Chapter 514: Resurgence (2/2)

The Chief Scientist cut the link with a flash of disbelief, not in the translation, but in the statement.

Blood in other hallways was spelling out other words. The Chief Scientist tasked the Chief Linguist with translating them.

**Simple letter replacement, even easier to decode** the Chief Linguist said.

**How so**

**It is our hieroglyphic system** the Chief Linguist said. **a combination of those runes to represent one of our own heiroglyphics**

**What does it say**

**You will all die here** the Chief Linguist said. **And other threats. It must be coming from the primate**

The Chief Scientist checked again. No phasic ability was seen, just elevated brain activity in those strange organs and those strange neural clusters.

**impossible** the Chief Scientist said. **find the real reason**

The Chief Linguist disconnected with a spike of 'do it yourself' impudence.

There was a sudden feeling of something cold intruding into the shared consciousness. Something alien, something strange, something that did not belong.

**there you are** the voice was metallic, buzzing, seeming to come from a hundred different sources. **you cannot hide there is no life in the void**

**who is that** the Station Chief demanded.

**i have had many names** the metallic buzzing replied into the shared consciousness.

The Chief Security Officer, previously a largely ceremonial position that now found itself having to work due to the activities of the insane lemurs, brutally injected a large section of his consciousness into the shared consciousness. He cast about, uncaring that his presence pushed and shoved against his fellow Atrekna's minds. Those who tried to disconnect he grabbed and examined closely, shoving into their minds brutally to examine their thoughts.

He was convinced that one of the Atrekna was doing this to somehow dominate the others.

**i see you** the Chief Security Officer heard.

**reveal yourself** it ordered.

Half of the Atrekna still connected to the shared consciousness immediately yanked free, making it tenous, nebulous.

**you cannot starve me** the metallic buzzing stated. The shared consciousness strengthened. **this is nothing but a crude biological data network impressive from the outside to those who have never seen such things but trivial to one such as I**

The Chief Security Officer lashed around itself with psychic power, trying to injure, or maybe find, the source of the voice that seemed to buzz all around it only to merge into a barely understandable whole.

An Atrekna using a cognitive device, the biological/phasic equivalent of a computer, stared in mind-blank shock as it suddenly started displaying **i see you** over and over and over.

The stream of hieroglyphics suddenly stopped.

At his name.

The Atrekna screamed over the shared consciousness as the cognitive device suddenly had black organic looking matter boil up onto the surface, until it was completely covered. A handful of bubbles appeared, then opened into red rimmed eyes with slit pupils.

**i see you** appeared on the data display.

Black biomatter split to reveal teeth, purple flesh, and a long barbed tongue that licked the teeth.

The Atrekna's name appeared under the previous words on the data display.

**it took me a while to understand** the buzzing told the Chief Security Officer. **your technology is different because growing what you need is less resource intensive than huge factories**

**reveal yourself** the Chief Security Officer demanded, lashing out around itself.

The Atrekna screamed again.

Down in engineering, one of the Young Ones removed the maintenance panel from one of the massive environmental generators, pulling hard at it when it was stuck for a moment. Strands of sticky black biomatter stretched between the panel and the interior of the generator that handled the exchange of gasses.

Inside was strange organs, shiny black tissue that looked like solidified oil, and a hundred eyes that blinked open. Several mouths opened and screamed at the Atrekna.

It slammed the panel back on and backed up, generating a priority attention signal to the shared consciousness.

**you are so pathetic and tiny that i did not see you at first i did not understand you were in here in this biologically generated information network of such narrow and shallow bandwidth** the buzzing metallic voice said. **it took me time to generate the chains to generate the processing power to tap into your bandwidth**

**who are you** the Chief Scientist asked.

**i have had many names** the voice replied.

A security being, rushing toward the morgue, screamed as he fell waist deep into the black ooze that covered the floor. Two others grabbed him and pulled at him.

He ripped apart at the waist, acid eating away at him.

The floor suddenly turned back to brushed phasonium alloy.

**render the lemur unconscious** the Chief Scientist ordered.

The level of O2 was lowered as the level of CO and CO2 was raised.

Still the lemur sat, breathing steadily.

The scientists frowned.

One ran a spectral analysis of the air around the lemur.

21% Oxygen

70% Nitrogen

9% Trace Gases

**RENDER IT UNCONSCIOUS!** the Chief Scientist roared over the shared consciousness of the two scientific teams.

**we are trying** one scientist said.

**we tried pumping out the atmosphere the atmosphere is ignoring our attempts** another stated.

**send security beings in to render it unconscious** the Station Chief ordered.

**do not** the Chief Scientist snapped. **doing so may provide a way for the lemur to escape**

**it is a primitive** the Chief of Security scoffed.

There was no mocking answer from the buzzing.

Another Atrekna screamed in fear and agony as black tentacles dripping with slime rose from the mist, mouths opening on the ends. The mouths darted down, sinking into the Young One's flesh, and the tentacles pulled it down. Its companions cut loose with psychic assaults that only made the mist swirl.

More tentacles rose up.

The remaining Young Ones fled.

In another part of the station a door opened in front of an Atrekna and revealed, not the room, but the gullet of a massive beast, its huge teeth, and its tongue. In front of the others the tongue lashed out, grabbed the Atrekna, and yanked into into the maw. The door shut, hiding the suddenly chewing teeth, muffling the screams.

Cringing, one of the others triggered the door.

It opened to reveal an empty room.

Only a puddle of purple blood on the floor.

**DO SOMETHING** the Station Chief roared at the Chief Security Officer.

**what am I to do** it asked.

The new emotion, or perhaps it was an old emotion that the Atrekna had forgotten, filled the shared consciousness.

The Chief Security Officer was vaguely aware that someone had launched one of the smaller vessels and was rapidly heading toward a superluminal travel point. It made a motion at one assistant to try to do something about the waist deep fog, the flickering lights, filling the chamber.

The eight members of its Security Quorum suddenly backed away. All of them broadcasting something new that all of the Atrekna were rediscovering.

It started to reach out to the craft, to those aboard it, when it felt something.

Fingers.

Fingers crawling up its back, around its head. Long strong fingers, with black biomechanical armor over the fingers, over the hands, over the long arms that vanished into the mist that had billowed up.

It broadcast its sudden terror into the shared consciousness. It broadcast its pain and confusion as the fingers tightened, pushing through purple flesh.

One set of lips drew back, exposing teeth.

The watching Atrekna all fled for the door as the mist parted to reveal the creature. A smooth arc of a head, eyeless, hairless, glossy black dripping with clear slime.

The jaws opened.

The Chief Security Officer screamed out loud, a shrill high pitched sound.

The second mouth punched forward, driven by a biomechanical piston.

It thrust all the way through the head, extending out the other side, the tiny jaws snapping.

A long black segmented biomechanical tail wrapped around the twitching body of the Chief Security Officer.

The remaining two Atrekna in the room, frozen by fear, could only vocalize their distress in long high pitched screams.

It dropped back into the mist, taking the body with it.

The mist swirled, revealing nothing but the metal alloys of the station.

The Atrekna screamed louder.

In the lab, in the containment chamber, the lemur just smiled.