Eleven days prior

The ten stealth pods were on their final approach after drifting for two days from the small moon orbiting their target planet. They were ejected from a nullship that flashed out of null space below the moon’s southern pole, taking advantage of the strong magnetic fields in that region to mask the exit flash and avoid detection by the insectoid ships in orbit around the planet. The planet and the moon were currently transiting through a large meteor stream that intersected their orbit around the sun three times a year. The command-pod AI ran billions of calculations per second as it started creating an atmospheric entry plan for the ten pods that would coincide with the trajectories of the numerous particles of dust and debris that would be entering the atmosphere for the next three days.

Selecting an area with a projected high concentration of small-diameter meteors in the next hour, the AI created a maneuvering program for the pods that activated a series of compressed-gas positional thrusters to guide the pods over to the entry point. The AI confirmed the calculations and initiated the final entry program as the ten pods fired their rear gas thrusters one last time and accelerated towards the planet. They were joined by over a thousand pieces of cosmic debris as they entered the atmosphere and streaked across the sky, flaring brightly as they dropped towards the surface with the other meteors.

Kepler-186f system

2nd planet, Insectoid Builder World, 2174 A.D.

The special forces team had been on the planet for ten days without seeing any signs or indications of the presence of a queen on the planet. Lieutenant Diego could not believe the sheer number of drones he saw in the last nine days since they marched forty kilometers from their landing site towards an endlessly sprawling ground-based shipyard facility. Tens of millions of drones scurried about day and night as raw material was offloaded by massive aerial cargo ships that landed, were emptied, and flew off to reload in an endless procession. Diego found himself enthralled by their construction processes and the astonishing speed at which they built ships. In just the last five days, he saw ten insectoid cruisers go from a skeletal framework to fully completed and watched as they lifted off the surface and went into orbit. He was particularly impressed with how the tough ship hulls were created. A large percentage of the cargo being dropped off seemed to be organic in nature and was dumped into large tanks scattered throughout the shipyard.

A conveyor system comprising hundreds of thousands of worker drones connected all the tanks and would snake their way among the shipbuilding areas, carrying loads of the organic material on their backs and dumping it at the end of the lines. Other drones with smaller containers would fill them with material and bring them to waiting drones by the ships, dumping the contents on the ground in front of them, and then go back for more material. The drones in front of their piles would then start eating the organic material, swallowing it. After they ate the pile in front of them, they would scurry over to the ships and start regurgitating what they ate into their tarsal claws in small amounts and shaping them into round balls. They would then stack the balls in a row like bricklayers until they ran out of regurgitated material. They would then go back to eat more material, while teams of drones would take their place and wave a handheld apparatus that seemed to heat the balls, and they would melt, deforming from the treatment and filling in the gaps, turning into perfect hexagons.

Once a section was completed, a different team of drones would arrive with a large device and set it up. They would then turn the device on, and a god-awful screeching sound would emanate from the front of the device and be directed towards the still-soft sections of the hull. Within thirty seconds, that section of hull would start groaning, and the opaque, soft hexagons would turn jet black and harden into a tough, metal-like material. An Insectoid cruiser that was 360 meters long, 60 meters wide, and 120 meters tall would have its entire hull constructed and enclosed in forty-two hours.

An alert popped up on his HUD that it was time to insert another energy pack into the shrouding system that camouflaged his team and prevented detection. He keyed his throat mike and issued the command for everyone to replace their energy packs, and he turned to face the two civilian scientists to make sure that they received and understood the order. He was vehemently opposed to bringing them, but the admiral was adamant that they were to accompany the team, and Diego relented after some resistance. There was no way in hell he was willing to piss off the big man over a couple of civvies; there were better hills to die on.

As he watched them fumble about for their replacement packs, he smiled and had to admit that they were growing on him. During the two weeks it took them to get to the far side of Insectoid space, their wide-eyed enthusiasm and willingness to talk about their respective fields of study seemed to infect his team, and they became almost like little siblings to them. He chuckled to himself as he remembered how confused Dr. Ariti seemed to be by the fact that his team was able to process and retain the information she was telling them with ease. He was there when Dr. Masiello informed her that the eight-member team held over twenty PhD’s among them, and the look on her face was just the cutest thing he ever saw.

The sun was halfway down past the horizon, which meant they had just another hour of daylight before darkness would arrive. He signaled that it was time to pack up and move, and in a few minutes, they were headed back towards their base camp. He was grateful for the .7g gravity on the surface, as it made their daily hikes with equipment and the frequent relocations of their camp to avoid detection easier. It also gave his joints a welcome reprieve from their usual aches, a mercy he greatly appreciated. They arrived at base camp a half hour later, and everyone went about their assigned tasks and end-of-day routines before they all sat down around a red-light lantern in the middle of the camp to have dinner.

