My first encounter with the Kharaa plaguing the frontiersmen was at a remote resource harvesting station orbiting a gas giant. The insectile creatures didn't know they were in danger until star shaped creatures started falling on them, releasing various forms of death upon them. These were my newest creations – my first brood of sentients.

The workhorse of my sentient brood was protolyst – not a particularly special sentient, but it did possess specialized canon arms that could also be used in melee. Backing them up were stranger breeds of tau – gigantic geolysts reshaped the ground while acting as tanks for the protolysts, and increasing the armor of all those around them. Pyrolysts, meanwhile, restored energy to other sentients, recharged existing shields and creating overshields as needed, while roasting the enemy in cleansing flame. Stratolysts generated electric arcs to fry enemies whilst also providing those who needed it with additional energy – which made the tenno involved in this operation very happy. Finally, Aqualysts provided everyone with healing while using ice rays to leave enemies more vulnerable to attack from others. The more advanced aqualysts, which I'd designated the cryolyst and vapolyst, specialized in one of those two fields over the other, but were still capable of doing both.

And that wasn't even getting into space-based sentients I'd created. Leading the charge in the void between worlds was the Cyryx, a general purpose fighter that could be launched from other, larger sentient craft. Backing it up was the Ascelpyx, a repair drone that could mend flesh and metal with ease. The larger Chorix acted as a bomber equivalent, meant to cripple larger targets while retaining maneuverability. Larger still, the Synthrix acted as an equivalent to grineer and corpus crewships, carrying small groups of sentients into battle and providing patrols when not on the offensive. Finally, the Granix, Theryx, and Imperyx were the capital ships of my sentient flotillas, acting as command and control hubs. The Granix was more heavily designed around an aircraft carrier and the Theryx around battleships, while the Imperyx was able to do both roles simultaneously and also function as a space station and drydock to assist in producing more sentient craft – including more of itself.

Another kharaa infestation faced a different portion of my forces – the results of my experimentation with the Technocyte Virus (with help from a surviving Orokin family on the moon of Deimos known as the Entrati). The first to enter the fray were my new infested strikers – humanoid creatures that were of the same strain as a group of sapient infested living on my hub, known as the Immunocytes. Strikers resembled humans, but also had small tails and resembled the zealot and zealoid type infested spawned in service of the one known as the Emissary of Eris. Back them up were infested spine shooters and leapers – the former shooting poisonous spines at the enemy while the latter acted something like attack dogs. Speaking of infested dogs, I needed to tell my kids to stop messing with their new infested pets – an infested kubrow variant known as the predasite (with the one they kept known as Khotep) and an infested variant on the kavat known as the vulpaphyla (this specific one being called Tanit). Even crimes against nature needed to be treated properly.

Back on topic – my other infested creations included infested fleshwing (large fliers that could carry around smaller infested as needed) and devastators, which could bulldoze through anything in their path. Orbital infested included the general purpose scourer, anti-ship protozen, mine-laying bubo, crewship-analogues known as hydrons, and finally massive infested capital ship style creatures known as carrions. It was amusing seeing the Kharaa trying to infest these creatures, only to find themselves subsumed by my forces.

All the while, I collected samples of the Kharaa to further my biological research. While this research would obviously need to be managed primarily by drones and proper containment protocols would need to be followed, the results would speak for themselves – having additional biological resources to integrate into my forces made me less dependent upon hackable systems that the enemies of the artifacts could exploit.

…Wait, what's this big weird signal I'm getting from a nearby planet?

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Main had sensed the arrival of the Commander and was already preparing to deal with him. Already, she had taken pains to hide her presence, covering her form with a mass of kharaa flesh, while emitting several signals she had created to bend the Kharaa to her will. Even without the signals, the Kharaa would have opposed the commander – they would see him as edible and a threat to their survival – her breakthroughs simply meant that she could direct them without resorting to brute force…wait, why were all those guns aimed at her form?!

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I had no idea what that giant mass of Kharaa was, but it did not look friendly. And with things like the Kharaa, shoot first, ask questions never was a valid if brutish strategy.

Thus, I pulled in everything I had within the star system the mass was located in, took aim, and opened fire. What followed was the mass of Kharaa getting hit with sufficient energy to totally destroy a small moon. Flesh was burned to ash in seconds, with whole portions of the creature sloughing away as the outer shell was torn asunder, revealing…..wait, was that one of Void's kin.

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Main had two reactions to the massed assault against her, which removed her disguise and left her true form for the Commander to see.

The first was a mixture of rage and terror at being discovered, alongside the fact that her communication equipment had been damaged beyond repair, leaving it impossible to contact her kin, meaning that figuring out the location of the Commander's sanctuary would not necessarily end him as a threat. She calmed both by resolving to find that location anyway and butcher production systems before laying waste to his chassis and squishy form.

As for the second line of thought:….AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

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I barely had time to examine the machine before it suddenly scanned one of my drones, at which point it promptly vanished….the promptly reappeared beside the Extinction.

Which it then boarded.

FFFUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKK!

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AN: Read and Review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!