Heaven's Devils

Heaven's Devils

(Starcraft II series)

By William C. Dietz

“Any member of the armed services caught removing military assets from a government installation without sanction will be tried as an enemy agent and subject to the death penalty.” (From section 14:76.2 of the Confederate Uniform Code of military Justice).

Fort Howe on the planet Turaxis II

More than a week had passed since Tychus had been released from Military Correctional Facility-R-156 and ordered back to duty. It had been la tough three months, but that was behind him now as a dropship named Fat Girl skimmed over what had been the city of Whitford, and Tychus took the opportunity to eyeball the ruins through an open side door. The slipstream blasted his face and forced him to retreat. But not before he caught a glimpse of devastated buildings, cratered streets, and burned-out vehicles all laid out on a tidy grid.

Withford had been overrun by what the press liked to refer to as “the breakout.” Although Tychus thought it was more like a break-in, since the Kel-Morians had been able to fight their way through Hobber's Gap and lay waste to an area between Burr's Crossing to the south and an outpost called Firebase Zulu up north.

But what they hadn't been able to do was overrun Fort Howe. That was the home of the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, also known as “the Thundering Third.” The battalion had not only pushed the KMs out of Whiteford and back toward the mountains, it was currently following the enemy home.

In the meantime Tychus was about to join the 3rd Battalion's holding company at Fort Howe, where, with any luck at all, he would be able to return to work on Operation Early Retirement. A much-neglected aspect of the war effort that Tychus hoped to refocus his attention on.

Heaven's Devils. Photograph by Elena.

The transport began to slow a few minutes later, circled the base below, and lowered itself onto the main landing pad of a starport. The dropship carried eleven other passengers, replacements mostly, who would soon become members of the Thundering Third. They were already pulling their belongings together as the skids touched down and a green light appeared.

When the ramp was extended, Tychus followed a coupe officers and some noncoms onto the pad. Once there, he was struck by the fact that, except for one other ship, the area in front of the starport structure was empty. A sure sign that most of the battalion was elsewhere.

All of his original gear had been lost during the transfer from Prosser's Well to MCF-R-156. So all Tychus had to carry was his duffel bag containing some extra underwear and a Dopp kit. Tychus entered the starport to get directions to the admin building and went back outside to wait for an open-sides jitney.

The five-minute ride served to confirm his initial impression: Fort Howe had been stripped of troops in order to battle the Kel-Morians off the the east. A barracks building had lifted off the ground and was in the process of being repositioned, and the occasional squad could be seed double-timeing from one location to the next. But the facility had an empty feel.