Mar Sara's surface, the colonial capital — Mar Sara City.
The last time Augustus had set foot on Mar Sara, this planet with its crimson soil, had been more than a year ago. Now, as he stepped once more onto this barren yet ruggedly majestic expanse, he found himself struck by a sense of déjà vu—after all, Raynor's son, John, had already been born for more than three months.
Mar Sara's capital district had suffered devastation from warfare a year earlier, but the main avenues and buildings destroyed by artillery had since been rebuilt and repaired, restoring the city largely to its prewar state.
Back then, several main divisions of the Revolutionary Army had surrounded the central urban area, while the planetary defense forces of Mar Sara's governor had attempted to use the residential districts as both a shield and a strategic buffer for the Governor's Mansion.
Now, the cross-hatched, grid-like streets of Mar Sara City presented an utterly desolate sight. Solar telephone booths, orbital satellite relay stations, restaurants, shops, and Ardeon crystals trading posts—all of them stood empty inside. This once-thriving metropolis of over a million inhabitants had become a silent dead city, with only a single Terran Confederacy flag on a distant flagpole still fluttering in the wind.
Flyers from a barbershop skittered across the brown, short military boots—studded with hobnails—worn by Augustus, and were swept up into the sky by a passing gust. Augustus tightened the collar of his heavy cloak, his thick gray eyebrows remaining tightly knitted.
During this season in the capital district, rainfall was scarce and the air was dry. Frequent winds swept up the red soil from outside the city, sending it drifting down like a fine, mist-like dust.
Not long ago, the oases and green belts around the capital district had been able to hold back the wind and sand that battered the city. But now, the vegetation in that region had all withered. A thick Zerg creep had already spread to within only a few miles of the main urban zone; both farmland and small rivers were covered with a viscous, oily carpet of creep.
"Spore infection. Look at these houses—mushrooms are almost growing on them." Tychus Findlay, wearing his custom deep-red powered armor marked with the number 625 and holding a Whisper Persuader heavy machine gun, said: "In the sky are Omega Squadron's ships, and underground the bugs are still digging nonstop. The situation isn't good—this really is strange, the entire Sara star system."
"We're the only ones thinking about saving people."
Just as Tychus had said, the Jormungand Brood had already begun its infestation of the city. Along the sewers and manhole covers, deep-purple tissue from the creep had begun to show.
Behind Augustus, Tychus, and the others, a fully armed mobile battalion from the Revolutionary Army's 1st Division marched past them in tight formation. The soldiers, whose powered armor bore the white Whip-Ring and the 1st Division's black double-headed eagle emblem, were followed by massive red Goliath combat robots. Large numbers of Moria war chariots and medium tanks were driving along a wider highway nearby.
In the sky above, Avengers, Wraiths, and waves of transports carrying airborne troops— all belonging to the Revolutionary Army—flew past from time to time.
All those forces were heading toward a single direction, a single target: the largest aerodrome on all of Mar Sara—Mar Sara Aerodrome.
They had been ordered to seize the aerodrome, currently held by Omega Squadron, within two hours so that its launch port could be used to send out transports carrying refugees. A dozen hours earlier, a Marine company under Duke's Alpha Squadron had attempted to take the aerodrome, but had been repelled by Omega Squadron's defenders.
Left with no alternative, the Alpha Squadron lieutenant commanding that company had been forced to request reinforcements from the main force through his comms radio.
Before the Revolutionary Army had arrived on Mar Sara, the city had been continuously loading weapons and equipment from the Mar Sara Military Base—and Ardeon crystals from the government depot—onto hundreds of APOD transports, sending them out of the Sara star system. The aerodrome had been launching ships day and night, its schedule always full. Yet those transports carried only valuables, weapons, and official records—never the refugees who desperately needed evacuation.
It was said that the previous Mar Sara magistrate had used large transports to move off-world all the wealth he had extorted during his more-than-a-year tenure, and that only the rich and those connected to them could board the government and military transports. Even the magistrate's dogs and cats were given seats to escape Mar Sara, while no amount of wailing from the refugees could secure them a place to leave the planet.
"Quit complaining, Tychus. I heard you're an expert at handling the Zerg. So—what's your plan for dealing with the bugs here?" Jim Raynor, clad in his Heaven's Devils gray livery, was wiping his beloved Colt military revolver. From time to time he raised it slightly, as if picturing himself blowing apart a Zerg's head with it.
