Fearless/4

How will fear be dealt with by those in the far future? How does it affect the people we trust to protect us? How is fear linked to our other emotions?

With these questions in mind, I presnent to you:

Fearless

Part One: Hard Landing

In the shuttle’s gloom, strapped into my berth as we plummeted onwards, I could tell the others were jittery. Corso never had managed to get those shakes out of his hand. He’d tried everything. Leastways, he’d tried every method available to a Confederate Marine. Even a Spec-Ops payroll wasn’t enough to pay for that sort of surgery. I felt sad, watching him. Civilians watch the newsfeeds and see these hulking marines in powered armour, like something out of Starship Troopers and they think we’re immune to fear. They expect, when they see the Marine, that the Confederacy has reached into his prefrontal cortex and played with his mind, eradicating the possibility that he could succumb to terror. That sort of neural tinkering might be available to some of the richer citizens on some of the more advanced colony words, but not to a Confederate Marine. We really were the lowest rung of the ladder. Even SCV duty was preferable to what we had to do. Which was enter the hostile zone and hold it against all odds, until relief arrived or we were cut down where we stood.

Next to me, Tarken smoked the rich cigars of which he was so fond, his helmet open. Id’ tried one once… never could get the taste out of my mouth. We used to complain when he first started – after we’d all first faced the xenomorphs. But the comments soon stopped, once we realised we needed to find our own ways to deal with the fear. Tarken smoked on regardless. On Chau-Sara, when we were ordered to hold our posts until the civilians were evacuated, he smoked. Later when Zerg boarded our cruiser he smoked as he faced them without armour or weapons – flesh against flesh. By rights he should have been leader of our squad. But no, the Confederacy knew better. In terms of strategic and tactical planning, my scores at the academy were far superior. But Tarken… I guess he just had charisma. It was indefinable. He was born ugly and scarring hadn’t improved his features. His voice was a gravelly rasp we all hated. And yet… and yet… I always relied on him to keep the squad functioning when situations looked dire.

Across the shuttle, her face made all the more pale by the low blue lighting, Maya disassembled and reassembled her gauss rifle endlessly – a difficult task at the best of times, but exacerbated by our vertical plunge. I don’t know whether it was the task itself or merely the soft clicks of interlinking components that calmed her. It wasn’t really my place to ask. She was the one member of the squad with whom I had to make a strong effort to hold myself at an appropriate distance. Closeness brought its own emotional dangers to a Confederate Marine, especially in these troubled times.

Over in the far corner, Mitchell was praying. He prayed the same prayer, over and over. Sometimes he rearranged the words, or prayed in a different language. I don’t think he was really religious. Like Tarken’s smoking and Maya’s rifle work, it was his own way of stopping the fear from taking control. He’d had it worse than any of us – his first posting had actually been overrun. His comrades were slaughtered around him and he survived only by hiding beneath the corpses of his old friends. When the rescue team found him, he was praying. He’d never stopped, in all the time I’d known him – only to answer questions. I’d tried to engage him in conversation, but it was clear from the outset that he didn’t enjoy it. The rapport we eventually established was simple. When we ate, we shared rations. Anything more than that, I think he wouldn’t have been able to cope with. He probably thought if he made even slight attachments to people again, the whole incident would be repeated.

As for me? Well, when I said ‘we’ earlier, I wasn’t being as truthful as I could have been. Before the Zerg invasion and the evacuation and subsequent sterilisation of Chau-Sara, my family were wealthy and influential. Despite the Confederacy’s disdain for the cybernetically augmented, my father’s position in the government had allowed him to give me several expensive alterations. My prefrontal cortex had been subject to the alterations of several of the Confederacy’s finest doctors and surgeons. I have no fear, in the most literal sense possible. No, the hard part was not letting the lack of fear lead me to my death. I’d been in many different combat situations, three of them lasting for days. At many times I suffered the almost overwhelming temptation to take two gauss rifles, strap them to my arms and run out into the hordes massed beyond our trenches.

I may not have fear, but I certainly retain the capacity to be horrified. Trench warfare would have left me a blubbering wreck were it not for the enhancements made in my youth. To see a slavering bundle of jagged bone limbs, putrescent cartilage and hideous purple carapace hurtle down a narrow space towards you, as you stumbled backwards in the thick mud… the first time it happened, the men either side of me lost control of their bladders. I was the only one with enough sense to raise my weapon and drive the monstrosities back with tracer fire.

That was almost a year ago now. Since then I’d fought in battles ranging from tight close combat in facilities and on starships to huge, expansive campaigns where I’d been but one insignificant unit, marching along with hundreds of others, staring up as the battlecruisers roared overhead, while armoured tanks lumbered by on both sides. My father’s influence hadn’t been enough to guarantee me a commission, not post-CS. But I’d worked my way up. Relentless, I’d heard Confederate generals refer to me as being. In this squad, my soldiers called me ‘Fearless’.

A red LED counter flashed up on my HUD. Soon we’d face our fears again. Or in my case, I’d face an enemy whose emotional response to battle in some small way reflected my own. Hydralisks had no fear. They charged Terran lines without a thought for their own safety. But their fear was mindless, a by-product created through near-endless genetic tinkering. Whereas my fearlessness was due to technology. Unlike the blind hydralisk, I could see how to use my ability to bolster my comrades’ flagging spirits. When those around me were on the verge of breaking and running for cover, I would stand and shout a battle cry. Sometimes the cry had words; sometimes it was just noise, underscored by the throaty clatter of my gauss rifle. All I knew was that every time I stood up against the Zerg, those around me followed.

The LED counter told me only a few minutes were left until we landed. I barked an order to ‘make ready’ and was rewarded by a chorus of whines as powered armour came online and clicks as gauss rifle clips were slammed into place. The tension in the shuttle was almost palpable, I knew something had to be done or my squad would break before I even had a chance to rally them with my surgical courage.

“Tarken, you mind saying something to the squad?” I asked. His skills as a speaker were far beyond mine. I think he used to be an orator, before the Zerg came – closely followed by conscription on several colony worlds. Tarken was probably the only one of us who hadn’t chosen to become a Marine – he’d been press-ganged in his home city – wherever that was. “Sure thing, Fearless.” He said. Other squad commanders would have launched into a tirade about ‘propriety when addressing a senior officer’, but I let the comment pass. Tarken knew that I knew that it would help the others to hear my nickname.

“Listen up, guys!” Tarken called out. “I’d give you that ‘glory for the Confederacy’ spiel, but we all know it’s crap. I know we all scared witless, but Fearless here? They don’t call him that for nothing. He knows no fear when he fights the Zerg. And if he’d not afraid, we don’t need to be either. Aside from that, he’s the best ‘damn shot I ever served alongside. He’s the only person I know other than myself to have killed a xenomorph with his bare hands. And he might be a lousy chef, but he’s the only ‘damned person who cares a jot about us, so let’s all do whatever the hell he says and we might just live through this, eh? We got confidence in him, right?” I could see the others nodding within their helmets. “Well, if our own determination can match one tenth of his, we’ll have this mission in the bag in no time at all. Relentless, Fearless, whatever they call him. I know he’ll see us through. Trust me.”

I muttered a word of thanks to Tarken before activating the heads-up display units of the other suits. Once their HUDs casting hues of sickly green onto their faces, I showed them a map of the landing zone. Even without the detail afforded by more expensive gravometric imaging systems, the landscape was obviously precipitous. “Three years ago, the first surveyors who came to this moon called it the Anvil. They built their first base in the lee of the cliff and within a week the swarm swept in from the east to massacre the workers. The platoon of Confederate Marines was wiped out in less than an hour – they had nowhere to go, no cover to use. The Zerg – not that the people here knew who they were back then - didn’t even have to spawn hydralisks – they just sent wave after wave of zerglings to smash against the anvil. You ever seen a melon on an anvil get hit by a sledgehammer? It was like that.”

That elicited a few laughs. Our opportunities for genuine mirth were few and far between, so we laughed whenever we could. Which wasn’t all that often. I relayed our orders to the built-in processors of my squad’s suits, watched their faces blankly accept what we had to do. They were dropping us into a hostile fire-zone without even the support of a few light vehicles. Even the shuttle wouldn’t stay with us – assuming it survived the predations of the spore colonies photographed from orbit. We would be stranded, alone, to destroy sensitive information files relating to some of the Confederacy’s more confidential research projects. It turned out this moon had been chosen for a base because of its lack of proximity to any vulnerable colonies in the system. It was the perfect place to research dangerous equipment. Or it had at least appeared that way. They had no way of knowing about the dormant Zerg colony.

But after all this time the Confederacy couldn’t afford to send a large, well-equipped force – an army capable, if not of defeating the infestation on this moon, then at least lasting long enough until reinforcements could be gathered from nearby systems. No, all they could afford was us – the finest squad of Confederate Marines throughout all of Terran space. If I do say so myself. Of course, why they didn’t launch an investigate when contact was first lost is beyond me… maybe they were expected not to send messages anywhere so as not to draw attention down on the facility. We’d never know.

Now we were approaching the landing zone, all outward signs of fear were gone. Corso’s hands weren’t shaking as he clasped his rifle. Mitchell’s prayer had dropped to a low murmur and Maya had ceased her rifle play when I give the ‘make ready’ order. Beside me, Tarken still smoked the stub of his cigar. I ignored it, for the time being.

The shuttle suddenly rocked beneath us and we would have been tossed around the interior like rag dolls, were it not for the restrains holding us in place. Not for the first time, I wished Confederate shuttles had at least one viewport fitted – even if we couldn’t do anything to turn aside the hypothetical projectile racing towards us, at least we’d be able to see it. This wasn’t fear, more annoyance. If I were to die in the name of the Terran Confederacy, I wanted to do it on a battlefield, surrounded by the corpses of my enemies. Not torn apart within a shuttle, by nothing more that a quirk of fate. Fortunately we could all hear the whisper of the point-defence lasers reaching through the hull. If they stopped, we knew we were in trouble. But the whispers continued, until they were drowned out by the roar of the landing thrusters. The restraints snapped open and we moved rapidly. When the ramp of the shuttle slowly lowered itself to the ground, I could see that when the mission briefing said the landing would be dangerous, they didn’t tell us the half of it. “Confederate bastards.” Corso said behind me as he glimpsed what I saw. “They knew, didn’t they?”

Part Two: Facility Massacre

We were dropping straight onto a thin, mossy carpet of creep – that horrendous alien lichen-like growth that spread inexorably forwards wherever there were xenomorphs to maintain it. Which meant that there were drones around. Thankfully, the pilot of the shuttle took pity on us, jeopardising his own safety to fire the flamers and clear us a small space. Then, once the five of us were ready and tracking movement with the barrels of our gauss rifles, the pilot ignited the thrusters once more and sped away into the night.

A brace of slavering zerglings tore themselves out of the ground and threw themselves upon us, dripping slime from their insectoid mandibles. I could see their dim yellow eyes, lit in the glaring white beams of my shoulder-mounted lamps. Meeting their snarls with one of my own, I gave the kill-order and we proceeded to butcher the zerglings with precise, tight salvos. Sensing a disturbance in the ground behind me, I swung to face the horror that was emerging. There was neither the space nor the time to bring my rifle around so I dropped it, drawing instead the old chainsaw that hung from my belt. Spec-Ops did have some advantages over normal soldiers – we got to choose more weapons that your average trooper. And I used mine now to good effect. The jabbing arms of the xenomorph scraped against my armour, denting the steel and scratching the pain. On its next attempt to strike, I ripped through the zergling’s claws with the titanium chain-blade of my weapon, then systematically cut it apart, as one would a pig. However, this was one creature we certainly wouldn’t be eating anytime soon.

