Now it echoed to agonized screams and the stuttering roar of flamethrowers. The bengalaas had fled, hiding in the brush as monstrous shadows passed by.

The temple was at war

"Heindricks! Get that sunken!"

"Ja, commander!"

Wait . . . a lair usually meant hydralisks, and I didn’t see any present."Commander? There

A line of spikes rippled through the ground and tore into Sergeant Robinson, lifting him off his feet in an explosion of gore. His shredded body hung on the spikes for a moment before they sank back into the creep

"Fall back! FALL BACK!!"

The giant gears of my newly-built factory ground to a halt momentarily, and the first siege tank rolled off the assembly line.

The lurkers had been even more effective defenders than the Cerebrate had thought. The terrans had retreated all the way back into their base, and the Cerebrate took the opportunity to plant two new hatcheries, one at the resource node just below its ramp and the other on the mesa to the east. With three bases and four hatcheries it was easily outresourcing its opponent, and had probably twice his production capacity. It pondered its next move. Should it continue to expand or pressure the terrans with another attack? After much deliberation, it chose combat. A group of 16 hydralisks and lurkers moved towards the terran ramp.

"Enemy sighted, targeting . . . locked! Firing!"

The first hydralisk up the ramp took two tank shells in the chest and exploded instantly. Marines began to fire from the bunkers as lurkers and hydralisks charged forward. The lurkers burrowed rapidly, but the turrets rapid-scan software detected their position and fed targeting data to the tanks and marines. The lurkers were dying quickly, but over a dozen hydralisks were pounding our bunkers, and they would not hold up much longer. As the first bunker sagged and crumpled the marines inside fled away from the ramp. The hydralisks eagerly gave chase; and ran at full speed into a pair of S.P.I.D.E.R. mines. All but four were killed instantly, and my tanks quickly destroyed the survivors. Two lurkers fled the carnage and made it back to the protection of the Zerg base. The Zerg had mutated a new hatchery below their ramp, but I was still confident. Even this new strain couldn’t stand up to my tanks, that was apparent. My new firepower would end the battle quickly. I leaned back contentedly in my chair. For the first time in a long while, I felt good.

"Ready to move, Commander!"

"All right," I said. "Go!"

It was time to end the war.

The Cerebrate’s orders flashed at the speed of thought across the area to the islands east and west of the terran base. Both had been mutating nothing but mutalisks once they had enough drones to mine. A dozen of the monstrous, bat-like creatures flew from each cluster, eager for battle. With any luck whatsoever, this would be a crippling blow, from which the humans could never recover.

The marines left in my base camp were nervous. 90 percent of our military had just left, leaving little besides the fixed defenses. Suddenly, blips began to show up on their radar.

"What the . . ."

"Mutas!! Look out!"

The mutalisks flew over my defensive turrets, ripping them apart with only a few volleys. The bladed Wurms ricocheted into the midst of the ten defending marines, causing havoc. Sudden grunts came over the com as my soldiers applied their stimpacks, then wild laughter mixed with the stuttering whine of overclocked guns. A few mutas were shot down, but it was too little, too late. I watched in horror as the monsters slaughtered my defenders. A marine went staggering backwards with three wurms in his side, barely able to hold his gun straight as the stim began to wear off. A fourth shot hit him clean in the throat and he fell to the ground, a pool of red spreading around him.

Only five SCVs remained when the Goliaths came into range. A devastating volley of missiles tore into one of the Mutalisks, sending one down in flames. The survivors fled, leaving me sitting in my damaged command center amid the wreckage of my base.

The attack had been even more successful then the Cerebrate had thought. The humans had been dealt a powerful blow, and had abandoned all thought of an offensive for now. This was perfect. With the humans confining themselves to their bases, this entire area would become a single Great Hive Cluster, and when they tried to fight back, the might of the Swarm would crush them. The Cerebrates minions stirred into action, and dozens of drones scurried towards the various resource nodes as the humans started to pick up the pieces of their shattered base.

