Disclaimer: I do not by any means own Starcraft, nor do I make a profit from any activity relating with the franchise.
Author's note: First, I would like to thank all my readers for viewing my fanfiction! It is always great to see that people appreciate your work! :)) If you would be so kind as to give your opinion about this story, I would appreciate it. If it got you interested, you can always follow it! ;)
Still, I liked both the game and the story very much. Thus I felt I should develop part of it in a new way. The UED fascinated me and the perspective of a terran remnant group, light years away from Earth, with no chance of going back and having to confront an entire sector seemed to be a good starting point for a story involving both the original characters and some new, unique ones. I will try to stick to the original story as best as I can. However, remember that this is a fanficiton and not everything must go according to the letter.
Chapter 6: First blood
New Sydney, 10:11 Planet time
General Eugene Tup was inspecting the main base's garrison. He was one of the new, very promising officers that graduated from the Naval Academy five months ago. Very skilled pilot and an even more capable commander. This alone was a good reason to protest against being assigned to a munitions factory far away in the reaches of space. Under normal circumstances, this job would have been relaxing, but guarding a munitions factory was a risk in itself. There have been quite a few accidents before and entire facilities exploded, killing everyone in and around them. Since Emperor Mengsk wanted to be prepared for a future war against his oponents, he was artificially increasing production. That meant speed and quality were prefered over safety. If he was to be in charge, he would have had a different approach. Still, he was an officer, a soldier nonetheless, and he followed his orders to the letter. He had a reputation for it.
The recruits were looking pretty good, even though most were resocs, former inmates that were subjected to the neural resocialization process, they appeared to be in good shape. He ran the reuglar drills with them and was surprised to find that they were indeed used to battle conditions. On a 1-10 scale, they always scored between 6 and 7, which was considered good.
Up on his 400 meter platform, the general glared at the 10 barracks and 20 factories located in the base. New tanks, goliaths, vultures, even the new helions vehicles came out on a regular basis. It meant that everything was running smoothly. Until...
A loud boom attracted his attention. One of the helions exploded, taking a goliath walker with him. The combined destructive capacity of their armament killed the workers and marines around them.
" Damn! And here I was, thinking everything would go on without accidents!" he said to himself and then motioned all availible personel to go out there and put out the fires, then inspect the vehicles again. He would not risk one of the vehicles running into one of the ammo deposits and blow everything up.
Meanwhile...
Esmeralda had a killer's smile on her lips. The bulkheads bought it. Now they were distracted by the explosions and fires all around them. Her ghost training kicked in, as she started hacking into the peripherical network of the factories. Slowly but surely, she gathered the information she needed to break into the main network. It took her a while, but she managed to do it without being detected. Her 11th ghost regiment, "Penumbra", was spread out around her, quietly scouting the facilites, mapping every weapon's cache and piling the info on their wrist computers
She sometimes loved challenges like this, especially since the targets were her former torturers. Fine, they weren't the same as the scientists that subjected her to the test, but the fact that theses people belonged to the Dominion made her turn a blind eye to the value of their lives. The sooner they were done with this mission, the sooner she and Josef will be reunited.
Thinking of him, she thought he might worry about her well being. Always so caring, always so careful about everything he had ever done. That was Josef Harding, deputee officer of the UED remnant forces- turned Argonauts, captain of the Decebalus, and her lover. How fitting!
Another click and she was in. Finally, she could see what secrets this base was hiding. After reading through countless inventory lists, she suddenly stopped, watching in horror as that particular thing appeared before her eyes.
" No, no no! Not this!" she thought to herself. " These fools, they don't know that they are playing with fire! DAMN" she said looking at the protoss human-zealot hybrid. " I thought they terminated project Gestalt some time ago she said, remembering the early tests that she witnessed during her "stay" at the Dominion Ghost Academy. Dr. Stanley Burgess, one of the doctors that was assigned to studying her and her, unusually high for a child, Psi Index of 7. From what she and Schnitt found out while hacking the Dominion network, she could tell that at least one such half human, half protoss hybrid, with access to both race's weaponry, was created. Terribly efficient, but highly unstable, to the point that it required state of the art neural inhibitors in order to keep it loyal to its creators. A protoss task force, led by a high templar named Muadun, was defeated by Gestalt Zero alone. At the end of the day, however, the monster turned on its creators after the inhibitors failed, killing them in the process and thrashing the laboratories.
