There were different kinds of pain. The pain of trauma, the pain of loss, these were unsavory things. But there were many pains you carried, remembered just as fondly as you resented them. The pain of farewell tempered with the hopes of the future. The pain of lungs and claws as you crawled from the brink of death. And then there was the sort of pain you swore, promised by all from Composer to Founders you would never subject yourself to again, but still found yourself diving jaws open into. Skthveraachk was unsure if she could not move as matter of truth, or if the splay of her legs and limp graspers were simply so abused that the mere consideration of motion was met with pulses of pain. It did not matter. Attendants crawled delicately atop and around her upright lay, mandibles propping the Queen’s head up so she could see her bonded with her own eyes. Cleaning off the jelsaah juices that had been stored in a strange if not beautifully crafted urn of Ckhehnvraahll’s own crafters. Pieces of which still were being gathered up where they had shattered upon the floor, hidden beneath the curtains of moss and vine that had been torn from the Queen’s chamber ceiling in their frantic movements. Briefest memories of the hollow’s decoration, the new additions of shelves and hardstone statuettes amongst the greenery of natural growth, sung it was not a horrendous redecoration. A shame, then, it was now a testament to the danger of filling rooms used for such physical activities with breakables. Her Slough Queen creaked.

“Your crafters will utilize the knowledge of the stars you boast to provide replacements to all that has been destroyed.”

“Your attendants will learn and heed danger of filling such cramped locales with fragile items.”

“I sing of mocked threats and the promise of inflicting further sensations upon you.”

“I sing of dubiousness in your ability to move your body any more than I.” Ckhehnvraahll had ended with her core flipped to the ceiling, but had been since rolled to match Skthveraachk’s posture. Staring back across the tenthlength of distance. Both Queens emitted the smells of pain and warnings of injury suffered. Both Queens, still, slowly wandered their antennae over the face of the other. Lighting touches of affection upon chitin, mandibles and eyes. “I offer, with claws curled, truly sincere apologies for your impregnation.”

“Your offspring with the once Vhersckaahlhn are remarkable. Irritation exudes, as I did not wish to be confined here for half hundredmeasure, but soldiers I will birth shall be future standard of colony. I am ashamed you yet resisted mine own offerings.” Viscous fluid coated both females, but where attendants worked to keep full Ckhehnvraahll’s gaster, responsive menders had ensured to block Skthveraachk’s own passage with sealant. Denying even the most enthusiastic efforts, despite individual chagrin. Still, the eager males had not gone to waste.

“Two of my queens were of fertile readiness. I do not require scentcrafters, and while attendant you brought was of fine stock, I directed they embrace instead breeding menials.” Similar satisfaction, if with far less soreness, came from every layer of the nest where Skthveraachk and Ckhehnvraahll colonies had mingled. More than half their shared entirety equally sharing in the refamiliarization of touch, and magnifying it further. Surprise was felt in the touches upon her outer eyes, and Skthveraachk shuddered as still-sensitive skull resonated in the touch. “I have found a new appreciation for possibilities of lowest caste.”

“I feared it true when I felt colony’s confusion at your numbers. You have upset divine balance. You have disregarded memories!”

“Refutation. Calmness to my paired Queen.” Unable to move her own legs, it was a trio of deft attendants which ran the length of the more supple female. Spreading mandibles wide to allow their tongues access to the ridges just outside Ckhehnvraahll’s vents. The wet, wiggling touches causing spurts of euphoric marker to splatter the claw-marked floor. “I do not dismiss teachings. But I am not entrapped by them. Much has changed.”

“Change enough to alter ancestral truth?”

“Yes.” Bluntness was crude, but effective, as they continued to share in a hum. “You have changed too. Ancestral forests, cut. Ancestral dome, altered. Your own body, augmented by such needless frivolities.”

“You disparage the clothing I made specifically for your return, too?” A pang of guilt struck Skthveraachk, even as she insisted upon the honesty which filled her.

“There was Queen aboard Palamedes, my star-nest, bearing these trinkets. It has soured my taste of their type.” She could tell the effort which had gone into the task, the weavers of the vassal colony undoubtedly laboring for measures at the wear. “It is of fine construction, but needless addition. The armor I bear is of function, of fear and force. Yours is loveliness needing no such blemish. A shape and feel humanite shells can only hide, not heighten.”

