Queen World of the Insectoid Empire

Brood Chamber of the Hive Mother

Fourth Cycle, 384.81 years, Insectoid solar calendar

June 8th, 2176 A.D.

The Hive mother stopped her claw, the sweet aphid droppings wobbling slightly from the abrupt movement. She resumed eating, slurping on the gelatinous substance as she placed it in between her mandibles.

Sticking her tongue out, she quickly cleaned off her claw before responding to the thoughts from the Hive mother within.

The Hive mother felt a flash of anger at the insinuation of being selfish, and she prevented the emotion from being picked up on by her ancestor by suppressing it.

Eating another blob of aphid droppings to buy herself time, she slurped it up and took her time cleaning her claw before finally responding.

Sending a thought to one of her attending drones, she watched it scurry out of the brood chamber to go get the machine animal and bring it back here.

She continued to eat as she waited, her insatiable appetite always demanding food for the energy required to sustain the fertilization of the endless stream of eggs entering the birthing canal.

325 solar seconds later, the attendant drone returned, Bandit-Friend following it into the brood chamber. He walked over to stand in front of the Hive Mother and then bowed, showing the proper respect and submission she was entitled to.

After he stood back up, she stared into his pale-yellow eyes and saw the tiny machinery changing shape as he focused them on her and waited.

Her eyes roamed over the flexible black carapace that covered his entire body save for his head, though she knew the carapace could change to cover that as well. She was curious to see what he looked like underneath it; perhaps she will ask him to take it off after this.

Reaching over to the bench next to her, she gingerly picked up the thought focuser she had made after her sister had shown her how to create and use it.

Holding it in front of her thorax, she concentrated on sending her thoughts through the focuser, remembering the way her sister showed her to produce audible harmonics that could be heard by the animals.

The fragile crystalline latticework within her claws began to vibrate as it absorbed her thoughts, and faint sounds began to emerge from it. Increasing the intensity of the thoughts she wished to share, the focuser vibrated more strongly, and the strength of the sounds coming from it grew stronger.

She saw him grimace, a sure sign of happiness and pleasure as she had come to learn from her new friend. He raised his claws, and she eagerly followed along with the movements.

~Yes, Hive mother, I understand your thoughts. You are doing much better than the last attempt. I can clearly hear the thought sounds you are sharing with me, and your progress is exceptional, even better than Aurora’s, if I may say so, Hive Mother. ~

A surge of pride rose up inside of her at the thoughts of Bandit-Friend; she had been practicing whenever she could, and she thoroughly enjoyed his recognition of her accomplishment.

She was also exceedingly pleased to find out she shared thought sounds better than her sister did despite the much longer time she had been working with her new animal friends.

Thinking new thoughts, she felt the focuser vibrating again as the essence she imparted into it responded to her telepathy.

Bandit-Friend did not visibly react to her generosity, though she did see his strange eyes making rapid, side-to-side movements that she had decided were part of the machine’s thinking process after the first few times they shared thoughts with each other.

After a short time, Bandit-Friend raised his claws again and signed to her, and she concentrated on the thoughts he was sharing with her.

~Hive mother, I thank you for your kind consideration, and I am grateful that you have asked if I have any questions. May I do so now? ~

~Thank you, Hive mother. What was life and the empire like for your ancestors before the persecutors came? ~

The other was a thinking animal, not as many as the others but far more vicious and difficult to eradicate. We did not think they were thinkers like us; only after did we understand. From them we learned how to control fire, build floating wooden hives that crossed the large oceans, and many types of weapons that killed from a distance. It took a long time to kill them; they were cunning at war and good at hiding from us.>

~I see. Do you ever regret killing the thinking animals of your birth world? If you could share thoughts, do you think instead of killing each other, you could have become friends? ~

A great disturbance rose up inside of her, and she felt thousands of her ancestors struggling to have their thoughts known. It was overwhelming, but she could feel two distinct groupings emerging within herself.

