Inhale.

Eighty soldiers, defense tasking, tertiary breeding nest, layer three. Confirmation to request for sixty additional menials at the river construction site. Pause promised report to Khchechteeyh Queen Magistrate on humanite technology. Six additional thinkers tasked to disection of latest reports from Dracan. Send request for six hundred more menials from Ckhehnvraahll-Colony. Acknowledge chiding from Slough Queen for not accepting enough surrendering Ktcvahnaah drones. Resume report to Queen Magistrate. Prioritize additional sweep of scouting probe around reserve land. Identify possible threats. Pause report. Confirm incoming wyverns from colonial District 2. Prepare thanks and one hundred soldiers, middling quality, in recompense. Resume report. Direct attendants to address itch between second and third leg sections of rear-right limb.

Send report. Receive acknowledgement and appreciation. Turn head towards the Miroslava, instruct Skthveraachk attendant to look at the tap-pad so conversation and work could occur in synchronicity.

And, exhale.

“I am. Have tasked additional sweeps. The creatures here are confused by humanite scent. They are avoiding us.”

“Then apologies if sub-meaning in song was overlooked.” She waited for the female to elaborate, to make clearer her intent. The trees swayed in the midrise breeze, and roosting passalidites whistling cheerfully amidst the fungal branches was her only response. “We are secure. A meeting of Queens is precious. The lands of biomass reserves are sacred. No violence is permitted here.”

“I hear his song. He hears mine. It is right.” Her scouting probes were keeping their distance, the same as the battered Kthcvahlaatch’s own. Close enough to register the presence of the other Queen in a protective layering of bodies at the edge of the reserve, but far, far back enough to ensure no signals of threat were made. “To turn a protected reserve of mass into a battleground would provoke retribution from every colony within ten thousand lengths. I am unsure how much clearer I can assure. I am overtaxed in current attentions as is.”

“We are not humanites.” Though the Miroslava was quick to return her eyes to her own pad, the Queen did not do her disservice of avoidance in sight. “An absence of humanite thinkers is addressed by the immediate training or adjustment of less suitable roles to fill the gap. An absence of formite thinkers is addressed by the birthing of additional thinkers. I now have seven nests. Soon I will oversee twice as many. They all require attention.”

“There is no problem insurmountable with the correct application of bodies. Surrender is not accepted.” Was that a little laugh from the female? There was a soft buzzing from the false-light banners of the Sovereignty the nearby drones held aloft, and a shifting from the few tens of humanite soldiers accompanying. Palamedes’ own security forces, she had demanded; the newer soldiers were effective enough fighters, but unused to the presence of her kind. Tact was needed, not brute force. The great chain of her colony’s bodies ran all the way out from the hunting grounds, to the nearest of her new nests on the otherwise ravaged border with Kthcvahlaatch-Colony. A gross expenditure of resources. An incredible risk of voices. A display of overwhelming confidence and power. “Your breathing is irregular.”

“I am incapable of lying. You are not. I have won this argument by default.”

The small silvery tube affixed beneath Miroslava’s facial vent-holes clicked as she sucked another paired lungful of air.

“If you prefer I act as though this is entirety of your truth, I will consent.”

The humanite’s pad slapped her side, and the angled cap the Lieutenant wore once move snapped up to the reared Queen.

“Humanite representation is required.” Movement on the perimeter; Kthcvahlaatch was finalizing his marching approach. The crests of Queens rattled on her armor as Skthveraachk waved a leg, beckoning across hundredlengths her scouts back, to give the other colony room to advance. “They have been shown your power. Your violence. They must now be shown your…kindness. Your generosity, in victory. Our goal, unification. Not eradication.”

“Do you restrain yourself against the Coalition because they too are humanites?” The Lieutenant pursed her meaty bone-coverings. “Hostilities have been savage. Peace must now be swift. Kthcvahlaatch Queen resisted as all colonies should resist, but now he must sing surrender to save his children.”

Her vents rattled at the unflattering title the humanites had given Hollowcore, but this was not the time to argue it. Her senses faded from the approaching column of the Queen, flowing instead through the link to the primary nest’s interior. A pale mender therein bit hard confirmation, guiding scentcrafters and weavers in making the awaiting guests comfortable.

