Part 1 Chapter 12: Backyard

2481 C.E.
BATTLECRUISER “ANDRONIKOS”
UMOJAN EXPEDITIONARY FLEET
HIGH ORBIT OVER PLANET 2473NO05

'So, your sages tell me that there are, indeed, no more systems in this part of the galaxy that match the orrery?' Boris looked down at the planet while the ghost nearby was translating his message to Adelnur.
The huge shadowy Protoss turned his head from beneath the huge dark shawl that fell on his upper body towards Boris.
'That is true, to the best of our knowledge,' the young ghost interpreted.
'Are you looking forward to fighting?' the vice-admiral looked at the alien questioningly
'Constantly ready to serve you, as my oath requires from me.'
'Have you fought the Sei'Tara before, Adelnur?'
The Protoss gazed through the windows of the bridge into the scarred reddish surface of the planet they were approaching.
'Yes, several times when their troops were on our planet. Their ships were of no use to them when they had to cross the jungles.'
Boris was also gazing at the planet pensively. 'It is likely you will face them again soon. This fleet cannot evade them forever.'
'I will do what I must on land. Your judgement will be our guide when the ships meet.' Boris thought how much emotion did the even tone of the ghost fail to convey and how much information was lost on the way.
'Excuse me, things have arisen,' Boris told the dark templar, seeing Bracknell entering.
He walked to the brown-haired man to see what was going on with the admiral.
'McNorman is bad, sir. The doctors report that his unusual acting is like nothing they have seen before. He wants you to see him.' The report lacked much enthusiasm and Bracknell occasionally threw suspicious looks at the three-meter tall Protoss down the bridge.
'On my way,' Boris said and noticed the aide's anxiety. 'Come.'
They walked to the medical area, where McNorman was laying in one of the white beds, with a perfectly healthy look. However, Boris saw, this was broken by the admiral's empty gaze upwards to the ceiling and his eerie twitches. When the two were next to him, he looked at his second-in-command.
'Boris...' he smiled for a second and returned to neutral again, 'how is the fleet? The Protoss? The sphere?'
'The ships and the men are fine, sir. As are the Protoss. I am watching over everything now, until you are better,' Paskirov assumed a tone of formality, hoping that it would help keep the dialogue sane.
'Hehe, good, good job,' the admiral smiled again, this time for long. 'How is my wife?'
'Sir,' Paskirov threw a glance of doubt at Bracknell, 'she is not in the fleet. We did not take her with us.'
'Tell her I'm fine, then. Yep. Hahaha,' he began to laugh. Boris would laugh, too, if he wasn't talking to a madman. He waited for an order.
'Hehe, ahem. Well, what do you know, we all look in the tea sooner or later. Tell my nephew to hoard the dogs and remind the cabin not to roll in the conference room... Like those hateful Protoss. They will not end well, know my word,' McNorman seemed to succumb deeper into madness. He then started crying aloud, to the concealed horror of Boris.
'Right...' he murmured, weighting in his mind the chances this fleet stood with a person like McNorman onboard. He whispered to Bracknell 'Call the medics, they'll know what to do. I'm going to my post.'
On the bridge, there was activity as the fleet was entering the atmosphere of the planet. Boris began coordinating the ships when an aide came with news.
'Sir, the Protoss want to meet you when possible.'
What could that be? 'Tell them that I will be with them when we get to the first measurement location,' he replied.
Shortly, when the fleet assumed its course, a Dark Templar archaeologist entered the conference room, not far from the bridge, accompanied by a ghost. Paskirov was sitting in one of the chairs, but the alien, in his wide ragged robes, stood upright.
'I'm listening.'
The soldier began. 'According to our maps, this is the same system where we once saw your kinsmen on the surface of a planet further away from the star. They had buildings and fortifications and were working with vespene gas. We observed them and there were almost no ships coming here.'
'You saw other Terrans here, in this system?' the vice-admiral was intrigued. 'How long ago?'
'Fifty of our days on our planet.'
Boris did the math. About three months ago.
'Thank you for telling me this. It may come very useful. To our cause. You can leave if you wish and have nothing more to say.'
'As you command,' the ghost interpreted and glanced the leaving Protoss.
Boris stood up and went to the bridge to order the high command, in their ships, to observe the videolink that was about to be made next to McNorman's bed later that day.
Two measurements and several thousand kilometers later, the admiral's sedative had to have worn off and Boris took a video transmitter to McNorman. It was turned on for the high-ranking officers to see.
'Sir,' he began, speaking in his most formal tone, 'one of the Protoss has informed me that they have spotted human activity on an outer planet of this system. The humans were harvesting vespene gas and were receiving only rare re-supplies. This data is three months old.'
McNorman had fixed his eyes on Boris. The problem was, his face kept changing his expressions.
'Where? They should form a line, then, and wait for their friends. When the re-supply comes, we will offer them some direct fire...' the admiral babbled.
'Sir, shall we go there and see if there's anybody there who could express interest in joining our fleet?' Boris asked, hoping that the officers would see the state the admiral was in and would consent to giving him more autonomy.
'...the star. Orbit the star. Watch out for their blue, watch out for their blue! Shields, I want the science vessel to cast the sphere on the temple right now! The Protoss...' McNorman was creeping him out.
He turned to the camera. Enough delays and friction – having a mad commander will lead this fleet nowhere. 'As you can see, gentlemen, the admiral is having great problems taking decisions. If I may say so, he is incapable of commanding the fleet right now.'
There was a wave of concern on the faces of the high command, as Boris could see in their respective positions on the screen.
Good, he thought. Finally they are beginning to see things my way.
'That's bad...'
'I agree with Paskirov here, maybe we should let him rest,' Ferguson suggested.
'Who will be in charge, then, Ferguson?' Captain Steele of one of the Wanderer-class vessels asked.
'I guess Paskirov, he is the vice-admiral, after all.' Ferguson said.
'Yeah, well...'