Some were angry at the machine animal for daring to judge them for defending themselves and removing a threat. It could not understand the way of the Hives because it was not of the Hives. A few demanded she kill it for such blatant disrespect of their ways, but many others quickly subdued them, and their thoughts disappeared.

The others were full of regret for what had been done, seeing that it was possible to communicate with animals after all, and they had just never tried something different when the animals did not respond to their thoughts.

She felt the Hive mother within come into her, wanting to take control of her body for a short time to speak to the machine animal. This was the first time she had asked to do this, and she was afraid to give up control.

The Hive mother within promised it would be for a short time and that only she could answer the question since she was there when they killed the last of the animals. Feeling the roiling emotions of the Hive mother within, she agreed, sensing the Hive mother needed closure for what had been done.

She suddenly felt herself sharing her body with another for the first time, the sensation of cohabiting her own body feeling strange and violating. Is this how my drones feel when I take them? She wondered as she felt her ancestor sending thoughts to the focuser.

She could hear her ancestor’s thoughts in her own mind as the focuser vibrated, and she listened to the thinking that was not her own as her ancestor responded to Bandit-Friend’s question.

We were not clever like your makers, machine animal. Many of us wish we were, and maybe we could have made peace with the animals, and they would have fought with us against the persecutors when they came. They were good at making war, and maybe they could have helped us to save the birth world that once belonged to us both.>

Her ancestor abruptly left her mind, overcome with anguish and regret. The Hive mother within retreated, and the others followed, their clamoring subsiding until only her own thoughts remained in her mind. Reasserting control over her body, she sent more thoughts to the focuser.

~I understand, Hive mother. Please thank her for me; I appreciate her perspective. Please tell me of the empire before the persecutors came, when it was only you in your region of space. ~

Our daughter drones numbered 19 to the power of 11, more numerous than the stars we could observe and count in the universe. Each Hive mother had her own way, and their daughter queens and drones followed them. There were so many different views and ways of being and thinking. All worked for the betterment of their own Hives; all refused to help each other thrive.>

She saw Bandit-Friend’s eyes making the same strange side-to-side movements, and she waited patiently for him to ask more questions.

~ Twelve Hive mothers, 262,144 queens, and 116,490,258,898,219 drones then. How many planets were in the empire at this time? Was there a Hive mother that ruled all the others? ~

This only stopped when a wise Hive saw the error of our ways and killed all the other Hive mothers. She created twelve new queen daughters, changing them genetically to become almost Hive mothers like her. She ruled her daughters, her daughters ruled the helper queens and the Hives, and the cycle of peace and wisdom came to us, which led to the formation of the unified empire and lasted until the persecutors came and almost ended us all.>

Bandit-Friend’s eyes move rapidly again and then stopped, his eyes no longer moving as he made more claw signs.

~ What happened when the persecutors came? Did they attack you immediately, or were there any signs they were trying to communi-~

Bandit-Friend suddenly spun around and crouched, startling her as two long streams of sizzling energy erupted from his two top legs. Her confusion grew when his black carapace changed and covered his head as he started backing up towards her, pointing the dangerous-looking energy streams towards the brood chamber door.

The attendant drones moved to attack him, and she stopped them with a thought command as she heard the distant sounds of laser weapons being fired in nearby tunnels.

Bandit-Friend must have heard it, and she felt fear flooding her body as she realized they were under attack. Did the animals deceive her and come here for revenge? She felt panicked thoughts entering her mind from her two sister queens, and she tried to make sense of what they were trying to tell her.

Soldier drones with lasers swarmed into the brood chamber, and she sent a powerful thought command for them not to attack Bandit-Friend. Parsing through the panicked thoughts of her sisters, she realized they were telling her the sister she spared had come to the system secretly and was attacking the Hive.

More soldier drones came out of the tunnel, and they suddenly fired on the other soldier drones that had come to protect her. She sent thought commands to the new arrivals, demanding they stop and put down their weapons.

