Into the Hive

"The United Solar Systems emerged as the pre-eminent power in the Orion Arm, defeating many other powers seeking dominion over the nascent human territories. The United Solar Systems held much of humanity's core systems, and worked continuously to expand their domain, and suppress rebellions. Despite the rabid expansion, humanity had yet to encounter any sapient alien life amongst the stars." -- History of the United Solar Systems, Sixth Edition

Captain Annabelle Van Vorne lay in her small bunk, barely awake in the small hours of the morning. They were six months into a journey into the unknown, on an exploration mission. As an old war ship refitted as an exploration cruiser, they were far beyond the frontier rim, charting new warp lanes and mapping planets for future potential expansion of the United Solar Systems. As her first command, she was beyond nervous, desperate to to escape the shadow of the senior Admiral Van Vorne. Her nervousness only grew in light of their plight.

What was a routine exploration and patrol mission, rapidly spun out of control, in the worst way possible. A distress signal from the colony ship Bergen West had drawn them out to an uncharted system. Investigating the ion trail of the missing colony ship, they were caught by an anomaly, a wormhole that erupted like a storm ahead of them, and threw them half way across the galaxy. They were lost in deep space, far from home. The science crew were looking at means of stabilising the wormhole, or charting a way home. The prognosis did not look good.

All of this was bad enough, but her executive officer, Gerber, sought to undermine her at every moment. A man of weak character, Annabelle thought he was unravelling under their circumstances. Attempts to sleep were disrupted by her personal comm screeching an ugly chime.

"Captain, you are needed on bridge, its an emergency" came the soft voice of Eliisa Switzer, her personnel officer.

She leapt from her bed, her sizeable assets bouncing under her loose sleep shirt. She removed it in haste and went to fetch the chest wrap she used, and her underwear then uniform. The last thing she needed was for her crew to think her some sexual object. Her chest suppressed under thick wraps, and uniform on, she raced out.

Aboard the USS Journeyman, the bridge was abuzz with activity. Van Vorne had raced out of her room, her uniform a little ruffled at the edges. The bridge was buried deep within the ship, but held a bank of holographic viewscreens that displayed the external cameras, showing the light alien stars and planets. Passing her crew, she arrived at the commander's seat to a disgruntled look from her executive office, Gerber.

"It was detected five minutes ago. We confirmed the sensor scans again and confirmed it. It is not a naturally occurring object." He said matter of factly.

Finding her seat, she turned to the blur radar return on screen "So is it a Confederacy scout? Could they have been caught in the same stellar phenomena? I didn't think they made it that far spinward" she asked, analysing it, viewing the vaguely arrowhead shaped object with interest.

"Doubtful. Initial returns match no known ship profile"

"Then... could it be?" she began, almost doubtful.

"Humanity's first contact with a sentient alien race?" civilian science attaché Evelina Rundstrom announced.

She glanced at the civilian, in a more simple blouse and skirt, glasses leaning on edge of her nose as she glanced over sensor readouts.

"What we do know, is that passive sensors have confirmed the mystery object has returned a radar ping. It is moving on an intercept course" Commander Gerber confirmed "We must ready a response"

"Okay, raise us to second stage alert, crew to ready stations" she ordered, a crew member fulfilling her demand.

"Captain" Gerber shot back with a sterntone "We must be prepared for a full military response. It has weapons lock and is on an intercept course!"

"I... we must follow assigned protocol-" she stuttered

"Protocol command is to initiate first contact, with weapons at stand down, commander" Professor Rundstrom argued back.

He shot her a venomous glance, then returned his view to the captain.

"We must be prepared to engage!"

"Contact at five minutes to intercept. They're maintaining radar lock!" came back a report.

"Power up the main battery, return weapon lock and heat up the magnets" Gerber ordered.

"Belay that!" Van Vorne shouted over.

"Two minutes to intercept, it is coming close to us"

"Arm railguns!" the shaking in his normally stern voice betraying his panic.

"Belay-"

"Fire!"

Van Vorne lost control of her ship in real time as her executive officer hosted a virtual mutiny, firing the main battery off. The ship rattled like a bell, shaking under the recoil of three 20cm railguns firing off.

