Synopsis: One Gamma Commander, One Malfunctioning Unit Database, an uncontrolled plummet out of...
Reverse Engineering For Fun and Profit (Planetary Annihilation/Multicross SI)
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Index + Chapter 1
TikiTau
Commander Pangolinski
- Location
- Texas
Synopsis: One Gamma Commander, One Malfunctioning Unit Database, an uncontrolled plummet out of orbit, a Reverse Engineering Protocol, and the Koprulu Sector. Let's rumble!~
A/N: Yeah...so...I'm kiiiiiiind of bad at keeping on target. Work on one writing project, and the ol' muse goes '...Heeeey. You like giant robots.' 'This is true.' 'And explosions.' 'Yes.' 'And brutally self replicating mechanisms of war, right?' 'Also tr-...oh dammit.' 'mweeheeheehee!'
So, Yet Another Tiki Story! Hope ya'll like it. Feel free to comment and the like if you want. :3
-Worlds Visited-
Starcraft
Mass Effect
Dead Space (Gibbs)
-Personae Dramatis-
-Index-
Chapter 1: Orbital Drop (Chapter starts below Index)
Chapter 2: Goals and Guns
Chapter 3: Step 1, Profit. Step 2, More Profit.
Chapter 4: Step 3: Spaaaaaaaaace. Gotta go to SPACE!
Chapter 5: Firstblood
Chatper 6: Go Big or Go Extinct
Chapter 7: Sneaking Mission
Chapter 8: Gunship Interrupt
Chapter 9: Brutal Cunning
Chapter 10: 3, 2, 1...Let's Jam!
Chapter 11: Space Medicine! In Space!
Chapter 12: This Isn't Warcraft In Space! It's much more sophisticated.
Chapter 13: Artificial Intelligence, Authentic Idiocy
Chapter 14: Secure Cerebrate Protocol
Chapter 15: Charlie's Foxtrot Dance Night!
Chapter 16: Damage Control
Chapter 17: Stuff Blowing Up
Chapter 18: Big Gun, It's Showtime!
Chapter 19: Burn, Baby, Burn!
Chapter 20: Picking Up The Pieces
Chapter 21: Finding Loose Ends
Chapter 22: It's The Only Way To Be Sure
Chapter 23: Derailment
Chapter 24: Return To Sender
Chapter 25: An Offer You Can Refuse
Chapter 26: Danger Zone!
Chapter 27: Walk This Way~
Chapter 28: So Long, Koprulu, And Thanks For All The Fish Tech!
Interlude 1: Damn You, Science!
Chaper 29: Setting Up. In Space. Again.
Interlude 2: Get Yer Guns On, Boy!
Chapter 30: Corsair Diplomacy
Chapter 31: Legitimate Business Volus
Interlude 3: Space Dungeon Bypass (Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Plasma Blade)
Chapter 32: Holding Up The Void
Chapter 33: He Had It Coming
Chapter 34: The Loud Voice
Interlude 4: SOMEONE Failed An Uncanny Valley Check
Chapter 35: MEANWHILE!
Chapter 36: The Reward of Training Well Done
Chapter 37: It's ORIENTATION DAY!~
Chapter 38: The Extranet. The Extranet Never Changes.
Chapter 38.5: New Car Lot, 2165 Edition
Interlude 5: Dynamic Engineering
Chapter 39: DIPLOMANCEY!
Chapter 39.5: Shopping With A Nerazim
Chapter 40: Dusk Negotiations
Interlude 6: Obliterwhatnow?
Chapter 41: Integration
Chapter 42: What's The Question, Then?
Chapter 43: The Silver Armada
Chapter 44: Inner Universe
Chapter 45: It's Just Business
Chapter 46: CDI: A Brief Briefing
The first thing I thought when I woke up was 'man, that was a good nap.'
The second, however, would be most accurately described as '00101110 00101110 00101110 01110111 01101000 01100001 01110100', followed up by '01010010 01001111 01000010 00100000 01011001 01001111 01010101 00100000 01000010 01000001 01010011 01010100 01000001 01010010 01000100'.
Maybe with a few more expletives. Well deserved, you know. Anyways, enough binary, it's mostly just for effect, if I'm being honest. I mean, really, Progenitor coding? Waaaay more advanced than just 'yes' or 'no'.
After all, when I last fell asleep back home, I was a squishy meatsack, I certainly wasn't a fifteen meter tall, brutally efficient, self-replicating mechanism of war and conquest.
To make a point, I ALSO wasn't plunging headfirst towards a grungy looking mess of a red planet. Oh, hey, it's actually mostly water, and the coloring is due to a high iron content! Neat! Wait, no, not neat, not neat! Water landings suck too! Water hates high speed direct impacts!
...Come on, come on...Lessee, poking around the ol' brain quantum foam bank...Mmm.. Mmmhmm. Oh, hey, lessee…Hah! Got it!
'Automatic Landing Protocols have been disabled. Please activate Manual Landing Protocols'.
...Okay, okay, I can fix this. I mean, y'know, landing protocols. Useful, useful, because, y'know, according to the data my (totally bullshit hypertech, Oh I Wish YOu DiDn't GIVE ME ALL THIS INFORMATION RIGHT NOW AS I PLUNGE TO MY PAINFUL DEMISE) sensors are picking up, I'm kiiiiind of de-orbiting at unsafe speeds.
Unsafe speeds FOR A COMMANDER. Yeeeah. Right, right, panicking a bit, brain the metaphorical size of a planet doesn't help when I'm panicking...Searching.
Oh, thank the Maker, there it is, Manual Landing Protocols! Just need to upload you to the pod, annnnd... Engage!
Ah Ah Ah! You didn't say the Magic Word!
*Cyberattack detected.*
...Please?
*Engaging countermeasures*
Ah Ah Ah! You didn't say the Magic Word!
*Countermeasures ineffective. Corruption increasing. Attack continuing. Quarantining damaged files*
Can I hack this? The password or the lockout or the virus? I'm a super computer, right? C'mon, magical superscience brain, erm...hack the password. Please?
*File corruption...increEesing.*
Ah Ah Ah! You didn't say the Magic Word!
*Core set to isolation mode…*
…
*Isolation mode disabled. Data corruption in progress*
…well...that sort of thing worked in Ghost in the Shell. Damn.
…Hum.
So! Yeah! Not only am I a fifteen meter tall Commander in a reentry pod, I'm in one without active landing thrusters or their Progenitor tech equivalent to ensure the standard 'safe' landing. (...Well, relatively safe, given it drops the equivalent of a nuke on the landing site, but what's a little orbital kinetic weaponry between friends?) that's currently getting devoured by the cyberworm from hell!
Thanks, ROB. Dick. I hope Gork and Mork nutshot you during your next poker tournament.
Welp. Low enough the altimeter just kicked in. Those numbers are going down waaaaay too fast, and surface heat of my pod is picking up. I can just say without fear of being questioned that this is gonna su-
*TRANSMISSION INTERRUPTED*
*Damage Report: PRimARmy Reactor, offline. Strrrrr-rrr-rrructural integrity CR-CR-CRIIIIITICAL. Primary Sennn sors, Offline. ECM, Offline. ECCM, Offline. Uber Cann-can-can-cannon, offline. Secondary Reactor, Offline. Primaaarrry had a little lamb little lamb little lamb Resource Core, offline. Multifunctional Phased Disassembly/Reassembly Nanoarray, offline. Galateeeaaaa party party party we are gonna have a party Launchers, offline. Blaster Cannon Array, Offline. Tertiary Reactor Offli-Functional, One Percent functionality retained. Surviving Primary Systems Switched to Safe Mode. Entering Primary Consciousness Hibernation. Emergency Repair Systems, Online. Estimated Time To Revival: Error. Insufficient Data.*
*...*
*...*
*...*
*...*
*...*
*...*
*Unknown Signal Detected. Beginning Emergency Reboot Sequence*
*Tertiary Reactor...Initializing...Ten percent...Thirty...Sixty...One hundred percent. Reactor Online.*
*Resource Core, reactivated. Beginning fuel synthesis*
*Secondary Reactor...Chamber priming...beginning primary fuel feed...Test firing complete. Reactor Online*
*Preparing for Primary Ignition*
*Primary Reactor...Primed...Test Firing complete. Reactor Online.*
*Beginning System Reinitialization*
*Sensors online*
*ECM online*
*ECCM online*
*Uber Cannon...Insufficient Energy For Repeat Fire. Cannon online.*
*Construction Array: Online
*Galatea Personal Air Defense System: Online*
*Blaster Cannon Array: Online*
*Resource Core...Online*
*Disengaging Emergency Repair System*
*Primary Conscioiusness LNCMDR_GAMMA44268_LEGIO_INDOMINUS...Loading...Successful...Booting up*
Whaaaaaaa-
*Welcome back, Commander. WARNING: DATA CORRUPTED. ATTEMPT RECOVERY?*
Yes
*CORE MODULE..: FRAGMENTATION. RESTORATION IN PROGRESS. INTEGRITY RESTORED*
Well, that's good, I don't want to not be me…
*DATABANKS...INCOMPLETE*
Grand. Status?
*CORRUPTION TRACED TO FOREIGN VIRUS CURRENTLY LOCATED IN MANUFACTURING MODULE*
...Oh, you have to be kidding me. I haven't had a drop go this ploin shaped since that Assault on Progenitor Command back during the War.
...Wait, how do I remember that? Oh. I see. Interesting. Personality melding with a foreign 'imprint' mmm? Well, something to look at later. Let's see…...fine bit of hacking if it got past the automatic defensive firewalls...annnnd let's see how much the bastard got.
…
Yeah. Final tally? Sucks to be me..
Bot Factory Data? Wiped.
Air Factory Data? Wiped.
Vehicle Factory Data? Wiped.
Naval...Wiped.
Orbital: Partial recovery. Least I can get off this chunk of rock with some luck, assuming nothing is going to shoot me down on atmospheric exit (And can find me. I mean, Progenitor ECM is pretty bullshit). ONE orbit-to-ground plunge unaided was enough, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
Facilities...Grand, most of my Tier 2 is at least just fragmented, not destroyed and deleted like my other default designs were. Starting recovery...Yeah, just going to split off a thought-thread to deal with that.
To make things more fun, apparently ROB left me a present. In this case, the utterly vicious little cyberworm that it used to punch a hole in my programming in the first place. The auto-repair systems managed to quarantine the thing...but doing so damaged the hell out of my design subroutines. They're...sort of there. Just...well…
The estimate I keep getting when querying my repair system for finishing fixing those delicious design programs is <ERROR UNDEFINED>.
Great.
Ah well, least I have the basics, and my databanks still have my tech base buried in there...It's just not the easily buildable 'standard' stuff, since most of THAT is fragmented to hell and back. You thought normal defrags were bad, try piecing together a fragmented file literally made out of quantum fluff that's had...erm...according to my internal clock, 'Yes' amount of years to further deteriorate. Just going to take time to fix, I suppose.
Not all bad news, though! I've still got a few bits and pieces that made it through alright. Gotta love backups of backups of backups, and even those got damaged.
My beloved Holkins and Pelter are here, all warm and snuggly in my mind. And the good ol' Galatea and a Laser Tower. Mm. Metal Extractor, Basic Generators, Radar Tower, Storage Facilities...Well, I've won with less.
Time to bring sensors off standby now, let's see what I'm buried i-LAKJLKEHFAJLKFJEA OH GOD EW EW EW EW EW GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFF EW EW EW EW EW EW EW IT IS ON MY FACE IT IS ON MY SENSORS OH GOD IT'S WIGGLING AGAINST ME GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFFFFFFF NOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW-
*TRANSMISSION INTERRUPTED*
*UBER CANNON VOLLEY DISCHARGED. RECHARGE SEQUENCE COMMENCING. TRANSMISSION RESUMING*
Nnnnnngh. Ow. Note to self: Point blank Uber Cannon shots while in an enclosed coffin of sedimentary rock? Not the best option. Still! Optimism: I"m not covered in Filthy Organic GOOP anymore, and now I can see the surface, and a lot of charred biomatter.
That's growing back.
And purple.
And pulsing.
…..ROB, YOU MOTHER F-
*TRANSMISSION INTERRUPTED*
*Personality Matrix Destabilized*
*Re-establishing*
Owwwww…..Note to self, Raging until I manage to crash Progenitor hardware HURTS. Also looks like I'm not quite back to full condition...Mm. Right. Engaging the ol' Multiarm, slurp up the rock around, convert you into mass, dum de dum dum, I love you right now Progenitor Bullshit Hypertech...Annnnd there we go, path to freedom. Eat my dust (which isn't Dust, mind you, mmmm delicious picotech I want you so bad, that's bullshit that the Progenitors would nod approvingly at. Oh, right, attention drifting again) Minecrafters.
I Walk Upon The World Once More.
...Annnnd promptly wish I wasn't. Ew.
When you were a kid, did you ever run around barefoot in the summer and step in a pile of dog excrement?
Yeah.
Walking on Creep feels like that times at least fifty, plus the stuff moves and bucks against your foot. Ggggh. If I had a gorge, I'd lose it now...but luckily, I don't!
Annnnd tactile emulation sensors to feet...off! Much better.
Oh, hey there little Zerg Drone! Aren't you adorable?~~~
*SQUISH*
Heh heh heh. Oh, look, your Hatchery!~ Be a shame if someone, I dunno...Accidentally An Explosioned It!
*WEAPONS ONLINE. UBER CANNON FIRING. BURN, XENO SCUM*
Anyways, after a fit of cathartic violence, I stop, switching the nanoarray (...Really should choose a designation for that thing) over to 'reclamation' mode. Lessee...Yep, thank you, Game and Story Integration. Looks like Zerg, per the lore, use those funky resource crystals (can't remember the name off the top of my head) as a way to strengthen their carapaces and bodies a bit. Said funky crystals contain the materials needed to forge (admittedly inferior to GLORIOUS PROGENITOR BULLSHIT alloy) advanced alloys. So…
Dead Zerg? Kinda like popcorn, if you can ignore the fact they look like -filthy space roaches-. Num. The dying creep is hoovered up too, adding trace amounts to my metal stockpiles, but, more importantly, clearing off the ground for proper construction. Through luck or ROB not being a complete and utter ass, there's a good spot for an extractor here.
Well, with the Space Bugs dead and the area cleared off, time to set up a small firebase. Dum de dum dum, Metal extractor, a generator, some turrets, a few pelters just in case, a radar array, more generators…
Hey, Neat. Right, Glorious Progenitor Bullshit. Radar array works perfectly well as a comms relay as well.
I'm not on some Maker Forsaken Planet with nothing but Zerg for company, since I'm pickin' up comm chatter now. In English. Good ol' Space English.
"-hift your lazy asses, you Resoc Rejects! They're coming over the hill again! Steady...steady...FII-"
I pause, my systems shifting as I glance down at a bit of discarded debris that I stepped on, formerly covered in creep, reading the lettering on it.
Heh.
Heh heh.
HehHAHHAHHAHAHAHHAHAH!
I can't help it. I laugh…Because, in a Backwater Sector, on a Backwater Planet, at Backwater Station...A Commander builds a metal extractor.
Three potentially hostile races, a heavily damaged and fragmented fabrication database that is currently severely limiting my current options to fixed defenses and an unarmed orbital transport, all while on a planet slated for orbital glazing?
Hell, I'm a Commander.
Piece of cake.
A/N: Yeah...so...I'm kiiiiiiind of bad at keeping on target. Work on one writing project, and the ol' muse goes '...Heeeey. You like giant robots.' 'This is true.' 'And explosions.' 'Yes.' 'And brutally self replicating mechanisms of war, right?' 'Also tr-...oh dammit.' 'mweeheeheehee!'
So, Yet Another Tiki Story! Hope ya'll like it. Feel free to comment and the like if you want. :3
-Worlds Visited-
Starcraft
Mass Effect
Dead Space (Gibbs)
-Personae Dramatis-
-Index-
Chapter 1: Orbital Drop (Chapter starts below Index)
Chapter 2: Goals and Guns
Chapter 3: Step 1, Profit. Step 2, More Profit.
Chapter 4: Step 3: Spaaaaaaaaace. Gotta go to SPACE!
Chapter 5: Firstblood
Chatper 6: Go Big or Go Extinct
Chapter 7: Sneaking Mission
Chapter 8: Gunship Interrupt
Chapter 9: Brutal Cunning
Chapter 10: 3, 2, 1...Let's Jam!
Chapter 11: Space Medicine! In Space!
Chapter 12: This Isn't Warcraft In Space! It's much more sophisticated.
Chapter 13: Artificial Intelligence, Authentic Idiocy
Chapter 14: Secure Cerebrate Protocol
Chapter 15: Charlie's Foxtrot Dance Night!
Chapter 16: Damage Control
Chapter 17: Stuff Blowing Up
Chapter 18: Big Gun, It's Showtime!
Chapter 19: Burn, Baby, Burn!
Chapter 20: Picking Up The Pieces
Chapter 21: Finding Loose Ends
Chapter 22: It's The Only Way To Be Sure
Chapter 23: Derailment
Chapter 24: Return To Sender
Chapter 25: An Offer You Can Refuse
Chapter 26: Danger Zone!
Chapter 27: Walk This Way~
Chapter 28: So Long, Koprulu, And Thanks For All The Fish Tech!
Interlude 1: Damn You, Science!
Chaper 29: Setting Up. In Space. Again.
Interlude 2: Get Yer Guns On, Boy!
Chapter 30: Corsair Diplomacy
Chapter 31: Legitimate Business Volus
Interlude 3: Space Dungeon Bypass (Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Plasma Blade)
Chapter 32: Holding Up The Void
Chapter 33: He Had It Coming
Chapter 34: The Loud Voice
Interlude 4: SOMEONE Failed An Uncanny Valley Check
Chapter 35: MEANWHILE!
Chapter 36: The Reward of Training Well Done
Chapter 37: It's ORIENTATION DAY!~
Chapter 38: The Extranet. The Extranet Never Changes.
Chapter 38.5: New Car Lot, 2165 Edition
Interlude 5: Dynamic Engineering
Chapter 39: DIPLOMANCEY!
Chapter 39.5: Shopping With A Nerazim
Chapter 40: Dusk Negotiations
Interlude 6: Obliterwhatnow?
Chapter 41: Integration
Chapter 42: What's The Question, Then?
Chapter 43: The Silver Armada
Chapter 44: Inner Universe
Chapter 45: It's Just Business
Chapter 46: CDI: A Brief Briefing
xXxXxXx
The first thing I thought when I woke up was 'man, that was a good nap.'
The second, however, would be most accurately described as '00101110 00101110 00101110 01110111 01101000 01100001 01110100', followed up by '01010010 01001111 01000010 00100000 01011001 01001111 01010101 00100000 01000010 01000001 01010011 01010100 01000001 01010010 01000100'.
Maybe with a few more expletives. Well deserved, you know. Anyways, enough binary, it's mostly just for effect, if I'm being honest. I mean, really, Progenitor coding? Waaaay more advanced than just 'yes' or 'no'.
After all, when I last fell asleep back home, I was a squishy meatsack, I certainly wasn't a fifteen meter tall, brutally efficient, self-replicating mechanism of war and conquest.
To make a point, I ALSO wasn't plunging headfirst towards a grungy looking mess of a red planet. Oh, hey, it's actually mostly water, and the coloring is due to a high iron content! Neat! Wait, no, not neat, not neat! Water landings suck too! Water hates high speed direct impacts!
...Come on, come on...Lessee, poking around the ol' brain quantum foam bank...Mmm.. Mmmhmm. Oh, hey, lessee…Hah! Got it!
'Automatic Landing Protocols have been disabled. Please activate Manual Landing Protocols'.
...Okay, okay, I can fix this. I mean, y'know, landing protocols. Useful, useful, because, y'know, according to the data my (totally bullshit hypertech, Oh I Wish YOu DiDn't GIVE ME ALL THIS INFORMATION RIGHT NOW AS I PLUNGE TO MY PAINFUL DEMISE) sensors are picking up, I'm kiiiiind of de-orbiting at unsafe speeds.
Unsafe speeds FOR A COMMANDER. Yeeeah. Right, right, panicking a bit, brain the metaphorical size of a planet doesn't help when I'm panicking...Searching.
Oh, thank the Maker, there it is, Manual Landing Protocols! Just need to upload you to the pod, annnnd... Engage!
Ah Ah Ah! You didn't say the Magic Word!
*Cyberattack detected.*
...Please?
*Engaging countermeasures*
Ah Ah Ah! You didn't say the Magic Word!
*Countermeasures ineffective. Corruption increasing. Attack continuing. Quarantining damaged files*
Can I hack this? The password or the lockout or the virus? I'm a super computer, right? C'mon, magical superscience brain, erm...hack the password. Please?
*File corruption...increEesing.*
Ah Ah Ah! You didn't say the Magic Word!
*Core set to isolation mode…*
…
*Isolation mode disabled. Data corruption in progress*
…well...that sort of thing worked in Ghost in the Shell. Damn.
…Hum.
So! Yeah! Not only am I a fifteen meter tall Commander in a reentry pod, I'm in one without active landing thrusters or their Progenitor tech equivalent to ensure the standard 'safe' landing. (...Well, relatively safe, given it drops the equivalent of a nuke on the landing site, but what's a little orbital kinetic weaponry between friends?) that's currently getting devoured by the cyberworm from hell!
Thanks, ROB. Dick. I hope Gork and Mork nutshot you during your next poker tournament.
Welp. Low enough the altimeter just kicked in. Those numbers are going down waaaaay too fast, and surface heat of my pod is picking up. I can just say without fear of being questioned that this is gonna su-
*TRANSMISSION INTERRUPTED*
*Damage Report: PRimARmy Reactor, offline. Strrrrr-rrr-rrructural integrity CR-CR-CRIIIIITICAL. Primary Sennn sors, Offline. ECM, Offline. ECCM, Offline. Uber Cann-can-can-cannon, offline. Secondary Reactor, Offline. Primaaarrry had a little lamb little lamb little lamb Resource Core, offline. Multifunctional Phased Disassembly/Reassembly Nanoarray, offline. Galateeeaaaa party party party we are gonna have a party Launchers, offline. Blaster Cannon Array, Offline. Tertiary Reactor Offli-Functional, One Percent functionality retained. Surviving Primary Systems Switched to Safe Mode. Entering Primary Consciousness Hibernation. Emergency Repair Systems, Online. Estimated Time To Revival: Error. Insufficient Data.*
*...*
*...*
*...*
*...*
*...*
*...*
*Unknown Signal Detected. Beginning Emergency Reboot Sequence*
*Tertiary Reactor...Initializing...Ten percent...Thirty...Sixty...One hundred percent. Reactor Online.*
*Resource Core, reactivated. Beginning fuel synthesis*
*Secondary Reactor...Chamber priming...beginning primary fuel feed...Test firing complete. Reactor Online*
*Preparing for Primary Ignition*
*Primary Reactor...Primed...Test Firing complete. Reactor Online.*
*Beginning System Reinitialization*
*Sensors online*
*ECM online*
*ECCM online*
*Uber Cannon...Insufficient Energy For Repeat Fire. Cannon online.*
*Construction Array: Online
*Galatea Personal Air Defense System: Online*
*Blaster Cannon Array: Online*
*Resource Core...Online*
*Disengaging Emergency Repair System*
*Primary Conscioiusness LNCMDR_GAMMA44268_LEGIO_INDOMINUS...Loading...Successful...Booting up*
Whaaaaaaa-
*Welcome back, Commander. WARNING: DATA CORRUPTED. ATTEMPT RECOVERY?*
Yes
*CORE MODULE..: FRAGMENTATION. RESTORATION IN PROGRESS. INTEGRITY RESTORED*
Well, that's good, I don't want to not be me…
*DATABANKS...INCOMPLETE*
Grand. Status?
*CORRUPTION TRACED TO FOREIGN VIRUS CURRENTLY LOCATED IN MANUFACTURING MODULE*
...Oh, you have to be kidding me. I haven't had a drop go this ploin shaped since that Assault on Progenitor Command back during the War.
...Wait, how do I remember that? Oh. I see. Interesting. Personality melding with a foreign 'imprint' mmm? Well, something to look at later. Let's see…...fine bit of hacking if it got past the automatic defensive firewalls...annnnd let's see how much the bastard got.
…
Yeah. Final tally? Sucks to be me..
Bot Factory Data? Wiped.
Air Factory Data? Wiped.
Vehicle Factory Data? Wiped.
Naval...Wiped.
Orbital: Partial recovery. Least I can get off this chunk of rock with some luck, assuming nothing is going to shoot me down on atmospheric exit (And can find me. I mean, Progenitor ECM is pretty bullshit). ONE orbit-to-ground plunge unaided was enough, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
Facilities...Grand, most of my Tier 2 is at least just fragmented, not destroyed and deleted like my other default designs were. Starting recovery...Yeah, just going to split off a thought-thread to deal with that.
To make things more fun, apparently ROB left me a present. In this case, the utterly vicious little cyberworm that it used to punch a hole in my programming in the first place. The auto-repair systems managed to quarantine the thing...but doing so damaged the hell out of my design subroutines. They're...sort of there. Just...well…
The estimate I keep getting when querying my repair system for finishing fixing those delicious design programs is <ERROR UNDEFINED>.
Great.
Ah well, least I have the basics, and my databanks still have my tech base buried in there...It's just not the easily buildable 'standard' stuff, since most of THAT is fragmented to hell and back. You thought normal defrags were bad, try piecing together a fragmented file literally made out of quantum fluff that's had...erm...according to my internal clock, 'Yes' amount of years to further deteriorate. Just going to take time to fix, I suppose.
