sake of duty.

“Immediate physical displays, challenges, possible attack. If you were accusing a single entity of frenzy, its caste would be compared to your own, and supposition of such condemnation evaluated based on the song’s shape, and difference in your stations. As humanites are as much colonies as individuals, it would more likely be perceived as a universal accusation, that you believed the entire colony’s music corrupted.” The Queen had grown immune, hardened, against the subject. A near cycle of the humanite species’ first blundering, later refined, attempts at communication had inoculated her against the sting of insult. Still, she felt the hairs rising along the back of her head, an instinctive desire to rise and posture. “Unless the insult was hastily retracted and apologies offered, the only logical recourse would be a declaration of war. As only a frenzied colony could believe a balanced one to be frenzied, they would be obligated to purge your existence, while the insulter would be obligated to do the same, of the belief that the frenzied colony would need to be eradicated.”

Understood, but not done here. She knew Skthveraachk was not truly insulted. It irked the Queen.

“If my song may be concluded, at least to the point you yourself requested, before further interruption is levied?” It was as the aliens put it, ‘on the one claw’, utterly infuriating. It had been the Malika who had entered the Queen’s chamber, the Malika who had asked for this exchange, the Malika who had spurred the scentcrafters and thinkers from their labors, diverted to this task. The same Malika who now disrupted and stalled the conclusion of the anointed duty. Yet, on the other claw, the tight mandibles and stalked legs the Queen offered were met equally by dry look and dull eyes. Malika-mender did not believe them equals, so Malika-mender did not pretend to treat her as one. In a species riddled with contradictions, double-meanings and suspicion, there was something liberating in that honesty. Even as she nodded, the Malika’s songless voice sung ‘I don’t enjoy this’. Skthveraachk’s echoed ‘me neither’. It was harmony. It was good. The tale spun on, the waters of sound shuddering as its first zenith was reached.

Birthed in the time before song, slipped through the cracks of the beyond before the world was fully encased in firmament of black, the sky-sent came into the song. Not of the Composer, they knew nothing of peace, of purpose, of the great work. Their only music was of death, their only resolve to consume. Their bodies were mirrors of the Composer’s works, tainted and malformed. Their voices lured in the unsuspecting, their scents and trails guiding entire colonies into the mountains where they were devoured whole. The people, unversed in the strains of conflict and unknown to the calls of war, fell in numbers uncountable. Disappearing from the lands in which they had labored, the harmony fracturing and splintering as each voice lost from the choir perverted and distorted the whole. For cycles innumerable the generations continued the work, adhering to the roles they had been ordained while the star-sent feasted. Only when the number of the people had become so few as to threaten the world itself, and their purpose in its preservation, did the Composer sing into creation a note of change. An alteration to their role. The beings not of His design would be expunged, and in order to combat them, the people would be given every darkness of the enemy. The music turned, and each colony came to learn of fear, and of hate, and of wrath, and of hunger. When the colonies emerged from the cold and dim places of the world, no green could be seen beneath the black of their bodies. Every cave was scoured. Every crevice was purged. A thousand fell for each star-sent silenced, and entire nests were emptied only to afford time for others to act. Until the last daughter and mother of the star-sent, by the descendants of the first given life by the Composer, were at last eradicated.

“A humanite and formite differing which you ought accept as quickly as your capacity allows.” The scentcrafters prepared another respite and swooned into lyrical repose, but the Queen bid them conclude their retelling. Enough was enough, and even her patience had limits. Letting the song climax at the finale of the first days, her words to the Malika-mender slowed only by the ritualized angling of her forelegs and crossing of antennae in supplication to the memories of her Founder, as did all in the colony, even those birthed of another. “We do not trade in lies, do not learn from falsehood. The memories guide us because they are accurate, they are fact. I am not reciting unto you one of your technicolored vidgrams, I sing the historical truth of my race.”

“A different interpretation of events, not a different acceptance of their occurrence.”

