98 – Boom, Baby
"Okay, so, what's the skinny on this world, Tychus," Jimmy looked over at Tychus while studiously ignoring Yuriko from where she stood just within his peripheral vision.
Tychus, for his part, was pleased as punch about the gun that Yuriko had given him for fighting down on Redstone. It was a hell of a thing, he'd give it that much, based on the camera recordings. According to Swann there had been a hell of a lot of money put into it, to the point that upon being asked he'd said that there was literally no point in trying to make something based off of it. It simply wasn't economical. It was insanely over-engineered and made use of certain alloys that Swann said defied his understanding of how they'd been formed in the first place. The rounds were one thing, even if they were also 'stupidly expensive to make' but MannCo was apparently willing to foot the bill on them, sending over crates of the stuff. Tychus was also no doubt happy that they were heading to another payday, one that would be thirty percent unto himself.
"Moebius thinks that there's another artifact here, like the one we picked up on Mar Sara," Tychus eventually said, puffing on his cigar. "Protoss are guarding it, supposedly. Buncha fanatics callin' themselves the 'Tal'darim'."
Jimmy started at the information, mouth opening to inform Tychus that he could take this whole deal and shove it, but Tychus saw it coming.
"They ain't your ol' protoss buddies like before, Jimmy," Tychus said. "Don't you get sentimental on 'em."
Only then did Yuriko speak up again.
"He's right, Raynor," she said with the same sort of creepy seriousness she'd shown on Agria. "The Tal'darim are not from Aiur, and I'm sure many of them applauded when your friends lost their homeworld."
Both Jimmy and Tychus stared at her, her arms folded behind her back at attention.
"What do you know about the Tal'darim, Yuriko?"
Why he even bothered asking, Jimmy didn't know. She could see the question in his mind, and of course she knew. MannCo seemed to know things about everyone, everywhere. At least she was polite enough to wait for him to verbalize his questions before answering.
"They're more than just a fanatic group, they're an outright splinter civilization," she said while looking him straight in the eye. "You know how the Nerazim broke off from the rest of them, and forged their own path? Zeratul and his kind? So too did the Tal'darim. Only they chose to then steal from and murder either of the former two that came too near. They follow the way of 'Rak'shir', in which one of the main guiding principles is that the frail must die so the strong can thrive."
A chill came down Jimmy's back as she so plainly elaborated, as if she were discussing the weather.
"They used to inhabit a great many planets, building their resources and forces for a distant conflict in which they would sweep across the universe on a tide of flame in the name of the xel'naga."
The chill grew worse.
"Used to?"
Yuriko just smiled at him, but he couldn't read anything else on her as her body language unnaturally stilled itself.
"Used to," she nodded her head once. "So don't think that they'll hesitate to kill you if you get too close."
There was a slight pause, after that. The bridge crew bent back down to their consoles, a small zone of absolute avoidance temporarily created around Yuriko, some trying to avoid looking at her all together as they walked back and forth. Tychus just rolled his cigar from one end of his mouth to the next, looking between Yuriko and Jimmy, while Matt seemed almost serene somehow. Throughout the ship, the Raiders were already preparing to deploy. Thanks to their combat experience on Redstone, they'd grown just a bit more comfortable with the new vehicles that had been delivered to them, as well as the upgraded CMC armors. Vultures, siege tanks, goliaths, wraiths, and so on. As well as quite a few munin robotic supporters, the latter of which were the newest additions to the Raider arsenal.
"In any case, should we review the mission?" She said calmly, looking towards Tychus. "Mr. Findlay? If you would begin?"
Slowly, making sure to keep his eye on her, Tychus pressed a button to show some of the remote cameras that had been sent down to the planet. As they revealed the artifact piece floating in its containment field, he let loose an explosive sigh of relief. Jimmy was not nearly so relieved, considering the huge amount of protoss he could see just about completely surrounding the area. And, just as Yuriko had said, they were definitely visibly distinct from other kinds of protoss he'd met so far. Spikier, for one thing, with the kind of red and black color scheme that he would have thought was just the best when he was a teenager.
Yuriko snorted from behind him.
"Really, Raynor?"
"Can you
please respect the sanctity of my own head, woman?" He sighed, hands going to sides of the star map for him to lean on.
"Hey now," Tychus cleared his throat, "Focus in, folks," he jabbed his finger at the screen towards a floating chunk of stone-like stuff surrounded by enormous protoss status. "Cause that there is the artifact. This should be easy money compared to Agria."
