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

[DragonCobolt]

You frowned. "Matt, I have an idea," you said.

"...yes, General?" he asks, and you can tell he's already thinking what you're thinking.

"If they don't know I'm on planet...you can contact them while I do scouting," you said. "And see what they've seen - maybe offer to trade for any information."

He sighed. "Of course, General."

Your grin was merciless.

As your ACU started to work on maneuvering towards the nearest outcropping of mineral resources to lay down an extractor - basic practices worth doing - you listened with half an ear as Matt's voice crackled over the general frequency. "Terran Mercenaries, this is the United Earth Federation Major-"

"Oh darling!" A female voice came up. You tapped a few buttons and brought up the twin picture-in-pictures of Matt - looking rather dashing for a man in his UEF blue - and...Han. Han, the leader of this mercenary group, looked for all the galaxy exactly like it: Her hair was dyed pink and swept over her head, while a pair of goggles were pushed up against her bangs, revealing that one of her eyes was a cheap prosthetic that came in matte black, with a red iris in the center. She was dressed in the connective skinsuit that would hook into power armor, clinging to her shoulders and chest, and bedecked in banodliers, holsters, and other weapons. You were pretty sure her desk pickup camera was, without even trying, demonstrating that she had six different ways to kill someone on her person...

...and if that prosthetic wasn't cheap, but instead, had put the money into alternative features...

Hurm.

"Ahem," Matt said. "My name is Major Mathew Horner."

"A major!" Her good eye glinted as she grinned. "To what do I owe this delight, Mattie?"

"Major Horner, please," Matt said. "Identify yourselves and your purpose on this planet."

She chuckled. "Why, I'm General Mira Han, leader of Mira's Marauders. We're operating as security services for the Kel-Morian Combine, Mattie. But since you're from Earth, that must not mean much to you." She fluttered her eyelashes, leaning forward into the pickup. "My techs say you're in orbit. Not looking into muscling into our...contract?"

"The UEF isn't particularly interested in the raw material you can acquire in any other planet with significantly less risk of lava damage," Matt said, flatly. "We're interested in a Confederate facility that was located on this planet. Are your mercenaries aware of it?"

"Eech. That place?" she made a face. "My scout team says it's haunted."

"Haunted?" Matt asks.

"Well, yes. With ghosts," she said, then started to laugh like a maniac.

***
​

The point to point teleporter you had access too made it three short trips from plateau to plateau to reach the area that Mira Han had given Matt. The Major had needed to stay on the line with her for quite some time to finally cajole the information out of her - and through the entire time, she had been quite relentless when it came to flirting with him on every ground you could have imagined, and several you couldn't. It had been the funniest thing you'd heard all month.

"General, permission to rod that battlecruiser," he said, somewhat desperately.

"She might take that as a proposal," Matt sounded miserable. "But she doesn't seem to be aware you're on planet."

"Now we'll see what the Confederates left behind," Tosh said, sounding pleased. "Send in a drone?"

"That is the safe option," you said, then tapped several buttons on your ACU's control. The Confederate station had been built in the most tectonically stable part of Redstone you had seen so far - a broad mesa with several mountain ranges that prevented any of the lava flows from encroaching. The building itself was a pair of pyramidal shaped outcroppings of heavy black metal, with no windows, and only a few entrances. There was only a faint glimmer of power running through it from backup generators. Your drone drifted down and came to the front doors, then started to cruise through the building. It skimmed images through your ACU as you leaned back in the seat.

The footage was desolate and quiet. You felt a faint sense that something was going to pop out at you at any second as the lonely flashlight of the drone panned through the long, narrow steel corridors. It cruised past rooms full of dust and abandoned machinery - a few that looked like they had once been school rooms, with desks for students...

Small students.

Your lips pursed.

The drone continued cruising by. It went past a few cafeterias and support rooms - the kind of things you'd use to keep people fed and happy. The feed hissed with some static, but it cleared up.

The drone went past the rooms with the restraint harnesses. Then it found the first room that made you swear softly. "Ah hell."

The room was a gymnasium. But it hadn't served as one at the last second. There were two dozen corpses piled up at the left wall, lined up. The steel behind them was dented and pitted and stained. The drone's hover engine sent up tiny puffing dust eddies around its frame - the camera taking in the desiccated bodies. Skin had turned to paper, tightened across leering skull like faces. The camera flashed up identifications it picked up.

"Dr. Benning, Dr. Hartly..." Matt read off the data. "They're Confederate science staffs."

"They took the research staff - most of it from the looks of it - lined them up against the gymnasium wall...and shot them," you said.

"It looks like it," Matt said.

"The question is...who," Tosh said. "Confederates when they pulled out?"

"The Dominion when they took over?" Matt suggested.

"If it was the Dominion, they'd have taken the information," you said, then frowned and tapped several switches on the controls. The drone continued skimming forward. It came to the computer core - and then the drone fizzled. The camera snowed over with static. You frowned and slapped against the control with your palm. The screen only grew more staticed.

"We're getting some kind of interreference - a nonlocalized quantum event is shorting out the remote," Dr. Hanson said, sounding curious.

"They have a Q-Jammer in there?" you asked. "Must be running on fumes."

"Well, the drone got all the way to the C&C without triggering a single security system - and we were pinging everything. Stukov, the secondary scans, how did..." Matt paused.

"No detected operational turrets, weapon systems, or anything else," Stukov said.

You nodded, slightly. "So, we just need someone to go in and grab the data?"

---
HEAT: 0/6

[ ] Head in and find the data core
[ ] Hey, there are mercs on the planet. Hire a squad escort...just in case. (Diff 6 using your UEF general skill - 4 HEAT)
[ ] Write In

 

[DragonCobolt]

Your fingers drummed on the console. There was a strategic angle that had been gnawing at the back of your mind. The UEF worked hard to make their technology as hard to reverse engineer as possible - the same was true of Cybran and Aeon technology, out in the greater war. You leaned your head back in the seat. The few Cybran ACUs that had been captured since they had shifted from hit and run to stand up fights had all had the same deeply encoded, hard-core level encryption in them...

But what if the Protoss got their hands on it?

Hell, you knew it wasn't a good idea to underestimate the local Terrans, they'd managed technological advancements that the UEF hadn't managed - every refined scan on a battlecruiser made you wonder if maybe General Hall had been too hard on DeGalle. You made a face, slowly. The only faction you were pretty sure you didn't have to worry about getting their hands on an ACU and a nanolathe was the Zerg. How'd they even know to use it?

But each factory you built was another chance that someone might get the tech back to Mengsk.

The facility was abandoned.

"I'm heading in," you said, firmly.

"General?" Matt sounded a little uncertain.

"The drone said it was safe, and no one's found a quantum jammer that can shut a human brain down. Besides..." You frowned, slightly. "I want to get this out of the way before the locals get tetchy." Your fingers tapped at the controls. The internal fabricator hummed to life. "Don't worry. I'm not going in empty handed."

"Understood," Matt said.

The internal cockpit of the ACU shunted to the side and then down. When the side door opened, the bitterly hot air from outside blasted against your face. Your eyebrows felt like they were drying out, growing crumbly in seconds. You ignored it - your breather mask settled into place as you started to scramble down the ladder set along the side of the ACU's belly and thigh. When you got to the ground, you glanced back at your suit - and whistled softly.

"Sir?" Stukov asked.

"Just taking in the new perspective, lieutenant," you said, heading for the door quickly. The difference in temperatures outside and in was remarkable. Just being out of the direct wind being blown off the lava, away from the ash and the scorching sun, was enough. The interior corridor was just as gray and abandoned as you had seen from the outside. You took a moment to check your gear. The ACU's emergecy supply fabrication suite was for the rare situation where you had to ditch the ACU without being able to trigger the self destruct powered teleport disengage. It only happened when you got EMP'd to hell or the ACU got hit with something that managed to take the teleport disengage system out while also leaving you alive and not hitting the fusion reactor.