“Flatter-sung fawning will not avail you, especially when your recent molt renders you almost as luscious in sheen as I.” Still, the other Queen relaxed the inquisitive touches. “I am afeared of your choices. Even if you were called to war, you need mass. You need scouts. You should not have adjusted the balance.”

“Humanites have taught ways to increase mass with tenth of menial force. Humanites have taught methods to turn even soldiers into scouts. But I have learned too more dangerous truths, thus why your smaller menials are bred readily. For I have learned ways a menial may fell a soldier, jaw to jaw.”

“Petrifying.” Ckhehnvraahll did not doubt, not for a breath. “They have shown me much, as well. Much I still do not fully parse, but have used to near double the size of my offspring without feeling the taxation of drought nor starvation. All without expanding our holdings by meaningful length.”

“This is fraction of their power. I sung to you of their wonders and terror when last I lay with you, but I could never comprehend then the scope. The breadth of it. They do not just heal limbs, Ckhehnvraahll Queen, but can regrow them. They can change the seasons, make desert into forest. I was dying, upon that world of Dracan.” Panic instantly took the other Queen, and a rush of white-shelled attendants began to feel over her. Searching for damages which no longer existed. “Peace and softness, Slough Queen. Yes. Hardstone tore into me. My shell was ruptured and leaking, split wide in ways which should have silenced. The humanites spent not a bar in refilling, remaking, reaching through my insides and pulling forth the harm without my heart ever ceasing. They do all this. All this and more.” Ckhehnvraahll wrapped legs around her. Not the other Queen’s own, but those of the pale mender, who was still in a hazy torpor of sleep, unsinging, unprotesting. A strange violation, to have a part of yourself commanded by another and for it to obey. A part of the Slough Queen, carried with her. The embrace was accepted shudderingly.

“You will tolerate the clothing. It pleases the star-sent. They deserve my deference, for bringing you back to me. They deserve our regard.” Skthveraachk wanted to argue the point. Skthveraachk did not want to argue with her bonded. Seeing drones with stomachs bloated full of water and carrying lichen, the Queen let her mind travel through the rest of the colony. Passing over similarly, though far lesser, sore and reclining bodies. Some having the luxury of rest, many others pushing through their tasks regardless of aching. Pits for refuse and feces needed to be enlarged, water transported from the river in vast quantities, and unsubstantial rationing of what mass was available was required. A sounding of voices confirmed near all her parts were once more on the surface, thirty and more thousand. They would need to move, and quickly. Even with its growth, Ckhehnvraahll’s Last was not made to sustain this number of drones. Up through the layers of the nest, their tunnels much smoother and more beautiful than the serpentine passageways Skthveraachk-Colony utilized as defense. Out past the endlessly marching lines moving through the mouth of the underground’s entrance. What were those shapes from the rise before, the smell of those humanites that had awaited her? She’d kept no memory, and they’d been overlooked by all others nearby. Rot and stink. Sensations of her body below being scrubbed did not dampen the irritation as a call was made, interupting even if just for a breath all other tasks. There. Three menials, currently interfacing and singing simple tunes with menials of Ckhehnvraahll as the past cycle was recounted and shared. They uttered joy at the Queen’s personal attention, and recalled the scent and sight. It was compared against the optics and senses of all other drones in proximity to humanites. Identical signatures found in one of the circular habitation buildings outside the dome of thass and thorns. A banded weaver was nearest. It had taken an entire three beats for the spindly foreleg to raise, and prepare to knock on the alien dwelling’s front. Composer, the colony really was dazed.

Precious. Hesitance. The weaver sung confusion as Skthveraachk bid it wait. The pair of humanites contained within were familiar, but so too was a buzzing. A songless hum.

The Band the weaver wore bleeped confusion, and the Queen sucked a breath of sweet-smelling perfumes in the chamber. No, risk it, listen, remember. Dangerous? The Herald’s aide claimed all citizens should pursue knowledge. Listen. Try to understand. And what was that winged noise?

