DarkEyedDemon: It be me! Here we go again…
Disclaimer: I own nothing of this story, except the plot. Ew.
Cold, Metal Eyes
It floated amongst more of its own kind; but no, they were not of its kind.
They all had the same appearance; thick, pointed heads that curved at a gently slope downwards towards the end, and with bodies that flowed behind like organic streamers. All of the slivers were as such, and they all floated through their hive as a single mind. All but one.
It did not know how it ended up in this hive, but it could not find any reason to care. It was aware of its own existence, and yet it would not question that existence. It was here for a purpose, one that would be fulfilled even if it didn't know how.
Out of all the slivers, one was different. One was not made of flesh, as were the others, but of metal. The mechanical sliver hovered about the others completely unobstructed. Their minds were all one, focused with the queen, but this one had a mind belonging to another. Even still, the construct gave off the necessary electromagnetic wavelengths to make all of the other slivers assume its mind was one with theirs. And so it moved inconspicuously towards the center of the hive, where the queen resided.
It could feel a calling in its mind, a tiny voice that told it to seek out the queen. It had no idea what the queen even was, but it didn't matter. All that mattered was that it found its way to this 'queen'.
A piece of the solid hive had been slowly corroding, and without the attention of the members of the colony it broke off and plummeted towards the ground. On its way down, the metallic sliver was caught underneath and crushed against the rocky bottom of the hive. It still functioned, but it did not have the strength necessary to free itself. It lay there trapped, hopeless, and unable to complete its unknown goal. Suddenly, three of the other natural slivers made their way towards the mechanical copy.
That was it. It assumed the other slivers were coming down to destroy it; to clear the hive of a useless member.
Instead, though, the three slivers wrapped themselves around the broken piece of the hive. It took them quite a while, but they managed to lift the obstacle off of the mechanical sliver and drop it next to it.
Without a word, the real slivers floated back up to their previous tasks. The metal sliver began making calculations in its mind. Rather than just destroying a sliver that could not perform whatever duty it currently had assigned, the colony worked together to help said sliver. The construct rose back up into the air, moving towards the center of the hive where it would find this queen.
The queen was a massive organism. It looked more like a giant pile of thorns and spikes than an actual living creature. It towered up to the top of the hive, its razor-tipped limbs swaying slowly as it controlled its hundreds of minions.
The metallic sliver approached the giant queen as it felt something seeping from its being into the monstrous entity before it. It had no idea what was happening, but its body was acting for it, feeding information into the massive mind that was the queen.
Suddenly, a large hole was blown in the side of the hive. A black warship drifted slowly in through the opening, and standing at the head of the ship was a powerful man, his mouth filled with rows of shark teeth and his eyes glistening with manic glee.
Volrath. The artificial silver's mind associated that unknown name with this unknown man, and that was as much as it knew for now.
Several more figures appeared on the ship now and many of the slivers drifted slowly towards them. Instead of attacking these obvious invaders though, the slivers practically bowed to them all.
Now it understood. The information going from itself to the queen was false information. It made the queen, and inevitably, every sliver believe that they were to obey these strange creatures that rode upon this great, black behemoth. The metal sliver knew that they were being tricked, but it could summon no emotion for the creatures it was shaped after. The first few slivers to be taken aboard the warship it recognized as the slivers to help it when it had been trapped under the large piece of debris; still no reaction. It could not even imagine caring for these creatures as they were fooled into slavery; it just watched it all through cold, metal eyes.
DED: A little short, I know, but I'm still satisfied with it. Metallic sliver was the card-of-the-day on so this is why I decided to write about it. Please Review!