Mira never felt such an intense mix of fear, revulsion, confusion, and relief in her entire life. The remains of the body still buckled into the escape pod was neither of her parents, the scraggly and unkempt remains of a moderate beard at odds with her father's clean-shaven appearance, both when she had last seen him in person and how he had appeared on the security feed with her mother only hours prior to the crash.

  She laughed out loud, the sound echoing strangely in her own ears as it rattled through the tiny space:

  It wasn't them.

  Of course there was no signs of anyone else living or dead elsewhere in the escape pod either, but the morbid conclusion she had been fearing had now been reduced to a mere chance rather than a certainty.

  Turning back to the scrape marks she had passed coming in here, she took another look and could see the gouges were non-parallel and surprisingly deep: a single sharp point, creating a short notch several times, each one closer to the door than the last.

  A thought came to mind, and Mira quickly checked through the various effects and pieces in and around the pod. Both of her parents’ bags were there, upended like everything else and empty of their contents, but a quick check inside one confirmed her suspicion. Mira's mother always kept her handy trowel in a special pocket in her satchel, something that both Mira and her father used to tease her about, but surprisingly Mira could also see only a few drops of dark brown that might have been human blood near the scrape marks. There was also the dusty remains of a pool of various bodily liquids around the deceased passenger, but nothing else inside the pod to suggest her parents had been killed instead of taken.

  Also worrying was that there was no sign of any bleeding injuries from an attacker, as Mira knew from experience playing with it that the trowel was almost razor-sharp, and the point on it would be able to gouge through almost anything short of reinforced armor.

  However, her gaze was caught by a particular inset micro panel near one of the upended containers, and a careful check revealed her suspicion to be correct. It strongly resembled the recording and playback controls for the security cameras they had found on board the Glyph of Korindax. However, a quick check of the side of the console did not reveal a way to pop this one open and charge it as well.

  Fortunately, her prodding around hit some recessed button that she had not seen on the larger version, and a small panel sprang open. Within was the memory chip for the recording camera aboard the escape pod, and Mira extracted the chip, pocketing it and checking over the pod for any other of her parents’ effects she wanted to salvage. She pulled over an upturned storage container and began almost reverently placing things she thought they might want to keep within it. Some of it was small ornaments and tchotchkes, souvenirs her parents had picked up or been given by those they'd worked with.

  However, the majority of what had been dumped were their notes, journals, and a thick reference book or two. It felt strange picking up the journals and realizing they were exactly the same ones that she had last seen her parents with before they had left, almost like they were suspended in time until one saw the pages were visibly yellowed with age.

  Mira finally took the two empty satchel bags as well and slung them over a shoulder, hefting the open-topped container full of papers and memories in equal measure as she made her way back to where The Apiary had landed.

  When the airlock finally clicked shut and the hiss of restored atmosphere meant she could once again take deep lungfuls of air without feeling like she was coming up short, Queen and Kin arrived, flying in formation. The group of bees did a single pass around her before landing on the nearest available surface, a rib support for the deck structure of this section of the ship.

  “We saw you were returning alone, caretaker. Were you unable to locate your parents, or…?”

  The question was left pregnant in the air, the voice of the bees trailing off before followed by a quick buzz of discussion amongst the hive themselves. Remembering the corpse she had found, Mira sighed.

  “No; There was a dead occupant within, but it was a bearded man, most definitely not my father.”

  The swarm buzzed again, this time with excitement.

  “But caretaker, that means there's a chance they might yet live!”

  Mira could feel herself smile, but reconsidered, doing her best to be calm and neutral as she reminded the swarm “Yes, but it's not guaranteed, and if anything all that search has shown me is that few things are so simply identified and resolved. I do appreciate your enthusiasm, but I want to make sure it's grounded in realism instead of just the best-case scenario option.”

  She paused, eyes narrowing at the cluster queen and kin. Mira could tell the swarm was preoccupied about something.

  “All right, spit it out before I have to drag it out of you.”

  She smiled slightly at the swarm as several of the clusters within again spinning in excitement.

  “We wanted to prepare something, in the event your parents were present and ready to be rescued. Or at the very least were confirmed to possibly still be alive.”

  “Okay?...” Mira said uncertainly. “What exactly did you have in mind?”

  “Oh, follow us and we can show you.”

  Mira walked after the cluster of bees as they made their way down the halls until she reached a doorway that was typically open, this time closed with a gentle green glow indicating the door was unlocked.

  It was her parents’ study and research space.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Mira felt herself freeze. “I don't understand?”

  “Well, we identified that there were possible inefficiencies in our comb densities and other areas of the ship, so we broke down the combs and cells within this space and redistributed them elsewhere while you were on the surface.”

  Mira leaned forward and pressed a hand against the entry panel. With a beep and a whoosh, the door slid open, revealing her parents’ study almost looking like how she remembered it. Several of the heavier objects, especially the boxes and stone artifacts, still remained off to one side, but the bees had managed to move the lighter documents and smaller pamphlets notes and items back up to their respective locations. The room was also scoured clean of any sign of wax, with only the faint traceries of the paths workers had strolled along as they cleaned off the metal tables barely visible at the right angle with the light reflecting on it.

  Mira could feel her heart in her throat and tears unbidden in her eyes. “I…Wow, I can't believe that you just did all this. I mean, we don't know if they're even alive or not,” She said, saying aloud the words her heart was refusing to admit.

