Chrono Nightmare

Part 6

Artanis laid his head down in his hands as he tried to grasp what had just happened. His entire army, decimated by a single nuclear explosion, it was too much. The praetor's fleet had flown partially out of the blast radius of the nuke and were hovering above the debris, scanning for any signs of life.

Zeratul's voice flooded into Artanis's head.

'Artanis! Are you alright? What happened down there?'

A weak sound resonated through Zeratul's head.

'They're all dead Zeratul. All of them. Our entire army has been wiped out. My fleet is showing 65% damage, our shields are gone, we're returning to the base Zeratul…'

Four goliaths slowly approached the scouts. Turning their bodies to align their shoulder packs towards the fleet, they engaged their charon boosters and fired. The missiles flew through the air, a trail of blue exhaust pouring out from behind them.

'Artanis! Watch out!'

One of Artanis's wingmen accelerated and flew into the missiles meant for the prateor. The scout was blown in half, a large explosion rocking the sky. Artanis snapped back into action.

'Everyone retreat, this area isn't safe!'

The scouts turned around and began speeding back towards the Protoss base as another volley of missiles clipped the wing of a scout. The plane hurtled downward, twirling and smashing into the canyon's gorge. Another scout was hit in its reactor and a large blast rocked the rest of the scouts as the plane burst into flames and exploded.

Eight scouts including Artanis raced down the canyon. It ran for about twenty miles and it was all controlled by the Terrans.

As the quiet hum of the engine reverberated within the cockpit of his scout, Artanis noticed six blips on his radar.

'Watch out! Wraiths coming in at point nine-three!' Artanis yelled, veering to the left. A half-dozen wraiths uncloaked and a group of missiles burst forth, destroying another scout. As the scouts flew on, they continued taking extensive damage from the wraiths. With only three scouts left and miles of canyon left to cover it seemed that the praetor was done for. The lead wraith sped ahead of the rest and fired a pair of missiles at the scout on Artanis's left.

Artanis watched as the pilot jerked forward from the impact then blew apart before the scout careened downward. Another volley flew forth and the other scout exploded in a blue blaze. Artanis prepared for death as his ship detected a missile lock.

Artanis closed his eyes preparing for the end when suddenly a voice flooded his mind.

'Artanis, prepare for recall, fly straight for the warp. We only have enough energy for one so make it count.'

A large vortex of energy materialized in front of Artanis and the praetor careened into it just as it closed. The lead wraith veered around and radioed back to Augustgrad. "Emperor Mengsk, our forces have taken out the scouts as ordered, but the lead scout seems to have escaped through a dimensional recall." On the other end the voice of Mengsk responded coldy,

"Good, Commander. See to it that every remaining Protoss is slaughtered in my name…"

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Artanis flew out of the recall and looked around at his surroundings. His eyes widened at the sight. Instead of the arid deserts and steaming tar pits of Korhal, he found himself on the surface of an ice world. Snow was gently falling, and cool, flowing water descended from a waterfall ahead. The sun peeked out through the clouds and illuminated patches of the ground, making it sparkle. Beautiful as the sight was, Artanis snapped himself back to reality.

 'Zeratul, Executor come in! This is Artanis do you read me?'

Silence.

Artanis sat back in his seat and sighed. Things couldn't have gotten much worse. Most of the Protoss army had been decimated, his own personal fleet was shattered and destroyed, and to top it all off he himself was lost on some unknown planet… and there was still the mystery as to whose voice that was that told Artanis to go in the portal. It was female sounding, a young voice, human. 'At least things can't get any worse…'

Of course at that very moment Artanis's scout gave an almighty lurch and started descending onto the snow-covered ground. It landed with a hard thunk and powered down. Growling, Artanis jumped out of his scout and kicked it. 'Oh for Adun's sake I had to say that didn't I?' At that moment the snow began to fall faster, and heavier. The wind started to pick up and the sun was blotted out by large clouds. Sighing, he reached into his scout and pulled out a pair of psi blades and a cloak. Rummaging around in his scout for anything else of use he suddenly felt something hard kick him in the leg. Startled, he whipped around expecting an enemy, but what he saw shocked him.

A small human girl was grinning at him. Her long ginger hair swayed with the wind and her emerald eyes glistened as she let out a single laugh and turned around, running into the growing blizzard. Artanis yelled out.

'Wait, come back! Who are you? Where am I?' It was too late though, the girl was gone. Sighing, Artanis snapped the cloak on and put on his psi blades. Whoever that human was, she had the answer to his predicament. He began to trudge in the direction she ran, the wind whipping and howling as dusk approached…

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Back on Tarsonis Jim Raynor and his men stepped out of the now burning science facility. What they saw surprised and horrified them. Almost every building in the Alpha Squadron base was destroyed, the remaining ones were burning. It was obvious that the attack wasn't a Terran one. The claw marks and acid puddles spread across the base proved that.

'Damnit,' Jim thought, 'Just when everything's going well Kerrigan has to appear and screw everything up! We were so close too…'

Wearily they began the march back to their base. Crossing a large field, Jim noticed the blood stained grass. Zerg and Terran corpses were strewn all over the field they were in.  As they walked over a hill overlooking the base the sight that was revealed to them was horrific.

Most of the Terran buildings were gone, in their place were the hulking flesh-bearing Zerg structures. Sunken and Spore colonies lined the former Terran base and a single Infested Command Center stood within the middle of the cluster. A group of Hunter Killers sauntered up to the raiders and spoke.

"Ourr Queeen demands that youuu comeeee immidiatley and waste no timeee," the lead Hunter growled. Taking a breath, Jim took out the data disk and looked at it.

"Alright, let's do this."


To be continued…

A/N: Holy moly, how long has it been since I released another chapter, at least half a year or so! Oh well, Part 7 will be out hopefully soon and then I can wrap this story up. Later all.