A soft whistle came from Raynor when we got inside the facility. His eyes went directly to the five Predators as they prowled among the bodies. “That is frightening man, where did you even get those things?” Walter also looked toward me when Raynor asked the question.

“One of the scientists working under me came up with the concept after doing some research.” A white lie, considering it was Raynors that created them in the game, but neither needed to know that right now. “We should get moving, our entrance took longer than it should have, right?” Walter nodded his head at my question, and we quickly formed our teams and began moving deeper into the facility.

Leaving the spacious entrance through the only actual exit from the room, our teams split up and moved on at each divergent path until only my two Predators, Walter, Raynor, Trenton and two of my Medics remained with us. All in all, I felt our little party was a bit overkill, though I had yet to see Walter fight I knew how the rest of us did.

Georgies’ voice came through the com after about five minutes of moving at a clipped pace through the facility. Low and calm sounded my guard informed us of a minor complication. “Sir, we are about to make entry into what appears to be a weapons research lab. Preliminary observation shows it guarded lightly, but I see several possible automated emplacements, orders?”

I looked at Walter; it was technically his show since Raynor deferred to the man as well. He responded after a moments deliberation, likely weighing the risk of additional alarms going off. “Make entry, get what you can and report when you’re finished.” Georgie came back with a reluctant ‘Sir.’ I had a feeling he disliked taking orders from anyone but Trenton or me at the moment.

I shrugged it off though; it didn’t matter one way or the other in all honesty. We kept moving with quick stops to respond to a teams call in. Two found empty rooms with odd vials the size of a man filled with solutions and floating Zerg bodies. That didn’t shock me as much; I remembered that the Confederates were testing ways of controlling the Zerg. This was just one of the facilities doing such. Those teams took what data they could and moved back to the entrance to await extraction as well as defend our rear.

Others located minor resistance but little in the way of actual data for us and were forced to leave the corridors empty-handed, aside from a few scientists that Walter had ordered captured at least. They weren’t being killed, so it wasn’t my problem.

Georgie had finished her mission, taking the room without complications. Georgie had two other Imperial Guards, and they were primarily defensive specialized, so they just soaked up the majority of enemy fire before they stormed in with the Predator assigned them used as a vanguard. Her information was a bit more prudent. The room they had taken was security, all their cameras were also trained on my team, and another camera was showing what looked like empty cages deeper in the facility. I frowned, a bit concerned about that. No doubt it was an experiment or something else that would be nasty in a close quarters fight.

They went further along their path after informing us and Walter had me send the Predators a little further ahead to act as forward scouts. The fact they would take the brunt of any attack would keep us safer as well. Raynor came up beside Walter and pointed at the doors my Predators were growling out, likely their mechanical sensors telling them something was on the other side.

“Think whatever was in those cages is waiting in there?”

“Likely” was Walters reply.

I grunted at that and moved forward, Trenton hot on my heels, shield at the ready. “We need to get this door open if we plan to go deeper boys. Worrying about anything nasty won’t help us. Open the door, Trenton.” He moved silently forward while Walter growled a little at me, though Raynor and he walked behind me.

“I got a bad feeling.” Raynor murmured behind me; I happened to agree with him as well. Shrugging, I hoisted my rifle and aimed at the opening of the door. When it started opening, an audible hiss accompanying it, I heard what was on the other side and whatever it was, was fucking pissed.

Screeching and what sounded like claws scraping the ground came through the crack like opening. As it widened, I got a good look inside and what I saw made my stomach drop a little bit. It fell a bit more when a single creep covered arm burst through the opening doors, tentacles and an increased screaming coming through. I put a round into the head I could see on the other side and shouted: “We got infested!”

The doors opened wider, enough for something to try and shove its way through them sideways. Trenton took the infested that attempted out with a single thrust from his lance rifle before moving beside me. Raynor and Walter couldn’t fire, their weapons were designed for more intensive firing, it’d risk hitting me if they did. The Medics were busy popping single rounds from their pistols into the mass of nasty trying to get at us though.

