by Andrew Gates
“That was the plan, but now that I see him here before my very eyes, I cannot help but feel that I must seize the opportunity here and now. Think of it, Kal Jakhu, how many times have we captured Soh Saratti only for him to slip out of our grasp? Let us do this now while he is present, and we are ready.”
“I concur,” Ukhrani responded. “This is the third time we have had to track him down.”
“Do not worry,” Ikharus said, sitting down across from Saratti on the opposite side of the table. “I do not plan to hurt you. We have worked far too hard to get to you alive.”
Soh Saratti simply stared back at Ikharus with a blank, confused look in his eyes. He did not speak the same language and was far too old to have a translator chip installed. At his age, the procedure would kill him.
“I can help,” Ukhrani said, sitting down at the seat on the right side of the table. She turned to face the bewildered hostage and spoke words in the tongue of the Sorrevahni.
Slowly, Saratti began to react to Ukhrani’s words. A look of understanding grew across his face, then he nodded his head. He turned to face Ikharus now and closed his eyes before responding.
“He says he knows who you are. He says you are the Supreme Chieftain. He recognizes the crown and scepter. He says he also knows you are the one who captured him before,” Ukhrani translated.
“Yes. That is right,” Ikharus confirmed. “My name is Kho Ikharus. And I know about you. You are a general, yes? A general from Sorreveous?”
Ukhrani translated his words, then allowed Saratti to speak.
“He says yes,” Ukhrani replied, “or at least, he was. He says he has not been in contact with Sorreveous since the lunar rebellion and that the Empire probably thinks him dead.”
“But you know about Sorrevahni culture, yes? You know the religion, the stories, the beliefs?”
Once again, Ukhrani translated the words, then allowed Saratti to respond.
“He says of course he does. He is Sorrevahni.”
Ikharus leaned forward.
“Then you can help me,” he said. “I want you to tell me everything you know about the Hive.”
Even after Ukhrani translated the words, there was a pause. It was long and silent. For a moment Ikharus wondered if she had translated the words correctly, but then Saratti lowered his head and let out a chuckle.
“What is so funny?” Ikharus wondered. But before Ukhrani even had a chance to translate his question, Saratti began to speak.
“He says you are a fool to ask this of him. He cannot believe you would be so, how do I say this… hypocritical,” Ukhrani translated. “He finds it strange that a Kholvari would be interested in this subject after planet-cycles of rejecting the very idea of the Hive.”
“I know my people have turned our backs to tales of the Hive in the past, but please put aside what those have done before me. I must know about the Hive. Please, tell me.”
Saratti shuffled in his chair as Ukhrani translated the words. He let out a deep breath and stared into Ikharus’s eyes with the utmost intensity.
“He says he will tell you what he knows. He can tell you are sincere. He says you must know, the Hive is real, despite what we Kholvari may think,” Ukhrani translated. “The Hive chased our species across the stars generations ago, before there were Kholvari and Sorrevahni. That is how we ended up here, at Earth. We fled to the nearest safe world we could find. It was here on this world that we populated, thrived, safe from our pursuers. But unlike the Kholvari, the Sorrevahni never forgot about the enemy that pushed them away. For planet-cycles, the Sorrevahni have prepared for the day of their inevitable return.”
“So it was known that the Hive would one day return?” Ikharus asked.
“Yes. Soh Saratti says he is glad that he is old and will not live to see the destruction that comes from the Hive. He says to witness that would be a fate worse than death.”
“The destruction may come sooner than you think. I know you have been isolated here, cut off from the rest of the world, so I assume you have not heard the news,” Ikharus responded.
“What news?”
“An unknown enemy has attacked our planet from space. The orbital fleets are destroyed, the lunars, the Kholvari, even the Sorrevahni, anything in orbit. They are all gone.”
Saratti leaned forward, his eyes still fixed on Ikharus’s.
