Two Zergling hounds rocket down muddy trenches, webbed feet keeping them afloat. Were this the dry lands of their progenitor’s homeworld they could outrun the wind itself. Yet they knew nothing of their homeworld, nor of anything other than instinct and obeyance. Today those purposes were united.
Hunt.
Kill.
Ordered by their Matriarch, through her strangest overseer. A tiny creature, taller than they though similarly weighted and wrapped in the stench of enemies. Ah, that makes sense, Matriarch sent us on a mission with an infiltrator. Something to wear the enemies skins, seeing the unseeable.
The hunter’s thoughts were simple. Intentionally so. For obedience was more valuable than cunning. Unlike their physiology which worked like the augmented genome it was. Furious muscles begin to heat the zergling bodies, blood pumps fire into spines warming and pressurizing the fluid beneath their dorsal crests. In turn pushing bony protrusions out skin sheathes. Another adaptation to vent heat. Hot as they are, Technomancy scanners are looking for larger targets, vehicles or squads, Laser fire, not two dogs. Two purely organic creatures pass beneath notice, no radar or scanner detects their passage through the trench bottom until they are twenty feet in front of a bunker 11645.
Four men in red power armor stand inside the entrance. Facing each other instead of their watch. A mistake. The last one any of them will ever make. Lead zergling runs between the armored man’s legs, ramming a dozen dorsal spines through the gaps in his groin armor. By the cooling sensation he knows multiple arteries are hit, Something pops, wetting the spines with blood or cybernetic fluids. Two men raise their flechette pistols, holding down triggers as they spray hundreds of supersonic needles through the nothing. Too late. Trailing zergling leaps, claws shattering the helmet before teeth bite into his face. Steel shutters try to snap shut, but it’s already too late. The man’s brain is on it’s way down the zergling’s throat. Flechettes bounce off red armor, deflecting into shrapnel until a tail stinger lances forward.
Glass shatters as neurotoxins are pumped through the engineer’s skull. Granted a direct route to the neurons they are meant to inhibit. Bone once more penetrates hardened glass, jackhammering into the final man’s right eye then left a dozen times. If the trauma doesn’t kill the man, the poison surely will.
With their watchdogs slain, the dozen Technomancy technicians never see the zerglings coming, each one meets death without a shot or whimper. Throats are torn out or tag teamed. One zergling trips and the other pounces. Brutally effective when the sounds of working nanofactories and power lifters cover the violence. Until deep rumbling overrides all else. Juggernauts are coming.
Not in five minutes, in two.
—
Athena ran. Carrying Kerrigan overhead. It was awkward, but better than letting the Technomancy take what little humanity she had left. A suit of powered armor weighs about a thousand kilograms, or ~2200lbs. While the dual reactor variant adds an extra three hundred pounds. Well within the armor’s ability to lift. Additionally there was a gel pack layer currently keeping Athena ‘s sprained ankle immobilized, while servos drove her limbs forward. Eating up meters even as target locks began to hunt.
“Target lock Pfina!”
“I know, curl up in your armor, use the legs- ah- and arms as extra armor!” I gasp, panting as paint darkens my vision.
We hear the missiles first. A soft whoosh that zips over the trench’s lip, barrelling towards us as it builds to mach speed. Kerrigan kicks a leg sideways, jerking our center of gravity left. I have no time to register the alteration in our path. Grey missile scrapes between faceplate and my upturned arm, leaving smears before I feel a faint thud-
-The fins snapping off against my face.
A missile just flew between my ear and elbow, missing me. Well, technically slapping my face, but I’m alive so it counts as a miss. By all rights, that should have killed us. I think, sprinting for the bunker. It’s only a few seconds away now. A few more steps. Electrical humming fills the air, autocannon servos whine, a Juggernaut is here. Shadow falls across the trench as the thirty foot abomination comes into view. I summon all my strength and toss Kerrigan. Her armor sails though the trench, entering the bunker a picosecond before twelve autocannons fire.
Now, what is an autocannon? In the Technocracy it's a colloquial expression for a variety of low tech weapons. Gates made transportation effectively free, combine free transport with the harvesting method of seeding a world with aggressive chimps and returning every ten thousand years, and economies of scale mean low tech chemical propelled projectiles are common. Albeit inefficient and highly undesirable. Perfect for the killing fields of Syrak-9. Where disposable hardware seems to be the only prerequisite. This Juggernaut is armed with autocannons akin to 20mm vulcan rounds, enough to core two American SUVs. So when twelve open up, the air fogs with lead, digging a hole in the muddy trench.
I keep running, raising my flechette pistol and cracking off a burst on manual. Like an idiot. The entire magazine, one hundred flechettes zip through the air, pelting the Juggernaut’s leftmost sensor mass. I may as well be launching spitwads at a lion’s testicles. Or pissing gasoline at an open flame.
Juggernaut treads reach the trench’s edge, squishing mud out of their path as they sink a foot into the walls. I reload. My suit tentacles replacing the magazine with mechanical proficiency. Who would have guessed that tentacles could be a woman’s best friend?
I’m glad no one heard me think that. Even in the heat of battle it’s absurd.
