I hop off the juggernaut, power armor cushioning the landing. Still, my mistake is evident as fire rips open my lung, reminding me I’m in critical condition and being held together with a half tube of expired biofoam.

My helmet chirps at me, automatically opening the channel to my ‘squadmate’.

“Pawlo? Awre you awight?” Asks a lisping voice too young to be on the battlefield.

Especially this battlefield.

“I’m fine,” I wince, trying not to let the pain show. “Suit is buggered.

Even after hours in that suit, it still surprises me that she can move it at all. Given her handicap of being three and a half feet tall. We really should have used something other than artillery shells as stilts, they’re too rigid. Seems like they’re tripping the suit’s crush limiters. All the pesky little bits of software that keep the powered armor from actuating limbs beyond what is humanly possible. Without those nannies the hydraulics and servoes would hyperextend every joint until the limbs came free. Yikes. Getting bent into space slime is quite low on my list of priorities. Another warning light flashes in my HUD, this time for radiation poisoning. I’ve exceeded a month’s threshold. Cancer is almost guaranteed now, my only hope is to seal the bulletholes in my armor or acquire a new suit.

Logic whispers an answer to my problems. I’m the one fighting for us, it’s only right for me to take the working armor. Forget that Kerrigan would last whole minutes in my busted suit before it cooked her alive. Disgust overloads me, hating that I even considered the thought!

“Otay Pawlo.” Is Kerrigan’s response, oblivious to my vile machinations.

Nausea hits me harder than bullets. A one two combo with her innocence that hammers my ribs. She trusts me completely, if I asked she would not hesitate to swap suits. Might even ask if the air was supposed to burn as she handed me the only good rebreather.

A tear rolls down my cheek. No, This is my battlefield, I won’t lose myself. Not like I did back on Earth. Kerrigan is my ally, we will live or die together. They might have taken Earth away from us, but we’re still human! A blind scanner ping ripples through the trench, bouncing off our armors before the alert appears in my helmet. Too late for countermeasures. The source must be close. In seconds those radio waves will tell someone exactly where we are. Probably enter us into their network of targeting computers and send an artillery shell at our predicted locations.

“Kerrigan! Run!” I shout, checking the rounds in my flechette pistol.

But I already know the answer. The pistol’s electronic readout displays 0/100.

I mag lock it to my thigh and switch to the Tulverian pulser. Limping back towards our bunker where the four inhuman marines await.

“Oi, big one’s on the way—grab your dingo an’ kiss that bitch goodbye!” Says the suit.

“Of every accent in the universe, why did it have to be Australian!”

The sounds of screaming artillery shells and laser fire cease abruptly as the few survivors of this pocket war receive the same warning. Except the Tulvarians who continue their war-hooting. For spacefaring iguanas I would have expected more intelligence from them, or at least vocalizations that are distinguishable from a dozen bovines in heat.

A thin line of black appears in the atmosphere above me. No reading on the HUD means the missile is out of my suit’s scanner range, yet visible. An infantryman’s way of saying ‘InterContinental Ballistic Missile’. I swallow, trying to work spit back into my mouth.

Energy batteries whine, thrumming to life for several horrible seconds. Each instant bringing the missile deeper into our atmosphere. A dozen lasers illuminate the sky. Nine go wide, vanishing into the darkness of space at .9C. Effectively the speed of light. Three beams score direct hits, one on the nose and two center mass. I smile, knowing a single laser is enough to destroy the missile. Orbital bombardments via missiles are ineffective because they’re too easy to shoot down. Its a strategic error on whatever captain thought one missile would hit me. A blue sphere glows softly around the missile deflecting all hits, little more than the blink of death.

The missile, dropped from orbit, is shielded.

No one puts shielding on an average missile. It can only be one thing. Someone broke the rules and decided to flip the table. Win the war by erasing everyone, including themselves. Galactic sanctions would be imposed, a small comfort to my soon-to-be vaporized body.

