Women of Steel 4: Strawberry Daiquiri Camille Anthony 
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Copyright ©2007 Camille Anthony 

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Women of Steel 4: Strawberry Daiquiri Camille Anthony 
General Daiquiri Harmon, raised by Earth’s premier General Thalassic Harmon, is a strong drink of a woman. Not many males can stomach her demanding ways. Thankfully, Lorrkar, the Scarth War Leader, is used to forceful women. His mother, after all, is his world’s Hive Queen. 
To stay together, these two unlikely lovers will go up against their mothers using every weapon in their combined arsenal. With a lie stronger than the truth, how can they lose? 
Chapter One 
An inquisitive finger nudged her nipple. It quivered under the soft stroke, and she lay with bated breath, waiting, hoping for more. A feather light brush of fingertips over her other crest caused her breath to hitch and Daiquiri Harmon, General serving in Earth’s Planetary Repulsion Force, groaned with hedonistic pleasure. 
“More…” 
Masculine thumbs and forefingers grasped both nipples between them and tugged, their tight pinching a harbinger of tighter pleasure to come. “How much more would you have, my queen?” 
“Every last bit more, my warrior lover.” 
The heat of the bed sands, the even hotter feel of Lorrkar’s focused, erotic caresses soaked through to the marrow of her once chilled bones. She stretched under his liquefying touches, offering her naked breasts to his obsession with her flesh. 
“How does this make you feel?” His hands drifted down her body, cupped her sensitive mound. In no hurry, he thumbed the throbbing thimble of nerves; dragged a careful fingernail over the too sensitive nub. With a series of languid unhurried moves, his thumbs parted her swollen labia, tongue curling out to lap along the steamy channel of her sex, sipping on her spilling juices. He caught her clit between his teeth and lashed at it with the tip of his tongue, tormenting the bit of flesh until it ached and burned. 
“Ah!” Her eyelids drifted shut. “Yes… yes, Lorr, eat me!” 
Her palm curved around the base of his broad neck, held him close as she arched her hips into the decadent sensations of his hot mouth nibbling at her most intimate flesh. Her body reveled in the warmth denied it for so many years. She’d been frozen from the heart out until Lorrkar’s love had resurrected her, defrosted her cold dead heart and filled it with joy. 
Daiq moaned as Lorrkar pressed two fingers inside her tight opening, dipping in and out, stretching her channel for his cock. Teeth nipping, tongue lapping he tucked his hands under her bottom, raised her to his mouth and devoured her like one maddened with hunger. 
Eons later, Lorrkar lifted his face, chin wet and dripping with her essence, to stare into her face. His eyes, fierce despite their soft velvety brown color, gleamed down at her from a handsome but stern visage, sharp planes chiseled by adversity. “And what do you want now, my delicious feast?” 
“I want you to fuck me, fill me up until no inch of me is left cold and empty.” 
“Gladly.” He answered her demands with his body, with the slow, sensual slide of his skin along her hungry curves. She ached for him, for the close, intimate touch of one attuned to her mind as well as her body, and quaked as he fit himself against her… pushed in and began to make love to her. 
Their languid fuck grew turbulent and Lorrkar, his hand pressed to her lower back, rolled them over, maintaining their intimate connection. She sat up and sank down on his upstanding cock, riding him hard. 
When the crisis struck, they came screaming, clutching each other close. Lorr’s carapace snapped into place around them, enclosing them in peaceful darkness, shielding their privacy, guarding their secrets. She fell asleep on his chest. 
Daiquiri was dreaming… 
She stood on a high hill, overlooking the training facility on Gedde Prime. The purple trees held white flowers and the wind swept the long grasses to one side. Light clouds scudded by in a deep yellow sky holding a small pink sun. Martini and Tequila stood on either side of her, shouting out the answers to the trivia questions she’d devised. 
It was summer, ten years since Darvic had left their mother -- or she’d thrown him out. That was the only year all three Harmon sisters had been on GP. 
Martini’s homesick tears had driven her older sisters crazy. Yet every time they’d offer to vid home and beg their mother to relent, she’d reacted with terror. For some reason, Marti had always been certain the sisters would never see each other again should they become separated. 
“I married Denzel and Spike but I lost Sean somewhere along the way. We’re expecting a son and a daughter.” 
She’d know that voice anywhere. “Marti.” Daiq turned and met her baby sister’s brilliant smile head on. “What are you doing here? How did you get here?” 
“I’m dreaming and so are you. We can go anywhere we dream… if we want to.” 
Marti wore a soft gown, the pastel folds falling to her feet. Her bare toes peeked out from the floating hem and Daiq remembered how this sister would kick her shoes off at every opportunity. 
“You little hoyden, are you still refusing to wear shoes? What does Mother have to say about that?” 
Her tinkling laugh was the stuff of sweet memories, the harbinger of childhood innocence. “Not a damned thing! I am just like my mother.” 
“Impossible!” Daiq laughed. Marti had always denied the resemblance between their mother’s nature and her own. 
Drawing her slim body into a straight line, Marti -- sounding very much like Thalassic -- barked, “Impossible. That is a word not coded in the Amazonian dictionary.” 
“You’re right, you are like the general.” 
A sad smile softened the lines of Marti’s face. “Only in the dark. Only where it counts.” 
“What of Tequila, Marti? Did she survive the battle?” 
One tear and then another dropped until a flood ran down Marti’s cheeks. “Tequila is lost in the dark, where nothing counts. Tequila has no sunrises left inside her.” 
But Tequila was the brightest of us… the happiest heart. 
“Tequila’s heart is cold… cold… cold… cold… cold… cold…” 

Chapter Two 
Something niggled at the back of her mind, something important. For a moment, she almost had it; the next, it had slid from her grasp like the desperately clenched handle of a blood-slicked laser pistol. If only she could remember… 
Daiquiri turned into Lorrkar’s arms, snuggling against his heated skin. She could lie here forever, basking in the newfound love she’d found with Lorrkar. She could sleep for days, cocooned in his warmth, no longer lonely, no longer cold… 
“Oh, Matrix unwinding, I need gutting!” 
With a pained cry, Daiq shot up from the hot clinging sands, twisting her lithe warm body adroitly to evade her lover’s outstretched arms. She landed on her feet, fists planted on her hips, brows drawn together in self-disgust. Spouting the foulest curse she could remember from years of hard military life, she castigated herself. “Beat me to death with a cock and call me a dock-side whore, how could I be so selfish as to forget my own women?” 
Lorrkar rolled to his back and gazed up at her through melting brown eyes. The stalks of his antennae inclined toward her, gently waving. “My queen, what troubles you?” 
As always, his wide-eyed pupil-less gaze made him appear so innocent, so helpless. She, of all people, knew better. This Being stretched before her was the mastermind behind the first successful attack against Earth since the formation of the Planetary Repulsion Force. Knowing all that, Daiq still had to fight the urge to soothe him. 
“Oh, nothing much,” Daiquiri answered, her mouth twisting in sarcastic self-derision, “only the fact that for the last day or so I’ve been living in the lap of luxury while the few remaining soldiers left of my command are freezing to death in those 
godforsaken caves!” 
Lorrkar abruptly sat up. “But… your kind relishes the cold!” 
She paused mid-pace. “You’re kidding, right?” 
He made that alien gesture she was beginning to recognize meant confusion. “We watched carefully for many years. We wanted to make sure the environment was pleasant for your kind.” 
Daiq closed her eyes and breathed deep and slow. When she opened them, she’d regained control over her hair-trigger temper. It wasn’t his fault. The fact he was the only one there for her to blame didn’t make it fair. Right now, she wasn’t interested in fairness. “Let me guess… vid feeds.” 
“We watched the transmissions from your world for many years. I will show you.” 
He scooted to the edge of the sandpit and rolled out in a fluid move that had her salivating over the exposed curves of his tight ass. Going over to the far wall, he pressed a recessed button and a view screen seemed to bleed through the wall itself. “Hall Brain, load the archives of the Hoomun people… review speed.” 
Processing… 
In growing dismay, Daiq watched as aged, grainy vids from before Earth was first invaded flowed across the screen. In short vid after short vid, she saw frames of people relaxing under air conditioners, skiing, snowboarding. One vid showed a bikini-clad woman romping in knee-high snowdrifts. Other scenes flashed by of languid people fanning and sweating on the beaches or sweltering in saunas, their faces twisted in what -- to an outsider with no frame of reference -- looked like extreme pain. 
Daiq groaned, dropping her head into her hands. She couldn’t believe this. As a child, she, along with her two younger sisters, had suffered with a serious case of Retro fever. Desperate for all things ancient, they’d broken the rules and hacked into the Historical Mainframe numerous times, devouring the old vids. That was why she recognized the short vignettes scrolling past as what used to be called commercials. She looked on in chagrined disbelief. The Scarth had utilized commercials -- make believe 
selling tools -- as their blueprint on human society. 
“By the Matrix, it’s a wonder you people won the first skirmish…” 
Lorr’s crestfallen expression made her backtrack. “Never mind, Lorrkar, I can see you meant well, but I have to tell you, your pre-invasion source was extremely skewed.” 
“I realize that now, but I still do not understand our error.” Lorrkar sighed, ordering the display to cease. “What is it your people need?” 
Daiq did some sighing of her own. “We need and want much the same as your people… the basics.” She ticked the items off on one hand. “Warmth, food that won’t break our teeth, and water to bathe in that won’t leave our skin blue. Did it never once occur to you to wonder how quickly and thankfully I took to these heated sands?” 
Lorrkar shrugged. “Honestly… no. You are a queen, a ruler. It is your nature to adapt and live.” 
She stared at him, half waiting for him to break character and laugh, sure he had to be joking. When he didn’t, simply stood gazing at her in what looked like serene admiration, she snorted. “Hero worship from the War Leader of the Scarth… what’s next, a co-habitation invite?” She patted his arm. “Lorr, you are great for my ego, but that alone isn’t getting my women warmth and food.” 
Lorr sidled up beside her, slid his arms around her waist. “I will have the remainder of your troops moved to a secure, warm area. I will order good food for them, not the dry bricks we thought you enjoyed.” 
She turned and placed her arms about his neck. “When?” 
“Right now.” Without releasing her, he walked the few steps to the wall, engaged the central computer and transmitted a flurry of commands too rapid for her injected translation device to keep up. Turning back to her with a grin, he gave a decisive nod. “That’s done. By this afternoon, the caverns will be emptied and your people relocated and fed.” 