I wiped all the sickeningly blood-like internal fluid from the weapon before returning it to my belt. Then I picked up my rifle and looked around at the others, only to see Maya and Corso staring at me with slack jaws. They were relatively new to the squad; they hadn’t ever seen me deal with zerglings without the use of a rifle.

“Good one, boss.” Tarken said. I shrugged. “I probably should’ve got him before he chipped my paint… that scheme took weeks.” “See my tears.” Came his sarcastic response. I ignored him, turning my rifle on the drone responsible for this patch of creep. The others joined me and once it was dead, leaking bodily fluids onto the rocks, we watched the patch of alien organisms whither and die in mere seconds.

We moved on, travelling along the base of the cliff. We’d been dropped several hundred metres from the outer defences of the base – which were minimal. Hopefully we’d be able to get a little power back, maybe some lights – maybe even get any intact missile turrets operational.

Getting to the base would be the hard part. I slid my visor down and scanned the open ground leading up to the edge of the base. We were hidden in a pile of boulders that had been dislodged in the first attack. Between the nearest buildings and us was a stretch of land devoid of any cover. Any Zerg out on the plains that stretched away from the cliffs would be able to see us and bring whatever diabolical friends they wished. To make matters worse, my HUD tagged several otherwise innocuous patches of earth that looked like they had been disturbed recently. From the size of them, I guessed there were hydralisks buried beneath the earth, waiting for the telltale vibrations signalling the approach of fresh meat.

“Corso, grenades. Five second fuse. Go.” I highlighted the areas I wanted bombarding and left him at it, climbing up to a ledge in the cliff wall. I had a much better view up there, watching with some pride the graceful trajectories of Corso’s grenades. He was the best thrower in the squad. In fact, he was top bowler on the Chau-Sara Cheetahs under-seventeens’ cricket team. That was part of the reason why I picked him – top sportsmen were already on their way to possessing the mental and physical capabilities required to function as a soldier. As an elite.

Now Corso’s training hours paid off. The slight thump of the grenades on each patch caused the earth to churn as the Lovecraftian horrors beneath stirred and began to rise. Five seconds after impact, when the veined purple carapaces were just visible above the hard ground, the grenades detonated. Most of the force was directed downwards, ensuring the internal and, indeed, external organs of the emerging hydralisks were pulped beyond recognition – not that they looked like anything Terrans had ever seen, anyway. Still, a reasonable spray of gore and clods of soil erupted upwards, hurtling into the air only to come back down as a gristly rain. Even from a few hundred metres away, my visor was splattered with much. The small wiper slid across instantly, clearing my vision of the occluding ichor. The explosions had made the pitted ground even more perilous than before. We advanced cautiously, mindful that Terran sensors were far from perfect concerning the detection of subterranean xenomorphs. Only a few buried zerglings dared to attack us. We dealt with them swiftly before moving on.

The first building we reached was a supply depot, gutted in the first battle. A mouldering carcass of a zergling lay across the lap of the deceased Terran who’d killed it, apparently using a long steel rod. Both the zergling and the Terran were mostly exoskeleton and skeleton respectively – the winds ripping through the base were fierce and gritty, filled with suspended particles that could flense a man’s skin from his bones. I could hear the wind rattling against the plates of my armour as it threw futile abrasive volleys of rock and dust at me.

We left the scene and moved toward the centre of the base, missile turrets looming out of the darkness. Several of them were little more than blackened stumps or shattered piles of wreckage, but one or two – scarred by strange energy blasts more reminiscent of Protoss technology than anything else - looked like they could work again, given a little power. And providing the AIs in control of them had survived this long. Apparently this world had a strong electromagnetic field, due to the high density of radioactive elements in the crust. It made the silicon pathways of our sentient data entities corrode rapidly – usually an AI could last for several months before needing to be replaced, but here it was more like weeks. If an AI in a missile turret went rampant, the Zerg infestation would be the least of our worries. We walked through the ring of turrets and cross the deserted landing field, where two shuttles lay – one in pieces; the other tipped on its side. A shack in one corner of the field contained a computer terminal. I set Mitchell working on it – despite his apparent brand of insanity, he was a genius with machines and systems of any kind. Within two minutes, he’d called up a map of the base layout and pinpointed the location of our objective.

“Good job, Mitchell.” I told him. “Find the base generators and get ‘em online.” I moved away, then turned back. “Keep your guard up.” I added. I was about to leave when he put a hand on my shoulder. In his other was the clip from his gauss rifle. He held it up to me, his lips still moving with the endless prayer. I understood what he wanted, pulled the own clip out of my rifle and replaced it with his while he did the same with mine. It took a measure of trust. We both slotted our rounds into the clips before each mission and if either of us had made a mistake then our rifles could literally blow up in our faces. But even if I had been capable of fear, I wouldn’t have been loathe to fire the rifle – I knew Mitchell was a competent soldier, maybe even a deadly one. I left the shack and went out to join the others.

The research facility was set into the side of the cliff, a utilitarian structure covered in cables, pipes and machinery of dubious function. An empty SCV lay on the ground nearby. I sent Maya to take a closer look. When she returned she was pale and her breathing had gone shallow.

“What’s wrong, Maya?” Tarken asked, before I could speak. “It’s just an empty suit.” She shook her head emphatically. “Oh, no… it’s not empty.” She refused to say any more on the subject and I chose to press her. I could guess what she’d seen and cursed my mistake. I should have gone and investigated it myself. Still, it was too late now. I put an arm round Maya’s titanium-plated shoulders and gave her a clumsy hug. It was what she needed, her Confederate training returned and she soon had her breathing under control. “Thanks, Fearless.” She said, walking towards the heavy blast doors of the facility.

Nothing in the world could have prepared us for the utter carnage we found within. Terrans, Marines and civilians alike hadn’t just been slaughtered… they’d been mutilated. There was a certain grim saying that had sprung up amongst Marines who’d faced down the xenomorph, especially those who’d seen what happened when Zerg were unleashed on an unprotected populace. It ran thus: ‘wimp or warrior, we’re all the same inside.’ Most people didn’t grasp that this statement was a literal one. And that it was unequivocally truthful.

Explosions of intestines and flesh stained the walls while blood mixed on the floor, as if it were a demon’s palette. We all physically recoiled, stomachs churning. The squad backed hurriedly out of the entrance bay, nearly tripping over the tangled intestines of civilians and troopers. When were outside, we all opened our helmets and stomachs in turn. That level of brutality… it beggared belief.

Sometimes I wake in the night screaming, and I know in my dreams I must have visited that tomb once more. I see scientists in lab coats and fight the urge to vomit. Thinking about their shattered corpses, I knew I had to say sometime… anything…

“Alright, squad. These poor sods are dead. We can’t help that. What we can do is help guys who are still alive by finding these files. Are you all with me?” “I am, Fearless.” Tarken answered. The other two just nodded, straightening up.

We went back inside after a few minutes, no one daring to speak. Moving through those crypt-like halls over grilled floors daubed with death and dripping with blood, our lamps picking out horrendous details on the far walls… I think if I’d been able to feel fear as well as sickness and revulsion, there would have been no power in the galaxy that could have made me go back inside. As it was, the lack of fear enabled me to lead the others through the facility.

My infrared sensors found no Zerg. I could tell the conspicuous absence of any xenomorph resistance was getting to my comrades, even though it didn’t bother me. I assigned Corso to sweep behind us, in case anything decided to rear its ugly head after we’d passed. The facility wasn’t very large; we’d searched most of it in a few minutes and quickly located a terminal. This time I used it, seeing as I’d sent Mitchell to restore power. The terminals ran on emergency batteries, thankfully. I sorted through room listings and inventories before finding a room marked as ‘classified’ and bearing the mark of the Confederacy R&D division.

This area of the facility was relatively clean. Bodies lay in corners or sprawled over the floor, but they’d suffered less damage. Curious, I knelt down to examine the nearest corpse. It looked like he’d died and then a Zergling had jabbed him with a claw to make sure he was dead. It was the same with all the others. Something wasn’t right here…

I decided not to go any further until we at least had some power. My communications equipment warbled quietly to itself as it tried to link with Mitchell’s. His endless prayer flooded the channel as soon as contact was established. I was always loathe to ask him direct questions – though he answered them, he seemed to resent it, but we were on a mission. I had to put many of my usual considerations aside.

“Mitchell, you close to restoring power?” I asked. “Yes.” Came his terse reply, the prayer stopped mid-sentence. “One minute.” He broke off the link. True to his word, within a minute machinery in the walls of the facility started to hum with power. Lights came on, their electric brilliance blinding me until my eyes adjusted to their glare. I switched off my own shoulder lamps and led the others forward, alert for any presence, Zerg or otherwise.

The biomonitors wired to my HUD flashed up a warning, informing me that they were detecting lowering heart rates from the rest of my squad. I cancelled the warning, knowing full well that it was the due to the light, banishing one of the myriad fears that beset them. The fear that was gone was one of the oldest, most primal – the fear of the unseen, the unknown. Now darkness was confined to the shadows, which meant there were a lot less places zerglings could spring from. We continued our search.

Part 3: Haunted Laboratory

We found the room swiftly enough, but the door was sealed shut. It looked like it had been welded. Maybe the scientists and researchers had decided to lock themselves in so the Zerg couldn’t gain access to the secrets they possessed. I tried manually opening the door, but to no avail. Even when Tarken and I worked in concert, assisted by powered armour, we couldn’t even make it budge. All cybernetic commands were understandably denied at the source. It looked like we were going to have to burn or blast our way through. Gauss rifles and grenades were unsuitable for this sort of work and the door was too sturdy to bring my chainsaw to bear against, but I’d spied a weapon on Tarken’s belt when we tried to shift the door before.

“That a pneumattock?” I asked him. He grinned in response. “Nothing like it for crushing Zerg skulls in close quarters.” “Or… bashing through a sealed door? It’s not a blast door, the armour ain’t too thick.” I told him. As I expected, he protested. “This is a tool, a delicate tool! You can’t make me use it on a door…” “Don’t make me order you, Tarken.” I warned, half-joking. We both knew he’d capitulate, but these little scenes of mild resistance were our way of sorting out the fact that I’d been promoted over his head, in typical bureaucratic fashion.

After a moment of looking at me with a pained expression, we both laughed. He unclipped the pneumattock and thumbed the power button. The pistons inside the weapon’s casing pulled back the hammer, making it shake in his hands. Pneumattocks were the ultimate space-age hammers. With a normal hammer, an unarmoured man might be able to kill a zergling, given determination and no small amount of luck. With a pneumattock, an unarmoured man could slay a zergling easily. And with powered armour… gods above, some of the Marines I’d fought alongside used to pulp whole packs of their enemies with a single swing, sending the devastating vibrations rippling through the tightly packed bodies.

I stepped back, motioning for Maya and Corso to do the same. Tarken swung the pneumattock over his head and brought it down against the door. The walls shook around us, betraying something of the facility’s shoddy construction. He swung the weapon again, and this time the doors buckled.

“Ok, Tarken, that should do it.” I said. Once more we placed our plated shoulders against the door and heaved. This time, they gave way to our strength and foul green water came flooding out, carrying with it foul flotsam. The bodies of three scientists, lacking even the standard armour issued to non-military personnel who worked in military installations. I checked them all for life-signs, to no avail. They’d obviously drowned. But I couldn’t understand why they’d flooded the room when there were people still within it. It wouldn’t have delayed the Zerg overly much, everyone knew they could spend long amounts of time underwater.

“Thoughts, people?” I asked. Tarken simply shrugged. “Beats me.” “That’s so helpful.” I replied. “Always glad to assist.” He gave a mock bow – difficult when wearing powered armour. “Maybe there was a fire and the safety systems were disabled, so they just kept on pouring.” Corso put in. His armoured glove shook a little before he reasserted control over the errant limb. “Possible.” I said, thinking. Surely if the safety systems were disabled, the sprinklers would have worked? Hopefully we’d find the answers inside.

