The Life of a Brood Mother Ch. 2
I do not own any of the characters(excluding Ta'yura), worlds, races, or other things in this story. The things mentioned above that are in this story are the property of Blizzard Entertainment.
Ta'yura awoke around 6 hours later. She thought back into her many memories, wondering if her species needed sleep. Peering back she did indeed see an unimaginably large numbers of queens and other Zerg strains sleeping a day or two away each. The curious Brood Mother wondered why any of her species needed to sleep, she didn't feel any different from the previous day, other than at least a little more energetic. She decided not to think about it any farther as she heard those same footsteps of the Queen of Blades sauntering toward her, "I trust your sleep was satisfactory, my daughter."
The Brood Mother quickly changed her mind on the last decision, "Yes indeed it was mother. But I was wondering why we needed to sleep, I don't feel any different." Ta'yura said with a bit of a confused look.
"Well as it stands you don't need to sleep, actually. You could go your entire life without it, but that life would be a shorter one and when you do sleep it keeps your muscles full of vigor." The Queen of Blades said mater of factly.
"Do you have to sleep mother?" The Brood Mother questioned.
"I do the same as any other Zerg. But enough of that," Her voice suddenly turned commanding, "there is something far more pressing than sleep on my mind." The Brood Mother stood and looked at the speaker more seriously. "I have found a small Terran colony on the fringe of swarm controlled space." The Queen of Blades pointed to a particularly bright star, visible through the volcanic haze that hung thickly in the air. "That star has a planet named Shiloh orbiting it, the planet has a diameter of about 10,000 kilometers across and some interesting temperature extremes at certain times of the year, it also has a large moon orbiting it named Bivouac. The planet itself has a number of Terran colonies on it. The one you will be targeting first is a small town founded near one of the major lakes on the largest continent of Shiloh, its name is Bronsonville. The town is built almost entirely underground due to the temperature extremes of the planet, this may make the occupation of the town a bit...tricky." The Queen of Blades paused a moment and thought to herself. "But I'm sure that your favorite strain will make this a slight bit less difficult." The Queen of Blades glanced over at an Infestor resting on the creep.
"But mother, you still haven't made clear what it is you want me to do with this planet." Ta'yura said with a bit of haste in her voice.
"Well it's good to see that you're eager to get going. What I want you to do is infest this planet, starting with that town I told you about. You can use the Infestor to swallow Terrans and infest them or you can order your drones to morph into virophages, these structures will regurgitate an emulsion with the hyperevolutionary virus in it."
The Brood Mother looked over at one of the hulking parasites digging away happily at the hard rocky ground, "So those infestors can swallow Terrans and infest them?"
"Yes that's what I said, I also said that virophages can disgorge the hyperevolutionary virus onto Terran settlements to farther the infestation." She hadn't really said that previously but she decided to add that bit in for good measure.
"Alright, now how do you want me to get there?" Ta'yura asked very confusedly. "I cannot travel through a vacuum."
"You probed the hatchery's memories, you already know." The Queen of Blades was growing moderately impatient.
"Oh, of course, how foolish of me." The Brood Mother thought deep into her memory and found the thought she was looking for. She saw enormous Behemoths drifting through the space in between worlds and picking up air as they passed them.
The Overmind sat, rooted to the nitrogenous earth on a world that he had completely assimilated, thinking of a way to get off when he heard a psionic emanation. This one was different though, this one belonged to something much less inelegant and vastly larger than the Xel'Naga that sat in their Worldships above Zerus watching the Overmind take every last bit of life on that world. This emanation was from a creature that the Overmind did not know existed, and one that traveled through the vacuum of space. "Perfect," Thought the Overmind to himself, "These creatures will allow me to absorb the Xel'Naga that still inhabit the Worldships, and to find the Protoss that the Fallen One has ordered me to assimilate." with that the Overmind called out to these massive creatures that drifted about aimlessly through space.
Ta'yura thought ahead a short while not caring about these 'Xel'naga', only wanting to find information on the entity that she could create to ferry her to another world. She then found what she was looking for, a Leviathan. It bore some resemblances to the original Behemoth but was much more massive and infinitely more use full to the swarm. It had pockets within its bloated backside that could carry entire hatcheries inside of it and an enormous amount of Zerg. "Ah! There it is." Ta'yura said aloud. "A Leviathan, that's what I'm after isn't it?"
