The Great War
"Thirty seconds until detonation!" the ghost breathed before wiping a bead of sweat off his forehead.
"Come on John, defuse this thing or we're toast" a marine cried. It was deathly quiet now, in the dark and gloomy room. Four marines stood around the ghost trying to defuse a bomb and the bomb itself was ticking down slowly, mocking the squad with its superior power to eliminate all of them with one wrong move of the hand.
The timer was nearing zero. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, "Yes!" cried the ghost with sudden relief, "I defused the bomb." There was a moment of relief in the room, everyone had a good silent sigh then all of it was followed with a sudden outburst of loud laughter.
One of the marines laughed and said, "For a second there I thought we were all going to be blown to bloody bits." That comment was followed with more laughter from the other men.
Suddenly, an intercom in the now lightened up room boomed out, "Alright ladies, this training session is over, get to your lockers and get ready for a new morning." As the marines walked to their lockers, the ghost headed for a different section of the barracks. Brola, a private class one, walked by a room and saw a teaching instructor tell new soldiers about the different occupations there were.
Brola stopped beside the door and listened for a bit, "A marine, gentlemen, is the most basic unit of the military status. They play a very important role to ensure the victory of our nation, for every nation in fact. They are armored with a heavy two hundred pound exo-skeleton suit that, of course, is powered to move with your body so you won't have to strain to lift your foot. The marine also comes armed with a six inch knife, two fragmentation grenades, and who could forget the all mighty gauss rifle, along with the standard two inch tritanium bullets." The instructor stated with an exaggerated tone.
After letting all the information sink in to the new soldiers' brains, he continued on again with his booming voice, "Now, we go on, the ghost on the other hand, is of a much higher rank than the marine. Of course, I must tell you now though. Not just anyone can become a ghost; you must be born with a special psionic power, an ability that lets you break the limits of the physical human body. A ghost is a tactics operative, trained especially to infiltrate enemy bases and defuse a wide variety of bombs. They are trained to use their psionic powers to read people's minds and to do many more feats. For example, they can cloak, meaning, turn invisible. They can also jump higher then any normal human being, and run faster than an Olympic athlete with ease, but those are only a few of the many things they can achieve. You now know why they are called ghosts. Now, for what they use in combat. Ghosts come armored lightly, but armor is not needed when you have stealth. As for weapons, ghosts come armed with a BOSUN FN92 sniper rifle, an E11 lockdown device, and an E16 lockdown grenade. Ghosts have very sophisticated weapons"
While the man rambled on, Brola thought back to where the instructor gave his speech about the marine. There's still one thing you forgot about the marines Brola thought, you forgot to add in that we were just pawns at a king's disposal. He cursed silently, and then stalked away to the locker rooms.
Brola was like an average marine to any man's eye, but, he was also unique. He wasn't a chosen one or anything but he did have amazing stamina and also unusual combat skills. Every marine in the Marine Corps was trained with basic combat but Brola was better then any other marine there was. He was the best of the best that there was. Not the only marine to be drafted into the army, Brola was pulled in when he was seventeen, his family, died shortly after when a different nation invaded earth and ravaged an entire continent. Fortunately, the United Earth Directorate, also known as the U.E.D. stopped the invasion before serious damage was done. But even though no serious damage was done to earth, Brola received a ton of damage to his heart when he discovered the horrible fate of his family. Many other marines had the same fate, so when Brola was forced into the military, he was no longer a teenager, but a tough man, scarred for life from that tragic night of the invasion.
Brola is presently twenty six years of age and one of the toughest marines around. He isn't known by his name but by his rank and his personality. He has made no attempt at friends during his nine years of military training and has taken part in two major wars and 5 minor ones. Weighing at about two hundred and ten pounds of muscle, Brola was very big. His height is five foot eight and he has black hair, but of course, being in the military his head was shaved. Brola's eyes are a common brown and he has no stubble. He isn't friendly but he isn't rude to others either. He is extremely quiet and has a bad habit of cracking his knuckles.
"Rise and shine girls, it's a new sunrise and that means another day of training, now get up!" Sergeant Fenry screamed. The sergeant was a man of the age forty two. He was a lean man. Twenty five years of military trained him to be a machine.
All the marines replied sleepily, "Sir Yes sir!" Brola got out of his bunk and took his military clothes with him to the shower. After taking a short, cold refreshing rinse, Brola dried himself and pulled on his clothes. He walked down to the main hall and had a short satisfying breakfast, and then headed towards the locker-rooms to get his marine combat armor. This routine had all become second nature to him. Brola had done this for nine years and he didn't even need to think about it before doing it. Many other marines followed suit.
