Skthveraachk wondered if the rain on Earth was the same as on Kayyhaitch. If they even had rain, she quickly added in reminder. Like Dracan, they said a great boulder hung in the sky above it, and that cities stretched across half its entire surface. Perhaps they had decided they had no need of rain there, in those towering structures of black light and gold statues. Or perhaps, it was very much the same. Another world, another species, another history of life, but the same sound of pattering droplets as eyes looked out from under canopies of leaves or canvas. The crystal trails rolling off shell and compound hulls of hardstone, down the visors of the helms and dripping off antennas curved and listening. Grass and mud squelched endlessly beneath the grey clouds as marching legs struck to the beat, the rattle of spears and muted smells of green life clashing with cold tools of death. Different than on Earth? Or exactly the same? A horn sounded from somewhere a hundred lengths back in the column, and another near the fore answered, the hollow instrument resounding with force.

<”Something off?”>

“The water dampens our scent. They call to confirm all is well.” Short breaths and a short nod from the tramping Colonel brought the Queen’s eyes low, her own pace slower to match the speed of the column. “You should return to your transport. Your jacket is sodden.”

<”Bit of rain never killed anyone. Even if these spoon-fed *^&**^&*,”> The translation flopped between the ideas of spawnlings, and unsuitable female menials. <”Want to treat this like a vacation!”> There were few larger vehicles, none of the great lance-bearing tanks; the narrow path between slope and trees forbade it. But her formites had room to stretch the column five bodies wide, and that was space enough for the rumbling of tracked carriers, full of aliens within and even some dangling their legs off the edges atop. Only a very few kept pace between the bodies of her children, their usual pristine black shells caked in ruddy muck and dirt. <”Frankly, tovarisch, I’m glad for the exercise. Got the standing fever back at the MOB. Need to be out here. Need to be doing something.”>

“Fighting, killing, dying, is indeed something.” Her brimmed cap tipped back, pouring water down the female’s covered back as the alien laughed gutturally to the sky. A great beating of the Composer’s shell rumbled over the peaks rising to the clouds at their flank, thundering in the grey sky as it matching the Solovyova’s mirth. “However low the likelihood of the last, you should not seek out the possibility.”

<”Soldiers live to die, at the Emperor’s pleasure. But that’s not why I’m walking. Walking ‘cause I like the idea of being the first.”> A pair of scouts ran down the line, returning from the front. It raised hairs throughout the area, visual identification lacking smell to go with it, and the wet bodies were hurriedly given another coat of marking, for however long it would last in the downpour. <”That puddle? First human to ever step in it. That stick? First human to kick that stick. Planet’s probably been here a couple billion cycles, and everywhere we go on it, we’re the first of our species. Appreciate the goddamn beauty of it, you runny shits!”> Shouting the last, the humanite’s fist slammed the side of the rolling transport, a dull knock replying from within as the Colonel chuffed air. <”Can look in any direction and not see a single building. You expect that on the low rating planets, but even they’ll be covered with refineries and mines.”>

“I did not see in your silhouette the mind of one who savors nature.”

<”Savor the emptiness, bug. Like the quiet. Seems the kind of place I’d want to live after I *^&**^&*/end role.”> The humanite mistook the surprised spin of the Queen, rolling one of her shoulders. <”Well maybe not here. Too wet. Somewhere further alto. On the edge of the tundra. Somewhere cold. Away from everything.”>

“You expect your role to end? To cease in your purpose?” The notion should have been upsetting. The alien, instead, merely turned back her shoulders once again.

<”That’s how we work. You’re born, you choose your role, you spend most of your life making mistakes and doing your best not to rut it up too badly. And when you’re out the other side, empire gives stops requiring your six-a-day and lets you spend the last twenty of your life however you want.”>

“I struggle to imagine wanting to be anything but what you are. Or, maybe, I struggle considering that your species can want to be something they are not.”

<”You always wanted to be where you are now, then?”> A splattering of wet grass beneath the other’s boot, her own claws tightening for traction as the column marched, seemed to ask the question in scent as well as sound. <”Have to figure your life would’ve been easier had you been born a drone, or menial or whatever.”>

“It would have also been easier if I had been birthed to a world where war did not exist, and biomass fell from trees of meat. I was born a queenling, my reason for existence to learn and prepare for the rise my mother’s song was silenced. So that I would take her place, and ensure the survival of the colony. I have never wanted elsewise. I have never thought to be anything else.”

<”And I’m sure you’ve got a bunch of queenlings scattered throughout your nests, all waiting for you to die so they can do the same. Your species depresses me, tovarisch.”>

“You fight in a force which does not respect your sacrifices, against those you used to care for, all while relying on that fluid you carry to distract from your desire to be, and do, something different. When I think of how many humanites must be weighted beneath burdens similar, it is your kind that saddens me, Solovyova.” The female’s laughter quieted, and the sky thundered once again. Trees passed by as stoic guardians in endless ranks, the winding path curving three times more before the humanite spoke again.

