I’ll have to fight the Singularity. Our forces are in direct opposition to them, and they hold the greatest proportion of land. Plus their human soldiers represent easy biomass, far more strategically sound to assault them.
Days passed aboard the hive ships. Terran Thena rose, with the fleet taking a position in orbit above her. My zerglings are hers, just as she is me. A question I cannot answer.
We were granted a dozen ships, and cut the line, brought into the warzone on the nameless caste’s whims. Anything to serve the galaxy’s rulers.
My body was used as one more incubator for the landing army, not that I mind, giving birth is less effort than urinating. Whilst being far more satisfying. The hive has chosen my genetic strands. They are distributing my spineosaurus houndlings under the guise of lings. Other Matriarchs will remember the code, though most balk at the incubation time, preferring the half formed quadrupeds they’re used to. Self insemination was quite a bit cleaner than I would have guessed. All the, uhm, mechanisms were internal, and worked with feedback bordering on the imperceptible. Less sensation than kissing your grandma if I’m being honest. But weaving the genes together took on an otherworldly quality.
Previous Matriarchs had gathered endless combinations of DNA and sequenced it all, different leaders all favoring a slightly different collection of bioforms. My body’s previous specialty had been forms that maximized biomass retention, limiting wasteful expenditures. Nonsense like conquering a desert world without losing a drop of water. My spawn are similarly overbuilt. Body collecting roaches and fast doglike creatures formed the core, with infiltrating caterpillars and a rare few armored giants with great blades to rend that which the corpse collectors could not dissolve nor the hounds could rip apart. Never any fliers. For even the sub commanders who disturbed my orders tunneled beneath the earth, using the tremorsense all my creations had evolved.
The day before our landing I received a visitor. He -though I am unsure if human binaries can be applied to myself or him, aesexual reproduction is alien like that- stands above my biopool and stared into it until I could endure his gaze no more. Or maybe he just psychically told me to stand up. I bounced my legs like a squid, rising ten feet out of the green fluid to meet the thing’s eyes. Legs tip tap their way onto the walls, holding me suspended above the biopool.
I’m like a cat, crouched, ready to pounce. Which gives me an idea, why was there no felinid zerg units? A high burst damage, stealthy unit that attacked from ambush should have fit the theme purrfectly. Except banelings filled the bursting niche and ambushes were better done with burrowed lurkers or lings to trap the enemy. It’s the Wings of Liberty Predator problem, the unit isn’t garbage, it just never filled a desirable niche. It was mechanical but had no self repair and medics could not heal it, limiting its usefulness to a biological composition and was far too expensive to justify the gas cost. If only they hadn’t removed the cloak. A correction I am eager to see fulfilled. Zerg kittens, coming to a mining world near you. One lobe of my brain immediately begins to write the genetic sequence. Claws from a Tulvarian jaguar, crystal fangs from Conglomerate worlds, active camouflage from earth octopi, and the list continues withing my subbrains. This body is neat like that, with a few dozen spare brains, I don’t even know where all of them are. Simple tasks are easily delegated with an attention to detail that exceeds one thousand accountants on truckloads of adderall.
The genetic master’s limbs click. Straightening to look at my face. Ancient, yet eternal. Aged like no being of the endless should be. Yet he had done the inconceivable and integrated the nameless caste’s genetics into his own. I would need to attempt the same–
–the thought never settled in my mind, erased by some genetic prohibition on the sin. Quite literally making it unthinkable.
“Matriarch Hygieia, we have chosen your mutations to fight on the world known as Syrak-9. I was against this decision.” He says, speaking it openly.
Great, the eugenicist doesn’t like me. Savannah, cali girl that she is, would probably call him Hitler. Instead, I'll just call him dad.
“You did not disturb my work to whine.” I say, hoping he'll leave me alone and let me figure out how to make roach fast healing a reality! Hygieia did an acceptable job, but only ever saw them as biomass reclaimers. Not mountain dew spewing machine melters. If I mix in some lisurgic acid then switch their blood to be much more concentrated acid, I’ll have a winner. Half baneling, half armored trenching tool, and half biological warfare. I was on the cusp of a breakthrough and needed time for my brains to cook the individual puzzle pieces.
