//------------------------------// // 10: Old Friend // Story: Culling of the Hives // by law abiding pony //------------------------------// Deep within Stripped Gear’s royal palace, Cadista remained in her hive-trance. She was being carried on a stretcher through the timeless brass hallways of her ancient home to a panic room at the far north end of the palace. Watchful Eye guided the party of twenty one Queen’s Guard and civilians to their destination. The power was completely out through most of the hive, causing the weakening wall lights to cast whole sections in dancing flickering shadows. The building shuddered with rivulets of dust falling upon the fleeing drones. Flexi Lawnder, an engineer who was caught in the palace fighting, struggled to keep her half of Cadista’s stretcher off the ground. Her ears were cast backwards at the seemingly omnipresent sounds of battle. Deep groaning cracks, gunfire, and explosions rang in her ears. The grating baritone of clockwerks echoed behind the group as the invaders fought their way through the rear guard. Watchful barked as the group made it into the grand throne room just south of the castle’s center. Flexi carefully put her queen’s stretcher down as the soldiers raced throughout the room at Watchful’s orders. Even with Cadista’s hive meditation bolstering her spirits, Flexi was no soldier. She only partially watched as more of her siblings ran in through the primary grand entry doors and the three service entrances along all but the northern face of the chamber. The throne room itself was extremely large and empty, save for the throne itself and the necessary support pillars. Most of the walls were adorned with brass with Stripped Gear’s flag draped along the walls and pillars at regular intervals. For a brief moment, Flexi had hoped the arriving drones were more soldiers, reinforcements coming in from the breached city beyond. Yet the lion’s share of the new arrivals were cooks, engineers, and everything in between. None of them carried anything save for the clothes on their backs. As far as Flexi could see, there was only one armored soldier for every thirty civilians. Still remaining near her queen, Flexi saw a brother buzz over to Watchful Eye and salute. “Sir, these are all we could save from the shelter at D section. Bayonet says there’s no hope for the other shelters along the southern districts. The enemy is pushing to surround the palace before trying to break in.” Watchful ground his teeth in cool rage. “That’s no longer the case. Queen Thereena’s drones have already broken into the upper levels, thinking mother would have been holed up in her chambers. It’s all we can do to stall them.” Watchful held up a bandaged hoof up for the officer to wait when he noticed the last of the civilians were being pulled inside by what was left of Stripped Gear’s once two thousand strong Hive Guard. After waiting for a series of acknowledgements, Watchful tried to inquire the status of the Deception through the hive mind. This is bad. Not only is the ship blinded by a smokescreen, it’s Silandrus of all lings who’s attacking them. It’ll kill morale, but we have to wake mother up. He turned to Flexi who was trying to pass the minutes by making sure Cadista was in a comfortable prone position. “Flexi Lawnder,” the mare eeped at the address, “assist us in waking her.” “Y-yes, sir!” Thirty changelings closed in behind the two drones and combined their meager psychic power. It wasn’t much, given the communication oriented nature of a drone’s abilities. Outside of normal Link communication, the gathered changelings were only capable of causing a small psychic blip, but it was enough for Cadista’s horn to detect, causing her to awaken with a start. Within the span of a second, Cadista could feel just how much quieter the background noise of her side of the hive mind was. Leveraging her centuries of rule, Cadista shoved her grief aside. I knew this was coming for decades. The drones as one gave a collective gasp, feeling as if their fighting spirit fled them as their queen’s benediction gave way. Cadista took a few moments to sift through the Link to discover what had happened since beginning her meditation. For two days, Twilight and Rainbow’s coordination had kept the rival queens at bay. Granted my meditation assisted greatly in the defense, but the actions of the other queens don’t make sense. Were they stalling just long enough to wait for the Deception to arrive? Catching up to the present, Cadista looked through what few remaining scouts she still had to find the Deception being cleared of the smokescreen by a pseudo-rainboom. Heh, looks like Twilight and Rainbow can handle themselves just fine without me distracting them. Not that I’m in any position to render aid. The best thing I can do for them now is give them a reason to fall back to Phoenix’s Roost. The current battlescape within the hive itself was too chaotic to get a proper picture. Luckily, Watchful had been keeping himself appraised of the situation. ’“Captain Watchful Eye, you ordered a general evacuation?” “Yes, my queen,” he replied curtly while snapping a salute. “The enemy hives arrayed against us consists of Thereena and Nubile,” Cadista’s breath quickened at the news, “they’ve been the ones attacking us for the past two days, but they fell back an hour before Twilight and Rainbow arrived. Silandrus is the one assaulting the Deception as we speak. As for who’s sieging us on the