As might be expected, I entered the room first. To me it was just a room, no different to any of the others in the facility. But to the others, the room was a chamber akin to Room 101, where their worst fears played out endlessly. So it fell to me to step through the door, scan each nook and cranny to make sure nothing untoward was skulking in the shadows. As I expected, the lightstrips clinging to the ceiling responded to my presence when I walked in. I’d been expecting a few laboratories, but there appeared to be only one small room.

Then I saw that this room was like an airlock. There was next to nothing inside it. Padded environment suits hung from the walls, seven a grubby white and one turquoise. They were studded with basic equipment and input jacks for more specialised kit. I’d worn one once before enlisting in the Corps, I knew the suits to be adaptable and in some ways superior to our own hardened battlegear. But of course, the lack of armour made them next to useless in a firefight.

Here was yet another mystery… even though the attack had been swift, surely there would have been time for the drowned scientists we’d found to have put on their suits? Unless the room had been flooded before the Zerg attack. But why? I shook my head to clear the confusion. There wasn’t anything I could do about it now. In a situation like this was it important to be pragmatic. I’d only investigate the strange occurrences if they began to conflict with my mission parameters. It was this pragmatism, coupled with my fearlessness, that had led Generals to call me ‘Relentless’, just as my squad called me ‘Fearless’.

I opened the inner door of the room and stopped in my tracks. I’d expected a laboratory, maybe even a small subcomplex… but the hall stretching out before me must have been hollowed out of the mountain itself. I was awe-struck for a moment. Then the feeling passed – a side affect of having no fear. Awe was closely linked with fear, and so the removal of one diminished the other. I looked around the hall, taking in the robust support pillars and heavy contrivances littered around like toys of petulant child. I wondered if the Zerg had even reached this far – there was no sign of infestation, no corpses, Terran or otherwise. “Safe in there, Fearless?” Tarken’s voice crackled over the comm. “Yeah. Though you might be a little surprised at what’s on this side.” I told him.

The others filed in and I watched with amusement as they saw the extent of the hall, stopped dead and were bumped into by the person behind them.

“Hell, Fearless, you could’ve warned us!” Tarken complained.

“I did.” I answered him, chuckling. He glowered with mock anger and said nothing. Maya punched him on the arm; a blow that would have shattered the bones of an unprotected Terran, but with both of them in armour was merely playful.

“Lighten up, stone-jowls.” She told him.

“Stone-jowls? Is that what they call me?” Tarken asked, mildly indignant. “I’ll have you know…”

“Stow it, guys.” I told them. “There’ll be time for chit-chat later. Maya, take a look at these… gizmos. See if you can work out what they do, and if we need to destroy them. Tarken, watch the exit. Corso, you’re with me. I’ll take point.”

With that I headed off into the gloom, followed reluctantly by Corso. He was still afraid to leave the safety of the group, even though the hall was clearly empty.

“How you holding up, Corso?” I asked. “I know everyone’s a bit jumpy with all the stuff we’ve seen, but how are you coping?”

He shrugged, a particularly emphatic gesture in powered armour.

“Ok, I guess. I’ve not got the shakes… not bad, anyway. So long as I can shoot my gun straight, I’m cool.”

“That’s good to hear.” I told him, unsure of what to say. This was one of those innumerable situations where Tarken was useful; I always got into trouble when I started serious conversations with people. “So what number combat drop is this for you?” Even as I said it, I regretted it. I could almost see him playing over the past. Corso was only just old enough to enlist when the Zerg struck. On his first mission, he’d had to cut down crazed citizens. Terrans, infested by xenomorph parasites. He never said as much, but I was sure some of them must have been people he knew.

“This is my third. First was Chau-Sara, then I was dropped straight onto Mar-Sara, only a day’s break in between. After that righteous mess I was sent to a training facility in another system, I don’t know where. After I finished that, I was assigned to your squad. We had that little police action on Kino Moon, I don’t count that as a proper combat mission.”

“What was it like bowling for the Cheetahs?” I asked. His eyes seemed to lighten.

“It was amazing! Some of the guys and girls on my team… they were phenomenal. I’ve seen vids of the older matches, back on Earth… man, we’d waste some of those guys. But it all seems so useless now…what with the war and all.” He seemed to slump in his armour.

“No way, kid, your throwing arm and sporting career was half the reason I wanted you on my team. And if you’d signed up in peacetime I’d send you straight back to your cricket team.” I stopped next to another, larger array of computing equipment.

“It’s the war, isn’t it, sir? It’s thrown everything out of whack.” He asked me.

“That’s right, kid. Which is why we have to fight to get it back to normal. The sooner this is all over, the sooner we can go back to being proper Terrans again. You can take up sports, Mitchell will probably get a job in computer science.” I tried to put conviction into my voice. It wasn’t hard. My capacity for hope was sufficiently far removed from my capacity for fear that it had been unaffected. If anything, it seemed my hopes were all the brighter now they were untempered by forebodings of any kind. Most people who thought about the future worried about money, or friends – something always got in the way of the vision. But not for me.

“And Tarken will give speeches, and Maya’ll become an artist or something… something that needs good hand-eye-thing.” Corso continued.

“Hand-eye-co-ordination, yeah.” I corrected him.

“Or maybe she’ll be a model or something…” He said, in the air of a person revealing a secret.

“A model, eh?” I teased. ‘You sweet on her or something?”

“A bit.” He admitted, a red tinge coming to his cheeks. “But I know to be careful.” He paused for a moment. “What about you, Fearless? Surely you ain’t gonna stay in the army?” He asked.

“Why not?” I said. “I’m a good soldier and things’ll get even easier in peacetime. It’ll just be odd police actions. And having no fear may not cow any Zerg, but it’ll have a hell of a lot more effect when rebels or rioters hear I’m coming. That’s if I stay fearless, of course. I might have a shot as a normal Terran. No brain tinkering.”

“No way, sir… you can’t not be Fearless… it’s who you are!” He said, quietly but emphatically. “In or out of the army, it’s one damn-useful… thing.”

“Maybe…” I said, turning towards the computer terminal. “Anyway, let’s get to business. Watch my back.”

“Yes, sir.” He raised his rifle, holding it ready. I saw his stance in the reflection of the terminal screen, smiled to myself. I felt like I’d given him some much-needed confidence. Feeling a little happier with the emotional state of my team, I concentrated on the task at hand. I connected a jack cable from my suit to one of the terminal’s ports and started to interface, seeing the visual representation on my HUD.

The system I accessed was mostly garbled. Someone had unleashed a self-replicating eater-Wyrm into the cybernetic architecture of this secure network. It had chewed through a huge percentage of the stored data. Most of the information pathways were completely inaccessible, greeting me with multiple error messages when the suit tried to follow them. The few files that I could actually read were incomprehensible lists of numerical data, equations and theorems I scarcely understood. I considering copying everything onto my suit’s own network, but my orders were to destroy the data, not retrieve it. I deleted all the files I found, then searched out any backups and erased them as well. Lastly, I released a military-grade retrovirus into the system, with the purpose of eradicating every last scrap of readable data and causing further confusion amongst all the gibberish that was already present.

Part Four: Dark Ally

I turned around to find Corso gone. I called to him over the comm, but there was no reply. Then I shouted with the suit’s external amplifiers, but there was no sign of him. I signalled Tarken and Maya, ordered them to meet up with me. There were no signs of violence around where I was standing, no drag marks on the floor. He must have walked away for some reason – I’d been engrossed with the network for quarter of an hour.

The others came hurrying over. Tarken instantly saw that Corso was missing, caught my eye and went straight to search for him. Maya walked up to me, looking worried.

“Fearless, what’s wrong? Where’s Corso?”

“I don’t know. I told him to guard me while I took care of the computerised records. When we’ve found him, we need to blow the machine and then get to Mitchell. After that, we can wait for the shuttle to come and pick us up.” I said.

“Where could he have gone? I take it his comm isn’t responding.”

“No. There’s no sign of any struggle.” I told her. She seemed to shudder, not that I could see through her powered armour. But her breath grew a bit ragged.

“You think…” Her voice trailed away, unable to finish the sentence. Or, I suspected, the thought behind the sentence.

“I’m not thinking anything. He must have seen something and gone to investigate. Maybe there’s an EM jamming device, I don’t know… I’m not getting any readings over the biomonitor. Nothing. If he’d been injured it would have told me.”

Maya flinched as Tarken’s shout came over the comm – whatever he’d found, it had made him forget the speakers made it sound as if we were stood next to each other. Maya and I hurried towards his transponder signal. He’d gone a considerable distance in the short time that I’d spoken to Maya. We broke into a run when the sounds of gunfire filtered through our external sensors. I used the suit’s vision amplification, but without infrared the hall was just too gloomy. And IR sensors wouldn’t work with the amplifier activated. My biomonitor

I was so focussed on running I had to skid to halt when I reached Tarken. He’d been flung into one of the pillars. Biomonitor told me he was unconscious, but otherwise unharmed. The pneumattock was grasped in his hand; he hadn’t had time to swing it at whatever tossed him about like a sack of coal. I instructed his suit to inject him with increasing amounts of adrenaline, until he came round. That done, I turned to scanning the shadows with Maya. We searched the area, but couldn’t find anything.

Something swept by, knocking me off my feet. I saw nothing more than a patch of shimmering air that vanished as swiftly as it had appeared. Maya screamed and fired blindly, terror seizing her.

“Maya, get a grip!” I shouted. I couldn’t get up for fear of being hit by hyperkinetic uranium rounds. She’d completely lost it; I could hear her screaming over and over on the open channel. No words… just an endless vocalisation of what she was feeling inside. My mind latched onto an idea…

“Trooper, take your rifle apart now! That’s an order!” I yelled, doing my best drill sergeant’s impression. It worked. Maya stopped firing and had her rifle stripped and its separate components laid out of the floor a few seconds after I’d spoken. I breathed a sigh of relief; thankful I hadn’t had to shoot her to make her stop. I’d seen it happen with other squad leaders.

“Now put your rifle back together, trooper!” I barked.

“It’s okay, Fearless. I’m back.” Maya said, her voice quavering. “I goofed out for a bit… I’m sorry.”

“S’alright, Maya. Come help me up.”

Once back on my feet, I had my suit fire sonar pulses in every direction. I didn’t expect to find anything – whatever was beneath the shimmer could easily be hiding behind a pillar – but I had to try. IR scans also revealed nothing. The generator producing the cloaking field must have sucked in all the heat to help power it, or it could have carried a cryo-arithmetic device of some kind. I’d read about them in some of the older novels in my father’s library. A trick of computation caused them to drain heat instead of giving it out like most computers did. I’d learnt never to question anything I found on my missions, just accept the impossible and work around it. Or use it to my advantage, if necessary.

The cryo idea presented another possibility to me. I changed the settings on my IR sensor, looking for patches of cold. One presented itself to me instantly, moving towards us rapidly.

“Maya: field of fire, three o’clock. Aim for waist height. No questions.” She obeyed before I’d even finished speaking. Though her military training might vanish on rare occasions, when it functioned it was a force to be reckoned with. Our first mission together, dealing with insurgents had been very short. A group of rioters had charged us. She’d singled out the leader and dropped him with a non-lethal shot to the shoulder. After that the rabble scattered, went back to their homes. Now, watching Maya calmly take aim at a patch of shimmering air, I knew I’d done the right thing choosing her for my squad. Fear was her worst enemy, but she could beat it.

