Private Souryo stood in the doorway to catch his breath, the sounds of battle outside deafened by the thick neosteel plating of the Command Center. The situation inside, however, seemed no better. Technicians, officers, and other various personnel scrambled every which way, some with boxes and crates in hand, all seeming to have their own agenda.
Rensha grabbed a nearby technician as he was running by. "Hey! Where's an officer I can report to?"
The technician, with a distressed look upon his face, seemed to ignore Rensha and tried to pull away, yet the firm grip of the battlesuit held the technician firmly in place. Rensha wasn't prepared to let the man go until he got his questions answered.
"I asked you a question, Ensign, I need to speak with a commanding officer immediately!"
The man finally stopped struggling and hastily answered, "Why would you need to talk with an officer? You're just a lowly grunt!"
Rensha griped the collar of the nervous technician and pulled him close to his face. "Because it seems like every idiot in this command center has forgotten to activate those missile turrets out there, and if we don't get those turrets up and running immediately, then this entire outpost is lost!"
"This outpost is already lost!" the man shouted. "Can't you see everyone evacuating already? There are dropships waiting at the starport to try and get all the key personnel off this rock. And if I'm lucky, I'll be able to get aboard. So let go of me!"
Souryo started to become irritated with the man. With the strength of the battlesuit assisting him, Rensha hoisted the technician up in the air by the collar, the sounds of the hydralisks clawing the door still very apparent. "If you don't tell me where an officer is, then perhaps I can introduce you to a couple of friends of mine outside this door!"
The technician eyes widened as he glanced from the red-faced marine to the door, then back again, as he realized the only way he was getting away from this man was to just give him the information.
"Try the command post at the top of the center. Most likely there'll be someone up there you can talk to, since that's where most of the officers gather. Not that it'll make any difference!"
Rensha let his grip slip from the man, causing the technician to fall to the ground. "We'll see about that."
The man scrambled to his feet and took off down the hall, not giving the marine a second thought. Rensha, with his own plans, hastily made his way deeper into the headquarters of Sector Outpost 21. As Rensha came to the lift that would propel him upward to the main control room of the facility, no guard approached him and no one requested some type of clearance from him. Normally a low-ranked marine would never be allowed into the control room, but with the chaos around him, everyone seemed to be preoccupied with more pressing matters than of some lone marine entering the command lift.
As the lift made its ascension towards the small control room atop the command center, Rensha flipped up his helm visor, which in turn toggled the sensors and targeting systems of his battlesuit offline. Souryo let out a small breath, trying to calm himself from the recent events. The thick plating of the lift and the surrounding shaft had all but nearly silenced the noise of the battle raging on outside, which suited Rensha just fine. He didn't even want to go to this desolate rock on the outer rim in the first place, let alone join the marines of Mengsk's newly established army, which was comprised of old Sons of Korhal rebels, turncoat Confederate Forces, and other ragtag groups. Then there were the few, himself included, who wanted to just live their own lives in peace, but were ripped away from friends and family because they just happened to be of ripened age and fitness for the duties of a marine.
Rensha himself had originally been "drafted" into the Sons of Korhal, a rebellious faction that had declared war on the leading power in the Terran Sector, the Confederacy.
He entered the marines just before Tarsonis, the capital city on the primary planet of Tarsonis, had fallen to the Sons of Korhal and a new order rose to power, the Terran Dominion, with Mengsk, the leader of the Sons of Korhal, christening himself Emperor.
So now Rensha found himself here, in the middle of nowhere, on a small planet where he didn't want to be, serving and fighting for an Emperor he didn't even want to serve. Rensha just gave himself a small shrug. Such is life.
A small tone indicated the lift had reached the top, followed closely by the doors parting. Greeting him was a technician carrying a heavy crate rushing right towards him trying to make it into the lift. Rensha quickly stepped out of the way, letting the man pass. The young private scanned the room, and surveyed the grimly scene before him. Half the command room was destroyed, with numerous computer consoles destroyed from the toppled support beams that now lay across them, the bodies of the technicians still facing their broken monitors because of the beams that crushed them. There were numerous small fires that were still aflame from the electrical shortages of the computers, and a couple men were struggling to put them out. A large gaping hole on the roof was located amongst the damage, which signified some type of large explosion must have caused the devastation. Yet amongst this scene, men were still throughout the room, some in officers clothing, others not, as they tried to keep the outpost operational.
His eyes stopped on a man towering over a technician that was seated at one of the few remaining consoles that were still operational at the far end of the small square room. The man was defined as an officer only by the small, sophisticated comms unit located along the side of the helmet, as well as the insignia of a leaf running alongside the shoulder pad of the armor signifying the rank of Colonel. The officer's combat armor seemed to dwarf that off the technician's lightly armored suit as he stood over the man issuing orders.
