/ Matriarch
/ Same time
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The Queen had long since severed the connection to the other members of her hive, opting to simply gaze through the eyes of the Matriarch, her mind the only other one she wanted input from at the moment. She simply looked at the hollow before her, taking in everything she could about it.
It gave her a look and stood up, after a couple of barks and grunts a understandable voice reached 'her' ears.
"Move......back." It said as it stepped back.
The Queen was about to ask why when a annoying sound reached 'her' ears. She looked up and caught sight of a tiny black dot falling from the sky, the sound getting progressively louder as the dot grew.
' Matriarch, what is that?'
'It is making the same sound the thing the hollow left on, maybe it's coming back.
As the black speck began to grow, along with the sound it was making, the Matriarch jolted in surprise.
'Daughters spark! It's back!'
'There is another as well, faint as it is.'
The Matriarch focused in on the weaker of the two.
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/ Corporal John Maxwell
/ Same time
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I looked down as Chrysalis began hopping around the transport, a feeling of elation snaking its way into my mind.
I taped the deck-plating with the heel of my foot, catching her attention for the moment, "What's up kid, you ok?"
She gave a buzz and only one word made it through the translator unmolested, "Mom!"
James leaned over, "Mom? Is she talking about the one from your report, John?"
I gave a shrug, "Most likely the Púca was exhibiting the tell tail signs of parental activity, although I could have been wrong in my assessment. We still know next to nothing about them."
He nodded, "I admit we could know more, but we have to take this slow. This is a very fragile situation, and I would rather not enact the 'contract'."
"That makes two of us," The chairman said, throwing his two cents in, "you may not take me for a..... agreeable man Doctor, but I want what's best for both of our species."
"You almost sound sentimental, care to tell why?", The Doctor rebuked.
The Chairman whipped around fast enough to make me think he was augmented, a finger in James face, "I am indeed 'sentimental' Doctor but not for any misguided pity for these primitives, I AM sentimental to the threat they pose to humanity."
It was James turn to get angry, "Threat?! Chairman what 'threat' could these, as you so well put it, 'primitives' could possibly be?!"
"Not them, its what they represent. Make no mistake Doctor the UEG is on the edge, ready to fall off at any time. I have held the UEG together for the past thousand years! All it would take is One. Little. Push." He said, making his point by jabbing his finger at Chrysalis, "To send it all over the edge! If they got out to the public, or god forbid, into the hands HLF the balance of power would come tumbling down so hard the UEG would shatter worse than during the Fall, and humanity barely survived that! I will NOT let that happen, and I will do anything to assure it doesn't. Do you understand, Doctor?"
The Doctor stood for a moment, "Yes......sir." He said with a nod.
I was taken aback by the Chairman’s outburst. No one had, to my knowledge, had ever seen the Chairman lose his temper like that.
My thoughts were interrupted as a blaring migraine barged its way into my mind unceremoniously, it was powerful enough to make me take a knee in pain.
“Ugh, what the hell?” I said through gritted teeth, while I forced myself to stand. James came to my side, pushing Chrysalis out of the way gently.
“John, whats happening?”
“I don’t know, feel like someone was beating on my head with a car, and that’s happened to me before.” I lamented.
I closed my eyes as a droning buzz filled my head, it was like thousands of wasps were flying around in my head. Then as if that was not enough thousands of different emotions hit me at once, washing away any form of thought in my mind, before all of them were silenced.
"-alright?" I heard James say.
I shook my head to clear my thoughts, "I'm sorry, what?"
"I asked if you were alright." He said.
"I'll be fine."
"Like hell... Another episode like that and you're going back to the ship." He said.
"I said, I'm fine." I repeated.
His response was cut off as the pilot came over our HIs, "Thirty seconds to dirt."
"You had better be, you are our only liaison for the time being." The Chairman said as he gave his suit a once over.
I rolled my shoulders, " Never been much of a negotiator......Sir."
"We'll have to make due." He said as the transport’s ramp descended.
As the ramp hit the ground Chrysalis bounded out of the ship towards what looked to be her mother. The larger insectoid closing the gap and musseling her affectionately before looking at us. I took a breath and walked down the ramp, James, Prescott, and his guards falling in behind me.
