[Empire] 10 – A One-Hundred-Year Voyage’s End

A century passed before the blink of an eye as the Swarm developed far faster than I could have imagined. The Home System of the Zerg has undergone a profound transformation, as each terrestrial planet, including the one closest to the sun, has been inhabited, and vast advancements have been made with the Zerg and the Swarm as a whole. 

Crèche has become a citadel of the Zerg, with a supermassive Zerg Organism now called the Bulwark floating above the planet, with more than a dozen minor stations forming a spherical grid around the planet, acting as mobile artillery platforms stocked full of morphed Star Screamers, Zerg Organisms morphed to act as agile star fighters, Bombadiers, which acted as distant snapers that had a low firing rate but relatively high damage impact, and most importantly, a very complex organic railgun that packed a punch, but had an enermosly slow fire rate, only being able to fire one 'Fang' every thirty minutes to an hour. The Bulwark, while designed to act as an even larger version of the smaller stations, was also a mobile Zerg factory and shipyard for the other Zerg Spacecraft made over the last century, with more than a dozen Levithan-type Organisms currently 'docked' on its arms, along with more minor Levithan variants such as the Kraken, Hydra, Siren, and Phoenix types.

The Kraken-variant was a design currently in the making that would act as a 'super-carrier' for the presently growing Zerg Fleet and would be around four times the size of a Leviathan, if not more, by the time it was done morphing.

The Hydra-variant was an exploratory vessel designed to be incredibly durable, capable of ramming through asteroid belts with minimal damage. 

The Siren-variant, which was still under development, was intended to be the first stealth craft of the Zerg, capable of skirting and performing reconnaissance on populated systems without alerting any observers. However, if something did, the Siren was being built with a self-destruction device that would likely destroy it, and whatever it lured into its grasp.

The Phoenix, on the other hand, was designed to act as a Destroyer, the first true warship of its production line. It would be roughly twice as big as a Leviathan and boast far more armaments and armor, with little on-board space for Zerg outside of Drones, who would act as an on-board repair crew, patching up any damage done to it throughout its lifespan or service.

Meanwhile, on the surface, the planet seemed relatively tame, as all Primal Zerg had been relocated to the Magma World, now known as Inferno, and led down truly dangerous evolutionary paths and Zerg Strains that grew to be titanic in size, though also insanely complex and biomass-intensive.

The Crèche was now used as a sort of 'focus' for the Swarm, as its underground hives were being designed to focus on the creation and maintenance of bio-computers, as well as other complex organisms, such as the Brood Queens. It was also acting as the main planet for researching into the advancement of the Zerg race as a whole, as in the past century, the many Bio-computers and Brood Mothers on planet worked tirelessly to improve each iteration of the Slipstream Core, with it now being on the ninth iteration to be used by the Spacecraft of the Zerg.

At its current iteration, the Slipstream Core could make a jump of roughly twenty light years every four months, which significantly reduced the travel time of the first Levithan; however, it had slowed down as it had to upgrade its core eight times by this point.

Crèche was roughly fifteen hundred light-years away from Sol, and with each iteration of the Slipstream Core, the travel time was cut shorter and shorter.

From roughly a thousand years, to eight hundred, then five hundred, then three hundred, and so on. Til its current iteration, which would allow one of our Levithans to reach Sol from Crèche within twenty years. It was still far too slow for my liking, but I hoped to cut the time even further, ideally to just a year of travel between the two systems. However, the Brain-computers and I estimated that it would take us another century or two to reach that point.

Outside of the inner progress with the Home System, the Zerg had around seven small colonies that the first Leviathan deployed on its journey. These colonies likely would struggle to properly grow, which meant I'd need to send supplies at some point to help the Brood Mothers on the colonies grow their colonies enough to be of good use to the Zerg.

In better news, the Voyage was nearing its end. Come the next week, the Leviathan would make its final jump to the Sol System, though a probe sent ahead would be arriving within the Sol System within the next few minutes.

I didn't know what to expect from humanity, not really. Humans were...chaotic, but also predictable once you got to know them. Their race was not only one of love and passion, but also conflict, hatred, and rage. The slightest perceived harm or threat I showed myself as, the Humans would unite and strike with unending fury and vengeance.

