'If you know your enemy, and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.’ She had thought this idea quaint when first translating it. Something to take to Hathan proudly, more to demonstrate her continued mastery of their written language than anything else. Now, it sat squat atop her crest like a marinating fecal pap. The revelations of the last bar, unpleasant. One did not study frenzy. One did not examine and prod it like a hauler testing the decay of a corpse. The threat of frenzy, the mere possibility that one had strayed from the unity and become aware of the self, was met with lethality. It was a tenuous proposition to suggest any could confront it, to know it as an enemy, and not succumb. Worse than tenuous; heretical. Antithetical. To study and fight frenzy was to fight the rising of the sun. Skthveraachk would not fight frenzy. She would fight a man. A man, who had a name.

<”Brigadier-General Thomas Prescott.”> Though as all humanites, it was a name that meant nothing. She had asked once of the Hathan what his name indicated, and he had gone on about how it ‘used’ to mean those who came from a certain area, and how it was ‘based’ on a word for conflict. Skthveraachk had never met Chkervthnaakt Colony, and she never would. But she knew they had been descendants of Ch’e, as Ckhehnvraahll was. She knew their lands to be mountainous lowlands, their size to have been nothing of impress, that their Queen had been a female, and their desire was only to be left in peace for their harvests. Humanites hated such ease and simplicity. Skthveraachk regarded the image of skull, hair which grew from face and chin, eyes set back into skull, and hated their complication in turn. Barely seeing the arrangement of officers through the false-light facial image. <”The Navy may take operational precedent in the Sovereignty, but Admiral *^&**^&* is little more than a drone-turned-soldier/glorified pilot. Prescott has been in charge of the last two counter-offensives which halted us on the other side of Dracan, and now, he’s here.”>

<”Because of us.”> That was not irritation in the Hathan’s voice, like was being hollered wordlessly from the Lieutenant’s facial arrangement, like Skthveraachk felt at the smell of the Pod floating through the fabric-woven hardstone comprising the tent’s exterior. Admiration. Respect. Pride. <”Because of you. The Sovereignty landed on Dracan when the war started, nearly two cycles ago, and had been stuck in the landing sectors until you arrived, Svera. Now they’ve lost Guir, and they’ve lost the anti-space batteries on half the continent, and they’re liable to lose this entire hemisphere.”>

“We took their nest of Pelal. We took their nest of Guir. Across the water, two others fell. Were this a war against my own kind, a peace would be sought. An offer to reform our unity.” The image of the hairy-faced male was shrunk, relegated to a bottom corner as a map instead was brought to the air between them. “No offer has come?”

<”Four, five towns, nests, may be significant to you, Skthveraachk Queen, but there are near thirty settlements on this planet which would qualify as important, and this planet is the least amongst the five they control.”> Information. Received. Stored. Processed.

“Then they will fight. They have been preparing, as we have. The Prescott-Brigadiergeneral. How many of his soldiers remain on this world?”

<”Exact numbers? We can’t be sure.”> Aadarsh cricked his head with sharpness towards Solovyova; not propped up or off-balanced as usual, but in the process of withdrawing the shining cannister full of sloshing fluid. She paused, reconsidered, and her hand came out empty from the sheen of her tailing shell.

<”We were being sending here with the 88th, the 89th, the 102nd, and 108th. Four divisions. Near two hundred thousand troops.”> Three billion dead, thousands of cycles and generations ago. Two hundred thousand warriors, all but casually deployed to a single battlefield. Remorse, fear, sorrow, admiration; the scale was beyond emotional response. She nodded, simply. <”Coalition ground/beat us to a halt. Three transports in orbit. At least two divisions of their own, and even after the losses they’ve taken? Expecting thirty, forty thousand in this theatre still. Digging in/downwards, securing positions, reinforcing their defenses.”>

<”And those are only the forces on the planet.”> Hathan’s pride contorted to consternation as his head canted to Aadarsh. <”Have any of their messages made it through the Gate?”>

<”None. Admiral Dietrich has seen to that admirably.”> Somewhere above them still, with his nestkiller weapons readied and heated. <”Nevertheless the silence this winter will not have gone unnoticed. According to our information, their fleets around Cetusia and Garda have been massing nearer their Gates for the past fifty measures.”>

“I politely request a pause.” Her realization was simultaneous with not only three of her thinkers, but with a surge of sudden revelation from the most matured of her soldiers. “These Gates. Their utilization, like…exits from a nest, tunnels from one colony to another. In what manner are they arranged? From which can one travel to another?”