Van Vorne stood up, eyes wide, as the object, now caught in the ship's telescope, blossomed into explosions. It almost looked like it leaked vital fluids as it rattled apart in prolonged purple-blue death throes. The greenish-white object gave away nothing. The professor removed her glasses in shock, and many of the crew looked on.

"Captain we should investigate the wreck, and salvage what we can, then return to the the nearest Frontier port" Gerber said matter of factly, seemingly blithe to the fact he'd just responded to an unknown first contact with gun fire.

Van Vorne turned to him, still speechless, jaw working as if the words were there, but not forthcoming.

"Captain, warp emergence, twenty thousand kilometres, bearing 020, 050!"

----

"I found something! I found aliens!" came the long range neural communication from Khulix-Shaar XLI. The younger Princess practically buzzed.

The neural net across the whole of the Wayspinner thrummed. The smaller scouting vessel at the edge of the system reported alien contact. Alien! The hive nodes were abuzz within the ship.

The Wayspinner was long, almost blade like in shape, with heavy blackish-brown chitin plating, and gaping plasma thrusters ejecting emerald light into space. The heavy vessel was used to patrol and explore the edge of the Grand Hive's domain, brushing against rogue and breakaway hives, and mapping new systems. Their scouting vessel had gone on ahead. Within the centre-most chamber, a massive and gravid creature sat upon the command throne.

Solesh Keber Qeb Siellan Khulix-Shaar XXXIV was more reserved. She was a war Queen first, not an explorer, or scientist. She was serving in this role due to genetic heritage that predisposed her for the work. Her genetic contributors were a war Queen and an inquiry Queen, after all. But she was uncertain regardless. She reached out into the noosphere and got a sense of how her crew felt, getting feelings of trepidation, concern, and hopefulness from the assembled drones and lesser princesses.

The creature's actual body looked vaguely humanoid, with a wide, flat, beetle-like head, and six swivelling eyes, and a slender body, with two long arms, each ending in slender fingers, and two smaller arms tucked to her waist. Her slender waist connected to a large abdomen, with several legs tucked under her, and a giant, quivering ovipositor. Even without any eggs in there, it still held substantial and important genetic data receptacles that demanded that huge size. Her entire body was covered in chitin that ran alabaster white to greyish-blue at the extremities, hiding the paler flesh beneath. The only part of her main body not covered in chitin was the set of eight fleshy tentacles, though now they operated a set of consoles around her. Great bundles of pink flesh-tubing ran across her body, holding bundles of ultra-dense nerve tissue, linking her to the ship and the crew itself. The chamber was huge, with her on a raised dias, and several tiered layers beneath her, where smaller insects in dark chitin, or pale-green grubs were huddled in work stations, barely visible underneath conjoining flesh and organic cabling, melding their minds with the bio-organic computers of the ship. The chamber had tall bone spars for structure and pale flesh of varying textures for the surfaces.

"Be careful, do not approach close, wait until I can get close enough for support"

At a thought, the warp drives thrummed, organic nodules thrumming around a caged star that hissed and buzzed as ceramic chitin and magnetic organs contained it. They were mid jump, when the neural communique returned.

"Contact, fire, we ar-"

And then silence.

That foolish younger genekin of hers. Had she rushed into danger once again? The service to the Grand Hive demanded far more patience and calm.

"Neural link lost, we are no longer receiving signals from it!" the voice of a bridge officer buzzed in the back of her mind.

Siellan was back to herself, sat upon the command dias of the warship Wayspinner. One of many exploratory vessels at the edge of the Grand Hive's domain. She eclipsed the insectile drones beneath her in size. The majority were various lower castes, forged from her own DNA and created within the ship. The ship itself was grafted from living tissue and chitin. Ossified calcium superstructure, armoured plates of iridescent insect shells, and organic corridors made the interior more reflective of a living being than a warship.

She looked to the grub like creature reporting back from the console he was partially subsumed into, cables running in and out of his body to link him to the warship in a similar fashion.

"Awaken all drones, prepare for battle activity. Initiate jump as soon as the drives are charged"

"Yes" the drone ordered. All orders went through the noosphere projected by Siellan and her ship. Nothing was verbalised.

