Everything happened so quickly, one moment I was at my local Gold’s Gym pumping iron to forget my ex, and the next I was in the most lukewarm of room temperature tubes, breathing a fluid that didn’t drown me. Tired and sweaty as I was, the only thing I could manage was to gasp for air, breathing fluid that might have been mistaken for clouds. But certainly not protein shakes, which was a real bummer, taking care of your body starts with feeding it the right fuel. A fact I lived, unlike my ex.

  Ah, I can still remember the argument that separated us, when I ordered two servings of fries and she ate mine first. Instead of the delicious burgers, seasoned with two full servings of vanilla protein powder for extra kick! Which Savannah refused to touch at all. Saying she had to watch her figure, by eating french fries instead!

  Absurd.

  I’ll never understand women.

  Composition of your food translates one to one with our physical composition, fat and starch will make you into a greasy noodle! While net calories affect your net volume! So simple! She’d dumped me then and there. Something about our age gap being excessive, all four years of it. Yeah, Sav was never the brightest, I still can’t forget that time at Walmart when she started sorting the oranges into Hitlers and coloureds. Somehow equating those terms into synonyms for bad and good.

  I laugh, snorting cryotube fluid instead.

  In truth, it was deeply calming. Tantric even, if I died here, there would be nothing left to worry about. Savannah was no longer my concern, but neither was my logistical office, no more stupid work meetings with Linda from HR, always parading ‘problems’ around the office like each one was the second coming of Jesus. Not dealing with her nonsense would be heaven on Earth…

  Except, I should be drowning right now. Lungs work, moving fluid in and out, breathing as normal. Like floating on a cloud without a pain or care. Even my sore muscles relaxed, somehow intuiting that all their metabolic needs were being satisfied. Then the man named Jim appeared with those dark eyes offering me a strange deal.

  I should have refused him.

  I took the deal.

  Now, only days later I sat in a steel wingback, squishing the plush arms. Metal contours to my touch, cushioning every inch of my existence with luxury. It’s kinda like if someone made a memory foam chair out of steel, impressive, yet somewhat crude appearing. So much of this technology was similar, comprehensible, so boring, mundane, tools humans were used to using-

  -and completely abhorrent. For I have seen the outside world, the blasted craters and broken fortresses of Syrak-9. Remnants of ten thousand warring civilizations, one of which I now lead. Damn Jim’s deal.

  Six shouting computer screens flooded me with information, similar to monitors, except these were projections, each floating midair without assistance. Casualty counts scrolled down a vertical screen while three central monitors played FPVs of troopers fighting and dying, of equipment going dark and my soldiers forced to choose between retreating to save themselves or fighting with blades and grenades to protect the gear that would save them tomorrow. While a screen to my far right plays a highlight reel of executions.

  All irregulars must die, for the Holy Singularity to prosper. Those who cannot accept the flash training are defective organisms. A cancer. And I am the scalpel. These executions occurred days ago, evidenced by the timestamps attached to each, this is the AI reminding me of my duty, and a threat. He holds the power to play an endless loop of these clips, replaying shots of my parent's executions. Carried out by my own flashtrained hand.

  I’ll never forget what the Singularity made me do.

  Nor will I allow them to spend other’s lives so needlessly.

  “General, my analysis indicates we should commence a full retreat. Pull all forces back to the edge of the EMP zone and attempt to hold the line there.” Says the Artificial Intelligence known as Bastion.

  It is my warden, advisor, jailor, doctor, matchmaker, and everything in between. But I only call him my enemy. One day soon, I’ll frag his core. I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but I swear to god I will make him pay.

  After I protect others from the same hellish dreams I suffer. One glance at each of my six screens tells me all the information I need to know. The battle is unsalvageable, it’s gone to shit across fifty miles of trench networks, each less fortified than the last.

  “Why give me shit advice when you already know the better solution?” I snap, “Conduct a fighting retreat to our preoffensive lines. Cover the retreat with selective artillery bombardments. Set them out far enough to miss our retreating forces. Oh, and aim a few at those Azhurai cunts. Keep shelling the spire so they can’t drop their shields.”

  Bastion’s emotionless voice answers immediately, a quirk of super intelligence. He can process my words faster than I can say them. Which is super annoying and always makes him sound like a smartass.

  “The Azhurai have the galaxy’s finest low pass shielding. They can exit their shields simultaneously with our shell’s impact. We would only be wasting-”

  “BITCH, SHELL THEIR HOUSE! It’s about sending a message Bastion! A warning that we can touch them just as easily as they touch us.” I shout, wishing for a shoe to pound against his mainframe.