Without the beating of her children in rhythm to the memories, she felt instead the beating of the ship. The breathing of its parts, components, engines and hearts. It was beating fast, now. Faster and faster, a beast recognizing the forthcoming struggle. Malika heard none of it. The correction was quick, and appropriate. For a moment, the Queen felt the shape of her own body in the humanite, a younger version of herself posing the same question to her Queen of the time. And the answer, she gladly found, had not at all changed.

“A memory exists of Hhelhnveectch-Colony, enslavers of Sthlehnvaarhn Queen. When Sthlehnvaarhn descended into the valley beyond their breeding nest, at the core of her newly formed colony of slaves, Hhelhnveectch soldiers were cut apart as they failed to protect the eggs from being stolen and carried away. This, is truth.” An itch had begun to form on her rear leg, under the metal of her carapace armor. Two attendants circled until they were near suspended from the ceiling, reaching down to grate and whisk their hairs over the offending joint’s sinew. “Those of the lands to the faderise insist this only occurred because Sthlehnvaarhn Queen possessed the stronger brood, that her soldiers were of greater stock and fortitude by their labors. Adherents and descendants of Ch’e, as my own bonded has uttered many a time, stipulate it was instead because Hhelhnveectch-Colony had already been moved by the Queen’s passion and zeal, that their soldiers willingly slowed their attacks to allow their deaths at the scythes of the Sthlehnvaarhn. The event is not argued. But one colony’s martyr may be another’s pariah. Your Coalition, heroes to their deviant people, but traitors to the Sovereignty. History is absolute. Context is what divides us.”

“I do not believe I have called the chelicerite evil, Malika-mender. Demons, in your language, yes.” There was a difficulty in reconciliation here. The Band around her neck, scrolling through suggested terms, worked overtime to locate appropriate terminology. Sliding an antennae across the controls set above her eyes, she ceased the search. “They were not of the Composer. Their existence threatened His plan for us all. Their extermination was necessary, and hatred of them justified for the lives they had ended. But their actions have never been sung as ones of malice. They devoured. They killed. It was what they were, all they knew. To act willingly in defiance of unity, to prioritize the lives of the few over the many, these things are great evil. The star-sent were…” Again came the flashes. From the tap-pad, and from the look which radiated from the inspective and narrow gaze of the alien mender. “…a primordial force of change. One which transformed my world forever. Your coming will be seen as the same.” Chitin cracking at the joints, the Queen’s sheathed arms pointed downward. “Can you say this context will be wrong?”

The words did not actually get into the female. Alien phrase. She ensured to remember the non-literal translation, while the mender rose from her seat along the spherical chair.

“It is fortunate our species share a desire for unity, yes.” The Queen made way, the humanite taking priority in movement as was proper amongst them. Malika headed for the airseal crossover, though Skthveraachk was close behind. “Unfortunate that we equally share an inability to reach it, as yet we are. You should not expect such divergence will be so easily overcome, simply by your arrival, Malika-mender.”

Like a giant tongue, the airseal flaps slid across her chitin, her eyes, her body entire. Attendants crawled up upon her shell and, though she knew there to be no residue, scrubbed the feeling away as their arms stroked across her vision. Two ambers saluted and followed the doctor. The crew in the passage made way for them, and the line of drones the Queen left behind in relay.

“You seek to rile me. I do not know why, but it is unnecessary. My emotions are tumultuous enough as it is.” The salty sweat of seeping bodies. A greasy metallic tinge from the liquid Solovyova’s troops applied to their weapons before inspections and battle. Calls from the lieutenants managing the hangers two deck-layers below, the tread of hasty feet amongst the metal tunnels. The Queen took it all in, pretending she was merely considering her answer rather than basking in the life of the nest. A home that was not a home, carrying her back to her origins. Unliving, she had once deemed the Palamedes, but it was not truly a dead thing any longer to her. Like its blood, her children ran the halls, intermingled with aliens as they assisted in the transporting of materials. Like cartilage and bone, the walls around them creaked and ground and groaned as the engines pushed them ever nearer their ultimate destination. A beast which blotted the stars. Humorously, her antennae clattered together in hollow resonance. “Context, Malika-mender. Do I believe the Composer to look exactly as I, floating out here in the sky? No. Yet ask if I believe a single voice capable of changing the world, if I believe the touch of a claw or finger able to rain fire and evaporate seas, if I believe there be entities which may traverse the infinite void as easily as I have walked the paths of my nests? I do not believe. I have seen it all.” The humanite sniffed humor. The Queen’s antennae clacked all the louder. The aliens were not Gods. Gods did not bleed and die as mortals. But those were her memories, her music, her context. Laughter subsided as they descended, her attendants and the amber Sentinels and the doctor all. What would her people, her species, deem these beings? Gods? The next star-sent plague? Or something, perhaps, in between?

