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

Here comes the storm, my friend, Fenix said. He sighed, sounding rather put out. I hate fliers.

"A bit rich coming from you, isn't it?" you asked, grinning slightly. Your fingers played along your console - but you could see that it was going to get a little exciting here. You quickly started to warm up your arm mounted laser as your air-transports started to work. One of the disadvantages of building such a good industrial base was that fronts shifted. But thankfully, the UEF had built the galaxy's finest heavy transport vehicles. While you didn't need to bring out Continentals, you had prepared a flight of Star Lifters for this exact purpose. So while your edge of the wedge forces had been whittled down, dozens of flack guns and antiaircraft tanks were being snapped up into the mag-clamps of the spindly, stick-bug frames of the couple dozen Star Lifters you had built and prepared.

Mutalisks winged forward and Protoss Scouts started to engage - their rocket pods dropping missiles that whipped out and intercepted screeching bioforms. White flashes and splatters of red gore filled the air. Then, barging into the scene came your air transport. Streamers of tracers whipped from their mounted turrets as shrieking and screeching Mutalisks swarmed around them like swirling gnats. Tracer fire whipped through a wing membrane and sent a mutalisk swirling down to crunch before you. You stomped on the flopping thing as a mercy. "Lets get to work!"

The Star Lifters detatched their mag clamps as you lifted your arm and aimed your laser at the chevron of mutalisks that were sweeping straight for you. Your beam scythed through three at once, misted blood exploding around them. Fenix, meanwhile, had unfurled the top of his spider-ish body, revealing a recessed crystal. It hummed, flared, then shot a ball of plasma that enveloped a mutalisk, turning it into a smoldering pile of ash that crashed into the ground and smeared itself across stone and shale.

This is the way of the Templars, Samantha, fighting side by side against odds innumerable, Fenix said, his voice exalting as he fired shot after shot overhead. You whipped your beam out to cut a wing off a mutalisk, then checked down at your map. The Star Lifters had deployed the reinforcements and lifted into the air. You winced as you saw one swarmed and brought down. Fortunately, it had been brought down after it had brought a load of antiaircraft units with it: Flack exploded around the swarming mutalisks as the Star Liner smashed into the sands of the Antioch desert, blooming with fire and smoke.

Scout Wing 3 and 2, reform and strike from the north, Fenix's voice cracked into your mind. Ularh, focus your wings on interdiction flights.

Yes, Praetor, the carrier commander's response came in. Interceptors and Scouts alike weaved into the air above the mountain passes. Fenix actually thumped the side of your ACU's leg with one of his dragoon limbs, like a comrade slapping your shoulder.

Come, Samantha! We have more blood to spill before we reach those peaks.

"You are...quite a character, Fenix," you said, smiling despite yourself.

The two of you started up the mountain as more Mutalisks came screeching in and rocketry lit the sky overhead.

It took an alarming amount of time to actually set yourself up on the mountains. You had to fight off the Mutalisk swarms - you were fairly sure that your deployment of flack guns and antiaircraft units managed more than the somewhat beleaguered Protoss vehicles managed. You had noticed, they didn't seem to have any on the field repair systems. Their units, when too badly damaged to keep fighting, had to return through the Stargate to the Khalai Phase Smiths for repair. You wondered how much of that was cultural, and how much of that was a technological flaw with the Protoss' gear - it seemed so advanced...but was it too advanced for its own good?

But since Fenix's scout forces had ebbed somewhat, your Archers and their big brothers, the Sky Boxers, had taken up the slack. And now the airspace was...

Well.

Not clean exactly. There were maybe a few dozen mutalisks left, who have flapped back to the hive. But for the most part, you owned the sky. And from your position in the higher mountains, looking down at the infested jungle, you saw just how much farther you had to go: The hive here put the hive in Antioch to shame. You couldn't count the number of bioforms that were thronging down there, but you could definitely map out their defenses. It was less elegant than you'd have laid them out, even in the gathering twilight as the sun dipped below the horizon: Rather than making choke points or chevrons to draw enemies into interlocking fields of fire, they had simply stuffed every approach with sunken colonies and creep colonies, glistening and interlocking like a vast swath of melanoma spreading across someone's skin.

