To reclaim Earth, we needed warriors. An army.

  Over the radio we pick up snippets of Tulverian’s fighting from their main bunker, hooting with gusto or terror; hard to tell with the iguanas. Until the second day when they go silent.

  We spent three days in the bunker, snatching sleep in half hour long fits while fully suited up with catheters installed to deal with the constant lings. Hygenic, but absolutely an abysmal start to my biomass farming. Stardew Valley NEVER made you wear a catheter! Yet, Sable Yurten was used to it, while the Singularity did not favor power armor -opting to field more infantry instead- we were trained in common types like this tech armor.

  Giving us the necessary edge against the lings. Other bioforms began to appear with time, pill bugs like the one I Juggernaut-smashed, and a few corpse collectors who tunneled out of range. Always avoiding our guns and stealing precious biomass. For we could only warp out bodies as Hygieia cleared space on her end and did something she called ‘sliming the pot’, whatever that was I couldn’t find the bravery to ask so we operated on her timetable.

  Each day net us a hundred biomass from the constant stream of lings and similar bioforms, a constant trickle our tremorsense soon discerned was provided by a pack of cloaked Azhurai scouts funneling organisms into our trench. Like cunning statuettes. Or assholes I wanted to stick twelve plasma balls up.

  Fortunately for the constructs, we lacked the firepower to break through the lings and hunt them down. There wasn’t any point either. Currently we appear to be no threat to them, and each day we held out was another day for us to build up and another day for the Singularity to grind across the continent. Progress reports came in snippets. Radio messages that leaked across channels that we caught wind of. Somehow the brainwashed Earthlings were holding their own against the far superior alien golems and bioforms. Especially considering neither the Novans or Tulverians seemed to be a threat to anyone. Probably the work of bioweapons.

  I shudder, checking the four solarium reactors that power our recharging stations. Most mags are fully powered but enough are empty I still cycle them, stacking supplies for the next ling raid.

  "Ha, eat a dick Azhurai, you're herding free biomass to me! We will outlast you in this grinding attrition, and grow stronger." I laugh, returning to my HUD for inventory.

  Progress in other fields is slow, but gave us time to manipulate the nanofactories and crack open more Technocracy crates. One of the slain technicians, the one whose suit Corporal now occupied, had been an engineer, not just a technician but a fully trained and educated and practically tested engineer. With codes for every piece of equipment in the bunker. Turning the days from a nervous slog into a lootbox extravaganza as he plugged into each crate and cracked it open faster than SUDO. All told, we packed the Nanofactories and Alaea’s room full of every conceivable resource, stuffing it from floor to ceiling and carving out a throne for her to sit on as she played with her balls.

  All the while Hygieia cooked, making lings, roaches, and the occassional surprise to further develop the core macro tenants. More production, enough to fuel two wars. Eventually those supplies would have to be teleported through the orbital gate, but for now we dug, focusing on the fight we needed to win first.

  Outside the bunker war raged, Azhurai scouts constantly chased spinolings to our trench, forcing us to expend ammo. Were it not for our tremorsense and recharging munitions we’d have been overrun on the first day.

  But those are tangents, each day I listen to Singularity communications, occasionally picking up distress calls or meaningless encouragement from Bazzhole. It all sounds good, like they’re winning, but I know Baz better than most, he’s desperate. Words slowly taking on a more Australian accent as he tries to keep the lies consistent. Spouting propoganda. I haven't forgotten his cheating, nor forgiven him. My despair has been tempered into a molten blade by the constant fighting, there is only one solution to Bazzhole, and its not a trip back to Earth.

  “Baz, just you wait. One of these days I’m going to finish killing the enemies in front of me, and turn around. Pray you are dead by then.” I whisper, turning my attention to Hygieia’s ship development plans.

  Although... What if I melt Bazzhole down into biomass for the ship? That doesn't count as a safe trip home... Right?

