... and then the shots stopped, without explanation, just as Dagganoth was about to order a risky escape. Not even he had anticipated this. Murkag had entered the system quietly and scouted the edges carefully, but nothing useful had come out of it. Dagganoth had then made the decision to go in a little bit deeper, closer towards one of the planets. He hadn't been on course for more than five seconds before a host of Terran ships jumped out of warp and surrounded his Behemoth. They started firing immediately, but stopped firing just as quickly, leaving those aboard Murkag puzzled. With a quick burst of thoughts, Dagganoth asked Adam to hail the Terran ships. Their hailing equipment might be relatively primitive, but it was helpful in situations like these.
Or not. When even after ten seconds no answer came, Dagganoth rapidly started calculating his options. Five seconds later he came to the conclusion that sitting tight might be the best way to proceed - they weren't being fired upon and he was sure he had more patience than the average Terran. Because of that conclusion, he was the only sentient being aboard Murkag not worrying when a reply didn't come for another ten seconds. But then a psionic signal entered Dagganoth's mind.
{Well who do we have here?}
-{I could assk you the ssame. You are not an Outssider.}
{Not that hard to figure out. But usually it's the visitor that introduces himself first.}
As the conversation went on Dagganoth scanned the mind of the being he was communicating with. It was as impressive as it was ugly, even to a Cerebrate. To him, it was represented as a room full of unbreakable cages holding Zerg Larvae. They would never be able to evolve, they would never be able to further the Swarm, and they would never be able to explore the universe and all of its features. Any Terran would have probably seen destructive fires, corpses and doom - what Dagganoth saw was the Zerg version of hell.
-{Very well. My name iss Dagganoth.}
{I like to call myself Nick Reyd. Out of curiosity, what brood sent you?}
-{What doess that mean to you? Do you know of our broods?}
{I know a little. I wish to know more. It is my goal to unite the races of this sector, so that they may live in peace, and what is probably more interesting to you, continue on their path of evolution - We will never achieve perfection without unity.}
-{But you have a Terran's name?}
{Depends on your definition of "having a name". I was nameless, the terrans asked me for a name, and I told them one. A terran one was appropriate for the situation.}
-{What race are you?}
{Hard to tell. You're avoiding my initial question.}
-{I am not. I ssimply wanted to know where it came from before ansswering it. No brood sent me, however. I am the Garamar Brood, and these are my children. We came to explore thiss system in the name of the Father.}
{Interesting. An independent Zerg.}
With that, Nick Reyd took a short pause to think before continueing the conversation. {What is your opinion on my goal?}
-{If you really purssue it, it is ssimilar to that of the Father. I can not believe you sseek it, however.}
{I've been created to destroy. I've destroyed my creators, and wish to seek a different path. I know I myself will never achieve true perfection, ascend, but I do believe it is possible for the three races to do so, and I know I am capable of starting the process. Here is my offer: You may join me in my quest, or you are free to leave. There is no reason for me to kill you. But if you do wish to join me, I will have to warn you, I do not plan to use pacifism. The sector is in chaos, and in order to unite it order must be brought to it first.}
-{This is not an offer I can accept. It is not up to me to decide this. If you sseek my allegiance, you sshall need to kill the Father and assume control over the Sswarm. What created you? It musst have been a being of immensse power if these are your goalss...}
{Their goals are not mine. I killed them before they had a chance to explain. Had they been beings of immense power, they could have prevented their deaths. I am sure you will understand my reluctance to share details considering we barely know each other, and don't seem to be getting closer. You may tell your Father that if he's open to peace and symbiosis instead of death and destruction, I will not get in his way. If not, our paths are bound to cross sooner or later and what will happen then I highly doubt anyone can predict. You are free to leave this system, my ships will not fire upon you. But think twice if you plan to return with a reinforcements - I am not very hospitable when provoked.}
-{I did not mean to insult, if you are insulted. Your goal doess intrigue me. It is just that I think there is little I can sshare about me. Perhaps we can take turns in our questionss, if you want uss to get closer?}
{If you have no intentions of cooperation, there is little use in sharing information. And no, I am not insulted, but it is hard to sound nice when telling someone that large groups of tresspassers will be shot, don't you think?}
-{Very well... Thank you, this conversation was... interesting. We shall take our leave, then, and conssider your words.}
{It was nice meeting you. Good bye, and if you change your mind, you know where to find me.}
With that, Dagganoth broke the connection. As Murkag started turning, one of the Terran ships fired another shot at it, barely missing. Just as Dagganoth's mind started booming through his plan of against after betrayal another one of the ships fired two warning shots at the first, causing it to cease fire. Dagganoth barely registered this before Murkag glided out of the system.
-
The communication device portrayed Kenny. It wasn't the Pirate version of Kenny however, Adam could tell this much - it was wearing a gray and purple uniform, had a proper haircut and a more serious look on its face. Adam grinned as he looked at it.
"New haircut, Kenny?"
"We haven't met yet, I believe. Kenny informed about you though. Anything to report?", the new Kenny replied. Adam took up a more serious posure before answering.
"Yes. We need to talk to whoever in the Quantum Legion will take our report on the Bysdoch scouting mission."
"That'll be me.", Kenny answered.
"Very well", Adam replied.
"We were met by three Terran ships upon entering the Bysdoch system. We tried to hail them with our on-board equipment, but instead the big one got a psionic reply by their leader. Said he had no idea what race the leader was. Dagga lied to him and posed as a scouting brood fully under the Overmind's control. The leader scared him, he said. He talked about creating peace and unity throughout the sector, but his mind was filled with rage and...", Adam hesitated.
"He said the leader's mindscape looked like... what we'd call 'hell'. He said that for all the peace he was promoting, that leader seemed like a chaotic, deranged murderer. I don't think I've ever seen something scare Dagganoth before". Adam took a big pause before continueing.
"Dagga tried to get as much information out of the leader as possible. It said that it 'had been created to destroy', 'destroyed its creators' and then 'decided to take a different path'. Eventually he simply told us to either join him or leave, and said we were welcome to return if we wanted to join his cause but were warned not to return with reinforcements."
When it was clear that Adam had finally stopped talking, Kenny gave a clear and direct response. "Noted. I will attempt to contact Lady Lane immediately, but she appears to be busy. I will let you know if I get a message for you. In the meantime, we do not require your services at the moment, so feel free to do as you wish. This communicator will, by default, contact the Pirates again from now on, in case you wish to talk to them for whatever reason."
"Alright... we'll head to Domus to think of our next move. I'll assume we'll hear from the Legion soon, then."
With that, the official Kenny politely nodded at Adam and turned itself off. Adam turned around to Jack, who was standing in the doorpost behind him. He grinned as he spoke. "I prefer the other one". Adam sighed and smiled at Jack. "I know you do..."
SoA
-Dagganoth meets Nick Reyd in Bysdoch and has a conversation with him. Afterwards he reports his findings to the Coalition version of Kenny.
-Murkag leaves Bysdoch and sets a course back to Domus, 17 hexes away. 12 IC's/days travel time until arrival.
As they entered the bar, Adam spotted the character Kenny had described to him sitting in a quiet corner: average height and build, short brown hair and a matching suit. With Jack right behind him, Adam walked up to the man and held out his hand.
"Mr. Kosh?"
Kosh looked at Adam and took his hand as he replied. "Yup, that's me. Adam I take it?"
"Correct. My friend over here is named Jack. He reports back to the big boss fairly directly, if you know what I mean."
"Hello Jack, nice to meet you guys. Barman, three beers! You guys want to order anything?"
After Adam's response he continued speaking.
"Alright. Not really a fan of psionics myself, makes it really hard to play poker, and where would I be if I couldn't cheat people out of their money? Anyway, you guys wanted to get in touch with the Quantum Legion, right?"
"Indeed. Kenny told us you'd be able to help us out."
Kosh took a deep breath and started talking.
"Well, here's the thing. Saying the Legion trusts us is not entirely accurate. They trust in the fact that we'll lie to 'em, and they also trust us to not fuck up. We're like a shadow ops division the government doesn't want to keep tabs on. Deniability is what's important: We don't get any direct orders and we don't report back, and they can't be held responsible for any problems we cause. Doom would never have agreed to work with the Coalition full time if he had to follow protocol, and if he did... Well, chances are you guys wouldn't even be alive right now. To cut to the point: We can't help you guys. That doesn't mean the Coalition isn't gonna hear you out, but that we just simply are not allowed to help you guys. Doom talked to Keeva. She's busy at the moment, and she wants to use that time to test your guys trust until she is actually able to have a face to tentacle with your boss."
He then paused for a second to take a sip from his beer and shot a question at Adam. "What do you guys know about Bysdoch?"
"That it's on the far end of the sector... that's about it.", Adam replied.
Kosh took another breath before going off into another monologue.
"Well, it's one of the Outsiders' major systems. Only real big one we really know of, to be honest. The rest are probably somewhere in the nebula and therefore practically impossible to track down. Now the thing is: we can usually pick up radio chatter from Bysdoch - Not necessarily understandable, but definitely recognizable as artificial terran communication signals. We don't anymore. The system just went dark. No informants reported back, whether official Coalition ones or contacts of information brokers here on Domus. Not even Network data from civilians left that system. They either nuked themselves to death, something else did, or... Well, point is, we have no idea. And Keeva does not like not having an idea. Do you see what I'm getting at?"
Adam paused a second before answering. "I think so. Something really big and bad is going on and Keeva wants to send in her most expendable asset to scout, testing its use at the same time. It's what I'd do, I guess."
"Expendable may be the wrong word. She doesn't want to lose you, she isn't like that. If I had to guess, this is just the perfect test. Throw you into an impossible situation and see how you react, great way to get a decent read of character. She had a few instructions: First of all, don't get yourself killed, you're more valuable than a bit of information, feel free to run away if things get too hot. Second of all, us Pirates are not getting involved, training wheels are off. You want to work with them, you'll have to trust them that that trust is mutual. Kenny can redirect the communicator to the Legion if you ask him to, and they'll respond to any calls for help. So if you need an army to back you up, an army you will get. That's about it."
"That seems fair. We have some unused broadcasting equipment of our own on board, maybe if we work with Kenny we can start getting that up and running for our Terran communications."
"Alright. Give Keeva a call once the job is done or you screw up or whatever."
With that, Adam and Jack finished their beers and got up. "Alright, will do. Thanks for the asistance. You'll be seeing us around."
SoA
-Garamar Brood talks to the Pirates' man Kosh and embarks indirectly on a mission for the Quantum Legion; the Brood is to scout what's going on in the Bysdoch system and report back its findings to Keeva Llane.
-Murkag leaves Domus for Bysdoch, 17 hexes away. A speed of 6 makes for 12 IC's/days travel time until arrival.
Inside a bar towards one of the many shady sides of the pirate complex, four men were talking. Two of them looked like relatively simple starship crewmen, while one of the two men on the other side of the table seemed burly and wielded a large moustache. The fourth one looked a tad skinnier and ironically enough more intimidating than his burly companion; whether it was because of his one skull-symbol earring, his leather jacket or his unwashed long hair, it was obvious he held some kind of rank on the more plainly dressed 'stache-wielder.
"So what, you're saying you have technology that would allow a ship to travel through an environment as hostile as Caelorum?", Adam sneered at skull-earring.
The man snickered. "Me? No. D'you think I'd be hanging out with the likes of you in a place like this if I had that kind of tech?"
Adam had learned much in his position as Dagganoth's 'diplomat' and was becoming more versed in dealing with the likes of Earring as well. He knew the pirate wasn't trying to insult him per se, but that he was simply showing his rough edge and expected Adam to do something similar if he wanted to remain on equal footing in the conversation.
"Speak for yourself, that smell's definitely coming from your side of this joint."
Both Earring and his burly companion burst into laughs as Adam grinned - he knew he had hit the right note. As they came too, earring raised his hand and yelled at the bartender.
"Hey you! Two of your finest for my palls here!"
As Earring turned back to Adam, Jack jumped in and addressed earring.
"So then... who does possess that technology?"
Earring looked a more serious before replying.
"Well... I've heard some rumors about the Quantum Legion. Word has it they've got a team 'o four-eyes working on some kind of tech that can pull of what you're describing. That's all I can give you, though."
Adam weighed his options for a second before answering.
"No offense mate, but I've heard that excuse far too often around here."
Earring snickered and looked right into the eyes of Adam, who merely returned the stare. When nobody spoke up for another three seconds, Earring started talking again, this time with a more quiet voice.
"Alright, you're right. I know some more. But even though I like you, I don't like you that much... my information doesn't come free, y'know?"
Adam nodded before replying.
"Makes sense... if only we weren't strapped for cash..."
"Tell you what", Earring replied. "I'll give you a fair chance at my information. Beat me in a drinking game. Three glasses of whatever the strongest piss is they sell in this place - first one to finish wins".
Adam hesitated. He didn't dislike alcohol, but he wasn't a big drinker either. By the looks of it, Earring was. Just as he was about to confirm a spending of coins, Jack stepped in again.
"My buddy here isn't really a drinker, but tell you what: same game, me versus your companion. He seems to look like he can hold his liquor."
Earring looked at Jack for a second before bursting into laughs again. "You? Against Donar? Are you serious? What d'you say Donar, d'you think you can beat that puppy?".
The burly man simply laughed and grunted something, causing Earring to shout out. "Alright then, let's do this! Barman, six of your strongest here!"
As Earring went in for a quick talk with Donar and the barman poured the drinks, Adam shot a look at Jack. "What the hell are you doing? That guy looks like he drinks for breakfast!", he whispered. Jack said nothing and simply smiled back.
"Alright then... everybody set? Three, two, one, GO!", Earring started the game.
Within no time, the burly man had gone through his first drink. He quickly grabbed the second glass and started chugging it down. He had to take a pause halfway through the glass and looked up to see how his competitor was doing. He saw Jack sitting there with a half-full glass in his hands, and snickered as he figured the boy must still be on his first. As he poured the rest of his second glass down his throat, he looked up again to find Jack putting down his empty glass. His third empty glass.
The group went silent. Somehow Jack had managed to pour three glasses of whatever this poison was faster than Donar, who definitely looked like he'd be able to take this lightweight by ease. Then Jack burped. After another second of silence, everyone burst into laughs; Earring nearly fell of his stool.
"God damn, where did you learn to hold your drink?!", he shouted at Jack, who simply smiled as he quietly replied; "let's just say I've learned to drink for two".
As the ruckus died down, Earring turned back to Adam. "Well, you've earned it. I don't have a lot of additional information, but I can tell you of a ship that tried to enter Caelorum a while back."
"What happened to it?", Adam replied.
"We don't know", Earring said. "If you ask me, it's probably toast, which means you should be able to find debris around the phenomenon, though no one has really heard anything from the ship since it entered the phenomena".
Adam thought for a second before getting up from his chair.
"Alright... Thanks for the company."
Earring casually raised his left hand as a greeting and turned back to Donar as Adam and Jeremy walked out of the bar. As soon as they entered a quieter area Adam looked at Jack.
"How did you pull that off? Drinking for two? What are you talking about?"
Jack grinned as he replied. "That parasite Dagganoth put inside me needs nourishment too. It seems the Zerg are rather adept at processing alcohol".
Adam burst into laughs yet again as the two walked around a corner.
-
At the same time, another group of Garamar loyalists found themselves in a different bar in the same complex. Bob, Amar and Jeremy found themselves sitting around a table by themselves. The three had been looking around for some kind of biological creature strong enough to make use of the Protoss force shields. Apart from some unlikely drunken boasts involving space 'beasts' of allegedly thousands of kilometers long, they hadn't come across anything useful.
"I'm beginning to doubt the existence of such beings, at least in this sector", Bob said.
{It seems unlikely.}, Amar replied.
"Why does it need to be some kind of huge creature, anyway?", Jeremy asked.
"It's relatively simple", Bob started his explanation. "The shielding we're after is called Plasma shielding. This style of shielding functions by heating up particles - something Protoss do through their psionic capabilities - and thus directing them towards any incoming projectile to absorb its impact. The larger a creature, the easier it is for it to heat up those nearby particles."
"Makes sense, generating heat is easier to do for me than for an ant, I guess. Still doesn't seem like the best starting point, though?", Jeremy prompted.
"True, but we didn't have much of a better idea...", the scientist replied.
"Aren't there any organisms with a more advanced skin or such then, that can be heated up at will?
The doctor thought for a second before replying.
"Well, not directly... but you did give me an idea: several biological essences should theoretically be able to achieve this effect with relative ease. We may be looking simply for living matter rather than an entire organism."
{Are you suggesting something more plantlike?}, Amar interjected.
"Plantlike... That might be it. Maybe we're not looking for strong skin, but rather for flexible skin. Something we can fashion out of organic matter. What do you think, Amar?"
{That could work. My race has never had the need for such materials, but it would be a good bet in applying shields without armor.}
"Either way, we're unlikely to find any of that here", Jeremy said as he chugged down the last of his drink and got up from his chair. "We should return to Dagg, see what he thinks."
With that, the Protoss and the Doctor got up as well and followed their bouncer out of the bar.
-
{Yatara of the Warplight... I wish to converse with you.}
{So you do.}
{I had a question. Ssomething important musst come first, however. Amar told me of your customary use of what you call the 'Khala', but I could not help picking up your anger at me. I would like to see us on more equal groundss. Would you tell me why you are angry?}
{Is it really that hard to figure out?}
{I have my guessess, of coursse. Do you blame me for desstroying your old companions' compound?}
{I blame you for destroying that planet. It was inhabited by one of the most unique species known in the universe. And from what we have seen, it may have been older than the three primary species. And you wrecked our only chance at studying it.}
For the first time during his many conversations, Dagganoth noticeably paused before answering.
{I undersstand. Thiss may be a question of value. I too am interessted in what could have been found there - thiss is why I decided to take as many sampless as possible before the ssituation got hectic. But my main concern was ssaving the livess of both our people. I put individual livess over possibly the greater good. Now that you mention it, this seemss like behaviour unnatural to my race.}
This time, Yatara paused.
{I had not looked at it this way. Are you saying you let the planet collapse because you were too focused on saving my kin?}
{I suppose I am. I would like to have foreseen the use of the pillarss so I could have prevented the collapsse. But I could not. It is not in my geness to think about thingss past. Apart from learning from them.}
{That must be rough... do you not have feelings?}
{I do not know. I cannot define feelings. My peerss and I have personalitiess and ideass and emotionss are bound to them. I do not know if my exhilaration is similar to yourss. I do not keep any of these traitss for long.}
{But then what drives you? You must have something you like doing to keep going? Why else would you live?}
{I live for the Swarm. To strive for perfection.}
{And what happens when you reach it?}
For the first time ever, something snapped for Dagganoth. Not in an angry way. Thinking about what happened after perfection had been reached was simply not a thing any kind of Zerg did. The Zerg lived for perfection and did not consider a goal past it. When Dagganoth sensed his own answer, he realized it seemed more Terran than anything else. The hesitation didn't help either.
{I... do not know. I have never thought about this. I do not know how to.}
In this moment, Yatara felt pity for the creature she was having a conversation with. She decided to take a leap of faith and briefly opened her underthought to the Cerebrate.
This in turn was something the Cerebrate did not expect. For the first time ever, he got a glimpse of a real emotion - something that was not a reaction formation hardwired into his biological system.
And then it was gone, leaving the Cerebrate with a wanting for more. He now knew more about himself and where his true allegiance would lie - in a place he doubted the Overmind ever be capable of ever understanding. As things cooled down, Yatara felt herself more understanding of the Cerebrates position and at least partly forgave him. Though not announced by anything specific, the formal part of the conversation started and both participants realized it.
{The question I have for you. One of the taskss set upon me by the Overmind (The overmind? When had he ever called the father that?) is to find an animal associated with your race that is known to generate some kind of biological electricity. Do you happen to know of such a being?}
Yatara's answer was quick.
{I'm sorry - I know very little of things normally associated with 'my race'... Our tribes do not have very close connections with the Imperium. We only study what we find, and I recall no such lifeform. You should perhaps rather ask Amar.}
{Very well. I shall do sso.}
{Alright. Good luck. I... would like to speak to you again some day.}
{That can be arranged. I spent most of my time sensing and directing my brothers, but I available often. Yatara Warplight... ?}
{Yes?}
{Thank you.}
-
As Amar, Bob and Jeremy boarded the Terran transport ship for a ferry back, they found Adam and Jack already inside. After a few short greetings, Amar said down and immediately became aware of Dagganoth's presence in his mind.
{You seek conversation?}
{I do. I shared thoughtss with Yatara. I am looking for an organism associated with your race that wieldss biological electricity. Sshe could not help me, but thought perhaps you could.}
{Biological electricity? As in a form of energy?}
{Indeed.}
{I do not recall such an organism at first thought. I have definitely heard about the concept before, though, a long time ago. I would need to gather my thoughts to say anything worthwhile.}
{Then do so, and we shall speak again.}
Minutes later, when the transport ship boarded the strangely looking 'docking port' inside Murkag's third stomach, Adam stepped out and made for the privacy of his own room. As soon as he reached it, he grabbed the well known communication's device from his nightstand, turned it on and spoke into it.
"Kenny, you here?"
"Sure thing. What'd'ya need?", was the reply.
"An opening into the Quantum Legion. Turns out they're performing some research that might be... of interest to the Brood."
"Hm, interesting. Funnily enough, we were thinking of introducing you guys to them anyway. Give me a day, I may have something for you."
"Good. We'll stay around. Hopefully we'll be able to work something out."
"Knowing you guys, I'm not too worried", Kenny said as he broke the connection.
SoA
-Dagganoth receives information on his Overmind missions. He is now passively looking for some kind of biological material that may be able to adept to plasma shielding. At the same time he is waiting for Amar to think about a certain Protoss lifeform that does something interesting, and for word back from Kenny in regards to finding an opening into a Quantum Legion research team working on shielding that would allow ships to pass through phenomena like Caelorum.
-Additionally, Jack wins a drinking contest for additional information on Caelorum and learns that a ship has tried to enter the system before and that its remains are likely still floating around the anomaly.
-Yatara reveals her anger at Dagganoth, who tries to reassure her and has an interesting talk.
Adam was getting used to this. Again he found himself walking around the space station he never even knew existed before leaving with Dagganoth. It felt like so long ago since he had regained his free will on Barkanos, yet he knew it couldn't have been more than a month or two at most. He had just gone through so much with the Garamar Brood: the Erana escape, the encounter with Orloth, the Imperial science lab, the strange creatures at the Wandering Tribes' research center and then the Overmind.
