My new life flashed before my eyes, weapons instructions, a decade of twenty mile hikes that ended in live fire drills, constant wargames, simunition -a sort of non lethal projectile- games that lasted months on end. Trench warfare with and without live artillery support. Accidents took their toll, some gave up and were euthanized by our instructors. All told, we started with a thousand of us ‘clones’ and by the end only one hundred and five of us remained. Veterans of war before we ever set foot on the battlefield. I knew it was all a dream, a product of the cryotube’s flash training. But I was no longer the pilot of my own body. It moved and obeyed the whims of Sable Yurten. My new identity.
I am Sable Yurten, elite conscript of the Singularity.
Our body is teleported once more, this time to a holding area. The cryotubes here are identical, but this room is a hexagonal shape around us. Allowing six rows of human beings to be crammed into the space. Our bodies float in the gel under reduced gravity, unconscious, except for me. My heart slows, often stopping but I never sleep. No, one eye is always cracked, watching as the other Earthlings are awaken, don their clothing and gear, then seal their gasmasks over their faces, with only a faint red glow leaking out of their eyes. Sable’s memories guide my eye as the recruits arm up. The ritual is strange really, there are hundreds of us withing this corridor, yet only twelve are ever awoken. The cycle repeats ad infinetum til I realize why. Each of the twelve is a flash trained human, the first likes to wear his laces tight, cinching them down so hard his feet turn white. He’s nervous, those will have to be loosened soon. While the seventh is always a woman, slender and taller than average, she has to receive specific gear, or the rebreather hose won’t reach from her face to the air scrubber. Our drafters were thorough and have tailored every detail of our flash trainings to our own bodies. Which is when I notice number eleven.
Busty, not too tall, or short, painfully average in height and weight. A fascinating error in the otherwise thorough simulations. We’re americans, which is to say, fat as fuc. Not half starved soldiers who march all day and night! It’s all I can do to not break into laughter at the realization. I endure the mirth silently, chuckling until my ribs are sore. Our flash training explained the weight gain as ‘cryo sickness’. Since we’re asleep but in a vat of nutrients our bodies absorb everything, putting on extra weight, a necessary inconvenience that will prepare our bodies for half rations in the future.
The excuse is so half baked I let out a real snort, triggering a blinking alarm on my cryopod.
Aw crap… I’ve done it now.
One of the proctors, soldiers in worn gear who is opening the pods sees my light blink. Face unreadable under their gas mask. An emotionless stare of twin rubies that sweeps the rows of people ahead of us. Her head jerks facing another proctor. Beneath all the gasmasks we’re still human and can’t break the habit of looking at someone as we talk to them. Not even helmet integrated radios can manage that.
The nearest proctor points to me, and the other shrugs, counting the pods. They’re doing the wall opposite to me, and i’m situated near the back of the room. If they continue their rotation and start at the front of my aisle then I have hours. Two more squads are woken up, armed and sent to war. Which is when they turned around, and started opening my squad. Easier to start at the end and work their way back to front. Our cryotubes his open, glass parting along invisible seams. Most are slow to wake, allowing the proctors to open twenty four capsules at once, so one squad may arm while the other rises from the coma. I feign sleep, until the flash training rears its ugly conditioning. My body moves without instructions, I extend a hand out of the goo, and the proctors take hold of me, pulling my naked ass out. A surprisingly clean affair. In the low gravity the goo remains in the pod, somehow adhered to the steel tube than to my hairless body, which slurps out of the cryogel entirely clean. A quick examination shows that my eyelashes and eyebrows are gone. Creepy. Not that anyone will see. My body dons the wargear, helmet, gasmask, then a thin layer of almost spandex, tighter and more form fitting and entirely meant for hazardous conditions. A sort of anti-radiation spanks suit. Then comes bra, shirt, pants, body armor for the chest, outer trousers, overjacket, gloves, boots, and the whole mess is then sealed. Like a freman stillsuit, except meant to keep out radiation instead of keeping us in water. We’ll sweat worse than boiled pigs in these, but we won’t die of cancer. A tradeoff that might be meaningless.
Of a thousand candidates only one hundred and five remain.
I watch as my body moves, in control of nothing.
This is going to be a problem! I think, watching as my body jogs out of the tuberoom and into some kind of staging area. Steel walls rise a hundred feet into the air, and probably far deeper below, catwalks run from our hexagonal cryotube rooms across empty space towards a glowing portal. Some kind of instant teleportation. Each catwalk passes in front of a floating disk where a dozen officers watch us, several aids move to and fro, giving reports and keeping the logistical war machine running.
