Selene ran down the caasiok's hall as it shook with the rumble of many explosions. The sound of feral roars from Slaads could be heard in the distance, the quadruped beetle-like rhino sized beasts were doing their best to hold resistance forces at bay. Many soldiers were infiltrating the caasiok, hunting for her.

  'How did they know?' was the question still playing out through the Queen's mind. It was too early for them to be aware of the few colonies she had attacked to create her infested.

  Zephyr was dead.

  Aboleth was altered by the evolutionist to be fiercely loyal.

  Raymond and Danny were captured since- and neither of their devices showed any outgoing messages that could alert the resistance to her change.

  So the question repeated. Perhaps this was their plan all along, but that made no sense. What about her dad and uncle? There was no way they were onboard with this attack. And show up so prepared.

  A sea of chitters passed by beneath her as a horde of scantids ran past, parting around her like a river would a stone.

  All running towards the sounds of combat behind her. Her entire brood threw itself against their armada of battle-frigates, so many that it would be flattering if it weren't such a dire situation.

  'No use in running now', she'd realized. It's not like she could teleport. And the Sequester could never escape through their blockade—even with all its stealth technology.

  Her eyes darted around in search of some solution. Then calmed.

  There was some leverage here to be salvaged here. If she could buy time for her brood to escape. With the proper orders, they could perpetuate themselves for a time, especially if Aboleth could escape.

  Selene punched up through the roof of the caasiok, and it's many floors of flesh and chitin before landing on the surface. As the purple blood slid down her face, she observed the void of space around her, and thanks to the subtle atmosphere the caasiok provided around it, she could hear the dull impacts of the resistance's weaponry.

  And the vespaxyn's screeches.

  They were embroiled in an intense aerial dog-fight. For now, her swarm was standing it's ground. Or space, rather. There were four or so caasioks at her disposal, which were deploying a steady supply of vespaxyn into the fight.

  Luckily, none of these frigates were on par with that stealth frigate puck had attacked Ku'senai with, nor as stylish.

  Altered trade-frigates at best, their weapons tacked on. Mostly meant to carry fighters. Blocky, ugly things. Like floating industrial parks of steel plating, pipe, and vents.

  Her scantids and munlocs were currently maneuvering down the caasioks outstretched tentacles which gripped the nearest frigate in order to lead a ground assault aboard it.

  But that was a two-way street. Many resistance forces were already aboard her primary caasiok at this moment. Their drop-ships were nearly impossible to detect amongst the spray of missiles that assaulted them endlessly.

  Her face scrunched up into an annoyed expression... If the Queen were defeated here, so early into her campaign—she'd at least have a bit more fun before seeking the diplomatic route.

  At the moment, she towered over twice her usual height. Her form changed.

  Two additional sets of arms had sprouted from her mid-section, identical to her typical pair.

  She was also much taller, like a human centipede. And instead of a dragonflies wings, hers were now leathery and bat like. Over 3 meters in length. Her tail had grown to be wider in diameter towards the base, then tapered off into a glaived spike. Spurs of bone lining the top of it. Armor denser, larger, and even thornier than usual.

  The antenna that usually trailed behind her like whips were now embedded into the sides of her body, as she'd learned that they could be exploited in battle.

  Even her face, that was mostly human before—was now a bit more monstrous. While her nose, eyes, brow and chin were all as they were—her cheeks were open, her jaw hung by strips of flesh which held it connected to her upper face. A row of large fangs were exposed there. And 3 sets of chitin horns had grown up through her hair.

  And so, her ultimate form stood exposed on the surface of the caasiok. 3 times larger than her usual size.

  She held out an arm towards a distant jet, holding her hand as if she was about to snap her fingers, using the tips of her claws like aiming reticles.

  'Huh. Weird.'

  She scoffed and aimed at another jet.

  And it also was impervious to her psionic abilities, their connection was blocked.

  It was almost like the resistance came prepared or something. How stupid... How miraculously stupid of her. She hadn't prepared for a battle of this scale, if only she had a bit more time.

  Then again, this Queen only began commanding the hive only recently. No, it was the other's fault. The human infested version of her, that was.

  To vent she would destroy some jets.

  In order to do so, she would use her body as a weapon instead. Which required no psionic connection.

  Dense chitin—much denser than normal—began to assemble itself within her many arms. Then her psychic energy began to swirl around it. She aimed an arm once more at a passing jet. Then her knuckles split apart, and a sharp stake launched out. Faster than the human eye could perceive.

