Magistrate to Commander

Chapter 2: Mar Sara City

"Incoming transmission."

"Patch it through."

"Hey What's up man?" Raynor appears on the screen.

"Marshal! Doing much better now that we've secured the wasteland."

"Provided you can sidestep anymore surprises from our confederate friends, and we can keep away from them critters, you should have an easy time."

"If I didn't stop drinking, I'd drink to that." I grin.

"Priority alert!" Spoke too soon. "Blackwater station under attack by unknown alien organisms. Distress beacon activated at 0658, alerting confederate headquarters on Tarsonis."

I rub my eyes. "Three… two… one."

"Standby for incoming transmission."

"Right on time." I sigh. I really don't want to evacuate the colonists again.

"We've already received the distress beacon from Blackwater, and we'll take care of it."

"General Duke, as Magistrate of Mar Sara I request full access to information on these creatures immediately to decide for myself the best course of action." They're hiding something.

"You just sit tight, you'll be notified if there's anything we think you need to know."

The general vanishes from the screen and I pound the desk in frustration.

"Listen, if we wait for confederate reinforcements, that station is dust. I'll head out now, do what I can. You send some militia and we'll save those folks." Raynor proposes.

"Are you sure? It would leave the men left here spread thin."

"Trust me."

"Alright, but I want records of everything you see over there, got it marshal?"

"Can do."

"Transmission finished."

"Patch me in to the sergeant."

"Sir?"

"We've got an active distress beacon at Blackwater and Raynors going to investigate. Take some men, some scv's and follow him, expect more of those creatures on the way."

"Yes sir."

"Stay in contact, I want to know what's going on there." I cut off the transmission. "Give me a camera that can see them leave."

The holoscreen changes, just in time for me to see Raynor's vulture speed out the front gate, followed shortly by marines in transport trucks with turrets. I watch them leave. "Good luck men." I manually kill the feed. "Adjutant, what's the status on the stationary alien?"

Several red dots appear on the holo screen. "I said the one."

"The Biosignatures are rapidly multiplying."

"And I just sent the sergeant out with Raynor, ETA until they reach Blackwater?"

"Five days days."

I rub my eyes. "How fast is the multiplication?"

"Average of three signatures every couple of minutes."

"Are they moving?"

"Not at first."

"Eggs or infants, how long does it take until they start moving?"

"Calculating."

I look at the increasing level of signatures and watch a few dots suddenly get bigger. "What's going on with that?" I point at the hologram.

"Unknown, growth rate exceeds any creature currently documented."

The Xenos can get rapidly larger, I put all of my weight onto the desk. I wish I wasn't so alone sometimes. This is a colony, not a military installation. "What military hardware can we produce?"

"Marines."

Figures. "If they were to launch an attack, how long would it take them to get here?"

"Calculating… With autopsy data available estimate is four days."

"If they came running now, and our boys continued onto Blackwater booked it back… they'd be two days late without any complications."

"Would you like to recall the militia?"

"No, those people are going to need soldiers to escort them here." Hopefully the militia don't stick around for drinks… And I just sent the Sargent out, leaving the colony with just me leading our security, way to go genius.

"How many marines do we have?"

"Twelve on the current rotation of guards, three rotations in total."

"I'm heading out, keep in touch and if anything happens keep me updated."

"Yes, Magistrate."

While I know that the air in the Command center is purified, nothing beats the outdoors, I think it's a psychological thing. I don't care.

"Ello Magistrate." Maverik, my lead engineer currently in an SCV, greets. "What brings you outside?" He places a crate of minerals on a conveyor belt next to the ramp.

"The air, mostly." I take a deep breath in, it really does feel better than the empty command center. "And some company, get out of that thing and walk with me, we need to talk."

He gives me a confused look. "Sir?"

"Don't worry, nobody's in trouble." I wait outside while the engineer gets out of his SCV.

"Something the matter, Magistrate?" Maverik asks, stepping out of the Supply Depot.

"A few things I need some counsel with." I crack my neck and a crick I didn't know I had goes away.

"Where too?"

"North, where the soldiers are." I gesture for the engineer to follow.

"Yes sir."

"Mister Simmons we have a bit of an issue."

