“Thank you so much for responding to this distress call, commander. I’m Dr.Ariel Hanson and I represent the people of the Agria Colony.” The woman in white, Dr. Hanson, said.
“Pleasure to meet you, doc. You can call me Jim. What's the situation.” Raynor said warmly.
“The Zerg have overwhelmed our planetary defenses. The colony is lost. For the past twelve hours we’ve been evacuating people to the nearest starport, but the Zerg attack have been so intense, we couldn’t get any more through.” Hanson said desperately. “If you can guard the highway we can send the remaining groups through every few minutes.”
“Don’t worry doc. We’ll get your folks to that starport safe and sound.” Raynor replied confidently. Jean bit her lips. The amount of manpower needed to hold back the Zerg for such a distance is challenging, and the Raiders don’t have extra manpower to spend on this piece of rock.
“I pray you’re right commander. The Zerg are more terrible than I ever imagined.” Hanson said with a haunted look. The transmission ended there.
“Lieutenant, how do you think we should do this?” Raynor wasn’t blinded by the urge to protect the weak, at least not entirely. He was very aware of the trouble the Raiders were in, and he needed to find a way to minimize the losses the Raiders encounter. He didn’t have a great way to do that, which was why he turned to the lieutenant Horner trusted.
“Our units are limited to marines, medics, and firebats.” Lieutenant Jean Turner said. If she had to do this, she might as well do it nicely. Raynor’s Raiders was one of the strongest forces against Amon, and she needed to strength them as much as possible.
“We should build bunkers along the roads and position stationary marines to guard them and SCVs to repair. Use a mobile force made up of firebats, marines, and medics to escort the convoy. Even better, use the Hyperion to cover the convoy.” Jean listed.
“We have detected several zerg corruptors in the space near Agria. They appear to have escorted the zerg ground forces here. The Hyperion will need to deal with them.” Horner said. “But your idea about the ground forces is great. How do you think about putting them into action yourself?”
“You want me in command of the mission?” Jean asked, acting surprised. Both Matthew Horner and Jim Raynor were more experienced than she was.
“I need to command The Hyperion and Jim is going to be on the front.” Horner replied, ignoring the criminal. He hid one of the reasons. He saw unlimited potential in the girl. The calmess she showed before dire situations. The orders he made. He just wanted to see her in combat. Furthermore, Raynor didn’t want to be in the front with every other Raiders. It wasn’t his style to hide in safety while his men fought and died.
“As you wish Captain.” Jean replied coldly.
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The Hyperion jumped to the space above Agria and unloaded dozens of dropships onto the farming planet before turning around and engaging the zerg corruptors. The Hyperion was probably one of the best ship the Terran technology could yield, but the corruptors were giant Zerg flyers with astonishing ability against other massive air units. Of course, The Hyperion could blast them out with ease with its variety of tricks, but that would empty the expensive storage of weapons on the ship. The Hyperion needed a while to disable them with minimum spending.
Jean wasn’t in one of the dropships. It was too vulnerable against potential zerg attacks. Instead, she stayed in a metal command center with dozens of SCVs as the flying building flew out of Hyperion’s hanger and landed on the surface of Agria. Despite how Raynor liked to be in the front and be a hero, she had neither the skills and weaponry nor the need to do that. As soon as the building hit the ground near a pile of mineral storage, the SCVs poured out and started collecting minerals and bringing them to the command center, where they would then be turned into resources to build Terran weapons, armors, and other tools of arm.
Jean wasted no time and got right to command. The zerg have not completely ripped the highway apart, yet. “Commander Raynor, please lead all the combat units and converge at the colonist camp. Stay there until further notices.“ The Hyperion unloaded 20 dropships, which included 180 marines, 36 firebats, and 24 medics.
The hero marine didn’t mind receiving orders from his underling. “On it.” He replied concisely. “Raiders roll.”
“SCVs, collect the minerals with maximum efficiency and load them into the command center. They’ll be turned to our weapons against the Dominion. Get me the doctor in charge of this camp.” Jean felt like she needed to cooperate with Dr.Hanson if they were to reach the safety with little losses.
“Transmission to Doctor Ariel Hanson.” The adjacent said mechanically, and Jean looked down to make sure her lieutenant suit looked straight. A few seconds later the picture of the nice looking woman appeared on the screen.
“Hello Dr.Hanson. I am the commanding officer, Lieutenant Jean Turner. I am in charge of getting your people off this planet.” Jean said openly. “But in order to do this, we need to work together and collaborate. I want you to give me command of the colonists.” She said openly.
She had two reasons. First, she could function better with direct command of these men. Second, she would pave the road of these colonists joining the Raiders as long as she could show the colonists how successful they can be under the Raiders. It’s not like the Raiders could go around in Dominion space and recruit soldiers. She needed every men available in the army to stop Amon. Once she had command of these men, she wouldn’t give them back.
Dr. Hanson hesitated. “May I ask why?” She was grateful toward the Raiders as they came to her aid at her most difficult moment, but on the other hand she didn’t trust this woman enough to hand over what was left of the colonist forces.
“Forgive my insolence,” Jean said harshly, “but you have no experience in battle do you? I saw what you did. You were sending the convoys one by one. Why? It’s much safer to put all seven transports together and use all the armed forces to escort them to the starport.”
“That’s absurd! We need to get the people away as soon as possible. If we wait for all the transports to be ready then we might be overrun by the zerg forces. If that happens everyone will die.” Hanson replied with slight anger.
“Trust me doctor. According to tactical analysis it will be at least an hour until the zerg have enough forces to overrun a convey with 290 men as escort.” The colonists had around 50 men left. Jean was confident, at least she appeared to be confident. “Now, do your best to prepare the transports as fast as possible. The sooner the transports are prepared, the quicker we get off this piece of rock.”