<”We are not permitted to discuss operational-“>

“I have seen them open to your Earth. From your Earth, to my world. Then from my world to Dracan. When I first experienced your ‘elevators’, your lifts, I believed myself to be standing still while reality around me shifted. Not just an entrance to one chamber, but many.” The Lieutenant was bid be quiet with but a look from the Herald, and her body seemed as a moss seeping fluid, shriveling in on itself. Skthveraachk interrupted with impunity, continuing on. “Impossible, of course, yet all you sing of indicates to me that while your lifts were but illusions of this, your Gates are not. That they are, indeed, doors to many locations.”

<”You are not permitted information on their construction, Skthveraachk Queen,”> Her claws scraped as they dug into stone beneath sheet of tent’s flooring, not enough to tear, but quite nearly. <”But I believe their usage falls within the *^&**^&* of strategic necessity. Are any opposed?”> She knew there were. The former Major, no, but the Lieutenant? Jennifer and her amber, would they be summoned to counter? She knew they would, should, protest, based on her knowledge of their minds. But the Pod did not enter. The Lieutenant did not speak again. And though Aadarsh glowed with happiness, the pressure and force he effortlessly exerted over the others was felt. It crawled, unnaturally, even in service to an outcome the Queen desired. <”*^&**^&* Peace upon you. You have it almost entirely correct, Skthveraachk Queen. Think of space as an ocean, great and vast. The Gates are *^&*, beaches/nests, safe havens. Traveling across space is long, arduous, difficult; the Gates, once built, allow instantaneous travel from any one to the other.”>

“Any one?” That writhing worry turned away from Aadarsh in a breath. “What of my world?”

<”Well, yes, but not-“>

“One Gate connects to all.” The Herald stretched his smile at the interruption. Like a lumbrite pulled taut. “A single network of movement. You place them above worlds, your own, and the Coalition’s. Have you granted your enemies access to my people? Have you brought danger to my home?”

<”Svera!”> Her hairs had gone rigid. Her claws, unfurling beneath her weight. At the rear of distended gaster, warning signals were transmitted. Shivering was registered from all those nearby as the fury and fear seeped from her. Four eyes all found Hathan, steady, but now more serious. More cautionary. His Lieutenant having retreated from his side. <”That’s enough.”> Through the eyes of the colony, she saw ambers stiffening and stepping nearer the tent’s seals. The former-Major, within, maintaining an outward relaxation while her humanite arms flexed their external musculature. Too far. Too rude. Still a guest at the trough; not a sibling welcomed to feed.

“I…sing regret and a desire for forgiveness. Aadarsh-Herald. My concern for my world overshadows the sound of my subservience.”

<”It is understandable, Skthveraachk Queen.”> A breath was let out from around the room. The ambers, their fingers gripped to lances outside where they were seen as less-intrusive, eased back. Danger. Warning. The Aadarsh’s features were signals of their own, and all from Hathan to nameless blue shelled officers looked to it for guidance. <”When the Gates were constructed, it was in a time where disobedience within our Sovereignty was not considered. Their operation, necessary for our great colony to function. Systems were not put in place to limit their usage in a way that would prevent the Coalition for utilizing their abilities, but, the Gate to K-H-13 was built with safeguards in place. Steps taken to seclude it from the network. You have my word/truth; no Coalition vessel will be able to find it.”> Skthveraachk took his truth, but waited until Hathan still near her gave a subtle nod of confirmation before accepting it. <”As to your question before the interruption, Commander; it is almost certain that the Coalition knows the battle here turns in our favor. 3rd and 4th Fleets are skirmishing around Garda and Virgoth, and the 1st Fleet has been put on ready-status at Earth in case they pull reinforcements from their core worlds. They are being kept busy and away; reinforcements will not be arriving for them. Now as it seems this talk of grander strategy is upsetting the Queen, let us refocus on what is critical to you, specifically, yes?”>

Twelve hundred drones to store information on the battles occurring in skies unseen. Four hundred to hold the new names learned. Data. Knowledge. Spread and internalized into the song. A taste of the greater space beyond, but only a taste. Skthveraachk cursed her outburst and was enraptured by relief simultaneously at the truth that her people remained, for the moment, isolated from this dark reality of cosmic forces. When it was her alone, only the now was important. Only the here. When the Herald raised palm to the lighted display of Dracan hovering in room’s center, and the closeness of the Commander allowed the Queen to even feel his heat warm her carapace, her attention was to the now. Thinkers, soldiers and crafters formed rings below the soil and rock, and sung of the outer ‘there’ instead. Each to their role. Each to their place.

