The Hive Engineers

by Emilia Zeeland

  Eric’s chest felt like it was booming in time with Heidi’s bangs on the metal door he’d locked her behind. He entered the hangar, forcing the memory out of his mind. In each line of Bluedrops, pilots jumped in hurriedly. His eyes traveled down the length of each line.

  At the end of a corridor between Bluedrops, Sutton and Josie tracked the army’s readiness on a tablet. When Eric approached them, he saw the progress bar shine at sixty-five percent green. On the screen, more tiny virtual Bluedrops glowed green by the second.

  “Launch readiness in five,” Sutton said.

  Eric stilled the panicked voice inside that screamed for him to find Jen. “Heidi’s not flying.”

  Sutton’s cold stare studied him like she knew he had been the driver behind that deviation from the plan, and not Heidi.

  Josie seemed to fight some sort of a bodily reaction, rolling her shoulders back. “Then I’ll step in.”

  “No!” Sutton’s scream cut the air in a way Eric had never heard from her before. What did Yalena always say? Sutton was the brains; Josie was the spark.

  “We need you up here in the control room.” Sutton tried to recover, then turned to Eric. “That’s Chris’ plan. Josie’s leading a team, which is far more important than one more pilot out there. She’s coordinating—and that’s better done from afar.”

  Eric evaluated Josie for a second. “She’ll have to coordinate them from the field.”

  Sutton’s lip trembled, but she didn’t argue back. Josie’s eyes shone with determination, even if they appeared too glossy. She placed both her hands on Sutton’s shoulders in a way that looked intimate. “I’ll be all right. We’ll win this.”

  Sutton reached out, palm to Josie’s face, and she leaned in for a kiss, which poured burning guilt into Eric’s body. He threw a frantic look around, but almost all pilots were in their Bluedrops. There was no going back on his decision.

  The second-year girls let go of each other quickly and with one final look at Sutton and Eric, Josie ran up to the nearest free Bluedrop. She slipped inside, which pushed the progress bar on Sutton’s tablet to ninety-five percent readiness.

  “Where’s Jen?” Eric whispered.

  “She’s back in the line, there.” Sutton threw her arm in the direction she meant, but her gaze stayed on Josie’s Bluedrop. Leaving the weight of Heidi’s substitution with Josie to fully sink in later, Eric ran until he saw them. Nico had secured himself onto the floor of Jen’s Bluedrop with a secondary safety belt. He clutched the box with the RWD in front of his chest. Eric couldn’t bring himself to give him more than a quick nod.

  Jen was on a ladder, climbing up to her seat, but she cast a gaze down at Eric. Her usual looped ponytail was tight and smooth, like it used to be back in the academy days, back before Dana’s research had landed in her lap with what was humanity’s last weapon and possibly their biggest sin.

  She looked stoic, even guarded. “No goodbyes. I’ll see you soon.”

  Despite the confidence that her voice conveyed, Eric still thought this was wishful thinking, avoidance even, but he couldn’t argue.

  Sutton approached, her progress bar now showing ninety-nine percent readiness. “Are you all set?”

  Jen tucked herself inside the Bluedrop and let the translucent screen close over her and Nico in the back. Almost automatically, Eric inserted his earpiece and tapped on it. Nico had arranged a private channel for the three of them.

  Sutton didn’t seem to mind. She’d be busy enough coordinating her squad. However, she did signal for him to follow her, but Eric delayed his reaction, staring at Jen through the bluish translucent glass.

  “What’s wrong?” Her voice came over the comms.

  Eric couldn’t say a word—he couldn’t lie to her and he couldn’t be honest. “Stay safe.”

  Jen gave him a flat smile meant to acknowledge how afraid he must be for her and how paralyzed she probably felt.

  “We’ll do our best,” Nico said. “And good news—the Martian team figured out how the serum can be tweaked to protect humans for sure. We almost had it right in our best solution. Jea’s taken over the lab to produce the final serum. It will work.”

  With great effort, Eric nodded, even though he wanted to scream. He wanted to confront Nico or at the very least to throw back at him the unfairness of the situation. Timing was everything. What good was a serum that definitely worked, if it wasn’t ready yet? If Jen’s odds were still in the realm of ‘probably will survive the RWD’?

