Chapter One
A scream woke Suh-Joh.
Once more, a cry echoed through the tunnels. It was a death cry, like a baby wailing for its mother.
It’s a guard, Suh-Joh realized. He’d sounded the alarm with his last breath.
She ran toward the sound until she caught a glimpse of unknown Chosen-Male warriors racing into the bowels of the Hive.
She stopped, stared, and sniffed. Unknown, she thought. I must warn Lok-Nih, my Hive-Mother. She raced back to her sleeping quarters. “Intruders.”
“Who violates my Hive?” Lok-Nih asked.
“Blessed Hive-Mother.” Suh-Joh flexed low. “I know not. They came without warning. They use naat-jii juice to hide their spine markings and they mask their odor with glik-lee. They’re in the food stores.”
“Do they use energy weapons?” Lok-Nih, like all devout worshippers of the Spirit-of-the-Mother, feared the energy weapons of war that had been used in the time of high technology. There were no defenses against heretics who violated the bans on weapons of mass murder.
“No, blessed Hive-Mother. I saw none.”
“That’s one mercy,” Lok-Nih said.
Lok-Nih gave her paat-kli a quick poke with a spine. The tiny creature squeaked and folded into its articulated shell and scurried under Lok-Nih’s klut-shi, the mating-skin flap.
“Rouse more warriors.” Lok-Nih gestured to Suh-Joh.
“Now help me,” Lok-Nih said. Attendants rushed to her assistance, keeping clear of the klut-shi. With ponderous bulk, she moved slowly onto her spindly rear limbs, using her mid-limbs for balance. Her deadly spines could either ripen them to Chosen status or kill them instantly. Now erected in anger, there could be only one outcome.
The intruders’ attack had come in during the middle of the sleep cycle. Once the intruders found the Hive’s food stores, they fell into a feeding frenzy, their discipline disintegrating.
The war-chant of the Hive’s warriors grew louder.
“They remind me of Zak-Joh and the battles he fought on my behalf.” Lok-Nih sighed. “Oh, Spirit-of-the-Mother, I do so miss him.”
The chant changed to a cacophony of squeaks and cries.
Lok-Nih moved quickly to a growing melee near the main entrance.
“Hoo-Lii,” she screamed. It was a challenge to the intruders. The word “Hoo-Lii” meant Mother-favored. “I am here. Protect me.” She pushed forward.
At these words, her Chosen-Male warriors redoubled their efforts against the intruders.
The tunnel reeked with the odor of glik-lee and the metallic stink of spilled blood and guts.
Warriors twisted with acrobatic fury, flicking and slashing with their long cutting spines. Whenever a spine touched the skin between the armor-like plates of the invader’s hide, muscles ruptured, and blood spewed forth. The Hive’s warriors tightened into ranks, sweeping forward against the disorganized intruders.
Suh-Joh watched Lok-Nih advance with her Chosen-Male warriors, urging them on. Even the unripened May-be-Chosen joined the fight, wielding domestic implements as weapons against the out-numbered intruders.
Some of the May-be-Chosen fought well, Suh-Joh thought as the warriors continued to drive the intruders back. The Hive’s warriors surged forward, and the intruders broke and ran, fleeing into the darkness of the tunnels carrying their stolen food.
Bodies of intruders and defenders lay scattered around the entrance to the Hive. Pools of blood and coils of guts gleamed darkly on the time-polished stone floor under the pale yellow of the emergency lights. The wounded twitched, unable to rise.
I wonder who was behind this raid, Suh-Joh thought.
Four squared of the Hive’s warriors were dead. Some lay paralyzed, their hind limb muscles cut. Others called out in agony. They fought well, for there were more bodies of the intruders than the Hive’s warriors. Suh-Joh stooped to examine the corpses of the intruders, wiping the naat-jii juice from their spines.