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The first warmth she recalls is that of a pupa.
Soft, fragile exoskeleton yet to harden, she crawls the distance from cracked eggshell to safety. Most of the brood has pupated before her.
Curling her limbs tight against her body [the vessel], the walls of her pupa close in. A sensation pulses across her head, but quickly begins to fade. The vessel closes her eyes and chases after it, whispers hissing in and out of her mind.
Above the whispers is a hum. The hum, then warmth. It surrounds the vessel.
Mother.
The hum echoes throughout her newborn broodmates and surrounding broods, almost endless. Her legs tense up. It's too much. It's too loud. It's too warm. But the vessel must cling to it.
Life fades from some adjacent pupae. She will not remember them. She turns blindly towards the warmth, the hum, the deafening voices of the Collective.
The first thing she knows is that she must listen to Mother.
The first thing she does not know is why she is the only vessel that must resist the urge to turn away.
As much as Mother provides nutrients she provides knowledge. Knowledge is gathered by every vessel drone, and Mother retains it all, disseminated and absorbed into newborn broods. Knowledge is required for the Collective to evolve.
The first lesson: humans are the most widespread species in the galaxy.
Their 'collective', if it can even be referred to as such, is detached, with species-wide adaptation so slow that it is near undetectable within their short lifetimes. Yet somehow, they have colonized planet after planet.
However, Mother emphasizes, this is to the Collective's advantage. Human internal body temperatures maintain a steady 36.5 to 37.5 degrees Centigrade, optimal for incubation. To grow the hive, human colonies must be infiltrated, suitable hosts selected to carry their eggs.
The Collective lives off of vast knowledge, and its knowledge of humans is the most valuable of all.
Humans are nothing like the vessel. The vessel finds it curious.
The vessel's first mission makes her restless.
The ship is far larger than the pupa she developed in. Despite this, she has just as much space being shoved into a holding chamber with a dozen other drones. The ship wobbles with their combined weight, two greater drones piloting to stabilize against turbulence.
She doesn't understand how the rest of the drones remain still, backs straight in their seats. It is their first times away from the Collective, yet their combined thoughts are quiet and focused. She looks down at her own limbs, joints of her black claws clicking as she clenches them into a fist. Even the act of moving her body is foreign.
Thoughts of a few adjacent drones whisper, directed at the incessant clicking, and the vessel plants her claws between her knees.
The ship shakes from side to side again, a low creak, making the vessel's antennae flick alert.
Solar storms…unexpected for planets orbiting around this star at this time of year… one of the pilots thinks. The other drones acknowledge it.
The vessel's twin hearts throb in her thorax, fluid rushing through her veins. Frantic thoughts jostle around inside her brain of known impending danger of solar storms, of the creaking of the ship, of the increase in heat of 1.5 Centigrade.
Her broodmates express little outside of rapt attention, awaiting instructions, mandibles opening and closing idly.
Will We have to make an emergency landing? the other pilot asks. Shields are failing. Navigational systems are going offline. Compensating against solar activity would severely deplete fuel and leave Us stranded in deep space.
It would be advised. From the cockpit, the pilot drone's antenna perk up. Our last scan suggests a human outpost on this planet. This would serve Our needs well.
How convenient.
How thankfully convenient, yes, and the vessel exhales a breath far too large for her carapace.
A single human greets the drones at the airlock door of the outpost.
Heightened interest radiates from the vessel's broodmates. Softened, rounded facial features. Long, black hair, tied back in a neat style within her exo-suit helmet. Smaller stature. A slight body curve beneath her exo-suit notating a smaller waist relative her abdomen. This one is female, important to their mission for reasons the vessel is not entirely sure of.
But the vessel focuses instead on the slight creasing of pale skin on the human's cheeks at the corners of her lips. She imagines human skin must be smooth to the touch, yet malleable, pulled across soft fat.
The human's breath fogs against the glass as she looks over the crew of "human" women in uniform, then gives a curt, polite smile.
"Identification, please."
The greater drone produces a badge from her jacket pocket.
"Oh, you're from Calyx-04," the human states simply. "That's not too far from here."
"We were on our way to survey in the Cepheus-A system, but the solar storms forced us to land," one of the greater drones replies, a perfectly rehearsed response punctuated by a lighthearted chuckle.
The female human chuckles and nods along with them. "I'll say. Apparently the storms have been…unpredictable this year. Right this way."
That's one of many things the vessel finds peculiar about humans: if there is nothing of note to speak about, they become quite comfortable discussing the weather. It isn't like communication with the other drones and Mother; only necessary information, whatever can be used to further their goals.
Although, to the contrary, humans seem to hate unnecessary silence in social interactions. The vessel supposes that is furthering a goal.
"The base is a little low on supplies. Captain told us were supposed to be getting in a shipment today, but the storms have delayed things," the human continues inside, taking her helmet off. She guides them through a corridor, past what appears to be a makeshift mess hall, partitioned off with glass windows and doors. "But we might have a few sleeping bags lying around. Hopefully that's not a problem?"
"Not a problem at all," the greater drone repeats, "I'm sure we can figure out ways to make room. We don't plan to stick around too long."
The vessel finds her reflection in the glass and sees her human form for the first time.
She has pale hair, cropped just shy of her shoulders, bangs brushing above large, dark eyes. Her skin is pale, nose pronounced, lips pink, slightly plump. The vessel finds human body shapes are difficult to maintain, her true limbs retracted and constricted within imitation flesh and skin. The joints bend at odd angles, and even walking with feet and toes flat against the ground is terribly awkward. But human faces are unique.
The only difficult part of faces are lips. Yes, those soft parts. Leaning closer to the glass, she purses her lips, then spreads them wide into a closed-mouth smile. She must resist the natural urge to move her mandibles, currently pressed tight against her false jaw.
Upon closer inspection, she notices gradient of pink across her cheeks, how her hair falls across her neck when she turns her head.
Is she pretty?
The commands of the drones warn her to not stray far behind. The question fades.
"Hey Oh, we got an update on that delivery—"
A male human enters from the corridor, tall, all chiseled angles in a black and gray uniform. The vessel finds it amusing how different the human sexes can appear, these two a prime example.
He pauses, his gaze hardening, furrowing blocky eyebrows and scanning over the group.
"We didn't get a message on our scanners. You're supposed to let us know you're arriving ahead of time."
"Surely you've also picked up the massive spikes in solar energy on your scanners. We didn't exactly have a choice. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?" The greater drone posits, raising her eyebrows.
The male human squints. Passive-aggression is a human emotion few of the vessel's kind can master.
"Captain Lee Seungho. This is my base, and I'll need some identification from you, ma'am. Have to make sure you're not Bugs."
The female human, who the vessel assumes is "Oh," side-steps between them. She smiles, but her black eyes communicate something else entirely. "I've already collected their identification, sir. They're from Calyx-04. I wasn't made aware of any other security measures being implemented."
She pauses, blinking. "…and I'm sorry, 'Bugs?'"
The captain looks between the female human, the greater drone, and then the vessel with a slight chuckle, shoulders sagging.
"Sorry for the confusion. Commander Oh just arrived on base. Inner Planets, you know how it is. They do things a little…differently than we do around here."
The vessel nods and smiles in imitation. "It's alright, we don't know anything about these 'Bugs' either."
The captain (and every drone) snaps to attention. A coiling in the vessel's stomach signals that that was not the correct response.
"The Calyx system got hit with Bug attacks a couple of months ago," the captain raises an eyebrow, leaning in close to match the vessel's height.
The vessel can smell his breath, musty remnants of smoke. She laughs, a genuine one, high and chittering.
"I-I just got assigned to this mission. I'm not originally from Calyx. I'm also from the Inner Planets."
"Oh really? Which one?"
The vessel skims through the few Inner Planets she can recall from her shared memory, but names blur in and out of focus as her pulse surges, drowning out the cursing from the other drones inside her head.
"E-Earth…sir."
The captain raises both eyebrows. "Ah, yeah. You've got one of those Terran accents. Well then, I guess I can catch you and Ms. Oh up to speed."
Commander Oh silently flicks her eyes towards the vessel, and the vessel feels a strange urge to look away.
The captain folds his hands behind his back. "They call themselves the Collective. Out here, we call them Bugs. They turn into people to sneak onto ships and outposts."
He takes a few slow steps closer to Commander Oh.
"And let me make one thing crystal clear. Bugs aren't like the green men or the reptiles from the Inner Planets. You don't sign trade agreements over tea with a Bug. They lay eggs inside you and eat whoever else is left. And out of those two options, you're better off being eaten."
While he is addressing the both of them, his gaze points directly at Commander Oh. She doesn't flinch, gaze unbreaking. Only a flare of her nostrils signals her displeasure of this interaction. The vessel can't help but find it impressive.
But as Captain Lee turns around, his steely eyes take one last, long look at the vessel, and his thick jaw tenses underneath thinning skin.
Goosebumps prickle along her false spine.
When night falls over the outpost, the vessel doesn't sleep.
She physically cannot; not outside of her pupa, not when all are occupied with both the mission and a new sensation, an ache inside them.
It's time, the greater drone declares, a sentiment echoed throughout the group.
Yes, it's time, the vessel echoes along, a sort of haphazard half-thought repetition.
The drones exit their cramped quarters, marching in lockstep, the vessel taking a few brisker steps to catch up.
All is silent except for the tapping of their feet against metal. The sound soon fills the vessel with a sort of…eagerness? Excitement, even? She sways her shoulders back and forth in rhythm, the entire group's footsteps in unison.
But another thought quells her excitement.
The disdain humans have for the Collective isn't lost on her; their disgust, their fear. Nevertheless, the hive must grow. That is what she understood from the moment she was lucid enough to remember Mother's words. Her broodmates gave little thought to how the humans felt about them. But this thought itches and nags at the vessel's mind, like a bit of exoskeleton not quite hardened properly at one of her joints.
This thought is unique; quiet, but present. The vessel thinks it might be dangerous.
One of the greater drones turns towards one of the other vessels in the group. Find the fuse box and shut off the lights. Should the pilots be killed, a cohort will collect Us upon completing the mission. Let Us finish it quickly.
It only takes a few minutes for the base to go dark. The outpost is small; the humans gave them a thorough enough tour of the premises for them to know.
The vessel's vision goes black-and-white, a little grainy and fuzzy around the edges, but enough to make out crucial details. A doorway slides open in the hall before them, a human exiting that she doesn't recognize.
"Shit, fuse tripped again…?"
He stumbles about, holding one hand out blindly in front of him while the other rummages in his pocket for something. A greater drone's antennae flick to attention. The group crouches, and the vessel follows their lead.
The vessel feels something warm and wet against her mouth. She presses her claws there, pulling them back to see the shimmer of her own saliva. The other drones are salivating now, too.
The human stops, his head rotating clumsily.
"Is someone there?"
