Myo stared at Dr. Regda, her mind flashing to a hundred different things. It didn’t make sense, none of it did.

“But…they attacked us.”

“Oh, yes, they did,” Regda said. “I didn’t know why, exactly, until the humans told us that they’d lost at Tau Ceti. Lost! Gods, their force was overwhelming, they should have been well into taking Earth apart by now. Those Acolytes, though, they’re new. Probably threw a wrinkle into the plan. And the power they pack…I would imagine if Dr. Freeman knew how to unleash that from a capital ship, it would be devastating.

“Anyhow, that must have been quite a shock to them, and that triggered the Hive’s civil war. But at the very least, they’ve managed to right the ship here, and they will honor our previous agreement.”

“What the frak are you talking about?” Myo fairly shouted. “You’re with the frakking bugs?”

“Quiet!” Regda barked. “Look, it is only because of the time I’ve spent working with your parents that I’ve drug you this far. It would have been much easier to leave you in the school, but when things started to go bad, they asked me to get you out safely. And that is what I will do. But I do not have time to debate this with you. They will take us once they’ve secured Vidol. We need to be ready to go the second they get here.”

“You let the others die. The kids…the teachers…and you were working with them?”

“We were working for a group within the Empire. One that was working to protect our way of life. We were recruited to pass information in a way that would not arouse suspicion.”

“Recruited by who?”

“A noble resistance against the mongrelization of our people, and the greatest threat to Titan supremacy in this region of the galaxy.”

“You said you were with the bugs, though….”

Regda rolled his eyes. “The bugs? The bugs are no threat to the Empire. They are stupid, weak. They wield their power in a rough and clumsy way. They are not our enemy.”

“Then who….” Myo’s jaw dropped. “You can’t mean the humans!”

“Forty years ago they did not have airplanes, and today they have fighters more powerful than ours. Do you want your grandchildren to see what power they have forty years from now?”

“But they’re our allies!”

“You don’t read Ganas, do you? They are our allies only because for this moment, we have the upper hand. They can’t move against us. Not yet. But they will. We kept them as pets, do you honestly think, Miss Usilu, that they will forget that, and move on? Do you honestly think that when they have the power, that they will treat us better than we treated them?”

Regda sighed. “But as I said, I am not debating this. You are a child, and you see them as tiny and weak. You are not old enough to understand.”

Myo blinked back tears. She didn’t know, or much care, if the humans would someday turn on them. She had seen what the bugs were capable of. Working with those monsters…it was unforgivable.

She walked over to Stauseo.

“What are you doing?” Redga asked.

“I’m checking to make sure he isn’t waking up,” she said. “If he heard any of that, we could be in trouble. You, my parents…we can’t let him report back that you were with them.”

“Hmm. I doubt he’ll live to tell anyone, but you’re right, better safe than sorry.”

Myo knelt down beside the criminal. He had crumpled into a ball when he’d been hit by the stun weapon, but he was breathing. He was alive.

“Was he carrying a weapon? It is probably easiest to kill him now. Don’t worry, I won’t make you do it. I truly am sorry for the horror you have endured. None of us like the bugs. We just are willing to use them as the tools they are.”

“Let me check, I don’t see it yet,” Myo lied. Vif had grabbed the Imperial officer’s sidearm when he died; it had fallen to the ground, and he had fallen on it. It was shielded from Regda’s view.

“Give me a moment,” Regda said, tapping beside his right eye. “I’m going to signal the insects what I know about Vidol’s position, let them….”

A sudden ka-thoom shook the ground, causing Redga to stumble. It was followed by three more, in quick succession, and then a series of them.

The Acolytes were back.

Regda regained his balance. Frakking bugs. Too slow, as always. Still, he had Myo; they would wait it out. There would be reinforcements soon enough. And….

“What are you doing?” he said.

Myo was still kneeling, facing Regda, holding a phase pistol that had belonged to Utti Larasin, and briefly, to Vif Stauseo. She had it aimed, with both hands, right at him.

“You can’t be serious. I saved your life, twice, you ungrateful brat! You owe me!”

“You’re a traitor,” Myo said.

“Far from it. I love the Empire. The traitors are in our legislature, our feckless representatives. I work for good people, honorable patriots – martyrs like Ziah Solis and Syon Fand, rebels like Jota Cesil and Scylane Rimosi, patriots like Vasha Zakrov and Eras Kameo.”

“Who the frak is Eras Kameo?”

“Your parents know him well. He was the man who recruited all of us. He would like you, I think. You’re wrong, but you care, and you’re willing to fight. When you meet him, he’ll explain.”