ground is currently unknown.” Cadista’s ears fell flat and she scowled deeply. “I knew it was only a matter of time before the other queens attacked me, but I was so sure it would have been Chrysalis and her allies first.” Watchful idly surveyed his troops bringing up several old clockwerks from hidden alcoves in the walls. “Speaking of Chrysalis, one of my scouts spotted some of Chrysalis’ drones along what’s left of the Buler Ranch. She’s watching us, but hasn’t acted yet.” “Pah, she’s probably eating popcorn as she watches my hive burn.” Cadista stood up to her full height. Several Queen’s Guard moved over to the raised dais bearing the throne and pressed down a secret switch under the chair itself. Luckily, Cadista’s previous incarnation had the foresight to use mana engines rather than steam driven gears, which allowed the dais to lift two meters up while the floor three meters in front of the throne slid away to reveal stairs. Faint lights crackled to life within the painfully narrow tunnel that could only take refugees in single file. Dust and stagnant air wafted out, but the sense of safety flowed with it. “Watchful, Gather a small team to lead the way for the civilians. Just enough troops to push back any beasts that might have nested on the other side.” “At once, my queen.” He pointed at seven riflelings and one flammenwerfer. “Form up on the flamer and secure the exit.” Deciding to stay as a part of the rear guard, Cadista waited for the civilians to follow the squad, giving her one last chance to look upon her throne room. Memories and ghosts, both new and old passed through her eyes. Yumia. First I lost you, and now I’m losing our home. Watchful Eye tensed when he saw Cadista silently weeping. Cadista’s heart sunk even lower as her scouts revealed the ethereal drone attack on the Deception was looking grim. My soul, my hive, and now I’m about to lose my purpose in life. And there’s not a damn thing I can do to save any of it! The whole room jumped as three of the sealed southern doors banged in their frames with such force all three dented inwards. The civilians panicked and left whatever belongings they had with them to try and cram their way into the tunnel. The soldiers surrounded Cadista while the active clockwerks took position near the doors along the ground and in the air. Watchful Eye barked orders to his troops. “Everypony, form ranks on me!” Soldiers raced over to Watchful with rifles in their magic. Cadista flew over to get behind the three rows of riflelings as they formed up. The doors boomed again, with two of them warping badly, but still remaining fully closed. Cadista commanded with regal authority. The soldiers were shaping up the formation poorly. Fatigue after fighting for two days, and the aftershock of the hive meditation made them sluggish, and they were not alone. Those few remaining survivors found themselves needing time to catch their breath and focus on the task at hand. Those directly engaged with the enemy didn’t have that luxury, and were either in full retreat, or being overrun. The same was not true for the hostiles swarming through the streets. The last few artillery and anti air emplacements laid abandoned or destroyed along all but the far northern wall. Only the fact that their queen was still alive gave the scattered army some will to keep fighting. The third crash on the doors caused the primary doors directly in front of the rifle formation to buckle with the center iris torn open. Cadista could see the massive battering drone’s horn poking through the opening. Its deep grumbling breath was nearly lost to the din of her riflelings finally getting into formation with the front rank standing at the ready with bayonets fixed. They waited for the final crash to bring down the doors, but instead, a stone wrapped in magic came flying through the hole landing in front of the infantry. The closest drone identified it immediately, picked it up and presented it to Cadista. “My queen, it is the Stone of Parlay!” As soon as the soldier picked up the stone, the attacking swarm pulled back and halted their assault hive wide. In the few places where Cadista’s drones were still putting up resistance, the hostiles ducked behind whatever cover they could find. Watchful and Cadista quickly noticed this as reports started flooding them of the strange activity. Jumping at the unexpected lifeline for her children, Cadista bounded over the soldiers and took the stone in her magic. Confusion and hundreds of questions flooded the Link, so Cadista delegated it to Watchful Eye. Cadista shared many of those questions herself as she walked over to the hole in the warped door. The rules are clear. No one is to move or fight within the battlefield until parlay is concluded. At the very least this will give my children time to recover. Cadista stopped twenty paces from the broken door when a smallish red drone squeezed through the rent doors. Once inside, it flew over to hover in front of Cadista where it’s monocolored eyes shifted to bare the slitted eyes of its queen. Cadista’s heart caught in her throat, but she didn’t betray her surprise. “Kreesus…?” Cadista managed to say evenly towards the seething puppet. “So you’ve turned against me as well?” “Did you honestly expect anything else, Cadista?” Kreesus growled, making no effort to maintain a regal image. “How was I supposed to act after Twilight Sparkle revealed her ability to produce love?” “To be honest, I thought