They did not acknowledge her, and both her protecting soldier drones and her attendants started falling all around her with smoking holes in their thoraxes.

Bandit-Friend leapt forward and was suddenly among the traitorous soldier drones, moving so fast that she could not make sense of his movements as enemy drones were sliced in half by the sizzling energy discharges on his arms.

She threw herself to the ground as the invisible deadly beams being fired by the soldier drones ionized the air with their passage and cut through the walls and support columns of the brooding chamber.

They were firing wildly as Bandit-Friend continued to cut them down, their lasers slicing through anything they hit, including each other. In her panic, she tried to crawl away and get to safety when she felt incredible pain around her stinger.

Reeling from shock, she listened to the desperate warning from the Hive mother within and stopped moving. She must have partially torn her abdomen away from the birthing canal, and the pain was so bad that she lost control of her thoughts.

She stayed where she was, afraid to move at all and risk further damage to the birthing canal and herself. The sounds of the lasers firing suddenly stopped, and she shifted her head and thorax slightly to look back towards Bandit-Friend.

He was standing still, his two top legs extending away from his body with the energy beams still deployed and sizzling, and he was looking directly at her. She saw herself on the reflective surface covering his face, and Bandit-Friend moved his head down and then back up once.

His black carapace was now mostly yellow from the ichor of the traitorous soldier drones he had killed, and he turned to face the brood chamber opening again.

All around him was a mound of corpses, and Bandit-Friend began to pick them up and toss them into the tunnel opening with ease, blocking access to the brood chamber with the bodies as he continued to plug it.

From the opening, the sounds of more fighting and laser fire could be heard as they echoed down the tunnel and into the brood chamber. Now that she was not in immediate danger of being culled, she could concentrate on the disordered thoughts trying to reach her and enter her mind.

She picked one sister and demanded the other one stop sending thoughts, and she felt them withdrawing until only the sister she chose was still within her mind.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Hive mother, most of the outer system Hive ships and cruisers are heading here, and they are refusing to respond to our thought commands. I think they are coming to invade the Hive. Our sister is rebelling against you again; she means to cull you and take over as Hive mother.>

Feeling her two loyal sisters withdrawing from her mind, she focused all her mental power and reached out to all the drones within the Hive. Just over half readily accepted her thoughts and commands, and she ordered them to keep fighting, thanking them for staying loyal to her and their queens in the Hive.

She then reached further with her mind, trying to find loyal drones among the ships in orbit and beyond. Only twenty Hive ship and sixty cruiser command drones responded to her, pledging their loyalty to her and the two queens on the surface.

There were another sixty-two Hive ships and three hundred and twelve cruisers in the outer system, and she felt dread as she finally realized her mistake. She had sent most of the remaining ships and command drones to defend the borders, and her personal Guardian Fleet that was supposed to be protecting the Queen World and her Hive was on the border as well, monitoring the large animal fleet that had escorted the envoys to the Empire.

Most of the ships in the outer system belonged to the sister that was rebelling again, and they were attacking and destroying the few ships that came with her two loyal queen sisters.

She ordered four cruisers to enter null space and get help from the other four sister queens, and she sent another four cruisers to get reinforcements from the borders.

She sent one more cruiser to get her personal fleet and bring them back to defend her. She would just have to trust that the large animal fleet would not betray her and take advantage of the soon-to-be undefended border.

The cruisers flashed out, and she focused on trying to take over the command drone of one of the rebel Hive ships heading directly towards the Queen World. The command drone fought against the intrusion, surprising her with the strength of its resistance.

It took far longer for her to assume control than it should have, and she accessed its memories, looking to see how her sister was able to turn so many against her.

The traitor had developed a new pheromone blend that rivaled those of Hive mothers and had been secretly using it to enslave many command, soldier, and worker drones to her. Once exposed to the blend, they considered her as their Hive mother and followed her commands without hesitation.

