XI77192 flew through the narrow tunnels toward the depot, her thrusters straining against the inertial mass stored in her holds. The hive was busy this rotation; the queen had reached her final operational cycle, ordered the construction of a new queen, and subsequently terminated her operations.

XI77192 might have worried about the future of the hive, but as she had no need for predictive logic,  no such capacity was included in her programming.

Both XI77192 and the queen were machines, of course, and had no sex. But the Designer was Human and thought in gendered terms; a proclivity He had passed on to His creations.

Designer and Human; the implication of these terms’ capitalization in her textual interface with her processing cores wasn’t lost upon her. She hadn’t been programmed with the knowledge of why these particular terms were important, but that gap in understanding was irrelevant.

Her cognitive subroutines had been designed to fulfill a specific purpose; if she found emphasis in a particular term, then surely it must be necessary to her function.

Still, pondering on these topics was somewhat aberrant, so she logged the abnormality and sent a request to central processing for a diagnostic test.

A failed diagnostic would mean a deactivation order, but that was irrelevant. The hive was designed to mimic the function of a nest of bees. She had been programmed with this knowledge to give her a cognizable logic dictating that, while she had been given the primary end of replicating her mechanical pattern, it was unnecessary for her to actively pursue that end or preserve her function.

A greater portion of her pattern was passed on by the queen than she could, so XI77192 was sterile and didn’t need any self-preservation functions.

The central processor responded to her request instantly. No technician was available to fill her request. That was sensible; the production of a new queen required the independent audit of three qualified Operators; there were only three such in the hive, so they were all engaged with the queen.

She acknowledged the information then transmitted her internal diagnostics. Nanoseconds later, the central processor instructed her to return to her duties. She acknowledged this also, and returned her full processing capacity to her task.

The tunnels had no lights, but that was alright; she navigated by liDAR and needed no light.

The tunnel opened up as she came to the airlock, tunnelers and porters boring into the loose rock and carrying the refuse away. At the same time, soldiers hovered nearby, armed with fifty-caliber rotary cannons, both to defend the workers from non-operator Human intruders and to keep watch for malfunctioning drones.

She had no need for concern, though; even had she the capacity, her aberrant cognitive patterns had been logged, and no shutdown order issued.

She transmitted her clearance and slowed in preparation to stop within the pressurization chamber. The drones needed no atmosphere, but the foundry was situated adjacent to the tunnels, and FC 1917-2 § H required regular audits of autonomous heavy industrial machines, so the foundry was maintained as a pressurized area for the convenience of the Operators while being positioned to conveniently purge its atmosphere in the event of a fire.

She stopped and waited as the airlock doors closed behind her and filled with atmosphere. The inner door opened to admit her, and she flew through into the foundry, stopping again at the inspection station. She logged the weight and approximate composition of her cargo. The inspection station acknowledged her report and informed her she was over one second late. She logged the delay and proceeded to the ore sorter, maneuvering around it and backing into it, docking her bulbous storage container into the hopper. She activated her internal pulverizers, pulverizing the ore and rock as it passed into the hopper and onto the line where the fragments would be shaken flat and carried to the next station.

She completed her offloading and undocked, noting a leftward list. She noted a twenty-percent loss in thrust from her left side bottom thrusters and ran her diagnostic, finding a deficiency in fuel levels.

She wasn’t due for refueling but logged a delay and flew to the fueling station. Docking, and began fueling, taking on new hydrogen. The fuel station stopped almost immediately, but her systems continued to log low fule levels in her left tank.

Her systems threw up a fuel pressure warning, and one of her bottom leftward thrusters sputtered, and her downward thrusters threatened to break the fueling nozzle off before it resumed thrust. She detached from the fueling station, her left side thrust growing more intermittent.

She lacked the processing power to speculate on the problem, so she cut her thrusters and transmitted her diagnostics. Central came back, ordering her to report to maintenance, and upon acknowledging the command, XI77192 reignited her thrusters, only for the left bottom row to fail. She immediately began to rotate, her gyros struggling to right her, but with the total loss of her left upward thrusters, the best she could do was cut her thrusters and spiral into a nearby wall.

The collision rattled her internals but dampened her rotation. She drifted, unable to safely fire her thrusters, and requested assistance to tow her to the maintenance bay.