  Eric could only pluck out a single feeling from the whirlwind of emotions in his heard. “I love you, Jen.”

  Her voice was hoarse. “I love you too.”

  Eric walked out with Sutton, resisting the urge to look back. They hurried to the control room, where Cooper had already settled into the commander’s chair. A few operators pulled up images from Bluedrops on their screens. Eric sunk in a chair between two empty seats—Jea’s and Josie’s.

  “What happened?” Cooper asked, his gaze darting between the empty chairs on either side of Eric.

  Eric held his gaze with determination. “Jea’s gone to the lab to work on a new version of the serum. Josie’s in the field replacing Heidi.”

  A muscle in Cooper’s cheek twitched.

  “Change of plans.” Eric hoped to sound calm, not guilty.

  Judging by the piercing stare Cooper gave him, he’d seen this was Eric’s doing, but he didn’t question it, probably fighting relief that Heidi had stayed behind.

  On the other side of Josie’s empty seat, Sutton shifted upright. “It’s starting.”

  The Bluedrop cameras gave them a wide view of the migration ship. It was breaking Earth’s atmosphere, ready to descend.

  Eric tapped his earpiece again. “We have your visual,” he said to Nico and Jen. While the rest of the control room would be switching between cameras to keep track of the entire attack, he’d only be monitoring the Bluedrop with Jen, Nico and the RWD.

  “Squad 14, in position,” Sutton said. It was the squad she’d lead. As promised by Chris, it was loaded with STAR Academy students and a few Moonie pilots that were particularly good at flips and stunts. They were meant to protect Nico and Jen’s Bluedrop by creating a swirl around it, mad enough to look chaotic, so the Fians would never suspect that Bluedrop was the key. Josie’s squad 37 mixed in with the mad knot of swooping Bluedrops, distracting attention from Nico and Jen’s Bluedrop further. It was a smokescreen of swooshing silvery-blue ships.

  From the cameras of the Earthling Bluedrops, Eric saw the shadow Farsight cast over Earth. Its black form hung high, like an alien ship in those ancient movies where they rained fire on all human landmarks. But the Fians didn’t fire.

  They were relying on the mass and sturdiness of their ship to survive the Bluedrops’ blasts. It was the final confirmation that Yalena had deciphered their plan. They wanted to land, not to fight. They wanted to turn humans into Fians, not kill them. Why, Eric still fought to fathom, but it hardly mattered.

  “What if the Bluedrops’ fire isn’t enough?” Eric asked in a voice steeped in panic.

  “Steady, O’Donnell,” Chris said. “The Bluedrops aren’t meant to bring the ship down. They’re meant to get your girlfriend on board so she can do it.”

  But the image of the Fian ship burned in front of Eric’s eyes as he hardly blinked. He shouldn’t have let Jen go out there. He should have thought of something else. Anything else.

  The army of Bluedrops hovered around Farsight like a swarm of bees. Eric stared, unblinking, at the migration ship, alert for any sign of their allies, but the ship only drew closer to Earth.

  “If we don’t stop them, they’ll land in the desert near Las Vegas,” Sutton said.

  The seconds passed painfully.

  “Eric, they’ve breached the atmosphere,” Chris shouted. “Whatever you’re going to do, do it now!”

  “Jen, get closer to the gate,” Eric said.

  “It’s not open.” Her voice was strained. “If we h
over there, it would tip off the Fians.”

  Eric’s heart boomed in his chest. He could feel his heartbeat reverberating through his entire body, especially in his hands, balled into fists, but he refused to think of defeat. Yalena had never let him down. If she trusted the clones, they’d come through. They had to.

  The dizzying dance of the Bluedrops on the screen continued. It must look ridiculous to the Fians, who had by now surely realized that the Bluedrops’ weapons could do no harm to their ship.

  “We’re so screwed it they don’t open up.” Chris swore in between giving his squad directions.

  But Eric’s eyes were drawn to a blinking signal on the screen. A message request.

  “Incoming,” Cooper said, and it took Eric a second to realize he didn’t mean the message. On the radar screen, a formation of a dozen mid-sized ships flashed into view.

  Eric quickly accepted the message request and Bako’s Nigerian accent sounded in the room.

