Chapter 403 (1/2)
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.