  No such luck in this bunker. The only foot garments for me are various slippers, as if I’m on suicide watch. Because I am. Tis a rational consideration when you consider the stresses of our devil’s bargain.

  “As you command General. However, a fighting retreat would result in an unacceptable loss of territory, and severe casualties. In excess of ten thousand humans, and more importantly, three bioweapons. Including your primary.”

  “I see…” is all I say.

  Bastion is a bit too clever, getting me heated before threatening my life. My rank of General is only supported by my ability to pilot one of the rare demons this AI calls ‘bioweapons’. Bastion thought two steps ahead, correctly guessing my four reactions before I ever heard the question. Not too difficult, given my golden handcuffs and this sealed bunker. Both immutable variables that lock me into fixed paths. I can wallow here while people die. Or act.

  I would not have been considered for this role if I could ever be content sitting on my ass. Bastion knew that. And I knew he knew. We can’t afford to lose even a single bioweapon, not with the Azhurai finally playing their hand.

  This was all so similar to the Syrian civil war, my first and last deployment overseas after that I found my way to ‘logistical support’ a nice way of saying liaison between frontline doorkickers and the agencies that controlled their funding back home. A cushy job for one of the rare few recruits who actually fulfilled an 18X contract at seventeen years old. It’s easy to lie on your paperwork when dad and grandpa were both Alumni of the Special Warfare Center and School. A family tradition started by my grandpa in WWII and continued by my father in Vietnam.

  My mind and body had been honed by the combined veterancy of the American military industry. Bastion wasn’t shit compared to them. Let him think I was an obedient dog, a curr too stupid to plot.

  “Is the Field Marshal really so incompetent?” I ask, gesturing for one of the attending doctors to display his vitals on screen.

  She salutes in Singularity fashion, raising one arm in the vulgar gesture. God fucking damnit.

  “Don’t salute! Just do it! Then you can fuck off.” I snap, immediately regretting those words.

  She clamors to comply, throwing up vitals and moving away, almost jogging out of the room. I watch her bounce away, visible through the semi transparent screens.

  The salute is infamously recognizable to an Earthling, but possesses entirely separate connotations within the Holy Singularity. Still, it feels like I’m getting flipped off each and every time. I should not have yelled, she only did as the flashtraining dictated. It’s a high compliment within the Singularity.

  There are six doctors, all wearing white lab coats and stiletto heels. Odd, but they are remnants from the last ‘general’, holdovers from before the bioweapon burned out his cerebrum. To say he had a type was an understatement, the six flashtrained doctors were so similar they could have been clones. Very, shapely clones.

  One of which is climbing into the disposal chute. About to commit suicide in penance for the crime of saluting me.

  “Oh shit! STOP! Do not harm yourself!” I shout.

  She looks back at me with blank eyes. Flashtrained eyes. Suddenly I want to push her down the chute, wish that she would slide away and be broken down into molecules, just so I’d never have to see those empty spheres again. There is no personality there, nothing left of the human she once was. At some point all memories and individual thoughts were wiped clean.

  “Hey, Doc. Come back, I’m annoyed at the circumstances, not you.” I say, schooling my voice into the blade of command.

  The sort of genteel weapon you use against particularly stupid recruits so they won’t stick their dick in a pencil sharpener. It’s effective here, causing the spurned woman to climb out of the chute.

  I keep an eye on her, making damn sure she won’t try anything when I look away. Given her emotionless state it’s impossible to read into her actions but she joins the line of other ‘doctors’. All flashtrained Earthlings.

  The casualty list begins to scroll faster, displaying more and more casualties at an ever increasing rate. Bastion’s doing, his way of manipulating me back onto the straight and narrow path of a warrior general. We’re losing, and I have the power to turn the tide.

  “Fine.” I snap, turning to all the doctors and saluting them.

  The gesture pains me deeply, a wound that cuts sixfold as they return the salute.

  “Hail our conquering General!” They say in unison.

  “Yeah yeah. Baz and Ashley Baldtree’s vitals are erratic, go see to their needs with the utmost care. Losing either one of them at this junction is unacceptable, employ every tool and resource we have to preserve them.” I order.

  Ignoring the runway models as they leave my chambers. Six screens hold my focus until I hear the door hiss shut under its own power. Troop locations, equipment caches, bunkers we have claimed, dilapidated facilities that we occupy, maps, and most importantly the locations of our three bioweapons. Information I need to memorize now, while I am still in full control of my own faculties. Before I have to share cognitive load with the thing out there. The weapon beyond this prison.

