No sooner had I whispered my vulgarity that a massive moving metal man entered the room I was in through a sliding door, shouting out ‘Commander!’ as loud as he good, gasping for breath. I blinked a moment before I realized he was shouting at me.

“Er...Go ahead soldier,” I said slowly. He bent over, the motion weird looking in all that armor the Marines wore. A moment later he hurriedly said, yelled really. “Commander! Sir! Th - the - there are Z coming at us!”

Stuttering aside the Marine composed himself fairly quickly, a thick southern twang accompanying his report. I frowned, lifting my visor on my helmet because the display was fucking with me, the name Pvt. Reynolds lapping over his face was kinda freaking me out. I knew damn well the game didn’t have anything like that built into the lore of a Marines suit, so it was the System giving me information.

“Alright, Reynolds. Slow down, Zerg, alright I understand. Are the Civilians safe behind our lines?” That was my biggest worry once I forced my training to kick in and the habit of taking the hits while moving forward to come to the forefront of my psyche.

“Sir! Yes, all civilians are behind our defensive line. We need you there though, the boys are getting itchy and scared”

Ok...fuck my life. I wasn’t fighting with trained Marines, I was fighting with a Militia and new recruits. That must be the difficulty kicking in. Ok, I can work with that. I need more information though, and apparently, I needed to get my ass moving.

“Walk and talk Reynolds, take me to the front and describe our situation!” I shouted as I pushed him out the door, hoping he took the hint to lead me out since I had no clue where the hell I was going.

Thankfully he took the hint and started moving at a jog. I followed a step behind with our metal encased feet clanking against the metal floor as we went. Most of it went by in a blur, but I noticed what looked like a munitions room, filled with ammo, though no guns. I frowned at that but assumed that everyone had theirs. Though, Reynolds’ was nowhere to be seen at the moment.

“Sir, we had just got the last Civilian across the bridges and a few bunkers set up when we saw the first outline of the Zerg coming for us.” He paused, choking back what I swear was a sob of fear and hopeless resignation. “There...are so many Sir, how are we gonna make it through this with only the men from the Militia?”

His worries were valid, honestly. If I remember right Militia forces were typically slaughtered by the Zerg a lot quicker than trained Marines were. They broke easier, more so during the Confederacy, but I had no clue which timeline this tutorial was set to. Judging by bridges though, it might be from the sequel to the classic game. It’d be too much to hope for it to be the same place Raynor and Tychus were if that were the case though. That’d make this a bit of a no-brainer with such powerful fighters.

No, more than likely this was a just what the system said. A randomly generated hellish map to test me, and do its best to kill me.

It took a moment in our jog through this structure before I realized he wanted to be reassured. I had to bite back the mental comment that I was the one fucked here, instead just saying “No thinking Reynolds, just be ready to hold the line with the other boys, I’ll be right there with you.”

For some reason he seemed to take heart in that, I think. It was hard to tell with his visor down, but I just assumed he did. When we left the structure, Reynolds paused a moment at the door and picked up to guns, handing one to me a small information tab popped in front of my view, making me frown at it.

C-14 Rifle

Dmg - 2-5

Upgrade - 0/3

Ammo - 1000

Standard Dominion rifle, fires in thirty burst rounds.

Ok...that was going to get annoying fast. But I went with it. The upgrade part reminded me thoroughly of the game. It also gave me some ideas if I could make it through this first wave of running death.

The rhythmic staccato of gunfire met us as we left, my eyes growing wide as I saw the cause. Hundreds of Zerglings were on two different bridges, swarming forward. A quick glance showed maybe twenty Marines in a line between two reasonably large structures that I assumed were bunkers at both bridges. I expected the rest were inside firing.

I heard yelling and screaming as well. “Reynolds! Move your ass, nor more waiting. Head to the right and tell the boys to unload. The Zerg shouldn’t be too entrenched yet, that means this is just the first wave and it will end! I’ll take the right and make sure the liens hold. Keep those fuckers back, don’t let them near you!”

I screamed and took off to the right, flicking my visor down, an overlay showing me green dots for my Marines, and red dots for the Zerglings, the boggling amount was frightening. Each bridge had to have about three hundred of these fuckers there.

The fact they were a lot bigger than I thought they would be scared me even more. Rather than the size of a medium size dog like I initially thought, they were more akin to the size of a large Labrador, only instead of soft fluffy fur, all that was seen was rushing and screaming mass of muscle and claws hell-bent on ripping you to shreds.

I squelched the scream, building in my throat at what I could only assume was going to be a very quick and painful end. I did NOT let out a girlish yelp of fear as soon as I was away from Reynolds, absolutely not.

When I made it down the ramp, which was metal. I was beginning to see a theme here. I slid in beside one of the Marines in the firing line, shouting over the fire. “Report!” There, simple, redundant, but simple.

He let out a yell that seemed to burst up from the very bowels of his being while unloading a thirty round burst ina pray-and-spray motion at the swarm that appeared to be halfway across the bridge. I blinked at the sight of a horde of seemingly endless large sized four-legged creatures with spikes, fangs, and a shrieking cry fell under the bullet spray, only to be swallowed by the numbers behind it. “Fuck me…” I whispered, the soldier replying after he made spray and pray shooting.

“What do you think it is!? It’s fucking hell, and a hand basket and our goose’ is cooked!”

Alright then, I resisted the urge to laugh at the classic line before lifting the canon that was the C-14 Rifle and unloading a burst into the Zerg swarm, a notification popping up as I did.

Zerglings killed - 3/500

Ignore it, ignore it. Get through this wave, take stock of the situation. The System wouldn’t send me to a sure death, and it wouldn’t set it up this badly without a way out. Hold out, just hold out.