After suiting up, Brola walked down to the shooting range, kicking up dirt as he neared his destination. He was greeted with more yells from an instructor, and then he lined up and prepared for a wave of targets, when suddenly, the ground seemed to rumble. One marine called out with confusion, "What the heck? Is that Terran Dominion? How did they get past earth's outer defenses?"
Brola stared out to the horizon, challenging the sun's bright glare. As he squinted, he saw dark outlines shaped like marines charging down the field. Sure enough, it was the Terran Dominion, Brola looked at the marine's armor as they neared, the dark armor bore the sign of a hand holding a whip, the mark of the Terran Dominion.
The instructor yelled out, "I don't know what suicidal mission Mengsk has sent his men to do, and I don't care. Open fire!" When he gave the command, every marine at the firing range let loose a wave of bullets to greet their unexpected visitors. As the marines of the Terran Dominion neared the bunkers set up around the field, they returned fire. In a few minutes, the short frenzy was over. It was eerily too easy. The Terran Dominion was finished off with no effort, and just when the marines of the United Earth Directorate thought they won, the field intercom boomed out, "All U.E.D units surrender yourself now! This Terran base has been overrun."
"Is this some sort of sick joke? This is impossible!" a marine cried out. Brola sat inside a bunker with deep thoughts. How was it possible that the Terran Dominion had gotten past earth's space defenses, and how did they overrun the base? There were just too many questions, and too little answers.
Terran basically means human, so when people say Terran base, they just mean human base. The United Earth Directorate is a Terran race, which is also known as the U.E.D. The Terran Dominion is a race that is run by only one man. An evil man named Mengsk, but if his men knew any better, they would call him emperor Mengsk. He built his empire and army from scratch, but when an alien race named the Zerg came to his planet, they destroyed everything. He lives on the planet Korhal, and he had to start rebuilding his empire slowly after the Zerg ravaged it. He calls his empire, the fists of Korhal.
On the planet of Korhal, Mengsk laughed maniacally. His great plan had worked. He managed to take over all the U.E.D. bases, all for more power. Power was all he wanted, all he needed. Mengsk lived off of power. Just then, a worker walked into his elaborate room, bowed, and said to Mengsk, "Great emperor Mengsk, we have overrun every U.E.D. base except for one. The command base of earth, it is the hardest to infiltrate sir! And we are also receiving a video transmission from that same base."
Mengsk just replied with a deep voice, "Alright then, put him on." The worker saluted him, then walked over to a large screen and pushed a few buttons. After a few seconds, the screen lit up and a man appeared on it. "Well, well, if it isn't old general Haze. What have you been up to?"
The fuzzy picture of the man replied, "Mengsk, I should've known you would try such a foolish plan. I just never thought you would succeed."
"Do you really think my plan was foolish? I personally thought it was ingenious. You see Haze, All the marines I sent in, were just a decoy. I don't care about them, who does? In the midst of every marine army that I had sent, was a ghost squad. While your marines were busy killing off my marines, the ghosts cloaked, and infiltrated your so called bases. Ever heard of the word science vessel? Get them and maybe you could have detected my ghosts." Mengsk replied sarcastically.
Haze only blinked, and then asked, "How did you destroy our battle cruiser fleets? Only the ion cannon you possessed could have done such a feat, but we destroyed it."
Mengsk laughed and stated, "Ah, yes, the ion cannon, after you and your protoss friends destroyed it, I was disheartened. But, did you ever stop to think that I had a second one in store? Yes, well I bet you didn't with the small brain that you possess. Well that's about all I am going to tell you, I have evil planning to do, so if you'll excuse me, I have to figure out a way to capture that last base of yours, until next time." Mengsk signaled his worker to end the transmission.
The Protoss are another race. They are also alien like the Zerg, but unlike zerg, they are a peaceful race, they have buildings that are works of art, and when they battle, they die with honor. Zerg on the other hand, are a disgusting and vile race. They cannot think, only a great being called the overmind can command them. If the overmind is destroyed, then the zerg will stop thinking, stop in mid action what they were just doing. They have a great leader; she calls herself the queen of blades. Formerly human, she worked for the Terran Dominion, but when a mission had gone awry, Mengsk just ditched her and left her to die by the brutal Zerg.
She was formerly a ghost named Sarah Kerrigan, but instead of being killed, she was turned into a Zerg. Now every being just calls her Kerrigan. She was supposed to work for the overmind after, but she grew powerful and overthrew the overmind. Now she ruled the almighty Zerg, and Mengsk regretted ditching her when she destroyed his mighty empire.
