More, we hoped our appearance of cooperation would entice them to lower the force field.
Krael did no such thing, just stared down his pompous nose at us. “The Colony will be slowly infiltrated by the Hive. We will conquer this world and it will host a complete Hive battlegroup. We will be able to attack the closest member planets with ease from this location. After that, all of you veterans—” he spat out Queen Deston’s honorific for those that lived on the Colony as if it were foul, “—will be considered ruthless killers and destroyed on sight.”
He was right. If the Colony was taken over by the Hive, the general population of all Coalition planets would think all returning warriors were tainted, regardless of whether they’d been integrated and escaped or not. Any hope of recovery from Hive implants and integration would be lost. Hatred and loathing would spread for us, already the most feared members of the interplanetary community. We’d destroy ourselves, be exterminated by our own peoples, and the Hive would ensure the job was complete.
“Not going to happen,” Hunt growled, refusing to look up at the traitor.
Krael had the audacity to grin. “Yes, it will. And by you. The two of you will mindlessly work for the Hive in destroying first this planet and the community you’ve worked so hard to create.” The horror that would follow he left unsaid. We all knew what would happen if the Colony fell under the Hive control. Earth was the closest, and least protected, planet. Humanity would fall first. Kirstin’s home. Her people.
He was a worthless excuse for a Prillon. While he was as large and forbidding as Hunt and myself, he lacked honor. I had no idea when he’d switched allegiances, but he’d destroyed plenty already. At least what we knew about.
He had no Hive integration that I could see. No new eye like Hunt. No bots in muscle like I had. What had the Hive done to him? Did he have integrations in his arms, torso? Or had they modified his brain? He spoke as himself, sounded cognizant of his choices, and that made me hate him. He wasn’t being controlled or manipulated, he betrayed us all for his own selfish ends. What those were, I neither knew nor cared. His motives were irrelevant. He was the enemy. First chance I had, I was going to rip him in half.
The missing men who’d been taken recently were mindless Hive drones now. We’d seen them as we were brought here. While they looked like their former selves, they were a shell, a functioning unit controlled by the Hive. The portion of their brains that made them individuals was gone, disconnected.
But Krael? He wasn’t mindless. No, he was too cunning, too ruthless. While he worked for the Hive, I had to wonder how he was controlled by them.
He worked alone, at least as far as we could tell. It was unusual for a Prillon, most had a second, even if they had no mate, a trusted brother to keep the loneliness at bay. But Krael was a mystery, one we would solve if we could get out of the damn cell. He had no collar, no connection to anyone but the Hive.
He grinned, but the expression was cold.
“Your time is coming. Soon. But I’ll leave you here to wonder when.” He angled his head toward Captain Perro. “He’s been converted so nicely. He used to side with you, protect your back. Now he will shoot you there. At my command or at the Hive’s whim. He patted the now Hive controlled warrior on the shoulder, but Captain Perro didn’t even blink in response to the action. “With him, we put him under before we inserted the Hive processing unit in his prefrontal cortex. He can’t decide to take a piss without permission. But with you?” He shrugged. “We’ll see. The fun of what they are doing here is finding different ways to re-integrate. What was done to you before was simple experimentation in comparison.”
He studied Hunt’s eye, squinting. “They’ll finish what they started with you, Hunt. The frontal eye fields will be fully integrated. You’ll be walking eyes for the Hive.”
Hunt blinked, slowly, but refused to rise to the bait.
My uninjured hand fisted. I wanted to kill Krael with a ferocity I’d never known before. But I contained it, controlled it, like I always did with my emotions. I had to bide my time. There would be a moment of opportunity, I just had to wait for it.
He turned and left then, his footsteps heavy on the rock floor, leaving Captain Perro to remain as our guard, the once proud warrior now our constant reminder of Hive power and ultimately our own weakness.
Hunt pushed to his feet, put a hand on the wall to steady himself. “We have to do something. We can’t just stay here, trapped, waiting to die.”
I looked up at him. He was used to being in control, as was I. It was in our very cells, to lead, to dominate. Being trapped as we were was doubly hard for us. I was just as angry as Hunt, but I was always the cool headed one. At least in situations like this. In battle, I was ice cold. Precise.