'I'm with that, it sounds logical.'
'Just temporarily,' Richardson said coldly.
'Of course,' Boris replied. He would not do Confederate trickery at the expense of the mission.
'What if something happens to the admiral? Something bad?' one asked.
'Who will be to blame?' Richardson interfered. But Boris had an idea.
'Maybe, it would be best to place the admiral on Captain Richardson's vessel, where there will be no doubts, sirs?'
Richardson was disturbed for a moment, but returned to his original demeanor after the sudden attack. 'I agree with that.'
'Good! We're sending him via a dropship, then,' the vice-admiral smiled. 'It's me in the meantime?'
Approval was heard, while on the bed McNorman kept struggling with madness.
The admiral was sent away, while the fleet located the temple and sent its men down to examine everything. This time it was a bit different. This time, there were Dark Templar down with the troops.
The Protoss made an impression to the humans when the infantry saw them in action. Although the aliens covered most of their bodies in dark cloth and cloaks, usually leaving only their glowing eyes visible, the grace with which they moved was discernible after several seconds of observing them. They were swift and determinate, moving alongside the marines in the open and through the corridors. To negate the negative effects their invisibility had to the morale of the human troops, the high command had persuaded Adelnur and his warriors to wear small tracking devices that allowed the infantry to see the Dark Templar displayed on their visors.
The temple was double-checked, thoroughly photographed and charted and the the fleet set off to the other planet in the system that was scheduled to visit. The sight of it was not a pleasant one. It was a cold, desolate desert orbited by two moons. As the expeditionary fleet was entering the atmosphere the first readings about it began to appear. No magnetic field. No protective layer against the vagaries of the central star. Hardly any water and no clouds. Whoever came here had to have a really good reason to stay; and such reason soon became clear. The planet was rich in vespene gas. Its heavy vapors began to be discerned when the ships got closer to the dark surface, stained with ashes and dirt.
The fleet headed to the assumed coordinates where the Protoss had once seen the Terrans. Two hundred kilometers northeast of an enormous canyon, there were low, dark grey mountains. On the bridge, Boris was looking at the distant valley where settlers and refineries were expected to appear. When the fleet came there, he would explain to them the gravity of the situation and they would surely come. At least some of them – you cannot expect people who had come in such a wretched place for the expensive raw vespene gas to just abandon their refinery. Still, some material with all that the fleet had gathered, plus the three redoubtable capital ships had to persuade at least the most reasonable of the workers there.
However, when the battlecruiser came closer, he received bad news.
'Sir,' an operator at one of the consoles began, 'the science vessel Zheng He is reporting of strong organic signatures on the bottom of that valley. Could be Zerg.'
The vice-admiral was just about to order more probes, when more data appearing on the screens at the lower level of the bridge confirmed that the Zerg had already come to the settlers with less of an offer than intentions to kill. Where there once was a Terran settlement, there were now living Zerg formations surrounded by a field of tenuous purple creep. Boris saw the familiar forms that were in the canyon, boldly rising over the wreckage of the human settlement. From among the ruins, and sometimes from the very wrecked remains of human structures, the Zerg forms rose through the cold air of the inhospitable planet. This was a disappointment.
The operators down below began to report requests for orders from the commanders of the other ships.
'Let an aerial bombardment from the large batteries of the Andronikos, the Hreimdar and the Graf von Moltke commence in half an hour,' he ordered. 'Also, operator, tell the infantry battalion to prepare to attack the enemy positions in approximately one hour.'
They would not leave the planet without at least some data collected.
What Boris liked best about the huge batteries of the battlecruisers was their range. Enhanced by Umojan technology to fire at greater distances with higher accuracy than those on the Confederate battlecruisers, they allowed to fire against enemy positions from afar and still deal substantial damage. Although the limited speed of the energy projectiles allowed the swifter ships to get out of the way, the battlecruisers in the expeditionary fleet were still devastating against ground targets.
The cannonade began at the minimum distance at which the Zerg strutures could be targeted without harming any of the remaining Terran ones. Half an hour of fire left the small colony badly damaged and the ground force deployed on the nearby ridges prepared to advance and finish the job in detail.
With the whole fleet behind him, Williams felt safe as he walked twenty meters away from the nearby tank. The full force of the fleet was amassed in one clenched fist of armored machines and eager infantry and somewhere beneath his disciplined movements and his attention towards the radio transmissions, he felt safe being one of the snowflakes in this avalanche of firepower.
Approaching the Zerg colony, the results of the capital ships' huge batteries was visible. Huge parts of the creep were scorched. The burned bodies of some Zerg were laying down in front of them. Even the huge structures were now torn apart and their slimy remains lay on the ground in pools of organic fluids about which the ghost preferred not to know much. Your show is over, scum, he thought with self-satisfaction.
In the colony, there were also the human structures. As the infantry battalion was moving alongside them, occasionally finishing any surviving Zerg that tried to ambush the soldiers, Williams saw the damage. Many of the structures were unidentifiable. Only pieces of their walls, now a twisted, tangled wreck rose over their bases and the creep that the fundaments were buried under. On many places, the neosteel had huge dents and holes, as if scratched and pierced by monstrous claws. The Zerg, alright. Those settlers had to be in a world of pain when all this happened.
'All units, watch your fire. Inspect the area for remaining supplies of vespene gas,' the voice of the adjutant was heard on the ghost's radio.
Yes, roger that, he thought.
The ground force was now within the confines of the former settlement. A hundred meters later, Williams saw their old command center, still standing. It was not a pleasant sight, with all the creep around it and the Zerg tentacles and ivy-like formations all over it. The Confederate flag was visible beneath them. But, what had to be done had to be done.
He and the ten ghosts and ten marines that made up this INFCOM Zeta platoon entered the infested command center in attack formation and split up to secure the corridors. Williams was rapidly walking through the black corridors, heavy with alien vapors. He could not smell any of that thanks to his mask, but he could feel the aura of the pheromones and could see the tiny particles dim the ray of the nearby marine's flashlight.
