“Take the bunker and it’ll be a sweeter deal.” I say meaningfully.

  Splendeur blinks those grapefruit eyes, detecting my implication. If we take casualties during the assault, our food will stretch that much further.

  "Mon Dieu!" he exclaims, throwing his hands up in mock disbelief. "A deal? Zis? Non, madame, zis is not a deal—it is an insult dressed as an offer!" Splendeur snaps, his gargle of tongues making seemingly human words.

  “Ahem, what I mean is that we can expand the farm with the bunker’s space.” I kneel, lowering the volume on my external speakers. “General listen. I can hear chatter from the Singularity’s advance. They’re chowdering those sculptures with multiple damn bioweapons. They are pushing too hard, think! How long before another faction decides to unleash their own bioweapons? Or maybe have a few ‘accidental’ reactor breaches? We’ve only seen Azhurai scouts so far, how far can they be pushed back before they show off tanks? What reinforcements will be dropped from orbit now that the Singularity’s unleashed hell?! If other factions decide they’d rather team up and crush the singularity then we’d all be crushed between them. Yes, my squad too!” I stare into Splendeur’s eyes, noticing they are slitted vertically, purely crocodillian, though in the nightly dark I failed to notice til now.

  “Work with me here! We aren’t fully aligned with the Singularity, we need to get into a position of strength and negotiate with them just as badly as you do.” I say, pausing to hear the general’s response.

  General Splendeur’s eyes narrow, turning glassy instead of sharpening. As if the half-frog half-iguana half-crocodile is meditating. Lips and tongues work silently, so similar to mouthing words yet completely alien. He steps back, shaking his head.

  This isn’t the sort of screaming iguana behavior I've come to expect from the Tulverians. Despite his horrible accent this particular example possesses a social cunning we could use-

  -Spiderman’s com channel snaps to life interrupting my thoughts.

  “Boss, we got Collective spinolings headed our way.”

  “How many?” I ask, voice broadcast on my external speakers for all to hear.

  “About fifty are coming up behind the Tulverians. I got a clear shot if General Mcfoodie ducks.” Says Spiderman.

  My armored hand raises, pointing in the direction of the spinoling mob.

  “Time is up, you have hostiles climbing up your rear.”

  Iguanas follow the angle of my finger, tracing it back into their own lines to the newest enemy.

  At least a score of armored lizards shift medium machine guns into the trench -single person rotary cannons so similar to Tychus’ Sweet Talker- turning the midnight chasm into a river of flowing plasma. They won’t get tunnelers, but it will dampen the vanguard. Time to force Splendeur’s hand.

  I extend my open palm, thrusting it into the general’s personal space.

  “General, I’m just a culled soldier who wants to go home, and you are defeated, without a base, fortifications, or extraction. In six months I’ll have a ship and the crew to fly it. So what’ll it be? Will you and I defeat the Novans or will you eat tails praying for another miracle to drop into your claws.”

  A hissing squawk escapes the general’s lips, deflating the throat bulge. It inflates, then deflates with a whoosh of air.

  “Do not underestimate us.” Splendeur hisses, as he accepts my hand.

  Shaking once before pulling me tightly into himself. Or rather, cuddling closer to my battlesuit.

  “Take me back to sweet Tulveria, where ze rivers sing and ze roosting mothers whisper sweet lullabies! Zere, I shall bask once more in ze embrace of my homeland, ze cradle of my magnificent shelf!”

  “You have a deal! Now let’s get going!” I shout, retargeting my airbursts.

  Red circles appear across the HUD, indicating ideal detonation points for maximum spinoling casualties. Both arms come up, punching airbursting frags over my newest ally.

  Whomp whomp

  Both arms thud as four grenades arc through the sky, detonating to catastrophic effect amidst the enemy. Limbs explode, richochetting off trench walls and flying tnto the darkness above.

  Four red lines arc into the sky passing over my head before popping into phosphorus flares. Turning night into day. With a quartette of suns above us. Now I can see the enemy’s full extent. Over a thousand bioforms stumble, blinking rapidly to clear their eyes. Then they charge.

