"Slings: I found God for you. he's hiding behind these brass knuckles"
-CynicalMagician and Fox^1
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| Crisis on Arridas - 03 (Virtues of the Spider Mine) | | | Author: | | | IP: | 203.baltXXXX | | Date: | 07/23/00 10:07 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 1, Max: 8, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for Moogle: 7.2500 |  | OK, since RhinoAssUgly and others put their SC fics in the SC section, I figured I would move to the SC section as well. So if you're reading and haven't read the others, they're in "Other."
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Crisis on Arridas
A StarCraft/Brood War Continuation (sort of) fic
03 – Virtues of the Spider Mine
By: Moogle (tealkeeper@yahoo.com)
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Disclaimer: StarCraft, Brood War, and all related characters, concepts, and locations are originally created and copyrighted to Blizzard Entertainment. Any new characters, concepts, and plot are that of the author, Moogle.
AN: Thanks a million to everybody who has mailed me feedback so far! Hopefully the comments you said will be reflected in future chapters. Flames welcome, too, as one can’t get better without negative things being said.
* * *
Day broke on the base of the Aquaritia Battalion on Arridas; much like it had for many days before that. The Ghosts, mechanics, and women all awoke at the crack of dawn, but it took a lot of shouting and horn blaring to wake the rest of the crew within the base itself. The defenses on the northern and southern flanks were manned with waking soldiers around the clock. They all knew that just because the Zerg had yet to attack during the nighttime didn’t mean they weren’t capable of it. With over a year’s worth of hearing stories about the not-so-lucky people, who had assumed things about the Zerg, none of them were ready to take that chance and be caught unawares.
Though most of his other comrades were sound asleep at the crack of dawn, Private Joseph Hawkins also awoke immediately seeing the sunlight. The previous day he’d been told to recharge the fire pit with incendiary liquids, as well as the day before that, and the day before that and the day before that… He’d finally decided he didn’t want to incur the wrath of an angry Firebat any longer, and actually awoke to do his assigned job.
Working quickly so he could be at least on task before the temperamental Firebat awakened, he threw on his combat armor suit and headed out to the front defense line, which contained the storage shed with all of the incendiary fluids. It made no sense to Joseph that they would have the supplies up ahead of the tanks and trenches and bunkers, but there was nothing he, as a lowly Private, could do about it. Especially not one who frequently incurred the wrath of his commanding officer.
As he arrived at the shed, he swung open the door to it and began looking for his liquids. The lack of a lock on the door made him curious, but he supposed a lock wouldn’t matter much against the Zerg, and anyone stupid enough to be prowling around in there unauthorized was deserving of whatever happened to them. Between the dispensers and the hosing equipment, the entire setup was quite heavy, so he was only able to do about a quarter of the trench at a time.
It was a right pain in the ass, he thought, to have to spend an hour reloading that damn pit alone. But he also knew it was worth it. The pit itself was about fifteen feet deep and thirty feet wide. Any of the little ground bastards would have to fall in to keep advancing. Air attacks from that direction wouldn’t make it too far either, as the primary defense line was packed with bunkers, Goliaths, and Siege tanks. Queens and their Spawn Broodling curse, which had thoroughly harassed the line early in the campaign, were no longer a problem. When Stephen had been inspecting the lines, he noticed the flaw and had them stagger Turrets between the fire pit and the primary defense line. Problem had been solved.
Nonetheless, without any vocal complaint, he finished about an hour later, stowed the equipment for the next time he’d need it (all the while contemplating if he’d be alive to need to reset the pit again,) and meandered back towards the Barracks, fervently hoping there’d be at least some leftovers.
The fire pit was ready for the Zerg. The only question was, were the rest of the men in the base?
* * *
“Spider Mines? What in all creation do you need a bunch more bleeping Spider Mines for?” exclaimed Chief Engineer George Halsey. On the others screens, they could see his face contorting into many weird shapes.
“Comrade engineer, the Spider Mines are perhaps the only thing we have which can protect our mineral fields.” Stated Dimitri Pyakov, his Russian accent easily apparent. On the screen, his calm face stayed as such, but it was obvious he was beginning to get annoyed with the older man.
