Chapter 27: Strategy Game

  “They’re closing off this part of the ship.” I told Eldra and my daughter, who were still staring each other down, “They’re venting the atmosphere.”

  I could see the metal doors closing and the vents were pulling the air from this part of the ship, sending it to other places. But that was a fatal error. The Creep spores and microscopic Zerg clusters were pulled along to other parts of the ship even more rapidly than I originally intended. Besides, they couldn’t actually vent all the air out anymore. There were too many holes in the ceiling and floor. The more they sucked, more air was pulled from the upper and lower decks.

  “Mother, we should stop procrastinating and proceed with the capture of this vessel.” The tiny Broodmother shot a few more Creep clusters out of her ass, which splattered on the walls and ceiling. The purple slime was blown around by the ‘wind’ and some of it even splashed on Eldra’s face.

  “Amon, if this is another trick to try and turn me to the Dark Side, it won’t work. My will isn’t that weak.” The Twi’lek took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She wiped the slime off her face and looked down at her body, “First of all, I need to find some clothes.”

  “Clothes are unnecessary.” The Queen walked over and rubbed some Creep on her mother’s deflated belly, “You require armor.”

  “Ew.” Eldra grimaced as the purple slime covered her blue flesh rapidly and hardened into a thin, elastic film. At first it was like she was just painted purple from the neck down, but then my daughter added more biomass. Causing the material to become thicker and more like the carapace that covered his own body, though it obviously looked a lot more feminine and sensual on the Twi’lek.

  “It still feels like I’m naked.”

  “Your nudity is imaginary.” The little Broodmother’s voice sounded adorable and high pitched because of her small size, “Now follow me. Father is directing our forces. That includes the two of us.”

  “Amon, is she really our daughter?” Eldra looked up towards me and asked that question.

  “I created her from a combination of our genes. Although I’m sure it only felt like a moment for you, we spent what felt like years within your body. Her final form was nourished inside your womb and birthed, uh, well, you laid an egg, but basically the same thing. She considers you her Mother and I’m her Father.” I controlled the Larvae to Morph into Drones once they were fattened up. The Banelings got bigger too, consuming all that biomass was enough to make them grow to the size of dogs, but they could definitely get a lot bigger than that. Realistically, none of my Zerg have a hard size cap, but there are a lot of soft caps to prevent them from just getting stupidly large and outgrowing their usefulness as a unit.

  “Search your feelings, Mother.” The baby Broodmother turned her huge head towards the woman following her out the door, “You know that I am your daughter.”

  “Do you have a name?” Eldra asked as she reached down and picked up a random silver blaster pistol off the Creep-covered ground. As they walked, the purple was overwhelming the silvery gray corridors rapidly.

  “Father named me Zagara, the first Broodmother of the Swarm.” She shot another few Creep Clusters onto the walls and ceiling of the corridor, speeding up the spread dramatically. Then she churned out another few Banelings from her second mouth. Literally, that thing was a second mouth, not a reproductive organ. Blizzard knew exactly what they were doing when they designed Abathur and Zagara. Other Queens don’t have the toothy vertical mouth down there. And Abathur…

  “Zagara, what a lovely name.” Eldra smiled wryly and lifted her leg to avoid the rolling green Banelings that zoomed over to the nearest ventilation duct and ate their way inside.

  “You are my Mother. If you wish, I can take on your surname in your honor?” Zagara looked up at her mother, “Or perhaps you would prefer to grant me a middle name?”

  “I… I wasn’t, I never really expected to get to name a child.” Those blue eyes peeked up at me and she pouted, “Then again, I did consider this possibility a few times. Being captured and impregnated against my will.”

  “I’ve had those kinds of fantasies too. It’s totally normal.” I whispered into her mind and she glared at me in response.

  Eventually she ignored me and turned to her daughter, “Your eyes remind me of my first lightsaber. Made from an Adegan crystal that I found in a cave on my homeworld. But Violet is also a nice name. You could also be Dani, named after Dantooine.”

  “Three middle names would be illogical. Choose one.” Zagara reached the cluster of eggs that were about to hatch. Placing her palms on them one at a time, she checked and made sure their genes were stable. Then the five of them burst at once. Splattering green and purple goop everywhere, which both melted through the metal nearby and also covered the shiny bits in Creep.