The last encounter had been the most thrilling for all the non-Zerg aboard Murkag, but Dagganoth had put the minds of the crew at ease by being incredibly open about the encounter. Turned out the Overmind needed Dagganoth and in turn had no ill intentions towards the Terrans and Protoss with him. Yet, anyway. The Cerebrate had kept some of the crucial details of their mission from the majority of the people, but Adam figured that this was really no different from how a Terran captain would treat his crew if he were on a mission personally assigned to him by Aranov.
He had shared some bits though, and that was why Adam and Jack were here right now. They were to discreetly ask around to see if anyone knew how to traverse the Caelorum system. Obviously the details would have to be kept hidden, but the two planned on posing as explorers who made a living of precious goods taken from hard-to-access areas.
Adam and Jack knew they needed to be looking for someone who knew about technology that allowed a ship to survive intense plasma storms, and also for a way to navigate the system - which was known for messing with regular positioning techniques and equipment. Dagganoth had also asked them to take a peek on the big Domus job board; these Overmind missions would probably take a long time and lots of traveling to complete, and any simpler jobs that could be completed along the way for money were a bonus.
As the two set off, three more Garamar loyalists stepped off the transport behind them. Both because the two would enjoy taking some time off from the lab and because they had the best background in science, Bob Gentry and Amar volunteered asking around if anyone on Domus happened to know of a biological being that made use of Protoss shields, or could perhaps make use of them. Jeremy accompanied the them, if only for the reason that the two physically weak scientists wouldn't have the slightest chance of survival if they met the wrong people.
In the meantime, aboard Murkag, Dagganoth had just come to a conclusion on what to do regarding the third task. Quietly he set his mind to finding Yatara's.
SoA
-Murkag arrives at Domus and two groups enter the asteroid city.
-Group 1 exists out of Adam and Jack. They are posing as explorers and are gathering information on how to traverse a hostile system like Caelorum, this assignment being related to Dagganoth's first task for the Overmind.
-This group will also look at the Domus job board to see what available missions are lying around that the Garamar Brood can possibly complete while on longer Overmind-related voyagers.
-Group 2 is Bob Gentry, Amar and Jeremy. They are seeking information on exceptional biological beings that either use or could possibly use Protoss shield technology, all of this in relation to Dagganoth's second Overmind task.
-In regards to the third task, Dagganoth decides to talk to Yatara.
As Murkag drew closer to the lone planet the sight alone would be enough to take away the breath of any non-Zerg: the black sphere glowed eerily in the light of the green lightning storms that seemed to surround it as it followed its slow elliptical course around a star. Within seconds, the Behemoth was surrounded by a large host of Mutalisks and Scourges send to escort it into the planet's surface. Not much later, the creature landed and a presence was felt leaving it by its Terran and Protoss crewmembers who were nearly literally in the dark of Murkag's third stomach: they had grouped up in the common room for the ordeal.
{He has left.}, Amar shared with Yatara and the Terrans. {I can feel it.}
The room remained silent for some time as most of the Terrans as well as both the Protoss looked in deep thought. It wasn't until a good ten second later when Adam spoke up that the silence was broken.
"That has to be the first time he's left...". He didn't need to add anything; the entire crew knew what was at stake here. Adam had informed them of Dagganoth's intended location a few days earlier and the entire group had had a big discussion on what to do next - many of them were not fond about going to the Overmind, wherever that may be. Part of Dagganoth's plan was to keep his crew in the proverbial dark, as not even he could afford to tip off any non-Zerg as to the actual location of the overmind. The crew had gone through the discussion somewhat painstakingly, though in the end everybody did decide to trust that Dagganoth would not betray them. This decision was being tested right now, and everybody on board Murkag was completely aware of this.
-
Half an hour later a presence could be felt returning to Murkag. A second later Dagganoth addressed his crew, who had nervously spent the hour in nearly complete silence in the common room.
{Terrans, Protoss, friendss... I realize I have tested your trust by coming here. I apologize for any discomfort I have caused you. Please know that this situation is as conflicting for you as it is for me, though I do not intend to betray your trusst. Neither does the Father. He has an assignment for me, and I'm willing to answer all your questions about it. I view you as part of my Brood, and will treat you as equalss.}
A few seconds of confused but relieved silence followed from the crew as to everyone's surprise, Yatara was the first to respond.
{We get to ask a Cerebrate questions about the Overmind... At least this time the subject of our study has a planet left.}
Most of the Terrans, who had little experience with Protoss, regarded the comment as a joke and burst out into laughs. One of them didn't, however. Bob Gentry had worked with the two Protoss aboard Murkag for long enough to know neither of them joked, at least not this idlely. While Amar privately recognized the remark as some kind of strange Wandering Tribe way of trying to fit in with the Terrans, Bob recognized it for what it really was: genuine anger, or at least annoyance, towards the Cerebrate. He made a mental note to follow up on this later.
Regardless of Yatara's intention, the comment cleared the room of the serious air that had filled it for the past half hour. As the Terrans unleashed their questions on Dagganoth, Murkag slowly took off from the planet...
SoA
-Dagganoth arrives at Tartarus and has a talk with the Overmind, who wants to evolve his minions in order to pass into the nearby energy storm. He has requested Dagganoth's help on this, feeling that the Cerebrate has promise after the Projective Cortex evolution it had unlocked for its brood. This overarching mission exists out of three sub-missions which will be revealed in the posts to come.
-Bob picks up on Yatara's alleged anger towards Dagganoth.
-Garamar Brood buys Ground Carapace level 2 from the Overmind for 27 points.
-Garamar Brood restocks its army and buys 23 Zerglings and 14 Mutalisks for an additional 4 points.
-Murkag leaves Tartarus again and heads towards Domus. 7 IC's/posts until arrival.
Dagganoth watched through Murkag's eyes as he saw the Gambit take off. These were interesting Terrans. They had taken an impossible situation and decided to stand up to it for the sake of both him, a Cerebrate they didn't know, and the people of Barkanos, beings of the same race that they barely had any affinity with. As far as Dagganoth was concerned, he was in their debt. He would repay the debt the only way he was able to right now, without David and his crew even realizing it.
-
Adam picked up the communicator and switched it on, opening a channel to the by now well known Pirate Kenny.
"Been a while. What do you need?", the Pirate said as he picked up.
"Here's something you might like hearing: I don't need anything. Today, we're giving.", Adam responded.
"Well, that's good. We are sorta busy anyway, so any help from us would've been pretty limited."
Adam thought for a second before responding. "That guy who was looking for us... his name is David Kanaro. He's a good chap. We got to talk to him on Barkanos and he's on our side now. There's some things you should know, however. I'll start with the reason he was here: the Imperium hired him to track down Dagganoth. He double crossed them. There's one Imperium officials still wandering around Barkanos somewhere. While I don't know what's keeping you busy, the Imperium is likely to know or soon find out about Barkanos. We may have a bit of a situation here we should both keep our eyes on."
"I'll see what I can do... We aren't really around at the moment. Thanks for the information, I'll let Doom and Waiter know.", Kenny replied.
"I hope you can keep a bit of an eye on the Gambit... they may become a more important player in this scheme."
"I'll try, but I can't really do much if he pisses off and doesn't show himself again.", Kenny promised.
"Alright. Then there's one last thing; there's Zerg in the Davir system. Dagganoth told me there's one army of the Themos Brood hiding behind one of the planets. Currently they're inactive and have apparently been ordered to protect Barkanos, though the Themos are the Pirates of the Swarm; Dagganoth's words. As soon as they plan on doing anything you'll likely see movement in Davir."
This time it was Kenny who remained silent for a second before responding. "Interesting. I'll make sure to leave a ship there to keep an eye on things..."
"Very well. That should be all for now. We might be up for some more of your jobs later, but we'll be in touch."
With that, Adam turned off the device and sat down. Dagganoth had also informed him of their next destination, and he had to admit it frightened him a bit. Teaming up with the Garamar Brood had been one thing, but this would take his Zerg interactions to an all new level. The Cerebrate had asked him to share the news with the other Terrans, but he'd need a day or so to work out how to bring it. Adam got lost in his thoughts as Murkag accelerated in the direction of Tartarus...
SoA
-Adam contacts Kenny and informs him of what happened between the crew of the Gambit and the Imperium officials. He asks the Pirates to keep an eye on David Kanaro and prepare for possible trouble with the Imperium. He also notifies them of the Themos fleet hanging about in the Davir system.
-Murkag leaves for the Overmind on Tartarus. 8 IC's/days travel time until arrival.
As he had done so often, Murkag glided into the Davir system. As Dagganoth looked through its eyes, he immediately noticed the same scene as he had several weeks ago. Davir II, a hot desert-planet, looked like a golden globe from this distance. Right across from it, past the system's sun, was the ocean world of Davir V. Due to its similar size, it looked like the blue counterpart to it's golden brother. Furthest away from the sun, and more off to the side was the lush mountainous planet of Barkanos. Everything looked ordinary. Not everything felt ordinary to Dagganoth, though. As he carefully scanned the area for psionic Zerg activity, his mental radar went haywire. There was a large Zerge force hiding in the shadows of Davir V, and Dagganoth immediately recognized their psionic signature as being from the Themos Brood.
{Didn't expect you back here so soon.}, Aria's voice spoke as it entered Dagganoth's mind.
{Didn't expect you here. Though I cannot say your... presencce does not make sensse. I do not think it can remain, however. If the Piratess were to find out...}, the Cerebrate replied.
{I'm expecting them not to. You see, my orders are to keep an eye on your planet and funnily enough, assist you if any battle might break out. Not that you'd get into a fight. Or would you, Dagganoth?}
Dagganoth quickly reasoned with himself for a second. He knew that it was unlikely she was lying; if there was indeed a malicious reason behind an underling of Lillith being here - which there likely was, knowing Lillith - its orders had been overwritten by the Overmind's call. There was no way Lillith would have stationed troops here to guard his interest for no apparent reason. Realizing who he was dealing with, he adjusted his pose. One of the major advantages of being a Cerebrate was that his emotions and character weren't as easy to read as those of infested Terrans.
{Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn't. Regardless, I guess I wouldn't want to interfere with such a... 'noble' goal.}
{I had thought you wouldn't.} were the words Aria ended the conversation with as Murkag slowly glided on towards Barkanos.
-
David had just finished hammering a nail into an iron support beam when Puck's head stuck around the corner.
"Captain, I need you on the bridge. You need to see this."
Grudgingly, David left his repairs behind for now and followed Puck to the bridge. As the two stepped into the room, Puck began to speak.
"Though a lot of our systems were rather heavily damaged, I'm pretty sure your sensors are still intact."
"What do you mean, 'pretty sure'?", David replied.
"Do you see these dots here, surrounding our ship? I think that's a circle of Mutalisks, closing in."
With that, David ran out of the room and yelled for everybody to prepare. As he equipped his armor and closed the loading bay door, he made his way back to the bridge, from where he could look outside. A ring of Mutalisks was indeed closing in on the vessel, but something curious happened as well; as David watched, a fairly regular Terran transport landed not thirty meters from his ship. David looked on as two Terrans came out - one completely unarmed, and another seemingly infested shielding him and walking up front. Following the two Terrans, a host of Zerglings formed a line as they came to a halt. He saw the unarmed Terran put his hands to his mouth as he yelled at the Gambit:
"David... We want to talk to you. Please stand down and come out of your ship unarmed."
"Do you think I'm stupid?", David shouted back. The unarmed Terran put his hands to his mouth again.
"We promise you will not be harmed."
"I am NOT coming out there unarmed with an entire Zerg army on the lookout. What do you take me for?"
David watched as the two Terrans looked at eachother. A few second later all of the Zerglings backed off, and the Mutalisks flew back a fair distance. He considered his options for a second, and then decided to go for it. He made his way down to the loading bay and opened the door. He then walked outside in full armor, his gun at the ready but not raised.
"I can talk cordially, I've just had a bit too many guns pointed at me recently. Not to keen on getting shot at again."
As the 'infested' Terran took a step in his direction, David got a clearer look at him. It appeared that he was wearing some kind of infested body armor and wasn't as much infested himself.
"Makes sense... we want to talk. But know that if you betray or harm any one of us, you've got a problem. An enormous amount of flying problems, actually."
"Understood, as long as you know that if you attack me, I'll take as many of you with me as I can, starting with you. I take it you're Dagganoth's lot?", David replied.
The unarmed man chuckled at this remark. He looked at David and then walked towards him, holding out his hand.
"I Think we haven't been called that way yet, but yes. I'm Adam. That's jack.". He nodded at the 'infested' next to him.
David looked at Adam's hand, not taking it. "Let's save the pleasantries until after I know I can trust you. You've got me. My ship can't take off, you've got superior numbers. But you haven't attacked. What do you want with me?".
"Simple... We want to know what you want with us."
This time it was David's turn to chuckle.
"Well, here's the rub. I don't want anything with you guys. My business has been conducted."
"What was it you wanted, then?"
"That is between me and the Imperials. By the way, THEY want to talk to you."
"Imperials... interesting. I don't think it's between the two of you anymore, though. It stopped being such when you landed on this planet.". The man named Adam eyed the smoking Gambit. "And judging from what Rodrick tells us, you seem to have fairly little reason left to protect them."
David's previous chuckle was now surpassed by an all out laugh. "Protect them? They now want to kill me almost as much as they want to kill you. But simply, my business, is no longer their business."
Adam looked at him for a couple of seconds, apparently thinking things through before replying. "Alright... Well, here's the thing, whoever you are. We want to trust you. If you've asked anybody on this planet, you'll know we're not the bad guys. But you have to give us something. You're on our planet. One of our citizens has been killed. Your ship looks as if it's about to explode. You can't expect us to allow you to just make your repairs and fly out of here as if nothing happened."
"If Rodrick told you everything, then you know that I literally put my neck on the chopping block between you and the Imperium. I think that more than suffices."
"His story was somewhat incoherent, but you're saying it's completely true, then? You were hired by the Imperium to find information on Dagganoth and had a falling out with them?"
"Let's not talk here. Too many things I can't say. I take it your master will want to talk to me?"
"I wouldn't call him my 'master', but yes. As you'll know though, he's a Cerebrate. I'm talking on his behalf. He is viewing this scene right now. Where would you like to go?"
With that, David nodded at Adam as he turned around and walked into the Gambit. Adam appeared to stare into thin air for a few seconds before nodding at Jack, both of them following David inside. As they entered the ship, David lead them to the apparently empty bridge. After several seconds of silence, Adam broke it.
"Alright, so talk. What happened?"
David told the story. "Approximately two months ago, I took protoss refugees seeking passage to Sindiris. A Khalos among them, who I understand was outfitted with..."
"...I didn't agree with their methods, and so they had to be stopped. And so far, you've been painfully friendly, so I think I made the right choice."
In the silence after David's story, Jack and Adam looked at eachother again. Suddenly, David saw the infested parts of armor on Jack's arms and torso shrink rapidly until nothing but small objects were left, looking a bit like gauntlets. David noted that Jack's gun had disappeared along with the infested armor. As Jack neatly tucked the gauntlet-like object away into his belt, Adam spoke again.
"In that case, you have our trust, and our thanks. We'd like to repay the debt. Do you need help with your repairs? We have an engineer on board our ship who could probably help you out. I also heard that one of your crew was wounded? We may have a solution to that, too..."
"We can take care of our own, but if you want to lend your aid, I won't stop you."
"Can you take us to him?"
-
Fifteen minutes later, the group walked into the medical bay of the Gambit as a tall, handsome man with short red hair and an iron earring walked into the loading bay, two volunteers standing behind him. He took a slow look around the ship and the damage that had been caused. This was going to be a bit of work.
A short, red-haired girl flipped up the visor of her face-shield and looked down at the trio of newcomers from where she hung from the ceiling. She quickly repelled down the side as the leader of the trio continued looking around. She detached herself and slowly walked over to him, until she stood beside him, looking around with him.
"You ever worked on one of these?"
“Back in the early days,” the man replied. “They don't make 'em like this anymore. A Mark VI, am I right?"
"Indeed. One of the best series out there. The extra stabilizers, and dual-rotating engines make for a smooth ride,” she said probingly.
“If you have a skilled pilot,” he shot back immediately. ”But the real kicker that makes these shitcans worthwhile is the alternating engine coils. For such a small thing, these guys sure do pack a massive punch. Speed-wise, that is. And with that skilled pilot, ain't nothing touching you once you're off the ground.”
“You really do know your stuff. You've used one of these then, I assume?”
"Indeed I have, miss. I've been working on ships longer than you've been alive, I reckon. Name's Barclay O'Scott, but most call me Barc. I'm an engineer. It's been a while since I got to practice my profession, but Dagganoth sent me to help. These two numbnuts here are Donnal 'n Daigo. Mostly for the heavy-lifting.” he added with a grin.
“Well then they can start with...”
-
As the group in the cargo bay set off to work, a floor up Jack approached Leo's bed. David had introduced him and Adam to a Dr. Rark, who had informed him that the bullets had been taken out of Leo's body, but that he was going to need time to recover fully. Jack looked from Rark to David.
"I may have a way to speed his recovery up. Please trust me on this."
Jack took one of the gauntlets from his belt and took it in his left arm. As soon as he gripped the handle the object seemed to grow around his hand and all the way up to his torso, the front end shaping back into the gun barrel David had seen before. As Rark and David looked at Jack cautiosly, he aimed his arm at the ceiling.
"Here goes nothing!"
One second later a green blur came out of Jack's gun. David followed it with his eyes as it bounced off the ceiling, seemed to catch itself on the edge of Leo's bed and used Jack's knee to jump onto Leo's leg. Only once it had stopped moving could David see that the green ball was actually some kind of Zerg-like creature, sporting a round mouth and several tentacle-like arms. He shifted uncomfortably...
"Leo won't like this."
Adam leaned over and whispered to him;
"Don't worry. Your Leo seems very similar to our Jack. It's almost adorable how he handles them by now..."
"Jack's family wasn't killed by the Zerg", David replied. Adam immediately shut up and shifted back, holding his tongue.
On the bed, the Terling was slowly creeping its way up to Leo's gunwounds, treading with such light footsteps that the unconscious Leo didn't even seem to notice it. As soon as it reached the three wounds, it quietly spittled drops of seemingly acidic saliva into them. The wounds quickly begun to sizzle and close up as they turned into extremely pale white human flesh. After finishing up, the Terling jumped back onto Jack's shoulder.
Dr. Rark spoke for the first time since Jack launched his Terling. "Fascinating."
"They have their uses", Jack replied. "Not saying he'll be up and running within the hour, but it should shave a week or so of his natural healing time."
"I must say," Jonathan went on. "That is utterly fascinating... May I... see one? ... Have a sample maybe?"
"Sure, you can keep it.", Jack replied, holding up his hand. The Terling on his shoulder used Jack's hand to jump across the room, swing off a lamp and land on Jonathan's shoulder."
"Amazing..."
This time, Adam replied. "Study it all you want. Keep in mind though - the Terling is a new specimen of Zerg, even if not a very complicated one. Dagganoth essentially controls them. If you get too far away from him, Dagganoth will lose control. There's no saying what will happen to it. It will most likely go dormant or feral, or simply disintegrate. Unless another psionic were to take control of it, anyway."
"Very well. Thank you for the head's up", Rark said.
Jack nodded politely at Rark and David as Adam again stuck out his hand at David. "Now, will you shake it?", he asked cheerfully.
SoA
-Murkag enters the Davir system and Dagganoth notices Aria's forces. He has a small talk with Aria and finds out she's here to back up him or his assets. He keeps this information to himself for now.
-Adam and Jack approach David and talk with him. David shares his story as things turn friendly between both sides. Jack uses his Terlings to repair some of the damage done to Leo, spending 3 of the 6 points required to 'heal' him back up to full stats.
-At the same time, engineer Barclay and two twin volunteers (Donnal and Daigo) meet up with Haley in the docking bay in order to offer their services in repairing the Gambit back to full.
Yatara sat uncomfortably in the seat of the terran-made vessel. She was surrounded by her lifeless companions, who were strapped to their seats in case the craft began to shake.
"Are you all right back there?" the Terran named Adam called from the transport's cockpit.
{The accommodation could use improvement. But I am fine.}, she answered. That was all they said during the short flight. She had already input the correct coordinates into the ship's computer and was sure the Terran could find his way regardless. The Wanderer's only settlement on the planet was hard to miss: it was all one huge building, with an enormous central tower and multiple smaller towers branching away from it. Yatara observed it from the transport's windows, with only faint recognition: like most other Wanderers, she had spent little time on the Tribes' planets.
"Do I land anywhere specific?" asked Adam.
{No. Just occupy the closest landing platform.}
"Roger."
A minute later, they landed and opened the ramp leading into the back of the ship.
{Please remain in the ship.}, Yatara said and then got up and exited the vessel. Outside she found herself face to face with a group of three protoss. She knelt before them and bowed her head.
{Yatara, of the Warplight. I request your assistance.} She gestured towards the insides of the ship where the other protoss were clearly visible. She looked up to see the head of the group, an old Nerazim, nod his head and gesture with his right hand. The two protoss behind him turned around and made for the nearest tower. Yatara rose.
{Nar'An, of Rii. Welcome, Yatara. Do inform. It has been many centuries since I last saw a foreign ship above our planet,} Nar'An turned around and made for the central tower, leaving Yatara with no choice but to follow.
{Await my return.}, she told Adam.
-
The Protoss looked at Murkag with looks of confusion and awe as well as curiosity as the creature opened up its mouth and a group of Terrans stepped out. After Yatara had told Nar'An the whole story Dagganoth had landed his Behemoth in a nearby clearing. Adam had accompanied the two Wanderers as they led a group of Protoss there in order to use the site as a meeting and exchange ground. As his eyes darted across the field in front of him, Nar'An now also saw that the Terrans were carrying equipment that seemed very familiar to him. His suspicions were quickly confirmed as Adam turned to him.
"We lost a lot of your equipment in the earthquake, but here's what we managed to save."
{Thank you. Our equipment is valuable to us.}, Nar'An replied as he walked over to the Terrans carrying the equipment. He let his eyes slide over the items they were holding and took his time to observe all of it. After some time, one of the Terrans held out a small object to Nar'An but rather than taking it he looked at it carefully before turning back to Adam.
{What kind of payment do you seek?}
"Payment?", Adam raised his eyebrow. "It's your equipment."
{And you saved it. Along with many of our brethren.}
"But we only did what any decent person would have done... there was a distress call..."
Adam's words trailed off as Nar'An looked at him as if he were stupid.
{And that merits reward. Are you refusing our gratitude?}
"No, no! Definitely not... It's just... we're not exactly used to people wanting to repay us for doing services to them any self-respecting creature would have done anyway."
