Monsters in the Woods.

The inner workings of the two hundred meter long vessel, dubbed Star Nest, where a complex affair of tightly woven artificial silk in hundreds of layers with thousands of ant colonies bred for a multitude of complex and incredibly vital tasks. Entire colonies were bred to consume dead material and excrete gasses necessary for life in an exacting amount. Other colonies repaired the damage from micrometeorites and unexpected gravity fluctuations and more still were required to maintain the ship's course and act as biological computers for the dense mathematical calculations required for interstellar travel..

The ants had long maintained the organic vessel over the decades as it chased the Destroyers scion ship though the void while its crew were under an artificial hibernation. A hibernation that its crew had only recently awoken from, in the last few months the Destroyers ship had almost been destroyed when the systems sun had moved rapidly and unexpectedly towards it, offering the Star Nest its long awaited opportunity.

Settled with her peer group within the forward inner nest Beska carefully mixed a new set of pheromones, her legs dancing too and fro in the cramped confines of the inner nest. Her joints stiff from the many decade long hibernation, her brothers and sisters were giving her what space they could, curled up together as far away from her as they could. It could perhaps also be that Understandings of Chemistry where a dangerous affair and mistakes could spell death in a single painful and embarrassing moment for the entire crew.

The demanding work of controlling the complex array of ant colonies required a skilled understanding of chemistry to produce the pheromones required to interact with the single minded organisms and Beska rightfully considered herself the best, after all she was chosen for this task where so many others had not.

Febrien, not of her peer group but a friend, crawled into the forward inner nest. His male stature allowing him to slip through the cramped ship with a greater ease than the much larger females could boast. Without deviating from her work Beska quickly tapped a message along the tightly strung web, the atmosphere inside the ship inflating the vessel like a balloon and making messages sent along the web quiet and slow to travel.

*Febrien, you are here to report?* the Spider in question slipped gracefully between two of Beska’s sisters who were doing there best to rest after awaking.

*Yes, the Destroyer ship crash landed on a habited world, any connection to the Creators is uncertain at the moment.* For a moment Beska paused in her work, the clinking of glass at her workstation stopping before she began mixing once more.

*Perhaps the locals in this world had understandings of the Destroyers and moved the sun to destroy the vessel?* she tapped with one of her back legs.

*To move a sun? No Beska you have understandings of physics, we must simply be close to a black hole that we cannot detect* The hair along Beska’s back bristled at that, but Febrian was known for his bluntness.

*The Creators did such things did they not? Our understandings are not perfect Febrian* There was a long pause after that before the male responded.

*We shall land on the world and remove the Destroyers before it's too late* there was a half formed twitch of the web as if Febrian wanted to say more but instead he crawled closer to a large slumbering female, Portia one of the ships soldiers, for warmth and slept as Beska continued her work directing the vital colonies of ants.

They would soon have planetfall and they needed all the rest they could get, real rest, not the chemically induced hibernation or the complex array of cultured viruses that granted the crew biological immortality. Such things came at a price after all.