The battle prong had been dispatched over a measure ago, but already Skthveraachk could see they were reaching the very front of the column. The largest soldiers forming the head of the ram, the scouts fanned out ahead of the advancing force as they laid the trails for the column to follow, and the arches of bodies creating a protected tunnel for the bodies to traverse through. With even scattered cuts of flesh twice as large as a formite being carried along with the war party, prizes taken from an unfortunate herd of dynastite that had wandered too near the column. While the Queen’s own eyes weren’t adept for the task, she’d placed a scout in her wyvern specifically for the purpose of watching the monitors, describing the scene as their arial formation passed over the ground-locked one. Not that she’d be able to see the screens anyways, with how the Malika-mender was practically standing upon her gaster, the Queen forced onto her back while the alien straddled, examining the links of skeleton beneath her harder cuirass of chitin.

“Pain!” The hard prod of the metallic instrument struck the sealant stuffed into the fracture, and her meat beneath recoiled at the touch.

“There is nothing delicate in your toucheeEEEGH.” Menials waved distress in their antennae as the alien spat a globule of hissing heat from its tools, melting the sealant away and letting the harsh air touch directly on the exposed flesh beneath. Numbness followed only when the spiked device the mender carried was jabbed into the meat, relief from the pain first, a foamy spray slathered over the area second.

“My menders are more than capable of healing such small injuries. We have survived this world thousands of cycles before you and your proper treatments arrived. Pilot, what is our progress?”

If only they’d had the ability to use these ships on the march to Tarasque. Borders were so much less meaningful now for her people. The mender did not halt her work for even a breath.

“Recie-“ Even without claws, the alien mender’s grip was incredible. As was her uncanny ability to locate wounds from measures ago, from the most obvious fractures to the most subtle of cracks in the Queen’s shell. Something beneath her leg snapped, and the cabin of the wyvern spun as her head went upside-down into the deck. “By the seven-armed hycatha tree, humanite! Your squishy kind would be silenced by this manner of treatment!”

Skthveraachk perked her antennae straight, through the pain and ugly angles in which she lay.

“Such I have seen.” Careful. The Queen wiggled, trying not to fight against the painful touches as she focused her song. “Yet it took long for me to overcome fear of contact with your kind. Even now, I worry if I were to move my leg too swiftly, I’d break the hard shell within you.”

“But would you enjoy blunted contact?”

Detached. Focused. Absorbed in her role, the doctor scoured Skthveraachk’s shell, and so did not see how her forelegs had reached out to her side. Forming solid link with the thinker she had ensured to bring, as it recorded the interaction precisely.

“When humanites touch one another, for pleasure, does drumming please your internal bones as it does ours?”

No alarm. Only information. The thinker memorized with alacrity.

“Very strange. Imagining what it must be to feel through your entire body, the wind as if your mouth was always open, or an accidental nudge from another of your kind. Not unpleasant. Interesting.”

“Then, when you are mating, friction is also the goal?”

Midway through melting a patch of sealant and once more foaming the hole, the sound from the Malika scythed itself short. Unseen, prostrated as the Queen was, but feeling how the alien’s legs were shifting around her gaster.

“Many humanite forms seen unarmored both for study and during combat, and reproductive organs were identified by Palamedes menders when first teaching of your kind, and while basic shapes indicate general utility and location of coupling, has not been need for more detailed knowledge. Is not need.” Notes flung from her rapidly, and Skthveraachk was at once glad for her inability to see more than the hard, riveted deck of the craft. “Curiosity. Learning.”

The cold foam was once more activated, the humanite returning to its work.

“Avoidance, not meant to insult. Allocating time, difficult, and opportunity presented.”

Preparing to rattle her hairs in response, another snapping from the joints of her lowest legs brought a spasm of pain and warble of protest instead.

“Humanite suspicion unwarranted.” The thinker, still recording all, did its best to appear small and hidden behind the bodies of her children as her song was recaught. “Offspring unnecessary, would not seek to upset Sovereignty culture, purity of flesh, yes, interest only in-…believe that it is truth humanites use act of physical sensation to increase cooperation and affinity between individuals? That being, if there was interest to begin with, which there may not be, would be focused on aesthetic possibilities in arrangement of form and function?” The other female did not immediately reply. It was good. It gave the Queen a chance to repeat her music over in her mind, trying to figure out exactly what in the sky she had been trying to say. Fortunate, that the alien seemed to know, even if she herself did not.