  [324 / 2000 biomass for ship construction]

  Although, maybe I should call it ship growing plans. Hygieia’s shared the schematics as well as snippets of her own vision, revealing a cavernous tunnel where the ship’s superstructure will be grown using chitinous biosteel. An absolutely amazing form of construction if I can say so! Back in college this sort of biosteel would revolutionize every bridge and road in the world. Able to self repair with a little water and basic aspiration (breathing) we would never have to fill a pothole again.

  Which… Actually might crash the construction industry as a whole. There goes my career as an engineer. Except, how much of the construction industry is left after our draft? How has Earth survived losing all men and women between ages 12 - 42? More than four billion people kidnapped in a second. After flashtraining I know Jim wasn't piloting a Singularity ship, we don't have that raw amount of teleportation ability. So where did the Arcship come from? -Nameless-?

  I push those dark thoughts out of my mind in favor of the chitinous structure I’m officially trademarking as biosteel! Jim is less important that Earth, or Mom, or Baz.

  While biosteel is here right now! It is amazing, simultaneously able to be grown slowly or rapidly depending on the amount of biomass available. In times of famine growth would slow, fungi would populate, increasing the surface area for carbon absorption and developing more complex cellular structures, while in times of plenty you could accelerate development time by dumping biomass at the ship. If we could somehow get Hygieia to the rainforests of South American then Earth could mass produce enough warships to break free of the Singularity’s hold.

  Enough raw biomass to build millions of spinolings, maybe even billions, if only we could optimize the biological and technological aspects of their production. Mutarines will always be a tightly limited force, only suitable for engagements where they might make the difference between victory and defeat. Which got me experimenting with Nanofactory designs. Ideally the nanofactories would take highly refined resources and work from there, but it is within their capacity to accept the cruder largesse of America's current production -at reduced build speed-. A limitation my mishmash of designs try to overcome. One such experiment was now occupied by Specialist Barker.

  Who managed to talk us into providing heavy gauntlets complete with embedded blades and a solarium powered battleaxe. At first glance the stupid thing was little more than a rod made from shredded missile racks, but when Barker turned it on, a halo of golden light articulated from one side of the handle to the opposite, possessing all the cutting power of a lightsaber, a factoid that many lings learned with their last second alive. Cut into ribbons by a howling model of masculine jaw structure. I'm ashamed to admit it, but having a gorgeous warrior protect my life with his own did things for me, an attraction Kerrigan somehow picked up on. Though she didn't press me on it. Good thing, cause I was not about to explain the birds and bees to an arachnoid-feline-bioweapon-friend.

  Or Hygieia. AKA Barker's mom. Which considering how she's a clone of myself would make me the creepy step-aunt. Frick. What am I even thinking?! There has to be at least one decent - AND HUMAN- male on this planet!

  Thankfully, no one presses the topic, allowing me to sulk in silence while the nanofactory works.

  About midnight of the first day, I began to search for heavier suit designs, thousands of variations were contained within the nanofactory's databanks, yet less than five hundred could be manufactured with only a nanofactory and no supporting gear, ruling out any and all shielded designs. Syrak's environmental radiation and polluted atmosphere ruled out ninety percent of the remaining options, leaving me with fifty designs to mix and match.

  Which suit me just fine, as there were heavy suits that eschewed shielding for physical armor, and grenade launcher designs. Perfect for filling out the tech tree.

  "My marauders always survived the worst trades, that's exactly what I need!"

  It took more than twenty four hours before my suit was swapped out for a much heavier version, with built in grenade launchers and armor nearly a foot thick, but most crucially, it had boob space. Finally! My tits could breathe! Fitting inside the suit comfortably, though we were really stretching the line between what a powered suit was and where battle mechs began. In fact, there was enough space that Kerrigan could -and did- join me inside the armor, helping me practice with my newfound telekinesis, or just keeping me company. Something about her presence calmed me, like a childhood blanket or an old friend. How I imagine meeting my step-siblings would be like.

  I pushed the thought away, building a command and control center within the heavy suit. This was closer to a goliath than a marauder, though it’s function was explosive support and providing a shield generator to the squad, which we lack the necessary reactor components to build.