“Hhehnstaachlk-Colony is an old ally, accepting my invitation to share our voices readily. And as planned, Shlthvelhneekch knows how quickly the Ktcvahnaah deciever fell. Though only one of their nests borders mine, if Kthcvahlaatch falls too, ours will be a six thousand length border. Their Queen is cautious, and he has been preparing. He cannot pass up this opportunity to gather information. The first three colonies. If I cannot convince them of the rightness in this, another thirtymeasure of war and annihilation will come.”

“It was your people, not mine, who said it is only by making peace with your enemies that they may become your friends.”

A grunt, or, was that a sniff?

“I do not know the Lievens and so I do not yet trust him.” Trust. A concept she’d need to be delicate with introducing to her people, given how the word alone caused displeasure to fill the Lieutenant’s face. “Malika, I trust. But she does not appreciate her role. Does not want it. To force her perform it would be right, for a formite, but to your kind, it would be offensive.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Yes.” A half truth was still a truth. She did not need to share more. Such a peculiar consideration to have, every time she conversed with the star-sent now. Determining exactly how much sharing was warranted. “That is one of the reasons. The other is that it gives us opportunity to share in one song.” Trust. It did not come freely. It took work. She would work.

“We have not sung. Not truly. Not since Dracan, when the Hathan-Captain nearly died.”

The humanite looked how Solovyova did after two days without her flask. Incredulous and sour.

“It is not necessary. And yet. It seems worth the energy expenditure to attempt.”

“No.” Scents were conflicting. Her thoughts went to both the approaching colony and her private conflict, bidding the colony reinforce the line with another layer of her excretions. Scouts had ceased reporting from the front. Lessen the distance; give space, but remain close enough to provide information. Only eighty percent sung receipt. Overtaxed irritation. “That is why I asked you be assigned as my citizenship instructor.” And back to incredulity. This time, though, with motes and measures of a more genuine surprise. “I am titled Magistrate, but I remain only provisionally of your empire. A tutor, the term was, required selection to educate me in my new role as member of your colony.”

“Yes.”

“You believe in the Sovereignty. Do not sour, it is a compliment as much as statement.” Miroslava had gone all prickly. Defensive. The Queen was quick to assuage, already needing one too many thinkers for this exchange. “The-…Captain Hathan knows, as I know, there are flaws in your Empire. The Solovyova fears more than she loves. You believe. Utterly. Unflinchingly. I have not seen, as you have seen, but if I must show my people more than just the mud, and blood, and hurt that your Sovereignty brings, you will be my presentation.”

The more erratic breathing was back. Humanites did not do well underground, the Queen was finding, and even though the cavern in which they waited was sweeping, they acted as though the ceiling would fall at any moment.

“Then I ask. I do not demand.”

“I seek. I learn. I change. I must. If you will assist, I will improve.” Warning signals began to rattle throughout the extended prong. Kthcvahlaatch’s cluster could be seen clearer now, through the eyes of the colony. Few soldiers. Few drones. Yet so many scentcrafters. Nervousness in the colony. Suspicion. Emotions she now knew the signs of on Miroslava’s own face. But the opportunity was just too tempting.

“Even if it is truth?”

“Putting him in danger would be as harmful to me as he.” Which was the other truth she had kept quiet. Skthveraachk was the invader. Kthcvahlaatch, the defender besieged by monsters. Human representation, necessary, but a risk. A risk to Miroslava was acceptable.

“It is a gentle harmony you revise when you are near him. Your concern for him, a credit to your role.” A few of the humanite soldiers behind made subtle laughs under their helmets, so subtle she doubted the now shifting female could hear. “When I was told he had a wife, a role seeming to bear similarities to our bonded, I first assumed it to be you. Your voices synchronize fluidly.”

Quick, and to the point, with only a faint whiff of hazel embarrassment.

“We are all simultaneously superior and subordinate to others.”

The Lieutenant’s color was subtly changing.