  “Ohh baby. That’s too many.”

  Over tightbeam I call for Kerrigan, knowing she can manipulate these bioforms easily enough. A signal passes over the iguanas, some message I'm not privy to, they jerk, roll, and even climb out of the trench to aim at the collective monsters. I send two airburst grenades down the trench, each shot blasting a squad of lings into kindling. Instant respect is hard to communicate across racial divides, but the way the iguanas glance back at me speaks words they will never know.

  Purple light fills the night, a force that slaps me upside the head, carrying onward like tidal waves. Lings stumble as they encounter a psion. Stumbling blindly into our plasma fire. Grenades thunk into my hands, ready for explosions.

  Just as the lings turn towards Kerrigan, driven by some psionic mind greater than hers.

  They charge.

  All bioforms leap forward. Sprinting towards MY Kerrigan.

  “Don’t let them near her!” I order.

  “Yessir!” Echoes in my ears.

  Carried upon the backs of grenades. Successive explosions tear through the lings, clearing the frontline for barker and a dozen Tulverians to reposition. His solarium axe finds a worthy home alongside their energy dirks, a punch dagger style of double edged swords that compliment jagged scales. Hacking and slashing, parrying claws with talons and teeth. The frontline devolves into a melee too tight for Tulverian aim.

  We fan out, targeting computers allowing me and the power armored soldiers to lay down accurate and mobile firepower between our melee combatants, working in tandem with their thrusts and parries. Claws rend flesh, only to be sundered by Barker's armblades. The mut-arine faster than any mortal I've ever seen. He alone holds the line.

  While the Tulverians demonstrate exactly why these hundred survived. Splendeur draws both pistols, bulbous eyes aiming in separate directions and laying down firepower so accurately I begin to wonder if he isn’t a cyborg! None of his underlings need guidance, half have gone prone so others can bring withering firepower to bear against the onslaught.

  Which only strips away the illusion of victory. From within the spinoling horde new creatures emerge, larger armored creatures, made before Hygieia colluded with Zazathur.

  “Picking up seismic disturbances boss.” Wormface coms, rolling a frag grenade twenty feet ahead of himself.

  Is he insane? We’ve split the distance to iguana lines, a grenade that close is almost guaranteed to hit someone friendly-

  -The explosion blinds me for a half second, the suit polarizing to shield my eyes. But in that blazing glory of a frag grenade’s luminous spark I saw red. A tunneler. Larger than the lings.

  Their ambush revealed the Collective attacks en masse.

  Dark shapes rising from the earth by the score. We’re surrounded. Dirt cracks beneath my feet, splitting as a goddamn roach emerges. Two spine blades swinging for my crotch.

  Good thing my armor isn’t a marauder, but power armor meant to carry multiple tons of steel indefinitely. One kick splits this roach in half, gore splattering across Splendeur’s shield.

  More roaches rise from the dirt, catching powered fists, feet, grenades, airburst grenades set to ‘h shit’ range, and even Barker’s axe claims two roaches, splitting them from stem to stern like minced garlic. Yet still they swarm us. All charging at Kerrigan, making only half hearted nips in our direction.

  We fight. We kill. Until the job is done.

  I grasp a roach corpse, swinging it like a battering ram and smash two lings, bones break, limb pop, and still they charge. One airburst splatters them all.

  Tail stingers clatter off my armor, unable to pierce the multilayered monstrosity. I twist, sending an armor piercing grenade straight down a roach gullet.

  “Swish.” I mutter, smiling darkly as roach guts splatter.

  I dodge sideways, hopping twenty feet upward while my armor reloads.

  Silence.

  I glance at Kerrigan, thermal scanners finding her atop a pile of thirty lings. Tail stinger slashing through the warmest corpse. She’s holding a shortened version of Barker’s axe, gore sizzling against the energy blade. Her other hand scans the battlefield with a pulser, seeking targets that do not appear.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  As abruptly as it began, the last bioform dies.