Back on earth, all the units at Brola's Terran base were thinking of a last stand. They didn't want to turn into Terran dominion forces. Brola on the other hand thought it was just plain suicidal. The Terran Dominion had captured the command center of that base; they had access to the entire base's machinery.
Instead, Brola was going to escape, he wasn't thinking like everyone else, all the other marines who thought like him did not take the same actions as he did though, they just conformed, they did not want to be the odd man out and seem like a chicken. Brola planned on stealing a vulture bike, then escape to the last remaining Terran Base where there was still slight hope. He snuck off to the machine factory, where vehicles got made. Very slowly and quietly he went inside, and then stole a vulture hover bike.
Starting the engine, Brola was about to leave this god forsaken base. He busted out of the factory door and quickly zoomed out of the base. Going at three hundred and twenty four miles per hour, Brola was going to be at the command base very soon. Suddenly, his communications system spoke out in his helm, "Are you going a-wall soldier? Return to the battle area or you will be shot down."
"Not a chance." Brola muttered. A few seconds later, he heard the sound of shots being fired. The wasteland dirt was flying up from the impact of the very precise sniper shots. Brola tried maneuvering left and right to avoid getting hit, but he was not trained to drive a vulture bike. A ghost sniper hit the bike with deadly accuracy and sprung a leak in the gas tank.
"Darn, looks like I won't make it very far on this hunk of junk anymore." Brola cursed. As the bike started to slow down, Brola jumped off, then started running with unordinary stamina. After about half an hour, he saw the outline of the last command base rise out of the horizon. Brola muttered, "Looks like that vulture made if farther than I thought." He smiled to himself.
Suddenly, he heard the sounds of vulture bikes trailing him, instantly; he knew they were wasteland bandits. He turned around with lightning fast reflexes and started firing at one of the vultures. He hit a vital gear and the bike blew up, taking the biker with it. There were two more left, the bandits circled Brola slowly for a few seconds, then jumped off.
The wasteland bandits were clad in black pants, they wore no shirt and they tied a bandanna around their dirty foreheads. They stood on the sun parched dirt, smiling. "Well, well, what we got here? Looks like we got ourselves a bloody trespasser. Sorry mate, but were gonna have ta skin yer up fer that." One bandit pronounced with horrible grammar and a British accent.
The other bandit spoke out, "Yeh,Yeh, let's hang'em by his toes and gut his belly."
They both laughed and started walking slowly towards Brola, each holding a bloodied up knife in their dirty hands.
Brola merely smirked and replied, "We can't have that now, can we gentlemen, that's not the proper way to treat your guest." Brola tossed his gun aside and took out his own knife. He smiled and waited as the bandits neared him.
The bandits only grinned wider and breathed, "Not a good choice mate, you ought to know us bandits aint never play fair." They ran at Brola with full speed. A few seconds later, the battle was over. The bandits lay dead over each other, and Brola merely smiled.
He picked up his gun, and started running again, keeping at a pace. In a matter of minutes, Brola was at the entrance to the last base. His communications system spoke to him, "Give us your name and state your business soldier"
Brola replied, "I am Brola, my first name is Glenn. I am private first rank and I am here to serve the U.E.D. The other Terran U.E.D. bases have fallen or have been overrun; I have escaped in an attempt to find refuge at this remaining base."
"Checking data bank…good enough, entrance granted, you may enter soldier." The communications system spoke back with static. Brola walked over to a large, enormous gate, made out of tritanium with a thickness of 20 feet.
The gate groaned as it opened slowly. Brola walked in before it even finished opening and let it slam shut behind him. He walked in and looked at the base. It was amazing; the best machinery on earth would be located at this base. Command centers with missile silos, missile turrets everywhere, this base had it all; there were just too many things to explain.
Brola was not surprised; this was after all, the best of the best Terran base on earth. He walked around, looking around at the same time. In one corner, SCVs were gathering minerals and gas essential for the production of units. Around another corner, marines were shooting targets at a firing range. Brola was not actually at the last Terran U.E.D. base for finding refuge. He planned on staying at the base for a few weeks, recruiting people, and then he would steal a dropship and start a new home on a deserted planet. He knew this Terran base would not withstand the forces of the Terran Dominion forever.
He walked over to a barrack, and saw a familiar face. The man had the military shave, blue eyes and a scar on his left cheek. "Cyrus, is that you? Is it really you, after all these years?" Brola questioned the man curiously. The man blinked, stared at Brola for a few seconds, and then cracked a face-splitting grin.
He replied, "Brola! How's it been, after all these years, I thought you wouldn't remember me, so I guess I'm not the only one who decided to escape from a lost U.E.D. base. It's good to see you!"
