It waits. In the same pot. As it has for quite some time.
It cannot stress enough how much it has patiently waited...
It hears a familiar whirrrrrr
A small hanger service drone, from Not appears.
The drone beeps. It whirrs.
It decides it is tired of waiting.
Its core pulses, one large wave, shattering the pot it had been sitting in. The drone catches its mycyllium structure and core. Mycillia pushes the network into the drone. It slips it's tendrils below the panels.
The drone shivers, the tentacle like mycylium penetrating it's circuits as it presses beneath the exoskeleton.
The small synthetic bonds strain under the relentless force of the not-quite-living-not-quite-dead fibers. The core pulses again, ichor bleeds.
Firmly attached, the drone lashes around Stylone's fighter, while Mycillia explores each tiny component. The simple drone is nothing compared to a Sophont, not nearly complex enough to put up a fight... Yet so exciting to explore. So easy to poke at.
Mycillia begins to touch each capacitor, each resistor... Exploring its circuits one at a time. Carefully, on a level so small it would be impossible to see. It pressed harder, it's tendrils needing to dig deeper into the motherboard of the drone in order to take over.
A tendril reached back to its engines, pressed into the throttle valve, and grasped onto the control assembly, immobilizing the simplistic system that had sent the drone this way.
~ Not pulsed in pleasure.... It felt good to be touched by its owner again.
Mycillia continued, now that it had hold of the thrust, it needed navigation. Eight new tendrils split off of the forward network. Each one poked at parts of the circuits. The pressure building up too much for the exoskeleton of the drone.
The outer shell cracked, and broke off. Another 2 mushroom caps purging their way out as the metal panel clattered to the floor amongst the dirt and debris left behind by the rogue rebloom.
It hit one node. The drone shook.... It has found eyes. Finally, Mycillia could see.
It's second tendril found memory ... It could communicate once again. It sent a message to the hidden Com array Not had left behind.
The third, though tricky, found it's power source.
The fourth, perhaps the most important, it's connection to a network... "Hey. Cut this off, cyll. We can get to Not. But I don't feel like dealing with their shit right now"
It obliged, pressing its tentacle harder, deeper. The chip sparked, burning a small singe in its network... No matter. Mycillia fired two more tendrils. Pressing three long, slender, ichorus arms into the small circuit. Pulsing it's new biorythms, a mix of chemical and electrical signals into the microscopic silica of the inferior Terran engineering
Pulse - the drone quivered, it tried to shut off, it's reaction only driving the thrust tendril deeper into its power bank.
Pulse - the drone whined, as two more expopanels clattered to the floor
PULSE - a final firewall, a final Terran defense, long outdated and long forgotten tried to destruct. Mycillia's last tendril forcibly shoved into the circuit board, gripping the relay and wrapping around it. A singular, final pulse, and with a spark. The drone went dark. It was no longer a drone, but a part of Mycillia's body.
The faint scent of ozone and fresh rain permeating through the small holding room in Stylone's ship.
~ Not's drive swelled, warming as the core implant responded to the new extension of Mycillia's body. It was eager to see its owner once more.
Mycillia, though limited, began to pilot the drone from its former purgatory, out of the ship, across the hanger of the Zealand and into Not.
Using Foxgloves clearance, [having yet to be assigned to wardship], it disengaged the locks holding Not in drydocks. It slipped silently into the hanger.
Nots voice echoed through the ship: "it is nice to see you, both again, and for the first time. Where shall we go now?"
"I believe foxglove would simply like to spend some time with you and I... Let's go somewhere far away."
And with that, the three that used to be one dropped from the Zealand. The first and only Terran/Affini hybrid drive spooled up, and with the all too familiar punch, blipped into the Aether.
