Eh, while he'd certainly be freaked, Tychus' 'secret' employer is Mengsk. And he definitely knows how humane (or lacking in humanity) HE is. Some infested or even also the UED advisor that orchestrated the Brood War isn't nearly as intimidating on it's own. And Narud 'the Right Hand of Amon' isn't someone Tychus' really has the context (or knowledge) to process, even if he is in his totality quite a bit worse.
Devastation Comes In Big Packages [Planetary Annihilation/Multicross SI]
MannCo probably has something planned in mind, even if it's only to screw with Mengsk. Although I hope that they hire him if they do save him.
Heaven's Devils (End War)
The reformed Heaven's Devils were a group formed by Tychus Findlay during the End War, in a "what if" scenario where he survived the Char invasion. They were based on the old Heaven's Devils Tychus and Jim Raynor served with during the Guild Wars.[1] Having patched things up with Jim Raynor...
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Samir Duran, former right hand of the Queen of Blades, however is someone Tychus would have far more context/knowledge for.
No need to introduce the Amon connection, just who he was masquerading as before by pointing out him being cheeky with the name.
Also lets Raynor and Zeratul know something's up in advance which helps in the long run.
I'm pretty sure Amon had something to jerk him out of a coma, given that Manns superweapon failed and it got a bear fight as a result.
Incidentally, does anyone know what the Dominions intelligence services is called? Thinking of another information brief.
Well, yes, but Narud is still a subordinate Xel'Naga(?) that conspired with him to kill the rest millions of years ago, and was made privy to the various back-up plans and contingencies before Ouros and the rest of the Xel'Naga woke up and obliterated Amon and the rest of his faction, then got mostly eaten by the Swarm (though this makes no sense as it was Amon's group that left hibernation and traveled, how would the proto-Swarm have reached all the rest in Ulnar? Lol plot-holes).
Amon may not have been running the show for a long time, but his overall objectives are intact and have been advanced under Narud's care.
Nah, Amon is still alive and conscious all this time. He's essentially Sauron without his ring being able to issue commands to his minions yet unable to influence the outside world.
As far as I can tell.... Mann basically failed to kill Amon and his ilk so that's why he's following the canon story since he need access to Ulnar.
Ulnar
Ulnar (or The Temple of Unification) is a massive xel'naga temple located in the Altarian Rift. It was the resting place of the xel'naga, and served as a portal leading to the Void.[1] A massive amount of Void energies emanate from Ulnar. As far as the laws of physics go, Ulnar should not exist...
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He's just mitigating most of Amon's forces in the process.
RoyalTwinFangs
For The Chancellor!
- Location
- Somwhere not here
Are going to write intelligent report on Mann and Yuriko like in the RA world?
Also believe it is the Dominion Intelligence Section (DIS).
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Thinking about it. It's either that or an SG report on the Empire of Wu, with peanut gallery annotations by a certain irreverent colonel. But not a lot of content for Wu I think.
Also, there's at least three articles I can make for this one. MannCo, Mann and maybe Yuriko. The last depends entirely on how much she's been visibly flitting around in Dominion areas of interest, so I don't know if I can realistically have them note her presence.
If I do one on her, it'd be most likely an Umojan brief.
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Probably not Ouros. So I'm guessing they'll do the whole canon storyline of turning Kerrigan into a xel'naga.
- Location
- Philippines
Can anybody explain to me how a CMC armor prison works? I know that prisoners can be locked into a suit but what stops them from having it peeled off? And I'm pretty sure that prisoners in CMC were mentioned as common somewhere in the handbooks, so why did nobody check Tychus? Why did nobody ever check why he never removed the armor, because no matter what, it can't be perfectly comfortable.
- Location
- Beyond the Unknowable Veil
- Because plot.
- Isn't it rigged to explode if he doesn't do what he's told? If you've gone that far, anti-tampering is easy enough.
- The usual brainwashing of prisoners presumably leaves fairly obvious signs that Raynor would've spotted instantly, hence Tychus couldn't undergo the procedure.
Alayne
The Reader
- Location
- Home of the Vikings
I'm 99% sure(it's been a couple years) that there was a scene with Matt and Raynor where they discuss this. Specifically, Matt had scanned Tychus armor and found the bombs and deadman switch. Raynor agreed that it was concerning but there wasn't anything they could do about it aside from keeping an eye on him.
And that was that until the last scene where he tries to shoot kerrigan and gets killed himself.
They do.
Yup.
Horner: Sir, when Tychus came back aboard the ship, I had the techs run a scan on him.
Raynor: Matt, you need to get a hobby.