“Received?”

She must not have appeared to understood. The sigh from the alien was like the rattling of the wyvern’s engines.

“Never insinuated it would be easy.” Flattery? It had not been her intention to compliment the alien doctor, but if such had been achieved unintentionally, all the better. “Nor suggest broad intention. If there are difficulties, would eagerly learn of them so as to learn how to overcome them.”

Standing off her, the removal of the alien’s weight allowed Skthveraachk to rotate, to climb back to her claws, bodies rolling off and around her as the other occupants shifted to make room.

“From my understanding, a constant which may not be universal, but attraction is more than physicality. It is cooperation, common ideology and familiarity. Even in a species so strange as yours, do you not think the sharing of experiences, a history of obstacles and overcoming, could be foundation for something more intimate than friendship?” It was odd, how hopeful her notes were. Surprising, perhaps? Vocalizing them so bluntly was making Skthveraachk want to crawl back inside her egg, but the collected calm on the Malika’s hazel features was steadying. Professional detachment, the humanites called it.

Vaguely, the Queen’s antennae swayed. The Malika clearing her throat’s blockages. Data. Useful, critically useful, and until another more pressing task was warranted, the thinker immediately set to work recalling every conversation the colony had shared with the Hathan. The Queen’s own body tipping, so her antennae could reach the distance to the Malika’s concluded stance and stir the air before her.

“You have been of greatest aid in this endeavor, Malika-mender. Doctor. I will apply what has been learnt to fullest capabilities.” Curiously, the humanite’s stance seemed to shift unsteadily, and even more curious was the way one of the female’s hands reached up. Patting, the rounded end of Skthveraachk’s antenna.

Skthveraachk puzzled, briefly, at the words. But she was not about to dampen the success of her plan by prodding for information further. Soreness and stiffness clung to her legs now, but by the time the column had at last vanished away beneath them, and the rumble of the wyvern’s engines shook the doctor who had taken a seat to read off her pad, it was only a dull ache. An irritation, not an obstruction.

The screen was of little help. The other two wyverns circled, passed by her ship, but were having similar difficulty. Like the highland hills of Hollowcore, the cliffs here rose high and tall, and the mounds of earth not coated by jutting trees were cut by rushing rivers and lumbrite ditches.

“So long as they arrive, their delay is acceptable. I do not want or need humanite presence when I meet this colony, at first. That I understand; you cannot land, but are capable of delivering me and my children below?” From the cockpit, a thumping confirmation came as a fist impacted metal. “This is acceptable. What must we do?”

Hairs, once soft, spiked rigid as light suddenly poured into the dimmer craft. The ramp and door extending, the wind and air from the engines whipping about the interior and shaking her barbs. She saw the horizon. The sky. The treetops, still ten lengths below her. At once, the flying vessel seemed markedly less safe, and the Malika uttered grunts as all formites within pushed to back away from the opening.

“Step. Jump. Fall!?” Alert and fear were signalled in her colony, instinctive reactions to what was being asked.

The VTOL was hovering, whipping up the fronds and palps of the trees below. The others, too, had come to a floating rest. And from the emptiness before them, faced the same hesitation from their occupants. Something clicked. Something chunked. Screens went blank, already dim lights swapped their colors. On the tail of the craft, the circular mechanisms spun and rotated to dizzying speeds, and the entire wyvern swayed before coming back to stillness.

“To walk into nothing. Received.” She would not be first. There was bravery, and then there was eating the mass of an unknown colony without a menial first tasting it. They selected a worker at random, by the fourth click of his name. His head poked from the ship, antennae sent fluttering back from his head as eyes incapable of even seeing the ground below tried to judge the distance. “Step, and fall. Impossibility. Aliens are species of impossibilities. Will be safe. Go.” She couldn’t be sure she had not just lied to herself, but hearing it aloud made it seem more true. The drone inhaled, teetered at the edge of the ramp, and with a step of its forelegs, tumbled from sight. There one moment. Gone the next. Two more menials rushed out to the spot, sticking their heads out over the ramp while calling out. A faint, panicked, but living voice called back. Upside-down and spinning in lazy circles, the worker was indeed falling. But slowly. As the humanites had floated, once, when they together had taken Guir. Both workers looked to one another. Picked. Walked. Fell. One after the other, a line of twisting and contorting bodies descending from the sky. Skthveraachk threw a look to the doctor, but the female only nodded her head.

