Another rise. Another enclosed pavilion of fabric with the glistening strength of hardstone. Another circle of blues and blacks and golds, another table of false-light projection, another murmured slapping of internal muscle along ridged mouths. Another plan of attack. Another battle to be prepared and executed. Repetition. Routine. The Queen was able to refill the ranks of the newest potential caste from the menials and lamed soldiers, to disperse orders and supply lists to the menders disassembling the dead, without losing the needed attention within the command tent. Another rise. Another measure. Tarasque loomed on horizons seen, and heard, and felt.
<”Without a significant air presence, the Coalition will concentrate all their resistance here,”> Central display, as well as the personal map links upon their pads, rung with metallic chimes unseen as the male’s synthetic voice filled them. Colonel. Bigger, grander Colonel than the Solovyova who stood behind the translucent humanite image. Skthveraachk’s own projection was quick to highlight the opened, empty expanse leading to the tri-lined trenches; the elevated barrier walls, the circular parapets upon sectioned platforms for stationary weapons. Black spikes like hundredlength-tall mandibles thrusting up to the sky, to form the network of shielding. <”At the edge of the city, just on the edges of the LS. Tarasque doesn’t have the same cramped scatter to it, like Guir or Pelal. It was the first settlement put on this world, actually planned to some degree, so once you’re through the wall, expect minimal resistance. Fallback positions, a weak second line, maybe.”>
She wished for her delver to be here. He would have chirped with wonder at the triangular and blocky structures bursting from the world’s crust behind the defenses, the glassy finishes mixed with hardstone meant to emulate brickwork, the constructs with no purpose other than to serve as deifications and monuments to persons unknown to her. Chittered, and marveled, at the great curved bastion spore which dominated the skyline behind and above every other building. Their prize. Their ‘terraformer’. Smoothed sides ringed with supports and pumping arms larger than even the towers of Guir. All to belch many-colored clouds out of the wide upper portal, filling the air for a thousand lengths in all directions. Instead, the crafters reached antennae out through the Queen’s eyes, cold and assessing of the cold, dead image.
“These defenses appear far newer than the rest of the structures.”
<”True, they only started fortifying the city after the start of the invasion. They’ve had a few cycles to dig in, and’ve made the most of it.”>
“You are certain, then, that they have not further modified the internal passageways of the city?” The exterior image was hazy, a fuzz of conflicting dots made uncertain by the lies the Coalition filled air with to confuse scans. Beyond was but a blur. Skthveraachk made a wave of her foreleg for the jutting spikes of metal hastily added to burrow and barricade, almost striking the Hathan in the cramped quarters. “These defenses were first intended to halt your species, not mine. They have had time aplenty to rectify that.”
<”Can’t exactly move a building or change a street’s layout, Svera.”> It was not the Hathan who used her name, but the Solovyova. Drawling on behalf of her own superior, who had grown suddenly quiet. Suddenly tense. Suddenly sour. <”They know well as us that soon as your bugs’re in their perimeter, fights over. If they’ve anything new, it’ll be put to stopping you from getting to that point.”>
<”We are eight to their one in infantry.”> Herald’s clear voice sung out. She must have offended the upper Colonel, across the wastes in his own encampment, somehow. Not worth dedicating the brainpower to wondering how or why. <”And more than fifteen to one in armor, yes, Colonels?”>
<”…My column was hit just as hard as yours, but even with our losses, we’ve plenty of tracked and AG tanks left to put the hurting upon them.”> Ranked male looked past the Solovyova, the Hathan and Miroslava, and even the emitted silhouette of the Admiral beyond fathoming above them. Leaders of ground, and of air, and of the unending sky. <”Once we’re able to close to engagement range.”>
<”The formites will cover your approach. Your focus, as always, will be elimination of any air defenses. Commander Devrie’s wyverns will be almost uncontested, thanks to Prescott’s desperate ploy with his drones. So with their anti-air positions eliminated from the perimeter, he can drop reinforcements and provide close support to the advance.”>
<”The VTOLS I have left are all ready and proud to serve, Herald.”> The Commander tipped his head, and the Queen resisted the innate urge to follow his example.
