When I wake up, at first I want to just roll over like usual - but then I remember! Today's the day! As the thought occurs to me I bounce out of bed as if my tail was a spring, and I get a good view of the surface of the moon outside my window. Stupid moon! Soon I'll be out of here!
...Okay, no, that's mean to the moon. It's actually really cool as far as moons go, not that I've ever lived on any other ones. But I'd lived in this little moonbase for three years and I'll tell you, after three years in one building you tend to get a bit tired of it, you know. Not that it's that little anymore - just like me, it's been growing up. Still, most of that new space is reserved for incubators and - well, that's not exactly important right now. Because today's the day!
I move over to the mirror and take a good look at my cute little self, just to make sure I hadn't mutated overnight. That'd be pretty damn embarrassing to have happen right now, after all. Fortunately, everything looks pretty normal - dark grey chitin covering my arms, legs, and sides, and a bit on my chin. I bring around my tail to look it over, and everything looks good there too. Although humans would call my species insectoid, it doesn't quite match any insect tails I've seen pictures of. It has the black and yellow stripes of a bee or hornet, but it's long and flexible more like a scorpion's, without all the segments. At the tip there's my sexy little stinger, while at the base it bulges out a bit more - room to store my fertilized eggs, when I have some.
The thought of fertilizing some of my eggs soon makes me shiver. Maybe it'll happen today?
The idea makes me run my hands over my more human parts. After all, while there may be some kinky humans into bugs it's definitely these highlights that'll really reel them in, I think. My cute, smooth little pussy makes me groan when I run my hand across it, although it wouldn't be quite so cute if my ovipositor were erect right now...not that I walk around with my ovi erect, of course! That was just a brief thing during puberty for a few days which no one needs to remember or bring up, obviously. My tits are a nice handful - not big enough to get in the way during a fight, but enough to catch attention. The black nipples might be a little odd, but given my black sclera and, you know, all the chitin, I think anyone taking a look at my nips is gonna be fine with what they get, right?
I turn around to shake my tush, though it's a shame my tail covers up most of it, most of the time. I consider whether or not I should cover up entirely with some of my human clothes...but eh, I probably won't be going anywhere all that soon, so there's no point in walking around all confined all day.
I make my way out of my room and head down to the kitchen, where I make my traditional breakfast of genuine human Sugar Flakes and milk! Cow milk, not human milk. I wanted to try some, but apparently it's harder to get than clothes and cereal. Maybe I'll be able to get some of my own when I get to Earth myself? My thinking gets interrupted as one of Jef's hoverdrones makes its way into the room.
"Someone seems energetic today! Looking forward to seeing your mother, Tamara?"
"My mom? Yawn." She's barely even my real mother. After all, I'm the product of seventy generations of breeding of captured human subjects, which is to say, like, fifty years or so worth. Sure, she may have bred some of those incubators personally, but for the most part it was all just crossbreeding and crossbreeding until they finally got a Darkhive with enough human traits to pass as a mutated human. Which is me! Thank the Void so many humans are mutated these days. If I needed to pass as a normal human it would've taken like, a thousand generations. As my mandibles slip out of my cheeks to pincer an errant Sugar Flake, it occurs to me that I'd probably need to make sure not to do that in public from now on...
In any case, I definitely don't have much in the way of a family resemblance to Kalissa. She was born from a reptilian species that spends a lot of time on all four limbs, so other than our Darkhive traits like the chitin we don't have much in common. Not to mention I only see her once a year or so. This moonbase of ours hides by being slightly in an alternate universe, after all. Not all of the way - apparently if you do that it's virtually impossible to get back to your original universe. We're more like...pushed out of reality into a kind of pocket or ditch, just enough to stay out of view from prying eyes. It means travel has to be limited though, or it might give it away. We've managed to set up a teleportation link to Earth, but Kalissa's coming from a bit further away than that...
It's not long before I finish breakfast, and after a quick shower and fixing up my hair I'm heading to the airlock to meet Kalissa. There's no signs of her arrival other than a few lights going off, her stealthship docks without knocking so much as a piece of dust out of place. The same can't be said once the airlock opens to let her in, though - mom's like fifteen feet long with her tail, and I'm pretty sure she's near a thousand pounds. Like me she has chitin covering her limbs, although where I have soft human skin, she has green lizard scales. She gives us a wide, toothy grin as she sees us.
"Ah, a welcoming party, hrmm? Was in the area and thought I'd visit some of my favorite test subjects, but I suppose I can make some time for you two as well."
I roll my eyes. Sure, she'd probably spend at least a couple of days 'visiting' the old abductees, the ones that are still usable at least, but obviously she's mostly here for me! "Pfft, I'm sure you can make some time for your favorite daughter!"
"Favorite?" She taps her chin. "Top hundred, certainly. Although you'll have the opportunity to climb those ranks soon...hehe. Feeling excited, Tamara?"
"Of course!" I almost hop as my voice squeaks. "You're going to give me your approval to start my mission, right?"
"We'll see, we'll see. We may have to hold off for another year, what do you think, Jef?"