Speakers blare, repeating a simple briefing.
“will seek out and destroy all alien lifeforms. Steak-9 is a solarium mining world, do not use any form of irradiation. Per treaty, no orbital support is permitted, nor may you leave the continent. Violators are subject to immediate execution. Good Luck. You will seek out and destroy all alien…”
That’s all we hear before our turn comes. An officer points to us, and sends us forward, into the gate.
“Your weapons will be on the other side.” He says.
My squad trusts him, I trust him. He has no reason to lie. Through the gate we go, the Ain climate imperceptible through our heavy clothes. What is perceptible however, is the muddy trenches and bodies. We’re surrounded by a score of corpses, mostly laying in tattered shreds, as if an uncountable number of conscripts were fed into a wood chipper.
Memories of how most of the thousand recruits died comes to mind. Friendly fire incidents, when artillery shells encountered a strong headwind and fell short, onto our positions. A lottery that no skill on your part could influence. It simply came down to if you got lucky or not.
Today, we did not get lucky.
I’m eleventh through the gate, but that matters little when the arlliery vaporizes number six. Direct hit. High explosive crushed the man, plowing six feet into muddy trench before the proximity fuse understands it hit something. Fire annihilates most the squad, only tearing me in half.
Ouch. At least I got to help mom… I just wish, I wish I could have mattered. Done more…
The pressure wave knocks me unconscious before I can feel pain, killing me.
—
Matriarch Hygieia: OW! WHAT THE HELL! WARN ME
Executrix Alaea: Wasn’t me
Executrix Alaea: I felt it we have a third
Matriarch Hygieia: Had a third
Executrix Alaea: Theres time. have location sending bots.
Executrix Alaea: need biomass
Matriarch Hygieia: shit
Matriarch Hygieia: die now or tomorrow
Executrix Alaea: I don’t want to die…
Matriarch Hygieia: take it
—
Sable Yurten died.
Her veneer of lies stripped away by unfriendly fire–
–And the bitch left me holding the bag. I became aware slowly, light coming back into my pupils. Legs tingle for several minutes as feeling returns slowly, coming in a distinct wave that starts near my ribs and ripples down, pelvis, hips, knees, calves, feet, and finally my toes. They’re all weirdly cold, I look down and find blue arcs of light crawling over my –once again– naked lower half.
This is becoming a pattern, one I am already fed up with! Who leaves a woman naked in the trenches?
The blue sparks tickle my legs, creeping entirely too close to my bits.
“Eek!” I swat them away, or try to.
They’re like licking a nine volt battery mixed with shaving cream, thick, painfully tingly and now on my freaking hands! I throw myself sideways, kicking and flailing until my sparkly hands land on the severed torso of twelve. Sparks leap from me to her, encircling her upper half and arcing to her legs, somehow she was only cut in half not vaporized. In a sort of negative flash the sparkles and body vanish.
[+1 biomass]
“What the hel–”
Text appears in my mind, so similar to a game I once played. Its been years, mainly because I have the chat function muted, nothing in there except friends who haven’t logged on in three years and edgy politics.
Matriach Hygieia: Warn me next time! Tasty, but I thought you needed biomass?
Executrix Alaea: Wasn’t me.
Matriarch Hygieia: Is our other half alive?
Executrix Alaea: Athena Finley, say hello! You know the buttons to press.
“This can’t be real…” I begin to say, coming up short.
“In the past day I was cheated on, conscripted into a galactic military, cloned or something, transported across planets, and implanted with the memories of an entire life. This really isn’t all that strange.” I say aloud, scrambling into the pants left behind by number twelve.
Hey, I don’t like graverobbing at all, but I ain't running around a planet without pants on! Besides, twelve’s body is gone, no blood or viscera remains behind, leaving guilt free pants behind. Boots too.
Through my helmet I hear whistling. The sound of a shell coming for me. I duck and run, sprinting through the muddy trenches in search of safety or cover. A trench alone isn’t enough to protect from bombardment, standard singularity training says bunkers should be placed every quarter mile at a minimum. A shell lands in front of me, burying itself in the wet dirt before exploding. Dirt rises in a split second, sending a concussion wave that kicks me in the face. My helmet takes the brunt, and i’m grateful that the gas mask is built into it with steel reinforcements. Together they manage to keep my head intact as the wind forcibly exits my lungs, and ears pop. Silence follows. Were it not for the twin glass circles my eyes would be gone as well. I lay in the mud for several seconds, wheezing as my entire body reels in pain. Like I’ve been tenderized by a dozen Rock Johnsons. Or a dildo factory, but I repeat myself.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
No one comes to save me, there are no weapons here, only the odd chat window. Executrix Alaea is right, I know the buttons. The window isn’t really a window, its a borderless square in the bottom right hand corner of my vision.