  “Zagara Dani Kaitis… It sounds nice.” Eldra chuckled, then quickly ducked and avoided a red laser! Not a plasma bolt, but an actual laser from a ceiling turret! Obviously she didn’t gain FTL movement, but simply predicted where it would aim and avoided that spot. Plus the Force helping out.

  “The most important areas of the ship are the Bridge, Engineering and the Hangar Bay. If escape was the main objective, then I’d say rush for the Hangar Bay and find a random ship. But since you wanna save people, hurry to the Bridge. I’ll deal with the rest.” I gave them some orders, then commanded the newly hatched Drones to split up. One of them went to find the garbage disposal area, where a massive amount of biomass was located. Another went to Engineering, accompanied by a few Banelings. The other three were looking for an airlock to escape outside quickly.

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  “Yes, Father. We will capture this vessel for the Swarm!” Zagara shouted excitedly and spewed several more Larvae out of her crotch-mouth, which rapidly morphed into tiny Zerglings to accompany the two of them as guards.

  “Wait, I need to find my lightsaber first.” Eldra looked around and seemed to sense her weapon. The Kyber Crystal was pretty easy to sense for a Force User, especially a Jedi and their own weapon that they’ve bonded with for years. So much for Jedi and not having attachments.

  “Ah yes, that reminds me.” The little Broodmother reached inside her second mouth and pulled out a long silvery lightsaber hilt, handing it over to her Twi’lek mommy.

  “Wait, how did you-? How in the Force did you make that inside of me?!” Eldra took the hilt and ignited the bright blue blade with a stunned expression, “Can you just make lightsabers from nothing?”

  “Of course not. Kyber requires quite a lot of time to grow to a suitable size to become a Focus Crystal.” Zagara shook her giant head and casually explained, “We discovered Kyber dust build-up in your lungs, Kyber polyps in your bowels, even some Kyber deposits in your bones. We harvested the Kyber and gathered it together into two crystals.”

  “I probably shouldn’t have meditated in the Crystal Caverns without a mask so many times…” Eldra didn’t seem too surprised or concerned, “What about the other crystal?”

  “Father used it for my own personal shield.” The little brat reached out and grabbed her mother’s lightsaber to show off.

  “Be careful!” Eldra quickly pulled her weapon back and then pressed a button to turn the conventional lightsaber off. Yes, I know how to make a lightsaber. It’s not rocket science. If I can make a biological lightsaber, obviously I can make a mechanical one too. Or semi-mechanical… I mean, it still had some organic components on the inside, not to mention the semi-organic Kyber Crystal.

  “Even if I lose a claw, I can grow one back easily enough. Your concern is unnecessary.” Zagara clicked her mandibles and sprayed a few more Larvae out of her lower mouth. The Larvae crawled up onto her purple and green spider-like abdomen, “We are running out of time. The enemies will not wait for us to keep chattering endlessly.”

  “Yeah, I’m really worried about a self-destruct system or maybe another ship will directly bombard this one once the infestation has been deemed unstoppable.” I warned the two of them, then turned my attention back towards the overall situation.

  It felt like I was playing a Strategy Game. Like I was playing Starcraft 2, but with a lot less limitations. It was three-dimensional. I was looking down from above, but the Creep was spreading up and down, not just on a single deck.

  “Master, I am in position.” Hearing that feminine voice, I turned my vision to the Drone in the Garbage Disposal. It wasn’t as large as I expected, but it was good enough. There were thousands of people onboard between the prisoners, slaves and crew members. They used a centralized garbage disposal system, so all that trash went to the same place. Including a lot of biological waste. The toilets generally just dumped shit into space, so a giant septic tank wasn’t an option for biomass unfortunately.

  “Morph into a Hatchery.” I gave her the order calmly. That space wasn’t big enough for a mountain of meat like Izsha or the other Hatcheries I had on Tatooine. The whole ship was too small for that. But it didn’t matter. Size is relative.

  “Master, we have escaped the ship.” My other Drones brought my attention outside the vessel. It was hundreds of meters long and maybe a hundred meters tall and wide. Looking like a giant brown and silver beetle.

