>Terran Thena: Did you think I would leave Kerrigan behind?

  I stroke her hair with a ration pack wet wipe, gently grooming my best friend while her claws tear into the pate #12, some kind of blended forcemeat. She's saved me part of the chocolate ration, a confectionary delight I savor. Idly wondering if I can even get cavities anymore. Judging by my fingernails, probably not... My black fingernails have grown long and pointed, like the fierce acrylics Savannah and Whorely sometimes wore. However, these won’t come off with a dab of acetone.

  Whatever. Nail clippers are cheap back on Earth.

  >Terran Thena: We are all going home. Together. So in force. Alaea, we’ll need more detailed information on the forces that control Earth, especially those around the US.

  >Executrix Alaea: Yeah I was worried you would say that. Singularity forces took North America, similar to those on Syrak. In fact, unusually similar. We’ve got Holy Singularity Frigates, Novan Technomancy Spheres, an Azhurai ship which is going to be the kingpin, and some Collective forces. Although the Collective seems to be struggling with Australia. They landed a ship then apparently picked up and fucked off, guess there were too many different flavors of poisonous murder. Serves em right, but they’re making up the losses by scavenging Brazil. There is a truce of sorts between the factions, but idk how the Novans and Singular fanatics aren’t taking pot shots. Maybe they’re all cooperating while they prepare for war, honestly, systems end up getting conquered by a single faction in ninety three percent of all new gate deployments. Dividing Earth just doesn’t make sense!

  >Terran Thena: Aight, we conquer Syrak, then Electric Boogaloo the Earth two.

  >Matriarch Hygieia: that was so cringe

  >Terran Thena: So cringe you laughed? Me too. Now uhm, I mean this in the most literal and kindest way; go fuck yourself. We need babies.

  >Matriarch Hygieia: thats not the correct use of a semicolon!

  >Executrix Alaea: Really? Grammar critique from the one who forgot what periods are? Pun intended.

  I laugh so hard that tears flow down my cheeks at a thick enough pace to drown me. Startling Kerrigan. The gasmask comes off before I’m submerged.

  “Mmmmwah!” I say, exaggerating a kiss on Kerrigan’s forehead. “Cmon, lets check on the troopers.”

  She’s solidly attached, forcing me to carry her. All while my bleeding lung strains against the nanite seal -which I am incredibly thankful for, as it prevents another sucking chest wound- and my cauterized arm counterbalances my friend. For a kid, Kerrigan seems built differently, denser. I have to hobble through the bunker with troopers who do their best not to give Kerrigan the stink eye. Thankfully the gasmasks hide the worst glares, but I can still feel their nervousness. They’ve seen what a human shaped bioweapon can do.

  “Corporal, how are they?”

  I ask out of courtesy, trying to get the man talking. The med scanner is already in my hand, giving me diagnostics on the trio. Another curiously sensitive electronic, unhardened against EMPs yet functioning.

  “A few injections ought to get them back on their feet.” He says, voice distant as he holds an automated nanite injector to the second trooper’s neck. A woman with her chest armor torn through. White ribs peek out of the wound, partially concealed by poorly applied biofoam. Faulty application due to lack of foam, not for want of care. This woman is beyond help, I can see her heart. Just the bottom third of it, but the organ is motionless. She needs a full hospital, one capable of stasis and organ manufacture.

  His injector fails to activate, a red light blinking. We both know what that evil pulsing means. Triage this patient. In laymans terms, there aren’t enough nanites in the world to save the patient. Medical supplies devoted to them will only be wasted, and in a warzone wasted medical gear equates to a life lost.

  Hygieia’s offer enters my mind. Is it better to be dead, or possessed? Another snap decision is made, I mentally screenshot the medscanner and beam all vitals to Hygieia, accompanied by the sole question.

  >Terran Thena: Can you save any of them with a symbiote?

  >Matriarch Hygieia: knew you would ask

  >Matriarch Hygieia: so i made a dozen

  >Matriarch Hygieia: yes. the sooner the better

  I should be furious, but Hygieia seems to have become the most logical and ruthless of our Tri-Thenar alliance. Symbiotes are small things, all twelve most likely cost less than a single ling, with the potential of capturing twelve soldiers. A tiny investment for a major payoff.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Corporal presses the nanoinjector to the man’s neck once more. Impotent against the system's lockouts. With his medic dead there is no way for him to override the triage decision.

  “Help the third man.” I say, keeping my voice low.

  “You’re not even human, what do you care?” Hisses the corporal, shoving me away.

  I shuffle with the shove, gasping for air as lungs cramp. Barely managing to twist away so Kerrigan’s stinger doesn’t slash through Corporal’s hand. But the motion isn’t missed by other troopers.

  In a second three rifles are aimed at my head. Itchy fingers on triggers.

  “Whoa, we’re all on the same team here.” I say, raising one empty hand. “Just trying to help.”

  Purple light leaks out of Kerrigan’s closed eyes.

  “You hurt Pfina, I’ll hurt you.”

  Beneath my mask I sigh through a smile.. Cute as she is, those are the last words I need to hear right now.

  “Oi, you lot are acting like a bunch of piss rate begging assholes. You’d be dead without us.” Snaps Wormface, tapping on the sergeant bars of his armor. “Unless you’re a med officer, fall in.”

