"Megatron-king comes."
The Queen lifted her head, her array of optics brightening as she looked at the two Insecticons who had just entered her chamber.
Both were workers, sentinels posted at the gate to her inner sanctum, their compact bodies small and lithe. They bowed their heads as their Queen regarded them, their mandibles clicking.
"Should we permit him entry?" one asked. She cast a concerned glance around the chamber, her wide optic strip brightening.
The Queen knew very well what that meant. The small pods in her chambers were the place the new sparks she birthed were laid, encased in transparent eggs until they grew strong enough to be transplanted into frames.
But there were no newsparks. Not now. Not anymore. Not when Cybertron itself had grown dark, and her access to the lifegiving Allspark had been lost.
She had been the mightiest of the Insecticon queens, her hive the largest and the greatest. Now, she could not even serve her function any longer. She could only lead those who remained.
And what was her leadership at all anyway, when a warrior king had arisen over them all anyway?
She understood her daughter's shame. Her workers remained loyal. Her close bond with them revealed her emotions to the entire hive, carrying with them simple hints of thought. The telepathic link told them clearly enough how she had become empty.
Their hive had been the strongest, and she the source of their warrior spirit. It was their own hive's thirst for conquest and dominion that had led them to ally with Megatron in the first place, so many centuries ago.
She had known it would be risky. Her hive had been strong, legions of large-framed soldiers marching at her command. Many were her own daughters; many more had joined her hive rather than be destroyed when their own hives were conquered.
But Megatron's revolution had rallied half a planet behind him. She could never have commanded that.
Subsuming the hive in the Decepticons' ranks had ensured it would endure through the coming centuries of war. That had been enough. It had to be.
Even now that Cybertron itself had gone dark, her allegiance to Megatron had secured a place for her hive on the Decepticons' warship. But now, with the cells empty of eggs, allowing Megatron into her sanctum was to admit greater weakness than the Queen could ever have imagined.
But her hive was the last. The last and the only, and if it did not endure, neither did her kind.
Megatron had risen to power to save his. He would understand. His warriors were distant kin to her soldiers, after all.
And, Megatron was a king, not a queen. Leader though he was, he had arisen as a warrior, not a progenitor. To him, the loss would mean less warriors to swell the ranks of his army, and nothing more.
Or so she hoped, and so the last hive hoped with her.
She heard the sounds of his heavy tread and stared ahead resolutely as her sentinels stepped aside to admit the visitor.
As he entered, she lowered her head in deference, much the same as her guards had done in front of her. It was a common gesture, one that defeated queens had made many times in her presence, hoping that surrender would mean she would spare their lives.
Some queens did. A subordinate queen meant more newsparks, produced more quickly. Young hives needed the numbers, particularly if their founding queens had high ambitions.
But a hive didn't stay young forever, and a lesser queen's surrender usually bought her time, not lasting safety.
And she herself had never surrendered to a greater hive. Not until the rise of Megatron.
Her mandibles clicked as she regarded Megatron, the gaze of her compound optics even and steady despite her lowered head.
His gaze held hers, his scarred mouthplates quirking in amusement. A leader in his own right, he recognized the challenge in her stare.
And respected it, apparently. She dipped her head, letting her optics flicker.
"Megatron-king," she hissed, sweeping a claw in front of her chest. "The hive bids you welcome."
He nodded, his optics bright. Then his gaze shifted to the chamber's barren walls. He growled at the sight. "Your pods are empty."
Surely he must have known it. Centuries of exile, far from the life-giving Allspark, had no doubt affected more than just the Queen's hive. But Insecticons' numbers had always grown quickly, their queens birthing newsparks for long years at a time with no need to renew their fertility. The layers of empty, darkened pods in the walls of the chamber were an unavoidable testament that even the once-prolific Insecticons were now barren.
The Queen's guards answered Megatron's angry outburst with buzzing of their own. Their optics flared, and the click of their stingers locking into position echoed through the small chamber. The metal stingers curved from their back like scimitars, the poison smeared over their tips shining a glossy black.
They twitched, ready to spear their alien visitor for his insult. Heavily armored as Megatron's massive frame was, the Insecticons' acidic venom could eat a channel through the metal, allowing the bladelike stinger to impale his very spark.
Megatron heard it too. He snickered, his optics moving in their sockets to peer first at one one guard and then at her sister. One of his fists clenched, and a blade slid forth from its mount atop his weapon.