In Mar Sara City's main urban district, not only was an elite Omega Squadron detachment stationed, but its dark, cramped streets could at any moment produce several Zerglings screeching and tearing their way out. These small and agile creatures could even move through Mar Sara's sewer network, lying in wait to drag passing Terrans below ground.
Before the Revolutionary Army had entered the city, its residents had often heard the sound of a massive swarm suddenly rushing past beneath their feet—the thudding of chitinous limbs pounding on broken metal made one's skin crawl.
The increasing number of missing-person reports, the corpses found gnawed clean, and the giant scorpion-like creatures that appeared from time to time had still failed to trigger any response from the city government or the Governor's Mansion. It was as if they simply did not care.
Now, the city's underground likely housed millions of Zerg. They had hollowed out the sewer network and were tirelessly building an underground kingdom for the swarm. When the time was right—or if the leader of the Jormungand Brood chose to attack—the swarm could destroy the entire city as easily as a towering wave capsizes a small boat at sea.
"Burn it all," Tychus said. "The Protoss already told us what to do—burn every last bug. Whether it's Zerglings, Hydralisks, or their eggs, burn them all."
"The only thing you'll need to do when the time comes is sprinkle black pepper and cumin over the roasted Zerg corpses. There's only one way to deal with the bugs: scorch the entire planetary surface once, pour magma into their damn tunnels, and seal the entrances with concrete. The Protoss have already shown us how it's done."
"Yes, you really ought to try some roasted Zerg wing, Jimmy—New Sydney grilled-chicken-wing style," Hank Harnack said. "I've found that roasting bugs is a lot more fun than roasting people, but those monsters don't have any fat on them, so you can't use them as fuel lamps."
Some time after the destruction of Chau Sara, Tychus had watched, together with other senior officers of the Revolutionary Army, the documentary footage of the Protoss Expeditionary Fleet annihilating Chau Sara. This left an extremely deep impression on Tychus, who had once looked down on the Protoss; overnight, he became a believer in superior firepower and an enthusiast of roasting Zerg.
This also gave Tychus and Hank Harnack, commander of the Revolutionary Army's firebat units, more common ground.
"Burning down an entire planet… If we were capable of doing that, we would've done it long ago," Augustus said at this moment. "Right now, our forces can only contend with the Zerg in small-scale, localized engagements. Once it becomes full-scale war, we can barely fight back with fusion weapons."
"Boys, let's get the people of Mar Sara out first before we think about roasting bugs."
At that moment, several sporadic gunshots came from the front of the Revolutionary Army's marching column—clearly, the vanguard led by Ryk Kydd had made contact with the enemy. But the gunfire quickly subsided, and Augustus soon received the report that Omega Squadron had already withdrawn.
"Augustus, a large number of residents stranded in the city have gathered outside Mar Sara Aerodrome. They've set up tents out there, just hoping the Confederacy's troops might grow a conscience and take them along in their escape." Ryk's voice came through Augustus's communicator.
"When the Jormungand Brood first invaded Mar Sara, the wealthy—those who could afford tickets for long-range interstellar flights—had already left. The ones remaining now are middle-class folk and ordinary civilians."
"How many of them are there? Establish a quarantine zone first; we need to confirm whether any of them are infected," Augustus said immediately.
"Possibly tens of thousands," Ryk replied. "We'll probably have to divert more transports to this area."
At present, the Revolutionary Army had already gathered roughly more than two million Mar Sara refugees and was transporting them through Mar Sara Aerodrome.
The work of gathering refugees and organizing rescue efforts proceeded unexpectedly smoothly.
This was partly due to the efficiency of Revolutionary Army officers with firm convictions and the support of the Mar Sara people for the Revolutionary Army, but the main reason was that the Confederacy had already completed the task of rounding up the refugees in advance.
Before this, Omega Squadron's soldiers had already used forceful measures to drive the city's residents into refugee camps enclosed by makeshift tents and wooden fences, and then stationed troops there to guard them as though guarding prisoners.
When the Zerg invaded Mar Sara, the Confederacy's colonial government had not been entirely inactive.
The colonial Confederacy government had first imposed strict military control in the name of protecting all Terran citizens—if that could still be considered a reasonable measure, then the act of forcibly driving residents from cities and towns into refugee camps in the wilderness for centralized handling was truly baffling.