Esmeralda saw the images of the zealot psi blades, the golden armors, the severed nerve cords carefully conserved in special tanks; everything she feared was true. Mengsk was toying with protoss technology and was attempting to replicate the failed project, most likely using this facility as a cover up.
" Damn, and here I was thinking this would be a walk in the park!" she muttered, but then another thought hit her like a siege tank. " That Ethan Stewart wants this equipment for himself, he doesn't really care about anything else. That's why he pressed the words " Salvage what you can!". That damned snake!"
This wasn't only a destructive raid, no, rather a smash&grab type. It was meant to bring him the technology that could give the crime lord the edge in his fight to dominate the entire planet of Deadman's Rock. She had to inform the Admiral right now.
Seeing as her comm links could be either jammed or listened to, not even sure if the crime lord bugged their ships, she decided to contact him the only other possible way: mind link. Luckily, no one could eavesdrop on that.
After she ordered her ghosts to rig the entire deposits- and their precious cargo-, she asked four of them to guard her, while she spoke with the Admiral.
" Father, it's me!"
" Hello , my dear! Mind telling me why do you not wish to speak on the transmitter?" he asked.
" Not safe enough. I wanted to tell you that I didn't trust that Ethan Stewart guy one bit!"
" Tell me something I don't know! We will be careful, but this mission is also beneficial on our part. Just do your job, okay?"
" But father... Mengsk wants to revive the Gestalt Project here. I have found out that most of the stuff he needs is already here. Only thing missing are the samples or the finite product!"
" Then we will destroy everything. However, if you come across any Terran weapon upgrads, do map them and pick them up. We will take care of the rest!" he ordered.
" Understood!" said the lieutenant and then closed the mind link.
She poked around for another two hours, carefully taking note of any modern weaponry unknown to her. After a thorough search, her ghosts managed to identify a few C-20 canister rifles models A,B and some new C models, specially designed for high powered ghosts, such as herself. Stealing one for herself, she performed a system check on it. 35 round magazine, all purpose grenade launcher with a 1000 meters range, armor piercing bullets, 4000 meters sniping range, semi-automatic, highly customisable. Oh, and it had an incorporated pistol, for emergency use. Nice indeed!
" Well, it's time for the fireworks!" she contacted Josef and Andronic via comm link.
" Roger! Retreat to the the city's margin. Stay out of trouble, love!" said a concerned Josef.
" Right!" she answered, cutting off the transmission.
New Sydney, 13:51 planet time.
General Eugene Tup was filing a complaint about the dangers of getting production into override, when one of the colonels under his command bursted in the room, all sweaty and panicked.
" Sir! he said panting. Our deposits have been blown apart! Some pirate battlecruisers are descending, wiping out our air defence!" he almost shouted
" Activate the emergency AA turrets and don't forget about those detectors. We wouldn't want any wraith or ghost to slip by and do some more damage, understood?"
" Yes, sir!"
" Good! Then I already sent a distress call to emperor Mengsk himself. Reinforcements are inbound. We need only hold out and wait for them to teach these scums a lesson in manners!"
The general took to preparing his forces accordingly. Goliaths, hellions, marines, firebats, marauders, ghosts, all that could be spared was deployed in multiple defensive formations, scattered around the base. Not knowing where the enemy will land was problematic indeed.
The Decebalus's deck.
" I want us, Schnitt and the Scorpio cruisers to descend to the surface of this wretched world, while the rest will be on stand by for future have the location of their most explosive weapon's caches, so lets make bring the pain on the idiots!" ordered Marcu Andronic.
His soldiers were preparing for battle insertion. They would liberate as much of the equipment indicated by Esmeralda as possible. Afterwards, the would proceed to killing all dominion personel in that place, so as to make sure that no one knew who was responsable for the mess that was about to unleash.
The laser batteries made short work of most of the fliers. The enemy vikings had no chance against the rapid fire of his 4 battlecruisers laser batteries. The advanced targeting systems of the Scorpio class cruisers, although older and impossible to replace or replicate, could direct fire two times as fast as a Minotaur class counterpart. However, after half an hour of fighting, they were forced to send their flyers into the fight, as the enemy wraiths managed to break through and do some not so negligable damage to the Moonreaver.
