Eight hundred rounds rip out of dozens of autocannons, darkening the trench. My body is on autopilot, the suit bounding. Scores of slugs pelt my armor. A handful shattering the ceramic lattice to tear through alloyed layers, eight into the shoulder armor, and four center mass. One deflects, blasting a hole in my armor and weakening overall 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.
>Straingineer Zazathur: FUCK THAT HURTS!
>Praetorian Panoptes: 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 Apollo: sorry.
I mean it. They’re me. Not offshoots of me, but harmonized minds three beings all stemming from a unified source, closer than triplets. Harming them is one of the last things I could ever wish for.
My legs keep pumping. Alien muscle fibers working tirelessly to survive. The power armor never stops. Servos and one reactor drive 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 ripped open power armors.
[+4 biomass]
>Praetorian Panoptes: GROSS! WHY DID YOU CHEW IT FIRST? DEAD BODIES ARE BETTER THAN THIS!
Lingling2’s belly is distended with the infusion of human meat, turning the fearsome spinosaurus wolf into a blood drunk tick. 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 an important sensor. Causing it to aim high and mostly miss me. A destroyed sensor would have been compensated for, in other words, I flicked the lion’s scrotum and pissed him off so bad that he leapt twenty feet into the air and let me walk under him.
I’m beyond lucky.
I try to inhale and find a feeling I hoped to never experience. 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, depleting my body’s natural reserves of oxygen. I don’t stop running, jogging right into the rear wall as I activate the damn aussie suit, scrolling through subroutines as my vision darkens. All my luck has gone to waste.
“Need to- ahh-” My voice trails off, unable to move air through my throat and create sound.
One final word escapes my lips, less violent than a sea breeze bar of soap.
“Tri-aaggge.”
The suit responds, although I almost wish it hadn’t.
"Blimey, cobber! Got a chest wound suckin’ like a thirsty goanna at a waterhole! I’m throwin’ a patch on it faster than a croc chasin’ tourists!"
Fire enters my side. Biofoam, a sort of damage sealant, plugs the hole in my armor. Injected by subroutines I failed to find. My life is saved. I inhale, sweet canned oxygen that only smells a little of industrial lubricants and muddy feet. Kinks aside, 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 Apollo: Zazathur, Grab your lings, they’re too fat now. Gonna die. Need heavier.
>Straingineer Zazathur: feck. I literally just made this!
>Straingineer Zazathur: will you find a bunker and lock yourself in?!
>Straingineer Zazathur: don’t get my test bug squished!
>Straingineer Zazathur: took me ages to cook up a two biomass monster
>Straingineer Zazathur: feckfeckfeck
>Straingineer Zazathur: he is not done
Both not-zerglings vanish, warped out by whatever technomagic the Praetorian commands from the confines of his closet. In a way I’m jealous, he 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. My win is a step towards Earth.
Reminding me of my newest friend, brought to you by Lingling2. Two plasma rifles warp into my hands, fully loaded. Thank you iguanas! Power armor recognizes the guns and feeds me possible firing solutions only to come up short as Zazathur’s latest creature appears.
A roly-poly 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 beetle. Straingineer Zazathur cooked up a pint sized roach.
I think.
It’s four feet tall, and four feet long with segmented plates to its black carapace except in the joints where I can see electric green fluid circulating. Like a nuclear blooded xenomorph pill bug. 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, asking why it was summoned.
“Righty ho! Fight the juggernaut. Or delay it by any means necessary! Dig a pit and trip the bastard if you have to!”
Chitinous mandibles click once and the beetle zips away faster than a lightning bug. I chase his departure with plasma fire, shots aimed at the only portion of the Juggernaut I can see. Its treads. My aim is off missing the wide side of a barn. For one precious second I pant. Inhaling with every ounce of strength I can. Firing blindly will accomplish nothing.
Kerrigan appears at my side, taking one of the plasma rifles from me. I give a thumbs up, and activate the full capabilities of a technician’s suit. Manifests of supplies and equipment scroll across my eyes, 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 obliterate the pilot after I burn through the Juggernaut’s armor.
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I hobble around behind it, muting my mic so Kerrigan can’t hear me cry after being shot for the millionth time.
>Terran Apollo: You healed me earlier, got anymore?
>Praetorian Panoptes: You’re ALIVE? I thought you died! How much pain are you gonna put me through?
>Terran Apollo: I’ll stop getting hurt if you make us a shield generator.
>Praetorian Panoptes: … you suck.
>Praetorian Panoptes: No shields today, but reaper’s done. So are the demo charges. I’m elbow deep in Technomancy DRM, so I’m kinda stuck. Be safe Apollo. NO UNNECESSARY RISKS.
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.
Trinity must be pressing them hard if they know I’m a saboteur and they haven’t changed passwords. That thought alone beats back the pain. We’re going to win. We can save Earth.
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. I’m about to press the green build button, then I see it’s build time, thirty minutes. Radar says I have forty five seconds before a Juggernaut rolls into this bunker. Thirty two seconds before I’m face to face with its guns. Damn roach didn’t buy me any time! Probably rolled up in a ball and got shot to shit.
