At the end of May in 2491, Los Andares, the capital of the planet Chau Sara in the Sara star system, was facing the greatest catastrophe since this city had stood upon the green plains.
In less than a month, a kind of gelatinous and sticky Zerg creep, somewhere between slime and brown lichens, had spread across Chau Sara's lush forests and plains through spores dispersing in the atmosphere and other means. Plants began to wither, and even fungal organisms were assimilated by the Zerg creep, becoming part of the Swarm.
Whether the fertile greenlands or the desert landscape similar to that of its sister planet Mar Sara, all were covered by thick purple-black creep and buildings infected by the Zerg. Beyond that lay nothing but desolation, and even the birds in the sky had vanished completely. Even the vast oceans and rivers and lakes were covered by the Zerg creep, as though draped with a layer of black-brown oily filth drifting with the turbid currents.
The Zerg were gnawing away at this once vibrant planet.
Los Andares was the last still-holding and not-yet-fallen Terran city; the other major cities had long since been submerged by the Swarm. All survivors on the planet had retreated to Andares, using its tall walls and defensive fortifications to make a final stand.
At this very moment, Los Andares, this metropolis of skyscrapers, factories, and large-scale residential districts, was trembling in the warm May winds carrying a bloody stench and a fishy reek.
The Swarm's destruction of Chau Sara's environment had forever changed the planet's terrain and climate; the disappearance of vegetation had brought irreversible erosion caused by soil displacement and weathering. The weather began to become complex and volatile, at times overcast with dense clouds and at times stormy with torrential rain.
At this time, Chau Sara's Magistrate Collins was atop the Paristeel-and-concrete-cast defensive fortifications, commanding the only colonial armed force he had—the Andares Security Forces—defending humanity's last refuge on this planet.
The land outside the city's protective walls built of alloy and molded ceramics had already been entirely covered by creep; on the black-brown ground were filled sharp Zerg fleshy spires with spikes and veins throbbing like hearts.
By now the defensive fortifications outside Andares were already in ruins; steel plates capable of resisting Arclite Tank shock shells were studded with sharp bone spurs and quills, and the armor plates were covered with marks left by acid burns.
Several hours earlier a brutal battle had just taken place on the Andares front line; in front of the fortifications, stretches and stretches of Terran and Zerg corpses were piled up, and the air was filled with the smell of scorched protein.
Collins held optical binoculars, observing the Zerg forces that were gathering in the distance; on the horizon the Swarm looked like wriggling black dots, and in the dark-blue sky a large number of Zerg flying organisms were flying about, like slowly moving black clouds.
Around this Magistrate were all sorts of signal transceiver devices and life-signal detection instruments, and the entire defensive fortification was full of piercing static noise.
A few weeks earlier, every channel had been occupied by frantic cries from all over the colony, but now there was nothing but the irritating static noise.
At the same time, several of Collins's information-technology troopers were tirelessly sending out distress calls to other Confederate forces beyond the planet, but the other end of the communication channels remained silent.
"How many alien creatures are in front of us?" The Magistrate put down his binoculars and asked a soldier beside him. He was a middle-aged man who rarely smiled, with a broad square face, a pair of thick eyebrows, deep brown eyes, and a neatly trimmed long black moustache.
Magistrate Collins was wearing a dark-green army uniform rather than that handsome Magistrate's uniform; under the brim of his wide-brimmed service cap, his gaze was sharp and profound. Without a doubt, this Magistrate looked more like an iron-blooded soldier than a Confederate official skilled at scheming and scrambling for power.
"Millions." The soldier gave a number that plunged everyone into despair: "On the left side, right side, and rear of Los Andares there are likewise millions of alien creatures."
Although long before 2491 the Terran Confederacy had already discovered the Zerg and opened a research project on them, the people of Chau Sara who were facing the Zerg directly, even now still did not know what these suddenly appearing organisms actually were, and still referred to them as "alien creatures" or "purple nightmare-like organisms."
"Even more alien creatures are still hiding in the cave nests they have dug underground."
"God's ass! Their numbers are a hundred times, a thousand times ours," someone said.
"Where exactly is the support fleet?"
More than nine-tenths of Chau Sara's population had already been devoured by the Swarm; after several weeks of defensive fighting, the more than 900 000 people of Los Andares had been reduced to fewer than 400 000. Even if one counted the militia, the mobilized troops, and those who had taken up arms, the forces Magistrate Collins could muster were still pitifully few.
The situation had already become so critical that Collins had been forced to release the prisoners in Andares Prison and make them fight the Zerg; however, if they could not obtain support, the isolated Andares City, facing the vast, mighty ocean-like sea of Zerg, could only have the fate of being submerged sooner or later.
If not for the fact that the Zerg could not be communicated with and did not accept the Terrans' surrender, the surviving people of Andares would long since have laid down their arms and surrendered.
"Shut up, Sergeant, or I'll throw you out to feed those monsters. You saw how Lieutenant Colonel Ray and the Continental Secretary of the Samiro Continent died," the Magistrate roared angrily.
Unlike his other colleagues in the Terran Confederacy, Magistrate Collins was a rather capable official, which was, exceptionally, extremely rare.
In recent years, the fact that Chau Sara's economy had been able to flourish was not unrelated to this Magistrate's enlightened policies. As a planet originally used mainly for exiling criminals, Chau Sara had once been a strictly regimented prison-exile world. If the Koprulu Terrans were descendants of Earth's exiles, then those living on this planet were the exiles of the exiles.
—Of course, aside from those who liked to use a biting tone to ridicule the Confederacy's Old Families, no one would admit that they were a group of exiles' descendants. Whether in official discourse or in historical documents, the people of the Terran Confederacy would only proudly declare that they came from the ancient and sacred Earth; the word Terran was also another name for Earth.
Even as a planet once used to exile criminals, Chau Sara's rate of development had also surpassed that of its sister planet Mar Sara, which had launched its colonial process earlier and in recent years had always been regarded as a world whose development lagged severely behind.
It was also worth mentioning that Magistrate Collins had an equally hardline attitude toward rebel armed groups such as the Korhal Revolutionary Army and the Sons of Korhal, and had always stressed that all rebels should be brought to justice. He believed that the only basis for sentencing these rebels was the harshest criminal law, and that what awaited the rebel leader Augustus Mengsk and his associates could only be the fate of being hanged.
Especially after the Mar Sara rebellion, the governor of Mar Sara, who was known as an incompetent pig, and the Magistrate who colluded with the rebels all the more set off Collins's iron-faced impartiality and his deep loathing of the rebels.
"Has anyone responded to our calls for help?" The Magistrate looked toward the trembling technician troopers. He already had no one left to use, and these soldiers who had held their posts for several days and nights were already on the verge of emotional collapse.
"No, Magistrate, no, no," a sergeant answered. "Only some people on Mar Sara have responded to us."
"If there was a response, why did you not report it?" the Magistrate questioned him.
"Those who responded to us were only the Mar Sara observatory, the meteorological bureau, privately owned interstellar radio stations, and several universities, and…" the sergeant stammered in reply.
"And what else?" The Magistrate was already impatient.
"And the Mar Sara rebels," the sergeant said hesitantly.
"It really is the greatest irony!" After that, Magistrate Collins angrily cursed something in a kind of obscure and hard-to-understand local slang, and it absolutely did not sound like any good words. Ever since the Zerg invaded Chau Sara, all calls for help had met with no response, and the Confederate navy fleet, which had always liked to flaunt its might, seemed as if it had never appeared in this world at all.
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