Chapter 1 can be found here:
http://www.staredit.net/topic/335/
Chapter 2 can be found here:
http://www.staredit.net/topic/3540/
And here is Chapter 3:
Chapter III
Second Strike
Werner unleashed the fury of his siege tanks on the sunken colonies at a safe range. In a bombardment of lethal shock cannons, he obliterated the sunkens one by one. His heavy artillery barrage was an unpredicted shock for the unwary Zerg. As a few Zerg broke off from their assault on Harrington, Werner again told the tanks to send yet another volley of explosions. The Zerg died in massive groups, as they fell victims to the Siege Tanks very murderous explosion, but he had only seen a fraction of the Zerg force. The surprised Zerg tried to prevent further destruction of their base, so they dispatched a small force of Mutalisks to lay waste to their siege tanks.
“Sir,” the harsh breathing sound of a ghost emitted from behind him, “a force of Mutalisks are now advancing to our position.” He had been scouting the area,
Werner raised a brow and brought a pair of binoculars to his eyes. In the grey mist and the foggy clouds, he could make out bird-like figures with wings. They merely looked like seagulls and in the distance they looked like no threat but he was not fooled by this. By looking at their flying speed and their behaviors he knew that would not match any seagull. He was absolutely positive that they were indeed Mutalisks so he raised his comlink.
“We need goliaths on the double; the Mutalisks are advancing on our position.”
“Yes sir,” the mechanical voice of a goliath pilot replied to him. The black sleek Goliaths much like walkers, stepped out into defensive position. Their legs, thunked on the ground as they moved, and the poised their missile launchers, not far down from their machine guns, into the air. The Mutalisks advanced shooting billious acid Glave Wurms at the mechanical walkers when they were in range. The toxic ball ricocheted off one Goliath to the next leaving a hissing lime-green mark where the acid had hit. The Goliaths tried their best to eliminate this threat. In a bleeping sound, the missiles were rocketed to the air. In a minor explosion, the missiles affected the Mutalisks, and they screeched as some of them were severely wounded. Werner commanded the Goliaths to hold their fire; some turned their heads at him unsure of this command but they obeyed their orders.
The Mutalisks gave another deadly shot of Glave Wurms. When they hit their mark, they crippled various functions of the Goliaths. There were holes in the Goliaths, as the vicious acid burnt thorough wires, and left frayed cords and hissing metal. The Mutalisks kept their sharp red eyes focused intensively on their attack. In one move, Werner told them to fire simultaneously and they did, firing hail of missiles in as they left behind a line of blue stream. The missiles were like a rain of arrows, and the Mutalisks had nowhere to dodge, in the frenzy, as they were shot down like crows by a hunter. The lifeless body of the Mutalisks rained the ground, and made the Goliaths look more intimidating as the venomous blood spilt on the creep.
Werner turned his head to the Siege tanks and saw that they were faring ok. They shot blasts to repel any Zerglings. If any Zerglings started to tear at the Siege tanks there were a small force of Marines, and Vultures to fire at them. Then the minor waves of Zerg stopped, and an eerie silence filled the air. There was no screaming of Zerglings and Hydralisks. The sounds of Goliaths were abruptly halted; smoke billowed from the shock cannons of the siege tanks but there were no explosion sounds. The marines did not dare to move an inch or make a single clicking sound out of their rifles. The ion engines of the Vultures were very quiet creating an imperceptible whirring sound. Werner turned his head silently, and looked around. He could only hear the hissing of wind and this did not feel comfortable. His other troops were looking around uneasily as well. A grey fog mixed with a dense cloud of dust swept in clouding any long-range vision they had. Soon there was a sound, the sound of Zerg.
Soon Werner could make out the intimidating shapes of the skull-like Hydralisk head emerge from the fog, as they looked menacingly at them. Its sickles were slowly coming into view and its snake like body, sliding across the ground. They found a far more massive Zerg force behind it than they expected. A wall of shadow in the fog slowly emerged as Werner was overwhelmed at the amount, of Zerg that were about to unleash their potential.
“FIRE!” Werner bellowed, soon the noise of battle filled the air again, as the Siege tanks fired at the clumps of Zerglings and Hydralisks, but Werner did not see just Zerglings and Hydralisks, he found a few Defilers leading the vile monsters. They slithered cunningly, as they unleashed an orange cloud over the Zerglings, and Hydralisks. The Zerglings stayed back but the Hydralisks remained as more Defilers created clouds of orange over the Hydralisks who had just begun shooting. The Siege Tanks bombarded the Hydralisks but they barely even flinched. The orange cloud acted as a barrier, and instantly he knew what it was.
