THE INFINITE BROOD (Starcraft/Supreme Commander Crossover Quest!)

The displacement wave of the quantum tunneling event triggered three rockslides - tumbling boulders the size of small cars jouncing and bouncing their way down the black and red inclines and towards the molten river of lava that seethed between plateaus. When the dust settled and your cameras flickered and crackled to life, you took a moment to do a slow pan around your landing site and winced.

Redstone was as ugly on the planetary surface as it had looked from the bridge of the E1.

"The place is mineral rich as hell, but I'm not sure how our extraction tech is going to work in these conditions," Matt said over the line as you started to march your ACU forward. The heavy thump of the armored walker's feet caused red dust to explode upwards in thick plumes, shrouding your ACU's knees and shins in mist. You came to the edge of the plateau you had arrived on, looking out over seeing masses of lava, roiling volcanos, and other examples of tectonic activity. "For an extractor to work, it has to actually have time to extract. We're detecting lava flows that will wash everything away on a regular pattern."

"And Zerg," you said.

"And...and what?" Matt asked.

"We're not detecting any Zerg bioforms from orbit, sir," Stukov said. "The density must be too low for us to register them through the atmospheric disturbance."

You zoomed in with your camera. "They're not alone."

Everyone up in the E1 could see what you were seeing: A bulbous Terran airship was cruising through the air, kept aloft by a series of flickering thrusters that moved it sluggishly eastward. It was hovering above the endless lava flows that made up huge portions of the Restone surface - and it was being harried by several mutalisks. The creatures seemed unpreturbed by the smoky, smoggy atmosphere, their wings beating as they swung around it and spat their glistening acidic symbionts at the structure. At your 100x magnification, you could see the armor plating starting to peel away, and secondary fires sparking to life.

A voice came over the radio.

"-peat, this is Harvest-01, goddamn it ya'll where are you!"

"Hold your horses, Harvest-01..."

"Hold my...there's some goddamn motherluvin' zerg all over my backside, Marauder Actual!"

You spotted the incoming reinforcements. A single gull winged dropship, cruising towards the floating airship. On the wings of the ship were what appeared to be men and women in combat power armor, with bulky backpacks. They were clinging on with their bare hands while shooting by at supersonic speeds above an ocean of molten lava.

"Are...are they insane?" Matt asked.

"It appears to be the case, Major," Stukov said. "Registering twelve...no, thirteen life signatures aboard the dropship, all Terran."

"I-" you started.

But the mutalisks had spotted something - either the heat or the movement or simply the new and more interesting target. Their wings beat and they flapped towards the incoming dropship.

"-I think they are insane, the ship has no guns on it," you said.

"Yeehaw!"

The tinny voice crackling over the radio was male and eager. The first of the Terrans flung themselves off the wing of the incoming dropship - and then their backpack flared with orange-white light. Smoke exploded from their back and they actually began to cruise upwards, gaining in altitutde. At the apogee of their flight, their backpack's rocket thrusters cut out and gravity once more started to drag them down. As they dropped, one hand blazed away with a hand weapon, while the other threw something too small for you to see clearly - but whatever it was, it impacted right into the mouth of the lead mutalisk.

The entire creature's lower jaw exploded with a crack of red fire and a spray of blood. Its left wing beat spasmodically - but it was holed dozens of times. The entire monster dropped into the lake of fire as the Terran maniac dropped onto the roof of the hovering airship. He almost skidded over the side and dropped into the lava, but caught himself at the last second. The other mutalisks were flying at his comrades, who were all repeating the same tactic. One mutalisk exploded in a spray of gore as three grenades hit it at once - but the third spat.

Its symbiote struck a man in the chest and cut him in half. One half, attached to the jetpack, shot straight upwards and exploded, while the legs dropped into the lava. The symbiote continued on at a right angle, rebounding off the man and slamming into the shoulder of a second - rebounding and slamming into the belly of a third. The first of the two hit smashed, back first, into the hovering airship, skidded, then plunged into the lava with a shriek that came over the radio and cut off with stark, horrible suddeness. The third managed a landing on the roof and was caught by the others who had landed safely.

The mutalisk continued barreling at the dropship.

"Eat shit you mother-"

The dropship slammed, nose first, into the mutalisk and smashed it into the side of the airship. The airship rocked hard on its thrusters, almost spilling every insane Terran on it into the lava. But then the airship righted itself as the mutalisk dropped, both wings crumpled and broken. As it landed, the dropship skimmed backwards, blood smearing the cockpit.

"Ha ha! Scratch one muta-patrol, Marauder Actual!"

"Good work, boys," a crooning female voice purred. "See, you get what you pay for."

"I apparently pay for insane people!" Harvester-01's pilot shouted. "Han, you said you had Wraiths!"

"Darling, darling, I have wraiths protecting Harvest-02 and 03 from pirates. Much worse than some feral little creatures, yes?"

The airship had reached the far end of the lava and, to your lack of surprise, came down next to an outcropping of gold, blue and red crystals. As it settled, it extended a series of bracing arms, and unfolded a series of doorways, while the roof swiveled around in a massive twisting circle. The rocket-pack equipped lunatics jetted off and landed among the crowd of workers emerging from the front door, while heavy duty construction machines started to emerge and mine the minerals with sparking, hissing laser cutters.

"...what are they doing?" Stukov asked as you zoomed in.

"They appear to be enjoying refreshments," you said.

The jetpack madmen had pulled off their gas masks, goggles and helmets, tossed down what appeared to be a device for transporting cryogenically stored colonists that had been retrofitted into a beer cooler and were chugging down bright silvery cans of alcohol. Those that finished their cans smashed them on their foreheads, threw them over the plateau edge and into the lava river, and, in one case, tried to use their pistol to blow a hole in the bottom of a can to chug it from the base while the others jeered, laughed and shouted over the radio in an overlapping babble.

"My god," you said, quietly. "That's not a goddamn army. It's a fucking frat house."

"Secondary scans, we've managed to isolated the other Terran settlements. All of them are similar nomadic units - but there appears to be a battlecruiser in very, very, very low orbit - hovering over a central part, shielded from prevailing winds by a mountain range..." Stukov said, the clacking, clattering sound of his keyboard at work filling the coms. "An entire mercenary army!"

"Han's Marauders, huh?" Matt muttered.

"And the Confederate facility?"

"Still searching. You may need to dispatch air scouts for that, General." Stukov said.

You frowned.

---
HEAT: 0/6

SPARKS: None, yet!

[ ] Contact the mercs. If anyone's seen the base, it'd be them, right? (Diff 5 Charm Check - 3 Heat)
[ ] Prepare to launch air scouts and see if you can find it yourself. (Diff 5 Operational Expertise - 3 heat)
[ ] Write In

Doing it stealthily will make a Stealth spark. 1 means you'll get to act one time before being noticed, 2 means you can act twice before being noticed!