Retrieval system online......Accessing UED data......File found, decoding.....Decoding complete. Message can now be accessed

But I must forget them for the moment and tell you this story, before my power runs out. Their is a traitor in your midst, back on earth, Terra, Sol, my home. I will never see it again. Whoever this is I hope you are in a position of power if not, get this message to someone who is. Anyway I guess I need to go ahead and get on with my story.

It didn't matter to me always though. I smiled and kept on walking. Pretty soon I could see the barracks in the distance. In case you don't know what the barracks look likes I drew a picture of it on this message, but if it doesn't turn out right I will explain it to you.

A barracks is about 20 stories high, pretty much a square building where Marines, Firebats, and Medics store their power armor and ammo. It was about 20 feet in the air cause it was suspended by 5 landing legs. Barracks could, if the situation arose, fly and hover to a different landing place, carrying its marines and everything else with it. It has a ramp coming down to the ground so marines and other people could get into it. Being about 200 feet in all directions it was kind of a good size building. Pretty much most marines and firebats lived here. There were several ground floors for the armor to store in. The rest of the floors were for living in. Several lounges, a gym, and a small rec. facility were all in the top 10 floors. The bottom 10, as I said before, stores the armor. A marine can run down to the elevator and stop at a armor level, get into his armor, then just jump down in a hole in the middle of the floor for quick deployment. Barracks is also where they build the armor. One barracks supports about 500 troopers total. The town of Maranaia has 6 each supporting 1500. So most of the troopers live in apartments and hotels like I do. The ammo and repair for the power armor takes place at the Armory.

I have a drawing of the armory, but I will also describe this structure. Nothing more really then three tall spires connected to a rounded circular piece in the middle. At about 70 feet tall and 100 feet from middle to longest point, the armory has plenty of room to build and repair. It is also the place where they manufacture the C-16 "Exploder" Gauss Rifle. A better addition to the old Impaler rifle, the bullets of this gun are explosive tipped and they fire faster and in shorter round. The armory is where they build armor and weapons for the Firebat, Medic, and Marine. The engineers there also build many things for the mechanical units of the UED

Anyway I got to the barracks and quickly met up with the rest of my squad. By squad I mean the other 7 guys in my bunker. "How ya doing Joe?" I asked one of them.

"Not bad, can't complain. I wish I didn't live in the barracks though." "Well we can't have everything huh?" He replied, "Yeah, but I am not soft like a young private I know." I laughed at that. I don't really mind when they make fun of my age, or that I have never fought the Zerg (May all their eggs rot) like all of them have. But I would get my chance soon. Sooner than I wanted. Our Sergeant came out of the Comm room in his armor already. My squad consisted of myself, Joe, Harry, Zeek, Andrew, Kev, Billy, and Sergeant Pudink (Called Sgt. Pudding to his face by everyone who had fought one battle with the Zerg). Everyone but Kev and me has faced the Zerg one time or another. "Attention!” Sarge yelled. We all snapped to attention. "We have a different mission this time around boys. We are to take a drop-ship into the eastern mountain quadrant and do a patrol of that area. Command thought a Wraith pilot spotted some Zerg Overlords heading in that area and they want us to find out. We will also have two medics coming with us. Any questions?" There were none. How could there be, this mission was just a routine patrol. All the same I started to get the shakes. "Alright the drop-ship should be here any moment so head outside on the bounce. I will be out there in a minute. DISMISSED." We all jogged down to the ground level and off the ramp. "Man, what could he mean Zerg in the area?" I found myself saying. "Ah come off it man this is no big deal man," Billy told me. "Yeah just a big bug hunt. Oh that's right you have never fought Zerg huh?" That was Harry the oldest of our group and a corporal. "Yeah, that’s right." "Nothing to worry about son," Harry said with a grin, "All you got to do is point your gun at them and they die." "Is it that easy?" "Yeah it is," he said. "Only if you are a stupid rookie." With that most of the guys started laughing at me. At this point I decided to keep my opinions to myself.

Pretty soon the drop-ship arrived. You can probably pull a pic. of the drop-ship from any library but it is pretty much just a transport for marines and just about everything else. Only flown by women, these pilots are literally daredevils in the air. Designed with a portion of the bottom of it to drop out and lower to about 10 feet to the ground, an easy jump for a marine. Then to deploy, marines are equipped with Vespene gas jet packs that lets us jump out of a drop-ship quite a ways in the air and land fighting. I had only been in a few of these things. We quickly loaded up with Sgt. Pudding bringing up the rear. Then we took off. As we flew over Maranaia I looked down to see everything. Here I did not have enough time to draw Maranaia so I will explain it also (if you are getting tired of explanations, too bad. You need to know details about everything before it is gone forever).

