Starcraft Co. 12- Preclusion
The carcasses recovered from Kestral answered one question and opened a far more disturbing one. UIC xenobiologists had spent weeks comparing tissue from the attacking swarm with specimens recovered from Canaan, Delos and the clandestine breeding facilities, expecting to find the same genetic markers that characterized the renegades' domesticated strains. They found none. Aside from the six Hunter Killers that arrived at the end of the battle, the organisms that had nearly destroyed Kestral were wild Zerg. Their genetic profiles matched dormant populations scattered throughout the frontier, the remnants of swarms that had migrated through Terran space years or even decades earlier before settling in remote environments and becoming largely inactive. The renegades weren't merely breeding an army. They had learned how to find armies that already existed.
That discovery made sense of intelligence recovered from Canaan. The conspiracy maintained dozens, perhaps hundreds, of small reconnaissance teams moving through sparsely inhabited systems, charting reports of old Zerg sightings and investigating worlds nobody else had reason to visit. Destroying all of those teams was impossible and probably pointless. Kill one and the organization could send another. What mattered was what they were searching for. UIC analysts began cross-referencing renegade movements against historical Zerg activity and found several disturbing correlations. Most were small: a few hundred organisms hidden in an abandoned mine, a mutalisk rookery on an uninhabited moon, scattered colonies of zerglings surviving in wilderness far from Terran settlements. Then intelligence identified a target important enough to justify immediate intervention.
The planet had no Terran name. Protoss charts designated it by a string of characters that UIC computers translated imperfectly, and human navigators simply called it Erebus. It was a twilight world orbiting a dim red star deep inside territory historically claimed by the Protoss, although no permanent Protoss settlement was known to exist there. Tidal locking left one hemisphere facing perpetual daylight and the other permanent darkness, with a narrow temperate belt running between them. That belt was fractured by enormous canyons and cave systems extending kilometers beneath the surface. Something had nested inside those tunnels long ago. Reconnaissance probes detected biological signatures everywhere. Tens of thousands of Zerg were the conservative estimate. There might be considerably more.
Most were dormant. The swarm had apparently existed beneath Erebus for years without expanding beyond the canyon system, surviving on subterranean ecosystems and whatever mineral resources the creatures could metabolize. Under normal circumstances, the UIC would have marked the planet as hazardous and left it alone. The renegades had other plans. A substantial military contingent had established a forward base near the largest canyon network and was assembling equipment unlike anything StarCraft Co. had previously captured. UIC intelligence believed the devices were derived from the behavioral-control technology encountered in the clandestine laboratory. If activated successfully, they might allow the renegades to enthrall the dormant swarm. Canaan had required years of infrastructure, imported biomass and industrial-scale breeding to produce thousands of Zerg. Erebus offered tens of thousands for the cost of turning them on.
The commander rejected the obvious solution. StarCraft Co. could attack the renegade base immediately, destroy the control equipment and leave the dormant swarm where it was. That would solve the immediate problem. It would not solve the next one. The renegades already knew Erebus existed. If StarCraft Co. destroyed one expedition, another could eventually return. Guarding an uninhabited planet forever was absurd. The only permanent solution was to make sure there was nothing left to capture. The order therefore sounded almost ridiculous in its simplicity: kill the swarm first, then kill the people trying to steal it.
The terrain dictated the force. Siege tanks had been devastating at Delos, but they were nearly useless inside Erebus's caves and separated canyon systems. Heavy armored formations would spend more time finding routes than fighting. StarCraft Co. instead returned to the kind of warfare that had built its reputation. Elite teams of marines, firebats, medics and ghosts would move between objectives aboard dropships, supported by science vessels operating above the canyon network and descending whenever terrain permitted. The science vessels would provide detection against burrowed organisms, defensive matrices when assault teams became overwhelmed and irradiation against concentrations too dense for infantry to handle efficiently. Every team carried demolition charges and substantially more ammunition than doctrine recommended. There would be no attempt to hold territory. They would land, exterminate everything within reach, destroy any biological structures they found, return to the dropships and move to the next concentration.