  The jet didn't explode from this. It only kept its momentum and did not turn as it flew off into space.

  "Still got it." Selene praised herself, remembering her human self sniping munlocs only months ago. Then she proceeded to snipe jets one after the other.

  Until an impossibly bright spotlight illuminated her.

  One of the battle-frigates had centered its helm on her—it was as if she was about to be swallowed by a giant shark of bulky metal.

  "Bad move getting in close like that." she muttered under her breath as she knelt into a runner's start-off position. She didn't care how strong their psionic shielding was, let's see how they handled a full Queen missile.

  'blap'

  'blap', 'blap'

  Numerous little devices began to pelt the caasiok around her, causing her to delay making her charge and focus on them. They were tiny rectangles with speakers and tiny spurs around them to latch on with.

  "Radios? Seriously?" she picked one up.

  "Hello?" her voice a bit gargled from the change in her face.

  The other side responded instantly; "Hey Sel."

  Her dad answered.

  Selene's eyes flicked in surprise; "Dad!? Why are you attacking me!?" she sounded more angered than saddened by the fact that her own father had betrayed her.

  A vespaxyn collided on the ground near her, splattering into several smoldering chunks. She ignored this as she waited for his response.

  "...Surrender, and we'll figure this all out, okay kid? We'll just forget the widows you just made for now, until you're thinking clearly."

  "THEY ATTACKED ME FIRST!" she shouted.

  "Pre-emptively. You seemed pretty prepared for a fight for someone who was planning on meeting peacefully. Or were you just showing off?"

  Selene took the moment to think of a proper lie. Her forces were relatively hidden until they had decided to attack her, but that didn't mean she wasn't planning an ambush.

  She considered this as she watched a vespaxyn chase and grab onto a resistance jet before crawling across the glass cockpit and spraying it forcefully with acid.

  "Yes... I was going to show off." she mumbled.

  "You were always a terrible liar, but that's your best trait... Come on Sel, put those claws down and let's talk for a bit."

  Selene thought about it, but it made zero sense to end the fight now. Not before learning exactly what the resistance was capable of. The diplomatic route would always be open with the amount of leverage she has.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  "I don't want to." she said stubbornly.

  "Sel-"

  She crushed the tiny radio and waved off the tiny fragments that were beginning to float in space. The caasioks gravitational field was weakening. They only had time for one big push.

  She gave the source of the spotlight on her the finger.

  Just then, a different swarm of jets scrambled from each frigate's hangars before gathering into formation and flying straight for her.

  She was preparing to launch more psionically propelled spikes at them but hesitated in surprise as they strafed above her—suddenly changing their path.

  Then it hit her.

  'Bleh!' she spouted out, almost embarrassed by the sound she'd made—as she was instantly wiped from the surface of the caasiok by what seemed to be a dense wire over a kilometer long.

  It would've cut her in half if her body wasn't infinitely more powerful than a regular human's.

  Instead she was dragged into the void of space—far away from the support of her brood.

  A stream of vespaxyn instinctively followed after her, besides those already caught in a fight of their own.

  'GO BACK!' she ordered. She would only hold a few in reserve, but their timing had to be better.

  If she provided a proper distraction some of her swarm might escape.

  'Aboleth! Retreat!' she continued giving orders. Where to go, what to do. Which was all contained on a more subconscious level beneath the words themselves.

  Aboleth didn't hesitate when hearing the order. Nor did she ask questions of any kind as she began the retreat.

  The vespaxyn grew more ferocious then, with no desire to prolong the battle. Instead, they did everything they could to cover the caasioks retreat.

  The giant cephalopods turned away before lifting their tentacles in front of them and splaying them out in a circle pattern. It took them many moments to do so, but eventually a purple-black sphere appeared between the tentacles—the size of a basketball in comparison to the size of the tentacles themselves.

  Selene had to buy them enough time so that they could enter warp speed.

  Then she could use them as leverage against the resistance once she was captured. She tried to cut the chord, but it was laminated in graphene many times over. And thick. She was scratching back layers, but this was probably the strongest wire ever produced.

  This tether between the yellow-striped jets and her carried her back towards a battle-frigate. The hangar had a dry dock entrance with multiple sets of interior doors to separate pilots and their landing craft from the void of space.