Maranaia was established a long time ago, before the UED came here. Located in a bowl in the mountains on the main continent of Tatron. The colonists came here looking for a paradise, or as close as they could find it. On chance a group of travelers flew over this bowl and landed. They fell in love with it and finally built a city with many other people. The bowl is about 50 kilometers north and south and about 75 kilometers east and west. So it is a pretty good size area. After the UED found it, Admiral DuGualle thought it would make a good hidden base for nuke production away from the Dominion. So the UED quickly moved in. They set up 3 command centers in a triangle formation with 6 barracks in the spaces and the points of the triangle. Also there is 3 Factories, 2 armories, 2 spaceports, and many supply depots. In, around and outside of the city are many, many bunkers and missile turrets. They are also up in the mountains that surround the cities. Also many siege tanks are everywhere for a very strong powerful defense. The city's population is about 300,000 people.

So here we are sitting in the rows of the back of this drop-ship when our Sarge yells out, "MARINES, DROP AND FLOP". Which pretty much means get the heck out of this drop-ship. So we all lined up at the door and one by one jumped out of the ship and activated out packs. When we landed Sgt. Pudding told me, Kev, Andrew and Zeek to take a medic and head out to the east. He put Zeek in charge of us cause he was a corporal also. "Jaxon, head out with Kev around that hill and we will meet you around it." So me and Kev headed out that way. Carrying our guns high, I quickly checked out my ammo and power. Full of both. I also had on me 6 nova grenades, a small sidearm with explosive tipped bullets, and a laser knife on my calf. I turned on my radar and lowered my infrared glasses. I saw some heat right about 2 miles to the left of me. I turned to the others and said, "C'mon, there is a heat reading in front of us. About two miles". "Ok, we are coming, "Zeek said in that slow voice of his. We all readied our guns at ready position and started to head in that direction. When we finally got to within 200 yards of the heat signature, we turned a corner and 4 Zerglings ran right into us. Both groups fell back. A Zergling has the body of the raptor except smaller; four arms two with blades, the other two with small claws for holding. They had very sharp teeth and were the fastest unit in the Zerg force. They quickly got up to attack us, but Zeek was already on his feet firing. He took out one by the time we stood up. When we finally got up one Zergling was on Andy ripping him to pieces. I quickly grabbed my knife and slashed the Zergling's head off. The medic ran over to Andy and started to help him. I turned just in time to see Kev get the last Zergling. All of us just stood there for a minute breathing. The only sound was the soft whir of the medic's tools. Then I started to shake. Zeek broke out into laughter and Kev slowly smiled. "Good job son," Zeek told me, "You survived your first Zerg encounter." Zeek then went on to congratulate Kev also. The whole battle had been reaction; I didn't even have to think about it cause my training came into play. Then I remembered Andy. I turned on a circuit in my suit for communication. "How is he Holli?" I asked the medic with us. "He will be ok, but I will need to call in a drop-ship and get him out of here quick." Zeek was already calling command requesting a drop-ship and telling him of the Zerg we had found. Then an Overlord came flying over. Overlords are little more then just big floating bags with long legs, but they transport troops and control. See the Zerg act like an ant colony with creatures called Cerebrates. Each Cerebrate controls a group of Zerg that we call Broods. There is giant creature called the Overmind that controls all of them through Cerebrates, Overlords, and Queens.

Me and Kev immediately started to fire while Zeek threw a grenade. It collided with the Overlord and sprayed its insides all over us. I didn't worry though cause I got a call from the Sarge saying that they were heading back to base and to quickly come to the rendezvous point. Even as Zeek was telling me to head back, I felt myself drawn to a certain area around this small hill. Me and Kev jogged around it and stopped dead in our tracks. Below us spread a small valley, and in it was a good size Zerg base. "Um, Zeek, you might want to come look at this," Kev said. "What is it now you spineless... Oh no." He had seen it. For a moment we just stood there looking at the huge base. I could see Hydralisks, Zerglings, Mutalisks, Guardians (The anti-Marine unit) and many other units. "Zeek call base," I looked back at the Zerg area, "We have a major infestation here."

I have to go, my suit is running out of power and I will need to recharge it. I will send another message as soon as I have enough power. Until then, pray for me, and tell a commander that I have something, until next time my friend, Ah Esjth Auitn Alk, which means May all Zerg rot in their eggs.

Date: 2346 March 23rd Earth time, September 29th Tatron time
Place of Destination: New York City, Terra
Origin of Message: Maranaia comm. room 4, Tatron

Hello again, I have finally found a recharge unit in another building so now I can finally recharge my suit at will. I also found an abandoned Vulture bike. Kinda broken in the anti-grav lifters but it still has 30 shots in its grenade launcher. I found 2 survivors or refugees if you want to call them that. But they both died on the way here. We ran into 6 Hydralisks on the way to the Comm room attached to the C&C. We took out the Hydralisks but then some Zerglings also attacked and they said to leave. So I ran like the coward I am. But it doesn't matter; I don't really care anymore. Where was the last thing in my story? Oh yes, I just got done fighting my first Zerg attack. Well here goes some more of it.