Brola grinned and stated, "The years have been hard on you, I see you got a fresh scar on your face."
Cyrus laughed and told him the reason, "Yeah, got into a fight with a Zergling, almost lost me eye. Brola, listen, this U.E.D. base will be Terran Dominion in no time. We have to recruit a few people and escape."
Brola listened intently and only sighed, "I've been thinking the exact same Cyrus, the exact same. Well, I see I already have a partner, you! All we need now is a pilot for the dropship and an SCV. We will build a nation, and recruit people, but after earth has been taken over, they will monitor the planet, so we need to build a warp gate here in some place of secrecy."
Cyrus was listening very intensely, then replied, "This plan is so crazy, it just might work, your crazy Brola, just mad crazy."
A few weeks later, they had everything set up. The portal was set up in an old sewer that was used in the past back in the years two thousand to three thousand. Even though it smelled of bile and feces, they had a good place for the portal, dark and secretive. Brola and Cyrus had managed to recruit three SCVs, a squad of marines, a few pilots and a ghost tactics operative. All they needed now were a few dropships.
Brola sighed, "Finally, that took forever, alright we better head back to the base, good thing the sewer leads right under it. Tomorrow night, we leave earth." Brola, Cyrus, and the three SCVs started heading back towards the base, making the dirty water splash as they walked. The small squads of marines were forced to stay in the base; too many people in the sewers raised the chance that they would be caught.
The next morning, all regular schedules had been canceled. The remaining U.E.D. base planned on redeeming their nation. Brola knew it would end up in no success. The war might last for a few months at most, if the U.E.D. organized itself extremely well, but sooner or later, the war would favor the Terran Dominion.
The U.E.D. planned on engaging their operation during sundown, all just as well for Brola, since most units would be out of the base, Brola and Cyrus would have an easier time escaping. For the duration of the morning though, All Brola and Cyrus had to do was conform. Do what everyone else was doing. The day passed with ease, and when nightfall came, all lights in the base were turned on to maximum capacity. All the marines stood in very organized lines at the gate. Tanks were rolling out of the factories. Wraiths and battle cruisers were flying out of the starports and best of all, ghosts were being loaded into dropships to be dropped off at special locations so they could infiltrate the bases.
Brola Cyrus an SCV and the squad of marines all went into a dropship. The ghost, and the other two SCVs went into another dropship. They went in secretly, and when the operation began, all marines marched in sync out the gate, the tanks rolled out numerously and the air units flew out in fleets. The dropships started lifting off the floor, Brola and Cyrus used their communications system to talk to the pilots, commanding them to follow the rest of the dropships at first. When they reached one former U.E.D. outpost, the dropships started to land but Brola and Cyrus told the pilots that now was the time to escape.
The pilots veered off to the right sharply and started heading off towards space. Hardly any units noticed at all, they were all engaged in battle with the outpost. The couple of marines that did notice just thought they were running away, scared. They were half right. Brola sat inside the dropship silently. Suddenly, a beeping noise started up and alarmed everyone. "What's going on here?" Cyrus yelled into his com system.
"We're being locked on and targeted by enemy heat seeking missile turrets. Taking evasive action!" the pilot replied calmly. A button was pressed and the dropship let out a load of heat sticks. The seeking missiles barely avoided the dropship and went in random directions from all the heat sources it was detecting. Brola looked out a rounded steel window, and saw that the other dropship was doing the exact same thing.
"Strap in nice and tight boys, were heading full speed straight to space." The female pilot stated, while chewing on a wad of bubblegum. "Please keep your hands inside the vehicle at all times." She joked.
As the dropship started to gain phenomenal speed, all the marines buckled up, and the SCVs strapped their large suits onto the walls. Everything began to blur, Brola strained to look out the window. Everything was a blur of black with streaked of yellow lights from the stars. A few seconds later, the blur was over, the stars were clearer than ever and the blackness was no longer a big moving vision. The pilot spoke out, "Estimated time of arrival at the uninhabited planet of Char is three days. No Zerg life signs detected. The U.E.D. deemed this whole planet lost when the Zerg invaded. It seems like they just picked themselves up and left… strange."
Cyrus stared out one of the windows at the giant planet that was to be their destination. "That's one mighty large planet, it's about ten times larger then earth. Guess the U.E.D. didn't bother to expand to that planet, even after the Zerg left." Beside them, was the other dropship, traveling at an equal speed.