Those hits were rare...but...in a war that had lasted a thousand years, they had come up often enough by chance and good planning - or bad planning in some cases - that the ACU was pre-loaded with fabrication systems that could spit out a basic pistol and some other essentials. Body armor, for one thing. The combat weave was light enough that you weren't going to be slowed down, and you had space enough for three magazines - enough considering they were fifty round caseless nano-shot cubes. The police used them for civilian criminals and they were programmable to a certain extend, though your sidearm was designed to just handle bullet and pellet variations. No shooting around walls for you.

Your boots made soft, lonely clacking noises as you headed forward into the corridor.

Something the drone hadn't picked up was the emptiness of the place. How...sad it was, just walking through it. The scent of desperation and antiseptic had worked into the walls in a way that you hadn't expected. You frowned as you paused at one of the rooms you'd seen in grainy drone footage: The classrooms, the medical chambers. You paused at one of the classrooms, stepping inside. One of the desks flickered to sputtering life, its batteries not quite running down. The bright cubes and rectangles of some geometry lesson danced in the air above the console, while a distorted voice warbled: "Put the c-c-c-c-cubes in the...in the...in the..."

You shook your head. "Age range, what, twelve?"

Stukov coughs. "Uh, no, General, this appears to be a basic geometry learning program - shapes and pattern recognition. Twelve year olds, ahh, would be doing something more sophisticated."

Your cheeks colored slightly. "I don't really have much experience with kids," you said.

"Nothing to be ashamed of, Generals. I have six nephews, three cousins the same age as them, and four sons," he said, sounding a little pleased.

You remembered that he was a family man, from the dossier. But still. You hadn't been sure how involved he was. You harrumphed. "So, what age range would you say this is?"

He hissed. "Depending on the nature of the children, General. But I'd say, early kindergarden. Preschool, even."

"That'd be ages, what, three? Four?" you frowned. "Who the hell puts a school room of four year olds out here?"

No one had a good answer for that. You moved past the classrooms, shining the flashlight attached to your firearm into the medical examination rooms. The light played over gleaming metal. Had it seemed quite so...sharp edged through the drone? You felt a cold creeping sense of dread crawling along your back - and a weight in your belly. You pushed it aside. You were a General, goddamn it, not some private getting spooked by ghost stories. You swung your pistol back around.

A flash of pale white. A quiet sound.

You snapped your pistol up, aiming down the corridor at the junction - you had seen movement, zipping around the corner.

"General?" Stukov asked.

"Sam, your heartrate just spiked," Matt said, his voice concerned enough that you could forgive the lapse in discipline. You frowned.

"Did either of you catch that?" you asked.

"No? Playing back your headset view over thirty seconds," Stukov said. You could hear your own muffled gasp playing back to yourself - and the picture in picture in your breather's projected HUD flicked over your eyes. You saw no sign of motion, no flash of white. But as you watched the feed in slow motion, frame by frame...

You heard that sound again. And you identified it.

It was a giggle.

Your skin crawled. You hurried to the corner, then aimed your pistol around it - painfully aware that you had to pick left or right to shine the light down. Your back prickled as your light spilled over the corridors leading into the cafeterias and mess halls. You turned and shone the light towards the gymnasiums and other chambers.

Where the bodies are...

Your hand felt sweaty as you muttered over the line. "Please tell me you heard that giggle," you said.

"No, the mics didn't pick it up," Stukov said.

Your jaw tightened. "Dr. Hanson, are my biometrics showing anything unusual?"

"Other than a heightened level of stress, elevated heart rate...nothing that our medicomps can pick up," Dr. Hanson said. "But General, your -zzzzzz- read me? Do yo- zzshshhh-"

Her voice dissolved into a hissing gale of static as your light flickered, winking on and off again. You slapped your palm against the side of your gun and frowned. "Dr. Hanson?" you asked. "Major Horner? Lieutenant Stukov?" The only response you got was a howling storm. Someone had just turned the quantum jammer from low to high.

An automated system?

Or something else.

Giggle.

The sound was coming from down the corridor. Past the cafeterias - towards the training areas of the building - large mazelike areas, shooting ranges, and other places for physical activity.

Your teeth were grinding.

---
HEAT: 0/6

[ ] Go deeper - towards the giggling.
[ ] Go deeper - check the cafeterias.
[ ] Fuck this place. Retreat and get some support.
[ ] Fuck this place. Retreat and level it with artillery.
[ ] Write In

 

[DragonCobolt]

Your frown was carved into granite. You tried to imagine what Major Horner would say if he had heard you gotten spooked by some malfunctioning chipset playing a goddamn entertainment program for a nine year old. Hell, then you imagined the teasing you'd get from Sarah. Your laugh echoed through the corridor and you rolled your shoulders slowly, feeling the knots relaxing around you.

How can someone with biceps this big be scared of a ghost? Sarah would say, or something like that. With kisses, too.

You shook your head, then frowned. "First things first," you said.

You started towards the cafeteria. One of the objectives was to learn more about how the base had gone down - so, if the jamming signal let you, you did want to send the data you could get off the bodies in there. You walked confidently, and the strange sense of unease felt as if it had almost completely died down, though not enough to let you get a signal past the QJ interference. You came to the cafeteria room, and swept the flashlight over the bodies. You counted twenty, all in labratory coats. One thing the drone had missed thanks to the angle of its camera was the heavy crunching footprints that had cracked the somewhat thinner wooden surface of this gymnasium. You knelt down, frowning a little.

Power armor boots.

"My father..."

You jerked your head up, frowning. You had heard, ghostly and faint, something whispering. It had been male and close. You looked around, but the cafeteria remained quiet and empty. You paused, then shone the light on the bodies. None of them had moved.

Then.

Something happened.

Flickering and semi-translucent, a row of men and women stood above the bodies. They looked only vaguely there, like blurry holoprints. They murmured among one another, soft whispering sounds that almost but didn't quite cohere into words. The concern in them was coming off in waves - and a voice that almost made sense rose up out of the susurrations. It was like hearing a shouting match through plexiglass.

Mmhmmhmm mmhm thmmhmm

"My father appreciates all you've done here. He's sent me to decide how this program will continue."

That voice again - coming from behind you. You looked back, but saw nothing. No holo projection, nothing. A malfunctioning...recording device? Maybe. Your mind reached for answers - but then you jerked your head back as the muffled voice came again. This time, you could almost make out words.

mmhmm this project mmh mm delay is mm

"The computer files have been downloaded and your subjects are coming with me to the Protectorate."

And us?

"You get what you deserve," the voice, which had been cold but calm actually broke slightly. "Men. Disengage aggression inhibitors for thirty seconds."

Muffled sounds of eager agreement - again, coming through thick glass. Then the faintest outlines of bulky, power armored shapes came into view to either side of you. Your brows drew in as you heard, subliminal, almost deep in your bones, the aching sound of jackhammering gunfire. The ghostlike holograms in the cafeteria twitched, writhed, then dropped as one - only one had managed to move. Their form fell and overlain one of the desiccated corpses that lay on its face, a few feet from the others. The only one that had been shot in the back.

The images faded and the feeling of being in a freezer went away. You shivered and then almost screamed and jumped out of your skin as Lt. Stukov's voice came over your com. "...General, do you read me?"

You put your hand to your com, breathing slowly, steadily. "Yes," you said, firmly, not letting it show how fast your heart was hammering.

"Sam, what is going on down there - your biocomp is giving us some bizarre readings," Matt said.