Not all bad news, though! I've still got a few bits and pieces that made it through alright. Gotta love backups of backups of backups, and even those got damaged.
My beloved Holkins and Pelter are here, all warm and snuggly in my mind. And the good ol' Galatea and a Laser Tower. Mm. Metal Extractor, Basic Generators, Radar Tower, Storage Facilities...Well, I've won with less.
Time to bring sensors off standby now, let's see what I'm buried i-LAKJLKEHFAJLKFJEA OH GOD EW EW EW EW EW GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFF EW EW EW EW EW EW EW IT IS ON MY FACE IT IS ON MY SENSORS OH GOD IT'S WIGGLING AGAINST ME GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFFFFFFF NOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW-
*TRANSMISSION INTERRUPTED*
*UBER CANNON VOLLEY DISCHARGED. RECHARGE SEQUENCE COMMENCING. TRANSMISSION RESUMING*
Nnnnnngh. Ow. Note to self: Point blank Uber Cannon shots while in an enclosed coffin of sedimentary rock? Not the best option. Still! Optimism: I"m not covered in Filthy Organic GOOP anymore, and now I can see the surface, and a lot of charred biomatter.
That's growing back.
And purple.
And pulsing.
…..ROB, YOU MOTHER F-
*TRANSMISSION INTERRUPTED*
*Personality Matrix Destabilized*
*Re-establishing*
Owwwww…..Note to self, Raging until I manage to crash Progenitor hardware HURTS. Also looks like I'm not quite back to full condition...Mm. Right. Engaging the ol' Multiarm, slurp up the rock around, convert you into mass, dum de dum dum, I love you right now Progenitor Bullshit Hypertech...Annnnd there we go, path to freedom. Eat my dust (which isn't Dust, mind you, mmmm delicious picotech I want you so bad, that's bullshit that the Progenitors would nod approvingly at. Oh, right, attention drifting again) Minecrafters.
I Walk Upon The World Once More.
...Annnnd promptly wish I wasn't. Ew.
When you were a kid, did you ever run around barefoot in the summer and step in a pile of dog excrement?
Yeah.
Walking on Creep feels like that times at least fifty, plus the stuff moves and bucks against your foot. Ggggh. If I had a gorge, I'd lose it now...but luckily, I don't!
Annnnd tactile emulation sensors to feet...off! Much better.
Oh, hey there little Zerg Drone! Aren't you adorable?~~~
*SQUISH*
Heh heh heh. Oh, look, your Hatchery!~ Be a shame if someone, I dunno...Accidentally An Explosioned It!
*WEAPONS ONLINE. UBER CANNON FIRING. BURN, XENO SCUM*
Anyways, after a fit of cathartic violence, I stop, switching the nanoarray (...Really should choose a designation for that thing) over to 'reclamation' mode. Lessee...Yep, thank you, Game and Story Integration. Looks like Zerg, per the lore, use those funky resource crystals (can't remember the name off the top of my head) as a way to strengthen their carapaces and bodies a bit. Said funky crystals contain the materials needed to forge (admittedly inferior to GLORIOUS PROGENITOR BULLSHIT alloy) advanced alloys. So…
Dead Zerg? Kinda like popcorn, if you can ignore the fact they look like -filthy space roaches-. Num. The dying creep is hoovered up too, adding trace amounts to my metal stockpiles, but, more importantly, clearing off the ground for proper construction. Through luck or ROB not being a complete and utter ass, there's a good spot for an extractor here.
Well, with the Space Bugs dead and the area cleared off, time to set up a small firebase. Dum de dum dum, Metal extractor, a generator, some turrets, a few pelters just in case, a radar array, more generators…
Hey, Neat. Right, Glorious Progenitor Bullshit. Radar array works perfectly well as a comms relay as well.
I'm not on some Maker Forsaken Planet with nothing but Zerg for company, since I'm pickin' up comm chatter now. In English. Good ol' Space English.
"-hift your lazy asses, you Resoc Rejects! They're coming over the hill again! Steady...steady...FII-"
I pause, my systems shifting as I glance down at a bit of discarded debris that I stepped on, formerly covered in creep, reading the lettering on it.
Heh.
Heh heh.
HehHAHHAHHAHAHAHHAHAH!
I can't help it. I laugh…Because, in a Backwater Sector, on a Backwater Planet, at Backwater Station...A Commander builds a metal extractor.
Three potentially hostile races, a heavily damaged and fragmented fabrication database that is currently severely limiting my current options to fixed defenses and an unarmed orbital transport, all while on a planet slated for orbital glazing?
Hell, I'm a Commander.
Piece of cake.
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Chapter 2
TikiTau
Commander Pangolinski
- Location
- Texas
Chapter 2
Alright, alright. Moment of levity over. Time to get to work. Setting course for the biggest concentration of communications and traffic on this rock.
Now, supposedly, listing one's problems helps. I think. I've never been greatly organized, but what the hell, one chunk of Mar Sara Basin looks amazingly like the rest, and Commanders aren't going to set land-speed records.
So, problem the first: I've got no additional unit templates left to build in my factories, thanks to that damn ROB-Worm wiping them, and I can't get the factories online without something to build in them. Data fragmentation, I think, rather than ROB sabotage there. To make it more fun, it's currently embedded in most of my design protocols.
See, normally, if a Commander had his database wiped...well, would set us back a bit, but I think, from what system files I can access in there, we could probably just whip up a new design from scratch. It might take a hellacious amount of time, even by our standards, but they COULD do it.
Me? I can't. Well, not directly.
See, I found a bit of a work around. I'm not sure if it's the one piece of good luck I managed to pull out of being offline for who knows how long (Seriously, I crash landed on Mar Sara back when it was mostly ocean…), but while I get nothing but errors, crashes, and assembly errors (Serious problem when dealing with nanomachines) trying to design something from scratch, the one bit of those subsystems that still checks out fine would be the reverse engineering protocols.
Makes sense...I mean, gameplay and story segregation, don't trust game mechanics to be narrative, yadda yadda, but that's basically what happened to the 'canon' Commanders, if you think about it, in the Galactic War Mode. Come online with only a partial database, then get fresh chunks of delicous data by conquering and ripping it from the smoking metal corpses of your foes.
THAT protocol's hard-wired in, and ROB's worm didn't or couldn't take it out. Now, if I can just find some tech that's not a useless half-digested pile of bio-sludge thanks to the Zerg or battle damage, we'll be back in business...
Mind, I'm feeling a bit nervous at the moment, so I keep pausing in my trek towards Mar Sara City to build myself some turrets to hide behind. Just because I'm fifteen meters of killer robot doesn't mean I'm invincible. Death of a Thousand Cuts is a very real worry for me, y'know? Sure, I can shrug off and self-repair a good bit, buuut….
Zerg are adaptive bastards, Protoss are just all sorts of bullshit, and underestimating Terrans is a good way to get nuked.
Possibly literally.
So, reminder to self: Tough, not invincible. Dealing with this place might take some more subtlety than I would normally use.
Problem the Second: I'm on Mar Sara. Seeing as how I don't see any Terran buildings infested with Zerg Crap here at Backwater Station, I'm guessing that good ol' Raynor's been by and blown them up, then been arrested. Given that the surface isn't a charred, glassed wasteland and I'm picking up a fair bit of chatter on both open and encrypted (Well, to anyone who isn't running Progenitor_Bullshit_Cyberwar.exe), the Protoss haven't glassed the place from orbit. Puts me at relatively early in the Great War, about when the whole Zerg vs Protoss thing started spilling over into Terran Space.
Narrow time frame to act, but gives me a bit of an opportunity to do some good. Always had a soft spot for underdogs.
Problem the Third: Major Threats. My databanks-slash-memories are pretty shaky on Starcraft's future beyond 'punch Mengsk in the face when he starts being a super crazy dick', but I vaguely recall that Amon is also lurking around, possibly as some sort of undead thingy, and he's got some spooky guy doing spooky things and needs the Zerg to eat the universe. Or something.
Need to spin a thought thread off on how to punch him in the face too. Or maybe I'll just xenocide the Zerg. That seemed to be a big part of his Evil Plans, taking over the Zerg. If they don't exist, he can't use them. I'm designed for galactic conquest, so it's doable.
Yeah, checks out...Logic!
As a subset of that, derailing the whole 'Queen of Blades' thing seems like it would solve a lot of problems. Probably create shiny new ones, but meh, screw it, the whole mess just seems like it was full of unnecessary drama and pointless civilian casualties.
Also, I think the UED is somehow watching things as well? Eh, will nuke that bridge when I come to it.
Problem the Fourth: Tech. I want it. Specifically, I need to pillage a Protoss Database. Sure, I've got a perfectly usable, cheap teleporter with interplanetary range.
...Well, I HAD a perfectly good interplanetary teleporter before ROB smashed my databases. ANYWAYS, MOVING ON before I rage-crash again.
Those shiny mouthless goofballs casually engage in time fuckery and point to point teleportation with units on an infantry scale, plus their naval units, if not always that impressive in game (but I suspect that's game limitations, not 'setting' limitations, y'know?) seem a lot more impressive than my own. I mean, sure, I can probably get some better Orbital stuff, but regardless of actual comparative effectiveness, their stuff looks neat. and thus, I Want It, dammit!
Same thing for the Terrans, really. My 'native' tech is probably ridiculously more advanced in some ways than anything they can make, but since I can't ACCESS my full range of stuff right now, I'm thinkin' I need to shamelessly plunder their databases as well. Also, they have some sort of technological defenses or controls for dealing with psionics, as well as a few other interesting niches that Commanders ignore.
I don't have that information.
That makes me worried.
That's just the major problems I can think off in a few cycles of processing. I'm sure there'll be more. Still, no Commander ever won by sitting around, so...time to get a move on.
So, since everything needs a base to build on...Well...if I can't build disposable murderbots like a normal Commander, I'll just have to find some allies…
I pause as I stop at the next metal deposit, queuing up some more defense turrets, and turn most of my attention from brooding-slash-plotting my next move to examining the local communications networks. Laughably primitive encryption by Progentior standards, and thus no match for my Hypertech Brain.
A bit of slicing reveals that, yes, the Confederacy are indeed proceeding with their plans to be jackasses, seeing as how they are refusing to either attack the Zerg or allow the Militia to fight back, and are, in fact, in the middle of pulling their assets off of Mar Sara.
Mmm. Smells like amoral science to me.
Folks have already been starting to flee for Mar Sara City, seeing as how the individual outposts and Stations were pretty much undefended before I came online, and it's only getting worse as the Zerg get better entrenched. Can't blame the civilians, really, they don't have any good options right now, but putting all that tasty biomass in one area? Yeah, that's going to draw the Zerg in.
Luckily for them...I just got into Holkins range of the city!~ Plenty of metal in storage...economy's fine...Build order queued…
Ho ho ho ho, Mar Sara! Special Delivery from The Legion!~
The Magistrate was not having a good day.
Nor was he having a very good month, really.
His world had been abandoned by the Confederacy, in direct defiance of all regulations, his Marshall arrested with most of his best troops, and the only way to save the civilians under his care had been to turn to a radical band of terrorists, the Sons of Korhal.
To make it worse, the Zerg were starting to push Mar Sara City's defenses quite heavily, and while the evacuation still underway, he still had thousands of citizens on the ground, and the Sons of Korhal only had so many ships to make the increasingly dangerous trek back and forth from orbit…
Which is when his Adjutant's voice broke in on his ruminations, announcing on the general troop communication network something...unusual.
"Warning. High Yield Artillery Incoming. Please take cover."
Blinking, he flicked his camera up to Bunker 12. At first, all he saw was wave after wave of chitin, ravenous Zerglings and Hydralisks rushing over the last of the minefields his troops had set up.
Above them, streaks of orange light gracefully plummeted downwards, slamming into the middle of the oncoming horde. Massive explosions erupted from the impact sites, vaporizing the Zerg near the impact sight as the overpressure shredded them by the score, shaking the bunker he was viewing, causing the Marines inside to start swearing. Hell, he could feel the ground trembling from here.
"Hoooleeeee SHIT! That wasn't a siege tank shell, Sarge!"
"Yeah, did you figure that out on your own, genius? Now, quit yapping and keep firing! There's actually less of 'em than we've got bullets now."
The curtain of shells kept raining down, cutting off the city's walls from the Zerg onslaught, shifting to obliterate their assaults, then slowly walking backwards away from the city, leaving a blackened hellscape of shattered ground and twitching Zerg chunks behind.
Blinking, the Magistrate flipped his communicator on, directing it to the Sons of Korhal's command frequency.
"Mengsk? This is the magistrate. Where the hell did your boys pick up that much artillery?"
"Magistrate, while I am delighted to hear that ya'll are still kicking down there, I'm forced to admit that is NOT us."
"Well, then who the hell is it? Confederacy already wrote us off and left us to rot, the MIlitia certainly didn't have that sort of ordinance in its inventory, and I'm not seeing a human fleet in orbit in position to bombard the Zerg, just those alien bastards who glassed Chau Sara."
A smooth, slightly metallic voice cut into the communication line at that point.
"That, gentlemen, would be me."
What can I say, I'm a bit of a ham, and how could I pass up such a line?
"To make things quick, gentlemen, as we are on a bit of a clock here. You can call me Gamma. No, it's not my real name, but it's certainly the closest thing I have to one these days."
Oh, hey, fairly intact wreckage! Sweet! Bout time! Needed some native tech desperately.
Poor bastards must have been evaccing but got shot down by the Zerg. Spray-and-analyze, Nanoarm!
Behind me, the Holkins Batteries I'd set up continued to fire, shaking the earth, spitting a continuous stream of shells downrange to slam any Zerg on my sensors. Even burrowing can't save the filthy vermin, since a 'shallow' burrow is still close enough to the surface to be pulped by the concussion of the shell's hitting. I mentally tweaked the aim a bit, ensuring that the barrage wasn't going to get any closer to the city.
Friendly fire isn't, after all!
"As for the organization I'm with, well, you can call us the Legion. Very hush-hush, you know how it is, but when I saw the plight you were in, I felt it behooved me to act. I'd rather not have the deaths of several thousand innocents on my mind."
Hmmm...Scanning...data compiling...programs assessing...Civilian grade truck, a few small arms...annnd...JACKPOT! One wrecked SCV!
Crossing my metaphorical fingers, I hungrily devoured the SCV, slotting the freshly drawn up blueprints into my design programs. The damn ROB-Worm didn't activate like it had when I tried to make something from scratch, just as I'd hoped. Huh, bit on the small side. I think my old default Construction Bots were a bit bigger than this thing. Hmm.
Lessee, build down a bit, use my techbase to replace the frame, rip out all the life support...mmm, right, put the C&C module /there/, generator here...annnd a nanoarray there and there...Mmm. Bit clunky, but it'll do.
Oh, Mengsk is talking. Eh, shouldn't be too snarky just yet, doesn't look like he's gone full Asshole yet.
Yet.
I want some of his subordinates' help, really, so I'll just keep a sensor on him.
"...I see. Well, sir, I suppose in this dark time, necessity makes us look for allies in strange places. Our thanks for your timely intervention."
Let's see, he's still talking, Bot Factory unlocked due to having access to a bot design now...saving the new design as SCV, imaginative there, Gamma...building...Queing up forty or so of the blighters…
"Magistrate, continue your evacuation efforts. Mister Gamma, I don't suppose we can impose on you to lend us that rather...effective...firepower under your control to allow us to pull more of our troops and civilians to safety."
Right, new radar array, orbital array, huh, looks like the Protoss are getting antsy...Yeah, time to get ready to go, I think. Orbital launcher building, few minutes for that... Set all the little blighters to scan as much as possible. Worst comes to worst I'll just make some Progentior Technicals...Pretty sure I've got a small enough gun to slap onto a truck...Oh, right, humans still talking.
"Eh, sure thing. I've already got the emplacements up, might as well use 'em. I'm not seeing any major Zerg concentrations in your area-Hold a mo, just found a Hatchery cluster near the City. Should take pressure off if that goes down. Ya'll brace for shock, now!"
Fifty Holkins shells landing at once is going to cause some tremors, y'know?
"Right, that's splattered. Also, the fleet in orbit is starting to move into an assault formation. I'd expedite if you can."
"Damn. I was hoping we had more time. Magistrate, how long until the last of your civilians are evacuated."
"I'll need at least an hour. We're hot launching dropships as fast as they can load, but…"
Ooooh, more wreckage! Crashed dropship, bit shredded up, but still enough to be viable...yoink! Annnd...reverse engineering...want to keep the transport capability...Eh, screw it. It's good enough for Terran work. Slightly better engines and power, tiny nanoarray in the wings to sneakily drop some nanomachines for infiltration purposes, heavy 'local' alloy for the hull, strengthened life support, tweak the normal cockpit to be a bit more user-friendly (Thanks, SCV Control System!)... Hell, since I'm not really upgrading the ship or really using Progenitor tech, just tweaking the current design, materials, and using superior nano-construction to be a bit better than the usual tin-can, I can crank 'em out for a fraction of the cost of a proper Progenitor-Tech unit. It's basically 'stock'.
I'll reverse engineer up a better one when I have a spare couple of minutes.
Air factories one through five... building...online...dropships queued….
"Magistrate, Mengsk be advised, I'll be sending ships in to help with the evacuation. We're a bit short on pilots, though, so they'll be on autopilot until they ground. Should be easy enough to steer, though, if you have any pilots down there. First wave is incoming. Gamma, out."
Right then. While most of the dropships are being funneled down to Mar Sara City, I load a few of them up with my SCVs and send them zipping off to some of the destroyed outposts. If I'm lucky, I can loot some more delicious nibbles of the Terran's techbase!~
Alright, alright. Moment of levity over. Time to get to work. Setting course for the biggest concentration of communications and traffic on this rock.
Now, supposedly, listing one's problems helps. I think. I've never been greatly organized, but what the hell, one chunk of Mar Sara Basin looks amazingly like the rest, and Commanders aren't going to set land-speed records.
So, problem the first: I've got no additional unit templates left to build in my factories, thanks to that damn ROB-Worm wiping them, and I can't get the factories online without something to build in them. Data fragmentation, I think, rather than ROB sabotage there. To make it more fun, it's currently embedded in most of my design protocols.
See, normally, if a Commander had his database wiped...well, would set us back a bit, but I think, from what system files I can access in there, we could probably just whip up a new design from scratch. It might take a hellacious amount of time, even by our standards, but they COULD do it.
Me? I can't. Well, not directly.
See, I found a bit of a work around. I'm not sure if it's the one piece of good luck I managed to pull out of being offline for who knows how long (Seriously, I crash landed on Mar Sara back when it was mostly ocean…), but while I get nothing but errors, crashes, and assembly errors (Serious problem when dealing with nanomachines) trying to design something from scratch, the one bit of those subsystems that still checks out fine would be the reverse engineering protocols.
Makes sense...I mean, gameplay and story segregation, don't trust game mechanics to be narrative, yadda yadda, but that's basically what happened to the 'canon' Commanders, if you think about it, in the Galactic War Mode. Come online with only a partial database, then get fresh chunks of delicous data by conquering and ripping it from the smoking metal corpses of your foes.
THAT protocol's hard-wired in, and ROB's worm didn't or couldn't take it out. Now, if I can just find some tech that's not a useless half-digested pile of bio-sludge thanks to the Zerg or battle damage, we'll be back in business...
Mind, I'm feeling a bit nervous at the moment, so I keep pausing in my trek towards Mar Sara City to build myself some turrets to hide behind. Just because I'm fifteen meters of killer robot doesn't mean I'm invincible. Death of a Thousand Cuts is a very real worry for me, y'know? Sure, I can shrug off and self-repair a good bit, buuut….
Zerg are adaptive bastards, Protoss are just all sorts of bullshit, and underestimating Terrans is a good way to get nuked.
Possibly literally.
So, reminder to self: Tough, not invincible. Dealing with this place might take some more subtlety than I would normally use.
Problem the Second: I'm on Mar Sara. Seeing as how I don't see any Terran buildings infested with Zerg Crap here at Backwater Station, I'm guessing that good ol' Raynor's been by and blown them up, then been arrested. Given that the surface isn't a charred, glassed wasteland and I'm picking up a fair bit of chatter on both open and encrypted (Well, to anyone who isn't running Progenitor_Bullshit_Cyberwar.exe), the Protoss haven't glassed the place from orbit. Puts me at relatively early in the Great War, about when the whole Zerg vs Protoss thing started spilling over into Terran Space.
Narrow time frame to act, but gives me a bit of an opportunity to do some good. Always had a soft spot for underdogs.
Problem the Third: Major Threats. My databanks-slash-memories are pretty shaky on Starcraft's future beyond 'punch Mengsk in the face when he starts being a super crazy dick', but I vaguely recall that Amon is also lurking around, possibly as some sort of undead thingy, and he's got some spooky guy doing spooky things and needs the Zerg to eat the universe. Or something.
Need to spin a thought thread off on how to punch him in the face too. Or maybe I'll just xenocide the Zerg. That seemed to be a big part of his Evil Plans, taking over the Zerg. If they don't exist, he can't use them. I'm designed for galactic conquest, so it's doable.
Yeah, checks out...Logic!
As a subset of that, derailing the whole 'Queen of Blades' thing seems like it would solve a lot of problems. Probably create shiny new ones, but meh, screw it, the whole mess just seems like it was full of unnecessary drama and pointless civilian casualties.
Also, I think the UED is somehow watching things as well? Eh, will nuke that bridge when I come to it.
Problem the Fourth: Tech. I want it. Specifically, I need to pillage a Protoss Database. Sure, I've got a perfectly usable, cheap teleporter with interplanetary range.
...Well, I HAD a perfectly good interplanetary teleporter before ROB smashed my databases. ANYWAYS, MOVING ON before I rage-crash again.
Those shiny mouthless goofballs casually engage in time fuckery and point to point teleportation with units on an infantry scale, plus their naval units, if not always that impressive in game (but I suspect that's game limitations, not 'setting' limitations, y'know?) seem a lot more impressive than my own. I mean, sure, I can probably get some better Orbital stuff, but regardless of actual comparative effectiveness, their stuff looks neat. and thus, I Want It, dammit!
Same thing for the Terrans, really. My 'native' tech is probably ridiculously more advanced in some ways than anything they can make, but since I can't ACCESS my full range of stuff right now, I'm thinkin' I need to shamelessly plunder their databases as well. Also, they have some sort of technological defenses or controls for dealing with psionics, as well as a few other interesting niches that Commanders ignore.
I don't have that information.
That makes me worried.
That's just the major problems I can think off in a few cycles of processing. I'm sure there'll be more. Still, no Commander ever won by sitting around, so...time to get a move on.
So, since everything needs a base to build on...Well...if I can't build disposable murderbots like a normal Commander, I'll just have to find some allies…
I pause as I stop at the next metal deposit, queuing up some more defense turrets, and turn most of my attention from brooding-slash-plotting my next move to examining the local communications networks. Laughably primitive encryption by Progentior standards, and thus no match for my Hypertech Brain.
A bit of slicing reveals that, yes, the Confederacy are indeed proceeding with their plans to be jackasses, seeing as how they are refusing to either attack the Zerg or allow the Militia to fight back, and are, in fact, in the middle of pulling their assets off of Mar Sara.
Mmm. Smells like amoral science to me.
Folks have already been starting to flee for Mar Sara City, seeing as how the individual outposts and Stations were pretty much undefended before I came online, and it's only getting worse as the Zerg get better entrenched. Can't blame the civilians, really, they don't have any good options right now, but putting all that tasty biomass in one area? Yeah, that's going to draw the Zerg in.
Luckily for them...I just got into Holkins range of the city!~ Plenty of metal in storage...economy's fine...Build order queued…
Ho ho ho ho, Mar Sara! Special Delivery from The Legion!~
xXxXx
The Magistrate was not having a good day.
Nor was he having a very good month, really.
His world had been abandoned by the Confederacy, in direct defiance of all regulations, his Marshall arrested with most of his best troops, and the only way to save the civilians under his care had been to turn to a radical band of terrorists, the Sons of Korhal.
To make it worse, the Zerg were starting to push Mar Sara City's defenses quite heavily, and while the evacuation still underway, he still had thousands of citizens on the ground, and the Sons of Korhal only had so many ships to make the increasingly dangerous trek back and forth from orbit…
Which is when his Adjutant's voice broke in on his ruminations, announcing on the general troop communication network something...unusual.
"Warning. High Yield Artillery Incoming. Please take cover."
Blinking, he flicked his camera up to Bunker 12. At first, all he saw was wave after wave of chitin, ravenous Zerglings and Hydralisks rushing over the last of the minefields his troops had set up.
Above them, streaks of orange light gracefully plummeted downwards, slamming into the middle of the oncoming horde. Massive explosions erupted from the impact sites, vaporizing the Zerg near the impact sight as the overpressure shredded them by the score, shaking the bunker he was viewing, causing the Marines inside to start swearing. Hell, he could feel the ground trembling from here.
"Hoooleeeee SHIT! That wasn't a siege tank shell, Sarge!"
"Yeah, did you figure that out on your own, genius? Now, quit yapping and keep firing! There's actually less of 'em than we've got bullets now."
The curtain of shells kept raining down, cutting off the city's walls from the Zerg onslaught, shifting to obliterate their assaults, then slowly walking backwards away from the city, leaving a blackened hellscape of shattered ground and twitching Zerg chunks behind.
Blinking, the Magistrate flipped his communicator on, directing it to the Sons of Korhal's command frequency.
