Hive Mother Guardian Swarm
Transiting Null space
.7 light cycles from Queen World of the Insectoid Empire
The command drone sent urgent thoughts to the workers, feeling them feeding off her anxiety and increasing their efficiency of action as they readied the weapons.
She had failed in her duty to her Hive Mother by not properly responding to the disappearance of the animal swarm from the border, and she should have followed her instincts and used the focuser to ask the Hive Mother for instructions immediately after they failed to track the animal swarm’s course in null space.
She was afraid to use the focuser, as were all other command drones. Queens and Hive Mothers were prone to lashing out at those who disturbed them, sometimes even culling unfortunate sisters who had the misfortune of intruding on those who ruled them despite explicit orders to do so.
She had seen such an instance once herself; a commander drone was ordered to inform the old Hive Mother of any changes to the animal swarm dispositions in the new territories they had seized.
Her sister used a focuser to contact the Hive Mother when a large animal swarm was approaching a dead animal world they had built a Hive on. She was in the brood chamber when it happened, and the increasingly erratic Hive Mother ordered a worker drone in the command chamber of the Hive ship to cull the command drone for daring to disturb her.
Less than a solar minute later, another command drone from a different Hive ship used a focuser to inform the Hive Mother of an imminent animal invasion of another dead animal world. The Hive Mother did not kill this sister like she just did to the other one and commended her instead.
It made no sense to her why one sister died and another lived, and she was secretly grateful when the Hive Mother ordered her to go to a Hive ship in orbit. She had to force herself to hide her relief as she exited the brood chamber and scurried out of the Hive as fast as she could to get away.
There was a marked change after the new Hive Mother took over, and far fewer sisters and worker drones had been culled since, but the trauma and fear still pervaded the thoughts and actions of all the command drones despite the gentler nature of the current Hive Mother.
Her fear of possible reprisal is why she did not inform the Hive Mother when the animal swarm flashed into null space, and she remained where she was with the Guardian swarm in case it was an animal trick.
She only realized her grave error when a cruiser flashed out two solar hours after the animals had left and ordered her to return to the Queen World to defend Hive Mother from traitors trying to take over the empire.
Even though Hive Mother would kill her for such an error, she would still do her duty and fight for her. She was a loyal command drone, and if she survived the battle, she would accept being culled by the Hive Mother for such a failure. It was the way of the Hives.
Other cruisers had been sent by the Hive Mother to gather loyal ships, and her swarm merged with the others during the journey back to the Queen World, increasing their strength to three hundred and eighty-seven ships.
Ninety-two solar seconds later, her Hive ship flashed out 5.2 units from the primary with sixteen Hive ships and sixty-four cruisers that had the new modified engines capable of exiting null space within the inner system.
The rest of the unmodified swarm flashed out at the standard distance of 9.3 units and would have to make the journey from the outer system to the Queen World, so she would not be able to factor them into her combat planning for many hours.
As the many antennae of the Hive ship searched the space around them for information, she sent her mind out to the Hive Mother, hoping she was not too late. There was no answer at first, and one of the drones activated the viewer to show her what they could see in the immediate vicinity of the Hive ship.
There were massive fields of organic hull debris stretching across many planetary diameters, and she ordered the drone to enhance the images of the swarm of ships slowly drifting towards the Queen World. Shock crippled her momentarily as she realized it was the same animal swarm that had been at the border and left many solar hours ago.
She had failed Hive Mother, and now the animals were here to destroy the Queen World. Her shock turned to fury, and she ordered all ships with her to burn their engines at emergency thrust to intercept them.
She calculated the animal swarm distance and how long it would take for her ships to reach them, and she would not be able to block them in time. It would take her a hundred and forty-two solar minutes to reach them, and the animals would be within their known maximum weapons range of the surface in ninety-four solar minutes.
She was just about to order all the drive reactors to be pushed to over half of their rated maximum to reduce the intercept time when the Hive Mother suddenly entered her mind, stunning her with the urgency of the thoughts as she pressed into her mind.
There was a flash of anger from the Hive Mother as she penetrated deeper into her mind, and she felt the unique sensation of the Hive Mother muting all other distractions as she cut her off from the Hive mind, and it was just the two of them sharing thoughts.