you’d be thrilled, if jealous.” “Jealousy,” Kreesus fumed with disgust. “There is no word that can adequately describe how it felt to have my oldest friend crush everything I’ve ever worked on with what should have been nothing more than a fool’s errand.” The puppet started to pace in front of Cadista. “Evolve, adapt, and thrive. This is the code our species lives by. We see a trait we want, and we change ourselves to possess it. That is how it has always been. It is our power, the First Mother’s gift to us all.” Cadista despaired at the three hundred year friendship being torn to pieces in front of her. “I told you all along what I was planning. You rebuked every request to assist me on my fool’s errand, until I stopped bothering to ask. Even after Yumia’s death when I needed help in the project more than ever, you flat out refused to aid me. We shared a mutual defense pact. We agreed to defend each other, not share all of our alchemical secrets. So you’ll just have to forgive me if I require at least some measure of compensation for the knowledge both Yumia and I spent two lifetimes alone to acquire, old friend. Even if all I’d ever require from you would be but a token. Some modicum of payment for my life’s work.” “A token?” Kreesus scoffed incredulously. “And what could I possibly offer to equal love production?” Kreesus barked back, barely containing her fury and depression. “Love is something we’ve never been able to produce. No matter what I tried these past few years. Alchemy, cloning Twilight’s drones, even mating with one of her consorts,” Cadista recoiled at the last comment while Kreesus shuddered with revulsion. It was a well-known fact that mating with another queen’s consort was considered a loathsome act, no matter what was to be gained. The fact that Twilight and Rainbow Dash shared consorts regularly was a constant source of rude gossip within the jungle. “I spent everything... everything I had on the four princesses I gained from that…pairing,” the puppet spat. “And every last one of them lost the ability to love within a year. And the worst of it is that Twilight Sparkle and her sister let it happen!” Cadista was planning on reprimanding Twilight about her apparent lax security, when Kreesus’ words made her stop short. “She what?” “You didn’t know?” Kreesus huffed dismissively. “It doesn’t matter now. Whether Twilight was taunting us by making it too easy, or she knew trying to stop us was folly is irrelevant now. Silandrus has promised me and several others that she could give us the secret to a love producing daughter, if we helped her with this invasion, and so here I am.” “We used to be allies, Kreesus, and I dare say honorable friends as well.” Cadista could see the conflicted doubt and determination in the puppets’ eyes which mirrored her own. “We could have arranged something for the secret if you had just asked.” Kreesus was so taken aback by the statement that the puppet stumbled a little. It spoke with blatant surprise. “You insult me. I would think even now, you’d be honest with me.” “I am being honest, Kreesus, I would have gladly traded with you. I’ve been sitting on an honorable exchange with you for the past seven years, waiting for you to ask.” Cadista looked through the eyes of her scattered children at the broken and burning ruins of Stripped Gear. Could she have been the one who sabotaged the geothermal plant, or did she tell the real infiltrator how to bypass the wall? “So why didn’t you? Did your pride stop you, or was it your honor as a queen?” The puppet’s ears fell back as a snarl marred its lips. “And what could possibly be an honorable exchange for the secret of love production? Food, protection, alchemical secrets?” The wings of Kreesus’ puppet buzzed angrily. “Nothing, not a damn thing compares to love production. No matter what your offer would request of me, it could never be enough, not for this. I would be honor-bound to become little more than your servant, but not just me, but my royal children as well, and countless generations afterwards for so valuable a gift. My bloodline would become your vassal for an eternity!” Cadista said nothing as Kreesus vented. In her heart, she knew her old friend spoke the truth. It would be like discovering a way to no longer need food or water, Kreesus’ pride and honor as queen would demand no less of her. Even so, she just doesn’t understand what it means to love… Just like all the other queens. “So no,” Kreesus said after giving herself a moment to calm down. “I choose to side with Silandrus. We’ve tried going directly for Twilight’s bloodline, but that always ends in failure. So,” she said with forced neutrality, “we decided that going after you, the architect of love production, would be easier. “As for my agreement with Silandrus, the payment between us is simple. I use my knowledge of your defenses to capture you, and she will be the one to extract the information from you. I’ll have my love producing daughter, without being made a slave neither by my honor nor to you.” Cadista affixed the puppet with a cold stare. “…So you traded the disgrace of obsoletion for the dishonor of betrayal?” The puppet snorted disapprovingly. “Such is our world. I would rather live with tarnished honor, than to exist with none at all. I dare you to say you wouldn’t do the same.” Cadista said nothing, she couldn’t, without some degree of a lie. A brief check over the hive mind showed that the Deception was still