A Treana'ad lives in a world of pheromones and scents. Conversations from days could still be 'listened' to. Emotions from days before could be transmitted by lingering pheromones. For millions of years the Treana'ad were little more than insects driven by pheromones. An extinction level event of a meteor impact forced them to adapt. The meteor impact on what is now known as "Smokey Cone" was a heavy enough impact that it ruptured the crust, causing the formation of a volcano on the far side of the planet. This volcano continuously put out gasses and ash, altered the planet's ecosystem, making it so that conversations only lasted a bare few minutes, an hour at the most. The Treana'ad were forced to find shelter, to group up, in order to survive.

This profound change in behavior led to a change in physiology, and the pheromones became much diluted compared to primitive proto-Treana'ad. At the same time their sensitivity increased. Wars were fought over the wrong pheromone at the wrong time. Control over pheromones were seen as the only way for the Treana'ad people to survive.

Pheromone output alters moods, provokes actions, and leads thought for the Treana'ad. While modern day Treana'ad use tobacco to offset the pheromones, there is still a heavy pheromone influence on their lives.

But still, until the P'Thok Liberation, a Treana'ad lived in a world of scents that drove their very species. Even now a Treana'ad is sensitive to the moods and feelings of another due to pheromone output.-- Introduction to Treana'ad History

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Oh, Trea, how could you?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

How could I not?

What should have I done? Let a civil war break out? Ignore their pain?

No, this way is better.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

But still...

Oh, Trea, I worry so for you. I know it had to hurt, but this? Are you sure? I can feel their pain.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

What? What did they do?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

I don't want to talk about it.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

It's nothing, kid.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

RIGELLIAN SAURIAN COMPACT

It's OK, kid. Just...

Well, something happened.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

What happened? Did Smokey Cone get attacked?

OH NO! DID THE ATREKNA KILL THE MOO-MOOS?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLD

No. Nothing like that.

It's... complicated.

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

HAT WEARING AUNTIE

Can I hold your hand, Trea?

So you know that there's still people who love you?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS---

"If you won't save her, save them, please just take me instead," the Cattle Queen pleaded, her hands folded in front of her, her legs folded beneath her, as she looked up at the sky. "Please, take me too. I can't bear to go on."

Behind her the hospital had no answer.

Her adopted daughter as well as her Terran milk maids, had all just dropped dead suddenly. Some just sighing, others seizing, and still others lasting a few minutes.

Her daughter was on life support, but the doctors had told her.

Her little soft girl was brain dead.

"Please, please save them, please, save her," the Cattle Queen pleaded to the night sky.

It did not answer.

On either side of her were two Treana'ad Warrior Caste. Both of them range riders and cattle petters. They wore crossed six-guns as they looked around for any threats to the grieving Cattle Queen.

Their eyes burned a soft dull amber.

A Matron approached. Larger than the Cattle Queen or the Warriors, she moved with a tired grace. The pheromones from her spoke of deep grief.

"Rise, sister," the Matron said, holding her hand out to the Cattle Queen.

"It hurts so bad I want to die," the Cattle Queen answered.

"I know," the Matron replied. "Come with me."

"Why?" the Cattle Queen asked. She could taste something more beneath the grief and pain.

Rage.

"Because I have a plan," the Matron said. "I will need your help, but I have a plan."

"A plan to do what?" The Queen asked, taking the Matron's hand and letting herself be pulled, shakily, to her feet.

"To find who did this to our soft children and make them pay."

The scent of rage grew stronger around the two female Treana'ad in the rainy, windswept parking lot.

-----

It should have been forbidden.

Except... who would do such a thing?

Had any of the other queens or matrons found out about it, they would have tried to forbid it.

But the Confederate Right of Self-Determination would have argued that it could be done, should the subject consent with full knowledge.

The subject not only consented, not only insisted, but led the project.

It was explained to grieving Treana'ad.

The Cattle Queen volunteered for the part that would require a Matron.

The armor was designed. The standard weaponry was removed. The additions were added. The Warriors were trained.

The Cattle Queen was given Royal Jelly with special additives.

She ate her fill.

When the War Matrons and the War Queen found out about it, they realized that nothing could stop them.

Rather than try, they took them into the fold. Provided them transport.

When the Atrekna's machinations were revealed, the ship, with its cargo in cryostasis, was shifted to the front. The pilot, a red-eyed worker who would scream in rage now and then, took the ship to the strongest resistance even as amber eyed workers began to thaw out the cargo.

When the system was reached, the pilot and bridge crew, all with red eyes, cared not for the howling combat around them that caused space-time itself to shudder. They drove the ship toward the planet, toward the proto-continent, where the fighting was the strongest. They burned the hull bringing the ship down, but it didn't matter.

While they weren't suicidal, none of them cared if they lifted off.

Victory or death.

No.

Victory AND death.

Both are desired.

The ship half-crashed into the rear of the Atrekna areas. The bay doors clanged down.

