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Inside the Alien Queen

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

Commissioned by Cario

_ _

Jonathan never intended to get into a situation like that, not in the slightest. But some things were never his to determine, not as he kept his head down while working at Weyland-Yutani Corporation. He knew it wasn’t the best company to work for and a lot they did was driven by greed…but what company wasn’t twisted like that?

At least there, he could get into his work. He delved into research, exploring chemical reactions all day long, testing out new combinations with freshly discovered materials. It was a dream come true for him.

With his blonde hair brushing the tops of his ears, there was nowhere, quite truly, Jonathan would ever have wanted to be. Well, except perhaps not working for Weyland-Yutani, at their main site, but he could at least get into his work most days and he was left alone.

At least, until the alarms sounded, the lights dropping as the electrical circuits were tripped. Emergency lighting strips partway illuminated the hallways, but he cursed under his breath, shrugging off his white lab coat as he fled. That had been a new thing to him, as he had started his work there as a janitor before they’d found his aptitude for something greater. Jonathan was still not all that sure what that “greater” thing was, but he was glad of the small increase in pay.

It wasn’t worth what happened.

He was being hunted, breath raking through his windpipe, aching in his lungs. Nothing felt right, not in that moment, grunting in the back of his throat. The coat was left behind him, though he didn’t care for it, even if it would be what led the alien Queen directly to him in the end. After all, it had his scent all over it, even if a man did not exude pheromones like one of the xenomorphs.

“What the hell?”

Jonathan muttered under his breath as he ran, though something was wrong and there was no one around. A distant scream cut through the air, echoing strangely, yet was not sliced off in the end. Maybe that meant the person who had screamed was still alive? That had to be a good thing, definitely a good thing, though Jonathan could barely think straight as he groaned and wheeled around a corner into a sector of the lab that was completely dark.

What’s going on? This can’t be right.

_ _

His thoughts rang through his head as his heart pounded, a drumming, pounding beat in his chest, slamming against his ribcage. He groped along the way, everything seeming loud in his body, finding a light switch – or, at least, that’s what he thought it was.

It wasn’t a switch but a button that set a tube glowing, though it looked like it had once held liquid. Jonathan paused, blinking, trying to work out what was happening.

On the floor of the tube was an egg…but it was already open, cracked as if something had clawed its way out from inside.

To the side of the tube was a pair of legs…with something clinging to a person’s face. A decidedly dead, or at the very least knocked out cold, human being.

He blinked and stepped in closer, even though Jonathan knew it was a bad idea. There was nothing at all there that could ever be considered a good idea and he knew it too, but the facehugger that had the man’s face in its hold was not normal. It was much larger and darker than normal.

Jonathan’s heart sank.

The royal facehugger. The queen…entering her lifecycle.

Things at Weyland-Yutani changed after that. The alarms were re-set and those in power tried to hush up that moment, everything that had taken place. In all honesty, Jonathan had not paid much attention to the alarms before, assuming they were a part of working there – and nothing had ever come of them either, that he had seen. But after seeing the royal facehugger and how different from the other facehuggers that were studied in another closed-off section of the lab (he thankfully had nothing to do with that), he knew there was something different there.

But there was an air of tension crackling through the air as he tried to make his way through the lab, heart pounding, always checking around corners as he merely went about his day. His quarters were on the edge of the base, on-site so he didn’t need to leave, yet the drive to get away was greater with every passing day.

He planned to get out, to escape…yet Jonathan was too late.

The Queen’s life cycle, after all, was much swifter, growing to adulthood, than that of a drone xenomorph or even a warrior. She grew and, with it, so did her knowledge of Weyland-Yutani, the base and all who sought to cage her.

The alarms didn’t go off when the xenomorphs rose, the Queen directing them – or so he assumed. He knew some of the xenomorphs but perhaps not as much as could have saved him.

They stalked the facility, taking victims before their screams even had a chance to rise. Jonathan hunkered low to the ground, though he didn’t know the Queen already had his scent. She’d sent a drone to collect his coat once her consciousness had risen, seeking a victim amenable to her desires.

The xenomorphs, after all, were beyond anything he knew. Even though people sort of understood just how intelligent and dangerous they were, they could never have understood the true depth of such until the aliens had them in their grasp.

Staring into the jaws of an xenomorph, whether they were a drone or warrior, was not a good way to die. However, few even saw the Queen before she ended their lives, taking them to feed her clutches and rising facehuggers. They all needed a host into which to lay their eggs, after all.

