In entrance Alpha, the female marine sat behind a bunker. Her legs were crossed as she quietly watched the infested constantly collapse into the pit. There was no need for her to fire. The infested were already crippling or killing themselves.
The trap that was designed to delay the infested for a few minutes literally stopped their advance and crippled their numbers. This was better than anything the Raiders ever hoped for. Just like Raynor, the foot soldiers had no idea why, but they weren’t complaining either.
This pause gave the Raiders an opportunity to talk.
“These idiots. How many zerg do you think are in that pit?” One of the marines said casually in the squad radio as continuous screeches came from the other side of the defenses.
The squad radio was designed to allow squad captains to reach their men as efficiently as possible, and normally it was against the rules to use it for recreational purposes, but it had been a tough fight, and even the strictest captain wouldn’t blame their men for taking a few chats.
“Nevermind the numbers.” Another marine, judging from her voice she was a woman, complained. “They really stink! I can’t until we get back to the Hyperion and take a bath.” It was less of the actual smell but more of the visual effect of seeing hundreds of bodies forming a pile before her own eyes.
“These zerg are really creeping me out.” One of the hammer securities joined the conversation. He was used to dealing with Dominion forces. Fighting an endless wave of infested terran wasn’t exactly what he was trained for. “They are endless.”
“They’re also stupid. If you ask me they’re dumber than I imagined.”
The Raider captain joined the talk as well. He was one of the original Raiders from Mar Sara, and unlike the satisfaction of his men, he was confused. He fought both with and against the zerg before, and there was no reason for them to mindlessly walk into a trap. Still, it wasn’t his job as a captain to do the tactics. That was the job of the Raider High Command, which consisted of around three people.
Suddenly, a frightened voice came in the radio.
“Look!”
The female marine popped her head over the bunker and coughed in surprise.
While the Raiders were talking, the infested kept on jumping into the pit. The pit wasn’t designed as an actual damage dealer. It was meant to delay the infested, which was why the colonists didn’t make it into a twenty meter deep trench that could pack an army of infested. Instead, it was merely a several meter tall pit.
As the infested kept on pouring in, the pit was literally being filled up. Pikes were crushed. The infested below were being used as stepping stones of their followers, who were then stepped on by even fresher infested.
Eventually, one of the infested found itself standing on a mountain of bodies that was as tall as the pit. Half its body sank into the stomach of an infested terran underneath its feet. A normal terran soldier would be emptying his stomach, but this infested merely stepped over its brothers, still alive, and charged toward the third and final line of defense.
The sea of infested, slightly smaller than it was before, followed. Some infested fell into the mountain and became a part of it, but they merely made the mountain stronger and taller.
Whatever losses the infested took, whether it was from the pit or from the bullets, they could shrug it off with their numbers.
“Open fire!”
The terran strike team passed the last corner and found itself inside a large cave. Unlike the tunnels, this cave was large enough for large amount of units to fight.
That was partially why the broodmother built this cave.
The reaper captain didn’t need specific experience against the zerg to know this was a bad thing for them. In a narrow hallway the elite terran units could mow down the infested one by one, but in this open battlefield, they could be surrounded and overrun. There was no way ninety guns could cover every side and push back thousands of infested.
A sharp screech dragged the captain’s attention to a large figure at the end of the cave. Its large form matched the picture of zerg broodmothers he saw before the mission. He knew she was his target, but he also knew this was not going to be an easy fight.
Just like he imagined, almost immediately following the screech, the horrifying sound of something digging through dirt made his face twitch.
Across the seemingly empty cave, nearly a thousand zerg figures emerged.
The infested colonists that normally made up most of the infested army were almost nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t because the broodmother didn’t have any available. It was because something as weak as infected colonists was a waste to space.
Infested marine made up the primary cannon fodders here. Their bodies were infested and their minds were corrupted, but their white CMC armor and C-14 gauss rifles still remained. Fearless and completely obedient, they were to a degree, even stronger than normal marines. The millions of colonists only included a couple thousand militias, and around half of them were infested and were positioned here.
But what really made the reaper captain cringe was the presence of dozens of two meter tall beasts. They had four slant legs that made their bodies taller than most infested units. Their backs were covered in purple bubbles. Like all zerg units, their mouths was twisted and full of sharp teeth, but the reaper captain was horrified to see some resemblance of a human face from the infested unit.
He suddenly remembered this monster used to be a human being, just like him. He gripped onto his pistols tightly, silently making up his mind that if this mission failed and he was trapped with no way of escaping, he would rather kill himself then be turned into something like that.
Back when fighting terran pirates or Dominion security forces, the worst thing that could happen was death. But against the zerg, infestation was the price of defeat.
Beside the broodmother were two specialized zerg units. They were fatter than normal zerg units, and they didn’t have any claws or sharp teeths. In the zerg swarm, this only meant one thing: They didn’t need claws or teeths to contribute to the cause of the swarm.
If Jean was here, she would’ve recognized them as infestors.
The reaper captain was paralyzed by fear, but the Warden marines weren’t. They immediately scattered out in a formation that allowed a clear line of sight for every unit and also made sure every unit was far away from its comrades to maximize their chance of survival.