“Then the enemy is already here.” Ukhrani’s voice was deep and powerful as she translated the words. “Take this warning and take it with urgency: The Hive does not sleep. The Hive does not rest. The Hive’s power comes from its organization, its synchronization, as well as its sheer numbers. If they have already destroyed our fleets, then you know this.”
“That sounds like them. Then it is true. This foe truly is the Hive.” Ikharus could not believe he had said those words. “I have seen them in action personally. Their maneuvers are unlike anything I have ever witnessed.”
Saratti’s eyes widened as Ukhrani translated.
“You saw them yourself and somehow you survived?” she said for him. He wiped his face, then let out another sigh. “If you have seen them, then you already know how dangerous they are.”
“I do, yes. Tell me, Soh Saratti, how do we fight them? There must be a way,” Ikharus asked. “Can we disrupt their ship-to-ship communications somehow? If we could do that, then they cannot form their complex maneuvers.”
Ukhrani translated, then allowed Saratti to speak.
“He says it is not that easy,” Ukhrani responded. “The Hive does not use anything as simple as a wireless communication system. Their connection is on a deeper level, a neurological level. To understand the connection they share, you must first understand who they are.” Ukhrani paused to allow Saratti to say a few more words, then continued. “He says there are two kinds of Hive: drones and queens.”
“Drones and queens?” Ikharus repeated.
“Yes,” Ukhrani translated. “For every queen, there are hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of drones. No one is quite sure the number. The drones do not think for themselves. Rather, they share a single mind controlled by a queen. What the queen thinks, the drones do. We must not think of our enemy as an army of single units, but rather as a single unit with millions of hands.”
“A brain-to-brain link,” Jakhu said in an exhale.
“I think I know this link. I have felt a connection like that,” Ikharus recalled. He paused and stared into the distance before bringing his eyes back to Saratti. “I received a message, something that felt like a telepathic connection. It was from a queen. I believe now that it was her who spoke to me. But how is that possible? Brains function through synaptic transmission. A thought cannot jump across vast distances.”
Saratti shrugged, then responded.
“He says no one knows for sure,” Ukhrani translated, “but however it works, it all comes down to brain energy. Brain activity generates a synchronized pulse of electrical activity. If amplified and focused, this electrical activity could theoretically be made to transcend great distances.”
Ikharus nodded his head. As hard as it was to believe, it theoretically made sense.
“By the Chiefdom. That explains how they move so quickly, so succinctly,” Ikharus replied. He wiped some sweat from his face, closed his eyes, then opened them again. “Tell me, Soh Saratti, what must we do to stop them?”
Ukhrani translated again.
“He says usually only one queen brings her swarm to a planet. More than one at a time leads to conflicts of interest and disorganization. But even then, he says we cannot hope to defeat even a single queen. In all the old tales, it only ever happened a handful of times and with armies far greater than we now possess.”
“So, it has been done?”
“Yes,” Ukhrani translated, “but he says we should not expect to do the same. The queen only fixates on the objective of ridding planets of their populace. She dwells on this thought like an obsession. She is relentless and will stop at nothing until t
he planet is cleansed. The Hive has done this time and time again, leaving planets dry and desolate of life.”
“Why?” Ikharus asked. “Why would the queen do this? To what end?”
“The answer to that question is not known, for none have lived to see what happens next,” Ukhrani responded.
Saratti leaned back and shook his head. He muttered a few words under his breath.
“What is he saying?”
“He says you never should have turned your back to the old tales, that this is what the Kholvari get for blinding yourselves of the truth,” Ukhrani translated.
Saratti leaned forward again.
“He says that if you want to live, you have two options. We must either leave Earth for good.”
“What is the other option?
“- or throw everything we have at the Hive, an all-out strike with the entire planet pulling every resource it has into an attack. Only by that sheer force will we even stand a chance.”
Ikharus sighed and leaned back. He lowered his head.
“It is a shame you must say so. In this hour, the world is more divided than ever. Launching an organized counterstrike of that magnitude is nearly impossible. Kholvaria no longer has the resources to do anything.”
