Hive mind Beyond the veil

Explosions rippled across Veridia's upper orbit, a relentless cascade of devastation hammering the last defenders. Seven ships, already crippled by the acidic wave from earlier, were now caught in a second storm of plasma salvos tearing through there weakened hulls.

Armour plates folded inward. Engine cores ruptured. Power grids shorted with blinding bursts of electric discharge. One by one, they broke apart, becoming silent, burning carcasses drifting in ruin.

As I watched the final defence network collapse, something within me shifted.

A stillness.

A release.

The greatest threat to my existence, undone before me in real-time.

For the first time since this campaign began, the pressure in my mind eased. It was almost meditative—to observe the end of a threat, to feel a weight unspoken finally dissolve.

I own this solar system now.

I redirected the eyes of several Neskars and Zhyrraaks toward the debris field. The expedition fleet was once a formidable foe, now it was nothing but shattered debris, scattered and helpless.

Some fragments still floated under partial power, but most had succumbed to gravity, locked in decaying orbits around Veridia, doomed to spiral down or disintegrate completely.

I had already begun a reclamation of everything, it would be slow and methodical, like Phaedra.

Across dozens of eyes, my attention drifted between the clean-up and scavenger operations. Massive net constructs, woven from webbing created in the belts, were being pulled across orbital lanes by Zhyrraaks, their long tendrils coiling around bigger pieces towing them along.

Macro-debris, engine housings, and even microscopic shrapnel from destroyed ships and defence satellites. Not a single piece would be wasted.

Every ruined ship hull and every scorched platform would be broken down and recycled. Some of the enemy's ships, I noted, still had potential. Their internal frames were salvageable. With enough modification and my neural architecture installed, they might serve new purposes—long-range reconnaissance, deep-system probes, and even fronts for agent infiltration teams beyond this star system.

I was already expanding my manufacturing nodes across the rings, moons, and planets of this system. I would harvest everything and store it for the future.

I diverted my attention back to the multiple battlefields on the surface. Veridia's terrain was fascinating. The landmass was approximately 7% larger than Earth, though the layout diverged drastically. They were no true oceans—only a vast web of interconnected seas, both natural and artificial, laced with rivers, swamps, and deltas.

My full focus snapped back to the ground war. Tzelvahn, one of the oldest Valurian cities still that was still standing.

Before the genocide, it had been the heart of this region's manufacturing output. Its factories once forged components for various industries but mostly its tech sector.

Its underground complexes mined rare minerals by the tonne. Those same mines made it a vital redoubt for the clone legions. They had poured resources into reinforcing the city, knowing its loss would ripple through the entire theatre of war.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

The city was a breathtaking corpse. Its colours fade beneath the ruin. The architectural design still clung to beauty. Tall buildings mimicked crustaceous design, bridges shaped like natural arcs, and domed structures inspired by reef systems.

Iridescent tiles once shimmered in purples and sea greens, adorned with Nullite. Now they were dulled under layers of ash, soot, and scorch-marks. Yet even in ruin, Tzelvahn held its regal posture.

Every wall and artery had been converted into a fortress. Rail gun turrets anchored in coral-like parapets. Streets reinforced with anti-infantry mazes. Kill zones were arranged in layered depth, overlapping fields of fire supported by drones that filled the role of artillery, anti-air, and mobile armoured response.

My initial probing attacks met brutal resistance. I dispatched several Hexapods. Their multi-legged forms unfolded from drop-pods on the outskirts of the city, each raising their cannons to arc shells into the outer walls. But the clone response was immediate.

Drone air wings harried them from above, diving through the ash and dust-chocked air and releasing clustered munitions that forced my Hexapods to reposition constantly. Their bombardment continued, but their targeting solutions were disrupted. Even counter-battery fire from the clones' drones began to track their launches.

They were outnumbered.

Beetle drones attempted burrowing runs beneath the defensive line but were thwarted by sub-surface charges. Trying to fly over the walls met a dense field of flak fire that killed most of them in midair. Tzelvahn's outer defence net held fast.

