A deep, heavy knocking gradually pulled Trent out from hypersleep. His eyes, still crusted over from mucus and cold slumber, peeled open to find that his already full breaths have been fogging up the chamber class. A shadow moved around above him as he blinked and groaned, unrecognizable through the thick fog.
A sequence of blips sounded as the shadow outside punched in a deactivation code for the chamber. A loud squeal of pressure was released as the glass door latched open and slowly raised to reveal the intensely bright room. The figure looked down at him, smiling, though Trent's vision was not yet comfortably restored to notice.
"Well ain't you just like Sleeping Beauty," the familiar voice laughed. Trent groaned in tedious response, wanting to snap back. "I know, I know; you get grumpy when waking up. Your woman gave me a warning."
Trent cleared his throat and sought to speak, finding plenty of difficulty after barely coming out of hypersleep's effects. "C'mon Maynard, dim the lights already."
Maynard laughed heartily. "Could've figured you'd say that." He walked over to turn on a much less intense wall light and then proceeded to flip off the overhead. "There ya go, sunshine. See any better?"
Trent blinked a couple times and lifted his head to get a better sweep of the room. "Yeah, thanks bud." He flexed his elbows and knuckles and got a grip of the chamber's edges, hoisting himself up and swung one leg out before slipping, his crotch landing on the chamber edge.
"Damn dude, take it easy for a minute," Maynard cautioned. "Your muscles aren't nearly restored enough for free movement."
Ignoring his friend, Trent hoisted his pelvis up and slid his other leg out. He then sat along the edge in a slump, groaning and wiping his eyes. "Just glad I couldn't feel that."
"I can imagine. It hurt me just looking at it."
Trent chuckled, continuing to rub his eyes and shake his head as the tapping of footsteps came from outside the room and proceeding in.
"Ensign Feror," a foreign voice boomed in, "glad to see you're so willing to get up and moving so soon." Trent pivoted his waist and looked behind him, seeing a far superior officer staring at him with a snicker. "Though I see you don't look much better than the rest coming out now." A quiet laugh ensued between the three as Trent turned back. "See that he gets a proper breakfast and that he makes it to the conference room at Ten-Hundred hours, corporal."
"Sir!" Maynard replied with a salute. He lowered his hand as the officer turned away and headed out the door. Looking at Trent's weary state, he clapped him once on the shoulder. "Alright dude, time to get on with that wake-up call. Hope ya like synthetic eggs…"
An hour and a half later, Trent Feror sat himself in the conference room. A large array of soldiers, strategists and engineers surrounded him, all of them probably as aggravated as he was to be preparing for deployment so soon after hypersleep. The seats squeaked as everyone shifted around in anticipation of the officer's entry into the room. Soon enough, all anxious movements were halted as the capital ship's commanding officer came in and stepped up to the podium.
"Good morning, ladies and gentleman," he announced clearly and loudly, startling some of the anticipating troops. "I realize that some of you may have been suffering from cold sleep hallucinations, so I'll be the first to clarify that, yes, we're still on the capital ship Subtle Nova and that I am still Colonel Meskein." A handful of the attendees giggled in response, particularly those that hadn't experienced the hallucinations.
"I'd like to start off this war conference with a small pep-talk, if you will," the colonel said before clearing his throat, obviously realizing that his terminology seemed startling. "We are now within Tarsonis' atmosphere and soon to reach our point of deployment. We have word that the Zerg presence is spreading on a massive scale and likely to reach the area in a matter of hours from their last detected site of hive clusters. It is also just recently known that a Protoss taskforce of a rather large proportion set down nearby and plan to scale their own eradication of the Zerg threat. We don't know of their potential allegiance to us, but we would be safe to assume that they will not regard us as friends.
"However, despite these harsh odds, I believe our force has the capacity to brave them all. After I reach my conclusion, you will see, in individual briefing rooms, that we have a detailed strategy of execution that foresees any odds we may face. Our sensors conclude that we have every element necessary to fend off the Protoss force and plow into the Zerg swarm until laying waste to their hive cluster. We, the coordinating officers, have complete trust in that our casualties will remain at a minimum from execution to extraction. You are all part of a well-organized force. You're not just soldiers, pilots or officers – you're all warriors. Each a link in perhaps the strongest chain the Terran dominion has known. And with this chain, we will choke the lifeblood out of this threat to our survival.
"We will have our moment of glory on this soil," the colonel continued with a proud crescendo, richening the blood of his audience. "We will take back this world from the supposed 'Queen of Blades'. And with it, we will reestablish our ranks as a sizeable threat to the Zerg entity, rebuilding this broken colony into a massive base of operation, one which will be impenetrable by Zerg and Protoss alike. And from here, we will know a future of victory for humanity."