They checked the first level and began climbing upstairs. None of the equipment in the command center seemed to be functional, either because of the physical damage this place had endured, or because of the organic material that was now everywhere within it. Williams' group moved through a dead computer room. There was a corpse on the ground, probably an operator. He was covered in the slimy appendages of the Zerg organisms everywhere in the room and, to Wiliams' disgust, it had even crept in his mouth. At least there were just a few more rooms left and they could leave at last.
As his group was walking through a storage room with several suits and rifles, something in the distance made a movement. Williams raised his rifle, ready to fire. The thin red beam of the C-10 was flying over any possible enemy being down the room, but the surface of the reddish living mass, which was even in the very combat suits, made it impossible to discern any threat. The marine stepped forward under the eyes of Williams and the others from the group.
Then, one of the suits next to the marine came to life. It was as if the substance in it decided to step away from the wall and grab the soldier. The people in the room instinctively opened fire at it and it fell back under the spikes of their weapons. For a brief moment, Williams thought he could see a pair of eyes where the head of the creature had to be. Then, it violently exploded.
The ghost was pushed back by the shockwave and fell on the moist ground, his ears ringing. He wasn't deafened, but the force of the blast was about that of a hand grenade, so he quickly stood up to evaluate the damage. The other marines also regained their balance, wondering what had just happened.
'Sir, what the hell was that?' one asked.
The soldier next to the thing, Pvt Brown, was killed. The other men were looking around, frightened.
'I have no idea. But we've spent enough time here. Time to leave,' Williams said and turned to the platoon-level frequency. 'All units, we're moving out. I repeat, we're moving out.'
Five intense minutes later, the men were out in the cold air, relieved to be out of the awful thing that the command center had become.
'The tanks will deal with it, boys. Is anyone missing?' he checked.
'No, sir.'
'Good. Let's finish this.'
The infantry had cleared the compound and some men were sent to see the state of the refinery not far from here. Then, the scientists came, accompanied by the Protoss, to enter every room and turn every stone that the troops had determined were safe. They found out that the settlement was, indeed, inhabited by people from the refinery and that the Confederate ship had not yet arrived when the records ended. The state of some food supplies suggested that the place was attacked by the Zerg one month ago. There were no survivors. However, there was more info. According to a classified file, there was an underground facility five kilometers southwards, where the government was keeping soldiers and scientists.
This intrigued Boris. Maybe there was point in coming here, after all. If anybody was still alive in the safety of the installation, then precious human assistance could be obtained after all. He ordered the leveling of the colony and informed the other high-ranking officers of his intentions.
***
In his room, Chester was playing with a pen when a transmission came. He checked to see who's calling and saw the incoming address – the highest network of the Andronikos. He quickly turned on the transmitter and the vice-admiral appeared in the direct video.
'Errr...'
'Hello, Chester,' Boris said.
The Umojan was failing to find a reason his friend was calling. 'Hello?...'
'Guess what, kid, I have a mission for you.'
Chester felt like a bubble of optimism was growing inside him.
'What is it?' he said quickly.
'As you have probably guessed, we are moving towards an underground Confederate installation right now. We need some assistance with the computers. So I thought I could pull you out of your cell and give you an assignment.'
'Oh, I'm in!' the Umojan felt like laughing. 'What do I need to do?'
'That's the thing. We aren't sure yet. Hopefully, there will be survivors down there. Or, it will be abandoned. Either way, we need eyes and ears for the troops and you are the obvious choice,' Paskirov explained. 'Coming?'
'Do I get my old computer back?' Chester tried to feign suspicion in an effort to obtain some personal benefit from the situation.
'Just for the assignment. You will need it to help us coordinate the units, so you will have it, yea.'
'Alright! When do we start?'
'We are inbound and will begin deployment in about an hour.'
***
Dark clouds gathered over the dark ridges where the fleet was headed later that day. Chester was brought to the massive steel gates in the rocky slope of the elevation and was given his computer. Soldiers and officers awaited him on the small clearing in front of the entrance, standing in the wind. There were Williams, Carla, and Paskirov, in command of the operation.
'Welcome!' Heuven smiled warmly.
'Boris told us why you are here, kid, so don't mess around,' the coldness of the ghost's voice was ever threatening.
'Don't worry, I know what I'm doing,' Chester replied and took a deep breath.
Then, another dropship delivered the engineers and a platoon of infantry.
'So, I have to open the doors?' he asked.
'Yea, do it quick,' Paskirov headed to the dropship. 'I'm going to my HQ. Heuven will come soon, Mike, I promoted him from Delta. Trust him.'
'Your orders, Black One,' the Umojan saw Williams heeding Boris' word.
Alright...
Chester took some of the cabling and found the small console that was used to open the gates. He linked his computer to the main network, thankfully still running on reserve power, and began circumventing the defenses. A few minutes later, he looked around him to see the first platoon of soldiers waiting to get in.
Chester stepped back and pressed a button on the keyboard.
The doors opened.
In front of Chester, a dark corridor led towards the interior of the installation. It was cool and only the flashes of the broken lighting on the ceiling. A marine stepped in and his flashlights illuminated the wreckage of the hallway. The steel floor and the smooth steel walls were broken up on many places and the wiring and piping inside the walls was made visible.
So much about survivors, he thought.
'What a bloody mess...' Carla said.
'Well, we are going in to see who's left inside. You, wise guy,' Williams turned to Chester. 'You are going after the second platoon and you are heading to the nearest useful port. There, you override as much as possible from the systems here and tell us everything you know. Got that?'
'Yea, I did. Don't worry.'
'Don't forget that down there is not a place for cowards,' Carla warned him.
'That's why the soldiers are coming with you,' he countered her with a brief smile before seeing her hostile eyes.
