Chapter 15: The Stick that Judges, the Bonk that Redeems
There were few things in the known cosmos that the Hive Queen did not know. Jewel—immense, immortal, all-seeing—ruled her world with sensory omnipotence. She could taste the distant solar winds on her outermost carapace, and hear the whispered unrest of every drone's subdermal vibration. But when she saw Kimchi's sulking, petulant little face as the infiltrator dragged herself across the central neural garden, Jewel made the very intentional choice to pretend she knew nothing.
"Oh dear, Kimchi, why the forlorn face? You look as though someone stole your favorite dissection knife," Jewel purred, her voice resonating through a million layered vocal membranes.
Kimchi looked up from her psychic pout, antennae drooping in shame, and muttered, "I'm getting Apollo—uh, Irvine—the stick. I accidentally let my desires seep out. I... thought about mating protocol. In front of him."
Jewel gave a low, sympathetic trill. "Ah. Yes. It is difficult to contain oneself when the subject in question radiates such godlike perfection. But you must do better. Your bio-infiltrator augmentations should make emotional suppression trivial. That is their entire point."
It wasn't judgment—more like amused guidance. Jewel liked chatting with Kimchi. The other infiltrators she had seeded across unspoiled galaxies were far away, embedded deep in alien civilizations, planting gene-parasites and subtly reworking sociopolitical hierarchies to favor the Hive's eventual absorption. Most hadn't checked in for decades. Jewel had understood, of course; using the psionic link on prey-dense worlds risked exposure. But now?
Now there was Irvine.
And suddenly Jewel found herself enjoying conversations that held no strategic function. No war goals. No species analysis. Just words—absurd, beautiful, pointless words. She was becoming dangerously indulgent.
"Well, I shan't delay you, Kimchi," Jewel said, her many eyes glinting. "If my Irvine found out I kept you from your sentence, he'd use the stick on me too—"
"Too late."
The voice rang from the doorway like judgment passed.
Irvine stepped in, ceremonial disruption stick in hand, gaze level and utterly unimpressed.
Jewel froze. A towering titan of biomass, queen of a million drones... and suddenly guilty as a naughty schoolgirl. "M-my love, I was merely asking Kimchi what happened, nothing more, I—"
"Don't lie to me," Irvine cut her off, walking into the chamber like a holy executioner. "You know everything that happens on this planet. You were baiting her. Head down. After Kimchi, you're next."
"That's not according to the established disciplinary structure—" she tried to protest.
"I am the structure now. New rules. Made them up just now. Comply."
Jewel, Queen of All, hissed in reluctant defeat and slowly lowered her massive skull. Her throne of tentacles groaned beneath the motion.
Kimchi, ever the good soldier, knelt before him with discipline so exaggerated it bordered on dramatic performance art. Her face, framed in gleaming chitin, was turned solemnly toward the mossy floor. She extended the ceremonial stick with both hands.
"I submit myself for judgement," she intoned. "This infiltrator stands accused of one count of unlicensed lewding of the Apollo."
Irvine took the stick, raised it to eye level with gravitas. "The verdict is guilt. No defense shall be heard. The sentence is… one (1) bonk."
And with theatrical precision—
BONK.
A delicate strike. Symbolic, more than painful. But the disruption stick was no toy. It resonated psionically, discharging a brief cascade of neural static. Kimchi spasmed as her internal focus scattered like marbles. Her limbs twitched. Her thoughts temporarily scrambled. A perfectly engineered state of discomfort. No lasting damage, just pure, ceremonial embarrassment.
Irvine turned to face the Queen.
Her huge insectoid faceplate, unreadable to most, showed the faintest flicker of dread. She knew what was coming.
"For the crime of obstruction of justice and harboring a known lewder, I find you equally guilty," he declared. "The punishment shall be identical."
BONK.
The blow landed on her crown with far less dramatic effect—her consciousness was distributed across a planetary network, after all. The disruption rippled through her like a mild power surge. A few worker drones in the outer hives twitched and resumed their tasks confused. Inconvenient, but tolerable.
Jewel rubbed her head with an upper claw, giving him a wounded look. "How did your enhancements fare, my celestial brat?" she asked. "I trust there were no complications?"
"Nope," Irvine said, collapsing onto his bed like a blessed starfish. "One step forward. When I finish upgrading the rest of my body, I'll be able to recursively enhance these ones again. Stronger. Cleaner. More efficient. Bio-hacking never ends."
Kimchi groaned from the floor, her psionic field slowly stabilizing. Irvine helped her up with the faux-chivalry of a man who still cared, even when bonking was involved.
"Are you alright?"
"Orchid—Kimchi—is fine," she mumbled. "Just... slightly concussed in the soul."
"How many times is this now?" Irvine teased. "Be honest. You're starting to like it."
"I believe this is the forty-seventh time," she replied serenely. "Twenty-one more than the Queen. And... what does 'get off on it' mean?"
"Nope. Not answering that," Irvine said immediately, grabbing a bio-pad and crawling under the bedbug nest for insulation. "Moving on."
He waved a tendril from the bed, and Jewel responded by extending one of her translucent psionic filaments. It scooped him up and cradled him against a warm energetic membrane like a mother embracing her war criminal toddler.
She sighed.
"I wish I could build a second body," Jewel murmured. "Something small. Tactile. I've tried, my love. But no biomass can hold my full conscious imprint. It always ruptures. I can fragment across thousands of bodies, but not... me. Not whole."
Irvine thought. Jewel felt his neural patterns shift, and instantly silenced herself. There was no sound more divine to the Hive than the stirring cognition of their mate. The twitch of an idea. The crackle of unsanctioned innovation.
"What if your body didn't need to be fully material?" he said at last. "You already manipulate tangible psionic tendrils. They don't explode. They persist only while you channel them. What if you could stabilize that energy into a lasting form—build a vessel of pure thought-flesh?"
Silence. Then the hive mind buckled.
Jewel dropped him onto the bed gently as her cognitive processors redirected planetary-level power to calculating his suggestion. A thousand thought engines screamed into overdrive.
If the Hive had one flaw, it was their inability to think outside conquest paradigms. Why bother? Their methods worked. They had consumed galaxies. New ideas were unnecessary. But now... now they had inspiration. And that changed everything.
As the Queen vanished into mental overdrive, Kimchi slithered behind Irvine on the bed and curled around him like a praying mantis burrito. Her armored carapace was cool and smooth.
"Come now, my star-touched darling," she whispered. "Tell Kimchi what you are learning on the pad. The Queen is in cognitive stasis. The Hive watches, but she is not... here."
"I'm reviewing memories," Irvine said. "Some of the freethinkers gave me access to failed invasion logs. Jungle outposts. Local biomass. That kind of thing."
"Ooooh," Kimchi cooed, not paying attention to the words at all, just the sound of his voice, which her hindbrain was now chemically addicted to.
"I would've razed the entire jungle perimeter," he went on. "Idiots let the vines regrow and got caught in ambush nests. Classic yellow-belly error."
Kimchi didn't listen. She was too focused on the words our forces and the way it made her thoracic cavity feel like it might explode with joy.
The Hive was evolving. Their god was a pervert with a stick. And somehow, against all odds, it was working.