To call it a ‘hearing’, what a novel yet powerful term for the confluence of streaming discord to be funneled into unity. It was a term from their stories, their history adapted to conform to the new structure that had solidified itself within their collective. An almost sacred, if the Queen had understood it correctly, process by which disparity was reshaped into consensus and failures excised from the colony like festering growth. Or so the Pod had told her in hushed and rapid whispers as they made their way once more to the observation deck. It had been a last breath’s decision on behalf of their Queens to allow the not-Jhenaafhur into the proceedings, for aid in translation, and Skthveraach had hurried to the examination rooms under guard to retrieve her. Finding the pale shell feeding from one of the amber hued soldiers who now appeared sporadically all across the vessel’s interior. Barely mumbling more than a few explanations once the two had untangled from eachother, all the Queen had learned was of the obvious importance, ceremony, and need to remain as silent as possible for those who sung at the head.

Chairs, seats made for the humanites’ comfort, were now lined throughout the room. The panels over windows had been sealed, depriving her a view of the great beyond, and uncomfortable light bathed the interior. Oskar-Admiral, in his grand wear of hairy shouldergarb and flowing red shell, sat behind emblazoned table. Desk. Elevated so that even when seated those standing before him would need to angle heads upward. An uncomfortable and impractical setup. Kamenev-Admiral was on behind the desk to the Queen’s left, tablet outstretched and shown to Oskar beside her as they discussed, but the Huan-Arbiter had elected to stand before it. Gazing out over assembly of scattered forms. Half the deck had been segmented for the Queen alone, with only the Pod seated aside her. The rest were blue shells, leaders most likely. Of sections, or groups, or areas of the vessel. She recognized some. Not others. And not the Hathan-Commander. He was nowhere to be seen, and even his smell was removed from the room now saturated in the odors of wood and perspiring humanite exude.

Her tasting of the air ceased as she snapped her focus back to what was, to the Arbiter who had somehow managed to cross the floor in the breath between beats. She was already standing. This was not a place to fold legs and rest upon her core. Skthveraach drew two of her eyes aside to the Pod, expecting her to fulfill role and explain, but she was now as stilled as a leafcutter who had realized itself under the gaze of a preying mantodite. Curious. The Queen signed her confusion herself.

“Upright if my voice is needed. Received. Thank you.” There could be no more than twelve of the blues present, and half as many ambers, but there was a stillness in the air. She sung soft, as the others whispered. “I would not desire causing disruption. To be asked attendance and shown trust by the Queens of the humanites is a warmth on my underside.”

Now the Pod spoke, only to correct words Skthveraach had spun. Mistake? Offense? No. Huan-Arbiter was nodding, a single sharp incline of sharper brow. The Pod was not even looking at him to see it.

He did not wait. He faced about, walked soundlessly back to the cleared space between chair line and desk, and the Queen could see how each of the blue shelled onlookers he passed would silence themselves. Snapped heads forward, and tightened their bodies. None looked back at her.

“Pod. Is this a fear response to the Huan-Arbiter?”

It was a far more biting timbre than the pale shell was usually capable of mustering. The flowing red hair usually hidden beneath cap had been let free, and it swayed when the not-Jhenaafhur wiggled from side to side.

“I am charged with the lives of hundred thousand and more. You are not scared of me.”

“I do not see how.”

Murmurs were smothered as one as one of the blue shells rose and struck feet together. She dug claws into the soft fabrics lining the floor as the translation failed, and dared not rewind the music to set the unfamiliar sounds as name. Stretched thin, the black-clad Arbiter gave bow to the blue, who dropped back into seat without further word. The Pod remained uncomfortably stiff, but had brought out pad as it blipped connection to the Band.

Footsteps treading upon the ramp. Three sets, two laden in armor while one stepped unrestrained. There was a faltering in the leader’s gait; not a full stop, but a stuttering when the top of slope was reached. But it was brief, recovered from so quickly that it was all but imperceptible. The steps led, then strode, and passed the Queen by.