<”I do not doubt it, Commander. I took a walk today through the camp.”> Ambers flanking the tightly packed and shelled Aadarsh, Blessed, did not react to the step the man took back and away from the table. <”There are celebrations already amongst the men. Morale is high. Ensure the mess is serving prepared meals before the attack, fresh ingredients only, and I expect the troops would be willing to besiege New Washington itself.”>
<”High among the chuffs from the Palamedes and your fresh conscripts, Herald. My side of the camp is busy preparing their last testaments and messages.”> Another fifteen minor requests as the Solovyova maintained her neutral skinshape amidst the glare from Miroslava, and stiff grunting from her commander.
<”You should suggest they mingle then, Colonel. Good to temper the resolve of the younger troops with the experience of the aged, and to let the enthusiasm of youth reassure the tempers of the old.> Unphased, the Herald raised head to one of the blue shells at table’s end. <”What are our expected casualties, with current projections?”>
<”We expect no more than three hours/bars needed to storm the city, Herald Jyoshi.”> The unknown male gave a quick dip of his head. <”Projections hold at a complete loss for the Coalition, seventy-five thousand Sovereign casualties in that time. Though a third of that is expected to be formite-“>
“Unacceptable.” Every request was diverted. Every problem, delegated elsewhere. Skthveraachk was in the now. Another briefing. Another rise. Another terror. “Unbelieveble. Thirty thousand is near half my remaining children. It is almost the entirety of the force brought with me from Kayyhaitch. We have not suffered more than thousands in a single battle. We are to lose tens more that number in the span of three bars?”
<”General Prescott has impressive experience in coordinating fire from his orbital vessels. Admiral Meijer assures me the 9th Fleet is more than capable of prevent the majority of its interference, but with the anti-orbital cannons in Tarasque and the remaining Coalition ships in orbit, breakthroughs are expected.”>
<”We’ll take care of the Palamedes for you, Devries.”> Chuckling, though it could have easily been mistaken for a growl, the Admiral extended a pair of fingers in signalling to the ever frozen smile upon the Commander’s face. <”She’ll stay at the rear. Soak some fire, hopefully, if the Diggers get greedy and try to go for the easy target. You boys’ve done your part down there, the 9th is ready to do ours.”> Smiles. Nods. Madness. The Solovyova was the only one to match the sickness the Queen felt in her posture, and the way she downed throatfuls of fluid from metal flask with the thirst of the dying.
“Hathan-Commander, you have sung that such things were not to be considered in our conflicts.” The beginnings of desperation. Skthveraachk could not let it show, yet tried to help the Commander to see the fear turned towards him. Fear of the weapons of the sky. “That the ships of the skyward sea would not interfere in the battles of the land and earth.”
<”I did, yes, but I also said there were situations such’d be inevitable, Svera.”> Had he? She tried to wrack her brains, thinkers and compositions all. <”We knew they wouldn’t risk themselves for Guir, but if the Coalition loses Tarasque, half the planet’ll be off-limits to them. And the few cities to the alto don’t have nearly the anti-space batteries of the capital.”>
“Why do we even engage these enemies upon this world, if your vessels can wreak such havoc, such destruction? Seventy, eighty thousand voices, simply accepted as losses before the battle even begins, it is…” She could not find the words. She could only find the images. Clouds of dust beyond sight. Impacts leaving craters the size of lakes, forming new rivers. Nests lost to their deepest layers. Madness. Madness.
<”Ships cost *^&**^&*, bug.”> Solovyova spoke not with condescension, but with a fatigue. A bitter resignation. <”Time, resources. Resources neither the Sovereignty nor Coalition is able or willing to give up. A soldier? That’s just a few cycles of training, a lance and some silver slapped over wiring. Losing a ship is devastating. Losing a hundred thousand men?”> Her canteen sloshed. <”More where they came from.”>
<”You will mind yourself, Lieutenant-Colonel.”> Sloshing ceased. Postures tightened. Herald had not moved, had not shouted; he had only looked, those golden eyes clicking as they oriented towards the female. For the briefest breath, there was a clench of defiance in the woman’s jaw. It could not survive. Her bow was lower than Skthveraachk’s ever were to the Blessed. As sure as it was inevitable, the closed smile turned upon the Queen next. <”Tarasque is too important, the terraformer is too important, Prescott is too important for the separatists to dedicate anything less than their fullest effort. Admiral Meijer will engage their fleet above us and prevent any significant interference, and thanks to you, Skthveraachk Queen, we need only give little thought to their barbarous use of kinetic weaponry.”> Relief from the humanites? Even the Hathan seemed to relax by tenthlengths. Skthveraachk did not withdraw. Her mind raced as every thinker was reassigned to the horror before them.
