I am a scientist. I do not kill.

I told the captain that when he forced the gun into my hands. He glared at me and shouted that this was kill or be killed, you pacifist scum! Kill to live!

How could he understand? This is why my kind live apart, alone, in isolation. How can he understand that our natural telepathy, which keeps our entire race in contact –there has never been war on my homeworld- extends to empathy for all other beings. We feel what they do. That is why we keep ourselves in isolation. So much suffering outside our world.

I know the misconceptions about us. We look like predators with our 'claws' and 'fangs'. Truth be told, our 'claws' are more akin to shovels for digging roots and our 'fangs' bleed the trees of the sweet sap we drink. We can no more kill than we can fly. Mine is not an avian race. We fear the skies, for the skies were where the predators came from. I am unique in that I left the protection of our psychic shields surrounding the planet voluntarily. By nature, we are a peaceful, sedentary race. Content to explore every single part of our own world before turning our faces to the stars above. But every generation or two, one is born with a desire to roam. I am that one. I dreamt of seeing the whole universe –expand the understanding of our kind. I…I never expected this…

The beings have killed all others on this ship. I see the way they look at me, at the claws and teeth. I can feel what they feel. Satisfaction. They think they have found a ruthless predator. They have a higher purpose for me. They think I was sedated by the crew, to prevent me hurting them. That is a lie –although one with a grain of truth in it. The crew have frozen me, but not with their medicines. With their deaths –brutal and in many cases slowly drawn out. I felt every moment of it. I had already felt their emotions as we lived in such close quarters for so long. Nika, the Cossita I bunked with was terrified. I could feel her fear paralysing me. And these beings, these alien beings flutter around me. They are not horrific to look at. In fact, they remind me of the K'kana who roam our world. Each is recognisable by the tattoos on their heads but I can feel their hive mind. The markings are merely an outward recognition of rank. They… They want something from me… That I can tell.

The beings drag me to the one who is undisputedly their leader. Leadership was an odd thing for me to adjust to off my world. Our kind are all equal. We cannot place one above all others for we are all of same blood and kith and kin. The leader leans towards me and I can feel its hate. Hate is another emotion new to me. I still cannot bring myself to feel it myself but I know its bitter, heavy taste in my mind. And I hear the hissing voice and the microtranslators serve their purpose one last time.

"It is sssstrong. It will carry this Broodling and make it great."

And suddenly something lashes out, striking my armour plating and forcing it open, pushing something inside my exoskeleton. Luckily, my endoskeleton prevents the damage being too great and the beings –the Brood I later understand them to be called– drag me to a prison cell. I keen and weep, understanding from their emotions –and what happens to the other prisoners over time– what my fate is to me. I try to find my people but they are shielded from me. This is our greatest fear –to die alone and without the comfort of our kin who can take in our essence to keep our minds, our knowledge alive. As long as our kind lives, there is no death. But I am separate. I cannot be absorbed. I begin to feel deep fear, the kind our ancestors must have felt when the N'nona culled us with impunity.

And then I feel it. A light flooding my mind. So bright, so warm, so tender… I search to find it, throwing out tendrils. And then I finally find it. In the last place I expected…

I feel the infant Broodling inside me grow and develop. His mind is…not like the others. Maybe I have tainted him. Maybe I have saved him. Maybe he is just different. Like I am. I dreamed of seeing the stars. Maybe he can dream of that too, instead of just killing.

I wrap my mind around him. I do not want to die alone. And he responds, shy and fearful. And he comes to the point where he actively seeks out my touch. I now truly understand the joy of parenthood. I had always scorned the idea. But this… This is divine. This little mind, so light and bright and beautiful and perfectly formed and loves me. Oh, I feel his love. He is not touched by the hate of his kind. I do my best to shield him from their hatred. I cannot let this little pure light be destroyed by hate. Maybe it is not the true nature of these Brood creatures? Maybe there is good in them? Or more likely, he too is like me.