Executrix Alaea: Please don’t die, I used all my nanites. I’ll be out til my ship leaves orbit.
Matriarch Hygieia: I’ll kill you if you die! Stay alive! Hide in a hole if you have to!!!!!!
Mentally I press enter, flicking my pinky to open chat.
Human Athena: artillery strike. I’m alive. ouch.
Matriarch Hygieia: what the hell… HUMAN? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Executrix Alaea: Ignore her. Shes uh… I don’t know how to say this, not human anymore?
Pain rakes my body, yet the flash training drives me onwards, clawing my feet back and forcing me down the trench, limping on my left foot, must have twisted it.
Human Athena: I’m alone, in a trench warfare situation, can you teleport me out? Or give me a shield? Or a gun? These jackoffs didn’t even give me a combat shovel!
A moment passes, the only feedback being the wooden planks beneath my feet, someone must have lined the trench with them, a way of fortifying it so heavy vehicles can drive through. That’s not standard policy for Singularity trenches, we only use infantry and all terrain equipment. I pray no artillery shells are whistling my way, but i’m deaf. Not like I can do anything if I hear the shells coming.
Executrix Alaea: I have teleportation access… but I can’t move any of us three. Or give you my weapons.
Human Athena: WHY NOT?!?
Executrix Alaea: We aren’t human. These names weren’t picked by us. Matriarch can’t give you her weapons, and mine are all coded to uhm. My alien DNA or something.
Human Athena: I’m going to die if you don’t help me.
Matriarch Hygieia: Survive bitch.
Matriarch Hygieia: Send me biomass and I can give you warriors. Takes time. Day
“AAAAAHHH! What do you expect me to do? Hide in a hole and poop bodies?” I shout, the sound muffled by my gasmask.
A bend in the trench slows me, apprehension about turning the corner, until I realize I'm gonna be lucky or dead, and walk forward like I'm the limping bombed out Queen of Trenchlandia. The trench in front of me lies empty, except for the very thing I’ve been looking for. A black maw, the entrance to an underground bunker. Twenty feet wide and nearly thirty feet tall the orifice dares me to advance. Such an entrance is never constructed by Singularity forces, it’s only used by heavy warmachines like Technocracy Juggernauts.
I cup my ears, forgetting that I'm deaf.
“Get lucky or die.” I say.
Takes ten minutes to limp through the trench, finally advancing into the darkness. Nightvision activates automatically, , illuminating the bunker’s interior with twin green beams.
“Dial to minimum nightvision.”
The beams dim to almost nothing, still too much light. A juggernaut has sensor suites, and their technicians are infamous for replacing organic eyeballs for scanners with a wider spectrum analysis. But no one is present. In fact, all lights are off and most of the equipment is gone. Except for a pile of rockets with red and yellow hazard striping on the nosecones. High explosive warheads. Too large for me. I quickly scrounge through the bunker, finding a flechette pistol and two thousand rounds. Which really sounds like a lot until you realize the ‘pistol’ is the size of a briefcase, not really a pistol at all. Instead it's a miniaturized railgun that fires steel spikes -sewing needles- with fins duck taped on. But hey, it’ll go bang. I won’t get raped by the first rat who looks my way.
Relief sends me into a fit of cackles,, I close my eyes and laugh, taking a few steps towards a row of lockers near the back. My foot snags on something soft, cartwheeling me face first into a pile of lukewarm fabric. Flash training did an excellent job of desensitizing me to war life, but the pile of earthlings in gasmasks sends a shiver down my spine. This isn’t right. We shouldn’t be here.
>Human Athena: I have biomass. Let me know when you’re ready.
I stare at the words I've just mentally typed, taking a deep breath before sending. Survive, beat back the Technocracy and go home. Simple as. Well, and maybe punch Baz in the cocker spaniel. I wonder if he was drafted too…? Whorely is probably knocked up and back on earth. Ick.
>Matriarch Hygieia: Send me 2. No more.
