Chapter 6: To the Sky!

The valley was quiet, lit by the blue moon as Spook stood next to the nuclear silo and looked around. The other terrans were surely sleeping in their respective buildings. They would never guess what was coming their way.

Spook aimed his rifle's laser in the area between the main command center, the factory, and the two barracks. Strange, why do I remember the other barracks group being destroyed? He used his mind to activate the targeting system. It's for the best that you all go peacefully.

"Nuclear launch detected!" the adjutant announced automatically.

Spook's arms began to shake as the warhead lifted off from the nuclear silo with a loud roar. Yet no one seemed to be aware of the unauthorized launch. There was nobody running out of the buildings or screaming.

The missile stopped ascending and then turned around to fall toward the blinking red dot. At that moment three SceeVees came out of the command center to check out what was going on. When they saw the warhead blazing its way toward them, they rushed back inside their building, hoping that it would hold under the explosion.

The nuke landed on the ground, sending massive waves of destruction that hit the barracks, the command center, and the factory. Once the mushroom cloud cleared up, there was fire everywhere, even on the buildings that lost a few pieces of plating.

"Nuclear launch detected!"

Another warhead was launched, this time from the nuclear silo outside the valley.

The marines tripped over each other in a hurry to get out of the barracks. Tony left the factory, only to be welcomed by the hell the nuke had left behind, and by the sight of a second missile ready to finish everyone off. He put his hands on his chest and screamed as he collapsed to the ground.

"Tony!" Sony yelled as he rushed down the factory's ramp to get to his friend. He shook the tank pilot and noticed that the guy wasn't breathing anymore. He pressed his right ear to Tony's chest to listen. Then he punched the ground while screaming.

Playboy ran around with fire trails coming out of his suit. "It's getting too hot! Ow, ow, ow! Ahahaaaagh!"

"Who the fuck did this?" Brian asked, shaking the embers off his armor.

"Who else other than that fuckin' traitor ova' there?" Sony said while pointing at Spook.

The blue ghost maintained position while whispering, "It will be over soon. All the pain will end ... for everyone."

Playboy failed to extinguish himself. He dropped to the ground and stopped moving as the flames devoured his body.

The second warhead landed, and the explosion cleansed the area. The valley fell silent again.

Spook sobbed while looking at his rifle. It was going to be his means of ending his own suffering, but someone decided to change the way his death was going to be. His torso got painfully speared by something that burst out from below his ribs and turned into a green hand of flames.

A familiar voice echoed in his mind. "Well, you did it. You've killed them all."

He looked behind and saw Hat Guy, whose goggles glowed brighter than usual while holding his right arm in Spook's back.

"Tell me, Vincent ... was it worth it?"

Spook looked back at the burning valley. There was no sign of life. Even the Frigate was half demolished, its captain nowhere to be seen.

Hat Guy retracted his flaming arm out of Spook's gut and said, "I'm sure the zerg will thank you."

Spook fell to the ground, curled up in pain. He saw Hat Guy sigh, walk away, and then turn invisible. Looking around, Spook saw a swarm of zerglings that was heading his way.

One of the beasts grabbed him by the right arm's wrist and started to drag him over the sand. More of them approached and chewed his limbs as he screamed at the top of his lungs. Before he knew it, he was buried under the swarm.

He woke up screaming, only to realize that Hat Guy's hand was holding him by the right wrist.

"Wake up, my ghost brother!" Hat Guy said. "Today we strike the zerg for the last time."

Spook was glad that nobody could see his face. He still had tears left over from the dream's impact on his mind. As he regained composure, a strange event caught his attention. The marines were all gathered in a corner of the room, so he went to check out what was going on. What he saw made him lose even more hope that their crew was going to survive the day.

A saying went that nobody ever dies in bed in the Koprulu Sector, but on that morning Brandon proved that wasn't always true.

"Rest in peace, you lucky bastard!" Brian said as he put the body's cold hands on its chest. "You were one of our best fighters. We thank you for your service."

Everyone in the barracks saluted the deceased by putting their hands to the temple.

As the marines used some shovels to dig a grave for Brandon, Spook went to the science facility and used his station. "Magellan, could you do me a favor, please?"

Magellan received his message. "I am listening."

"Scan Tony and see if he has any health problems."

"But why–"

"Do it!"

"Okay. Here goes!" Magellan scanned Tony and noticed something wrong in the tank driver's chest, which had an important part displayed in red. "Oh, my! That heart definitely is in need of repairs."

"Then fix it!" Spook said.

"I'm afraid nothing short of surgery can fix the aortic stenosis. My nanobots can only heal open wounds."

"Then tell him about the surgery and convince him to go through it before we lose him too!"

"I'll have to learn how to perform heart surgery, but there is no time for that while the war is happening. I will discuss matters with him right now, but he'll have to hold on until we're out of this zerg mess." With that, Magellan flew over to Tony.