The men from the first platoon entered and the second one, with Chester and two more specialists, followed. Walking behind the troops, he could see the damage all over the walls. Despite the presence of heavily armored soldiers, the place still gave Chester the creeps. The Zerg clearly had been here, and the whole place was wrecked up. After a few turns, the platoon found a room with computer cluster in it for him. The Umojan linked himself up and began informing the high command on everything he could find.
The facility was Confederate, scientific, and classified. It used to have a garrison of troops, plus some heavier machinery, in addition to a disguised defunct antenna and its own power supply. It was attacked by the Zerg twenty-six days ago and there was no data of any survivors. However, when Chester checked the stats of each of the sectors, he found that all the power was re-directed towards the medical sector and that even at that moment, the life support systems there were working.
'Thank you, that's what I needed to know,' Paskirov immediately answered once he heard that. 'INFCOM Delta, this is Vice-admiral Paskirov, you are to proceed to the medical sector of the facility. In its northern part. Expect coordinate update any moment.' He then switched to Chester again. 'Send INFCOM D the location of the medical sector, will you? Thanks.'
Chester followed and continued trying to get into the classified networks while the other platoons moved through this and a nearby corridor.
The infantry was moving in determinately, reviewing the damage and evaluating the situation. It was not long before traces of combat were found: blood, soot and scratches, as well as bodies. In one of the first groups, Carla was leading a platoon bravely throughout the labyrinthine facility. According to the data from Chester, they were now close to the machine support bay and their final destination was the storage rooms at the far eastern end of their level.
Her platoon was just making its way across the darkness of the support bay when something moved and the clank of metal falling on the floor was heard in the large room.
'Who did that?' she asked in a stern tone.
Nobody answered. None of the men was near the source of the sound. Their flashlights shone on the derelict machinery scattered across the place.
'All rifles at the ready!' Carla ordered, fearing the worst. 'Move on!'
The soldiers began a quick march away from the bay. Suddenly, one of the troops who was covering the back of the group shouted.
'There!'
Everybody turned to the far end of the bay where he was pointing. Their lights scanned the corner.
'What?' Carla spoke in an even tone. She knew from Williams that that could keep order with the troops.
'I saw something move there. It jumped behind those machines. I don't know what it was,' the marine was scared.
'Well be more vigilant next time. Everybody, move! The other teams behind is will see what that was.'
Then, the screeching of something sharp over a metallic surface echoed in the bay. It was followed by another screech and then by a faint hissing and growling that grew louder and louder. It was coming from the distant right side of the room. The men prepared their weapons.
'Commander, this is platoon two of INFCOM Gamma. We are reading unidentified presence in our vicinity. No visual contact, only hearing strange noises. Probably living. We are in the machine support bay.'
'Roger that, we are sending platoon four to your location. Hold on.'
One of the rusty mechanisms in the dark bay fell on the ground with a loud noise. Everybody turned to see what was there, but saw nothing. Then, they came.
From the now broken door at the far end of the repair bay, Zerg were pouring into the dim room.
'Fire! Grenades!' Carla commanded the response. 'Colonel, we have contact! Multiple hostiles. We're commencing defensive maneuvers. Zerg! Do you copy!'
After several tense seconds, Heuven's sharp voice was heard on the radio. 'I read you. Try to go back. We're sending help right away. Keep in touch.'
Not impressed by the promises, Carla had the platoon retreat away from where they came, towards the storage rooms. Somewhere along the way, they could hopefully find a detour and a clear way back to the entrance.
***
Boris was listening to the transmissions from the units in the facility. Platoons one, two and three from INFCOM Gamma were now reporting Zerg – Zerg that seemed to come between them and the rest of the troops. That was bad. The battalion had walked into an ambush and now some of its indispensable units were threatened. He began to reorganize the force inside.
***
Williams, in the meantime, had reached the vicinity of the medical sector. His troops were ready to fire as they slowly proceeded through the empty corridors. No enemies were seen. They reached a huge, locked door, and when it was opened, they walked into a well-lit hallway full of junk. Domestic junk. There were empty boxes of food and medicine lying around, a sign of human activity. Williams' platoon split into groups and began checking the rooms around the corridors in the sector for survivals. In a total of three rooms, the twenty or so Confederate scientists were sitting on the floor, with bleak expressions on their faces. Through the glass windows on the walls, the ghost waved at them and when when they saw him they leaped on their feet. The major was slightly shocked to see the state they were in. Weak and hungry, they tried to run towards him, recognizing the first human they had seen probably in weeks.
'Commander, this is Williams, I have located the survivors, and I'm liberating them. Awaiting command.'
'Excellent work, Mike!' Paskirov replied on the radio. 'Get them to Chester at once, he will need all the info he can get from them.'
'Roger that.'
Meanwhile, the survivors had opened the doors and were walking towards him.
'I am Major Williams from an Umojan Expeditionary Fleet. I am here to evacuate you,' he presented himself.
'Thank heavens you came, we thought we were doomed!' a young, bearded scientist rejoiced.
'We thought of contacting anybody who could hear, but the antenna was disabled. And there was nobody alive who could fix it,' another one said.
'Don't tell me the story, my job is to get you out of here. Follow me.'
The feeble scientists followed him as he and the troops escorted them out to the gates, where medical teams were already waiting. He heard the update for Zerg being spotted and realized that Carla could be on the wrong side of the enemy. He decided to hurry before the thought became prepossessing.
***
Carla's unit was running as fast as they could through the abandoned corridors, trying to find a diversion southwards. Finally, after a security block of some sort, they found one. They hurried through it and moved through a cafeteria of some sort, all bloody and smelling so rancid that even her gas mask could not keep the entire stench away. After it, they proceeded southwards, finding themselves in some sort of chemical section of the huge Confederate installation. They crossed a corridor and it led them to a huge hall with many barrels on the floor. They crossed it through a catwalk and went through a metal door. They slammed it behind them and found themselves in a computer room with windows towards a larger hall and an exit on its side. A marine blocked the door with a table while Clara looked at the interior. It was a vast chamber that stretched for more than hundred meters in the distance. It was tall, too, as she saw when she peered down the windows. The computer room was something like a box stuck to the ceiling of the enormous hall. The exit on the side of the overseeing computer room led to another catwalk that moved all the way around the interior of the hall, close to the ceiling and the weak lights on it.
