Disclaimer: All vehicles and species etc (anything that comes from Starcraft) are property of Blizzard Inc. and NOT mine … and uh… same as all the other stuff that everybody else puts in their disclaimers.
Hey everyone… by now the only people still reading this will be those dedicated to the series so I'm going to skip my usual "realistic writing/made up designations" etc bit. So now, I present with Chapter 3 of "Hitting the Beaches". The long wait is over, I have spent the past four thousand some words leading up to this point, where my story really takes off. Here the Zerg finally come into this Human/Zerg equation.
I apologize for the long wait between Ch.2 and 3. Initially this chapter was over 6,000 words long but during one of my editing scans I decided to split it up into two. All I can say is that because of this, it adds suspense, andyou won't have to wait long for Chapter 4 ;).
OH! Just to get one thing straight. I base my view of Marines on the cutscene image from the game. Humans are fully enclosed in self-sustaining exosuit. Because of this, a breach causes venting of atmosphere, killing the person inside. Also, because they are enclosed, the only way to communicate is with inter-Marine radios… got it? Cool.
As promised, any questions asked in the "Review" section will be answered;
JackTheHacker: You asked why someone cleaned off the Signaling Beacon in Chapter 2. Basically, I needed a way for the Captain to know someone was still at the site, I couldn't use footprints or such because I figured that the "Elite" and "Supernatural" Ghost's would not be so careless. What I had in mind was that the Ghost was keeping the beacon clean to make sure it didn't get damaged or interfere with the signal strength. Guess I forgot to write that bit in. Thanks for pointing it out.
Without further ado,
Hitting the Beaches
Chapter 3: Reality Check
"What was that?" Private McLaughin asked Sergeant Clarkins as Captain Arthur's distinct voice yelled fiercely over the radio. All five men stopped at the sound and turned to look back at the clearing, which was blocked by one of the many rolling hills of the area. Sgt. Anthony Clarkins gripped his rifle a little tighter and waited for any other voices to come over the radio.
Nothing.
Looking up, he could still see the six lethal-looking Wraith Fighters executing their lazy orbit pattern some three hundred feet over the clearing where the Captain and the rest of his fellow Marines where waiting.
"Can't be anything serious, the Wraiths would have done something by now if there was a problem. We'll carry on. The Captain probably scratched his rifle on a rock or something." The three Privates and the single Corporal accompanying Clarkins chuckled lightly and turned back to follow the Sergeant on the patrol. Everyone knew how paranoid the Captain was about his rifle.
"So how do you think the rest of the Company is doing? Down at the landing area? The real landing area I mean?" One of the other Privates asked Clarkins hesitantly. Kids, Anthony thought, green recruits are always so full of questions. Was I ever like that? Clarkins could barely remember his 'green' days as a "Bunker Boy" on the shipyard planet Kailor II. He still had no recollection of how he survived the day the Zerg invaded that system.
"I'm not sure, probably onto the secondary objectives by now." Anthony lied. This system was only supposed to be lightly entrenched by the Zerg, and the sheer amount of overwhelming firepower that the 5th Fleet was committing to this invasion was forecasted to eliminate any opposition with ease. But the Sergeant knew better. The Zerg were always stronger than you thought, always more entrenched than you anticipated, and always hit you harder than you were prepared for. The rest of the Company was probably fighting for their very lives by now, screw the objectives. But there was no use scaring these new kids, they would find it all out for themselves soon enough. These days it didn't take long to become an experienced veteran, not when the enemy on the battlefield was comprised of hideous monsters from the darkest depths of nightmares. The Private's question answered, the group continued on their march through the rocky, barren terrain.
"Sarge! Sarge! Come take a look at this!" Clarkins turned around and headed up to the Corporal who was looking at the rocky ground.
"What is it?"
"Can't believe I didn't see it earlier, see how the soil looks a little more solid? Beaten in? I'd say we found ourselves a path." The Corporal mused, taking notice that he had caught something the Sergeant hadn't. It wasn't too often that a grunt observed something Clarkins missed; his combat skills were near legendary within Tiger Company. Scanning the path, Anthony noted that it ran almost perpendicular to the path he took. He had walked right across it and not noticed; not a good sign for the still young Sergeant. He didn't want to think he was slowing down already. Looking in both directions, he concluded that the path seemed to lead back to the clearing where his transport was still waiting.
"Well I'll be damned," Clarkins said, standing upright, "Good find Corporal, it's got to lead somewhere, let's check it out." Starting off down the newly found path, Clarkins took extra care to survey every little detail before him. He wouldn't give the Corporal the satisfaction of showing him up again. After all, he had to make sure these new, green privates thought of him not only as a senior rank, but as a combat God.
One meter beneath the ugly rocky soil, the loud vibrations of ten exosuited feet trudging through the terrain caused two beady, blood red eyes to snap open. Within seconds, the information was passed on, and receiving the order to wait, the two eyes closed once again.
