“I got him!” I said. “Go!”
Nyna turned up the speed and sent us corkscrewing away from the last crescent ship as it turned to take another run at us. The maneuver sent us straight at the Xeno carrier, though. It was at least ten times the size of the crescent fighters, which made it at least five times our size. Nyna saw the threat and began to jerk her controls as randomly as possible to avoid the incoming enemy fire.
I saw an opening, though—a flaw in the carrier’s design—and came up with a plan.
“Head toward the carrier!” I ordered. “Put us on top of her, right where those two big bulges meet near the rear!”
“You got it,” Nyna said with a grunt as we took another hit from the big ship. “Coming in hot. Hold on, everyone.”
“Skrew,” I said. “The second we land, I need you to make your way to the belly-gun behind Nyna. Move as fast as possible. We’ll keep the other ships off us. Tell me when you get there.”
“Skrew is scary,” he whimpered.
“You can do it,” I said. “You’re the only one skinny enough to fit. You have to do it.”
“Skrew will try,” he said.
It’s all I could ask him to do.
The next 30 seconds were filled with grunts, groans, and the sound of something tearing loose, bouncing along the outside of the hull and disappearing. I hoped it wasn’t anything important. Then, we landed on top of the enemy ship, which began a slow roll as it tried to throw us off.
“Skrew, go!” I ordered.
I heard the vrak whimper, scramble out of his weapon pod, and make his way across the ship. Two of us opened up on the last crescent ship as it attempted to find a way to shoot us without hitting its mothership. It was too far away for accurate fire, and our bolts were keeping it from getting any closer.
“Skrew is here,” the vrak gasped. “What is to do?”
“Shoot the big ship,” I said.
“Where?”
“Everywhere.”
Our hovership shuddered as Skrew unloaded the belly-gun into our enemy. Soon, he was narrating his adventure.
“Oooh, big pow! Hello, ugly enemy. Skrew has present. Oh, didn’t like present? Is sad, yes? Now, not sad. Is dead. Ha! Try to run but not faster! Now is not running. Is dead. Oooh, what that? No matter—is dead. Oh! Um… Uh…”
“What?” Nyna said.
“Skrew broke ship,”
“You broke our ship?” Reaver asked, panicked.
“No, broke they ship. Maybe fly away now before goes kaboom?”
Nyna didn’t need to be told twice. She jammed the accelerator forward, shooting us off the back of the vessel like a bullet. A half second later, there was an enormous explosion, and we were sent spinning through the air, but Nyna soon regained control.
“Wow,” she said. “One ship left.”
She banked hard, and the last crescent fighter came into view.
“Wait!” Reaver said. “Cease fire!”
“What do you see?” Beatrix asked.
“Awww,” Skrew said. He sounded genuinely sad.
“Look at it,” she explained. “It’s not running or turning to fight us. It’s just coasting like it doesn’t have a care in the world.”
“So?” Nyna said.
“So, why?” Reaver said slowly. “Why isn’t it fighting us?”
It was a good question. Even as we approached close enough to see details in the ship’s construction, it didn’t change course, speed up, or slow down. I suddenly realized what happened.
“It doesn’t know what to do,” I said. “It’s not like it’s waiting for orders; it literally doesn’t know what to do. We destroyed the carrier. Something or someone on the carrier was controlling the other ships. When that ship was destroyed, the link was broken.”
“A hive mind,” Beatrix whispered.
“Are they operating like bees?” Reaver asked. “You know, where they have a Queen or something?”
“Sort of,” I told her, “but it’s more than that. In a true hive mind, one truly does all the thinking for the others, so all the others are absolutely dependent. It could be a situation where the bugs are controlled in small groups, like squadrons or platoons.At the top could be a single Queen, who delegates to platoon leaders.
“But bees and ants think for themselves. It seems like a hive mind because they all operate with a single, common purpose. But in a hive mind, that purpose can change, and, like we saw—kill the controller, and the rest have no idea what to do.”
We sat in silence as we watched the crescent ship drift lazily through the air in front of us. In a few minutes, it would reach the badlands between Brazud and Thaz’red. It was too close for comfort.
“Jacob?” Reaver said tentatively.
“Destroy it,” I answered immediately. “If another controller bug comes within range, we’ll have to fight it again.”
I heard a shudder rattle through Reaver’s breathing. We didn’t need to exchange a single word to know why this was difficult. But she knew just as well as me that these weren’t the companions we’d trained with, the ones we would have died for if our lives had gone differently.
A moment later, she opened up on the craft and blew it out of the sky. I heard a sniff and a somewhat frantic, grunting cough as Reaver tried to get her emotions under control.
“Turn us back toward Brazud,” I ordered. “It looks like the liberation of this planet starts today.”
“Oh, boy,” Nyna groaned.
“What do you see?” I asked.
“Oh, nothing,” she said. “Just twenty more Xeno-bug ships headed our way. Looks like we got their attention with our little show.”
I sighed. Every battle we fought on the way gave the Xeno a chance to reinforce their defenses and make more preparations for our arrival.
“What’s their configuration?” I asked. “More of the same?”
“Nope,” she said, “not this time. We’ve got fifteen little ones, smaller than the last ones. They’ve got little wings facing forward. Bigger wings facing back. Kind of weird-looking, you know? Tear-shaped, with the pointy end in front.”
“Fast-attack ships,” I said. “The forward-facing wings make them more maneuverable.”
“Four are the crescent ones like we fought before,” Nyna continued.
