Started writng this awhile ago, take a look at the prologue and tell me what you think. If I get some good feedback I might keep writing it.

Marine (tentative title)


Prologue

The noise was deafening. Flashes of light interspersed with the screams of the dying were everywhere. The marine slowly raised his head out of the foxhole, checking to see if it was safe to move on. His badly damaged body armor creaked in protest as he propped himself up on the lip of the hole, giving him a better view of the entire battlefield. “Battlefield”, he muttered to himself through bone dry lips, “slaughterhouse is a better word for it, eh Jensen?”. The body of his former squad leader lay still at the spot where the zergling had ripped his throat out two days earlier. Maybe it was three. The whole concept of time for the marine had been replaced by an endless routine of running, hiding, and the occasional loss of a friend. At least the routine was finally broken. Jensen was the last man left in his squad to make it out of base camp alive. A good man, he hadn’t deserved to have spent his last moments gasping for breath as his lungs filled with the blood from his torn throat. But then again, did any of them deserve this? “Clear”, he repeated to himself, “the goddamn planet was supposed to be clear!”. His shout was lost amid the firefight taking place outside of his foxhole. It wasn’t until he went to take a drink from his water flask that he realized he was shaking. He tried to stop it, repeating to himself that it was all a bad dream. It wouldn’t stop. There had been too much death, too many friends lost to delude himself into thinking it wasn’t real. If this line of reasoning wasn’t enough, Jensen’s lifeless body stood mute testament to the carnage that had taken place in the short span of one week. Had it really only been a week ago that it his whole world had been turned upside down? He had been stationed to the planet Alterna as part of a light guard for a group of colonists that were to inhabit the planet. Farmers mostly, the colonists were hoping for a new start on a planet that was lush with fertile fields, valleys, and tropical rainforests, a planet that they could call their own. He had been assigned this guard duty as a shore leave of sorts, as he had seen heavy action battling the zerg menace. This was a “clean” world, or one that had already been cleared by the military has containing no seriously hostile life. They had been sorely mistaken. Too bad it was the idealistic colonists and their guards that had to pay for the brass’s mistake. At first, everything had gone smoothly. The dropships had delievered the colonists and their equipment to the surface of the planet at the predetermined base camp. The marine escorts were the first to disembark, making a casual sweep of the area. Then the colonists and their equipment. SCV’s, farming tools, seed, fertilizer, all of the ingredients needed to create a bright future. Last but not least were the few heavy military vehicles that were assigned to the colony. Two siege tanks, a handful of goliaths and a few vultures were all that the colony had for protection, the plan being that as the colony grew, they would begin to manufacture their own protection. Without even taking the day to rest, the construction on colony began. The command center was the first to be constructed, as it was the heart of the entire operation and without it, nothing else could be built. Only enough material to construct the command center had been brought for cost reasons, so the rest of the materials needed to create the colony, mostly minerals and vespene gas, were expected to mined out of the surrounding countryside by the colonists. The mineral and gas mining were then begun, with the great steaming smoke stacks of vespene gas mines towering over the bustling colony. Within two weeks, a barracks for the marines, a number of supply depots, and two bunkers for protection had been completed. An academy to allow the construction of a comsat station for the colony was also constructed shortly after. Plans for an engineering bay and factory were also being drawn up. It seemed that this was going to be a very prospersous colony, and the marines were expected to be rotated out within the week. Then it all changed. It was raining that day. Funny, how he remembered the rain. Crisp, clean, it seemed that it was cleansing the entire surface of the planet with it’s cool moisture. Early morning sunlight peeked through the dark storm clouds, promising a warm afternoon. The guard duty in the bunker on the east side of the colony was changing as suddenly, the ground began to rumble. The rumble became a shake, and then a roar as hundreds of zerglings burst through the forest covering a hundred yards in front of the bunker. Shocked only for a second, the marines opened fire, pouring round after round into the approaching zergling hoard. Somewhere from within the command center an alarm sounded. The words “Base is under attack!” blared from the intercom as the entire colony sprang to life. The siege