                                                                                     Part 3

Nothing but the dead.

I forced my eyes open and tried to focus on my screen. I had gotten very little sleep for three days. The zerg launched random attacks almost constantly against both of my bases, and it was impossible to sleep when I knew my soldiers might be dying anytime I turned my back. At least we had killed a lot of mutas during these attacks, I thought gloomily.

I straightened, suddenly furious at myself. I could not let this go on. While I hunkered down inside my base building fortifications, the Zerg had free rein in the rest of the area. If they had moved quickly, I might be a dead man, and the rest of my forces with me. I only hoped there was enough time to correct my error.

The human commander finally appeared to have realized the precariousness of his situation. Well, it would have been too much to hope that he was a TOTAL fool. Still, it was unlikely that whatever small army he had managed to collect could break through the blockading force keeping him penned in his bases. The Cerebrate shifted comfortably inside its new Hive.

Let them come. The Swarm would crush them, as it crushed all who stood in its way.

"Behind you!"

The marine ducked to the side as a zergling lunged at his back and shot the beast as it spun to face him. "Thanks, Sarge!"

Sergeant Radcliffe cast a swift glance around the battle. His squad had been ordered to engage a massive blocking force of hydralisks and lurkers in front of their encampments. He could see it was a lost cause. His soldiers were charging bravely forwards and dying at an appalling rate. More than a dozen marines already lay dead, less then two minutes into the battle, and now the monsters were advancing towards the base! He raised his comm to his mouth.

A thousand yards behind the dying marines, eighteen siege tanks sat motionless. Captain Darrell stood behind his gunner, watching the display tensely, listening to the distress call, and said nothing. The gunner gave him a questioning look.

"Sir? Permission to open fire?"

"Denied."

Radcliffe staggered backwards, firing madly as his last few soldiers fell.

"Help! HELP!"

The gunner began to sight on the nearest hydralisk.

"Corporal, I gave you an order. Hold your fire."

"We have to help them!"

Darrell drew his pistol and pressed it to the back of the gunners head. "I said, HOLD YOUR FIRE."

Radcliffe and his two surviving soldiers turned and ran, and the ravening zerg behind poured after them in a wave of spines and claws. Unwittingly, they were charging directly towards Darrels tanks. Radcliffes eyes widened as he saw the huge cannons rotate towards him.

"GET DOWN!!!"

Darrel watched the range indicator on the furthest zerg hydralisk flash downward. As it reached 1200 yards, he slammed his hand down on the squad comm. "NOW! OPEN FIRE!"

The zerg had just spotted their danger and begun to backpedal when all eighteen tanks fired at once. Their shots merged and grew into one great explosion, a gigantic blast that seemed to shake the planet on its axis. A wall of flame rose to meet the fleeing Zerg like Armageddon itself, and when the smoke cleared nothing but a few zerglings was left alive.

The tanks thundered forward in tandem with a squad of goliaths, cleaning up the stray zerglings as they went. I smiled as they rolled out towards the nearest resource deposit, with hoverbikes going ahead to scout. This war might be turning around.

The Cerebrate was stunned momentarily. Almost two thirds of its warriors had been slaughtered in an instant! It pondered this new change.

Obviously, an army of that size and power was a considerable threat to the Hive Cluster. Any attack along the ground against that force was almost certainly doomed to failure, and at this time the Cerebrate had a mostly ground army. It simply did not have enough flyers to destroy the walkers guarding the deadly tanks. Therefore, it needed to buy time to hatch additional, stronger warriors. A delaying attack seemed the only option.

But not necessarily an attack on the terran army. Six overlords opened their ventral sacs to allow twenty-four hydralisks to board, and moved towards the momentarily lightly defended terran camp.

Even though I had braced myself for just this, I could barely believe what my scouts were telling me.

Every resource deposit had been colonized by the Zerg. Almost the entire area was covered by creep. Wonderful. I took a deep breath and scanned down the rest of the transmission.

