I think I may have miscalculated how far away the moon is a little. Despite my Overlords having been lifting this ball of rock and gravel wrapped Creep up for hours now, not only does the planet not look any further away, but neither does the moon look any closer. Just how long is this going to take!?

Come to think of it, the space missions from Earth to the Moon usually took weeks if not months, and that was with Rockets that must've gone hundreds of thousands of miles per hour. Considering these Overlords are only travelling at 30 MPH at most… geez, how the heck do the Zerg get anywhere then? Maybe it has something to do with the last creature in my Larvae's build list. A Behemoth, whatever that is. It can't even be built without a Cerebrate available.

I turned to look at the Cerebrate once more. At least it should be finished by morning. Until then, at least I have a rather nice aerial view of the planet, and hey! I'm in space! How cool is that? Pretty cool… for the first hour. Now? Other than the change in scenery, this honestly doesn't seem all that different from before.

I shifted my focus from the ever slowly rising Hive to the Mutalisks winging their way to the clearing where the Nether Gate is. Despite it being night there, it's easily visible thanks to the fires. As the Mutalisks got closer I can see that the fire is coming from Netherrack that the Zombie Pigmen are bringing through the gate and stacking haphazardly on the land. It almost looks like they're trying to convert the Overworld into the Nether, one piece at a time. Considering the sheer amount of Zombie Pigmen on the ground, that might not seem so far fetched.

As soon as my Mutalisks came within range, I ordered them to open fire, concentrating on the gate first. 25 Glaive wurms smashed into the Obsidian frame and destroy it near instantly. It'll take a minute for another Gate to reform. Until then, the Zombie Pigmen are free game! With orders to kill as many of the Nether monsters as possible, my Mutalisks scattered, tracking different targets and strafing the Pigmen, taking multiples of them at a time. Unfortunately, the Zombie Pigmen have had hours to come through that gate. There are hundreds of them all over the place.

On the other hand though, it doesn't look like there's any more Pigmen than there would normally be monsters in a given area when my Hive Cluster was still around. That's still a lot of monsters, but not the never ending wave that I feared I'd find. I wonder for a moment why the amount of monsters in any given area seems to have a limit, before I decide not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

A minute passed and a new gate appeared. I immediately had my Mutalisks reconverge on the gate to destroy it. Before they could reach, three blazes came through the gate. They immediately caught fire and raised up, opening fire on my Mutalisks. My Mutalisks tried to veer their course and dodge, but they'd been moving quickly. Three of my Mutalisks were hit, and to my shock, they immediately burst into flame, and the initial spots they were hit looked like deep plasma burns. I did not expect fire from a Blaze to be so hot!

My Mutalisks immediately retaliated while the three withdrew, trying to reach a nearby lake to plunge themselves under and put out the flames. One of them didn't make it. Despite the unusual intensity of the flames, the Blazes thankfully didn't prove tougher than normal to kill. They certainly succeeded in their mission though. Before the last Blaze died, three more Blazes came through the Gate, and while my Mutalisks did better at dodging this time, two more of my Mutalisks had to get over to the lake and forced to recuperate.

Once again the Blazes died, and once again three more Blazes came through, taking a further three Mutalisks out of the fight. At this rate, all of my Mutalisks will have been chased away and there'll be far too many Blazes to deal with! With no other recourse, I ordered four of my Mutalisks to dodge the Blazes and concentrate fire on the Gate while the others took the Blazes out. This resulted in one more Mutalisk flying for the Lake before the Blazes died, but it also resulted in the Gate being destroyed before another three Blazes could come through.

Playing it smart, I had ten of the uninjured Mutalisks wait in place to take care of the Gate when it reappeared again while the rest continued to hunt down and finish off the Zombie Pigmen that have seemingly scattered to the four winds.

Once again the gate reappeared, but this time my Mutalisks were ready. They fired immediately as it appeared, but they weren't quick enough to stop two Blazes from coming through. They were killed, but not before setting two more of my Mutalisks on fire. Thankfully the first three that had been injured had already healed enough to rejoin the fight without risk of death, so this wasn't too awful. I had all three rejoin the Mutalisks waiting for the Gate to reappear. Once the rest healed, I sent another to guard for the gate, and sent the rest to finish off destroying what the Zombie Pigmen were building and hunting the few Zombie Pigmen that hadn't gotten away.

With the situation seeming to be contained, I sent the Overlord that had been originally holding onto the Nether Gate down to once more grab the thing. This time I'll make sure it doesn't leave atmosphere so something like that doesn't happen again. Unlike the Mutalisks, the Overlord simply floated back down to the planet rather than let gravity assist like the Mutalisks did. Come to think of it, it might very well be impossible for Overlords to simply stop floating at all.

Hours passed and I finally started to grow tired. I spent the majority of the time when I was nodding off watching the planet and keeping an eye on the situation with the Nether Gate. I also solved the minor mystery of how exactly Mutalisks fly in space. Evidently the flapping does serve a purpose in vacuum because I can see trace amounts of some type of gas streaming behind the Mutalisks as they fly, coming from holes in the bones of their wings, propelling them forward like a jet engine. Switching my attention from the gas streaming behind the Mutalisks back to the planet, I watch as it slowly turns beneath me. It seems so still and peaceful from up here. Hard to imagine monsters are still roaming around down there. Even so, the Zerg still stationed at Artemis can confirm it.