He gives me a concerned look. "What's happening?"

"Oh, we've detected some Xeno's to our north, roughly a week out."

"How many?"

"It's not how many, it's that they're multiplying that has me concerned."

"They've found a home on our world?!"

"Keep it down, I'd rather not spook the colonists Chief."

"S-sorry, Magistrate."

"Now, I want to discuss defence with you, if you hadn't figured it out yet."

"Of course! What do you need me to do?"

"First let's take a look at the northern perimeter and see what we can do to reinforce it."

"While we don't have anything heavy, we do have some hardware you might enjoy."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, we got turrets, bunkers, and a few toys for the troops."

"Can we attach turrets to the bunkers?"

"I'd need to do a few adjustments to the blueprints, but it shouldn't be that difficult to stick a point defence turret or two on a neosteel bunker."

"Before I came here I was told there would be gas turrets protecting my estate in case of riots, can we make more and litter them around the wasteland?"

"And fill them with what, tear gas that might not work on these things?" maverik scoffs.

"I was thinking more along the lines of Vespine, stuff's toxic and highly flammable." Far to hazardous for commercial use, but too useful to neglect for military use.

"We only have the one geyser, sir."

I rub my chin. "Then we'll have to sprinkle them around selectively rather than haphazardly."

"Do you want them to burn?"

"I'd like an igniter, yes."

"Even if we do that, we can't possibly cover the entire wasteland."

"Hmmm… Can we build fortifications to funnel them in the general direction of where the gas traps are?"

"Just, how big do you want these fortifications?"

"Doesn't have to be enormous, just big enough that the Xeno's can't jump it, and thick enough that they can't claw through it."

"You want me, to wall off an entire colony?"

"I'm asking you to do your best, if you need more minerals-"

"It's not minerals I'm worried about, it's time."

"Just do your best, if you need anything I'll do my best to get it to you." I tap my ear piece. "Adjutant, give Lead Engineer Maverik Simmons your full support constructing colony defences, that includes terrain scans and tactical data."

"Yes, Magistrate."

"I'll trust your judgement, Simmons. Every bunker, every turret, every weapon placement, you get it." I pull my earpiece out and hand it to him, he'll need it more than I will. A direct line to the Adjutant will be crucial.

He wipes off the communicator and inserts it into his ear with only slight hesitation. "This is Maverik Simmons, the Magistrate just gave me his earpiece…. It wants a code."

"You piece of useless Junk."

Simmons gives me a look. "You piece of useless Junk." After a moment he rolls his eyes. "What about you?"

"I'll carry the suitcase the Adjutant came from around, it can wirelessly connect to the command center." I wave off his question. "Do your best to protect these people, chief."

"I won't let you down." He salutes. "I'll get the team together and we'll puzzle this out."

"Ask the adjutant where the most defensible locations are and work from there." I suggest.

"In the middle of a flat wasteland?"

"You'd be surprised at what you can't see… oh and make sure we can leave safely as well."

Several days pass, and with each one I find myself watching the Xeno's to the north closer and closer as each one passes, it just keeps multiplying and growing in mass.

"Incoming transmission from Blackwater station." The Adjutant pipes up.

"About time, patch it through." I settle down in one of the many chairs in the command room. The Sergeant told me to expect a transmission shortly.

The Marshal appears on the screen and I let out a breath of relief. "Marshal." I raise a glass of water in congradulations.

"Howdy Magistrate, we've encountered quite a few of those critters on the way here, but we managed to get to Blackwater Station's Command Center."

"Something wrong?"

There is a crackle in the transmission. "On the way we encountered… I'm not sure what the hell it was, but it was alive and enormous."

I lean closer. "Describe it as well as you can."

"It was this huge structure that was oozing purple goo all over the place, it felt as if the ground were alive." Raynor shivers. "The people here are shaken up and terrified, but we should be able to get them out of here."

"I'm going to have to ask you to bring those people here asap, evacuate the station while you still can."

"What's happened?"

"Before you left the sensors picked up a signature that settled down several clicks north of our base and grew in size."

"Have you gotten any visual confirmation?"