"I..." You looked around the room. "I need to check something."

You moved to the walls, checking for doors - listening to Dr. Hanson recount everything she had picked up to you in an excited, nervous flurry. "Your stress levels are high, but what's interesting is your brain scan feedback - we're detecting spikes in neurotransmitters that appear to be emerging extemporaneously - no source stimuli, primarily centered in your hippocampus and temporal lobes, those subcomponents most commonly associated with longterm memory, are you having any traumatic flashbacks right now?"

"No," you said, grimly. You had found a door and opened it - the hinges weren't even that rusty. Inside there was actually an ancient holographic recording and playback device - something that could have picked up every single moment in the gym and replayed it again and again. Great, you supposed, if you had students who were being trained and monitored and studied. But there was just one tiny problem with this comforting, logical explanation for everything you had just seen.

Someone had shot it.

Not just shot it, they had riddled it with long spikes - the ferrous gauss rounds that the local Terran infantry tended to use in their various makes and modes of man portable rifles. You put your hand on the console, then frowned. You turned your back on it, and remembered a pencil, floating in the air without anyone touching it. Without instrumentality - without an agrav tractor or emitter or even a piece of fucking string.

The smug bastard had even offered to do it again naked in a room you had prepared, if you wanted.

"...Dr. Hanson," you said. "I just saw some fucking ghosts."

"As in...the special operatives?" she asked.

"No. Quasi-holographic sounds and images, replaying the moments before a violent death, like out of a goddamn Hiram Wen feely novel," you said. "Someone came here on orders from his...father..." you frowned, slowly. "The Dominion has a crown prince, right?" Your scorn for lines of succession based on hereditary bled into your voice.

"Yes, a Prince Valarian Mengsk. Currently in a diplomatic mission with a smaller Terran state called the Umojan Protectorate," Stukov said, clearly reading from a dossier.

You nodded. "I think he came here to clean up."

"He executed all those people?" Horner asked. "Do you think this could be a propaganda coup for us? Mass murder of innocent civilians."

You considered the voice you had heard. Your hand slid along your shoulder, feeling the solidity of hard muscle. "I doubt it," you said, voice grim.

"Well-ssszzsss-" Matt's voice vanished in a blur of static.

You frowned, then stepped from the small recording and control booth. You had half expected to see what you saw. But that didn't make the urge to draw your gun and aim it any less strong. A young child in a white labratory smock that hung, dresslike, around their slender shoulders and dangled around to their knees - leaving their shins and their blood soaked feet exposed. They stood in the doorway, their hair grown long and rangy and black, concealing features behind a curtain of uncombed, untamed wildness. You gulped and between blinks, the child seemed to vanish, then appear - and this time, they were five or so meters back from the door, an almost invisible white flash in a darkened corridor. You walked forward, keeping your pistol down - the flashlight illuminating bright red footprints on the floor.

"-eneral, do you read me?" Matt's voice cut through the static.

"I do Matt, playback my cam footage for the past sixty seconds," you said, quietly.

There was a short pause. "I'm...not seeing anything," he said.

"Figured."

---
HEAT: 0/6

[ ] Follow the Ghost (Resilience Diff 4 check - 2 Heat)
[ ] Call for backup, then follow the Ghost (UEF General check diff 6 - 4 heat - then Resilience diff 1+1 check, 0 heat)
[ ] Leave. Now. (Fail Resilience check and leave)
[ ] Write in


(calling for backup has the side effect of giving you a squad of goons with the People (1) characteristic, augmenting your actions.

 

[DragonCobolt]

CW: Child abuse, ghost training

You squared your shoulders and beat back the sense of gathering dread in your stomach, then started forward. You walked through the base, following the footprints. The faint wet slap slap slap of someone walking, bare foot, just out of your sight echoed through your ears, almost as loud as the hissing static over your communicator. Your flashlight played over a doorway and you saw the footsteps turned to face it. You walked to the door and shone your light around the room. It was sparse. Undecorated. The walls were padded and there was a small table on it. You stepped into the room-

The gun gleams on the table. The man stands beside it. The voice over the PA is clipped, robotic.

"Take it from him."

The man snatches up the gun. You step forward, grab the barrel - control it. You twist, push, tug. He's stronger than you. He yanks back and you fall backwards. He aims the gun at you. The barrel is huge.

"Reset."

The man sets the gun down again. You think you might have wet your pants. You force the tears back, breathing raggedly. You stand up.

This time, you focus. They'd been teaching you how to use your powers. You just had to do it. You just had to do it. You just had to do it. You just had to do it. Your heart hammered as the man resumed his position. The tiny chip in his forehead glittered as he took his posture. He was bald and brick faced, even in white smock and leggings.

"Take it from him."

He reaches. You grab the barrel. Twist, push-

He pushes back. You feel something pop inside you. You're stronger. His finger cracks and you wrench the weapon free, bringing it around and aiming it at him.

"Execute."

Your finger-

You snap back to yourself with an echoing gunshot in your ears. Your pistol shakes as you swing it around the room. The table is still there, but the gun's long gone. You touch the dust on it and frown, harder. You turn back and see that the footprints continue. You come, at last, to the circular chamber...the computing core. Your flashlight swept around...and saw what the robot had missed. There, huddled next to the console, their body pressed against metal and curved chairs, was a figure - slender and trembling and clad in a pale white smock. Their hair is wild and tangled and their eyes show have the jaundiced hue of someone suffering from pretty severe nutrient loss. Their frame is skeletally thin, like they were on the very edge of running out of rations. You immediately set your pistol down on the counter beside you, holding your hand out.

"My name's Samantha," you said, quietly. Your voice felt like a bulldozer in the room. Too fucking loud. The child flinches. You pause. "What's yours?"

They don't speak for a long, quiet moment, their eyes wide as they look at you. Their eyes bore into yours and you swear you feel a tingle in your mind. Their voice is soft, but less cracked than you'd expect. They had to have been drinking water, even if they were running low on food.

"XG9081," they whisper.

You try and keep yourself from frowning - pretty sure that a frowning Samantha Clarke was the last thing this poor kid needed to see.

"Is that the name they gave you?"

Their head bobbed.

"...you scared the mercs aware, didn't you?" you asked - thinking of the little line Mira Han had fed you. Haunted by Ghosts indeed. The child nods again.

"Do you have your old name?" you ask, and begin to very, very slowly reach into your pouch.

They pause. "They make it go away. With a machine." They say, haltingly. "It hurts." Then they see your hand and tense up.

"Wait, wait," you whisper. "Wait."

You draw, gently, a small ratbar out. You hold it to them. "Eat it slowly. It's smart food - it's designed for slow release for these situations, so-" You get about that far before the ratbar gets snatched up and the child starts to chew on it with a ferocious eagerness. They chew and chew, hungrily, then push the last of it down their mouth. "...can you stop blocking my communications? We need to get you back to my ship."

They shook their head. "If I do, they come."

Your brow drew in. "The...mercenaries?"

That head shook again.

Your frown came, despite your efforts. "The Zerg."

The child whispers. "I don't want her to find me."

"Who's...her?" you asked.

The child reaches out. Their finger touches the floor and draws, tentatively, a stick figure on the ground - crude, but unmistakably human. Then they draw two additional curved wings thrusting from the shoulders, ending in equally crude lines. Something in your stomach shifts. It almost reminds you of...something. A dream you'd seen once. Or a nightmare. You opened your mouth and wracked your memory.

"The Queen of Blades?" you asked, the name coming to mind from the interview with General Duke and the reporter.

The child nods, their eyes bright and afraid.

"Well, don't worry," you said. "I'm General Samantha Clarke and I'm from the United Earth Federation."