The Revolutionary Army's forces under Augustus clearly understood that the Confederacy did not have enough transports to evacuate everyone; they might not have had any plan at all to rescue the people of Mar Sara.
What was even harder to understand was that the Confederacy drove people out of the cities for centralized placement, because if they did not intend to evacuate the refugees, the cities were unquestionably safer and easier to defend than the wide-open wilderness.
A few days after the Revolutionary Army landed on Mar Sara, the Omega Squadron soldiers stationed on the planet's surface also withdrew from Mar Sara without the slightest hesitation, leaving behind several million desperate Mar Sara citizens.
It was practically as if the Confederacy wanted their people to die even faster.
Fortunately, the Revolutionary Army had arrived in time. Just as Augustus had promised when he left Mar Sara in the past—they would one day return, and when they returned, they would bring salvation.
"The evacuation mission from here on is in your hands," Augustus said to Ryk. At that moment, everyone could feel as though the sky had suddenly grown darker. The sky, filled with mist-like red dust, seemed instantly overcast, and the distant sun became faint and hazy.
"This is Fleet Monitoring. We have detected a Jormungand Brood force of nearly five million units gathering toward Mar Sara City. Fleet Command is dispatching air support units to the surface." All ground commanders, including Augustus, heard the fleet's warning at the same time.
"This isn't good news. It's about to 'rain'—bug rain," Tychus smacked his lips as he spoke.
"Your turn to perform," Augustus said. "Pest-control expert."
"Zerg are heading straight for us."
Suddenly, Sarah Kerrigan—who had remained silent at Augustus's side—raised the sniper rifle in her hands.
Kerrigan was wearing a form-fitting dark-gray military greatcoat and a wide-brimmed military cap to shield against wind and sand. Her waist-length, flame-red hair streamed in the wind like a trembling mass of fire.
"They're in the expanded underground sewer network—about seven hundred yards away from us," Kerrigan added.
"I can feel their chaotic, kill-hungry minds—they're the swarm's elite assassins, coming under the orders of Jormungand Brood's Cerebrate Araq. The swarm wants to devour the Revolutionary Army's leader."
Kerrigan, too, could read the Zerg's thoughts, because the Zerg's minds were not complex; they didn't even possess fully coherent logical thinking. She could clearly sense the will imposed upon these creatures, and based on how the Zerg referred to that will, she spoke a name unfamiliar to the others.
Cerebrate Araq.
Leader of the Jormungand Brood.
"Looks like the Zerg also understand the principle of capturing the king before the thief," Augustus said calmly.
Several senior officers and dozens of Marshal's Elite Guard stood around Augustus, and two main battalions were advancing both ahead of and behind them. Almost at the same moment Kerrigan spoke, Corporal Faraday led fully armed soldiers of the Marshal's Elite Guard to form several layers of human walls around Augustus.
Except for Augustus, everyone present was hearing the term "Cerebrate" for the first time—but they had no time to concern themselves with that now.
"Keep your eyes on every sewer exit—watch your feet!" Tychus, who had experience fighting the swarm, shouted loudly.
"Red Devils, open the valves on your fuel tanks—get ready to roast them." Harnack, clad in Firebat powered armor, spoke without a trace of fear, only a trembling excitement.
"What?" In that instant, Raynor thought of something more. "How do the bugs know Augustus is here?"
"The Zerg can obtain their enemies' memories by devouring or infecting them," Kerrigan explained. "This is a new discovery by Dr. Flanx."
"Among the commanders who died recently, who held the highest rank?" Augustus asked.
"It should be Lieutenant Colonel Alfred. During the fight against the Zerg in the Mar Sara Lane-14 battle, he sacrificed himself to cover the local refugees. Before he was killed, he had just been to the Marshal's headquarters," Kerrigan said. "His subordinates did not recover his body."
"Those bastards," Raynor muttered under his breath.
Seven hundred yards was only a matter of seconds for the fast-moving elite Zerg assassin squad. With a teeth-aching screech of twisting metal, the first Zergling burst up from beneath a sewer grate, leaping out with its crackling razor-sharp foreclaws.
This was a Zerg far larger and stronger than a normal Zergling—its body bore mottled, colorful skin, a crown of spines, and an enormous, ferocious maw.
However, the moment this elite Zergling emerged, it slammed directly into a blast of scorching plasma and immediately ignited, burning in distorted blue flames.
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