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.
Hello everyone… first things first… TERRIBLY sorry for the incredibly long wait… honestly you have probably already forgotten about this story by now but… oh well I really want to finish it… eventually…
I have been very busy lately with homework and out-of-school activities… but that is no excuse for a gap of several months... none-the-less here you are… Chapter 4 of Hitting the Beaches…
Hitting the Beaches
Chapter 4: Recovery
A flash of white light lit up the terrain and just as quickly disappeared, followed by a low whump as the sound shockwave ripped through Sergeant Clarkins. It was enough to cause his exosuit's computers to skip slightly but not enough to throw any of the Marines off their feet.
"Mother of God." Clarkins muttered incoherently as all five Marines watched a fast-rising, blood red fireball emerge from the dropship clearing before the artificial atmosphere from the destroyed dropship burned up, and the flame disappeared, leaving only thick black smoke. A few seconds later the bolts, shrapnel and other pieces of the once functioning transport started raining down on the five marines as the pieces completed their last, two kilometer flight.
"We've got to get back there!" The Corporal screamed out, the first to gather his wits back as pieces of metal tinkered off his metal suit, "Those ships are the only way out of here!" He broke into a run back up the path, quickly followed by the three Privates. Not to be left behind Clarkins too began to run. Everything had just happened too fast, too suddenly, just putting one foot in front of the other seemed nearly impossible.
Several hundred kilometers away, the voice of Mynor VI's Cerebrate reached out and found her minions, one meter beneath the rocky surface. Beady, blood red eyes snapped open and the simple brains echoed with only one thought.
Kill.
Behind Sergeant Clarkins, several fountains or soil shot up into the sky, the vibrations in the ground causing the Marine to look over his shoulder. What he saw was six slimy, scale covered creatures that almost resembled dogs.
But these were no dogs.
Each creature snapped and stretched it's jaws before turning their heads to look for prey. The twin blood red eyes found the scurrying Marines almost instantly. All six screeched shrilly and started sprinting forwards, kicking up soil behind them as they began to close the distance to their human prey. Eyes spread wide in fear, Anthony Clarkins stumbled and fell to the ground in a tangled heap. Rolling onto his back he swung his rifle to bear at the six nightmarish creatures that were closing upon him. Too deep in panic to line up his sight, Anthony just pulled the trigger all the way back, initiating the full automatic firing mode. The rifle obeyed instantly and the fiberglass weapon bucked wildly in his hands and round after round of depleted uranium shells leapt forward, burying themselves into the leading two zerglings. The six slits at the end of his rifle flashed repeatedly with the star-style design that had been the trademark of human manufactured rifles since the M-16 of centuries ago. The resulting flashes blocked Clarkins view of his attackers but within seconds the rifle had emptied it's fifty round clip and clicked rapidly, the hammer hitting nothing but the empty chamber. Clarkins' eyes widened even more as he still saw five zerglings bearing down on him. Jettisoning the empty clip, his left hand reached to his belt for another. The magazine slipped from his shaking, exosuited hand and fell to ground. As Clarkins moved his hand to reach for it he knew he was going to be too late.
A wall of yellow tracers flashed over his head and the leading Zerglings exploded in a splash of blood and intestines. The ground around the Zerglings churned violently and more rounds buried themselves inside the remaining creatures, causing them collapse to the ground skidding forwards; or exploding into bloody carnage. Three seconds of rifle chatter echoed through Anthony Clarkins head before silence reached him. Looking to where the zerglings were, he could see nothing but carcasses, forearms, and streams of the deep red blood. He was still shaking violently and uncontrollably.
"Sergeant let's go!" he heard the Corporal's voice scream at him through the speakers in his exosuit. Taking another rapid, shallow breath, he rolled over, pushed himself up, and started moving towards the four other Marines, all of which who were placing fresh magazines into their still smoking C-14's.
