NOVEL NEXT 45. Poking at an ‘hornet’ nest
[Caelicetus POV]
One of them died. It felt like someone tore a strand of hair but for my minds but beyond that, something killed one of mine. I could feel the entire hive mind was set ablaze in a roiling vague of burning hot rage.
I could also feel Madi break down into sob and pass out.
One Astrodelphis that I knew since birth as she is but a calf, a calf that was restricted by me and every memory of every Astrodelphii since their first thought in the world when their brain was developed enough in the womb.
Hard to not get attached to one of those silly space belugas. I'm not emotionless they are even more pronounced than when I was human. They are just not centered on the same things.
Her name was Petunia, a naive, adventurous, and hyperactive calf that wanted to be one of the fighters and fight for me, she was four years old, born as an orca in the Pacific Ocean before getting captured by humans who isolated her from her pod and sold to a marine park that is now destroyed and burned to the ground by the cult that worships me.
Everyone felt her last moment, her eyes widening in terror as two blades attached to a clawed reptilian hand stabbed through her upper left eye and then perforated her brain. Killing her near instantly. Everything was shared throughout the hive mind, particularly with me as I'm the source and conduit of it all.
Something that will forever be inscribed in my memories. I felt her die, her praying to save her and everything at that moment from her point of view.
Her last memory was of her playing with sets of sparkling stones she made with the help of her adoptive parents, reproducing constellations with the sunlight they reflected.
She was located on planet AB-14526L, a swampy planet half the size of Earth with no sapient life or sign of ancient civilization and she was right next to the settlement. It wasn't so empty of sapient life.
This planet was located in the outer rim of the Backward Galaxy, human naming sense. It's because it seems to spin backward compared to the Milky Way. A Galaxy we didn't explore and are present in for less than three weeks. It was a scouting team that was on this swampy planet. I should have been stricter… Regret won't, however.
For my part, it was cold fury and I kept it on my side even then I felt my emotions leak out in the hive mind. My body's natural bioluminescence increased tenfold, blinding in golden light the alien city, I commanded the Flocks as they all took off and will collect data from this planet while I'm away.
*CRACK*
Bending gravity with a mental flex I entered the kaleidoscopic tunnel of the hyperspace. Flapping my tail and flippers I swam with haste passing billions and billions of universe. Ignoring the appearance of a strange cluster of the multiverse artificially isolated from this small part of the Omniverse.
*KCARK*
Reappearing with the twisted and reversed sound of space cracking in my home universe. Floating down above the planet, the yellow sulfuric clouds parted away as I descended upon a small clearing next to a cliff that led to a series of caverns.
The temperature greatly decreased, the air getting progressively heavier, and the sound of critters from this continent all simultaneously ceased as my six eyes, normally unfocused on a single point, all fixated on the headless body of Petunia. I have seen it from the hive mind but to see it for real was different…
A small bellow of sadness escaped my body at what I saw and was responded to by every Astrodelphii of this planet and also of the universe via the hive mind. I didn't like this feeling.
I moved even closer to her, while I levitated her head and mutilated body from the dirty soil and delicately touched her forehead with the very tip of my rostrum before floating back to a higher position keeping her from being in contact with the ground.
She was small, no bigger than a common bottlenose dolphin, which is 4 meters (13ft) in length. I shaped wormholes from my middle right eye to the front of the body. Red crimson blood leaked out of the body from the dozen of ugly wounds as if killing her was simply not enough.
The cut was precise and done by something clearly experienced. Her soul was already dissolved beyond what I could repair but her memories were stored inside the hive mind and currently in a mental safe.
I heard a click of mandibles and all of my eyes snapped in the direction of the sound. Here laid bound in the air by an invisible chain of gravity made by three wounded Astrodelphii hovering around a black armored figure, invisible to human eyes but not mine.
Their wounds ranging from simple first-degree burns to loss of eyes and flippers didn't help me calm down in the slightest.
I could see every spectrum of light, dark matter, and even soul and the sight of his soul immediately reminded me of a yautja because he was exactly just that and there also was another soul forming in his guts, a xenomorph from the look of it. Oh, the poor guy...
I didn't know much about this species besides that they are separated into clans, they follow a Code of Honour, and were basically poachers slash hunters that mostly killed 'worthy prey' for the thrill of it and their nonsensical 'Honor'.
I would not have cared about their species if this attack and murder didn't happen. I do not care that I don't know their civilization and how they lived or if this one was an exception and that the species are a bunch of space hippies.
And if this happens once it will again, since it indicates that a not-so-small amount of their population will see my Astrodelphii as 'worthy prey' whose skulls would do wonders as decorations in their living rooms, the problem is that the roles are not set in stone. Scratch that they might even consider me as 'prey'.
With but a command his black futuristic armor was full of scratch and everything else but a loincloth was left from his eyes and the snapping sound of his mandibles.
I could see he wasn't that much afraid of me or his current situation, the shivering from his body was more related to the instinctual fear this inferior being's body must have. He was no taller than 2.6 meters (8ft5) barely an ant in comparison but his eyes didn't hold any fear.
He doesn't realize what he just has done. That's what happens when you act this way at some point you will inadvertently anger something you shouldn't have. The joy of ignorance.
[Al-An, sorry to bother you but I have someone I want you to take information from. Any method will work as long as he doesn't become braindead or die, after this you will inform the closest Astrodelphii units and give them the data and also him. They demand blood and blood they shall have. Do not worry, soon enough you will be in no lack of test subject.], I mentally informed the local mad scientist of the Abyss.
I can't make the links between his mind and mines nor does his range goes to other Galaxy the only reason we could communicate was me forming wormholes to his location. It's also how I can make that the hive mind goes even beyond this universe and that range isn't a problem. Still, there is a delay as it could still be improved upon.