Even though the face of the officer was hidden, Rensha figured he was the commanding officer of the sector. Rensha had never met the man nor spoke with him, which was considered fortunate in the Marines. Unless you're about to be shot for misconduct, a marine grunt such as himself would never meet face to face with the Colonel. The reputation of Colonel Brock Durrington was one that kept men quiet and kept them busy.
Private Souryo hesitated for a moment, wondering what the consequences would be for entering the control room without clearance and addressing the Colonel instead of relaying the information to his own superior officer. Such negligence would most likely get himself shot, but Rensha realized they were all dead anyways unless the missile turrets were to be activated.
The private, gathering up his composer, strode up to the Colonel, saluting as he began to speak. "Sir, Private Souryo here to report news on the battlefield."
The officer, not glancing away from the technician and the console screen, gave a gruff answer to the private standing behind him. "Boy, why the hell are you up here? Where is your commanding officer?"
Rensha quietly cleared his throat. "Sir, my unit was almost completely decimated by a guardian, sir, which was the reason for my coming up here."
Colonel Durrington gave a small growl and turned from the terminal and faced the marine. "Boy, you got a lot of nerve comin' up here. So spit it out already. I'd shoot you now but we need all the men we can get."
"Sir, our wraiths are too few, and the men on the ground are getting overwhelmed by the Zerg air attacks. We need those missile turrets activated if we are to have any chance of surviving this attack."
The Colonel gave a hard glare at Rensha. "Do you think I'm stupid, boy? Of course I'd activate those turrets if I could. But you see, we seem to be having a small problem up here." Durrington then proceeded to point across the room to a console that hard a large support beam protruding from the top, the crushed unit still sparking from the destroyed circuits inside.
"So as you can see, private, there is no way of activating those turrets, unless you want to manually override each individual turret one at a time. So if you're through with your complainin', perhaps you'd like to head back out there and start defending this base like you are supposed to be doin'!"
Just as Rensha was about to turn and leave, a man at the far corner of the room shouted out, "Lookout!!"
Rensha whirled in the direction of the shout, just in time to see three mutalisks fire glave wurms at the command center. Rensha dove to the ground, as did most of the men inside the room as the wurms impacted on the already damaged control center. Two of the wurms connected on different points of the rubble, the surrounding acid of the wurm eating away more of the support structures. One of the marine guards found himself in the middle of the path of the third, and the wurm sliced its way clean through the marine, effectively cutting his upper torso in half. The remains slumped to the floor, the armor melting away from the acid that attached itself to the marine.
Rensha immediately brought up his Gauss rifle as he laid on his back, firing vainly up at the mutalisks as they swooped low over the control room. Everyone quickly struggled to their feet, the Colonel barking out orders within a heartbeat.
"Lieutenant, get everyone out of here, we are evacuating immediately!" shouted Colonel Durrington to another man in the room. "Make sure all the key personnel reach the starport as soon as-"
"Colonel, get down!!" Rensha shouted.
The Colonel turned, only to be faced with a mutalisk bearing straight in on him. Before he could react, the mutalisk swooped in low, firing a glave wurm mixed with a splurge of acid at point blank range. The wurm sliced its way through the upper shoulder of the Colonel, knocking him backwards, with the acid following close behind as it impacted across the entire upper section of the standing officer. The Colonel screamed in agony as the acid quickly began to eat its way through the armor and onto his flesh. Rensha rushed over to the struggling officer, trying desperately to remove the battlesuit. But the acid was too quick, as Rensha was forced to pull away and watch as the Colonel Durrington slowly stopped struggling and fell silent.
The Lieutenant that Durrington addressed stood in shock, and Rensha shouted towards the man to get his attention. "Lieutenant, we need to get out of here, now!"
The man shook his head, coming to his senses and turned to the remaining men in the room. "You heard the Colonel, men, evacuate the building immediately. Leave everything behind. This world is theirs."
What few men remained stumbled into the lifts, making their way down into the lower levels of the command center. Rensha joined the Lieutenant in a lift as the doors slid shut and began its descent.
"What's your name, private?" The Lieutenant asked as he turned towards the marine next to him.
"PFC Rensha Souryo from Squad 6A of Delta Platoon, sir."
"Is there anyone left from your unit, soldier?"
The marine slightly lowered his head. "Not that I know of, sir."
"Damn these Zerg," was the Lieutenant's only reply.
The lift soon reached its destination. Rensha began to step out of the doorway, but was greeted by a hail of needles pelting the wall in front of him. Quickly jumping back into the lift, Rensha turned to the Lieutenant. "There's a hydralisk guarding the end of the corridor."
