Revelations (starcraft)

by Chris Metzen Thundergod

  Revelations

  ( Starcraft )

  Chris Metzen Thundergod

  StarCraft: Revelations is a short story which takes place in the StarCraft universe and is authorized by Blizzard Entertainment in Amazing Stories Magazine, issue 596.

  The story, involving the destruction of Chau Sara, takes place before and during StarCraft Episode I.

  GUNNERY SERGEANT ANDRE MADRID watched the vidscreen in shocked disbelief. His companions, huddled together like children caught in the path of an oncoming storm, looked to him for assurance. He had none to give. As the satellite images flooded the small, static-filled screen, he was struck by the grim certainty that neither he nor the young cadets under his command would survive the coming ordeal.

  Madrid watched as the satellite tracked two impossibly huge Protoss warships descending from high orbit. Sealed within a reinforced shelter beneath the surface of the planet Chau Sara, Madrid wondered if the colonial fleet orbiting the planet had offered any real resistance to the alien vessels. He looked about the room and saw the terrified cadets clutching anxiously at their unfired Gauss rifles. Stifling a panicked giggle, he briefly visualized the absurd notion of the cadets tossing pebbles at a landslide.

  Warning klaxons shattered the stillness as the ships reached striking distance from the planet. Emergency floodlights bathed the shelter in an aphotic crimson haze. Madrid saw first one, then two bright flashes emanate from the belly of the first ship. They all watched in horror as enormous bolts of azure fire rained from the sky. The cadets began to scream, curse, and pray to whatever awaited them in the hereafter. Madrid held his breath behind gritted teeth and felt the first tremors of the firestorm.

  A pure white light filled the vidscreen and then gradually subsided to a burning vortex of flame. The fireball, which seemed to reach clear to the roof of the sky, spread itself over the vast desert, consuming everything in its path. The reinforced paristeel walls of the room shuddered as the Protoss vessels continued to rain their devastation upon the planet.

  Memories of the stories from his mother’s tattered old Bible raced through Madrid’s mind as he pictured the horrific imagery of the final judgment of Armageddon. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to believe that this wanton destruction was a prophesied act of God. It was an act of sheer will; a cold, calculated display by the vile, soulless Protoss.

  The brightness of the vidscreen forced him to squint as he watched the fireball thunder toward the shelter. The cadets’ panic reached a fevered pitch as shock waves ripped through the shuddering room. Above the furor of the seismic assault, he could hear anguished screams of pure terror.

  Madrid woke with a start.

  As he sat trying to calm the pounding of his heart, he could still hear the screams echoing in his ears. He got up from his bunk and walked out of the barracks into the cold morning air. Shakily, he dug his fingers into a slightly crumpled pack of Rebel Reds and pulled out a cigarette. Cupping the open flame of his lighter, he took a drag off the harsh smoke and wandered aimlessly across the compound.

  It had been nearly three weeks since the mysterious Protoss had appeared and burned the unsuspecting world of Chau Sara. Miraculously, Madrid had survived. Thanks to the signal of his personal emergency transceiver, he and a handful of others were found under the shelter’s ruins by a nearby Confederate medevac team. He remembered looking down and marveling at the devastation that stretched across the burning horizon as the dropship carried him away from the planet.

  For the past two weeks, Madrid had tried to lose himself in the monotony of his duties in a new unit stationed on the planet Mar Sara. He watched as the sun rose over the rocky landscape that was a stark contrast to the rolling green plains of his former home—plains that were now as desolate as the terrain he surveyed all around him.

  He took a final drag off his cigarette and crushed it under his boot. As a marine, he had seen his share of the horrors of war. That was the life of a marine. But the Protoss attack on Chau Sara had shown him a new kind of horror—a horror he could barely comprehend. Fleeting images of the friends and family he had lost on Chau Sara drifted through his mind.

  The sudden wail of sirens broke the early morning calm, snapping Madrid out of his haze. Marines appeared everywhere, running to their stations with their tac-gear and weapons in tow. He sprinted back to his barracks. As always, his power suit was left nearly assembled with his Gauss rifle right beside it. He was locked in and geared up in less than a minute. After a ritual check to confirm that his rifle was loaded, he dashed out toward one of the defensive bunkers that encircled the compound.