{No? It must be an unforgiving universe out there.}
"I guess it is... Well, if you insist..."
With that, Adam walked over to Nar'An and the group of Terrans as they started to make an inventory of all the equipment and research samples.
-
A couple hours later, the deals had been struck and the stories shared. As Murkag was getting ready to take off to continue Garamar Brood's journey, Nar'An and his Wanderers stood opposing Adam, Jack, Yatara and Amar. Nar'An looked at the strange band.
{Thank you for all of your services... May the stars watch over you on your journey.}
As Adam opened his mouth to reply on Dagganoth's behalf, the Cerebrate let his voice be heard for the first time since the Brood had arrived on Rii and beat Adam to it.
{Wandererss... You are truly a unique speciess. Your curiosity seems unparalleled, and I hope your discoveriess may serve you well. Like the Terrans I've met before you, I would count you as friendss as well. I understand why Amar wants to stay with you.}
{Actually...}, Amar started. {I have decided to stay. While the Wanderers seem worth living amongst, I do not think I am going to have as big a chance at researching new phenomena anywhere as I would while traveling with you, Cerebrate.}
Nar'An now looked at Yatara, who seemed to be on the verge of saying something. Yatara directed her thoughts at all the participants of the meeting.
{I wish to stay as well... While I am extremely grateful for the time I have spent here, I do not feel I would belong on Rii. My destiny lies elsewhere.}
{Sso be it... I hope we can make you both feel like real members of our Brood...}, Dagganoth responded.
Yatara sneered quietly. She never said she wanted to be a member of this Brood. She kept the thought to herself as the group boarded Murkag and the creature took off. Nar'An and his crew silently watched it as it left orbit and flew into space.
SoA
-Murkag lands on Rii and Yatara informs Nar'An, the leader of this particular Wandering Tribe, of what happened.
-The Terrans and Amar meet up with a group of the Wanderers. The Terrans return the unconscious Protoss to the Wanderers along with the equipment they managed to save and most of the samples they took on the Jungle planet. In return, the Tribe shares supplies and technology with Garamar Brood worth 31 points (8 for the crystals, 8 for the Alien corpses, 3 for the equipment, 8 for the rescued scientists, 4 for the Hiver blood and spores).
-Yatara doesn't seem very happy with Dagganoth for some reason...
-Murkag leaves Rii again after the visit and sets a course back to Domus. 10 IC's/Days until arrival. 1 IC/Day until Murkag leaves the Var'Shiri nebula and communications start working again.
Aboard Murkag, somewhere in between Ihan and the red system right of it
The past few days had been... active. To an extend, they had even been demanding on Dagganoth's mind. The events with the aliens and the Protoss had worn on the Cerebrate. Would he have been able to save that one Protoss? Or perhaps even the planet? The creature kept replaying the scenes looking for understand what had happened, and had only been interrupted from this activity by the Overmind's message. Which didn't help to set his mind at ease. He wasn't sure if the Overmind approved of his methods, and to which extend. Would he be required to turn on his current allies? There was one positive note to all of this; the Overmind couldn't argue with his results.
As he was musing, he suddenly noticed Bob Gentry calling for him - the scientist had done so on several occasions to request the Cerebrate's help with all his research. As Dagganoth shifted his attention he became fully aware of Bob and Yatara standing inside the laboratory.
"Dagganoth... we've uncovered something interesting. Remember that projective cortex mutation we used on the planet? We think we've cracked the code."
{In what way?}, the Cerebrate asked. Yatara responded:
{We've figured out the exact psionic frequencies the aliens used to broadcast their projections from. If you tell your creatures to use the same frequencies they will be able to perform the same kind of mind control the aliens did; on Protoss.}
"Yeah... and using them as a baseform I'm able to extract the needed frequency for nearly every basic lifeform we know, including other Zerg and Terran."
Dagganoth remained silent for just a second before replying.
{Are you ssaying I will be able to use the earlier mutation to make my Brood invissible to virtually anything?}
"Well, there's a catch. The aliens seemed to tie this function in with their photosynthetic way of sustainability, somehow. Constant broadcasting would cost tons of energy. Unless you can make your Brood photosynthize they'd only be able to keep the stealth up for a few seconds before the energy cost would become too great... They'd need to rest the Cortex afterwards."
{That's not all...}, Yatara added in, {detectors would be able to see your Brood as well. They'd know the position of your Brood and the effect is instantly lost if the brain realizes the existence of the broadcasting unit.}
{Though that is sstill a short stealth every so long... Interesting. My thankss go out to you two. I will set to mutating the rest of my Brood. Before I leave: Yatara, how are your companions doing?}
{The same as before we took off... I had a better chance at examing them after my rest, and it seems they are partially brain damaged. The damage may or may not be reparable, but I would need access to more sophisticated Protoss technology to say anything worthwhile. But I guess we'll leave you to your musings. Thank you for the present.}
{Pressent?}, a confused Dagganoth exclaimed - seemingly missing Yatara's hint regarding his musings.
{The leftover spores and Hiver blood your Zerglings... 'dropped off' at the laboratory earlier. We might be able to learn more from those.}
Dagganoth had already forgotten he had send his brothers.
{Don't mention it... ? Is that what you say?}
Bob laughed as he replied. "Yup, that's it".
-
As Dagganoth turned his attention back to the thought processes spinning through his mind, he only vaguely noted Jack entering the laboratory.
"You asked for me, doc?", the broad-shouldered man said.
"Ah, Jack, yes. I meant to show you this earlier, but the situation with those aliens managed to get in the way."
With that, Bob threw a metallic pad with a handle sticking out above it at Jack, who stared at it in a confused manner.
"I would've thought you had gotten used to this by now", Bob said. "Step in it."
As Jack set his foot on the plate and wedged it underneath the handle, he realized what it was. Tendrils immediately shot out from the apparently small object and wrapped around his leg, all the way up to his waist. The Terran grabbed a small metal glove-looking object from his belt and grabbed the handle as it too grew around his arm, shoulder and Torso. One half of his body was now covered in Biosteel.
"I've managed to finish up another fairly crucial part of your armor. At this point all I need to finish up is your torso or headpiece before the suit is completed. The right arm and leg should be relatively easy - I can pretty much copy the designs from your left side. I've been waiting for Dagganoth to supply me with more material for that, though."
Jack grinned widely at Bob, turned around and left the laboratory. These proceedings confused Yatara.
{Why did he not reply to you?}
"He's not a man of words, Yatara... He's going to show this to our crewmates".
Bob gave Yatara the same grin Jack had given him and set back to work.
SoA
-The Protoss inside Murkag appear to be braindead. This condition is reversable but requires more Protoss technology.
-The Zerglings from the expedition had some leftover spores and Hiver blood under their claws. The quantity is low, but Bob and Yatara are studying these substances.
-Dagganoth spends 14 points on mutating his entire Brood with projective cortexes. This grants all his units the following upgrade: Projective Cortex: Activate to grant the unit 5 seconds of invisibility that breaks upon attacking, using an ability or being attacked. 30 Seconds cooldown.
-Bob Gentry reveals a Biosteel leg to Jack. Jack's equipment is now half-finished for lore-purposes. As soon as I get access to more points I'll finish up the entire suit and make him a proper 'playable' hero.
-Murkag is still traveling to Ihan. 2 IC's or 3 days travel time left.
If protoss could sigh, Yatara would have. Instead, she rubbed her eyes and shook her head from side to side. She was exhausted. She hadn't rested at all since waking up, instead doing everything she could to learn about the aliens they were dealing with. With the help of the terrans and the zerg, she collected and analyzed dozens of corpses, sequenced the genomes of all the aliens they could get their hands on and managed to construct accurate simulations of how the aliens worked. What she found was surprising.
{They photosynthesize. Just like us, protoss. Almost identically, in fact.} she told Dagganoth, Amar and the terrans as they met in one of the tower's observation rooms. {I am sure you all realized this through your own observations. But you do not understand just how similar their ability to photosynthesize is to ours. Large parts of their genome are extraordinarily similar to ours. It is almost as if we are related species.}
This seemed to bother Amar but he kept his quiet.
"So... they're like protoss animals?" asked Jack. Yatara laughed.
{No more than they are terran animals. Well, perhaps a bit more. They are similar to us but still vastly different. They also make less sense,} she answered.
Bob and Adam raised their eyebrows at this.
{They have mouths, but no stomachs, unlike you terrans. They photosynthesize and yet they have claws and mouths: tools to hunt and eat with. On top of that, they are psionic. This makes no sense. They photosynthesize, they don't need mouths to kill for food and yet they have them. And why have a mouth without a stomach? For defensive purposes? What are they defending themselves against? Themselves? Because we have not seen them attacking each other. From an evolutionary perspective, and you terrans should be better acquainted with this than I am, the creatures make no sense. I cannot even find any discernible sexual organs. It is almost as if...}
"Someone interfered in their evolution?" Bob finished off the sentence for her. She nodded.
"But who would do that? And why? Are you sure you're the first protoss to find this place? You haven't found any signs of zerg, right?" asked Adam. Yatara shook her head and walked to the window of the room, where she remained silent for a full minute, staring into the night that had fallen while they were working.
{Are you alright?}, Amar asked out loud.
{Something is not right. The plants usually glow at night. They should be glowing right now,} she answered.
At this point the Terrans turned their heads and realized indeed that the surrounding jungle had gone eerily dark. There wasn't a sound to be heard through the in-built speakers either - during the daytime the occasional rustling and cries could be heard from the jungle. With a few quick bursts of thought the Zerglings who had been sitting around the complex spurred into action as Mutalisks and Overseers flew in every direction. Ten minutes later Dagganoth adressed his crew.
{Something is indeed off. There are no more alienss in the jungle. There are some pits that seem to lead into tunnels, however.}
"Sounds like the aliens have moved underground, then", Bob suggested.
"If that's true, we've got a unique opportunity here... If we can blow up those tunnel entrances...", Jack interjected.
Yatara glared at him and seemed about to say something as Bob replied for her.
"We're not all cold-blooded killers, Jack. The reason we are all here right now is because of the desire to study the environment and its creatures."
"Hold yer horses friend, I'm not suggesting we bury the lot. However, if we fill in a couple of those cave entrances we can make sure they won't overrun this base again so easily. Besides, do we even have explosives?"
{We have loads as part of our tunneling equipment}, Yatara interjected, seemingly more content with Jack's new plan.
{Perhapsss...}, Dagganoth continued. {Though we should also see if we can find the missing expedition. There are four nearby pitss... set up explosives on all of them. I will send Zerglings through one of the entrances. Take some equipment and Swarm Hosts - we will set up outside of it.}
{If that is so, I have a suggestion for you, Cerebrate, though I do not know if you will be able to act on it,} said Yatara. {It has to do with the aliens' ability to detect us. I believe I have found a way to counteract this.}
As everyone but Yatara and the Avatar took off to get to their jobs, Dagganoth quickly went over the details. Now that Yatara had managed to figure out how the aliens were stealthing themselves, Dagganoth was able to use some of the aliens' DNA to mutate a new type of 'projection cortex' into the brains of his Brood that allowed them to counter the effects of the alien's stealth and even make them backfire, allowing the Zerg to stealth themselves from the aliens. It would lateron perhaps lend itself to even more breakthroughs, but was for now good enough to allow Dagganoth's Brood to deal with the aliens in a safer way.
-
About half an hour later the preparations had been made. Jack, Adam and Yatara had worked quickly to set up explosives at all the tunnel entrances near the base, and the entire crew was now collected outside the most eastern one. A makeshift workbench with basic equipment had been set up for Yatara and Bob to analyze anything interesting the Zerglings could find, Several Swarm Hosts were dug in around the pit to fill it with Locusts at a moment's notice and a group of Zerglings outfitted with newly mutated projective cortexes stood ready inside the pit to make their way into the tunnel entrance. Inside Murkag, Sarah and a biologist friend of her stood ready in the Behemoth's laboratory to perform deeper analyses of any data the surface sent through.
Yatara jumped a bit as without warning, the Zerglings ran fast but quietly into the tunnel. While the outside crew waited, Dagganoth looked through their eyes. It was a good thing his Zerglings were so fast - only a couple of meters past the entrance the tunnel immediately split into three and without hesitating the Zerglings split up to uncover every single inch of the place. After several more forks on each path several Zerglings begun to backtrack as they came upon dead ends. The tunnels only had one thing in common: all of them led downwards, deeper into the planet's crust. Because Dagganoth was controlling each of his Zerglings personally, they worked in unison as they darted through the system like ants, mapping it out within the cerebrate's brain.
It wasn't long before one pair of Zerglings stumbled upon something interesting; a green, faintly glowing crystal in one of the deeper tunnels. Since minerals were bound to be found in any deep underground environment, Dagganoth didn't give the crystal much thought until another pair of Zerglings ran into three of them in their own tunnel. And a third pair ran around a corner to discover at least eight of them lodged firmly into the tunnel's walls. With another quick burst of thought he opened up the eyes of the Zerglings to Amar and Yatara. Even if Amar felt a but queasy going through this psionic procedure a second time, Yatara lost her balance and had to steady herself on the research table to cope with the sudden flash of feelings and sensations she experienced. Dagganoth spoke.
{These crystals seem to increase in number as my brotherss go further down. What do you think?}
{I am unsure}, Amar admitted.
{We would need some proper analysis to say anything worthwhile.}, an eager Yatara said. {Can you get us a sample?}
Within minutes the Zergling pair had managed to dig out a firm chunk of crystal and just as they started their journey back to the planet's surface Dagganoth noticed something else interesting through the ears of another pair of Zerglings. There were vibrations in some of the deeper tunnels. He was unsure what these vibrations meant, but they were definitely there. As multiple Zerglings continued their journey, several more of them began to feel the tremors. Dagganoth had a hunch. As the piece of crystal arrived at the surface and Bob, Yatara and Amar started looking at it, Dagganoth adressed Adam and Jack.
{The upper tunnel levelss seem clear. Get in there and take some measuring equipment. And more explosives. Follow my Zerglings. I have a suspicion...}
With that the two followed in the Zerglings just as another pair made yet another big discovery: they had stumbled upon a large room filled with more green crystals in the walls. Several larger crystals ranging up to five meters in size were littered throughout the room. More importantly though, the entire room was filled with what seemed to be hibernating aliens. Dagganoth again passed on the sight to Amar and Yatara, who nearly fell over from the sensation they felt halfway through a close microscope examination of the piece of crystal they had found.
{Could you at least TELL US if you're going to do that?!}, Yatara now angrily lashed out at Dagganoth.
{I apologize. I did not realize it caused you ssuch discomfort. I did not wish to infringe...}
For a fraction of a second, Yatara felt real sympathy for the creature she was conversing with. What a strange life a Cerebrate must have; having emotions but being unable to understand them properly in others and constantly sharing all your sensations with hundreds of other creatures. She was however immediately distracted from her sympathy as she looked around the room with the aliens. They normally photosynthesized... could it be that they used these green crystals for this purpose while underground? She couldn't properly do her science up here. How much she would give in order to be in that cave.
{Again, I apologize. I will not let you put your livess in such danger until we know more about the aliens and thiss tunnel network.}
Some time later, Jack and Adam reached one of the trembling tunnels. As they quickly set up their measuring equipment, their readings seemed to confirm Dagganoth's suspicions: there were different tunnels running through the network with underground rivers inside of them. Jack and Adam didn't need Dagganoth's instructions to realize how much of a life saver this might be in the future. They quickly set up explosives in several of the nearby tunnels, ensuring the walls between the walkable tunnels and the rivers would be opened up if they'd explode and the tunnels would be flooded. Adam assigned the explosives to a secondary detonator (Jack holding the first in his pocket) as the two started making their way back outside.
At the same time, Yatara, Dagganoth and the Zerglings had finished up scouting the bigger room only to find that there were more downwards tunnels leading from it. As the pair entered these tunnels different pairs were finding similar larger rooms filled with aliens in all different directions inside the complex. They ignored the aliens for the time being and continued their ant-like scurry downwards.
As the Zerglings went further into the seemingly gigantic complex the trembling became more and more noticeable until it was accompanied by the unmistakenable sound of running water. This sound additionally increased up to a nearly ear-deafening level of volume up to a certain point, where the tunnels started making a series of bends and the sound seemed to completely fall off. Without warning the Zerglings ran around their corner and came to a halt as they suddenly observed an astonishing sight.
{You need to see thiss...}, Dagganoth immediately said to both the Protoss as the Terrans in his crew. He then opened up their minds to the Zerglings; something which was harder to do with the non-psionic Terrans but nevertheless still possible.
Laid out before them was a cave so big it dwarved the earlier 'large caves' with their five meter high crystals. This cave was at least hundred meters high and the Zerglings couldn't make out the top, where an enormous number of the flying aliens seemed to be asleep, hanging from stalagmites like bats. In the middle of the cave was an enormous crystal of at least eighty meters in height. Though it was also glowing and green, it seemed somewhat different from its smaller counterparts in that it had a more metallic look. The zergling's limited vision could just about make out tendrils and vines coiled around the very top of the crystal. On the floor in front of the Zerglings were literally hundreds if not thousands of aliens, all apparently hibernating.
No one spoke a word as more Zerglings arrived at the scene from several entrances. With some bursts of thought, Dagganoth sent a few of the Zerglings that had been carrying leftover explosives back where they came from in order to create a second safeguard zone. As Dagganoth's plan dawned on Yatara, she protested.
{You can't possibly mean to-}, she started.
{Not if it can be helped, no. But this may be our only chance at finding your exsspedition. We need to be as prepared as possible. If these alienss were to wake up they-}
{Alright, alright... just... give them a chance}, Yatara returned the favor.
The Zerglings that went back dumped their explosives as close to the walls as they could get them as the frontmost group set to exploring the giant cave, carefully and agilely avoiding the heaps of aliens they were passing through. Though there were still no signs of the Protoss expedition, there appeared to be several pools of water on the floor, seemingly so deep that the Zerglings couldn't immediately see the bottom. After carefully looking across the cave some more and finding nothing else of interest, Dagganoth jumped one of his zerglings into the pool.
After a good thirty meters of swimming, the Zergling reached the 'bottom' of the pit, which looked surprisingly strange - the last two meters of water in the pool behaved just like the water above, but wasn't surrounded with a wall: the water seemed to be suspended in the air, defying the laws of physics. As the Zergling jumped out of the apparently still stream and Dagganoth ordered the rest of them down, he surveyed the room before him. There were several relatively high (five meters) floating glowing pillars that appeared to softly hum as they bobbed up and down in mid-air. An odd thirty or so aliens of the type that Dagganoth had dubbed 'Hiver' were positioned on a platform in what appeared to be the very center of the room: these armadillo's resembled Zerg Infestors in their look but sported glowing spores all over their bodies and had tendrils sticking out of the back of their heads. The most interesting fact about these aliens was that they hadn't shown any fighting capabilities when encountered in the outside jungle. None had been captured or killed either: they no information whatsoever on the creatures. All the way in the back of the room was a plateau housing several humanoid forms.
As the Zergling ran closer Yatara let out a mental cry and immediately cursed at herself herself, thinking she may have awoken the Hivers in the room. She seemed to have completely forgotten that she was looking through a Zerglings' eyes. Nobody outside the pit really registered the cry as they noticed the nineteen seemingly lifeless, spore-covered bodies of the Protoss expedition standing straight up on the platform, dumbly staring into open space.
Dagganoth wasted no time as he quickly but quietly sent his Zerglings over to them and began nudging and poking them. When neither the Protoss nor the Hivers responded, two Zerglings quickly scratched the spores off one of the Protoss, who then immediately collapsed and fell to the ground. Dagganoth froze his Zerglings as he waited for a reaction from the Hivers. Nothing.
{Those spores are the same as located on the Hivers. They may be using some sort of psionic mind control on my team...}, Yatara said.
{Then we have only one option if we want to get your team out of there...}, Amar concluded.
Dagganoth made some careful considerations and decided that the time for action had finally come.
Yatara let out the mental equivalent of a sigh as Dagganoth's Zerglings got into positions next to the hibernating Hivers and the rest of the crew braced itself. When all Zerglings were ready there was one second of absolute silence before they all sprung in action and jumped at the Hivers. Some of them fell instantly to the Zerglings' sharp claws while others got up and wasted no time trying to scurry away. Desperately they threw additional spores at the Protoss but within a minute's time they were seemingly all dead.
Everyone looked at the Protoss who seemed to be completely unphased by what had just transpired. Just as Dagganoth started considering his other options and set the Zerglings to claw the spores of the remainder of the crew a light rumbling started that grew to a deafening noise in less than two seconds. Cries, tremors and movement could be heard all the way at the surface as the planet seemed to tremble. The aliens had awoken. As the eyes of the Terrans of the surface widened as they looked at eachother Dagganoth make a quick decision. Jack hesitated for a split second before pushing the button on his third detonator.
The Zerglings in the cave were nearly blown away by the noise. A series of loud explosions was followed by the rushing of water and hundreds of screams and cries. This scene dragged out for a couple of minutes when relative silence came back into the cave system. As the Zerglings got to work in dragging the unconscious Protoss into the still waterfalls they noticed the floating pillars had begun to glow and move more rapidly, almost as if they were under extreme stress. Dagganoth wasted no time in ordering his Zerglings to swim up the watery tunnel they had entered through, dragging the Protoss along with them one by one as they went.
As soon as they returned to the big cave it became obvious that it has flooded. The bodies of dead aliens were everywhere as there was a huge pool of at least five meters of water surrounding the giant crystal. A Zergling surfaced with a Protoss next to him as a wave of the flying aliens swooped down and cut the poor scientist's throat. Dagganoth immediately sent out a burst of new orders to his Zerglings who stopped trying to surface and frantically dragged, pulled and pushed the Protoss towards the nearest open entrance. As they reached dry and safe land in one of the tunnels they dragged the Protoss up on the land and immediately set to work in dragging them up the tunnel on their way to the surface.
As time seemed off the essence and the Zerglings efficiently made their way to the surface, several other things were going on. Fliers had appeared on the surface out of seemingly nowhere and Mutalisks engaged them at will. This time they had the advantage of being able to pick them off one by one however, and they seemed to be pretty much blind under the cover of darkness. As the earth roared and shook, the Terrans and Protoss packed up their equipment and started running their way back to the Protoss science base. Swarm Hosts dug out of the ground and followed them.
"Guess this must be what armageddon feels like", Jack shouted at Adam.
