Enemy Soldiers surrounded our Queen. She was up there on the plateau that was supposed to be our escape route, along with a handful of our Soldiers and a couple of the men. The enemies were pouring up the edges of the hill on each side, squeezing our fighters toward the steep edge leading out to the open plain. All I could do was watch in horror as all our plans dissolved second by second.
We would never get another chance. Never get another Queen.
A sob choked my throat at the thought of losing her when I’d just found her.
I knew some humans would make it through the day. Noah had gotten the people out of the Hive. If any of Lexis’s explosive powder—or Lexis herself—managed to survive this, they could still blow up the Hive next pollen time, assuming the Yellow bugs didn’t hunt them down before that. None of the new Hive people would know how to make it. They didn’t even know how to read.
“Lexis, you have to get out of here!” I screamed over the noise.
She was staring at the plateau where our people were backing right up to the edge.
“Lexis!” I repeated, but she wasn’t listening.
“They’re coming over,” she said, and I followed her gaze.
She was right. More than half of the enemy Soldiers had streamed up the sides of the high plateau. Now the first of ours leaped over the edge, sliding down the steep front face and crashing into the hard ground below. The stench of terror washed across the field.
It was hardest on the humans. They didn’t have eight legs to grab at the earth during the skid, and we didn’t have an exoskeleton to bounce at the bottom like a ‘Mite did. The humans at the bottom of the steep slope didn’t move. But the ‘Mites did.
The Queen jumped. My heart sank with her as she fell, tumbling down and down. The Soldiers we had left, human and ‘Mite, met her at the bottom and started fighting off the hoard of enemies that descended on them. Most of the Yellow Hive’s Soldiers were still on top of the plateau, falling over each other in their desire to attack our Queen.
One person was still up there.
Even from this distance, I could smell it was Gil.
He peered over the edge. Our Queen was scuttling toward the line of ships where Lexis and I stood, her path being cut by her few remaining fighters.
Gil nodded and turned back toward the enemies all around him.
Light flashed in his hands.
The entire plateau erupted in fire, as the explosions we had carefully laid to bring down the pass and secure our escape blew up at once. I ducked back under the rail of the ship I was standing on, gripping it above my head and bracing for the impact.
Good work, Hivemate Gil. You are honored to die for our Queen.
Sound thumped into me, with a huge layer of dust and debris. Some of the debris was bug parts, raining down everywhere. Most of it was tiny rocks, and I buried my head in my hands until the thunder subsided and I could peer over the edge.
Me and all the bugs were scent-blinded by the dust in the air. I could barely see from where I was, but there were enough humans that survived the fighting and the blast to pull the Queen forward, toward the ship where Lexis and I stood.
They needed to get out of here. We all did. But the wind was still blowing, and in what felt like seconds, the air cleared enough for the bugs to start smelling their way around again.
I raced to the edge. “Take her out of here!” I yelled over. “Get her through the pass!”
The people below me heard, and tried to change the Queen’s course. With a rush of relief I recognized my dad among them. He didn’t look good. One of his arms was hanging at an odd angle, and he wasn’t walking right. But he was down there, and he was moving.
“We’re coming!” I shouted, but the Queen wouldn’t be swayed.
She kept moving straight toward our ship.
“No, don’t come up here! We’ll all be trapped!”
Maybe they thought we had more bombs, but we were totally out. If we didn’t get down fast, we’d all die.
It was already too late.
The enemy Soldiers swarmed around the base of the ship. Our people and our Queen skittered up the sides, pushing each other and helping the weak. The Queen appeared on top and I reached down to pull my dad up. One of the bugs at the bottom broke away from the group, streaking back toward the Slave Hive. I was sure it was one of ours. Probably the only one of us that will survive the day.
We spread out around the edges of the ship, beating down at the enemies that tried to make the climb. In the center sat the Queen, looking serene and calm. I followed her gaze.
She was pointed straight back toward the Slave Hive, and her feelers waved, pulling scent into her flat nostrils.
“What is it?” I asked her, but of course she couldn’t understand me.
I picked up a loose bit of the rail that had fallen off and whacked at the head of a Soldier that appeared over the edge. The crunch made me grin.
Behind me, the Queen was still sitting like she hadn’t a care in the world, facing the ocean. Her scent matched that far-off water. Blue and smooth.
She knows we’re gonna die. She’s at peace with it.
I swung my railing at another Soldier. We could hold out here for a bit longer. But their numbers would win the day.
The Queen obviously knew it, too. She turned her eyeless face toward me and clicked a single word in the language Noah had been teaching her.
“Death.”
“I think so, too,” I told her in human language, and turned back toward the rail. “But I’m not going alone.”