//Writing Soundtrack - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awEWc5Jnuto

I awoke slowly, stretching and yawning. Despite resting, my body felt… exhausted. Messing with mana seemed to be a very bad idea, considering the long term effects. I vowed to be more circumspect about it.

Getting up I inspected the room, but there was nothing of import. Not that I was surprised by that, but it couldn’t hurt to look. So I made my way outside into the main room with all the staircases and elevators.

I had two options at the moment. Scout out the ship and try to find as many resources as I could manage, or go outside and try to figure out where the hell I was.

Both had benefits and drawbacks. If I remained in the ship I was mostly safe and could start to plan on what to do in the future. But if I ventured out and explored my surroundings I could get a whole lot more information. I was also a little anxious that I haven’t found food or water yet. While it did seem like I could go without food and drink for a long time, I also wanted to have the options if they became necessary.

Well, I had to decide. After some deliberation I decided to do a quick scan of the ship, maybe find the kitchen or something and see if there was anything edible left. I would also love to find a ship computer or maybe some documents that could help me understand where the hell I was.

With that plan in mind I started by going up one floor, using the stairs since I couldn’t work the elevators to go exactly where I wanted. When I arrived there I found myself on a deck much the same as the previous one, with a lot of different housing and storage cabins, but towards the front of the ship I did find a big gym area. Well, the remains of one. Most of the training equipment was in shambles, rusted or broken.

I did use that opportunity to test the strength of my new body, with the remaining pieces of intact equipment. And oh my lord was I in for a surprise.

Before I may have been able to lift about seventy to eighty kilos. Which isn’t a lot but was enough for my purposes. Now one of my claw-arms alone was capable of double that easily. I actually didn’t have enough intact equipment to find out the exact limit.

My manipulator-arms were a lot weaker, already having issues with about fifty, and my normal arms could lift about a hundred and twenty. Surprisingly my tails were pretty strong too, lifting up the same as my normal arms if working together. I hadn’t thought they’d be that strong, since while they were long, they were quite thin.

While I tested all of this I contemplated what this would mean for other people or maybe monsters around me. The [Antimatter Hexclaw] description was very clear that it wasn’t a physically strong Evolution Path, yet with this body I could easily carry a car, if I did it right. Admittedly it would have to be a small car, but still.

With that in mind I will probably find beasts that could easily double what I could. Now that I thought about it, whatever had nearly punched the door in when I first woke up had to be rather strong.

I resolved to be a lot more careful.

Eventually I moved on from the gym, I had never been much of a fitness nut and now that I slowly got used to this new body, I didn’t think I’d even need it. The rest of the floor was just the same as everyone else, so I decided to move up one more. Luckily for me there were stairs right next to the gym area. Which, not surprisingly, led up to the showers and bathrooms. Honestly, it would have been weird if they had to run through half the ship after training.

The entire bathroom section was still in very good repair, almost as if it had been kept clean much longer than the rest of the ship. And when I further explored I found out why.

With the bathroom section to the front, there was only a small area aft of it with storage and dressing rooms, before the hallways led to a big mensa area. It was there that I found the first bodies.

From the level of decay they were obviously old, but not so old to be skeletons. While I did find it unlikely that would ever happen, I wasn’t an expert but the humidity was missing for that, it also meant that it couldn’t have been all too recent. I walked about, weirdly unaffected by death, and looked the people over. Most of them seem to have died peacefully. All but one in fact. They often sat together in small groups, probably friends or family, a total of twelve bodies. The last one sat separate and in front of them, on the table they sat at, was a note.

The cause of death was clear, half of their face was missing with a gun in the opposite hand.

Curiously I read the note.

Whoever finds this, I hope you have better luck than us. Food ran out four days ago, and water a day later. We have nothing left. The hunting squad hasn’t been seen in two days and the mood is dim. The collective decision was suicide. We don’t have anywhere to go nor do we have anything to eat. And while we are desperate we have enough mental faculty left to realise that outside of cannibalism death is our only option. I apologise for my failure as the leader of this group. We should have gone with the rest when food became scarce. I’m not sure if we will be remembered by anyone. After the end came such questions can often only lead to madness, but I hope, I dearly hope, that I will be.