Seems Julian was right. Despite the Zerg presence there, the amount of monsters around Artemis haven't increased. I guess whoever is controlling the monsters just wanted me to get off their lawn. I can't help but notice though that the few Enderman my Zerg are able to spot are starring unerringly up at the sky, towards the direction of the moon, and us. Creepy doesn't even begin to cover how I feel about that. I can't even begin to say how glad I am that the entire ball of dirt is covered in glowing Creep, preventing anything from Spawning here.

Midnight came and went, increasing my Bio Energy by the comparatively small amount of 550. Still, at least I'm sitting on 10,195 Bio Energy. I'm hoping that'll get me a lot of Hatcheries so I can get my income back up to where it was before in the next few days.

It's almost time for sunrise when the Overlord finally reaches the site of the Nether Gate. As soon as it reappears, the Overlord snatches it up and holds it so that the direction the monsters were coming from faced down like before. Unfortunately I miscalculated a little since it's not Zombie Pigmen coming through the gate anymore. More Blazes came through, but focus fire from two dozen Mutalisks killed them off before they could do any damage.

What should I do? I can't have the Overlord take it back to Space. That would just make the gate shut down again. I can't leave it on land, and I can't have the Overlord hold onto it like this. Then the metaphorical lightbulb came on. A minute later, and the Overlord unceremoniously dropped the Nether gate into the surprisingly deep lake my Mutalisks had been dropping in to put out the flames. Much to my surprise and consternation, as soon as the portal touched the water, the portal shut down.

Immediately I had the Overlord return and pick up the new gate that appeared. As soon as it grabbed it, I had the Overlord bring the Nether gate over to the lake and hold it to the surface of the Lake without it touching. A number of Blazes died fairly quickly upon entering the water. But then they started coming up out of the other side of the portal instead. Frustrated, I had the Overlord drop the stupid thing on its side. To my surprise, this actually stumped the Blazes for a moment. It took me a few seconds to realize it's probably because of one side of the portal being blocked. In that case…

I had the Overlord pick up pieces of the previously destroyed Nether Gates and jab half of a broken Nether gate into the ground over the working Nether Gate. This was more effective than I expected, effectively jamming the blazes inside the event horizon of the portal and preventing any more Blazes from getting through. They still tried to fire at my Mutalisks, which dodged, until my Overlord grabbed another half of a broken gate and jammed it over the opening they were firing from. Now we can still see the Blazes through the cracks, but they don't have enough clearance to fire. So long as I keep any of the Overworld monsters from budging the broken arches over the active gate, that problem is effectively solved! The best part though is that I know for a fact Endermen can't pick up Obsidian. It's one of the reasons it was one of my favorite crafting materials in Minecraft, besides solid black castles looking awesome.

With that situation finally handled for the most part, I started to relax. Sunrise may be just around the corner, but I'm too tired at this point to care, and with most everything taken care of, I happily drift off.

-END CHAPTER-

AN-Please note that I updated Ch25 to explain why things are happening differently in this chapter.
The More You Know: The Apollo 13 mission to the moon and back took a week. Any craft attempting to leave atmo must reach a speed of 4.9 Miles Per Second (17,640 MPH (20x the speed of sound)). 4.9 MPS is Earth's Orbital velocity, meaning that's how fast you have to go to maintain a stable orbit around Earth. The only reason Overlords don't need such ludicrous speeds is because they float, and the only reason they don't get left behind by the planet moving along in orbit once they escape atmosphere is because gravity pulls them along. That's my explanation for it anyway. But seriously, Overlords are really bad for interstellar travel.

Also, it seems my next chapter will have to wait for tomorrow. Got distracted by the what-if website and now I'm way too tired to write anymore today. Time to get some Zzzzz…

Overmind Matthew
PSI Energy – 50/50
Status – Normal

Abilities
- Burrow – Active – High vibrations from muscles allow user to drop below ground level to hide
- Spawn Hatchery – 50psi – 12 hour build
- Regeneration – Passive – Heals anything not instantly fatal; time needed depends on extent of injury.
- Anaerobic – Passive – No longer requires breathable atmosphere to survive.
- Temperature Resistance – Passive – Currently able to survive temperatures between -450 and 118 F.
- PSI Regeneration – Passive – Regenerate energy at .5 points per second.

Zerg Swarm
Bio-Energy – 10,195/Income rate – 550
Support – 147.5/311

Entities
1x Quad Hive Cluster (1xHive, 3 Hatcheries)
1x Cerebrate (growing)

60x Overlords
31+24+6(61)x Mutalisks

16x Drones
12+16+3(31)x Zerglings

Swarm Upgrades

Burrow
Carapace 1,2,3
Defiler Consume (ugh…)
Defiler Metasynaptic Node
Defiler Plague
Flyer Attack 1,2,3
Flyer Carapace 1,2,3
Melee Attack 1,2,3
Missile Attack 1,2,3
Overlord Antennae
Overlord Ventral Sacs
Overlord Pneumatized Carapace
Zergling Adrenal Glands
Zergling Metabolic Boost
Hydralisk Grooved Spines
Hydralisk Muscular Augment
Queen Ensnare
Queen Gamete Meiosis
Queen Spawn Broodlings
Ultralisk Anabolic Synthesis
Ultralisk Chitinous Plating
Custom Upgrade – Glowstone Green Grass Creep

Friends/Allies/Vassals

- Lord Julian of Fort City Artemis (Vassal)

Objects added to the ZGA

Coal Shard
Cotton thread (black; strand from shirt)
Grass
Human hair (Overmind)
Obsidian Shard
Stone (Rhyolite) Shard
Tree