Dropship Me Love You Long Time
Low orbit, Agria, Terran Dominion
June 19, 998.M41
"Who's there?"
Several Marines nearby snickered at Raynor's outburst. Nonplussed, Raynor glared them into silence before concentrating inward again. Hey! You! Yeah, I'm talking to you!
No answer came back. Raynor activated his comm: "Matt, I think whoever's in charge over there just tried to get in touch with me."
The answer was immediate: "Well, tell them to stop shooting us! I've got six Wraiths down and their bombers will be in weapons-range in under a minute!"
'Broadcasting' again, Raynor 'yelled' as loud as he could: Oy! That's MY people you're shooting up there! Either help us kill some Zerg, or piss the hell off!
A dry, amused mental chuckle came back: Oh, really? And should we decide to do neither?
Listen up, dipshit. My name is Jim Raynor, and I'm the Koprulu Sector's #1 wanted man for a reason. The Dominion's doing their damnedest to kill me, the Zerg are trying to eat my ship, and half the time the Protoss want me dead to boot. You want to shoot me too? Get the hell in line!
The voice came back, more cautious this time: Koprulu?
Starport, near Lark's Crossing
Agria, Terran Dominion
June 19, 998.M41
The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Imperial Hawks that day.
A carpet of Tyranid forms covered the nearby landscape, new organisms replacing the ones reduced to bloody smears by human guns. Friendly aircraft bombarded the 'nids, tearing some apart with rockets and dueling with flying bioforms above.
Corporal Thorosis had been ecstatic at the thought of a nice, mindless enemy to fight. Leave the politics to the officers: he and his team would hold the line! Their bolters had run dry hours ago, but the technosorcerers had armed the Marines with strange new weapons. Thorosis found that he already missed the whish-BLAM! of his trusty bolter; this new gun fired many smaller, armor-penetrating rounds like an autogun.
Of course, the Corporal and his two remaining Marines had little enough time to shoot; with Tyranids pressing on all sides of the humans' spaceport, the Marines found themselves rushing from place to place to reinforce battered defense positions. The Imperial Hawks didn't mind; any chance to use chainswords was a good one, after all! Nevertheless, even the Imperial Hawk's boundless stores of faith were taxed by the endless numbers of enemies. The armored humans were defending well, a hill of corpses around the entire spaceport showing the impressive range of their infantry weapons. Thorosis spared a (possibly heretical) prayer to the Emperor for their continued morale: he had seen many 'normal' humans break under lesser Tyranid assaults than this.
Armor, air support, artillery, Space Marines - it still wasn't enough. The Imperial Hawk wasn't clairvoyant and had no hint of Warp sorcery in him, but he knew in his bones that they were doomed if the assault kept up. The humans' technosorcery had kept the guns supplied with ammunition, but the Corporal knew that their magic would reach its limit eventually.
We need a miracle, he thought to himself as his team ran to reinforce another flank.
Dropship Me Love You Long Time
Low orbit, Agria, Terran Dominion
June 19, 998.M41
"They need a miracle."
"Sir?"
"Sergeant, where would you put the fireworks down there?" Raynor asked. Psychic conversations with crazy humans could wait: he had Zerg to shoot and a colony to evac. "We've got the Hyperion standing by in low orbit, so where should she put the Yamato strike?"
The Marine extended his gauntlet, the fingers pointing towards a nearby mining operation. Despite the brown carpet of Zerg forms covering the nearby landscape, several Vespene refineries stood tall amid the wave of creatures. "Sir, that area's overrun, just like everything else. Thing is, that refinery's automated. It's kept producing more Vespene gas even as the Zerg have come through, and it's been storing the excess."
Raynor's grasp of chemistry hadn't gotten past high school, but he held a doctorate in Blowing Shit Up. "Good idea." He activated his long-range comms with the Hyperion: "Lieutenant!"
"Yessir?"
"Grid-square B-4, target coordinates 43 by 82." He knew it was cheesy, they knew it was cheesy, but fuckitall it was still fun: "Bring the rain."
Power flowed from the two chained novas in the Hyperion's core, the massive Yamato generators spooling up as the old girl's crew began the time-honored 'rain dance' once again. Projectors studded along the ship's bow sparked to life, barely-understood technology blinking ready lights across the board. As the vacuum of space hummed to the titanic energies exerted on it, a single boom extended into the 'eye' created by the magnetic storm.
Right on time, the bomb on the boom went off.
The hydrogen bomb held in the 'eye' detonated on schedule, the generators barely containing the runaway fusion reaction. The newborn star pushed for an escape, and found one as one side of its electromagnetic prison disappeared. The new star followed the path of least resistance, speeding away from the Hyperion and towards the hapless planet of Agria. Dispersed slightly by the atmosphere, the uncontrolled reaction nevertheless continued towards the ground.