  Our tremorsense susses out any wounded survivors for us to execute, while the Tulverians regroup. Almost two dozen of them are wounded, but not a single one fell. Many are missing tails or arms, limbs that will undoubtably return with time. A phenomenal exemplar of drilled coordination. Throughout everything I hadn’t heard a single order issued, yet each warrior knew exactly when to retreat and when to step forward and fight hand to hand. Sacrificing limb to save another's life.

  “Anyone wounded?” I tight beam.

  “Some dents, but they couldn’t draw blood.” Barker responds, with similar answers from the others.

  Kerrigan only gives a thumbs up, shooting Helen a dirty glare.

  At first I don’t understand why, then I notice our battlesuits are linked, all sensors and data working together to provide the most complete picture possible. Including how many kills each of us achieved. I’m sitting on the high end with an even one hundred and twenty eight, coincidentally half the max value you could hit in Starcraft Brood War. Damn, airburst grenades kick ass against the right target.

  Whereas Helen’s count is a measly five. I’d expect her to kill more than that with a single magazine. Not much I can do about her right now. Even five dead is better than zero, and I have no one who can backfill her armor, soon as Hygieia can, we’ll grow a replacement for her. Bringing my attention to the immediate mountain of biomass around us.

  >Terran Thena: Hey, I remembered to mine more minerals.

  >Matriarch Hygieia: smortass

  >Matriarch Hygieia: I warped two roaches to you, they burrowed and will warp out all that juicy biomass once you leave

  I steeple my fingers, tapping the armored digits together in my best supervillian impersonation and send a picture to Hygieia with Wormface’s eyes.

  >Terran Thena: excellent.

  >Matriarch Hygieia: lol

  Within ten minutes I’ve added thirty biomass to Hygieia’s supply bunker. Enough resources to finish sliming the pots and begin a second farm there. Until moments ago, I hadn’t thought about food for the journey home, as if we could survive off rations and trench rats alone.

  Having the time to worry about food is, in the most extraordinary way, a relief.

  For it convinces me that tomorrow will come.

  “Wormface, pick two marines with tremorsense and get them up front. Let’s keep the lizards alive long enough to take the bunker. I want Barker near Kerrigan in case there are any burrowed surprises out there. Keep her safe boys.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Helen, Spiderman, and Wormface all head to the front, leading the way. Past wreckage of destroyed Juggernauts, rusted over centuries of acid rain and chemical warfare.

  We approach the final bunker, tremorsense detecting nothing, nor do our technician armors pick up any signals. Whatever defenses once remained in the Novan trenches are still fried. Strange. Especially considering those two Juggernauts we killed only a few moments ago. They were armed with top of the line Novan shielding and plasma cannons.

  >Terran Thena: Oh hey! Don’t forget to rip the shield generators and plasma cannons off those Juggernauts.

  >Executrix Alaea: Yep, already scavenged them, but I need a foundry to really get value out of these. Cap the bunker, and do not get shot Athena!

  I send her a kiss emoji, my kindest way to say ‘pound sand… Into diamonds’. Alaea gets the message and let’s me focus on fighting the battle she wished to be a part of.

  At any other time in Syrak’s history we’d die terrible deaths to buried traps, single use laser emitters that fire a flat beam through a hundred yards of trench, strong enough to cut infantry in half, but the EMP has disabled everything. I’m sure we bypass a thousand booby traps and security measures on accident. Tremorsense warns us of covered pitfallsA truth that becomes evident when we start finding Novan technicians locked in their suits, hands seized around emplaced autocannons. Some of the text appears written in Cyrillic, Russian or Ukrainian in origin, yet illegible otherwise. Barker picks up one of the cyborgs, ready to punch his faceplate in when Wormy catches his arm.

  Suit tentacles extend and plug into a concealed port on the tech’s armor, ordering his faceplate open with engineer overrides. Inside is a bald man, eyebrow stubs regrowing after the cryogel stole them. Mouth open with a drop of drool leaking down the corner.

