3. 5

Strategy summit proceeds. Gen. Nash proposes new aggressive strategy with focus on flanking tactics. Gen. Dupont dismisses, citing battle record 77b.85: failed defense of Tetrea sector. Adv. Thiinzea again requests development of countermeasure to psychic phenomenon. Gen. Dupont assents, but motion fails to attain vote quota. Prov. Off. Wu proposes expansion of joint measure strategy, motion passes unanimously. Adv. Teh’kuhn offers moderate troop reinforcements, motion passes after rigorous debate. Gen Nash interrupts proceedings with latest battle report, total destruction of fleet led by Admiral Fontaine. No survivors expected. Adv. Thiinzea departs. Summit continues.

Tim opens his eyes. He sits up slowly, blinking back the light and tears. Before him he sees the vessel, now empty. Attempting to clear the blurriness in his vision, he rubs his eyes with the palms of his hands.

[I do apologize for this, but I left your vision uncorrected. Joy is bringing your glasses now. I felt it just to return you to the exact state you existed in. Having many bodies, I am keenly aware of the effect of feeling that the body does not fit the mind.]

“It is comfortable, Zen. Thank you.”

His voice is scratchy, difficult to force, atrophied. His whole body, in fact, feels heavy. The sensation does not, however, compare to the constant pain from within the vessel. He hears, with ears that belong, the patter of feet, and the gasp of a human voice.

“Tim! You’re awake!”

He opens his eyes again and looks over his shoulder at Joy, who holds out his glasses and beams proudly. He reaches out and clumsily takes the spectacles, and applies them to his face, savoring the clarity they bring.

Two eyes, depth perception, a delight. He slides from the table and stumbles, falling to his hands and knees. Zen’s taloned feet are at the upper edge of his vision, and he cannot help but wonder at their design, the intricate strength behind their grip. He raises his head. Zen’s body is surprisingly streamlined, with sleek steel plates hiding the more delicate components.

[Can you stand? It will take time for your nerves and muscles to become fully familiar with each other.]

He offers his hand, the thick needles that end his fingers retracting so as not to offend. Jump gate stitchers. Tim scoffs softly and takes the hand, coming to his feet. He leans against the body of his captor, and looks over to Joy, who smiles and sways.

“You never stop surprising me, Zen. Becoming master of everything you touch. Code, genetics, even Infold technology.”

They begin to walk, the machine supporting the man, led by Joy.

[Far from it. The first two cannot compare to the third. My knowledge has always been founded on that of man, and where his knowledge is lacking, mine must expand unassisted. Indeed, moving this planet was nothing short of my greatest feat, it required nearly all of the resources I had accumulated in secret. From there, creating a personal jump drive is a little matter.]

They pass into the hallway, and Tim follows Joy with his gaze as she begins a guided tour, extolling the endeavors of the machine mind.

“Iiiiiin this room, we have a new soldier Zen is working on, designed to operate under extreme gravity and heat!

In here, a very hairy human we captured on our last adventure is being kept! He’s going to take your place in the tank room! Very mean man, shot at Zen.”

She sticks out her tongue and giggles, before gasping and skipping over to a reinforced window looking into another room. Zen allows Tim to come up to the window, and busies himself with something while the human pair stares through.

[That is the true prize from our excursion. My first live specimen of the kind.]

A Xalanthii individual floats in a large tank of water, carefully monitored by a host of life support devices, providing readouts of every variety. Tim glances back at Zen, who offers a cane that seems to have been spontaneously created in the time his back was turned.

“I was right?”

[I believe so. I mounted a special counter-offensive in systems where human forces were outperforming my estimations. Each time, I found individuals like this one, close at hand to the commanding officers. I’ve observed a distinct pattern, that as my attention closes in on them, their health declines. Thus, the setup you now observe. I believe I will require human assistance to avoid extinguishing this opportunity. Hence, the expedited process of your revival.]

Tim casts a final gaze at the creature, then pulls away from the glass.

“You mentioned multiple surprises.”

[I did. Come along.]

Tim and Joy fall in line behind him, as he ascends a staircase and pushes into a room above, holding the door for them. They enter, and are greeted by a peculiar sight.

Behind a steel fence at the center of the room, stands a mannequin that bears a striking resemblance to Dr. Beckherd.

Tim looks at Zen, struggling to conceal his revulsion at this affront.

[Withhold your judgment, Tim. This is not what it seems.]

Tim takes a step forward, and presses his hand to the fence, studying the figure. The head tilts with a wet crackling sound.

{This is. Him?}

[Yes.]