Hat Guy threw a shard of mineral away, and Smiley went after it. The robot returned and gave the shard back, the ghost took it and threw it away, and the game started all over again.

"I see you've trained your probe," Playboy said.

"It does this by default, no training needed," Hat Guy said, receiving the shard again. "Probes are programmed to go for the easiest shards first, and this tiny piece is easy to acquire."

"Shouldn't it send it to a nexus?"

"Do you see a nexus around here?"

Playboy looked around. "No."

"That's why it gives the shard to me."

"Does that make you a nexus?"

"No. It makes me this probe's master."

Playboy shrugged. "If you say so."

Sony hadn't eaten anything that morning. He went straight to the machine shop and grabbed a spider mine. Staring at it made him feel guilt for the incident from the day before, but without those dangerous contraptions the zerg ground forces would be harder to annihilate. He fitted his vulture with three of those mines and used the vehicle's touch screen to see if the vulture's systems were functional. No problems were reported by the computer.

The captain passed him by and didn't say a word, but gave him a glare before looking away. Sony returned the glare and then looked around. Seeing Tony and Magellan nearby, he decided to go talk to them.

Tony seemed worried about something, but changed his expression to a smile when he saw the vulture pilot. "What's up, Sony?"

"Getting ready for war, as usual. What are you guys up to?"

Tony scratched behind his head. "Uh, well, Magellan said he wants to test his latest creation on our vehicles." He omitted mentioning the prior discussion, not wanting to give Sony more worries.

"That's right!" Magellan said. "The shield generator is ready to be tested."

"A shield generator, eh?" Sony said. "Where do I sign up?"

Half an hour later, Magellan finished fitting Tony's tank and Sony's vulture with the new devices. "Get in so you can see how it works. It can't do anything if you're not near it."

The drivers went inside their vehicles and noticed a new display next to their main ones. Tony's said his tank had gained 20 shields, while Sony's said his vulture had gained 49 shields.

"So, how do these things work, Magellan?" Sony asked.

"These generators react to your psionic emanations and increase your defenses. Tony's shields are pretty normal for your average human, but yours … You're pretty close to–"

"Close but not close enough!" Sony said while smashing his fists onto the dashboard. "Don't you fuckin' remind me of … of what I'm not good enough to be!"

Tony interrupted the discussion. "Sony, are you okay, buddy?" Sony remained silent, so Tony got out of his tank and went to check on his friend. "Spook told me you were feeling really down last night. The kind of down that is dangerously close to doing something … reckless."

"That fuckin' ghost ..." Sony said under his breath.

Tony scowled at him. "Why did I have to hear it from 'that fuckin' ghost' instead of hearing it directly from you?"

"I …"

"Was it so difficult to vent to me instead of almost ending your life?"

"Spook was right, damn it! He was right that I am a loser! Not was. Am."

"Oh, come on now! Don't be so hard on yourself," Tony said while putting his left hand on Sony's right shoulder.

"I was born on Mar Sara," Sony began. "The Confederacy didn't care much about checking children from fringe colonies for psionic powers. I discovered my telepathy when I was 5 years old. My parents were too busy boozin' it up, so they never figured out what was going on."

"I kinda got that teep vibe from you when you seemed to read my mind."

"It was shitty enough being feared by the kids in kindergarten for hearing their thoughts, but the seven school years were worse. Everyone intentionally thought the most disgusting or rude things they could think about me, just to see my reaction. My teachers kept quiet about my telepathy so the Confederacy would not come after me. Yet I screwed myself over anyway, because one day I saw two ghost agents ... They looked super strong and had a lot of cool gizmos on them. They were escorting some toddlers and teenagers into a van. I wanted to be just like those ghosts. I thought I could get back at my classmates once I became a ghost. Stupid younger me ran up to those ghosts and begged them to take me with them."

"So that's what Spook meant by you joining the academy willingly."

"I was barely accepted into the Ghost Academy. With a psi index of 4.9, I was borderline ghost material. I passed the vulture driving test, but I washed out at the end of second year after failing the final thought projection test. Not knowing what to do with me, they threw me in the army as a vulture pilot."

"Why did you go back to Mar Sara?"

"I was still hoping to become a hero and have the bullies look up to me. Then I found out that the zerg had killed everyone I knew there. Even while I'm part of this crew, I'm still failing everyone. So, yeah, I might as well tattoo the word LOSER on my forehead."

Magellan flew his science vessel away. "I'll go upgrade the rest of our vehicles. I hope you guys put this technology to good use."

The captain was overseeing Magellan's work when he received a message from one of his marines.

"Captain? There's something odd going on here."

"Report what you're seeing, soldier!"

"That one zergling that put a number on our strongest ghosts started to eat its own kind," the marine said.

"We all know the zerg are savages, so why is that so strange?"

