An egg suddenly expanded as the beast within it awakened for the first time. It slowly opened its eyes and perceived the shell surrounding it. The Cerebrate watched and felt the stirring as its brain began to function, then reached for the monsters mind and spoke.

IT IS TIME. AWAKEN, MY SERVITOR, AND PARTAKE OF THE GLORY THAT IS THE SWARM. The thing rose to its feet, throwing up its massive head, and the membrane of the egg tore apart. The ultralisks eyes widened and it roared, a hell-scream of fury and hunger.

The Cerebrate was pleased.

                                                        •      •      •

I had finally gotten some sleep, but not nearly enough. Still, I stumbled into Ops as soon as the sun rose, a fanatical light burning in my eyes. My factories had been rebuilt since the devastation a week ago, and several new mechs bolstered my forces. Today I would begin my push.

A line of tanks and walkers marched north out of the base and moved towards the western plateau, where three zerg clusters was established. In a few minutes, I hoped, the course of this war would finally be under control.

Darrel watched tensely as the first of his tanks anchored and deployed their siege cannon. The comsat was just visible as a point of light high above his head, a Goliath squad was standing by . . . everything was ready. And no disasters had occurred. Maybe he could actually do this. "SV 1, do you copy?"

"We copy, captain. Commence?" "Commence." "Yes, sir!"

The brand-new science vessel flew just close enough to the first enemy base to get a visual reading, and began feeding targeting data back to Darrel’s tanks. Gouts of fire erupted from the creep as they began pounding the base defenses.

Darrel stood next to his panel, tense and nervous. Something was going to go wrong. He could feel it.

The Cerebrate allowed the first two clusters to fall without much resistance. They were of negligible importance while the others were held, and the humans must be given time to become complacent and overconfident. Besides, not all of the ultralisks were yet hatched. A few minutes more, and the Swarm would wipe their foes off the planet. It closed down contact with the doomed hatcheries and waited.

Darrel was sweating. The first two hatcheries had fallen with only token resistance from a few mutalisks, and his tanks were moving towards the ramp leading up to a large mesa and the third zerg base. Where was the opposition? This was a big base . . . surely the zerg would want to defend it.

Well, he thought gloomily, at least we have dropships available. Some of us will get out.

                                                                  •      •      •

Radcliffe smiled as he looked over his new troops. Thirty tough marines, and a cushy assignment, for once! He just had to guard a fledgling expansion, just behind Darrel’s boys. Piece of cake. He leaned back, flipped up his visor and started to pick his teeth with a thin piece of shrapnel.

The humans were committed. Now was the time to strike. Sixteen ultralisks charged towards the terran position, and the Cerebrate exulted as the great brutes thundered unstoppably towards their goal.

"Uhh, sir?" Radcliffe glanced up at the marine. "What?"

"Sir, the ground is shaking."

Radcliffe looked down, and frowned as a pebble bounced across his foot. "What the devil?"

"SIR!! SOMETHING’S COMING!"

Radcliffe had his gun in his hand even as he heard the shout. A great, terrible roar echoed through the air, and Radcliffe knew he was a dead man.

The ultralisks tore through the marines guarding the half-built command center in a shower of blood, hurling mutilated carcasses away as they charged forward, howling fury to the sky. The SCV working on the new CC tried to run, and was ripped in half as the ultralisks raced past, heading for the ramp. The Cerebrate followed their progress with satisfaction. The human strike force had no chance against these behemoths, and once they were gone, their base would quickly fall.

Darrel stared at his screen in panic. No time to think, the beasts were nearly on them. "Undeploy! Prepare for evac!"

"Sir, there’s not enough time!!"

The beasts hurtled up the ramp and ripped into the force. One struck a tank as it was retracting its anchors, picked it up on its two huge tusks and threw it off the cliff with a roar of anger. Darrel turned his head away, and saw several Goliath walkers being smashed. The ultralisks simply tore through them, hacking off their legs and smashing the cockpits into pieces. A tank to Darrel’s left was ripped open like tin-foil, and the beast buried its head inside and gnashed its tusks, instantly shredding the crew. One or two of the attackers fell, but their casualties were nothing besides the carnage they were wreaking on the strike force. Darrel watched helplessly, cursing his slow-moving tanks. A dropship squad was beginning to come into sensor range, and for a minute he felt hope. Then one of the monsters turned and charged towards him. He stared in terror as the behemoth came on. A huge elephantine beast, with it’s two razor tusks splattered with gore rushed towards a lone tank, screaming its savage joy in the slaughter, and it was all Darrel could do to keep from screaming in sheer terror. The abomination came closer, so close that he could almost feel its hot breath, bringing its tusks back for a hard blow. With mobility finally restored Darrel tried to flee . . .

And the first dropship blasted over his head, decelerating hard.

"Head for the ships!" Darrel yelled, and the battered survivors of his squad raced for the dropships which were flying low towards them. For a moment it seemed as if the ultralisks would catch them before the dropships could arrive; then there was a hard thump, and Darrel was suddenly inside a ship, powering hard for open air. For several seconds he simply stood behind the pilots chair, gripping it hard, face white. Then slowly he released the seat back and sat in his own chair, staring bleakly out the porthole at the wreckage strewn across the ground below them.

                                                                  •      •      •

The Cerebrate was jubilant. The attack had worked almost perfectly. True, some of the earthlings had gotten away, but a large fraction of the human war machine had been destroyed. Now all that remained was the destruction of the two remaining bases, and victory would be complete.

The Cerebrate’s thoughts reached out to his ultralisks, and they charged towards the human base, where even now defenses were frantically being erected in preparation for the onslaught. The Cerebrate twitched in anticipation of the coming battle, and inevitable victory of the Swarm.