<”They’re waiting inside, sir. All but one of the councils and his Queen. I passed your suggestion they wait, let the formites introduce eachother, but all said their charges had already met previously and so there was no issue.”>

“A lie.” The Queen was blunt in the assessment. “Or an untruth they do not fully appreciate. This corridor reeks of markers, indicators, possessive trails. Singing through your comms or seeing a screen’s image is not the same as a true meeting, and a relationship cannot be established until such has occurred.”

<”I’m doubt most of our guests take the same approach the Captain does with you, so I equally doubt most realize there’s a distinction.”> Miroslava, stood near the closed ramp up to the Palamedes’ panorama, caught the tug at the Hathan’s lips. <”Perhaps, even it would have been an imposition, you should have phrased the suggestion as an order?”>

<”That’s the problem when you get this high up the chain. Never perfectly clear who has authority over who. I could have ordered it, but then I’d have the Second House insisting they hold precedent because this is a matter of loyalty to the Empire, while the Admiralty insists the any proceedings aboard a military vessel make it their purview.”>

“The merits of your Empire, among those which have been championed, is a clearing of such confusion or contradiction.” The crafters were billowing air upon the congealing sealant holding the Queen’s armor together. It was functional, solid, but Skthveraachk would rather stand peeled before the Composer than be seen under another Queens’ eyes in a still drying crown. “To be beholden to singular authority is to be of certainty in what place you hold in the hierarchy.”

<”You think this is an aching skull, you should try to read a chart of how the Coalition bottlenecks things.”> He was nervous. Or perhaps, the more correct note would be anticipatory. Trying to use a light humor to ease both himself and the Queen. <”It isn’t usually a problem. The labor is divided with clear indications of who is in charge of what. This is just what happens when something incredible threatens to change the way the entire Empire operates. Every House and branch and specialist are shoved into a room together, trying to push their own priorities. But, that’s what the Heralds are for.”>

“For none can contest their superiority.” The Captain nodded, though Skthveraachk was midway through turning to Miroslava before his head had even risen. “How long have the Queens been assembled?”

<”Eight, ten beats maybe?”>

“Then there is less cause for fear. If they have not engaged in hostilities by this point, they have found some manner of consensus and harmony.” The Lieutenant began to laugh, only to have it catch when she noted both the stillness of Skthveraachk and her entourage, and Hathan’s own stalwartness.

<”You aren’t serious. There’s only a few guards, sure, but you actually think your people are stupid enough to start a fight after being hand-picked as envoys of their species to the Empire?”>

“With your kind? No.” Front legs folded, scythes slowly extended and withdrew, testing the new meshing of shelled bracer and metal encircling the hole. Pure precaution, she assured the soldiers behind her with a whistle and shake of thorax. “You are our rulers. Uncontested. I cannot sing for the minds of those beyond this door, however. In any meeting such as this, dominance and order must be established. It is crude, but physical displays are sometimes warranted.”

<”Making a scene and attacking another Queen aboard a Sovereignty ship? They’d have to be crazy, or suicidal.”>

“Or the insult be just that grotesque.”

<”Mira, can you go find out what’s keeping the last pair?”> This did not require personal presence, and if Skthveraachk knew so, then so did the Lieutenant. Both females angled their skulls to the male, who only gestured his hand in response. <”I don’t like having to wait outside my own observation deck, and I don’t think the delegates inside will appreciate it either. Make it an order this time if you feel its necessary, at your discretion.”> And that was a half-truth, at best, something else both females registered as one. The Lieutenant did not question it. She saluted, offered a faint smile, and marched back down the ramp, past the line of humanite and formite soldiers both. Thinkers and scentcrafters too, yes, the Queen would not be caught as the tad feeds again with such unpreparedness like with Ghllencheechlak. But she was resolved, despite how such displays may be taken. Like Ghllencheechlak, the sounds of chittering and buzzing from behind the closed doors struck of only the highest castes, the colonies forced to use their limited passenger space to bring their planners and intellectuals. This place was hers, and she was the fullness of a completed colony; her voice would sing out with every role, no matter which she brought with her into this most unnatural meeting. <”I need to ask you something, Svera.”>

“I am always able to answer, Hathan-Captain.” A questioning of her choice of guards? A warning of the dangers of the next few bars, their criticality for him, her? She readied for reprimand. He kept his beat steady, focused forward.

<”Did you mean what you said-…no, that’s the wrong way of saying it, I know you meant it.”> Crinkling up the folds of his skinned brow, adjustment of mind was made before his voice came again. <”When you said my indecision, my slowness, was the reason so many of your people died. That it is the way humanites act, but not formites. I don’t know what we can exactly expect, but I know that once we’re in there, assuming Malika wasn’t lying,”>

“She was not.” Assurance, addendum, not interruption. He nodded.

<”They are going to ask you, tell you, to control your own species. Do you understand that?”>

“It has been expectation since leaving Dracan, since hearing Herald Jyoshi’s decree. I knew, know, that your kind’s investment in me was only ever in service of their goals. What I do for you, I do for my species, and when they ask I bring them the loyalty of my vassals, my allies, I will do so unflinchingly.”