Humans are quick, but Collective drones are far quicker.
He falls, pinned to the ground underneath the greater drone's weight.
There are sounds the vessel has never heard before; one agonied, gurgled scream, crushing of a human's internal skeleton, of two sets of hard jaws ripping soft, wet flesh, the chittering of the remaining drones eager to have their own meal.
More doors in the hall open, humans exiting their quarters shouting confusedly, overlapping. They have little time to react before the rest of the drones descend upon them.
The vessel isn't sure where to look, what to listen to, a harsh cacophony of carnage; crunching, tearing, squishing, screaming. There's another drone with its jaws buried bloodily inside the chest of a human male. The human's torso is still expanding, mouth twitching open and closed. He might still be alive.
The vessel is hungry, just as starving as the rest of them, but the metallic stench of blood makes her shiver. It is both enticing yet nauseating, saliva wetly collecting in her mouth, and she is unsure of which she feels stronger.
Yet another drone dives in, clamping around the human's leg. The other screeches, swiping at it with one claw to fend it off. The vessel's claws clench into fists. Stop hesitating. Why are We hesitating?
A new sound cuts above the noise. Sharp, high, accompanied by a flash of red light.
The group look up from their feasts to see one of their own collapsed onto the floor. A wisp of smoke rises from a hole right between its eyes.
"Get behind me, Oh!"
Captain Lee Seungho's shout reverberates against the vessel's antennae. He's holding a phaser rifle in both hands, cocking it. "Gotta kill 'em quick before they start regenerating!"
The frenzy prior is replaced with a different kind of chaos, now turned upon them, hissing and squealing and flashes of red. The Collective consciousnesses of the vessels all overlap, near undecipherable.
Attack it—
Run—
Hungry—kill it—
RUN—
Phaser shots ring out, bodies collapsing to the ground wherever the vessel looks.
She ducks around a corner, but a searing pain shoots through her leg, a sickly throbbing throughout her body. One of her lower leg segments is spurting with green blood, smoke rising from her wound.
She should be able to heal herself within moments, as her broodmates would, had they not been dispatched so swiftly. But instead she limps on claws and knees down the hallway, dragging her leg behind it. Her heartbeats are now deafening, drowning out the knowledge of regeneration and the dwindling voices of her broodmates.
Hide—
The vessel finds a half-open air vent, close to the floor. It should be large enough to fit her body through.
She manages to pry open the vent, but she has to force her legs into the space, suppressing the urge to cry out in pain as she pulls the vent shut.
A drone falls to the ground where she once stood.
Through the slats, a pair of boots come into frame, stopping in front of the corpse. The individual lifts one boot and brings down the heel into the drone's jaw with a sickening crack. The vessel's insides squirm.
The boot keeps slamming into the dead drone's mouth, again and again, unflinching.
"Enough, enough, it's already dead!" A high, strangled voice above the noise. That's Commander Oh.
"What do you want me to do, lay a lily on its grave?" Captain Lee asks. He shakes off drops of blood dirtying his boot. "You just don't get it, Oh. They're not people. They're—"
Another drone pounces on top of him.
Captain Lee falls to the floor with a scream, struggling against the vice-grip of its jaws around his arm. He shouts out something indistinct, and from beyond the vessel's view, two phaser shots hit the drone in the head, its neck tipping back in recoil.
The vessel watches with held breath as the drone sags, lifeless. Captain Lee pushes its body off of him, alive, but now with one less limb. He almost seems not to notice it until he reaches across his chest, touching where it once was, and he heaves hoarsely.
"Oh my god…" Commander Oh whispers.
"Fuck, there's…" he groans, "I think that was the last one…"
"Hold still. If we wrap this, we can—" She kneels down at his level, one gloved hand reaching out.
The captain wheezes. It might be a laugh.
"Don't waste your time, Oh. Just…get it over with."
"Captain…" Commander Oh's voice trembles. She stands slowly. "what…what are you asking me to do?"
"I'm telling you to let me go out with some dignity," he says through gritted teeth, "Better you than a goddamn Bug."
The phaser clicks and hums idly. Commander Oh's breath stutters.
"Hah," Captain Lee coughs, "You've got good handling on that phaser. Like a natural. Like a real Commander."
A pause, one shot, and Captain Lee's legs twitch, once and then no more.
For once, there is quiet. No human screams, no drone vocalizations. The voices of the hive are no longer those of her broodmates within limb's reach, now hushed voices of her kind from her home planet, instinctual tethers to Mother.
The relative quiet allows other suppressed sensations to settle into her body, the pain still thrumming in her veins, but another, too.
She's weak. Hungry. There's a human corpse just laying there in the dark, ripe for the taking.
The vessel pries away the grate cover, gingerly placing it aside. She spreads her jaws open, and with a nice, firm grip in the human's shoulder, and a few, carefully placed steps…
Commander Oh looks up with a gasp. The vessel runs.
She can't run particularly fast, and the pain in starting to catch up. The best she can do is tuck away into a room, a storage space, by the looks of it.
She tears the body open.
The vessel now understands why her broodmates were salivating. Consumption isn't anything like absorbing Mother's nutrients; Humans have so many different parts encased in skin, the flavors and textures are all different and intermingled and overwhelming but satisfying. It almost makes the vessel forget that it is human.
But the loud scuffing of boots against the floor are a reminder.
Commander Oh stands in the open doorway. Dark specks of liquid spatter on her cheek, down her neck. Captain Lee's phaser is bloodstained, too. A red pinpoint of light flickers at the end of her phaser, pointed between the vessel's eyes, functions set to kill.
There's a dim glow from a battery-powered lantern sitting on a table. In the stale light, this may be the first time she has fully seen a drone's true face; hair and eyes recognizably human, but her mandibles exposed, serrated and stained with viscera.
Commander Oh's eyes go black, reflectionless.
"You…"
The vessel stares back, motionless. She is unable to pinpoint the emotion expressed in the single word; lowered, half-whispered, there's a suggestion of a meaning. Yet the slight upward inflection adds complexity to whatever interpretation she might have.
Commander Oh's phaser shakes in her hands. Her eyes flick downwards.
"Y-your leg is broken. Looks pretty bad. That's why you were hiding. That's why you didn't attack us…right?"
She's right. If the vessel can't regenerate, for whatever reason, she must adapt in other ways. Cornered alone in a room, facing the barrel of a phaser, there is no option to attack or flee. Commander Oh would be awarded an easy kill. But she hasn't pulled the trigger.
"You're hesitating, too. Why don't you kill Us?" She asks, human speech interspersed with mouthparts clacking.
Commander Oh lowers her phaser. "'An officer will not shoot any sapient species visibly surrendering.' Interplanetary Alliance Code."
The vessel is puzzled. The Collective is not part of any alliance. Moreover, what's a surrender to a human? In the darkness, could one even tell?
"Captain Lee Seungho didn't follow that code."
One side of Commander Oh's mouth quirks up. "Yeah, well I do things a little differently."
She licks her lips.
"One of you tripped the power, right? Help me find the box. When the power's on, we can get your leg fixed."
"Help?" The vessel cocks her head.
In her short existence, the vessel had only ever known to attack, flee, or accept death. She hadn't considered a fourth option. She fixes on the phaser in the human's hands. The muzzle points at the floor, but the light speckles red onto the tile.
Commander Oh's chest heaves a deep breath, then with a scoff she tosses her phaser, clattering to the floor.
"Maybe I'm an idiot for not killing you. But if you're anything like humans then you won't survive on your own. And then we'll both be dead. I'll help you…if you help me. Deal?"
The voices of the Collective tell her to take her chances, to overtake the human while she's unarmed. But surely none of them have been in this position before, she reasons. This offer is a chance to adapt, too.
The vessel hisses. "Deal."
Guiding Commander Oh to the fuse box is a simple task. There's a small closet at the end of the corridor, where the drone had thoughtlessly left the box's door ajar and unlocked.
Commander Oh holds up the small electric lantern she'd taken from the storage closet. She squints, quietly nodding to herself, taking a once-over of the small assortment of switches and levers.
"Okay let's just…"
The electric lantern starts to flicker. Commander Oh groans, smacking the side of the lantern. It flickers twice more, then unceremoniously fizzles out.
"Of fucking course…" she hisses.
She drops the lantern with a loud thunk. Her eyes are wide open, but she has to feel around on the wall until she finds the box again.
"Oh, you really can't see in the dark," the vessel comments.
Commander Oh's hands graze over the buttons. "Yeah, no, I ca—"
The vessel curls her claws around Commander Oh's wrist.
She jolts, resisting against her hold. "Wh-what are you doing—?"
She wraps Commander Oh's fingers around the small lever labeled "RESET", then guides her to push down. The base hums back to life, overhead lights flashing on in segments.
The vessel nods. It seems that would be the appropriate human gesture.
"The power is back."
Commander Oh blinks widely, eyebrows wrinkling a bit of skin between, then jerks her hand out of the vessel's grasp.
Brusquely, she half-mumbles, "Let's go to med-bay."
The entire med-bay is white; the beds, the lights, even the equipment are stark, blinding. The vessel doesn't understand how even a human's eyes would tolerate it.
But she lays there, as Commander Oh told her to.
Commander Oh is holding a small handheld instrument up to her injured leg. She clicks some buttons on the device until it begins to whir, a stream of light scanning over the wound. Over a few minutes, it closes, internal fluids scabbing over.
The vessel tests it, bending it, the thrumming pain subsided to a mere dull ache.
Commander Oh's eyebrows raise. "That's good. There weren't any presets for…insects. Had to make do with the settings for Orion Crab-folk."
The vessel blinks, baffled. "You did that without knowing anything about Our biology?"
"Made an educated guess. Or maybe I was winging it." Commander Oh shrugs, setting down the medical scanner. "You're welcome, by the way."
The vessel places her claws where the wound once was. Human technology had the ability to replicate regeneration, something that should have been innate to her. Nevertheless, she feels…gratitude. That's new.
"Thank…you," she mumbles.
Commander Oh looks up from the medical instruments on the side table for a moment, white lights reflecting softly against her pupils.
Her lips twitch, just enough to crease the skin.
The solar storms rage. The temperature inside the outpost rises and the architecture creaks, although not as significant as inside the Collective ship.
Over the next few days, Commander Oh follows a rigid schedule. After a short rest in her quarters, she will take it upon herself to occupy the room where the communications console lies. She will turn the knobs, tuning against static hisses. The vessel has no demands from Mother that she will satisfy, so she will watch her from a quiet corner of the room, claws folded in her lap.
Sometimes, Commander Oh will glance back at the vessel with stiff, closed lips for a few moments before returning to the console.
"Doesn't seem like there's direct channels anywhere in this system," she says. The vessel doesn't know if she is talking to it. "Definitely none to the Inner Planets. I'll just have to send out an SOS message and pray."