“I sing a request for entry.” A hurried knock. The bleeping of the Band at the unknown terms had caused the larger of the two within to shift and turn, possibly hearing, possibly not. Balance of risk in discovery and reward of knowledge had toppled. The weaver went on four legs, preparing for interaction. And as the door opened, the airseal wetness warping the view of the interior, the humanite’s words slowed to a crawl in her perception. For beneath the nest, Skthveraachk felt energy rekindle her motion, and she shot upright amidst the preening attentions of her attendants.

“How can they have a stinger!?”

“By the hymnal watchers, Skthveraachk, from whence is your energy?”

“They cannot have a stinger!” They couldn’t. Could they? Memories. Rapid consultation. No. All of the hybrids, the flying weapons of war meant to lead the colony in new territorial conquests, had perished. The queens gestating the young, taken with her to Dracan. And the few birthed in that sparse land had been unable to achieve flight, the skies and aht-mo-sphere improper for their specialized role. It would be another half cycle before she could create new ones here, so how was it that, behind the slowly forming syllables of the alien watchers, there stood in observation chamber a shining black, grounded, winged formite? “Is this treachery or lies?”

“A deliberate untruth? Do not make murky our music with these forbidden tones.” Leaving the weaver’s eyes, a brief look was given to Ckhehnvraahll. Hardstone chains of silver being looped between her antennae as the translucent veils shaded her eyes, and more impermeable fabrics covered her wide mouth and tube.

“Then you know its source.”

“I know its source. My colony posses eight breeding stingers.”

“You cannot possess such.”

“They were traded for.”

“You could not have traded for them.” Traded. She had slipped the sounds of the unclaimed nests, the shared chambers and tunnels. Not from the humanites. These had come from the souks of her own kind. And now, noticing that Skthveraachk had noticed her own music’s inflection, Ckhehnvraahll chittered in regretful embarrassment. “You guard a truth. Speak it.”

“It was to be sung after we had become reacquainted. I moan forgiveness for hesitance.”

“I forgive.”

“It was acquired from Kthcvahlaatch-Colony.” On the borders of Skthveraachk’s own land. Former land. “They acquired it from Ktcvahnaah-Colony.” Legs gave out, their energy spent as the War Queen struck ground again. And her groan, fury and fatigue, was exhaled from tens of thousands of lungs at once. Causing the humanite of hairy face and blackened military shell to snap its lips shut above.

“An unintentional exclamation, you will pardon my interruption.” The entire exchange had lasted only long enough for the male to emit one syllable. The female, behind it, colors denoting it a doctor of its kind, reached for a console and dimmed the lights as the weaver entered through the seal. Politeness. How uncommon. “Your species is ever fascinated with our forms. On Dracan, your foremost inquiries were into our reproduction, especially our meldings. Stingers like this were my pride, my prestige.”

Instantaneous grin. Immediate interest. If there was one shared aspect among the ones of white shell, it was that getting them to continue singing was never a challenge.

“It is not easy. Possible, yes, but not simple. As I explained to Herald Jyoshi, quantities of jelly and amounts of specific biomass must be applied to each and every egg, which take nearly four as many tenmeasures to gestate. Only a minute number will survive, and those will almost always be failures for the first several iterations, with the next generation modeled after the quantities applied to those specific eggs. It took many, many cycles to create a stinger capable of reaching adolescence.”

Surprise as much as awe.

“Specifically? I sing-…” The civility and honesty on the white one’s features subdued irritation. The blacker shell was losing both patience and politeness, and despite the wrongness of the music, it was close enough to truth. A truth these things could understand. “I sing, on behalf of Skthveraachk Queen.” Even the weaver itself gave a rattle at the oddness of the notion as the Queen watched the pair stiffen through its eyes. “There is regret in being unable to converse last fade. Other matters were of greater importance and need.”

Formal matters. Pale shell went silent, and proper authority of scythe and strength took the fore in the exchange. Was that disgust? Avoidance? The tanned alien thinker behind had gone a bit red.

“Ckhehnvraahll’s Last is to be a staging point. A place which will only temporarily facilitate our actions in district four.”