The Arbiter cracked head about as a whipping tail as chairs scuffed. Bodies rose. But it was not uniformity. It was not cohesion. The fore half of those blue shelled humanites were out of their seats, raised with hands sharply thrust to their sides. The rear half did not budge as male made his way, flanked by pair of amber soldierly, past Skthveraach. She thought at first perhaps he was ill; his skin was dark, not quite as baked as meat left in the sun but neither the more pallid pink she was used to. Thick black hair was wound, cut precise, over his mouth and fuzzed bare head as he carried his cap under arm. Like Hathan-Commander, the Admirals too she realized, he wore gold insignia along his shoulders and across his core arranged in precise designs of unknown purpose. Concern, or confusion, was quickly snuffed when she was able to catch one of his eyes. Movement uninterrupted, but able to gaze across to the Queen for note’s length. And his nearly black iris was a soft shade compared to the darkness his eyes held. Disgust transcending disgust. Anger above anger. Hate. The Pod had not risen with the others. Skthveraach did not either.

The blues who had marked their respect remained standing until the Captain had reached the emptied space before the great and raised woodwork, and sat only when he made recognition with head to their existence. His voice was pebbles rolling in a second stomach, grinding together as they scraped and melted.

Both ambers had broken from their trailing and now stood apart from the male. But not so far apart, as the Admiral looked down from on high. To the Captain, and then the blues. It was not sung with the grimacing smiles the humanites made, but the clean voice rung out as the Captain merely nodded. White gloved hand was extended down to the Arbiter, who was yet transfixed on the rows of onlookers. A regard broken as he squared himself to the darker skinned humanite.

Information was more blinding here than the white lights piercing down on her. The Pod typed fiercely, and jumbled together came the concepts to which she could relate. Failure. Mistakes, not accidents. Frenzy. And the Commander, who had done his duty and upheld role in bringing such to his Queens.

He did not need to point nor turn. She could feel the bite from the front of the room. And realization, knowledge, began to fit as pieces within her. Hate. This was hate. The humanites of the Palamedes did not hate her. The humanites of the Palamedes were not the ones to attack her. This humanite, though; this humanite hated.

The Admiral answered for Huan.

Incorrect. The Queen swiveled her antennae towards the Pod, thinking there had been mistranslation, but no fix or adjustment was made. She waited for someone to correct the false information. None did. Knotted and twisted as the trunk of a wizened tree, the features of the Captain screwed themselves into grotesquery.

The Arbiter. Accusations had caused barely a flicker to cross his face, but Skthveraach’s mandibles were clenched tight enough to tear. The Commander was not frenzied. Who had disobeyed? Which of the two had failed their superior? More and more, the Pod’s discomfort was shared in the Queen’s own rapidly pulsing vents.

Was she simply distracted? Huan-Arbiter flicked his grasper, and a pad simply appeared within his grip. There was not iota of energy wasted in his movements. Clicks overhead. Hands raising to ears, eyes settling forward. From around her, the voice of the Commander. And of the male still obstructively stood before desk.

The Captain was not singing in the present. Not even these creatures boasted knowledge of the future. Like the images on viewscreen, like inhaling the scents on silken strings within the Halls of Remembering, these were songs of the past. Captured. Preserved.

Pause. Footsteps.

Something struck ground, wall, surface of some sort with force and precision. The contact silencing the Commander.

The footsteps had long since halted, but now heavier tread thudded forward.

A heavy silence hung, a panting of breath.

A door slid open. A body departed. A click sounded. Silence reigned.

The sounds of the observation deck were distant. Faded. The Arbiter had once more taken the lead in the composition of truth, was questioning, and the capless, dark humanite was replying. Skthveraach found it difficult to hear. She found it difficult to stop the slow dripping from her mouth, too. Difficult to do much else besides lock all four of her eyes to the Captain’s tender blue shell, shell the Queen knew would do nothing against even a brush of her hairs, and pull his disgusting internal skeleton free of its meaty prison.

He had known. They had known. They had seen from up here in the sky her people, their nests, their towers and their cities set into stone and sand and soil. And he had not cared. Remove tens of millions, purge them, kill them. There were others if they were needed.

The dripping had caught the Pod’s attention, made her give press to the Queen’s leg. She did not enjoy the contact. Not with any humanite. Not right now.

The female, the boxy and granite Kamenev, interlocked her fingers.

The other Admiral, and each occurrence marked a practiced silence made of the others. Each knew when they were permitted. Each voice in its place. The Captain shifted his weight, but did not reply.

