——-
Sasha fleets had just arrived in the koprulu sector, she would have hoped to be a quiet entrance but that hope died really quickly.
A squadron of Viking decided to stand right in front of a ship just as it came out of its jump.
While inertia was not that much of a problem on normal jumps, there still no brakes on a spaceship.
So the Vikings were introduced to the fate of insects flying just above the highway, the infested ships didn’t even try to dodge them.
The shade vultures fleet after seeing the emerging fleet scrambled to combat statuses. Using a long-range telescope to look at the new fleets, they saw clear signs of infestations and the UED flag plastered everywhere on them.
As for the lone battlecruiser that had transported the Viking squadron, he activated emergency warp and ran.
While most of the Vultures were not genius, they were not complete idiots. Seeing a heavy infested fleet accompanied by Zerg organisms. They knew that they were not equipped for facing this large threat.
They did the safest option to them and repositioned their fleet immediately, leaving a sizeable force on the ground that was about to push into the city center without orbital cover.
The Dominion fleet once on the other side of the world immediately contacted their superior through FTL communications.
Sasha knowing it was too late to use the elements of surprise. Split her fleet, one in orbit of the old capital. And the other would clear the system of possible threats.
Since discretions were out of the window at this point, she sent a massive wave of overseers to act as scouts, to the planet and other systems to gather information. She found two things worth mentioning, the ferals were controlled by some hybrids and there was a sizeable Dominion force in the system.
She ordered the Overseers to locate the position of hybrids, who were the most likely being capable of defeating her force. She then proceeded to place her fleets above the world capital, since it was the most likely place on the worlds where she could find old Confederate facilities that were not looted.
Since the major weakness of the zerg was their reliance on a command structure. the only way to clear them out was to obliterate their leadership and command breed, then the warrior strain would go feral without a new leader.
In the system only two Hybrid had been detected, one in space and the other in the capital city on Tarsonis, both needed to die.
With what was not used to form the orbital cover they set course for the various nests floating in spaces, to literally butcher them and use their biomass for the campaign.
Seeing that her enemy was Zergs, Sasha was very well informed of the general ability of her parent race. And of course the danger those Mutalisk nest represented to her fleet. While individual Mutalisk could not destroy a capital ship in reality, Zerg never attacks alone. As the old saying ''death by a thousand cut'' ship plating could only take so much damage before breaking. The Overmind preferred using Scourge to eliminate capital ship and use Mutalisk to destroy anti-air and fighter.
Due to the mess, her entrance made she had to eliminate those nest as quickly as possible and luckily for her, the Directorate donated a rather large amount of nuke.
On her flagship bridge, Sasha had a smile that screamed crazy/insane, she was not the only one having this smile, almost all of the bridge crew knew the plan. It was simplicity itself keep nuking their shit until they stop moving.
While nuke acts differently in space than on the ground, no shock wave and no atmosphere to dampen the radiation and also had the nasty effect of creating impressive EMP blast. They still create a sphere of pure destruction, as a bonus, a large amount of gamma and X-ray radiation released would cook anything close to the explosion, and that all Sasha wanted.
There were three large nests in the system, but only one needed to be exterminated as quickly as possible. It had a hybrid nemesis living in it, a powerful flyer with psionic strong enough to rip apart a battlecruiser in a moment.
Since with the distance between her and the prey, they would take some time to reach it. She decided since discretion was out, she would have fun. Her psionic power was limited since they were gifted by the Overmind, but for what she was about to do they were more than enough.
She reached inside her, the power of the overmind cell coursing in her body boosting her power, and then focused everything into her telepathy. Her mind was projected far-reaching the mutalisk nest suspected to harbor the Hybrid nemesis. She then began one of the oldest tradition of people going to kill each other, thrash-talk and insulting them.
She had heard from the Overmind that some of the hybrids were smart, well after seeing Aojoss she doubting it. If this one was as smart as Aojoss maybe he will leave the relative safety of the nest if provoked enough.
Even if that didn’t work then her men would have a laugh boosting morale a bit.
(Sasha) inserts epic insult that leave adult crying.
Then after what could be only considered as an embarrassing silence, there was a finally a response.
(Hybrid) Pathetic.
Sasha was not prepared for that response and she had a dumb look on her face.
On the bridge there a couple of snickers at the expense of Sasha. with some barely holding themselves to not laugh, which inside of a hive mind while polite, it is completely useless.
In reality, insulting an opponent only work if the other care. Commanders that are competent will see this as is opponent baiting him into something and be on guard.
While Sasha was still looking dumbfounded, the infested in charge of the radars had is console screaming warning at him. The 3 nests released the totality of their content.
Mutalisk in number just short of the hundred thousand were now flying in the system. They were all heading towards Tarsonis and more precisely the infested invasion fleet that was in orbit above the capital city.
(infested) Mam! they are going for our transport ships.
Exclaimed one of the tech guys.
While Sasha did not take all her warships when she split her fleet above Tarsonis and only leaving a decent escort to protect the various transports, a hundred thousand mutalisk would cause irreparable damage to the fleet. And the hybrid would definitely cause more harm.
Taking a second to think about, then she took her decision.
(Sasha) Keep the course! we’re going after the hybrid.
If she managed to blow that asshole to ashes, the mutalisk that are not in the direct influence of the other hybrid would go feral. Pathetic my ass.
(Sasha) And someone contacts Nova. Inform her she gonna have guests.
——-The infested fleet orbiting Tarsonis earlier ——-
The fleet that was orbiting the planet was commanded by Nova and ordered to the few Ouroboros to launch Rodling at the hybrids bases location.
The giant's snake/eel-like creatures began to arm themselves with the Rodling. And then to rotate faster and faster, the moment that they reached their maximum rotation, they released their payload.