As I said before some Zerglings attacked us, Andy got hurt, and we found a Zerg base. Well by the time the drop-ship finally got there Andy was in serious condition. Also by that time the other group had shown up having of course no trouble whatsoever. We all loaded up on the drop-ship even poor Andy. We hadn't gotten no more then 20 feet off the ground when a pack of Zerglings appeared. The bottom door was still open and I just happened to be standing near it. Most of them jumped in frustration cause they couldn't reach us, but a few jumped 20 feet into the air and landed with room to spare on the loading platform. Whether they were young ones, or developed with special leg enhancements I don't know, nor did I care. I opened fire. The roar of my Gauss rifle drowned out the cries of exclamation from my teammates. I took out two but the last one dodged around and jumped into the drop-ship itself. Then just as quickly it was hurled back onto the platform and off into the mountains, dead before it hit the platform. I sighed and quickly pushed the button for closing the ramp. "Good work son. Quick reflexes and quick thinking. Just was the marines need in the service," Sarge told me. "Thanks Sarge," I told him. But I didn't feel like celebrating. Andy died on the way back to base.

I was kinda surprised when we got back to the C&C. I had 1 day off for my actions on the field. Well during that time I helped to arrange for Andy's funeral. I wrote the message to his parents explaining his death, and that his death had been avenged. Blah blah blahh, all sentimental stuff that I won't get into. One thing to tell you though. About Sgt. Pudink. I walked into the small church where the funeral was going to be and found him looking down at the casket. I got close enough to him to where I could hear him. "I am so sorry Andy. None of this was supposed to happen. I told her to keep the Zerg from the area. That way nobody would find the base. Then everything would be ok. I am just so sorry." I approached him just there, to let him think I just came into the room, "Hey Sarge, you ok man?" He turned quickly around. Amazing, for there were a few tears in his eyes. He told me: "I am ok Jax, just thinking how much I will miss him. I was going to promote him to corporal," he sighed, "But I guess it just wasn't meant to be." With that he walked out leaving me shaking my head.

Here I should probably say how the war was going. The UED had just taken back Braxis when all this was going on. There they met Samir Duran. He quickly became famous in the UED military. Most soldiers don't keep up with the war, even though they are the ones in it. But I made it a special interest of mine to keep watch and read the news on the war against the Dominion and Zerg. This I knew, there was hardly enough troops brought from Earth to battle both Dominion and Zerg, that was why I hadn't encountered Zerg much before. But I had fought against the Dominion. See Admiral DuGualle thought that troops was just a chess piece that could be expended. Especially infantry. It was no secret that he despised them, he loved to use the mechanical infantry or air support any day to infantry. Every time we won a battle it rated the dead UED troops and Zerg of Dominion troops killed. Against the Dominion we hardly lost troops. But the Zerg was winning the war. Since most of the people of the old Confederate were very stubborn to enlist into the war the ratio of UED to Zerg casualties was about 1:5 on average. It varied from troop to troop on both sides but that was the average for Infantry troops and that was all I cared about anyway. Even though they say most battles against Zerg are victorious, I know the truth. They were wearing us down. They could hatch a hundred Zerglings in about 2 months. At minimum to train a hundred marines it would at least take 6 months and that is with training going perfectly. Which it never does. So they were pretty much outdoing producing us. The war had come to a stand still.

Finally the day of the funeral came. Many people gathered there cause the news of the Zerg had gotten past intelligence and security. You know how it is when some Marines go out and get a couple of beers. They start shooting off their mouths. In particular one marine. I won't say which one. Maybe it was me, maybe it wasn't. It doesn't matter. Finally it was my turn to stand up. I walked down the aisle of the church in my best dress uniform. My hair slicked back, I wore the small badge of the marines turned to the side to show I was in mourning of one or our own. The Marines never ever leave one of their own undone. Anyway I got up to the podium with my speech. I started out by saying, "Well everyone, I won't say that I am happy we are all here in this place. Cause I am not. I had a speech ready for this time. But I decided to shoot from the hip." I took a deep breath and went on. "I know hardly any of you knew Andy, cause only about a third of you here are actually military. The rest of you are civs coming to see something new. Well here is the news flash for you. Andy died defending your lives people. He died to protect all the children, women, and old men that live in this town. As for the adult men, well they should have signed up a long time ago. They aren't real men if they are too scared to even defend their own, I call them cowards. No, Andy did not die for them, but he died for everyone else. I think I was his best friend in his short time in the Marines. He had only been in it for 2 months less then I have." I looked back at the casket and felt a tear come. I turned back to the crowd. By now most of the women looked guilty for they had just to see something new and maybe get some info about the Zerg. The men there looked guilty for not signing up before and helping us. The children, most of them anyway, didn't understand what was going on. I continued with my little speech, "So I have come here to pay my respects of Andy Colen, my last good bye to my life long friend and companion, Corporal Andrew Colen, we all honor you. And we will miss you."

