The Ambitious Queen

Chapter 1: Love and Comfort

It was red. The entire area around her was red. There was no floor, no sky, no walls. Just an empty void with a red hue. To her it would be boring, if it weren't for the feeling crawling up her back that someone or something was watching her.

She couldn't move. All she could really do was look around with her eyes. Her limbs didn't respond as if some other force was keeping them in place. It felt wrong.

Then she was pulled. Faster and faster, she eventually felt her body going at breakneck speeds, straining her muscles before suddenly jolting to an uncomfortable halt.

She thought she heard a voice whisper next to her. Then another and another. The voices kept coming, each whisper sounded like gibberish and utter nonsense. Eventually they were overwhelming and she wished they would stop. Her wish was granted when something slammed right into her.

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With a sudden jolt, Odonata quickly woke up panting. She slowly calmed down after taking in the scent of her surroundings, blinking her blue eyes a few times and quietly muttered to herself.

Odonata: 'Sigh' Just another nightmare...

Looking to her left, she saw the outline of her King, Scutter, sleeping peacefully next to her. She then turned to her right and carefully exited their royal sleeping pod, careful of not waking him up. With a little pull and a grunt, Odonata got her blue carpace out of the pod and slowly wobbled towards a bunch of supplies all on a table, connected to tubes.

As the Changeling Queen approached the table, the dreaded feeling crawled up her back again, causing her to shiver for only a moment. However she quickly shrugged it off. She didn't want to look weak in front of anybody, especially the other Queens.

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Odonata: How's the reactor output?

Odonata's entire body was covered in leather clothing and survival apparatuses. Throughout her life she had many physical problems. As she grew up they got worse. Now due to her being near deaf, she had a tube going through each ear which connected to a hearing device on her body.

She had permanent breathing problems so her mouth and nostrils were covered by a metal face mask with 2 tubes connected to the mask and a large oxygen tank. This results in her voice becoming partially muffled. She also wore a special visor over her eyes due to them being blinded beyond repair.

To top it all off, all four of her legs had big bulky braces on each of them to help her walk correctly. The rest of her body was covered in leather clothing, as she felt incredibly underdressed without it. The only parts of her body that weren't covered were her horn, mane and tail.

She levitated several pens over a blueprint. While the cave walls she and her hive were currently inhabiting were primitive and lacked many of the tools they were used to using for the past fifteen years, they were near achieving breakthrough on her project. Dozens of wires were connected from a large bulky Military Transport to a massive device in the center of the massive clearing in the cave.

Ent: Reactor output is 87% and holding Mother.

Another Changeling with a feminine shape, a head shorter than Odonata, yet with similar features like with a blue back, blue tail and smaller wings, reported next to her while looking at several monitors at once.

Much like her Queen, Ent was entirely covered in leather clothing, save for her neck and head. Odonata believed that if they were more advanced and civilized, clothing was mandatory.

Odonata: Good. Now reroute 20% of the power to the Mech to start it.

She ordered the Changeling as she continued to work on the schematics of a new small cockpit that would allow an unaugmented Changeling to pilot a battlemech. She smiled as she saw her firstborn click several of the larger switches to carry out her orders.