The file title flashed across her memory. She knew its importance in helping the people back home understand this place. In the haste to help Stark escape, she forgot to give it to him. Besides, the tooth and claw pack on their heels eliminated the opportunity.

“Oh, bloody stingers,” she said in a whisper to herself. Now, she must survive and wait for rescue. After inserting the mag her hand squeezed into the rifle and smacking the forward assist, she switched back to burst fire and pressed the trigger. The nearest creature’s chest erupted in a shower of chunky flesh, fur, and mists of blood.

Not that escaping muscle-tearing jaws was a dreadful thing. She’d just gotten around to accept her death, and now… to take up the cruel burden of survival again… “Bloody stingers.”

The heavy metal door creaked open. Amelia cringed at the noise, and the night-vision display imbued a green-hued view of the hallway over her vision. No heat signatures. No bees. No beasts. Not that man-eaters didn’t lurk in the corridor. They hefted the colony between them. “Well, let’s do this,” stepping forward into the hall, Stark at an angle on the other side of the hive as they squeezed through the doorway.

Amelia scanned left, he inspected the right. “All clear,” he said.

She chinned her comms. “Clear. Let’s make this quick.” Bent forward and with a slight crouch to support the weight, they took fast and long strides. At the entrance to the dome’s farmland, they set the hive down, and Stark checked for danger.

Amelia sat back against a locker three hours after laying curled on the floor.

Her mind palpated the edge of clarity, fighting an exclusive spending of effort on mundane function. She stared ahead at one side of the white hive. The plastic of the air-filled cover allowed view of bees crawling along the inside surface, looking for escape. How could she come to terms with the little devils?

“Ma’am, we need a plan.” Stark’s voice held a different message behind it, and standing with arms folded, eyes focused on the colony, he appeared to have contemplated an idea and wanted to take action. The downcast shadow across his face, a result of her terrible episode.

They stood in front of the first door chosen for breach. Stark held an axe found in a fire locker, and Amelia gripped an extinguisher.

“This’ll be loud.” He stared down the dark hallway. “If there is a beast around, it’ll hear us.”

“Nothing for it. We need to find Niko.”

“If she’s alive…” He glared. The vote of non-confidence clear. Amelia landed the first blow near the lock, and a metallic clang raced throughout the hall, bouncing off the walls.

“We’re bringing her here.”

“Ma-”

“I’m not talking about it. It’s done.” Amelia would walk out of this dome knowing she did everything possible for the team.

“Yes, ma’am.” Stark pulled his rifle’s charge handle partway back and checked the chamber. He released and smacked the forward assist. “Let’s do this, then.”

After multiple breaks to allow the blood back into their fingers, Amelia saw the lights of the airlock. They needed a secure place to drop the hive and wrap it. Someplace with one entry to defend.

Drops of water splattered her visor, disturbing thoughts of another rest for tired limbs. A look at the ceiling showed the headlamp’s beam dispersed against solid, dark clouds. Just what they needed.

The image of Sammy’s dead eyes staring through the leaves and blossoms of an apple tree, and thick drops of rain leaking through the visor to soak his colourless face, assaulted her. How could she recover from leaving him to fertilize foreign soil?

Concern tickled Amelia’s thoughts as their headlamp’s bright beams bounced across the ground while running. At this speed, if danger sprung from the walls of black pressing in, they’d face it with the tactical disadvantage of the surprised. And to avoid tripping over a log, rock, or the Hive Queen help them, the threat, their feet must emulate the agility of the little saviours.

The rifle fire ceased. And years of experience counting rounds spent during a fight told her Aasim and Niko still had plenty. Two scenarios occupied her: The pair of combat specialists eliminated the threat… or, well, there was one other possibility. She hoped the former.

“Only… thirty seconds… out,” Stark said, huffing over the comms.

“Anybody else just about shit themselves?” Niko roamed her beam across the wide expanse of the dome.

Sammy spoke. “Local fauna appears alive and well.” Amelia saw him bending to inspect a fern, his headlamp focused on the greenery. He rubbed a spiky leaf between his fingers. “Hydrated. I suspect the power hasn’t been off long. My readings of the plant’s temperature show it’s been in a daytime cycle recently.”

“So not synced with the seasons then?” Amelia considered why.

A patch of fog on her visor increased and decreased in size with each breath. The moisture slicking the visor’s interior a contradiction to the barren wasteland sun baking her white, armoured surface mission suit.

Amelia would have to clean out the suit’s ventilation system… again. Damned dust. She chinned the comms switch. “Stark, how far out?”

Stark’s voice responded through the helmet’s internal speaker several seconds later. “Ma’am, could give you an accurate answer if our nav gear actually worked. But... should see it over this hill if our source isn’t just tossing wasps.”

So I posted covers for The Last Hive a while back. They sucked. Some people liked them, but they truly were an amateurish attempt.

But, I've improved. And after getting back into photoshop, and taking feedback to heart, I've remade the cover.