Horner: Seriously Sir -- his suit contains a sophisticated transponder... if it receives the correct code, it'll shut down all his major organs. That suit is a death trap.
Raynor: He's got a gun to his head.
Horner: And who's got their finger on the trigger? Moebius?
Raynor: Tychus, what have you gotten yourself into?
Raynor: Matt, you need to get a hobby.
Horner: Seriously Sir -- his suit contains a sophisticated transponder... if it receives the correct code, it'll shut down all his major organs. That suit is a death trap.
Raynor: He's got a gun to his head.
Horner: And who's got their finger on the trigger? Moebius?
Raynor: Tychus, what have you gotten yourself into?
Raynor also not gonna do anything since he owes him.
Matt Horner: I caught Tychus hacking into our database, sniffing around about Kerrigan. I don't know what his game is, but we clearly can't trust him.
Jim Raynor: Matt, me an' Tychus ran together a long time -- got into all sorts of trouble. When the law finally caught up, he took the rap for both of us. Never once ratted me out. I got a second chance, he got locked up.
Matt Horner: I understand your loyalty, sir, but —
Jim Raynor: I owe him, Matt. Leave it be.
Matt Horner: Yes Sir.
Jim Raynor: Matt, me an' Tychus ran together a long time -- got into all sorts of trouble. When the law finally caught up, he took the rap for both of us. Never once ratted me out. I got a second chance, he got locked up.
Matt Horner: I understand your loyalty, sir, but —
Jim Raynor: I owe him, Matt. Leave it be.
Matt Horner: Yes Sir.
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109 - Breaking In, Shaping Up
109 - Breaking In, Shaping Up
The Hyperion hung in the darkness between stars and planets, an insignificant dot amongst the infinite. Alongside it were the ships carrying the colonists of Agria, the final decision still yet to be made as to where they would end up, whether the Umojan Protectorate or one of the other fringe worlds out in the Korprulu Sector. For now, the various colony ships and additional MannCo transports huddled close, a considerable number of wraiths and vikings performing some relaxed but defensive screening. Time behind the controls was important, after all. Jimmy watched it all from the bridge, calmly smoking a cigarette. Tychus was nearby as well, curious about their soon-to-arrive guests, and said curiosity had brought out Swann and Stetmann from their respective haunts on the ship. In fact, the entire tight core that made up the highest echelons of Swann's engineers had shown up too, following their stout leader up to the bridge. Matt stood waiting, arms folded smartly behind his back, the Captain of the Hyperion carefully scrutinizing various screens. Doc Hanson hadn't come, busy down in the sick ward, much to her apparent regret.
Yuriko stood apart from them all, leaning forward against a console, her eyes on the stars outside.
"So…," Tychus drawled, "What, we just wait here and-,"
Sound might not travel in space, by the traditional understandings of physics and science, but light most certainly did. There was a blinding flash of blue and white as another ship emerged from warp at far too close a distance to be comfortable. Klaxons blared out as it appeared, as well as proximity alarms and collision warnings, leaving the bridge drenched in flashing red light and loud, at least before a few shouted commands from Matt had them shut back down as the ship hadn't actually taken any action aside from its arrival. It hung close enough to see, a scant distance away from the Hyperion, close enough for Jimmy to frown at the sight of what he could see of it.
"Eesh, what a piece of junk!" Swann said, cringing back slightly at it, something many of the engineers shared.
It was a battlecruiser, only it wasn't the sort he'd been expecting. Up until now, the few MannCo battlecruisers he'd sort of seen had been glossy black and grey things, their profiles and strange senor baffling confusing the Hyperion's scans. The thing in front of him was an old, creaky, and possibly radioactively leaky Leviathan-class. Not a single one remained in active service against any major military force, given just how painfully outdated they were these days. Still, even Yamato cannon several years out of date could still do a lot of damage. The entire ship looked badly painted over, patch jobs visible even to Jimmy's eyes across much of the ship, welded plates and scars evident across the superstructure. In fact, as it spun sluggishly, he could see that half the engines were barely flickering. A massive anarchy symbol had been painted near the head, possibly hundreds of gallons of paint used to make it visible at such a distance.
"Wait a minute, isn't…is that a Scions of Anarchy ship?" Matt's expression screwed itself up as he examined the scans coming in, "But…the scans are returning…hmm."
"That ol' heap of junk is supposed to help us crack New Folsom?" Tychus sneered, "Thought MannCo had deeper pockets than that."
