Starcraft: Clash Potential

By Seraphilim

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Prologue: Pledge of No Allegiance

Mission One: Overrun

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'Is this what hell is like?' thought Corporal Janus Stokes, a squad leader in the Confederacy's Zeta Squadron, as he and a half dozen other marines held their ground outside the last evacuation zone against the onslaught of the rampaging Zerg. Janus still couldn't believe that Tarsonis, the heart world of the Confederacy, was in such a state. Somehow, the Sons of Korhal had gotten the Zerg to fight for them; at least that was what Janus' CO said.

Hunkering down by the blasted remains of a bunker, Janus and three other marines continued to plaster the rushing zerglings and hydralisks with gunfire. They were holding, but the Zerg were pushing the wall closer. Even now, Janus could see the Zerg break through and overrun the three soldiers stationed further ahead; their cries of horror and pain lost in the wind as Janus' group concentrated on their own survival.

Thankfully, they got the message that the dropships had landed, so the four men pulled back from their position and fled like bats out of hell. Out of the corners of his eyes, Janus could see other marines who had been guarding the LZ also running for the dropships, the Zerg in frenzied pursuit. One by one, soldiers were overtaken and slaughtered by the faster beasts. Nearing the closest of the three dropships, Janus noticed that several other soldiers had already gotten onboard.

Janus and his squadmates lunged forward to rush up into the dropship's carrying bay. Finally, Janus looked back. There were still a few soldiers running for the dropships, but the Zerg were almost upon them. In mute and morbid fascination, Janus watched as each of the hopeless soldiers fell prey to the swift assault of the Zerg.

'Wait… that guy on the left… he might make it!' thought Janus as he picked out one of the last soldiers. This man wasn't wearing the bulky CMC-400 armor that was SI for Confederacy marines; because of his lack of armor, he was able to keep much further ahead of the pursuing Zerg. Acting quickly, Janus moved to the mouth of the bay, holding onto one of the landing hatch's hydraulics with one hand and reaching out with the other.

"Grab my hand!" shouted Janus as he reached out as far as he could. He could hear the dropship's engines picking up; they were taking off! The fleeing soldier, alone now, leapt forward and grabbed Janus' reaching hand in a deathgrip just as the dropship lifted up into the air. The two men scrambled inside as the landing hatch closed shut behind them. Janus sat down heavily, feeling sweat running down the side of his neck. He turned to the man he just saved, who was lying on the deck gasping for air.

"You okay?" asked the corporal. The man on the floor nodded, and gave a grin as he caught his breath. "Thanks for the save… I owe you one." He said as he offered a hand. "First Lieutenant Terry Lineford, the ass-fraggin' pilot."

Janus took the offered hand in his own, and careful not to crush Terry's unarmored limb with the CMC-400's, shook. "Corporal Janus Stokes, the ass-haulin' marine. Wait, pilot? You got shot down or something?"

Terry shook his head, "No, I don't suck. They blew up my Wraith on the launch pad before I got there, so I hooked up with some grunts and they told me this was the nearest evac point, so…"

He was interrupted when the dropship's pilot's voice rang out over the intercom. "Guys, better hold on to something. We got airborne bastards headed for us."

The nine soldiers inside the bay took the advice to heart, and they all latched onto the nearest part of the hull as the dropship, slow and bulky as it was, began evasive maneuvers. In the cockpit, the pilot grit his teeth as he swerved out of the path of a salvo of Glave Wurms from a Mutalisk. To his right, he saw the lead dropship take a hit to the side from a second Mutalisk attack. The dropship held together, luckily.

As they broke for space, the rear dropship exploded suddenly. Risking a look back, the pilot of the lead dropship saw small Zerg fliers chasing them.

"Oh, shit! Those're those flying bombs! Heavy Two, keep with the evasive maneuvers! Warspite! We've got scourges on our ass! They already got Heavy Three!"

The response was quick. "Understood, Dagger group is coming up to your starboard side for escort."

Both dropship pilots heard the response, and both held true to it by twisting and turning the clunky dropships in directions they weren't designed to go. The crazy maneuvers managed to keep the scourges from coming in contact, but it was only a matter of time before someone got unlucky. And, just as the three Wraiths from Dagger flight group arrived and opened fire with missiles, two scourges overtook the lead dropship, their small bodies overloading with explosive chemicals and blowing Heavy One to metal dust and shards. The Wraiths cut the remaining scourges down to pieces, but it was too late for two of the dropships. Thankfully the surviving ship, Heavy Two, had taken miniscule damage at all, miraculously. The Wraiths escorted the dropship to the waiting battlecruiser, the Warspite. Once the dropship was confirmed landed and onboard safely, the Warspite and its fellow ships fled the space above Tarsonis.

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Mission One: Complete

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That's it for now. This story is set up similar to the Vision of the Future campaign created by Razorclaw X. The Prologue will be divided into a few missions, then Chapter One will be divided, and so on. Makes it much easier for me to write, and also gives me the opportunity to maybe make this into a custom campaign.