One tapped down the hallway, the lights on and full. It looked out of place, the warrior xenomorph towering, though even Jonathan knew the alien was nowhere near as tall as the Queen. He had a healthy recognition for danger, but it was a shame indeed that he never managed to squeeze his way out of the facility before the Queen’s command had reached the other xenomorphs through the hive mind network.

The xenomorph crossed his path and he stayed still, behind a peeled-off layer of metal wall, which looked like it had taken no effort at all to remove the panel. The metal was bowed and buckled with jagged edges as if an xenomorph’s claws had cut into it and he set his jaw.

He was going to get out… He was going to get out.

But Jonathan could hope as much as he wanted. That didn’t make it something that could ever become reality.

People screamed, the xenomorphs clearly coming across a more populated part of the base – perhaps the canteen. People still had to eat, after all. He avoided that, taking back corridors and wavering, zigzagging routes. Some of the lesser used sectors of Weyland-Yutani weren’t illuminated; those who used those areas could merely turn the lights on using a remote when they required them, but there was no way for someone with his meagre security clearance.

When he had been upgraded to his low-paid position from janitor, he didn’t realise he was working with highly unstable compounds and they didn’t even expect him to last as long as he had. Jonathan was merely expendable.

There were no bodies where he scuttled, hastening as quickly as he could without being careless. Yet there were dark bloodstains on the floor, as if it had dried somewhat. It was the fresh bloodstains that really raised the hairs on the back of his neck, something innate and instinctual rising inside him.

There was nothing like the metallic bite of fear to drive someone on, locking down into instinct and more primal behaviours purely to survive.

The warrior was after him, however, and he tried to throw it off his scent. He could feel it, the eyes raking over spots where he’d been, as if the warrior was letting him know it was behind him, that it was coming for him.

It could have caught up with him at any time, he knew. But he didn’t know why it was letting him live for as long as it had.

Xenomorphs and Weyland-Yutani are as bad as each other…

_ _

The bitter thought did him no good as he grunted under his breath, swallowing hard. Deep within the base, in a part he had never had the clearance to go into – though the door was forced open as the lights flickered and chaos rose, slowly but steadily – he found something he really would rather have not.

A garden of eggs, all resting together, alien excretions layering the floor and cocooning them softly. It was like a nest, though allowed a spot of serenity as screams and alarms blared, though they seemed a long way behind him.

“Oh…”

He breathed out the word, even though it was softening to be there, as if he had come to exactly the pace where he needed to be in the depths of the base.

It was no longer a base but a hive… And that was bad. Very bad.

The excretions had been used to form walls – new walls, for it was still encased in the usual framework of the building. Maybe the maze of hallways and rooms had been a natural place for the Queen to build her hive.

Jonathan shivered. Water trickled across the floor in a thin layer, perhaps a centimetre deep. He stayed on the edge of it though, afraid to touch it. There were so many eggs there, many with a textured surface, all holding a strange, green glow. That could have been the lights in there, however, which the aliens appeared to have tampered with to better incubate the eggs. Until they had a host, however, the facehugger would not emerge.

Jonathan looked up, taking in the darker reaches of the room. It looked like it should have been a storeroom at some point, so it had a high enough ceiling for racks and crates. Most of those had been moved out by then, supposedly by the aliens. A low chirping caught his attention and he gulped.

He wasn’t safe there, the floor soft and yielding under his feet as he stood on the edge of the pool, wetness closing in around him as he sweated. It was so humid in there – and he wasn’t alone.

Bodies lay on the floor and clung to the wall: cocooned. They may have already been dead but one thing was sure and that was that they were never again going to make it out of those cocoons. It was not needed, not when they would provide substance and host bodies to the xenomorphs.

Jonathan shook his head. There was no way for him to get through there, so he hesitantly took a step backwards, turning around. The exit was clear and he exhaled a sigh of relief. For some reason, he’d expected the way to be blocked; after all, the warrior xenomorph was still after him.

He traipsed through the corridors for what felt like hours until he went up a level and found a network of hallways that looked more familiar to him. That gave him hope and, finally, he came to the elevator.

“At last…”

He could not stop himself from breathing that sigh of relief, stepping into the elevator and checking the mechanics and electrics still worked. At least there was an emergency system that allowed that to still work, although it wasn’t going to save him.