“A fear of compulsion. Of compliance. Bonding must be agreed upon freely. I receive. How oddly gentle, your species.” Her vents gave another pulse. “And still this is for life?” There was a slight pull from the thinkers, an amused sort of chiding. The meeting forthcoming was critical. This was not important. It was only important if the Queen was taking advice from her own bonded on certain…queries. “You do not use birthing queens. But your females enter combat willingly, so despite individuality, reproduction is not a compulsion for all? We may have many bonded, but Hathan implied you are limited to one? How is this selection undergone?”

More than a whiff of that scent now, of discomfort.

“Who would be?”

A thinker let out an exhausted and thankful chitter a thousand lengths away, his work paused to memorize the information and eagerly now resumed. The Queen, instead, made a note, even as she then made a song of humanite half-truths.

“My role is to unify my people under your ideals. Understanding how you unify with one another seems reasonable. I comprehend your physical bodies, but not the guiding rules to their usage.”

“An oath?” Distraction. She was still distracted, but the opposing Queen was only a few hundred lengths away now. Too many scentcrafters. Skthveraachk had her own, yes, and more than would be usual to facilitate cleaner notes of dialogue with a new colony. But her scouts could detect tens of the bloated bodies, their sacs laden, scurrying under the cluster’s bulk and nearly as hidden as the covered opposing Queen himself. Excessive, even for a negotiation. What purpose?

Humanite, disregarded. Two scouts left the link. Not severed, but severing themselves as Kthcvahlaatch drew nearer. The smells. The sounds. The song. A menial watched in confusion from the bush as they fled their positions, dove into the masses of approaching bodies, and were welcomed with stroking legs. New markings of place.

Inhale.

“Miroslava-Lieutenant. Remain behind Queen’s personal entourage.”

“Do not raise or point weapons. No matter what transpires.” Efficiency dropped as if from a cliff as Skthveraachk abandoned guidance from all but the two nearest nests. Freeing her attentions, liberating her mind as ranks were reformed and reoriented. More menials. Scentcrafters. Thinkers, a thinker, she needed a thinker at her side, now. One was pulled off his legs, sent bouncing and tumbling and carried over bodies nearly as fast as a humanite vehicle. Stupid, stupid. Damn to the sky her lack of available thinkers. “Remain as quiet as possible.”

“It is not an attack.” Focus. At least seventeen Kthcvahlaatch scentcrafters. Six for Skthveraachk, another six able to reach them in time, eighteen available but unable to make it in time. “Not as you would understand it.”

To her virtue, the Lieutenant obeyed in moving the aliens back, allowing the Queen to safely open a route for their escape. No longer surrounding them in bodies. Protection now, yes. Threat of entrapment, soon.

“Quietly. You must not disrupt this.” No fear permitted. No hesitation brooked. Great boughs shook as the opposing colony came, faster now, knowing their intent had been discovered. Solutions. If Skthveraachk could not match them in smell, she would smother them in sound. Overwhelm them in sight. Drums of chitin and the whistling tubes of hollow bone. The buzz of empty slings spun over body. Her colony began to stomp a beat on claw and leg, the marvelous banners thudding into the dirt as defense was prepared. The underbrush crackled, the boughs snapped.

And, exhale.

Palmidia stalks, hardened and dried under the same flaming star whose light now glinted off their hardstone edges, came carried by the soldiers who spilled from the undergrowth. Spurred into speed, but tethered back from breaching the unseen line between Skthveraachk and their own colony. Familiar. Mimicry. Ideas captured and earned through the blood of combat, but not yet perfected in their clumsy grips and mismatched lines. It was more than enough to provoke a tightening of bodies around the Queen regardless, attendants and menial-warriors, but only as a showing of strength. There would be no blood here, in this place. From the pointed tip of their entrance, formites brown and black swelled outward to either side, lengthening to a solid line. Some bore cracks. Some were lacking limbs. All hummed. Smells of surety, of strength and resolve, billowed out of the opposing swarm as their heads fanned a breeze great enough to rustle the fabrics worn by humanites behind Queen and colony. It called to her. To her children. And rising from the living tide of chitin and flesh, Kthcvahlaatch Queen reared himself onto four legs. Forelimbs crossed, dripping with viscous spittle from untold scentcrafters and birthing queens so sweet that Skthveraachk swore she could see the visible color of the aroma.

“I am Kthcvahlaatch Queen of Kthcvahlaatch-Colony.”