The flying disc harrumphs. "She's getting smarter at a rapid pace, I'm afraid. In another few months I may not be able to keep her out of the subject containment section, and then it'd just be incest all day long."
"Hey, not all of them are related to me." I scoff. "And most of the ones that are are like, barely. But if I get to go out and catch my own humans that won't be an issue, now will it?"
"I suppose, I suppose." Kalissa waves a hand, one ending in four thick claws. "Come, let's head to the education chamber, shall we? If you're going to be released on your mission, you need to know exactly what will be required of you."
"Sweet!" I'm pretty sure I know my mission already - I was bred for it, after all - but it can't hurt to hear a few more details. We make our way to a classroom, one with only one desk in it. There's room for more - if any of my siblings are allowed to mature, maybe they'd be using it in the future. None of them are as well-formed for the job as me, though, so it looks like I'll be out of here before any of them actually hatch. I take my seat, and Kalissa and Jef head to the front.
Kalissa gets right to it. "So, as you know, you are a key part of our plan to Embrace Earth." I nod, knowing what she means. 'Embrace' is the Darkhive term for, well, taking over a sapient species as breeding material and adding their technology to our own. While we Darkhive are pretty smart we're admittedly not big on inventing stuff ourselves, not when it's so much easier to yoink it. That's how we got space travel, after all. Some spaceship full of aliens saved our ancestors from some disaster, breaking some of their own laws to do so, and as thanks we bred them until we had Darkhive smart enough and physically capable of using their ship! Then we flew it back to their homeworld and bred the rest of them too! It was a win-win cultural exchange for everybody, really.
While that passes through my mind, Kalissa continues. "We've determined the key route to this is by exploiting their 'superhumans'. We're not just looking for quantity here, although we do need quite a few, but quality. Our tests have been confirmed! By fertilizing Darkhive eggs with superhuman semen and then incubating them inside a superhuman host, the offspring can gain the abilities of one or both humans! Frankly, this is potentially much more valuable than their planet or their technology, really. Superpowered Darkhive could be quite the gamechanger, you know."
I nod along. "I bet! Although capturing superhumans is going to be a lot harder than the baselines we already have, right?"
"That's why we need you to exploit their systems, not work against them. If you just go out capturing humans, you'll be just another 'supervillain', and those rarely last long." Kalissa shakes her head. "The goal will be for you to sign up as one of their super heroes."
My eyes grow wide. I'd been watching human TV all my life so I know all about their heroes. But being one myself? And getting to breed them too? This was going to be the best job in the galaxy! "Really? Although heroes usually turn over their captives to the police, don't they? I can't just keep them..."
Jef handles this one. "Obviously, you'll have to be very subtle in your approach. That said, our teleportation network between here and Earth has improved to the point where you'll be able to send Embraced humans here directly, so we won't need to risk pickups. That also said, we are talking about super humans here. I will not open the link if your target is not fully Embraced, a single rioting hero or villain could put all of this to naught."
"I see, makes sense. Do we have any specific targets?"
Kalissa waggles a claw. "While stronger incubators would be better, they'd also be more likely to be noticed. Perhaps it would be best to work your way up to them, save them until the plan is closer to fruition? Not to mention you'd need to be stronger yourself. However, this also brings me to the quantity part. Our estimations say that if we wish to fully Embrace Earth, we will need approximately five hundred thousand superpowered Darkhive-human offspring."
I blink.
Jef continues. "During testing, you have produced an average of about half a dozen eggs per session. This means you'll need to perform - "
"I'll need to Embrace eighty-three thousand, three hundred and thirty four humans!? ...Give or take!?" My mind reels at the number, not sure whether to start drooling or to insist it can't be done. Mom laughs at my face.
"They don't have to be separate humans, Tamara. Obviously, once an incubator has finished a batch you can always breed them again. Perhaps more, for the higher-quality ones. We also don't strictly need all of them to be superpowered. Some offspring can serve in support roles. Besides, in my experience a young Darkhive often outperforms her test standards once she gets to Embrace a real living being. I know I certainly did! We might be talking about oh, just a thousand or so incubators?"
Jef tilts forward to add a point. "And don't think you need to rush this, young lady. A thousand over twenty years or more might be simple enough. Try to Embrace a thousand in your first year and, well, I expect we'll be trying this again with one of your siblings in a few years. You may have matured quickly compared to a human, but you should have plenty of good years left in you. No need to rush."
"And if you do fail, I expect your siblings will have a much harder time of things! We only get the element of surprise once, you know."
I'm not surprised Mom is worried about the element of surprise. Sure, we might control a hundred planets and have the forces to crush Earth like a, well, bug, but open fights are not how most Darkhive are wired. We're ambushers, designed to strike from stealth and have our prey full of eggs before they even know what happened to them. Sometimes I feel like I want to be a little more aggressive, and I wonder if that's just the human DNA in me. It's at least, like, forty percent, so maybe.
Mom gets us back on track, though. "Now, let us discuss exactly how this cover story of yours is going to work..."