The giant locust was gliding along a few hundred feet above the ground. After about a mile, it slowly lost altitude, until it landed in the swarm of locusts. Ronin couldn’t hear anything inside the cockpit or from this distance, but he could imagine the crunch of carapace as the huge locust crushed several dozen of its followers before it leapt into the air again. The survivors began busily harvesting their fellows, while the school bus sized bug spread its wings again.
“It’s a queen,” Ronin said with a grimace.
“That’s bad, isn’t it?” Sam asked in a quavering voice.
“Yes and no,” Ronin said with a shake of his head. “It means the invasion has gone on long enough for queens to spawn… but the fact this one is still mobile, means we caught it early enough.”
“Whatever you say boss,” Sam said, clearly not understanding but too focused on flying to pry.
Ronin thought back over everything he knew about the locusts. Their pod would impact the ground, then the drones would start to hatch. They’d eat their pod to gain strength and start devouring everything biological they could find. This was the best time to stop an invasion, when the drones had limited numbers and couldn’t reproduce. Then one in every so many thousand would mutate into a queen, which could lay eggs of its own. That was where they were now. each queen could lay as many eggs as it had biological matter to fuel their creation.
This was a tricky stage because their numbers would start blowing out of all control. Until the food started running out. Then the queens would go to war with each other, until only one was left. When that happened, they would hunker down, losing their mobility, but gaining the ability to produce new types of drones. If the invasion reached that point it was all but impossible to route them out.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said instead of a long explanation. “All we have to do is kill all the big bugs and keep doing it whenever new ones mutate. That will stop them multiplying, then it’ll just be a war of attrition.” They could do this, it wouldn’t be quick, there were hundreds of thousands of them down there, but they could do it.
“Got it,” Sam said. “So, want me to take that big sucker out then boss?” she asked, finger already on the trigger. Ronin looked at the queen for a long second, the elves were shooting arrow after arrow at her, but they all bounced harmlessly off her thick carapace.
“Do it,” he said at last. “But start slow, I want to see how much punishment she can take before she goes down.”
“Yes sir,” Sam said a feral grin spreading across her face as she let off a three second burst from her machine guns. The grin widened when the flying queen was blown out of the sky from the impact and crashed down into the swarm below, flattening another dozen locusts.
The grin disappeared the next moment, when the queen stood back up and launched herself at the ship. The bullets impact had knocked her off course, but they hadn’t had enough power to penetrate her thickly armored exoskeleton.
“Dodge.” He yelled as the queen lunged straight at the ship. Sam was already doing just that, but the queen was rapidly getting closer, and he was panicking.
“Working on it sir,” Sam said as she banked the craft hard to the side, firing into the approaching queen as she went. The rounds pinged off her armor as they hit, scoring the surface but still not penetrating.
“Get too the gun ports,” he shouted into the ship’s coms. “Fire at will… whatever it takes, just kill that queen.” The drop ship had twenty small hatches lining the walls, ten on each side. They were designed for a Kaldarr to lay prone on the deck and fire down on targets below. Ronin didn’t really have much hope in handheld rifles breaking her defenses when the machine gun couldn’t, but every little bit helped.
Gunfire cracked out from the troop compartment as his people responded to the orders. In the meantime, Sam had slewed around behind the queen locust, and was firing into her back. Her rounds weren’t having any better effect back here, except to force her back towards the ground faster. Ronin’s eyes darted around, looking frantically for some solution. The queen had landed with a crunch, smashing even more of her drones. Yet only a second passed before she righted herself and leapt right back towards flight one.
“Shoot her wings.” He finally said, noting that her wings were covered in thick armor when on the ground, but were exposed while she was in flight. Maybe they could at least ground her, if not take her out entirely.
With a grunt of acknowledgement, Sam swiveled her guns around and opened fire on the rapidly beating wings. she emptied half a drum into the side of the queen before she connected with the base of her left wing. Like Ronin had hoped, the wing had been concealed with armor for its protection. The dozens of rounds smashing into the delicate membrane shattered it, and the whole thing flew off and landed in the swarm. Where it was promptly devoured.
Losing control of her flight, the queen did a corkscrew in midair. She was trying desperately to stay aloft with only one set of wings beating and it had put her into an out-of-control spin. She landed with a lot more momentum this time and left a trail of broken locust bodies behind her as she struggled to her feet again. Without hesitation, she flung herself right back into the air, ten-foot-long talons flailing towards the ship.
Unfortunately for the queen, her wing was still missing. When her leap ended and she extended her wings, she ended up in a corkscrew dive again. Smashing down into another cluster of drones.
“Stop firing.” Ronin said, resting a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Just fly around for a while. Keep her attention on us. she’s killing more of her own kind right now than we could with the same number of bullets… I’m going out back for a while. Keep up the good work.” Squeezing her shoulder gently, he moved out back.