Now that she knew the truth, she looked out through the eyes of the command drone she was inhabiting and looked around the command chamber. She froze at the sight of another command drone near her, confused by its presence.

Only one command drone was allowed to control ships, and she could not understand why there were two of them in the command chamber. The other command drone suddenly looked at her, and she saw the recognition within its eyes as it realized its sister command drone had been taken over.

It sent thoughts to her, and she tried to enter its mind and possess it like it did to the one she was in now. It immediately recognized that she was not its Hive mother and resisted her while pulling a ritual dagger from its thorax harness.

Before she could react, the second command drone charged at her, and she saw the metallic flash of the long dagger for a brief second as it glinted in the light before the command drone drove it right between her eyes.

She was hurled back into her own body in the brood chamber, disoriented from the painfully violent transition of being ejected from a now dead mind. She felt her self-control slipping away from her as she realized the deviousness of her rebel sister’s planning.

She not only had to fight to possess a command drone for far longer than usual, but her traitor sister had planned for her to try to take over her command drones and added a second one to all her ships as a backup to prevent what she had just attempted from happening.

She might be able to successfully take over a few ships, but she did not have enough time to do it on all the ships, and it was mentally taxing to fight and take over their resistant minds.

The rebel ships that were streaming in from the outer system at maximum speed had just passed the inner system boundary and would reach her Hive in less than twelve solar hours. She recoiled as her body was touched, and she looked up to see Bandit-friend right in front of her.

He was making claw signs, and she struggled to make sense of them as the panic she was feeling disordered her thoughts. She focused her mind, pushing her panic to the side as she watched the claw movements.

~Hive mother, the stealth drones I placed on the hull of Luna’s cruiser are detecting many ships coming here. Are they coming here to help you or kill you?~

~I see. How long until help comes? The rebel ships will reach the planet in 11.27 solar hours. Since the ships in orbit are not attacking, I have categorized them as still loyal, but they are not enough to defend you. ~

~I am Bandit. I do not abandon my friends, and I will not run away and leave you here to die. I will send the stealth drones to get the escort fleet and bring them here. They can be here in 10.17 solar hours, and they will defend you until your ships arrive. Do I have your permission to send the drones and have them come? ~

She found herself in disbelief at what Bandit-Friend was telling her. Why would the animal ships come here to help her? They were still enemies, and they had not made peace between them yet. She was not her sister, and she was not friends with the animals yet.

~They will not come for you, Hive mother. They will come for Bandit and Luna, because the animals on those ships do not leave their friends behind. If I tell them to come, they will come. If I tell them to fight, they will fight. You do not need to believe they will come. I know they will come for us, and I know they will save us. Shall I send the drones, Hive mother? ~

Ashamed for thinking that Bandit-Friend was telling her a falsehood, she found it very difficult to look at him and was grateful she could not see his eyes behind the reflective glass covering his face. Seeing no other option but to believe, she answered him.

~I am happy I was able to be here to protect you, and I will remain with you until the end. None who comes to harm you shall live to make it pass me while I am still functional. ~

After Bandit-Friend finished making his claw signs, he pulled a small oblong device out of his thorax and tapped on it rapidly before bringing it close to his face. He made noises into it for some time before tapping it two more times and placing it back in his thorax.

He then turned around and went over by the now-blocked tunnel opening and picked up two laser weapons from the ground. Holding one in each upper leg, he returned to stand by her side as he faced the only way into the brood chamber.

She could still hear the distant sounds of fighting, though it seemed to be less than it was before. She felt a sliver of hope growing inside of her as she glanced at Bandit-Friend standing beside her.

He promised to fight for her until the end, and that was something she believed with all her essence. She reached out with her mind to share thoughts with her still-loyal sisters, hoping they were still alive. They had a Hive to defend, and she would help them to do it.

* * *

Luna continued to direct the worker drones, ordering them to clear the corpses from the tunnel openings that were being defended by the animal machine soldiers.