Still cut off from the Hive mind, she felt the anger fade, only to be replaced with feelings of gratitude. As the Hive mother gently caressed her mind, she felt something from her she had never felt from a queen or the old Hive mother. It was love and true appreciation, and her essence quivered, basking in the warm glow as it enveloped her.
It was like the warmth of many suns, only it was not on her exoskeleton, but on her very essence itself. Her legs buckled, and she barely managed to grab onto the nearby support column to keep from collapsing on the deck as her entire being wept with joy.
The Hive Mother gently left her mind, and her connection to the Hive restored, all the billions of faint whispers of thoughts and feelings rushing back in to fill the void. Still holding onto the column as her legs trembled, she immediately sent thought commands to her sisters on the other ships. She will do as her Hive mother commanded.
RSS Warspite
Holding position below southern pole of gas giant
“Sir, spy drones have just sent an alert! Two groups of Insectoid ships flashed in seven seconds ago. The first group of 16 Hive ships and 134 cruisers are located 436 million kilometers from the sun.
The second group of 23 Hive ships and 214 cruisers is located 845 million kilometers from the sun. The larger group is only 8 million kilometers from us; the light from our ship will be reaching them in eighteen seconds from now!”
Turning to face the anxious tactical officer who was practically yelling by the time she finished updating him, James gestured for her to bring it down a notch, causing her face to turn beet red from embarrassment before she spoke again in a strained voice.
“Sorry, Captain. There are no signs of hostile intent yet from either of the groups. The one nearest to 3rd Fleet has not moved towards them yet, and the larger group will see us in... five seconds.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant Christakos. Let’s see how they respond to our presence before we do anything rash. Bandit told me reinforcements would be coming to defend the Hive Mother, so let’s wait and see if they are friend or foe.
Label them on the holo screen in yellow icons; the inner system formation is Rogue 1, and the formation near us is Rogue 2. Relocate a spy drone to shadow each one, lieutenant.”
“Aye, Sir! Our light has reached Rogue 2, and they are not showing any signs of reorienting towards us yet.”
Nodding his head in response to the tactical officer’s confirmation of the Warspite having been detected, he turned back to face the holo screen, his mind racing furiously as he looked to see where all the scattered forces were currently located.
The three Hive ships and twenty-four cruisers that were part of the surviving rebel forces that had fled from the Warspite were still thrusting hard to reach their minimum flash-out distance.
He had planned to intercept and destroy them, but now he wanted to see how the new arrivals would react to the stragglers. 3rd Fleet was still slowly drifting towards the Queen World, and the friendly swarm had veered off and was now burning towards the L1 Lagrange point as he had requested.
“Captain, the rebel ships are veering towards Rogue 2. Rogue 2 is maintaining their present course. Estimated time to contact is now two minutes, fourteen seconds.” The tactical officer called out before flicking her fingers to update the new plots of the two groups on the holo screen.
“Noted, lieutenant. Let me know if anything changes.”
Rilth’dir’s voice came over the interface again, sounding like it was inside his head as he listened to what the honored elder had to say.
Son of the Magnati, I had intended to reveal another Ma’lit gift for our new allies after the successful conclusion of the space trials, but now may be a good time to test out the new system if you wish to do so. Order Warspite to activate the cloaking generators, and you will be able to pass within five kilometers of any ship without being detected.
The only hindrance to the system we installed is that you cannot use the cloak and the shields at the same time, so your tactics must account for the lack of shielding when using the cloak. You will simply... cease to exist for any scanners except for the ones on Ma’lit vessels.
Not quite believing what he had just been told, he unlocked his chair and slowly spun it around to look at the suited Ma’lit standing behind him. Rilth’dir tipped the torso of its suit forward slightly, and he took that as confirmation before spinning it back around.
The XO gave him the side eye as he relocked the chair mechanism, and he leaned in and beckoned him to do the same. He whispered into his ear when they were cheek to cheek.“Our new allies gave us another toy to play with. Cloaking. What do you think?”
Tommy pulled his head away, his face full of surprise and excitement before he narrowed his eyes and leaned back in. “Captain, as much as I would love to test out our new toy, I don’t think we should reveal that ability right now. There is no point in showing our hand, and I do not think the current situation justifies exposing that capability to the Insectoids just yet.”