Fire spluttered from her rifle for a split second. Then the shimmer was brightening, unravelling in front of our eyes. Corso’s recumbent form dropped to the floor, but my eyes barely flicked toward it. We were focussed on the shape appearing before us. It seemed to be coalescing out of chains of smoke and dust. I’d once seen a Ghost operate his cloaking device, watched a spherical shield appear around him and then mimic the landscape behind it, but this shape of this cloak appeared to be congruent with the emergent form.

That meant one thing… Protoss. The entity in front of us was clad head to toe in burnished armour, its colour somewhere between bronze and gold. Iridescent metal wing-shapes adorned its back, likely incorporating thrusters of some kind. They made it look like a space-age angel. Beautiful, functional and deadly. Even in my powered armour it was broader and taller than I was. Maya was just starting to whimper next to me.

“Maya, rifle.” I ordered. A few seconds and the gauss rifle was in pieces. Another few seconds and it was back together, pointed at the ground. The Protoss stood silently, eyes fixed on us. Even from a few metres away I could see the disfiguring scar etched across its mottle skin. It had no mouth, just like the stories said. I’d never met a real Protoss before. Hopefully, this one would be more concerned with the Zerg than with a few Terran Marines.

I AM THE AVENGER, THE RISEN ONE. MY PATH TO DESTINY IS LINED WITH THE CORPSES OF MY ENEMIES. I AM THE LIGHT AND LIFE WHO BRINGS DEATH AND DARKNESS. I AM THE RISEN ONE, THE AVENGER. I WILL PUNISH ALL THAT DARE STAND AGAINST THE FURY OF THE STORM. I AM THE LIVING THREAT, MORTAL SWORD OF THE GODS OF DESTRUCTION.

I shook my head to clear of the psionic backwash that rippled through the hall. This Protoss appeared crazed. I wondered if trying to communicate was a wise idea, Protoss were unpredictable at the best of times. I took a tentative, slow step toward Corso, watching the creature for any sign of movement. It turned to be a bad idea.

HOLD FAST, ENEMY OF THE AVENGER. ROOTED TO THE EARTH SHALL YOUR STEPS BE, LEST MY HOLY FIRE ILLUMINATE YOUR SOUL. MY ARTEFACTS ARE TO YOURS AS THE TOOLS OF AN ADULT TO THE POSSESSIONS OF CHILDREN. I AM THE RISEN ONE.

I hated these unspoken words. Written in my head… carved into my skull. It was incredibly disconcerting. I could see one of Maya’s eyes rolling inward, a sure sign her brain was struggling with the Protoss’ brutal discourse. The Protoss was levelling at me an ornate weapon of some kind, most likely the sort of high-order energy cannon that scientists fantasised about building.

“I’m not your enemy.” I broadcast through my external speakers. “I’m here to fight the Zerg. Same as you.”

DO NOT THINK YOU CAN POSSIBLY COMPREHEND THE PURPOSE OF THE AVENGER. I HAVE WANDERED ALONG AMONG THE STARS, LEAVING MY TRAIL OF MAYHEM. SUCH WAS THE BETRAYAL, I HAVE SWORN TO AVENGE THEIR CRIMES SEVENFOLD. THE RISEN ONE WILL NOT BE DENIED.

“Believe me, we’re not planning to.” I promised him, holding out my empty hands. I’d stowed my gauss rifle on the rack on my backplate, in a gesture of peace. “Now, are you going to let me see to that Marine you just dropped?”

THE ONE YOU INDICATE INITIATED A DIRE FOLLY IN RAISING HIS SPEAKING ROD AGAINST THE AVENGER, THE RISEN ONE. FOR THAT, I WILL EXORCISE HIM. HIS SOUL WILL NOT RESIDE IN ITS CORPOREAL SHELL FOR ONE MORE MOMENT.

He swung to face the unconscious marine and I watched in amazement as a blade slid out of nowhere – a blade crackling with blue energy. Before I could intervene, something caught the Protoss warrior a terrific blow from behind. As it fell to its knees, winded by a blow that would have eviscerated a Terran, Tarken stepped around from behind it.

“You might have gadgets we can only dream about, but they do nothing for a guy who turns his back on a Confederate Marine.” Tarken told it. “Now, let’s have none of this ‘exorcise business’. Tell my commander what you’re doing in a Terran facility and I might decide not to take your head off with this here hammer.” He swung the pneumattock in a swift circle, with all the dexterity one would expect to use with a broadsword. I noticed that the Protoss blade had retracted, or powered down. If it was one of the fabled psionic swords, it would be a potent weapon against Terran or Zerg. As much as I wanted to strip him of his armour and tie him up – assuming that were even possible – I knew with him on our side our chances were a lot better.

“I’m sorry for Corso’s actions.” I said formally. “He was expecting to see Zerg so much that when you appeared, that was what his mind saw. We mean you now harm.” I looked over at Tarken. “No further harm.” I corrected myself.

The Avenger leaned against a pillar after pulling himself upright. Tarken kept the pneumattock ready while Maya trained her rifle on the only weak point visible in the Protoss armour – the exposed helmet. The alien within shook his head several times and moved away from the pillar, standing unsteadily. Then he began to fall, with all the inevitability of a felled tree.

In situations like this there are two possible reactions. The path of fear is to leap out of the way, or shoot whatever weapon you’re pointing at the thing falling. But the path of fear for me was forever closed. So that meant my only action was to step up to the alien and catch him, powered armour straining to support that bulk. I was close enough to see my reflection in the polished plates. This close, the smell of the alien reached my nostrils through olfactory sensors. The bizarre tang of his armour and the burnt-plastic odour of his energy systems were almost overpowering, but around it filtered the smell of the being himself – a sweet scent akin to freshly mown grass, or fresh sea air.

THANK THE FOREFATHERS… THAT BLOW… I MUST APOLOGISE. I WAS INJURED LONG AGO AND CAST AWAY FROM MY PEOPLE, BECAUSE THE INJURY DAMAGED MY MIND. I AM WHAT YOU WOULD CALL… INSANE. BUT THAT BLOW RESTORED MY SENSES… THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IN THREE CENTURIES THAT I’VE BEEN ABLE TO THINK FOR MYSELF. I CANNOT THANK YOU ENOUGH, TERRAN.

“You’ll excuse me if I’m a tiny bit skeptical.” Tarken growled. “You kidnapped a squad mate and threw me into a pillar. And you were about to kill that Marine.”

PLEASE UNDERSTAND, WHEN THE MADNESS TAKES ME THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO TO COUNTER IT. FOR COUNTLESS DECADES I HAVE WANDERED WHERE THE MADNESS TOOK ME, UABLE TO EXERT THE BAREST INFLUENCE OVER DESTINATION. ALL I SEEK IS TO RETURN TO MY CRAFT.

What the Protoss said seemed plausible. Worryingly plausible. The Terran-recorded actions of his race certainly appeared extreme enough to banish from their society one who was effectively a raving lunatic. And he’d made no threatening moves since I stopped him from falling. I propped him back up, making sure the exoskeleton was supporting him.

THANK YOU, TERRAN.

“I take it you don’t realise you’re shouting?” I said.

SHOUTING?

The Protoss appeared to not understand the word.

“When you talk… it hurts our heads.” I told him. “It’s unsettling.” He nodded and banged the side of his blue metal collar.

“Is that better?” He said. His voice now issued from a speaker set into the collar. It was deep, rolling, like I imagined an earthquake to sound. This was a voice that had once been accustomed to giving orders. And having them obeyed.

“Yeah. What do we call you, Protoss?” I asked.

“Many lifetimes ago I was Praetor Kadralas. I am no longer worthy of that title.” He seemed to sag within his exoskeleton. “Now, I wish only to be known as Kadra. By rights I carry the rank of Zealot.”

“In that case, you can call me Fearless.” I said. If I extended the hand of friendship to this alien, I hoped I wouldn’t find his own hand grasping the haft of a blade forged from pure psionic energy.

“Fearless? That sounds like a description, rather than a name.” Kadra replied.

“I guess it is, in a way.” I flicked a hand signal to Maya, who bent down to bring Corso around.

“If you’ll excuse me for a moment, my armour must be tended to. Your companion’s blow had a certain… emphasis… to it. When he smote the armour, several systems went offline.” He knelt and produced what looked like two metal needles. Then he set to work repairing his power suit.

Tarken walked round to stand beside me, arms folded, pneumattock once more hanging from his belt. He had the look of a man who had no choice but to accept what was happening around him and go with the flow, as it were.

“Well, ain’t that something?” He said, mostly to himself.

“Our mission suddenly looks a bit more achievable, doesn’t it?” I said.

Tarken nodded. “But I’m still concerned. If he reverts to insanity…”

“We’ll deal with that problem if and when it becomes a problem.” I told him. “Though I don’t think you cured centuries of madness with a single strike of a hammer… it’s not like it’s Mjolnir…” I joked.

“It’s not what?” Tarken asked, confused.

“Mjolnir… Hammer of Thor?” I said.

“Who’s Thor? Is another one of those really old books you always quote and expect me to have read?” He said it in such a tone of scorn I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Come on, Tarken. This is a real piece of Norse mythology!”

“I ain’t no history nerd.” He said.

“No, you’re an untutored Philistine.” I taunted back.

“There you go again, proving my point.”

I was about to respond when Kadra lumbered over. Corso was on his feet now, looking groggy.

“Corso, say hello to Kadra.”

He blinked a few times, swaying as if intoxicated. “Hi.” He said blankly. The alien warrior knelt down, head bowed. “I ask for your forgiveness, Marine of the Confederacy. My attack on you took place in the throes of insanity. Rest assured, it will never happen again.” I think Corso still wasn’t in possession of all his mental faculties, but he smiled blankly.

“Hey, s’ all cool with me.” His words were slurred.

“I would know the history of your race’s presence on this sphere, if one of you will tell me.” Kadra said, standing up to his full height and turning to me.

“Of course.” I said. “Tarken, fill him in on the details. You know what’s appropriate to tell him.” Tarken nodded and began to converse with the alien.

I moved away from the group. It was long past the time when I should have contacted Mitchell. We’d been in the facility for over an hour now. While I didn’t think he’d be getting worried, I knew it wouldn’t be good to get out and find ourselves surrounded by slavering zerglings, or worse. I activated the comm and spoke into it.

“Mitchell? Report.”

“Mitchell here.” He said sullenly. “Nothing to report.”

“What’s your position, Mitchell? Have you attempted to repair the missile tower yet?” I asked, feeling bad for forcing him into conversation. He was probably terrified out there.

“I’m in the generator building. No.” He answered bluntly.

“Go and fix it now. Make sure it’s functional. But don’t arm it until I give the command. Understood?”

“Understood. Mitchell out.” Before the link cut off, I heard the endless prayer start up again, backwards this time. That meant he was really scared. I was just wondering if I shouldn’t have left him alone on this particular mission when I suddenly realised we still didn’t know who was responsible for the deaths of the civilians outside the lab and the flooding of the entry chamber. Confident that we’d be meeting up with Mitchell soon enough, I walked back the group.

Kadra faced me as I approached.

“Fearless, your adjutant has relayed to me all that has befallen this place of your people. But there are many areas of ignorance. With your permission, I will attempt to remove some of these and inform you of my part in the events that took place here.”

“Please do.” I said. “Any information we can take back to the Confederacy is a bonus.”

“Very well. This is my story.” He sat down on the floor and began to project images straight into our minds, the reason for him asking permission suddenly explained.

We watched the visions unfold with no little awe – even I.

Part 5: Psychotic Zealot

The interior of Kadra’s craft was dark and womb-like, filled with devices we couldn’t fathom the purpose of. Soft blue lights glimmered in the shadows, delineating the locations of control panels. Through thin window slits, the stars were just visible, their light made painfully intense by the contrast with the darker interior. It was quiet, only a rumble softer that a cat’s purr and the wildly spinning star field giving an impression of motion.