The ship shuddered, the flesh walls briefly undulating, then lurched as the ship jumped from one end of the system to the other. As she peered through the sensors, through organs producing radio waves, and compound telescopic eyes that blinked across the spectrums, she saw the fate of her younger sibling. The scout vessel spun in place, six holes punched through, and a gaping wound where the plasma heart had exploded. Vital vitae leaked from the vessel like blood from a vein.

"Heat extinguished... no survivors responding to neural impulse..." an attendant reported. The tone was unmistakably graven.

He attention swivelled to the responsible party. A long, silver-grey construction, of metal and glass. She verbally hissed and thrashed in her mountings. They had fired upon an exploration ship with no warning.

"Empower the void barrier, arm all spine throwers and fire at will, disgorge hornet batteries six through eight, and deploy a dozen ammonoid fighters!" she ordered, like a rigid blade.

"Such fire would be insufficient to destroy a vess-" the attendant began before the neural command of thoughts shared between them made him aware of the real reason.

"I will take the ship intact. I will capture the creatures within and drag them back to the Nexus for dissection. Such vile barbarians are deserving of little mercy. Prepare the boarding flights"

The ship responded with a thrum, as the hive within swarmed to their stations.

----

"Battle stations, now!" Captain Van Vorne ordered "Engage manoeuvres and spin up the war drive, we are retreating!"

The behemoth that arrive was almost five times their tonnage, a truly huge behemoth that rivalled the heavy battleships of the USS. This wasn't just bad, this was fatal. Trigger happy Gerber and his decisions.

"Sensor lock! They're firing!"

Flashes of green erupted across the hull, their shields flaring under the impact, and the ship shaking in turn.

"Get our Warlords on the flight deck and deployed, now!"

--

Captain Keiko Nishikawa and her co-pilot First Lieutenant Todd Hauser stepped their Warlord heavy battle mech onto the launch ramp, assault rifle in hand and missile racks loaded. Behind them, the pairing of Deacon and Peeters stepped up. She controlled the suit itself, piloting it in combat through the synaptic neural interface, commanding from the forward seat. Hauser was her weapons officer, managing the firearms, defences, and monitoring the suit performance. Locked in, they gave a green light, and the electromagnetic catapult through the humanoid mech forward with such force that it launched clear of the ship in an instant, the thruster pack howling.

"Keep us covered long enough for the jump drive to engage. Hold back the hostile xenomorphs and return in time for the jump" came the command.

Angling around, she could see the monstrous ship as it closed, spitting a variety of ordnance. Hauser pinged the sensors. A fighter constellation was coming at them. The creatures looked vaguely... octopodal. Or maybe something more primitive. A set of grasping limbs poking from a cone shaped hardship, and thruster jets emitting behind them. Flashes of light confirmed their intent, and Nishikawa hit her mech into a hard spin as a wave of ordnance flashed by her. She liked a challenge befitting her ace pilot position, but this was too much. Unknown aliens in overwhelming numbers? She put those thoughts to the back of her mind as she circled around the lead fighter, too slow to turn, and pumped it full of cannon fire from the rifle in her mechanical right hand. Fire blossomed from it. Two more wheeled around, but Hauser got them with a burst of missiles.

She dragged it around, thrown back into her seat by the acceleration, and reported two more explosions, as Deacon accounted for two more with his co-pilot.

"Contact, rear, closing!" Hauser barked

She pulled around and accelerated back in time as she stared into a maw of grasping tentacles. She fired a prolonged burst into the creature, fleshly parts exploding as the creature inside the shell was eviscerated.

There was a sudden and ear splitting shriek over the radio from Peeters. Pulling the head of her mech around, she saw the upper half of her wing men slowly being dragged into the waiting mouth of one of the squid-like fighter craft, desperately trying to pull away. Nishikawa levelled her rifle, but it responded with an empty click. She had to reload! Still moving to evade incoming enemies, and rattled by the horrified cries for help, she hesitated in the reload, and by the time she got her camera back on, the mech was gone from sight, and the screaming was fading away into choking sobs, then silence.

This was going from bad to worse.

--

"Decks five through six reporting battle damage! Multiple hull breaches encountered!" came the report from lieutenant Sokolova reported, her usually haughty tone give over to desperation.

"Engage primary thrusters, accelerate away and expend all missiles!" Van Vorne commanded, gripping onto her chair to brace against the rocking of the ship.

