“Kelper! I want you shelling that shambling horde nonstop until one of two things happens, they break against this wall, or we die! Georgie! Defend him! Decker! I want you making sure he has a stable supply of ammo, feed that gun until it fucking breaks! Trenton, you take these Marines and you keep these fuckers off this wall, no matter what!”

A chorus of ‘yes sir’s’ met my orders and the Marines that had rallied to me and my men followed Trenton. It helped that everywhere that living tank went the Infested were thrown from the wall with a quick sweep of his Lance-Rifle and a few well-aimed shots at either their heads or hands, sending them tumbling back and knocking more off the wall.

For my part, I took up post beside Georgie, I didn’t really know why he was called that and started shooting into the teeming mass below us. I admit, I remember very little about this first installation of StarCraft, but I sure as hell don’t think they had an active wall or Infested Terrans bearing down on them in a seemingly endless tide of nasty.

No doubt it had to do with my difficulty modifier. Just hold out, that’s all we had to do. “Why isn’t that fucking cannon of yours firing Kelper!” I shouted back while hitting another Infested as it tried to clamor over the edge of the wall.

I spared a brief moment to glance back and find out the issue, there was none. He had just set up fully and the resulting ‘BOOM’ damn near deafened me. I screamed in shock and pain before focusing more on the Infested to close to fire upon with that monstrous thing.

Two Infested managed to launch themselves over the edge at the same time. These ones were the odd running kind, no Rifles on hand. Decker met one with his shield, throwing it back over the wall into the incoming horde below while I tried to turn my weapon in time to shoot the ugly fucker.

I’d turned it in just in time for the muzzle of the damn thing to bury itself in the Infected creature's mouth. It bit down, shaking it like a dog would a bone, growling and moaning while forcing me back. “Fuck!” I shouted, firing three bursts into the damn thing before it fell dead and I turned toward the others.

Trenton, from the few glimpses I could take, was doing a damn good job holding the wall with a few terrified Marines, he was always where he was needed most in the firing line, shoving the Infested off the wall. One of the Marines wasn’t very lucky though, he took a random bullet from below to the visor and fell into the teaming mass, being torn apart in seconds. It was a...gruesome sight.

Kelper was actively bombing the shit out of them though, everywhere his shot gaps in their numbers appeared, they filled in, but over the course of fifteen minutes, it took longer and longer. I was getting worried about the ammo stores for his weapon. I’d only brought three hundred explosive rounds, an experimental round Caspian had come up with a few days prior. We were expanding them without much thought, not that we had a choice. Thankfully the Marauders were capable of creating more grenades out of scrap metal loaded into their launchers. It would be bad if we couldn’t maintain their rates of fire.

“Sir! We’ve thinned the numbers in the center. Marshal Raynor is sending a few Marines to reinforce your position as we speak. Granit is en route as well.”

Oh, thank God for small miracles. “Roger Fernando, good work. Nova! Report!” I hadn’t heard from her in a while and was concerned, obviously.

“Sir! Sir! This is Stone, Nova is currently holding back a large wave while we evacuate the injured. Anything you can spare to assist will be…” A massive crackling sound echoed from the Comm shortly after and I felt my stomach drop. “Stone! Pierce! Someone report! Fernando! I need you to move to Nova’s position and get keep that wall standing!” I didn’t say I wanted him to keep our people alive, that was a given.

“Howdy Commander, you and your Boys saved our asses at the worst moment. Keep your man here, I’ll move to the left Flank with a few of my Boys and sort it out.”

Jim? How the hell did he get the frequency to begin with? “Fine! Just keep these fuckers from overrunning your base, Marshal! Fernando, hold position. Green! You and Andy move toward the Left flank and help treat the injured.”

Again, my unspoken command was my people. I felt bad, but none of these Marines would be following me out of here unless I got lucky like I did with Fernando. A chorus of ‘Yes Sir’, ‘You got is Boss’, and other things along those lines met the command.

Somehow, during my momentary distraction I five more Infected had gained ground on the wall and were now bearing down on me. Oh shit. Everything slowed down for me, I used the mechanical servo’s in my armors legs to help me jump back, flipped my ammo to the Burst Round, and let loose the hellish thing that it was.

The round exploded on the center Infected, flames and body parts flying all around us. I felt something smack into my right shoulder, spinning me mid-air and forcing me to hit the ground, hard. The hit took the breath from me and caused no end of confusion as my brain rattled about a bit to hard in my skull.

It took me a moment to realize I was still in the middle of a siege, Decker...at least I think that was Decker, was beside me, firing nonstop while shouting something that sounded like ‘Sir’ over and over. I shook my head, the sound coming back to me with a slowness that matched tree sap trickling down the side of a jar.

“Sir! Sir! Are you alright! You need to get up!” More gunfire, a shout of pain, followed by another Marine with a Shield moving up beside the one that should be Decker and throwing off a thing from someone's personal nightmares. Right, I was in a battle...OH SHIT! I got up as fast as I could, stumbling some, and started turning to take fire at the Infested overwhelming the Imperial Guard that was holding them back, defending me.

“Hold!” I screamed, half disoriented still and fired on instinct at a gaping maw that was trying to bite through Decker's helmet. I fired again, another Infected fell. Then, the most amazing thing happened. A massive, armored, hand shot out from behind me and gripped an infected in its hand, squeezed, then shoved his massive frame between the Imperial Guard and began throwing, I mean literally throwing, the Infested over the wall, using his free hand to launch grenades in a rapid line of explosive, white-hot, fire.

“Granit!” I shouted, he must not have heard me though. “Georgie, move Decker back and treat him as best as you can until we get a Medic over here. Trenton! Get the Marines that came with Granit into line and keep your section clear. We got this here.”