Commander Oh records a plea to be rescued, This is Oh Haewon, I'm on Outpost 3412, Ursa Minor-BC. I'm in need of a rescue vessel. If you copy, please reply.
She records them five times daily, sometimes more, each more stilted than the last. She even brings what is left of her rations to the console; dry brown bars wrapped in foil, something likely nutrient-dense and resistant to spoiling but unrecognizable as food.
Then again, the vessel can't say she knows very much about human food. She returns to the supply closet where Captain Lee's body is each night, while Commander Oh rests. There's little left of him now. What remained of the others, too.
On the fifth day, the vessel enters the console room in her human form. Commander Oh gives her one tight-jawed stare, then returns to her work.
Despite having no disguise of her own, no shell to conceal her fleshy body with, Commander Oh also puts the vessel on guard. She has done away with her phaser, but her watchful eye is enough of a threat.
The vessel wonders if she knows that.
"—Hey…hey…shit…hey, wake up—"
The vessel's vision focuses, inches away from Commander Oh's face. Once her eyes fully open, she stands, backing away.
"What—" she mumbles, mouth and eyes heavy. Even the skin of her human form feels heavy. "What happened?"
"You were stumbling around and then just…fell over."
She blinks hard, looking into her small palms. Commander Oh continues speaking, but her words muffle and fade to quiet, while the Collective's voices trickle back into her mind. One by one, they all beg.
Hungry…
She tenses up, eyes widening. Last night, there weren't even bones left.
"What’s wrong?" Commander Oh asks, near a demand.
The vessel backs up against the wall. When she exhales, saliva drips from her lips. Commander Oh's eyes follow it.
She takes a step backwards, small enough that she probably thinks the vessel wouldn't notice. "I know what you've been doing."
A weight sinks into the vessel's guts, heavier than hunger.
"You don’t trust Us," she breathes.
"Well, with you sneaking around, eating the remains of my shipmates—" Commander Oh says through her teeth "—I can't entirely say I do."
"Wh-what else is there for Us to eat?" The vessel's voice rises sharply. It makes Commander Oh flinch.
The Collective berate her for her outburst, illogical. It's kept this human alive for too long, it's starting to—
"If We wanted to kill you, then why would We make Ourselves eat scraps for days?" she asks, hushed but still desperate. "You fixed this body's leg. There wasn't anything holding Us back. But we're supposed to help each other, right?"
Commander Oh's heavy breathing echoes in the communications room. She swallows nothing, biting the inside of her cheek. "Okay."
She walks towards the door. Without looking back, she barks a, "Come on."
"Where are We going?"
"To find something else for you to eat."
Commander Oh pushes, managing to pry the doors open, creakily sliding along their hinges.
The locks on the other humans' living quarters, normally tied to individual bio-signals, seemed to have malfunctioned. Perhaps it was when the power initially got shut off.
The far more likely reason, one that the vessel fends off accepting, is that digested humans don't give off bio-signals.
Like the other rooms they've rummaged through, there are personal belongings strewn about on the floor; worn clothes piled unfolded in a basket, multiple pairs of shoes shoved into a corner closest to the door, bed sheets pushed and bunched up in the middle of the bed. Her nose wrinkles at the stale human body odor. This kind of mess seems to be normal.
Commander Oh peers underneath the bed, and her eyes glimmer. "Ah-hah—"
She drags out a large, white box. Ripping open the cardboard tabs reveals rows of identical bottles. She takes out two, tossing one over to the vessel. It bounces into her hands, barely managing to catch it.
"Protein shake," Commander Oh says simply, as if the vessel is supposed to know what that is. She unscrews the cap on the bottle and tosses it aside. "It's chocolate. Try it. You might like it."
The vessel mulls over the drink…or more appropriately, protein supplement. She isn't sure what chocolate is, nor if she would even be able to eat it, but she'll take Commander Oh's word for it. Unscrewing the cap, it's filled to the brim with a thick brown liquid. Copying her, she lifts the rim of the bottle to her lips.
She pauses. This mouth is a false one. If she wants to ingest this, there's only one way to do so. She spreads her jaws open, sliding her tongue, her real one, into the bottle. A pleasant, tingling sweetness coats it.
She realizes all too soon that this bottle is not made for non-human mouths.
Most of the drink makes it into her mouth, but some of it dribbles messily down her neck. She has to tilt the bottle at odd angles to keep too much from spilling, her jaws in the way. She coughs, putting the bottle down to breathe, then quickly retracting her jaws.
Commander Oh's mouth trembles, then opens wide, a hearty, high laugh bursting out of her.
She wrings her hand in her stomach, as if the sheer force of her laughter is painful. "Damn, I guess you did like it, huh? Here, so you don't make a mess."
She passes the vessel a box of tissues from a table next to the bed. The vessel accepts them, a brief embarrassed chill rushes over her body; almost unpleasant, but not entirely.
"Thank you, Commander Oh."
Commander Oh laughs a little quieter. A pause.
"…Call me Haewon. I'm not your superior. No point in formalities."
"Haewon…" The vessel whispers to herself. It's hard for her to wrap her mind around the concept of formalities. Greater drones are her superiors; older, awarded more knowledge from surviving long enough to complete multiple missions. The younger drones are lesser. They could never be equals. That doesn't change.
The vessel loses her train of thought when Haewon asks her a question.
"And what about you?"
She cocks her head. "What about…Us?"
"Your name? Might as well know each others' names, if we're going to be stuck together."
"We…don't have one."
The vessel looks down, rubbing her thumbs against the words printed on bottle label. "This body is just one of many. We share one mind, so there's no use for bodies having names. We…apologize if that's confusing for you."
"Right. The Collective. No, that makes sense…" Haewon trails off, idly shaking her bottle and letting the liquid swish inside. "But…if you did have a name, what would it be? Have you thought about it before?"
Technically, all of her kind have thought about it before. When they take a human disguise, they will give themselves a fake name. Always something feminine, something common enough that a human wouldn't find it out of place.
Belatedly, she realizes she had forgotten to choose one. But Haewon already knows that the vessel isn't human. Maybe something innate in Haewon's mammal brain wants her to be.
Finally, the vessel settles on something. "Lily."
"Lily?" Haewon repeats with a crooked smile.
"…Yes," she agrees.
As Haewon takes a sip of her protein supplement, the vessel thinks the name is terribly unfitting in hindsight. Lilies are fragile things, as all flowers are.
A body so sharp and solid shouldn't be called [Lily], should it?
"Hey," Haewon calls. "…Lily."
The vessel—[Lily]—looks up in delayed response. She still hasn't gotten used to that. But Haewon shaping her lips around Lily tethers the name somewhere underneath her carapace, in a little itching crevice. And so, she is [Lily], for now.
"Looks like the solar storms have blown off some of the siding, Haewon explains, "Another big one's coming and it might damage the structural integrity of the base. It needs to fixed, and…well, it's a two-person job."
[Lily] pauses, merely absorbing the information, but Haewon seems to interpret the silence as a question.
"It's in the manual," she answers, holding up a small tablet.
[Lily] stands, taking the tablet from Haewon. She skims over the instructions. "Alright. This is simple enough."
Haewon's eyes blink widely. "Wow, you read it that fast?"
"Our kind live to gather knowledge," [Lily] explains matter-of-factly, "We've got plenty of experience."
Haewon doesn't seem to question this.
Upon gathering the materials, the two of them set off to repairing the base, both donning exo-suits. What was left over from the crew left [Lily] with few options that weren't oversized, but she makes do, rolling up the sleeves and pant legs within her boots and gloves.
They ultimately decide to split the work between them, [Lily] on one side of the wall and Haewon on the other, meeting in the middle. It was a matter of applying adhesive, applying heat, and slotting siding into place in a straight pattern, as simple as [Lily] expected.
Halfway through the replacement siding, [Lily] looks aside, Haewon only about a quarter of the way done with her section.
"You seem to be struggling," [Lily] comments.
"Well, this wasn't exactly in my job description…" Haewon groans, pushing a stubborn piece of siding into place.
[Lily] lifts her hand to apply adhesive, then pauses. "Then what was?"
A chuckle crackles through the communication speaker shared between their helmets. "You wanna know about my job? What is this, an interrogation?"
"No, no," [Lily] says, waving her hands in protest, "We're just engaging in some…'small talk'. To pass time while We work. You've asked about Us. Now We want to know about you."
"There's not that much to know about me."
"You're a Commander. You can shoot a phaser. You can heal wounds. You can read manuals—" Haewon's lips twitch, just out of the corner of [Lily's] eye. "—there are plenty things interesting about you already."
Haewon flicks the heating instrument on, pressing it to the adhesive she'd put down. "Well, then I'll be honest. I lied to you about something earlier. Lied to Captain Lee, too, but at this point it doesn't matter. I'm not a Commander. I'm a Lieutenant Commander."
[Lily] shrugs. It's a new habit she's picked up. "You're still in command, aren't you?"
Haewon's brows furrow up. "I'm a Lieutenant Commander of Communications. Land disputes, local politics between species. Never even left my home star system. The Interplanetary Alliance wants new members in the Outer Planets, and I'm an extra set of hands."
She presses a piece of siding into place with a loud grunt, louder than [Lily] believes would be necessary for the work she's doing.
"Are you…pleased about this?"
"Let's just say…there are things I grew up believing the Alliance stood for. I want to think they still stand for these things…"
Haewon's voice quiets to a whir through the speaker. In profile, her eyelashes brush against her cheeks, and a small circle of fog blooms, dissipates and blooms again on her helmet level with her lips.
"I'm not a Captain. There's things I'm kept in the dark about."
Haewon's jaw moves around inside of her cheeks, biting down. She exhales, more fog forming on the glass of her helmet. She glances across the short distance between them.
"Oh, looks like we're done. I'm going to go check comms."
[Lily] doesn't stop her from going back inside. Instead, as she did when alone, she thinks.
[Lily] knows this: What humans say is often less important than what lies in the margins; shifting eyes, pauses, unfinished sentences.
She could be misrepresenting humans. After all, one is a pathetically small sample size. But in Haewon lay a trait immeasurably unlike any of her own. She couldn't help but attribute it to being human.
Then again, humans fear the Collective. Haewon allows her to live. She certainly isn't representative of the species in that regard.
So she decides.
[Lily] thinks she knows this: Haewon doesn't like talking about herself. In the margins, she craves it.
When [Lily] enters, Haewon is taking off her exo-suit.
"You were out there a while," she comments, not taking her eyes away from the suit closet, stuffing her gloves into the compartments. "Was there something else we needed to fix?"
"No…no, there wasn't," [Lily] answers. Haewon unzips her suit wordlessly, letting it pool at her feet. As [Lily] takes off her own exo-suit, she starts to understand why humans hated silence in conversations so much. Even the voices inside her head seemed to quiet down.