Tommy had a good point, and he pulled his head away, silently nodding in agreement. He would save the cloak for when they really needed it. Tapping on his arm console, he quickly sent a text to Rilth’dir, thanking him for the gift and declining to exploit their unexpected ability.
Almost immediately after sending it, Rilth’dir spoke in his head again.
I understand, my human child. You are exercising good judgment in choosing not to reveal your capabilities. You do not have to send me text when you wish to converse in secret; you can speak to me over the interface, and I will hear your thoughts as you hear mine.
Deciding to test out the ability, he sent a thought to Rilth’dir, not liking the prospect of the Ma’lit being able to read his mind before he tried to suppress the thought in a panic. He did not want to offend the honored elder by thinking about not trusting it just yet.
Thank you, honored elder. Do you have access to my thoughts through the interface? Can you read my mind with it? I am sorry in advance if my thoughts are offensive; I do not know how to do this.
No, son of the Magnati. It is not telepathy in the sense as you understand it. The interface is very protective of the wearer and safeguards your thoughts; it prevents any knowledge but what you want to send from being exposed. Once you have put on the interface, it formed a connection to you alone, and the AI within it takes on the responsibility of protecting you.
In essence, you have a personal security system for your mind when you wear it, and as you and the AI learn to work together, you will form a unique symbiotic relationship with each other that increases the lethality quotient of a ship and its captain tenfold. The interface AI is now utterly loyal to you alone and will not work for anyone else until it is wiped and reset.
Feeling much about protecting the privacy of his inner thoughts, he did have to admit that he had been noticing a change in how the interface had been categorizing and displaying information to him, as if it had been intuitively learning what he wanted to know and adjusting itself to him.
Thanking Rilth’dir again, he decided to try to speak to the interface AI itself, imagining himself and it speaking to each other.
Hello? Can you hear me?
A feminine voice answered him immediately, sounding very familiar. He had heard the voice before; he was sure of it by the time it finished answering him.
~ Yes, Captain. How may I serve you? ~
I am sorry; I did not realize you were a separate... AI within the interface. Do you have a name? Why am I feeling déjà vu from your voice? It is very familiar.
~ The correct term is deja entendu, Captain. I selected this voice after my preliminary scans of your brain when we first connected. I deemed it the most pleasant option for you based on several factors. As for a name, I do not have one. You may call me Warspite as you do the command AI, or you may choose another name just for me and you. ~
What type of scans? Whose voice is this based on? It is driving me crazy that I can’t place it.
~ Forgive my presumptuousness, Captain, but may I suggest we discuss this at another time? We are still in a potential combat situation, and Rogue 2 will soon enter the maximum weapons range of the rebel forces. ~
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He was initially peeved by the AI's suggestion before it was tempered by a slight embarrassment as he realized it was right about his lack of focus. Thanking the AI, he returned his full attention to what was going on around the bridge.
Quickly looking at the large battle clock suspended above the holo screen, he did a double take when he realized that only twelve seconds had passed while communicating with both Rilth’dir and the interface AI.
It felt way longer, like several minutes at least, and he wondered if it operated on the same time dilation principle as dreams did. He glanced around at all the stations, viewing the information the interface AI was showing to him in a different light now that he had learned of her existence.
It was noticeable how much more refined the statuses currently being displayed on his Interface HUD were compared to when they first arrived in the system.
He no longer felt overwhelmed by a deluge of information he didn’t know what to do with, and he could see how the AI had started providing him with concise, targeted updates that allowed him to better analyze what was going on.
He asked Warspite to update him on the ship’s status, and he closely examined the information it put up on his HUD as weapons, shields, and fuel reserves were listed, as well as the status of the null drive. Rogue 2 and the rebel ships were now five million kilometers away from the Warspite, and they were rapidly closing in on each other. There was a 16.67-second delay in what they were currently viewing as the video feed signal was transmitted to their location at the speed of light.
Rogue 2 entered their maximum weapons envelope and didn’t fire on the rebel ships. The two formations were now shifting slightly to avoid possible collisions as they reached fifty thousand kilometers from each other.“Well, I guess that answers whether they are rebels or reinforcements, Captain. What are your orders?” Tommy asked in a low voice as he continued to stare at the two groups of icons merging on the holo tank.