Daiq touched her fingers to his upstanding antennae, smiling as his body shuddered in aroused response. He’d liked that. She nodded, pleased by this evidence of having done something right. Daiq had been studying what turned him on and she thought she’d gotten the hang of it pretty well down. “How can I say thank you?” 
“Touch mouths with me.” His hands tugged at her waist, drew her flush against him. “Show me again how Hoomuns share mouth dew.” 
She hung back, resisting, teasing. “I think you like that too much, like kissing me. What would your queens do, hmm? What will they say when they find you’ve been picking up nasty alien habits?” 
He groaned, chasing her elusive mouth. “They have nothing to say. They gave you to me.” When she stiffened in his arms he rushed on, “And I gave me to you. Now, please…!” 
She did not intend to lose her focus again. Until she saw with her own eyes, her troops’ situation in better condition, she’d not indulge in selfish hedonism. Still, happy with his response, Daiq relented and stopped evading him. 
“Good answer!” Moving closer, she went up on tiptoe and rested her arms on his shoulders, bringing their bodies into alignment. Between them, his arousal pressed into her belly, the blunt tip damp with pre-come. She rocked into his hardness, rubbed her belly across his protruding glans and smiled to feel his body’s surging response. Pulling his head down, she covered his lips with hers, sent her tongue probing along the seam of his mouth. 
Lorr opened to her and she thrust inside, aggressively plumbing the wet hot depths of his mouth. Just like the last time, his taste burst on her senses, a tart sweetness that had her dipping deeper into the well of passion, her womb clenching on emptiness. 
Each move she made, he echoed, learning and quickly surpassing her expertise. Was she so great a teacher, or he so great a student? She didn’t know. All she knew was her growing need for this male once her enemy, now her lover. 
With a feral growl, she pressed closer, opening wider as his tongue snaked forward to tangle with hers, his tensile length twined about hers, running along her teeth in a slick slide and glide. She grew wet, her pussy spilling cream along her nether lips, readying her for the next step as she slipped further beneath a wave of pure lust, lured by the intense emotions he so easily engendered within her. 
Caught up in their exchange, Daiq lost sight of her goals, their sensual play wiping all but pleasure from her mind. Against her will, her nipples came erect, swelling and tightening until the nerves buried in the sensitive tips screamed at the abrasion of his chest rising and falling, rubbing against them. 
Gasping, Lorr lifted his head, disengaging their mouths to pant wildly. “I cannot get enough of you!” Then he dove back into the kiss, a whirlwind of lips and tongue and teeth battering at her resolve. 
Her breathing hitched only to return at a faster, more desperate rate. Fisting a hank of the fur-like hair at the base of his neck, Daiq dragged him down to her, went up on her toes to mash her lips against his. 
With a little mewling cry, he fell beneath her determined attack, vulnerable as always to her mastering, and she drank in his response, his innocent joy of this intimate joining. Even while she reveled in the powerful feelings his surrender sparked in her, Daiq knew any more would see her own unraveling. She slowed her mouth’s movements, disengaged their tongues. 
Desperate to keep the kiss going, Lorrkar’s arms convulsed around her, squeezing her to the point of pain. “Please… more!” 
Marveling at how hard she found it, Daiq pulled away with a last languid lick, ignoring his frantic pleas. “There, we’ve touched mouths, as you asked. Is there nothing else you want?” 
He looked at her, his pupil-less eyes wide and shining with eagerness, just like a baby kraken’s. “You would honor my requests?” 
His humble asking was one of the major things Daiq loved about Lorrkar. He never demanded, never assumed, never attempted to assert his maleness over her femaleness. In other words, he didn’t automatically expect her to obey him just because he was male. In fact, he looked to her to lead in all things sexual. Perhaps it was due to his upbringing… a warrior drone under ruling queen bees, but Daiquiri found it endearing, nonetheless. 
A warrior woman bred and raised, heir to the Amazon gene programs of the early twenties, she found it hard to warm up sexually to a so-called macho man. Yet, she couldn’t stand a whiner or a male unable to defend himself. She wanted no wimp beneath her, no weak puling babe between her thighs. Thankfully, Lorrkar proved to be none of those things. 
As the Scarth War Leader, he answered only to the ruling queens. To lead the vast armada of ships and men he did required intelligence, determination and strength greater than those he led. His strength was evident, his determination a living force. He proved his intelligence when his battle plans swept the combined opposition of Earth’s finest fighting force from the field with what had seemed a frighteningly casual strength. 
Daiq knew that right now, the people of Earth, headed by her mother, Thalassic Harmon, were scrambling to learn all they could of Scarth weaponry. They were seeking to crack the superior technology that had bested their most advanced systems before the enemy returned for a second round of hostilities. 
The Scarth, on the other hand, led by the ruling queens, were planning another attack, indeed, were provisioning for it even now. Against all the odds, she’d come across solar systems to find the one male compatible with her, a consort capable of melting the snow in her heart. She knew Lorr wanted what she did: a chance to love and a cessation of war between their two people. More than all his other stellar attributes, this one -- his desire for peace -- weighed the heaviest. 
An honorable enemy was far easier to accept than a sycophantic friend was, but Daiq could no longer pretend she saw Lorrkar as an enemy. If she had her way, this male would become her primary consort, the father of her daughters. 
“Dack-iri, where have you gone?” 
The worry and impatience in his voice told her she’d been too involved in thought. Poor guy was waiting for his answer. “I’m here, Lorr, just thinking about our situation. To answer your question, I will always honor your requests above all others. That doesn’t mean I’ll be able to do what you want, but I will give you the priority, wherever possible.” 
He nodded. “That is all I can ask.” 
She knew he understood. They both held responsibilities and duties that often took precedence over their personal lives. Carving a life out together wasn’t going to be easy. “Like now. I know you want to make love, but we need to get to the lab and talk with your friend. Much as we enjoy trying to bring it about, I need to be pregnant yesterday.” 
A heavy sigh lifted his impressive chest. “I understand. Come…” he held out his hand, “… I will take you to Breen, who is not only my friend, but my brother.” 
Daiquiri placed her hand in his, shivering when his fingers closed warm and gentle over hers. Something fragile and frightening welled in her belly, clogging her throat. Trust. Love. Stopping, she pulled against his hold. “Wait.” 
Lorr turned back to her, a questioning look on his face. She cupped that gentle, stern face between her palms, stared up into his velvety smooth brown eyes. A smile widened her mouth. She licked her lips. “Kiss me first, consort. Share mouths with me…” 

Chapter Three 
In the lab 
The smooth-skinned darkly monochrome Hoomun woman stared out at him from where she cowered on her bunk, her strangely colored eyes round with panic. Her face, as she gazed at him, bore no expression he could decipher. Breen wondered what she was thinking, this alien female to whom he was so attracted. Did she see him as a monster, a being involved in torturing and abusing her? Had she even heard him speaking to her? Or had he failed in this last attempt at communication too? 
He offered his hand to her, antennae gently inclined. “Hoomun, I am the Scarth called Breen. I function as a scientist drone. What is your designation?” 
She ignored him. He waited patiently, knowing the compound he’d injected the female with occasionally took longer to become effective in differing metabolisms. After a moment passed, he tried again. “What is your function?” 
Her dark face twisted into a mask of hatred that he, an alien to her species’ myriad expressions, could easily decode. Scooting to the edge of the bunk, she shouted, “My name is Paula Mason, my rank Corporal in the Planetary Repulsion Force. My ident code is Tango-seven-Foxtrot-niner-niner. My function is the killing of Scarths.” She spat the last word out as though it were a nasty taste in her mouth. 
“You can understand me… and I can understand you!” Breen’s excited whisper had barely died before he lurched away to perform another nervous sweep of the lab, double-checking to make sure the security system and vid observers remained offline. The queens were more than usually paranoid during this time of unrest. They’d ordered constant vid recordings of even the tiniest spaces within the hive. 
Having assured himself all was clear and his tampering had not yet been noticed, Breen hurried back to her cell, antennae waving wildly, carapace ruffling and snapping, the hard shells extending past his back in a deplorably shameful display of emotion. 
He slowed as he drew closer, confused by the odors the female Hoomun was emitting. Though his sense of smell was acute, he had no scent marker coded for her, nothing with which to identify the strong aroma wafting toward him. 
Was it fear? 
Determination? 
Hatred? 
Sadly, he suspected the latter. He knew no way of knowing other than to ask. “Hoomun, what are you feeling? Is it fear? There is no need.” He crooned a little wordless nestling song, holding his hand out, showing his empty palms, hoping it was a universal signal and she’d realize he was not attacking. “I do not wish to harm you.” 
“Liar!” 
Breen drew back at the female’s venomous snarl. His carapace snapped once before retreating fully into his back. His antennae reclined toward the back of his head. 
“I do not lie,” he protested. And yet… He admitted his culpability, if only to himself. I’ve been lying since the day I chose to defy the rule of the Hive, determined to keep this Hoomun female as my own. 
He’d falsified her records. Further flouting his queens’ commands, he’d taken the irreversible step of administering the forbidden drug to her so they could communicate. By doing so, he’d given her a tool that might one day serve to bring down his people. Was that not lying? Shame tempered his next question. “How do you think I lie?” 
“When you say you will not harm me, you lie. Your kind harms us every day, every hour.” 
“How do we harm you?” His antennae twitched forward in confusion. Breen could not understand her complaint, yet it was obvious to him she felt hard done by. Her grievance sounded heartfelt. “We make sure the temperature in your holding place is pleasing, though it pains us to be near you, surrounded by this chilly environment. 
We supply you the dry, dense nourishment your kind partake of, though we cannot fathom why you Hoomuns choose this form of food over more pleasant fare. To my mind, we have done what we can to make you comfortable, but it seems we have failed in our endeavors, so please speak plainly and enlighten me as to our errors.” 
Her round eyes narrowed as her head cocked to the side. Breen wondered what that narrow gaze meant, wondered if this expression was even in response to his statements. What part of what he’d said did she disagree with? Her hard stare made him despair she might ever get past her animosity enough to see him as a potential friend, let alone a lover. 
The female threw herself at the plasteel separating them, mouth twisted into an ugly scowl. Palms splayed flat against the clear panel, she yelled at him. “You have got to be fucking kidding me! How can you stand there, knowing you’ve killed almost three hundred of us, and claim you don’t intend to harm us?” 
Breen blinked, rational thought almost overwhelmed at the sheer amount of rich pheromones the Hoomun female was manufacturing. She might be screaming at the top of her lungs, but she was emoting pure passion. Erotic passion that struck right to the heart of his root, which rose with an alacrity he’d never known. 
