Jean didn’t know someone was going to hell to avenge her “death”. At the moment, she and Stukov were standing in the bridge of one of the Warden ships.
A total of twenty seven Warden battlecruisers were heading for Umojan territory. Jean and Stukov were inside the Gorgon flagship. Inside ten of these battlecruisers were 53,000 infested terran. Most of them were infested marines. A few infested siege tanks and infested goliaths were mixed among them.
The battlecruisers exited warp space above a recorded planet colonized by the Umojans. Teel V was the planet’s name, not that it mattered to Jean.
“Isolate the planet.”
Immediately, ten squads of previously prepared wraiths, a total of 120 of them, exited the hanger of the Warden fleet. In groups of six, they activated their cloaking fields and started patrolling around the planet.
An Umojan civilian frigate was in the wrong place at the wrong time. A group of wraiths surrounded the frigate. Using the element of surprise, these wraiths moved to the rear of the transport and fired a couple rounds of missiles, which ignited the warp drive.
“All Umojan forces on Teel V! We are under attack! I repeat, we are under attack!”
Civilian frigates didn’t have the luxury of having detectors. All the captain of the frigate could do was send out distress calls to the Umojan command center on the planet.
“Identify the source of the attack.” A Umojan officer in white armor, after notifying his supervisor, replied. If the Umojans wanted to send out help, they needed to know who the enemies were first. A squad of mutalisks was different from a fleet of twenty leviathans.
The captain looked at his scanner again and didn’t see anything. “I don’t see anything! They’re cloaked.”
“Cloaked?” Cloaked ships were expensive. Why would someone send out these covert ships to take down a random colony planet? There was not much resource here. This wasn’t a military target. The Umojan forces here were limited to two squads of vikings, a battalion of militias, and several hundred Umojan soldiers.
“Wait, they’re sending out transports.” The frigate captain saw a few dropships approaching. “I think they’re terran. I’ll have to surrender.” He said quietly. His ship was for civilian use. The strongest weapon he had at his disposal was a pistol in his belt, and it could barely kill a zergling. Without waiting for an answer from the Umojan officer, he tried to contact the dropships.
He didn’t receive any response as the dropships were attached to the landing docks of the frigate. The captain sighed. At this point all he could hope for was that these attackers were pirates who came for his money. “Everyone stay where you are. Do not resist.” He was afraid some hot-headed crew member might try to play hero and get everyone on the frigate killed.
After the order was given, the man took a deep breath and walked to the landing docks.
He expected to see a group of pirates. He didn’t expect to see…
“What the...Zerg! Zerg!”
“Ahh!”
Meanwhile, as the frigate was turned to a slaughterhouse, the Umojan forces on the ground were doing everything they could. The officer in charge, a colonel, ordered his men to contact the Umojan High Command immediately, but...
“Sir, the communication seems to be blocked. I can’t reach anyone.”
The Umojan colonel acted as calmly as possible. Fear could never help.
“Summon the militias. Mobilize our men and form a defensive position behind our turrets. Get all our guns online and bring our fighters into the air, but do not go outside the firing range of our turrets. We can’t risk losing them to cloaked enemy fighters. Bring all the civilians behind our guns.”
The officer’s decisions were great. The planet had around 120,000 civilians. Out of them, 5000 have joined the militias just in case situations like this would happen. After sending their families onto transports, these men went into their brand white CMC armors and grabbed onto their gauss rifles. They were ready to fight for the survival of their families.
As the militias escorted the civilians to the Umojan position, they were satisfied to see it was already being fortified. Dozens of bunkers were already in place, and Umojan SCVs were building more. Five hundred Umojan soldiers have already entered their modified armors. Eight siege tanks entered siege mode. Vikings darted across the sky. Turrets were ready to unleash missiles on any enemy flyer that entered its range, whether they were cloaked or not.
After kissing a final goodbye to their families, the militias joined the Umojan forces inside the bunkers.
“Sir, there’s something approaching.” The Umojan colonel was in the field as well. Hearing the voice was a soldier, he looked up and saw a terran transport dropping in altitude.
“Sir, it’s the frigate.” Another man said. He saw the frigate on a scanner before. “It’s the frigate that was attacked, sir. Last I heard it was boarded by the enemies. Should we take it down?”
“Wait.” Colonel held his hand up. “Let it land. Aim all our guns at the transport. All turrets, lock down the sky. This might be a distraction.”
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“Sir? Shouldn’t we stop it from landing? There’s no telling what’s in there.”
“We need to know who our enemies are. Comply.”
“Yes sir.”
Umojan forces spread out and formed an open space, allowing the frigate to land. As soon as it landed, hundreds of marines circled around. Dozens of guns were trained on the door.
“Attack.” Inside the Valiant, Jean turned to Stukov and ordered.
The infested terran nodded.
The door of the frigate snapped open, and those inside poured out.
“What the hell is that?” One of the Umojan militias said in horror as the first figure walked into the light. It was a crew member, or rather it used to be a marine. Half of its stomach was gone and its guts were being dragged through on the ground, but it was still moving.
The Colonel knew much more about the zerg than an ordinary militia. “It’s a zerg virus. Open fire!”