The hanger’s air had been adjusted for a formite’s comfort. That was a good sign. A few hundred of her colony, of varying caste from menial to thinker, assembled in the ordered ranks of the humanites within the space, drawn almost entirely at random. Save for the pale white of her mender, and the technology-laden scout, it had been left to the writ of the Composer which would be the first. The first to return. The first to set claw upon fresh grass in near a cycle, to breathe without the taste of metal or the strain of an atmosphere too thick or too thin. The first to go home. As the Queen entered through the split awning, the translucent barriers were oriented wrong, showing mostly the powering-down celestial Gate through which the Palamedes had leapt. But at the corner of the access for the wyvern and box-transport landers, there was a blue glow different than the shine of the colored barrier. The hint of the planet which lay beyond. Tens of thousands throughout the ship shared in the spasming of heart, and the exaltation of the coming arrival. Miroslava and Hathan both stood amongst technician crafters and pilots both. The former smiled formally. The Hathan did not. The Queen felt a tug within her, slowing as salutes were exchanged.

“Hathan-Captain, Miroslava-Lieutenant.”

Tug became a pull. Wrong timbre, wrong pitch. Her children did not budge in any way a humanite eye could detect from their stance, but she saw and felt and heard the quiver of their hairs.

“How many ships have been sent?” Suppress anxiety with investigation. She had been told they would not be alone, but once she knew the size of the force, she could begin to predict the Sovereignty’s plan. Compare it, with whatever more pleasant story they offered. It took the Captain a full three breaths of staring at the Miroslava before the female noticed, and thrummed the cords of her throat.

Sorry. She barely heard the names, though felt an odd scratch of recognition she could not place amidst it. He wanted to say sorry, though the nearby blue-shelled officers and a look from Malika stifled the sentiment. She must have not been obvious in her register. Keeping straight, the Captain held his hands behind his back.

If this was the Miroslava’s attempt at politeness, it bounced off shell entirely.

“Two hundred measures and more. All but a full cycle. Fifty, sixty, seventy thousand dead, in service to your Emperor.” The ambers near her kept their lances holstered, but there was a twitching in their fingers. White-clad Malika tilted her head enough to let one of her two eyes to fix upon the risen Queen, but Skthveraachk had eyes only for the blues. “I am finally home. There, just there. A single bar’s length of time in your shuttles between me and the air of my planet and breath of my vassal-Queen and colony. I cannot even be afforded this simple courtesy?”

The smile of the Lieutenant flickered as false-light, but did not vanish. A look from the Captain. A slight twitch in the Lieutenant’s face. Just there. Trying not to hear the sense of the Miroslava’s words, Skthveraachk looked to that sliver of ovoid blue in the oppressive black fade. How long had it been since she’d received song from Ckhehnvraahll? Not just images, but touch. Scent. It was all just there, just beyond that horizon. Seeking support in the Hathan’s expression, she found instead that same regret, but overshadowed by resolution. He understood. Sympathized. But would, could, not assist.

“I do not wish to form a music of isolating importance, Miroslava-Lieutenant. It is simply a difficulty to be so near my world, yet be denied its touch.”