Meskein's mouth gaped as though to continue, but he hindered himself and allowed his pride to absolve. Though not expecting applause, he was disappointed in the lack of response from the audience. Instead, he received a roomful of deeps stares, seemingly unknowing of how to respond. Perhaps the historical success rate against Zerg infestation weighs too heavily against his pride, the inhabitants of Subtle Nova knowing this fact very well. Still, some of them appear to have a seed of appreciation for the colonel's enthusiasm planted in them, Trent being one of them, though not quite as bewildered in expression.
"Thank you," the colonel then concluded, perhaps earlier than he planned. "I wish you all the best out there. My pride goes out to every one of you brave souls and retainers of the Terran dominion." His head bobbed down, perhaps as though in sheer realization of his brash speech, though the hopeful grin shown when lifting back up finished with his session with absolute power. "You may continue to your briefing rooms. Dismissed."
Trent soon found himself in a smaller conference room, the chairs no less noisy as in the previous. Crowded with an array of faces - some familiar, others new – he calmed himself in preparation for the upcoming briefing. A man of smaller stature that had been standing alongside the hologram board eventually stepped up to the podium not four feet in front of him.
"Okay folks, all settled in?" the small, pale man inquired, sounding much more bold than he looked. After receiving only silence, he assumed an affirmative answer and flipped a switch to activate a hologram visual reading a three-dimensional render of a siege tank with the title '32nd Armored Division'. "Very good, let's start with introductions. My name is Lieutenant Cole Gregor, I'll be your coordinating officer once we hit ground." He then peers over the crowd and points to a random person. "You there, mind telling us a little about yourself?"
The selected male soldier gave an inquisitive look. "Erm, want me to stand?"
"If you would, please," the lieutenant answered.
"A'ight, sounds like a plan," the random soldier mumbled as he lifted off his seat and panned his vision across the room. "Well…I'm Private Dustin Ferris. I've been in the service for well over two years now, serving as a station guard on Mar Sara Orbital #4 for the first year and a member of the 23rd Infantry Division up 'til now."
"Thanks soldier," Cole said with a nod, Dustin seating himself. Cole then peered deeper into the room and pointed to someone else. "How about you back there?" The female pointed to herself looking for confirmation, to which Cole nodded. "Yep, you ma'am."
"Okay…" she began while standing. "Uhm, my name's Cynthia Sanders. I'm a regular dropship pilot, occasionally a small-time engineer…erm, good with an SCV. I've been known to be better at exhibiting violent behavior in one rather than construction." A small roar of laughter rose in the room, Cole himself grinning in humor. "And…I guess that's it."
"Thank you, Cynthia," Cole nodded her down. "Okay, how about someone from the front here…" He sighted Trent and gave him a quick gesture. Trent sighed and stood up as though by habit. "I already know who ya are, just figured the rest should know," he clarified.
"Yep, sure thing." Trent forced out a cough to clear his throat before speaking. "Well, not a whole lot to say about me, really. My name's Trent Feror, I graduated from the Holshire Military Academy here on Tarsonis not quite eight months ago as an ensign and sent into a series of random clean-up operations, most of them just that – a bunch of debris left from an attack." He felt the eyes of everyone in the room steadily drawing into his story as he recollected a particularly unpleasant memory. "Once, though, we ran into a group of mutalisks that was scouring around in the refuge of Tarsonis Refueling Orbital #46. There wasn't that many, and our squad of wraiths took care of them easily enough, but they blind-sided our sanitation dropships and resulted in a good number of civilian deaths." He stopped to swallow and force another cough. "That was my team's only combat experience."
Trent proceeded to sit down on his own. "I guess this assault on Tarsonis can be considered payback for you, ensign," Cole summed up for himself.
"Yeah, you guess," Trent retorted despondently.
"Alright then," Cole started up. "There you have your commanding frontline officer, people. I expect you to show him full respect and keep in touch at all times. Now onto the briefing."
The hologram title blurred out and a series of graphic strategic diagrams showed with the '32nd Armored Division' logo docked at the top of the presentation. "As you all may have added up, you are officially part of the 32nd Armor Division, 1st Cavalry Troop. Now, some of you may already know that this division was only in force during the Battle of Braxis, though from beginning to end, it was a considerably long struggle. Shortly after the last stages of the battle and the team's extraction from the planet, the division was decommissioned. So you can all pride yourselves in being the first stage of revival for this little family, one that saw an epic amount of action in its first incarnation.
"So if I can have your undivided attention, I'll direct you toward our plan of action for the first stages." The visual zoomed into the first diagram in the series. "Here you see the drop-off points and the formation plans from there. Our team will be in control of six siege tanks with sixty-nine infantrymen in support. I've taken the liberty to organize you all into collective teams of approximately three tank operators and eight support troops. I'll give you all your team assignments upon exiting the room.