<”And the colonies you’ve never met. Entire swathes of land you’ve never seen, Queens who’ve never heard of you and you’ve never heard of?”> Hesitation. Considerations ran through her veins and lungs, the taste of the thought rolled over in her stomach.

“To defy the Sovereignty is to invite destruction. To defy the Emperor is to be purged. But to obey brings not just survival, but potential. Growth. Peace. Unity.” The mechanical monster in which they hovered in the infinite sky was as much a cage as it was a miracle. Perhaps both, at the same time. “I do not have the luxury of lamenting the chords the Composer has written for me. Obedience is the only path forward. I will do as I am ordered, as you have taught me.”

<”Even if it means you’ll need to fight your own kind, for us.”>

“That will not be your decision to make.” Hardness she had not initially intended came as a stomp. The Hathan was unmoved. “That will not be your species’ order to give. I will bring your words to my kind. I will show them the way, drag them screaming and biting along it if necessary. Your ways are not our ways. If I must kill some to save others, I will do so. By my own beliefs and necessity.” Carefully did she articulate each thought to the Band, ensuring the translation precise. “Not yours. I have sold my soul and sullied my song with acts deplorable before, because it was required. Because I deemed it so. And if this Herald is even half as learned as the Aadarsh-Who-Has-Been-Blessed insists, he will know not to command me otherwise.” All were expendable within the Sovereignty. All equally held value. Skthveraachk had seen enough to know so long as value outweighed harm, danger was ever present, but leeway was practiced. She had delivered them a rutting planet with the blood of herself and her children. They would acknowledge it, even if she needed force the matter. Blue eyes and blue uniform angled just enough to let both show their fronts to the female, and his words were as hard as the resolve she had come to expect from the male.

<”I’ll handle the politics, as best I can. I’m a soldier, not a politician, and not an ambassador either. There’s too much I don’t know about your kind, still. Too much.”> Urge rose to comfort the perceived false depreciation of the humanite’s efforts, but he gave her no space for reply. <”Whatever you say, whatever you do; when it comes to your people, I’m going to defer to your judgement. You were right. This isn’t my world, figuratively or literally. You trusted me to get you through the Admiralty, through Dracan, through the attentions of the Herald. Now I’ll trust you.”>

“There has never been a breach of this truth since our voices were raised as one aboard this very ship, Hathan-Captain.” She felt her guts twist and contort. Felt the acid unbidden begin to work up her throat. “All you have done for us is seen. All you have given for us is felt.” Sing the notes. They would be untruth, but the colony would not know. The Hathan would not know. It would be a lie for his own benefit. A good thing. The Queen looked down from her reared, upright stance on the man. And even knowing she was capable, could not bring herself to do so again. “I swear to you that, only in the most horrendous of realities, in places where the voices of untold numbers were at stake, would such trust ever be violated.” Truth. Truth, blessed and only truth. It was a truth which confused him, which did not give him the surety he desired, which made his face turn into as much a frown as smile. And still. Still. Still, he let the worry drain away and reached to touch her leg. Knowing fully a flex from her could send the hairs needling through his limb. Knowing, not believing, but knowing, she would never do so. Her vents flared, and the notes just upon her shell were lost in the vibrations from behind.

Two legs, and six legs. One set of each. Signals ran rampant up and down her line of soldiers, and the presence of foreign body brought rattling displays from each large body the smaller being passed. When both rounded the corner onto the ramp, bulbous humanite in flowing robes of red and gold puffed and strode on thick legs. Leant on the rod capped with cup’s insignia, and covered by a hood which wobbled as much as the meaty male himself. And behind him, a formite. A single formite. Half the size of the Queen, were she generous in the measurement, ochre in hue and scent. He, too, moved without pause. Without song. Without the markers indicative of rank or role, and showing no signs of registering the laden perfumes of odour her diplomatic probe of clustered bodies had been doused in. Too bizarre to even be insulting, and she was grateful for the Hathan’s guidance as the stuffed humanite neared the top of the ramp; a salute. Good. This alien was a superior. She mirrored the motion with her own formality, her soldiers too bending at their second legs to offer bows as sound burbled out of the large humanite.

<”Commander Devries! No, Captain now I see! Heavens, but it has been some time since I had to run the breadth of one of His Eminence’s battleships.”>

<”The Palamedes is categorized as a modified heavy carrier, but I appreciate the compliment. Under his gaze, sir.”>

“Under his gaze.” She focused upon the alien, as for once, it was the more understandable of the two. Soldiers crept nearer the stilled formite drone, waggling their antennae in offering, but sharp and deliberate movements in response denied the requests for communication. As you would deny an inferior caste’s advance. Eyes strayed to the drone, the blotting arm raised towards her head cause a small jerk of surprise, though the Queen forced stillness as the humanite beamed a closed smile and drew out a symbol upon her with its fingers.

