Dire Straits is one of those backwater joints. Fucking shithole. But for some reason, the Zerg set up shop. Who knows right? Central said we had to clear ‘em out, so hoo-fucking-rah! Here’s the thing though. The mission commander was Johnny Vegas. In case you hadn’t heard of him, he’s been around since ’98, stayin' under the radar. Never doin’ much, always just enough to get by.

[Did you have a problem with him personally?]

Not at the time. I mean, common knowledge was that he got a lot of boys killed unnecessarily, no imagination, slow to react to conditions on the field, etc. But you have to understand, we were a crack squad, we didn’t give a shit who our commander was. We could take care of ourselves.

[Okay, sorry, please continue.]

So anyway, we land and set up shop. Vegas calls all the squad leaders together and says we’re going to load up a dropship and hit the Zerg hard and fast with a single squad. Now I’ve seen the success rate on these drops and its fairly low. It takes forever to get that fucking dropship loaded up and equipped. Sometimes you’ll catch a lucky break, but most of the time you get beat down by a bunch of lings and hydra.

Anyway, so Julian goes apeshit. Says it’s a stupid idea, suicidal, etc. Now what Vegas didn’t know was that Julian was fucking the medic in the squad that was set to go, squad one, Angie I think. So they’re arguing heatedly on the tactical merits of the plan and when Vegas finally breaks out the ‘That’s an order!’ bullshit, Julian had to be restrained. Yeah, I know he’s fucking stupid for getting so involved with a medic, but hey, at least they have a higher survival rate on the battlefield than us grunts. Hell, I heard four medics survived in the middle of the battle for Lost Temple after three squads got wasted. Every time a muta would fly overhead, they would just keep healing each other. Kinda hot if you ask me.

But whatever, Julian does what Julian does and no one ever said he was bright. So he finally calmed down and the SCVs got to work. Now if it’d been me, I would’ve stuck someone on Julian, as pissed off as he was. But Vegas fucking ignored him. Figured his “Order” had sunk in. I mean, all you had to see was the look on Julian’s face to know that it wasn’t over.

[So you knew Julian was up to something?]

Shit, I didn’t know anything. But it didn’t take much to put two and two together. It wasn’t my business though. I didn’t even have a medic in my squad. But later that day I was in the lounge overlooking the starport, smokin’ a cigar. I happened to be looking out the window when the first squad loaded up and I saw the medic before she snapped her faceplate shut. It sure as hell wasn’t Angie.

[You saw this and you didn’t say anything?]

What the fuck was I gonna do? Run my ass all the way up three flights of stairs to comm? Hell, the dropship’s thrusters were already powering up.

[So then what happened?]

The ship flew off to the southwest and I finished my cigar. Chester joined me and he had a cigar of his own. He and I had a good chuckle over Julian protecting his pussy and then we headed over to comm to monitor the mission’s progress. Vegas was already there when we arrived and his face was beat red. The dropship pilot had radioed the switch-a-roo back. Vegas was screaming into the mike and I thought he would call the whole mission off. Dumbass was just then figuring out that Julian had somthin’ going under the table with Angie. Kinda slow really. Gina actually had to get on the radio herself and tell Vegas it was okay. He was pissed though and had security throw Julian in the brig. Then he assigned Angie to squad two. I didn’t see her, but I heard she took it well. I think she felt kinda guilty about Julian pulling strings for her.

So just about the time things were calming down the fucking mutas hit. They came in from the back of the base, two at the factory, three at the turret. Kinda dumb, but that’s the Zerg for you. The turret took one of ‘em down and the others flew out of range and joined the attack on the factory. So this fucking Rambo type goes flyin’ in there machine gun blazing. He got blown away in about two seconds. I have no idea what the fuck he was doing. Once the starport was built, we didn’t need the factory. But I’m sure his family will get a sweet letter from Central anyway regarding his heroic death.

The rest of the base was secure from the four remaining mutas and intel didn’t pick up any additional threats in the area so we focused on the dropship assault. Now I’m a crusty son of a bitch, survived twelve of these types of missions. But I’m lucky and I recognize that. I say a prayer for each mission, cuz whatever I think of their combined intellects, these boys and my boys, we’re all in this together. And to top it off, Gina’s a real sweetheart and she shouldn’t have even fucking been out there.

[Why do you think Gina agreed to do it?]

You're asking the wrong guy. I mean, I heard she was getting some of Julian's hazard pay as kickback, and I know she's got family devastated by the initial invasion. But I don't know. Hell, maybe she was fucking one of the squad one grunts.

[Okay, so how did the assault play out?]

Well we were all pretty tense as they neared the landing point and as they went into final descent, Vegas ordered a scan of the Zerg base. I can’t even describe how relieved we were when we got the first pictures back. Chester and I were laughing our asses off. Seriously, there wasn’t shit in the base but a bunch of fucking drones and a couple of spore colonies, you know, the surface to air shit they have. Not a scrap of defense for a ground assault. I have never been assigned a mission like that. It was unbelievable. I later found out it was some kind of renegade swarm. The cerebate’s name was Derfsbo, Darfseb, some stupid shit like that.

So the boys stimmed up and charged in guns blazin’. There had to have been at least twenty drones and that’s where the first fuck up occurred. Now Joe’s been a squad leader on almost as many missions as I and so he knows what these drones can do. And he did all right at first, the squad probably killed three quarters of ‘em off easy. But the rest went running off to the north. Gonzalez had the flamethrower and he goes chargin’ after ‘em. I guess he thought the rest of the boys were following, but Joe had ‘em working on blowing away the Zerg buildings. Unfortunately for Gonzalez, it turned out the escaped drones were morphing into sunken colonies. He never had a chance. To make matters worse, Joe heard him screaming over the radio for backup and went charging after him. Didn’t even think about the consequences, heroic and dumb.