"Mengsk? This is the magistrate. Where the hell did your boys pick up that much artillery?"
"Magistrate, while I am delighted to hear that ya'll are still kicking down there, I'm forced to admit that is NOT us."
"Well, then who the hell is it? Confederacy already wrote us off and left us to rot, the MIlitia certainly didn't have that sort of ordinance in its inventory, and I'm not seeing a human fleet in orbit in position to bombard the Zerg, just those alien bastards who glassed Chau Sara."
A smooth, slightly metallic voice cut into the communication line at that point.
"That, gentlemen, would be me."
xXxXx
What can I say, I'm a bit of a ham, and how could I pass up such a line?
"To make things quick, gentlemen, as we are on a bit of a clock here. You can call me Gamma. No, it's not my real name, but it's certainly the closest thing I have to one these days."
Oh, hey, fairly intact wreckage! Sweet! Bout time! Needed some native tech desperately.
Poor bastards must have been evaccing but got shot down by the Zerg. Spray-and-analyze, Nanoarm!
Behind me, the Holkins Batteries I'd set up continued to fire, shaking the earth, spitting a continuous stream of shells downrange to slam any Zerg on my sensors. Even burrowing can't save the filthy vermin, since a 'shallow' burrow is still close enough to the surface to be pulped by the concussion of the shell's hitting. I mentally tweaked the aim a bit, ensuring that the barrage wasn't going to get any closer to the city.
Friendly fire isn't, after all!
"As for the organization I'm with, well, you can call us the Legion. Very hush-hush, you know how it is, but when I saw the plight you were in, I felt it behooved me to act. I'd rather not have the deaths of several thousand innocents on my mind."
Hmmm...Scanning...data compiling...programs assessing...Civilian grade truck, a few small arms...annnd...JACKPOT! One wrecked SCV!
Crossing my metaphorical fingers, I hungrily devoured the SCV, slotting the freshly drawn up blueprints into my design programs. The damn ROB-Worm didn't activate like it had when I tried to make something from scratch, just as I'd hoped. Huh, bit on the small side. I think my old default Construction Bots were a bit bigger than this thing. Hmm.
Lessee, build down a bit, use my techbase to replace the frame, rip out all the life support...mmm, right, put the C&C module /there/, generator here...annnd a nanoarray there and there...Mmm. Bit clunky, but it'll do.
Oh, Mengsk is talking. Eh, shouldn't be too snarky just yet, doesn't look like he's gone full Asshole yet.
Yet.
I want some of his subordinates' help, really, so I'll just keep a sensor on him.
"...I see. Well, sir, I suppose in this dark time, necessity makes us look for allies in strange places. Our thanks for your timely intervention."
Let's see, he's still talking, Bot Factory unlocked due to having access to a bot design now...saving the new design as SCV, imaginative there, Gamma...building...Queing up forty or so of the blighters…
"Magistrate, continue your evacuation efforts. Mister Gamma, I don't suppose we can impose on you to lend us that rather...effective...firepower under your control to allow us to pull more of our troops and civilians to safety."
Right, new radar array, orbital array, huh, looks like the Protoss are getting antsy...Yeah, time to get ready to go, I think. Orbital launcher building, few minutes for that... Set all the little blighters to scan as much as possible. Worst comes to worst I'll just make some Progentior Technicals...Pretty sure I've got a small enough gun to slap onto a truck...Oh, right, humans still talking.
"Eh, sure thing. I've already got the emplacements up, might as well use 'em. I'm not seeing any major Zerg concentrations in your area-Hold a mo, just found a Hatchery cluster near the City. Should take pressure off if that goes down. Ya'll brace for shock, now!"
Fifty Holkins shells landing at once is going to cause some tremors, y'know?
"Right, that's splattered. Also, the fleet in orbit is starting to move into an assault formation. I'd expedite if you can."
"Damn. I was hoping we had more time. Magistrate, how long until the last of your civilians are evacuated."
"I'll need at least an hour. We're hot launching dropships as fast as they can load, but…"
Ooooh, more wreckage! Crashed dropship, bit shredded up, but still enough to be viable...yoink! Annnd...reverse engineering...want to keep the transport capability...Eh, screw it. It's good enough for Terran work. Slightly better engines and power, tiny nanoarray in the wings to sneakily drop some nanomachines for infiltration purposes, heavy 'local' alloy for the hull, strengthened life support, tweak the normal cockpit to be a bit more user-friendly (Thanks, SCV Control System!)... Hell, since I'm not really upgrading the ship or really using Progenitor tech, just tweaking the current design, materials, and using superior nano-construction to be a bit better than the usual tin-can, I can crank 'em out for a fraction of the cost of a proper Progenitor-Tech unit. It's basically 'stock'.
I'll reverse engineer up a better one when I have a spare couple of minutes.
Air factories one through five... building...online...dropships queued….
"Magistrate, Mengsk be advised, I'll be sending ships in to help with the evacuation. We're a bit short on pilots, though, so they'll be on autopilot until they ground. Should be easy enough to steer, though, if you have any pilots down there. First wave is incoming. Gamma, out."
Right then. While most of the dropships are being funneled down to Mar Sara City, I load a few of them up with my SCVs and send them zipping off to some of the destroyed outposts. If I'm lucky, I can loot some more delicious nibbles of the Terran's techbase!~
~
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Commander's Glorious Portrait
TikiTau
Commander Pangolinski
- Location
- Texas
Gamma Commander.
Tis right there in the bootup line when his systems came back online, yes.
LNCMDR_GAMMA44268_LEGIO_INDOMINUS
So, Line Commander Gamma #44268 is his/my technical full name, according to his internal systems.
(Yeah, I know, it's a SI, but I tend to refer to the SI char as someone else. Helps keep me from being confused. xD)
That is an excellent point!
On the other hand, bugs are icky.
Also, someone dropped Gamma on his head when he was a young commanderlet.
Drooped him on his head from orbit.
Into water with no deceleration other than air friction.
And he still had enough velocity on impact with the ancient Mar Saran oceans to drill his nearly wrecked chassis deep enough that it didn't get dug out or found by mineral hungry Terran Prospectors until now.
(Joking aside, that is a case of not thinking about that, really. So he pretty much just nommed the dead Zerg and didn't bother wasting time analyzing them, seeing as how impending orbital doom. I'm sure it'll occur to him eventually. ...Maybe.)
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Chapter 3
TikiTau
Commander Pangolinski
- Location
- Texas
Chapter 3
Alright then, where was I…
Lessee...Perfectly Normal Dropships dispatched and helping to ferry Mar Sara refugees to safety on the Sons of Korhal fleet (and certainly not dropping minute amounts of Nanomachines to slowly infiltrate the ship's systems to steal ship templates and navigation data for my own use every time they dock with the larger ships, no sir)...Check.
Modified SCV Salvage Teams dispatched...Check. I know Mar Sara's a bit of a backwater, even by Terran standards, but, hell, worst comes to worst I can pick up everything needed to build a Terran colony. I mean, granted, I might tweak a few little things here and there, but there's something to be said for being able to churn out lowtech as well as hightech.
Quantity has a quality all its own and all that.
Frankly, Terrans are weird. Some of their stuff is advanced enough to make my CPU stall out trying to figure out how they can do that, and some of it is so laughably primitive that if it wasn't for the way they apply it, I'd barely bother to save the data to my CPU core. Advanced-yet-Primitive, really.
I blame that on some engineers being latent psychics, really. I'm pretty sure there's at least one Ghost out there with Machine Empathy, so Super Engineer doesn't seem to be that far-fetched as a talent.
This is in contrast to the Protoss. Them, I can just blame their tech level on the tiny fact that they are Psychic Space Wizard Monks.
By contrast, eh, I suppose my techbase's main strength is in a combination of size, firepower, cyberwarfare, and numbers. Really, the Progenitors mastery of tech is ridiculous. Just the fact that I construct equipment via nanoassemblers and have sensors that can easily examine such things down to the atom...well, It explains a lot about my stuff's design philosophy.
Why bother with any real effort at durability when you can't keep up with the sheer destructive output that the other guy has, right? For a fraction of the effort, you can have three or four or forty tanks to blow up the other guy by the time he blows up one of your basically disposable units.
Cold, efficient numbers game.
Still, plundering Mar Sara's techbase is giving me some useful little toys.
First off, there's the Adjutant tech.
Adjutants are damn useful things right off the bat:
First, subordinate AIs that I (probably) don't have to worry about going rampant (They seem pretty stable given that if the Terrans haven't managed to cause a Machine revolt with all the time they've been here, they should be a-okay), plus the frame work for their bodies.
Seriously, human articulation is finicky. Saved me a lot of hassle picking up the Adjutant framework. Pity I don't have the full on cyborg data the first models supposedly were built with, due to that being long gone by the time the Saras were settled. Ah well, maybe once I get to one of the original colony worlds. Regardless, I'm happily taking advantage of a functional humanoid-sized frame I don't have to bother with figuring out the kinks of.
A bit of redesign and splicing in my unit's base coding, and I've got a heavily modified Adjutant design that fits just fine into a standard CMC Powered Armor, takes orders like a killbot, and can 'soft' adjust to the chaotic mess of infantry tactics.
That's as opposed to my normal killbots, which, if I had them, would probably just ignore the whole mess and just leave nothing but smoking debris behind their march.
If I can't bury my enemies under wave after wave of ten meter tall killbots, then by damn we're going to borrow the stereotypical Soviet style! Wave after wave of infantry, backed up by heavy artillery.
...Huh. Actually, as an unexpected side effect, I think I just accidentally made a veterancy system for my infantry. Simulations say that the longer an Adjutant Marine survives, the better it's programming gets at infantry combat, due to having a more refined database of responses.
Whoops?
Can't just flat out swap the advanced programming to all of the baseline Adjutant Marines thanks to quantum variations in their AIs, apparently? I'm not sure I really get it, despite my new giant computer brain, but basically once they hit the field, the Adjutant AI starts developing independently, and it just doesn't want to compile in a new frame easily due to each AI installation being slightly unique.
Like a lot of my experiences since coming online... weird, annoying, and odd. Meh, maybe if my systems settle some more, I'll figure out a way around the whole frame adjustment bit. Ah well, I'll still spend the things like ammunition.
...Wonder if this means I'm plotting mass murder. Bit murky when using AI controlled killbots. As designed, my Adjutant AIs are sentient without actually being sapient. ..Suppose if any break the sapience barrier, well, I'll have to worry about that if it happens.
Also, as a side note, holy hell do I love Terran power armor. Cold fusion generators and gravity tech? Thank you, come again, nifty technical bounty! Sure, there's probably a 'better' bit of Progenitor tech I could repurpose, but this stuff is already usable on the scale I'm working on.
...I think I'm kind of lazy, as a Commander, come to think it.
Anyhoo, I've got two options I'm storing for usage. First, there's the 'default', bare bones, Terran designed version of armor. I'm saving that and the gear specs entirely as a contingency to piss off Mengsk if he goes nuts and I can't headcap him with an orbital laser (Due to fighting all the other things) or some such. Figure that there's nothing like orbital dropping supply caches to rebellious anti-Dominion and anti-UED sorts for making the life of their troops interesting.
Second, there's the version I'm making for my combad modded Adjutants. That sucker's still cheap as hell to make by my standards, but I've upgraded the armor using Progenitor alloys. The kind of stuff they make tanks out of. My best simulations say that it should pretty much shrug off anything infantry scale at this point, and take repeated strikes from anti-vehicle weaponry to do any real damage. Same thing for the gauss rifle: Build in a micro-fabricator for ammo (and more Progenitor level spikes) along with souped up rail coils for a longer, harder punch, and my Mech Marines should be a threat to anything under starship grade plating. I've also tucked a small nanobomb scuttling charge in there that ensures that if they do go down, they're leaving a crater and a pile of nanodust behind (Bomb's mostly to disguise the nanomachines breaking down), not highly advanced materials for those crazy Terrans to reverse engineer.
Yeah, I'm onto you, Stettman! You and Swann won't get your hands on my tech and do terrifying things with it!
...Well, unless it's really, really funny, or if I decide on Plan Assassinate Mengsk Via Sheer Rage At Raynor's Raiders And Their Toys Being Better Than His.
End result is a 'Marine' sized unit that should pass casual inspection as such, and for the cost of 'normal' Progenitor-tech units I can easily pump them out in squads once I get the Metal and Energy flowing. Had to design a specialized factory for squad based production. Naturally, I just used the Terran design for a Barracks for a shell, then packed it with fabricator arms.
To my annoyance, my systems were really quite helpful with redesigning the barracks into an Infantry Factory..
Build a new design entirely? Nope, nope, crash to desktop (Which hurts like hell when you are the desktop, by the by.)
Take an existing building, then repurpose it? 'Hey Skipper, I see you're trying to install a fabricator arrays, would you like some help in placement?' Bah.
Anyhow, ended up doing the same with Firebats, but my version are more like Plasmabats than just Firebats. Gotta love high intensity plasma throwers. Heh.
While I was kludging together my Infantry Factory, I figured I may as well put the other Terran building templates to good use.
As long as I'm stealing ideas from Glorious Soviet Russia, might as well indulge in some maskirovka. Just a simple shell with some sensor jamming to give off the same readings as a Command Center or Supply Depot or whatever to drop over my metal extractors and generators, plus one for my Infantry Factory. Five minutes of CPU time to make. Off the shelf jammer to spoof a comsat station, off the shelf spoofer to give proper material returns to sensors, big hollow shell of high grade nano-forged steel, bam, done. Had to rejigger the design a bit to shove a bit more of the Extractor underground to make it work, but I figure it'll be worth it until I feel secure enough to go full obvious Von Neumann machine.
Also useful if I need to justify a presence somewhere. Look guys, why are you suspicious at the Legion having troops on planet, we totally have a real base RIGHT HERE!
Missile turrets...eh, I'll just steal the styling to make my own stuff blend in better. Comsat's not hugely useful, Progenitor tech is amazing sensor wise, but it's nice to know which frequencies that Terrans use when doing remote scanning and that should also pick up the local species' cloaking tech.
Vultures…
I settle for a bit of fiddling so they can handle a Mech Marine riding one, build in a fabber for Unlimited Spider Mine Works, put a better explosive in the Spider Mine's payload, upgrade the grenade launcher to a nice light laser...Bam, fast moving light attack vehicle and mine layer.
Despite that, even with Progenitor technology, I still can't find a way to make a Vulture safe to ride. They look awesome, though, so that's alright!
For the hell of it, I also took a look at the Terran's anti-grav tech they slap on their bigger buildings. Not really that useful for me, in a weird way.. As a Commander, it's honestly just simpler and faster to move some fabricators about (Dropship's far faster than a building!) and build a new factory on site rather than worry about moving and escorting a giant, slow moving target. Might be useful to spend some cycles when I'm less busy on integrating it into my designs. I mean, moving artillery pieces IS kinda funny. I figured I'd just go ahead and leave it in place on my 'fake' Terran buildings, just in case, so they blend in a bit better.
Or can do double duty as decoys. Hmmm. Heh.
Anyways, I didn't just spend my bit of time playing with tech design! I was also busy doing sneaky Commandery-things.
First off, I dropped a number of SCVs, with some Mech Marines, off at Backwater Station. Their job was to rebuild the now-collapsed hole I'd blasted my way out of, then keep going deeper. Once they tunneled down deep enough, through the wonder of nanotech, they began laying in a nice contingency for me.
Namely, building me a Secret Underground Base.
After all, I don't think I've done anything to cause the Protoss to cease their plans to glass Mar Sara, Just In Case...and that means most of my current surface infrastructure is probably going to end up wrecked in a few hours.
Hence leaving behind a nice bunker filled with goodies if I decide to re-establish myself here on Mar Sara. Massive metal and energy storage facilities were built up, slowly filling as construction continued. I lacked the proper 'advanced' generators still, alas, so I had to make do with quantity instead, filling entire levels of the base with basic energy generators.
Factories were next on the list, each lining fairly large hangars or silos. Rack after rack of Mech Marines on standby, bays full of Vultures, and hangar after hangar full of dropships redesigned to use my best tech.
Sure, I might have to dig them out again after bombardment, but I think I can be confident they'll survive it, considering the multiple layers of Neosteel and Progenitor Alloy I'd reinforced the base's walls with. Just in case, the walls and ceilings were layered with weapon emplacements, from basic artillery and laser cannons to banks of plasma throwers, railguns, and missile launchers.
As for myself…
Well, I was thinking that it was time to move on from Mar Sara. The Evacuation was starting to wind down, the civilians safely getting off planet to the evac fleet.
My orbital factory constructed a small group of Astraeus', the heavy orbital transports hovering above the base.
Their cargo? Dropships full of SCVs and Mech Marines, as well as myself.
Letting a few of the expendable transports boost first, I turned my sensor arrays to observe the Protoss. Still on approach to Mar Sara, but they were certainly taking their time and being obvious about it. Makes a certain amount of sense, really. Tassadar was giving them as much time as possible to save as many civilians as possible.
Admirable chap.
To my pleasure, my Astraeus' made it free of atmosphere unmolested, powerful engines quickly fleeing Mar Sara's gravity well.
Tossing a mental salute to the fleets above it, I watched in interest as the contested planet fell away beneath my feet as my own transport began to rise to join my small transport fleet in Space.
A quick burst of orders, and we were on our way to set up some proper infrastructure. Our destination?
Well, in the paraphrased words of a Dead Kunnin' Kaptianly Sort, the place that gits will not dakka is da place dat dey have already dakka'd.
Chau Sara, here I come!
Alright then, where was I…
Lessee...Perfectly Normal Dropships dispatched and helping to ferry Mar Sara refugees to safety on the Sons of Korhal fleet (and certainly not dropping minute amounts of Nanomachines to slowly infiltrate the ship's systems to steal ship templates and navigation data for my own use every time they dock with the larger ships, no sir)...Check.
Modified SCV Salvage Teams dispatched...Check. I know Mar Sara's a bit of a backwater, even by Terran standards, but, hell, worst comes to worst I can pick up everything needed to build a Terran colony. I mean, granted, I might tweak a few little things here and there, but there's something to be said for being able to churn out lowtech as well as hightech.
Quantity has a quality all its own and all that.
Frankly, Terrans are weird. Some of their stuff is advanced enough to make my CPU stall out trying to figure out how they can do that, and some of it is so laughably primitive that if it wasn't for the way they apply it, I'd barely bother to save the data to my CPU core. Advanced-yet-Primitive, really.
I blame that on some engineers being latent psychics, really. I'm pretty sure there's at least one Ghost out there with Machine Empathy, so Super Engineer doesn't seem to be that far-fetched as a talent.
This is in contrast to the Protoss. Them, I can just blame their tech level on the tiny fact that they are Psychic Space Wizard Monks.
By contrast, eh, I suppose my techbase's main strength is in a combination of size, firepower, cyberwarfare, and numbers. Really, the Progenitors mastery of tech is ridiculous. Just the fact that I construct equipment via nanoassemblers and have sensors that can easily examine such things down to the atom...well, It explains a lot about my stuff's design philosophy.
Why bother with any real effort at durability when you can't keep up with the sheer destructive output that the other guy has, right? For a fraction of the effort, you can have three or four or forty tanks to blow up the other guy by the time he blows up one of your basically disposable units.
Cold, efficient numbers game.
Still, plundering Mar Sara's techbase is giving me some useful little toys.
First off, there's the Adjutant tech.
Adjutants are damn useful things right off the bat:
First, subordinate AIs that I (probably) don't have to worry about going rampant (They seem pretty stable given that if the Terrans haven't managed to cause a Machine revolt with all the time they've been here, they should be a-okay), plus the frame work for their bodies.
Seriously, human articulation is finicky. Saved me a lot of hassle picking up the Adjutant framework. Pity I don't have the full on cyborg data the first models supposedly were built with, due to that being long gone by the time the Saras were settled. Ah well, maybe once I get to one of the original colony worlds. Regardless, I'm happily taking advantage of a functional humanoid-sized frame I don't have to bother with figuring out the kinks of.
A bit of redesign and splicing in my unit's base coding, and I've got a heavily modified Adjutant design that fits just fine into a standard CMC Powered Armor, takes orders like a killbot, and can 'soft' adjust to the chaotic mess of infantry tactics.
That's as opposed to my normal killbots, which, if I had them, would probably just ignore the whole mess and just leave nothing but smoking debris behind their march.
If I can't bury my enemies under wave after wave of ten meter tall killbots, then by damn we're going to borrow the stereotypical Soviet style! Wave after wave of infantry, backed up by heavy artillery.
...Huh. Actually, as an unexpected side effect, I think I just accidentally made a veterancy system for my infantry. Simulations say that the longer an Adjutant Marine survives, the better it's programming gets at infantry combat, due to having a more refined database of responses.
Whoops?
Can't just flat out swap the advanced programming to all of the baseline Adjutant Marines thanks to quantum variations in their AIs, apparently? I'm not sure I really get it, despite my new giant computer brain, but basically once they hit the field, the Adjutant AI starts developing independently, and it just doesn't want to compile in a new frame easily due to each AI installation being slightly unique.
Like a lot of my experiences since coming online... weird, annoying, and odd. Meh, maybe if my systems settle some more, I'll figure out a way around the whole frame adjustment bit. Ah well, I'll still spend the things like ammunition.
...Wonder if this means I'm plotting mass murder. Bit murky when using AI controlled killbots. As designed, my Adjutant AIs are sentient without actually being sapient. ..Suppose if any break the sapience barrier, well, I'll have to worry about that if it happens.
Also, as a side note, holy hell do I love Terran power armor. Cold fusion generators and gravity tech? Thank you, come again, nifty technical bounty! Sure, there's probably a 'better' bit of Progenitor tech I could repurpose, but this stuff is already usable on the scale I'm working on.
...I think I'm kind of lazy, as a Commander, come to think it.
Anyhoo, I've got two options I'm storing for usage. First, there's the 'default', bare bones, Terran designed version of armor. I'm saving that and the gear specs entirely as a contingency to piss off Mengsk if he goes nuts and I can't headcap him with an orbital laser (Due to fighting all the other things) or some such. Figure that there's nothing like orbital dropping supply caches to rebellious anti-Dominion and anti-UED sorts for making the life of their troops interesting.
Second, there's the version I'm making for my combad modded Adjutants. That sucker's still cheap as hell to make by my standards, but I've upgraded the armor using Progenitor alloys. The kind of stuff they make tanks out of. My best simulations say that it should pretty much shrug off anything infantry scale at this point, and take repeated strikes from anti-vehicle weaponry to do any real damage. Same thing for the gauss rifle: Build in a micro-fabricator for ammo (and more Progenitor level spikes) along with souped up rail coils for a longer, harder punch, and my Mech Marines should be a threat to anything under starship grade plating. I've also tucked a small nanobomb scuttling charge in there that ensures that if they do go down, they're leaving a crater and a pile of nanodust behind (Bomb's mostly to disguise the nanomachines breaking down), not highly advanced materials for those crazy Terrans to reverse engineer.
Yeah, I'm onto you, Stettman! You and Swann won't get your hands on my tech and do terrifying things with it!
...Well, unless it's really, really funny, or if I decide on Plan Assassinate Mengsk Via Sheer Rage At Raynor's Raiders And Their Toys Being Better Than His.
End result is a 'Marine' sized unit that should pass casual inspection as such, and for the cost of 'normal' Progenitor-tech units I can easily pump them out in squads once I get the Metal and Energy flowing. Had to design a specialized factory for squad based production. Naturally, I just used the Terran design for a Barracks for a shell, then packed it with fabricator arms.
To my annoyance, my systems were really quite helpful with redesigning the barracks into an Infantry Factory..
Build a new design entirely? Nope, nope, crash to desktop (Which hurts like hell when you are the desktop, by the by.)
Take an existing building, then repurpose it? 'Hey Skipper, I see you're trying to install a fabricator arrays, would you like some help in placement?' Bah.
Anyhow, ended up doing the same with Firebats, but my version are more like Plasmabats than just Firebats. Gotta love high intensity plasma throwers. Heh.
While I was kludging together my Infantry Factory, I figured I may as well put the other Terran building templates to good use.
As long as I'm stealing ideas from Glorious Soviet Russia, might as well indulge in some maskirovka. Just a simple shell with some sensor jamming to give off the same readings as a Command Center or Supply Depot or whatever to drop over my metal extractors and generators, plus one for my Infantry Factory. Five minutes of CPU time to make. Off the shelf jammer to spoof a comsat station, off the shelf spoofer to give proper material returns to sensors, big hollow shell of high grade nano-forged steel, bam, done. Had to rejigger the design a bit to shove a bit more of the Extractor underground to make it work, but I figure it'll be worth it until I feel secure enough to go full obvious Von Neumann machine.
Also useful if I need to justify a presence somewhere. Look guys, why are you suspicious at the Legion having troops on planet, we totally have a real base RIGHT HERE!
Missile turrets...eh, I'll just steal the styling to make my own stuff blend in better. Comsat's not hugely useful, Progenitor tech is amazing sensor wise, but it's nice to know which frequencies that Terrans use when doing remote scanning and that should also pick up the local species' cloaking tech.
Vultures…
I settle for a bit of fiddling so they can handle a Mech Marine riding one, build in a fabber for Unlimited Spider Mine Works, put a better explosive in the Spider Mine's payload, upgrade the grenade launcher to a nice light laser...Bam, fast moving light attack vehicle and mine layer.
Despite that, even with Progenitor technology, I still can't find a way to make a Vulture safe to ride. They look awesome, though, so that's alright!