"Well, instead of popping due to eating so much, it grew to the size of an ultralisk. And now it seems like it's working on growing a pair of wings."

"Keep an eye on it, and shoot it if it gets near your bunkers!"

"I think it would be better if you'd allow us to go there right now," Hat Guy said. "We're already kind of late."

"I'm not sending my army there until we're all finished with preparations. Magellan's still working on the shield upgrade for our goliath."

"Captain, a few powered up shots and a nuke would easily get rid of the zergling before it reaches maturity."

"Nobody is leaving until I say so, Hat Guy!" the captain said.

"The marines will enjoy cleaning the floor of your pieces for that decision," Hat Guy said. "Just thought you should know, since you won't be around to witness that. Too bad that neither will I."

The captain stared wide-eyed as the ghost in black walked away. "Excuse me?!"

"Attention, everyone!" Hat Guy said over the station. "The psionic zergling will head this way. It is far too late to catch it while it is still in the hive cluster. All of you go attack the hive cluster while I stay here and guard the base from the abomination."

Sony approached him. "Alright, Hat Guy, I've read everyone's mind about you, and it seems you've been pulling some strings around here, making the captain rescue random people to form an army. What's your angle?"

Hat Guy tilted his hat to the right with his left hand. "My angle, if you all get along, is a tidy 90 degrees. Do anything to compromise my plans and it will be a nasty 180 degrees."

Sony squinted at the strange ghost. "The fuck does that mean?"

Hat Guy turned invisible and left, his hat giving away his position as usual.

"Do we take his advice, Sony?" Tony asked.

Sony rubbed his ginger beard. "We're gonna get rid of that hive anyway, so …"

"Then give the order. We're all ready."

"Guys, I'll leave the nuking to Spook," Playboy said over the station. "I'll stay in base and help Hat out."

"Are you sure you want to stay behind?" Hat Guy asked him. "This thing isn't your ordinary zerg, and you have higher chances of surviving in the final assault than guarding here."

"I've made up my mind, Hat. You saved me, so I'll at least try to help you out."

"Then it's settled. Tavi and I will guard the base while the rest of you assault the hive cluster."

The marine from the bunker contacted the captain again. "Sir? The psionic zergzilla is about to start some major trouble here."

"I've heard enough," the captain said. "Destroy that thing before it escapes!"

"I don't think you understand the graveness of the situation, sir. The thing has grown wings and is preparing to leap over our bunkers. It doesn't seem like our turrets or our rifles can … Shit. Prepare to intercept it, Captain! It's heading your way!"

"What do you mean it's heading my way?!"

"Tavi, are you ready?" Hat Guy asked while looking at the red ghost.

"As ready as I'll ever be."

"The zergling will jump over the photon cannons and try to attack our secondary command center to get to the Breath of Creation. The beast must be stopped before it steals the gas. We might have to snipe and also use stronger psionic attacks. I hope you will be able to handle it."

"I'll do my best."

Magellan kept Smiley inside the vessel and dropped the rest of the army out of the valley. Accompanied by him, they avoided crossing paths with the giant zergling and reached the bunkers at the entrance of the contained zerg valley.

"Captain, we need a scan on the hive cluster before we go in!" Tony said. He received no reply. "Scan please! Captain?" Nothing.

"I think he has abandoned us," Spook said.

Sony drove his vulture forward. "Then it's up to me again to scout ahead."

The captain's voice was finally heard. "I-I'll scan!"

"Heheh! He's having a nervous breakdown!" Brian said.

The scan revealed the four ultralisks and three guardians next to the hive. Closer to the bunkers, a dozen hydralisks and five zerglings waited for Sony to approach them.

"These hydras look different," Sony said. "They don't have those flaps anymore, but they have spikes jutting out of the top of their heads."

Magellan performed some scans on the zerg. "It appears they have adapted to land again, and their new bodies minimize pain from salt on open wounds. I think this is a response to Hat Guy's prior attacks on them. The zerglings are still allergic to lemon juice though."

"Alright, guys, here's the plan: I drag those hydras and zerglings toward the bunkers and you shoot while I harass them with grenades. If any ultralisks come this way, I will plant the mines. Spook, you will–"

"A defiler just used its plague on our northern turrets," the captain said. "Agent 40! Nuke that area before they bring their mutalisks over!"

"Wouldn't it be better to just send some SCVs there?" Spook asked.

"You need the SCVs at the bunkers and to fix Magellan whenever he gets hit."

"You kept a bunch of other SCVs with you, and they're hiding like the cowards they are inside the command centers," Sony told the captain.

"They are needed to fix the buildings here!"

Hat Guy face-palmed audibly over the station. "I thought we had a deal that everyone who won't fight the zergling should head for the hive cluster. Urgh ..."

"The captain told us to stay," Leroy said.

Hat Guy decided to be brutally honest. "The captain is … really just a scarecrow at this point."