Bodies, and excuses, were rapidly running out. The hold was emptying, voice at a time, and the Queen was moved ever nearer the portal into the nothing. Her thinker, fascinated, tried to reach up and touch the moving rings before he stepped, and sung feelings of spinning wonder as he too descended from view. Tuck legs. Walk, don’t jump. Every instinct and sense of reason screamed at her to get away from the edge, things that had kept her alive before. Muscles went taut. Gaster, clenched. Two claws went over the edge, her weight kept on her back four. But the imbalance was too great. Less of a step, more of a stumble. The result was the same. Sun and clouds spun above her as the air whistled through her lungs, drowned her in abundance, her body tumbling through the void of sky. Too shocked to scream and too frozen to flail. Only when the light was blotted by another body, following her down, did breaths lengthen to beats. She was falling. She wasn’t falling. A floatiness was about her, like she was sinking into a great lake she couldn’t see. The trees rose, but did not rush, to meet her. The branches, as they passed, could be studied and almost reached to so careful was her speed. A family of passalidites, each stood atop the other, stared with their huge diamond eyes from their roost as she slowly sunk past. Peering fanned heads over their branch as her descent brought her ever lower. Skthveraachk had forgotten the Malika’s warning by the time she saw the flat of the terrain rise up to meet her. Remembered, only when the heavy thudding of her body on the soil shook the trees around, and brought attendants already on the ground running to help the Queen back to six feet.

“Queen injured?”

“Queen uninjured.” She spat grass from her throat and cleaned mud from her mandibles. “Report.”

“Unknown colony scent markers all around. Unfriendly territory. Scouts dispersed. No sightings.”

“Encircled formation. Scouts to extend to fifty lengths. Do not engage. Locate.”

“Received.” Bodies continued to rain down from on high, some striking perfectly on all six legs, most collapsing or tipping as they rolled into the impact. Most of black and clean onyx. A few, now, of the mottled red. “Bring emissary drone. Prepare to depart.”

“Alerting retinue.” New bodies filled gaps, spears and shields amidst forms of metal and shell kept a defensive ring. They had been invited, but the column was bars away still. They were fewer than a hundred, and they were alone. Almost entirely.

“Our landings were sufficient. Your orders?”

“Find a place of height, ideally. I do not wish contention to arise if you are discovered by foraging colonies.”

She could not see them, through the trees. But she heard the rush of their departure, the low roar of engines as the wind died down and the noises faded. By the time the reddened drone had been brought forward, roused from its terrified torpor, even the furthest scouts could barely hear the echoes of their presence.

“Falling! Pushed! Attempted silence! Anger!”

“Exaggeration.” A soldier, scythes folded across a crescent shield, let its antenna drum a beat on the surface. “Attendant was slow. Skthveraachk soldier assisted speed.”

“Anger! Threat! Hairs raised in protest!”

“Cktahnckleevhen drone.” Natural scent poured from her, demanding focus from the still shaking formite. “Skthveraachk-Colony answers call for aid. Does not threaten. Returns you home, safe. Hills are recognized? This place, yours?”

“This place is ours.” Lost in a sea of trees, it could have been ten thousand lengths from home for all the Queen knew. The red drone, however, chirped happily as it began to taste the air. “Primary birthing nest, nearby. We go. We guide.”

“We follow.” An order as much as a statement, the ringed defenses raised themselves at the Queen’s song, keeping the formation as the drone and its siblings scurried towards the faderise. Uphill, at a speed that was impressive given how swollen each still was from the previous measure’s feasting. Gasters tapped at the soil and downfall from the canopy above, leaving short-lived trails which would serve only as emergency paths if retreat was necessary. It would not be. Should not be, the Queen corrected. Follow the Solovyova’s adage; ‘trust, but verify’. It had served well before, and would do so again, whether it be meeting of her own people or of the star-sent.