“Dark swarm,” he cursed, and turned to Corporal Zen. We need you and the Firebats to close in on them. The Dark swarm acts like a barrier, and only you can do any damage to them.
“Sir, might I suggest there are few of us and we would be eaten alive before we could fire anything at them.” Zen replied shakily. Werner peered over Zen’s broad shoulders, and saw only a few dozen Firebats. He had left most of them with Harrington.
“I need to call Harrington,” he muttered to himself, but before he could raise his comlink, he heard it signaling him, and instantly turned it on.
“Soph is that you? I really need-” Werner was cut off,
“No time to chat John I’m probably in a more desperate situation than you are.” Her voice was filled with desperation and nervousness than the usual relaxed and cheerful tone. Werner could even detect a scent of worry or fear.
“The Zerg have brought their hammer down on us, and the infantry can’t hold all of them back. I hope you are finished taking advantage of the diversion because I need backup.”
“You don’t need to fight there anymore, you can help us here, we’re facing a force sheltered by dark swarms, and we need Firebats to lessen the Hydralisks.”
“I can’t escape, and there are too many Zerg units; they’ll catch up to us, and kill us like predators cornering an animal!”
Werner gave a worried sigh, “I’m coming, and just hold on!”
He then turned to Sergeant Richard. He had come from a wealthy family, and was a decent fighter as well. His wit was what made him a great fighter, although he was not as great as General Hamlet or any professional tacticians. He wielded a Gauss rifle, a few grenades, and a pistol for combat.
“Sergeant Richard I am giving you the honor of substituting for me while I rescue Lieutenant Harrington.” Sergeant Richard saluted Werner, and received the comlink handed over to him. Werner then activated his SQUADCOM used for commanding smaller squads of forces and signaled a force of Vultures to his side. He then ordered a troop transport jeep to follow his lead as he got onto a speeder bike. Werner raised his SQUADCOM, and ordered five Wraiths to fly behind him. The speed was considerable, and they zoomed away from Richard’s view. As Werner temporarily glanced behind his shoulder to see Richard valiantly holding off the massive Zerg forces he had his first doubts about not winning the battle.
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As the Vultures, like horses, sped up with Wraiths not close behind their tails, they tried to sneak by any Zerg that might detect them, but fortunately for them, the Zerg were too occupied with their attack that they did not pay any attention to the force of rescuers. They were deep into the battle and were scaling much of the terrain. They maneuvered quickly past many obstacles, most of them boulders, and they saw the Zerg attack in view. The Firebats were panicking desperately to overcome the overwhelming numbers of Zerglings that surrounded them, while the Marines frantically rushed to attempt uninterrupted fire at the Hydralisks that advanced on them. There was even an Ultralisk tearing madly at any opposing units.
“Vulture squadrons modify ion thrusters; prepare for a direct charge on the hostiles” He commanded without a hint of fear in his voice, there were multiple screams of engines, while the Vultures barged in on the Zerglings, and in a hail of streaking Grenades, the Zerglings were mortally wounded as the Fragmentation Grenades pierced their Carapaces and imploded on their organic flesh. There were stinging explosions, and they squealed as they died instantly and organs were blown apart. The large sounds of agony then caught the attention of the Hydralisks. They advanced forwards as Marines rushed back to take cover behind the new reinforcements. Some unfortunate marines were victims of the barrage of needles spines fired behind them. Sophie and a small force of ghosts cloaked, and rushed behind the Vultures to take aim and fire frantically. They rescued much of their battalion, but saw many of their army’s corpses on the ground.
“Hey John” Sophie’s expression instantaneously from extremely tense to relaxed as she greeted him “I’m glad you’ve came to rescue us”
“We’re in a bit of a situation here, as you can notice,” Werner said desperately. He was trying to ward off the entire army.
Harrington silently took an extra step back, blasting at all the Zerg she could aim at with her rifle. There was a moving mass of ripples in the air, as cloaked Ghosts stealthily moved back following Harrington’s lead.
“We can’t hold em!” a marine exclaimed, “We must get in the jeep now!” Harrington nodded in approval, as she dismissed the marine into the jeep she and the other ghosts quickly entered the transports. Werner leaped onto his Vulture and shifted his engines in reverse. The other Vultures followed suit as they kept launching deadly Frag grenades keeping the Zerg steady.