“NUCLEAR DETONATION DETECTED!”

“FIND COVER YA CUNTS!”

“Yeah yeah, thanks a lot. Never would have seen that without you.” I say, chinning the faceplate to silence the alarm.

All goes white.

Then blue…?

I stop to wiggle my toes, somehow I'm still alive. My HUD shows everyone is still alive. Suit sensors show no increase in radiation and release the HELP system giving me a full view of the heavens. Nuclear fire broils against itself folding and folding again. A whirlpool of cosmic annihilation. Contained on the whim of the nameless. In seconds the fire resolves into a black orb of pure radiation. It descends to the dirt and vanishes, presumably buried somewhere it cannot harm the solarium mines. I stare for a second, awestruck by what I’ve seen. The amount of psychic power borders on star snuffing godhood. My suit chimes signalling an incoming communication.

“Oi boss, Barker seys troopers coming up the path.” Says Emu-rine.

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“Troopers?” I repeat numbly, turning to face the newcomers.

Six trenchcoat clad gasmasks, Singularity troopers, jog into view ducking for cover as they see my armored form. My Novan Technocracy armor. The first shot whizzes overhead, warming my faceplate. Another impacts my good shoulder sending me sprawling.

“Shit!” I shout, half diving half pirouetting behind the Juggernaut’s corpse.

Three energy bolts hit the downed tank, igniting it. Cooking meat and lubricants darken the air as I chin through com channels repeating my orders to cease fire.

“Got a clear shot on them, just say the word boss.” Says Spiderman.

“No! Ceasefire! We do not need to fight. Got enough damn enemies on this planet.” I say, broadcasting on an open com line.

“If it comes down to you or them. We’ll make sure it’s them.” Says Sergeant Wormface.

Part of me is flattered at the unwavering loyalty of my variety pack of protective marines? But another part of me is horrified. These are my fellow earthlings. Very possibly my classmates, I can’t order them to be blasted.

“Ceasefire! Singularity troopers, I am not your enemy!” I radio.

My eyes dart to the bunker, checking my reaper fuel levels. If I sprint then boost I should have enough speed to avoid getting my arse shot off. Maybe. Power armor should be able to take multiple hits but what happens if they take out the jetpack? Anything from I explode to it makes me go faster. Too unpredictable.

A shadow passes above me one of the many bioforms of the Collective, a sort of sickly looking spinoling, as if the creature is half starved and extra spikey. It looks at me, shifting weight as it prepares to pounce.

“No! Go away, go back to Hygieia!”

My words seem to focus its eyes. Like a dog who did no know you are standing behind it and then you call out their name. Only to see mouth foaming from late stage rabies.

The creature pounces, rending claws glistening with red blood. My pulse rifle rises to meet it golden energy erupting from the muzzle to shred the ling’s lower half. A dozen bolts of energy connect with the creature half from the troopers and three from my own marines. Shots echo through the trench, alerting all Collective organisms of food. Spinolings appear along the trench barking and yipping, flexing claws as they adjust for a pounce. My rifle speaks first, scoring a clean headshot on one ling. It falls infront of the troopers, alerting them to the presence of a third enemy.

Bodyweight shifts, they are exposed and unsupported in a vehicular trench. A kill zone. Weight leaves their shoulders, already accepting death as their rifles aim up. I key external speakers to max, simultaneous with my coms.

“Kill the lings!” I order, sticking my rifle between autocannons and cracking off another shot.

It goes wide, tearing a ling in half, but the angry maw still has enough piss left to chomp through a trooper’s arm and tear into their chest before a second trooper bayonets his eye. I wince, sympathizing with getting a limb removed. Ouch.

Our fire is accurate and effective, designed to defeat Juggernauts, yet the lings are equally well designed and wound eight troopers before the last is slain. Now is my chance to flee, run back to the bunker and save myself. But I can’t abandon them.