surrounded by Silandrus’ drones, and the ship’s shield was fading fast. “What are your terms for parlay?” Taking a moment to shore up enough poise to adopt a regal stance. “Surrender yourself to me, and I will allow the rest of your drones to live, since I know you care far too much for them. Silandrus has also agreed to effectively hold your old flagship hostage, once she finishes dealing with its shield. Give yourself up, and she will allow your daughters to go free.” Cadista couldn’t help but to hesitate at the offer. If I agree, I’d save Twilight and Rainbow, but in doing so, I would still put their lives at risk. They’d no doubt try to rescue me, no matter how much I tell them not to. She barely had half a minute to think before Rainbow Dash’s presence within the Link started fluctuating badly from Silandrus’ psychic assault. Since Hive Meditation left the practitioner nearly dead to the world, Cadista was wholly ignorant of Rainbow’s plan. Cadista panicked. What? Did Rainbow Dash actually try to invade Silandrus’ hive mind? What a reckless child! Rainbow’s voiceless agony was palpable to Cadista. As if every pulse of pain was caused by her hesitation. Yet the answer to Kreesus’ offer proved elusive. To think Kreesus just handed me the reigns of our species’ future. Can I trust Twilight and Rainbow to save themselves, and let them be the sole face of the next generation, or do I give up and start the whole cycle all over again. The other queens would create a whole new generation, and our species would continue to stagnate… Cadista wrestled with herself, against time and Rainbow’s increasing agony. Forgive me, Twilight, for forcing you to inherit our species’ problems anew. “I’ll do it, Kreesus,” Cadista forcibly held in a choked sob as she took her crown off and presented it to the puppet. Before Kreesus could register the acceptance, let alone take the crown, Watchful Eye and every remaining changeling present yelled their protests. “You can’t do this, my queen,” he raced over to interpose himself between Cadista and the puppet. “It looks dire, but have faith in your daughters!” Having served at his queen’s side for decades, he knew exactly what she was thinking. “Time is running out, Cadista,” Kreesus’ puppet barked impatiently. “I have more than enough forces inside Stripped Gear to take you by force, if need be. Our old friendship is the only reason I’m extending you the offer of saving your daughters.” A war raged within Cadista with the rising panic of Rainbow Dash’s wildly flickering presence within the Link, and the absurd prospect that her daughters were more in control than she realized. She brushed Twilight’s mind, though she was too distracted to notice Cadista’s slight touch, the elder queen realized something. She’s not in panic mode about RD… “I grow tired of asking, Cadista, so this will be the last time.” Kreesus said with an almost hostile tone, snapping Cadista out of her reverie. “Surrender, or both of your daughters will die, and I will capture you regardless.” Watchful studied his queen’s absent gaze, searching for what course she would take. “Please,” he hissed in a whisper. “You have raised them well, have faith.” Cadista closed her eyes and took a quick deep breath. When she opened them again, she cast the puppet in an ironclad gaze of conviction. “No.” She pulled her crown away and placed it back upon her brow. “My daughters no longer need my protection. At least for today,” she added with no small amount of sass. The words had barely left her lips when Silandrus’ drones fell away from the Deception like an avalanche. The surge of jubilation across the hive mind renewed Cadista’s faith in her daughters and shot Kreesus a superior smirk as the puppet’s eyes went vacant as its master tried to figure why Silandrus was backing off prematurely. “Your offer is now void, Kreesus,” Cadista sneered with immense satisfaction. “My daughters have beaten Silandrus quite handedly. If you want to save any of your drones, I suggest you retreat immediately…” The puppet cast a baleful glare at a smirking Cadista. “Given our old friendship, I’ll even go so far as to tell the warship’s gunners to give your forces a safe corridor to retreat through.” Within Fluffy, Kreesus was violently shaking Silandrus’ emissary drone, but all she was getting out of it was insane screaming and thrashing. She backed off when she saw the exterior effects of Rasua’s spell, dark blobs of ink darting across the drones’ eyes. With no knowledge of Rasua or Luna’s part in Silandrus’ downfall, Kreesus’ thoughts went wild with speculation. No! Twilight must have gotten an agent within Silandrus’ hive! Cadista must have been planning counter infiltration like this for decades if she got to her! With Silandrus seemingly gone insane thanks to a spell, and her friendship with Cadista ruined, Kreesus’ hopes and dreams of a loving royal daughter crashed and burned. Her visions of a good future fell apart. She was irrevocably obsolete, and now the secret to creating a loving royal daughter would never be hers, and she knew it. Pure absolute despair made both Kreesus and her puppet in the palace throne room collapse. It feebly raised its head to face Cadista. “W-why did you have to create Twilight Sparkle? Why did you have to do the impossible?” Cadista assumed her former friend was referring to Twilight for what she was, rather than who she was. She gave Kreesus a firm look of disapproval. “Because, for all the