Jimmy shook his head at him.
"You ain't never fought protoss before, Tychus."
Tychus almost growled at him.
"If you can fight 'em, Jimmy,
I," he thumped a thumb into his chest plate, "Can fight 'em."
"Oh yeah?" Jimmy leaned back, looking his old friend up and down. "You coming down with us this time?"
Tychus just snorted, the picture of nonchalance.
"Course I am, partner. Sweet Thang'n me'll be just fine, Jimmy."
Jimmy raised an eyebrow at him.
"Sweet Thang?"
"Uh, yeah," Tychus puffed on his cigar, "My gun? You know, that thing what brought down the brutalisk? She is, quantifiably, one…Sweet…Thang," he drawled out before straightening with a sniff. "Plus, I wanna make sure we're gettin' them artifact pieces for Moebius, and not MannCo."
Then he paused, eyes bulging as he remembered just who had given him his new favorite toy.
"Uh, no offense, o'course."
Yuriko just laughed, an oddly sparkly sound, back of her hand covering her mouth.
"Oh, Tychus," she chuckled, "The Raiders, or Raynor specifically," she said as an afterthought, "Never actually agreed to perform that offer. We've moved on."
She was, now that Jimmy thought about it, absolutely correct. She'd tabled their discussion until after Mar Sara, but it just hadn't come up since.
"What, so MannCo just…gave 'em up?" Jimmy raised an eyebrow at her. "Just like that?"
"You didn't seem inclined to take my offer over your old friend's. Which is fine," she added with a shrug. "The artifact pieces we wanted to hire your help were elsewhere, but MannCo has – as I said - moved on to other things now. Such as Redstone and other opportunities, which of course the Raiders are still free to participate in and receive payouts for that will help the Raiders out in their fight against the Dominion."
Jimmy just scrutinized her. His thoughts fell upon her words, old marshal's instincts trying to tear it apart for details or lies suspicion. MannCo wasn't trustworthy, they didn't even try to pretend they didn't have ulterior motives compared to the ones they'd given him. Sure, they were opposed to the Dominion, but then a lot of people were, and for a lot of reasons. Yeah, he was willing to give Tychus a hell of a lot of rope. He owed it him. But, rather suddenly, he'd begun tallying up quite a lot of things he was owing MannCo too. Or at least Yuriko specifically. But considering the apparent value of the artifacts, for them to just give it up?
Just one more thing that Yuriko wasn't telling him, along with a host of others, at this point.
"Uh…not that this isn't riveting," Matt coughed, making all three look at him. "But…we have a problem," he pointed at the screen at the same moment that the Adjutant spoke up.
"Warning," the faithful AI promptly announced, "Multiple zerg bio-signatures detected."
Just then, visible on scanners if not the naked eye, appeared one of the zerg wormholes that had grown infamous during the Great War. At the same time, a significant number of zerg unearthed themselves and began to assault the Tal'darim defenses.
"Well, shit," Jimmy said flatly, his voice quickly growing into a heated yell. "A wormhole, instead of behemoths? Damn it, Tychus!"
"What did I do?" Tychus jerked his head back in confusion. "I didn't even know them bugs could go through space!"
"A wormhole, Mr. Findlay," Yuriko said coolly, "Requires the attentions of the greatest psionic minds known to the zerg. Previously, it was the Overmind. And when the Overmind fell…,"
"Kerrigan," Jimmy finished bitterly, glaring at Tychus before glancing at the holographic projection of the Adjutant. "Is she here, Adjutant?"
Sarah. He'd known she was out there, invading the Sector once more. But here? Now? It was just like he told Yuriko. The universe loved knocking him on his ass.
"No Class-12 Psi-Pattern detected, Commander."
Jimmy let loose the breath he didn't know he'd been holding.
"Small mercies, I guess. For now," he hung his head before glaring at Tychus again. "We gotta get down there, in, and out, as quickly as we can."
==================================================
Tychus Findlay had to admit, seeing the protoss up close and personal was definitely different than seeing them on cameras and in old news reports. They had their fancy gear and technology, for certain, even if the Tal'darim were all red, black, and spikey compared to the gold and blues he'd been expecting from all the news. Fighting them was entirely different from fighting other terrans, too, but he'd known that going in. They were some ugly alien sumbitches, though. Even when they had their helmets knocked off, or just weren't wearing them, it wigged him out something fierce to see the total lack of nose and mouth.
