It had been almost a week since the larva entered her cocoon. Some of the Space Pirates suggested they should call her the "Brain Stem" in her current state, given what she would become once she fully matured.
The giant pod was bloated with a concoction of minerals and insect proteins. Mucus oozed down its walls. Slimy, worm-like tubing drained any stagnant material from cocoon and constantly pumped in fresh nutrients. An equally messy network of pins and wires was attached to the outside of the pod, listening for a faint but steady heartbeat and monitoring the oxygen levels in the hot amniotic soup.
Inside the cell, billions of natural catalysts invaded the human woman's DNA and evolved her into something closer to Space Pirate biology, while tiny surges of bioelectricity pulsed through her mind and slowly infused her with the will of Mother Brain. They had been saving a backup of Mother Brain since the destruction of Zebes. They never expected they would end up using it on the bounty hunter responsible for destroying the queen's previous body.
The Federation was foolish enough to think they could control Metroids by building their own artificial Mother Brain in the form of a human android. This was the Pirates' way of turning the same basic idea against them. In true survival of the fittest, they were going to swarm the Federation base so the two rival queens could fight to the death. Between a cheap puppet controlled by a counterfeit Mother Brain and an enhanced human-Space Pirate hybrid with the intellect of the real Mother Brain, there was no doubt who would be victorious.
It was fitting that she was the one chosen to serve as the queen larva. She had been so concerned over one infant Metroid, and now all Metroids would be her children. Maybe that was why Mother Brain's AI insisted they use their greatest enemy for her new body.
Securing the larva had gone surprisingly well. Lord Ridley was in charge of the mission. For reasons that still remain unexplained, the bounty hunter completely froze in place and lost all ability to fight the moment she made eye contact with him. They weren't exactly sure why she had such a paralyzing reaction after she had managed to defeat him so many times in the past, but they didn't let this slow them down. After she was easily subdued, they brought her to the skinning lab.
They began by dissecting her red exoskeleton. The armor came off in neatly divided segments, but the Pirates weren't sure what to make of its design or function. It was filled with remnants of Chozo technology that only seemed to work with the bounty hunter's personal biometrics. The extensive mutations that now spiraled through her genetic code meant the equipment had been rendered useless to her. If nothing else, it would fetch a decent price on the intergalactic black market.
The real treasure was the squishy blue life form they found inside of the shell.
There had been some debate over how to deal with the specimen's first layer of skin. No one on the science team could decide if it was necessary for her survival, or if it was even a natural part of her biology. Eventually they agreed the material was too closely fixed to her body to be ordinary human clothing. They could only theorize it was a highly-evolved external immune system, or maybe it was fabricated from special polymers meant to shield her from the vacuum of space. But it was no matter. As soon as surgery was over, she was placed in a temporary chrysalis for safekeeping. Then she was shipped to her current home, the queen's nursery deep in Space Pirate territory. Her flimsy synthetics and her delicate human genome were no match for the ample amounts of royal jelly that now soaked through her pores.
Something shifted inside of the pod. They wondered if the larva was trying to resist her metamorphosis again, but a basic neural scan ruled out that possibility. It was just the queen moving in her sleep. She was weak now, but she would be ready to spawn within a few more days. Then the Federation would fall and Mother Brain would reign supreme.
Soon.