changing our species does, we were unbelievably stagnant in our ways. Twilight’s my answer to that problem.” She would have said more, but Kreesus’ puppet shot up to its hooves. “So that’s all I ever was to you? A problem to correct!?” Choking on her own words, Cadista blustered to reply. “Our ways, yes, not you. I would have given you the secret once I was sure-” “Forget it!” Kreesus screamed in a fit of rage. “Forget you, forget your precious future, and forget your love production! We’ve lived without it since our race began.” Kreesus’ boiling fury came to a head when she telekinetically yanked the Stone of Parly from Cadista’s magic and flung it back through the hole in the door. “Do your precious daughter a favor and die!” With Parley technically concluded the moment the stone left the room, the civilians were quick to flee down the escape tunnel while the soldiers moved in to attack the puppet. “I will see you dead and buried, old friend.” The puppet’s horn started glowing as mana began leaking out of it. Not one to risk a hostile spell, Watchful waved a hoof at the puppet right as Cadista was taking to the air to flee. “Fire, kill it now!” Two dozen rounds perforated the puppet where it fell dead on the spot. Yet the spell’s light only grew. Taking what remained of the corpse’s mana, the spell devoured the puppet and converted the mass into unstable mana. Cadista’s heart dropped as the sphere of mana started to thrash about within its weakening confines. Seeing there was no time, Watchful telekinetically grabbed his queen and flung her over and clear through the crowded opening into the escape tunnel. Between trying to recover from the toss and the tangle of limbs she was now mired in, Cadista tried to get back on her hooves only to see Watchful’s magic ensnare the door lever and close it. His actions caused the fleeing civilians to pause, giving the door the clearance it needed to seal shut right as the mana bomb exploded, killing Watchful and all those nearby. Cadista finally climbed back to her hooves in time to feel the ground rumble deeply as if an earthquake struck the hive. Each and every one of Kreesus’ invaders within the castle resumed the assault with all of the manic fury of their queen, yet Cadista and her drones were no longer the primary target. Several of Cadista’s drones started pelting her with warnings from all over the palace with one driving the point home. The other reports told Cadista the same thing was happening all over the palace, including the massive load bearing pillars that flanked the throne room. Kreesus is trying to bring the castle right down on top of me! She finished struggling to her hooves and jabbed a leg down the tunnel. “Move it, we have to get out from under the palace before it falls!” From her perch on the bridge, Twilight Sparkle and the rest of the Deception’s crew could only listen on in horror as the hive mind exploded with chatter from all of the changelings still within the palace. They didn’t listen for long when the whole southern face of the castle started to groan and break under its own weight. Aegis was madly running her fingers through her mane, carelessly pulling strands out as they got caught in the joints. “Isn’t there anything we can do?” Aegis looked to Twilight for answers, and luckily for her sanity, her mother had some. “We can’t stop the collapse, but we can secure the exit points along the northern road.” Nodding quickly, Aegis raced off to the armory to better equip herself for the task. Captain Rourke also took the initiative and barked a command at the helmsman. “Bring the ship around bearing zero one seven point two. Descend to seven hundred meters.” The ceiling of Cadista’s tunnel rattled and broke as the weight of the castle crashed down on top of it, threatening to crush all of them. “Damn you, Kreesus!” she screamed as both she and the five closest drones sprinted down the tunnel. The passageway was so short that Cadista had to lean her head down to keep her horn from scraping the ceiling. Did we royals used to be shorter when this was built? Flexi Lawnder was directly in front of her queen, and couldn’t stop herself from glancing behind her at every boom and crash from above. A monumental shuddering from above sundered the ceiling, collapsing the passageway behind them. She yelped in panic as the raining stones crushed one of her brothers. “You want that to be you?” Cadista berated Flexi when she unwittingly slowed down a little. “Keep running!” Flexi poured on as much speed as she could. The tunnel was starting to snake to the east. Several lights along the way were shattered by the collapsing castle above, spilling glass along the floor. Dust was now constantly falling with several small gears toppling in from above. Cadista cursed her height at trying to avoid the debris and loose stone above. Within her hive, Kreesus watched the last few remaining pillars buckle and collapse, finally causing the castle to give up the ghost and fully collapse in on itself. Her fury was too great to care one wit about the drones she lost in the destruction. “Damn you and your ambition, Cadista. We had such a good thing going until you ruined it all with Twilight Sparkle.” A chunk of stone fell on Cadista, ripping her left wing, yet she was too hopped up on adrenaline to feel it. Flexi started to slow down again, her legs unable to handle it, so Cadista scooped her up in her magic and kept pushing on. The collapsing