<”Colonel?”>

<”Ya. Sir.”> It was not a hasty correction, but a correction all the same. The peninsula thrust itself downward on the map, to the sopra, while up to the alto the channel and sea wound and slithered. Guir on the risefade bank, the crater formed by the Admiral’s nestkiller weaponry on the other. And where both sides of the shore met, tens of thousands of lengths up into the continent, the jeweled red dot glowing with resonance from the blue screen. Solovyova stepped closer, and when she pointed, lines were drawn from her fingers from the air itself. <”General Prescott is being busy man this *^&*. The evacuations at Guir were just the beginning. All up the coast, he’s emptied every town, every settlement.”>

“He is gathering soldiers into single mass?”

<”Not soldiers. Civilians/menials.”>

“This does not seem a proper decision.” The Lieutenant made to add her discordance to the new composition, but Skthveraachk was ready. “I am aware by now the sympathy felt for your fellow individuals, singular colonies. But if such humanites were scattered across the terrain, they would be so with purpose. Supplies. Labor?”

<”Agricultural work, mostly. Some *^&**^&*.”> Ten, eleven dots went bright. Former nests, now abandoned. The Lieutenant was trying to peel the Queen’s chitin with a look, but Aadarsh was more considerate in his gaze.

<”The capital, then. Tarasque is a beacon of progress here on Dracan, but with the Gate cut off and blockaded, they must already be rationing supplies. Adding thousands more civilians to the city should undoubtedly have strained their reserves. These are non-combatants; draining the resources of his troops for them is a strange move.”>

<”Unless Prescott doesn’t believe Svera and her kind will follow the same rules as the Sovereignty, Herald.”> Rules? Recollection. Understanding. Antennae shivered as she clacked her mandibles once in a harsh scrape of protest.

“The use of their captured soldiers as shields is not comparable. The killing of drones incapable of, or unwilling to, engage in combat is wasted energy. They would be surrendered to the greater colony. Or reprocessed by the defending colony for resources.”

<”Prescott is of not sharing this opinion, clearly.”>

“It is not opinion. It is statement. It is truth. We cannot even consume your kind. Our only gain in destroying a population of menials would be to acquire unnecessary amounts of organic fertilizer.”

<”Then consider it being that the General has removed all potential stores of living fertilizer, and had them brought to the capital.”> Solovyova illuminated the pathways through the mountainous terrain, the roads, the valleys which shone still or animate images of huddled humanites marching away from the sopralands. <”All between Tarasque and Guir have been evacuated, brought within the dome, and is not just being them. Anti-air, anti-vehicle; the images from the Admiral, what wasn’t scrambled/confused, shows they have moved every defense they have into the city.”>

“To force a confrontation on ground the Coalition controls. Dangerous. Intelligent?” The clicking came twice over from her mandibles, their pinpoint ends slicing air as the joints popped with their movements. “Our greatest losses have been suffered in battles where their firepower denies our ability to overrun their positions. Your species falls easily once distance is closed. Intensifying the defense to prevent us from achieving that goal may be his plan?”

<”Then it is a foolish plan.”> The Lieutenant shook her head towards the Herald. <”If there’s nothing on our scanners/sky-eyes, we can begin flying our troops nearly within striking distance of Tarasque. A *^&*, ten measure maybe, and we’ll be ready to begin bombardment.”>

<”Colonel? Commander?”>

<”Ten days seems accurate. But that’s for our own troops, equipment. We can’t move seventy thousand formites in even twice that time. And the heavy vehicles, those will need to make their own way there.”> Solovyova did not respond, not immediately, and while the music composed was easy in it's adoption by all, the former Major’s contributions were not in harmony with the rest. Her voice, lower. Her timbre, a grey haze.