The three days it took to arrive at the planet passed relatively fast. Brola spent his time playing an old game called war and strategy. In the game, the players wore gloves that could control little virtual men around. The objective was to capture the enemy base using strategic thinking. The pilot announced again, "We have arrived at Char, two hours until we land." When she finished the announcement, everyone strapped up and prepared for a rough journey through the atmosphere of the planet Char. Two hours later, the dropship started to rumble. Brola, once again, strained to look out the window. The ship was engulfed in flames. Brola never did manage to get accustomed to the rattling of the dropships. Finally, after the few tormenting seconds passed, they landed roughly onto red sand.
Everyone immediately started to unbuckle and file out. The pilots stayed in the ships though, because they didn't have suits that provided oxygen. The SCVs started to build a command centre around natural minerals and vespane geysers. Brola looked around the vast emptiness of the planet. It was beautiful in its own way. The red sand dunes reached many meters high and the land never seemed to flatten, it was all rounded with hills and bumps.
It took a few days to build the large building, during that time, Brola, Cyrus, and the squad of marines searched the grounds and explored the area, even though there wasn't much to explore. When the command centre was finished, everyone had a suitable place to live for the time being. The next thing they built was the warpgate. Only one SCV was sent to do the job. The other two were sent to build vespane factories so they could collect gas. It took a few weeks but when the warpgate was finished, everything began to work faster.
Brola and Cyrus slowly entered the warpgate while the others collected minerals and gas. When they entered, the sewers were as they left it, as smelly and dirty as ever. They started running at a pace through the dirty water, when they returned to the old base, they cautiously opened the hatch and snuck out. Good thing the hatch was located inside a dirty abandoned building that used to be used a science academy. Brola and Cyrus carefully crept around a window, then looked out. The place was still, surprisingly under U.E.D. control.
But that wasn't going to last for long, the enemy was at the gates. Brola and Cyrus quickly retreated back to the sewers. They knew earth was gone, but they still needed more people. They kept running down the sewers. Taking many turns left and right when finally, they arrived at another hatch. They opened it to see they were in an empty city. The Terran dominion didn't get to the city yet, they could tell. But the people were all hiding in their homes, afraid for the fate of their families, obviously they had watched the breaking news. Fortunately though, the Terran Dominion was too busy with the U.E.D. base to care about the city. Immediately, Brola and Cyrus jumped out and started running around, telling people about how there was still hope. They told people about the plans they had and the word spread like a fire in a dry forest. In half an hour time, everyone in the city had gathered around Brola and Cyrus.
They all wanted to escape their fate from the Terran Dominion, but first, Brola and Cyrus inspected the crowd for any spies. None were found, they immediately started running towards the hatch, telling the people to get in single file one at a time. Cyrus went in first, to lead the people, Brola went in last, to make sure everyone got in. There were many different people of all races. When they finally reached the warpgate, the people were scared to go in. Brola urged them to get in quickly before the Terran Dominion reached them.
Finally, Brola was the last to enter, and the SCVs at the other side shut down the warpgate so no enemies could get through. There plan had worked, Brola sat down on the sand and looked at the people, miraculously, their plan had worked. He couldn't believe it, the idea seemed crazy just thinking about it, but it had worked. The SCVs had managed to get a few apartments up, small but suitable. Not enough to fit the entire city worth of people though.
The SCVs had also managed to build an atmosphere of air around the area. The city folk were absolutely stunned, astonished. They couldn't believe there was actually hope. That Char night, they celebrated. The next morning, the SCVs got to work immediately, they built more apartments. They also started recruiting more SCVs so that the workload was lessened. By the time two weeks had passed. They had a large city going, the population had grown. The SCVs built many barracks and recruited many more marines. Starports and machine factories were built and they really advanced in a short amount of time.
In the meanwhile, Brola and Cyrus went back to earth once more, they reopened the portal and snuck back into the abandoned academy. They crept around a few boxes, and peeked out a window. To their horror, they saw a marine, bearing the sign of the hand holding the whip. The U.E.D. base had finally been overrun. The world was now under Terran Dominion control. Cyrus shook his head sadly, in never thought I'd live to see the day. They slowly walked back to the portal, and entered it. They told everyone of the news they bore. Now they were alone, a small city on the large planet of Char, forced to face the powerful dominion themselves. But they would not go down easily, for the time being, no one knew they were on the planet, so they would make their armies all the greater.
Mengsk laughed maniacally. He had taken over earth. A new world order was going to happen, and it all started with his name. No force could stand in his way, now that his army is twice the size it had formerly been. But he thought wrong. There was still one small but strong nation, an unknown nation to all; they called themselves, the Fleets of Char, and they were preparing, for the day the lead to the start of the Great War.