But his expression remained exactly the same as it had been. Amusement lit his crimson optics, and his mouth was still twisted in a gently mocking smirk.
The Queen gestured violently. The guards' oversized optic strips flared in irritation, but they relaxed, settling into tense, motionless readiness.
"There are no eggs," she said, keeping her voice carefully even. "Without access to the Allspark's power, I can birth no newsparks to put into them."
Megatron snarled again, gesturing with his blade-tipped arm, but he made no threatening move. He stared at the empty pods for a long moment.
"For us it is the same," he rasped at last, shaking his helmeted head. "Without the Allspark, we can create only clones."
He frowned, his voice soft. "And even that capability will only last so long."
The Queen's spark pulsed in relief. Perhaps this strange warrior king understood, after all.
"But it is neither the future of your hive nor the fate of the Decepticons that brings me here.
"Tell me," he said, turning back to face the Queen. His optics flared brightly. "Who is the fiercest among you?"
"The hive is fierce," said one of the guards.
"The hive is strong," said the other, her voice echoing her sister's.
Megatron answered with another snarl of irritation.
The Queen understood. Megatron had built his army by appealing to individuals, promising them better lives on a planet where the strictures of caste had been eliminated. In the new society he promised, each mech's rank in society would be based on merit alone.
Insecticon hives had never liked the castes the Councils tried to impose on them. Their supposed kinship to organic creatures had made their cousins see workers - whether sentinels, warriors, or builders - as the lowest of the low, and queens as little more than living spark factories, defined only by their ability to create life faster than they could seize control of it.
But Insecticons valued few things more than proper order. Their function in the hive structured their lives from the moment they emerged from their pods. All hives had a social system that every member of the hive understood implicitly.
For Megatron to call for a soldier only made sense. He was a warrior himself, despite his odd status as both fighter and king.
But for Megatron to single out an individual member of any class, soldier or no, was incomprehensible.
Or had been until the Queen had sworn fealty to the Decepticons.
She had watched her strange cousins, noticing their emphasis on merit, achievement, and personal ambition. She had watched their warrior king and his followers, marveling at their internal struggles and the endless jockeying for power that gave rise to them.
And she had learned from it.
Like all of her kind, her weaponry was built into her frame. While she didn't possess the heavy plating, broad claws, and massive mandibles of a soldier designed for the frontlines of war, she could hold her own if needed. Someone had to defend the first generation in a newly built hive, after all.
But she had not become a fighter herself until her alliance with the Decepticons. She had bid the greatest of the hive's soldiers train her, sparring with them until she nearly offlined from exhaustion. She had sharpened her horns and her claws to match those of her fiercest daughters and had her mandibles replaced with broader, stronger ones.
The hive's world had changed, and its Queen had changed with it.
"There is no greater ferocity than an Insecticon hive," she answered evenly, clicking her mandibles in confirmation of what her sentinels had said. "And this hive is the greatest - and the last. But one among our soldiers is the largest, stronger and more powerful than her sisters."
Megatron's answer was a bright, fanged smile.
The guards buzzed angrily, still not liking the turn of the conversation. But they nodded respectfully to their Queen as her emotions washed over them.
"We will bring her," they said in unison, each taking comfort and pride in her sister's voice.
Mere minutes later, a deafening noise echoed through the narrow hall, the droning of a pair of massive wings, beating rapidly as a massive Insecticon flew down into the entrance hall.
She transformed as she landed, the two massive claws of her feet digging into the metal of the chamber's floor. Then she gave a shrieking call, the war cry of an Insecticon soldier.
Two others came with her, soldiers also, their size dwarfing both the sentinels and the Queen. They stood at attention just behind Hardshell, their stingers stretched out behind them in a gesture of display.
Megatron smiled again, showing rows of sharpened fangs, and turned to look at the new arrivals and their leader.
Hardshell's frame was massive, broad and sturdy even for the larger-framed soldiers. A latticework of bright scars scored her chest, arms, and legs, slicing through the dark paint and exposing the yellow-tinged metal beneath. Even her face bore the marks of battle, jagged golden zigzags crossing her black cheeks and chin.
Many of Hardshell's scars came from skirmishes with other hives, testaments to her own hive's power. The rest came from very different battles, with a very different set of enemies.
"Hive-Queen," she said, her voice a low, rumbling roar. Her great head lowered in recognition. "You called for me?"
"No," Megatron corrected, stepping forward. "I called for you."