"You okay Sarge?" The Corporal asked, "We've got to make it back, I think the Zerg finally realized we're here." Nodding quickly the Sergeant and four Marines started back into their run. Finally regaining some control over his violent shaking, Anthony Clakrins reached to his belt and inserted another magazine clip into his rifle, the other clip still lying on the ground where the Sergeant had left it. Slowly, Anthony forced himself to relax, and one by one the past five years of his life played before him… Kailor II, Tlorkin VIII, Tieferon, Vifactr I… each invasion relived itself fully in a matter of seconds. Clarkins watched and slowly relearned every hard fought lesson from those days he was lucky to have lived. Slowly his breaths became deeper and stronger, the displays in his visor began to mean something once again to his eyes, and most importantly his rifle felt familiar in his hands.
But the Marines had only covered about another hundred meters of the two kilometers back to the clearing when another set of vibrations through the ground and caused the Sergeant to look back over his shoulder.
"Shit! Shit! Shit! More Zerglings!" One of the Private's screamed. Clarkins took a deep breath and closed his eyes tightly. He wanted to live, and that meant putting his fear aside. Stopping, he turned around dropped to one knee, bringing the rifle to his shoulder as he did so. Looking down the open iron sights of the rifle he pressed the button for the rangefinder. Two hundred yards was instantly displayed onto his visor and Clarkins ever so slightly raised the barrel. Before him, six stationary target boards sat there waiting for him. He pulled the trigger back halfway, keeping the rifle in the three-round burst firing mode.
Tack-Tack-Tack
The rifle barked as the lead zergling collapsed to the ground, two of the three rounds ripping through the creatures' skull. Clarkins watched as the fallen target board materialized into the bleeding corpse of a zergling. He looked only for an instant, as there were still two more boards waiting for him. The Sergeant quickly shifted aim.
Tack-Tack-Tack
Tack-Tack-Tack
Two more Zerglings fell.
Having realized their Sergeant was no longer running with them the other four Marines had stopped and looked on.
"Holy shit Sarge!" The Corporal screamed angrily, "why the hell didn't you do that the first time!"
"I was scared," Clarkins stood, turned, and answered quietly. Behind him more fountains of dirt erupted and three cobra like creatures emerged from the soil, their twin jaws snapping wildly and their two curve-bladed forearms swung viciously as they screeched out with a more fearsome voice than any zergling. The Sergeant could see the gaping mouth of one of the Privates and knew instantly he was in trouble.
"DOWN!" The Corporal screamed as Sergeant Clarkins' leg relaxed and gravity pulled his body to the ground. Looking ahead at the three Privates and Corporal, all of them leveled and opened up with their rifles and another four second barrage of fully automatic rifle chatter echoed through the Sergeant's exosuit. As suddenly as it began, the wall of tracers ended and all the Marines reached for another magazine. Clarkins immediately pushed himself up and spun on one knee sweeping his rifle to the direction of the Marine's fire. Three more carcasses had joined the three zergling bodies on the dirt.
Hydralisks, the Sergeant thought instantly, this just keeps getting worse. Suddenly more fountains of dirt erupted further away from the Marines, as over two dozen zerglings and Hydralisks were being summoned by their ever-watching cerebrate. She had underestimated these humans, and would not make that mistake again. She called upon all her creatures in the area, waking her minions from their long slumber.
"Time to go, now! Run!" The Sergeant bellowed as the five Marines continued their sprint back towards the dropship clearing. He was no match for that many of these hellish creatures. The pillar of black smoke loomed larger and larger as Sergeant Clarkins only now realized that the Wraiths were still flying overhead, how could I have forgotten those? He thought. Fountains of dirt to his far right signified more and more Zerg creatures coming to life.
"Damnit! RUN FASTER!" Clarkins screamed to his Marines as he pivoted his torso to snap off a few rounds at two Zerglings that were closing far too fast. Dispatching both he changed his radio frequency and frantically screamed into the microphone.
"Wraiths!" A panicked, strained voice panted through his headset. Shrike Winters shook his head to clear the effects of the sound shockwave that had rocked his fighter. Slowly his brain began to compute the words that were screaming at him.
"This is Sergeant Clarkins on the ground, we're under two kilometers south of the clearing and under attack by large numbers of Zerg forces! Request immediate air support! Shit, we NEED air support!" The voice crackled. Looking out of his cockpit, Winters could see the fragmented remains of one of the dropships in the clearing. Remarkably, the other seemed relatively intact. Thankfully, the added altitude he had climbed seconds before the explosion had saved him from everything aside a dull headache. Shaking his head once more he began to give orders.
