StarCraft: Outcasts

Chapter 1: Left Behind [Joseph]

Joseph Swail awoke to the smell of dirt, grease and oil. It really wasn't that different than his usual morning smells, except for one thing. Usually when he woke up, it was in his bunk in the mechanics room aboard the Hyperion, not upside down in his damaged SCV.

He looked up, which just happened to be down the side of a mountain. Great. Peeking through the open blast shield he could see that one of his SCV's mangled arms was dangling from a rock, cliff, or something probably not that sturdy. How it held up that much weight was already a miracle. A mix of oil and blood trickled down his brow. He himself hung by the belt straps of his seat, swaying slightly in the wind. Joe sighed. This wasn't shaping up to be a good day.

His mind quickly ran through the days events, trying to remember. Last he recalled, he was flying in a medivac to reinforce the front lines and keep the dominions vehicles running as smoothly as possible in a war zone. The Dominion. It still seemed wrong to say, to even imagine that he was helping the government he had fought so hard to bring down.

Joe closed his eyes and thought back to the early days, before the wars. He was at an old amusement park, one hand locked with his wife and the other one holding his daughter, his son running in front of them. It was before he joined Raynor's Raiders, a few years before his family was killed. Joe punched the side of the SCV. Wherever he was, he had to get back to basecamp and rendezvous with Raynor to continue his quest to avenge their death.

He looked around again to assess his surroundings as more oil dripped across his nose from somewhere above. He muttered to himself, "Well Joe, you definitely got yourself into a pickle this time," Talking to himself was a habit he had picked up since most the time the only thing he had to talk to was power converters and vespene gas, which don't make very good conversationalists. "You've gotten yourself out of tricky situations before, you can do it again." The first step was unstrapping.

Joe grabbed a bar with one hand and attempted to unbuckle himself from his half shredded belt with the other. He ignored the wind whistling in the canyon far below as he worked to free himself. How far down did it go? He clamped his fingers around the buckle and pulled. No luck. He gave it another tug while leaning in the opposite direction, using his weight to his favor. With a snap, the buckle gave way, shifting his center of mass. Caught off guard, he slipped from the control seat and fell toward the open blast shield. He flung out his arms attempting to catch something, anything to keep him from plummeting to his death. His hand grasped a lever, stopping his fall. Unfortunately, it was the lever that activated the SCV's thrusters. The engines thrummed to life, and with a crack something broke loose, sending the SCV corkscrewing down the side of the cliff faster than a reaper with a faulty jetpack.

"You idiot..." Joe said as he tried to stabilize himself inside the falling SCV. "Come on, come on; don't die old buddy," he said through gritted teeth. Clunk. His foot planted on something solid. Taking another deep breath, he hauled himself up closer to the the control chair. He let out a loud grunt as the machine turned mid-air The reverse in gravity sent Joe careening through the machine. He slammed back into the control seat with a loud squish, landing in something that he'd rather not know what it is. His instincts kicked in and he yanked the throttle up, stopping the freefall.

The SCV screeched as the motors tried to reverse and begin to ascend but failed. For a moment it hovered, fighting against gravity. Joe had to help. He desperately hit a few buttons and secured his arms into the sockets to control the SCVs arms. He moved his hand forward to have the SCV punch into the cliff wall. Then with a gripping motion, he grabbed ahold of the cliff with the other hand and pulled up. Left; right; left; right. With the help of the boosters the SCV slowly but surely made its way up the cliff. Ten minutes later he was at the top.