A series of positioning that would take a normal terran army half an hour was completed in just seconds. Almost as soon as it entered the cave, the AI of the Warden captain observed the surrounding, analyzed the situation, and devised the best plan based on its tactical purpose and the amount of resources present.
As the Warden units were ready, the Warden captain turned to the reaper captain.
“Attack. Terminate all zerg organisms.”
It was both a notification to the reaper captain and an order to fellow Warden units. As the words were spoken, the Warden units pulled their triggers.
“Dadadada…”
The calculated shots of Warden marines pierced through the cave and created a clear echo. Immediately, at least two dozen infested collapsed, either dead or too wounded to fight. Warden units barely missed.
“Go go go!” The reaper captain yelled as well, knowing if he was to see the lovely sight of Deadman’s Port again he would need to act quickly. This was no time for hesitation. Raising his gauss pistols, he pulled the triggers like crazy.
His men followed him as a wave of gauss pistol shots, significantly different from gauss rifles in terms of sound, joined the field.
“Go on my children, rip them apart!” The broodmother ordered psionically. She didn’t say the exact words, but the meaning was similar.
The infested marines fired at the terran strike team while moving. Their armors and weapons were outdated as they used to be colonist militias and they didn’t have anything like combat shields or stimpacks, but they did have the numbers. A couple dozen infested were taken down by the initial wave of blast, but the openings their absence created was quickly covered by new infested from the back.
Seeing the infested marines fire, the Warden units took the correct course of action. All forty Warden marines carried combat shields, and they immediately put the forty shields together, creating a shield wall. Enemy gauss bullets were blocked, but the Warden marines could still poke their guns out of the tiny openings between the shields and retaliate.
Even if a few bullets found their way through the openings, the mechanical nature of the Warden units meant that unless their power core or central CPU was destroyed, they could still remain functional.
Beside the Warden marines, the reapers were giving it everything they’ve got. Pistols were fired so fast the gunshots from a single weapon were indistinguishable.
“Blow them up!”
The reaper captain eyed the amount of enemies present and gave down an order.
Half the reapers returned their pistols back to their holsters and reached inside their storage bags and grabbed onto several KD8 charges. They threw the explosives all across the infested flank.
Some of the reapers even risked their lives to get the charges into the center of the infested marines. The severeness of the situation only sparked their fearless nature. They were veterans and they knew they needed to do something if they were to walk out of this cave alive.
“Boom!”
Immediately, the infested started flying. Quite literally. KD8 charges weren’t exactly damage inflicting, but they were able to toss the light armored infested marines over their feet. When the infested marines returned to their shooting positions, they found themselves losing at least ten seconds of firing time. Some of them were also rewarded with a shot to the head or to the chest.
Plus, one charge couldn’t kill an infested marine, at least not directly, but there were fifty reapers, and each carried multiple charges.
On the other hand, the larger infested units, aberrations, shrugged off the light explosives. They were too heavy to be thrown over by KD8 charges, and the damage of the charges themselves merely grazed their carapace.
“Look out!”
One of the reapers found himself slightly out of position. He also found an aberration after him. Pointing his pistol at the aberration, he desperately pulled the trigger, but the light weapon didn’t even slow the monster down. Immediately he tried to retreat, but he was too late.
The aberration swiped its claws, and the reaper was severed in two. Blood and intestines covered the ground as the man screamed, still conscious.
The reaper captain put a bullet into the suffering comrade and ended his misery. “We need anti-armor!” He turned to the Warden captain and yelled. “Those monsters will wipe us out!”
The Warden captain calculated as it dropped two infested terran.
“You have anti-armor means.” It said coldly, pointing at the reaper’s utility belt.
The reaper looked down and found himself staring at his D-8 demolition charge.
“D-8? It's designed for anti-building…” He caught himself before the Warden marine could reply. He realized he was being an idiot again. Usually against terran D-8 charges, thrown in close quarters, weren’t ideal since the reapers were facing marines and siege tanks. Yet against the zerg the aberrations were literally offering themselves up to them.
Wasting no time, the reaper captain took out one of the D-8 charges. His jetpack powered him forward toward one of the aberrations. The beast leaned forward, ready to slash down on the puny human being that dared to challenge it, but there was a reason the reaper captain was, well, a captain.
Just before the reaper smashed into the claws of the aberration, the man suddenly raised his hand, and a blue explosive flew out of his grip and at the aberration.
As soon as the charge was out, the reaper captain turned his body around and turned his jetpack to maximum power.
The explosion from behind didn’t make the reaper captain turn. Instead, he returned to the relative safety of the center of the terran strike team before looking at the result of his work.
The aberration was down. The explosive capable of punching a hole through meters of neosteel had an easy time against the heavy carapace of the assault beast.
Half its stomach and both his legs were gone. One of its arms laid on the ground in a pool of purple zerg goo. The bubbles on the back of the aberration popped like balloons. The beast was half gone.
A smile found its way onto the reaper captain’s face, but that smile immediately disappeared when the man saw a reaper beside him suddenly riddled with bullets.
The battle was far from won.