<”It is a foolish plan for the General, but the General is not foolish, and so I do not think this is his plan.”>

<”Have scans shown any encampments, any *^&* of the roads? Movements, new strongholds?”>

<”No. But, there are many thousands of lengths between Tarasque and our sight. They *^&*/break our sensors on everything alto of this line.”> It appeared, hovering. The scale of the presentation made it nearly twenty thousand lengths before the city, the capital, their final goal. Twenty thousand lengths of unsurety. <”We know there are no large power-signatures, but meaning nothing if they have other measures in place.”>

“We have become known to the Coalition, but they have become known to us. If there are dangers on the roads, we will destroy them.” No cannons. No devastating kinetic weaponry. No artillery. No nestkillers from space. Danger was a constant. Destruction, however, seemed unlikely. “The Prescott-General acts irrationally. The Coalition is frenzied. They fall back and reinforce, are crushed, fall back and reinforce. Our numbers swell. They will be overrun.”

<”Your confidence is reassuring, Skthveraachk Queen.”> It was not a union or unison. The voices were still disparate. But it did not dissuade the Aadarsh from giving his final nod. <”The Colonel’s division will move up the faderise bank of the channel, the formites will take the risefade, and the Palamedes will be charged with vanguard deployment of aerial assets. Secure the area outside Tarasque, fortify, wait for the divisions to link up, then take the city. Once the space-batteries are taken out of the equation/litany, the rest of the planet will be open to subjugation, and we will have delivered the Emperor the first true reclamation of territory since the war began. Ready your forces.”> Salutes. Signals of respect. Skthveraachk reared herself and folded her scythes alongside them, though her head jerked as antennae struck the roof of the tent’s canopy. <”Dismissed.”> No longer required or desired. One by one, they filed from the interior, the Queen left to the last. Watching the slow rotation of the planet held elevated by the blue and red light, and the meaty crevices adorning the Prescott’s floating, disembodied head. The cap so similar to the Hathan’s own, but not quite. Bristly face of juvenile drone’s hair in bushy arrangement. Lieutenant passed through the seal at tent’s entrance, and Skthveraachk followed, able to catch a last, reassuring smile from the Herald who remained behind. Finding instead only the uncertain concern at how quickly that toothless visage could go from kindness to a darker shade.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

<”Pri!”> Hang her by her foreclaws and let the sea feast on her abdomen. The Pod rushed towards them as Solovyova and the others headed for the landing pads, the blocky and edged structures jutting from the top of the caldera’s flattened mesas. Avoiding the line of blackened formites stretching out behind the Queen and down the cliff’s face, linking her to the rest of the colony. <”Commander, Lieutenant, so sorry to interrupt, I just need a few beats with Pri to discuss the new sled changes.”>

<”Of course, Jennifer, we just finished a briefing with the Herald.”> Their breath hung in the air with each exhale, their layered shells wrapping around them. Skthveraachk called drones from the line to climb atop her, encircle her, and their spasms and shakes warmed the Queen to the core made frigid by weather and company both. The Pod’s amber was not in sight. That meant nothing. He would be near. <”Haven’t seen much of you this season/*^&*. Your reports on Svera’s colony are getting less frequent, too. Command wanted me to ask if there were problems with the research on our end.”>

<”No problems!”> A crest rose up from Jennifer’s pale backshell, hooked around her head and came low to her brow. Her arms hugged her core tight, and even had her teeth not been bared and glistening, the Queen would have known the answer to be a lie immediately. <”No problems at all, it’s just. Y’know. So much work going on here, busy-busy, all the time. Haven’t had the opportunity to really get another good insight. But now that I’ve finished the sled/throne, I’m sure it won’t take long.”>

<”Well, don’t violently remove your hair from your scalp. The stuff coming out of K-H-13 is unending. Doubt they’ll be needing us for much longer on that task. Just put down some general observations, something to meet quota, for another few tenmeasures, alright? Then you can get back to your real work.”>

<”They said that, huh?”> Smiles, smiles, humanites loved to smile. The disgusting reveal of bone sunk into her, but the Queen forced her look to remain at face. At eyes. Beaming, white smile came from the Pod’s mouth. Sunken, black eyes screamed anger from above. <”Are they unsatisfied with my contributions so far?”>

<”I wouldn’t know. But, you know how it is. The Palamedes was never meant as a research vessel, they have top males on this now.”> The Hathan shifted from side to side, trying to stay warm under the empty sky and lowering sun. No snow, no flakes of white, marred the red terrain. Only the metal constructs above and the laying bricks below. <”You’ve already done much towards the project, be proud of that.”>

