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I sat on some kind of machine, the generator humming in the background, lost in thought. After the incident with the Interface I pushed myself to finish the repairs and Orion had found some kind of compatible fuel which he had me magic up. With my new implants he was able to control the things that were running remotely, not that a lot of things were up and running in the first place.

Currently he was busying himself to rummage through the databases in this room, turning servers and machines digitally upside down, while I tried to sort out whatever the hell was currently going on.

One thing was certain: Things were much stranger than I could have ever imagined. And I had no idea how to begin solving any of them.

My immediate plan remained, build a base of operations, find a reliable food source, and fortify my position. To that end Alpha had left once more to hunt, while Gamma remained with me, obviously a little uneasy by the low humming coming from the machines and the louder humming coming from the generator, but I didn’t pay it any attention.

This new directive or whatever confused me. Its existence at all meant, at least to me, that there was someone or something keeping an eye on my development and trying to steer me onto a specific path. The issue was I had no idea where that path could lead.

There was also that mysterious line at the end that seemed entirely out of place. In a way it reminded me of my [Chosen Prime] Skill, which had a similarly cryptic line. But at the same time the feel I got from it was different. Not that I had any idea how to explain how it felt different.

I was interrupted in my musings by Orion.

“My dear host, after some searching through whatever networks remain, I find myself quite confused. It appeared that this station experienced a sudden power loss some time ago, but none of the systems show any kind of battle damage, EMP indications, or individual power outages. It is almost as if suddenly everything just turned off at once. I also cannot find any indication of evacuation orders, any alarms, or any system errors. The only errors I can find have to do with the sudden power loss and incorrectly shut down systems.”

I frowned, looking at the dilapidated room around me.

“Any damage I can find seems to have been done after the system was shut down, the security footage is mostly gone, and the few pieces of data I can find indicate everything was running as per usual. At first I wasn’t sure how I ended up deactivated, but up until now I assumed that I was shut down according to normal emergency procedures, which would also explain why I have no recollection of my deactivation.”

Something about this entire thing bugged me. “Hey, Orion? You said that you only have records of Humanity from a long, long time back, right? What species were you working with, then?”

“The main species I was working with were the Alak’duul. Imagine your current body with only two arms and legs, a long neck, and a slender build. They were very driven scientists and quite well known for their technological breakthroughs. For the purposes of this outpost they had cooperated with the Fengshen, an amphibious species that were very outgoing and had a sheer infinite curiosity for the stars. They are small, much smaller than the Alak’duul and look quite bulky, although they have a surprising level of agility and flexibility. I have records of a few more species in my databases, however very rarely did they visit us personally. Many of the transports were run by the Fengshen or by AI systems. It does make sense, I suppose. The Fengshen were naturally adventurous and AI’s don’t need to sleep or be paid, and for the long journey’s between the stars we could just go dormant.”

I ignored the obvious pride in being an AI in his words and thought back on my time here. The corpses I had found fit neither description. My Interface had called them Hafman, and at the time I had thought that they may have been human. But with what I knew now, that was unlikely. The time of death it had shown was one standard year. Now, I wasn’t sure what a standard year was, but it couldn’t have been that long, considering that even Orion used the standard prefix in his descriptions of time.

“Hey, Orion”, I said, my attention not entirely focused on his ramblings, “Have you ever heard of the Hafman?”

“There is no mention of Hafman in my databases. Might I inquire why you ask?”, Orion answered almost immediately.

“When I first woke up I found a group of corpses. When I touched them my Interface analysed them somehow, and that was the name I got from it. They look very similar to humans, like, extremely similar. If it wasn't for the minor changes I would have mistaken them for such.”

“The corpses Alpha consumed for their survival seem to belong to the same species.”

I was startled when Gamma spoke up, entirely ripping me out of my own thoughts.

“Wait, what?”, I asked, unable to fully unravel that statement with my mind being elsewhere.

“Alpha has shared some of their memories with us. They are no longer part of the Hive, but they can share with us. And the corpses they consumed looked very similar to the ones you told us not to consume. We assumed those were the corpses you talked about with yourself.”

