First Contact

Chapter 403

Cordexen held down the trigger of his blaster rifle, the plasma packets hammering into the Lanaktallan Autonomous Combat Drone, sending it staggering.

Shift two degrees, more drones incoming, echoed in his mind, orders from the nearby Speaker.

We need extract, he sent back.

Extract is coming. The Planetary Sub-Queen is still at the mining center, the Speaker said. We have orders to withdraw to the automated mining facility and guard her personage.

As it should be, Cordexen thought back. He kept firing, backing up, even as a flash lit up the sky. Another orbital strike, and he could feel the screaming deaths of 12 million Mantid as a metropolis was blotted off the map.

Bedamned all programmers, scientists, and engineers, he thought to himself as his rifle shattered another combat drone. He kept backing up, the half dozen little black servitors with him firing rockets and adding their sting-rifles to the firepower. He'd lost three quarters of them so far, but he'd managed to force the combat drones out of the bunker.

He took a hit, a particle beam smashing into his leg, the transfer of energy causing his armor to crack and spall outwards, but the inner lining held.

Another flash, this one accompanied by a huge cloud of steam.

Extract is almost here. Retreat to the evacuation bay. The Sub-Queen commands it, the Speaker said.

What about the Hive Queen? Cordexen asked.

One of his little black gunnery assistants exploded and Cordexen took revenge by hammering open the combat drone's armor and blasting apart the internals with his blaster rifle.

She, in her majesty, has already been evacuated. She calls all of her people to her, the Speaker transmitted.

Cordexen stabbed outward with a bladearm, transfixing an aerial drone and spiked psychic energy down his bladearm, shattering the drone.

In the mining facility? Cordexen asked.

It is deep enough that not even the orbital strikes can reach it. The Hive Queen believes that the site is unknown to the Lanaktallan machines and believes we will be safe, the Speaker said.

I hope she's right, Cordexen answered. He felt the Speaker's disapproval, but Cordexen was a warrior caste and was allowed to question orders. He was Mantid, part of the hive mind, not a herd creature like the Lanaktallan or a shared consciousness like the Atrekna.

Perform your duty, retreat, the Speaker ordered.

Cordexen felt anxiety build up as he suddenly scuttled forward, grabbing an explosive charge off his abdomen harness and throwing it into the room. He immediately scuttled back, ordering his combat drones to follow.

One fired a missile through the door, into the ceiling, collapsing it.

We retreat. Time and time again, we retreat in the face of those huge machines, Cordexen thought. Bedamned whoever created them, no matter what their purpose, for all they do now is destroy.

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Cordexen followed the other warriors into the antechamber, staring at the vast bulk of the Hive Queen and the five Sub-Queens. The hive-mind was thick in the antechamber, almost visible. He still had a small russet mantid on his abdomen, working on the carapace over his back where he'd taken two Lanatkallan Autonomous Combat Drone hits to the back, but he no longer leaked ichor and vital fluids.

The Hive Queen reached out and touched every mind present. They felt her confidence and surety fill them. The knowledge that despite the fact that the Lanaktallan Autonomous War Machines were destroying everything on the surface, the Empire would live on in them, safe beneath the largest concentration of mountains where the continental mountain ranges all met.

The engineer servitor caste were currently engaged in ensuring that there would be enough room for all, enough food for all.

Once the Lanaktallan War Machines left, the soldiers of the Empire would take back the surface.

Cordexen held a small part of him back.

It wasn't the first planet he had been on that had been hit.

He knew, then, at that moment, that the Hive Queen had no idea just what the LAWMs would do. That they'd boil away the oceans if given the chance. Nothing but blasted rock and ash would be left.

But he could not protest, could not tell her.

Her mind overwhelmed the majority of his. He could not share with her the images of the worlds he had seen blotted out by orbital fire, reduced to nothing more than bare rock with thin wisps of atmosphere wafting over the radioactive stone. He could not tell her or show her what he had witnessed as world after world fell to the Lanktallan and Atrekna automated space ships. As populations were slaughtered by machines on world after world.

