Author’s Note: May the Fourth be with you all :)

  Chapter 28: Pestilence

  “How in the fuck?” I looked at the situation and couldn’t help wondering, “What the hell happened?”

  I literally stopped paying attention for a few seconds and somehow the fgship was ripped in half. One half crashed into a smaller ship and they both exploded. The other half was rapidly spinning and headed towards the asteroid!

  “We have to reach my ship!” Eldra shouted as she ran down the hallway that still had artificial gravity and inertial dampeners active. Otherwise she’d be spttered against the wall along with everyone else on the front half of the broken vessel.

  I looked over at the Jedi Shuttle in the fucked up hangar bay. Zagara and Eldra were fast, but they weren’t moving fast enough to make it in time…

  “Bubble.” I gave Zagara the order and he immediately tched onto Eldra’s back.

  “What are you doing?! We have to escape!” She struggled a bit but was quickly coated in a thick purple cocoon. All the Creep nearby also covered their bodies. The cocoon got thicker and harder.

  “Father, protect us.” My daughter acted like I was some kinda God. Unfortunately, I didn’t have that kinda power. I could only watch as the ship crashed into the asteroid and shattered, sending massive amounts of dust and debris everywhere. It wasn’t as explosive as I expected. That was good though.

  I looked over at the surviving ships in the fleet. It wasn’t difficult to guess that the other two rge ships fired on the fgship. I could see the Drones sneaking onboard though. One floated through the forcefield over the ship’s hangar bay. The other was eating their way through the hull.

  I could see that the Drones I sent down to the giant 300 kilometer wide asteroid were already taking up residence in caves. I had them Morph into Hatcheries. The asteroid didn’t have much of an atmosphere, but there was ‘some’ atmosphere at least. The gravity was almost nonexistent but that didn’t matter.

  “Master, I survived the crash.” My first Roach called out to remind me of her presence. She was obviously injured, but her wounds were recovering rapidly. She wasn’t on the asteroid though. She was in the wreckage of the ship that the back end of the fgship crashed into earlier. She wasn’t the only one to survive either. Part of a Hatchery was still intact enough to be healed, but it would need more biomass.

  “Try to help the Hatchery nearby. Don’t draw too much attention or they might destroy your ship completely.” I was worried about the other big ships firing upon the wreckage. But instead, it looked like they were sending little scavenger shuttles instead.

  “Yes Master.” She responded earnestly and got to work gathering up charred or crushed meat, bringing it over to the half-crushed Hatchery in what was left of the garbage disposal of the first ship. The pieces of wreckage were spinning around at crazy speeds and flying off away from the asteroid. The odds of them surviving were low, but not impossible.

  The Drones over on the asteroid transformed into Hatcheries. A few minutes passed before Zagara regained consciousness and told me, “Mother is alive but severely injured. I am healing her wounds.”

  “Good job. I’m gd you both survived the crash.” I wasn’t too surprised though, because I would’ve felt it if either of them actually died. I saw the injuries that Eldra suffered and it was basically just a bunch of ruptured internal organs. Not a big deal. Zagara and the Force protected her head and Lekku. Those are the most important. As long as her brain isn’t mush, then she isn’t a lost cause.

  “These fuckers are pissing me off.” I saw several of the ships bombarding the crater in the asteroid with turbosers, which were technically giant bsters so I have no idea why they called them turbosers. I guess the same reason they call lightsabers ser swords sometimes? Lasers obviously do exist, so it’s really annoying to me.

  “Father, our position is under attack.” Zagara stated the obvious.

  “Burrow down deeper, just in case they use something stronger.” I didn’t think they’d try to blow up the whole asteroid, because that’d be ridiculous. They also had several bases on the giant asteroid. The amount of losses would be absurd. Greedy pirates wouldn’t make that kinda decision. Still have to be prepared though. I didn’t expect them to blow up their own fgship either.

  “You need Overlords.” I looked over towards the Hatcheries on both sides of the 300 kilometer wide asteroid and commanded them to transform their Larvae into Drones and Overlords.