Fury at the excuses. Adrenals coursing through her, interpreting her signals as combat approaching. The Admiral sung of understanding and forgiveness, and yet… why did it feel as though she were missing something.

Grimacing pleasure began to wind along the Captain’s features. Skthveraach was trying to keep pace, to turn her mind’s eyes to the paths being lain, but lines crossed and crissed. A conflict implied. Losses suffered. Log and address later.

The pleasure was halted. Began to fade. Legs of the blue shells were restless.

Oskar-Admiral gave shake of his head as arms propped themselves at the joint upon the desk, while Kamenev-Admiral had withdrawn a slender, stubby roll of something. Leant back within her chair with look of one who had been forced to dine on lumbrite for measures ending. Vents aside her flared, her lungs filling to their capacity. Her claws digging so deep into the soft flooring that she felt it tear and give. To see a conflict from the opponent’s side. It only occurred when a colony was absorbed utterly, when their memories were made one with yours. She could feel the fire once more. Smell the deaths by the hundreds, to the thousands. Be still. Be ready. The Admiral looked to her, and she let the breath out before sucking one fresh. Clicks were heard. Whirrs were made. Focus on the now. Focus on the now. Focus…

Something was shrieking, a mechanical and untrue noise not of any living thing. Shouts cascaded in the background, but the Captain roared above it.

Over the madness, the two voices clashed.

A female. Unrecognized.

A moment’s pause. A meager breath. Someone made wretching noises, and another gasped.

Hathan’s voice was sick. Strained.

Orders were repeated, but it was again the Commander’s song that soared true and high.

A male. Unrecognized.

The turmoil was almost enveloping, like the noise could reach from the past to swallow her.

There was no longer anger within Hathan’s solo. It was hollow. Bitter and cold.

More words the Queen could not clutch. More emotions that spun together by the Jacob-Captain.

There was the passion once more. Commanding, the Hathan’s music throwing aside competition.

The female again, though this time she trembled as words were passed.

Something crashed, broke into pieces, as the Captain asserted authority. Hathan-Commander’s volume only rose.

The crack that followed was not one of crystal or breaking stone. It was a noise Skthveraach knew well. Had heard in a symphony of light and fire on the battlefield as white lightning was spit across her sky. Songs ceased, fore and background.

A scuffle. Shoving, meat on meat. Two more bursts from the audible lance, and two thumps as weight struck floor.

The past was gone. The room was silent as the stars and sky behind the hardstone shades. The Captain’s head was more red than brown now, Kamenev was breathing smoke and ash, Oskar-Admiral’s head had lowered to rest on his hands while the Arbiter, arms ever at sides, had already made his pad vanish back whence it came. It was the thin-eyed Arbiter who resumed the lamentations of the now subdued chorus.

Clenching his head covering beneath arm, Skthveraach could hear how it subtly tore. Two colonies. Allied, but not friends. Two soldiers doing duty to their Queen, removed for it. Unfortunate. How many had she lost in such ways? Instinct was a cruel thing to overcome, but she could not comprehend the anger. It paled next to her own. How many of her people had been lost? Two soldiers. Barely footnote.

His gaze raising from gloves, only the faintest trace of twitch and twist of lip could be seen in the Admiral.

Bone ground within that dark skull. It was a silence, but one of discomfort and sidelong looks. Movements humanites made when uncertainty was rife in their minds. Even the ambers were failing to fully still the straying of their eyes as the Admiral unlaced his fingers. Took up the pad that had lain flat before him on the impeccably smooth furnishing.

Was she dripping again? Her antennae were flattened between her crest and the ceiling as she bolted upright, only noting that the Admiral had not nodded to the Arbiter’s request until she was fully erect with blades crossed before her. Now, all heads turned. Now, all faces were stilled. Some level. Some scrunched. Some seething displeasure. She ignored all but the Arbiter. All but that sure voice providing, promising, stability.

“My scouts were attacked by the humanite soldiers chasing the column of Ktcvahnaah-Colony.”

“To let the enemy draw closer before attacking.”

“To bring the flying notrocks-“ Too late for correction. “Close enough for my spitters to kill.”

