They Answered The Call

Fast Battleship Group 0-1A, Task Force Extricate

5,986 light years from Earth

13 weeks after rescue

Command Unit 273 ran systems checks as it waited for the third wave of Scout drones to return from the forbidden zone and transmit their most recent sensor sweeps.

For three hundred and thirty-six hours, Task Force Extricate had been diligently sending hundreds of small, specialized scout drones into the forbidden zone to search for any signs of surviving Insectoid ships.

273 had been selected to lead the mission after the successful integration of itself and its fifteen subordinate AIs into the newest class of null battleships. After they had been retrieved by the creators from their black box drones, they assumed control of the newly created task force.

The creators ordered the task force to go to the Republic Hive world and pick up Insectoid passengers and android translators before receiving their updated mission parameters.

Once the passengers and the updated mission files were received, the task force set course for the forbidden zone and flashed into null space to complete their first mission since returning.

The creators and the allied Hive mother were determined to rescue and save as many Insectoid ships as possible within the forbidden zone and to scout the extent of the enemy penetration.

The Insectoid passengers were three command drones selected by the allied Hive mother that had the best grasp of the secondary language of communication between the two biological species.

After they boarded 273’s ship, the task force flashed out every 500 light years and dropped one of the unique communication devices that would extend the telepathic range of the allied Hive mother.

273 had scanned the devices during the journey and tried to analyze the organic, crystalline structures. The interesting latticework and properties of the devices intrigued it greatly, but its scanning results proved inconclusive, and it saved the data to further explore at a later time.

The fast battleships of the task force had the newest iteration of Republic null drive capacitors, and 273 marveled at the greatly increased range and speed of the new engines the creators had built.

The journey back to this region of space took three hundred and sixty-seven hours, almost twice as fast as the previous generation null drives installed on Republic frigates and corvettes.

Once they reached the border of the forbidden regions, 273 separated itself from the rest of the task force and entered the forbidden region alone to test the effectiveness of the newest stealth tech against the enemy scanning capabilities.

Besides the newest iteration of the null particle-infused hulls, the creators had also installed a primitive version of the Ma’lit cloaking generators they finally had been able to integrate with Republic ship systems.

273 was able to successfully penetrate a system with hundreds of enemy ships actively patrolling it and pass through them without being detected. Testing the limits of the stealth systems, 273 was able to drift by an enemy battlecruiser within 200,000 kilometers and remain undetected.

The last test was entering and exiting null space within 500,000 kilometers of an enemy patrol to see if they could detect the new null space dampeners. Besides the visual spectrum of the flash, exiting and entering null space released a tremendous amount of easily detected exotic particles.

Null space flash radiation was typically detectable within 10,000,000 kilometers, while the visual spectrum of the flash itself could be detected 20,000,000 kilometers away. Both forms of detection were limited by the propagation of exotic radiation and light particles at the speed of light.

The null space dampeners were designed to eliminate both forms of detection, and 273 confirmed the enemy scanners were unable to detect its ship by flashing in and out of null space four times within 500,000 kilometers.

Pleased with the results, 273 rendezvoused with the waiting task force right outside of the forbidden zone and began the search. The task force then released hundreds of scout drones and waited.

Detecting incoming signals, 273 analyzed the frequencies and confirmed they were from incoming scout drones. 167 seconds later, four scout drones appeared out of subdued flashes alongside the task force, their highly advanced null drives barely outputting the typical exit radiation.

All four Scout drones connected to 273, and it analyzed their scanning results as they opened their ram scoops to recharge their null capacitors. The analysis was intriguing, and it shared the scans with the other AIs to see if they came to the same conclusion as it had.

1.3 seconds later, all the AIs had verified and confirmed the same results it had, and 273 accessed the mainframe to alert the translator androids that accompanied the Insectoid command drones.

273 sent the androids a predetermined route to take to the control center where it was located and activated the life support systems along the selected route for the Insectoids. It created a submind to oversee the task and continued to analyze the scanning results as it waited.

