Page 15 of Bonded Queen: to the Alien Warlord Triad

“Aurelian Fanatics. The crazy bastards Orb-Shifted in. Pick up your rifle.”

Like angry hornets from a fallen hive, tiny ships punch out of the wreckage of the burning hulk of the warship. They glisten as they push through the heavy, chemical smoke, but they are not the pure, gleaming white of the Aurelian Empire.

They are jet-black Reavers, small, maneuverable attack ships with Orb-Beams weapons that could demolish our estate with a pull of the trigger. The sleek, predatory fighter ships seem to escape the war-ship at random, flying out in every direction, but the bulk of the fleet beelines towards the royal city while small squadrons, from two to four ships, fly out in every direction. They must know the layout of the planet perfectly, because they dart out towards different targets, villages, smaller cities, and even two buzzing north towards the mountains where miners live. I watched an Org-Ship plummet and bounce off one of the snowy peaks, and I feared for those simple villagers eking out a living in the mountains, but I knew they had a better chance to survive than us, out in the open.

The warship itself is buried in the ground, two-thirds of it hidden, and the black smoke billows out of it. Some of the Aurelians on board must be manning in, not fleeing as it burns up, because the weapons batteries that bristle from the armored hull start firing. The blinding flash of black-blue lightning energy weapons makes me avert my eyes, but I watch a horde of hundreds of Scorp charging towards the city are cut down like bugs.

A Reaver hurtles towards a villa near the river that flows from the mountains to the royal city. The side doors of the Reaver open, and a triad of Aurelians jump down as the Reaver continues. Even from this far away, I can see the glow of their weapons as they draw their blades and fight against the Scorp that were scaling the walls of the undefended villa.

“Another wave!” Kat yells, and I curse myself for wasting seconds. She isn’t waiting for anyone to save us, and she’s right. We narrowly avoided being crushed by the Org-Ship that was hurtling straight for us, but there’s always more of the monsters coming, and we can’t depend on the Aurelians to save us.

There’s an angry scream from the south side. Kat gets up from her window and grabs my arm, pulling me to the other side of the room. There’s a long, thin window, on which we prop our rifles again.

My heart sinks. An Org-Ship nest landed two miles south…

And we’re between it and the populated city hub that they are drawn to. The Org-Ship flatted on impact, and claws rip through the fleshy material. I watch a Scorp tumble out, coated in resin, landing on its two feet and shaking off the amber material and screaming to the heavens. The smallest, nimblest Scorp come first, running shakily at first, then gaining speed and balance as they rush towards us.

“Don’t think. Just wait until they’re close, and fire.” Kat’s words put steel in my backbone.

I wasted valuable bullets, firing in panic, when that first group of Scorp attacked us. Kat taught me to wait until I could see the reds of their eyes.

As I cut down the second and third group of Scorp, I got cold and determined, letting them get in closer so my rounds would punch straight through their armored hide and stop them cold. I took down one huge bastard of a Scorp with a single bullet. Kat said “good shot” with a grudging respect, and in that moment, I felt we could stop anything.

As more and more Scorp pull themselves from the wreckage of the Org-Ship, my blood runs cold. We’ve killed waves of a half-dozen, and picked off the odd Scorp that broke away from the city, but this is hundreds of them. The Org-Ship landed on the top of one of the rolling hills to the south, and the first wave of smaller Scorp are getting momentum as they sprint towards us.

The Queen herself pulls herself up from the white hive material of the organic ship, drawing herself to her full height. She must be twenty, thirty feet tall, and she could leap over the walls with her huge, powerful legs. Her long, venomous tail wavers in the air, glinting as the sun pierces through the smoke, then it points straight towards us.

As one, the bulk of the Scorp horde charges.

“Hold.” I don’t know how Kat keeps her voice even as they charge, picking up speed as they descend the grassy highland. The bigger Scorp eat up the ground with their huge legs, bowling over some of the smaller ones. As they come closer, I watch them with sick fascination, like I’m back in the museum, when Scorp seemed like some far-off menace used to scare children into doing their chores.

The sun gleams off their scaled skin. The tension heightens my senses, and I can pick out details, the way their teeth are sharp and brittle like toothpicks, the globs of venom that drip from their tails.

“There’s too many.” I think it and the words are out of my mouth before I can stop them, betraying my fear. My lower lips quavers. Until now, I rode the waves of fear. Now they’re going to drown me.

There’s hundreds of the creatures. Each is twice my size. The last wave had only a half-dozen, and one nearly got over the walls. Only my lucky shot stopped it before it got past our defenses.

Kat doesn’t answer. She just stares out. Her strong jaw is set, her eyes intelligent, and she emanates focus. “Hold,” she says, as the wave of Scorp gets closer.

Two hundred feet. One hundred. I can make out the patterns of their hides, the way their scales interlock, moving and rippling with their muscled bodies. The way their mandibles clack as they run. The circular, black hole of their maw, ringed by sharp, thin teeth, like a giant worm that can latch onto you and rip off a limb.

When they are close enough I can see the familiar hatred in their eyes, I fire. It’s like Kat and I are sharing a mind, because our guns bark in unison, and the first Scorp falls under the impact of our bullets, trampled by the wave behind it.

My ears are still ringing from the last shot when the next row of Scorp are burned to a crisp, their scales melting and turning black as lightning strikes. No—it’s not lightning. It’s the blue-black Orb beam of the Reaver that arcs out its energy weapon, searing a long line in the ground that sets fire to the grass. A quarter of the Scorp are cut down, and others stumble, but they don’t pause in their charge. The Reaver bursts forward, picking up speed, straight towards the thirty-foot-tall Scorp queen, who rears up on her hind legs, her huge mandibles opening, bringing her claws forward to rip the ship in half.

The jet-black Reaver doesn’t even fire. It goes straight through the monstrous queen, punching a hole in her chest. She’s obliterated, falling, and the Scorp wave stumbles, falling to the ground with her, looking around in confusion and agony. The Scorp start to wail, a thin, whistling, terrible sound as they all look up to the heavens, screaming out in rage.

The black Reaver is coated in deep red-green blood. It banks, turning, the angular ship spinning as the left Orb-Gun fires, cutting down the grieving Scorp.

I’m stunned, but Kat is a machine. She’s still shooting, taking down wounded and screaming Scorp before they have a chance to react. The Reaver spins faster than I can believe, in the hands of an expert pilot, and fires out two weak Orb-Beams. It didn’t have time to fully recharge its weapons, but it blasts more of the Scorp before it rushes away towards the royal city. It flies at a breakneck pace, occasionally lancing out firepower on the plains below when Scorp cluster.

The Scorp seem to share a mind. There’s still two dozen, pulling themselves up. They stop screaming to the heavens. Many of them are wounded, limping, or missing limbs, but they’re still dangerous.

I fire again, but they run towards us, and I lose sight of them behind the stone walls.

“Fuck! Scorp without a Queen go to serve the nearest Queen. They can sense her.”

“Where is she?”

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