In utter shock, Breen watched his stinger emerge. The hollow cone shaped bone protruded from the head of his cock, pulsing like a living thing, spilling a pale yellow honey from its sharp tip. 
The Hoomun watched it too. The sight sent her reeling backwards, huddling against the far wall. “Tell me you don’t want to hurt me, Scarth. I remember you, standing by while that animal raped me. When I screamed for help, all you did was grow a boner. But you don’t want to hurt me!” 
Her voice held much fear, despite how she mocked his words. Breen felt shame in the face of her accusations. He could not dispute the veracity of her words because he knew himself guilty. The day of her mounting, he’d have given anything to be the Scarth between her thighs. 
“There was nothing I could do. The queens sent the breeder to test your fertility. If I’d tried to stop the coupling, I’d have been recycled.” He lowered his eyes, not wanting to see her disgust when he confessed the next. “My root grew firm for you, it is true, but I would not have forced you to my sands.” 
Her gasp and the soft waft of a sweet aroma gave him the courage to lift his head. “From the beginning, your smooth dark skin has enticed me. Your dark narrow eyes and the firm jut of your full suckle sacs has tormented my body with feelings I thought long dead. You have brought me back to life. This is why I administered the compound that allows us to speak, to communicate.” 
“So in gratitude, I’m supposed to fall down with my legs open? I don’t think so!” The Hoomun -- Pala, she had named herself -- turned her back on him, faced the wall while she added, “I will never forget how you watched me… saw me give in… heard me beg him to fuck me…” 
Her words trailed off and Breen closed his eyes, the memories flowing across his mind in vivid bursts of visual vignettes. She had begged… in the end, stung a hundred times at least, she’d thrashed and screamed, clawed and bit, so drunk on the breeder’s honey she’d lost all inhibitions. The damned drone had taken a long time with the Hoomun too, fucking her until he’d wanted to scream, to tear the burly male off and take his place. Though the action had caused him to lose face and status, he’d barely snapped his carapace about his body in time enough to prevent his honey spewing all over the lab… 
Breen’s shoulders dropped, his antennae drooped. He understood her animosity now. She hated that he’d been there to witness her unwilling surrender to the potent power of their stingers’ pleasure inducing properties. In her eyes, he had become the symbol of that failure. Unless something untoward occurred, his hopes were doomed to failure. She would never let herself respond to his attraction. Still, he couldn’t bear for her to continue castigating herself for something she’d had no control over. 
“Every male Scarth breeder produces mating honey. This honey causes an addictive state in the female and engenders extreme emotional and physical responses in the recipient. It increases the desire for coitus exponentially.” 
Breen watched her face to see if she was hearing his explanation. She’d half turned toward him, curiosity tugging at her. She said nothing, and still would not meet his gaze, but he was satisfied she listened. He continued. “This honey is delivered by utilizing the stinger embedded in the tip of his root. When a male becomes excited prior to or during coitus, the stinger emerges from the head of the root. Subsequently, this hollow bone is embedded in the fleshy upper part of his partner’s vagina, where it deposits small quantities of the fluid. Each successive thrust deposits additional amounts until the sexual partner succumbs to the chemical. Actually, it need not be the female sexual organ, alone. Any blood-rich area such as the mouth or whichever orifice the male penetrates is susceptible to the mating honey.” 
He paused, this time waiting until Pala raised her eyes to his. Their dark surface swam with liquid. Gently, looking deep into those beautifully alien eyes, he continued, “A chemical weapon was used against you. There was no way you could resist. You did not break. You were taken over. There is a difference.” 
The dark skinned female straightened, stared at him for a long time. He said nothing, waiting to see what she would do. Breen knew he had done the right thing, telling her of the honey used to condition females to accepting a male’s advances. Already she stood taller, shoulders back and spine straight. Before his eyes, she took on the queenly mien that had attracted him from the first. 
“Why did you tell me this?” 
He tilted his head at her. “I… you needed to hear it?” 
She narrowed her long eyes at him. “There is another reason, isn’t there?” 
His antennae inclined toward her. “Yes.” 
“Is it something to do with why you shot me up with this?” She lifted her arm, rotated it so the injection site was visible to him. 
At her persistence, his heart beat erratically, pulse jumped. Was she ready to hear him put in words his dreams, his hopes? What would he do if she dashed them? He remained mute. 
“Tell me.” 
The unthinking note of authority in her voice tightened things low in his abdomen. His root jerked, rising higher. She flicked her gaze down and then back up, discounting his involuntary reaction to her commanding stance. “Why did you go to such trouble to communicate with me?” 
Breen’s body quaked, his carapace extending out to shadow his shoulders. The metallic shimmering deep bronze hue proclaimed his paternal lineage, the sight usually engendering feelings of pride. Right now, the display made him stammer out an apology. “Forgive me for subjecting you to this deplorable show of emotion. I will try to utilize better control of these things.” 
“What are those things, wings? I saw some of their function on the battlefield, but what else can you do with them?” 
A scientist and naturally inquisitive, himself, Breen easily recognized her current expression revealed curiosity. Willing to share any information she desired, he turned so she could have a better view. 
“Along my shoulder blades and down the center of my back… can you see the thin edge protruding from my flesh?” 
He had to crane his neck to see her nod. “Our carapaces were once wings as you said, but over the millennia they have atrophied into these vestigial shields. We can expand them completely --” he did so, immediately retracting them, “-- or maintain them in many different configurations. We use them for protection and for fighting, but mainly during sex. This is why it is considered impolite to open them enough that the inner shell is viewable in public.” 
“That male didn’t extend his while he was raping me.” 
Breen swallowed the lump that clogged his throat at her words spoken so casually, yet he knew how devastating the event had been for her. “I should have said we use them during love-making, when our emotions are engaged. The breeding drone was not indulging with you. He was working.” He paused, debating with himself before asking his next question. “Do your people differentiate between mating for breeding purposes and mating to grow closer?” 
“We, some humans, take the act very seriously. Making love is not a casual way to pass the time. We believe no one should come together unless promises have been made and papers signed.” 
“Is this how you believe, Pala?” 
Her mouth drew in, bottom lip all but disappearing and Breen cringed inside. Oh no, he’d angered her again. Relief loosened his bones when she deigned to continue their conversation, though he didn’t care for where she took it. 
“You did a good job of changing the subject, but let’s get back to my earlier question. Why the injection and why me?” 
He fidgeted uncomfortably. “I do not know how to say what I must without angering you.” 
To his confusion, he watched as she threw back her head, opened her mouth and made sounds like gurgling water. Her eyes sparkled, her dark cheeks took on a rosy glow as she showed her teeth to him. Breen stared in awe, never having seen her look so beautiful. By the queens’ great mothers, this Hoomun left him breathless. 
She made the lovely sounds for a long time, gradually winding down to the occasional outburst. “If you can’t avoid making me angry it might as well be for something I’ve requested. Just spit it out, Scarth.” 
“I am Breen. Please do not call me Scarth.” 
“Why not? It is what you are.” 
“I have a great desire for you. I wish us to become --” He stopped at her grimace of distaste, started on another tack. “You do not like the word that means my people. I do not like how your voice sounds when you say it. I do not want to be what you do not like.” 
Her mouth fell open. “Well, hell… you are shit out of luck, aren’t you, fella?” 
“I am not certain I understand all the words you used, but yes, I believe so.” Breen heaved a heavy sigh. “We did not kill the other females. Of the over two hundred we’ve removed from the caves, only three have died.” 
Pala exploded from her cot, almost bouncing against the plasteel wall in her attempt to get to him. Her face hard and contorted with whatever drove her, she curled her fingers against the clear wall and beat on it. “You’re animals! You monsters, I knew it! Where are they? What have you done to them?” 
The male in him wanted to fall to his knees before her torrential emotional emanations. The scientist took firm hold on his rampant emotions and took a figurative step back, drawing objectivity about him as a shield. “Our people are at war. Have you never questioned why? If you ever do, I think your intelligence will allow you to reason out some of our actions. Ask yourself what your people are doing with the wounded and dead Scarth left behind on Earth when the first armada returned home.” 
Pala slumped against the wall. She had to have a good idea what the PRF were doing to the prisoners. Head down, she gritted out an answer. “Your people attacked ours. Whatever mine do in retaliation is deserved.” 
“Do you believe that?” 
She didn’t answer him, but asked a question of her own. “Were you there, Breen? Were you on Earth?” 
He’d never been so glad to say no in his life. “I have never been off this home world. I am no warrior and scientists do not go to war.” 
Pala squeezed her eyes tight. “There was so much carnage… I saw most members of my squad, young women and men I’ve trained, cell-disrupted by whatever that hand weapon was your soldiers used. Hundreds, thousands of them blown apart in less than an hour… Earth’s flowers wilted and dying…” 
Moisture leaked from her eyes, making them look like huge sparkling stones. “Liquid fire falling from the sky, sticking to every substance, unquenchable until the item -- be it plant, mineral or flesh -- was consumed… this is what your people did to mine. These are the things I see when I look at a Scarth… any Scarth.” 
The scent wafting off her was pure sadness, so thick and throat-jamming Breen coughed to clear his olfactory glands. He wanted to open the cell doors again. Wanted to hold her close and comfort her, but he dared not. He hadn’t finished sharing all his data with Pala. Once he did, she’d probably decide to kill him. 

Chapter Four 
In the Hive Queens’ Hall 
Senior lay grunting under her favorite consort, the father of the majority of her offspring. Years ago, in recognition of his excellent service, she’d granted him the privilege of speech and of refusal. Of all the consorts, only he was free to speak in the queens’ hall, only he could refuse all sands but hers. 
Over the years, she’d also found conversation during mating spiced the sands and this day was no different. “Drodarr, your stinger is potent, as is your honey.” 
His hips never quit moving as he grinned down at her. “Thank you, my queen, for noticing how I gladly spend myself in your service.” 
His play on words made her laugh. There, that was the joy available when a consort was trusted, cared for and allowed a freedom most queens would never think to grant. Senior was more forward thinking than most. 
As tradition dictated, the elders put Senior to stud as soon as her first flowering passed. The drone had been one long accustomed to mounting mothers and he’d done a fine job of opening her, giving her a young queen’s first stinging pleasure. Her addiction had been swift and complete. 
From that first mating, she was never to go a day, an hour without having to sate her constant craving for the sting-fed honey of a consort. Without the feel of a strong male between her thighs, his root pounding the fleshy pleasure pad near the door of her womb, she would soon grow crazed. Only the hormonal changes during pregnancy alleviated the addiction, as male embryos secreted minute traces of honey. A queen embryo required special care for the opposite reason. 
