Chapter ten: Northern fears, crushing tears
"I can't believe it! As if the Zerg were not enough!" Acturus Mengsk, the human Emperor, said, slamming his fist against his desk when he heard the report. "Twenty-seven marines! Twenty-seven! All dead! Duke, I hereby order you to pass this order on to every single soldier of the Kel-Morian combine: whomsoever sees or spots a vehicle or creature unknown to us is ordered to shoot it on sight!"
General Duke nodded, and broadcasted the news all over the south of Moria.
She just stood there. She could not move. She saw nothing else but the fallen bodies. She noticed Kurt looking at every corpse in the field, running around, from fallen marine to fallen marine extremely quickly. She noted Josart sitting silently in a ball. She observed as the other medics gathered the dead men and loaded them in the ambulance to take them to the morgue and then bury them.
The tall handsome marine came to Feodora, with tears in his eyes.
"I…I can't find him, Feodora. Rodger's not in there. Maybe… maybe he escaped… oh God, I hope so… if he didn't send us to report the dead Hydralisk, we would be dead too… He sent us because he believed in us… his faith in his friends saved us."
Kurt Belek could say no more. His great sadness turned into anger as he unloaded a round of bullets into the air, screaming in anger maniacally. He threw his Gauss Rifle on the floor and ran as fast as he could away from that cursed place.
Feodora looked at him go, feeling as grieved as he did. She did not know what had killed these men, for it sure was not Zerg. She would have thought about it some more if Josart Lamont had not came behind her and started shaking her like a banana tree.
"YOU STUPID MEDIC! IF YOU AND YOUR KIND KNEW WHEN TO SHOW YOUR DAMN ASSES, MAYBE MY FRIEND WOULD STILL BE ALIVE!! I HATE YOU!! I HATE YOU ALL!!!"
He pushed the healing woman to the ground, stepped on her stomach and ran after Kurt, crying as well. Feodora knew that Jo's uncontrollable rage was not his usual behaviour. She stood up, wiped off the dust off her encounter suit, and walked back towards the base, heartbroken. She got back to her quarters, alone. The medic looked at herself in the mirror for several hours that night, water escaping her eyes and rolling softly upon her delicate cheeks.
The next day, the counterattack had begun. Five nuclear missiles were launched at the northern coast at five thirty in the morning. When blasts were heard and the horizon turned green from chemicals, dropships were loaded with men, medics, and the all new Siege tanks and Goliaths. Siege tanks looked exactly like your every day tank, at first look. It had too monstrous cannons, tracks, and a heavy chassis. However, the tank concealed a massive weapon that would be deployed for artillery fire, sacrificing the tank's mobility.
As for Goliaths, they looked like giant men, only they had no arms, but their shoulders were loaded with vicious machine guns, and missile launchers. Their head was a long, black cockpit, exactly like a wraith's. In about an hour, all the dropships were nearly full. Feodora was yet to be loaded on a dropship. She had been so excited about going to the north, but now that Rodger was dead, it had no meaning for her.
She avoided Kurt and Josart, for these times were definitely not easy on them either. So she entered a dropship with three Goliaths in it. Before she did, she saw Captain Ray Aureus, Rod's former instructor, shake his head sorrowfully.
A wraith, with the name "CATRINE" on its right wing, remained in the starport when the great transports took off. The fighter jet looked like a child left behind by its parents.
The dropships left the south. Feodora looked back at the city she might not have the chance to see ever again. Secretly, she wished she would not. She did not know why, but ever since she learned Rodger was gone forever, her life seemed pointless. The twinkle in her eyes had disappeared.
"Why did he have to die?" she thought. "Why Rodger Hertubiz? Why? The man who liberated me from the tavern… the man who showed me the world from above… the man who meant everything to me… Why?"
She had only known the marine for about a bit more than a month, and she repeated this sentence in her head as many times as she could, but she knew she would never meet someone like Rod again. She felt tears in her eyes again, as the fleet of dropships flew towards the north, where the Morian sun was rising.
The first step had been an easy one. The siege tanks had deployed their awesome Arclite Shock cannons, their secondary weapon, as soon as they were unloaded from the dropships, and began firing at Zerg forces miles away. Sometimes, a few Hydralisks showed up over the great hills that decorated the north, but, being greatly injured by the devastating shells of the artillery, died in very little time under the bullet storm of the marines and Goliaths.
