“Let me have that pill,” Mort(e) said, “and I’ll help you get out of here.”
They were out of the royal chamber, so she could no longer use the walls as a translator. But she understood. She extended her claw to him. He swiped the blue pill and dropped it in his backpack.
She was still facing him, waiting for his response. Mort(e) stuck the muzzle of the gun between two segments of her armor at the base of her skull. This would be her escape, to avoid seeing her own daughters destroy her. She did not resist. Her antennae went limp as she awaited this release, this unburdening. There was so much knowledge in this brain about to be destroyed. More than could be stored in all the books ever written, all the computers ever built. Billions of lifetimes. An eternity of memories, an endless treasure of visions of the future.
Mort(e) fired once. The thorax and head went stiff, then sank down. All of it was gone, obliterated by a crude weapon fashioned by poorly evolved primates. No god would have wanted it this way. Except for the Queen, who was a god herself.
They went uphill. Sheba crawled to Mort(e). He put her on his shoulders to keep her close in case he had to jump off. They made a series of turns before heading in a dead run toward an opening. Mort(e) could smell fresh air, and his whiskers pricked up when he detected salt. The ants intended to dump their mother into the ocean. Sheba gave a low whine, much like the noises she would make when her old master left her by herself.
When they arrived at the exit, Mort(e) tried to get hold of the ceiling. It was too high. The overcast sky lit up the tunnel. He tasted the spray from the waves. The ants pushed the Queen halfway out of the nest. She slumped downward, her lone claw twitching as if wagging a finger at her disobedient subjects. Still holding onto the Queen’s carapace, Mort(e) peered over the side to see that they were about to fall almost fifty feet to a rocky beach below. Sheba squirmed on his shoulders. Their only chance was to try to latch onto the face of the cliff. Mort(e) hesitated. There was no way to tell from here if his hands would fail him now.
Another forceful nudge from the ants caused him to snap to attention. Sheba barked impatiently. As the ants gave the Queen’s body one final shove, Mort(e) jumped onto the cliff. His fingers found a sharp edge that bit into his flesh. The rock shook as the ants ejected the Queen’s lumbering body from the tunnel. Seconds later, she crashed onto the stones below.
He held on. Sheba remained still. I am not going to die because of my hands, Mort(e) thought. He began to climb, telling Sheba to hang on, that it would be all right. Blood dripped from his wounded tail and fell down into the sea like red raindrops.
When he got close enough, he let Sheba step onto his head so she could climb onto the ledge above. He pulled himself up and rested on his stomach for a moment. His fingers were rubbed raw, but the callused skin had not broken. Examining the cliff, he figured he could climb the rest of the way.
He sat up and let Sheba place her head in his lap.
In the sky above, the first paratroopers from the Vesuvius began their descent.
Chapter Twenty-one: The Battle of Golgotha
Culdesac wanted the soldiers to stay away from the crash site. But the new recruits gathered around the flaming wreckage like cavemen after a hunt. He shouted for them to stop. When that did not work, he ran out of the cave and emptied his pistol into the air. Several other officers did the same. Disappointed, the soldiers returned to their fortifications.
There didn’t seem to be any poison gas from the crash. Besides, the humans had given up on chemical weapons years earlier because the ants were too quick to adapt. With no strategic advantage gained, Culdesac settled on this being a diversion at best, an insane example of human theatrics at worst. The Archon was praying at the end. The members of the resistance were probably running out of food in their airborne utopia, and it was possible that the Archon was another sacrifice to their bloodthirsty gods.
Then the shout went up. “There’s another one!”
Culdesac whirled around. The Vesuvius approached from the north, cutting through the clouds. The ants shifted toward it as they retreated from the impact zone of the Golgotha. This second wave was no suicide mission. The Vesuvius meant to strafe, or bomb, or drop soldiers. Culdesac hoped that it was the latter. He wanted to collect a few of them alive.
While his officers ordered the soldiers to stand ready, Culdesac headed to the cave, keeping his eye on the approaching ship. There were objects dropping out of it, descending slowly. Parachutes. Was there no limit to the death wish these people had? Were they this foolish? They could not go extinct quietly. They needed an apocalypse.
The translator in his ear began to buzz. He batted it with his hand, but the noise continued, growing stronger before changing into a series of rattles and clicks. It was picking up random signals from multiple Alphas, strong enough to interfere with his antenna from afar.
The coyote walked toward him with the Alpha envoy directly behind her. “Sir,” the coyote said, “we’re getting a report of boats landing to the west. Should we—”
She did not get to finish her sentence. The giant ant picked her up at the waist in her viselike jaws. The coyote made a choking sound as the beast thrashed her. Culdesac pulled out his gun. The raccoon in the cave ran out with his rifle pointed at the ant.
“Shoot her!” Culdesac said, trying to reload.
The raccoon fired, drilling holes in the ant’s armor plating. But instead of retaliating, the Alpha continued dragging the coyote’s body across the rocky ground. His gun now loaded, Culdesac fired. The monster ignored the shots that were ripping her apart. She seemed to be possessed.
Other soldiers raced to the scene. It took four more rifles and dozens of rounds before the Alpha finally collapsed and died. The ant’s leg twitched once, prompting one of the soldiers to begin firing again.
“Hold your fire,” Culdesac said, waving smoke from his eyes.
He leaned over the coyote but did not bother to check her pulse. Her head was twisted almost completely around.
With all the shooting, Culdesac had not noticed that the unintelligible clicking continued from the translator. Putting his hand to his other ear, he tried to make sense of the competing signals.
“Colonel,” someone said.
All his soldiers stared in the direction of the ants. There on the hilltop, Culdesac saw the visual manifestation of the gibberish clattering away in his earpiece. The ants had broken formation. They collided with one another, unable to control their bodies. Claws and mandibles locked onto each other, making it impossible to tell where one ant ended and the other began. There was the sound of scuffling feet and exoskeletons crunching and snapping. Some of the ants had been capsized, and their legs flailed helplessly as their sisters pulled them in different directions. An Alpha dragged a disembodied head and thorax in a great circle.
A wave of ants crested the ridge and began charging toward Culdesac and his soldiers.
“What’s happening?” Culdesac asked. But he knew the answer before he even finished. The Golgotha’s air supply must have been laced with a chemical that affected the ants. Something that made them turn on one another.
He tore off the translator. “Fall back,” he said to the soldiers.
They ran toward the foxholes. Behind him, Culdesac heard the unmistakable sound of a pair of jaws closing on the body of one of his soldiers. Hundreds of rifles were aimed in his direction.