Chapter 2: Izsha

The semi-organic ships of our lovely Zonama Sekot are considered the fastest in the Galaxy. Is that actually true? I have no idea. I’m sure someone has faster ships. There are countless space faring civilizations across the Galaxy. A lot of them are hidden away in corners that the Galactic Republic don’t even know about.

Unfortunately, getting a super fast, sentient and living personal starship wasn’t part of my banishment deal. Probably for the best, because they had this pesky fatal flaw where they would croak if Sekot cut off the life-link with them. Do I understand how to build them myself? Of course not.

My dream is to recreate Zerg in the Star Wars Universe. I did take some classes on mechanical engineering as a kid, but I didn’t do very well. Way easier for me to make puppies and kittens than puppy or kitten shaped Droids.

“Mao~!” Midnight was sitting on a little round table by the window and pawing at the transparent durasteel.

“I know, right? It feels so unreal.” I walked over and sat down on the chair, petting the kitty’s black fur as I gazed out at the beautiful planet below. She might be a bitch, but Sekot is pretty at least. Big ass ice cap, surrounded by a massive jungle, then an arid desert region, with the southern hemisphere hidden under silver clouds. A bunch of big lakes dotted the world, but no oceans.

“Farewell, Amon. I hope that I do not regret releasing you upon this Galaxy.” As the soft voice echoed in my mind, the scenery outside transformed into streaks of white light, with a dark blue background. Literally another fucking dimension called ‘Hyperspace’ that we just casually travel through to reach insane distances in very short periods of time.

“Kinda feel like I’m gonna puke.” I had to stop looking outside. Thankfully, Midnight didn’t seem to be bothered and kept staring out the window without any issues.

“Master. Evolving.” The deep voice in my head drew my attention to my youngest ‘child’. The Larva had grown a lot bigger since it was created yesterday. Now it was at least a few feet long and very fat. Almost like it would pop at any moment. Instead, it spewed out a bunch of pink and purple fluids from both ends. Within a few seconds, it managed to wrap itself up in a cocoon.

“Be careful Sweetie.” I walked over and knelt down next to the throbbing, meaty egg and placed my palms on the rubbery surface. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to help her Mutate in the right direction. After all, she did have a few options to choose from already. If I left it to chance, then she might end up becoming a Zergling or Roach, or maybe something else entirely. Something that I didn’t program into her genes intentionally. Accidents happen, often.

“Good girl, that’s it, right there… Yeah, good job.” I smirked and guided her in the right direction. Genetically. Weaving the strands, as the great Abathur might say. It felt amazing. Like my body was being ripped apart and reassembled in my mind. The pain wasn’t as intense as the relief that came afterwards. She was so bloated and uncomfortable after eating so much. But now she was free to create a much more powerful and useful body.

“Master. Metamorphosis Complete.” As she said that in her unnecessarily deep telepathic voice, the egg exploded in my face!

“Mao!” Midnight was scared, but he quickly licked the slimy pink goop off his fur.

“Uh, don’t eat that?” I really wasn’t sure whether it was edible or not for a cat, but I wasn’t too worried. It’s kinda hilarious how easy it is to ‘fix’ organic creatures. I wouldn’t call it Force Healing. It was more like Force Surgery plus genetic alteration with my Langheshi Forging abilities.

“How are you feeling now?” I turned back towards the huge creature that looked kind of like a scorpion…

I tried to make it as similar to the original concept as possible. Though there were also a bunch of different versions of the Starcraft Drones. I find the ‘Classic’ to be more aesthetically pleasing, personally. Plus the head is more protected by a thicker carapace. Aside from the head, there were a few more shield-like plates that went down the spine, with a short tail that stuck up in the air a bit. Eight legs covered in black carapace, with a bright purple fleshy membrane between them. The face only had two eyes, one on each side, with a bunch of pretty chompers in her big mouth. Two mandibles on the sides of her jaw. Then there were those big-ass pincers attached to long arms, meant for mining crystals or tearing prey apart.

“Float Bladder Activating.” As she said that, her mouth made some clicking noises and I could feel the strange energy field she was releasing from her body. There were multiple versions and tons of possibilities, but I decided to go with an anti-gravity trick because this is Star Wars and anti-grav bullshit is super easy here.

“Use the Force to push yourself around mid-air.” I gave her instructions, but it was really unnecessary. I already programmed everything into her genes. She could manipulate her body with subtle telekinesis pretty easily and effortlessly. Floating around the room in three dimensions, as if gravity didn’t exist.

“Convenient. Artificial Gravity, unnecessary.” She brought up a good point. Artificial gravity really was kind of ridiculously overused in the Star Wars universe. The really amazing thing wasn’t the artificial gravity, but the inertial dampeners. For example, when we’re moving around in space, if we don’t have something dampening the inertia, we’d be getting thrown around at thousands to millions of G’s. A single G wouldn’t be able to do shit against that fuckery.

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“What’s the energy efficiency like though?” I reached up and she floated down to me, placing her purple scorpion claws in my big red hands. She wasn’t as big as she could potentially grow. In fact, since she was a Drone, it was possible for her to transform into gigantic ‘buildings’ as long as she got enough biomass and other necessary resources. It wasn’t like she could just eat some random animals though. She needed ‘minerals’ in a sense. Not necessarily the special magical crystals in the Koprulu Sector.

“Energy loss, negligible.” She was hungry, but she wasn’t starving or weak. It wasn’t necessary for her to keep her Float Bladder active at all times though. She slowly landed on the ground and used her eight legs to stand up easily enough.

