Just like the instructor had said, conquering the base hadn't been hard at all. It was obviously newly formed Zerg establishment only had resistance in the form of two sunken colonies and less than twelve zerglings. Still Roper and Jinson were casualties, and their deaths put a heavy depression on the group.

The instructor laid out several rules for them before they left, telling them how graduation worked. The first stage was to take down a small and weak Zerg base, and as soon as the last living building was destroyed, the timer, controlled by the instructor, began to count down from three days. Those three days they would be required to survive while the Zerg came to avenge their loss with greater numbers and more ferocious resistance. Once the timer reached zero, the Armada dropships would come and take away the survivors. Those cadets that survived graduated. These Zerg were not under Kerrigan's control, of course; if she was fighting them she would have enough resources to utterly destroy the Terran cadets and punish their leaders for training them in such a way. No, these Zerg belonged to a cerebrate.

So, entering into the second stage, things were going on well for the first day, by appearance. The base was coming along well. Bunkers and missle turrets were being built, two barracks were already complete and the machine shop was already working on tanks. A line of vultures busily planted spider mines around the mineral clusters to ensure safe gathering. The comsat station was built and already working; the cadets already knew that the enemy was stationed to their northeast and preparing to return the attack.

But Cadet Parker wasn't doing a thing but standing idly and angrily by as the others packed into bunkers, piloted their craft, or ran to their stations. Just as they had planned, the boys had put Jenkins in charge, and he was barking out orders rapidly and sure. Not to Angela, but she was forced to either follow along with the others or be left behind. Any time that she happened to give an order, no one listened. The word had gone out to everyone, apparently, and nobody bothered to even look at her. However, the upside to being ignored is being able to go wherever you want, and the others have to stop ignoring you to stop you. Angela was thus able to go and listen as Jenkins, Mateo, Benin, and Roberts planned their next move in the command center.

"Alright, Benin, what's the Zerg doin' right now?"

"Buildin' up pretty fast. Looks like they hope to get us at once and be done with it, cause it takes a lot of resources to make that many units. Just east of us, about one'n half miles out, there's a force of zerglings backed by hydras. Last sweep showed that some guardians are showin' up, but we got some time cause they seem to be waitin' for more. Whenever they do attack, it looks like they're gonna run for it, probably with their overlords dropping critters in on us as well."

"Okay, Roberts, what's the status on tanks?"

"Rollin' out like planned, got a good number out. Missile turrets are up, but I'm pretty sure we're gonna need more with the guardians 'n all. Wraiths are building, but we don't have enough."

"Resources?"

Mateo spoke up. "Doin' alright, but I think we better have more SCVs before we're through to mine additional vespene to keep us goin' on that."

Jenkins was silent for a moment. "I don't like this. The armada wasn't gonna send us out if we were gonna get overrun. No use in sendin' your own to the slaughter pointless and all. Maybe somebody up there underestimated the Zerg forces or somethin' cause it sure don't look good. The only good point is if they're puttin' too many resources on this attack, and we make it, they're not gonna be able to send another wave like that at us. In any case, we can't meet them out there, so here's where the fight's gonna be. Alright, get out more tanks, and build more bunkers and turrets. We'll need more wraiths too."

Angela scoffed. "What are you gonna do? This is a base, use your buildings to protect you."

Ignoring her, the three men replied a quick "Yes, sir." to their commander and began to walk away.

"No, hold on." she refused to let them leave, and put herself between them and the door. "You're gonna listen to me, okay? We don't need more bunkers, we've got plenty. What we need to do is surround ourselves with supply depots. The zerglings are stupid, so when they won't be able to get around the depots, the fire from the tanks and bunkers will confuse them, and they won't be able to attack. The tanks should focus on the hydras, letting splash damage hit the 'lings, while the bunkers take out the zerglings in front in case any of them suddenly get smart."

It was fairly quiet for a moment, but the looks on the guys faces said more than their mumblings probably did. Jenkins, reluctant to acknowledge that a girl could outsmart him on strategy, piped up with sarcasm. "Think that'll work, Parker? Them guardians can take out the supply depots easily, cause they got longer range than we do. What are you going to do about that?"

"Stop building wraiths and make valkeries. The tanks should keep the hydras pretty busy where they can't protect 'em, but guardians are really chicken. Scare easily, so when they are out of range, the valkeries switch to hitting the overlords, cutting out the zerg's detectors. once the overlords are gone, you can use the wraiths you have, cloak them, then attack from above and reinforce our line."

Things began to change during that moment. All the guys were on the verge of agreeing, yet were still clinging to the hems of their pride. But Jenkins was the one who had to decide, and him the most proud of all. He stared at Angela, obviously conflicted. Angela, in turn, stared back, desperate and angry. She wasn't about to waste her time in Starcraft by just dying right out. This was her story, her life. Besides, the slaughter would be terrible. Angela had never seen anyone die before she came to this universe, especially not in such horrible ways, but even the sound effects on the game made her crawl. None of those cadets were ready for what they were seeing, and the only way to be ready was to live through it. Emphasis on live.

"Please, Jenkins, you've got to listen to me..."

Another moment passed. Jenkins was wavering, and everyone could see it.

"Jenkins...you know I'm right..."

"Don't listen to her, man."

"Yeah, don't let no woman tell you what to do."

Slowly Jenkins made his response. "Well...Parker, that's quite an idea you have. But I don't think it will work. I think that our best plan of action would be to surround ourselves with supply depots and start buildin' valkeries, like I said before. You keep up the good work though. Someday you might be a good ol' sergeant or somethin', if you learn a thing or two first, honey. Boys, go 'head, you got my orders."

Mateo, Roberts and Benin looked at him like he was crazy.

"Guys...you have my orders. Get to it."

The men went off, getting the idea but still not pleased with it. Angela, relieved and feeling that her work was done, began to walk away.

"Parker, get back here." Jenkins' voice rung out as if he had a few other choice words to say. "You're goin' to listen to me now."

Angela usually never responded when people talked to her with that kind of a voice. But this time she allowed it, turning back to glare at the offensive male. Jenkins returned the hateful stare as he marched straight at her, getting right in her face.

Angela didn't waver for a moment as he began, "Don't you ever show me down like that in front of the guys again."

"Oh what? So I was just supposed to let us all die like that?"

"Shut up, I was about to get into strategy-"

"Couldn't have been good strategy if you did what I said!"

"Parker, I've had about enough of your crap! You better settle down the rest of this exercise or I'll make sure that this is a nice little hell for you! Understand? Hey, where you goin'?"

Cadet Parker was already halfway to the door when she turned back. "I'm going to pilot an SCV. We don't have a lot of time to play around and make this a hell for anybody, in fact the Zerg are doing a good enough job of that already. So you can yell at me all you want, but I'm going to go survive."

She stormed off, not about to listen to whatever he was shouting behind her. An SCV was already waiting for her at the door, and if he wanted to pretend he was in charge, she would play along. For now. Jenkins had his strings, and she could figure out how to pull them and make her little puppet dance.