“I am Skthveraachk Queen Magistrate of Skthveraachk-Colony, of the Imperial Sovereignty of Earth and colonial District 4.” Good. The greeting was unorthodox, even improper, and it shook the practiced tempo of the other colony. Shook, but little more.

“You have fought me with monsters. You have killed me with creations of hardstone and fire. You sing to me of an end to hostility, using the notes and beats of an impossible enemy.”

“They are the songs of the star-sent.” The music was truth, but it came sickly. Her own scentcrafters tried to reinforce the rightness of it, but the ranks and rows of the opposing colony hissed and slavered over the sounds. Made it a thing of ugliness, of black sap and pitch. “They are the music of the humanites, against which there can be no victory. There is no anger or malice; you have fought, as Queens must, and you have lost, as all will. Cease. End. Join voice with mine, accept inevitability.”

“Kthcvahlaatch-Colony comes not to surrender.” The stomping tempo increased. Strengthened. Miroslava was communicating with the Hathan, behind, but it was a thing at the edge of Skthveraachk’s consciousness. “Skthveraachk-Colony is strength. Skthveraachk Queen fights with beings from the sky. Join voices. Join intent. Fight against the coming dark, Once and Again. Teach us, show us.” It pulled on her. The light shimmered around her as the fragrances rushed between the stretching lines, the memories of greatest heroes and teachings. Intangible graspers and legs reached out, and vaguely was the Queen aware of menials and drones from her ranks swaying stumbling in a trance from their siblings to join those opposite. Together they had devoured the star-sent once before. They could again. Kthcvahlaatch swore it.

“You know not what you ask. You taste the death I have brought and believe it the summation of their threat.” Harder. The beat, harder. A drone alongside the Queen began to advance to the dreams of the other colony, but Skthveraachk struck forward herself. Her own body at the front of her lines, the movement sending Kthcvahlaatch back behind another protective rank. “The songs of our past cannot save us. Only teach us what we can, what we must, endure.”

“Then I will sing of what can be endured.” They rose. Hundreds, thousands, rearing to four legs as their vents spilled open. Both colonies, at once, baring their cores as voices vibrated with such fervor that the forest itself seemed to tremble. Skthveraachk hid the trembling in her own with a rattling of the crests on her pauldrons. She had failed when last her voice had been challenged. She had been changed. Not again. Let it begin.

Kthcvahlaatch set first the pulse, and had he seized the advantage of his more numerous scentcrafters to overwhelm with conviction, Skthveraachk was unsure she could have withstood. But Kthcvahlaatch was cautious. Kthcvahlaatch sought to endure, to withstand. Hues of brown and grey built themselves into a wall of flesh and rock both, a bastion of resolve which denied intrusion. Of resistance, an obligation held by every formite from the first breath to final note.

And Skthveraachk matched him. Singing instead of the hardest scythe and deepest cut, of red sight and orange blood as what had once been hesitance became aggression. While the other Queen built his wall, the buzz of her slings and hollow moans of tubed instruments carved into the barrier. Chunks of stone and carapace removed, a fervor of her own spurred by the symbols of the Sovereignty looming like stormclouds behind.

He expected the violence, welcomed it. His sons and daughters, dying, falling, tumbling from the cliffs to the black below. Yet as they fell, the masses behind his mountain of faith in purpose filled the gaps. Howl and scream, wind and fury, the formless shape of Skthveraachk’s death crashed again and again against his defenses and would never break them. One colony would never take the entire world. No star-sent would shatter a truth that had lasted a thousand cycles. For it was not only Kthcvahlaatch’s bastion, but a hundred colonies more. Walls rising one after the other in all directions, the phantom scythes of their attacker scratching and clawing, and for each victory won, another ten lost. Hope and surety. No enemy undefeatable, no problem insurmountable. She could feel his courage in each bellow of her voice he resisted. Knew it. Loved it.

