---------------Overmind POV-------------------

The Ares shipyard was the biggest naval shipyard in the directorate and nearby the paradise world of Eden, where 4 billion humans lived on this world.

There was a naval element that was currently doing refitting at the start of this war, although they had almost completed their refit, I had chosen to wait a little more to see how they would adapt to my tactic.

From the report I received from my Broodmother, some of them had met with significant resistance from the recalled border fleet.

On a side note, many of the border colony were in open rebellion, the simple fact of them not receiving any help when harassed by zergling while they also get oppressed and distant government. That had pushed many independent elements to rebel against the UED, cutting more and more much-needed supply since there is too many overpopulated core world.

The colony which had rebelled were more often ignored by my force, save the occasional zergling attack just to remind them that we were there.

My infiltrators on earth had grown a full-blown cult, the cult of eternal unity, it had a great advantage back on earth since the food crisis only got worse with the war. Many of the civilians were left to starve, the cult would come into poor neighbors and give « mushrooms and meat » meal.

Yeah, I am not letting you take three guesses for what is this meal truly is, it zergs meat with creep, the heavily downgraded version into consumables foods, although the HEV was there, it was the type that would stay hidden.

With that, modifications were made inside of their host making them healthier and curing many of the sicknesses, but only to replace it all with something far worse.

Now back to the current situation, the UED had started to add as many high fire rate gun they could fit on their ship and defensive station as possible.

From long range recon, done by overseer at the edge of the system, I notice some space station on the shipyard had begun to make bunker and fortification on top of their hull with marines in power armor in it. I found this cute like they could possibly win a space battle with a rifle, at best mutalisk coming close would be at risk from their bullet and that it.

Since both the shipyard and the paradise world were in the same system so the plan was to appear at the edge of the system, leaving them some time to make last minute preparation so I would adapt my strategies to match my enemy, if they focus their defense on one of the targets like the shipyard I would just attack the planet.

I don't even really plan to make a big invasion of this world, just controlling the space above it would allow me to win easily. It was a large population world and possessed little to no shelter for a biological attack.

And more importantly this was the meeting point for the zerg fleet coming from the koprulu sector, the predicted path they would come from would be on the opposite side of the system. Any directorate fleet in the system would be caught in a pincer movement if they chose to stay and defend any position.

I had to time my arrival to be just earlier that the other fleet. But it still takes two weeks for the zerg fleets to catch up. They were in communication with me but had yet to fully integrate into my swarm so we had a minute difference like my microbe and the protection from Amon influence. They were still at risk and needed to be protected as soon as possible.

During the time I had to keep working on some project, one of them was the Ouroboros. Like its mythical counterpart it had a special way of attacking, it would gorge itself with scourge and rodling and then bite its tail. After reaching this position it would start to spin at insane speed and then using the rotational force to expulse the content of its stomach with the strength of a high power railgun, it was my intended anti-ship solution with some nasty space to ground bombardment ability.

By using the advance knowledge granted by the system, a tiny bit from her perspective, to congratulate me obtaining my first perk. That the ouroboros was able to be able to move at those paces.

After being launched by the ouroboros the scourge and rodling, who were still pretty alive, would make adjust their trajectory making sure they would hit.

As for appearances it was similar to worms with two orifices, each at the end of the body, it was lightly armored since its main focus was speed but it still has many tentacles around its body and had eyes on the side of it.

The next project that I work on, though I am not sure if they were outrageous enough since they are already the evilest bastard in existence, the moderator. They quite literally beg me as an entire race to give them a voice. Since I could not take that pitiful look I gave them what they wanted, so now they are wearing the mythical legion look, a flying amalgamation of faces and all of them able to speak or sing. They loved this particular ability to sing, from the choir of the angel to death metal. That and the ability to interact with radio wave had been expanded so a single one was able to jam an entire small country, And they are never alone since they like traveling in groups, to troll each other.