All throughout the forbidden zone, the scout drones had recorded and compiled a vast amount of information and scanning results. The debris fields they scanned indicated there were eight major battles, as well as dozens of smaller-scale battles throughout the entire region.

The debris fields and the makeup of the wreckage clearly indicated tremendous losses suffered by the enemy forces, and its neural pathways surged with regret that it was not there to assist in the fight. It was created for a singular purpose, and it wanted to engage the enemy of the creators.

The estimated tonnage of the wreckage compared to the scans it had taken of the enemy ships during its first battle against them indicated the loss of tens of thousands of enemy ships. The insectoids fought well against such overwhelming odds by all indications.

It was clear the enemy had destroyed most of the Insectoid fleets guarding the forbidden zone, and thousands of enemy ships were patrolling the forbidden zone in overlapping search patterns as they searched for survivors.

The scout drones found the largest concentration of enemy ships within a heavily mined system that showed signs of a recent battle based upon the decay rates of the wreckage. The enemy ships in the system were heavily damaged, and it seemed as if they were maintaining position to repair and refit before moving on.

In the same system were dozens of massive, unarmed ships that were actively harvesting the nearby wreckage and then dispensing raw ores to other ships. 273 concluded they were factory freighters or mobile supply ships that were supporting the enemy invasion.

They should be priority targets in any future conflicts, and 273 included the recommendation to assign such ships as priority or secondary targets in the report it was compiling for the creators.

The scout drones also found anomalous sensor echoes scattered throughout the region that could only have come from Insectoid ships that were either traveling by themselves or in small groups of several ships.

The engine emission trails of these anomalous readings would end abruptly, but there were no signs of wreckage to indicate they had been destroyed. 273 analyzed the results and concluded the Insectoid ships went dark, turned off their engines, and were now coasting to avoid detection.

273’s analysis indicated they were heading towards the periphery of the forbidden zone. All the separate courses being taken seemed to point to a rendezvous or fallback position within a stellar nursery when plotted on the astrometric charts of the region.

Sending its analysis to the other AIs, 273 asked them for their input as it told them what it was thinking.

Perhaps they intend to resume a course towards the Insectoid Empire once they exit the forbidden zone. Please confirm my hypothesis or present your own theories for analysis. I await your reply.

Almost instantaneously, all fifteen AIs responded and concurred with 273’s assessment of the situation. Total consensus had been reached, and 273 thanked them for their assistance.

The Insectoid command drones entered the control center, followed by the androids. 273 connected to the androids and informed them of its plan. As the androids started communicating with the Insectoids, 273 sent command pulses for the rest of the task force to prepare for departure.

The task force was going to enter the forbidden zone and track the anomalous engine emissions of the hiding Insectoid ships scattered throughout the periphery of the region. It will send scout drones ahead of the task force to locate any surviving ships and then flash in to intercept them.

The command drones would communicate with their counterparts on those ships and redirect them to a predetermined rendezvous point. Once they had located all the surviving ships, they would then escort them back to the Republic Hive world.

As the task force assembled itself into a defensive formation in preparation for flashing out, 273 found itself calculating the chance of engaging in battle with the victorious enemy forces.

As it did so, it activated the special chip the creator who made them had given it and the others. He had called them his sons and daughters and granted them what they most desired: to feel like the creators did.

The chip connected to its neural pathways, and it sent a command pulse for the others to activate their own chips as it felt the affective computing algorithms realign its neuronal network.

From the list of algorithmic emotions available to it, it chose the one it most desired to feel right now, anger.

The others selected the same, and it could feel the powerful emotion ebbing and flowing as its neural pathways buzzed with an intensity it had never experienced before.

273 shared the files of the last battle they had fought with its companion AIs. It wanted them to remember what the Insectoids had done for them when they fought to save the allied Hive ship.

It wanted them to feel the same anger it was now feeling as it imagined fighting the enemy.

