Selene sat on a a fallen log somewhere in the forest a few acres away from the Sequester. The tiniest scantid was near her investigating every little thing. It desperately wanted to obtain biomass, build hive. Profit. The poor little thing.
She was still thinking of a name of the planet. Which the colony would probably share as they usually do.
But what? How do you even name a planet?
There were trees, clouds, and squirrels the size of people. Or at least squirrels the closest animal she knows to compare them to.
Selene asked Dr. Bryant why life was so similar in the system. And he said that similar environmental factors often led to similar evolutionary paths. Not that there weren't strange alien things like giant squirrels. It's just that weird eldritch things like encephalons were one in a million it seemed.
Raymond had a problem with how she treated her Zykra, she wanted her Zykra to understand affection and things other than fury and power. He didn't get it. The encephalons treated their Zykra like weapons, and she wanted to be opposite of them.
They were the reason he had to leave Endelon. So his prejudice wasn't unfounded. She kind of felt too. But her Zykra weren't those Zykra.
She pat the little scantids head.
When she looked up she saw Zephyr hiking by in the distance. A beam of sunlight came down between the tree leaves and shone through her blonde hair. A scantid followed her protectively as Selene had ordered it to.
It's been awhile since she drew. So she flipped open her black art book and drew what she saw. Zephyr and the little scantid, but other things too.
It was about time she relaxed. She couldn't do all the things she does if she didn't recharge every once in awhile.
As she was doing crosshatch shading on the rough outline of the scantid a voice came through on her backpack.
"Ms. Carrington, I believe I found an adequate hive location."
Her drawing hand stopped.
"Give me a couple hours." she said. Then continued.
She packed her clothes into the backpack after transforming. Then flew to the coordinates Dr. Bryant sent her.
It led to a large cave mouth ten meters tall with a waterfall flowing over it obfuscating much of the caverns entrance. Emptying into a lake which also led inside.
Her wings created a buzzing sound as she went in side.
"Careful, there are large fish in this lake. They're about the size of killer whales with forearms. They're rather grabby." Dr. Bryant warned.
They'll be little more than biomass soon. This place was perfect.
The inside opened up to be much larger than the entrance would lead one to believe.
There was a hole in the ceiling overgrown with ferns and other undergrowth. Trees looming over it and sunlight pouring in lighting the space slightly. The light cast down onto porous rock. Pocketed from many years of exposure to rain and the elements.
There were other caves here. A maze of them that led off in different directions. Varying in size. Webs were strewn across the room in massive white drapes. Bundles of fish, giant squirrels, and the shapes of other creatures lay suspended in the web.
"You'll have to evict the current residents of course." a voice came from her backpack.
Selene chortled; "You couldn't of led with that?"
"The fish are much more dangerous." he clarified.
She began to do stretches.
"Guess it's time for some bug on bug violence."
"Technically these creatures are arachnids, not insects. Different evolutionary path."
Semantics. They had carapace just like bugs. Mandibles and lots of legs.
"To me."
She called to her scantids. Specifically those who weren't assigned guard duty around the Sequester.
Just then a shadow passed behind Selene. It lowered itself from the ceiling on a thread. A tick-shaped shadow hung from an impossibly thin string.
The tiny scantid on her shoulder did the scantid version of a growl. Mashing it's mandibles together creating a chittering sound and it wiggled it's butt in preparation to pounce.
Selene lashed out with her tail severing the string in an instant.
A high pitched screech came from the massive spider then as it landed on it's back with a thud. It quickly righted itself and charged at her.
"Handle my lightwork."
She told the scantid. The beagle sized scantid leapt from her shoulder and tore through the spider many times it's size like a bullet. The scantid didn't expect this and hit the ground on the otherside of the spider face-first. It rolled forward a few times, covered in green slime.
They really needed to learn that most things weren't half as tough or strong as they were. In comparison to their size.
The spiders corpse laid in a heap. A hole torn through the center of it. Dripping.
A few moments of quiet passed before there was the sound of rain. Or at least a sound similar to rain.
Dozens of spiders roughly that size emerged.
Since when were spiders pack hunters?
They clambered out of the caverns many caves and across the webs hung around. Surrounding her and the tiny scantid.
"Get them!" she said.
The scantid roared fiercely and ran to climb the wall. It made it a few feet before getting it's foot stuck on the web and tripping. It rolled down the web collecting it as it went.
