Diclaimer: I do not own Starcraft or its affliates
Training
"Men!" Cain, still in his general`s CMC suit, walked down the line of the five new recruits. They were standing in the forest clearing, crates from the crash still littering the area. Anthony was busy next the ship, rummaging for something in the crates, leaving Cain orders to train the troops. Simple enough. "Welcome to the corps. As most of you already are aware of, I am General Cain and I will lead you for the time being. Understood?"
"Yes my lord!" All five men straightened up in attention, wanting to impress Cain. "What will you have of us?"
Cain sighed inside the suit as Anthony`s prediction came true. The phrase "my lord" did sound awkward when being addressed to a general. Time to remedy it. "First of all, you will NOT address me as 'lord.' You will address me as sir!"
"Yes my- Sir!"
"Good! Now then, Commander Anthony wishes for some of you for a personal reassignment." Cain turned and eyed the recruits. The last two men at the end of the line looked very thin and unsuited for combat. They were the type of men his commander wanted. "You two, at the end! Report to the commander over by the aircraft!"
"Yes sir!" The two individuals broke away and quickly jogged to their commander. Once they left, Cain gestured for the remaining three men to follow him. They approached a container and Cain opened it up, passing out three empty C-14 rifles out to the men.
Seriously. Who would give a loaded weapon to an untrained and uneducated man?
The three held it apprehensively, trying to figure it out how to hold the advanced weaponry. In the end, all three of them held the gun as a club with the barrel facing up in the sky. Typical middle age ideology. Cain sighed, grumbling under his breath. This was going to take a while.
The rest of the day at Cain`s end was spent teaching the recruits to point the end of the gun with the hole at the enemy.
O O O
"Commander Anthony! General Cain sent us!" The two men approached the commander and stood at attention. He looked up at the two recruits and smiled reassuringly.
"He sent you? That`s good." The shortened sentence left his mouth and immediately, the two recruits looked confused.
"That`s?" Anthony shook his head as the two tried pronouncing the word. He had forgotten this world still spoke old English for a second there. Hopefully, the Terran AIs will influence their language.
"You will pick up the jargon sooner or later. For now, how good are you at building?"
"Moderately well sir."
"Not much experience, but I can learn quickly sir."
"Excellent!" Anthony rubbed his hands in anticipation. "Follow me! I shall train you to be the engineers of my grand army!"
The rest of the day at Anthony`s end was spent teaching the recruits how to use a drill and mechanical hand.
O O O
At the end of the second day, the two separate groups of men reconvened. The five new recruits sat around a campfire, joking and sharing their meal together. Cain and Anthony watched them from afar at another fire, seeing how the recruits had quickly bonded with each other.
"They`ll make a fine start to the army," Anthony murmured to Cain. "I can`t wait to get this thing up and running."
"I did not comprehend half of those words, but I get the meaning." Cain shifted positions and the power armor copied suit. "The three recruits at my end are still learning, but I think that they know how to hold a C-14 now. How goes your end?"
"Tomorrow, I plan to armor up the two recruits," The commander responded and gestured to Cain`s suit. Yesterday, the two boys had spent most of the day taking apart the suit and attaching it onto Cain, using mostly educated guesses to place it together. But now, without the proper tools, Cain was stuck in the armor for a while. "Hopefully, if all goes well, we will be able to get you out of the suit without much hassle in two days."
"Two days. Sounds fine." Cain grinned. "But I would rather like to stay in this thing. It feels very warm in here, a splendid experience for this winter."
"Right." Anthony rubbed his hands together and shivered. "Winter will indeed be on us soon. I plan to set up at least a small base of operations at the town before the first snow."
"Base?"
"An army encampment if you will. Although it`ll probably consist of only one, maybe two types of buildings for now."
"If that is what you plan for, it shall be done."
O O O
The next day, Cain was already waking the men up at sunrise, giving them a light breakfast before taking his three new marines for additional training. He planned for them to fire blanks at the trees, teaching them how to aim better.
In Anthony`s opinion, Cain had the easier job.
"What is this sir?" One of the recruits asked as a bleary eyed Anthony led the men to their new equipment. Waiting for them was two kneeling identical giant humanlike shapes. It had taken all night for Cain and Anthony to set them up, having to find the parts and screw them together like a jigsaw puzzle. It only took one night since the procedure of assembly was much like building a CMC power suit. "A suit of armor?"
"Not exactly. Here, let me show you." The commander climbed into the cockpit of one of the machines and sat down, booting up all systems with both men watching from the side on the ground. With a yank on the handles, the SCV came to life and stood up, startling the two recruits as it whirred its drill in anticipation. Anthony smiled as he slowly got the SCV to kneel back down, allowing the men to learn about all its different functions.
