THE INFINITE BROOD (Starcraft/Supreme Commander Crossover Quest!)

"...in Abathur's room," you said, smirking.

"Oh this better be fun," Sarah said, her voice dry.

The thing that always got you about Abathur was he was huge. It was easy to forget when you thought of him as his role - a genetic tinkerer who managed the various strands of the Swarm, and when you saw him at a distant remove. Then you got close and remembered he was almost twelve feet tall and covered in glistening muscle. His hands steepoled before himself as he peered at you. "HILT. ACCEPTABLE IN CURRENT PARAMETERS. STILL FIND ARMORED STEEL COCOON...DISQUIETING."

"The ACU?" you asked - your original question forgotten for the moment.

"YES," Abathur said.

"Why?" you asked, smirking slightly.

"...UNSETTLING..." Abathur cocked his massive head. "STRANDS ADAPT. CHANGE. BECOME NEW WITH SUCCESSIVE GENERATIONS - THEY ARE CARRIED IN CELLS, PROVED BY ORGANISMS. BUT THE...AH-CEE-UH...IT CONTAINS METAL STRANDS. ADAPTIVE. CHANGE. HAVE GENERATIONS. BUT ARE NOT ALIVE. ARE NOT PART OF ESSENCE. ARE NOT PART OF PLAN. THEY DO NOT COFORM TO THE IDEALS OF FORM, TO THE IDEALS OF THE SWARM. A ZERGLING DOES NOT USE A ROCK. A HYDRALISK DOES NOT USE A FIRE ARM. AND YET, WE HAVE PICKED UP THIS...ROCK."

"Don't call Dostya's ACU a rock," you said, frowning. "That's top of the line Cybran engineering. They might have been my factions enemies for a thousand years - but you don't survive the Infinite War without top of the line tools."

To be fair, most of that time had been trying to tamp down insurgencies, not open warfare, you admitted mentally.

Abathur cocked his head. "INFINTE WAR. AND YET, IT ONLY LASTED A THOUSAND YEARS. TRIFLING."

"And yet it produced me," you said, smirking slightly. "And your Queen seems to think I'm hot shit."

Abathur regarded you. "CORRECT. POSSBILITIES...UNSETTLING."

You shrugged. "You're the one who is supposed to adapt. So adapt, already."

Abathur's regard grew more focused. His odd, croaking voice grew yet more thoughtful. "INTRIGUING. PERHAPS YOU ARE MORE THAN PASSING AMUSEMENT FOR QUEEN. MORE THAN CONSORT. ACTUAL UTILITY."

You frowned. "I thought I proved that already when I turned a rock into a floating nuclear missile platform."

"NUCLEAR WEAPONS IRRELEVENT."

"...have you ever been nuked, Abathur?"

"YES. MILD IRRITATION. EASILY IGNORED."

"How?"

"SPAWN MORE ZERGLINGS."

While the philosophical distinctions were fun, the disguise was more useful. Packing Cr's limbs down, shrinking and slimming his body and returning him to the Dune Runner that the Zerglings had started from wasn't as hard as you had expected. They were, apparently, tamable...not by Terrans, but there were enough outrim explorers and weirdoes who had stranger pets you were fairly sure you could explain him. The piece to wrap it all together was his hat: A metal plate that you screwed into his skull to the tune of an annoyed ow! and hurt look from him. Big baby. The metal plate could pass for cybernetics at a first glance - if anyone wondered how you had domesticated a xenocritter, you can be honest and say you stuck a big metal plate into his brain. Easy peasy.

You...

How does Sarah get used to this? You thought as you stepped from the cooling stealth drop pod. Looking down at pink skin, it felt...dislocating.

Because you didn't feel human. You were dressed in a simple bit of back country spacer's garb - leather jacket, denim jeans, boots, communicator, sidearm, everything an ACU could spit out in half a second. But under the skin, you still felt like chiten and bone and...and...you glanced around where you had landed. Moria, on the planetary surface, was a planet of browns and beiges, with dun coloured dunes and low mesas in each direction. The mining town you had picked as the first place to scope out was built half on the side and half on the top of the nearby mesa, with mining tunnels cut into wall that rose from the badlands. Even from a distance, you could see their mining vehicles at work, drilling into the rock, and the belching smoke of several refineries. A moon hung high in the night sky and wind blew around you.

Cr bumped his head against your hip and chirruped happily. We go there? The context was less intense since there wasn't an overlord nearby - but you could still feel him. It was...closer than you expected. It was like your mind had expanded and you were still not entirely sure what it meant.

"Come on," you said, then started to walk, then jog. Then you started to sprint. Your speed picked up faster than you expected.

A darting shadow in the night, you leaped from dune to dune, then came to a stop within a kilometer of the lower mesa. Your boots crunched and you skidded down the dune almost silently, sending up slithering spurts of dust and gravely pebbles. You weren't even panting. You checked your wrist-com and the speedometer built in flashed up an error signal - it wasn't designed to track humans running that fast. You tapped through the timeline and saw the exercise tracking ap (hey, it wasn't like space was limited on a wrist-comp) had tapped out at a hundred kilometers an hour.

You had run faster than a vehicle.

You weren't even panting.

Seriously, how the fuck does Sarah not go crazy being in disguise, you thought. You knew you were going to tell them the truth...once you found them. But still. You shook your head, focused, and scoped out the mining colony up close. There were elevators leading from the lower levels to the uppers, and the top of the mesa was where civilian buildings were located. You could see a cantina right near the edge, a holographic sign floating lazily overhead - flickering between the logo of a bulldog drinking a huge bottle of beer with a rancher's hat over his eyes and the Yee Paw title. Okay. That was kinda cute.

Cr chirruped and whistled. We can go in through the tunnels. Anyone we meet we can bi- He stopped himself. ...say...hello?

"Oh Cr," you muttered. "Why do I take you anywhere."

I'm helpful! He said.

Hurm. He did have a point though. The mining tunnels a good place to look for a resistance cell. Yeah. As if you had just picked at random the exact mining town where Raynor and his Protoss buddies were hidding.

What if I did? you thought.

...okay, it was creepy how...oddly certain you were they were here.

Hurm.

Course, you could also just approach the mining elevators. Or, fuck, climb the wall.

...or jump...

Could...

Could you jump the Mesa?

---
HEAT: 0/6
SPARKS: Cybran (4)

[ ] Sneak through the tunnels (Diff 4 stealth check - 4 heat)
[ ] Approach the mining elevators and spin a yarn about being a drifting worker (Diff 5 lying check - 5 heat)
[ ] Jump to the top of the Mesa and slip into the civilian section of town (Diff 1, Range 2 jump. Use your Physical Perfection as a secondary characteristic to reduce the Range to 0, 0 heat. Diff 2+1 to sneak in - 3 Heat.)
[ ] ...reach out with your mind. Just...try it. (Diff 5 Telepathic check - 1 Heat)
[ ] Write In

Just as a note, you may ask "why take the higher heat options" well, because each has a different narrative outcome!