Betelgeuse retaliated with, "I heard that!"

"Ya hear this too? You're brain-panned!" Sony said.

"Why, I oughta–"

A loud roar announced the arrival of the giant zergling at the terran valley. The captain reacted by hiding under his computer desk.

"You have definitely put on some weight since we last saw you, zergling!" Hat Guy said while staring at the giant zerg at the entrance of the base.

The creature was as tall as two ultralisks put together, and just as long. It had dark purple skin, neon violet eyes, and intermittent lines of a similar color to its eyes traveling through two transparent parallel veins that went from its snout to its tail over its back. Its arms were decorated with violet neon tiger stripes. Spikes were jutting out of its back and out of its top lips on the sides. It had six limbs, just like the normal zerglings on the planet had – four legs for walking and two arms with scythes for attacking.

"Tavi, prepare to snipe it!" the black ghost ordered. "I'm charging up a shot as well."

"You got it!" Playboy said. He used his mind to power up the shot and aimed for the head of the zergling.

The two ghosts delivered the shots at the same time, but barely caused any damage to the head of the beast.

"Oh, this is a strong one!" Hat Guy said.

The zergling shook its rear side and then pounced onto the photon cannons, destroying them under its weight.

"Now there's something you don't see everyday!" Playboy said.

Once the beast was in the base, the two ghosts found themselves no match for the giant zerg's speed. It didn't give them enough time to charge up any attacks, forcing them to focus more on dodging to avoid getting pierced by the creature's scythes.

Hat Guy hid behind the nuclear silo and stuck his back to the building. "We will have to play hide and seek with this one."

"Alright!" Playboy said while cloaking.

The zergling's eyes started to glow brighter as it swiftly lowered its head and unleashed a pulse of violet light out of its forehead. When the light hit the red ghost, it caused him to instantly uncloak.

"I meant we actually have to hide behind things," Hat Guy said.

"Oh," was all Playboy could say before he got hit by the zergling's tail. He was sent flying straight into a missile turret.

Hat Guy ran toward the zergling and used his right fist to punch it in the tip of its snout. The creature found itself with a vertically split head, bleeding neon violet body liquids.

The black ghost maintained his battle stance. "This isn't good."

Playboy got back on his feet. "What do you mean it isn't good? Its head is thoroughly fucked! It's like one of those anatomy models in biology class!"

"If I had done that to an ultralisk, the ultralisk would have been instantly annihilated. But this thing …"

The zergling's head started to pull itself together. In mere seconds, it was good as new.

"It won't go down easily if it survived such a strong, psionically-enhanced punch from me."

The captain remained under his desk, curled up, hoping that the ghosts would get rid of the monster outside. The roars and screams only made him more terrified.

To make matters worse, Agent 40 contacted him over the station. "Captain, I need backup right away! The zerg have managed to sneak zerglings over the mountains, and they are chasing me!"

Betelgeuse felt the sweat run down his face. The last thing he needed was noise coming from his room while that creature was near his ship.

"I repeat! I need backup!" Agent 40 shouted over the station. "Oh, damn it! I've been hit! My leg's been bit! Send evac! Send backup!"

The captain looked up. He wanted to reply, but his fear kept him in the form of a shaking wreck.

"Send a coroner!" Agent 40 said.

The captain hid his face with his arms and continued to stay where he was while the giant zerg screeched outside.

Sony decided to answer the ghost's cry for help. "I gotcha, Spook. I'm headin' your way."

The vulture pilot went around the mountain chain and found ten zerglings that were trying to climb a ten meter rock. At its top, Spook tried his best to hold on to one of its peaks while his left leg bled.

"Hey, zerg scum!" Sony said, grabbing the zerglings' attention. "Wanna come to my roadkill restaurant? Don't worry about payin'. For you it's free, 'cause you'll be the main course!"

The zerglings let out their chirping battle cry as they charged at Sony, who waited for them with his vulture turned to the side. When they reached his spot, they had the unpleasant surprise of landing atop a spider mine when Sony drove away. The explosion turned the zerg into a bloody pile of body parts.

"Thanks, kid!" Spook said as he made his way down the rock.

"Don't mention it," Sony told him, waiting at the foot of the formation to get the ghost into his vehicle. It only had one seat, so Spook had to sit uncomfortably behind the chair, in the small gap it made with the back of the bike.

Once the ghost was fairly secured, Sony drove toward Magellan, whose vessel sat atop one of the two bunkers. The android used the healing ray on Spook as soon as they were within his range.

"Thanks, Magellan! That leg was killing me."

"You're welcome. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some guardians to irradiate."

The captain mustered his courage and got out from underneath his desk. But instead of attempting to retake control over his men, he decided to head for the steering wheel.

The Frigate's engines were started, and its propulsion jets began to spew blue flames. Just before the ship could lift off, a green light surrounded it and chained it to the ground.