  As he stepped down into the bunker, the other marines inside were concentrating on the horizon, scanning for any sign of hostile forces. The bunker was little more than a pre-fab paristeel box sunk into the ground. Big enough for a handful of marines and a few supplies, a combat bunker was designed to take massive punishment while the marines inside could fire on everything around it in relative safety. Some of the marines called them battlefield coffins, but as far as Madrid was concerned they were better than crouching behind a rock. He took his place next to the others and turned his attention to the landscape outside.

  The auto-response missile turrets in the distance began firing before Madrid could see their targets. Hundreds of deadly missiles filled the sky, disappearing into fiery explosions just over the horizon. Feeling his heart skip a beat, he pushed the small button on the side of his helmet that lowered his sight visor. As the darkened visor closed over his face, small holographic projections and status displays appeared before his eyes. Switching the visor to infrared mode, Madrid could see the landscape broken into pixelated patches of reds and blues. To his horror, he saw that the dim haze on the horizon was composed of hundreds of spindly flying creatures approaching the camp at high speed.

  The creatures sped toward the missile turrets. Hundreds of the twisted flyers swooped down, spewing flames from their open jaws. Even as the missiles blasted dozens of creatures from the sky, many of the turrets exploded under the assault of the alien swarm.

  Madrid’s com unit blared in his ear. “Fire Base Chimera, this is recon patrol zero-nine,” the voice shouted. “Advancing force is negative for Protoss profile. Repeat—advancing force is not Protoss. We are receiving heavy fire from unclassified hostiles. Please advise.”

  A second transmission cut in: “All units, this is Command Bravo. Unclassified life forms confirmed,” a smooth, detached voice reported. “Stand to repel attack. Life forms confirmed hostile.”

  “They got that part right,” one of the marines growled as another turret exploded in the distance. Everyone kept focused on the advancing aliens, peering through thick smoke as thousands of horrible creatures scrambled madly toward the base. These ground units were different from the flyers, but just as deadly. They surged over the remaining turrets, destroying them with devastating volleys of razor-spines.

  Madrid had become so mesmerized by the chaos in the distance that he almost missed the fact that a group of aliens closing on the bunker had come within firing range. With fangs bared, a mob of leathery, catlike creatures rushed towards the electrified wire surrounding the base. As the first line was blasted apart, another wave rushed in. Pulling his rifle to the left, Madrid fired into a writhing mass of aliens. Mutilated bodies began piling up around the base’s perimeter. For every creature that fell, it seemed two more rushed in to take its place.

  A group of snakelike aliens lurched forward and showered the bunker with hundreds of deadly razor-spines. Many of the spines rained in through multiple gunports, and Madrid felt the body of a marine drop next to him. With a defiant roar, a marine equipped with Firebat combat armor opened up with his twin flame
throwers. Concentrated napalm enveloped the frenzied creatures, and dozens of them fell to the ground in burning heaps.

  The bunker began to shudder violently as the flyers attacked it from above. Massive cracks appeared in the paristeel roof as it began to collapse. Lost in the heat of battle, Madrid was startled when the Firebat grabbed his shoulder.

  “The bunker’s toast!” he yelled. “If we ain’t outta here soon, we’re gonna end up sharin’ a tombstone.”

  “Fall back to the command center,” Madrid barked at the others as he let loose another burst from his rifle. “Move!”

  Madrid broke for the exit hatch as what was left of the squad made its way out. Emerging from the darkened bunker into the light of the midmorning sun, he almost froze in his tracks as he surveyed the compound. The scene was utter chaos. Huge winged beasts swarmed over the base, showering everything with blasts of burning plasma. Other small, jittery aliens ran rampant through the compound, streaming past the bunkers and tearing into any marines that stood in their path. Madrid fired wildly at a group of the creatures, hoping to butcher them before they fixed their attention on him. This place is a killing ground, he thought.

