I may have sounded calm, but every part of my soul hammered under the beating sledge that was my heart. Like a pulsar star spinning 720 degrees per second.

  I’ve been kidnapped, blown up, rebuilt with zergling legs, and mentally schismed into three people, at this point nothing at all should surprise me. So when Helen stands up, raises both hands and starts walking towards the alien gunline I don’t bat an eye. Not even when her faceplate rotates backwards into her armor to reveal a Singularity gasmask, or when she pulls off the gasmask underneath and shows her true face to the iguanas.

  Bad move, as the radiation levels up here will give her cancer. A disease I’m not entirely sure her symbiotes -however many of them she now houses- can cure.

  But when the frantic mooing of a cow in heat echoes over the bombed out landscape I have to stop and think, What. The. Hell. Humans do not make noises like THAT! It's deep and throaty, with the unpleasant resonance of a cell phone vibrating inside your ears. So similar to a nosey fly, yet improbably more baritone.

  I scan my command screens, checking on lifesigns before stopping at Kerrigan’s. She isn’t part of the Collective’s hive mind or even a grown adult and we just lost four of our friends. After the past three days of fighting side by side, they aren’t acquaintances any longer. I open a tight beam to her, tapping buttons with my newly acquired telekinetic power. Under any other circumstances this would be a miracle, yet now, I swallow. Scared for what violence I’m teaching my friend.

  “Hey Kerrigan, you okay?”

  “A okay.” Answers Kerrigan, sounding almost chipper. “Do we blast the lizards next? Wormbrain is icky, making funny sounds, like a defective. Red says it's better to put down the defectives early, otherwise it makes it harder later after you’ve gotten attached to their derpiness… But…” She pauses, as if thinking. “The lizards are talking back, and I can’t smell them from here so they might not be stinky.” She adds after a moment.

  My shoulders tighten with each word, Kerrigan has no sense of life’s value. Calling someone a defective for being different makes my bowels clench. What does she think of my mediocre psychic abilities? Without her I’m nothing. But more concerningly, how does she view herself?

  “Uhh, not yet. Helen is just talking, doing exactly what we ordered. She is not defective.”

  “If you say so.”

  I’m not sure if this newer, older, more understandable Kerrigan is an improvement.

  Combat seems to bring out everything I hate, a coldness that no one deserves. Like an aged cynic whose managed to steal the light of a child's hope. I want to wrap her in a hug, somehow regress her to a more innocent age.

  But we can’t turn back time and unwind the alterations done to her genome like a -nameless- can. Nor is combat avoidable. For the sake of her sanity I need to get Kerrigan somewhere safe, away from the frontlines. Before she becomes the bioweapon ‘Red’ meant her to be.

  Alaea could take her, I'm sure she would be happy there, able to fulfil the purpose she was made for and augment Alaea's psychic ability. There is no doubt in my mind that Alaea would treat her like a younger sister-

  -Slobbering hoots interrupt my thoughts. Waves of Tulverian cranial crests poke above the trench to our front and left. There is no mistaking it, we’re in open ground while Tulverians have us in a classic L shaped ambush. No matter which direction we move fifty iguanas will have a direct shot up our rears. Methods of retreat run through my mind, I can teleport the soldiers out but not myself. Besides, I’m the largest target several times over.

  Someone else should pilot this oversized bullet catcher. Without additional shielding to accompany the increased targeting priority a marauder just isn't the right tool. Plus, we have no medivacs for instant repairs and these arm grenades seem no more effective than pulser fire, the final nail in the marauder 's coffin. A redesign will be required.

  Helen chops the air with a knife hand, emphatically hooting at an unusually large crocodilian. Who matches her flailing arms with equally angry finger gestures. Part of me could swear he is giving her the double bird, both middle fingers. Although that could just be the string cheese shaped iguana fingers.

  Wait, Floridians eat iguanas all the time. Would it be weird to eat a Tulverian?

