I woke up with the worst hangover and that was just my head. My entire body felt like I’d been hit with a truck then backed over for good measure. I tried to get up but all I managed was a low groan. I opened my eyes and I blinked. I could see better for some reason.
I brought one hand up to my left eye and flinched when I saw my hand. It was almost alabaster white but instead of coming from the pink colour of skin, it was more like it started from a grey. Fingers were different too, thicker nails tapering towards a point but not quite full claws.
Then it all came back to me, my hazy head-clearing and I groaned again.
I slowly managed to prop my battered upper body up on my elbows only to be greeted by the all too familiar tent in my sheets. I groaned and gently let myself lay back in exasperation. I still couldn’t understand how men did it, how they lived with the thing now between my legs.
It was most active in the mornings and then whenever the hell it felt like it. More often than not at the most inopportune or awkward of situations. I was just glad I had a personal shower, I wouldn’t have looked forward to any shower if it was communal. A nice cold one usually settled it down.
I flapped my sheets to settle them down and was about to prop myself up again when the door to my bedroom hissed open. I looked up and scowled at the metal man walking into the room with a shit-eating grin on his face.
“Congratulations commander.” He said cheerily. “While the Writhri were abysmally ill-evolved to have space travel available to them I must say the conversion rate is rather good and we got a good haul of bio-mater, metals and information through their databanks.”
I grumbled under my breath as I was beginning to feel a light pressure mount behind my eyes from the anger boiling in me. “If I had any other choice in this task you thrust upon me or simply one in the same role as you are I would take it in a heartbeat. Of all the unprofessional bullshit! You deliberately sent me into a situation with no information on what I was facing.
A problem easily rectified if you had but done one thing. Can you guess what that would have been?” I let out in a growl that reminded me a little of a crocodile's soft growl.
Malice was not amused. His expression had soured like I had just taken the wind from his sails and he didn’t respond.
“I’ll tell you then as its either malicious compliance to what you set in motion or simply incompetence that is at fault. The scanners on this vessel which you are so intrinsically linked to should not be so horrible that we wouldn’t get a heads up about a vessel before iT LITERALLY HARPOON’S THE HULL!!” I spoke calmly at first before my tone rose and the low growl under my voice turned into the roar it ended as.
Malice however didn’t seem all that impressed. Then as the silence between us grew longer he flicked his hand at his shoulder as if cleaning his uniform before he sighed and spoke, with the tone of a teacher tired of giving the same answer over and over. “I did tell you didn’t I, Commander?” He asked and I only glared at him in return.
“I will test your worth until I am satisfied you can fill the role I have so graciously passed down upon you.” He said putting a rather heavy emphasis on the last I.
I growled and felt my lips curl, like an animals muzzle bunching up to bare fangs. The pressure at my eyes felt like it would push them out of their sockets before I closed them and drew in deep and heavy breaths to calm down. “So… did… I… Pass?” I asked with a few breaths before each word carefully enunciated.
“With flying colours ~” He chirped happily, right back into something of a Kenneth Parcell persona, that ever chipper page from that one show. “I hadn’t thought you’d manage when I found out the true number of beings on board when my scanners managed to penetrate their hulls. I’d expected maybe twenty or so armed pirates aboard such a vessel but it seems those Withri only need a third of the space a human does to be comfortable.
Oh and might I add commander, excellent job surviving those wounds, I dare say a normal human would have been dead before coming to the med bay given how cut up you where.” He said with an annoying cheery thumbs up.
“I hate you.” I grumbled before I lay back down on my bed and stared up at the ceiling. The black tiles of the ceiling calmed me down a bit, though the silent Malice just lurking there at the side of my bed didn’t allow me to fully calm. Just simmering.
“I wonder.” I muttered as the definition of the ceiling began to sharpen ever so slightly. If I had to put it to words it was like my vision was going from the quality of 720 pixels over to 4000, sharpening visibly as my eyes began to take in much more than one should be able to in minute detail. I was amazed, of course, a human’s vision was a lot better than a 4k screen there was just a difference in biological and digital.
“What did you do to my eyes?” I asked a lot calmer than I thought I really ought to be.
“Hm? Your eyes?” Malice said and leaned in to stare down into my eyes and he got a curious look to his nightmarish face. Another thing I’d gotten used to without realizing it. “Ah, it seems that some of the changes in your genetic makeup’s design have taken effect. That would mean it might take a few years for your body to fully develop to what it was designed to be.”
I cocked my head at him. “Wait so I’m back to dealing with growing pains? I'm not even the finished end product?” I asked with my brows knitted together in utter confusion.
