“I’ve had enough of the decoys, the smoke and mirrors.”
I continued to walk toward the dais. Three of the gray, leathery creatures who carried eggs and took ships apart sprang from under the fabric and attacked me. Dispatching the ugly things was child’s play. I kicked one of their bodies aside as I continued walking.
I will make you suffer. You will have never known such pain. I have 1,000 years of experience with creatures greater than you. I can keep you alive for generations. My young will feed on your regrown flesh. You will plead for death, but I will deny it to you. Nothing is beyond my wrath.
I stepped closer, savoring her panicked speech. I was no longer affected by it. I had learned to block her out. It wasn’t torture to show her the fruits of her own labor. I needed to get back to my team, but I also needed to know I’d given the creature every chance to repent and show some remorse. If she did, it would mean the Xeno could be reasoned with. If not, it would be confirmation that my plan for wholesale slaughter was sound.
Everything she said, everything I saw, every odor, and every object would be valuable to the Martians. I took it all in and did my best to commit everything to memory.
Please. I will not harm you. Allow me to live. I will move the colony. We will leave your world. We will never return. It will be as I say.
I smiled at the change of tone. This wasn’t remorse; it was begging. I jabbed Ebon through the fabric and began to slowly drag my blade through to make an entrance. It sounded like finely woven wool when it was cut, but it was as tough as woven copper.
An explosion of wind was forced out of my chest, and I was knocked back hard enough to land on my butt. The bitch hadn’t knocked the wind out of me, but she’d come close. Her words had put me at ease, had caused me to let down my guard. She was good, I had to give her that—with the insufficient tools she had at her disposal. I stood, marched back to the fabric, and in three quick slashes revealed the Queen Xeno in all her glory.
She was a huge grub, corpulent and foul. Her huge yellow gut-bag of an ass was covered in pustules and boils. It was also translucent, revealing the mass of intestines, bug-pudding, and other unidentifiable parts it contained.
A dozen little gray tenders crawled over her, lancing the cysts as three cleaning bugs lapped up what came out. If there was any of her spell left controlling my mind, the sight of the condition of Her Highness had dispelled all of it. Skrew would have had a field day trying to explain to someone else what she looked like. I almost felt bad for the vrak, too. If there was an ass he could have fit his whole rifle in, it was this one. Though it probably wouldn’t even hurt her.
Her upper half consisted of a grub-like head with a complicated mouthpart. It was mottled brown and translucent. I could see her brain inside her head. It floated, unsupported by anything except the fluid and some unseen ligaments.
The only part of her that could move was the last few feet of her clear, 30-foot abdomen. She struck out at me. A little faster than I thought, but this was a joke. I turned Ebon’s point toward her and allowed her to impale herself on it. She screamed again. It was loud, and the emotion behind it made me dizzy. One of the tenders leaped from her back at my face. I caught it with my free hand and crushed it, before I tugged on it and tossed the blubbery Queen to the ground.
“For your crimes against the people of Druma,” I said, not really caring if she could hear me above her wails, “I sentence you to death.”
I walked my blade through her body from her ass to her brain. Four steps in, the contents of her bloated abdomen splashed to the floor like a huge water balloon. Her acidic blood caused the deck to bubble and smoke. Unlike the rest of her, her blood smelled sweet—like the victory I’d just secured.
A moment later, new cracks began to form. The repair bugs had become still. They were no longer interested in repairing the hive. The place was coming apart.
Chapter Twenty
With the Queen dead on the floor, there was nothing that motivated the repair bugs to keep working. Even though the hallway I hurried through was narrow, the living organisms that created gravity in the hive seemed to be confused. Gravity shifted a little now and then. Sometimes, it would pull in the direction I had gotten used to calling “down.” Then, it would shift a few degrees to the left, then back, then for an instant or two somewhere near “up.” The sensation and sound of cracks forming within the hive urged me forward.
The glowfrogs began to panic and swim about their little aquariums as if they were beginning to boil. They sensed the danger, and though I was intrigued by them, there wasn’t any time to save even one. It was a shame, but I had to get my team out and off to safety before we all died.
About halfway down the narrow passage, I had to stop to clear the way. I was grateful that the area where the rubble had fallen wasn’t open to space; otherwise, I’d be having a bad day.
All in all, I thought as I shoved some large pieces of the wall aside and crawled