Something wet fell on his shoulder and he tried to brush it off, although it was too thick and gloopy for him to do that.

Slowly, he looked up. The xenomorph was above him, drooling, the warrior’s teeth bared in gnashing chrome. It chattered faintly, though it was like the clatter of metal on metal, its long tail curling back and forth behind it.

In a way, Jonathan knew the warrior xenomorph was male, although it didn’t matter, not in the long run. It lunged for him, snatching him up in clawed hands.

“Agh! No!”

His short, sharp cries bounced off the walls as he was hauled away, caught in its hands, though there was nothing he could do about it. He didn’t want to thrash too much and cut himself up against those sharp claws, but what else was he supposed to do?

His chest heaved, snatching in short grabs of breath, though all he knew was darkness. As if his sight had been cut off, all Jonathan heard was the clacking of the xenomorph’s claws against the floor, the shiver of its body wisping through the air, moving the air merely to get through. Yet the xenomorph held him tightly but carefully.

Target found.

_ _

The xenomorph bristled with pleasure. They’d done it – the bidding of their Queen. Of course, xenomorphs didn’t really feel pride or accomplishment or anything at all like that, though it was still a sense of warmth that came through the hive mind.

The hive mind bristled in the xenomorph’s consciousness and the warrior hustled along, ducking his head to get through a doorway that had collapsed partially, though it didn’t bother him. It was instinctual to go for a target, a human, with a killing strike, yet he had been ordered not to.

And he would always do what his Queen wanted him to, all without question.

Around him, the hive mind trembled, anxious and hurrying him. They wanted the target to be brought back, all to the Queen, yes. The human hung limply in his grasp, which at least made him easier to handle, for it was not the sort of task that the xenomorph was used to completing.

The hive knew there was an intruder there, one that the Queen wanted to claim for her own. Yet the warrior knew the man was important, even if he didn’t realise just how. Maybe it was not his position, not in the hive or the world, to know.

Jonathan groaned, unaware of what was going on as he was laid down, eyelids fluttering as he came, slowly, back to consciousness. His stomach roiled and churned and the acrid reek of his own sweat coloured the air, even if that ceased to matter in the grand scheme of his fate.

“Unff… What…”

But he never completed that sentence as he looked up, a glowing, blue lighting strip on the ceiling partially obscured by the hive walls. It was like a beehive, slightly, though that was not all that much something he understood either. It was just the hard, solidified material that formed a seal on the walls, protecting the inhabitants from harm.

Yet the Queen did not need to be protected when she was already strong and powerful, fully-grown at least twenty feet tall, her long tail swinging and undulating smoothly behind her. That was the first part of her Jonathan saw, his eyes tracing a path up her long, metallic legs, every inch of her form radiating a sense of power he could never have hoped to reach.

The Queen’s massive, chrome jaws appeared above him, parted slightly. Jonathan gulped and yet…he could not help but be in awe of all that was going on.

She was so strong. How could he not stand in wonder of her? Her body was hard and angular and he could only imagine just what it would have taken to cut through her form in any way. She was more resilient than any of the drones and even her warriors too, though the drones were the smaller of the two.

“Glorious…”

He whispered the word, his mind slipping into a place of peace. Maybe a small part of him understood there was no way he was getting out of there, so he let himself be helpless, his mind doing all it could to protect him. It was easier for that to happen if he just saw the alien Queen as a creature of beauty, shining like a goddess above him.

Her silhouette was smoothly defined and he raised his hand, wanting to touch her. His arm moved slowly, as if he was trying to reach into a dream, yet she brushed his palm with the rounded side of one of her claws, accepting his touch.

Jonathan exhaled, though it didn’t do anything to soothe or ease the tightness in his chest.

“You’re amazing,” he said softly, seeing and feeling no need to raise his voice in the slightest. “How are you so big? You’re the one I saw born, aren’t you? You hatched and then…”

He trailed off. He didn’t quite understand the full life cycle, how the facehuggers implanted the eggs. Neither was it at all something Jonathan wanted to think all that deeply about, not when there was so much for him to take in.

It was better to simply be in the moment, to enjoy the Queen in all her glory, tracing the tips of his fingers down her arm. There was a second pair of arms there too, though they were tucked in against her sides and not particularly noticeable. She moved “tipped forward” as if her centre of balance was different to what Jonathan may have been used to, her long tail balancing her behind.