“Requesting air cover” Werner sent another order into his SQUADCOM. The transports roared and the Wraiths swooped down, and sent five laser shots moving at extreme speed. They startled the Zerg for they had not expected aerial combat. The Zerg gave up their pursuit on the jeep and the other vultures, but there were two hulking figures that followed them. A ghost raised a binocular and saw the figures were Ultralisks.
“The Ultralisks aren’t giving up sir,” a vulture pilot yelled over the roar of engine, as he stuck his head out the window. He had taken his helmet off, and his brown hair was flying in the wind. The Ultralisks started to gain on them, and Werner noticed this. He signaled a few Vultures to halt. They placed three spider mines, and as it clicked itself and burrowed itself to the ground, Werner grinned. The Vultures moved back into position and the Ultralisks charged full speed. Abruptly, the spider mines clicked and whirred as its infrared sensors detected enemy units within its perimeter. Responsively, it unburied itself and in three massive explosions the Ultralisks had their Carapaces shattered and penetrated making blood ooze out of their damaged body parts. They still charged although they were mortally wounded.
“Move back,” Werner, commanded, “Despite their conditions, we can’t kill em in one shot.” The Vultures that stayed behind with Werner sped away, and Werner did the same. He looked at the barren Terrain with the occasional boulders, and thick dirt in the ground, and found Richard’s force in view. He grinned, “We’re almost there!” The Ultralisks saw the approaching forces in view and took a sudden leap. Its force crushed one of the jeeps, and it stomped through the hard metal and started denting it. The other Ultralisk did the same, except it landed on a Vulture, knocking the pilot out cold. Yet Werner’s rescue force still sped on into the terrain. A marine fired well-aimed shot from the auto turrets and the Ultralisks lay dead on the jeep. Meanwhile the other Ultralisk was too weak to move on. Werner skidded his Vulture to a stop in front of Richard, while the other jeeps started unloading infantry. Richard saluted Werner.
“I’ve completed the rescue operation. I’ll be taking over your post now.” Werner addressed Richard.
“Yes sir, you did that really quickly” Richard remarked. Werner grinned and turned his attention to Harrington. He hadn’t been able to focus on her condition much due to the intensity of battle.
“You’re really tired, and you scraped your left arm on a boulder,” Werner said his grin turning into a frown as he observed her injuries and addressed her condition.
“I’m fine,” Sophie, said carelessly, Werner nodded, though still slightly concerned about her condition, and shifted his gaze towards his attack. The dark swarm had disappeared, and Werner noticed that there were a considerable amount of Zerg gone compared to when he saw it last. The only difference was that there was such a thick cloud of dust he almost felt his vision obscured.
“I have to say you did an excellent job in whittling down the Zerg while I was gone, and you did a darn good job of defending the post too.” Werner complimented Richard satisfied.
Richard’s face turned bright red, “Thank you sir. I did slaughter a number of Zerg, but not as many as they disappeared. I have no idea what occurred but we did see a small force of Zerg retreating out of the area.” Richard told John in a humble manner. “I was just going to push our attack force closer to take advantage of this unit loss.” Sophie nodded,
“I’ll try to help in this endeavor John,” she raised her rifle,
“Sir,” A Siege Tank mechanic walked up to him. There were beads of sweat on his forehead as he had been cooped inside a hot environment. “The artillery on the Arclite Shock cannons have been overheated, it’ll take awhile for it to cool down and start working again. With all due respect, these models suck.”
“Well we can’t rely on them now can we? Calling all GL squads, that’s all Goliath squads. Advance attack. I’m ordering squadrons to assail remaining Zerg forces.”
As on cue, the Goliaths walked thunk, thunk on the ground as they positioned their gleaming barrels towards the attacking Hydralisks, they fired rapidly, as the rattling sounds again filled the air, and the Hydralisks themselves found them being impaled by needles. They were covered in blood as the lighting-speed bullets pierced their Carapaces, and had huge gashes in their skin with spluttering blood.
The newly rescued infantry was told to join the fray, as they ran in to meet their fate with the Zerglings. The Zerglings, like dogs, sniffed danger and a small force of them leapt at the infantry. The Firebats sprayed red-hot flames at the Zerglings, and several were caught in the barbeque as the raging storm of heat smoldered them, and burnt them into a crisp.
