“That couldn’t have been easy.” The navigator said softly.

“He was my friend.” Rene had nothing more to say. He handed the still-smoking musket back to Deschane, feeling soiled in way that he knew would never wash off.

Deschane nodded grimly.

“It had to be done. For the good of the Fleet.”

They hid and waited. The Amits scuttled into view and prodded the body with furtive movements. They conferred, tapping quick rhythms with their feet and making tactile signs with their vestigial arms. Then without any preamble, they took hold of Lethway’s feet and went off, dragging him after them.

It would have ended there had not at that moment an Amit come striding into the clearing, bearing aloft a curious standard. It was one of the staked carcasses of their brethren that lined the perimeter. The Amit carrying it was shaking it about in evident fury. It reared up high and waved it about, pieces of dried chitin falling away to scatter onto the ground.

From all around them, the Amits gathered, intrigued by the display. Rene watched as one by one, the Amit touched the lips of the corpse, passing the fingers of their hands over its ruined face with something approaching reverence. He was startled when he recognized this gesture: the nymph by the river had done the same with its nursemaid.

Shudders of thought carried down from the center of the gathering mass of warrior brood, emanating from the one at center, he that bore the object of their displeasure. He pointed to the distance, towards Mound 13, shaking with rage. The others began to flex their mandibles in eagerness.

“Ancestors preserve us,” breathed Deschane.

“The fear-death pheromones? Why aren’t they affected?”

“Command thought they were a separate race. But these were their elders. Their holy men, their priests and caretakers. And Mound 13 was their sacred place.”

The Amit reached a consensus. Their teeming ranks turned towards Mound 13, towards their position, and Rene already knew it would be no use running.

“Give me your pistol,” said Deschane.

“But how will I fight?”

“You won’t. Get back there and raise the alarm.”

“What about you, sir?”

But Deschane was already heading off.

“I’ve got a few tricks in mind. Might buy you some time. Now go, before I change my mind.”

Rene turned and ran. The last he saw of Deschane was him moving along the tree line, firing all that he could into the approaching mass, a man tossing pebbles into an oncoming wave.

Rene reached the main road and began signaling the towers for all he was worth. He made the hand sign for enemy contact, holding his arms up in a wide A. They saw his message, and bells began to toll from every corner of the mound.

He squeezed past the gate just before they barred it shut, mounting the palisades and taking his place next to Admiral Prota.

She watched, pale-faced, as the Amit host came on. They had torn up all the stakes and were waving them on high in defiance and hatred.

“So they do possess empathy. How unexpected,” said Admiral Prota faintly.

Terrified men rushed into position and the palisades bristled with armament. Cannons were wheeled into place and hurriedly prepared.

Just out of musket range the Amit paused, eyeing the towering defenses before them.

“What are they waiting for?” a trooper wondered aloud.

“Let them,” said his companion, barely able to keep his teeth from chattering, “It gives us time to load the cannon.”

An officer came forward and asked:

“Your orders, madame?”

“Fire when ready.” Her voice did not tremble, though Rene knew she felt the same fear.

With an earth shattering roar the artillery began tearing holes into their serried ranks. And with that, battle was joined. A great line of smoke erupted down the length of the palisade. Several were cut down by the fusillade, but many more surged on. Such was the impetus of their charge that they reached the base of the walls before another volley could be gotten off and began to scale the vertical surface with their grasping digits. Soon it became apparent that the first layer of defense would not hold. The defenders fixed bayonets or fired at point blank range as the enemy spilled over the tops of the walls like a swollen river bursting through a dam, slaying as they went. Men were cast down from the heights into the gleeful throng below and torn apart.

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The order to withdraw was given. Rene crammed into the pressure gate with the rest of the bloodied defenders, heard cries of despair from the ones left behind as the great door began to slide shut.

All about was chaos. Alarm bells rang incessantly. Men scrambled to put on their surface gear in anticipation of the inevitable breach. Admiral Prota was in the midst of it, directing their desperate, futile efforts.

“Brosio! Take your platoon to the southern tunnels and hold them there! They’ll be climbing down from the breach on the eastern side at any moment! Engineers, prep the charges! Make them pay for every inch!”

She caught sight of Rene as he stood bewildered.

“Ensign! Go up to the artillery on the second feeder tower and ask them why they’ve stopped firing!”

Rene’s instinct to serve snapped him back into reality. He saluted, then ran off before remembering that he was in a foreign mound and had not the slightest idea how to get there. He grabbed a passing trooper.