“He’s not going to meet me, you frakker.”

“Like I said, willing to fight. But not willing to kill, I don’t think.”

“Want to find out?” Myo asked, as he reached toward his ear, his hidden weapon.

“Oh, I have no doubt. You don’t have it in you. You’re not a killer. Look, I’ll stun you. It won’t hurt, not much, anyhow, and when you wake up….”

Myo would always wonder where Regda thought they’d be when she woke up. But never quite enough to regret the shot she fired, catching him square, and killing him instantly.

* * *

“We need the entry point,” Ahek called. “Where are they coming from?”

“Nine, it’s likely subterranean,” Lauren Wilson replied. “Can anyone get infrared?”

“Six, this is 26, we’re trying, but looking through the crossfire is like looking into the sun,” I Young-ja said. “Not recommending the gunners stop.”

“Affirm 26,” Ahek said. “We’ll keep shooting until there’s nothing left.”

Hercule studied the sensors; there wasn’t much else to do. He was superfluous, sitting in the jump seat of the 24. They didn’t need him to function, and he was trying his best to stay out of the way. Everything seemed to be happening around him, and he wasn’t sure why. He had always been full of bravado, full of himself. Always the brave one.

He had been ablaze with dreams of glory when he’d been assigned to Wing Two. He’d been so wrong. He….

He turned his head. It was a radar echo. Radar. It still had its uses, and they had theirs on, obviously – no reason to hide when you’re in a dogfight. It collided with the ground, and then muddied, as you’d expect, except for one locus.

“I have it. I have the hole,” he said. “On the ground, fourteen klicks north by northwest from the firefight.”

“Odsa,” Nallapati said, “do you see it too?”

“A moment, busy here, sir,” Odsetseg said, as she loosed the 24’s guns. “Okay, Hercule, it’s…184.2 mark 93.2?”

“Affirm, Odsa.”

“Yes, that’s it. I can see it on radar.”

“Nine, this is 24,” Jerome said. “Mr. Desroches has our attack point. Sending coordinates through.”

“Nice work!” Uɉa said. “Six, stay over the ground forces. 24, 26, with me. Let’s send them back to hell.”

* * *

Glyta fired indiscriminately. There was no point in being choosy about targets, it felt like there was a sea of targets. Even with the Acolytes dropping warriors by the score, more simply clambered over the dead, an onrushing wave that was tempered less by their weapons and more by the simple choke point that they were in.

Her weapon bleeped as it hit 25 percent power. She pulled back, and exchanged it with Vidol, who handed her the replacement. “Last one,” she said, and Glyta nodded.

They’d been replacing power packs with spares. If they had been an actual platoon, they’d have dozens of spares, but they didn’t have that luxury. Vidol had just swapped in the last spare they had; after this, Glyta would be using power packs with 25 percent charge or lower, and firing until they were spent.

Embassy-Guard was out, his breathing shallow and ragged. Mpola stroked his head gently.

Across the sea of warriors, a group of them were entering a hole, one-by-one, and being blasted. They would clear out the dead, then send in another, over and over. They were patient. There were happy to sacrifice individual warriors to wear down the two large bipedal mammals and one hexapodal reptile in the hole. They would run out of power for their weapons, and when they did, the warriors would drag them out, first to be studied, then consumed.

Inside the hole, Sibel kept firing away, trying to avoid allowing that strategy to succeed. She was careful to fire only when she saw them, only when it was clear, and only as much as she had to. Nevertheless, all three of the people in the hole knew it was a losing effort. Eventually the power would run out, or their ability to stay conscious would run out, and the insectoids would have them.

Myo knelt by Vif, who was just now stirring. “Are you okay?” she said.

“What happened?” he muttered.

“When you came around the corner,” Myo said….

She paused. “Dr. Regda…he was claiming to be working with the Insectoids. He had a stun gun, hidden as part of his ear,” she said. She handed Vif the gun, which she’d retrieved from his corpse. “When you came around the corner, he fired on you. You fell…but not before returning fire.”

She handed Stauseo his gun. “You killed him. It’s okay,” she said. “He said he had an agreement with the bugs. He said they’d take him, and the rest of us…the rest of us….”

Vif rubbed his head. “Frak me,” he said, taking the gun. “He really said that?”

“Yeah, he did,” Myo said.

Vif holstered his gun. “You know, someone who’s stunned, they can’t return fire. It interferes with your neurons. Your hand spasms open, you can’t close it for a few seconds, by the time you can, you’ve collapsed.”

“I….”

