her as if they wanted her alive and well?
The Hive only ever cared about alive.
I studied the Hive as I drew nearer, my curiosity growing with each silent step. There were three, as always, but I’d never seen three such as these.
The leader stood in the center, nearly two feet taller than his companions, nearly as large as me, and his skin was a deep blue. All three were covered completely in a strange silver-and-graphite armor unlike anything I’d ever seen before. The trio faced away from me, so I could not see if their eyes were silver. On all three of their heads were strange helmets, the geometry and design like I’d never seen before. But the oddest of all, the devices had a peculiar extension protruding from the back, near the base of their skulls, a curved device that looked like—no.
That wasn’t possible.
The blue leader leapt, his body covering half the distance to the cave with one jump as his hands and feet found purchase in the side of the rocks. He began to climb.
The woman disappeared inside the cave and the Hive leader scrambled toward her with renewed vigor, as if afraid she might get away.
When the second oddly armored Hive leapt after her as well, I could not afford to wait.
Rushing forward, my beast roared as I ripped the head from the shoulders of the Hive still standing on the ground. His blood coated my hands, a thick, sticky, black sludge I’d never encountered before.
The Hive were, for the most part, integrated biological units from the known worlds. Prillon Prime. Everis. Trion and hundreds of other worlds.
None bled black. No race bled black that I knew of.
When the first Hive slumped to the ground, the second, alerted by some odd connection between them, stopped his climb to look down at me.
The leader halted as well and they looked at one another before the leader nodded his head, as if giving a command—or permission—and the closer Hive jumped to the ground to confront me.
Another oddity. The Hive did not follow orders in such a manner and none of them were ever in command. Their orders came from their centralized intelligence and decision-making centers, and those were never risked on the battlefield.
He landed before me, light on his feet, and stood. “Leave us, Warlord.”
What the fuck was going on here? The Hive’s voice sounded…normal. Like any other man’s I knew. No stilted language. No odd cadence nor computerized monotone. He sounded…unique. Individual.
And that was not Hive.
My beast didn’t give a fuck what this strange male in his silver armor was or was not as the leader moved once more, drawing nearer and nearer to the cave’s entrance, and the female he chased. The beast wanted to rip this male to shreds and get on with it.
But the man within me was still in charge, barely, and I recognized that this was something extremely rare, and strange. Commander Karter would need to know what was happening here, what these things were.
“What are you?” My beast’s voice was barely more than a growl, but the Hive understood.
“I serve Nexus 9.”
What the fuck was a Nexus? And why had he answered that way? He’s said ‘I serve.’ Not we. I. My question had been rhetorical because they had no need to respond. They expected domination and then integration. Or, he replied because he didn’t expect me to survive long enough to do something with the answer.
An ion blast sounded from above, from inside the cave, and the beast’s patience snapped.
I moved in a blur, grabbing the strange Hive and twisting his neck until he went limp in my grasp, but not before his weapon fired. I dropped the dead weight to the rocks, already forgotten. The blast of his ionic weapon must have hit my armor. Heat from the shot burned my body once more, from my hip this time, but the pain was nothing more than a small sting.
Rarely did I use my beast’s full strength, but as I crouched low for my leap, power flowed through me, the power of the beast unleashed, and for once I was glad for it. We leapt to the mouth of the cave in one mighty thrust off the ground ready to defend her.
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