On the climb back up the hill to the farm house, George was silent. The Dominion officer fidgeted slightly while they walked, as if he found it very awkward to start a conversation with the ranch owner. Marisa Huynh was not an especially talkative woman — she spent 292 days a year (the orbital period of Korhal) holed up in the middle of nowhere — and she was perfectly content. Human social interaction wasn’t exactly her strong suit.

The Huynh family ranch was surrounded by miles and miles of uninhabited desert. 

The nearest gas station was 45 minutes away.

The terran officer looked around curiously as they walked up the dirt path. His eyes wandered over a dilapidated chicken coop, a fenced sheep pen, and a massive field of alfalfa, cotton, and soghurn. He counted sixty heads of cattle outside of a large shed stocked full with an excess of gravel, manure (fertilizer), and composted soil. Impressively, there were twelve cords of firewood stacked on one side of the barn, neatly arranged so that it was possible to season any freshly cut green wood in a monthly rotation.

It didn’t seem like the 22-year-old woman had a shortage of any supplies. In fact, there were large stockpiles of many essential resources, as if the girl was prepared to bunker down in case the zombie apocalypse occurred. The farm looked like it was thriving, which was truly remarkable for just one person to manage.

“Do you really live out here all by yourself?” He finally asked, unable to help himself.

“What? You don’t think a girl can handle it?” Marisa fired back at him.

George shook his head.

That’s not what he meant.

It probably sounded cringeworthy, but as a nine-year-old on the wealthy terran colony of Vardona, George's parents had signed him up for a rich bourgeois activity known as ‘Boy Scouts’. Although he wasn't an expert on farm life, he knew that chopping and splitting firewood was extremely exhausting. A single cord of wood didn’t look like that much, but it took an incredible time to process that fuel by hand, even if it was for a simple activity such as lighting a bonfire for just one night. 

While Terrans weren’t as technologically advanced as the Protoss, the Dominion colonies certainly weren’t primitive. Core Worlds like Tyrador IX, Vardona, and Nephor II had skyscrapers, and urban areas were powered by nuclear energy.

The Huynh family ranch, on the other hand, looked like it got its electricity through solar, which was practically ancient technology.

You couldn’t even power a single SCV with an acre of solar panels.

The CMC-300 Powered Combat Suits used by generic marines in the Dominion Armed Forces had built-in fusion reactors. George wasn’t wearing his armor at the moment, but he suspected that if he plugged his CMC suit into the ranch’s power grid, it would most likely short circuit the entire electrical system.

Of course, George wasn't pointing this out simply to flex.

Rather, if this 22-year-old woman was shoveling manure with a pitchfork, weeding on her hands and knees, and reaping crops with a medieval scythe, George was totally convinced that this lady must have been as hardcore as the ancient Spartans and Amazons. It was actually kind of mind-opening. Although he was hesitant to call his upbringing on Vardona ‘privileged’, he had no idea that life on the Wastes was this harsh and impoverished.

George even felt a little sorry for poverty-stricken women like this ranch owner. The economic injustice rampant in the Koprulu Sector was nothing to scoff at, and he felt especially motivated to pick up his gun and defend helpless civilians who had no one looking out for them. If his late father had taught him anything, chivalry was extinct — but there was no reason you couldn't train yourself to become a knight in spirit.

A quizzical look appeared on Marisa’s face.

She examined the blonde-haired hellion officer very closely. The officer clearly has his head in clouds, as if he was daydreaming in the middle of their conversation. He didn't strike her as the typical kind of soldier she often encountered in the past.

“Have you ever shot a zergling?” She asked him suddenly.

George froze.

The abrupt question caught him completely off guard, and he wasn’t expecting a civilian to make that kind of inquiry. Based on the nature of the question, he assumed that the woman was calling his credentials and combat experience into question.

Actually... it would hurt his pride as a man if she knew the truth.

“I’ve gone through all the necessary training,” he responded defensively. “Our combat drills are—”

“Answer the question, please.” Marisa interrupted him. 

George frowned. He had a sinking feeling that the girl was onto him.

