–Twenty hours before nuclear detonation-

My last human memory was of me, naked in a tube filled with goo. Then Jim, the tax collector who plundered four billion people for the Singularity’s war machine, pressed a button and I felt no more. I could hear him talking but all sensation left my body and soon even his voice began to diminish. Volume falling gradually until silence. I wasn’t in the cryotube any longer. At least that solved my academic probation problem. So I’ll call this a win.

A thought stabbed my heart. Was the college even there? Ages 12 - 45 encompassed all college students and half the staff. Going back to Earth alone wasn’t enough. I needed transports and starships to ferry survivors. If I wasn’t already dead.

Hours, years, or seconds passed, with my consciousness existing in total oblivion. I would say floating but there was no sensation, no impulses, no desires whatsoever. Apathetic in totality. Who cared if Baz cheated on me? I caught the leeches red handed. No longer could they siphon away my life, money, time, emotions. They were gone and I was free. Now if only I could find a cutie on Syrak-9…

“Maybe I should settle for a cat.”

I wanted to smile, deep within the wrinkles of my brain new connections began to form leaving me with a question I could not contemplate. Who was I? My memories were Apollo’s, old corridors I re-explored as space ticked onward. Baz, Ashley, mom, dad, Savannah. They were all present. In hindsight, it was hard to miss Dad’s cheating, harder still to miss the signs Baz showed. Always spending a bit too much time alone with Ashley. Always arriving at my apartment an hour before I got home.

I sigh, hoping death would find the siblings and I would never again have to see those four people. Savannah though, I have questions for her. She must have known. Unfortunately, I’ll probably die in this sensationless cryotube. It would have been nice to meet my youngest sibling, or start a family with someone I love. But that’ll never happen now-

Darkness suddenly filled my world, the sort of darkness that you see with closed eyes. Not total black but the sort of darkness that swirls and waves and beats. Sensation returns. Warm humid air blowing across my face. Sound comes next, creatures move, some hooved, some clawed. Grunts and squawks rattle around my head until I hear Jim speaking.

Jim, that damn publican.

“Sorry about that, you’d think with how often we work together I’d eventually learn all your quirks but no job is ever the same. There ya go, all brainwaves rising. She’s coming too. Might be awake already so be conscious of that. Oh, give her some time to adjust from a human being to–” There is a pause, Jim is probably gesturing towards me. “Whatever you put her in will take some adjusting. Don’t drop the whole Collective on her head at once. That being said, I have high hopes for this particular mind. Very high hopes. Let me know how she pans out for ya. Anyways, congrats on your own personal Matriarch. It’s been a pleasure doing business with the collective.”

A raspy voice answers, somehow moist and bitey, as if the speaker has a mouth with too many teeth or multiple jaws. Maybe even a split jaw. I exhale, thinking how ugly such a creature would be, as my own jaw splits into four jaws. I cock my head, neck feeling more weight than it has ever supported before and feeling lighter, stronger. Something feels wrong, actually scratch that. EVERYTHING feels wrong. Taste returns, and three tongues explore my mouth, categorizing each tooth with an ‘ouch’ factor. Or approximately how deeply each of these sawblades prick my tongues.

“Ah, the last piece falls into our puzzle. Jimmy, today you may have saved the galaxy. Our orders come from the highest authority and require this one.” Rasps out the voice my body recognizes.

“Saved the galaxy? Ha, saved my wallet more like. I appreciate the notion but I’m no savior riding in on a white knight. Just glad to be of service. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a few more drop offs to make, unless I can interest you in a hold full of biomass.” Says Jim.

“We haven’t the conveyance. Nor the drop pods to convey additional biomass. Thank you Jimmy.” Says the bitey rasper.

His voice irritates me, so similar to an old acquaintance. Savannah once brought home a boy with a split tongue, said he was great at kissing but not much else. Is that what I've become? A good kisser?

I can’t feel my arms yet, but feeling is slowly creeping down my torso, I waggle my shoulders, discovering that my front assets have moved rearwards. Oh no. Someone’s turned me into a blow up doll, and they’re an ass guy. Why take away my tits!