Anthony showed them how to place themselves into the SCV cockpits, teaching them how to use the controls for operating the drill and hand. It was slow going, but yesterday`s training was a helpful decision, since both men now understood how this would help them in construction work.
It took time, since the men had to climb up into control hub of the machine and test each function. It didn`t help that the cockpits would close on accident sometimes, inducing panic the first time one of them climbed in. By the time the two recruits were accustomed to the controls, it was early afternoon.
The baffling part of the project was the two small jets on the backs of each SCV. In the game, they would be active, helping move the bulky SCV around the map. However, in real life, they weren`t working. Marcus` memories provided only one logical explanation for this phenomenon: the technology that Anthony currently had at his disposal did not support flying yet.
Made sense, else he would`ve repaired the Medivac first.
"Alright, that should do!" Anthony proudly declared as the two new SCV units raised their drills in unison. For now, they would move slowly on the two robotic legs they had, but it would do. "Are the aids working?"
"I think so….the cameras are working I believe. Analysis seems to be functioning." Close work with the AI of the SCVs had gotten both recruits to learn more about technology, eventually raising their understanding of it to a suitable level.
"Good. Solar panels absorbing energy?"
"Yes sir. Energy levels are stabilized." To power SCVs, the top of each machine was covered in small panels of solar cells. They were capable of absorbing great amounts of energy from the sun, unlike the crappy rates that Marcus` memories recalled.
"Final question. Are you two comfortable in those construction vehicles?"
"Never better!
"Ready to work commander!"
"Excellent! Follow me!"
Anthony led the two into the forest, watching the two lumbering machines trample over the ground without much hassle. Wherever their metallic feet slammed into the ground, it made a large clear imprint into the forest ground. The commander made note of this side effect, since it was likely he would have to mark some kind of path to the destination anyway. A trade route with several SCVs traversing the path would easily do such the job.
The trio eventually arrived at their destination, an abandoned mine shaft filled with gases. Anthony`s memories came forward and told the black haired boy the tale of this one wealthy mine. Candur had depended on this mine once, having mining as its central economy before Anthony`s family arrived. It was a bountiful mine, full of gold and iron to trade with other towns and sometimes even castles! It was all going well until miners had struck a gas pocket. The gas was unknown and smelly, but it cause such irritation that the town was forced to switch to an agricultural economy for the sake of its people.
Anthony had smelled the mysterious gas once and thought nothing of it. But now, with Marcus` memories, he recognized the gas as sulfur. A valuable ingredient in gunpowder.
"Begin extraction! One of you mine the iron, one of you bottle the gas." Anthony ordered and the two recruits nodded, both of them pulling a handle that caused the glass of the cockpit to lock itself tightly. The now airtight SCVs got to work, moving inside the mine itself without any hesitation.
One of the SCVs approached a cavern wall and the man inside pulled down a scanner screen, careful to examine the area for any metal. He found a small vein of iron and got to work with the SCVs drill, gathering up the iron chunks in his mechanical hand. Like the game, the SCV could hold up to five chunks of metal.
The other SCV activated its gas gathering mode, the pilot inside pulling several levers. The machine took out steel canisters and began capturing the sulfuric gas using the container. Like the game, the SCV could hold up to four canisters of gas.
Once the two SCVs were loaded to the max, Anthony ordered for the two men to return back to the clearing and drop off the materials. They would then return to the mine and continue harvesting whatever resources still lay inside until the two felt too exhausted for the night. The pilots nodded and the trio began making their way back to camp. At the camp, after pointing out where he wanted the resources piled (next to the Medivac), Anthony found some bedding and plopped himself onto it, a night of no sleep finally catching up to him.
Sometimes, the black haired boy cursed his human vessel as his eyes closed, sleep finally happening to Anthony.
O O O
It was the next day`s morning when Anthony woke up. Eyes half open, he black haired boy made his sluggish body get out of bed and began slowly walking to the Medivac, wanting to see how many materials his SCVs had collected before they had retired for the night.
To Anthony`s surprise, the SCVs had collected several pounds of metal and several stacks of gas, an staggering amount considering how much daylight was left when he conked out. Upon inspection, Anthony estimated the two must`ve been working for most of the night before going to bed, something that pleased him. Now all he had to do was find that module.
"Good morning Commander." Anthony turned and saw Cain, still in his CMC suit, casually walking to him. The general handed the commander a water canteen which Anthony eagerly accepted, cool liquid quenching his thirst. "The SCVs hope that this is enough for what you plan for today. If not, they plan to-"
"That won`t be necessary. This is more than enough!" Anthony grinned and wiped his mouth, clearing it of all water residues. "Cain, rouse the men. We march back to Candur!"
"Ah, is it time to build that encampment of yours? For the men to take refuge in for the winter?"
"Indeed. It is time to build a Barracks!"