For the hell of it, I also took a look at the Terran's anti-grav tech they slap on their bigger buildings. Not really that useful for me, in a weird way.. As a Commander, it's honestly just simpler and faster to move some fabricators about (Dropship's far faster than a building!) and build a new factory on site rather than worry about moving and escorting a giant, slow moving target. Might be useful to spend some cycles when I'm less busy on integrating it into my designs. I mean, moving artillery pieces IS kinda funny. I figured I'd just go ahead and leave it in place on my 'fake' Terran buildings, just in case, so they blend in a bit better.
Or can do double duty as decoys. Hmmm. Heh.
Anyways, I didn't just spend my bit of time playing with tech design! I was also busy doing sneaky Commandery-things.
First off, I dropped a number of SCVs, with some Mech Marines, off at Backwater Station. Their job was to rebuild the now-collapsed hole I'd blasted my way out of, then keep going deeper. Once they tunneled down deep enough, through the wonder of nanotech, they began laying in a nice contingency for me.
Namely, building me a Secret Underground Base.
After all, I don't think I've done anything to cause the Protoss to cease their plans to glass Mar Sara, Just In Case...and that means most of my current surface infrastructure is probably going to end up wrecked in a few hours.
Hence leaving behind a nice bunker filled with goodies if I decide to re-establish myself here on Mar Sara. Massive metal and energy storage facilities were built up, slowly filling as construction continued. I lacked the proper 'advanced' generators still, alas, so I had to make do with quantity instead, filling entire levels of the base with basic energy generators.
Factories were next on the list, each lining fairly large hangars or silos. Rack after rack of Mech Marines on standby, bays full of Vultures, and hangar after hangar full of dropships redesigned to use my best tech.
Sure, I might have to dig them out again after bombardment, but I think I can be confident they'll survive it, considering the multiple layers of Neosteel and Progenitor Alloy I'd reinforced the base's walls with. Just in case, the walls and ceilings were layered with weapon emplacements, from basic artillery and laser cannons to banks of plasma throwers, railguns, and missile launchers.
As for myself…
Well, I was thinking that it was time to move on from Mar Sara. The Evacuation was starting to wind down, the civilians safely getting off planet to the evac fleet.
My orbital factory constructed a small group of Astraeus', the heavy orbital transports hovering above the base.
Their cargo? Dropships full of SCVs and Mech Marines, as well as myself.
Letting a few of the expendable transports boost first, I turned my sensor arrays to observe the Protoss. Still on approach to Mar Sara, but they were certainly taking their time and being obvious about it. Makes a certain amount of sense, really. Tassadar was giving them as much time as possible to save as many civilians as possible.
Admirable chap.
To my pleasure, my Astraeus' made it free of atmosphere unmolested, powerful engines quickly fleeing Mar Sara's gravity well.
Tossing a mental salute to the fleets above it, I watched in interest as the contested planet fell away beneath my feet as my own transport began to rise to join my small transport fleet in Space.
A quick burst of orders, and we were on our way to set up some proper infrastructure. Our destination?
Well, in the paraphrased words of a Dead Kunnin' Kaptianly Sort, the place that gits will not dakka is da place dat dey have already dakka'd.
Chau Sara, here I come!
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Chapter 4
TikiTau
Commander Pangolinski
- Location
- Texas
Chapter 4
Space.
It's really, really big.
Pretty, too. Rather nice to just float along, Astraeus engines humming, using hyper advanced sensors that would make any observatory weep with envy to watch the stellar scenery as I hop between worlds.
Seriously, the Sara system's primary star was gorgeous to watch. Rather like a giant lava lamp. Quite relaxing.
Course, I had a rather enjoyable exercise to do while in flight.
See, given Progenitor communications tech, even with my basic sensor arrays, I could easily keep up to date with my small base back on Mar Sara. This meant I could also recieve data relayed from Mar Sara.
In this case, I was rather enjoying the feel of Terran ship designs of all shapes and sizes slowly (by my standards) filtering into my databases.
Freighters, ore haulers, cruiser liners, refurbished colony ships, light frigates...All sorts of vessels, due to the fact that, as terrorists, the Sons of Korhal can hardly have a 'standardized' set of units like a 'proper' military would.
You'll notice I wasn't particularly leeching any heavy military use designs. Makes sense, really. My dropships were on refugee duty. You don't tend to route refugees to the ships that are expected to be in the thick of the fighting while everyone else runs like hell, after all.
Still, I was perfectly happy to shamelessly take advantage of all those new hull designs. Pretty standard, honestly: Rip all the life support out, rip out inefficent power systems, install my own tech for much more powerful engines, leave in warp drives...
I could barely contain an electronic 'squee!' when my Orbital Factory unlocked. Another step closer to having all systems back online. Let the good times roll!
I quickly slammed together a couple of units to fill in some niches in my sadly lacking space forces.
FIrst, the ever-important orbital fabricator. Based off a light freighter, I pretty much gutted it, leaving behind nothing but a set of extremely powerful engines, a basic Terran warp drive for interplanetary travel, and then fitting five of the orbital assembler arrays on the small ship. End result is a bit larger and more expensive than the 'basic' Orbital Fabricator (I think. MIssing data, you know the drill) but, once constructed, much, much faster at building. I had just enough space left to slap on a single laser cannon and a bit of extra armor, to boot. To make it even more glorious, due to Sturdy Terran Design and upgraded engines shamelessly ripped off my Astraeus, these suckers could work in orbit or in atmosphere. Eat your heart out, Advanced Flying Air Fabber! New designation: Settler
While the orbital construction unit was great, I couldn't help but giggle gleefully at the massive ore megareighter design that I'd gotten plans for. So much SPACE. Ended up with three variations for my own use. First variation was simple, converting the bay into a combination metal/energy storage. Not as much as either dedicated building, but on the other hand my new design was mobile and heavily armored. Managed to wedge a few point defense turrets on it, as well, to swat at wandering fighters. New designation: Tanker.
Second variant, I just filled the ore hauler's cargo bay with as many generators as I could wedge in there. Mobile, warpable generators I can tuck away safely in the Black somewhere? Either they go unmolested by an enemy, or they force them to waste forces trying to run down what is, essentially, a useful-but-not-necessary unit for me. Would also make moving on to a new star system MUCH easier, since I'd have my energy network online and ready. New designation: Juicer.
Third variant was an improved transport. While the Astraeus is alright on its own, it's a bit limited. Transport capacity is, well, me. Anything over about fifteen meters and you're out of luck. Plus, you need a ton of them for a proper invasion. Granted, that's great for messing with point defense, I suppose, presenting way too many targets, but I figured a heavy transport wouldn't be a bad idea, especially since I wanted something less...fragile...for transporting my august presence. I figured between meter thick Progentior hull plating, heavy point defense cannons and a pair of missile turrets, plus a communication array, I had a winner. Sure, I lost out a bit of cargo space with the secondary systems, but well worth it to have a transport that can shoot back. New designation: Hauler.
Alas, my plans for the fourth design I worked up as mid-flight entertainment couldn't be finalized, being saved as a work-in-progress. My systems were still a bit wonky from the rough offlining <Error Undefined> years ago, so while I know I am technically capable of building one, I just currently do not have access to the schematics for the glorious resource core built into a Commander. Once my systems recover that data, though, I'm filling up one of these ships with nothing but resource cores and a basic engine and warp drive, then hiding them in the middle of nowhere in a system.
Space has a LOT of nowhere to hide in, you see.
As Chau Sara became visible as more than a speck of light in the distance, I quickly worked up two more designs based off a Terran light frigate. The first, an anti-ship variant, was loaded with heavy energy weapons. Hello, Spear-class Frigate. The second was designed to deal with the Zerg, in particular, as well as large groups of fighter craft, consisting of a tough little ship loaded up with as many anti-air weapons as I could physically fit on the sucker. Longbow-class Frigate, ready for construction.
Moving into Chau Sara's orbit, I couldn't help but tsk. When the Protoss try to destroy something, they really don't do things by halves.
According to what data I had mined out of the Terran databanks, Chau Sara used to be a mix of verdant jungle and wasteland, with a population of about 400,000.
From orbit, all I could see was a blasted, charred black ball of lifeless rock, cracked through with glowing, bleeding veins of magma visible from orbit. Data from my orbital sensors primly informed me that the current temperature of the planet was a balmly three hundred degrees celsius and an atmosphere made up of delightful gases like hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide.
Still, from what I can tell, the place would probably recover after a bit. Terrans are actually pretty good at terraforming around these parts, especially because they seem to not mind arid environments. Once the magma cooled enough to cap itself, the sheer amount of moisture in the air would probably do a nice job in finishing the post-bombardment cool down due to (highly acidic) rain.
Wouldn't be a pleasant place, but it'd be livable.
Luckily, I don't have to particularly bother waiting for that period. A quick pulse of my sensors found a cluster of tasty looking metal extraction points and my little fleet descended from orbit, the dropships detaching on their own to finish the descent once they were low enough.
As for me, I cut my transport's transport clamps a good story or two up, dropping to land with a thunk in the fresh volcanic plain I'd decided to set up on, ash curling up and around my arms.
Queuing up the basics, I quickly began constructing a surface base, even as I borrowed the template my Mar Sara SCVs had made when they were building Backwater Station's underground base. A few orders and scans of the ground for proper positioning, and a number of SCVs were industriously burrowing into the ground to set up Awesome Underground Backup Base #2.
I dispatched several of the marine dropships on a patrol of my new world, on the lookout for anything interesting. Didn't really expect anything, honestly, but it didn't hurt to be through.
As for the rest of my SCVs, those either assisted my construction, adding their nanosprayers to my work, or set about building factories.
I was actually quite happy with the Terran Starport design. A bit of tweaking and rotating, and I had a shiny new combination Air-and-Orbital factory. Left me the Orbital launcher to save for probes and light fighters and the like.
The new Aerospace Factory could only handle orbital units up to about the size of my new Settler, but that's fine by me. Once built, a Settler can easily boost its way into orbit on its own, no need for rockets.
Once the basic economy buildings at my beachhead were established, I gleefully set a pair of aerospace factories to repeat-build Settlers for me, each of them popping out a fresh vessel every five minutes. Due to build-staggering, that meant a new Settler every 2.5 minutes. I immediately sent them off to zip about the planet, capping the rest of the extraction points, while following units were set to salvage wreckage and those minerals everyone in the sector seem to go gaga over.
I can see why. They're DELICIOUSLY full of useful atoms. Mmmm, filling.
Finally, economy roaring, I sent a pack of Settlers to high orbit, beginning construction of orbital factories. Said factories immediately began construction of Spear and Longbow class escort frigates, the small flotillas of frigates moving off to standby locations in various orbits once they were completed.
Hey, I might be intending to stay low-profile for a bit, but I'd rather have a big nasty wolfpack of frigates available and underutilized rather than needed and not there.
I left my Settlers to their own business finishing up a trio of Orbital Factories to build up my fleet of Tankers, Juicers, and Haulers when a verrrrry interesting data download started being relayed from Mar Sara.
Oh, Leviathan-class Battlecruiser data?
AhahahhahHAHAHAHAHA YES! Yeeeeeeeeeees, come to me oh massive capital ship schematics!
Looks like the Sons of Korhal had finally sprung Jimmy Raynor from his charming abode up on the Merrimack after Duke shoved him and his militia there to rot.
It also appears, to my great pleasure, they used one of my dropships in either taking the ship or removing the prisoners. Sure, the Leviathan-class is old by Terran standards...but I don't care about that, I just need the Battlecruiser template so I can begin construction of my own fleet of capital-class ships.
I canceled further Settler construction, leaving the factory idle for the moment, even as I cracked the Terran commnet again to pass the time while my nanomachines mapped every nook and cranny of the Merrimack.
Adjutant 919-MS blinked slightly, calmly managing several communication lines as it turned to address its current User.
"Your tenure as Colonial Magistrate has been suspended pending an official investigation of your affiliation with the Sons of Korhal. Receiving incoming transmission."
The Adjutant adjusted a screen, passing data along to the former Magistrate. On it, the face of Raynor, James, (Marshall, Mar Sara Colonial Militia) appeared.
Raynor spoke, grinning slightly. "Hey man. Arcturus' boys sprung me from the prison ship. Apparently, they're as frustrated with the Confederates as we are! I know their reputation, but they seem to be on the level. I think Arcturus wants to speak to you."
The Adjutant observed as the former Magistrate adjusted their chair, glancing at a second screen. The new voice was idly noted as lacking in proper identifiers for return transmissions, an automatic subroutine flagging the transmission source as questionable. On the new screen, a grey-haired older man appeared. ID: Arcturus Mengsk, Sons of Korhal, Rebel Leader.
"Commander. Mar Sara is almost completely overrun by the Zerg. The Confederates are abandoning the planet, and so are we. However, there is one thing I'd like to do before we leave."
Arcturus leaned forwards, staring intently at the camera and his video conference partners.
"I want you to raid the colony's Confederate outpost and recover whatever design or weapons' schematics that you can find in their network. With the chaos of the Confederate evacuation, you shouldn't have any trouble getting in or out of the installation."
Raynor grinned, just a touch viciously, pleased at something. Calculating: Payback, seventy five percent probability. "I'm into it."
The Adjutant retracted the videoconference screens as the transmission on the other end cut out.
In his chair, the Magistrate rolled a shoulder, then pulled up a file on his computer. "Adjutant, open up a channel to the troopers. I need to get some raiders together."
The Adjutant nodded its mechanical head slightly, eyes unblinking, logging the orders as ita lways had. "Affirmative, Commander."
Oh ho, looks like the Sons of Korhal are going after the Jacobs Installation. Battlecruiser schematics AND crazy Terran weapon designs? Today is officially my birthday!~
Space.
It's really, really big.
Pretty, too. Rather nice to just float along, Astraeus engines humming, using hyper advanced sensors that would make any observatory weep with envy to watch the stellar scenery as I hop between worlds.
Seriously, the Sara system's primary star was gorgeous to watch. Rather like a giant lava lamp. Quite relaxing.
Course, I had a rather enjoyable exercise to do while in flight.
See, given Progenitor communications tech, even with my basic sensor arrays, I could easily keep up to date with my small base back on Mar Sara. This meant I could also recieve data relayed from Mar Sara.
In this case, I was rather enjoying the feel of Terran ship designs of all shapes and sizes slowly (by my standards) filtering into my databases.
Freighters, ore haulers, cruiser liners, refurbished colony ships, light frigates...All sorts of vessels, due to the fact that, as terrorists, the Sons of Korhal can hardly have a 'standardized' set of units like a 'proper' military would.
You'll notice I wasn't particularly leeching any heavy military use designs. Makes sense, really. My dropships were on refugee duty. You don't tend to route refugees to the ships that are expected to be in the thick of the fighting while everyone else runs like hell, after all.
Still, I was perfectly happy to shamelessly take advantage of all those new hull designs. Pretty standard, honestly: Rip all the life support out, rip out inefficent power systems, install my own tech for much more powerful engines, leave in warp drives...
I could barely contain an electronic 'squee!' when my Orbital Factory unlocked. Another step closer to having all systems back online. Let the good times roll!
I quickly slammed together a couple of units to fill in some niches in my sadly lacking space forces.
FIrst, the ever-important orbital fabricator. Based off a light freighter, I pretty much gutted it, leaving behind nothing but a set of extremely powerful engines, a basic Terran warp drive for interplanetary travel, and then fitting five of the orbital assembler arrays on the small ship. End result is a bit larger and more expensive than the 'basic' Orbital Fabricator (I think. MIssing data, you know the drill) but, once constructed, much, much faster at building. I had just enough space left to slap on a single laser cannon and a bit of extra armor, to boot. To make it even more glorious, due to Sturdy Terran Design and upgraded engines shamelessly ripped off my Astraeus, these suckers could work in orbit or in atmosphere. Eat your heart out, Advanced Flying Air Fabber! New designation: Settler
While the orbital construction unit was great, I couldn't help but giggle gleefully at the massive ore megareighter design that I'd gotten plans for. So much SPACE. Ended up with three variations for my own use. First variation was simple, converting the bay into a combination metal/energy storage. Not as much as either dedicated building, but on the other hand my new design was mobile and heavily armored. Managed to wedge a few point defense turrets on it, as well, to swat at wandering fighters. New designation: Tanker.
Second variant, I just filled the ore hauler's cargo bay with as many generators as I could wedge in there. Mobile, warpable generators I can tuck away safely in the Black somewhere? Either they go unmolested by an enemy, or they force them to waste forces trying to run down what is, essentially, a useful-but-not-necessary unit for me. Would also make moving on to a new star system MUCH easier, since I'd have my energy network online and ready. New designation: Juicer.
Third variant was an improved transport. While the Astraeus is alright on its own, it's a bit limited. Transport capacity is, well, me. Anything over about fifteen meters and you're out of luck. Plus, you need a ton of them for a proper invasion. Granted, that's great for messing with point defense, I suppose, presenting way too many targets, but I figured a heavy transport wouldn't be a bad idea, especially since I wanted something less...fragile...for transporting my august presence. I figured between meter thick Progentior hull plating, heavy point defense cannons and a pair of missile turrets, plus a communication array, I had a winner. Sure, I lost out a bit of cargo space with the secondary systems, but well worth it to have a transport that can shoot back. New designation: Hauler.
Alas, my plans for the fourth design I worked up as mid-flight entertainment couldn't be finalized, being saved as a work-in-progress. My systems were still a bit wonky from the rough offlining <Error Undefined> years ago, so while I know I am technically capable of building one, I just currently do not have access to the schematics for the glorious resource core built into a Commander. Once my systems recover that data, though, I'm filling up one of these ships with nothing but resource cores and a basic engine and warp drive, then hiding them in the middle of nowhere in a system.
Space has a LOT of nowhere to hide in, you see.
As Chau Sara became visible as more than a speck of light in the distance, I quickly worked up two more designs based off a Terran light frigate. The first, an anti-ship variant, was loaded with heavy energy weapons. Hello, Spear-class Frigate. The second was designed to deal with the Zerg, in particular, as well as large groups of fighter craft, consisting of a tough little ship loaded up with as many anti-air weapons as I could physically fit on the sucker. Longbow-class Frigate, ready for construction.
Moving into Chau Sara's orbit, I couldn't help but tsk. When the Protoss try to destroy something, they really don't do things by halves.
According to what data I had mined out of the Terran databanks, Chau Sara used to be a mix of verdant jungle and wasteland, with a population of about 400,000.
From orbit, all I could see was a blasted, charred black ball of lifeless rock, cracked through with glowing, bleeding veins of magma visible from orbit. Data from my orbital sensors primly informed me that the current temperature of the planet was a balmly three hundred degrees celsius and an atmosphere made up of delightful gases like hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide.
Still, from what I can tell, the place would probably recover after a bit. Terrans are actually pretty good at terraforming around these parts, especially because they seem to not mind arid environments. Once the magma cooled enough to cap itself, the sheer amount of moisture in the air would probably do a nice job in finishing the post-bombardment cool down due to (highly acidic) rain.
Wouldn't be a pleasant place, but it'd be livable.
Luckily, I don't have to particularly bother waiting for that period. A quick pulse of my sensors found a cluster of tasty looking metal extraction points and my little fleet descended from orbit, the dropships detaching on their own to finish the descent once they were low enough.
As for me, I cut my transport's transport clamps a good story or two up, dropping to land with a thunk in the fresh volcanic plain I'd decided to set up on, ash curling up and around my arms.
Queuing up the basics, I quickly began constructing a surface base, even as I borrowed the template my Mar Sara SCVs had made when they were building Backwater Station's underground base. A few orders and scans of the ground for proper positioning, and a number of SCVs were industriously burrowing into the ground to set up Awesome Underground Backup Base #2.
I dispatched several of the marine dropships on a patrol of my new world, on the lookout for anything interesting. Didn't really expect anything, honestly, but it didn't hurt to be through.
As for the rest of my SCVs, those either assisted my construction, adding their nanosprayers to my work, or set about building factories.
I was actually quite happy with the Terran Starport design. A bit of tweaking and rotating, and I had a shiny new combination Air-and-Orbital factory. Left me the Orbital launcher to save for probes and light fighters and the like.
The new Aerospace Factory could only handle orbital units up to about the size of my new Settler, but that's fine by me. Once built, a Settler can easily boost its way into orbit on its own, no need for rockets.
Once the basic economy buildings at my beachhead were established, I gleefully set a pair of aerospace factories to repeat-build Settlers for me, each of them popping out a fresh vessel every five minutes. Due to build-staggering, that meant a new Settler every 2.5 minutes. I immediately sent them off to zip about the planet, capping the rest of the extraction points, while following units were set to salvage wreckage and those minerals everyone in the sector seem to go gaga over.
I can see why. They're DELICIOUSLY full of useful atoms. Mmmm, filling.
Finally, economy roaring, I sent a pack of Settlers to high orbit, beginning construction of orbital factories. Said factories immediately began construction of Spear and Longbow class escort frigates, the small flotillas of frigates moving off to standby locations in various orbits once they were completed.
Hey, I might be intending to stay low-profile for a bit, but I'd rather have a big nasty wolfpack of frigates available and underutilized rather than needed and not there.
I left my Settlers to their own business finishing up a trio of Orbital Factories to build up my fleet of Tankers, Juicers, and Haulers when a verrrrry interesting data download started being relayed from Mar Sara.
Oh, Leviathan-class Battlecruiser data?
AhahahhahHAHAHAHAHA YES! Yeeeeeeeeeees, come to me oh massive capital ship schematics!
Looks like the Sons of Korhal had finally sprung Jimmy Raynor from his charming abode up on the Merrimack after Duke shoved him and his militia there to rot.
It also appears, to my great pleasure, they used one of my dropships in either taking the ship or removing the prisoners. Sure, the Leviathan-class is old by Terran standards...but I don't care about that, I just need the Battlecruiser template so I can begin construction of my own fleet of capital-class ships.
I canceled further Settler construction, leaving the factory idle for the moment, even as I cracked the Terran commnet again to pass the time while my nanomachines mapped every nook and cranny of the Merrimack.
xXxXx
Adjutant 919-MS blinked slightly, calmly managing several communication lines as it turned to address its current User.
"Your tenure as Colonial Magistrate has been suspended pending an official investigation of your affiliation with the Sons of Korhal. Receiving incoming transmission."
The Adjutant adjusted a screen, passing data along to the former Magistrate. On it, the face of Raynor, James, (Marshall, Mar Sara Colonial Militia) appeared.
Raynor spoke, grinning slightly. "Hey man. Arcturus' boys sprung me from the prison ship. Apparently, they're as frustrated with the Confederates as we are! I know their reputation, but they seem to be on the level. I think Arcturus wants to speak to you."
The Adjutant observed as the former Magistrate adjusted their chair, glancing at a second screen. The new voice was idly noted as lacking in proper identifiers for return transmissions, an automatic subroutine flagging the transmission source as questionable. On the new screen, a grey-haired older man appeared. ID: Arcturus Mengsk, Sons of Korhal, Rebel Leader.
"Commander. Mar Sara is almost completely overrun by the Zerg. The Confederates are abandoning the planet, and so are we. However, there is one thing I'd like to do before we leave."
Arcturus leaned forwards, staring intently at the camera and his video conference partners.
"I want you to raid the colony's Confederate outpost and recover whatever design or weapons' schematics that you can find in their network. With the chaos of the Confederate evacuation, you shouldn't have any trouble getting in or out of the installation."
Raynor grinned, just a touch viciously, pleased at something. Calculating: Payback, seventy five percent probability. "I'm into it."
The Adjutant retracted the videoconference screens as the transmission on the other end cut out.
In his chair, the Magistrate rolled a shoulder, then pulled up a file on his computer. "Adjutant, open up a channel to the troopers. I need to get some raiders together."
The Adjutant nodded its mechanical head slightly, eyes unblinking, logging the orders as ita lways had. "Affirmative, Commander."
xXxXx
Oh ho, looks like the Sons of Korhal are going after the Jacobs Installation. Battlecruiser schematics AND crazy Terran weapon designs? Today is officially my birthday!~
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Chapter 5
TikiTau
Commander Pangolinski
- Location
- Texas
A/N: And yeah, don't expect this update rate all the time. Easy to do when one's home on a nasty day/evening and the Muse is giggling non-stop, but the weekly grind starts again tomorrow! ;_;
Chapter 5
I'll be honest.
For a few minutes (actual minutes!) I considered leaving the Jacobs Installation raid to Raynor and the Sons of Korhal.
I mean, on the one hand, sure, giving Mengsk access to Psi Emitters seems like a great idea…
On the other, well, hell, without 'em, Mengsk would seem a damn sight more reasonable for longer, and it's not like the Confederacy doesn't already -have- Emitter Tech, they designed the damned things and used them.
...on Mar Sara, come to think it. ...Um. Hmm.
Hadn't found one when I was scavenging. Odd. Might just be too damaged for my scavengers to log it as anything other than debris.
Anyways, there is also some sort of heavy duty counterpart to the Emitter on Tarsonis, if I recall.
So, in a way, denying the things to Mengsk doesn't really do much more than slow 'em down, since the djinni's already out of the lamp. When I do decide to pop that pimple that is Mengsk, I suppose I'd much prefer not to have to Collateral Damage some of his perfectly good subordinates because they still think he's a good little rebel. I'd rather break him as a Monster than kill 'em as a Martyr, basically.
I figure it might be more efficient in the long run of things, and leave more people to pick up the pieces of this madhouse.
So, Option 1: Let the raid go as planned, leave 'canon' alone.
Didn't really like that, and I was planning to nuke what I remembered of events from orbit anyways...so I made up Option 2: Make An Alternative.
