I don't own any of this except for the invented characters and their tale. Starcraft is owned by Blizzard.

Ch. 6 The new mission

Elly opened her eyes; she was being shook in her Vulture's seat.

"Wake up!" It was Vincent, and behind him, she saw the main colony all around. They had made it.

"V…Vincent?" she straightened up and got out, "Kagi is dead…"she spoke softly to herself. Then a stern look came over her face, "we have to give our report," her voice was cold. She looked untroubled by his death, but her face was pale.

When she was gone he began to follow somberly and spoke under his breath, "he saved our asses at least half a dozen times while we were there, and when he counts on us, we don't do anything, damn." Vincent crossed into the command center. His eyes were hot and probably red. "Damn," his arm went out involuntarily to the side and hit the steel of the corridor, the wall bent inward, and cracked, as did the knuckles of his suit's armor. Inside his suit his hand started to feel wet, his knuckles were bleeding.

"Thank you for your report Elhaym, your new orders are to choose ten soldiers from our force here, to make one squad, and two platoons within that squad one led by you, one led by Vincent," As he said that Vincent walked in and stood by Elly. "Fill him in later would you?"

"Commander," Elly nodded as she replied.

"Your mission is to gather the data from the station, and if any survivors exist, to get them out. You have free reign on tactics and use of force, we will be evacuating the planet soon and won't be gathering anything from the post, its all your decision of what to do. Satellites have confirmed that some buildings are still standing in good condition, and the command center has something growing on it, investigate this as best as you can without compromising the mission." Elly stole a glance at Vincent after noticing some movement, his right hand guard on his armor was open, and he was bandaging bloody knuckles. "It is currently 0412, and our e-vac is expected at 0600, be here by then or we will have to leave you behind, no further rescue missions, we don't have time. Not to mention we expect to need every unit left here. I am giving you both Corporal promotions as of now. Elly you will be issued a gauss rifle to go with the medic suit. That is all, dismissed!"

Elly turned to leave and saw that Vincent was still looking at his hand making a fist with it. "Commander PeBo said to move," she said over her shoulder. His head jerked up as he clicked the hand piece in place, turned and walked out with her. She explained the mission to him on the way out.

Light poured into the dully-lit barracks when they walked in, and used the in-building intercom to call everyone to attention.

"Myself, Corporal ranked Vincent, and my partner in an upcoming mission, Corporal Elhaym, need the use of ten soldiers brave, fit, and willing to go to Research Outpost three which was recently besieged by Zerg. We are the only known survivors of that attack, and we are to lead a mission to acquire the station's data, and any survivors other then ourselves. Any who volunteer for this mission step into the halls and present yourselves for us at the entrance, we need ten soldiers and have the use of this barracks to find them." The intercom clicked off, and doors slid open, a dozen soldiers arrived and saluted.

"Sir," The left most soldier in the front row spoke up, "this soldier requests permission to speak." Vincent and Elly look at each other.

"First things first, anyone in our squad will immediately can all those horrible formalities."

"Well then, there are a dozen of us here, which two will be staying behind?" Elly looked across them, as Vincent's gaze went to her. Two had physical things wrong with them that showed they were bad soldiers. One soldier had a black eye, the other of the defective two was merely fidgeting. He would be slow to act and not respond well to unexplained orders.

"You two," she pointed at them, and they shrugged and left. Only one speaking as he walked away.

"Good luck under the command of a woman." Her eyebrow twitched and she fought the impulse throw her sidearm at him.

"Get your weapons and power suits, meet outside the command center in six minutes." With that they left, four minutes later all soldiers were accounted for. "We've requisitioned two Vultures in addition to the two we arrived with, we don't want to stress the base's resources and defenses by assigning each of us one. Three to a Vulture, one inside, one on top of the cockpit, and one more atop the machinery on its rear.

Elly started hearing occasional snide remarks about wanting to ride with her, so she hopped into Vincent's old Vulture, with it's three spine damages, a makeshift repair had been done to the weaponry system. However the mine system was still out, Vincent climbed into the other damaged one, it had a fresh batch of miss colored iron welded into the hole in the fuel tank.

The soldiers filtered out amongst the Vultures and after a bit of sputtering from Vincent's they sped away from their base.

Where am I? What is this around me? What is that pain? Kagi tried to peer around him, but it was as if he was trapped in a locker, and this thick metal armor wasn't helping… As far as he could see left there was bone and flesh, pulsing ever few seconds. Kagi's left eye screamed in pain if he tried to look right, and this right eye was throbbing and not seeing anything. His left arm seemed broken, and hard to move in whatever this was to the degree it could. Most of the right side of his body felt dead. The churning flesh was very active, the dead parts on his body seemed to be regaining feeling, in excruciating pain however.

The suit appeared to be missing large portions, as he could feel the oozy flesh directly against him in some places. But since he was feeling less and less of it as time roamed; he concluded it must have been repairing the suit.

An hour passed slowly, but it passed; and his pain subsided. His left arm and ribs felt whole again, and the right half of his body normal. His right eye also regained sight somewhere along the line. Kagi also couldn't feel the gooey wet tissues pulsing directly anymore, so the suit must be in good condition too.

Kagi tested the strength of his imprisonment, trying to lift his arm; it couldn't get through the tough flesh. He struggled with his side store, here it was thin enough to inch towards it; a minute later he held a knife in hand.