Malice looked down at me with a straight face before he shrugged. “Eh, might have some when the tail grows out.” He said in a carefree manner before he quickly jumped back when I tried to kick him. Completely ignoring my second question.
“WHAT?!?!?!” I screamed as I got up and promptly fell back down clutching at my sides and stomach. The traitorous wounds around my torso acting up as I felt the bandages under my fingers grow wet with blood.
“You should calm down Commander. I’ll have to restitch up those wounds now.” Malice said tiredly as he sighed. “I’ll explain while I redress your wounds.” He said then as he walked out of the room, leaving me sprawled on my bed clutching at my body and gritting my teeth.
-
“I find it amazing you still have the strength to glare at me.” Malice said as he stitched me up once more. I sat on my bed, my modesty be damned considering the company I was with, glowering at Malice who sat next to me. I was a lot more cut up than I’d thought but I could see that the wounds had already started healing.
“Why am I healing so fast?… no wait how long was I out?” I asked him as I was in too much pain to be angry and now I was just… Honestly, I have no idea how I was.
“Well, your increased metabolism does give you some advantages.” He said with that annoying grin of his. “You’ve been “out”, as it were, for around fourteen hours. I speculate you’ll be fully healed within a week or two. Accelerated healing powers can only go so far, nothing like a certain mutant with blades coming out of their fists.” He said and his annoying grin went to a wide shit-eating smile.
“Riiiiiiiight.” I said looking at him like he was crazy, given his story he probably was.
“So anyway, what did you learn during this little expedition?” He asked once his face had slowly turned impassive.
“For one, don’t trust you. Two, I don’t know the first thing about this body and three….” I paused as I had felt a rant coming on but just didn’t have the energy anymore for it. Instead, my mood darkened and I felt it slip into my voice. “We need to have sensors out in this system to warn us of anything like this happening again. We cannot have this happen again.” I paused and looked over at Malice and he must have seen something in my eyes as he stopped sewing and looked at me.
“It.will.not.happen.again.” I said in a clear voice as a commanding officer sorely disappointed in her underling and thinly wailing their anger.
A heavy silence fell onto us then and I didn’t speak up until Malice had helped me into my commanders clothing that he had provided me when not going at the gym. The only clothing really. “I’m calm right now.” I began with a sigh. “Let’s take this to a briefing room or the bridge and you can give me a full report on our gains as well as your recommendations on what to do with it. Just let’s stop the whole dupe and dick routine. I’m tired, I’m sore and I’m hungry so how about we get this whole thing over with while I eat hmm?” I asked him.
Malice simply nodded at me and soon I had a hearty lunch of some porridge, at least it looked and tasted like it, on the ship's bridge. A seat had unfolded out of the command column with the volumetric display behind Malice as he pointed at what was being displayed. “Well, the conversion rate of the… salvageable bio-material is capable of providing enough to produce fourteen chimaeras of any but the noble variant. I might add that among that crew were two with dormant Mystic genes in them which will allow for two mystics of any classification you might wish out of the fourteen available.”
“How many died?” I asked just a little somberly, death didn’t faze me as much as it had when I was first starting out. You see enough of something and you grow numb to it.
“Approximately?...” Malice asked and I nodded. “Two hundred and twenty-four.”
“That is what?…. One chimaera per fifteen, sixteen corpses?” I asked just bewildered. “That is shit conversion rates.”
Malice looked just a tad deflated. “Yes… unfortunately it is exactly sixteen to one conversion rates we are dealing with when taking in Withri corpses. Their bio-matter has to be condensed and rather torn apart before it can be reconstituted to serve our needs. Not to mention many of them were either ground to paste or blasted to pieces through improvised grenades. I believe you total kill count was at a hundred and six, the last one hundred and eighteen died from your improvised grenades setting off their own pistols, crossfire or clumsiness of their comrades.”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
I breathed in and leaned into my seat, blowing out a loud breath which puffed up my cheeks at the exhale. “All right, then I guess we’ll make two types of mystics for either type once we either find a neutral school to teach us how to use our gifts in some way or I learn how to do both sides so I can teach them.”
I sighed again and rubbed at my forehead as I thought about what to do. Then I got an idea. “We are going to have to design the castes of the chimaera over again. Put the bio-mater into a freezer or storage if possible?” I asked as I gestured to Malice and at his nod, I took it that it was possible to save it for later and rolled my shoulders a little.
“I just thought of an idea for how to organize the early Chimera that should also provide us with intel and possibly new recruits. Maybe even set up a reputation of how good Chimera are as warriors which might provide us with less opposition in the future as well.”