The first canyon contained several thousand zerglings. Most were barely moving when StarCraft Co. arrived. They lay across the creep in enormous clusters, some piled against one another inside shallow caves, reacting only when the dropships descended. The commander briefly considered whether they could destroy the canyon without waking them. Then the first science vessel detected hundreds of additional signatures beneath the ground. The attack began simultaneously. Firebats moved into the cave mouths while marines established firing lines behind them. Flame rolled across the creep. Zerglings woke by the hundreds and charged directly into it. Others erupted from underground only to find ghosts and marines already aiming at the locations identified by the science vessels. Within minutes the canyon became a furnace.
Numbers eventually mattered. Thousands of zerglings pressing through confined spaces could overwhelm any infantry formation, however experienced. StarCraft Co. had no intention of allowing that to happen. When one tunnel began disgorging organisms faster than the firebats could kill them, the assault team withdrew beneath defensive matrices while demolition specialists collapsed the entrance. Another group became surrounded after zerglings emerged from a side passage missed during reconnaissance. A science vessel descended until it was barely above the canyon walls and projected matrices around the trapped soldiers, buying enough time for firebats to burn a route back toward the landing zone. The company had learned long ago that surviving Zerg attacks was less about killing everything immediately than controlling how many creatures could reach them at once.
The extermination continued through the cave network. Dropships leapfrogged teams from canyon to canyon while science vessels mapped subterranean movement. Some caverns contained nothing but dormant zerglings. Others held hydralisks buried beneath creep, waiting motionless until disturbed. Those were more dangerous. Science vessels became indispensable. Detector sweeps revealed organisms hidden beneath apparently empty ground, allowing ghosts to mark targets before anyone entered. Marines fired into burrowed positions from a distance or firebats saturated the area before the hydralisks could emerge. When large groups surfaced simultaneously, irradiation turned their density against them. One hydralisk would suddenly begin glowing beneath the science vessel's beam, then stagger among the others while lethal radiation tore through everything surrounding it.
The renegades complicated matters. Their reconnaissance patrols were scattered throughout the same canyon network, apparently mapping the swarm and installing smaller control relays in preparation for the main enthrallment system. The first patrol encountered StarCraft Co. by accident. Two Vultures rounded a canyon bend and found a marine squad less than a hundred meters away. Both sides hesitated for perhaps half a second before opening fire. The Vultures accelerated, fragmentation grenades tearing into the infantry formation, but a ghost disabled one with lockdown while concentrated Gauss fire destroyed the other. Its crew never had time to warn anyone.
Later patrols were ready. Wraiths began searching the canyons for StarCraft Co. dropships. Goliaths accompanied renegade infantry teams. Vultures used their speed to harass landing zones and withdraw before the mercenaries could concentrate against them. The fighting became a strange three-sided hunt through the twilight landscape. StarCraft Co. exterminated dormant Zerg while renegade patrols tried to stop them, sometimes waking the very creatures both sides were moving among. During one engagement, a renegade Goliath fired on a dropship and struck the canyon wall instead. The explosion disturbed a buried hydralisk cluster beneath both forces. Dozens surfaced in the middle of the firefight. StarCraft Co. immediately withdrew under defensive matrices. The renegades didn't. When the mercenaries returned twenty minutes later, they found dead hydralisks, two wrecked Goliaths and enough human remains to conclude that nobody had won.
The ghosts proved especially effective against the patrols. Cloaked operatives moved ahead of the main assault teams, marking vehicle positions and eliminating isolated infantry before engagements began. Lockdown turned the renegades' expensive machinery into stationary targets. A Vulture traveling at full speed became considerably less threatening when its systems abruptly froze and a marine squad stepped from behind cover. Goliaths were disabled before they could engage the dropships. Wraith pilots occasionally discovered their fighters locked in midair while StarCraft Co. infantry fired upward from the canyon floor. The renegades had heavier equipment. StarCraft Co. had better people.