Senior moaned under this strong man. She loved the way Drodarr shafted her, loved how he’d learned inserting one of his long, thick fingers up her fudor made her buck and writhe as his stinger delivered the drug that kept her sane. 
Truly, she’d taught him everything he knew. Now, she slapped his toned flank, marveling at the still strong lines of his body. Multiple births had not softened and blurred the hard outline of his frame as it had hers, hadn’t added the padding of flesh she carried. He looked as strong and young as he did the day she’d picked him from the line of hopeful mating drones. She’d never once regretted her choice. 
“Fuck me hard and vigorously, you rogue. Make that root of yours as facile as your glib tongue.” 
Naturally, he obeyed instantly, slamming his thick root deep into the still narrow tunnel of her sex. Each hard thrust sent his heavy pollen sacs thumping against her puckered fudor opening. She tensed, knowing what was coming. He didn’t disappoint, and a moment later, his middle finger thrust up her tight disposal entrance, pushing past the resisting ring of muscle. 
Senior convulsed, dimly aware of the excited cries made by her two daughters as they watched their mother climax under the churning hips of their father. Tangling their antennae, Drodarr gripped her hips and powered into her, groaning as his own crisis swept over him. 
Deep within her, jets of her favorite mating drone’s potent honey flooded her womb, leaving behind another child, and Senior held him tight in her arms, knowing this child’s sex would be the defining point of their relationship. If a male baby rested in her belly, she’d have no choice but to switch from Drodarr to another drone. 
Sated for the moment, Senior linked antennae with the still panting male. She savored this closeness enough to give him warning. Sighing, she hastened to say what must be said. “Drodarr, while I cherish my male offspring by you, our people require female children. We need those potential queens to revive our dying species. I must lie with another if you cannot give them to me.” 
Gasping, the drone sat up and disconnected from her, staring down at her in disbelief. “What are you saying, my queen? I have given you many queens.” 
He had… in the past. “Your last female child was Quint.” She glanced over at their youngest daughter who was thrashing under a strongly colored drone. “Too many years have passed since her birthing.” With a sorrowing sigh she added, “I lead a people facing extinction. What other course is open to me?” 
He rolled off the sands to stand beside her pit with fists curled at his side. Clouds of anger so potent everyone in the hall took notice rolled off his tense body. “So if this next child is male, you’ll toss me back into the common pool with the rest of the mating drones?” He flung out his hands. “Who is there for me, Senior, what queen shall I mount? I’ve sired all but one! All but one, and she now rejects me!” 
As she had days ago, Blue reared up on one elbow, voice cold and commanding. “Drodarr, do not forget me; also, forget not your place. The Hive queen does not look only to your pleasure. Do not make more of yourself than is seemly. You may come to my sands and find plenty to occupy you.” 
He didn’t even glance toward her when he answered. “Never, Blue! By the right of refusal granted to me, I deny your claim.” 
Blue flopped back in disgust. “Then you refuse your only outlet besides the Hive queen and she will not have you.” 
“Silence, Blue! Drodarr…” The angry, hurt stiffness with which he held his body did not relax and Senior fought to control her carapace, feeling deep sorrow. This was so very hard. Her life had not been her own since the day her mother brought the first mating drone to her sands, but today, for the first time in her long life, she fiercely resented the strictures on her free will. 
Firming her lips, she stood unyielding against the temptation to relent. Too often, she had ordered lesser queens to move on to other drones when the one serving them failed to produce daughters. For her sins, Senior had always prided herself on leading by example. She meant to continue doing so, no matter how her personal wishes drove her in the opposite direction. 
Tradition and their species’ needs demanded every healthy queen breed at the earliest age, ensuring the strongest addiction to the honey of a drone’s stinger. Over a hundred turns had gone by since Senior’s introduction. Her addiction was deeply entrenched. 
Senior sighed. She didn’t have the luxury of maintaining an intimate relationship with just one male, no queen did. The need was a demanding master. She and the other queens went through drones like locust-hoppers swept through a ripe harvest. Her sexual requirements would have killed Drodarr long ago if she’d utilized only him. Still, he was the closest to a permanent mate she would ever come and it pained her knowing she hurt him with this decision. 
In a bold, unprecedented show of favor, she flared her carapace, revealing the pale silver underlining of the steel gray span, baring her emotions to all in the cavernous hall. Her wings might be clipped, her choices limited by necessity, but this one thing she could do in support of the drone who’d willingly stayed at her side, stayed inside her more than any other male had. 
“Until the sex of this new embryo is determined I will lay only with the drone Drodarr. Afterwards, we shall see…” 

Chapter Five 
In the lab 
The main doors swooshed open and Breen, in the middle of a convoluted explanation, turned toward them with dismay and a healthy dose of dread. He’d been expecting no one. When Lorrkar, the War Leader, swept into the room, his heart careened out of control. Spilling fear scent all about him, he bowed low and retreated before the highest-ranking Scarth other than the queens. 
Pulse thundering at his exposure, the drone frantically began thinking up plausible scenarios for why he’d shut down the recording eyes and ears in the lab. Nothing came to mind. More frightened than he’d ever been in his life, frightened for his life as well as his up till now spotless career, Breen gathered the courage to raise his head and stare into the knowing eyes of his brother. 
A simcron later, his astonished gaze dropped to the Leader’s side, shocked to see his hand entwined with that of a Hoomun female. 
“General Daiq, you’re alive!” Pala leaped to her feet and stood stiffly upright, mouth wide open in an expression Breen had never seen. Eyes alight with a strong emotion, his chosen female stared at the tall thin Hoomun beside Lorrkar as if she were a meal and Pala were starving. Another simcron, and her eyes dulled, shoulders slumped. “Are you still a prisoner, sir?” 
“Corporal Mason, aren’t we all?” The other female opened her mouth at Pala, then, shockingly, she turned to face him and repeated the expression. 
“It’s called smiling, Breen. It means they are happy… most times.” 
The quiet calm in Lorrkar’s voice helped steady his nerves and Breen relaxed muscles he hadn’t known he’d tensed. “War Leader, I can explain…” 
Lorrkar held up a hand. “I have eyes, Breen, and a brain that reasons. I can see exactly what’s going on here. So, too, would anyone sent by the queens to investigate why this section has gone offline.” He tsk-tsked. “You’ve gotten sloppy. I’m sure I’ve taught you better.” 
“Sir, I…” 
Again, that hand went up. “Stop, Breen. How many times have I told you full brothers should not have titles between them?” 
“The queens believe differently.” 
Lorrkar glanced around the lab, making sure Breen saw the special attention he paid to the dark-skinned female and the sightless cams. “It doesn’t look like you care much what the queens believe, brother. Half-hearted rebellion is not enough to win the day.” 
“Very well, brother. Why are you here? You rarely visit the labs.” 
“Breen, we need your help. I’ll tell you up front that helping us might get you in trouble.” 
Breen barely controlled the release of his carapace. Using scent/clicks/Hive mind speech, he communicated with Lorrkar, hoping their exchange was too fast and convoluted for the females’ new programming to decipher. What he learned had his thoughts racing. 
“The queens gave her to you… as a sand-slave?” 
Lorrkar’s antennae inclined, bobbed. “They thought to manipulate me, to keep my mind off opposition to this war. We will use their cunning against them.” 
Though he’d started down the road of rebellion, Breen still had inbred fears about going against the wishes of his Hive queens. “You really think we can get away with this?” 
Lorrkar shrugged. “That depends. Are you still the best technician in the labs?” 
“I am!” 
“Can you make a scent decoy that will be undiscoverable, yet strong enough to deceive the queens?” 
Breen glanced over at the smiling Hoomun holding hands with his brother. “Yes, but I’ll need a sampling of her essence, gathered fresh.” 
Lorrkar’s antennae waved in amusement. “It will be my pleasure to take care of that.” 
Breen didn’t respond to his brother’s levity, his mind engaged in the scientific procedures he would need to initiate. “I’ll have to sterilize a work space, get my instruments gathered…” 
“Hey! What’s going on?” Pala banged on the clear divider. “Let me out of here!” 
“Let her out, now.” 
The quiet spoken order electrified him and Breen froze again, astonished at how badly he wished to do as the pale Hoomun demanded. Turning his wondering gaze toward Lorrkar, Breen rasped, “Who… what is she?” 
Lorrkar smiled. “She is a Hoomun Queen. The basis for our ploy is already there. We just need to enhance it.” 
Shaking his head, Breen headed for the holding pen. Standing on the outside looking in, he paused with his hand on the mechanism that locked the room. “Pala, do you promise not to harm me?” 
She smiled, though it did not look the same as the one she’d had for her fellow Hoomun. “Tables turned on you, dude?” 
Breen glanced around frowning. “Who do you speak to? Who is this dude?” 
Her mouth stopped smiling and her brows lowered. He had learned what that meant so was not surprised when she barked at him. “I was talking to you, nimwit, and yes, I promise not to hurt you. Now let me out of here.” 
As soon as he released the panel, Pala pushed past him on a beeline to the other Hoomun. She stopped, just stared at the taller woman, and when that Hoomun opened her arms, the dark beauty stepped forward with a harsh sob. After a short while, she pulled back, wiping her running eyes. “I apologize, General, for my unmilitary behavior.” 
“No harm no foul, Paula. We’re both running under stress. It’s good to see you, to know you survived. We weren’t sure you had.” 
“How many are left in the caverns?” 
“None, the last seventy or so were removed today, in fact.” 
Breen and Lorrkar stood by, allowing the two females to interact without interference. The scientist marveled at how much of their speech he understood now that Pala was talking without letting her emotions scent up her words. 
In a low murmur, he asked, “Is your female going to balk at you harvesting her nectar in here? It’s the only place I can secure from the Hive computers.” 
“She is my queen, and no, she will not balk at what has to be done. I will bring her enjoyment and you will turn your eyes elsewhere or lose them.” 
Breen waggled his antennae. “I have no interest in your thin female, queen or not.” He looked over at Pala. “The smooth skinned dark one has captured all my attention.” 
Lorrkar frowned down at him. “How did you let yourself back into such a trap? How did you think to save her for your own use when you are infertile?” 
“It appears this one, as were all the rest, is also neuter. I’d thought… if she were found defective in some additional way… the mothers might allow me to keep her.” 
“Fool! There are too few females for you to harbor such unlikely hopes. Even with the adapted Hoomun captives, we still have many officers clamoring to receive one of them as a gift. A scientist drone’s position lies far below that of a warrior drone… at least, in the mothers’ estimation.” 