<”Quiet house on the prairie, away from buildings, people, and bugs sticking their bug-noses where they aren’t wanted. Lieutenant!”> Skthveraachk jolted her eyes up, impulsively looking for the Miroslava, but it was an unfamiliar covered figure which went alert at the Colonel’s shout, pulling up from hunched seat on the exterior of one of the crawlers. <”Give your CO a hand up.”> A hand was all the female needed, offered down from the height of the vehicle’s surface. With nimbleness which the Queen had rarely seen from their kind, the Colonel kicked off both ground and moving transport’s side, leaping up to seize the offered limb. Hoisting herself, coat, lance and all atop the vehicle with little more than a grunt of effort. Ignoring how the weight and pull of her action had nearly pulled the other alien clear off its seat. A chitter of laughter escaped Skthveraachk’s core, though she ensured the female a distance ahead so as not to overhear.

<”Captain Devries to Svera.”>

“Captain.” Immediate was her reply, quick was her focus. “You are healed and safe?”

<”I’m fine, yes, Mira said you were getting all anxious.”> A laugh, one she mimicked quickly. <”Don’t want to distract you down there, just need a quick sitrep.”>

“Received. Situation peaceful. Will be at the captured nest within four, five bars. Rain is making travel annoying, not difficult. Confusing our scents.”

<”You expect much resistance at this ‘Claws-On-Slopes’?”>

“Nothing worse than has been dealt with before. Humanite presence likely unnecessary, but will assure victory in case of unforeseen struggle.” She could tell there was concern, even without seeing the male. “Am not underestimating or letting arrogance color my song, Captain Devries. Only confidence in my soldiers. And yours.”

<”Be careful all the same, even if just for my sake. With how large your forces are growing, I’d hoped you’d be taking part in fewer of these operations yourself.”>

“Operation? Skirmish. Raid.” A droplet struck harshly right against one of the Queen’s upward eyes, and a hiss was breathed from her, calling her attendants to form a shield over her with their forms. “Shlthvelhneekch-Colony’s addition to forces pushes risk away from own colony. If all is to plan, such skirmishes will be the only battles necessary from now on for my children.”

<”You mean now that you’ve eradicated the resistance of three entire colonies, hopefully there will be fewer others wanting to risk open conflict with you.”>

“A little wrong for a greater good.” Her instinct was defensive. Her better judgement felt, immediately, regret in the coldness of her tone. “I have noticed your unhappiness in my methods, Hathan-Captain. Do not let your mind be made flashed and twisted. You see already how my people thank our involvement. Welcome the changes you bring. Better a small number suffer greatly than our kindness confuse hundreds of colonies into senseless resistance.” ‘We have done worse before.’ The Queen stopped herself before uttering the irrevocable notes, but their truth was one she, at least, internalized. There was no need to bludgeon the male with their rightness when more comforting silence would suit, however.

<”I understand the logic, like I’ve said before. Doesn’t mean I don’t still worry about how readily you’re pursuing this. Either way, not why I’m calling. The verger.”> Two entire breaths before recognition struck her, like the echo of raindrops now bouncing off the umbrella of bodies perched atop her. <”I’m sorry. I thought maybe Article Twenty-Seven, section on forced enlistment, might have had something to keep her out, but my hands are tied.”>

“Tied by who?”

<”Tied-…sorry, I didn’t mean literally, it’s an expression we use meaning-“>

“To have your actions restricted or purpose guided against your will.” Thrumming, the Queen let her gaster bob twice in pleasure before controlling herself. “Be at ease, Captain. I know you will have expended every effort. If the Dame has convinced the Herald she should be our responsibility, we must oblige.”

<”Yes, we must. And since I’d sooner let wild *^&**^&* run around the base or on my ship, I was hoping you’d be alright with me attaching the verger to you. To your, skirmishes, marches. Not to fight, God, no,”> The voice peaked, then settled. <”Just, keep her with the cargo transports, baggage trains, whatever keeps her in the field and away from my men.”>

“You request? From the sound of your notes, I suggest the likelihood you have already dispatched the female.” A guess, but from the silence, a well landed one. “Appreciation sung of your attempt at politeness, but it is not kindness to pretend I have choice in the matter when your decision is already made. But, you are the expert on your kind. If you say this is for the best, I accept your judgement. Despite your reservations, perhaps the verger will be of assistance?”