The moon’s dark shape slipped into view, growing larger at an alarming rate. At the last possible moment the deceleration thrusters ignited. I was grateful that tactile sensations were limited – the crushing gravitational forces would have cause my squad no little pain, lacking as we were the genetically enhanced physiology of a Protoss Zealot. Around the edges of the view-slits the hull glowed cherry-red with the heat of hard atmospheric insertion. For a few seconds the psionic vision turned black. I assumed it meant that Kadra had lost consciousness.

When sight returned, Kadra began to pull himself out of the small craft. Some unseen command caused the sides of the ship to fold open, letting in the moon’s dim ambient light. The distant sounds of battle filtered into the craft, only to be drowned out by a much close hiss. Scarcely had the Zealot pulled himself out of his berth than a horrific subterranean spike consisting of thick musculature topped with glistened razor-edged bone ripped into the craft, punching through the armour to jab at where he’d been sat moments before.

He dropped down from the side of the craft and rolled across the rocky earth, hearing the telltale hiss of the spike worming its way towards him with unerring accuracy and shocking speed. Kadra dived out the way. The tip of one thrustwing broke off against the hard side of the spike. On the ground, the Zealot had no hope. But in the air… a neural command ignited the thrustwings and they propelled him upwards, seconds before the spike ripped through the earth where he’d lain.

ABOMINATION! YOU DARE TO ATTACK THE BRINGER OF DEATH? THE FIRES OF MY WRATH WILL SCORCH THE UNHOLY FLESH FROM YOUR BONES. BEHOLD THE VENGEANCE OF THE RISEN ONE!

Kadra swiftly located the spore colony – a queasy amalgamation of disparate organs, crouched on a lonely patch of mossy creep which itself covered a lumpy, boulder-strew plain. The Zerg infestation must have once reached to this point, but had since receded as the xenomorphs quested for more advantageous locations. This colony was all that remained. But not for much longer. Amid the freezing winds of this desolate place, Kadra marshalled his thoughts. The construct of insanity that called itself the Avenger was itself possessed by a fearsome rage that amplified its already-formidable psionic powers. Crackling arcs of vivid blue energy streaked between the Avenger’s fists, growing exponentially. All over his armour, spines and protrusions were linked by the riotous power.

A jet of psionic lightening poured out of the Avenger’s open fist. The end lashed wildly around for a second before latching onto the colony. The wash of power thrummed through every cell of the organic structure, shorting them out like so many blow fuses. The colony died as each individual component burst apart in an explosion of blue fire. The Avenger watched the destruction until nothing was left but ash.

He headed in the direction of the battle noises. Several miles to the south, the Zerg hammer moved to crush the Terran force so perilously emplaced against the cliff wall they called the Anvil. Perhaps, among the chaos of war, he could finally free himself from the demon of pain that plagued his mind. Maybe, if he fought long and hard enough, the Risen One could fall…

The Avenger soared over the facility with a screech of jetstream. Down on the ground, the milling Confederate Marines looked up, many of them pointing as he streaked past. He could hear alarms blaring and saw missile turrets swivelling to track his movement. Laughing, a flare of psionic power lanced out to strike several of them, draining them of power. Marines had started firing up but he was too high in the air and moving too fast. Several rounds struck him, failing to penetrate his armour. He laughed again.

Then Terran lookouts caught sight of the Zerg horde racing towards them across the rocky wastes. The corrupted tide of flesh and fang rapidly approached, causing the Marines to dash towards the trenches, throwing themselves into the questionable safety afforded by them. Heavier mounted machine cannons opened up all along the lines, succeeding only in slowing down the xenomorphs’ advanced. Then Mutalisks wheeled over head, taking advantage of the confusion among the missile turrets. The AIs were unsure whether to aim at the Protoss or the Zerg. By the time most of them decided to swing their launchers in the direction of the Zerg flyers, it was too late. Great gouts of acid poured down on the turrets, dissolving their armour as if it offered no more protection than the walls of a sandcastle before morning tide.

Zerglings poured into the trenches. The narrow passages forced them to bunch up, enabling the defending Marines to take a great toll in their numbers. But behind them, Hydralisks were advancing, peppering the trenches with venomous spines. Several Marines were careless in their stance and died, spines having penetrated armour and skulls with equal ease. Several made a valiant run directly at the central mass of the swarm, throwing whole belts of grenades towards larger targets. They managed to further slow the advance, but died swiftly, gauss rifles continuing to fire as dead fingers convulsed on triggers.

The earthworks were completely overrun in a few minutes, leaving isolated pockets of Marines to be slowly encroached by thronging zerglings. The swarm swept over the base, slaying Terrans wantonly. Into this chaos, the Avenger swooped down. A moment’s concentration formed his psionic blades and he leapt straight into battle, laying about the Zerg and Terrans around him with all the ferocity of a wronged god.

The corpses piled up around him, forcing his enemies to attack from a few certain angles. That made them die all the easier. His blades slick with ichor and blood, the Avenger paused for a moment. But still, his madness refused to be dislodged. He roared aloud, wordlessly. The sound was taken as a challenge by a nearby Ultralisk, which came charging towards him. He leapt atop the behemoth and slashed down with his blades, decapitating the creature messily. Such was its bulk, it continued to run blindly for a few minutes before its body realised it was dead.

Leaving the swarm to work its bloody business against the base, the Avenger used his thrustwings to cross the battlefield and enter the facility. The Terrans there met him with rifles, but his speed enabled him to cut them down before they could fire. He slew all he found, unable and even unwilling to stop himself – except in the deepest reaches of his mind.

The bodies in one corridor confused him. He’d not touched them, and neither had the Zerg. Terrans killing each other? He’d seen stranger things. Walking deeper into the facility, he came at last to a great hall, filled with arcane devices and artefacts of devious complexity. When he’d gone some distance in, the doors leading our of the hall slid shut. Nothing he did could open them. Knowing that other Terrans would be here given enough time, he cloaked himself and settled down to wait. Part Six: The True Face of Horror

“The rest, you know.” Kadra said simply. “I cannot offer enough apologies to condone for the violence I wrought against your kind. I’d fall on my sword, but psionic technology does not allow that. I will fight with you until your mission is complete, and then I will go to my ship.” I stood silently in the aftermath of the visions, unable to comprehend the torture of madness experienced by this alien being. Oddly enough, it was Maya who broke the silence. Clearly her fear was well and truly banished.

“But we still don’t know who flooded the chamber, and who killed those other civilians.” She said. I nodded, still unable to speak.

“I might be able to help you there.” A voice drawled from the shadows. A quiet throb that had persisted ever since we entered the hall now stopped completely and a figure stepped out of the darkness, clad in a dark uniform and carrying a rifle that looked worryingly deadly.

Even though he’d hardly spoken, the Ghost exuded an air of malevolence. I think I would have hated him, had I been able to feel fear. From the look on Tarken’s face, my second-in-command held the same sentiment, though he was actually afraid of the man – and what he represented.

“When the Zerg attacked, they reached this far. I knew I couldn’t let any researchers or scientists be captured by the swarm. So it fell to me to ensure this couldn’t happen. I took certain steps.”

“How’ve you survived all this time?” I asked, slightly incredulous. “And who ordered you to kill those men and women?” The Ghost walked towards me, his steps menacing. In the corner of my eye, Tarken, Maya and Corso were trying to move into the best positions to take the man down. I didn’t give any signal, though the Ghost would probably be able to decipher it anyway. “In answer to your first question, there’s a supply room with some efficient cold storage equipment hidden nearby. In answer to your second question…” His eyes now held a cold gleam. I met them, trying to face him down. His lack of fear came from advanced conditioning from an early age. It might be breakable, but I wasn’t going to be the one to do it.

“No one gave me any orders. The command cadre were in absolute disarray. Someone had to do something. Those civilians were going to die at best and become infested at the worst. Anyone with any knowledge of the projects here had to be culled.”

“Culled?” I said with disgust. “Innocent men and women slaughtered? How is that ever necessary?”

“Don’t give me the high and mighty, Fearless.” He replied. I was momentarily shocked. “Yes, I know all about you and your illustrious career. I know about the little police action on Kino Moon – you and the kid had to make an example of the ringleaders, didn’t you?”

“They were guilty of crimes against the Confederacy – of murder. They were responsible for five hundred deaths because the chaos they caused delayed the evac. So yes, I’ll give you the high and mighty, Ghost, because the only people I’ve ever killed were murderers. And I’ll be reporting you to the Confederacy.” I said, keeping my voice level.

“Well, no matter. The whole issue is moot anyway. There’s no way I can leave you alive… the sensitive information you might have been privy to is highly classified, so I’m afraid you must be dealt with.” He raised his rifle.

I looked around at the three Marines and the Protoss Zealot, thinking the Ghost must be insane. The five of us against him… no matter how powerful that rifle was, he’d only have time to train it at one of us before the others cut him down. I think he underestimated me, pointing the rifle in my general direction. He thought ‘Fearless’ was just a figure of speech. When I dove for the rifle, he certainly was ready. I managed to grasp the barrel and twist it upwards, rendering the gun useless.

I was close enough to hear the hiss of an injector dropping a load of volatile chemicals into his bloodstream. At first I thought it was suicide device of some kind, but then I realised it was in fact a stimpack – I couldn’t possibly understand the depths a man must sink to in order to pump those destructive enzymes into his own veins. And I knew I had to act quickly, or the strength afforded by the drugs would be enough to snap me in half, power armour and all. I pulled his arms into a basic lock, moments before he snapped his head backwards, cracking my faceplate. I swung a leg around his, trying to use some of the elementary judo I’d learnt from my father’s books.

It was no use – running high, the Ghost’s superior training made him unstoppable – in close combat at least. I delivered a stunning forearm blow which enabled me to back away several metres from him. Three gauss rifles barked murderously, aimed at a Ghost who was no longer there. He vanished, appeared behind Maya and struck her soundly across the back of the head. Her rifle flew out of her hands and skidded across the smooth floor. The Ghost’s own weapon spat a virulent bolt of light - plasma technology? – at Corso, who staggered back under the impact. Then the Zealot joined the fray. He swung a psionic sword with blistering speed, stabbing right through the Ghost’s ribcage and emerging the other side. That didn’t stop him. The Ghost landed three solid punches on the Zealot’s face, causing milky life fluid to spray from patches of broken skin.

My eyes met Tarken’s across the hall. We’d known each other long enough not to need words in hand signals in certain situations. We were like brothers. As one, we reached for the close combat weapons at our belts. The pneumattock screeched above the chainsaw’s throaty roar as we raised the weapons and charged at the Ghost, still impaled on Kadra’s psionic sword. The hammer thundered into the Ghost’s skull at the same instant as my weapon passed straight through his torso to clatter impotently against the alien warrior’s suit.

My stomach churned. Through the wreckage of the Ghost’s skull, I could see cybernetic components sparking as they attempted the futile task of keeping their host alive. Incredibly, he still had some flickers of consciousness. I felt empty inside. This man was about to die, and no purpose was achieved by it. I could feel depression about to drag me down into its dark suck. And nothing I told myself was going to help. Duty? Self-defence? It changed nothing.

“Why?” I shouted, despair giving way to anger. “Why did you have to fight us? A single Ghost against four Confederate Marines and a Protoss Zealot… What hope did you possibly have?”

“It’s not about hope…” he croaked. “It’s about obedience…” Before he could explain the cryptic comment, his neural implants finally lost integrity and dissolved into a sick, silvery mass. The light was gone from the true face of horror. I sorely wanted to throw up, but the first view of the facility’s interior had emptied my stomach.