At several points, walkways led away of it towards platforms in the centre. Beneath the platforms, under the darkness of the hall, there were huge storage tanks taking up most of the space. Their contents were hinted at by the sign on the wall next to Carla - “CHEMICAL STORAGE BAY 3”.
'Commander, me and my men just went in chemical storage bay three. The Zerg are coming. Awaiting instructions.'
'Alright,' Chester's voice was heard. 'Is there any other exit out of there? I'm finding this on the map...'
She moved to the catwalk, followed by several marines, and gazed at the distance. There was nothing on the concrete wall at the bottom of the hall, where the Catwalk descended to the floor.
'I see nothing.'
'Yep,' the Umojan confirmed, as if checking whether a sample of somebody's hair was really his, 'there's nothing alright. The chemicals seem to be pumped in and out of here through pipes...'
'Mr. Wizard, are you suggesting that we crawl through the piping?' she was vexed.
'Er, no, I was just saying. Anyway, how close are the Zerg?' Chester said without enough interest in their situation.
'Closer than the other troops. Is there no other way out of here?'
'It seems no. There are those huge drums here where chemicals are kept, right?'
'Yes.'
'Can you guys bother to take a look at what is in them?'
She was hoping that the Umojan was up to something. 'Can't really see clearly, it's too dark. I'll light a flare...'
'No! Don't!' he shouted over the radio. 'There's no telling what you might ignite. Bad stuff. Let me try to find what's there.'
Carla could hear the Zerg running past them on the other side of the door. Well, at least they could try to blow something up if the aliens got here.
One unpleasant minute later, Chester spoke again. 'Okay, in one of the tanks there is concentrated hydrofluorosilicic acid. It has to be the third from the end of the bay, relative to you. The... Left side. Good, is that where the catwalk is? You can see the acid...'
'What about it?' she interrupted him?
'Well, under you, there's another level. Really, the maintenance level. If you go there, you can possibly make it back to the exit.'
'How do I get down there?' this didn't make sense.
'Well, the acid is highly corrosive... So it ought to burn through the floor. Then, you guys are good to go.'
'So we spill it on the ground?' she asked nervously.
'Basically yes. An additional bonus would be the fumes it will leave behind. The Zerg are not gonna like them, hehe,' Chester thought aloud.
'Roger that! Can we fire at its container?'
'Fire? Oh, sure. It should be fine, yeah...'
Before he could finish, Carla was already giving orders to the men to run to the other end of the storage bay and down the ramp. Maintaining a distance so as to not overload the catwalk, the soldiers hurried away from the louder noise of Zerg activity. Several of the troops were already on the floor and the others, including Carla, were trying to join them. Then, the Zerg began pounding on the door.
'Shoot the bottom of the third tank from the wall! My side! And careful, just a few rounds!' She ordered, hurrying to get to the floor.
A marine fired a burst at the wall of the storage tank, close to its base, and the 12mm projectiles went through the wall, leaving round holes on its surface. The acid quickly began pouring down on the floor, corroding its dirty surface with a loud hiss and a pale cloud of smoke.
'It's working!' one of the soldiers exclaimed.
Carla aimed at the other side of the container and fired a round from her canister rifle. The acid started pouring in another direction, eating a safe exit through another spot.
Then, she saw.
In the fourth container from the end, there were bodies floating. Bodies of Zerg. Half-corroded away, the remains of zerglings could be seen in the liquid of the open storage tank.
What the hell?...
Then, the Zerg broke through.
'It's them!' the marines at the back of the column and closest to the entrance shouted.
'Firebats hold your fire!' Carla shouted a warning. 'Those down – fire! Move!'
The soldiers on the ground opened suppressing fire at the incoming aliens while the others hurried to get away. The acid was working its way through the floor quickly, and the fumes were already accumulating on the ground, yet it was too slow.
A zergling leaped out of the field of suppressing fire and began running towards the last soldier. The man fired at it, terrified, and it stumbled dead on the iron grid.
Walking down the stairs, Carla carefully aimed her C-10 at one of the steel rods that held the inner side of the catwalk. She fired and severed it. The flashed of the stressed soldiers' rifles lit the room. It only made her job easier.
One by one, she took down the supports on which the steel catwalk was hanging. With the coming of more and more Zerg, it began to tilt down, threatening to collapse.
'It worked!' a marine shouted, 'There's the hole!'
The soldiers impatiently approached it, waiting for it to grow bigger. In the distance, the zerglings now had to grab onto the steel mesh of the catwalk with their claws in order to resist the slope.
'Prepare to move in!' She shouted.
***
Meanwhile, Boris was listening to the updates. The rescued Confederate scientists were now with Chester and were helping him pull the strings of the whole facility. He was working hard down there, assisting the troops scattered through the compound. And no wonder – he had both plenty of energy, and the desire to atone for his past mistakes.
The various groups' progress was problematic. The Zerg presence in the facility was, indeed, formidable and posed difficulties to the pullout. Seeing how the available forces were not enough, he decided to call the reserves. INFCOM Beta was to move in.
The troops were quickly ferried from the ships and to the entrance. They rushed into the depths of the facility with a simple goal – to secure the lower levels and meet up with Carla before they were overrun. The soldiers advanced quickly and decisively through the corridors under the main level of the installation. Boris only hoped his little idea would make it be quick enough.
***
Carla watched the first marine fire several rounds at the edge of the hole to make it bigger and jump.
'Careful with the acid!' the one behind him warned him before following him.
