<strong>Leviathan VII, day 1 after the sunflare. Early afternoon.</strong><br/><br/>The thin atmosphere on Leviathan VII was even more uncomfortable than usual thanks to the scorching heat glaring down on them all unforgivingly.  There were crashed ships all around the research outpost, most vessels and escape craft having homed in on the transmitting beacon of the Dominion installation.  There were other science teams down on the planet, of course, but this base was by far the largest, and had some actual infrastructure built to last against the elements and the ever-present Zerg threat.  The compound was fenced with sturdy blast walls and contained a mobile command center, two barracks and several science labs.  There was a sensor and communications tower as well, plus a couple of bunkers near the entrance to the compound.<br/><br/>The once-secure compound was a mess right now.  One oversized dropship had come down right on one of the barracks, wrecking that as well as the neighboring science lab.  Another ship had crashlanded against the outer blast wall, blowing a quarter of the wall sky-high when it's ion engines went up in a supercharged fireball.  Several more ships had come down at varied distances, in all kinds of shapes, when they were intact at all.  More than a few fireballs were still visible in the sky were ships which had failed atmospheric entry were burning in the space, their systems shorted out explosively by that flare of unknown radiation.<br/><br/>The ancient ruins which had started all the commotion were a few miles to the west of the outpost, which had been built in the nearest secure valley as close to them as possible.  Unfortunately, Zerg activity had been increasing lately, and now there was a cluster of the Swarm between the outpost and the ruins, observation teams had reported spreading creep as well as organic structures starting to form.  The planet's terrain was almost completely covered in immense rainforests to begin with, plus several large cave formations underground, from where the ruins had been found as well.  The advantage of terrain was squarely on the Zerg, with plenty of hiding places for ambushes and lots of surface for creep to cling to.  The mottled purplish slime-fungi was slowly devouring the rainforest, coating trees and vines in pulsating semi-flesh as it slowly but inexorably claimed more ground.<br/><br/>The intermittent Protoss sightings didn't really help allay any unrest either, as no one really knew where they were.  Even their ships had disappeared from the orbit when the flare went off, so likely they were grounded as well.<br/><br/>Dominion Wrangler Anya Sommers looked up from the steps leading out from the command center of the compound just as an old-style science vessel came down on the compound in flames, having followed the beacon in like the other ships.  Miraculously, the old ship was still in one piece as it crashed onto the blast wall near the forward bunkers with a horrible screech of torn metal.  The spherical ship was large enough to knock down another section of the wall as its bulk came down on it.  It was also quite clear the ship wasn't going to do any more flying.  Large sections of the hull were completely torn away, contents exposed to space.  Still, it was mostly in one piece, so this particular craft might actually house some survivors.<br/><br/>Doctor Catseye, once a semi-esteemed Xeno researcher, slowly gets his bearing in the trashed lab, having mostly fixed himself up and donning a new lab coat to replace his destroyed one.  It was clear at a glance that the specimens in the room were a complete lost cause.  There wasn't much left of the crystal but small shards and powder where it had disintegrated.  The Zerg specimen mostly resembled minced meat after having gone through both a shower of crystal shards and several panels of cracked glass.  Nothing as much as twitched on it anymore.<br/><br/>Both can hear an immense screech rolling over the horizon - the Zerg are on the move.  And it doesn't seem like it's only one or two of them.<br/><br/>(OOC: Welcome to the game, folks!  Please post only In Game actions in this thread, and use captions like these for OOC comments, though more elaborate discussions should be held in the OOC thread.)<br/>