Ukhrani translated. When Saratti spoke again, his words were quiet and sincere.
“That is a shame,” Ukhrani said, recreating his tone of voice. “He says it is especially a shame since Sorreveous has prepared its entire life for this exact resurgence. If you cannot help, then the world is surely doomed.” Ukhrani paused as she allowed time to hear Saratti’s next sentence. “He says if only the Emperor were here. Sorreveous would know what to do.”
“The Emperor is not here. No one from Kholvari has spoken to him in planet-cycles,” Ikharus replied.
But before Ukhrani could translate another word, Jakhu suddenly spun to face the door and raised her claws before her.
“We need to move,” she suddenly declared.
Ikharus turned to face her. He shot her a look of confusion.
“Now? But we have learned so much. There is more to learn still!”
“Motion trackers are pinging. There is movement outside this room,” Jakhu responded. “It could be another one of Kho Prekhon’s squads.”
“But there is still more to learn!” Ikharus protested.
“Then we shall take him with us!” Ukhrani declared, standing up from her seat and tossing the old shell across her shoulders in one swift movement.
Without wasting another second, Jakhu exited into the hall and was quickly met by a blast of plasma fire from the left. She ducked down, allowing the blast to pass right over her head.
“Move! To the right!” she ordered, staying put to act as a barrier from the enemy fire.
Ukhrani, carrying Saratti across her shoulders, was first to move. She darted out the door and quickly turned to the right as another plasma blast collided against the wall beside her.
Ikharus moved next, with Jakhu still standing in the hall, acting as a shield for the others to pass. He did not even turn to look at the enemy soldiers. He simply followed Ukhrani to the right until they came to a turn. She rounded the corner and he followed behind, practically stuck to her. Once around the corner, they were safe from harm. Evirak and Kozakh were already waiting for them here, with the frozen Prekhon still in their grasp.
“Help!” Prekhon shouted. “Help! The traitors have me!”
“Have you any means to silence this hostage?” Ikharus asked.
Evirak shook his head.
“Regrettably, no.”
Jakhu rounded the corner now, panting as a plasma blast followed behind her, just barely missing.
“Kho Prekhon,” she said, wasting no time to recompose herself, “order your soldiers to stand down.”
“Stand down? You fool! You will see me dead before Vezaria bows before you,” the rebel spat.
“Asking anything of him is pointless,” Kozakh replied.
“But they will not shoot at us if they know we have him,” Ikharus replied. He pointed to Prekhon with his scepter. “Present him to our attackers and see how they respond.”
Jakhu shrugged and nodded her head.
“You heard him,” she said.
Evirak and Kozakh walked Prekhon over to the corner and held his head out. A second later, the enemy fire died away.
“Help!” Prekhon shouted. “These traitors have me frozen! They have also taken Soh Saratti. Do not let them leave. Seal the exits!”
“Exits? Plural?” Evirak asked.
“So, there is more than one way out of here,” added Kozakh.
Prekhon’s face went white as he realized his mistake.
Saratti, still held across Ukhrani’s shoulders, muttered some words that Ikharus could not understand.
“What is he saying?” Ikharus asked.
“He says, though he does not understand the words, that he knows we are looking for a way out,” Ukhrani answered.
“Tell him he is right.”
She did.
“He says he recalls the way he was first brought in,” Ukhrani replied. “To get there, we continue down this hall, then pass through a large recreation hall, before arriving at another exit.”
“Good,” Jakhu said. “That is our way out. Scion form up. Kal Ukhrani, Kho Ikharus, stay behind me. Kho Evirak, Kho Kozakh, take up the rear position.”
“Understood,” the squad replied.
Now free of any enemy fire, the squad proceeded onward with relative ease. As they moved through the hall, Saratti guided them all the while. Farther down, Ikharus could make out a faint light, which grew brighter and brighter with each step.