<”I think I can contribute more, sir, really. We’ve barely learned about their religion, their-…their politics, hierarchal structure between nests and colonies, their-“>

<”Did you not need the Queen for something, Jennifer?”> Lieutenant was similar in its unhappiness to Skthveraachk herself, hugging close her protective covering and breathing more shallowly through faceholes. Or, perhaps the female merely wished the Queen suffer alone. At least there was a unity there, albeit a unity of distaste. Jennifer was immediate in her reorientation to face Skthveraachk, returned to all six legs.

<”Yes! Yes, sorry, the sled-“>

“Is functional. Unless you have made it non-functional.”

<”No, it’s still very functional, but there are new changes to the capacity and shield. The lifetime of the power supply. I need to go over some details.”>

“These details. Do they require my piloting of the throne?” No, they did not. Brows pinched themselves together, squelching wet eyes thinned.

<”Not exactly, though it could help.”> Liar.

“Am I needed to operate and test the changes made?”

<”No, it’s not-…I don’t need you to actually fly it, I just need to talk with you and inform-“>

“Received. Understood. I will designate Skthveraachk thinker to you for this. Recite the changes and alterations. They will be relayed.” Were it necessary for the colony, the Pod’s presence could be, would be, suffered. It was not necessary. The Pod’s desire for constant contact with her individually, with physical presence, was not necessary at all. It was wasteful. It was unwanted. It was rejected. She turned and strode for the nearest lift while the Pod tried to stammer out response, muting the information from her body until the humanite had faded to the landscape behind, and it was once again only her, the Hathan and Lieutenant making for the lifts to caldera’s basin.

<”You’re hard/rough in contact with her, Svera. I don’t understand why.”>

“I do not make physical contact with her. None of the colony touches a humanite without permission, as we are directed.”

<”That’s not what I mean.”> Commander walked astride her, comfortably, her pace slowed to compensate for his smaller frame. The Lieutenant, though she kept the male between her and the Queen herself, still struggled not to jerk away from the accompanying attendants and menials clustering near. Warmth, words and song. <”Jennifer *^&* only wants to help. To get to know you.”>

“She is not a thinker. She is a crafter.” Tasking was wiped clean. Jostling and murmuring to the drones atop her, Skthveraachk informed the nest below them that her focus was once more freed. Immediately, requests for assistance and prioritization flooded her. Sight of Hathan and his lesser female was lost as she gave her eyes to a debate between delvers on the eighth layer. Examining a deposit of hardstone that had been revealed during excavations.

<”She is both.”>

“She is a crafter who mistakes herself for a thinker.” Clear. Crystalline. Beautiful. Useless. “She is responsible for the Bands, for the sled. These are useful and welcomed. She is also responsible for the translation errors. The mistakes. The accidents. Her desire to act outside of her role has, as you have come to show me, the cause for much suffering for my colony, and my own self. She has attacked my thinker.”

<”A kick to the leg is hardly an ‘attack’.”> Truth. It was a semantic, but one that was added to the chartered length of veritable opera which could be composed of her failings. <”And she was the first person on the Palamedes who believed, figured out, that you could be communicated with using only soundwaves.”>

“Her contributions do not outweigh her failures. She is a net negative in the song. The memories will recall her unfavorably, as is proper.” The first delver shook his graspers, stroked the monumental crystal, and argued for its preservation. The other insisted it be destroyed. It blocked the completion of the new chamber. A request for purpose was met with response of barracks, living space for future soldiers. Priority, nominal. When the debate was relayed out for further information, it was met with a curt statement that such crystals did indeed bear use. When the statement was probed, only a brief refusal was offered. Forbidden knowledge. Decoration, within the Silent City. Skthveraachk immediately flagged the deposit for preservation and delicate extraction. Debate was ended. The dim-lit cavern faded as she let her sight travel to the next issue.

<”You’re not a very forgiving bug, are you?”> Her hairs flinched. The air beside the Queen’s body shifted as the body occupying it was felt to turn on the Lieutenant who had sung. But there was no admonishment sung.