Voices began to pierce the skin of his prison, he couldn't tell, however, if they were even human. Steps squished along too, someone was out there… and he was held down. Kagi thrust the knife into his fleshy cocoon getting three inches out the top…

Their little group has come across the blasted, partial remains of Kagi's vulture. He knew that not only he, but also Elly would want to stop there. So he ordered a halt, they examined the site for a little while. The dusty red stone was blackened around the completely fragmented remains of the vulture. Gods, it even looked like the front half had simply blasted off before the fireball caught it. No sign was left of Kagi. His blue trimmed vulture had been turned black. The ruins of his vehicle weren't the only things there though; various Zerg parts were scattered about, smeared with smoke and burns. All that was left was the bone and hardened carapace. The weaker tissues and flesh were burned from existence. Sent into the air that they now were breathing. It made Vincent feel sick, he closed his visor and switched to the scab. Self-contained alien atmosphere breathing apparatus, when Elly passed by him, he caught a glimpse of her face. Pained, pale, dark, lifeless; she really did care for him, maybe not love, but something close. And that prick just goes and dies on her? Some way to treat a lady…

Vincent was on rear guard, he had held the pole position with Elly for a little while, then they lost the rear guard… then another, and one more. Two others were killed at the time the second guard went down. So to raise moral he, one of the leaders, took the dangerous position.

Upon arriving at the base they ditched the vultures behind a cliff face and crossed a mining tunnel that had gone clear through the cliff. They ended up directly behind the science facility. Six men went in with Elly, she and three others, one with a marred proto-suit; returned. She had the data file.

"Two objectives left. The C.C., and Kagi." She had stopped, her eyes wide. Elly couldn't figure out why she had said 'Kagi' instead of 'survivors.' He was dead, right? They came up to the C.C., it was covered in Zerg structural tissues; they entered with Elly and himself at point.

Now his point-man positionhad become the proverbialrear-guard.

Something darted above them. He raised his fist closed, the rustling got the others attention in the flesh vine-lined hallway. They stopped, Elly and her support kept forward watch. Red eyes caught light from the hall's system. He opened fire.

Kyle was facing his way, and Erich turned away from the front to support. Chipping gunshots echoed through the hall, and a 'ling jumped at Erich, his damaged suit couldn't jump from its path. The 'ling had to leap between Vince and Kyle to attack him though and their combined fire cut off its hind side. One scythe was in working order and cleaved through Erich's armor. Elly began firing to the front, Erich screamed, and the Zergling tried to bite through his helmet.

The victim himself finished it off, firing from below it. Vincent slammed into the wall and saw to his horror, two hydras. Rockets fired from both his and Elly's rifles simultaneously; his own scraped the wall before homing in, blasting the hydra apart at the upper tail. Elly's shot destroyed its right scythe arm completely. Erich and Kyle were behind them, not firing, and out of mind.

The first hydra fell from the rocket barrage; the second began to receive a hail of bullets from the gauss rifles. Its ribcage tore open, and the organs inside shredded apart. But death did not come soon enough. After the fatal assault it loosed one volley of spines from its single working pouch. Vincent dodged away, but caught an acid spray on his thigh; poor Erich got one right in the hole the 'ling had made…

They broke for a short while so Elly could patch him up some… the loss of fluids were his biggest problem now, the suits reserves of synthetic blood were used up.

They carried on, and entered the main hall… This room wasn't just covered in vines, and it was all pulsing and alive, the floor had a layer of hardened carapace. From the ceiling dangled chunks of flesh. The walls were pulsing with a thin layer of living tissue, and all around the room, in what used to be bleachers; were things that looked like living pods. Vincent and Elly approached one, knives drawn from their side slots. It was about 1.8 meters long, and ¾ of a meter wide.

Gleaming blades cut into the fleshy cocoon, revealing a man. His body was warped all over; the left arm had a tentacle instead of a hand. A large scythe was forming on his back like a zergling's. And above all else his face was pale and his eyes were a bloody red.

The warped eyes fixed on Vincent, and the mutated man let out a gurgling hiss.

Kagi braced himself against another explosion. The first had shaken him pretty well. Those things outside the squishy prison were yelling, gunfire from three gauss rifles was unmistakable. The knife he held lashed out and slit along his shoulder. The fleshy containment somehow got his visor to open, and a tube formed in front of his face. It began growing out towards his mouth and nose…
The first man they freed blasted Kyle apart; the smaller cocoons, soldiers without proto-suits, were mutated and turned into living bombs. The larger were sometimes mutated; they freed three soldiers, two men and a woman. But one of the men was killed by large cocoon's hatching, and the mutant's attack. Erich again caught shrapnel, but it only scared his suit.

Elly ordered all large cocoons cut opened and the occupants killed if there showed mutation. All small cocoons were to be exterminated before even being opened. Elly was about to carve out a smaller cocoon when she saw one that was partially opened. It was a larger one along the shoulder.

Then it caught her eye, a bit of teal trim was showing. It began to convulse and fight; Elly hefted her high-density knife and slit it down the side. She ripped it open to reveal an officer's suit. The visor was raised and a tube was stuck to the occupants face. Kagi's face.

Small strips of flesh attached it to his face; her blade cut it off an inch from his face. A moment later creep started to flood out of it and onto the floor.

"E…Elly!"

"Kagi! You're alive!" Her face was a look of joy. "We have to get out of here! Can you move?"

He groaned as he stood, but simply appeared stiff. "Why are you here?"

"PeBo ordered us to get the base's data, and look for survivors."

Vincent's gauss ran out on the last cocoon, but he had remembered to grab a couple of clips. After reloading they assessed what they had.

Plenty of ammo, and eight soldiers, all that they had left of their original group were Elly, Vincent, and Erich. Now they had recovered Kagi, and four others.

The group of troops quickly made its way back out; and to the vultures, this time two to a Vulture. Kagi opened a link to Elly's.

"H…hey um… I'm sorry about all this."

"Don't worry about, I was happy to help. How did you live through the blast though? …I saw the site."

"I don't know, the vulture got broken in half but I still should have died. I think I sort of did… but the Zerg put me in that thing, and the parts that felt dead began to wake up."