  “What’s the call boss? We still have symbiotes.” Asks Wormy.

  “Sergeant, it's been days since the EMP! Why are these soldiers not reactivated?” I ask.

  “Takes time to rebuild electronics. Especially if everything is fried. You’d have to rebuild the tools to build the replacements. Damn. Sir this is a real shitshow. Those two Juggernauts probably survived because of their shielding or were parked deep enough in a bunker. We’ll only know after getting inside and cracking the computer that records Novan deployments.”

  My nostrils flare, inhaling deeply before I give the order.

  “Infest them. Keep it quiet. Get them out of sight then warp them back for Hygieia to infest and Alaea to reactivate their suits. Don’t let the Tulverians see our warp tech.”

  “Yessir.”

  [+2 occupied power suits]

  We proceed more carefully then, Helen makes full use of her liaison status, often sending three Tulverians ahead. Claws scraping against compacted dirt, scritch scratching echoes through the cavernous trenches. I expect ambushes, yet no resistance appears. Not even when we reach the main bunker and find three layers of blast shielding melted open do we find hide or hare of a functioning tech. I have Wormy send me a mental picture of each face, recognizing a few from school. Not personal friends, but people I noticed in passing. Only one stands out, a homeless man so tanned he was living leather, an unforgettably unpleasant face. The very image of a mental health crisis, who once accosted me near the college locker rooms, screaming about body snatching aliens who were coming to castrate him unless he could hide his balls inside me.

  I may be a virgin, but even I know the balls don’t go inside your partner! Maybe college security found out what he meant, but I have no love of the man. This is one human whom will be better off with a symbiote to regulate his impulses. Ironically making all his fears come true. Well, not the castration part. I'm not an asshole.

  Which is when I realize, none of the techs spoke. They’re people, not hardware.

  I poke his cheek, trying to get a response.

  “Why do they all seem braindead? An EMP shouldn’t affect humans.” I foolishly ask.

  Had I suspected the answer, that particular question would never have left my lips. But it did. So Wormy pulls the hobo halfway out of his suit, disassembling it more than moving the man. Wires and tubes enter the Earthling’s body at various points, organs replaced by hardware. Like the top of his skull.

  “Technomancers remove the top third of the skull, so they can physically decorticate human frontal lobes. Reducing metabolic needs and increasing compliance.” Wormy says, suit tentacles repeating the procedure and cutting through recent stitches.

  Skin peels back to reveal a shining plate which Wormy unscrews and pulls directly upwards. I hyperfocus on the screws, seeing they added a bracket within this man’s brain cavity. A place for them to anchor both the skull covering cap and the fist sized orbs near the front. Twin black spheres with wires and visible circuitry, all lights flashing in an asynchronous error code. These are computers that regulate all Technocracy rules and laws, enforcing them with 100% compliance.

  “Can’t remember freedom or your home if they excise the brain. Sloppy though, these really should be hardened electronics. Such a waste of biomass.” Mutters Wormy, shaking his head.

  “Techomancers probably ran numbers and decided it wasn’t worth the expense. Like a damn insurance adjuster.” Helen answers.

  This is the fate Jim and the Singularity supposedly saved us from, and for the first time I believe they had good intentions. I’m not looking at a person, but a fleshbag who had all personality physically carved out of his skull. No amount of surgery or healing could restore what this person was.

  “This will happen to everyone if we lose.” I say, taking a mental picture and sending it to Alaea and Hygieia.

  Neither reply, but I know they’ve seen it. There’s just nothing to say. Nor is there enough human left to infest. No personality to assume, as it is entirely vivisectioned. Hygieia would most likely break this human down into components rather than toss enough symbiotes at him to function.

  “Thank you sergeant.” I say, moving forward into the network of criss crossed trenches.

  Small pillboxes seem to appear at the end of each trench, always occupied by braindead soldiers. The Tulverians blast a few before Helen, now acting as our Liaison-de-saurian reigns them in. We fan out in squads of two, my soldiers retrieving more biomass and suits than I can count, filling the supply bunker, Alaea’s closet and all of Hygieia’s fledgling pools.