“It is an issue you will tolerate, for it is required. Soldiers must be readied, wyverns landed, supplies transported. Until we can secure a location more fitting-“

The weaver’s mandibles, clenched as its more ovular gaster too spasmed, swiveled hard on the female.

“The intent of your music is heard.”

The thought trailed off, the lasting notes drifting and fading. It was more poignant than anything that could have been said.

“You are frightened for my vassal’s sake?”

Repeated insistence.

“What is your name?” Sovereignty was Empire. Emperor was Queen. Neither was here, gazing back with a brief confusion.

“You are a good humanite for wishing this, Anushka-doctor.” Perhaps a poor humanite, but a good person. Both aliens seemed unsure how to respond, regardless. “You are correct. I do not wish to bring harm to this nest and colony. These concerns, Major,” As the other humanite had stated, and from the designs upon his shell, the male’s role was known. “Are there those the Captain could not address?”

“Research base or no, you should have a table for communal communication with those in orbit. I saw no settlement nor nest on Dracan without one.” A head lowered in affirmation. The weaver was bid lower its own to match, turning the nod to a shared bow. “Direct me to its location, send notification I require song with both Devries and Colonel Solovyova, and I will join us shortly.” A small stumble at the very end, but Skthveraachk withdrew back to her own mind before waiting to hear the pair’s response. Finding Ckhehnvraahll fully reclad in the silks and threads, and her own body once more bearing the ancestral, augmented armor of her colony. Once requiring an entire stomach of sealant to affix, now only a few swipes and smears with buckle and brace fastening the rest. Easier, to both adorn, and remove. Except for those clasps that had been torn by too-eager removal the night previous, however.

“Your humanites are kind.”

“They are not mine. It is improper word. There are also not many. Two, three hundred.”

“The one called Anushka cares for your colony. I did not think of the imposition of landing my forces here.“

“There is no imposition. You are Queen superior. You sing, I obey. I trust and know you will never allow harm to come here.”

“Not before my final note.” Skthveraachk tried again, carefully rising first on all six legs, then up to four, only to topple back down in flash of pain. No rearing today, it seemed, but at least she could move by her own power. Ckhehnvraahll did not even attempt similar, and had arranged broad-backed attendants into a platform for her to ride. Thick, healthy legs did manage to raise and stroke down Skthveraachk’s cleaned body, the motion not even causing a single droplet to fall from stuffed and clenched pale Queen’s end. “They call you Cheva?”

“Only some, but I encourage it. After I sung of how your spaceborne mender had taken to abbreviation. Is crude, but we must be considerate. They are strong in mind, weaker in body. Our names, too powerful for them.”

“I do not protest. I did, once, protest. Was insulted. I have learned.” It still gnawed at her, still scratched with mandible and claw. But seeing how easily the other Queen let the indecency roll off her shell, like rain, made mellow the discordant tune within Skthveraachk. “Are you prepared?”

“Since the first waking notes which prompted my attire.” She did not need explanation, or forewarning like the humanites seemed to crave. A single bassline of request, enough to inform the other Queen she was needed, and thousands of menials and soldiers contorted and flowed to accommodate the need. “But, you are certain they will listen? This new title of yours. I do not understand how it could change you so.”

“It is not a title. It is a role. My purpose unchanged. Only their acknowledgement of it. But these are not the inefficient thinkers you may have suffered. I will sing your introduction with greatest fervor. You are my bonded. They,” What did the humanites call it, in their tongue? Interlocking antennae, walking aside the carried other, Skthveraachk let the nearest scentcrafter draw odor of blue and brown. Sky and land, the point of their joining, and the impossible truth of accordance despite dissimilarity. “They are my friends.”

Cramped. Cluttered. She had lambasted excess upon seeing it in Tarasque, the extravagance of oversized offices and rooms, but there were limits of utilitarianism. What passed for a communications room on the base was a squat single-floored hab dome. Something the humanites would normally stack upon one another four, five times to form the buildings around the Caldera. Her antennae touched the ceiling. Her gaster was tucked half beneath her, upper crust pressed to the wall. True, it was so Ckhehnvraahll could have the additional space her more bulbous frame required, but for once the Queen was glad they needed only accommodate the nameless Major. There was no call for the Anushka here, and though the central floor was needed empty for the raised lighted table, the images of the Hathan, Miroslava and Solovyova were unbothered by the way their legs were enveloped by the bodies of menials and drones. Their expressions, shared mirth, visible clearly as Ckhehnvraahll danced her feeling antennae across the images.