<”Assistance.”> There was a sound of muffled inhalation, a strange, almost informal mockery that was at odds with the man’s usual rigid precision. <”I haven’t met the woman. I don’t intend to. During her briefing, she broke one of my soldier’s fingers. Claimed it was shaped wrong, wanted to fix it.”> Unsure of whether to laugh or squirt revulsion, Skthveraachk stuttered in her step, causing a ripple to travel back through the marching column as the interruption was accounted for. <”If the Coalition are frenzied, the best way to think of vergers are like…your songless castes. How you’ve described your spitters. They’re part of the Sovereignty, part of the colony, yes. But they don’t think like we do. Don’t believe, or act like it. They serve their purpose, keep in their own corners of the empire, and so long as they don’t obstruct the activities of Sovereignty citizens, they’re tolerated.”>

“The songless castes are named so by virtue of birth, by necessity. Combining the traits of other species with ours is a complicated process, one even the oldest thinkers cannot fully explain. Guide and enact, yes, but knowing something works is not knowing how it works. Any product of cross-breeding cannot join in the choir of the colony, sing the songs of memory or life.” Again, a pair of scouts darted down the line of the column. Waiting, properly, to be coated with scent before delivering their reports. A few herds of grazing beasts, the usual quiet that accompanied a storm. No danger. No drones. “You cannot blame a songless for their birth, even as you must keep them at leg’s length.”

<”Any verger who wants to return to the Sovereignty needs only apply for it. They are what they are because they choose to be that way. Don’t allow yourself to show her compassion. Keep her busy, use her if you have to, and hopefully she’ll be gone before any serious damage is done.”>

“Your music is red shades darker than usual, Captain Devries. You are certain the doctors and medicine did not damage your body with incessant poking?”

<”I’m certain.”> He could have disconnected. So could have she. When neither did, it was the Captain who finished their fading duet. <”I’ve given my life to the Sovereignty. I fight for the citizens of the empire. Dregs, vergers. Some people don’t deserve how many have died for their sakes.”> Rain and thunder, the creak of trees and the trundle of wheels. She remained, waiting, on the end of the disconnected communicator, for longer than was necessary. Than was proper. The usual requests and calls for her attention had piled up even in the few beats Skthveraachk had allotted for the Captain. Foremost among them, the accursed need to double the rate of scentmarking. Like the thinkers and other elevated castes, the scentcrafters were hidden in the ranks. Doubling their task rate would be revealing, and a lack of Coalition on the planet or visible threats was no excuse for laxness.

“Deny request for doubled scent markings.”

“Received. Thirty-eight conflicts throughout column. Accidental harm due to scent confusion.”

“Add visual signal necessity for returning scouts. Increase time of scouting probe deployment.”

“Increase? Queen means decrease?”

“If rain washes our scent regardless, returning for new applications pointless. Will suffer the discomfort.”

“Adjusting scout rotations. Accepted.”

“Thirty-nine conflicts.” The Queen could smell the blood from that last one, a menial-warrior lashing out fearfully at its neighbor, unable to distinguish them. The formite soldier it had struck with its spear gave an angered swat in return, and a mender hurried under cover of the column’s formation to patch the wound. There was a small taste of jealousy in how the aliens merely relaxed on or in their vehicles, seeming as unbothered by the shower from on high as they did fighting in the dark, cold or blinding light. Just a small jealousy, though. They had weaknesses aplenty of their own. As a pair of wyverns swooped low over the line, their silhouettes causing a brief end to the droplets as they passed overhead, and not eight breaths later did the message that there was a landing five-eighths from the rear of the column. In a clearing astride a swelled creek and a blanket of mossy green.

The thinker the Queen selected knew as well as she why he had been chosen. Lowest importance, youngest age, smallest quantity of possessed knowledge in the distribution of the colony. No thinker was expendable, but of the vital castes, he would be the least valuable loss should such loss be suffered. He didn’t resent that. As a proper formite, he didn’t even understand why he would resent such, even when the Queen queried his availability. The older thinkers sung of changes, new ways of considering old truths, but such was not his role. His commands were simple.

“Approach wyverns. Identify verger. Contact. Converse. Report.” The Band at his neck itched. That was a bad sign. It meant it had become tight around his growing body, and would need to be unlocked and replaced, loosened, a task the humanite crafters never seemed to enjoy despite their roles. A screen of soldiers encircled him as he crawled, reaching the two angular constructs of flight just as their occupants were filtering out, pushing lifts of rectangles, cubes and orbs. Blue shells, black shells, lances. The thinker looked them over from his low vantage as they in turn peered at his approaching cluster. They found their goal first, noting his band amidst the more naked soldiers, and approached with a raised hand.

<”Emperor’s light. Here on orders from Captain Devries, resupply and transport. Four crates of heatsinks, six of provisions, two for uniform replacements. And one…passenger.”> Pad was shown forward, the thinker staring at the unfamiliar sigils and writing he’d yet to learn. The rubbing request for assistance was met with flippancy by his seniors, too busy to translate the text. Informing him he needed only poke the square of light to confirm receipt of the items. <”He said you’d be expecting it.”>

“Expected. Yes.” The thinker’s first press of blunted scythe passed through the pad’s screen, missing the target. The second nearly took one of the humanite’s fingers. The third blipped success, once the soldier had grabbed the thinker by the claw and guided his grasper into the marker. “Received.”