I press the build button for some grenades and an anti tank mine peeking over the Nanofactory’s lip 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. Tremorsense reactivates. I feel every plate of the Juggernauts treads as it rolls down the ramp, guns forward.
“Oh… Clever girl.”
Guns are pointed forward, not towards the bunker. No time to build anything, nor any need to.
“Carpe diem mothertrucker.”
>Terran Apollo: Reaper pack and bombs. ANY BOMBS! NOW!
Servos whine, broken reactor hisses radioactive coolant, unable to shut off. I’m running for the door, preparing to meet the Juggernaut head on when a Jetpack appears on my back and a bandoleer of explosives on my chest. I leap, propelling myself into the air twenty feet before activating the dual thrusters. My armor’s gel layer inflates on the bounce which narrowly saves me from a massive concussion as my head bounces off the ceiling, deploying the steel shutters of my HELP system. Acceleration meters spike to several G’s of force as I fly over the Juggernaut, dropping three bombs with my BFT. Best Friend Tentacles.
Juggernaut’s have guns and sensors that will track targets and aim ahead of them, leading them and shooting where an enemy will be when the bullet reaches them. Except none of that works when your guns are pointed forward and I’m coming from the side. Guns fire anyways, pilot trying to kill me. A thousand rounds cut through the air.
Two bombs hit, bouncing between barrels. Proximity fuses fail to activate. My thrusters cut out and I tumble across no man’s land faceplanting in a looping cartwheel as I display all the grace of an obese turkey after Thanksgiving dinner. Then the third bomb hits the ramp sending a sharp knock through the Juggernaut’s superstructure. HUD says no damage, but it activates the other bombs. Multiple explosions roar, sending a shockwave through the air, juggernaut and trench. Powerful enough to collapse my lil roach’s tunnel. With the juggernaut atop it.
I roll to my side, cracking off three shots with the plasma rifle. Blue orbs of liquid fire cross the gap to slag sensors blinding the tank. Engines roar. The pilot must be trying to free the vehicle only for the whole tank to tip forward, front half teetering precipitously as its treads swell with mud and green roach debris. 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.
>Straingineer Zazathur: MY PROTOTYPE!
>Terran Apollo: Better than getting myself squished!
>Straingineer Zazathur: idk
>Straingineer Zazathur: the roach was cuter
“You god damn asshole.” I say with a smile, watching the Juggernaut flop.
Guns roar in a final attempt to remain grounded, hoping recoil alone will right the disaster. I laugh, jumping into the air once more. 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, splattering blood on my HUD. No amount of biofoam or gel is enough to cushion my impact. Helmet visor cracks despite the HELP reinforcement, 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 single bolt that retains this particular access port.
Only one bolt is used for a reason. Juggernauts are partially biological in nature with the pilot grafted into the vehicle. This port is a second access port to the waste evacuation system. Wet diarrhea pours out this port splashing across my armor. Tears flow down my cheeks as I struggle to breathe. Two plasma shots clear the remaining garbage making space for the democharge in my hand. It slips from my grasp. Falling into the Juggernaut’s second anus.
Guns roar in a final attempt to remain grounded, hoping recoil alone will right the disaster. I laugh, jumping into the air once more. 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, splattering blood on my HUD. 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 single bolt that retains this particular access port.
Only one bolt is used for a reason. Juggernauts are part biological in nature with the pilot grafted into the vehicle. This port is a second access port to the waste retention system. Wet diarrhea pours out this port splashing across my armor. Tears flow down my cheeks as I struggle to breathe. Two plasma shots clear the remaining garbage. A democharge slips from my grasp. Falling into the Juggernaut’s second anus.
One leg is working well enough to kick. Launching me five feet into the air. Pathetic, but enough to clear the treads. Lungs burn, vision darkens. I land facedown in mud, splatting as a shockwave kills the pilot. Missiles detonate blasting apart any remaining tubes and most of 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.
Technocracy systems do a self analysis and update my HUD. The bunker blinks red, sigils indicating the Singularity took it. A chuckle escapes my lips. They haven’t updated my signal as an enemy combatant yet. A moment passes as I breathe, too tired to do anything.
>Straingineer Zazathur: there isnt even juice left
>Straingineer Zazathur: HUD says untargetable
The Technocracy sends out another update, finally marking me as an enemy. I don’t recognize the symbols but a pretty good guess would be ‘shoot this cunt on sight!’. Then my Technocracy HUD winks out. It only took them two lost tanks to lock me out. My legs kick, trying to end my tenure as a lawn dart. Rocking armor back and forth squelching deeper into the mud. Aw hell. This is backwards.
I warp Ling1 back to me. Deeply appreciative of teleportation.
“Hey, come push me out of the mud.” I order, seriously contemplating how I’m asking a spinosaurus wolf 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. Armor locks in place, servos calcifying, 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 my good boy 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 Apollo: Suit died, EMP maybe? Need a replacement for me and Kerrigan.
>Praetorian Panoptes: coming, wait. WHO?
>Terran Apollo: joke, 2 suits plz
A flash of blue light strips the suit off myself, dropping a replacement in front of me. Now THIS is a level of service I could get used to.