She hissed, the sound roiling over him. Her breath tickled his face and brushed his hair back from his forehead, sending it fluttering. Still, he could not stop remaining in awe of her, how large she was and how powerful she was. There was simply nothing and no one at all like her in the world.

She allowed him to touch her, for some reason. There didn’t seem to be any other xenomorphs there, though that hardly seemed to matter. A part of Jonathan, even though he didn’t understand why, liked that they were alone. It was more intimate and, in a way, more private too.

He managed to get over on to his side, though something stuck and clung to his body, like sap, restricting his movements. It had to be something like the secretions that built the hive in there, though he pushed the notion of just where the secretions had come from out of his mind. Best not to think about that, even if he was sure no lives had been taken for that substance to form.

Running his hand slowly up her leg as far as he could reach, he tried to close his fingers around it and found that he, hopelessly, could not. Her legs were so thick – but elegant too at the same time.

And there was the massive round of her skull, the exoskeleton, every part of her body gleaming. His eyes traced down the sinuous line of her tail, which was forever in motion, sweeping back and forth lightly. But he couldn’t stop himself from touching her, trying, in some way, to adore her body through connection.

“Beautiful… Amazing…”

Maybe it was the pheromones acting on his mind that made his thoughts twist like that – but who could not admire the aliens for what they were? Xenomorphs were powerful and yet the Queen overcame all inhibitions, whether physical or mental, in terms of instinct.

His hands met her face – both at once. He traced the lines of her teeth, up and down, though took care to steer clear of the sharper points. They were something he most certainly had to respect, even if things there were different from how he might have imagined them to be.

Things would never be quite as he’d imagined, however, her pheromones seeping into his system with every hasty, hurried breath he took. She bowed her head a little more so he could reach further up, but his arms were simply not long enough to reach the top and back of the great crown of her head.

Yet the Queen was gentle with him still, almost purring softly. A low, vibrating frequency rolled through him and he knew it was coming from the Queen, although Jonathan had never seen that side of the xenomorphs. Maybe they had a tender side to them too, a side that humanity could never take in as they were so busy hunting and protecting themselves from the xenomorphs. And yet the xenomorphs had to live and have a life for themselves too, the ultimate apex predators across multiple planets, even spreading through the galaxy.

Her purr turned to a hiss and Jonathan sank into it, easing deeper. It felt right to be there as he kept both hands on her head, one on either side of her face.

Ready…

Ready…

_ _

Ready…

_ _

The hum of the hive rolled and vibrated around him and, somehow, Jonathan felt their joy at having him there, all for his Queen.

Yet he could not have known what it was the Queen xenomorph herself had in store for him, why she’d sought the one who had been there at her birth. If he hadn’t investigated the facility and found the royal facehugger, things would have been very different. His scent left behind on his coat had sealed the deal for him.

So much for being a janitor and a man who was there for nothing more than to test unstable compounds, expected to fail and die quickly.

He had a greater need and use there than anyone at Weyland-Yutani could ever have put into action.

The Queen had a second reproductive system within her, not the one from which the eggs would be laid, in their sacs. And he was the perfect candidate to transform within her womb, sealed away in the tight, protective casing of an egg, holding him securely and firmly within her body while she mutated him.

She didn’t need a man, after all, but he would serve her in another way.

Jonathan gulped, returning a little to his senses as he tried to scramble away, barely getting on to all fours before she curled her tail tightly around him.

“Oof!”

He grunted as the tight grasp of her tail cut into him, though it did not harm him. It stopped him from leaving, however, as the Queen hissed, waving her large head slowly back and forth.

He would not leave her, the Queen determined. Her body ached for him, more than ready for him. Her body had a vent that allowed entrance to her reproductive system, while her tail acted as an ovipositor while actually laying her eggs. The Queen’s vent gleamed with a hint of moisture, openly betraying the readiness of her body, even if that was not something the human would recognise.

She was prepared for her new child. Only Jonathan would do.

She drew him to her with her tail, using truly little effort to control him. He was small and light, at least to her, and Jonathan’s struggles meant nothing at all to her. He was going to become a part of her, inside her body, though not in the way that the kinkiest of humans, occasionally, thought of xenomorphs.

She might have mated with one, if they were willing, but there were better uses than simple mating for Jonathan, at the very least.

Her pussy parted for him as he struggled, his legs pressed together, for her tail pressed on the muscle of his thighs, pinning them in tightly. Jonathan’s breath raked through his chest, aching deeply, but he couldn’t do anything.