Breen slumped in dejection. “I know. I did not seek this. I never thought it possible. Yet, the day I prepared her for mating, stood watching her useless struggles against it, I found myself wanting her more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.” 
Lorrkar dropped a hand on his shoulder and leaned down to brush his antennae with his own. “If you truly wish to keep her, I will help you, Breen. I warn you, though. You must be prepared to give up everything, abandon all you think normal. Can you leave this place and not look back?” 
Breen didn’t even need to think about it. For a chance to be with Pala, a chance to look good in her sight, he would do anything… go anywhere. “Smell me and judge if I am determined or no.” 
Lorrkar lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I do not mean this lab, I mean this planet. If you help us accomplish our task, we will take you with us when the fleet leaves for Earth. As my queen’s second, your little Hoomun will go with us. I’m sure, given the choice, she’d choose belonging to you over being handed around among all the officers during our journey.” 
A frown creased his brow and his antennae flattened, lying flat along his head. “I do not want her to belong, I wish to belong to her.” 
“Of course you do. We are products of our upbringing, after all. For now, it is better if the queens believe it is the other way around. Besides, she may be forceful, but I don’t believe she is a queen. I’ve got the real thing and I should know.” 
Breen’s antennae snapped back to lie flat along his head in anger. “Do not malign her.” 
Lorrkar’s antennae danced. “I do not, Breen. Let us not fight. I need to bring the computers back online. I don’t want you discovering Dack’s queenly scent until you can officially record it.” 
Breen nodded. “I’ll see to that. You go get me that sampling.” 
* * * 
Dack sat naked on the long metallic table, swinging legs dangling over the side. “Tell me again, why do we have to make out on this slab instead of in a nice, hot pit of sand?” 
Lorrkar turned from disabling the snooper ears and eyes, the edges of his mouth grown slack from her heady scent. Holding up a specimen cup, its use and shape universal, he smirked. “The way you squirm and thrash about while we share bodies, most of your fluid would be lost in the grains.” 
“Not true. Most of my fluid is lost in your mouth.” Dropping her gaze to his groin, she smiled. “I’m gratified to see you’ve already risen thick and swollen, more than ready to ease my growing need.” 
He moved between her thighs, hands coasting up the outward slopes. His root pressed against his belly, eager to dip into her snug wet heat. “I am, my queen, always ready to serve you.” 
He hissed when she circled his stalk with her hand, slid up and down his length with firm strokes of her small fingers. Against his wishes, his hips rocked back and forth, helping the movement of her palm. He wanted to scream. Only the knowledge Breen and Pala waited in the room beyond held back his primal cries. 
“Show me your stinger.” 
Lust such as he’d never known scorched his insides, targeting his heavy seed sacs. Lorr groaned. He had yet to enter her and already her words unmanned him. “When I am inside you…” 
“No. Now. I want to see what it looks like, want to examine it again.” 
Confusion made him falter. “I do not know how to demand it come forth. I have no control over it.” 
“You ought to. It’s a part of your body. You should be able to regulate each portion of your being. Try,” she insisted, scooting closer to the edge. “Play with your cock, for me. Make it harder.” 
Far from objecting, Lorr wanted to obey her. The thought of bringing his root to stiffness as she watched made his knees weak, made his antennae shiver. Groaning, he wrapped one big fist around the shaft of his stalk, but before he could complete one full up and down motion, his stinger popped from the end of his root, pulsing madly. Honey flowed in a steady stream from the pinpoint head, its rich aroma flavoring the air in the close room. 
Daiq purred. “Bring that to me. I want to see it up close.” 
Legs barely supporting him, Lorr went up on his tiptoes, presenting his cock and its adorning stinger to the female who ruled his heart. 
“Now, make it go away.” 
“What?” 
“Tuck it back in.” 
Her request shocked him. Females demanded a male’s stinger as their right, were insulted when it failed to come forth at their ordering. That she did the opposite shouldn’t have surprised him, for Dack had yet to do the expected. Lorrkar smiled. Her contrariness was part of his Dack-iri’s charm. He wouldn’t have her behave any other way. “I do not think such a thing possible.” 
“Of course it is. I’ll help you.” Her pert suckle sacs jiggled as she hopped down from the table. His stomach tightened, root hardened, thinking about those beautiful bouncing body parts. 
She patted the flat surface. “Jump up here and spread your legs.” 
Bemused, Lorr did as she ordered. He felt a pinch, and shifted a bit to get his seed sacs comfortably situated between his legs. The slab was cool against his bare buttocks, retaining the warmth her bottom had imparted to the metal. Her fingers carefully gripped his stinger at its base, where it emerged from his cockhead -- that was the name Dack-iri called his sex stalk. She applied pressure, trying to force the stinger back inside his body. The pain had him howling and grabbing her wrist. His words hissed through clenched teeth, he suggested, “I think it is meant to retract on its own!” 
She frowned down at his uncooperative root. “Hmm… let me see something…” Instead of pushing, she tugged -- gentle little jerks that caused his hips to flex involuntarily. “I thought that might do the trick.” She grinned up at him, face alight with mischief. “I want to try something else, now.” 
What in the Hive was she about now…? 
She is about to drive me insane! Stinger retracted, Lorrkar bucked under her mouth, feeling as if his seed sacs were on fire. His hands gripped Dack’s head, fighting to hold her wonderfully wicked lips off his straining cock. He shuddered repeatedly, nerves shot, his control stretched to the breaking point. “Wait!” 
Her eyes twinkled up at him through her dark fall of hair. “Yes?” 
He swallowed thickly. “What if I can’t keep my stinger retracted? What if I sting you in the throat?” 
Her husky laugh scraped along his spine, tightening his fudor and hardening his root. “If you sting me even one time, then all you’ll fuck is my throat. Just think… no pussy for a week.” 
“When you explain it like that, I can clearly see myself gaining control quickly.” 
Lorrkar watched in eager resignation as her lips opened, her mouth swooped down again to cover the stinger-less head of his root. Dack’s cheeks hollowed as she applied suction and he threw his head back, keening. Samples should always be this hard and this pleasurable to gather. 

Chapter Six 
In the Hive Queens’ Hall 
Daiquiri Harmon strode beside Lorrkar, back straight, shoulders set, a captive queen who refused to be cowed. They could do this! They were going to do it, and get away with it. She had to keep believing that, had to keep the reality of the dream alive. 
“You think they’ll buy this?” 
“Are we selling something?” 
She grinned. Lorrkar understood far more than he let on. He played with her words to lessen her tension, but she was an Amazon riding the moment and nothing could destroy the thrill that came from facing down an enemy. 
She peeked at him from the corner of her eye. “Just out of curiosity, what do I smell like to you?” 
A muscle in Lorrkar’s jaw jumped. “Breen did a good job. You smell like them, like the mothers.” 
“Oh, yuck! I so don’t want to remind you of your mother.” 
He grabbed her and gave her a quick squeeze, just as quickly releasing her. His facial expression remained bland. “Trust me, when I look at you, no other comes to mind.” 
Daiq couldn’t think of anything pithy to say. She didn’t want to say anything that might lessen his compliment. “Thank you. Ditto.” 
“Duplicate?” 
She smiled, feeling all soft inside. “Everything you feel for me… repeated here.” She touched her chest. 
Lorr nodded. “I like this word, ditto.” 
They arrived at the doors to the great hall and Lorrkar came to a halt. He turned to her, took her hands and said, “From this moment there is only forward. We may not go backward. Are you sure…?” 
She closed her eyes, shutting out the distraction of his beloved, alien features and went inward, testing her thoughts. Was she sure? Yes, she knew there was no other way to bring their two people together without a bloodbath. Was she frightened? Oh, Matrix, yes she was! Daiquiri lifted her lids and gazed into Lorr’s concerned face. 
“Let’s do this.” 
With a last squeeze, he released her and gestured for the drone guards to open the portal. They walked in, Daiquiri keeping a few steps behind him. As always, feelings of inadequacy and dread of failure assailed him as he advanced toward Senior’s sand pit. 
“War Leader, you have not been summoned to the Hall. What is the emergency?” 
“My…” Lorrkar choked on the greeting, unable to say the words. No longer would he acknowledge any but Dack as his queen. “Senior Mother, I bring the Hoomun queen, Dack-iri, to speak with the Hive.” 
Senior’s great body rolled to the side. She lowered her head, offering her antennae. Lorr stepped forward into the embrace, basking in the love and warmth flowing through their connection. The inability to experience this rich emotional outlet with Dack saddened him. On the other hand, she compensated him in other ways that he enjoyed just as much. The Scarth did not share mouths. He would take Dack’s mouth over antennae every time. 
“What have we to say to the Hoomun? She is a sand-slave. Take her back to your sands.” 
Beside him, Lorr felt Dack tense. He knew, before she spoke, her anger would destroy her intention to follow their plan. Heart sinking, he clenched his fist and stepped back, knowing he could do nothing now but attempt to pick up Dack’s pieces when the queens finished with her. He only hoped there remained enough for him to mold back together. 
* * * 
“I am a prisoner of war, not a slave. Your saying so does not make it the truth.” 
“Careful, gnat, lest we swat you.” 
Daiq looked over her shoulder at the blue marked queen whose malicious words echoed the spite in her eyes. “You are the blue queen, the one traded from the White Ridge Hive. Your mouth is probably why they wanted to rid themselves of you.” Satisfied she’d put the bitch in her place, she turned back to face the real power in the Hall. Bowing low, she gave the appropriate greeting. “Hive queen, I bring words of peace from my own Hive mother.” 
Senior’s aged eyes gleamed with amusement. Her antennae waved toward the front of her head, a sign Daiq had learned meant positive emotions. “We have not seen that your people form Hives. Rather, they live jumbled together with no organization, no order. They are a chaotic people, ruled by their own whims. They are fodder.” 
Her first instinct was to dispute the old queen’s words but an honest reflection made her pause. “What you say is true… of some of us, not all. I belong to a great Hive, ruled by my mother, Thalassic Harmon, queen bee of the entire world.” And that was in no way a lie, not a bit. Her mother was the world’s darling. 
“Only queens may speak in this chamber… queens or favored slaves. Since you claim to be no one’s slave, are we to infer you are a queen?” 
Daiq raised a haughty brow. “Define the term.” 
The second largest queen rolled up to sit on the side of her bed. She had beautiful, dark markings contrasting with a light cream base. She resembled Lorrkar in coloring. “A queen leads her people, mothers her children, and sacrifices for their good.” 