[Lily] averts her eyes, looking out the window. The two stars orbiting the planet are setting in tandem, perfectly in line at the edge of the horizon. One star blazes a stark white-yellow, the other a rusty red, colors crashing together at the center point between them.
"Oh, the…"
Haewon follows. "What, the…oh. Wow. Crazy sunset."
The mixture of colors changes as the stars lower together, flowing liquid light. Something gentle lingers in [Lily's] chest, wrapping around one of her hearts, squeezing in reply every time it beats.
Haewon's leans against the metal frame surrounding the glass. "Never thought I'd get to see a sunset on a planet with twin stars."
"We hadn't even left our pupa before this," [Lily] counters, returning her eyes to the skies. "You've seen so many more sunsets than We have."
Haewon huffs a breath. "Lily, what's your deal?"
"Our deal? It was that we'd help each oth—"
"Not that," Haewon squeezes her eyes shut, voice harshening in [Lily's] ears. "Any time I say anything, you act like you're my best friend, trying to make me feel better. Like you're so…impressed by me."
"We are. Why does that bother you?" [Lily] asks.
Haewon hunches her shoulders. She leans closer to the window, but her gaze reflects in the glass, piercing through [Lily]. "The only people that act like that want something from you. So what do you want?"
[Lily] pulls at a thread of a thought.
"The same thing as you."
Haewon finally looks at her, shifting backwards, mouth slightly agape. "What?"
An inner sensation tugs at the corners of [Lily's] lips. "You were right. Humans and the Collective can't survive on their own. They both need food and water, but the most important thing they need is connection. We…"
[Lily] falters. For a blink, We might be an inaccurate translation.
"We understand your circumstances. Far more than you realize."
Enough.
[Lily's] vision blurs and reddens around the edges. She stumbles off-balance, the a chorus of voices rumbling through her body.
Haewon mouths something, likely saying something, but the voices are far too deafening.
Vessel, stop playing with your food.
The vessel reaches out and sees not the hand of her human disguise, but slick, black claws. Stuttering images flicker in her vision, some of Haewon, eyes wide in horror, some of her claws sunk deep into her throat, some just wet, red meat, fresh, there for the taking.
This is a dream, [Lily] thinks.
We do not dream, vessel, the voices hum, the strongest she's even felt. We do not sleep. Where did you get that from?
S-stop—!
[Lily] half-blindly grasps at the wall, but collapses. Her skin and soft bits slough off, carapace of her true form expanding. The next gasp of air flows deeper in her lungs. Her body lightens and her muscles relax. Was everything always this focused, this sharp? The vessel must have forgotten.
Her antennae flick, and the voices dull to whispers again.
Haewon stands there; breathing, unharmed.
The vessel pulls her black front limbs closer to her thorax, pressing her back against the wall. Cornered. She finds the scene familiar.
"You d-don't have to pretend you don't find Us terrifying," she rasps, stutters clattering between her mandibles. "We need some rest, but We can change—"
"No, don't."
Haewon bends down, holding out her hand.
[Lily] tentatively reaches, so slowly she hears her chitin click into place. Haewon grasps it tight, decisively. The human's smaller hand around her claws is so…soft. Warm, too, heat blooming across her exoskeleton. That, the vessel had also forgotten.
Haewon pulls [Lily] to her feet, letting her find her balance. In this form, she is tall enough that Haewon has to look up to make eye contact. The remaining sunset projects onto Haewon's skin, across her dark eyes. [Lily] realizes they are brown.
"Whatever just happened, that looked…painful. Don't push yourself to…"
She swallows back something.
"…look…human. It's not like I don't know already, right?" Haewon gives a gentle laugh. Something breathy exits [Lily's] mouthparts, a halfway equivalent imitation.
Haewon's question leaves [Lily] puzzled, as the answer is obvious, another mystery of human communication, statements of no particular use.
Or…perhaps it isn't that at all. Perhaps the obvious is exactly what both of them need.
The next time the twin stars rise in the sky, a sound cuts through the usual morning quiet.
Multiple sounds, in fact; patterns of noises overlaid, some rhythmic, others high and soft. Above them all, she hears a much clearer one. It sounds like Haewon's voice, but there's something different about it. Something lighter.
Venturing out to the communications room, [Lily] finds the source: Haewon, alone, playing a pre-recorded audio over the speakers.
"You're just too good to be true
Can't take my eyes off of you…
I love you—Oh, god!"
Haewon turns towards her and jumps, clutching at her chest. She clicks a small device laying on the console, stopping the recording. "Oh, Lily…you just came out of nowhere."
"We're sorry. You were making noise, so We came to see what was happening."
Haewon quirks an eyebrow. "Was I bothering you?"
"Oh, no," [Lily] assures, a soft inflection weaving its way into her voice, "We enjoyed it. We've never heard noises like that before."
"What, music?"
Music. The vague concept weaves into [Lily's] memory, pieced together from the remnants of half-forgotten memories from the Collective, of instruments and singing—an ability rare among sapient species. Music, as old as humanoids themselves.
[Lily] nods. "Yes. Is—is there more?"
"Oh," Haewon's voice falters, letting out a small laugh. "Well, yeah, whatever's on this music player. I found it in someone's room—think it's a replica of some ancient Earth tech."
She picks it up, dragging her thumb across the screen, then holds it out to [Lily]. "If you want to borrow it, be my guest. Not like there's much else to do while we wait."
[Lily] takes it from Haewon's hands and cradles the object in her palms. Some remnant of knowledge gives [Lily] the impression that it is of significant value.
"Thank you, Haewon. We'll go listen to some music now."
She turns to exit, but something else comes to mind. "Oh, and Haewon…"
"What?"
"You're very good at…singing."
Haewon chuckles, shaking her head, leaning against the console. "…Thanks."
Despite their lack of ingrained connection, humans tell stories about it in song.
They describe their desire through colors and sunshine, through scents and deep rivers and tall mountains, as if the feeling is so overwhelming that it cannot be described by the mental connection alone.
They say it is as deep as an ocean. [Lily] has never seen an ocean. The little water on her planet is delegated to small freshwater streams. She hasn't seen a body of water on this planet, either.
But she does know this: humans fear the ocean. They fear falling into the depths, unable to keep their heads above water, overtaken by waves. They fear the creatures that lie in the darkness, unknown, perhaps being so large they could swallow them whole, or worse, tear them apart while still alive. They fear being lost at sea, unable to find land, fearing no other human would find them. They fear dying alone.
But humans find calm in the sounds of waves crashing against sand, of seabirds crying overhead. They adore the cold, salty water against their skin when the sun is at its hottest. They record pictures of the ocean, create art—sing songs—in some effort to capture its beauty.
Beautiful, terrifying, and dangerous; all contradictory, but coexisting all the same within a human's understanding of a strong, far more complex connection. Love, they call it.
Humans are so curious.
As Haewon falls into routine on the outpost, [Lily] finds her own.
Typical maintenance concerns were the norm, along with eating the food Haewon has managed to find laying around; the "protein shakes" and now what humans call "potato chips." [Lily] admits she quite likes those.
But Haewon joins [Lily] as they eat. Communal eating is a common practice among humans, not just for nutrition, but for pleasure and an excuse for conversation, it seems.
"Haewon…" [Lily] begins, looking away from her bag of chips. "Do you have a lover?"
Haewon coughs, a little bit of protein shake dribbling down her chin. "Wh-what? A lover?"
"Well, in all those songs, humans sing about missing their lovers and returning to them. When your kind come to rescue you…is there someone waiting for you?"
Haewon laughs quietly, wiping her lips.
"I've got a family who's probably wondering why I'm not calling them back. And I've got a couple friends from work. They probably hate having to cover for me while I'm gone."
She hums, nodding, leaning back against the wall. "You're lucky. You've got a whole collective waiting for you, don't you?"
An uncomfortable sensation clenches in [Lily's] chest. "It…isn't the same."
She flattens the empty potato chip bag, folds it in half, then folds that half into another half. "We're connected by one mind, We have broodmates, but We are all just…bodies."
[Lily] folds the foil into yet another smaller half. The feeling doesn't subside, but the act of folding somehow prevents it from growing. Haewon fixes her eyes on the bag.
"We hatch, We pupate, and We complete our mission. The only things Our broodmates told Us were to stop fidgeting, to not fall behind, and to stop talking."
She crumples the bag in her claws.
"Yeah…now that you mention it, if everyone I ever knew could read my mind, I'd go crazy," Haewon says, eyes widening, seemingly for emphasis. "I'd probably lose all the friends I have."
"Why?"
The small sort of smile on Haewon's face doesn't leave. It's not a smile of enjoyment, but something else, eyes shifting like she's trying to find understanding in something she never possibly could.
"When you're human, you get to share the best parts of yourself and keep the worst parts private. If you're good at it."
[Lily] wishes she could smile in this form. She squints slightly, as Haewon did when she smiled. "Well, you've shown Us kindness. Not many humans would. If you ever lost your friends, you could call Us a friend."
Haewon smiles wider, ducking her head as if to hide it.
There's a human turn of phrase that [Lily] finds somewhere in her backlog of knowledge: "idle minds are the devil's playground."
The devil is a human invention, an embodiment of pure evil made to discourage humans from misbehaving. It would confuse [Lily] that something imagined could strike fear in their minds. But as the Collective's urges grow more and more cacophonous, [Lily] finds it more understandable.
Music at least makes the idle time tolerable.
The music player lies on a table while they sort through items in one of the abandoned quarters—for food, for anything that might be useful.
The song begins with sparkling, sweet instruments and a gentle, feminine voice, swirling around her head. It is calming, until after a deceiving silence, the percussion enters, triumphant and exciting. [Lily] loves how skilled humans are at manipulating their voices, easily her favorite element of music.
But the percussive elements are a close second.
As if instinct, her shoulders begin moving in time, head rocking side to side. More instruments join the fray, and she stands up, her whole body moving in time, swept into the song like a wave.
Haewon is looking at her, eyes crinkled in a smile. "Are you dancing?"
[Lily] spins in place, one foot over another. "Are We?"
"Yeah," Haewon laughs, "A little like my aunt at a family function, but you are."
[Lily] laughs back, moving her limbs with even more gusto. Haewon casually claps along, ever-so-slightly moving her shoulders in the same way.
All that I ask, the female singer cries, Is that you dance with me, dance with me, dance with me…
"Dance with Us!" [Lily] giggles, holding out her claws.
Haewon coughs up a laugh, waving her off. "Oh, no, you go ahead. Dancing's not my thing."
"But the song's telling Us to, isn't it?" [Lily] protests, musingly.
Haewon's grin widens with almost no resistance. "Alright, alright…"
She gets up, jauntily swaying her hips from side to side, waving her arms in the air. [Lily] realizes as she approaches her that it's an imitation of her own movements, but she doesn't pay it mind. An exciting energy pulls her into Haewon's orbit, bouncing on the tips of her claw-feet.
