Frost
By: Smurfkiller
Author's Note: All stories have one of three conflicts present: Man vs Man, Man vs Self, and Man vs Nature. This novel has all three: the Directorate vs Dominion, Man vs Instinct, and Man vs Winter. Inspired by the short story "To Build a Fire" by Jack London, I offer this story to the Starcraft Universe.
Disclaimer: Starcraft and all its associated characters and organizations do not belong to me but to Blizzard.
-1-
There are some places in the universe where man looks to the top and say: "That is the peak I must conquer."
And some of these places are unconquerable, for no matter how much we rule from blood and steel, Nature's wrath will always effect us. For my company, Frost, that place we had to conquer was Soule's Peak.
But if there is one thing all the forces of Nature cannot conquer, it is the instincts and internal powers of men's hearts. For who would live under a sunless planet, a world covered in a great blanket of snow that was immortal, endlessly strangling the mountain? Only human nature, the nature of our greed, would explain this.
The city of Boralis lay between two daggers of the Atlantian Range, Soule's Peak and Whitehead. They loomed to the back of the city, one side of the great icy metropolis unconquerable by its peaks, the other side surrounded by a field of snowy white while a robust wall lined with a thick, NeoSteel wall protecting its inhabitants from fear of war.
It was here that humans, five hundred thousand Dominion citizens, lived for their greed, no matter how many degrees centigrade the planet was.
Chance was not the reason why the planet Braxis was so cold. Dominion Armada scientists, when surveying the planet, concluded the battering of a thousand comets from fringes of Koprulu space had resulted in the formation of a permanent "Ice Cap" that covered all of the planet a few million years ago. It also helped that the nearest solar system was only a few billion spacial miles away.
Before the massive bombardment of comets, the planet had been a tropical paradise, fueling the growth of Vespene geysers that littered the landscape. But these valuable commodities were hidden away under a sudden torrent of snow.
Though deemed uninhabitable by Confed scientists, Dominion science vessels tracked gaseous anomalies under the ice, and a state-owned drilling company was sent. The announcement of the discovery of massive amounts of geysers lead a few million greedy souls to venture forth, and build the fortress-city of Boralis while extracting the gas, the principal source for unprocessed Vespene for the Dominion Armada and the Elite Guards.
This factor was the reason for why the Directorate attacked my planet.
The total force of UED troops was startling: five hundred thousand men faced our walls, a plain of bobbling black helmeted heads with snowy white armor. Stukov, the vice-admiral of the United Earth Directorate Expeditionary Fleet (UEDEF), assembled a supporting division of one thousand tanks and Goliath armored walkers, as well as artillery. But his main force would be infantry, which would attack the Plains of Snow, outside the city walls, break through, crossing the river and battering the walls.
My company, Frost, was specialized in cold combat warfare. We were part of the fifty thousand man regular garrison the Dominion left in the city, supported by another one hundred and fifty thousand militiamen. Desperately outnumbered, the only advantage we had was our knowledge of the terrain and our walls. We had the Plains of Snow pre-sighted, with every inch of snowy ground marked by an artillery battery or siege tank. Most of our regulars were equipped with specialized CMC-400C armor, which gave extra protection against the -80 degree centrigrade average temperature, as well as preventing our gun from freezing up in weather through the heat cord that attached the gun to our suit. Frost was also prevented on our suits and boots to give an extra sense of security, so not to slip on the icy grounds.
But our confidence waned as the Dominion Armada, laden with reinforcements and equipment, was fended off by the massive UED fleet. And their Wraiths virtually owned the skies, cutting off any escape and bombarding our city. We were, as the old saying put it, "between a rock and a hard place." One side of the city had thousands of UED infantry waiting, while the other had the impenetrable mountains. The only escape was death.
Their first attack met with failure. The first wave of infantry completely disintegrated as our surviving artillery bombarded the Plains, providing a fresh new look for the snowy white grounds. They were now covered in crimson red.
Our men stood on the over side of the River Degras, watching and waiting as their troops charged.
Mother Nature proved to be our protector that day, as the Goliaths, well oiled and kept in the storage sheds of the Directorate base, froze upon impact with the wintry wastes. Their steel appendages and plexiglass cockpits cracked under the strain of Nature's unending forces, while their pilots were blown apart a steady stream of shells.
Directorate troops shared the same fate, with the dead littering the ground with a scant wound. Their armor, though similar to ours, was bitterly unprepared for such harsh conditions. Once bullets and shrapnel penetrated on their armor, it created a gaping wound, exposing flesh to the elements. Hypothermia immediately set in, as tissue and cells frozen upon contact with that day's fierce wind, mixed with biting snow. There can be no protection from Nature after a marine's armored shell was broken. As they writhed on the ground, we watched- silently, a formation of red standing starkly from the white. On the other side of the river, with only one bridge connecting the two, blood dyed the snowy Plains, diluting their color to a light, slushy substance.
The majority of the wounded UED troops were carried back by their medics, who differed greatly in ours and were more skilled. We heard from the intelligence reports afterwards that the wounded troops were soon-to-be amputees, with so many cases of frostbite and hands, feet, ears that, once exposed to the cold, did not work properly.
There is no pain when facing Nature's raging elements. Only a comforting release of death. That is how the thousands of Directorate troops met their fate on our victory. Not from a stray bullet or exploding shell, but from the untimely death to the wind. For all the things in the godforsaken place, the fiery blasts of cold wind would destroy our enemy. And it would eventually spell my company's doom as well.
Eventually, they retreated, their C-14 rifles frozen in their hands, their lethal, slim shapes encased in a gross mixture of blood, sweat, and snow. Even sweating was dangerous for the troops; for in these temperatures, their sweat would easily turn into droplets of ice on their skin. Everything in this planet was a Hell frozen over, yet men fought and died for almost nothing save a unmarked spot in the frozen Plains.
