Not again. Not here, not in this place. The colony, stretched still from the slope of the hill to the horizon, made the mounds and mountains appear alive even from the Queen’s vantage. Interweaving, climbing under and above, seeking to confuse attacks from above which did not come. Above striking range the shapes on the fade’s backdrop, illuminated only for breaths by the flashes of anti-air fire, made a mechanical mockery of the scene on the ground below. Uncaring for their losses. Singular in their purpose. An unliving swarm, set against the breathing song of her own. Demanding response. Demanding failure.
“You sung truth that the Coalition could not launch such an attack! Hathan-Commander!”
<”Wouldn’t, couldn’t, it’d be devastating to their numbers.”>
“That such a strike would be suicidal, yes! Knowing destruction of their assets, their vessels, their weapons.”
<”We’re seeing hundreds, maybe over a thousand drones here. Prescott must be using almost every airborne bot he has left, and that’s not counting the Wyverns! He’s just throwing his arial response capabilities away!”>
“Many have already passed by, more are awaiting at the rear-“ Think. Process. Attack not forthcoming on the colony; risk a solid chain of bodies to speed a link between all connected thinkers. The Brigadier-General’s strategy? Delay. Obstruct. Hope for reinforcements through the Gate. Current tactic then must be delaying action. Strike on enemy command structure like a strike on an enemy Queen. Likely ineffective, too guarded and far behind the front line, but demands a response. A withdrawing of forward positions. Allowing…allowing… “A distraction.”
<”I know!”>
“It is only a distraction, Hathan-Commander!”
<”Svera-“>
“It is a distraction from the hills!” Wyverns held back, watching as Sovereignty and formite abandoned their assaults. Waiting, until the LZ was clear. “They know this battle to be lost, for their soldiers to be surrounded and soon, destroyed. The Prescott sacrifices dead metal, empty husks, and a handful of lives to save ten times their number!”
<”Svera! I know! I know, Svera, I know that’s what he’s doing, now by Grace of *^&**^&*, pull your forces back to the column!”> The channels, their litany of links, were abuzz with heated communication. Withdrawals. True retreats, not feigned. Casualties taken, deaths suffered, and forced to pull out before grievances could be answered. Unacceptable. Unacceptable.
“The skyward drones are beyond the distance of my spitters, my slingers. We will be useless against them. We will remain. The hills will be taken, their evacuation denied.”
<”You’ll have no support out here, Svera, you’ll be cut apart without us; listen to me. We cannot let the Herald be threatened. If he dies, if he’s even injured, we might lose the greatest supporter of your entry to the Sovereignty. Assuming we live through it.”>
“Your defenses will decimate this desperate assault!” To lose the Herald, catastrophic. His meaning, uncertain. But this attack did not smell of threat. It reeked of desperation.
<”We can’t take that chance.”>
“We sacrifice a sure victory on the mere possibility-!”
<”Svera Queen, I interrupt you as you have interrupted me!”> It was not a literal translation of their condemning phrase, ruler to ruler, but it was enough to shake Skthveraachk from her focus. To paralyze her thinkers. <”Without scrambling, without air cover, without our troops…we’re ordered back. Hundreds of your people would die to kill a couple twelves of Diggers. Don’t make that decision. Please, don’t make that decision.”>
<”Commander Devries!”> Solovyova. Her music, half as enraged as the Queen’s, yet somehow twice as searing in its brightness. <”Priority target, on my grid, airspace of D-337! I got eyes on top of Prescott’s own peeled Wyvern!”>
<”His personal *^&*? Here?”> The Brigadier-General? Himself, in the battle? <”Confirmation?”>
<”I can recognize the damned paintjob and signs on my old CG’s *^&*/aircraft, Devries! That madman must be putting anything that can fly in the air for this stunt. I need coordinated fire, I’ve already half stripped down my AA.”>
“I will send additional spitters, Solovyova-JustSayColonel, I will call back all my slingers and coordinate them to your position.”