"Afraid not, but this is where shit gets real, it multiplied over the time you were gone and is now a sizable… hive of activity." I struggle to find the right word.

"Some of the people here've told me there's more structures nearby, if we destroy them while getting these folks out of here, they might have a chance to reach you."

"Do it, we're shoring up our defences but we're spread too thin as is, if anywhere comes under attack I'm afraid we won't be able to put the numbers necessary to repel them."

"These boys have Firebats, they should make things easier."

"That reminds me, tap into the Command Center's fabrication matrix before you leave and copy the blueprints onto a disk, this command center only has plans for weapons to quell a riot, not an invasion."

"Gotcha, I'll keep you posted, you work on keeping those people safe, and possibly find a way off this rock."

"Sounds like a plan."

"Transmission finished."

"How much of that did you hear, Simmons?"

"All of it, I'm afraid."

"Warning, Xeno bio signatures have departed from the designation: hive and are on approach." The hive appears on the holo- oh, oh no, where did all of them come from!?

"Simmons."

"Y-yes Magistrate?" He's clearly terrified.

"Forget previous orders, we're evacuating as soon as possible." It's a sea of red, heading this way.

"ETA four days." The adjutant tells us.

"I'm on it!" Simmons cuts his transmission.

"Activate the speakers around the camp."

"Speakers active."

"People of Mar Sara, I know that we planned to stay here until the lockdown has lifted, but that's no longer possible, there's a wave of Xenolings coming this way and if you haven't been counting our standing troops over the past few days, it's thirty six.

"We have to leave, now. Hopefully you haven't unpacked anything because we're leaving immediately, the faster we get moving the more distance we'll put between ourselves and those things."

"We're going back to Mar Sara city." Quarantine or not there's no way we're holding this position, we'd need actual fortifications already set up.

Simmons is back. "You want us to go towards the Xenolings!?"

I switch off the speaker system. "Adjutant I want the alarms blaring, just in case if anyone's asleep or didn't hear the announcement."

And now I can barely hear myself think over the echo. "We'll be going towards them for an hour or so before going west, there are a number of bridges between us and Mar Sara city, choke points for traps."

"Of course! Load up boys we're getting out of here!" He cuts his transmission again.

"Open a channel to Blackwater."

"Starting transmission transmission."

"Marshal, those things are coming for us, it's an ocean of death running this way.

"We're evacuating to Mar Sara City, if you get this I want you to loop around to the other settlements, get them and as many as you can to Mar Sara city, I'm not going to wait and watch my people be butchered around me while I wait in the safety of Mar Sara City."

I'd do it myself, but we're already stretched thin as is. "End transmission."

"Transmission finished."

"Once we leave the base, deactivate the Command Center." I say walking out of the room with the suitcase, the lights turning off for the last time.

I've spent a lot of the past few weeks in a vehicle going from one place to the next. Hopefully the fortifications at Mar Sara City will be enough to make a stand long enough for help to arrive and get us off this rock… Is that a battle cruiser?

Emerging from the clouds is a massive warship bearing the confederate sigil, Alpha squadron has arrived. The rest of the convoy has spotted the Battlecruiser and are letting out cheers and praise.

I pop open the Adjutant's briefcase."Adjutant, scan the airwaves for any transmissions."

"Transmission intercepted."

"Marshal Raynor, by destroying a vital confederate installation you and your men have violated standing colonial law, as of right now you are all under arrest, I suggest you throw down your weapons and come peaceably."

I'm in shock, but Raynor's not taking this sitting down. "Are you out of your mind? If we hadn't burned that damned factory the entire colony could have been overrun! Maybe if you hadn't taken your sweet time in getting here-"

"Now I asked you nicely the first time boy, I didn't come here to talk with you, now throw down them weapons." He's not here to help the colonists, he's here to arrest marshal James Raynor for doing his job. They're content with watching us die.

"Guess you wouldn't be a confederate if you weren't a complete pain in the ass."

"Magistrate-" The Adjutant's voice catches me off guard. "A video file has been transferred over the transmission, downloading for later review."

The Adjutant wouldn't have transmitted what it said, but if I say anything, even to mute myself, it would be on the transmission and I don't want to get yelled at by a battlecruiser for going back on orders. "Transmission lost."

