THE INFINITE BROOD (Starcraft/Supreme Commander Crossover Quest!)

"Let them come to us," you murmured, watching the orbits.

Sarah nodded, slowly, her eyes growing hooded as she watched the gentle loop of planets and the glittering bead that was a star. She smirked, slightly. "Yeah. Zerg know how to wait. And watch. That's what I learned, during the Great War - the image is all the ravening zerglings and the endless Swarm. But that only happens when you've already lost." She bit her lower lip, then turned, starting for the door. You watched her go, curling a leg up underneath yourself.

She glanced back, and your eyes met. The temptation to follow after buzzed into your spine. You resisted it, shifting your expression to a glare.

Sarah walked out without a word.

She could have ordered you to come. Instead, she left you alone.

"You two are maladaptive," Izsha said from the wall.

Your eyes flicked to the female Zerg, the memory keeper of the Swarm. Her glassy eyes and yours met, her fingers steepling before her carapaced chest. Her voice was quiet. "The only one she's ever been so entangled with was the Dark Templar Matriarch." Your brow furrowed slightly as you leaned against the side of the psychoactive crystal that this room used for projections.

"...Raszagal, right?" you asked, quietly. "She was the female Dark Templar Kerrigan mentioned."

"Yes," Izsha said. "You adapt quickly. Think on the spot. Draw inferences. Find patterns."

"Humans do it a lot," you said, your head spines twitching in against your scalp. You rasped a claw against the gleaming purple crystal - drawing a thin fine white line that sealed itself up seconds after you had left it. "So, Kerrigan's been seeing some Protoss?"

"After the death of the Overmind, Raszagal visited the Queen of Blades - to learn of her...disposition after the end of the Swarm," Izsha said. "The meeting was tense."

"Maladaptive?" you asked. "Like me?"

"Similar interpersonal relationships - the Protoss and the Zerg have similar enmities as you and the Queen. But similarly, they had aligned goals. Interests. The discordance was felt even from my chambers." Izsha cocked her head. "But there was no accord. And the Queen rejected my suggestion."

"Which was?" you asked.

"Implant within the Protoss mental commands to break her to our will," Izsha said. "Similar to functions performed on infested Terrans during earlier incursions into their space by Daggoth's brood."

You frowned. "Like me?"

"No," Izsha said. "Two times, my Queen has left a strong willed woman roam freely, despite my urgings. A distressing pattern. I hope, if Raszagal comes once more, she will not repeat it a third."

"You think I'm a mistake, huh?" you asked, starting to stand slowly.

"Yes," Izsha said, matter-of-factly. "Success in a single mission does not counter-balance all other factors I have in my memories, disposing me against your future integration with the Swarm. Terrans, even based on limited exposure, are exceedingly prone to resisting inevitability. Where many other species have given into the Swarm, surrendered and offered up their biomass to our multitudes, you have fought back time and time again." Her eyes flicked, as if she was blinking, and you had the strange sense she was reviewing memories. "Starships, first. After the ships are gone, you use guns and tanks. Then sticks and stones. Even bare hands. It's...irrational. You have no chance, and still, you fight."

Her head cocked and she peered at you even closer. You felt scrutinized to your core.

"Even after you have lost everything," she said.

You frowned. "Humans give up. We do all the time. You have a Queen, after all."

Izsha flicked her eyes again. "Do you believe that?"

You opened your mouth.

Closed it.

Then you stood up, stretched, and asked the memory of the Swarm: "Is there somewhere I can work off my frustration like a gym?"

"No," she said.


"Of course not." You sighed.

Thunk thunk thunk. Thunk. Thunk thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

You drew your knuckles back from the diamond hard composite of the ACU's shin, and panted as hot rivulets of blood dripped down your fingers and slipped along your wrists. As you regarded the dents you had made and felt the grisle-crunch of your knuckles regenerating, you panted and then leaned your forehead against the ACU's side. "I hate waiting when I don't have any econ to build up."

"it is a shit place to be, da," Dostya said, from where she hung from the wall. You had requested her, and she had been moved, through the internal systems of the Leviathan...and you were honestly happier not knowing how.

You regarded her. "...do you want to die?"

"Fuck no," Dostya said, chuckling.

"I mean, it seems like every second is an agony, right?" you asked, leaning your head against the shin. That one good eye of the infested Cybran narrowed.

"I have a fully operational cybernetic mesh in my mind," Dostya said, slowly, carefully, mold dribbling from a crack in her infested cheek. "Portions of my brain have been infested and changed so, no, I cannot adjust my taste senses. But I can reroute and shut them down, which is well enough. Pain is under my control. So is pleasure and my memory banks. Though, I am getting...fucking sick of seasons one, two and three of Karedo 2."

You felt like someone had flicked you between the eyes.

"You watch K2?" you asked, slowly.

"Of course I watch K2, UEF makes some of the best bullshit holos in the galaxy. What, you think I want to watch Dialectics-II, a five hour monologue about market forces?" Dostya snorted. "To relax? No! I want to watch quantum exploration crew traveling to far frontier and visiting strange new planets."

"Is it the remake or the original?" you asked, stepping away from the ACU.

"Do I look like a philistine to you?" Dostya asked.

A sudden trilling sensation buzzed into your brain. It translated, in a flash, to awareness that your ACU's sensors had just picked up incoming threats. You opened your mouth - but Sarah's voice spoke in your mind. We're almost to the asteroid belt. Ready?

Yeah, you said.

Good. Fuck them up, Hilt.

You forced your lips not to skin back into a grin. As you...came apart...Dostya groaned.

"Ugh! Such a disgusting way to ride my ACU, Earther thief! You bring it back! I expect to-" Her voice became tinny and distance as your awareness shifted. "-have it back in one piece, you hear!"

You felt a wave of information rushing into your mind. The centerpiece of Daggoth's interception swarm was a large asteroid chunk that looked like it had once, ages ago, been an orbital platform. It was now writhing with hydralisks, mutalisks, scourges, guardians. A thronging swarm, ready to just splatter as much hate up into the onrushing Leviathan as they could. As you took it in, you felt the biological drop-pod forming around your ACU, preparing to launch. You tensed...and then felt the raw pressure of movement, the rushing sensation...and then the explosion of gore into vacuum as you came up on a chunk of rock and accreted metal that was on the outer edge of Daggoth's asteroid base.

Even with Zerg reproduction rates, it would be untenable.

But you weren't just Zerg.

Now were you?

The nearest enemies were, ironically, the local ground forces. Slithering Hydralisks started to rush towards your position as your ACU's nanolathe started to warm up...

---
HEAT: 0/6

[ ] Operation: Professional Approach - spawn zerglings and then armor them with your nanolathe so they can weather incoming fire and rip the hydralisks to pieces. Put them in advanced positions for the next round of fighting.
[ ] Operation: Be the Swarm - use your advanced sensors to guide zerglings into precise and deadly attacks against hydralisks before they can get higher ground. Allow this aggressiveness awaken your connection to the Swarm in your blood.
[ ] Operation: My Asteroid, Now - let the Zerglings drown the hydralisks in bodies while you start building resourcing structures and factories to augment future attacks.
[ ] Write In