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16
KAAV
“Wait,” Weapons said.
“We can’t wait,” Chief said. “I need Ophelia in a shuttle, now.”
Weapons grabbed Hive by the forearm. “You tell Chef everything you still know from being Hive Mind. Tell her everything that will help us. The situation is spiraling out of control, and we need every edge we can get.”
“If I wanted to preserve that knowledge,” Hive said, “I would have.”
“If you want me to go to Eden with you,” Weapons said, “then you’ll tell Chef Hypatia everything you know before you forget more.”
“What can I possibly tell her?” Hive asked. “The most important thing is for us to land quickly. That is the key knowledge for this situation.”
“Thissituation,” Weapons said, getting right up in Hive’s face. Or at least a few heads below his face and looking right up into his eyes. “Is not just the immediate one. What happens once we all land? What happens to my kids? You have this knowledge in your head that is fading fast, and that could take us thousands of years of tedious scientific research to get back. Or you could just give it to us.”
I saw the gears working in Hive’s head. I understood what he was trying to do. Or what he’d tried to do by retiring as Hive Mind. He wanted us to struggle. He wanted to join us in that struggle. He’d made it hard for us on purpose, but he hadn’t anticipated the pirates getting such a huge advantage over us. What if we somehow lost the battle? What if we lost Eden?
He might have wanted to make things hard so that our progeny would be stronger—to break through what he’d called a stagnation—but none of that was going to happen if these fucking pirates defeated us while we were as vulnerable and disorganized as we could ever be. It wasn’t just the Khetar who were vulnerable, the taint was making Eden borderline defenseless. Any other world would have been able to mobilize against the pirates, but Eden was uniquely defenseless because of how disruptive our arrival had been to a planet of virgins.
Hive narrowed his eyes. “I’ve lost most of the concrete knowledge. I can tell you—vaguely—how a Grasp Drive works, for instance, but I couldn’t reproduce the math or give you schematics.”
“Then it won’t give us too much of an edge,” I said. “It won’t soften our progeny. If anything, it will be a carrot on a stick, an outline for Khetar and humans to work toward together. We’ll have to be more than just warriors now.”
“I’m fine with warriors,” Chief said. “Long-term science isn’t going to help us if we don’t survive this attack. The pirates are only landing a fraction of their ships. The rest are forming a shell around Eden. They’re trying to block the Khetar from getting to the surface.”
“Which is why we must land,” Hive said.
“Tell her everything you can,” Weapons said. “Record it. Get your smartest women to meet with him too. Put him behind a screen or something so they can’t see him. No matter how smart they are, the taint will make them delirious if they can see his body. I’ll go with him. I’ll make sure he cooperates.”
Hive looked at me as she spoke. I could read his expression effortlessly because it was my old face. It was one reason I had such a strong urge to punch him in the face. He took that face from me, and then reminded me of it by smirking at me with my own fucking smirk. Right now his expression told me that he was scared of how well Weapons was able to make him do something he didn’t really want to do, but he was proud of her for being strong like that too. It meant our kids would be strong, and that he’d chosen a good mate.
I nodded to him, because I understood his feeling. I felt the same way, though I guessed I was more proud of her than he was, because I liked seeing her stand up to him specifically. I just worried what would happen when she wanted to make me do something I didn’t want to do.
Chief’s expression went distant—she was using her implants to give orders or to read something—and when she came back she held up her tablet and showed me. “This packship just arrived. Who is it?”
I looked at the screen and saw a video of smeared light snapping back into focus asThe Inseminator. I smiled wide.
“It’s mine,” I said. “TheInseminator.”
“We’ll spare a shuttle so you can get aboard,” Chief said. “I want to send a few women with you though.”
Weapons got really prickly when Chief said that, and Hive laughed.
“Lesbian women,” Chef said. “I’m trying to get a few onto every packship. Imagine how much intel we’ll get on the different packs. No offense, Weapons, but I don’t entirely trust information from women who arebreedingwith Khetar.”
“I don’t know that all packs will agree to this,” Hive said.
Chief met my eyes. “I don’t know that either. But I know theInseminatorswill agree to it. Right, Kaav?”
I nodded. In the face of a possible communications loss across the packships, getting some women who were immune from the breeding urge to start helping link our species together was a win for both sides. I didn’t see this as any form of concession to Chief, simply a mutually beneficial move. “My Scion is certain to agree. I’ll insist that he does.”
Nonetheless, I played it up like I would be the one to make it happen. I wanted Chief to feel like she owed me something. I had a feeling she’d be sticking around as some high-ranking authority figure within the Breeding Swarm. I wanted a favor from that woman somewhere down the line.
“As for the other packships,” Chief said, If you doubt that the packships will agree, then I’ll force the issue. “I’ll send the shuttles to them. They can choose between letting the women die when their life support runs out, or taking them on.”
Weapons shot Chief an accusing glare. “That’s horrible. You can’t be serious!”
