I floated in the dark of space, my little fleet of zerg surrounding me. Since I didn't need them to propel my self in space, I had decided to wrap my wings around myself like a bat. While most of my fleet were converged around me, I had decided to use my Overseers to check for X-ray Pulsars, so that I might have a means of navigating around this vast galaxy.
X-ray Pulsars were useful for navigation because every X-ray pulsar had it's own frequency signature. Once you had the location and frequency signature of at least three X-ray pulsars, you could triangulate your position accurately from anywhere in the galaxy, plus or minus 5 km.
To get the relative position of some X-ray Pulsars, my Overseers had arranged them selves into a circle around this system's star, 3 AU distant from the star, and equidistant from each other. They would then use Binocular vision (with each Overseer serving as an 'eye') to ascertain the distance of these pulsars.
They could then calculate it's relative position by comparing it with the distance of the galactic core, the distance of the most distant star on the other side of the galaxy that was still visible, and then the stars on the outer rim of this side of the galaxy. There was a lot of math involved.
Needless to say, this was a long and involved process, so I had decided to take my fleet out to the outer edges of the star system while my Overseers went to work.
And now, all I had was free time. Time to rest, time to think.
If the Wraith were to find me now, they could probably take me out quite easily. However, once I got my swarm up and running, it was unlikely that they could resist their own destruction. My swarm could grow, and grow quickly, while the Wraith's population was limited by their food stock. Sure, it would be difficult, but I would achieve victory in the end.
It was a reassuring feeling, the knowledge that I could defend myself from the wraith. I was the Overmind. I was the commander of the Swarm.
I had not always been the Overmind. During the first month or so that I had been here, I was preoccupied with setting up a hive cluster and scouting the area that I had found myself in. I hadn't had the time or inclination to think about my old life, as a human on earth.
I had had family there, in my old life, but strangely when I tried to summon up mental images of them, they were fuzzy and incomplete. They seemed so far away, and there were no emotions attached to those memories. Intellectually, I knew I should feel sad and angry that I couldn't remember them properly, but I didn't.
It was probably for the best. I was the Overmind, now. I couldn't afford to be distracted by memories of my old life. I put those memeories to the side, for now.
OO
I woke up. While waiting for the Overseers to complete their task, I had gone to sleep, and was awakened by a mental ping. The Overseers were sending me the information I had set them to collect. It was a big wad of info that was all jumbled together and I didn't feel like sorting through it for now. I designated one of the Overseers to hold it while I figured out what to do.
What I wanted was a special unit to sort through the information and use it to navigate the cold of space. Unfortunately, I hadn't designed such a unit before I had left, and if I wanted to, I would need an Evolution Chamber.
I considered the possibilities, going through the memeories of the old Overmind. Hmm, the old Overmind had once edited the genetic sequence of a drone once without needing an evolution chamber, once. Or rather, a Cerebrate had. It had been situation where the Cerebrate's hive cluster had been stuck on a world that was poor in minerals.
The Cerebrate had edited the drone so that it turned into a worm like thing to burrow deep into the earth. It had taken all of the Cerebrate's mental energy, but it had managed it.
I could probably do the same.
I decided to perform the procedure on one of the Overseers, they already had a large brain, but most of that was for processing sensory input.
I got to work, ordering the Overseer to create a cocoon around itself, and had one of the bloat flies supply it with some extra nutrients. Then I started making the edits, removing the Overseer's sensory organs and increasing it's brain matter. The new Navigator would get it's sensory input from other Overseers. It would be able to process navigational data and turn it into a mental model of the Galaxy.
A few hours later, the Navigator's cocoon popped. It looked a bit like a jellyfish, with long tendrils floating from behind it's body. It accepted the data and started work on finding our relative position in the galaxy.
A hours later, it figured out where we were. We were about 1500c rimward from the galactic middle rim, where c was light years. As I hadn't decided where the galactic meridian was, there was no aftward or spinward coordinate yet.
Earlier when the Overseers had been checking for navigational data, I had also had them look for any nearby star systems that may be suitable for the zerg to inhabit. There was, a main sequence star about 19c away.
I ordered the Overseers to spin up a wormhole, and we were on our way.
might have forgotten some things