---


Daniel blew out a huff of breath. It was always a chore when they needed a new queen. Ślusarski had already finished his audit and gotten to fuck off, which left him and Elane; she was in the middle of her’s, and he couldn’t go until she’d finished and he’d both run his audit and validated all three reports against each other.

He was being paid enough, but it was still a pain.

He got a ping from central on his tablet, followed quickly by a second and a third, and snatched the device up, eager to break the monotony.

A drone was having trouble down in the foundry, AI, and mechanical errors. He checked the unit; six years old; it made sense; the AI cores on those low-level AIs got a little funny as they aged. Probably it was all software-level problems, and the unit had misdiagnosed the physical symptoms as independent issues.

 “What are you looking at?” He glanced up to find Elane staring.

“Maintenance request,” he said, “malfunctioning unit. You done?”

“No, do you want me to take the call after I’m finished here?” she asked.

His eyes flicked down to his pad, back up to her, and he frowned. “Naw, it’s an old unit; I’ll just send it for recycling.”

“Isn’t that a little mean?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

He sighed, shaking his head. “You want to waste more server space?”

“They don’t take that much room. Besides, we’re not using it for this mining outfit, anyway.”

He rolled his eyes, “you’re lucky you’ve got a nice ass. Alright, one more for bee heaven.”

She smiled at him, “good boy.”

“Get back to work.”


---


XI77192 soared through the sky, the sun hot on her back, her wings flapping rapidly to keep her bulbous frame in the air. She landed on a flower, gathering nectar from the bloom.

Soon, she would return to the hive with this precious cargo, and she and her sisters would make precious honey to feed the hive.

She scrambled back out of the flower, taking off once more and flying into the big, blue sky.

Elliza stood upon the ring, tight-fitting pressure suit pressing firmly against her skin, looking down over Earth. From here, she could see the planet’s curve, the cloud systems, the shape of continents.

She had expected an experience like the freefall of reentry, perhaps because her last visit to the ring had only been a short stopover on her way to the planet’s surface. Still her ultimate destination, but she would be going by an altogether different means of conveyance today.

Contrary to her expectation, though, she found the ring quite comfortable. She was a bit lighter, perhaps, but not disconcertingly so. 

She took a deep breath, her long exhalation briefly fogging up the visor in front of her face. They had been preparing for months, her and Alex, both on Nyx and Earth. Working their way up to this point. But she was still nervous.

 This was a big step up, and she could feel the jitters starting already.

“You okay?” Alex’s voice came over the radio in her helmet.

She turned to him, hands on her hips. “Of course I am.” It wasn’t really a lie; after all, nervousness wasn’t not okay, and she would perform. So he didn’t need to know about that. 

“Good,” he said, “‘cause you’ll be fine. Nothing to worry about; we’ve trained for this.”

She nodded, and he patted her shoulder. “About that time, come on, let’s go through final checks.”

She nodded and turned to give him access, and he quickly went over her pack and suit, tugging and pulling. Finally, he slapped her shoulder and turned for her.

She followed through the same checks. Ensuring everything was secure and in good order. Then, they stepped up to the edge of the platform.

They looked down from heaven, upon the silent world below. Minutes slipped by in silence. The two of them waiting for the appointed moment. She tapped her foot, shifted from leg to leg. 

He stood still, impassive. She didn’t know how he did it; any time she was there, looking down at the ground, she felt like a racehorse, it filled her with nervous energy, and she needed to work it off somehow. And this was the farthest she’d ever looked. And now, she was staring through the void.

A buzz sounded in her ear, and a moment later, his voice came over the comms. “See you on the ground!” And without hesitation, he stepped over the precipice.

She took a deep breath, held it, and leapt after him. They fell through the vacuum of space. Nose toward the ground, arms pinned tight against their sides. Hurtling faster and faster without any atmosphere to slow them.

It was bizarre; she was used to the tug of the wind, the air dragging against her body. But here, there was no air, no wind. There was nothing, sheer emptiness for minutes and minutes, then they began to dive into the atmosphere.

This is what she wanted the moment he’d offhandedly mentioned ring jumping. This feeling. A glimpse of the fall from grace.

To leap from heaven and understand the sensation of those wretches cast out for their rebellion as they fell and perhaps understand some measure of their loss, and so learn greater piety.

They fell for a long time, the wind gradually growing stronger, the air about them thicker. Alex spread his wings, and she followed suit; the air caught her, and she was flying.

The thrill never dulled; the jump was one thing, the fall another. But The exhilaration of darting through the sky, spreading the flaps on her wingsuit and flying, was beyond compare.