By the twelfth hour, the operation had become industrial. Teams returned to temporary staging areas, rearmed, changed medics and boarded different dropships before moving out again. Nobody tried to clear entire cave systems manually. Science vessels identified major biological concentrations and mapped connecting tunnels. Infantry eliminated exposed populations. Demolition teams collapsed passages containing concentrations too deep or dense to engage safely. In several locations the commander simply sealed thousands of Zerg underground beneath enough rock that extracting them would require a mining operation. What mattered was making the swarm impossible to recover as a military asset.
The largest subterranean concentration nearly broke that rhythm. Sensors identified a cavern several kilometers beneath the surface containing biological signatures beyond the science vessels' ability to count accurately. StarCraft Co. found a route through a descending canyon and discovered a chamber large enough to contain a Terran city block. Hydralisks lined the walls. Zerglings covered the floor. Several spawning pools suggested the supposedly dormant swarm had retained at least a limited ability to replenish itself. There was no sensible infantry assault against that many organisms.
So StarCraft Co. didn't make one. Ghosts entered through an elevated tunnel under cloak, carrying demolition charges rather than rifles. Science-vessel scans had identified several structural weaknesses in the cavern ceiling where erosion had left enormous masses of unsupported rock. The ghosts planted charges while the Zerg below remained dormant. One hydralisk seemed to detect something and began moving toward the tunnel. The operatives finished their work and withdrew. Minutes later, the charges detonated. The cavern ceiling collapsed in stages. Thousands of tons of rock fell onto the swarm. The seismic disturbance woke everything that survived, sending zerglings and hydralisks flooding toward the remaining exits. StarCraft Co. was already waiting outside them. Firebats burned the first ranks. Marines fired over their shoulders. Science vessels irradiated the densest concentrations. The battle lasted nearly an hour, but the Zerg were forced through passages so narrow that their numbers became meaningless. Tens of thousands might have existed beneath Erebus. Only dozens could reach StarCraft Co. at any one time.
Twenty-seven hours after the first landing, the science vessels could no longer identify any major intact Zerg concentrations within the canyon network. Smaller groups undoubtedly remained in unexplored tunnels, but the dormant swarm as a coherent force had ceased to exist. Tens of thousands of organisms were dead, buried or sealed permanently beneath collapsed caverns. Whatever the renegades had intended to capture was gone. Only then did the commander turn toward their base.
The forward installation had been preparing for an attack since the first patrol disappeared. Unlike the lightly defended research sites StarCraft Co. had encountered earlier, this was a genuine military position. Bunkers protected the approaches. Missile turrets covered the airspace. Siege tanks occupied elevated positions with overlapping fields of fire. A battlecruiser hovered above the central compound, its enormous weapons capable of annihilating any infantry formation caught in the open. The control equipment intended to enthrall the Zerg occupied the center of the base surrounded by technicians and guards. The renegades had spent more effort protecting the machinery than anything else on Erebus.
The commander had no intention of charging it. StarCraft Co. had spent the previous day destroying a swarm by refusing to fight on unfavorable terms. The base would receive the same treatment. Ghosts infiltrated first. Cloaked teams approached through the canyon walls while science vessels mapped detectors and defensive positions. The ghosts did not attack personnel initially. They attacked the base's ability to respond. One missile turret lost power. Then another. A siege tank suddenly froze beneath lockdown. Communications between the northern and southern bunkers disappeared. By the time the renegades realized the assault had begun, gaps were already opening in their defensive network.
Dropships came through those gaps carrying marine and firebat teams wrapped in defensive matrices. Missile turrets fired as they approached, but the science vessels continually reinforced whichever transports were taking the heaviest punishment. One dropship landed with half its armor scorched away and immediately began unloading infantry. Marines rushed into cover while firebats cleared the nearest bunker. A siege tank rotated toward them. A ghost locked it down before it could fire.