Malice looked intrigued. “How so?”
I leaned forward and smiled. “We take a few pages from Earths fictions. I’m sure you’ll know as you told me you downloaded the entire internet from Earth right?”
He nodded and I smiled. “We build clans. They all start out as sixteen or so in total for each clan. This will also show our castes besides the noble castes. I think we can take our own spin on some of the warrior cultures of Earth itself and its fictions.”
“Hmm if I get this right you mean there will be sub-species within each caste?” Malice asked after a seconds thought.
“I’m thinking that would be ideal. For warriors, I’d want two heavy troopers especially designed for such a role, six normal troopers and then two scouts. The scouts should be capable of much more stealth operations as their name would imply but also have excellent potential as snipers and snapshooters. Figuring out how to move the physical traits around will be your job. Think of every advantage our infantry would need in terms of the physical gifts you can give to each of the sub-race.” I said then as I parsed out my plans as they came to me.
“We’ll need a leader caste for the warriors as well.” I then said after some thought on the subject. “or at the very least someone to be able to act as the face of the group, a warrior diplomat of sorts. Didn’t you have some types aimed at either being diplomats or agents?” I then asked.
Malice took three seconds to think now and then he narrowed his eyes at me. “I take it we will be acting like a nation of disparate nomadic warriors. Each clan has a ship that should have everything required for the clan to continue?” I nodded.
“I see, so the warriors form the core?” I semi nodded and Malice thought a bit more. “They are how the clans gather funds and resources?” He then asked looking at me with interests.
“Mercenaries but I want the entire crew to be trained and trained well. I mean even the normal crew aboard the ship is to be close to elite soldier status and the warriors themselves the cream of the crop type of training.” I said as I looked out into the stars behind Malice, beyond the windows on the bridge.
“Think Celtics, knights, samurai, ninja and Vikings rolled into one sort of motif. They can take in orphans, they never take off their armour unless in the comfort of their own clan, privately with another chimaera or at a yearly clan gathering we will hold here in the sol system. Any recruit will have to face a challenge or a rite of passage and serious vetting before they can be allowed to come here or even see an unarmored chimaera. Once here we will welcome them to the clan that took them in and we will offer them a choice if you can make it happen.” I then explained.
Malice cocked his head. “What choice?”
“To stay as their own race or become a half-chimaera, either way, they would be welcomed into the clan and treated like a full member, thus we might get more chimaera….” I paused a little before looking at Malice. “Why chimaera? Why that name? Does it have any meaning in this galaxy?”
Malice smiled a little but shook his head. “I came upon it when I scoured Earth’s internet. I don’t think many civilizations are as creative of their monsters as humans are. The name chimaera won’t have any meaning to anyone other than you and me.”
I nodded and then sighed a little. I knew what I was going to ask put us a bit off-topic but I had to know after he’d mentioned it. “Can you show me what I was supposed to look like when you designed me?” I asked and Malice looked a little surprised, most likely from the lack of anger in my voice.
He seemed to hesitate for a second there before he waved at the hologram and what appeared was something like myself but clearly different. The image was nude but it didn’t bother me, what did was the tail, the short crown of six horns right at my hairline and the slightly thicker forearms and legs covered in a formfitting yet thick layer of scales giving the limbs a ridged appearance where the bones were closest to the skin.
The musculature was the same sort of Greek marble statue type ripped but in a powerful yet athletic frame, a perfect blend between speed, strength, endurance and mobility. I still found it strange to engineer fitness but apparently, Chimera all had a type of metabolism that kept our muscles from atrophying as fast under normal circumstances. On the other hand, we had a type of fitness limit where it would take a lot of work to increase something like strength once this soft limit was reached.
The bio-engineering that Malice was apparently capable of was akin to magic to me.
I narrowed my eyes a little at the image but if I was going to grow into this form then I was most sceptical about the tail. Ugh sitting would be a nightmare. I looked down and then noted a few buttons on the side of my seat and after a brief explanation from Malice, I now had a small screen hologram floating next to me allowing me to get a better look.
I flipped the image and noted that the middle third of my back would grow to have the same large yet flexible scales that now just protected my spine. I also noted, with a bit of relief, that there wouldn’t be anything else growing out of me safe a tail. I had been expecting wings or extra limbs of some sort but I guess Malice isn’t that much of a mad scientist.
As I read through the desired traits of the noble caste for the chimaera and how everything had been meticulously cultivated for specific traits to combine into the whole I had to change my opinion of him. He was still a dick but I’d be lying if I didn’t say he deserved to be called a brilliant genius and an inspired one at that when it came to genetic manipulation. He’d even added a preferred walk and mannerisms into the very genetic structure. The nobility of the chimaera race was in essence supposed to be regal apex predators and they’d act like it.