Haewon's head knocks into her chest when they get close, and their knees knock together.
"You stepped on my foot," she chuckles.
"Oh, sorry!" [Lily] yelps.
"Here—" Haewon makes a body's width of space between them.
She takes one of [Lily's] claws in each hand with a quick, firm grip, skin pressed tight enough that her single, steady heartbeat pulses through. The music abruptly fades to the background of [Lily's] thoughts, senses laser-focused on the touch.
"Let's slow down a bit. You step forward when I step back."
[Lily] nods. Haewon takes one step back, and [Lily] follows her lead, claw-foot replacing where Haewon's once was. Haewon steps to the side, and [Lily] takes her place again. They step around in a square for a bit, terribly out of time with the music and a ball of energy in [Lily's] guts is begging her to let go and speed back up.
"Is this dancing?"
"When you dance with someone else, it's different," Haewon clarifies, "You have to follow their lead. Now lift your arm up…"
[Lily] follows her instruction, and Haewon spins around, then guides her hands back to a resting position. "Great. Now we can speed it up a little."
"Oh, good," [Lily] sighs.
"Hey, don't get impatient on me now," Haewon says, smirking. "Trust the process."
Their steps speed up to match the tempo, moving in a perfect circle of squares.
"You know a lot about dancing for someone who doesn't like to dance," [Lily] comments, twirling Haewon around in little circles.
Haewon shrugs in [Lily's] arms. "I went to my academy formal."
Soon, [Lily] doesn't even need to think about where her feet are going, the angle of her thorax; their bodies flow against each other, replacing where the other recedes. She only thinks of Haewon and the music.
The singer's voice soars higher and higher, and [Lily] only wishes she could sing along. Drones could hiss and rasp; really, they had no need to speak at all, outside of human interactions. There was no reason they would adapt to sing.
Nevertheless, [Lily] opens her mandibles and tries.
It hits her like a bolt, heels slamming to the ground and stopping her right then and there. Her throat bobs within flesh and carapace, high and soft, effortlessly matching each tone produced by the human singer.
Haewon places her leg in front of [Lily's]. "Hey, you didn't tell me you could sing."
[Lily] places her hand onto her mouthparts.
"We…We didn't know We could. That was…fun."
"Yeah, it…it was. You're…great." Haewon laughs, so quietly it's almost entirely breath, fanning against her face, body heat exhaled.
The gentle warmth penetrates her carapace, deeper than it ever has, settling into her flesh.
Haewon often asks [Lily] what holding so much knowledge from the Collective is like. Through lengthy studying of human songs, now she can find the words to describe it.
It's like a tapestry.
Each drone interweaves their experiences. Some pieces of knowledge are colorful, important patterns of human behavior, spread through generations of drones. Others exist to surround those pieces, maintaining the integrity of the tapestry, not meant to be noticed.
Haewon thinks that it's quite a beautiful way of putting it. She tells her she should write poetry.
Maybe when they escape this planet, she thinks. But that's ridiculous. The Collective has no use for poets.
But it isn't an incorrect comparison. And at the moment, she exists on the periphery of the Collective; in line with the analogy, a piece of a pattern along the border, perhaps.
How long has she been gone? How long has she been awake?
It is long enough that she has fixated on little pieces of knowledge of humans, fraying threads at the edges, damage to the integrity of the tapestry.
She's tugged at them far too often.
One night, the music player ends up in Haewon's room. The volume is turned up loud, string instruments underneath a female singer's crooning, lamenting voice.
[Lily] follows it to Haewon, sitting on the floor with her back against the end of her bed. There's a large, green glass bottle in her hand, the neck held loosely in her grip. Her head tilts upright when she notices [Lily] standing there.
"Oh—" she snorts, "—hey Lily."
She shakes the bottle a little, holding it up her face and squinting at the label. "Looks like the Captain left this behind. Iserian Bloodwine. Expensive stuff."
[Lily] shouldn't find this alarming; she has become acquainted with the concept of purposeful human intoxication through the Collective. But it is still unusual to witness Haewon act so…differently.
"What, did'ya want to come dance with me again?" Haewon asks, raising her eyebrows.
"You shouldn't be thinking about dancing." [Lily] shakes her head. After all, they have both not eaten properly in weeks, and surely that has increased the effects of the toxin. She glances around, grabbing a half-empty bottle of water lying on the floor. "You'll have a headache when you wake up if you don't hydrate."
Haewon rolls her eyes, but accepts the water anyway. "It's funny…you trying to get me t' sober up…"
"Why?"
Haewon chuckles, wrapping her arms around to her torso. "Because I'm so…vulnerable, y'know…?"
"Yes, you are," [Lily] replies sensibly, "That's why We're taking care of you."
Haewon smiles lazily, takes a swig of water, then sets it aside. She leans over, steadying herself with her hands buried in the carpet, and crawls forward.
One strap of her tank top hangs off one shoulder, and her eyes are lidded, black strands of hair falling across her face. [Lily] is vastly unfamiliar with this Haewon, loose and untrained.
"Wouldn't that be perfect for you, though? You could eat me up, if you wanted. Or you could—" Her pupils dilate. "—lay eggs in me."
A heavy heat surges through [Lily's] insides, collecting between her legs. She becomes aware of something soft and wet sheathed inside, behind flimsier plates of chitin, threatening to burst through.
[Lily] takes steps backwards. A nervous laugh falls from her mandibles. "W-What—?"
The Collective flood back into her consciousness, a cheering audience surrounding Haewon's tiny living quarters.
"Laying eggs, multiplying, for the good of the Collective…" Haewon laughs, drowsily. She shouldn't be. "Wonder how that'd feel…"
This is the mission. She's helped you remember, hasn't she, vessel?
Haewon looks up at her, wobbling on hands and knees. "With a face like yours…it'd be so—"
"Don't say things like that," [Lily] breathes.
She backs towards the door, shaking her head. Her hearts thud in uneven time, engorging with each pulse of blood through her body. "Don't—don't ever say things like that."
Haewon's smile drops, eyebrows furrowed. She folds her legs up to her chest, and for once tonight, she truly does look vulnerable, as small as a human should appear to a drone. She doesn't say anything.
The voices quiet, and the throbbing between [Lily's] legs slightly subsides.
She swallows.
"Good night, Haewon."
[Lily] returns to Haewon's quarters the following morning in her human form.
The discomfort filling her guts would be enough to want to avoid the room altogether, but Haewon is likely going to be waking up feeling sick. It's not worth having them be both ill and alone.
[Lily] sitting on the side of the bed makes it bow with her weight, which wakes up Haewon.
Her hair is slightly messy, sticking up when she sits upright in bed. She groans, her hand predictably wrenched against her aching skull. She blinks her eyes open in surprise when she notices [Lily].
"Oh…Lily, you're—"
She interrupts her own thought, dull, drowsy eyes fixed on [Lily's] face. "You good?"
[Lily] turns away, facing the other side of Haewon's room. "So you don't remember what you said last night?"
Haewon stutters an exhale, thick with exhaustion.
"…Fuck. Fuck, Lily, I'm so sorry. I just…I wasn't in my right mind."
[Lily] looks at the music player on the table beside the bed, audio file paused. An image of the singer is on the display screen, clutching her chest, looking up at a night sky full of stars that her species will colonize long after she is dead.
"Haewon…are you still scared of Us?"
"What? No, Lily...of course not," Haewon scoffs, leaning in, her hand splayed on the bed next to Lily's. "I mean…the fact that you didn't do it is proof I can trust you, right?"
[Lily] retracts her hand. "Then you were testing Us?"
"No, that's—"
Haewon is blurred in her vision when she turns around. Her eyes are wet, leaking at the creases.
"We made a deal, Haewon. That We would help each other. Why do you still not understand that We would never hurt you?"
Haewon closes her eyes tight. When she opens them, she's looking down into her lap.
"Remember when I said humans keep the bad parts of themselves hidden, if they're good at it? Well, I'm not. I'm terrible at it, actually. And as long as we're both alive you shouldn't have to see them."
She bunches up the blanket in her fists. "You're too…good. You're so good that you're betraying every single thing that Collective tells you, just for me. I'm not someone worth doing that for."
The blood vessels in Haewon's eyes are inflamed, that same wetness welling up across her eyeballs. [Lily] wets her lips with her tongue.
"If We're both being honest…can We tell you something, Haewon?"
Haewon's glances up, blinking the wetness away fast, but it only drips along the sides of her cheeks.
"I…" [Lily] says, to herself and to Haewon. It crawls out from her throat, no hope of containing it within her vessel. "I am scared of you, Haewon. I forget what We are when I'm with you…Them. I have been trying to hold onto Them for Our entire life. But you tear Me away. I'm terrified that you'll tear into this body and rip Me out."
Haewon is silent, cheeks flushed. The Collective are silent within [Lily's] mind, perhaps in shock. Perhaps something far worse.
[Lily] pulls her legs up onto the bed. "I need to be Me. With you, Haewon. And this has never happened to any of Us before."
Haewon swallows wetly, pulling [Lily's] words into her guts. "A-are you saying you love me?"
"Is that what love is?" [Lily] asks, "To be terrified but want it so much?"
"Yeah." Haewon fills the gap between them, close enough that [Lily] sees saliva sparkle on her lips. "That's…that's how you know it's the real deal."
Every love song [Lily] has heard culminates in this moment. The skin of Haewon's lips is even softer, more tender than that of her hands, wet insides pushing against the insides of [Lily's] false lips and tongue. Haewon hums into her mouth, sending little sparks of activity through the nerves of her face.
[Lily] captures Haewon's lips in toothless bites, over and over, tingling and sweet but never enough to satisfy. Her "human" skin rarely holds sensations for long. But Haewon gasps and shifts, and when they part, a bead of spittle clings to her chin.
"Wow…" Haewon chuckles. "Sorry, it's…been a long time."
Her eyebrows twitch at [Lily's] lack of response. "Are you okay?"
"It was nice, but…it's hard to feel through…" [Lily] gestures in front of her lips. "This. It probably felt better for you than it did for me."
"Then change back."
[Lily] feels a hard, heavy throb underneath her exoskeleton again, just once, but that's enough.
"I shouldn't."
"Why?" Haewon asks. Her thighs press together. It's only making it worse.
"Well, there's…not any soft parts for you to kiss," [Lily] says, weaving her fingers together. "It would be difficult. And I don't think you'd like it."
"Would you like it?"
[Lily] swallows the saliva collecting in her mouth.
"Yes. And that's why I shouldn't. Haewon—"
She takes one hand and interlocks fingers with Haewon's. Funnily enough, even in this form, hers are larger.
"—you want to have sex with me, don't you? I'm carrying eggs, Haewon. If we did, I'd be laying them inside you."
Haewon's face flushes darker, even her ears turning red. Her eyes tremble, but [Lily] is—no, she's sure this time it isn't out of fear.