New Sydney, dominion HQ.
" Can someone tell me what the heck is going on?" the general asked. " These guys are too good to be ordinary pirates. They have tip-top military coordination, fairly modern cruisers and flyers and they also know our weaknesses!?"
" We frankly do not know! the colonels answered, excusing themselves. " We had better evacuate before the situation gets dangerous for us!" they suggested.
" I don't think I heard it right! I had all conversations recorded and stored on a secret server. My superiors, your superiors, would gladly court-martial you for your treason. So do the nice thing and go, dedicate yourselves to protecting the Dominion!"
" And what will you do...sir?" asked a defiant colonel.
" I will board my custom viking and unleash the inferno upon the intruders, care to join me?"
Seeing no volunteers, he motioned them to their posts, while he left for the hangars. His most prized posession, a viking air ship that was better than four vikings combined. With four gatling guns, one anti-infantery machine gun, six rocket launchers, a higher ammunition storage capacity and reinforced armor. And it was painted red and green, so people would know who was piloting the dreaded machine.
Agilely jumping into its seat, the general turned it into flight mode. He then took command of forty other vikings, ordering them to form a diamond shaped formation, with him in the middle. It was the best way to approach the enemy, as he himself didn't have to worry about tac fighters.
Fires, lasers, bullets were flying all around them, as they dodged the enemy fire. Some of his men, however, were not as lucky or skilled and they started falling from the sky like meteorites. He would make sure that their sacriface wouldn't be in vain.
" Closer, closer! he muttered as he neared the Decebalus and took off the safety of his interceptor rockets.
Aboard the Decebalus, 14:47 ship time
Admiral Marcu Andronic was looking over the battlemap. He was grinning, being very proud of his troops. 90% of the drop pods that have been launched have reached their input destination and their "cargo" was already rampaging through the enemy base. He had to give Esmeralda and her crew most of the credit, as the intel they gathered has proven and still proves to be invaluable. On the other hand, seeing as the air battle was only slowly turning into his favour, it looked like they would need to move the reserve cruisers into position.
" Incoming rocket attack! Brace yourselves! shouted Josef and then ducked for cover. The others didn't bother to ask questions and followed his example.
The Decebalus was given a thorough shake, similar in intensity to a planetary earthquake, one would say. They were knocked out for a good five minutes, until Andronic rose up and asked for a damage report.
" Well, the brave fools managed to breach our formation and pour no less than 200 rockets into our underbelly! one of the deck officers said, reading the data that the A.I. offered. " 135 casualties, none of them dead, yet some have been gravely wounded. No permanent hull breach, thanks to the shields!" she added.
" Thank you miss! Now, I would like us to turn pay them back accordingly! Release the valkyries! he ordered, rather amused. He could only imagine what a poker face would that pesky air commander make, when he will meet his new and improved valkyries. Dominion technology could not hope to match what they had back on Earth, but, combined with what they had with them, the result would be more than acceptable, in his opinion.
New Sydney surface, main factory sector, at the same time.
Esmeralda sniped down another marauder, saving one of her goliath pilots. Her killing spree amounted to an amazing 117, most of whom were heavy units. Her ghost regiment wasn't doing bad either. They had managed to acquire two Hercules transports, then filled them with all the loot they've managed to gather, which, by the way, was impressive, and then sent them to the Lancaster to be secured.
" Lieutenant, to your right!" shouted one of her marines, but it was too late. An armor piercing bullet went right through her right shoulder, blowing her rifle right off. She was lucky that the arm was still attached to her.
" Get a medic quickly!" spoke one of her ghosts via comm link.
Staggering forward, still in shock and in pain, the green haired elite ghost was gazing upon the wave of goliaths, siege tanks and marauders that was closing in on them like a tidal wave. They could not withstand an attack of that magnitude with what they had at their disposal.
" I will issue an order to fall back!" one of her ghost aids said.
" You... will... belay that order...agent!" she answered angrily.
" But miss, you and many others aren't in a condition to figh...!" he pleaded, but was cut short.
" I said hold your... ground! I won't repeat myself!" she barked, then pushed the ghost aside.