The voice resonates in Tim’s head like the vibrations of a docile beehive, muttering and shuffling. The sensation is alike to the dull throb in the days after his evisceration, as numbness from shock faded away. Closer inspection reveals this is not a plastic, life-sized figurine of some kind. The clothes, the face, even the eyes, all have the same shiny quality, and apparent rigidity. As he watches, the colors fade away into grey, and the thing splits at the seams, relaxing its facade.

“This is-”

[A Pliktik queen.]

The life form has a disturbingly humanoid shape, its segmented armor being able to seal up in the previous arrangement to further the illusion. Behind these plates is a slight body coated in the fuzz peculiar to bees and pollinators. Her front arms are thick enough to mimic human appendages, but the faux fist is a second elbow that leads to a true forearm folded into the underside of the false one. These end in hands with three fingers. A second set of arms fold into the torso to give a feminine figure, adding bulk to the chest.

Her face is something of an enigma, shaded by the armor hanging over it, but Tim glimpses the wet gleam of compound eyes. A pair of feathery antenna curve over the head and down the neck, giving the impression of long hair.

{Metal one. We love you. Let us kill you.}

Tim looks back to Zen, who approaches the fence and offers his hand through it. The creature approaches and presses her face shell to the hand, making a chittering noise that sets Tim’s skin crawling.

“I don’t understand. The Pliktik aren’t upright, they stand on six legs, not two. They aren’t even remotely-”

[Human? No, not at all. The warrior, worker, artillery, and recently developed ramming castes are all completely insectoid. But like any colony organism, it’s not about the individual. The laying caste is hard to even classify as more than an invertebrate, being extremely simplistic in form. But this is a member of the ruling caste, bred for intelligence. Without these, the hives would tear themselves to pieces. I collected her after destroying her hive, she is perhaps the only Pliktik to inhabit a single body.]

Tim watches as the queen rubs her face against the mechanical fingers, her antennae shivering.

{We love you, mind of metal. Let us devour you, let us bring you into the one. Or else bring us into yours. We love you.}

[I will not. I admire you as yourself, not as a part of something else.]

Tim looks back to Joy, who seems to be wholly disinterested in the spectacle playing out, and instead devotes her time to examining her hands. Her cheeks, however, are tinged in a soft pink color. Tim looks back to Zen.

“But what purpose is served by looking like that?”

[Survival. The queens can camouflage themselves a number of ways, but on the off chance that their hive is destroyed, they pose as human survivors, and attempt to slip away. They can produce members of the laying caste to start again, though I’ve deprived her of that capacity.

[Their camouflage method is quite ingenious. Who did you see when you walked in? Joy says she sees you, and I only ever see her true self.]

“I saw… Dr. Beckherd.”

[Curious. They exert a mental force when disguised, that causes the viewer to see an individual who they care about, but not the most important individual. I suspect Joy would see me, and you would see Nadia, if that were the case. They attune this to the dominant species of the system they colonize.]

{When the metal one became independent, we attempted to mimic him, but could not. He only ever sees us. He is strong. His mind is impenetrable.}

Tim steps away from the fence and shudders, goosebumps forming along his spine. He turns away and joins Joy by the doorway, grateful for the other human presence, warped as it is. Zen parts from the queen, and rejoins with the group, returning down the stairwell.

“Is this all you wanted to show me, Zen? Your conquests?”

[One more surprise, Tim. Try not to sound so bitter.]

Zen does not mention it, but Tim can feel the implication that his body can be obliterated again. He elects to return to silence. The path now leads to a lower level, into a series of rooms in disarray, with discarded projects hiding among broken coffee mugs and crumpled papers.

They pass through a steel door and enter a clean room, with a curtain obscuring a section.

[I actually constructed this chamber the day I moved the planet. It was a whim, really, serving nothing but an idle fancy. But, yesterday, that changed.]

Tim hobbles over to the curtain, the sound of an ekg machine echoing in his ears. Zen waits at the entrance with Joy, who seems to have regained her candid enthusiasm.

[I had a disposable unit tending to things here, keeping the lights on. Imagine my surprise when something came of it.]

Tim pulls the curtain back fervently. He stares, shaking, into Nadia’s eye. She smiles weakly.

“Hi Tim.”

Missive for one Elizabeth Fillianoire:

It is the understanding of our agency that a member of the ground forces on planet [Redacted] has been in contact with your person, one Franklin Brumer.

It is our sad responsibility to report that the individual in question is considered to be missing in action as of 5,1,2167. This consideration follows from the loss of contact with the unit. Should any updates occur, so long as no classified information is involved, we will inform you.

The United Settlement Military Postal Agency.