Well, not all bad. Some of the clusters were quite new, and had barely begun mining, so I would still be able to get a big shot in the arm if I could take and hold one or more of the areas. Also, the containment force seemed to have been the majority of the Zerg warriors. So far, my scouts had seen nothing but small patrols of zerglings.

Klaxons blared suddenly. I jerked around to look at the screen that displayed the status of my main base, and stared in horror as a group of zerg overlords began disgorging hydralisk after hydralisk just beside my all-important factories. I whirled towards the comm. "Darrel! Radcliffe! Raphael! Get back here NOW! Emergency!" I turned back to the base display, and my heart sank as I saw the first factory crumple under the assault. The few defending troops were putting up a brave fight, but they had no chance. My only hope was that Darrels tanks would arrive in time to prevent catastrophe.

The base was in chaos. Hydralisks ripped down buildings and slaughtered any in their path with contemptuous ease. Soon there would be nothing left of my production capacity. Darrel arrived at this moment, just as a group of hydras broke through the choke defenses and began rampaging toward the second base. All were destroyed in a few seconds, and the few left in the main base fled back into the overlords and flew away. But the damage had been done, and I was forced to bring my attack force back to cover my bases while I rebuilt.

If the Cerebrate had a mouth, it would have smiled. The attack had been perfectly successful in both of its objectives. Three of the human production facilities had fallen, and the threatening attack force had been diverted, giving the Cerebrate enough time to complete mutation of the final, most powerful Strains genomes. Now the Earthlings would feel the true power of the Swarm! The Cerebrate exulted in its might as Larvae cocooned themselves and began to grow to massive size. It could feel the dark fury beginning to emanate from the creatures forming inside.

The infantile ultralisks spasmed as the Cerebrate touched their minds, and tusks sprouted from their jaws. The transformation was almost complete, and when it was, the Cerebrate would cleanse this world of the human taint.

The Cerebrate twitched restlessly, deep within in its hive. Soon its work upon this world would be complete, and then it could rest. Once the humans were eliminated.

Soon.

                                              Part 4

An egg slowly expanded as the beast within it awakened for the first time. It slowly opened its eyes and perceived the shell surrounding it. The Cerebrate watched and felt the stirring as its brain began to function, then reached for the monster’s mind and spoke.

IT IS TIME. AWAKEN, MY SERVITOR, AND PARTAKE OF THE GLORY THAT IS THE SWARM. The thing rose to it’s feet, throwing up it’s massive head, and the membrane of the egg tore apart. The ultralisk’s eyes widened and it roared, a hell-scream of fury and hunger.

The Cerebrate was pleased.

I had finally gotten some sleep, but not nearly enough. Still, I stumbled into Ops as soon as the sun rose, a fanatical light burning in my eyes. My factories had been rebuilt since the devastation a week ago, and several new mechs bolstered my forces. Today I would begin my push.

A line of tanks and walkers marched north out of the base and moved towards the western plateau, where three zerg clusters was established. In a few minutes, I hoped, the course of this war would finally be under control.

Darrel watched tensely as the first of his tanks anchored and deployed their siege cannon. The comsat was just visible as a point of light high above his head, a Goliath squad was standing by . . . everything was ready. And no disasters had occurred. Maybe he could actually do this. "SV 1, do you copy?"

"We copy, captain. Commence?" "Commence." "Yes, sir!"

Darrel stood next to his panel, tense and nervous. Something was going to go wrong. He could feel it.

The Cerebrate allowed the first two clusters to fall without much resistance. They were of negligible importance while the others were held, and the humans must be given time to become complacent and overconfident. Besides, not all of the ultralisks were yet hatched. A few minutes more, and the Swarm would wipe their foes off the planet. It closed down contact with the doomed hatcheries and waited.