“The simulations in the infantry barracks are highly realistic. They’re as good as—”

“Officer, I need to know. Please.”

George sighed deeply.

He exhaled.

“I haven’t.” He finally admitted, hanging his shoulders in shame.

The blonde-haired officer knew how embarrassing it was to lack a single zergling kill to his name. The Zerg Swarm numbered in the quadrillions, and he hadn’t even gotten a single one? To be fair, the Terran Dominion and the Zerg Swarm were at peace. There was an unofficial ceasefire between the major factions ever since the End War, and now that Overqueen Zagara succeeded the Queen of Blades, Emperor Valerian had been attempting to negotiate a formal signed treaty. There just hadn’t been many opportunities for a newly enlisted soldier to test his bullets on the zerg.

Still, George knew that it probably made him sound useless as a military officer.

Would you trust an airplane pilot who’s never touched the flight controls before?

“Ma’am, even if I’m inexperienced, I promise you — soldiers like us will protect you with our lives.” George struggled to reassure the female ranch owner of the competence of his squad. “Civilians first. Protect the women and children. I won’t let the Zerg touch you, and I’ll be a meatshield if necessary. Those monsters'll never reach you — over my dead body.”

Marisa didn’t say anything in response.

Marisa unlocked the front door to the farm house with her keys.

“How old are you?” She asked.

“Twenty-six, ma’am.”

The hellion officer stood ramrod straight, as if his commanding officer was quizzing him on military protocol. His face was cleanly shaved and his light-colored hair was trimmed neatly with a regulation-standard military buzz cut. Even if he hadn't seen much live combat, George certainly played the part of a well-drilled soldier. He actually looked like he could be on the front page of a recruitment poster for the Dominion Armed Forces.

He’s older than me… Marisa realized.

The 22-year-old parasitized farm girl maintained a perfect poker face.

If Marisa had any thoughts, she didn’t reveal them. 

«You want to keep that one, locked in basement, as personal breeding mate?» 

Nafiori asked innocently like an angel, unfortunately reading way too deep into Marisa’s subconscious psyche. The Zerg broodmother always seemed to have a remark at the worst possible moment, and she tended to misunderstand her more often than not.

A crack of despair appeared in Marisa’s impenetrable stone wall.

Oh my god. Nafiori, no. Absolutely no!

That appalling suggestion couldn't be further from what Marisa actually wanted. If it was possible to punch Nafiori at that exact moment, Marisa would have gone and done it without a single ounce of regret. Of all things, Marisa did not need a primal zerg mother hovering inside her brain, acting as an unlicensed psychotherapist, fishing for subconscious Freudian electra complexes when they didn’t exist.

«Female organism. Socially isolated. Natural to want mate. Biological instinct normal.»

Marisa was almost shaking with anger, and it took all of her self-control to suppress the powerful urge to explode at Nafiori. Normally, she always thought of herself as a person with strong willpower, but that blasted zerg mother had gone way out of line this time.

She took a deep breath and faced the nice-looking hellion officer with a tight smile.

“The bathroom is over there,” Marisa told him, pointing down the hallway.

“Thanks,” he replied.

George began to shuffle his way to the toilet, but then he paused midway, as if he suddenly remembered something.

He turned around and faced Marisa.

“Are you alright?” George asked with a look of genuine concern on his face.

The hellion officer seemed to notice that his guide was looking a bit uncomfortable.

“I’m just starting to cramp a little,” Marisa lied, while small beads of sweat formed on the back of her neck. She reached out and pretended to grab the surface of the countertop for support. "It's no big deal."

“Ah.”

A flash of understanding passed through George's eyes.

Most men seemed to shut up like a clam at the first mention of menstruation, and Marisa was relieved to see that George acted along a similar vein. You might even think that male and female terrans came from entirely different species with the way that men are so easily confused by female biology.

“Well, let me know if I can do anything,” George told her sympathetically. “Like if you need a hot water bottle or something.”

Marisa nodded, and the hellion officer went off to find the bathroom.

When he was out of sight, that exasperating primal zerg mother butted her nosy head in again.

«Terrans too hard to understand.» She said, «Why make courtship difficult? Just breed when urge present. More offspring, better for evolution.»