  “You, head to the asteroid. You, board that other large ship, there. And finally, you need to board that one over there.” I gave the nameless Drones their orders. Hopefully they’d survive and accomplish their tasks, but even if they don’t, it isn’t a big deal. I’ve lost count of how many Zerg I’ve lost during the Infestation War within Eldra’s body. Maybe I’ve become a little more callus and numb than before? Or maybe I’m just older.

  “Ahhh~!” A Psionic scream brought my attention to a certain room a few decks down. There was caustic green slime everywhere.

  “Aaaaaaah~!” Then there was a physical scream as well. More than one. A dozen people were writing in agony with bile splattered across their bodies. It ate through their protective armor and clothing easily, then started burning through their flesh and bones. All the equipment and Droids in the room were also dissolving or melting.

  “Master, it hurts!” The baby Baneling exploded, but her head and parts of her torso were still intact.

  “Shh, it’s okay. Consume their biomass. I’ll do the rest.” Listening to my words, she calmed down a lot. Crawling desperately over to the nearest, fattest humanoid. It was an Ithorian. Interesting creatures with slits along the sides of their massive necks. Their heads lack mouths and their eyes stick out to the sides of their ‘hammerheads’. As for their bodies, they’re very leathery and their flesh is durable. The girl didn’t survive, but she was still relatively intact. Plenty of biomass.

  “It’s gonna be okay.” I comforted her like a child, because she really was one. It’s funny, most Zerg aren’t so intelligent or emotional, but sometimes there will be one that springs up randomly. A genetic mutation. Perhaps a more ruthless Swarm would cull them to keep cohesion and efficiency at the maximum, but I still couldn’t bring myself to become that much of a monster. It was also unnecessary.

  As she ate, the bile around the room turned from green to purple and once it became Creep, it started feeding and healing the little Baneling. I didn’t think she would make it as a Baneling though. So I decided to give her a little upgrade.

  The bulbous glowing green abdomen was covered in a thick carapace. She grew two extra legs. Plus two forelimbs that were basically big-ass bony scythes that reached upwards. There were lots of big spines along her armored back. She still had some purple flesh showing on the sides below her armor, but it was fine. I made her regenerative abilities much stronger. There were tons of teeth around her giant maw, which had a whole other large jaw below the main one. Three big glowing green eyes looked around the shrinking room curiously.

  “Thank you, Master. I like this form a lot better.” She giggled happily and started devouring the bodies that weren’t completely melted yet.

  *Pioau~!” A blaster bolt flew over and bounced off her shell, but it still startled and irritated the kid. She turned over there and sprayed out a stream of glowing green bile!

  “Aaaaagh~!” It was just a Droid, but it still screamed in agony as its circuits malfunctioned and its armored chassis melted.

  “Interesting. A Roach?” Izsha’s voice entered my mind for the first time in what felt like forever, “It seems you’ve been busy, Father.”

  “Yeah. I’m something of a workaholic.” I opened my eyes, my real eyes, on my real body, and took a real breath of chilly air-conditioned air, “How is everything? Still okay?”

  “Not much has changed, It has only been a few minutes. Your Apprentices are working earnestly to transform C-3PO into a cybernetic organism. Lingling is massacring a Sandcrawler filled with Jawas and some slaves. Destroying everyone and everything in her path. I don’t quite understand her purpose, but she is certainly keeping herself busy. Sharad Hett has found his son and Clan. He is currently guiding them to our Hive Cluster. Prima and her Pack are following them, preparing for Lingling’s inevitable appearance.”

  “That does sound vaguely familiar. Sorry, it’s been a while.” I rubbed my aching head and my Zergy dreadlocks twitched anxiously. I started to wonder if I should switch to something more like Zagara’s black Lekku though. She doesn’t have as many Lekku as I have dreads, but each of her Lekku provides way more computing power, Midichlorian storage and they just generally have more utility as tentacles. My Zerg dreads can barely even move.

  “Do I really want or need tentacle hair though?” I already had the anti-gravity back tendrils. In fact, I’ve thought about going back to the original normal-looking black hair. Not because of aesthetics alone though. Simply because if I compressed the current dreads into thin strands, it might be more beneficial. If someone cut off a tendril, or a dread, it would hurt like a bitch and disorient me, but a single strand of hair wouldn’t matter much. Then again, what are the odds of someone cutting off a single strand of hair?

  “Father, we require assistance!” Zagara’s cry brought my attention back to the fleet of pirate ships fuckloads of lightyears away.