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[Far from Gemini VII but still so near. The cruise ship Cleopatra II is in the final stages of being boarded by hostile forces: the reactor, bridge and lifeboats have been secured by the invaders. The last pockets of resistance being put up by ship security are failing. The passengers will be processed. The invaders are not human or halfling. They are not centaur or fleet harpy or mer. They aren't the snake people or their clockwork allies either. They are clearly demihuman but they are not any of the known peoples. Bipedal with four arms; there is a smaller pair of limbs under the armpit of the larger arms that the humanoid form demands and they actively work in tandem with the top pair. If you've ever seen a yellow jacket wasp (like they have on Janus) then you've seen the face of these monsters albeit at a much smaller scale. An inverted triangular head with sharply slanted, tight elliptical eyes alongside furiously scanning antenna. They came in a terrible rainbow of colors; it is mostly blue ones and green ones storming the halls but there are also yellow and orange ones trying to avoid the fighting while still others are piloting a kind of power armor colored in purple. For some awful reason that ancient hymn of the Creedence Clearwater Revival - Have You Ever Seen The Rain? - is playing on a loop over Cleopatra II's PA system. Has this been coming for some time?]

TIARA: We need to go.

MARLIN: We can't. You heard the Captain, they took the pods.

TIARA: They'll find us here.

[The pair have desperately locked themselves in a broom cabinet - not even a proper closet. A sadly obvious place to hide.]

MARLIN: I know. I know.

TIARA: They'll find us wherever we go.

MARLIN: I -

[As if summoned, a trio of blue wasp soldiers tear the cabinet open to pull the Petscops out to meet their fate. Marlin screams and throws Tiara forward into the arms of the invaders as he tries to flee. The leftmost soldier bug grabs Marlin by the hair as he passes, presses its arm mounted flechette cannon between his shoulder blades and blows a hole clean through his torso; the little steel spikes plinking off the wall. Tiara is screaming as they drag her through the ship; she pounds and swings at her captors. A yellow wasp is kneeling in front of a weeping toddler and waving its hands meaningfully. The blue and green soldiers are putting down crew in uniform as they come across them, lining up the passengers and executing every fifth person with flechettes to the skull. Tiara gives up the fight. Yesterday and days before Sun is cold and rain is hard I know been that way for all my time 'til forever, on it goes through the circle, fast and slow, I know it can't stop, I wonder. The wasp people don't seem to speak. The only noises that they make are the heavy snapping of their mandibles and a sort of irregular squelching, squeaking that had to do with the rubbing of their chitin plates. They are taking every twentieth person in the queue away - they are taking Tiara away. A big man is on fire up ahead, bouncing from wall to wall shrieking at the top of his lungs. A green and blue pair of soldiers stand idly outside of a room as a human couple have furious end of the world sex within; the wasps don't watch nor have any desire to but they are (strangely and unbeknownst to all save themselves) trying to respect the mammalian desire for one last blast of dopamine before death. Tiara stumbles and is shoved onto the floor before being yanked to her feet. A woman holding an infant is shaking visibly as one of the yellow ones stands beside her holding a different baby, attempting to mimic her cradling arms. I want to know, have you ever seen the rain? I want to know, have you ever seen the rain comin' down on a sunny day? Something far away explodes and one of Tiara's captors snaps its mandibles with a surprised *CLOMP*. The blue ones have their right arms removed at the shoulder and replaced with that cyber-cannon. Their left hand is an awkward, barely functional arrangement.. The green ones keep both their arms and carry more conventional weapons but have equally awkwardly shaped hands. Another execution queue beside a smashed and melted barricade. The orange wasps have their left arms replaced from the shoulder down with heavier industrial cybernetics; they are cutting through doors and walls with frightening speed and no regularity to the size or shape of their work - Tiara would call what they are doing "tunneling". The purple power armor looks to be work equipment and is aiding the orange workers in their careless excavation of Cleopatra II's guts. They arrive at the lifeboats to a nightmare. Tiara tries to turn and run away but her escorts grab her by the arms and drag her to hatch C/6, her shoes squeaking in all the blood as she kicks and struggles. There is a man on all fours, head on the gore soaked deck, weeping in deep, uninhibited sobs flanked by an identical escort to Tiara's. She is forced to her knees facing the defeated man with one of the yellow wasps between them. There is a heap of dead bodies off to the side of the bay. A lot of them are headless and the ones that aren't look like their skulls were crushed in a power vice. Blood and thick grey goop thickly coated the deck in front of boat C/6; the crimson mess was deep enough for the defeated man's hands to be nearly submerged as he penitently sobbed into it. Yellow moves closer to Tiara and takes a knee before her. It claps its hands and waves them, wagging it's five slender fingers. Its wings snap open and Tiara screams. Each are the length of its arm and for a creature its size Yellow's wings are vestigial, incapable of flight. Yellow beats the air rapidly, faster and faster and faster. The buzzing is intense. The buzzing is maddening BUZZZZZ BUZZZZZ BUZZZZZ BUZZZZZ BUZZZZZ BUZZZZZ BUZZZZZ BUZZZZZ BUZZZZZ BUZZZZZ BUZZZZZ BUZZZZZ BUZZZZZ BUZZZZZ BU ZZZZZ BU ZZZZZ BUZZZZ Z BUZZZ ZZ BUZZZZ Z BUZZZZZ BUZZZZZ BUZZ ZZZ BUZZ ZZZ BUZZZ Up and down until the air vibrated. Tiara could swear her teeth are shaking in her skull. A voice starts to come through the wing beats. A voice. A monotone voice spoken with clenched teeth and through fan blades but a voice just the same.]