  If only I could get it inside this bunker, Bastion would be doomed. Quite literally inviting a rhinoceros into the server room.

  “Alright Bastion, crack open the pod.” I order, stripping off my smock and sweatpants.

  Cables hiss, fluids cycling into the pod where they will maintain my body in a sort of waking sleep. I’ve only been outside the armor for two days, not enough time for my eyebrows to grow back. As a pilot I could probably convince Bastion to make me a real wardrobe, but what would be the point? No one can infiltrate this bunker. No one will ever meet me face to face, other than the same female doctors who pulled my naked ass out of the first cryotube. No way in hell am I dressing up for those flashtrained mannequins.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Sterile white floor cools my soles, tempered only by the mean thermodynamics of the alloy ladder, polished to a reflective sheen by thousands of passing feet, their trace oils protecting from oxidation across the centuries of war.

  How many ‘generals’ once trode this same path? How many minds has Heavy burned out? Will today be my last-

  -I shove the thought away. Pausing on the ladder and breathe. Inhale, exhale, repeat. This is war, and I will win. Just like Syria.

  My heart flutters, just like it did the first time I held Savannah’s hand. Such a simple gesture, meaningless to her, and everything to me. Odd how simple actions can touch others.

  “Alright Heavy. Let’s go. Bastion, Command authorization Richard Antonio Ziusudra.”

  “Authorization accepted, good hunting General Ziusudra.” Bastion answers.

  I’m standing above the tube, exhaling as much gaseous volume from my lungs as humanly possible before pencil diving into the pod. Careful to displace the least amount of fluid. My hairless body glides through the fluid like a waxed surfboard, and I inhale deeply, filling both lungs completely.

  The hatch above is closed and then screwed shut by my hands, twelve spins of the hatch’s wheel seal me into a lightless command pod. Screens fill the interior, all options for me to communicate to different regiments or battalions, and even to Bastion himself. Unlike most cryotubes this one is opaque, with an obsidian crystal sheath to repel all distractions. A neural jack swims into my neck, plugging into the port located between my C6 and C7 vertebrae, connecting my mind with the bioweapon’s.

  ‘So soon?’ It whispers, voice audible to only me.

  Bastion cannot hear these voices, few can. Fewer still can withstand them.

  “Connection established. This is General Ziusudra to Heavy containment unit. You’re surrounded. Looks like the Conglomerate thought they might ambush you while I slept. Let’s prove to them why humanity is destined to rule this world. Deploy me.” I order, closing my eyes and sinking into his waiting arms.

  ‘Yes old friend. Your strength is needed once again, let us carve a path so bloody that the stars marvel at Humanity’s will.’ I think.

  Our body is trapped in a mesh of antigrav and non-newtonian fluids, all designed to prohibit movement and prevent a contained creature from building any sort of momentum. Necessary precautions for Heavy, and the most claustrophobic thing I’ve ever felt. This is a hundred times more restrictive than being buried in cement. At least then you could still wiggle your toes!

  “General? It’s only been two days! Piloting a bioweapon continuously will have deleterious effects on-”

  “Yes yes, consider me warned. Look at it this way, I sleep more soundly after a workout, so after I work myself to death, I’ll have the best sleep of my life.”

  “Uhm… Yessir.” Is the containment unit’s only response.

  I laugh, understanding my orders are outside their flashtrained comprehension.

  Time and space melt away with the subtle disorientation of one tenth gravity. My feet come free first, sinking out of the containment block and into the cool mud of a trench, then come our knees, hips, feeling in the hands -we can move again-, together Heavy and I check our pistol by feel, all ten magazines fully recharged by our solarium core. Next come the stomach, elbows, torso and finally the head, activating our sensors. Vision comes into focus first, squads rush silently about our oratory scanners not yet active, soldiers duck in fear, terrified of us yet doing their duty. Defending the trench. Balls of yellow arc over our heads, connecting with unlucky troopers who lose hands or heads to the suppressive fire.

  A body thuds into the ground at our feet, the first sound our ears hear. Heavy flexes every muscle, supercharging the solarium core into a pulse that envelopes use and all around us in a protective bubble. Absorbing dozens of Azhurai shots, long enough for the fleeing soldiers to rally.

  Our HUD activates displaying our shields and active armor.

  Fully charged.

  Fully repaired.

  Fully armed.

  We must not lose focus, we must repel a strategic advance. We order the minimap open, filling our entire vision with red triangles, depicting those we must cull. Blue circles drop and vanish, dwindling in brightness as their vitality fades, those are our individual responsibilities slowly dying.

