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

And what, Earther, are those?

Your grin was wry. You turned your ACU around to face the sprawling factories and the tier three economic structures you had set up. The mass and energy output of your base would have made just about anyone in the UEF proud to have their centerpiece. You tapped a few buttons.

"Factories," you said, casually.

The factories began to spit out tanks. Nanolathes hissed and buzzed as the first of the main battle tanks, anti-aircraft guns, artillery pieces and infantry bots started to roll off the production line. They marshaled into rectangular formations before the factories before you circled them with a finger and tapped them out to begin creating a battle-line. Before the first of the Protoss vehicles came through their stargates, you were fairly sure you had nearly a hundred units on the field, with engineers working to begin expanding the fusion and mass generation systems you had in the rear line.

By the Gods, Fenix said, sounding awed. So many warriors - but...where do they come from? Why do they fight for you?

You snorted. "Praetor, they're robots."

Robots. He sounded unsure, like he was tasting the word on his...hmm...Protoss didn't have tongues, did they. As you considered that, he continued. We use some robotic vehicles to support our wars, yes. But they are just that. Support, as the shield or the armor or our psi emitters are supports. Without the guiding hand of the Khala, and the will of our warriors behind them, they are naught but unfeeling metal and circuitry. How can you fight a battle without the driving will to see it to victory?

Your grin was that of an iron wolf. "The UEF doesn't fight battles, Praetor. We win wars."

"General," Stukov's voice came over the line. "We're detecting a sudden increase in Zerg movement."

"Good," you said. Your finger tapped out a furious pattern of commands and your engineers trundled forward. The Klink Hammer was a basic fixed artillery building- and you knew you weren't building enough to meaningfully stop the incoming Zerg. Oh, you had built dozens of them before the first tendril of Zerg forces began to swarm from their hives - and you were fairly sure nearly fifty, with adjacent direct fire cannons and sand-trap pits would be up and prepared before the Zergling wave hit you. But you had worked long and hard on how to force your human brain to grasp the difference in scale between millions. That was about where a person stopped being able to quite grasp the scales they were working with.

Not so for you.

So, when the Zerglings arrived at your defensive lines, you were not shocked to see the effect.

The first wave was a nearly solid wave of chitin and flesh and blades and glittering red eyes. The Zerglings moved by leaping and bounding forward, their claws chewing up the sands as they sprang forward and landed. Their movements were eerily fluid, and you could barely tell if any of them missed a jump or flubbed a landing - though you were grimly sure that in that mad stamped of biomass that the Zerg were taking more casualties than a human army would suffer in years of fighting old world style, just by surging forward. How many thousands were being trampled by missing their steps, tripping in the sand, simply being clawed over by a Zergling that was faster, hungrier, more feral?

It was nothing to when the artillery started.

The Klink hammer used small nanolathes to produce their shells - a heavy caliber, range selected explosive round that was designed to burst in the air for maximum effect, throwing down shrapnel, concussion and fire with enough power to mulch tanks, let alone organics. The effect on the Zergling swarm was almost biblical. Fountains of gore larger than small hills bloomed out of the crowd and the Zerglings kept coming. The detonations roared and flared and flashed and more bursts of flesh filled the horizon, visible even from a distance. Then they came into range of the direct fire point defense. More cannon shells and rapid fire rounds started to slam into them.

Such destructive power, with such primitive tools! Fenix exclaimed.

"That's our specialty. Tried. Tested. True." You said, then tapped at the coms. "General Clarke to Major Horner. How are you doing down there?"

Matt's face appeared in the picture in picture. His grin was wry. "The naval production is going a pace. We've got no Zerg now - I think we'll be able to get a full flotilla ready before we hit the coastlines."

You nodded. "GC Tosh?"

His face appeared, looking as calm and unreadable as ever. "The fleet's being built fast as I can manage. We have some minor harassment from fliers. You?"

You glanced back at the screen. A hundred thousand, maybe more, Zergling had to have been destroyed by now. The holes blown in their lines kept getting filled with yet more Zerglings - and each time those ragged, gore filled, corpse stuffed holes was filled, the Zerglings got closer and closer. You saw the instant the first Zergling landed on one of the forward stationed tier one point defense cannons. Its sister cannon shot the Zergling off it, leaving a red smear of gore on the tower. But then five more Zerglings landed. They dug their claws into it - and before the fellow cannons could shoot the Zerglings, they burrowed inside. The cannon burst. The fire slackened.

