Date Point: 4y 8m 2w 6d AV
The Grand Conclave, Hunter Space
Alpha of the Brood-That-Builds
The Alpha of the Brood-That-Builds could feel its maw watering.
To be a Hunter was to Hunt. The need for it was programmed into their genetic essence, playing even a critical role in their reproduction. A Hunter was only fertile within the few days after a successful hunt, at which point, if so ordered by its Alpha, it might go into a reproductive trance and willingly enter the spawning pools.
There, it’s own young would devour it from within. Small and agile little swimmers with little to their name but sharp teeth would burst in a bloody froth from the disintegrating corpse of their parent, leaving only clean bones and cybernetics to sink to the bottom of the pool.
Over the coming months, live prey-slaves would periodically be thrown in, to be ripped apart in a feeding frenzy by the increasingly mature Hunter young, until they were finally developed enough to haul themselves out of the pool and be escorted away to receive their first implants and join the ranks, to have knowledge and skills force-fed into their brains via cybernetic data shunts, joining the brood of their parent.
The exception were the Brood-That-Builds.
Where a “normal” hunter’s eyes were solid black or red, those of the Brood-That-Builds were identifiable from the moment they clambered from the spawning waters by their green eyes with the distinctive zig-zap pupils. They held themselves slightly differently, their craniums were that little bit larger, their natural claws absent, their endoskeletal structure that little bit better suited for heavy lifting and carrying than for combat.
They were the largest Brood by dint of being swelled by the breeding of every other Brood, as well as their own spawnings, but to the Brood-That-Builds, a successful hunt was something very different.
To them, an engineer’s obsession with problem-solving was as natural as breath and feeding. In their instincts, “prey” was an outstanding unresolved technical challenge, and the “hunt” was a solution to that challenge. To the Brood-That-Builds, installing an ingenious sewerage system was on par with raiding a prey-freighter. Deploying an orbiting array of energy collectors to within millimeter tolerances was rewarded with an ecstasy that other Hunters could only find in the flesh of Humans.
And now, this! The prey of a lifetime, actual sensor records of a Human starship in action, fighting in ways that defied immediate comprehension. A quarry without compare!
The Alpha knew that if it succeeded at this task, it would have to spawn afterwards. The urge would be far too powerful, the pheromones and hormones of its deadly birthing would produce strong Hunters, the finest minds ever seen by the Brood-That-Builds. It relished and anticipated the thought.
The Alpha-of-Alphas was in an indulgent mood, but there were limits. <Impatience; demand> +Can you learn their secrets?+ it demanded.
<Confidence; gratitude> +The Alpha-of-Alphas has given me a fine prey to chase. But whatever solution the primitive deathworld beasts can invent, I can invent also. These secrets will be yours.+ The Alpha Builder replied.
<Query> +And how long would it take to introduce this technology to our brood-vessels?+
<Thoughtful estimation> +That would depend on the nature of the technology, and how much of the Swarm would be thus outfitted+
<Clarification> +The entire Swarm-of-Swarms. Every last ship. This technology allows the Deathworlders to slip their cage and turn it into a wall against us. We will now devote all of our efforts into penetrating their fortress and butchering every last one.+
<Surprise; timid objection> +Greatest One, even if the secret turns out to be trivial, that will take (years).+
<Anger> +Your place is not to object! Your place is to OBEY!+
The Alpha Builder cowered as the Alpha-of-Alphas rose from its Vulza-skull throne and spread its cybernetic claws.
<Placation; Obedience> +It shall be as the Alpha-of-Alpha commands.+ It mentally squeaked.
<Satisfaction> +Good. Get to work.+
The Alpha-of-Alphas paused as the Alpha Builder scurried away. <Threat> +Understand something, Alpha of the Brood-That-Builds.+ It fixed the lesser Alpha with a stern glare from all seven of its eyes. +If you reproduce before every last human has been devoured, then I shall personally filter your spawn from their pool and have them fed to the spawn of another.+
The Alpha Builder swallowed, a subconscious gesture that, unbeknownst to either species, exactly mirrored its meaning in humans. <Fearful Understanding> it sent, and scurried away.
Suddenly, this new prey seemed so much less exciting to it.
__
Date Point: 4y 8m 3w AV
Austin, Texas. United States of America, Earth.
Kevin Jenkins
“Uh…hey. Is, uh, Moira home?”
The man in the door looked him up and down. “If your name’s Kevin” he decided “She ain’t.”
Kevin sighed, and nodded gently. “It is, yeah.”
Anger flashed in the other man’s eye s. “In that case pal, your restraining order-”
“I’ve got this, baby.”
Moira kissed the man in the door on the cheek, and after a quick check to make sure she was certain, he retreated inside. Moira leaned on the door frame.
“He’s right. That restraining order ain’t gone away.” She said.
“I know.”
“Why are you here, Kevin? I thought you were going to leave us in peace.”
“I thought…I was hoping maybe I could try and un-fuckup one thing.” Kevin said.
“What, you’re here to apologise?”
Kevin shook his head. “You and I both know there’s not enough sorry in the world, Moira. Not after what I…” the sentence trailed off. Even know, in the act of cleansing himself, he couldn’t bear to repeat what his own irresponsibility had done to Callie.
“You’re fucking right.” she snarled, advancing out of the house. “She’s inside. God willing, even if she looks out here, she won’t remember who you are. How dare you come here?!”
“I’m not staying.” he reassured. “Just…I know I can’t see her, Moira, but I have to apologise to her.”