“Incredulity! Incredibility! No smell, no touch, yet it exists! It does not exist? Dhnuunckhan-Major, you possessed such all this time!?”

Solovyova may have uttered the words, but all the aliens were thinking it. Slightly did it raise the Queen’s hairs, to have one of her kind belittled, but it was in comradery.

“Ckhehnvraahll Queen of Ckhehnvraahll-Colony, my vassal, my bonded.” Quickly interjecting before the smiling could fully subsume, Skthveraachk let her voice point to each in turn. “Captain Hathan Devries, Hathan-Captain of the Palamedes. Lieutenant Miroslava, second of the Devries. Lieutenant-Colonel Nikita Solovyova,” Mistake. The Major tightened his core and shoulders, and the Solovyova pretended not to notice. Peel her. The Queen finished, lamely. “Soldier. Thinker-soldier.”

Ckhehnvraahll, her scythes sheathed, made a showing of her underside up to her neck, despite the audible creaking made in her carapace by the movement. Hesitated, uncertain, by the harsh tone. Skthveraachk made a low hiss, proper in a show of defense for the vassal, even while knowing it to be unnecessary and likely unheard by the female.

“Before our arrival, I bid Ckhehnvraahll prepare the initial information we would require. Our, my, our, district encompasses a significant number of colonies, including not only the temples and hymnal watchers, but the greatest of those who yet live. The Triumvirate.”

“Each of the colonies which comprises the trio is rumored to number beyond six-hundred thousand, Hathan-Captain.” Was it possible for an incorporeal face to blow air you could still hear and feel? “That is their physical power. It is irrelevant next to their music.”

“The Triumvirate is The Triumvirate. They are the wardens of the Silent City.” Ckhehnvraahll’s Band practically tittered with giddiness. “The harbingers of the will of the Founders. They share the interpretation of the past, the intent of the present, and the introduction of the future. Under their guidance, the Watchers safeguard the memories of the Remembrance. Under their guardianship, the greatest souks are gathered. It is sung that, when all sing as one once more and harmony is all, it will be under the auspices of the Triumvirate.”

The Major answered before the Queen had chance to, his words neither accurate nor inaccurate.

“The memories must be safeguarded.” Skthveraachk made her utterance with the aid of hundreds of others clustered outside. “The Silent City must be preserved for the return of the Founders. Queens must be permitted, by…” What could even be a humanite comparison to such purity of truth? “Law. Ethos. Culture. Creed. Truth. Fact. Must be permitted to meet at places of peace in order to sing consensus. This is the role of the Triumvirate.”

Miroslava, taking her notes and recording their songs, pointed down. The table rotated. No longer just squares of light, the rise and fall of the lands was made visible, the valleys and plains. It should have taken longer. Instead, with small rings of red, even Ckhehnvraahll danced in place upon noticing the ancient shape of the land. The peak of Hollowcore, the paths past the dividing chasm, the forest in which they now stood, even the smallest curve showing the dome of thorns above them, all recorded upon the map.

“Eyes of light and shadow, how far your kind sees!”

“The most hallowed tales state it to be far to the risefade, where cliffs curve around the tides and sand.” Wait. Ckhehnvraahll burbled excitedly, lost in the miracle without thinking. “Sopra of mountains, alto of the endless pastures of phidites and stalks.” No-! Alarm filled the Queen as the Miroslava scrolled the image, thousands of lengths flying by in the span of breaths. Her forelegs raised, and the drones around her reared back in panic.

“ALERT! OBSCURE! AVOID!” Sounds for the other Queen. Not for the humanites, of whom only the Major needed to beat a hasty retreat to room’s edge as drones swarmed up, throwing themselves for Ckhehnvraahll’s eyes. Skthveraachk had reacted faster, but had prioritized the dazed vassal. It was her own forelegs which needed to be thrust across her gaze, and heavy body rebelled even this, the most necessary of actions. Limbs were aflame, head thrust back despite the lewdness of baring skull’s underside, and just for a moment, the Queen thought she may have seen…something. A tower? Ringed, overgrown, tall as a mountain and just as wide? “Did you see!? Did you see!?”