“Agh… No… Please… My Queen!”

He could not have said quite why he called her his Queen, though it felt right in the moment. Maybe it didn’t need to be anything more than that, his stomach roiling and churning, but there would be no time for his guts to heave.

She sucked his feet inside her pussy, shoes and all, and he gasped, even if his lungs were too tight to take an easy, regular breath.

“Please… My Queen…”

What was he even begging for? Her pussy spread around his shoes and ankles, showing him a glimpse of her neon green inner walls. Even through his clothes, he could feel just how silken her passage was, clinging wetly to him. Her lubrication – could it be called arousal when it was her sex? – clung to his legs in sticky, long strands, a lighter shade of green than her flesh.

Hypnotised, he stared even as he struggled, though the grasp of her tail curled around him comfortably, holding him there. It was easier for Jonathan if he gave in, if he let himself be spellbound by the Queen and her power, everything she was and all he wanted to be, for her.

It didn’t make sense, not to Jonathan’s rational mind, but it simply did not have to make sense either. He moaned as he was pulled deeper, the muscles of her pussy rippling and clenching around him, as if she was using him as a sex toy. The xenomorph’s pussy pulled him deeper and deeper, wetness soaking through his clothes, although there was no acid in her fluids, not at that time, to hurt him.

As she sucked him inside, like her muscles were much stronger there than he ever could have imagined, Jonathan grunted and panted. His arms pushed against her hind end, fingers failing to dig into her unyielding exoskeleton, but it wasn’t enough to stop the pull. If her sex was not enough to haul his body inside, after all, her tail could push and guide him in.

The xenomorph tightened her tail around him, using it as additional leverage to grind him inside. The Queen looked down at him, her jaws parted in her version of a smile.

To Jonathan, however, it didn’t look like that much of a smile, not as he panted and heaved for breath, panic clawing at him. He couldn’t stop himself, not as he shook his head and mewled pathetically, instinct driving him away from her. He should never have let himself get caught in the grasp of a predator like the Queen after all, but there was only so much he could ever have done.

If only he had reached the elevator first, before the warrior xenomorph… Things might have then been quite different.

The Queen cocked her head at him as one of his hands got caught in her pussy, dragged inside up to the wrist. She forced his hand against his hip, though he got the chance to feel her pussy, even if it was through the back of her hand, in skin-on-skin contact.

“Oof…”

Jonathan grunted, but he didn’t know what to make of any of it, not as he watched the Queen, his head falling farther back. His free hand flung back over his head in a final cry to keep himself outside her body, striving with all his might to stop the advance.

He curled his fingers around as much of her leg as he could, although it was no good, no use at all. He couldn’t even get his fingers all the way around her leg to hold himself in place a little better and soon lost his grip as he was dragged inside increasingly.

The advance of her pussy grinding up his legs drew him inside in a slow, irrevocable slide. It could not be taken back, not as his body was rendered weak and useless, the Queen’s growls rolling over him.

She was enjoying it. Even though Jonathan was being forced inside her body, all against his will, she took him as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

As her pussy pulled up his chest, higher and higher, he tried to take full breaths, even as her pussy squeezed around him. The tight grip of her sex clenched around his lungs, preventing him from breathing easily, but he submitted, even if it was difficult.

There was no way for him to escape his destiny, not as he was drawn inside up to his neck, forgetting himself as he moaned. There was simply nothing else to be done as he groaned and let it all come, relaxing his body, even though he’d already been pretty limp.

Above him, the Queen shuddered in pleasure, parting her jaws wide as a cracking sound came lightly from within. Patiently, her second jaw, inside, emerged, glistening with drool, though she wasn’t devouring anything or anyone that day. It was merely a show of her pleasure, her inner jaw stretched out all the way, quivering as she dragged him into her passage.

The last thing Jonathan heard while he was partway outside her pussy was a long, roiling hiss from those jaws in the moment her pussy pulled all the way over his head. Just like that, he was inside, her tail gone, shuddering and squirming with fearful might. He couldn’t stop himself from fighting to survive, even then, but he no longer seemed to need air while he was in there. If he’d been more in his head and senses, as he should have been, Jonathan might have realised that the Queen was feeding him oxygen through her own body.

“Mmmph…”

He groaned lightly, though there was no one there to hear what he was saying. He kept his mouth closed, though her green slickness drooled over his body, making the slide of his body deeper and deeper easily for the Queen to bear.

