26. Ashla's Logs (minor gore warning)

Remembrance, outside of Coruscant hyperspace well, Ashla pov

Dooku was very useful, the slaves he brings me every month even more so. simply infecting them with a nuerax worm was enough to bend them to my will. no matter. Coruscant. I needed territory on Coruscant. but how to get it? the Republic Senate would be voting soon on whether or not we were qualified to join, perhaps after the vote? but who should represent us to the Senate? I mulled over everything I knew, and the answer came to me. Seren was always calm and collected, rarely letting her emotions take over. Yes, I would send Seren to be our representative.

Tatooine

I had located the Boy. Tatooine was hot and dry. uncomfortable. not an ideal world for us. the Spyders were efficient, as they require minimal resources to maintain their tiny forms. Solen had located the boy, but its Mother seemed hesitant to trust him. most unfortunate, how ever was when she had the Jedi contacted. they came and took him from her and the Watto. Afterwards, I ordered Solen to kill the toydarian and take the female. The Boys mother is safe inside my Hive, one of us. He does not need to know that yet.

Endor

Dooku had done well, getting me slaves with such high M-counts. Each was approximately fifteen thousand, give or take. the iridonian zabrak infant was an unknown, as it had a good 5 months left before it was ready to be born. I also decided that Mauls pod would be moved into the Hive, so that we could keep an eye on him. the conditioning agent is still in its infancy, and as such, needed a long time to work if it was to change anything. I could feel a sliver of my aura affecting the Jedi called Windu, but decided to simply imbed it into his soul for now. I had an Architect make up rooms in the Nest for the slaves, and the Child's Mother. she would remain here, and was free to go where she pleased, so long as she did not interfere with the drones work or attempt to sabotage us. I made this VERY clear, and she understood that as long as she behaves herself, we will not treat her as a prisoner or a slave. I then gave a demonstration of what would happen, affixing a nuerax worm egg to the neck of every slave Dooku gave me, other than the pregnant female. I did not know how her body would react to the worm due to her pregnancy. it was not a risk I was willing to take. I had a recording explaining exactly how they functioned, the worms I mean. it also showed that once it attaches to the brain stem, it will grow until it takes over completely at which point removal becomes impossible without killing the host creature. She seemed to understand that if she behaved, this would not happen, but if she acted out we would not hesitate to make her one of us.

Endor, Five months later.

Maul had woken up a few times, but never managed to escape his pod. Thank the Old Masters that they had developed Force energy activated sedatives. I had Solen and Hoden keep an eye on him. These... mortal species were strange. For all they desire peace, they seem to do an awful lot of arguing. why not simply settle things through combat, like the Old Masters did? Two go in, only one comes out. Granted, they were using Champions instead of fighting themselves, however, it was agreed that the gods themselves would always grant victory to the stronger one. That said, there are many different kinds of strength, from political to physical, mental to emotional, stealth to outright brawn... all were valid forms of power, and as such came to be recognized by the old masters all too late.

I had been making my way to our birthing chambers, the ones for the slaves that is. the female iridonian zabrak was about to give birth, and I did not want to miss it. I had spoken to her before, about the fact that there would be more slaves coming, and that I wanted her and her child to be an example of what we give to those who find us and do not cause us trouble.

as I neared the door to her room, I hear screeching and groaning. the female was in pain, severe pain. We were lucky that we didn't give birth to live young. I entered quietly, and simply stood in the corner, out of the Nurse castes way. I had heard that live births were messy but this was disturbing. A bloody slime-like was leaking out of the females womb, and if you looked, you could see the kid.

I moved over as it was almost over, and gently slid my hands under the new-born infant, then cleaned it off gently using the force to manipulate some water to gently scrub the bloody slime off of it. I then moved towards the zabrak female, and presented the new Mother its child. I had decided. I gently lifted the females head, and made a quick clean cut on the name of her neck, pulling out the slave chip, then handed it to her. I then began to heal the wound I had made, and though I was nowhere near as skilled as our Healers, I was still far more powerful, so I simply accelerated the wounds healing.

another though saw me heading for a Replete for the new mother. She would need proper nutrient dense food, and our Repletes were the best solution for this. I retrieved one of the largest from my personal Repletes, and brought it back to her with a simple glass cup. I then demonstrated, once I had her attention, how to 'milk' the replete. I then offered her some of the syrup, which she said tasted like something called 'honey' and she liked it, even if it was a bit thicker than she was used to.

Honey. I like that word. apparently you get honey when something called bees eat and regurgitate flower nectar, which is essentially what the replete caste does, only with fruit and meat.