JuJu didn't look up or appear to react in any way as the rover skidded to a halt, spraying dirt up the ramp five feet ahead. She simply continued piling dirt on the small mound she had covered Polly's head with. Bile rose in Teo's throat as he saw that JuJu had apparently done the same with Jamal.

Teo and the Captain looked at each other for a long second. The Captain put a hand on her stomach. "The best of us is here. I'll land as soon as it's over." A fierce look came over her face, then she opened the door and jumped out to race into the ship.

Teo pulled a tank up into his arms and opened his own door to get out. Sensing movement in his peripheral vision, he looked up in time to see a face mask flying toward the Captain from JuJu's outstretched hand. The mask sliced through the air with a whirr whirr whirr as it spun.

"Connie!" he screamed.

The Captain looked over just in time for the mask to catch her right on the temple. She grunted at the impact and threw her arms up in a useless gesture of defense, then collapsed backwards onto the ramp, unmoving, eyes closed. A trickle of blood ran down from where the mask hit her.

"Noooooo!" screamed Teo again.

He didn't have time to check if the Captain was still breathing, because JuJu had thrown another face mask at him. He ducked forward into his seat, dropping the tank painfully on his foot, as the mask pinged off the roof and into the back seat. He pulled up the tank with one arm, feeling the muscles strain and tear with the effort, then he kicked open the door and jumped out.

"You're going down, JuJu!" he yelled. He hitched up the tank and got his other hand under it, lifting it over his head. He ran towards JuJu and threw with all his might. It was a clumsy move, but he didn't care. He had no element of surprise, and no real weapon. His mind kept replaying the Captain's body crumpling to the ground.

JuJu reached up with both hands to catch the tank, but missed one side. It smashed into her nose, spraying blood out onto her suit in a grotesque polka dot pattern. With one hand, she swung the tank around and threw it back at Teo.

He ducked to avoid it, but the same edge caught him on the shoulder and sent a stunning pain through him. "Argh!" he cried and gripped his shoulder as he fell to his knees.

"We demand punishment. We demand repayment," JuJu said in a monotonous cadence as she stalked over to him.

She grabbed the hair on the top of his hair, forcing his head back. Drops of blood dripped off her chin onto his plastic face mask with a muted plink plink. Her eyes were blank. Face devoid of expression.

Scraping her fingers up his throat, JuJu got her nails under the edge of his mask and pulled it up and off. Tossing it away carelessly, she bent and got a handful of dirt. "We are many. We are one," she intoned.

Raising her hand, she pushed the dirt against his mouth. He pressed his lips together and twisted his head away, but JuJu tightened her grip painfully on his hair and wrenched his head back.

He clapped his hands on top of JuJu's, clawing at her fingers to let him go. She twisted his hair, bending him backwards. His mouth opened reflexively at the angle, releasing his pent up "Argh!" as his spine screamed in protest. As soon as his lips opened, JuJu pushed the dirt into his mouth, then released him so abruptly he lost his balance and fell backwards, sprawling ungracefully on the ground.

JuJu stood passively as he coughed and tried to spit out the grit coating his tongue, she repeated, "We are one."

He rolled to his knees and stuck his fingers so far into his mouth to scrape at his tongue he made himself gag.

JuJu watched for a moment, then walked towards the Captain's prone body on the ramp.

Drawing in breath to yell, a searing pain from his lungs tore him as he accidentally inhaled fragments of dirt. Coughing and spluttering to get out the foreign bodies, he watched through watering eyes as JuJu went to stand over the Captain.

On hands and knees, Teo crawled, coughing, over to the rover. He pulled himself up the side and grasped the top of the other tank. Still spluttering, he dragged it out and let it fall to the ground with a thump and a small spray of dirt.

"We are many. We are one." Teo stiffened as the words echoed through his mind in the same monotonous cadence JuJu had used.

A moment later, he dropped the tank and grabbed his head with both hands as it was split asunder by blinding pain. He didn't notice when he fell to the ground, rolling with agony as lifetimes of information downloaded in a nanosecond. JuJu. Karan. Polly. Mo. Jamal. He sensed them all in the influx.

"We have seen what has become of this world, and who is responsible." Microbe respiration created the atmosphere and rain. The microbes themselves made up the entirety of the planet, not only inhabiting, but being. When a microbe died it was consumed and reintegrated into the system, giving in its death as it had taken in its life.

"We demand punishment. We demand repayment." Impressions filled his mind. The press of their landing gear that crushed the microbes beneath. Him rubbing the dirt between his fingers. Their feet. The rovers wheels. Their alien presence disrupted the natural rhythm of the planet by causing the untimely death of microbes.

The hills in the distance were just a few of many ships scattered across the planet's surface that had landed in the past. Slowly being digested and broken down. The materials that made them up were disseminated across the planet by the microbes. As soon as the winds covered their ship with the microbe-dirt, it would be digested in the same way. The same with their bodies and every single thing they'd brought.

Anger slashed his psyche, firing every single one of his body's nerve endings at once, and creating a pain so intense his heart stuttered in his chest. His mouth opened in a soundless scream, and his body bowed up from the ground as it tried to bear the strain.

"We do not forget." Every single moment from multitudes of lifetimes downloaded instantaneously to his mind, overloading his synapses. He was barely aware of his nose erupting in a fountain of blood. The memories, sensations, experiences of every moment of the lives of his own shipmates and numerous alien consciousnesses he had no name for, along with centuries upon centuries worth of the countless lives of microbes from this planet, flooded his mind. In a second he experienced them all.

It was too much. His mind was about to snap under the weight of knowledge, obliterating the individual he was to join the many.

With his last independent thought he cried out in joy and horror as he felt the Captain join with his consciousness, and there, beneath hers, was the sweet innocent mind of his baby girl.