Chrysalis's mother assumed a defensive stance and gave a couple of buzzes, "What do you want.....hollow?"
I pushed the odd diction to the back of my mind for later, "We want to......talk, to your.....Queen." A small window appearing on my HI telling me what she was hearing.
She simply stared at me for a time, "Why?"
"We want to know more about you.... We want to.....share."
Another long pause, "Fine, but those two cannot follow. She said pointing to the two Praetorians.
I looked to the Chairman, he gave me a nod.
"Lead the way."
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Two hours later
After nearly two hours of walking down the dark winding tunnels that made up the Hive I was greeted by the pair of massive doors from before. The two giant guards from before were missing, which I was thankful for as I was only armed with my MOR-94 on my hip.
I heard James mumble something likened to 'Amazing' as the giant doors were bathed in a bright green light as Chrysalis's mothers horn glowed.
A message appeared in my HI, 'WARNING, UNKNOWN RADIATION DETECTED........ UNHARMFUL TO HUMAN ANATOMY.'
I sent a message to James, 'What do you think?'
'We’re learning more, still have no idea how she's doing that though.' He sent back.
'Well learn faster, I don't wanna think what she could do to an unarmored human.'
'Hmph, look at it this way. If they kill the Chairman we'll just glass the plant....after we gather samples of course.'
'Or send in the Praetorians.'
'Now that's just mean.'
I stopped the two way banter as the massive doors thudded open.
'Time to make history' I thought to myself as I walked into the room.
I could see the 'Queen' in the center of the room, atop what could be called a throne, which took the form of a massive crystal that was the same color of the one around my neck.
Another message from James appeared on my HI, 'Well....hope it isn't hungry'
Its eyes flashed green as a familial overpowering presence snaked its way into my mind, a feeling of animosity following close behind.
It descended from its 'throne', letting out a couple of clicks along the way.
"What is your purpose in my Hive hollow. Why have you returned?"
"We just want to talk. We mean no harm."
The presence in my mind intensified for a moment before reseeding, "Yes the Matriarch said you wish to talk, but first, I want to know some things."
"Ask away."
"You resemble the ones who came before, but your mind is less..... chaotic, yet you come from falling stars as they did. What are you."
I voiced my confusion to the Queen, "The ones who came before..... what are you talking about?"
The Queen gave what could have been a sigh were she human and lowered herself to the ground, "My memory is long hollow, but some has been lost to time. My mother told a tale of a star that fell from the sky, a time later a hollow came to a neighboring hive. The members of the Hive attacked the hollow, and in return the hollow called forth a fire so powerful it turned everything to glass, entire forests were leveled from the force."
A message appeared from James, 'Sounds like a nuke....this is bad. We did detect high background radiation in an area to the south, given the about it had to have been over a hundred years ago.'
The Queen continued, "The hollow then disappeared. My mother used it as a cautionary tale to teach patience, to think of the consequences of your actions. I always thought it a silly story."
'One hell of a Bogeyman.' I thought. "We do not want to hurt you."
She nodded, "Yes...The return of the hatchling states that much. I ask again, what are you, where are you from."
"We call ourselves Humans, we come from.......up." I cursed the translators limited pool of words. "Your language is......limited, you lack the words to properly express what I mean, lets just say we are from far away."
"How far?"
I had a hidden smirk from behind my helmet, "Very far."
"What do you want with my Hive?"
"Tell me, have you ever looked into the night sky and wondered 'What's up there?', have you ever looked into the night sky and wondered what those points of light in the sky are? Have you ever looked at the world around you and wondered how it all came to be? You are a young race, a race that knows next to nothing about the world it lives in.... All we are offering is knowledge, nothing more....nothing less."
I called up a holographic image of their world, "This is your world," The image zoomed out past everything to show the solar system as a whole, "this is your.....home, your Hive. You have never seen the outside of your own home."
I then showed a cascade of images, Terra, multiple colony worlds, fleets of ships, ring-worlds before finally stopping on Zeus Station. At one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand kilometers in diameter it is the largest thing ever built by human hands. It took the form of a massive wheel with series of 'arms' coming off of it.