<”By His light, and let me say how warming it is to see just how fervent the members of your crew have remained despite long sojourn in space, Captain. Your Lieutenant, the sprightly lass/young female, truly devout. Didn’t utter a single complaint when I requested she retrieve some baggage I’d forgotten in the shuttle. And you,”> Despite the redness of puffy face, the male did not hesitate to angle his head back to better view Skthveraachk directly. Hand falling away from her frozen body. <”Must be, and I know I’ll pronounce this wrong, Skver-arack?”>

“Your attempt is commendable. I do not believe accurate pronunciation is even possible with your species’ limited array of sounds.”

<”Commendable! Ha!”> The Queen looked, quickly, to the Captain for assistance. The slight wideness of his irises and laxness in cheeks were enough to know he had little aid to offer. She had been prepared for another encounter like the Dame, not…whatever this was. <”You have my congratulations on helping foster such an eloquent member of the People, Devries. My own charges are rare to grace me yet with full sentences. Ghastly troops she has here, but I trust all that ornamentation was taken from the rebels, not our own soldiers, aye?”> Small clunking of bone emitted from some of the drones, soldiers and menial-warriors both, querying the Queen whether they had been insulted or praised. ‘Unknown’, was the only response she could offer. Lowly clearing his feeding passage, the Hathan tried to move aside, offering the ramp’s access to the other man.

<”I appreciate that, your *^&**^&*. The others have already gathered, just waiting on us now, so if you wouldn’t mind?”>

<”Unbelievable, truly, Devries. This delay, out of my hands. Would you care to guess exactly what manner of madness kept me?”> Again, the Queen tried. Thinkers, this time. They ran their hairs together for the drone, made displays of neutrality, offered to begin a duet and seek concordance. Again, the smaller male denied their touches. Discontent beginning to rise in the drone’s posture, and in the soldiers who watched it. When Hathan had not responded for a matter of breaths, the other alien hiccupped a disbelieving laugh. <”A *^&**^&*/intruder on my ship. Quite exactly, I mean. ON my ship, latched to the hull when we gated in.”>

<”…I’m not sure I follow, sir.”>

<”Vergers, Captain!”> The familiarity of the note perked the Queen’s attentions once more, despite her now increasing shift to the stoic, isolated formite. <”Luckily, only a single verger. We all expected shockwaves after the Emperor’s broadcast, but you can’t imagine the ruckus back home. Worse than dregs, worse than *^&*. I posit that this, K-H-13, is at this moment even more a secure location than Holy Earth itself, and still, even here, those space vermin find ways through the cracks.”>

“I had been told this system was inaccessible but to the Sovereignty.” Was that surprise in the robed humanite’s expression? The rolls made it hard to tell. “Should this not be source of great concern, that such infiltration was possible?”

<”No, Svera, I’m sure that’s not the issue.”> That, was certainly mirth, being subdued by a hard-pressed formality towards the superior alien. <”There’s no way a warship, or a fleet, could ever reach you here. Neither of which the vergers have, which makes me somewhat admire that kind of insane tenacity in getting here. Easier to think of them as, I want to say…”> The Captain’s music reached as great hand for some transient terminology. <”Wandering herd animals?”>

<”And Emperor forgive my admission, they are still members of the Sovereignty, ostensibly. Hallowed be His patience with them, though I will shed few tears on the measure that patience runs dry.”> Trying to move further aside, the Captain could not have been clearer in his efforts to speed the humanite along.

<”I’m very sorry to hear of your troubles, sir. I hope the situation was handled appropriately-“>

<”Ship destroyed, the criminal apprehended. I left the matter to Captain *^&**^&* and trust he promptly put the woman up against a wall; I have no time for solar scavengers perpetrating treasons with the sole goal of ‘seeing those aliens’. And the ignominy of being aboard the first vessel to allow-“>

“Is this what passes for courtesy among your kind, Queen?” Neither Hathan nor the fatty and still babbling alien took notice of the music. Nor did the Band the drone wore activate. Skthveraachk looked again, and found that the near silent drone had worked its way around behind its tender, so that the ribbing of hairs and swinging of antennae went unseen. “Reared on four legs, negligent in greeting, taking soldiers into place of diplomacy?” No thinker was given permission to listen to the ongoing conversation of humanites. All were directed to the exchange, while heavy claws thudded out threatening warnings.

“I am Skthveraachk Queen of Skthveraachk-Colony. May your music reflect upon us appreciation for your position and posture. This place is mine.” A small puff of marking pheromone underscored the statement. “Offering of song was made, and declined. You reject concord, and bring conflict instead?”

“I do not accept insult of joining voice with a lesser role. We are equals. I will be treated as such. Isthmus Unbarred.” The formality of the greeting was at odds with the notes’ contents. A greeting, from the way the gaster arched and fluid was flecked towards her, but one the Queen had never heard. “My mass as yours, that our legs lift together for the growth of tomorrow. I am a singer of Jh’e’ckhll’ckhll-Colony.”

“What perversion of noise do you utter? Claim descendance of a Founder yet neglect support of his ethos? Refuse enunciation of sex? Bear not the markers of role or caste, yet demand reception as equal-“ Realization. Like a lance’s fire at fifty lengths, right through her crest. Her newly forged armor shook, and a foreleg crossed over the chitin now raised at first joint. “You are Queenless. You are of the Queenless Colonies.”