As more human get infested the moderator get more and more point of reference for the activity but one thing they still love above all, trolling. They had managed to have a symbiotic relationship with the many space cloud breed dispersed in the region, they would draw in a ship by sending a distress call and the cloud would hide them. When they got a victim, the moderator would unleash all of their talents at their target, driving them insane or mad, making them waste resource they could use to be able to flee.

In the lab of the last world, they had many research, one of them was the mind interface program, basically, use your mind to control tech. I had taken a particular interest in this research and made improvement from the biological side, but the progress had stopped because of the limitation of the organic brain not being able to process as fast a computer, so while technically a success, it was a failure in the practical sense. A suggestion from the scientific in charge told me that computer program could be made to help progress this research, but all said and done, there was the ghost in the shell universe who had perfected this tech so a quick visit would allow me to collect it.

I had the human from the last world turned into fully integrated infested units to the demand of Sasha. They were quite resistant at first but seeing one of the guards get eaten by his own five-year-old child, had made them less so.

Now they were infested, my influence on them grew and soon become supporters of mine and Sasha. They had reconverted the city into new lab and factory, though some of them had approached me wanting to make a red light district, I gave them my blessing to do so and given them interesting (toy). Strangely most of the clientele were women's, Sasha also did try to go incognito but purple glowing horns are hard to hide.

The new production line made available, the heavier version of power armor. The firebat and marauders would be in production once the residing was done.

As for the remaining guard, they were put through hellish spartan training by Sasha. The training went up a notch when one of them made a comment on her visit to the red light district. Now it was the zerg version of it where you will die and get resurrected over and over, don’t ask me, blame the old broodmothers who have given the ideal. For my part, resurrecting infested people was doable, especially if I had a head up, surprise death may cause me to make mistakes in the rebirth process so it was strongly advised to ask permission before engaging in any life-threatening activity, but as a failsafe the archives had their memory copied.

To be fair life-threatening activity for infested even low level one, are along vital organ removals like the heart or the brain. But there was some extreme case I had to stop, a loving couple who was taking a little too far( there a guard who was into the dolcett cookbook and a researcher who was beyond maso) it was their personal preference but I could not deal with the mess they made.

Zerg regeneration for the win.

As for preparation for the upcoming conflict I had space clouds deployed beforehand, even if they have their quirk as area denial weapon in space, they are quite useful.

The world of Eden had a quite large population but ever since the start of the colony, they made considerable effort to persevere the natural beauty of the world which had earned this namesake. The city was built towards the sky and not over wide section of land, the city was surrounded by magnificent forests and lake, to make sure no pollution taint this world, there was almost no industry in the world proper and all of their food were grown on mega vertical farms in the middle of the ocean. It had many high-end resorts on the equator with the beautiful beach of white sand.

The system had ongoing terraforming process on other world but nothing of note as this one.

The Shipyard was located above a mineral rich world, even after years of exploitation on the world it contained is still one of the largest deposits of resources in the directorate.

Two weeks later

The time had come, the zerg fleets had by estimate entered the nearby system and will be able to do the next jump soon.

I ordered my fleets and broods to launch the invasion on the system. The special egg sac that contains the sentient space cloud exploded on command allowing them to spread themselves over the vast distance of unoccupied space. I had sent them a week ahead by the old and sure method of throwing them and letting them drift into position and with their own psionic power to stop themselves when they reach position.

With this method the radar of the directorate would believe that they were space object, with no conventional life sign to detect I believe even dominion would get caught unprepared, the protoss not so much since they would easily detect the psi energy coming out of them.

The directorate fleets had received a lot of reinforcement during the small-time I waited. Many of the border fleets that had given trouble to my broods were there, it seems they wanted a showdown, I guess, they wanted to either protect the yard or to eliminate the highest concentration of alien in their space.

The first wave of zerg into the system was the Ouroboros with the swarm of scourge and rodling.

The directorate fleets had chosen a close and thigh formation to better defend themselves from the multitude of the flyer the swarm use. They use many converted civilian ships into gunboat filled with anti-air and missile pod on top of their hull.