“A queen,” Senior suddenly added, “does what she must. She makes the hard decisions, regardless of her own personal wishes. She sees to the good of the many -- the Hive -- and always, always, her commitment is to the protection of her people.” 
The elderly female turned her head and stared at the back wall. Daiq followed the direction of her gaze and found a dark, black-on-brown drone, antennae drooping, gazing back at the queen with welling eyes. 
Matrix, Daiq thought, there is a story here, but I’ve not the time to seek it. Instead, she took advantage of the verbal pause to interject. “You sound remarkably like my mother. Like you, she wants what’s best for her people as do I.” 
“What will you say, Hoomun queen? What does your Hive say to us?” 
Inside, Daiq did a high five and shouted in victory. Senior’s words and questions meant she’d accepted her as one of them. 
“You forgot one thing, Beta.” Blue’s snide voice interrupted Daiq’s private celebration. “A queen must be a mother, indeed.” 
“Are you nose-dead as well as stupid, Blue?” Beta rolled onto her back and signaled her drone to take his place between her legs. “The Hoomun womb bears fruit. Not the same scent as one of ours, but a variation on the theme. Congratulations, War Leader. You have won our battle for us.” 

Chapter Seven 
In the lab 
“So, tell me quickly, did they accept the plan…?” 
Paula should have known Breen would jump on the two as soon as they got back. He’d been an alien bundle of nerves while Lorrkar and Daiquiri were with the five ruling queens. He’d fussed about, tinkered with his lab tools and generally made a nuisance of himself. He wouldn’t leave her alone, always asking questions, looking at her with those big eyes of his… 
“It worked better than we’d imagined. Not only have the queens approved all the prisoners being returned to Earth, they will send along a large seeding for the new Hive.” 
“So the injection worked.” 
“Beta confirmed it. No one questioned it. The Hive queen has sanctioned a new Hive mothered by my queen, Dack-iri.” 
Paula watched the general and the Scarth War Leader exchange soft glances and frowned. How could her commanding officer stand to sleep with that animal, let alone touch it? With a mental shrug, Paula dismissed the general’s relationship with the Scarth male. Frankly, as long as she could get off this damned planet and back home to Earth, she didn’t care who the other woman shagged. 
“And I get to leave with you?” Breen sounded nervous. “You won’t leave me behind?” 
Lorrkar touched the lab worker’s antennae. “You go with us. We’ll require medical staff for our hive.” He looked again at the general. “Our children may need assistance, as our genetic codes are so different.” 
Paula couldn’t help it. She had to burst his bubble. “If she were truly pregnant, she’d be lucky to bring it to term even if it weren’t part bug. Amazons don’t catch easily, even when they pair with normal humans.” 
“Corporal.” The cold tones were more like the ones she was used to hearing from frozen Daiquiri. 
Mason hurried into speech. “General, I’m sorry, but I have to ask… what kind of fantasy world are you living in? You may have fooled these ignorant beetles into believing Earth would let their ships anywhere near the planet, but this is me!” she pounded her chest. “You and I both know the deal! If you show up in the skies leading a Scarth armada, your own mother will push the button that blows you out of space.” 
“Paula, I want you to listen very closely to what I have to say because I’m about to speak to you like a friend, and not your commanding officer. You just revealed top-secret information in an unsecured setting. The lab computers are back online and someone somewhere is monitoring everything we’re saying. What’s wrong with this picture?” 
Paula had enough sense to be aghast at what she’d done, but her anger and fear had reached such heights she could no longer contain them. After five years of living in a near frozen environment, the air in this lab was too hot, too close and humid. She felt like grains of sand had infiltrated her skin, abrading her nerves and driving her insanely antsy. 
She clenched her fists in her short curly hair, teetering on the edge of totally losing it. Her agitated gaze landed on Breen and the anger roared back. That damned lab drone wasn’t making things any easier, standing there with pity in his big, pupil-less sad eyes, like a damned giant bee. She couldn’t stand it! 
Advancing on him, fists beating the air, she screamed in his face. “What the fuck are you looking at? Stop looking at me like I’m some kind of freak! Turn around! You turn around right now!” 
The damned bug had the nerve to do what she commanded, antennae limp and droopy. For some reason known only to the Weaver of the Matrix, his ready compliance roused the opposite of what he probably meant to happen. Sheer rage, blood red edged in black, ripped through her, turning her blood to lava. 
Maddened beyond anything she’d ever experienced, Paula leapt at the Scarth’s back. She fell short, snatched out of the air by a lithe feminine form. They rolled together, Paula screaming and scratching, the other woman avoiding her blows with an ease that only made her angrier. 
A sharp, deliberate slap shocked her out of her fit. “You’ve stepped over the line, Corporal. Your actions are treasonous, which during wartime is punishable by death. Need I remind you a court-martial behind enemy lines is judged on the field? Don’t force me to kill you.” 
Paula burst into tears, so confused and hurt she didn’t know how to respond. The anger still roiled within, still made her blood boil, yet she was thinking again and knew the general wasn’t bluffing. The Harmon women didn’t bluff. Ever. 
Fighting the unreasoning anger and growing resentment, she stood and faced her commanding officer. “I’m sorry… for blurting out stuff earlier. Weaver knows I don’t want to be stuck here.” 
Daiquiri nodded somberly. “I’ll excuse your behavior this once. I understand how the situation can overwhelm you, but you are an officer serving in the United Earth Planetary Repulsion Force and this is war. A lot more is required of us.” 
“How can you make light of what’s happened to me? You don’t realize the hell I’ve gone through.” 
Daiquiri, her voice a matter of fact murmur, interrupted before she got a good start. “You were captured, starved and half frozen. After years of abuse, your captors snatched you from your fellow prisoners and forced you to undergo medical tests that included involuntary breeding attempts. How am I doing so far?” 
You sanctimonious bitch, I’ll tell you how you’re doing! Paula fumed at the stance the general was taking. She ought to be more compassionate… after all the care she’d given the ingrate while she lay in a coma! “You don’t sound like you care, sir.” 
“I do care; however, I don’t feel sorry for you, Paula. You have that covered. I am, however, sympathetic. I’m unhappy over what happened to you. It’s a trauma you’ll be dealing with for years. You’ve been through a lot, but you’re not alone. I have to concern myself with the over two hundred other women who have gone through the same things you have.” 
“Daiquiri, you can’t possibly understand! You weren’t raped.” 
A wave of the general’s hand brushed her argument aside. Her gray eyes went stormy. “Stop saying that. I woke up tied naked in a bed, so don’t cry to me about being raped, because, believe me, I understand perfectly. The only difference between our situations is I turned mine around, made it work for me and the people under my command. It’s called thinking on your toes, Paula… or on your back if need be. Something you haven’t done for a long while.” 
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She knew her voice sounded sullen, but she didn’t care. Let Daiquiri take offense. The other woman had never spoken so harshly to her before and it stung. 
“Let’s play fill in the blanks, Paula. The first duty of a captured soldier is to --” 
Paula tightened her lips, refusing to answer. 
“Come on, you ought to know these like the back of your hand.” 
She turned her head, remaining silent. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the two Scarths shifting uncomfortably. 
“Shall I make it a direct order, soldier?” The general’s voice snapped like lightning. 
She jumped. “Escape, sir!” 
“The second duty of a captured soldier is to --” 
Jaw clenched, Paula inserted, “Survive and return to base with information of enemy plans and movement.” 
“Being an officer -- a leader of soldiers -- means having a different duty. The first duty of a captured officer is to --” 
“Nurture and care for those under her/his charge and facilitate, where possible, their successful release.” 
“Very good, Paula, you were listening during training.” 
Paula knew the general’s acerbic praise was sarcastic at best, mocking in reality. Frozen Daiquiri’s cool level gaze seared her conscience, reminded the corporal her commanding officer had only recently softened up from her old stance. She seemed to be reverting quickly. “Are you implying I haven’t done my duty?” 
“I spent approximately one Earth year in the labs. How many raids for supplies and reconnaissance did you order during that time?” 
Mason squirmed uncomfortably, fearful of the direction this conversation was heading. How dare the general ask her that in such an accusing tone? “I did my best, sir. When I worked with your mother, she never had cause to complain.” 
“No argument, officer. However, when you worked with my mother, we were not at war. The truth is, your best wasn’t good enough, which is why you never attained a rank higher than corporal. The fact you’d been raised with your non-Amazonian father, eschewing all but the military side of your Amazon heritage, rankled with a lot of high-ranking officers at PRF. In actuality, if this war hadn’t caught us on our asses, desperate for every officer we could scramble for training, you wouldn’t have been called up from reserve.” 
Every one of her words burned because Paula knew they were true. No one had said anything, but she knew PRF Command had been glad when she’d opted to retire early. The military couldn’t refuse an Amazon combat veteran her right to be excused from military duty so that she could care for her dying mother. Still, to hear Daiquiri disdain her service was more than she could stomach. At her side, she clenched her hands into fists. “If I were younger…” 
“If you were younger, I’d throw your ass to the Scarth officers accompanying us home. As it is, I don’t think you’d survive them.” Daiq gave an impatient huff. “I have to do damage control on this situation, so we need to wrap this up. As I see it, Paula, you have three choices.” 
“What kind of choices?” 
“Quiet. I’m no longer speaking as your friend now. I’m your commander.” 
A mishmash of emotions jangling inside her, Paula braced to attention, too well 

trained to do otherwise. Wanting to do anything but, she saluted. “Yes, sir!” 

Chapter Eight 
In Lorrkar’s Room 
Lorrkar turned from the entry and walked back toward Daiq, staring down at a small item resting on one palm. He sat beside her, and absently accepted her arms about his shoulders, curiously turning whatever the thing was over and over, examining it with his whole attention. 
Daiq didn’t like coming in a dim second, not a bit. “Who was that and what did he give you?” 
“A messenger drone with no message. He didn’t say anything, just handed me this data chip.” Lorr lifted the small silver cube. 
“Well,” she prompted, curious to know what it was, “do you know what’s on it?” 
“It is strange… we have not used these in many turns. They are secure, but take up too much space to store. They are disposable, meant to be destroyed after several uses.” 
Her words were dry when she answered him. “I know what disposable means. Why don’t you play it?” 
He lifted his large brown eyes to hers. “I am afraid.” 
Her heart melted. Going up on her knees, she took his face between both palms. Unable to resist, she pressed her lips to his for a comforting kiss. At least, that’s all she planned. He took the kiss away and made of it something much more than comfort. 
“Okay, that’s… beyond good,” she admitted, reluctantly prying their lips apart, “but let’s stay focused here.” 