Hence why I had several dropships full of Mech Marines, Plasmabats, and freshly modified SCVs en route to the Jacobs Installation, racing to beat the Sons of Korhal and Raynor.
xXxXx
Corporal Leeroy Gibbs didn't really hate his job, surprisingly.
Sure, like any good Confederate Marine, he kvetched in the barracks with his buddies about everything from the dullness of guard duty to how stupid the damn green LT's decisions could be.
Punk only got promoted because his momma was sleeping with some Confederate general, anyhoo.
But, if pushed, Leeroy would admit he didn't hate guard duty. It sure as hell beat being on Spooky Science Duty inside the Installation.
Seriously, some of the things he'd heard rumors of in there...well, there was probably a reason the eggheads insisted on using Resocs for most of it. Nasty Business.
But for Corporal Gibbs, hell, this was a nice break from his previous tour of duty suppressing rebels. No real threat, just lock your armor's knees and half doze through things. Never been a bigger threat than an unusually cantankerous Rhynadon.
Good eatin', that.
Sure, he'd heard some other rumors from that worrywart city boy in his squad that the higher ups were pulling out, but Gibbs was pretty sure that was just horse pucky. Installation's way too important to be abandoned, the Captain said so himself when he put the LT in charge here.
This might explain why Corporal Gibbs was a bit unprepared for his quiet stretch of guard duty to be interrupted by a thunderous, bone-shaking BOOM, a group of grey-and-blue painted dropships slamming from high orbit to deployment range in complete ignorance of safety hazards, in perfect formation, even as every communication line in his armor suddenly went dead except for heavy crackling static.
Gibbs himself, along with the group of Resocs on door duty, found himself slammed to the ground by the sudden shockwave of the decelerating ships, rifle knocked away by the shockwave. Dropship doors opened as he slammed his visor down and started to roll to his feet, grey-and-blue armored Marines dropping with machine-like precision, guns snapping up mid-freefall as they grounded on the hard ground.
An electronically masked voice sliced through the static, precise and right genteel soundin'.
"You have until the count of ten to lay down your arms. If you surrender, you will be escorted to your fleet's vessels via dropship. Failure to comply will be met with lethal force. One."
Gibbs blinked a bit owlishly, eyes widening as he stopped fumbling for his C-14 in shock at the sheer gall these bluejackets were showin'. Seriously, didn't they know where they we-
In later years, Corporal Gibbs would come to realize that moment of shock and indecision saved his life.
His fellow Marines, Resocialized one and all, reacted as their neural programming demanded.
"FOR THE CONFEDERACY!"
Impalers pulled up, the barrage of spikes from the other four guards spat hot pointy death at the invaders…
And left them standing, their armor scuffed and sparking, but still functional.
That electronic voice sliced through the jamming again.
"Unfortunate."
xXxXx
The Mech Marines tore the Alpha Squadron Marines apart in short bursts after they opened fire, taking cosmetic damage as the C-14s, designed to punch through two inches of neosteel, failing to make an impression on the heavy layered Progenitor Alloy.
My upgraded gauss rifles (New Designation: Vladimir Gauss Rifle. Redesignating), on the other hand, didn't have any such problems, slamming the Terran-spec spikes through the organic marines with ruthless efficiency. The one survivor of the gate guards held his hands up, sensors indicating an elevated level of stress, shock, and waste products in his internal armoring. Luckily, Mech Marines don't need to breathe…
A 'standard' Terran Dropship (like the ones I lent to the Sons of Korhal) grounded, the surviving Marine being marched on board at gunpoint and left under guard by a pair of them.
As for the front doors...well, the Plasmabats stepped up.
Armored bunker doors were no match for heavy plasma torches, a massive breach burned into the barriers. Not bothering for the metal to cool, my forces stormed forwards.
SCVs modded for Electronic Warfare quickly ripped control of the systems away from the base's scientists, already beginning to download as much data as they could into their quantum memory cores.
The data I really wanted access to, however, was held on a stand-alone server in a shielded bunker. Physical access was required.
Considering the numbers I had brought, I doubted this would be a problem. As one detachment hurried through the facility, smaller groups split off, burning through bunker doors, offering all Terrans inside the same choice: Surrender or Die.
A distressing number chose death, alas, but some breakage is expected in these sorts of operations. Most of the civilians, however, were quickly hustled outside and joined the Marine Corporal and a few of his surviving comrades on the dropship.
Scientists, maintenance workers, Marines...I didn't really care, honestly, I just had a small contingency I'd made up on the spot to deal with them.
I mean, I don't mind the breakage, as mentioned, I -AM- Line Commander Gamma #44268 of the Legion, and thus being a ruthlessly efficient self-replicating mechanism of war is in my job description.
No, literally, that bit is in my documentation and briefing files.
Buuuut just because I can accept collateral damage if needed doesn't mean I see a need to gun down every plumber and pencil pusher in the complex for wearing white.
Also, infantry scale point-to-point teleportation pads. Mmm, yeees, yeeeeeeeeeeees.
So, yeah. Between the heavy tech advantage, numbers, and sheer precision, it didn't take my troops long to gut the facility, leaving nothing behind but plasma melted doors, splattered remnants of the defenders who refused surrender and Zerg test subjects, and a good ol' space mystery.
Oh, and I plundered the Jacobs Installation data core, ripping all that delicious experimental data away, the E-War SCVs casually smacking down the self-destruct and data purge systems while plundering the facility.
Good thing, too. I mean, we found some really high-yield crystals (locals call 'em 'ardeon', I think) in a vault with two meter thick hardened doors. No match for determined Plasmabats, but quite excessive by local standards. Probably for the best I stole them, the things must have been valuable, given the security, but they were also full of Zerg spores. Nasty.
I just had the SCVs carefully disassemble the original crystal matrix, atom by atom, so I could replicate it at a whim if needed. Never know when I'll need some bribes in a local material, after all.
Anyways, while my troops were efficiently going about their looting, I went through the data as it streamed across my network. Really, kind of a morbid read, the facility's data.
See, apparently, the main thing this little hole in the rock was studying happened to be how Ghosts interacted with the Zerg. Turns out the Zerg just adore Ghosts' psionic signatures, and will home in on them once they find them.
The Psi-Emitter, as I vaguely recalled, broadcasts that tasty Zerg-attracting Ghost Signature at a distance of Very Long, drawing the Zerg in from all over the damn place.
Could be useful for me, really. I did intend to xenocide the filthy things at some point, and drawing them into traps couldn't hurt at all.
Specifically, drawing them into a specially trained deathworld I can remote-detonate would be the best option. That's for a later date.
Anyways, I removed most of the research data, then had my troopers shred the console in 'accidental' crossfire. No sense giving Mengsk too much of a head start on any other research, and then we left the Psi Emitter data on the mainframe….along with a few...tweaks. Nothing too out of the ordinary, not at all, just a minor design change I worked into the design that might result in both lessened distance for this version of the Emitter as well as letting someone with the proper access codes remotely over-ride the nasty little thing, as well as actively noting exact positioning when the beacon was powered.
Just in case, you know. If I'm giving Mengsk enough rope to hang himself, I want to know how much rope he's actually using.
Anyways, Psi Emitter data sabotaged to be less effective than advertised as well as programming in backdoors for myself, and I pulled out my troops.
Rather profitable little mission, in my opinion.
I picked up Zergbait, Goliath specs, a full scan of Ghost equipment, and tetrabytes of data on the Zerg and psionic experimentation
Also, a shipful of confused, frightened survivors.
Well, if there's one thing I figure is universal, it's greed. A quickly fabricated Adjutant in a Ghost outfit, plus a box full of palm-sized ardeon crystals, and it was showtime.
My 'Ghost' (Dangit, the locals used all the good names for spooky sorts. Can't call 'em Wraiths, that's a ship...Spectres are some confusing black black ops project...Banshees are another aircraft...bah, I'll think on a better name later) stepped out, clad in grey and blue, headgear glowing ominously as it stared emotionlessly at the frightened survivors.
"You may call me Agent Black. The Confederacy apologizes for the abrupt manner of your departure from your previous posting, but Command has ordered that facility shut down and expedited. This ship will shortly be offloading you at the Confederate evacuation fleet. The base was shut down due to the general evacuation of the planet. Your facility was attacked by rebels from the Sons of Korhal. A Confederate-friendly mercenary unit pulled the survivors out while leaving Mar Sara itself along with the general population. Any actual truth of the method in which the facility was shut down is locked down under a Class 7 Seal. You will not speak of it. Comply, and you will be amply rewarded."
My Ghost opens the case its' carrying, showing the Ardeon crystals.
"Speak of this, and you will not live to see the next day. This conversation never took place. I was never here."
The pair of Mech Marines, in perfect sync, cocked their Vladimirs, the heavy repeating gauss rifles gleaming ominously in the dimly lit dropship.
Really, the majority of these fine Terrans were the ones smart enough to surrender anyways.
Given a choice between 'shut up and take enough money to live the high life for a few years' and 'be murdered ruthlessly by Confederate Black Ops', it's not really a surprise they chose to be quiet about it.
The handoff at the Confederate Evac Fleet went well, with things being too confused by the chaos of evacuation for anyone high enough in the chain of command to care bothering to look too closely into where a mysterious mercenary group called 'Black's Marauders' came from.
Considering the Fringe Worlds, it's probably just another band of freebooters that are a dime a dozen out here, plying their trade. Right? Right.
As for the Sons of Korhal...well…
xXxXx
Raynor was no stranger to violence. He'd lived a rather checkered life up to this point, on both sides of the law. He scratched his scruffy chin with an armored finger, ignoring a wince from the sergeant assigned to his squad at the sight of someone casually using powered armor in such a careless fashion.
"...Well, if that don't beat all. Someone's already been through here ahead of us."
Shaking his head, he waved his fire team forwards, the veteran Marshall keeping an eye on the jumpy rebel FNGs.
One of them twitched, his helmet light jerking as he let out a little shriek, hopping back and firing wildly into the ceiling, screaming obscenities until Jim physically shoulder checked him, slapping the rifle safely upwards and pulling it from the FNGs hands as two of the veteran marines with him grabbed his arms.
"Easy there, boy. The hell spooked you?"
Trembling, the private shakily tried to salute.
"s-sorry, Marshall. I-had somethin' drop on my helmet, an-and I thought one of them Zerg critters was waitin' up there ta jump on me. I heard it happened to my C-cousin Lemmy when we was evacuatin'."
Sighing, Raynor wiped a neosteel hand along the kid's helmet. "Right, guess that's understandable, kid, but in this case, it was just a crappily maintained fire extinguisher line. Jimenez, keep a hold of the rook's gun until he stops ridin' the stimmies."
Turning, Raynor addressed the rest of his troopers. "The rest of you! Get back in marching order. Point, forwards. Rear, Kid's got a point. Eyes up as well as around! Tain't natural, whatever happened in here."
The now-wary group of rebels moved cautiously through the dead bunker, suit lights playing across damaged and scorched walls, destroyed vehicles, and puddles of corpses. Raynor frowned as one pile of viscera, formerly contained in a heavy cell, wasn't made up of dead humans.
"Mengsk. We got some dead Zerg in here. I don't believe it. The hell was going on here?!"
The Sons of Korhal squad paused, the sergeants chivvying the younger troopers into guard positions while the Marshall chatted with the Rebel Leader.
Mengsk sounded grim, voice ominously rumbling over the commlinks in the darkened bunker.
"Believe it, Marshal. I've seen other facilities like this one, with Zerg in them, and that was over a year ago. The Confederates KNOW about the Zerg, Marshall. Not only that, they lured them here. Hell, they might be breeding these things!"
Raynor shook his head, spitting. "That's just sick, man. Anyways, we're coming up on main lab. Not a soul in here, just heavy battle damage. Grabbing anything left on the mainframe and getting the hell out of here before we get eaten or burned by the other aliens."
xXxXx
Note to self: I need to find a way to get fingers again. It just isn't the same, being able to cackle about plans going as planned without fingers to steeple.
Having my Mech Marines do it for me just isn't the same...
Chapter 5
I'll be honest.
For a few minutes (actual minutes!) I considered leaving the Jacobs Installation raid to Raynor and the Sons of Korhal.
I mean, on the one hand, sure, giving Mengsk access to Psi Emitters seems like a great idea…
On the other, well, hell, without 'em, Mengsk would seem a damn sight more reasonable for longer, and it's not like the Confederacy doesn't already -have- Emitter Tech, they designed the damned things and used them.
...on Mar Sara, come to think it. ...Um. Hmm.
Hadn't found one when I was scavenging. Odd. Might just be too damaged for my scavengers to log it as anything other than debris.
Anyways, there is also some sort of heavy duty counterpart to the Emitter on Tarsonis, if I recall.
So, in a way, denying the things to Mengsk doesn't really do much more than slow 'em down, since the djinni's already out of the lamp. When I do decide to pop that pimple that is Mengsk, I suppose I'd much prefer not to have to Collateral Damage some of his perfectly good subordinates because they still think he's a good little rebel. I'd rather break him as a Monster than kill 'em as a Martyr, basically.
I figure it might be more efficient in the long run of things, and leave more people to pick up the pieces of this madhouse.
So, Option 1: Let the raid go as planned, leave 'canon' alone.
Didn't really like that, and I was planning to nuke what I remembered of events from orbit anyways...so I made up Option 2: Make An Alternative.
Hence why I had several dropships full of Mech Marines, Plasmabats, and freshly modified SCVs en route to the Jacobs Installation, racing to beat the Sons of Korhal and Raynor.
xXxXx
Corporal Leeroy Gibbs didn't really hate his job, surprisingly.
Sure, like any good Confederate Marine, he kvetched in the barracks with his buddies about everything from the dullness of guard duty to how stupid the damn green LT's decisions could be.
Punk only got promoted because his momma was sleeping with some Confederate general, anyhoo.
But, if pushed, Leeroy would admit he didn't hate guard duty. It sure as hell beat being on Spooky Science Duty inside the Installation.
Seriously, some of the things he'd heard rumors of in there...well, there was probably a reason the eggheads insisted on using Resocs for most of it. Nasty Business.
But for Corporal Gibbs, hell, this was a nice break from his previous tour of duty suppressing rebels. No real threat, just lock your armor's knees and half doze through things. Never been a bigger threat than an unusually cantankerous Rhynadon.
Good eatin', that.
Sure, he'd heard some other rumors from that worrywart city boy in his squad that the higher ups were pulling out, but Gibbs was pretty sure that was just horse pucky. Installation's way too important to be abandoned, the Captain said so himself when he put the LT in charge here.
This might explain why Corporal Gibbs was a bit unprepared for his quiet stretch of guard duty to be interrupted by a thunderous, bone-shaking BOOM, a group of grey-and-blue painted dropships slamming from high orbit to deployment range in complete ignorance of safety hazards, in perfect formation, even as every communication line in his armor suddenly went dead except for heavy crackling static.
Gibbs himself, along with the group of Resocs on door duty, found himself slammed to the ground by the sudden shockwave of the decelerating ships, rifle knocked away by the shockwave. Dropship doors opened as he slammed his visor down and started to roll to his feet, grey-and-blue armored Marines dropping with machine-like precision, guns snapping up mid-freefall as they grounded on the hard ground.
An electronically masked voice sliced through the static, precise and right genteel soundin'.
"You have until the count of ten to lay down your arms. If you surrender, you will be escorted to your fleet's vessels via dropship. Failure to comply will be met with lethal force. One."
Gibbs blinked a bit owlishly, eyes widening as he stopped fumbling for his C-14 in shock at the sheer gall these bluejackets were showin'. Seriously, didn't they know where they we-
In later years, Corporal Gibbs would come to realize that moment of shock and indecision saved his life.
His fellow Marines, Resocialized one and all, reacted as their neural programming demanded.
"FOR THE CONFEDERACY!"
Impalers pulled up, the barrage of spikes from the other four guards spat hot pointy death at the invaders…
And left them standing, their armor scuffed and sparking, but still functional.
That electronic voice sliced through the jamming again.
"Unfortunate."
xXxXx
The Mech Marines tore the Alpha Squadron Marines apart in short bursts after they opened fire, taking cosmetic damage as the C-14s, designed to punch through two inches of neosteel, failing to make an impression on the heavy layered Progenitor Alloy.
My upgraded gauss rifles (New Designation: Vladimir Gauss Rifle. Redesignating), on the other hand, didn't have any such problems, slamming the Terran-spec spikes through the organic marines with ruthless efficiency. The one survivor of the gate guards held his hands up, sensors indicating an elevated level of stress, shock, and waste products in his internal armoring. Luckily, Mech Marines don't need to breathe…
A 'standard' Terran Dropship (like the ones I lent to the Sons of Korhal) grounded, the surviving Marine being marched on board at gunpoint and left under guard by a pair of them.
As for the front doors...well, the Plasmabats stepped up.
Armored bunker doors were no match for heavy plasma torches, a massive breach burned into the barriers. Not bothering for the metal to cool, my forces stormed forwards.
SCVs modded for Electronic Warfare quickly ripped control of the systems away from the base's scientists, already beginning to download as much data as they could into their quantum memory cores.
The data I really wanted access to, however, was held on a stand-alone server in a shielded bunker. Physical access was required.
Considering the numbers I had brought, I doubted this would be a problem. As one detachment hurried through the facility, smaller groups split off, burning through bunker doors, offering all Terrans inside the same choice: Surrender or Die.
A distressing number chose death, alas, but some breakage is expected in these sorts of operations. Most of the civilians, however, were quickly hustled outside and joined the Marine Corporal and a few of his surviving comrades on the dropship.
Scientists, maintenance workers, Marines...I didn't really care, honestly, I just had a small contingency I'd made up on the spot to deal with them.
I mean, I don't mind the breakage, as mentioned, I -AM- Line Commander Gamma #44268 of the Legion, and thus being a ruthlessly efficient self-replicating mechanism of war is in my job description.
No, literally, that bit is in my documentation and briefing files.
Buuuut just because I can accept collateral damage if needed doesn't mean I see a need to gun down every plumber and pencil pusher in the complex for wearing white.
Also, infantry scale point-to-point teleportation pads. Mmm, yeees, yeeeeeeeeeeees.
So, yeah. Between the heavy tech advantage, numbers, and sheer precision, it didn't take my troops long to gut the facility, leaving nothing behind but plasma melted doors, splattered remnants of the defenders who refused surrender and Zerg test subjects, and a good ol' space mystery.
Oh, and I plundered the Jacobs Installation data core, ripping all that delicious experimental data away, the E-War SCVs casually smacking down the self-destruct and data purge systems while plundering the facility.
Good thing, too. I mean, we found some really high-yield crystals (locals call 'em 'ardeon', I think) in a vault with two meter thick hardened doors. No match for determined Plasmabats, but quite excessive by local standards. Probably for the best I stole them, the things must have been valuable, given the security, but they were also full of Zerg spores. Nasty.
I just had the SCVs carefully disassemble the original crystal matrix, atom by atom, so I could replicate it at a whim if needed. Never know when I'll need some bribes in a local material, after all.
Anyways, while my troops were efficiently going about their looting, I went through the data as it streamed across my network. Really, kind of a morbid read, the facility's data.
See, apparently, the main thing this little hole in the rock was studying happened to be how Ghosts interacted with the Zerg. Turns out the Zerg just adore Ghosts' psionic signatures, and will home in on them once they find them.
The Psi-Emitter, as I vaguely recalled, broadcasts that tasty Zerg-attracting Ghost Signature at a distance of Very Long, drawing the Zerg in from all over the damn place.
Could be useful for me, really. I did intend to xenocide the filthy things at some point, and drawing them into traps couldn't hurt at all.
Specifically, drawing them into a specially trained deathworld I can remote-detonate would be the best option. That's for a later date.
Anyways, I removed most of the research data, then had my troopers shred the console in 'accidental' crossfire. No sense giving Mengsk too much of a head start on any other research, and then we left the Psi Emitter data on the mainframe….along with a few...tweaks. Nothing too out of the ordinary, not at all, just a minor design change I worked into the design that might result in both lessened distance for this version of the Emitter as well as letting someone with the proper access codes remotely over-ride the nasty little thing, as well as actively noting exact positioning when the beacon was powered.
Just in case, you know. If I'm giving Mengsk enough rope to hang himself, I want to know how much rope he's actually using.
Anyways, Psi Emitter data sabotaged to be less effective than advertised as well as programming in backdoors for myself, and I pulled out my troops.
Rather profitable little mission, in my opinion.
I picked up Zergbait, Goliath specs, a full scan of Ghost equipment, and tetrabytes of data on the Zerg and psionic experimentation
Also, a shipful of confused, frightened survivors.
Well, if there's one thing I figure is universal, it's greed. A quickly fabricated Adjutant in a Ghost outfit, plus a box full of palm-sized ardeon crystals, and it was showtime.
My 'Ghost' (Dangit, the locals used all the good names for spooky sorts. Can't call 'em Wraiths, that's a ship...Spectres are some confusing black black ops project...Banshees are another aircraft...bah, I'll think on a better name later) stepped out, clad in grey and blue, headgear glowing ominously as it stared emotionlessly at the frightened survivors.
"You may call me Agent Black. The Confederacy apologizes for the abrupt manner of your departure from your previous posting, but Command has ordered that facility shut down and expedited. This ship will shortly be offloading you at the Confederate evacuation fleet. The base was shut down due to the general evacuation of the planet. Your facility was attacked by rebels from the Sons of Korhal. A Confederate-friendly mercenary unit pulled the survivors out while leaving Mar Sara itself along with the general population. Any actual truth of the method in which the facility was shut down is locked down under a Class 7 Seal. You will not speak of it. Comply, and you will be amply rewarded."
My Ghost opens the case its' carrying, showing the Ardeon crystals.
"Speak of this, and you will not live to see the next day. This conversation never took place. I was never here."
The pair of Mech Marines, in perfect sync, cocked their Vladimirs, the heavy repeating gauss rifles gleaming ominously in the dimly lit dropship.
Really, the majority of these fine Terrans were the ones smart enough to surrender anyways.
Given a choice between 'shut up and take enough money to live the high life for a few years' and 'be murdered ruthlessly by Confederate Black Ops', it's not really a surprise they chose to be quiet about it.
The handoff at the Confederate Evac Fleet went well, with things being too confused by the chaos of evacuation for anyone high enough in the chain of command to care bothering to look too closely into where a mysterious mercenary group called 'Black's Marauders' came from.
Considering the Fringe Worlds, it's probably just another band of freebooters that are a dime a dozen out here, plying their trade. Right? Right.
As for the Sons of Korhal...well…
xXxXx
Raynor was no stranger to violence. He'd lived a rather checkered life up to this point, on both sides of the law. He scratched his scruffy chin with an armored finger, ignoring a wince from the sergeant assigned to his squad at the sight of someone casually using powered armor in such a careless fashion.
"...Well, if that don't beat all. Someone's already been through here ahead of us."
Shaking his head, he waved his fire team forwards, the veteran Marshall keeping an eye on the jumpy rebel FNGs.
One of them twitched, his helmet light jerking as he let out a little shriek, hopping back and firing wildly into the ceiling, screaming obscenities until Jim physically shoulder checked him, slapping the rifle safely upwards and pulling it from the FNGs hands as two of the veteran marines with him grabbed his arms.
"Easy there, boy. The hell spooked you?"
Trembling, the private shakily tried to salute.
"s-sorry, Marshall. I-had somethin' drop on my helmet, an-and I thought one of them Zerg critters was waitin' up there ta jump on me. I heard it happened to my C-cousin Lemmy when we was evacuatin'."
Sighing, Raynor wiped a neosteel hand along the kid's helmet. "Right, guess that's understandable, kid, but in this case, it was just a crappily maintained fire extinguisher line. Jimenez, keep a hold of the rook's gun until he stops ridin' the stimmies."
Turning, Raynor addressed the rest of his troopers. "The rest of you! Get back in marching order. Point, forwards. Rear, Kid's got a point. Eyes up as well as around! Tain't natural, whatever happened in here."
The now-wary group of rebels moved cautiously through the dead bunker, suit lights playing across damaged and scorched walls, destroyed vehicles, and puddles of corpses. Raynor frowned as one pile of viscera, formerly contained in a heavy cell, wasn't made up of dead humans.
"Mengsk. We got some dead Zerg in here. I don't believe it. The hell was going on here?!"
The Sons of Korhal squad paused, the sergeants chivvying the younger troopers into guard positions while the Marshall chatted with the Rebel Leader.
Mengsk sounded grim, voice ominously rumbling over the commlinks in the darkened bunker.
"Believe it, Marshal. I've seen other facilities like this one, with Zerg in them, and that was over a year ago. The Confederates KNOW about the Zerg, Marshall. Not only that, they lured them here. Hell, they might be breeding these things!"
Raynor shook his head, spitting. "That's just sick, man. Anyways, we're coming up on main lab. Not a soul in here, just heavy battle damage. Grabbing anything left on the mainframe and getting the hell out of here before we get eaten or burned by the other aliens."
xXxXx
Note to self: I need to find a way to get fingers again. It just isn't the same, being able to cackle about plans going as planned without fingers to steeple.
Having my Mech Marines do it for me just isn't the same...
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Starcraft Unit Scales
TikiTau
Commander Pangolinski
- Location
- Texas
Eh, the Terran transporters also apparently don't work very well. Short range inside a building or starship is about the best they can do, and it apparently requires a lot of computer support and precise alignment or else Bad Things happen.
by contrast, Protoss can do casual interstellar building and unit teleportation with the proper beacon and Progenitor can do interplanetary between gates.