"Would it kill me?"
[Lily] laughs, breathy, completely unsure as to why. This isn't funny. "Isn't carrying Our eggs a fate worse than death? Why aren't you terrified?"
Haewon clenches her hand tight around [Lily's], tight enough that the false blood in her hands drains around Haewon's fingertips. "Lily, I am stranded in space, sending out SOSes to no one. Nothing you could do could be worse than that."
[Lily] takes a deep breath.
Her muscles relax, letting her carapace break through the skin. Her jaws expand. Haewon doesn't let go of her hand, adjusting her grip to accommodate [Lily's] claws.
She scans over [Lily's] mandibles, her antennae, her eyes. Her other hand reaches, cupping around the dull side of her jaw.
Pure warmth radiates off Haewon's skin. She slides her hand up to where her cheeks might be if she was human, rubbing against chitin with her thumb. [Lily's] exoskeleton is solid. If she had the chance to adapt, she would've withstood any human weapon, deflected phaser shots with ease. But Haewon touches her like she could break at any moment.
Haewon moves her thumb away, and her lips press against [Lily's] face where it once was. Pleasure spreads from the point of contact, making [Lily] hiss, harsh and raspy.
Haewon jolts, moving backwards. "I-Is that bad?"
"No, no," [Lily] shakes her head frantically, leaning in to fill the gap Haewon has left. "It's very good. Please keep going."
Haewon continues, kisses pecking down [Lily's] mandible. Her mouth brushes just shy of the serrated edge, so dangerously close to jaws that could crush her skull in an instant, but she doesn't hesitate.
"You're shaking," Haewon whispers, pulling back to look into her eyes. "It's cute."
[Lily's] breath stutters, pushing out a high, quiet noise, squeezing inside her throat. "You're the one making me react like this…"
Haewon's hot breath fans into her second, smaller set of mouthparts. "I know."
Blood throbs through [Lily's] body. Haewon knows, she knows so well how to arouse all these novel bodily sensations, and [Lily] has to wonder if she has touched anyone else like this. She must have—other humans, obviously, but somehow, the places where humans enjoy being touched are where she likes them, too. How remarkable, underneath armor and sharpness, that she could fall apart in the same way.
"I should be making you react like this, too, right?" [Lily] asks.
Haewon hums. "Go right ahead."
[Lily's] claws close in around Haewon's waist, guiding her down to lay against the mattress. The twin suns at their highest shine through the glass across Haewon's form, her tank top riding up just below her chest, a baggy pair of shorts resting underneath the dips where her pelvis lies. She's glowing.
Haewon seems to catch onto her hesitation and tugs at the hem of her clothes, first the top. Her bare chest, the soft parts she normally keeps covered, jostle out in a pair. They are just as pale as the rest of her skin, all except for two small buds, slightly wrinkled, dusky brown. They bounce slightly as she undresses further, pulling her shorts and underclothing down her legs.
And then a sudden wave of scent washes over [Lily], making her antennae twitch; salty, sweet, emanating from between Haewon's thighs, where her opening lies.
Were these human pheromones? The Collective never told her that humans had them, but there was no other explanation for what they could be.
Haewon lays there, one arm laying limply over her head on the pillow. She looks down, then up, as if to suggest something. [Lily] takes her chances, claws finding Haewon's waist once more. She slides up, slowly as Haewon had. She can feel Haewon's own thrumming heartbeat through her skin, impossibly soft and pliant. She gasps when [Lily's] claws brush over her chest, and [Lily] pauses, wondering if they're sharp enough for the sensation to be unpleasant.
She cups along the sides, leans in, and unfurls her tongue. It slides across the bud, and her skin is salty with perspiration, yet another fascinating human bodily reaction. The bud stiffens, Haewon's chest arching up into her mouthparts.
"O-oh my god, Lily…" she gasps.
[Lily] has heard Haewon cry out for God before, normally negative, but with how much she's squirming, [Lily] having to hold onto her waist to keep her steady, she's clearly enjoying this. [Lily] is enjoying this too.
The fervent, building hunger for her becomes all too much, and it triggers her ovipositor to unsheathe, engorged, falling slick against Haewon's leg.
Haewon grins down at it—light green, a similar shade to [Lily]'s internal fluids, long enough that it reaches more than halfway up Haewon's thigh.
"Fuck, that's big…" Haewon hisses, eyes wide.
"Is that…good?" [Lily] asks, cocking her head.
Haewon smiles with teeth. "It's great, you're—you're great."
She spreads her legs, and her opening parts. It's not unlike the slit in her abdomen that conceals her ovipositor, but this one is just an entrance, ruddy pink and shimmering wet with clear fluid. [Lily] understands why Haewon commented on her size, because it looks too small for her ovipositor to fit.
But Haewon's pheromones are even stronger now, her cheeks are flushed red, and even her lips look one shade darker, plump with blood. When [Lily's] ovipositor lays beside her opening, they're both glistening in the light, the same signs of arousal between them.
It would be against their natures to deny themselves of this.
[Lily] positions her hips level with Haewon's, pressing the tip against her entrance. Both of their leg muscles twitch when their genitals make contact, tingling. [Lily] places one clawed hand on Haewon's stomach for leverage, then tests the first inch inside of her.
Haewon's insides are impossibly warm, plush, and slippery. Each muscle contraction makes the canal squeeze, pulling [Lily's] ovipositor further inside. It isn't like the warmth of her pupa that seared across her body at her birth, it's a gentle, full-body pulse of heat, too much and not enough.
"H-Haewon…" [Lily] sighs, tumbling from her mandibles. She isn't sure what she's calling out for.
Haewon tenses, small staccato breaths, trying to spread her legs wider to accommodate its size. Her eyes squint, wincing as [Lily's] hips draw closer to her own. It nearly feels impossible to fit any more.
"Is it too much?"
Haewon swallows, hand grasping around [Lily's] wrist joint. "No. J-just move."
[Lily] nods, finding Haewon's fingers and wrapping her claws around them. She pumps, in and out, feeling the bump of her organ in Haewon's lower stomach beneath her free claw. Haewon rocks towards her with each panting breath, soft canal easing up.
"Better?" [Lily] asks.
"I-I, fuck, it's—yeah, it's good…" Haewon manages, head falling into the pillow, sweat trickling down her forehead. She's leaking more arousal fluids onto the sheets underneath her; it even clings to her trembling inner thighs, the sight lewd and cloying inside [Lily's] guts.
"You're….wonderful," [Lily] sighs.
Two pressures build inside her, one of increasing intensity, as if fear were pleasurable. The other is a fullness, solid, something resting at the base of her ovipositor.
"Haewon. I think it's happening," [Lily] gasps.
"The…eggs?" Haewon whines, eyes falling closed.
"Yes."
Her ovipositor engorges, the tip pressing at what would be the end of the canal.
Haewon's breathing quickens, stomach tight, but she wraps her legs around [Lily's] waist, keeping her there. [Lily] flashes her eyes to meet Haewon's.
"You're not—hurting me," she reassures, answering a question [Lily] hadn't asked. "You won't."
With another push, the ending opens up into a second, wider space. This must be where her eggs would be deposited, although [Lily] finds it difficult to think of the act so callously now. She rocks her hips, and while she's unable to push any deeper, Haewon rolls her hips with a dreamy whimper, clenching and unclenching, slicker, stimulating her nerves.
The base of her ovipositor swells. Haewon's mouth opens agape when the mass of the first egg, the size of a human fist, travels up inside of her organ. It squeezes through Haewon's opening and inside her womb, just as squishy and soft.
Haewon's hand lowers to her stomach, now curved with a slight swell, and in her desperate coital haze, she realizes what just happened. But she just gazes up at [Lily], puffing out a dumbfounded, exasperated laugh. Through the thrusts, [Lily] can't help but laugh, too.
There's a second egg inside her ovipositor, soon to be passed.
"Another one?" Haewon mumbles.
"Yes," [Lily] moans, antennae flicking. She leans in close to Haewon's face, and Haewon kisses her mandible.
Haewon breath hitches when the second egg goes inside her, tears welling in the corners of her eyes, but not in fear. One hand slides between their bodies, pressing against a bud just above her opening, rubbing in tight circles.
The voices have been pushed so far back in [Lily's] mind that they are incomprehensible, ignorable, all thoughts Haewon's hushed curses and melodic moans, and the squishy, slick tissues squeezing; her entrance, her fingers, fleshy against her exoskeleton.
The Collective's knowledge is worthless here. They know of infiltrating and invading, strategies for efficient brood production. They know nothing of this.
Her claws carefully replace Haewon’s fingers on the bud, rubbing side to side. Haewon dives her face into the crook of her neck with one, two more loud groans that crescendo into a ravished scream. Her entire body vibrates, arms wrapping around [Lily's] thorax, clinging for dear life as her canal contracts around her ovipositor.
And in Haewon's embrace, a climax of sensations surges through her, too, harsh and intense as if all of Haewon's body heat had been pumped through her. She lays the final egg, arousal fluids spilling in its wake, one last clench of muscle. [Lily] cries out, too, shaky, as if her body is forcing the sound out of her.
[Lily's] body shudders, muscles loose and pleasantly sore. She slowly pulls her spent ovipositor from inside Haewon, nearly half of its full size.
"You okay?" Haewon slurs, hands sliding up and down the carapace of her back.
"You're asking if W—I'm okay?" [Lily] breathes, "You're…"
She shakily splays her claws across Haewon's bare, gravid stomach. Haewon places her hand on top.
"I'm fine. I'm…" Haewon sighs. She flicks her eyes up, black hair laid messily across the pillows. She opens her mouth to speak, but looks off, laughing with an expression [Lily] finds difficult to parse. "…Amazing, honestly. I feel…at peace with this."
She holds [Lily] closer, guiding her down to lay in bed. Their mess of limbs tangle together, and Haewon presses her face into the crook of [Lily's] neck. Residual pleasure aftershocks inside [Lily], driving her to seek out Haewon's warm body.
"You're something special," Haewon croaks, lips etching the words into her chitin. "Don't worry about it. Let's just…be like this for a while, okay?"
She wraps her leg around [Lily's] joints, locking them together.
[Lily's] eyes crinkle up, but they're wet again. Haewon doesn't see them.
[Lily] loses track of how long she's laid in Haewon's bed.
For long stretches of time, she watches her sleep. She lays limp and still, eyes closed, breathing slow and steady. This is something Haewon does every single night when she retreats to this bed. Funnily enough, this is the first time [Lily] has seen it. If she'd witnessed Haewon asleep when she first arrived, she might've thought it was ridiculous; how could someone set aside hours of time to lie unconscious and unproductive?
Now, more than anything, [Lily] wishes she could.
Haewon shifts, unconsciously, pressing the soft parts of her chest into [Lily's] carapace, and [Lily] wishes again, that they could lay like this for a long time, through sunrises and sunsets, between protein shakes and potato chips and other human foods she has yet to try, at the end of a beautiful day that is not on a barren planet.