A single comment next to a certain sequence of the code even said. “In case of any action that would cause submissive behaviour towards anyone other than a noble chimaera of a higher standing the reaction is to be violent and final.” That meant, at least to me, that anyone stupid enough to try and threaten or dominate a noble chimaera will be getting their throats ripped out. I think I’ll have a more… stable caste as our diplomats. It wouldn’t do to have any outburst against us to be a violent but quick death on the others part, it might make diplomacy near impossible.
I tilted my head as I thought that. On the other hand if carefully moderated it might be possible to leverage that meeting a noble cast would be a high honour and would also make it rather clear that anyone not showing respect and is fair in our dealings will know that if they meet a noble they’re dead.
I had to admit it was kind of a double-edged sword though. I’d have to craft it through carefully with Malice later.
“Well, at least I don’t have wings.” I dryly said with a thin smile.
“Then I take it we will delay chimaera production until we have our foundation fully set up then?” Malice asked me getting back on topic.
“Yeah, I’m thinking we need corvette's at least as each clan’s ship, not only that but we also need as much info to train them properly.” I said as I placed one hand to my forehead and sighed a little. “That doesn't mean we can’t set up the crew for the dauntless as well as begin putting up the crews for our star hold and the Alp base.” I then said with a slight smile.
Malice smiled right back. “Ah going back on the topic for the clans what are you thinking of their numbers?” When he asked me I had to take a long while to think as it also meant I was coming up at least in part with some of the chimaera’s castes.
“Well, I’m thinking two heavy troopers, six normal and two scouts with a leader as part of the warriors of the clan with the clan’s head as the leader. Then we’ll require an armourer to take care of and hopefully fabricate weapons and armours along with a mechanic to take care of the ship and any vehicles they might acquire. Then of course a pilot and navigator, this could be a single individual if possible. Then I’d say a doctor or healer and an information gatherer that should be able to get into a planet’s systems to gather all the information they might need for a job or simply to survive.” I then explained.
Malice thought a moment and then smiled a little. “That last one would most likely also bring all of their information to each clan gathering which will provide us with intelligence on a variety of topics that we can parse out at a later date. Good idea.” He said with a genuine smile.
I hadn’t actually thought of that though but I decided to let him think I had. “Exactly so I think four normal castes with two or three sub-species focused on similar but differing tasks and then we can have the mystic’s a caste of their own?” I said instead.
Malice nodded. “I think I get it. For warriors its essentially heavy, medium and light troops. Then flight type crew could be made into pilots and gunners at least. Craftsmen would be armourers, mechanics, craftsmen and builders. Then our administration would be Agents, administrators, diplomats and researchers. Then we can simply divide the noble class into mystics of each of the three distinctions, with knights, mages and nobles.”
I stared almost open-mouthed at him. Instead, I cleared my throat and nodded. “I think that’ll fit rather well though if possible let’s try and put a command type that is the sum of all subspecies of a caste… or simply leave most leadership roles to the noble caste.” I said, pointing out the only thing I could really point at as a problem or shortsightedness.
“Good idea, having a secondary leadership caste responsible for a single type of caste would lower the load on the noble class allowing for more broad decisions to them instead of the minutia of smaller details.” Malice replied before he looked over at the projector and a run of several images ran through it so fast I barely had time to blink.
Seeing as I had his wicked mind rolling I stood up, wincing at the pain in my ribs. As I was leaving I stopped and looked down at my ribs and then back over towards Malice. “Malice, do you have any data or even video from when I boarded the other ship?”
Malice turned his head a full 180 without moving his body and stared at me. “I can compile the data and video recorded into a fully 3d simulation of what you experienced. Would you like me to do so now commander?”
I shook my head. “I’m going to rest again, I’d like it if you could have it ready for me when I wake up. I need to know what my mistakes were and I know I made a few. I think the only reason I survived is because of the sheer speed and power of this new body… well that and that personal shield you gave me.” I said smiling appreciatively at him.
“I shall do so Commander. I will also compile some training scenario’s when we have a proper training facility for your convince. Ah, right I also forgot to report another thing.” Malice began to reply to me.
Ten minutes later I was lying on my bed and slowly falling asleep again. I only had six days left of rations on board the ship. Maybe going to earth to hunt or finally take a look at the aliens in this dimension while I leave the system to continue its build queue unprotected.
With those thoughts, I went to sleep once again.