Page 68 of Stripped By the Alien

His hand moves through my hair. The gesture is familiar enough now that I lean into it without thinking. "I don't know. As far as I know, nobody’s ever brought the Queen someone like you."

"What do you think she'll do?"

He thinks about it. "She'll want to see you."

That doesn't improve my mood. "And after that?"

His arm tightens around me. "After that, Nora, I'll make certain nobody harms you."

The certainty returns to his voice. He isn't certain about the Queen. He isn't certain about the Nest. He isn't even certain about what awaits us there. But he's certain about that.

I make sure not to ask him what happens if his Queen orders him to.

I rest my head against his chest and listen to the steady, impossibly slow rhythm beneath it. The future remains full of unanswered questions, most of them not pleasant.

Yet for the moment, with the Beast carrying us toward the Nest and Krix'vorr's arm around me, I find myself calmer than I have any right to be.

- - -

The Beast’s pulse changes. At first it's only a difference beneath my feet as Krix'vorr and I make our way back toward the command chamber. Then I become aware that the rhythm has become faster and more purposeful.

The living corridors around us feel busier than before. Membranes open and close constantly while crewmembers move through them carrying bundles, tools, and messages. Nobody appears worried. If anything, they seem energized.

The closer we get to the command chamber, the more obvious it becomes that something important is happening.

When we enter, the atmosphere feels completely different from the battle earlier. Every viewing lens is occupied. Crewmembers cluster around the larger ones while others exchange information using tablets and bundles of organic documents. Antennae twitch constantly. Several locusts appear unable to remain still for more than a few seconds.

When we enter, they all look at Krix’vorr and bow, some dropping to the ground.

Krix'vorr notices me watching them. "We are approaching the Nest."

A strange feeling settles into my stomach. Until now, the Nest has been an idea, a place that existed somewhere ahead of us. Suddenly it feels real, and threatening.

I move toward the largest viewing lens. The image shows stars scattered across darkness. Then my eyes catch something wrong with the darkness itself. Something enormous occupies part of the view. My brain immediately begins searching for familiar explanations, like a cloud or a moon, or maybe a planet. But its shape is far too strange for that, too irregular. And where a moon would have craters by the thousands, this one doesn’t. But there’s texture, rough and striated.

The object grows larger.

"Oh,” I exclaim.

The thing hanging in space resembles a wasp nest. At least that's the closest comparison my mind can find. The structure isn't round or even symmetrical. Vast bulbous chambers protrude from every side. Towers rise from its surface like organic stalagmites. Millions of openings puncture the exterior. Some glow faintly. Others are so large that entire cities could disappear into them.

The scale is impossible, and I’m sure that the Nest is larger than Earth's moon. My eyes struggle to focus on individual details because there are simply too many. Then I notice something that makes my skin crawl.

The surface moves. Sections contract and expand in slow rhythms. Great membranes ripple across the exterior. Rivers of glowing fluid travel through translucent tubes thick enough to contain skyscrapers.

“How is that thing a nest? It’s far too big.”

“Of course the Nest of Queen Szum-zic must be large, in scale with her power and fierceness,” Krix’vorr says, and I’m sure I detect pride in his voice.

The Nest continues growing larger as the Beast approaches. New details emerge constantly. My eyes begin separating individual shapes from the impossible mass. There are spaceships, thousands of them. All some kind of living being. Some resemble the Beast. Others are long and narrow. Some are broad enough to look like floating islands. Others carry enormous armored growths that make them resemble drifting fortresses.

They’re completely dwarfed by the Nest, and the closer they are to the surface, the smaller they look.

I blink and lean closer to the viewing lens. There are so many! The more I look, the more vessels I discover. They crawl across the Nest's surface in every direction.

"How many of you live there?"

Krix'vorr follows my gaze toward the endless traffic moving around the Nest. He actually thinks about the answer before speaking. “By now, billions. A Swarm is usually about ten billion of us, and the Harvesting is not far away.”