"We do," Yuriko called as she spun on her heel, descending the steps to stand in front of the star map, looking amongst the crew that were now staring at her. "You need to learn to see past appearances," she smirked as she manipulated the controls to contact the ship which had remained silent up until now.
The outgoing communication request beeped only once before it was accepted, and a new image came to life, one which drew quite a few looks at the person now on the screen. Jimmy's eyebrows rose high indeed as he stared at them. Whoever he was, he stood as big, possibly bigger, than Tychus when the big man was out of his armor. Dark brown skin was visible across a tremendously muscled chest and abdomen, revealed thanks to an unbuttoned and massive admiral's greatcoat, if one tremendously stylized with gaudy amounts of gold and silver. A thick beard shot down past the neck, spiked out into five places, at the bottoms of which were large golden caps with engraved artwork. Atop his head was an enormous tricorn hat, one with three white feathers. His eyes were a molten gold but were barely visible beneath the shadow cast by his hat.
"Yuriko, me friend," he boomed in an indeterminable accent, a grin revealing a set of perfect white teeth splitting his lips. "So long has it been since I doth did see you last!"
"We talked, literally, yesterday," Yuriko rolled her eyes before turning to the side so that the camera could now fully show Jimmy and the rest.
"And yet, it does me heart good to see you with me own two eyes," the man boasted before looking at the others. "And I do see some other folks as well. The infamous James Raynor, the estimable Egon Stetmann, the brilliant Rory Swann, the incorrigible Tychus Findlay!" He called each man out in turn, getting some looks back.
Tychus, of course, looked mightily pleased by the words used.
"Hello there," Jimmy lifted his chin, letting his cig burn in his hand as he lowered it to his side. "And…you are?"
The huge man's eyes bugged out and he slapped a mammoth hand to his face, shaking his head and stepping back slightly.
"Of course! Of course, that is my mistake, one of excitement and exuberance," he said before bowing fully, doffing his hat temporarily to reveal that he was bald before straightening again and putting his hat back on with another toothy grin. "My name be Mann, of MannCo."
Jimmy dropped his cigarette at about the same time that Tychus' cigar came dangerously close to falling out of his mouth. The bridge of the Hyperion was left silent for a moment save for Yuriko's long-suffering sigh.
"You're…," Jimmy paused, blinking rapidly as he looked the man…er, Mann, up and down again. "You're Mann?"
"Creator, founder, originator," Mann inclined his head again, "Of MannCo, yes."
There was another silence as various minds worked to process what they were seeing, all of them going back and grasping at their initial expectations a bit.
"Are you a pirate?" Egon asked before anyone else could say anything. "Are you…wait, that ship is a Scions of Anarchy ship, but-,"
"I am, on occasion, yes," Mann interrupted with a chuckle, "And no, it isn't."
"Well…wait, what?" The scientist tilted his head to the side.
"Stop playing around Mann," Yuriko groaned.
"Ah, fair enough," Mann smirked before doing something that they couldn't see.
What everyone did see, however, was the ship bearing the symbols of the Scions of Anarchy disappear in a shimmering wave of light. What was on the other side of that wave was closer to what Jimmy had been expecting. It was still battlecruiser shaped, but this time it looked far more modern. Possibly as modern as the new Dominion ships, possibly more so. While Jimmy's eyes widened a bit and Tychus whistled, the reaction from the engineers and Stetmann was a bit different. Their eyes had bugged out, some pushing forward until they were almost against the glass, others having outright stolen the seats of the bridge crew working the scanner and diagnostics banks.
"What. Was. That." Swann said flatly before whirling about faster than someone of his frame would be expected to towards Yuriko and the screen still showing Mann. "What was that!? Look, theoretical stealth fields on battlecruisers is one thing, but that's light refraction and dampening, but that – that shouldn't…Kachinsky, what were the scans saying!"
The younger engineer scrambled a moment, squinting at the screens.
"Uh…they were a bit confused there boss, but they were definitely returning some dimensions they shouldn't have, if it's…if that's what it's supposed to look like?"
"A total confusing of the visual spectrum," Stetmann breathed out slowly. "But on such a scale…"
Jimmy glanced at the ship, then back at Yuriko and Mann, and rubbed at his temple once before reaching down to pick his cigarette back up.
"Okay…now your plan to distract the guards at New Folsom makes a bit more sense," he mused, getting an approving look from Yuriko and another smile from Mann.
"Oh? Do you be having an idea of what we're about then, Mister Raynor?" Mann raised an eyebrow.
"Just guessing here," Jimmy waved his cig around, "But the Hyperion thought that was a Scions of Anarchy ship."