After all, we were going to an irradiated world with trench warfare, I needed the best diggers around! Life was unsustainable upon the surface, an underground hive would have to be dug, fungi cultivated, and a slow build up of forces maintained. Subterranean raids would be my only workable avenue of attack. Roaches were durable, but a single artillery shell would kill them, while I’d pushed everything into the ling’s speed aspect. They would bite first or die. A simple win against the Singularity’s massed infantry, but quite hopeless against the Juggernauts.
“Oh, you feel I will lose the war.” I say.
“Indeed.” Says Eugenics Hitler, clasping two of his many appendages together. “Were it up to me, I would hold a tournament under identical conditions and send the victorious Matriarch, but your tactics were chosen after your victory on Tarsidium. Despite the volcanoes wiping out a hundred other broods, yours found the weather towers and infiltrated them. Do not expect such a tactic to work here. Else your genome will be cataloged and culled from active replication.”
What he leaves out is the processes of cataloging. I’ll be broken down into basic molecules, liquified, then fed into a biopool identical to the one I’m halfway submerged in. Death of myself and everything I’ve created.
“I shall not disappoint. Do you have recommendations concerning the enemy airships? Or these Juggernauts?” I ask, tugging on Terran Athena’s flashtrained knowledge.
He is silent for a moment that stretches through the night. Green luminescent liquids shadowing his face. As if my question has revealed my reincarnation into this body.
“They are not your concern. Twelve matriarchs will make landfall. We have aligned ourselves with two factions who wish to expand their ancient holdings. Your place in this fight is recovery of biomass and the protection of the hive. Do not forget it.”
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Forget Earth? Never. My split jaw saves me from an offensive smile.
“Never forget my place. The endless will take the planet.” I say, accepting a psychic burst of information and orbital scans.
Battle plans, troop deployments and spawning orders fill my mind. All seems accounted for, except projected casualties for landfall. Zazathur’s estimation is ninety percent survival. Impossible, Athena has shown me the orbital cannons that will decimate our droppods, so I begin to formulate my own drop, one that prioritizes arriving in one piece and not subatomic particles. Small things, like never giving the Tulverian batteries a clear shot at my pod, and planting more chaff near the Azhurai Conglomerate’s fortress. A truly marvelous structure of crystal that they grew over hundreds of years. Unlike the other factions they do not attack, opting to entrench themselves with each supply ship. An expected tactic from one of the oldest known species in the galaxy. Patience is more than a virtue to them, it is the core of their race.
Interestingly enough our plan involves landing near them, then retreating. Possibly a feint aimed at deceiving the other races, why waste energy shooting down problems for your opponents?
Still, it troubles me. The Azhurai are known to have centuries of weapons and anti ship batteries in place. They are one of the progenitor seeded, those who live for thousands of years. On a whim I exchange places with another -more aggressive- Matriarch, I am tasked with a defensive mission, so my landing should be in the rear far away from pesky artillery and anti air. The endless accept my alterations to the plan immediately. Grateful for correction and logic. This isn’t the swarm Hygieia remembers, who always strained against her, resisting or sabotaging every maneuver so others might gain advantage.
Although, she might have just been paranoid.
I have an hour before boarding, allowing one last personal investigation. Of the twelve uteri, ten are occupied. Two zerglings and one roach now dwell within my biopool, alternatively whisked away by Athena, and returned before Zazathur notices. But the ship sees. For some reason choosing to ignore the loss of gases as natural leakage.
Four uteri are combining long genes, attempting to create the most desirable beings in the galaxy. Psychic warriors. It’ll take time, but I can already imagine zerglings supported by the equivalent of High Templar, tearing enemies in half at long range with telekinesis. Or rolling waves of electrical storms through fortifications while roaches burst through their floors. Ha, let Zazathur complain of lost biomass then!
In an hour I’m aboard a droppod, submerged in a gel meant to cushion our impact. Or if not to save our lives, keep enough of our biomass together for the other Matriarchs to recombine. Twelve hive ships enter orbit, with eight destroyers from various factions hiding in our shadows, using the hive ships as cover.
My pod lurches, and I know via our hive mind that all pods are away. Plummeting through atmosphere. I slow my pod, rising to an altitude fifty meters behind the surrounding chaff. As biological creatures we cannot use chaff in the conventional sense, there are no clouds of metal winged flies, or creatures that fire flamethrowers. Instead we rely upon smooth carapace and pods full of raw materials to cover our entry.