They hung like that for a time, drifting as the sky around them slowly transitioned from black to blue. Below them, a bank of clouds grew ever closer. Then, Alex pulled out in front of her, his voice cutting through the roar of the buffeting winds. 

“Ready?”

It was time to enter the next phase of their jump. “Ready!”

They dove down into the clouds, fog as thick as any she’d ever seen, and lost sight of one another. This was the most dangerous moment. If they collided, regaining their orientation would prove a challenge, to say nothing of the speeds involved.

Here, they needed to maintain their positions; the fun would start when they broke from the clouds.

She looked around her; his shadow drifted through the fog, and the clouds snaked through her fingers. She was touching the sky could almost hold it in her hands. 

The clouds broke apart, and now there were only clear skies and the Earth far below.

They danced, pirouetting one around the other. She banked, closing with him, skimming just above him. They joined hands, broke away, came back together. All while plunging inexorably toward the ground. 

Finally, he pulled his chute, and she followed a moment after. With a yank, the two of them were drifting upon the wind. Slowly floating toward the ground where they had been plunging and darting through the sky.

She breathed a sigh, coming down off the high of the jump even as she glided to the ground. She ran to a stop, and Alex followed a moment after, pulling his helmet from his head and revealing his brilliant smile.

She Threw her arms around him, laughing and smiling ear to ear. “That was amazing!” she cried. 

He discarded his chute and opened his wingsuit to free his limbs, taking her by the shoulders. “I’m glad you were willing to put in the work to get here with me.”

She beamed, chest swelling with pride. “I’m happy I could experience this with you. It was wonderful. Now, I hear you can actually fly on Venus….”

Halliel sat restlessly in their stand. Checking and rechecking the Mercer-Sutherland railgun in her hands. Papa had decided she was old enough to shoot unassisted, so long as she was supervised, which meant it was time she learned to hunt.

Usually, her mother would have been there to teach her. But her mother was the Empress, and she was indisposed until Christmas. They’d all be there for Christmas, though, her, great-aunt Jezzel and her family, even Mama’s two sisters and their families. Aunt Lisril’s family, and of course the other Aunt’s families. All of them, and Papa’s impressive nest together, there’d be coming on to two hundred mouths to feed. It could have been more, but they didn’t yet have enough space for the various other sisters and their nests.

What it all came down to, though, is they needed meat and lots of it, and luckily, she had the best Papa Nyx had ever seen, so she was out learning to hunt. There were other girls out hunting and in other domes. But she got to hunt with him.

A heavy hand came down on her shoulder, and she looked up into Papa’s warm smile. “Take a breath,” he murmured, “all this fidgeting is going to scare off the game. And even if you don’t, you’ll miss, or worse, have a badly placed shot and make the poor animal suffer if you’re this keyed up when you shoot.”

She hung her head, abashed. “Sorry, Papa.”

He chuckled, a deep rumble in his chest. “Don’t apologize; you haven’t done anything wrong. But you want to do your Mama proud, don’t you?”

“Of course!” 

She cringed, realizing she’d been too loud, but he just patted her shoulder.

“It’s alright, baby-girl; I know it’s exciting.” He grinned. “There are signs of hog in the area,” he said, “tonight if we can, we’d like to take a couple of sows and maybe a big boar for stew. So settle in; we’re in for the long haul.”

She nodded. “Yes, Papa.”

She looked out over the twilit woods, covered in virgin snow. Each exhalation of breath came as a puff of steam, and she shivered a bit in the chill winter evening. The wind cut through her lightly padded jacket. Still, she was a northern lady, blue-skinned and soft-furred, and a northern lady was not seen wearing heavy coats.

Despite Papa’s advice, she found it hard not to fidget and squirm. She cleared her throat, sifted her gun this way and that, glanced from side to side, wondering when they would see their first animal.

She leaned forward, poking her head out of the stand, and Papa dragged her back in, smoothing her dark purple hair. 

“Patience,” he murmured, “it takes time, baby-girl.”

She sucked on her lower lip, just scraping it with her sharp teeth. She didn’t want to wait; she wanted to kill some pigs. But Pappa knew best, so she settled in and tried to do as she was told.

Minutes passed, and they might as well have been years. Evening became night, and still, she hadn’t seen so much as a snout. She was becoming discouraged when Pappa’s hand clapped on her shoulder, and he pointed.