As everyone filed out of the building Zeek waved me over to the other of our squad was. "Good speech man," he told me. I looked at him hard, but I could tell he was serious. "Thanks Zeek, I just can't believe he is gone. I just had to let the crowd have it in there." "I know how you feel man," Joe told me, "They sit on their butts all day, ignoring us to our faces, and when the Zerg shows up they come crying us to totally destroy it. I am so sick and tired of it." Just then a guy on a vulture bike rode up to us telling me to double time it to C&C 2. So I called "See ya!" to my guys and jumped onto his bike. We got there in record time too. He dropped me off and rode off again. I quickly ran into the C&C.

Here I am going to tell you what the C&C looks like. About 25 stories tall and about 80 feet all around, the C&C is a rounded building. When it hovers, it looks like one of those old flying saucers from the 20th century. All the Command personnel live here where tactical stations are everywhere. It is also the place where they manufacture SCV. The SCV is the building and gathering tool of the UED. It is the one that builds all the military buildings. It is also the one where they gather minerals and carry packs of Vespene gas to the C&C where the workers in the Command Center refine the materials and store the gas until needed.

So I smoothed out my uniform from the ride over here and walked up to the receptionists desk. "Hello," she said, "May I help you?" "Um yeah, my name is Private Jaxon ******* and I am here to see the General." She nodded and looked at her schedule. "Yes here you are. Oh don't be nervous," she said when she noticed me fidgeting, "It is just a de-briefing of the other day." With that in mind I relaxed a little bit. "Would you like to sit down while I call the General?" "Yes ma'am. I will just take a seat if you don't mind," I took a seat and grabbed a magazine reader and started to read about something. The girl looked at me and asked, "Did you really see a Zerg base out there a few days ago?" I looked at her. She was obviously impressed with me. "Well, yes I was. I got 3 Zergling kills." Her eyes lit up, "Oh wow. You must have been really brave to have killed 3 Zerglings." I started to go into the story but just then her buzzer sounded. She apologized and pushed a button on the machine to see what the General wanted. A few seconds later she told me, "Alright he is ready for you, go on in." I thanked her and headed in deeper into the Command Center. When I got to the General's office I could hear voices talking inside. I knocked and the talking stopped. A moment later the General's low gruff voice answered, "Come in." I stepped into the room. The office looked much like any other office in the area. Just a desk, a few chairs, a small computer, and a filing cabinet to put his disks in. What I was surprised at was that Sgt. Pudink was there also. He motioned for me to sit down. "Private Jaxon right?" "Yes sir." "Hmm, alright Private you are here to just answer a few questions." He turned to look at Pudding and they both kind of tensed up. "How in the 7 hells of Tarsonis did you find the Zerg base?" "Well sir, I just got a feeling that something was around in that area I was in. I turned on my infrared goggles and got a major heat reading about 2 miles a little more. I called to Corporal Zeek Keller that something was around in that area. When we came around a bend about 200 yard from the Zerg base, 4 Zerglings attacked us. Andrew Colen was attacked and I quickly dispatched that Zergling. Corporal Keller and Private Kev Jonyson quickly took out the others. The medic 1st nurse Holli Neilson started to tend to Andy while me and Private Jonyson continued around the bend. The Zerg base was just in that valley sir." The General leaned back and rubbed his beard before answering. "Private what if I told you that me and Sergeant Pudink here was concerned that there might be a Dominion spy in your squad." I must have looked stunned for Pudding started to chuckle quietly. A stern look from the General quieted him down. He turned to me with a questioning look on his face. "Um no sir, it had never even came to mind General." He nodded and said, "Well it hadn't to us either. But we have reason to believe that someone in your squad sold information to the Dominion. We also have reason to believe that somehow the Zerg got a hold of the message, was able to send some scouts from the transmission and set up a base right under our noses." "Well sir, if you want my opinion on who it is..." "I DIDN'T ASK FOR YOUR DANG OPINION PRIVATE. I just wanted to know if you knew that there is a Dominion spy in your midst?" I took a deep breath and said, "Well, sir I have acquired new information that I might know who the spy is sir. But not until recently did I even think this." The General nodded. But curiously he didn't ask me who it was. He went on to ask me some other questions but I will not repeat them here. Finally I was allowed to go.