I sighed, my head still ringing from the concussive blowback of my idiocy. Thankfully, we would hold this section now. Granit alone was like a moving semi, plowing through Infested on the wall and blowing them to shit as they tried to climb with his grenades. Never have I been so happy to see something twice my size in armor shows up from out of nowhere at just the right time.

“Marshal! Have you made it to the left flank?” I called out on the comm. A few seconds of near earth shattering silence met my question before he responded, a bit out of breath. “Yea, we got here Commander. Good news for ya, your girl held off a few waves of those Infested people while they pulled the wounded out. I got the wall secured, your own people are fine though one of those Ghosts looks to be down for the count, breathing though.”

I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding, thankful beyond words that none of my people had died yet. “Right, thank you, Marshal. Nova, report!” I called out almost immediately after thanking the man.

“I’m here Damian. Andy is patching me up, I sustained minor damage while fending off those...things. Pierce took a blow to the head, one of the tentacles they have grown out of them got a lucky shot, he’s stable though. Stone is drained, he used too much of is psionic power.” A moment ticked by, then she continued. “We are fine.” I scoffed, the woman knew me pretty damn well. She knew I was worried about the lot of them.

“Understood. Green and Andy are to patch you up after that send Andy here to see about Decker, he got roughed up a bit. Green is to take care of Raynors men after seeing to your injuries.”

The swarm of Infested below us and all along the ground began to fade away, burrowing or running to some shadowing section of the area to hide. The sun had come out, after all of that hell, it had come out and the bodies of the dead were burning with the rays. I always found it odd that Infested Terran couldn’t really stand the light unless lead by Stukov for some reason. I was thankful for it now though, more thankful than I could ever say.

We had survived the first ‘night’, so to speak. Now we needed to handle the daytime aspect. I had to locate and destroy the Infested Command Center. Find a way to take an Infested Terran back with me, while preserving the body or some samples of it, and keep Jim alive. The last part would probably be the easiest. The man is a key component in the Game itself. I know I can change aspects of the history and lore based on my actions, but I doubted Jim would be someone easy to kill, least of all when the fucking condition stated he had to remain alive.

We’d been at the wall for hours, though it felt both longer and shorter than that. According to my weird ass display, it showed us having been up here for around four hours. We’d burned through a lot of ammo during that time as well. I’d expended all but the last clip of my personal ammo, and Kelper had burned through at least two-thirds of his explosive rounds.

It had been worth it though, more so when I took into account we had been dropped into this place in the middle of the fucking siege, to begin with. I’ll take it as a complete win, if for no other reason than we all survived the night...well, all of my men. I knew of at least two casualties on Raynors side.

I took a short time to check up on my own people. I say Georgie slowly removing Decker's helmet to reveal a face you would never look twice at, huh, I figured he’d be another Adonis-like Fernando. My ego says thank you System.

Apparently, the Infested’s teeth had punctured his armor and caused some damage to the sides of his face. I was now worried that the Zerg Infested could increase their numbers this way. I regretted, in so many fucking ways, not paying more attention to this aspect of the game lore. For now, he seemed stable. He was breathing, somewhat conscious if disoriented.

“Georgie, keep our boy comfortable. Andy will be here to start treatment soon.” Georgie nodded then used his shield as a form of prop for Decker's head. Trenton came over shortly after, followed by Granit who seemed to be rather pleased with blowing up so much shit.

“Good work, Trenton, Granit. You both saved us in the end, as well as the men Raynor sent to reinforce our position.” Trenton responded in his gravelly voice “Duty” man of few words, our Trenton.

“Couldn’t help it, Sir. You were having all the fun over here. According to the Marshal, your side had the highest concentration of Infested. I couldn’t allow you to hog all the glory, now could I?” I blinked a bit, didn’t realize Granit had that kind of personality. I liked it, reminded me of home...my old squad. I closed my eyes, fighting back the memory of all their pointless deaths. Forging on, that was all I could do.

“Right, well keep an eye out. I have a feeling the Infested are the least of our concerns in this hell hole. I’m moving to where Raynor has his operations center, I imagine Fernando will be there as well. Keep the men on alert, but allow them to rest as much as you can.”

A ‘yes Sir’ came from that, and I went toward the only tent I could see that didn’t seem to be awash in activity. The fact it was dead center, just behind the wall, made me think it was where I needed to go anyway. The sight of Fernando’s rather obvious armor a moment later cinched the assumption.

“...What do you think you’re doing down there, Boy? I distinctly remember telling you, you and your men, to back off and leave this to the proper authorities.”

“Proper Authorities? Not a single one of your fucking men are down here helping these people, Duke! My boys and I are going to do what you can’t, save them.”

“Now you watch your tone, Boy. This is your final warning, fall back and leave this to the professionals, or suffer the consequences.” I heard a comm cutting off, then a distinct curse, followed by a portable comm sat being hurled against the wall with enough force to shatter it.

“Marshal, you need to calm yourself. I’m sure the…” - “Calm your own ass, these are my people dying here!”

Right, ok...This was going to get worse in a moment. I moved into the tent and saw a very young looking Raynor with his face directly in Fernando’s. Fernando, ever the Stoic, seemed to remain calm. I had a feeling he was pissed though.

“Now, now. Let’s take this down a notch Raynor. We are here to help, that was Edmund Duke, right? A pompous asshole.” Not that I remembered much about that character, just snippets of conversations before he died...I think he died?

“Yer damn right he’s a pompous ass! But fine, I’ll back it up. What’s the plan then, Magistrate? How do we save these people?” I smiled, raising my visor slowly.

“That parts easy Raynor, we move out and hit these fuckers where it hurts. Get your people ready to move in the next three hours, all the ammo you can carry. We’re going Zerg hunting.”