<”I’m uploading a program to the Magistrate’s pad. Press once, it’ll send a brief shock through the prisoner’s implants. Hold, for longer.”> The wyvern shook. The thinker had not been aware it was capable of shaking when on the ground, certainly not from the tromp of a single pair of legs lumbering out of its belly. The Queen had provided description, and while it was accurate, it seemed…lacking. Blue. Yes, the alien was blue. So was it black, gold, and a host of other hues in patterns and weaves on its exoskeleton. Large. Yes, it was larger than other humanites. An entire head and then more was, clearly, larger. Unusual. ‘Unusual’ was not a physical descriptor, and the thinker had queried why the term had been included. Yet while it was shaped like a humanite, the segmented chitin-like hardstone made the creature seem nearer a formite than its own species. Yet while it moved as they moved, its fellows shied and strayed from remaining near, like a formite would with a hauler caste. Yet while it stepped off the ramp, and the wyvern exhaled and sighed in relief at its departure, it needed not search as the other aliens had across the gathered formite presence. Faceless under a mirrored helm, it stared without eyes at the thinker. Silent. <”Hold for three seconds and the charge will go lethal. It’s at the Magistrate’s discretion, but you should advise her that there will be a formal inquest if the prisoner is executed. Vergers are still citizens of the Sovereignty, Emperor preserve us, and entitled to certain rights.”>

“Will inform Queen Magistrate.” It was staring at him, still. Towering there like one of the largest soldiers the colony had, silent. “The verger understands us?”

<”She does. Whether or not she actually responds, that’s the Magistrate’s problem now.”> Waving off the thinker’s presence, the Sovereignty humanites returned to their tasking. Leaving the thinker to his own. Approach successful. Identification achieved. He crossed his scythes, and adopted the appropriate conversational posture.

“I am Skthveraachk thinker of Skthveraachk-Colony. You are greeted.” Rain tinkled off its shell and his own, running in small rivers through the valleys in their exoskeletons. He considered marking the alien as an ally, but he had been given no commands to do so. Not his purpose here. “What is your identification?”

<”You in charge?”> The soldiers surrounding him all winced, as did the thinker. Like sounds of lamenting, but pulled through a straining net of rock and hardstone, that voice.

“I am Skthveraachk thinker of Skthveraachk-Colony. My role is to greet and converse with you. To formulate comprehension of your presence and-“

<”Yah, you’re not in charge.”> Curiosity. Prompting. Signals were coming from the highest of castes in the marching column, urging him on, even as the thinker felt an irritation work under his shell at the words.

“When understanding of your uniqueness is acquired, your possible contributions will be known, and your role added to-“

<”Put me where you need shit carried. Easy to find me when th’ brath in charge decided to come calling.”>

“I have been designated for communications with you. My purpose is to sing unity. You need not wait-“

<”I’ll wait.”> Insufferable. The azure giant had turned from the thinker, had walked from him, had not even waited to see if he would mark it with scent or wished to continue exchange. The soldiers around him questioned, but he warded off their concern, their queries of intervention. His report to the Queen was as terse as it was brief.

“Wyverns approached. Verger identified. Contact established. Conversation revealed disagreeable humanite with no interest in cooperation or communication. Recommend adhering Hathan-Captain’s suggestions.” Skthveraachk felt her antennae clack slowly, her mandibles tapping quickly together in hollow and faint amusement as an attendant scribed out the message on her shell. No violence. No obstruction. A sort of frenzy in the alien, perhaps, but it seemed the Captain’s worries were unfounded.

“Remain with wyverns. Report when they depart. Resume previous tasking once finished.”

“Received.”

“Ensure marking of verger. Designation…neutral.” An argument broke out over which scentcrafter would be responsible for its oversight, but the Queen had no interest in moderating it. Another pair of scouts was returning, earlier than they should have been. Her previous orders had seemingly not been transmitted to those still out patrolling. An annoying oversight. The pair scuttled past, black and brown. Brown? No, black and black, certainly. She knew her own children by sight, the pair moving quickly past the Queen’s position. One had just been coated with mud and dirt from the storm, masking the natural color of its shell. The pale, soft white color glinting out from the underside of its legs. The stubbier lengths of its antennae. The bizarre, carven crest, poking out of the concealing, dirty camouflage.

“ALARM!”

“COLUMN HALT!”

“ALARM!” The umbrella of bodies around her became a phalanx in a heartbeat, bristling with scythe and spear as soldiers around them stopped so suddenly the popping of blood and gasters filled the air as humanite vehicles skidded over her children as they shouted to stop.

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“Where danger!?”