The certainty in the Hathan’s baritone wrapped around her. It did not fully quell the shaking from those of her children who had been selected, from the pale mender especially who hissed and snapped mandibles out of view of the humanite onlookers, no. But it was a truth from the Hathan. It was not doubted. Accept it. Put it aside. Think.

“Presumption was our orders would be delivered once making planetfall. If we are forbidden from even landing until we are fully appraised and commanded, the situation must be radically different than it was upon my departure.”

As the Hathan spoke, Lieutenant looked to captain. Captain looked to doctor. The Malika, still with one eye on the Queen, slowly turned to look back at the two.

As always, the Hathan’s uniform and cap were crisp and perfectly aligned. It made it all the more crude when even the smallest contortions and flexes came to his brows and flesh-coated skull.

The ambers stiffened. The Lieutenant sucked in the bottom corner of her mouth’s fat. The Queen knew these emotions, now. Had seen them often enough; a challenge of caste, of a thinker arguing with delver, or queen with Queen.

It was rare for the aliens to shift their pigmentation, even moreso for the Captain. Miroslava, eyes growing wider and smile crawling from her head as the Hathan’s brow turned deep pink, let her own music impede the growing discourse.

The screen shimmered into existence in the reticent Lieutenant’s hands. A whisk of fingers enough to cause the Malika’s own pad to ping. Expression unchanged, the white eyes in their hazel sockets flicked down at the notification. The Malika-mender made no comment, not a sound of utterance. Back as she was to the Queen, Skthveraachk briefly contemplated trying to peer over the Malika’s joints. To see what it was that scrolled rapidly across the tap-pad’s screen.

“Potential benefit?” She could feel the thinkers, the two in the hanger’s ranks and the hundreds within the cargo hold. Seated in their own bivouacs of chitin and shell, rising and falling amidst the bodies which formed the living, tunneled, cavernous nest. Their questions streaming through the ship and into her.

“Deeper understanding of Sovereignty methods.”

“Difficult. Sixty-eight thinkers agree on likelihood of protection against intrusion.”

“Received.”

“Potential risk?”

“Immediate reprimand. Damaged relationship status with multiple critical humanites. Weakened position in forthcoming struggles.”

“Do not attempt.”

“Suggestion or command?”

“Thinkers are unanimous. Command.”

“Received.” It was a music no alien could truly comprehend, its speed and punctuality matched only by its flourishes and beauty. A perfect agreement had been reached, a uniformity of thought throughout the entire colony. Conflicted as each felt about that blue light calling to them through space, emotions settled under the shared commonality of consensus as Malika turned up from her reading.

The Captain’s color had noramlized, but his voice was as yet like a phidite as it strained and squeezed out its last drops of nectar.

th Imperial Armored Divison under Lieutenant-Colonel Solovyova, the Daguenet and 101st Infantry will be assigned to Captain Devries, operating under Herald Jyoshi’s direct instruction, etcetera, etcetera.”> The Queen felt herself visibly recoil at the rush of data, but felt vindicated in how both blue-shelled officers similarly reacted as if they had been struck.

They were good questions. They were critical questions. There were necessary questions. They were questions she wished to know as well.

“Insufferable, yes? Yes.” The pale mender drone didn’t need to sing through the link; just opposite the empty bay, the Queen could hear the irritation in the music. Warping the previous coherence. “Not its role. Not its focus.”

“The Malika-mender was assigned additional role to chosen occupation. Duty to deliver this information.”

“Assigned. Not of choice. Formites assigned multiple roles buckle but acclimate. Humanites less adaptable.”

“Insult against aliens?”

“Sympathy.” The note in the chorus struck unusual, uncommon chord. “Insult, too? No. Yes. Perhaps. But know what it is to be mender and ordered to act not only outside, but against, primary role.” The low noise of accusation was not lost on Skthveraachk, nor in the way the waifish mender amidst larger reared bodies cricked neck towards the plated Queen. A pang of guilt made its way through the barely processed information, the nefarious and worrying implications of the sounds of districts and enforced leadership. She bade the Captain forgive her as she raised her forelegs, requesting, not demanding, his silence for her own song. When the male broke his utterances, the Queen was quick to lower her head to the doctor-mender.

