“Move move move!” Raynor shouted in the comm. This was even worse than the banelings. With the banelings, they could still gun them down. This time...what could he do to the twenty meter long, five meter tall ultralisk? Shoot it? Burn it? The most effective weapon the Raiders had were the marauders, but it would take a couple hundred grenades at the absolute minimum to take the giant assault beast down. Unfortunately, the zerg would’ve broken through the Raider’s formation and sliced everyone up an hour before that.

The only thing they could do was run. They were close to the starport. Ultralisks were giant, and one of the prices of the enormous size was the lack of speed. Ultralisks weren’t the fastest zerg unit, and if everything went right the Raiders should’ve been long gone when the ultralisk got close enough to actually matter.

“Sir, you can never outrun the zerglings.” The voice Raynor was having nightmares of reminded. Maybe ultralisks weren’t fast enough to catch up to the marines, but zerglings were. The marines couldn’t sprint and fire at the same time. If they fled, then the best result would be losing a large portion of the Raiders before reaching safety. Worst case, all the Raiders would be surrounded and sliced apart.

“Then what do you suggest?” Raynor said loudly. The screams of individual Raiders that were too slow shook his heart. Some of the marines and even marauders and firebats were intercepted by the zerglings. With incredible efficiency, the hounds ripped open the armor and teared out the flesh. The trapped men fired desperately, but a few guns couldn’t stop the zerglings from ripping their intestines out.

Screams covered the radio. Raynor held his fist tight. Every man that fell was precious. They were soldiers that gave their lives fighting for justice and freedom. They were a part of the Raiders, and yet they were also dead because of his order.

Raynor knew very well there would always be casualties in war, but that didn’t mean he was ok with it.

Jean took a few seconds to check on the state of The Hyperion. Two of the five corruptors were down, but the remaining three were still able to keep The Hyperion occupied. Help from the ship was a distant thing.

As screams continued from below, Jean started thinking.

Unlike the Raiders on the ground, she was safe. Nothing the zerg had could threaten the command center. If she wanted, she could just sit back and watch helplessly like every other officer and SCV in the command center. Even if every Raider on the ground was massacred, they could still stay alive long enough for The Hyperion to arrive and pick them up.

But staying alive wasn’t Jean’s objective, or at least it wasn’t the most prioritized objective. For some reason, she subconsciously wanted to complete her mission. No, that wasn’t accurate. For some reason, she subconsciously wanted to stay alive and gain more power, and in order to do that she must complete her mission. Keeping the Raiders and Raynor alive was a crucial part of that.

That was why she was doing something rather risky.

“Adjutant, prepare to land the command center.”

“What?” An officer frowned.

“Hostile zerg units are detected near the surface. Landing the command center here is unadvised.” The adjutant’s voice was as cold as ever despite the strange order.

“There are launch pods in the command center, correct?” Jean ignored both the officer and the adjutant.

“We have emergency escape pods.”

“Sir, I have a plan.” Jean said through the comm.

“I’m all ears!” Raynor yelled as two more Raiders fell. He unloaded a chain of bullets into the pursuing zerg and three zerglings fell, but four immediately took their place.

“I’m dropping the command center on the road.” Jean said quickly.

“What?” Raynor frowned. Dropping buildings on top of enemy forces wasn’t exactly the standard terran battle tactic.

“The highway is surrounded by trees and hills. Zerg will be slowed down if they can’t move on the road. The command center is taller than the ultralisk and as wide as the highway. It can effectively stall the zerg!” Jean yelled.

“But we are on the command center!” The captain of the SCVs reminded as he heard what Jean said through the comm.

“We can abandon ship.” Jean said quietly before giving out orders. “All units in this building, go to the escape pods and aim for as close to the road as possible. Adjutant, as soon as all escape pods are launched, drop the command center in front of the ultralisk but behind the Raiders. Sir?” She asked for one final permission from her leader.

“Do it!” Raynor finally decided. “Do it now!”

Nodding, Jean and the officers in the building ran to the lower deck of the ten meter tall structure. There, a line of launch pods rested above a gate. Jean chose one to go into. The door sealed, and a few seconds later she felt the pod being tossed into the air.

On the ground, Raynor watched as six small figures came down from the giant command center. He grinned slightly as he recognized what they were.

With the occupants gone, the command center started to get closer and closer to the surface of the planet.

