Chapter 33: Tales of the hivemind 1

I was still feeling a little lightheaded when I got up for food so I decided to walk holding hand with Jewel just in case. It always feels a little weird walking next to her as she is so tall, I don't have a problem with it and if I did I could forgo my own aesthetics and become some sort of godly figure with all my enhancements.

When we arrived at the biomass cold room, Jewel spoke up "I have a small surprise waiting for you dear Apollo, your precious Jewel had some of her bio forms transfer crates of the preys 'packaged foods' they found up to the ship for you. You have said before that although filling the biomass we give to sustain you is rather bland so here."

As we entered the cold room a large portion of the room was filled with crates upon crates stacked up at least 15 meters tall. I did not even know what was in the boxes and I was already salivating at the thought of trying new foods, the fact I was already 'starving' did not do me any favours.

Ripping open the top of the closest crate, I found that this crate was full of silver packages. probably vacuum sealed I thought to myself before tearing off the top of one of the packages. inside were little pellets about a 1cm in diameter. Not even bothering to try and learn what it was I was about to put in my body, I grabbed a handful and funnelled them into my maw.

It took only one bite for me to blurt out. "FUCK ME!"

The little spheres were crunchy and a wave of sweet flavours permeated throughout my mouth. This was literally the best thing I had eaten my whole life. "I don't care what these are I live to worship them now." I said jubilantly looking for more goodies to eat after I inhaled the whole package.

Jewel was currently doing a form of meditation to calm her desires. She was not paying full attention as Apollo began to eat to her food was food Flavour and texture means very little to her so when she heard Apollo blurt out "Fuck me." She almost speared him from behind in order to get ready to mount him.

Upon realising that He said it over his meal and involuntarily at that she had to get control of her emotions.

"Aaah thats the stuff." I said as I propped myself up against a crate. Thanks to my enhanced stomach I ate so much without feeling sick my belly actually engorged in a comical manner . It would all be digested within the hour and I could tell the food I just ate from my binge would last me a couple of days.

The amount of sugar alone I had just consumed from all the packaged meals I ate could cause serious health problems in some people.

As I was sitting their Jewel walked over and curled up next to me "You mind reader, I needed your cool body to help with my digestion." I teased as I wrapped my arms around her and got comfortable. "I have never seen you eat so much my love and I cannot fathom where it went.

I can understand one of my freethinkers eating so much as any excess biomass can be stored in their genome, but it is like there is a bottomless pit inside of your stomach. As she said this she stroked her hand over my swollen belly before letting out a small giggle. "w-what are you laughing at?" I said a little embarrassed.

"I was just thinking about one of my failed experiments your swollen tummy reminded me of it.

The statement caused my eyebrows to raise "You failed an experiment my little genius? oh I have to hear this." I said with a maybe too much excitement. Jewel didn't seem to care and started her story.

"It was around 600 years ago and I had just lost a large hive fleet against the now extinct Raghul prey species. The Raghul were what you would call slavers, The hive calls it wasted food. Anyway They would conquer worlds and enslave only the spawn of their conquests they would kill everyone else."

"wait why the children?" I asked in confusion "As you know raising an alien Baby is hard work If I was unable to talk to you through I would have died almost immediately."

"one second... yes from the surface layer of the memories when we devoured the prey apparently as a part of their 'warrior religion' enslaving their conquered spawns gains favour from their god. By the way their 'god' was just a moderately powerful Psionic user and It tasted delicious"

After licking her lips at remembering a most delectable meal, she caught the odd look I was giving her before she carried on.

"anyway like I was saying they only enslaved Spawn so, when they found one of our nest rooms on a ship they invaded they only managed to find one egg the rest were destroyed by their projectiles or were still inside of the male drones who had already died.

After claiming their token of faith, they took my egg and placed it in one of their holding facilities on their ship where they kept the rest of the spawn."

"Uh-oh I think I know where this is going." I chimed in rather uneasily.

"yes as you know my love, When a lesser bio-form of the hive is cut off from the rest of the hive It is given full access to highly mutate itself in order to return. as such the little drone that was inside the egg developed a mutation to rapidly incubate inside of living beings. So after a few days One of the prey spawn got inquisitive and hungry so it decided to take a look at the egg.

The egg was now wet with mutation gene fluid and secreted a smell that was appetising to the spawn and when it reached over the egg, the drone emerged and Its lithe body jumped at the spawns mouth stifling the little screams it would have produced alarming the other spawns." Sёarch* The nôᴠel Fire.nёt website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

At this point an image popped into my mind. a memory of my old life, this story felt slightly familiar but I waved it off as some fiction I probably read here or there and continued listening to my loves story.

"The attack caused the spawn to pass out, when it came to It checked its body in panic and noticed it was fine being so small and not intelligent like my mate was during his spawn years, the now host to my mutated drone went on as it did inside of its prison."

Jewel had to pause for another second a lot of this information was in strange places inside of her collective memory and considering how vast her mind was It took a while. As this information was essentially useless to the hive now. except for now as Apollo seemed to enjoy It.

"A few more days went by and the little-spawn could not handle the toll of being devoured alive, the drone had mutated a highly effective analgesic to stop any pain from the host but it could go on no longer. deciding to act the drone now took control of the spawns motor functions and had it goad another spawn into a corner in order to incubate in the next spawn.

the drone erupted out of the spawns chest cavity and guided itself into the next spawns mouth."

'poor kids' I thought inwardly rather hypocritically considering I just condemned an entire planets worth of kids a few days ago.

"A few months passed as My drone grew larger and larger inside increasingly older spawns to the point that if it took out one of the large Raghul it could evolve itself into a more efficient killer and would not need its incubation strategy any more as the spawns although not intelligently inclined started to notice something was wrong in their prison pens.

The drone decided that after the next food dump from the Raghul prey It would kill of the Spawns and use all the excess biomass to create eggs to Invade the rest of the ship.

After doing so, the next time the Raghul prey came to feed the spawns, the drone attacked though the Raghul swiftly and tore its throat clean out before devouring its strength quickly so It could attack the rest of the ship. Once devouring the first Raghul the drone had enough biomass to gene enhance, amplify and splice itself into the perfect Raghul killer."

"wait perfect killer? There seems to be some information missing from what you told me the hive fleet actually perished under the attack against the Raghul how could one altered drone defeat an entire ship when your fleet could not defeat them?" I asked in befuddlement.

Jewel Expected this and responded with a smile "well you see..."