"Five and Six, go see what the hell this guy is talking about. Three and Four you guys okay down there?" He asked, seeing a Wraith several hundred feet fellow him circling very slowly. Out the other side of his cockpit he could see what must have been Raptors Five and Six pulling poorly coordinated turns and heading away from the clearing. They were a lot closer to the explosion than he had been and were probably shaken up considerably more.
"I'm okay." He heard Raptor Three's voice call out slowly with a slight slur. "Just a little shook up… I think the computer put me on autopilot when I lost control in the explosion… wait… I'm showing a power drain… I'm bleeding energy from the sensor systems. I'm going to have to shut them down. I think I took some hits from shrapnel…"
"Can you make it back to the Fleet?" Winters asked without thought. A fighter without weapons was as useless as an ejection seat without a parachute.
"I think so, but I've lost engine two… I'll be limping." Came the slow reply.
"Good, then bug out… where's Raptor Four?" Winters asked, realizing he hadn't seen him yet.
"I don't know… I don't see him… Ohhhhhh shit no…" Raptor Two replied looking back into his memory, "I saw him go through the explosion… I didn't see him come out… Oh God no…"
"It's all right Kevin, okay? I'll see you ship-side." Looking again he could see Raptor Three slowly pull skyward, and in a series of small flashes the remaining missiles on the fighter's hard points jettisoned and dropped lifelessly to the surface. With the sensor system useless and the fighter limping on one engine, they were nothing but dead weight now. Changing his focus,
"Raptor Two, you all right?"
"About as good as you are Shrike," Came the reply. "I'm you're five o'clock, a little low. A little shaken up but… oh damn… Shrike we got incoming, two more fast-movers, bearing one-zero-seven, twenty-six kilometers out. Looks like they were masking, but we're high enough to see 'em now." Raptor Two finished, his voice becoming stronger with each word. Activating his attack radar, Shrike pulled his fighter into a tight right turn and set himself up with the new inbounds. The distance was now twenty two kilometers and closing fast. Off to his right he could see another Y-shaped Wraith pull into his view and the masked pilot in the cockpit gave him a nod. Still too far away to see with his eyes, Winters focused onto the green target box and distance information that was being projected onto his canopy. The latter was decreasing rapidly.
"Rover, this Raptor Lead. If you can hear me, get your ass off that ground, there's more Scourges inbound." He said into the radio. A sudden tone went off in his is helmet, repeating every second. The attack radar had acquired the target and was now feeding the information to the twenty seven air-to-air missiles on the Wraiths hard points. Patiently, Shrike waited for the steady tone of a solid lock, but the high speed and small target profile was taking its toll on the missile's small, individual targeting systems. Meanwhile the distance between his accelerating fighter and the lighting quick Scourges decreased incredibly fast. 19…18…17…Winters counted off the kilometers, 16… come on, lock damn it!
Lieutenant John Evans slowly opened his eyes and closely examined the cold steel floor of his flight deck. Closing he eyes tightly, Evans desperately tried to make the pounding in his head cease, but to no avail. Slowly he picked himself up off the cold deck and tried to piece together what had happened. Looking around he found himself at the back of the flight deck; the control panels and his still reclined seat ahead of him. Somehow he had gone from sitting in his seat, to up, over the reclined backrest and onto the floor at the back of the flight deck.
Standing fully upright, heslammed his head against one of the transport's roof panels in the small, confined flight deck. Instinctively reaching to his head he felt a large dent in the back of his flight helmet. Taking it off, he saw that the back left quarter of his normally round helmet was nearly flat. Looking around, he found part of a roof panel above his seat that was completely smashed beyond use.
Damn, Evans thought, they are actually good for something. That explains the headache. Sliding slowly back into his seat on the left side of the cockpit he pulled up the backrest. Only then Evans noticed for the first time that Charlie hadn't said anything to him. Looking to his right, the dropship pilot's stomach instantly leapt to his throat.
