Queen of Jarilo

Was this some kind of waste dump? That strange smell permeated the chamber, not foul, just alien and hard to pin down.

Were the heat and the humidity starting to get to him, or were those sacks...moving? The closer he looked, the more they seemed to be shifting and warping, pulsating. His eyes widened as he realized that they were alive. These were Betelgeusian larvae, had to be, they looked like giant maggots the size of a toddler. His immediate reaction was revulsion. There were piles of the damned things, squirming and shifting as they lay atop one another. But the more he stared at them, the less offensive they became.

They were segmented, and they had a clearly defined head, a dark spot on one end of their cylindrical bodies with a set of underdeveloped mandibles and a pair of oversized eyes. They were almost cute in a way, and they shuffled their unwieldy bodies around to get a look at the visitors as the Repletes walked into the center of the room.

The larvae began to bob up and down excitedly, it looked to be about as much activity as their limbless little bodies were capable of, and the engorged Repletes reached down to take them in their arms. They sat heavily on the floor, nursing the babies two at a time, the larvae searching for a nipple with their grasping mandibles and then bringing it into their mouths. The Repletes were so gentle with them, treating them as if they were made of glass, contrasting strongly with the animal brutality that he had witnessed in the feeding chamber.

The muggy heat must have been for the benefit of their offspring. In termite colonies, humidity gradients were an important factor in the development of the young. They used an elaborate system of vents to cycle the air through the hive that worked like a kind of primitive AC system.

The Repletes must have known that Walker could not feed their young, and so what was the point of bringing him here? He watched as the bloated insects nursed the larvae. The little creatures were too small to consume very much of the amber liquid in one sitting. When they had eaten their fill, they were placed back on the pile, and another one was selected. Once fed, they became lethargic, closing their large eyes and seeming to fall asleep.

Cherry beckoned to him, and Walker inched a little nearer, somewhat apprehensive about getting too close to the things. She had a larvae suckling at each breast, supporting them in her four arms, and she emitted a more complex pheromone that had a layer of speech woven into it. He concentrated hard, trying to parse it. He had grasped the method by which they conveyed information now, but it was still a great effort to pick out even simple words and concepts.

<COME.>

<SHARE.>

He wasn't sure what she wanted exactly, but he steeled himself and came to stand in front of her, almost at eye level with her due to her stature. She was sat cross-legged on the ground, her fat belly resting in the recess between her legs. She reminded him of a statue of the Budai that were so common in East Asia. He watched one of the maggots draw honey from her breast, its dull mandibles clamped around the nipple-like opening, and Cherry cradled it with a care that could only have been described as maternal.

The baby Bug finished, relinquishing its hold on her, and she extended her arms to pass it to Walker. He backed up, shaking his head.

"Oh no, no way. I'm not touching that thing."

The larvae looked up at him with wide eyes, its tiny mandibles waving, and Cherry repeated the gesture. She was adamant that he should hold the creature. He rolled his eyes and mustered the courage to repress his mild revulsion, holding out his hands as she placed it gently in his arms.

He had expected it to be slimy, disgusting, but it was actually clean and dry. There was no foul mucous dripping from it, it felt like holding a plastic bag that had been packed with dough. Its flesh was springy, weighty, and he felt it shift and wriggle as it sensed a pair of strange hands under its body.

"I don't think it likes me," he complained, knowing that the Bugs could not understand his human speech but feeling the need to express himself none the less.

Why were they doing this? Walker was their enemy, their prisoner, and yet they had no qualms about handing him their precious offspring. It was such a fragile little thing, he could have popped it like a balloon if he had been so inclined, but the Repletes seemed to place a trust in him that he didn't feel that he had earned. He certainly wouldn't dream about letting a Drone hold a human baby.

It twisted its head around to get a better look at him, its eyes curious, intelligent. The two examined each other for a moment, Cherry watching with interest.

"What are you going to be?" Walker wondered aloud, "a Drone or a Worker? Maybe a Warrior?"

He reached a finger down towards its face, slowly so as not to startle it, and it reached out its underdeveloped mandibles to bite him. It was too weak to break the skin, and he found himself chuckling at the attempt.