  None of the troopers move. As if they know his rank is only a fabrication from Alaea and not issued by the Singularity.

  “You deaf? I said fall in! That’s an order you deaf apes!” Snaps Wormface.

  Servos whine, and I can tell Spiderman and Emurine have turned, their guns trained on the troopers. This isn’t right. Flashtraining should have conditioned trooper minds to obey orders on both a conscious and subconscious level. It is quite literally programming that these troopers are blatantly breaking! It should not be possible, just like one cannot simply ask their heart to stop beating-

  -Unless these soldiers weren’t flashtrained.

  Barker quits digging and finds his rifle, wiping mud off the unmodified pulser. I sensed something pass from Hygieia to Wormface, an unspoken command from progenitor to minion.

  “Guys, I know the Technocracy armor looks odd, but we are all part of the Holy Singularity, protectors of mankind. I’m Sable Yurten of the one hundred and fifth training core, they reassigned me to Syrak but no one bothered to brief us before I arrived.” I say.

  “You’re a damn greenie! Brand spanking new? Really?” Snaps a woman to my left. She isn’t pointing the rifle at my chest like the other two, but she’s also making sure the roving tip doesn’t stray too far.

  “Soldiers,” Began Wormface, stepping in front of me. “Look. I haven’t slept in what feels like a lifetime and we have a hundred monsters about ready to crawl between our feet and tear our testicles off. Whatever malfunction you’re having, this is not the time nor place. Get your shit squared.”

  In my periphery I could see the microtentacles moving near his leg, lifting an armor plate. But there was no way I could focus on them without calling attention to his plan.

  “Hand over the medscanner.” Snapped the corporal, still working on the nanoinjector, blind to all save that small blinking light.

  “Brought it for you to use.” I shrugged, holding the scanner out for a trooper to take.

  The woman who spoke before snatches the scanner, practically sprinting as she joins the corporal. Both figures relaxing like crack addicts who just secured their next fix. As if they know the scanner is a tell. Something is wrong. Furtive glances are shot my way. Probably them chatting on a private com link. Their reunion coming simultaneous with the transfer of two symbiotes.

  The first white line crawling up the trooper’s coat. A second symbiote passes from the female’s scanner hand to the corporal, hopping from one arm to the other, now crawling up the trooper’s coats, headed for their necks. A few more inches…

  Stingers pushed out of the oddly pail worms, stark coppery darts that plunge through greatcoat and radiation layers into the trooper. She leaned forward, hand steadying herself against the nearby crates. These had yet to be emptied and refilled with dirt so nanofactory supplies tinkled under her touch, most likely some kind of weldable alloy plates. Corporal grasped her shoulder, trying to shake sense into the woman. He yanked her forward, then back, head whiplashing so violently I wondered if the symbiote would be thrown off.

  A second stinger found Corporal’s spine, injecting some milky substance directly between vertebrae directly into his bloodstream. He shuddered, then slumped, leaning one hand against his knees and sliding down the crates until dirt halted his descent. Two troopers down, three left in opposition. Except, that wasn’t right, I could sense twelve symbiotes in the room, all hunting for bodies to possess, sliding between armored boots or over rough worn fabric. Two Symbiotes tried to enter the same wounded trooper, their resources conflicting until one ceded territory to the other. They were on the same team, wanted the same things. First symbiote would retain control with the agreement that a second body would be found soon. Time was needed.

  [+3 soldiers]

  “Hey, Corporal, you look a bit tired.” Three rifles point at me, one aiming at an unprotected leg.

  “Look, we all arrived on the same drop. I got your back, so take your time and treat your people. Cmon sergeant, let’s watch the door. Remember it's only a matter of time before more lings find their way-”

  Four things happened within the next second.

  A dozen spinolings leapt over the barricade, Spiderman was first to answer, blasting two out of the air in a single shot. One trooper was next, blasting another ling before it tackled him. Tail thrusting into his chest, ripping globs of flesh as it retracted, ready for another thrust.

  Barker’s shovel hacked through the tail then punched another ling square in the jaw, mandible crunching under the powered fist. The ling flew backwards, thrown out of the bunker with gusto.

  -and two troopers pulled their triggers, aiming directly at me. Time slowed. Triggers clicking audibly through my mask. Barrels began to glow red. I froze. Staring numbly as two bolts of red photons gathered and discharged in my direction. Wormface jerked raising his arm to stop the bolts and missing both. One predicted his action and sailed under his elbow passing through the location his arm had been a split second earlier while the other passed harmlessly through his fingers, aiming directly for my left eyeball.

  This was it. I was about to die. Syrak-9 was about to claim my life for the fifth time. I’d trusted the Singularity and they’d betrayed me. Just like Bazzhole, and Whorely, and Dad. Trust got you killed. Energy began to warm my face, sparking flames off my eyelashes.

  1 / 11 Biomass (Hygieia’s pool of available biomass)

  0 / 2000 Courier Ship Progress

  5 / 13 Mechanized

  1 / 1 Protochronian Artefacts

  2 Nanofactories

  24 Biomass in supply bunker

  Lots of ling corpses, and 8 troopers…

  3 symbiote controlled troopers