The broodmother hissed as she saw another aberration bite the dust at the hands of three D-8 explosives.
The battle didn’t go as she expected. She was taken back by how easily the terran strike team dealt with the burrowed sentires, but she told herself no amount of skill could help these terran soldiers withstand an army ten times their number.
Their only fate was to be infested, as was the fate of all terran.
Yet five minutes into the battle, the broodmother suddenly realized one fourth of her units were on the ground, dead or dying. They traded with fifteen reapers and ten marines.
Usually she would gladly make that trade. No matter what the trading ratio was, it was always terran that died. Even if a thousand infested were wiped out and only one terran marine perished, she would still gladly sit upon her throne and enjoy the show.
There was nothing better than watching her enemies slaughter each other.
But now, every dead infested meant one less unit protecting her. She was capable of combat, but looking at the half a dozen dead aberrations she knew her prowess wouldn’t save her. Her carapace wasn’t half as strong as aberrations.
She turned to the two infestors beside her.
“Infest their leader.”
The broodmother wasn’t sleeping when her units fought. She took her time to observe the terran strike team, and she realized that even though one of the reapers was a skilled fighter, it was the terran marine with a purple T helmet that was giving the orders.
If she could control him, the battle was pretty much won.
One of the infestors gave out an obedient psionic signal, and a slant tentacle extended out of its back. It discreetly took aim at the Warden captain, carefully adjusted its position, and fired a tiny dart at the “man”.
With incrdible speed, the dart penetrated the Warden captain’s armor on the shoulder.
The broodmother growled in satisfaction and relaxed her tensed body. The dart was actually a tiny zerg parasite. As soon as it was sent into its victim’s body, it could chew its way to the brain of the unfortunate person and control it, effectively turning the victim into an agent of the swarm. This was different from infestation as it didn’t transform the body of the victim, but it was much more discreet. Even protoss could fall victim to this trick.
With the captain under her command, she could indirectly order the terran units to do something stupid. Ordering the marines and the reapers to walk over an army of burrowed terran was not a bad idea. Of course, she could always order the captain to shoot his men and watch the strike team perish in chaos and confusion.
These men threatened her life, and she would make them pay. Death was not the end, and even if these terran were killed, she would still infest them.
She frowned when the terran strike team kept on firing. The Warden captain glanced at her direction before returning to fire on the infested.
The AI detected the attack, but the dart, despite having penetrated its armor, didn’t do any real damage. The AI calculated the factors and favored taking care of the armed infested rather than dealing with the source of this useless attack.
“Control him!” The broodmother turned to the infestor that sent out the parasite.
The infestor returned a confused signal.
“What do you mean he is non-biological?” The broodmother checked the genetic information she received when she was born and realized marines were indeed biological. There should be a human inside that armor, a human that she could control.
The Warden captain took down another infested marine, ending whatever hope the broodmother had.
“Doesn’t matter.” The arrogance of the broodmother made her ignore the odd nature of these marines. “Fungal them.”
The two infestors opened their mouths, and two large piles of green substance were fired at the Warden formation.
They were immediately spotted by the sensor.
“Evasive action.” The Warden captain passed down the order both within the Warden network for other Warden units and with words for the reapers.
The Warden marines reacted quickly. Those that could moved away did exactly that. Those that were trapped lifted their shields to block the effect of the fungal growth.
The fungal hissed as it hit the combat shields, weakening the layers of metal but not touching the marines themselves.
The reapers weren’t as lucky. Words were less efficient than network transmissions. The reaper captain, now fully trusting the Warden captain, turned and moved ten meters back without even looking at where the danger came from.
Not every reaper did the same.
At least ten reapers were caught in the range of the fungal growth. When they heard the warning, they looked around to see where the danger came from. This took away their last chance of survival.
The corrosive substance hit their armors. Without combat shields to provide cover, the reapers had no choice but to face the attack with their armors, which meant every single reaper hit were stuck to the ground. Furthermore, the sound of hissing made them realize their armors were melting.
Adding to the problem, an aberration launched itself at the group of trapped reapers. Usually these men could use their jetpacks to stay away and use their D8 charges to blow the hell out of the aberration, but now they could only stay there and wait for death to come.
“You son of a…” One of the reapers yelled desperately before the aberration swung its claw over his head, crushing it like a watermelon.
The other reapers tried everything they could, but their pistols and explosives were stuck as well. They were completely defenseless.
The reaper captain bit his lips so tight he tasted blood. The screams of those reapers made he want to kill something. These were his men. His men! He trusted them with his life, and these men did in return. They followed him into the gates of hell, and now they were massacred and there was nothing he could do.
Over one tenth of the enemies were down, but the broodmother wasn’t glad. The two infestors used up most of their energies with that hit as they hoped to deal the maximum amount of damage with the element of surprise. She expected half the enemies to be trapped. Ten reapers weren’t enough to justify the cost.
But she was almost out of cards. The infestors were almost useless. She couldn’t join battle herself because that would defeat the whole point of this defense. Two D8 charges could kill her. All she could do was order the reinforcements to move faster.