  “My friends,” he said. “Let it be known that in this conflict, Mars stands with you.”

  Eric’s jaw dropped, but Cooper and Chris laughed in unison.

  “Typical Bako,” Cooper said. “You complain all the while, but you come through in the end.”

  Eric let a warm wave of hope spread through his chest. The Martians busted into the cloud of Bluedrops, lasers blazing at Farsight. The Fian ship remained stoic, but the lasers scorched stripes up its length. The few weapons on the migration ship locked in on the Martian navy and fired back at them. A bigger target was easier to hit than the countless quick Bluedrops. The Fians blew out an engine on one of the Martian ships after a series of shots, but with the other one intact, and with Cooper’s directions, the Martian ship was able to land in the desert.

  “This is it,” Eric said on the line to Jen. “They’re focused on the Martian fleet. Use the opening to get closer.”

  Jen breathed heavily on the line without a response. Eric knew better than to break her focus, so he followed the dot marking the position of her Bluedrop on the screen. It edged closer to the ship, closer to the hoverbike vent the clones had promised to open.

  “Second Martian ship incapacitated,” Cooper shouted over Sutton’s instructions to her squad. “They’re too easy a target. We need to do this now.”

  Jen was almost at the ship, now adjusting her speed to match Farsight’s push to get to the ground. “It’s not opening. What do I do?”

  Eric stared stubbornly at the video transmitted by the Bluedrop’s camera. Any second now. The vent had to open.

  “My friend,” Bako’s voice made Eric’s stomach clench. “We might be more useful on the ground. This ship is going to land.”

  “Hold your position,” Cooper shouted in response. “We need that distraction.”

  “Eric?” Jen wailed in panic. “What do I do?”

  The solution became painfully clear among the shouts of commands in the control room.

  “They can’t open it now,” Eric said. “The Fians aren’t sending any smaller ships out to fight the Bluedrops, so all hangars remain closed. If the clones open a gate now, Felix would see it.”

  “Well, if a swarming cloud of Bluedrops won’t make them come out and fight us, nothing will,” Chris said.

  Eric grasped frantically for a way out. After all the time, all the work, all the discussions, they couldn’t just fight the clones. The RWD was the answer.

  Eric stubbornly pushed for a solution. “Jen, do you have a repair kit on the Bluedrop?”

  “Sure, but—”

  Before she’d voiced her concern, Eric continued. “You need to latch yourself onto the body of the ship, right over the gate they’re meant to open. Melt the Bluedrop and the clones will open the gate.”

  “No way,” Cooper said. “It would draw too much attention.”

  Chris exhaled deeply on the line. “Not if we all do it. Link the Bluedrops and push back Farsight.”

  “This isn’t the cell of a shield in a training exercise,” Josie jumped in over the comms. Her words brought up the stunt she, Sutton, Heidi and Yalena had pulled off last year. “We can’t fry an entire migration ship.”

  “Probably not,” Chris said, “But they don’t know that and a stunt like this will draw their attention. Swarming around them isn’t a defense. They’ll suspect we have another plan sooner or later.”

  “Fine,” Cooper said. “Do it.”

  “And the Martian ships?” Eric asked.

  “Bako,” Cooper pressed a switch to get him on the line. “Land with the Martian navy. Jen and Nico will need time to get the RWD working. Set up a wide parameter around the projected landing spot. Your goal is to contain the Fians.”

  “Copy that,” Bako said. He interrupted the connection, no doubt to relay Eric’s orders.

  Then, only the hollow sound of static sounded for a long moment before Sutton interrupted it. “I don’t get it. Why land in the middle of the Nevada desert, if they mean to turn humans into Fians? There are no people there.”

  Eric’s jaw tightened with the feeling that they had missed something, a clue mentioned by Yalena or the clones, but he didn’t have the luxury of dwelling on it.

  On the main screen, dozens of Bluedrops charged toward Farsight. In a window at the bottom right of the screen, he saw the view from Jen’s ship. Her Bluedrop drew closer and closer to the gate that would hopefully be their way in.

  Chris and Josie had gone silent, no doubt each on their own channel coordinating the attack, just like Sutton was doing on Eric’s left.

