Episode 12- Long lasting defense, Part 1.
"Communication attempt, failure. Reason: Not responding".
Magistrate sighed, his last attempt at contacting Confederacy was a long shot anyway. Asking The Tomato Riders yielded an unfortunate response.
"Sorry, but we were dropped off, and considering our ships don't use warp, there isn't enough time. And besides, our ships aren't really made for speed, and we don't have that many of them anyway. But, we can take colonists in, there is plenty of space in Po'midor, and enough food to have no problems".
It was more than he was expecting really, isolated colonies aren't really great sources of ships of any kind. He decided on the next course of action rather fast, the distant sound of guns firing helping in that decision.
"Adjutant, send this message as far as you can: To anyone hearing this message, we are besieged by monsters trying to kill us, Confederacy turned away from us. I have all the population left from Mar Sara, we need immediate evacuation. The exact coordinates are" And here Magistrate read them over from one of the screens.
That done, he waited… for about five minutes, after which he heard from the adjutant "Incoming transmission. Warning! It comes from an extremist group called Sons Of Korhal, do you wish to proceed?"
"Yes, they are better than death, certainly"
It took only for a while for the communications to establish, after which an hologram of a man with well kept hair and beard showed up.
"Hello Magistrate, I am Arcturus Mengsk. I can send dropships to your positions immediately, but we are outlaws, as you surely know. Accepting our help will be a one way transaction, with no turning back."
"It's not like the Confederacy is here, doing anything against the Aliens. I accept your offer."
"Splendid. If you last long enough, ships will soon arrive"
"Transmission ended."
"Our fate is sealed."
"Raynor, Dobromir, status?"
"We're killing them with no problem."
"For now."
"What do you mean, for now!?" The commander of the Riders was situated at the top of his Giant Metal Chicken, which was at the top of barracks deeper in the base. His troop below him, sitting around and waiting. They weren't exactly useful with mass of marines shooting in one direction, so they rested, for now, waiting for the other shoe to drop. They were all dismounted, feeding and watering their boars.
"What I mean is, they are smarter than they look. Well… some of them at last. They finally will do something besides endlessly charing, unfortunately."
"Wait, they are actually smart!?" Raynors surprised shout was mostly heard, with some louder gunshots and screams of eager militia in the background.
"Not exactly. They have a hive mind, so there is something out there, controlling them."
"So what? Zerg are some poor animals or something?"
"No, of course not. They are killing machines one way or another, they just are, let's say, guided. So instead of a few individual pockets, they are one."
"Great, there is nothing quite like fighting with gigantic locusts, which are additionally sent to kill us."
"It's… apt description, actually".
"Anyway, I have some mixed news," Butted the Magistrate. "The good thing is, I got us transport off this world".
"And…?"
"And our helper is Leader of Sons Of Korhal, which means we will be declared outlaws."
"What, again?" "No big deal".
"Wait, what?" Those weren't the reactions Magistrate was expecting, leaving him completely Bewildered.
"You see, I met Jimmy here while hiring him for some dirty work some years back. Oh how I was surprised, discovering he was a good and upstanding citizen".
"What about your people?"
"Oh, we are barely part of any nation. Outlaws or no, there are other planets, other nations, and black markets of course. It won't affect us any." Seeing movement in the corner of his eye, he turned his head to witness something flying towards them. Considering it has wings, was purple and was nearing their positions, the answer of what it is was pretty clear.
"Flying zerg are nearing our positions. Our turrets will deal with them, for now."
"For now?" Asked the Magistrate, sounding mighty worried.
"I mean there are few of them now, but knowing those bastards, the numbers will be only increasing." Turning his head down, towards his merry band, he shouted.
"Flying zerg incoming, those who can, shoot them from the sky!"
There was a whoop of joy from a certain individual, who quickly mounted his small ballista on his boar, and charged off, toward a more clear area.
.
