“And that means,” Lana stepped forward. “That we can bring as many people as we have guns against the Warped. And also, take this.” She handed him a thin strip of metal.

Martin stood, dumbstruck, staring at the item she gave him. Then, to everyone’s surprise, he nodded and held it to his temple. The implant liquefied and seeped into his skin, finally settling as a thin strip behind his right ear.

“You guys are something else,” he said. “I have no idea how you managed to do everything you did, but you’ve given us hope.” He studied the corpse-strewn ground. “So how do you suggest we divvy up the bounty?”

“We’ve already figured that out,” Lana said. “You join our faction, then we all share the extracted Tec together.”

Martin frowned. “Hardly seems fair. You guys took down the majority of those monsters. The big ones must be worth five levels on their own.”

Nori shook her head. “Now’s not the time to get greedy. We need as many people as possible at level four to be able to use the Warped Busters, and so far, other than us four, we only have five such people. So come on, I’m officially inviting you to join the Earth Force.”

Martin chuckled. “I like the sound of that. I never imagined I’d be a part of a planetary-wide military organization. I accept.”

Martin has joined your faction

Dug has joined your faction

Juarez has joined your faction

…

…

“Alright, spread out and get to work,” Nori said.

Everyone except the wounded left the freighter and started tapping the slain Warped. Wave after wave of light flowed across the ground, splitting into smaller ribbons that Infused the members of the Earth Force.

“Damn, putting down Warped hordes is profitable,” Bulco noted, watching enviously as almost all the lower level fighters gained a level or two at once. “I’m almost sorry to be level five, the extra six Tec I got wasn’t enough to level me up.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Nori said.

Lana coughed embarrassedly. “Nathan and I made it to level six.”

“What?” the Engineer looked at them outrageously.

“Yeah, they chose the Tec Infusion Boost trait,” Nori sighed. “So they’ll level up faster than the two of us.”

Lana’s eyes glazed as she accessed her interface. “Nothing major about this level …. Oooo, I got two attribute points to allocate instead of one, awesome! I wonder why, though.”

“Maybe you get a bonus point every six levels?” Nori guessed.