Finally, after several minutes, the source of the light became obvious. The hall eventually opened to a massive square room with intense overhead lighting. Inside the room stood four enormous boxes covered in sheets with strange sounds and repulsive smells emanating from them. Long wires extended from the back of the boxes up to tall towers, one in each of the room’s four corners. A rebel stood on each of the towers, holding a line in its grasp. On the opposite end of this massive empty room was a closed door with a keypad along the wall next to it.
“What is this? Where are we?” Jakhu asked as she stopped in place.
Saratti responded.
“He says this is the recreation hall. There was athletic equipment set up here last time. He is not sure what these boxes are doing here or why they are making noise,” Ukhrani translated.
“Boxes?” Prekhon asked in a worried tone. From the angle he was being carried, he was unable to see the inside of the room. “You fools! What have you done? You will kill me!”
“Kill you?” Ikharus repeated.
But before he could make sense of Prekhon’s worry, he suddenly pieced it together.
He recognized that sound, that smell. He had smelled it only a few minutes earlier.
Ruors.
“It’s another trap!” Ukhrani shouted.
She nervously backed up just as the rebels on the towers lifted the lines in their grasp, forcing the tarp to fall from the cages. Without the tarp, the sound of ruor shrieks grew nearly four times as loud and the pungent smell twice as powerful.
Now well-lit, Ikharus could finally see the cages that the rebels used to house the ruors. There must have been anywhere from 50 to 70 ruors per cage, all packed so tightly that they had to crawl on top of one another just to fit. Chains holding the mangled skeletons of four-legged animals hung from the roofs of the cages. Only one with a tiny bit of flesh remaining revealed that these animals were once goats.
So that’s how they keep them from eating each other, Ikharus thought.
“It is me!” the frozen Prekhon shouted again to his soldiers on the towers. “Can you hear me? It is me! It is Kho Prekhon! Do not do this! Do not release the ruors, you fools!”
But it was too difficult to hear anything over the sound of the hungry ruors. Despite Prekhon’s order to stand down, the
rebels pulled on their lines again, this time prompting the cage doors to open.
Kho Prekhon must have ordered his followers to spring the trap if anyone entered this room, Ikharus thought. But Prekhon never thought he would be the one to enter it.
Like last time, the mangled abominations poured from their cells and sprinted to their prey at full speed. Each member of Scion took a nervous step back and stared forward, unable to look away.
“We cannot beat the ruors again. We barely escaped with our lives last time,” Ukhrani said in a panicked tone as the monsters quickly approached.
“She is right. We were better armed last time and without these two to carry,” Evirak agreed, referring to Prekhon and Saratti. “We need a plan.”
Ikharus looked at the door before them, their escape out of here.
“We do not need to beat them,” Ikharus said, “we just need to get to the other side.”
“He is right,” Jakhu agreed. “We do not need to kill them all. If we can just pass that door, we can leave the rest of them behind us.”
“The door is locked. We will need access to open it,” Ukhrani observed.
“Then it is by great fortune that we happen to have a key,” Ikharus replied, motioning to the frozen Kho Prekhon. Though his suit may have been inactive, the identification in his suit’s wrist still functioned.
“What? Me? Oh no. This is madness!” Prekhon replied though loud gasps of fearful breaths.
“Kho Ikharus is right,” Jakhu agreed. She turned to face her team one last time, before taking another step forward toward the incoming horde. “We will form a spear tip formation. I will take the front. Kal Ukhrani and Kho Ikharus, stick behind me. Kho Evirak, Kho Kozakh, take the rear. Scion, stay in formation the entire way. Do not abandon your packages. Do not fall out of line. Do not stop moving. That door must be 100 kotans away. Once we hit the horde, it will be an all-out sprint to the finish. Is that understood?”
“Understood!” the Kreed responded in unison.
“May you be swift and efficient in your-” Before Jakhu could finish her sentence, the horde was suddenly on them. Without hesitation, she instantly slammed her helmet into the first one and blasted forward with her thrusters, plowing into a total of five different ruors and knocking them down onto one another.