Her first note, her first sound, had made the Captain twitch. She had focused only on the Arbiter, but her rightmost eye could not help but detect the movement. That unconscious reaction. That instinctive response. Lack of control. Weakness. Fear? She could hope. The man, the thing, that had killed her people and called them beasts below humanite notice was before her. And he twitched when she spoke. Every section of her body was turned with deliberate speed. When her scythes were extended, just a hair’s length, it was not accidental. A hearing of truth. She delivered truth.

“An animal would react without thought to the outside. An animal would be able to determine biomass it could safely consume. An animal would smell and remember one who had hurt it. An animal would not hesitate to destroy a creature who had slaughtered its children and destroyed its home. I wish, dearly, that I were an animal.” Captain twitched. Admiral tapped finger on his pad. The Pod was about to thrust herself to feet when Skthveraach wrapped claw of central leg around her torso. Forced her back to seat, feeling her pulse and heartbeat triple at the sudden contact. The Queen did not need her music clarified. She had been succinct.

The Arbiter did not turn immediately, not until a small noise and protrusion from one of the Pod’s fingers was sent his way, and Skthveraach was acutely and promptly aware of how every amber in the room had lance lowered, aimed for her. She felt her gaster churn as she delicately released her grip on the Pod, who gave a soft wheeze, and the Arbiter made wave which brought end to the searing tips’ focus on her.

Mercifully did the Admiral continue, drawing attention away from the Queen as she sunk back down to all legs. Signing quick apologies to the Pod, who did not answer or respond.

The interruption was not harmonious. It was not even the same octave.

Glove was placed upon the screen, and dragged downward as music was ever deepened, ever drummed. nd Lancer Battalion is dead or injured, over eighty *^&*/portion of the 55th Light Armored Battalion was wiped out. In actuality, and I was forced to verify this when I received Commander Devries’ report, you may be surprised to realize that you have now overseen the greatest military disaster and defeat suffered by a technologically superior force since 1879. The Imperial Sovereignty of Earth has suffered this defeat.”>

Even Skthveraach felt herself driven back a tenthlength as the boom of the Admiral’s voice sent all lurching, his fist striking a dent into the surface of the desk. The Captain only stuttered as his features fell into opened hollowness. None dared to even breathe loudly. She had thought to have seen the extent of these creatures’ emotions. The rawness of the Admiral’s fury was a righteous and terrible thing that touched all save the Arbiter and Kamenev, who watched from their vantages as Oskar-Admiral ground back into his seat.

His body as his notes shook, but were forced out all the same. The Admiral’s brow bore more ridges than the valleys of her biomass reserves, and his eyes shone in the artificial light, unblinking.

Their eyes met, the Captain craning his head backwards to elevate his attention, and the Queen thought perhaps she understood the design now. The purpose in forcing the lesser to stand ever in their place below their greaters. So that when defiance, as it somehow managed still to slither from the Captain’s clenched bones and fingers, was an impotent thing ever below regard.

Kamenev once more put forth her voice, and it was not a usurpation of the Oskar’s lines, but a supporting mirroring of his designs. And perhaps a mercy, sparing the humanite below from his further wrath. What madness? What course? Captain seemed almost prepared to speak further, but at noises from the onlookers and the approach of the ambers, rounded and stalked back to ramp. This time, only three rose from their seats. And hesitantly sank back down almost as soon as the male’s back was to them. They would let him live, after all they had heard? After they had admitted his uselessness, his mistakes and errors?! He did not look to her, but her hairs were rigid and body poised as the Queen turned herself full. Air hissing from her lungs as carpet was torn up beneath her. The humanite was not worth life, not worth sound, not even something she would dream of feeding to her colony lest they be infected by his disease of mind. He was furious, he was punished, that much she knew from his posture. But he was alive. He was escaping. She drank of the air, sucking in his smell and committing the taste to memory. A thousand cycles may pass, but Skthveraach would not let his name, his body or his music escape her. The colony would carry the Jacob-Captain until the death of the song, or the death of the man. This she knew. This was her truth.

Composure was remarkably fast to return to the Admiral, but just as fast to fill the Queen. The enemy was alive, but removed. The threat to her people was defeated. It was her turn. Her opportunity to repay the Hathan-Commander. Vengeance was put aside. Desire, smothered. She repositioned to the fore of the observation deck, and listened to the footsteps approach once more. Familiar. Unaccompanied.

Welcomed.