On the road, a hydralisk saw a shadow on the ground. Confused, it looked into the sky. That was when it saw the descending giant metal beast.

The hydralisk growled sharply as it passed what it saw to the broodmother in command. The psychic network delivered the news without a second of delay and the zerg on the ground wasted no time to move away.

With one final bang, the command center made contact with the floor. Due to the rapid response of the broodmother, most of the zerg units weren’t crushed, but then again the command center’s job wasn’t to kill any zerg. It was to delay them.

With the road shut, the zerg units behind the command center tried to move through the side, but that didn’t really go well as they had to go past all sorts of obstacles. As evolved as zerglings were, their tiny wings couldn’t allow them to fly over cliffs. Some units started hitting on the command center, but the armor was more than enough to hold for the time being.

A small portion of the zerg that was tight on the Raider’s tail managed to get by the command center. Unfortunately, they weren’t as menacing as they used to be without reinforcements.

“Blast them!” The Raiders were afraid of a couple thousand zerglings, a couple hundred hydralisks, and one ultralisk. They weren’t intimidated by a couple dozen zerglings. Raynor turned around and started firing on the zerglings. The rest of his men did a similar thing. Avenging their fallen brothers, these men didn’t hesitate to kill every single zergling in the field.

When all the zerglings were clear, Raynor turned his attention toward the woman that made this possible. His heart darkened as he realized the drop pods didn’t land on the highway. “Jean! Where are you?”

Meanwhile, Jean was in a dangerous spot. The drop pods missed by a bit, and the supposed arrival location, which was on the road near the starport, turned out to be a short distance in the forest. It was within walking distance to the road and therefore the starport, but it was also a distance away from the Raiders.

Jean and a couple SCVs walked out of the escape pod they were in. Beside them were half a dozen escape pods. The command center launched the pods at a relatively low altitude, so the pods, despite being off course, landed close to each other.

When all two dozen SCVs and half a dozen officers walked out, Jean pointed at the road. “We need to move now! It’s not safe out here! This planet is practically crawling with zerg.” They were non-combatants. The best fighting unit they had were SCVs, and that said something.

“Yes sir.” The SCV captain said as the team started to move. They were close to their destination, but they were also slower than most zerg. SCVs were at least vehicles, but the officers had to move with their legs. Needless to say, that wasn’t fast.

The squad moved as fast as they could. The SCVs moved on the side while the officers ran in the center. As she ran, Jean sensed a wave of fatigue on her body. She wasn’t wearing any sort of armor, and she was never someone into exercise. Her body was weak. This wasn’t ideal. She wanted to be a commander and should never get herself into battle, but if things like this was to happen again and she was once again forced into a hostile situation, she would need to make herself physically stronger, whether it was with technology or something else. She wasn’t planning to melee the queen of blades and win, but at least she wanted to be able to survive a couple zerglings.

Suddenly, the SCV captain shouted in the comm with a shaking voice.

“Sir, zerg on the left!”

Jean turned and saw movement in the trees. She looked at the road. Her team was still half a minute of walking distance away from the main road, and if things went wrong the half a minute would turn into an eternity.

“All units prepare for battle. SCVs go to the front. Others stay behind.” Jean said coldly. Her calm voice established a tiny bit of what could barely be called confidence in her men.

The SCVs followed orders, despite being almost paralyzed by fear. As the relatively tougher space construction vehicles moved to the front, Jean took out her sidearm.

It was a gauss pistol. Unlike the gauss rifles, the gauss pistol allowed its user to fire without wearing some sort of armor. It was practically designed for officers like her. Unfortunately, the power of the pistol wasn’t that good either. It was more for show rather than for actual combat. In terms of combat, it was at most useful against unarmored terran. Against a swarm of zerg...Jean didn’t like her chances.

But even now she wasn’t desperate. Her heart was as cold as ice as she loaded her weapon and glanced through the enemies. Behind her, the officers took out whatever sidearm they had as well. They were shaking, but they knew they had to stand and fight as a group to have any hope of surviving. Running away would only result in them being picked off individually.

The zerg took a minute to realize the team wasn’t some sort of bait before attacking. Most of them were zerglings, but they were more than enough to deal with the small squad.