The four black gunnery servitors shifted slightly, uncomfortable, feeling anxiety as the part of Cordexen's mind that gave the orders to them was slightly out of synch with the touch of the Hive Queen, but her presence soothed them and they settled down.

The Hive Queen, powerful and confident, let all present, all in the facility, know that the situation was within her control. That the Lanaktallan Autonomous War Machines would soon leave and her faithful servants would retake the planet for the glory of the Empire.

Cordexen knew it was not true.

But he could not say anything.

The Hive Queen was the master of all.

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Cordexen felt the Hive Queen's touch, waking him up from a rest period. The touch linked him into the minds of one of the Speakers and the dozen warriors and nearly a hundred servitors with him. Cordexen could feel the movement of the mining machine as it breached the surface.

The Hive Queen and the Sub Queens oozed satisfaction, knowing that there had been no seismic impacts on the surface for over a month. That their warriors had been rearmed and healed from the harsh combat that had preceded the Sub Queens and the Hive Queen escaping to the mining facility.

The Sub Queens felt the most anticipation, the most satisfaction. Their will, to return to the surface, gather any remaining food and put them in forced breeding to quickly get their numbers up, was about to be made manifest. Their will would once again be what defined reality.

They knew that food species had to have survived, and as long as there were a handful then the food stocks could be rebuilt.

The Sub Queens hungered for more than nutripaste and synthetic meat, the longed, craved the devouring of the pain and agony and defeat of the food species.

The Speaker delayed exiting the vehicle after it surfaced, ordering the engineer caste to take readings of the surface before exiting the mining vehicle.

The Sub Queens joined their will with the Hive Queen and forced anxiety into the mind of the Speaker, driving him out of the mining machine and cancelling his orders to the engineer drones.

The Speaker ordered his followers out of the mining machine with him.

Cordexen, like the rest of the facility, saw what the Speaker saw.

The harsh glimmer of the stars. The interaction of the solar winds and tides on the magnetic field of the planet causing ribbons of light to appear in the sky. The vacuum was not total, there was nearly a tenth of normal atmosphere, but it was full of fine dust and isotopes.

Cordexen was a warrior caste, and he was not removed from the shared Hive Mind as two of the Sub Queens reacted with rage as they realized that there would be no return to the surface.

The Speaker screeched in agony as the Sub Queen's rage at being denied what they so desperately wanted crashed down on him. Most of the Mantid within the facility were servitors, and were ejected from the Hive Mind by the rage.

Cordexen was a warrior caste.

The Sub Queens and the Hive Queen kept him locked into the Hive Mind as they overwhelmed the Speaker.

The Speaker and his warrior attendants screamed in agony as the anxiety peaked in their minds, as their limbic system overloaded and they began to die. The Sub Queens lashed at the Speaker and the Warriors, taking their fury out by killing them as if they had denied a command of the Queen's will.

Cordexen was frozen in place, his mind locked, as he witnessed the deaths of one of the last Speakers, the Speaker that had overseen his actions as he had fought to keep the Sub Queen alive until extract alive.

Cordexen knew that only the fact the he had been on his authorized rest period had saved his life.

He kept that knowledge hidden in the small part of his mind that allowed him to make independent decisions during combat.

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Cordexen had grown to hate the feeling that had come over him when he had boarded the mining machine on the trip to the surface.

A small contingent of engineer servitors had managed to survive the attack, quickly converting a repair facility to a hardened bunker. They also had with them a dozen slave species from a star ship that had landed nearby, crippled by the Lanaktallan Autonomous War Machines.

The Sub Queens and the Hive Queen, who had named herself Overqueen, wanted the servitor drones and the food species to be brought back to the mining facility.

Cordexen agreed with the plan. A starship crew would be highly useful, especially if they had starship engineers with them.

The mining facility processed rare earths and could be repurposed to process much more.

Cordexen had analyzed the chances that the facility could be refit to create a space ship to get everyone off of the ball of radioactive rock and found it to be quite good.

He had shared his thoughts with the Sub Queens when they had reached out to his mind and they had soothed him that he had not stepped out of line.

Whatever happened would be for the good of the Empire and the remaining Hive.

Cordexen knew this.

The mining vessel came to a stop.

Cordexen waited.