I touch the bodies, mentally tagging them for Executrix’s teleporter. The first body vanishes, then after a delay the second goes after. I hesitate a moment, but only one, before stripping them of everything, my inner and outer layers are made whole once more, as is my helmet. Then to top it off this squad was at least given weapons. One glance tells a sordid history with the sharpened shovel, red oxides coat one edge, something I hope is rust, but I know better than to try and remove it. One is holding a slender blade, something I once saw Baz call a ‘Fairbain-sykes fighting knife’ whatever that is. Beating someone to death is low on my list of desireable outcomes, but Sable Yurten is capable of the deed.
“I need a gun. And… armor.” I say aloud, searching through Technomancy crates.
Missiles and gauss rounds are what I find, all munitions for the rolling buildings they call juggernauts. No way can I use these, even with powered armor I can’t carry or launch high caliber projectiles. Outside the artillery barrage begins to lighten, I can no longer feel the earth quaking under my feet.
>Matriarch Hygieia: crap i need an immediate teleport. They’re counting my biomass! Need a zergling?
>Executrix Alaea: not on my ship. Thena? Want a puppy?
>Human Athena: A puppyling? THAT’S what you call a WARRIOR? Feck it. I don’t have a choice. Send it. It’ll listen to me right?
>Matriarch Hygieia: Only one way to find out. I’ll tell them to play nice.
>Executrix Alaea: say something if they misbehave.
>Human Athena: yes maam!
Two blue riples appear in space time, both creatures materializing in seconds. Spines run down their quadruped backs, talons digging into the bunker’s floor as they scent the air. Elongated snouts full of teeth slip open. Like a wolf’s maw, if said wolf had two rows of shark teeth and sabertoothed canines.
“Sit!” I say, forgetting that i’m wearing a sealed gas mask.
No way they can hear me-
-Both creatures sit, leaning back onto their haunches.
“Do not harm me.” I order, trying to keep the nerves out of my voice.
Then I swallow, thinking the next order. In sync, both creatures –they aren’t really zerglings– begin to wag their tails, proof positive of my total control.
>Human Athena: They’re like dogs. I can control them with thoughts.
Even as I type, i’m looking at ‘human athena’ and frowning, mentally changing it to fit our growing theme.
>Terran Thena: :)
My nickname should set us apart, and I want to remind the other girls of our final goal, not just that I won our racial cointoss.
Spread out, search this bunker, I’m looking for powered armor and portable guns. I command, sending the two zerglings into the bunker’s darkness. I can see why we called them a zergling, they’re longer, and lankier, probably nine feet long -if you count the tail stinger- and their spines rise above our chest. Wait, I’m the only human body left. My chest. I frown, watching the not-zerglings hunt. They have no back arms or hooves or facial horns, so the term is factually wrong. But calling them spinosaurus puppies, extra bitey edition, doesn’t have the same ring as zergling. It’s inaccurate, but a shorthand that tells me exactly what we’re talking about.
In the bunker’s total darkness they spread out, sniffing the air and moving slowly, feet stay low to the ground, almost shuffling forward. Somehow they are able to detect miniscule movements through the earth, a sort of tremor sense. That’s so freaking cool! Together we listen, hearing the distant rumble of artillery fade replaced by humming electronics and four heartbeats.
Four?
There are only three of us.
“Find the fourth!” I hiss, coiling my body around the flechette ‘pistol’.
It has a smooth rear plate, just in case unarmored humans need to use it, but the thing is an awkward brick. Like a P90 SMG that’s made of stainless steel and twenty pounds heavier. The pair of zerglings walk to the source, not needing light to find the beating heart. God, they would be a terrifying opponent to face. Able to hunt in pitch black.
>Matriarch Hygieia: You okay?
The chat message makes me jump, sending a burst of flechettes into the wall. One zergling looks at me, as if to say, ‘quit playing around mom.’
“Sorry!” I snap, unsure why I'm apologizing to the spiky killer.
>Terran Thena: Yeah, good dogs. Obey my mental orders.
They reach a crate that is wrapped with some kind of foil. Almost shrink wrapped. Its exterior is separated by round studs, like a square ribcage-
-Or a cage. An airtight cage.
I sprint forward, pistol falling and pull out the shovel. One thrust rips into the vacuum sealing, unleashing a hiss as pressure equalizes.
“Rip open the cage!”
Bothe zerglings leap, their front paws tearing through the steel bars in two swipes. Steel rods shoot into the cage and bounce out towards me.
“Stop! Don’t hurt what’s inside!”