"What's Earth?" the child asks, nervously.

"It's where all humans come from, and we're going to keep you safe. Come on." you said, standing up. "Lower the jamming and we can get you to Expeditionary 1. That's my spaceship. You'll get food. Medical attention. I promise."

The child gulps, slowly. "Okay."

The buzzing static cuts off and you hear Lt. Stukov's voice. "General? We've just got you on- bozhe moi, who is that?"

"A survivor that Prince Valarian missed," you said, lifting the kid without even noticing the weight. You tucked them against your shoulder. "How did that happen, buddy?"

"Hid," they said.

"Can't blame you," you muttered, softly.

"...uh, General," Stukov said, his voice alarmed. "Detecting a sudden Zerg biomass bloom out there. It's as if enough of them have collected in one place to..."

"Are they approaching?" you asked.

"...no, General. They appear to be scattering again. Unfortunately, they appear to be scattering due to Mira Han sending a flight of ships your way. I'd suggest you hurry."

You nod. "Tell Dr. Hanson, we're going to have a patients for her," you said, jogging through the corridors as fast as you could. You reached the exterior, the blazing heat slapping into you and the child at the same time. They clung to you and you hurried as fast as you could, enfolding them in your arms to keep the scorching heat from burning them too badly. You reached the ACU's side and touched the rungs - and they were scalding hot, despite the coolant systems the ACU had. You hissed, jerking your hands back. "Damn it." you started to program in some simple instructions - and the ACU started to take a knee.

As it laboriously got lower to the ground, a screaming sound shot by overhead. You looked up - but saw no sign of anything overhead. Your brow furrowed. For just a second, you swore you saw that there was something distorting the clouds. You filed it away for a future worry as the ACU's movement got you close enough to the hatch. You swung in and reached the cockpit with just a few more moments of inelegant scrambling. The child tucked against your side as you tapped at the console, bringing out another ratbar. The smart foods couldn't kill the kid, not like just giving them normal food - but you had to admit, they had to be very hungry to be able to ignore the fact that they tasted how they sounded.

Once the ACU stood, you brought the view online - and wouldn't you know it?

There was a call from Mira Han.

"Sammy, Sammy, Sammy!" she crooned. "Your pretty Matt has been holding out on me. I didn't know he went in for girls with jaws squarer than his." She grinned.

You frowned, intently. "This is General Samantha Clarke of the United Earth Federation Expeditionary forces. What are your intentions?"

"My intentions?" Mira asked. "Here, my poor bored Marauders were just on a Zerg hunt and you were sitting on an old Confederate covert ops laboratory and science facility." She grinned. "Do you know how many credits the Dominion would pay for this?"

"Nothing, they've already looted it," you said.

"Oh?" she asked. "Then we'll sell it on the black market then. There are enough smaller parties who...well, they won't be able to train platoons of Ghosts, but having one or two on the staff would suit them quite nicely." She grinned, wickedly. "Maybe even the Kel-Morians."

You frowned at her.

"Oh, Sammy, don't look like that! I'm being quite generous," Mira said.

"Are you now," you said, flatly.

"I have two squadrons of Wraith fighters overhead with antiarmor infrared lasers and aspect seeking ATS reaper missiles, Sammy," she said, her voice playful. "And I'm offering to let you and your little faux Goliath leave."

You quirked a single eyebrow.

---
HEAT: 2/6

[ ] Okay then. (Fail diplomacy and set heat to 0. Begin Combat - XP Value 15)
[ ] Accept her offer and quit the field. (Allow Mira Han to have access to the Covert Ops lab, get nothing.)
[ ] Stall her so you can make a drone and send it in to download the data, erase the rest, then bounce. (Diff 5 Charm check - 5 heat, overheat by 1. The situation then gets worse because...)

[ ] ...Mira finds out and decides to chase the E1 with her battlecruiser - with the goal of boarding you.
[ ] ...the feral Zerg swarm again (XP value 5)​

[ ] Write In

 

[DragonCobolt]

"Counter-offer," you said, smirking slightly. "You forget the base ever existed and I'll let you work for me."

MIra's brows drew together. "Work for you?"

"The pay's better than any two bit colonial dictator," you said, nodding.

"You think you can pay better than the Kel-Morians?" she asked, her voice scornful.

"I can pay better than Mengsk," you said.

Mira snorted with derision. Her cybernetic eye glinted as she leaned back in her seat. "That is a tall request. He's not a two bit dictator, he's the direct ruler of six planets!"

For the purposes of an independent colonial empire, that was fairly impressive - though you supposed that it was made a hell of a lot easier with the Adjutants that they had. Earth needed entire armies of those things to keep the Federation running across the worlds it controlled. Your fingers slid along your hair and you looked right into Mira's.

"The United Earth Federation controls fifty eight," you said, flatly.

Mira narrowed her eyes. She pursed her lips. You felt like she was judging your words, your face, your inflection. Then her eyes flicked to the side - and you guessed she was reading through a technical dossier. Whatever her scanners were telling her about your ACU. You were fairly confident a great deal of the technical information would be inexact due to the relatively primitive nature of Terran sensors, but even inexact guesses would be scary.
Your guess proved right - her eyesbrows shot up.

"...do you pay in gold?" she asked, playfully.

"We can," you said.

"Deal!" Mira said, then leaned forward. "Though, I do hope that I will be working very closely with Mattie, yes?"

"Of course," you said, with the merciless attitude towards subordinates that any officer needed to have if they were going to lead. "He is my XO. He manages the people when I'm busy and I'm a very busy woman. Now-" Your eyes flicked aside as you saw a com request from TacCom. You nodded. "Now wrap up your business here and join the E1 in orbit with your battlecruiser. I have something to take care of."

"Of course, Sammy-"

You turned her com off as Matt and Stukov's faces appeared in her place. Matt looked at you with the most kicked puppy expression you'd ever seen on his features before - but Stukov was focused. "General, the Zerg bioforms we detected? I think they can smell that Mira Han is backing off - they're beginning to approach your position again."

"How many?"

"A lot of fliers," he said.

"All right then," you said, squaring your shoulders. It looked like you had one last bit of clean up before you could put this hell-world behind you. Turning your ACU, you surveyed your options. There was a few outcroppings of minerals that you started to cap off quickly, while Stukov added some additional intelligence - throwing it through into your minimap. You were a bit relieved, this wasn't going to be a slugging match with land taken and land held. The lava-landscape of most of Redfall, it seemed, meant the feral Zerg had taken up scattered hives and bread fliers. Or, maybe, they simply bred fliers and land units and the land units all fucking died. You were still not entirely sure how much feral Zerg planned and how much of it was just...reaction.

Still, the view was impressive.

Mutalisks, winging through the air by the dozens - with those broad bodied crab things wobbling along with them. You scrolled in to look at one intently, frowning as Stukov said: "Those have been identified as a breed known as Guardians. Siege bioforms, capable of launching long ranged acid projectiles. They outrange most of our T1 antiair defense, unfortunately."

Okay.

You could handle this. Your mineral extractors were sending a steady flow of mass to your nanolathe - and you aimed the arm at the ridgeline of the island.

"W-What are you doing?"

You started, and saw that the child was still in the cockpit. They had slipped from your attention and memory like water - and you wondered how much of that was the fact you had the maternal instincts of a rock and how much of that was psychic powers. Your cheeks flushed and you explained as the beam flicked out and the first of the antiair towers started to rise up, dull gray-blue against a reddish sky. "There are Zerg coming. So, I'm building defenses with a nanolathe. It's...like a very fast SCV. You know SCVs?" Their head bobbed as you built another turret and another and another - throwing up two rows of them before the mutalisks were visible through your forward cameras.