The servitors and the Atrekna surging back into the crash zone tensed.

Whistles could be heard from inside the crumpled armored transport.

The servitors got ready, the Atrekna prepared, knowing the Treana'ad were about to assault.

Crimson eyed Treana'ad rushed out.

K'Mik was in the lead.

He wasn't thinking. He didn't care about thinking. He didn't care about anything.

The tanks on his back, on his abdomen, filled his lungs with pheromones.

The pheromones of an enraged War Queen. The pheromones of grieving warriors. The pheromones of grief stricken workers.

The alien pheromones, oh so familiar, of his soft son.

Pheromones always poured off of Terrans, Terran children especially.

They had had been gathered and stored in the tanks on K'Mik's armor.

The smell of the boy when he was happy, when he was sad, when he was sleeping, when he was playing.

The sickly sweet and sour smell of a dead Terran child.

The huge warrior didn't care about strategy, about tactics.

His brain was on fire with rage and the grief of a thousand grieving parents filled his lungs even as he could smell his soft child now taken from him.

From out of the transport emerged the largest Treana'ad the Atrekna had ever seen. She stood easily ten meters high, a heavy 'collar' extending up from her shoulders to behind her head. Her armor was red and black. Lightning crackled up and down her tree-trunk legs.

Her eyes burned bright crimson.

She screamed in rage and lighting poured from a clear blue sky to wreathe her in snarling hatred.

"KILL THEM! KILL THEM WITHOUT MERCY!" the Cattle Queen screamed. "RETURN THE PAIN THEY VISITED UPON US A THOUSANDFOLD!"

The two massive warriors on either side of her roared, the sound vibrating even phasic crystal.

K'Mik charged forward, hearing over and over in his brain "Hurt them like they hurt us" whispered by his Matron. Not a recording, not his armor, just part of his brain replaying the pained whisper from that brightly lit kitchen that was still somehow dark and silent.

Lasers and plasma packets hit his armor but he didn't care, rushing forward at a sprint. In less than three seconds he was in among them. His right bladearm had been lost two planets ago, replaced by a modified Cutting Bar Mark Two, and he sawed through servitors as they screamed.

He laughed through his gas mask that channeled the pheromones directly to his head.

An Atrekna's phasic shielding wasn't good enough to hide it.

(you cannot hide from my grief)

K'Mik jumped into the air, reaching out with both hands.

The Atrekna screamed as his hands closed around his legs and he dropped from the sky.

"THIS ONE! HE DID IT TOO!" K'Mik bellowed out.

With the help of four others he ripped the Atrekna into pieces and threw them away, looking around for more to fight. Other Treana'ad, their rage unquenched, ran forward and slashed at the parts, throwing pieces around that others caught, threw on the ground, and stomped on.

Not far away, five miles at the most, K'Mik could see a massive crystalline fortress. The battlescreens were thick, heavy, visible even at five miles. He could see the point defense knocking down the missiles and rockets fired at it, the sky full of smoke and clouds from the detonations.

"THERE! THEY'RE HIDING THERE!" a worker yelled, running up with the heavy gun in its hands. It was a belt fed machinegun with "T'NOK SENDS HIS REGARDS" painted on both sides of the barrel.

The rounds in the belt were not the typical rounds.

Instead it was heavy crystals, all machined to precise tolerances.

The worker's shout was enough and K'Mik led the way, roaring in fury.

The Queen of Grief and her two guards followed, workers swarmed around them with rocket launchers, grenade launchers, belt fed weaponry, and chainswords.

The Atrekna in the fortress stared in shock as the Treana'ad forces lunged forward, moving to max sprint within a hundred meters. Those who were not looking through light amplification or night vision technology only saw a wave of red lights coming closer.

And could hear the enraged bellows.

The Treana'ad hit the fortress, the workers firing their crystal loaded guns into the shielding.

It collapsed.

The Treana'ad ran forward. Missiles and rockets blew holes in the walls of the fortress even as the warriors climbed over each other to reach the tops of the walls.

In minutes the Treana'ad were swarming through the halls of the fortress, running up and down the ramps the Atrekna preferred. Kicking in door, shattering phasic barriers with strikes powered by sheer rage.

"KILL THEM! KILL THEM ALL!" was screamed from ten thousand throats.

K'Mik dropped down the chute a handful of Atrekna had fled through, the landing system delivering him safely in a flare of energy.

Others dropped down next to him.

The Atrekna rushed down the hallway, passing through a phasic barrier.

One shut a physical door.

"YOU CAN'T OUTRUN ME! YOU'LL JUST DIE TIRED!" K'Mik yelled as he charged down the hallway.

Phasic shields and barriers shattered as he slammed into them, nearly a hundred Treana'ad following him as even more dropped down the long chute.

The door exploded inwards and K'Mik ran into the room.

There were crystalline structures, mechanical devices, and strange esoteric machines all over the room.

Servitors tried to defend their masters but none of them lasted longer than thirty seconds as the furious Treana'ad ran into the room.