A few weeks later I was promoted to Sergeant 3rd class. And the first thing I did as Sergeant was to ask for a small group of marines, firebats, and/or medics to come along on another scouting mission. I was given 5 marines (Which were Harry, Zeek, Kev, Joe, and Billy), 3 firebats (Danny, Corri, and Matt) and 2 medics, Holli and Amanda to be exact. I ordered a drop-ship to fly us to the same eastern mountain range. We was dropped off with no trouble. I had requested some Goliath Walkers, but was denied that request. So we started to walk toward the Zerg base. Since a few weeks had passed since we had that skirmish with the Zerg, I figured they had probably expanded their base a little. Maybe even gotten some Sunken Colonies in too. Sunken Colonies is the Zerg ground defense. They have about 3 gigantic tentacles each and when attack they burrow underground and come back up to try to impale the ones on the ground.

By the time we did get to the same area we had been dropped before, it had grown dark on Tatron. With only a few more hours left of mission time, I decided to quickly head over and across this small cliff to see what we could see. We turned on our suit lights and quickly climbed up this small cliff. I turned on my infrared and looked down. The same valley that had been barely one-fifth full was overflowing with Zerg forces now. I was dismayed as I saw all the normal Zerg building and some advanced ones. At least 20 hatcheries was there with many other ones that I have never seen before. As we turned to go I noticed something. A deep roar sounded behind us. I quickly turned my lights toward it. It was an Ultralisk. If I ever live to be 100 years old I will never forget that night. The Ultralisk is about 20 to 30 feet tall, four mammoth legs support it with enough strength to crush a marine in full armor. But its main weapons was the Kaiser blades it used for tusks. Amazingly fast and almost impossible to kill without a Siege Tank, this thing chilled me right to my bones. I screamed out, "Fire at will, Firebats surround, Medics optical flares fire on my mark. Three.....Two.....One....MARK!" Everyone was firing at this monster. But nothing ever seemed to hurt it. Before it could charge us, cause it was taken by surprise as much as we were, I told Joe and Harry to set up that small rocket launcher they had brought. As they set it up I took up firing to cover them, while at the same time yelling at Holli to radio base for some air support. Then I turned my attention on the Ultralisk. As soon as I saw it I jumped out of the way, for it had started to charge. As it went pounding by, I heard screams of pain and a wet stomping sound. Danni and Matt had been trampled the promptly exploded when their gas tanks erupted. Joe and Harry managed to get off one rocket with blew off one of its legs but then the Ultralisk was upon them. Joe managed to get out of the way, but Harry was impaled on one of its tusks. Screaming the Ultralisk back up only to catch Corri coming up behind him under one of his feet. Then it started forward again. Charging toward Holli and Amanda with Harry still on its tusk the Ultralisk bellowed a challenge to us. Holli was smart and dived under his legs and sliced him open with a surgical knife. Blood and insides started to come out of his soft belly. Screaming in pain now, the Ultralisk turned around, just to knock Amanda off the cliff and into the Zerg colony below. If they didn't know we was here before, they certainly did now. My team was just me, Kev, Billy, Holli, and Zeek left. Joe had been injured by one of his legs and Holli was looking to him now. I yelled at them, "Lay a cover fire, I am getting on top of him." They nodded and slowly started to back up as the Ultralisk turned around. Scrambling up a piece of rock, I jumped on the back of him as he came charging by. I pulled out my laser knife and threw it into the small head between the blades. But I wasn't in time. The knife finally killed the beast, but his momentum had carried him forward. Billy had been impaled too. I quickly jumped down off of him and injected myself with a stim-pack. I told the rest of them to do the same. I looked up and splayed my light straight up. The others did also. We saw a drop-ship coming down. With it came 5 wraith fighters. Also following it were many Mutalisks, the main air force of the Zerg. Seeing that we were ok, the Wraith pilots turned around and started to engage the enemy forces. The drop-ship landed and all of us jumped in. Then we took off back for base.

All in all the small scouting mission was a failure, resulting in the loss of 2 marines, one severely hurt, 3 firebats, and one medic. Not to mention two Wraiths and their pilots. But I knew that if we didn't do something fast against this Zerg force Maranaia would not be their next nuclear shipment time.

Well that is all I can send you this time. I am sorry the story is taking so long, but I feel it is necessary to tell you the full tale in length. I need to go hunt for more food. A rain is falling in the ruins of Maranaia, and I want to look at it one more time, before I die from a mountain I mean. I will send you another message as soon as I can. Goodnight.

Date: March 25th Terra time, September 31st Tatron time
Place of Destination: New York City, Terra
Origin of Message: Maranaia, Tatron

Been awhile huh? Yeah, so it has. I have been busy. But I have to tell you something. I am dying. I got in a fight with some Hydralisks and one of them fired a poison dart into my side. I ran and got away, but the poison in the dart is still in me. And I have no medpacks. So it is even more important to get as much of my story as I can out to you.