Now a wave rather than a sphere, the runaway explosion found resistance in its path, as dirt and an unfortunate Vespene refinery blocked its path. The wave crashed against the resistance, turning the refinery into slag and igniting the volatile gas stored within. The entire area brewed up with an earthshaking roar, a gigantic cloud of dirt rising from the crater carved out of the earth.
Raynor wondered how the Hyperion had beat its last firing time by two seconds. The remaining Mordians and Space Marines were too disciplined to react.
The Agrian colonists shouted thanks to God for bitch-slapping the unbelievers with His Almighty Pimp Hand.
Outside starport
Agria, Terran Dominion
June 19, 998.M41
It was some type of groundcar; Two couldn't tell any more than that. His knee still pulped and near-useless, the Marine carefully seated himself in the rear of the vehicle as the prisoner - soldier, he reminded himself - started the engine and pointed out the basics of driving it to a Mordian. With the two Marines in the back and three wounded Mordians crammed in the front seat, the last living humans near Lark's Crossing roared off-road to the starport.
"Heh. Clown car," Walker giggled. His med-suit was malfunctioning due to the plasma-hit, so the Agrian's suit was giving him a constant stream of powerful opiates. He desperately tried to navigate with his HUD, but kept getting distracted by all the shiny lights. Walker didn't need to bother; the Mordians simply drove towards the noise of artillery.
...
With the starport visible on a hill less then a klick away, the 'clown car' roared towards safety in a cloud of gravel and Zergling guts. They skidded up the slope, artillery ripping into the Zerg on either side. A Hydralisk slithered itself in front of the groundcar, losing its life in a hail of Impaler spikes but stopping the truck cold. The Mordians piled out from the front seats, firing their lasguns at random. The Marines left the groundcar by the simple expedient of going through it: Two's armored bulk crumpled the front seat, while Walker scrapped the engine under his half-ton weight.
The humans stumbled onward, one Mordian disappearing under a Roach's bulk. His screams were cut short by the creature's scything claws, the Roach's snarls by Two's plasma-fire. Walker's aim was bad even at the best of times, and now was hardly his shining moment. His Impaler jerked at random, the colonist struggling to keep the weapon level with the onrushing Zerg. Two's accuracy was near-perfect, even when firing a plasmagun while running. The Marine's shredded knee and his weapon's inaccurate fire betrayed him, however; the Imperial Hawk was unable to slag a Baneling that rolled steadily closer.
A Mordian Guardsman changed course, firing his lasgun from the hip as he charged the Baneling. His lasgun 'clicked' on empty, but he never needed it. Flinging himself at the rolling bomb, the Mordian was consumed in a ball of Zerg acid.
...
BOOM.
Even in his drug-addled state, Walker could see the true danger coming. Its footfalls shook the ground, its form blotted out the weak sunlight. Its roar toppled the group's last Mordian Guardsman, the unarmored man flopping over from the assault. Seeing the monster looming over them, Walker jumped for safety.
He almost made it.
The Ultralisk's tusk swept through the air, cutting through Walker's right arm like the neosteel simply wasn't there. Walker staggered under the strain, wincing as the shock blindsided him. His Impaler dropping along with Walker's gun-hand, the Agrian screamed and went down.
Two sidestepped the Ultralisk's other tusk, but his training betrayed him. The Space Marine had practiced close-combat manuevers for decades, but never with a shattered knee. Training made him jump to dodge the whistling death, but Two's left leg crumpled as he tried to land. Ignoring the pain lancing through his body and turning his weapon to face the monster, Two rapidly fired three plasma rounds into the softer flesh under the Ultralisk's armored head.
The monster bellowed in rage and pain, but Two's plasmagun vented its stored plasma from side vents, as its machine spirit responded to the Marine's abuse. Frakkitall, the Marine thought sourly, before dropping his plasmagun and falling back on his combat knife.
The muted roar of Impaler fire made him look up.
...
Their machine spirits spitting death downrange, the three unhurt Marines of Corporal Thorosis's command advanced with measured steps on the Tyranid. Although the .50-caliber shells bounced like rain off the leviathan's armored hide, the monster closed its eyes and turned its attention away from the two downed Marines.
Matching steps, the Space Marines dropped their new weapons and drew their trusted chainswords. Accelerating to a 40kph sprint, the three Marines leapt onto the advancing creature.
The Ultralisk was built to sweep away Terran infantry and Protoss Zealots, and to tear apart armored structures with its claws. The creature was prepared for the little ones to use their metal-fire, while its tusks sliced them into pieces.
It was not prepared for the little ones to leap on its back.
The Space Marines did not aim for the killing blow. Less-experienced Space Marines, when battling massive Tyranids or Daemons, would look for a jugular vein or carotid artery to cut with one stroke. More experienced bug-hunters, like the four Imperial Hawks, aimed to kill such large targets with hundreds of cuts.
