Chapter 3: Chapter 3: Zerglings and Queens

“Ok…as profitable as this has been, I really need to get going.”

Athena said as she emptied another magazine into an alien animal she didn't recognize. For the last thirty minutes, the local wildlife has been charging at her fearlessly, and she and her zerg units quickly put them down. Honestly, Athena was getting so used to all this that she lost track of time. Shoot at the animals. Order the drones to attack. Return injured drones to harvesting duty. Watch her minerals and vespene gas jump. 

At one point, Nova had to step in and remind Athena she didn't need to keep microing worker drones to fight. Not when she had real fighting units, designed for combat, available. 

When Athena realized what Nova meant, she felt like an idiot. Even in Starcraft ladder games, she always focused on micro and forgot about macro, mistakes that often lead to her forces being overwhelmed by a much larger enemy force. Somehow she made the same mistake in real life.

She immediately put down a spawning pool inside the game and started producing zerglings. 

Zerglings were the deadly hounds of the swarm. They were spawned in pairs, with each pair costing 25 minerals. Standing around one meter tall, zerglings were often deadly to enemy infantry and light armors due to their remarkable speed. Their razor sharp teeth could easily tear through the CMC power armor of terran marines and, with enough numbers, the platings of armored vehicles and light tanks. Their leathery skin made them less durable than most other zerg units, but they often made up for their lack of endurance with sheer overwhelming numbers. 

Even in the toxic environment of Morgo IV that could kill a person without proper protection, the zerglings didn't show any sign of being poisoned or even weakened. Then again, it shouldn’t be surprising. The zerg were known for their adaptability. Their homeworld of Char was a volcanic hell, and the zerg made it their home. Zerg units were known to use acid and poison weapons against their enemies. Their resilience to hostile environments was beyond anything the protoss and the terran could create. 

With the zerglings hunting down local animals and ripping their bodies open at a much quicker pace than the drones did, the drones could finally focus on handling the biomass the zerglings just produced.

When Athena looked up at the resource tab again, she was quite pleasantly surprised. 

Mineral: 1,084

Vespene gas: 490

This was after Athena spent 200 minerals on a spawning pool, 500 minerals on 10 more drones, and 300 minerals on 12 zerglings.

As tempted as Athena was to stay there and keep killing, she knew she didn't have time to waste here. Ultimately, she still needed to get to the Blackbucks, meet up with her squad, and get back to the research outpost. The consequences of not doing so were too great. For one thing, she wouldn’t have the rations, the clean water, and the oxygen needed to survive in the wild for long. The zerg units could easily live and move in the toxic atmosphere of Morgo IV. Athena couldn’t. Just because she could command zerg units didn't make her a zerg. 

Before she resumed her trip, Athena entered the game once again just to give herself some time to think. As always, Nova was eager to greet her and offer her service. 

“You seem to be in a dilemma, commander.” Nova said. “Might I suggest a solution?”

“Sure.”

“You don’t have to remain in the jungle for the hunt to continue. Why don’t you leave a detachment of zerg here? You have enough minerals to build another hatchery, which will allow minerals to be harvested without your presence. There are limits to how close you have to be to collect resources and give orders, but the distance limit is far beyond the diameter of Morgo IV.”

“What does this mean?” Athena asked.

“This means you will still be able to give orders to the hatchery and its forces as long as you are still on the planet. As for the details of the fighting and tactics, leaving a queen with the hatchery should be sufficient. It is when you leave this world that you can no longer give orders to the units or instantly receive the resources they collect. At that point, it is suggested that you give a broad directive to a queen and have the queen lead the zerg base in your stand.”

Nova paused before giving Athena another reminder. 

“Also, commander, I would like to remind you that the metabolic boost upgrade is available in the spawning pool.”

Athena raised her eyebrows. Splitting up her units. Leave a garrison here that could spawn a base and take full advantage of the local ecosystem and expand. On the other hand, she herself could return to the Imperial forces, keeping herself safe and unlocking more technologies in the base. The entire time, she could still benefit from the resources the zerg base collected. 

She really didn't think of this strategy, but Nova just knew more about the game and what its units were capable of more than Athena ever did. 

She first clicked on the spawning pool. There were two upgrades in the spawning pool. Metabolic boost and adrenal glands. As a veteran Starcraft 2 player, Athena was way too familiar with these two abilities. Both worked to enhance the zerglings. Metabolic boost increased the zergling’s movement speed and adrenal glands increased the zergling’s attack speed. How did she forget about these?

Adrenal glands required the zerg building Hive to be researched, but metabolic boost was available already. The upgrade costs 100 minerals and 100 vespene gas.

Before Athena clicked the upgrade, she consulted Nova first. It was one thing to upgrade the movement speed in the game. It was another to do so in real life.

“How much would the metabolic boost upgrade increase the zergling’s movement speed?”

“The zergling’s speed depends on the environment it is in. Before the upgrade, the zergling can maintain a speed of 102 km/hr in the atmosphere of Morgo IV. After the upgrade, the zergling’s speed is increased by approximately 40% to 143 km/hr.”

Now Athena was really impressed. She knew zerglings were fast, but she never got to see them really run. 102 km/hr? That should make the zergling faster than any animal on Earth. 

Yes. Compared to human vehicles like the Blackbuck MSV that could move at a top speed of 200 km/hr, the zergling wasn’t that impressive, but zerglings weren’t usually supposed to chase down rapid scouting vehicles. They were infantry and light armor killers. Against Imperial soldiers who could barely run at 30 km/hr with power armors on, the zerglings would be deadly reapers.