She drew him in towards her womb as her inner ring, what had to be her cervix, parted around his feet. He tried to push and wiggle his hands, both the one pinned to his hip and the other over his head, to have some sense of agency, although there wasn’t anything he could ever claim for his own, not ever again.

And maybe that wasn’t such a bad existence, after all, not when he was safe and secure in there. Jonathan had nothing else left in the world to worry about, but if he was concerned there would have been no way for him to get himself out either.

He softened, easing inside her womb, feet first. He moaned, even if no one heard him, becoming one with the Queen.

The pull into her womb was quicker than the descent through her pussy had been and he gasped as he was hauled crudely inside, roughly dragged all the way through that inner ring. The xenomorph’s cervix closed after him, leaving him discreetly sealed away within her womb.

He tried to turn around, but there was no room to do so, her walls pressing in on him from all sides. Fluid surrounded him, as if it was being secreted from the sides of her womb, though it was hard for him to say.

In there, time had no meaning. He felt her heart beating, sending a patient, drumming beat through her entire body. It ached through him and Jonathan yearned to press himself into that soothing beat, just so he could lose himself there, all in the best of ways.

It was his entire world, her womb, as acid blood pumped around her body. He even settled into the deep, rhythmic breaths she gave too, her huge lunge expanding and softening with every full breath she took. It was comforting there, soothing, and the rest of his life, the life he had led, well… All that fell away.

There was nothing else there for him, nothing else he had to concern himself with. Was that not the best kind of existence? The Queen xenomorph rumbled around him, happiness radiating through him – and Jonathan took on that happiness for himself too. If his Queen was happy, then he was happy too. He always would be happy with the Queen caring for him, looking after him as one of her most special children.

The Queen knew she had all she needed there, the hive of xenomorphs abuzz around her. They had all they needed there and could feed freely, though they all delighted in the act of hunting too: it was simply a part of who and what they were. Two of the royal guards kept watch over her as she walked slowly, almost waddling, to the egg laying chamber, though mutating Jonathan inside her womb took more energy than ever before.

The guards, however, protected her and the soon to be born new hybrid from any intruders, even though her drones and warriors took great pleasure in being able to feed and hunt, chasing intruders through the hallways of the base like snakes slithering after rats. Only one won, every time.

The man belonged to her and was connected to her, indoctrinated to the hive mind, so he felt the thrum of the hive around him, always there as a source of protection.

Jonathan murmured within her womb, curled up into a foetal position, his legs tucked up and his arms around them. She’d moulded him into the position as he’d developed, though Jonathan was not with his senses enough to realise what was happening to him, that he was transforming inside her. After all, it was an extreme thing for a human mind to comprehend under any circumstances, least of all the ones he had been thrust into.

The hive would protect him – and there was a part of Jonathan too that wanted to protect and care for the hive. Their love wrapped around him, like a different cocoon, warm and beating in time with the Queen’s heartbeat.

He was where he needed to be, where he was supposed to be: home. There was no other home he would crave as much as his Queen mother’s womb, never again.

He didn’t take stock of his changes, how his spine lengthened slowly and his jaws elongated, his skull taking on a rounded, more dome-like shape. A cord connected his belly button to his mother, taking nutrients and further sustenance from her body. There was no closer connection than that and, in a dazed, sleepless kind of state, he relaxed there, a soft smile fluttering over his lips. With the cord connecting them, he didn’t need to breathe, for she already was feeding him much-needed oxygen through it, what his body required to function.

His blood darkened and, if he’d bled, he would have seen that it was more green than red – though not fully xenomorph either. It would be acidic, just like his new mother’s, all in time. A sense of warmth curled around him and he huddled in closer to himself, enjoying the moment and everything it entailed. There was nothing else for him as he let himself sink into it, feeling his mother move around him.

The alien Queen was everything he could aspire to be, tucked away from the dangerous outside world. There was not a place for him out there, not without his body changing, and the Queen had already determined that Jonathan was not to live as prey for the xenomorphs.

No, he was so much more than that, his fingers drifting closed to his stomach as he changed, slowly but surely mutating. He was not even aware of himself shifting, of course, held within her womb as he was, though his fingers, in time, became claws, sometimes resting lightly against his own body as he stroked the umbilical cord connecting him to his mother.

Warmth surrounded him as he floated there, suspended. Yet he was unaware of what the alien Queen was doing outside his transformation.

