In the chamber beyond, the Digger stood frozen. Even the paralyzed Soldier stopped moving when I emerged through the crumbling crack from the Queen’s chamber, clutching her severed head under my arm.
The boys were still there, standing on wobbly legs.
I clicked to the Digger and the twins. “Come. Follow.”
They all did.
I strode up the tunnels, exuding the hated smell of the Hive Queen. Diggers and Builders shrank away as I passed, confused by the scent of their Queen mixed with the scent of death. We emerged into the light.
In the distance I could hear the battle raging. The rest of the escaped humans were long gone. I couldn’t see them over the hillside, but surely they’d made it far enough away that the remaining Soldiers wouldn’t find them. They’d be safe once they reached the height and cold of the mountain. Our people would find them and lead them to sanctuary.
Explosions ripped the air.
That had to be their escape, the final blast that would bring down the mountain pass. Any minute now, the Hive’s Soldiers would be heading my way.
“Whatever happens, you have to get away,” I said to the boys stumbling along behind me. I pointed to the pass where Chen would have taken the rest. “Go that way, as fast as you can. Keep running. When you see the feral humans, go with them.”
They nodded. They’d learned what the Hive meant. Like me, they knew our lives were lies.
Diggers and Builders crowded around me, and I clutched the Queen’s head, machete raised. Along with the boys, I ran toward the ledge that overlooked the long grassy hillside that led to the Forbidden Zone.
The mountain pass stood. I smelled pollen and dead enemy Soldiers by the hundreds. I smelled humans, some alive and some not. I smelled the blue of our Queen.
They hadn’t escaped. They were trapped.
“Go!” I screamed at the boys, and took off at a run toward the battle zone. If my Queen died today, I would die by her side.
Sunshine met me at the top of the slope that led down into the Forbidden Zone.
“Bad,” he clicked. “Death.” He touched the dead Queen’s head under my arm and pulled back in alarm.
I could smell it everywhere. Death.
It would be over soon. All our remaining people had climbed to the top of one of the transports. My Queen was there, and Kinni, and Lexis. I could pick out their scents. The wind shifted away from me as I ran but I could still see them, swinging their weapons at the Soldiers that swarmed up the sides, pelting them with arrows that would soon run out.
The Soldiers all around the transport smelled the change in the air. I was suddenly upwind. With their dead Queen’s head.
They froze, antennae waving toward me. Our people knocked the highest ones straight off the edge of the transport.
I stopped running and raised the dead Queen’s head.
“Death!” I clicked, with fierce, manic joy.
The wind shifted again, and I smelled my Queen’s summons. Blue tinged with green, she called me with an urgency I’d never felt.
But my legs were wobbly. I was out of steam.
“My Queen!” I called, stumbling forward.
Strong claws picked me up. Sunshine flung me onto his back and dashed forward toward the tail end of the transport. My machete fell to the ground as I clung on with one hand, gripping the dead head with the other. We pounded toward the ship where the Soldiers were starting to move, no longer stunned by the smell of death in the changing wind.
They swarmed toward us.
We’ll never make it. They’re right on top of us.
Sunshine slid to a halt and I tumbled off his back. My body skidded right under a crushed section of the transport and I hauled myself up, wedging into a hole in the ship’s underbelly. Dragging the Queen’s head, I climbed inside the ship.
Outside, Soldiers flung themselves at the thick metal walls. Far ahead, they darted into the half-open hatchway, frenzied at the smell of their dead Queen in my hands.
I lunged forward and jumped onto the interior ladder. Holding the head by its limp antennae, I climbed for my life. I didn’t even know why I was still holding it, but couldn’t imagine dropping it when I’d come so close.
At the top of the ship, a hatchway was half caved in. I pounded on it, clinging to the ladder as Soldiers rushed toward me inside the ship. The seats below me filled with clicking anger and waving, venomous tails.
With a great, squealing screech of metal, the hatchway above me curled back, ripped away by a great claw. Blue sky shone down, and the massive claw reached in. I grabbed it with one arm, still clutching the head, and it hauled me clear just as the Soldiers launched themselves from the seats below my feet, wordlessly screaming their rage.
I slid onto the top of the transport. From beneath me, the angry clicks of Soldiers echoed inside the ship, but they were too large to fit through the hatch. The hull vibrated as more enemies climbed up the sides.
This is it.
This is where we die.
But we had done it. Chen and the rest of our people were free. Whether or not they found a way to survive on their own in this hostile, bug-ridden wasteland was up to them, as it should have been all along.
And she was here. My glorious Queen.
She settled down next to me and gently took the dead Queen’s head from my grasp.
The Soldiers were seconds away.
We didn’t have clicks to mean “Goodbye,” so I bade my Queen farewell in the only words we had.
“Eat well.”
She did.
In five sickening, crunchy bites, she ate the dead Queen’s head.
All around us, time stopped.
The enemy Soldiers that had been poised to end our little revolution stopped in their tracks, feelers waving in the air.
My Queen stood up on her hind legs. She exuded her clean, healthy blue scent. The air filled with the joy of her youth and strength, mixed with the yellow of her vanquished enemy.
Every ‘Mite, ours and theirs, dropped to their bellies in submission.
The Queen lowered her head, presenting it to me. In awe and wonder, I pulled myself up to my knees and touched the oil she granted, rubbing it onto my skin. First of the hundreds around me to receive her blessing.
First of the new Hive.
The Queen was dead.
Long live the Queen.