Chapter 12: Chapter 11: Leaving The Nest

The sound of pacing boots echoed around the bunkroom as Jack restlessly traversed back and forth across the narrow strip of space. He needed to do something to change the status quo, otherwise he was just waiting for a miracle. He had an idea of one possible solution, but he was struggling to find an alternative. The vast majority of the golden minerals- or Jorium, as the adjutant referred to it as- had already been harvested. His mineral stores were pumped to the brim: 19,615. He might be able to cherry-pick a few more small-sized bits of mineral from the embankment, but it wouldn't be worth the effort. It had been three days since the supposed four-day deadline, but circumstances refused to wait for Jack to wrap up everything he would have wanted. Despite collapsing the remains of the Nydus Worm tunnel, this morning his Marines had reported that Creep was seeping up the hole, indicating the Zerg had been expanding in this direction. 

This base had officially outlived its usefulness, but Jack didn't know if he still needed it. His system recognized the minerals that were stored in this facility, and he didn't have any way to pocket the stored resources to bring with him. 'Well, if you can't take it with you, it's time to spend it before you give it to your enemies...' He mused to himself as he moved outside. The past three days all of Jack's SCVs that didn't have mineral nodes to mine had built a sea of Supply Depots. The green fields of long grass had been tamped down and covered in hills of steel. Jack glanced at his supply readout: 80/618.  Since the SCVs needed a charging station in the Command Center in order to operate, he had stopped making new ones several days ago. That's right, the decision Jack had been hesitating over was to abandon the base completely. 

He felt a weird sense of regret, but he couldn't put his finger on why. Sure, he had popped up here and been assigned to be the one in charge, but aside from his selfish sense of possession, he didn't even own this base he was going to abandon. He was worried about how he was going to be able to rebuild a base like this in the future, without a command center to start from, but he threw that into the back of his mind for the time being. Jack was a Commander, not a base administrator, so all he needed was forces to marshal. "Time to see what I've got to work with..." he mumbled to himself, rubbing his hands together with an air of anticipation. He made his way out to the SCV bay and out the opened blast door, into the central clearing between the Barracks and the Engineering Bay. Taking one long, heavy breath to try and steady his nerves, he batch-produced all he could: 392 Marines appeared in formation in the clearing and left him with merely 15 minerals on his HUD, shortly joined by his original 50 troops. 442 Marines, fewer than he had prepared for. His supply read out at 472/618, and he cursed himself for overpreparing with the Supply Depots.

He thought he had another full day to pick at the hillside and make sure he had every last bit of Jorium harvested. Well, it would have to do. Jack had formulated his plan off the memory of what happened in the games when your Supply Depots were overrun: your supply would go into the red. You wouldn't be able to build any more troops, but the army you already had wasn't going to magically keel over the moment they were destroyed. The only reason Jack was going to risk this plan was because the Adjutant had warned him not to mistreat his troops while they had ample supplies. When he dug into why the Adjutant was calling him out, he discovered that while his troops would relax in the Mess Hall, not a one of them ever ate anything. That explained why Jack never had any complaints from the one civilian he had shoved into the kitchen to make his meals and forgotten about... they were only cooking for him, and had it way easier than any of his SCV pilots. 

So he had an army of troops that didn't eat, and he was fairly certain they didn't sleep either, considering he had been putting Marines on guard duty at the place where the Zerg tunnel had been occupied and only asking them for updates. He assumed they would understand his orders to the point of forming some sort of shift-based system, but he realized days later that it was the same Marines on duty, standing there without complaint. Well, any serious complaint. They argued good-naturedly about being bored, but that was all. It made it hard to keep seeing his units as people, rather than machines. With just enough intelligence and personality to pass for being alive, but with none of the logical necessities being alive called for, he found the combination unsettling. Even their gear never seemed to need maintenance or care, their armor never seeming to need to be removed or recharged, showing a clear difference between his system-produced units and those created via mundane means like his SCVs. He remembered back when he had played around with the Barracks-produced Marine suit and rifle, and he had to stop after an hour because he had wasted all the rounds that he had produced. But after the skirmish with the Protoss, none of his Marines had needed to be resupplied, their rifles never seeming to even need to be reloaded. They just... fired. It was baffling, but Jack wasn't about to complain.

If only the system would hurry up and unlock him an SCV production... the idea of a harvesting unit that could operate 24/7 without ever needing to stop and hit the recharger would be so profoundly useful. Actually... wait, if this theme held true, did that mean that he only ever needed to invest in the Vespene gas to create a unit, and it would never need to refuel? Jack's mind was completely oblivious to the four-hundred-odd units awaiting his orders to move out as he reeled from the realization. All he needed was enough Vespene gas to make a transport, and it would never have to stop to refuel. Dropships that could take absurd long-distance missions. Guerrilla combat maneuvers that weren't able to be traced by resupplies heading their way, because there were no resupplies to trace. Going even further, a fleet that needed no home planet, a battlegroup that could travel from combat to combat limited only by causalities and the need for repairs.