“Wait, talking to myself? I mean I guess I am… but it's… okay, that’s not important. What is important is that the Interface told me that the corpse I touched died one standard year ago. I have no clue what a standard year is, but considering your descriptions of the orbital period of this moon and its parent planet I would assume it to be at least in the same ballpark as the year I am familiar with. That would mean that these people had been here recently. Much more recently than the state of this installation would indicate.”

During my rant I had gotten up and started pacing, a tick I couldn’t remember having, but then again my memories were in ruins, so who knew.

“That being the case they might still be here somewhere. Or in the system at least. The outpost is abandoned, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they wouldn’t come here, but if they do we need to be prepared. If their only contact with Hexclaw’s are things like the [Hexclaw Progenitor] than they might be hostile. I would very much like to try talking to them. Maybe they can help me figure out just what the hell is wrong with my Interface. And what that directive meant. ‘... and amongst the stars they met. So different were they as a people that no comparison could be made.’ I have no clue what that is supposed to mean.”

Orion pinged me with something akin to a negation. It wasn’t a word, simply a negative reply to indicate he didn’t have any idea either. Gamma just looked at me like always and said nothing, so I guessed she also didn’t have any more input.

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“Okay. For the time being, Orion can you start production? We need weapons, armour, fortifications, maybe more traps for Alpha.”

“Of course, dear host. If I could convince you to repair the last control chip on the mainboard of the fabricator I can get straight to work. What type of fortifications would you prefer? This unit is capable of producing small to medium firearms, fortification barriers, automated weapon systems, security drones, and a myriad of other items, as long as we have the materials required. Basically it can produce anything up to a small one person vehicle, although it would only be a small maintenance transport. Anything bigger than that would either need to be cut into multiple fabrication runs, or are outright impossible to produce due to the capacity and size of the fabrication area.”

That was much better news than I had anticipated and I couldn’t help but smile a bit.

“Great. Let’s start with whatever you can do to make sure nothing can get in or out of this place. Then weapons. Automated weapons if possible, neither of us are that good with weaponry.”, I said, then stopped myself, “I mean, maybe I could use them, with some training since I seem to have some memories of soldiers, but I am not exactly keen on trying. Before I can do that I need to be able to use this body better.”

I looked over at Gamma, “Anything you guys can do for me in that regard? I seem to have some instincts, but I am not that good at controlling my body yet.”

Gamma simply nodded after a moment's thought, but as was typical for her didn’t elaborate further.

I nodded to myself in response, satisfied with the current situation. Then I groaned when I remembered that, having now found a somewhat secure position, the next point on my list was to make more Hatchlings. I really didn’t look forward to it, but I pushed my distaste aside, forcing myself to view things practically. I needed them for my own survival.

Once I magicked up the last part the machine was missing, Orion got to work printing our defences, while Gamma and I fed all the different materials into it. At first I ate a few of the materials, thinking it would make it easier for me to replicate them, then mentally I slapped myself when I realised that I could simply ask Orion for the details.

While I was not busy loading the machine up I practised using my new body. I was already much better than when I woke up the first time around, but I was a long way from the natural control the Hatchlings had. Gamma helped a little, although her explanations were mostly “Just do it”, or “For us it comes naturally”, or “Listen to your body”, or other such nonesense, so she wasn’t too helpful. Regardless, I did as she told me, since I didn’t have much of a better idea either.

In between my ‘training’ and loading and unloading the machine I ate the Biomass Alpha had hunted for me. Between what I had eaten when I woke up after the fight and here, I would have thought I would be able to create a new Hatchling already, but for some reason I couldn’t. And honestly, I wasn’t all too sad about it. Even if I knew that I was only delaying the inevitable.

After some time Alpha returned with even more biomass. She told me a few things about the surroundings, the tunnels of her prey animal, and how she lured them in. Obviously she wanted to be praised for something, although I was still a bit uneasy about the entire situation. In the end though, I humoured her and awkwardly gave her a job well done and a pat on the back. Literally, which was kind of strange since she was now slightly taller than me.

After a few fabrication runs, Alpha had come and gone two times since we started, the first set of defences was ready. It consisted of two parts: First was reinforced barricades that we could use to barricade all the entrances to this room. We decided to do so immediately and only leave the entrance Alpha used open. The second part was automated defences. Because of the power usage they had we had to install them inside of the room. Orion did have blueprints for wireless power transmitters, but considering how long it would take to print those we decided to go with the old school approach.

