>>8346I found that passage I was looking for, by the way;
I'll just copy it here for practicality's sake, since it's between two pages.
"Strange air. Strange light. Cold stone underfoot. Mandible feelers tasting
the flat tang of metal bodies and motes of fried particles – energy
weapons.
No connection to the Mind. Pheromone scent of brood-children absent.
The alpha purestrain came out of the light running. To run was to live.
Sprinting made it harder for the enemy to hit you. Covered ground quickly.
Pressed the shock attacks that overwhelmed planets and brought them into
the biome, to be made into energy for the great fleets.
The alpha did not think this. She knew it. Coded into her genetics was the
knowledge that to run was to live, and to stand was to die.
And she knew that when a pack found itself surrounded, ringed on all
sides by hostile organisms that were not yet of the Mind, there was one
option.
Attack.
So she came out of the light running, unconcerned that a moment before
she and her pack had been charging into a hail of weapons fire in the
bright sunlight. There was no past for an organism like her. Only an eternal
present, and a bone-deep knowledge that by the laws of dominance, one
always attacked the largest, fiercest organism first.
She leapt for the humanoid organism that floated before her, tri-claws
extended to latch onto its flesh and bring it down with her weight. Barbed
mouth feelers splayed to wrap its throat and ravage the arteries that lay
beneath the fragile skin.
Its face showed a muscle configuration that her genetic memories did not
associate with fear.
That was all right. She would teach it to fear soon enough."