Points to the queen, I thought, and hurried after her Majesty as she summoned Rohan and Askavor to join us for the trip planetside.
20—Birth of a Planetary Nation
The drop-ship fell away from the orbital in a long smooth arc, with Rohan at the controls. Tens had settled the boy in the pilot’s seat, and looked over his shoulder at Mack.
“We could do with a second pilot on staff,” he said, and Mack had frowned.
“I thought we were going to hire one.”
Tens shrugged.
“Why would we want to do that, when we already have one in training?”
“He’ll need a new contract,” Mack said. “I’ll have Doc draw one up, and we’ll put him on the payroll.”
The queen observed the exchange with interest.
“Is he not too young?” she asked, but Mack shook his head.
“If he’s old enough to do the job, he’s old enough to be paid for it.”
“I take it that this is not customary among humans.”
“No. Most humans insist their young undertake a full twelve year’s basic education, followed by several more of specialized training. We have allowed the boy to choose his own educational path, once he had the skills to develop it.” He cast a thoughtful glance at Rohan, and added, “It has been a double-edged sword.”
The queen shrugged.
“It is how our young are trained.”
Well, there was no arguing with that. It made me curious as to how Odyssey were going to go about setting up the academy. Would they go traditional human, or…
“They will establish our training center, according to our colony’s requirements, and the training will be open to human, weaver and vespis, alike. With the arach on the horizon, we can no longer let time heal the old wounds. Surgery will be required.”
I was pretty sure Odyssey had no idea of what it had gotten itself into, and thought that was probably a good thing. If the queen had negotiated as hard a contract for the academy as she had for the repair docks and training facility, then K’Kavor would not suffer.
Rohan took us into the atmosphere with as deft a hand as any I’d seen Case or Tens use. The kid had a natural talent for flight, and I wondered where he had picked it up from. As we got closer to the planet, Askavor shrank further and further back in the passenger compartment, growing increasingly uneasy, until, finally, he spoke.
“My queen,” he began, and the queen seemed to notice him for the first time.
“Askavor.”
“I shall wait in the shuttle while you make your inspection—” but the queen let him get no further.
“No, you shall not. I need the survivors to see you. I need them to understand that not all spider-kin are like the arach. If the weavers are to be kept safe in the coming war, then the humans must understand that there are some spiders that fight on their behalf. In fact, we will utilize Odyssey’s assistance to work towards that goal, and we will start here. You will be the first weaver IT instructor in the first blended community on K’Kavor.”
Askavor rattled his mandibles in surprise, and then fell silent. The queen left him to digest this new information, and rose to ride out the landing in the cockpit, shifting from vespis to human form as she went. And neither Mack, Tens, nor Rohan told her to take her seat for landing.
Around us, the guard took their human forms as well, some positioning themselves near the cockpit, the rest waiting around us as Rohan flew. Once the boy had brought the craft down, the queen moved to the door.
“Secure the craft here, boy. Negotiations will take the night, and you will be quartered with your hive mates, until they are done, or I need your services, once more.”
“Yes, your Majesty.”
I didn’t need to be told to stay with T’Kit. The queen’s earlier order had been clear enough. She would let me know when it was no longer in effect.
We descended the ramp together: one vespis queen in human form; six vespis bodyguards, two in human form, and four shifting to full-vespis warriors; one weaver, flanked by bodyguards; a dog, and four humans from the stars, a child, a woman and two men. It would be interesting to see how we were remembered.
The queen walked across the landing field to the edge of the town where I was surprised to see a large podium had been set up, and people already starting to gather. The growing crowd was silent as the settlers watched Queen Tekravzary ascend the steps, but there were cries of protest when she signaled Askavor to stand beside her.
Tekravzary did not let their voices disrupt her, but explained that she understood their pain, that the arach survivors would never again be able to harm them, and that she had made an alliance with the human security company, Odyssey for protection. As she spoke, the crowd calmed, settling further, and then the queen told of what Askavor had done to help defeat the threat aboard the Shady Marie.
They remained silent, when she asked Rohan to come and describe what Askavor had done for him when the arach had tried to take the drop-ship where he’d been sent for safety. Personally, I don’t think Mack or Tens had heard that particular story, but I forced myself not to look for their reactions. There were gasps from the crowd when Rohan came to the end of his retelling, and laid his hand against the side of Askavor’s head—more gasps, when the spider wrapped a protective leg across the boy’s front.
“The arach have his scent, now,” Rohan told the waiting crowd, as he stroked the weaver’s carapace, “and their queen is waiting for the day he lies helpless before her so that she can feed him to her young.”
He paused, his gaze sweeping the people below.
“Askavor the weaver tech kept me from that fate, and I will not let the
