Chapter Ten
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Terran Commander Level Four
Status: Commander Variant CMC Power Armor: C-14 "Impaler" 8mm Combat Rifle 500/3,000
Abilities: Rally Cry, Shredder Grenade, Detector
Health: 450 HP: 15 HP Recovery rate per minute
Armor: +4
Energy: 175/175: Recharge rate 25 points every 1 minute
Personal Shields: 150/150: Recharge rate 50 points per minute
Allies: Adjutant, Sgt. Casari [MARINE], Lt. Hismallen [VULTURE], Cpl. Hanov [FIREBAT]
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Terran Commander Level Four to Level Five [ERROR] Incomplete
Requirements: 107/150 Hand Grenade Kills, 400/400 Rifle Kills, 2,138/2,500 Confirmed Kills, 3/5 Rescued Allies, 5/6 Commander Research Points, 10/10 Boss Kills, 1/3 Commander Mission
…
Blue Force Terran Level Three to Level Four [ERROR] Incomplete
Requirements: 152/75 Depots, 171/125 SCVs, 986/350 Marines, 204/70 Firebats, 58/30 Vultures, 26/6 Science Facility Upgrades, 5/30 Zerg Bio Samples, 5/30 Protoss Crystal Shards, 15/30 Terran Research Files, 3/1 Rescued Allies, 6/2 Barracks, 4/3 Command Centers, 3/1 Factory, 1/1 Merc Compound and Terran Commander Level Four
…
Blue Force Terran Resources
Minerals: 327,950
Gas: 185,700
…
The good news was that the Anarchy Event ended just like Adjutant said it would, after I thought the bright glow off to my left was Cpl Hanov and his flamethrower wielding minions were roasting things before I realized that nobody was firing and I mean literally no one was firing.
Having just spent the last however long exposed to nonstop full auto gunfire, screeches, explosions and fire crackling and other noise that had become background noise I hadn't actually thought about before, who knew the sound of a hundred empty Impaler magazines hitting the ground would sound like an avalanche of stones rolling down a mountain?
With the rapid return of the suns it was awesome to watch the darkness stretched out before me light up, not only because the sunlight was getting brighter, no, because the Rouge units were bursting into flames. As far as my eyes could see and the visor scanners in my HUD could detect, burning Rouge units were dying, hundreds of them every so far and probably thousands more beyond my line of sight as first they stopped moving and fell to the ground, burning away until the fires slowly extinguished under the harsh glare of the sunlight, a mockery to all the hardships me and my forces had been subjected to all this time, now suddenly gone.
Lots of my troops were cheering, mostly fist pumping and acknowledging that they had survived this bloodbath through the same generic comments and shouts as I finally lowered the muzzle of my Impaler rifle, the muzzle and barrel assembly glowing an angry fire engine cherry red as I raised my visor and looked around.
Commander, Anarchy Event and the eclipse have ended, what are your orders?
That sobered me up as I took in the battle scarred Bunkers, damaged troops on the verge of life and death, Lt. Hismallen still unresponsive, the literally carpet of disintegrating corpses stretched out as far as the eye could see, smoldering ruins of various buildings, craters and dissolving goo and the like.
A glance at the round counter on my Impaler read a measly 128 as I mechanically reloaded and stowed my rifle over my shoulder, wading through thigh deep magazines before I stood at the top of the ramps, Bunker to either side of me as I sighed.
"We got work to do people," that stopped the celebrations going on behind me as Sgt Casari and Cpl Hanov stepped up next to me, "Adjutant how long until nightfall?"
Two hours, seventeen minutes and forty seconds Commander
More than enough time for what I needed to do.
"Rebuild the destroyed Bunkers, rotate out wounded troops for fresh ones and collect every single Research Point and have them delivered to the Science Facility," I walked forward another few steps in order to step around a few dormant Spider Mines, "halt unit production at all Barracks for now and have all bases repair any damaged structures ASAP."
A brief examination of my forces stats n my HUD revealed a rather sober issue, according to reports I still had four operational Command Centers, which meant I had something to take care.
"Sgt Casari, have your men resupply and get ready to move out, you as well Cpl Hanov," I watched as a surge of SCVs zipped past me to begin construction of multiple Bunkers or to start gathering glowing Research Points, "we need to take of something first."