  At her command, Sutton’s squad surrounded Jen’s Bluedrop. They linked together, a faint blue light spreading through the chain like electricity. Above and below them, more squads fell into place, becoming threads of the electric cover that stiffened like a wall. Chris had been right. It was a move big enough to look like their ultimate play.

  The Bluedrops locked into position, like pieces of a puzzle, and pushed forward, grinding against the outside of the Fian migration ship. And then they pushed Farsight back.

  Jen’s fingers flew over the controls as she put the Bluedrop in autopilot. The gate pressing against the nose of her Bluedrop slid open. Eric’s heart leapt. By the nervous array of sighs Jen let out, so had hers. She stretched out her fingers, reaching for the controls again.

  “Wait,” Nico warned, from the screen. “If you open the Bluedrop now, it will waver.”

  “He’s right,” Cooper said. “Someone needs to man the controls to re-balance.”

  “Let me.” Eric watched Nico squeeze out of his tight spot in the back, while Jen moved out of the way. In the confined space of the Bluedrop, she was hovering over him, a bit closer than Eric would have liked.

  And then the sound of melting metal made Eric focus on a tiny trail of molten red, forming a semicircle. In a minute, the shape was complete. The melted bit of the Bluedrop’s nose collapsed inward. Behind it, the face of a woman they’d only ever seen in Lexa’s tablet looked back at them.

  “Hurry,” Veronica’s clone said.

  Eric willed Jen into motion a few long moments before she reached out through the round opening. Her body cam showed black with flashes of the Bluedrop, while Jen was hauled on board Farsight.

  “Nico?” she called out with alarm.

  “Get the RWD,” he said.

  In a window at the bottom left of the main screen, Eric could see the view from Nico’s body cam. One hand stably on the control lever, he handed the safety bag with the device over to the clone that had squeezed through the opening, far enough in to accept it.

  She weaseled out, but after a second her face popped back into view. “You have to come now.”

  Nico hesitated, hands grasping the controls. “It will only hold for a minute after I let go.”

  Veronica’s clone nodded, but his words didn’t seem to dissuade her. She reached out both arms. Nico stood without letting go of the controls, then he shouted ‘now’, let go and wrapped his hands around her elbows as she locked he
r grip around his. She had pulled him halfway through when a spark drew Eric’s attention up to the left corner of the split screen—the view from Chris’ body cam.

  Chris swore in between grunts. “Steady hands, folks. Keep in position.”

  By the way Sutton had fallen silent, Eric could tell Chris was live to all the Bluedrops in the network. The blue links forming the chain sizzled with the pressure of all the Bluedrops fighting to grind Farsight to a halt.

  “Nico?” Eric called out. On the screen, he could only see flashes of darkness and color.

  “Is he stuck?” Jen moved to the side to see behind Veronica’s clone.

  At that moment, the clone took a step back and Nico’s head popped into view. He had let himself get dragged on board. Jen’s breathing had gotten so shallow, Eric could hear every rasp. But his eyes flew to the main screen, drawn to the sparks that cracked along the length of the linked Bluedrops.

  “He’s on board,” Eric said. “Chris, you can unlink.”

  Chris grunted on the line, before dragging out a reply. “We’ve got them locked. I think we can bring Farsight down.”

  Cooper whirled back, eyes flashing to Eric and then Sutton. “It’s not going to hold, Chris. Unlink now.”

  “This ship is a beast, but it’s ancient,” Chris argued back. “A little while longer and we’re going to fry it. Then, it will be up to you to contain the Fians on the ground. With any luck, they might not make it through the impact.”

  Cooper’s lips pressed together and he closed his eyes for a moment that felt like eternity.

  The door behind Eric slid open, but before he even glanced back, Heidi burst in. She gawked at Eric, eyes sparkling with rage, but she didn’t shout at him. Yet. “What happened?”

  Eric nodded at the screen. Heidi whirled around to take in the view of the dozens of Bluedrops over the black form of the Fian ship—like a sizzling blanket of electricity.

  “Chris,” Cooper said. “The Bluedrops are at sixteen percent charge. They won’t hold much longer.”

  “Then you’d better organize your defenses on the ground fast,” Chris said through pants of exertion. “Pilots, hold your positions.”