Nearly everyone in the troop compartment had their front half hanging out a firing port. Lines clipped to their gear kept them from falling out as they fired down on the queen as quickly as they could reload. Their fire was ineffective, but they kept at it anyway, hoping to get lucky.
“Cease fire,” Ronin called out. Having to shout the words twice more before everyone heard him over the sounds of gunfire and the roar of the engines. “We are going to kite the queen around for a while. Let her kill her own drones for a bit while we come up with a plan.” Motioning to his team, Ronin turned to the rest of his people. “Karr, could your guys swap out the drums with fresh ones please? Do them one at a time so we aren’t down in case we need to fire. Then if all of you would work together to reload the spent drums. Thank you.” Having finished his instructions, Ronin led his personal team into the cargo area where they could talk in private.
“Hold on,” the angry words stopped Ronin as he was exiting the troop compartment. “You aren’t going anywhere without me.” Ronin groaned internally at the words. He’d completely forgotten about the moon elves who’d boarded his ship at the last second. Turning around he wasn’t surprised to see that it was Elyria who had spoken out.
“Listen,” he said raising his hand in placation. “I don’t know what you think is going on here, but I’
m just going to have a private word with my people. You and your friends can wait here and…”
“You don’t understand,” one of the other two elves said imploringly. “She swore an oath unto her last day, and you accepted it. You must take her into your council. Should you prove true of purpose, Elyria will serve you faithfully for life, should you prove however to be a wicked man. She will strike you down to prevent your wickedness from spreading.”
“And you are?” Ronin asked the elven woman when she had finished speaking. He didn’t really care what her name was under these circumstances, but he needed to buy time to think.
“My name is Surrallathil, and this is my husband Durrallathil.” She said, introducing them both. “I’m Elyriaaril’s…” A hiss of pain from Elyria silenced her. She looked at her sister with sympathy before she started talking again. “Sorry, I mean, I’m Elyria’s sister.”
Frowning at the strangeness of elven naming conventions, Ronin made to speak, when the whole ship jostled to the side. A few of the soldiers lost their footing, but everyone else managed to catch themselves.
“Sorry boss,” Sam’s voice echoed in his helmet. “She got a little too close for comfort that time. she was losing interest in us, so I swooped down to get her attention. But I think she was baiting me… I’ll be more careful going forward.”
“Thanks Sam,” he replied over his coms before turning his attention back to the elves. “Whatever, we can hash this out later but right now we have a ticked off queen locust to deal with. Let’s go guys, Elyria can come, let’s just get this over with.” Without another word he turned his back on them and moved into the cargo compartment. His team followed him in, with Elyria bringing up the rear. Her face had lost its angry expression as soon as he caved, and she was once again watching impassively from the side.
“Ok,” Ronin said, jumping up to sit on a crate. “We emptied a full drum into that thing but couldn’t penetrate its armor. We ended up focusing on the wings, thinking they wouldn’t be as protected. It worked, but we still can’t bring it down. any thoughts?” what followed was fifteen minutes of them bouncing ideas off one another. Elyria remained silent throughout, glaring holes into K3 was her only contribution.
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“What the heck,” Guts said after a while. “We could shoot it with a rocket, but those are too limited to be a long-term solution. We’d have to empty the ship of rounds to kill it with the machine guns, K3 could probably kill it with his hammer, but he’d be swarmed before he got close enough to try. Seems like the only way to fight a queen would be with a queen…” he trailed off as they all looked at each other, an idea blossoming in their minds at once.
“The parasite,” K3, Owl five and Guts said in unison. Ronin couldn’t join in since he was grinning too broadly to speak.
“Think it will work?” Guts asked, turning to him. “If we had one of those monsters under your command, we could wage war on the locusts from the inside.”
“I think it will,” Ronin said. “The tricky part will be getting the parasite into the queen’s head. We might have too…”
“Hold on,” Elyria cut in with a snort. “What is this ‘parasite’ you’re all talking about. And how could it help?” She’d crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at Ronin.
“It’s called a drone parasite.” Ronin said, deciding it was easier to humor her than argue. “It’s a machine that burrows into the hosts brain and makes them willingly loyal to the person who has the mother parasite. If we can get the parasite into the queen, then we can use her to fight her own kind. The drones she produces will be under our control as well, since they will follow her orders, and she will follow mine.”
“I see,” Elyria said, stiffening in place for a full second. Without warning, she exploded into action, rushing Ronin like a streak of blue lightning. She’d vaulted onto the crate before anyone could stop her and had shoved a small knife between the plates of Ronin’s armor before Owl five, the first to reach her, could place a knife to her throat. Everyone was shouting and brandishing their weapons at the deranged woman.
