Massive Disaster 5-32B (Preview) (Patreon)

Every argument that had been about to happen over what to do with the barely-living asari found itself more dead than she was. Jane’s mouth was open on a word she never got to as coolant drained from the tank, the sound of it a drawn-out sucking pull that went on and on until even John’s raised hand fell to his side.

Soon enough, the thick white haze on the inside went thin and that frosted glass was no longer so, patches appearing on the cracked surface before even those were gone.

Everyone’s attention stayed locked to one place because behind the glass there was a shape and that shape kept going.

That’s… Zedd had read the reconstructions of the way down, Binary Helix numbers fragmented and sparse based on the lines and logs he pulled from MIRA’s shredded memory. That’s a building. Somehow those numbers had done an excellent job of underselling it by a decent factor. That’s a building bug.

There wasn’t a lot of other ways to put it, not with dark purple chitin thick and layered like tank plating. Four limbs stood tall and stretched wide on a body that was as long as nine of him put together, pale glowing eyes spaced across the front of the rachni’s body seeming to land on each one of them at once.

The Rachni Queen filled the tank the way water filled a glass, all her mass almost pushing against the containment as she stared their way. Her head turned slowly, slightly, carefully, those eyes seeming to unfocus off the eight of them for a bare moment a-

“Songs of madness…