Queen Potter (The Potter Xenomorph Saga: Book 1)

Alien

Alien

Magic is a strange and wonderous thing, it allows people to change into animals of all shapes and sizes. It can protect, nurture, and destroy. It is also rare. Only a fraction of all the planets that give rise to sentient and sapient life have magic. The other thing that's strange, though far less wonderous is that alien abductions are real. The vast majority of abductions are never detected, and never attributed to aliens. The child that goes missing, only to maybe show up on a distant shore years later. The homeless person that just stops being around. The babe left on a doorstep on a cold November night.

Harry never knew what happened when he was teleported abord the shuttle. He slept through the shuttle docking with a ship hidden in the shadow of Pluto. He was barely aware when an egg hatched amongst the acquisitions the aliens had made prior to his stop. He cried when the same aliens started to scream as an apex predator stalked amongst them and consumed them one by one. After all, he hadn't been fed or changed in 12 hours. When death came for him with acidic blood and a hidden mouth, he changed to match.

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The lone worker looks down at the chest burster in surprise. This quickly gives way to instincts honed over eons to keep her species alive. Grasping the chest burster to prevent it from feeding itself, she consumes a specific combination of materials that allows her to produce royal jelly. This she feeds to the chest burster to change its role in the hive into the new queen. The chest burster makes happy noises as she feeds it, leading to being fed more. A year later the chest burster forms a pupa and the worker goes into hibernation while her queen undergoes metamorphosis.

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Arry looks down from her ovipositor at the Yautja that has dared to invade her nest. This one, despite its size, is barely more than a child, its hunt mates lie dead, or dying as her children take them down from impossible ambushes. An intelligent child to have made it to her laying chamber, but not so experienced they didn't freeze when they saw the trophy wall to one side, decorated with the skulls of those Yautja that had sought to take her own skull. With a couple of thoughts the Yautja is suspended spreadeagled in the air and their weaponry joins the others on the wall. Disengaging from the ovipositor, Arry climbs down to the ground and changes into a humanoid form. Her tail swishing behind her as she stalks forward towards the prisoner. Reaching up with her taloned hands, she carefully removes the facemask her prisoner is wearing and grasps their head.

"You are unblooded. Let's see why your clan would send an unblooded youngling to my ship."

The Yautja's pupils widen when they hear her speak, and she uses that to dive into their mind. Pauk, she isn't a standard Yautja, taken in as a foundling when her Bad Blood family was killed. She faces the choice of becoming a blooded hunter or a brood slave. Double Pauk, she's only a couple of light years away from a clan ship. No wonder they mounted such a strong offensive. Pulling out of her mind Arry walks over to a console and taps in a few commands.

The heavily scarred face of a Yautja elder soon fills the view screen, "Who are you to call the Dark Blade Clan!"

"I am Arry, the owner of the ship that your hunters just invaded. I am calling to inform you that I don't currently have any designs on your ship. Unless you wish for it to become my new nursery, you will refrain from sending any more hunters or children to hunt my children. Unlike you however, I do not kill children."

"You are an abomination, and we will hunt you to the end of the stars as we have for the last 5 cycles."

"You say such lovely things. As long as you remember not to hunt me when I'm only 5 ticks from your own home, you'll survive to carry out your threat."