  Together our minds scream one word, empowering ourselves with the strength of madness inherent to each bioweapon.

  UNACCEPTABLE

  Power flows into our guns, raw energy to supercharge our strikes and shots. Two minds blur together, unified yet universally opposed. One lost to the conquering high, the other to our strategic mission.

  Two steps, one for Heavy, one for me, and we leap thirty feet vertically, rising ten feet above the trench, arming weapons as we arc through the air. Making us the target, pulling fire away from our soldiers.

  Mud splats beneath our feet, still rising in protest as we run forward, faster than death itself. Our movements trigger alarms in the Azhurai forces, as a coordinated whole -so sharply in tune one could be forgiven for mistaking them as a collective mind- they aim at me. Scores of yellow energy burn the air around me, enough to annihilate a Juggernaut. Fearsome weapons that make our hearts thunder.

  Worthy foes.

  “FIGHT.” We shout. “Fight for your lives!”

  The order is meant to bolster my charges, to surround them in a shield of temporary solarium. Fragments of energy made physical and anchored to a relative position, shielding that will decay over time.

  Instead the shield anchors to us, conjuring a metaphysical dome fifty feet in radius. Immediately rendering the enemy’s fire impotent as golden shielding negates yellow photons.

  Heavy yearns for melee combat, a rite of conquest I grant him; turning all control of our hands and arms over. Such is our bond, I allow him to fight, he allows me to live. A give and take relationship between conquering demon and logical man. His barb of choice is a sort of flanged mace, four feet long and covered in alloyed teardrops, a coarse weapon for a brutish bioweapon.

  My cue to retreat, mentally drawing back into the support systems and targeting arrays. We are both soldiers, have both taken lives before our arrival on Syrak, but this sort of domination is Heavy’s realm alone. I’m glad to say only he has beaten another human being to death with his bare fists.

  Our battlecries call the troopers out of hiding. In a flash hundreds of red particles connect with Azhurai shields, destroying the unshielded scouts. Most of these constructs are feeble, small things like foxes and rabbits, designed to explore and catalog the world, not gnaw on its jugular.

  Heavy moves before I can think, a head flies, then limbs. Too fast. One blow of the mace fells the six legged poodle before me, breaking the fine runic engraving of its necromantic form. We cartwheel sideways, evading ten bolts of energy.

  All heavy’s doing. For I am commanding the quad barreled autocannon, targeting individual golems and firing in two round bursts, one to break their shields and another to destroy the construct's physical body. Break them into wreckage or obliterate the solarium reactor nestled within their marble ribbons. Their clockwork hearts.

  *Chug Chug*

  The autocannon roars. Broken shield and a twelve legged doberman is left in crumbs. We’re gone again, narrowly dodging a hippo that lobs bucket sized balls of plasma our way. A heavy construct, double shielded and thrice armed.

  *Smash*

  Heavy crushes the hippoid creature, breaking shields and punching through the golem’s lower jaw. I know what he intends, yet knowing makes the act no more palatable. He grasps the lower jaw, kicking the scout’s nose and pulling in a brutal jerk that rends mandible from face. Shredding the plasma cannon contained within. These constructs appear as marble or brass, yet I know they transcend human technology and are far more durable than our aerospace titaniums. But my mission is to shoot, not gawk.

  *Chug chug*

  These rounds claim two scouts, quadrupeds without shields. I don’t recognize their forms, for they take after some sort of alien beast with squid faces, pangolin scales, and a fox’s fluffy tail.

  Five miles away yellow lightning paints the sky gold, heralding the Bladed Berserker, Baz’s bioweapon.

  ‘Our brother lives!’ Shouts heavy, leaping above two constructs and braining them both in one superhuman strike.

  ‘Fight on.’ I answer, feeding him a trickle of rich solarium.

  We’re in another trench, our pistol in hand. Molten plasma boils forth in a beam that arcs around shielding, firing a constant stream of lava that melts foes, burns through shields and can be maintained via reloading any one of the three magazines.

  Combat becomes a blur, each strike fading into the next as Heavy plies his trade, working the enemy like a seamstress works the loom. Satisfaction fills our minds as the constructs die by the score. Just another task, one more battle for us to win. We roll up a ramp, stowing the pistol and racing into no man’s land. Just in time to see a wall of cannons appear, glowing yellow orbs rising out of cover.

  Eighty constructs fire, all shots aimed at myself, twenty rounds connect, dropping shields to half. So close to a decent ambush, but it’s only one side, they have only made an I not an L, and failed to employ heavy weapons against us. The fools.