“Infiltration!” Skthveraachk knew what the call would provoke. Necessary. “Hostiles in the column! Locate! Destroy!” Scythes descended on the newcomers, on all the scouts and drones that had returned in the last bar. Some squealed, but did not resist, even when blades dug into their shells and tongues lapped at the wounds to taste for their origin. Others struck back, confused and defensive as their own colony turned on them. And one in twenty thrashed and bit, their white shells revealed under the jostling and grabbing of hundreds of other claws. Sixty injured, thirty silenced in the first few breaths. Eight hostile drones located. “Scour column! Seek invaders!”

“Contact made! Rear section!” A scout. One of hers, or a message from enemy drones still within her number? No choice but to treat it as truth.

“Identify!”

“Enemy formites, three hundred lengths, high speed-“

“Contact made! Front section!”

<”Bug! What’s-“>

“Unknown attack! Prepare defense!” No time for slow humanite words. She knew the Solovyova would react, and left her to the task. Another six of the raiders were identified, coated in their scents and mingled inside the column. Another forty soldiers wounded to locate them. “Defensive screen! Form ranks! Soldiers, two bodies deep, either side!”

“Present shields!” The column contracted, the soldiers scanning out and up the hills falling into the rows of their siblings. A wall of chitin and metal erected, encasing the soft interior of the column which stretched for hundreds of lengths down the countryside. Would take seven beats for a drone to run from end to end. They did not have seven beats.

<”Dismount! Spool up the rotators!”> Humanites were slower to act, but acted still. They poured from their vehicles, climbed up to elevation, and leveled their lances out. Thunder and rain and the smell of fresh blood, but the Queen saw nothing to either side. <”What are we seeing!?”>

<”I got nothing, Sarge!”>

<”Negative here!”> The middle was empty. Her position was safe. Crawling until her abdomen was pressed against the wall of a vehicle, so her soldiers could better encase her in a small bivouac, Skthveraachk sent her mind forward, billowing and flowing through a hundred bodies until she reached the column’s front. She was nearly blinded upon reaching one of the injured scouts, the lance fire over its head searing its delicate eyes.

<”Keep steady! Stay behind the bugs and fire!”>

“Protect humanites! Protect drones! Do not advance!” Pale bodies poured down the slope, tumbling and slipping over the slick surface as they crashed into the line of her soldiers. They stabbed and cut, their scythes bouncing off the curved shields even as her own soldiers bit and pulled in response. Not to sever heads or damage, but to yank the attackers into gaps in the wall. Smaller enemies flailing as they toppled into the second rank of soldiers, only to find short spears in the claws of usually incapable menials thrusting up from beneath the legs of the larger soldier caste. Piercing, skewering, stabbing and withdrawing to wait for the next victim’s appearance. Heat from the lances sizzled in the rain over the heads of her soldiers, but they did not flinch. “Sing of walls of Hollowcore! We do not break!”

“Contact made! Third section!”

<”Are they…are they riding-?”>

<”Shoot first, be impressed later!”> Follow the calls. Identify and assist. Eighty lengths from her body, towards the rear. She heard the slapping of triangular feet, the whistle from the long proboscis noses of the curculites. What she saw, though, were the drones hugging the backs of the creatures as they ran past her lines. Avoiding shots of lance and thrown javelins both as they sprinted the breadth of the column. The curculites were in a frightened gallop, but the formites atop them balanced on five latched claws. The sixth, clutching stomach pouches, hurled them over the bodies ringing the column’s edge. A spray of chemical perfume misting and sloshing out across the black forms therein.

“Danger! Acid!”

“Acid? Not acid?”

“No harm!” Frantic legs sought to wipe the fluid from their hairs, sniffing and tasting the liquid in confusion. “Scents of dynastite? Scents of…females?” Two of the curculite riders toppled down as hooked atlatls were snapped after them, the thrown spears puncturing clear through shell and into the beasts the raiders rode. More alarms from the rear. Would have to wait.

<”This is Wyvern Six above, we’re seeing a hell of a lot of movement down there. Be advised you have incoming at grid delta, three, dash, seven-“> Disregard, the pad would know the coordinates. And they had not even been finished listing when the warning calls started from her scouts, as well.

“Alarm! Attack! Alarm! Approach!”

“Attack is known!” Confusion and chaos. The injuries were nowhere near as severe as they should have been, but it was by virtue of organization and unity alone. The raiding colony had not yet breached Skthveraachk’s soldiers, but if they gained access to the softer interior…

“Not formite! Not hostile colony! Dynastite!” The rumble was not thunder. The grazing herds had ceased their peaceful crawling, had turned towards the column and charged up the hill like frenzied menials. Uncaring of the obvious danger, ignoring their most basic survival instincts. As if they were coming to the defense of their own herd, as if they were smelling a threat to their own young. Her soldiers held, but the humanites wise dove from the top of their transport as the first of the horned beasts trampled into the column. Crushing the unflinching soldiers, and knocking into a spin the alien vehicle as they collided. “Advise!”

