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Reporter Des D. Mon of the
3rd Colonial Militia was awakened by a harsh noise, followed by the emotionless
female voice of the computer intoning that he had received new orders.
His eyes popped open as the message siren shattered the beautiful early
morning silence of the Militia headquarters, which consisted of marines
singing risqué songs and arguing about their skills.
Des found himself lying naked in his bunk, and further examination of
his room revealed his clothes strewn about the floor of his quarters,
and sitting on top of them, several cans of beer, flask of old brandy,
and a scratched up bottle that he could not identify. Last night must
have been a night to remember…too bad I can't.
The message siren screeched again, letting him know that he had an important
message on the line and that he needed to get up and see what it was.
Not that he wanted to. Why don't they make that damned message siren something
more soothing, like a lullaby…He began to hum to himself until he
drifted off into semi-consciousness. And was once again awoken by the
screech of the siren.
"You have a message waiting, Mr. Mon."
"Agh…put it through on audio only…and give me some clothes."
Another female voice started talking. "Des, are you awake?"
Angelica Morgan, editor-in-chief of the 3rd Colonial News Dispatch.
"Barely…"
"Well, get up here as fast as you can. We've got some good stuff
for an article in the Dispatch, and I want you on it."
"What's in it for me…"
"We've got one of those valkyrie pilots taking you into the field."
Des woke up with a start. "I'll be right there."
Des headed up to Angelica's
office, hoping that this was some saucy material on one of the less gregarious
generals in the Militia. They were pretty well disciplined, so it was
unlikely that this was the case, but one could always hope. It would be
far more interesting than some obscure skirmish between rebel groups that
he was always being sent to report on. That was all that happened on this
godforsaken planet.
Des opened the door, and saw Angelica looking at her watch, obviously
wondering when he'd get there. She looked up as she heard the door creak.
"There you are. This is good news, there are a couple of the rebel
commanders heading out to sector 45. They're going to try to claim it
from Commander TM. A hard fight, it seems. Should be plenty of action
to please the peons."
"Sounds good," said Des, feigning interest. Then he suddenly
realized something. "Wait, sector 45? Isn't that the place they call
Hall of Valhalla?"
"Yes, that's the place. Why do you ask?"
"Bad memories…"
"Well, head down to the hangar. We have your personal wraith prepped
for the trip." A small smile appeared on Angelica's lips as she said
these words.
"Wait, my wraith? What about the valkyrie pilot thing?"
"They weren't too interested…"
Des groaned.
About an hour later, about
three hundred meters above the surface of sector 45, or "The Hall
of Valhalla," Des was sitting in his personalized wraith, cloaking
device ready to kick in if he got into any sticky situations. He mumbled
something about broken promises.
"Well, let's see what's
going on…" The wraith plunged down from that atmosphere, and
a heavy-duty camera in place of the wraith's burst laser went online.
He began taking pictures with amazing speed and precision.
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Commander XR landed his
command center at the northern most plateau of sector
45, sporting his yellow faction color, while his fellow terran,
TM, landed at the west, wearing brown. Baron FS, commanding a zerg
brood, had just recently finished his hatchery at the southern most
plateau.
All three commanders quickly begin putting up structures necessary
for their war efforts. XR opts for infantry, based on his decision
to construct two barracks and shortly thereafter an academy, while
TM goes for two factories and a more standard vehicular strategy.
His academy comes later, if only for scan. However, he lands his
scouting barracks inside of XR's main for later use. FS has made
his way up to a lair, and begins morphing a spire to take to the
skies. Opposing two terrans with air might be somewhat risky, as
either might opt for valkyries making it hard for him to maintain
control, however, he cannot be ignored. Interestingly enough, he
also opts to construct a queen's nest. Whether he plans to use queens
or wants a fast hive remains to be seen.
XR has constructed both a factory and a starport and put up a control
tower, and he then loads his freshly trained infantry, consisting
of medics and marines, into a new dropship. He then orders the pilot
to set out for TM's base, however, TM decides to make his move at
the same time. He sends a dropship filled with a tank and two goliaths
towards XR's base, and at the same time constructs a pair of marines
out of his offensively placed barracks. XR notices this shortly
after his dropship leaves, and sends a pair of marines to deal with
the threat. However, the three are able to kill XR's two first,
and proceed
to begin attacking XR's buildings. On top of this, TM's dropship
unloads beside XR's minerals and the tank and goliaths open fire
on XR's base.
XR's dropship unloads into TM's base and the marines begin to kill
SCV's mercilessly, but a the stalwart workers fight back, and with
the aid of goliaths, they manage to expel the offending marines.
