Starcraft: Viewpoint
By: Smurf
Author's Note: Viewpoint isn't a traditional story. It's more of an anthology, a collection of short, action-based stories that are set in the Starcraft universe. They are, for the most part, in chronological order, with stories that concern the Starcraft campaign. They are given to present larger understanding of the characters of the Starcraft universe, to enhance the reader's knowledge of the whole extent to Starcraft. The installments of these tales give multiple perspectives, from a marine to commodore, from a Protoss Zealot to the Overmind itself. Each chapter is present as an installment, with one, specific character.
Disclaimer: Starcraft, of course, belongs to the wonderful company called Blizzard, which has had me hooked to this game for five years. And it's still going on. Sad, demoralizing life, isn't it?
Installment I: The Overmind
It had already begun, before this race knew what was truly happening.
The homo sapiens on the world they called Chau Sara captured a scout from my broods. The little, ferocious, four-legged Zz'gashi dune runner squirmed as it felt the feral bite of the hunter's trap. It too, was feral, but its potential as a dangerous killer was unrecognized by the human who released it. Moments passed, almost an eternity for the male, as the dune runner expertly sliced the abdomen open, spilling fluids and organs.
It had already begun.
As my living fleet stands, watching, and waiting, and sensing for the ripe time to launch an attack, my minions have already begun the infiltration. Agents go in the worlds that this...Humanity has infested, and infest these humans themselves. My minions infest the ground, the air, and earth beneath the ground...until all has been turned into a solid carpet of nourishment for my troops.
Already they scream. Humans, males and females, young and old, scream as they are embraced into my fleet, their bodies devoured by a growth nutrient, their minds controlled by my Cerebrates, their souls controlled by me alone. For I am their god.
They are only the beginning. War with humans will only spread the conflict, to make sure that the Firstborn will be involved. There is no other goal than to assimilate the powerful Protoss into my broods, into the Horde. The humans are only a footnote to war against my creators' other species. But the humans will make useful slaves in this war, for they too, have a infant psionic ability.
I shift my senses to a lone dune runner scout on the brown world of Chau Sara. It sees a human structure, round and flat on the ugly landscape. The Overlord overseeing command of the Zz'gashi relays the information to its commanding Cerebrate, which relays the information to me. See? See the efficiency of the Horde? For though my Cerebrates control their Overlords, which in turn controls other members of the brood, it is I: the entity, the brain, and mind and spirit of the Horde that controls all. For that was what the Wanderers wanted: the perfect race, engineered to adapt, control, conquer. Their perfection was their downfall, their failure. But not mine.
The runner advances, cautiously at the grey, metal structure, as light filters from inside. With a shriek my minion enters, as my senses direct it. There four male humans, clad in metal, laugh and drink merrily from devices which I have never seen before. It is their reliance on other elements of their system that will be Humanity's downfall. For the runner is engineered and adapted to have tough, hard carapace, and razor teeth that cut to the bone, while these Sapiens rely on metal to destroy life. Relies on metal to protect themselves from the sweet searing of bone from flesh. They depend on beverages to make them festive. My Zz'gashi needs none of these. It has only me to please, to obey.
Slowly, my runner tears each man apart, with relish that enlightens me. Screams and shrieks fill the structure, as the males are ripped, haplessly, limb to limb.
The humans will die. All will die, or be assimilated into my great race. As only the Protoss are left to combat me, they too, like the humans, shall be slowly altered to fit the Horde's creations of soldiers...
...but what then, what is there to do when all have been assimilated, all that was once there brought into the fold of the Horde? It is a question that brings doubt and uncertainty to me. For my bloodthirstiness will never truly be quenched. What then, when all is conquered and destroyed?
But it has already begun.
Installment II: Medical Officer
It happens, every goddamn few months.
Some goddamn marine gets his hands on some da-jiu, a strong, hick-brew popular on this goddamn backwater world. He and his other buddies from neural resocialization are stationed at one of the perimeter bunkers for the night, and they decide to get drunk. Not too much, at first. Just a little giggly and sheepish. Then more of the damn beverage goes down their throats. Sometimes, one of the idiots throws a "pineapple" grenade, just to see if it works. The only thing is, he can't see the opening out of the bunker as he tries to lob the grenade. It bounces off a wall, and into the lap of one drunk dumbass. A few seconds later, the four are nothing but a pile of flesh. Or sometimes, they get trigger-happy and start shooting everything up, including their own buddies.
Whatever it is, the next morning, when HQ tries to check in, all they hear is static. It doesn't take them long to figure out what's wrong, and they send out me to clean up the mess.
So when HQ ordered my team and I to clean up four "accident" casualties in bunker N-6, I knew what had happened. Or so I thought.