They obey, retreating a pace so I can see the damage. Inside are a stack of human bodies some are white skinned turning blue around the orifices. Long dead. While others leak blood. Fresher… Scrapping through the blood with the shovel I find it spongy, or in other words, coagulated and at least a day old. Crap, that much strength could damage power armor! Warriors is the right name for these zerglings. Their claws tore through inch thick steel on the first pass. A hand touches my throat, activating the helmet’s external speakers.
“Hello! Is anyone alive in there!”
Zergling hackles rise, and for an instant I wonder if they can launch those back spines. Probably not…
Crunching comes from inside the cage, along with squelches. Movement through the bodies. Tremorsense from the zerglings is somehow linked to my own mind. Together we triangulate the source, finding a heartbeat moving inside the pile. Like a giant birthday cake with a stripper inside, except way, WAY, grosser and hopefully with a different kind of happy ending. I see a Singularity helmeted head bob up and down so I lunge forward, dragging them out of the heap. Head, arms, torso and one leg come free. This body is stiff and totally cold. A zergling sniffs at the stump and before I can realize what he intends his jaw unfolds. Rows of teeth unfold and clamp onto exposed thigh, biting through skin, muscle and bone in a single chop.
“Cmon!” I snap.
The zergling swallows, but gets back on task. He darts forward and drags another corpse out of the cage. Or tries to. The coprse snags on something, probably the shredded bars but the zergling keeps pulling like a dog toy. It all happens so quickly, one second larry the zergling is pulling, the next he is covered in blood, having ripped the body in half. A display that makes his eyes sparkle, he looks at me, expecting dog treats or some nonsense.
“Bro…” I mutter, unable to say anything that won’t insult my protector.
Silence is broken like a wishbone, the other creature dragging another body out and opening a hole in the pile of bodies. I blink. Dumbfounded at what I’m seeing. There is a girl, not a teen, a child. No way is she twelve. The little gremlin looks to be eight years old at most. More disturbingly, she’s nude. Thrice concerningly, she is sitting in a sort of craven pocket, as if someone blended all the corpses within reach of her. A manacle is wrapped around her neck, two inches thick and three inches tall, totally encircling her neck while providing anchor points for a quartet of chains. . Each anchor her to the cage.
Her purple eyes stare into myine, piercing the green lenses of my nightvision. She inhales deeply. Gasping for breath.
“What’s your name?” I say, lowering my pistol.
Sable’s training screams at me. Shrieking bloody murder about Technocracy experiments and traps. As if I don’t already know something is seriously wrong here. Cataclysmically wrong.
“Whaths a name?” Asks the girl, lisping slightly.
Her mouth moves strangely. I can’t place it but the sensation of ‘uncanny valley’ creeps up my spine. Something deeply unpleasant has been done to this child, if she even is a child. I should gun her down right here and now, then detonate the explosives within this bunker. As if reading my mind, she slump, glancing at both the zerglings. Side to side eye movements, in total darkness. She’s got vertical pupils, and for a brief instant her eyes reflect green light from my nightvision. This isn’t a girl, it’s a mutant, or a Technomancy bioweapon.
“A name is what we call people- uhm… What we call our friends.” I say, snapping her eyes back onto me. “Mine is Athena Finley.”
Slit pupils narrow slightly, surprisingly they only appear half dilated in the total darkness. Can this girl even see in daylight?
“Are you my frien?” The girl asks.
“Sure I am. Can you tell me your name?” I spot a crate of Singularity rations in the corner, and silently order one of the zerglings to grab a few. I’m not really hungry, but I know there is a ‘c-bar’ in each ration box. No way is it actually chocolate, but it sure tastes good.
“I donfh ave a name.”
There it is, the reason behind the lisp. Her jaw looks human, but is split vertically, like an anaconda’s. Complete with extra teeth that are all slightl angled rearwards. If that weren’t enough, they’re sharp, like the zerglings. This is a baby bioweapon. Ha, that reminds me of a similarly purple and equally violent girl.
“Kerrigan.”
“Ith at my name?” Says Kerrigan.
Uhhhh… My immediate thought is, what the hell? NO! Don’t name a child after a fiction mass murderer. But then I hear the sound of a juggernaut volley. Twelve SCUD missiles rip through the air, a deep rumble tells me they’ve landed. I don’t have much time. So again I make a snap decision and pray my luck doesn’t bite me in the ass.
“Yes, you’re name is Kerrigan, and you’re my friend. Lets get you out of that cage…”