tunnel behind them sped up and finally overtook the changelings. The weight of the castle caught up to the group with a calamitous thunder of falling stone and screeching metal. Cadista instinctively reacted by flinging Flexi forward as far as her magic could throw her. Flexi rolled with the toss before getting back on her hooves. Even with her heart booming in her chest, she noticed the tunnel had finally stopped falling in on them. She checked over her body for injury, and side from a few abrasions and cuts, she was whole. “We’re… we’re alive? Ha ha, we’re aaaalive!” One of her fellow survivors screamed in panic and jump over her back towards the castle. Confused, Flexi looked back to gape in horror at the sight of her mother stuck under tons of rock. “W-we have to free her!” Flexi yelled back at the others, “Go get help!” The rest of the drones hesitated just a moment, but continued down the narrow tunnel, giving Flexi and the other drone enough room to work with. Cadista’s breathing was heavy, but luckily it didn’t look like any ribs were broken. A slab of stone was kept from crushing her hip thanks to a steel strut, but her hind legs seemed to be pinned in the rubble. The queen herself was barely conscious after a small rock hit her in the head, where blood had started to seep from the wound. As Flexi administered salve to whatever cuts she could reach, Twilight Sparkle tried and failed to get any meaningful information out of the barely lucid queen, so she switched to the drone. Though she tried to keep her voice stable, there was a deep undercurrent of fear and panic in her tone. Flexi was glad her mind’s voice was moderately stable as she couldn’t stop from sobbing at her mother’s state. Twilight Sparkle wrung her hooves with bits of her mane starting to frizzle at how long it was taking for the ship to move on station above the disguised tunnel exits. Sure enough, her scouts reported a large number of Kreesus’ forces waiting for the sealed doors to open. To think mother trusted Kreesus with so much, just to get betrayed like this. Word of Cadista’s plight had nearly sent Twilight over the edge on her panic-o-meter. Luna watched the purple mare pace back and forth in the air. An attaché had been keeping Luna apprised of all relevant Link chatter. “I know what you’re thinking, Twilight Sparkle. But you’re the only queen left who’s fit and active, with your sister recovering. You need to stay on the ship and in command.” Little did she know, Luna was saying the same thing Twilight had been repeating in her mind ever since the castle started to collapse. Twilight needed to keep saying it over and over again, just to keep herself on the bridge. “Believe me, Luna, I know,” she heaved a heavy breath to keep her emotions under control for a while longer. “I want to pull mother out of there, but somepony needs to to stay in command.” Twilight commanded with all of her sense of urgency. Aegis was already back from the armory and standing at the lip of cargo bay two’s outer doors. Discharging what was left of the Deception’s heavy flak munitions in a single volley for each entrance, the terrain surrounding the tunnel exits were blasted clean of life, changeling or not. By the time the dust cleared around Cadista’s exit point, Aegis’ squad had already descended upon Kreesus’ bewildered troops, spreading musket shot and burning oil at everything that moved. Believing Cadista was dead or dying, Kreesus pulled back most of her surviving soldiers, but kept a few behind to act as scouts. Just in the off chance that Cadista somehow survived. Aegis took a hard landing on a boulder around the rocky nook where the tunnel exit was hidden. The skirmish was short lived, only Thunderfury and three other soldiers managed to catch or find any of the enemy. Only a few scattered broken bodies from the earlier salvo remained as the Queen’s Guard set up a perimeter. By now, the early morning sun was peeking over the horizon. The whole area reeked of fire and ash from the hive to the south. The large boulder rolled aside painfully slow on ungreased screeching gears. A flood of grey drones swarmed out as soon as the opening was wide enough to accommodate them. Aegis stood by the entrance, waving the flux of drones out while others directed them to the waiting airship above. Intel reported from half a kilometer away in the deep jungle. Captain Rourke returned calmly. There was a tense pause. Aegis hummed at the exchange. Kreesus might have known about the tunnel exits, but wasn’t sure which one was granny’s? Rasua caught Aegis’ attention by coming in for a landing. “Princess Aegis,” the sphinx said from above. Rasua landed beside her and gave a hasty bow. “I heard from Princess Luna’s aide that your allied queen is pinned under a metal bar.” Rasua pulled her runed smithing hammer out and presented it. “It may not be much, but if I can momentarily strengthen or remove it, that could make the difference in pulling the queen out without as much risk for a second collapse.” Aegis remembered Rausa’s admiration for that hammer, and some of its abilities. “Alright, we move as soon as the last refugee exits the tunnel.” Aegis briefly looked at the darkened passageway before turning back to Rasua. “And she’s my grandmother, not just an ally.” “…Ah.” The last drone ran out right as one of Aegis’ platoon officers flew in and saluted. ‘We’ll keep the area clear enough to bring a shuttle down for the wounded.” “Good, send Resta