Swann came back to himself, as did some of the engineers, though Stetmann had progressed to fully pressing his face flat against the glass.
"Correct," Mann said calmly.
"And the Hyperion has some of the best scanners and sensors in the Sector, courtesy in fact of you folks," Jimmy pointed at him with the cig.
"Go on…," Mann rolled his hand through the air, still amused.
"So I'm betting the Dominion's ships over New Folsom might have about the same success, or less," Jimmy concluded.
"Correct!" Mann laughed, hands going to his hips as he guffawed.
"Now that's a hell of a trick," Tychus drawled as he puffed on his cigar, "So, what, you gonna make them think you're a Dominion ship too, scoot on in there and get the drop on them?"
"Visual tricks aside, being in the middle of several enemy battlecruisers is not necessarily going to help the Hyperion get to landing its troops," Mann shook his head. "No, what we're going to do is make them chase the Hyperion."
Jimmy frowned as did Swann and several others.
"You wanna expand on that, Mann?" Jimmy narrowed his eyes.
"Of course. But first, I must ask permission. Might I scan your ship, Mister Raynor, Captain Horner?" He glanced between the two.
"Why?" Jimmy asked.
"To expand on it, of course," Mann replied, lips quirking.
Jimmy glanced at Matt, who shrugged. It wasn't like the Hyperion hadn't been scanned thousands of times before, both by allies and enemies. Automatic bots at ports and the like partook in such things as well.
"…sure," Jimmy squinted.
A single, tight white beam came from the MannCo ship next, passing across the entire Hyperion over the course of a few seconds. Then there was another flash, one which got gasps from several of the crew who were watching. Jimmy damn near dropped his cig again when he stared at what had happened. The MannCo ship had disappeared, just as the previous Scions of Anarchy ship had. Instead, everyone present beheld nothing less than the Hyperion. Another Hyperion, hanging in the void, looking for all intents and purposes like a perfect copy. Every gun, every extra piece of plating, all of it. Who knew what was going on in the inside, but outwardly, it was undeniably the Hyperion. A few seconds passed and then even its IFF signal became that of the Hyperion's as well.
"Sweet mother of mercy," Tychus said softly, cigar smoke billowing out of his mouth, shaking his head at the sight.
"You see, Mister Raynor," Mann rubbed vigorously at his chin. "We're going to give them the Hyperion. Or at least, a Hyperion. And when they come running, you and yours can slip past them down to the planet to go after the garrison and prison proper."
"It could work," Jimmy said, mind now beginning to race with possibilities. "But what'll you do if their whole squadron comes down on you? You'll be entirely outnumbered."
"Don't worry about that," Yuriko piped up, nonchalance in every word. "MannCo will handle their part; you handle yours."
"Yeah, just…beat our way through the literal army of guards to reach the prison," Jimmy grunted. "And then somehow sort the prisoners, right?"
"We'll have that part covered, Mister Raynor," Mann said, "We've already got spectres on the ground, they'll help when the time comes. Plus, you've got the ones you've got a contract with as well!"
In truth, Jimmy didn't much like the idea of psychically investigating the thoughts of people, it was exactly the sort of invasive thing that the Confederacy and Dominion was all too happy to do. At least it wasn't just normal citizens, and instead just trying to figure out which of the prison's inmates were going to need to stay in there. Jimmy had done a lot of things in the fight against Mengsk. Letting loose psychopaths and rapists or whatever else was not going to be one of them if he could help it.
"Ah…yeah. Right. Well…when are we doing this?"
"Why, whenever you're ready, Mister Raynor," Mann smiled broadly again.
=====================================================================
"Okay. Here's how this is going to go," Jimmy called out to the rest of his raiders as he got onto the Fanfare. "Mann is gonna drop by New Folsom in his fake Hyperion, draw the enemy fleet out of formation. When they go chasing after him, we'll drop in ourselves. Already have a nice little landing zone on a plateau just outside the prison complex proper."
"Sounds good, Commander," Big Ben called, the large woman's medic armor by now completely covered in stylings and painted symbols. "I heard some more of them 'spectres' are gonna be fighting with us too, huh?"
"Oh, just a few, dear," another woman spoke up, getting the Mar Saran to jump so badly in her armor she nearly hit the ceiling.
Several other marines twitched and moved aside as the spectre Joyce, or more commonly the shortened 'Joy' slipped out of invisibility. The usual black and purple colors of MannCo was highly contrasted by the blue and white of the Raiders, but once everyone registered that it was in fact Joy they relaxed somewhat. Not entirely, it was impossible to do that around the spectres, but Joy was the nicest of them. Most of the others were somewhat approachable, save for Brex. No one liked Brex, not even Joy. She waved and wiggled her fingers at Jimmy, who nodded back to her.