"Definitely a Warrior..."

CHAPTER 11: HONEYPOT

They finished feeding the infants, and then the group moved to a different chamber, still laden with honey. The amount that they could produce and carry around with them was truly remarkable, the innumerable baby Bugs had barely made a dent. They arrived in the new room, the dome rising high above Walker's head, and he recognized the smell of it from the day before. This was where Fig had brought him in an attempt to get him to eat. It must be lunchtime for the Betelgeusians. Many other Repletes were entering the room from side tunnels, their bellies engorged with amber nectar as they sat heavily against the walls.

He was vindicated as a few hundred of them poured into the expansive space, right on time. It was like the whole colony lived on a biological timer that was as accurate as an atomic clock. The logistics of organizing a comparable group of humans in this way were astronomical, and yet it seemed to be second nature to the Bugs. There were no soldiers eating coffee packets in an attempt to rouse themselves, or showing up late to roll call. They arrived exactly on time in exactly the place that they were expected to be.

The various castes of Bug lined up and waited for their turns, clambering into the arms of the Repletes two by two as they were fed, Walker watching with the same mixture of curiosity and displeasure that he had experienced the first time.

The evolutionary advantage of this system was obvious to him, as was how it had developed. Convergent evolution had bestowed breasts upon all of the species that they had encountered so far besides the egg-laying Krell. It was an efficient way to deliver nutrients to their young, and contrary to popular belief it was not only mammals that produced milk. While technically speaking only mammals lactated, there were some species of insect that produced a kind of milk in their brood sacks, cockroaches for example. The same could be said of marsupial species like the platypus, a creature that secreted milk through its sweat in order to feed its offspring.

Despite the distaste that he felt, his urgent hunger was starting to overpower it. He hadn't eaten or drunk anything for the better part of two days. If he didn't get some moisture soon, then his body would shut down, and it wouldn't matter what his opinions on the subject were.

Cherry was currently feeding a pair of Workers, and Walker reluctantly took a place at the front of the line as he waited. He cursed himself for his stupidity, he should have brought his pack with him or at least kept his canteen on his belt. Assuming that he would have been allowed to return to his cell had been foolish and anthropocentric.

One of the Workers was done, its mandibles disconnecting from the nipple-like opening, and it scurried away to return to its duties. Cherry held her arms out to Walker in invitation, and he stepped forward.

She placed her lower, reinforced arm in the small of his back to support him as he sat on her thigh, her bloated belly pressing against his side. He felt her upper hand in his hair as she cradled his head, bringing her breast towards his face. He grimaced, wracking his brain as he tried to think of an alternative, but nothing came to mind.

He pressed his hand into her breast, it felt like a heavy water balloon filled with gel, warm and smooth. The tissue spread between his fingers, and he brought up a second hand, the damn thing would have been impossible to lift with just one. It was as heavy as a military rucksack, and her belly must be multiple times this weight. No wonder they had to drop to all fours to walk around when they were full to capacity.

He had to shift his weight, trying to get comfortable. Her thigh was sheathed in a hard exoskeleton, and her belly was large enough that it was pushing him away from her. She held him close, pressing him against its elastic surface, his elbow sinking into it as the thick liquid beneath the transparent skin shifted and gurgled.

Her boob pressed against his cheek, now reddening with embarrassment. It was the size of a damned exercise ball. He felt her nipple on his lips, Cherry had studied his mouth in detail, and she knew how it worked. Walker finally gave in and opened up, feeling the fleshy protrusion on his tongue. To his surprise he did not need to draw on it, her tissue contracted to push the liquid into his mouth. He braced himself, anticipating an unpleasant taste, but what hit his tongue tasted remarkably like honey. Not only did it bear a visual resemblance, but the aroma was eerily similar, sweet and thick with a comparable aftertaste. He found himself drinking it down as more came, his body reacting strongly to it, full of the proteins and nutrients that he had been lacking. He needed the water content desperately, the electrolytes and the vitamins, and he felt a surge of alertness and energy in him as he swallowed.