"Well, you're the only one with a gun here, private. So shoot the damn thing."
Rensha smirked, then leaned out of the lift, gun raised as he fired off a continuous stream of spikes at the creature, who snarled out in pain from the sudden impact. The hydralisk retaliated by rearing back its carapace and releasing another burst of needles towards Rensha, who in turn quickly ducked back in before his face was made into mulch.
"Man those things are tough," Rensha said in frustration.
After the needles impacted the doorway, Rensha leaned out again, this time aiming for the opened slits in the carapace. Firing off a few bursts, the rounds impacted the hydralisk, slamming into the unprotected openings. The beast howled out in pain as it crumpled to the ground, the wounds too great for it as it succumbed to death.
"Nice shot," commented the Lieutenant.
"Let's get out of here," replied Souryo.
The two men hastily made their way through the damaged compound, soon coming to the torn-open door of the command center. After stepping past the mangled piece of metal and into the eerie night, the site before Rensha seemed to have gotten a hundred times worse since he was last outside only a few minutes before. Most of the buildings were on fire; the few of what remained of the terran defenders running past the wreckage as they fired rounds off behind them towards the mass of darkness that rapidly swarmed over them.
"My god," said the awe-struck Lieutenant.
"Well, let's hope he's on our side tonight," replied the marine next to him.
As if to answer him, Rensha spotted a vulture hover-bike resting up against the side of one of the support thrusters on the command center.
"Look, over here," said the private as he ran to the bike, "Doesn't look like it's in too bad of shape. This may be our ticket out of here."
The Lieutenant glanced up towards the location of the starport and noticed a couple of the dropships lifting off from the platform. "Well, you might want to hurry if we're to catch a ride out of here."
The men mounted the vehicle, with Rensha handing his gauss rifle back to the lieutenant. "Cover us while I drive us out of here."
"You got it."
The engine of the vulture roared to life as Rensha hit the ignition switch, with the bike soon speeding off towards the starport as it left a small dust plume in its wake. The starport began to rapidly close in fast as Rensha pushed the bike to the limit. The lieutenant began spattering off a few rounds into any Zerg that tried to intercept the vehicle, even though most of the creatures were too slow to gain on the speeding bike.
All of a sudden Rensha shouted out from the front of the seat as he pointed up and in front of their heading. "Mutalisk!"
The Lieutenant quickly brought the rifle to bear, spouting off round after round towards the incoming creature. A few of the rounds connected, but did not stop the mutalisk. Rensha quickly jammed the handles to the right, in turn barely dodging the strafing run made by the flying beast. The mutalisk, however, soon turned and began to make a second approach towards the craft. However, the Lieutenant steadily took aim and let off a solid stream of spikes at the incoming foe.
This time the hail of bullets was too much for the mutalisk, and the flying creature came crashing to the ground, crushing a few charging zerglings beneath it. The Lieutenant howled in victory and soon they arrived at the starport, the vehicle coming to an abrupt halt at the base of the structure. The two men hopped off the vehicle and entered the nearby lift, which took them to the top where the huge landing platform was located.
"I sure hope there's a dropship left," stated Rensha as the lift slowed its ascent, "or we're screwed."
To both men's relief, a final dropship sat in the middle of the platform, the thrusters prepped for launch as the pilot waited for a couple personnel to finish boarding the ship.
The pilot saw the two men and waved his arm as he motioned to enter the dropship. "Hurry up, or I'm leavin' without you!"
The Lieutenant and Rensha soon stepped up the ramp leading into the dropship, the shuttle pilot following closely behind, as he toggled a nearby switch that began to raise the ramp. "You boys are lucky you got here in time. I wasn't about to wait around any longer. Find a seat and buckle in tight. This is probably going to be a rough ride."
After the door hissed shut, the pilot made his way to the front of the bulky craft, and initiated the thrusters to full power, propelling the craft away from the platform and from the burning base below them.
"I've got incoming mutalisks!" shouted the pilot to the back room packed with various personnel. "Hang on, this is going to be ugly!"
Soon the ship began a steep dive as the pilot began evasive maneuvers to try and shake the mutalisks off his tail. Rensha felt his stomach give way a little as the ship suddenly arched upright, followed by a quick rotation to the left as the shuttle made a sharp banking turn.
Without warning an explosion rocked the front of the shuttle, silencing the pilot as the ship began a deadstick dive towards the planet surface. Screams echoed inside the shuttle as it tumbled through the atmosphere, rapidly closing the distance between itself and the rocky ground ahead. Rensha gripped the side of his chair just before the dropship impacted and could only hope that he made it out of this alive.