The hivemind is conquering for me?

2 Days later

"Daddy, why are we out here? My feet hurt." A 6 year old girl said while trudging though the forest. "Well little bean, when I was your age I felt the same. Why come out to the forests of the world when everything we ever need is given to us for free? When we only need to work if we want extra income other than the government stipend?" The father said as he took in a whiff of the fresh air.

"Because I said so." He stated and began laughing maniacally. "Daddy!" The girl pouted as she grabbed his hand. "Ok fine little bean. I am going to teach you survival skills so if you are ever alone in this vast universe, you can fend for yourself... Or do you not want to be daddy's star pupil?"

The little girl took the bait, hook, line and sinker and shook her head excitedly. They kept walking though the woods as the girl began asking myriad question. A blessing and a curse to the father in question. They trudged on for a few hours before the girl expressed her tired status.

"Daddy, I cant go on. can we stop please!" With a sigh the father responded. "Ok little bean, first survival tip. Always check where you are going to set up camp. Most people think the middle of the forest underneath the canopy of the trees is safe as there is plenty of protection from the wind and rain." The little girl nodded her head as that made perfect sense to her.

"But you see, these trees are ancient. Older than anyone in the planet my bean, and such big trees have dead branches the size of me and my big gut up there that could fall off at any moment and crush us while we sleep." The daughter gripped her fathers hand at the new danger that she became aware of in her environment.

"Oh don't be scared now sweetie. Its a rare occurrence, but always be prepared for such things. Look, there is a clearing over there, I have our tent, we can stop for the night there." The father chuckled as his daughter found new vigour at the idea of taking a rest.

The girl started running ahead and tripped over a trees root. "I'm Ok!" She yelled and carried on. The father smiled at how much his little bean reminded him of her mother. His face turned sombre a moment, but stayed strong for his reason to live.

A few hours went by as father and daughter now snuggled by the fire they both prepared. The father doing all the hard labour while he taught his daughter the secret to getting the most out of magnesium strips and a fire rod.

"Daddy, I need toilet." The girl expressed suddenly. "1 or 2?" "1." The dad looked around for a moment. "Ok little bean, you see that mound over there? Its just big enough to cover yourself while you go. Just make sure you can see me the whole time."

The girl took the word see and gave it a vocal element as she started to hum excitedly as we went over to the little mound no higher than her knee.

The father began to whittle down two sticks to spear his hot dogs on. As he was whittling his daughters, he suddenly realised her sweet humming had stopped. "Little bean are you done?" He looked over to the mound and found the absence of his daughters outline. "Little bean?"

The man grew confused, not panicked. He would have noticed her running off he had only kept his eyes off her for 5 seconds at most. getting up off his chair he began walking over to the mound. "Little bean, are you hiding instead of peeing? Are you trying to scare daddy?"

"Little bean?" As he arrived at the other side of the mound he grew confused then panicked. "Honey?" Suddenly, the iconic laughter of his daughter giggling was heard, relieving his panic. Looking carefully, amidst the grass a large black hole was in the ground and he could see the outline of his daughters coat.

"Bean, get out of there, you almost gave me a heart attack." The repeated sound of his daughters laugh echoed in the whole. "Ok enough sweetie come and take my hand." The father said as he got on one knee.

The father grew confused. His daughters coat was visible to him better now, but had a clear absence of daughter. "Bean?" Suddenly, the darkness of the hole gained glossy black eyes with flecks of green swirling around them. The sound of his daughters laughter rang out once more, only this time it came out of a mouth filled with white teeth stained red with fresh blood. The last thing the man ever saw.

Onyx crawled out of the hole and rubbed her stomach in a mimic action of her beloved. "What is it my universe says? A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one." She had not foreseen getting a snack during her wait and she was more than happy with getting one.

"The young spawn are especially delectable." She said, licking her teeth. "I wonder if Apollo would have tasted similar?" Onyx shook the green out of her eyes after saying that. "Beloved does not like talking about Voring him." She admonished herself before looking around.

She groaned at the tent placed not too far away. She did not enjoy eating things that aren't biomass, but she had to keep this place tidy so no one else would come to investigate the clearing.

After devouring the tent, she had a look at all the things the man and the spawn had brought. She ate everything useless like the spawns dolls and a picture of it, the male and an absent female and kept some meat supplies they brought for in case she felt snacky again and a gossip magazine.

She started reading them when she was bored in Ecumenopolis 4. She enjoyed the pictures of all the fatless prey as she imagined what they would taste like. She liked her food gamey after all.

Once the clearing was... Clear once more, Onyx took the few things she saved for later and returned to her hole to wait for the threat from above.

…

The sound of drilling woke me up, looking around I was inside of a large industrial tent. You would not know it was a tent from the inside as Kathrine had decided to decorate it so it looked exactly like her room on the ship.

"Oh someone's finally up. I was beginning to think I finally tired out your voracious stamina." Kathrine said as she was working at a desk. "Don't want to ruin your ego, but it will take a lot more than just anal to wear me down." I replied as I stuck my hand down the back of her skirt to feel her rear.

"Mmmh~ Don't." She whispered unconvincingly. "Really please, I am incredibly busy and we are about to break through to the structure below if the coordinates are correct." I could tell even then she was teetering at saying 'Fuck it!' so I pulled back and kissed her temple. "Ok then, I will leave you too it. I'm going to go do my job of walking around I guess."

Kathrine looked away from her screen at my comment. She proceeded to stand up, wrap her arms around my neck and kissed me deeply. "Oh, I'm sorry my dear, I know you aren't doing much here. When we enter the subterranean structure, I will have you go with the search parties ok?"

Kathrine had been even more tender towards me since I prevented what I assumed to be a threat upon her life. I assumed its because I protected her, and she believed me, it ignited more feeling inside her, but I am not one to complain, derriere fun, is fun.

"Sure sounds great, I will hold you up to that." I said as I gave her once last peck before leaving. In truth I actually liked my current 'job' of walking around the dig site and its perimeter. Watching all the mercenaries going about their specific tasks reminded me of home.

"Speaking of home and via extent Onyx, where the fuck is she?" I thought to myself as I walked. I was already having a hard enough time with my enmeshment withdrawal and she was keeping me sane. I increased the amount of fun I was having with Kathrine to balance it out, but she was only human and could only do so much to preoccupy my mind.

As I was in my own little world, A green dot appeared on my armour, I noticed the thing immediately and stopped walking and crossed my arms. "Janine, I warned you, If you keep on doing that I am just going to fire my minigun into every tree in the area and say fuck it to the consequences."

Janine, from her overwatch smiled as she heard what he had said thanks to her parabolic microphone.

She was about to move to a new overwatch position, which is why she decided to annoy her friend, before she picked up something else, a commotion. The mining team had found the subterranean buildings.