As Sarah led us back into the clearing we'd made our campsite in, Carrie moved past me and made her way to her shelter saying that she was going to take a nap; Bunny was quick to second the idea and moved toward her own shelter while I slung the mangled corpse of the strange Scourge off my shoulder and onto a collapsible table we'd laid out for eating and socializing. Guess we weren't using it to eat on anymore.

"Cai, can you use the armor's sensors to scan for what's different about this Scourge?" I asked.

"It will take some time," he told me. "I will have an answer about the differences in approximately twenty minutes."

"Okay, that'll have to work," I said. "Do you need me to stay close to it, or is it fine if I set the helmet down close by and get some food?"

"Please stay close," he said.

"Sarah, can you grab me a calorie bar and some water?" I asked the only other member of the squad that was still awake.

"Sure," she said. "Just give me a minute to get my gloves off. Got some brain matter on them when the Queen threw me away from itself."

"I really don't want that in my food, so take your time," I told her dryly.

"That's the plan," she chuckled.

Once Sarah had managed to remove her gloves and bring me food and water, I spent the next half hour waiting for Cai to let me know what he'd found.

"I have made a determination," Cai finally spoke up.

"Well, don't leave me in suspense," I said. "What did you find?"

"This is not a Queen," he answered. "It is something previously unseen and does not offer a good change for what we know about the Scourge."

"It is a male Scourge," Cai said.

"That's bad," I said.

"Indeed," Cai agreed. "Scourge do not require a male counterpart to reproduce in any capacity. Technically, as a race the Scourge are genderless. The presence of a decidedly male Scourge has never been confirmed and was only theorized at the formation of the Wardens of Life. The fact that you have killed this one is something you should be proud of."

"Why's that?" I couldn't stop myself from asking.

"This Scourge was more dangerous than a Queen with a full complement of Guardians," Cai said. "It is stronger, faster, more agile, and posseses better armor than the Queen ever will. Taking its life is something I would hazard multiple squads or even an Order to be neccessary for, under more common conditions."

"This isn't good," I muttered to myself. "What sorts of numbers do you think this type of Scourge will be moving in? One on each planet? Or maybe the Queen has to birth one the same way it does a Princess?"

Stolen story; please report.

"I cannot give further data or speculation with the limited sensors of the armor," Cai said. "I am sorry, Rickshaw. Further answers will have to wait until we have returned to the Phoenix."

"That's fine," I told him. "I was just thinking out loud."

"A bad habit of yours," Cai noted.

"You're the one that caused it," I pointed out. "I can't subvocalize, whisper, or project thoughts to you, so I have to speak at a normal volume."

"I was not the one to implant myself," Cai defended himself. "Perhaps you might lay the blame at the feet of the surgeon that did implant me into you."

"Just send up word to the Phoenix," I scoffed in mock indignation. "I need a shuttle on standby with a medical container for this corpse."

"It is sent," he said.

"Sarah," I called over to where she was cleaning her gloves from the gore that had managed to dry on them. "I"m thinking of joining the nap brigade. Will you be alright on your own?"

"I can keep an eye out," she assured me.

"So what are we going to call it?" Carrie asked as she stretched her arms above her head.

"Why is that an issue now?" I asked while I attempted to work a kink out of my back. Twenty years of sleeping in warm, soft beds was wrecking hell on me now that I was back in the field.

"Cause if we see another one, having a name will be more helpful than just calling it 'Variant' or 'new,'" she said as she moved into a toe touch.

"Well, I wasn't worried about that, so I didn't think of anything," I said, groaning as I continued my own stretching.

"Can I name it?" she asked. "You named everything but the Spitters and we haven't had reports of those anywhere else since we saw them on Obelisk."

"As long as it's better than the starship name you gave me before I settled on 'Phoenix,' I relented.

"I still say that 'Shipperton the Fourth' is a great name for a starship," she countered.

"It's not," I told her. "You said it youself, there's not another three ships that it's the latest in the line of. Who names a kid something like Greg the Fifth when there's not another four Gregs in the family line?"

"I guess I do," Carrie said.

"Whatever," I sighed. "Do you have a name?"

"Of course I do," she said smilling at me. "Since this one's a counterpart for the Queen, what about Scourge King?"

"Sounds good," I said. "Just one problem."

"What's that?" she asked.

"This isn't a counterpart to the Queen," I told her. "From what limited data Cai was able to theorize on it, it's just a more capable Guardian and has no real authority in the Horde."

"So then what about Scourge Prince?" Carrie asked.

"Better," I allowed. "It's definitely in the first slot for when we officially start to pick out names."

"Why not just make it official now?" Carrie asked.

"In case it's capable of something else that we don't know about yet," I told her. "Went through the same thing with Ghouls; I wanted to call them Zombies at first but then Cai told me they were much faster, smarter, and stronger than typical horror-flick zombies are. So I picked a different name and now we have Ghouls and Revenants."

"Did you have any others like that?" she asked. "You'd already named them all by the time I woke up, so I don't know what they might have been called before that."

"They didn't have names," I said. "The Wardens only named the Queen and termed the Guardians. They were constantly losing ground, so they didn't bother naming the basic members of the Scourge. I started that cause it's easier to say 'Hellhound' or 'Kong' than it is to say 'quadrapedal pack-hunter type' or 'bipedal tetrabrachius hunter type.'"

"Bipedal tetrabrachius?" Carrie asked looking at me as if I'd said gibberish. "There's no way that's the term."

"Ask Touka," I told her. I'd spent a day down a rabbit-hole on the internet when Cai informed me that the term for something with four arms was "tetrabrachius." Some of that stuff still blew my mind if I stopped to think about it. Why did we need a term for something with four or more arms?

"Son of a bitch," Carrie muttered to herself softly as Touka answered her. "I kinda like the word though. Tetrabrachius."

"While you mutter that to yourself like a crazy person, I'm going to get some more food and make sure Sarah and Bunny are ready," I told her as I walked away.