“Will there be further explanations offered at this predetermined briefing, Malika-mender?”

“Then unless the Captain himself requests further of you, you have my voice in heartfelt thanks offering praises for your utterances. That I might prepare my colony for what lies ahead.” Was that a smile? Not from the Hathan, no, and the Miroslava was still dazed, trying to parse. It was a shallow bow, but an earnest one, and when the darker flesh of the lower female was brought in swivel at rotational waist, the hint of a smile was able to be caught by the lowest pair of the formite’s eyes.

It was as an endless river. It had once taken her entire beats to parse the alien language, facial expressions, terms. Now, the Band flowed ceaseless. The perch of the Hathan’s haired brow and the subtle adjustment of the Malika forward once more was indication enough to know the former’s surprise and hesitance, and the latter’s indirect appreciation.

Another blow from Malika knocking her mind off-balance before Skthveraachk could fully recover from the last. Activity exploded from meshes of legs in the bivouac, scentcrafters loading themselves with every possible signal and olfactory message they could fit.

“Ckhehnvraahll! Is one of these to be Ckhehnvraahll Queen…?” The eager start of an aria burst from thick rubbed hairs and chattering mandibles, and though the Malika-mender clicked the meat within her skull disapprovingly, it did not fully wash away her congeniality entirely.

Striding purposefully around the Queen, the alien did not wait for the Captain’s vocalized dismissal before heading for the exit passageway. Ambers saluted now before they left. Respect previously denied the Hathan, now enforced across the vessel. Drones rushed from their ranks to pat and drum and stroke their legs along the Queen’s body, soothing and easing the anticipation within her. Miroslava had no such luxury to aid in controlling her own shock.

The Band registered the slight difference, the shortened title, amidst the Captain’s reassuring smile. There was no contact between them, yet the words were as balancing to the humanite female as if the male had reached over and clasped graspers to her. The Miroslava-Lieutenant grew a tenthlength, flared her facial vents and gave a firm nod. A last sideways look given the Queen before her own salute heralded departure, barking commands through her comm after she was no more than three lengths off. Scentcrafters were rushing through the tunnels to reach the hanger, half the soldiers in their formation were disbanded and sent away so as not to be perceived as insult. To see her own kind again. A meeting of Queens. Multiple Queens! When had such occurred in recent memories, beyond attendance at the Remembering or under arbitration of the Triumvirate? Humanite and formite adjusted their position simultaneously to better stand claw to shoulder, already able to see the smallest dot of moving light out amidst the pitch.

“It is. She was doing as she was ordered.” Extending her legs, the alien metals and plating which formed the additional crust of shell was offered to the tongues of her children. Their tongues making the armor shine and drip. “Her silence was not spiteful.”

“Have you not done the same before, Hathan-Captain?” He checked to see if she was angered. Skthveraachk rattled her antennae and softened her hairs to assure she was not. “You are obligated to obey your senior castes, even if their orders are foolish. You are not formites. I no longer hold you to the same standard. I will need amend the mender’s silhouette in mine eyes, but though she may not share all her truth, I have yet to catch her in a lie. The thing you call trust, with her, is yet unbroken. And, besides irritations she shares with your entire species, I find her easy to converse with.” Now, the male was incredulous. She chittered. “For a humanite.”

“I understand.”

“Do I need inflict another disciplining strike upon you, a reminder of your oath to avoid your impulses to coddle me, Captain?” It wasn’t quite a laugh, but his chuff of air caused the golden pins and symbols upon him to rattle just slightly as the Queen rotated her head vertically. “I do not need you to grow angered on my behalf. I assure you I am fully capable of expressing my fury.”

“Then I DO need you to ensure I am not silenced in the pursuit of the duties your own Emperor has shackled me with.”

The male made a louder chortling, the vibrations rich and buzzing. The Queen should have laughed, as well, and she did ensure her antennae clapped and crossed together appropriately. She did not, though, understand why the tune brought a wiggle to her gaster, confusing the attendants upon it as some began to raise it into proper receiving position. She inaudibly rushed them away from the ridiculous task.