“Forgiveness is extended to the apologetic. Conflicts occur. Fault is located. The guilty accepts responsibility. Reparations are made. Unity is re-established. The Pod refuses to accept culpability for her failings, and so, there is no forgiveness. There is tolerance, of a malfunctioning humanite female.” Food shortages. Confusion amongst the new soldier caste. A collapse in layer twelve. “If she were a formite, she would be reprocessed. Recycled. Replaced. I am greatly forgiving of your species’ sad isolation which prevents this outcome.”

<”Yeah, it’d be far more efficient to just shoot everyone who mated upwards. Us inefficient humanites are ridiculous for saving that for the real failures and trying to fix the smaller ones.”>

“I accept your concession of truth.” The Hathan laughed. The Lieutenant made a hacking, horking sort of exhale from its throat. They reached the lift, the platform that was almost identical to the one copied within the bowels of the earth below. Though without ropes. And a pure, white shine. And a gentle vibrating peace which filled body when claw was set upon it. And that it was barely attached to the caldera wall at all.

<”We’re not formites. Every humanite is different, Svera, you know that by now.”>

“Academically. If I attempted to reconcile it practically, I fear I would be driven frenzied and hurl myself from this cliff.”

<”And you know,”> He continued on, perhaps thinking her statement entirely humor. Instead of only half. <”That as much as conflicts occur between colonies, it’s the same between our individuals. The Lieutenant here might make me want to run laps around the lake sometimes, but I know she is on my side. Believes in me, even when she disagrees with me sometimes.”>

<”You’re a fecal opening who is generally tolerable yourself, Commander.”>

“You take such exchanges as commonplace. They are not.” Another hundred of the drone-soldier hybrids had failed their roles. Former Vhersckaahlhn, though he had requested otherwise, had been at last assigned to oversee them. He knew her mind. He was in step and in tune with her desires. The male hardened, hunkered forward, as he felt the Queen touch upon him and utilize his eyes. Watching as the menials with shield and spear threw themselves forward at arranged corpses and mocked bodies. Clenching their gasters tight, fighting against every instinct to spray fear or warning signals. One in five failed, and resigned their weapons. They were not fit for the new role. None could truly fit a new role. It was new. It was wrong. It was needed. Skthveraachk sent calming motions through the link to the towering red soldier, feeling his anger abate if only slightly at her concern. “Between those within a colony, unity. Between colonies, only respect and truth are tolerated. Different colonies can never be of one mind, for if their voices are joined, no longer are they different in nature. Otherness is always disparity. To reconcile such and forgive trespass is lengthy. Difficult. To forge and form consensus, exhausting. Your species does such without difficulty. It is not the same to us.” Commander chuckled again as the platform began to descend, a sound that was not quite as happy as laughter but a more restrained joy. A calmer excitement. Lieutenant, Skthveraachk registered from one of the menials atop her thorax, was looking between them with a foreign expression.

<”You say that, but I remember you nearly attacking the Commander after the hearing.”> Unpleasant memories. Unwanted emotions. Scentcrafters ordered to the base of the lift. Prepare soothing tinctures. <”I’ve heard you call him ‘The First Liar’, still. Seems you somehow managed to crawl up and over that issue.”>

<”I think that’s a bit different.”>

“It is different.” Confirmation was immediate. Two breaths in. Two breaths out. Heartrate steady. In control. “The Hathan’s failures were devastating. And understandable. His actions harmed, but were made in accordance with his role. I cannot…fault, Hathan-Commander, for performing his tasking to his utmost efficiency. I merely lament that his tasking was to bring harm to my people.” Order was rescinded, and two of the three scentcrafters heading for the lift turned back to their previous engagements. Preparations for the marching that would soon be upon them. Drone atop her offered information of the Commander’s expression; Skthveraachk rejected it, choosing not to see. It was the Lieutenant who broke the repose they all three endured.

<”Still. I’m not too fond of Jennifer myself, but she seems to deserve better than she’s getting. Maybe you should do…whatever it is you did with the Commander, with her.”> Beat. Beat. Breath. <”What did you do with Commander Devries here, anyways?”>

“I am unsure if there is a term comparable in your language.”

<”Attempt me.”> Confusion at the meaningless statement, but extrapolation of the gap which followed indicated a desire for further explanation. As the lift touched ground, and the rows of laboring menials who still operated within the sunlight began to be outnumbered by the missing ranks taken below ground due to the shade, the Queen popped the joints of her rigid legs and clacked mandible jaws together thoughtfully.