The troops eagerly descended into the opening on the floor, while the Zerg were coming closer and closer. Then, the catwalk failed and a section of it fell down on the lids of the storage tanks further away, along with the Zerg on it. Carla could hear the cracking of metal beneath the weigh of the aliens and the sound of heavy bodies falling in water that followed. Thee Zerg were getting dizzy by the chemicals and she hurried to take her own turn through the exit. She threw her rifle at a soldier down below and descended to the lower level, grabbing the pipes and wires on the walls and avoiding any of the acid dripping around her.
The room downstairs was an old one. Filled with all sorts of junk, it could rival some of the rooms on the New Trinidad platforms.
'Chester, we're out! Where to now?'
'Oh, you're out. Good. Now, you have to go westwards and sooner or later you will meet up with INFCOM Beta.'
'Roger that,' she said. 'Platoon one, follow me. Platoon two, prepare to move out once assembled. Same for the rest of you,' she commanded and led the first group out of the rusty room.
Her group quickly left the room and entered another dirty old corridor. She wondered whether to tell Chester about the Zerg bodies in the storage tanks or not. Nah, he could wait.
They hurried down the corridor, leaving marks for the following teams to follow. Not wasting any time, her group was rushing onwards through stairs and hallways towards the reinforcements. Then, Heuven came on the radio.
'Sergeant, I have a new objective for you.'
'Go ahead, commander.'
'Southwest of your location there is a power generator cluster. You are to go there and follow Doctor Fitzpatrick's instructions to activate it.'
'But, sir, there is enemy presence in the vicinity.'
'I know. But do not worry. INFCOM Beta are close and will join you by the time you are at your objective.'
'Yes, sir,' she confirmed, hoping this was worth the risk.
***
At the same time, Williams was exiting the medical sector. To his surprise, the old door they had come through was now locked. He tried the console, but it was malfunctioning.
'It won't work,' one of the scientists looked at it.
'How do we get out, then?' the ghost asked.
'There is another gate out of here, leading to the morgue.'
'The morgue?' Williams replied as evenly as he could.
'Yes, we have a morgue here,' the scientist looked at him through his glasses. 'It's just outside the secure medical area.'
'Alright... Shouldn't be a problem,' the armed ghost said. 'Lead the way.'
Several concrete hallways and safety doors later, the platoon found themselves in front of a wide steel door with the number 6 spray-painted on it. One of the Confederates began pushing buttons on the console next to it and a while later, it began sliding away with a hiss.
The marines raised their weapons towards what lay beyond it. What Williams saw did not please him. The huge hall where bodies were stored in the sliding drawers was entirely covered with some sort of moss. The ghost felt sick when he realized that it was the same organic slime which he had seen in the interior of the infested command center. The Zerg living mass had crept here... And had been feeding on the cadavers.
Some of the scientists almost vomited at the sight of the infestation. The troops were appalled.
'My God...' one of the Confederates uttered.
'Can you walk through this?' Williams pointed at the mossy floor.
'Yes, yes. Just two rooms and we're out of here,' one scientist frowned.
'Then let's go!' the ghost ordered and hurried them and the escorting soldiers through the vile place.
At the end of the second room, he looked back to see if everybody was there. The scientists were covering their noses and were struggling through the slimy floor, but nevertheless they made it. Then, something on one of the open body drawers moved. Williams focused at it in the distance.
From beneath the living veil, the cadaver on the drawer was twitching.
'What the...' the ghost said, not being able to take his eyes off the corpse struggling to stand up in wild jerks.
The creature stumbled on the ground, still covered with the Zerg sludge. He noticed how the alien matter had grown into the dead man, like additional body mass. The reddish parasitic thing on the moving cadaver was now pulsating while its reanimated host struggled to stay on his feet and walk towards Williams. He saw its bloody red eyes looking at him with wild lust and felt his training take control.
Williams raised his rifle and released a round at the head of the monster. The troops next to him who were also staring at it with fright were taken out of their trance by their commander's action and, too, fired at it. The hideous being was torn apart, but before it fell on the ground, its body began tearing apart, huge sores appeared on its skin, filled with bile and the infested human corpse exploded.
Williams felt the heat wave through his protective suit.
'Everybody out!' he shouted. In the distance, other bodies were awakening from their rest. 'Grenades! You, seal the door!'
The marines fired several grenades as they pulled out, leaving one of the Confederates time to lock the other steel door at their end of the morgue.
'Sir, what the hell was that?' a firebat asked.
'I don't know, private,' Williams answered, trying to keep himself under control. 'Only our scientists can tell us now.'
The metal door was sealed and the scientist stepped back.
'We have no idea what that is,' he said.
'Nobody has, yet,' the ghost replied. 'Now, come.'
***
The other two platoons quickly caught up with Carla's on the way to the generators. They bore bad news: the Zerg had followed them through the hole and were now pursuing them. Swallowing another piece of grim news, Carla hurried the pace towards their objective.
Shortly, signs began to appear and the three platoons found their way into the generator cluster. It was another huge forty-meter wide hall with a tall ceiling and three wide exits on its sides. In its corners there was old junk.
She contacted the Umojan. 'Alright, Mr. Wizard, time to tell us what to do. And be quick, there's Zerg chasing us.
'Ah, greetings,' Chester replied. 'Now, you should see three wide corridors leading to each side. In them are three generators that you need to turn on, okay?'
'How does the turning on happen?'
'Basically, you have to find the huge fuses and restore their connections. This will activate the auxiliary power supply...'
'How do we restore their connections?' she wished the little scientist spoke in clearer terms.
'Find a conductor. Preferably copper. The fuses here are some old, proven technology. Whoever designed this was playing safe. Just turn off the generator, stick the conductor inside the fuse, and turn on again.'
'Alright. Thank you. I will call back then I'm done.'
'Wait,' Chester's voice stopped her short of closing the conversation. 'Bear in mind that you will need to take the current out of the main cable you will see under the generator's main side panel.'
'Main side panel?' Carla was getting confused.
