The Hive Engineers

by Emilia Zeeland

  Bako and Stanley had split their forces into teams of two—a Martian and a Fian in each. The teams stood at the ready while Jea finalized her scan.

  “I found six more crawlers,” Jea said. “Sending you the coordinates now.”

  “Copy that,” Bako said. He fished out a silvery glove from the pocket of his uniform and slipped his hand into it, before throwing a quick glance at Alec. “Thanks for sharing your fist with us.” Then he faced his team again. “Now, let’s get those crawlers.”

  Six teams took off within seconds of Jea’s announcement.

  “Jea,” Yalena said in her comms. “There must be one more crawler out there.”

  “I can’t see it.” Jea huffed. “Maybe they have two Novofex dispersion devices in one crawler?”

  “Maybe,” was all Yalena could bring herself to say, but her gut told her they’d missed something. Another failsafe. Another hidden move.

  She blinked dust particles out of her eyes. The clones were still moving away from the parameter, running like scared animals. And then Vero’s warning rang in her ears again. The dedicated clones were closer to the ship, but if they weren’t meant to fight the Earthling and Martian resistance, then they had to be...

  “It’s in there,” Yalena said, eyes glaring in the direction of the Farsight crash site. “It has to be.”

  “But we’re in the desert,” Alec said. “There’s no water to disperse Novofex into.”

  Yalena inhaled again, deeper than she would’ve liked to in the dust cloud. It took her a little while to be certain after all the time she’d spent on Nova Fia in high humidity, but the air was growing denser, heavier, stickier.

  “Jea, do you have a meteorological view?” she asked. “Is it going to rain?”

  “Yes,” Jea said at once. “Clouds approaching fast from the north-west. You don’t think they...”

  “I do think,” Yalena interrupted. “They’re going to shoot the Novofex solution into the rain clouds.”

  Yalena saw it inside her mind. A solution of Novofex falling with every rain drop, bathing their skin, sinking into the sand, entering the ecosystem to change it irrevocably. And the only thing that could stop them was Nico, holding onto a device in his pocket, fully aware that if he activated it, it would kill him and Sibel, and probably Jen, too.

  Without a word, Yalena broke into a sprint against the stream of clones—toward Farsight.

  Chapter 37. Revenge

  The vibe told Yalena that Stanley, Natalia and Blaine weren’t far behind her, but she didn’t have to look back to know Alec, Eric and Adeline would follow her too. To the end of the world if they had to.

  She zigzagged between the clones, who occasionally bumped her shoulders, left and right. Feet sinking into the sand and sliding sideways at times, Yalena panted heavier the closer she got to the rippled mountain Farsight’s crash had created. She halted in front of it. It wasn’t too steep to climb, but if the Fians had a line of fire at the ready on the other side, they’d shoot her down as soon as they spotted her.

  “What are you doing?” Alec whispered at Yalena’s side. “You need to go back.”

  “You haven’t been injected,” Adeline said with more panic than she usually allowed herself to show.

  Yalena fixed them with a quick but intense glare. “I can’t. Felix has a dispersion weapon out there. If anything can distract him, it’s Stanley and I.”

  To her surprise, Stanley agreed. “He wouldn’t expect to see me here. And he needs to face the scout, to understand his race doesn’t mean harm to Earth, or the humans, or Yalena as a hybrid.”

  Yalena hadn’t felt him as she was running, but the scout stepped closer to her when Stanley mentioned him. Every second she spent with the alien around, she trusted his grasp of the conversations they were having more and more. It was as if he was learning from each interaction.

  Then, Heidi’s sharp voice in her ear took Yalena away from that thought. “Yalena, they’ve got some sort of a Novofex...er...bazooka, I guess.”

  “Can you stop them?” Eric asked, finger to the transmitter in his ear.

  Heidi growled on the line. “We’re. Trying. To.”

