High Orbit, Marrakesh
From space, the planet Marrakesh looked like a work of art. Much of it was covered in a lush, green jungle. Red and black lines were drawn erratically over its surface, indicating the flows of lava, both past and present. Small patches of blue could also be seen; bodies of water, too small to really be called oceans. The world's pleasant gravity and nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere made it seem like the ideal location for colonization.
Appearances can be deceiving, however. The leviathan's senses revealed that the planet was populated by an unbelievably large amount of animal life. With their accelerated metabolisms by vespene gas, the beasts below were able to grow and reproduce at astonishing rates. Of course, all this activity requires an immense energy from food. While Zerg solved this food problem by drawing nutrition from creep, these animals didn't have that luxury. Instead, they had to eat each other. As a result, competition was fierce, in spite of the sheer size of the populations, and natural selection progressed much faster than it normally would on other worlds. Abathur was already rubbing his hands in anticipation. Below him was a treasure trove of genetic information. Who knows what he could learn from it?
Kerrigan, however, wasn't so pleased. Her intent was to conquer the planet, but she really didn't know how to do that apart from landing and killing anything that moved. In some ways, conquering a planet of non-sentient animals is much harder than conquering one owned by sentient beings. There was no central ruler to assassinate, no government to overthrow, and no capital city that could be occupied. They couldn't reason with the animals, or break their morale. Conquering an entire planet is not like taking a city or occupying a colony. The only way to take control is to flush the enemy out, nest by nest, burrow by burrow. A process that would consume an annoyingly large amount of time. Time they didn't have. For all they knew, the Protoss could be hot on their tails. Still, it would be good practice in the art of conquering planets. Kerrigan doubted this would be the last.
Tai showed up after his daily check-up on the Protoss prisoners. "If I ever get it in my head to start a bed-and-breakfast on Auir, please stop me."
"I take it that the Protoss still hate us?" Kerrigan had hoped that by now they would have at least given her a chance. Maybe they needed more time, or at least some proof that she wasn't the Queen of Blades any longer.
"Yes, they do. For a supposedly highly advanced culture, they are completely incapable of uttering the words 'thank you' when someone makes you a bathtub. I mean, I'm no Protoss, but I'm sure even they understand the concept of gratitude. Anyway, enough with my moaning, I think there's a planet that needs our attention…"
"I suppose. It is a beautiful planet, isn't it?" The former ghost said, mostly to herself. "Almost feel bad about infesting it…" Hunting down wildlife was dirty business, but it was still a sterile task compared to fighting sentient beings like the Terrans and Protoss.
"You may reconsider when you go down and explore the planet." Izsha reported. "Wildlife analysis complete. Most lifeforms are concentrated around the lava flows. Concentrations of vespene gas, both pure and impure, are higher than average here as well. This confirms the hypothesis that vespene gas causes super-growth of local organisms."
"What about the rest of the planet? Not nearly as much life there, as far as I can tell."
"Correct, mistress. The vespene deposits on this planet are mostly found near the edges of tectonic plates. The rest is little more than solid slabs of bedrock."
"Strong enough to resist bombardment, at least temporarily?" Above all, Kerrigan felt the Zerg needed a more permanent residence.
"Probably, yes. Do you wish to create an underground hive cluster similar to the one on Kaldir?"
"If possible. We might need a place to hide if someone finds us too soon. Za'gara, could you take your brood down and make sure that hive gets build up?"
The broodmother stepped forward somewhat uneasily. "You…entrust this task to me?"
"Yes, I'm giving you a longer leash. Try not to abuse it, I have better things to do than to kick your ass a second time. Can you do it?"
The broodmother thought for a second. "I believe this is possible. However, I would be able to complete this task much more efficiently if I had a large supply of biomass and vespene gas to fuel the construction effort."
Kerrigan turned to Izsha. "One moment, mistress. Scan complete. There is a fault line not far from your preferred location. Several large deposits of gas are present. Unfortunately, there are nests build near the geysers. It is likely that the creatures there feed on it for sustenance."
"Let me guess, the richer the deposit, the larger the population defending it."
"Correct, mistress."
"Well, thanks Izsha. I bet they're vicious predators too, right? It would just be too convenient if they were fluffy, adorable bunnies…"
"Unless you believe that cuteness can somehow be weaponized, I fail to see why you would even wish to bother with such 'bunnies'." Abathur stated. "However, I discovered a creature that may aid us greatly in the future." The chief geneticist showed her mental images of a creature that somewhat resembled a winged scorpion. It could fly through the air and had a tentacle-like feature strong enough to pull other animals up from the ground, allowing it to feed without even landing. Kerrigan's mind quickly went through dozens of tactical scenarios where an ability like this could be useful. Artillery or mech hiding behind bunker lines could be neutralized before they could chew up the main Zerg army. Vulnerable war machines could be pulled away from defensive positions and into an approaching swarm. She found herself becoming strangely excited by the prospect of infesting this species, in much the same way she once got excited about her commanding officer bringing her a new gun. "I knew this would be more to your liking, my queen." Abathur must have picked up on her feelings. Kerrigan realized she had to be a little more careful in showing her emotions in the future. Better yet, she might want to consider putting a lid on her emotions altogether. They could easily be (mis-)interpreted as weaknesses. "The creatures appear to have a social structure akin to hive-based insect species: A society of drones ruled by a small caste of fertile females, or 'queens' to use the Terran term. Acquiring a few of them intact would allow me to breed enough test subjects for my experiments."
