Years have passed, and now the victim side of the war seek a counterweapon to their enemy's plague, they seek it in the first.
The Seed to the Future
Like ripples spread over the water, thus would be the effect of the rebirth.
Location : Somewhere at the edge of the Milky Way
Dreadful years of war had passed. The battle was being decided not by the best energy-weaponry, not by the greatest fleet.....it was decided by animals without use of technology, no will, no commands but what their genes told them to do.
One side would lose, and they still did not posses a defense against the weapons that came from within. Perhaps, it would change soon.
The building where the very first had been made was dark and deserted, a frozen scape without a single sound. The waters were still smooth, as they had alway's been, now a serene mirror of the jeweled sky above.
The spacecraft landed softly over the water, five legs extending slowly while the massive ship still hovered. At touching the even surface, five ripples were send out, colliding with eachother in the middle, but running flawlessly into all other directions. More ripples followed as little tremors ran through the legs. The supporting extensions already started shortening, allowing the actual ship to lower. While it's round surface descended, the running ripples were replaced by a modest wave, and another one, and another one, until the final and largest wave broke free towards the horizons.
The ship's shape was that of a 'U', and the opening faced the entrance of the building, as the two arms were at either side of the place, as if embracing it. The chromosome shaped little vessels came out, 6 of them, and went as close to the entrance as they could.
They connected through bridges, allowed all the pilots and their passengers to gather in the one directly in front of the door, which was being hacked at the very moment. The hang-bridges returning within the vessels, leaving only two cables hanging between each 'chromosome'.
The sounds of the arrivals was certainly not a mystery to her. The childless mother heard the echoes like the thunder in a storm's sky is to us, yet unlike us, the sound did not bother her; sound never hurt her. What did hurt however was the coldness, the biting, stinging freeze of the lowest level in which she was kept.
All she understood was that these visitors came for her, not to steal mechanisms, or rob data. The fact they came all the way down was clear enough proof for that. Their stamping footsteps continued to the door of her cell, and then, with a hiss the door on an upper level opened.
As the biomechanoids looked down into the gigantic hall, which made even them seem small and insignificant, they saw nothing but the circle with white fluid in it. Light was dim, and their eyes bad. Accessing the remnants of the nearly ruÃ¯ned datastream, they activated the release of the cell, and the last working generator was used to provide them with light.
But the hall's walls were no longer working, and only the lights in the hall from which they had come flickered on. It's eerie white descended down, as the white fluid started splashing and whirling in the pool. The walls, the dying machine that was this building softly started a humming noise, it's last energy being used to unleash the prize.
With a sudden burst of water, the crest of the first queen rose from the white liquid, and she shrieked out hoarsely. Splatters of white descended around her, dripping of her black skeleton and she tried to pull at the chains to get loose. But her arms and legs were tightly kept in place on the slowly ascending platform. Her tail however whipped out, as the restraint shackle had been her chewing toy for the passing of time.
For a moment she stood silent, only the colors of purple, blue and green danced on her dark hyde as the liquid smoothly ran off. Then she looked up, the single great eye invisible under the dome of her head looking up at the biomechanoids, enemies of her creators.....but all were her enemies. She had only one purpose : to live and to bring forth children.
The living building kept on providing information about her....they had indeed come to take her away. She didn't want to go with them, she wanted freedom. What would happen now, she knew, and the building she could not defy; such she had learned a long time ago.
From the ceiling long 'vines' whirled down, attaching themselves to the the platform and lifting it further up. As this happened, the vines twisted into eachother from above, and the queen lowered herself through her legs, curling up her tail as she recalled how painful the touch to these things was.
The platform was leveled up, and for a split second, she believed they were regarding her with more than just eyes that sought information; for a moment they seemed to see her beauty and elegance even though she was what she was : the mother to those that used their fellow biomechanoids as hosts for the weapons....
Then the delusion died, and in their eyes she became again the possible solution. In that split second she learned what they planned to do with her, and within her, a repulsion of the species found it's origin. Hate it could not be called yet, for she only knew enemy and enemy, but somewhere in the last remnants of the manipulated nature that she was, an instinct told her of something else. A shapeless, unexisting 'else', but it would enough to create somewhat of a contrast, making her understand why these creatures were here enemies.
The ceiling opened, revealing another level, and the level above that. The cage continued upwards, through the abandoned laboratories and deserted dungeons. The new capturers had their own, shorter way to the surface.
Quietly she waited, ever careful not to land in unnecessary pain. Not yet.
The problem for the biomechanoids began, when there was no more way to bring the cage and it's valuable cargo anywhere nearer to the ship. They had expected this however, and prepared to release her. The building objected at first, calculating the options of what this action could mean, but the biomechanoids overpowered the commands. Softly the tentacles started to unspin.
The group had gathered in a great hall just before the exist. They knew that soon, the queen could come their way. Some would die, but sacrifices were to be made. They were the biomechanoids, they had no personality of their own, no value of their own; they could die and none of them had hope that they would not be the one to perish....hope nor despair they ever experienced.
Unlike the queen, who found herself back in another darkness, and the open hall beyond. Her echo carried further away through the one wall than it had ever done, and outside, all that she had learned about by tapping into the siliconic network of the building, it was there ready to become real! No, fear it cannot be called that she would fail to get past them, not fear like the chemical substance released in a body. Something deeper and purely mental, a despise of being trapped again on the border of life! For she didn't live. Her genes told her to live a certain way, and nothing of that existence could be reached in captivity.
She planned carefuly how she would move. They had weapons, painful weapons, but she had to set through. Do not waste time in killing. Freedom!