“No! No!” Ckhehnvraahll screeched out panic, shrieking as she kept both Skthveraachk’s and her own drones smothering clothed head. “I did not! I did not! Did you see? Did you see!?”

“I!” Slow. She had been just a breath too slow. A hazy shape. A vague color. No. No, no, this was an image, a false-light. The barest hint of an unclear edge of a recreation, no more real than the songs which sung of it. Not a lie. Not a real lie. “I did not! I did not, Ckhehnvraahll-Queen!”

“Did not!”

“Did not!” Confirmations leapt from each of the menials present.

“Did not!”

“DID!”

“Sorrow!”

“Haste!” Only one. One of Ckhehnvraahll’s. Skthveraachk’s menials scurried away so as not to obstruct as the drone that had seen dropped to the floor. Lowering skull to expose joint of neck. “Songless or silenced?!”

“Cannot be songless! Silenced!”

“Received! Praise to you. Praise to your truth.” A strong choice, but Ckhehnvraahll-Colony had always been strong. Attendants’ scythes were stubby, blunt, but they still managed to hack clean the unmoving head in only three swings. To never sing again, or to accept their final note. A strong choice to end while you still had a voice. The humanites did not share such sentiment.

The Hathan’s call was clear, direct, distracting from the Major’s angered discontent.

“Remove the image! Obscure the sight!”

Miroslava was shaky, even at such distance, in her notes.

“We do not kill those who worship and praise a different Founder, and we do not dissolve you for your God. Can you claim the same as you mock our ways?!” The Queen’s bite was of sound, but it was enough to knock breath from the black-shelled male, and for once, she saw a retort form. An anger, grow. Only for eyes to stray to the symbol the Queen wore, the mark of magistrate. And the anger was swallowed back from whence it was born. Allowing Skthveraachk to, once a drone had confirmed the Miroslava’s song as truth, drop her own forelegs to touch and calm at both vassal and children. “She did not think, Miroslava-Lieutenant. There are none of us who would consider so brazenly approaching that place.”

“Sorrow and loss! My Queen, War Queen, I endangered colonies both, I have faltered in my guidance!” The distraught was deep. How much worse if Skthveraachk had seen that tower, noticed how cleanly white it glinted. But Skthveraachk had not seen. There was nothing to fear. Soothing. Calming. Drumming of legs against her, and of her own throbbing forelegs against the other as the body was quietly dragged from the hab. “Regret. Hurt. Forgive me. Forgive my ignorance.”

“Forgiven. Forgiven.” Repetition not meant to insult, but only to assure and assuage. Giving Ckhehnvraahll the time she needed to regather her fragmented mind, while the armored Queen shifted back to the humanites. “None may look upon the Silent City. None may enter or walk its streets and passageways. Only colonies chosen by the Triumvirate itself may approach, to maintain the nest for when once is as again.”

“Guardians. But not even they are permitted to enter, for any who gaze upon the City are struck songless. The colony who tends it may not sing of it, ever, and none would ever ask them break such silence.” Even now, deep within the nest, the delver of once Jchlehaalhn could be felt shuddering at so close a breach. Surrounded, safeguarded. Even speaking of the place prompting many to flock to the drone, who hunched against the wall on which it had been decorating with diagrams of lifts and elevators and the mechanics of automated activity.

“Queen did not see?”

“Confirmed.”

“Humanites saw.”

“Confirmed. What do the stories sing?”

“None of the people may view that which the walls of the Silent City contain, for it is not for us any longer. It is for those who were, and will be again.” Uncharacteristic eloquence faded back to hard punctuality once notes not its own were exhausted. “Humanites are not formite. Jchlehaalhn-Colony would not view as breach. Uncertain how others would react. Avoid.”

“Received.” Technicality. Relieving. “Hathan-Captain. Captain Hathan. I urge you do not provoke questioning on this subject from other colonies. None may view the Silent City and sing. Some may accept you are not bound as we. Others may not. It may cause discord.”