“You’re not seeing her!”
“I know,” Kevin repeated. “Look…I’ve got this letter. You read it, you decide whether to give it to her. You can burn it if you want, but I can’t leave without at least trying.”
“Leave?” she asked suspiciously, snatching the letter from his hand. “You came back just to leave again?”
“Earth. I’m leaving Earth. I got a job with the Byron Group, on one of their exploration ships, and I’m leaving. Forever.”
Date Point: 4y 8m 3w AV
Folctha Colony, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches.
Dr. Mary Cleveland
”…Peptostreptococcus magnus…that’s definitely E. coli, no two ways about it…and…yep, I’d bet my life on it, that’s Enterococcus faecium. Well, that clinches it.”
Governor Sandy was no scientist, but he was a highly educated, highly literate man. “Faecium? As in, faeces.” he said.
“Oh yes. These are all Terran species of bacteria, every one of them native to the human gastrointestinal tract.” Dr. Cleveland said, still examining the images being produced by the electron microscope.
“As are the fungi we recovered.” his wife added.
Coin nodded “It’s…aside from the scale, it’s a pretty classic cross-section of the kind of flora you’d find in an ordinary, healthy bowel movement.”
Sandy grimaced, and pinched his nose. “Delaney.” he said.
“Must be. The scar describes pretty much perfectly the direct route from the site of her escape pod to here. If we assume one comfort break a day or so…”
“Even one would have done it.” Mary said. “You can’t blame her, governor.”
“I don’t.” He reassured her. “Is there anything we can do?”
Mary sighed. “I suspect something like this would have eventually happened anyway.” she said. “In the absence of any bacterivores or immune systems capable of keeping them in check, the bacteria and fungi are feasting and reproducing as fast as they possibly can. Deathworld microbes, loose in an ecosystem that simply can’t cope. This was never not going to happen, from the moment a human first landed here.”
Sir Jeremy listened to her patiently. “I thought the disease suppression implants…?” he said.
“Those rid us of a whole raft of communicable diseases based on the case of one human who managed to infect a whole ship full of vizkittiks. They’re actually targeted at a fairly short list of bugs.” Colin shook his head. “They ignore our gut microbiome by design: If they completely sterilized the human digestive tract, it’d probably kill us.”
Sir Jeremy made an exasperated noise. “Bloody….sloppy half-baked alien solutions.” he cursed. “Very well. Is there any way we can stop this thing?”
Wendy shook her head and gave him the hard truth. “Almost certainly not, now that it’s so advanced.” she said, apologetically. “I’m sorry, Sir Jeremy, but all of our noble goals toward conserving the ecology of this planet were doomed before we even got here.”
”…Shit.”
Coming from a man who was not known to swear, this prompted a round of sympathetic nodding. Sir Jeremy had been passionate from the word go about preserving Cimbrean’s native life, and certainly nobody in the colony disagreed with him on that endeavour.
He wiped away a futile tear. “Fine. is there anything we CAN do?”
Colin and Mary exchanged glances. “This…the death of a whole planetary biosphere isn’t exactly our field.” Colin demurred.
“Is it anybody’s?”
“I suppose not.” Colin frowned, thinking.
“The knock-on consequences are total.” Mary said. “No plants means no oxygen. So, we’re on borrowed time now before Cimbrean ceases to be an inhabitable planet.”
Good husband that he was, Colin was on the same wavelength instantly. “And if there’s nothing we can do to stop them from dying, then the only option is to replace them.”
“And the only readily available plants which could survive in soil contaminated with Terran microorganisms would be…well, Terran ones.” Wendy finished.
“You’re proposing a…what, an ecosystem transplant? That sounds like an impossibly large task.”
“Vast.” Colin agreed. “But it’s either that or abandon this planet and watch it die.”
“We’d need to bring in…everything.” Mary said. “Trees, grass, bushes, bees, birds, insects, rodents, birds, fungi, algae, fish, everything all the way up to apex predators.”
“Impossible, surely?” Sir Jeremy protested. “Replacing the ecosystem of an entire planet, that’s…far too large a task.”
“But we don’t need to replace it across the whole planet at first.” Colin pointed out. “If the aliens are right about Deathworld species, and the evidence of this bacterial event suggests that they are…”
Mary nodded “…then we only need to introduce the immigrant species along the length of the scar. They might even help to contain the infection and slow it, if we introduced things in the right order.”
Colin nodded. “Of course, the Terran species would ultimately out-compete and supplant the natives, but if we’re very lucky, a few mutant strains might make it through the mass extinction events and we’d still have a few Cimbrean natives for posterity.”
“Is that feasible?”
The Clevelands looked at each other, back to him and, simultaneously, they shrugged. “We’re not remotely qualified to plan more than a tiny part of that process.” Mary said.
“It’s the precise opposite of what I came to Cimbrean to achieve.” Sir Jeremy objected, though it was at best a defeated token objection rather than a serious dissent.
“She’s already terminally ill.” Colin replied. “She either becomes barren and uninhabitable, or we terraform her. Those are the only options I can see.” He glanced at Mary, who nodded her agreement.
Sir Jeremy sat down, took off his glasses and cleaned them on his tie. “Is this likely to happen wherever we go?” he asked.
“Well…” Colin cleared his throat. His expression confirmed that the answer was an affirmative, and that he really didn’t want to say it.
Wendy finished for him. “They do call us ‘deathworlders’.” She said, and pointed at Firebird’s image of the Scar as the governor put his glasses back on.
“Well…There’s the proof.”