At the time, it was a meeting in live feed of the department chiefs. Kind of like a Cabinet from the long gone United States of America from 20th century Earth. There were six of them, five screens coming down from the ceiling in each of the rooms from where the transmissions were originating. Colonel Erai Nalkri ran the impromptu meeting, the other five were pretty much on equal footing.
Erai scanned the others faces from where he sat. Sergeant Major Mack Kilimaro was patiently waiting out the argument, from next to him was their acting-Chief Medic Jaclyn Krah. In place of Stephen Lansing for that meeting was his trusted assistant Jennifer Solaris, who also wore a neutral face while the engineer and the Ghost bickered. At least much than half of them were getting along, he thought grimly.
“Both of you just shut up, will you? I’m getting sick of this bull, we’ve got more important things to worry about like the lives of our PEOPLE.” Jaclyn cut in harshly. She was slightly less than friendly since the problem at the hospital; not that any of them blamed her. It was obvious from her tone she meant business. Nonetheless, it was as if she’d never spoken and the two men continued their fruitless arguing.
Erai noted Mack’s face appeared hurt slightly before Mack too broke in angrily. “Hey, the lady said shut up, didn’t she? We’re all getting tired of this…”
“Not your fight, Mack, keep your bleeping trap shut…” the engineer seethed, then went back to his argument with the Ghost.
Finally, Erai had had enough. “All of you, shut up! Now, that’s an order.” He stood from his seat, awaiting the order to be followed. They got the picture fairly quickly considering how heated the argument had been. As soon as he got his silence, he spoke again. “Do we all want to end up dead here?” He paused for dramatic effect. “I think not. That’s why we are going to do this the right way. Now, George, in a civilized manner, tell Dimitri why making lots of Spider Mines is unfeasible right now.”
The engineer grumbled a bit, but he relented and began to talk. “We can’t just make Spider Mines and stick them in the bleeping bikes. We have to bleeping build the bikes AROUND the bleeping mines. Now, if we’re making more bleeping bikes, that means we have to stop with the bleeping Goliaths, and then we’re vulnerable as anything against those bleeping air bleepers. How in all creation are we supposed to do it? We are only human…”
“But comrade, we need…” Dimitri began. Erai held up a fist and cut him off.
“Now, Dimitri, in a civil manner, you will do the same and explain to George what are, in your mind, the virtues of the Spider Mine.” The Colonel nodded to the Ghost, who promptly began explaining.
“The Spider Mine is our cheapest, most effective weapon against Zerg ground forces. With the 75 units of minerals it takes to churn out one Vulture, we get three of them. Each Mine can kill several of the little Zerglings and even Hydralisks because the shrapnel explodes outwards, instead of just impacting in one place. Four of them take one of their massive Ultralisks out. It’s only worth it because I somehow know the next attack will come from the ground; there have been too many air assaults. Surely they’re just massing their ground forces for one major attack to wipe us out…”
“And you expect me to just change everything because of just your bleeping guess? What do I look like…” George asked incredulously. He was obviously the least willing of them to go along with Dimitri’s plan, since it put the most inconvenience on him. The engineer didn’t even want to get into all of the strategic details behind it.
“I say we do it. Lay the damn mines.” Cut in Jennifer. She’d not yet spoken at that particular meeting. Erai wasn’t quite sure if it was because she really didn’t have much to say or if she was still shaken as a result of her experiences the day prior. Having nearly been killed, her outlook on things in general had changed sharply. Moreso than before, she wanted to live and make it off of that blasted rock.
George noted the pain in her face as she spoke up. It remained there afterwards. He had no clue what she was thinking, but he suspected it had to deal with regrets. Things like the fact that she might die without experiencing life fully – marrying, having children, living a stable life, among others. For that face he gave in, and that face alone. “Alright, you guys win. But don’t come running your bleeping mouths at me when they run at us with air bleepers…” The engineer’s face blinked out as he set to making the new Vulture bikes with his crew. Not even seconds could be spared for any of the men.
Jennifer, whose input wasn’t really needed for infantry matters anyway, also flickered off of the screen as Erai watched. She said she needed to get back to helping Stephen with his work, which Erai knew, was probably true, so he didn’t object when she took her bows.
“Finally, that’s over with.” Jaclyn noted with a sigh.
“I’m afraid, in a sense, it’s only the beginning.” Mack grimly observed. He also heaved a sigh. “But at least we’re in this thing together.”