“Hunting formation! Encircle! Sing for humanites to concentrate fire on dynastites!” Small holes burst through the shells of the usually placid beasts as one of the aliens on their secured multi-barreled lances swung the weapon about, melting chunk after chunk from the backs of the hulking fungi-eaters. A white raider broke from its cluster, diving into the gap made by the herd atop its whistling curculite. But instead of an attack, it’s final act before a purple-hued soldier tackled it and its mount to the ground in an encircling hug was to hurl a stomach of fluid at the stationary weapon platform. The humanite manning the rotator had just the time to wipe its helmet clean, to see the six-legged monstrosity rear up, and to bring itself stomping down on the transport’s roof. The metal sagging and groaning under the weight. “Scentcrafters! To breach! Scatter pheromone signatures.”

“What song? What color?”

“Irrelevent! Any! Cover the scent! The raiders call the dynastites!” How? They were songless beasts, not tools of war! Unimportant. Prioritize! A breach in the column, shouts of confusion and frenzy as conflicting orders traveled up and down the length of her force. Skthveraachk’s voice became a shriek as she bellowed out guidance, fanning her legs to send the dominant smell of her own body out in waves.

“Attack in rear! Humanites in danger!”

<”Keep off the ground! Get back on top of the transports!”> Gooey antennae grew as stalks in the mud as lumbrites emerged from the soil, drawn by the smell of fresh blood. Menial-warriors not part of the defensive wall leapt onto the milling dirt, stabbing down into the mud to drive back the worms, but were not fast enough to stop a slow alien soldier from treading too near one of the sensory probes. A dervish of teeth exploding from the muck and sucking in the humanite’s limb, rows of serrated enamel turning it to pulp and tearing it clean off the male’s body. Menders rushed down the line for the spot, the Queen’s vision warping from frenzied combat to peaceful sections of inactivity and back again. Spots of battle throughout the column interspersed with sections who could only stand, watch, and hold in preparation for attacks of their own.

“Sing a song of death-calls, a stomach full of glub! Wriggle, spiggle, wiggle, diddle, blood, blood, blood!” The chant was not of her colony. It came from mocking figures perched on rocks above, from the scattered prongs of attacking bodies seeking to skewer through the lines of her defense. “Sing a song of weak-legs, a gaster full of gas! Spewer, sinker, slimey, stinker, bash, bash, bash!” Javelins soared in answer as they flew over the lines of her soldiers, a hail of slinger-stones following to batter down on the taunting voices. Her children wanted to tear. To maim, cut, bite, break from their formation and charge into the paleshell raiders, showing them exactly what foe they had stirred. It was, undoubtedly, just what the raiders wanted.

“Retain order! Raise your voices to the Composer! He hears you always! To the Emperor!” The shields pushed and battered, the impacts upon them greater than any drum of shell or bone. “He watches you now! I am Skthveraachk Queen! I have sailed a sea of stars and walked beneath lands no formite has ever named! You fight my unity! You face my claws! You will never succeed! Scythes unsheathed!”

“Legs unmoving!” The shout was from those unengaged in combat just as it was from the furiously embattled, the formation holding even as the raiders jeered and threw themselves and their beasts against her. Corpses of a half-ten dynastites were pushed to form barricades where holes had appeared, the wounded humanites were stretchered away from the writhing puddles where formites drowned and sunk to bite and tear at the hated lumbrite meat. And when the call again came over her Band, she could not longer even be surprised that it was possible for things to grow more frantic.

<”Bandits in the sector, multiple airborne contacts, just took off vertically from the tree cover!”>

“Elevate!” The buzzing of rapidly beating wings. Through her anger, the Queen felt her heart pulse and crack in a pain borne of the mind. She knew these sounds. Remembered this feeling. “Climb and disperse, significant danger to wyverns!”

<”We’re coming around to provide support-“>

“Refused! Hostiles are stingers! It is not worth your death for even thirty of theirs. Retreat! They will be handled!” Damn the name of Burrow Queen for a thousand cycles. Even in death, the traitor Ktcvahnaah stabbed at her from beyond the veil of silence. She saw their shapes with her own eyes through the cracks of her bivouac, the formation as they burst out into the open sky. As expected, they headed for the wyverns first, but the humanite vessels had speed when not firing. Skthveraachk would not make the mistakes her own younger self had capitalized on, and watched the VTOLs turn and speed from the engagement. Presenting only one target left for the buzzing stingers, her stolen children, to turn themselves against. “Menial-warriors, opened formation! Five wide, ten deep! Aim spears!” Small bodies rushed into the open between the walls of her soldiers and their shields, their weak eyes unable to see what hers did, but obeying all the same. Atlatls cocked back, throwing spears raised at angles high as the meager sun glinted off the bloodied tips of their weapons. Humanites had already spotted the fliers, and speckled the sky with their white lightning from what cover they could find. Closer, closer, the stingers diving with abdomens thrust forward and wet wings beating in the storm. Her scythes flexed in yearning, to silence what should have been her greatest weapons herself. Thinkers cautioned her back, and soldiers gripped tight at her legs to prevent her movement. Skthveraachk could only watch, waiting, until the two-eyed bulbous heads of the crossbreed stingers could be seen in all their compounded beauty. “THROW!”