“Wait,” Ronin shouted before Owl five could pull the knife across the elf’s neck. At the commotion, the door into the troop transport opened and the other moon elves came darting in. they were followed a heartbeat later by Hunter and Soft step, crossbows loaded and leveled at their backs.
“Elyria,” Surrallathil shouted when she saw the situation. “What’s going on?”
“Slavers,” she said driving the knife deeper into Ronin’s side. “This… White flame tyrant… wants to… enslave the queen below to do his bidding.” She struggled to get the words out, because the harder she pushed the knife, the harder Owl five pulled on hers. Blood was flowing freely down the elf’s neck, but she ignored it.
“Brie… I asked you to… Wait.” Ronin said, having to struggle around the pain himself. The knife didn’t look like much, but it was unbelievably sharp. She’d managed to slip it between his plates near his armpit, and it had even punctured his nanite under armor. “Elyria… if you would… just listen, I think…”
“Shut up, scum.” She said, driving the knife to the hilt. Thankfully it was a short blade, or it might have punctured his heart. As it was, he would likely bleed to death if it wasn’t for his nanites. Thankfully, Owl five had listened and loosened her grip slightly, otherwise Elyria would have been dead with that move. Ronin saw the conflict raging in her face, even now. She wanted to finish the elf off but was barely restraining herself.
“Please, sister” Surrallathil tried once again, noticing the goblins holding weapons on them, she didn’t advance. “Let him explain, what if this is a misunderstanding?”
“How can it be?” Elyria asked, a mad gleam in her eyes. “He admitted it, he’s a slaver. He intends to enslave the queen just like those filthy Kaldarr tried to do to us when they…” she bit back a sob at the end, unable to get out what they’d done.
“Listen lady,” Guts said jumping up next to Ronin and holding his hands out in a ‘calm down’ gesture. “I’ve got one of those parasites in my head. So does K1, K2 and K3 over there.” He said gesturing toward the Kaldarr, the latter of which looked ready to tear the elf apart with his bare hands.
“So?” she demanded fiercely, “all that means is I can’t trust anything you say. You should thank me, once I kill this monster you will be free from his control.”
“Well, I haven’t been implanted with anything.” Hunter said, her crossbow now pointed between Elyria’s eyes, her aim so steady that the bolt didn’t so much as tremble. “Lord Ronin Freed us from starvation and the fog that obscured our thoughts. He’s worked tirelessly to free hundreds of our kind from slavery in the underground. Given us food, shelter, clothes, and a trade. So, believe what you will; but I swear to you, release my lord now or die.” Her words were echoed with a chorus of ‘yea’ and ‘release lord Ronin’ there was even a ‘release the white flame’ thrown in, from every goblin and even the humans present.
Something in her words or tone caught Elyria’s attention and she looked up at her. There was a trace of hesitancy in her eyes, and Ronin thought she might give in. at that moment, the ship shuddered again, throwing the elf off balance. Taking the opportunity, Ronin punched her as hard as he could. She flew across the cargo compartment, landing in a crumpled heap on the floor. Pieces of her broken breastplate littering the floor between them.
“Don’t kill her,” Ronin shouted as his people all moved as one. “There’s something wrong with her… mind, augh… just restrain her and take away her weapons. We’ll work this out after we capture that queen. Understood?” his sentence was punctuated by a grunt of pain as he pulled the dagger out of his side, but by the end he was already feeling better. The last word came out as a command, and his people responded in unison with a ‘yes sir.’ All except owl five that is, she still looked ready to kill. Looking at her imploringly, Ronin rose to his feet and walked over to the still standing elves. They were staring at him in shock.
“I’m asking you to please bear with me until this situation is settled.” He said, handing Elyria’s sister her bloody dagger. He had to fight to keep his expression under control while he talked. The nanites were working overtime to heal the puncture, but he still felt the pain from the stab. “Because, misguided as she might be, your sister was correct about one thing. I am going to enslave that queen and make her fight her sisters for me… that is unless you can think of a better method to fight this swarm without losing most of our people?”
She stared into his eyes for a long time, ignoring the ship as it shuddered and swayed around her. Finally, she slowly reached out her hand and accepted the dagger.
“I am willing to trust you, White flame… For now, at least.” She added with a furrowed brow, as she watched Hunter’s scout team placing a collar around Elyria’s neck. “Be warned however, if you think to enslave my sister…”
“Peace, elf.” Ronin said, cutting her threat off mid word. “It’s just to make sure she doesn't attack anyone else until the queen has been handled. Now, go sit in the troop compartment with her.” He didn’t even say please, which went a long way to show everyone how upset he was at the situation. He waited until the elves were gone, before turning to his people once again.
