A purple wall of energy grew, deflecting both bolts. Raw psionic power flooded the bunker, crushing two spinolings against crates and ejecting seventeen others from the bunker. It didn’t stop there either, but continued a hundred meters out, any spinolings trapped between the wave of energy and small things like walls or the planet were splashed into a bloody paste while the lucky ones were hurled into the sky. Priming a stampede of lings.

  Dozens of the creatures ran for their lives, sprinting down the trench with true purpose.

  Wormface slapped both uninfested troopers, throwing them ten feet back.

  He was on them in a second. Power armor pinning them under its weight while his microtentacles held their wrists like impromptu handcuffs. An awkward and decidedly one sided affair. Both troopers went slack, accepting defeat.

  They should have fought back.

  Two symbiotes dropped off Wormface’s armor, slowly crawling up chests. That got the troopers screaming, gas masks doing nothing to hinder their terrified howls.

  “Oh what the fuck!” Screamed a man, yanking on the mecha-tentacles with all his strength. Both elbows hit the floor and by the way he arched his back I knew he’d nailed both funnybones. But he continued to thrash, right up until a stinger pierced his neck and the worm injected itself through that dart, somehow inverting its innards into the man’s body.

  Seeing his fate the other trooper began to beg. “No! Please God! No!” Cried a woman. “Please, just let me go home! I have a daughter, don’t- PLEASE! STOP! Let me go back to Earth!”

  But I was done trusting.

  The Symbiote stung her as well, this time slipping completely into her spine and ending all screaming. Finally came the trooper who’d been standing beside Barker, the one who caught a spinoling’s stinger. He thrashed against the ground poison flowing through his veins and making him seize. Barker held him down, the technician’s power armor turning this wrestling match into a gorilla playing with a doll.

  A final symbiote slithered towards this trooper’s neck, stinger out. Then twisted oddly, as if cocking its head to the side. Wormface said something to it and the damn worm shook its head. Refusing to enter the body.

  “What even is this world?” I whispered, pulling Kerrigan tight.

  Her grip was weakening by the second, tail hanging limply. Legs went slack and she slipped off, slumping against the ground. In a second my mask was off, ear to her chest, listening for a pulse. It was there, slow and steady. She was fine, just exhausted from the day’s events. A fact I confirm with the recently freed med scanner. Until it gave me all zeroes. Even unconscious Kerrigan’s stealth mechanisms were active.

  “Thank god.” I whispered, finding an empty crate and stuffing it full of soft things before tucking Kerrigan into the improvised bed.

  Looking at her thin chest rising and falling brought on a wave of exhaustion. My last nap felt like it had been days ago despite being only a few hours past. Muscles ached and I just wanted to go home. To curl up beside a man I loved and be safe. As if I were a three year old sleeping between mom and dad.

  But that wasn’t an option for me.

  One tap of my chin and the warp HUD activated. Just in time to see three separate symbiotes enter the poisoned trooper. I suppressed a shudder as they swam into his skin attaching themselves to organs and beginning the process of filtering the man’s blood.

  Except, It wasn’t a man. The poisoned trooper’s mask slipped free, long blonde hair ran wild somehow escaping a series of hairclips and ties. High cheekbones and delicate features gave her the type of face women apply makeup to look like. Absolutely gorgeous. I would be pulling out my hair in envy if not for the three symbiotes moving within her.

  “Yikes.” I whispered, distracting myself with logistics.

  We spent eight hours recharging, manufacturing, modifying and rearming. The number of armored soldiers under my command grew from four plus myself and Kerrigan to fourteen all said. With symbiotes controlling and healing the eight humans. Four, including the medic were beyond saving, and were given to Hygieia.

  [+3 biomass]

  Now with the symbiotes’ aid we interrogated the troopers, hoping to meet up with the Singularity. Contrary to what I had initially thought, these troopers were infiltrators of their own breed, Azhurai Conglomerate humans. Corporal hadn’t bothered with introductions because he didn’t have any. They were mind wiped, clean slates sent into Technocracy territory to retrieve Singularity identities before staging an ‘escape’ from Juggernauts as a cover story to rejoin Singularity forces.

  The quip about having a daughter was a complete fabrication, she didn’t have a daughter, let alone any children or family at all. What she did have was the ability to read minds. Testing proved that it was limited to surface thoughts, but I chalked it up as an incredible capture. Kerrigan could play with her later and push those limits, but for now I needed doorkickers.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Sir,” Began Wormface, “Looks like all their minds were wiped clean for the infiltration, they don’t seem to have names or personalities. All that was supposed to be programmed into them at bunker 0001.”

  I tap my foot against the floor.

  “Damnit. We brain-blocked these half baked infiltrators. Let’s just call Corporal by his rank for now, as for the woman, I want any psychics to be preserved wherever possible. An empath isn't all that great right now, but as a recruiter back home? She'll kick all the asses. Or she can be our counter spy, someone who screens enemy infiltrators. In short, as we scale up, psychics will become increasingly valuable. Within reason, don’t sacrifice the mission to keep a weak empath alive. We can call her…” I pull off the woman’s facemask, once again stunned by how drop dead gorgeous she is.

  I’m straight, 110% only attracted to men. But damn, this girl is tempting. All of me wishes to sit down beside her and do nothing more than caress her face, like a narcissist who found a mirror. Did the Azhurai cook this perfect being up?