The orbital war had ended sooner than the clones expected, and I issued a mental command. A triad of Zhyrraaks, circling high above the battlefield, released acidic payloads into the upper atmosphere.

Moments later, I watched through a thousand eyes as the shells exploded above the city in high-altitude bursts. The fog that followed blanketed entire districts in a corrosive rain.

The screams were immediate.

The clones hadn't anticipated saturation-level chemical warfare. I knew their standard armour resisted kinetic and plasma but faltered against molecular erosion. The acid burned through shielding, crept into crevices, and melted fur and flesh into armour.

I had several scouts observe gatehouses as they trembled.

I saw my opening.

Hundreds of beetles rushed the weakened gates, detonating against the frame with such force that they shattered centuries-old stone and modern reinforcements alike. Walls cracked and gates collapsed.

Over the breach came the next wave—Assault drones, flanked by Infiltrators and Snipers. The assault variants poured plasma fire into the ruined entryways, setting ablaze drone clusters and clone strong points. Infiltrators darted into the smoke, striking from angles thought inaccessible. Snipers picked off unharmed clones before they could organize the defences.

Behind them came the Heavies, they charged through the breaches like beasts of war, ripping through downed drones, vehicles and crushed APCs. One rammed through a reinforced barricade, tossing mangled steel aside before firing at two functional drones with plasma bone spikes.

The clones held.

Even as the acid burned through their skin, even as my drones shredded their drones, they fought. They did not retreat. They screamed their creed over and over again, voices warped through cracked speakers:

"We are the Overseer's warriors."

"We are the last line of defence."

"We will burn our own to hold the line."

Their belief made them more dangerous. They did not break and pushed forward with their rage.

As my forward push clashed in the mid-city districts, I expanded the air campaign. Mosquito drones made strafing runs over known defence hubs, launching mini-missiles into gathering points and radar nodes.

They were met with minimum resistance from anti-air drones and auto-targeted flak bursts—but for every one that fell, another found a mark.

I pushed the Hexapods forward, firing from updated positions. They blanketed the central towers with long-range bombardment, softening the heart of the city before retreating into overwatch.

I observed, with rising satisfaction, the degeneration of the clone formations. Armour melted and fused to the skin. Power packs ruptured. Rail guns cracked from overuse.

Some clones fought with clubs made from scorched rifles, still chanting as they collapsed under the weight of fire.

I tapped into their comms through captured frequencies scavenged from their dead. The audio was fragmented but clear enough: clone squad leaders rallying remnants to the inner sanctum.

A spiralling tower, once the city's administrative hub, its shell-like design an architectural marvel, now hidden beneath soot and ruin.

I surrounded the structure.

Mosquitoes, Heavies, Infiltrators, Assault, and Sniper drones converged. Plasma lances lit the dust-choked sky. Bone spikes shattered the tower's shell, firing for several minutes. I waited, calculating the resistance that might still emerge.

Nothing moved.

Then a portion of the structure collapsed in on itself. Dust veiled the skyline. I tightened the perimeter, waiting for survivors.

My drones hunted the ruins. Pockets of clone resistance were eliminated. I started scavenging small caches—half-functional APCs, rail gun racks, broken drones, vehicles, and corpses. I found numerous Valurian corpses buried in the ash and dust.

With resistance ended, I initiated a clean-up and expansion.

Orbital drop-pods descended into cleared zones, deploying Architect, Biomorphs, and Medics,

Ash blight collection began within the hour. The fungus had rooted well in the acidic chaos. Its biomass would accelerate drone production in this region.

Tzelvahn was mine.

I had already dispatched multiple raiding units beyond the city limits, hunting down clone survivors for memory extraction.

Numerous convoys had been detected retreating east and south, attempting to regroup in other cities.

I would need to reinforce the surface with Striders or engineer a new class of bulk transport drone to move faster across terrain still laced with radiation and ash.

Meanwhile, I ordered the entire orbital fleet to begin wide-scale deployment of acidic and plasma payloads across multiple conflict zones—saturating enemy trenches, fortresses, and fallback routes. The pressure could not be allowed to ease, not for a moment.

This campaign had to be quick and decisive.