Five other men whipped out their own ranged weapons, meaning a bunch of shurikens, A giant warbow as big as man carrying it, one Sniper rifle with big ass scope, long barreled shotgun and a laser weapon, looking like a musket with some open space for focusing the laser itself, courtesy of scientist from home.
They all went in different directions, roughly covering all the camp.
They didn't have any minerals in vicinity, so most minerals were spent on producing mostly ammunition, and only six AA turrets hugging the walls, to shield them from being taken out from afar. Zeg didn't show any long range capabilities yet, but better safe than sorry.
Dobromir watched as mutalisks were blown to bits, shooted through or completely vaporized. He didn't get how a laser beam changed an enemy into ash, when it should just shoot through. But, the laser weapon wasn't done by his mother, so he didn't even pretend to understand how it worked.
Zerg were attacking at certain intervals, first a huge group of ground forces tried to eat through the defenses, then flying forces would attempt to attack them with some weird things, something acidic. It was easy to deal with them but still, it was only the beginning.
.
One flying zerg was hit in the wing with a small metal star, shredding it and sending the beast to the ground. It landed with a crunch, and tried to move only to have its head contents splattered by the moving chunk of metal.
"Disgusting". Was the only word uttered by the leader of the riders. "I should probably take more weapons next time. Flying chicken isn't so useful when there is a risk of friendly fire." After talking to himself, he opened the commons, contacting his fellow commanders. "Raynor, how is the situation?"
"We had no problems, so far. Zerg corpses are piling up, and we have more time to shoot them now, with the extra obstacle."
"And transport?"
"The first bunch should be arriving in ten minutes, I just hope they won't be attacked by those flying monsters."
"And scans? What are they showing?"
"High movement of zerg, but weirdly, only small groups of them are coming our way."
"Aha, very suspicious right here. Katarina, you take over, I will escort the transport ships and check out the xenos."
.
With that he activated his mechanical mount rotors, situated among the wings, slowly getting up from the ground, to finally activate thrusters from chickens' backside and speed off, towards the distance. The helmet put hastily on his head glinting in the distance, together with the rest of the chicken.
"Does he leave you often like this?"
"More often than you think, sometimes I think I command this unit more often than he does. Anyway, it's not like I have other things to do now other than wait."
.
It was bad, really bad. There were zerg everywhere, loosely circling their little fortress. They were swarming everywhere, some big groups were running toward the entrance, and other flyers were going to their position. Considering the dropships will come from up, as in cosmos, they will bypass the zerg bases, and possible dangers. Additionally, there were some zerg waiting around, not far from the mountain protecting them. He was worried when he spotted some drones digging the ground, especially without any minerals in sight, but his attention was soon taken by the small meteors. Which soon turned to be dropships, their thick armor protecting them from the burning atmosphere. Soon after, some zerg flyers turned their attention to them, and launched an attack.
Seeing this, Dobromir turned his thrusters to max, almost breaking the sound barrier. Soon after, the first mutalisk was sliced in two, and the second impaled through the head, leaving blood respectively on the sharp metallic wings, and spear point.
Together with the charge, his spear went a half full rotation clockwise, sliding the dead body off, and leaving the spear free.
They still were very fast, so the Riders Commander started to make a curve, to deal with the rest. During his second sweep, he was hit by one of the mutalisks, making the chicken do an unwanted barrel roll, and dropping his spear, making it spin towards the distant grounds.
Another zerg stopped their spin, leaving a bloody mess falling from the sky. Not long after, the last flayer was shredded to bits by talons, leaving the air empty of hostiles, for now.
"That leaves me with just a sword. I really need to invest in more weapons".
.
The dropships landed, and colonists were already pouring in, hurrying to escape this death trap. Half of them squeezed in, leaving the rest to wait another hour for the return. Before Leaving again, Dobromir said "Be wary, some zerg are digging into the ground, and I don't like it."
"I will put my boys on a patrol, they are already bored out of their minds."
"I will try to pinpoint their location, but the equipment here isn't really made for this", added the Magistrate.
"I just hope all of this will end soon", Replied Jim.