It was like a concentrate of everything that the Replete had eaten, rendered down into its essential elements, everything that their kind needed to survive. They must have similar nutritional requirements to humans, because Walker was already feeling stronger than he had in days.

He drank until he could take no more, his stomach full of the liquid, his hunger pains subsiding. He got up from her lap, stepping aside so that the next Bug could take his place, feeling a little disgusted with himself. This wasn't any different from eating the bodies of dead passengers to survive after a shuttle crash in a remote area, he was only doing what he needed to do in order to survive. He'd take alien honey over human flesh any day, but this was another thing that he would prefer to leave out of his reports...

It was potent stuff. Better than an MRE, that was for sure. If the UNN could find a way to produce it, maybe it could be used as a replacement for field rations. You could fill up a canteen with the stuff, and it would keep you going for days.

It remained to be seen if his body would react badly to it in any way. His stomach might just explode for all he knew, but it wasn't as if he had any other options. He had no idea where his cell was in this maze, he had no way to get back to it, he hadn't yet figured out how to read the pheromone trails when he had been let out of his cage.

Right now he was feeling pretty good, and so he took a seat near Cherry to relax and digest as he watched her feed the rest of her customers. The bulky rolls of her belly slowly drained, her breasts remaining the same size and shape, as that was where the liquid was being drawn to. It was fascinating to see her shrink before his eyes, the swollen pouch on her abdomen receding as the honey drained away. She fed Workers, Drones, and Pilots, every caste that he had come across so far. In a way, it reminded him of the Pinwheel. These creatures might all represent the same species, but all of the different sizes and shapes brought to mind images of the station's torus, where all of the Coalition's races walked side by side in harmony. Well, for the most part. He had never heard the words harmony and Borealan in the same sentence.

Her sisters did likewise, and working together they were able to feed what must have been a couple of hundred Bugs in the space of a half hour. Walker spent almost that long eating a single meal, he couldn't even estimate how long it would have taken to feed two hundred UNN Marines in a mess hall of a similar size to the chamber. It was becoming easier and easier to understand how these outwardly primitive aliens were able to go toe to toe with the military might of the United Nations Navy. You couldn't drill this kind of efficiency and purpose into a recruit.

After a while, the crowd of insects filed out through the various tunnels, each group proceeding to their next assignment. The now considerably lighter Repletes rose from their sitting positions to make their way back towards the feeding chamber. Walker could smell the foliage on the air as he followed after Cherry, now walking on two legs at her full height.

Before long they arrived back at the feeding chamber, the floor now littered with a fresh layer of leaves and branches. The Repletes sat heavily on the floor and immediately resumed their gorging. Sticks were snapped, foliage was crunched, and bark was stripped as Walker settled in for another long wait. This seemed to be all that the Repletes did, eat food and then feed it to the rest of the hive, their appetites were monstrous.

He was glad to have his implant. If he didn't smell like a member of their colony, what might these Bugs have done to him? He remembered how one of them had torn through a whole therapsid in the space of a couple of minutes, imagining the same fate befalling a human. They might not differentiate between an enemy combatant and a prey animal, it was all protein and calcium to them, their soldiers certainly didn't seem to have any concept of humane warfare.

Chemical weapons had been outlawed in human society half a millennium ago, and until the war with the Betelgeusians had started, plasma casters had been banned in UNN space as weapons that caused needless suffering. A railgun was clean, an instant kill in pretty much any scenario, while plasma would leave horrific burns and melt armor to the skin beneath. The Bugs used both in abundance, having no regard for minimizing pain.

It was hard to hate them, however. They were such innocent creatures, going about their assigned tasks with seemingly little thought. Hating them would be like hating the loading spring in a gun. Sure, it was a component of the larger whole, but it had no say in who it was pointed at and when the trigger was pulled.