She tears the blanket off.
Haewon's skin twitches at the sudden chill, and she rouses when [Lily] stands from the bed.
"What…Lily…what are you doing…" she groans.
"Haewon…what planet are you from?"
"E-excuse me?" Haewon chuckles, throat hoarse from sleep.
[Lily] turns over her shoulders, eyes crinkling. "Because I need to know where we're going."
Haewon shakes her head. "Wha—where we're going, what are you talking about?"
[Lily] pulls a protein shake box from underneath the bed, only three left. There's a bag propped up against the side of the bed with a small metal badge hanging from it that reads If lost, return to Lieutenant Commander Oh Haewon.
She tosses the bottles inside the bag, then the music player from the bedside table.
"We're escaping this planet."
"Lily…" Haewon sits up, shifting to the side of the bed, but winces, hand clutching her stomach.
[Lily] places her hands on Haewon's shoulders, rubbing them. "You're carrying eggs. You're in no condition to be moving around. Just stay here, okay? I'll be right back."
Her antennae flick across Haewon's face, making her blink.
"Wha—Lily!"
[Lily] exits Haewon's chambers, the basic layout of the outpost overlaid inside her eyelids, taking the quickest route to the exo-suit closet. The soft padding of bare feet against the floor follows close behind.
"Wait—!" Haewon winces again with a gasp. She's standing on shaky legs, wrapped haphazardly in her blanket. One foot pushes down onto the fabric, making her slip, and [Lily's] split-second reflexes kick into gear to wrap her arms around her, lowering her to the floor.
"You didn't stay in bed."
"Lily, we can't leave," she raises her voice, something strangled in her throat, "No one is coming for us."
"I know," [Lily] answers, pulling out two exo-suits, both oversized. "That's why we're leaving."
"How?"
[Lily] pushes the blanket off of Haewon's body, blue fabric pooling around her soft legs. "The Collective ship I arrived on…it's still here. We can take it to your planet."
"So there's a ship that's been out there in the solar wind for…weeks probably? We're betting on that?" Haewon asks, eyes wide. "Can you even fly it?"
She guides Haewon to hold out her arms. Haewon lets her pull them into exo-suit sleeves.
"No. But we'll…'wing it.'"
The final readings on the planet's solar activity indicated a lull in solar storms, an estimated five hours and fifteen minutes before the next one. It'll have to be enough.
The doors hiss open to a gust of hot, inhospitable air and dust. [Lily's] booted feet crunch in the barren sediment, each movement slow enough to keep Haewon on her feet, arms wrapped around her own for balance.
Up ahead lies the Collective ship, windows darkened and coated with dust, enough that part of its body is buried in it.
Inside [Lily's] helmet, Haewon wheezes breaths into their shared communicator, strangled when [Lily] has to adjust her hold.
"It's okay…we're almost there."
The ship's interior lights glow a hazy orange underneath the dust as [Lily] approaches, attuned to the Collective's bio-signal, no doubt. The doors scrape along their hinges, caked in debris, but functioning. They open into a large, empty space that [Lily] recognizes it as the holding chamber. It sits behind the navigational console, where only the greater drones were permitted. She hesitates, toes pressed against an imagined barrier which none of her broodmates dared cross. But Haewon shivers violently in her arms, and she presses forward.
She gingerly lowers Haewon into one of the seats at the console, sliding belts across each shoulder, clicking buckles into place.
"Is this comfortable…baby?"
Haewon manages a weak laugh. Her skin is even paler than usual. "Baby? Where'd you get that from?"
[Lily] fastens the final strap across Haewon's abdomen. "It's something you call someone you love, isn't it?"
Haewon places her hand on top of [Lily's]. "It's Tau Ceti B, by the way."
"What?"
She traces a circle along the back of [Lily's] large glove, now concealing her claws. "I'm from Tau Ceti B. I know, a bit of a mouthful."
[Lily's] eyes crinkle up, giving Haewon's hand a squeeze.
The console hums and whirs and blinks a thousand colors across a scattering of buttons and levers. None are labeled—a greater drone would know. [Lily's] vision vignettes, desperately crying out a plea, calling upon the Collective's knowledge, of any memory that might narrow down what she is meant to do.
The ship hums louder. [Lily's] antennae twitch rapidly, a reflex of her pattering heartbeats.
The hum, then…warmth.
"What are you doing?"
A voice reverberates through [Lily's] mind—no, the ship. She knows, because when she turns around, Haewon looks around wildly, shaken from her gravid stupor.
"Lily, what's going on—"
Suddenly, [Lily's] chest constricts. She tears off her helmet, taking in air but never feeling it, as if her lungs are not her own. Her heartbeats recalibrate in time with her hive, to the clicks of a metronome governing over them all.
She knows that voice. How could she, a vessel, forget who she is meant to listen to?
[Lily] shakily straightens her back, grinding her mandibles together. "M-Mother, We are leaving this planet."
"You are a lesser drone. You cannot fly a ship. You have no knowledge of the controls," Mother scolds, "And you—you have an incubator with you. It's in terrible condition. It won't even survive long enough to complete incubation. What a waste."
Haewon pulls her hands out of her lap, flinching when they make contact with her stomach.
"She's not a waste," [Lily] protests.
"…Oh?" Mother growls.
She laughs, long and thundering. Through the thin connection she still has, [Lily] feels dread pulsing through every drone on her home planet, that Mother's first display of emotion is of amused contempt.
"Oh, vessel…what does the incubator call you, Lily? Not unfitting. You were always so fragile. So docile. Unable to kill the one human you consumed. You had the incubator do it for you. You let it give you a name, like a pet."
[Lily] squeezes her eyes shut. "It's my name. I gave it to myself."
A trio of dissatisfied clicks escape Mother's mandibles, if she even has them. No drone has ever seen her, only heard her. They wouldn't need to.
"Even if you manage to take control, you will die, vessel. The moment you hit warp speed, you will sever your ties to The Collective. Your mind will shatter, neuron by neuron unraveling. Starving would be a more merciful death."
The hum underlying Mother's voice bounces and shifts within the cockpit from [Lily] to Haewon.
"And your incubator will be helpless. If it doesn't die during the flight, whatever humans find it will kill it on sight. Anything to buy time, to keep Us from spreading."
Haewon's gaze locks onto [Lily], the orange light a thick film across her wet eyes, across every tiny crease in her skin, pulled over the little fat left within her body. Her eyes are unwavering, with every ounce of strength left, as if blinking would make [Lily] disappear.
The Collective's voices drone louder, echoing Mother's insistent convincing.
Culling the weak would be the best for the the hive, they say. [Lily] can imagine them nodding, but they wouldn't be. That is what a human would do.
[Lily's] eyes drift to Haewon's bag, sagging against her seat. She reaches inside, brushing bits of dust and debris away from the screen of the music player.
She clicks play.
A collection of horns and strings begin the song, accompanied by a light tap of a cymbal. She turns the volume up, as high as the tiny machine's speakers can manage.
"Wha...?" Haewon croaks.
"You like this song, right, Haewon?" [Lily] asks her. "You know the words. Could you—could you sing it for me?"
Haewon coughs. "I…I don't think I can, Lily."
"It's okay. I'll sing it for you."
She inhales.
You're just too good to be true
Can't take my eyes off of you
The hum reverberates, but the instruments and vocals on the recording are too loud for it to dominate.
You feel like heaven to touch
I want to hold you so much…
[Lily's] voice resonates in soft cavities within her carapace, reducing the Collective's voices to a whisper, an audience to her performance.
"What is this…display, vessel? Your survival instincts have atrophied. You only make noise. You never listen."
She takes more air into her lungs, voice resonating louder. She can't even hear Mother now. These lungs, this voice, this body is her own.
But if you feel like I feel
Please let me know that it's real
You're just too good to be true
Can't take my eyes off of you...
Taking graceful steps, she glides towards the console, but the countless buttons are not blinking. In time with the tapping cymbal, they shut off, row by row.
AUDITORY RESONANCE ERROR DETECTED, the ship's automated alert sounds, PENDING RESET.
The ship goes black, just for a moment. When the lights flicker back on, they glow a cool, deep blue.
RESET COMPLETE. CALIBRATING CONTROLS TO VESSEL 10172002. DESTINATION: TAU CETI SYSTEM, PLANET B.
Haewon wheezes. "You're kidding."
[Lily] sings out, a battle cry into the boundless void of space.
Oh, pretty baby
Don't bring me down, I pray, oh pretty baby
Now that I found you, stay
And let me love you, baby
Let me love you…
The ship hits warp, and countless stars trail across the glass viewscreen, light unable to match speed. They look like white threads, freed from the binds of a tapestry.
Her eyes blink open, flooding her vision with impossibly bright light.
The ship isn't moving. It's quiet, not even a whisper from the hive.
Is she alive? Or was she…asleep? That's new.
The silence is broken by whispers—no, its not whispers. It's voices shouting from somewhere outside of the ship. Mostly deeper ones, but one higher voice is louder than the rest.
"If you are the owner of this ship, leave any weapons and step outside immediately, please."
Lily's antennae twitch nervously, her eyes finally adjusting to the light. Humans in uniform, phaser rifles in hand, are surrounding the ship, parked alongside other ships with sleek builds she doesn't recognize.
Does this mean she's arrived on Haewon's planet? If they're part of the Interplanetary Alliance, then they will follow that principle Haewon's spoken about. Surely, they would accept her surrender calmly.
She has to reassure herself of something she can remember from her own mind. She doesn't seem to have a choice.
When she stands, her muscles surge with ache, gait uneven. She isn't sure she enjoys sleeping after experiencing it like this.
The door creaks open, and before her stands a female human in uniform, pale and sharp-eyed, arms folded.
Her eyes widen, hand hovering over the handle of her phaser.
"Oh my god…" she hisses, "Men, guns at the ready."
"Captain, she's unarmed—" one officer in uniform says.
"I said guns at the ready," she barks, not taking her eyes off Lily.
The officers jostle their phasers into position, clicking mechanisms one by one.
A too-familiar, sickly cold fear grips Lily's body. It's too fast for her to think, to talk, to do anything to stop this.
"On my mark—"
"Don't shoot!"
Haewon hobbles out in front of Lily on haphazard footing, arms spread wide in an attempt to block incoming fire. "Don't…fucking shoot!"
The officer's phasers waver, slightly lowering.
"She's not dangerous…she saved my life, she—" Haewon clutches her stomach, taking a wheezing breath, then gasps. Her eyes fix on the woman commanding the officers.
"K-Kyujin?"
"Captain?" one officer asks.
The captain lowers her hand away from her weapon. Her eyes soften, but only for a moment. She flares her nostrils, cocking her chin in gesture to the men. "Take Lieutenant Commander Oh Haewon to sickbay."