“Queen doubts?”

“Queen does not doubt.”

“If Queen doubts, why accept?”

“Caution.” Most of the scouts were ahead of them, only a few behind. Foreign scents pressed on them from all sides, and the colony kept a lock-step of movement to preserve their unity. “Cktahnckleevhen calls for aid. Cannot claim to be Magistrate protector of lands if call refused. Must assist, but.”

“With eyes in all directions.” The thinker had offered its own support, its presence now as much a risk as it had been benefitting on the wyvern. But, Skthveraachk reasoned; if there was threat, it would be against Queen first, thinker only after her death. So, protection was guaranteed. She reinforced the notion as the first scouts signalled contact, bodies in the undergrowth growing alert as they detected the foreign colony’s intrusion.

“Withdraw scouts to twenty lengths.”

“Received.”

“Signal intentions. Allied. Assistance.”

“Sending scents.” Workers. Foragers. They retreated just as quickly as the scouts had withdrawn, the waving heads sending fragrances of assurance after them. Ahead, the Cktahnckleevhen drones were too calling for their siblings, but at their range, would likely go unheard. “Unsuccessful.”

“Expected. Extend to forty lengths.” Delicate. Such meetings were always so delicate. Learning the smells of another colony’s language was one thing, but doing so during an invasion of their territory was wholly another. And a mistaken motion or smell here would not lead to insult, but to a necessary conflict of place. It didn’t take long at all for the first soldiers to be spotted, charging down the hills between the orange trees as they kicked up debris and detritus into small waterfalls of vegetation. “Withdraw. Tighten formation.”

“Signalling intentions.”

“Sisters!” Ahead, the red drones went up on their back legs, waving their sheathed scythes overhead in dance. “Return! Arrive! Rejoice!”

“Unfamiliar scents! Unknown colors!” Sounds of alert were tapping between the trees, calling for help. Skthveraachk might have been only a hundred, but that was more sizeable a force than the Cktahnckleevhen could clearly account for so quickly. Only twenty soldiers had found themselves to a position twenty lengths from the Queen’s formation, and their half-sheathed scythes beat at the ground in warning. “What is smell? What is shape?”

“Skthveraachk-Colony sends Skthveraachk Queen!”

“Queen! Queen!” Shock. Fear? Her entourage was halted, letting the emissaries the other colony had sent to her sing. “Why Queen! How Queen? Where Queen comes from?”

“Sky, sisters, sky!” Shaking their gasters to tunes of amazement, the dancing drones approached closer the line of soldiers. “Eaten were we, carried in stomachs of hardstone! Belched from within to fly without! Cktahnckleevhen-Colony has flown! We bring the help sought!”

“Confused drones. Frenzied drones?”

“We go home. We take the Queen to Queen. We go.”

“My scythes are sheathed.” Raising her voice, watching the exchange, Skthveraachk’s sore legs bobbed as the dance of the drones was copied. Coloring the movements with her own scentcrafter concoctions, a sweet fruit’s skin and the rustling of fallen leaves. “I seek not your territory or mass. I come to protect. I sing notes of peace and tranquility to you who dance, death only to those who show jaws and lower head.” Gasters and abdomens began to sway as their music was matched, the warning calls quieting and growing calmer. The red bodies felt over the forms of their siblings, carefully, searching for threats or danger. When none were found, their scythes did not fully sheathe, but were kept so only tips remained.

“We go to nest. Queen meets Queen. You will follow.”

“I follow.” There was no hope of fighting them, not yet at least, but the Cktahnckleevhen soldiers still widened their formation until the meager twenty and some surrounded the Skthveraachk prong. Splattering markers of non-hostility on their shells from their ends, letting the thick pap fleck and scatter. The Queen resisted marking their escorts similarly. They were the visitors. Their discomfort, expected, and to be tolerated. Up the procession went, under hanging vines arranged to guide and mark a path the leaves would otherwise sweep away in bars. Twenty soldiers becoming thirty, then forty. Foragers that had retreated in fear slowly returning to their works, sniffing and rubbing at the foreign bodies whenever they passed with their great balls of compacted meat and flora packed onto their backs. Music sung out from scouts watching their journey from outcroppings of mossy rock, came back through bodies erected on boulders and the fallen trees forming angled watchtowers thereon. When the last hill’s crest was breached, the slopes of the highland mounds turned inward, and the lines of red-coated bodies flowed both out and in from the nest that appeared as if from the earth itself.