More Zerglings.

The first firing position went dark. Then the second. Then the third.

"Here they come," you said.

An admirable effort, Earther! Fenix shouted over the chittering din that was now reaching your auditory pickups. But now, our battle becomes one of blade to blade! ...metaphorically speaking on our case. Oh what I would not give for my old body. To dive into this swarm, this swarm of swarms, with my blades thrumming! Hah! Then his voice shifted. Kill them.

You realized he wasn't speaking to you when the first wing of Protoss air superiority fighters screamed by overhead. They were narrow, golden, and swift as any jet you had seen, though they were large enough for you to classify them mentally as gunships. They flew over the Zergling swarms so close you were shocked none leaped up to chew on the air support. Then their guns and their missiles opened up at the same time. Their main cannons didn't seem to be firing physical shells - instead, they left strobing pulses of blue-white fire in the air, and in their wake, lines of gore tore into the Zergling swarm. Then the missiles hit and bloomed with blue spheres of light that expanded outwards. When they pulled up, you swore they were splattered with gore.

"So, I was meaning to ask," you said, casually. "Can we use your teleport network?"

No, Fenix said.

"I mean, I thought we were working together," you said, glancing at his picture-in-picture, ignoring the firework display as the scouts continued to hammer the Zerglings. The lines hadn't gotten closer since they had overwhelmed your defenses - and their numbers were actually beginning to thin. You were honestly a little surprised.

Oh, no, I don't mean no as in I would keep you, Clarke of Earth, from our teleportation network, never think that. You have already shown your skill on the field of battle to humble many a would be Zealot - though you work through machines, I can see the mind that guides them in your arrayment of defenses - had it not been for their placement, we surely would have been slain before my Scout forces be launched. No, our psychic connection, our Khala, is what allows the transportation of forces hither and thon. Were it not for this connection betwixt our peoples and our machinery, the teleportation network would be as destructive and costly as your own.

"I see," you said, slowly. "So, you have a hive mind like the Zerg?"

Fenix actually managed to glare at you, despite the tubes heading into his ravaged face.

No, he said, bristling. To compare the glorious union of the Khala to the overweening control of the fell Overmind! It is an insult to our very people!

"Sorry," you said, holding up hand, then frowned. "The hive's active."

That it is! It seems, Feral or not, they become aware of the danger - behold! The terror of the spacelanes...Scourge!

"I've seen them before," you said, grimly, as before your eyes, eggs by the hundreds began to form and hatch into swarms of those hideous living cruise missiles. Their wings were spread wide and they hissed through the air without any sign of propulsion you could tell. The Protoss scouts, though, didn't show any sign of being afraid. They screamed towards the Zerg base - and began to bomb the everloving hell out of the hive, weaving between Scourge swarms and pulling away as spores launches up by the creep colonies darkened the sky. While one or two burst with blue-white fire and crashed, the majority managed to keep themselves in the air...

---
The Zerglings have been obliterated and the hive is being bombed by the Protoss. But you know what they say about winning wars with the airforce, yeah? The Hive is still a terribly potent force and beating it won't be easy!

[ ] Operation: Beneath the Treads - send in the tanks until the Hive is nothing but a smear under their treads. Risky, but will finish this stage of the battle with a conclusive victory.
[ ] Operation: Softening the Ground - use forward placed artillery to rain fire down on the Hive. Will hopefully keep the Hive from taking action as you build up for a safer push. Safer...assuming the hive doesn't do anything unexpected.
[ ] Write In

"Keep your scouts behind our lines - but close enough to tempt them, Fenix," you said, confidently. "Lets show you what a properly teched up anti aircraft weapon can fucking do." Your fingers flew across the console and your forces began to move forward. You watched, intently, through the overhead view and the picture-in-picture view from the front of several of your forward mech marines. The gore and the blackened glass was sickening. You glanced from it to the data coming in from the coasts. Orbital images of gleaming battleships with superfiring long-guns sitting off the side of crystals white beaches and oceanic water so pure it looked drinkable.

The guns flashed brightly enough to be pinpricks of fire from space - and you scrolled the view inland. Zerg hives bloomed with subnuclear explosions as the shells began to rain down. Tracer fire stitched into the sky as mutalisks and the hovering guardians came within the CICS range of the destroyers and cruisers that flanked the majestic bombardment craft. Your grin was feral. Fierce.