“The cube comes from the breeding drone who seeded me and is the first communication of its kind I have ever received.” 
Dread settled sour and heavy in her belly. Sinking back down, she sat staring at the cube. It lay gleaming on her lover’s open palm, so tiny, so innocuous looking to hold such potential deadliness. Daiq took in a deep breath. “It’s a warning or a threat. We’ll never know unless you play it.” 
He got up without a word and went to a recessed cabinet, pressed several buttons. A shelf slid out and he took a small handheld unit from it, closed everything back down. Settling down beside her once more, he slid the cube inside the strange boxy contraption. In answer to her questioning gaze he said, “Personal data assistant.” 
“Ah.” 
Above the flat surface of the PDA, a hologram image formed. Daiq gasped as she recognized the sad-faced breeder the senior queen had gazed at so soulfully. 
“War Leader Lorrkar, consider this a humble gift from he whose honey smoothed your conception.” 
Silent, holding hands for courage, the two looked on as image after image flashed in 3-D preciseness, portraying in intimate details the entirety of their plotting. From their first heated bedding to the meetings with Breen in the labs, Lorrkar and Daiq watched the ruination of their hopes. Both too numbed to respond, too despondent to panic. 
When the images faded, they remained staring at the silent player. Lorrkar reached and turned the device off. Leaning forward, he sat the player on a shelf, and then held out his arms inviting Daiq into his embrace. She flew at him like a wandering shuttle into the docking bay of its mother ship, needing the solace of his touch. 
“This is my fault. I pushed you into this.” Daiq didn’t know how she was going to live with the guilt of having wrecked Lorrkar’s life. 
“Please, Dack-iri! We began this adventure as partners. Do not make me lesser in this. It was our decision.” In an anguished whisper spoken with his lips pressed against her temple Lorr admitted, “I knew the Hive mind better than you. I should have planned better. I do not regret that we tried. Only, I so longed for our vision to be true, our goals attainable.” 
“Me too.” Daiq laid her head on his shoulder, content to sit and do nothing. There was, after all, nothing left to do. Halfway through the presentation, she’d stopped frantically thinking up alternative scenarios. The longer the hologram had played, the more evidence of their culpability had emerged. There was no way they could cry innocence. No, it was over. Lorrkar and she had gambled and lost, but she couldn’t be sorry. Given the choice to do it all over again, she wouldn’t have chosen any other path. She knew Lorrkar felt the same. 
The loud knock on the door brought them out of their introspection. Daiq was on her feet in an instant, Lorrkar a protective shield at her front. “Do we fight?” 
He shook his head and relaxed from his fighting stance, signaling the futility of such an action. “The queens can call upon all the Hive. Would you have me kill my brothers and sisters for nothing?” 
“No. Of course not.” She straightened up, fists relaxing into loosely curled hands. “An Amazon faces death on her feet… and without fear. Go let them in.” 
A nod of respect and Lorr was moving toward the door, no hint of unease or fear in his loose-limbed walk. In the event this was the last chance she got, Daiq let her gaze rove over the long powerful lines of her consort’s body, noting in particular the high firm globes of his ass. She hadn’t had near enough time to examine that fine specimen up close. 
His gaze locked in a last intimate glance with her, Lorrkar palmed open the portal and stepped aside to reveal… 

Chapter Nine 
In Breen’s Quarters 
Breen opened the portal to his meager quarters and waved a hand, ushering Pala within. His pulse was thready, breathing erratic. He had no idea how to go on. 
His body knew. His stalk had risen to wave against his belly, his seed sacs hung heavy and full. His stinger, that new entity that only recently plagued him, was busily pumping enough honey to soothe two queens, let alone this one reluctant Hoomun. 
Pala stood in the middle of the room, arms wrapped about her shivering body. Breen wanted to comfort her, but feared she’d think he was hurrying her. He wanted to give her time, however Dack-iri -- Lorrkar’s Hoomun queen -- had given precise orders. He had a feeling ignoring them would be a serious mistake. 
“Scarth!” 
Breen frowned. “I have asked you not to call me that.” His root hurt from not plunging it inside her and all she did was make faces at him. 
“Please… I wish you’d just get this over with.” 
Stomping over to her, he took her shoulders between his hands and shook. “No, you do not! You are angry because I watched your body jerking beneath that breeder, because you will soon jerk beneath mine.” 
Breen let her go and she crumpled in a heap at his feet, sobbing and making those gurgling sounds he had previously attributed to amusement. He must have been wrong. “Do not make water come from your eyes. I do not like that.” 
“Just fuck me! Fuck me so I don’t have to fuck anything else. At least you already know my shame. With you, it can’t get any worse.” 
His antennae dropping in sorrow, Breen realized Pala would not ever welcome his affection. She would accept him because her queen gave her a choice and he was more palatable than being the sexual relief for fifteen Scarth officers. If she would not accept his tenderness, he would give her his desire. “Get up. Go to my sands.” 
She obeyed him, feet dragging. He saw she would use this to make distance between them. He would make her wish for distance, indeed. “Lie with your legs wide. I wish to see both your short and your long petals.” 
Once she’d positioned herself, Breen came and stood between her legs at the foot of his sand pit. Her dark petals were open, showing a very red cleft. Black hair grew on her mound, which startled him since the hair on her head was very pale. He would touch it soon; rub the softness between his fingers as he made nectar between her thighs. 
She lay with her eyes closed, shutting him out. For once, Breen did not care. She would not pretend he was not there after he stung her a few times. She would grab his shoulders, as she had with the breeder in the lab. Grab on and beg him to ride her hard, hard, hard! 
“Use your hands. Open your petals further. Show me your stamen.” 
Her voice choked, she asked, “I… what is it… I don’t know what stamen you’re talking about.” 
“Your female root, the piece of flesh that brings pleasure.” 
“Oh! You mean my clit.” 
Breen’s antennae perked up and he laughed. “I know this word. It is a Scarth word meaning joy. Yes, Pala… show me your joy! Touch it.” 
She turned away her head, refusing his request. “I didn’t ask for foreplay.” 
Breen’s mouth tightened. He went down on his knees and yanked her legs wider apart, sinking his stalk into the heart of her long petals without warning. His stinger had already emerged and he leaned on her, mashing his groin against hers to assure the deepest penetration for his honey deposits. Rocking his hips, he stabbed her womb with ten short, swift pricks then pulled out, letting his pulsing stinger drip the thick syrupy fluid on her belly. 
“Take your finger and run it through my honey. Put it in your mouth and suck.” He knew she would hesitate. This time, he allowed it. She would soon do whatever he asked and more. 
It didn’t take long for his honey to take effect. Her hips moved, first, swiveling to ease the growing heat in her belly. She brought her knees together, trying to rub at the prickles under her skin. Her mouth opened, she breathed deep, breasts rising and falling, nipples firming. 
“You know what is happening.” 
“Breen… I’m ready!” 
“I am not.” 
Her body stilled, as she comprehended his meaning. A second later, she was 

squirming again. “Will you leave me no pride? I’m giving you my body…” 
Breen shook his head, a Hoomun gesture learned from his hours with her. “No, you give me nothing. You make me take and take when I only wanted to give. I will not take what you offer. I do not want your guilt. You will come to me of your own free will or I will put you out.” 
“I’m here!” 
“Of your own free will, Pala. No hiding behind the Hoomun queen’s orders. No blaming my honey.” He glanced down at her undulating body. “I deposited only enough to make you burn, to take away this crutch. You are no more discomfited than I have been since I watched you curl your legs around that young breeder’s buttocks. I wanted to be him.” 
“I won’t beg!” she snarled at him, her pretty, solid black face contorted with 
hungry rage. “I have begged for you almost an entire turn. I am through begging, also.” She faltered. “You can’t abandon me to those others. They’ll rape me until I die!” Breen looked at her. “We Scarth do not deal harshly with our females. We do not 
have to. We inject them with honey and wait for them to come after us.” He thought about it. “That much honey might be harmful, though, causing your addiction to develop too quickly.” 
“And you’d let them do that to me?” Her voice was… sharp like the nasty tang of snake grass. 
“The choice would be yours. I will not ever take away your choice.” 
Pala lifted her head and met his gaze head on. Her dark eyes with the white all around them fascinated him. He knew she would always awe him, but he would no longer allow her to rule him. She had lost that privilege by refusing to accept him for himself. 
Her words were so quiet he had to bend down to hear them. “You are my choice, Breen. I want you… of my own free will.” 
“Make me believe you, Pala.” 
“How?” 
He patiently repeated his earlier orders. “Take my honey into your mouth and let me see you lick it off your fingers. Then use both hands to open your long petals so I can see you play with your joy.” 
This time, her defiant gaze clung to his as she scooped up the cooled honey from the bowl of her belly. When she brought the fingers to her mouth, his root became rock hard. When she fingered her short stamen, he almost wept at the beauty of her form and face as both writhed at the pleasure she gave herself. 
He took her then, stung her a thousand times, filled her with enough honey to drive them both insane. She moaned and sighed, clutching him close as his hips flexed and rolled, mashing her joy against his pubic bone with each strong stroke. 
Pala’s little pink flower was awash in his honey and his stalk began to tingle. Males were less susceptible to the effects of honey, but they too could become addicted. His stiff root was burning now as it surged through her hot elastic sheath, inflamed by her tight friction and by his own smoldering syrup. His seed sacs felt swollen and raw as they slapped hard against her puckered fudor, powered by his fevered thrusts. 
He shook with gladness when she finally screamed beneath him, her muscles going rigid as her body tensed and jerked. Her tight sex gripped him, pulsed around his root as if she would pull his seed from his over-full sacs. Her dark face was a study of extreme emotions. Her wide-open mouth revealed its pink wet cavern, resembling the one he labored in even now. One day soon he would fuck her mouth, watch her dark full lips close over his blunt head, taking him all the way to her throat. The thought made him groan. 
Seeing her come made his sacs draw up, squeezing so tightly he couldn’t breathe. His time came and he keened loud and long, the pleasure so brutal and protracted his carapace snapped half-open. Shuddering and cursing, he forcibly retracted it, pulled out of her clinging flesh to fall beside her in his sands. 
He wouldn’t be showing her his colors today, not until she truly accepted him. Listening to the tone of his thoughts, Breen called himself all kinds of fools. How had his heart snagged on a Hoomun female, an enemy who could not see past his species to the male that would cherish her for always? 
Today, she does what is expedient, but one day, Breen swore by the Hive Mother, herself, Pala will come to me for love, alone. 

