//------------------------------// // I - Into the Breach // Story: With All Its Glory, And All Its Horror // by GeoffNunchucks //------------------------------// Kill, fight, die: That's what a soldier should do. "Devil Dogs," Sabaton Braxis 12 January, 2530 Sergeant Matthew Hobbes scanned the sector in front of him through his LRAS binoculars. From his position in the hastily made hide-site in the deep snow, he couldn't see any signs of life. To his left and right, the hide-site took the form of a thin trench that stretched wall to wall of a narrow, claustrophobic canyon and occupied by almost two dozen scout troopers. Three hundred meters behind their position were the six Diamondback fighting vehicles he and his platoon had dismounted from. To the front, the canyon stretched into nothingness, obscured by a dense fog. The snow before them was curiously undisturbed, despite the ISR from the Braxis planetary outpost reporting it being the landing zone of a moderately sized Zerg force. "I can't see shit through this fucking fog," grumbled Corporal Stuart Archer, the maneuver team leader of Matt's squad. "Well, if it makes you feel any better, I'm not seeing anything on thermals," Matt replied. "Ain't that weird though? I mean there should be dozens of Zerg in there at least and we ain't seen so much as a footprint." "Just keep your guard up, Stu. We know that whatever's in here hasn't left." "Yeah, I know, but this place gives me the willies. Somethin's telling me this ain't gonna be just a search 'n' destroy op. Is that weird?" Matt had to agree as he glanced up to the top of the canyon. Jagged ledges of sharpened ice silhouetted against the cloudy sky like they were trapped in the jaws of some giant beast. He shivered, either from the thought or if the cold was finally getting to him he wasn't sure. They sat there in the trench for hours, scanning the sector as they waited for a mission update. The base's sensors had detected several Zerg biosigns suddenly descending into the end of the canyon, barely five hundred meters from the troopers' current screen position. Nothing had been detected since, not even by the Raven drones sent out overhead. It fell to the scout platoon attached to Braxis' meager security detachment to look for what the drones missed. Matt's imagination ran the longer they stayed in the screen, conjuring up new and increasingly improbable situations by the minute. He shook his head, trying to dispel the thoughts of death and destruction his bored mind cooked up. He broke a piece off one of his ration bars to distract himself, working the frozen slab around his mouth to soften it up enough to chew properly. It helped, as his thoughts turned from impending doom to whether or not the bar would pull his teeth out of his head. Finally, the platoon leader's voice rang over out through his radio. "All stations this net, this is Red Strike, FRAGO to follow, break. Platoon is to advance to phase line Raynor and complete the following PIRs, break. Determine presence of enemy forces and locate possible items of interest in NAI two, over." A series of green indicators flashed on Matt's HUD as each trooper indicated their acknowledgement. He pressed his own once each member of his squad had already done so. The troopers began shuffling around, preparing to leave their position as the diamondback crews began maneuvering their vehicles to pick up the dismounted troopers. No sooner had Matt stood up did he hear, no, feel a sudden vibration through his boots. His blood ran cold as his worst fears were imagined. "BREEEEACH!" screamed a trooper to Matt's right. To his horror, a zergling had erupted from under the feet of one of the troopers in his squad. Its toothy maw had clamped around the unsuspecting trooper's boot like a bear trap as it flailed the sickle-clawed appendages on its back in downward strokes against his lower body. Blood and viscera rapidly covered the snow as the zergling's razor-sharp claws sailed through the trooper's light infantry armor. In moments, the returning fire from the neighboring troopers killed the zergling on the spot, the newly adopted laser rifles scoring holes clean through the alien's carapace. Once the offending creature lay dead in the trench, the troopers began firing into the hole it had left behind, presumably seeing its companions within. Red flashes of light lit up the trench as Matt heard the screeching of dying zerglings. "All stations, this is Red Two Eagle, zerglings have breached our line! Watch your feet for tunnelers!" Matt barked over the radio as he dashed to the fallen trooper. Matt nearly vomited when he saw the trooper. His entire gut had been torn apart below his rib cage until he could see the trooper's spine from the inside. He already knew he had flatlined from his squad-tracker display on his HUD, but he still instinctively checked for a pulse, finding nothing. God fucking dammit! he cursed to himself. He turned to the breach, seeing red through his rage. The zergling had burst through the bottom of the trench wall, and through the hole Matt could see several zerglings, some dead and almost blocking the entrance, but several more that were attempting to used their