  “Shield blocked again! Damn, this is worse than Clem’s Ghost-fired EMPs! If only we had a real factory, I’d cook up a proper Thor and teleport that bitch to Earth, see how the Azhurai like high impact payloads!” I say aloud.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  “Yes yes, I’m sure that’ll teach em.” Said Emurine, adjusting another burgeoning design, the reaper jetpack.

  As the lightest mutarine, he’d get the most airtime from it and something about making an Emu fly was deeply satisfying to me. Maybe it was my way of telling the suit’s announcer to pound sand. Spiderman’s suit received few modifications, primarily tripling the heavy pulser’s magazine size and swapped the onboard reactors for two solarium powered models. Lower peak output, but higher sustained power, and a cable he could use to add suit power to his rifle; a trade off we all agreed with after nearly being overrun. In lieu of a true machine gunner, we’ll use Spiderman’s endless reserves of firepower to level the field against superior numbers. Now with triple the recharge speed and triple the reserve.

  Should I have made it four times the speed and four times the reserve to really fit the Spiderman theme? Sure. But naw, fuuuuuuck spiders. The less I think about those the better!

  Which left us with one remaining decision. I flexed the gauntlet loading two grenades, one a high explosive and the other an armor penetrating shaped charge. Then repeated the gesture with my other hand.

  “Locked and loaded, FINALLY! So, what’s the call sergeant? Who gets the cloak? I’d feel a whole lot better with a man-” I pause, uncertain how to address Wormface’s gender. Then I realize the whole squad calls him Sergeant Wormface. There is no possible insult I could utter that would phase him, “-ahem, a man I can trust.”

  Wormface shrugged. Displaying the second reason I wanted him as our infiltrator. He could mimic human gestures far better than anyone else in the squad, even the troopers with symbiotes inside them.

  “My vote is still Kerrigan. She displaces the least volume so the cloak will last longer on her and she’s physically stronger than the rest of us. A reactor and cloak won’t bog her down.”

  A loud raspberry blows Wormy, making my suit’s automated sensor suite (the ‘head’) pivot to face Kerrigan, despite me keeping eyes forward. The mechanized suit is over ten feet tall, no way could a human stretch to fill it, so the head, hands, and feet are automated. I couldn’t help but grin. At least she waited until he finished speaking this time.

  “Not leaving Pfina!” Snapped Kerrigan, folding her arms over the strangest tank top I’d ever seen.

  We’d finally gotten her to wear clothes, but the only garments she deemed worthy were a gasmask -that she generally wore atop her head like a toque- and a sort of spandex singlet. Like a wrestling unitard with a scandalously low back and permanent wedgie. Although that was predominately due to her tail, which kept any buttcrack from showing. No matter what we did nothing appeased that barbed whip, nor was there any answer other than to let it pierce whatever garment she wore except the low backed singlet.

  I considered having one of the nanofactories churn out a child’s onesie, the old style with buttoned up butt flap. Ya know, for her tail. But we needed the cycles. Emurine couldn’t turn into a proper reaper without extensive retrofitting which meant his old suit had to be disassembled, rebuilt, and reassembled, doubling the time it took to manufacture and he was only the prototype. Hygieia had already preserved his strain, whatever that meant, for future replication.

  Lookout you aussie cunts, I’ve got Emu-reapers. SUCK ON THAT BAZZHOLE!

  Wormface shook his head, “Boss, I’m the sergeant. A reserve synapse for Hygieia. I cannot be the one to split off the group and go silently.”

  “Your value is exactly why I want you invisible. The best armor is literally being untargetable. But… I see your point.” I sighed. “We can’t cloak every marine, not with the number of reactors we have or our current designs. Hey, go grab that liar. The woman who was spouting off about having kids. Helen. Yeah, stick her in the cloak, and then send her to the Tulverians. Oh, uhm, how is she going to understand them?”

  “Symbiote will translate for her.” Responded Wormface, grabbing the infested trooper and sitting her down.

