Chapter 7: Chapter 6: And It Felt Like Such A Good Idea

Come the next morning, after all the minerals from the previous day had been processed, Jack couldn't help but grin at the resource counter as it displayed 6887. With a proper squad of SCVs harvesting the golden minerals, he almost felt like he had reached the point he could just buy anything he wanted without worrying over the budget. Well, anything that didn't need Vespene gas, anyway. The big, fat egg of a zero next to that part of his display put a damper on his mood. 

Still, he had the beginnings of a real economy going now, and a few more structures had popped up to fill the gaps in the pentagonal defense grid of turrets. That's right, the supply depots he had ordered built. Unfortunately, these were simply big bricks of a structure that sat in the way, rather than the updated variant that could lower into the ground and act as a defensive gate. Aside from a gap near his SCV bay's exit to allow the harvesters to access the minerals, he had completely walled himself in. 

Making his way down the hall, he actually passed one of his civilians with a toolbelt strapped on and an array of tools dangling from it, moving in the direction of the production facility, raising his hand in a casual wave. "Mornin' Boss!" the civilian quipped, acknowledging him as they moved on. The Adjutant chirped up in his ear a moment later, "Pilot 21283, this facility requires more staff to act as maintenance or the condition of the facility will slowly begin to fall over time. Please consider reassigning staff currently placed on mining duty to facility maintenance." 

With all the supply depots he had built to use as walls, Jack glanced toward his HUD. 10/90. He didn't want to just fill the available unit space up with more civilians, especially considering he was still limited to one SCV in the production facility per day. They were up to seven SCV units counting the one produced this morning, resting in a charging bay. In case the worst happened and all the outgoing SCVs were destroyed, he had this one reserved as his personal unit for emergency repairs and such. Still... a few more units couldn't hurt. Opening the production menu on his interface as he walked, he tapped up to 17/90, the appearing civilians falling into line along with him as his mineral count dropped to 6852. "Right, you lot. You're assigned to the command center as a regular posting, follow directions from the Adjutant and keep this place in ship-shape." 

A chorus of "Roger"s answered him, and the group stood in place for a few seconds, likely listening to the Adjutant for directions, and began to stroll off. "Pilot 21283 has become increasingly efficient at handling necessary requests." If the AI felt there was anything unusual about this situation, it didn't seem to be complaining. "You know, maybe you should stop addressing me as 'Pilot'? I'm practically the guy in charge and I don't intend to keep getting into an SCV every day just for the fun of it." The buzzer-chime expressed its displeasure at the suggestion, "Negative. Pilot 21283 lacks both the authority and qualifications for any other form of address. Reminder: acting manager is a position granted out of necessity and the authority of a temporary position should not go to Pilot 21283's head." 

Pausing half-way through grabbing breakfast in the Mess Hall, where one of the civilians had been left in charge of the kitchen to ensure there was actually a hot meal around, he hummed thoughtfully to himself. That's a good point, actually. Sure, if things kept going the way they were going, he was going to have a whole lot of military force at his fingertips. Something that the original owners of this command center might be none too pleased to discover. After all, the civilians only took orders from the Adjutant because he told them to, otherwise he was the end-all and be-all for their chain of command. Actually... he didn't even know who the original owners of the command center were! Was this a Terran Dominion base? A rebel base? Did either of those two groups even exist in this place? 

His point of weakness going forward was actually this command center. All of his mineral processing and storage was being done from this building, after all, and while his system seemed to access its stores just fine... he doubted it would if someone else came along and took it away from him. He couldn't even build SCVs on his own, relying on the facility's production area. After being so focused on immediate emergencies for so long, he wanted to kick himself for not thinking of getting down to the details sooner. "Adjutant, do we have blueprints for the construction of a command center? If I need to build an outpost or a forward base?" 'Or if I need to ditch this place and head for the hills with my boys', he added mentally. "Affirmative. Command center blueprints are available at this time. However, construction of a command center requires an additional Adjutant to operate the facility." "And let me guess, we aren't equipped to build brand new virtual brains from the ground up?" The positive chime that followed made him sigh.