The SCVs held their ground, which was never a sentence a terran would want to hear. Zergling claws sliced through their vehicle plating as the workers did all they could to retaliate with their fusion cutters. The mining and construction tool wasn’t as effective in terms of its military usage.

Jean and the officers did all they could to fire against the zerg. In most cases the bullets would either miss or bounce off the carapace, but some attack were better than nothing.

A zergling charged at an officer. The man gulped as he fired at the beast as calmly as he could manage, but the gauss bullets merely bounced off. With one last leap, the zergling found itself above the man. Reaching its claws down, the zergling dug out the guts of the officer as the poor man screamed.

Jean was a few steps away from the fallen man, and she used the opportunity and fired a single bullet into the zergling’s eye. The projectile accurately went through the defenseless area and pierced the zergling’s brain, killing it instantly. Evolutions like organ redundancy, copying major organs and putting them randomly across the unit’s body, wasn’t used on something as basic as a zergling.

Unfortunately, the entire line was collapsing. SCVs were ripped apart and the drivers were dragged out and dissected. Officers were similar to their miner brothers. The only difference was that they didn’t need to be dragged out to be cut into pieces.

A zergling jumped in front of Jean. The beast growled. It was an intimidation tactic, aimed to make the foe turn and run and be hunted down without a fight. As vulnerable its target may seem, it was always more efficient to take her without a fight compared to potentially taking a wound. The screams of dying men helped to add to the chill. Unfortunately for the zergling, it was trying to scare someone that could never be scared.

Finally, the zergling realized it was on a lost cause. Giving one final growl, it leaped at Jean.

Jean stood still for a few seconds as the zergling was about to land on her. Suddenly, at the exact correct second, she raised her gauss pistol at the exact position it need to be in. A bullet flied out and slammed the zergling in the face.

Lucky for Jean, the zergling was of a small brood. If it was a zergling from Kerrigan’s brood, armed with adrenal glands, hardened carapace, shredding claws, and just generally speaking more evolved claws and carapace, the bullet would literally do nothing. In fact, Jean wouldn’t even have the chance to pull the trigger at the correct moment because the speed of the zergling would be faster than her neural reflex.

Thankfully, this was an ‘if’, and the zergling was intercepted in mid air. It was in the air when it was shot at, so it couldn’t effective dodge. Upon being hit, the momentum of the zergling’s jump was lost, and it simply fell on the ground, still a distance away from Jean.

The girl backed up while firing. The zergling was still struggling to recover from the first shot when the second shot came, and then the third. At the sixth bullet, the zergling died in a puddle of its own blood.

Jean pressed a button and the near emptied magazin fell out. She wiped her hand on her belt, and a fresh magazin appeared in her left hand. She pressed it into her pistol while looking around.

The place was a slaughterhouse. Almost all the terran were dead. A few SCVs tried to run, but the only difference they made was to make their corpse a few steps away from that of their comrades.

Jean didn’t have much time to think when she suddenly heard a growl from behind her. Without thinking, she threw herself forward. A ripping pain exploded on her back, but her last action saved her life. Instead of being turned inside out, she survived this attack with a half a meter long wound on her back.

Turning over and ignoring the pain with astonishing willpower, Jean fired on the zergling whose claws were still red. With a few calm and accurate shots, this zergling fell dead.

Reloading again while looking around, Jean knew she could never fight her way out. There were at least twenty zerglings around her, and they would be upon her in just seconds. She would need a lot more than a small gauss pistol to save herself.

Facing death, Jean’s heart was unwavered. Even now, she didn’t regret her choice. She analyzed the situation and made a decision she thought was correct based on her analysis. That was it. If this happened again she would make the same decision.

Suddenly, a wave of gunshots echoed through the forest. The zerglings turned their attention away from the girl and made a move on the attackers, only to get gunned down by a horde of marines. The blue armor told Jean who these marines were. A man in grey armor was among the first to fight.

Ever since Jean realized the escape pods deviated from the original course, she told Raynor where she was. She trusted the man would come to get her, and she was right.

From the beginning, Jean wasn’t planning on getting onto the road with her rag tagged team. Instead, she was planning on staying alive as long as possible. Even if all the SCVs and the officers died, as long as she was alive when help arrived, it would be a worthy trade. She kept both herself and the majority of the Raiders alive. Sure, she lost a couple workers and some officers, but that was hardly a big loss.

Now out of danger, Jean allowed herself to collapse.