Who knows how long Jack would have been stuck in his power fantasies, but the closest Marine seemed to have had enough waiting around, and raised a hand in salute, "Commander?" He questioned, with a quirked eyebrow and an inquisitive expression that still seemed so uncannily normal. Jack shook his head and came to his senses, clearing his throat. "Right, right. Okay, all SCVs should be at full charge. We're bringing them with us as far as we can. If we encounter any hostile forces, the SCVs will take the brunt of it, in order to get the most use out of them along the way before the batteries die out. Marines will march behind, while the Civilians who don't have SCV suits will be marching in the middle of the Marine formation. They'll also be in charge of carrying the Adjutant core, so top priority will be blocking hostiles from reaching the Civilians, even if you need to stand in harms way yourselves, Marines. Civilians one through ten, get in the SCV cockpit and be prepared to disengage chargers and move out as soon as me and the rest get back with the Adjutant core." 

With a few nods and a chorus of 'Roger!' in his ear, Jack waved the other 9 civilians to follow after him, considering they were the ones who had been acting as base maintenance staff and had the best odds of being able to follow the Adjutant's instructions for disengagement of the core. "I would like to make one more remark regarding the fact that this is a terrible plan, 21283." The feminine, robotic voice chirped into his ear as the group moved toward the inner belly of the Command Center. "Abandoning the base goes against standing protocol. Your forces seem entirely adequate for defending this position. Eventually, reinforcements to the planet will arrive when it has passed the threshold of no-contact time from the planet. There is no need to take such drastic measures."

Jack rolled his eyes as he kept walking, "And how long would that take, Adjutant? You've been very clear in telling me that help will come eventually, but you refuse to tell me specific timelines. Am I supposed to hold out here with the forces I have for the next five years before it passes this 'threshold for no contact' you bring up? We're at the peak of what forces are going to be available. There are no more minerals, or close enough as to not matter, we've never been able to solve the Vespene gas problem, and hostile alien life very clearly knows where we are, Zerg and Protoss both. I'm making the decision, so either you can instruct the techs how to shut you down and disengage you from the Command Center properly, or I can start unplugging things until you turn off and I assume that's the correct bit by process of elimination." 

There was a long pause as the group stopped before a blast door marked with big, red letters that read 'Restricted Area', and 'Adjutant Core' in smaller text beneath. "I hope you know what you're doing, 21283. I will be logging an official notice of disregard for appropriate procedures. You still don't have the authority to-" Jack interrupted, and pointed at the door in front of him. "Open the door, Adjutant, before I have to have an SCV dismantle every wall between the bay and here to get me inside. I'll do it." He threatened, inwardly hoping the Adjutant wouldn't call his bluff. It would take a whole lot longer to move out, and with Creep on his lawn, he was in a hurry. After another long pause, the door opened with the hiss of air leaking into the chamber, as if there was an area of low pressure or even vacuum inside the room that was being equalized.

"Very well, 21283. First..." As the group entered the chamber, the Adjutant began to give out instructions to the Civilians. As may be expected, it was a rigorous process to disengage the Adjutant from the Command Center, and it required his verbal agreement as the 'acting manager' multiple times in the process. Even doing things properly, it still took an hour before the two-foot-diameter metal sphere that was the core-containing device was ready to be moved. Just as Jack was about to disengage the final connection, the Adjutant spoke up again, "Good luck, 21283. Remember, this device will carry enough charge to sustain my hibernation optimally for up to 730 hours. Degradation of the core will begin following that period. Ensure you have access to an appropriately-graded power supply before that point." There was a short pause, and Jack moved to disengage the last cable.

Once he did, the building around him fell silent. The noises of machinery through distant walls that he didn't even know he had grown accustomed to had all turned off. All the doors were locked in an open position, and all the lights remained on. That would be the case until the base's power drained and everything went dark. Handing the Adjutant's core to one of the techs to carry, with a jacket-like device of straps that would help support the core on the carrier's back, they moved back out toward the assembly area. 

The units formed up into the appropriate formation, the SCVs standing at ready to lead the way through the narrow path that remained through the sea of Supply Depots, and he began to head in the direction of the old base location, the one that the Command Center had been forced to evacuate from. When he first arrived, he had inquired about it, and found out it was just over a hundred miles to the south of his current location. It had been driven away by 'hostile wildlife' that wasn't Zerg, nor Protoss, so he hoped that some of the infrastructure and supplies would remain intact. That was what Jack was placing his gamble on. Things could be a wreck, but if he got there and was able to somehow find stockpiles of Vespene gas, he could produce some medics to keep his forces stabilized going forward at the very least. 

If there was a Starport present, maybe he could even find a dropship or something capable of getting him off this rock and to somewhere a little more civilized. As much as he was grateful for the isolation giving him the chance to discover his system and what he was capable of, he realized that he needed a real opportunity to get out and spread his wings. If he could get himself put into a position where he had the resources of even a single appropriately-resourceful base at his fingertips, he would be able to do so much more. And considering his System kept rewarding him for battles, he even thought that his path forward might be to try and find his way as some sort of galactic mercenary. 

He wouldn't be tied down to any one place, he could get his battle experience fulfilled, earn more buffs from his system... yeah, that's a far-fetched dream at the moment, but Jack can hope, can't he? All Jack wanted was to earn enough experience that he could have spacefaring capabilities provided by his system, to have some form of spacecraft that had his broken lack of need for resupplying. Then he would really be able to take a big step forward. For now, though... he needed to keep his focus on the south. His SCVs tamped down a path through the heavy grass, helping to stomp out a path for the infantry to follow. Jack stood among the civilians in his own set of Marine armor, and tried to focus on what he needed to do right now, even though he kept being swept up by grand ideas for the future. 

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