The Queen moved about her business, letting her drones and warriors work for her, though she cared for all in her hive. The hive needed to be protected, yes, and her tail curled lightly as she laid more eggs, adding to her nursery. They needed more, so many more, to make the hive as strong as it could be and she was the only one who could lay them, as the Queen.

Her tail flexed and pushed as it acted as an ovipositor, laying egg after egg as they filled out a large sac. It meant the Queen had to stay connected to it while she was laying a clutch like that, every egg jostling up against another, her sides expanding and contracting with every draw and pull of breath.

There, she was settled. She was happy there and there was no reason at all for her to rush through it, letting her body work through it. Wetness swilled around the floor of the nursery as she adjusted her stance, the egg sac glowing a faint yellow, protected by fluid within.

The xenomorph crooned softly and moved her legs apart a little more as she stroked her stomach with the curved side of her clawed hands. The sharp edges would not hurt her own body, of course, though she was all too aware of the daughter mutating inside her at that very moment.

She would have spared more attention still for Jonathan if she had not had to resume her duties as Queen. The hive needed her and her clawed feet rose to rest on the growing egg sac as she laid egg after egg. It swelled out behind her as she groaned and shook her head lightly from one side to the other, twisting it so her neck worked out some of the kinks and strain that had become buried there.

Still, the Queen rubbed her belly, crooning and chattering faintly to the daughter within. The weight of her shifted inside and the Queen felt her kick out lightly, the start of a long tail twisting within the protective hold of her womb.

She groaned, the hive moving around her. She was aware of the drones working and some of the warriors out on hunting missions. They still had to feed, after all, and she lowered her head, crooning to her offspring. There were so many of them there, in the eggs, waiting to hatch. And all would come in good time.

One thing the hive understood was patience – especially in the art of working together. There were few humans left, but they’d worked out, rather easily, that they could lure humans there with some pheromones and set-ups, leaving things the humans found valuable outside where their machines and sensors could see them.

Humans were easy to lure in. In the sacs hanging from the walls, some humans still squirmed, conscious enough to know where they were and what was to come of them.

But that would never happen to the Queen’s daughter, however, and Jonathan had nothing at all to worry about.

Jonathan pressed up into the touch of his mother’s great, clawed hands as she rubbed her stomach, two sets of hands resting there. He’d come to learn what the pressure meant and leaned into it, wanting more. He couldn’t wait to be born again, to slide out of her and to truly stand alongside his mother, all in his new form.

One thing he did not understand, beyond faint impressions from the Queen herself, was what they wanted of him. He didn’t yet understand their language and would have to learn that for himself, all from being a hatchling, and tried to guess.

He was the Queen’s own… But what more would come? How would he know what she wanted him to do? One thing was certain and that was that Jonathan’s life would never again be the same.

He would never have wanted it to be.

Time passed and, finally, the Queen was ready to bring her daughter into the world. Her stomach bulged out heavily, showing the weight of Jonathan in her womb. The Queen rumbled in pleasure, her tail snapping out from the side, having laid one giant egg sac for her drones, acting as nursery workers, to care for them. They would not all need to stay inside the egg sac, of course, although some would remain. No two xenomorphs hatched the same and it was the strongest that resided in singular eggs. The weaker ones, basic drones, would come from the eggs.

Yet every xenomorph had a certain life cycle to go through, of course, and there was only so much that could be done in that regard. The cycle was irrefutable and something they all accepted.

Her new offspring would see that they all took their place in the hive, of course. There was no other way for them.

She shifted to a new spot in the nursery, her gaze sweeping the walls. The hive had expanded and the nursery spilled over into another room, forcing her to be more active. There would be more xenomorphs than ever as the hive grew and grew, although they had grown skilled in luring an ever-increasing number of humans in. Whereas the Queen was safe, she rumbled in discontent for the drones that were lost in keeping the humans at bay. They would need to ward them off, even though they needed more host bodies.

Ah, there were many conundrums to be had in the running of the hive. Yet the Queen was capable of everything. Nothing would ever hold her back from taking care of her own.

She rubbed her belly as she shifted her weight from one hip to the other, her tail pulling and flexing as yet another egg worked its way down the full length. Her body grumbled lightly, needing sustenance, though she paid it no mind at all.

The push of the egg working its way down to the very tip of her tail, her ovipositor, was almost sensual. Muscles worked around it, tugging and twitching, and it squeezed all the way down, a wet, slick fluid guiding the egg so there was not too much friction there.