“And you are of those to the alto lands of green, basking in fruits undeserved. We sing morose joy at finding cohesion in our melodies.” It was a contorted noise, the way the voices of the one harmonized with the calls of the many. It should have been overwhelmed, subsumed into the mass. Somehow, it persisted, holding steady while the chorus of thousands swam around it. Skthveraachk could not contain her fascination.

“I am ignorant in your ways and unfamiliar in your notes. You do not breach boundaries of the accordance. You do not leave unending sands.”

“What purpose would it serve? We are true to our role. To nurture from ashes grass and growth. Has cataclysm rendered greater lands above devoid of foliage? Bereft of biomass?”

“Ignobleness. Such must be tended, always, ever.” The Hathan was catching her movements, noticing how she had also deactivated her Band when the exchange had begun. Her notes came faster, and more pointed. “Reserves to manage, populations to control.”

“With time in abundance to wage wars. Conquer rivals. Indulge greed. Hobbies of wealthy and fortunate and bloated.” She had ordered the tools and weapons of the warriors brought as display. She now was ordering the soldiers keep them upright, unaimed, unprovoking despite the open hostility the drone, queen, singer, was displaying. “Had hoped final of star-sent’s emissaries would be another of my kind. Not another kowtowing to aliens, begging for scraps. Upright as they walk. Wearing their shells.”

“Caution is rattled with sheathed scythes, Queenless.” Now, even the plump humanite was taking notice. “Do not sing to me of role and sacrifice. I travel the sky slaying star-sent. I bleed my colony for sake of all formite. Your desert burns and melts without our work here.”

“Yet you use their name for us.” Clicking mandibles, the clacking of hollow jaws was steady against the chanting ire. “You left of the people. You return more akin to aliens. You will enjoy other of your namesake. You both reek of star-sent.”

<”Svera, his *^&**^&* asked if there was a problem.”>

“There is not.” Truth. Enough. Her Band was reactivated with a swipe of her antennae, the final barb bringing a confused conflict to the Queen’s thoughts. Too long she had been absent from such interaction. Her skills, unsharpened. Larger alien was giving a tentative, searching grin, and the Queen ensured to send an irritated swat of hind legs towards the Queenless while folding her scythes for the humanite. “My colony has been long removed from conversing with my people, and could not help but to briefly indulge. I thank your understanding with curled claws.”

<”Think nothing of it, my dear girl!”> Thudding drop of a thinker’s core against the deck behind her came in lieu of visual disgust. Nope. That was not a pleasant arrangement of notes. <”I can only imagine how it’s been for you out there, fighting the righteous fight. I have many questions-“>

<”Which can wait until after the meeting, sir. I insist we don’t keep them waiting any longer.”>

<”Oh very well, very well Devries. I can take a hint.”> Tapping the side of his facial vents, the robed male billowed past Skthveraachk and the Captain both, forcing the Hathan to quickly tap at his pad to part the doors lest the other run smack into them. She ignored the disparaging shake of the singer’s midsection, sucking in the breath as the entrance split and sent waves of smell forward.

“Maintain procession formation.”

“Received. Weapons upward.”

“Song has begun. We go.”

“We go.”

“Received.” Familiar. A circle of seats, for the aliens, desks and coverings and ceremonial guardians affecting an air of order. Orbed chairs for her kind, rooted to the deck upon which laden bodies were already curled. A military uniform. A Herald’s insignia. The Dame Costa, lips set, a plate of food cupped in hands. Screens showing the great curve of Kayyhaitch before them, a horizon of stars and sky. Familiar. But no longer frightening. She had been here before. And she had changed, since then. To bring soldiers in a meeting of Queens, yes, unorthodox. But there was a delight in her at the way the unfamiliar humanites showed withdrawal at their marching entrance. Ghastly, the robed male had said? Regal. The greatest warriors, menial and soldier both, who had survived Dracan, adorned in the strapped chitin cuirasses and bearing the spears of sharpened palmidia. Some, even, strapped with the skull of a humanite they had personally killed and survived to harvest. Distantly she felt the discontent of the great purple-shining giant in the cargo bivouac, and sympathy was extended. Impact was good. The twelve sets of skull and bone trophied on his armor was likely more than these aliens could tolerate. And that display, that was for the aliens, the amber guards. The Queen’s display? That was for her own people.