Hastily, the Firebats paused to shift their plasma perdition tanks and replace it with a fresher one to supply more fuel to their flamethrowers. Additional Zergling reinforcements bounded into the arena, but the marines charged in with a battle-cry yell shooting furiously. A storm of bullets whizzed into their skull and a gruesome burst of blood erupted as the rifles blasted their heads apart.
Soon there wasn’t a Zerg (beside the dead corpses) on the battlefield. The purple, net of creep around them started receding as parts of the creep drew back to where the Zerg structures remained. Hundreds of Zerg corpses littered the ground, and each corpse lay in a puddle of blood. There were fires where Siege tanks had been blown up, along with a piece of melted metal with frayed cords emitting barely distinguishable sparks. Guns lay thrust into the ground like javelins, while smoke billowed from broken machinery. Werner also noticed that his numbers of his troops were dwindling.
“We should call for reinforcements,” suggested Sophie, “The Zerg are exhausted so we should reinforce our troops before another wave assails us.”
“Why bother?” Questioned Werner, “All there is, is a few sunken colonies and a few spore colonies; I doubt we’ll need any of the reinforcements”
“Ok,” Sophie said uneasily, “but I have a bad feeling about this,”
“Hey cheer up;” said Werner with extreme confidence, “What can possibly go wrong?”
“Sir the Zerg are regrouping.” Richard said frowning, Werner nodded,
“We’ll need to charge the Sunkens using assault group T-34 seeing the condition that our Tanks are in.” The Goliath walkers flanked by Infantry rushed up to a pair of Sunkens that stood in the way of the hive. The Firebats circled one of them, firing madly, along with the marines that stood in range. Vultures and Goliaths assailed the other.
The overwhelmed sunken colonies blindly raised a tentacle, to retaliate, but it only got one clear shot at Werner’s forces before the defensive structure was obliterated. A few Zerglings unburrowed, resolute to defend the hive, but Werner inserted a fresh clip in his gauss rifle, and unleashed a barrage of projectiles that created a scene of carnage. Now Werner grinned triumphantly as his force approached the Hive. Just then, a roar of ear piercing screeches was heard around Werner’s attack force. From both left and right Zerg forces leaped upon Werner’s imprudent forces. Many startled marines were ripped open while Goliaths were taken aback by the sudden barrage of needles showered from the Hydralisks, which overwhelmed the bulletproof glass and killed the pilot in the cockpit.
Werner gulped as his force was slowly ripped apart by various Zerg units, and the sudden attack that he failed to predict. His sharp mind registered the Zerg’s intent. The Zerg planned this all along. Before the effects of the Dark Swarm wore out, some of the Zerg in the base and the defense point had skittered to a rally point, then the majority of the defending point burrowed. When a scout overlord detected the approximate coordinates of his units, the units unburrowed to ambush the attackers and the Zerg that had rallied went to reinforce the defenders.
Werner helplessly examined his forces fend for their selves. The siege tanks quickly decided to fire normal Arclite cannons, and several Hydralisks were blasted open, Goliaths, and Vultures, moved back, and in a hail of bullets, and grenades, a line of Zerg attackers, fell face first into the ground.
The retaliation had been slow though, the Zerg surrounded small forces of units like Werner’s few remaining pairs of Firebats. The unwary pyromaniacs were swarmed as Zerglings leaped upon their CMC 600 Heavy Assault suit. They gave a futile attempt to deter these critters using their flamethrowers that only prevailed in destroying few.
A dozen marines were surrounded by Hydralisks raising their scythes to impale them. Heavy Artillery units was amassed by several Ultralisks; The Siege Tanks were able to blast away a few Ultralisks, but the scythe like Kaiser Blades of the Ultralisks delivered a crushing blow to many of Werner’s siege tanks. Taking advantage of this distraction, a squad of Lurkers quickly scuttled into the center, and burrowed in a crunching sound. A star of subterranean spines erupted, and took more of Werner’s infantry by surprise.
The chaos, the demolition, it all was devastating. He madly fired at hostile enemies, barely making a difference, and situation looked like everything was in vain. Even in this dark storm of tide, there was an approaching dawn, a light of hope when Werner saw a shadowing Terran army slowly approaching his force. Then he recognized them as foreign. They were not indeed reinforcements ordered from Mon Ortha; the army was an entirely new and unidentified force. Werner had no idea how to predict what this was; he just hoped that they were here for the Zerg and not him.
None.
