Chapter 5

Rod's POV

"You! You tricked me! You acted so innocent. I, I, I Ahh I am never looking at another girl again!" I yelled at the top of my lungs.

"What the crap are you talking about?!" Teresa yelled back.

"Oh, no, no, don't you play stupid with me! I talked to you; you gave me money to use the phone, so I could call Nicky."

"I am sorry are you on drugs?" She asked. UGH! How dare she say that to me! I swear if there weren't a bunch of big people with guns around I would have punched her. She acted as if she liked me and now she is some robo crazy medic girl.

"Get on the ship now." She growled.

"Now don't you go changing the-." I started, but then she grabbed the back of my neck and through me in the medivac. Next thing I knew I was being shoved onto the giant Battlecruiser. It sucks because I didn't even get to see it up close, because I was put in a boring sweat smelly room with no windows. I hate medivacs and medics all together.

So now I am on an awesome ship that I get to wonder around and look for some door that says captains lounge on it. That is all the information I got from Miss Treeton also known as Miss Backstabber!

"Hey you!" A big heavy voice yelled, which sounded like all the other voices with helmets on, similar to master chief off of halo. "Are you the newbie?"

"Why does everyone call me that?!" I mumbled through gritted teeth as I turned around. There before my very eyes was another jet pack dude. "Oh, hey, uh-."

"Oh shut it and follow me." He led me to the captain's door. "Go on and open it. Huh, have fun." He walked off laughing. Okay now I was nervous.

As I opened the door I saw the back of a very large red chair in the middle of a very large room with about a fifteen foot sealing. There were buttons and computer screens all over the wall. Sort of like something off of star trek, again with the star trek. The chair slowly turned around to face me.

He had a gutty chin that stuck out and a patch of orange hair on his. Must be dyed. Throwing the napkin in a random direction, he put his skinny arm around me and took me to a chair, saying:

"Now why aren't you such a lovely young chap there aye." He laughed, and then went back to his supposedly normal voice; which was deep and very significant. "I'm joking. Anyways you must be the newbie I have been hearing about through all my many intercoms on my ship."

"Wait, hold on. Who were the ones telling you?" I asked as he plumped me down on the chair.

"Oh pretty much everyone who has noticed you. One would say "Oh by the way the kid is here" or "hey do you know that the newbie's here." Or something on the lines of that. Don't worry; your life won't be to incredibly offal, or at least not until the dreaded zerg arrive."

"Oh a quick question. Um . . . I heard someone mention I was . . . well . . . infested? It's really starting to get to me."

"Well I'm sure they have put some kind of needle in you to stop the infection, or you would see side effects right here soon. Oh by the way I would prefer you to call me by the fallowing:" Clears his throat. "Sir, Sir Plank, Mr. Plank, General Plank and Boss. Nothing else unless you're my friend, which you are not."

"Um, oka—"

"Shush, shush. Questions later. I do believe your name is Rod Lifferjingle. Don't say anything yet, I'm sure you have lots of questions which I will get to very soon, but for now I will supply you with information. Such as: you will have a choice to fight with us against the Zerg and occasional Protoss, but when your in you never leave till you die. And yes there are break times. You will be paid in minerals, which you can always switch out for your, uh, dollars. Now moving on. We will be traveling to different planets and fight off the Zerg so that they don't expand more than necessary as well as so that they don't over power us. Enough said.

"The Protoss, if you are wondering, are lots like your aliens, with no mouths and all. We get along very well with most of them, but the Protoss are very territorial. Now I am sure that you have a family and visiting them will fall into your break time. Also I am very well aware that you are probably very worried about your best friend Nicky Shurlton."

Oh, my gosh! I haven't even thought about him!.

"And by your expression and the covering of your mouth you have totally forgotten about him. Although he is being taken care of and is being given precisely the same information that I am giving you. Now I always seem to forget something, so by all means ask. It is now that time." Mr. Plank said gesturing outward with his arms.

"Well first off, uh . . . I don't know . . ." I said rubbing my head and looking at the ground.

"Speak or forever hold your peace." He mumbled looking at me with his chin up.

"Okay, okay. So yesterday, there was, gosh it's so stupid. There was a flash of light and some guy fell off of his house and went . . . well sort of . . . seiko. I mean, I could never forget those words. Um . . . Death is here . . . we're all going to die."

"What color was it?" Mr. Plank said, rubbing his head and turning away from me.

"It was blue."

"That is strange. I've never heard anything like it. I mean I guess it could be the blue protoss, but if it was just a light. . . ." He said trailing off. "What really confuses me is that some random guy goes crazy. Do you know if he was hit by it?" Mr. Plank turned back toward me.

"I don't know. I was turning when he fell. Aw, well it doesn't matter I have a more important question. Okay so there's this girl who I saw at the university that I was . . . huh . . . well attracted to in a . . . way. But anyways so later that day I needed the phone and she gave me some money so that I could call Nicky, but then I see her here in tha-."

Mr. Plank turned sharply around and said:

"Did the guy who went crazy . . . was he in that faze for just a moment, then gone. Possibly an eye color change, voice change . . . anything!"

