Nemaka, 2516. First Terran Armored Division. Commanders Log.
A year.
One whole god-forsaken year we’ve been on this rock, and I’ll be damned if I have any idea for what.
Communications with HQ went dark three months ago, and the dropship never bothered to show six weeks back when it was supposed to. I don’t know what’s going on up there, but I don’t like it. Something’s wrong, I can feel it.
We stopped finding those journals a while back, as well. Strange, I was beginning to think I understood the man who wrote them a little bit better, started to have wild hopes I might find a living, breathing Terran colony out here, but all hope of that seems gone now.
Truth be told, we’ve been having our own problems. We haven’t seen any sign of Zerg, thankfully, but two days ago, we found a colony of Protoss. What those nerve-headed freaks are doing out here on this hunk of dirt I have no idea, but whatever it is, they’re intent on it.
I can’t bring myself to treat my official log like some schoolgirl’s musings or personify it into some interested companion, but I’ll at least put down what I’ve learned.
Right now the men, except for my Second, have no idea we even found those arrogant bastards, and I’d rather keep it that way.
Two weeks back, I had our tech guys finally get around to finishing their Banshee cloaking research. Those Ghosts have had cloaks since we landed, but they weren’t keen on sharing their tech, so I had my guys whip up their own version. Not as pretty, perhaps, but they’ll do. Plus, the retrofit we did on those choppers has given then a hell of a wallop, and the cloak only makes them better recon scouts.
On our first few patrols with them, everything seemed fine, but then two of my best girls ran into trouble. Fortunately, they’ve both got their heads on straight, so they popped on their cloaks. Those things don’t last forever, but they’re good enough to get you into a tight situation or out of a tighter one. Sari, my lead pilot, had taken a hit on her front panel, and damned if she didn’t want to know where it had come from. With a little scouting, they found the base.
From what they described and the scans they took, I figured those jerks had been out there at least a year. Then I looked again and saw the winking eye of a gateway staring back at me. They weren’t even bothering to build, they were just warping in units, one after another. The rate was phenomenal.
Most of my men have never even seen Protoss, much less fought ‘em, so I told my girls to keep quiet. The next day, on a routine pass over the north of our base, both of their Banshees failed and they ended up plowing full-force into the canyon rock face that guards our flank.
I can’t prove anything, but I’ve got some suspicions. When I have moment, I’ll be checking the Ghost Academy storage lockers. I’m willing to bet I’ll find an EMP round missing. How they heard us is beyond me, but those freaks are something else, something other than human.
All of this is really beside the point, though. I’ve got to do something to get us out of here. If Sari got hit, those damned Protoss know we’re here, even if my girls went cloaked, and it’s only a matter of time until they find us.
The time has come to move, but we can’t let them know we’re going, or go in a way they expect. I think Faraday is just about done re-fitting the Com-Sat stations booster jets, so it’s time to take this thing for a ride. Most of our buildings are air-compatible, but our Ghost Academy is just going to have to stay where it is, along with our two Ghosts.
Such are the casualties of war.