The child watched nervously as the first wing of the mutalisks sweeping in. Their symbiotes slashed through the air, rebounding and bouncing off your turrets - but the turrets were as fearless and stalwart as anything run by a rudimentary target seeking AI could be. Their tracer rounds filled the air like fireworks and mutalisks started to splatter against the ground as they were hewn out of the air with a bloodthirstiness that made you wonder if you should cover the child's eyes. You glanced at them.

They didn't seem...too upset as the Zerg died. Then they pointed and you looked back at the screen.

"Ah," you said, cutting off a worse oath as the guardians did exactly as Stukov had predicted. They floated outside of the range of your weaponry and started to loose globs of acid. The huge splatters looked big enough to envelope entire mech-marines in a single hit. You gauged one, two hits would be enough to take out a basic infantry. Fortunately, there were only a few of the crab-things, and their splatters took time on the buildings, which started to slump, hiss, and spark.

"What do you do now?" the child asked, nervously.

"Watch," you said.

The nanolathe worked again - fabricating a factory in a few flickering moments. The factory itself started to augment your abilities as your forehead beaded with sweat. You were pretty damn sure that you had timed it just about right. The engineer trundled off the factory just as the first acid splashes started to slam into the large building. The huge globs of green glop started to hiss and bite into the steel and duranium - and you grinned. "They go for the big guys first. Good."

The guardians continued to splat your factory for a vital fifteen seconds as your nanolathe spat out streams of energy and mass at the framework the engineer threw up. The factory's internal reactors went up with a flare of white light and a WHUMP that shook the ground just as you jerked your nanolathe up and away from the tech two flack gun, which swung its barrels around and started to jackhammer, the recoil flinging them back into the housing of the antiair turret. Flack exploded around one of the guardians - and it instantly ruptured into a spray of blood and green acid. The other started to try and hover away, pincers clacking, but flack burst directly in its maw and it exploded like a bloody firework.

"Hah!" you said.

"Wow..." The kid whispered, then tentatively, put their hand on your hand. You coughed.

"All in a, uh...a day's work..."

***
​

The E1 meeting room was somber. You tried to keep the big goofy smile off your face, but the tingling buzz of Sarah's kisses - gently along your shoulder blades during your shower - kept you from feeling too poorly. Matt sat up straight at his chair, but Dr. Hanson was hunched over her tablet. She lifted her head as you took your seat and said: "Report."

"The child's name is Beaumont Riceling," Dr. Hanson said. "I was able to undo some of the mental blocks that they put into them - memory wipes." She made a face. "It seems that memory purges were relatively common during the training, and I had to put some back."

"Why?" Matt asked.

"The...training process was traumatic," Dr. Hanson said. "Bea is currently recovering in our nanosuite, they had pretty significant vitamin deficiencies. But...what's unusual is how well they were...um...preserved. I'd have expected them to be nearly unable to walk considering the amount of food they subsisted on. But instead, they will be physically unharmed within a few hours. I believe that their training in psychic abilities was focused on using those abilities to augment themselves, as I've been detecting a lot of quantum energy in their body from no particular source. Checking with our own former Ghost, Lt. Duran confirms that that is how he was trained."

"Never thought I'd feel bad for that shifty bastard," you muttered, quietly, drumming your fingers on the countertop. Your gaze turned to Matt. "And the Marauders?"

"They're a reasonably large auxiliary force, with the capability to manufacture and deploy additional forces on the ground," he said. "I'd say they're about on par with one of our unsupported armored platoons. But the battlecruiser they tool around on is something else entirely - it's nearly big enough that it could transport the entire E1 population and half our supplies."

You nodded.

The doors to the meeting room opened and Tosh entered. His smile was beatific.

"Excellent news, General," he said.

You frowned. "What is it?"

"A transmission from Earth just arrived," he said. "Quantum interference, it seems, can be beaten through enough effort. The President is on line for you."

You felt your face heat as you realized Tosh had just delivered his report before you could vet anything. You stood, your jaw tightening slightly. "I see. Dr. Hanson, keep studying Mx. Riceling. Major Horner, I want you to integrate the Marauder's into our command structure as auxilaries. Dismissed."

Tosh kept smiling at you as you headed out.

Then...

You heard something that made your face go from hot to cold.

Tosh sounded so damn polite and helpful - like he was just trying to be useful. "I had them patch the President in to your cabin, for privacy."

***
​

The door to your cabin opened and you saw Sarah leaning back in your desk chair, her feet up. "Really?" she was saying. "She was never in a football team once?"

"Nah, Sam always said that if she was going to get hurt, it'd be doing something real. Considering how many concussions I got, I think she might have had a point," President Riley's voice came over the com. You stepped into the room, frowning.

"Sarah," you said. "I need the com."

"Of course!" she said, then sprang to her feet. "Been talking with your friend Riley here." She grinned. "I didn't know you were buddy buddy with the President of Earth."

"Sarah," you said, frowning. Sarah, seeming to recognize your mood, gave you a sympathetic smile. She kissed your cheek, then sauntered for the doorway. You took the seat she had been in and looked as serious and official as you could. Riley, as befitted your long friendship, was giving you the biggest, most shit eating grin you'd ever seen.

"...she's cute," he said.

"Sir," you said.

Riley pursed his lips, then lifted his chin. "I've received your reports through a quantum repeater network that the eggheads have fabricated. Took over a thousand of them to bridge the realspace gap, but now, we should be able to punch a message through to Earth whenever required. This Korpulu Sector seems like it's going to change the war on its head. Psychic powers, aliens..." He shook his head. "It's like reading bloody science fiction."

"Quite," you said.

"That's...why I contacted you," he said. "The eggheads have been going through Dr. Hanson's reports. Did you know that the psychic phenomenon she has detected, the quantum events...they have particular...ah, hell, they called it 'harmonic polarity', but whatever the fuck that is." He waved his hand. "The comparison they chose was like magnets. North poles, south poles. Or antimatter, which is like normal matter but spinning the wrong way."

"That's the lay explanation, yes," you said.

"They say that that could be the answer to Project Black Sun," he said.

You frowned. "Project Black Sun was a bust, sir," you said. The incredibly secret failure of the Black Sun prototype had been what pushed President Riley to his colonization initiative rather than blustery war- claims. Three presidential administrations all secretly pouring scientists into a war-winning super weapon and the damn thing had proven to be physically impossible at the last second. Riley had been more furious at that than you'd ever seen him be mad at anything in his life.

"It was a bust. They say that the trick to unlocking the quantum events required is to combine both kinds of...psychic polarity. Upspin and downspin, together in the right material, could induce the Black Sun event in a guided, directed waveform. We could wipe out the Aeon and Cybran coreworlds from Earth without needing to lift a finger."

Your brows furrowed. "Materials?"

"That...Tal'darim thing you captured," he said. "The crystal was full of upspin energy."

"So, we just need to find the counterpart?" you asked.

"Well, the eggheads said that the crystal would need to be more pure - the Tal'darim was too unfocused, unrefined. Like the difference between raw uranium ore and some refined tritium." Riley's eyes were hungry. "Get me the good stuff, General. That's your new directive, not the Terran Dominion. We can bring the weight of a galaxy down on his head once our real enemies are dealt with."

"Sir," you said, emotionlessly. You knew that Riley at times like this was...almost impossible to argue with.

He still heard your opinion, despite everything. His face grew more set.

"That's an order, General." Then, with all the political cheerness he could muster, he smiled. "So, tell me about your new colonial girl."

"I have a lot of work to do, Riley," you said.

His lips pursed. "Understood."

His face vanished from the coms and you rubbed your palms against your face. "I am going to airlock that smug politsci dipshit," you whispered.

"What's Black Sun?"