His twenty three year old co-pilot was lying half on and half off of his still reclined seat. His feet and legs were still by the rudder pedals, but his upper body was shoved against the rightmost panel and window, the latter of which was smeared with blood and pink liquid which must have been cranial fluid. Charlie's helmet was still resting on the co-pilot's control column where he had placed it after shutting down the engines. Evans pulled on Charlie's left shoulder and the body slumped lifelessly into the reclined seat. The body was intact, except for the head which had a deep gash running from the forehead, through the right eye, and down to the chin. Looking to where the body had rested Evans could see the bloodstained sharp edge between the right side panel and window that had ended his co-pilot's life.
It was too much for the transport pilot, whose job rarely saw so much gore. Evans' body convulsed violently and he threw up onto the floor between his feet. Bright red s blood was mixed with his vomit. John Evans wiped his mouth and felt himself slump deeper into his seat as he looked straight ahead, not seeing anything.
The sound of incoherent mumbling brought him back into reality. Slowly looking around he looked down to the dented helmet that had saved his life, which he was still holding in his lap. Picking it up, he slowly pulled the neosteel helmet back over his head. Instantly the incoherent mumbling turned into real words as the built-in headphones settled around his ears
"-hear me, get your ass off that ground, there's more Scourges inbound." The radio hissed in his throbbing ears. Scourges, he thought, is that what had happened? A memory of panicked radio calls and a sudden inferno outside his canopy floated to the surface of his mind. But that must have meant… Evans thought as he finally solved the puzzle and turned to look out the left windscreen where less than five minutes earlier Rover Two: Zulu Twelve, had sat.
What sat there instead was two distinct sections of neosteel that vaguely resembled the front and aft halves of an U.E.D. dropship. The top half of the ship was completely gone, the explosion having ripped the neosteel panels right off, leaving only the bare skeleton-like framework of the lightly armoured roof. Extremities like the tail were no longer attached to the… ship, they had just… disappeared… and pieces of metal various sizes lay scattered amongst bodies of… men? Evans paused as he watched one piece of gray metal move and slowly get up, revealing itself as a Marine.
"Rover! I say again, get your ass moving! These things are coming in fast!" Sparky's headset screamed at him. Looking back inside the canopy, Evans noted for the first time that his panels were still lit up, which made no sense because his HUD display was off. Looking above his head he could see the HUD projector lens cracked… It was useless. Damn… Evans thought. Thankfully the transports were built with two eight inch glass monitors that displayed the same information, just in case the HUD failed. Looking at the panel directly in front of him one of the screens was spider webbed. The other was still intact but displaying random and confusing images. Smashing his fist on the top of the panel the screen flickered and his artificial horizon and battery indicator appeared on the screen.
"Thank you." Evans smiled as a flash outside caught his attention. The two black dots that must have been the Wraiths that were screaming at him were flashing repeatedly… Those could only be the fighter's Sparrow missiles. His smile fading quickly Sparky recalled the engine-start checklist from memory.
"All right," Sparky said reaching and flicking two switches, engaging the port magnetos, "Charlies, give me fuel boosts for engines one and two."
Silence followed.
"Char-" Evans began as he reached for the throttles. Looking to his right his throat once again moved to his throat as he remembered that he was alone. Suddenly the switches, buttons and panels inside the once cramped cockpit looked infinitely bigger to the single pilot. Taking a deep breath, Evans reached across his co-pilot and held down two switches on the far side of the cockpit. The welcoming sound of the two boost pumps shoving raw fuel into the engines greeted him. After counting to three Sparky released the switches and pressed the two igniters above his own head. Two muffled booms sounded somewhere behind him as engines one and two ignited and their individual turbines started spinning. Quickly shoving the two throttles full forward the ship vibrated lightly before the throttles were pulled back into idle.
Fifteen seconds… Evans thought as he once again reluctantly reached over for the boost pumps to engines three and four… this is taking too long…
Twin sudden whumps followed by a whining rumble caused Captain Arthur's eyes snapped open inside his exosuit. The green-tinged blackness of space greeted him. His head continued to rumble fiercely no matter how hard he squeezed his eyes to try and shut it out. It took him only another few precious seconds to realize that it wasn't his head that was rumbling… it was something bigger. Slowly rolling onto his stomach he lifted his head and looked at the side of the dropship that had delivered him to this clearing. Slowly lifting himself a few inches off the ground he felt something pick him up and lift him onto his feet. Turning around he looked right into the ocular implants of AN-334.