<”Lieutenant *^&**^&*, a former prisoner of war, has nobly reassessed his loyalties and returned to the light of the Sovereignty. And has revealed the source of General Prescott’s weaponry.”> With a wave of his hand, the map upon the table shrunk. Slid, across the mesas and ferrous outcroppings of the red planet, until an arrangement of circles flashed in recognition. <”Mining settlements. Civilian populations beyond Tarasque. We had thought them of no strategic importance, but our Lieutenant has shared with us that ever since the beginning of the invasion, former Sovereignty citizens have spent the last three cycles tearing down vital infrastructure and components, repurposing them into the weapons we have seen fielded against us. While we cannot help the weapons they have already delivered to General Prescott, we know now the majority of these were small arms, soldier-to-soldier. It gives me full confidence to re-authorize the full deployment of our armor, and of the point-defenses needed to neutralize any larger missiles or anti-vehicle kinetics the Coalition may field.”> Praise unimportant, the brightened moods unwarranted as fearful arias began to emit from scouts and untasked drones. Legs shaking as they constructed spears, bonded voices embracing in expected loss.
<”This planet is nothing but traitors and cowards.”> Miroslava stared at the images with contempt. <”It’ll take cycles to repair that damage, cycles to get operations back up and running.”>
<”We’ll divert a small portion of our forces to secure these sites before arriving in Tarasque, Lieutenant, but celebration is indeed in order. Prescott has given us all bruises, yet his hope for relief has amounted to nothing. The fleets in other theatres have denied any reinforcements to Dracan. He no longer has anywhere to retreat, no longer can rely on the threat of kinetics to delay us, no longer has an airforce to challenge us. For all his honor and espoused nobility, he is left with a handful of defenders, and the only recourse of using his skills to kill as many of us as possible before he too is lost.”>
<”With muchly respect, Herald, Queen’s right to fear that.”> Even Skthveraachk knew Solovyova was risking herself with further words. <“And with equal respect to Admiral Meijer, last time the 9th engaged with Prescott’s fleet, they lost two ships, third crippled, just to take out one of his cruisers.”> All humanites were Queens, but not all Queens were equal. Some served as only soldiers, menials, others as divine leaders of billions. Humanites were colonies, but not all colonies were valuable. The Prescott would decimate her. The Sovereignty would accept it as necessity.
<”We are all aware of the Coalition’s rapid armament in the face of the war, Colonel, but thank you for reminding us. I have not downplayed the cost; it will be significant. Ours is the duty to pay it, and return this world to the Emperor and Imperial Sovereignty of Earth.”> Remove Prescott. Fewer lives lost. Prescott would never leave the safety of his city. Incorrect, he had done so before. Possibly? Yes, possibly. To save his men. Left the Sovereignty for its cruelty, joined the Coalition for its honor. <”Their weapons may be more advanced, but ours are more numerous. Their soldiers may be fanatics and traitors, but ours are filled with the purpose of our species. Purity, Unity, Divinity.”> Heads lowered. Fragile arms were set across chests, no, the small hearts beneath. <”We remain. We are the last. The Emperor watches us.”>
<”We will not be found wanting.”> It was murmured by all; some fervently, some muttered, but none dared keep silent. Beautiful in its attempt at singularity. Mockery in its failure to be so. She would die for these creatures. She would burn for these aliens. Another way. Another way. Any other way.
A single thinker suggested an alternative.
Skthveraachk did not turn as she backed out and away from the tent, legs reared and folded, head bowed, bile dripping and sludging out of her mouth to the floor as her stomachs clenched into flatness. The airseal slid over her like a thousand small tongues, and her shaking was only intensified by it. There was no destination intended. No answer but quick apologies and assurances when Hathan and former Major both questioned her health. Queen did not wish to think. Queen did not wish to consider. Her sons and daughters came to her as the tide, and carried her upon their bodies towards the edge of the star-sent’s constructions. She had heard plenty enough from them both, their trust and doubt, their support of the Sovereignty’s unity while harboring their resentment of its failures. Neither the Hathan nor the Solovyova could help her.