tanks were brought into posistion and the loud boom of their arcalite cannons could be heard from miles in every direction as their energy shots fell like rain into the approaching hoard. More marines were brought to the east bunker and a squad of medics and firebats, trained at the newly constructed academy, were dispatched as well. The heat from the flamethrowers that the firebats wielded caused the air in front of the bunker to shimmer as wave upon wave of the zerglings were incenerated. Still they kept coming. At first it seemed like the colony would survive. None of the zerglings had even made it to the bunker, let alone into the colony. Then it happened. The sky darkened even more than the storm could account for as zerg overlords coming floating in from the west side of the colony. The marines in the bunker there and the colonies few goliaths futiliy tried to repel them but only managed to kill a few as the terrible monsters began to unload their cargo. Hydras. Hundreds of them. Worse, lurkers, the subterranean creatures whose deadly spines were normally undetectable. Hydras poured over the bunker, quickly slaughtering the few marines not on the east front. The comsat station was destroyed first as this was the only way the lurkers could be detected, since the engineering bay was not yet built. The lurkers then went about their deadly work. Burrowing underneath the command center, they began their attack. When the colonists tried to futilly lift off their buildings, the hydras made short work of them. The screams of the women and children could be heard as the lurkers burrowed underneath the homes of the colonists and began to tear up everything in site. Slowly, the bulk of the colonies forces on the eastern front realized that the western front was already destroyed, and tried to fight a two way battle by redirecting some of their forces to counterattack. This opened up a hole in the eastern defenses that allowed at first only a few, then hundreds of the attacking zerglings to pour through, making short work of the few remaining defenders. Next to the barracks, a few half armored marines stimmed themselves up for increased attack power only to realize that most of the medics had been killed and that they were more vulnerable than ever to attack. They were mowed down by a single lurker spine. A lone firebat sprayed down a pack of zerglings attacking a group of colonists only to be melted from behind by hydra acid. That’s when the running and hiding began. The few survivors scattered in all directions, offering pockets of resistance when possible, killing when fortunate, being killed in the most common case. One by one the people he had escaped with had been killed, with Jensen being the last to go. Now, it was only him.
A barrage of bullets whizzed by overhead, breaking the marine out of his grisly reverie. There would be enough time for reflection when he was dead. Deciding that it was time to move on from his small safe haven, partly because he knew that eventually the zerg would find him if he stood still and partially because Jensen was beginning to smell, he searched for any place that might provide him with more cover. Seeing another small crater like his own next to the remains of a goliath, he quickly gathered what was left of his ammo and supplies and dashed out of the foxhole. Belly to the ground, he crawled for what seemed like and eternity until he reached the lip of the crater. Bloodstained, dirty, and tired he threw his supplies into the crater and then threw himself in with what little energy he had left. Panting from his exertion, he took a swig from his water flask and sat down heavily on one of the armor plates from the destroyed goliath. Suddenly, in the distance he heard screaming. A women’s voice, and then the far shriller cry of a small child. Aw hell, what did he have to lose? If he was going to die, mind as well do something worthwhile while doing it. Quickly reloading his rifle, he left his cover and his supplies and sprinted in the direction of the screaming. About fifty yards from his crater he came upon a mother and a small child of about four cornered by a zergling. Both of the colonists wore torn, ragged clothing. They probably hadn’t eaten or slept since the attack. The mother was waving a small pistol in front of the zergling, ready to make her last stand. The marine burst onto the scene from the side of the zergling, riddling it with round after round of ammo. He made short work of the surprised beast, and went to check on the mother child. Suddenly, from behind the marine came a guttural cry and two more zerglings burst from their forest cover. He was able to gun one down but the other was too quick, pinning him to the ground before he could finish it off. His head smashed against the ground as the force of the zergling began to crush him. Before he blacked out from the impact, he saw the zergling raise one claw in the air to finish him off. His last thought was that Jensen stilled owed him five bucks from their last poker game, and the bastard had never paid.