"What would we need if I decided that I wanted to make creation of an additional Adjutant a priority?" A pause before the response. A long one, as if the Adjutant was either calculating something, or was taken aback by the question. "At minimum, a science facility would have the appropriate facilities for production. However, it would require a significant period of time, resources, and necessitate the acquisition of capable research staff, as well as an Adjutant core template." Finishing up his meal, Jack stretched both arms overhead and tried to plan out what he needed to do today, "And what's an Adjutant core template?" A particularly loud buzzing negative-chime responded to his question. "What now? Are you going to tell me I need a higher clearance for that information?" "Negative. As Pilot 21283 has already grasped the information, there is no need to repeat it." Of course. 

Just as he was about to try and find a way around this information block, that damned klaxon alarm started blaring again, "Warning! Seismic disturbances detected! Zerg activity likely!" Well, Jack had been wondering just how he was going to earn more battle XP and achievements, seeing as he was looking forward to being able to call in some actual firepower when he unlocked marines. "Call the SCVs back from the mineral wall, get them inside the supply depot barrier! Make sure those turrets are operational, too!" he shouted as he sprinted down the hall. When he made it to the SCV bay, he strapped in to the only available unit, bringing it to life and stomping out of the SCV bay door. Now, he had to decide if he was closing the door to keep out any hostiles, or if he was going to leave it open so he had a route of retreat. The building couldn't lift off at the moment, though, so at best he could use the SCV bay as a chokepoint. "Adjutant. Close the bay doors." 

A fighting force of seven SCVs was far from ideal, and he still didn't know what he was dealing with, so he wanted to keep it simple and play it as safe as he could. "Listen up! Two through six, you lot each pick a defensive turret node and get in position behind them. I want you to focus on repairing the flamethrower turrets if they take damage, followed by the depot wall. Ignore the missile turrets unless we're actually in deeper shit than I thought and there's a significant flying force. One, you're with me. I'll hold the gap, and you're responsible for field repairs on my SCV and the walls around me to make sure we don't get overrun."

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An ear-piercing shriek resounded from the heavens, and less than two hundred meters away from his perimeter defenses, a massive worm like a multi-story building burst from the ground, almost as wide as one of his supply depots. "It seems that processing a massive batch of golden minerals at once has drawn a significant Zerg response." The adjutant remarked, as emotionlessly as ever, and Jack paled as the creature flopped onto its side and a hoard of Zerglings started pouring from its open... mouth? He hoped it was a mouth. "You don't say?" Jack screamed at the Adjutant in his rising panic. This wasn't a small scouting force. There had to be a hundred Zerglings present already, and more were pouring out like an endless tide.

He wondered if there was anything else he could do. Well, there was at least one thing, but he hesitated to follow through with the only thing that came to mind. His civilians had been loyal to any order he had given them, sure, but he had been assigning them chores and mining duties, not combat. Combat that was likely to be suicidal. Gritting his teeth, he opened his production tab and started mashing down the Civilian button as fast as he could before the Zerg organized from their milling mass into a coordinated offensive. His minerals dropped down to 6847, and he was almost taken aback by how 'cheap' this human-wave strategy was going to be. 

Holding back a few 'lucky' civilians as back-up in case any of the SCV pilots went down before the machines themselves failed, he waved the SCV's drill arm forward, "All units without standing orders, attack the Zerg forces." He felt sick to his stomach, and if anyone were to see him right now, he wondered what they would think of him, sending forward unarmored, barely-armed forces into combat. Each of the civilians was supplied with a hold-out pistol when he produced them, so they were technically a fighting force, in the same way a child with a stick could technically try and fight a man with an assault rifle. But he had minerals to spare and no other way to use them to try and help his odds of survival.

