Chapter 109

***This article contains spoilers.***

## Highlights

* The team cleans wipes out the Kirrix on Carolus III, and John defeats a Hive Queen.
* The Hive Mind, the Kirrix ruling caste, tries to plunge her into a memory of birthing a Hive Queen, but Alyssa retaliates by having them live through the destruction of Kirr-Inax, then forces the link open so they'll feel everything the Hive Queen feels.
* On Karron, Tony, Kelli, and Perl make it to the surface and steal a truck, run into Kirrix, and almost die, until the Kirrix start convulsing. Kelli finishes them off.

## Notes

### Miscellaneous

* On Carolus III, they see a two-kilometre Kirrix dreadnought with rounded segments running the length of its distinctly alien design. There were long vanes sticking out from the forward section that looked vaguely like antenna and four strange iridescent panels swept out from the central hull reminding John of diaphanous wings. It has thousands of prisoners onboard.
* Killing Kirrix is no problem, but Rachel wonders if they could dispassionately fire on enemy thralls who look more like humans. Alyssa and she agreed to keep the thought from John until he's ready.
* Helene watches the battle from the Invictus, horrified at the hundreds of thousands killed, but forces herself to watch because she owes it to them to watch what they have to do to protect everyone.
* The Kirrix drone carriers are directly controlling the fighters. Drone wings stop dodging when their mothership is destroyed. It’s probably a Hive Lord or Broodmother controlling the pilots. Rachel thinks it’s probably some kind of psychic backlash.
* Solid shields stop drop ships.
* John uses his psychic vision to see into the dreadnought and got a brief flash of something huge. It whipped around to snarl at him in fury before abruptly vanishing from view, blocking him.
* Alyssa gets impaled by a nest guardian, a scarlet-carapaced Kirrix with psychic shields.
* The Hive Queen is big and looks a twisted nightmare. It's got powerful psychic abilities. The egg-laying parts are different to a hivelord. It only laid a single egg in each person, but it was much bigger than the normal drone eggs.
	+ The Hive Queen's attacks can change direction.
	+ Rachel wonders if that creature implants eggs for the higher-tier Kirrix, such as broodmothers, hivelords, juggernauts.
	+ When John hacks off the Hive Queen's leg, the nest guardians lose their shields.
	+ When Alyssa saves John from the Hive Queen, it wants to surrender. It touches Alyssa's mind and she could tell her consciousness was part of something much greater. It doesn't see a problem with the rape. Terrans are considered chattel because they aren't psychic. However, Ashanath are psychic so they aren't used. Alyssa calls bullshit.
	+ The Hive Mind plunged her into a projected memory of birthing a Hive Queen, a "superior species from her pathetic form." Alyssa ripped their projection to pieces, and rammed her own projection into the Hive Mind: The Invictus destroying Kirr-Inax, the Kirrix homeworld, with the Quantum Annihilator, as John and Alyssa on the Bridge toast the extinction of the Kirrix vermin.
	+ After experiencing the total genocide of their species, the Kirrix ruling caste begs Alyssa for mercy because they didn't know she was of *his* kind—a Progenitor. They invited her to an ancient memory of thrall ships butchering Kirrix, who attempted to make contact with the Progenitor, only to have their desperate entreaties for mercy be met with scornful laughter, sneering with disgust as he took his time eviscerating the diplomat.
	+ The Hive Mind explains they didn't use sentient creatures until the Shroud. They used to be symbiotic with Luphids. Now they are born mindless, feral beasts.
	+ Alyssa does not find this excuse satisfactory. She rams open the connection, preventing the Hive Mind from breaking the link. They would feel everything the Hive Queen experienced.
* When Alyssa tortured the Hive Mind, back on Karron the Kirrix started convulsing just as they were about to finish off Tony. Kelli used that opportunity to finish off the ones pursuing them. When they finally started to rise a few minutes later, the Kirrix seemed to have lost all interest in her capture, and hurried towards the star port.

### Hive Mind

Alyssa found herself on her knees, bound naked and helpless before the collective consciousness of the Hive Mind. Her belly was obscenely bloated, a new Hive Queen growing inside her abdomen, its every movement sending shooting pains through her body. Gaping at her distended stomach in horror, she knew that the monster was about to hatch ... ready to tear its way free from its host.

She thrashed wildly against her restraints but the resin was impossible to break, her struggles met with mocking laughter. Filled with terror she felt the thing shift, followed by a sharp stab of agony in her guts. She let loose a blood-curdling scream, knowing that there was nothing she could do to stop the inevitable. The birthing of a superior species from her pathetic form...

Alyssa froze, that thought so alien that it jarred her subconscious. Discordant fractures appeared in her surroundings as her mind began to pull apart the projection, rejecting the false reality imposed upon her. With a snarl of rage the mental prison shattered into jagged slivers, the Hive Mind recoiling in astonishment as she ripped their projection to pieces.