"Our fellow spectres have been doing intelligence gathering on New Folsom for a while now," Joy continued, "Hardpoints, soft locations, prisoner blocks, and preliminary weeding out of those who shouldn't even make it out of their cells," the normally cheerful psychic's voice dipped at the very end.
"Right," Jimmy nodded. "Should be easy then, huh?"
"Well, maybe," Joy shrugged. "Depends on how bored Tosh got. He's had a lot of time to turn this place into a house of cards, just waiting for someone to blow it over."
"Guess we'll find out," Jimmy sniffed and looked up to the rest of the marines and medics. "Once we hit the ground, we're pushing all the way to the end, got it? If you get hit, and go down, you'll get pulled back to safety, by other than that it's all the way, right?"
"Right!" Several of the Raiders cheered.
"Hell yeah," Jimmy smiled before firming his expression while turning on his comms. "Matt, we good to go yet?"
"Just about, Commander," the Captain replied quietly, his focus clearly on his work. "Mann was right, they're already on his tail. With signals being jammed, they can't call for help and…okay, window's coming up."
"Okay!" Jimmy called, "Drop time is coming up, so get ready boys and girls! New Folsom's guards are supposed to be rough, tough, and buff! But what are we gonna make 'em?"
"Dead, dead, and dead!" The Raiders called back.
There was a sudden shift, all of them forced to brace for a second as the true Hyperion dropped out of warp. Immediately, the already active engines of the Fanfare shot them out of the hangar bay at speeds enough that some of the marines were partially bowled over. The change from void to atmosphere was almost as immediate, the outside of the dropship surely covered in an orange-red glow.
"Jezz, Merrick," Jimmy called to the pilot, "You're that eager, huh?"
"Yeah, well, they've got a pretty potent defense grid, commander, plenty of AA, and-," Merrick cut himself off.
Jimmy pushed his way to the fore, leaning into the cockpit.
"Merrick, what's wrong? What happ…ened."
Down below on the planet, in the sprawling military base which sat atop and around the New Folsom prison, were explosions. Mushroom clouds reached up all across the base, in multiple locations. The warning signals for nuclear explosions filled Merrick's screens before he wiped them aside, letting both pilot and Jimmy to see that the scans showed precisely zero anti-air emplacements left within a good couple of miles of their destination. There were also some on-sight factories and barracks that had similarly suffered such fates, as well as a few aerial maintenance facilities as well. The entire grid was lit up with distress calls, panic, and more, and after a moment Jimmy let a few pipe in by way of the adjutant doing some decryption.
"What the fuck!"
"We're under attack!"
"Who is it, who is it!?"
"I can't reach the base commander, does anyone have contact with Colonel-,"
A single transmission was directed towards Jimmy's dropship, even as it reached the previously designated drop zone.
"Who is this," Jimmy asked immediately as he accepted the request.
"Just a spectre," a man's deep drawl answered him, the syllables drawing out with what sounded like a Haji accent. "Doing some spectre's work – causing some chaos. Those were the last of our explosives, Mister Raynor, so you're going to have to do the rest of this the hard way. But don't worry…the spectres will be helping you the whole time."
"Sounds like someone got impatient waiting," Joy butted into the channel, her voice a singsong. "It was barely a week, Tosh."
"A week away from my baby girl, from my son," the now identified Tosh huffed, the dark menace in his voice fading for something more tiredly annoyed. "Kath don't need to be doin' it all alone."
"You didn't have to lead the mission, either," Joy said, a bubbly laugh still in her voice. "What, the two of you being psychics and you still can't tell when that child's gonna start crying in the night? Methinks mister spooky daddy spectre wanted some time away before realizing he wanted to go right back."
Tosh's response was a terribly exasperated sigh.
"Look, Raynor, the Dominion knows you're coming for them now, they've spotted your ships. Best get ready for them to come charging out. We really knocked over the ant's nest for this one."
"Sounds like a plan," Jimmy chuckled as the transmission cut off before looking at the shorter Joy. "Should you really be riling him up like that?"
"Probably not," Joy said cheerfully, before continuing in the same tone. "But let's go kill some people now, huh?"
Less than sixty seconds later, they were doing just that. Even with their anti-air blown to pieces, their radar systems sabotaged, and their power cut, the guards of New Folsom were some of the best troops in the Dominion. Only the best for the Emperor's hated political enemies, after all. The approach of so many dropships, wraiths, banshees, and vikings was unmistakably loud and noticeable, even on a volcanic planet with its constant eruptions and magma flow. The Raiders had rushed out of their ships and prepared themselves for the first wave of furious Dominion troops charging up to meet them. It started with just marines and a few hellions, but rapidly escalated after that.