As the earth started to shake more and more violently the Zerglings finally emerged from one of the pits that luckily appeared to be close to the encampment, still dragging the Protoss survivors with them. Thirty meters further they met up with the running crew who quickly grabbed some of the still unconscious survivors and struggled their way to the encampment as Mutalisks were still providing air cover. Upon arriving at the camp the group immediately jumped into the Terran transport ship as Jack jumped into the cockpit. He released the handle of his Biosteel arm and it immediately degraded to its usual gauntlet-sized shape, which fell neatly next to his chair. As he looked around he saw several trees fall over in the background and shouted for everyone to hurry up.
With the Protoss survivors and most of the equipment inside, the Swarm Hosts roughly wandered into the aircraft, roughly bumping people and equipment alike to the side. Though it did not appear to fit, the remaining fifteen Zerglings ran at the aircraft and jumped at it, curling up into little balls to take up as little space as possible.
As Yatara recited a mental prayer Jack hit a couple of buttons in the cockpit and the aircraft slowly managed to life off. Being squashed against the window with his head, Bob saw the Protoss research tower crumble as the ship finally took off and went airborne. Five minutes later as the ship accompanied by the Mutalisk fleet had reached a comfortable attitude, the crew saw the entire jungle collapse inward on the planet in one huge explosion of dust and sound. Adam let out the sigh Yatara hadn't been able to earlier as in the distance a spot that appeared to be Murkag started growing.
-
An hour later everyone in the crew lay down on their beds as the damage salvaging begun by the ever efficient Zerg forces. Dagganoth had asked Yatara for help and he had told her to set a course for the planet of Rii in the Ihan system, which was known to hold the presence of one of the wandering tribes. Murkag silently took off in its direction as Adam closed his eyes: finally, he could rest.
SoA
-Yatara confirms her theory; the aliens' stealth is based on manipulating the minds of the beholders rather than cloaking the aliens themselves. Following up on this knowledge, Dagganoth spends 10 points worth of DNA to develop a 'Projective Cortex' mutation for all his Zerg units that allows them to use the same technique to make themselves invisible to the aliens. Since he now knows what he is looking for, he is now also able to make the aliens visible by preventing their mind control on the creatures in his Brood.
-Night falls and the plants in the jungle stop glowing. Mutalisk and Zergling scouting parties find various pits in the jungle leading to an underground cave network. 15 Zerglings go in find glowing crystals along with several larging rooms with hibernating aliens inside them. They also discover a secondary cave network that seems to house running water and end up placing tunneling explosives near various of them. They eventually find one incredibly big room with a huge crystal, hundreds of aliens and several deep pools of water on the floor that can be travelled through. These passages leave the Zerglings in a room with the seemingly brain-dead Protoss and several 'Hiver'-type aliens.
-The Zerglings kill the Hivers and Adam pulls the trigger on some of the explosives, flooding the larger room and killing the aliens. The Zergling 'expedition' then proceeds to drag the 18 Protoss survivors up to the surface after which all ground forces board the Terran transport ship and fly off as the jungle seems to collapse inwards completely. The Brood escapes with 18 unconscious Protoss survivors, no permanent damage, some Alien corpses and DNA, some leftover Hiver spores and blood, some crystals from the cave and the most essential protoss science equipment.
-Inside Murkag, Yatara informs Dagganoth of a Wandering Tribes-inhabited planet called Rii in the Ihan system. Murkag subsequently sets out for this destination. 4 IC's/days until arrival.
Murkag went through the same proceedings as in the previous two systems, having now 'perfected the art'. This time however, none of the scans or psionic outcries seemed to yield any result and it wasn't long until the Behemoth descended into orbit of one particular planet. The planet was peculiar in that it seemed to be completely uninhabitable; most of the planet seemed to house either vast oceans or empty deserts. The reason it merely seemed uninhabitable was because there was a small jungle located at the north end of it. This seemed to be where the distress call was coming from, and Dagganoth could track it to some kind of compound built inside of the jungle. Fifteen minutes later a swarm of Mutalisks, Overseers and Vipers flew out towards the surface. Another ten minutes later, as they were reaching the jungle, Murkag shot out ten spore pods towards an area just outside of the compound.
As one of these spore pods hit the ground and exploded in a cloud of goo, it revealed three humanoid figures.
"This has to be the most uncomfortable way I've ever travelled", Jack said to Adam and Amar as he took off his small rebreather. He was probably right; Zerg spore pods were usually filled with a gooey liquid that Zerg creatures could distill oxygen out of. It had to be this gooey so the traveling organisms could survive the fall onto a planet without sustaining damage. The Terran-Protoss crew had shared their drop pod with seven Zerglings and the experience was roughly similar to being underwater in a swimming pool. Except the water was gelatine, and there were Zerglings literally just floating around.
"Let's get moving", Adam said as the remainder of the spore pods landed and Zerglings grouped up around them. At the same time, shadows fell over the landscape as the fleet of Mutalisks, Overseers and Vipers got in range. As soon as the Overseers had vision, the Zerglings seemed to instantly change from their passive stance to a more aggressive stance, and a second later a number of them were in combat with what was seemingly some kind of invisible creature. Jack shot some bullets into the underbrush at the side of the clearing as Adam and Amar looked around, looking rather bewildered.
"Invisible creatures", Jack said. "They seem to be hostile."
The view through Jack's eyes was slightly different from what Adam and Amar saw; the parasite in his body was capable of receiving the Overseer's transmissions and transmitted them into his brain through his spinal cord. The jungle looked exactly the same to Jack, but there were a small number of strange cyan-greenish alien lifeforms around that could best be described as 'looking like a cross between a dog and a Zergling'. As the last of the strange band of small attacking creatures fell, the group started moving towards the compound.
They reached the complex not five minutes later, encountering several more of the aliens on the way. Though there hadn't exactly been a lot of dull moments, the group seemed perfectly fine in handling the aliens for now; they seemed more like aggressive wildlife than any kind of organized force. As the expedition reached the complex, Adam looked around. There were three buildings; one seemed to be the 'main' building and was shaped as a tower. The second mostly resembled what Adam knew as a Terran greenhouse, and the third didn't resemble anything Adam had ever seen before.
{It's a laboratory.}
Adam had almost forgotten why they had brought Amar along. All of the buildings seemed to have Protoss architecture, though Adam had had enough experiences with the Protoss to know that they looked different from the Imperium halls and buildings he had seen before. He also noticed a familiar sight to his right; a Protoss photon cannon. Adam wasn't sure yet whether it could be called luck that it looked inactive. As the Zerg airfleet took a defensive position around the base along with fourty of the Zerglings, Amar turned to his companions.
{Should we split up?}
"Too dangerous", Jack interjected. "We'll take a couple of Zerglings and go through the buildings together, one at a time".
With that, ten Zerglings split off from the main pack and looked at the three humanoids, expecting something - orders, by the looks of it. In the background, some more sounds of battle broke out as an additional alien seemed to have appeared from the jungle, attacking the Zerg forces. The search party quickly ran over to the greenhouse and stepped inside. They didn't need more than a minute between them and the Zerglings to sweep the building though, and figured there were no survivors or objects of value to be found. With that the party ran towards the laboratory and found that its door seemed to be shut and wouldn't open without power.
"Stand aside", Jack said as he raised his biosteel arm and pointed his built-in weapon at the door.
{Wait.}, Amar interjected. {We should try the main building first. We might be able to get the power on and won't need to blow up the building to look inside}.
"Fair enough", Jack replied, and the group made their way to the main building.
As they entered it through its main door (which was apparently left open), Jack took one last look behind him. He wasn't sure if he imagined it, but the alien attacks seemed to be growing stronger. Not only were the small hound creatures appearing more often now, but he also caught a glimpse of what seemed to be some kind of larger animal with fins or spikes, approximately the size of an elephant, trampling down on a number of Zerglings as five Mutalisks broke off from the fleet to help them out.
Once inside the building, two paths presented themselves to the group. In the middle of a relatively big room there was a staircase leading up, and towards the back of the building a hallway seemed to lead to both an elevator and a staircase down.
"Where would I go if I were a survivor?", Adam pondered loudly.
"Down.", Jack answered. "Unless you've got air support, which doesn't seem something these guys had going for them, you're going to be trapped if you go up a building. I wouldn't be surprised if the stairway down leads to some sort of escape tunnel".
As the group walked into the hallway Amar put his hand on a pad next to the elevator - absolutely nothing happened.
{I could've known. No power, no elevator. Looks like we'll have to actually walk down these stairs... how primitive.}
Adam and Jack threw eachother looks that revealed amusement as well as confusion and slight annoyance as they followed down a number of Zerglings down the staircase, somewhat dampening the sounds of what seemed to now be almost constant battle outside.
As Jack turned on his military grade flashlight the underground hallway lit up. There were a number of doors, some of them open, leading to what seemed to be simple storage rooms, but there were also two more interesting rooms: one was a lot larger and seemed to house some kind of huge Protoss power crystal while the other had seemingly served some kind of mining purpose; a tunnel was dug out along the side of one of it's walls.
"Hah, an escape tunnel!", Jack exclaimed. "Amar, am I right in thinking that crystal is some kind of generator? Can you see if you can get the power on while we see where this tunnel leads?".
Amar was already in the room by the time Jack was halfway through his question, and he immediately begun what looked like feeling the various edges of the generator and the panels on the wall surrounding it. As Amar was working in the power room, Jack and Adam stood in the hallway and looked at the tunnel. As Jack lifted his flashlight, he could see an immediate dead end after roughly ten meters. No escape route.
{I cannot fix this power cell. I understand the basic infastructure of the system but the technology is just too different... it would take me hours.}
The three exchanged looks. Adam reacted first. "Up the stairs, then".
As the group arrived once more at the ground level, the sounds of battle outside seemed to have intensified. A loud splash was heard as Adam looked up and saw a half-dead Mutalisk had crashed into one of the windows above. Shrieks of organisms that were definitely not Zerg could also be heard outside, and Adam could swear the ground had begun trembling.
"We better hurry this up, or we're not leaving...", Jack said.
With those words, the crew followed three of the Zerglings up the main staircase and quickly ended up in another hallway. The Zerglings wasted no time scouring every room, but most of them seemed to either be observation rooms with a lookout or simple laboratories or storage rooms. One door seemed to be welded shut. Suddenly, the group heard a cry followed by a loud thump and another splash; another dead Mutalisk was slowly gliding down one of the diagonal windows in one of the observation rooms. Jack aimed his weapon at the welded door. This time there was no objection by Amar; he too wanted to finish this up.
...
Yatara woke up to a loud bang. She was lying on the floor with her makeshift weapon in her hand. As she looked up she saw a a humanoid alien with what seemed to be a grossly mutated arm, surrounded by creatures she recognized only from images; Zerg. She had never personally encountered them but knew vague stories about how they searched to assimilate all other races and killed or infested what they couldn't absorb. Instinctively, she raised her weapon and fired a couple of shots at what she guessed to be some kind of infested lifeform. It shielded itself with its arm and shrugged off the effect of the puny energy discharges. It then walked over to her with three big steps, grabbed her arm, turned her on her back, took her gun and threw it away. Just as Yatara thought that this was her end, a Protoss figure appeared above her.
{En Taro Tassadar. You are safe.}
{What? But... the Zerg... ?}
{They are allies. But there is no time. We need to leave.}
This is the point where the situation dawned on Yatara. She had been hearing background noise since she woke up, but only now realized this was the sound of battle outside. In one quick motion she got up.
{Quick! The power!}
With that Yatara sprinted past the humanoid and its Zerglings, rushed down the ladder and quickly ran down to the power generator room under the building.
...
Dagganoth's crew followed her. As they got to the room, the ragged-looking undernourished Protoss survivor completely ignored her new companions and immediately started fiddling with some of the panels on the wall, which immediately started to light up and make all sorts of sounds. Adam, Jack and Amar were watching as Jack turned to Adam.
"I don't know what's up with her, but we're gonna need to leave. Can you hold her legs if I get her body?"
{So she interacts through... Yes! Of course!}
Adam and Jack looked confused as Amar sprung to action and joined the survivor in going around the room and interacting with the panels. One second later a terrible thump shook the building - something big seemed to have happened topside.
"Amar, DAMN IT, we need to go, NOW!", Jack yelled.
Just as Jack walked up to Amar and grabbed a hold of his shoulder, the Protoss crystal seemed to spring to life. With a quiet humm it lit up completely and sent sparks through what appeared to be some kind of wiring that had previously been invisible. As the underground level of the building lit up due to a multitude of lamps suddenly activating, Murkag could see a small blue sphere encompass the complex from his orbital position. At the same time the Zerg forces who had been fighting a losing battle against waves of the aliens saw that the aliens seemed to lose all interest and returned to wander around aimlessly.
Inside the power room, the Protoss survivor collapsed as she lost consciousness again.
SoA
-Garamar brood arrives at the origin of the distress call and finds a planet that is mostly uninhabitable, save for one area of jungle.
-A taskforce of 30 Mutalisks, 10 Overseers, 50 Zerglings, 4 Vipers, Adam, Jack and Amar goes down to the planet to explore the area. It turns out an unknown race of aliens has overrun a Protoss research base and in the struggles with this race Dagganoth loses 8 Mutalisks and 35 Zerglings.
-The taskforce eventually finds a female Protoss survivor who runs down to the base's power core and manages to activate it, creating a defensive sphere around the base and seemingly calming down the aliens who then halt their attacks. The survivor passes out after this happens.
Murkag again slowed down as he drifted into the unnamed system. As Garamar brood had followed its course the distress call had remained as clear as it was, though still not revealing any further information. While getting closer and closer to the apparent point of origin of the signal, Murkag slowed down even more as Dagganoth send out Overseers and carefully listened for any sort of psionic activity or life in general in the system. Though this constellation seemed just as empty as the previous one, something had happened to the Protoss in the call and Dagganoth was ready to react the second something happened.
Nothing happened, though. As Murkag glided closer and closer to the source, it became more apparent to Dagganoth that the source appeared to actually not be located on one of the planets in the system. In fact, it seemed to be located at a seemingly random point in space. After intently scanning the surroundings of the source, it became obvious that there were genuinely no lifeforms around anywhere in the system. As Murkag finally slowed to a halt, Dagganoth found himself looking at what appeared to be some kind of iron diamond with rods sticking out of it. As several Overseers flew in to provide a better look, Dagganoth managed to better identify the object: it was a seemingly metal version of a Protoss pylon with antennae sticking out, and the entire contraption was studded with crystals at various spots.
{Amar... What do you think?}
{I am not sure... it seems to be some sort of communications device, judging by the antennae. Can you give me a closer look?}
With that, two of Dagganoth's Overseers drew closer towards the object and floated next to it at face level distance. Amar got as great a detail as he was going to get and took a minute to study the diamond.
{This is some kind of communications relay. The material is definitely not Imperium nor Exiled Tribes. It might be Tama, but I don't think so. This could well be a construction made by those of the Wandering Tribes. It would make sense: we have now entered the Var'shiri nebula and most tribes have known for a long time that communications go haywire in here. This relay would be part of some kind of larger system they could use to communicate.}
{If it iss a relay, can we find the original ssourcce? The Protosss there will still need our assistancce...}
{That should be easy. There is a feed in it. Can you sense it? If we follow the relay's input rather than its output we should find either the origin of the source, or another relay.}
{Then our path sseems clear.}
SoA
-Murkag arrives at the yellow system beneath Aris and finds the 'source' of the distress call - Amar examines it through the eyes of Murkag and various Overseers.
-The 'source' appears to be a seemingly Wandering Tribes-made Protoss relay for communicating inside the Var'shiri nebula.
-Dagganoth decides to follow the input of the relay and thus sets course for the unnamed red system south of Meron. 3 IC's/days travel time until arrival.
Murkag slowed down as he drifted into the unnamed system. As the Garamar brood slowly drew closer to its centre, the vague distorted message Dagganoth had been picking up since a day or two ago rapidly became louder and less warped. He could sense it relatively distinctly now, and even though it still wasn't crystal clear it seemed that this was as good as it was going to get in this system. Dagganoth took some time to scan all the planets in the system for any form of life in order to prepare against any ambushes, but the system seemed as deserted as some of the gas giants and asteroid fields Murkag had passed on the way. The closer the brood came to the Var'Shiri nebula, the less organisms it had encountered. After a moment of consideration, he directed his psionic attention towards the one Protoss aboard the Zerg Behemoth.
{Amar...}
{Yes, Cerebrate?}
Amar had taken to name Dagganoth by his classification rather than his name: though he had adjusted to life aboard a Zerg 'vessel' fairly well, he still had small issues with things like seeing Zerg organisms as specific, detached, organic beings.
{The disturbancce... have you noticed?}
{I have. It seems... stressed. It is hard for me to pick up, but I have noticed the signal.}
{Perhaps we can combine our effortss. Wait.}
Before the Protoss really understood what was about to happen, it was upon him. Dagganoth had given him a temporary psionic link to the sensing network of the Garamar brood. While it was in a way frightening, what Amar saw was also beautiful. It felt like he was looking down at some kind of 3D battlefield simulation while having an out of body experience at the same time. He was perfectly aware of Murkag and the creature's surroundings. He saw every planet in the system as clearly as Dagganoth did, along with additional visions shared by several Overseers that had left Murkag to do some preliminary scouting. He saw the Terrans, working out in their gym, and Bob Gentry experimenting in his laboratory. He saw - no, he felt himself standing on Murkag's stomach.
But most of all, he heard the distorted message ten times as clear as he had before - even if it was still twisted. It seemed to be a short, chaotic audio file, repeating itself on a loop. It cut off at the end, not properly finishing, and had clearly been recorded and transmitted in a hurry.
{It is definitely some kind of distress call. It is completely broken up; all I can make out is the word 'Help'. The rest is background noise. I can't tell if it's a battle or interference.}
{Then we sshould go and help. I hope you do not mind that we are disstracted from finding the Wandering Tribess for a while longer, Amar...}
{That may not be the case. I cannot identify the signal, but it is definitely Protoss in origin. With some luck we'll find some kind of information on whoever set this signal up - if we get to them in time.}
With that, Dagganoth fell silent as Murkag made a sharp turn and started making its way in the direction the signal was coming from.
SoA
-Murkag arrives at the red system beneath Idum and as it goes in Dagganoth picks up some kind of distress signal more and more clearly.
-Dagganoth briefly links Amar to the sensory network of the Garamar hive, allowing him to receive the signal more clearly. It appears Protoss in origin, and Amar can translate the signal which appears to be some sort of broken up distress call with only the word 'Help' being even vaguely audible.
-In response to the signal, Murkag starts moving in the direction of where it's coming from, which is the unnamed yellow system south of Aris. 2 IC's/days travel time until arrival.
"It's a deal then?", the average height brown haired man asked the short black-hooded man. The short man nodded. In the background an overly large blond-haired military man silently watched the conversation. The short man held out his arm and projected a small screen for the average sized man to see. The taller man nodded as the screen displayed a collection of changing numbers and gave the short man a small disk. As he inserted it into what seemed to be his wrist-mounted computer, he turned off its screen and faced the brown haired man.
"So, any other interesting things you've got for me?"
"I don't think so, unless you're interested in going after the Wandering Tribes. The big guy talked to Amar... apparently we're gonna look for them past the Davir system. Setting off again immediately. Work work."
Adam grinned while saying the last two works.
"Gonna pass. It's been a while since I annoyed Doom in person, I think I should catch up on that. If you still have my communications device you should be able to contact me anyway."
"True. Either way, you'll be seeing us around."
"I don't doubt it."
With that, Kenny took off. Adam looked at Jack as he looked back. The eyes of the two met as they turned and walked away in the other direction.
SoA
-Garamar Brood sells the Protoss Rotating Shield upgrade to Kenny for 30 points.
-Murkag arrives at Domus and immediately takes off again in the direction of the unnamed red system three hexes below Idum. 9 ICs/days until arrival.
Somewhere between the Protoss research station and Domus, aboard Murkag...
"Kenny, you got a minute?", Adam asked from halfway across the Terran common room.
"Sure. Maybe you can fill me in on what exactly happened, and who your new friend is."
The two headed off into Kenny's room. Even though the AI didn't need to sleep, he had been assigned a room with a bed as his own. It had a Terran computer terminal in it, allowing him easy access to the network. It took Adam about five minutes of non-stop talking to explain exactly what happened, when Kenny asked a question regarding the only thing relevant to him:
"So, this data... what is it, exactly. What did you gain from all this?"
"Apparently the tech describes some kind of 'rotating shield frequency' to strengthen the shields of Protoss ships... with some more work, it could allow them to travel through the Great Wave. That's all I know about it, Amar knows the details, but they're also in our database."
"What do you plan to do with this... 'upgrade?' "
"Well, it's of fairly little use to Murkag, so Dagganoth figured we'd best sell it."
Kenny's eyes flickered for a second.
"Good to hear. I've got you a buyer."
Adam looked confused. "This fast?"
"We've got someone who has been looking for tech like this for quite a while... they'd be sure to pay well for a speedy delivery"
"Very well", Adam replied. "Make it so, then. We'll discuss the details on Domus."
Meanwhile, in another bunk, Amar was sitting by himself on a bed. He did not fit in very well with these Terrans. Their research and habitat was interesting, but he knew this was not the end goal he had in mind.
{Then what is, my newfound Protoss companion?}
Amar felt somewhat delighted at such a swift response. He had anticipated the Cerebrate hearing his thoughts. He had wanted to discuss this.
{While your... Brood is extremely interesting and I've found some companionship in the one they call Bob, I think I prefer being with my people. I have thought about this for a long time now, and I want to join the Wandering Tribes.}
Dagganoth only answered after a couple seconds of silence.
{Very well. It seems you know clearly what you want. I can promise to drop you off among them as soon as is possible. However, this may be quite some time, as it is common knowledge that the Wandering Tribes are hard to be found and I may not have time for such a lengthy detour anytime soon. If you prefer, we can let you leave at Domus so you can conduct the search yourself.}
{That's alright. I can wait. I'm sure your Brood and you will keep my curiosities well satisfied. There is no hurry. Just know I do not intend to make my stay aboard your... companion-vessel permanent.}
{Very well - the choice is yours to make. I can assure you I will do my best to make your... 'stay' a pleasant one.}
With that, the psionic conversation ended. Amar laid down on his bed. Even though it felt strange and alien to him, he felt like getting some rest - recent events had tired him, as interesting as they had been.
SoA
-Adam informs Kenny what happened at the Protoss science station.
-Kenny says he's got a buyer for the Protoss shield tech; details are to be settled upon arrival at Domus.
-Amar informs Dagganoth he does not plan on staying aboard Murkag and intends to join the Wandering Tribes as soon as the situation allows it.