<”Colonel, Herald is asking for confirmation that the General is aboard.”>
<”Throwing rocks might piss upon/annoy the aged breeding male, but it’s not gonna knock him out of the sky, Queen. Devries, I got no idea if he’s actually in there, I just know he COULD be in there! That not enough?!”>
<”All my Wyverns are engaging bandits en route to the column, Colonel. I can’t spare anything. Orders stand. Withdraw.”>
<”With a rusted/*^&* spike, I’ll stick your orbs/*^&* through your unspecified hole and into fires/*^&*…”> Whether the Solovyova silenced herself or was cut from the singing, Skthveraachk did not know. A captured humanite, carried too close, struck a kick against the hull of her throne. She was too centered upon the view through the observers at 337 to even register the menials slicing clean the offending leg in automatic response. Gold bands. Pyramids, along a pristine onyx hull. It bore resemblance to the Herald’s own arrival, the transport crafted for privileged and vital occupancy with little regard for combat. Just there. Just over those rises from the Queen herself. Was he aboard? Was he here?
<”We’ll get him, Svera.”> A promise made to the notes of the future. Not the present. <”I swear it to you, we’ll have him soon. Pull your forces out, before they’re slaughtered. It’s an order from command. And a request, from me.”> Present, but out of reach. Tasted on the wind, but not with tongue and claw. She could advance, swarm the hills as had been done here, deny the Prescott his recovery and force him to watch as she tore his soldiers apart. Until his only choice was retreat, or to bathe the area in an inferno which would consume them all. Until he felt as she did; watching from afar, denied resolution, hundreds dead for a few hundred more lengths of progress to the true conflict. The menials aside the Queen’s metallic body lifted their cargo in response to unvocalized desire, and her artificial scythe was through the offered soldier before Skthveraachk truly realized her intent. To make him suffer as she was suffering.
Every rise. Every fade. Every measure and bar and beat and breath on this barren husk of a world. Brought here by sky-sent to fight their frenzied in their place. Tip of her blade punctured through the soldier, at the upper right of its torso, where wounds were usually less fatal. Male? Female? Menial which had been a drone, soldier which had been a queen, Queen which was now a hauler, who knew. Did the Prescott care for this bleeding, gasping, writhing and gurgling thing leaking down her mechanized arm as she cared for the drone which had just been dissolved alive from heat as it waited, dutifully, at the base of its hill for her orders despite the death ever flung from above? Would the Prescott in his safe, distant vantage hurt, as she hurt, when one of his own was torn apart before his eyes? Fury. Frustration. Indignation in impotence. Skthveraachk clenched down with her grasper and brought the other blade, dyed crimson and pearl from the laser-filled sky it reflected, to angle for the alien’s skull. Imagining that frenzied, furry-faced male in his unnaturally colored shell, the sole obstruction to her success and people’s salvation, wrinkling up the folds of his bagged soft exterior and gnashing the exterior bones when she cut. Tore. False scythe still, even as the Queen’s true blades scratched and twitched within the suited throne. Be like them. Be worse than them. Become them to defeat them.
The scream was but two notes, one to each scythe, shook and rattled until even the explosions overhead became nothing more than the beating of a baseline beneath. The Banded numbered fewer than a hundred in a choir of tens of thousands, but what sounds could not be made by lung were created by sling and stomping of claw. Emulating the crude belchings of the creatures. Sounds which meant nothing to a formite, but meant everything to the alien. She reared, as she could, within her throne. Held the punctured thing to the sky. And roared with eighty thousand lungs and two hundred thousand jaws and a half a million legs.
“PRESCOTT!” Promise. Threat. Demand. “PRESCOTT!” Retribution. Reprisal. Repayment. “PRESCOTT!” Sovereignty humanites spun about, shaken, in the middle of their hurried withdrawal. The kicking Coalition prisoners in mandible and grasper froze, or went momentarily limp. On her own scythe, the skewered humanite began to slow. Dribbling its vital fluids down the length of her blade, resigned, and waiting. A world of potential, a colony and individual, brought here as she had been brought to be little more than biomass on an endless field. Serving masters, as she served. She dropped her legs and threw the creature back into the swarm of bodies, snapping a command to ensure its wound was sealed and delivered to the Sovereignty menders upon arrival. Perhaps a humanite would have killed a colony just to send a message. Perhaps in the blackness of the future, Skthveraachk would as well. Not here. Not now. Whether the Prescott watched even now on high or sat safe within Tarasque, it did not matter. He sought her death? Here she was. Now, he would know she sought the same.