  “This is true, but also we do not know for sure that they have perished either. In any case, this seemed to be their primary and most-familiar location, and our thought was that given the other changes they may be coping with in having a daughter that is both more than half a decade older than when they last saw her and yet also more than a decade younger than they are chronologically, might cause for some adjustment issues. We thought it prudent to at least smooth that transition where we could.”

  “Not to mention the whole ‘swarm of talking bees’ thing,” she said a smile, blinking through the tears of happiness and appreciation. “Although, given their fascination with aliens and their cultures, they probably would take an immediate liking to you.”

  “But we are not aliens? We are Earthlings, just as you are.”

  A note of confusion was running through, as the voice had some echoing buzzes that Mira could pick up.

  “True, but a colony of sentient insects is probably one of the more unusual cultures and mindsets they've had the chance to encounter, regardless of the planet of origin, so they'd probably be very interested in learning more about you all the same.”

  Pulling over one of the screens on the bridge, Mira slid the data chip she had recovered from the escape pod into the waiting receptacle. A few moments later and there was a confirming ping as the file was scanned and the playback began.

  Mira was relieved to see that the data was not corrupted or significantly degraded, although it was still heartwrenching to watch as the video began as soon as the craft had launched. Mira could see that there were four passengers, her parents and two others, one of which was the ill-fated bearded man she had seen in the escape pod.

  The view rattled several times as the escape pod tumbled and bucked, uncaring thrusters firing roughly to bring the vessel on-course. Then the everything rattled far more fiercely than it had before, and even though there was no audio on the recording, Mira could see the open mouth of her parents and their co-workers, all screaming and yelling in fear as the light visible through the outside of the pod began to glow from the heat of reentry.

  Then the view became chaos, almost like white noise except some forms and shapes were visible within the chaos, and Mira realized this was when the pot had impacted. Tools and bags that had been hastily grabbed and brought with abruptly became projectiles, flung around the small space with deadly consequences.

  Then peace came back over the image, some sparks and dust and floating papers drifting to the floor but looking closely Mira could still see the chests of all four occupants rising and falling slowly. To her surprise, that included the bearded man that she had found the body of.

  He was one of the first to wake, stirring and then clearly yelling in agony, clawing at his leg. Mira had seen a glimpse of one of the crates being flung around and hitting his leg during the hectic landing, and she realized that it must have broken something. The man's cries stirred the other passengers, and Mira was relieved to see both her parents awake, although the trail of blood at the corner of her father’s head and mother’s mouth and shoulder had her worried that they too had suffered injuries of unknown severity.

  The other three had just unclipped their harnesses and were in the process of helping the injured man with his when they all stopped and looked up, evidently some sort of unknown noise giving them pause.

  Then the view became one of chaos and violence again, although this time Mira could clearly make it out as a heavily-armored figure like what she had seen on the limited images on the Korindax came into view. Again the emblem on the shoulder pad was visible, a world within a world superimposed by a shield, and Mira could feel her heart racing as she watched.

  The figure swung a gauntleted fist forward, hitting her father where she saw he'd already been injured and causing him to crumple like a doll. The suited figure then began pulling him out of the pod, even as Mira's mother, who had been scrambling around in her bag, finally found the trowel she was looking for and began attacking with a fury, looking for any kind of chink in the armor.

  Unfortunately, she was unable to find a purchase before the figure turned to regard her as well and similarly grabbed hold of her around the waist to began trying to drag her out of the escape pod. Pivoting from attacking to trying to hang on, the trowel was used to dig into the floor of the pod, her mother trying desperately to avoid being taken before the wrenching strength of the suited figure overcame that of her mother and the trowel was knocked from her grasp onto the floor of the escape pod.

  The uninjured passenger, a trembling older alien woman with grey-white skin and dozens of short arms wrinkled with age, carefully grabbed the trowel and held it in front of her like a dagger, as her eyestalks and head tracked a figure out of sight of the camera lens.

  And then the suited figure returned.

  As the woman tried to defend herself, the Wandering Empire soldier simply grabbed the trowel, plucking it out of her grasp and putting the thrashing woman over a shoulder. The soldier also seemed to regard the trowel, helmeted head tilting slightly before they tucked it into a pouch at their waist and exited the pod once more.

  The final injured man was scrambling at his harness now, shaking with fear as the behemoth returned to the escape pod a final time. But rather than grabbing him, the soldier’s gaze passed over the man, and then stopped as they saw the injury on him. There was a beat, and then the figure fluidly strode towards the man, who began thrashing, flailing with yet more terror as the Wandering Empire soldier drew a serrated and ornamental short blade from their hip. They raised it slightly, before plunging it slowly and steadily down into the chest and heart of the man trapped in the final chair.

  He fell limp, flailing arms drooping, and the soldier stood, pulling out a pale-colored cloth to wipe the blood off before sheathing the blade once more. Then they strode off, and for as many hours as Mira could stomach fast forwarding through, she could see nothing else within the pod save the steady ooze of blood out from the slain man, forming a ragged pool around where the unfortunate man had died.

  Feeling something cold settle at the center of her chest, Mira turned to the nearest cluster Queen and Kin.

  “Set a course for the embassy on Maschef. I need to know where the hell they are now.”

  If you want to read more, the novel is now available on Amazon!

  r/DarkPrinceLibrary for more of my stories like it!