“K1, K2 and K3,” he called his Kaldarr warriors over. “Get the winch system we used for the crate set back up, the four of us are going out on the line. Owl five, you will be coming too. You’re the most agile of us so it will be your job to get the parasite implanted once we get her tied up. Sam,” he continued talking to her headset as well as the people in the cargo area. “We are gunna tie her up, you will have to get us airborne as soon as we have her secured. Everyone else, man the gun ports. Keep the swarm off us while we work.”
“But…” Owl five started to say but was cut off after the first word.
“No buts, from anyone. I’ve had enough arguing for one day. Just get on the line and get me that queen… here…” he added, holding the parasite out to her. “It’s my last one, so don’t drop it.” He added with a grin, to take the sting out of his words. “Let’s move people.” Dealing with the elves had drained all the compassion out of him for the day. His side hurt, and although it wasn’t a fatal wound, he still wasn’t happy about it. He was tired of being questioned, and tired of talking everything over before they did anything. It was time to act, it was time to bag himself a queen.
Strapping himself in a harness with the help of Guts and Hunter, Ronin grabbed the large clip that had held one corner of the crate up. once he was ready, he looked over to his Kaldarrian guards and Owl five. Seeing that K3 and the others were also holding their clips and that Owl five had the parasite safely in hand, Ronin didn’t waste any more time. slapping on his helmet, he turned towards the small hatch, kicked it open and leapt from the ship.
He hung below the ship at its front right corner, a moment later K3 dropped from the left front. K2 and K1 dropped down from the rear of the ship shortly after. They’d hung the cargo crate below the ship on four spools of cable, driven by an electric winch. Trying to ignore the swaying motion of his line, and the swarm of locusts beneath him, Ronin hit the button on his harness to lower the cable.
“Let’s do this,” he screamed into his helmet. He hadn’t turned on any of the channels so no one heard him, but it still helped to pump him up. until he looked down and saw the massive queen rocketing upwards. She wasn’t quite the size of the drop ship, but she wasn’t too much smaller either. she reached just below the ship and took a swing with her massive swordlike talons.
Ronin had frozen with fear at the sight of her so close, but K3 wasn’t. with a mighty roar that Ronin could even hear over the engines, he smashed his hammer into the wrist that supported that massive talon. The small surface area of the hammer, compared to the queen’s wrist, acted like a punch, and crashed straight into the carapace with a sickening crunch. The queen let out a roar, which had no business coming from an insect, and jerked away. Pulling the hammer out of his hands as she went. She came within inches of Ronin before she opened her wing and tried to fly closer, but he was still frozen and didn’t react before she went spiraling away to slam into the ground.
“Nice move boss,” Owl five said into Ronin’s helmet. He ground his teeth together at the jab but didn’t respond. She had a point, he had frozen and lost a great opportunity. It wouldn’t be the only one however, because the queen was already getting up and readying herself for another jump. The ship was hovering some two hundred feet off the ground. That put them inside the queen’s effective jump range, but outside the range of the drones. They couldn’t quite make it the whole one hundred feet to the top of kingdom’s wall, so they were safe from their interference at least.
Thankful that he didn’t have to deal with the drones, Ronin readied the large carabiner in both hands. Watching the queen crouch down, he waited for her to jump. Only she didn’t jump. Frowning, Ronin watched her crouching there in confusion. Until the drones started swarming onto her body.
“Get ready,” he yelled on open coms. “She’s bringing company this time.” when the queen finally leapt into the air, she was accompanied by a dozen drones all clinging to her exoskeleton. The added weigh kept her from reaching as high as before, but at the height of her leap the drones leapt off her and headed right for the ship.
The drones easily cleared the forty feet or so to the ship, some smashing into the sides or bottom but a few landing on top of the craft. His people were firing from the gun ports as fast as they could, clearing the sides of drones. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything they could do about the ones on the roof. Before Ronin had a chance to panic, however, the elves swooped in on their sparrows. Showering the locust drones with arrows, all those who’d managed to avoid the gunfire fell away to their bows.
Breathing out a sigh of relief, Ronin turned his attention back to the queen. She didn’t open her wings this time, falling straight back down and landing on her feet. that proved to Ronin that she could learn, even if it had taken her nearly twenty minutes to figure it out. he cursed under his breath, they had to snare her before she figured out what they were trying to do. He watched as she crouched down, gathering another dozen drones.
“Drop another twenty feet,” Ronin called out to Sam. The extra weight from the drones meant that she couldn’t jump as high. He planned to be inside her range on this jump. He stared into her giant multifaceted eyes as she prepared for her leap and the ship dropped as he ordered.
When the queen jumped, she flew right passed him towards the ship and Ronin knew she’d baited them again.