Skthveraachk followed the Hathan, and her legs gleamed in the artificial light. For while the humanite plating provided the core of her garb, encased had it been in the shell of her hunt’s conquest. The horn of the allomyrite near scraped the ceiling, her body ducked to prevent its damage to the screen. Protective thass over her eyes, her core enveloped by silvery hardstone which would deflect beam and wrapped in layered chitin which would shatter scythe. There was only one trophy she wished to champion, had included to the amalgamation of alien and formite technology. Set into the joint of her right foreleg, where limb met trunk, the crest of the unknown Queen had been angled to compliment her own risen skull. Bathed in the scent of exaltation, in praise, in respect. On four legs, her greeting call sounded strong, and she looked for the first time over the other of her kind gathered. The Queenless had neither reacted, nor cared. Ghllencheechlak, curled comfortably over one of the orbed chairs, chittered with enthusiastic interest from his gathered thinkers. There were only two others, and the first, a somewhat reticent red female, shrunk back in fearful awe, hurriedly puffing up airs of submission so as not to show challenge both herself and from the scentcrafter mass around her. And the other was…

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<”Captain, Holy*^&*, good of you both to finally join us.”> Some great chasm, surely, from which the sound came. The black dressed one, golden eyes. Herald. Herald’s aide, subordinate, some lesser marked role. Casually seated in the center of an arranged desk, half-emptied fluid glass before him. She had frozen midway to her own seat, Queens’ eyes only for the final female present. It was one of the few attendants Skthveraachk had brought which crawled up to input the new terms to the translator fixed to her skull, as the Queen found herself insensate. <”I am Leiff Berndsen, empowered representative of Herald Pieter Lievens for these proceedings, who cannot attend due to obligations on the surface. We’re already well behind schedule here, so.”> A veil. Draped below eyes and over mandibles. Fabrics concealing neck and vents, pointlessly otherwise fastened to legs and trunk. The Captain had gone to join the rest, had not turned to see her rising hairs and slowly lowering scythes while the Leiff-subordinate of the Herald flicked fingers over a pad. <”Let it show the first formal meeting of the K-H-13 Expeditionary Force having commenced at…oh-nine-fifty-five ES. Names to be stated for the record.”>

<”Regina Costa.”> Deplorable barren breeder. Not even she could fully distract the Queen. <”Second House, of Everett Kay.”>

<”Rhys Hughes,”> Keeping the stick of golden grail’s symbol aloft, the bulbous man moved readily to the table of assorted biomasses. <”Nuncio Apostolic, First House, under direction of His most noble-“>

<”That is sufficient, Holiness.”>

<”Walter Detlaff.”> On before the Hughes could interject. The veiled formite had seen the Queen. Had already begun to crawl down off the largest of the seats, having claimed it despite Ghllencheechlak’s better suitability. The male humanite behind it, looking to the aide, smoothed a palm down its jacket. A motion Skthveraachk only registered by the brief consideration how much more wiping he would need to do once that formite-shaped thing had reached her, even if the brown Queenless partially shielded him. <”Second House, of Agnes Dulac.”> Dulac? Note it. Ask later. Scythes began to grow all the larger, and the hesitance the veiled creature broadcast did not stop its movements.

<”Devries, Hathan. Captain of the Palamedes, representative of Herald Aadarsh Jyoshi under acting special dispensation.”> That turned some heads. A minutest of glees at how the Dame almost lost hold of her plate at the statement. The Hathan reached the wall, reoriented, and doubled the size of his eyes at Skthveraachk’s posture. Four lengths. Three.

<”Mary Celeste.”> A pause for further elaboration. None came. The woman rested, legs crossed, within one of the seats. Looking not to the aide, but to the center of the room. To the Queens. To the approach, as with distance closed, the female raised herself onto four legs as Skthveraachk.

<”Thank you, representatives. At this point, under the Articles, this meeting is now considered classified, with access to the transcripts prohibited below clearances of House authority or greater.”> Something bleeped. Small exhales slipped occasional lips. The Sentinel guards, what few there were, remained stiff, but an invisible hand brushed across all others, as the aide reclined more easily in his seat. <”And now that’s done with, we can speak freely. Herald Lievans is wanting things settled, today, before we disperse, so there’ll be no standing on ceremony. Ours is going to be a monumental task.”> The thing angled its forelegs forward, like Skthveraachk. Marked the floor not in respectful submission, but to label the space as its own, the section of deck no longer recognized as Skthveraachk’s. Sung, supported by the six thinkers and six scentcrafters near its now vacant seat, while the Band translated fully each uttered note.

“Greetings to you, sibling Queen. Our masters have named me Aphoma, of Skthehrnaatch-Colony, and I welcome you to these proceedings.”

Truly, Skthveraachk had utterly tried to articulate a response. The thinkers had provided a litany of curses drawn from the obscenest descriptions of failed copulations and frenzied pleading. The scentcrafters sent forth a musk of wet fecal pap and the rage of an unearthed colony set ablaze. Soldiers had chanted out the war-cries uttered as they charged the Caldera’s ridges and trenches of Dracan, even menders from below had utterly given up attempting to calm the Queen some beats ago and instead worked anatomical descriptions of severed formite limbs and amputated phalluses into the sound. It would have been a wonderous chord, if managed into coherency. What came out of her lungs, instead, was a scream of such frothing ire that the fearful expulsion of juices from the clothed formite who had debased self before fifty billion voices managed to actually cause the one named Detlaff, behind, to stumble at the sheer force of the ejection. Incredible that only three lances came to be aimed at her, the aide waving off the rest.