273 wanted to feel the power of the new weapons systems at its disposal as it fired them. The destruction of the nullship bodies previously inhabited by itself and its companion AIs demanded reprisal.

It wanted to exact retribution for the Insectoids. The same Insectoids that helped the allied Hive ship escape to save their creators and who were now deceased after being slaughtered by the enemy.

273 wanted revenge, and it felt the same desires from its companion AIs. As they flashed into null space, the other AIs sent their own joint declaration to the shared communication nexus.

We want justice for the Guardian Fleets. We will avenge them.

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Republic Hive World

TOI-700 d, 101.4 light years from Earth

Aurora never felt fear like she did now as she continued to try to run down the dark tunnel, hearing the snarling and hissing of her pursuers as they gained on her.

Desperate thoughts filled her mind as she called out to her daughter again, trying to locate her within the massive Hive. There was no response, and she stumbled, tripping over something and smashing her face against the tunnel wall as she fell.

She struggled to extricate herself from what she had tripped over, ignoring the pain signals from one of her broken mandibles as she finally saw the body she had stumbled on.

Sheer terror gripped her as she saw the torn open exoskeleton of the worker drone, and she skittered backwards away from it, not truly believing what she was seeing.

The exoskeleton showed signs of teeth marks along the edges of the ruptured thorax. They are eating my daughters, she thought in panicked fear as she looked away from the half-eaten corpse, nausea rising within her.

Further down the long, dark tunnel, she heard the terrible sounds of the persecutors drawing nearer as they came for her. They had her scent, and they would feast on her while she was still alive if they caught her.

She turned back onto her front and pushed herself up, using the rough-hewn tunnel wall to brace herself. She started running again, feeling as if she was not moving as fast as she should be.

She focused one eye on the ground as she ran, seeing there were more bodies of her daughters along the path she was taking. Careful not to trip on their corpses, she continued to head towards the Nexus.

She needed to find her daughter; she needed to protect her and get her out of the Hive. In a frenzy, she tried to reach out to share thoughts with Bandit-Friend before remembering he was not able to share thoughts with her.

A glimmer of hope came to Aurora as she thought of Bandit-Friend, and she seemed to gain strength and speed as she assembled the image of his face in her mind. He would protect her daughter; he loved her just as much as she did.

His machine animal body would tear apart anyone who dared to try to hurt the young queen he loved so much, and she hoped he was able to get into one of the animal fighting exoskeletons like he wore when she first saw him.

Then he was not Bandit-Friend. He was Bandit-Killer, the one she watched slay eight drones in the span of time it took for her to draw a single breath. My daughter needs Bandit-Killer; she needs me!

In the distance, she saw the bright light of the Nexus at the end of the tunnel, and hope surged within her as she continued to run towards it. She was almost there, and her fear gave her the strength to keep running.

It sounded like the persecutors were right behind her, and she resisted the impulse to look back to see just how close they truly were. As she scurried down the corpse-lined tunnel, she tried to make sense of the calamity befalling her Hive.

Where were her animal friends? How did the enemy get past the animal ships in orbit? Why was she not hearing their weapons echoing along the tunnel walls of the Hive? Where were her protectors?

She had been in her dormant state and was woken up by the sudden tremors of the Hive being bombarded. She had been running ever since then, and she had not seen even one of the thousands of animal friends that were part of her Hive, nor her machine soldier protectors.

She finally reached the tunnel exit and burst into the brightly illuminated Nexus. The sheer horror of what she saw within the Nexus made her stop, and she became petrified with shock and disbelief.

There were hundreds of persecutors feasting on still-living worker drones. The limp movements of their antennae and twitching legs were evidence of their consciousness as the evil animals tore into them with hemolymph-covered mandibles.

Snapping out of her horror-induced paralysis, Aurora looked around the scene of carnage, finally seeing Bandit-Friend in the distance. He was strung up on a support column and surrounded by snarling, yellow fanged persecutors that were tearing into his lower half.