dead comrades as cover from his squadmates' laserfire. Around him Matt could hear similar sounds as zerglings breached in other locations. His mind raced a million miles a minute as he thought of how to counter the assault. The molten holes in the sides of the ice tunnel, made by a stray laser bolt, suddenly gave him an idea. "Throw perdition!" he yelled to one of the troopers over the laserfire. The trooper glanced back at him for a moment before reaching for a cylindrical grenade on his web gear. "Cover me while I prep my grenade!" "I got you covered!" Matt replied as he started firing into the breach. The trooper pulled the pin and shouted "Fire out!" as he released the spoon and cooked the grenade for just a moment. Matt and the surrounding troopers dove away from the mouth of the breach as the grenadier lobbed it in. There was a loud pop followed by a roar as the grenade filled the tunnel with blazing perdition combusto-plasma. The screeching cries of roasting zerglings pierced the air. In moments, the perdition flames vaporized the ice and snow within the breach until a deep bowl of ice had formed between the trench and the main body of the tunnel. If anything tried to get from the tunnel to the trench, they would find themselves trapped by the bowl's slick walls. At that point, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel. Matt grinned as he looked to the opposite side of the bowl, where he could see several zerglings looking down into the depression from the tunnel. The one nearest the edge looked up and Matt made eye contact with its yellow, reptilian eyes before raising his laser rifle and putting a bolt between them. The creature twitched once before falling forward into the pit. Its companions quickly shrank back until they were shrouded by the darkness in the tunnel. Looking up and down the trench, Matt noticed that the laserfire had died down somewhat at the other breaches. Hopefully that means they're getting it under control, he thought with a bit of optimism. That feeling was quickly forgotten as he noticed the zerglings' tunnel had begun caving in on itself, its snow walls probably weakened from the grenade's heat. His eyes widened as he looked over the top of the trench and saw the tunnels collapse from above. A spiderweb of tunnels revealed themselves as the entire network caved in on itself. For a brief moment, everything went silent before the collapsed snow churned as around fifty zerglings dug their way to the surface. "Well... shit..." Matt mumbled to himself as the horde of zerglings charged the trench on the surface. "Weapons free!" shouted the platoon sergeant over the radio. The canyon blazed with crimson light as every trooper fired into the oncoming swarm. Blood and shattered carapace littered the snow as the zerglings were cut down in droves. The oh-so-satisfying brrrt of the diamondbacks' coaxial machine lasers carved through the aliens like butter, punctuated by the occasional thunderclap of their railguns as they sent snow and zergling flying every which way. Though the engagement felt like it lasted hours, the entire charge was wiped out in less than a minute. The troopers all kept their weapons trained downrange, waiting for anything to pop its head above the snow. After several minutes of this, the platoon leader gave the all clear. "Squad leaders, Red Strike, send in LACE reports, over." All the other squads reported green across the board with the exception of Matt's, who begrudgingly reported amber for casualties. There was a long pause as the PL spoke to headquarters over a separate channel. Matt knelt down next to the fallen trooper and started securing his weapon and ammunition. "God damn... We didn't even see it coming..." Stuart said after approaching Matt, an unusual tremble in his voice. "None of us did," he quietly replied and looked up at Stuart. "The Zerg are wily bastards even on their worst day but this was still the best they could do." "They must've been waiting there this whole time. But I don't get it, why would they attack now?" "No idea. Desperation, maybe? They probably thought they could catch us by surprise when they heard us all start moving, you know how the Zerg are. But given how quickly we wiped them out, they couldn't have expected to defeat us in a frontal assault." "So what the hell was the point of it all? Distraction? Delay us maybe?" "The real question is," Matt mused as he swallowed the ration bar that was still in his mouth, having finally been soft enough to chew. "What for?" "Well, whatever it is, they're probably pissed at how quick we wiped the floor with them," Stuart said with a grin. "Good idea with the perdition grenade, by the way. Probably would have been a hell of a fight otherwise." Matt laughed dryly. "I'll be honest, the cave-in was completely unintentional." "Oh, well. Task failed successfully I suppose." Their conversation was interrupted as the platoon leader approached Matt. "CASEVAC is on their way to pick up Private Booker's body. You got all of his SI? We've gotta charlie mike." "Aye aye, sir. Second squad's ready to go." "Good to hear it." He paused, about to give the signal to continue mission before he turned back to