Well, I decided, Orion had been sulking for quite a while after, apparently this technology was considered ancient by him. It was kind of adorable really, and I teased him a bit about it. It helped me a lot to get rid of my funk.

I don’t know how long it took us to build that all up, but afterwards I was thoroughly exhausted. Even Gamma seemed tired, while Alpha just continued to do her thing. I decided to get some shut eye and more or less forced Gamma to do the same. It took some convincing that I would be guarded while she slept by the turrets we installed, but eventually she capitulated under the condition that I would hide behind her while we slept. It was a little strange, since I could still fully perceive Alpha’s perspective while I slept and she seemed to stare at Gamma and me for a while on her return, before she ventured out once more.

When I woke up the next morning a big pile of biomass was waiting for me. Alpha really had taken to the role as hunter and had started to bring bigger and bigger critters for me to eat. In all fairness, she was really good at what she did. While I slept I watched her hunt for quite a while, and it was quite fascinating to see. There had only been one close call when one of the critters was able to yell out and Alpha seemed to panic before quickly killing it in a very unclean fashion. Safe to say that one was no longer viable for consumption.

Now refreshed and with much more concentration to spare I thought ahead of today’s agenda while I ate. I was pretty sure that soon I would be able to make more Hatchlings, so I set aside today for some R&R afterwards, before I did anything else.

I did order Gamma to continue helping Orion and to load and unload the fabricator, translating all his needs to her since she couldn’t hear him. Then a thought struck me and I ordered Orion to quickly craft a set of communication gear so that they could talk to him if need be.

Then, it was time. A sudden wave of… something washed over me and the familiar feeling of being able to birth a new egg filled me. As if on queue the window for designing new Hatchlings popped up. I barely even gave it a glance, then did a double take when I noticed something.

Cybernetically Enhanced Hexclaw Hatchling [UPGRADED]

A newborn Hexclaw Hatchling that has been altered and enhanced by Cybernetic implants and technology. Unlocks Cybernetic Evolution Path’s.

Well… This was new. This wasn’t a new choice, it was a replacement for the previous selection of [Hexclaw Hatchling]. After testing around for a while with all the different options I realised I was also able to add some implants and upgrades to the default model. Despite my distaste of laying eggs I was more and more looking forward to this new Hatchling. All the way up until I confirmed my choice.

Warning! This individual is incompatible with the selected controlling consciousness: Hive-Mind.

Alert: A new controlling consciousness has been selected: NULL.

Proceed?

Y / N

What? This was new. None of the selections I had made said anything about being incompatible with the Hive-Mind. Was it because only I had the [Self-Enhancement] Skill?

I was honestly unsure what I should do here. Continuing with the birthing process would basically turn me into a Hive-Mind… Then again, wasn’t I already kind of one? Technically I was part of the Hive-Mind, just further removed somehow. At least that was their opinion on the matter. Was I even still human?

With an effort of will I dragged myself away from that thought. No matter what the answer to that question was, I needed to survive. I could go back and change all the things I did and make it a normal [Cybernetically Enhanced Hexclaw Hatchling], which would enable me to select the Hive-Mind as the controlling consciousness, I checked. But should I?

A few of these selections sounded very helpful, like [Very Adaptable], [Limited Self-Enhancement], or [Code-Engineer].

That last one was the most interesting to me, because it basically enabled that new Hatchling to adapt to and change a wide variety of digital code, Interfaces, and databases. Basically they would become very helpful when it came to digital things. And I did want to figure out what the hell my Interface was.

That thought, in the end, made my decision for me. The faster I figured out just what the Interface was and what it wanted, the faster I would be able to find a way out of this situation.

Steeling my resolve I accepted the prompt and selected myself as the controlling consciousness. The prompt vanished and my vision cleared, but before I was able to do anything, a sudden wave of Vertigo hit me and I staggered to my knees. Then my entire world split apart in the strangest experience I have ever had. And then the pain settled in. The last thing I could remember clearly before everything became a tornado of mixed emotions and sensations was that I let out an ear piercing scream that even demons would be scared of.