Space, Bysdoch system
... and then the shots stopped, without explanation, just as Dagganoth was about to order a risky escape. Not even he had anticipated this. Murkag had entered the system quietly and scouted the edges carefully, but nothing useful had come out of it. Dagganoth had then made the decision to go in a little bit deeper, closer towards one of the planets. He hadn't been on course for more than five seconds before a host of Terran ships jumped out of warp and surrounded his Behemoth. They started firing immediately, but stopped firing just as quickly, leaving those aboard Murkag puzzled. With a quick burst of thoughts, Dagganoth asked Adam to hail the Terran ships. Their hailing equipment might be relatively primitive, but it was helpful in situations like these.
Or not. When even after ten seconds no answer came, Dagganoth rapidly started calculating his options. Five seconds later he came to the conclusion that sitting tight might be the best way to proceed - they weren't being fired upon and he was sure he had more patience than the average Terran. Because of that conclusion, he was the only sentient being aboard Murkag not worrying when a reply didn't come for another ten seconds. But then a psionic signal entered Dagganoth's mind.
{Well who do we have here?}
-{I could assk you the ssame. You are not an Outssider.}
{Not that hard to figure out. But usually it's the visitor that introduces himself first.}
As the conversation went on Dagganoth scanned the mind of the being he was communicating with. It was as impressive as it was ugly, even to a Cerebrate. To him, it was represented as a room full of unbreakable cages holding Zerg Larvae. They would never be able to evolve, they would never be able to further the Swarm, and they would never be able to explore the universe and all of its features. Any Terran would have probably seen destructive fires, corpses and doom - what Dagganoth saw was the Zerg version of hell.
-{Very well. My name iss Dagganoth.}
{I like to call myself Nick Reyd. Out of curiosity, what brood sent you?}
-{What doess that mean to you? Do you know of our broods?}
{I know a little. I wish to know more. It is my goal to unite the races of this sector, so that they may live in peace, and what is probably more interesting to you, continue on their path of evolution - We will never achieve perfection without unity.}
-{But you have a Terran's name?}
{Depends on your definition of "having a name". I was nameless, the terrans asked me for a name, and I told them one. A terran one was appropriate for the situation.}
-{What race are you?}
{Hard to tell. You're avoiding my initial question.}
-{I am not. I ssimply wanted to know where it came from before ansswering it. No brood sent me, however. I am the Garamar Brood, and these are my children. We came to explore thiss system in the name of the Father.}
{Interesting. An independent Zerg.}
With that, Nick Reyd took a short pause to think before continueing the conversation. {What is your opinion on my goal?}
-{If you really purssue it, it is ssimilar to that of the Father. I can not believe you sseek it, however.}
{I've been created to destroy. I've destroyed my creators, and wish to seek a different path. I know I myself will never achieve true perfection, ascend, but I do believe it is possible for the three races to do so, and I know I am capable of starting the process. Here is my offer: You may join me in my quest, or you are free to leave. There is no reason for me to kill you. But if you do wish to join me, I will have to warn you, I do not plan to use pacifism. The sector is in chaos, and in order to unite it order must be brought to it first.}
-{This is not an offer I can accept. It is not up to me to decide this. If you sseek my allegiance, you sshall need to kill the Father and assume control over the Sswarm. What created you? It musst have been a being of immensse power if these are your goalss...}
{Their goals are not mine. I killed them before they had a chance to explain. Had they been beings of immense power, they could have prevented their deaths. I am sure you will understand my reluctance to share details considering we barely know each other, and don't seem to be getting closer. You may tell your Father that if he's open to peace and symbiosis instead of death and destruction, I will not get in his way. If not, our paths are bound to cross sooner or later and what will happen then I highly doubt anyone can predict. You are free to leave this system, my ships will not fire upon you. But think twice if you plan to return with a reinforcements - I am not very hospitable when provoked.}
-{I did not mean to insult, if you are insulted. Your goal doess intrigue me. It is just that I think there is little I can sshare about me. Perhaps we can take turns in our questionss, if you want uss to get closer?}
{If you have no intentions of cooperation, there is little use in sharing information. And no, I am not insulted, but it is hard to sound nice when telling someone that large groups of tresspassers will be shot, don't you think?}
-{Very well... Thank you, this conversation was... interesting. We shall take our leave, then, and conssider your words.}
{It was nice meeting you. Good bye, and if you change your mind, you know where to find me.}
With that, Dagganoth broke the connection. As Murkag started turning, one of the Terran ships fired another shot at it, barely missing. Just as Dagganoth's mind started booming through his plan of against after betrayal another one of the ships fired two warning shots at the first, causing it to cease fire. Dagganoth barely registered this before Murkag glided out of the system.
-The communication device portrayed Kenny. It wasn't the Pirate version of Kenny however, Adam could tell this much - it was wearing a gray and purple uniform, had a proper haircut and a more serious look on its face. Adam grinned as he looked at it.
"New haircut, Kenny?"
"We haven't met yet, I believe. Kenny informed about you though. Anything to report?", the new Kenny replied. Adam took up a more serious posure before answering.
"Yes. We need to talk to whoever in the Quantum Legion will take our report on the Bysdoch scouting mission."
"That'll be me.", Kenny answered.
"Very well", Adam replied.
"We were met by three Terran ships upon entering the Bysdoch system. We tried to hail them with our on-board equipment, but instead the big one got a psionic reply by their leader. Said he had no idea what race the leader was. Dagga lied to him and posed as a scouting brood fully under the Overmind's control. The leader scared him, he said. He talked about creating peace and unity throughout the sector, but his mind was filled with rage and...", Adam hesitated.
"He said the leader's mindscape looked like... what we'd call 'hell'. He said that for all the peace he was promoting, that leader seemed like a chaotic, deranged murderer. I don't think I've ever seen something scare Dagganoth before". Adam took a big pause before continueing.
"Dagga tried to get as much information out of the leader as possible. It said that it 'had been created to destroy', 'destroyed its creators' and then 'decided to take a different path'. Eventually he simply told us to either join him or leave, and said we were welcome to return if we wanted to join his cause but were warned not to return with reinforcements."
When it was clear that Adam had finally stopped talking, Kenny gave a clear and direct response. "Noted. I will attempt to contact Lady Lane immediately, but she appears to be busy. I will let you know if I get a message for you. In the meantime, we do not require your services at the moment, so feel free to do as you wish. This communicator will, by default, contact the Pirates again from now on, in case you wish to talk to them for whatever reason."
"Alright... we'll head to Domus to think of our next move. I'll assume we'll hear from the Legion soon, then."
With that, the official Kenny politely nodded at Adam and turned itself off. Adam turned around to Jack, who was standing in the doorpost behind him. He grinned as he spoke. "I prefer the other one". Adam sighed and smiled at Jack. "I know you do..."
SoA
-Dagganoth meets Nick Reyd in Bysdoch and has a conversation with him. Afterwards he reports his findings to the Coalition version of Kenny.
-Murkag leaves Bysdoch and sets a course back to Domus, 17 hexes away. 12 IC's/days travel time until arrival.
Domus, the Asteroid City
As they entered the bar, Adam spotted the character Kenny had described to him sitting in a quiet corner: average height and build, short brown hair and a matching suit. With Jack right behind him, Adam walked up to the man and held out his hand.
"Mr. Kosh?"
Kosh looked at Adam and took his hand as he replied. "Yup, that's me. Adam I take it?"
"Correct. My friend over here is named Jack. He reports back to the big boss fairly directly, if you know what I mean."
"Hello Jack, nice to meet you guys. Barman, three beers! You guys want to order anything?"
After Adam's response he continued speaking.
"Alright. Not really a fan of psionics myself, makes it really hard to play poker, and where would I be if I couldn't cheat people out of their money? Anyway, you guys wanted to get in touch with the Quantum Legion, right?"
"Indeed. Kenny told us you'd be able to help us out."
Kosh took a deep breath and started talking.
"Well, here's the thing. Saying the Legion trusts us is not entirely accurate. They trust in the fact that we'll lie to 'em, and they also trust us to not fuck up. We're like a shadow ops division the government doesn't want to keep tabs on. Deniability is what's important: We don't get any direct orders and we don't report back, and they can't be held responsible for any problems we cause. Doom would never have agreed to work with the Coalition full time if he had to follow protocol, and if he did... Well, chances are you guys wouldn't even be alive right now. To cut to the point: We can't help you guys. That doesn't mean the Coalition isn't gonna hear you out, but that we just simply are not allowed to help you guys. Doom talked to Keeva. She's busy at the moment, and she wants to use that time to test your guys trust until she is actually able to have a face to tentacle with your boss."
He then paused for a second to take a sip from his beer and shot a question at Adam. "What do you guys know about Bysdoch?"
"That it's on the far end of the sector... that's about it.", Adam replied.
Kosh took another breath before going off into another monologue.
"Well, it's one of the Outsiders' major systems. Only real big one we really know of, to be honest. The rest are probably somewhere in the nebula and therefore practically impossible to track down. Now the thing is: we can usually pick up radio chatter from Bysdoch - Not necessarily understandable, but definitely recognizable as artificial terran communication signals. We don't anymore. The system just went dark. No informants reported back, whether official Coalition ones or contacts of information brokers here on Domus. Not even Network data from civilians left that system. They either nuked themselves to death, something else did, or... Well, point is, we have no idea. And Keeva does not like not having an idea. Do you see what I'm getting at?"
Adam paused a second before answering. "I think so. Something really big and bad is going on and Keeva wants to send in her most expendable asset to scout, testing its use at the same time. It's what I'd do, I guess."
"Expendable may be the wrong word. She doesn't want to lose you, she isn't like that. If I had to guess, this is just the perfect test. Throw you into an impossible situation and see how you react, great way to get a decent read of character. She had a few instructions: First of all, don't get yourself killed, you're more valuable than a bit of information, feel free to run away if things get too hot. Second of all, us Pirates are not getting involved, training wheels are off. You want to work with them, you'll have to trust them that that trust is mutual. Kenny can redirect the communicator to the Legion if you ask him to, and they'll respond to any calls for help. So if you need an army to back you up, an army you will get. That's about it."
"That seems fair. We have some unused broadcasting equipment of our own on board, maybe if we work with Kenny we can start getting that up and running for our Terran communications."
"Alright. Give Keeva a call once the job is done or you screw up or whatever."
With that, Adam and Jack finished their beers and got up. "Alright, will do. Thanks for the asistance. You'll be seeing us around."
SoA
-Garamar Brood talks to the Pirates' man Kosh and embarks indirectly on a mission for the Quantum Legion; the Brood is to scout what's going on in the Bysdoch system and report back its findings to Keeva Llane.
-Murkag leaves Domus for Bysdoch, 17 hexes away. A speed of 6 makes for 12 IC's/days travel time until arrival.
Domus, the Asteroid City
Inside a bar towards one of the many shady sides of the pirate complex, four men were talking. Two of them looked like relatively simple starship crewmen, while one of the two men on the other side of the table seemed burly and wielded a large moustache. The fourth one looked a tad skinnier and ironically enough more intimidating than his burly companion; whether it was because of his one skull-symbol earring, his leather jacket or his unwashed long hair, it was obvious he held some kind of rank on the more plainly dressed 'stache-wielder.
"So what, you're saying you have technology that would allow a ship to travel through an environment as hostile as Caelorum?", Adam sneered at skull-earring.
The man snickered. "Me? No. D'you think I'd be hanging out with the likes of you in a place like this if I had that kind of tech?"
Adam had learned much in his position as Dagganoth's 'diplomat' and was becoming more versed in dealing with the likes of Earring as well. He knew the pirate wasn't trying to insult him per se, but that he was simply showing his rough edge and expected Adam to do something similar if he wanted to remain on equal footing in the conversation.
"Speak for yourself, that smell's definitely coming from your side of this joint."
Both Earring and his burly companion burst into laughs as Adam grinned - he knew he had hit the right note. As they came too, earring raised his hand and yelled at the bartender.
"Hey you! Two of your finest for my palls here!"
As Earring turned back to Adam, Jack jumped in and addressed earring.
"So then... who does possess that technology?"
Earring looked a more serious before replying.
"Well... I've heard some rumors about the Quantum Legion. Word has it they've got a team 'o four-eyes working on some kind of tech that can pull of what you're describing. That's all I can give you, though."
Adam weighed his options for a second before answering.
"No offense mate, but I've heard that excuse far too often around here."
Earring snickered and looked right into the eyes of Adam, who merely returned the stare. When nobody spoke up for another three seconds, Earring started talking again, this time with a more quiet voice.
"Alright, you're right. I know some more. But even though I like you, I don't like you that much... my information doesn't come free, y'know?"
Adam nodded before replying.
"Makes sense... if only we weren't strapped for cash..."
"Tell you what", Earring replied. "I'll give you a fair chance at my information. Beat me in a drinking game. Three glasses of whatever the strongest piss is they sell in this place - first one to finish wins".
Adam hesitated. He didn't dislike alcohol, but he wasn't a big drinker either. By the looks of it, Earring was. Just as he was about to confirm a spending of coins, Jack stepped in again.
"My buddy here isn't really a drinker, but tell you what: same game, me versus your companion. He seems to look like he can hold his liquor."
Earring looked at Jack for a second before bursting into laughs again. "You? Against Donar? Are you serious? What d'you say Donar, d'you think you can beat that puppy?".
The burly man simply laughed and grunted something, causing Earring to shout out. "Alright then, let's do this! Barman, six of your strongest here!"
As Earring went in for a quick talk with Donar and the barman poured the drinks, Adam shot a look at Jack. "What the hell are you doing? That guy looks like he drinks for breakfast!", he whispered. Jack said nothing and simply smiled back.
"Alright then... everybody set? Three, two, one, GO!", Earring started the game.
Within no time, the burly man had gone through his first drink. He quickly grabbed the second glass and started chugging it down. He had to take a pause halfway through the glass and looked up to see how his competitor was doing. He saw Jack sitting there with a half-full glass in his hands, and snickered as he figured the boy must still be on his first. As he poured the rest of his second glass down his throat, he looked up again to find Jack putting down his empty glass. His third empty glass.
The group went silent. Somehow Jack had managed to pour three glasses of whatever this poison was faster than Donar, who definitely looked like he'd be able to take this lightweight by ease. Then Jack burped. After another second of silence, everyone burst into laughs; Earring nearly fell of his stool.
"God damn, where did you learn to hold your drink?!", he shouted at Jack, who simply smiled as he quietly replied; "let's just say I've learned to drink for two".
As the ruckus died down, Earring turned back to Adam. "Well, you've earned it. I don't have a lot of additional information, but I can tell you of a ship that tried to enter Caelorum a while back."
"What happened to it?", Adam replied.
"We don't know", Earring said. "If you ask me, it's probably toast, which means you should be able to find debris around the phenomenon, though no one has really heard anything from the ship since it entered the phenomena".
Adam thought for a second before getting up from his chair.
"Alright... Thanks for the company."
Earring casually raised his left hand as a greeting and turned back to Donar as Adam and Jeremy walked out of the bar. As soon as they entered a quieter area Adam looked at Jack.
"How did you pull that off? Drinking for two? What are you talking about?"
Jack grinned as he replied. "That parasite Dagganoth put inside me needs nourishment too. It seems the Zerg are rather adept at processing alcohol".
Adam burst into laughs yet again as the two walked around a corner.
-At the same time, another group of Garamar loyalists found themselves in a different bar in the same complex. Bob, Amar and Jeremy found themselves sitting around a table by themselves. The three had been looking around for some kind of biological creature strong enough to make use of the Protoss force shields. Apart from some unlikely drunken boasts involving space 'beasts' of allegedly thousands of kilometers long, they hadn't come across anything useful.
"I'm beginning to doubt the existence of such beings, at least in this sector", Bob said.
{It seems unlikely.}, Amar replied.
"Why does it need to be some kind of huge creature, anyway?", Jeremy asked.
"It's relatively simple", Bob started his explanation. "The shielding we're after is called Plasma shielding. This style of shielding functions by heating up particles - something Protoss do through their psionic capabilities - and thus directing them towards any incoming projectile to absorb its impact. The larger a creature, the easier it is for it to heat up those nearby particles."
"Makes sense, generating heat is easier to do for me than for an ant, I guess. Still doesn't seem like the best starting point, though?", Jeremy prompted.
"True, but we didn't have much of a better idea...", the scientist replied.
"Aren't there any organisms with a more advanced skin or such then, that can be heated up at will?
The doctor thought for a second before replying.
"Well, not directly... but you did give me an idea: several biological essences should theoretically be able to achieve this effect with relative ease. We may be looking simply for living matter rather than an entire organism."
{Are you suggesting something more plantlike?}, Amar interjected.
"Plantlike... That might be it. Maybe we're not looking for strong skin, but rather for flexible skin. Something we can fashion out of organic matter. What do you think, Amar?"
{That could work. My race has never had the need for such materials, but it would be a good bet in applying shields without armor.}
"Either way, we're unlikely to find any of that here", Jeremy said as he chugged down the last of his drink and got up from his chair. "We should return to Dagg, see what he thinks."
With that, the Protoss and the Doctor got up as well and followed their bouncer out of the bar.
-{Yatara of the Warplight... I wish to converse with you.}
{So you do.}
{I had a question. Ssomething important musst come first, however. Amar told me of your customary use of what you call the 'Khala', but I could not help picking up your anger at me. I would like to see us on more equal groundss. Would you tell me why you are angry?}
{Is it really that hard to figure out?}
{I have my guessess, of coursse. Do you blame me for desstroying your old companions' compound?}
{I blame you for destroying that planet. It was inhabited by one of the most unique species known in the universe. And from what we have seen, it may have been older than the three primary species. And you wrecked our only chance at studying it.}
For the first time during his many conversations, Dagganoth noticeably paused before answering.
{I undersstand. Thiss may be a question of value. I too am interessted in what could have been found there - thiss is why I decided to take as many sampless as possible before the ssituation got hectic. But my main concern was ssaving the livess of both our people. I put individual livess over possibly the greater good. Now that you mention it, this seemss like behaviour unnatural to my race.}
This time, Yatara paused.
{I had not looked at it this way. Are you saying you let the planet collapse because you were too focused on saving my kin?}
{I suppose I am. I would like to have foreseen the use of the pillarss so I could have prevented the collapsse. But I could not. It is not in my geness to think about thingss past. Apart from learning from them.}
{That must be rough... do you not have feelings?}
{I do not know. I cannot define feelings. My peerss and I have personalitiess and ideass and emotionss are bound to them. I do not know if my exhilaration is similar to yourss. I do not keep any of these traitss for long.}
{But then what drives you? You must have something you like doing to keep going? Why else would you live?}
{I live for the Swarm. To strive for perfection.}
{And what happens when you reach it?}
For the first time ever, something snapped for Dagganoth. Not in an angry way. Thinking about what happened after perfection had been reached was simply not a thing any kind of Zerg did. The Zerg lived for perfection and did not consider a goal past it. When Dagganoth sensed his own answer, he realized it seemed more Terran than anything else. The hesitation didn't help either.
{I... do not know. I have never thought about this. I do not know how to.}
In this moment, Yatara felt pity for the creature she was having a conversation with. She decided to take a leap of faith and briefly opened her underthought to the Cerebrate.
This in turn was something the Cerebrate did not expect. For the first time ever, he got a glimpse of a real emotion - something that was not a reaction formation hardwired into his biological system.
And then it was gone, leaving the Cerebrate with a wanting for more. He now knew more about himself and where his true allegiance would lie - in a place he doubted the Overmind ever be capable of ever understanding. As things cooled down, Yatara felt herself more understanding of the Cerebrates position and at least partly forgave him. Though not announced by anything specific, the formal part of the conversation started and both participants realized it.
{The question I have for you. One of the taskss set upon me by the Overmind (The overmind? When had he ever called the father that?) is to find an animal associated with your race that is known to generate some kind of biological electricity. Do you happen to know of such a being?}
Yatara's answer was quick.
{I'm sorry - I know very little of things normally associated with 'my race'... Our tribes do not have very close connections with the Imperium. We only study what we find, and I recall no such lifeform. You should perhaps rather ask Amar.}
{Very well. I shall do sso.}
{Alright. Good luck. I... would like to speak to you again some day.}
{That can be arranged. I spent most of my time sensing and directing my brothers, but I available often. Yatara Warplight... ?}
{Yes?}
{Thank you.}
-As Amar, Bob and Jeremy boarded the Terran transport ship for a ferry back, they found Adam and Jack already inside. After a few short greetings, Amar said down and immediately became aware of Dagganoth's presence in his mind.
{You seek conversation?}
{I do. I shared thoughtss with Yatara. I am looking for an organism associated with your race that wieldss biological electricity. Sshe could not help me, but thought perhaps you could.}
{Biological electricity? As in a form of energy?}
{Indeed.}
{I do not recall such an organism at first thought. I have definitely heard about the concept before, though, a long time ago. I would need to gather my thoughts to say anything worthwhile.}
{Then do so, and we shall speak again.}
Minutes later, when the transport ship boarded the strangely looking 'docking port' inside Murkag's third stomach, Adam stepped out and made for the privacy of his own room. As soon as he reached it, he grabbed the well known communication's device from his nightstand, turned it on and spoke into it.
"Kenny, you here?"
"Sure thing. What'd'ya need?", was the reply.
"An opening into the Quantum Legion. Turns out they're performing some research that might be... of interest to the Brood."
"Hm, interesting. Funnily enough, we were thinking of introducing you guys to them anyway. Give me a day, I may have something for you."
"Good. We'll stay around. Hopefully we'll be able to work something out."
"Knowing you guys, I'm not too worried", Kenny said as he broke the connection.
SoA
-Dagganoth receives information on his Overmind missions. He is now passively looking for some kind of biological material that may be able to adept to plasma shielding. At the same time he is waiting for Amar to think about a certain Protoss lifeform that does something interesting, and for word back from Kenny in regards to finding an opening into a Quantum Legion research team working on shielding that would allow ships to pass through phenomena like Caelorum.
-Additionally, Jack wins a drinking contest for additional information on Caelorum and learns that a ship has tried to enter the system before and that its remains are likely still floating around the anomaly.
-Yatara reveals her anger at Dagganoth, who tries to reassure her and has an interesting talk.
Domus, the Asteroid City
Adam was getting used to this. Again he found himself walking around the space station he never even knew existed before leaving with Dagganoth. It felt like so long ago since he had regained his free will on Barkanos, yet he knew it couldn't have been more than a month or two at most. He had just gone through so much with the Garamar Brood: the Erana escape, the encounter with Orloth, the Imperial science lab, the strange creatures at the Wandering Tribes' research center and then the Overmind.
