"In the air I had floating an engineering bay, a barracks, a factory, and 5 command centers."
-.Praetor
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| Infinity - The Fanfic owns you... | | | Author: | | | IP: | pa-gbg-tXXXX | | Date: | 03/16/02 01:03 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 1, Max: 6, Min: 6
Lifetime Rating for TheyAre: 6.1111 |  |
Infinity
Introduction
Since everyone here at BR.com needs an "introduction fix" before they read anything that is not a br or fanfic written by someone like Reaver, here is one, you poo-heads:
Infinity is set during "Eye of the Storm," the final assault on the Overmind on Aiur. It is not a story about some Marines getting lost behind Zerg lines, it is not centered on some Marine and his psychological trauma, although it does have some of that for the main character because I wrote this before people started complaining about that and I'm not going to change it because some people I've never even known existed before they comment flame it.
Back to the story. I can't tell you more, or I'd ruin the entire plot, but it also involves Zeratul and an Infested Terran. Infinity is cut down into six parts: a Prologue, Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, and the Epilogue. Since posting the Prologue and Epilogue alone would be useless, the Prologue will go with Part One, the Epilogue with Part Four.
Enjoy, constructive criticism and praise accepted "5hut th3 fuxx up y0u damn n3wbi3" ignored.
Prologue
Excerpt from the journal of Corporal Ian J. Roberts:
The seemingly endless stream of Zerg halted their assault on our positions an hour ago, as abruptly as if someone had flipped a switch, closed a valve. The valley, which was filled with red, was empty in a moment, the Zerg disappearing back into the smoke.
The battle was hellish, sky thick with smoke, a reddish-orange glow on the western horizon from the massive artillery barrage.
East...
At the base of the ridge we landed on, millions of Zerg laid siege to the only access point into our base on the western side of the valley. A skirmish line of Marines and Firebats used the natural bottleneck to hold the Swarm off.
Above, the sky was filled with dueling Wraith and Mutalisk; the Hyperion was almost obscured by the cloud of Zerg. After several Yamato blasts decimated their ranks, the aerial Zerg withdrew.
Artillery forced the other Zerg back, but...
John is dead.
He was my last link to the past, to Mar Sara. Now... I am alone.
This war seems endless, unwinnable. Friends made hours, or even minutes before, torn away in an instant by a mindless and uncaring enemy. What's the point of it all?
They say if we win here, help the Protoss kill the Overmind, the war will be over, and we'll have won.
I've heard it before. After every 'victory,' a few more friends are gone, and we pull out, leaving the people we swore to protect to the Zerg. Another "safe haven" retreated from.
At first, we tried to save everyone. The Zerg quickly abused us of that notion.
...I thought I'd found something to believe in, a cause worth fighting for when I stuck with Raynor on Tarsonis. But it doesn't seem to matter. The banner may change, but everything else is the same.
It seems that every time we 'win,' humanity loses. One day, we'll win one too many.
OFFICIAL NOTE BY Major A. Callaghan: Corporal Roberts has been missing in action and presumed dead since the joint Protoss/Terran assault on the Overmind. File will be sealed if no relatives step forward.
Ifinity, Part One: Countdown
The planet Aiur silently revolved around the massive yellow star that was its master, a blue-green ball floating in the darkness.
Sitting in a muddy, shallow trench five kilometers from the 'Overmind,' Ian Roberts wondered how many more men would die before Commander Raynor realized he could no longer support the push into the valley that housed the master of the Swarm, a dark behemoth on the horizon.
Ian flinched as all thought was drowned out by artillery fire from the rear. Although the Overmind was well within range of the big guns, the odd swarm of insects that covered the Hive Cluster confused sensors and prevented effective shelling. A few dozen meters behind the trench, Siege Tanks added their fire to the mix, short barks compared to the thunderous roars of guns whose shells easily went over 200 mm.
"They're catching hell tonight," someone said during a lull. "They haven't shelled this much since..." he stopped suddenly, as he remembered the last time the guns had sounded off so much. "Since we landed," another Marine finished. "Even during the big counterattack they didn't go off this much..."
The shelling ended conversation for a while after that as each man thought about what the intense barrage signified.
Ian was worried. The other Marine was right; the shelling hadn't been so intense since the landings on Aiur ten days ago.
Someone cursed loudly. He'd figured it out, and so had Ian. Armor had been building up the past two days; fresh troops had been brought up from the rear, new guys who seemed dumb as Zerglings.
Ian sighed and lay down, trying to find a dry spot in the mud. The attack that had been rumored was on. Giving up his search for dirt, he settled in.
But sleep presented its own problems, ones Ian was less capable of handling.
His breath rattling harshly in his throat, Ian dropped his Gauss Rifle and ran, the Swarm just behind him. Someone behind him yelled, and let out a shrill scream as he was dragged down and ripped apart.