"Uh, not that I could recall. I mean I didn't know the guy."

"Gahh! Blast! I can't help you if you didn't pay attention." He said throwing his arms in the air.

"Oh, well I'm sorr-."

"The thing is, is that I know some of the Zerg that can take over minds, they're called infesters, but if this was a flash of light, It would have had to be protoss. Maybe they have found a way to mind control? Ahh! This is very frustrating!" Mr. Plank started talking again changing the subject; putting his hands on his hips. "Okay so what did you say about some girl."

"I am saying that Teresa is denying that she gave me money and talked to me."

"Wait Teresa is the most honest person I know. That doesn't make sense." Then after a few minutes, which felt like a few hours, Mr. Plank's pupils went very diminutive and his eyebrows bumped to the top of his large head. "OH, BLAST!"

I was almost trampled while Mr. Plank rushed past me, yelling orders like crazy into a radio type of thing on his shoulder.

"I need every unit to report to bunker three immediately! All other orders have been canceled! All assigned missions or objectives will be reassigned with different ones momentarily in bunker three! I need someone to get ghost QI9872X and QI3345X to report there too, as well as the mission they have been assigned has been canceled! Someone get those ghosts NOW!" He yelled as the door came to a slow halt.

"Okay…" I said, sitting up on the floor. I slowly rose to my feet. I then heard sudden foot steps approaching the entrance at a fast pace. I quick dove behind a trash can in the corner of the room. The door flew open and there stood Jackson. I suddenly stood up and yelled "Jackson!"

"Oh there you are!" Jackson grabbed me and took off out the door. "We are going to have to scratch the tour. And you need to get off this ship now!"

We tumbled through the hall moving at a fast speed. We ran through many different corridors, until we came to a door. Jackson thrust it open and jumped out… along with me. The ship was about twenty yards from the ground so the fall wasn't as bad as I thought it was.

"Okay know hold on!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. There was a defining Ka boom that blasted through the air. I slowly turned around to see the Battlecruiser I was just on explode and fall to the Earth in a big smoldering ball of green rubbish.

"Don't let that stuff touch you!" Jackson yelled throwing me away from the ship and falling gasses. Another explosion ripped through the air as the reminiscence of the great ship blew into a million pieces. Jackson grabbed me and took off away from the falling ashes. Jackson finally came to a halt.

"Okay what just happened!? I asked.

"They're called banelings." Jackson said. "My guess is they had gotten in before we got a turret up. I think they ran into the Battlecruiser when we weren't looking and on the ground. The only thing I don't get is how we wouldn't have noticed."

"But how did you guys get me off and find out just in time?"

"Well for one thing, you were the one who gave Boss the idea. You talked about seeing Teresa somewhere. What you saw was a changeling. They can become duplicates of any living thing they see. Only real way you can tell is by asking them important information that they don't know or if they are by missile turrets."

"Oh. Oh dear me. So you are telling me that anyone here could be a changeling?" I asked scratching my head.

"Well not right here. We have looked on the missile turrets and there are no more." Jackson said leading me towards the outside of the bunkers where there were police men and it looked like the whole Army had gathered. Even helicopters hovering around. By the looks of it they could rip us to pieces because of quantity. But I immediately changed my mind when I saw three more of those Thor things being holed on three, what I believe are called, medivacs. Now our or I guess Jackson's, army began to gather. Yep, Jackson's army would destroy the Army.

Now it looked like the Army was getting pretty anxious. Then as we're walking towards them out of the corner of my eye I saw some really cool looking high tech assassinators or something. They had orange leather suits that covered there whole bodies and had round black goggles with three green dots on one and one small red one in the middle of the other. They also each had one gigantic sniper assassin gun. Big long red scope too. As well as a small round radio on the side of their heads with an antenna sticking upwards. Jackson saw my mouth hanging open and said:

"Those are called ghosts. They are the best of the terran. I am surprised we have one, let alone two of them, here, especially since there is a battle going on at Jinxsole, also on Nartes as a matter of fact." Jackson said prodding me towards the Army.

Looking back at the Army I took a big gulp. They were bringing in tanks and more helicopters. I really hoped that there wasn't going to be a battle because I wouldn't know which side to pick: my country I grew up in or the people who had saved me from being infested by the so called Zerg. I guess I would just run away and scream my head off. Apparently they had not run into any Zerg because the men didn't look very dirty or any other sign of them being in battle, but really, I could care less.

Mr. Plank was talking to the general of all our military people. I couldn't hear them over all the helicopters and other load noises, although I did hear our general cussing unbelievably.

By the looks of it Mr. Plank was completely calm. Which was crazy, because of all the stuff happening. The entire Army started turning around on the general's orders. Mr. Plank was walking up to us and said that he would go to one of the stupid meeting things, as he put it, and talk with the president about why the Orange Terran were here. In my opinion I think that it would have been so much easier if we all could just get along and defeat this Zerg thing and be done with it.

But the question still remained about the weird blue flashing light. I really wished right then that I could just go home and forget about this mess, but I would soon find out that my life will never be the same again.