YELLOW: YOU...UNDERSTAND...YOU...COMPREHEND…

[Tiara feels her face break as tears run down her face. She nods. Yellow begins to bob its head in rhythm with hers.]

TIARA: Yes.

YELLOW: ...YES...YES...YOU WILL...WATCH...YOU WILL...SEE...THIS ONE'S...FACE… [Yellow delicately rises to its feet without ceasing its vibrations.] ...FACE...THIS ONE'S...FACE… [Gesturing with its perfect human-like hands to the defeated man who manages to wrack up even harder sobs - the worst thing is that they are all clearly genuine.] ...FACE...THIS...ONE'S...FACE...IF...YOU...LOOK...AWAY YOU...WILL...TAKE...HIS...PLACE...PLACE...IF...YOU...BLINK...YOU...WILL...TAKE...HIS...PLACE...PLACE...YOU...WILL...SEE...ALL...OR...YOU...WILL...DIE...HE...WAS...AS...YOU...ARE...NOW...HE...BLINKED...AND...TURNED...HE...WILL...DIE...YOU...WILL...SEE...OR...YOU...WILL...DIE…

[The man's left escort grabs him by the shoulders from behind and forces his torso up. Tiara feels her limbs lock and her anus tighten.]

YELLOW: DO...NOT...LOOK...AWAY...SEE...SEE...DO...NOT...BLINK...ARE...YOU...READY…

[Tiara didn't answer, she didn't blink, she didn't move a muscle. Yellow snaps its wings down and with a flourish of its hands steps aside to kneel close beside Tiara, watching her intently.]

MAN: ...No…

[The man is pulled upward off his knees. His green captor's jaws spread wide with a squeaky straining sound and slam shut with a sharp crack. Blood pours out of the man's nose like a faucet, the rapid flow slows and then for a brief, beautiful moment stops before a sputtering ropy jet of grey brains blasts out of his nostrils followed by an even more free flowing stream of gore than before. The man vomits the contents of his stomach up into the strange new angles of his ruined skull. He kicks and splatters; his arms flop limply with the force of his legs, now determined to flee this hell. Tiara doesn't move. Tiara doesn't scream. Tiara doesn't blink. Tiara just feels the tears move down her face. Someone told me long ago there's a calm before the storm I know it's been comin' for some time when it's over so they say it'll rain a sunny day I know shinin' down like water.]