You jerked your head around and saw that Sarah was peeking in through the door. "I thought I said I wanted privacy," you said, scowling at her. She giggled, then walked over and sat her rump down on your lap. Her arm snaked around your shoulders, her forehead pressed against your forehead.

"I'm a curious girl. Can you blame me?"

You sighed. "It's classified." You brushed a red strand behind her ear. "Now..." your eyes closed, and you laid your head back. "Where the hell do we get more Tal'darim crystals."

"Well, everyone knows where Protoss space is," Sarah said, shrugging. "Their homeworld is a mystery, though. Don't even know it's name."

You grunted.

Sarah sighed, quietly. "I believe in you." She leaned forward, then pressed her mouth to yours. Warm and soft. She caressed your cheek and you felt your own hand gliding along her back. When she broke the kiss, her voice was soft. "And I know one way to help cheer you up after a job well done saving kids and smashing Zerg."

Your grin was wry. "Yeah?"

"Yeah!" she smirked, then pushed herself off your lap.

You laughed, softly. "Sarah, I do need to...uh..."

Hm.

You could stand to be late...

---
Author's Note: Playtesting is useful! So, in throwing a small lil' battle at you, I was all ready for you to make decisions between plans, but then I was looking at your abilities and powers and the battle I had created and realized, there was basically only one really "good" strategy to choose for this battle? The others would have pointlessly overheated or injured yourself in what was a simple, easy fight by not playing to your strengths. Now, in tabletop, this is fine! Like, a XP 5 battle doesn't really exist to challenge players. It exists for them to show off and feel cool! But the problem is that stopping the quest for you guys to go, "uh, we do the obvious thing?" seems stupid.

So, I didn't do that! And instead, showed off!

BUT!

This nets you 5 XP and the found sparks of Mira's Marauders (6) - which importantly, pushes us up to level 2!

At level 2, you get +1 to two skills and a power!

Skills! Pick Two - both mut be different skills
[ ] CLOSE COMBAT (1): +Brawling
[ ] CLOSE COMBAT (1): +Edged
[ ] CLOSE COMBAT (1): +Blunt
[ ] CLOSE COMBAT (1): +Flexible
[ ] CLOSE COMBAT (1): +Polearm
[ ] GUNS (3): +Shotguns
[ ] GUNS (3): +Rifles
[ ] GUNS (3) +Sniper Rifles
[ ] PERSONAL (3): +Athletics
[ ] PERSONAL (3): +Finesse
[ ] PERSONAL (3): +Sneak
[ ] SOCIAL (3): +Charm
[ ] SOCIAL (3): +Bluff
[ ] SOCIAL (3): +Taunt
[ ] UEF GENERAL (3): +Political Connections
[ ] UEF GENERAL (3): +High Tech Weaponry
[ ] UEF GENERAL (3): +Support ACUs
[ ] ACU PILOT (3): +Teleportation Piloting [Range]
[ ] ACU PILOT (3): +Laser Management [Damage]
[ ] ACU PILOT (3): +Survival Instincts [Durability

Powers! Pick one! So, whatever power you pick, I will narratively justify and refluff to make sense, so go nuts!

[ ] Corona Of Destruction - charges enemies with energy that, if timed right, causes them to explode
[ ] Flash Flight - short ranged teleport
[ ] Gravity Swap - lifts enemies into the air so they can't act
[ ] Magic Missile - a kinetic blast that flings enemies backwards and damages them
[ ] Wall of Blades - makes a shield of razor blades
[ ] Transmorph - turns target into a sheep
[ ] Aura of Strength - enhanced strength for yourself and allies
[ ] Circle of Peace - enforce a no shooting/fighting zone for some time
[ ] Rebuke Evil - makes enemies flee and adds buffs for you to attack them while they run
[ ] Serpent Staff - creates a piece of gear representing a big snake that fights for you
[ ] Back to Back - allows allies on the field to make free melee attacks with you
[ ] Clash! - interrupt an enemy attack with your own melee attack
[ ] Cleave - give your melee attack an AOE.
[ ] Flourishing Disarm - remove the enemies ability to fight by removing their weapon (KO's them if they have no weapon.)
[ ] Reversal - turn an enemy's abilities against them in combat
[ ] Swashbuckle - gain free acrobatic movement
[ ] Assassin - use after killing people to make the murder unnoticable for some time
[ ] Carnage - augments a firearm so it does extra damage but overheats for some time
[ ] Hot Swap - rapidly refreshes anything that needs to reload/cooldown/recharge
[ ] Overkill - makes inaccurate weapons more accurate for the duration
[ ] Aquatic Might - become a The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Become highly mobile in alternate environments. Can be refluffed to be space instead of water.
[ ] Desert God - become a The Mummy (1999). Turn into a sandstorm and desiccate enemies, control swarms of beetles.
[ ] Spectral Form - become a ghost! You are intangible and can possess objects
[ ] Undying Body - become a Frankenstein. Become super-tough and super-strong, but gain a new weakness (fire, radiation, ect)
[ ] Red Thirst - become a vampire! While power is in effect, take damage from sunlight, lose heat by drinking blood and can turn into wolf, bat or mist
[ ] Warshift - become a werewolf! While power is in effect, take extra damage from silver, be better at melee, and gain superhuman strength.

 

[DragonCobolt]

Your fingers drummed on the table as you waited for the reports. The new extensions to E1, following design schemata sent by Earth, were top tier and extremely specialized. You wondered what your loitering mercenary battlecruiser was thinking about this - but so far, every report from Matt had somehow come around to asking for someone else to handle Mira Han but himself, in the most polite and respectful terms you'd ever seen. Poor Matt. You shouldn't have enjoyed his discomfort as much as you did - but there was something deeply amusing in the way Mira played with him. Maybe-

The door to the bridge opened and Dr. Hanson entered, looking abstracted. "General," she said, seeing you. "Ah, good! The sensor sweeps have started - and we've detected two sources of the quantum energies that you require."

You nodded. "Show me."

The two worlds seemed to be near diametric opposites. One of them was a jungle covered, blue shrouded, white clouded temperate world with but a few patches of ocean and savannah and some deserts in the southern continents. It was a world any faction in the Infinite War would have been overjoyed to claim. You then noticed the statistics running along the side and blinked. "Seven billion zerg?" you asked, turning to face her. "And five million Tal'darim?"

"Protoss, actually," Dr. Hanson said. "According to the intelligence reports, Tal'darim is a faction - these are unaffiliated Protoss, possibly a splinter faction. Or vice versa. The number of Protoss is steadily decreasing and there appears to be an active quantum gate on the planet. I believe they're in the process of evacuating - though the number of Protoss going down can...also due to being casualties taken from the feral Zerg on the planet. Our flyby probe spotted the source of the upspin quantum energies, though." She brought up a picture in picture on the screen, showing an orbital view of a vast, glittering blue crystal field. To your surprise, it wasn't surrounded by Zerg, but instead by a vast and powerful looking Protoss base and you...immediately saw the difference.

Where the Tal'darim had been almost Cybran - black and red and gleaming - the Protoss reminded you of an even more gaudy version of the Aeon: Gold and elegance, sweeping around structures that hovered in a-grav fields and nestled onto the ground. Spiderish robots clattered about the edges, and a ring upon ring of photon cannons around the exterior. Feral zerg came in at a steady clip, and were blasted by blue white orbs of energy.

"There," Dr. Hanson said, pointing at the crystal outcropping. "That's where the upspin quantum energies are located. We're not sure what the planet's name is, though..."

"And the downspin?" you asked.

"There's two sources, actually," Dr. Hanson said. "One closer and weaker, one farther and stronger and...well, let me show you the first. It's on a world called Braxis."