Across Singularity territory artillery begins to aim up, energy batteries are wheeled into position for their monthly battle. Tulverian supercannons vaporize three pods in a single shot, carving a hole into the hive ship that dropped them. Ten percent casualties are achieved in seconds. None of the endless bioforms panic. I wonder if they are too evolved to feel fear, or just resigned to their fates. ;dither way, its an impressive level of stoicism. No emotional response whatsoever. I don’t feel it either, fear doesn’t exist in this hive mind.
Pop
More pods explode, blown into dust by Technocracy missiles. Those damn Juggernauts will kill half the pods!-
-Tingles run across by brain wrinkles. Radiating across my entire body. Silence.
Terran Athena’s conversation with Alaea shows exactly why we allied ourselves. What our spent biomass has purchased. A continental wide electromagnetic pulse. The Azhurai are the only ones firing now, popping a token number of us. They hit four of the five pods I’m hiding behind, and blast the pod I was supposedly aboard. Incinerating a fellow Matriarch. That isn’t right, if we’re allied they shouldn’t be targeting my sisters directly, not with the hundreds of other pods falling from the sky.
Gel dampens vibrations, giving us a generally smooth ride. A sort of motile hibernation that will get all of us killed. I reach out to the hive, warning them.
“We’ve been betrayed, accelerate the drop. Get us down!”
Six Matriarchs raise queries. Half our commanders gone. One disappears from the hive mind as her drop pod becomes one with the atmosphere.
“Drop faster!” I scream.
This time there is no deliberation, no delay. All pods contract, pulling chitinous flaps inward to decrease atmospheric drag. The others are aware of the danger and maneuver pods into the line of fire. Bioforms can be remade, but a Matriarch is a complex being, until I establish a central hive no more will be born.
Four Azhurai cannons combine their firepower drilling a hole no wider than a german shepherd through six pods. Another sister burns. Merely decapitated. Precision fire of that magnitude reveals the master plan. Our alliance is and always was a sham. We’re dog soldiers, an environmental hazard.
This displeases the hive mind, the first great displeasure it has felt in a thousand years. There was no need for this betrayal. In milliseconds the hive mind connects to another of it’s kind the only one who can barter at the speed of light. I feel a deal being struck with the Novan Technomancy of Steel. The EMP cripled them, as has Thena’s vendetta. But one more destroyer lost is a worthy exchange for the worlds my hive mind offers. So they launch their own weapons of mass destruction.
The nameless caste act a moment too late. Granting fire permission just as the missiles enter the atmosphere. Ground batteries open fire, taking the heat off our pods. I’m slammed into the pod’s floor as it alters shape once more, this time flaring open for maximum drag like an umbrella. Azhurai target locks swing wide firing every megawatt and phased particle they have at the oncoming nuke. But it’s too late.
White light illuminates the inside of my eyelids. I have only the two lings in my pod, close enough to touch. Mainly because I gave up the pod originally intended for me. A lucky break I pray will continue into a lucky streak.
Shockwaves ripple through my pod. I grab my puppies and wait for the end.
And wait.
We impact the ground. Chitin shatters. Gell does it’s job, venting pressure out of specially designed ports evolved over trillions of designs. Force is redirected and we are left on the surface. Alive. Although I feel as though sledgehammers hit every part of my armor at once.
I glance back towards the nuke, to see an energy shield with an inverse circumference to the planet containing the blast. It’s a hard blue, evidence of the nameless caste.
“Dig!” I order.
Two lings dig, my waist claws joining them as we tunnel into the earth. But no others answer our call. It’s just us.
Without Matriarchs the endless multitude becomes feral, scattering to the four winds in order to satiate their basal needs. Shelter, food, water.
Were it not for my last second changes we’d all be dead. Reduced to meat for the galactic grinder. A war-hazard on a cursed world. Within minutes of our landing, the alliance is in shambles.
I should be upset, but then a seething rage settles in.
>Matriarch Hygieia: Thena, I need to kill the Azhurai.
>Terran Thena: …
>Terran Thena: Welcome to the war.
Bioforms 3 / 8