Captain Caleb Burns felt the wind slowly change its direction from the west as his Wraith started to tremble softly as it knifed its way through the air. Burns grabbed his control stick and eased it back letting his machine glide up above the clouds until the trembling stopped and he could only hear the engines humming softly behind him, propelling him forward. Most pilots wouldn’t have been able to feel the slight turbulence but Burns had a special bond with his Wraith, it had saved his life on more then one occasion and Burns had learned that if you take care of your machine, it would take care of you.
“Sir, should I report the change in altitude to HQ?” a voice said, Burns’ headset abruptly booming in his ears.
“What? Umm… no, I’ll do it.” Burns had temporarily forgotten that he wasn’t alone. Behind him eleven steel, gray Wraiths flew swiftly through the sky with him, a reconnaissance mission of the western coast of the primitive jungle planet of Tarol. “This is Blue Leader to New Chicago, Blue Leader to New Chicago…”
Burns waited for a reply but only heard the crackling of static. He repeated his message twice more before giving up the cause. “This is Blue Leader to Blue Squad, we’re getting some interference and I can’t contact to HQ, we’d should head back about now anyway. So let’s drop down to two thousand feet and start for home.”
Several voices mumbled incoherently. Burns slid his control stick down and felt the Wraith angle down too as his stomach tightened in his gut and the exhilaration of flying filled his heart.
Several minutes had passed by and yet no matter how many times Burns had tried to contact New Chicago, all he received was static. He was starting to get worried, there was no apparent interference on the scanners and nothing seemed to be wrong with his transmitter, yet he called out with no avail. He gripped his control stick with one hand and flipped on his weapon systems before laying his other hand on the targeting mechanism.
According to the map a relay station was not too far off and Blue Squad should reach it soon so they could discover what was going on. The jungle beneath them seemed to suddenly clear away and in the plains laid the charred remains of barely recognizable Supply Depots. Burns clenched his jaw tightened his grip on both controls so that his knuckle’s bulged through his black aviator’s gloves.
“Sir?” a pilot said through his headset. “What happened down there?”
“I don’t know, son,” Burns answered honestly. “But, I want the entire squad to be ready for anything and I mean anything. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.” Then he switched off.
The squadron of Wraiths soared toward New Chicago at top speed. The air whistling behind them as they sliced through it. Then the first signs of New Chicago appeared and that terrified the young men so high up in the sky. A Bunker stood burning as machine guns clattered pumping bullets into the Zerglings surrounding it. Yet as one of them fell three others were there to take their place and the carnage continued.
A Wraith that had been beside of him suddenly exploded in a blazing light, the shockwave forced Burns to tumble and veer off from the rest of the group. He pulled on his control stick as hard as he could and felt the Wraith slowly straighten itself out as if flying through water.
That diversion had saved Burns because right at that moment two packs of Mutalisks had flanked the remaining Wraiths and had overpowered and destroyed them as pieces of machine fell from the sky, some of them soaked in their pilot’s blood. Now Burns was alone, his heart seemed to turn to lead and drop down into his stomach. His mind became a furnace, fuming with vengeance. They would pay, a hundred for each man he had lost.
He fought on, each time a different Zerg. Each one looking as if it had been spawned from hell, with sharp teeth gnashing against the armor of the Wraith and fiery brimstone erupting from their cavernous mouths smashing into and weakening him. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw the New Chicago Command Center destroyed in a column of fire and heat, and when the debris cleared something else, something unearthly took its place. A bubble of gray flesh with green and red blood streaming down its sides, it was pumping slowly like a demon’s heart, each time expanding and consuming the earth around it with slime.
Eventually the bubble popped, from inside hatched a living fortress. Four spiked towers all connected to one wide column by orange and black flesh. It was a Zerg Hatchery, the single point where all the powers of the Zerg laid. It had to be stopped. Burns took in a deep breath and drove his control stick down as hard as he could.
Zerg filled the sky and Zerg consumed the earth. The Terrans could not hope to defeat such a terrible force, creatures that fought as one and had no fear of death, and no sympathy for the dead. Then from out the sky a single Wraith, a single angel came down from the heavens. Diving with the wind screaming around him and Zerg following him closely. Without thought, without regret he rammed his vehicle into the Zerg Hatchery; a spark of light and it was done, he was gone. What remained was the burnt surface of the Hatchery that was quickly healed and forgotten.