He was to merely wait until the servitor caste and the space ship crew boarded. He was only armed and present in case a wandering LAWM combat machine found them.

The small part of his mind was worried.

Something didn't feel right.

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Cordexen escorted the Mulgraken down the hallway. A trained spaceship engine engineer, it was an expert in the ancient jump drives that were now the only way to perform faster than light travel.

The Mulgraken had been led by its Captain to the hardened shelters of the repair facility. There, it had helped the servitor engineers build hardened shelters, the whole while figuring out exactly what they would need to acquire to get the repair facility to repair and rebuild the space ship.

Cordexen knew that everything they needed was in the mining facility.

Free. Almost free. A month or a little more to repair the ship and we can send for relief. Escape. There's only enough room on the ship for a Speaker or two in addition to the crew, but they can lead back more of our people to rescue us, Cordexen thought, analyzing the situation quickly.

They entered the massive chamber, formerly used to repair the largest of the deep crust mining machines, and Cordexen felt his mind soothed by the touch of the Sub Queens and the Hive Queen.

They were massive. The Sub Queens were ten times the size of Cordexen, what was larger even than a Speaker. The Hive... the Overqueen was twice as large as the Sub Queens. They had allowed themselves to grow massive, attached to the walls and gantries that had been built around them.

The Hive Que... the Overqueen's egg laying organs were nearly complete, being shaped and guided by the russet healing servitors. All of the Queens present were swollen with eggs, their bodies distended and distorted. Once the Overqueen began laying, the Sub Queens would be hooked into the birthing system, their own eggs added to the Overqueen's eggs and bathed in her chemicals and ichor.

It is a Mulgraken, one of the Sub Queens, Cordexen wasn't sure which one, broadcast into Cordexen's mind.

Yes. A ship's engineer, keeping a courier ship of the Empire in working condition. An expert in the ancient technology of jump drives, Cordexen answered.

Come here, one of the Sub Queens ordered.

The Mulgraken staggered forward.

We are fortunate indeed that he survived, Cordexen told the Queens. With his knowledge, we can build and replace the jump drive engines on the ship he crewed and...

The Sub-Queen reached down, grabbing the Mulgraken in her long arms.

The Mulgraken screamed as he was lifted into the air.

Cordexen's thoughts were shattered by the sudden hunger from the Queens around him. He felt them overwhelm the Mulgraken's mind, pushing the terror and fear as high as possible, feasting on the Mulgraken's terror.

The Sub-Queen's massive jaws closed with a crunch on the Mulgraken's head, crushing the skull, ripping the head from the thick neck. Blood sprayed out in a glittering arc that splashed Cordexen's black chitined combat servitors, all of whom were trembling in the pleasure radiating off the Queens as they fed as one on the terror and fear.

The Sub-Queen dropped the body to the ground, where it landed on the endosteel floor with a wet thud.

Cordexen felt his mind released as the Sub Queens and the Overqueen all trembled with satisfaction.

I needed him! We needed him! Cordexen thought, outraged. We needed him to create the engines so we can escape!

The Queens all turned their heads to look at him.

You needs are trifling compared to our wants*,* the Queens stated. How many are left?

The answer was forced out of him. Eleven more.

Bring them. One at a time, the Queens ordered.

We need them! We need them to rebuild the ship so we can escape! Cordexen said.

You and the others will devise another way to escape, the Queens said, brushing off his protest. Your needs are trivial to our wants. Go. Bring them.

Cordexen had no choice.

He brought them.

One by one.

Our wants supersede your needs.

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Vuxten was looking through the feed from Casey's visor when the human looked up, following a large dark object up the side of the wall. There were twisted and damaged gantries, dust creating cobwebs along them. Thick extrusions of biomatter were in cables and sheathes, cradling and supporting the massive things on the walls.

Casey suddenly tightened his grip on the firing grip on his minigun, the barrels rapidly spinning up to speed. Vuxten wasn't quite sure what he was seeing as Casey lifted the gun, his visor and combat implants showing data that Vuxten filed away almost automatically.

Vuxten realized what Casey was seeing at the exact moment that the big human began firing.