…
Terran Commander Level Four
Status: Commander Variant CMC Power Armor: C-14 "Impaler" 8mm Combat Rifle 500/3,000
Abilities: Rally Cry, Shredder Grenade, Detector
Health: 550 HP: 45 HP Recovery rate per minute
Armor: +5
Energy: 200/200: Recharge rate 50 points every 1 minute
Personal Shields: 150/150: Recharge rate 50 points per minute
Allies: Adjutant, Sgt. Casari [MARINE], Lt. Hismallen [VULTURE], Cpl. Hanov [FIREBAT]
…
Terran Commander Level Four to Level Five [ERROR] Incomplete
Requirements: 107/150 Hand Grenade Kills, 400/400 Rifle Kills, 2,138/2,500 Confirmed Kills, 3/5 Rescued Allies, 5/6 Commander Research Points, 0/10 Boss Kills, 1/3 Commander Mission
…
Blue Force Terran Level Three to Level Four Complete
Requirements: 152/75 Depots, 171/125 SCVs, 986/350 Marines, 204/70 Firebats, 58/30 Vultures, 26/6 Science Facility Upgrades, 55/30 Zerg Bio Samples, 55/30 Protoss Crystal Shards, 65/30 Terran Research Files, 3/1 Rescued Allies, 6/2 Barracks, 4/3 Command Centers, 3/1 Factory, 1/1 Merc Compound and Terran Commander Level Four
…
Blue Force Terran Level Four to Level Five [ERROR] Incomplete
Requirements: 152/90 Depots, 171/150 SCVs, 986/400 Marines, 204/85 Firebats, 0/25 Medics, 58/50 Vultures, 0/20 Hellions, 26/10 Science Facility Upgrades, 55/40 Zerg Bio Samples, 55/40 Protoss Crystal Shards, 65/40 Terran Research Files, 3/1 Rescued Allies, 6/4 Barracks, 4/5 Command Centers, 3/4 Factory, 1/1 Merc Compound and Terran Commander Level Five
…
Blue Force Terran Resources
Minerals: 327,950
Gas: 185,700
…
The location of Charlie Base was pockmarked with smoldering craters and areas of scorched dirt, not to mention wreckage that was slowly deteriorating before my eyes at an unreal rate, but that wasn't what held my attention.
After amassing enough troops to take care of this little errand, the march from Alpha had been short and to the point, no resistance had been encountered on the way as reports from Adjutant were reviewed quickly, mostly that Delta and Bravo base had escaped almost completely unscathed, almost because each base had lost a couple Bunkers and respectively the units garrisoned inside of them.
Every single building had been demolished, most of the wreckage and fading corpses in my standard blue colors were sporting a variety of claw marks, bullet holes and plasma burns while everything else in Rouge colors had been perforated with spikes, shrapnel and fire damage. It looked like Charlie base had given as good as they got, the sheer amount of carnage was impressive, compared to what Alpha looked like, it seemed like this is what a miniature apocalypse looked like as I carefully stepped forward.
As much as I wanted to rush in and get this over with, I was more concerned about Burrowed enemy units, namely Infested Terrans, so slow and steady was the word as I kept a close eye on my Detector.
Both Sgt Casri and Cpl Hanov were flanking me on either side, their respective forces spread out in a skirmish line with twenty Vultures bringing up the rear as part of my force, the half dozen SCVs tagging along for repair or Research Point retrieval, not that I expected there to be any, but it never hurt to have a couple along for the ride. Speaking of which, I had managed to level up both myself and my forces once enough Research Points were collected and needless to say I was pretty pissed off that the Night Bosses had only attacked Alpha base, so thoughts of gathering Research Points from other bases had been dashed, but I had more than enough to upgrade.
I could build Medics and Hellions, Medics costing 75 minerals and 25 gas in 10 minutes, not bad, but they could only be built at Barracks that didn't have Reactors installed. Hellions in my mind were too costly, at 100 minerals and 75 gas in 15 minutes had me thinking roughly how long it would take for higher tier units to be produced and I didn't like it.
Every single Barracks without a Reactor had been order to mass produce Medics, I left orders with Adjutant to have Lt. Hismallen healed as soon as the first Medic was finished, it made me happy now that I could heal my wounded units, giving me an edge in combat I had been sorely lacking earlier. Not sure why, but I ordered every single Factory to produce ten Hellions each so I could have enough to not only meet the level requirements, but to see if they could be used effectively.
Hellions in my mind were glorified Firebats racing around on wheels, never really used them much in the game aside from a few missions where they were allowed to shine, but only because they were fast, could really lay the hurt on enemy ground troops or incinerate an entire enemy base with enough time, but against aerial units or long range heavy hitters, they would be mincemeat.
No Medics or Hellions had been built yet, I hadn't waited around long enough for that because I wanted to take out the Infested Command Center before nightfall, hopefully to take away a key advantage the Rouge Zerg would have against me. Not only that, but I was wondering if I would have enough time to rebuild the Bunkers, garrison enough troops and hold out before it got dark again, though from what I was seeing that appeared to be unlikely due to the fact that all of the wreckage laying around would make construction impossible until it disappeared.
That and the purple carpet of creep making things difficult.
Walking across creep made me really nauseous for some reason, like one would get motion sickness riding on a train or standing on a ship sailing through a storm, but the fact remained that if I paused every few feet to collect myself, something mean and nasty would be able to sneak up on me faster and the last thing I wanted to do was die, nearly done that once already and no thank you. Call it what you want, but I still think something about the creep was messing with not only me, but my troops as well, I mean you'd think that Zerg creep would have some kind of passive ability to what it could recognize as friend or foe, I honestly think there was some kind of speed bonus to friendly Zerg units and some kind of movement penalty for non-Zerg units traversing across any kind of creep.
Why? Well because the Zerg rushing towards me were moving a heck of a lot faster than previous Zerg.
"Let'em have it!" I was standing in the second row, so the pair of War Pigs in front of me dropped down to one knee and started firing, the high pitch screech of more than twenty Zerglings popping up out of the ground was enough to raise the hair on the back of my neck as I let loose with my own rifle.