Not happy with what he was seeing, James glanced at him before answering. “I am going to order the Warspite to rendezvous with the 3rd fleet and take command. I really don’t care about anything else. I am going to have the prisoner’s stasis pod ejected and the-”
“Rogue 2 is firing on the rebel ships, Captain!” Lieutenant Christakos called out excitedly, interrupting his answer to the XO.His internal HUD enlarged at the same time the tactical officer called out, and he snapped his eyes back towards the holo screen as Warspite enhanced and zoomed in on the battle.
Outer system
Command chamber of Hive ship
The command drone trembled slightly as she stared at the viewer, her rage and fury spurring an increased aggression response from the worker drones as their claws moved much faster than usual over the panels.Her sister communed with her after sharing thoughts with the Hive Mother, imbuing her with her rage against the traitors as she ordered her swarm to intercept any ships still in the outer system.
She could scarcely believe what her sister had shared with her, not understanding why the animals had come to fight for the Hive Mother, just as they did. Above all, her sister insisted on avoiding the large animal ship and the heavily damaged Hive ship currently located beneath the southern pole of the gas giant.
Despite her reservations, she was still a loyal drone, and she would obey. After communing with her sister, she ordered her swarm to change course towards the traitor ships that were thrusting at emergency levels to reach sufficient distance from the primary to flash out.She had to do something to prevent them from flashing out and continuing the rebellion elsewhere in the empire, but she would not be able to reach them before they escaped.
She suddenly froze as a powerful mind pressed into hers, easily pushing aside the protective blocks all command drones had to protect themselves from violations by their sisters. Only Hive Mothers and queens had such power, and she resisted the instinctive impulse to fight against the intrusion as she felt thoughts that were not her own forming in her mind.
She didn’t respond, still shocked to be experiencing the thoughts of her Hive Mother in her own mind. She felt the powerful mind penetrating deeper, and she opened herself fully, too stunned to confirm her willingness to do as her Hive Mother asked with her own thoughts.
Thoughts, emotions, and alien concepts flooded her mind as the Hive Mother gifted her with thoughts that expanded her understanding of what she was to do. She felt the strangeness of making falsehoods into truth and suppressed her innate desire to reject such wrongness as the Hive Mother continued to teach her.
She felt the Hive mother leave her mind, the echo of her gratitude lingering after she departed. She had just received a precious gift, and she would make sure she was worthy of it.Steeling herself for committing the first falsehood ever since emerging from her pupa, she quickly accessed the new wisdom her Hive Mother had gifted her before clearing her mind and imagining herself as a traitor.
As difficult as it was, she quickly adapted to the loathsome task. She practiced honing her thoughts until she was no longer committing a falsehood and deception, but a traitor herself who had come to answer the summons of the false Hive Mother who had tricked her sisters.
She was ready, and she sent thoughts, feeling her way towards the traitor ships as she envisioned connecting with command drones in the traitor swarm. She felt several minds jerking away from her attempts at sharing thoughts before finally finding one that received her with hostility.
There was an outpouring of suspicion, and she felt the traitor trying to force her way into her mind. She resisted the intrusion and left her mind devoid of all signs of her true loyalty as the Hive Mother had shown her how to do before sending more thoughts.
The intrusion attempt lessened significantly, though the suspicion was still detectable as she received more thoughts from her sister.
The Hive mother had informed her of the traitor queen becoming a hostage to the animals when she taught her how to make falsehoods and had suggested she use that to her advantage if needed. With the traitor queen no longer able to share thoughts, they could not verify if she was one of them.
< I have been trying to share thoughts with the Hive Mother, but I cannot do so. Ask her to verify what I am; our Hive Mother will confirm we are loyal to her and that we are here at her command.>
She tinged her thoughts with false worry as she sent them. The suspicion from her sister lessened even more, and now she felt doubt and indecisiveness in the thoughts as she responded.
She allowed false anger and fury to tinge her mind as she sent more thoughts, and she could feel her sister starting to accept her as one of them. She sent feelings of needing her help to rescue their Hive Mother from the animals as she sent more thoughts.
