No, the injury was real. And consistent with the man’s personality. Just as he had been willing to enter a thicket of brush looking for a wounded tusker-Antov would think nothing of attacking Headstone with little more than a swagger stick.
Santana was about to ask a follow-up question when Captain Kimbo charged into the room. “Sir! A Ramanthian submarine surfaced in the middle of the bay. It’s firing on the TACBASE.”
Then, as if to emphasize the seriousness of the situation, a siren began to wail. Baynor’s Bay was under attack.
2
A monarch should be ever intent on conquest; otherwise, his neighbors will rise in arms against him.
PLANET HIVE, THE RAMANTHIAN EMPIRE
As the destroyer Star Taker dropped into orbit, the War Ubatha looked up through a viewport to the planet floating over his head. The mission to Bounty had been a waste of time and energy. But there was no way to have known that in advance.
Security around Hive had always been tight, but in the wake of the surprise attack that the Confederacy had launched eight standard months before, even more ships had been assigned to protect it. A show of force was necessary, of course, but the War Ubatha thought that another attack was unlikely, especially since the humans and their despicable allies were losing the war.
A patrol vessel issued a challenge to the destroyer. Codes were exchanged, checked, and double-checked. Then, and only then, was the Star Taker allowed to proceed to one of twenty-four heavily armed space stations that orbited Hive. It took the better part of an hour to dock and match locks. Finally, the War Ubatha was allowed to disembark. He, like all other incoming personnel, regardless of rank, had to pass through a Detox Center, where highly sophisticated sensors were used to detect off-world pathogens, cyborgs, and cleverly designed intelligence-gathering nanos. Some of which were only microns across.
Once cleared, the officer was released into the station proper. Rather than being forced to wait for a regular shuttle, the War Ubatha was escorted onto a military transport that departed moments later. The ship bumped its way down through the atmosphere and entered a high-priority flight path.
The War Ubatha never tired of looking at his home planet and peered through a viewport. In marked contrast to the ugly cities that covered Earth, it was the very picture of perfection. Rivers went where they should go, fruit trees marched in orderly rows across low-lying hills, and crops grew within irrigated circles.
All of which was made possible by the fact that Ramanthians preferred to live underground. A basic instinct that maximized the use of arable land and made their industrial base more difficult to attack. Not impossible, as had been proven months earlier, but more difficult.
Despite the race’s carefully managed infrastructure, however, there was one variable they couldn’t control. And that was the Ramanthian reproductive cycle. Because in addition to the three eggs produced by each tripartite family unit, the race had a secondary means of procreation as well. Every three hundred years or so, the Queen would produce billions of eggs. The result was a population explosion so massive that previous hatchings had triggered social change. Some birthings had positive effects. Like the one that led to interstellar travel. And some had led to famine and civil war.
Now, having been gifted with an estimated five billion new souls by the great mother, the empire needed planets for them to live on. The race knew from bitter experience that Hive couldn’t accommodate such a large number of additional citizens without negative consequences. Especially given the antisocial tendencies the newly hatched nymphs were known for.
The War Ubatha watched as the transport sped east, lights appeared below, and darkness cloaked the land. It wasn’t long before the aircraft slowed and began a gradual descent. Eventually, the shuttle flared in for a vertical landing on a landing pad defined by a circle of amber lights. Once the skids made contact, a platform lowered the vessel into the ground.
Minutes later, the War Ubatha left the terminal, entered a government vehicle, and was whisked away. The funeral was scheduled for the next morning. That left just enough time to get some sleep and, if the gods were willing, a few hours of peace. Because even if the animals were millions of light-years away, he still fought them in his dreams.
THE PLAIN OF PAIN
The sky was clear, the sun was beating down, and the deep boom, boom, boom of the heart drums could be heard. The War Ubatha and the Egg Ubatha were seated toward the front of the seats reserved for members of the royal family, senior government officials, and members of the priesthood. Airborne cameras hovered here and there, beaming video to the citizens of Hive and the rest of the empire as well. It was a sad day. Having buried the great mother within the past year, the Ramanthian people were now forced to confront the death of her successor, the so-called Warrior Queen. She’d been a young, and some said reckless, royal who had been wounded on Earth and brought back to Hive. Unfortunately, the empire’s finest doctors hadn’t been able to save her. Or so the government claimed.
As her funeral cortege made its way up out of the Royal Reliquary, where the embossed casket had been on display for the requisite three days, a deafening clatter was heard as five hundred thousand citizens began to click their pincers. They were seated in a bowl-shaped amphitheater at the center of the Plain of Pain, where the pretenders had been slaughtered almost a thousand years earlier and all of the nest clans had been brought together under a single queen. Ancient weapons and chunks of fossilized chitin were still being found as scouring winds removed layers of sand and soil.
It was a moving sight as members of the funeral procession, all clad in imperial livery, shuffled up out of the underground complex and made their way toward the conical hill at the center of the dry lake bed. From there it was necessary to follow a spiral pathway to the top, where the Queen’s remains would be cremated. The clatter had faded by then, but the mournful sound of the kleege pipes could still be heard, along with the occasional snap of a pennant as a persistent breeze blew from the east.
All of which was very touching except for one thing: The Queen was still very much alive. Or so the War Ubatha assumed. Although there was the possibility that the royal’s paralysis had worsened and she had died. But there was no way to be sure. And that made her a threat. Because, were the royal to surface after the state funeral and the coronation of her carefully selected successor, both he and his allies would be tried and executed for treason. Thereby ensuring that the monarch’s incompetent rule would continue, the empire would fall to the animals, and the thousand years of darkness that Nira the truth-bringer had warned of would begin.
The very thought of it made the War Ubatha feel cold even though he was seated in direct sunlight. The processional had arrived at the top of the hill by that time. The priests formed a circle and began the prayer for the dead as the richly decorated coffin was placed on a metal grating. The body inside was that of a female Skrum, or untouchable, who had been abducted and killed so that the casket would weigh the right amount. Plus, there were the remains to consider. Though spectacular, open-air cremations were notoriously inefficient. There were often beaks, bits of chitin, and toe claws left over. Details are important, the War Ubatha reminded himself. Perfection can be achieved.
Like all Ramanthians, the War Ubatha had excellent peripheral vision. That meant he could see the Egg Ubatha and her posture. As with all Ramanthians, her body language was quite eloquent if one knew what to look for. Even the slightest tilt of the head had meaning. But as one would expect of an upper-class female, the Egg Ubatha’s body was expressionless. What is she thinking? he wondered. About the funeral? About him? Or about their mate, Chancellor Itnor Ubatha? The high-ranking government official had been listed as dead for weeks-even if no body had been recovered from the wreckage of his air car. Which raised an interesting question. If one of her mates was dead, why hadn’t the Egg Ubatha spent more than the minimum required time in mourning?