All the guns started blazing. The hail of metal ravaged through the first infested terran and killed him instantly.
But that was just the first zerg. A second infested came out, and then a third. However, the door of the frigate was relatively narrow, and it could only fit a couple infested at once. None of the infested could survive long enough to get out of the frigate while being blasted apart by a dozen gauss rifles. There were hundreds of infested in the frigate, but they were killed one by one.
For the moment, the infested seemed to be beaten back.
Sadly for the terran, this was merely the treat. All around the terran settlement, seas and seas of infested approached.
“Sir!” A man on the lookout cried.
It took the Colonel a few seconds to realize what was going on. “All militias return to the bunkers and open fire on the infested lines. All siege tanks open fire on center mass! Vikings, take out this frigate!” He didn’t have time to waste with picking off the infested inside the frigate one by one. “Marines, clear the wreckage and return to your post ASAP.”
The squad of vikings came down from the sky and fired a round of torpedoes at the frigate, which immediately exploded. Countless pieces of flesh and bones were sent flying toward all directions. Some of the infested survived the blast, but Umojan marines approached slowly and gunned down the infested with clean, concise shots. The advanced computers installed into their armors and rifles made the process much easier.
As soon as that was done, the marines ran back to the bunkers and started unloading on the sea of zerg outside the positions.
Siege tank shells exploded in the midst of the infested. Every single shot sent dozens of infested flying across the sky. Gauss rifles pierced the infested in the front of the infested lines. The squad of vikings landed and started adding to the terran firepower.
But all of those were useless. The Warden battlecruisers unloaded tens of thousands of infested on the ground, and since they came from the bodies of the Dominion soldiers on Skygeirr Station, a large portion of them were armed.
Infested marines started firing back at the Umojan marines. They were much weaker, but they had overwhelming numbers. Nearly ten thousand infested marines approached from all three hundred sixty degrees, firing as they moved.
The Umojan simply didn’t have the men. In order to protect the hundreds of thousands of civilians, they had to cover all four sides. On average, each side had around a thousand men. On the other hand, the infested could put over ten thousand men per side. It was more than ten to one.
At first the Umojan held their ground with their firepower, but as time passed, the infested line got closer and closer.
An infested siege tank sieged up. An infested terran, fatter than ordinary infested, voluntarily walked to beside the tank. Suddenly, a tentacle came out of the tank’s side, grabbed onto the infested, and dragged it into the tank. A few seconds later, the infested terran was shot out of the gun barrel. It landed on one of the bunkers.
Instead of trying to futilely rip the bunker apart and be gunned down in the process, the infested terran simply exploded like a baneling. Immediately, the neosteel frame of the bunker was corroded. Four marines inside the bunker took a breath of relief when they realized the last layer of steel was still intact, but that changed when the siege tank let loose another shot, which landed at the exact same sport. Only this time, these marines didn’t have the chance to take a breath, or do anything, in fact. They were too busy being melted.
The Colonel knelt down behind a bunker and listened to the sounds of bullets hitting the bunker. Beside him, two Umojan marines, a bit too slow, were ravaged through by countless rounds.
The man barely had the time to mourn the death of two brave souls when the two marines stood back up. Only this time, tentacles were coming out of their mouth.
Infested marines had virus on their rounds. A single wound on the Umojans could turn them to the monsters they were killing just seconds ago.
Vikings kept on firing. That was until missiles came out from the seemingly empty sky and ripped them apart. Turrets retaliated, but they weren’t enough. The wraiths came in, took down the vikings in one round of bombardment, and got out. A few fighters took some rear damage, but they were still flying.
The Colonel groaned and ran back into the command center. “Have we established contact with High Command yet?”
“No sir, wait.” Suddenly, the face of an Umojan officer appeared on the computer screen. “It’s through, sir.”
“This is Colonel Olsen of the Umojan garrison at planet Teel V! We are under attack by zerg infested units! They have overwhelmed our lines. Send help now! We have the entire colony at risk!”
The officer on the other end realized the situation was serious as well. “Yes sir. Hold your position as long as possible. Help is on the way.” Already, two of the dozens of battlecruisers of the Umojan Fleet that were put on yellow alert were getting ready for warping.
“Also,” Colonel Olsen suddenly remembered the cloaked fighters. He sensed this might be important. “there are…” That was when the radio went blank.
Jean wanted the Umojan High Command to know about the infested attack, but she didn’t want them to know an unknown terran faction might be involved, so she shut the radio down before the colonel could say something wrong.
“Oh Damn it…” Colonel Olsen glanced at the Umojan officer, who kept on trying to re-establish the communication but kept on failing. Finally, the colonel gave up and went outside the command center, wanting to contribute a little more to the overall cause.
He was disappointed to realize the cause was already lost as crowds of infested ran past him. He drew his rifle and gunned down two infested, but the next second a volatile infested ran into him.
Following an explosion, Colonel Olsen fell on the ground. Distinctly, he could see infested charging into the facilities where the Umojans were keeping the colonists. As horrified screams and cries for help came out, the man closed his eyes.
Seconds late, his eyes snapped open again.
One more infested terran joined Stukov’s army of the dead.