The Hive Mother tchs, shifting restlessly in her command. All around the distress signals continue to blare at high frequencies, a million frantic ticks a second as her drones cauterise the wounds and cut off the dead veins.
Her ship screams, and she feels each pained vibration.
It took five fs for the micro-hole to completely collapse her weapons lab onto itself, forcing her to waste most of her energy reserve to compensate for the gravity shift. Another thirty seconds, just enough time to prevent the sudden viral outbreak from entering her ship core. Her lab nullified, gone, as if it was never there.
In the Orbital Cities, in the Tunnels, there is a wave of nucleonic bomb bursts. . .
Shaun Brantley stares at some scrappy kid, the stink of the ocean around him. Sodium smoke fills his lungs. He asks the creature if she is the Hecate, reaching into his coat. He is in the postmaster's office, staring questioningly at a queerly dressed woman in pearls, his hands empty.
"That isn't his name," Dr. C. replies to her.
"Brant-ley," she smirks, turning away from them both.
"So you wanna go war some is what you're saying? We can help with that if you do," continues Ikipr.
"Who's next?" Dr. B. asks back, replacing the clear box to his drawer.