***

The Bugs consumed enough food to replenish their stores of honey, Cherry's transparent sacks hanging from her torso as she dropped down onto her reinforced limbs, some unspoken signal compelling the group of swollen creatures to move out. She loosed a pheromone, FOLLOW, and so Walker joined them as they lumbered down yet another tunnel. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to their placement, as if the Workers had excavated them at random, but that couldn't be the case. There must be some logic to the structure in this place that he wasn't seeing. Perhaps they were arranged in such a way as to facilitate the circulation of fresh air, or to control humidity in the hive. He had noticed that different chambers and tunnels could have dramatically different climates.

They emerged into a new room, describing it visually was starting to become redundant as they were all essentially the same, just dome-shaped chambers carved out of the dirt and sealed with Worker spit. Walker was now seeing things differently, or smelling things differently as would be a more apt description, and so he used his new sense to examine the space. It smelled of their honey, and a strong scent of the Repletes lingered in the air, so he concluded that this must be their sleeping chamber.

Clearly, they expected him to spend the night with them, to socialize as he had done with the Workers the day prior. He steeled himself, determined to maintain his composure this time.

The swollen Repletes fanned out into the room, more entering through other tunnels that connected to it from different parts of the hive. Just like the Workers, the Repletes knew to return to this one chamber, all of them at the same time. He couldn't be sure if every individual within the hive had returned here. There might be many such meeting points spaced out within the colony, he had no real concept of how large it was or how many Bugs were living in it. Some were drained of their fluid, their bellies flat and their chests reduced to small lumps, others were bloated with a fresh crop as they sat tentatively on the dirt floor.

They arranged themselves in piles, many of the lighter Repletes resting atop the bloated ones, using their fluid-filled pouches as if they were water beds. The tissue was much stronger than Walker had initially assumed. They seemed unconcerned by the extra weight that was being put on them, and no care was being taken to ensure that the pointier parts of the Bug exoskeletons were kept clear of the transparent skin. The prospect of them bursting was unlikely, apparently.

Cherry led Walker over to one such pile near the far wall, comprised of maybe ten individuals, fat Repletes with heavy breasts and bellies resting at the bottom while the skinnier ones used them as pillows. They were just as social as the Workers had been, with no concept of personal space, and Cherry squeezed between two of her sisters as she tugged Walker along by the wrist. She used her reinforced lower limbs to support her weight as she lowered herself down onto the floor, leaning back against the dirt wall and pulling Walker off balance so that he fell down on top of her.

He landed on her belly, bouncing gently on its springy surface. It was warm to the touch and smooth like skin, and yet he could feel the fluid shifting beneath him. It was oddly pleasant, by far the most comfortable surface that he had so far encountered in the hive.

He made to roll off her, but more of them pressed in around him, and before he could react he found himself enclosed in a prison of hard limbs and soft protrusions. Cherry had pulled him to the bottom of the pile, where the fattest Repletes were serving as living beds. He felt hard limbs draped over his body as the thinner ones spooned with him. He shuffled uncomfortably, trying to break free, but Cherry sensed his struggling and wrapped her two pairs of arms around him to pull him closer to her.

Maybe she thought that he didn't know how to sleep in a pile, and he felt his cheeks reddening as she pressed his head between her weighty breasts, large enough to engulf him completely with room to spare. At full capacity, each of them was the size and weight of a loaded rucksack. Marines trained for months to carry half of what she did and that didn't even include her distended stomach.

Her transparent skin was smooth against his face, warm, though cooler than his cheeks. She smelled good, really good, and he cursed himself as he felt a growing erection straining against his fatigues and pressing into her belly.

A woman's breasts were firm when compressed, yielding under one's fingers only to a certain extent, yet these fluid-filled sacks were far more flexible. His head sank deep into them, the fluid spreading around as he displaced it, Cherry's fingers running through his hair as she held him between her wobbling boobs. His treacherous brain was associating the smell with prior sexual experiences again.

He reached up a hand and sunk his fingers deep into her bust, testing the elasticity of her skin and feeling the thick honey within bulge to fill his palm, springing back into its original shape when he let go of it. The Bugs were usually so hard, what with the chitinous armor that covered them from head to toe, but this new softness was too inviting to refuse. If anything, he would at least take advantage of it to get a good night's rest.