Didn't stop him from shooting them right in their ugly mouthless faces, though.
"Come on, you alien freaks, come get a piece of ol' Tychus!" He laughed as he shot at them with Sweet Thang alongside Jimmy's boys.
He wasn't about to call them 'Raynor's Raiders', after all. Not when the only reason they'd come into existence was because of Tychus taking the fall for Jimmy. Then again, here he was, wearing his old armor, pretending like he didn't have a knife at his back just to make sure he had one at Jimmy's. But…
Damn it. Fuckin' stupid brain messing around with him. Had to focus. Focus on killing, let the fight wash over it all.
"Push up!" He growled, firing into the oncoming rush of alien bastards, talking all in their weird echo voices.
Other people clad in CMC armor wielding C-14 rifles were shooting alongside him, as well as the brand new spanking marauders shooting off grenades from their gauntlets. Above him stalked a handful of goliaths, and behind him were a trio of siege tanks. Thankfully the busters driving them hadn't tried to entrench, as Tychus didn't much fancy trying to fight off the protoss with artillery blowing them up right as they reached him. He wasn't going to go out as 'collateral damage', no way no how. He'd seen some of the boys with him go down, but then the marauders would step in between the oncoming plasma fire – and wasn't that just fucking crazy to think about – enough for the medics to save some lives.
"You should be out here, Jimmy!" He called in with his radio, "It's a hell of a fight!" His words were punctuated with another short burst that finally knocked a protoss' shields out and started hitting armor and flesh.
"Yeah, well, I'm running two of 'em Tychus," Jimmy growled back all petulant like. "We got the zerg on one side, and the protoss on the other."
"Bunker and missile turret line is finished, Raynor," the psychic's voice broke in, "Your Raiders are garrisoning them now."
Tychus did not much like Yuriko Thirteen on the face of it, aside from the gift of Sweet Thang. Sure, she was a pretty little thing, only a bit curvy but with the environment suit on it was more than enough. Except when she thumped on all those dang armor panels. On the other hand, he'd damn near shit himself back on Mar Sara watching her blow up the zerg, and while he might not have been some kind of fancy doctor or scientist he knew cutting edge equipment when he saw it. Ghosts were freaky, and she was spookier than any ghost he'd ever seen. Damn psychics. Able to just poke inside his mind whenever she liked, though she'd privately confessed that she was only really good at surface thoughts - which was a damn relief, to be honest. Gave him something to defend himself with next time he had to...talk...to his 'benefactor'. If it came down to a fight, he might have out-muscled her in most places, except her brain. Only, that was more than enough if she wanted to twist him into a damn pretzel with it, armor or not. Thankfully, right now she was busy blowing up zerg with her mind instead, along with shooting them with her gun.
"Good, thanks for holding the zerg off. Can you swing around and help out Tychus and my Raiders?"
"Sure thing, Raynor."
Well shit.
Sure enough, she came screaming in on that super vulture of hers, the one that no one was allowed to touch. Only this time, she jumped off of it and landed in front of the battle group, letting the vulture scoot off into thin air on some unknown mission or another.
"Hold back, people," she said clearly, somehow doing so without yelling despite all the shooting and explosions going on.
Oh, wait, telepathy. Ugh.
And so Tychus, and everyone else, watched as Yuriko raised her hand, and twelve charging protoss suddenly lifted up into the air, screaming and yelling all the while. Then they started to...bulge. First an arm, then a leg, then it looked like they were getting filled up on the inside like a balloon, before finally popping like grotesque piñatas of alien blood and organs. In fact, Tychus realized as he watched that Yuriko hadn't even actually touched the ground, her body lifted up by her own mind so that she hovered. One arm reached out, and one of the protoss turrets sparked and screeched before crumpling inside of its shield before whatever component that powered it was destroyed as well. The other arm reached out, and the big ol' crystals that Jimmy said powered protoss tech got torn out of its moorings and thrown out of sight. Which, of course, shut down the other protoss cannon.
"Okay," Yuriko paused, her inhale audible across the radio.
She raised her arms slightly, fists clenching until the aura of psionic energy around her grew more and more fierce, reminding Tychus far too much of Mar Sara. Only this time she didn't immediately release it.
"Here we go."