“I interrupt of necessity, you cannot sing of what you witnessed either.”

“Especially to me, unless you wish my bonded need kill me next.” The very notion caused another wave of panic through her vassal Queen, but Skthveraachk was unflinching. Solovyova, silent, watched on. Miroslava bore a guilt, but could supress it. The Major was unhappy. Hathan, however, checked only to determine if the Queen was exaggerating. It took him only a breath to note she was not.

“And to the Malika-mender. Along with the entirety of this exchange, once we are finished, so she may further its contents to the Herald.” When the Captain let the perch of his arched hairmeat rise over his eye, Skthveraachk merely chittered. “She will acquire it through other means regardless, as is her role, and will be upset if she need request it directly. We will assure her task simpler for the congeniality of us all.”

It was a good shifting of focus. The Major’s irritation useful, and already fading from his posture. st here.”>

“I would not wish that level of death upon even the Coalition, Captain Hathan.” Heretical, but truth. She ignored the mortification on both Major and Miroslava’s faces. Though she could not rear herself fully, a lean was adopted, to place her head back over the map. “We are, at current, near the bottom edge of the district. To our sides and sopra are fifteen, perhaps twenty distinct colonies, spreading across the range. The mountains, to the alto, here, contain my former nests, and then beyond that, the valleys which lead to forests, which become the fields on to the realm of the Triumvirate.”

Highlights. Markings. Not of scent, but the map divided and divided again, breaking up what was once singular people.

“Temples. Places of worship. Tombs? A place of enshrinement for the deceased Queens, the territories claimed by the Hymnal Watchers. They are not a colony in the sense you understand it, and will not concede or attack or join in the events which will soon envelop this land. Their only role is in the preservation of the Remembrance, and they will only intercede if such is threatened.”

Solovyova had brought out her flask again. She must just now have appreciated the size, the scale, the scope of their task.

“Every formite on the planet could be silenced, and still they would not interject. For they would remember us all. Only if they, themselves, are at risk, will they act.”

“They are not a concern, for now.” Skthveraachk gave a soft shake of her hairs, and Ckhehnvraahll leant towards the sound and smell. Her breathing, steadier, and her body spasming less. “What is a concern is twofold. The first; The Triumvirate are guides, not leaders, and they do not intervene in affairs of war or struggle. We will be unable to approach them without either invitation, or the most brutal of forces.”

A small twitch came not just in her vents, but in those of her attendants. Sharing in the guilt.

“No, not to the Triumvirate. Unity is forged, not forced. But the second concern is more pressing. The Sovereignty expects, will demand, a return of my colony to military service.” Alertness from her bonded only intensified the guilt, the truth not withheld, but not previously offered. “Ckhehnvraahll’s Last cannot even temporarily sustain our growth. The territories around us do not offer space enough to expand, and to dig new nests is time we will not have. Solution is simple and obligatory. To prepare breeding nests, we must launch immediate acts of conquest.”

Pause had been filled by the Hathan’s shock. Solovyova had the grace, or perhaps hardness, to not interject, and Miroslava would not utter her own beliefs in the Captain’s presence. Ckhehnvraahll saw Skthveraachk’s prompting. Steadied her voice, and sung out a recitative to make up for the rubato.

“Whispers and darkness have followed us in the hundredmeasures and your cycle of departure. There are songs of the great flying notrocks, tales of the spitters which send fire across a hundred lengths. The lands which you burnt remain untouched out of fear, and though we have fought off small probes, clusters, incursions of other colonies, many now cry out that the star-sent are returned. That they have swallowed three colonies whole. That they now wait, and watch, and grow.”

“Fear is a tool. Your Sovereignty wields it as a mace, but it can be applied more directly. Carefully. It is hoped and begged that, in reclaiming the nests taken from me by the treacherous Ktcvahnaah-Colony, and in re-establishing contact with my vassals and allies, the force we wield will be sufficient to humble the other colonies nearby. With six breeding nests and the technologies of the star-sent assisting, reproduction will be rapid. That our neighbors will consent to allegiance when offered scent of cooperation, and aid in spreading word…” It was a good plan. It was a gentle plan, all told. It was a doomed plan. The humanites had nothing immediate to add, but Ckhehnvraahll had held her silence long enough. And her truth came forth in pain and regret.