  A key part of what he failed to mention was that her current symbiote wasn’t going to do the translation. His helmet slid open and several of the enlarged symbiotes swam out of his face, thick serpents next to the pencil thin worm colony that comprised Wormface’ body. Helen’s helmet slid open, accepting the additional symbiotes with only a little slurping.

  “I’ll never be able to enjoy spaghetti again.” I whispered, psychically tapping on a few control buttons to aim my 'head' elsewhere to avoid gagging.

  Right after I double checked my coms were turned off. They were, and I left Wormface to his, uhm… Body snatching.

  >Terran Thena: We’ve looted most of this bunker and walled it off. Collapsed part of the exterior trench too. Time to head out and negotiate an iguana alliance. Send some guards and builders to retain our supply depot. Lol.

  >Matriarch Hygieia: Hell, its about time!

  >Matriarch Hygieia: you stopped getting shot

  >Terran Thena: Smartass.

  >Matriarch Hygieia: get shot less

  >Matriarch Hygieia: oh I have a pet project that could turn that bunker into a biopool

  >Matriarch Hygieia: shame to waste it

  >Terran Thena: It’s on a main trench network. I must be hundreds of miles away from you. And the Technocracy is right here…? Why turn this bunker into a standalone biopool?

  >Matriarch Hygieia: exactly!

  >Matriarch Hygieia: all the corpses you kill are right there!

  >Matriarch Hygieia: you have everything I need

  >Matriarch Hygieia: and if someone drops another nuke there will be a redundant biopool

  >Matriarch Hygieia: and zazy boi is breathing down my neck over here trying to feed me biomass

  >Matriarch Hygieia: CREEPY CREEPER

  >Matriarch Hygieia: I cant develop new strains or replicate those marines without him getting curious

  >Terran Thena: My supply depot bunker is now your biological warfare lab. Cheers mate.

  >Matriarch Hygieia: Mengsk has supply bunkers...

  >Terran Thena: You're right... Probably the best use of supply depots in all of starcraft 2. Let's uhm. Steal that design. :D

  Before the text fades from my eyes five creatures warp onto scanners, appearing only a few feet from me. One is a sort of lanky tiger with -I shit you not- diamonds sparkling all over it. Like a glass jewel somehow carved and polished into feline perfection. Mighty limbs prowl it towards the doorway, each step somehow causing the creature to blend in more with its surroundings. A camouflaged Predator.

  The other two creatures are equally strange. One must be twenty feet long, five feet thick, and 100% slug. At least twelve eye stalks sprout from the creature’s slimy log only to sink back into its undulating mass and re-emerge in another location. While the next creature is some sort of many limbed centipede-beetle. It’s thick and chitinous with segments like a beetle but longer. Dozens of shovel tipped limbs dig into the tunnel wall, excavating dirt at a pace that makes Barker stop and drool. An excavator-bug.

  Then the damn dog soldier starts hauling empty crates to the centi-beetle who diverts a few legfulls of dirt into the crates. Within a half hour there is a swimming pool sized cavern in the bunker’s hind section and the slug sets to excreting itself all over the depression, walls, and even ceiling. Thick goop solidifies before my eyes creating an epoxy-sealed chamber except for the entrance where Barker and Centi-beetle were already building a second defensive line. Thinner than our first and more of a double layered wall, as if it was only meant to conceal the future biopool than keep shrapnel out.

  Finally, there are two honest-to-god, roaches. Spectacularly large, a full ten feet tall from foot to carapace top, and over ten feet long. Layers of chitinous armor glimmer with a soft green light, pockets of acid held within the roach's armor, a biological magazine for the mountain-dew-vomiting roaches. Both creatures crawl over our barricades, moving single file due to the constricting earthworks Barker has thrown up.

  Scores of ling stingers thrust at the roaches. Clinking off armor or spending luck to pierce acid sacs with predictable results. Which is when I finally notice what these roaches lack. The dorsal blades so common to zerg units. Instead they employ carbon-nanotube-reinforced legs to skewer and pierce the lings, even penetrating the burrowed lings with ease. Fifteen dead spinolings and the feral collective gets desperate, unburrowing and fleeing in all directions as the roaches impale eight, stapling the lings with legs and unintentionally pinning themselves. A spinoling with crystal spines falling out as if it has mange, rushes the roaches, discovering their final weapon.