And there she went, just floating forwards at a steady pace appropriate for jogging outside of CMC armor. Tychus followed, as did the rest of Jimmy's boys and girls, but it barely seemed like they were needed. Sure, the Tal'darim sent wave after wave of troops against them, weird thin-legged walkers and big stumpy bulky ones joining in with the aliens who tried to attack in melee with weird staff blade things or wrist-blades. They had strategically placed proton cannons, and their smaller robot things could make shields appear that were near impassible when they weren't shooting their big giant laser beams at him. Tychus shot his gun, as did others, and when something got past Yuriko to hit someone, the medics were there to patch them up quick. And when they couldn't, one of the Hyperion medivac dropships came down to grab them. When there was aerial fighters, protoss air power ran straight into his gun and the anti-aircraft missiles of the goliaths. The vikings could easily mop up the rest in fighter mode, slamming down into the earth as walkers in the meantime.
Thing was, though, according to Tychus' finely honed observational skills not a lot made it past Yuriko.
The proton cannons shot at her. The little floating robots shot at her. The walkers shot at her. A protoss flyer that made it past the goliaths and the vikings on a suicide run shot at and tried to ram her. And then they all ran smack dab into a shield that bubbled into existence around her, just like the shield that appeared around her super vulture, only this one was clearly based on her armor somehow. And then around
that was that shimmering field of psionic energy, a second shield on top of the first. By the time the first one seemed to melt away, only ever temporarily, the second one held up long enough for her to bring up the first. And in return, Yuriko just waved her hands around, fists clenching and unclenching in time with the crushing of her enemies as if the hand of God himself had come down to squeeze them. Others just flipped up and got tossed into the ground, the walls, each other, at lethal speeds and with fatal force. The heavy walkers got something special, however, her doing some kind of weird wavy movement with her arms and then stabbing out with one hand, index finger extended, from which a blazing lightning bolt of psionic energy shot out. Upon impact the heavy Tal'darim walkers were simply rent apart. Two thirds of the way through, Tychus didn't even bother shooting, it'd be a waste of the rather expensive ammo that Sweet Thang demanded she be fed.
On occasion, however, they came across certain areas that had already seen fighting. Usually from the telltale work of the apparently unpiloted super vulture, going by the explosions and laser-based scorch marks. So apparently the super vulture had done some advanced aggressive recon.
"We're coming up on their main base," Yuriko called out, "Everyone get ready!"
Finally, an actual fight again! This time, the Tal'darim had concentrated themselves in such numbers that not even Yuriko could target them all individually. Activating that 'psychokinetic blast' thing apparently took way too long for her to pull off while under so much simultaneous attack, though she was capable of smaller burst versions of it with significantly reduced range. Once more, Tychus and the rest of Jimmy's troops got into the thick of it, shooting and exploding and killing. On a few occasions, a protoss with wrist blades or some kind of blade on a stick came in close, cutting into someone's armor or body, but the medics present were a definite godsend. Then one came for him, damn near popping out of the shadows like a boogeyman as they'd advanced into the protoss base, shooting this way and that and tackling him, the same happening to other marines and marauders at the same time.
"Die, human!" The alien spat, slicing downwards and cutting into Sweet Thang in two different places, releasing a squeal of torn metal and sparks aplenty.
Sweet Thang was nice and thick enough, but the damn alien's blades cut into her real deep, severing one of the rotating barrels entirely before stopping. The other had punched into the main meat of it, near where it was held. The noise was simultaneously heart breaking and infuriating as Sweet Thang dropped from his near nerveless fingers. Tychus' vision went just a bit red.
"You alien son of a bitch!" Tychus bellowed, voice cracking with emotion. "I'll fuckin' kill you! AAAAAAH!!"
What followed was hell of a scrap, punching and kicking, dodging and blocking. The alien's blades sizzled as they cut against his armor, but Tychus eventually managed to crack the alien right in the face to knock them backwards. At which point another group of marines finally had clear shots and shot the protoss dead, filling them with rounds until they were more chunks of meat than actual being. Tychus breathed heavily as he stared down at them before his head snapped up as he looked around. The fighting was mostly over, by then, the marauders and siege tanks more than enough to bring down protoss buildings, shields or no. Up ahead, of course, was the big fancy altar where the artifact piece waited. More importantly, Sweet Thang lay on the ground where he'd dropped her, scraped a little by the stone but no worse for wear save for the big gouged slice that got taken out of her. Tychus hesitantly picked it up again, trying to spin it up again, only to get a sad little 'blat' of shut down machinery and some unsettling rattles from it.