Two kilometers away from Sergeant Clarkins' patrol, Captain Arthurs still had his C-14 rifle aimed squarely at the head of the Ghost that had appeared before him.
"Who the hell are you?" He growled.
"I am Ghost AN-334, Number 12 Commando." The Ghost spoke in it's eerie, cold tone. "You took your time coming to get us. I assume the objective is safe?"
"What objective?" Lieutenant Morebery asked, shivering as the Ghost focused his ocular implants on him.
"The Arbiter? I saw it break formation and… wait. Your thought patterns tell me that this information is new to you." The 'eyes' turned, "And to you as well Captain. Are you not members of Imperial Guards?" The question hung uneasily for a few seconds.
"Imperial?" Captain Arthurs spoke, breaking the silence. "You mean one of Mengsk's troops?"
"You are not one of the Emperor's soldiers? Then who are you?" The Ghost asked, his tone becoming sharper with each word. Slowly, Arthurs' skull began to ache, as if someone was slowly compressing his brain. He tightened his grip on the rifle.
"Get out of my head asshole, or I'll blow yours off." He growled fiercely.
"You memory tells of the destruction of the Empire by your… U.E.D… is this true?"
"Get out, NOW!" Arthurs screamed as the headache increased rapidly. Then suddenly, it was gone.
"I did as you asked, now answer me." The Ghost stated, slowly adjusting it's grip on it's C-10 canister rifle.
"Yes…" Lt. Morebery answered hesitantly, "Mengsk's Empire has been destroyed. The U.E.D. has taken control of all Terran assets in this area until delegates from Earth can arrive to restore order."
"An intriguing development." The Ghost spoke before coming to the only logical course of action; he had been waiting too long on this desolate, infested world to turn away possibly his only chance of rescue. Slinging his C-10 into the holster on the back of his Artemis-6 suit, the Ghost's ocular implants turned to Arthurs.
"Captain, on behalf of my Syndicate, I wish to defect to this U.E.D." It said coldly. The Captain, still looking at the Ghost down the barrel of his rifle could not fully comprehend what was happening.
"Your Syndicate?" He asked. As if on cue, eight more Ghosts shimmered into existence a dozen or so meters behind the first. By now the Goliaths and other Marines were intently focused on the happenings inside their perimeter. A few had their rifles leveled on the new apparitions like their Captain did, but most just stood there in disbelief. Half had never even heard of a "Ghost" before.
"Yes Captain, and please, you may put down your weapon, if we planned on doing you harm, you platoon would have been dead by now." Captain Arthurs slowly lowered his C-14.
"So…" Morebery said slowly, his rifle now too by his side, "Now what?"
Still walking down their 'path' Sergeant Clarkins' eyes caught something on the otherwise indistinctive ground. Crouching down for a better look he stared at the dirt while the other four took a quick rest.
"What's up Sarge?" One of the Privates asked, laying his rifle down and sitting on one of the numerous large rocks that were scattered across the lifeless terrain.
"The soil here is mixed… some parts normal and other parts a bit darker, like it's recently been churned up... Almost like-" The Sergeant's heart skipped a beat as he caught himself in mid sentence. Looking quickly around him… there, he thought seeing another half-meter round section of soil that looked a little darker than the rest of the soil. Still looking, he found four more spots in the immediate area where the soil was slightly darker than everywhere else. Standing up slowly he took a few careful steps backwards, bringing up his rifle as he did so.
"Pick up your weapon Private," he whispered, not taking his eyes off the patches of soil, "From now on nobody makes any noise, got that? I think we just stumbled upon some burrowed Zerg." Instantly, all four of the other Marines stiffened and leveled their own weapons, hastily clicking the safety's off. Slowly the group started moving back up the path towards the dropship clearing, always facing the six patches of dirt.
A dot of movement on the horizon caught one of the Private's attention. Focusing on the object the young man stared intently as the dot grew larger and larger and slowly split into two objects in his visor. They were coming closer at an alarming rate.
"Sar… Sarg…" He stammered.
"What is it?" Clarkins hissed.
"Wha… What is that?" The Private spurted out as the rest of the squad noticed the two fast moving objects. They came closer and closer, staying the same height above the ground, never deviating from their path. They flew right over the squad at high speed, and all five heads turned quickly to follow them as they screamed silently by.
"Whatever they are, they're moving towards the clearing." The Corporal muttered quietly. All the blood instantly drained from Sergeant Clarkins' face. Quickly, Clarkins switched frequencies on his radio, frantic panic causing his hand to shake uncontrollably as he did so. Although he had little memory of his original posting on Kailor II, he did remember seeing those fast moving creatures through the view slots of his bunker… right before the Battlecruiser Devastator was erased from history.
Captain Mike Winters was looking down at the activity in the clearing when a flashing alarm from his sensor screen bathed his cockpit in yellow light.