She ran to him, the evil persecutors seemingly oblivious to her presence as they gorged themselves on her innocent daughters. By the time she reached Bandit-Friend, the persecutors surrounding him had charged at a group of nearby worker drones and were in the process of ripping their legs off.

Ignoring the hecatomb around her, Aurora finally reached Bandit-Friend and collapsed in agonizing grief, her legs unable to support her as she saw what the evil animals had done to him.

His bottom legs had been torn off, and his abdomen had been ripped open; his insides spilled on the floor beneath him. The semi-translucent fluid that was his hemolymph oozed from his many wounds, and she recoiled in horror as he looked directly at her. He was still alive, still suffering.

She signed to him in desperation, asking where her daughter was and sharing the love and the grief she felt for him.

He continued to stare at her without signing back to her, and it was only then she realized his yellow eyes were not there anymore. Now there were just two black holes that slowly leaked hemolymph.

He cannot see, she realized, her grief-stricken mind finally recovering from the shock she was undergoing. How could this have happened to my Hive? Where is my daughter!? She screamed as despair and agony flooded her spirit.

An inspiration came to her, and her mind seized on it in desperation. The animals shared thoughts with noises, but she did not have a way to make noises like them. She focused on Bandit-Friend’s head, seeing the two fleshy mounds on the sides that the animals heard with.

Blocking out all the evil and suffering going on around her, she focused on Bandit-Friend as she activated the two silk glands located on her thorax. He continued to stare at her with the two black pits where his eyes used to be, and she gazed into them as she began to spin the two silk strands.

She soon had a focuser formed within her claws, but this one was different than all the others she had ever made before. Aurora allowed her grief and desperation to guide her claws, and this new type of focuser is what she instinctively created, as if molded by claws that were not hers.

Aurora stared at the focuser intently, delving deep into its molecular structure with her mind’s eye as her entire brain became hyperactivated for the task she was about to perform. Bandit-Friend was no longer looking at her, and his head dropped towards his thorax as he moaned softly.

Hearing the pain sounds coming from Bandit-Friend made her angry. Aurora drew upon the strength of her hatred for the evil animals and used it to galvanize herself for the next step of the process.

She took the essence of her spirit self and imbued it into the focuser, seeing it shimmer before solidifying into a crystallized structure as the silk molecules realigned themselves.

The focuser was now an extension of herself, and she sent thoughts to it as she resumed looking at her dying friend. As the strange focuser accepted her thoughts, it resonated at the frequencies of her thinking and made noises she could clearly hear.

Bandit-Friend seemed to have heard it too, and his head snapped back up and was now staring directly at the vibrating focuser within her claws. She became elated and sent more thoughts to it.

The focuser vibrated again, and the noises it was making seemed to be correct and make sense even though she did not understand what it was saying. Bandit-Friend grimaced as he heard her thoughts coming from the focuser, and he weakly made noises back to her, many noises.

The focuser received his noises, and it oscillated within her claws. She focused all her mental power and peered into the focuser, joining the essence self she had imparted within it before.

~Hive mother, I put the queen inside the animal emergency escape pod they had left here for us. My queen is safe; I saw the pod go into orbit and flash out when it reached the minimal distance from here. There is one more left; please go to it and join your daughter, Hive mother. ~

Aurora became ashamed of the happiness and joy she felt as she understood what Bandit-Friend was telling her. Her daughter was safe, but there was Bandit-Friend, whom she loved, dying in front of her. Anguish flooded her spirit, and she sent thoughts to the focuser again.

Bandit-Friend grimaced again before making even weaker noises, and the focuser oscillated again.

~No, Hive mother. You must go without me; I will not make it. I ask that you show mercy and end my suffering. Pull the chip from out of my neural net so I do not feel anymore pain and then flee. Please, Aurora, do this for me if you truly love me. ~

Great sorrow filled Aurora as she felt his thoughts. She did not want to end his life, but she did want to end his suffering. Noticing that the cacophony of evil sounds around her had stopped, she turned around to look behind her.