Sixteen thinkers raged against the solution. Two more confirmed its validity.
Where was Ckhehnvraahll? Where was her tap-pad? Two soldiers began to rush it from the forming bivouac, but turned away as Skthveraachk recoiled and lashed at the air. No. Ckhehnvraahll was not here. Ckhehnvraahll should never come here. This was a planet of monsters, a place of silence, a nest of the sky-sent being prepared to hold a billion new colonies for ten billion more to feast upon. Males who could be thinkers, serving as infantry. Females who would have been birthing queens, dead in the mud. Former drones of the Slough Queen, amassing for comfort, were ordered back to their duties. Ckhehnvraahll-Colony could not help her.
Eight thinkers illustrated the wrongness. Ten agreed on its possibility of success.
She wanted the memories. She wanted a Remembering. Hymnal Watcher, one of the chroniclers of the Triumverate, weavers. The delver that had touched the Silent City, send him to her. Scouts began to race away from the nest, preparing for the measures it would take to return to the Caldera. She was Skthveraachk Colony. She was Skthveraachk War Queen. This was not war. This was not battle. Composer, see her. Composer, hear her! What joke was this music which had been written for her to perform? How was she expected to adapt to these flourishes, to sing these melodies and not sound frenzied? There would be no answer. The sky was as cold as it was silent. The Composer could not help her.
Six thinkers refused. Twelve accepted. All eighteen hated, and feared, and shook, and demanded further data.
She was carried more than walked, her legs betraying her as much as her own mind. Unsure of how she had arrived. Unsure of why she had decided, if she had decided at all. ‘My tent is always open’, he had said. ‘If you wish to unburden yourself.’ There was to be no further data, not from the Colonel, not from the Commander, not from her memories of Ckhehnvraahll and assuredly none from the vigil of the Composer’s compositions, so sublime that they came as only silence to her kind. Skthveraachk was unsure, too, of whether he could truly speak to his Queen, his Emperor, as a formite did. Sure, only, of the sudden quiet. The solitude. The absence. Seventy thousand voices became one. One voice answered in response.
<”I had intended for my invitation to be taken by the Commander, Skthveraachk Queen, but my surprise at having you here is matched only by my happiness at it.”> It smelled of ash and flower petals. Boiling water of geysers and the steam off the ocean. The Herald reached forward, and though it had been light when she left the command tent, it was faded beyond the slit of his tent’s exit as she brushed her leg numbly against his haired bracers. Sat, curled, upon some manner of furry rectangle which stretched the length of his floor. Ruined, no doubt, by the excretions she still felt roll from her vents and gaster. <”I appreciate your consent in removing yourself from the link. It is our way for what we call intimacy between our Composer and the individual.”>
“Need to talk.” Colors were muted, but somehow more beautiful. Empty in core, but clearing in head. She had not felt this way since the Palamedes, when she strode alone, truly alone, through its halls. “Accept terms made, to speak with Emperor.”
<”Confessional is not a ‘term’, in the traditional sense. It’s more a, prerequisite. Though its intended purpose has shifted somewhat, from its more blunted origins.”> Retracting his arm, the humanite was perfectly at ease. Perfectly calm. Perfectly safe. She no more would have struck at him than the Emperor, for there was no distinction between them here. <”Ckhehnvraahll Queen expressed curiosity at our own ceremonies, shared some of your people’s in response, but never truly partook. She was contented, taking my word as His.”>
“How does it start.” The Queen had begun to hum. One of the canticles of sorrow, the lesser, the smallest of them, while curling her body around the Unseen Stalk. There was no Composer here. It relaxed her all the same. “How do I contact Queen-…Emp-…you use many names for him. My scythes are folded. My voice, awaiting.”
<”There are a few standard openings. It depends, heavily, on whether the supplicant wishes to commune with the Emperor as a humanite, or as something else entirely.”>
“Even your Queen is more than one role. Like your entire race, you cannot be satisfied and accept what you are.”