She neared the approaching menace, not at all caring about the bullets that were being slowly directed her way. A black rain of death shall pour on those who had the nerve to attack her like that.
" I shall, he-heh-he! I shall end your lives!" she threatened them psionically. Seeing as they stopped and looked confused around themselves, she took the chance and channeled all her energy in one big, decisive attack.
A psionic storm, the likes of what he had not seen since the Brood Wars, caught Andronic's eye. He pressed a few buttons on the holo-map and asked one of the medics to make camera contact with the battle. Not too soon after that, his eyes went wide as he realized that the source of the storm was none other than Esmeralda herself. From what he could hear and see, he put the pieces together. The raging lightnings that were decimating the enemy forces were the result of her fear and desperation. Not wanting to retreat has resulted in this. Useful as it may be, if she couldn't get back in control, let's just say that she wouldn't be the only problem on their hands today.
" Bă Ioji!( Hey, Josef)" called Andronic using his nickname.
" Sir, you know I hate it when you call me that! What can I do for you?" he answered angrily.
" Uşurel, boule! (easy, you stupid bull) the Admiral continued undeterred. " My daughter, your girlfriend, is slaughtering no less than 200 enemy heavy vehicles and their drivers.
" Isn't that good news for us?" he asked, carefully analyzing the ship's performance and directing the counterattacks; he simply didn't have the time or disposition to handle the Admiral's moment of bullshitting.
" If she manages to calm down, it is. If not, however, we, and by that I mean you, must stop her somehow, before she accidently commits friendly fire!"
Now that was something the deputee officer did not expect. Marcu Andronic was straightforward with him, which could be considered both a blessing and a curse, depending on the situation itself. Right now, he had to get on the radio and try to calm his lovebird until it wasn't too late.
Reluctantly, he walked towards the holo-table and tweaked four buttons. He then managed to get her signal and connect with her ear piece. What he was hearing only brought more worries on his part.
New Sydney skies, 15:12 planet time.
General Eugene Tup just shot down two enemy wraiths and was congratulated by his 23 remaining viking wingmen. Their squadron managed to cripple the enemy's air support for a while now. He could only hope that his subordinates had begun to take out the pirates in the factories and on the strrets. That much advanced equipment just lay there, ripe for the picking. It was worrisome, but he could do nothing more than fight what lay ahead of him. Especially since that ship, whose name wasn't registered in any of the Dominion data bases, was not only resistant, but also deadly. The gunners were skilled and have fired alternatively, either supporting their ground assault teams or firing at his vikings.
" You've got to be fu**ing kidding me!" he swore through his helmet. " Valkiries! Quickly, break formation and attack them from the sides. Their H.A.L.O rockets have tracking systems!"
He didn't think anyone was willing to bring these UED machines into an air battle again. Luckily for him, he was an ace student and a bit of a nerd, meaning that he knew about any military spacecraft that had ever been employed in combat in the Koprulu Sector.
" Don't keep me vaiting!" the amused valkyrie leader raised him on the Dominion frequency.
Waves upon waves of rockets rained down on his viking squad. Kind of ironic, if one would think that two similarly named crafts were fighting each other to the death. The blue menace, as the HALO rockets were called, did not do much damage on their own, meaning that one valkyrie was pretty much useless. However, when more than 30 of them customised types were heading your way, weapons blazing, well, let's just say you wanna get the hell out of there.
" Losing engine power!"
" Weapons failure. Noooo..."
" Cockpit breached. I'm landing it!"
" No-no-no-no-noooo!"
Those were only a few of the voices that shouted through the comm link channels. He could not bear to listen to them all, not for a second longer. But he would be damnned if he will give up that easy. Oh no, this was too good of a challenge to pass by.
He steered his machine to the right, avoiding two shots. He then plunged into the upper atmosphere, making good use of his superior clmibing speed to escape the rockets. Not too long after that, he was joined by his seven remaining squad members in a try to bring the fight to the enemy cruiser once again. Let them feel the wrath of the Dominion!
New Sydney surface, main factory grounds, 15:15.
Esmeralda was not stoping, that's for sure. 50 other hellions entered the storm at high speeds, trying to get past it, only for their engines to fail them and their botdies to be shredded by the awful might of the psi lightnings.