  One hard shake clears my mind, we are NOT exploring that path. Why would I even consider it? Then I remember my fingernails, Hygieia's warning about Collective cells entering my brain. Of Alaea's nanites floating through my bloodstream. I've become something far more than human.

  My heart skips a beat, equally scared and excited.

  Once more I repeat my ward against evil, “work the problem”. Of the killed soldiers I warp their remains and surviving weaponry back to Alaea and Hygieia, more biomass for the Swarm and a few small pieces of gear for the nanofactories to salvage. That is their primary purpose after all, repairing and modifying damaged gear, a task half their internal volume is devoted to.

  >Terran Thena: Emurine is dead.

  I sense Hygieia nibble at his wrist, orally sequencing the DNA. The once appalling act somewhat mundane.

  >Matriarch Hygieia: lucky for you

  >Matriarch Hygieia: im babysitting a straingineer

  >Matriarch Hygieia: want this bird reincarnated?

  >Terran Thena: It's creepy that you can just bring him back... How much will he remember?

  >Matriarch Hygieia: everything

  >Matriarch Hygieia: up to a minute after his death

  >Terran Thena: A minute AFTER?

  >Matriarch Hygieia: well duh how else would you convince an immortal to stop getting fragged?

  The logic is flawless, yet so unbelievably inhumane. I chuckle.

  >Matriarch Hygieia: already started

  >Matriarch Hygieia: incubation complete in one hour

  —

  -In Hygieia’s underground biopool network-

  Zazathur takes a nibble of Emurine’s disembodied hand, teeth crunching through bone and flesh like a stick of fresh Twix.

  “Mmmm. Inefficient. Unoptimized strain. Cannot fly. Claws insufficient. Beak made for yapping not tearing. Can improve. Terror bird strain, fast fighter with greater penetration and trauma on the attack, sonic attack, more expensive than Zergling.” Says the Straingineer.

  “Shut up and make me a damn Emu-rine clone! Your terror bird isn’t going to be more efficient than stealing plasma weaponry and armor from the enemy.” I snap, speaking with Hygieia’s voice.

  I can feel Zazathur roll his eyes.

  “Always so snippy. Quality takes time-” He begins.

  “-Time we do not have! Get to work, win this battle and optimize later.” I interrupt.

  “Victory is supreme.” Says Zazathur, sliding into a pool of biomass.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  We’ve tunneled back to the ship where a growing number of roaches and spinolings strip biomass from the beached whale of its corpse. Even as we bicker a roach vomits acid across the ship, sucking up the end product a few moments later and trundling off to refill a biopool. So much damage was inflicted on Shipmind it’s a wonder anything at all landed, a wonder I’m deeply grateful for.

  “You’ve given us a chance.” I say, already formulating a full squad of Emurines.

  These will be somewhat improved, purpose built for Alaea’s new reaper armor. Lighter, faster, and with bigger payloads. Thena will absolutely love this shit!

  Yet there is never enough material. Two biomass expended for a single biomass gained. What with the scavengers, and roaches, and biopools, and fungi farms, and-

  -it never seems to end.

  Against energy weapons it is all too easy to lose more biomass than we have. Good thing we can grow fungi along the ceilings and walls above our biopools, creating a fuzzy carpet that will feed our warriors...

  The fungi farm is so similar to creep...

  "Ooohhhh." I gasp.

  "ZAZATHUR! ZAZ-A-THUR! I'VE GOT AN IDEA!" I shout, diving into the biopool after him.

  —

  -Thena's perspective-

  The marines who can reload, do so. While Spiderman marks individual Tulverians based off their battle damage and veterancy. Plasma burns, scars from bullets or bladed weapons, are all cataloged by his plethora of peepers. Without deviation all Tulverians carry fresh wounds or old scars, marking one and all as veterans of many battles, a truth that is evidenced by their varying sizes and scales. These basic warriors adapt to pressures, on a high gravity world they grow taller and stronger, if one gets shot they'll release pheromones that trigger a hardening response in other's scales creating thicker and stronger armor for their kin over several weeks. Constant biological responses to fighting is how -mostly nude- crocodilians can stand against Techno Tanks and the endless troopers.