<”Entire *^&**^&* have been filled by those attempting to classify exactly what the Emperor is, Skthveraachk Queen. But His existence is undeniable, and in the end, His will does not depend on what we believe Him to be. Or what I say here.”> Acceptance. She had already used the note, and as parts of her singular mind began to try and construct the melody which would give voice to the absurdity of the humanite’s reality, it was not why she was here.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Then it does not matter if he is a humanite, your Queen, or your Composer. Let him be all at once.” The Herald tipped his head, and as her senses began to return to her control, offered a hand the color of the forest’s silt to the air.
<”In that case, it is common to start with a request for forgiveness, usually.”>
“From whom?”
<”You should add a new term to your translator, as the two are not and should not be synonymous.”> She acquiesced. Tapped her antennae to her head as the Herald brought himself to a kneel beside her sideways-laying body. Unbothered by how her legs had knocked over strange metallic cups the size of half a humanite. Damage she could not remember having caused. <”We start by asking God to forgive our transgressions, the failures which led us to this point.”>
“There are no failures beneath the Composer.” He was silent. She sung. “The only failure is in the one heresy, the falling to frenzy. The Composer has written the music of our life long before we exhaled our first note, put forth the script which we all must follow.”
<”Such determinism was not an unfamiliar interpretation of our own faith, to some. Especially in the past.”>
“The dangers, the obstacles; they are as sure as the cords on which the notes are spun, sheets from which the song is read. How they are read, how the tempo is followed, how the one or the ten or the many sing; this is what matters. How the challenges are answered.” She could feel the memory of her mother’s leg upon her, and recoiled from the ephemeral touch. “There is no need for forgiveness. You do not fail the Composer when you stutter across the music. You fail only yourself.”
<”Yet the path is always there, is it not, Skthveraachk? For those who wish to follow it.”> Hands were settled, clasped, at only a slightly wrong angle from the norm so that the hairs he still wore did not penetrate his legs. <”Repentance is not the same as asking to be forgiven, yet I have found it is often our own selves who are the more critical. God’s forgiveness is an assured thing, to those who truly desire it. Forgiving yourself, though, that’s something even Heralds can struggle with. Let alone mere Queens.”>
“I do not believe I should be forgiven. I do not wish to forgive myself for my failures.” The dampness within the tent was a remarkable thing. Not dry and frigid like the rest of the world, cold in its exclusion. Skthveraachk was unsure whether to fight or embrace the slow relaxation. Insult or expectation of this God of theirs. “What comes next?”
<”We’re already doing it. You talk. I listen. I talk, you listen.”>
“Your God, it listens as well?”
<”Conversations between humanite/man and the divine were once held captive by those with the greatest access to Him. A darker period amidst many such in our history. If it helps to visualize, you can consider me something of a relay, as your own drones are for you.”>
“Then it is not as the Composer. It judges you. God. Emperor.” Her trembling had ceased, and once more, she felt as the one within the glass and thass shielding. Stared at from without by beady eyes and prodding appendages, yet capable of gazing back through the barrier herself. “It, he, determines what is right, what is wrong, and delivers its assessment.”
<”If only it were quite so easy, there’d be far less need of people like me.”> The Herald did not quite laugh, but the noises were a reverberating thrum within his core. <”We interpret. Learn, through memories and writings, what is expected of us, and use it for guidance in our actions. The Lord’s will, The Emperor’s will, is not a thing so knowable that it can be followed without error. Falling along the trail is frequent. Picking oneself back up, a lifelong task.”>
“But you follow this greater will, regardless.”
<”As do you.”>
“There is no choice for us. We cannot avoid the dangers arranged in our future, the undertakings we must endure.”
<”Even if some of these undertakings are meant to be failed?”>
“The Composer does not ‘mean’ for us to fail, Aadarsh-Who-Has-Been-Blessed.” A touch of frustration curled her body tighter around that invisible stalk, as though she could feel its link reaching beyond to the great void. “Nor does it ‘mean’ for us to succeed. The only measure of success is unity. Harmony. You speak of tests, not of challenges. Any challenge, any obstacle, can be overcome when voices unite as one. We are tested, every bar, every beat, every breath, by our ability to maintain that oneness. We see the result of failure, immediately, when a child breaks from the many and seeks to be the one. We do not trust in a will we cannot understand.”