Where was I? Oh yes, that battle. Well as soon as I got back I was debriefed. The General congratulated me again on an excellent job done. But I knew it was a failure. The Zerg probably now know that we are concerned about their base so they would do either one of two things. One, attack with everything they have, and from what I saw they could overpower us. Two, they do nothing and build up their forces even more to totally wipe us out here. Either way I knew for some reason that they was coming soon. Zeek had talked to me earlier on the ways of the Zerg that he knew. That is where I had gotten all my information. "Jaxon," he told me, "If you live as long as I have fighting the Zerg you learn their ways of building, living, and attacking. And if that Ultralisk was just a scout for them, then that means they have too many troops to do with. I would guess that is the Fenris brood, by the way they fought." I tried to give the General my opinion of either bugging out (excuse the pun) or beefing up our defenses. He gave no indication he was planning on doing either. He just told me good job, assigned me new troops, and told me to watch out for and Zerg scouts coming in. I was given command of 9 other troops besides myself, and we took two of the bunkers facing the eastern face.

Our east was out most vulnerable area, I knew that, all the troops knew that, and probably the Zerg knew that. So we was assigned to guard three missile turrets and two siege tanks in siege mode. It was like this for about two weeks (during this time I had been studying Zerg attack patterns with Zeek helping me. By the time I was called he called me a professional Zerg researcher and professor) When I finally got called into the General's office. I took off in my armor and all.

When I got there the receptionist told me to meet him in conference room Alpha. By the grim look on her face I knew it was bad. I quickly marched down the corridor and walked into the conference room. "Ahh, Sgt. Jaxon, come in please. We were just about to start." I looked around and saw all the main leaders of troops, fighter squadron leaders, and the head Doctor. I wondered why I was here when I saw Sgt. Pudink here and an open seat behind him. Then I understood. He needed a back-up man to talk our squad into going into whatever hell was ahead of us. I nodded to him and sat down. It wasn't easy in my armor but I did it. The lights dimmed and the briefing started. "As you all know the Zerg Brood Fenris as created a major base in this valley ten kilometers east by northeast of Maranaia. Now I sent a small scouting team a few weeks ago to put observer pods into the mountains. The mission was a success, even though it resulted in 6 deaths. The squad was led by Sgt. 3rd class Jaxon *****. Through no fault of his own his squad suffered half of his squad in the battle, even though a mighty Ultralisk was killed." With that most of the leaders murmured to themselves. Looks of respect was given to me then. I felt pride first, but when I remembered the deaths I probably looked like I had a guilty conscience. "Our plan is to hit them hard and hit them quick before they have enough time." I interrupted at this point, "What the heck!!??! Pardon me General, but I think we have given them enough time to reinforce their base. They probably have tripled their troops, and further more....." Sgt. Pudink pulled me down and apologized to the rest of the commanders there. The General looked at me then continued, "We will be sending in 10 platoons of marines, 5 platoons of firebats, and 2 platoons of medics. Also will go with them 4 squads of Goliath walkers, 15 Arclite-armed siege tanks, and many vulture bikes. Also 4 squadrons of wraiths and a squadron of Valkyries will be going to provide air support. We will assign enough drop-ships to carry all infantry. The armor units will be just driven, walk, or hover there into position. We will be sending in 5 ghosts to pinpoint nuke weak points. They will fire the nukes at 2100 hours. The troops will land at 2130 hours. They will come in from the north of the Zerg base. Any questions?" There were some, but I will not repeat them here in this message. I was fuming the whole time. I stormed out of the building. Sgt. Pudink was right behind me.

We got back to our bunkers and told the rest of the squad. They all started to shout like I did. It took both me and Pudding to stop Joe from destroying his gun. Sgt. Pudding was mad as I was. "I know, I know. I hate it too boys. But I don't have a say-so in the matter. I am just a Sergeant after all." That helped them. But none of us slept that night. The attack was going down in the morning.

I woke up the next morning totally high already on adrenaline. Even though I had only been in two Zerg battles, everyone knew if you survived two Zerg battles you were a veteran. And I was becoming an expert on Zerg military. I climbed out of bed feeling like I was never going to do this again. I bounced over to the barracks. Met up with the rest of my squad there. "Excuse me sir," said Luke one of the new guys, "But may I say sir that this mission really sucks?" "Yeah, I agree Luke, it does suck." The others started to chuckle. I was in charge of 9 other people beside myself. The marines were myself, Corporal Zeek, Corporal Kev, Joe, Luke, and Nate. The firebats were Bret and Stev. The medics were Holli (I requested her myself) and Julie. When we were all set we headed for the starport. We got there about 5 hours before drop time. We all loaded up and took off. It was like a fleet of drop-ships flying into the air. I looked out a window and saw the Armor rolling off their way. I sighed and started to fall asleep.