"Primary gun has been hit! Unable to return fire!"

"Primary engines hit, out-put falling!"

"Move to secondary weapons, keep the warp drive spinning up to max!"

Gerber was silent, all his bluster and bravado gone. As the ship slowed, a set of heavier thuds rumbled against the starboard where they faced the enemy.

"Captain!" Sokolova reported "They've attached boarding pods!"

"All marines to combat stations!"

----

Major Travers Leoni had finished powering on his exosuit as the order came down. Slipping into the heavy frame, he sealed it up, and lifted the high calibre rifle into his hands. They were deploying to the spearhead of the enemy ingress, hoping to plug the gap as it opened. Staff Sergeant Sobel followed, along with more marines. The towering Harris was behind, making most of the men look tiny compared to her height.

"They're cutting through the primary plate outside deck four, we're going to bottleneck them in their boarding pod, to firing positions."

The corridor was a mess of battle damage, but somehow still pressurised. He could see a circular patch in the hull ahead glowing yellow, then orange, and finally red, before the whole thing sloughed away like water cleaning away muck. The thing that came out made him briefly retch. It was organic, like a worm, and expanded into the ship, flattening against the airlock sized hole it just opened, forming a seal where it breached. The open maw, big enough for marines to walk out three at a time, was slick with fluid and long trails of slime, even before the first creature skittered out. It was bigger than any one of them, even in their exoskeletons. Moving on four legs with surprising grace, it had a long torso covered in spiny plating all over. It looked somewhere between an ant and a crab, and carried a long, bone coloured instrument in its hands. It was followed by more crawling from the hole. After a seeming moment of pause, he roared the command to open fire. Heavy calibre rifles roared to life, spitting ammunition capable of shredding an infantry man. The lead bug shivered under this assault, but it did not fall. It returned fire, its long rifle firing arcing trails of greenish silver that similarly bounced of their own armour.

Great, they were evenly matched. Neither side had firearms capable of easily defeating their armour.

"Vibro-machetes out, go for melee!" He ordered, dropping his rifle and drawing a powerful purple tinged blade from his back holster. The alien similarly pulled a green tinged scimitar that seemingly integrated into its hand in an instant. He brought it down, only chipping its armour. The blade failed to find similar purchase on his own. All his men went into a brawling fight, where he tried to cut and maim. He took a few weak limb joints, but failed to manage a killing blow in the swirling battle. In the brawl he could barely make out what was happening, but felt it was not a victory. Turning side ways to try and parry a lunging blow, he tripped over Sobel's corpse, his neck covered in blood where a weak point took a hit. He returned the favour and chopped half way into the monster's neck joint.

"Major! MAJOR!" scream PFC Volk.

He turned to see her exosuit face down, with several of the enemy pounced on it. Were they trying to find a weak point? He realised with dawning horror, that they were peeling chunks of her suit away, pulling plates off with fevered intent. A bare leg appeared, then an arm, and finally the squirming marine was pulled free. The suit was full environmental, intended for long term usage. Clothes were not worn within for comfort and biological support. Volk's naked form was torn out, into the arms of two captors, and dragged towards the entry point. He charged after them, but two more accosted him, firing pistols that thudded against his armour. He found his joints seizing as they did. He looked down and saw his arm covered in a hardened green liquid, quickly limiting his mobility. He stepped back as Harris tackled one to the ground, trying to grind its face into the floor before a group of warriors grabbed her and began to peel her plate.

He noticed as many dead, there were as many empty suits lying scattered on the ground. He swung his machete intending to decapitate one, but it ducked below his swing, leaving his blade embedded in a butress. Two more tackled him, pinning him down while his dance partner ejected a small blade from his wrist and began to cut into the servomuscles and joints. He howled and swore, and uttered every curse he could as his suit lost pressure, and he felt the cold atmosphere on his skin again. His chest plate was pulled away, then the helmet, tiny nicks taken in his flesh. His leg was pulled free, then and arm, and finally he was roughly yanked free of his suit. He fought on, trying to punch the nearest enemy but was held first as several grasping claws seized him roughly. Holding his shaking, naked form over their heads, they marched back to the boarding pod, now looking more like the hungry maw of some abyssal worm.