"You're not going anywhere," Hat Guy said, his goggles glowing brightly as he stared at the ship.

The giant zergling took advantage of the distraction and prepared to swing its scythe at the black ghost.

"Hat! Move!" Playboy said, pushing his teammate out of the scythe's way and falling atop the ghost's back. Once he realized how awkward their situation was, he quickly released Hat Guy from underneath himself. "Yikes! Sorry! Sorry! I didn't mean to land that way!"

"Watch out!" Hat Guy said, but it was too late. Playboy was swatted away by the zergling's scythe, although the hit didn't deal much damage to him.

"Ow! That's gonna hurt in the morning," the red ghost said as he lay on the ground.

The zergling turned around and stared at him. Getting rid of the nuisance first could allow it to focus on the hat-wearing menace unhindered, so it decided to eliminate the helper since he was still stunned.

As the scythe was about to come down on Playboy, Hat Guy put himself between them and took the attack, getting pierced through his chest as he looked into the red ghost's goggles.

"No! Hat! Damn it! At least let it skewer me as well so I can die too! If there's any way I'd rather die, this would be it."

Hat Guy kept the scythe away from his teammate by using his arms to support his upper body above the red ghost. "I wouldn't mind dying like this, but ... our friends need us, Tavi. They can't destroy this abomination, but we can!"

Hat Guy pushed the scythe away, and Playboy burned the zergling's right eye using pyrokinesis, allowing Hat Guy to free himself from the zerg's scythe.

Playboy got up and stared at Hat Guy, whose hole in the chest started to close. "You can heal yourself?! Holy shit! Are you part zerg?"

Hat Guy adjusted his hat. "The zerg have an impressive healing factor, but it's no match for mine."

The zergling regenerated its eye and was ready for a new round of fighting.

"I've got an idea," Hat Guy said while dodging the scythe attacks. "It wants to destroy the secondary command center to get to the gas. We need some time to charge attacks that could do any real damage to the zergling, so what we're going to do sounds crazy, but bear with me. We must hide in the command center and channel as much of our psionic energy as we can, and then we will unleash our attacks together when the center starts falling apart. The zergling won't have enough time to regenerate if we attack fast enough."

"I don't care if it sounds crazy, I'm up for any plan right now," Playboy said while avoiding the spikes that the zergling kept launching at him from its back.

The captain was once again quivering under his desk when he heard Hat Guy's voice in his mind.

"Listen up, Captain! You will take your ship, and you will go make sure your men are kept safe from the wave of zerg queens. You will not dare to take this ship past the planet's atmosphere, or I swear you will find yourself crushed by those same walls you think keep you safe."

"Y-yes, sir!" the captain said. He never thought he'd address himself that way to one of his own soldiers.

"Nuclear launch detected!"

Spook was cloaked, targeting the three greater spires that looked like colossal flower-shaped jellyfish made of red meat. Fortunately for him, the only three overlords he hadn't sniped huddled in the back of the zerg valley, guarded by a dozen hydralisks while struggling to maintain control over the brood.

Next to the hive there were three eggs holding new zerg that underwent transformations. Spook was sure that at least one of them was going to be a new overlord that would be sent his way to detect him.

The nuclear warhead was faster, landing over the spires. It left the three structures bleeding, and wiped out all the mutalisks in the area.

"It's your turn, Tony!" Spook said over the station.

"Moving in!" Tony said. As he took his tank out of siege mode, he scrolled through his playlist on the screen in front of him.

Spook waited next to the spires until the tank arrived, its speakers blaring "Flight of the Valkyries" at maximum volume. The music continued to play as the vehicle converted into siege mode and blasted the spires to kingdom come.

"Nice work, Tony!" Sony said as he drove by. "Watch out though, they got two mutas and one overlord next to the hive."

Magellan brought his vessel above the tank. "They're no match for science!" His cannon irradiated the two mutalisks, but they plunged themselves onto the ghost and vulture pilot.

"They went kamikaze on us!" Sony said while trying to shake off the acid that had left holes in his black leather jacket.

Spook uncloaked, losing his balance as the mutalisk leftovers passed the yellow radiation cloud onto him. "I think I'm gonna puke!"

Magellan used his healing beam on them. "There. Feeling better?"

Before they could answer, they saw a dozen zerg queens fly toward the mountains. There was nothing stopping them from leaving the hive cluster.

"Oh, shit! The defiler took our turrets out!" Sony said. "Captain! Send those SCVs here already! The ones we got here are busy fixing the bunkers!" He received no answer.

Meanwhile, at the terran base, the giant zergling kept scratching the command center, causing parts of the building to catch fire while the two ghosts and seven SCVs hid inside.

"Keep focusing your power into your forehead, Tavi," Hat Guy said.

"I'm trying, but my body's going all numb."

"That's because you're not used to managing this much power. I would have trained you earlier if the captain had not given that zerg abomination a head start. Now all I can do is hope that you won't knock yourself out cold before you can unleash the attack."

