As her mind began to clear he felt a hundred different emotions, fear, anxiety, loneliness, rage, but instead of any of those his mind focused on one in particular, hope. The swarm was not gone yet and it had in trusted its existence on her and her siblings, though he could not find them and he suspected they did not make it he would hold out hope, hope for the colony’s survival, hope for the swarm and hope for the future.

“Alright, alright focus! I can’t lose focus now, there’s far too much at risk!” after a few more moments of hesitation she began to think of a plan while clicking his legs nervously.

“Okay now the main question, how do I even begin? I look like a Terran ‘crab’ without claws. The hive queen said something about being able to modify my body.” she wanted to test it but he could do that later right now she had more important things to deal with first. “I can’t think of this as how to rebuild the swarm, that is way too big of a goal. I need to break it down into something more manageable. The swarm is broken down into many parts only a few of which are terrestrial. Since I’m apparently a hybrid of worker and queen I should be able to set up a fairly small terrestrial colony at some point.”

“Possibly.”

“…”

“Maybe.”

His fidgeting came to an abrupt halt as he realized something in the room had changed, “is it getting darker?”. Looking around he confirmed that it was in fact getting darker, “oh great a day night cycle.” He mumbled as she began skittering around to the source of light.

“This is going to be a long walk isn’t it.” She sighed

/////////

Thea was…conflicted.

She had accepted the message and had attempted to talk to them but to no avail, luckily, she could hear her. At first, she didn’t really know what to think of the little broodling that held the swarm’s future, she seemed panicked going from one half formed thought to the other at a rather impressive rate for her age. From what she understood she had just seen her pre-recorded message and were (quite reasonably) panicked by the weight on her shoulders and yet what had surprised her was the sudden shift from waves of panic and fear to a calm and collected stream of thought as she fully focused on planning things out rather than panicking.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Thea was impressed not many drones had the force of will to keep themselves focused without some form of leadership to guide them and almost all turned into erratic beasts if they were not connected to the swarm for long durations of time. And yet this little drone was not only holding strong but had the force of will to plan ahead! She was about to begin looking around when she noticed that the little drone had already begun skittering towards the diminishing source of light she had only noticed now.

“The last remaining member of the swarm (not counting herself) and her colony was stuck alone on an unknown planet with life as well as a day knight cycle. She felt nervous but an odd emotion she couldn’t shake off was in the back of her mind, excitement. If the drone succeeded. No when the drone succeeded the swarm would grow, survive and thrive once more. She would make sure of that.”

/////////

As the group awoke and began packing up Eagen couldn’t help but wonder why Jackson was up and about, he had never been an early morning type of person as far as Eagen knew and the puzzled look on his face didn’t help any.

“What is it, Jack.” He said cutting through the quiet morning and startling Jackson who immediately tried to play it off.

“wh…what do you mean?” he stifled.

“Somethings on your mind, out with it.”

“I’ve been waking up periodically to check the mana levels and well, they’ve changed quite a bit”

Eagen for his part was a little impressed at the mage for actually being attentive, he’d expected him to sleep like a log and continue being useless baggage but he seemed determined to pull his weight.

“Is that a problem?” he asked, and seemed to actually listen to the mage for the first time this journey.

“I don’t know. I only know of a few things that could make mana levels rise then fall steeply below the average density and then slowly return to normal. The best way I can describe it is like a relatively slow or prolonged explosion.” The mage said with a noticeable hint of excitement.

“It decreased? I don’t know much about magic but I’ve never heard of mana levels decreasing.”

“Neither have I short of spell casting there are very few natural phenomena that lower mana density, though some plants and animals might absorb it.”

“Well, everything’s packed up you both ready.” Markus said as he walked towards them carrying their equipment.

“Everything packed?”

“Ready.” Jackson said.

“Ready.” Markus grunted, as they began their trek into the cavern.