down in here too for granny, I’m going on ahead.” Leaving Burny with the platoon sergeant, Aegis ran into the catastrophically narrow passageway with Rasua in tow. The mad dash down two and a half kilometers of dark snaking tunnels took its toll on Aegis thanks to her gauntlets, but she didn’t care. She carried every bit of her mother’s desire to save Cadista, and a little thing like muscle fatigue meant nothing compared to the task at hand. Rasua found keeping pace with Aegis rather easy if a bit cramped, given her larger size, but her mind wandered back to her moment of cognitive paralysis in the battle. I will redeem my honor as a predator, I swear it! The sound of labored work and cursing met the pair’s ears, signaling they were nearing the collapse. Orange horn light lit the otherwise darkened chamber where Flexi and one other drone were arguing on how to extract their queen-mother. As for herself, Cadista was only semi-lucid since she kept trying to go to sleep, but Flexi was afraid she’d never wake up again. “You two, out of the way,” Aegis commanded curtly, “we’ll handle it from here.” Not wanting to argue with a princess, Flexi and her counterpart walked along the walls to get above Aegis and Rasua. Flexi stopped before leaving. “Please save her, she’s all we have left now.” “That’s not true,” Aegis called back. “You have us.” Aegis didn’t see Flexi pause at that and nodded in thanks before leaving. “Okay, Granny, just hold tight. We’ll get you out of here and into a warm bed before you know it.” Royal bug and sphinx alike inspected the damage. Cadista was pinned between a metal strut on top of her, and several large rocks below. It was only the shape of the strut itself that saved her life however, as it gave her barrel just enough room to keep the tons of rock above from crushing her. The metal was bent in the front where a stone had deformed it to bend downward. Had Cadista’s neck been an inch to the left when she fell, the steel would have cut straight through. The stone around Cadista’s belly was lodged in tight, and had proved too much for Flexi to remove. The queen herself had more patches of salve covered wounds than visible fur, but it was clear that there were some open wounds that Flexi couldn’t reach, due to the pooling blood. Leveraging her mother’s breathing technique to calm down, Aegis turned to Rasua. “Okay, first off, we need to get that metal beam bent back up so we can move her. Can you do that without harming her?” Aegis let Rasua climb over her so she could be up close with the metal. She placed the edge of her hammer on the metal strut, causing one of the runes to reshape itself into a symbol Aegis didn’t recognize. “This is ordinary steel. A bit too much carbon, but workable. It will take all of my hammer’s power to keep the metal cold so it doesn’t scald her.” Giving the sphinx ample room, Aegis watched as Rasua fished for a pouch and poured white powder all over her right hand and the smithing hammer’s grip. The runes came alive as she struck the offending metal bar with a resounding crack. The steel snapped cleanly off, just above her neck, while leaving the rest of the strut intact. Aegis and Rasua froze as the rocks above let small pebbles rain down on them, but otherwise held fast. Letting go of a breath she didn’t know she was holding, Rasua holstered her tool. “It’ll take days for my hammer to recharge, but that got the job done.” Rasua fell back to allow Aegis in close again. With the steel now only acting to hold the debris up, all that was left was to remove the stones under Cadista. Aegis recalled the stones she had to jump over to get here, assuming they were signs of Flexi’s previous efforts. All of the loose stones had been thrown further down the hallway, with two large irregular rocks keeping Cadista firmly pinned. “If I pull the one on the left, the other should fall just enough to get granny out of here.” “How many times have I told you not to call me that?” Cadista wheezed as she slowly became more lucid. She hissed in agony, refusing to cry out. “You can be mad at me later, Granny,” Aegis quipped as she latched her magic onto the stone, “right now I have to save you.” Cadista only partially saw the two beings in front of her. With her blood loss increasing, her vision was still swimming, and her side of the hive mind was starting to darken. Tugging with all her might, the offending stone refused to budge even one inch. A minute passed with Aegis fervently trying to remove the stone, even going so far as to try and wiggle it free. “I am no earthmover,” Rasua commented from behind Aegis. The princess looked behind her to see Rasua had shifted her paws into hands. “But perhaps I can lend my strength as well?” Aegis sat there and blinked at the blacksmith before smacking herself. “Duh!” Ignoring Rasua’s confusion, Aegis opened her gauntlet's fingers and grabbed onto the offending stone. “I may not have fine motor skills like you,” she grunted as Aegis leveraged both her magic and hand strength against the stone, “But I have a good bit of strength at least.” With a loud grinding noise, the rock started to come loose. With Rasua grabbing Aegis’ barrel and adding to her efforts, the two finally pulled the stone out, causing the injured queen to slide free. Not even giving herself a moment’s rest, Aegis carefully picked Cadista up in her magic and levitated the feebly protesting queen in front of the pair for salve patch inspection. Both