Chapter 1

The Vulture sped across the rocky landscape, skipping over sand dunes and coming dangerously close to burying its nose into the ground, which considering its speed would have been, well, bad. In the distance the Command Center became visible as a small red speck to the hover cycles' pilot. The pilot squeezed the handles harder, and pushed the vehicle to its maximum speed.

Diesel stood leaning on the Command Center's exterior wall. He lit a cigarette that he had in his mouth for a few minutes before. The massive Firebat blew out a lung full of smoke while placing his hand over his forehead and squinting into the blazing desert. On the rippling horizon he could see the Vulture speeding towards his position. He grunted as he pushed himself off the Command Center wall and flicked his cigarette to the ground. He grabbed his wrists and twisted his hands back and forth on them. Squinting, Diesel noticed the Vulture wasn't slowing down. The Firebat could now hear the vehicles humming sound.

The Vulture leapt over a sand dune, hitting the ground in a 'belly flop' manner, sending sand and dirt flying, and effectively slowing the Vulture down. The machine sped towards the Commander Center, swerving to its side, flipping over a few times, ejecting the driver, landing on its side and then slowly tipping over right way up. Deactivated.

Jeri pushed herself up from the sandy ground, dusting off her pilot's suit. Diesel walked over, helmet under his arm,

"You know no one's going to fix that for you, again,"

"Ah, no worries, not like we got anything else to do around here!" Jeri said kissing Diesel.

The Firebat and Pilot walked into the Command Center. The corridors were dry and dark. The odd Marine, Pilot, Firebat, or Ghost walked past. Usually with a cigarette stuck between their lips, with exception to the Ghosts. They didn't smoke. The rest of the soldiers figured it was because their voices were raspy enough. Of coarse if the Ghosts ever hear them say that, or rather read their minds, they would pull the guy's head off, literally. The Militia of Red Moon had a lot of Ghosts; they just didn't have many here, maybe around five. And one nuke silo, that had a nuke a long while ago, but not anymore.

Diesel smacked one of his fellow Firebats on the head at he walked by, the other man turned to slap him on the back of the head but Diesel had already walked too far away. Diesel was a huge guy; he was around 6'4 and weighed about 250 pounds. And that's not fat. He had his head shaved bald, but it was rumored that he had just burned his hair off and it had never grown back, he didn't accept or deny that rumor, he liked mystery. His left eyebrow (if you were looking at him from the front) was half singed off. And you could see the pink, sometimes flaky scar tissue where the outer half once was. What little hair that was left on his face was starting to go grey, he was only 23. Most of the Firebats and Ghosts were going grey early on. Probably because of the massive amounts of stress placed on them. Image a Firebat's life, going around turning human beings (and aliens) to ash with two perdition flame throwers on your arms, connecting to a huge gas plasma tank on your back. The sheer terror of seeing someone burn to death was enough, but knowing you were responsible, that's tough. Also, walking around the Battlefield with a highly flammable tank on your back, that's an inviting target. A Sniper could take out you, and a bunch of your buddies with one shot, considering the blast from the tank. Commanders usually order Firebats killed first priority of all Infantry, unless of coarse there's a Ghost in town. In which case brings us to the terrors of Special Operations. Ghosts are responsible for hundreds, sometimes thousands of deaths, either by telling command where to send troops to kill massive amounts of enemy troops, or by a more direct means, by calling in a tactical nuke strike and vaporizing an entire base. Also, if a Ghost is captured, they are tortured until they die, even if and when they give up the requested information. That is, if the enemy wants information. Normally they could just get one of their own Ghosts to break into the enemy Ghost's mind and figure out anything it needs too. The enemy hates Ghosts, and they make it damned well known. Then there's the omnipresent threat of the Zerg. Zerg hate nukes, and therefore, the Terran Dominion likes nukes. When fighting the Zerg, you are almost guaranteed to become infested, and then your own men will have to kill you, unless they want a Parasite watching through your eyes. Then there is the threat of the parasite completely controlling you, and sometimes, the parasite can even mutate your body, and make you into a psychotic killing machine. So in summation, it sucks being a Firebat or Ghost. In fact, life in the Dominion sucks. Life in the Koprulu sector sucks.