  Madrid turned towards the base’s command center and caught a brief glimpse of a huge, raylike creature flying overhead. He heard a sickly spurting sound and felt a hammering blow strike him from behind, knocking him back to the ground. As the world spun around him, he could feel a searing pain in his back that spread through his limbs like tentacles of wildfire. He was dimly aware of something lifting him up as he lost consciousness.

  MADRID WOKE TO FIND HIMSELF staring at the ceiling of a stark room. Pain wracked his body, and his head swam. He fought dizziness and confusion as memories rushed into his head. Protoss are wiping us out as we hide here cowering underground. Their ships are annihilating everything on the planet’s surface like the hand of God. No, not the Protoss, he thought. That’s not right. Something else is out there. Strange images flashed in his mind. A sea of horrible creatures washing over the base, tearing through everything in their path. Wait, who are the Protoss? He tried to remember. Those things out there are coming to kill me. Where’s my rifle? What happened to my squad? I need to kill them all. Kill. His blood boiled within him, calling forth a primal instinct. Kill who? The Protoss? I have to get out of here. Keep moving. Kill.

  A face loomed over him. It was human. He could see its mouth moving, speaking to him.

  “Where the hell am I?” Madrid asked. He saw other marines around him, some moving about the room and others sprawled on the floor.

  “Just lie back and rest easy, Sergeant. We’re under the command center. You’re safe here,” the young field medic said. “At least for a while.” Madrid was covered in both red and purple blood, and his power suit had been split open down the front. He could see that the medic had applied field dressings to his wounds and had stitched up a deep cut in his chest.

  “What’s wrong with me, boy? Why can’t I move?” he asked.

  A look of consternation crossed the medic’s face. “You were hit,” the medic told him, “by one of those things. I don’t know what it was, but your vitals are freaking out. As far as I can tell, there’s some kind of poison in your system, but I’ve never seen anything like it before. I injected you with a stim-pack, so you may experience a little anxiety.” With that, the medic was gone.

  Madrid tried to stand up. He felt the stim coursing through his system, tightening his muscles and making his scalp crawl. However, the artificial energy boost was no match for his pain and fatigue, so he slumped down heavily against the wall.

  The room appeared to be some kind of storage space. A few transport crates were stacked in the corner, but Madrid couldn’t make out the stenciled writing on their sides. The room has no windows or fixtures, just four steel-gray walls and a doorway. The medic was busy tending to injured men and others who just sat staring into space with glazed eyes. Marines ran back and forth through the hallway outside, occasionally entering the room to confer with men who were frantically speaking into portable com systems. Madrid couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  Too weak to move, all he could do was sit and wait. Death was coming. His rifle lay beside him, for all the use it was. His mind reeled. We’re doomed.

  What did we do to bring this on? Both of these races appeared and descended on our worlds like plagues. Fighting them is pointless. They’ll spread through the stars, taking planet after planet. Unyielding. Unstoppable. He saw the spindly aliens in his mind, spreading across entire galaxies, overwhelming everything, fulfilling their dread destiny.

  “No!” Madrid screamed as his body convulsed. What’s happening to me? I need to get out of here. They’re coming for me. He was trembling. He saw other wounded marines staring at him in detached sympathy. This is crazy. His fists were clenched, and he couldn’t stop grinding his teeth. If only I could get out there, he thought again. I’ll kill them all. Exterminate them. Nothing else matters. It is my destiny. We will sweep through the stars, driving the others before us. We will prosper. We are unyielding.

  Visions of marines being torn apart by deadly claws filled his mind. No, this is all wrong. I’m not thinking right. A coppery taste filled his mouth, and he felt a thin trickle of fluid drop down onto his chest. Blood. I’m dying, he thought. No, it is our enemies who will die. Death cannot stop us. That feeling came to him with complete certainty. The visions continued. Huge creatures leaped over the dead bodies of their brethren and pushed on towards the enemy.

  Those aren’t my thoughts, he realized with horror. He still sat in the same spot with his back against the cold wall. The sounds of gunfire echoed down the hall. Where are these thoughts coming from? He clasped his head in his hands and doubled over in pain. A sickening sensation crawled through his veins, from his stomach up to his brain. The backs of his eyeballs felt so hot they could melt.