<”I cannot be more pleased to see the Herald correctly determine ‘unofficial’ the best way to proceed with these people. At ease, Sentinels, let them get it out of their systems.”>

“Frenzied intruder! Disharmonious beast! I sing welcome and kindness, my voice amiable!” Scuttling back only a half-length, it was not enough to properly remove the Queen from Skthveraachk’s reach. Something both Queens knew. “You would threaten violence before the star-sent emissaries of Emperor and Composer and-“

“THREATEN!?” Had she thought the spear-wielding soldiers would lunge forward? That she would have time to retreat? Scythe fully unsheathed, the colored fabrics along the soft skeleton went orange as Skthveraachk’s tip plunged directly through chitin at the ‘Aphoma’s’ underside. The false notes of fear becoming true shrieks of pain in an instant as the Queen dropped to the floor, writhing. Wild hisses came from thinkers and scentcrafters both, throwing themselves atop their fallen mother. Skthveraachk threw both her armored limbs wide, and begged them to attack. None did. “Threaten!? I shall peel every tenthlenth of black from you, that you may coat yourself in star-sent colors! Welcome me, in my own nest?! Kindness, as you squirt challenge!?”

<”-utterly disgusting creatures.”> Scowling and sullied male had stridden to the table, yanking the fabric from its surface to wipe down his sodden front. <”Captain, get your damned bug under control.”>

“Aid! Support! Representative Mary, I beseech, I have caused no wrong nor harm, this Queen-“ Another thrust of scythe lanced forward. Deliberately missing, this time, but with force enough to cause the deck to groan in protest. A thinker, overcome with his Queen’s fear, leapt and gnawed bluntly upon her keratin blade. Her soldiers did not even register a threat enough to assist.

<”Svera?”> Calm. At least outwardly. Steady, as he watched her rise and loom over the fallen female. The smell of blood had brought the other Queens to high alert, rapidly singing out their neutrality or allegience. Even the Queenless, alone at his seat, made gestures of controlled shock at the swift motions. <”Please explain.”>

“Makes music of cooperation while dancing in defiance! Noises you will register as supplication with actions I will see as challenge! Provokes my aggression then whimpers and begs your assistance! Do you think me idiot, Skthehrnaatch Queen!?” True, she had taken the obvious bait. But Skthveraachk doubted the other had expected to truly suffer in her gambit. “Do you think THEM fools!?” Thin feminine eyes observed from seated Celeste, yet it was the Captain who again responded.

<”She seems in control to me, Sir Detlaff.”>

<”So you plan to let her kill one of our assigned governors?”> Proper fear. Appropriate fear. The Aphoma, her wound being stuffed with thin and watery spit, seemed to register the lack of expected intercession. The absence of support. Now, when she scurried backwards, it was well out of Skthveraachk’s reach, ceding the claimed territory the armored Queen was quick to re-mark as part of her nest.

“I sing grossest sorrow at any misconception of purpose, superior Queen-“

“Skthveraachk Queen!” The deliberate interruption and death of the fledgling song was a rippling shockwave across the hairs of the formites present. “Of Skthveraachk-Colony! I see you, Skthehrnaatch-Colony. Frail, mewling. Do the others know the depths of your treachery? The songs you sung for the star-sent as the ‘voice of our people’?” They did not. For the revulsion the Ghllencheechlak, the Queenless, even the likewise shrunken red near the Detlaff exhibited as her music recited a brief recounting of the debasement she had seen, could not be made clearer.

<”I think the point has been made, Queen.”> Unmoved, the Aide kept his peace, but she registered well the warning in his tone. A subtly she would not have grasped a cycle ago, now clearly heard. Just once, she tested the limit, her scythes still buried into the metal floor as she whirled on the male.

“This is what you chose to show your people? This thing, you knew it to be false, and yet shone its image across your planets regardless!? You call yourselves allies of the formite, yet stoop to such duplicity-“

<”My apologies, sir.”> The Hathan interjected, and his offering on her behalf was enough to bring forgiveness for any interruption. Sorrow replaced rage, and she cut quiet the remainder of her bars of condemnation. <”The Queen is in control of herself, but sometimes exaggerates her anger. She is not questioning the Emperor’s decision.”> His world. Not hers. The Aide, with perched boney digits, watched her carefully. And the lowering of her head following the Hathan’s words, despite the putrid feeling it gave amidst the still desperate chewing unhearing drone afflicted upon her scythe, was immediate.

“I sing regret in wrongful harshness, as the Hathan-Captain directs. It is not my place nor role to question the plans of the Sovereignty.” Protest was made first from the Aphoma. Second, from the Dame. Both fell silent with the raise of the man’s hand, so quickly placed back into steepled rest.