Rocks that had stood for ages ringed the hollow in even spaces, the traffic of formites filtering between them. Scouts on earthen overhangs looked over the colony’s activities, while the babble of a stream was interrupted by the splashing of free and roaming phidites grazing at its banks. The loamy soil in the basin sunk pleasantly under her claws compared to the harsher, more compacted dirt of the hills beyond. Once, she would have been enthralled by the natural beauty, the rare find the Cktahnckleevhen-Colony had seized. The shielded soldier clacked his mandibles in distaste as they followed the escort down into the hollow.

“No wall. No ditches. Soil is soft, diggable. Not even a perimeter bivouac.”

“Spawnlings could conquer this place.” Passing by one of the stones, the old moss had been cut where two slashes left long trails in the rock. Recent damage. Recent famine. The scouts seemed alert above them as their guides entered one of the holes leading into the earth, but despite the loads of biomass the foragers carried, their trunks were thin and skeletons ill-fitting. Even here, as the ground closed around them and bioluminescent fungi guided them down the circular tunnels, there should have been the smell of fresh eggs and newborns. There was only the damp dirt, and the labored breathing of drones. Down ten layers, past the caverns where black eyes watched their passage and whispering shells sung in surprise. When the roof sloped up and curved, the tunnel emerging from maze to massive cavern, the air was hot with exhales from twice and more the number of soldiers Skthveraachk had brought. Naked but for their shells and scythes, amassed around a buzzing hive of activity. Attendants and menials, bringing mass to waiting maw and departing with fresh, wet, wriggling eggs which tumbled one after the other from the distended and massive birthing channel of the other Queen. Her body bloated and enlarged so that even her frontal limbs seemed larger than Skthveraachk’s own. Their procession halted, and rather than bid her soldiers back, it was Skthveraachk herself who advanced to the front of her prong. Folding her forelegs in greeting.

“I am Skthveraachk Queen Magistrate of Skthveraachk-Colony. May your children work the loam of your nest from first breath to final note.”

“I am Cktahnckleevhen Queen of Cktahnckleevhen-Colony. May your music here show the truth of your intentions within my lands.” A spear behind the black Queen rattled, a subtle shake at the equally subtle threat, but Skthveraachk hummed a calmness of surety. “My children sing of much strangeness. They tap pictures I struggle to see. They say you are strong, but cannot explain why.”

“Your sights are clear to me, Cktahnckleevhen Queen. I see your nest emptied. I see your children, missing. You called out for assistance. I see no others have answered.” Keeping herself reared, her scythes remained locked on her body in respect, in proper poise. But it was clear her notes had struck more than one chord, the way the wide line of soldiers trembled and vibrated their gasters. The Queen, herself, could do little more than lazily draw her antennae through the air, contractions of birth continuing all throughout her song.

“Long has Cktahnckleevhen-Colony maintained the pass to the alto. Through our lands come all the pilgrims for the Rememberings, the penitents called to the Triumvirate. Long has our voice been peace. Shameful, the silence that answers when we call at last for aid.”

“Long has Cktahnckleevhen-Colony held the pass, yes. Long too has Cktahnckleevhen-Colony demanded payment and tribute from all colonies seeking to travel its routes and paths.”

“Without Cktahnckleevhen-Colony, pass from the valleys would be overrun by migrating herds and things of teeth which live beneath the mountains. Cktahnckleevhen soldiers hold back the raiders. Cktahnckleevhen menials hunt and clear the paths.”

“Lesser colonies might believe cost asked has often been great. Lesser colonies might believe it better to allow Cktahnckleevhen-Colony to fall, to pay cost of lives in traveling the pass without its protection.” The bobbing anger in the other colony was visible, now, and Skthveraachk let her body lower by tenthlengths. “Lesser colonies. Not Skthveraachk-Colony. Skthveraachk-Colony answers Cktahnckleevhen Queen’s call for assistance.”