"Well, that's reassuring!" Playboy said.

"Focus! We're running out of time!"

The red ghost started to lose his balance. "I'm trying!"

"Ignore the dizziness!" Hat Guy said. "Ignore the pain! Just synchronize with my mind, and when the time is right, we'll attack as one!"

Playboy's goggles started to glow brighter as he gathered every last bit of psionic energy from his body. He was barely kneeling, his spine struggling to keep him from collapsing.

The scythe tore a quarter of the command center's roof, causing burning debris to fall around the two ghosts.

"Now, Tavi!"

At that moment the two ghosts unleashed powerful blasts of psionic energy from their heads and turned the giant zergling into a burnt corpse next to the command center.

Playboy fainted, but Hat Guy lifted him off the ground with his telekinesis and shook him. "Wakey-wakey! We did it!"

The red ghost regained consciousness and looked around as he was put back on his feet. "Huh? What?"

They went outside to check the corpse, but then they saw a zerg queen atop the command center.

"Hey, what's it doing?" Playboy asked as the queen went inside the building and caused some strange red tissue to grow out of it. "Hat, are you seeing this?" When he turned around, he saw Hat Guy and no zergling corpse. The black ghost burped.

"Aw, come on, Hat! Magellan could have studied that thing!"

"I think Magellan is going to have a field day anyway. Look!" Hat Guy said while pointing at the command center.

"Live for the swarm!" the SceeVees shouted as they came out of the building. They had red eyes, spikes jutted out of their backs, and their arms grew longer and thicker. Even weirder, their mouths got united with their noses and turned into elephant trunks that had spikes coming out of them every now and then.

"They're … infested," Playboy said.

Leroy was the last infested terran to reveal himself. "For the swarm?! For the Overmind?! Who's the Overmind? Aaa! I'm goin'! I'm goin'!"

"Not good," Hat Guy said. He grabbed Playboy by the right arm and took him behind the mineral patch to the west. "Our buffoon of a captain let a queen slip by his ship. If he had sent those SceeVees with the others, we wouldn't be hiding from living bombs right now."

The infested SceeVees left the valley, walking as if they were mindless zombies.

Hat Guy used his station to alert everyone. "Attention! A queen has infested one of our command centers. As a result, the SCV pilots hidden inside the building have been assimilated by the zerg. Expect seven highly explosive people to come your way."

"It got to our SceeVees?!" Sony said. "Seven of them?! Captain, I've never wanted to turn you into roadkill more than I do right now!"

Rob breathed deeply through his gas mask while his goliath sat atop Harold and the other three uninfected SceeVees as if he were a mother hen. "I will protect my remaining SceeVee brethren. I haven't forgotten what I started as."

"You were a SceeVee?!" Harold said.

"I carried tons of minerals and vespene gas for many years, until the day enemy marine shot me in the neck. Luckily, Sons of Korhal gave me electronic voice box."

"I tried to keep the queens away, but these things are difficult to block with my Frigate," the captain said as he kept steering his ship into the swarm of six queens while Rob shot them.

Sony continued to spew his hatred over the station. "You bastard! You coward! You imbecile! Those SceeVees could have been saved if you had asked them to get aboard your ship!"

"Cool yourself, Sony!" Tony said. "What's done is done. We might as well put these poor sods out of their misery before they reach us." He turned the tank's turret and shot at the incoming infested terrans. It pained him to push the button, knowing he was killing innocent, weaponized members of his own crew, but it had to be done.

Leroy stumbled around, confused. A voice urged him to head for the bunkers, but his mind kept telling him he should keep away. He hit his head with his long, clawed arms, and it hurt. "The Overmind commands. I obey? I am strong? What is this bullshit?" A yellow cloud of radiation started to come out of his skin. It burned. He ran around, screaming while attacking the air with his claws and the two scythes from his back. His suffering came to an end ten seconds later, when his body exploded by itself.

"I am sorry, Leroy," Magellan said. "I will miss the days of cooking together."

Spook cloaked himself, aimed the laser at the hive, and started the nuclear launch. Sony kept an eye out for attackers while he planted the two spider mines near the ghost so that the hydralisks would not interfere with the nuking.

The missile ascended toward the sky and was about to change direction to seek the blinking dot.

"Hey, Sony boy ... wanna know why peace makes me want to nuke everyone?"

"Nah, thanks. I'm fine without knowing that, Spook."

"I'll tell you anyway, because you really need to know this."

A zerg queen and an overlord approached the ghost.

"War is inevitable," Spook said. "Whatever peaceful times a civilization enjoys will end in disaster."

The queen licked its snout while looking down at him.

"And that's when war comes in and is deemed necessary to fix the problems created by the good times."

The queen inhaled, its neck inflating as if the zerg was about to croak like a frog.