The girl was madly muttering all sorts of words, mostly curses, swearings and the like. Her eyes were literally shining with newfound, albeit somewhat, poisonous power. One part of her was desperately trying to stop all this, but that inner voice was weaker than the need to survive. That was until an all too familiar voice repeatedly called her name, louder and louder...
" Esmeralda, Esmeralda, wake up for God's sake! shouted Josef through her ear piece, nearly deafening her.
She felt something was awfully wrong in his tone.
" My love, you need to stop right now! If not, you might put the others, icnluding me, in danger! You don't want that, do you?" he was pushing all necessary buttons if he had to.
Her inner voice grew stronger, finally overpowering her instincts. She gained full control over her mind and body. Not a second later, the psionic storm dissipated, revealing a smoking pile of burning vehicles and corpses. The smell was excruciating and she nearly threw up.
All availible medical personel came to her side as quickly as possible. She was administered two shots of adrenaline and five more stimulant packs so as to heal her wounds. Her arm, on the other hand, needed to receive a very careful surgery that could not be performed on the battlefield. Evacuation was mandatory in her situation.
" But I can still fight...!" she tried to oppose her medics, but was given a mild tranquilizant instead.
" Seeing as you are in our care, this decision is not yours to make! You will be transported to the Lancaster as of now!" one of them said, pointing to a drop ship not far away.
Back on the Decebalus, Marcu Andronic and his so called war council have gathered on the comm channel to decide their next move.
" We should pull back all forces!" proposed Trevor. " We've got more than enough equipment and we also "liberated" some 70000 credits from a nearby deposit. You need only give the order!" he added with an official tone.
" What about the Dominion base then? We haven't planted all the explosives!" protested captain Leonard. His Scorpio class battlecruiser has taken a some serious beating; nothing compared to the Decebalus though.
" No, but out ace in the hole just planted a planetary transmitter in the middle of their main base. Seeing as it is connected to the other ones by tunnels filled with all sorts of ammunition and equipment, you can guess what will happen should a nuke find its way to the surface!" he said smirking.
1 hour later, after the Argonauts simulated a hasty retreat to their cruisers.
" General Tup, they have been beaten back! It seems they do not have the manpower to conquer us!" one of the colonels raised him on the comm link.
Eugene Tup was using the viking's robot mode to hunt down stragglers and secure the deposits. Only one other viking was alive and kicking besides him. That made him wonder what the hell could have spooked these pirates off.
" Sir, it might be the reinforcements from Korhal! suggested the captain in charge with the intelligence corp. " They have eavesdropped on our conversation with the HQ and so they must have found out! Guess this here's place is not worth dying for! he added much to the annoyance of the general.
" I would let that piece of treachery slip by, captain! That once, and never again! You dishonour the sacrifice of your fellow soldiers! You had better be careful from now on!"
" Yes sir!"
" Good! I want you to keep me posted on any other surviving ground forces. We need to kill them all first, then take to the skies. In the meantime, see if you can somehow activate the emergency AA turrets and lasers. We have got to destroy at least one of their cruisers!"
Aboard the Decebalus.
The Admiral was saving one of these nukes for a special occasion. The Lancaster could not fire its nuke because all space in the armory and supply depots was occupied by the loot they had acquired. That meant that only his capital ship was able to launch one. As to what will await the denizens of the treacherous planet... well, they didn't name the nukes Nagasaki-Planetary-class for nothing! With no remorse whatsoever, he removed all safeties and pressed the button with a skull and a green cloud on it.
10 minutes later, an unimaginable explosion turned half the planet to dust and the other to rust. Casualties amounted in the hundreds of thousands, but most of those that were on the planet at that time were resocs, as Esmeralda found out after she hacked their network. Resocs and slaves, for notice. He did them a favour, in a way at least.
" Alright my friends! Let us get out of here before anybody notices that we obliterated Mengsk's production lines in this system!" he ordered and set the coordinates for Deadman's Rock.
" Pizdocul ăla de Ethan Stewart habar n-are cu cine se pune!"( that cunt of a man, Ethan Stewart, doesn't know who he's dealing with!), he thought to himself, smiling confidently as he watched his fleet disengage and jump into hyperspace.