-He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
Friedrich Nietzsche
12.31.2499
YOU LEARN a lot about a man's character through the way he handles combat. At least that was what Special Agent to the Confederacy of Man Vincent Starks had noticed over his ten years of service.
It was New Years day, and the Espionage/Counter Intelligence Agent, or "Ghost" as his peers had nicknamed him, was on Mar Sara, currently under siege by the nefarious Zerg, a species of killers bent on invading the Koprulu Sector and killing all it's human inhabitants. He had been sent to Mar Sara by General Edmund Duke, the commanding officer of the notoriously disciplined, and elite Alpha Squadron. Starks had only recently been promoted to Alpha Squadron as part of a major shift in Confederate military focus. For the most part, he had been used in reconnaissance and data collecting instead of combat and assassination, which was usually the work of a Ghost in the field.
The security outpost Vincent was stationed in was a less-than-desirable backwater base, home to around a hundred men and women. They were a ragtag collection of ex-outlaws, mercenaries, and downright scoundrels, whose skill had greatly diminished over time. As Vincent had joined the new commanding officer of the base in a routine inspection drill, he had noticed filthy, unwashed uniforms, gauss rifles that were nearly jammed with sand, and Powered Combat Suits that were torn and raggedy. After the inspection, Vincent had quietly cursed his commanders for stationing him in a mess of a situation.
The new officer on the base was a young dark-haired Lieutenant named Anatoly. He claimed to be a strict disciplinarian, but Starks had been around enough commanding officers to know their rules and regulations fell apart when things started to go south.
Starks's train of thought was interrupted by a knock at his door. An attractive female combat physician with short blonde hair poked her smiling face into his room and said, "Lieutenant Anatoly wants a word with all higher ranked soldiers here. He says he has received a message from General Duke regarding Zerg troop movements."
Starks shot her a menacing look, partly for disturbing his thought process, and also because he knew she was a brainwashed ex-criminal. The sentence for convicted felons was usually a lifetime's service to the military, and to ensure complete loyalty, the Confederacy had developed a brutal program that replaced freedom of thought and various memories with complete devotion to the Confederate way. Starks found amusement in toying with and confusing the reprogrammed soldiers, who provided human cannon fodder for the Confederacy of Man.
Without another word, the medic left, her face displaying neither the perplexity nor the mental harm that Starks had tried to inflict. Disappointed, Starks decided to ignore the encounter with the girl as she had decided to ignore him.
Before leaving to address the young Lieutenant, Starks turned to have a look at his face. His gray hair was a byproduct of the violence in his past, and his blue eyes had an inimitable stare, as though he could penetrate through the thick layers of skin on a human and see into the soul. He had two distinct scars on his face – one that knifed through his upper right eyebrow, and another on his neck. The history behind their origins was a touchy subject for Vincent Starks; a raw recruit who had tried to nickname him "scar face" once had ended up in a ditch outside of his encampment missing his throat.
Clad in a white t-shirt and baggy khaki pants, Starks left the room.
Outside the Marine barracks, there was a fight going on. One of the participants was a new recruit who had arrived on the same ship that carried Starks. He was a handsome young man of around nineteen years, and a collection of the bases resident social misfits had surrounded him on the landing pad.
Seeing no immediate authority planning to break up the fight, Vincent casually ambled to the arena. The other men were caught up in the excitement of the fight, and did not notice him until it was too late. The crowd fell silent when his boots registered on the hard concrete of the landing pad. The Marines had been around him long enough to know that Vincent's boots had a distinctive sound to them. The crowd shamefully began to disintegrate.
The handsome young recruit lay tattered at the epicenter of the chaos. Starks picked him up and whispered in his ear, "in this day and age, beauty is a precious thing." Starks turned his back to the young man and let him stand there and reflect on what had just transpired.
Inside the central Command Center, there was a room for tactics and strategic planning. The walls of the room were cheap windows, so that anyone could look outside in any direction. Starks had frequented rooms like these before, and he knew from first-hand experience that they were extremely vulnerable to assault from foreign forces. Bullet holes had nearly shattered the entire glass exterior of the room.
Lieutenant Anatoly and two Confederate sergeants were standing around a table in the center of the room with a satellite-updated map of the region around the base. A contingent of smaller Zerg creatures was moving in a southwest direction, and if their path remained true, they would advance to the foot of the base within the next hour. Anatoly was discussing defensive strategy: "We need to set up mines a good hundred yards off the base and let 'em walk right into 'em."
A sergeant piped up, " with all due respect sir, you're being a little conservative. We have got a great vantage point at the top of this plateau. Why don't we simply blow the hell out of them while they climb the cliff?"
"They outnumber use, we're not going to have time to fall back to the walls once they get up here! Marines cannot run two hundred yards at the necessary speeds to get back here and set up defenses for chrissake."
"He's right Avery, we have to let 'em come to us."
"I know it's not in your nature to hide behind walls, Sergeant Johnson, but it's the only option we have right now."
Sergeant Johnson cursed. Lieutenant Anatoly turned to see Starks standing silently in front of the elevator. He immediately scowled at the Ghost's choice of apparel. "I know you Espionage boys have a history of getting away with anything you so damn well please, but you had better start wearing standard uniform mister Starks, or I will personally have you the subject of a nasty beat down by my boys in the regular Marines, you hear me boy?"
Starks stared ahead and bitterly replied, "yes sir." Commanders like these worked had to put up an image of authority around them. Anatoly had to stand his ground against Starks lest he appear weak.
"Now then, it is decided. Get the troops ready on the walls and in the bunkers, we've got work to do."
Any comments and reviews of the first chapter are appreciated!