"Very well then, I'll go down there myself and fetch our…testing material."
With that, she made her way to the leviathan's sacs. Landing a few clicks away from their target, the Zerg quickly set up a small hive before landing in full force. Once they were confident enough that they had the forces to take control of the surrounding area, they struck. Overlords led their forces in all directions away from the insertion point, razing whatever they could and clearing the way for queens and drones to set up new hives at easily defendable or resource rich locations. As a result, the Swarm quickly snowballed in size. Before long, the target was within their sights and they had the forces to take it.
Finally, Kerrigan thought, a proper objective. Being a ghost, her missions rarely involved large-scale combat. Ghosts were always given a single target and orders to eliminate them. Theatre-wide warfare was generally left to actual officers, not assassins. A nice, simple mission would always be a welcome distraction. While Kerrigan had become quite adept at the mental multitasking that was controlling an army hyper-evolved alien monsters, it was always nice to temporarily shift the burden onto someone else and focus on the one thing she did best: breaking into places she wasn't supposed to. The Overlords were smart enough to handle most of the battles themselves, especially with their recent boost intelligence.
Under the cover of a flock of corruptors, Kerrigan and her underlings marched onto the largest of the nests. Before long, a tide of the scorpion-like beasts sallied forth to meet them. Believing the corruptors to be the greatest threat, the creatures engaged their air-borne opponents, attempting to rip them to shreds with their powerful claws and teeth. The corruptors were resilient and had the advantage of range, but they had trouble shooting down their quick and agile opponents. Slowly but surely, the flock was wearing down. Kerrigan had planned for this, however. Corruptors were meant to take down capital ships, not enemy fighters, so she asked Abathur to bring back an old creature from the Zerg's genetic 'archive': Scourge. These living homing missiles had become largely obsolete after the Brood War when the Protoss had developed the Phoenix and the Terrans upgraded their ships with proper anti-missile machine-gun batteries. These beasts, however, didn't have those advantages.
Legions of scourge, spawned from the freshly-made hive cluster and, flew forth and engaged their enemies. As agile as the Swarm's opponents were, they were no match for the speed and 'skill' of their suicidal pursuers. The skies turned red as the gruesome aerial ballet reached its crescendo. Corruptors pirouetted about, trying to get the beasts in their crosshairs. Their opponents tried to dodge the firepower of the Zerg while at the same time clawing away at their enemies in any way they could. The scourge danced between them, ramming into their foes or exploding right before them, covering their targets in a mist of burning plasma. Many corruptors fell from the sky, their wounds becoming too much for them to bear, but the scorpion-like beasts fared worse. Some were torn in half by a direct hit from the scourge, others were riddled with projectiles fired from the corruptors. After a few hours, the beasts panicked and tried to flee. Kerrigan, unwilling to let them escape to cause trouble later, ordered their pursuit. Regardless of what happened to the stranglers, the damage was done. The road to the main nest was clear.
The nest itself was housed in a massive vespene geyser. Kerrigan slowly walked through the wide corridors, ready to hit anything that would jump out of the shadows with the force of a telekinetic freight train. Closely following her were Tiberias, gun in hand, and Larry, both extremely paranoid of the strange shapes in the vespene vapors. Behind them was a small contingent of Zerg led by several queens, latter of which carried a series of parasites that were supposed to pacify their objectives and bring them under the Swarm's control. Soon, the group reached a central chamber of sorts which housed about half a dozen of the scorpion-like beasts. They seemed different than the others, however. They were much larger and with a large, swollen abdomen. Their wings seemed far too small to allow such a creature to properly fly. On the whole, they seemed hopelessly weak and defenseless.
Upon seeing the intruders, the creatures began to hiss and scream, clumsily lashing out at the Zerg. Kerrigan managed to calm them down with her telepathic abilities. While outright mind control was difficult, even when used on a non-sentient animal, suggestion wasn't. She managed to 'convince' the creatures that the Zerg were their children and that all was well, a relatively simple feat for a psychic of her caliber. Thinking that there was nothing wrong, the beasts allowed the Zerg to approach them, enabling the queens to do what they did best.
"You know," Said Cain, "we really need to come up with a name for these things. Even if the Protoss know they exist, I doubt they'd have bothered naming them. Creativity isn't really their thing."
"I suppose. You have something in mind?"
"Well, they have snake-like bodies, slimy skin, and a tendency to sink their teeth into passers-by before swallowing them whole…"
"How about 'Vipers'? A type of snakes found on Earth?"
"I was thinking along the line of 'lawyers', but I suppose 'Viper' is a bit more appropriate."
Kerrigan felt the 'viper's' minds as the parasites began to take hold of them. She couldn't help but feel a sense of pride. Within a day, she'd set up a sizable hive cluster, secured the mother of all vespene geysers, and assimilated a new species into the Swarm. A job well done, as far as she thought.