“No,” she said aloud. Her daughters quieted immediately and the nife raised his stalks a fraction, hoping. “I won’t accept that he is flawed. The only answer is that the enemy is of greater capability than we had previously assumed.”
“But that oversight would still be his fault,” the daughter to the Parent’s left pointed out petulantly.
The Parent hesitated a moment, passing another larvae. It was only a hest and thus gave her no discomfort. With a liquid slapping sound, it rolled down the chute beneath and behind her. “I myself was as fully taken in as was he. I’ve reviewed the records of the battle transmissions; the bio-computers have sufficient capacity to track everything now. The enemy surprised us by adapting quickly to a new threat, then again by bringing in reinforcements from their great ship. Reinforcements that we had no prior knowledge of. All our software worms have been unable to penetrate the ship’s systems.”
“That’s essentially correct,” chimed in the nife. Already his stalks were on the rise. “In fact, every net on the planet surface has been penetrated and compromised. We’ve yet to get in viruses to disrupt them, but we have tapped them all. Every hour our knowledge of the enemy grows exponentially.”
His stalks were nearly at full extension now, and he took the opportunity to stride up and down before his massive mistresses. Pausing in front of the youngest, he blinked his cusps twice in a conspiratorial and suggestive manner. She responded by sucking air through her foodtube, but didn’t make any public complaints.
The nife continued to pace before them and speak with growing enthusiasm. “I’ll take a chance, right here, right now, and say that victory is in sight for the Imperium. The planet is all but in our control-except for two pockets of real resistance. One is the united forces in the southern estate areas, where the enemy rulers seem to reside, the second is associated with the spaceport and the great ship itself.
“All we really need to do is take the ship. Besides giving us the high ground in this conflict and vast amounts of data concerning the highest technological achievements of the enemy, it will provide us an out if things should sour down here.”
A chorus of blatting noises filled the throne chamber. The three daughters were voicing their displeasure by expelling air through their foodtubes. “Did I hear correctly? Not only does this buffoon fail us as a commander, but immediately he begins to plan for the failure of the entire campaign! What can be gained by planning for gross error?”
“But with one blow we could secure everything!” retorted the nife, excitedly. His mandibles worked the air like frenzied snakes. “We must seize the moment and mount a second, massive assault!”
Further rude noises greeted him.
The Parent slapped her tentacles against her throne, calling for order. Truly, things had been more orderly before she had birthed her daughters. Not for the first time, she considered sending them away with an umulk each to begin their own nests. Let them mature through hard labor and independence. However, she stayed this decision, telling herself that they were yet too young. Perhaps by tomorrow or the next day they would have matured sufficiently to run their own fledgling nests. Thoughtfully, she sat for a time, listening to her digesters and feeling her birthing chambers contract and expand.
“I have made my decisions,” she said after a time during which the others had become increasingly restive. “You, eldest of my nife offspring, must gather all our strength in the polar region for one fatal thrust against the enemy. We will take the spaceport and the great ship.”
“Oh, thank you, my Parent,” cried the nife, his orbs wide and beaming. “You will not be disappointed, not in the least. I will-”
“See that I am not,” said the Parent, overriding him. “Or else you will be both gelded and expelled from this nest.”
The three daughters found this immensely amusing.
“I have further decided,” continued the Parent, “that my daughters are quite ready to face the outside world alone. Tomorrow, with a small dowry of offspring, each of you will be transported to a strategic spot on the continent to begin new nests in secret.”
It was the nife’s turn to laugh. The daughters all but swooned at the idea of leaving the home nest, but the Parent remained adamant.
The nife then proceeded to flirt with them all in his customary, brash manner, winking his cusps and massaging their birthing thrones suggestively. When he finally exited, it was with a handsome flourish that left them all with their hormones flowing.
By nightfall, Droad and Jarmo were walking the walls of Fort Zimmerman, inspecting the damage. It had all gone with surprising ease. Taking complete leadership of the militia had been easy after Steinbach had run off. That single action, combined with the generally cowardly performance of the militia leadership during the battle had done wonders for Droad’s popularity. The men were loyal to him now, he, his amazing mechs and his giants had saved them from the aliens.
Leaving the spaceport in the hands of Major Lee and a handful of his former staff, Droad and Jarmo led their small army against the fort. The assault on the fort itself had been little more than an exercise. It had been held only by a skeletal force of aliens, mostly the multi-armed, multi-eyed types that piloted the Stormbringers and the other vehicles they had captured. Captain Dorman had blown a hole in the outer fences and the rear wall of the fortress. Two lifters full of militiamen and mechs had stormed through the smoldering breach and slaughtered what resistance there was. The enemy had had only enough time to destroy the missile launchers before they were retaken.
“This easy victory doesn’t make me feel much better,” complained Droad, gesticulating at the fortress around them.
“At least we stopped the missile attacks on the city.”
“Yes, that’s excellent, but where are the enemy? There aren’t even any corpses left behind except for those octopus pilots of theirs. Where are our dead militiamen from last night’s banquet?”
“My initial investigation indicates that all the bodies have been removed and carried into the tunnels we found in the banquet hall.”
“What do they want with all the bodies?”
“The social structure of these aliens reminds me somewhat of insects,” said Jarmo, thoughtfully. A chill wind rippled his heavy coat. “The orderly way that they approach warfare and everything else; their lack of concern for their individual well-being. They are similar to ants, or termites. They even dig tunnels with fantastic speed.”
Droad stopped walking and turned to Jarmo, listening carefully. The clouds had broken over the polar region and the sun could be seen, scudding along just above the horizon. Its light was welcome, but seemed to provide little heat.
“I can only surmise that after a battle they would eat our people and probably their own dead as well,” concluded Jarmo.
“They eat their own dead?”
“Insects are very efficient.”
“But these things aren’t insects,” argued Droad. “They’re more like hot-blooded reptiles, like dinosaurs, than insects.”
“Physically yes, but not socially.”
Droad started walking again, and Jarmo fell in step beside him. He looked back toward the spaceport and the dark shaft of the space elevator that reached up into the sky, all the way to the orbital platform. It was like a metallic umbilical cord, stretching for miles right up into space.
“I still wonder why they pulled back. They must be regrouping, planning something big.”
“I agree,” said Jarmo. “They are probably massing in the mountains for a counterattack.”
“Get the fort’s battle computers online. I want them tracking all the appropriate radio frequencies. Find those aliens, Jarmo.”