How fares the battles of your fellow Commanders? I...can hardly believe we've gotten so far. Had it been merely us two, we would be facing attacks from east, west, even north as the costal hives responded to the psychic call of their stricken brethren. But instead, we have had our hands free to grapple with this beast, Fenix said, turning his dragoon on his rocky perch to face you.

You tapped at your console - the base back in Antioch was too far to easily support you, so you had simply built a new one. The mountain range had enough raw materials to support a second - and you were pretty sure they'd be ready for a night attack - it meant no difference for your vehicle's sensors. The green false colors of the NVC on your ACU activated - painting the jungle in a splotchy series of colors that was almost more readable than just straight cameras.

"Tosh and Matt have flattened the coastal hives. They're landing amphibious assaults as large as this one. That's why these Zerg haven't gotten any reinforcements." You smirked, slightly. "I don't think that they're used to being outnumbered."

You tapped the stim button on your console. Stims were safe to use for a few days before the psychological toll started hitting you. As you felt your focus snapping in a bit more, Stukov's face appeared in the picture-in-picture. He had gotten another cup of coffee - since he could be spelled by other officers and take naps, he didn't need to rely on something as pharmacologically complex as you.

"General," he said. "You've gotten a message coming in from General Warfield."

You pursed your lips. "What is it?"

"He wants to talk," he said.

You rubbed your jaw.

This Warfield...he comes bearing gifts for our people. Medicine, supplies. They are welcome, yes, but he also comes with Mengsk's stink, Fenix said, gruffly. But it seems to me he comes bearing scraps - you have brought us so close to having our planet once more. With the costal hives destroyed, and this? The Zerg forces would be broken, our warriors could strike back without fearing our civilians being overrun by counter attacks. The world of Aiur could be ours within a month! And you have done all this for a single Khandarian crystal? While Warfield instead asks that we turn our blades against you, the very woman who has brought us this victory?

"is that why he's here?" you asked.

I presumed as much, Fenix admitted. Though...I admit...it was Friend Raynor who thought through such a twisting path. Raynor was always the cleverer one.

You frowned. "I wasn't so impressed with what I've seen of Jim Raynor so far."

Ah, uh, ahem, Fenix started, sounding a little awkward - defensive of his freind, you were sure, but before he could continue, you tapped on the communication systems.

General Warfield was a tough looking, middle aged, grizzled son of a bitch with an unfair amount of melatonin - enough to make you jealous, thinking of how many times you'd needed to slather on sunblock whenever you went outside on some planets that were nominally habitable. He had salt and pepper hair, a well trimmed mustache, and looked ready to spit nails.

"General Clarke," he said, his voice rough. "I have been dispatched to this planet with orders to see about the humanitarian aide to these Protoss. I...have asked my Emperor what to do with you. He has asked me to...offer you a diplomatic meeting. He is interested in talking terms with your government, and seeing a peaceful alliance between the Terran Dominion and the United Earth Federation."

You quirked an eyebrow.


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Double vote today! Firstly, talking is a free action!

[ ] "We are willing to meet with your Emperor."
[ ] "The Terran Dominion is an illegitimate colonial government responsible for multiple egregious human rights violations - the only peaceful outcome is their immediate and unconditional surrender."
[ ] Write In

Next! You got a hive with teeming masses of colonies.

[ ] Operation: Opening the Way - make sure your factories are online, then begin building up artillery in the mountains and start bombarding the Zerg defensive line. It worked before, and you are confident that Fenix can smash the hive.
[ ] Operation: Night Dawn - you want to end this conclusively and decisively while the Dominion watches...and, damn it all, you want to get back to E1 and have a shower. Nuke them. ...after getting permission from Fenix, of course.
[ ] Write In