<”Yet you have followed that same will since meeting my species, Skthveraachk Queen. Your knowledge incomplete, your understandings limited by a great divide between us, and still you have accepted both the rule and guidance of the Sovereignty.”> Her mandibles clenched. Chewed upon nothing.
“I know your power. I fear your weapons. It is not faith I take my servitude under, but truth in the reality that opposition is impossible.”
<”Do you truly think to yourself that if you fully believed us monsters, set to enslave your people, you would still choose obedience?”> Her chewing ceased. <”I have spoken long with Ckhehnvraahll, and she paints/draws an image of a Queen who went to war with Vhersckaahlhn not out of necessity, but out of faith. Outnumbered, as many colonies were, yet one of the most ardent warriors in the battles which followed. They were the stronger, the larger, and your colony resisted even to the threat of its own destruction.”>
“Vhersckaahlhn Colony was, is, a blight upon my world. Vhersckaahlhn Queen believes herself the one who will silence the discord. The inheritors of the Founder’s vision and voice, Once and Again.” Outside, the colony murmured the mantra amidst the hymn they had begun to sing. “They would not have permitted us to live, they would have enslaved body and mind and voice of every formite from drone to Queen. You…” Caught by her own admittance, there was a pause. A clacking grind. “Are not Vhersckaahlhn.”
<”If you truly believed us to be the death of your species, I, as you, know you would sacrifice everything, everyone, to combat us. Even to the extinction of all but a single colony.”>
“Your voices have lied in the past. Your actions speak true in the present. My people will be vassals. Lessers. Serfs.” But. “But we will live. We will grow. Your science. Your technology. Your marvels. You will guard much of it, zealously, and still even now my nest in the Caldera grows larger than most on my world. Prospers. You will cause much harm to my kind, and at the end, I…know, it will be worth it.”
<”You cannot know this any more than I can know with certainty the will of God, Skthveraachk. That is what it means to have faith.”> Reaching a hand outward, buttons upon the nozzles hissing fragrant steam were adjusted. <”Certainty denies faith. Surety is the death of belief. Faith that the sacrifices we make will be worth the cost, faith that the losses we suffer are for a greater purpose. ‘Blessed are they that have not seen, yet have believed.’ You have never set claw upon Earth’s cities, seen the beauty of Aquaria’s endless ocean, watched the factories of Mars as they birth legions of ships. Even so, you feel it within you.”> Her lungs clenched and hissed. <”The possibilities the Sovereignty brings, the future it promises you. Promises us all.”>
“A future worth the deaths of tens of thousands of my children. Hundreds of thousands of yours.” She had tried to circumvent the topic. Tried to keep it down. Tried, and once more and once more, failed. “How many will die before this conflict is concluded? How many will I be tasked with executing, as you execute those who deviate from your promised future, your faith in your Queen-and-Composer?”
<”It is not their lack of faith we find abhorrent. Those who stray may be shepherded, those who falter can be helped back up. Cycles of experience has, however, taught that when faith is instead given to that which is false, ugly, dangerous. When our enemies not only cease to believe in humanity, but choose to dedicate themselves to old ideologies which aided in the destruction of our world, then it matters not whether they bear the mark of the cross, the crescent, the star or the dahller-sign. They cannot be re-educated. Only purged.”> His calmness was a dead thing. <”There is no hesitation within you when your drones fall to frenzy and dissent, is there? There was no restraint when you returned to K-H-13, intent on reclaiming your nests.”>
“Drones!” She unwound herself. Knocked over another chair, smashed in her sudden rise a glassy, reflective surface. Too caught in her emotions to mediate her mind. “Menials, born to only labor! Soldiers, born to only kill and die! These are beings whose purpose can be replaced, whose existence is made redundant a thousand times over. I have killed tens of thousands of soldiers, but I have never…! A Queen, a Colony, I would never…!” It could not be stopped. It was as internalized as her first memories of her mother, of Hollowcore. Even alone, even without the link. She felt. She knew.