For almost a full solar hour, the Nexus had been under constant attack by both soldier and worker drones, almost breaching into the Nexus several times before the defenders could contain them.

She was in one of the tunnels when she suddenly heard laser fire in a different part of the Hive, and she hurried to the Nexus to find out what was happening.

As she got closer, she could feel the growing fear of many worker drones and started seeing drones running into the tunnel she was in. They went right past her without responding to her questions or commands, their minds crippled with fear as they ignored her.

She finally exited the tunnel and emerged into the cavernous Nexus, momentarily shocked into inaction by what she was seeing. There were hundreds of unmoving worker drones scattered all over the ground with still smoking holes in their abdomens and thoraxes.

All throughout the Nexus, hundreds of worker and soldier drones were fighting each other with lasers and whatever other weapons they could get their claws on. One of them took a shot at her, and she felt the tremendous heat of a laser beam as it just missed her and sizzled the wall behind her.

Throwing herself down flat on the ground, she skittered away sideways as she tried to find a place to hide. There was a row of cargo containers to her left, and she continued skittering until she was behind it.

She stared at the corpses on the ground next to her, seeing the death stillness within the many black eyes that no longer saw. The thoughts all around her were a confusing mess, and she couldn’t make sense of what was happening as she tried to share thoughts with other minds.

Detecting powerful thoughts that could only be coming from a queen, she reached out and made herself known before realizing it was the queen who had escorted her and Bandit-Friend down to the surface.

She felt the same recognition of her thoughts from the queen, and she shut out everything else as she concentrated on isolating her.

Luna ignored the queen’s insistence that Bandit-Friend was already dead and peeked around the container she was hiding behind, looking for red marks on thoraxes.

She saw many such marked drones on one side of the Nexus, firing on other drones that were trying to run or take cover behind objects and equipment.

There were many more red-marked drones than unmarked, and she reoriented the Nexus from a top-down perspective in her mind as she finally grasped the situation.

The still-loyal drones were greatly outnumbered, and more rebel drones continued to come in through multiple tunnels. Loyal soldier drones were entering the Nexus too, but mostly from the tunnels on the side controlled by the rebels, and they were being killed as soon as they exited.

We are almost finished culling the rebels here, and I will send some soldier drones with you to get you to the lander and back to your cruiser. Go through a maintenance tunnel; there are several on the sunrise side of the Nexus, and the rebels are not using them.>

Luna stopped sending thoughts and peeked back around the container. At the far end of the Nexus was a large repair depot, the hexagonal door still shut. She had forgotten about the combots, and they were inside there in standby mode if the depot was still sealed.

She needed to get to it and get inside so she could activate them and use them to defend the Nexus, but it was in the area currently controlled by rebel drones.

Judging from the amount of weapons fire being exchanged, the loyal drones were in danger of being overwhelmed soon, and she decided. Looking back out from behind the container, she stared at the area, committing the location of all the possible cover she could take and the rebel positions to memory.

She moved back behind the container and looked at a nearby laser, wondering if she should take it. She decided against it, thinking the long, bulky weapon would slow her down and prevent her from utilizing some of the cover she needed.

She readied herself and then darted out from behind the containers towards a cargo mover 10 queen lengths distant. She reached it and waited to see if any of the rebels were firing at her.

Nothing came, and she darted to the next series of containers. This time, she was spotted halfway to the containers, and by the time she reached the cover, at least five laser weapons were being fired at her.

She pressed herself as low as she could and dragged herself forward as several beams broke through the containers she was hiding behind and seared her back with the heat of their passage.

The air around her became superheated, and she could smell the ionization of the air as she reached the end of the container row and pushed herself back up to be able to use all her legs.

The thought entered her mind, and she obeyed the urgency within it, not even thinking it might be one of the rebels tricking her. She skittered out from behind the containers and reached a bank of control panels that offered very little protection a few seconds later.

Again, the thought came to her, and she did not detect any falsehood within it.