Spook turned his head to look at Sony. "Do you understand now why I want to nuke everyone to hell?"

Sony knew that peace could not last forever among the living, but stopping the cycle seemed a too harsh solution to him.

At that moment, the queen spat a glob of spores at the ghost just as the nuke landed over the hive. Spook collapsed, his chest expanding fast.

"No! I won't let you do this to him!" Sony said as he swiftly turned his vulture toward the ghost and pushed the grenade launchers' buttons.

The exploding grenades tore Spook to pieces before the broodlings could finalize their growth.

"Damn it! Damn what you've made me do, you … you … sons of …" Sony tried to control his breathing and looked around. Two zerg drones dug their way out of the creep and moved further away from the bleeding hive. He used his vulture's station to say, "Attention! Spook is dead. We need another ghost to launch the next nuke so we can finally get rid of this hive. Send a ghost here as soon as possible!"

"We're sorry, but we're kind of trapped at the moment," Hat Guy said.

"How the hell did these things get stacked?" Playboy asked.

An ultralisk and some zerglings could also be heard.

Sony raised his left eyebrow. "The fuck is going on there?!"

"Get those things offa my tank!"

Hat Guy said, "We'd gladly do it, Tony, but the Frigate has sandwiched us and the zerg between you and itself."

Sony got out of his vulture. "Fuck this! I've heard enough." He took Spook's rifle off the ground and, remembering what the blue ghost had taught him, he held it properly.

The two zerg drones morphed into two creep colonies behind his vehicle and started a new morphing process in a last attempt to defend while the hydralisks were still too far away from the hive.

Sony knew he had a limited amount of time before he'd be impaled by two sunken colonies and shot by hydralisk spines, so as soon as the adjutant announced that a new nuclear missile was available, he walked behind his vulture and started a video transmission that would be sent to everyone.

The captain was shocked to see the vulture pilot hold a C-10 rifle with its laser activated, and even more shocked to hear the message that a nuclear launch was in progress.

"Alright, listen up, everyone!" Sony began. "The time we've spent together may not have been as great as we wanted it to be, but I appreciate the friendships and collaboration that did spawn out of it. I trust that you will give the captain his just deserts for all the shit he has fucked up. Tony … thanks for savin' my ass on the battlefield so many times. Take care, buddy."

Tony couldn't find his words. He wanted to scream at his friend for choosing to call a nuke down on himself, but at the same time he knew that whatever he would say would not change what was about to happen. Sony had made up his mind.

The warhead got closer and closer to the hive. Sony stared at it with a determined look on his face. Just as it was about to land, he shouted, "This one's for Spook, motherfuckers!"

The mushroom cloud could be seen in all its blazing glory from the entrance of the zerg valley.

When they got there, the terrans found parts of metal from the vulture, a C-10 rifle without its muzzle, and the frame of Sony's glasses. It was the end of the war, and the terrans were victorious. But it felt like an empty victory, because they were left with only four SCVs, and that meant it would be more difficult for them to acquire resources and get their vehicles and buildings fixed. Leroy's death also meant they would have to go without a waiter for some time until hopefully someone would take over his role.

Playboy and Hat Guy stared at the scorched ground. The red ghost wanted to ask the black ghost something personal, but he decided to wait until morning out of respect for his fallen comrades.

"Well … uh … you all did a nice job," the captain said. "Drinks are on me tonight!"

"Dirt should be on you tonight, man," Brian said as he and the other marines left the area.

Playboy found himself walking through a lush forest with clear rivers while a strange white light shone through the trees around him. He used to say that he wanted to nuke the crap out of such places, but in reality he wished that his superiors stopped denying him the chance to actually enjoy the peace and quiet of a place untouched by war and civilization.

Out of the light up ahead, a human figure made of green flames emerged. As the being came closer and closer to the red ghost, it started to increase in height while its body started to change its shape.

Playboy sensed that the entity was troubled by something, which may have been the reason why it stopped advancing toward him. He approached the burning being as its green light reflected off his suit. "Hey, don't worry about that," he said. "I like what I see."

The green flame wrapped itself around him, and he felt a pleasant – and strangely not scorching – warmth. Euphoria took over him as his body seemed to become one with the fiery being.

"It won't be long until everyone can leave," a familiar voice said. "Please don't give up hope."

The red ghost found himself in his bed, panting like he had been running in a marathon. The feeling of bliss turned into disappointment. "Oh, it was just one of those dreams ..." For some reason, he decided to look at the top bunk bed next to his, where Hat Guy should be. The mysterious ghost was no longer there. Probably went outside to take a leak.

Outside, near the barracks' door, there was a trail of green flames that faded away.

It was two hours before sunrise when Harold went into the cave to investigate some strange sounds. He came across Smiley, who whimpered in typical probe language while wearing Hat Guy's sedge hat. The SceeVee took the hat and went to Tony's room. "Hey, Tony! I think something must have happened to Hat Guy." The robot followed him there.