The directorate opens fire first using their long-range missile and powerful main gun, while not particularly accurate at this distance, the projectile will keep travel the distance in space. The missile was easily intercepted by scourge and projectile were dodged. For the ouroboros, their intended target was able to twist their body to dodge the shot, after this delightful greeting the ouroboros swallow a dozen of scourge each and start their attacking preparation.

The zerg riposte was a mixed result at this distance, while the scourge expelled from the ship-sized zerg were able to travel to the intended distance, their aim was mostly lacking, only a few of the thousand managed to hit the enemy ship. We were only managed to hit something since it was because the enemy could not move due to their formation.

It would seem that both fleets have to get closer to each other before being able to fight properly. From the first exchange, I could guess they were worried about our flyer and taken a step to cover themselves but they did too much. Once the Ouroboros enter optimal firing range their formation will cause more harm than protect them.

It seems the commanding admiral have noticed this too because some of the cruisers on the side had begun to drift outward giving them more space to maneuver.

As the first wave had begun to move forward, the second wave of the zergs brood had arrived, behemoth and leviathan releasing a score of flyer. Scourge in number far greater than the first wave began to move to join their brethren.

The UED began to fire wildly in the general direction of the massive swarm. Ammunition flying in space are far less affected by gravity or atmospheric condition making possible for bullet to travel incredible distance until hitting something. Targeting computer would calculate the diverse gravity well of the system and give firing solution to each ship, while unable to give proper accuracy at those distance, like the musket volley of old, have plenty of gun shooting I am the general direction you are bound to hit something eventually.

A quote from Mass effect 2 come to mind when seeing this.

*Gunnery Chief: Damn straight! I dare to assume you ignorant jackasses know that space is empty. Once you fire this husk of metal, it keeps going till it hits something. That can be a ship, or the planet behind that ship. It might go off into deep space and hit somebody else in ten thousand years. If you pull the trigger on this, you're ruining someone's day, somewhere and sometime. That is why you check your damn targets! That is why you wait for the computer to give you a damn firing solution! That is why, Serviceman Chung, we do not "eyeball it!" This is a weapon of mass destruction. You are not a cowboy shooting from the hip!*

So while in space a marine could shoot in the general direction of an enemy fleet and maybe hit something, it doesn't mean that it whatever you hit will take damage, bullet mean for a human target don't do shit against armored ship hull.

This keeps on going for a time till the first fleet had reached a certain distance with them after that moment nukes were launched. Scourge intercepted them but the nuke exploded just before contact was made, with each succeeding detonation killing score of the flying zerg. As detonation increased in number a path was formed allowing for the following nuke to come ever closer to the Ouroboros.

The Admiralty wanted them dead, so I decided to make their life more miserable and ordered the Ouroboros to scatter in the back of the scourge cloud taking with them the rodling. I kinda wanted to see if they would make the mistake of sending fighter into a massive cloud of scourge.

Then they did not choose to send their fighter to die inside of a massive cloud of suicide bomber and stopped firing their nuke. If I would be to guess, they thought they would need them later. But they keep firing into the scourge trying to tin the cloud.

As it happens I ordered the ouroboros to launch a new attack on my enemy, this time with the rodling as a projectile. Their targets are large stationary defense platform at the back of the fleet and also the site where most of the nukes have been launched from. I did not believe it would hit their target but more of a way to enticed the directorate to believe I was afraid of the nuke forcing them to defend them better.

This was not my objective so while they reinforce the platform I plan to quietly take out some of their more competent leadership with a precision strike, I had reviewed much memory of the many soldiers and officer, looking for strong and talented people that their army could rally themselves to if their command structure would fall.

This plan is quite tricky to put in practice but worth a shoot, I believed, I would target the officer that could routing army to rally themselves, so to slowly only leaving incompetent and unfit officer in charge.

And no ship in the directorate had heavily reinforced bridge, getting hit by rodling launched by an ouroboros would be a death sentence to anyone on the bridge. In the core design of almost all their ships, they had a window on the bridge and any transparent material are structurally weaker than any other material.

I got around that problem by taking a liberal use of advanced psionic, while in reality, you stare at a plain wall (mostly a living one) your mind would receive visual information on what is on the other side of the wall.