Three, landing on the monster's midsection, aimed for the backbone and grimly dug in with his chainsword. The creature shuddered and attempted to buck him off, causing the chainsword to bite deeper. Four landed on the upper thigh of the Ultralisk's front left leg, where he dug into the gaps between its armor plates and drew streams of black ichor from the creature.
Thorosis landed chainsword-first on the Ultralisk's armored neck. His weapon skreed off the monster's organic plate, but the Marine used the opportunity to dig his combat knife into the flesh between its plates. Levering himself up, the Corporal flung himself at the creature's head. The creature's head was too well-armored for a killing blow, but the Marine quickly grabbed the monster's attention.
The Ultralisk roared, bucking and waving its head to dislodge the Imperial Hawk. Thorosis grimly hung on, batting at the creature's eyes when they opened and driving his chainsword at any weakpoint which presented itself. Three, however, did the real damage: his chainsword finally finished sawing through the Ultralisk's main backbone with a murderous snarl. Although the monster had two more spines to support its weight, it found itself sagging under the extra strain, which wasn't helped by Four finding what passed for an Ultralisk's hamstrings and severing them.
Dropping to three legs, the creature bellowed its anger at the little ones. If it had independent thoughts, the Ultralisk would have been thinking little ones breaking the rules! Its confusion was short-lived: even as the Space Marines moved to cripple it, the Ultralisk's life was cut short by a blob of plasma.
...
He was bleeding out internally. His suit wasn't responding properly. Hell, he'd lost an arm. Walker wasn't sure how he'd managed to grab, aim, and fire that crazy's plasmagun into the 'lisk's open mouth. Still, it worked just fine. The plasma-cloud hit the softer skin inside the Ultralisk's mouth, flash-frying its brain almost instantly.
Adrenaline giving him a fresh boost of energy, Walker staggered to his feet. He looked around: the armored crazy was already trying to stand, but only one of the unarmored humans had lived through the fight. Walker reached for the man with his remaining arm, helping him to his feet, before moving his armor's shoulder over to the armored man. The two wounded Marines slowly staggered onward, Two leaning on Walker and hopping clumsily on his right leg, while the Mordian Guardsman tried to hold him up.
...
Two, seeing the wounded soldier fire his plasmagun to kill the looming monster and support the other Imperial Hawks, felt a sudden and fierce surge of pride. Grabbing the soldier's strange weapon and wrenching his severed arm from the trigger guard, the Marine brought the unfamiliar gun up in time to kill more small Tyranids.
The three uninjured Marines, on seeing their target die, quickly leapt off of the monster's back and sprinted back to their dropped weapons. Picking up his new weapon and firing downrange into the Tyranid mob, Thorosis was disturbed by Imperial-encrypted chatter coming in over the vox. "...units, report status. This is 157th Fleet Command. All Imperial units, report status."
Short on time, Thorosis responded with a picture. Looking down at the struggling humans, the Corporal snapped a holopict offhand before returning to the battle.
The holopict is dominated by two Marines, one Terran and one Imperial. The Terran is missing an arm and the Space Marine is dragging one leg behind; they hold each other up while struggling forward. The Space Marine is firing an Impaler rifle one-handed at a nearby Hydralisk, while a bolt of plasma from the Terran Marine's appropriated plasmagun slags a leaping Zergling. A Mordian Guardsman desperately tries to hold up the Space Marine, his face locked in a grimace of pain, while a Viking descends behind the group on twin pillars of flame.
The pict reached the Armageddon's sensoria, the powerful arrays picking up the broadcast and routing it to stations fleetwide. Astonished fleet crewmen spread the holo to friends and officers nearby, who did the same to others. Comms officers watched over communications at every station to keep such seditious pictures from spreading, and would have stopped the holopict - if they hadn't been dead or busy elsewhere.
The crew of the 157th Fleet knew only that something had gone very, very wrong. The Warp misjump had hit them all, and rumors abounded fleetwide in the absence of accurate information. The pict from Agria hit the Imperials like a thunderstorm.
A Terran would see two injured Marines fighting for survival against the Zerg. The Imperials saw a near-mythical Son of the Emperor 'deigning' to give and receive help from two humans. No matter that one of the humans was a noble (judging by his ridiculously-expensive powered armor), a mere Guardsman was supporting a Marine! Obviously, the Emperor had guided the 157th Fleet to an outpost of Imperial humans who were under attack by vile Tyranids, and the situation on the ground was desperate enough that the Marines needed the lowly Guardsmens' help.
When an unsecured broadcast from the Governor-General accidently revealed that such powered armor was cheap and used universally, that the local humans had never heard of the Emperor, and that the plasmagun-wielding 'noble' was a lowly PDF trooper, the reaction was...impressive, to say the least.