"Are you hurt Captain?" A voice asked through the speakers in his exosuit.
"No, I don't thi-" Arthurs paused as he looked behind the Ghost to see the two legs of a Goliath, but the rest of the machine was gone, leaving only the exposed wiring that had once connected the legs to the command module. Taking a step back he tripped and fell to the ground. Quickly standing back up he looked down and looked down at Lieutenant Morebery… or rather the top half of the Lieutenant; the legs were off somewhere to the Captain's left, held in place by a neosteel plate that was embedded into the ground. Looking further to his left Arthurs looked at the decimated remains of Rover Two…
"Captain, the Zerg have obviously noted your landing here, we will not be safe for long, I strongly suggest we evacuate now." AN-334 stated coldly. Still eyeing the decimated transport a Marine lumbered into the Captain's vision.
"Sergeant Kwan reporting," he spoke, sounding scared and dazed… his rifle was nowhere to be found. "Sir… what now Sir?"
Just under two kilometers away Sergeant Clarkins and his four Marines were still running for their lives. Suddenly the air outside his suit whisped as a score of quills flew invisibly by as the closest Hydralisks opened up on the Marines. A shrill scream came over his headset as Anthony slowed down just enough to pivot his torso and fire off a few rounds in return and watched as one Hydralisk fell to the ground.
"Wait! Sarge wait! He's hit! He's hit!" One of the Private's screamed into his headset. Turning around he could see one of the Privates on his stomach. One of the Hydralisks quills had gone through his right quad. The boy was screaming uncontrollably and fiercely grabbing at another Private that was trying to drag him by the arm. Emptying his clip at the remaining Hydralisk the Sergeant moved towards the downed Marine. Not bothering to reload Anthony grabbed the downed Marine's arm and started trying to run again. Just ahead of him the Corporal was emptying his magazine as he too was coming back. He grabbed the other arm and all three men dragged the wounded Private through the dirt. Ahead of them the last Private was continuing to fire on the approaching Zerg swinging his rifle from to left to right frantically. Continuously looking over his shoulder Clarkins saw that the Zerg were now closing far too fast.
We aren't going to make it like this…
Looking beside him, he made eye contact with the Corporal who was already waiting for the order. Clarkins nodded and both the Corporal and the Sergeant dropped the wounded Marine's arms. Pulling the other healthy Private with him Clarkins ran toward the third Private who was hastily reloading his smoking rifle. In his head set the wounded Marine was crying uncontrollably and muttering for them not leave him. Looking over his shoulder Clarkins watched the Corporal pull out his pistol, place it against the Private's visor, look away, and pull the trigger. With a lightly muffled bang the visor exploded in an explosion of blood that instantly vaporized into a red mist in the thin atmosphere.
"You… You… He…Just shot…" The Private that Clarkins was pushing along mumbled incoherently. Thankfully the Sergeant was spared from answering.
"Calling ground force, this is Raptor Five, we're prepared to give you air support, where do you need it?" The voice came like an angel from heaven. Looking around in all directions behind him, Clarkins saw scattered patches of Zerg that were coming after him.
"Anywhere… just hit anywhere, they're all over the place." He replied rapidly.
"Roger, pop some smoke over yourselves and we'll start blasting everything else." Quickly reaching into the rarely used back side of his belt Clarkins pulled out a yellow smoke grenade and pulled the pin eagerly. Still running he held it high over his head and a trail of thick yellow smoke stretched out behind him. Ahead, he could make out the two sleek profiles of the fighters that were almost on top of him… He said I was to have the smoke right? The Sergeant asked himself as the leading Wraith opened fire and bursts of laser fire lanced lethally towards him.
Here's the deal… I HATE this chapter… I really do… I didn't (and still don't) know how to write it and most unfortunately it is stretching itself out longer than I had anticipated…but… that's all for tonight…getting tired… and maybe once this dreadful chapter is out of the way… I can get on to the scenes I'm looking forward too and really get back into this… till then,
Cheers,
silverphantom