That became a mantra as the Marines beside me let loose round after round, emptying and reloading their clips multiple times as the Zerg got closer foot by foot in their mad dash toward us.

I yelled in pure fear as I unloaded my own bursts of fire, no sense of control to be found in the adrenaline-fueled situation that was the literal stuff of nightmares. By the time the Zerglings all fell, they had made it to within at least sixty feet of us, judging by how the last one had launched itself and fell halfway through under a hail of bullets.

I ignored the pop up telling me I had hit the fifty mark of Zerglings killed, more concerned about getting my breathing under control as I bent forward, fighting to not throw up inside my own helmet, around me the Militia, Marines, whatever were doing about the same.

When I managed to get myself under control, I looked at the man beside me in the firing line, oddly enough his name was Goose...Seriously? Goose? Ok... “Goose, get the boys on watch, look to the skies too, we don’t need anything airborne surprising us with our pants down. Send some of them to pack all that ammo out of the armory while you’re at it, give me a stock of our munitions, numbers, and an ETA on that fucking transport!”

He looked at me a moment “Yes, Sir!” then went about doing his orders. I sighed, concerned a moment, but I guess the System made these boys loyal to me in the Tutorial Maps, Mission Maps would have to be seen later...if I survived this anyway.

Right. First things first, I have bonus objectives. Keep all the Marines alive, that wasn’t red or crossed out or anything, so I think all of them made it through the first wave. Another two were personal kills on Zerg, of which I had fifty Zerglings of five-hundred. The two Hives...No, fuck that, not even gonna try. I’ll focus on keeping these boys alive and killing Zerg. First things first though.

I have to find a way to focus all of them on one point of defense or nearly all of them. Leave a token force of twenty to scout, but how? The bridges? Take them out and remove the Zerg crossing? I meant...it didn’t happen in the game because it was meant to ensure everyone escaped that hadn’t. But according to Reynolds, all Civilians were already in the designated safe area, and all the Marines were here so…

The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of just blowing those bridges, but the Zerg has a nasty habit of adapting quickly so I had to leave at least one bridge or I’d deal with purely air forces, and these Militia were already unable to aim properly.

I couldn’t upgrade weapons or build new buildings either which meant I was stuck at the lowest weapon and armor upgrades and I was limited in men. Right, this was beyond brutal, it was Hellish.

I sat there, staring at the bridge for at least half an hour while my men, had to think of them that way, for now, busied themselves with orders given when Goose returned, Reynolds with him. Multiple Marines were moving boxes of ammo out to the center point between both kill points.

I took a deep breath, and breathe out slowly while lifting the visor to stare at them a moment. “Tell me good news boys. I need it.”

They both looked at each other, Goose shrugged, and Reynolds hesitatingly started speaking. “Not optimal, Commander. We have about five-hundred thousand rounds of ammo for the rifles, twenty thousand Long-Shot Missiles for the Missile Turrets, and about ten thousand grenades by the last count. It...isn’t enough, Sir.”

I clicked my teeth in a tch sound, before slowly looking at the bridge again. “Well then, let's make it enough..”

A few hours later, I was still beings questioned about my choice. I had moved all but twenty Marines to the left bridge while loading the support structures of the right one down with about one thousand Long-Shot missiles, a rigged explosive set-up in my hand as I stared at the newly incoming wave of Zerg...This one seemed almost triple the size of the last one.

“Sir! This is insane, we need more men, and the Bridge being blown? It won’t change anything! The damn things are ancient and don’t have a massive yield, even with the amount you set up…”

I eyed Reynolds a moment before grunting at him. “Shut up, Reynolds. I have them all set to key support structures and this place will maintain twenty Marines at all times to monitor the situation. You said it yourself, we don’t have enough to defend two fronts with our limit ammunition supply. This will make it so we have one main choke point, and can keep an eye on the skies easily.”

Reynolds went off on another tirade. I knew it was his fear taking over. I still wanted to smack him though. I mean, I was scared to, I was the one holding the fucking fuse box, hoping that it went off correctly, while allowing all those big bastards onto the bridge, fighting the urge to break and run while they charged toward me. The men in the bunkers were firing, killing as many as they could while we waited for more and more to get onto the bridge itself.

I waited, it didn’t take long for the fast fuckers to reach the seventy-five percent point on the bridge, and I pushed the pump down, activating the fuses. Seconds ticked by, and sweat began pouring down my face as I waited, and with each second the Zerglings hoped and ran in their mad dash to cross the bridge.

I was busy praying, making peace with God for all I’d done, sure that I had failed and would die when suddenly a massive explosion was heard, and another, and another. The bridge started shaking, I blinked. Picked up my C-14 and started shooting at the Zerglings closest to us, fucking ten feet from the cliff supporting our end of the bridge.

I saw the bridge itself start to sway, and tilt, a wave-like motion shuddering through it at the combined weight of at least six hundred Zerg and the explosions caused it to buckle on itself, falling to the bottomless ravine below.

The shrieks and cries of the Zerg as they fell to their deaths. The scratches of those that had gotten close enough that one of their grasping appendages had grazed my armor. That one made me piss myself. It was soon followed by a massive crash, and then ragged yells of victory from myself and twenty Marines on this side of the bridge as we had taken an enormous amount of the fuckers out, and it showed my plan had worked!

I spent a moment at that thought, and it hit me. Holy shit...it worked. “IT WORKED!!!” I screamed out after my joyous cry of emotion, Reynolds joining me in disbelieve and joy. But the day wasn’t over, I knew it. Savoring only a moment of the sweet fact we survived, before telling Reynolds to stay here with the boys while I rushed to the last bridge to help defend it...I still had a long day ahead of me. The dinging of notifications utterly ignored as they swept by my vision.

Zerglings killed - 439/500

Hydralisks killed - 147/500