The last encounter had been the most thrilling for all the non-Zerg aboard Murkag, but Dagganoth had put the minds of the crew at ease by being incredibly open about the encounter. Turned out the Overmind needed Dagganoth and in turn had no ill intentions towards the Terrans and Protoss with him. Yet, anyway. The Cerebrate had kept some of the crucial details of their mission from the majority of the people, but Adam figured that this was really no different from how a Terran captain would treat his crew if he were on a mission personally assigned to him by Aranov.
He had shared some bits though, and that was why Adam and Jack were here right now. They were to discreetly ask around to see if anyone knew how to traverse the Caelorum system. Obviously the details would have to be kept hidden, but the two planned on posing as explorers who made a living of precious goods taken from hard-to-access areas.
Adam and Jack knew they needed to be looking for someone who knew about technology that allowed a ship to survive intense plasma storms, and also for a way to navigate the system - which was known for messing with regular positioning techniques and equipment. Dagganoth had also asked them to take a peek on the big Domus job board; these Overmind missions would probably take a long time and lots of traveling to complete, and any simpler jobs that could be completed along the way for money were a bonus.
As the two set off, three more Garamar loyalists stepped off the transport behind them. Both because the two would enjoy taking some time off from the lab and because they had the best background in science, Bob Gentry and Amar volunteered asking around if anyone on Domus happened to know of a biological being that made use of Protoss shields, or could perhaps make use of them. Jeremy accompanied the them, if only for the reason that the two physically weak scientists wouldn't have the slightest chance of survival if they met the wrong people.
In the meantime, aboard Murkag, Dagganoth had just come to a conclusion on what to do regarding the third task. Quietly he set his mind to finding Yatara's.
SoA
-Murkag arrives at Domus and two groups enter the asteroid city.
-Group 1 exists out of Adam and Jack. They are posing as explorers and are gathering information on how to traverse a hostile system like Caelorum, this assignment being related to Dagganoth's first task for the Overmind.
-This group will also look at the Domus job board to see what available missions are lying around that the Garamar Brood can possibly complete while on longer Overmind-related voyagers.
-Group 2 is Bob Gentry, Amar and Jeremy. They are seeking information on exceptional biological beings that either use or could possibly use Protoss shield technology, all of this in relation to Dagganoth's second Overmind task.
-In regards to the third task, Dagganoth decides to talk to Yatara.
Tartarus, homeworld of the Overmind
As Murkag drew closer to the lone planet the sight alone would be enough to take away the breath of any non-Zerg: the black sphere glowed eerily in the light of the green lightning storms that seemed to surround it as it followed its slow elliptical course around a star. Within seconds, the Behemoth was surrounded by a large host of Mutalisks and Scourges send to escort it into the planet's surface. Not much later, the creature landed and a presence was felt leaving it by its Terran and Protoss crewmembers who were nearly literally in the dark of Murkag's third stomach: they had grouped up in the common room for the ordeal.
{He has left.}, Amar shared with Yatara and the Terrans. {I can feel it.}
The room remained silent for some time as most of the Terrans as well as both the Protoss looked in deep thought. It wasn't until a good ten second later when Adam spoke up that the silence was broken.
"That has to be the first time he's left...". He didn't need to add anything; the entire crew knew what was at stake here. Adam had informed them of Dagganoth's intended location a few days earlier and the entire group had had a big discussion on what to do next - many of them were not fond about going to the Overmind, wherever that may be. Part of Dagganoth's plan was to keep his crew in the proverbial dark, as not even he could afford to tip off any non-Zerg as to the actual location of the overmind. The crew had gone through the discussion somewhat painstakingly, though in the end everybody did decide to trust that Dagganoth would not betray them. This decision was being tested right now, and everybody on board Murkag was completely aware of this.
-Half an hour later a presence could be felt returning to Murkag. A second later Dagganoth addressed his crew, who had nervously spent the hour in nearly complete silence in the common room.
{Terrans, Protoss, friendss... I realize I have tested your trust by coming here. I apologize for any discomfort I have caused you. Please know that this situation is as conflicting for you as it is for me, though I do not intend to betray your trusst. Neither does the Father. He has an assignment for me, and I'm willing to answer all your questions about it. I view you as part of my Brood, and will treat you as equalss.}
A few seconds of confused but relieved silence followed from the crew as to everyone's surprise, Yatara was the first to respond.
{We get to ask a Cerebrate questions about the Overmind... At least this time the subject of our study has a planet left.}
Most of the Terrans, who had little experience with Protoss, regarded the comment as a joke and burst out into laughs. One of them didn't, however. Bob Gentry had worked with the two Protoss aboard Murkag for long enough to know neither of them joked, at least not this idlely. While Amar privately recognized the remark as some kind of strange Wandering Tribe way of trying to fit in with the Terrans, Bob recognized it for what it really was: genuine anger, or at least annoyance, towards the Cerebrate. He made a mental note to follow up on this later.
Regardless of Yatara's intention, the comment cleared the room of the serious air that had filled it for the past half hour. As the Terrans unleashed their questions on Dagganoth, Murkag slowly took off from the planet...
SoA
-Dagganoth arrives at Tartarus and has a talk with the Overmind, who wants to evolve his minions in order to pass into the nearby energy storm. He has requested Dagganoth's help on this, feeling that the Cerebrate has promise after the Projective Cortex evolution it had unlocked for its brood. This overarching mission exists out of three sub-missions which will be revealed in the posts to come.
-Bob picks up on Yatara's alleged anger towards Dagganoth.
-Garamar Brood buys Ground Carapace level 2 from the Overmind for 27 points.
-Garamar Brood restocks its army and buys 23 Zerglings and 14 Mutalisks for an additional 4 points.
-Murkag leaves Tartarus again and heads towards Domus. 7 IC's/posts until arrival.
In orbit of Barkanos, Davir System
Dagganoth watched through Murkag's eyes as he saw the Gambit take off. These were interesting Terrans. They had taken an impossible situation and decided to stand up to it for the sake of both him, a Cerebrate they didn't know, and the people of Barkanos, beings of the same race that they barely had any affinity with. As far as Dagganoth was concerned, he was in their debt. He would repay the debt the only way he was able to right now, without David and his crew even realizing it.
-Adam picked up the communicator and switched it on, opening a channel to the by now well known Pirate Kenny.
"Been a while. What do you need?", the Pirate said as he picked up.
"Here's something you might like hearing: I don't need anything. Today, we're giving.", Adam responded.
"Well, that's good. We are sorta busy anyway, so any help from us would've been pretty limited."
Adam thought for a second before responding. "That guy who was looking for us... his name is David Kanaro. He's a good chap. We got to talk to him on Barkanos and he's on our side now. There's some things you should know, however. I'll start with the reason he was here: the Imperium hired him to track down Dagganoth. He double crossed them. There's one Imperium officials still wandering around Barkanos somewhere. While I don't know what's keeping you busy, the Imperium is likely to know or soon find out about Barkanos. We may have a bit of a situation here we should both keep our eyes on."
"I'll see what I can do... We aren't really around at the moment. Thanks for the information, I'll let Doom and Waiter know.", Kenny replied.
"I hope you can keep a bit of an eye on the Gambit... they may become a more important player in this scheme."
"I'll try, but I can't really do much if he pisses off and doesn't show himself again.", Kenny promised.
"Alright. Then there's one last thing; there's Zerg in the Davir system. Dagganoth told me there's one army of the Themos Brood hiding behind one of the planets. Currently they're inactive and have apparently been ordered to protect Barkanos, though the Themos are the Pirates of the Swarm; Dagganoth's words. As soon as they plan on doing anything you'll likely see movement in Davir."
This time it was Kenny who remained silent for a second before responding. "Interesting. I'll make sure to leave a ship there to keep an eye on things..."
"Very well. That should be all for now. We might be up for some more of your jobs later, but we'll be in touch."
With that, Adam turned off the device and sat down. Dagganoth had also informed him of their next destination, and he had to admit it frightened him a bit. Teaming up with the Garamar Brood had been one thing, but this would take his Zerg interactions to an all new level. The Cerebrate had asked him to share the news with the other Terrans, but he'd need a day or so to work out how to bring it. Adam got lost in his thoughts as Murkag accelerated in the direction of Tartarus...
SoA
-Adam contacts Kenny and informs him of what happened between the crew of the Gambit and the Imperium officials. He asks the Pirates to keep an eye on David Kanaro and prepare for possible trouble with the Imperium. He also notifies them of the Themos fleet hanging about in the Davir system.
-Murkag leaves for the Overmind on Tartarus. 8 IC's/days travel time until arrival.
Davir System
As he had done so often, Murkag glided into the Davir system. As Dagganoth looked through its eyes, he immediately noticed the same scene as he had several weeks ago. Davir II, a hot desert-planet, looked like a golden globe from this distance. Right across from it, past the system's sun, was the ocean world of Davir V. Due to its similar size, it looked like the blue counterpart to it's golden brother. Furthest away from the sun, and more off to the side was the lush mountainous planet of Barkanos. Everything looked ordinary. Not everything felt ordinary to Dagganoth, though. As he carefully scanned the area for psionic Zerg activity, his mental radar went haywire. There was a large Zerge force hiding in the shadows of Davir V, and Dagganoth immediately recognized their psionic signature as being from the Themos Brood.
{Didn't expect you back here so soon.}, Aria's voice spoke as it entered Dagganoth's mind.
{Didn't expect you here. Though I cannot say your... presencce does not make sensse. I do not think it can remain, however. If the Piratess were to find out...}, the Cerebrate replied.
{I'm expecting them not to. You see, my orders are to keep an eye on your planet and funnily enough, assist you if any battle might break out. Not that you'd get into a fight. Or would you, Dagganoth?}
Dagganoth quickly reasoned with himself for a second. He knew that it was unlikely she was lying; if there was indeed a malicious reason behind an underling of Lillith being here - which there likely was, knowing Lillith - its orders had been overwritten by the Overmind's call. There was no way Lillith would have stationed troops here to guard his interest for no apparent reason. Realizing who he was dealing with, he adjusted his pose. One of the major advantages of being a Cerebrate was that his emotions and character weren't as easy to read as those of infested Terrans.
{Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn't. Regardless, I guess I wouldn't want to interfere with such a... 'noble' goal.}
{I had thought you wouldn't.} were the words Aria ended the conversation with as Murkag slowly glided on towards Barkanos.
-David had just finished hammering a nail into an iron support beam when Puck's head stuck around the corner.
"Captain, I need you on the bridge. You need to see this."
Grudgingly, David left his repairs behind for now and followed Puck to the bridge. As the two stepped into the room, Puck began to speak.
"Though a lot of our systems were rather heavily damaged, I'm pretty sure your sensors are still intact."
"What do you mean, 'pretty sure'?", David replied.
"Do you see these dots here, surrounding our ship? I think that's a circle of Mutalisks, closing in."
With that, David ran out of the room and yelled for everybody to prepare. As he equipped his armor and closed the loading bay door, he made his way back to the bridge, from where he could look outside. A ring of Mutalisks was indeed closing in on the vessel, but something curious happened as well; as David watched, a fairly regular Terran transport landed not thirty meters from his ship. David looked on as two Terrans came out - one completely unarmed, and another seemingly infested shielding him and walking up front. Following the two Terrans, a host of Zerglings formed a line as they came to a halt. He saw the unarmed Terran put his hands to his mouth as he yelled at the Gambit:
"David... We want to talk to you. Please stand down and come out of your ship unarmed."
"Do you think I'm stupid?", David shouted back. The unarmed Terran put his hands to his mouth again.
"We promise you will not be harmed."
"I am NOT coming out there unarmed with an entire Zerg army on the lookout. What do you take me for?"
David watched as the two Terrans looked at eachother. A few second later all of the Zerglings backed off, and the Mutalisks flew back a fair distance. He considered his options for a second, and then decided to go for it. He made his way down to the loading bay and opened the door. He then walked outside in full armor, his gun at the ready but not raised.
"I can talk cordially, I've just had a bit too many guns pointed at me recently. Not to keen on getting shot at again."
As the 'infested' Terran took a step in his direction, David got a clearer look at him. It appeared that he was wearing some kind of infested body armor and wasn't as much infested himself.
"Makes sense... we want to talk. But know that if you betray or harm any one of us, you've got a problem. An enormous amount of flying problems, actually."
"Understood, as long as you know that if you attack me, I'll take as many of you with me as I can, starting with you. I take it you're Dagganoth's lot?", David replied.
The unarmed man chuckled at this remark. He looked at David and then walked towards him, holding out his hand.
"I Think we haven't been called that way yet, but yes. I'm Adam. That's jack.". He nodded at the 'infested' next to him.
David looked at Adam's hand, not taking it. "Let's save the pleasantries until after I know I can trust you. You've got me. My ship can't take off, you've got superior numbers. But you haven't attacked. What do you want with me?".
"Simple... We want to know what you want with us."
This time it was David's turn to chuckle.
"Well, here's the rub. I don't want anything with you guys. My business has been conducted."
"What was it you wanted, then?"
"That is between me and the Imperials. By the way, THEY want to talk to you."
"Imperials... interesting. I don't think it's between the two of you anymore, though. It stopped being such when you landed on this planet.". The man named Adam eyed the smoking Gambit. "And judging from what Rodrick tells us, you seem to have fairly little reason left to protect them."
David's previous chuckle was now surpassed by an all out laugh. "Protect them? They now want to kill me almost as much as they want to kill you. But simply, my business, is no longer their business."
Adam looked at him for a couple of seconds, apparently thinking things through before replying. "Alright... Well, here's the thing, whoever you are. We want to trust you. If you've asked anybody on this planet, you'll know we're not the bad guys. But you have to give us something. You're on our planet. One of our citizens has been killed. Your ship looks as if it's about to explode. You can't expect us to allow you to just make your repairs and fly out of here as if nothing happened."
"If Rodrick told you everything, then you know that I literally put my neck on the chopping block between you and the Imperium. I think that more than suffices."
"His story was somewhat incoherent, but you're saying it's completely true, then? You were hired by the Imperium to find information on Dagganoth and had a falling out with them?"
"Let's not talk here. Too many things I can't say. I take it your master will want to talk to me?"
"I wouldn't call him my 'master', but yes. As you'll know though, he's a Cerebrate. I'm talking on his behalf. He is viewing this scene right now. Where would you like to go?"
With that, David nodded at Adam as he turned around and walked into the Gambit. Adam appeared to stare into thin air for a few seconds before nodding at Jack, both of them following David inside. As they entered the ship, David lead them to the apparently empty bridge. After several seconds of silence, Adam broke it.
"Alright, so talk. What happened?"
David told the story. "Approximately two months ago, I took protoss refugees seeking passage to Sindiris. A Khalos among them, who I understand was outfitted with..."
"...I didn't agree with their methods, and so they had to be stopped. And so far, you've been painfully friendly, so I think I made the right choice."
In the silence after David's story, Jack and Adam looked at eachother again. Suddenly, David saw the infested parts of armor on Jack's arms and torso shrink rapidly until nothing but small objects were left, looking a bit like gauntlets. David noted that Jack's gun had disappeared along with the infested armor. As Jack neatly tucked the gauntlet-like object away into his belt, Adam spoke again.
"In that case, you have our trust, and our thanks. We'd like to repay the debt. Do you need help with your repairs? We have an engineer on board our ship who could probably help you out. I also heard that one of your crew was wounded? We may have a solution to that, too..."
"We can take care of our own, but if you want to lend your aid, I won't stop you."
"Can you take us to him?"
-Fifteen minutes later, the group walked into the medical bay of the Gambit as a tall, handsome man with short red hair and an iron earring walked into the loading bay, two volunteers standing behind him. He took a slow look around the ship and the damage that had been caused. This was going to be a bit of work.
A short, red-haired girl flipped up the visor of her face-shield and looked down at the trio of newcomers from where she hung from the ceiling. She quickly repelled down the side as the leader of the trio continued looking around. She detached herself and slowly walked over to him, until she stood beside him, looking around with him.
"You ever worked on one of these?"
“Back in the early days,” the man replied. “They don't make 'em like this anymore. A Mark VI, am I right?"
"Indeed. One of the best series out there. The extra stabilizers, and dual-rotating engines make for a smooth ride,” she said probingly.
“If you have a skilled pilot,” he shot back immediately. ”But the real kicker that makes these shitcans worthwhile is the alternating engine coils. For such a small thing, these guys sure do pack a massive punch. Speed-wise, that is. And with that skilled pilot, ain't nothing touching you once you're off the ground.”
“You really do know your stuff. You've used one of these then, I assume?”
"Indeed I have, miss. I've been working on ships longer than you've been alive, I reckon. Name's Barclay O'Scott, but most call me Barc. I'm an engineer. It's been a while since I got to practice my profession, but Dagganoth sent me to help. These two numbnuts here are Donnal 'n Daigo. Mostly for the heavy-lifting.” he added with a grin.
“Well then they can start with...”
-As the group in the cargo bay set off to work, a floor up Jack approached Leo's bed. David had introduced him and Adam to a Dr. Rark, who had informed him that the bullets had been taken out of Leo's body, but that he was going to need time to recover fully. Jack looked from Rark to David.
"I may have a way to speed his recovery up. Please trust me on this."
Jack took one of the gauntlets from his belt and took it in his left arm. As soon as he gripped the handle the object seemed to grow around his hand and all the way up to his torso, the front end shaping back into the gun barrel David had seen before. As Rark and David looked at Jack cautiosly, he aimed his arm at the ceiling.
"Here goes nothing!"
One second later a green blur came out of Jack's gun. David followed it with his eyes as it bounced off the ceiling, seemed to catch itself on the edge of Leo's bed and used Jack's knee to jump onto Leo's leg. Only once it had stopped moving could David see that the green ball was actually some kind of Zerg-like creature, sporting a round mouth and several tentacle-like arms. He shifted uncomfortably...
"Leo won't like this."
Adam leaned over and whispered to him;
"Don't worry. Your Leo seems very similar to our Jack. It's almost adorable how he handles them by now..."
"Jack's family wasn't killed by the Zerg", David replied. Adam immediately shut up and shifted back, holding his tongue.
On the bed, the Terling was slowly creeping its way up to Leo's gunwounds, treading with such light footsteps that the unconscious Leo didn't even seem to notice it. As soon as it reached the three wounds, it quietly spittled drops of seemingly acidic saliva into them. The wounds quickly begun to sizzle and close up as they turned into extremely pale white human flesh. After finishing up, the Terling jumped back onto Jack's shoulder.
Dr. Rark spoke for the first time since Jack launched his Terling. "Fascinating."
"They have their uses", Jack replied. "Not saying he'll be up and running within the hour, but it should shave a week or so of his natural healing time."
"I must say," Jonathan went on. "That is utterly fascinating... May I... see one? ... Have a sample maybe?"
"Sure, you can keep it.", Jack replied, holding up his hand. The Terling on his shoulder used Jack's hand to jump across the room, swing off a lamp and land on Jonathan's shoulder."
"Amazing..."
This time, Adam replied. "Study it all you want. Keep in mind though - the Terling is a new specimen of Zerg, even if not a very complicated one. Dagganoth essentially controls them. If you get too far away from him, Dagganoth will lose control. There's no saying what will happen to it. It will most likely go dormant or feral, or simply disintegrate. Unless another psionic were to take control of it, anyway."
"Very well. Thank you for the head's up", Rark said.
Jack nodded politely at Rark and David as Adam again stuck out his hand at David. "Now, will you shake it?", he asked cheerfully.
SoA
-Murkag enters the Davir system and Dagganoth notices Aria's forces. He has a small talk with Aria and finds out she's here to back up him or his assets. He keeps this information to himself for now.
-Adam and Jack approach David and talk with him. David shares his story as things turn friendly between both sides. Jack uses his Terlings to repair some of the damage done to Leo, spending 3 of the 6 points required to 'heal' him back up to full stats.
-At the same time, engineer Barclay and two twin volunteers (Donnal and Daigo) meet up with Haley in the docking bay in order to offer their services in repairing the Gambit back to full.
Rii, Ihan System
Yatara sat uncomfortably in the seat of the terran-made vessel. She was surrounded by her lifeless companions, who were strapped to their seats in case the craft began to shake.
"Are you all right back there?" the Terran named Adam called from the transport's cockpit.
{The accommodation could use improvement. But I am fine.}, she answered. That was all they said during the short flight. She had already input the correct coordinates into the ship's computer and was sure the Terran could find his way regardless. The Wanderer's only settlement on the planet was hard to miss: it was all one huge building, with an enormous central tower and multiple smaller towers branching away from it. Yatara observed it from the transport's windows, with only faint recognition: like most other Wanderers, she had spent little time on the Tribes' planets.
"Do I land anywhere specific?" asked Adam.
{No. Just occupy the closest landing platform.}
"Roger."
A minute later, they landed and opened the ramp leading into the back of the ship.
{Please remain in the ship.}, Yatara said and then got up and exited the vessel. Outside she found herself face to face with a group of three protoss. She knelt before them and bowed her head.
{Yatara, of the Warplight. I request your assistance.} She gestured towards the insides of the ship where the other protoss were clearly visible. She looked up to see the head of the group, an old Nerazim, nod his head and gesture with his right hand. The two protoss behind him turned around and made for the nearest tower. Yatara rose.
{Nar'An, of Rii. Welcome, Yatara. Do inform. It has been many centuries since I last saw a foreign ship above our planet,} Nar'An turned around and made for the central tower, leaving Yatara with no choice but to follow.
{Await my return.}, she told Adam.
-The Protoss looked at Murkag with looks of confusion and awe as well as curiosity as the creature opened up its mouth and a group of Terrans stepped out. After Yatara had told Nar'An the whole story Dagganoth had landed his Behemoth in a nearby clearing. Adam had accompanied the two Wanderers as they led a group of Protoss there in order to use the site as a meeting and exchange ground. As his eyes darted across the field in front of him, Nar'An now also saw that the Terrans were carrying equipment that seemed very familiar to him. His suspicions were quickly confirmed as Adam turned to him.
"We lost a lot of your equipment in the earthquake, but here's what we managed to save."
{Thank you. Our equipment is valuable to us.}, Nar'An replied as he walked over to the Terrans carrying the equipment. He let his eyes slide over the items they were holding and took his time to observe all of it. After some time, one of the Terrans held out a small object to Nar'An but rather than taking it he looked at it carefully before turning back to Adam.
{What kind of payment do you seek?}
"Payment?", Adam raised his eyebrow. "It's your equipment."
{And you saved it. Along with many of our brethren.}
"But we only did what any decent person would have done... there was a distress call..."
Adam's words trailed off as Nar'An looked at him as if he were stupid.
{And that merits reward. Are you refusing our gratitude?}
"No, no! Definitely not... It's just... we're not exactly used to people wanting to repay us for doing services to them any self-respecting creature would have done anyway."