SHe brought up another image. This world was one of those borderline 'temperate' ones - a thin band of equatorial region looked nice and warm, while the poles swept down in vast walls of ice. You were sure any colonial authority would be infuriated by the fact that the equator, due to a bad chance of planetary tectonics, had no land masses - most of the world's actual land was icy and centered up on the north-eastern quadrant. Given a choice between sinking and freezing, the colonists that had picked this world had picked there...and they were clearly Terran Dominion. A series of defensive fortifications, with heavy bunkers, deployed siege weaponry, and a single battlecruiser hovered over the whole colony. Dr. Hanson circled a building near the center.

"The downspin quantum energies are located right there," she said, nodding grimly. "If I were to guess, there's another crystal lattice holding it naturally. Which does lead to the question...are the Dominion researching it like they were researching Ghosts? Or...was it something they found?"

You grunted and rubbed your hand along your jaw.

"And the second?"

The third world that came up was only better than Redstone by the thinnest of margins - black and red smears covered the volcanically active surface, and orbital platforms hung around it - but each one looked like it had been heavily infested, even from an orbital view. The population count showed 5-10 billion Zerg, with the exact numbers being highly occluded by the atmosphere. The world's name popped up in the interface: CHAR.

"Apt name," you murmured, while the picture in picture showed the downspin source. Your brow drew in. "What the fuck is that, Doctor?"

"I...believe it's a..." Dr. Hanson paused, regarding the view.

It looked like...multiple orbs of grayish matter. Like brain-material, sheathed in glistening skin, threaded with thick veins. But where one discrete brain would be one thing, this mass of orbs all seemed to be interlocking - merging together one into the other like cancerous growths were spreading among them. Just looking at it gave you a headache.

"...I have no idea," Dr. Hanson said, quietly. "The Zerg are controlled by some kind of gestalt intelligence carried on their Overlord bioforms, the floating ones." She brought up an image of it. "but there has to be something more than them - the Overlords are more like...transmission repeaters than they're source points for any intelligence. So...I mean, if I was going to guess based on the downspin quantum source, if...if that's from a psychic mind, then these...might...be the source of the controlling intelligence for Zerg that aren't feral? Maybe...we're looking at the Queen of Blades the news keeps talking about?"

"Ugly bitch, isn't she," you said, frowning at the glistening orbs. "So, we land on Char and extract a brain sample?"

"I believe that would be ill advised," Dr. Hanson said. "We're still not entirely sure how the Zerg operate. I have theories, but, well, I'd hate to have them be disproved by you being placed in a situation you can't...ahem. Deal with."

You frowned, considering the glistening minds. The urge to squash them was shockingly strong in your belly.

---
Which mission do you wanna take?
[ ] Head to the Galileo (Begin Operation: Media Squad - installation mission!)
[ ] Head to Mar Sara (Begin Operation: Alliance Day)
[ ] Head to Haven (Begin Operation: Safe Haven)
[ ] Head to Braxis (Smash and Grab the Uraj)
[ ] Head to [Unknown] (Jungles of Aiur)
[ ] Head to Char (To Slay the Queen) [Warning: Final mission]

 

[DragonCobolt]

You had to admit.

The sight of the TDSV Galileo made you want to give these colonials some credit.

For one thing, it was huge - a sprawling steel sphere bracketed by dozens of engine pods, sensor antenna arrays, laboratory attachments and makeshift spacedocks for the smaller collection of ships that were serving as the Galileo's primary backup and support in this backwater solar system. The sheer fact that a collection of motley colonies that barely had access to nanofabrication technology and only the most paltry smattering of Adjutants for administrative tasks had still managed to mine, refine, smelt, cast and kick this entire mass into orbit was enough to draw an impressed whistle from your lips. But there was more to the bulky ship than its scale that impressed you: It was also the...attitude of it.

It was a ship without weapons of any kind, protected only by class two armor and no gravi-shields or energy barriers. It didn't even have a flight deck for tac-fighters or an air wing. All it had was the surrounding ships protecting it and the blithe hope that it could scoot away from any fight it found itself stumbling into. And all those places to put weapon mountings had been filled with sensors, scanners, survey gear. It was a ship that the UEF could have used to chart dozens of worlds in the time it had taken President Riley to chart five.

Of course, they'd all be lifeless anyway. Most of the galaxy wasn't as blessed as the Koprulu Sector.

"We are right in the sensor blindspot, sir," Matt said, turning from the tactical control console. "The quantum jump was completely on point. Our micro-probes are several scales smaller than the local tech allows for - they won't pick us up."

"Good," you said, rubbing your hand along your jaw. "Our plan is to infiltrate a platoon of mech marines aboard, take the command center, then broadcast the propaganda announcement. Tosh, your boys have the message ready?"

"Straight from Earth," he said, warmly. "The PolitBerau psycho-linguists, mm!" He kissed his fingers together. "They made a pretty speech for you. Even got your vocal inflections down. Better than real."

You scowled, slightly, not sure how you felt about having some engineered pap coming out of a simulated version of your own mouth. "I see," you said.

"Listen, it's better to get it right than to flub the line. You don't want to go down in history as the next Earnest Deiterling, yeah?"

You frowned even harder. "I think I can be trusted to not say 'oh god we're all going to fucking die' on a quantum uplink to three billion people before the Aeon attack wave comes in," you say, then turned to Matt. "Do we have any scans on their defenses?"

"There's a lot of marines in there, turrets on the exterior...that's interesting...I'm detecting a knot of bioforms here and-"

There came a sudden squeal of static that caused one of the tac-com officers to yank her headseat off and start swearing in Pashto. You turned your scowl on Dr. Hanson, but her fingers were too busy tapping away a console. Lt. Stukov, moving among the techs, started to growl out orders, but before anyone could get the squealing sound to shut off, it refined into a loud SEEEEEEEEEEEEE-hit!

Then the forward screen buzzed up showing the waveform wriggling of a voice com. "...hello? Is this on?" Tink tink tink. "Raynor, are you out there, buddy?"

You frowned, hard. "Lt. Stukov, can you explain why we appear to be detected?"

"The signal is coming from the science ship, but it's not...coming from the science ship. It's an interference pattern, being broadcast on their...their garbage scow interlocks..." Stukov said. "That's unusual."

"Someone is talking to us through a garbage scow?" You asked, flatly.

"It appears to be the case, General."

A second warbly line appeared, next to the first - and a deeper, bassier voice grumbled. "Stetmann, work quick. Even these Dominion assholes are going to notice when you start talking into a goddamn lighting fixture."

"Uh, right," the first voice said, sounding nervous. "Mr. Raynor, uh, the mission's kinda gone...a little...F U B E...A...R?"

"Fuba- oh, FUBAR," Dr. Hanson said. Then quietly. "That man must be a technical genius."

You pinched the bridge of your nose. "Hypothesis?"

"Another rebel group got here first, snuck in- Raynor?" Matt jerked his head around. "Mr. Raynor, he means James Ranyor."

"The dead man?" Tosh asked.

"He's back and running the exact damn mission we're doing," you said, scowling fiercely. "Except he seems to have f...can we signal back without alerting the Galileo that we're here?"

"Yes, General," Lt. Stukov said.

You picked up the com. "Unidentified contact, this is General Samantha Clark, United Earth Federation Expeditionary Force. Identify yourself immediately, and explain what you are doing on the TDSV Galileo."

"Hah! Told you it'd work, Swann, I-"

"Stetmann, did you hear what she said?" The second voice, Swann presumably, grumbled. "Earth! There ain't no such thing as an Earth."

"ACtually, historical records make it extremely clear that-"

"Shut up, both of you. Explain, now," you said, your mounting irritation growing even higher and even hotter.