"Whoa!" Raptor Four's voice crackled over the radio, "I'm picking up two fast-movers, low-level, heading this way."
"I'm picking them up too, they must be hostile. How the hell did they get so close?" "Shrike" Winters replied looking at his own sensors. The unknown contacts had just magically appeared under six kilometers away. His sensors should have picked them up ages ago.
"They must have been masking from our sensors in the rocky terrain." Raptor Two's voice called out, but Shrike was already moving.
"Raptor Three and Four, intercept the targets. Five and Six, stand by. Two come with me. We're going up for a better view in case there's more of them." Shoving his throttles full forward Winters felt himself shoved into the back of his seat as the twin high-performance engines catapulted the small fighter forward. Pulling back on his joystick viciously, Shrike's fighter rocketed skyward, drastically improving the range of his low-level sensors. Craning to look over his left shoulder, he caught the afterburner plumes of Raptor Three and Four heading after the incoming contacts.
"Tally-ho! I see them, attack radar painting now!" Raptor Three's voice called out. Scourges, Winters thought, that's the only thing that can move that fast.
"I've got tone! Missiles away!" Raptor Three continued. Still looking over his shoulder Shrike could see smoke trails leaping from Raptor Three and Four. No fewer than six missiles shot from the hard points on the Wraith's three 'wings'. Watching the smoke trails arc to their targets, Shrike suddenly realized that he was safe; the Scourges weren't tracking for his Fighters. That meant only one thing; they were going for the transports. Switching frequencies he thumbed his transmitter,
"Rover, get your ass moving, you've got hostiles inbound!" He yelled out quickly, but still looking over his shoulder, first at the flying creatures, and then at the Sparrow missiles, his specially conditioned brain did the time, speed, distance calculations for him.
For both Lt. John "Sparky" Evans and his co-pilot 2Lt. Steven "Charlie" Marley, who were catching a little rest in their reclined seats on the flight deck of Rover One, the message from Marine Sergeant Clarkins reached them first.
"Dropships! This is Sergeant Clarkins, we've just been overflo-" The frantic voice over the radio hissed as Raptor One's voice started shouting on the same frequency, resulting in a ugly tangle of static and English that came out as almost total garbage.
"What the hell was that all about?" Lt. Evans asked as both he and Charlie sat up in their seats. Pulling his helmet back over his head, Sparky pulled the microphone boom to his lips and thumbed the transmitter,
"You guys mind taking turns? I didn't get any of tha-" But he was caught mid-sentence as the world outside of his viewports erupted into a red and orange inferno.
Captain Arthurs was just about to call Lt. Evans to report the whole Ghost issue when he heard the multiple low booms of afterburners engaging from several of the Wraiths overhead. As everyone looked up to the sky Arthurs watched two Wraiths bank sharply upward and accelerate vertically, growing smaller by the second. Flashes to his left caused him to look at the two Wraiths that were accelerating rapidly from one side of the clearing to the other. The flashes were from the missiles that were systematically leaping from the rails and shooting quickly at… what? He asked himself. Someone was yelling over the radio but the Captain was too far in shock to care or notice what was being said, or who was saying it. Leading his eyes ahead of the missiles he caught a glimpse at what must have been the target… two small objects, close together and moving extremely fast, only fourty or so feet above the ground. In the corner of his eyes he caught one of the Goliath's pivoting it's central module skyward. With a hydraulic whine, the metal covers slid back, unveiling the two air-to-air Hellfire missile batteries on either side of the Goliath's cockpit, but it was taking far too long. Captain Arthurs and fifty-two other Marine's and Ghost's watched helplessly in shock as one by one each of the Wraith's missiles missed and the two objects came closer and closer until they vanished from the Captain's vision, disappearing behind one of the dropships. For a split second, blissful silence ensued.
But only for a split second.
Arthurs didn't even have time to blink as the two Scourges slammed through the dropship's neosteel hull plating and sliced through the primary fuel tanks running down the sides of the transport. A geyser of white, blue and red flame erupted from inside the dropship, shooting out the still lowered ramp at the tail of the transport in an unstoppable fireball. Before his very eyes, Arthurs watched the dropship not twenty meters away bulge, stretch, and finally fragment in a fierce explosion of white and red light, an eternity of events that took all of one second. The force of the explosion picked him up off his feet and had him flung through the air as another split second later the sound shockwave hit him, further accelerating the Captain as he was flung mercilessly.
Hey that was Chapter 3 of "Hitting the Beaches". I apologize for the crappy ending but the next little bit is mass confusion for the Terrans, and I didn't know where the best spot to divide Chapter 3 and 4 was… That being said, I'll get Chapter 4 up ASAP.
As before, any questions ask in the review section and ill do my best to answer in the next chapter's preface. Anyways, back to homework,
Cheers,
-silverphantom