“We engaged in a ceremony to accept a common purpose and agreement of truth in future endeavors. A commitment to unified goal alongside one another. We-…” She searched the translator between her antennae, scrolling through the defining terms suggested. Surprised as one was quickly located, she nodded at the suitability. “We became married.”

<”Yep, ok, that’s the wrong word. Simple mistake.”> Commander turned abruptly, the wake of his passage felt in the air as the silence of the Lieutenant was shattered, as a thass window, with the hollering of its laughter. The Queen, basking beneath the smells of processed kakstrips the scentcrafter exuded, tried to turn with him.

“I believe it adequately summarizes-“

<”Lieutenant, you’re dismissed, I’ll join you at the lower command center shortly.”>

<”Needing some time alone with the wife/partner, sir?”>

<”*^&**^&*, *^&*/cup as my witness, I’ll have every CO under me do PT every rise, and make sure they know they’ve you to thank.”> The salute from Lieutenant shook in time to its laughter as the female turned and departed, quicker than usual, but far less quickly than the Commander seemed to desire. Skthveraachk drew back to her own eyes once more, catching just the end of the Hathan’s dropping hand as the Lieutenant shrunk in the distance. He saved his smirking expression for once she was out of feasible sight, privy to some humor the Queen did not understand. <”You’ve got better. At speaking to us.”>

“I have not noticed nor considered it.”

<”There was a time not so long ago you would have been shaking in anger from being interrupted just now.”> Had she forgotten? Had she simply not noticed? Any emotional response she could have mustered was lost to the scentcrafter’s ministrations, and the male’s continued music. <”And you’ve kept up with reading that book I gave you. Quoted it, nearly. Take it to mean you’re enjoying it, then?”>

“It is complicated. It’s values, conflicting. I keep it below, out of sight.”

<”Good. Doubt it’d raise a fuss, but appreciate you keeping it quiet.”>

“It does not make noise.”

<”Still struggling with idioms, though.”> Fourteen more requests for focus and guidance pricked at her mind and attention. Two tenbreaths were sung in delay, keeping the Commander at her forefront. He had more for them. <”That bit back there. Speaking over the Herald. You can’t do that, Svera, alright? No, not just because of your ways.”> Another interruption, but before she had spoken. Knowing what words her melody was about to emit. The smile, gone. The straightness, concern. <”He’s a powerful man. An important man. A dangerous man, if he’s unhappy. He’s happy here, with you, right now, but it's crucial that he stays that way. Listen when he speaks. The human-shield tactics, that trick we pulled? Can’t do that again, not while he’s here.”>

“He did not speak of such to me, did not make a point to forbid it.”

<”He brought it up with me, told me to inform you.”>

“Why-…no. Yes. Because he wishes to be peaceful, and friendly.” The understanding was snapped to. “And did not wish to mar his appearance to us, to me, with orders and demands that may upset. It does not upset. I will comply with the Sovereignty’s orders. It concerns that he does this. In this way.” Two more requests. Sixteen total. Unimportant. Localized. The Commander met her gaze, and in the fading light, the green and blue in his eyes seemed almost equal in their sheen. Precious stones set into fleshy cropping. “I ask in trust of your honesty. The Herald role. Aadarsh-Herald. Should they be welcomed? Should they be feared?” There were no ambers here. No forms, besides those at the edges of platform as it raised back to the heights of the caldera. And still. And still, even here, the Commander made to look behind him as if one could spring up from the ground like the pincers of lurking terror.

<”They are the fingers, the eyes, the arms of the Emperor. They go only where he desires a physical presence. If everything goes well, they can elevate you and make your life perfect. If things go badly? They can order the destruction of ships. Fleets. Worlds. I don’t know.”> He backed up a step. She followed suit. Eighteen issues, local. Only one issue, universal. <”Welcomed? Yes. Feared? Absolutely. Obeyed. That’s what you should do with Heralds. And pray you’ve got what it takes to impress them.”> Tenbreaths had passed. She saluted with folded scythes the male, bowed for him though he did not ask it, and watched him march for the buildings at the base of the looming, curved elevator to what seemed like the sky. By the time she was half-turned back to the nest, she had solved two and was moving to the third waiting complaint from patient thinker assembly. They had their orders. It was now to them to deliver. To Skthveraachk-Colony.

To her.