Writcka fumbled around with its blankets within its cell, before picking them up and tenderly wrapping them around the most precious thing it had ever possessed in its brief and tragic life. It found itself unable to resist its instincts, as time had passed within its cell. When a sapient creature (especially a young one like Writcka) lives in the utterly deprived state that most Vorcha in the galaxy do, the instincts bequeathed to them by their animal ancestors are all they really have to their name. Had Writcka been given an upbringing with a real family and an education that bestowed knowledge of something besides how to pull a trigger, it might have had the presence of mind and capacity for critical thinking necessary to ignore its instincts and recognize that now might not be the best time to do what it was currently doing.
Alas, it had no such thought processes. All Writcka had was its instincts, and the instincts were clear: The cell was a safe place, its blankets were warm, and Writcka currently had a substantial surplus of nutrients. In a situation like this, the next course of action was obvious. So, it continued fiddling with its blankets.
"It would really be in your best interest to ensure that whatever you're about to tell me is worth my time." The groggy voice of the rudely-awakened Chief Scientist Edward Brown came over the intercom, making the already nervous overnight attendant almost turn off the intercom in fear. Gathering his courage, the attendant spoke.
"Sir, the subject is exhibiting very...unusual behavior."
The annoyance in Dr. Brown's voice was very obvious. "What kind of 'unusual behavior'?"
The attendant gulped. "You really need to see it for yourself, sir."
"...fine." Dr. Brown grunted and hung up the phone.
A short time later, Dr. Brown entered the study chamber for the alien captive, and gave the overnight attendant an unamused glare.
"Well, let's see it." He said, elbowing his way past the attendant and observing the alien on the screen. He stared for a long time, before humming in curiosity.
"Well, I'll be damned. That's a nest, if I ever I saw one." He rubbed his eyes and sighed. So much for going back to bed.
XENOPEDIA: Alien Nursery
Commander, I'd like to personally apologize for the inexcusable oversight in the initial autopsy report from our first Vorcha, or "Goblin", corpse. What we had inferred to be some Vorcha analogue of a male reproductive organ is actually a kind of ovipositor, and if our observation of our newest guests is correct, then it does not appear to be an organ exclusive to one sex. Indeed, if my hypothesis is correct, Vorcha do not have males or females at all.
Our captive has lain about a dozen of what we can only assume are the Vorcha equivalent of eggs. These eggs have grown almost two and a half times their size in the time since our initial discovery of them, and they continue to grow. Perhaps this shouldn't be so surprising, given how quickly they apparently grow into adulthood once they're hatched, but it's still a shockingly rapid gestation period.
The number of eggs that our captive laid and the obvious ease she and or he had with doing so is quite enlightening. If Vorcha do in fact reproduce asexually, then their desirability as fodder infantry in our enemies' eyes is quite telling. If we assume that every Vorcha is capable of laying eggs, and if we assume that twelve is a fairly normal sized litter, then that means someone starting from just a single beaten down Vorcha slave could breed a small army in less than a year! One Vorcha makes twelve, roughly three to five months later those same twelve Vorcha make another twelve Vorcha then you have one hundred and forty-four Vorcha. Then, another three five months later, those one hundred and forty-four Vorcha make twelve eggs each, bringing the grand total to one thousand seven hundred and twenty-eight Vorcha. An entire regiment's worth of Vorcha slave soldiers, in less then a year! And that's just from one Vorcha. With replenishment being this easy, it's not surprising that our enemy expends Vorcha lives the way we expend ammunition.
Of course, while fascinating, this information does not give us many guidelines on what we should do with the eggs. While the decision is ultimately up to you, I obviously recommend keeping them for research. It may not seem immediately beneficial to our mission, but considering how very little we still know about our invaders, any opportunity to gather knowledge about them - even knowledge not immediately beneficial to our technology - is worth pursuing.
Hey there, this is just a little baby (pun intended) chapter to introduce the concept of the Vorcha hatchlings, which is a subplot that will continue to develop as the rest of the story progresses. It's also our first chapter with an alien perspective (albeit a brief one), and it will not be the last.