And that was that, we had a squad without a squad leader. No way in hell they were going to be able to finish the job on their own. So they holed up, took out the buildings that were out of sunken range, and waited for reinforcements. And that’s when the fun began because after all the crap that Julian had pulled, Angie got shipped out anyway. Now granted it was low risk shit, clean-up duty really, but Vegas made sure one of the guards told Julian.

[In Vegas’ official report, he states that the second squad was sent in to clean up the remaining hatcheries, that the sunken colonies were not in a position to protect anything vital. What he fails to explain is why he felt it necessary to include a medic if the sunken colonies weren’t a threat. Are you saying that he specifically sent Angie to spite Julian?]

Hell fucking yeah. It was kind of an “in your face” to Julian. He even had the guard tell Julian that the original squad had been wiped out. Far from the truth, but how was Julian supposed to know that?

Anyway, we all knew we could relax. Clean up the remaining Zerg buildings and then maybe get some R&R before central pulled us out. Take a swim, build a sand castle, whatever. It was an island chain after all. But that was when things got really fucked up. Squad two lands off to the east and they rendezvous with squad one on the south side of the Zerg base. Vegas orders another scan, just to make sure things are kosher, and that’s when we saw the second spawning pool. It turned out the Zerg had enough spare minerals and drones to construct two more sunken colonies. These two were protecting the remaining Zerg hatchery, not to mention a few freshly hatched Lings.

When we saw the pictures we knew this could mean trouble. Two squads to take out two sunken colonies with only two medics for support. Now I grant you, it can be done, but you’re gonna lose some guys doin’ it. As soon as I saw this, I told Vegas to hold off on the assault. Our dropship was ready to go and a third squad could make all the difference. Vegas just got this strange smile on his face and said sure. So we loaded up. As soon as we were out of the room, that sonofabitch ordered the assault, knowing full well what was waiting for those two squads. By the time we got there, there was nothing but a pile of corpses. We passed Amy and Gina first. I guess... I guess they had…

[Its okay sergeant, take all the time you need.]

I guess they had tried to escape to the drop zone after the last marine died. They knew we were coming goddamit. They were chased by one zergling, one fucking zergling. If we had gotten there five minutes sooner we could have saved them. But as it was there was nothing left but the easy clean-up duty that squad two should have had. We wiped out that last hatchery with a vengeance. The only bodies worth recovering were the two medics and we loaded ‘em up on the dropship.

[What were you thinking about on the way back?]

I don’t know what I was thinking. I was just mad. There was no reason for Vegas to order that assault before we arrived. But he did it anyway. And I was certain it was simply to get back at Julian. Like I said, I’ve been on a lot of missions. But never have I seen men so needlessly wasted. It was a cakewalk, a fucking cakewalk. There couldn’t have been more than a few drones mining at that point. With our three squads combined, we would have wiped them out. And that dumbass Julian could be sitting out on the beach with Angie watching the sunset over the island right now.

[Is that why you shot Vegas?]

Don’t you think he deserved it? That sonofabitch wasted two squads. Don’t you think he deserved it?

[You didn’t answer the question sergeant.]

YES! Yes. That’s why I killed Johnny Vegas.

[Sergeant, you maintain that Sergeant Julian was in a relationship with Angie.]

Yes, I do. I’m sure I was clear on that point.

[Sergeant, we performed an autopsy on the body you recovered.]

Well that was fucking unnecessary. Its pretty obvious what killed her.

[We found a fetus in Angie’s womb. We ran the DNA. It matches your DNA. How do you explain that?]

There must be some mistake.

[We’ve spoken with Private Chester sergeant, he claims that you and Angie had been secretly meeting for weeks.]

That sonofabitch! That goddamn sonofabitch. Listen, it doesn’t matter who Angie was having a relationship with, she didn’t deserve to die like that.

[Sergeant, based on Vegas' report, its possible that had the assault been delayed, the Zerg may have had time to build up a force strong enough to overwhelm not just two squads, but the entire sector.]

Goddammit, that's not true, that's just not true! Commander Vegas was a lying sonofabitch.

[Sergeant, is it possible that it was actually you who was having the relationship with Angie? That when her squad ran into unexpected difficulties, you took it out on Commander Vegas even though he followed standard protocol? Sergeant, is this possible?]

No, its not possible. Vegas was irresponsible and he deserved what he got.

[You're making things difficult Sergeant. If you're truthful now, we may be able to help you at your court martial. But if you keep lying that's not going to happen.]

Fuck you! FUCK YOU! I’m not answering any more of your goddam questions.

** End of Transcript**

The following video has been added into the record per the instruction of Admiral Whittaker. It is taken from the surveillance camera attached to squad three's dropship during their final descent in support of the initial assault by squads one and two. It should be noted that based on the Sergeant's confirmed relationship with Private Angie Foster, this video would have caused severe mental anguish. This video will remain affixed to this transcript and should be entered into evidence at the Sergeant's court martial.

Order#: 7145366832183-12434
Requisition#: 437811
Label: Dropship Surveillance Video - Serial#: 154830
Timestamp: 2403-11-05 14:38:12:435 - 2403-11-05 14:38:32:589