...they tried to make teleporting marines, supposedly, but they had a tiny little problem and tended to, well, combust. Or fade out of the time stream.
*shrug* supposedly they existed, though I suppose they might just be bs' d engine restrictions instead of elevators. If it helps, they probably DID find some xel'naga ruins at some point to loot the tech from.
Also, something useful!
by contrast, Protoss can do casual interstellar building and unit teleportation with the proper beacon and Progenitor can do interplanetary between gates.
...they tried to make teleporting marines, supposedly, but they had a tiny little problem and tended to, well, combust. Or fade out of the time stream.
*shrug* supposedly they existed, though I suppose they might just be bs' d engine restrictions instead of elevators. If it helps, they probably DID find some xel'naga ruins at some point to loot the tech from.
Also, something useful!
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Chapter 6
TikiTau
Commander Pangolinski
- Location
- Texas
Chapter 6
Honestly, I gotta say, I was sort of disappointed with the Terran transport pads I'd gotten my hands on back in the Jacobs Installation. Frankly, the danged things were pretty inefficient and short range.
I used a Mech Marine as a guinea pig, juicing one of the teleporters up with access to my energy network to see if it was just a matter of power limiting distance.
The Mech Marine kiiiiind of exploded all over my testing area, the chunks caught on fire, and then the entire mess faded out of existence. Very annoying, need access to a better teleporter.
The pads didn't even have the grace to help defrag or replace my old reliable Progenitor transport gate, either. Best I could get with some tinkering was a bit more range and shrink the size of the pad, but nothing particularly amazing on a strategic level. Tactical, sure, they'd be useful inside my bases, but beyond that? Nope.
What rude technology.
Still, it wasn't all bad! I upgraded my infantry and bot factories with the things. Not the greatest range, but, for instance, it let me build a factory, seal it behind defenses and solid walls, then have the Infantry and Bots produced teleported to a storage bay or into the path of hypothetical invaders.
They'd already be trying to advance through killzones of heavy fixed defenses and checkpoints, so why not make it more annoying for them and add in a constant, never-ending stream of murderous killbots?
Speaking of Murderous Killbots, the Goliath design! Lovely, although why the hell did they design the things with a giant cockpit with weaker armor for infantry to shoot through to kill the pilot, I will never know. This isn't the Inner Sphere, dammit.
My version of the Goliath ended up looking a fair bit different from the Terran variants.
I left the general bipedal frame, did the Usual Upgrade Song And Dance (Progenitor Power Tech, armor, frame, etc) but stole a bit from a universe of grim and unending war for armament. Ripped out the pair of 30mm Autocannons and missile pods the Goliath came with, then added in a pair of heavy bore autocannons to each side. Built in a fabber so the killbot could swap between armor piercing high explosive shells and flak. Finished it off with a chin mounted dual Vladimir turret, for light infantry work and suppression, then up-armored the whole thing, taking advantage of the stronger engine and structure from my Progenitor tech. Gave the whole thing a delightfully blocky look, rather like my own august presence, with flat, slab like armor making for a rather menacing looking unit.
Also, no giant 'Shoot Me Here To Incapacitate' window like the original design!
Oh, right. Other fun toy. The Ghost that got splattered back in the Installation's main lab, well, I managed to pull his name and serial number from the lab's records, figure that could be useful later on.
It's the upside of a Government with a known branch of Evil Assassins, really. If you tell someone that you're an Evil Assassin and can back it up a bit, looks and gear wise, they probably aren't going to go out of their way to blab about running into an Evil Assassin to anyone else.
So, name, name...eh, screw it, I'm callin' my design a Geist. Combat Adjutant, tweaked for infiltration and Recon duties, as well as generally being vicious and Black Opsy.
Not psychic in the least, unfortunately, and fairly fragile, so no awesome Ghost powers...buuuuut on the other hand, due to having access to my power network, the Geist's cloaking devices don't have to be turned off.
Bit of reverse engineering there. See, the original Ghost cloak requires a psionic component, since the cloaking is apparently psionically stimulated cells refracting light. That, however, was apparently based off the Wraith's cloaking field originally, which is pure tech. So, from my tinkering, I found a hypothesis: The reason the cells need a psionic activator to cloak is because the Terrans are using a Ghost's psionics to cut out the admittedly impressive computer and power requirements to properly micromanage near-perfect light refraction and redirection.
I, on the other hand, have much better computer and power systems, plus much more advanced nanotech.
With those advantages, I was able to kitbash together my own version. Maybe not quite as effective, since it requires an external power source, but, heck, most of my stuff works off a funky quantum power network with a planetary range anyways, so it's not really a downside for my Geists.
I also tuned up the C-10 Canister rifle I'd taken from the dead Ghost. Damn thing's an anti-tank rifle to start. Seriously, it's a 25mm rifle firing explosive shells and it has an automatic function. Ghosts are crazy.
Naturally, I can't let a bunch of brainwashed operatives outdo my Geists, so I swapped the firing mechanism out for a gauss accelerator system for longer range and punch, upgraded the penetrator mechanisms, installed a secondary 'magazine' fabber for Lockdown rounds to screw with enemy vehicles, plus a heavily upgraded scope and set of targeting sensors to help expedite long range target removal. Also, the flashlight was swapped out for a more ominous red tactical flashlight, to go with the Geist's red optics, because it looks cooler
Rest of the loadout my Geists were issued included a heavy pistol, a large combat knife honed to a monomolecular edge (I do hope Ares Macrotechnology never finds out…Lawsuits are scary~), and a shotgun that one could be forgiven for mistaking for a short range flak cannon, after upgrades. Bout time I put some of those salvaged Terran small arm designs to good use, anyways.
Not like my Geists get tired, after all, so as long as their loadout is under weight capacity, hell, why not load them for Ultralisk?
Final result: I have a perpetually cloaked infiltration unit with a heavy sniper cannon suitable for murdering light vehicles and being a threat to heavy vehicles and even light starship armor. Granted, would have to rely a bit more on the Golden BB effect or tagging something vulnerable (Engine, weapon emplacement, control mechanism, that sort of thing) for shooting at starships, but it's still TECHNICALLY a threat to a light vessel operating that low.
As for my little fiefdom...well, I mostly just sent several Settlers boosting for the Sara System's asteroid belts. While Chau Sara was rich in metal deposits, and the Crystal deposits churned up by the Protoss bombardment were great, the fact was I was starting to hit capacity on design. Oh, sure, I can maintain that economy...but I'm going to want a LOT of ships for the next phase of my plan, which means I need way more metal and mass, even with my fleet of Tankers, Haulers, and Juicers hanging about Chau Sara, slowly filling their storage bays.
To explain why I need what even a Commander would consider excessive resources...Well…
When I had finished downloading the schematics for the old Leviathan-class Battlecruiser, I ended up being forced to do some retrofitting to get a factory big enough to actually construct the damn thing. This is due to the fact that my 'default' Orbital factory is perfectly fine for a large number of vessels...buuuuut a Battlecruiser is more along the lines of what a Progentior-tech Commander would consider Titan-grade Construction. Could possibly be built by just fabricators, but that's much slower and more vulnerable to enemy raids than a proper factory would be.
Actually, come to think it, that's a bit of a weak point in my normal tech base. Commanders don't usually bother with excessive Macro-scale construction, by nature. Why bother? We can just spam smaller units in infinite hordes.
Titans are an exception, but even then, they're still spammable with enough of an economy backing you up.
Thus, I had to radically redesign my building methods to start building proper Battlecruisers.
So, first, I took advantage of the nifty modularity that Terran Buildings have access to. Instead of mysteriously useful physics labs, though, I was able to use the modular functions to daisy chain a series of Aerospace Fabbers together. The final block of Fabbers was kind of huge, since it was having to build Battlecruisers, you see. As in, 'noticeable from space due to being about a square kilometer of fabrication tools'.
Inefficient, and my estimates suggested it would take at least three hours to build and assemble each Battlecruiser.
Who has three hours to spend on a single ship?!
So, step two.
I raided my station-keeping designs for my Orbital Factory. Given that the Terran Starport design I had based my Aerospace Factory off of was made to be slowly mobile and orbit-droppable for colonization purposes, it was already space rated.
Still, I wanted to upgraded a bit, and the 'default' version seemed to require deployment. Just took that away, left it capable of 'deploying' in space with the addition of heavy gravity compensators.
Then, I folded the Capital-Class Fabber over on itself. Space means three dimensions!
Thick pillars of Progenitor Alloy anchored the second set of Capital Fabbers above the first, spaced wide and tall enough for a Battlecruiser to fit between them. That done, I sheathed in the sides with a few meters of thick neosteel, to deal with meteorites.
The result was a fat, squat, modular orbital factory component. I could then link those up like Legos until I had an Orbital Shipyard large enough to handle Battlecruiser construction.
After I finished the first of them, I then had a thought.
Neosteel's perfectly fine to build on, right? And I don't have proper orbital platforms yet…
So I kludged.
I had Settlers start building point-defense turrets and generators directly on the outside of my Orbital Shipyard, plus comm arrays. Plenty of space, the final result was a bit over 700 meters long and 700 meters wide. Had to be that large to handle the Cruiser construction, and the Leviathan's an OLD ship.
Can't wait till I get my hands on the Behemoth-class schematics, those suckers are even bigger!
Still, I had to stop and laugh when I realized what I'd built in orbit.
Big old blocky structure with a surface area of about 2 square kilometers, counting the top, bottom, and the sides, studded with power generators and defense turrets, capable of churning out a single Battlecruiser in under 20 minutes. Utterly expensive to build, but worth it.
Asides, I could always just build a single Orbital Shipyard and use it to pump out smaller ships at a ridiculous rate.
I probably would have cackled more and then started developing hilariously lethal Leviathan-class Battlecruiser variants except my economy suddenly tanked and I started receiving 'Unit Destroyed' warnings.
I mentally blinked.
Oh. Right.
Protoss Expeditionary Fleet.
...Forgot about that. Guess I spent too much time playing with my new tech designs. Well, there goes my Mar Sara surface industry.
Whoops.
Honestly, I gotta say, I was sort of disappointed with the Terran transport pads I'd gotten my hands on back in the Jacobs Installation. Frankly, the danged things were pretty inefficient and short range.
I used a Mech Marine as a guinea pig, juicing one of the teleporters up with access to my energy network to see if it was just a matter of power limiting distance.
The Mech Marine kiiiiind of exploded all over my testing area, the chunks caught on fire, and then the entire mess faded out of existence. Very annoying, need access to a better teleporter.
The pads didn't even have the grace to help defrag or replace my old reliable Progenitor transport gate, either. Best I could get with some tinkering was a bit more range and shrink the size of the pad, but nothing particularly amazing on a strategic level. Tactical, sure, they'd be useful inside my bases, but beyond that? Nope.
What rude technology.
Still, it wasn't all bad! I upgraded my infantry and bot factories with the things. Not the greatest range, but, for instance, it let me build a factory, seal it behind defenses and solid walls, then have the Infantry and Bots produced teleported to a storage bay or into the path of hypothetical invaders.
They'd already be trying to advance through killzones of heavy fixed defenses and checkpoints, so why not make it more annoying for them and add in a constant, never-ending stream of murderous killbots?
Speaking of Murderous Killbots, the Goliath design! Lovely, although why the hell did they design the things with a giant cockpit with weaker armor for infantry to shoot through to kill the pilot, I will never know. This isn't the Inner Sphere, dammit.
My version of the Goliath ended up looking a fair bit different from the Terran variants.
I left the general bipedal frame, did the Usual Upgrade Song And Dance (Progenitor Power Tech, armor, frame, etc) but stole a bit from a universe of grim and unending war for armament. Ripped out the pair of 30mm Autocannons and missile pods the Goliath came with, then added in a pair of heavy bore autocannons to each side. Built in a fabber so the killbot could swap between armor piercing high explosive shells and flak. Finished it off with a chin mounted dual Vladimir turret, for light infantry work and suppression, then up-armored the whole thing, taking advantage of the stronger engine and structure from my Progenitor tech. Gave the whole thing a delightfully blocky look, rather like my own august presence, with flat, slab like armor making for a rather menacing looking unit.
Also, no giant 'Shoot Me Here To Incapacitate' window like the original design!
Oh, right. Other fun toy. The Ghost that got splattered back in the Installation's main lab, well, I managed to pull his name and serial number from the lab's records, figure that could be useful later on.
It's the upside of a Government with a known branch of Evil Assassins, really. If you tell someone that you're an Evil Assassin and can back it up a bit, looks and gear wise, they probably aren't going to go out of their way to blab about running into an Evil Assassin to anyone else.
So, name, name...eh, screw it, I'm callin' my design a Geist. Combat Adjutant, tweaked for infiltration and Recon duties, as well as generally being vicious and Black Opsy.
Not psychic in the least, unfortunately, and fairly fragile, so no awesome Ghost powers...buuuuut on the other hand, due to having access to my power network, the Geist's cloaking devices don't have to be turned off.
Bit of reverse engineering there. See, the original Ghost cloak requires a psionic component, since the cloaking is apparently psionically stimulated cells refracting light. That, however, was apparently based off the Wraith's cloaking field originally, which is pure tech. So, from my tinkering, I found a hypothesis: The reason the cells need a psionic activator to cloak is because the Terrans are using a Ghost's psionics to cut out the admittedly impressive computer and power requirements to properly micromanage near-perfect light refraction and redirection.
I, on the other hand, have much better computer and power systems, plus much more advanced nanotech.
With those advantages, I was able to kitbash together my own version. Maybe not quite as effective, since it requires an external power source, but, heck, most of my stuff works off a funky quantum power network with a planetary range anyways, so it's not really a downside for my Geists.
I also tuned up the C-10 Canister rifle I'd taken from the dead Ghost. Damn thing's an anti-tank rifle to start. Seriously, it's a 25mm rifle firing explosive shells and it has an automatic function. Ghosts are crazy.
Naturally, I can't let a bunch of brainwashed operatives outdo my Geists, so I swapped the firing mechanism out for a gauss accelerator system for longer range and punch, upgraded the penetrator mechanisms, installed a secondary 'magazine' fabber for Lockdown rounds to screw with enemy vehicles, plus a heavily upgraded scope and set of targeting sensors to help expedite long range target removal. Also, the flashlight was swapped out for a more ominous red tactical flashlight, to go with the Geist's red optics, because it looks cooler
Rest of the loadout my Geists were issued included a heavy pistol, a large combat knife honed to a monomolecular edge (I do hope Ares Macrotechnology never finds out…Lawsuits are scary~), and a shotgun that one could be forgiven for mistaking for a short range flak cannon, after upgrades. Bout time I put some of those salvaged Terran small arm designs to good use, anyways.
Not like my Geists get tired, after all, so as long as their loadout is under weight capacity, hell, why not load them for Ultralisk?
Final result: I have a perpetually cloaked infiltration unit with a heavy sniper cannon suitable for murdering light vehicles and being a threat to heavy vehicles and even light starship armor. Granted, would have to rely a bit more on the Golden BB effect or tagging something vulnerable (Engine, weapon emplacement, control mechanism, that sort of thing) for shooting at starships, but it's still TECHNICALLY a threat to a light vessel operating that low.
As for my little fiefdom...well, I mostly just sent several Settlers boosting for the Sara System's asteroid belts. While Chau Sara was rich in metal deposits, and the Crystal deposits churned up by the Protoss bombardment were great, the fact was I was starting to hit capacity on design. Oh, sure, I can maintain that economy...but I'm going to want a LOT of ships for the next phase of my plan, which means I need way more metal and mass, even with my fleet of Tankers, Haulers, and Juicers hanging about Chau Sara, slowly filling their storage bays.
To explain why I need what even a Commander would consider excessive resources...Well…
When I had finished downloading the schematics for the old Leviathan-class Battlecruiser, I ended up being forced to do some retrofitting to get a factory big enough to actually construct the damn thing. This is due to the fact that my 'default' Orbital factory is perfectly fine for a large number of vessels...buuuuut a Battlecruiser is more along the lines of what a Progentior-tech Commander would consider Titan-grade Construction. Could possibly be built by just fabricators, but that's much slower and more vulnerable to enemy raids than a proper factory would be.
Actually, come to think it, that's a bit of a weak point in my normal tech base. Commanders don't usually bother with excessive Macro-scale construction, by nature. Why bother? We can just spam smaller units in infinite hordes.
Titans are an exception, but even then, they're still spammable with enough of an economy backing you up.
Thus, I had to radically redesign my building methods to start building proper Battlecruisers.
So, first, I took advantage of the nifty modularity that Terran Buildings have access to. Instead of mysteriously useful physics labs, though, I was able to use the modular functions to daisy chain a series of Aerospace Fabbers together. The final block of Fabbers was kind of huge, since it was having to build Battlecruisers, you see. As in, 'noticeable from space due to being about a square kilometer of fabrication tools'.
Inefficient, and my estimates suggested it would take at least three hours to build and assemble each Battlecruiser.
Who has three hours to spend on a single ship?!
So, step two.
I raided my station-keeping designs for my Orbital Factory. Given that the Terran Starport design I had based my Aerospace Factory off of was made to be slowly mobile and orbit-droppable for colonization purposes, it was already space rated.
Still, I wanted to upgraded a bit, and the 'default' version seemed to require deployment. Just took that away, left it capable of 'deploying' in space with the addition of heavy gravity compensators.
Then, I folded the Capital-Class Fabber over on itself. Space means three dimensions!
Thick pillars of Progenitor Alloy anchored the second set of Capital Fabbers above the first, spaced wide and tall enough for a Battlecruiser to fit between them. That done, I sheathed in the sides with a few meters of thick neosteel, to deal with meteorites.
The result was a fat, squat, modular orbital factory component. I could then link those up like Legos until I had an Orbital Shipyard large enough to handle Battlecruiser construction.
After I finished the first of them, I then had a thought.
Neosteel's perfectly fine to build on, right? And I don't have proper orbital platforms yet…
So I kludged.
I had Settlers start building point-defense turrets and generators directly on the outside of my Orbital Shipyard, plus comm arrays. Plenty of space, the final result was a bit over 700 meters long and 700 meters wide. Had to be that large to handle the Cruiser construction, and the Leviathan's an OLD ship.
Can't wait till I get my hands on the Behemoth-class schematics, those suckers are even bigger!
Still, I had to stop and laugh when I realized what I'd built in orbit.
Big old blocky structure with a surface area of about 2 square kilometers, counting the top, bottom, and the sides, studded with power generators and defense turrets, capable of churning out a single Battlecruiser in under 20 minutes. Utterly expensive to build, but worth it.
Asides, I could always just build a single Orbital Shipyard and use it to pump out smaller ships at a ridiculous rate.
I probably would have cackled more and then started developing hilariously lethal Leviathan-class Battlecruiser variants except my economy suddenly tanked and I started receiving 'Unit Destroyed' warnings.
I mentally blinked.
Oh. Right.
Protoss Expeditionary Fleet.
...Forgot about that. Guess I spent too much time playing with my new tech designs. Well, there goes my Mar Sara surface industry.
Whoops.
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Chapter 7
TikiTau
Commander Pangolinski
- Location
- Texas
A/N: Beta work done by @Elbrasch! Thanks, creepy skull-faced avatar man!
Chapter 7
Mmm.
Watching Mar Sara burn from the viewpoint of a single Settler in minimal power mode was an experience. I could only think of one word that really seemed appropriate for describing the coruscating lances of energy from the Protoss Carriers as they glassed the planet's surface.
'Pretty'.
Yeah, Commanders are a little odd in the CPU, when you get down to it. Suppose it's because we're programmed for war and all that.
Or it could be the long run times without any proper debugging. Either-or.
As a fellow practitioner of planetary destruction (in theory, anyways), I also had to nod approvingly at the Protoss' thoroughness. Maybe a bit inefficient, given how many ships they needed, but not a single one of my units on the surface of Mar Sara survived, every single one of them reporting catastrophic damage.
The underground facility I'd built, on the other hand, was deep enough to only report the impact tremors, as well as requiring a few spot repairs from freshly cracked tectonic plate movement and magma eruptions. No big deal.
Once the Protoss pulled out their fleet to move on from the now dead world of Mar Sara, I gave a few orders. The Settler was set on capping every metal point on the planet, new and old, while Backwater Station's SCVs were set to building a new path to the surface.
Leaving that on automatic, I shifted my attention to something a bit more finicky.
Namely, 'Black's Marauders'.
Made up of my first freshly constructed Geist, a good couple of squads of Mech Marines, a small squad of Plasmabats and some E-War SCVs, I'd decided to start getting more proactive now that I had the Sara system to myself to build up in.
At the same time, I'd decided to work on using my little Legitimate Band of Mercenaries/Pirates/Mercenary PIrates. More entertaining than twiddling my fingers (If I had fingers!) while waiting for Mar Sara's economy to re-establish and watching my shipyards to continue churning out vessels.
The Marauders were currently slipping up on a Confederate naval patrol. Their target was the patrol's Science Vessel, the CNS Einstein.
I wanted the ship's files, and it seemed like a good time to field test the Geist-class infantry bot.
Aboard the dropship, the Geist-class Infantry Unit designated Agent Black was calmly waiting.
It really didn't have enough of a mind to be able to worry, honestly. Still, the Geists were the most advanced Infantry bot constructed to date, and the AI's systems noted the sheer pressure that came from the Commander focusing its attention upon it.
The Dropship slowed down, just outside of sensor range of the Science Vessel, matching trajectories with the Einstein. As a hatch opened, Agent Black stepped out into the void of space, monopropellant jets built into its void-modified frame sending it on an intercept course with the patrol vessels..
Red optics glowed as it calmly studied the area around it, twisting carefully to avoid a micrometeorite that would have smashed through its main optic in approximately 33.9 seconds. Once the dangerous object's trajectory was bypassed, Agent Black shifted itself again, adjusting course with another careful burst of acceleration, patiently drifting through space.
A muted chime finally echoed in its CPU as it came up on the patrol's sensor net. A final minute burst adjusted final trajectory, Agent Black drifting towards its target on minimal power.
The Einstein's hull slowly grew larger and larger in its sensors, eclipsing its field of view, until it finally carefully flipped, powering up its grav boots with a trickle of energy.
The grav boots pulled Agent Black 'down' towards the Science Vessel's Hull, landing with a light clang. Carefully adjusting position, the Geist made its way towards what its sensors indicated to be a service airlock.
Kneeling down, it pulled a computer lead from its bracer, a small jack extending as it overrode the lockout codes, cycling the airlock while suppressing any alarm notifications to the Vessel's crew.
Once inside, Agent Black engaged its cloaking field, slowly making its way deeper into the vessel. Avoiding movement when the Vessel's crew were watching it, Agent Black made its way. This far from the Commander's main power network, it couldn't rely on infinite cloaking time. Instead, it paused, slipping into an unoccupied supply closet while its internal reserves recharged.
Darting out under full cloak, Agent Black slid up and under a series of cameras, pulling its handgun from a holster. A quiet *pfftpfftpfftpff* and a small hiss of static was the only sign of the modified pistol's nanodart ammo being shot into the security systems around the elevator, the short lived nanomachine payload looping the stand-alone security sensors' footage of the empty hallway previous to its arrival and sabotage.
Slicing the door controls, it slipped inside, grabbing a cable and skidding downwards until it landed on the roof of the elevator car locked at the bottom of the shaft. Pausing, it studied the roof of the cab, looking for an opening before it. Not finding one, it prepared to cut one, before he paused. Looking to the side, it noted a ventilation opening a floor up. Glancing downwards, it calculated, then leapt upwards, grabbing onto the side of the elevator.
A finger unfolded into a multi-tool, then metal tendrils unscrewing the vent's covering, and Agent Black slid inside, loosely re-threading each screw to conceal its mode of entrance to the Einstein's lower levels.
Carefully, Agent Black silently inched its way through the pitch black vents, the only source of light the dimmed optics on its face. Working deeper into the system, it held a palm to the panel in front of it. Nodding in satisfaction at the short range ultrasound pulse, it pulled his combat knife, the infantry bot's tireless arm allowing it to slowly saw a panel free. Below it, Agent Black saw another vent.
The process repeated, and Agent Black finally dropped out of the vents around the corner from its goal, the Einstein's secure data core.
A finger slipped around the corner, the optic sensor built into the tip of its Hostile Environment Suit allowing it to study its targets, data filtering and sorting through his CPU as it prepared a plan of action.
Two guards, full power armor, CMC-300 model. C-14 Impaler Gauss Rifle. Sidearms. Low alert status, body language points to boredom. Hypothesis: Low expectations. Post seen as punishment detail. Guard on the right, helmet sealed. Incapacitation via headshots difficult. Noisy.
Agent Black paused, barely paying attention to the quantum data link streaming his activities back towards its Commander. Direct assault...low chance of success. Best course of action: Distraction.
The Geist quietly moved down the hallway to a light fixture located some way aways from the door. Climbing up the wall slightly, it reached out, loosening the screws until the fixture was barely held into its fittings. A minute amount of low profile explosive was applied to the loose fixture. Stepping back to the corner, Agent Black shimmied up to the roof of the corridor and braced itself, action plan ready. Preprations complete, it triggered the explosive.
A quiet, barely audible *whumpf* was followed by the loud clatter of the fixture hitting the ground, prompting startled curses from the pair of guards.
"What the hell was that!?"
"Command, we've got an unknown noise. Sweeping the corridor to check it out."
Advancing carefully, the pair of Marines showed they were professionals, Impalers at the ready as they slowly advanced.
Just as they began to turn the corner, Agent Black activated its cloaking system, freezing in place.
