*ACTIONette* On her majesty's service

Efof gulped as he looked down toward the bottom of the Queens chamber.

Far below, he could see her, an enormous creature, her thorax spewing out eggs every few minutes. She almost filled the sub-chamber that she sat in, her immense thorax being several hundred feet in length, then, at the other end of her surprisingly small abdomen, her immense head with antennae as long as two Efof's standing on each others shoulders at least loomed. Her huge head contained her massive brain, which controlled the hive. Essentially, she was the Hymenoptera.

"Do we have to go down there?" Efof asked Jay "she looks scary"

"She's also immobile" Jay said "Look at the size of her, she's here for no reason other than to control the hive and birth new bugs. She wouldn't be able to attack us if she wanted to, all we need to do it place the nuke, and get out of here, the Blue Dwarf will trigger it remotely once we're clear, and the other nukes are placed."

"What's that over there?" Efof asked pointing at something down in the lower levels of the Queen's chamber.

Jay looked "Don't know, it looks like another birthing chamber... nothing to worry about, the nukes will take that out too, come on, lets get this thing in position."

The two Dwarfer's each lifted one end of the nuke and began to carefully navigate the narrow, windy rock paths that spiralled downwards towards the Queen's chamber.

The journey was treacherous, with paths crumbling under foot, the narrow width of the path making Jay and Efof tense up so as to make sure they kept their balance whilst hauling the heavy warhead, but eventually, they made it safely to the lower level.

"I can't believe we've made it here!" Jay said. "Come on, lets place the nuke over there and activate the remote link...then we can get the hell out of here."

Jay was cut off by Efof once again dropping the nuke, followed by the sound of two pulse rifles clicking as rounds were loaded into the chambers. Jay turned around and caught a rifle that Efof threw to him before he even knew what was going on, while Efof grabbed another rifle to hold in his second set of arms.

Jay soon realised what Efof had seen, from every tunnel exit above them soldier bugs were emerging, their weapons trained on the human and the Ffionian.

"Efof" Jay said

"Take cover?" Efof replied, surprisingly on the ball.

"Pretty much.."

The two men dived in opposite directions and each took cover behind rocks. Weapons fire pinged off the boulders, slowly chipping away at the stone.

"Efof!" Jay yelled "Fire at will!" as he said this he popped up over the top of his rock and began firing off rounds at the attacking bugs, ducking back behind cover every so often to avoid being hit or to reload.

The bugs were balancing along the narrow paths above as they made their way down to the chamber floor, it would be a long drop if they were to fall, many would probably not survive. Jay had an idea as he caught an ammunition clip that Efof had tossed over to him. "Efof!" he yelled "Concentrate fire here" he started firing everything he had on a particularly narrow and crumbly section of the path, Efof complied and did the same with both of his rifles until the section of path had worn away, and everything above it collapsed, sending dozens of bugs tumbling to the ground.

Many were killed on impact, breaking the fall for the next wave that fell, who were in turn killed by the next batch landing on top of them, splattering them like bugs on a windshield, until eventually only a handful were left.

Jay's gun clicked, he was out of ammo, Efof was busy reloading both of his rifles.

Jay had no choice. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a bottle of lager. "My last one" he said, sadly "I've lost my wife, my sister, my ship, and my clone today, and now I have to lose my last bottle of lager?"

He was thankful that he hadn't poured this bottle into his Q.U.I.C.K.I.E flask earlier, making this bottle his 'emergency supply' and now, he'd have to waste it, on these DAMNED INSECTS!.

He pulled the cap off with his teeth, as though he were pulling the pin from a grenade and tossed the bottle as hard as he could toward the oncoming horde.

The bottle landed at their feet, breaking open instantly on impact and splashing beer all over them, causing them all to explode violently.

Jay sat back, and sighed.

"Done!" Efof said as he finally stopped fumbling with the rifles and managed to ham-fistedly ram an ammo clip into one, he popped up over the rock and aimed. "Wait, what happened?"

"We won Efof..." Jay said "Come on, lets set the nuke."

They placed the bomb as near to the Queen as they could, and Jay opened the panel to access the controls. “You have got to be kidding me…”

"What?" Efof asked

"The remote link, it's busted! It must have been damaged in the crash landing! How could I have been so stupid as to tow a nuke through space on a smegging WIRE?"

"So now what?!"

"We have to set the timer, and hope to god the bugs don't deactivate it."

"What about the other teams?"

"They'll have to retreat back to the Dwarf, we can't wait for them, we could be the only team that makes it here, so we need to detonate the bomb."

Jay turned back to the bomb and began to set the timer.

"Think we can make it to the surface, and onto a Starbug in 30 minutes Efof?"

Jay got no response.

"Efof?" He looked up, Efof was lying unconscious on the floor.

"The smeg?"

Jay noticed that the unusual birthing pod across the chamber was open, and empty.

Something buried itself in the nuke's timer, severing the wires and rendering the timed detonation useless.

That something was a katana.

Jay looked round "Well isn't this just perfect." he said, as he faced his next challenge...

<Tag to anyone on the surface / in the sky / on the dwarf / in the hive network / etc!

Otherwise. To Be Continued!>