Realizing they were discovered, over fifty infested terran leaped out of the ground. The ambush failed, but there was always the option of swarming the enemies with brute force.

Fortunately, the Warden marines responded just in time, and all the burrowed infested terran were in front of the terran strike team. This meant all the Warden marines needed to do was focus all their firepower in one direction, and all the infested terran would be mowed down like crops in a harvest.

The infested civilians collapsed one by one. On one hand the narrow hallway meant the infested could jump all around the terran forces and they would be forced into melee with the infested with nowhere to fall back to, which was never a good thing.

On the other hand, it meant the infested could only take the full brunt of the firepower of the Warden marines now that they were exposed. They charged fiercely, but only a couple could move forward at the same time, and they were faced with twenty rifles.

At the end of the tunnel, the broodmother, behind the guard of hundreds of infested, felt the psionic presence of the infested terran standing guard at the tunnel disappearing one by one. She knew the presence of the terran a while ago, but she thought she could deal with them. Now, she realized the terran forces were much stronger than she imagined, and the trap she set up was being wiped out.

She had millions of infested under her command, but most of them needed time to arrive. For now, every unit mattered. As long as she could live until reinforcements arrive, she would be the final victor of this exchanged.

The broodmother passed down a psionic order in the zerg hivemind. The moment the order was given, in the tunnel, the sea of infested terran suddenly retreated. The marines fired at them, but they simply turned and ran. When the smoke cleared, the infested were nowhere to be seen. Only the several dozen bodies on the ground reminded the terran of their formal encounter.

The reapers were paralyzed in fear. If the Warden marines weren’t here, then they would be walking into a trap. Reapers’ strength laid in their maneuverability and firepower, not their melee ability. They weren’t firebats. If they were surrounded, they would be ripped apart. Even if they survived the hundreds of infested, that was just the outer sentries. They would have no chance of completing their mission.

“Ahh...thanks.” The reaper captain walked up to the purple helmeted Warden marine. He had to admit at first he was frowning upon this group of mysterious allies, but now he was simply glad. As an experienced mercenary, he knew very well how a group of capable allies could help in a situation like this. The chance of surviving for both him and his men multiplied several times just by the presence of the Warden marines.

The Warden captain looked at him, but his AI was programmed for combat purposes only. It didn’t respond to the gratitude.

“Advance.”

The reaper captain was slightly taken back, but he nonetheless nodded and complied without the slightest fragment of grudge. It was normal for people to be rude, as long as they had the skill to back it up. Skilled people being rude was called pride. It was only arrogance when people didn’t have the skill and still wanted to be above everyone else.

The Warden units have proved their skills to the reapers, and now the man was totally fine with being ignored.

Waving his hand, the reapers moved forward behind the Warden marines.

As they moved, occasionally the Warden marines would open fire on certain locations, and the few infested that the broodmother left as scouts were shot dead. Only the Warden captain had advanced scanners capable of detecting burrowed units, but the Warden network allowed the captain to notify normal Warden units of the enemy’s presence.

All the way infested units kept on coming. Unlike the full scale assault the infested usually approached with, this time only a couple infested came at a time. They weren’t meant to do damage to the terran strike team. They were meant to waste terran bullets. Out of all three races, terran might be the race that relied most heavily on ammunition. Most terran units were reduced to scraps without their precious bullets.

Just because marines had blades on the tip of their rifles didn’t mean they were melee units.

A loud crack appeared as the M98 ballistic alloy combat shield of a mercenary marine fell apart. It was made of 30 mm of bonded carbide, but it had taken dozens of shots in the past minutes.

The war pig holding the shield demonstrated why he was a highly paid mercenary and was still alive. As soon as the shield fell, with astonishing decisiveness, he covered his head with his left arm and rolled over.

Several bullets hit him in the armor and one of them went for his head, but none of them reached anywhere critical. The marine quickly found himself behind the cover of the meters of steel of a bunker. He was wounded but alive.

“Fall back!”

The Raider captain glanced at the infested. The mountain of bodies have gone so high that the living infested could barely be distinguished from the dead. All the marines could see was a wave of gauss rifles firing at them among the pile of flesh. Some of the marines bit their lips and suppressed their urge to vomit. Their suits sealed off the smell, but it was as if the foul scent of the broken flesh could still reach the marines through their armors.

There was too much infested. The Raider captain estimated at least six hundred dead, but three times that number have taken the place of the fallen. He glanced into a distance and could only see seas of flesh. It was as if they infested hadn’t been taking the punishment of over a hundred elite terran soldiers.

The second line of defense could no longer be maintained. Most of the Raiders ran out of bullets, and even if they did they have lost the positional advantage and were pinned down. The infested were powering through with their sheer power. Nonetheless, that didn’t mean the Raiders were doomed.

There was a reason Raynor’s Raiders could survive against the Dominion against all odds. They were slick bastards, and they always had a trick up their sleeves.

As the order was given, the units within the bunkers exited first. They ran toward the third line for twenty meters before kneeling down behind cover in shooting position. As they were in place, the rest of the Raiders turned and retreated, forming a line of defenses twenty meters behind the first layer of men, who were firing on the advancing infested. This type of coordinated retreat meant the infested could never take advantage of the retreat and swarm upon the defenseless Raiders.

The female marine let loose another string of bullets at the infested before turning and running. Her combat shield faced the side of the infested and covered most of her body. She ran past one of the Raiders when the man suddenly caught her by the arm.

She frowned and looked at the marine, but the latter simply pointed at the ground before turning back and laying down suppressing fire.