Erai silently noted the exchange between the Medic and the Firebat, as he had done all of their others. Mack had yet to speak without Jaclyn speaking first. He waved his hand to signify it was time to move on to something else. “I don’t suppose the Medic teams are in any shape to support an offensive maneuver…”
A curt shake of the woman’s head told him all he needed to know. He wasn’t sure if he saw a tear fall from one of her hazel eyes or not. He turned to face Dimitri. “None of your men are in any condition to attempt a nuclear missile launch?”
“You even need to ask, comrade? It will be a small miracle if any of them pick up a gun other than to defend their lives ever again…”
Erai nodded wordlessly, fully understanding where the gifted soldier’s arguments came from even as it frustrated him at the same time.
“Uh, pardon for interrupting, Erai, but when the hell are those reinforcements getting here?” Mack suddenly asked.
“Shit! I totally forgot about them! I need to ring Fleet Command’s ass right now…you’re all dismissed. Just be ready.”
With that, the Colonel’s image flickered out as did the rest of them. Erai instantly began sending around a thousand angry messages to Fleet Command demanding the reinforcements. The others went off to their various posts, hoping for the best but ready for what they thought was the worst.
Only fate would know if what they thought was bad enough.
* * *
Almost as soon as the meeting ended, all Vulture riders received the order to unload their cargo of Spider Mines along the incline leading up to the mineral deposits. None of them verbally questioned the order, however they did begin to wonder what they were trying to accomplish with such things. A few of the more paranoid pilots seemed to think that there were Zerg watching them as they did it, but nothing was visible and they could see for quite some distance from where they rode.
The whole process probably didn’t even take ten minutes, and around a hundred Mines were laid down. However, when Dimitri Pyakov had envisioned his Spider Mine en masse defense, he was thinking more along the lines of three hundred of the little explosives. In their munitions stores were plenty of the mines, but as George had objected to earlier the bikes had to be built around the mines, so there was no reloading. This meant ninety Vultures were to be produced over four construction lines, and they expected him to do it in one day.
The problem lied in the fact that the fastest they had ever produced one Vulture was ninety minutes, and that was when they were functioning at optimum efficiency. Something that would obviously not be happening considering the fact that few of them had slept more than 6 hours in a month, and that they were beginning to lose their carefree attitude as the casualties mounted and the furies of war were unleashed.
Of course that excuse wasn’t going to help save the lives of the entire battalion, supposing Dimitri’s off-the-wall predictions even came true and they were stupid enough to attack with a full ground force. The fact that by all reasonable means the quickest they could finish would be around 24 hours was irrelevant, they had fifteen hours and counting to finish all of the bikes before the sun came up and the supposed Zerg assault would be arriving.
Hell, George knew he could do it with forty-five men spread over three lines. Having fifteen men to a vehicle would work out nicely and they might have just been able to churn out one an hour. There was, unfortunately, the fact that the machine corps only consisted of thirty men.
George Halsey, however, was not going to let a minor insignificant detail like being short fifteen men stop him. He pulled Pyakov and all of his Ghosts from what they were doing and recruited the seven of them to the task. As they were capable, intelligent men, they could figure it out even if they may have lacked some of the girth the mechanics had. The other eight men were literally pulled off of their Vulture hoverbikes as they sped by on their respective patrols. At least being knowledgeable of the bikes they could help and know what they were doing without having to learn on the spot. The Ghosts were doing that, however it wasn’t a handicap at all considering they learned almost instantly.
As quickly as he’d realized he was short on men, he’d filled up the shortages and gotten to work on the production lines. Each line was somehow managing to work at the same speed, which actually proved to the advantage of the building effort. As one sped up, the other two sped up, so they gradually got faster as things went along. The first couple of vehicles took the full ninety minutes to build, but eventually they hacked it down to about forty-five minutes on one Vulture.
Somehow, by daybreak, they had cranked out their entire quota and laid down the field of Spider Mines. Zerg or no, there was only one thing left for those thirty men to do.