XR is faring much worse, losing warriors and workers alike to the
ijnvasion, and after a short period opts to remove his buildings
from his base and fly them eastward. His supply depots fall, but
the majority of his buildings make it away to the resource rich
valley just east of his base.
FS has been constructing mutalisks and queens at his base, and the
flyers idle as they wait for an opportune moment to move out and
attack the invading terrans. Other than TM's continuing to attack
the remaining buildings in XR's base, the game seems to be at a
relative standstill. XR suddenly orders his workers to engage the
goliaths, killing them, although the tank remains. As the SCV's
repair what little is left of their base, TM drops an SCV off in
the walled in area in the northwest, and begins construction of
a command center.
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"Holy crap, that was quick!"
Des pulled his slightly charred wraith up and flipped on the cloak after
a flyby of XR's base. "Don't tell me this fight is over already,
Angelica. Fuel is too expensive for me to have headed out this far without
a nice bonus."
Des pulled out a Led Zeppelin datastream and popped it into the wraith's
stereo system as he turned to see what was going on in TM's base.
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FS
decides to make his move here, sending his force of queens and mutalisks
up to TM's base. TM has a great deal of goliaths, making an all
out attack seem somewhat futile, but FS has some tricks up his sleeve.
The queens move to the front then fire out their broodling eggs
into various goliaths, causing the little broodlings to rip out
and begin to attack whatever they can find. Multiple goliaths go
down this way, only managing to take down a couple queens as they
die. The mutalisks move to engage, however goliath fire compels
FS to retreat his force. The broodlings remain, however, and they
begin to cut through various structures in TM's base. SCV's and
goliaths move to engage, when suddenly the queens return, killing
two more goliaths. This time the zerg retreat is final, however
TM has lost a supply depot, a turret, and multiple goliaths.
The SCV's at XR's base
have ousted the tank, although their losses are huge. The survivors
quickly start up construction of a command center in the ruins of
the old base, putting XR at two bases, yet still at a severe economic
disadvantage. He however is not one to give up easily, and works
to return to his orignial status. At the same time, TM constructs
wraiths out of his starport, and begins research there, presumably
equipping his fighters with cloaking technology to engage the mutalisks
and queens and turn the battle in his favor.
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"So much for mutalisks
and queens." Des pulled up to get a better view of what was going
on across the map, and also to relieve his reactor of the strain of cloaking.
As "Rock and Roll" started up, he started drawing obtuse sketches
of what was going on below him. After remembering he had no drawing skills,
Des pulled out a sandwich. "Trust these idiots to have their skirmish
during my lunch break."
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FS moves to expand, sending
out an overlord with two drones in it, however he decides to skip
the mineral rich base just outside of his, and instead move to the
valley to the east and north of his base. The players work on their
economic strength, each now running two bases, but TM seeming to
have the strongest.
TM constructs a valkyrie to combat the flyers from FS, but just
as it finishes about five queens make another raid on his base,
taking out three or four goliaths. TM's wraith pilots gun their
engines and pursue the queens, turning on their newly acquired cloaking
fields until they run into mutalisks at FS's base, where overlords
telepathically locate the fighters, allowing the mutalisks to engage.
The wraiths quickly make their escape. Immediatley after this, TM
flies three dropships of golaiths and SCVs to FS's base, as well
as sends his airforce, consisting of two wraiths and a valkyrie,
to engage the zerg flyers. Unfortunatley
for TM, the incompetence of one of the pilots prevents four of the
goliaths from unloading, allowing the zerg force to dispatch the
terrans that much more easily. Zerglings and queens kill the goliaths,
and the fighters fly in a second too late, and are chased away by
the mutalisks.
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"I don't know why he hires
these idiots to fly those things. I mean, any half assed recruit can unload
goliaths. Why not these people?" Des shook his head, then turned
and zoomed off to the other end of the sector to see what XR was doing.
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XR is once again battle-ready,
with several marines and medics freshly trained. He constructs an
engineering bay and puts up several turrets throughout his main
base. He has also begun the construction of dropships, and is preparing
to drop. Both TM and FS begin expansions at around the same time,
with FS's spawning at the eastern plateau, and TM landing a command
center in the valley northeast of his base. TM has constructed more
golaiths, and has also enhanced his airforce with a few more valkyries.
TM sends two SCVs to the central walled in area to construct yet
another base, and XR starts up a command center
in his base, however where he plans to expand is not yet clear.
FS loads up several zerglings and rallies his mutalisks, having
sighted TM's valley expansion. As the forces set out, they see another
group of dropships from TM, and sharply turn to engage the new enemies.
Using his strategy again of broodlinging, FS quickly dispatches
the goliaths, but the valkyries butcher his mutalisks, and he is
left without any way to defend against their attacks besides the
few spore colonies in his base. To correct this problem, he constructs
a hydralisk den and begins to morph the snake like creatures.