The combination of the eerie red light and the pitch blackness of their surroundings was something none of them could get used to, and it created an ominous atmosphere as they reluctantly opened their ration packs. The shrouding device could hide them effectively, but they enacted as many safeguards as they could against detection, such as only using red lights at night and eating foods that had been stripped of any scent and devoid of flavoring spices. The result of their security measures was that they felt like they were eating cardboard in hell. Diego had been sick before and felt like he couldn’t really taste his food when his nose was stuffed, but he always knew he was eating his mom’s chicken soup. As vague as the scent and taste of the soup might be, it was still there, and he could detect its essence. The food they were eating was on a totally different level, and he never realized just how important a component smell was to tasting food until he ate rations completely devoid of any scent or seasoning except for salt and potassium chloride.

As they choked down their dinner, he noticed Emily and Owen shooting furtive glances at each other, and they seemed agitated. He waited until they all finished eating and indicated that he wanted to talk to them alone. They walked 10 meters away from the red-light lamp and stopped right on the edge of the total blackness surrounding their camp. Emily and Owen seemed really distressed, and he knew something was seriously wrong. He didn’t have the time or the patience for their bullshit, and his internal alarms were going off wildly.

“What is going on with you two? Tell me, now.” He saw them cringe at his harsh manner, but he couldn’t afford to feel bad for them. Not on an enemy planet with almost thirty billion wasps that were five feet tall and armed with skull-cracking mandibles and twelve-inch serrated stingers coming out of their asses. They didn’t answer, and he stepped forward into their personal space and was just about to demand answers when Owen, in an uncharacteristic show of bravery, put himself in front of Emily as if to protect her.

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“Lieutenant, I would appreciate it if you would direct your questions to me. There is no reason for you to speak to Emily like this. She is rightfully terrified, and I have spent the last ten days trying not to shit my fucking pants in front of all of you, so do me a favor and get the fuck out of our faces.”

Diego couldn’t believe the balls on this puke, and he almost gave in to his desire to punch the defiant bastard in the face before he realized how ridiculous it was. Here he was, squaring off with an entomologist who was telling him to fuck off, and the absurdity of it all and the pressures of the mission came crashing into him. He took a few steps back, turning around and breathing deeply, trying to calm himself. Owen, now in the throes of an uncontrolled adrenaline crash, waited a few seconds and then stepped next to him and put out a very shaky fist bump, offering an unsaid apology with his eyes. Diego bumped it, and he turned back to face Emily. “I apologize for the way I spoke to you; I am not used to having civilians on my missions. I hope we can reset and put this behind us.”

Emily nodded, and Owen walked back over and stood next to her. Emily looked at Owen and nodded, and Owen pulled out a data pad, set it on the floor, and pressed a button. A holographic map floated above it, and he pinched the display with his fingers and zoomed into the area where they were currently located. “Lieutenant, we are of the opinion that we are not going to locate a queen on the surface.” He expanded the map back out and swiped it sideways to an area over a hundred kilometers to the east. He zoomed back in and pressed an icon on the map that added a subterranean scan, and a massive underground structure popped into view, looking like an upside-down pinecone, with the narrow top of the structure expanding in size as it went deeper. Diego leaned forward to look at the numbers on the side of the structure and whistled softly to himself as the estimated dimensions were displayed. The structure was thirty-six kilometers deep and had a radius of twelve kilometers at its widest. It was a massive underground Hive, and there was a flashing question mark in the center of the Hive where there was a large chamber located. It seemed to be the nexus of the Hive, which was connected to the rest of the structure by six bridges or tunnels. Owen pointed towards the question mark icon. “This has to be the queen chamber, and if there is a queen currently on the planet, that is where she will be.”

Diego stared at the map, thinking about how to get her out of there. He keyed his throat mike and called for Sgt. Singh to join them at their location. A few moments later, he arrived, and Diego quickly brought him up to speed. Singh was the team’s engineer sergeant, and he thoughtfully stroked his beard as he looked at the display. “Obviously, we cannot infiltrate the Hive to root the bitch out. I have enough explosives and demo bots to severely damage some of the cruisers under construction; maybe that will get the queen to leave the Hive, if she is even in there.” He finished speaking, and Diego looked at the doctors to gauge their reaction to what he said. Emily spoke first. “I would not do that. We don’t know what their response to that will be. They might have soldier drones. We haven’t seen any here or found any evidence of them from the wreckage in the Eleani system, but that does not mean that they do not have a soldier or guard caste protecting their hives.”