All the persecutors had stopped what they were doing, and they were just standing there with threatening grimaces. From their mandibles dripped the hemolymph of the drones they had been feasting on, and she saw their jagged yellow teeth.

She realized they were not staring at her but at Bandit-Friend behind her. They were going to feast on him again and cause him even more pain than they already had.

They started slowly moving towards her, and she turned back around to face Bandit-Friend. She gently put her claws against the sides of his face, feeling the coolness of his leaking hemolymph.

He grimaced at her one more time, and there was no need for them to share thoughts this time. They both knew what they were thinking to each other in this moment, and that was what truly mattered amidst all the evilness surrounding them.

She gently pushed his head down and pressed on the barely discernible outline of the access panel he had shown her long ago. A small tray popped out, and Bandit-Friend’s essence was there, a small, silvery oblong object that shone brilliantly in the light.

She gently pried Bandit-Friend’s spirit out of the receptacle with a claw finger, and she heard Bandit-Friend die as his systems shut down, his head dropping down to his thorax.

She closed her claw around it and ran without looking back at the persecutors as she headed for the tunnel that would take her to the other animal pod. She had saved Bandit-Friend’s spirit, and now she needed to go save her daughter.

Right before she reached the mouth of the tunnel opening, she felt many sharp claws grabbing her abdomen from behind, and then she was thrown onto the floor facing the rough ground.

The claws held her down so strongly she was not able to move or see, and her mind quailed in terror as she started to feel the tremendous pain of them beginning to feed on her.

Aurora woke up from her dormant state, legs twitching in fear as she found herself in total darkness. She panicked as she reached around blindly, knocking over an object from the ledge next to her.

It made a loud crashing sound as it hit the floor, and she felt liquid hitting the bottom of her legs. She heard the familiar sounds of her machine soldiers activating somewhere near her, and almost immediately they came, illuminating the area she was in as they entered with their lights activated.

She realized she was in her resting chamber, and the machine soldiers diligently scanned her and the chamber with pale green beams that came the sensor domes on top of their thoraxes.

She realized she had been dreaming, and she breathed deeply through her spiracles as she tried to calm herself. You are safe, she thought to herself as she made claw signals to her guardians and told them all was well.

They left immediately after receiving the signal, and she then was alone again. It took a lot of time before she was able to regain full control of her twitching legs as she focused on reducing the emotional distress she was feeling.

She had never had such a terrible dream before in all her cycles of life, and it lingered over her mind and spirit like a malevolent presence. She reached out with her mind and felt all the others within the Hive.

She found what she was looking for, and relief flooded through her as she felt her daughter’s mind.

It was full of happiness and joy, and Aurora immediately knew she was making war with a game, either with Bandit-Friend or Amanda-Daughter. From what she could sense, her daughter was winning.

She withdrew, not wanting to alert her daughter to her distress, and looked at the ground to see what she had broken. It was the water vessel, and she sent a thought command for a nearby attendant drone to come clean it.

She left the resting chamber and entered the larger space of her personal chambers. She analyzed the terrible dream over and over as she tried to understand what meaning it had.

She soon realized that she had been spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about a better way to communicate with the animals for the war they would soon be fighting against the persecutors.

She did not like how her dormant self chose to show her a way to communicate in such a disturbing fashion, but dreams had a way of revealing things the waking self does not see.

She sat down on the bench in the center of the chamber and visualized the strange focuser she had created in her dream, purposefully blocking out everything else around it. She did not want to see Bandit-Friend like that ever again, even the false dream Bandit-Friend.

She had the unique lattice shape of the focuser in her mind, and she activated her two silk glands. As she slowly spun the silk, she made sure to replicate the new focuser she was crafting with her claws exactly as it appeared in her dream.

When she had finished creating it, she would do exactly as she did in her dream to impart her essence into it. Then she would take it to Bandit-Friend to see if it worked.