The fury turned somber as her truth was wept from her, the great sigil clouds of the Sovereignty’s looming presence breaking open as the sky fell. A rain. A tide. An ocean. It spewed an unending mass of fire and light and sound, not an enemy as Skthveraachk in her clawing assault on Kthcvahlaatch’s walls, but a force of nature. Waves struck from beneath her claws and were denied by the mountain. Again struck, again denied. And again. And again. Chips of chitin and pebbles dislodged, washed away, but as Kthcvahlaatch sought to fill the gaps, the sea washed in first. A death by tenthlengths, an erosion of cycles. The tide cared not for courage, for resolve, for song or even truth. It existed. It came. It took, and would never stop. Skthveraachk let her music calm, for her fury and violence was no longer needed. Drowning as much as floating, her body was battered against the wall with each wave.

Kthcvahlaatch sung of the memories. He chanted, espoused, recited the creeds and mantras of the past. He ignored the darkness that had suffused the song and restated resolve, and none of it mattered. He stared out from his bastion at the storm, and watched as it devoured all. The scars left by Skthveraachk’s assault cried mournfully, for what had once been chance to escape through the wounds was now lost. The flood took all, and left nothing. When the wall at last was breached, the storm would not remember the struggler nor learn from the battle. Kthcvahlaatch wept, and as the first cracks began to seep the ocean through to the fertile and safeguarded lands behind, Skthveraachk wept with him. For the smell of courage, so overpowering and sweet, had fizzled and sputtered into nothing. And as Kthcvahlaatch Queen and colony sank back onto all six legs, the trees around them rustled in a shared dirge. As one, they lamented. And as one, they understood.

“Will they make slaves of us, Skthveraachk Queen?”

“They will not. Nor will I, nor will I allow them to, for so long as my voice carries. They come not to devour. They come to change us.”

“Perhaps this is worse.”

“Perhaps.” Drones wandered freely between both lines. Confused, but not frightened. Unable to properly distinguish between the ranks. Their truth was shared. There was no longer difference to register. “You have fought. You are strong. Strength will be required in rises to come, for only the strong will survive their new world. They will sing to you of what awaits us. Lower self. You must accept their Band.”

Scentcrafters were wheezing fatigue, and the thinker she had brought to her side had collapsed entirely from the exertion. Menders were tasked and bodies carefully transported to their sides while the collars, Bands, symbols of subservience were brought forth across the gap to the other colony.

“We have reached consensus. Kthcvahlaatch-Colony will no longer seek hostility against Sovereignty.”

“They attempted to convince me to join them in combatting your forces. They were unsuccessful. It is no longer relevant.” Further questioning was both unwelcome and unproductive. As soon as her menials had demonstrated how to fasten the Band around Kthcvahlaatch Queen’s neck, its activation allowed Skthveraachk to move aside and lower her head in deference to the Lieutenant. “This is Lieutenant Miroslava of the Palamedes, who’s voice is that of a Queen’s. There is much different in their kind, but you may accept that her song carries the weight of many, many colonies. She will accompany you personally as we travel to my primary nest.” Kthcvahlaatch was covered with drones all licking and feeling the new addition to their Queen, but he mimicked Skthveraachk’s motions to the Lieutenant. She, in turn, cut short her desired protests and questions, sliding almost effortless into the new role like only a humanite could.

Like Skthveraachk herself had undoubtedly once reacted, the other Queen snapped himself back as though struck as the rain of alien sounds splattered upon him. Fear was still heavy in the air from the shared duet of truth, and so when he looked to Skthveraachk for guidance, she was quick to encouragingly rub her antennae over her crest.

“To be welcomed is…welcome. May your claws never carry you in wrath to my nests again.” Palamedes’ soldiers formed behind the Lieutenant as she approached, marked with the scent of the colony and steady in her presentation. “There are no memories or retellings for communicating with the star-sent. I am unsure how to proceed.”

The softness was not genuine. It was superior, condescending almost. It was expected.

“Flown. In the sky?” It was a pointless question with obvious answer, and so the other Queen merely swayed, unsure how to.

“This should not be a possible thing.”

“Very possible.” Clever. A taste of power that was as efficient as it was wonderous. “And very safe. Your column may join mine in traveling to Hollowcore. We will travel with humanite wyverns.”