<”The people were given what the people needed to see. That was, and is, Aphoma’s role. Yours has been and will continue to be in support of the reclamation effort, efforts that do not go unappreciated. You will, however, not mistake appreciation for unilateral tolerance. Your anger was expected, permitted, and now concluded. Mind yourself, Queen. And settle this. I have a briefing to conduct.”> Part of her wished to cry joy at the meager victory. The other continued to vomit up curses within. Skthehrnaatch-Queen, weakly and timidly, was calling to her thinker, urging it back. The blood was too pungent, the unguent to stem the flow insufficient, and so the need to defend, to protect, still too overpowering. Was that frenzy, then? Ignoring an order? Perhaps once, the Queen might have needed that justification. Perhaps even later, she would have balked at the desire which now filled her. This thing had hurt her. Hurt them all, with but a few sonorous notes and swaying motions. Fixed in gaze again on the withdrawn Queen, Skthveraachk let two of her eyes fall on the valiantly pointless efforts of the thinker. Wondering, briefly, what manner of memories and stories it might hold. Such thoughts ended when her unobstructed scythe, stained already in the blood of queen-colonies and dreams of the individual, plunged down through the skull of the attacking thinker. Bringing deadness of sound to the formites present as they watched the mind excised from the whole. A passing disgust. A tolerable disquiet at the action. Acceptable, for the purity of dread the Skthehrnaatch now emitted, and the hushed uneasiness from the rest of the Queens as Skthveraachk waited for the wriggling after-spasms of the drone’s death to cease. Only then, lifting her scythe to point clear at her sibling.

“You shame every descendant of Sh’e with each breath you take. Were it not for the star-sent, I would kill you where you lay. Taste of my truth, and know it pure.” Soldiers hurried forward. Seized and dragged back into their black lines the obsidian-shelled corpse. Skthveraachk, herself, crawled back to the chair she had neglected, and rescinded scythes only once they had been cleaned of the offending spit and gore. There was death in Skthehrnaatch’s eyes. A dies irae in the air. Too far? The humanites did not care. Taking a place beside the Celeste, Aphoma must have muttered something, for the alien female reached down to lay a hand in a patting at the thing’s head.

<”A fair attempt, Aphoma, but I warned you not to overplay yourself. This is what it gets you.”> Uncaring for the listeners. Unbothered by the looks it garnered her from the Hathan and Skthveraachk both. A lasting touch of formality, a need previously neglected, crowned head snapped towards the Detlaff, and to the red female who had yet to return to her chair.

“I am Skthveraachk Queen of Skthveraachk-Colony. May my claws never need raise against your children. I sing welcome aboard this vessel of metal and unlife, storied it shall be in our memories. This place is mine, but I share it willingly with those who share in my purpose.”

“I am Khchechteeyh Queen of Khchechteeyh-Colony.” Surprise filled her, the other Queen seeing though not yet understanding its cause. “May the things you have seen beyond the sky never wear through the shell of your core. This place is yours. Your welcome is generous and kind.”

“Greater deserved to you than any. I know of Khchechteeyh-Colony.” Rescinding fully the now cleaned scythes, humanites had nearly resettled, and even Ghllencheechlak had made pride a sapling, sending one of his thinkers to assist in applying thicker sealant to Aphoma’s wound. Skthveraachk hurried the tempo of her music. “When I was first brought aboard the Palamedes, I was without colony. The humanites, testing us, sent us to dispatch a captured chaerilite.” Gratitude flowed like tapped jelsaah juice. “It was a drone of Khchechteeyh-Colony, taken along with many others, who sung of your colony’s evasion of the creature. How to use its eyesight against it. Owed to them, only a single voice was silenced in the monster’s defeat.”

“You give expectation of acceptance from Queens that Skthveraachk-Colony hunted child of Chelice with but single death?” Emotions were conflicted in Khchechteeyh, but the Queenless singer had no such hesitance in voicing incredulity.

“Do you accuse me of frenzy, singer?”

“You kill a thinker without qualm and ask if you are frenzied. No, I do not sing accusation of frenzy. Accusation of truth’s warping, perhaps.”

“Did Khchechteeyh drone share more of us?” Red queen, slowly walking back to her chair, curled up and around its dome. Skthveraachk chittered gently.

“If you have spent time with the star-sent, as I have, you know them troublesome. Had little time for such exchanges. I offer sympathy.” Checking the memories, the Queen and Queenless patient as the link relayed down and back from nest proper, confirmation was rattled from antennae. “They chose to remain with my colony as we left to stars, a world called Dracan. Their song ended at a place called Caldera, in great battle with enemies of Sovereignty-Colony. Our memories sing surety of good final note. Shielding soldiers from enemy spitters in an impassible hall of death.”

“I utter sadness at the lost, but joy that we could find cooperation even amongst pieces of the whole. It brings surety we can cooperate, now, as we cooperated, then.” Waving antennae through the gaps in her helm, the other Queen mimicked the gesture across the open air, both halting when the humanites again interjected.

<”Now, are we settled?”>

“We are.” Skthveraachk sung for Ghllencheechlak, but the Queenless, Khchechteeyh and Skthehrnaatch gave their own affirmations. Still, Khchechteeyh’s had been almost identical to the armored Queen’s own, a strong indicator of unity. Three of the five, nearly in congruency already. It was the most Skthveraachk could have hoped for.