“Retreat. Withdraw. Return to column.” Her engines crackled mud to dust as the throne spun on nothing, gliding as the colony crawled and submerged her beneath them in obscuring safety. The last sights of the final observers being the descent of the unchallenged airships, retrieving the formerly besieged Coalition to a chorus of fading cheers.
There was little to do upon her arrival. Skidded trenches from crashed impacts, a few damaged tents and vehicles, the occasional cry of pain, the spattering fire of half-hearted lancer fire, and a sea of debris so pervasive that no drone could step more than twice without the bite of sharpened metal beneath them. It had taken bar and longer just to return, and what fighting had been seen was seen by eyes already present, humanite eyes which had rushed to the defense. Tens of thousands of her soldiers. Recalled, to serve as cleanup for her betters. Lamentations of a role did not change the role.
“Resume encampment perimeter. Locate remaining pockets of resistance. Create six vanguard clusters, three hundred to each. Encircle and eradicate upon locating Coalition.” Biomass indicator for her throne’s false stomach read little more than half. When Skthveraachk spotted both the Hathan and his aide approaching openly, it was easy to decide the armor was no longer needed. Attendants helped free her from the protective prison as Commander nodded, grim, but with a face which hinted relief. She knew the answer. She asked regardless. “Hathan-Commander, may you continue to sing reason no matter how dour the tone. Is the Herald safe?”
<”Untouched. The Sentinels pulled him back into one of the biggest tanks we have as soon as the alert went out, then scattered to confuse the Diggers. They aimed for our mobile HQ, some of the larger tents, but had no means of finding his location.”>
<”Not for a lack of trying.”> Miroslava was not relieved. Like a pod dyed purple and in the last stages of spew, her face was bloated, bulbous, restraining the eruption which demanded release. <”You know they’re rebels, criminals/frenzied, heretics, but then you see them at it. Really willing to kill a *^&*. His Voice.”> Her rage sought outlet, and found the Queen. <”You’ve already ordered your people? There’s still fighting down at the rear of the column.”>
“I have. Your people have already diminished any serious threat. A tenth of my forces would have been sufficient.”
<”Lieutenant, would you go on ahead and let Herald Jyoshi know the Queen is coming, as requested?”> Ah. Skthveraachk was not incorrect, but it was the insinuation which insulted. Puckered, the Lieutenant emitted pungent wrath even the milling attendants could smell, taste, and see. Bundling themselves tighter around the Queen’s legs in response, though it did not dissuade the jab of finger which followed the Commander’s request.
<”You think being an alien would’ve saved you? You know what happens to divisions, sky, entire army groups if they were to let a Herald come to harm? Just because you lack an *^&*/immortal *^&* doesn’t mean the rest of us aren’t concerned with the fates of ours.”>
“I do not know what would happen to your people, no. I am emphatically tuned to what precisely would happen to mine.”
<”But you’d still be willing to take that chance.”>
“I am willing to trust in the efficacy of my allies. That they would not need the entirety of their vassal’s force to repel attackers my children could not even damage.”
<”Is this going to be a repeat occurrence?”> Hathan’s azure frame was set between them. The Miroslava, with her righteous focus, had advanced another step. Skthveraachk had stuck deep her foreclaws in meeting the approach. Neither moved further when the male deepened the cords of his disapproval. <”We’re going to waste time every breath you two are involved with trying to peel under the other’s flesh?”>
“If I wished to flay your Lieutenant, I would assign a menial. She is too fragile for my scythes.”
