Hello hello. I'll keep this brief, since you're probably not here to read "from the author notes". However, given that this is the longest piece of writing I've ever successfully completed, I decided I wanted a forward. This story is the result of a ton of time and effort (and no small amount of excellent editing feedback from users uncajerf and Jujuma), yet the end result is something I have gone back and forth on with myself for over a year now. I'm worried it's too long. I'm worried it's too dull. I'm worried it sounds unnatural. Basically I'm worried it's not ready. But I figured I've done about as much as I can at this point so let's just post it and move on. If you do decide to read it, I'd love to know what you think.
Jammer
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Upon preliminary inspection, the species, which I have named Chimera, does not appear particularly noteworthy. One is most likely to encounter the parasite shortly after hatching but prior to implantation. During this state of its lifecycle it appears as a small, gray colored worm approximately the length of a fingernail. The most distinctive aspect of the creature is how it integrates with its host species. Chimera ingests neural tissue for sustenance, and in every other known example of this behavior the result is the swift and gruesome death of the host. With Chimera, however, the manner of ingestion does not appear lethal to the host. In most cases, it doesn't even appear to be noticeably detrimental to the host, at least from the perspective of maintaining stable biological functions. As the parasite develops, it gradually replaces the cells it consumes with a replication of the host material. This new "pseudo tissue" is grown from the parasite's own body and works remarkably well as a substitute for connective pathways. The duplication is so precise that it can mimic many of the primary functions of the host tissue. While changes to a host's behavior can vary, and grow more significant with time, Chimera appears to prioritize keeping its host alive and functional. This makes sense given the significance of the host in the parasite's reproductive cycle.
Aryna stopped typing and lifted a hand to brush back a strand of dark hair that had fallen over her eyes. She re-read the abstract of her report. This was, without a doubt, the single most significant discovery of her scientific career, so she really wanted to avoid any typos. She thought it looked good.
It was only a couple months after landing on this otherwise unassuming planet, that she'd first identified the creature. Once the significance of the discovery became clear, it quickly became the focus of her research over the following two years. This report would be the culmination of that effort, and it very well may alter the course of the rest of her career - hell, her entire
life
.
Unfortunately, she would have to wait. In fact, she'd have to wait quite a while. It'd be nearly another ten months before the faintest ripple of what she'd found made it back to anyone who cared; that was the reality of being on the frontier of human exploration.
Thanks to long range astronomical scans, humanity had known for centuries about the world Aryna now called home. However, it was only recently that the survey teams had ventured far enough into the void to land on it - thus, her presence. One Fully Independent human operator, one completely self-contained scientific research station, and three years in an unexplored biosphere to poke, prod, and discover as much as she was able about how this alien ecosystem functioned. Her goal was to give the Settler Vanguard a knowledge base to work from. The hope was that having a detailed record of the life on this planet would mean the colonists wouldn't stumble blindly into a threat they were unprepared for. There were too many examples from humanity's early attempts at colonizing alien planets that showed what devastation could be wrought by ignorance.
First Contact Biologist wasn't bad work. The pay was good, and it was always interesting, but there weren't many who sought it out as a career. The level of training required combined with the long stays on undeveloped worlds made other professions more appealing for most of Aryna's peers. For all those reasons and others, she'd been surprised to discover how much she loved it. There was something about standing on the surface of a world that no other human had ever seen with the naked eye. With just her tools and her mind she pried open the secrets of this place and laid the foundation for humanity's continued growth. It felt significant.
Aryna originally planned on only undertaking a single First Contact mission to build experience and money. A decade later this was her third such mission, and each had felt more fascinating than the last. Isolation was the only true struggle. Without a form of FTL transportation, she was cut off from the rest of humanity until her pickup. Right now, the survey team that had brought her here was in the middle of their three-year loop through the local star systems. They would be dropping off and picking up other research personnel in stations just like this one before finally swinging back around to collect her.
Having done this twice before, Aryna thought she'd had a good idea of what to expect. It was fascinating to discover how different species developed in varying environments, but most people were surprised to learn how often the same types of features would appear despite the light years separating Earth and her missions. It made sense when you knew that more than a thousand years ago, the theory of convergent evolution had been proposed to explain how similar traits could evolve in seemingly unrelated species.
The idea was that life often needed to solve similar problems (movement, energy, sensory input, etc.), and so evolution arrived at similar solutions. Once humanity began finding, and then studying different forms of alien life, it turned out the theory didn't just apply to organisms that evolved on the same planet. If an alien world had life and an atmosphere, Aryna expected to find lungs. If the local star was close enough to illuminate the planet's surface, then she expected most creatures to have eyes. While these biological structures may not be precisely like those found on Earth, the wild imaginings of early sci-fi that proposed sentient clouds of gas or hyper-intelligent beings of pure light had given way to the comparatively more mundane realities of interstellar biology based on many of the same principles seen on her homeworld.
Chimera, however, was something truly unique.
The degree of parasitism exhibited in this specimen was far beyond anything Aryna had ever imagined she'd discover. Of all the biospheres throughout explored space, this creature appeared to be something special. Its capabilities derived from the astounding adaptability of its genetics. Chimera seemed to possess the ability to rapidly rewrite its own DNA in order to integrate with any manner of host it happened upon.
Aryna had yet to find a species on this planet that wasn't susceptible to it; anything with sufficient biomass, approximately ten times the size of Chimera itself, appeared vulnerable to serve as a host. Very few other species had any defenses against infection. The majority of potential hosts Aryna had studied seemed to focus their defensive behaviors exclusively on avoiding infection, because there didn't seem to be anything they could do once infected.
But these were things to consider another day. It was already late, and she needed a break.
Powering down her workstation, Aryna caught a brief glimpse of herself in the reflection of the now dormant screen. She looked... well she looked like she'd been alone on an alien planet for a couple years. Her eyes were tired. Her hair, though she kept it tied back, was long and messy. Her dark skin was... actually, her skin looked pretty good. A daily wash and moisturizing was one of her simple joys. Still, she looked utilitarian, if anything, and that didn't make her feel particularly proud of her appearance.
Sighing, she stood up and stretched, rolling her shoulders so that a little of the tension left her lean muscles - but only a little. She stuck diligently to the rigorous exercise routine required by those in her profession. That meant a few hours at a desk didn't truly tax her body. The source of her tension was more fundamental and, in her situation, harder to relieve. She felt it in the restless way she unconsciously fidgeted when sitting still. She felt it as a perpetual tightness somewhere deep in her core. Mostly she felt it in the way her mind would often drift away from work to more pleasant, and far less professional, lines of thinking. It was something she was going to have to take care of.
Walking to the biolab's pressure hatch she palmed the access panel, and the door