When I woke up we had reached our destination. The drop-ships had landed and were now resting before they flew over and dropped us onto the Zerg. By satellite I requested a picture of the Zerg base. Now it had spread to where it was only 4 kilometers away from our base. It was huge and the creep covered everything. I started to get the shakes. Then the drop-ship pilot yelled into our ears saying, "GET READY TO DROP BOYS." We all stood up and put on our gas jet packs. I heard some major explosions and then we took off. A few seconds later we was over the drop area. This drop-ship carried 60 troops and we was first out. My whole team dropped at one time. I looked around and it looked like the Zerg was actually losing. While there was a lot of Sunken Colonies below me, I didn't see many units. I looked up to see a major air battle going on. I heard the Valkyrie's missiles firing as they flew. Many Mutalisks fell all around us to hit the ground below. When I got in range I started to fire at a sunken Colony. All the marines started firing. "Hey Jaxon," said Pudding in my ear, "Concentrate on that Spire so the Mutalisks can't be hatched." "Roger Sgt.” I finally hit the ground, shed my pack and ran at the spire. "Set up the rocket launcher Zeek, Luke. As soon as you are ready fire at that spire." The Spire was little more than a large organic tower like all the Zerg buildings. It had a round top on it like a nest.

See the way the Zerg gets troops is they hatch them from larvae grew in the hatchery. Then the larvae hatch into drones. Once the drones hatch, they morph into the Zerg building. The different buildings let the larvae hatch into different troops. But to let the building survive they need nourishment. So the Zerg designed the creep colonies, and after time they can morph into either sunken or spore colonies. Spore is for air defense.

Anyway they set up the rocket launcher and fired. A streak of light hit the spire and blew out a wall. We started to celebrate when we noticed something. Even though the spire collapsed I now realized the reason there weren't a lot of troops when I landed. They had burrowed. And out of an Ultralisk cavern nearby came at least 2 dozen of them. I yelled to my troops fall back and retreat and as we did so we fired, threw grenades, gave them everything we had. Our firebats alone killed at least 30 of them, but they both bought it in the process. I don't really remember the rest. It became living hell for me. I finally was picked up in a drop-ship sometime later. Most of my squad was still alive. But Zeek, Bret, Stev, and Julie all died there. And as we loaded up Holli was still on the loading platform when a pack of Zerglings jumped up after her and threw her to the ground. With the sudden weight imbalance by the Zerglings the drop-ship tilted and Joe fell onto the ground about 15 feet down. The pack of Zerglings fell upon them and tore them to pieces. Yelling and screaming curses at them, I took aim through watery eyes with a grenade on my rifle. "For you Holli. This is for both of you." I fired. Dead center. All 16 or so Zerglings was killed. I fell back while Luke closed the door. The only ones remaining out of our squad was myself, Luke, and Kev. I didn't know where Nate was. I found out later, when we got to base, that Nate had been killed defending a group of medics. At that moment I was too shocked to worry about things like where was the Air support? What happened to all of that armor that was sent out with us? Why didn't the nukes kill all those creatures in the radiation?

As soon as I could I ran back to the C&C, cause my drop-ship was the first one back. The General was in the tactical Command room with his staff, ordering units still out on the battlefield what to do. "GENERAL, what in the names of all the gods out there were you doing?" He looked at me in surprise and asked, "Sgt. Jaxon what the heck do you mean?" "I mean, Henry,” he sneered when I used his first name, "That most of my unit was slaughtered in that battle. I mean what the heck happened to the Armor support that was supposed to be there too. I mean what the heck happened with those nukes? This whole plan was a bust from the beginning General and I think you know it." The General slowly stood up and said, "Sgt. Jaxon, I am confining you to your quarters as of right now. Turn around and go back, and maybe you won't be court-martialed." I couldn't believe the nerve of this man. So I told him straight out, "I know who that spy is General." He looked at me. "It is Sergeant Pudink." A laugh rang out. I turned around and saw Sgt. Pudink standing there with a pistol in hand. Before I could react he took aim and killed all of the General's staff members. When he had finished he looked back at me and said, "Bravo young man, you finally figured out who was leaking information to the Dominion. But what you don't know is who was giving me the orders. Can you figure that one out?" I thought for a minute and then came to a solution. "You weren't in the battle, were you?" "Smart boy, maybe too smart for his own good. No I didn't want to risk my precious hide in that little skirmish." "Little skirmish? Hundreds of men and women are dying out there Pudding. And you stand here laughing. You are a dog. Nothing then a lowlife dog." Pudding was about to shoot me when the General said, "Don't worry about him John, I will take care of him." Pudding snorted and turned to walk out of the doorway. Then a shot rang out and Pudding dropped dead into the corridor.