“Skthveraachk is remembered.” Her budding superiority faltered, the statement bringing an emerald hue of confusion to her music.

“Skthveraachk-Colony?”

“Colony. Queen. And queen. Cktahnckleevhen-Colony remembers all who have walked our dales and tunnels beneath. Remembers the first time Skthveraachk queenling journeyed for a Remembering.” The swollen Queen lurched herself forward, to better face the others. “Remembers when Skthveraachk Queen traveled with peace to seek aid against the Vhersckaahlhn. Remembers when the new Skthveraachk Queen went to find her, but returned alone. My music is of sympathy.” Curling her claws into the richest soil, Skthveraachk knit her mandibles into a vice of tightness, her vents locked closed. “Goal of Skthveraachk-Colony was a noble one. Did not force payment from Skthveraachk Queen when she traveled my paths that last time.”

“Perhaps you should have.” The rattling from her hairs was impolite. Challenging. She worked to soften them, to breathe evenly. “Perhaps Skthveraachk Queen would not have journeyed if usual tax was extracted, demanded, by Cktahnckleevhen-Colony.”

“It was Composer’s will. Purpose was noble. Cktahnckleevhen Queen, happy to assist. Sorrowful of Skthveraachk Queen’s failure. Pleased, that new Skthveraachk Queen lives now to save my own daughters and sons. Curious,” A wet smacking came as an egg slipped from thin menial’s legs, rolling across the floor as the drone chased it desperately. “What Skthveraachk-Colony asks in return.”

“Have mobilized three raiding groups. Six thousand drones, soldiers, warriors. Column will arrive at Cktahnckleevhen-Colony’s borders in two bars.”

“Sizeable force. Pride in its quick assembly. You arrive so long before soldiers?”

“Heed emissaries sent. I departed after. I arrived before. Skthveraachk-Colony walks only when necessary. Skthveraachk-Colony flies through the skies on wings of hardstone.” The other Queen started to clap her antennae at the perceived joke. Politely, Skthveraachk did the same. Both slowed when it was apparent the humor was anything but. “Cost will be determined by need and the rule of one-sixth. You have been raided. It is clear. Who is your foe? Is it Vhersckaahlhn?”

“Vhersckaahlhn-Colony adheres to our treaty and shared past. Their need for our paths, same as many other colonies. These are not them.” Activity at the base of the heaving Queen’s body. Able to smell the dead crests adorning Skthveraachk’s armor, the other drones kept a wide berth. So wide that, rather than offer it directly, there came a thumping as a crest was thrown rather than given. Tumbling into and across the dirt, coming to a rest before her legs. Pale white, dirtier than Ckhehnvraahll’s hues but almost as translucent. “They came from the sopra, from around mountains and towards desert isthmus. They came with claw and song. They came astride great beasts. They came in the air, flying. Like you.” Data. Information. Possibilities arranged, none of them good. “They used speed and guile to take my nest of the pass first. My Claws-On-Slopes. And from there, they raid my land with impunity.”

“Then if Claws-On-Slopes is returned, you will be secured?”

“I will be secured.” The crest in the dirt before her was unrecognizable, with grooves and twists that seemed more ornamentation than natural development. It stunk of sour meat. Of something unknown. “My soldiers struggle against their raids. Defend, against incursion from greedy neighbors. Your soldiers, to reclaim the pass. Your soldiers, to return my nest to me.”

“Then the cost will be freedom. Freedom, to travel the pass without tax or payment forevermore. Agreement, that Cktahnckleevhen-Colony will no longer demand tribute for its usage.”

“High cost! In excess of one-sixth!”

“You claim undervalue?”

“Tribute and trade of pilgrims the greatest additive of our biomass. Blood of our bodies, air in our lungs. Allow one colony free movement, what will others sing? What will they demand?”

“What will become of Cktahnckleevhen-Colony if Claws-On-Slopes is left with pale colony? One cycle of children already taken by raiders. Can survive two more? Three? What is value of Cktahnckleevhen-Colony’s continued song?” It was a heavy push, a harsh ask. It had to be, to keep the other Queen’s attention on the obvious threat rather than more subtle scythe. “I sing repetition. Freedom to travel the pass. That is Skthveraachk-Colony’s cost to return your nest to you.” Indignation fell from the heaving Queen as droplets of rain. A pang of worry struck chords within the onyx Queen’s core, a worry that her claws had reached too far and grasped too much. But at long last, as the wet popping of eggs filled the gap of the rubato, finale came in a rattled exhale of resignation.