"And the…" Another officer trails off, eyes cautiously trailing up and down Lily's form. "the…other, sir?"
"…Take her to quarantine."
The quarantine bay is just as bright and blindingly white as the med-bay on the outpost. Two officers accompany her close behind, close enough that she feels their breaths on her neck.
One officer gestures towards the closest med-bed.
"Right this way," he says, eyes locked onto hers. He stares as she sits down with a strange, tight-lipped half-smile, long enough that his colleague prods him with her elbow, a gesture that prompts him to jolt upright, looking away.
They exit, and a human woman walks past them into the room. Her dark hair is cut in a short style, the curled ends bouncing when she walks. She's holding a tablet and smiling at her, eyes sparkling in the white overhead lighting. Her skin appears perfectly smooth.
She tilts her head. "Name and Badge ID number, please."
"M-My name is Lily," she stutters. It feels like the first time she's said her own name. She must have said it sometime with Haewon, but she can't remember. "I…don't have a Badge ID number."
"Ah, I see." The woman, a medical worker, it seems, taps the screen with her finger. "I was told you arrived with an Alliance officer. My mistake."
The woman's eyes suddenly light up—quite literally so, flashing red and blue. "Re-initiating: Civilian Protocol."
Lily jolts back. "A-are you—"
"Human?" she finishes with a cheerful grin, "No. I'm a Biomedical AI Expert—BAE, for short. But I'm flattered you find this convincing."
"I haven't exactly met many humans…" Lily chuckles, hunching her shoulders. "I wasn't sure."
With a flick of her wrist, BAE takes out an instrument that resembles the one Haewon had. A blue light scans her from antennae to toe. "No illnesses, viruses, parasites, or other contaminants…just a case of malnourishment and dehydration. Nothing an IV drip can't fix."
BAE smiles again. Lily has to wonder if that's part of her programming. There were machines on her home planet, but none that resembled a sentient being, much less talk or emote. As always, humans bond with anything with a human face.
BAE pulls a bag of clear liquid from a replicator. "Doesn't look like there's any information on your species in the database. The closest nutritional profile we could get was Orion Crab-folk."
"I see," Lily mumbles. She shouldn't expect any different, but somehow, she still does. Maybe it's something in BAE's eyes, so helpful and hopeful, an Artificial Intelligence Expert. When she leans in close, BAE's pupils dilate in quick, unnatural ticks, and a few aberrant pixels float around close to her false tearduct.
BAE feels along the exoskeleton in Lily's arm, finding a gap between the plates.
"It should just be a little pinch," she announces, a sweet, melodic inflection in her voice. There's a slight sting when a needle enters flesh, but quickly dissipates. "All done! You did so good."
"You seem to like your job," Lily observes.
BAE applies a bit of sticky gauze to secure the needle. "I have to take care of everyone. Officers, elderly, children. None of them really like going to quarantine. So if I've made it a little more enjoyable for them, that's a job well done."
The IV fluid is colder than Lily expects it to be. It circulates through her body, reminding her that her hearts are beating, that she is still alive, feeling, thinking.
She thinks, expecting something there that isn't.
"Lily?" BAE cocks her head, folding her hands over each other. "Is there something else you need?"
Lily scratches at the med-bed's thick, sterile fabric. "There's no information on the Collective in your database, right? Nothing at all?"
BAE hums, hand underneath her chin. Her eyes flicker red and blue again for a long time.
"Oh there's—"
Her eyes lower.
"What?"
BAE's smile fades. "Well, it's…a necropsy. It was in our classified cases, for some reason. Neural connections to a 'Collective' recorded even after death. I didn't see anything like this in your preliminary scan."
Lily's claws puncture clean through the fabric, catching on soft filling.
"So I'm worse than dead. I'm just…gone?"
BAE's eyebrows furrow, generating a smile back onto her face. "You're not gone. You're still here—"
"N-no, I…!"
Lily's breath chitters. Her eyes flood with tears, overflowing when her head lolls over, forming tiny puddles on thick black chitin. "I didn't want to be part of the Collective, I chose to be here. But now I'm…I'm not a drone, I'm not a person. What am I now?"
She looks up, vision blurring around BAE standing there, arms folded around her tablet.
"I'm sorry," Lily breathes, "This probably doesn't make any sense to you."
BAE pulls a chair from a desk beside the med-bed, rolling close enough that her knees touch the edge of the bed. "Well, to answer your question, after you leave quarantine…you're a free citizen."
She looks down at her tablet softly, pupils focusing and un-focusing. "Whatever happened before doesn't matter. Here, you can choose the life you want. Think of it like a…factory reset."
Lily laughs. Humans loved metaphors and analogies in song; clearly, this manner of communication extended beyond song, beyond humans. At least this was one thing they had in common.
"So," BAE continues, "Did you have anything in mind?"
Lily pulls her claws out from the med-bed. "I…don't know if I do."
"Just focus on recovering for now." The corners of BAE's lips curve up slightly, but her skin doesn't crease. "You have plenty of time to decide."
"Come in."
Haewon slowly pushes the door open to Kyujin—or rather, Captain Jang's—office. Haewon's superior was on extended shore leave, and out of convenience in the meantime, she'd been assigned to her.
It had been weeks since they last saw each other and many, many years since they last had a conversation. They'd shared all four years of academy together; always the same prerequisite classes, never the same circles. Jang Kyujin was the engineering prodigy, and Haewon, well…she was Oh Haewon. Jang Kyujin was young and chubby-cheeked then, but those eyes proved to the fleet exactly what she was made of.
Captain Jang watches her pull out a chair, eyes flicking down. Haewon knows what she's looking at, and it's the other reason why she's been dreading this meeting.
"Do you need some help?" she asks.
"No," Haewon grunts, lowering herself into the chair, adjusting to a different center of gravity than she's used to. "I-I'm just…peachy…"
Captain Jang nods, shuffling some papers laying about on her desk. "I accepted your three months maternity leave, by the way. Not sure if you saw my email."
"Oh," Haewon's face flushes, answering Captain Jang's question. "Um, thank you, Captain. Is that…what you called me in for?"
"No." Her eyes drift away from her papers, voice losing its edge. "I'd like to apologize…on behalf of the fleet, for how we reacted to Lily."
Haewon's teeth sink into her cheek.
Captain Jang looks out the window, shuttles zipping between starbases in the distance.
"You probably already figured out that we knew about the Collective. Major Outer Planets leaders were saying that the Collective invasion would make it to us in five years, if we were lucky. If anyone outside of leadership knew, it'd make it to the public eventually. There'd be mass panic. We had one dead specimen, they had…decades of history with them. We knew next to nothing."
She turns to Haewon. The sharp corners of her eyes soften. "You knew even less, and you trusted her anyway."
"Well, that's how the Alliance got founded, right?" Haewon says, a nostalgic warmth blooming in her chest, "We found out there was life beyond Earth, and we trusted them not to blow us to smithereens."
"I think you've reminded us of what it really means to be an officer." Captain Jang smiles. "At least, you've reminded me. Which is why I asked Captain Park to transfer you to the MMU."
Haewon's eyes go wide. "The MMU, that's—"
"A long-range exploratory vessel. S-Class. Proud to call her mine. Our next mission starts in four months." Captain Jang cracks a knowing smirk. "That'll give you some time if you change your mind."
"Oh, wow, I—I mean, I'm…"
"Spit it out, Oh Haewon. I think Lily's rubbing off on you."
Haewon stands, wobbling on her heels as she bows. "Sorry, thank you, Captain."
"Hold on," she holds out a hand, still smiling, "I didn't dismiss you yet. You forgot something."
Captain Jang moves something small around between her fingers and slides it across the desk. It's an Alliance badge, with three star-shaped ticks instead of two.
"Welcome back, Commander Oh."
It's a permanent position.
Once Haewon's maternity leave is up—after their children are born—she'll be Chief of Communications on the MMU.
Haewon smiles when she says this, the temperate breeze whipping strands of hair across her forehead. Lily doesn't think she's seen her smile this much before. Her nose wrinkles when she smiles especially wide, and it's adorable.
"That's…amazing," she tells her, and it is, but something clings heavy in her chest that keeps her from sharing the sentiment.
Haewon quirks her eyebrow. "What's wrong? You're making a face."
Lily's claws drift from the blanket they're sitting on into the grass, scratching in between.
"Doesn't this mean you'll be leaving?"
Haewon chuckles, placing her hand on Lily's shoulder. "I'm not leaving you. They have civilian quarters on the ship. You and the kids can come with me. There's great childcare on the MMU if you need to take a break."
A thousand ways this could go wrong come to Lily's mind. That's another new phenomenon she's experienced since her separation from the Collective. BAE tells her it might be her species' equivalent to anxiety, that heightened bodily response. In absence of a thousand voices telling her what to do, countless worries fill the empty space.
"I don't want you to get hurt," Lily finally narrows down.
Haewon places her hands overtop of Lily's claws. "I can't guarantee I won't ever get hurt. But…this is my dream."
She ducks her head. "I really never thought I'd get to have it. Didn't think I'd get to share it with someone, too."
Lily catches movement out of her periphery, human officers with human partners sitting around them on the public field. There's a woman in a sheer dress covered in flowers seated next to a man in uniform closest to them. She glances in their direction, averts her eyes, then glances again, longer this time.
"Hey, look at me."
Haewon cups her hands around Lily's head, blocking out her peripheral vision.
"They don't know about the Collective. To everyone else, you're just another alien species. And there will be plenty more on the MMU. Trust me, you won't be the weirdest one there."
Lily's mandibles move against Haewon's gentle grasp. "Are you saying I'm weird?"
"Yeah," Haewon leans in. "But it's a cute kind of weird."
It's remarkable that Haewon can sit there and smile, as if she's prepared an answer to any question Lily has. The Haewon on that outpost had only prepared for her own demise. She loves this Haewon, but she's not used to it.
A reset can't change that she was built for survival, not living. Once she thought they were the same, but Haewon's warm palms against her exoskeleton remind her that they couldn't be more different.
"Can we still have…sunsets? Protein shakes?"
Haewon cackles, loud enough to make Lily jump, loud enough to probably make everyone around them look.
"God, you're such a softie," she sighs, tracing a finger along chitin. "We can have way better than protein shakes. And you know what else?"
"What?"
"I've never seen a sunset from a starship. I bet it's great."
Lily's antennae brush against Haewon's skin, curling around her wrist. "I'd love to find out."
A lily is a species of flower. The name Haewon, in her native human language (of which there are many, Lily discovers), means "ocean."
An ocean would swallow a single lily whole, should somehow a lily end up far beyond its mother plant, sunk mercilessly into its depths. It would not survive.
Beautiful, terrifying, and dangerous; all contradictory, but coexisting all the same within her.
And yet, Haewon exists alongside her. And yet, Lily lives.