Maren Ayers

Maren Ayers was a medic in the Dominion Marine Corps. She was the protagonist of the short web story Broken Wide.

Biography
Maren Ayers had a difficult relationship with her father, Dr. Talen Ayers, whom she described as "one part renowned research geneticist and two parts backwoods yokel."

Dr. Ayers taught evolutionary theory to his daughter. At age twelve Maren was already conducting experiments with fruit flies.

Dr. Ayers taught a hypothesis that mutation rates increase when populations have been drastically reduced. Maren could not see the logic in this, as this would require biochemical communication at the genetic level. Dr. Ayers failed his daughter that semester, despite her perfect test scores, saying she didn't get the most important part.

Maren disappointed her father by dropping out of grad school and joining the Dominion Marine Corps.

Iron Jesters
Maren Ayers served as a medic with 128th Platoon "Iron Jesters" for two years.

Sometime after the, her platoon was supposed to serve a tour of duty on the ice world of Anselm when their battlecruiser was recalled to Korhal for a refit. The platoon was abandoned at the starport of the strategically unimportant mining world of Sorona.

On the way to the settlement of Cask, the platoon was ambushed by zerglings, which killed a quarter of the platoon's membership. Ayers credited Lieutenant Travis Orran for saving their lives. They were then met by armed civilians, who escorted them to Cask.

Ayers discovered that Cask, a natural fortress, had been assaulted daily by the zerg for the past eight months, yet the Dominion had not responded to their calls for help. The zerg population had dwindled and only minor breeds such as zerglings continued to attack. The colonists weren't in a bad military situation, but their supply situation had become precarious&mdash;they had to subsist on a native acidic mold. The town's doctor had killed himself a month before, so Ayers was given the task of treating teeth decay caused by the colonists' diet of acidic mold.

After six months of combat, Private Ayers perceived the methodical zerg approach and believed the attacks were part of a zerg evolutionary program, on the basis of her father's theory that reducing the size of a population increases the rate of mutations. Without hard evidence she could not convince Lieutenant Orran to strike out and destroy the hive responsible.

In search of proof, Ayers fashioned a primitive field laboratory from material taken from her combat suit and used it to analyze tissue samples taken from dead zerglings. The tissue had bulbous pustules containing material partially based on the mold the terrans were eating. The mold was identifiable by its peppery smell. The medic attempted to dissect a sample the size of a fingernail with a med-laser. The resulting explosion destroyed her room. Ayers was wounded but survived by being suited up. Nonetheless she was unconscious for two hours and the suit was badly damaged.

When the zerg stopped their attacks for a week, everyone was joyous, but after a scout party revealed "sick" zerglings across the field, she assumed that the zerg were not dying but evolving, and when she was transmitting her worries/findings, the zerg attacked yet again. Four days after Cask fell, she and her officer, lieutenant Travis Orran were rescued by a fleet of battlecruisers.

She then after being interviewed by Captain Serl Gentry, went angry and in a moment of hate, she killed herself with the same substance the zerg used against the colony, along with the captain.