We have packed all the weapons and ammunition into the captain's storage locker. Hopefully they will help you more than they did us.

30-10-547 PAT

Karul Wangler

Huh… This was… A lot. I felt for them, but only really intellectual. It seemed this body wasn’t really capable of feeling the loss, or maybe this entire thing still felt unreal to me.

They seemed human enough upon inspection, although I did notice their limbs were slightly elongated and the teeth a little too sharp. I tapped the shoulder of one of the bodies.

Alert: Initialising scan…

Alert: Scan complete.

Scan Results:

Status: Deceased

Time of Death: Approximately 1 standard year ago

Species: Hafman

Evolution Path: Unknown

Level: Unknown

Age: Unknown

Gender: Unknown

Physical Adaptation: Unknown

Mental Adaptation: Unknown

Cybernetic Adaptation: Unknown

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

While it was irritating to see that there were a lot of unknowns, I wasn’t really surprised by it. The species did surprise me though, Hafman. Were they an evolution of humans or were they something distinct? I had to keep that in mind to figure out more.

Something that started to pique once I touched them did kind of horrify me a little. Before I hadn’t really noticed it, but there was a hunger in me that yearned for these corpses. And now that I touched them it became a whole lot stronger. I wanted to eat them.

Disgusted, I turned away. I was finally coming to terms with being a weird alien buggirl and now suddenly I started craving corpses. I may be in a weird situation, but I wouldn’t commit cannibalism. Although, a small part of mind told me, it wasn’t cannibalism if it wasn’t your species.

With an effort of will I dragged my thoughts away from that line of thought and made my way deeper into the ship, fleeing the scene. The rest of the deck kind of flew past me, lost in thought.

Eventually I found the way up another deck, this one significantly smaller. It was also the most luxurious, or would have been, if the entire thing wouldn’t have been covered in dead plants. It seemed that there were some kind of decorative plantings that went out of control after… well, after whatever had happened, I still wasn’t sure about it.

The weird hunger sat in once more, although this time I was ready to indulge it. I wasn’t sure the plants were edible, but they didn’t seem dangerous, and my instincts generally seemed to have at least a basic idea of what’s right and what isn’t. And honestly, I started to hate this feeling of hunger.

So while I walked I ripped off a small part of the plants, interwoven roots and leaves, all half rotten and obviously dead. With a feeling of resignation I popped it into my mouth, expecting it to taste really awful.

To my surprise, and delight, and maybe a little caution and confusion, it tasted not bad. While definitely not my favourite meal, it was pleasant enough that I wanted more. And so I began to eat while I explored the deck.

The note in the mensa hall had said something about the captain’s storage locker, and if I had to guess either this deck was the captain’s deck, or part of it was with the rest reserved for some kind of VIPs.

Eventually I found what I was pretty sure was the captain’s office and walked in, still happily munching on dead plants. To my absolute delight there was a computer. Well, not the kind of computer I knew, but definitely a computing machine. It looked a lot more futuristic than I would have thought and was a lot smaller, but despite being Sci Fi tech it still had cables coming out from it to a panel in the wall, probably the monitor, and some weird input devices.

Instead of a keyboard it had a long half crescent shaped piece of… metal? That was separated into twelve sections. I had no idea how to use it, but luckily the mouse wasn’t too far from what I was used to. Even if it was more of a touchpad, I could work with it.

Well, if I had power that is.

I walked over and touched the machine.

Alert: Computer Module has lost all power. Reactivate the power grid to reinstate normal Computer functionality.

Alert: Subject [Hexclaw Hatchling] NULL possesses [ERROR].

Alert: Use [ERROR] to override?

Y / N

Well, I’ll be damned. Either the Interface used words I understood, or the thing was still called a Computer. Either way, I happily assented and the entire thing whirled to life, just as I felt a tug at what I now understood was my mana. So [ERROR] used my mana to bypass electrical needs, neat.

Not a moment later the panel on the wall sprang to life and displayed what I would assume was a login. Before I could even begin to wonder how to log in, something typed itself in and the screen blinked into a quite Sci Fi looking data listing.

It seemed that this [ERROR] thing was quite a lot more intuitive than I would have given it credit for.