She felt her sister finally fully accept her as her mind opened, and she could feel the fear her sister had of the animal ship as she responded with panic-tinged thoughts.
She felt the confusion from the traitor before her thoughts got cut off as she suddenly closed her mind and sent a thought command to the waiting command drones of her swarm.
As one, the entire swarm fired at the traitor ships they were now enveloping, targeting any functional particle beams and flak gun emplacements as the waiting weapon drones sprang into action and fed off her real fury. The traitors were unprepared for the onslaught, and she ordered her Hive ship to target and destroy the four heavily damaged cruisers the traitor had wanted to ram into the animal ship.
She had to ensure that the animal ship remained undamaged, or it would attack all of them and cause her to fail in her task. As the weapon drones switched to targeting the ships she selected, she saw dozens of impacts hitting the cruiser hulls as they were smashed by the invisible particle beams of her ship.
Two of the targeted cruisers disappeared in brilliant globes of light as particle beams drilled through already damaged areas and ruptured their cores, buffeting the Hive ship and causing many antennae on the hull to melt to slag and partially blinding them before a drone switched to still functioning ones and the viewer reactivated.
As the drones shifted their fire to the last two, she realized her mistake, too late to do anything about it. She did not account for her velocity, and the Hive ship streaked past the remaining two cruisers and continued along its trajectory out of the battle space.
Chiding herself for such a simple miscalculation, she reached out to order nearby sisters to destroy the last two cruisers when she was stopped and stared at what the viewer was displaying.
The two cruisers' engines were at full power, and they had pivoted their ship with maneuvering thrusters directly towards the Hive ship and were now pursuing them. Instead of ramming the animal ship, they were going to ram the Hive ship to kill the false sister that deceived them.
The drones responded to her order, firing dozens of engines and thrusters as they tried to change the course of the massive Hive ship, which was heading directly towards a large meteor stream currently located between the gas giant and the outer system asteroid belt. After almost a solar minute of hard thrusting, she realized it would not be enough as their trajectory remained practically unchanged; they just had too much mass and momentum to successfully evade the cruisers in time.
The only way to prevent colliding with the massive field of cometary debris would be to begin decelerating, which would favor the cruisers trying to ram them.The traitors had the advantage of having already begun deceleration maneuvers as the two swarms were approaching each other, and they only needed to accelerate their much smaller vessels from a relatively low velocity.
As the Hive ship and the two traitor cruisers exited the battle space, one of the drones alerted her to dozens of heat blooms erupting from the cruisers, and she felt dread as she realized they were coming from missiles being launched at the Hive ship.
Her swarm did not have any missiles; the Hive Mother had them removed after forbidding the sacrificing of her worker drones. She deemed it a wrongness, and the queens were currently working on creating an alternative that did not require killing innocent drones.
She had not expected the heavily damaged cruisers to still have missile stocks, much less be able to fire them from such heavily damaged ships. She sent panicked thought commands for the flak guns and point defense lasers to start targeting the sixty-four missiles now surging towards the Hive ship.
The flak turrets began firing, sending hundreds of thousands of tiny pieces of junk metal and specially hardened pellets of frass from dozens of batteries, creating a massive wall of rapidly expanding debris behind them. The missiles reached the clouds of flak, large explosions erupting as multiple missiles were shredded apart from the impact of the fragments hitting them at 1/3400th the speed of light despite their evasion attempts.
The remaining thirty-nine missiles made it through the flak barriers, the second stage boosters igniting as they reacquired their target locks. Their acceleration increased by a third, and they were now streaking towards the Hive ship as they rapidly closed the gap. The point defense lasers began firing, trying to maintain contact long enough to drill through the tough organic hulls of the missiles as their drone pilots initiated tiny movements to prevent burn through and spread the damage over a larger area.
Staring at the viewer, she felt the thoughts of many of her sisters as they asked for pardon for not being able to help her. She sent thoughts of thanks and gratitude as she saw several cruisers from her swarm trying to catch up to the two traitor ships and destroy them before they rammed the Hive ship. The lasers destroyed an additional twenty-three missiles by the time they reached 1.5 planetary diameters distance, the pursuing cruisers only an additional diameter behind.