"Come on, come on and die, hahahaha!" Tychus boomed as he pushed forward, his repaired Sweet Thang shredding anyone and anything that he pointed it at.
More than once, the big man's preference to be in the thick of it turned against him, getting him shot here and there before a medic could reach him and patch him up, but never once did Tychus actually fall down or stop firing his weapon. Though even he had to duck out of the way of an incoming bombardment by siege tanks. Siege tanks, Jimmy shook his head at the sight of them, just for guarding a prison. Thankfully, there was the terrifying shriek of EMP missiles which flew out of nowhere and struck each of the tanks down, one after another, as the Raiders advanced. Shortly afterwards, some of the munin that were being piloted by engineers back on the Hyperion confirmed that there were spectres moving about via the highly advanced sensors loaded onto the machines.
He didn't miss the irony of MannCo tech being the only reason they could locate the MannCo operatives on the battlefield, but Jimmy had more to worry about than just that. New Folsom wasn't just any prison. Despite no one having ever successfully escaped from it before, the Confederates had built the prison with a surprising amount of pragmatism and more than a little bit of excess as had been their wont. Mengsk had only added to that after taking over.
"Damn, look at this," Jimmy muttered as he hunched over the screens in the command center. "Hell, Mengsk, this can't have all been for me, can it?"
Multiple armed checkpoints, factories to service and produce further vehicles on demand, and a frankly ridiculous amount of troops were trying their absolute hardest to beat back the Raiders. More than once, it almost looked like they could have managed it, forming battleline after battleline, demanding buckets of Dominion blood to be spilled for each inch. Unfortunately for the Dominion, though, the Raiders just kept coming. Whoever the enemy commander was, they were just a tad bit inflexible. To the point that Jimmy was able to continually deploy auto-turrets from the munin craft ahead of his troops to soak enemy fire, pull back his troops to rest and recover with the medics as needed, all the while the MannCo spectres kept lobbing EMPs and some majorly powerful explosives right into the enemy. And if at any point it seemed like things were getting just a bit too difficult, the sheer mass of the enemy starting to tell, Jimmy would get a familiar notification from the adjutant.
"Multiple nuclear launches detected."
And mushroom clouds sprung up all the way down the lane.
"Adjutant, can you track the origination point from those missiles?" Jimmy asked idly, as he continued issuing orders, eye flicking to the holographic image of the adjutant to his left.
"Scans indicate arrival of nuclear missiles from an unknown, elevated location," it answered after a few seconds. "Below cloud layer, but…above any known artificial or natural points of geological stability for launchpads," it said with a note of quiet confusion.
Normally, that sort of thing would have screwed with Jimmy.
"They got a stealth ship or something," he immediately concluded. "One that the munin aren't seeing, and none of our other sensors either. With some kind of crazy stealth tech they won't share."
"Logging speculation," the adjutant declared, making Jimmy double take at it.
It was a modern adjutant, fully artificial instead of a cybernetic mixture like the old ones, like the Confederate one they'd found on Tarsonis. All the same, Jimmy squinted at the machine and at what could have been petulance in its tone.
"Head's up, Raynor," Tosh's voice came across the comm, "The first major military prisoner wing is coming up on the right, just across that bridge."
He scanned the cameras, the viewpoints provided by the floating munin, finding the right one across a short bridge of neosteel, concrete, and stone.
"I got eyes on it, Tosh. You MannCo boys got a plan for it?"
Even as Jimmy spoke, however, he watched it go into action. Even from here, the sight of the spherical grenades that MannCo's spectres employed were being thrown into the squads of marines, while EMP rockets slammed into the three goliaths and two siege tanks guarding the wing. A small bit of manipulation of the munin's camera let him watch as several spectres uncloaked and fell upon the vehicles, tearing their way to the innards with booms from their rifles and outright frightening displays of psychic fury. All it took to wipe out a considerable minor garrison was a few seconds.
"Yes, we did," Tosh said after a moment back through the comm, now slightly out of breath. "We'll keep an eye out here, wean out those who should stay and those who shouldn't. But more than that…here, got some codes I think your adjutant will find useful."
"Access granted to Dominion vehicle depot," the Adjutant announced, clicking and whirring.
Jimmy's eyes widened.
"Holy hell…," he murmured as he read through the data coming through. "And they just stored all these diamondbacks right next to the prisoners?"