“The stairs!” he screamed into the man’s face, “Which way to the second feeder tower?”

“Damned if I know!” the trooper yelled back, before shoving him roughly aside and hurrying off down the corridor. Already he could hear gunfire echoing down the tunnels. The Amits had found the holes in the damaged eastern section and had pried their way inside.

Rene found a landing and dashed up the spiraling steps. He was panting heavily when he opened the door at the top and was greeted by a cold rush of air. He looked up and saw the great turbine fans turning slowly in their shafts, linked to an endless source of running water beneath. Far above him, at the tower’s peak the guns had fallen silent. He saw Amits crawling over the lip of the opening, like flies into the open mouth of a bottle.

“Get out of the way!”

A squadron of men bustled past him and formed up to surround the bottom of the tower. They fired upwards, and bodies began to rain down, bouncing off the sides or cut to pieces as they were caught by slanted blades of the fans. A bisected Amit, still alive, fell at his feet. It slashed at him with a stone dagger, and he leapt back and bayonetted it in the brainstem three times in quick succession. It shuddered and went stiff.

Reasoning that since the artillerymen were all undoubtedly dead, Rene considered his duty there as done. He went back down the stairs and stumbled into a hot wash of flame. Meat was burning, whether of friend or foe he could not tell. A bullet whistled past his nose and he ducked back into the stairway.

“Human! I’m human!” he cried out.

“Well then, get over here you idiot!” the shooter replied.

A makeshift barricade had been set up with old crates and furniture. He scrambled past the charred remains of dead Amits and clambered over to the other side.

They were throwing incendiaries down the hall, flammable oil in glass flasks, stoppered by cotton wicks. The air was thick with smoke. On the other end of the hallway amid the carnage and the dead the Amits cowered behind the corners and doorways, multifaceted eyes glinting with malice.

Rene joined the defense of the barricade. Ever so often one or two Amits rushed out and were driven back by the cocktails or roasted alive. With each assault however, the men of the Fleet were losing more ammunition. Already they were down to the last box of fire flasks. It would not last.

The Amits sensed this and became tense. Quietly the men fell back. An engineer set the fuse to a mining charge and scurried away. The Amits made their rush, clambered triumphantly over the top, and were buried in flame and rubble as the archway collapsed onto them. The men cheered and began preparing the next barricade.

This pattern was repeated several times. The Amits broke off stalactites and shaped them into crude picks, digging away the debris to make their assault anew. The men laid ambushes, hiding in the side corridors and shuttered rooms and rushing into the thick of them at the appointed signal. They repulsed each assault with unyielding tenacity, then with rousing hurrahs led their own counter-charges to break the enemy’s momentum.

Stone axe met bayonet in bloody conflict amidst the ruined halls of Mound 13. It was a brief, brutal war of annihilation, and the toll was bloody on both sides.

Gradually the humans were pushed back, collapsing tunnel entrances as they went, until at last the final barricade was put up, and they resigned themselves to their fate. In the vaunted star chamber what was left of the weary defenders propped blocks of stone against the entrance and wedged broken beams of wood at the direction of the engineers. They had salvaged a small twelve-pounder gun, which they wheeled into position at the firing hole, loaded with canister shot.

In the tired crowd of pale, hopeless faces, Rene spotted Admiral Prota, breathing hard in her bloodied sealant suit. An Amit mandible was embedded in her chest. With every breath she took came painful sucking noises.

“Well, ensign. This looks to be it,” she said as Rene knelt by her side.

“Aye, sir,” he replied, “We made them bleed for it, though.”

“It’s a shame. Ever since I came to this place, I’ve wondered what things would have been like if we’d known the truth, whatever that is. I doubt if it would have changed our relations with the Amit. We seem to have been destined for conflict with one another right from the start.”

“Were you ever close to finding it?”

She smiled sadly.

“Shreds and hints of the grander scheme of the ancestor-gods, but never definite answers. If there are any to be found, they were probably buried in the eastern section. But we never got around the exploring it,” Prota sat up, pain written on her face as blood came curdling up into her mouth. She spat to the side and continued:

“Ah, but maybe it’s for the best. Maybe your commander was right. Perhaps it’s better to forget the past. To forget the sins of our species. To forget…” Prota’s voice trailed away, and her head slumped forward. Rene did not attempt to rouse her. It was better that she wouldn’t be conscious for what came next. He clasped her hand in his own and waited for the end.