<”Hasn’t stopped you before, bug. When one of ours hides behind an excuse like that, we called it cowardice, but you have to be capable of bravery first for that to apply.”>
<”It wasn’t a damn insult, Lieutenant, *^&*, she doesn’t understand what the phrase meant!”> The statement was half true. Skthveraachk did not correct the untrue half. It was not her lie. And, from the sudden confusion within the link, attention but briefly shifted. A downed wyvern. An occupied ring of deactivated vehicles. Humanites from both sides, ceasing fire. A cut of fabric, raised overhead, flicked back and forth. Her soldiers ready to close in. <”We’re all on the same side. I lost a good friend at K-H-13 too, *^&**^&*, you know I did.”>
<”I know you did, sir, so what I can’t understand is how you can still-“>
<”Because that’s the job, Lieutenant!”> Sovereignty were standing from cover, their assault paused. Weapons yet readied, yet as the first of the Coalition appeared with arms skyward, none fired or moved. <”K-H-13 was a clustered series of intercourses, and we all did things we’re not proud of. Things we can’t change, or take back, no matter who’s at fault. So you either learn to live with it, or you let it eat you from the inside out, but you do not get the luxury of letting it sabotage the job we’re now all here to do!”>
“Hathan-Commander.” Purple had faded to pink. Thin eyes upon the Lieutenant, touches wider. ”The Coalition forces cease conflict. They emerge freely and unarmed from cover, waving rags. Guidance?”
<”What?”>
<”Digger cowards.”> Spat, the anger was torn from the Queen as it found new target once more. <”I’ll see to the Herald. Should just let the bugs kill them, claim they didn’t know what was happening.”>
<”Some of those people were loyal citizens once, *^&*, you-“> The Lieutenant was already departed. Striding off with fingers set behind ear, and the other grasper out to bring tap-pad to activation. <”Woman’ll be the death of me. No, not that she’ll actually be the one to kill me, it’s just,”> He managed to catch her response before it had left her. Leaving the Queen to awkwardly stand in expectant silence. <”A saying. The flag. The rags, are they white?”>
“With variable amounts of blood, debris and tank fluids upon them.”
<”It’s a sign of surrender. They want to stop fighting and give up.”>
“The Coalition is admitting defeat!?”
<”No, Svera, just these soldiers. Seems Prescott ordered them to give up once they’d held our attention long enough, if I had to guess.”> Inhaling through the tubes set beneath his nasal passage, the Hathan ran a grasper beneath his cap and down to bulging torso connection. <”Don’t attack them. Let the other soldiers handle them.”>
“Received. I will continue to search for resistance.” Male began to depart. Queen followed, at pace, and slightly behind. Only now recalling the destination. “The Herald requested my presence?”
<”He did. Back when we heard you were bringing your own prisoners. Congratulations on that; it’ll make him happy. Happy is what we want right now. It’s no small feat, taking their people alive. Usually.”>
“My people would accept death. Yours, typically, do not. Most prefer to fight. But these. These do not wish to fight?”
<”If the choice is dying or being killed, it’s not much of a choice, is it? But there are worse things than the work camps. I guess being turned into clothing and weapons for your people ranks high amongst that, now.”>
“They wish to fight only until death is near certain, at which point they seek forgiveness for their acts, and are permitted life? Your wars are obtuse.” The soldiers beyond her sight, behind rows of tents and fresh craters, assumed lines and ranks. Filed out of their hiding spots, interlocked their knotted digits, and looked upon her watching drones as though they were the spawn of The Mother. “But, some will be executed all the same. Why would they submit to this?”
<”Because they don’t know that’s what’s waiting for them.”> He thought the Queen was not looking upon him, so the subtle clench of his own gloved hands behind his back was brief, but present. <”Are you alright?”>
“I am furious. But I will not dwell on the failure of the past. The Prescott will be destroyed for this, and all else.”
<”I meant you. Personally. If you were injured. You said you attacked Colonel *^&**^&* before the retreat was ordered?”> It struck her like a beam from the sky. Enough that there was a ripple in the line of formites behind her, from the half breath’s stutter in her step echoed back in the procession.
“Only minorly. Non-fatally. A small scratch and severing of non-vital appendages of the leg. I was not harmed in reprisal, no, and your throne protects me from your lances.”