"He left his hat behind?" Tony asked, rubbing his eyes while still in bed.

"I found it on the probe," Harold said.

Overhearing the discussion, Playboy joined in. "Hat would never leave his hat behind like that without a serious reason. We have to find him."

The captain could find no trace of the missing ghost by scanning, and most of the marines and SceeVees were busy sculpting and engraving tombstones. Tony, Playboy, Brian, and Smiley formed a search party and began to travel their small continent. It was only the size of a large city, so they would be done within a few hours tops. They left the other continents to Magellan, since he had a better view of the surroundings and could fly fast.

"What could have made Hat leave?" Playboy asked. "He didn't mention having to go anywhere. Maybe someone or something attacked him and …"

"I doubt there's any way of killing that guy," Brian said.

"There is. I've read his mind during our battle with that giant zerg. He actually feared for his life."

"We'll find him, Play," Tony said. "I'm sure he'd not be defeated easily. Also, he had no spaceship, so he couldn't have left the planet."

At that moment, two trails of purple gas came out of the terran valley and headed for the chasm to its east.

Brian squinted. "What the hell is going on over there?"

"I think we better follow those to see what's absorbing them," Tony said.

Chasing the gas led them to the large crack in the ground. They didn't make it to the ledge because a bright green light shining from the abyss made them too scared to advance.

The light turned into a pair of fiery wings – one of which reached all the way to the terran valley while the other reached the former zerg valley. They belonged to a being of green fire. Its head, shaped like a squid, had four bright white eyes, a pair of horns, and a snout that had nine short tentacles hanging from it. Longer, thicker tentacles could be seen coming from the sides of the entity's torso and short tail.

Tony's eyes widened. "What is that?"

Brian swallowed audibly as he and his friends stared at the mysterious alien. "After all the shit I've seen so far, it wouldn't surprise me if that is what became of Hat Guy."

One stream of purple gas went into the root of the creature's right wing while the other stream went into the root of its left wing. The planet's entire supply of the Breath of Creation was absorbed by the living flame. After staring down at the search party for a few seconds, the fiery being flew toward the starry sky and left the planet.

Playboy clenched his right fist to the side. "It was always about the gas, wasn't it, Hat?"

His friends looked at him and then back at the green speck that looked like a star in the sky. Once that speck disappeared, the red ghost stormed away, abandoning the search party.

"We'll just keep searching," Tony said. "Maybe that wasn't Hat Guy."

Their further searches proved fruitless, and Playboy sat in the cave for the rest of the day.

The next morning, another search party was formed, this time to search for Playboy, who had gone missing just before breakfast was ready. The party's members were Tony, Brian, and Harold.

Three marines gathered in the middle of the terran valley. They no longer had their armors on.

"Man, I'm so glad Magellan managed to free us from our armors!" an old marine said.

"Yeah! Now we can practice easier," another marine with dark complexion told him.

"Alright, boys! I'm gonna 'accidentally' drop this again," a young marine in his early 20s said while holding an oval rock in his right hand. "Show me your reflexes!" He dropped the rock. "Oops!"

At that moment, the other two marines started to scramble while the young one ran away the fastest. He returned and said, "You'll have to move faster, Pops. I don't wanna have to dig another grave tonight."

The search party passed by all of the gravestones. The one from the center of the terran valley was for Brandon Keg, born August 8th, 2470, died April 6th, 2500. Tony felt a small pain in his heart when seeing that one.

The tank driver wasn't really a close friend to most of the marines, or to the other firebat, or to Shifty Braxton, the vulture pilot – born August 13th, 2476, died April 1st, 2500 – so seeing their gravestones at their places of death didn't affect him much. Flynn Jones, born May 11th, 2475, died April 2nd, 2500. That one reminded him of the beer he will forever owe the guy. The gravestones of the infested SceeVees – among whom was Leroy Porter, born November 2nd, 2474, died April 6th, 2500 – saddened him more than the one for the SceeVee who burst into broodlings. Blasting infested people with his tank was something he hoped he'd never have to do again.

In the valley that was once claimed by the zerg, two gravestones told of the last two men who died during the war. One was for Vincent Blight, born September 24th, 2475, died April 6th, 2500. The other … Tony could not even dare to look at it – at least not before going through the heart surgery. The gravestone belonged to Sony Harris, born December 12th, 2481, died April 6th, 2500.

Magellan went to search for Playboy by himself, starting with the chain of mountains to the southwest of the terran valley. It didn't take long for him to reach the end of his search.

At the foot of one of those mountains, the red ghost lay sprawled among ten empty glass bottles that once contained wine. His body was not displayed with an orange outline in Magellan's view.

In response to the discovery, Magellan closed his eyes and bowed his head.

On that same day, at exactly 4:44 PM, the captain was fragged.

THE END