Then the feeling reaches my ribs. My chest isn’t just reduced, it’s totally flat, now covered in a smooth carapace. Hands regain feeling, these aren't human limbs, thin muscular, and once more armored with chitin. More flexible too, I reach back to explore my backside, claws tip tapping across where my glutes should be and finding a dorsal crest running down my spine, skin that keeps spikes protected. Venomous spikes, to kill predators. Or large prey. In a pinch I can rip them out and use them as javelins.

On reflex my mouth begins to water, two of my four jaws clicking in front of my face. No, they aren’t jaws. I have mandibles, like an ant but sharp enough to shave and thick enough to crush a refrigerator. Or a person. I know because this body remembers tearing technomancy engineers apart, invading their world, tunneling beneath their cities and eradicating all human machines. More memories split my skull, flooding me with thoughts of who this body once was. A matriarch of the Endless Collective, a sort of experimental warlord within an organic army.

Experimental? Then it hits like a wrecking ball. The mental blocks. The Endless only push forward, we conquer, never looking behind, never seeking our creators. It bores into my consciousness like a thousand fire ants, digging long tears of blood down my cheeks. I weep. Losing sensation as I once again fall into sleep.

Hours later I awake. Though it could be minutes for all I know. Green light fills my bedroom. Except the bedroom is a green pool of bioluminescent fluid, which tastes surprisingly delicious. Slightly sweet, with just enough salt to compliment the wondrously savory chunks of meat. Texture is underrated when it comes to food. There is something uniquely satisfying about sinking two jaws into a piece of meat and sheering it. Flesh resisting just enough to know it was once a formidable foe, before fangs touch their opposites, cleaving flesh.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

I’m eating my enemies.

Was not expecting this today…

My eyes finally open, exiting the pool I somehow slept in, fully submerged. Which is how I realize this body isn’t remotely humanoid. More legs than I can count propel me out of the pool, not quite centipede, but more than six. Each limb bearing six joints. More flexibility than a slinky. Green liquid flows off my lower half, revealing an even greater change. As a Matriarch it is my duty and honor to bear the next generations of warriors and earn the name of Endless. Four wombs are visible on my back, with creatures growing in each of them. Spawned from the biopool and my own genetic material with guidance from the Marquis of Survival, Zazathur.

I’m pregnant. With quadruplets.

“How did this even happen? I’m a virgin!” I grumble, the alien mouth mauling speech.

If I have to carry something to term, getting laid is the smallest possible compensation! This is wrong! What the hell!

Memories chide me, this body is a Matriarch, I’ve carried thousands of children in my perpetual war, and will bear many more. Four visible uteri are only the tip, I have twelve. All of which are occupied.

Worse, I’m capable of selectively editing genetic material then kick starting replication. In short, I can fuck myself in a totally literal sense. My memories have no personality, instead they offer up information that should be relevant. There are no male Matriarchs. No need.

“Jim. What the hell.” I whisper, exploring my new body.

The closest thing imaginable to this is a Drider or Centaur from Dungeons & Dragons, a game Bazzhole and Whorley convinced me to play. It really wasn’t my thing, I had decided to play a shy rogue, the quiet type, while Ashley went with a moonlighting Bard so she could romance the NPCs. A game she soon aimed at Baz. How could I have missed that? Just how long were they going behind my back?

Sorrow translates into fear, and three prehensile stingers push out of sheathes on my rear abdomen, where a spider might keep their spinnerets, albeit those do not glisten with lethal venoms. Dorsal crest contracts, pushing more spines out of skin sheathes, each an envenomed blade I can forcefully eject towards enemies. Kinda like intentionally sharting death at mach speeds.

This body is actually pretty great. Potent, larger than a horse, or bull… No, those creatures are too small to compare, I’m more of a zerg Queen, the HOTS variant not the flying eyeball with buck teeth. Except I have four shoulders connected to my torso. Two are small things, positioned where the human half of a centaur’s would be. Consequently pushing the other two arms down to my waist where the insectoid thorax with wombs meets my torso. There my arms rest, folded. Like a praying mantis with spear tips and serrated edges. I extend one, wincing as my human mind rewrites itself to this body. It’s as if my pinky finger is suddenly a complete arm and the limb shoots out, punching a six foot slash into the wall.