“I am incapable of refusing.” Kthcvahlaatch let touches of excitement color his notes, but it was an undertone to the ever-present hesitance and awe. The formation of three VTOLs waiting at the edge of the reserve was a single cleared space under the black shimmer of bodies encircling them as the male Queen selected his retinue for travel, carefully slipping his body into the hold. Miroslava would have her words later, her face and expression made that clear, but she held to role for now as the female joined the Queen in his craft. Skthveraachk sent guidance to her column and alerted her scouts of arriving designation non-hostiles, but waited until she too was sealed into her own wyvern before allowing her attendants and drones to slather her with touches and embraces.

“Queen injured?”

“Queen not injured. Queen hurts.”

“Confusion. Where is hurt?”

“Hurt is in voice. Hurt is in core.” She felt the liftoff, the subtle shake in the metal. The sweeping wings and their oval holes pushing air without touch. “Kthcvahlaatch strong. Kthcvahlaatch resolved.”

“Skthveraachk-Colony stronger.”

“Yes.” Shaking breaths, collecting herself. The flight would be only half a bar, and already she could imagine Miroslava in the wyvern on the viewscreen alongside hers showing Kthcvahlaatch the view. Painting verbal images of the future that could be theirs for the small cost of subservience. “By making Kthcvahlaatch weaker. Would have fought to the end. Never knew how determined he was. Ruined him. Made him lesser.”

“To save life. To save colony. Must do again.”

“Accepted.” Accepted long ago. Legs cradled and petted at her, soothing and comforting. An embrace of smallest fraction of colony high over lands now belonging to her in all directions. “Accepted hurt.”

Her visor was pinged. How quickly she forced stability into her voice, and ensured her posture was straighter within the craft.

“Received, Hathan-Captain. Captain Hathan. Sky, but I will learn to address your kind properly eventually.”

“Had my song been found wanting, I would have been convinced she was an enemy and acted accordingly. I was not found wanting.” Perhaps he would have laughed once. He did not now.

“I sung my truth. Kthcvahlaatch sung his. My truth was more correct, and so Kthcvahlaatch joins us. If Kthcvahlaatch’s truth had been greater, I would have been compelled to combat not just Miroslava, but the Sovereignty.”

“Accurate.”

“It is the nature of truths to change when exposed to one another. It is why I did not expect Kthcvahlaatch Queen to attempt such an action. Baring one’s core and reality to another forces them to do the same, but,” For an instant, she was once again on Dracan. In the cavern which did not exist, her song warping and fluctuating as the colors of her voice changed forever. “It is both desperation and finality. The only outcome is an altering of both participants, as consensus forges a new, shared, truth.”

It was a platitude based in ignorance. And the Queen could not help but flash her vents and clack her antennae with pleasure at it.

“Please do not distress the Lieutenant with it. She would not comprehend and be troubled.”

The Queen wanted to ask, but held back the instinctive desire.

“Construction should be hastened on expanding the number of landing points around the mountain if there are such delays.”

Clouds were still high above the distance at which the wyverns traveled now, yet drew nearer as the fields and forests shifted to hills and rocky protrusions. Those drones watching the screen chittered in intrinsic excitement at the familiar curves, slopes, and markers leading them home.

“You insinuate they are soldiers that would prefer to be otherwise?”

The last few peaks parted, the world tilting at angles which should have sent the occupants of the craft toppling and yet didn’t. A necessary maneuver, to avoid one of the now numerous fanned constructions occupying the mountainsides. Barely Skthveraachk could make out black shapes of her children around the base of the strutted windmill, pouring sludge from carved buckets that was stamped to flat and hard bricks by the turning of gears and thumping of pistons. To be carried down the lifts no longer powered by claw and leg, but the force of wind converted to circular rotation. She could not see further below where once thin trails through the mountains were now being widened by a thousand marching feet, smoothed and converted to the roads the colony had grown accustomed to on Dracan, but knew from the risen torrents of dust the work went uninterrupted. Box transport craft hovered alongside Hollowcore’s peak as dangling humanite workers used handheld fire to affix great platforms into the rock. Vehicles of wheels and great claws erected rectangular frames twenty, thirty lengths tall while menials with scythes too stubby to dig hefted tools of wood and acid-sharpened hardstone to dig the new route of what would soon be a river beneath the great bridge of web leading to mountain’s core. It was a shame such beauty was marred by piles of timber that had needed to be cleared for the structures, and by the stench of the alien machines causing an unfamiliar sourness to fill the air, but green could be regrown elsewhere. Discomfort suffered for advantages brought. So she sung until she herself believed it.