You turned your screens back to your front.

Hah! The foolish beasts run directly into your guns - and any that get through, my scouts can smite with a vengeance! But do you have enough ground units to conquer this pustule of Zerg corruption? Fenix asked as you watched...well, precisely what he had said play out on your screen. Scourge burst with vile pops of green and yellow bile, some exploding with orange flares of light as the multi-part chemical warhead that was their body mixed together and exploded in air.

"Not quite, Fenix," you said, giving firing orders.

The artillery you had massed with your anti-air units started to wheel their guns back into hire firing arcs. The roar was audible even from your distance, even through your ACU. You fabricated some coffee and watched the effect of nearly two hundred and thirty six discrete units firing down on the Zerg. It was a relatively small force compared to their Zergling masses, but the sunken colony defense seemed to rely on enemies getting within tentacle range - a secondary line of defense against units that were hounded away from their prepared positions by Zerg forces. So...the end result was that you got to enjoy the blooming of fire among the base. Buildings burned and burst, organic sprays of gore barely visible among the smoke.

"Now, we-"

Look out! Fenix called out - and you blinked, to see what he was referring too. You scowled. Somehow, spines and blades were exploding among your tanks, shredding their undercarriages and ripping apart their ammo tanks. Your artillery began to pop off in worrying speed and you tpped at your screen, trying to see where the damn things were coming from. I fear your attack has run into Lurkers.

"Hell," you muttered, then quickly gave orders. "Okay, Fenix...do you see that?"

I do indeed... he said, quietly. Very good, friend Samantha. Now, you will see what the nascent Golden Armada can do...

The stargates glowed.

And a Protoss capital ship emerged. Graceful. Sweeping. Immense. It hovered above the ground so close that the grav-effects of its engines kicked up dust eddies and vibrated you almost out of your chair. You felt your teeth buzzing as the carrier cruised past the line of your base, parking itself among a cluster of scouts.

Carrier has arrived, a Protoss female spoke through the telepathic radio they used.

Destroy the base. Witness how our bold Earther allies have destroyed their creep defenses! Fenix said. Now, Carrier Adelpha!

Kokal'tulah! the female protoss said, sounding eager.

You expected the carrier, then, to disgoruge waves of fighters. You weren't disappointed. Wave upon wave upon wave of golden darts emerged from the massive starship. They swept down upon the Zerg hive, firing bolts of blue white energy that smashed into buildings and bioforms with equal abandon.

The Zerg fought back - and you were shocked to see several fighters take damage from sprays of bone shards or creep spores…and rather than retreating, they continued fighting until they were too damaged. Even then, they sold their life dearly: several smashed into a hive cluster at once and it was torn to pieces. As if he could read your...hmm…Fenix spoke up.

They are but robotic craft, guided by the commander of the carrier, Templar Trisalis. It is her will you see at work here.

"How Earther of her," you said, dryly.

The carrier remained hovering over the ruins as your ACU and Fenix's dragoon body stomped over corpses that numbered in the millions. Zerg bodies, you reminded yourself. Just Zerg. They weren't people. Zerg didn't love, or laugh, or make jokes. They were just animals. Just weapons.

You kept thinking the mantra, as your ACU's shin became smeared with gore.

Ah what a glorious battle, Fenix said with absolute bloodthirsty satisfaction. Not since the Great War have we slaughtered so many Zerg.

You grunted quietly rather than respond, looking ahead. The next region was jungle that had become just as infested as anywhere else…but you could already see the shapes moving. Stukov's voice sounded a tad harried - since he was the one who had to make sense of all this.

"General, those are muralists. Lots of them. But I'm also picking up what appears to be hundreds of building scale cocoons…I believe they're massively expanding their creep colonies! Sunken, spore…hundreds of them!"

You lifted your gaze to the horizon. The jungle growing beyond the mountains that the first Zerg hive had grown on were becoming cloudy…but not with storms.

Muralists we're coming.

—-
Here! Come! THE DRUMS!

[ ] Operation: Steel Skies - using your massed anti air units, begin knocking down mutalisk swarms! You can take down more than half of them before your fusion reactor is tapped out, then deploy some point defense and weather the rest.
[ ] Operarion: Sunrise - use your nanolathe and factories to build the infrastructure for deployment of strategic weapons on the zerg hive.
[ ] write in!