  All sets of doors were entirely open now, exposing the hangar with in.

  There were a sizable battalion of armored soldiers dressed in cobalt blue enforcer armor with matte red stripes on the shoulders. Their visors were tinted gold.

  All standing in formation behind a white box that was Selene sized.

  The jets that had carried her, disconnected the wire and swerved upwards just before the frigate. Sending her on a collision course directly for the boxes opening.

  "Oh no." she said as she flew into the hangar.

  Her wings flapped to catch the air, but there was none—the entire hangar had been depressurized. With gravity only enabled.

  She twirled through the air and just barely managed to catch the edges of the white container. She flung herself off it and was hit at least 50 times by the enforcers bullets before she hit the ground.

  It was like watching a feral cat being chased by a pack of dogs. The insectoid Queen was galloping on her hands, somersaulting, cartwheeling and twirling around to avoid being hit too directly.

  Finally, she reached the first line of soldiers and smiled as she felt the splash of their blood on her face. It was like passing through a wall of water balloons. She set her sights to the next line of soldiers firing at her.

  'Their armor is even weaker than my infested's, ha!' she thought, rampaging on through their ranks.

  They surrounded her completely now—but it didn't really matter.

  Drop-ships were entering the battle-frigate from different points, delivering soldiers. They were focusing on her now and not the caasioks, so that was a plus.

  It wasn't over yet though, Selene would cause as much damage as she could. Who knows? Maybe she could even win by herself.

  The Queen took up one of the dead enforcers rifles with her lowest set of arms and turned it on the remaining enforcers.

  "This is what you look like!" she said before diving, firing mid-pounce. "Papapapa!" she mimicked the gun's sound.

  Rolling as she landed, she slid to a stop and lifted a resistance soldier by the top of the helmet and fired the remainder of the magazine up and down his body. Their shiny blue armor flecked off in spouts of blood and sparks.

  This caused a few of the soldiers to regain some distance on her.

  'Theck!'

  A burning sensation went through one of Selene's arms following the bassy sound. She flipped away due to the force of the impact but landed on her feet.

  One of the arms along her mid-section was dangling limply now. Torn all to hell and dripping.

  A mechanical hissing sound drew her gaze as a large battle-mech manuevered itself a distance away. It had just entered the hangar through a large set of pressurized doors which were slowly closing behind it.

  There were about six of the mechs training their guns on her. They were like that engineer woman's mech from Lamba, but maintained by a standing army.

  Though they weren't coated in graphene, they were still imposing.

  They stood over six meters tall on bipedal legs, with joints like a bird's. Its chassis was shaped like a potato, but with no glass window. Whatever detection or camera mechanisms the mech had been cleverly concealed.

  Various tertiary details lined the bottom, often hidden by plates of armor at most angles. Pipes, valves, wire, things of that nature.

  Its arms were chain guns, multiple barrels arranged in a circle that fired one-by-one as it spun around in a blur.

  "Hold on, let's talk about this." Selene said loudly as she raised a hand in a placating gesture.

  'theckthecktheck!'

  They all began firing at once.

  She dodged through the air.

  A few bullets grazed her now and then as they tried to follow her movements, but they were mostly siege equipment and thus were slower on the draw than a soldier's aim might be. Still, it hurt a lot and would take time to heal.

  The exterior hangar doors were closing slowly now, but just before they closed completely a few vespaxyn slipped in.

  Spinning wildly through the air as they unraveled themselves—splaying out their wings and many limbs, they collided with the mechs.

  They wrestled them into the pressurized doors behind the mechs, spewing acid onto their armors and piercing them with their legs.

  One launched a jet of acid from their scorpion like tail onto the gap between the mechs arm and chassis, then placed a clawed limb onto either end and started pulling them apart. Causing the gun to fire autonomously onto a vespaxyn and other mech beside them.

  Selene whistled, impressed. Though it didn't make any noise due to the hangar being depressurized.

  The vespaxyn might lose out to those jets in a dog fight, but they were a bit more dynamic in their uses.

  Then she noticed a distant noise was becoming closer. Or louder. It drew her gaze. There was a large bulky machine positioned at the end of the hangar emitting the thrumming sound—as if it were charging up.

  "Tssk..." she began running towards it, but suddenly her legs were tangled up in a bola. She fell forward and caught herself with her remaining good arms, rolling over to her back and reaching for the bola's wire.