“No, Captain Hathan, you have your own tasks to adhere to. I would not demand your attention more than I have. The soldiers I requested, though, the weapons. This has all been prepared?”

“It is preferable to using them on living targets.” He could not argue that. But his distaste remained, and she treasured it even as she was forced to ignore it. “I will message them directly when they are required. May your work be twice as productive as my own this rise.”

“There is not a singular possibility Ckhehnvraahll approves of this abbreviation.”

The flash of a closed smile vanished from her visor’s screen to better show the approaching pad, affixed to the mountain’s side near middle of its height. Two in total had been completed, allowing the aliens and more importantly their supplies direct access to the interior. One was already occupied by crates and figures, the other with Miroslava and Kthcvahlaatch’s visibly distressed bulk skittering away from the edges of the suspended platform towards the safety of the guarded interior. With nearly formite efficiency, as one wyvern departed, another landed, until Skthveraachk’s place in the arial procession brought her to touchdown. Even here, high above the clamor of industry below, the smells and sounds echoed and reverberated under the din of the engines. She had grown accustomed, as had the colony. A trio of mechanical drones buzzed overhead as she crawled across the railed strip and into the mountain, rejoining the linkage of bodies as Miroslava tried to calm the tittering and bobbing male aside her.

“Impossibility! Impossibility! Can not happen! Restatement of former!”

“Incredibility! Incredulity! How can a dead thing move? How can an unliving thing be controlled?”

“The humanites have a power of knowledge we will likely never match, Kthcvahlaatch Queen, but there is much within our own grasp. See something which comes fresh from my nest on Dracan.” Antennae angling forward, soft blowing guided the other Queen’s attentions as the pulleys affixed to one of the lifts groaned and spun. “The wind blows, the fan turns. The spoke rotates, and these cogs rotate with it. With teeth affixed to the bottom, rotational motion becomes vertical motion. So does simple turning become lifting, sawing, actions once needing ten drones now needing none.”

“You will share this knowledge.”

“I will share this knowledge. Soon. Soon.” She saw Miroslava’s mild annoyance, the perpetual discomfort more than a few humanites shared in the quick adoption of even such rudimentary technologies. Inevitable. Even their masters knew they could open an automatic door only so many times before her people began to wonder how the mechanisms worked. “But not now. We go to the other Queens now.” Such was intention, such was necessity, for Skthveraachk to go with her own body to those waiting now in waiting cavern two layers down. She could smell their impatience, taste the mixture of fear and admiration as menials placated and delivered fresh water to their attendants. She did not wish to make them wait any longer now that Kthcvahlaatch was present. But a whiff from the other pad down the hall, amongst the smell of the cargo and luxuries, rooted her legs in place first. Then, turned them to march on and away from Miroslava and Queen both. Menials were dispatched to guide them both to the feeding cavern, but Skthveraachk Queen herself had priority undeniable now. A Ghllencheechlak drone met her at the edge of the pad, pulling away from the pair of carriers it had been stroking against.

“Skthveraachk Queen is gracious in receiving! Ghllencheechlak Queen Magistrate sends flattery and kindness to allied colony.”

“Is there problem?” She tried to focus on the drone. Tried not to let her eyes and head stray to the back of the figure stood with arms folded, looking out at the unloading of the transport. “Agreed trade was one hundred soldiers. You are only accepting ninety-three.”

“Value was adjusted following communication. Luxuries less luxurious, worth now lower than previous. Fourth colony has agreed to join in District 2’s unifying goal. Sea-based biomass now easier to obtain.”

“Ghllencheechlak-Colony is making significant progress, then. No conflict?”

“Minimal.” The drone sought to reach for the hairs of her forelimb, and the Queen was too preoccupied to deny the touch. “Seeks to create a great road of trade along coast, along entire length of district. Benefits all colonies. Only one has refused.”

“Which colony refused?”

“Colony no longer exists.” A soft tremble ran the length of the Queen’s core.

“Colony’s name?”