Realizing it was useless, Ian turned and plucked a grenade off his belt. He wasn't going to die like Jones had, he was going to go down fighting.
He threw the grenade, watched as fire erupted among the Zerg, smiling at the sound of their screams. The others brought him down, tore through his Combat Suit in moments. Ian sighed in relief as they ripped into his skin. It would all be over in seconds--
And then he woke up, gasping, covered in a cold sweat.
"Dammit," he muttered. Then, more vehemently, "damn!" That was what happened, what should have happened at New Gettysburg. At the last moment, a Dropship had thrown him a line and taken him to the Hyperion.
And then the dream had started. The doctors were full of opinions, most of them contradictory, but he ignored them, and the dream too, mostly. Tonight was no exception.
But instead of falling back asleep, Ian thought about the rumors of the attack that were floating along the line. Day after next, the guys said. All-or-nothing this time.
Ian snorted. Being in the Sons of Korhal, and with Raynor before (and now after) that, he'd learned there never was a final battle, an all-deciding conflict. There was always another staging area, another base hidden well away from the enemy.
The artillery had stopped hours ago, and now the sound of dripping water filled the trench. It was soin joined by a low rumble to the south. Looks like the Protoss are trying to catch the Zerg off guard, Ian thought. That, at the least, seemed an impossible task. That other Protoss, Fenix, had sent an open transmission to the battlefield two days ago: his forces were being strained to the breaking point holding back the main Swarm. If the Overmind wasn't destroyed soon...
Ian yawned as the rumble to the south began to fade. He put thoughts of the impending assault out of his mind and rolled over, ignoring the copious amounts of mud he was getting all over his suit.
He was asleep in moments.
The new day dawned dark and smoky; shelling had picked up again in the early morning, blotting out Aiur's sun and filling the air with smog.
The commander of Ian's platoon, one Lieutenant David Sears, cursed as he tripped and almost fell over another Marine's helmet, carelessly left lying in the middle of the trench. "Dammit, Martin, keep your helmet on your head," he growled. "Do you have any idea what you're breathing in?"
"Sorry, sir," one of the Marines said, rather meekly for his 6'4" 240-lb. frame. He ran over to the helmet, picked it up slowly and skittered back to his post, never taking his eyes off David.
These guys are too fast for me David thought, although having a little bit of speed is never a bad thing when your line is almost invariably pierced and cut to ribbons and the Swarm is at your back.
"Comms are out again," someone yelled. "You need something, you gotta use the land lines."
David's men looked at him expectantly until he sighed and clambered out of the trench. They could go find out themselves, he thought. But no, its always up to the Lieutenant to do everything for them.
He made his way over the torn ground to his company's field telephone and start grilling the operator, asking questions too fast for the man to answer. "Some battle in the south," the man said, holding up his hands as if to ward David off. "Damned if I know how, but they say the... 'psionic emanations' the Protoss give off in battle jam our frequencies, if in great enough quantities." He scratched his head. "Or something like that.
'"Psionic emanations?'" David snorted in derision and went back to his platoon. As usual, Martin was the only one up. Except for Roberts, David thought, and he's not really a part of my platoon anyway... Some things never changed. In its own way, that was a blessing.
The day dawned earlier, but just as wonderfully, for Ian as well. Some moron ran past him at about 4 a.m. and splashed mud all over his face. By the time he'd wiped the muck out of his eyes, the guy was long gone. That's what I get for keeping my visor open, he thought.
He'd tried to get back to sleep, but artillery, which had been mostly quiet, opened up with a roar. Groaning, Ian got up and went in search of a mess tent and some coffee.
After almost an hour of useless searching, he groggily stumbled back to his spot, and weariness was about to overtake the artillery when David tripped over Martin's helmet and started dressing down the new guy.
Ian didn't understand the Lieutenant. Sure, Martin could be annoying with his "I think the enemy is going to attack," but he was just a newbie. It wasn't his fault.
The Lieutenant left, presumably because the comms were out, again. When he came back, he started cussing out Martin for some other reason. Ian sighed. He couldn't see any rhime or reason to how the Lieutenant ran the platoon, but that wasn't his problem. Staying alive usually was, and the case was no different this time.
Drowned out by the artillery was the low rumble of millions of feet, and the massive dust cloud rising from the valley was dismissed as being kicked up by the shelling.
The Overmind neither knew nor cared that it possessed the element of surprise; it would break out of the cage created by the Protoss and meddlesome Terrans, and then--
They would all know it's love, and welcome it.
In Infinity Part Two: Backlash, a massive Zerg attack throws the Terran forces into confusion as the Protoss mount a furious counter-assault. And we meet William Birkin, or rather, formerly William Birkin, now a nameless Infested Terran in the Swarm...
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