  I see it leap into the air, a ploy to blind the roach. Eight feet becomes seven, then six, then five-

  -the roach strikes faster than lightning. Two conical protrusions rocket forward, slamming into the ling and killing it's momentum. Roach 2 chitters, shaking it's butt like a wagging dog and injects twin streams of green into the ling. Howls of agony ripple through the night, warning all bioforms what awaits them here.

  Three minutes later the trench is clear, except a few puddles of green biomass. Rendered into components and ready for warping out. I may love roaches in SC2 -as they carried me all the way from bronze to diamond on their backs alone- but this is a bit too metal for me. Which was my cue to gtfo. I activate my general com link, connecting to everyone.

  “Alright marines. Saddle up and move out!”

  Two possessed troopers lead the way. Slipping through our barricade and marching single file down the trench. No lings are present, although many spines crunch beneath our feet. Insoluble remnants of the corpse field. Our most expendable forces take up the vulnerable positions of lead and rear. Darkness swallows us, the perfect cover as we run up and out of the trenches into noman's land. Heading for the next nearest bunker. Novan 0001, the Technocracy Headquarters of Syrak-9. Conquer that base and they will be eliminated, unable to resupply or claim territory.

  Our suits are dark, running in silenced operations. No electronics break the night. Made unnecessary by Hygieia’s hive mind and the link all creatures, except Kerrigan, seem to share.

  This dash is a well calculated gamble. Power armor lives up to its name and literally has fusion reactors spewing heat, anyone who is watching passive sensors will be able to pick up our signals and deploy intercepting forces. Or a missile. Maybe even twelve.

  What I’m not expecting is the ground beginning to rumble. Infrared lasers swing towards us reflecting off faceplates and armor as pinpricks of blue energy begin to widen into orbs of furious plasma. Constellations of twin Juggernauts materialize on sensors. Advanced variants, with plasma cannons instead of the fickle autocannonry of kidnapped humanity. No, these plasma cannons are purpose built and tuned to individual Juggernaut reactors so their shots maximized every millinewton of power. So efficiently potent they are often reserved to counter the monthly supply drop and punch holes in shielded warships.

  I’m not shielded.

  “Shit.”

  Author’s note joke.

  >Terran Thena: So… Hygieia, where did the centi-beetle come from?

  >Matriarch Hygieia: you fucker

  >Matriarch Hygieia: dont get uppity with me

  >Terran Thena: girl, its the size of a schoolbus! Aint no way

  >Matriarch Hygieia: keep talking

  >Matriarch Hygieia: and we’ll find out if this link can send video

  >Matriarch Hygieia: how bout that?

  >Matriarch Hygieia: i’ll livestream the making of centi-beetle directly to your brain

  >Matriarch Hygieia: wonder if we can transmit feelings too…

  >Matriarch Hygieia: wait. I’ve felt you get shot before

  >Terran Thena: Is it too late to apologize?

  >Matriarch Hygieia: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

  >Matriarch Hygieia: download begun

  >Terran Thena: :cry:

  1 minute later

  >Terran Thena: Uhm… That’s it? Like, damn. That was like a one second shit. A ghost shit too. Came out clean!

  >Matriarch Hygieia: Ghost shit? OK boomer.

  >Matriarch Hygieia: yeah

  >Matriarch Hygieia: its nothing

  >Matriarch Hygieia: make an egg

  >Matriarch Hygieia: drop it in the pool

  >Matriarch Hygieia: and it autoincubates

  >Matriarch Hygieia: EZPZ

  >Terran Thena: Well in that case, can I get a few hundred lings and a side of ultralisks?

  >Matriarch Hygieia: thats it

  >Matriarch Hygieia: all your marines will be spidermen from now on

  >Matriarch Hygieia: enjoy your rainbow of fuzzy tarantulas