The door of the dropship slowly opened as the sun reflected into his eyes. The hot sun of Moria was bright the day of his arrival. Twenty-one year old Rodger Hertubiz flipped his Gauss rifle over his shoulder nervously. This was his first day as a marine in the field of battle against the ravenous alien swarm: the Zerg. The Zerg were an entirely biological race, driven by cannibalism and consumption of other species. The Zerg actually started out as small insect like creatures, much like worms. However, these small white worms were extremely resistant to harsh temperatures and soon developed the ability to burrow themselves into the skin of other creatures and assimilate their bodies over a long period of time. After a few generations, the creatures the Zerg had assimilated were hardly recognizable. They had grown razor-sharp teeth and claws; they had doubled in size, or had developed the ability to spit corrosive acid. How these Zerg were so cooperative and worked together in such a sadistic fashion was a mystery to the Kel-Morian combine, the army Rodger Hertubiz had just enlisted for.
Rodger had spent several years at the Morian Academy of marines, studying the strengths and weaknesses of the voracious Zerg. Today, Rodger was being put into his first battle, basically a "test" for him and his classmates at the Academy. The door to the flying transport ship was already opened, and the 24 marines Captain Ray Aureus was leading to their final exam were all as nervous, if not more nervous, than Rodger. All the marines walked out of the transport and awaited their Captain's instructions. At the demand of their leader, the troops gathered in a circle with Ray in the middle. Clearing his throat, Ray told his men what he had to say several times before.
"Men, future marines of the Kel-Morian combine, this is the final exam of your training. You have all succeeded on the written exam; now it is time to test your mettle against real Zerg. This is not a simulation. I repeat: this is not a simulation. If, for any reason at all, one of those dogs from hell scratches or bites you, retreat to the dropship and get help. Good luck, soldiers. You will have exactly two minutes to prepare yourselves and secure the preset positions. Remember what we said at the Academy yesterday: Team Blue, take the east, Team Red, the west, and Team Green, the north. The vicious critters can't possibly hope to land an attack against us from the South. The hill is too steep. Move out!"
After these words, the marines moved to their locations. The exam area was a small valley cornered by several hills, the southern pass blocked by a mountain. Rodger got into position with the rest of the Blue Team. He loaded his automatic Gauss rifle with several hundreds of bullets, turned the safety off, activated the kill count on the screen located on the top of his rifle and readjusted his encounter suit and helmet, powerful armour worn by all marines. The suit made the bearer nearly twice as large, for it had several layers of armour and included a flashlight on each shoulder. Rodger took a deep breath and waited for the two minutes to end. He wasn't sure if those two minutes seemed like two hours or two seconds, but he saw Ray Aureus move in the middle of the valley, holding a small cube shaped object with a headpiece constituted of several screens. Rodger had heard of such a device before. It was a Psi-Emitter, a small portable device that had the uncanny ability to lure Zerg creatures to its signal. The Zerg, rather stupid compared to other species, would blindly follow the signal even under heavy fire.
The valley where they would fight against the Zerg for the first time was crawling with Zerglings, the smallest type of Zerg, ever since the valley had been discovered. This made it the ultimate exam area. Rodger looked at the eastern pass. He heard the mechanical noise of several screens being turned on and rotating at high speed: the emitter had been activated. His green eyes looked around for the slightest movement. His sense of sight was not the first one to be stirred, however, for he heard gunshots behind him. Team Green had company. Rodger absolutely wanted to see a real Zergling, not a dead one, but he knew he couldn't leave the eastern pass. Before the marine apprentice could complain too much, a group of five Zerglings leapt to the side of one the hills of the pass.
A mix of excitement and fear ran through Rodger's spine as he looked upon a Zergling's white beady eyes for the first time. Zerglings resembled a mad cross breading between a dog and a velociraptor, with sharp teeth, a long tail, scaly brown skin and a long ruff situated on the back of their head. Before the staring contest between the Zergling and the marine could last too long, the Zerg creature leapt forward, followed by its four companions, definitely in the mood to rip some flesh right out of a few human foes. However, Kurt Belek, one of the biggest marines of all the teams and Rodger's friend, opened fire upon the Zerglings. Soon, the other soliders were shooting at them as well. The five Zerglings were shredded into pieces by the rifles. Not one of the Zerglings even got the chance to hit one of the eight marines that were forming team Blue. The apprentice marines high-fived, congratulating themselves on their first victory.
Rodger didn't share the excitement, however. His kill count indicated zero. Nervously, he called to Kurt:
"How many did you get?"
Kurt smiled and replied:
"I nailed three of the lil' suckers!"