The Queen of Blades looked much less bored and impatient and said, "Yes my daughter, that is the Zerg strain you want to birth from a larva"
Ta'yura ordered one of the larvae to morph into a Leviathan. The larva did nothing. Ta'yura was confused at first but upon farther inspection of her memories she saw that it need to have the DNA coding to be paired correctly with the DNA of the Spire. She immediately knew that she had to morph the Spire into a Greater Spire and that the Leviathan aspect needed to be coded into the Greater Spires DNA sequences. She began doing both post haste.
Once both were done mutating and encoding she once again ordered a larva to morph into a Leviathan. The larva did something that was very unusual for a larva to do, it moved away from the feeding tube on the side of the hive and cocooned itself inside of a large membrane of leathery skin, similar to how drones did when they mutated into a building. The cocoon was fundamentally different though, it had a tiny Leviathan growing inside of it, swimming around and stretching its body to become larger. The cocoon sat and pulsated for around an hour and then a spike tipped tentacle burst through. Ta'yura jumped at the sudden movement and stared in amazement as the leathery membrane tore open and a gargantuan beast came forth from it, it was easily 3 times larger than the hive it had been near just an hour ago. It laid on the creep covered rock for a few seconds and then with a mighty shriek it thrust itself up in the air with the tentacles on its underbelly, and began to expel air from its abdomen and thorax, keeping it levitating in the upper troposphere of the planet. The Leviathan loosed a mighty roar and turned around to face Ta'yura.
The Brood Mother looked up at her creation and saw a beast, larger than some of the average islands in the lava behind it, clad in extremely thick armor. Its rear was an elliptical sack filled with eggs and open caverns waiting for any Zerg that were going to make a journey with it, where ever it was tasked to go. The eggs themselves had thin transparent shells on them, some of them had dragon-like Mutalisks within them and others had large manta rays called Brood Lords curled up inside of them. The leviathans inner carapace also had a series of tubes with large villi protruding from them, waiting to carry the eggs along to the cylindrical structures that stuck out of the Leviathans frontal thorax. Its head was similar to the head of a drone but with many less eyes and many more pincers and fangs. It had 4 long spine tipped tentacles coming from its underside that looked like they were used for offence and defense. It also had a slit in its chitin for loading in smaller Zerg that it was supposed to carry through space to new destinations.
The Brood Mother was amazed, not by the Leviathan itself but its sheer size. It was larger than her entire primary hive cluster and could probably carry all of the building in it and then some.
The Queen of Blades looked up at the Leviathan and then down at Ta'yura, "Yes, it is a sight to behold. But an even grander one is seeing dozens of them, all filled to the brim with Zerg creatures, surrounded by Mutalisks descending onto a planet. Seeing them aid your army as juggernauts, spearheading into every pathetic defense that any Terran or Protoss could ever erect." She said with a murderous hint in her eyes.
"So then, you wish me to travel in one of these things and then descend on Shiloh and take it?" The Brood Mother had finished marveling at the Leviathan long enough to ask.
"Oh no Ta'yura, by no means do I want you to do that. What I want you to do is infest the world. This doesn't mean descend onto it with fury and an iron fist. It means go to the world with one leviathan, set up a small hive cluster, and take over the world with subterfuge and the hyperevolutionary virus. Make every one of the Terrans know how wonderful it is to be part of the swarm."
"Oh, well that seems a little more my style than open war anyway. I will be glad to have such an interesting test to try and accomplish." With that Ta'yura looked at the Queen of Blades, The Queen of Blades looked at her, and without another word walked off to her primary hive to oversee her swarm farther.
Ta'yura looked back up at the leviathan who was still hovering in the air breathing heavily, then over at her hive. She ordered all of the lesser queens to begin spawning larvae and for five more hatcheries to be created, and the already present larvae to begin morphing into various landborne strains. She then ordered the Roach warren to begin evolving glial reconstitution in order for her roaches to be even more efficient on the battle field, and for the Hive to start evolving pneumatized carapace so that her overlords could accompany her brood through space at a reasonable pace.
After the evolving was said and done the Brood Mother decided to make a large number of infestors, seeing as they were the most well suited to infestation and were her favorite strain of Zerg to command.