The guards swept their gun barrels along the corridor, pausing to check the ceiling before advancing. Light from their weapons and armor danced across his position, its cloaking system returning the 'proper' view of the ceiling. Satisfied, the guards moved on to continue their sweep.
As the pair of marines moved below it, Agent Black immediately dropped to the ground, stealth systems absorbing the sound. It quickly sprinted towards the guarded door, computer probe ejecting and at the ready.
Brute force decryption quickly overwhelmed the door's security and alarm systems, the door hissing open slightly.
The Geist was already in motion before the door finished opening, dashing inside the secure database room.
Pulling a covert transmitter from a storage compartment, Agent Black slotted it out of sight on the back of the Science Vessel's secure mainframe. As the motion finished, he was already turning, diving out of the room as the delay in the doors erased itself, armored doors sliding closed and locking themselves again.
"Ugh. Damned maintenance boys are slacking off again."
"Eh, what do ya expect, Vinny? We're in the back end of the Confederacy. Only reason the fleet's even bothered posting us here is the yokels are starting to get uppity. No one important actually -cares- about these systems."
"I suppose, I suppose. Command? Yeah, some dumbass didn't do a maintenance check. Yeah. Yeah, fixture just fell down. Well, you can tell Chief Rogers that if he's got a problem about someone telling him that his overpaid janitors and Egghead tenders have to do an honest day's work, he can take it up with my size eighteen armored boot crammed down his throat."
Black slipped into the supply closet while the guards were busy, pulling himself back up into the vents.
Retracing its path, taking care to avoid any crew, Agent Black found his way to the airlock it had entered the vessel from. Taking care to re-hack the airlock doors, he kicked off the inner airlock, his form barely visible in, well, space as it signaled the recovery dropship for retrieval.
Along with the retrieval signal, he sent a simple text message through the network, aiming it for its Commander.
++Geist-001 reporting mission success. Hostile detection avoided, communication uplink attached to secure database. Awaiting retrieval and next assignment.++
I mentally blinked as a text message popped up in my HUD.
Huh. I...wasn't expecting that. Sure, I usually received some sort of notification when tasks were complete, but…
They usually were less...detailed. More perfunctory.
Hmmm. I turned to analyzing the data feed that the Marauders had been streaming to me.
The downside of extra-solar operations. One can transfer data just fine, but there's a bit of a time lag. Not much lag, but it's just enough to absolutely cripple an inexperienced Commander. We're used to what is basically instantaneous and constant control of every unit in our inventory, from construction bot to Titan. Adding in a time delay can throw a 'green' Commander's reactions off.
In a battle between Commanders, that moment of hesitation in reactions can be the difference between Victory and Defeat.
Mind, there are ways to work around or lessen that lag, and maybe even eliminate it, but they tend to depend on infrastructure I don't have the data or power capacity to build at the moment.
I felt my mental eyebrow raising higher as I watched my first proper Geist unit in action. That...was actually rather interesting. I hadn't given the Geist any other orders other than to attach the transmitter to the secure database in the bottom of the Science Vessel.
The pathfinding and problem solving it chose to employ was all decided by the Geist's solo programming, as I was a bit too far away to assume real time direct control.
Absolutely fascinating.
I'm going to have to put the Marauders to good use and see how they develop.
Also, quite happy to find that my intel recovered from the Jacobs Installation was correct. Confederate standing policy was to equip their Science Vessels with a comprehensive Ghost Project database, allowing their pet assassins to use any nearby Science Vessel as an emergency 'repair' bay.
Yeah, the Confederacy treats its Ghosts worse than I treat killbots, in some ways.
I mean, I don't take something sapient and turn it into a weapon, I just allow my weapons the chance to achieve sapience.
Still, quite a useful data packet. Psionics are one of those wibbly wobbly things the Progenitors (probably) didn't really develop (I think), so any additional data is the sort of thing I'm greedy to get my mechanical minions' mitts on, due to personal fascination as well as suspecting I'll need it to help crack Protoss technology once I can find some samples of that.
The transmitter also provided detailed scans for the Explorer-class Science Vessel.
Well. Handy!
Time for the standard Progenitor remove-the-wasted-space-the-meatbag-crew-needs upgrade package. However, instead of up-arming the newly Philosopher-class support vessel beyond some basic point defense (I refuse to lose a five hundred meter vessel to a bunch of flying bats because I couldn't be bothered to put a couple of Galatea turrets on it), I chose to replace the ship's freshly freed up space with bank after bank of quantum computing cores and Adjutant AI managers.
I've mentioned I'm a bit lazy as a Commander. I don't mind enjoying some good old technology and weapon tinkering, but I don't have the attention span for large amounts of research.
So, with the Philosophers, I can dump annoying research problems on them and let them brute force their way to a solution so I don't have to eat up my processor cycles dealing with annoying things and can spend them more constructively.
I'd already queued a data upload to the first Philosopher being built at the new Orbital Shipyard facility under construction at Mar Sara. I was planning to dump every chunk of Terran tech I'd found, from basic handguns to battlecruiser reactors on it, with first priority for analysis going to the Jacobs INstallation Zerg data, Psi Emitters, and the Ghost Program files.
Commander Philosophy: If you can't or don't want to do something, design and build something to do it for you!
Chapter 7
Mmm.
Watching Mar Sara burn from the viewpoint of a single Settler in minimal power mode was an experience. I could only think of one word that really seemed appropriate for describing the coruscating lances of energy from the Protoss Carriers as they glassed the planet's surface.
'Pretty'.
Yeah, Commanders are a little odd in the CPU, when you get down to it. Suppose it's because we're programmed for war and all that.
Or it could be the long run times without any proper debugging. Either-or.
As a fellow practitioner of planetary destruction (in theory, anyways), I also had to nod approvingly at the Protoss' thoroughness. Maybe a bit inefficient, given how many ships they needed, but not a single one of my units on the surface of Mar Sara survived, every single one of them reporting catastrophic damage.
The underground facility I'd built, on the other hand, was deep enough to only report the impact tremors, as well as requiring a few spot repairs from freshly cracked tectonic plate movement and magma eruptions. No big deal.
Once the Protoss pulled out their fleet to move on from the now dead world of Mar Sara, I gave a few orders. The Settler was set on capping every metal point on the planet, new and old, while Backwater Station's SCVs were set to building a new path to the surface.
Leaving that on automatic, I shifted my attention to something a bit more finicky.
Namely, 'Black's Marauders'.
Made up of my first freshly constructed Geist, a good couple of squads of Mech Marines, a small squad of Plasmabats and some E-War SCVs, I'd decided to start getting more proactive now that I had the Sara system to myself to build up in.
At the same time, I'd decided to work on using my little Legitimate Band of Mercenaries/Pirates/Mercenary PIrates. More entertaining than twiddling my fingers (If I had fingers!) while waiting for Mar Sara's economy to re-establish and watching my shipyards to continue churning out vessels.
The Marauders were currently slipping up on a Confederate naval patrol. Their target was the patrol's Science Vessel, the CNS Einstein.
I wanted the ship's files, and it seemed like a good time to field test the Geist-class infantry bot.
xXxXx
Aboard the dropship, the Geist-class Infantry Unit designated Agent Black was calmly waiting.
It really didn't have enough of a mind to be able to worry, honestly. Still, the Geists were the most advanced Infantry bot constructed to date, and the AI's systems noted the sheer pressure that came from the Commander focusing its attention upon it.
The Dropship slowed down, just outside of sensor range of the Science Vessel, matching trajectories with the Einstein. As a hatch opened, Agent Black stepped out into the void of space, monopropellant jets built into its void-modified frame sending it on an intercept course with the patrol vessels..
Red optics glowed as it calmly studied the area around it, twisting carefully to avoid a micrometeorite that would have smashed through its main optic in approximately 33.9 seconds. Once the dangerous object's trajectory was bypassed, Agent Black shifted itself again, adjusting course with another careful burst of acceleration, patiently drifting through space.
A muted chime finally echoed in its CPU as it came up on the patrol's sensor net. A final minute burst adjusted final trajectory, Agent Black drifting towards its target on minimal power.
The Einstein's hull slowly grew larger and larger in its sensors, eclipsing its field of view, until it finally carefully flipped, powering up its grav boots with a trickle of energy.
The grav boots pulled Agent Black 'down' towards the Science Vessel's Hull, landing with a light clang. Carefully adjusting position, the Geist made its way towards what its sensors indicated to be a service airlock.
Kneeling down, it pulled a computer lead from its bracer, a small jack extending as it overrode the lockout codes, cycling the airlock while suppressing any alarm notifications to the Vessel's crew.
Once inside, Agent Black engaged its cloaking field, slowly making its way deeper into the vessel. Avoiding movement when the Vessel's crew were watching it, Agent Black made its way. This far from the Commander's main power network, it couldn't rely on infinite cloaking time. Instead, it paused, slipping into an unoccupied supply closet while its internal reserves recharged.
Darting out under full cloak, Agent Black slid up and under a series of cameras, pulling its handgun from a holster. A quiet *pfftpfftpfftpff* and a small hiss of static was the only sign of the modified pistol's nanodart ammo being shot into the security systems around the elevator, the short lived nanomachine payload looping the stand-alone security sensors' footage of the empty hallway previous to its arrival and sabotage.
Slicing the door controls, it slipped inside, grabbing a cable and skidding downwards until it landed on the roof of the elevator car locked at the bottom of the shaft. Pausing, it studied the roof of the cab, looking for an opening before it. Not finding one, it prepared to cut one, before he paused. Looking to the side, it noted a ventilation opening a floor up. Glancing downwards, it calculated, then leapt upwards, grabbing onto the side of the elevator.
A finger unfolded into a multi-tool, then metal tendrils unscrewing the vent's covering, and Agent Black slid inside, loosely re-threading each screw to conceal its mode of entrance to the Einstein's lower levels.
Carefully, Agent Black silently inched its way through the pitch black vents, the only source of light the dimmed optics on its face. Working deeper into the system, it held a palm to the panel in front of it. Nodding in satisfaction at the short range ultrasound pulse, it pulled his combat knife, the infantry bot's tireless arm allowing it to slowly saw a panel free. Below it, Agent Black saw another vent.
The process repeated, and Agent Black finally dropped out of the vents around the corner from its goal, the Einstein's secure data core.
A finger slipped around the corner, the optic sensor built into the tip of its Hostile Environment Suit allowing it to study its targets, data filtering and sorting through his CPU as it prepared a plan of action.
Two guards, full power armor, CMC-300 model. C-14 Impaler Gauss Rifle. Sidearms. Low alert status, body language points to boredom. Hypothesis: Low expectations. Post seen as punishment detail. Guard on the right, helmet sealed. Incapacitation via headshots difficult. Noisy.
Agent Black paused, barely paying attention to the quantum data link streaming his activities back towards its Commander. Direct assault...low chance of success. Best course of action: Distraction.
The Geist quietly moved down the hallway to a light fixture located some way aways from the door. Climbing up the wall slightly, it reached out, loosening the screws until the fixture was barely held into its fittings. A minute amount of low profile explosive was applied to the loose fixture. Stepping back to the corner, Agent Black shimmied up to the roof of the corridor and braced itself, action plan ready. Preprations complete, it triggered the explosive.
A quiet, barely audible *whumpf* was followed by the loud clatter of the fixture hitting the ground, prompting startled curses from the pair of guards.
"What the hell was that!?"
"Command, we've got an unknown noise. Sweeping the corridor to check it out."
Advancing carefully, the pair of Marines showed they were professionals, Impalers at the ready as they slowly advanced.
Just as they began to turn the corner, Agent Black activated its cloaking system, freezing in place.
The guards swept their gun barrels along the corridor, pausing to check the ceiling before advancing. Light from their weapons and armor danced across his position, its cloaking system returning the 'proper' view of the ceiling. Satisfied, the guards moved on to continue their sweep.
As the pair of marines moved below it, Agent Black immediately dropped to the ground, stealth systems absorbing the sound. It quickly sprinted towards the guarded door, computer probe ejecting and at the ready.
Brute force decryption quickly overwhelmed the door's security and alarm systems, the door hissing open slightly.
The Geist was already in motion before the door finished opening, dashing inside the secure database room.
Pulling a covert transmitter from a storage compartment, Agent Black slotted it out of sight on the back of the Science Vessel's secure mainframe. As the motion finished, he was already turning, diving out of the room as the delay in the doors erased itself, armored doors sliding closed and locking themselves again.
"Ugh. Damned maintenance boys are slacking off again."
"Eh, what do ya expect, Vinny? We're in the back end of the Confederacy. Only reason the fleet's even bothered posting us here is the yokels are starting to get uppity. No one important actually -cares- about these systems."
"I suppose, I suppose. Command? Yeah, some dumbass didn't do a maintenance check. Yeah. Yeah, fixture just fell down. Well, you can tell Chief Rogers that if he's got a problem about someone telling him that his overpaid janitors and Egghead tenders have to do an honest day's work, he can take it up with my size eighteen armored boot crammed down his throat."
Black slipped into the supply closet while the guards were busy, pulling himself back up into the vents.
Retracing its path, taking care to avoid any crew, Agent Black found his way to the airlock it had entered the vessel from. Taking care to re-hack the airlock doors, he kicked off the inner airlock, his form barely visible in, well, space as it signaled the recovery dropship for retrieval.
Along with the retrieval signal, he sent a simple text message through the network, aiming it for its Commander.
++Geist-001 reporting mission success. Hostile detection avoided, communication uplink attached to secure database. Awaiting retrieval and next assignment.++
xXxXxXx
I mentally blinked as a text message popped up in my HUD.
Huh. I...wasn't expecting that. Sure, I usually received some sort of notification when tasks were complete, but…
They usually were less...detailed. More perfunctory.
Hmmm. I turned to analyzing the data feed that the Marauders had been streaming to me.
The downside of extra-solar operations. One can transfer data just fine, but there's a bit of a time lag. Not much lag, but it's just enough to absolutely cripple an inexperienced Commander. We're used to what is basically instantaneous and constant control of every unit in our inventory, from construction bot to Titan. Adding in a time delay can throw a 'green' Commander's reactions off.
In a battle between Commanders, that moment of hesitation in reactions can be the difference between Victory and Defeat.
Mind, there are ways to work around or lessen that lag, and maybe even eliminate it, but they tend to depend on infrastructure I don't have the data or power capacity to build at the moment.
I felt my mental eyebrow raising higher as I watched my first proper Geist unit in action. That...was actually rather interesting. I hadn't given the Geist any other orders other than to attach the transmitter to the secure database in the bottom of the Science Vessel.
The pathfinding and problem solving it chose to employ was all decided by the Geist's solo programming, as I was a bit too far away to assume real time direct control.
Absolutely fascinating.
I'm going to have to put the Marauders to good use and see how they develop.
Also, quite happy to find that my intel recovered from the Jacobs Installation was correct. Confederate standing policy was to equip their Science Vessels with a comprehensive Ghost Project database, allowing their pet assassins to use any nearby Science Vessel as an emergency 'repair' bay.
Yeah, the Confederacy treats its Ghosts worse than I treat killbots, in some ways.
I mean, I don't take something sapient and turn it into a weapon, I just allow my weapons the chance to achieve sapience.
Still, quite a useful data packet. Psionics are one of those wibbly wobbly things the Progenitors (probably) didn't really develop (I think), so any additional data is the sort of thing I'm greedy to get my mechanical minions' mitts on, due to personal fascination as well as suspecting I'll need it to help crack Protoss technology once I can find some samples of that.
The transmitter also provided detailed scans for the Explorer-class Science Vessel.
Well. Handy!
Time for the standard Progenitor remove-the-wasted-space-the-meatbag-crew-needs upgrade package. However, instead of up-arming the newly Philosopher-class support vessel beyond some basic point defense (I refuse to lose a five hundred meter vessel to a bunch of flying bats because I couldn't be bothered to put a couple of Galatea turrets on it), I chose to replace the ship's freshly freed up space with bank after bank of quantum computing cores and Adjutant AI managers.
I've mentioned I'm a bit lazy as a Commander. I don't mind enjoying some good old technology and weapon tinkering, but I don't have the attention span for large amounts of research.
So, with the Philosophers, I can dump annoying research problems on them and let them brute force their way to a solution so I don't have to eat up my processor cycles dealing with annoying things and can spend them more constructively.
I'd already queued a data upload to the first Philosopher being built at the new Orbital Shipyard facility under construction at Mar Sara. I was planning to dump every chunk of Terran tech I'd found, from basic handguns to battlecruiser reactors on it, with first priority for analysis going to the Jacobs INstallation Zerg data, Psi Emitters, and the Ghost Program files.
Commander Philosophy: If you can't or don't want to do something, design and build something to do it for you!
Last edited:
Chapter 8
TikiTau
Commander Pangolinski
- Location
- Texas
Chapter 8
xXxXx
+Philosopher-Class Support Vessel 0001, Online+
+System Check Initiated+
+Verifying Processor Array Cores...Verified.+
+Verifying Sensor Arrays...Verified.+
+Primary Control...Verified.+
+Verifying Adjutant Installations...Verified.+
+Priority Task Listing Received From Commander: Data Gathering, Military Design, Solar System Management, Psionics Research, Zerg Analysis. Data Upload Commencing To Databanks.+
+Analyzing Data Packet. Distributing Data to Adjutants+
+Confirming Tasks...Suggestion to Primary- Additional Vessels Required. Calculations Suggest Superior Efficiency found in Vessel Specialization.+
+Primary Confirms. Contacting Command. Command Concurs. Additional Vessels Queued. Yard Space Available in One Hour+
+Confirmation.+
+Polling Adjutants. Support Vessel Modifications Suggested.+
+Confirmed. Designation and Modification?+
+Task:Military Design. Designation:Sun Tzu-Class. Removal of Thirty Percent of Adjutant Units To Allow For Additional Computer Core Installation.+
+Polling Adjutants...Confirmed. Design Updated. Next Designation?+
+Task: Data Analysis. Subtasking: Psionics. Subtasking: Xenomorph Species 'Zerg'. Designation: Aristotle-Class. Suggest External Lab Space With Directed Warhead Charge for Containment of Biological Specimens. Single Design Projected to be Sufficient in Short Term, Longer Term Research Will Require More Specialization.+
+Confirmed. Shipyard Queue Updated. Next Designation?+
+Task: Data Gathering. Suggested Modification: Additional Sensor Arrays, Infantry Factory, Aerospace Factory, Hangar, Power Generation Facility, ECM Node, ECCM Node, Cyberwar Node. Adjutants Suggest Use As Covert Support Platform. Scaled Down Adjutant And Computer Core Numbers Acceptable Trade Off. Designation: Pythagoras-class.+
+Command Confirms. Next Designation?+
+Negative. Adjutants Polled. Current Design is Sufficient for Solar System Management. Adequate Sensor and Communication Range. Adequate Processing Power. Suggest Retention of Designation: Philosopher-Class+
+Confirmed. Specific Vessel Designation?+
+Sara System Operational Control, Technology, and, Economy Supervisor. Files and Previous Design History Demonstrated Previous Pattern Of Shorter Designations For Units. Suggestion for Individual Vessel Designation for LSV-Philosopher-001: Socrates+
+Polling...Adjutants Agree. New Designation: Legion Support Vessel Socrates. IFF Update Confirmed. Requesting Control of Sara System From Command.+
+Pending.+
xXxXx
I really wish I'd managed to whip up the schematics for the Philosopher-class Support Vessels ages ago.
The first Philosopher-class Vessel I'd built had barely been online for a minute before I received a slew of requests to confirm updated design specs for new variants on the ship. After acknowledging that, the same Philosopher requested direct control of my non-military units. A bit bemused, I accepted…
I was thereafter treated to desperately wishing I'd had this design twenty four hours ago. Could have saved me a ton of time.
The freshly built Socrates boosted into a stable orbit around Mar Sara. Once there, it began to micromanage my economy for me. I'd like to think I'm not terrible at that...but I felt a bit amateurish once the support vessel took over. Instead of occasional bouts of over-dipping into my reserves and slowing everything down until enough material could be shunted about to make up the over-spending, the Socrates set things up so that while my reserves constantly plummeted and refilled as more vessels rolled off their production lines, nothing ever quite bogged down. It'd burn my reserves to within a few units of being dry building larger ships, then switch to smaller units until my storage was topped off.
Nothing I couldn't do myself, really, but it was doing it much more efficiently than I had been. Hm. Well, I spun off a thought-thread to take notes on my new economy management unit, then settled in to start organizing the waves of ships coming off my factories. Mostly, I ended up assigning the Spear and Longbow frigates to flotillas and sending them to pickets around the Sara system, surrounding the most likely transit areas with wolfpacks of light craft. Early warning system and a first line of defense in one.
I'd worked up to a couple hundred of the light ships by the time another Support Vessel rolled off the lines. A polite ping arrived from the ship that redesignated itself as the Sun Tzu, requesting design requirements.
I cheerfully queued up requests for gunships and dedicated anti-air, and had to restrain the urge to cackle maniacally at what the Support Vessel tossed me back in response.
Apparently, the Sun Tzu really quite liked the basic dropship design. It took a flying skeet target and gave me back the heavily armored space going equivalent of an A-10, capable of both atmospheric and orbital operation.
Also, the gunships are able to cloak. Thank you, busy Geist team, and thank you, nearby Kel Morian Pirate Group, for your love of shiny new tech and Confederate Wraiths that 'fell off a supply ship'.
I fell in love with my new gunship design immediately, and ordered an Aerospace factory on both of my planets to just repeat build the things non-stop as well as requesting a carrier design to bring oodles of them with me between systems. Nothing says 'go away, ground team' like Gunships.
In addition to that lovely toy, my first Battlecruisers were coming online. I'm sure I'll need to have new ones designed once I get my mechanical mitts on the larger, newer designs available in the sector, but the current crop of variants should be fine for the moment.
I was also some of my first covert science vessels speeding out of my new home system, heading for more developed Terran-held systems, the CSVs already building up Geist Marauder Teams and dropships. The low-hanging tech's already been grabbed from the Fringe Worlds, which means it's time to get a bit more..assertive.
With the help of a nifty little covert nanobot dispenser/short range communicator (Barely orbital range. Spitting range by Commander standards for such things) hooked up to a small energy tap and cold fusion battery, I had a suspicion that I was about to receive a massive influx of data and designs to my growing data network.
Assuming things traveled along at more or less the same speed, I had at least a few days before the Sons of Korhal hit Antiga Prime. Considering the clusterfuck that planet could become, well...I thought it might behoove me to build up some of my forces before going to pay a visit to my good friend the Magistrate.
Air Support's always a welcome gift, after all!
I suspect his new friends would appreciate it as well!
xXxXx
Antiga Prime is an interesting system. According to what data I've got, the minerals and vespene gas deposits on the planet actually will slowly grow back after harvesting on a human, not geological, time scale. Considering that I can, in a pinch, use the local Minerals for a source of Metal, as well as the fact that the Philosophers had yet to manage to either recreate or defrag the data I needed to make Resource Cores, you can be assured I was very, very interested in a renewable source of metal, regardless of the inefficiency of it.
Even if it was massively inefficient power-wise, I'm quite content to use a multitude of less efficient and available units to make up for the slowly closing gaps in my design databank. Energy I had in abundance, but eventually the Sara System would run out of useful asteroids.
Anyways, I'd taken my time to build up before my little jaunt to the Antiga System, the new year arriving. Back in the Sara System, I had enough light craft and basic battlecruisers build up that, barring a full scale invasion by the Swarm or the Protoss, I was quite confident in my ability to swat any interlopers to my new base of operations using wave after wave of highly destructive ships.
This also meant that I wasn't arriving in the Antiga System all on my lonesome. This time, unlike my first unfortunate 'landing' on Mar Sara, I was travelling in /style/.
It hadn't taken much effort to modify a Battlecruiser for my personal use. Entombed within meter after meter of Progenitor Alloy and bristling with weapons, communication arrays, sensors, and an Aerospace Factory, I felt perfectly safe taking up station at the Antiga System's gas giant, flanked by my escorts: a pair of battlecruisers, a squadron of my frigates, and a swarm of gunships. Didn't expect any trouble out here, but it never hurts to be prepared.
The Settlers I'd brought along were quickly dispatched to begin building up orbital infrastructure.
The Geists had been busy, you see, and while it wasn't exactly my lost and beloved Jig for pure resource generation, the heavily modified Terran gas mine design would do the job as a first step in establishing this new system's economy. Not nearly as efficient as proper Metal extraction, but the heavier elements in a gas giant's atmosphere are still useful for construction in enough quantity.
Another Settler was busily constructing an Orbital Factory before setting course for the icy outer planets of the Antiga System.
Sure, they might be considered useless ice balls not worth the hassle of development by Terran standards, but I've yet to find a world I can't put to some use.
...Possibly as a blunt object, if nothing else.
I miss access to Haleys.
The rest of my battlegroup continued onwards, and I couldn't help but feel a sense of rather vicious anticipation. Below me, Alpha Squadron and the Sons of Korhal were blockaded in by the Confederacy's Army and Navy. Delta Squadron, specifically, if I was reading the IFFs correctly. Most of the battlegroup split to begin moving into position to...chat...with the blockading forces, while the heavy carriers I'd built split off with their own escorts.
If I recalled, this sort of back-and-forth between the rebels and the Confederates was supposed to drag on for at least another month or so, with a three-way non-stop brawl between the Confederates led by Delta Squadron, the local Zerg on planet, and the Rebels made up of the surviving Antigans (There were a fair amount of Zerg down there, unfortunately. Explains the Norad II getting chumped that easily) and the Sons of Korhal, now joined by Alpha Squadron.