When it emerged, the end of her tail spread around it like a flower, the “petals” of her tail clinging still to the egg as she laid it. That was the last one, however, of the batch as she added to a large egg sac, her body tremoring as she relaxed a little more. There was still a sense of loss to be had when she detached from the egg sac, the end of her tail closing once more, though the Queen would do all she could for the good of the hive.

Her stomach was vastly distended, easily showing the growth of her hybrid child inside her. Jonathan shifted inside, though he didn’t know yet that he would be born, again, as a daughter. He didn’t have to know, for his fate had already been set for him.

The Queen rumbled and crooned slightly, rubbing her belly as Jonathan shifted inside. Even to her, she could see the movement within her belly. Her daughter, Jonathan, would soon be born – and that would be a unique process indeed to laying her eggs. A daughter to the Queen was something and someone very special indeed.

At long last, the Queen paused in egg laying and set herself in the middle of the nursery, pausing with her feet apart. Her tail swung back and forth lightly with a light curve in the length, allowing it to undulate. She had to drift into a place of peace in her mind to get there, her body aching faintly as it prepared to give birth. One hand rested on her stomach as she let herself be grounded there, all so she could relax and allow her body to do everything it needed to do.

One the wall, one of the original scientists was still cocooned, fed enough nutrients to keep them alive, along with a fluid that wasn’t water but was enough to hydrate them. He twisted and wriggled faintly back and forth, though his fate was sealed. The thing was, however, that his fate was to be very different from Jonathan’s. And there was nothing still he could do about that, regardless of the well-known, respected scientist he had been before.

He had no name in there. If he’d been asked, looking out through the semi-translucent, tough membrane of the cocoon, he would not have been able to recount who he had been. Some flashes lingered in his mind, however, of looking through microscope viewfinders, of laughing with his father, of the xenomorphs taking him. They didn’t seem like they were a part of his life anymore, those memories, drifting and floating like there was no actual substance to them at all.

Maybe memories were never to be held that closely at all.

The hive had influenced him too and he no longer recoiled in fear when one of the xenomorphs drew near. The Queen was beautiful, tall and stunning in her chrome attire. He would have been hard-pressed to name a creature more resplendent than she was, even if he had retained all of his mental faculties.

And within her there was something special growing. Even though he could not see clearly out through the cocoon, he was aware that someone had grown inside her womb and he’d seen a man being taken into her womb, travelling up her passage from her vent. His head had been the last thing the scientist had seen of him, though there were still some twitches and shifts in him.

He squirmed, discomfort in his chest rising again. No, it was better not to think about that, not at all. He didn’t want to let his thoughts go to what that was, though he vaguely knew it was not to be good for him. He was becoming a part of the hive, though not in the way the Queen’s offspring was.

He watched dreamily, blinking slowly as his movements became duller and slower. He was there and he would watch, bearing witness until his end came.

“The angel…” He breathed, although he barely even needed air anymore. “She will soon be born. The Queen’s daughter.”

He didn’t question how he knew such things, having been fed the information by the hive in their passing. It was hard to live amongst them, cocooned, for so long and not pick up some manner of their nuances and impressions.

Shifting, his lips parted once more.

“What a wonderful, magnificent specimen she will be,” he said. “Greater… Greater than all of us.”

Drones passed by and he didn’t even react. Yet his time had come and he arched and bucked within the tight confines of the cocoon. Although they would not have saved him, the man’s arms were pinned down to his sides, his chest burning as he gasped and pain ripped through him.

His gasp didn’t help him: not in the slightest. For his fate was sealed the moment the chest burster lunged through, twisting and squirming within him. He didn’t remember being implanted with an egg by a facehugger, but he was a part of a much bigger picture and journey that any singular human could ever have hoped to go on.

The hive, after all, worked together. The hive connected. Humanity couldn’t do that. In their dystopia, they had fractured. And that was just how the aliens had risen.

A scream cut through the air, although none of the worker drones paid it any attention at all. They heard it all the time. A chest burster slammed through his ribcage, crunching and grinding, chewing up his flesh with its big teeth, all so it could get out into the open air at long last. It came up, twisting anxiously, against the inside of the cocoon, although that would not prove to be any trouble at all for its ravaging, gnashing teeth.

The human blinked, the light fading from his eyes. He had never been meant to survive.

While Jonathan remained to be born, as the Queen’s daughter, he had done all he needed in serving the hive.