So quick. Her scentcrafters were still en route, and only a few of Hathan’s soldiers had taken positions along the metal grating leading to the recess of the now opening dock. A containing field of light from extending poles segmented the area before them, permitting view but not access of the smooth and curved vessel now blotting out the stars of the port. Sideways it slid in through the gap as the coverings without deactivated, hissing gouts spouting from it and the Palamedes’ hull. The Hathan had quieted, his casual regard replaced with strict formality. His soldiers, forming walls with their bodies, bore hints of the colony’s markers, but it was better to be safe than cause disruption. Only three of the aliens showed resistance as the Queen ordered her own children to fill in the gaps, their forelegs raising to mimic the lances and banners the aliens carried while bristling hairs waved and spurted out smell to better coat the area.

“Scentcrafters eighty lengths away.”

“Use drones. Basic patterns until arrival.”

“Received. Organization?”

“Territory markers. Designate neutral. State ownership but do not add defensive signals.”

“Received.” This ship was hers. This place, her nest. The Queen aboard was not an invader, but a guest. The drones began to hum and rattle, making a music which would unify their emotions when the conflicting sounds of another colony began to interfere. The outer shielding against the celestial ocean reactivated and, after brief delay, the interior vanished. A smell of the hot fiery rods their crafters used, metallic, clung to the ship as it settled upon the deck. ‘The Gleisad’. A name without meaning emblazoned on its side, but there was some pleasure at the realization the Queen could read it easily without assistance. Focus. Orient. Districts, subjugation, these things would wait and be learned later. The whistle came shrill. The ramp lowered. Humanites thrust their weapons high. Tapping came as a female alien, in no uniform Skthveraachk could recognize, tapped on elevated small-clasped boots down the slope. Yellow field hair filaments, the usual flesh pigment…shining golden eyes, yes, and a black and white shell which hugged her form with unnecessary clarity, splitting at the second leg joints. Its nose wrinkled, eyes were thin, and it smiled when it saw the Captain. Not a good smile. The meaty pull the creatures adopted when their face sang pleasantry, but their voices spat acid. The Queen’s inspection of the alien was tertiary, not expecting to learn much. It was the rush of scent billowing from the innards of the craft which drew her. The slow, sluggish crawl of a heavy body behind as elongated triple-jointed antennae tasted the unfamiliar air. She needed not to see the red mass of shell as the Queen first emerged in the light. The fattened body befitting a ruler of opulent prosperity. This was not Ckhehnvraahll. The humanite did not change her pace at the base of the ramp, but time slowed as Skthveraachk came high on four legs, curling her claws inward and angling her mandibles down.

“I am Skthveraachk Queen of Skthveraachk-Colony. My voice is of hesitant welcome as my song is of exhausted trials. This place is mine. You come as the first in a long, long time.”

“I am Ghllencheechlak Queen of Ghllencheechlak-Colony.” The male Queen’s song burbled forth as the summer brook, his age and size causing the bass of his voice to reverberate. “My scythes are sheathed as I offer praise to the mothers for welcome to your nest. This place is yours.” Do not shake. Do not spasm. Emotions filled her from the nowhere, and maintaining her regal posture became a manual undertaking as the other Queen descended behind his humanite. The smell of deep earthy burrows, of kakstrip and sweet silk. So long she had only herself to sing with. So long she had been away. The colony cried out in joy at the formal exchange, the polite supplication. Home. Home.

“May this welcome demonstrate the trust owed to all those who seek the inevitable unity.” She pulled her soldiers back. It was presumptuous, weakness almost in the wrong contexts, allowing the other Queen so much space to spread his own scent. She knew next to nothing of this colony, had only vague memories of their taste upon distant goods she had traded for. But his head swiveled in caution, his motions deliberate yet calculated. Like her. He acted like her. “Sing to me of your truth, the one truth, the only truth in these days of the new star-sent and changing of ways. What is it which Ghllencheechlak-Colony seeks? Why do you come to this place, why do you fly amongst the stars and leave the peace of our home behind?”