The Atrekna activated the machinery even as K'Mik threw aside the two halves of the servitor that had tried to attack him with a phasic enhanced sword.

Hellspace portals ripped into existence. Shadowy hands reached out pleadingly even as the Atrekna grabbed crystal studded harnesses and pulled them on.

"I WILL FOLLOW YOU UP THE DETAINEE'S ASSHOLE AND FIGHT YOU IN HER BREAKFAST IF I HAVE TO!" K'Mik roared, charging forward.

"GET THEM! KILL THEM!" another warrior yelled.

A worker fired a rocket launcher and the warhead, the standoff safety disabled, blew an Atrekna into scraps.

The Atrekna, panicking, lunged through the Hellspace portals.

K'Mik didn't care.

"DON'T LET THEM ESCAPE! KILL THEM!" he roared.

The Queen of Grief shattered the doorway as she burst into the chamber.

"GET THEM! KILL THEM ALL! NO MERCY!" she screamed.

K'Mik charged through the Hellspace portal.

It was like dying.

It was like being born.

It was like molting if your carapace was of molten iron.

Screams surrounded him, agony tore through his body. Every nerve ending screamed, every memory cut, even sensation was magnified a thousandfold. Fire burned him. Cold froze him. Water drowned him.

K'Mik beat his head against nothingness and screamed in rage.

The Atrekna noted that one of the Research Systems had powered up their hyperatomic plane portal generators in an unscheduled test and responded by activating their system.

The tests had proven that each portal opened in the hyperatomic plane could open a hundred other stable portals within the hyperatomic plane. The hope was that with enough of the portals, portals lifted 'up' in the bands could open in jumpspace and hyperspace, each one opening another hundred, all linked back to the burning hyperatomic plane.

With that method, the cascade of out of control energy could scorch jumpspace and hyperspace but also diminish the energy cascade in the hyperatomic plane.

It stood to reason that the method would not only scorch jumpspace and hyperspace, but after a period of time, all three hyperatomic planes would reach energy equilibrium and no longer pose a danger to travelers.

In effect, both denying the other races the superluminal properties of those hyperatomic planes and restoring them fairly quickly.

Unscheduled tests were used to test the hardware's ability to handle surges.

So the Atrekna were not worried as they activated the system.

Hellpsace portals opened up, linking up with the others that had generated the unannounced and unscheduled test.

Even though the Conclave of Thought and Wisdom had just started observing them, the Atrekna were not worried. They would show the Conclave that work had gone according to analysis and that the Atrekna would soon be triumphant over the lower life forms as was proper and...

The four Atrekna that came through were screaming in terror. Their skin was gray, their eyes wide, and they fled from the chamber.

The Atrekna researchers turned and looked at one another.

Live subject tests were not scheduled because they weren't needed.

They turned back to the portals as something stepped through.

A nightmare from the fevered dreams of an insane being.

It was five meters tall. Four meters wide. Eight meters long. Entirely black with runes inscribed on the carapace in dully burning red light. Its face looked like a gas mask had been fused with the carapace. The two engraved and runed bladearms on the left side was savagely serrated, the two on the right clattered as the cutting bar chain wound around it. It was covered in spikes, heavy iron chains with hooks and spikes hanging on the ends hung from spikes that had been driven into the chitin, the end of the spikes carved with glowing runes. Its arms were long, the fingers more like talons.

It threw back its head and screamed.

K'Mik lunged forward, killing all four of the Atrekna in front of him. He didn't care where he was, didn't care when he was. All he cared about was killing more of the Atrekna.

"KILL THEM! KILL THEM ALL! KILL THEM FOR THE MOO MOOS! KILL THEM FOR THE MATRONS!" he roared out as he stood up to his full height. "KILL THEM FOR OUR SOFT CHILDREN! KILL THEM WITHOUT MERCY!"

Dozens of Treana'ad screamed in fury as they erupted from the portals.

The massive form of the Queen of Grief, fifteen meters tall, covered in spikes, chains, and glowing runes, stepped from the portal.

"CLEANSE THIS PLACE! KILL THEM WITHOUT MERCY!" she howled.

"T'Nok and his frat brother sends their regards!" one of the warriors yelled, firing his missile launcher. The missile exploded with crystalline shrapnel that exploded Atrekna machinery.

The Queen of Grief held open the Hellspace portals through pure force of will and rage as even more Treana'ad rushed through, all screaming for death and pain.

One of the Atrekna looked at the other reseachers.

"So long, fuck-o's!" it said.

It vibrated and turned into tightly woven hair thin vibrating strands before it vanished with a cry of "whoop whoop whoop!"

The Atrekna began panicking as the Treana'ad ran almost unopposed through their fortress.

-----

Dalvanak watched as the memory replay finished then looked over at the gray skinned Elder One.

"As I teach," Dalvanak said, reaching out for a glass of cham-pog-nay. "Worst case."

The Elder One nodded.