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“Stand up, everyone.” Nam hissed and clicked at her people and the translator tucked into Fal’ran’s ear filtered her words in smooth, Qeshian-accented tones. “They won’t hurt you.”
The Insects huddled together as they climbed to their feet, their antennae brushing and probing each other.
“Bar’in, you know where the door is?” Patrick didn’t hold a weapon in his hands, but his confidence made it clear his whole body was a weapon.
“Down that hall.” Bar’in pointed with the muzzle of his own rifle, the energy weapon he’d been playing with forgotten in a corner.
“Nam,” Patrick tossed his chin at her. “Tell them all to put their hands on their heads and start moving.”
Nam recoiled. “Our heads?”
Patrick cocked his head. “Is there somewhere else your kind puts their hands when they surrender?”
Nam drew herself up tall, almost Patrick’s height. “We don’t surrender.”
“Look, I just need—” Patrick paused as the ship lurched again. It made a loud noise, shuddered, and quieted. They’d landed. “I just need everyone out there to know this is not business as usual and they cannot come at us guns blazing. Hands. Head. Now.”
Patrick hardened his voice on the last word and Nam clicked her mandibles but put her hands on her head. She gestured to the other Insects. “Put your hands on your heads. A custom of this sector, apparently.”
“Now walk.” Patrick waved a hand and their group moved en masse to the ship’s exit. As they filtered into the hallway, the unmistakable sound of an airlock releasing filled the small room, and a flurry of unfamiliar smells hit Fal’ran’s nose.
He had nothing to compare them to, and he wrinkled his nose as they assaulted his senses. Sharp. Clean. Spicy. Sweet. Cloying and herby. Bright and clinical. Bar’in sneezed, but Patrick didn’t react.
As they proceeded, Fal’ran got his first glimpse at the inside of the Insect’s Colony ship. Familiarity and horror shocked him simultaneously. The room they stepped out into was cavernous, a cross between a cave, a cathedral, and the inside of the ribcage of an enormous beast.
Huge, curved pillars swept up from the walls and met in arches over a space large enough to hold all the squad tents of Training Camp Pel’on. The floors and walls were shiny and black, like an Insect’s carapace. Organic sinews crisscrossed over supports and walkways. A ridge of white lights ran down the center of the ceiling across the entire length of the vast room, giving the space a feeling almost of the outdoors.
The entire effect was so like the boulevards of the domed Moon Projects that, for a moment, Fal’ran didn’t register the alien differences of the individuals swarming below the vaulted ceiling. But he dropped his eyes from the ridge of lights and his heart clenched in terror. Insects inspected the other ships docked in the hangar. Insects flowed across the walkways above them. Insects milled about on the floor.
As he and his team stepped out into the open, a wave of chittering and fluttering antennae rippled outwards.
Nam gnashed her mandibles loudly and spoke in a carrying voice. “Fetch Prince Hyg.”
A dozen Insects darted to their nearest well and touched their antennae to the cilia in the cracks and crevices of the hard surface. The rest of the crowd retreated, and the hulking forms of Soldiers stomped from a doorway on their left.
“Shit, we’ve done it now,” Bar’in muttered.
“Steady,” Patrick murmured, eyes on the soldiers. “Nam?”
Nam stepped forward, but the Soldier in front snapped his huge mandibles before she said anything.
“What the hell have you done, Drone?” The Soldier stormed into Nam’s face, but Nam’s antennae didn’t twitch.
“I’ve brought envoys from this sector’s government to speak with Prince Hyg.”
The Soldier raised his voice until it echoed around the hangar. “You’ve brought the enemy straight to our home!”
A flurry of clicks swirled through the room, and every Insect shrank away.
Fal’ran glanced at the group nearest him—four Insects, small, no taller or heavier than a qesh—and their black eyes widened in their pale faces. With a sickening twist in his stomach, he realized they were afraid. Terrified. Months ago, he’d have killed to make people look at him like that, like he was a powerful force to be reckoned with.
Now, he hated that he was worthy of the fear.
Fal’ran lowered his rifle and slung it over his shoulder. “We’re not enemies.”
“The fuck, Fal’ran?” Bar’in hissed.
But Patrick glanced at him with a flash of a smile and pride in his blue eyes, and Fal’ran lifted his chin with new confidence. “We’re here to talk.”
