Bouncing from one foot to the other, Sikkhat focused on the distant pod husk on the other end of the room. They had selected the largest room they could find in the whole ship to perform the exercise. A large number of chargers and leapers waited to one side, prepared to move forward when they gave the command.

They thought to all of themselves simultaneously, and Sikkhat launched forward. The assorted troops lumbered to get in their way, clawing and snapping fungal jaws in an attempt to slow them down.

Sikkhat dodged and spun around their grasps, their mind focused solely on not tripping and not getting caught. It was unimaginably difficult, although not nearly as much as it had been two hundred and thirteen hours ago. Compared to then, they had made an impressive amount of progress.

Flattening themselves and bending their knees, they skidded beneath the clutches of a pair of chargers and straightened, sprinting for the husk. Jumping over a full dozen marines, they twisted and slid across the ground, coming out of the slide at a full run…

...only to be promptly smashed in the face by their juggernaut. Performing a full flip, albeit accidental, they crashed into the ground and lay there, immensely frustrated.

It was annoying in the extreme to have made so much progress, only to have that progress denied every time they came to the juggernaut. They could clearly recall how easily the invader had defeated it, so why couldn’t they?

A sound alerted them to an occurrence in one of the aft sections of the ship, and Sikkhat raised their head. Displacing their focus from the body felt almost wrong at this point, unbelievable as it seemed, but they did so in mere moments. Dividing their attention, they split their view until a spore cluster observed the disturbance.

Something had punched through the hull of the ship, and figures were climbing out of it. A brief surge of excitement hit Sikkhat - was it the invader? - but was just as quickly dashed. The people emerging from the small pod clinging to their ship had blocky heads and clumsy-looking suits, and their movement was tediously slow.

Regardless, disappointment was quickly replaced by curiosity. If not the invader, what were they? They were definitely armed, although their weapons looked different from the Grineer’ misshapen guns.

Curiosity changed into excitement. Was there no better opportunity to test their ability with their new body than with a new prey?

Standing, they directed all of the chargers and leapers to leave the area. After a moment of thought, they fashioned a hastily designed blade with spare metal and fungus, shaving the edges off until it was a serrated edge. They needed a weapon for themselves, after all.

Melding their brand-new blade to their arm, they ran off in the direction of the intrusion.

As they sprinted through the emptied hallways and hollow areas of the ship, they wondered how difficult it would be to fight these new enemies compared to the invader, or the Grineer?

Hopefully, somewhere closer to the Grineer. Sikkhat had stood less than no chance against the invader. They’d been as helpless as when they were a singular spore pod.

Turning a corner, they were met with a blank-faced helmet of one of the new enemies. Without hesitation, Sikkhat launched themselves forward, blade flashing in the blue light of the ship, and cut deeply into the opponent. It was not a clean strike in the slightest, and sparks flew where their blade carved through technology.

Staggering backward, the enemy fell down and didn’t get back up. Sik found themselves mildly amused at the simplicity and ease of the task. Were the Grineer so easy to eliminate?

Satisfied, Sikkhat flicked the oil off their blade and crouched, spraying a small amount of spores onto the corpse. It took them a moment to work past all of the filters in the enemy’s helmet, but once they did, they got a brief memory reading off of him.

So he was here to salvage from Sikkhat’s ship. That was an interesting piece of information. And… he was called a Corpus crewman? Sikkhat wasn’t sure what to do about that, but at least they knew that the new enemies weren't very strong.

Turning to the remainder of the hallway, Sikkhat headed onward. There was more prey to hunt and more information to absorb. They found themselves excited, eager to find out more about the Corpus. Maybe they would have information on Sikkhat themselves!

Another crewman turned just in time to see Sikkhat’s blade, but a gash appeared in his neck before he could do anything about it. He fell down, clutching at his throat, and Sikkhat helpfully infested him, scanning his surface thoughts as they went.

So the crewman was here without all of his allies. There was another ship - they’d been sent to scout the ‘wreckage’. That was extremely helpful. It meant that Sikkhat could hunt the outliers and then find a way back to their main ship. Then they could infest the ship, and then they’d have two ships all to themselves!

Granted, they didn’t know how to fly the one they already had, but that was a moot point.

Jumping upward, they began sliding across the high ceiling, using their powerful claws to punch through the metal surface and stay out of sight. It was quite fun, hunting scavengers. They wondered if they could keep some scavengers for entertainment later, perhaps as a method of training.

No, they decided as they landed atop another crewman and snapped his neck, they probably wouldn’t.

Another spray into the corpse’s lungs revealed another slice of the bigger picture. The ship this crewman was from wasn’t even connected to their… larger part? It was a difficult concept to fully grasp. The scavengers were originally a part of a bigger group, like the infestation as a whole, but they’d somehow left, because… they were dissatisfied?

The surface memory wasn’t exactly a goldmine of information, but Sikkhat resolved to find out more about this larger part. Perhaps the Corpus were just a different strain of infestation. Either way, they were enemies.

Straightening from the body, Sikkhat turned around and discovered another crewman, weapon aimed straight at them. Oh well. The Grineer projectiles had hardly done any damage to the spores, so this was most likely a similar-

The crewman fired, and a red-hot line of energy stabbed Sikkhat through the center of their midsection, burning away all of the fungus and even scorching a pockmark through the metal inside them. Startled and furious, they hurled their blade at the crewman, and he went down with a startled groan.

An examination of his mind revealed no new information, and Sikkhat concluded that Corpus were their second-least-favorite enemy. Leaving the corpse behind, Sikkhat continued hunting for the remainder of the scouting party.

Opening a closet door, they found a door leading into the hatch of a much smaller ship. Another crewman sat at the helm, back to Sikkhat, drumming thick fingers on the dashboard. Sikkhat happily came up behind him and burst a massive amount of spores into his helmet.

Before they could make it through the filters in the Corpus’ helmet, the pilot lunged forward, slamming on the controls in an attempt to jar Sikkhat. Startled, Sikkhat jumped onto him, trying to stab him before realizing they’d forgotten to get their sword back.

The small pod careened away from the Grineer ship with a pneumatic hiss, Sikkhat and the crew member stuck inside it. Yanking a thick rod from beside him, the crewman fell out of his chair and stood up. A button press sent energy crackling up and down the length of the rod, and Sikkhat instinctively knew that it would be dangerous to come into contact.

The crewman swung forward, and in the cramped space, the only direction Sikkhat could go was up. Slamming into the ceiling, they leaned down and grabbed onto the crewman’s head, slamming it into the wall until he stopped moving.

Releasing the crewman, they tentatively climbed down from the ceiling and finished infesting him. There wasn’t much of his brain left, unfortunately, and Sikkhat learned nothing from him.

Dissatisfied, Sikkhat turned towards the hatch they’d entered through and found it sealed. They stared at the closed hatch for a moment, mind slogging.

They panicked.

Hurling themselves at the door, they tried to pry it open to no success. The dead crewman on the floor proved unhelpful, dead as he was, but Sikkhat still tried to infest him and make him open the door for them.

They could feel the distance growing between their body and the remainder of their consciousness back on the Grineer ship, and even as they tried to hold on to it, the connection snapped.

Sikkhat found itself alone.