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The Rodling were reaching absurd speed and hit the ground with enough kinetic energy that the word nuke came to the mind of the Dominion soldiers.
The hybrid living on the planet had one hell of a wake-up call when the Rodling hit the ground.
The Overmind hatred towards hybrid was imprinted in the hivemind of the swarm, this occurred when Aojoss had pissed off the Overmind in the Eden system a while ago.
This was not intentional and the Overmind didn’t even realize it had occurred. In all honesty, the image/emotions that were projected at the time had mixed with their own memory,
And now Nova really really didn’t like hybrids or Narud. So much that if she was in a position of making their life harder she would jump on it.
And now there some little hybrid trying to hide just below her.
The hybrid immediately shifted the standings order of his force from “pretend to be feral” to “full war” preparations.
Hidden hives cluster activated, spawning army and new biostructure to help defend them.
Those poor Dominion troops were looking scared after those hives started sprouting everywhere. Tarsonis went from mildly infested to having creep everywhere.
And yet within the fleet in orbit, the infested warriors of the overmind swarm were rejoicing. There will be a great fight that would require all of their might to win.
The voice of Nova was then broadcasted
(Nova) Listen, boys and girls. There a hybrid below us, butcher it.
Bloodthirsty cheers were shouted. tens of Thousands of Berserker, infested marines and other various subtype and finally hordes of infested Zombie were to be deployed in the upcoming conflict.
They were part of the first wave of the invasion, they needed to secure a landing zone.
Due to the small amount of armored vehicle present in the infested force, almost all infested were infantry and could be deployed from low orbit by jumping.
Specialist and vehicle would be transported by shuttle after the battle had begun on the ground and a safe landing zone could be identified. While life was incredibly cheap for the infested force, their armors and equipment were not, an effort was to be made to protect them.
Having incredibly hard to kill body and having a pseudo-god who can reincarnate you if something manages to kill you, make their life as cheap as dirt. But said pseudo-god cannot create the equipment that they use, so the quantity is limited.
This situation was quite unique since all other factions have the opposite situation where they own more weapons and armor than body to use them.
A moment later the hangar's door on the ships orbiting Tarsonis opened. And the berserkers were the first to jump followed by the rest. Infested marines followed but were far more reluctant, since they still possessed a shred of common sense and self-preservation. The infested zombies were launched by pod similar to the one used by regular zerg since being put in cocoon and pack together was rather unpleasant and extremely uncomfortable, only the mindless zombies were getting on the ground this way.
The dominion and the Zerg belonging to Amon were not stupid and seeing that in the sky were thousands of objects falling down from enemy ships they opened fire with all of the Anti-air and Anti-orbital they had. The hybrid even ordered the various flier to take the sky.
Of course, the Ouroboros and the Battlecruiser responded in kind, firing orbital strike against the defense.
As for the infested infantry, it was a matter of luck. No matter how robust their body was, the moment they got hit by ammunition meant for spaceships or were in the way of an orbital strike, well they weren’t that robust.
For the insane berserkers it was the fourth of July, they in fact that they believed to have the best “seats “ falling from orbit.
Screaming and laughing all the way down the infested infantry made it to the ground.
While the crazy berserker tried to land as quickly as possible. The marines stabilized around the edge of the giant skyscrapers falling in as close as a formation as possible.
The hybrid in charge of Tarsonis immediately sent forces to eliminate the infested Mostly zergling and some Hydralisk.
The first skirmish was two berserkers against eighth Zergling in the middle of a devastated highway.
The fight had been brutal and quick. Both parties ran in close range and butchered each other in a melee. One of the berserkers died ripped in ribbons while the other lost an arm, but was victorious.
The zergling claws and fang tore their armor like it was nothing.
The surviving berserker sent a warning to its siblings of what happened and not rely on their armor. While the armor was strong enough to protect against most human weapons, it was not as effective against Zerg claw. After that, he picked his weapons and went hunting, after all, he never had so much fun in his life.
Fighting had released a substance similar to dopamine into his body and released at increased in the moment of his victory. This was the conditioning made by the Overmind, and now he craved for battle and more importantly, victory.
Many similar skirmishes soon follow resulting in an increasing number of loss for Berserker. Their armor were simply not strong enough for in this situation. After all even the most basic of zerg warriors strain can cut through tank plating with some effort.
The infested marine squads had it better. With their increased constitution they could easily perform to the level of special forces. With their communication with each other going at the speed of thought, they could react almost instantly.
With the earlier warning, most infested squads began to gather and as a singular unit. Killing everything in their path.
The infested finally found a good landing site, just outside of the planet capital, a bit more far than they wanted but the anti-air in the city was too dangerous to risk it.
The moment the landing site was deemed secure the second wave went down. Heavy weapons and specialist teams were accompanying them.
Just as Nova was reading herself to go down and hunt the hybrid. the telepathic message from Sasha fleet had arrived.
Nova feeling a headache coming up soon, put down her gear and went to the radar technician station. Peeking above the tech shoulder and seeing his screen, she said what everyone was thinking.
(Nova) Fuck!
On the screen, three giant red lines were headed straight for her position.
Panic was starting to spread within in hive mind, but not fear since death was temporary at best. What scared them was a failure, would you bother with someone who was weighing you down?
Nova was thinking hard, reviewing every option and idea that came out from the hive mind.
She could go loud ordering her ship to crash into the hybrid below or what people could consider the smart way, having someone else fight for you.
Knowing her chance of everything working perfectly was astronomically low, she put on her best-used car saleswoman she could muster.
And called the Dominion fleet. She spoke with a seductive voice, triggering social cues for whoever was listening would have his undivided attention.
(Nova) Would you be interested in becoming immortal?