Feodora could heal marines right when a needle-spine entered their body, like she dreamed all her life: it still felt awkward without Rodger. Under Feodora's and the other medics' helpful treatments, no marines died in the first five hours of the attack. After these five intense hours, the coast was licked clean of Zerg presence. The siege tanks were able to move up more and more towards the center of the northern continent of Moria, with the support of marines, medics and Goliaths. After one hundred and twenty miles of travelling, a few wraiths were sent scouting.
They returned earlier then planned, and two were missing.
"We've been attacked by strange, gooey looking structures! They launched balls of acid spores at us! The Zerg have clearly taken over the north! They made defensive structures unknown to us!"
The Kel-Morian combine's attack force moved up with more caution, and, in the time lapse of a few other hours, the strange anti-air structures were no more. The invasion had lasted nearly a day now, without much resistance from the supposed invincible Talos Brood. As the invaders had built a camp for the night, and most marines were sleeping, a high-pitch scream and several noises resembling the flapping of wings were heard.
A marine who was going to stay up all night to guard noticed a few dots in the dark cerulean sky of the night approaching the camp at a striking speed. The soldier wasted no time. He yelled on the top of his lungs:
"MUTALISKS! WE HAVE MUTALISKS COMING IN!!"
An alarm was sounded in the camp. Feodora was awakened from her uneasy sleep and rushed out of her tent, ready to heal. All soldiers had to sleep in their encounter suits. No chances could be taken. The flock of the twenty flying terrors was getting very close. Mutalisks resembled worms with a horrible mouth with two jagged teeth and a living tongue, a smaller creature. Their great scaly wings were just like a bat's, situated on the front of the Mutalisk's tail, which resembled a scorpion's. Strangely, Mutalisks had no eyes, and they were believed to use the same sonar system as bats to situate themselves.
Although they looked gracious in the sky, everyone knew how deadly they truly were. The Zerg flyers had the ability to launch a deadly green projectile, shaped like a glaive that could hit several targets before wearing off, known as the glaive wurm. Before all humans were armed, the Mutalisks had begun their strike run. Acid fell upon the untenanted siege tanks, and the Kel-Morian combine witnessed in despair the destruction of their artillery. The human army counterattacked with everything they had. Bullets flew in the innocent sky. Goliath missiles' smoke decorated the atmosphere.
"Attack! Attack!" was heard many times in the night. The Mutalisks turned around, unscathed by the attacks of the invaders. They flew over the Goliaths, launching their dreaded projectiles again. The Goliaths, more nimble and quick then the siege tanks were able to avoid their devastation. After that, the Mutalisks were back facing to the Goliaths, and the giant walkers fired their missiles without hesitation. Six of the great flyers were blown into pieces.
Marines' Gauss rifles were hardly able to penetrate the carapace that surrounded the flyer's tough skin. The Mutalisks swooped upon the annoying troopers, releasing the burning wurm once again. The projectile bounced on ten marines before wearing off. Quickly, Feodora got to work; she healed every marine she could as fast as she could, but a few soldiers succumbed to their wounds. More Mutalisks died as more abolishing missiles came upon them. With the combine efforts of twelve marines, three Mutalisks were killed as bullets entered their open mouths. The remaining seven Mutalisks tried to retreat, but by that time, pilots had entered their wraiths and had engaged the flyers in a vicious air-to-air battle. The glaives, not effective against a fast-moving target such as a wraith, were not a match for the treacherous Gemini missiles the fighter jets inflicted upon the retreating monsters.
It rained Mutalisk blood upon the marines.
"The Talos does have some virtue!" declared a marine. "We have lost our artillery! Now we'll have to rely on what we have left."
A tall skinny man, a pilot who had shot down two Mutalisks, who was no other then Captain Aureus, nodded.
"Yes. While I was in the air, I noticed a particularly large dot on the radar. It was far away from here, but I have a feeling that if we reach it, we might find the source of this new Brood. If we destroy it, it might be the end of the Talos."
The next morning, very early, the invaders were on the move once again. The next two weeks passed without the slightest Zerg movement, and the humans got closer and closer to their new objective.