Be careful, Boss.These guys don’t fuck around.
“Your warning is unnecessary.”
But Gus appreciated the sentiment.
Taking control of the ship, Gus piloted it away from the stray piece of wreckage she’d been floating next to in a bid to disguise her ship’s energy signature while she waited for word from Brooks.It had been a bit of a gamble, positioning herself this far out from Titan, but it had paid off.
By her calculations, she wasn’t far behind Brooks and the rest.Maybe an hour or two at most.
“Guess Cleo and Mars aren’t so smart after all,” Gus murmured, making the first turn into the halo of debris known as the Falling.
Several hours of careful navigation later, Gus sat forward to get a better look at the massive alien wreck coming up in her window, unable to believe her eyes.
A honeycomb.
So named because of its distinct dome-like shape, comprised from thousands of hexagonal cells and the golden amber of its exterior.
Any planet where one of these had been deployed suffered catastrophic losses.In the rare case where the populace managed to fight off a honeycomb, they spent the next decade hunting down any stray Tsavitee who’d managed to escape into their atmosphere.
On one of those planets, a member of the forty-three nearly got swept up in the slaughter.Only making it out by the skin of their teeth and the timely arrival of Kira’s forces.
Even with a third of the structure broken off and several engines missing, the honeycomb cut an intimidating sight drifting in the endless expanse of space.Pieces of wreckage floating around it like mini missiles, ready to take out any idiot who got close enough.
“What moron thought using this as a base of operations was a good idea?”Gus muttered.
Her siblings were supposed to be smarter than this.
Gus swallowed hard, her fingertips tingling with the desire to turn her ship around and run.
The ramifications of a honeycomb in such close proximity to Titan were terrifying.
When this thing woke—and itwouldwake up since some idiot with more greed than sense had decided to disturb the not so final resting place of an alien army that had already almost destroyed humanity once—the station, surrounding mining colonies, and outposts would be overrun.
A honeycomb’s inhabitants were more insect-like than mammalian.They spread like a virus, devouring everything in their path.
The military detachment on station wouldn’t even know what hit them.
They would die.The rest of Titan would follow shortly after.
The lucky ones anyway.The unlucky ones would be taken captive, used as food or breeding stock.
Damn it.Damn it.Damn it.
This was outside of Gus’s pay grade.Even the weakest Tsavitee in a honeycomb was enough to separate her head from her body before she even got off a scream.
Despite that knowledge, Gus made no attempt to haul ass in the opposite direction.Instead, she cut her engines and let her ship drift the rest of the way into the honeycomb so as not to arouse the hive’s slumbering defenses.It arrowed toward the hexagonal cell she’d identified as her destination.
There was a bump as she breached the cells exterior barrier.
Setting down, she ran a quick diagnostic to make sure there was breathable atmosphere outside her ship.
There was.
“Now what?”Gus asked herself.
She could leave.There was still time.No one knew she was here yet.She didn’t have to blow up her life to help a pair of strangers.She didn’t owe them anything.Not her life.Not her future.Nothing.
It would be easy.All she’d have to do was forget everything she’d seen and learned over the past few days and fly her ship back the way she’d come.Past the wreckage of the Falling.Past even Titan.All the way out of this sector until she found someplace safe.Preferably somewhere uninhabited and unwelcoming of visitors.
