Chapter 2: Baby hive

It took several days, but I am happy to say that the lady who shall now be known as Queen Daisy is approaching fully grown. The issue so far is keeping her hidden in the air ducts. Along with the note of growth, it seems I have to actively give an order for them to move to the next step in evolution even if they skip over the other forms. There are five for the emperor and four for the queen. Hopefully, it won't be the same for the rank and file of the xenomorphs only for these hero units, but if not, I'll just have to adapt.

Daisy is settling into a large storage room that's not been used since my arrival. I've discovered a new ability as well. When the local Xeno population is below a certain point, the growth steps can be skipped over in exchange for a debuff across the board to all of the units it's used on. There's only one step for Daisy though chest-burster to Queen. At my command, Daisy sheds her carapace to take the beautiful form of a fully-realized crimson Xenomorph Queen. The egg sac was formed three hours later, with the first five eggs ready for their hugger to be released within five hours of that.

With just enough huggers to ambush the rest, I just wait patiently for them to corner themselves. The way I see it, as long as whatever this place is doesn't shut down for a while, I should have my new drones ready before too long. Giving the adolescent Emperor the order, all five wrapped up incubators are dragged and barricaded into a storage room until they "hatch" in a few hours.

Fast-forwarding through about three and a half hours, the chest-bursters hatch; selecting the group, I skedaddle them into an air vent. It turns out they work kind of like larvae from starcraft. While I have them selected, there's another section I can open called evolve. Let's see what we have here, {Nanitic*: 1-hour STR: very low SPD: low HP: very low / Drone: 4-days STR: low SPD: average / Runner-Drone: 6-days STR: low SPD: High HP: low / Flying-Drone: 10-days STR: very low SPD: very high HP: low} moving quickly through the listed items I decide to set all five to become nanitics I can still move them around. At the same time, a bar starts to fill above each's head. Judging from the greyed-out button, I'll have to evolve them manually. But then again, that just means I can herd some bursters ready to turn into drones onto, say, an escape shuttle; they are markedly easier to hide than a drone.

The hour has passed, and I press the evolve button and what happens is fascinating. The chest-bursters go through several rapid sheds growing to the size of an average xenomorph drone. This gives me the feeling that my drones will be somewhat larger than the average xenomorph. Quickly I look over my five new nanitics. They're spindly, small underwhelming, and their exoskeletons look soft and slightly discolored. Looking over their commands, movement options are {direct, evasive, stealth} with the average attack settings {passive, neutral, aggressive} average stuff. Selecting two of them, I set them to {passive} and {stealth}, sending them to scout out the colony. When I did that, a counter appeared in the top left of my view.

[Scouting party returns in: t - 5 hours]

I thought that it was weird my viewable area didn't expand when they left the facility. It's okay though; I can be patient. By that time, I will have had Daisy working overtime. It totaled out at the end with something like thirty eggs and counting by the time my timer reaches zero.

[Scouting party returns in: t - 5...4...3...2...1…]

My view shifts massively as I'm given a sweeping overhead view of the facility, which I now see is a refinery moving across a broad valley filled with buildings.

[New Carthage]

Population: 2600+

Development: minimal

Combat Readiness: negligible

Fascinating. Switching the other three nanitics to match the two scouts, I send them all to get an idea of the locations of things. Finding the spaceport, reactor, communications building, and any security structures is of the utmost importance.

Three hours after that and the facility we're in goes into emergency shut down. It looks like it's been without workers for too long, and emergency fail-safes have deployed. Recalling the scouts with their job half done, ordering one to sabotage the comms station on their way back. Let just say he made quick work of that powerline… and the backups. It looks like that's diverted some of the attention as some of the people heading towards the refinery are redirected to the comms building.

Something like fifteen people enter the refinery, looking around for the missing crew. None of them were armed, and my weakest xenos can absolutely manhandle your average human. Not to mention how much ventilation a refinery has it's facehugger heaven in this joint. They break into small groups, the largest at eight heads to the control room. The other seven break apart in ones and twos, checking pipes and power lines. Picking off the smaller groups was too easy. Also, thanks to the intuitiveness of the system, I can order the nanitics to relieve our new guests of their radios and drag them into various rooms. The most challenging part was the group of eight. Luck was on my side in the end because none of them seem to have passed horror movie orientation. The group of eight split into a group of four and two groups of two, leaving the smaller groups to the facehuggers. I bring the full might of my nanitics on them, subduing the civilians quickly.

{[Nanitic workers are workers in a eusocial insect colony (such as an ant or termite colony) that are smaller than the other workers. Nanitics result from starvation and are often workers arising from the first brood.]}

{[(That's all for now. Not really sure why I was slapped with inspiration for this story, but such is the way of things. Check out my other stories and live long and prosper! )]}