Mental chastisement grabs my neck, choking the life out of my brain.

“WHY HARM ME?” It demands.

“Eck- so- sorry! Accident!” I gasp, all dozen of my limbs jerking awkwardly.

The force releases my body. I’m not sure if it intended to toss me, but the release flips me backwards sending me splashing into the biopool. Worker drones, creatures similar to ants appear and seal the gash in the ship, ignoring me. Alive for five minutes and already pissed off the mayor, or uh, shipmind.

Okay, lets not do that again. I think, slowly working through each muscle, stinger, limb, and inch of the new me. Which is when I see the first message.

>Executrix Alaea: Felt like someone just tried to strangle me. Is someone there? I’m Athena…

I close my eyes, but the text remains. Weird, but I’m not doing anything other than zerg yoga right now, may as well respond.

>Matriarch Hygieia: I’m Athena… Sorta. Last thing I remember was being pulled out of my body.

>Executrix Alaea: Matriarch Hygieia? Like, Hygieia Athena? Weird reference. But if you’re not human anymore… Eh, makes as much sense as my new body, or this damn crystal ball.

>Matriarch Hygieia: I’m not even close to human. Like a pregnant zerg queen. More armor, and twelve wombs I have to fuk myself.

>Executrix Alaea: Lol. wtf. That’s gross, not funny.

Blue light appears around me, a field of psychic power that pops in the same millisecond it forms. Or my senses are too slow to capture lightning.

>Executrix Alaea: WTF! I thought you were joking… Girl, I'm so sorry.

>Matriarch Hygieia: Relax, this body doesn’t seem to have a pity circuit. I make warriors. Simple as.

We spend hours talking, each subtly testing the other, suggesting false memories only for the other to correct us. There is no doubt, we are one being.

I pass the time weaving genetic strands together, incubating life not seen in this galaxy. The Endless collective isn’t quite endless, having only assimilated quintillions of different genomes. But somehow they still haven’t created bioforms directly equal to zerglings. A correction I begin to make immediately.

The only hesitation comes from having to- uhm… produce them myself. No way in hell is my coochie pumping out ten million lings so I develop compromises. Favoring quality over quantity at every turn and making 100% sure the progeny will need time outside of me to develop fully. A compromise few other Matriarchs seem willing to make.

My first brood is done in an hour, dropped in a green egg which they tear asunder with crystalline claws, fancy, but it was one of twelve mutations for claws and I chose the one that cut the deepest. Okay, maybe I just liked to bling out my zerglings. Can you really blame a girl? Another hour passes and the Shipmind orders my doglings away for examinations.

I have no wish to be critiqued, but this is standard procedure for the collective. Shipmind is always watching, monitoring ten thousand variables as it hurtles through the galactic darkness, monitoring every drop of biomass and molecule of gas aboard our bioship. With so many variables some shortcuts become commonplace, like tracking bioforms as a whole and not their ingested biomass.

An oversight I exploit fully. Gradually inflating my exterior and absorbing more materials to continue my manipulations within the teeny tiny amount of wiggle room. Jim warned me not to reveal my nature. So I won’t risk meeting what spacefaring bugs would call a ‘medic’. They’d probably chop me up and retire me into a pool of acid.

All other biomass is tied up, devoted to the cause. I swallow uncomfortably, hoping they didn’t take my doglings off to be recycled. We’ll be landing soon. On a world that would love nothing more than to kill every last member of the Collective. Two lings won’t be enough to protect me. I’ll need more creatures and set to making them.

Our mission is clear, a world with a forested half, beautiful and taller than Lothlorien, and the other half an irradiated husk. Dead, but we must fight to acquire Solarium. A rare mineral only found in the galactic core, deeper than ships can traverse without being crushed or torn apart by the infinite gravity of a supermassive black hole. This world must have once been a rogue planet, somehow transiting the galactic core and being bombarded with the mineral hundreds of billions of years ago, before Earth was even dust.

Oh, that’s right. Earth, that’s home. I must take over this planet to save home. That is my deal with Jim. The price of mom’s safety.