Rodger shook his head timidly. Kurt had gotten three out of five Zerglings, and he had none. The field exam was worth 55 of the final note, and he needed at least one kill to pass this exam. While team Blue waited for more Zerglings, team Red and team Green were fighting. It seemed like the eastern pass was the one the Zerglings used the least. This exasperated Rodger, for he longed for his much needed kill. Suddenly, the gunshots had stopped, everywhere. Rodger looked behind his shoulder just for a second. Had Captain Aureus shut off the psi-emitter already? He sighed of relief when he noticed the psi-emitter's screens were still turning.
All of a sudden, the ground started to shake under team Blue's feet. None of the students knew what was happening. Rodger suddenly understood what was going on. A stampede of Zerglings was making its way through the eastern pass. He found his calculations to be correct when he spotted nearly twenty Zerglings running towards the small barricade of marines.
Three of the marines in team Blue ran away pusillanimously. Before anyone could call these marines cowards, the remaining marines of the Blue began shooting at the Zerglings. Four of the Hell dogs were killed and one found itself impossible to move, missing a leg. Nevertheless, the Zerglings got close enough to begin clawing at the marines, and Rodger could clearly see the bloodthirsty drool dropping from each of these creatures' mouths. The soldiers were hitting the small Zerg creatures with everything they had, but the bullets of their Gauss rifles seemed to have difficulties penetrating the reinforced hides of the Zergling's scaly skin. Kurt shot another one dead by getting it in the rib cage, making a clean hole into one of its lungs. The beasts began flailing their long claws viciously at the Blues. A marine was pushed to the ground by the tremendous force of a Zergling's attack. It wasn't long before three of the Zerg creatures had jumped upon the fallen marine and began biting the Plexiglas visor of his helmet. After a long biting session, one of the Hell dogs broke the visor and its atrocious maw made its way to the desperate marine's neck. The unfortunate man closed his eyes at the agonizing pain. He would never open them again.
The rest of team Blue had of course made an effort to help their comrade, but they had only succeeded into slaying one of the foul beasts. Rodger shot left and right, trying to cease the blows of claws hitting him left and right. A Zergling jumped directly at Rodger, hoping to make him fall as well. As it was about to collide into the marine, Rod placed a bullet into its head. The young man had his much needed kill, but he was not sure if he would survive the assault. He shot left and right, not noticing how many of the creatures he was killing. Another marine in team Blue passed into death as two Zerglings bit him on both sides of the back simultaneously. To Rodger's relief, he noticed half of team Green and half of team Red had come to help them.
Soon, only a few of the monsters remained. In fact, the few Zerglings that remained retreated. Kurt Belek chased after them and killed another. Rodger was amazed by Kurt's field performance, for he had always done badly on studying the Zerg. The eastern pass was secured. The marines listened and enjoyed the silence, although wordlessly mourning their companions who had fallen during this unexpected Zergling rush. Rodger turned back and saw the Psi-Emitter was again in the hand of Ray, deactivated. The marine had survived but he had never seen death from so close. The captain called everyone back to the dropship, the transport that had taken them there. As the soldiers were entering the ship, their leader looked back at the valley. Captain Ray's eyes widened and he dropped his weapon at a most unpleasant sight: swarms of Hydralisks were invading the valley.
Hydralisks were much larger than Zerglings and did not fight in the same fashion. These larger Zerg launched volleys of penetrating spines, much deadlier than a Zergling's claws, thus were more fatal and could attack from a distance. The Hydralisks resembled Zerglings in appearance a bit, most especially in the face, having the same long ruff in the back of the head. However, Hydralisks had no legs and had the lower body of a snake, but had two long arms, with no hands, with a long sickle ending each arm much like a sword instead. This larger Zerg strain used these arms to drag itself with more speed or to stab anyone insane enough to come close to it. A Hydralisk's maw was larger and more fearsome than a Zergling, but Hydralisks did not often hunt simply by eating their prey.
As these fearsome fiends entered the valley using the northern pass as well as the western pass, Ray Aureus counted them quickly while ordering the dropship pilot to take off. The Captain's jaw dropped; he counted almost one hundred of the evil beings. Quickly he turned around and entered the transport. The door closed and the dropship left the valley. A few of the Hydralisks fired a volley of their deadly spines at the dropship, but luckily, the spines did not damage any of the ship's important systems. Inside, the marines looked at their guns to see their kill count. None of the soldiers left the valley without at least a kill. Rodger observed his comrades. They all seemed happy with their results. He smiled, for he had developed friendship with most of these men. However, with all the emotions and worries Rodger faced in the valley, he forgot to check his own kill count. He looked at the red screen on his Gauss rifle.
"Oh WOW!!!"
All of the marines in the dropship looked at Rodger awkwardly. Josart Lamont, one of Rod's friends who were part of team Green, looked at him and asked: "What is it, Rod?"
The cheerful marine smiled happily and replied:
"Oh, its nothing…"
The other marines then went back to discussing the battle of the valley. Rodger simply looked down at his kill count: seven.