Nature is not only our only friend and enemy. Human Nature is both our Guardian and our Adversary. As we would soon find out, this Nature would lead to betrayal.
After our first successful defense of our world, Dominion commanders decided on focusing on a counter-attack on the weakened Directorate forces. They had suffered, by our best estimate, a total of one hundred and fifty thousand casualties, or almost all of the total forces garrisoned in Boralis. Our commander's plan was to strip bare the outlying redoubts protecting a narrow valley that lead to the back of our city and focus our forces for a massive attack on the Directorate base. But this plan never materialized.
The Confederate Remnant Forces, who had scouted and infiltrated the city before, had allied with the Directorate under the leadership of a man, a conundrum in our intelligence, who called himself Samir Duran.
Armed with vital intelligence, he told Stukov about our bare defenses in the valley canyon, which could be assaulted with a massive armored column. The vice-admiral immediately equipped his remaining tanks with anti-freeze and other counter-measures for protecting them in the weather. Massing them, the armored spearhead broke through, well inside and to the only weak spot in the city walls, to the rear of the city. Following them were massive infantry columns that blended into the snow and snowstorms that were growing in severity.
Dominion troops, caught completely by surprise by the sudden blitz, surrendered, though isolated pockets like my company held out. But we were soon ordered to HQ, where the orders were given for our evacuation.
It is here our real challenges began.
-2-
Though an introduction to the reader is sometimes necessary to complete the picture of the protagonist, I am not the protagonist. I am the struggler, who, like all humans, must overcome external and internal demons to survive. I am also only a soldier who needs not to be named for any reason. All the reader needs to know is that I am a private of the Frost Company, 4th Guards Division, of the Dominion Elite Guards. My ID is 245XDE3456J9. My name is representative of the millions of the faceless soldiers. Refer me as John Doe.
As the Directorate stormed Braxis' biggest planet, other smaller cities to the north would be under the domination of Earth's control soon. F-Company, which I am a part of, was part of an HQ battalion keeping guard under communications, which was currently under frequency jamming of the UED. All communications to the cities of Ora and Nueva Esperanza were shut down, as the UED fleet had destroyed orbiting satellites and jammed all frequencies flowing in and out of our city. The Directorate air fleet had essentially quarantined the whole planet the way the Feds had done to Chau Sara. It is bitter and cliched, but it was the beginning of the end.
Word of the impending disaster of Braxis had to get out, or the UED would be in control of all of the planet in weeks. So when they sent for my company CO, Lieutenant Alyxis Benyard, I had the sense that our destination lead over the mountains.
I was right.
Remnants of the shattered HQ ordered my company, of the finest, winter-trained Division, to get the word out via Atlantian Range to the two cities of the UED invasion. Our objective would be to scale Soule's Peak, going over it, to bring message. Our secondary objective was symbolistic: it would increase morale of our own ranks with the daring escape up the peak, and decrease our enemy's morale.
Given these almost impossible orders, Benyard saluted to the General of the Dominion Forces, armored hands clenched in a fist, and bowing. His message was simple. "Frost will not fail."
Like hounds on the trail, we were lead through the underground railway network, where a technician opened the steel framed for our one-hundred and twenty man company. A blast of wintry air and snow greeted us, as the blizzard that would be our cover blew overhead. And almost like a doorstep, Soule's Peak loomed, five thousand meters of sheer rock and ice.
Benyard was the first to go. He motioned with his rifle, and stepped outside, the wintry blasts of air trying to propel him back in. Two by two, my robotic-looking company, round shoulders and guns held high, went up the narrow path. Our heating systems inside our suits kept us warm and snuggled at a reasonable temperature, while sensors on the armored palms of our hands told us if the gun was freezing up.
The mountain itself was an enigma, one wondrous and awe-inspiring site that was discovered by Arhelm Soule, one of the first widely held adventurer-explorers of our sector. His failure to climb it led to the thought that a city built upon the footsteps of the mountain would resist any attack. But no one had scaled the spires of the massive peak, and even helicopters and aircraft had failed to go over it because of the unrelenting harsh weather.
We were only a few hundred meters up when we heard gunfire coming from the top of the mountain. The top! Safeties click off as our men looked up, at the peak.
"Hold, hold team." Intercom static filled every helmet, as the calm, commanding voice of Benyard ordered us not to fire.
"All y'all better have everything goddamn thing shut down, else Directorate electronics are going to locate our position."
The new voice, superficially cool and idiotic, was from Specialist Robert Jell, the second in command.
A chorus of "yes sirs" complied, including me. The battery pacs that made our suits operational lasted only eight hours if all systems were functioning, but with everything, except our heating and intercom shut down, it would last an additional sixty-four.
"Move it boys, it's just the wind. Directorate probably fired from down there, but the damn wind picked it up and carried it to our receptors."
Then, like a crack, one of the men on the rear screamed, blood spurting from a new wound on his right thigh. I was near the middle of the long, line of troops, and I could only make out dim outlines of snowy clad Directorate troops firing at our rear.
How the hell did they get up here so fast?!
But there was no time to think. Benyard stopped, going to the back of the column, his men slowly following them on the mountain's narrow pass.
"Grenades!"
Automatically, our minds numb from the scream, reached inside a small compartment in the left armored biceps of our suits. Three grenades, pine-apple shaped, were stored, and as I grabbed one of them, intent on pushing "the little red button" on the side, explosions knocked me off my feet, and into the fresh powder.
Hell, what's Benyard trying to do? He's going to bring the fucking mountain down with the troops!