"Moving on from the formations," the lieutenant continued as the hologram zoomed out of the first diagram and into the second, "each team will make their advancement at a dividing angle from each other as to cover ground and gain more angles of defense should the Protoss consider us enemies. The eventual front should look like a semicircle, Feror's team being at the curve. As you can see here, we'll be coordinating with the 7th Cavalry Troop. Their Goliaths will deploy on both sides of our formation and act in wings to lure any hostiles into the semicircle, to which our siege artillery can cause substantial damage from their flanks and systematically diminish them using infantry small arms. Any Protoss enemy force left over can regroup and charge us, fall back and take defense or retreat and proceed towards the Zerg cluster location.
"Of course, it is our hope that the Protoss will not consider us enemies. In either the case of mutual allegiance or Protoss defeat, the 7th Cavalry Troop will advance and group in coordination with the 14th Infantry Company, to which they will leave us and head toward the Zerg." Trent abruptly clears his throat while the visual zooms out of the second diagram and into the third. "Here you see the cool-down phase of our role. Five dropships will descend with the sections to a makeshift bunker, supported by a small squad of wraiths. The four dropships carrying the bottom quarter sections will set down their payload along with a squad of infantry and engineers to secure the quarters and help down the top section. Our division will then take a staggering line formation with three teams on each side of the bunker. This is to secure our position and maintain a last line of defense for our construction teams that will be setting up a command center and tactical communication dish. This base should be finished some time after your bunker formation is complete and will radio Ensign Feror with confirmation on its completion. Ensign Feror will then radio the entire division with the frontline status and relay any orders that the new base may give.
"And this is the end of our current strategy. After the command array is established, the officers there will radio new orders to Ensign Feror as they become available and he will act on them appropriately, to which you all should follow promptly and precisely." The hologram zoomed out of the diagram and dissolved back into the large title logo. "Any questions?"
Trent then gave a gesture. Cole nodded in affirmation. "So who am I working with?"
"What's the matter, can't contain yourself until getting the assignments?" Cole laughed.
"Sure can't, sir."
Cole chuckled some more and looked through the charter on his podium. "Ah, here we are…Feror, you're with Sergeant Harry Graye, wherever he is…" A rather bloated character rose from his seat part-way and gave a verbal gesture for Trent to find him. "There, Graye will be the primary tank operator and engineer on your team. Now who else…"
Trent sulked back into his seat after eyeing the disappointing key member to his team, one missing a substantial amount of teeth and sounding as though having the IQ of an eggplant. "Beautiful," he mumbled to himself as Cole continued to give the roster. "I'm stuck with a hick sergeant…"
By noon, standard time, Trent entered the dropship launch bays. Cole entered just behind him and assigned everyone to their dropship. The siege tanks rolled out of their containment bays and lined up at their respective ships, the operators poking out of the front latches and watching the final briefing before they load onto the dropships.
Trent wandered into the mass and found his place amongst his team. He had nothing to say for his team, no pep-talk of his own. He just assumed take his position and prepare to fall in. A loud barrage of mechanical ambience engulfed his ears as he looked around and absorbed every detail of the behemoth launch bay. Everyone from his division had already scattered and found their place, as well as those of the coordinating squad and platoon. The goliaths were lined up four at a time and walked single-file onto their transports with infantry support receiving their final briefing and following directly behind.
"Okay folks," the lieutenant declared as he finally made it to Trent's team. "We're gonna have a clean load and swift exit once we hit dirt, got it? Everyone's gonna keep tight and in clear view of your team's commander at all times and take the initial formation on his mark. I want everyone to keep an ear open to your commander and make sure to affirm every task he gives you. We don't know what level of hostility to expect on touch-down and it's crucial to be able to act fast and as a unit should you drop into hostile grounds." He made a swift scan over the team, receiving confirming nods from each, Trent forcing a cough for his affirmation. "Alright people, let's pack it in, tank first."
Graye's head disappeared into the tank and immediately drove it up the dropship's ramp and inside. Trent's gaze wandered toward the lieutenant as the tank was being secured. Cole made his way towards a personal dropship, a group of four heavily-armed marines awaiting him at the ship's ramp.
An elbow dug into Trent's side. "Elitist shits must have this superiority complex about themselves, having their own ship and all," a brute voice said. "C'mon, we're packing in now."
Trent turned his attention away from Cole and followed the infantry towards the transport. This would be his first intentional combat drop, and considering the poignant losses of his sanitation team's only encounter, he was hardly prepared to take command of a team that had the persuasive belief that they wouldn't see another day beyond this one.
Last in line, he slowly stomped up the ramp and looked into the belly of the dropship, unable to hear the sound of his throat clearing over the obnoxious hum of the ship's engines.