I immediately went to work and looked through every file I could see. Most of them were listings on cargo, provisions, and other necessities, administrative files, listings of crew and status, as well as mission briefings and all the other stuff you would expect on the Computer of a starship.

It even came with a map of local space, although what I saw there made it pretty clear I wasn’t in Sol System. I searched for Sol System in the database, but found nothing. Earth, Terra, or any other name for my homeplanet brought up similar results.

So either I was no longer in my universe or it was known by different names. It wouldn’t surprise me honestly, since this was definitely far more advanced than any Earth technology I knew of. I might even be in an entirely different part of the universe. Whatever the case was, it wouldn’t help me get home. Not that I was too miffed by that, which was another thing that concerned me.

I would have thought that it would bother me more, but apart from mild unhappiness it really didn’t affect me.

I spent a good while going through all the files until I eventually got to a database filled with items for some sort of constructor, with detailed information on what materials they were made out of, object files and renders, as well as all the necessary metadata.

That was extremely useful for me, since I was now more or less a living 3D-Printer. I just wished I could take all of that with me.

As if summoned by my thought, another prompt popped up in my Interface.

Alert: Current Maximum Storage: 128 GB

Alert: Current Storage Usage: 43 GB

Alert: Current Free Storage: 85 GB

Alert: Upgrade Storage for more Storage Space.

Well, I’ll be damned. [ERROR], or so I assumed since it was my only Cybernetic Enhancement, was pretty useful. With glee I looked back at the file size and my glee immediately turned to disappointment. Most of the files on the Computer were multiple hundred GB big, way too much for me to download.

The only two I could manage was information on the material most of the ship was made out of, a basic alloy of steel and a metal I had no idea about, and a Coffee Machine, or the equivalent. The first came in at 72 GB and the latter at 84 GB.

Great. Well, while the fact that I did have my own Storage was delightful, it really didn’t help me.

The next question then was what I would have to do to upgrade my Storage. The Interface pinged me with a long list of electrical components, materials like silicone or some equivalent I had never heard about, wires, transistors, capacitors, all the stuff that made Storage. And I had exactly none of those. Well, for some reason I did have some of the electrical components and a little bit of the silicone equivalent, but by far not enough to do anything with.

Although, that begged the question, where did I get those from? After thinking about it for a moment I remembered the time my body was eating metal when I was stuck in the fugue after getting my translator skill. Was that the reason it had done that? If yes, I definitely had to do it too. Even if the idea of eating metals like that didn’t strike me as a smart choice.

As I was lost in my musing the Computer suddenly powered down, and only now did I realise how spent I felt. I must have used all my mana in the time I had been sitting here.

At least I had some idea of what to do now. Even if I didn’t necessarily like it. With a defeated sigh I resigned myself to try and eat some materials. After I finished the plants tho.

So I went back to it, thinking about all the implications. If I could store materials by eating them, did that mean I had some kind of Inventory space? My Skills list hadn’t mentioned anything, but they had to be collected somewhere.

It also implied that I could augment myself without the need of some Cybernetics Engineer or something, which could end up being a huge boon. Although it also begged the question where I got all the required knowledge from. If it came from [ERROR] that would make sense. But then again, why did I have that? Was everyone born with that? Or at least every Hexclaw? I thought back to the scan of the Progenitor Hexclaw but it hadn’t said anything about Cybernetic Enhancements. Maybe it was hidden from others scanning you? Or maybe it was something Tier related? The Progenitor Hexclaw had been Tier 8 afterall.

In general, why was I here? And why didn’t I freak out more about all of this? Did [ERROR] do something to me to keep it together, or was it the alien body I now had? Or maybe I had already gone mad and all this was just hallucinations while I sat in some Asylum eating the furniture. Though, personally, I think that wasn’t likely. For that everything made too much sense, had too much structure. Yes, everything was weird, but the structured kind. I couldn’t just magic up some coffee or anything. Or well, nevermind, I could do that. Either way, it still felt too real to be some hallucination while I was mumbling to myself in a locked room.

While I contemplated my new life I made good progress eating the plants. It sounded really weird, now that I thought about it. Eventually a new feeling overcame me, a sudden urge. I had read enough novels about Hive Minds to realise this was one of those cliche things, a tell tale that it was time for me to start the Hive. Grand…