  Yalena’s stomach plummeted as soon as the little visor over her eye projected the view from Heidi’s body cam. It showed a Fian, who spun her around. The image of Heidi’s Bluedrop grew closer as she was slammed against it, but Heidi wiggled out of the Fian’s grip. She jammed an electrocuting bar into his rib cage, making the Fian shake. In the corner of the view from the body cam, Cooper fought another Fian, a silvery glove glistening around his wrist. Cooper found the Fian’s jaw with his fist, making his head fly back as his body ascended, then fell into a limp pile.

  Heidi ran to the crawler, the view out of the body cam shaking so it made Yalena a little dizzy. She examined the ‘bazooka’ as she’d called it—a silvery weapon with a cylindrical spinning barrel full of a midnight-blue solution. Novofex.

  “What do I do with this?” Heidi whirled around to find Cooper, who was securing the Fians’ hands behind their backs, even though they were unconscious.

  “Does it have any sort of a timer?” he asked.

  Heidi turned the heavy weapon in her hands to look at it from all sides. “I don’t think so. It has a trigger, but they didn’t manage to activate it.”

  “Leave it be,” Yalena said. “We’ll have Nico look at it as soon as we get him out.”

  “Bako,” Cooper said on the line. “How are the rest of the weapons coming along? Disabled?”

  Bako grunted in response. “Working on it. Those Fian suckers are made of steel. We’re two men down.”

  “Jea?” Cooper said. “Show us an overview.”

  The view from Heidi’s body cam disappeared from the screen over Yalena’s eye, replaced by a map of the seven crawler locations. One shone in green—probably the one Heidi and Cooper had managed to get to. After a second, another one flashed green, but the other five remained marked in orange.

  “Eric,” Cooper said. “You need to disable the eighth one. Activate the RWD if you have to, do you hear me?”

  Eric took a beat to reply. “Copy.”

  “Jea, take Sutton. I need you to assist the teams we sent to these sites.” Two of the marked areas pulsated and turned yellow. “Heidi and I will split up and take these two. “Another pair of dots glowed yellow. “Bako, can you handle the last one yourself?”

  “There’s one way to find out, my friend,” Bako said, in between grunts.

  Eric met Yalena’s eyes, jaw set. “Let’s go.”

  She measured up the mountain of sand between them and Farsight. An image of the scout launching into the air above came only a second before his thin, insect-like legs bent and he shot up with momentum she couldn’t have expected.

  Forming a circle around the place the alien had just disappeared from, the rest of them shared shocked looks.

  “He’s our chance at a surprise attack,” Stanley said. “Go, go, go!”

  They broke into a run, climbing the steep mountain of sand quickly, so they wouldn’t lose momentum and sink into it. Yalena saw the scout and the green beams that showered him before she’d reached the tip of the peek. The shots sprang off his suit like sparks without hurting him.

  Alec pushed Yalena down to her knees with him as they reached the top. “Damn,” he drawled in his deep Martian accent. “We should have asked him for one of those suits too.”

  On the other side, two lines of defense made them halt. Clones, who were presumably loyal to Felix’s cause, shot laser beams at the scout, almost forgetting about the others. The alien roared in unmistakable rage at them, even though the beams didn’t seem to hurt him. Behind the clones, in a second line of defense, the Fians under Felix’s command stood behind narrow, six-foot tall shields made of what looked like green glass. The Fians stared at the alien from behind their shields, unable or unwilling to react.

  “This is our chance,” Yalena screamed. Alec pushed her down closer to the ground to av
oid a beam. “We need to strike now.”

  With renewed force, the scout roared in its painfully screechy voice and broke into a sprint. Alec pulled Yalena up with him faster than she could react. With the others by their side, they stormed, clashing into the line of clones.

  Yalena fell to her knees, sliding between two of the clones, arms spread out at her sides to bring them both down. They crumpled on top of each other amid a poof of dust that made Yalena close her eyes for a second. When she jumped to her feet, another of Veronica’s doubles got her with a punch right between the eyes. Yalena’s vision grew dim as she staggered back, but she shook it off in time to see Alec trip the soldier, then smack the back of her neck. Veronica’s familiar eyes rolled back in the clone’s head and she fell unconscious.

  “You can’t hesitate,” Alec said. “These ones are not like the three you worked with. And you can’t save everyone.”