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Des saw something on his radar.
"FS is in some deep shit…I foresee violence in the near future.
But hey, us humans like our medarine." Gunning his engines, Des zoomed
across the sector to the eastern base.
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FS's
eastern expansion is found by XR, who empties six dropships of medics
and marines into it. The static defense at the zerg base is incapable
of stopping the assault, and in a matter of seconds the hatcheies
explode into bloody puddles. The terrans quickly load up and make
their exit, moving southward, deeper into FS's territory. They are
quickly engaged by mutalisks, but only one is lost before the army
is unloaded in FS's main. Although things look quite bad for FS,
he is soon able to dispatch the terran forces, leaving only one
dropship alive. Back at his main, XR begins to construct starports,
en masse. TM has done the same during this conflict, as well as
attached a physics lab to his science facility, obviously moving
towards BCs. He scans XR, sees the
starports, and decides that he does not want this to become a war
for air superiority between the two terran powers. Two dropships
of goliaths unload into XR's base, which after the attack on FS
is sorely underdefended.XR once again is forces to flee from his
main, although his newly obtained mineral only expansion west of
his base goes unnoticed by the walkers. The remaining marines at
XR's base are slaughtered, and XR begins his escape.
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"Wow…XR is having
a crappy day, isn't he. I'm so glad we didn't have him as our general
at the 9,482,629,026th battle of Lost Temple."
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FS has retaken his base at
the easternmost plateau, as well as the southeastern walled in area,
unaware of the battle between his two adversaries. He sends his
flyer force to the central base, engaging the goliaths and turrets
that are there. These buy TM enough time to bring in a few valkyries
which chase away the offending zerg. The valkyrie pilots don't pursue
the zerg, as TM is content to build up his force of battlecruisers.
XR has reconstructed his starports and erected a physics lab of
his own. He begins the construction of battlecruisers, but short
on cash, decides to expand at the eastern plateau. As his SCVs unload,
they sight the creep, and he puts up a bunker and sends in marines
to combat his foes. FS's drones are quickly butchered, and the marines
make their escape into the bunker before the zerg guarding the base
can react.
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"I wonder how FS is feeling
right now…" Suddenly, a siren went off and a ping appeared on
the map screen at FS's main base. "Dear god…I'm so glad I'm
not him. Way to get doubled, buddy."
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FS has just unloaded
his zerglings into TM's central base as this happens, and suddenly
he realizes that XR is not alone in his attack. At FS's main base,
TM has attacked with goliaths, tanks, and his new fleet of battlecruisers,
crushing the resistance and proceeding to raze FS's base to the
ground. TM's battlecruisers dispatch the offending zerg in his middle
expansion, and TM quickly resumes mining. At FS's east base, a similar
situation arises as has in his main. Battlecruisers cut through
the undefended base, and FS finds himself at half his base count.
TM will not let up on his assault on FS, and drops 16 goliaths over
FS's valley base, and tanks and battlecruisers engage as well. However,
the terrans stop short of destroying the entire valley base, leaving
a hatchery, a spore colony, and a sunken colony alive. TM has dropped
goliaths onto the eastern plateau, and engaged XR's forces there,
drawing
his attention away from the valley base. He pulls his forces toward
the eastern base, and from the plateau they destroy XR's starports.
As TM unloads his troops under the valley, XR finds himself with
limited options. He fires yamato blasts at the goliaths, and uses
a few wraiths to combat TM's battlecruisers. The troops engage each
other, carefully doing what damage they can, but XR realizes that
the situation isn't one he can come out of alive. He orders the
surrender, and the white flag is raised.
FS and TM are now the only ones left, but FS has taken quite a beating
during the course of the battle. Although he makes several raids
on TM's various bases, TM outnumbers him, and as the terran forces
push towards his remaining bases, FS relinquishes control of the
sector, deactivating his control over the zerg.
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"Well, that's another
couple bucks in my pocket." Des gunned his engines and flew his Wraith
back to Militia headquarters.
Walking into Angelica's office,
Des laid down the report and the photographs he had taken. "There
ya go. Do I get a raise for this? Pleeease?"
"I'll consider it, Des." Angelica gathered up the papers and
photos, then turned to her desk computer.
"Bleh…" Des walked out of the office and down to his quarters,
sitting on his bed and downing a bottle of malt liquor…and then another…and
then yet another.
As the clock struck twelve, Des had the strangest feeling he was a stripper…
Back in her office, Angelica
logged onto battlereports.com and went into the report center. Logging
in, she uploaded her scanned screens and Des's article.
"Hm…let's call this one 'From the Desk of the Editor'…"
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