Maybe it is my own differences that have changed him. I can feel myself grow weaker. They feed me wrong –they left the star sap that I need for sustenance and I am trying to feed this infant too. I feel him –without realising it- start to feed on my own flesh. I shield that from him. I know the moment he realises what he is doing he will stop. And he will die, because he is still developing. That is when I realise that I do not care about dying alone anymore. Why should I? I am not alone. This little life needs me and I can comfort him in his times of fear. And I am dying to give life. Is that not the greatest thing one can do? The greatest of the G'gaka, the Rules by which we live. To give one's life to save another is the greatest and most honourable thing a sentient being can do. It is our duty to give our lives to save others, as the sacrifice is always remembered.

My body may be wasting away but my mind remains sharp. To comfort my little T'tisa, my little child, I sing the songs of my people –the C'cana for little children, the K'kona of our histories. The M'mati of our greatest heroes. Our ballads of bravery and courage and genius in face of adversity. I recite the things I remember from my research and my studies. I speak of silence and of the H'hasa ceremonies. I tell him everything I can think of my world. And finally, when I run out of our histories to tell him, I begin to tell him what I have learnt and what I planned to project to my kind –the greatest memorial of all. I would have been J'jari, one of the great explorers, the most honoured scientists whose memories would be sung and remembered in unison on our most holy days.

I sing of the sorrow of the universe –the pain and the suffering. I sing of hatred and fear. I sing of the cruelty sentients are capable of to each other and poor dumb beasts that could one day be the height of culture. And then I sing of the beauty of the stars. I sing of the joy of travelling through space. I sing of the bonding of cultures. I sing of the love each being is capable of feeling of others. I sing of mercy and the cycle of life –each being loves and lives and dies but they live on in those they knew. And I feel the little Broodling respond, full of sorrow and regret and pain. He knows love and compassion and mercy. He calls me K'kaka. He calls me 'mother'. I never dreamt I would ever be 'mother'.

And then I feel the pains in his heart. He needs to claw free. He needs to burst from within me. But he will not. He will not hurt me. He loves me as I love him. As I love all. And so I close my eyes and wrap him in comfort. Best he does not see what I am about to do.

My claws find the chinks in my exoskeleton and begin to lever them up, like levering up a heavy rock. There was a reason, many years ago, for our kind to have both exo and endoskeletons although the reasons are long and complex and I have no time anymore. But my T'tisa, my flesh of flesh… He knows. He shall know all I know. He shall be my R'rahe. He shall be the one who carries my memories. And one day he will hopefully return me home.

And I tear my chest open, allowing the Broodling to live.

As my sight dims, I see him crawling up to me, trying to wake me. The last thing I hear is his plaintive cry of K'kaka…

I envelop his mind and surrender myself.

The Broodling leant closer to the still body, trying to get the huge, once-luminous white eyes to open.

K'kaka…?

And now he felt something else. Another mind, trying to enclose him. But unlike K'kaka's soft and warm tenderness, this was angry and dark and violent. The Broodling shivered in horror as he realised what his kind truly were. He was not K'kaka's T'isa. He was a monster. And then he felt a soft presence in the back of his mind.

You are no monster, my T'tisa. You are simply you.

And he closed his eyes, wondering why he felt he should be doing something to mark the passing of the being beside him, the graceful legs splayed out and the head thrown back. But what could he do?

And many years later, when Broo finally found the world of K'kaka, he did the only thing he could –release her memories to all her kind. For wasn't that the greatest gift she gave him?

Love. And belonging.

A.N.Basically, I noticed there weren't any Broo stories. And I have a soft spot for the little Brood. So this came about with me wondering three things…

1. Who or what was Broo incubated in? Brood are meant to gain abilities from their host so I wanted to play about with that.

2. How could Broo knowingly kill a being when being born –Brood have been shown as being, if not fully-grown, then not toddler-like when born. So on some level, Broo must have realised he was killing someone. The question is the guilt he felt about it (I went for the classic long-incubation period. I don't get all the immediate changes, nor do I like them)

3. If a telepathic being was infected with a Brood, would they be able to contact the Broodling? Hence the nameless alien…