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My job is to serve; collect food for the others, feed and tend The One, fly, and die. It's why I was laid, pupated, hatched. I may see 40 suns.
I have one weapon and one strike. My own death is meaningless; my weapon is to save The One, the family, the hive.
And the Other.
Joanie, we call her. She is ours to guard, second only to The One. I knew her name before I climbed out of my cell and my wings had dried. Joanie, the nurses said, The Other. We serve The One, Her Solitude, the egg-layer and mother of all of us. But The One serves Joanie, and so Joanie is The Other.
The Other is being attacked. Her fear-smell fills the air.
With The One leading the counter-attack, we charge. Find the smell "enemy," land, and strike. They are so very big, but we are so very many. Everything on Earth runs from us for this reason.
The One will lay many more eggs.
With only my wings' buzz as my war-cry, I land on the hot skin of Joanie's attacker and drive home my weapon. Out come my entrails. But his cry of pain and his flight cheer me as I fall.
The Queen lives. The Other is saved. I have died as a bee.