<”I’m not even going to bother with listing all the articles of the charter you broke. Eleven, in case you wanted to know. Because I know you already realize they’ll let you get away with it. Assuming there was a reason.”>
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“It attempted to claim I had failed in my role as Queen. Never have I before been insulted so grievously.” Free of the confines of her lift, scythes began to extend at the mere memory. “If the Colonel had not been a humanite, I would have killed it, devoured it, and expelled its remains upon the dirt rather than sully my core by digesting its mass.” She could smell the Aadarsh in the distance. See him, surrounded by enough amber bodies to fill a small nesting chamber, from passing drones as they delivered the wounded, the captured and the dead. “I did not think when I struck. I acted upon instinct and the demand of my station. But I did not expect it would result in severe punishment, no.”
<”Which is why you talk back when *^&**^&* insults you now. Or tell me when you think I’m being an idiot.”>
“You would prefer I return to meekness and servility, Hathan-Commander?”
<”Don’t, Svera.”> Don’t return? Don’t mock? From the way his fatted tissue turned about the bone of his mouth, she knew it to be both. <”Will they put up with more from you as time goes on? Yes. You’re important to them, and the Herald likes you. What you represent. But understand. The Emperor’s gaze can be as beneficial as it is destructive. What he gives one measure, he can take the next. Don’t pick fights you don’t have to take.”>
“Is that for my benefit or your own, Hathan-Commander? Since our fates, our lives as you have said, are so inescapably bound?”
<”Both. If you want to make me sound like a selfish rectum.”> It had been an unnecessary prod. And from the lowered volume, it was clear they were words meant to be shared only before reaching the approaching line. The knelt series of colored humanites indicitive of the Coalition, the standing squadron of sentinels, and the unflinching, unsmiling man at the center.
“My voice bears darkness and the edges of violence, but these are not meant for you. I regret they have touched upon you unfairly.”
<”And I’m sorry that Lieutenant Miroslava sees the need to try and get an argument out of you every time she sees you. But that’s something you’ll need to deal with, because it won’t just be her, and it won’t ever stop. Not even if you took Dracan alone and saved a million Sovereignty lives.”>
“I begin to parse this truth, and perhaps it is such comprehension that brings my bitterness.”
<”Prove them wrong about you.”> The end of their exchange. The Herald, seeing the Queen’s body approach, adopting immediate grin and warmth which hid the bite and scalding heat. Miroslava remaining in the background, ever watching. <”And if they refuse to see it, then at least prove you’re better than them. Herald Jyoshi.”> Stop. Salute. Humanite’s arm up and hand shard, formite’s legs at her sides and head bowed. <”Reporting, as ordered.”>
<”Formalities, Commander!”> Eighteen reports of missing drones. Six more of humanites absent from their detachments. Scouts needed to be organized and ordered back into the field, scentcrafters needed their supplies of chemical markers replenished, thinkers queued request after request for attention; every single other concern was marked a rank lower, as adherence to the Herald’s song was sent as a sky-ship to the pinnacle of her priorities. Not even the glares from the knelt, helmetless Coalition, five in number and more battered than bloody, could distract her from the rich and welcoming tones. <”I’m not about to stand on ceremony while speaking to two who helped assure the safety of the Emperor’s agent and executor here on Dracan. What of your losses?”>
<”Two damaged wyverns, eighty downed drones. We’ll be able to salvage most of the material losses, but had more than a few tens of casualties during the withdrawal. Most will recover.”>
“Five hundred and fifty-four killed at Hill D-334. Additional eighty-six lost from secondary hills. Wounded are still being counted.”