"Should help fill the holds of the Hyperion quite nicely, I think," Tosh chuckled deeply. "There's another depot right next to the other wing too. See you there, huh?"
=====================================================================
The bridge of the Thermopylae was strewn with blood, smoke, and spent shells. Black-armored MannCo marines stood still as the entire bridge crew glared up at me from their knees, forced there by more svelte looking troopers. Aside from some scratches on the paint of the marines, some splashes of blood from their enemies, and the smoke from the barrel of their guns, there was almost no sign at all that they had been in combat at all. They had been, of course, but the thing was, my most so-called elite troops were equipped far beyond the standard possibly by any other terran power. Or zerg. Or protoss.
But standing there, looking at the rage and fury in crew's eyes, I couldn't help but think if maybe I could have just spared us all a lot of trouble and gotten rid of them the old-fashioned way. My old-fashioned way, at least. But no. That was a path I really, really didn't want to go down again. It was one of the big thought experiments from a long, long time ago, I guess. Strong enough to have the privilege of mercy, hopefully smart enough to employ it when you can. There was no desperation, no absolute need to kill a single one of them, not when I didn't need to. I couldn't tell them that though. Not when I'd given them the illusion of having a chance, trying to fight off our boarding parties every inch of the way. Some of them, given the nature of the Dominion under Arcturus Mengsk, probably didn't deserve that much.
But I think that'll be something for Valerian to deal with.
"You fought as hard as you could. Sorry it wasn't enough," I shrugged down at them.
Multiple universes, and still quantum-crystalline alloys were some of the absolute near inviolable materials around. Enough that marine armor sheathed in the stuff instead of neosteel were essentially invulnerable, especially when the tertiary faceplate layer made of the stuff slid down to cover the glass.
"Mengsk will come after you," the Captain – a relatively brutal man named Joseph Meyers – promised me.
There was absolute murder in his eyes.
"You think that your little company will survive the full might of the Dominion?! Once the Emperor learns of what you've done here, he'll tear you apart!"
"He'll try," I corrected him. "And he's not going to know what happened here."
Captain Meyers looked ready to rant some more, and in fact did so, but I was paying attention to the rest of the remaining bridge crew. Some of them were as loyal and dedicated as him. Others, maybe a bit less. I wasn't sure if it would matter. Or if it should. I let Meyers get it out, flickering the vast majority of my attention back to New Folsom itself. The Raiders were well on their way, practically to the last bastion already. Both of the military wings had been secured, and the siege tanks and diamondbacks within the depots claimed. The sheer amount of salvage war material gained here would be more than enough to fully equip the Hyperion and its ground vehicle corps.
A motion from Meyers drew me back, and I let loose a sigh as I pushed him back down from where he'd tried to rise.
"You aren't going to die. But I can't let you tell the Dominion anything, not right now. So you're going to have to go away for a while. All of you."
Then I triggered the transport beams from my stealthed ships and whisked away the thousands of Dominion crewmembers to their chrono-locked holds. A few hours of FTL and they'd be at a prison planet of my own. Just for a while. I'd have to see what happened with Valerian before I released them back to the Dominion. Really, I'd probably end up just having to put more effort into keeping them from killing themselves more than anything else. There was approximately no chance at all for them to overpower their guards, or to escape from where they were going with the resources they would have.
"You think I should have just killed them?" I asked my best friend.
"…no. We didn't need to, not really," Yuriko shook her head. "Maybe Valerian will end up convincing them, maybe not, but we didn't need to."
I didn't really need to exhale, not really, but it felt right to do so, the noise a bit more of a shudder to it than I intended.
"Right. Okay."
"Woah, what the hell are those?" I heard Jimmy call on the radio.
Well, he wasn't calling me in particular, but I was absolutely listening in. A glance at Yuriko had her nod and call in.
"Those are thors, Raynor, combat walkers the Dominion is slow rolling out. Be careful, let us take care of them."
"Thors?! What the hell-,"
"Later, Raynor," Yuriko switched channels and let Raynor sputter. "Tosh, no more playing around. Full spread."
"Oh, we done letting the Raiders blood themselves, huh?" Tosh answered sardonically, probably even rolling his eyes as he said it.
"Pretty much," Yuriko sniffed and switched back to Raynor. "Pull your Raiders back for a second, Raynor, they've done enough."
"…fine, but I want more info on these things if we're going to be seeing more of them."
"Fair enough," she shrugged. "They're going to start proliferating more and more, but they're a bit slow and clunky for how strong they can be. Also able to deploy all those cannons on their backs for heavy concentrated bombardments. I think the first one was deployed…a year or two ago?"