“Peace. Your music is strange. Distant, uncorrupted, preserved. A thing of older cycles. There has not been peace within the world for many hundreds of cycles, and there has been little since the star-sent’s arrival. I come here at the behest of my colony-superiors, those whom I serve. But my purpose remains unfaltering. Peace. Yes.” Thinkers began to emerge from behind the heavy body as it crept nearer, their protests audible even in their unfamiliar strains as they performed the role of menials. Carrying the Queen’s gaster down the ramp. “I come here seeking peace, as all who understand the threat of the coming measures seeks. I come here to preserve the nonexistence of harmony.”

“Then there is nothing which separates us. We are united in purpose, in song and in duty. My nests will welcome you as their own, Ghllencheechlak.” No hesitation. No reserve. Red chitin crackled as the male rose up onto four legs of his own, mirroring the smaller Queen as his antennae stretched forward in probing curiosity, thinking he had perhaps misunderstood. She was no scentcrafter, but gathering the spit and softness clinging to the undersides of her legs, Skthveraachk bid the attendants near her fan their heads, billowing the intimate aroma from diagonal lines to the approaching retinue. “You are accepted as friend and ally. I offer to you my aid as I ask your own, that we affirm our accord within the litany of the Composer, and upon our final notes.”

“And beneath the gaze of the Emperor, and his light?” Sobering came the query, how quickly familiarity with the old was speared by appraisal of the new. The male searched her, his own eyes and that of his thinkers on her shell, on the armored plating clasped around her. Only thinkers. Thirty, forty of them, without a single other caste having yet emerged from the shuttle. Even with thrice that number within the Palamedes, their proximity made her feel naked, her mind on display. It was a testing question. She answered, unabashed.

“To those whom value such, yes. We are all his vassals, now, and owe him praise as colony superior. But as the humanites sing, his authority may be absolute, but his worship is to the value of the individual. I am pledged to his service. Would you ask we pledge to his divinity, as well?” The Band was catching only scant words of the exchange, a similar device seen to be fashioned around Ghllencheechlak’s neck. His claws curling tighter, the rich mirth poured forth from him as the brook became river.

“I was birthed to but one Composer, have lived with only one. I do not, as of yet, require another. I affirm myself to this accord, Skthveraachk-Queen. When my handler informed me we were to travel, I had prepared for another series of passive indignities. I sing of great amusement and interest in witnessing, now, what awaits me in this so pleasantly scented vessel of the star’s kind.” Comprehension. Understanding. Acceptance. Unity. The humanite had not even yet reached the Hathan, and already, the pact was formed. An ally. Someone like her. Taken, controlled, ordered, but with identical purpose. She squeezed and pushed to force unrefined jelly from her sacs, claws waiting to gather the mucus and ball it into offering. Skthveraachk spat out her inner color upon the orb as it was presented, and bade with great enthusiasm the drone send it forward. Traveling down the line of soldiers, formite and humanite both, it reached only to the side of the approaching female before the whipping of a hand impacted the globule. Knocking it from the attendant’s claws, and splattering it upon the deck. Every hair, Skthveraachk and Ghllencheechlak, shot bolt upright as the female scowled.

Orders. Insult. Rage. The attendant trembled even as it followed its commands and role, avoiding any damage to the humanite by skittering aside and allowing it to pass unobstructed. Jelly painted the deck, soaking the metal, and humiliation was matched only by fury at so casual a dismissal. Did the humanite understand the importance? It wiped its hand with fabric as its smile remained unchanged, approaching the Hathan who watched all with misperception, but familiarity enough to register the Queen’s frothing emotions. Oh yes. That name was added immediately to the banks of information.