“Looks like… ha… he gave up the ghost…” Corso said shakily, getting to his feet.

“That’s not funny, kid.” I said through gritted teeth. But I understood why he’d said it.

“Sorry, sir.” He said quietly.

“I’m sorry you had to see that, Kadra.” I said. The Zealot simply hung his head. I think he was too ashamed of what he’d witnessed to say anything.

“Maya, get your rifle. Let’s get out of here and blow the facility when we’re clear.” I spoke tonelessly. Reaching to my belt, I pulled off three explosive charges with high EMP ratings. These were guaranteed to fry any hidden systems and destroy all the devices in this room. I also unclipped the detonator.

We walked silently through the facility for the second and last time. Kadra looked almost pale when we passed the corpses of the men and women he’d slain. I said nothing, not daring to meet his eye. When we finally left the facility, a rainstorm had sprung up. Dry and warm in my suit, I couldn’t help but appreciate how the rain seemed to wash things away. It might never wash the memories from our souls, but we’d find ways to live with them. I looked over to see Tarken’s faceplate open, his rugged features illuminated by the orange glow of the characteristic cigar. Some of us already had ways.

Part Seven: Holding Action

Mitchell was waiting at the foot of the missile tower. Even at this distance, I could see the damage to his armour – great rents and gouges. I broke into a run, followed swiftly by the others. Mitchell took one look at Kadra, shrugged and saluted me.

“Mitchell, what happened to your armour?” I asked.

“Hydralisk. No trouble. Got too close.”

After he’d said it I wondered if he meant he’d got too close to it, or it to him… I knew Mitchell was dangerous, but I’d never really know how dangerous.

I wondered about telling him what we’d found in the facility – the massacre, the crazed Zealot, the homicidal Ghost. Then I decided he didn’t really care. If Mitchell wanted to know something, he’d ask. Now it was time to contact the Confederate ship in orbit and get to safety. We’d all feel better once this mission was behind us. The Confederacy owed us all several weeks of shore leave. We were going to take it together – even if I had to order Mitchell to come along. Some sun and fresh air on one of the more pristine colony worlds would do us a lot of good.

“Let’s get on the line to the cruiser, Fearless.” Tarken said. I agreed.

The message sent back through the array Mitchell rigged up from components from his suit nearly sent Corso into convulsions. Only my iron-calm prevented me from smashing the receiver. I couldn’t begin to comprehend the nightmare the others were going through now. The message read like this: NO EVACUATION POSSIBLE AT THIS TIME. ENGAGE IN HOLDING ACTION AGAINST ANY ZERG FORCES. A SHUTTLE WILL BE DELIVERED WHEN AN ORBITAL INSERTION WINDOW OPENS.

“No way…” Tarken kept saying over and over again. When he read the glowing screen holding the message, his cigar had dropped out of his mouth. Maya’s hands began frantically working over her rifle, but the magazine slipped from her fingers. Mitchell simply rolled his eyes and changed his prayer into Mandarin Chinese. But we had to hold Corso still until he’d calmed down.

“We’re screwed. We’re totally screwed.” He began to mutter.

“Quit it, both of you. You sound like stuck records!” Maya snapped. I couldn’t tell who was the most unsettled out of this group.

“I must apologise, I do not understand your written tongue… what have these markings told you?” Kadra asked.

“We’re not being rescued. The Confederacy cruiser in orbit is too scared to send a shuttle for us. They’ve told us to hold this position.” I explained. A long silence followed.

“It must be difficult for you, to be so betrayed by your kind.” Kadra said.

“Yes. Difficult. But having to kill that Ghost was more difficult. I can only be ashamed of how my race must appear in your eyes.” I said.

“On the contrary. I saw the madness in the Ghost’s eyes. The ability to strike down a brother is sometimes necessary – I am proof that even the Protoss have done this in the past.” He said.

“You must feel the way I do.” I said. “It’s strange. When I was young I never thought aliens could feel the same feelings we do. But here we are, united by circumstances.” I laughed bitterly at my grandiose words. But Kadra merely nodded.

“Because of this unity, I will fight alongside you.”

“We’ll need all the help we can get if the Zerg notice we’re here.” I said, grateful.

“My ship will easily carry us all. If we can get to it…”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen…” Tarken said, his voice ringing with a note of finality.

“Do I even want to know?” I asked wearily. I almost wished for a wisp of cowardice, just to take my mind of the despair of being abandoned.

“No.” He said bluntly. “But you have to. There’s an encroachment of the Zerg infestation right between us and the direction where we saw Kadra’s ship land in the visions. It’d take us days to go around, assuming we can avoid the defence colonies.”

“I can fly you there… if the Zerg haven’t taken control of my craft, we should have no trouble getting you inside. I can only take one at a time, though.” Kadra told us.

“Kadra, you’re a legend!” Corso said, a tear rolling down his cheek.

“Corso’s right. I’ll write a song about you if I survive this.” Tarken said.

“Oh, please, no… I’ve heard you sing.” Maya teased him, rolling her eyes.

“And I’ve heard your song lyrics before…” I joined in. “Right. I want Tarken to go first and secure the site – if it’s safe. If there’s any xenomorph presence, hightail it back here.”

“I will do as you say, Fearless One.” Kadra said. He walked over to Tarken. “I’m afraid I’ll have to carry you.”

“I’ll live with that.” The Marine said. The Zealot placed his golden forearms in the armpits of Tarken’s powered suit. The thrustwings flared, lifting them both into the air.

“Go.” I ordered. They roared up into the turbulent skies, soon lost among the flashes of lightening and thundering rain. I turned to Mitchell, pointing to a bunker close to the missile tower that I’d glimpsed on the way in. It was miraculously unscathed.

“In a few minutes I want to try and turn on that turret in case any Zerg decide give us a visit, but first get some juice flowing to that bunker. If they come, we want somewhere to run to.” Mitchell nodded and sauntered away. I faced Maya and Corso. “I want you both to find a high up spot. If we have to leave the bunker, you go to the spot you chose and wait until Kadra comes back. Understood?”

“Understood, sir.” They chorused. I left them looking around the deserted buildings.

The lights came on in the bunker and Mitchell emerged, a smile on his face. That told me he’d done something exceptionally difficult – enough to earn him a field promotion. Several commanders had tried before he was assigned to my unit, but he never accepted –always tore the marks off. In the end, they stopped trying.

He now led me inside the missile turret, or at least into the small alcove that housed the main computed. I gave him a sideways look, which he returned indifferently.

“You sure this works?” I asked.

“Yes.” He sounded slightly contemptuous of the fact that he might have made a mistake.

I shrugged and activated the turret. Red indicators began to glow and clanks from within the structure told me its mechanics were working at the very least. As for the AI, the first indication I had of anything being wrong was its missile launch – straight into the sky. I watched, cursing my stupidity for not disabling the loading mechanism before ascertaining the AI’s mental state. Mitchell prayed louder as he watched the missile rising straight up, a beacon to any Zerg within miles of the base.

Then I realised that once the missile ran out of fuel, it was going to fall back down onto our heads. And there was nothing I could do – no manual detonation, nothing. I watched the speck of the missile vanish from sight for a few moments. Then it reappeared again, falling so fast the nosecone housing the warheads began to glow.

“Take cover!” I yelled, dashing away from the doomed missile tower. If my own life hadn’t been at risk I might have found the situation funny… but there’s nothing remotely funny about a package of death screaming its way towards you. Still, I couldn’t stop laughing – maybe being denied fear meant I could only laugh at such ineptness. Then I looked back and with a cold shock discerned the figure of Mitchell, stood staring up at the falling missile. Anyone else would have wrestled with indecision, but not me. I ran straight back, yanked the crazy Marine off his feet and ran for the bunker.

I glanced over my shoulder and stopped dead in amazement. Maya, perched atop the gutted shell of a supply depot had lifted her rifle to her shoulder and dropped to one knee. I saw what she was trying to do, but no one could hit something moving that fast… could they? Thankfully, as it turned out, I’d underestimated the woman’s accuracy. Her first fusillade missed completely. She dropped her rifle, took it apart and reassembled it in five seconds. The next shots detonated the missile, which couldn’t have been more than a hundred metres above the tower.

Starting to feel slightly shaky with all the adrenaline that had been pumping in and out of my system, I looked up at the roiling cloud of flame with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Over the communicator, I congratulated Maya. But as I told everyone – if the Zerg hadn’t noticed our presence before, they certainly knew we were here now.

A light in the sky and a roar of jetstream signalled Kadra’s return. He descended regally on a plume of thrust, landing next to us.

“The Zerg haven’t found my craft. I’ve left Tarken there. But you should know I spotted a large swarm heading in this direction.” He said urgently.

“What’s in the swarm?” I asked.

“It appeared to be mainly zerglings, with a few mutalisks for air support. They were moving swiftly.” He said. “Can you hold without me?”

“Don’t underestimate Confederate Marines, Kadra. We’ll hold. Mitchell, you’re next.”

Once again his thrustwings flared and they left the base. Now it was just a tedious waiting game. Maya and Corso came back to stand with me, the latter clearly fraught. What was a boring time for me was an unbearably anxious wait for both of them. The poor kid was shaking so hard it was visible through his armour. I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know how he’d react – especially if I embarrassed him in front of Maya. The silence was tense, uncomfortable. I could guess what they were thinking. They probably wanted transfer to a different unit, one where their leader understood what they felt on every mission – instead of standing around dumbly like some mute super-grunt. They should have made Tarken the leader of this unit. Without a doubt. He would have known what to say, what to do to make these Marines feel, if not safe, then at least confident that they would survive. He would have been able to harden their resolve. But not me.

How can I battle a feeling as old as our species when I don’t even know what it feels like? My mind feels strange, sometimes. Like someone else is in there, poking around all my memories, trying to see what makes me tick. I’d passed all the necessary psyche tests long ago, pass with flying colours no less. And yet… and yet… I regretted the decision to send Tarken ahead, but who else could go? Mitchell wasn’t the sort of Marine you just let loose unless there’s a very good reason to. If I’d sent Corso or Maya, they’d both spend the whole time worrying about each other. I knew how these things worked, I’d seen it so many times before. And there was no way I could go, because I needed to be where the Zerg were sure to come, not where they might possibly be. No, Tarken was the only viable choice. But anyway, it was too late now.

“Fearless, can you say something?” Corso asked.

“Like what?”

“I dunno, something… inspirational. Something to make us feel better. Make me feel like I’m going to live through this.” He sounded like he was on the verge of tears.

“Corso, I could preach Confederate spiel at you until the stars themselves freeze over, but I can’t make you believe you’ll survive. That has to come from inside. I’m Fearless, through and through. I honestly don’t know what words to say. But I know that somewhere inside you is a little place where you can be fearless too. Maybe not quite like me – but there’ll be something that helps. You just have to find it. It may not come to you this mission. But I swear, I’ll do everything I can to protect you. I’m not afraid to die, Corso. I’m not afraid to lay down my life for you, or for anyone in this squad.” I stopped, realising I’d gone on a bit. But through his faceplate, I could see Corso smiling. A certain determination had settle across the kid’s face.

“You’re good to us, Fearless.” Maya said. “I wouldn’t change any of this.”

“That means a lot to me.” I said.

It was at that point the missile tower suddenly began firing. I followed the smoky trails of the projectiles, saw the demonic shadows illuminated by the explosions. The zergling swarm had reached us. My mind snapped into military programming.

“Everyone into the bunker. Now!”