{No? It must be an unforgiving universe out there.}
"I guess it is... Well, if you insist..."
With that, Adam walked over to Nar'An and the group of Terrans as they started to make an inventory of all the equipment and research samples.
-A couple hours later, the deals had been struck and the stories shared. As Murkag was getting ready to take off to continue Garamar Brood's journey, Nar'An and his Wanderers stood opposing Adam, Jack, Yatara and Amar. Nar'An looked at the strange band.
{Thank you for all of your services... May the stars watch over you on your journey.}
As Adam opened his mouth to reply on Dagganoth's behalf, the Cerebrate let his voice be heard for the first time since the Brood had arrived on Rii and beat Adam to it.
{Wandererss... You are truly a unique speciess. Your curiosity seems unparalleled, and I hope your discoveriess may serve you well. Like the Terrans I've met before you, I would count you as friendss as well. I understand why Amar wants to stay with you.}
{Actually...}, Amar started. {I have decided to stay. While the Wanderers seem worth living amongst, I do not think I am going to have as big a chance at researching new phenomena anywhere as I would while traveling with you, Cerebrate.}
Nar'An now looked at Yatara, who seemed to be on the verge of saying something. Yatara directed her thoughts at all the participants of the meeting.
{I wish to stay as well... While I am extremely grateful for the time I have spent here, I do not feel I would belong on Rii. My destiny lies elsewhere.}
{Sso be it... I hope we can make you both feel like real members of our Brood...}, Dagganoth responded.
Yatara sneered quietly. She never said she wanted to be a member of this Brood. She kept the thought to herself as the group boarded Murkag and the creature took off. Nar'An and his crew silently watched it as it left orbit and flew into space.
SoA
-Murkag lands on Rii and Yatara informs Nar'An, the leader of this particular Wandering Tribe, of what happened.
-The Terrans and Amar meet up with a group of the Wanderers. The Terrans return the unconscious Protoss to the Wanderers along with the equipment they managed to save and most of the samples they took on the Jungle planet. In return, the Tribe shares supplies and technology with Garamar Brood worth 31 points (8 for the crystals, 8 for the Alien corpses, 3 for the equipment, 8 for the rescued scientists, 4 for the Hiver blood and spores).
-Yatara doesn't seem very happy with Dagganoth for some reason...
-Murkag leaves Rii again after the visit and sets a course back to Domus. 10 IC's/Days until arrival. 1 IC/Day until Murkag leaves the Var'Shiri nebula and communications start working again.
Aboard Murkag, somewhere in between Ihan and the red system right of it
The past few days had been... active. To an extend, they had even been demanding on Dagganoth's mind. The events with the aliens and the Protoss had worn on the Cerebrate. Would he have been able to save that one Protoss? Or perhaps even the planet? The creature kept replaying the scenes looking for understand what had happened, and had only been interrupted from this activity by the Overmind's message. Which didn't help to set his mind at ease. He wasn't sure if the Overmind approved of his methods, and to which extend. Would he be required to turn on his current allies? There was one positive note to all of this; the Overmind couldn't argue with his results.
As he was musing, he suddenly noticed Bob Gentry calling for him - the scientist had done so on several occasions to request the Cerebrate's help with all his research. As Dagganoth shifted his attention he became fully aware of Bob and Yatara standing inside the laboratory.
"Dagganoth... we've uncovered something interesting. Remember that projective cortex mutation we used on the planet? We think we've cracked the code."
{In what way?}, the Cerebrate asked. Yatara responded:
{We've figured out the exact psionic frequencies the aliens used to broadcast their projections from. If you tell your creatures to use the same frequencies they will be able to perform the same kind of mind control the aliens did; on Protoss.}
"Yeah... and using them as a baseform I'm able to extract the needed frequency for nearly every basic lifeform we know, including other Zerg and Terran."
Dagganoth remained silent for just a second before replying.
{Are you ssaying I will be able to use the earlier mutation to make my Brood invissible to virtually anything?}
"Well, there's a catch. The aliens seemed to tie this function in with their photosynthetic way of sustainability, somehow. Constant broadcasting would cost tons of energy. Unless you can make your Brood photosynthize they'd only be able to keep the stealth up for a few seconds before the energy cost would become too great... They'd need to rest the Cortex afterwards."
{That's not all...}, Yatara added in, {detectors would be able to see your Brood as well. They'd know the position of your Brood and the effect is instantly lost if the brain realizes the existence of the broadcasting unit.}
{Though that is sstill a short stealth every so long... Interesting. My thankss go out to you two. I will set to mutating the rest of my Brood. Before I leave: Yatara, how are your companions doing?}
{The same as before we took off... I had a better chance at examing them after my rest, and it seems they are partially brain damaged. The damage may or may not be reparable, but I would need access to more sophisticated Protoss technology to say anything worthwhile. But I guess we'll leave you to your musings. Thank you for the present.}
{Pressent?}, a confused Dagganoth exclaimed - seemingly missing Yatara's hint regarding his musings.
{The leftover spores and Hiver blood your Zerglings... 'dropped off' at the laboratory earlier. We might be able to learn more from those.}
Dagganoth had already forgotten he had send his brothers.
{Don't mention it... ? Is that what you say?}
Bob laughed as he replied. "Yup, that's it".
-As Dagganoth turned his attention back to the thought processes spinning through his mind, he only vaguely noted Jack entering the laboratory.
"You asked for me, doc?", the broad-shouldered man said.
"Ah, Jack, yes. I meant to show you this earlier, but the situation with those aliens managed to get in the way."
With that, Bob threw a metallic pad with a handle sticking out above it at Jack, who stared at it in a confused manner.
"I would've thought you had gotten used to this by now", Bob said. "Step in it."
As Jack set his foot on the plate and wedged it underneath the handle, he realized what it was. Tendrils immediately shot out from the apparently small object and wrapped around his leg, all the way up to his waist. The Terran grabbed a small metal glove-looking object from his belt and grabbed the handle as it too grew around his arm, shoulder and Torso. One half of his body was now covered in Biosteel.
"I've managed to finish up another fairly crucial part of your armor. At this point all I need to finish up is your torso or headpiece before the suit is completed. The right arm and leg should be relatively easy - I can pretty much copy the designs from your left side. I've been waiting for Dagganoth to supply me with more material for that, though."
Jack grinned widely at Bob, turned around and left the laboratory. These proceedings confused Yatara.
{Why did he not reply to you?}
"He's not a man of words, Yatara... He's going to show this to our crewmates".
Bob gave Yatara the same grin Jack had given him and set back to work.
SoA
-The Protoss inside Murkag appear to be braindead. This condition is reversable but requires more Protoss technology.
-The Zerglings from the expedition had some leftover spores and Hiver blood under their claws. The quantity is low, but Bob and Yatara are studying these substances.
-Dagganoth spends 14 points on mutating his entire Brood with projective cortexes. This grants all his units the following upgrade:
Projective Cortex: Activate to grant the unit 5 seconds of invisibility that breaks upon attacking, using an ability or being attacked. 30 Seconds cooldown.
-Bob Gentry reveals a Biosteel leg to Jack. Jack's equipment is now half-finished for lore-purposes. As soon as I get access to more points I'll finish up the entire suit and make him a proper 'playable' hero.
-Murkag is still traveling to Ihan. 2 IC's or 3 days travel time left.
Unnamed Planet in System below Meron
If protoss could sigh, Yatara would have. Instead, she rubbed her eyes and shook her head from side to side. She was exhausted. She hadn't rested at all since waking up, instead doing everything she could to learn about the aliens they were dealing with. With the help of the terrans and the zerg, she collected and analyzed dozens of corpses, sequenced the genomes of all the aliens they could get their hands on and managed to construct accurate simulations of how the aliens worked. What she found was surprising.
{They photosynthesize. Just like us, protoss. Almost identically, in fact.} she told Dagganoth, Amar and the terrans as they met in one of the tower's observation rooms. {I am sure you all realized this through your own observations. But you do not understand just how similar their ability to photosynthesize is to ours. Large parts of their genome are extraordinarily similar to ours. It is almost as if we are related species.}
This seemed to bother Amar but he kept his quiet.
"So... they're like protoss animals?" asked Jack. Yatara laughed.
{No more than they are terran animals. Well, perhaps a bit more. They are similar to us but still vastly different. They also make less sense,} she answered.
Bob and Adam raised their eyebrows at this.
{They have mouths, but no stomachs, unlike you terrans. They photosynthesize and yet they have claws and mouths: tools to hunt and eat with. On top of that, they are psionic. This makes no sense. They photosynthesize, they don't need mouths to kill for food and yet they have them. And why have a mouth without a stomach? For defensive purposes? What are they defending themselves against? Themselves? Because we have not seen them attacking each other. From an evolutionary perspective, and you terrans should be better acquainted with this than I am, the creatures make no sense. I cannot even find any discernible sexual organs. It is almost as if...}
"Someone interfered in their evolution?" Bob finished off the sentence for her. She nodded.
"But who would do that? And why? Are you sure you're the first protoss to find this place? You haven't found any signs of zerg, right?" asked Adam. Yatara shook her head and walked to the window of the room, where she remained silent for a full minute, staring into the night that had fallen while they were working.
{Are you alright?}, Amar asked out loud.
{Something is not right. The plants usually glow at night. They should be glowing right now,} she answered.
At this point the Terrans turned their heads and realized indeed that the surrounding jungle had gone eerily dark. There wasn't a sound to be heard through the in-built speakers either - during the daytime the occasional rustling and cries could be heard from the jungle. With a few quick bursts of thought the Zerglings who had been sitting around the complex spurred into action as Mutalisks and Overseers flew in every direction. Ten minutes later Dagganoth adressed his crew.
{Something is indeed off. There are no more alienss in the jungle. There are some pits that seem to lead into tunnels, however.}
"Sounds like the aliens have moved underground, then", Bob suggested.
"If that's true, we've got a unique opportunity here... If we can blow up those tunnel entrances...", Jack interjected.
Yatara glared at him and seemed about to say something as Bob replied for her.
"We're not all cold-blooded killers, Jack. The reason we are all here right now is because of the desire to study the environment and its creatures."
"Hold yer horses friend, I'm not suggesting we bury the lot. However, if we fill in a couple of those cave entrances we can make sure they won't overrun this base again so easily. Besides, do we even have explosives?"
{We have loads as part of our tunneling equipment}, Yatara interjected, seemingly more content with Jack's new plan.
{Perhapsss...}, Dagganoth continued. {Though we should also see if we can find the missing expedition. There are four nearby pitss... set up explosives on all of them. I will send Zerglings through one of the entrances. Take some equipment and Swarm Hosts - we will set up outside of it.}
{If that is so, I have a suggestion for you, Cerebrate, though I do not know if you will be able to act on it,} said Yatara. {It has to do with the aliens' ability to detect us. I believe I have found a way to counteract this.}
As everyone but Yatara and the Avatar took off to get to their jobs, Dagganoth quickly went over the details. Now that Yatara had managed to figure out how the aliens were stealthing themselves, Dagganoth was able to use some of the aliens' DNA to mutate a new type of 'projection cortex' into the brains of his Brood that allowed them to counter the effects of the alien's stealth and even make them backfire, allowing the Zerg to stealth themselves from the aliens. It would lateron perhaps lend itself to even more breakthroughs, but was for now good enough to allow Dagganoth's Brood to deal with the aliens in a safer way.
-About half an hour later the preparations had been made. Jack, Adam and Yatara had worked quickly to set up explosives at all the tunnel entrances near the base, and the entire crew was now collected outside the most eastern one. A makeshift workbench with basic equipment had been set up for Yatara and Bob to analyze anything interesting the Zerglings could find, Several Swarm Hosts were dug in around the pit to fill it with Locusts at a moment's notice and a group of Zerglings outfitted with newly mutated projective cortexes stood ready inside the pit to make their way into the tunnel entrance. Inside Murkag, Sarah and a biologist friend of her stood ready in the Behemoth's laboratory to perform deeper analyses of any data the surface sent through.
Yatara jumped a bit as without warning, the Zerglings ran fast but quietly into the tunnel. While the outside crew waited, Dagganoth looked through their eyes. It was a good thing his Zerglings were so fast - only a couple of meters past the entrance the tunnel immediately split into three and without hesitating the Zerglings split up to uncover every single inch of the place. After several more forks on each path several Zerglings begun to backtrack as they came upon dead ends. The tunnels only had one thing in common: all of them led downwards, deeper into the planet's crust. Because Dagganoth was controlling each of his Zerglings personally, they worked in unison as they darted through the system like ants, mapping it out within the cerebrate's brain.
It wasn't long before one pair of Zerglings stumbled upon something interesting; a green, faintly glowing crystal in one of the deeper tunnels. Since minerals were bound to be found in any deep underground environment, Dagganoth didn't give the crystal much thought until another pair of Zerglings ran into three of them in their own tunnel. And a third pair ran around a corner to discover at least eight of them lodged firmly into the tunnel's walls. With another quick burst of thought he opened up the eyes of the Zerglings to Amar and Yatara. Even if Amar felt a but queasy going through this psionic procedure a second time, Yatara lost her balance and had to steady herself on the research table to cope with the sudden flash of feelings and sensations she experienced. Dagganoth spoke.
{These crystals seem to increase in number as my brotherss go further down. What do you think?}
{I am unsure}, Amar admitted.
{We would need some proper analysis to say anything worthwhile.}, an eager Yatara said. {Can you get us a sample?}
Within minutes the Zergling pair had managed to dig out a firm chunk of crystal and just as they started their journey back to the planet's surface Dagganoth noticed something else interesting through the ears of another pair of Zerglings. There were vibrations in some of the deeper tunnels. He was unsure what these vibrations meant, but they were definitely there. As multiple Zerglings continued their journey, several more of them began to feel the tremors. Dagganoth had a hunch. As the piece of crystal arrived at the surface and Bob, Yatara and Amar started looking at it, Dagganoth adressed Adam and Jack.
{The upper tunnel levelss seem clear. Get in there and take some measuring equipment. And more explosives. Follow my Zerglings. I have a suspicion...}
With that the two followed in the Zerglings just as another pair made yet another big discovery: they had stumbled upon a large room filled with more green crystals in the walls. Several larger crystals ranging up to five meters in size were littered throughout the room. More importantly though, the entire room was filled with what seemed to be hibernating aliens. Dagganoth again passed on the sight to Amar and Yatara, who nearly fell over from the sensation they felt halfway through a close microscope examination of the piece of crystal they had found.
{Could you at least TELL US if you're going to do that?!}, Yatara now angrily lashed out at Dagganoth.
{I apologize. I did not realize it caused you ssuch discomfort. I did not wish to infringe...}
For a fraction of a second, Yatara felt real sympathy for the creature she was conversing with. What a strange life a Cerebrate must have; having emotions but being unable to understand them properly in others and constantly sharing all your sensations with hundreds of other creatures. She was however immediately distracted from her sympathy as she looked around the room with the aliens. They normally photosynthesized... could it be that they used these green crystals for this purpose while underground? She couldn't properly do her science up here. How much she would give in order to be in that cave.
{Again, I apologize. I will not let you put your livess in such danger until we know more about the aliens and thiss tunnel network.}
Some time later, Jack and Adam reached one of the trembling tunnels. As they quickly set up their measuring equipment, their readings seemed to confirm Dagganoth's suspicions: there were different tunnels running through the network with underground rivers inside of them. Jack and Adam didn't need Dagganoth's instructions to realize how much of a life saver this might be in the future. They quickly set up explosives in several of the nearby tunnels, ensuring the walls between the walkable tunnels and the rivers would be opened up if they'd explode and the tunnels would be flooded. Adam assigned the explosives to a secondary detonator (Jack holding the first in his pocket) as the two started making their way back outside.
At the same time, Yatara, Dagganoth and the Zerglings had finished up scouting the bigger room only to find that there were more downwards tunnels leading from it. As the pair entered these tunnels different pairs were finding similar larger rooms filled with aliens in all different directions inside the complex. They ignored the aliens for the time being and continued their ant-like scurry downwards.
As the Zerglings went further into the seemingly gigantic complex the trembling became more and more noticeable until it was accompanied by the unmistakenable sound of running water. This sound additionally increased up to a nearly ear-deafening level of volume up to a certain point, where the tunnels started making a series of bends and the sound seemed to completely fall off. Without warning the Zerglings ran around their corner and came to a halt as they suddenly observed an astonishing sight.
{You need to see thiss...}, Dagganoth immediately said to both the Protoss as the Terrans in his crew. He then opened up their minds to the Zerglings; something which was harder to do with the non-psionic Terrans but nevertheless still possible.
Laid out before them was a cave so big it dwarved the earlier 'large caves' with their five meter high crystals. This cave was at least hundred meters high and the Zerglings couldn't make out the top, where an enormous number of the flying aliens seemed to be asleep, hanging from stalagmites like bats. In the middle of the cave was an enormous crystal of at least eighty meters in height. Though it was also glowing and green, it seemed somewhat different from its smaller counterparts in that it had a more metallic look. The zergling's limited vision could just about make out tendrils and vines coiled around the very top of the crystal. On the floor in front of the Zerglings were literally hundreds if not thousands of aliens, all apparently hibernating.
No one spoke a word as more Zerglings arrived at the scene from several entrances. With some bursts of thought, Dagganoth sent a few of the Zerglings that had been carrying leftover explosives back where they came from in order to create a second safeguard zone. As Dagganoth's plan dawned on Yatara, she protested.
{You can't possibly mean to-}, she started.
{Not if it can be helped, no. But this may be our only chance at finding your exsspedition. We need to be as prepared as possible. If these alienss were to wake up they-}
{Alright, alright... just... give them a chance}, Yatara returned the favor.
The Zerglings that went back dumped their explosives as close to the walls as they could get them as the frontmost group set to exploring the giant cave, carefully and agilely avoiding the heaps of aliens they were passing through. Though there were still no signs of the Protoss expedition, there appeared to be several pools of water on the floor, seemingly so deep that the Zerglings couldn't immediately see the bottom. After carefully looking across the cave some more and finding nothing else of interest, Dagganoth jumped one of his zerglings into the pool.
After a good thirty meters of swimming, the Zergling reached the 'bottom' of the pit, which looked surprisingly strange - the last two meters of water in the pool behaved just like the water above, but wasn't surrounded with a wall: the water seemed to be suspended in the air, defying the laws of physics. As the Zergling jumped out of the apparently still stream and Dagganoth ordered the rest of them down, he surveyed the room before him. There were several relatively high (five meters) floating glowing pillars that appeared to softly hum as they bobbed up and down in mid-air. An odd thirty or so aliens of the type that Dagganoth had dubbed 'Hiver' were positioned on a platform in what appeared to be the very center of the room: these armadillo's resembled Zerg Infestors in their look but sported glowing spores all over their bodies and had tendrils sticking out of the back of their heads. The most interesting fact about these aliens was that they hadn't shown any fighting capabilities when encountered in the outside jungle. None had been captured or killed either: they no information whatsoever on the creatures. All the way in the back of the room was a plateau housing several humanoid forms.
As the Zergling ran closer Yatara let out a mental cry and immediately cursed at herself herself, thinking she may have awoken the Hivers in the room. She seemed to have completely forgotten that she was looking through a Zerglings' eyes. Nobody outside the pit really registered the cry as they noticed the nineteen seemingly lifeless, spore-covered bodies of the Protoss expedition standing straight up on the platform, dumbly staring into open space.
Dagganoth wasted no time as he quickly but quietly sent his Zerglings over to them and began nudging and poking them. When neither the Protoss nor the Hivers responded, two Zerglings quickly scratched the spores off one of the Protoss, who then immediately collapsed and fell to the ground. Dagganoth froze his Zerglings as he waited for a reaction from the Hivers. Nothing.
{Those spores are the same as located on the Hivers. They may be using some sort of psionic mind control on my team...}, Yatara said.
{Then we have only one option if we want to get your team out of there...}, Amar concluded.
Dagganoth made some careful considerations and decided that the time for action had finally come.
Yatara let out the mental equivalent of a sigh as Dagganoth's Zerglings got into positions next to the hibernating Hivers and the rest of the crew braced itself. When all Zerglings were ready there was one second of absolute silence before they all sprung in action and jumped at the Hivers. Some of them fell instantly to the Zerglings' sharp claws while others got up and wasted no time trying to scurry away. Desperately they threw additional spores at the Protoss but within a minute's time they were seemingly all dead.
Everyone looked at the Protoss who seemed to be completely unphased by what had just transpired. Just as Dagganoth started considering his other options and set the Zerglings to claw the spores of the remainder of the crew a light rumbling started that grew to a deafening noise in less than two seconds. Cries, tremors and movement could be heard all the way at the surface as the planet seemed to tremble. The aliens had awoken. As the eyes of the Terrans of the surface widened as they looked at eachother Dagganoth make a quick decision. Jack hesitated for a split second before pushing the button on his third detonator.
The Zerglings in the cave were nearly blown away by the noise. A series of loud explosions was followed by the rushing of water and hundreds of screams and cries. This scene dragged out for a couple of minutes when relative silence came back into the cave system. As the Zerglings got to work in dragging the unconscious Protoss into the still waterfalls they noticed the floating pillars had begun to glow and move more rapidly, almost as if they were under extreme stress. Dagganoth wasted no time in ordering his Zerglings to swim up the watery tunnel they had entered through, dragging the Protoss along with them one by one as they went.
As soon as they returned to the big cave it became obvious that it has flooded. The bodies of dead aliens were everywhere as there was a huge pool of at least five meters of water surrounding the giant crystal. A Zergling surfaced with a Protoss next to him as a wave of the flying aliens swooped down and cut the poor scientist's throat. Dagganoth immediately sent out a burst of new orders to his Zerglings who stopped trying to surface and frantically dragged, pulled and pushed the Protoss towards the nearest open entrance. As they reached dry and safe land in one of the tunnels they dragged the Protoss up on the land and immediately set to work in dragging them up the tunnel on their way to the surface.
As time seemed off the essence and the Zerglings efficiently made their way to the surface, several other things were going on. Fliers had appeared on the surface out of seemingly nowhere and Mutalisks engaged them at will. This time they had the advantage of being able to pick them off one by one however, and they seemed to be pretty much blind under the cover of darkness. As the earth roared and shook, the Terrans and Protoss packed up their equipment and started running their way back to the Protoss science base. Swarm Hosts dug out of the ground and followed them.
"Guess this must be what armageddon feels like", Jack shouted at Adam.