Roughly seventy civilians followed his command and ran out of the defensible position, taking pot-shots at the Zerg forces. The wave of alien flesh was so thick it was almost impossible to miss, but they scored only glancing blows except when a lucky bullet managed to find an eye, an open mouth, or other particularly vulnerable location. The Zergling swarm turned toward the civilians and began to rush at them, the sound of screaming starting to fill the battlefield. 'Don't look away. They're dying because you told them to. Even if they might not be real people, they think and feel and you know it. At least see the sacrifice.' Jack made himself look forward, his left hand clenched into a fist so hard against the gripper-arm controls he could almost feel the creak of protest the machinery made, while his right hand continued to mash the civilian production button. 

The state of his supply met a standstill somewhere around 65, sometimes rising to 70, sometimes dropping almost to 50. It could be said it was a good thing he was able to keep up with the numbers, but he almost wished to hear that buzzer he had begun to hate telling him his supply was maxed out, that he could stop doing this. But no, civilians fell as fast as he could create them. 5987. 5487. 4987. 4487. The battle felt endless, and the corpses of poorly-armed humans were forming almost a barricade toward the Zerg. He had already sent almost four hundred bodies out, and he had been steadily losing ground. The Zerg force's push was blunted almost as much by the creatures pausing to feast on bodies as much as it was by them being slain or injured by handgun fire. 

"Damn it. Damn it." His blood was boiling, and he wasn't sure what he hated more at the moment. The Zerg for putting him in this situation, or himself for going along with it all the same. He couldn't die here, no matter what. This wasn't a game. He couldn't go to the next match. Victory at any cost. The Zerglings were almost within arms reach, and he had to close the production interface to slide his arm back into the drill-arm's controls. He was almost grateful he had something force him to stop throwing away lives like this. "COME ON THEN!" Jack screamed in his rage, twisting the SCV's entire frame to lean the weight of the entire machine into a drill-tipped punch as a Zergling leapt at him. The creature burst in disgusting fashion, and blood smeared across his viewport, but not enough to disrupt his vision. There was nothing left in front of him but Zerglings and civilian corpses that riddled him with guilt. The number of Zerg corpses in the mix did little to console him. 

The wave of red chitin poured at him, claws scraping slight furrows against his SCV's frame, borderline decorations with the thickness of the plating all but unaffected. He stomped on them, he picked them up and smashed them against his other, he cleaved bloody furrows through the horde with his drill, savaging multiple hostiles with each wild swing. He could hear the whirring flare of a welder somewhere behind him, the hostiles that were unable to reach him starting to fan out from his position at the chokepoint. The walls were being gnawed, clawed, and scythed toward their destruction, while the SCV behind him struggled to keep up with repairs. A gout of fire burst with the cries of burning beast as they finally spread out enough to hit his turret emplacements, the aggressive defenses drawing their aggression from the walls and giving the SCVs time to make headway on repairs. 

Jack lost all sense of time, blood pooling around the feet of his mech, a nearly waist-high barrier of Zergling bodies in front of him ensuring that all the remaining ones that rushed him were doing it at an almost equal level to his cockpit. For the first time in the fight, he stepped forward, crushing a bloody pulp beneath the multi-ton weight of the SCV unit, ordering the SCV behind him to take up position holding the gap as he climbed the mound of bodies. An explosion sounded off to one side, a huge fireball of revenge taking a chunk out of the swarm as a flamethrower turret lost its structural integrity to a critical degree. Jack bulldozed his way through the Zergling tide, heading toward the massive worm that was the source of the ongoing alien reinforcements. All but ignoring the claws and scythes that dented and scraped sparks off his suit, he revved the drill-arm to full speed and began using the thick hide of the worm as a punching bag, leaving gaping holes with each shove. After several, it shrieked again and began to return into the ground away from the assault with surprising haste, a huge access tunnel remaining where the beast had been moments before. 

The last of the Zergling, however, didn't seem to retreat with it. He had to clean up the remaining hostiles and he was isolated from the base. Jack glanced up at his power supply indicator, and a savage grin formed on his face. 22% power remaining. More than enough.

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