<”You should not, cannot, condemn yourself for what we ask you to do in our stead. Any more than a lance should feel remorse for its trigger being pulled, for the missile sent planetward-“>
“When I learned of your kind. What you are. What you really are. How each humanite was a colony unto themselves, a world within a body, I tasked a single thinker to consider the ramifications. Ensured only one was set upon the idea. After the first battle of Dracan, after we took the Caldera. It told me…” Memories denied. Thoughts cut from the collective so they did not need to be addressed. Flooding back. Bursting in. “It told me, that we were now the greatest murderers of our world. We had not silenced a thousand soldiers. We had not cut apart a thousand extensions of some greater being. Skthveraachk had taken a thousand lives.” Fluid seeped from her vents. Her lungs, wet and heavy as they panted. “Skthveraachk had silenced a thousand colonies. Skthveraachk had ended a thousand possible futures of Queens, thinkers, crafters, scent or otherwise. I had never killed a Queen before this world, Herald. I would never seek to lessen the chorus by even a one. That single thinker is yet the only I have dared assign to the task. It no longer speaks to me. After the Caldera. After the trenches of Pelal, after Guir, after the marching to Tarasque, it no longer sings at all. It screams.” Her hairs were limp. Her truth, spilling from her like the wetness from her slits. Antennae barely moving. “All the time. Rise to fade. It only screams.”
<”Do you believe the Hathan any different, in his own mind?”>
“He must be.”
<”He isn’t.”> Then it was good there was no Composer here, for there was likely no God either. <”Nor is Colonel Solovyova. Or even Lieutenant Miroslava, I think. Nor I. That screaming within us is pushed down, locked up, but it never truly stops. And you should not wish it to. For if it does, you become something less. Something wrong. To take a life is a great wrong, a divine wrong, a sin, we call it. To save a life, the greatest good which can be done.”> Hands set against one another, the Herald made a marking of the air. Skthveraachk searched the pathing for meaning, and found only the symbol each and every Sovereignty soldier wore. <”Before the Second Coming, things were harder, more confused. After, there was a new certainty. That if killing one saved two, it was no longer a matter of goodness, but of necessity. That the searching of the path to heaven of the future was second to the creation of heaven in the now.”>
“You advise I sate myself on the knowledge that my heresies, my murders, my role in the killing of entire symphonies, is done in the pursuit of a better future? Your Queen-God’s decree, its guidance, is that my sorrow is both righteous, and a thing to be ignored?”
<”When my species, when man, first faltered, God sent a part of himself to us. To redeem us, our voices, and cleanse them of the sin they had accumulated. When next we faltered, He took those most righteous, damned those who died, and returned to us a King to lead us to war. While His commandments are, at times, conflicting, I believe His will is clear.”> Twelve thinkers had agreed. Majority accepted. Wrongness. Damnation. Filth which could never be cleaned. And it would work. <”There is a saying from my colony/*^&**^&*. An old story. ‘To save a family, abandon a man. To save the village, abandon the family. To save the country, abandon a village. To save the *^&*, abandon the Earth.’”> The word did not parse. At first. The translator attempted to fill the void with ‘voice’, but that was not the Aadarsh’s intention. She searched his golden eyes, his browned flesh, his blackened whispy hair beneath blacker cap of station, for any doubt. Any sign of a future she could prevent. Twelve thinkers had agreed. A million humanites killed, a billion saved. Numbers. Logic. A million humanites killed. Half a million colonies saved. What else but frenzy.
“After this conflict on Dracan, my people are to be spared this.”
<”This, being the war here, or entirely?”>
“Your people require soldiers. Disposable. This is accepted. I will dedicate my colony in its entirety to you, I will be your soldier. I will kill your enemies. But my people must be spared.” She had no position. No authority. No power. Save the victory of the next rise she could deliver, or deny.
<”The examinations are preliminary, but it is tentatively agreed that the majority of your people would serve better as gatherers. Agriculturalists, farmers. Once conflicts on your world are, ended, we can export colonies to our planets to serve as labor.”>
“They will not be harmed?” It was what she had already been promised. It came now from the Herald. It was now a truth undeniable. “You will not seek damage, control, interference?”
<”The wants of humanites are different from your species. From what we can gather, and you may correct me if this is false, but an idyllic future for you would indeed be to be given large plot of land, peace, and the assurance of your colony’s future so long as they provided a certain amount of biomass to the Sovereignty?”>
“It would be considered the heaven you speak of with such reverence.”