Matt. "You alright?" He asked tiredly. "Pissed, sir." The platoon leader let out a dry laugh. "I'll take it." The dismounted scout troopers climbed into the backs of the diamondbacks and the platoon advanced down the remainder of the canyon, the hovering fighting vehicles gliding smoothly over the snow. It wasn't long before they came to a halt and they promptly dropped ramps for the dismounts. Matt's jaw dropped as he saw what lay at the end of the canyon. Though the canyon itself stopped abruptly, a wide cave mouth at ground level awaited them. The footprints of over a hundred zerglings surrounded it, as well a bizarre set of tracks that Matt couldn't identify, appearing like those that would be made by some kind of giant centipede. The cave looked like it had recently been excavated, as mountains of ice were piled along the outside. The platoon leader and platoon sergeant were busy discussing their findings and communicating with headquarters, leaving the rest of the platoon to talk amongst themselves as they pulled security. "Well, it looks like we've answered the PIRs," Stuart said with a laugh. Matt gave a laugh of his own and said, "Sure looks that way. At least now we know why the Ravens couldn't pick anything up." "But now I'm wondering, what the hell are the Zerg after? Why come all the way here to Braxis, risk being wiped out by orbital and ground defenses, to dig a fucking hole?" "Who knows? Maybe they're after the Protoss ruins under the ice sheet." "Say what now?" "Braxis used to be a Protoss colony before the climate turned to shit thousands of years ago. You didn't know that?" "No, why would I?" "... Good point." "Well... If that's the case, then why here specifically? Wouldn't it make sense to find a ruin further from our main base rather than basically in our fucking backyard?" "It would..." "So they must have already known what they were looking for." "And more importantly, thought getting it was worth the risk." They both fell silent for a long minute. Stuart eventually broke the silence, wondering, "Do you think any of that's still working down there?" "Possibly? The Protoss live for centuries, so they build to last." "Makes you wonder what's leading these Zerg though." "It does... This doesn't seem like the kind of shit feral Zerg would do. Someone... something must be leading them." Matt thought about it for a moment. "Come to think of it, I haven't seen a single overlord this whole time." "That would typically mean these are feral Zerg, right? Overlords are like NCOs, they need them to keep the grunts in line." "It would, but they're not. That would mean that whatever's in control here has stupidly powerful psionics to be able to control so many Zerg at one time." "You think it's a rogue brood mother, then?" "Maybe, but I was under the impression that they were all accounted for." Stuart laughed. "Maybe Amon's come back from the Void to smite us once and for all." "Heh. Is it too late to switch sides?" They chuckled a bit before falling quiet again, pulling security in silence. Eventually, the platoon leader gathered all the NCOs, Matt included. "Alright, here's what's going on," the officer said. "From here on in, we have no idea what's ahead of us, but HQ still wants us to identify any items of interest down that cave. On top of that, they also want us to identify the Zerg's command and control node. Be on the look out for anything that might match the descriptions of overlords, brood mothers, swarm queens, or anything else that indicates a high psionic potential. We're expecting no less than a hundred zerglings in the AO, plus an unknown controlling factor. Unfortunately, we aren't going to be able to get the diamondbacks down the tunnel, so this will be a dismounted action only. Orbital scans have indicated that the tunnel apparently leads all the way through the ice sheet down to the surface, with evidence of numerous structures in the vicinity, so be prepared for close quarters combat. We go in, find the bastards, and stack bodies while we wait for 327th Infantry to show up, Rah?" "Rah, sir," came the unanimous response. "Right then. Get your squads ready to go, we move in ten mikes." The troopers stood up from their security positions and all began marching into the tunnel in a staggered column. Matt couldn't help but look around at the walls of the cave in fascination. The ice looked like it had simultaneously been melted and scraped away, which, considering the Zerg penchant for spitting acid, seemed appropriate. The tunnel very quickly took a steep descent, with switchbacks every hundred meters or so. The harsh grade and pitch darkness forced the troopers to step carefully so as not to slip on the ice. As far as Matt could tell it still maintained a mostly straight line despite the frequent zig-zags, lending credence to the idea that this had been done with a purpose. A pit formed in his stomach as he wondered what kind of Zerg could have coordinated this, and more importantly had enough knowledge of what lay in the ancient Protoss ruins to know where it was going. So far the only clue were the giant tracks, but none of that matched up with anything he could place. Matt's mind wandered as he