She considered the variables involved, attempting to determine whether interference with the raid was, first, possible, and second, worth whatever losses might be accrued.
Kodachi's brood had been neutralized, she couldn't make any move without revealing her position and being eliminated completely. She needed far more time to recover. Asuka was too far away to be of help, Miyo had no warrior drones and none of the four renegade Wasps were content to inform their human allies, unwilling to risk their capture.
Thos girls were far too powerful to allow the Prime Hive access to them.
So it was up to her to save these humans. And certainly they needed to be saved from the expansionist and perverted desires of the Prime Hive's master.
Azusa was one of the lucky ones. Due to a...unique outlook on life, her initial inclusion within the Wasp psychic link had resulted in a great deal of confusion and, in some cases, pain. Unaware that this problem would be quickly repaired by the continuing transformation, and not listening to his Wasp servitors, the master of the Prime Hive had ordered her contact severed from the rest of the Hive.
That should have been a death sentence, but she had survived. In fact she had done more than that, she had helped establish a second hive. A resistance hive, with two other former lunatics and a girl who's mind was simply too strong and well trained psychically to be overwhelmed.
They had three goals. The first was the most likely to be accomplished last. They hoped to topple the corruption at the center of the Prime Hive. The Prime Hive's male. A young group of Wasps had come from another colony world. Asuza wasn't sure of more than that of their past, her race memories were fuddled by the fact she was not naturally a Wasp. Once here they had chosen a strong mate, one male for the females of the hive as was normal. But, instead of returning to their own world, or an uninhabitated world as was normal, they were instead consumed by the mate's desire to conquer Earth.
The second task would hopefully undo some of the damage wrought on this world.
The Wasps used gene therapies to remove mutations that rendered the survival of an individual unlikely, and also to treat viruses and various other afflictions. However, the gene baths did this by virtually rewriting the DNA of the patient and regrowing the whole body. As such, if one forgot to set the DNA parameters to the proper species, then it could also be used to transform humans into Wasps.
Azusa's hive had no access to a healing matrix, and lacked the complete racial memories that would allow construction of one. AS such, they could not simply undo transformations. But if they could find and capture a healing matrix, then they could begin to return some of the enthralled Wasps to normal.
Azusa herself had no desire to return to human and the potential of having her former defective thinking return, and nor did her other hive sisters, with the exception of Miyo who choose to remain a Wasp for her own reasons. But it was not fair to impose that on other humans. Such behavior only encouraged war with other species. War was sometimes necessary, but never desired. It was too big of a threat to the Hive.
The last goal was related to the second goal. They desired to find someway to break the various brood-mothers from the Hive's mental connections and free them to their own thinking.
They had severe problems, however.
They had no willing mate and thus could only produce drones. Drones were extensions of themselves, puppets holding a piece of their consciousness. Without proper daughters, the Resistance Hive could only control a limited number of those even.
They were vastly outnumbered. With the conversion of those men and women that hadn't escaped into Wasps, there had to be at least two hundred thousand brood-mothers such as her. And some of them had true daughters to aid in controlling their swarms. All in all, there were millions of the Prime Hive and only a handful of the Resistance.
They also lacked the complete set of race memories. The Prime Hive did not have this problem as the girls added to the hive had their patchy memory supplemented by the original brood-mothers.
But one thing was certain to Azusa, at least some of the individuals out there were possessed of great potential. They could not be allowed to fall into the hands of the Prime Hive.
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(Posted Mon, 29 Sep 2003 16:23)
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