The female marine stood for a few seconds and realized something. She moved slowly and looked at the ground more closely, and came to the understanding that the ground she was about to step onto wasn’t exactly solid ground.

Understanding what was going to happen, she smirked, turned back and looked at the infested again, and moved by through a certain path.

As all the Raiders reached the third line of defense, the infested were already over the second. Bunkers were ripped apart, but all the infested found were used bullet shells. Nothing else. Even the few dead bodies were carried back to safety. The Raiders had no intention of letting their fallen brothers be turned to the monsters they died fighting.

The infested weren’t frustrated. Their order was to take down the entire settlement, and that line of defense was just the first step. They charged at the third line of the Raiders.

A few marines aimed their rifles at the infested.

“Hold your fire.”

The calm voice of the Raider captain in command of this battle group made these men think twice.

Some of the marines were confused, but the female marine was not one of them. Instead, she held a satisfied grin. What she saw justified the lack of firing.

The first infested reached the halfway point between the second line and the third line before suddenly collapsing into a large pit. The pit wasn’t that deep and the fall wasn’t enough to kill the infested, but judging from the several spikes that went through the infested’s body and limbs, the zerg unit wouldn’t be in combat condition anytime soon.

The half a dozen infested following the first infested saw the fate of their predecessor. Their mutated brains devised the best course of action, which was to stop. Unfortunately, the thousands of infested following didn’t share the same knowledge. The zerg psionic network connected the basic zerg units to overlords to broodmothers. It didn’t create a pathway between individual zerg units. Even if it did, cannon fodders like infested terran would be the last to be mutated.

The sheer momentum of the army smashed into the infested that tried to stop themselves, pushing them into the pit and onto the columns of sharp pikes.

Some of the infested was pierced through the head and was killed instantly, but most of the infested survived with some sort of injury. The only problem was alive didn’t mean in battle condition. Even the infested couldn’t heal with several pieces of steel inside their bodies. Plus, infested couldn’t exactly get up when they were under a pile of fellow infested, especially since that pile was constantly growing.

Behind one of the bunkers, the female marine smiled. While she and the fellow Raiders were holding their ground at the second line, the colonists have dug open a trap for the infested. Their mining vehicles and all sort of pikes might not be effective against the full scale attack of the infested, but if they were put to good use, they might just save the Raiders and the entire colony from destruction.

The infested kept pouring into the pit. When those in the back pushed those before them down the pit, they themselves became the front, and when they saw the danger and tried to catch themselves, they were the ones pushed down to hell.

The pit didn’t cover the entire width of the entrance, but the safe passages meant for Raiders to go through were narrow and well covered. The infested were too stupid to locate them, and the few infested that were lucky enough to stumble upon the passages were picked off by gauss shots.

The cycle went on and on.

Usually the bioweapon of a race as powerful as the zerg shouldn’t be this vulnerable against a few traps used in the medieval ages, but the situation was oddly in favor of the terran.

First, the infested used group assault so they could use their number as an advantage and take down the terran defenders as quickly as possible. The literal sea of flesh could break the spirit of most armies and send them fleeing to their transports. Even if all else failed, the terran defenders could peel off the first couple layers of the tight formation before being ripped apart by those behind. Even if the infested lost a thousand units on the way to the bunkers, they would still easily overwhelm the terran marines. Anything the terran had, whether it was marines, marauders, firebats, or even goliaths, would be overrun by the wall of infested.

It was always going to be a worthy trade for the zerg. Infested terran used to be terran, and all the broodmother spent was some resource to spread the virus to them. To a degree, the terran forces were killing their own people.

Unfortunately, this tight formation also meant the infested couldn’t catch themselves in time without being pushed forward by their fellow infested.

Of course, a single order from the zerg broodmother could stop the entire army, but the broodmother was a bit occupied with her own safety.

Meanwhile, in the command center in the middle of the fortification, Raynor frowned at the hologram projection the adjutant was showing him.

The Raiders fought bravely, but the infested were simply too much. It didn’t matter that a goliath could take down half a dozen infested civilians with one shot because by the time the round was reloaded twenty fresh infested would’ve already arrived.

All across the field the Raiders have pulled back to the third line of defense. The infested were tight on their tails.

The traps the colonists put down worked much better than Raynor imagined. He fully expected the zerg to take action after the first dozen infested fell, literally, and the infested losing hundreds of units by a few holes in the ground was not expected. Of course, he wasn’t complaining.

But he needed as much time as possible. From what Horner just told him, the Raider strike team was still on the move. It would take them a while to reach the broodmother, much less kill her.

“Sir, the infested have engaged the third line of defense at entrance Charlie. Raider units are maintaining their ground. Tactical analysis shows Raider units will fall shortly.” As always, the adjutant rained a wave of negativity on the rebel commander.

“Dispatch twenty war pigs there.” Raynor bit his lips as he realized how desperate his order sounded. Sending twenty marines to counter thousands of zerg was not the wisest move.

“All vikings pilots, make a hit on the infested at entrance Charlie and wait for further orders.”

The five vikings the Raiders had weren’t piloted by the elitist pilots. Compared to Dominion experts who could literally land on zerglings, crush them, and lift off to fight in the air, these amateurs could barely land in an absolutely secure environment without crashing. However, that didn’t mean they were useless. Viking anti air torpedoes, when positioned correctly, could easily act as anti ground bombardment.

Hearing the order, the five viking pilots, all in their cockpits and waiting for orders, took action. Within seconds, these fighters were in the air, completely unchallenged.