Chapter 561: 4th & 10 (1/2)

”The First Precursor War, as it is now called, took an estimated eleven thousand years from beginning to end. A simple three way fight between opponents who knew each other quite well, and thus knew their capabilities. All three combatants lost to their own autonomous war machines at the end.

”The Second Precursor War was laughably short by comparison. The Terrans had fought longer battles on their home planet before the invention of superluminal travel.” - Former Grand Most High Sma'akamo'o, from I Have Ridden the Hasslehoff

He didn't have a name, not even a number. He was just one of millions on board the Great Hive Ship. He had born fully aware but not in control of his own body. Another hand had smothered his will while he was still slumbering in his egg. For nearly a decade he had worked, at times nearly to death, at the urging of another. It was bad enough his mind was smothered, but his limbic system was slaved to the Overmind, making it so he suffered anxiety if he did not complete his tasks.

He had seen others die of anxiety when the task had proved impossible.

His mind was full of raving anger. The Overqueen was furious, all but two of the Queens were dead, and the Speakers were struggling to hold on to the Overmind. He could hear the Overqueen raving at both the High Speakers as well as the starship that had been pounding upon the Great Hive Ship.

From his point of view, the world was full of chaos. Gone was the orderly construction, gone was the smooth mathematics and equations he had grown up surrounded by. Now it was all flashing lights, flickering gravity, dust in the air, and dead Mantid.

He had his toolkit and was rushing down the hallway toward the Overqueen's armored command center, hurrying to repair a datacable that had gone offline.

He saw the 'soap bubble' in front of him but paid it no mind. The world kept going topsy turvy anyway, and it wasn't the strangest thing he had seen in the last twelve hours.

He crossed it and stopped.

Free? he wondered. He waited. He couldn't hear the Overqueen screeching. He couldn't hear the panicked orders of the High Speakers. He couldn't even hear the frantic conflicting orders of the Speakers or Warriors.

He blinked several times and turned slowly around to look behind him. He could see the soap bubble.

He heard and felt technology move near him and turned around, raising one bladearm to defend himself. Before he could do much more than that something grabbed him. It was massive, the grasping appendage bigger than his thorax, its fingers as thick as his abdomen. It was all black, with tiny white LED lights here and there. He couldn't feel the flow of electricity through it, couldn't feel anything more than the fact it was made with Substance W, which was impossible to work.

He closed his eyes, shutting the protective lid over his compound eyes, preparing to be crushed. He could feel himself moving rapidly for a moment before he slid to a stop. He was being held gently, cradled against the massive chest of the huge biped.

--query-- he heard.

He could faintly sense electronics.

--want-- the word was crude, the accent poor, and to his senses it was computerized. --some--

He opened his eyes. He was in the middle of a group of the bipeds. One had what looked like a computer hooked up to a short range phasic transmitter and what looked like a steaming orb of substance W on the other side.

--yummy-- the computer said. --turkey--

He drew back slightly as a one of the big gripped hands picked up something extruded from the steaming orb and held it out to him.

The atmosphere in the corridor was thin, full of contaminates and debris particles, but he could smell the object with his sensitive antenna.

Meat. Greasy hot meat.

Not nutripaste.

Meat.

Like the High Servitors ate.

He snatched out with his bladearms, grabbing it, pulling it close, grabbing it with his hands and chewing on it.

It was bliss.

--no hurt-- the computer said.

He signaled assent, chewing on the soft, delicious, tender, juicy, greasy, yummy meat.

Yar had to admit, this was not how she thought she'd spend her Saturday night.

Hundreds of miles into a Precursor Mantid ship, tens of miles deep, following a phasic energy detector that kept going on the fritz, surrounded by nearly thirty Redshirts. Like her, the Redshirts were in light powered armor, in clear defiance of Federation LARP rules, copied from Space Force surplus templates. Her Redshirts weren't carrying standard LARP phaser rifles, but rather Confederate Space Force standard issue magac rifles, some of them with the underbarrel attachments. Ensign Harold James Earl had something called a 12 gauge shotgun on the bottom of his weapon and despite the relative primitiveness of the design it killed Mantids just fine.

One of her men had seen a green servitor enter the phasic stealth field and go still. She'd pointed at it and yelled to 'grab him!' She'd grabbed it and brought it up to Yar.