When the doors opened wide enough to allow us to storm through one at a time I let out a sharp whistle to send in the Predators, taking out another Infested that had launched itself at us in the dim lighting.

The Predators rushed in one at a time, the screaming only intensifying when the Infested deeper in the room realized they had company. I took a step back, allowing Trenton to lead the charge after the Predators began their attack. I saw a few limbs go flying before my vision was blocked and Trenton moved in with his massive shield. He grunted as something heavy hit it, and then he was through with myself, Walter, Raynor, and our Medics right behind him.

I took another shot at an Infested that threw itself at me just as I cleared the doors. The fucker was on the damn wall beside us, looking like a creepy humanoid bug. That had me searching the ceiling above, and I damn near screamed when my light hit the swarming mass above. How many fucking Infested did they have!?

“Above us!” I shouted, taking aim and firing a Burst Round into the teaming mass, even as they started dropping from above in an attempt to swarm us. Raynor took up shooting beside me while I pushed the Medics between Trenton and I. They had to stay safe and keep us fucking alive.

Walter brought up his weapon and started firing as well. I heard the gunfire, but I also felt a wave of heat and looked over in surprise as a gout of flame spewed from beneath the rifles main barrel. I had assumed it was a grenade launcher or something. I was wrong.

Infested screamed in what I assumed was fear as the flames from Walters weapon burned them alive, even as his gunfire took not more behind them. The Predators were making quick work of the majority of the Infested on the ground, though the fuckers were trying to bury them in numbers. Quick bursts of electricity took care of them, the powerful surge from the beasties fried Infested in large numbers.

It took twenty minutes of that hell, fighting Infested coming at us from every fucking angle before we cleared them. Everyone was breathing heavily as well. It had been a hard twenty minutes, and we almost lost a Medic from a lucky fucker that dropped from above at just the right angle. That same Medic was currently kicking the Infested in question while cursing under his breath. I left him to it, for now, he needed to work that trauma out quickly before we moved on.

“See anything else, Trenton?” I asked while Raynor was keeping his eyes on the ceiling above, Walter was watching the walls. The big man gave a negative response, and the Predators were also silent while they moved about the Infested corpses.

“Alright, check for tags on anyone, we need to see if these men and women were part of the facility or not,” Walter ordered, so we did. Raynor was the one who found a tag.

“Walter! It's the facilities people alright; this poor guy was Beck. Mengsk said he was one of the planted workers.”

Walter looked like he faltered a bit at that information while Raynor found a bit more here and there muttering when he did. “Dear God, they are the facilities staff, all of them...What the hell happened here?”

A damn good question, one we needed to be answered. Walter seemed to agree because he had us form up and move out. The room itself was far to trashed to extract data from, and we needed to keep moving. With luck, nothing else would go wrong, though I had a feeling that it wouldn’t be actual people we were fighting now. I ignored the fact that the oversized entrance guard may have very well been the survivors of the facility trying to escape, at least those that knew what was happening. None of the scientists the other teams captured had mentioned this either.

“Sir...We found something; you’re all gonna want to see this as well.” Georgie came across the coms then, making me damn near jump out of my skin, I was still wound tight from the Infested. “What did you find?” I shot back, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice at being the only one who had jumped a bit.

“We aren’t sure sir, but it's talking and doesn’t have a mouth, some alien.” Her voice was filled with trepidation, and I almost shat a brick, that sounded like a damn Protoss, why the hell was one in this facility?

“Sirs, you need to hurry! It’s trying to get inside our heads and make us open the cell!” Oh shit, it was a powerful Protoss. I ignored the sudden shout from Walter when I raised my voice. “Get out of that room and seal the fucking door! I’m on my way, do not do anything to or for that creature!”

I took off running then, Trenton and the Predators following beside me. “What the hell are you doing!?” Walter shouted before moving to catch up, looking pissed as hell. “We need to get to them before we finish this shit. If I’m right, that thing they found is a Protoss, and we need to make sure it’s on our side before we release it!” I shot back at him, running back through the carnage of the Infested room and toward Georgie and his team.