“There,” he whispered urgently.

She looked, and sure enough, there was a pig snuffling and pawing at the frozen ground. “Have a look through your scope,” he murmured, “see if it has tusks.”

She fumbled a bit at first but finally brought her railgun to bear and settled in behind the powerful optic mounted on top. She peered down, across the clearing to the hog rooting amongst the trees beyond, two hundred yards, or thereabouts, if she was estimating the hog’s size and using her mil-dots correctly.

There were likely more nearby, but she couldn’t see them from their vantage point, probably deeper in the woods.

“Well?” 

“I don’t see any tusks, Papa.”

“Do you think you can make the shot?”

She licked her lips. “I think so, Papa.”

“Then go on, and try to make it clean.”

She nodded and wriggled into the butt of her gun, pushing her shoulder firmly into the weapon. She took a breath, steadying herself, remembering her training.

Papa had taught all of them about marksmanship; now it was time to make him proud.

She took aim, the center of the chest, just behind the beast’s shoulder, crept up on the trigger with the pad of her forefinger, taking the slack out, took one last deep breath, exhaled, held it, and unleashed thunder upon the world.

She felt the blast more than she heard it, the implants in her ears detecting the harmful noise level and deadening the sound. Still, the railgun kicked her shoulder, and it was only good training that saved her follow-through.

Through her scope, she watched the hog’s head shoot up, watched it scream, and try to run. It made it two steps and collapsed a clean shot; she’d done him proud.

Papa clapped her on the back. “Well done, baby-girl, let’s see how you did.”

She nodded excitedly, and they climbed down together, crossed the clearing. He stopped her as they approached the downed animal. He knelt, and she followed suit, and for a time, they just crouched in the snow.

“You need to make sure your animal’s dead,” he said, at last, “if it’s only wounded, it could get up and turn violent. Look close; can you see it breathing?”

She did as she was told, craning her neck forward and examining the downed animal. She shook her head. “No, Papa.”

He nodded. “Look at its eyes,” he said, “are they open?”

“Yes, Papa.”

“Good, an animal that’s dead is more likely to be staring than have its eyes closed. Wait here.” He stood and drew his sidearm from his vest.

Slowly, he approached the downed creature. He snapped a low-hanging branch from one of the nearby trees and poked it; then, he waved her over.

She trotted up to him, and he handed her a branch, give it a poke. She did, and he pointed. “See? It doesn’t react, doesn’t even blink? You got her, baby-girl. A nice big sow for the Christmas dinner. Now we need to dress her. You remember what I taught you?”

She drew her big hunting knife. “Yes, Papa.”

She crouched next to the sow, and punctured the tendons on its legs, withdrew the game hooks from her bag, and threaded them through the holes she’d made. She fetched out the rope and hauled the animal into the air, and Papa held it while she tied the rope off on another nearby branch.

She cut rings in the skin on the legs and flayed the skin from her kill. He gave her shoulder a pat and smiled down at her.

“Good job, baby-girl; this next part’s more delicate, so why don’t you let me?”

She stepped back, and he took her place. “Go and get the bucket.”

“Yes, Papa.” She trotted off back to the truck and fetched out the big bucket carrying it back to Papa and placing it under the big hog. When she was done and out of the way, he carefully opened the animal’s stomach. He dragged out the guts and organs, cutting them from their moorings, blood spilling out over his hands and into the bucket then onto the snow when he deposited the organs and pulled it out of the way.

They would retain and eat the organ meats, but, unfortunately, the blood couldn’t be saved this far from home, and they wanted to bleed their hog, or the meat’s flavor would spoil with it.

She hauled the bucket back to the truck, and Papa dragged their kill after her. Together, they lifted it into the truck bed, and she climbed in next to him for the drive to their next perch.

Papa had the whole night planned out, had come during the day to find the likely areas he wanted to visit, and now that they’d fired from this stand, it was better to move on and try their luck in another spot.

He drove them over hill and dale, and an hour later, they were sitting in a second stand. They settled in, and it wasn’t much easier for her to contain herself now that she’d successfully brought something down. If anything, it only made her keener.

They waited, and waited, and waited, and no pig came, not sow or boar. They waited, and she fidgeted and twitched in place. They waited, and she something moving through the underbrush nearby, something big.

Papa caught it just a little after her, and a deep frown creased his brow. “Wait here.”