  [+38 occupied tech suits]

  It takes us six hours to clear the nearby trenches, removing braindead techs and the occasional combat armor, heavier gear armed with railguns and grenade launchers, but no functional shields. Besides, it will all have to be rebuilt, tying up our nanofactories for several days.

  Finally I stand in front of my most sincere enemy. The ones who have tried a dozen times to kill me. Bunker 0001, headquarters of the Novan Technomancy of Steel’s military operations on Syrak. Three blast doors stand wedged open, four plasma Juggernauts laying in pieces around the entrance, one entirely torn apart as if by a hundred lions, and another cored with a gaping hole one meter in diameter that pierces both Juggernaut and blast door behind. I flick the edge, breaking off a piece of slagged steel. An incredible amount of energy or heat burned through this particular tank and I doubt it would have stood still, treads are still intact so it appears capable of movement, meaning this one meter wide beam occurred faster than it could react. Like a Death Star’s beam.

  “Boss, looks like an orbital bombardment. This much energy wasn't a Juggernaut, or an Azhurai scout. Maybe we just found what their tanks can do.” Corporal tight beams.

  “Sure, but look at the angle, something was in this trench, on level footing, firing parallel to the ground. See how the beam cut straight through the front and back without any tilt? No dropship did that.” I say, peering through the tank hole into the bunker’s depths. Low intensity lasers scan the interior, finding only a dirt atrium descending at a steady angle. If something shot from inside, it's gone now.

  There is a second possibility, and it lays within the bunker. A new form of tank that triggered on an ally. My heart pounds against my ribs. Warning of danger. What would make an AI sacrifice one tank to kill? Bioweapons. I sidestep the bunker, keeping clear of the maw. Kerrigan lines up behind me, never straying too far. We wait for the other squads to finish searching the trenches before stacking up. Helen waves four Tulverians in, two with blades, two with shortened versions of pulse rifles, stubby weapons meant to swing better in close quarters.

  “Helen, you’ve got our only cloaking module. Lead the way.” I order.

  She clicks the com link and vanishes from sight, deactivating active sensors from laser rangefinders to radar to a few systems I can’t begin to conceive, all goes dark.

  A minute passes.

  Then another.

  A whisper comes through the hive mind.

  All clear.

  But you’d better come take a look.

  Barker and a trooper take off through the bunker, bouncing off the blast doors as they try to push past a Tulverian, finally settling the matter by scooping him into Barker’s arms and carrying the squawker across the threshold like a protesting bride. I step behind a blast door, clearing the avenue inside for others to pass. Power armor doesn’t leave so much as a dent in the foot thick doors, which is when I see each layer was peeled back by something different. Outer layer is covered in claw marks, the spinolings or maybe Azhurai scouts, while the central door has clean slices through it, as if fruit ninja tested lightsabers against it, and the final door chills my blood. Human sized handprints remain plastered in steel. I grasp the very same door and leverage my suit’s considerable power to attempt similar impressions.

  I push harder, trying to squish my hand into the steel like a child might mark wet concrete. The steel holds strong. Which means it can’t be steel, this power armor should be able to sheer foot thick steel with the amount of effort I’ve applied. A moment later I abandon the exercise and open my com.

  “Careful, something stronger than me breached these doors-”

  -I freeze. Eyes focusing on the Singularity tunneling tank not ten meters inside the bunker. It’s sitting idle, engine cold, with the driver’s compartment sharing the same circle of incineration as the Juggernaut outside.

  “The Singularity beat us here.” I whisper.

  Tremorsense wiggles, noting the disappearance of two Tulverian soldiers.

  14 / 14 Biomass (Hygieia’s pool of available biomass)

  324 / 2000 Courier Ship Progress

  10 / 40 Mechanized

  1 / 1 Protochronian Artefacts

  2 Nanofactories

  (about 400 biomass in the open field near the 2 destroyed plasma-juggernauts. Only 400 cause plasma rifles don't leave much behind.)