One tap and my visor opens to reveal my gasmask. Rifle in hand I wave the troopers forward.

“Cmon you idiots! Take cover!” I shout still using the helmet’s external speakers.

At least one of them gets the message and starts running. The others are close behind, held up by the wounded troopers they’re carrying. So many moving bodies speaks to my tremorsense, an ability I shouldn’t possess. But I do. Across the trench network bioforms of our own native designs turn against us all rushing for something familiar. I can sense them coming, somehow attuned to their minds.

“Get to the bunker! NOW!” I shout, sealing my helmet and raising the modified pulser. Two Lings come around a distant trench corner, eight hundred meters away. My first shot is clean, entering the creature’s throat and exiting where his tail meets the spine, but my second shot is disturbed by the passing troopers and only incinerates a leg. The ling stumbles, then adapts to a three legged gait.

Sage Yurten’s training is excellent, and her aim good, but I’m blocking the other marine’s shots, as are the troopers. I pass my rifle to an unwounded trooper and scoop two wounded soldiers into my arms, fleeing with all the strength left in my tormented lungs. I shift left, aligning myself with the Juggernaut’s husk. It’s a small thing but one that lets Spiderman take his shots.

During my unplanned nap the man re-earned his nickname, climbing up the bunker’s back wall and digging a nest for himself. We laughed at his antic then, and now I would almost kiss him. If he weren’t an electric pink nightmare wrapped in flesh.

With the higher vantage he fires at regular intervals forced to pause as his solarium reactored pulser recharges each shot, frustration so palpable I can feel it through our mental link. We should really get him a double upgraded rifle, as his eight eyes seem to never err. He fires two shots as I run, each blast cores a ling, often overpenetrating to slay a second. Troopers shift out of his line of sight and two more marines join the battle keeping us clear as spinolings begin pouring into the trench.

One or two creatures becomes twelve, then twenty, then thirty.

“Check your fire, shots are bringing in the lings.” Wormface radios.

Emurine, Wormface, and Barker immediately switch from full auto barrages to semi auto precision. Spinoling attentions shift to the troopers.

“They’ve gone feral!” I gasp, bounding over the barricade in a power armor enhanced leap.

By the time I hop over our barricade there are more enemy icons on my HUD than I can count. Four Singularity troopers are conducting a fighting retreat. Firing until their cell depletes then turning and running towards us while reloading. Once reloaded they kneel and lay down a barrage on full auto tearing into the onrushing horde.

“There are too many of them! Get in here!” I shout, taking up a position atop our reinforced crate mountain. Kerrigan, myself, four marines, and now five troopers all add our firepower together, saturating the trench with a blaze of plasma.

Power cells drain, running our already meager supplies dry. Never in my life have I wished for a supply depot full of bullets until now. Yet every slain ling seems to draw another to us, and in the space of a half hour we have filled the trench with hundreds of bodies.

>Terran Apollo: Zazathur we are pinned down by your people! Help us out!

>Straingineer Zazathur: Hive mind broken. No control. No biomass.

I drop the exhausted pulser, drawing my flechette pistol dumping a hundred flechettes into the nearest ling. Needles shred their flesh, tearing them into chowder before my eyes. A spinoling leaps from the trenchtop, clever bastard used it to occlude our line of sight until he was within striking range. Claws extend, the world slows down around as our eyes meet. I raise an arm to fend him off, teeth and claws clamp down shredding armor.

A power armored fist enters my vision from the right. Clenched fingers plow through the spinoling’s face, neck, spine, and ribs. What was once a terrifying creature is now pink mist.

“GET BACK SIR!” Shouts Barker, shoving me deeper into the bunker.

He’s a blur, fisting every zergling like Tyson. I’ve never seen a more ferocious boxer, not even the zealots of the Golden Armada fight with more zeal than Barker. Without him we’d be overrun.

“Damn lunatic.” I mutter, praying he can save us. Or buy us enough time to recharge our rifles.