As the selected strike was done and many ships on the opposing side become a wreck the scourge cloud entered close proximity with the fleet. Just as one may expect from living missile entering the close distance, many ships began to shot wildly to defend themselves. Ship at the edge of the formation began to be destroyed one by one, by the scourge, while those at the center of formation had become target practice for the Ouroboros, who now unable to maneuver and those in the middle of the formation had little disposition to isolate themselves with the flyer around them. The fighter launched from the ships they were attached to begin engaging the scourge or trying to make way for the Ouroboros.

Each time the ouroboros attacked they still moved forward, toward the fleet and had become the target of many, fighter managed to kill a few of them during those moments. That continued until they reach the fleet, now the “worm” like zerg had many scourges attached to them using the tentacle to hold themselves to them. The ouroboros began to spin as they crash into enemy ships, detonating powerful blast tearing many adjacent ships into bits.

The totality of the first wave was suicide bomber and disposable, the ouroboros did have the double function in this regard, at first I did not intend them to be so, but I learned when an accident happens, that high concentration of scourge detonating at the same time is terrifying.

Any of the rodling that were still alive were ordered to return to the maw since without ouroboros launching them, they were useless in a space battle. Even as many of their ships had been destroyed by the suicide wave, the defending fleet still held a considerable number. And most of their defense platforms were, despite the effort of the scourge, still operational.

I was starting to wonder what was taking so much time for the koprulu sector fleets to jump in the system, they had become strangely silent ever since they had reached the neighboring system.

But I am currently engaged in battle and made my plans that would succeed even if I have

don't have any reinforcement. Still concerning from my conversation with the broodmother, they wanted to prove themselves to me many times to prove their usefulness to me, this why I made plans for them to meet in this system so they could engage the directorate and reassure themselves that I knew their worth.

Such cutes children even if their were not one of mine yet.

While I was pondering this the battle was raging out there and the broodmother who accompanied me took over when they sensed my thoughts drift away. Seeing them do my work I took a moment to look into Eden defense. Disappointing was the word to use, it seems that the directorate had pulled as many resources out as possible so only leaving what used to be the local defense force. I went and send Sasha to take care of it with some behemoth filled with normal zerg troop and infested, I might not need the special behemoth that was converted into an orbital bombardment ship, which filled to the brim with a liquid and also mixed with the zergs virus, use that from orbit and you can infest a continent in a week.

The redesign of the firebat and marauder and unexpectedly medic had been made and some infested have made the conversion into it. Using many types of research of the last world, the infested scientist have made terrifying modification during the two weeks.

The remodel of the firebat were the rustbat. Like their name say instead of fire they use a hyper bacteria , the stuff eats the metal, plastic, flesh and even rock. While they are called rust in their name, the bacteria do not pull out oxygen atom out of matter, but something far nastier since the bacteria will eat anything and multiply at an exponential rate. It had its quirk too for example if used on metal it would rust at an alarming rate and eat its way through it. Rustbat had to carry a counteractive solution on them to limit the unintentional damage.

As for the Marauder, it was the corroder, instead of regular grenade they would fire highly pressurized and small (cocoon) that would explode on impact spreading its content on his enemy. The acid was the same as the one in the baneling and the munition looks like a mini version of them too. When not in combat, the corroder would play with them to pass the time.

As for the new version of the medic was almost the same and it did feel like I needed to change their name, the only modification done to them was added by me after the ideal was presented to me, I gave them wing strong enough to lift them in the air allowing them mobility that were reserved only for the reaper troop of the dominion.

Speaking of reaper, I do plan to make some of them but I would need the original to see what need improvement.

For the melee variant of the infested marine was renamed as berzerker after the test run with the clone. I still lacked proper knowledge to make them truly formidable, conventional weapons would break easily and were limited to sturdy clubs as a weapon. I had engineers who did had the hobby to make replica try to make something for them to use.

As for the vehicle bay of the infested irregular, I would need more time to repair, the engineer and technician told me that there was structural damage to the production line and need to be repaired in order to produce anything.