Darrel was sweating. The first two hatcheries had fallen with only token resistance from a few mutalisks, and his tanks were moving towards the ramp leading up to a large mesa and the third zerg base. Where was the opposition? This was a big base . . . surely the zerg would want to defend it.

Well, he thought gloomily, at least we have dropships available. Some of us will get out.

The humans were committed. Now was the time to strike. Sixteen ultralisks charged towards the terran position, and the Cerebrate exulted as the great brutes thundered unstoppably towards their goal.

"Uhh, sir?" Radcliffe glanced up at the marine. "What?"

"Sir, the ground is shaking."

Radcliffe looked down, and frowned as a pebble bounced across his foot. "What the devil?"

Radcliffe had his gun in his hand even as he heard the shout. A great, terrible roar echoed through the air, and Radcliffe knew he was a dead man.

The ultralisks tore through the marines guarding the partially built command center in a shower of blood, hurling mutilated carcasses away as they charged forward, howling fury to the sky. The SCV working on the new CC tried to run, and was ripped in half as the ultralisks raced past, heading for the ramp. The Cerebrate followed their progress with satisfaction. The human strike force had no chance against these behemoths, and once they were gone, their base would quickly fall.

Darrel stared at his screen in panic. No time to think, the beasts were nearly on them. "Undeploy! Prepare for evac!"

And the first dropship blasted over his head, decelerating hard.

"Head for the ships!" Darrel yelled, and the battered survivors of his squad raced for the dropships which were flying low towards them. For a moment it seemed as if the ultralisks would catch them before the dropships could arrive; then there was a hard thump, and Darrel was suddenly inside a ship, powering hard for open air. For several seconds he simply stood behind the pilots chair, gripping it hard, face white. Then slowly he released the seat back and sat in his own chair, staring bleakly out the porthole at the wreckage strewn across the ground below them.

The Cerebrate was jubilant. The attack had worked almost perfectly. True, some of the earthlings had gotten away, but a large fraction of the human war machine had been destroyed. Now all that remained was the destruction of the two remaining bases, and victory would be complete.

The Cerebrate’s thoughts reached out to his ultralisks, and they charged towards the human base, where even now defenses were frantically being erected in preparation for the onslaught. The Cerebrate twitched in anticipation of the coming battle, and inevitable victory of the Swarm.

                                             Part 5

Every animal had long since gone into hiding. Flames raged unchecked across the landscape, and the piles of scorched corpses and twisted metal bore witness to the devastating ferocity of the war. The ancient temple echoed to the pounding footfalls and maddened roars of a large group of zerg ultralisks as they charged towards the human bases, eager for blood. A deadly confrontation was about to begin . . .

I pressed the conference button, and the holographic images of my four main commanders appeared above my console.

"Got it." "Good. Now, Darrel."

"Yessir?"

"Sir! Yes sir!"

"Yes, sir."

"Good."

The ultralisk group charged forward, directly towards the apparently undefended new outpost. But as they reached the perimeter, dozens of Spider mines locked on and rose from the ground in a wave, skittering to meet the wall of bone and flesh charging forward. Unfortunately, two ultras had gotten ahead of the rest, and ninety percent of the mines struck only those two. They were shredded instantly, but at the cost of letting the others through relatively unscathed. Two bunkers put up little resistance, and the fourteen surviving ultralisks slammed into the mining base, killing every worker almost instantly. The command center lifted off, and the ultralisks howled in fury as they saw their prey escaping. Then thoughts of the command center were driven from their minds by the first tank shells crashing down on them, and the maddened beasts turned towards the narrow pass that led to the two remaining human bases.

"Here they come, boys! Get ready!" The defending marines opened fire, pouring uranium-jacketed bullets into the lead ultralisk. Several of the monsters fell under the brutal combination of tank shells and gauss bullets, but ten survived to rampage over the gory wreckage that had once been three bunkers and attack the base. Fortunately, all the workers had already been evacuated to the human main base, and the ultras found nothing but a refinery still on the ground. Ignoring the structure, ten ravening ultralisks turned towards the ramp and charged.

