The small ship slowly approached the Damp ground, parts of the snow had melted into puddles.
The metal legs extending and almost disappearing completely into the frozen muck below. The soldiers exiting the ship losing sight of their boots in the frozen muck, some complaining, others not even acknowledging it. Making their way slowly toward the still-smoking remains of the control room of the Mercenary ship. Trails of blood leading out and into the distance, patches of snow and metal blackened and melted away, spent casing shells scattered all about, an unknown amount buried in the snow.
The soldiers slowly move in a triangle formation towards the entrance, all keeping an eye out for the slightest change in the environment. While dark, shadowy figures move about just out of sight.
"Keep an eye out for hostiles"
The commander's voice travels through the headsets of all the squad members
"Don't split up, keep formation and keep track of each other's locations at all times"
"And play nice with the other boys"
One of the soldiers laughs, earning a few snickers from his squad mates
"Alright, cut the chatter - keep your eyes open"
The commander barks at his subordinates
A quiet hissing noise draws the attention of the squad directly behind them, turning around, weapons armed, aimed and ready.
A black figure rushes past their field of view. Several of the squad members fire at it
*ptptptptpptptptptptpt*
The silenced guns fire and miss every shot, hitting random pieces of metal instead; the sound Ricocheting off of the random scrap metal, the loud noise echoing throughout the somewhat silent frozen Air
"Great job numb nuts, you just rang the dinner bell for anything nearby"
The commander mutters to himself as he switches from his main weapon equipped for silence, to his secondary weapon equipped for incendiary
"Well here's hoping we make it through this"
One of the squad members mutters before his neck is torn open and he is silently dragged under the muck and away from the rest of his comrades
"You think anybody survived this?"
Another mutters, before meeting the same fate as his other unfortunate comrade
"What the heck? Where the hell did my MEN GO?!"
The commander shouts, alerting the remainder of his squad that their missing two soldiers
"But we had all sides covered - ALL SIDES! This shit shouldn't be possible!"
One of the remaining squad members shouts in disbelief
"Maybe they didn't come at us from the side…"
The squad leader mutters as he slowly lowers his aiming to the frozen mucky ground, coming at least up to their knees.
"The fuckers are UNDERNEATH U-"
One of the other squad mates tries to shout but is dragged-screaming- under and away in the same, manner his friends had.
"GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE TALL FROZEN SHIT!"
The commander shouts as he makes his way towards the nearest piece of debris he can find to get out of the muck. His remaining squad members doing the same. Albeit in a panicking fashion.
"ohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuck were SO screwed!"
One of the panicking squad members shouts as he scampers for any piece of high ground or large debris he can find.
To his left and right, his comrades are doing the same.
"over here Ya' frozen tampon-popsicles!"
The commander shouts as he reaches as far off of his safe-ground as he can, trying to reach the remaining squad members
The first tries to run over and grab the commander's hand, promptly resulting in him being pounced by one of the black skeletal figures, the snow around him turning red as the creature impales him with its tippet tail.
The soldier not frozen with fear fires at the creature
"YOU COCK SUCKER! HE WAS JUST A KID!"
The soldier screams in a blind rage, seemingly not caring if the creature could understand him or not.
The bulk of the bullets miss the creature, disappearing into scrap and snow, but two bullets successfully strike the creature, one in the head and the other in the chest.
The force of the bullets knocks the creature and the dead squad mate's body into the snow, almost completely disappearing from sight, though it was still somewhat visible from the surface.
The soldier that fired the weapon slowly approaches the creature, moving slower with each step closer.
A few feet from the creature, the soldier pokes it with his rifle. It doesn't move
"These things aren't so tough, a bullet to the head and chest seems enough to take it down"
The soldier says before turning around, his features immediately taking one of agony. His chest twists and convulses, the shirt under his armour turning red.
The two remaining squad survivors look on in horror as the unfortunate soldiers chest explodes in a shower of blood as a black—blood covered—jagged tail emerges.
The soldiers head then mercifully explodes as a small, almost shining jaw emerges where his face used to be.
The soldier's body is then brutally torn in half as a larger, much more dangerous looking version of the dead creature lunges at the commander.
Quickly rolling onto his back and pulling out his side-arm, the commander fires three shots directly at the creatures head, hitting it in its feature-less face, but the bullets only bounce off the creature's apparently armoured exo-skeleton. Just as he fires several more rounds, the creature decapitates the commander with its claws, as if a human tearing through wet toilet paper.
The creature observes the dead body of the squad commander before turning to the last surviving squad member.
The squad members smirks, his smirk turns into a smile, then into a broud grin, then into a small giggle, then into a full blown fit of hysterical laughter as he un-holsters his pistol and places the end barrel against his head and fires, splattering blood, bone and brains all over the snow as his body falls to the ground in a stiff-upright position.
The creature observes the human who committed suicide, almost as if confused, but turns back to the dead commander and effortlessly tosses his deceased body over its shoulder, then doing the same with the other dead humans, then finally, its dead, smaller weaker counterpart, before taking the bodies off to a larger, still largely intact portion of the mercenary ship.
Meanwhile back in space on bored the massive ship
"So…..any idea who they are yet?"
The commander says calmly as he sips an unknown, dark coloured drink from a wine-glass from atop a red cushioned chair, almost as if it was a castle and he were the king.
"No, not yet, sir"
The commander continues to stare out the window of the command bridge, as if trying to see the ships despite them being too far away to see
"And our stealth systems?"
"all online and running, were invisible to the naked eye and no form of technology can pick us up, just so long as we don't fire at them or run into them"
"Yes, yes or start our engines or open a communication link, I've heard it all before"
"Sorry sir, ju- WAIT, getting a reading now!"
"Oh goody, what are they? Terran? Zerg?"
"Protoss, sir"
"Oh….."
The human captain slumps back into his chair with a frown on his face, almost as if he was a child who was disappointed about something. But he quickly changes it to a more happy tone
"well, I was hoping it would be the Zerg, but what the hell, we're here to simply document and study….let the Protoss do what they want as long as it doesn't involve attacking us or warning the rest of the galaxt about 'Them'….at least not just yet…."
The human commander says as he notices his wine-glass is empty
"I need a refill"
He says as he dangles the cap in the air
"yes, sir, right away"
A random human in the room says before leaving the room and coming back with a wine-bottle filled with the same unknown liquid.
"Well!"
The commander happily announces as his cup is filled with the odd, harmless looking, yet Eerie liquid.
"Let the game begin!"
He says as he sits back and closes his eyes, humming a tune to himself.
Meanwhile, the Protoss ships slowly approach the frozen planet, completely oblivious to what is on the planet.