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Plus, due to their biological nature, zerglings would fare a lot better than vehicles in complicated terrain. The jungles they were in were a good example. The multi-terrain vehicles couldn’t even drive into the jungles, but the zerglings could move around like the trees were their home.

Almost without hesitation, Athena clicked on the metabolic boost icon. The upgrade completed instantly as 100 minerals and 100 vespene gas left Athena’s bank account.

Athena then turned her attention to the hatchery. More specifically, the option to spawn queens.

Standing over three meters tall, zerg queens were low level commanders whose main duties included overseeing hive clusters and directing zerg units to battle. Of course, like all zerg units, they could fight when needed. Their claws could tear terran marines in half in melee and their acid spines could go through the armored platings of terran vehicles. 

Queens had three active abilities. Create creep tumor, which allows zerg bases to expend their creep and turn the battlefield to their advantage. Spawn larvae, which increases the larvae and thus unit production of zerg hive clusters. Finally, transfusion, which rapidly healed the sickness and wounds of biological beings.

Each queen cost 150 minerals.

At a stage where Athena didn't have the tanky roaches or the more tanky ultralisks, this battlefield commander unit was ironically her most durable zerg unit so far.

Right now, after accidentally losing a pair of zerglings to a particularly difficult prey, Athena had 10 zerglings and 22 drones. She thought about her options before adding 2 queens and 5 pairs of zerglings to the production tab. Once again, the morphing completed instantly as the resource count dropped. 

Mineral: 334

Vespene gas: 490

Taking another deep breath, Athena returned to the jungle. All the biomass were returned to the hatchery, but the blood and the smell couldn’t be completely rid off. More and more animals were attracted to this location by their animal instincts, only to meet their end at the claws of the deadly zerg killing machines.

Athena left 1 queen, 10 zerglings, and 17 drones at the location. This was enough units to survive for a while. As soon as the hatchery could be completed, new minerals would be harvested and new zerg units could be produced to join the fight. The group didn't have any overlords yet so they couldn’t build a new unit immediately, but overlords were relatively cheap, at a price of 100 minerals per overlord.

As one of the drones found a piece of open space and started morphing itself into a hatchery, Athena turned and resumed her journey back to the parking spot. She was escorted by the rest of her zerg units, including 5 drones and 10 zerglings. Interestingly, she opted to keep the queen in the game for now. Queens were infamous for being slow while off zerg creep.

After twenty more minutes of walking, plenty of self-doubt regarding her ability to read a compass, and a lot of kills, Athena finally found her way back to the parking lot. There, sitting on an open field, were the three Blackbuck MSVs Athena had been dreaming about. 

The rest of her squad wasn’t back yet. They must still be on the mission to retrieve that specific piece of specimen the IRA scientist demanded. Using this opportunity, Athena ran to one of the MSVs and laid a hand on the vehicle.

“Anything?” She asked with clear anticipation in her voice.

As much as Athena adored the combat abilities of the zerg units, she was still very human, and being around the monstrous zerg units for so long made her long for the protection of terran units and vehicles. If she could unlock the factory here…just thinking about the terran mechanical units made her want to smile. Hellions and hellbats. Widow mines. Siege tanks, cyclones, and thors. 

Much to her dismay, Nova’s voice was the only thing she heard.

“It is not enough technology, commander. Contact and examination of more human vehicles is necessary to unlock the factory, the tech lab, and the armory.”

“Fine.” Athena shrugged. There was a garage back in the research outpost with a number of armored vehicles. Hopefully that would be enough. If not…maybe she should find an opportunity to be switched into one of the armored divisions? Or perhaps she could get a job at one of the local factories that made combat vehicles for the Imperial Army?

As she leaned against one of the Blackbucks and waited, she psychically connected to the squad of zerg units she left in the jungle to see how they were doing. It seemed like the constant waves of local animals did a number on the zerg units. Half the zerglings and a third of the drones were killed, but the bodies of the local predators were piling higher and higher. 

The queen served as the bulwark of defenses. Every acidic spine she fired resulted in the target screeching in pain as its flesh was melted through. Its claws mercilessly tore through the body of any predator that got too close. Athena could see it was missing one leg, but the queen simply didn't care. 

Most of the predators attracted to the location also turned on each other, greatly alleviating the pressure on the squad of zerg units.

Meanwhile, behind the zerg queen, the morphing hatchery was growing larger and larger. Several predators tried to cut through the layer of membrane covering the zerg structure, but the membrane turned out to be more resilient than these animals expected. The zerg units took care of the predators before they could do fatal damage.

It would only be a matter of time before the base was set up and she started receiving a constant stream of minerals and vespene gas. 

Another thing Athena noticed, as more and more zerg units were killed, was that all the dead zerg units would gradually disappear after a while. Nova explained that,like in the game, this was the case for all destroyed Starcraft units and structures. 

This was a pleasant discovery for Athena. This meant she wouldn’t have to worry about the Imperials or anyone else finding specimens of zerg or protoss and potentially doing research on them. It also made it significantly easier for her to conceal her presence. 

Suddenly, one of the zerglings she scattered in her proximity returned a psychic message. There were nine men in black and red power armors heading through the trees and toward where Athena and the MSVs were. 

Her squad was finally back. 

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