“Loose!”

<”Fire, fire!”> Slings were released, legs arced and swung, and thunderbolts of white light burst from the ground upwards. Wings and bodies perforated, calls of pain and anger rose as missed spears impacted into allied and enemy formites both in their descent, and even the crashing corpses silenced mid-air sometimes exhaled their final breaths in smearing crashes atop screaming aliens. The swarm rose from its dive. Half the size it was before, while skewered formites and torn humanite bodies thrashed on the ground in their wake. <”Medic!”>

“Menders!”

<”Im-ee latt, you oversized spike-ass!”> Half the size, minus one, as a beam of light shot from the convoy to send another spiraling down from sky to muck. The lance that had fired looking almost comically small in the verger’s grip as it held the gun aloft, dripping with the viscous red alien goo. The worker through who’s eyes the Queen looked first assumed the titanic figure injured from the amount, but when the verger fired again, it became clear the blood was not its own. But from the severed arm and hand it clutched, forcing the dead fingers to pull around the trigger rather than use its own. Inexplicable and unsettling, but the second shot too brought down another even where several Sovereignty soldiers fired and missed. The stingers did not turn back. They dove back for the trees, disappearing into the canopy. Just how the white soldiers, at the front of the column, had withdrawn their rearmost ranks, leaving those still embattled to die. The lumbrites and dynastites were not so easily driven off, mad with hunger or driven wild by the manufactured scents, but when the Queen saw the riders on their curculites turning away from the column to flee towards the mountains, Skthveraachk knew the raider’s music to be forsaken. The shields had held. The wall was battered, but unbroken. Raiders did not commit to pitched battles, and having found their prey not so easily taken, their retreat was met with cheers first from her children, then from the humanites, as they too realized the truth of it. The Queen afforded herself sixteen breaths of relaxation and pride. The seventeenth returned her to action.

“Locate Skthveraachk soldier.”

“Located.”

“Begin pursuit. Fastest soldiers. Follow to main forces, retreat if endangered.”

“Request smallest menials to accompany.” She signed confusion, uncertain how such caste would keep pace. “Experimentation. Raider adaptation. Humanite term, ‘cavalry’.” An image was drawn in her mind, Skthveraachk chittering humorously but while accepting the request. The dissolution of her bivouac allowed her to see the largest males of her soldiers rushing up the path on all six legs, small drones perched on their backs with sling and spear at the ready. Groans and injured noises were scarce, but present, and more than one transport was sparking or creaking from damage sustained. Indeed, the sounds of combat still clashed and crackled from the rear of the column, but the Queen’s offers of assistance were rebuked. The situation was under control. Her attentions were needed elsewhere.

<”Briefing said nothing about hostile wildlife! Bug!”> Pushing past a pair of menders hurrying with jugs of sealant for the most afflicted soldiers, Solovyova emerged with an orange smear across her coat. The shield barrier of metal and chitin did not waver, eyes still beadily watching the hills and slopes for new movement, but more than a few corpses, white and black both, oozed in the mud around their claws. <”Explain to me how this was an unusual kind of crapshoot so I can stop being *^&* at you for this feces-showing!”>

“My report was accurate, Colonel Solovyova. The fauna of this area is not usually combative.”

<”Usually!”>

“Usually.” A restatement twice over, in an effort to chide as much as calm as the other female wiped at the gunk coating her outfit. There was a hole in her jacket. The Queen trembled subtly, trying to imagine what had caused it. “Herds may move erratically and the storm drew out lumbrites from their tunnels, but never should they attack so unprovoked. They were stirred to action.”

<”Wonderful, tovarisch. I’m sending a warning to every district that we’ve encountered bugs capable of riling up the local color as soon as I get a headcount.”>

“That will only encourage excessive violence against usually harmless fauna. This incident is isolated.”

<”Usually! Again with the usually! I’m not letting anyone else be caught flat-footed like this, some more aggressive methods of keeping the wildlife away from our troops seems a perfectly fucking measured response to me, ya?”> Jaws jittered and snapped together, and the desire to negate fully the colonel’s wishes was tempered by a desire to calm. Diplomacy. She needed practice on that battlefield.

“I will review your report. Amend it as needed. To ensure warning is, accurate, to other districts.” Solovyova did not approve. But, neither did she verbally object. Consensus? No, but something close to it. And if there was to be further argument, it was silenced by the commotion from two vehicles down, alien voices raised against one another. Skthveraachk once more ordered an umbrella of bodies as she followed the suddenly stomping Solovyova down the line. Coming upon the scene of raised lances and shouting just breaths after the colonel herself.