  “Father! I found an Exogorth!” Zagara suddenly shouted excitedly into my mind!

  “Holy fuck! Final-fucking-lee!” I was excited too though! I mean, it’s not that surprising to find an asteroid-dwelling worm in an enormous asteroid. But this was definitely a huge deal for the Swarm! Because even more importantly than the Exogorths were the Mynocks that usually lived inside of them!

  “It’s very small.” Unfortunately, the Exogorth she bumped into was only about a meter long. There wouldn’t be any Mynocks inside. But that’s fine too.

  “Infest it. Don’t kill or eat it though. They’re sapient lifeforms. They might also have a method of communicating with each other. Since they love collecting creatures inside their internal biomes, I have a feeling they’d be interested in joining us willingly.”

  “Yes, Father.” She fed the long and thin grayish worm some purple creep from her ass. It ate her slimy gunk happily and even thanked her telepathically. Then it led her, along with several Zerglings, Drones and Banelings down deeper into the asteroid. I was right in my assumption that there were more. They hollowed up a rge portion of the asteroid already, having tunnels everywhere.

  “Unng…” Eldra groaned as she regained consciousness. She was wrapped up in a cocoon that was being dragged through the middle of the tunnel by a Drone. The gravity was so low that she floated even without the help of the Drone’s anti-gravity field.

  “Mother, your wounds are being repaired but it will require time. Please remain calm.” Zagara ‘comforted’ her Mom as she floated along the tunnel like a Drone. Even in the lore, Broodmothers had the ability to fly like the original Queens. Those webbing between her legs worked the same way as the webbing for the Drone legs.

  “We’re alive…” The Twi’lek chuckled and then coughed up some blood onto the inside of the purple cocoon. Obviously the blood was quickly absorbed and repurposed.

  “Death is a lie. There is only the Force.” My daughter also liked butchering the Jedi and Sith Codes.

  “How long was I out?” She tried to move, but her whole body was wrapped up tight. Plus, she still had some broken bones and ruptured blood vessels in her limbs that needed to be repaired by the countless Zerg organisms inside her body.

  “A few minutes at most. Those pirates aren’t fucking around.” I peered down inside of one of the ships that was still bombarding the asteroid. It only took a moment for me to find my daughter inside. I ordered her to infest the ship with Creep. She was only a Drone, but my Drones weren’t helpless. Everywhere she went she spread Creep through the air ducts. The spores flooded the whole vessel. Everyone onboard was infected, but they didn’t notice. I was careful. She was careful.

  “Master, I captured the vessel.” The other Drone gave me good news! I looked over there and realized that she basically did the same thing. Infecting everyone onboard, then spreading the Creep more dramatically. She went straight to the bridge, sughtered everyone that could still resist and then the rest were already being completely transformed into Infested… Uh, well, one dude was a human, there was a Twi’lek girl who was probably some kinda sex sve for the Captain, then a Quarren man and finally a green-skinned Mirian girl. Everyone else was irrelevant because they became biomass.

  As the infestation spread, some people turned into literal zombies, while others mutated or transformed into more powerful Zerg-like forms of their original appearance. Others were ripped apart and devoured by their former friends and colleagues. As for the prisoners and innocent people on board… Well, I didn’t have the time or energy to worry about them. If they were kept in Carbonite, they were fine, if they weren’t, then that sucks for them. Or maybe it’s awesome for them? Being infested isn’t necessarily a death sentence. Just look at my cute little Padawan buddy Eldra!

  “I couldn’t save them…” She was having a pity party, “What about Master Yaddle’s ship?”

  “Obliterated.” Zagara stated honestly, “It might have survived the crash, but the subsequent bombardment makes the odds of survival very dim.”

  “I won’t say the ship is fine, but it escaped the hangar before the crash.” I’m pretty sure some pirates used it as an escape pod, in fact, the ship did release a bunch of escape pods. Most of which were filled with infestation by this point. Creep and infected humanoids.