<”Good. Representatives,”> Only Celeste and the stick-bearing Hughes had kept their places. The rest, Hathan too, gathered closer the tables. Seating themselves, facing both Aide and room’s center. <”The official line is that K-H-13 is a mostly unified planet, with a strong central government facing threats from external dissenters. I’m sure all of you are aware the sheer size of that falsehood. We’ve identified, after hundredmeasures of study, no fewer than four major political powers, spread across the eight continents of the planet. Our directive is straightforward, but by no means simple. The unification of the planet into single cohesive unit.”> It was unavoidable. Skthveraachk held her silence, barely, but the Queenless broke into a clapping of antennae which brought many eyes to it. <”Something to interject?”>

“You sing of a task our people have sought after since the loss of the Founders. You sing of an undertaking gone unachieved for untold hundreds of cycles.”

<”Your creation mythos,”> Laughter was severed like a lumbrite’s head. Even the Aphoma emitted quiet displeasure at the term. <”Is something we consider to be a benefit for this job, not a detriment. At the same time, I’m not going to pretend our estimates are even close to short-term achievability. We don’t expect immediate success. Think of this more as an experiment, in practical applications of authority.”> Humanites and their tests. Would she ever be rid of them.

<”I have questions,”> The Dame raised a finger. <”Pertaining to the handling of the natives. Specifically, our policy to them. Actual policy, not the official line.”>

<”At the moment, they are for the most part unclassified. The Empire does not consider them allied independents, like the vergers, certainly not rebels like the Coalition. As such, they do not fall under any prohibitions or protections of the Articles, House Ethos or citizen common law.”> Making a point to pause, eyes passed across the gathered Queens. <”To witting/simply put, there is no precedence for them by Emperor’s decree. Our goal is to make them ready to join the Empire, but in the meantime, any method to encourage this result is permitted. Which, incidentally, is why you are all here.”> The darkness in her was spiralling again. The humanites danced around language and song, were subtle in their approaches. This? This was blatant, clear, forward in its threat and goal. Had the Sovereignty changed? Had Skthveraachk? Or was this something new. Something held back behind doors closed and passageways sealed, only now revealed to her? <”I say ‘for the most part’. The five delegates of five chosen colonies from our affected areas of the planet are here to facilitate the Sovereignty’s goals on K-H. Having showed talent, comprehension of our culture and ways, and a full willingness to aid in our efforts, their role here will be to bring His Imperial Light to their people. Your roles are to oversee their efforts and ensure obedience with our directives. These areas you will be assigned, these termed ‘Colonial Districts’, shall be models upon which the integration of the rest of the planet shall be based.”>

<”Fascinating approach.”> The Celeste, still keeping her hand on the curled Aphoma, drummed fingers sickeningly along the female’s crest. <”If I might ask, did anyone on the Emperor’s staff look to examples of what happened to the last Empire who installed ollee-garkies across conquered free states?”> The others kept neutral, but Skthveraachk caught the mixture of impressed surprise on the Hathan’s familiar face. The word was obtuse, and went into the piling of questions she’d need to ask later. Along, it seemed, with the realization that the Sovereignty may be the current, but was certainly not the first of its kind. The Aide did not balk at the question.

<”Your directive is the pacification, subjugation, call it what you will, of your designated CD. How you go about it will be left to your discretion, within reason. Most likely to succeed scenarios are being compiled by thinking-tanks back on Mars, and you’ll be given full access to their research progress. If you choose to emulate the failures of old regimes, I hope you’ll be prepared for the consequences which follow.”>

“I extend desire to question.” Ghllencheechlak had never uttered sound through the Band before. It was, strange, how mechanical the previously richly colored music became, and how quickly the Dame gave the male a stare more burning than even tank-mounted dual beams could hope to match. Praiseworthy, that the other Queen pretended like his thinkers did not see the scathing look as Aide gestured consent. “To our people, the star-sent are creatures of great power from beyond the sky. When we arrive, they will have…mixed responses, to being approached by those claiming to be emissaries of such power. Unfavorable, when it is learned we are but instruments in the enforcing of greater will.”

<”We’re well aware of your inability to lie.”> A single line. Uttered flippantly, plainly. Skthveraachk forced herself to show no emotion, not even as Khchechteeyh Queen turned the heads of her scentcrafters in the armored Queen’s direction. Reassuring, inquisitive aromas flowing from their sacs and gasters. Skthveraachk assured her of stability, even as quiet contemplation buckled within her. They did not know. They had not discovered. It was proven. <”Which is why I repeat my previous statement. That you are, ‘for the most part’, unclassified. Sending you back to your people, as you put it, as our instruments won’t be lending you much credence or support. Which is why, following this briefing, your status within the Imperial Sovereignty will be certified and established.”> Leans from the humanites. Forward, backwards. Waving, feeling antennae, questioning one another and seeking to pull understanding from the air. The Hathan’s breath caught. The Dame was clenching her plate firm enough to likely fracture the surface. It felt as though the Herald’s Aide was looking to Skthveraachk directly as he waited. Giving the room time to still before continuing. <”Congratulations. Once we are finished here, you will be recognized as provisional citizens of the Imperial Sovereignty of Earth. You’ll be returning to K-H not as formites, but as proud members of the Empire. A great day for humanity.”> The male chuckled, the sound wet and rolling. <”A great day for us all.”>