While those were gestating in their cocoons she told the Leviathan to move down closer to the surface. The monstrosity let out a very raspy screech and descended from its resting place in the atmosphere and touched the creep covered ground with its four tentacles and opened up the slit in its hard shell. Ta'yura then ordered the majority of her army into the Leviathan, which looked as though it would accept each and every one of them. The army moved toward it and the Leviathans slit began to writhe and drip as a large number of fleshy tendrils moved out of it and grasped a plethora of waiting Banelings, Zerglings, and Roaches and moved them into itself. Ta'yura looked intrigued by the loading process but before she could get too lost in thought she heard the reminiscent gurgling noise of an Infestor hatching. she turned about to see around twenty of the imposing parasites emerge from their eggs and skitter over toward her. It made Ta'yura happy to see the Infestors scuttle here and there on the creep. The Infestors all congregated at the head of the Leviathan and were picked up into its bulbous abdomen. The Brood Mother looked back on her hive cluster again, "Well, good bye my home and planet of my birth. It will be a long time until I see you again." and with that she was picked up by the Leviathan.
She noticed that the touch of the Leviathan was actually very gentile. It slowly hoisted her up into its body, coating her carapace in a slick viscous fluid and began to move her along through its ventral canal. The queen almost immediately noticed that the inside of the leviathan was very much like the inside of the birthing chamber that she had started her life inside of. Ta'yura took very much comfort in this and curled up as though she was an unconscious entity drifting within a void of comfort and carelessness, but all too soon the trip through the ventral canal ended and she entered a cavernous area that had a liquid covered floor to prevent the creatures inside from burrowing as their instinct suggested they should. The Brood Mother took notice that only the small creatures were in this chamber, the larger ones like the Roaches and Infestors were not to be seen. She only had to wonder for a couple of seconds though as the Leviathan that she found herself in began to lift her up to a higher part of itself. The Brood Mother saw a large sphincter that was covered in long thick hair-like structures. The sphincter opened up and the brood mother saw the same type of liquid as was in the lower chamber, the tendrils of flesh that propelled her pushed her up toward the hole in the behemoth and she quickly slid through it. She also realized what the hair-like things were for, they stopped the liquid on the higher level from trickling down to the lower part. She looked about and saw a similar sight to before except this time she found herself with a large group of Infestors and Roaches.
Having been transported to the final destination within the Leviathans body she finally stopped relishing her experience in the Leviathan and commanded it to take to the air. As she did she felt the massive beast lurch upward, expelling air from the underside of its armor-clad body as it simultaneously took in more air from the sides of itself.
The Brood Mother moved over to the side of the chamber that she was in and looked at the carapace that made up the walls, it was thin and transparent but incredibly durable, much like her own. She looked through the black tinted walls and saw her hive cluster beneath her, teeming with life, being controlled by herself subconsciously and the multitude of lesser queens that she had left behind. Each of the queens had been given a separate task, some had been told to monitor the harvesting efforts of the drones, others had been told to create more of the minions that would keep the larger macro-organism that was the hive cluster safe from any foreign entities, and still others had many other tasks.
The leviathan gave a sudden grunt and then turned about, it faced the bright yellow star that the Queen of Blades had motioned to not more than two hours ago. The Leviathan gave another lurch and began to move toward the star, farther and farther away from the only place the Brood Mother had known in her life. The monstrous creature began picking up speed and leaving the orbit of the planet. The Brood Mother looked at her beautiful hive cluster one last time before the atmosphere had obscured the view beyond recognition. She then looked in the opposite direction, she saw an enormous void, nothing in it but little pinpricks of light. Ta'yura fixed her gaze firmly on one of the dots of light, the star that Shiloh orbited. She began thinking of a plan for infesting the Terran colonies. However before she could get very far into her thoughts she noticed something very strange, her sensory organs that told her up from down had stopped working. She looked around to see that the liquid on the bottom of the Leviathan had begun adhering to the other creatures in the dorsal sack and was in the process of solidifying. The Brood Mother felt the same thing happening to her, but didn't panic, she knew from her memories that this is what the Leviathan did to those inside of it to keep them from bothering it too much in the weightlessness of space. Ta'yura went back to her thoughts of how she would go about concurring the colony. She had a long trip ahead of her and knew it would be a good time to think.