“Shut up, Nafiori,” Marisa hissed underneath her breath.

She had absolutely no patience to deal with Nafiori’s snarky antics today.

«Confused why Marisa angry about self-biology.»

The 22-year-old was in a foul mood, no thanks due to a certain primal zerg queen. Marisa’s actions were a bit reckless as she yanked a kitchen cabinet open in order to grab a few empty cups for water. The wooden cabinet door banged against the wall, and silverware clattered noisily in the cupboard. Even if you couldn't see anything, the sounds conveyed a sense of impatience and agitation.

Marisa was annoyed at Nafiori, but Marisa had promised the Dominion hellion officers that she would grab a few glasses of water. Regardless of her emotional state, Marisa wasn’t the type of person to forget about her commitments.

She turned on the tap of the kitchen sink and started to fill the plastic cups. Meanwhile, she rummaged around other drawers for a tray that she could use to carry the drinks.

“—Mommy?”

The inquisitive voice of an innocent young child floated into the kitchen.

Marisa froze momentarily, and then her eyes shot urgently around the room like a hawk. 

“Lilian!” She whispered nervously, “Why—”

She found the little girl floating behind the ceiling fan.

“Lilian! Don’t—” Marisa caught herself mid-sentence when she remembered that a Dominion officer was in the bathroom.

The female terran silently snatched the floating child out of the air like an expert baby-wrangler.

Marisa lowered the volume of her voice to a hushed whisper, gritting through her clenched teeth.

—“No flying in the house! Especially not now!”

The little girl was as light as a balloon, in part due to the fact that Nafiori had used a hefty amount of Overlord essence when she laid the egg that ultimately hatched into the creature Marisa named Lilian. Half of Lilian’s genetic material was also terran — or more precisely, half her DNA was identical to Marisa’s genome — so from a genetic perspective, Lilian was Marisa’s daughter.

The exasperated rancher plopped her three-year-old daughter on the ground, and she double-checked to make sure that the girl’s feet remained firmly planted on the floor.

To be safe, Marisa also quickly did a head-to-shoulders scan to make sure that Lilian didn’t have any carapace showing. Thankfully, the young hybrid had most of her zerg-like features hidden. Whether by a stroke of genius or pure coincidence, Nafiori’s emphasis on Overlord/Overseer essence meant that Lilian could shapeshift as easily as a changeling.

Lilian could also see things that ordinary people couldn’t (ghosts), levitate (albeit very slowly), vomit purple slime, and fit large things inside of her stomach as a form of storage.

She was quite attached to Marisa, and like many children, Lilian was currently going through a phase where she was constantly trying to copy everything that Marisa did. Fortuitously, this meant that Lilian usually didn’t need much encouragement to take a terran form. On most days, Lilian wanted to look like a miniature version of Marisa.

“Why aren’t you with Naffy Mommy?” Marisa whispered in a hushed voice to her daughter.

Lilian pouted and stuck out her tongue: 

“Naffy Mommy mean! Lilian dislike!”

Marisa heard the primal zerg broodmother bristling with displeasure inside her head.

«Child upset. Wanted spawn ultralisk. I said no.» Nafiori defended herself vindictively.

Marisa felt a headache coming. She clutched her forehead.

“Lilian, sweetie. We can’t afford to have an ultralisk.” Marisa whispered to her daughter.

“But Lilian wants to ride an ultralisk!”

“Another time, okay? Maybe when you grow up.”

“Ultralisk? Grow up? Have Ultralisk?”

“If you behave, Lilian. Only if you behave.”

“Ultralisk! Ultralisk! Yaayy!”

The three-year-old threw up her arms and ran a circle around the counter in the middle of the kitchen. Apparently, she completely forgot her instructions from earlier in the day when Marisa told her to ‘stay quiet and play hide and seek with Nafiori’, because Lilian was soon shouting ‘ultralisk’ all over the house.

Marisa buried her face in her palms.

…What had she done?

Parenting a young child was a total nightmare.

Marisa heard the toilet flush in the hallway, and the bathroom door opened.