Hardshell lifted her head to look at him. "Megatron-king," she said after a long moment, nodding in acknowledgment. "I am Hardshell."
"I require a mighty warrior, Hardshell, for a mission vital to the Decepticons' interests. And therefore to those of your hive."
Hardshell nodded. "I have long hunted your enemies, Megatron-king."
Like her Queen, Hardshell had adapted to the hive's new place in the Decepticon army. Her great size and thick armor came not only from her function in the hive, but also from an array of upgrades similar to her Queen's. Her claws were sharper, her mandibles broader and more wickedly curved. Even her stinger was deadlier, its corrosive venom so concentrated it left discolored circles where it dripped onto the floor below.
Megatron's fangs gleamed. "Have you now?"
"Two former members of the Wreckers have died by my hand," she answered, a claw slicing through the space in front of her, passing close enough to just barely miss Megatron's massive chest.
His optics widened, then brightened. He laughed, the sound a harsh bark.
The sentinels were less impressed. They hissed at Hardshell. Modified or not, for her to take such personal credit for victories in battle was unheard of.
Hardshell's attendants, for their parts, said nothing. Their mandibles clicked in irritation, but the Queen couldn't tell whether they were annoyed by Hardshell's presumption or by the sentinels' derision.
Hardshell glowered at the sentinels. "And the hands of the soldiers who accompanied me," she amended smoothly.
The Queen's stinger flicked restlessly. She didn't begrudge Hardshell her ambitions. Not now that the Decepticons had changed everything.
But it was not good for her hive's workers to be so at odds with one another. Strong hives splintered over less.
And strong hives had functioning queens, not barren ones who put all their effort into holding together whatever remained after centuries of war and an alliance as good as a conquest.
But Megatron only nodded, unfazed by the Insecticons' argument and apparently still oblivious to the weakness it so starkly revealed to the Queen.
He smirked, looking Hardshell over with cold, appraising optics. "Then you will retrieve something for me, Hardshell."
Now it was the guards' turn to laugh, their mandibles clicking.
"Retrieval is hardly the job of a soldier," one scoffed. "If you must choose only one of us, Megatron-king, far better for you to choose a scout."
"They have larger optics than soldiers," added her partner. She gave a buzzing chuckle, her own optic strip flaring bright crimson.
The Queen knew why. The guards' optics were almost as large as the scouts'.
Hardshell's attendants knew it too. They growled in answer.
Hardshell herself turned her glare on Megatron, flexing her claws.
"Silence!" the Queen called, her voice echoing through the chamber. "All of you!"
But louder even than her voice rang her telepathic message, echoing through the minds of her workers, soldier and guardian alike. She could see them wince, even Hardshell's optics flickering in pain.
Good.
Empty though she might have been, but she was still the hive's Queen. Decepticons or no Decepticons, greater king above her or no, she had a duty to lead it - and a duty to hold it together.
"Megatron-king came to us expecting to find mighty allies," she went on, her voice clear and even, her stinger flicking behind her. "Not petty, squabbling larvae who have not yet learned their place in their own hive."
They quieted, abashed, buzzing softly.
"Now let him speak his piece," the Queen finished, her stinger readied, still in its threat display.
Megatron nodded, his optics bright.
He turned first to the sentinels. "I made no mistake, calling for a warrior," he began. "We have already located the relic we seek."
Then he turned his attention to Hardshell, favoring the massive Insecticon with another pointed grin. "I called for you not to find it - but to fight off our enemies, who no doubt covet it as well. Or to wrest it from their hands, should they locate it first."
Hardshell's scarred mouthplates twisted into a grin. Her mandibles clicked in eager anticipation.
Then she threw back her head as she had before, giving another screeching war cry. Her companions took it up, adding their voices to hers, making the hollow depths of the egg chambers ring with the sound.
"I will find this thing you seek," she said at last, over the echoes of her own dying shriek. "I will take the biggest and strongest of my soldier-sisters - and we will hunt."
Her stinger locked in threatening display and she slashed her claws in front of her. "If any challenge us - Autobot or Neutral scavenger, scout or soldier, warrior or Wrecker - we will tear them apart."
Her head turned, her gaze shifting to the others around her. First she looked at her sisters, then at the sentinels, and then, at last, at her Queen. "We will drink the spilled energon from their dying and mangled frames."
Then she clicked her blade-sharp mandibles and straightened. She stared straight ahead now, at Megatron alone, as though no one else existed but herself and the warrior-king.
"And I myself will crush their sparks."