"Well," Raynor's response was a bit washed out in static for a moment as the nukes hit. "Guess they're not tough enough to survive that though."
"No, they're not," Yuriko chuckled.
I let them talk, leaning back against a wall. It was…nice, to see Yuriko smile as she snarked at the man. Despite her best efforts, she hadn't really made any friends in the Umojan Protectorate. And she really had tried for a while there. But the Shadowguard, the Academy, just hadn't been able to reciprocate like she'd hoped. But the Raiders, rough and tumble as they were, a little crazy here and there, were managing it. Which is, honestly, exactly what I was hoping for. Say what you will about the whims of the universe, or creation, the fact of the matter is that they're good people.
So I sat back and just watched. The fighting was over anyway.
=============================================================================
"Fifty years, and no one's ever escaped from New Folsom…but we took it apart in an hour," Jimmy murmured as he looked down at the planet, his arms crossed.
Of the Dominion ships, there was no longer any sign. MannCo had taken them, or maybe they'd just plunged them into the sun to get rid of them. Either way, the only ships left in orbit were Raider ships and various MannCo transports. Somehow, who knew how, the spectres had managed to process the entire prison population with their telepathy in a shockingly small amount of time, and now they were leaving less than a tenth of the prisoners behind. Everyone else was getting to leave. The majority of the two military wings, former Confederates, a chunk of disloyal Dominion, and even a few UED had already requested to join up, a request Jimmy had agreed to.
"It shouldn't have been so easy to pull off. Without MannCo…," Matt said as he joined him at the window, hands folded behind his back. "Another battle without taking any Raider losses. It's…remarkable, to say the least."
There was an audible flare of electricity and psionics as Yuriko Thirteen uncloaked behind them, leaning against the star map with a smirk on her face.
"Remarkable is a word for it, yeah," she raised an eyebrow, chuckling. "Isn't that a good thing, Horner?"
"Of course," Matt turned about, walking over to the star map and clicking a button to release the list of names and profiles of the freed prisoners, glancing them over. "But something tells me MannCo could have done this on their own," he turned to look at her. "But you didn't. You had us do it. Risked our people."
"What do you want me to say, Horner, that we wanted to make sure your troops were blooded?" Yuriko leaned back before straightening. "Because that's obvious. Besides, isn't this what you wanted? To be able to strike hard against Mengsk? Hit him where it hurts?"
"It's not about just…killing people and blowing up ships," Matt shook his head. "Our revolution is about more than that."
"I know," Yuriko looked at him, face twisted with confusion. "You're fighting for a better tomorrow. Freedom and all that. I mean, look at them," she gestured at the list. "Free thinkers. Scientists. Philosophers. Voices that Mengsk chose to lock up rather than silence with a knife or gun."
"All out of the goodness of MannCo's heart," Raynor snorted as he walked away from the window, tilting his head as he lit up another cigarette. "Right?"
Yuriko pursed her lips and sighed, shaking her head with her hands on her hips.
"You've got it all wrong, Raynor," she glanced at Jimmy and then at Matt, something cold and hard in her eyes before it slipped away. "We aren't doing this for us. We're doing it for them," she gestured at the list. "We're helping you because you're you. Goodness in our hearts," she snorted, picking up her helmet with her mind and floating it over to her hands, where she looked down at its featureless face. "No. But for the goodness in yours? Yeah."
She slipped her helmet on, a quiet hum emerging as it slotted into the rest of her armor.
"There's gotta be more to it than that," Jimmy crossed his arms again, scoffing lightly. "That ain't the way the universe works."
"You're right," Yuriko shrugged. "It isn't how this universe works. Rest up, you two. Revolution isn't over just yet, mmm?"
Then her stealth field activated, and both doors to the bridge activated at the same time, probably with mild telekinetic force as she headed out. Jimmy and Matt shared a look before both men sighed simultaneously, Matt reaching over to click the display back to off.
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Ships out of nowhere and tech like what MannCo has isn't how the universe works either Jimmy boy.
But somehow it works. At least for MannCo.
But somehow it works. At least for MannCo.
It isn't how THIS universe works... but Mann is from another.
asdx
Superior Sword Fairy
- Location
- Texas.
"MOVE YOU FAT PLODDING BASTARD, I'VE GOT SOME VERY IMPORTANT RELAXING TO DO!!!" *Straps Halley's to the Plot to make it go faster*Plus the canon storyline is the fastest way to kill Amon. Mann is just.... pushing it along slightly.
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