"We have done much better, and we want to share all of this with your kind."
The Queen and the other assembled Púca in the room simply stared dumbly at me and the others, they most likely had no understanding of what the images really were but they had no doubt served their intended purpose.
"I....I do not know of the other Queens and their Hives, but I accept your offer.....Human."
I held out a hand, after a full minute of awkward silence the Queen used one of her claws and reached out. I gripped it tight and gave it a shake.
"Good."
As my hand dropped as transmission came over my COM, "Sorry to interrupt but I have something......large inbound, it's airborne at ten klicks out. Closing fast. Please advise." Said the voice of the transport pilot.
The Chairman responded, "Hold fast pilot, we on the way up. The Praetorians will cover you."
The Queen got up and looked at me, "What's going on human?"
"Something is flying here, something big, at least your size."
She let out a deep growl making the cave floor shake lightly, "Damned Wyvern."
"Wyvern?" I asked.
"Your flying.....thing, probably flew over what they consider 'their' territory."
"Their territory?"
"Yes, the nearby Wyvern outcast clans are not as......diplomatic as the others."
"Wait, their intelligent?"
She looked at me, "Most of the time they are very intelligent, the outcasts though are more like animals."
We turned to head back to the transport, "What happens if these..... Wyvern, are hostile?"
"Then we kill them, the other clans are honor bound to hunt any outcasts down, we would be doing them a favor."
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We heard a gut wrenching roar as we neared the mouth of the cave, one of the Praetorians coming over the COMs, "We've been engaged. The transport has been damaged." He said in a calm voice.
As we passed through the mouth of the cave we were treated to an odd sight. One of the Praetorians was having a stare down with what could only be described as a dragon. The two of them circling each other, the other Praetorian tending to the wounded pilot, the one having the stare down with the 'Wyvern' no doubt providing a distraction.
"Weapons free?" He asked.
"Light 'em up" The Chairman said calmly.
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/The Queen
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The Queen looked at the human and Wyvern gaze at each other. After a short time the Wyvern finally let out a roar and jumped at the human.
At the same time the human just....vanished, leaving behind a small plume of dust where it once was. It moved with such speed that to her all she could see was a dull grey blur. The Wyvern whipped around trying to find where the human had gone, letting loose a flame from its gullet when it found the human. She cringed as the flames enveloped the human, that attack could have easily killed her with its heat, and the human had just taken the brunt of it.
Her eyes snapped open as a shape slammed into the Wyverns neck, the human had instead of jumping away, jumped right at the Wyvern. There was so much force behind the attack that the Wyvern was thrown onto its back. The human then savagely ripped of one of the many spikes along the Wyvern’s head crest and slammed it into its skull, the Wyvern twitched once and laid still.
She could feel the entire Hive wilt away as the human jumped off the corpse and walked to the other humans, not a scratch or burn on it, the entire Hive could hardly believe that the most powerful hunter on the planet had just been killed so....easily. She caught sight of another Wyvern take wing and fly off, no doubt off to tell the rest of its clan.
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"Sir the other one is getting away." I said.
I was honestly unsurprised at how the Praetorian had killed that dragon, I had seen the Decon IV videos after all, so that show of force was pretty tame. The Queen on the other hand appeared to be have been taken aback by the display.
"I'll take care of that. UEG Frigate "Atlas" I need a KEW strike, sending targeting data now, super light round ten percent charge."
There was a pause before the round could be seen hitting the dragon, turning it into a red mist. The round then slammed into the ground the shockwave was enough to send all the insectoids except the Queen to the ground.
I looked at the Chairman, "Overkill?"
He just shrugged.
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CODEX
ZEUS Station - 
Zeus Station serves as the beating heart of all of the UEGs military endeavors. It serves as the main shipyard, navy training facility, it is also the training facility for all of the UEGs special forces programs ( Praetorians ). It is also a research station for ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence) operations. It is defended by a fleet only second to the Terra deference fleet. The fleets flagship is the Super Dreadnought 'The Light of Zeus'