And my expression suddenly changed as three sets of pulsar jets lit up, propelling three massive ships into the air. The engineers had just set a new time record, and just incidentally saved all of our lives.

A four terawatt laser bolt smashed into the ultralisk’s head, incinerating it instantly. The three remaining ultras paused a moment, as if pondering the smouldering corpse. They held still a second too long.

No. They would not succeed. The Cerebrate would not allow itself to contemplate death. The Swarm would be victorious. Always.

I smiled wolfishly from the deck of my new flagship, which I had christened "Liberation." With the ultralisk threat put down, I was confident in the superiority of my forces. The Hive would fall, and I would finally be able to raise the city I had dreamed of ever since landing. On the other hand, if we were defeated . . .

No. We could not lose, not after such a massive investment. Hundreds of soldiers had poured out their blood for this planet, and I would carry through. This was my world, and I would be victorious.

Always.

                                               Part 6

Rolling thunder echoed across the plains as the terran fleet flew towards their objective. Hydralisks gathered at the edge of the plateau, staring up at the ships coming towards them. Everyone knew this would be the end of the battle, and tensions rose as the battlecruisers neared the plateau edge.

The last resources available had gone into the construction of several transports to carry my ground troops across to the zerg Hive. ALL of my ground troops. There was no point in holding anything back, since I had no resources and nowhere to run. I sat on the bridge of my flagship, Liberation, and watched the range indicators tick down as creep began to come into view. All my orders had already been given. Nothing to do now but watch, and wait.

The human fleet closed and the battle began. Tanks rolled out of dropships and seiged below the ridge, blasting at the hydralisks above to force them to move back. Accompanying marines stimmed and fired, holding back a tide of zerglings. Lurkers burrowed, ripping into flesh and metal alike, sending torn corpses and twisted machines to the ground. The hydras on the ridge surged back, away from the falling shells, then charged forward again as the first battlecruiser came into range, hurling clouds of poison spines towards them. But the terrans came on, depositing their troops on the plateau, charging forward regardless of casualties. Blood sprayed as a squadron of marines hurled themselves into a pack of zerglings, creating a momentary hesitation that allowed the tanks to fire again, demolishing the ‘lings. The zerg attack began to slacken, the tanks unsieged, and a wall of metal rolled towards the hive.

The Cerebrate writhed in anger as its minions were driven back. The humans had sent their full strength to challenge the Swarm, and they were pushing forward into the Hive Cluster. Still, the Cerebrate wasn’t worried. Not even half of its troops had been committed yet, and the humans were visibly weakening. The fight would be over soon.

"Fall back! FALL BACK!" Another wave of zerglings hit the terran army, driving the center squad of marines back towards the tanks in disarray. The few surviving Goliaths flanked the oncoming swarm and forced them away momentarily, but they couldn’t be held off forever. The zerg had attacked just as the four remaining tanks were moving forward, and they hadn’t had time to set up before the lings were too close for their guns to fire. That attack had finally been beaten off, but the soldiers, (those that still lived,) were getting tired. They had been hacking their way across this plateau for hours, inch by bloody inch, fighting off lurkers, hydralisks and zerglings every step of the way. It was getting to be too much.

Darrel threw a quick glance toward the sky, at the dogfight going on above him. Wraiths and mutalisks dived in between each other, spitting fire in all directions, and the massive battlecruisers advanced implacably through the midst of the turmoil, their lasers frying anything that came too close. The comm crackled. The flagship was transmitting.

"All ground forces, we have a signal on the zerg hive. Beginning data feed. You are authorized and ordered to commence fire as soon as possible. Acknowledge." "Acknowledged, Liberation. Preparing to fire." Darrel shut down the comm and glanced at his gunner. "Ready?"

"Yessir."

"Then fire!"

The dogfight raged around Liberation as we moved forward into firing position. I stood on the bridge, watching missles and wurms streak past the viewport, and looking between them to our target.