He struggled to sit up. “What you tell them is that the gun discharged when I fell. That’s possible. And that way, nobody has to know.”

Myo blinked. “I had to….”

“If he said he was working with the bugs, I’ll be happy to claim accidental credit,” Vif said. “If either of us live to tell anyone, that is. Kid like you shouldn’t have to have a kill on your record, even in self-defense.”

“Thank you,” Myo said. “I didn’t…I thought….”

“He was working with the bugs, right?”

“He signaled them. That’s how they knew where we’d be.”

“Then kid, you did the right thing,” Vif said.

Both Myo and Vif turned, even before they were consciously aware of it.

So did the Ambassador, and Nasti, and Sibel.

So did Glyta, and Mpola. Even Embassy-Guard stirred, just a bit.

The subsonic rumble grew to audible, and then it grew to a roar. A third of a kilounit away, the ground was glowing red-hot, then yellow, and for a moment, ever-so-briefly, white.

The shockwave hit at the same time as the ground collapsed, falling thousands of feet into the chamber of warriors below it. Thousands of warriors were crushed and burned by falling, flaming liquid rock, heated to five thousand degrees kelvin by the combined, targeted firepower of three Acolytes. Hundreds more were killed as a sinkhole a tenth of a kilounit wide opened up, swallowing up warriors who were already trying to join the battle.

“Cease fire!” Ahek called. “Let’s clean it up!”

The three Acolytes screamed up and down the narrow path, firing at will at any bug that moved. It took just five minutes for them to finish, to end the threat, at least for the moment.

“Acolyte Nine to ground,” Ahek said, “we have cleared the threat.”

Glyta blinked, and looked out at the space. There was still the mass of dead bugs, but it was just that – a mass of the dead. Nothing moved. Nothing so much as twitched. An attacking force of almost four thousand bugs had been completely neutralized.

“Nicely done,” Mpola said. “Casualties…we have one officer down. Not sure about others, we’re split up. Glyta, get out there, go find the others.”

“Aye, ma’am,” Glyta said, though she had no interest in doing so. She forced herself to walk out into the desolate hellscape, and shout, “All clear! Everyone, come out, it’s all clear!”

For one horrible moment, she thought that there would be no response. But in a few moments, she heard a woman shout, “What the frak happened?”

“Acolytes burned ‘em all, ma’am,” Glyta called.

“Gorram,” Nasti said, climbing out of the hole. “Come on out, it’s clear. Vif! Myo! Where’s Regda?”

“Dead,” Vif said.

“That’s awful,” Glyta said.

“You’d think,” Vif replied.

* * *

“Okay,” Mpola Vidol said, looking at the holoprojection of the terrain. “Main path’s cut off by that huge, beautiful crater. We can detour around here and here, though. Shouldn’t add much time.”

“They have to know where we were going, though,” Ahek Uɉa said. “If Regda was really working with the bugs, he would have told them.”

“Of course he did,” Mpola said, “but we don’t have much choice. No other airfields anywhere near here, nothing we can get to on foot, and nothing with the hope of non-Insectoid ships. We’re just going to have to hope you have enough juice to blast us through.”

“Everyone’s over 40 percent,” Ahek said. “I’m not worried about power. But we’ll need to move. Clearly, their plan was to end it here. The longer we wait, the longer we give them to get reorganized.”

“Agreed,” Mpola said. “So you agree, no more attempts at deception, you fly CAP, we move double-time, and we get there as fast as we can.”

“Right.”

“Ma’am,” Nasti said, “Embassy-Guard is going to slow us down.”

“We aren’t going to leave him behind,” Mpola said.

“I just wanted you to be aware of it,” Nasti said. “I’ll carry him the first leg.”

Mpola nodded. “Understood. And you’re right to consider it, Nasti.”

“Col. Uɉa,” Hercule said, “If someone is willing to carry me, I think it might be wise to keep me on the ground, for communication.”

“I agree,” Ahek said.

Mpola nodded. “I understand you’re the one who first spotted the hole, Mr. Desrochers?”

“I was riding along after we lost the 22. I…was just trying to be useful.”

Mpola nodded. “Good. That’s what we need right now, everyone doing anything they can think of. But I will warn you…if things go bad, I will not hesitate to order your ships out. If you’re on an Acolyte….”

“Ma’am,” Hercule said, “Fatou and Isra already didn’t make it out.”

Mpola Vidol nodded. “I understand,” she said. “Ms. Idisoko, please carry Mr. Desrochers. Nasti, hold Embassy-Guard tight. And all of you…if you have to pee, do it now. We aren’t stopping again until we get there.”