A massive Mantid hung from the wall, head down, the carapace long empty of any organs or fluids, just a massive statue of chitin and exoskeleton.

Casey's minigun was packing HEAP rounds, one tracer to every five HEAP rounds, with ball and API mixed in.

It shredded the massive chest of the hanging Mantid as Vuxten's mouth started working.

Druten and Vintra rolled the side, taking cover behind large lumpy object. Druten fired his rifle, the rounds sparking off the thick chitin of the massive Mantid all the way on the right. Vintra emptied his grenade launcher in a ripping burst even as he broke cover, sprinting across the room, sliding to a stop behind a fallen gantry. He fired his rifle as he ran, the rounds sparking off the chest of one of the hanging Mantids.

"BY CHROMIUM SAINT PETER!" Vuxten yelled, something primal, ancient, kicking on in his brain. He lifted his rifle to his shoulder and started to enter the room, intending on backing the three troops up before the Queen could rip them apart.

Instead, Casey suddenly let off the trigger.

"NO THREAT!" Casey yelled. "CEASE FIRE!"

The bellow cut through Vuxten's spinal reflex terror as well as stopping Druten and Vintra in mid-stride as they switched cover.

"Holy Digital Omnimessiah," Casey said softly. His hand left the firing grip and touched his forehead, chest, left shoulder, right shoulder, as he spoke.

"Move in, safeties on," Vuxten ordered.

"I about shit myself," Addox said over the command channel.

Vuxten turned on his external lights, including his helmet lights, panning around the huge room.

There was ancient Mantid exoskeletons and chitin everywhere. Ancient to the point that no fluids remained, only stains on the endosteel floor. Vuxten saw ancient weapons in the hands of many of them.

Around each of the massive ones was a semi-circle pile of tangled chitin exoskeletons.

"This is new," Addox said. He looked over to where Casey was kneeling down next to one of the piles. He'd lifted a Mantid skull that was so large it could have only come from a warrior. "What are you doing, Sergeant?"

"Look at this," Casey said, turning on a headlamp and shining it on the skull as he turned it. "Chitin plates are ruptured outward."

Vuxten looked up, increasing the magnification on his visor. He looked at the chests of the huge Mantids hanging from the walls.

There was long rents in the thick chitin, some of them all the way through to the emptiness that had once contained vital organs.

"They killed each other," Vuxten said softly. He looked around. "What the hell happened here?"

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Cordexen reached out to the Overqueen, the part of his mind that handled battle tactics fully shielded.

Oh Queen, we have detected a ship landing on the surface. A food species ship. Their engine is disabled but there are many of them, Cordexen said.

He felt the hunger and desire of the Queens, who had been eating nutripaste for months.

The only available mining machine to transfer enough warriors, speakers, and servitors is docking on a passage connected to your chamber, he sent.

How many? one of the Sub-Queens asked.

We will need most of the warriors and speakers. There are many and they are armed, Cordexen sent.

No, you fool, how many of the food species? all of the Queens asked at once. He felt pain lance though him at their anger.

It is a warship, a troop transport. Nearly ten thousand, he sent back.

He could taste, could feel, the Queen's hunger.

Send them. Send them now! Take as many as possible alive! the Queens said.

The small part of him that handled battlefield tactics kept silent and still.

May I open the door? Cordexen asked. Allow the troops through the chamber.

Hurry up, you fool! one of the Queens ordered.

Cordexen felt pain down his nervous system, down his main spinal cord.

You must activate the facility computer's psychic arrays to keep the servitors calm, oh Queens, he said.

He felt a tingling as the Overqueen activated the psychic systems.

He reached out to the Overspeaker.

They are allowing me to open the door. You will be able to carry out your mission, he sent.

Understood. For the good of the Hive, for the Empire, the Overspeaker answered with a small part of his brain that only communicated with warrior caste.

Cordexen opened the door to the Overqueen's Birthing Chamber.

The whole plan came apart.

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Vuxten looked around, panning his suit lights over the massive chamber full of long dead Mantid that he had only seen in documentaries and memories pushed into his mind by the crazed psyches of the Imperium Marines.

"Whatever happened here, we missed it," Vuxten answered his own question.