"Aw, look at what that bastard did to you," He hung his head before patting it. "Don't you worry, girl, we'll get you fixed up," he sighed before he looked around. "Hey! Anybody got a spare gun? Fuckin' protoss broke mine."
The rest of Jimmy's forces looked around at each other, but while plenty of them carried irregular sidearms, most people didn't run around with a spare C-14 on their backs. But then, one of the white and red armored medics walked over, carrying just what he needed with a painted print of some woman or another who wasn't wearing much at all.
"Wallace had to get extracted, I've got his gun," the pretty thing said, offering up the C-14, almost blushing when she handed it to him. "He probably won't mind if you had it for a bit."
"Well much obliged," Tychus grinned at her, his faceplate rising temporarily so he could really turn on the ol' Tychus charm while taking it up, examining the artwork on the gun out of the corner of his eye.
Hell, that boy Wallace had some good taste.
Anything else that they'd planned to say got cancelled right around the time it felt like a minor earthquake was happening. Tychus, along with a lot of people, whirled about as all saw Yuriko Thirteen walk up to the artifact. At which point the giant protoss statues started walking and shooting lasers everywhere. The super vulture appeared from stealth, floating above Yuriko, and began firing, at which point everyone else did as well. C-14 impaler rounds, siege tank blasts, and marauder gauntlet grenade bursts, all of it. Tychus didn't even know if his gun was doing anything, but he fired all the same. One started to crumble, then the second, but Yuriko got to the third. Yelling angrily, she'd thrust both hands out towards it and everyone watched as it rose up into the air, spinning about as gravity temporarily lost its hold. The entire thing started to twitch and crack, then began to compact further and further inward until it was a group of shattered pieces that she let fall to earth.
Yuriko had finally stopped floating about by the end, her feet on the earth once more, the rest of the troops just staring at her.
"Tychus, what's the news, I need an update buddy! The zerg are pushing hard," Jimmy's voice broke into the silence.
"Uh…we're good, partner," Tychus said back. "You can send in a drop ship now."
"Yeah, my boys are already on their way," Swann's voice came through. "Jeez, could practically see the lightshow from the ship."
Sure enough, the special dropship that Jimmy had sitting in the Hyperion was already flying in. Tychus sniffed, lighting up his cigar, and surveyed the absolute destruction that Yuriko had left behind her. And, if he was honest, it was one of the most attractive things he'd ever seen.
Then the radio crackled to life, but no one spoke at first. Instead, there was just a strange squelching wet noise and haggard distant breathing in the background. As if the radio was inside someone's open chest cavity, somehow.
"I forgot how resourceful you were, Jim," a cold voice came across, so full of menace that Tychus felt himself shudder.
Around him, most everyone else had reacted the same or worse. Tychus could swear that he heard a marauder whimper. Then she hissed once more.
"
I won't make that mistake twice."
It felt like the world had come to a stop, even though in the distance they could still hear the sounds of zerg throwing themselves against the protoss and terran defenses alike. For the moment, at least. But just when Tychus had begun to hope that he wouldn't have to hear another word, that disturbingly organic crackle on the radio came to life once more.
"…and
you," the voice hissed. "I remember
you, little snake. I shouldn't be surprised that MannCo wormed their way onto your ship, Jim. But their toy soldiers won't save you either."
There was only one MannCo representative on the entire planet of Monlyth, and everyone knew it. Yuriko's expression was, of course, unreadable by all thanks to that damn faceless helmet she wore during the fighting. On the one hand, apparent total protection for the eyes and other vulnerable areas, on the other, it was creepy as all get out. Gave Tychus the damn willies. She just stood there, head tilting towards the sky where the enormous zerg wormhole still let loose a seemingly endless tidal wave of the aliens onto Monlyth.
But then the moment passed, and then another. And eventually they realized that that was it.
"Let's get the hell out of here," Raynor called out, his voice the mixture of flat and rumbling that only dangerously angry folks had. "Everyone get back to base, and we'll extract back to the Hyperion."
But Tychus was a bit more focused on the fact that the so-called Queen of Blades apparently knew Jimmy boy. Knew him real, real well. Now
that was something he'd have to look into. And apparently little Ms. Thirteen as well. Now there was a firestorm coming, and he was just smart enough to know that he was going to have to steer clear of both of them for a day or two at least.