I turned quickly and saw the General standing there with a pistol in his hand. A weird look was in his eyes as he said to me, "Now, Kerrigan. Send your forces." He then turned like I wasn't there. I yelled at him, "What the heck was that all about. Kerrigan?" Then I remembered who she was. Kerrigan had been Mengsk's personal aide and servant. He abandoned her at the battle of New Gettysburg. She later reappeared as the Overmind's personal servant. "You are working for Kerrigan? But why, General?" He turned to me and said, "You fool. You are nothing but a stupid kid. Do you think I took this body voluntarily? No, I knew about this base and I needed someone I could control. Luckily the Overmind set up someone back on earth that I could use through him to get to General Henry Karving." The General/Kerrigan laughed at me. "Now everything is ready." I was horrified. I figured that the Sgt. and the General was spies, but servants for Kerrigan herself I couldn't believe it. "Are you telling me that you just killed your own servant Kerrigan?" Henry/Kerrigan turned at me with those eyes again and told me, "No, he always thought he was being led astray by the Dominion and he loved it. So I let him think that. It was I that never defended the eastern side of this valley adequately. It was I that knew I needed to take out the Nuke production facilities in the town. And it was I that conceived this whole test." "Test," I said, "You mean to tell me this was just a test of your servants at obeying you?" "Oh yes little one. But do not think that this is the only servant I have in the military. I have others." I must have gone mad right then for I pointed my Gauss rifle at him and fired full blast. It tore him too shreds. He flew back over the console and into a screen. Then he laid still.

For a moment I just breathed then I quickly went the console and called up all the messages and files that the General had. I noticed something about them. All of the messages was addressed to a high officer of the UED. And all of the return ones were mostly from that same person. I looked at one message in particular. It read 'Duran is mine, already the UED accept him. But he will be their undoing'. I stared in horror at the message. I then called up the files but most of the private files had a pass code on them. Luckily the codes wasn't that hard. I saw everything, all the orders given for those days, and the exact time Kerrigan took control, and everything afterwards that he did to weaken the south side to attack. I also called up the file on Samir Duran. It told all about how his plan and his ultimate goal with the UED. It was like I was looking into Kerrigan's mind itself. I quickly downloaded everything into my suit. But before I could get back out of the conference room an alarm sounded. The Zerg was invading Maranaia.

I will not go into detail much about the defense of Maranaia. But I will record the deaths of the men under me. Private Luke Oliena died in the defense of the Academy against an Ultralisk. He went above and beyond the call of duty and was awarded the Star of Valor. Private Nate Thompson died fighting a whole group of Zerglings by himself. He was awarded the Lion Crest of Bravery for going above and beyond the call of duty. After the fall of Maranaia many humans still lived there. Trapped, for the Zerg had just erected an impenetrable defense of sunken colonies, they wrecked the star port, destroyed all the SCV's and Drop-ships before destroying the factory at the CC. One other thing. It is about Kev Jonson. I will tell you how he died cause he deserves it. Me and Kev was walking down a back street when several Hydralisks appeared around the corner. Me and Kev ran from them but Kev was hit with a poison spine in the leg. He dropped down and told me to go on. I almost couldn't but he pointed his gun at me and I ran off. I looked back to watch, so it would be ingrained in my memory forever. He sat up and started to fire all the time yelling at the Zerg that he was avenging his friends. Another spine hit him in the arm and another in the chest. His gun arm drooped and then they were upon him. A scream of pain came from them and I almost ran back but just stood and watched. Most of his body was thrown into the air and to my horror he was still alive. His eyes looked on me one more time, and then a spine went right through his head. He neck jerked back and Kev died there.

I awarded him the greatest marine honor. The Eagle medal of Courage, and Bravery in the face of death. On it I wrote, 'My friend Kev, that went above and beyond the call of duty, For no greater love is this, then he who lays down his life for a friend'.

That is my whole story. I hope you can get it to somebody of importance. At that moment I was the only one that knew Samir Duran was a traitor. And I was haunted by it. I had to tell someone and so I have written to you about it. And I hope against hope that I am not too late. You are probably wandering why we lost that battle. Well the Armor never made it to the Zerg base, many Lurkers ambushed them in a valley and all of them was destroyed. The nukes turned out to be missiles just filled with grenades by the General's orders. That is why we heard a noise, but no radiation. Also about the UED officer thing, I have proof on that, but I don't know his name. Maybe you can find out. The files are in this last message. Also is the message of Samir Duran. I hope it helps you. As for the rest of my story, after seeing Kev die, I went to the comm. center and made my home there. The rest you know. But the poison is about to win this battle. So I say farewell to everyone, all my friends and families at Terra. I am going to blow up the nuke storage bins and blow these Zerg back to where ever they came from. Goodbye and may God protect Earth from the Zerg.

The glow of the computer screen was the only light in the room, as the Military leader of the UED read the story of one brave marine. A tear came to his eye as he accessed the files that the young man specified and called up the President of the UED, hoping against hope that he wasn't too late.