Chapter Ten 
On Drodarr’s Ground 
Dack-iri’s eyes widened in shock, causing Lorrkar to swing about to see who elicited such a response from his unflappable mate. 
“Drodarr!” 
His sire-drone inclined his antennae. “Since you did not respond to our summons, I thought it best to fetch you. Time is of the essence.” 
“Summons?” 
Drodarr smirked. “You did not see it.” He sighed gleefully. “I cautioned Senior against indulging her penchant for drama, but she insisted on having her theatrical pause.” 
Lorrkar exchanged a puzzled glance with Dack. What was going on? 
Drodarr huffed and pushed past Lorr to step into his quarters. “No doubt you are confused. I can explain. Where is the cube?” 
Dack went to the other room to retrieve the player. When she’d passed beyond hearing range, Lorr hissed at Drodarr. “You dared to monitor my living quarters!” 
Dro’s antennae waved once. Good humor. “And a good thing, too, since you two were going about this all wrong.” 
“Why?” 
“How the caves should I know?” 
Lorr snapped his antennae. Impatience. “I mean, why did you place ears/eyes upon me?” 
Drodarr smiled at a returning Dack, accepting the player from her hands. He fiddled with the device as he answered. “You and Breen were the first drones I seeded. Before you two, all I sowed were queens. Senior turned to another after Breen’s birth and I had little to do. I began keeping up with you and your brother, seedling. When she called me back to her service, watching you had become a habit. I kept at it.” 
His sire’s words caused his heart to feel tight and constricted in his chest. “I did not know.” 
Dro’s antennae did a wild dance. Extreme amusement. “Of course you did not. I am an expert at surveillance.” 
Lorr started to explain what he’d meant when it dawned on him why Drodarr constantly deflected his overtures. His mouth tipped up in understanding. His sire would not display emotion easily. The Scarth did not prize volatile sensibilities; rather, they looked on them as honey-crazed and therefore unstable. 
“There was additional data on this cube.” Drodarr had finished his preparations and now held the unit on the flat of his hand. “Watch.” 
A miniature of the Hive Queen, Senior, lay upon her private sands. Her ponderous breasts heaved with recent effort and drones rushed to fan her and bring her water. She waved them away, gaze intent on the recording device, for it looked as if she stared right into Lorr’s face. 
“The old build fences to keep their young safe. What happens when the fences crumble?” Her image looked to the left. “How do I begin?” 
“At the beginning, of course.” 
Lorr recognized Drodarr’s voice. So he had been with the queen when this cube was prepared. All the way. 
Senior looked back at the eye. “We queens do more than give birth, we preserve the heritage of our people. We are the historians, the scribes. We are the Hive’s memory. 
“Through willful neglect, it has been almost forgotten, but I remain faithful. This I remember… this cold little world is not our Homeplace. The Scarth were originally seeded in the hot sands of a vibrant world, a young world that circled a bright yellow star.” 
Beside him, Dack-iri gasped. Swaying with growing amazement, he felt for her hand, not wanting to take his eyes off the scenes unfolding before him. Her fingers twined with his, her weight leaned a little heavier on his side. 
“Taken by force as slaves by marauding aliens, our bodies were modified at their whim. We served millennia as zoo animals, nothing but entertainment for them until they tired of us at last. This world was our payment and our prison. One mistake they made… In their arrogance, they left technology behind and we learned it, learned from it. 
“Wanting vengeance, needing justice, we searched for them through the turns, never finding them. What we found was Home, still circling that bright hot star. We were returning children, hungry for their mother’s breasts, but others had taken our place.” 
Senior sighed heavily, shifting her large body. “They didn’t know us and how could they? For we were different and we did not speak each other’s words.” 
Senior opened her eyes and only then did Lorr realize he’d been so caught up in the story he’d only marginally paid attention to her actions. “Earth is the home we were snatched away from. Now that this world is dying, the Hive needs to split, needs a vital, vigorous queen to establish a new nest on a planet where my children’s children may thrive.” 
“Why didn’t you just ask?” Dack-iri shook her head. “We have room enough for a hundred Hives. Why didn’t you ask?” 
She spoke as if Senior could hear her, forgetting the image was only a hologram. Lorr understood. Senior had such presence it was difficult to recall she was not actually here with them. 
Senior’s next words seemed in answer to Dack’s questions. “We are not beggars come with our hands out. Your planet was once our home. It is still our Home. We would have a part of it.” 
Another great sigh ran through the mountainous flesh of the mother’s belly. “The Hive here is dying. Perhaps it is time for new ways as well as a new Home.” Senior gestured and five drones rushed to her side, assisted her to her feet. 
Standing proudly, the aged Scarth tilted her head in the way her people showed acceptance. “Hoomun Queen, we have watched you for many turns. We have waited to see if you could deal honorably with those who were once your enemy. We are content. 
“Dack-iri of Earth, if we have found favor with you, I beseech you to come to my chambers. Openly accept from my hand water and food -- the ancient symbols of peace. Accept Lorrkar, first drone from my loins.” She smiled slyly. “I once gave you to him but now I give him to you. Accept him, along with our ships and warriors, you who lead well. Use them to protect the young we will send with you. Let them be as your own. Go as our emissary to your people. Plead on our behalf that the Mothers and Queens of your Hives will grant us Sanctuary.” 
“Yes!” 
Before Senior’s image finished fading Dack-iri fell into Lorr’s arms, shouting with victory. He picked her up and swung her about, infected with her giddy happiness, feeling the same renewed hope as she. He smiled down at her. “We have done it. Without subterfuge and deceit, we have gained our goals.” 
Laughing, water falling from her eyes, his Hoomun grabbed his ears and pulled his head down to mash lips with him in a brief, intense kiss. “Yes! Oh love, we did it! Together, we’ve won over the Scarth and just wait and see… we’ll do the same thing on Earth!” 
Drodarr cleared his throat. “So, can I tell Senior you’ll be along?” 
Lorrkar turned to face his sire, Dack held secure in his arms. “Yes, just not right away.” He tightened his embrace on the female leaning against his chest, strong emotion making him weak at the same time it made him strong. “First I must touch mouths with my queen.” 
Drodarr frowned. “What is this practice? I do not know of it.” 
Lorrkar’s antennae danced. “Believe me, Drodarr, you have no idea what you are missing, but I’ll be glad to explain… later!” 

Epilogue 
At the Harmon Compound on Earth 
“What I don’t understand is how you could say they were two weeks out almost two years ago. What kind of sense does that make?” 
“Denzel, we were referring to communication limits. That mark indicates how long it takes messages to travel back and forth between a ship and the Earth. When a ship is two weeks out, it means they are actually right at the furthest edge of communication.” 
“Enough military mumbo-jumbo. We are here to relax. Do so.” 
“Spoken like a true autocrat, father.” 
Darvic served a frozen peach daiquiri to Thalassic and raised a questioning eyebrow at Marti, holding up another glass. She shook her head, patted her extended belly. 
“It’s synth. Can’t hurt you.” 
She groaned. “Everything hurts this tummy if I’m not careful.” 
“I’ll have one, sir, if you don’t mind.” Denzel rubbed Marti’s shoulder, keeping his hovering at a minimum. “If certain people would take their sleeping medicine, they wouldn’t be so crabby because they wake up in the middle of the night.” 
She didn’t turn her head. “If certain people don’t wish to occupy the guest couch in the entryway, they will cease their snarky comments about the middle of the night and not sleeping.” 
“Martini…!” 
She stiffened. The harsh way he said her name didn’t sit well. “You must be laboring under the mistaken idea Harmon Compound is not a public forum.” 
“Wh-what?” 
“My submission to you begins at the door to our private domicile, not in my mother’s house. I consider this a public place and in public, we agreed you would fulfill the role of my first consort. Please comport yourself as a well-bred, well-mannered Amazon male.” 
Muttering something about being the only fricking consort, ever, Denzel stomped off. Out of sight, his raised voice floated back. “You’d best be thankful you’re pregnant. If you weren’t I’d already have you over my knee, spanking that arrogant ass of yours!” 
Making a sympathetic grimace he didn’t think she saw, her father pushed up from his chair and went after Den, obviously planning to commiserate with his son-in-love. 
Taking advantage of the fleeting private moment, Marti turned to her mother. “I dreamed of Daiquiri the other night. She was in a Scarth building. The room was long, full of light and had what looked like a gigantic sandbox in the center space. She spoke to me, but she sounded different from before… changed. It was so real…” 
Thalassic took a long pull of her drink before answering. “Marti, please do not take this amiss, but I’m not going to talk about General Daiquiri Harmon with you. If, however, you wish to speak of your sister, I’m all ears.” 
“And you can just separate the two like that?” 
Thalassic sipped at the drink she’d named her missing daughter after. “I do what must be done. Never forget that.” 
“What if it were Darvic facing court martial? Would you intervene then… or still do what must be done?” 
The general’s expression darkened. The light in her eyes went flat. Turning to meet her daughter’s challenging glare she shook her head sadly. “Unlike your father, you have never understood the burden of being the one chosen to make the hard decisions. My personal wants and desires don’t matter. What matters is the strength of my commitment to protect my people. To be a true leader means the good of the many must always outweigh the good of the few… or the one.” 
She should have known… Whenever Marti imagined the two of them might be making headway, Thalassic always said or did something to prove she was more “general” at heart than “mother.” 
Marti’s own heart felt like a lump of charred coal smoldering within her chest. Her mother’s words weighed on her spirits, made her heavier than the double pregnancy dragging at her flesh. She struggled up out of her seat, determined to leave as soon as possible. “Tell me, Mother, why doesn’t that commitment stretch to your own flesh and blood?” 
She made her ponderous way toward the entrance, battling tears. She stuck her head around the corner and shouted down the hall, “Den, I’m ready to go.” 
Turning back to stare at the woman who’d given her life, she wondered if they’d ever find more than a moment’s peace between them. “I hope, for Daiquiri’s sake, when the time comes to judge her, you see her as one of your people… not part of your family.” 
Her mouth tightened on the other angry words she wanted to spew. She settled on one last barb. “Just remember… serving the needs of the Many is fine, but the One deserves justice too.” 


Camille Anthony 
A fertile imagination and a love of both romance and science fiction fuels Camille’s writing. Her favorite stories are those of strong, honorable people -- whatever the race or planet of origin -- who are driven by love and lust to find and do that one special someone. Camille likes her heroines feisty, her heroes dominant and her passion red hot! She loves to hear from her readers. You can e-mail her at CamilleAnthony@CamilleAnthony.com or visit her website at http://www.camilleanthony.com. Your comments and suggestions are appreciated.