'Remove big orange plate, pull out yellow cable... Yes, yellow cable, connect conductor from yellow cable to the fuse...' the Umojan began systematic explanations.
'Yes, got that,' she said and called the other two platoon leaders. 'Listen up, we have some simple repairs to make down here. The boys from Beta will be here any minute, so don't worry and focus.'
She took them and some marines carrying the required materials to the first generator. It stood in its huge cubical chamber like a five-meter tall inverted stylized bee hive put atop a large grey box.
'Watch and memorize, you will repeat this in chamber three when I'm done here,' she said and removed the orange panel to follow Chester's instructions. When she restored the severed fuse and turned on the generator, the wire twitched and sent a few sparkles in the air, but then stopped still.
'Done... Now, take the remaining wires and fix the other third one. I'll take care of number two,' she proceeded with the operation.
Walking through the main hall, the troops were in defensive formation, ready to repel any Zerg. She hoped it wouldn't have to come to this.
As she was finishing her generator, she heard sounds of shooting and of Zerg screeching in pain. She hurriedly turned it on and ran towards the main hall to see the situation. The Zerg were coming from the short gateway the units had entered from and were now trying to get to the soldiers through the spacious hall.
She immediately contacted Chester. 'We're done here! The Zerg have come!'
'Oh, good. I'm turning it on. Much obliged, now they've got power. You might wanna contact Heuven now...'
She growled at his unconcerned verbosity and quickly called the Colonel. 'Commander, requesting backup! The enemy are here!'
'Yes, INFCOM Beta are on their way, hold on. Give them ten minutes. Some of the doors were shut.'
'Ten minutes!?' she could hardly hide her vexation.
'I'm afraid so. Over and out.'
Just great, she thought. Well, gotta keep moving, help might as well come in time.
The troops' fire soon drove the enemies back. Seeing the retreating enemy, the men cheered. However, the sounds out there still lingered, reminding the troops that the enemy was not destroyed.
'Sarge, what shall we do?' a firebat asked her.
She didn't know. Nothing came to her mind except to fight on. There could be another way, though, she thought, looking at the garbage. It was time to call the Umojan again.
'Chester, we have problems here. Are you there?'
'Yes, yes, I'm listening. Zerg, I hear,' Chester spoke in a calm, relaxed voice so as to tease her.
'Can you help us somehow?'
'I dunno...' he said, 'Nothing meaningful in the systems here. What have you got?'
'There is just garbage. Old wires, some iron net, old carts, disused parts...'
'Alright... Maybe there is something you can do. Listen, those generators... You could use their electricity.'
'I'm listening.'
Twenty minutes later, the trap was set on the ground. Cables from the first generator ran all the way from it to a net of uninsulated wires laying between the soldiers and the entrance. Anything that walked over it was in for a bad surprise. And INFCOM Beta were nowhere near.
The troops awaited the next wave and when it came, they opened fire, unleashing death at the wild Zerg. Carla was shooting, too, trying to hold the line for as long as possible. Then, the first lucky zergling leaped on the net and the electric current leaped through it, ignoring whatever resistance its skin had, and covered it in sparks. The zergling fell on the ground, burned by the electricity.
Then, to Carla's terror, another such creature jumped on the wires. And nothing happened to it.
'Erm, sergeant, has anything happened to the first generator there?' Chester's voice was heard.
'The electrocution idea didn't work! You failed!' she shouted over the clamor of the fighting.
'You mean... It's off?' the Umojan's frightened voice was heard. She wondered how bad it had to be for him to sound like this. 'Damn, then I was wrong about the yellow cable. It's not that!'
'Anything to comment on the fact that we are going to die here?' she was angry. She switched to the command. 'Colonel, requesting reinforcements! What is taking them so long?'
'Sergean, INFCOM Beta were facing heavy resistance, just as you,' Heuven sounded nervous from the fighting. 'They are already fighting the rear of the Zerg force you are encountering. Over.'
Good news at last. Carla ordered the troops to open indiscriminate fire. The Zerg, who were managing to cut the distance to the Terrans for the last three minutes, were greeted with several grenades that fell in their ranks and created momentary confusion among them. The pauses between the bursts waned and the line of soldiers grew more resolute. Then, they stopped firing.
Behind the Zerg, something was happening. There was chaos at their rear, now within the confines of the huge hall. Carla could not see what was killing them, but could discern the harm and the blood and the severed limbs. Only loud, buzzing swooshes were heard. Suddenly, it occurred to her. She leaped aside to change her angle of view. There were cloaked Dark Templar there, massacring the Zerg.
The Protoss warriors, as she was later told, had come alongside the reinforcements from INFCOM Beta by the suggestion of Boris. In the labyrinthine interior of the facility, they were doing a perfect job hewing the Zerg monsters with their psi blades, while their invisibility confused the Zerg and made resistance to their attack almost impossible. The light-bending silhouettes finished off the last Zerg and the Protoss faded in visibility. One of them stepped forward.
'I am Adelnur, the leader of these warriors. I was sent here by your second-in-command to rescue you and your men as a part of my oath,' a deep, orderly voice echoed in her mind.
'Thank you. What took you so long?' she mentally asked.
'There were more foes than we anticipated. Now come. They have been defeated. We are to finish the others, your troops are relieved.'
She exhaled in relief and headed towards the gateway.
***
When it was all over and the huge underground installation had been cleared of Zerg, the Umojans began taking the secrets it kept for themselves. From the rescued scientists, the high command learned the fate of the facility. When the Zerg attacked the settlement, the settlers, who knew of its existence, but did not know what was inside, tried to seek shelter in it. It was a mistake that doomed them, and the people inside. The Zerg had broken in and killed everybody they could find, except for the scientists, who made use of the tightly sealed medical sector and hid there, untraceable by the aliens. Then, they had to survive with what was at hand, until the Umojan Expeditionary Fleet had arrived.