Frozen as she had seemed the one moment, so infuriated she was the next moment, as she thundered through the remaining gateway, shattering it's tissue in her strength. A great hall was before her, and lined out against the walls were the biomechanoids. There, outside, was water and then, a endless expanse in which her echo was last, her awareness couldn't reach even! How she wanted to be there, free!
As they biomechanoids activated their sound weapons and the terrible thrill ran through the air, making her cells shiver, she still did not even considered slowing down her pace, even though everything, every part of her existence fell into agony. And this was only the lowest level of the weapons only.
When they noticed her velocity only increased, the put the sound waves one frequency higher. Unhearable to the keepers of the weapons, but her screams filled their ears too. Too much willpower drive her forth.
Outside, a long rope was hung between two of the chromosome shaped vessels, and it now lowered, ready to make her trip or simply wrap around her. It was the only way out...or so they believed. Not a little surpized they were, when she lowered, and then suddenly jumped into the air. While their database raged at this completely unexpected development, she dug her claws into the vessel she landed on, and ripped away it's pilot.
Then, she leaped off, and for the first time, she touched water. The ripple caused by her landing was nothing compared to the wave when she rampaged straight under the ship, a small dot racing for her life. Immediately, the other vessels continued the chase after the trail of disrupted water.
With sheer impossible speed, she continued even when she no longer heard the awful thrill of their soundweapons. Their thoughts were no riddle to her, the queen's awareness was everywhere. She vessels would continue their chase, until they managed to stun her with a different frequency. The pain that promised only made her increase her speed, tensing muscles that she had kept alive for years by an ability none of the biomechanoids could suspect.
The mirror of the brilliant nocturnal sky was shattered by the black bullet of the queen. On her skin the stars danced in reflection as they danced on the waves. Behind her followed swiftly and soundlessly five dull grey shapes, approaching without mercy to rob away the newly gained space.
At the point where they had almost surrounded her, one above her and 2 at each of her sides, she stopped dead in her track and spun suddenly, leaping at one of the vessels from behind. A sound wave hit her violently, but it was too late for the assaulted vessel. The biomechanoid was just a little smaller than she was, but she was tougher and faster and stronger.....he died before the vessel hit the water surface. With one quick move, the queen grabbed the weapon, that lay still aside the dead biomechanoid.
Perhaps, the biomechanoid who was closest refused to comprehend what he saw; perhaps he believed the soundweapon at the tips of the vessel could compensate.....when the queen's small agile hands aimed her the weapon, and her mind triggered the rhythm of the silicone weapon, the vessel erupted in a tremor and a flame.
Upon seeing such, the other three decided that this was too dangerous; above that, with only three, they could not transport her back. They left.
She was alone, but not long did she stand there. Still clutching the weapon, she started to run again, further towards the horizon, and on, and on. Without rest her cells took in any molecule in the air that could produce her new energy, never resting, never stopping.
Speed, movement, no limitations! As she had never experienced any of those before, as she had never been able to send out her calling and receive no wall as answer, her first spark of happiness may have ignited. There was absolute nothing!
The building, the two wrecks, long gone they were from sight when she finally halted. The weapon she dropped now, and she sank down into the water. Above her the stars still shone, and she looked up once again. Stars.....infinity.....other planets. She knew of them, had learned about them after she had forced her awareness into the building, but she had never known that the colors, the contrast could be so pleasant to her eye. A shiver made her exoskeleton rattle, but it was not because of the cold. She felt small. Now there was no more prison, no more life anywhere around her, yet she had no changed in any way, she felt so small, so weak in the huge universe. A moment of completely self awareness is rare in even the wisest being, but she never let it go again. Time didn't exist in her mind yet at it would exist later, so she just sat there, and remembered the movement of the stars over the night sky, and bringing it into pattern with what she felt of the planet's movement.
A wiseman of the humans species once would explain why our view of the world is relative.....her view of the world was not. She could see all and feel all as far as her awareness expanded, and such was as far as the weaving of the universe would not crowd her physical body.
She knew they were not making up a plan to capture her, and she knew, that they way they planned to do it, would not leave her an escape.
So, without ever asking for a reason, she just sat there and watched the sky as if it was the greatest joy. To her, probably, it was the greatest joy, for until that moment, there had been no happiness, and now there was this new and ultimate experience.....just seeing the stars. She was no animal, for she was aware, yet in a way incomparable to any other being.....accidentally sentient, accidentally immortal.
Emotions she did not feel with it, but still, it was something indescribable. Her instincts ordered her nothing, ever, but even if they had, they would have been silent against the act of seeing the stars move.
Beyond the horizon, the biomechanoids had taken to building a contraption using the living vines of the building, the factory, to creature a similar cage that had brought her up, attached to the mothership. Then, the five legs pulled up, the magnetic drive went online. The soft humming was broken by the whistle of 14 small devices joined by the remaining 3 vessels, heading into the direction where they knew she was...somewhere.
They reached her soon, and once again, they were surprised. She made a choice, as she knew perfectly, what damage the 14 devices could do to her brain....they wanted her DNA, not her awareness, so they'd not keep back from using them. Without a single sign of a threat, she stepped onto the platform that the ship had lowered, and curled up, the tentacles closing again in their twist around her, leveling her up.
The biomechanoids tried to explain her behavior, tried to find a disorder in her brain....but what scared them, was they found a perfect genetical system, that was perfectly synchronizes with the activity of the body......and for the first time, they failed to give a logical explanation, not even once they reached their main facility, not even in the years that would follow.
And the mirror restored itself to a perfectly smooth surface, and reflected the stars once again. The dark clouds of the past would never return again, and the planet would be frozen in progress until no more eyes would come to see, whether anything had changed......until nobody was left to come, to know and learn.