  Until I arrived. Now this fighting force has seen a constant stream of combat without relief or respite and it shows in their sunken eyes, hidden below taut skin.

  They’re starving. Makes sense… While it wouldn't hurt me to eat an iguana leg, no way would that be my first or second choice for lunch.

  I laugh, once more hoping we taste like shit. Then scroll through our list of supplies back in supply bunker 0002, careful to filter out any chocolate bars.

  Negotiations are going nowhere. I guess that's a good effect, considering we are enemies, but the sun will rise soon and all of us could die to Singularity spotters. Time to wrap this up.

  “Hey, Helen, tell them we’ll feed them if they help us clear the last bunker.”

  Her hooting stops immediately as she turns back to glare at me. Too bad most of her face is lost to the night sky.

  “I’m trying to talk them out of eating us! Can we actually feed them?”

  “Sure. Hygieia has a few farms up and running.”

  "She just started those. It'll be days before we see a return and weeks before they're fully operational!" Helen snaps.

  "Sure, which is why we need to capture the Novan bunker and build farms there. Gotta macro it out." I answer.

  An armored hand rubs her temples, teeth grinding against each other before she turns back and squawks a series of trills that the human throat should not be capable of replicating. A pause comes from the trench, nervous ripples ducking cranial crests and sturdy tails. Two Iguanas scramble out of the trench, one unusually thick and conspicuously unscarred.

  “Huh, never would have guessed fatass generals exist in every race, including iguana.” I mutter, recognizing this specific Tulverian as a target for assassination or capture under our flashtrained orders.

  General Scaley’s throatsac inflates, bulging like a ballooned double chin, a sight soon complimented by at least a dozen tongue folds appearing in his maw, rolling over each other as they fought to presume the correct shapes. It looks like a roach gargling squids. The wrong type of squirming with an unpleasantly hard exterior.

  Which is when Wormface’s collective mind educates us all, Tulverians operate under a caste system, with officers being a selectively bred and highly refined variant, same as their engineers and a far cry from their soldiers. Though where the line of gene altering begins and the selective eugenics programs end are unfathomable to a human, and most Tulverians for that matter. He uses the Collective's nomenclature for the individual, designating their function as identity, making it an ambassador -general.

  He opens his mouth to speak, and I’m immediately annoyed by his deplorably bastardized accent. Thrice translated from Tulverian, to Singularity standard, into English -compliments of our flashtraining- it leaves a confusing taste in our ears.

  Making me wish Helen was still hooting.

  “Ahem, I zee you ave undertaken to mirror our speech, shouldn’t have troubled yourself az I am ze most capable tranzlator. What a truly glorious day zis is! A day zat shall be remembered in ze annals of history as ze moment when ze superior intellect of Tulveria prevails yet again!" He pauses dramatically, as if expecting applause, then continues, gesturing grandly with both webbed hands, "Consider zis, why continue zis futile struggle? Ze odds are, how you say, catastrophique for you. Zere iz no shame in bowing before ze paragon of military excellence zat stands before you in ze form of General Splendeur! In fact, I would say it iz an honor to cross beams!"

  “You’ve got to be shitting me. These translators aren’t worth a goddamned thing! Copying an accent, what bull-frog-shit is this?” I mutter to myself before climbing out of my insufficient hidey-hole.

  Plasma rifles track my every move.

  "I'm in command here. Now that we can communicate on even footing." I say, trying not to wince.

  “Boss, what are you doing? Let Helen work!” Coms Wormface, his tone bordering precipitously on an order.

  I activate external speakers so all can hear.

  “My name is Sable Yurten, of the Holy Singularity. I have a personal vendetta against the Novans and have no desire to oppose you. Should you choose to surrender I shall guarantee your survival."