The battlecruiser became the real problem. It descended over the compound and opened fire on the landing zones, forcing StarCraft Co. infantry into whatever cover they could find. The commander ordered the teams to spread through the base rather than concentrate. The ship could obliterate any one position, but doing so risked destroying the renegades' own facilities. Its captain hesitated whenever StarCraft Co. soldiers moved close to the enthrallment equipment. The mercenaries exploited that hesitation mercilessly.
Science vessels pushed directly into the base under fire. Defensive matrices appeared around exposed marine squads seconds before battlecruiser lasers struck. Ghosts moved between buildings, disabling Goliaths and siege tanks as quickly as they could acquire them. Marines destroyed detectors, expanding the areas in which the ghosts could operate freely. Firebats cleared bunkers at close range. SCVs weren't available to repair the defenders' disabled vehicles because the base's maintenance crews were being driven away from them by infantry.
The commander eventually realized they didn't need to destroy the battlecruiser. They only needed to stop it. Three ghosts moved into range from different directions. The first was detected and killed before acquiring the target. The second fired. Lockdown struck the battlecruiser. The enormous ship went dead above its own base. StarCraft Co. attacked everything beneath it.
The remaining defensive line collapsed within minutes. Marines stormed the central compound while the battlecruiser hung helplessly overhead. Firebats drove defenders from fortified structures. Ghosts locked down the last operational Goliaths. The surviving siege tanks never fired again. Renegade soldiers attempted to retreat toward the canyon network and discovered that the Zerg they had intended to command were no longer there to protect them. The enthrallment equipment was captured intact. That alone made the operation worth the casualties.
StarCraft Co. technicians immediately began dismantling the devices while UIC intelligence specialists copied every surviving data system. The technology was more advanced than anything recovered from the previous laboratories. It did not merely condition individual Zerg through repeated exposure. The system appeared designed to project commands across enormous numbers of organisms simultaneously, exploiting neurological pathways normally associated with Zerg hive control. The renegades had been preparing to manufacture an artificial hierarchy. The commander looked at the disabled battlecruiser hovering above the compound. “Take that too.”
StarCraft Co. ghosts and marines boarded it before the lockdown expired. Most of the crew surrendered once they realized the base below had fallen. By the time the ship's systems recovered, armed mercenaries occupied engineering, the bridge and the weapons decks. The battlecruiser left Erebus under StarCraft Co. control.
The operation ended thirty-three hours after it began. The renegade forward base was destroyed after every useful piece of equipment had been removed. The enthrallment devices went directly into UIC containment. The captured battlecruiser joined StarCraft Co.'s rapidly expanding fleet. Erebus itself was left behind, its canyons filled with Zerg carcasses and collapsed tunnels. Small populations would probably survive somewhere beneath the surface. Nobody cared. The dormant swarm that had once numbered in the tens of thousands was no longer something anyone could reasonably turn into an army.
More important was what Erebus revealed about the conspiracy. Canaan had demonstrated industrial breeding. Delos had demonstrated human infestation. Kestral had demonstrated strategic control. Erebus supplied the missing link. The renegades were not relying solely on the Zerg they could manufacture. They were searching settled and uncharted space for every dormant swarm they could find and developing technology capable of binding those organisms into the same command structure.
That changed the arithmetic catastrophically. The UIC had been trying to estimate how many Zerg the conspiracy could breed. It had been asking the wrong question. Nobody knew how many wild Zerg were already scattered across the frontier.
StarCraft Co.'s scientists received the captured enthrallment equipment before the assault teams had even finished returning home. Their instructions were not to reproduce it. The commander wanted to know how it worked, how far it could reach, what signals it depended upon and, most importantly, how to break it. The conspiracy was assembling larger forces with every operation StarCraft Co. uncovered, but the mercenaries had learned something from Canaan that applied just as well here.
Every new Zerg weapon eventually became another problem their engineers could study. And StarCraft Co. was becoming exceptionally good at finding solutions.