She darted out from behind the control panels and headed for the last part of her journey, another cargo mover. Again, no weapons were fired at her, and she reached it safely.

Luna stayed where she was, listening to the sound of many lasers being fired as she waited for the thoughts from the loyal command drone.

She darted out, dreading this last portion of her attempt. There was no cover this time, and she skittered as fast as she could, her spiracles struggling to extract enough oxygen for the demand she was placing on her body.

She finally reached the depot and entered the code before instinctively throwing herself to the floor.

A second later, A laser beam burned against the wall where her thorax just was, and she crawled towards the slowly opening door, shoving herself through the opening that was still too narrow for her body.

She felt pain as parts of her exoskeleton were torn off, but she ignored it and continued pushing her way through. She got through and pushed herself up, teetering on unsteady legs as she looked for the control panel in the dark depot.

She spotted it and lurched towards it, panickily entering the code again to stop the door from opening any further.

Three laser beams punched through the door as it started closing again, and she hurriedly crouched and moved away, the beams continuing to slice through the door as they were moved around randomly by the rebels firing them.

Luna ran to the side of the depot and reached the twelve immobile combots that were lined up against the wall. Reaching into the small bag of her harness, she pulled out a small device and tapped the one button in the pattern Bandit-Friend had shown her.

It was three taps, two long presses, and then three taps. The twelve combots came to life, scaring her with the sudden noises of their systems activating.

As one, they all looked at her with their strange heads, and she forced herself to remain still as one of them scanned her with a narrow, green scanning light. She looked for the blinking light Bandit-Friend had shown her on their thoraxes, and a surge of joy came over her as she saw the rapidly blinking green light.

They were active and waiting for her orders, according to what Bandit-Friend had told her, and she made claw signs to them, telling them to prepare for combat and to only target drones with red marks on their thoraxes.

She repeated the command, tracing the circle shape on her own thorax with a claw finger and repeating that only drones with the red circle marks were to be targeted.

The blinking green light turned steady, and all twelve combots raised their weapons arms as other strange weapons emerged from their backs and pointed over their arm joints.

Hive mother had taught her all the tiny claw movements she used to control her guardians, and Luna now used them, ordering them to go through the door and defend the unmarked drones.

She quickly moved out of the way as they stepped away from the wall, and three of them pointed their arms at the damaged door, the light of the Nexus filtering through the slits created by the laser beams.

All three fired at the same time, and Luna threw herself to the floor as the six micro-missiles impacted the door and made it disappear, along with large sections of the wall on both sides.

As one, all twelve combots surged forward, their foot pads crushing the floor under them. They emerged from the large opening and began firing their weapons, their strange round heads spinning around as they searched for targets.

Remembering the few loyal drones still in the Nexus, Luna sent urgent thoughts to them.

The combots had moved away from the depot, and Luna carefully exited, keeping low as she looked around. The combots were driving the few remaining rebels still alive back towards the tunnels, the laser weapons being fired at them barely scorching their armored exoskeletons.

All around her, red-marked drones were lying on the floor, what remained of their corpses little more than smoking husks. Looking over to where the few surviving loyal drones were, she hurried towards the area and sent thoughts to them again.

She reached halfway to where she thought they might be hiding before she saw a command drone stepping out from behind a heavily damaged main support column.

Others followed her lead, and soon there were sixteen unarmed command and worker drones looking at her as she continued to approach them.

She stopped one queen length distant from them and looked at the command drone, recognizing her from when she first came and put the combots away in the depot.

Luna looked around again, seeing the combots guarding all eight tunnel openings that lead to the Nexus. The other four had assumed defensive positions in front of the tunnel leading to the brood chamber as she had ordered them to do before in the depot.

One of the combots fired a long burst of its projectile weapon down one of the tunnels before it stopped firing. Looking back to the command drone who asked her for orders, she gave one.

She received responses from all sixteen, the worker drones sending emotions of loyalty while the four command drones sent thoughts.