  Yet another tether connected by two heavy objects. Guns? She was mostly impervious to those. But a fucking wire, that was her weakness? Seriously? This experience was beginning to grate on her nerves.

  She snapped the bola wire and stood up to face her attacker. Well, attackers. There were a dozen of them in black armor that was more form fitting than usual. There were vents were on their calves, vambraces, chest, back... They were completely covered in tiny boosters.

  And they all held bolas, meant to restrict her.

  "Kill yourselves." she ordered, using her telepathic ability.

  They all looked at each other in confusion at that. Then began to twirl their bolas.

  Selene shrugged; "It was worth a shot."

  A woman's voice called out to her—the one who seemed to be their leader.

  "Get in the box, and we won't have to use that." she said, pointing to the large device emitting the electric sound. There was a large silver cylinder slowly rising out of it now, wrapped in a chord that was glowing blue like hot metal.

  "You get in the box, and I won't have to use this." she said, holding her tail in the air beside her.

  Meanwhile, one of the special ops with boosters thought they would be cute and threw a bola at her from her blind spot. Selene deflected it complacently with one of her wings. Then scoffed smugly.

  "Fool me once, shame on me—try to fool me twice? -Fuck you."

  She launched herself at the group.

  Their legs and chests instantly flared with cyan blue light as they dashed out of the away.

  She corrected herself and leapt again, managing to impale one of them with her tail. Selene was still faster than them, but the gravity began to disappear—they had shut it off in the hangar. Selene flailed in the air as she spun from the ground.

  "Okay, annoying." she said flatly, then flung the corpse off her tail and stabbed the ground and carried herself down.

  "But not a dealbreaker."

  Meanwhile, the dark-colored soldiers had no difficulty keeping themselves positioned in 3D space. The boosters were constantly going off at different times to keep the user exactly where they intended to be... It probably took them a lot of practice, too.

  Their movements were all intentional and dare Selene say—elegant. Spinning bolas flew at her from all directions, all the while.

  She dodged many of them, but they slowed her down regardless. Often wrapping around an arm or leg and pulling her away.

  The worst part of it was they weren't even trying to kill her. Just keep her there so that the device could do its job. And she had no intention of finding out exactly what job that was.

  She stopped chasing after them and smirked.

  "... Did you think all my abilities were telepathic? That you'd dress up in psionic shielding, turn the gravity off, that this would be an equal fight? I'm insulted... Like, genuinely."

  In a flash of blue light, the different bola-equipped soldiers dashed all around her. Confusing her with their movements—feinting their throws randomly until one would throw for real. They were getting a bit nervous.

  Selene knelt down and covered herself in her wings to block all their bolas. She wrapped herself with all six of her arms as well, and began to feel the Zykra essence build along the surface of her body and exoskeleton. Harding into tiny bullets.

  Then she burst outwards. Her wings and arms becoming outstretched as over a hundred tiny keratin spikes shot out 360 degrees around her.

  It pelted the inside of the hangar, it sounded as if a sheet of rain fell all at once.

  One soldier had their calve's booster affected, spinning out of control as it refused to shut off.

  It slammed them into the ground, and they slid along until they caught a section of floor that Selene had broken earlier in the battle. Cutting and stopping them. 3 or 4 died in a situation like this, but most of them only had superficial wounds from the attack.

  Still, it was enough to give them bigger things to worry about.

  Selene gripped the ground and flung herself towards the whirring device. Electric sparks and arcs of blue lightning were flying off from the silver cylinder.

  Just as she reached it, she heard someone say; "Hit it!" - a soldier stood near the device, observing some of the gauges and screens on the side. And another was on the other end by a lever.

  They pulled it and the cylinder fell inwards with a metallic clacking sound.

  From her perspective, everything went white then. It wasn't unconsciousness—it was like being punched in the nose times a thousand. Her senses were overwhelmed, and her mind was as discombobulated.

  She couldn't think straight, her thoughts had defaulted to; 'whaaaaaa?'.

  From the security cams perspective, a sphere of blue energy passed through the room, spreading out from the machine. As soon as it passed through anyone—Zykra queen or not—they feel over limply.

  Selene's eyes were still open as she fell face first to the floor and slid. Her wings flopped to the ground and her butt raised into an embarrassingly compromising position.

  The hangar became very quiet then, as the faint sound of electric sparks went out.

  Behind The Chapter...