Diesel put his arm around Jeri's waist.

"Where we going now?" He asked in his smoke-charred voice.

"I'm going to see the techies about my Vulture, you do what you want" Jeri said smugly.

"Have fun, I'll be in the cafeteria if you need me" Diesel responded with a suggestive tone, he winked and walked away. Letting his hand slide from Jeri's waist.

Aboard UED Battlecruiser Monarch:

"ETA?"

"One day sir,"

"One day? How far did Command send us for Christ's sake?"

"Well sir, you know this sector, it was formed from a bunch of criminals, they passed on their ways and infected the place. Now we got the Terran Dominion, made up of a bunch of dirty outlaws, who probably can't even read." the Navigational Officer said.

"Hmm, I suppose, but never under estimate anyone, I won't say enemy because with any luck we can work with these people, I'll be in my Quarters, call me if anything happens."

"Yes sir"

"Oh, and Private,"

"Sir?"

"If you ever take the liberty to explain something to me that I learned in high school History class. Or if you ever talk to me like I'm one of your college drinking buddies again, I'll cut your bloody tongue out," the young Captain said before he walked off the Bridge.

Offended and a little shaken, the Navigation Officer went back to his scanner.

Red Moon Ground Base Beta, the Planet Mar Taro:

Diesel slammed a Marine's hand down on the table,

"HAHA! Never challenge a Firebat to an arm wrestling match!"

The Marine grumbled and tossed a few coins on the table, that Diesel proudly collected. The other Marine's and 'Bats mumbled and grunted as they exchanged betting money.

Over in the corner of the Cafeteria a lone Ghost, Check, sat on the table, propped up against the wall, aiming his five-foot rifle at the crowd of idiot soldiers. It pained him to think of them as Soldiers, yes, they have all seen combat, they have all killed men. But they acted like fool's 24/7/365. Well, some had their moments, the Firebat captain, Diesel, only acted like that when he was around his boys, as he called them. Check always thought it was too keep his Firebats under his control. Diesel was the only one he could even come close to respecting. Check decided to down his rifle, he was just checking his new scope, if any of the 'rines saw him aiming it they would shit themselves and practically start a riot.

Jeri ran her fingers through her short jet-black hair. She rubbed her fingers together in disgust, the heat and grime of this dump really gets a person dirty quick. And it's not like they could shower much here. A desert doesn't have much water. So the occupants of this outpost had to get used to feeling filthy, and the smell. The smell was almost too much if you weren't used to it. A lot of the Marines and 'Bats didn't even shower when they could, they didn't like to get used to being clean only to have it taken away from them when they remember they need to conserve water until the next shipment. Then she thought of Diesel, she smiled, he showered, whenever he could, of coarse, he didn't have hair, so he didn't have to worry about grease and flakes.

Jeri realized she had been staring at her fingers while thinking, her index and thumb, the ones with her hair grease on them. It probably looked weird; she looked around the Factory's Machine Shop to see if anyone was looking at her funny. Nope, not that she saw. Back to the Vulture. Maybe she would have some fun and load a few Spider Mines into it this time, go hunting for them overgrown scorpion things that were scurrying around there all the time. She just had to be carefull not to detonate the current spider mines that were laying out there.

"DAMNIT!" Jeri said out loud while smacking her wrench against the side of her Vulture. She was supposed to go replace some of the mines today, the critters out there sometimes blow them up, and if the Zerg or Protoss ever attack, they need a full compliment of mines guarding them.

"Ah, I'll do it tomorrow," she said in a whisper. So no one overheard. For now she was going to finish fixing her Vulture, so she had a means of getting to the edge of camp the next day. Then she was going to go back to the Bunker and use up this month's shower. This month's water was in extremely short supply, and as if on cue, the heat was at an abnormally high temperature. Thinking about the filth just made it unbearable, Jeri cursed herself, she knew better than to do that.

"I need a cigarette." She headed for the door, even here the people had the common courtesy to smoke outside.