  “Do you know whether Hikari was on board?” Eldra asked, “He’s a Droid.”

  “I’m checking inside.” I had eyes everywhere the Zerg existed, and right now, the Fog of War was fading fast. Inside of the shuttle was completely visible though. Five infested humans, plus some Twi’leks and other common Species.

  “I see a few Droids. One of them is being locked in the brig, while the others are helping to repair or control the ship. The Droids aren’t infested, but the meatbags definitely are… They just don’t know it yet.” I whispered into her mind, looking over towards the battleground inside the wreckage where my Roach was located. Some Larvae had already been spawned by the injured Hatchery. Those Larvae transformed into Drones, Zerglings and Overlords already.

  Bster bolts were flying around inside the chaotic spinning hunks of metal. The Zerglings easily tore through exosuits and deflected bster bolts with their armor. Their wings didn’t work in a vacuum environment, but in a confined space, it was easy enough for them to kick off the walls and dart around. The Drones were just as overpowered though.

  In zero gravity, they basically had no limits in terms of speed. The flying scorpion-like creatures used those crab cws to rip people apart, bringing the biomass back to the Hive Cluster to fuel the regeneration of their mother. I saw the first Roach munching on the mutited corpse of a Wookiee woman, “Master, what are your orders now? How do we survive?”

  “Trust in the Swarm, Roach. You are not alone.” It was a battlefield that stretched over hundreds of thousands of kilometers now. That might seem massive, but in the scale of the sor system where they were located, it was nothing.

  The broken pieces of those ships were flying off towards a gas giant though. They only had a few hours to escape. Whether it’s Overlords or Drones, their anti-gravity abilities could negate the gravitational pull of a gas giant. I know, it’s crazy to think about that, but it’s really not that difficult or complicated. Anti-gravity is broken as fuck. It has limits, but at the higher end of the spectrum, you can even navigate between bck holes and stupid shit like that.

  Anyway, the number of ships in the area around the asteroid base was at least a few thousand. Only two of them were rge enough to matter. All the others were starfighters and shuttles. Some of them were jumping into hyperspace when they saw that shit was going bad. Others were attacking the escape pods to try to deal with the pgue, unaware that most of them were already infected as well.

  On a macroscopic level, it looked like they were fine, but microscopically there were countless Zerg fighting against their immune systems. With Creep covering everything to provide the bases with the nutrients and resources they required to fuel the unending wars.

  Today is the day that it all starts, huh? I mean, I’ve said that a lot, but this time I’m talking about when word of the Zerg will actually spread. Jabba, now these pirates, both on the same day, on opposite sides of the gaxy. They’re gonna start making countermeasures against me now.

  Methods to scan for Zerg, ways to eliminate them faster. They’re gonna design methods to wipe out the Swarm. It’s inevitable. It’s always been inevitable.

  I always knew and I’ve been preparing for a while now, but I guess I just didn’t wanna have to pull the trigger this soon?

  But it is what it is, I guess. Unfortunately, Eldra might be right about something.

  “I really am the Devil.” My vision switched from those Pirates to the sky above Mos Espa. The sandstorm was still raging violently above the crater, while the people down below were still able to walk around in the streets normally.

  They didn’t know. They couldn’t see or feel them. The countless microbes falling down from the sandy sky. They didn’t notice the patches of purple creeping up the walls and into the basements. Infecting the water supply and infesting the waste disposal units.

  Everywhere a Zergling stepped or fluttered their wings, Creep spores would spread.

  Kinda reminds me of Orks from Warhammer. But it’s really the same general concept. The issue is that I’m not some super God like Xel’naga Amon in Starcraft. I can’t mind-control all the Zerg or control them passively. They were still part of the Swarm. They had their programming. But in countless parasites, the ones that actually ascend into macro organisms without my orders could be problematic…

  “Oh well.” I shrugged and started guiding the pirate war again. The asteroid was massive and had several cities on the surface and inside. But more importantly, Zagara and Eldra were brought into the body of a colossal adult exogorth. Where my precious baby girl caught me some Mynocks!