Once the rabid attack dogs of the Swarm got within range of my skirmish line, more importantly Cpl Hanov and his Firebats, it was pretty much over as the maelstrom of napalm and modified Firebat tech improving said weapons came into play.
Three Infested Terrans and nearly a dozen Infested Marines had joined into the fray, though charging recklessly towards a large group of armed combat suits all facing the same direction were all of the weapons were pointed made that a futile effort at best. With all of the Vultures bringing up the rear, the fight was pretty much over before it started, aside from a few more dents in a Devil Dog from a Zergling and a few hits on some of my Marines from hostile Impaler fire, there were no casualties to speak of.
"We take it slow people," I spent more time watching the edges of my Detector monitor on my HUD than I paid attention to where I was going, "shoot anything that moves."
Copy that boss
Affirmative sir
It was when a giant red blip appeared on my HUD that had me really nervous, cautious and incredibly wary of any subterranean surprises that would either explode or come up swinging foot long scythe blades before the Infested Command Center came into view.
To be honest I kind of threw up in my mouth a little bit when I first saw it.
The reason I hadn't seen it from a distance was because of the smoke, like a thick fog really that cut visibility down to like fifty feet, my floodlights had activated automatically along with everyone else's since we stepped foot into this soup. So when the massive form of what used to be one of my Command Centers came into view, it was a massive ship appearing out of thin air in the dead of night, absolutely terrifying when details could be picked out as lots of lights began playing over the surface of this thing.
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Infested Command Centers are one of a few structures that enemy units can repurpose for their own uses, in this instance Rouge Zerg were able to destroy most of the facilities located within the Command Center that would combat the rate of possible infection, leaving the facility vulnerable. Once infestation has been completed, bio-organic creep modified for unknown purposes would seep into everything, creating an organic based form of power and control over the damaged hardware of the facility, while other forms of Zerg biomass is added into automated manufacturer processors.
Similar to how Zerg Larva is morphed into any strain of the Zerg Swarm, biomass is added with Terran genes and tech, the result typically tends to be Infested Terrans, an unstable biological unit of the Zerg Swarm that proves to be a rather effective suicide bomber. Proven to rather effective against hard targets such as buildings and vehicles, deployment of Infested Terrans tend to rare as most overrun positions tend to either Lift Off all capable structures and relocate them to another location.
…
Okay, nice to know that all of those little reminder videos means that Adjutant is learning, that and I need to set up some kind of protocol to avoid having an entire base wiped out again.
As I was saying, the entire thing was partially covered with pulsing sacs half the size of a Supply Depot, creep and dare I say massive tentacles that were covered in rows of wicked looking spines. If you ignored the fact that most of the biological parts were either twitching or pulsing to some unknown rhythm that was kind of sickening to look at, and what parts of the actual Command Center you could actually see were heavily damaged from various claw marks and some kind of acid damage.
That Infestor Lord from earlier must've done a flyby before swinging by Alpha base after it made certain it had completely infested this Command Center that had to have received a real beating prior to that.
"Alright, torch the fucking thing and let's get out of here." The order was hardly past my lips before the Firebats moved up and got to work, Cpl Hanov and his Devil Dogs hanging back to stay near me as for some reason my Marines were not firing.
"Waiting for an engraved invitation?" I turned to look at Sgt Casari standing a little ways away from me with all of her War Pigs and Marines just standing there, "Well blast it already."
Roger
"You guys too," I gestured at the Vultures sitting motionless behind me, "I want to get out of here."
Infested Command Centers, as I learned, can not only take a lot of punishment in order to be destroyed, but turns out they have a nasty little surprise in store.
As the whole thing finally succumbed to the sheer amount of damage my units were doing against this thing, a faint humming echo could be heard about a second before the whole thing collapsed in a shower of gore and flying metal as something burst out of the center of the corpse I guess you could call it?
Four Infested Terrans came tumbling out of the oozing center of the ruined wreckage that was half organic and half machine, I noticed them about half a second before everyone started shooting at them and by then it was nearly too late.
Eleven Firebats and a single Marine were killed from the resulting explosions of three Infested Terrans that managed to detonate before they could be killed from incoming fire, the last one had been fortunately killed by a Vulture grenade before it could throw itself into the ranks of troops screaming a guttural cry.
"WE LIVE FOR THE SWARM!"
Of course I now know firsthand how devastating these things are against my troops, they took four of mine for every one of theirs, which did not bode well for me.
"We're returning to base," I sighed after glancing in the direction that I knew where that rubble covered ramp was and decided against it for now, "we don't have enough time or troops to go exploring so close to dark."
Commander, Lt. Hismallen has been returned to full effectiveness and is awaiting orders
Relief like you wouldn't believe swept over me at that update from Adjutant.
"All the more reason to get back then," I turned to cast another glance at the destroyed Infested Command Center, disappointed that nothing was picked up on my HUD, "pack it up people, we're going home."
Servos and engines flared to life as what was left of my forces turned around and started marching back towards Alpha base.
The night would soon belong to the Rouges and I wasn't going to play hero.