As much as Arkhan hated to say it, Asharia was right. He had told his nation to disregard the invaders as a threat, and by golly they treated his word like gospel. He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry at the slavish devotion his people had for him, but he was leaning towards the ‘crying’ side. Despite his feelings, he was (begrudgingly) happy that the conflict was at an end. The only downside was that he never got to field his newest toys in combat.

He had waited a very, very long time (at least in his own mind) for the opportunity to field this third tier of MSGs and MAGs, not to mention the ships and equipment that came with the upgrade, but it seemed that his hopes of watching multiple copies of the RX-0 series wreck shop would never come to fruition. As much as he hated war, he, like many others, partially wanted it and even liked it in a rather twisted way. That was the paradoxical nature of the standard military leader; the desire to keep the peace meeting with the drive to keep the military relevant through armed conflicts.

What Arkhan didn’t know was that he would soon find yet one more reason to hate the Free Galaxy Resistance and a casus belli big enough to finally seek their total destruction and begin what would later become known as ‘The Great Golden Age’.

…

The FGR had been pushed out of its own space by the invading monsters that it had accidentally let into its territory. The remnants of The Resistance now traveled through domains where they were far from welcome, all while carrying a grudge of unspeakable ferocity. They did not believe that they were responsible for the hell that they had inadvertently created, for it certainly was not their fault that they opened a wormhole that they could not close and unleashed a swarm of unspeakable terrors. But, aside from the incessant and habitual denial of having committed any wrongdoing, what else was new?

However, in their flight from their domain, they had taken a very interesting prisoner at great cost to themselves. This prisoner was being subjected to all manner of horrible, brutal and entirely unethical experiments, all to serve a singular purpose. They wanted to use this creature as a weapon, and if they played their cards right, they would be able to tap into its innate power and use it for themselves. Whether this would actually be a good idea or not was completely irrelevant to them, because at this point all they could see was red, red and more red.

The process of gathering more subjects was difficult at first, but after a few rather dangerous trips back to the now infested territory that used to be theirs they had gotten the actions down to pat. Now they simply needed to prepare the devices that they planned to integrate into the mutilated invaders, and just like that they would have a new and terrible weapon to use against the Commonwealth and its obviously puppet-run governments that once made up the bulk of the United Galactic Nations.

They just needed a target now, and preferably one not in Arcadia’s space. They had at least learned that trying to attack Arcadia itself was a very, very bad idea that bordered on and possibly went over into suicidal territory. So, at least they were learning, right?

…

“How exactly am I supposed to communicate with them?” Arkhan asked his wife as they walked into the hangar of Arkhan’s flagship.

“By now they should be able to speak Common. I believe they have assimilated and devoured enough sapient beings to learn that much at least. Still, you should stay in your powered armor. They may have changed, but they are still incredibly dangerous. We wouldn’t want a single scratch to turn into a proper infestation, now would we?”

Asharia’s words did ease a bit of tension, but not all of it was gone. It had been several months since the discovery that the invaders had fled through the stabilized artificial wormhole, and by now the invaders had made themselves at home in the former territory of the last holdouts of the UGN. Now Arcadia was sending the most powerful fleet it could muster into the invaders’ space without sending so much that it would potentially be putting its own territory at risk of a pirate attack.

Now, here in this trinary star system, the fleet of Arkhan and Asharia met the fleet made of meat, bone, chitin and sinew. The standoff had ended after a quite unusual transmission from the largest of the bioships was caught on a wide-band hail. Somehow, the formerly either deathly mute or mindlessly screaming space monsters had managed to learn how to make a transmission that not only could be picked up, but actually understood. Although, the transmission was in hexadecimal rather than Common, so it still took a bit of deciphering to understand.

Now the flagship of Arkhan’s personal fleet was getting ready to receive what looked to be one of the boarding ships of the invaders, yet it was heavily modified to be far less destructive, which was interesting due to the fact that the ship was entirely organic in nature and design. All guns were trained on the bioships, even as the ‘diplomats’ of the Swarm entered the massive hangars of the Adeptus Deorum, and after the living shuttle docked with one of the boarding arms, the crew on board the flagship watched for any actions that would be reason to blow the shuttle and its occupants to teeny tiny bits. For you see, despite their god telling them to no longer see the invaders as enemies, they still had a distrust for them. After losing so much, wouldn’t you?

The docked bioship opened up and a single humanoid figure emerged from within. Immediately Asharia brought out her wings, tail and horns as her limbs became far more reptilian, tipped with talons capable of tearing through the strongest materials like a hot knife through butter. Arkhan, upon seeing Asharia switch over to a more combat-oriented appearance, tried to step forward, but his wife held him back.

“I was right to tell you to keep your powered armor on…” She growled as the humanoid creature that looked to be a combination of Infested Sarah Kerrigan, a Xenomorph with four arms and an anthropomorphized female Tyranid stepped into view. The hangar doors had closed by this point and Asharia was looking at the being before her with obvious distain.

“And why is that?” Arkhan asked, still unsure why Asharia had taken such an aggressive stance.

“Because,” Asharia hissed, “that bitch is giving off more pheromones than any person could rightfully endure, and they are all geared towards you in particular.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” Arkhan questioned.

“Yes.” Asharia stated coldly and with a not-so-subtle glimmer of growing rage. “You never, ever, try and take what is mine by right, and this bitch is trying to do exactly that.”

Asharia looked down towards her shorter spouse.

“And you, and all that you own, are mine. I won’t let this homewrecker make a mess of things.”