Against the ferocious fire of the missiles, the mutalisks could make no headway. Soon the tower ceased to spew its payload, even though there were hundreds of missiles left. All the mutalisks were dead. Which just left…

“Zerglings, on our six!” Maya yelled, firing her rifle out of the gun port. We joined her, poking out rifles from the adjacent slots, opening the fiery maws of our gauss rifles into the slobbering tide of monsters. Shards of purple carapaces were flying everywhere while ichor was beginning to coat the ground, slipping up some of the zerglings that came careening across the landing pad towards the bunker. Several got close enough for me to see their malevolent eyes, glowing in the darkness.

Unholy.

I hadn’t felt fear all my life and I wasn’t about to now. The fury of the storm in the sky was as nothing to the righteous indignation I unleashed on the zerglings. They were the ultimate cause of the massacre buried in the rock behind me. But though I was angry, I didn’t hate the Zerg. People say hate is impossible without fear, and I think they may be right. I was angry at these Zerg, and I definitely wanted to kill them, but I understood their wish to survive – even if their more immediate imperatives were different from my own.

Within a few minutes, the swarm had begun to thin. But we knew the respite was temporary. The consciousness responsible for the infestation on this world would send a large force, this time with hydralisks. And maybe if we were really unlucky, there’d be an ultralisk or two. I’d take them down as they came at me. The last pocket of zerglings were shattered by a well-thrown fragmentation grenade. Corso grinned at me as I silently handed him my belt of explosives, keeping only the detonator for the charges in the facility.

Kadra returned once more.

“I‘m pleased see that the zerglings did not prevail in my absence.” He said. “I wish sorely to join this fight, but I know I can better aid you this way…” His face seemed downcast. It was refreshing to know there were still some profound differences between this alien and I.

“Corso, you’re next.” I said. He looked like he was about to argue, but I looked him in the eye and he nodded. A flash of light, a rushing noise and they were gone.

“Just a few more minutes and then you can go, Maya.” I said.

“Of course, sir.”

“So… you and Corso?” I said. I could almost feel the second Zerg swarm, closing in. Now they knew there were enemies here they would make haste.

“What about me and Corso?” She said diffidently.

“How serious is it? Don’t bother lying to me, no one’s been able to do it yet.” I told her bluntly.

“We’re being careful with our feelings.” She said. I could almost hear the evasion in her voice.

“That’s what they all say, Maya.” I said. Silence was my only reply. “When we’ve finished this mission, one or both of you are going to have to leave my unit. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Yes.” She answered sullenly. I was sorry that I’d let it get this far, but nothing I’d seen previously had suggested that feelings existed between the two. I was sure if they didn’t, she would have rigorously denied it.

We spotted the outward elements of the next swarm a few moments later. The zerglings scuttled around the broken husks of their fellow creatures, their eyes moving as one until they were fixed on the bunker. I’d turned all the lights off at this point, hoping to buy us some time. But I needed have bothered. The zerglings weren’t stupid. They just thought in different ways to us. And in this case, they could see where their fallen kin had been trying to get to. Now they came scampering towards us, to be met by sharp bursts of fire. We must have gunned down scores of them, only one or two coming close enough to strike at the bunker’s armour with their razor-edged limbs.

The first hydralisk appeared, slithering out from behind a building. We both turned our guns on it. I could see Maya despairing as her bullets ricocheted of encrustations of bone. It opened its chest cavity, revealing the myriad rows of jagged spines within. I grabbed Maya’s shoulder and pulled her down from the firing step, a split second before the hydralisk’s first salvo whipped past our heads. The bunker was taking a pounding, but it would last long enough. I hoped. I knew I needed to buy time if we were going to survive. I snatched Maya’s rifle out of her hand, ripping the leather strap and hauling the bulky weapon into a ready-to-fire position.

“What are you going, Fearless?” She shouted. Before she could stop me, I’d left the bunker, charging from patch of cover to cover toward the marauding hydralisk.

Its ugly head swung to face me as I closed the last few metres, firing both rifles for all I was worth. Once both clips were empty, I threw one away, holstered the other and rolled behind a crumbling wall while spines hissed past. But I was too close for the hydralisk to hit me, now. I pulled the chainsaw from my belt and revved it, grinning. The obscene xenomorph was about to get a rude shock.

I leapt over the wall, flinging myself across the space between my and the hydralisk. I could see the horrific details of its exoskeleton – this hydralisk had killed Terrans. Swathes of Terran skin hung from its deadly front arms. They scythed at me, only to be met by the shuddering chain of my saw. I stumbled back from the sheer strength of the impact, but in the time the creature took to swing its arms again, I’d circled closer and driven my weapon’s churning edge into the hydralisk’s face. Once more, my faceplate was drenched in gore and Zerg brain matter. The giant creature began to twitch violently. I withdrew the chainsaw and swung it against the hydralisk’s neck, holding the bucking tool in place as it chewed through chitin and cartilage. I didn’t have time to finish the stroke, for more zerglings charged at me. I laid about them with my chainsaw, but there were too many – claws were skittering across my amour and it was only a matter of time before the inhumanly strong creatures peeled my suit from me like so much tinfoil.

Then, like the most heavenly gift imaginable, Kadra crashed down like a god’s meteor, gutting the zerglings in a matter of seconds. That contained, precise and devastatingly swift violence was unlike anything I’d even seen. I’d fought alongside some heroes in my time, but the ruthlessness with which the Zealot dispatched his targets surpassed a great many of them.

“Quick – get to the bunker before more of them come.” I said. We ran back to the sunken building. The moment I stepped through the door, Maya jabbed my armour with an SCV utility tool. I didn’t have a chance to shout before my powered armour shut down – it’d need several minutes to reset.

“Take him, Kadra. The Confederacy needs him more than it needs me. Go. Now.” She said, taking the rifle from my shoulders. Kadra clearly understood, for he acquiesced to her demand, removing me rudely from the battle-torn base.

As we flew overhead, I saw more Zerg forms moving towards the base – ultralisks among them.

Part Eight: Strategic Withdrawal

The moment my suit came back online I had to fight the urge to shout at Kadra. He wasn’t under my command, he didn’t even have to be helping us. But I couldn’t believe Maya would do something like that. I’d never thought of her being so selfless. Her mastery over her fear had advanced to the ultimate – she had no fear of death. Death was the ultimate unknowable, one of the few incontestable realities of this weird existence. Often I felt like my parents had cheated with me, taking away one of the key emotional boundaries of their eldest son. But Maya had conquered that fear without drugs, without surgery or implants. And I would never know how she’d done it.

The moment my feet touched earth, Kadra jetted straight back into the sky. Corso looked at me in surprise. He’d expected me to wait until last.

“Maya immobilised my suit with an SCV tool.” I said, before anyone could talk. “But she’ll be here in a few minutes.”

“Glad to hear it.” Tarken said. “It’s been quiet here.”

“No sign of any zergies?” I asked, more to keep talking than anything else. My fists were clenched so tightly I could feel my nails digging into my skin.

“Not a peep.” He answered. “But I’m still glad you’re here. And Maya did the right thing, making sure you got here first.”

“That’s not going to stop me chewing her out when she gets back here.” I said. “The decision was mine to make, wrong or write.”

“Why are you so angry? She saved your life, Fearless!” Corso argued.

“It wasn’t hers to save, kid.” I retorted. “I give you guys an huge amount of freedom compared to what you’d get in a normal squad. But if you abuse that freedom, I’ll have to tighten up. And nobody wants that. I don’t know how Maya expected to get away with striking a superior officer – she can’t just expect me not to report it!”

“Maybe she didn’t expect to get away with it.” Tarken said. His voice had taken on the dangerous tone I’d heard twice in all the years I’d known him. The first time had been on Chau-Sara, when he told a lieutenant exactly what he thought about the orders to abandon a low population town. I’d been slightly taken aback with how powerful his words had seemed. The next time had been when talking to a high-up general planning to dispatch a whole battalion just as a diversion – to send hundreds of men to be chewed up by the Zerg, just so a planetary government could be safely evacuated. I can’t described the sensation with which I awaited Tarken’s next words. Maybe my surgery wasn’t perfect and this was something akin to what normal people felt as apprehension, honestly didn’t know.

“What do you mean, Tarken?” Corso cut in. I think he understood even before I did.

“Maybe she didn’t expect to get away with it because she knew she wasn’t going to make it back if she stayed.” Tarken’s words made me feel cold inside, not because I thought Maya was going to die, but because I knew they were true. No single Marine could possibly take down the alien variants I’d seen approaching the bunker. We stood in utter silence until a sonic shriek heralded Kadra’s return.

His arms were empty.

He set his feet down on the rock and walked over to us.

“I searched, but I found no sign of your companion. The Zerg have overrun the entire complex. They are making their destruction complete, this time.”

We were interrupted by a dull roar. The ridge to the north suddenly dissolved before our eyes, revealing the sickening visages of two mutalisks. Their membranous wings flapped, skin pulsating in a gruesome manner. Acid was still spewing from their gullets, only cut off once they had a clear path leading to us.

“They must have followed me!” Kadra shouted, forming a psionic sword. He jumped at the first xenomorph as we turned our rifles on the other, forcing it back with concerted fire. It took less than a minute to kill them both, nevertheless long enough for them to contact the commanding intelligence of the infestation. We’d have visitors within half an hour.

“Kadra, how long is it going to take to get your ship back online?” I asked.

“It is undamaged. However, I need to initiate the recharging process to bring my engines back to functionality. I will do so now.”

Only then did it come to my attention that I’d not seen the ship Kadra had spoken of. I looked around for it, but I saw nothing even vaguely resembling a space-capable vessel. Surrounding us were endless peaks of jagged mountains and deep crevasses, all of the same dark grey rock. The ground beneath my feet was treacherous with rubble. There was nowhere I could see where even a ship could have landed, certainly not one large enough to carry four Confederate Marines and a Protoss Zealot.

Once again, I was amazed by the capabilities of alien technology. Kadra opened a panel on his arm and tapped in a sequence of commands onto a pad I couldn’t see. Then a ridge I’d seen earlier began to shift and dissolve, the rock flowing away to reveal the sleek golden lines of a Protoss starcraft. It was everything I’d expected a race as advanced as them to possess. Everything was smooth, lacking the utilitarianism of Terran craft. I felt a passing thrill – I was about to become one of the few Terrans to see the inside of a Protoss craft, and join the even smaller number of those who had actually flown in one. This was one of the better times for having no fear – others might find the enjoyment tempered by the fear of the unknown.

Kadra walked up to one of the long hatches and pulled himself into the darkness. Soon, the craft began to purr gently, just it had in our vision. Kadra reappeared.

“It is done. But it will take a while before the engines can again lift this vessel. Several minutes.”

“Ok. In that case, can you fly up and keep a look out for any swarms heading in our direction?”

“I will endeavour to do so.” With that, he was gone.

“Good idea, sir. We don’t want a bunch of zerglings creeping up on our asses.” Tarken said.

For the next quarter of an hour, I stood alone, immersed in my own thoughts. Despite the intentional distance between us, we’d been friends. Not having the click of her gauss rifle being put together and taken apart was like a missing tooth – something small that should nonetheless be present. Losing her was a failure on my part. I should have sent her first, or gone myself. I cursed quietly, incessantly. Her death was on my hands, mine alone. As much as I wanted to shift the blame onto someone else, or onto the circumstances we found ourselves in, I’d made a bad command decision. I knew years ago that squad command wasn’t for me. I’d gained such high scores at the Academy because I nearly always accomplished my objectives, despite often-horrendous odds. But I’d only done that by being ruthless, with both my own life and those of my men. In the training simulations I’d sent Ghosts to their deaths, knowing they’d have just enough time to paint the target for the nuclear missile. Once, I’d even broken an attacking force of zerglings by shooting one of my own firebats – he’d got himself surrounded and was bleeding from dozens of wounds. But my bullet had killed him. Or would have done in real life. On the battlefield I fought a secondary war against my own ruthlessness, struggling against the desire to treat men and woman as tools, good for accomplishing a task and nothing else. I didn’t think the Confederacy would ever realise what a mistake they’d made.

