For posting on FF.NET only, to obtain a copy for another website please get into contact with me

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StarCraft and related materials belong to Blizzard, all others are property of myself

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This was an English project that I decided to post here, if you like Review, and tell me so, then I'll be tempted to write another.

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            "Pull back! Pull back! They're everywhere!"  Private Jameson Peter Raymonds grunted an affirmative into his com unit then leapt from his hiding place, spraying guass rounds everywhere to help cover his retreat. The servos in his neosteel combat suit whined as he spun away from returning fire. His hand twitched towards a stim pack before he grimaced and stopped himself.

             "Just bloody wonderful, confederate bloody marine and I can't even fight a bloody couple of bloody rebels on my own bloody home planet without bloody well reaching for a bloody pack of drugs." He leapt backwards just in time to avoid rebel fire. Suddenly a shell exploded to his right and blew apart the last member of his squad. "Crap!" Raymonds had to leap into the ruined shell of a bunker in order to dodge a second, and third round. "Siege tanks, the Sons of Korhal've got bloody siege tanks!" He figured the boys back at base might as well know what they've got coming their way.

             "Affirmative Private, now get your butt in gear and get back to base!" Raymonds grunted off a "Sir! Yessir!" before carefully crawling from the wreckage. He spun just in time to push a rebel marine to the ground behind him before sprinting off towards the closest base, with tank shells and guass guns tearing up the ground around him. "The first platform has fallen, retreat!" Raymonds staggered a step before catching himself and renewing his run.

            Blackened structures dotted the landscape as he first ran, then was forced sneak before up and charging. Raymonds arrived at Omega's base in time to see the command centre rise from the ground and move towards a cluttered group of dropships. A saddening whining drew his attention to the sky behind him. "Wraiths!" He glanced around for cover, realising suddenly that they where swarming towards the command centre and the dropships. Before he could move three steps towards the impending slaughter, a small group of wraiths and a battlecruiser flew in from behind the dropships and began firing on the rebel fighters. Raymonds felt a surge of hope and staggered towards the dropships when suddenly a flash of orange light sliced through the engines of the battlecruiser. At first it seemed that the confederate ships might still win the skirmish when one, then two of the battlecruiser's huge engines blew, and the mammoth ship pitched downwards.

            Time seemed to slow as the dieing ship drifted through the air towards a group of buildings abandoned in the retreat. It exploded just as it hit the ground, and vaporised the area around it. Raymonds was forced to turn his attention from the airborne battle and towards the sound of footsteps behind him. He turned to find that a large group of rebel soldiers quickly coming within firing range. He spun away from them and ran towards a blackened turrent. His foot slipped on a pool of oil and blood. Raymonds spiralled, letting his momentum carry him across the pool as he lay down covering fire for himself. One of his bullets struck a firebat, which ignited him and two of his flanking soldiers.

            Raymonds' slide cut just short of the safety of the tower, causing him to stumble backwards into a side of the turrent, which started the whole structure to creak and groan. Raymond leapt sideways into the relative shielding of a downed goliath. The air around the goliath almost instantly shredded under heavy guass rounds. More fire accidentally hit the manual fire control on the missile pack of the goliath, four rockets fired out and exploded a few feet away, giving Raymonds an idea. The back of all goliaths have a reload/unload hatch for the missile packs, and it only took Raymonds a few seconds to locate it and a few more for him to blow it open with his guass rifle. He then grabbed and removed the two ammunition cartridges, inside of which he found a total of six missiles.

            Raymonds slung his guass rifle into its holster and gathered up the missiles in into his arms. Then he charged, the rebels opening fire as he ran past and Raymonds prayed they didn't hit the missiles clutched in his arms. He made it into the shell of the turrent where he stacked the missiles against the front wall. A sudden showering of guass rounds threatened to drag the building down upon his head. Raymonds hit the emergency detonation switch on the top missile and ran from the building.

            The explosion from the missiles turned the pool of oil and the people on it into a giant fireball, and it lifted Raymonds into the air, to spiral end over end, and land with a crunch a considerable distance away. Raymonds ignored the now burning wreckage as he ran past, he could see the rise now, Delta Squadron was located right behind it. Suddenly a rebel marine rose from a crouched position was stationed to obviously stop anyone from attempting what Raymonds was considering.

            Raymonds never paused in his stride, letting his hand prepare and inject a stimpack while his other hand drew his guass rifle. The rebel marine slowly brought his rifle to bear, as the stimpack spread through Raymonds' bloodstream and began an over production of synthetic adrenalin. He raised his gun and began to pelt the rebel with guass rounds. The enemy marine stepped backwards and fell through the considerable gap between the ground and the rising.

            Raymonds holstered his rifle and focused upon his running, his feet left the platform at a dead run. He landed about halfway up the rising, and began to pull himself upward. Raymonds had never before realised how incredibly heavy the neosteel suits where, and now he way hanging over a drop millions of feet away from Tarsonis. He turned his attention back on the climb and managed to survive to the top.

            Raymonds marched through ghostly empty territory, stopping every once in a while to pick up more rounds from the intact corpses in the area. "Looks like a major siege strike." He mused after completing the first such stop. He could see the ramp leading to the major Delta base just up ahead. Raymonds marched down the ramp and into the chaos of an abandoning base.

            He managed to grab a spot on one of the last dropships, and rode in silence to the golden planet below. The ride came to a jerky stop five minutes later and Raymonds jumped out, glancing around at the war and destruction occurring around him. He quickly located a commander and rushed to join him, when the ground suddenly caved in around his feet.

            Raymonds found himself inside of some kind of underground tunnel system. He jogged along inside of it for a while, when the ground began to slop upwards, and he suddenly emerged into sunlight. He looked around for a bit, wandering this way and that, when he realised that every step he took make a squishing sound. He looked at his feet and realised he was walking on some kind of pulsating, organic material. Raymonds thought for a moment and remembered exactly what the material was. "Creep!" He click on his com and frantically shouted, "Zerg! The Zerg are here, the Zerg are on Tarsonis!"

            Quiet static was all that answered him.