"Show me the video file."

The holographic projector kicks on and I can see through the eyes of a marine. "What did they do to the command center?" Sargent Graves, the camera is facing a command center with growing tumors on and in it. I was unprepared to see it and nearly lost my dinner.

The Norad two's hangar opens and dropships emerge, heading for the ground, they can't ignore us, I did everything they asked me to do without complaining to the best of my abilities, this isn't fair! It takes me a few tries to activate my earpiece, and my voice is shaking. "They're not here to help us, I'm afraid."

Almost immediately the cheers turn into shouts of dismay and denial filled with profanity. The video ends once the command center is destroyed and the Norad Two appears in the sky, how did he know to send it to me immediately?

Regardless I have proof of their inaction and a slight chance of getting the confederates to evac us. Unfortunately I'm only capable of receiving transmissions and not send them, I'll need to be at Mar Sara city to send an outgoing one. We're close but not close enough. "When I plug you into the Mar Sara City manor I want you to copy the video file over."

"Yes, magistrate."

Raynor won't be able to go to the other settlements, i don't know if they'll arrest just Raynor or all the marines I gave him, as well as the soldiers at Blackwater. That is more than half of my standing forces, gone.

I never turned off my transmission to the rest of the convoy. "Quiet everyone, we need to double time it to Mar Sara city before the Xenos catch up to us, we should be there tomorrow at the latest.

"Please don't make thing harder on the rest of us, I know you're all angry, believe me I am as well, but we need to rely on each other to get through this."

There is a knock at the window, an angry colonist is staring at me. I open it a crack. "Can I-"

"I volunteer, give me a rifle and we'll show these Confederate bastards that we don't need them, we can take care of ourselves!"

My earpiece transmitted all of that, and cheers start up once again around the convoy as more people shout that they'll volunteer as well. "We don't have any extra suits and most of our weapons are designed for marine use, but once we can manufacture more I'd be more than willing to accept volunteers." My heart swells with pride, it appears that our soldier shortage won't be as bad as I initially thought.

This time I turn off my ear piece. "Thank you for that." I roll the window down the rest of the way and shake his hand. "I think I can finally get some sleep with the amount of stress that helped me with."

He swells with pride. "Thank you, Magistrate."

"Let's keep moving." I roll the window up and rub the bags under my eyes.

"Magistrate?" A marine asks shaking my shoulder, making me wake with a start.

"How long was I asleep?" I rub my eyes.

"Approximately six hours." The Adjutant I forgot to shut off answers.

"We're at the city."

I stretch. "Thank you, you're promoted."

"What?"

"Hello Corporal… what's your name?"

"Johnson."

"Corporal Johnson." I roll the name off of my tongue. "I want a perimeter set up at the entry points, if it's human let it through, if not kill it."

"Y-yes sir!" He salutes.

"You two." I point at the two marines assigned to be my guards. "Make sure everyone's aware of Johnson's promotion, okay?" I finish with a yawn.

They salute, as sporadic as the promotion was, I desperately need someone else to manage the frontlines while I take care of the colonists. "Yes sir." The soldiers turn towards Johnson and salute the new corporal.

"Oh, and go easy on him, he doesn't have the appropriate training… yet." Another thing I'll have to take care of, hopefully it's not as different as the live fire training I underwent. "Don't withhold information, don't undermine him, yada yada." I let out another yawn. Can't sleep yet, I have things to do.

I turn to the driver. "Where are we?"

"By the supply depots, magistrate."

That's not far from the manor, I can walk it and hopefully wake up enough that I don't fall asleep again.

Time to file a complaint with Edmund Duke.

Author's Notes: And another one done, I had two other plans for this chapter (one of which being more than double in length of this one, the other being to delay getting to Mar Sara city for a few chapters) but decided against it, as it would be a whole lot of nothing going on or two much going on for a measly chapter two (Why is mission three an extraction against unstoppable odds?) Anyways I hope you enjoyed, and as I've been told the Magistrate in SC1 stories have been cropping up recently, which confuses me… I'd thought they'd be out a lot earlier, probably when WOL came out, but regardless I hope you'll continue to enjoy the story!