No time to aim or change fire rates I crack off another burst, this time aiming for the autocannon array’s sensor node. Ninety needles bounce off steel, but ten buggers find glass. Hardened steel darts bounce off, leaving miniscule pinpricks of damage, cracked or distorted glass. Red warnings scream in my mind, I'm being targeted by twelve separate scanners. Several of which must be missiles.
Damn.
Hope Kerrigan survives. Woulda been nice to share a real chocolate bar with her…
Eight hundred rounds rip out of dozens of autocannons, darkening the trench. My body is on autopilot, the suit bounding. A dozen slugs tear through my armor, eight into the shoulder armor, and four center mass. One deflects, blasting a hole in my armor weakening structural integrity with the explosive round. Two claim my reactor, gutting suit power. And the final hit digs into my ribs, blasting a hole in my side. My heart literally skips several beats, the concussive force knocking it into arrhythmia. Atriums and Ventricles squish at once, then fire at random in a vain attempt to restart the natural rhythm. In short, I got shot so hard I had a dozen simultaneous heart attacks.
>Matriarch Hygieia: FUCK THAT HURTS!
>Executrix Alaea: FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
Great, I knew we were entangled beings, but I hadn’t truly grasped how tightly our senses were linked until that moment.
>Terran Thena: sorry.
I mean it. They’re me. Harming them is one of the last things I could ever wish for.
The power armor never stops. Servos and one reactor driving me deep into the bunker. I pass crates of supplies, tables, a second nanofactory and the two not-zerglings who are busy eating the contents of two ripped open power armors.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
[+4 biomass]
[Biomass 1 / 8]
Bellies distended with the infusion of human meat, turning the fearsome spinosaurus wolves into blood drunk ticks. Inside the bunker all is quiet, except for the galaxy’s most heavily armed tank outside, venting the last rounds of hate into an empty trench. How am I alive? My best guess is a needle bent a sensor. Causing it to aim high and mostly miss me. A destroyed sensor and the other guns would have compensated, so a sensor that fed incorrect data to the Juggernaut is the only likely outcome. I’m beyond lucky.
I try to inhale and find a feeling I hope to never feel again. My diaphragm flexes, ribs move, and absolutely zero air enters my lungs. Flash training warns me that this is a sucking chest wound. The human body relies on a sealed chest cavity to create the pressure differential that is necessary for breathing. Without that sealed cavity the lungs lose any and all ability to move air. I’m going to suffocate in the next minute. Probably less considering I’ve been sprinting. My body’s natural reserves of oxygen run low.
Fire enters my side. Biofoam, a sort of damage sealant, plugs the hole in my armor. My life is saved. I inhale, sweet canned oxygen that only smells a little of industrial lubricants and muddy feet. Nothing has ever tasted so sweet. I hear the rumbling of the juggernaut outside, backing away, heading for an access ramp. There will be two within a hundred meters of the bunker. I have seconds to find a weapon. One quick glance at the zerglings tells me they’re more worthless than my flechette pistol. Not really their fault, just evolved for a different enemy.
>Terran Thena: Matriarch, take your lings, they’re too fat now. Gonna die. Need heavier.
>Matriarch Hygieia: feck. I literally just made this! Don’t get my test bug squished! Took me ages to cook him up. Feckfeckfeck. He’s not done. Here.
Both not-zerglings vanish, warped out by whatever technomagic the Executrix commands. In a way I’m jealous, she gets technology so advanced it may as well be magic, while I’m in the mud. But a part of me savors the adrenaline. I am the spear. Everyone is counting on me to win and supporting me.
A beetle interrupts my thoughts, looking particularly annoyed and somewhat squished. As if the bugger has been stuck under someone’s toes for the past half hour. It stretches, wasting precious seconds to unrumple itself.
I look it up and down, realizing what my other half, or uhm, other third, has done. This isn’t just a beatle. Matriarch Hygieia cooked up a roach. I think. It’s four feet tall, and twelve feet long with a solid black carapace except in the joints where I can see electric green fluid circulating. Like a nuclear blooded xenomorph cockroach. Except each leg is a spear and the thing has two foot long mandibles. Capabilities appear in my mind, as if I’ve always known them. Which on some level is probably true since I seem to be irrevocably linked to them on some cellular or atomic level. Maybe even quantumly.
Entangled minds. It would explain our ability to connect to one another via this sort of chat function.
The roach nudges my suit with a leg.
“Oh right, go fight the juggernaut. Or delay it. Dig a pit and trip the bastard!”
Chitinous mandibles click once and the beatle zips away faster than a lightning bug. For one precious second I pant. Inhaling with every ounce of strength before I woman up. I find my feet, searching this bunker for anything I can use. Hundreds of missiles sit in racks, too finicky for me to throw and somehow arm with my suit alone. The nanofactory is my best hope, maybe It can cook up a rocket launcher that will get me through the Juggernaut’s armor.
I hobble around behind it, muting my mic so Kerrigan can’t hear me cry.
>Terran Thena: You healed me earlier, got anymore?
>Executrix Alaea: You’re ALIVE? I thought you died! How much pain are you gonna put me through?