<”My sympathies for your fallen, Skthveraachk Queen. That you were the only one to successfully take your hill before this reckless and wasteful attack does you credit. You doubtless can still detect your scent on two of these men here before me! Three lieutenants, a sergeant major, and a captain no less! We’ll deal with that in just a moment. I want you to confirm for me the purpose of this assault, Commander.”>
<”Sir.”> Extending the underside of a hand, the Hathan was quick to display his pad. Letting the lights raise and transmit to a readable size. There was a mechanization to his movements, a rigidity. It was only when one of the nearby captives shifted that Skthveraachk realized every single amber present tensed, their fingers reaching for their triggers. Calming fluids dripped on command from nearby menials, and was fanned across the surroundings to be sure. <”Based on reports from Major Solovyova and Svera herself, its expected the attack was diversionary in nature. Meant to cause just enough threat and damage to compel us back for your protection, while General Prescott and his men evacuated the hills before our arrival.”>
<”Expected cost to their airforce?”>
<”Crippling. Unless our numbers are grossly incorrect,”> Hathan shot glance to the prisoners, but did not hesitate to answer. <”Effective air resistance from Tarasque should be limited to under twelve wyverns and maybe a hundred drones.”>
<”And with the losses they’ve suffered on the ground, we can safely number their forces to under thirty-five thousand within the city itself.”> Smoothing, rubbing the front of his shell, the Aadarsh made a show of pivoting away from the Commander and approaching the knelt figures. All males; the lack of helmets made it clear. Peculiar coincidence. <”That was for your benefit. Your commanding officer just threw away more than eight-tenths of his arial response, and with the addition of our formite allies here, near three hundred thousand soldiers are marching upon Tarasque. So we are all upon the same leaflet sheet as to your situation.”> None responded. Two kept their heads downward. The other three merely stared, eyes cold and dim, up at the Herald. His gaze slid between them, like a worming lumbrite. <”These two were captured upon the hill. But you three, officers, if I had to guess, I would say you volunteered for this apparent suicide-mission, am I right?”>
<”Captain *^&**^&*, Sixth Dracan *^&**^&*, *^&* number 81-902-22-1.”> The blow came not from the Herald. The Herald did no more than withdraw his own pad, black gloves and taut undershell beneath coat creaking in the movement. It was an amber which struck so suddenly with the end of its lance that the crack of contact brought a chittering startle to every formite within a tenlength.
<”Captain *^&**^&*. Deserted his unit on *^&*, *^&**^&*, formerly First Lieutenant *^&**^&* of the Eighty-Eighth Imperial Garrison. You have been away from the Sovereignty for several cycles, First Lieutenant, so it may behoove/duly compel you to remember that a directed answer is expected when the Emperor speaks to you.”>
<”If I gave a royal throw what the Emperor expected, I wouldn’t have put ten *^&* on me being the one to put a beam through your skull.”> This time, the Aadarsh did raise two of his thin digits. It was good; from the way the amber froze mid-strike, the Queen was unsure if the knelt humanite would have survived.
<”I am disappointed, First Lieutenant. Your records show exemplary service before you abandoned your post, your faith, your duty and your honor. That you are kneeling here now is but testament and proof that while you may quickly forget these things, the Sovereignty does not abandon her people, even after they betray her.”>
<”We supposed to thank you? Pretend you’re doing us a favor by sending us to the labor pits for the next *^&*?”> Despite the swelling, bulging of blood or fluid beneath thin membrane where the male had been struck, his words dripped as much as they snapped. <”You want something, so how about doing us all a favor and just asking rather than giving us a sermon. Its one of the many things I haven’t missed about you Soffs.”>
<”Compared to the conditions of this planet, perhaps you should thank me, *^&**^&*.”> He walked the line. Paced. Seemingly casual, but there was an assessing glint to the wet holes of eyes. <”Eking/*^&* out a living in this place, trying to turn green a planet even in the midst of a blockade and war. The re-education facilities will seem almost peaceful in comparison, and unlike here, you will be laboring for your own betterment.”>
<”You trumped-up self-“>
<”Lieutenant!”> Harshness was sudden and abrupt from the knelt Captain, the outburst from his companion silenced in word even before the crunch of bone came from another strike. The Captain may have been ordered spared, but there was no hesitation to more physically quiet the other. Gritting and flashing bones, the wet whiteness was turned up to the Herald. Unapologetic in the dissent which left the Queen feeling queasy in its openness. <”Just can’t come to grasp with it, can you, Herald? None of you can. You’re not saving us from ourselves. This ‘paradise’ you’ve built? We don’t want any part of it. You’re damn right being out here is a *^&*/songless abyss. But out here, we’re men. Out here, we’re free.”>