As the earth started to shake more and more violently the Zerglings finally emerged from one of the pits that luckily appeared to be close to the encampment, still dragging the Protoss survivors with them. Thirty meters further they met up with the running crew who quickly grabbed some of the still unconscious survivors and struggled their way to the encampment as Mutalisks were still providing air cover. Upon arriving at the camp the group immediately jumped into the Terran transport ship as Jack jumped into the cockpit. He released the handle of his Biosteel arm and it immediately degraded to its usual gauntlet-sized shape, which fell neatly next to his chair. As he looked around he saw several trees fall over in the background and shouted for everyone to hurry up.
With the Protoss survivors and most of the equipment inside, the Swarm Hosts roughly wandered into the aircraft, roughly bumping people and equipment alike to the side. Though it did not appear to fit, the remaining fifteen Zerglings ran at the aircraft and jumped at it, curling up into little balls to take up as little space as possible.
As Yatara recited a mental prayer Jack hit a couple of buttons in the cockpit and the aircraft slowly managed to life off. Being squashed against the window with his head, Bob saw the Protoss research tower crumble as the ship finally took off and went airborne. Five minutes later as the ship accompanied by the Mutalisk fleet had reached a comfortable attitude, the crew saw the entire jungle collapse inward on the planet in one huge explosion of dust and sound. Adam let out the sigh Yatara hadn't been able to earlier as in the distance a spot that appeared to be Murkag started growing.
-An hour later everyone in the crew lay down on their beds as the damage salvaging begun by the ever efficient Zerg forces. Dagganoth had asked Yatara for help and he had told her to set a course for the planet of Rii in the Ihan system, which was known to hold the presence of one of the wandering tribes. Murkag silently took off in its direction as Adam closed his eyes: finally, he could rest.
SoA
-Yatara confirms her theory; the aliens' stealth is based on manipulating the minds of the beholders rather than cloaking the aliens themselves. Following up on this knowledge, Dagganoth spends 10 points worth of DNA to develop a 'Projective Cortex' mutation for all his Zerg units that allows them to use the same technique to make themselves invisible to the aliens. Since he now knows what he is looking for, he is now also able to make the aliens visible by preventing their mind control on the creatures in his Brood.
-Night falls and the plants in the jungle stop glowing. Mutalisk and Zergling scouting parties find various pits in the jungle leading to an underground cave network. 15 Zerglings go in find glowing crystals along with several larging rooms with hibernating aliens inside them. They also discover a secondary cave network that seems to house running water and end up placing tunneling explosives near various of them. They eventually find one incredibly big room with a huge crystal, hundreds of aliens and several deep pools of water on the floor that can be travelled through. These passages leave the Zerglings in a room with the seemingly brain-dead Protoss and several 'Hiver'-type aliens.
-The Zerglings kill the Hivers and Adam pulls the trigger on some of the explosives, flooding the larger room and killing the aliens. The Zergling 'expedition' then proceeds to drag the 18 Protoss survivors up to the surface after which all ground forces board the Terran transport ship and fly off as the jungle seems to collapse inwards completely. The Brood escapes with 18 unconscious Protoss survivors, no permanent damage, some Alien corpses and DNA, some leftover Hiver spores and blood, some crystals from the cave and the most essential protoss science equipment.
-Inside Murkag, Yatara informs Dagganoth of a Wandering Tribes-inhabited planet called Rii in the Ihan system. Murkag subsequently sets out for this destination. 4 IC's/days until arrival.
Unnamed red system beneath Meron
Murkag went through the same proceedings as in the previous two systems, having now 'perfected the art'. This time however, none of the scans or psionic outcries seemed to yield any result and it wasn't long until the Behemoth descended into orbit of one particular planet. The planet was peculiar in that it seemed to be completely uninhabitable; most of the planet seemed to house either vast oceans or empty deserts. The reason it merely seemed uninhabitable was because there was a small jungle located at the north end of it. This seemed to be where the distress call was coming from, and Dagganoth could track it to some kind of compound built inside of the jungle. Fifteen minutes later a swarm of Mutalisks, Overseers and Vipers flew out towards the surface. Another ten minutes later, as they were reaching the jungle, Murkag shot out ten spore pods towards an area just outside of the compound.
As one of these spore pods hit the ground and exploded in a cloud of goo, it revealed three humanoid figures.
"This has to be the most uncomfortable way I've ever travelled", Jack said to Adam and Amar as he took off his small rebreather. He was probably right; Zerg spore pods were usually filled with a gooey liquid that Zerg creatures could distill oxygen out of. It had to be this gooey so the traveling organisms could survive the fall onto a planet without sustaining damage. The Terran-Protoss crew had shared their drop pod with seven Zerglings and the experience was roughly similar to being underwater in a swimming pool. Except the water was gelatine, and there were Zerglings literally just floating around.
"Let's get moving", Adam said as the remainder of the spore pods landed and Zerglings grouped up around them. At the same time, shadows fell over the landscape as the fleet of Mutalisks, Overseers and Vipers got in range. As soon as the Overseers had vision, the Zerglings seemed to instantly change from their passive stance to a more aggressive stance, and a second later a number of them were in combat with what was seemingly some kind of invisible creature. Jack shot some bullets into the underbrush at the side of the clearing as Adam and Amar looked around, looking rather bewildered.
"Invisible creatures", Jack said. "They seem to be hostile."
The view through Jack's eyes was slightly different from what Adam and Amar saw; the parasite in his body was capable of receiving the Overseer's transmissions and transmitted them into his brain through his spinal cord. The jungle looked exactly the same to Jack, but there were a small number of strange cyan-greenish alien lifeforms around that could best be described as 'looking like a cross between a dog and a Zergling'. As the last of the strange band of small attacking creatures fell, the group started moving towards the compound.
They reached the complex not five minutes later, encountering several more of the aliens on the way. Though there hadn't exactly been a lot of dull moments, the group seemed perfectly fine in handling the aliens for now; they seemed more like aggressive wildlife than any kind of organized force. As the expedition reached the complex, Adam looked around. There were three buildings; one seemed to be the 'main' building and was shaped as a tower. The second mostly resembled what Adam knew as a Terran greenhouse, and the third didn't resemble anything Adam had ever seen before.
{It's a laboratory.}
Adam had almost forgotten why they had brought Amar along. All of the buildings seemed to have Protoss architecture, though Adam had had enough experiences with the Protoss to know that they looked different from the Imperium halls and buildings he had seen before. He also noticed a familiar sight to his right; a Protoss photon cannon. Adam wasn't sure yet whether it could be called luck that it looked inactive. As the Zerg airfleet took a defensive position around the base along with fourty of the Zerglings, Amar turned to his companions.
{Should we split up?}
"Too dangerous", Jack interjected. "We'll take a couple of Zerglings and go through the buildings together, one at a time".
With that, ten Zerglings split off from the main pack and looked at the three humanoids, expecting something - orders, by the looks of it. In the background, some more sounds of battle broke out as an additional alien seemed to have appeared from the jungle, attacking the Zerg forces. The search party quickly ran over to the greenhouse and stepped inside. They didn't need more than a minute between them and the Zerglings to sweep the building though, and figured there were no survivors or objects of value to be found. With that the party ran towards the laboratory and found that its door seemed to be shut and wouldn't open without power.
"Stand aside", Jack said as he raised his biosteel arm and pointed his built-in weapon at the door.
{Wait.}, Amar interjected. {We should try the main building first. We might be able to get the power on and won't need to blow up the building to look inside}.
"Fair enough", Jack replied, and the group made their way to the main building.
As they entered it through its main door (which was apparently left open), Jack took one last look behind him. He wasn't sure if he imagined it, but the alien attacks seemed to be growing stronger. Not only were the small hound creatures appearing more often now, but he also caught a glimpse of what seemed to be some kind of larger animal with fins or spikes, approximately the size of an elephant, trampling down on a number of Zerglings as five Mutalisks broke off from the fleet to help them out.
Once inside the building, two paths presented themselves to the group. In the middle of a relatively big room there was a staircase leading up, and towards the back of the building a hallway seemed to lead to both an elevator and a staircase down.
"Where would I go if I were a survivor?", Adam pondered loudly.
"Down.", Jack answered. "Unless you've got air support, which doesn't seem something these guys had going for them, you're going to be trapped if you go up a building. I wouldn't be surprised if the stairway down leads to some sort of escape tunnel".
As the group walked into the hallway Amar put his hand on a pad next to the elevator - absolutely nothing happened.
{I could've known. No power, no elevator. Looks like we'll have to actually walk down these stairs... how primitive.}
Adam and Jack threw eachother looks that revealed amusement as well as confusion and slight annoyance as they followed down a number of Zerglings down the staircase, somewhat dampening the sounds of what seemed to now be almost constant battle outside.
As Jack turned on his military grade flashlight the underground hallway lit up. There were a number of doors, some of them open, leading to what seemed to be simple storage rooms, but there were also two more interesting rooms: one was a lot larger and seemed to house some kind of huge Protoss power crystal while the other had seemingly served some kind of mining purpose; a tunnel was dug out along the side of one of it's walls.
"Hah, an escape tunnel!", Jack exclaimed. "Amar, am I right in thinking that crystal is some kind of generator? Can you see if you can get the power on while we see where this tunnel leads?".
Amar was already in the room by the time Jack was halfway through his question, and he immediately begun what looked like feeling the various edges of the generator and the panels on the wall surrounding it. As Amar was working in the power room, Jack and Adam stood in the hallway and looked at the tunnel. As Jack lifted his flashlight, he could see an immediate dead end after roughly ten meters. No escape route.
{I cannot fix this power cell. I understand the basic infastructure of the system but the technology is just too different... it would take me hours.}
The three exchanged looks. Adam reacted first. "Up the stairs, then".
As the group arrived once more at the ground level, the sounds of battle outside seemed to have intensified. A loud splash was heard as Adam looked up and saw a half-dead Mutalisk had crashed into one of the windows above. Shrieks of organisms that were definitely not Zerg could also be heard outside, and Adam could swear the ground had begun trembling.
"We better hurry this up, or we're not leaving...", Jack said.
With those words, the crew followed three of the Zerglings up the main staircase and quickly ended up in another hallway. The Zerglings wasted no time scouring every room, but most of them seemed to either be observation rooms with a lookout or simple laboratories or storage rooms. One door seemed to be welded shut. Suddenly, the group heard a cry followed by a loud thump and another splash; another dead Mutalisk was slowly gliding down one of the diagonal windows in one of the observation rooms. Jack aimed his weapon at the welded door. This time there was no objection by Amar; he too wanted to finish this up.
...
Yatara woke up to a loud bang. She was lying on the floor with her makeshift weapon in her hand. As she looked up she saw a a humanoid alien with what seemed to be a grossly mutated arm, surrounded by creatures she recognized only from images; Zerg. She had never personally encountered them but knew vague stories about how they searched to assimilate all other races and killed or infested what they couldn't absorb. Instinctively, she raised her weapon and fired a couple of shots at what she guessed to be some kind of infested lifeform. It shielded itself with its arm and shrugged off the effect of the puny energy discharges. It then walked over to her with three big steps, grabbed her arm, turned her on her back, took her gun and threw it away. Just as Yatara thought that this was her end, a Protoss figure appeared above her.
{En Taro Tassadar. You are safe.}
{What? But... the Zerg... ?}
{They are allies. But there is no time. We need to leave.}
This is the point where the situation dawned on Yatara. She had been hearing background noise since she woke up, but only now realized this was the sound of battle outside. In one quick motion she got up.
{Quick! The power!}
With that Yatara sprinted past the humanoid and its Zerglings, rushed down the ladder and quickly ran down to the power generator room under the building.
...
Dagganoth's crew followed her. As they got to the room, the ragged-looking undernourished Protoss survivor completely ignored her new companions and immediately started fiddling with some of the panels on the wall, which immediately started to light up and make all sorts of sounds. Adam, Jack and Amar were watching as Jack turned to Adam.
"I don't know what's up with her, but we're gonna need to leave. Can you hold her legs if I get her body?"
{So she interacts through... Yes! Of course!}
Adam and Jack looked confused as Amar sprung to action and joined the survivor in going around the room and interacting with the panels. One second later a terrible thump shook the building - something big seemed to have happened topside.
"Amar, DAMN IT, we need to go, NOW!", Jack yelled.
Just as Jack walked up to Amar and grabbed a hold of his shoulder, the Protoss crystal seemed to spring to life. With a quiet humm it lit up completely and sent sparks through what appeared to be some kind of wiring that had previously been invisible. As the underground level of the building lit up due to a multitude of lamps suddenly activating, Murkag could see a small blue sphere encompass the complex from his orbital position. At the same time the Zerg forces who had been fighting a losing battle against waves of the aliens saw that the aliens seemed to lose all interest and returned to wander around aimlessly.
Inside the power room, the Protoss survivor collapsed as she lost consciousness again.
SoA
-Garamar brood arrives at the origin of the distress call and finds a planet that is mostly uninhabitable, save for one area of jungle.
-A taskforce of 30 Mutalisks, 10 Overseers, 50 Zerglings, 4 Vipers, Adam, Jack and Amar goes down to the planet to explore the area. It turns out an unknown race of aliens has overrun a Protoss research base and in the struggles with this race Dagganoth loses 8 Mutalisks and 35 Zerglings.
-The taskforce eventually finds a female Protoss survivor who runs down to the base's power core and manages to activate it, creating a defensive sphere around the base and seemingly calming down the aliens who then halt their attacks. The survivor passes out after this happens.
Unnamed yellow system beneath Aris
Murkag again slowed down as he drifted into the unnamed system. As Garamar brood had followed its course the distress call had remained as clear as it was, though still not revealing any further information. While getting closer and closer to the apparent point of origin of the signal, Murkag slowed down even more as Dagganoth send out Overseers and carefully listened for any sort of psionic activity or life in general in the system. Though this constellation seemed just as empty as the previous one, something had happened to the Protoss in the call and Dagganoth was ready to react the second something happened.
Nothing happened, though. As Murkag glided closer and closer to the source, it became more apparent to Dagganoth that the source appeared to actually not be located on one of the planets in the system. In fact, it seemed to be located at a seemingly random point in space. After intently scanning the surroundings of the source, it became obvious that there were genuinely no lifeforms around anywhere in the system. As Murkag finally slowed to a halt, Dagganoth found himself looking at what appeared to be some kind of iron diamond with rods sticking out of it. As several Overseers flew in to provide a better look, Dagganoth managed to better identify the object: it was a seemingly metal version of a Protoss pylon with antennae sticking out, and the entire contraption was studded with crystals at various spots.
{Amar... What do you think?}
{I am not sure... it seems to be some sort of communications device, judging by the antennae. Can you give me a closer look?}
With that, two of Dagganoth's Overseers drew closer towards the object and floated next to it at face level distance. Amar got as great a detail as he was going to get and took a minute to study the diamond.
{This is some kind of communications relay. The material is definitely not Imperium nor Exiled Tribes. It might be Tama, but I don't think so. This could well be a construction made by those of the Wandering Tribes. It would make sense: we have now entered the Var'shiri nebula and most tribes have known for a long time that communications go haywire in here. This relay would be part of some kind of larger system they could use to communicate.}
{If it iss a relay, can we find the original ssourcce? The Protosss there will still need our assistancce...}
{That should be easy. There is a feed in it. Can you sense it? If we follow the relay's input rather than its output we should find either the origin of the source, or another relay.}
{Then our path sseems clear.}
SoA
-Murkag arrives at the yellow system beneath Aris and finds the 'source' of the distress call - Amar examines it through the eyes of Murkag and various Overseers.
-The 'source' appears to be a seemingly Wandering Tribes-made Protoss relay for communicating inside the Var'shiri nebula.
-Dagganoth decides to follow the input of the relay and thus sets course for the unnamed red system south of Meron. 3 IC's/days travel time until arrival.
Unnamed red system beneath Idum
Murkag slowed down as he drifted into the unnamed system. As the Garamar brood slowly drew closer to its centre, the vague distorted message Dagganoth had been picking up since a day or two ago rapidly became louder and less warped. He could sense it relatively distinctly now, and even though it still wasn't crystal clear it seemed that this was as good as it was going to get in this system. Dagganoth took some time to scan all the planets in the system for any form of life in order to prepare against any ambushes, but the system seemed as deserted as some of the gas giants and asteroid fields Murkag had passed on the way. The closer the brood came to the Var'Shiri nebula, the less organisms it had encountered. After a moment of consideration, he directed his psionic attention towards the one Protoss aboard the Zerg Behemoth.
{Amar...}
{Yes, Cerebrate?}
Amar had taken to name Dagganoth by his classification rather than his name: though he had adjusted to life aboard a Zerg 'vessel' fairly well, he still had small issues with things like seeing Zerg organisms as specific, detached, organic beings.
{The disturbancce... have you noticed?}
{I have. It seems... stressed. It is hard for me to pick up, but I have noticed the signal.}
{Perhaps we can combine our effortss. Wait.}
Before the Protoss really understood what was about to happen, it was upon him. Dagganoth had given him a temporary psionic link to the sensing network of the Garamar brood. While it was in a way frightening, what Amar saw was also beautiful. It felt like he was looking down at some kind of 3D battlefield simulation while having an out of body experience at the same time. He was perfectly aware of Murkag and the creature's surroundings. He saw every planet in the system as clearly as Dagganoth did, along with additional visions shared by several Overseers that had left Murkag to do some preliminary scouting. He saw the Terrans, working out in their gym, and Bob Gentry experimenting in his laboratory. He saw - no, he felt himself standing on Murkag's stomach.
But most of all, he heard the distorted message ten times as clear as he had before - even if it was still twisted. It seemed to be a short, chaotic audio file, repeating itself on a loop. It cut off at the end, not properly finishing, and had clearly been recorded and transmitted in a hurry.
{It is definitely some kind of distress call. It is completely broken up; all I can make out is the word 'Help'. The rest is background noise. I can't tell if it's a battle or interference.}
{Then we sshould go and help. I hope you do not mind that we are disstracted from finding the Wandering Tribess for a while longer, Amar...}
{That may not be the case. I cannot identify the signal, but it is definitely Protoss in origin. With some luck we'll find some kind of information on whoever set this signal up - if we get to them in time.}
With that, Dagganoth fell silent as Murkag made a sharp turn and started making its way in the direction the signal was coming from.
SoA
-Murkag arrives at the red system beneath Idum and as it goes in Dagganoth picks up some kind of distress signal more and more clearly.
-Dagganoth briefly links Amar to the sensory network of the Garamar hive, allowing him to receive the signal more clearly. It appears Protoss in origin, and Amar can translate the signal which appears to be some sort of broken up distress call with only the word 'Help' being even vaguely audible.
-In response to the signal, Murkag starts moving in the direction of where it's coming from, which is the unnamed yellow system south of Aris. 2 IC's/days travel time until arrival.
Domus, the asteroid city
"It's a deal then?", the average height brown haired man asked the short black-hooded man. The short man nodded. In the background an overly large blond-haired military man silently watched the conversation. The short man held out his arm and projected a small screen for the average sized man to see. The taller man nodded as the screen displayed a collection of changing numbers and gave the short man a small disk. As he inserted it into what seemed to be his wrist-mounted computer, he turned off its screen and faced the brown haired man.
"So, any other interesting things you've got for me?"
"I don't think so, unless you're interested in going after the Wandering Tribes. The big guy talked to Amar... apparently we're gonna look for them past the Davir system. Setting off again immediately. Work work."
Adam grinned while saying the last two works.
"Gonna pass. It's been a while since I annoyed Doom in person, I think I should catch up on that. If you still have my communications device you should be able to contact me anyway."
"True. Either way, you'll be seeing us around."
"I don't doubt it."
With that, Kenny took off. Adam looked at Jack as he looked back. The eyes of the two met as they turned and walked away in the other direction.
SoA
-Garamar Brood sells the Protoss Rotating Shield upgrade to Kenny for 30 points.
-Murkag arrives at Domus and immediately takes off again in the direction of the unnamed red system three hexes below Idum. 9 ICs/days until arrival.
Somewhere between the Protoss research station and Domus, aboard Murkag...
"Kenny, you got a minute?", Adam asked from halfway across the Terran common room.
"Sure. Maybe you can fill me in on what exactly happened, and who your new friend is."
The two headed off into Kenny's room. Even though the AI didn't need to sleep, he had been assigned a room with a bed as his own. It had a Terran computer terminal in it, allowing him easy access to the network. It took Adam about five minutes of non-stop talking to explain exactly what happened, when Kenny asked a question regarding the only thing relevant to him:
"So, this data... what is it, exactly. What did you gain from all this?"
"Apparently the tech describes some kind of 'rotating shield frequency' to strengthen the shields of Protoss ships... with some more work, it could allow them to travel through the Great Wave. That's all I know about it, Amar knows the details, but they're also in our database."
"What do you plan to do with this... 'upgrade?' "
"Well, it's of fairly little use to Murkag, so Dagganoth figured we'd best sell it."
Kenny's eyes flickered for a second.
"Good to hear. I've got you a buyer."
Adam looked confused. "This fast?"
"We've got someone who has been looking for tech like this for quite a while... they'd be sure to pay well for a speedy delivery"
"Very well", Adam replied. "Make it so, then. We'll discuss the details on Domus."
Meanwhile, in another bunk, Amar was sitting by himself on a bed. He did not fit in very well with these Terrans. Their research and habitat was interesting, but he knew this was not the end goal he had in mind.
{Then what is, my newfound Protoss companion?}
Amar felt somewhat delighted at such a swift response. He had anticipated the Cerebrate hearing his thoughts. He had wanted to discuss this.
{While your... Brood is extremely interesting and I've found some companionship in the one they call Bob, I think I prefer being with my people. I have thought about this for a long time now, and I want to join the Wandering Tribes.}
Dagganoth only answered after a couple seconds of silence.
{Very well. It seems you know clearly what you want. I can promise to drop you off among them as soon as is possible. However, this may be quite some time, as it is common knowledge that the Wandering Tribes are hard to be found and I may not have time for such a lengthy detour anytime soon. If you prefer, we can let you leave at Domus so you can conduct the search yourself.}
{That's alright. I can wait. I'm sure your Brood and you will keep my curiosities well satisfied. There is no hurry. Just know I do not intend to make my stay aboard your... companion-vessel permanent.}
{Very well - the choice is yours to make. I can assure you I will do my best to make your... 'stay' a pleasant one.}
With that, the psionic conversation ended. Amar laid down on his bed. Even though it felt strange and alien to him, he felt like getting some rest - recent events had tired him, as interesting as they had been.
SoA
-Adam informs Kenny what happened at the Protoss science station.
-Kenny says he's got a buyer for the Protoss shield tech; details are to be settled upon arrival at Domus.
-Amar informs Dagganoth he does not plan on staying aboard Murkag and intends to join the Wandering Tribes as soon as the situation allows it.