  We cartwheel backwards, laughing as supporting fire becomes unfriendly, annihilating ten enemy constructs in one maneuver.

  Distant thunder boom booms off the Azhurai Spire. Our artillery finally weighing in on this discussion. An ammo counter appears for me alone, dreadfully low on strategic level artillery, with only a few modern shells to fire before we are reduced to using Earthling hardware.

  I give the logistical order to switch while Heavy dashes forward, shifting all momentum into a single blow that tears a golem in two. Logistical decisions blur with tactical ones, eating up the hours of night until the dawn rises. Not that we care, Heavy’s sensor suite is fully capable regardless of external sensors, even capable of operating in the void.

  Our troopers gain new strength with the dawn. Reinforcements arrive, roused from our hidden repository buried deep below the Headquarters. A gift from Jim, paid for by some nameless benefactor. Two billion Earthlings have been flashtrained for our fight.

  A number Heavy and I struggle to comprehend. Why give us so many? Why deploy them all to Syrak. We’ll have to burn through them at a thousand a day just to feed them all. Not to mention the guns! We don’t have one tenth the number of weapons required nor the manufacturing capacity to outfit so many. Not unless we plan to capture multiple foundries.

  Heavy surges at the prospect. Tulveria is dead, slain by Ashley’s vanished bioweapon. Next up, the Novan Technocracy, and when they fall we shall encircle the Azhurai, laying siege until the Collective are purged from our rear. Only then shall we be able to secure Syrak-9 against future landings. Not since the first landing has any faction conquered half the continent.

  Heavy smashes humanoid golem, marble, gold, and lupine shards linger like fallen snow. Almost like a werewolf in golden briefs. Or a Tauren Marine from SC2, except the outhouse escape rocket exploded instead of flying into space. I always loved that easter egg.

  Casualties and confirmed kills scroll through my pod’s many screens, with every manner of radar, lidar, echolocation, and laser rangefinder sending me collated data. We’ve broken the Azhurai momentum. Snapped their spine in two with Baz’s rampant slaughter cutting off reinforcements. They’ll have to fight through him to reach us.

  Heavy and I roar with laughter.

  Good fucking luck. We think in unison.

  Our local radar shows only blue spheres, allies, no red triangles. Heavy has won, and now fulfils his end of our bargain, retreating into the background while I take the forefront. Cold dawn glistens across my armor, bringing with it the distinct taste of lethal radiation. The command pod around me fades like a distant memory until I exist only in the open battlefield. Fully subsumed into the armor.

  If only we had two more pilots, then we could have swept the planet.

  I move into the trenches, taking a few moments to rally the wounded troopers. They salute my approach, trembling with fear as if hell has risen from their own throats.

  “Do not salute me in combat.” I order.

  “Get the wounded out of here, all other forces, we must make our Field Marshal proud. For the Singularity of Man!” I shout, repeating the mantra as we march through the trenches. Gathering a wave of twenty thousand troopers and not one blasted heavy weapon.

  Shiiiiiittttt.

  Heavy has his work cut out, as does Baz. Thousands of earthling names cross my vision, Bastion’s doing. He is playing the casualties list, reporting all sixc thousand human beings died in the past four hours. The asshole.

  If only we could capture the Technocracy’s foundry, then we could build guardian tanks, heavy vehicles designed to shield light infantry and allow them to go head to head against more advanced foes.

  But there ane none I trust to command these Earthlings.

  “Bastion, display casualties incurred from wig outs.” I order, seeing two thousand soldiers who broke. Two thousand people, from your average barista, to pet groomers, and even the occasional ice cream man, all civilians unprepared to deal with combat.

  They broke, and were recursively retrained. AKA Shot in the face until death.

  Heavy memorizes each name, filing them away into a folder we call ‘Bastion’s sins’. One day I will find a way to use those wig outs, it will only take a single irregular, a wig out who remembers their Earth life and the flashtraining. Such a woman could halve our losses…

  ‘Why did you think woman?’ Heavy asks.

  ‘Did I? Oh… uh, weird. Not too many women served so it really should be man…’ I answer, plodding into the dawn.

  Collective quadrupeds begin to appear, giving Heavy an opportunity to resurface. They’ll slow our progress, but Heavy must be appeased.

  Those are my last thoughts before I once again fade into the background, left to stew on the enemy slain and our own casualties. Four thousand constructs destroyed by my hand. Six thousand human lives lost.

  Six thousand I failed to save.