QS Dienekes and the newly elected Serenity of Skion step into the space station, where a senior scientist waits patiently.
“Thank you for meeting me,” Mara says, “I’ll be briefing you on the situation.”
Engineers and science crew hustled through the enormous facility. Mara took the men through several locked pods and into the impressive secure area.
“This is a fascinating station. I don’t think I’ve seen one like it before,” the politician remarked.
“We do important work here,” she replied, “We test swarm forms here and while we learned so much on the battlefield during the original swarming of Skion, we’ve made incredible progress in the lab since.”
Inside the room were numerous liquid tanks containing swarm specimens.
“I know you have questions, but allow me to walk you through all we have learned.”
“You’ll recognize these variants from the swarming. The bulk of the swarm were these with the longer limbs and disproportionate stinger. These are ‘Warriors’ because they are birthed in huge numbers to dominate local ecosystems.”
“And these are ‘Assimilators,’ which I’ll explain in a moment.”
Mara took the men to a different set of pods containing familiar fleebnorks that glowed red and green.
“These bright specimens are known to the Brikverse as fleebnorks. They feed on anything, especially power cables, and can survive in any environment. Not only this, but they can only be killed by fire. You won’t remember fighting any of these on Skion, because they thrive in space, and are the end result of generations of fleebnork activity.”
“So all of these species work together?” Dienekes asked.
“We used to believe they were a different subspecies,” Amara explained, “but now we know they are, in fact, a different sexual expression. Not male, nor female, but a secret third and even fourth thing. The warriors do the fighting and the assimilators create the breeding grounds, among other things.”
“You see, they have an additional organ on the underside. They chew the head free of the body and then implant themselves through the neck cavity, taking control of the body. Then, we believe, the warriors donate their bodies to create the nesting environment.”
“So they can manipulate tools? Operate machinery? This sounds like a disaster!”
“Yes and no. We don’t believe there’s any feedback to the Assimilator, so complex movements are almost impossible. It can’t feel pain or pressure or tension through the host body. We’ve watched them stand in flame until they melt. It makes them quite resistant to harm, but complex operations and thought are beyond them.”
Another woman entered.
“This is my sister, Mira,” Mara introduced her, “and she will explain the significance of this discovery and of this station.”
“The leading hypothesis on the assimilation strategy is that astral fleebnorks need special breeding environments. The assimilator uses their hosts to create this environment. To test this theory, we released a swarm on this planet, Ynidon Prime.”
Dienekes and His Serenity looked out the window to the planet below.
“I’m sorry, you… released the swarm here?”
“Yes,” Mira said. “They did not have the surplus population or requisite tek to resist, and in short order the planet has completely collapsed under the weight of the swarm.”
The men were too stunned to speak.
Mira continued. “This study has already breathed much life into our understanding of the swarm and the near destruction of Skion. As Mara mentioned, the warriors donate their bodies into huge piles, which we believe is necessary to create the breeding ground for astral fleebnorks, and we only know this because of our operations here. If we can learn how the swarm breed and advance into space we can find all of their breeding worlds and destroy them. At least, that was the original intent behind this project…”
“What other purposes could you have here?”
An image of the Interdimensional Highway announcement came on a screen.
“Our enemies have just given us a new purpose.”
“You would use the highway to spread the swarm?”
“Yes,” Mira said, “we can control where they go, and how many. How often. And nobody knows how to fight them except for us! We can set the portals on the surface, draw the fleebnorks and their hosts to it and unleash them on entire dimensions of our foes!”
“I’m not sure this will work in our favor,” the Serenity spoke up. “The many empires of the Brikverse may turn on us for doing such a thing. How many fronts can we fight at once?”
“A better question: can our enemies fight us on one side and the entire might of the fleebnork swarm on every single one of their settlements? I believe our colony ships would fly into endless worlds in darkness, the bones of our enemies still warm in the mud.”
——
“What do you think, Dienekes?” The Serenity asked when they had a private moment.
“I think you’re the politician,” he replied.
“But you are one of our great heroes. I must know your thoughts.”
“I think you have already decided, Your Serenity.”
“Are my purposes so transparent?”
Dienekes did not respond.
“Will you take charge of the advance teams?” The Serenity asked.
“I will take station with the command modules for now. I will begin assembling the forces.”
“Think of it, Dienekes, an empty Brikverse for us to control…”
Dienekes was silent, staring into deep space, looking beyond the veil to places The Serenity could never fathom.
