The Bug War by David Collins

Author:David Collins [Collins, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-07-19T16:00:00+00:00

Aftermath

The first thing the Malamar crew did was to thoroughly disinfect the girls' miniature Ogre hard suits. They were covered in more bug guts than a car’s windshield after the double brood of cicadas came out.

Then, their trophies were sealed in hermetically sealed storage cases for eventual delivery to the medical teams.

Anderson said, “Someday, we should capture some alive, learn their language, talk to them, and ask why they were doing what they were. But not today. Today's objective was to stop one advance and then have the Ogres try to kick them back from someplace where they were already established.”

I said, “What more do we know about the new bug war? Well, Pellum seems to know a bit.”

Pellum said, “I sent out several dozen sniffer micro-satellites to different locations. While I have been doing my best to stay hidden. I have managed to gather enough data to generate a workable language translation. I am transferring that to your mobile AI now. What I don't know is why they seem to be so damn aggressive. I have learned that they have three main factions that lead the Ketakala: the bugs. There are possibly more, but the main ones are big players. They are the Hararrak, the Froaarko, and the Matamark. Each is led by a different queen, with many sub-queens working under them. Only the queens and sub-queens can have children, and they have an insane number of children.”

Anderson said, Lefty, please record this conversation, and we will send it and the data files to the Federation as soon as we are done… No, start sending the data files now. We are not out of the woods yet, and everything could go to shit in an instant.”

Pellum said, “That is Acceptable and, unfortunately, a wise thing to do. Each of the queens has a main planet they rule and several other planets they control. None of the subject planets has any of what you would consider freedoms. They have a hive mentality. The ruler says this is what you do, and they either do it or die trying. I haven't seen anything about what the queens or the kings look like; I assume there are kings…”

I said, “That seems like a reasonable assumption.”

Jennifer Woods said, “Maybe not. We won't know how they reproduce until we study some of the minor royal bodies or manage to capture one. They could be hermaphrodites, where each individual is both genders, or they could be something completely different.”

Princess Domonis said, “Or they may be a race where the male doesn’t survive that mating.” She had a crooked smile on her face after she said that. Or usually doesn’t survive.” Now, she had a wide grin on her face.

Anderson said, “Focus! Back to the main topic, what do we know about them?”

Pellum said, “I have new data from the Ogres battle. The bugs are not like the Ogres. They fight to survive, and the Ogres are happy to die fighting. Several of the bugs tried to surrender, and the Ogres had no idea what they were doing.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.