“Colony no longer exists. Name is unknown.” Unbelievable. She tried to imagine the kindly Ghllencheechlak ordering such, ordering attacks so thorough they had wiped away every scent and sound of their opposition. She could not. It did not ring of Ghllencheechlak. Such music had a different orchestrator. Pulling her leg from the drone’s touch, the Queen crawled with purpose to the female that had remained rather intentionally back-facing. Ensuring she was up on four legs by the time she arrived, with the Band’s volume adjusted just a few decibels over what would be considered comfortable for their species.

“Dame Regina Costa, your feet upon my nest are unexpected and unsolicited.” Stiffness in the humanite’s posture, a harsher gripping of hands on her suited shell. “But, as representative from allied colony, welcomed of course.” The female wanted silence. Or, more likely, for Skthveraachk’s departure. The Queen had no intention of granting such kindness.

“I remain ignorant of a great many humanite customs and Sovereignty courtesy, but when addressed by Magistrate, I am of belief it is proper to face and converse. You did not have such difficulties when last we spoke.” Caution practically screamed from the Ghllencheechlak behind, its antennae waving side to side, but the Queen was much more focused on the lines which rose from the skull beneath hair of the female’s head. The way the trunk of her neck pulsed, the signs of anger. Anger she wished to act upon. Anger she could not act upon. There was a sick joy in it, and for once, the Queen had no condemnation treated like children for savoring it. When the humanite at last turned, it was with a smile so thin and dead Skthveraachk was sure it would peel clear off the alien’s face at the slightest touch.

Skthveraachk’s jaws curled and turned, even as her Band clicked in the translation of blatant falsehood.

“If memory is damaged, can assist in its recollection. When we were upon the Palamedes-“

Yes. Yes, the Queen did not at all feel wrong for savoring the authority she held over this female now.

“Allowing?” Again, her mandibles clamped. “His leadership is by example, his service unquestioned. Did you command Ghllencheechlak Queen Magistrate to eradicate rebelling colony, or did you ‘allow’ the illusion of choice?”

“You are a blunted scythe battering at the walls of the Unfilled Bastion.” The Dame Costa’s face should have contorted harsher. Instead, a defiantly infuriating smirk tugged at the flaps of meat. “The Emperor demands us readied to join the empire, but instead of seeking to teach, to elevate, you seek to control us like pet phidites in your personal pasture.”

Her hands moved down to her sides, even as Skthveraachk’s own muscles strained and fought to keep her scythes sheathed. The disgust was audible as a hand was flicked towards the unloading ship. The Queen saw nothing at first, or nothing that bore second examination. It was only when she realized the true shape of one of the machines that her hairs rattled in shock, the shape of a humanite encased in metal that made it nearly twice the size of the others on the platform. Lumbering with a pair of crates that could crush a formite soldier balanced on either shoulder, as if the azure suit it wore was like the mechanical second-skin Throne the Queen herself had once used.

“What is that?”

“The Representative of the First House, the…singer of your theocracy.” Curse, curse her lack of available thinkers. “His name is temporarily forgotten. He was of belief this individual would be executed.”

The Dame Costa flexed her spindly digits at the fabric of her legs again.

“Yes. You would only imply such of every single one of my daughters and sons.”

The hissing exhale from the Queen’s vents was just at the edge of audible for a humanite as the Representative took a step back, offering a shallow bow.

“I know little of these vergers, other than they do not fight you as the Coalition has and will continue to do. Perhaps you owe them more deference than you give, if they are capable of remaining loyal even as ones such as you degrade their presence.”

She waited. The humanite actually waited to be dismissed. It should have made the Queen feel larger, better. Hurrying a wave and slash of her claw, the smugness within her had gone dark and curdled as she turned away from the Dame Costa and lurched harshly to catch up with the other Queen and Lieutenant. These were new sorts of battlegrounds opening all around her, battlefields of words and implications and emotions and falsehoods. She was War Queen. She would master them, assuredly and without rest. But even when she did find a way to tear the demeaning smirk from the female’s features, Skthveraachk did not believe for a moment it would be half as satisfying as merely skewering the alien through the skull, and watching as she tumbled a hundred lengths down into the pits below.