  Both Tulverian negotiators hoot rhythmically, sounding like bongo drums. Laughter. Not that I needed a translator for that.

  "Alright, we do this the hard way." I snap, getting their attention. "Let me give you lizzards a value lesson in negotiation. The first rule is never answer the question, ‘What could I do that would utterly destroy you’. A card you just played when you left that trench. Pretend to be overconfident, but no general leads a combat patrol from the front. You should e back at base, safe behind shields and a mountain of rock. But you're here cause there is no where else to go.” I say directly, coming to stand in front of the two iguanas.

  Up close I can see the smaller one, a dark scaled soldier with double the armor and a sort of blue tortoise shell on its back. A personal shield generator if I had to wager a bet. Neither speaks, but fatty watches me from hooded eyes, laughing at each word. He knows where we stand, he can kill me, but not the Singularity as a whole.

  “General… Splendeur,” I begin, trying not to choke on pompous lizard tail, “Cut the shit. You’re only out here cause someone cracked open your central bunker and kicked you out. Without resupply you’re already dead. How much food do you have left?” I hold up a spare pulse rifle magazine to display what it is, then underhand and toss it to his aid. “A gift, we are familiar with Tulverian tech, and can synthesize something edible for you. I can't guarantee it'll suit your refined palates, but it will keep you alive.”

  The general catches himself mid-laugh, sputtering to reign in his pride, face a mask of feigned offense. "Such bluntness! Truly, ze mark of your rustic charm." He straightens, brushing at an imaginary speck from his scales. "But let me assure you, Madame, zat Tulveria does not 'last'—Tulveria endures! Resupply or no, we remain resourceful."

  His eyes flicker momentarily to the tossed magazine, then back, smile tightening. "I appreciate ze gesture, zis is no mere barter! If I were to entertain your assistance, it would be a partnership of equals, n'est-ce pas? For surely, your success depends on having ze unmatched brilliance of Général Splendeur as your ally."

  I look him up and down, even in a losing position he is desperate to save face, could be an iguana thing, or just your average dick measuring. Hard to tell. Wait, do iguanas measure dicks, or tails?

  No matter, it would be a simple matter to force his hand into servitude. My ‘head’ spins 360 degrees, scanning the surroundings for thermal readings and detecting almost a hundred Tulverians in the surrounding trenches.

  A hundred plasma rifles.

  >Terran Thena: Hey… I know you started some fungus farms. How are those coming along?

  >Matriarch Hygieia: dafuq you want that for?

  >Matriarch Hygieia: who are you trying to feed?

  >Terran Thena: Glad we understand each other, 110 Tulverians.

  >Matriarch Hygieia: maybe if I had a month and three fourths of their bodies!

  >Matriarch Hygieia: tryin to build a ship here!

  >Matriarch Hygieia: how much biomass should we waste?!

  She confirms my own inner thoughts. A snap decision must be made right now. Lie to the Tulverians and secure their aid, or be honest and risk fighting them here.

  “Over a hundred survivors. That’s impressive General, given your unfortunate circumstances that is more than my farming projects could hope to feed. We have a farm, and can offer you our spare rations, enough food for roughly double our number, but only if you help us take the Novan Bunker. Tonight. Before their power is restored.”

  Greed flashes in his bulbous eyes, counting us as ten strong. I can see his mind working, weighing the flesh our bodies can provide over the amount we could pay. A calculation I ran only seconds prior. Lips purse into a wrinkle, finding the terms unfavorable.

  My arm launchers are loaded with high explosives, and I tap through menus to set them for airbursts above the iguana trenches. If this goes sideways, we’ll have at least one surprise for them.

  “You offer me a terrible deal!” Snaps General Splendeur, planting his hands over his haunches, where two plasma pistols sit in holsters.

  Star Hawk Rises. It's a sci-fi, progression, action adventure story with kingdom building.