considered all the stories his father had told him about fighting the Zerg in the Great Wars decades ago, back when the Zerg were still mostly unknown. The Zerg Swarm as it currently stood was controlled by the Overqueen Zagara, with its constituent broods being ruled by their respective brood mothers. However, that was a fairly recent change to the Swarm, and more importantly, were allies of the Terran Dominion. Rogue brood mothers weren't unheard of, but the Swarm tended to deal with those themselves. But then, what other possibilities did that leave? Despite their appearances as a giant insect hive, they placed extreme care in crafting the genetic sequences that made each strain of the Zerg. Every form they took, from the zergling cannon fodder, to the brood mothers, and their living buildings to space ships were designed with every bit of deliberate detail as a Terran engineer would. What room did that leave for something outside their designs to have the capacity to control, or for that matter, to be allowed to? The Zerg took unity within the Swarm extremely seriously. Anything that could fracture it was dealt with swiftly and lethally. The only other possibilities were the Overmind and its cerebrate generals, the original rulers of the Swarm. The only problem with that theory was that they were thirty years dead. ... And the minions of Amon, the godlike Xel'Naga that came from beyond the plane of the universe itself to extinguish it of all life. But it too was as dead as the Overmind thanks to the Queen of Blades, of all things. Really is a fucked up galaxy we live in, Matt thought grimly. Between the Xel'Naga, Zerg and Protoss, we humans got dealt a pretty shit hand. Still, at least they're mostly on our side now. It took hours for the troopers to traverse the tunnel. Just as Matt was starting to wonder if they would ever reach the bottom, he found himself standing not on ice, but solid ground. To his astonishment, it was completely flat and smooth, as if it was paved. Looking up from the ground, his jaw dropped once again as he realized they were standing in a massive cavern, with the two thousand meter thick ice sheet stopping at least five hundred over their heads. He looked around, drinking in the environment. They were surrounded by dozens of ancient Protoss structures, long abandoned and powered down, but still in remarkable condition despite being thousands of years old. Golden and elegant in their design, they stood as a monument of a bygone era. A whole Protoss city, right under feet! Matt thought in wonder. And we're barely a hundred clicks from base! Suddenly the whole formation froze as they heard the scuttling of zerglings echoing off the walls of the cave and buildings. The troopers scanned in every direction, struggling to isolate the source. Unfortunately, nothing could be determined from the atrocious acoustics. "Platoon, advance with bounding overwatch. Stealthy and deliberate," were the platoon leader's orders. The troopers slowly advanced through the ancient ruins, stepping as lightly as possible. Two of the four squads would take cover and scan the sector ahead while the other two would leapfrog past them, then they would alternate. The advance was slow and arduous, but the troopers were not in the mood for taking unnecessary risks in the alien environment. They had maybe covered a kilometer of ground in this fashion when the derelict buildings gave way into a large, circular plaza. In the center of it was a simple, yet large structure unlike any of the others. It appeared to consist only of a round, raised platform with a towering horseshoe-shaped arch atop it. A Protoss warp gate. By Terran standards, an almost magical portal that allowed one to travel instantly to another of its kind anywhere in the galaxy. And judging by the white, glowing plane within the arch, it was active. Then they saw the Zerg. Well over a hundred zerglings milled about the plaza, encircling the warp gate, while dozens of Zerg worker drones huddled around its aperture. And wrapped around the gate was the most bizarre creature Matt had ever seen. As the tracks they had found outside the tunnel suggested, the creature appeared like a giant centipede over thirty meters long and three wide. Two rows of countless short, spindly legs ran the length of its underside and seemed almost comically too small for the corpulent mass of its body. Rather than being made of armored segments like a true centipede, its body instead looked like a giant, bloated mass composed entirely of wrinkly brain matter. If that thing really is a giant brain with legs, then it's probably safe to say that thing's our command and control node, Matt concluded with a combination of disgust and fascination. Once the entire Zerg force was in full view, they suddenly froze in unison and slowly turned in the direction of the platoon. A sea of glowing, yellow eyes blazed in the darkened cave, and above it all were four pairs glowing on the face of the grotesque brain creature. The troopers hunkered behind cover at the edge of the plaza, weapons trained on the swarm. The platoon leader frantically relayed their findings to headquarters in hushed tones. The Zerg just