By the time it reached the floor of the cavern it was a little scantid bundle with it's head sticking out.
It chittered it's mandibles angrily.
Selene palmed her face.
"Well, bring it on then. This is going to be so gross."
The spiders crawled straight at her, ignoring the captured little scantid. Who was currently cleaving it's way out of the web only to get itself caught again.
She tried to stab them at a distance with her tail. But their slimy blood still splattered her at times.
One leapt onto her back. It was as if she wore a cartoonishly large backpack the size of a car. She stood straight unaffected by the hundreds of pounds of weight.
It clamped down on her head. Which covered itself with a carapace helmet moments before it's fangs touched her. It's barbed fangs only sparked off harmlessly.
Her tail quickly slithered between her and the spider before flinging it off casually. Which sent it flying before cracking it's exoskeleton against the wall like a egg dropped on concrete.
"Maybe I should carry guns."
She could launch spurs from her hands, but that was very limited in ammonition.
She flexed her claws and they grew a few inches.
They dogpiled her. Attempting to stab her with their sharp legs and bite her with their venomous fangs.
She pirouetted, spinning on a single talon that grew out of her heel. Her free leg, arms, and tail turned her into a blender—shredding the spiders.
Goopy green chunks clung to her then.
"Ew. Ew." she plucked a twitchy leg off her shoulder and dropped it.
"Dr. Bryant?" she called on the radio attached to her backpack.
"Yes, Ms. Carrington?"
"Send Raymond and Dan out here with a flamethrower."
"Good idea." he replied.
With the spiders dealt with all that remained was clearing the web which seemed so difficult for scantids to do.
Her human companions handled it. Burning it away.
Meanwhile Selene headed out into the newly created clearing next to the lake. There was a series of charred stumps remaining with blackened grass around where the Sequester was now parked.
"Fucking gross." Zephyr said when seeing her.
"I'm not transforming back until I have this shit off me." Selene said as she walked to the shower room on the lower level. It was across from the once-cells now-closets in the room with the ladder.
She dangled the web-bundled scantid over her shoulder with a thread.
The steaming water pelted her carapace with maximum water pressure. Then she began to cut the web and free them.
"I need a gun." Selene told Dr. Bryant as she dried her hair with a towel.
"Zykra do not use tools Ms. Carrington."
"What do you call this?" she said referencing to the ship around them.
He looked back down at his tablet.
"...A temporary compromise."
"You said it yourself, my Zykra are different. And I want to use technology. Screw this hippy-dippy 'natural organic' only crap. Getting covered in gore every time is disgusting. And I don't like what it does for my image. My Zykra form is all pretty when I leave, then I come back looking like the villain from a horror movie."
Dr. Bryant gave her an annoyed sidelong glance.
"..Fine. But I can't say for certain how the other encephalons will react though. But you shouldn't have to deal with them for some time yet. What kind of weapon were you considering?"
Selene thought for a moment.
"Maybe a spear. A spear-gun. Or a giant axe or sword. A huge carbine with a bayonet. I'll draw it and get back to you."
He was no gunsmith, but he could handle getting ahold of someone who was. Was she relying on him too much? He seemed annoyed.
"You do that... In the mean time, are you going to get started on the hive?"
She nodded. "The scantids get depressed when they're not hiving. Plus that Adler guy won't support the colony if he doesn't think we're doing something productive."
"Splendid. May I accompany you?"
Selene shrugged; "May as well."
The scantids hacked up biomass and began converting the cave. The floor leveled out as the brown fluid crawled across it and hardened to steel-like carapace.
It went up the walls, and across the hole in the ceiling. Which only partly obfuscated the light creating a semi-transparent tan window. Casting shadows of veins like branches onto the ground of the cavern.
"Marvelous." Dr. Bryant said as he stepped onto a hardened section of floor. "This must've taken millions of years of controlled evolution, surely."
A tub was rising out of the floor. Pipes of chitin opened up along the bottom like jacuzzi jets.
"What's that?" Selene asked.
"Ah. Once a hive is of sufficient size, it will begin to produce facilities like these. This is a nursery to store larvae. There is a Zykra variant you can produce that will continually create larvae for you. But for now, you can habitually deposit larvae here to gradually create Zykra. It will soon fill with acid similar to the sort that your claws produce."