A new title. Unfamiliar. Uncared for. The attendant had remained frozen, Skthveraachk unable to form command or even properly hide the mortification she and the nearest drones signalled from twitching legs. It was made only worse when Ghllencheechlak Queen himself signalled not only understanding, but apologies of his own. Using his own body to lower and scoop at the scattered jelly, sullying his graspers in the process. She wanted to scream, disappear, and bite off someone’s head all at once.

Hold. Hold. Etiquette was absolute, and the Queen dared not further interrupt the already besmirched ceremony by singing until Ghllencheechlak had accepted the offering. Reforming the orb with his forelegs, the male halted three full lengths behind the ‘Dame’, working to reform the jelly into as perfect an orb as was possible.

The humanite female laughed. Pitched, and tingling like metal ringers.

Orb was formed. Spit and jelly, applied. Raising the ball upward, quiet hymns were chanted, and Skthveraachk repeated them, graciously. As soon as the globule, now bearing the conjoined sight and smell of the colonies, was halved and shared between attendant and Ghllencheechlak, Skthveraachk ensured to use the fullness of the Band’s capabilities as her body spun to orient the female.

“From your callous disregard of such simple courtesies, I would expect your duty did not-“

Not even the new metal from the Caldera’s forges would be able to match the sharpness of the Queen’s hairs as her song was sliced. Ghllencheechlak, awaiting, did not utter a noise or syllable, but his rolling of labium and swiveling of antennae showed his interest. His supple amusement. His deliberate, articulated, caution. The Hathan wished to respond. She did not allow it.

“I am not yours to command, humanite, and it is of benefit, for I have known queens of the Coalition with more manners than-“

This female was important. More important than the Captain? Unknown. But were she not of some critical function, of some unknown power, the Queen knew beyond doubt the Captain would have thrashed the insufficient breeder with his own tongue. Not step ever so slightly in front of the Queen, a motion the Dame likely interpreted as guarding the humanite from the bug, rather than the truth of guarding the alien from the formite. This was not even interruption. The thing did not even acknowledge her notes.

His mouth opened. Closed. Began to part again, but was filled by more of the female’s bunkum instead.

Follow with due speed, was what the Hathan suggested with his eyes. Perhaps the female understood. Perhaps not. Their politeness was just as often a false thing, masking the truth of their intentions. The Queen missed the bluntness of the Malika already. Not once had the Dame looked up at Skthveraachk, and not even now as she signed the air was such consideration given.

“By his light.” Deliberate. Forceful. Daring her now to ignore the ritualized praise to their God. The Dame’s head snapped around, though it refused to tip back as much as would be required. Refused to look upwards, setting instead on the Queen’s midsection. The smile was scythe-pointed, the face a mesh of skin too unblemished and perfect to be natural. Offering the same sign of hand to Skthveraachk, the humanite was gestured to the soldiers who maintained perfect emptiness of features, turning to guide her away from the shuttle. Ghllencheechlak, passing along with his thinkers well behind her, let his antennae reach. Touch upon the Queen’s own, a rarest of contacts between colonies.

“You are perfumed by blood and oiled with the violence of the field, Skthveraachk Queen. Be cautious. Our world too has become a battlefield, but it is not one you may win with force alone.”

“I receive your offering even as I hold it a length from my core. I do not retreat from aggression, and I have killed greater star-sent than her before.” Shock, now, at the statement Ghllencheechlak could only accept as truth. Musing, then, as the contact was broken and the male followed behind his tender. Owner. Master. Chained not by any physical restraint, only the incorporeal weight of servitude. The banners and weapons lowered, soft mutters were exchanged between the crew, and her drones rushed to the site to clean any possible trace of mucus still clinging to the ground. Hathan’s jaw was set and rigid, but it was the Queen who broke the silence between them.

“That one, Hathan-Captain. That one, you have my permission to hold anger for on my behalf. For I do not believe I will be able to hold it all alone.” Eyes went to the hanger’s exit, and that sliver of blue had become a half-orb as distance closed. Quiet. Perfect. And ringed by a blockade of ships like the pall of death which had hung over Dracan, cosmic lances aimed downwards, ready. They were finally home. And the war, and all it entailed, had come with them.