Honestly, who has time to wait that long? I suppose I could have, maybe spent more time building more ships. As it was, though, I was ready to expand operations, and I couldn't very well expand as much as I liked with my target under attack and blockade! I wanted a presence on Antiga Prime, with its intriguing self regenerating minerals and vespene gas deposits, dangit!
My carriers, once they settled into range of Antiga Prime, started to unload, formations of gunships slashing down into atmosphere from the modified cruisers, heavily loaded dropships bristling with my killbot infantry and SCVs on their heels being escorted by the upgunned Wraiths I'd adopted for my basic fighter craft.
Nothing fancy, just beefed up weapons, engines, and armor.
I also sent a small, heavily escorted group of SCV-loaded dropships heading for the wreckage of the Norad II. Not like Duke was using it, after all, since Alpha Squadron had already defected to the Sons of Korhal according to interecepted communications.
Behemoth-Class Battlecruiser designs, you will be mine.
MINE.
Oh, the things I (Fine, fine, the Sun Tzu) can do with another couple hundred meters of space to work with!~
...It'll probably involve more guns, at a guess. Heh.
xXxXx
Agent Black was controlling one of the number of Marauder teams currently operating on Tarsonis. He'd had several successful missions since the Einstein Infiltration, but this current assignment was testing his patience just a bit.
Command's directive was clear: Certain High Value Targets could not be left in Confederate hands. Frankly, in Black's opinion, the Confederates were inefficient enough that he suspected they would be capable of misplacing their heads despite them being welded on.
Still, while it had taken far longer than projected (Damn the inefficient data networks in this region of the planet), his Marauder team had finally tracked down their target for extraction.
+Central. Agent Black, Marauder Team 001. We have located our target. Prepare extraction route and containment.+
The Pythagoras-class Covert Ops Vessel in a near orbit of Tarsonis sent back an affirmative data blurt, and Black felt the data feed from the incoming cloaked dropship link up to his personal network.
Selecting the other Geists in his squad, he queued up their breaching orders. Unfortunately, he was forced to admit that despite the undoubted efficiency and speed of using Plasmabats to expedite breaching, it would be rather detrimental to the retrieval of a 'soft' target.
Well, maybe next time.
The Mech Marines were left on standby to follow-up just in case everything went terribly wrong, with strict Rules of Engagement to avoid any fire at their target. For the most part, their main job was to escort the Medical units assigned to ensure the HVT's viability and integrity.
Feeling a bit of anticipation, he checked the street one more time from his position on overwatch, noting it was still clear before he gave the order to his subordinate units to begin the operation.
xXxXx
Life seemed to have it in for Corporal Leeroy Gibbs.
Oh, he'd lucked out a bit. Those nice bluejacket fellas were kind enough to drop him and a few of his buddies off at the Confederate fleet, though the tall Ghost feller gave 'em the willies. Still, he'd survived an' no one seemed too interested in askin' questions about who took 'em to the fleet.
Still, it was nice to be back in Alpha Squadron instead of standing guard duty on a planet about to get et by the Zerg.
That's about where the good luck ended, though.
He'd decided to go cash in the money that he was given to not talk about nuthin' once the Fleet retreated somewhere a bit more civilized like. That part went alright, no one seemed too fussed about some Marine gettin' lucky and havin' some money to burn, and jus' like Uncle Jethro said, he went out in uniform to have some fun while the Squadron rearmed.
Course, by the end of the night, he woke up with a powerful itchin'. Fleas from the sheep chewin' on his uniform cap, he suspected.
The embarassin' tattoo on his arm was a mite bit unwelcome. The hangover sucked. His wallet was empty, and while the note left in there tellin' him to call the next time he was in port had a right pretty set of lipstick marks on it, he didn't remember nothin' about the evening, which was prolly a shame.
Well, he hoped. Uncle Jethro had tol' him STORIES about this sorta thing, but he decided to be optimistic about it.
Gettin' his uniform back together took a bit. He didn't know why his pants were full of hay and bein' worn by a goat, either. If he was lucky, no one had any photos.
Finally gettin' back to the ship, he'd been bawled out right loudly by the Sarge, makin' his head hurt a lot. He tried ta pay attention to the lecture, but all that rotgut he musta drunk caught up to 'em and he ended up vomitin' on Sarge's boots.
The whuppin' he took was up there with the time that kid from down the road caught 'em askin' a younger cousin fer money.
Huh. Wonder what happened to 'em, anyways? Meh, whatever, he was prolly back on Shiloh.
So, after that, Sarge decided that he needed ta give him all the shit jobs until they reached Antiga Prime to slap down some stroppy folks.
Gibbs never did understand why folks wanted to rebel. Confederacy seemed a-ok to 'em...Alright, granted, Ghosts are spooky, and those Resocs are freaky as heck...but at least it wasn't as bad as livin' under the Kel-Morian Guildiers! The news said so!
Anyhoo, things got a bit dicey on Antiga Prime, and a whole lot of shootin' started there, so the General took the Norad II in to put things right again...when them Zerg attacked! Again! Leeroy couldn't believe it!
Somethin' got broke, and the ship went down on the planet. The crash landing sucked, to boot, since he ended up havin' a blackwater pipe break on 'em when he got thrown through the restroom door durin' the crash.
After that, well, Leeroy just got confused. First there was Zerg. Shootin' them made sense, since they'd been tryin' to et him and his buddies as they dug in around the crashed ship.
Then the Rebs showed up! But the General said they wasn't shootin' each other no more, they was teamin' up to shoot the Government. Seemed a bit odd, but Leeroy figured that the General knew more than he did, and that Mengsk feller seemed right trustworthy!
So that lead to Leeroy's current predicament. Him and his squad had been sent to do some guard duty when a whoooole herd of those Zerg critters came runnin' at their section of camp, includin' a bunch of the big nasty Hydras.
The Sarge said that all they had to do was hold the line, since reinforcements were on the way.
Leeroy figured that'd probably be more convincin' if one of them Hydras hadn't then put about fifteen spikes through Sarge's faceplate. Damn shame, he made some fine chili even if he was still puttin' Leeroy on boot polishin' duty.
Glancin' about as he kept firin', Leeroy realized he was the rankin' marine now, the rest of the squad being made up of rookies and the like. Huh.
"Well, damn. Sarge's down. Alright, fellas, just shift your fire. Johnny, you and Jeb over there, you concentrate on shootin' the big ones. Smith, take those two fellers with ya and concentrate on the small ones. Go fer the ones in front, see if you can keep 'em from getting up close. Zerglings are nasty when that happens. Rest of ya, pick yer targets and fire at will. I'm sure someone will be by soon. Remember, yer not allowed to use wild bursts unless they're all clumped up, yeah?"
The squad kept on shootin' with gusto, but Leeroy frowned slightly. They were doin' alright, but at this rate, they were gonna get turned into Zerglin' Kibble.
Then, he heard a noise. Huh, that sounded familiar...Reminded him of…
Oh.
"...Awwww, /shit/. BRACE AND LOCK YER ARMOR, BOYS, SHOCKWAVE INCOMIN'!"
The squad did so, and jus' like back on Mar Sara, a quartet of dropships came hurtling in from a high speed orbital deceleration, the sonic booms rattlin' the area, tossing the smaller Zerg about. Leeroy was happy that he kept on his feet, blessin' the smart fella who designed the Confederate Marine Core Mark 300 Powered Combat Suit, due to it providin' enough protection that the lil' drop-and-boom maneuver those bluejacket flyboys seemed to like didn't hurt his boys much.
Huh. Wait, those weren't no dropships.
Dropships didn't have six big ass cannons on a belly turret, or a buncha smaller guns on the nose and wings.
Just as well they wasn't full of bluejacket marines this time, Leeroy figured, as he contentedly unlocked his armor and poped his helmet to take a quick chew of tabbacer. It was rather nice, listening to the reassuring noise of heavy cannon fire ripping the stunned Zerg apart mixed with the sound of his squad's Impalers still firing. Above him, the dropships were drifting back and forth lazily, avoidin' most of the spines the survivin' Hydras were shootin' at 'em before shredding the damned things with precise volleys of heavy cannon shells before mauling the defenseless Zerglings as they tried to scarper or attack his band of rookies.
Well, wasn't a trip outta here yet, but Leeroy thought he'd much rather have big guns on his side than savin' a hike right now, anyhoo.
xXxXx
Hmm. Alright, Gunships and troops down, Carriers on overwatch…
Time to deal with the Blockade, then!
xXxXx
+Philosopher-Class Support Vessel 0001, Online+
+System Check Initiated+
+Verifying Processor Array Cores...Verified.+
+Verifying Sensor Arrays...Verified.+
+Primary Control...Verified.+
+Verifying Adjutant Installations...Verified.+
+Priority Task Listing Received From Commander: Data Gathering, Military Design, Solar System Management, Psionics Research, Zerg Analysis. Data Upload Commencing To Databanks.+
+Analyzing Data Packet. Distributing Data to Adjutants+
+Confirming Tasks...Suggestion to Primary- Additional Vessels Required. Calculations Suggest Superior Efficiency found in Vessel Specialization.+
+Primary Confirms. Contacting Command. Command Concurs. Additional Vessels Queued. Yard Space Available in One Hour+
+Confirmation.+
+Polling Adjutants. Support Vessel Modifications Suggested.+
+Confirmed. Designation and Modification?+
+Task:Military Design. Designation:Sun Tzu-Class. Removal of Thirty Percent of Adjutant Units To Allow For Additional Computer Core Installation.+
+Polling Adjutants...Confirmed. Design Updated. Next Designation?+
+Task: Data Analysis. Subtasking: Psionics. Subtasking: Xenomorph Species 'Zerg'. Designation: Aristotle-Class. Suggest External Lab Space With Directed Warhead Charge for Containment of Biological Specimens. Single Design Projected to be Sufficient in Short Term, Longer Term Research Will Require More Specialization.+
+Confirmed. Shipyard Queue Updated. Next Designation?+
+Task: Data Gathering. Suggested Modification: Additional Sensor Arrays, Infantry Factory, Aerospace Factory, Hangar, Power Generation Facility, ECM Node, ECCM Node, Cyberwar Node. Adjutants Suggest Use As Covert Support Platform. Scaled Down Adjutant And Computer Core Numbers Acceptable Trade Off. Designation: Pythagoras-class.+
+Command Confirms. Next Designation?+
+Negative. Adjutants Polled. Current Design is Sufficient for Solar System Management. Adequate Sensor and Communication Range. Adequate Processing Power. Suggest Retention of Designation: Philosopher-Class+
+Confirmed. Specific Vessel Designation?+
+Sara System Operational Control, Technology, and, Economy Supervisor. Files and Previous Design History Demonstrated Previous Pattern Of Shorter Designations For Units. Suggestion for Individual Vessel Designation for LSV-Philosopher-001: Socrates+
+Polling...Adjutants Agree. New Designation: Legion Support Vessel Socrates. IFF Update Confirmed. Requesting Control of Sara System From Command.+
+Pending.+
xXxXx
I really wish I'd managed to whip up the schematics for the Philosopher-class Support Vessels ages ago.
The first Philosopher-class Vessel I'd built had barely been online for a minute before I received a slew of requests to confirm updated design specs for new variants on the ship. After acknowledging that, the same Philosopher requested direct control of my non-military units. A bit bemused, I accepted…
I was thereafter treated to desperately wishing I'd had this design twenty four hours ago. Could have saved me a ton of time.
The freshly built Socrates boosted into a stable orbit around Mar Sara. Once there, it began to micromanage my economy for me. I'd like to think I'm not terrible at that...but I felt a bit amateurish once the support vessel took over. Instead of occasional bouts of over-dipping into my reserves and slowing everything down until enough material could be shunted about to make up the over-spending, the Socrates set things up so that while my reserves constantly plummeted and refilled as more vessels rolled off their production lines, nothing ever quite bogged down. It'd burn my reserves to within a few units of being dry building larger ships, then switch to smaller units until my storage was topped off.
Nothing I couldn't do myself, really, but it was doing it much more efficiently than I had been. Hm. Well, I spun off a thought-thread to take notes on my new economy management unit, then settled in to start organizing the waves of ships coming off my factories. Mostly, I ended up assigning the Spear and Longbow frigates to flotillas and sending them to pickets around the Sara system, surrounding the most likely transit areas with wolfpacks of light craft. Early warning system and a first line of defense in one.
I'd worked up to a couple hundred of the light ships by the time another Support Vessel rolled off the lines. A polite ping arrived from the ship that redesignated itself as the Sun Tzu, requesting design requirements.
I cheerfully queued up requests for gunships and dedicated anti-air, and had to restrain the urge to cackle maniacally at what the Support Vessel tossed me back in response.
Apparently, the Sun Tzu really quite liked the basic dropship design. It took a flying skeet target and gave me back the heavily armored space going equivalent of an A-10, capable of both atmospheric and orbital operation.
Also, the gunships are able to cloak. Thank you, busy Geist team, and thank you, nearby Kel Morian Pirate Group, for your love of shiny new tech and Confederate Wraiths that 'fell off a supply ship'.
I fell in love with my new gunship design immediately, and ordered an Aerospace factory on both of my planets to just repeat build the things non-stop as well as requesting a carrier design to bring oodles of them with me between systems. Nothing says 'go away, ground team' like Gunships.
In addition to that lovely toy, my first Battlecruisers were coming online. I'm sure I'll need to have new ones designed once I get my mechanical mitts on the larger, newer designs available in the sector, but the current crop of variants should be fine for the moment.
I was also some of my first covert science vessels speeding out of my new home system, heading for more developed Terran-held systems, the CSVs already building up Geist Marauder Teams and dropships. The low-hanging tech's already been grabbed from the Fringe Worlds, which means it's time to get a bit more..assertive.
With the help of a nifty little covert nanobot dispenser/short range communicator (Barely orbital range. Spitting range by Commander standards for such things) hooked up to a small energy tap and cold fusion battery, I had a suspicion that I was about to receive a massive influx of data and designs to my growing data network.
Assuming things traveled along at more or less the same speed, I had at least a few days before the Sons of Korhal hit Antiga Prime. Considering the clusterfuck that planet could become, well...I thought it might behoove me to build up some of my forces before going to pay a visit to my good friend the Magistrate.
Air Support's always a welcome gift, after all!
I suspect his new friends would appreciate it as well!
xXxXx
Antiga Prime is an interesting system. According to what data I've got, the minerals and vespene gas deposits on the planet actually will slowly grow back after harvesting on a human, not geological, time scale. Considering that I can, in a pinch, use the local Minerals for a source of Metal, as well as the fact that the Philosophers had yet to manage to either recreate or defrag the data I needed to make Resource Cores, you can be assured I was very, very interested in a renewable source of metal, regardless of the inefficiency of it.
Even if it was massively inefficient power-wise, I'm quite content to use a multitude of less efficient and available units to make up for the slowly closing gaps in my design databank. Energy I had in abundance, but eventually the Sara System would run out of useful asteroids.
Anyways, I'd taken my time to build up before my little jaunt to the Antiga System, the new year arriving. Back in the Sara System, I had enough light craft and basic battlecruisers build up that, barring a full scale invasion by the Swarm or the Protoss, I was quite confident in my ability to swat any interlopers to my new base of operations using wave after wave of highly destructive ships.
This also meant that I wasn't arriving in the Antiga System all on my lonesome. This time, unlike my first unfortunate 'landing' on Mar Sara, I was travelling in /style/.
It hadn't taken much effort to modify a Battlecruiser for my personal use. Entombed within meter after meter of Progenitor Alloy and bristling with weapons, communication arrays, sensors, and an Aerospace Factory, I felt perfectly safe taking up station at the Antiga System's gas giant, flanked by my escorts: a pair of battlecruisers, a squadron of my frigates, and a swarm of gunships. Didn't expect any trouble out here, but it never hurts to be prepared.
The Settlers I'd brought along were quickly dispatched to begin building up orbital infrastructure.
The Geists had been busy, you see, and while it wasn't exactly my lost and beloved Jig for pure resource generation, the heavily modified Terran gas mine design would do the job as a first step in establishing this new system's economy. Not nearly as efficient as proper Metal extraction, but the heavier elements in a gas giant's atmosphere are still useful for construction in enough quantity.
Another Settler was busily constructing an Orbital Factory before setting course for the icy outer planets of the Antiga System.
Sure, they might be considered useless ice balls not worth the hassle of development by Terran standards, but I've yet to find a world I can't put to some use.
...Possibly as a blunt object, if nothing else.
I miss access to Haleys.
The rest of my battlegroup continued onwards, and I couldn't help but feel a sense of rather vicious anticipation. Below me, Alpha Squadron and the Sons of Korhal were blockaded in by the Confederacy's Army and Navy. Delta Squadron, specifically, if I was reading the IFFs correctly. Most of the battlegroup split to begin moving into position to...chat...with the blockading forces, while the heavy carriers I'd built split off with their own escorts.
If I recalled, this sort of back-and-forth between the rebels and the Confederates was supposed to drag on for at least another month or so, with a three-way non-stop brawl between the Confederates led by Delta Squadron, the local Zerg on planet, and the Rebels made up of the surviving Antigans (There were a fair amount of Zerg down there, unfortunately. Explains the Norad II getting chumped that easily) and the Sons of Korhal, now joined by Alpha Squadron.
Honestly, who has time to wait that long? I suppose I could have, maybe spent more time building more ships. As it was, though, I was ready to expand operations, and I couldn't very well expand as much as I liked with my target under attack and blockade! I wanted a presence on Antiga Prime, with its intriguing self regenerating minerals and vespene gas deposits, dangit!
My carriers, once they settled into range of Antiga Prime, started to unload, formations of gunships slashing down into atmosphere from the modified cruisers, heavily loaded dropships bristling with my killbot infantry and SCVs on their heels being escorted by the upgunned Wraiths I'd adopted for my basic fighter craft.
Nothing fancy, just beefed up weapons, engines, and armor.
I also sent a small, heavily escorted group of SCV-loaded dropships heading for the wreckage of the Norad II. Not like Duke was using it, after all, since Alpha Squadron had already defected to the Sons of Korhal according to interecepted communications.
Behemoth-Class Battlecruiser designs, you will be mine.
MINE.
Oh, the things I (Fine, fine, the Sun Tzu) can do with another couple hundred meters of space to work with!~
...It'll probably involve more guns, at a guess. Heh.
xXxXx
Agent Black was controlling one of the number of Marauder teams currently operating on Tarsonis. He'd had several successful missions since the Einstein Infiltration, but this current assignment was testing his patience just a bit.
Command's directive was clear: Certain High Value Targets could not be left in Confederate hands. Frankly, in Black's opinion, the Confederates were inefficient enough that he suspected they would be capable of misplacing their heads despite them being welded on.
Still, while it had taken far longer than projected (Damn the inefficient data networks in this region of the planet), his Marauder team had finally tracked down their target for extraction.
+Central. Agent Black, Marauder Team 001. We have located our target. Prepare extraction route and containment.+
The Pythagoras-class Covert Ops Vessel in a near orbit of Tarsonis sent back an affirmative data blurt, and Black felt the data feed from the incoming cloaked dropship link up to his personal network.
Selecting the other Geists in his squad, he queued up their breaching orders. Unfortunately, he was forced to admit that despite the undoubted efficiency and speed of using Plasmabats to expedite breaching, it would be rather detrimental to the retrieval of a 'soft' target.
Well, maybe next time.
The Mech Marines were left on standby to follow-up just in case everything went terribly wrong, with strict Rules of Engagement to avoid any fire at their target. For the most part, their main job was to escort the Medical units assigned to ensure the HVT's viability and integrity.
Feeling a bit of anticipation, he checked the street one more time from his position on overwatch, noting it was still clear before he gave the order to his subordinate units to begin the operation.
xXxXx
Life seemed to have it in for Corporal Leeroy Gibbs.
Oh, he'd lucked out a bit. Those nice bluejacket fellas were kind enough to drop him and a few of his buddies off at the Confederate fleet, though the tall Ghost feller gave 'em the willies. Still, he'd survived an' no one seemed too interested in askin' questions about who took 'em to the fleet.
Still, it was nice to be back in Alpha Squadron instead of standing guard duty on a planet about to get et by the Zerg.
That's about where the good luck ended, though.
He'd decided to go cash in the money that he was given to not talk about nuthin' once the Fleet retreated somewhere a bit more civilized like. That part went alright, no one seemed too fussed about some Marine gettin' lucky and havin' some money to burn, and jus' like Uncle Jethro said, he went out in uniform to have some fun while the Squadron rearmed.
Course, by the end of the night, he woke up with a powerful itchin'. Fleas from the sheep chewin' on his uniform cap, he suspected.
The embarassin' tattoo on his arm was a mite bit unwelcome. The hangover sucked. His wallet was empty, and while the note left in there tellin' him to call the next time he was in port had a right pretty set of lipstick marks on it, he didn't remember nothin' about the evening, which was prolly a shame.
Well, he hoped. Uncle Jethro had tol' him STORIES about this sorta thing, but he decided to be optimistic about it.
Gettin' his uniform back together took a bit. He didn't know why his pants were full of hay and bein' worn by a goat, either. If he was lucky, no one had any photos.
Finally gettin' back to the ship, he'd been bawled out right loudly by the Sarge, makin' his head hurt a lot. He tried ta pay attention to the lecture, but all that rotgut he musta drunk caught up to 'em and he ended up vomitin' on Sarge's boots.
The whuppin' he took was up there with the time that kid from down the road caught 'em askin' a younger cousin fer money.
Huh. Wonder what happened to 'em, anyways? Meh, whatever, he was prolly back on Shiloh.
So, after that, Sarge decided that he needed ta give him all the shit jobs until they reached Antiga Prime to slap down some stroppy folks.
Gibbs never did understand why folks wanted to rebel. Confederacy seemed a-ok to 'em...Alright, granted, Ghosts are spooky, and those Resocs are freaky as heck...but at least it wasn't as bad as livin' under the Kel-Morian Guildiers! The news said so!
Anyhoo, things got a bit dicey on Antiga Prime, and a whole lot of shootin' started there, so the General took the Norad II in to put things right again...when them Zerg attacked! Again! Leeroy couldn't believe it!
Somethin' got broke, and the ship went down on the planet. The crash landing sucked, to boot, since he ended up havin' a blackwater pipe break on 'em when he got thrown through the restroom door durin' the crash.
After that, well, Leeroy just got confused. First there was Zerg. Shootin' them made sense, since they'd been tryin' to et him and his buddies as they dug in around the crashed ship.
Then the Rebs showed up! But the General said they wasn't shootin' each other no more, they was teamin' up to shoot the Government. Seemed a bit odd, but Leeroy figured that the General knew more than he did, and that Mengsk feller seemed right trustworthy!
So that lead to Leeroy's current predicament. Him and his squad had been sent to do some guard duty when a whoooole herd of those Zerg critters came runnin' at their section of camp, includin' a bunch of the big nasty Hydras.
The Sarge said that all they had to do was hold the line, since reinforcements were on the way.
Leeroy figured that'd probably be more convincin' if one of them Hydras hadn't then put about fifteen spikes through Sarge's faceplate. Damn shame, he made some fine chili even if he was still puttin' Leeroy on boot polishin' duty.
Glancin' about as he kept firin', Leeroy realized he was the rankin' marine now, the rest of the squad being made up of rookies and the like. Huh.
"Well, damn. Sarge's down. Alright, fellas, just shift your fire. Johnny, you and Jeb over there, you concentrate on shootin' the big ones. Smith, take those two fellers with ya and concentrate on the small ones. Go fer the ones in front, see if you can keep 'em from getting up close. Zerglings are nasty when that happens. Rest of ya, pick yer targets and fire at will. I'm sure someone will be by soon. Remember, yer not allowed to use wild bursts unless they're all clumped up, yeah?"
The squad kept on shootin' with gusto, but Leeroy frowned slightly. They were doin' alright, but at this rate, they were gonna get turned into Zerglin' Kibble.
Then, he heard a noise. Huh, that sounded familiar...Reminded him of…
Oh.
"...Awwww, /shit/. BRACE AND LOCK YER ARMOR, BOYS, SHOCKWAVE INCOMIN'!"
The squad did so, and jus' like back on Mar Sara, a quartet of dropships came hurtling in from a high speed orbital deceleration, the sonic booms rattlin' the area, tossing the smaller Zerg about. Leeroy was happy that he kept on his feet, blessin' the smart fella who designed the Confederate Marine Core Mark 300 Powered Combat Suit, due to it providin' enough protection that the lil' drop-and-boom maneuver those bluejacket flyboys seemed to like didn't hurt his boys much.
Huh. Wait, those weren't no dropships.
Dropships didn't have six big ass cannons on a belly turret, or a buncha smaller guns on the nose and wings.
Just as well they wasn't full of bluejacket marines this time, Leeroy figured, as he contentedly unlocked his armor and poped his helmet to take a quick chew of tabbacer. It was rather nice, listening to the reassuring noise of heavy cannon fire ripping the stunned Zerg apart mixed with the sound of his squad's Impalers still firing. Above him, the dropships were drifting back and forth lazily, avoidin' most of the spines the survivin' Hydras were shootin' at 'em before shredding the damned things with precise volleys of heavy cannon shells before mauling the defenseless Zerglings as they tried to scarper or attack his band of rookies.
Well, wasn't a trip outta here yet, but Leeroy thought he'd much rather have big guns on his side than savin' a hike right now, anyhoo.
xXxXx
Hmm. Alright, Gunships and troops down, Carriers on overwatch…
Time to deal with the Blockade, then!