Corso moved over to me, his footsteps even heavier than usual. His faceplate was open, the wind drying his tears.

“Why does it hurt so bad, sir?” He choked back sobs. “We never crossed that line…”

“But you both wanted to. And you both planned to once this was all over.” I waved my hand expansively, indicating that ‘this’ took in the whole conflict with the Zerg.

“But…” He began.

“But nothing!” I snapped. “Being careful doesn’t work. You have to be beyond careful. You have to never put yourself in a situation where you care for any one person that much.”

“So you don’t care about us?” He retorted.

“That’s different, kid, and you know it. I have to care so that I don’t blithely send you to your death. I have to care for each and everyone of you.” I said.

“How can you care? I bet fear wasn’t all those scientists took away from you.” He’d crossed the line. My fist thundered into his cheek, knocking him backwards. I was careful only to use a fraction of my strength. I didn’t want to break the kid’s neck.

“If I didn’t care, kid, I’d send you out right now to go and face down the swarm that’s most likely heading our way. I’d do it for the few minutes of time it would gain us. But I care, kid. I care about your lives. I don’t want to be the one that has to turn up at your parents’ house. I may be fearless, but I’m not a cold-hearted… hell, you get the picture.” I finished.

“Yes, sir. I… I’m sorry, sir.” He mumbled, slightly dazed.

“It’s alright now, Corso. You can still call me my name.” I said.

“Thanks, Fearless.”

The zerglings reached us a few minutes later. They came pouring down from the north, frenzied and hostile. The rocks around us forced them to come down a narrow passage between two ridges, which gave us an excellent choke point. At this point we were too annoyed to take the enemy seriously. I stayed lounging against a rock, firing my rifle with one hand. I never missed a shot. Tarken was stood with his pneumattock ready, taking down those few beasts which managed to leap over the heap of their slain brothers to come at us. Above us, Kadra floated, keeping watch for anything more dangerous. Corso fired his rifle intermittently, his thoughts still wrapped around Maya. Again, I cursed myself for not having seen the signs – and there would have been signs. Covert glances, softer words, the occasional touch that was anything other an accidental. I’d missed them all.

“Fearless! I see darker foes approaching!” Kadra shouted down. Darker foes. That meant hydralisks. Or worse. As the ground began to shake with in response to a rhythmic pounding, I realised that there were at least two ultralisks charging at us…

“Tarken and I’ll take the one on the left. You and Corso spill the other sack of guts.” Someone said to me. For a moment, I couldn’t work out who’d spoken to me. Then I realised it was Mitchell.

“You ain’t praying anymore?” I asked.

“Prayer’s finished. Time to kill stuff.” He grinned ferociously. Completely insane – but I wouldn’t have traded him for ten vultures.

We met the ultralisks head on, moving away from the Protoss craft. Hopefully they’d concentrate on us and not spot it. Corso and I charged at the baying juggernaught, diving out of its unstoppable advance at the last possible moment. I slashed open its sides with my chainsaw while on the its right, Corso lodged a grenade behind a spiny ridge. Before the ultralisk could even being to slow its advance, the explosive detonated. The shockwaves pulsed through the creature’s body, forcing its innards out of the slash I’d made. Kadra swooped down to finish it off.

I looked over to see Mitchell and Tarken. They’d somehow managed to get on top of the other ultralisk. Mitchell was firing his gauss rifle into a space between thick folds of bony armour while Tarken repeatedly brought his pneumattock round to hammer the brute’s unbelievably thick skull. After the third or fourth blow, and Mitchell’s second clip, both the ultralisk’s brains and internal organs were pulped beyond recognition. We cheered half-heartedly when we were certain they were both dead, but the triumph felt hollow without Maya. A pyrrhic victory at best.

Endgame

The hull of the Protoss craft was now gleaming. We bundled inside, somewhat squished in our armour, but we managed to all fit in without dislocating anything. The feeling of calm and relief inside the craft was palpable and came so suddenly it led me to suspect that the ship was focussing magnetic fields on our brains, altering the electrical activity to create the desired feelings. I couldn’t help but think if the Confederacy got hold of technology like that, it’d end up in interrogation rooms within months. We’d leave our prisoners in abject terror for a few days and by the end, they’d be begging to tell their captors what they knew. The Confederacy would never use something like this to make people feel comfortable, I was sure.

The pressure on our chests as the engines fired was strong but comfortable, despite the fact that we were going faster than any Terran shuttle.

“Kadra, can you fly us over the facility?” I called forward to where he lay in a flight berth. In response, he made an alteration to a control panel next to him and the pressure shifted, indicating we were moving in a perpendicular fashion. I twisted myself round until I could see out of one of the window slits. We were being pursued by mutalisks, but the craft’s shields were holding – visible as a blue phosphorescence that faded if you looked directly at it. Several plasma turrets were firing back, knocking our pursuers out of the sky.

The moment the facility entered my sight I triggered the explosives I’d laid there. They touched off all the supplies of fuel in the installation, ripping apart in a series of tumultuous conflagrations. The bright orange fireballs that rippled outwards engulfed many of the xenomorphs still involved in levelling the base. My thoughts were focussed on the fact that down in that fire, the body of the crazed Ghost was being incinerated, along with all those slain by Kadra in his madness. Then we were shooting upwards like some demented comet, until we passed through the clouds and the stars began to blaze through each of the view-slits. Once we’d entered the screaming cold wastes of space, kept alive only by a few thin layers of metal, plastic and energy, it was the work of a few moments for Kadra to home in on the cruiser that had brought us here. It locked weapons as we approached – standard protocol for any unidentified ships that came near a Confederate cruiser. After several tense moments of negotiation, they agreed to let Kadra dock. No one wanted a war with the Protoss.

We stumbled out of the craft into the harsh light of a loading bay, surrounded by navy ratings. They looked ridiculously small next to our hulking forms, dressed in their shiny uniforms. Their guns were also puny in comparison to ours – under-powered shotguns made to lower the risk of a hull breach. They couldn’t penetrate our armour at point-blank range.

“Step out of your armour, please.” An officer asked, one I didn’t recognise. Across the loading bay, a new ship caught my eye – a Cerberus unit. Sure enough, two of Cyborgs stepped forward to retrieve our weapons. I was strangely reluctant to comply, something wasn’t quite right about the situation. I felt the same indefinable unease I’d felt when first exploring the facility. Still, I did as I was instructed, triggering the open codes. For the first time in five hours, the HUD shut down. I could hardly believe it’d been that long. Five hours, in which two people had died needlessly. Maya, and that psychotic Ghost. I wasn’t going to enjoy my report for this mission.

“Sergeant Thomas Raven, the Captain would like to see you on the bridge.” The officer informed me. “Praetor Kadralas, our diplomatic xeno-correspondence workers would like to talk to you. Will you come this way?” He gestured. Praetor Kadralas turned back to me. They hadn’t dared to ask him to remove his armour.

“Our time together was short, Fearless. But I feel like we have shared something. Until next we meet, mighty hero.” He knelt in front of me. I clasped his arm and lifted him up.

“You saved our lives, Kadra. You’re just as mighty a hero as I am. No past deeds need mar your name.” I felt foolish talking so formally, but Kadra seemed moved. He stood, clasped my hand once more and walked away with some of the other officers.

We were ushered along swiftly, still accompanied by the navy ratings. Two walked behind us, carrying my chainsaw and Tarken’s pneumattock. I was surprised not to see any officers that I recognised from the journey here. I knew the cruiser had been seconded to my unit for the mission, but I couldn’t see why they’d change their whole crew. And there seemed to be a disproportionate amount of Cerberus personnel, watching over everything. They were all dressed in uniforms of black leather, cybernetic augmentations exposed and flouted. Their expressions were a mystery to me – how could anyone be so devoid of feeling?

A corridor led away from the loading bay, towards a heavy blast door. It looked oddly clean, as if someone had scrubbed it recently. The hydraulics hissed and pulled it open, allowing us to walk onto the bridge. The door closed behind us, like the slamming of the lid of a crypt. My hackles were up. Finally I spotted a familiar face – Captain Hadrian, of the Confederate Navy. I didn’t know him well, my journey had mainly been spent honing my skills – a fact I was glad of, considering the events on the surface of the moon so far below us. Now as I looked at Hadrian, I could see he was sweating profusely, and his uniform looked rumpled.

“Relentless, I’m glad you’re back in one piece.” He said. “I’m sorry our boys couldn’t come and get you.”

“I was meaning to ask about that, sir.” I said, as respectfully as I could. “But… sir, is something wrong? On the ship, I mean?” I was unprepared for what followed.

“I only have a few moments to tell you this.” He was talking rapidly. I could see Cyborg officers moving closer. “The Cerberus corps arrived a few hours ago. They threatened to kill me. They said I wasn’t to send a shuttle, that you were not to come back from this mission. They’re going to kill you!” He hissed. “And there’s nothing I can do.”

He gasped, stiffened and fell backwards. A Cerberus officer in a commander’s uniform stood behind him, a sickening portion of Hadrian’s spine grasped between his mechanised digits.

“What the hell is going on here?” Tarken shouted. The commander smiled. His expression could not have been more deprecating. Or more evil…

“The Captain disobeyed direct orders from his superiors. He was not to inform you of our kill-order.”

“Kill-order? Against us?” I asked. Things were moving too fast… I sensed violence creeping up on me like a thief in the night, unwanted.

“Yes. In case you lifted any sensitive information from the facility.” He said. There was no trace of emotion whatsoever in his voice. Here was another who would have no fear.

“What information?” Corso asked, confused.

“You think that matters to these people?” Mitchell spoke up. I still couldn’t get used to the idea of him speaking of his own accord. “I used to work for them. That’s how I got so good with machines. I’ll tell you now, it’s the principle that matters to them. Nothing more. Even if we had video evidence that all the computers had been wasted, they’d still try to kill us.”

“Correct.” The commander said, still holding the grisly relic. “I brought the two ratings in with your weapons because I thought you might like to die by them. I have little amusement in my job, so I take what I can.” He grinned evilly. I think I preferred it when he was emotionless.

“And what’s to stop us using these against you?” I asked.

“You wouldn’t dare.” He laughed. “I can kill you with my bare hands. They call you Fearless, but here I have you unable to reach to defend yourself. I’m going to execute your squad and that ridiculously ugly Praetor. He’s a breach of intelligence, and that I cannot allow.”

“You’re just as sick as that crazy Ghost we found on the planet!” Corso shouted.

“If you’d done your homework properly, you’d know that Fearless wasn’t just a nickname.” I told him. I spun on my heel, grabbing the two heavy weapons. I tossed the pneumattock to Tarken and revved the chainsaw, shouting at the others to take cover. They were already running, even as Cerberus guardsmen closed on us.

Tarken and I tore them apart. My own cutting tool took the life of the commander. He seemed utterly surprised by my actions. “Never underestimate me.” I hissed, as he slid from the chainsaw. “I am Fearless.”

As I expected, they failed to kill Kadra. We finished off the guardsmen, armed ourselves and methodically cleansed the ship of the inhuman traitors. The crew rose up against them, joining with us. Many among them had been made examples of when the Cerberus unit first arrived – for no reason other than to assert the supremacy of the Cyborg intelligence corp. Within hours, they were defeated, dead or in holding cells and the event that would become known as the Fearless Incident was finished. Kadra and I stood on the bridge of the cruiser I’d suddenly found myself in control of. I’d never dreamed that this could happen. And while I knew the repercussions of what I’d done today would return all too soon, I faced the future as I always faced it:

Fearless.