Who am I? I am a medical officer of the 51st Medical Unit, Alpha Squadron, stationed in Perimeter Base 5, Chau Sara. My job is to treat the wounded delivered into the medical quarters of the base. But most of the time, my only medical work is retrieving bodies and figuring out how they died.
My name? That's not important. What is important is what the hell I'm doing at this goddamn, no good, backwater planet. Five years ago, I was on Tarsonis, a medical officer serving the upper cadres of the Confederate Marine Corp. Five years ago, since, by fate, I indirectly caused to poisoning of a Confederate General. Five years ago, due to the corruptness of the Feds that they ordered me to this hellhole. Five years ago.
Five minutes later, after HQ gave me the call, I was sitting in the back of an armored hover transport with four other members of my team. It was a fifteen minute drive to the bunker, and looking, for fifteen minutes, at the badlands of Sara brings me into a depressing despair. Nothing was here on this goddamn rock. Nothing but the bones of conscripts and dinosaurs, and the unending, bald hills that stretch out for miles, tan colored like hundreds of dung droppings. This is my prison. My grave.
"We're here sir," a marine in the front said. Two marines were here to "guard" us against anything hostile, though they are meant to serve as our executioners if we try to escape. We are not as idiotic as neural-resocialized marines. The Feds know they cannot brainwash the doctors of their armed forces without doing traumatic, uncurable injuries to our brains. So we are guarded by the brainwashed, the controlled.
The bunkers were another unnecessary precaution. No one had ever attacked the base for years, even though it was one of the Rim Worlds of the Confederate Sector. No Sons of Korhal, no stray pirates, nothing. But the government wanted to keep the civilian population under its wraps, and to do this was make sure the civilians had nothing to fear, for them to feel the fog of security. The mere psychological effect of feeling safe brought comforts to the civilian population. But fog, as I was soon to find out, was disappearing. And the security disappears as well.
I realized I was staring at the visor of the marine who had told me of the arrival to the bunker. I nodded. "Alright private. Why don't you check out the bunker, while we get our gear ready?" He nods his head, like a zombie in a trance. Total control, that's what the Feds rely on. It's all bullshit. Bullshit...
My men and I grab our equipment out of the back of the vehicle. We brought everything we thought we needed: plasma, instruments, drugs, etc. But all we really need was a body bag. Only one. The parts would be sorted later.
"How do you think they died this time?" the medical corpsman asked, a young man of nineteen. Grabbing a body bag, I stared at him. "How else?" Turning around, I looked at the marine, peering cautiously into the bunker.
"Well? Where are the bodies?" I say, already annoyed at the marine staring inside the bunker. He did not look at me, as his helmet hid his features. All I saw was the cold, sterile visor of a zombie. But his voice was filled with surprising emotion.
"Everywhere," he replied, with a shock unfitting to his sterile, tough image. He takes a step make, then lifts up his visor. Inside, a pudgy, flat nosed man looks at me, a cigar dangling from the edge of his mouth. A rush of vomit comes out, plastering his suit with his remains of slimy eggs and bacon. More vomit explodes as he bends over.
Curiously, I step inside, wondering what carnage to be conjured for even a diehard marine to puke. I flip on my flashlight, unable to adjust to the dark interior. But before I could register the bloodshed and gore, a hand firmly turns me around, as another cold, metallic grip takes away my light.
"What the-"
"Yes, Officer?"
I was staring into the faceless feature of teal uniformed marine; a member of the Cerebus Squadron, one of the most clandestine of the Feds. Even more so than the main intelligence wing, Nova. They were the ones who directly reported to Confed High Command, the ones who had carried out the brutal massacres of civilians on Korhal, and the death of Angus Mengsk, the first rebel that inflamed the whole Confed security system.
The man I was looking at was a Colonel. Young and arrogant, by his tone of voice. I stared back into the liquid-like black visor, reflecting Chau Sara's sun on its shiny exterior.
"Nothing, sir. When did you and your men come in?"
"Only a few moments ago," the man said, pointing to the hovering dropship that was outfitted with ultra-quiet repulsors so landing the ship would be discreet and stealthy. Hell, why didn't my men tell me?
"Introduce yourself, officer." The man's voice bore straight into my brain, his tone bored and overpowering.
"Sir yes sir!" I drew myself to my full height, saluting, mocking millions of brainwashed marines that died for this damn Confederacy. "Alpha Squadron, 1st Medical Squadron, sir!"
The colonel nodded. "Cerebus Squadron, 21st Recon Unit. He tilted his head back to the sky. We recently arrived from Tarsonis."
I looked, watching as a dropship lift off in the skies of Chau Sara. How the hell did it get here so silently?
"Your men need to not bother with this mess, officer, Cerebus will take over from here."
He nudged me aside.
Installment III: Dropship Officer