The Hive.

Two long, thin towers rose from its top, both covered with spikes, giving a disturbing impression of massive saw blades. They loomed over a bloated mass of pale flesh that seemed to pulse in and out as if breathing. And through an opening in one end could barely be seen the Cerebrate, the thing I had come to kill. I looked down and smiled in triumph as the deck began to vibrate more heavily, and the energy readings of the main lasers rose.

The Cerebrates mood had swung, from from confidence to seething rage, and no small part of fear. The humans just kept coming through everything. They had penetrated the cluster to the very Hive itself, something the Cerebrate could have sworn was impossible. It writhed in fury as yet more of its minions died. The battlecruisers; they were the main threat. But they would be dealt with shortly.

All three battlecruisers redirected 90% of their energy into their laser cannon, charging every gun with twice its normal energy. They rotated slowly, bringing the zerg hive into their forward viewports as the guns began to glow red.

What were the humans doing? Their tanks had ceased advancing, the battlecruisers had stopped; no marines were firing any tracer bullets towards the zerg. A hydralisk cautiously raised its head, peering dumbly at the human ships as they rotated towards the hive, and the Cerebrate spasmed in panic as their guns glowed. The Cerebrate hadn’t noticed the cruisers move into range, and now the situation might be irredeemable.

Every zerg still alive lunged toward the human position in response to their leader’s desperate urging. Three dozen fliers rose from the ground and pelted at the battlecruisers in a bid to keep them from firing. It was the Cerebrates last hope.

"Incoming!!"

"What!?" I spun away from the viewport and glared at the sensor tech. "What’s coming?"

"Mutalisks sir, and..."

The tech never finished his sentence, because at that moment the zerg struck. Thirty mutalisks screamed past, raking the ship with fire, and six scourge plunged towards us.

There was a crash, an instant of blinding pain, and then nothing.

Darrel watched in horror through his telescopic sight as a half-dozen scourge struck the Liberation. One was shot down by a snap shot from a nearby Wraith, but five plowed into the ship. The first two hit the port wing, crumpling the support girders and breaking it entirely off the ship. The third hammered into the superstructure, blowing a hole through the main decks and destroying untold numbers of crew members and maintenance systems. The fourth blasted into the engine section, starting a chain of explosions in the center engine. The last hit the bridge.

The force of its impact drove it all the way through the clearplast viewport before it exploded, turning every control panel and deck plate within twenty feet of itself into a deadly hail of metal shards that ripped apart everyone on the bridge. At least ten foot-long pieces of shrapnel tore through the commander, the impacts lifting his body and hurling it against the far wall. He slid down the wall to the deck, leaving a huge smear of blood behind him. The battlecruiser began to fall, engines ablaze, and the zerg surged forward again.

The Cerebrate was enormously happy. The human commander was dead, his soldiers were retreating all over the plateau, and his flagship was falling out of the sky. Even with their two surviving ships, the battle was effectively over. Nothing could spoil the Cerebrates happiness. Until a thousand tons of broken, flaming capital ship fell out of the sky at 900 mph and landed directly on the zerg hive.

The explosion was truly spectacular.

When the Cerebrate died, The central node of its broods psychic net was destroyed. The zerg were receiving no orders, and their minds couldn’t handle thinking for themselves. So they simply stopped thinking at all. Some stopped in their tracks and stood there, not even moving their heads. Some continued moving in a straight line until they fell off the edge of the cliff. But most went berzerk, tearing into everything around them, killing each other and destroying their own clusters. The terrans were ignored, except by those zerg right next to them. In a single bloody hour they slaughtered every zerg on the plateau.

Darrel pushed up the canopy of his tank and stood up, surveying the carnage all around him. The only sounds were the clanking of the marines boots as they picked their way through the piles of corpses, looking for survivors. He slowly raised his comm to his mouth.

"Looks like its over, boys. Well done."

And all the soldiers began to cheer.