“I’ll make you something to eat.” Standing upright, I looked around the room at the mess she made. Then I closed my eyes and held my palms facing upwards in front of my waist. It took a few seconds, but all the goopy purple shit everywhere was gathered together into a sphere. About the size of a bowling ball at first, but then it was condensed into a baseball. I thought about the different flavors for a moment and realized that it was actually unnecessary. She wasn’t Midnight and wouldn’t need ‘chicken’ or ‘salmon’. Just generic Zerg biomass was totally fine to her taste buds and digestive system.

“Thank you, Master.” She took the hard and meaty orb with her claws, drawing it to her mouth and tearing it apart easily with those fang-like teeth.

“You’re welcome.” I smiled and looked over at the silvery metal door. I could feel someone walking past. They didn’t stop and just kept going.

“Danger?” My Drone asked seriously as she crawled over to the wall near the door, then up the wall and onto the ceiling. Preparing to pounce on anything that might enter inside our cabin.

“No. It’s just another passenger. Nothing to worry about.” I looked back towards the window and saw Midnight staring outside again. He didn’t seem sick but he also wasn’t begging for food.

This wasn’t one of ‘our’ ships. Just one of the random traders that came by from time to time. My people didn’t really leave Zonama Sekot if they had a choice, but whether it’s the Ferroans or the Langeshi, they settled on Mommy Sekot. And not that long ago either. Only about a hundred years ago for the blues and about fifty for the reds.

In other words, there were Ferroans out there in the Galaxy. The ones on Zonama Sekot were only colonists. They actually have their own system and homeworld. The Langheshi are currently enslaved on their homeworld because their biotechnology and abilities were considered heretical by some religious assholes called the Tsinimals. In the mass migration, the refugees didn’t all head to the same place.

“Mao~!” Sure enough, Midnight lost interest in the Hyperspace tunnel and went back to being a hungry boy.

“Don’t worry, I brought plenty of your food along with us.” I basically filled the fridge and freezer of this cabin, since we could be on the road for weeks or months. Reality isn’t like the movies or shows. Traveling along Hyperlanes, it might only take a day or less to travel from one end of the Galaxy to the other. Unfortunately, Zonama Sekot was out in the middle of nowhere and it took a lot of jumps in and out of Hyperspace to reach the nearest Hyperlane.

“Master, let me.” My Drone said that and plopped down from the ceiling in front of the fridge. Then she used her pincers to reach inside the forcefield and take out the already prepared portion of cat food.

“Maaaou~!” Midnight seemed scared of the giant purple and black monster at first, but then he saw and smelled the food. Before it was even placed in the food bowl, the silly cat tried to take it from those big ass claws.

“Good job.” I smiled at the Drone and was honestly really proud of her for not only taking the initiative, but being able to perform such a ‘simple’ task that my stupid cat hasn’t been able to figure out after all these years. Speaking of which, it’s almost his birthday. I created him when I was two, so that’s like… Sixteen years old now, huh?

“Master, do you require sustenance?”

“I’m good. But if you’re hungry, go ahead and eat the biomass chunks I prepared.” I kept a few big blocks and spheres of purple meat in the fridge. I would’ve taken more, but I was being banished so I wasn’t really given that much time to prepare extra supplies.

“I think I’ll call you Izsha.” I sat down at the table next to the window again, watching the silly black cat and mostly black Drone gorging themselves.

“Thank you for the designation, Master.” She responded telepathically again, looking up at me with those glowing red eyes. I reached out and rubbed her smooth, armored head and could feel her elation. Maybe this is how Kerrigan felt?

“I’ve gone through a lot of experiments to create you, Izsha.” I pulled my hand back and watched the naughty cat drinking from ‘my’ glass of water. I pet his soft, fluffy head and neck, down to his tail. He kept lapping up the water regardless.

“I named them a lot at first. The cats, dogs, bunnies, Zerglings… But I stopped because it made me get too attached to them.” I looked up into those glowing red eyes again and watched her using her mandibles to drag the raw meat into her fang-filled maw.

“I will not fail you as they have.” She was genetically programmed with a lot of knowledge already, while her personality was also something I designed. Zerg are supposed to act as a cohesive Hive or Swarm, but they are still individuals when alone. The ones with the strongest personalities, mental strength and psionic powers take the lead, while the weaker ones follow orders efficiently and effectively.

“They didn’t fail me.” I shook my head and sighed, “I was just too weak to make them perfect in Essence. I’ve been training since the moment I was born and I’m still missing a lot of pieces of the puzzle.”

Things like Midi-chlorians were actually way simpler and easier to manage than genes on the surface. After all, they exist in all life, even some semi-organic creatures have them. If you want something to have more Midi-chlorians you can transplant them from one creature to the other. You can boost your own Midi-chlorians the same way. The ancient Sith did that kinda shit all the time. Stealing the lifeforce and lives of others to make themselves immortal or whatever. Honestly kinda obnoxiously convoluted from my perspective.

If I want to create an immortal creature, I just need to turn off their aging. They might get cancer more often, but cancers can be removed and the immortal functional organs and cells can be regenerated infinitely. I figured that shit out when I was like two or three and perfected Midnight.

Most of the ‘pets’ I created were either given to friends and family, or sold to traders who would then sell them to rich assholes across the Galaxy. I never created livestock because it felt… Wrong and meaningless. What’s the point in making livestock when I can grow big hunks of their meat or other organs so easily and casually?

After eating, the Drone suddenly floated over to my left side and hugged me!

“Master, thank you for creating me.”

“Aww, you’re so fucking cute.” I snickered and hugged her back, “I don’t remember programming you to be so adorable though.”

“I’m sorry, Master.” She apologized but knew that I wasn’t upset. After all, she was literally telepathically linked to me. Probably why she knew I needed a hug. Why she thought to offer one. And why she needed one as well.

Obviously Izsha wasn’t perfect. Not truly Zerg. But neither was I. Not yet at least.