<”Yes, of course, free as the former countries you so desperately wish to rebirth from the ashes of the past. Freedom to worship, freedom to act, freedom to birth as many as you want, to say what you wish, do as you please, damned be the consequences to the others around you.”>
<”Go ahead, twist it around, make it sound like an ugly thing so it’s easier to crush out. What ‘others’, Herald? The Sovereignty? Does the idea of liberty offend you people so rutting much that you couldn’t bear to permit it exist anywhere in this *^&*/endless sky?”>
<”When the idea splits what was once united into fractions? Yes.”> The cold put the air of the planet to shame in its suddenness. <”I was on Virgoth during the riots, First Lieutenant. I was there during the Mother’s March. Have you seen yourself what an ‘idea’ can cause? Had to walk through streets more flesh than pavement? I know the ugliness of tyranny, but you forget what freedom did to our race once. And if a single person falls out of line, we all do.”>
<”Don’t mate with me, I’ve heard this same line fed to us since I was five.”> Disharmony. Never had Skthveraachk witnessed its like. It was not as two Queens contesting resources, not as the Hathan had questioned his own Captain. This was not a disagreement. It was a debate of realities. A species set against itself on levels fundamental. It was wrong. It was terrifying. <”That because people hundreds of cycles ago couldn’t handle their freedoms, they should be kept from us forever. That there’s no place for competition, for the individual. Your life for the state. Your work, for the state. Body, *^&*, and mind, serving the Emperor like good little machines. No wonder you managed to get giant bugs working for you, now.”> The deviant fixated upon her. The Queen visibly recoiled. <”You can understand me, can’t you? I heard you shouting for the General, all of you. This is what you want? Where you want to be? Serving monsters?”>
“Service guarantees survival.” Music shook free before she could halt its disgusted wavering. “Survival of the species is the only imperative. Do not condemn my choice between subservience and death because you lacked the sanity to do the same.”
<”…That’s really all it took, isn’t it? Same as they do to their own people. Float a ship in orbit, guns pointing down, telling you to obey or else.”> The hatred was smaller. Still present, but no longer turned upon her. Face contorted. Eyes held hers for just breaths, before disgust brought them back on the Herald. <”Damn you, for what you’ve done to us. And damn you for what you’ve done to them. That’s what humanity is now, not just to each other, but a *^&**^&*/many skyless abysses of life. Slave masters. Dark *^&*/Composers.”>
<”Now who is making it sound ugly, First Lieutenant? You would not believe how beautifully pure formite society is. Their species understands what it means to be a collective. What it means to sacrifice the part for the whole. What you are doing, on their world, would be considered worse than heresy. They understand the danger of the individual. Do you?”> Straightening, the step back was as measured as it was final. Aadarsh-Who-Had-Been-Blessed looked along the line of defiance. Deactivated his tap-pad, and settled his hands behind him. <”With the state of the war and blockade, I expect all of you officers, here, were stationed on Dracan before this insurrection began. Therefore I equally expect many, if not all of you, basking in your newfound freedoms, have family here. Children, perhaps, even?”> The air went still. Revulsion from the helmeted ambers at the suggestion. Fear, from the knelt men at it. <”I am seeking information on Tarasque and former Colonel Thomas Prescott, now Brigadier General. The first man to agree to provide me with this information-“>
<”ALL OF YOU, YOU WILL STAY QUI-“> Kick from an amber struck the Captain in the gut. Spilled its contents onto the soil in a reeking filth.
<”-shall not only be granted full pardon for any past acts of insurrection against the Sovereignty, but shall also be transported, with your immediate family once Tarasque is liberated, to Aquaria.”> Coughing, wheezing protests continued to sound, but they were breathless. <”Your status shall be set as secondary citizens for a period of six cycles, with all associated ration and accommodation benefits, after which period it will brought back in line with your then occupation.”> One of the Lieutenants tried to warn next, to argue. The boot snapped upon something within his body, and left the remaining three shivering. Looking not up, but to one another. Their faces twisting. Considering. Weighing.
<”What…proof, do we have, that you’ll keep-“>
<”You fucking heretic.”> Miroslava’s answer was as melting as a lance, Skthveraachk catching her outburst from the side of her head while others were forced to turn in surprise. <”Your lord is descendant of He who was Once and Future. He is of the Far Shore, of *^&**^&*. The Herald does not need proof, he carries the WORD OF THE EMPEROR!”> Hathan aside her impersonated unliving rock. The Lieutenant, seething, only calmed, blinked, and reddened when she realized the eyes of thirty sentinels and the Aadarsh himself were upon her. But at the melodious chuckle, however briefly uttered by Herald Jyoshi, a collective breath seemed to be let out. From those standing, at least.