Sleep. And sleep they did. They hoped the shit wouldn’t hit the fan while they were asleep, but of course that would be asking for too much…
* * *
At the trench and bunker network in front of the sole mineral field still in possession of the Terrans, Mack stood in the very front of the lines awaiting the supposed onslaught of the Zerg. He was staring down the hill angrily, almost daring the aliens to come up and find him. All around him were scores of men with the same desire, though not quite to the same extreme as Mack himself. There were Medics dotting the lines as well. Without a hospital to work in, all of them were simply in the front lines. None were directly at the front, though. Upon Mack’s insistence none of them would be risked like that in case his first line collapsed.
He wasn’t really surprised when most of them had objected. Some cried out that he was sexist, thinking the women couldn’t handle it; others simply said they knew they could if they’d lived so far. But the Firebat didn’t budge from his position, so the Medics had to, however reluctantly.
Suddenly, everything grew silent. In the distance he spotted movement. The Zerg were coming.
“SHIT! Everybody, to your positions, now! INCOMING!!!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. None of them needed told twice, before things had carried on any further they were all as fortified as they were getting.
His helmet flicked down, he began using the HUD inside of it to track the Zerg’s movements. As he suspected, they were massing at the bottom of the hill, ready to move up. He couldn’t tell how many there were as the sensor could only go so far, nor could he tell how many of each kind there were. He’d seen this before, though. It was apparent what was coming first.
However, Mack was entirely wrong in his guess. After about a minute had passed, figures began surging up the hill. When they looked to see what it was, two dozen Ultralisks stared back at them, their massive tusks an imposing sight. The entire line was about to panic when the Spider Mines revealed themselves and shot towards the massive beasts. Not a single one had remained living, nor had any passed halfway up the hill. That also meant half of the Spider Mines had been spent.
As suddenly as the Zerg began to mass at the bottom of the hill, the mass moved back away. If their goal was to confuse the poor Terran defenders, they were certainly succeeding.
Mack activated the comm system on his helmet. “Kilimaro to Command. Dammit, Erai, what the hell is going on?”
The sound cracked then his commanding officer’s voice came back over. “Your guess is as good as mine. Jesus…what did they just do? I don’t get it…”
“Damned Ultralisks charged up the hill. Bastards took out half of our mines with one assault…”
“So Dimitri was right after all. Well, stay dug in, Mack. We should be hearing about those reinforcements soon, I only sent about a thousand messages to the bastards at Command…”
A slight smile crossed Mack’s face as he imagined how Fleet Command would react to seeing dozens of angry, profanity-laced messages from Erai. Then he heard explosions and saw the Zerg were coming again.
“Shit! Here they come again. Kilimaro out.” He clicked off the comm immediately and turned his full attention to the line. “The hell’s going on now?” he asked of a soldier next to him.
“Hydralisks making their way up the hill, sir. They’ve not yet reached the mines.” Responded the man.
Mack looked down and saw the trooper was right. Some of the mines began sensing their targets even as he looked, and popped out of the ground. Two particular explosions he caught took out nine of the Hydralisks between them. The swarm seemed to never stop, despite the fact that mines kept popping up and ripping into them. It was only a couple of minutes before they were in firing range for the guns of the Marines. But the last few mines wiped out the last few Hydralisks, though not before they got a few shots off at the front line of Terran defenders. The hills grew quiet once again.
Siege tank shots rang out far in the distance. The flat ground on the other side of the base was under attack.
* * *
On the exact opposite side of the base, seemingly endless swarms of Zerglings were running full speed towards the lines. It was times like that when the fire pit seemed to be ingenious. The Siege Tanks had moved forward to be able to fire at the beasts still not yet into the pit. Shell after shell left the Arclite Cannons, scores of Zerglings were literally blown to pieces. But there were only ten tanks, not nearly enough to stem the tide. Eventually this became apparent and they fell backwards, before the Zerglings got smart and found a way out of the pit. Safely back farther, the Siege Tanks all aimed to fire right into the pit, armed their cannons with incendiary rounds, and prepped to fire.
Ten more shots rang out, then suddenly the pit was on fire as it was supposed to be. Literally a thousand of the creatures were burned alive over a five minute period. Quite unfortunately, the fire pit would no longer be of any use because the bodies were piled so high, future incoming Zerglings could just run them right over as if there weren’t even a hole.
But no more assaults came for the rest of the day, and that was enough for all of the men to be thankful. They’d all survived another day, and as long as they kept doing so, there was always that little shred of hope that reinforcements would arrive or they would be evacuated altogether. The day the hope died would be the day they all died.
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