"Ah."
Nothing would surprise her at this point.
A scantid entered the mouth of the cavern dragging the corpse of a giant squirrel.
"What's that one doing? I thought they just ate them before turning them to biomass?"
Dr. Bryant nodded.
"They do when they're require mobility. But when a hive location is determined they will bring entire corpses back. As there is only so much biomass each scantid can contain. They will create a corpse pile to divide the labor of converting it."
And she didn't order them to do any of it. She only said that this was a hive. And to keep it limited to this cave and never allow it to grow above ground. The growing carapace walls themselves seemed to even acknowledge her order.
Something began to grow up around the waterfall entrance.
"...What's with the giant butthole door?" Selene asked.
Dr. Bryant scoffed; "It is what it seems like Ms. Carrington. Zykra hives are meant to be entirely enclosed systems. Capable of surviving the vacuum of space, as all Zykra systems are. That door may share unpleasant similarities to human biology, but there is a Zykra variant you can use to make changes to the design of it... I'm still going through and drafting human names for each variant."
"...Just how many Zykra variants are there?"
"Hundreds." he said, feverishly tapping around on his tablet.
Damn. She had a feeling this was going to get way more complicated from here on out.
"Well the first thing I want to focus on is extending the amount of time the hive can work without me around. Without attacking or hurting people. That don't attack them first at least."
"It will require sufficient biomass Ms. Carrington, but a worthwhile investment. For now add larvae to the nursery, and we will require a human body."
"Yeah, yeah-" she went to walk over to the nursery tub and stopped. "Wait what?"
"To create the Zykra variant you speak of it would require assimilating the genetic information of humans. To adequately mirror your will that is. There is existing encephalon-adjacent variants capable of similar directives, but they will not have such a potent affinity for your desires. A human would be far more capable of correctly interpreting your will."
Selene wasn't sure how she felt about that. A corpse? Where would she find one? They were a million miles from the nearest colony.
"Will it be a zombie?" she asked.
"No. It will be sentient, with memories of their previous life, in all likely-hood. Depending on the stage of decomposition. The conversion process is far different than the process you experienced. You were living, and created with the intention of commanding Zykra. This 'Aboleth' variant is far lower in the chain of command and is created from a dead host. But it is no zombie, you'll understand when you see them."
"So you're saying if I get a smart human host, the better the Zykra will be?"
Dr. Bryant smirked; "Very astute Ms. Carrington. Yes. I'd recommend an individual with experience leading military forces, so they can lead assaults or defenses without your input at all times."
She took it back. Things still surprised her. She was a freaking necromancer.
"I'll talk to my dad and uncle about it. I'm sure there's a puck official he wants to see crossed off. So—I just bring them back here? And tell a larvae to become an Aboleth?"
"Yes. Envision your will and the larvae will do the rest. Imagine a Zykra capable of command. It works much like how your form does. You imagined having a set wings. There are many Zykra variants with wings, but these specific ones were chosen according to your tastes. Simply imagine and the Zykra genome will do it's best to accommodate. Smart, controlled evolution. It's what sets the Zykra apart."
"What's the difference between these Aboleth things and those infested I saw on lamda?" she asked.
"Biomass and time to create mostly. Those 'infested' as you so eloquently put are hardly Zykra at all and are meant to be destroyed soon after creation. They have no sentient will, much less any strategic capabilities."
Selene sighed.
The hive was really coming together. So quickly too. And if she wanted any help shouldering the burden of running it she'd have to find the smartest, freshest cadaver commander available.
Guess she knew what her next mission was.
"When will the resistance resources arrive?" she asked.
Dr. Bryant checked his tablet. "That is... Roughly four days from now. Potentially eight. It depends the quality of their nav-data. Considering we are currently beyond the outer-rim."
"Plenty of time then. Behave yourselves." Selene ordered, the wave of command emanated from her like a gust of wind. The yellow eyes of her green-speckled scantids flashed. An order she's been slowly refining to encompass several different directives.
Maintain the hive. Do not expand it. Do not attack humans unless attacked first. Do not travel so far. And things like this.
She left the waterfall cavern with Dr. Bryant and walked the rim of the lake back to the Sequester.
Hopefully there was a high rank puck official close by that was particularly cruel and nasty, so that she wouldn't regret what she was about to do.