We returned to the factory, each hand locked around the neck of a deer, dragging the dead bucks by the neck. What was about to be born would need a lot of food.

We had removed her uniform, treated her wounds. She lay on the dirt covered floor naked, sweat glistening as she writhed around. Her agonized screams echoed in the emptiness of that deserted vault. Her inflated belly made her look pregnant; she was the host to something far different.

There amongst the decay the warrior woman moaned, let out the occasional howl of pain. She rolled onto one side, rolled over onto the other, desperate for some relief. Now the dirt and dust smeared her body, mixing with the sweat so that she was smudged with mud.

The loudest scream yet as the monster’s misshapen head crowned. She didn’t push it out. It crawled out.

The thing lay there for almost a minute. A humanoid, its skin was pale, smooth, the limbs lumpy. This would change as it fed and grew. This was the spawn of the warrior women, impregnated with the seed of the brash young alpha from the campsite.

The woman saw past the haze of pain, saw as we see. She saw and felt and was felt by our mistress. And she knew of our glorious mission.

Slow, clumsy movements as the spawn stood up. Dazed, vaguely aware that something new was happening, the officer sat up slightly. Blue, almost purple veins, fat and winding, stood out against its pallid flesh.

Its awkward steps took it back to its mother. She tried to hit it, her strikes lacked strength, her body drained by the ordeal.

It finished the first course, strode over to the deer for its second and third.