changeling and sphinx alike were stunned in horror when one of Cadista’s hind legs was completely missing, having been completely torn off by a second metal beam. Thus far the metal had been slowing the bleeding, but now that the leg stump was exposed, the hemorrhaging restarted in earnest. “No, no, NO!” Aegis slipped under Cadista and spat a large glob of salve over the wound while Rasua ripped a sleeve off her shirt and grabbed the steel bar she had broken off to form a tourniquet. “You’re not going to die, you hear me, gramma!” Aegis screamed between spitting more salve on the stump. Cadista was limp during the whole thing. She was about to fall unconscious when she looked further down the hallway’s flicking lights. But she didn’t see a barely lit tunnel, instead she saw a glimmering silver light with a familiar figure in the distance beckoning her forward. Yumia? Is that really you? Oblivious to her impromptu medics, she thought she saw the figure start running towards her. Have I done enough, Yumia? Can I finally be at your side again? Tears of profound relief and joy flowed down her cheeks as Cadista tried to reach forward with her good leg. In her ailing mind, the figure finally resolved itself to be her long dead soul mate. Yumia wore a proud smile, making Cadista sob the long deep scars away and tried even harder to reach forward. All she wanted at that moment was to touch her, to feel Yumia’s embrace once more. Have I made you proud, mother? Yumia was close enough to touch now, and silently nodded to the question. The specter reached forward and grasped Cadista’s outstretched hoof. “Princess, Blacksmith Rasua, make way,” Resta called out as she stepped over the stones between her and the group. Aegis was shakily staring at the leg stump. The hemorrhaging had been so bad it kept rupturing the salve before Aegis could get a thick enough covering. Several tense moments passed with each second surging Aegis’ panic, but thanks to the the tightly bound tourniquet, the blood loss finally abated enough to be sealed. Resta found Rausa awkwardly propping herself up on the wall with her foreleg elbows and wings while carefully trying to find a way to keep the tourniquet from unraveling. As for Aegis, she had her mechanical hands hovering around the salve drenched stump and manically eyeing it in the thin hope that her salve will hold. Cadista’s section of the Link was far too quiet, but seemed stable for the moment. The blood loss was taking its toll on Cadista. “I did it, Yumia. We, we won. I’m ready to j… join,” she muttered before falling unconscious. Aegis’ frightful panic was only getting worse at Cadista’s deteriorating mental state which was mirrored by the wavering chatter on her section of the hive mind. Resta’s timely arrival with two blood packs and a med-kit gave the princess something else to focus on with her nervous energy. With her work done for the moment, Rasua let go of the tourniquet and shimmied as high up the wall as she could go to allow the medic access to Cadista. With professional alacrity, Resta implanted two needles into the now unconscious queen, and got the packs flowing into her patient. “She’s going into shock, we need to find and treat all remaining open wounds.” She nodded in clinical approval at how many patches of salve were already on Cadista. “I’ll hold the queen now, but I need you to keep the blood packs up high, princess.” “On it.” Aegis obeyed quickly, letting Resta take Cadista into her telekinesis. “We need to move her further down the tunnel so the ceiling is safe enough for you to walk on and patch anything on her back. The tunnel’s too narrow to flip her over safely. With Rausa feeling she was no longer needed, she backed off. “I’ll leave to get out of your way.” Neither changeling noticed as they carefully moved Cadista on down until Aegis could latch onto the ceiling. From there, she could see Cadista’s wings were completely ruined, but thankfully, most of the wounds had clotted over on their own accord. That didn’t stop her from spitting the last of her salve on anything that looked like flowing blood. “Can’t we just get mother to teleport her back to the ship?” Aegis asked frantically. “We should be well clear of the anti-teleportation field Kreesus blanketed the hive with.” Grunting in mild disapproval, Resta focused on moving Cadista carefully down the tunnel. “Teleporting an injured person is highly dangerous, and can worsen the wounds considerably in the process.” Resta’s professional disposition was made even worse by the mere mention of teleporting at all. “Stupid mages and their stupid magic. ‘Teleporting solves everything.’ Let’s just teleport here and there and everywhere.” She risked glancing back at her princess. “Do you have any idea the stresses teleporting puts on the body? It’d be healthier being drunk for a week then to teleport even once!” “Okay, sorry I asked, can we please focus on saving granny’s life!?” The pair found a shuttle and more medical staff waiting for them. The Deception was now hanging very close to the entrance, waiting to take Cadista away. Creeping in the underbrush, a red drone watched with keen interest. She might die yet, Kreesus mused darkly. My old friend always said she’d never agree to rebirthing herself anymore. Content to simply wait and see Cadista’s eventual fate, Kreesus turned her attention to a different jungle hive. I wonder if Chrysalis would be willing to… part with a loving daughter of hers.