  Yalena let that statement wash over her. Alec was right. How many clones had already ventured past the parameter and into safety? Hundreds, by the looks of it. That had to count for something.

  When the nearest clone lifted her laser gun to aim at Alec, Yalena jumped into action. She kicked high, hitting the clone’s hands and sending the laser gun flying to the side.

  The clone charged at her, bringing her down. They rolled in the sand until Yalena managed to climb on top. Knee at the clone’s throat, she reached for the laser gun, then smacked it hard against the side of Veronica’s face. Guilt bit inside her as the copy of Veronica blacked out, but Yalena told herself again that it wasn’t her. It wasn’t the real Veronica and it wasn’t one of her friends.

  It didn’t work completely though. Yalena rose to her feet amid the fallen bodies of multiple Veronicas, sick to her stomach. A few of the clones still standing took off into a run.

  As if on cue, the entire team turned to the unbroken line of Fians behind the green shields. They sickened Yalena. They didn’t even value the clones enough to fight by their side.

  “Finally,” Blaine said. “I waited too long to punch the likes of you in the teeth.” He wasn’t speaking to any one of them in particular, but the spite felt personal. “Go on, Natalia.” His lips curved into a wicked smile. “Hit them with more than they can handle.”

  And Natalia screamed. The vibe she pushed out into the world was explosive. Thick and overpowering. Bitter and cruel. Desperate and intense. It made Yalena feel faint, but the line of Fian soldiers didn’t move back. In fact, they didn’t so much as flinch.

  “It’s the shields,” Eric said. “It must be the same green solution that was keeping Sibel in the tube. It’s blocking the vibe.”

  Feeding on the element of surprise, the Fian soldiers shifted into a fighting stance—long staffs at the ready, poking out from the cracks between their shields. Natalia and Blaine shot laser beams at them with weapons they’d taken from the clones. Even though the beams bounced off the shields, the play was to break the smooth line of shields and bring the soldiers into the fight.

  The Fians charged at them, formation unbroken, but Yalena had no intention of taking even a step back. She wiggled out of the way, then, hands grasping the nearest staff, she fell to her knees. The soldier on the other end of the staff struggled to keep control, but that was all the opening Alec needed. One hand on Yalena’s back to help him launch, he jumped over her, feet first. The shields on both sides swayed, off-balance. Yalena crouched and swept her leg close to the ground, bringing one of the Fians down, while Alec was already in a fist fight with the other.

  The rest of the immaculate line of Fian defense was broken by the chaotic movements of the scout. Long three-clawed hands grabbed the tops of the two nearest shields. When the scout pulled them apart, the force of his tug flipped both the shields upside down and sent the Fians hiding behind the shields up into the air.

  Yalena suppressed a smile. This was all the proof she needed that Stanley had been right. The hive engineers didn’t care about being human or Fian. They cared about life, not Novofex.

  The Scout continued breaking the line of defense apart so the rest could fight the soldiers behind the shields. Yalena dodged blows left and right, fighting in one big group with Alec, Natalia and Blaine around her. Without the green shields, the vibe hit her straight on. The chaotic emotions of the soldiers shot at her like a weapon. Targeted. Controlled on their end, but chaotic on hers. Like a mental connection meant to distract her.

  “Nat,” Yalena screamed. “Try your berserker madness again?”

  But as soon as Natalia pushed out her vibe, Yalena knew it had been a mistake. Natalia’s vibe was raw and wild. She had no idea how to target it at the soldiers, so it dulled everyone’s senses. By the pained frown on Blaine’s face, Yalena could tell he could barely stand it as well.

  “Stop, stop,” he bellowed. “You need to reign it in.”

  “I don’t know how!” Natalia shouted at him in between blows that landed in midair, easily evaded by her opponents.

  Yalena was too slow to avoid a punch to the jaw, and she fell backward into Alec. He grabbed her, both arms around her ribcage, swinging her back so she could kick her opponent, both feet smacking right at his head.