  A flurry of bizarre images and impressions assaulted him. Two ominous thoughts stood out from the maddening din and shook him to the core. You are growing. You are mine.

  Madrid screamed until he ran out of breath.

  He felt another presence in his mind. What are you? He searched for it in his thoughts, but found nothing. Suddenly a horrifying image overtook him, eclipsing all else: a sprawling mass of living tissue pulsing with a dark, alien intelligence. Madrid reeled as he felt its sinister consciousness permeate his being. Although he had feeling throughout his body, he found himself unable—or perhaps not allowed—to move.

  Gunfire and screaming erupted in the hallway, ripping Madrid out of his trance. A number of marines backed into the room, firing their rifles into the hallway. The wounded men around him sat up in alarm as a group of aliens skittered into the room and tore into the defending marines. Everyone capable of movement grabbed a weapon and tried to fend off the invaders. The creatures flooded the room and overwhelmed the scrambling Terrans, tearing them to pieces. Madrid closed his eyes to shut out the sight of the carnage. Wet, slashing sounds and the tortured screams of the dying filled his ears until the fighting ceased and all that remained was a soft, humming vibration.

  Madrid opened his eyes to see two of the creatures staring straight at him, standing close enough that he could feel their hot breath as they sniffed him. Their black, menacing eyes were hooded by the flat carapace plates that adorned their bestial heads. Their muscular, catlike bodies were covered by tough, leathery skin, and long segmented tails stretched out behind them.

  Madrid closed his eyes and waited for the creatures to strike. But just as suddenly as they had appeared, they skittered out of the room, leaving him alone among the dead. Minutes stretched into hours as he sat in the dank corner, contemplating his fate and trying to shut out the luring whispers of the alien voice in his head.

  Minutes passed like hours as Madrid spent clip after clip. The battlefield was littered with thousands of their dead, yet the aliens kept coming. It’s better than Chau Sara, he thought. At least here I have a fighting
chance. He cleared his mind of everything but the monsters’ lifeless black eyes and lost himself in the rhythmic recoil of his rifle.

  The bunker began to shudder violently as the flyers attacked it from above. Massive cracks appeared in the paristeel roof as it began to collapse. Lost in the heat of battle, Madrid was startled when the Firebat grabbed his shoulder.

  “The bunker’s toast!” he yelled. “If we ain’t outta here soon, we’re gonna end up sharin’ a tombstone.”

  “Fall back to the command center,” Madrid barked at the others as he let loose another burst from his rifle. “Move!”

  Madrid broke for the exit hatch as what was left of the squad made its way out. Emerging from the darkened bunker into the light of the midmorning sun, he almost froze in his tracks as he surveyed the compound. The scene was utter chaos. Huge winged beasts swarmed over the base, showering everything with blasts of burning plasma. Other small, jittery aliens ran rampant through the compound, streaming past the bunkers and tearing into any marines that stood in their path. Madrid fired wildly at a group of the creatures, hoping to butcher them before they fixed their attention on him. This place is a killing ground, he thought.

  Madrid turned towards the base’s command center and caught a brief glimpse of a huge, raylike creature flying overhead. He heard a sickly spurting sound and felt a hammering blow strike him from behind, knocking him back to the ground. As the world spun around him, he could feel a searing pain in his back that spread through his limbs like tentacles of wildfire. He was dimly aware of something lifting him up as he lost consciousness.

  MADRID WOKE TO FIND HIMSELF staring at the ceiling of a stark room. Pain wracked his body, and his head swam. He fought dizziness and confusion as memories rushed into his head. Protoss are wiping us out as we hide here cowering underground. Their ships are annihilating everything on the planet’s surface like the hand of God. No, not the Protoss, he thought. That’s not right. Something else is out there. Strange images flashed in his mind. A sea of horrible creatures washing over the base, tearing through everything in their path. Wait, who are the Protoss? He tried to remember. Those things out there are coming to kill me. Where’s my rifle? What happened to my squad? I need to kill them all. Kill. His blood boiled within him, calling forth a primal instinct. Kill who? The Protoss? I have to get out of here. Keep moving. Kill.