<”Except we’ll also need some to serve as soldiers. Troops on the ground, at the very least, until the war is concluded.”>
“You may have me. In my entirety. With your aid, I can grow my army to tens of thousands more, hundreds of thousands. I could take worlds for you. Would, take worlds in your name.” The thought of Ckhehnvraahll to have seen what Skthveraachk had seen. Felt what she had felt. Died as she had died. Never. “I would dedicate entire future to it.”
<”I believe you, without reservation. I accept it, even. But with how your species operates, you would struggle to control such numbers even in a single battlefield. Our conflicts take place on multiple planets, and you are but one colony. We will need more-“>
“Five.” He began to speak. She rushed to conclude without further interruption. “Six planets remain contested. Even if you were to deploy them all at once, you would need no more than six armies of my kind. Five additional colonies. I would assist in their selection. I would share my memories with them. I would ready them for this, that they would not need to suffer in confusion and darkness as I have. Five other colonies, and the rest, allow to live in peace. To farm. To be.”
<”This is a decision above me. It is clear to us, whether it not be to you, that not all upon your world will accept our arrival so graciously as Skthveraachk Colony. There will be contention.”>
“I will make them see. I will sing as you sing, until they accept what is new and truth.” One life for two. One colony for ten. Skthveraachk knew what needed to be done here, and knew it would kill a lesser Queen in mind as much as it would a scythe through the core. She would protect the species. She would protect Kayyhaitch. Even, if needed, from itself. “Promise me this. Promise me this, Herald Aadarsh, and I will promise you the Prescott. Taken from his city, removed before the battle.” He was interested. He was curious. He was restrained. “I will deliver him alive. To you. Directly to you.” He wanted this.
<”You would accept my promise of this, as statement?”>
“You are the Emperor’s Word.” The Miroslava’s conviction returned in her mind’s light. “I will share with the Hathan your promise. Others will hear of it. The Emperor will keep his promise, and I will accept it as a truth uncontested.”
<”It will rely on your success with the General, Skthveraachk Queen.”>
“Success will be delivered.” Fingers clasped. Lips were set. Nothing was desired more by the Sovereignty than an example of their success. Nothing was needed more by Skthveraachk than the safety of her people. They coveted victory not just of deed, but of faith. How much would the Queen give for the same? She had sworn. Everything. Everything and all.
<”It will be difficult to present, but I believe the Emperor will see the virtue of solidifying forces under a single Queen in each theatre. And I do not think there will be many among the formites as capable in our ways as you. If you can deliver General Prescott, Skthveraachk Queen, then you have my word and the Emperor’s pledge that no more than five additional colonies will be conscripted for this war, and all whom submit to his authority shall be granted peace within the Sovereignty.”> And so it was done. And so it was finished. Would he honor his word? Yes. Yes. For there was a price. There was no exchange on the Palamedes, only her juvenile and innocent hope in a future of peace. Now, peace came at a cost. That was how she knew it to be true. And that cost was but her inclusion within that great future. Acceptable. She had died once already. He was waiting now, for her part. A single thinker had suggested it. A Queen chose to accept.
“We must reconvene the officers. It will require the Hathan’s wyverns. And your knowledge of these…rules…by which your Sovereignty engages the Coalition.” Herald nodded. But instead of immediately rising, stood instead from his kneel to dip fingers within the wooden cup. Bringing the fluid forward to a retracting Queen, frightened briefly of the contact. Until the fluid was drawn and dripped against her crest. Water. Unchanged water.
<”In the Emperor’s Name and by the grace of the *^&*dragon, may you find His light.”> Ceremonial. Conclusive. There was no need to find their God’s light, nor was there a need for the Composer’s forgiveness. They didn’t choose to crucify and cower behind sapients. They didn’t command her to promise the subjugation of her world. They didn’t kill Queens. It was just her.
“Your story teaches an incorrect message, Herald.” She waited until his hand retracted to speak. Taking his silent expression and canted head as the unspoken question it was. “To save the many, abandon the few.”
<”Such is the way of our future, yes.”>
“Then whether it is life, or belief, does not matter.” Her mandibles rubbed. Her hairs tightened. It was a solution. It was accepted. And within her mind, she planned the murder of thousands as the new definition the Herald had offered was updated. “To save the country, abandon the village, yes. But to save the world? One should not hesitate to abandon the soul.”