“Skthveraachk-Colony’s demands are accepted. You will return my nest, and never again will you pay for travel through my lands. Until your raiding party arrives, will be welcomed in my places. Will eat and drink. Will hear memories of my emissaries, and will hear your songs of this new power in the sopra. These claims that the star-sent have come again.”

“Cktahnckleevhen-Colony is kind and generous with knowingly strained biomass reserves. I will sing freely of the newness of the world. Soon. Journey…” Was quick, easy, and with pains caused only by a zealous alien’s dedication to her craft. “Was of great distance, and many moments of suffering. Would walk beneath the open air, and enjoy the calm of this place.”

“Received and granted. Cktahnckleevhen worker will guide you back above ground. May your claws sink into the warmth of my soil.”

“And may your voice know respite from the corridors of negotiation.” The crest glinted in the dirt. One of her soldiers, its own weapons flickering under the green light of luminescence, gathered the shell up as they departed. Leaving the birthing Queen in her deep hollow of the earth while they ascended routes which felt markedly shorter this time to the surface. Likely going the direct route, Skthveraachk assumed, rather than the deliberate twists and turns done to obfuscate the escape if the compromise had not been found satisfactory. Fresh air with a hint of forthcoming rain greeted them in the world above, the looks of interest from menials and workers around them lessening now that they had been accepted, but never vanishing entirely. They headed for the brook, weapons laid down or passed to others as soldiers took turns drinking from the flow. Their hunched bodies providing a measure of cover as a menial withdrew her pad from its satchel of flesh, and the Queen’s claw delicately poked her Band into activity.

“Skthveraachk Queen, Palamedes.”

A clear signal. It was still possible beneath the ground, but far less effective, and one of the devices to amplify the signal would have been spotted.

“Seeking link to one of my Banded in Hollowcore.”

“Any will suffice.” Break and pause. Music traveling the length of entire territories and colonies in the filling of a lung. The irrepressible technology pinged confirmation only the Queen could hear, attendants combing her antennae as a third filled its stomach for her. “This is Skthveraachk Queen.”

“Skthveraachk thinker. What is Queen’s command?”

“Assemble war party. Eight thousand. Two-thirds menial-warriors, one third soldiers. Wait two measures. Dispatch to the alto. Follow previous party’s path.”

“To Cktahnckleevhen-Colony borders. Received. Purpose?”

“Reinforcements.” Their necessity, unsure and uncertain. She was hoping for the best, yes, but it was pointless to hope for the best and not prepare for the worst. If they were needed, they would be available. And there had been an unpleasant gleam to that crest, and in the other Queen’s eyes. “Inform Ckhehnvraahll-Colony. Skthveraachk Queen arrives in Cktahnckleevhen-Colony territory. Healthy. Safe. Jumped out of a wyvern. Enthralling experience. Will sing on return to Hollowcore.”

“Received.” There was nothing else necessary, nothing pressing. Only secondary and tertiary plans, wants, desires. The call to her nest was dead and severed, but as the attendant rose to pour a drink into her stomach, and the others filled their second stomachs in preparations for the journey, the tap-pad remained out. Tempting her. She resisted until her gut was half-full of pure liquid before dialing in the memorized number. Confused, briefly, when it was a female and not male humanite face which greeted her.

“Apologies are sung, Lieutenant.” Miroslava’s brow rose. Unspoken question. “Intent was for communication with the Captain Devries.”

“Alarm!” Cktahnckleevhen drones shot upright nearby, and scouts on the earthen rises of draped grass spun about, searching for the cause of the Queen’s distress. Cursing the stars, she lowered her core back down onto the soil, keeping the pad at least mostly hidden under the curve of bodies. “The Hathan-Captain is injured?”

“No. Yes. Appreciated.” There was no concern in the Lieutenant’s features, and so there should not be any in the Queen. And yet, there was. “At his convenience. It is non-critical query.”