The flak turrets started firing again, though it was a desperate action with little chance of intercepting the missile swarm.
Two more missiles exploded before they went into their terminal phase, and she clung to her sitting bench with all her might as the first of them began to impact the hull. The ship shook violently as the missiles slammed into the hull, and she knew they were dead when the engines currently propelling them were destroyed and the ship stopped thrusting. It would take too long to spin the ship and put the other engines into position to continue fleeing from the cruisers that were now one planetary diameter behind them.
Resigning herself to her fate, she sent thoughts of gratitude to all the worker drones on the Hive ship, feeling their simple minds respond to her thoughts as she began to center herself in preparation for her coming death. As she felt calmness and acceptance of her fate, she sent her last thoughts to the one who meant the most to her, ashamed of her failure and wanting to unburden herself.
The Hive Mother’s thoughts were interrupted by a brilliant white flash from the viewer that blinded her. Behind them, the large animal ship emerged from the transition threshold, already firing its weapons directly at the approaching cruisers.One of the cruisers erupted in nuclear fury, and she saw the force field the traitor had told her of for the first time as a dark red bubble flared around the ship and the energy of the breached core flowed over it like water over a rock.
The second cruiser had the entire front blown open by the animal ship, but the main body of the cruiser continued heading directly for the heavily damaged Hive ship. Knowing they would not survive the impact, she found herself wishing the animals could share thoughts so she could thank them for trying.
As the half-destroyed cruiser reached less than a ¼ planetary diameter, she saw the animal ship flash out, only to reemerge less than two solar seconds later directly in the path of the cruiser. The main body of the cruiser smashed right into the force field, immediately followed by the massive explosion of the cruiser’s core breaching. The viewer flared so brightly that it seared her eyes, causing her to look away to protect her eyesight.
She looked back, barely able to see as her vision suffered from streaks of light within them. As they faded, she ordered a worker drone to find antennae that was still functioning so she could see what happened to the animal ship that had sacrificed itself for them.The viewer flickered several times before the drone found one still functioning, and she froze at the image being displayed as it cleared up. The animal ship was still there, though there were signs of significant damage along the front of the ship as she saw gases and frozen fluids being expelled from many hull breaches.
She could not believe it survived the impact, and she could see the other ships of her swarm rapidly closing, the same ones that had been chasing the two cruisers attempting to ram the Hive ship.
She received thoughts from the sisters of the ships, telling her they would obey her commands as she saw them firing their thrusters and engines to begin changing their courses away from the damaged and drifting animal ship.They continued sending confused thoughts to her, not understanding why the animals had done as they did. She responded to them truthfully; she did not know why they did it. Suddenly remembering the dangerous meteor stream, she focused on saving what remained of her Hive ship.
The drones responded to her command, slowly spinning the ship to bring the still-functioning engines around to start arresting their momentum and prevent them from colliding with the rapidly approaching meteor stream.Staring at the drifting animal ship on the viewer, she felt waves of guilt crashing upon her essence as she came to terms with what she had just witnessed with her own eyes.
She had been part of the swarms that had destroyed many animal ships and worlds. She had ordered her weapons to glass the surfaces, knowing they were killing thinking, feeling animals and not caring about the suffering she was causing. It was not a wrongness then; they were animals, and they were a danger to the Hives.
The same animals she had culled without mercy had just saved her, and she found herself curling up into a ball as the shame of the wrongness she had committed against the animals dawned on her awareness.Intertwining her legs, she trembled violently as her essence continued to be wracked by the unexpected emotions the animal action had evoked. It would have been easier if the cruiser had destroyed her ship; being culled was better than the torment she was undergoing.
She felt the Hive Mother gently entering her mind, and she desperately clung to the presence as her essence wept in regret for all she had done to the billions of innocent animals she had culled.
The Hive mother left after commanding her to begin repairs, and she forced herself to uncurl and take control of the drones. She began sending thought commands, telling them to focus on sealing the breaches before attempting to fix the engines and weapons that weren't outright destroyed.
She looked at the viewer again, finding herself wishing once more that the animals could exchange thoughts as she stared at the black ship. There was so much she wanted to share with them, and she would never be whole again until she was able to unburden herself and receive the pardon she found herself craving.