These...traits of the Humans were admirable, in a way, but every race had its bad side. Humanity's leadership was filled with many liars, many cheaters, many fakes. It's not the leaders I needed to win on my side, but the people-the people who struggled and lived their lives working for those in a higher perceived social status than themselves. 

For every intelligent human, there were like one or two stupid humans. Due to the appearance of the Zerg, I did not doubt that Humanity itself would strike me down before I or the Swarm even had the chance to speak, so I would have to arrive in force, to temper the more aggressive of humans, I could come in peace, but Humanity was divided, all it took was one fearful human to unite or strike the Leviathan first.

...

[Sol, Terra (Earth)]

The year was 2072, three years after the first colony of Luna was established. In these two years, Humanity, having become an interplanetary species, was thriving, but also still facing countless issues on both the inside and outside. World hunger was becoming more prevalent with each passing year, as was inflation and civil unrest. 

Yet, on the night of May 4th, an anomaly was detected by many satellites.

A sudden 'spark' of an unknown energy that was estimated to come from empty space between Neptune and Pluto. When the scientists investigated this anomaly using a vast array of telescopes, observatories, and satellites.

At first, nothing unusual was found at the origin of the anomaly. That was until after an entire day of searching by numerous people, an intern sitting within an observatory noticed that their systems had picked up an unknown object heading towards the Earth at relatively slow speeds. 

It took many hours, but when they finally got a visual on this object, they noted its irregular cylindrical shape with curves and edges.

By the third day, the object was close enough to be visualized by the telescopes trained on it.

...

[NASA Headquarters, Control Room]

Everyone fell silent as the object was revealed.  It was made of a strange, brown material and had several flagella at the end that seemed to wriggle and 'flap' like the tail end of a massive bacterium, with two thin 'wings' that helped guide it through space.

"What the hell is that?" Someone spoke.

Someone else shouted 'Alien,' another shouted 'Stellaris,' and not even a minute after seeing the creature, the entire room erupted into chaos. Still, it was not the only one, as other Nations and the Lunar colony learned of its appearance and its apparent path towards the Earth.

Over the next few days, the presumed alien continued to draw closer, and as the week drew to a close, Earth was met with a vastly larger object that appeared with a burst of unknown energy from outside the system.

...

[On the First Leviathan, in control of the Brood Mother body]

As I looked over the ship as it finally reached Sol, I examined my findings through the Probe.

Humanity had not progressed too far; they had reached space travel and colonized their moon, but from what I could tell, the Mass Relay hidden in one of their furthest planets from the sun remained undiscovered, meaning I had an at least a few decades until the first Reaper arrived, which gave me a time frame I could work with.

The Probe was a few days away from reaching Earth, allowing me a closer look at the stage humanity had reached while the Leviathan made its way towards Earth to initiate first contact.

At the moment, I was preparing an empty shell for myself to inhabit when the Leviathan reached Earth, a body that bordered more on human than Zerg, but not completely.

It would have a chitinous exoskeleton, five sharp digits on both hands, long braided hair made of tough chitin, two optic nerves to act as eyes, but no nose or mouth. I did not add genetalia or any truly 'feminine' body parts so that the body would be andrognous, then appear as male to female. 

While this was intended to be a diplomatic vessel for me to interact with Humanity, I did not skimp on weaponizing the form to make it exceedingly lethal.

It had an organ on its back that contained four tentacles, which could be used both as weapons and to aid in maneuvering through terrain. Along its forearms, two hidden, bone-like bio-metal blades could be extended at will. Inside, there were also added redundant organs, made smaller and more efficient to take up less space. I incorporated several beneficial viruses into the shell, enhancing its regeneration, strength, toughness, and reaction speeds. 

I did not include a range option; instead, I added an organ that would allow for more fluid speech and vocal ranges than a human typically has, enabling more precise control over tones, pitches, and fluctuations of speech.

The shell stood at roughly seven feet tall and weighed around five hundred pounds of muscle and chitin, and yet I was only a little over halfway finished, as I still had more I planned on adding to the shell.

I should be finished with the shell by the time the Levithan reaches Earth within the next few days. I just hoped that the First Contact went well; I didn't want to make an enemy of what would likely be my only ally in this galaxy.