“Lieutenant Miroslava!” Belted out, the pulling of her attendants on her antennae quickened in pace, the grooming no longer required, but enjoyed all the same. “Lieutenant Miroslava is, familiar, with the Captain.”

Her voice said nothing. Her face sung ‘and?’

“Close proximity breeds familiarity. Preferences, likes,” Start simple. Start with something every sentient appreciated, something she knew even aliens found pleasure in. “…Tastes?”

Annoyance was now overtaking curiosity. Annoyance, and that odd rose coloring whenever such subjects were broached.

“Biomass. Tastes in biomass.” The pad broadcast only the image of her head, and it was an ill-fitting image at that. She had to remind herself the other female would be unable to see the rapid tapping of her gaster on the ground, praise the Composer. “If you have spent cycles in the same floating nests, the same ships, interacting in the same mess halls and dining rooms, you must have identified certain flavors and types of biomass the Captain finds preferable, yes?”

It knew. Onto the defensive the Queen went, feigning an indignance in her jaws and the tilt of her head.

“Would never insult the Hathan-Captain with a gift. Was recently given,” She wracked her mind. “Information, of a critical nature, by the Captain. Etiquette requires I repay this with suitable offering. Is it not the same in the Sovereignty, Miroslava-Lieutenant?”

“No obligation! Pleasure!” Curse the stars AND the sky. The furry lines of the female’s face were up again, and the Queen rushed her music. “Simple exchange. Humanite biomass, of what sort does the Captain favor?”

“Panned-cakes?”

“The Captain enjoys a mixing of pancakes?”

Color had faded, smile, widened, on the alien’s featurse.

“Appreciation is sung out from throats uncountable for your service to our shared intent, Lieutenant. Sung with a fervor that is shamed only by my commitment to seeing the empire’s will done!” What was a pancake? Irrelevant. The Hathan desired them, so they would be procured. A slew of new tasks was added to the listing of jobs to be done and allocated when they were reconnected to the link of the colony, though the thinker already was internalizing the desire. Already voicing contention, as all thinkers must, as the Queen cut the communication to orbit.

“Should not presume task to be simple one.”

“I presume nothing. It is challenge. Will be overcome.”

“Humanites do not ingest mass as we do. Rawness is seen as anathema. Have no memory of seeing a humanite consume anything which was not lit on flame first, or taken from their tins and packages where they had already assuredly been ignited.”

“Formites have gained power over fire. Forge can be repurposed, or smaller kiln constructed. When returning to Hollowcore, humanite stores will be raided and this mixture located, and thinkers will be tasked with assessment of…” What had the messages from Dracan called all this? The rate of inventions from that nest of thinkers had slowed recently, yes, but the new terms and methods they were obtaining had a certain appeal all its own. “Its chemical composition, yes. It will be broken down, examined, and reconstituted, until the pancakes and the method of their construction are forever recorded in our memories!”

“Seems exorbitant use of thinkers and resources. Seems distraction from Queen’s current goals.”

“Thinker does not question Queen.” Finishing her drink, the pad once more safely stowed by complying menial-warriors, the sweet moisture of the air and in the soil brought a natural joy to Skthveraachk. It was a horrible nest, true, and would need much improvement once it joined in the Sovereignty, but at least for now, the unaugmented appeal of nature still touched her core. Still brought a lightness to her song, even as her mind was unable to avoid thinking how best to fit the humanite structures, walls, and roads into obstructing environment. “Task is of import to future of colony, and will be undertaken with the same fervor as all orders. Received?”

“Received, Queen.” There were other jobs which called to her. The Solovyova’s advance of the smaller vehicles, the approaching column. These pale invaders who could not have met the Sovereignty, yet possessed the power of flight only a clawful of colonies could boast. Skthveraachk was not distracted, had not forgotten why she was here. When her army arrived, they would march on the pass between the valley and the plains. They would scour its walls with blood and hardstone, break its floors open and feast on whatever crawled within. Then, and only then, would she fly back to Hollowcore. Only then would there be pancakes. Chittering in excitement, the bob of her gaster became a stationary dance, and under the roll of grey clouds from across the peaks to the alto, the probe of her warriors joined her swaying motions. Anticipating the victory they already saw in their minds.