>Terran Thena: I’ll stop getting hurt if you make us a shield generator.
>Executrix Alaea: … Okay. Reaper’s done. So are the demo charges. But I’m elbow deep in Technomancy DRM, so I’m kinda stuck. Be safe Athena.
Great, even in space there are patent trolls.
My fingers curl into a fist, slamming into the composite shell I'm leaning against. I don’t want to die.
“Authentication received.” Appears against the internal screens of my armor.
That’s right, we’re wearing Technomancy armor.
Technomancy engineer’s armor.
A few quick button presses and the nanofactory gives me options for a dozen explosives. We have grenades, fragmentation and high explosive, land mines of the anti tank and anti person varieties. I scroll through the menu, ignoring the rocket fire outside. Ah, here it is, rocket launcher, individual tube, Juggernaut. I’m about to press the green build button, then I see it’s build time, thirty minutes. Radar says I have one minute before a Juggernaught rolls into this bunker. Thirty two seconds before I’m face to face with its guns. Damn roach didn’t buy me any time!
I press the build button for some grenades and an anti tank mine, reloading my pistol as the seconds tick by.
“Kerrigan, get under cover then go dark. Turn off your suit and hide.”
Our radio chirps once. She knows what to do. Out of sheer desperation I check on the damn roach, finding it burrowed in deep mud. Idle while it senses the world.
“Oh… Clever girl.”
>Terran Thena: Reaper pack, NOW.
My servos whine, I’m running for the door, preparing to meet the juggernaut head on. When a Jetpack appears on my back. And a bandoleer or explosives on my chest. I leap, propelling myself into the air twenty feet before activating the dual thrusters. My Armor’s gel layer is still inflated, which saves me from a massive concussion as my head is squished into the suit’s back. Acceleration meters spike to several G’s of force as I fly over the Juggernaut, dropping three bombs with my best friend tentacles.
Juggernaut’s have guns and sensors that will track targets and aim ahead of them, leading them and shooting at where an enemy will be when the bullet reaches them.Except, it knows I’m in Technomancy armor and tries to cheat. A thousand rounds cut through the air, missing me by inches .
Two bombs hit, sending a shockwave through the air, juggernaut and trench. Powerful enough to collapse my lil roach’s tunnel. With the juggernaut atop it. The whole tank tips forward, front half teetering precipitously as it’s treads become entangled. I help it along with another bomb thrown under its upraised butt. Trapped beneath the Juggernaut’s thickest armor and the earth, my bomb’s full explosive potential is realized. Flipping the tank.
I tuck my legs, cutting jetpack thrust to execute an in air one eighty, reactivating thrusters when the jetpack is pointed away from the Juggernaut. Twin turbines hurl me towards the Juggernaut, sending me crashing into it’s rear at fifty miles an hour. Pain explodes in my shot lung. No amount of biofoam or gel is enough to cushion my impact. Helmet visor cracks, my ribs feel like a train ran over them, which might not be inaccurate. My hand snags the rear access port, suit tentacles undoing the screws and bolts.
Tears flow down my cheeks as I struggle to breathe. A democharge slips from my grasp. Falling into the Juggernaut pilot’s lap.
One leg is working well enough to kick. Launching me five feet into the air. Pathetic, but enough to clear the treads. One cartwheel and I land facedown in mud, splatting as a shockwave kills the pilot. Missiles detonate blasting apart any remaining tubes and most the autocannons. The Juggernaut’s superstructure screams as explosions rip it in half, curling it into wreckage that will lock this bunker down for good.
My legs kick, trying to end my tenure as a lawn dart. My armor rocks back and forth squelching deeper into the mud. Aw hell. This is backwards.
“Hey, roach, come push me out of the mud.” I order, seriously contemplating how I’m asking a giant cockroach to be my knight in bio-luminescent armor.
Which is when a tingle hits me. Suit power fails, with both my Singularity helmet and Technomancy armor going dark at the same time. There is no response from my thrusters either, I’m dead. Like a stick in the mud, except more literal. My armor locks in place, not allowing any motion other than small adjustments to bring me closer to the recovery position. It’s a preservation mechanism, invented after one too many technicians got knocked off space stations and kept screwing their rescuers by flailing around or trying to grab onto equipment. So the recovery position was invented. Under certain conditions the suit would lock down, legs straight, arms at side. Streamlined really. That way you can’t scream if the recovery craft accidental mag locks your taint and rips out those sensitive piercings. Or complain when the magnetic grapnel pins your arm to your chest, crushing it until you’ll need a prosthetic.
I scream into my helmet. Trying to reboot either one. No luck. Not until the mountain dew colored roach pushes me out of the mud with a squelch, becoming my impromptu palanquin, floating me into the bunker and dropping me beside Kerrigan. There are no lights or LEDs coming from the hardware or engineer suits. Something knocked out all the electronics…
>Terran Thena: Suit died, EMP maybe? Need a replacement for me and Kerrigan.
>Executric Alaea: coming, wait. WHO?
>Terran Thena: joke, 2 suits plz
A flash of blue light strips the suit off myself, dropping a replacement in front of me. This is a level of service I could get used to.