For The Queen

I am but a lowly drone pilot, grown carefully within our Queen and hatched only a few cycles earlier. I was given no name, but the Mother did give me a purpose. I knew it was an important one as soon as the transport drone had flown me to the massive vat that held my command.

It was not to be just one ship, but three.

Even a half-grown pilot such as myself can easily control up to a dozen vessels, but it is rare to be given more than one. Space is still new to the Queen and the ship vats are not as efficient as they could be.

As the three vessels rise from the vats and slowly crawl their way onto the carefully flattened dirt around them, I notice that two are first generation fighters and the third is much like the transport carrying me, but on a massive scale.

With incredible speed my body, consisting of a boulder sized jelly-like mass of neural connections, is surgically installed into the lead fighter and right away I begin to feel out the ship and track down any genetic flaws. None in the lead.

When the relay pod is put into the other two ships I am quickly able to feel them out as well. The second fighter has a minor flaw, but the Queen is quick to assure me.

The transport is hastily loaded with almost a hundred large pincer drones. It was odd, since the Queen Mother had harvested all threatening sentient life in our home system hundreds of years ago.

Hearing my confusion, the Queen lets me remember...

Recently the Queen had discovered a rich planet in a neighboring system and had quickly colonized it. Soon after though, dozens of large alien vessels, molded from crude lifeless metals, began pouring through the wormhole and into the Queen's new system, Majorum.

Always wise, the Queen had placed satellite drones around the entry point only a cycle earlier and they easily destroyed them all. These strange aliens did not learn though.

Again and again they came. It wasn't until the smaller craft came though that the Queen began to worry. The smaller vessels began to fire back, destroying one or more satellites before they themselves were destroyed.

Survival for the Queen has never been a defensive position. When faced with countless dangers over her millions of years of life, she never once thought to flee her world. Always she would adapt and ultimately conquer her adversaries and harvest their genetics.

This time was no different.

It was then that she began growing my vessels and myself.

It was a race against time. Already many other aliens had began to test the borders of the Queen's home system, and the satellite drones dwindled at an alarming rate. I set out at once through the majorums second wormhole.

The mission almost ended before it had begun, just as I had come out and set off to explore this new system, several frigate sized metal constructs soared around us and attempted to enter the Majorum system.

It was then that I noticed that the Queen was silent. Something about the alien crafts had cut me off from her. It was no matter though, my purpose was clear. I had to find their worlds and destroy them.

I went on. For months I sailed through expansive nebulas and once skirted the edge of a blackhole, but had found no sign of the aliens. It was only when I had decided to backtrack that I found what I was looking for.

A second wormhole in Majorums neighboring system, and I had there just in time to watch a massive construct exit and launch itself off towards the other end of the system, towards the Queen.

I ignored the vessel and went through the wormhole.

At last...as soon as I entered that new system, my mind was assaulted with strange signals. most of them came from a large oxygen world near a yellow sun much like our home system. I closed in on the planet cautiously. I knew what I had to do, but something itched at me, something that, if I had still been in contact with the Queen, she would have quickly resolved.

For a month I flew a cycle around the sun, observing and gathering up the rich flux of signals. I learned that these aliens called themselves Terrans, or Humans. I also learned that while they ceaselessly assaulted Majorums wormhole, they also had been preparing a larger fleet. Five times the size of my own.

It was stationed around the large world in this system, protected by a large space station on the sunward side of the planet. I could wait no longer, I tightened my small fleets formation and attacked.

The plan was simple, go around and escort the transport in on the opposite side of the planet, avoiding the space station. Only, I had underestimated the speed of the fleet itself.

The entire fleet was dispatched immediately on an intercept course. I'd quickly realized that at their speed, I would not be able to make it past without engadging them. It was the transport, not capable of the fighters speeds, it slowed us to a crawl.

A new plan was made and I broke both fighters off from the transport and used their full speed. We did not change course though. All of the enemies frigates came in fast for the fighters, ignoring the lagging transport behind us. So far so good.

Equipped with only long range parasites, my ships were not ready for the barrage of close range projectiles unleashed on them point blank. Though inaccurate, this close it was hard for them to miss. The secondary fighter was reduced to a floating hulk immediately. Not destroyed but so close that the enemy no longer considered it a threat. They came for the lead fighter next. They came for me.

Using my secondary fighter's demise to my advantage, I gained distance between me and the enemy fleet. Launching parasite after parasite as I went. Once I had led them away from their planet, I brought the transport past their rear; straight for the planet.

Strafing the fleet, it was not long before I had destroyed several of their frigates and sent many others fleeing. Ignoring the dying secondary fighter and the fleeing enemy, I veered back towards the planet to catch up the transport.

I slowed the transport to make sure I could join with it, but it was too late. Still far the world, the transport signaled danger through the relay pod. A massive fleet of parasite like drones had been launched from the planets surface straight for the transport.

I tried to turn it and have it flee, but it was destroyed only seconds later.

It was then that an alien emotion overcame me and without the Queen's guidance I was consumed by it. My fighter wounded from the battle with the fleet, I prepared one final volley of parasites and sped towards the world.

((Of course I had checked the planet as soon as I attacked and saw that it had weapons platforms. But I thought I might be able to throw the fighters at it first, since they had a good amount of armor and hope they bought the transport enough time. Oh well, second gen fighters and a whole fleet of transports in queue , btw, this was with my research mod(makes AI prioritize research alot more) and v1.13 of the game, AI is waaayy better.))