stared. Then it spoke. "Terrans." A voice like rolling thunder echoed in Matt's head, drowning out every other thought save dark, cold dread. "You have become an annoyance. I regret now not eradicating you animals when I had the chance." "What a shame, then," the platoon sergeant, a man with apparently titanic balls spoke up from the stunned silence in the platoon. "But while we've got you talking, maybe you'd like to enlighten us as to what you're doing in Dominion space?" "Insolent animal, as with all the rest," the beast rumbled, more irritated than angered. "My ambitions are beyond what your fleeting minds can comprehend. But I shall humor you, for your ignorance amuses me. Beyond this gate lies the key to our ascension. With it, we shall be more powerful than the gods themselves, and all creation shall belong to the Swarm. "You fumble in the dark, thinking yourselves secure in your towers of metal and stone. But you have grown arrogant in your victories, and I shall not entertain products of evolutionary chance assuming the mantle that rightfully belongs to the Swarm." "Bold words for someone in firing range. I'd write this down for the brass, but I'd probably lose it in all the rest of my reports." The creature laughed, the thunderous sounds of its mirth shaking the bones in Matt's body. "Such naivete. Such.. arrogance. Little Terran, what makes you think you are leaving these ruins alive?" Its eight eyes glowed like the sun as the horrific sound of cracking ice rumbled overhead. Matt's blood froze in his veins as he watched thousands upon thousands of tons of ice break off the underside of the gigantic ice sheet and plummet hundreds of meters down. Ice shards the size of skyscrapers shook the earth as they exploded on impact, rapidly crushing what remained of the ancient Protoss ruins around them and cutting the troopers off from their escape route. As the wall of falling ice grew closer to the troopers' position from behind the zerglings charged from ahead, blood lust blazing in their glowing yellow eyes. What ensued was the bloodiest fighting Matt had experienced in his few years in the Corps. Forced to advance from their ideal fighting positions by falling debris, the troopers now faced the zerglings on open ground. The troopers fired into approaching swarm with reckless abandon, hoping to kill as many of the monsters as they could. Like a hydra, for each one they killed two more seemed to take its place as the troopers faced the full force of a dreaded "'ling rush." The standard issue laser rifle and accompanying light machine laser were practically a gift from God when they were put into full production a scant five years prior. They gave the Dominion scout troopers in their light infantry armor far more firepower, range, and sustainability than could be provided by the old Ferromag SMGs, and probably saved as many troopers' lives as power armor did for the infantry. The troopers cut down scores of zerglings before they could reach their lines. No simple weapon upgrade, however, could ever have defeated the full force of the Zerg Swarm on its own. The wave of zerglings crashed into the scout platoon's line in a singular mass of teeth and claws. The opposing sides were quickly forced into a bloody melee, where each trooper stood alone against four to one odds. Laser fire blasted in every direction as zerglings darted this way and that, one side in a desperate fight for survival while the other sought to overwhelm them with sheer numbers. To Matt, time seemed to slow to a crawl as he and Stuart, somehow managing to stay together despite the chaos, fell into a vicious cycle of acquiring a target, shooting, and dodging a lunge or swipe of claws with an occasional reload sprinkled in. The words of one of his old drill sergeants rang in his head each time he pulled the trigger of his rifle: Shoot 'em 'til they stop moving or change shape. While aiming for one zergling, Matt felt the grip of his rifle vibrate through his glove as he pulled the trigger: the sign his current power cell had run out of juice. He rolled to the side as he dodged a leap from the zergling and scrambled to retrieve another cell from his web gear. Not finding one, he pulled the entrenching tool from his belt, and swung the small shovel with its sharpened edge like an axe down on the zergling's neck, severing its spinal column. The creature let out a short squeak as it spasmed, then collapsed to the ground dead. Matt spun around, wielding the shovel like a viking berserker as he looked for his next target. His focus quickly turned to confusion when none presented themselves. Nervously, he surveyed the battlefield. It was littered with the corpses of zerglings and dead troopers, torn apart in gruesome fashion. A lake of blood surrounded them, and the entire Protoss ruin lay buried under a mountain of ice, save the plaza and warp gate with no sign of the brain-Zerg or its drones. Somehow. Some-fucking-how the troopers had won. Whether it be through the grace of God, dumb luck, or sheer fucking willpower, they won. Out of the twenty six troopers they had gone down with, only five remained standing, each looking as dumbstruck as Matt, but they had won.