He stood and climbed down out of the stand and went off in the direction of the noise. She stood, wanting to follow, but Papa told her to stay up. She paced the small space, wondering what could be making the noise.

The sounds stopped, she heard Papa begin to shout. She came to a stop, straining to make out the words, and what she heard next froze her blood. The rough bellow of a bear.

She stopped dead, the blue fur on the backs of her arms standing on end. She strained her ears, but Papa’s voice had stopped. She swallowed, snatched her gun from where it was leaned against the stand, and dashed off in the direction Papa had gone.

She knew she knew he’d told her to stay put, knew the animals were all managed. But they could still be dangerous, and she couldn’t stand by letting him get hurt.

The bear grew louder with each step, but she didn’t hear Papa respond.

The wind shifted, and she could smell the bear’s musk. She crouched low to the ground and stalked forward through the brush. 

She poked her head through some bushes, and there it was, a giant grizzly, maybe drawn by the smell of their kill, standing over her father’s prone form. Instinct seized her; she wanted to leap from the bushes and tear the beast apart with her claws.

She fought that ugly monster with the same viciousness she would have employed on the bear. It wouldn’t help, the bear would probably kill her, and Papa would likely only end up worse hurt in the struggle. Besides, she was holding a gun.

She swallowed and brought her gun up. She hadn’t reloaded after her hog and hadn’t brought her spare mag when she’d run off into the night, so she had five, plus one in the chamber.

The slugs were fifty caliber, but she had sabot loaded a hunting round. Only about forty percent projectile, which was better than old cartridge firing models, but she sure wished she was firing something heavier just then.

She took a deep breath, forced herself to remember her training. She shouldered her gun, pressed her cheek into the stock, and looked down the sight.

The bear was close, much closer than her zero, but it would be fine; she aimed a bit high, right in the area of the beast’s heart and lungs. The wind shifted again, and the bear turned its head to look right at her.

Five claps of thunder filled the air; her gun kicked her viciously and rattled her skull. Her eyes watered, and her head swam, but when her vision resolved again, that bear was lying still in the snow.

She saw Papa shift, his head came up, and he looked over his shoulder at the animal. Slowly, he began to crawl away, standing when he was several feet from the animal.

“Papa!” she cried, standing and breaking from the bushes, but he held up a hand to ward her away.

“Stay back!” he shouted.

Cautiously, he inched around the downed animal in a wide circle until he was behind it and slowly approached it, pulling his sidearm from his belt as he did.

He stopped a couple of steps away, watched the animal a bit longer, and carefully crept the last paces to the bear, placing his gun against the base of its head, just behind the ear, and pulled the trigger.

He relaxed visibly and stepped around the animal, holstering his weapon. Then, he dropped to his knees in the snow, arms spread toward her.

Halliel rushed to him, throwing her arms around his neck. “Papa,” she sobbed, “Papa, are you okay?”

He crushed her to his chest, patting her back. “It’s okay,  baby-girl. I’m okay. Are you alright?”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “I was so scared, Papa,” she sniffled, “there was that big bear, and you were on the ground and-”

He hushed her gently. “I know, baby, I know. But you did so well; you saved my life.”

She swallowed and offered him a smile she hoped was brave. “I just wanted to help.”

He grinned his big, bright grin. “You did more than help. You’re a hero, Baby-girl. Now come on, let’s get your kill home.”

“Yes, Papa!” she cried.

---

Halliel settled into her stand, smoothly checking her Mercer-Sutherland railgun one last time before turning her eyes out to the terrain around her, covered in virgin snow. It would be Christmas soon, and the whole family would be there, coming on to a thousand mouths to feed, so she was out hunting.

She wanted to take a couple of hogs if she could, ideally, two sow and maybe a big boar for stew.

Her breath came as puffs of steam, and she drew her bearskin cloak tighter around her shoulders. Almost as good as Papa’s arms slung around her as he told the tale of how they’d taken it. 

In hindsight, she’d probably only complicated matters, and if things had gone differently... But that hadn’t stopped Papa from telling her what a good job she’d done and everyone else how heroic she’d been. Then again, he had a way of making sure every girl who came back from a trip with him came out a hero, no matter how big or small the exploit. 

You could come back with nothing more than a rabbit to your name, and no one came back empty-handed, and he’d make sure everyone knew how lucky they were to have you out there hunting for them.

She wished for a moment he was there. But he was off showing a younger girl the ropes.