<”Ten-hut!”>

<”We’re in the middle of hostile territory and could have wings coming down on us in beats, *^&**^&*, explain why my sense of post-combat clarity is being ruined, immediately!”> Lances from ten and some soldiers all faced the same direction. To the blue-shelled skeletal behemoth that had both arms raised. All three arms, technically, counting the one still clinging to the seized weapon.

<”Prisoner grabbed a weapon in the middle of the fighting, sir! Am ordering them put the damn thing down-“>

<”You heard the broad in the hat!”> The verger’s voice was no more pleasant now that Skthveraachk was hearing it herself. Metallic, like scythes scraping down whitestone shelves. <”Could have bugs flying back at us any breath! Was just, waitin’, case they came back around.”>

<”Noble of you. Tearing off one of my boys’ arms so you could join the defense. Put you in for a commendation myself. How about I give you to the count of ‘one’ to put down the weapon, before letting these upstanding citizens show you how we handle traitors in my brigade.”>

“I sing apologies for the correction, but the verger did not seek harm against your kind.” Stood atop one of the damaged transports, the attendants stretched their bodies upward to curve over the Queen’s raised head as she reared. Both to see better the encased figure, and to let the fullness of her own height show. “Weapon was only utilized against our attackers. Though I’m unsure why it kept the limb. I believed your species did not eat its own.”

<”Well I couldn’t fire the bleeding thing unless I had a genetic-“>

<”You sure about that, tovarisch?”> The harsh interruption did not go unnoticed. Not by the verger, nor by the Queen. <”Saw her pick it up off the ground? Bet when we find that arm’s owner, he’ll have a different story.”> A quick chitter to the column, thousands of eyes scanning the terrain at once. A one-armed soldier was located. It was also lacking a head, at least a fully encased one, after some great force had crushed it flat against the side of a transport. It would not be contradicting any song sung.

“I am certain, Colonel. I watched the verger fire on our enemies, and I am sure when you find your wounded soldier, they will confirm they had already lost their weapon when it was recovered. …As I am sure they will be grateful for their limb’s return, as well.” The Solovyova spat to the side, reaching a hand within her jacket for the flask she would not withdraw until a veil of privacy had been erected.

<”Am sure they will be. Verger; drop the gun.”> The figure did not move, not immediately. It waited, just long enough for the Solovyova’s scowl to turn darker, before opening its palm and letting the lance clatter wetly into the dirt. One of the nearest soldiers was quick to seize it, and the arm.

<”Avarte, brath. So many ‘just lending a hand’ jokes, ruined by these trigger-joyous mudsticks.”> Lances were lowered, though not all the way. Solovyova turning to find her quiet corner as orders were shouted and relayed. Calls were aplenty for the Queen as well, and she was halfway back to facing the fore when the verger let a sharp note slip its helm. <”You. You’re the one in charge.”>

“I am.” The verger had not offered a greeting. Had refused that of the thinker she had sent. Withholding one now was meant to be an insult, but the Queen swore she heard a smile beneath the reflective screen of the helm.

<”When you wanna talk, come find me. We’ll shin-dig.”>

“My time is of value, humanite, and I am sung that yours is limitless, trapped on my world as you are. I do not come when called like one of your Privates.”

<”Course, Magistrate, course.”> The symbol of office on her armored core had only been visible for moments. The verger, regardless, affected a tilted bow. <”At yer pleasure. For yer pleasure. Emperor’s light from his shining balls and all that.”> The nearest aliens gripped their weapons tighter than a newborn’s jaws at first feeding, but the verger had already backed away with repeated bows of deference. The Queen, too, answering the requests for assistance, for orders, for guidance, and for direction of action. They’d been bloodied. Neither a loss, nor in her mind a victory, despite the failure of their opponents. A lesser colony would have crumbled under such focused assault, and the presence, the control, over so many of the valley’s fauna! The fat Queen’s hesitation in her fertile nest, the call for aid, reasoned a much clearer shine now. How scattered and beaten must Cktahnckleevhen-Colony be after battles with such a colony?

Skthveraachk could not see the pass, of course, not yet. Not for many bars to come. But when she looked to the alto, to the gaps in the peaks betraying the thing opening and the tunnels running the breadth of the gap, she could almost see in her mind at least the pale bodies holding residence in stolen land. Gathering. Regrouping. Waiting. Conflict was never desirable, always a waste of resources and biomass. Yet, if the battles against Sovereignty and Coalition both had proven anything, it was that conflict against a strong enemy was always of a value. Always a source of improvement and inspiration. Sacks thrown by mobile formites astride ridden beasts. The possibility that breedable stingers remained in the world, when almost none remained in her own lands. Pain. Loss. Opportunity. The plains of the Triumvirate called to her, just over the mountains. And even as she oversaw the healing of cracked shells, walked past moaning bodies on stretchers carried by alien beings, an eagerness began to gnaw at her core. An excitement. They had been bloodied. And she wanted another taste.