But when the broodmother contacted the infested, she received reports about encountering a terran battlecruiser. It was gunning down every infested that approached the entrance of the cave with anti ground batteries. The gauss rifles of infested marines were literally for show against the capital ship. Giving up any hope of attacking, the infested charged for the entrance at full speed, which wasn’t very fast, and took heavy losses.
Over a thousand infested have made a move at the cave. Only eighty got to where they were going. The rest were turned to ashes.
If the broodmother was a human she would be cursing. She dug out this cave when she first received report about the presence of a terran battlecruiser. It was in a hurry. She didn’t have the time to construct backup escape paths. The only way in or out was the main entrance. Otherwise why was she still here?
Suddenly, she felt like a trapped beast, waiting to be slaughtered by the skilled hunter.
And the hunter was closing in with every infested that fell.
In the end, there wasn’t any miracle. All the infested were dead. The two infestors were ravaged by bullets, and the broodmother was cornered by a lot of angry men.
Over thirty reapers and nearly twenty Warden marines fell, but their sacrifice was worth it.
“The wrath of the Queen of Blades will burn through your flesh and melt your very being!” Cornered with no chance of escaping, the bloodthirsty nature of the broodmother took over. She growled and fired a spine at the Warden captain and was blocked by its combat shield.
“Target verified.” The Warden captain was fazed by neither the threat nor the spine. “Commencing destruction.”
Twenty rifles blasted the large beast to pieces of flesh and bone.
The Warden captain opened up a connection with Jean.
“Lieutenant, target terminated. Waiting for further instructions now.”
In the bridge, Jean grinned and turned to Horner and gave him a steady nod.
“The broodmother is dead.”
Horner smiled as well. He looked at the infested on the ground and realized the swarm of infested that was charging fearlessly through the laser batteries of the battlecruiser and into the tunnel stopped moving. Some of them suddenly turned and fled while the majority of the infested turned on each other.
Without the command of the broodmother, the basic nature of the zerg, the need to hunt and devour, took over, prompting them to make a move on each other.
Horner turned to the crew members.
“Clear a landing area and send some transports. It’s time to welcome our heroes home.”
“Where’s reinforcement!” The marine that previously commented on the infested being idiots no longer had that belief.
The Raiders threw everything they had against the infested. Gauss bullets, autocannon rounds, and marauder grenades smashed into the flank of the infested. The Raiders didn’t even need to spend much time taking aim. All they needed was point their weapons at the general direction of the infested and pull the trigger, and some kills were guaranteed.
The infested kept moving. The first line fell and was immediately replaced by the second. The second collapsed a second later, and the third came up.
The Raiders were backed into the corner. If they lost this line, they would be retreating back into the settlement itself. Without the narrow chokepoint of the entrances, the Raiders would be hopeless.
Suddenly, one of the marines looked up and saw five figures approaching in the air. It took him a second to realize what they were.
Five vikings dove down on the sea of infested. Infested marines saw the vikings as well and opened fire, but their outdated gauss rifles had no way of damaging the hardened armor of the vikings. Ten torpedoes exited the fighters and slammed into the infested mountain.
Following a series of explosions, ten empty holes were opened up in the tightly packed flesh. Every infested in range was reduced to a pile of foul flesh.
The anti-armor fighters worked oddly well against the infantry.
The Raider marines cheered, but the viking pilots didn’t.
“We’re out of torpedoes, sir.” One of them spoke to her captain through the comm.
The man groaned behind his helmet. He and his squad had been in the air for quite a while. Circling between the entrances, they were the only thing keeping the line from falling, but now that they were out of missiles, they could no longer take down infested like nothing.
Yet that didn’t mean they were defenseless.
“Enter assault mode.” He looked at the Raider marines and marauders on the ground. If they retreated, those men down there would no doubt die, along with most of the colonists in the camp.
The five vikings went behind the Raider formation and started clicking and turning. Two mechanical legs appeared below the fighter and hit the ground, supporting the heavy weight of the fighter. A pair of Gatling guns were on the side, and the viking pilots didn’t hesitate to use them.
Unfortunately, the lack of ammunition of the vikings meant the last thing keeping the Raiders alive was gone. The five vikings dropped down and provided fire support in entrance Alpha, but the other three entrances were left vulnerable.
“We’re being overrun! They’re everywhere! Where’s fire support?” One of the Raider captains cried through the comm. Raynor opened his mouth, as if wanting to say something, perhaps to issue an order, but the next second a scream came in the comm.
“Ahhh!”
“Damn it!” Raynor closed the front of his helmet and turned to the ten war pigs and twenty or so colonist militias that were left with him. They were the last of his reserves.
“Prepare to move out.”
“Sir!”
Before he could say anything else, he heard a cheerful voice from the radio. The rebel commander frowned and looked at the adjutant.
“The zerg units are attacking each other.” For maybe the first time, the adjutant gave him some good news.
Before Raynor’s mind understood what was happening, a large figure appeared in the sky. Its laser batteries landed on the infested and burned away their very being.
“The cavalry has arrived. Anyone still alive down there?”
The Hyperion came here as soon as they picked up what was left of the strike team.
Raynor grinned.
He knew he made the right decision.