  As the Fian dropped to the ground, Yalena whirled around. Alec, Eric and Adeline were the only ones capable of surprising the Fians. They couldn’t give themselves away with the vibe. Stanley and Blaine, knowing how to mask their vibe, were holding their own, but Natalia was at a disadvantage. Each of her blows was easily blocked. Each of her defense moves—broken through.

  “Focus, Natalia,” Blaine grunted. “You can do this. Dull your emotions.”

  Natalia kicked high, missing the Fian she had attacked. She threw Blaine a scorching gaze that could have burnt him to ashes. “I have never been, nor will I ever be dull.”

  Blaine twisted the arm of his opponent behind his back with a grin. “I didn’t say ‘be dull’. Dull your emotions. Still your heart.”

  Yalena felt the whiplash of Natalia’s vibe like a punch in the nose. It distracted Blaine long enough to let the Fian out of his grip. The man then jumped Yalena, his fist colliding with her stomach.

  “Agh, Natalia!” Yalena screamed. “Blaine, do something!”

  Blaine’s hands flew to the Fian’s shoulders and he pulled him off Yalena. “You’re welcome.”

  “Not that.” Yalena ducked away from a side blow she’d managed to feel coming through the vibe. Not all Fian soldiers were flawless. “Help her.”

  Blaine gave Yalena a quick nod, then launched himself at a Fian that was sneaking behind Natalia. “Nat, change of plans. If you can’t dull the vibe or wall it in, then there’s only one other way.”

  Natalia punched the Fian Blaine had restrained in the nose. “What?”

  “Get distracted.” Blaine twisted the Fian’s body and threw him to the ground, where he landed in a puff of sand. “What are you doing after this?”

  Yalena would have rolled her eyes, if it wouldn’t have meant risking another punch to the jaw. Instead, she moved to avoid a kick targeted at her side.

  “What?” Natalia asked, sounding aghast.

  “I mean after we save the world,” Blaine said. “Got any plans?”

  Yalena elbowed a Fian that had grabbed her from behind, but even through his pained gasp, she could follow Natalia and Blaine’s bickering.

  “You’re insane,” Natalia exclaimed.

  “I hear it’s a good color on me.” Then Blaine sounded more serious. “Try it, or you’ll drag us all down with you. Think. What are you going to do next?”

  “I don’t know,” Natalia groaned. “I’ve been too busy trying to stay alive.”

  Yalena threw her head back, but the Fian must have seen it coming, because it didn’t help and she struggled in his grip.

  “If you’re up for it, we could go for a celebration drink,” Blaine said, sounding almost casual. “I know a great little place-” His sentence was interrupted by a punch to the gut. “Two drinks for the price o
f one on Thursdays.”

  Even without the Fian’s hand closing around her throat, Yalena would have gagged.

  “Wait, are you asking me out?”

  “I didn’t hear a ‘no’.”

  Like an ocean current, Natalia’s vibe pulled away, leaving Yalena room to think. She wiggled her hand free and dug her nails into the Fian’s palm around her neck. His pain shot at her through the vibe. She’d clawed so deep, she’d drawn blood. Another elbow to the head and the Fian’s grip finally loosened enough for Yalena to get away. She twisted his arm around, forcing him to hunch down, and kneed him in the head.

  The second he fell down unconscious, a staff scraped Yalena’s shoulder with razor-sharp precision. Through the pain, Yalena didn’t trust her vibe to tell her who’d thrown it, but she didn’t need to. With light but secure steps, a Fian woman in her forties—thin, and built like an elf—came to retrieve her staff. She pulled it out of the sand with ease, swung it in her hands once, then pointed it under Yalena’s chin.

  “Hello, Troian,” she said. “Did you enjoy that? I imagine it must have only been a fraction of the pain you inflicted upon my husband. I’ve seen the record of his vitals. He was alive after you took down the ship. Badly injured. Bleeding inside and out. Fighting for his dying breaths.”

  Yalena’s mind flooded with the incarcerating memory as she struggled to breathe through the pain. “Robin.”

  “You killed him,” the woman said with the calm voice of an executioner. “And now it’s time for revenge. I’m going to kill you.”

  Chapter 38. Planet of Heroes