  Aphrodite is the first thing that comes to mind, goddess of beauty and lust. But that’s too close to my own name, and an ego-maniacal trap. No, I need a better name for her, something with more disloyalty and whoring. After all, she literally has someone piloting her body, I can’t forget she will stab me in the back should something happen to that symbiote, the worm pilot of a mind reading liar.

  “Helen. We will call her Specialist Helen.” I say, tugging the gasmask down over her sparkling blue eyes.

  “Yessir!” Says Wormface.

  “Thank you sergeant.” I say in way of dismissal.

  He keeps everyone busy, all hands moving to build us up. Leaving me free to test this new telekinetic power. Without aid I can move little more than ration packs, but those small floating bars of chocolate nearly shatter my mind. I am a psychic. Not a woowoo bullshit artist, a real, honest to god, psychic being able to move things with my mind.

  >Terran Thena: Girls, I can move things. With my mind!

  >Executrix Alaea: First time?

  >Matriarch Hygieia: probably my zerg cells finally reaching her brain.

  >Terran Thena: Smartasses! Look, this is AWESOME!!!!! I’m practically a ghost!

  >Terran Thena: Wait, Collective cells in my brain? FUCK! Don’t do anything weird Hygieia.

  >Matriarch Hygieia: youll be fine

  >Executrix Alaea: Ha, alright it was pretty cool. I’m just mad that this door still isn’t letting me out.

  >Terran Thena: Fair enough. Hey, I'm going to use bunker 0002 as a supply depot, we’ll expand it and you can clean out that closet of yours in the next few days. Just need Hygieia to finish setting up her kiddy pools and help me dig.

  >Executrix Alaea: ABOUT TIME!

  >Matriarch Hygieia: stfu

  >Matriarch Hygieia: already laid all the eggs

  >Matriarch Hygieia: they’re cooking

  >Matriarch Hygieia: once they pop the ship construction will begin

  >Matriarch Hygieia: 2000 biomass to go home

  >Matriarch Hygieia: DO NOT FORGET

  For now I beam down the last of our ammo, divvying it up so we are all using Tulverian pulsars. An hour passes as we work. Spiderman, Kerrigan, and I all carry solarium reactored models, although we learned our lesson about zerglings and fused three magazines together, kinda like duct taping a reload to your magazine, except with a CNC welder and space age precision. Allowing us to start with triple the reservoir of ammunition, far harder to burn through all that in a single firefight, and a tremendously increased leeway on when our reactor will recharge the magazine.

  Still, I contemplate pistol designs -just in case- as I watch Emurine retrofit the tech suits, repairing the last of the damage.

  Great as tentacles are, these are not frontline combat suits. Those possess heavier armor, mounts for integrated weaponry and more targeting computers rather than the holographic repair manuals we have.

  “Ah, there is always something to upgrade.” I mutter, tossing aside those concerns for now.

  Re-equipping all my troops at this point would be a waste of time and resources, better to let everything cook for now. When The last pulser warps into Wormface’s holster I lean back, prodding the hole in my side. Now sealed. My body fully regenerating in the few hours of preparation, my arm seems fixed as well albeit sore, and most importantly my heart no longer aches. Surprising every part of me. Wormface cycled empty magazines onto the solarium rechargers, pulling fresh mags off.

  “What’s the plan boss?”

  “Better equipment to protect our biomass. Upgrades, guns, reactors. Uhm, in reverse order. Ultimately it all boils down to us needing more production. A proper Factory and armory, not just the two nanofactories. Nearest one of those I’m aware of is Technocracy HQ. So we take them out next.”

  Wormface shook his head, mimicking the human gesture and imitating a sigh. I idly wondered if worms even had lungs, cause he could have fooled me.

  “And after that?”

  I smiled from ear to ear.

  “Trinity knocked out the iguanas, so we’ll see if any survived.”

  “Why? The Singularity can handle a few soldiers, why fight a battle we don’t need to?

  “Simple. We have to take an army to Earth, so why not offer the Tulverians a way off this godforsaken rock? They're dead here, but on earth, well, they could be generals.” I say, laughing at my mockery of Jim’s words.

  “How are you going to convince cannibal iguanas not to eat you? Then convince them to abandon their homelands in favor of Earth?” Asks Wormface.

  I wave a hand, “Details schmeetails. We only need to make the offer, if they want to fight, we’ll bury them. If they tell us to fuck off, well, you’re holding the best plasma rifle I’ve ever seen, safest option is to let the Singularity crush them. Safer too. Cause getting shot is yesterday’s news. Never again.”

  “Aye boss, never again.” Repeated wormface.

  Maybe I imagined it, but I could have sworn the worm was smiling beneath that faceplate.

  12 / 14 Biomass (Hygieia’s pool of available biomass, she’s laid some new warriors)

  24 / 2000 Courier Ship Progress

  14 / 14 Mechanized

  1 / 1 Protochronian Artefacts

  2 Nanofactories

  -24 Biomass in supply bunker (moved back to Hygieia for construction of the ship)

  (60 lings from the trench have been harvested for biomass, they’re being converted into NONCOMBATANTS which are untracked. No one wants to read about half sentient fungi plumbing the bioship's lungs. Cause those fungi would probably just grow. Not even bothering to sing while they worked. Hygieia ain't snow white.)