That night, in front of the gates, Williams was holding Carla in his hands.
'There is something we need to discuss,' he began.
'What is it?'
'I cannot tolerate you exposing yourself to such risk.'
'You know I can take care of myself, Mike,' she reminded him.
'Yes, but this is war. Death is everywhere. Your presence on the battlefield hinders my ability to take decisions.'
'So, you think that I am not distressed when you are fighting?' her tone was angered.
He decided to be direct. 'Maybe you are. I do not care. But the goals of this fleet are clear. And my decision-taking is more important than your-decision taking. Rank discrepancy. Therefore, my concentration is more important than yours.'
'Be careful what you are going to say next,' she turned icy.
'I'll say what I must. You will not fight any more. Not as long as I have to look after troops.'
She let go of him.
'I don't like this,' she said coldly.
'If you were trained for war, Clara, you'd know how to prioritize. That's what I have to say,'
he told her, looking at her neutral face as she turned towards the nearby dropship.
Further away, in Paskirov's cabin aboard the Andronikos, somebody was getting good news.
'I heard how you did today, bud,' the vice-admiral told Chester. 'I'm glad. You are back in business.'
The Umojan grinned in happiness. 'I'm so glad I didn't fail you, Boris! I knew you would get me here again.'
'Now, now, it's more about cleaning your own reputation among the others. You know I trust you, I just needed them to see your service. It would be stupid if we kept a gifted mind like you out of business, wouldn't it?' Paskirov smiled.
'Hehe, right.'
'Now, I am waiting for Williams... He should be here any minute.'
'But you just said I was again free - I want to hear what you have to say.'
'Right. Sure, then, stay,' Paskirov said.
Then, Williams entered. He looked scornfully at Chester and sat on the other chair in the room.
'Next time know your cables, wise guy,' he said with badly hidden hostility.
'Alright, knock it off!' the vice-admiral scolded him. 'I read the scientists' report of the infested corpses. What happened in that morgue?'
Williams sat back. 'As we were leaving, the bodies on the drawers began coming to life. You probably know the basics of the Zerg organisms growing around and into them, but the way they moved was really demoralizing for the men.'
'Right, I can imagine, then,' Boris said. 'When you shot the thing it exploded, right?'
'Yes. It was a wave of heat.'
'What are you talking about?' Chester looked at them with terrified eyes.
'Oh, you did not read the report yet?' the ghost smiled.
'What was in that morgue?'
'Mike had to go through the morgue because the door they went through malfunctioned. In the morgue, everything was covered in some sort of Zerg spores or mold or whatever,' Boris explained. 'Then, by the time they were at the end of it, the bodies started coming to life. With the Zerg thing all over them, and inside them, they tried to get to the major. They could not, because they were slow, yet they were highly combustive when badly harmed.'
'Are you saying... That the Zerg have infested humans?' the Umojan slowly said.
'Yes, I'm afraid. Put it in another way, they were, at least the dead humans,' Boris shook his head. 'I have no idea what this means exactly, but I can assure you, it can't be good.'
'You betcha it can't. What are we going to do about this?' Chester asked.
'Finish the job with the slab, professor,' Williams coldly replied.
***
The fleet now had all the various weapons that the Confederates had developed. There were things inside whose helpfulness against whatever came against the UEF made Boris grin in joy. The science vessels were equipped with EMP charges – a seemingly harmless missile that generated a powerful electromagnetic pulse around it. This pulse was pernicious to any electronics within a certain range, frying their circuits whether on or off. It wiped away some or all of a Protoss' psi shields and the only protection against it, which Boris ordered the fleet to implement, was a special conducting grid with a running current that surrounded the desired piece of electronics. Such grids were installed around the valuable parts of all the vessels bigger than a dropship and the humans were good to go.
There was also chemical weaponry specifically designed against the Zerg. The Confederate scientists had been tapping the wonders of science into many directions, many of which were hard to accept, but the anti-Zerg chemicals was a particularly useful one. With the information derived, the fleet could produce its own chemical weaponry and employ yet another countermeasure to the hostile aliens.
All else, however, including various biological weapons, were not to be preserved. There were things in those flasks and databases that Boris knew ought never to be used. Viruses and chemicals that even a Zerg did not deserve to face. The Confederacy, in its malevolence, had produced such things, but the vice-admiral could not risk allowing at least these formulae that were here to be found by somebody else, especially a Confederate. For it was certain that the Confederacy would use them against not only enemies, but also its own people. So, he ordered them destroyed. Doing humanity a favor, he thought.
Most importantly, there were nuclear missiles. Special new models, more efficient than the ones he had heard were in service. There were three of them, laser-guided and ready to fire at any time. The nukes were dropped from a high altitude and their special guidance system aimed them towards the spot designated by a ghost's rifle. A special tool was attached to the rifle while the ghost aimed it at the chosen coordinate and the missile automatically corrected its course against the wind and to the designated ground zero. Beneath a certain altitude, it was considered that the nuke would hit the target with sufficient accuracy, so the ghost was free to go and get as far as possible from the detonation. All the ghosts in the battalion were equipped with such devices and the nuclear missiles were placed secretly aboard the Enteos, which, according to modified procedure, would stay in high orbit, far from the action, and wait for orders to release part of its nuclear potential.
And, the experimental weapons. Among the usable ones were some improved gear for the ghosts plus the so-called Yamato cannon. The Yamato cannon was a group of several special apparatuses that was attached to the front of the battlecruiser's hammerhead. Tapping an enormous proportion of the battlecruiser's energy, it generated the power of a nuclear explosion just in front of the capital ship - and then released it forwards. The live tests showed how much it strained the Androniokos' power grid, despite even for the upgraded ship reactor. However, the devastating attack was deemed a worthy investment and the Yamato cannon remained on the flaghsip.
The expeditionary fleet was getting a more hostile flavor, Boris could not fail to notice. Good. It made them more dangerous for any fool whose actions threatened Terran space.