Wraiths
The Smallest Hive
Alone
Alone and in the dark it drifted.
On the far edge of the Pegasus Galaxy the Wraith Hive ship silently sailed back light eerily from the green glow of the vast sea of stars of the galaxy, and on the other the black eternity of the void that separated the galaxies.
The Hive cruised at the extreme limits of the edge being held on its course by what little gravity Pegasus extorted on it. No lights shone from its great hull. No fire burned in its engines. The ship gave no clue as to where it had come from but to see the surface it wasn't hard to tell that it had been a difficult journey.
Burns cracks, and scars covered it from bow to stern.
It looked less like a living vessel then an aged and decaying
carcass that was adrift in a sea of stars. Inside the great vessel the darkness was even greater then that of the void outside. In all of the labyrinth of corridors and chambers of the hive no movement or life of any kind was evident in what could have been as little as a few months to that of millennium.
When the pin head of red light went off on one of the consoles it was like crimson lightning in a bottle.
When the darkness took over the room again it was so solid that it would have been easy to forget that the light had even gone off if any one had been there to see it but the Ship had seen it and It knew what It had to do. The rumble started slowly but built up speed like a wave. What started as a small treble soon turned into an avalanche. The Hive fought to wake up. The pain that burned thru the Hive was intense but It knew what it had to do. Internal systems long dormant snapped and cracked like brittle leaves as they came back to life as power started to seep thru them. The pain increased but the Hive knew what it had to do. The life support started to slowly breathed atmosphere back into the halls like an asthmatic taking a breath. Mist started to fill up small sections of the hive. Doors slammed shut like an ax hitting a tree as the Hive struggled to keep the precious air from being ripped away by the all powerful vacuum of space. The pain continued to burn away at the Hive but still it knew what it had to do.
In the control centre of the hive the red light was again slashing in the near darkness but now it was no longer alone. Several dozen other lights on the other consoles were
weakly coming to life. On the main screen information in the wraith symbols slowly tracked up and down the screen.
Power to the systems strained thru the Hives weakened structure as it struggled to maintain even this low level of awareness. The red light continued to send its warning.
Now with the atmosphere returned to the interior of the Hive the deep resounding thud could be heard that accompanied the blinking of the ominous red light.
The Hive rumbled again. The lights on the consoles waned nearly to the point of going out before restoring to the dim level they had achieved just seconds earlier. It had been too long and the damage too severe. The Hive would have to hurry it wouldn't be able to maintain this level of activity for long. It knew what it had to do. It knew what it had to protect.
Down in the very bowels of the hive in a large chamber lights and a breathable mist slowly filled the large area.
The chamber was vast. It was made up mostly of large sunken pits filled with a dark purple viscous liquid.
Large bone and vein like pipes and conduits fed in and out of the pits and led off in to the depths of the hive.
One of the larger pits became the center of the Hive's attention. The lights in the chamber dimmed even more.
The Hive once again started to quake. More subdued then before but this time more sustained in duration. After a few minutes the shaking ceased. All but a few of the chambers sources of light were still giving out any illumination at all.
Suddenly the air in the chamber around the pits sparked.
More sparks started to go off all around the illuminated pit.
Then just as suddenly as they started, the sparks in the air ceased.
WHAM!
A bolt of almost pure red lightning shot out from somewhere in the upper part of the chamber and struck the center of the pit. 2 more times this happened. All the lights in the chamber once more went out sending the pit in to almost total darkness again. A slight purple glow was coming from the now energized ooze in the pit. The substance boiled and smoked as it sparked and fizzed.
After a few minutes the pit cooled and settled down once more to appear almost as it had before. Only the purple glow remained but half as strong. In the center of the pit a few bubbles hit the surface and then nothing.
Then almost as suddenly as when the energy bolt hit the pit a pale green tinted hand suddenly erupted from the center.
The long clawed fingers clenched vehemently at the air.
And in the center of the hand a vicious toothed slit snapped greedily as if to suck the very life out of the world it had just erupted into.
To be continued.