Owen nodded in agreement and added, “We need to find a way to know for sure if there even is a queen here before alerting them to our presence. Who’s to say that the queens wouldn’t respond to such an attack by retreating to their primary world and staying there, depriving us of a chance to grab a queen ever again? I might have an idea, and the sergeant’s expertise and input would be welcomed.” Diego nodded, and both he and Singh took a knee as Owen played around with the map, highlighting an area of the shipyard almost fifty kilometers from their position.

He asked his AI assistant to access the geological and topographical scans that were taken from orbit before they landed on the planet and highlighted a five-square-kilometer section of crust under the outer edge of the shipyard. “The crust is extremely thin here, and there is a massive chasm underneath this area from the worker drones pumping out the aquifer for water. I think a series of properly placed sub-surface explosives will cause the thin roof of the chasm to weaken enough to collapse a small area, and the weight of this section of the shipyard will add further stress to the undamaged crust and collapse the entire area, causing all the ships and workers to fall into the chasm. It would seem to be a natural occurrence, and we can avoid having to give away our presence on the planet. I bet that will get the queen up here if she is in the Hive.” Owen then added markers indicating where he thought the explosives should go and their yields, and then looked at Singh, waiting for his response.

Singh quickly played around with the map, ran his own calculations on the placement and explosive yields, and looked at Owen with a growing respect in his eyes as his AI assistant verified the numbers. “Not bad, Doc; this is pretty good for a bug guy! Are you a geologist too?” Owen smiled widely at the praise from Singh and answered with obvious pride in his voice. “Actually, I did two six-month tours as an ore prospector in the Fomalhaut asteroid belts before my then-girlfriend threatened to break up with me. I was pretty good at figuring out the proper explosive placement to break up the asteroids while maintaining the integrity of the mineral deposits and cores. It was a fun job, and the money I made paid for my parents retirement home and my college.” Singh nodded approvingly and stood up, walking over to Owen and warmly shaking his hand. “It is always nice to make the acquaintance of an ore prospector; it’s a dangerous job and requires a lot of technical skill.”

Diego rolled his eyes and studied the map while the two of them continued talking about blowing crap up and zoned out the lovefest. Emily came over and sat down next to him. “I agree with Owen. If the queen is in the Hive, she would have to come out and oversee the worker drone response to the collapse. Do you think it is a good plan?” Diego grunted in response as he continued to think about the feasibility of the plan and the possible outcomes. He turned to her and nodded. “I do think it is a solid plan, and even if there is no queen here, then at least we can do some damage to their shipbuilding efforts for a short period of time. There’s what—almost two hundred cruisers in that area? At least we can strike a blow against them if we fail in our objective to capture a queen. Wiping out two hundred cruisers and a few million drones is a nice consolation prize, and we can exfil this planet with pride in that accomplishment.” Emily smiled at him and said, “It would be nice to get off the planet and go back home. I know I volunteered to come here for the mission, but I am tired of being scared all the time; it is exhausting.”

Diego reached out and lightly patted her on the shoulder. “You two are doing a fine damn job so far. I have to admit that the both of you have been far less trouble than I was expecting to have to deal with on this mission.” Emily smiled widely. “Thank you for that, lieutenant; that means a great deal to me.” Diego smiled in return and stood up, offering his hand to assist Emily. They walked back over to Singh and Owen, who were geeking out over the demo bot specs that Singh had pulled up on his wrist pad. “If you two lovebirds are about done, let’s head back over and quickly outline our preliminary plan to the rest of the team. We will work out the details, solidify a proper plan in the morning, and go from there.”

They all started walking back towards the red-light lamp, and Diego slowed his pace as he walked behind them, listening along as Owen was telling Emily and Singh about a time when he spent two days evading an ore pirate ship in a cat-and-mouse chase. His copilot was killed in the initial attack, and he managed to cripple their ship with mining charges when he laid a trap and led them into it. “Not bad for a puke.” He thought to himself as his previous estimation of the scientist rose considerably as Owen described how his damaged ship was almost out of air, so in desperation, he boarded the drifting ore pirate ship and single-handedly took the four survivors prisoners.

A little while later, after everyone had gone into their tents to sleep, Diego was just about to drift off when he heard a faint rustling sound outside his tent and sat upright, alarmed. The sentry bots and the perimeter sensor system did not activate the silent buzz alarm on his wrist pad, and he tapped it, accessing the video feed from the overhead sentry drone that was floating above their camp. From this bird's-eye view, he saw Emily finish tiptoeing across the camp and stop outside Owen’s tent. She looked furtively around the camp before pressing the entry seam control and quickly slipping into his tent before the seam closed back up behind her. He pressed a series of commands, and a few moments later, a backup shroud drone silently assumed position over the tent and activated, making it disappear from the visual feed. He broke the connection to the overhead sentry drone and laid back down, feeling a genuine smile form on his face. He closed his eyes and thought his last thought before sleep overcame him.

“Not bad at all, Owen.”