While speaking of vehicles, Sasha managed to get herself a personal transport ship. An old dropship use by the researcher to go in orbit.

Their invasion of Eden was without any complication, zerg land-based breed were dropped in regions considered wild and proceed to encircle settlement, mutalisk that came down with them would ensure no one is able to flee. Sasha would go to each settlement to gather "volunteer" to become new infested zerg, I will leave the persuasion to her. I was kind of happy having new children to care for so no loss on my side.

The ground operation would go with no complication and any city that put a fight would be subject to orbital bombardment. And drone would make zerg structure if needed.

Returning to the battle surrounding the shipyard, not much had happened though I did recently learn to speed my perception of time up, not greatly, it only three to four time the speed human do. The Leviathan with their escort entered firing range for their bio-plasma and began firing into the defense fleets.

Mutalisk and fighter had begun to chase each other, fighter of the directorate were faster allowing to do hit-and-run on their target but the mutalisk had the hivemind allowing them to know their enemy position at all time making easy to ambush fighter coming in their direction. The directorate capital ship used their many anti-air guns to protect themselves and their comrade on other ship.

6 hour later

The battle had been brutal, the directorate not wanting to give an inch of space to the invader but was forced in the end after suffering massive casualty to reposition themselves further away of the station, now being invaded by thousand of zerg breed, it seems those bunker would be useful in the end.

The worse thing they could do at this point would be to detonate all remaining nuke and kill the grounds unit, I had changeling drop to in order to locate the nuke, securing them would give a tactical option in this battle and the later war.

The directorate doesn't seem to know my use of infested yet since each time I had sent out Sasha, the area she operated in was pretty much covered by the moderator in the place, they would probably believe the zerg was a race of alien who only used biological units and did not use tech.

As the battle progress the zerg fleets from the koprulu sector had arrived in the system by warping in above the world of Eden. As I went and send them greeting in form of telepathic communication, something I did not expect replied to me.

A hybrid

The creature had projected his form to me, standing above a pile of Broodmothers corpse draining the life of nearby zerg to feed itself.

With a voice filled with arrogance and pride, the hybrid declared himself to me.

(Aojoss) I am Aojoss, servant of Amon. By order of His servant, Narud, the Overmind is to become my pet, surrender now and I may be merciful!

Hearing the hybrid declaration, seeing what he had done to the broodmother, while they are not one of my children, they were still zerg and I loved them. As I felt the mind of the zerg in those brood there was nothing but blind servitude to Amon and his servant.

It caused an emotion I was not familiar with, ... something I had forgotten about my day as human.

Rage, Anger, Wrath, Hatred.

It started to swell and become all-consuming, all of the zerg connected to me began to feel those emotions and in turn were driven into a frenzy attacking everything, anything.

Those engaged with the directorate were lucky to have a target to focus this aggressivity, but those insides of the maw had only each other. Those on the grounds that were used to hold the city charged madly at those city butchering anyone inside.

My own reasoning becoming consumed by my rage, I began to gather my energy, I did not know what to do as it builds up, that f*cker hybrid contacted me again.

(Aojoss) Surrender now and become my slaves or the rest of your pathetic race will become the source of my ascendance as a servant to Amon.

Hearing that, something broke in my Psyche.

Energy began to form and to increasingly becoming something else, it spread amongst my broods and the energy becoming dangerous as my container were not sufficient. On Eden creep spread everywhere at an exponential rate, hatcheries were laying more than usual, larva creating new breed and building as time progressed. In space, the space cloud multiplied their mass becoming one large cloud that would soon cover the system. It did not matter what, my number needs to grow in number to expand and to stabilize this power.

All of this extra mass that was created by burning of those new energies.

As my zerg grew in number that never been seen before, my attention was entirely focused on that being, and then massive psionic storm raged in the space he occupied, killing his leviathan and sending them crashing into the world below.

As the last of his space born asset were torn apart, my focus, power, and consciousness gather into one form.

My avatar of rage.