Yar could tell the little thing fully expected to die, but to be honest, there was no way in Hell Yar was going to kill the little guy.

He was just what they needed.

”Get the lexicon we got from those other greenies we picked up up and running,” Yar snapped. ”Set the nutriforge to basted turkey breast, they really like that.”

”Aye-aye, ma'am,” Technician Grade-Seven Sculman said, kneeling down and unfolding the computer. It had a phasic communicator, built based on data from the greenies, as well as small nutriforge.

Yar watched as the little greenie stabbed the meat with his bladearms, pulling it close and munching on it. They let it eat the first piece, telling it that they wouldn't hurt it, then gave it a second piece before moving on.

It complained about being cold, so Ensign Rafferty put it on the top of his shoulder pauldron.

Yar checked the map and the phasic detector.

They were less than a mile from the largest concentration of phasic energy on the ship. The corridor dead-ended in massive wall of battlesteel that had lowered to protect whatever lay beyond.

That was all right.

That's what God made fusion cutters for.

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The Overqueen railed against the universe itself as the ships that had just arrived shed hundreds, thousands of light attack craft. The larger ships, the huge gray diamond ones, were pouring out rivers of highly agile and high speed attack craft, the ion casters more devastating then they had any right to be. The ones shaped like two squished cones pressed together launched hundreds of disk shaped craft that extended the edges of the flatted disk to reveal heavy laser cannons and missile launchers.

The barrel shapes with the long underslung component launched ships.

EVERYONE launched ships.

But that wasn't the worst.

The new ships were just as heavily armed as the Hated Ship. Not as bad as the Hated Weapon, but the weapons were more powerful than they had any right to be. Nearly a dozen of them were pounding her battlescreens with the equivalent of planet-crackers.

Worse, unlike any other opponent, no two groups were armed the same. They had a dizzying and bewildering array of weapons, quickly adjusting their firepower and attack angles to maximize their performance.

The Overqueen screamed with rage as a heavy cruiser tried to take off and that damnable armored vehicle that still clung to her hull like a tick hit the ship dead center, breaking it in half.

Her two remaining lesser Queens were working hard, having to do something they had never been required to do before.

Add their psychic power to the shielding.

They both complained to her, but she snarled at them to shut up and keep up the shielding.

Her own torchships, her light attack craft, were getting swept from the sky as if they were naught but insects.

Despite the wild variation in the light attack craft fielded by the enemy they worked together as one coherent whole even as the range dropped until the combat became a point blank knife fight with chainsaws. Worse, the small attack craft were protected by battlescreens normally fielded on a light cruiser, not something smaller than the Overqueen's majestic body.

**casualties are mounting, oh Queen** one of the High Speakers said.

**THEN KILL THE ENEMY!** the Overqueen shrieked back.

**they are killing us faster than we can kill them by a factor of nearly a hundred to one and the enemy is launching a third wave** another High Speaker said. **we need to retreat**

**NEVER! I WANT THIS PLANET! MY WANTS SUPERSEDE YOUR NEEDS!** the Overqueen shrieked.

**your wants are our wants, oh queen** another High Speaker said. The Overqueen could tell by the 'tang' of his thoughts that this High Speaker was the one in charge of all of her torchships. **you misunderstand, it is not that we lesser beings need to retreat**

**Then what is it?** the Overqueen snapped.

**you need to retreat** the High Speaker said gravely. **the second wave will drive past our fighters and directly assault the ship**

**the computer systems are going wild at a greater and greater rate** another High Speaker added. **the phasic repeaters are now failing**

**we have only 43% of our engine capacity left, oh queen** another High Speaker added, the tang of his thoughts letting the Overqueen know that this one was the High Speaker in charge of engine and power engineering. **MY QUEEN! WE HAVE BEEN**

There was the bright sparkling flash of the High Speaker's death across the overmind.

She was looking at the computer directly across from her, that she was using to examine the damage to the ship, when it suddenly went blank.

Words appeared, then flashed, and the Overqueen shrieked in rage.

I'M IN UR SHIP KILLIN UR DUDZ appeared.

A flare of alarm made her look at another monitor, where the Speaker was backing away.

ALL UR BASE R BELONG 2 US appeared on the monitor, then the face of a hairless primate laughing soundlessly.

**FIX IT!** the Overqueen screamed.

The Speaker moved up to it, reaching forward.