Sikkhat collectively felt an enormous amount of irritation as they examined the Grineer warship. They had successfully conquered it, yes, but they had no idea how to progress from here.

Their plan had been to start it up and begin flying through the stars, taking over ship by ship until the entire Grineer species belonged to them. Given how easy it’d been to take this one, they suspected it wouldn’t take them too long, but there was a major flaw in their plan.

They had absolutely no clue how to pilot a ship.

Idly flicking switches with bloated fingers and adapted claws, Sikkhat tried to file through the memories of the adopted crew members once again. They couldn’t get any more information than they’d already obtained: namely, that the members had died extremely terrified of Sikkhat.

Which was fair, really. The knowledge that they inspired fear provided an unneeded boost in confidence to the infestation. Confidence that wasn’t helping at all with flying a ship.

They seized a pair of sticks near the middle of the bridge and yanked hard. Nothing happened once again, and in a fit of frustration, they ripped the sticks off. Sparks flew from the wrenched metal, and Sikkhat’s temper simmered.

Something crashed to the ground.

Disturbance acknowledged, they turned their attention to the source of the noise. In one of the closets on the edge of the ship, a vent cover had been knocked to the ground. Something jumped out of it and silently landed on the hard metal.

Sikkhat moved closer to investigate, using a spore cluster. The foreign entity was bipedal, much like the Grineer, but the similarities ended there. This creature was coated in dense metal, and was much - well, thicker, to put it bluntly - than the marines they were used to. Its coloring was a shade of yellow that almost caused pain to look at, and it bore three different weapons. A cross-shaped droid floated behind it, its camera flicking from object to object.

Straightening, the creature immediately walked over to one of the Grineer lockers and opened it, accepting the blue sphere that bobbed out of it. Rolling his shoulders, the creature - or was it even alive? - pulled one of his weapons out. A silver gun, with serrated edges running along the barrel.

Sikkhat mentally shrugged. It was one creature, what was he supposed to do against their thousands of marines?

They unworriedly sent chargers in his direction, trying to find a chink in his armor through which they could infest him. They found none.

Walking over to one of the tablets, he briefly keyed in a pattern, and the alarms went off again. Sikkhat growled at the unwarranted noise, and the sound rumbled through all of their creatures, echoing throughout the whole ship.

His head snapped up at the sound, and his grip increased incrementally. Sikkhat knew this because the entirety of his armor was literally covered in spores at this point. They couldn’t even figure out where he was breathing.

Sprinting out into the hallway, he was met with a dozen of their chargers, and Sikkhat happily waited for him to die.

Instead of dying, he aimed down his weapon, and a hail of needles tore through the chargers.

Startled, they began sending more of their puppets to take care of him. He unhurriedly executed them with startling accuracy and swiftness. He made the marines from earlier look like fools. His efficiency wasn’t even comparable.

His gun ran out of ammunition.

Spirits soaring, they sent a small group of leapers straight at him, and felt smug satisfaction tinged with relief. He had been tough to start with, but at least-

BAM.

Sikkhat was startled by the sound, and they noticed the small handgun in his hand. It bucked again, and a heavy bullet ripped through another leaper. In a matter of seconds, the leapers were taken out.

Righteous wrath built up in their collective minds. It was one creature!

No. If melee failed then they would send the few marines that still had guns! That had worked against the hated flame-wielders, it would work against this thing!

He continued to carve through their forces with about as much ease as they had obliterated the Grineer, and all they could do was seethe and wait for their armed marines to arrive. In the meantime, they redoubled their efforts at eating away his armor. They were slowly beginning to make progress, inch by snails-pace inch.

Something flickered into existence.

Sikkhat’s fury was suspended by disbelief as they inspected the strange pillar that had literally just appeared a few hundred meters from the intruder. It was a little over a meter and a half in height, with a small control at the base. What was it now!?

The intruder paused, removed a hammer big enough to crush supporting pillars from his back, and proceeded to bash his way through chargers and leapers. Whatever it was, it seemed important to him.

They resolved not to let him get there. Redirecting their marines, they made them group up near the pillar, guns aimed at the broad doorway he was coming towards.

With a sliding attack using his hammer that disintegrated at least half a dozen assorted puppets, he launched himself upward and through the door in some kind of impressively athletic movement that sent him hurtling meters into the air.

The marines opened fire.

Crashing into the ground, he held an arm up to block the worst of the gunfire from his head and ducked behind a stack of crates. Sikkhat gleefully began moving their troops towards his position.

Clenching a fist, he made a gesture, and his armor suddenly hardened. Sikkhat paused. How had he done that?

Spinning around the corner, he lowered his head and charged. It was a straight-lined launch that put any and all of their chargers to shame, shrugging gunfire off as if they were spores. He crashed through the marines, cracking armor and bursting fungus as easily as if they weren’t there.

Anger gave way somewhat. This… this was superiority.

Casually walking over to the pillar, he put his hand on, and a burst of foreign chemicals washed over his armor, purging the spores from him entirely. Mere seconds later, when Sikkhat latched onto him once again, all of the damage they had wreaked on him was gone.

This wasn’t a fight.

They watched evenly, and then eagerly, as the lone creature proceeded to tear through a dozen, and then a score, and then a hundred, and then two hundred of their forces. He didn’t so much as slow down at any point during the one-sided destruction, constantly reinforcing and repairing himself so effectively Sikkhat didn’t even have a hope of causing any sort of permanent damage.

They paused, shaking the awe that had settled on them away. They still had their trump card!

Activating the juggernaut, they felt only mild anticipation as it thundered through the halls of the ship towards his location, accumulating more spores and more momentum as it ran. Crashing through a door, it roared. Sikkhat saw his head turn towards the sound.

A hydraulic door slid upward to allow the juggernaut to charge forward, and that was when Sikkhat witnessed it.

Raising one impenetrable foot into the air, the invader brought it down to stomp the ground, and everything in a ten-meter radius of him froze, including the juggernaut. Paused mid-air, the juggernaut’s vicious head was outstretched in a maw of wrath.

Walking towards it, the invader raised his hammer and brought down on the juggernaut, denting it. He smashed the juggernaut over and over and over again until the only thing left was an orange mess and an assortment of scrap metal sitting on the ground. Cleaning his hammer off with an easy shake, he turned and continued battling, if it could be calling that.

They were unsure when he actually left. He had annihilated so many of their chargers and leapers and marines and even the juggernaut with… was it even fair to call it ease?

They couldn’t possibly hope to beat it.

So they had to become it.