<”*^&**^&*, don’t-…”>
<”Captain…three hundred thousand, heading for the city. I-...for the cause, I promised to give everything. But I have two daughters now, a third on the way…”>
<”You’ll…”> Amber prepared a third blow, but the Herald gave a simple shake of his head as the sputtering male, face aside in his own vomit, tried to gather the notes he needed. <”Lie to you…everything we’ve been fighting…the people, think…”>
<”I can also offer assurances, despite my distaste, that I will see to it all three of your children will be permitted to remain in your care. Though it will be insisted they all submit for testing. Non-negotiable.”>
<”They’re healthy! We ran the tests ourselves, here, we-…”>
<”Shut up, *^&**^&*!”>
<”I’ll take the deal! I’ll do it, pick me, not-“> The sergeant tried to shout out. The Herald ignored him. Focused upon the now oozing eyes of the bent Lieutenant.
<”Promise me they’ll be safe!”>
<”If they are within Tarasque, you have the word of the Emperor of the Imperial Sovereignty of Earth that they will be unharmed and recovered.”> It was not a decision. Even to Skthveraachk, it was clear the man had made his decision. He did not need to speak. He merely needed to nod, and with a flick of a finger, two ambers had him on his feet in moments. <”I will need their ID numbers to pass to our forward troops.”>
<”They’re…we’re, not chipped/marked. We got rid of ours when we…my wife and I, left, the…”>
<”Unfortunate, it would make locating them much simpler, but we’ll be sure you are all properly re-integrated fully upon their recovery. Sir *^&**^&*, ensure this man is given a hot meal and new clothes. Pending debriefing, set him up in one of the outer tents. Under guard, but unshackled.”>
<”Composer-forsaken traitor…”> The men, man, did not look back as he was escorted away. As the others were set upon, dragged up as well by ambers broken from the ranks of the onlookers. The Captain could not shout, but each word was hissed with untameable contempt. <”You orbless coward…”>
<”What treason, former First Lieutenant? What betrayal?”> Yet stood, as he had stood the entire time, the Herald fixed himself upon the beaten man. <”What part of the Coalition’s vaunted policy of individual progress and success has he not embraced? You extol the virtues of the old world, and here they are in practice. He is possessed of a product of great value, negotiated an exceptional settlement for its delivery, and will soon be enjoying the benefits of the sale. And akin to the merchant demanding every possession of a dying man for access to an oasis in the desert, to your kind, this is not reprehensible. It is just good business.”> The Captain attempted to gather up and expel fluids from its mouth towards the Herald, but any violence which had been restrained from that point was no longer withheld as the remaining four were struck, shoved, and dragged off further into the camp. Skthveraachk finding it her turn to grow rigid as the Herald advanced towards her and the Hathan.
<”According to his file, the former First Lieutenant was an *^&*/non-worshipper before his defection. I have heard the expression ‘there are no *^&*/non-worshippers in trenches’ before, Commander, but believe your own file states you too to share such views?”> The smile was back in full radiance, a fire urging you nearer before it consumed you. <”Do you think it possible the man has found *^&*/Composer since leaving us?”>
<”I’ve prayed a few times in combat, sir. But in my experience, soldiers aren’t exactly picky about who is listening, so long as it ensures their beams miss you, and yours hits them.”> The Herald laughed, Skthveraachk clacked her antennae as you were meant to do, and the Commander forced a smile that was almost genuine.
<”My tent is always open during the pertinent hours, Commander, should you feel the need to unburden yourself. Even if you do not hold with the Emperor’s divinity, I am here to clarify his will and message to all. Though I cannot deny, I find it a shame one of such growing rank remains faithless.”>
<”I have faith in the Imperial Sovereignty, Herald, and always have. It’s all the belief I need.”> The Commander went for a salute, but was clasped hand in hand instead. Looking to the pile of vomit, the prints in the mud which were all remained, Skthveraachk felt a belief of her own. That never did she wish to see her people where that humanite had been kneeling moments before.
No matter the cost.