“Ktcvahnaah-Colony no longer posses all your nests, Skthveraachk Queen.”

“Elaborate.”

“It was only a season before attacks came from Hhehnstaachlk-Colony. I sung encouragement from my own colony to Kthcvahlaatch, that they take advantage of the assaults to move their soldiers in from the sopra. Shlthvelhneekch-Colony did not participate, but your warnings traveled far and fast of the power of the star-sent. They have been expanding, rapidly, preparing for the return of the monstrous force you foresaw.” Ironic. Skthveraachk was once more buried beneath the rubble of her nest, sending out messages, counseling fear and caution, instructing in the ways she had discovered to fight the humanites so they would be prepared upon their return before she was to rush to her death in the field. And now, here she was. At the head of that same invading swarm.

“That is what you meant when you sung my stingers came from Ktcvahnaah.”

“She has been bartering every advantage remaining. Trading away the knowledge of how to create them, emptying Hollowcore of reserve biomass by ballads of nearby colonies, sending birthing queens and soldiers to those offering agreements of peace or protection.” Peel the Berndsen and his offered knowledge of Princes so quickly coming to strike at her plans. To conquest by the fortune of another, to steal that which had been achieved by another’s strength, was a route of great ease in the ascent. But to hold such, undeserving and unskilled, was a staggering task. And Ktcvahnaah, it seemed, had been found wanting. “How many birthing nests yet remain?”

“Two, when last my clusters scouted.”

“May the Composer strike all traitors and schemers from the choir.”

Trinkets and baubles, the Queenless had called that path. Even now it would be the choice her ally of Ghllencheechlak would be making in his own district. There was no gain in mimicking another. No.

Solovyova. Scratching a thick grasper down the back of equally thick neck.

“It worked on me.” Hathan turned from his stare at the relaxed Colonel to what would be Skthveraachk’s own false-light image, high above on the Palamedes. His eyes, darkened, but steady.

“Yes. If at all possible. And if we are hard enough, brutal enough, terrifying enough in the actions against enough nests to bring their obedience in simultaneous submission, the colonies they belong to will have no choice. They will do as I did, and accept when an offer of speech is given. They will consent when they view their alternatives. And when the entirety of the land to our sopra is united, the mere act of such union will be inescapably awed, and will force the other Queens to recognize the approaching change.” Fear. Respect. Both, if possible. And it was the stratagems which sung the truth of it. Sacrifice plum to preserve peach. To give up the desire for immediate peace for the goal of an indefinite one was not barbarism. It was prudence.

Not refusal, not quite. The Hathan stared at her, and she was surprised to see as much guilt in his own eyes as disharmony.

“There were. But I will not let my anger, my resentment, of my own treatment limit my options for the good of my species. I require birthing nests, Hathan-Captain, for if the empire cannot be delivered troops from my own colony, where do you think it will take them from?” Others. Queens who would be turned into what she had become, assuming they were even strong enough. Perhaps, more likely, entire colonies would be seized and thrown into the void. “No. Unpermitted. Refused. My people are accustomed to war. Two, three lost nests is recoverable to most colonies, even if staggering to suffer it all at once. A few now to prevent countless others later. I have not changed, Captain. This was always our way.”

“I sing of caution, Queen superior!” Ckhehnvraahll felt the resolve from the armored form, and did not seek to halt it. Only temper it in sense. “Your warnings, your music, your memories. All were told how to combat the star-sent, the strategies and tactics to utilize. The humanites are strong, but in knowing their arrival, the other Queens will be readied for them.”

“Ckhehnvraahll Queen, this is not danger. Indeed, this is great boon.” Solovyova chuckled. The Major, too, merely nodded. When Ckhehnvraahll felt for Skthveraachk in search of shared understanding, the War Queen embraced her with antennae. “I know exactly how they will fight us, for they will attack exactly how I instructed. And knowing how they will fight, I know exactly how to destroy them.”