"R-Right! Um, Egon Stetmann, technical specialist. Raynor's Raiders. We're here to, uh, do a little mission. Simple sneak in in disguises, with the Hyperion off the bow in a sneaky place to provide, um, overwatch. But we kinda got caught. Then when we called for Raynor, uh..."

"He didn't show," Swann said. "Probably crawled into a damn bottle again." He sighed, his voice sad. "Oh hell, Jimmy, what have you done now..."

Your palm rubbed against your face, slowly.

Matt frowned, intently. "These people seem like they could use a better ops officer," he said, adjusting the collar of his uniform.

"I'll lend you to them at the soonest opportunity," you said, then shook your head. "No. This is going to take longer than expected." You made a face. "Go to the quantum launch. Take the civilians to Haven."

"But, General-" Matt started.

"I can handle Joe Aeon and Cybran Lunk by myself," you said, nodding. "Get the kids and old men out of here."

Matt came to attention. "Sir," he said. "Godspeed. And remember...in the comics, it was always Joe that got them out of the trouble. Lunk just hit people."

You snorted, then turned back to the screen. Your arms crossed over your chest. "Send every technical spec you've got on hand to me as quick as you can. And for Christ's sake, try and keep the com from being noticed."

"Got it!" Stetmann said. Pause. "...what's a Christ?"

***
​

The forward operations center for direct command of the boarding party was not exactly where civilians should be. But Sarah had a way of charming her way past anyone, even soldiers that should know better. She peered down at the map, and as you turned to face her, she grinned. "You could boil an egg with that face," she said, playfully.

You chuckled, despite yourself. "You do know that the quantum launch and one of our ACUs are going to be taking you to Haven, right?"

Sarah clicked her tongue. "I thiiiink...nah," she said. "Besides." She jerked her chin down at the map. "Before Tarsonis...my parents, uh, they used to work on one of those. The Amerigo." She looked a bit haunted, her legs kicking as she popped herself up onto the side of the planning console. "I could be helpful."

You sighed, then brushed your hand along her cheek.

It wasn't exactly a dangerous mission - all your mech marines would be commanded from here...

God, were you really thinking that?

---
What do?

[ ] Fine. Kerrigan can help. (Gain access to the Beet Red relationship effect - negate any hit sparks from a single source by Kerrigan providing timely assistance.) Adds +4 Colonial Girlfriend sticky sparks.
[ ] No, she's...she'll be distracting. (No effect)

Oh, also...
[ ] Infiltrate at the docks (social encounter, lots of enemies if it goes hot)
[ ] Infiltrate at the garbage entry (tech encounter, small number of enemies, lots of hazards)
[ ] Infiltrate at the prison level (immediately goes hot, medium enemies - closest to Stetmann and Swann)

 

[DragonCobolt]

Your lips quirked up despite yourself. Sarah's grin grew even more impish, and you sighed. "All right. But you're only giving tactical advice. Don't...touch anything."

"Got it, General," she said, coming to a faux attention and saluting. You turned to the console, watching as the overview started to come up - the topdown view piped in by a very small camera drone wafting along with the dropship that was bringing your disguised marines in. The mech-marine modifications hadn't taken more than a few parameter changes, and the speaker systems were good enough to sound...well, exactly like a marine. There were female marines, so you could just use your speaking voice. You remembered, back in your academy days, reading that ancient Earth armies had had rules about not wearing uniforms of enemy soldiers - that spies were no longer protected by the diplomatic agreements involving prisoner exchange and not getting summarily excecuted.

You wondered if this counted.

Those ancient laws hadn't been overseen and enforced for, oh, nine centuries or so. Quantum teleportation and robotic battlefields had shifted things - and it wasn't like an Aeonite or a Cybran could just disguise themselves and sneak around in a UEF ACU. You chuckled, softly, shaking your head. "Say, Sarah, what does the Dominion do with spies?"

"Uh, I think they shoot them, honey," she said.

"Right," you said. "Though, I guess the Protoss and Zerg don't sneak around in Terran facilities that often."

"I don't know, I'm sure some Protoss can pull off a dress," Sarah said, dryly.

You snorted.

The dropship came in, flickering the required procedures over the line, then settled into the dock. The marines stomped off the ship, surrounding the technical supplies that were your pretext. Expensive gear for replacement, refit and repair on the Galileo that had taken you several seconds to fabricate in the lab. The mech marines started off - while a tired and annoyed looking tech stomped over, scowling as he did so.

"Who's brilliant fucking plan was this?" He asked, scowling at the supplies. "We're already full up on gear."

You put on your best tired and bored voice. "They're new gear, cause of the break in." You figured, hey. If the Raiders had given you a good set up like that. "To make sure the transmitter's secure."

Kerrigan leaned in, whispering in your ear. "Be more of a dismissive asshole. Most marines are conscripts pulled out of jail and slapped on an aggression inhibitor." You tried to harrumph as hard as you could.

"Now, are you gonna let us do our damn jobs, or are you going to make me blow an aggression inhibitor?" You growled.

The dock worker lifted his hands. "Whoa, whoa, fine! Just take it in and move it to processing."

You tapped the controls and your mech-marine made a quick gesture with one of its hands, and the others followed after. You made a ruleful face as your hands flew across the keyboard, Sarah watching intently at your use of the controls. "Damn," she said. "You're good at that."

"I've run ops like this before," you said, dryly. "They actually take significantly more manual dexterity than the big planet crackers. in those, you lose track of a few dozen units - a few hundred units, hell. No big deal. But I've got twelve marines over there, and if they get destroyed, then this becomes a major shooting fight and...well, the whole reason we're here goes up in smoke. We need to at least send one broadcast before the Galileo is shut down. So, I need to program every movement, every step...every fucking hand gesture." You scowled, then quickly routed a marine around a shipping crate that would have...well, it wouldn't have tripped. It would have plowed into it, smashing it aside with such careless strength that everyone in the docks would notice and turn around to watch.

It was entirely possible a Terran Marine would do that if they were as dickish as Sarah said...

Eh.

You got the whole squad to the entrance and through, past a checkpoint of a whole squad of Dominion Marines in red and black armor, their visors down, their gauss rifles held in almost perfectly still arms. you tried to imagine what it'd be like to actually have people do that kind of drugery. Ugh. You shook your head at the thought as you entered into the corridors of the science ship itself.

Here was where things got tricky.

"So, the central command center is here," Sarah said, scrolling the screen with her finger, then circling it with her thumb and pinkie, twisting her wrist as she did so. "Prison...normally, these ships don't have prison cells. Well. not unless...they're...being used for evil secret research like that science base you destroyed." She paused. "How is Bea?"

"They're fine," you said. "Should be heading to Haven, unless they're stowing away like a pushy redhead I can think of."

"Is she pretty?"

"Ravishing," you said, micromanaging your marines forward towards the first actual interesting decision point - their forward cameras showing corrugated metal walkways, triangular corridor, low hung ceilings full of piping. You could see at least one way the Terran Dominion had launched this thing: They had paid no expense at all for creature comforts. You could now see why not a single colonist had really complained about anything back on the E1. Sarah gasped, in faux outrage.

"I'm jealous!"

You snorted.

---
HEAT: 3/6


Why 3/6? It was a diff 3 Bluff check to get in through the front gate and I figure you would...want to do that, since you had landed there. Also, it'd be a very short update if I wrote 200 words then had a vote! As a reminder: Overheating will mean you succeed in your task, but the situation gets more dangerous.

[ ] Head for the C&C and bluff your way in (Diff 5 Bluff check - Overheat!)
[ ] Head for the C&C and fail to bluff your way in. (Resets heat to 0, starts combat - many enemies but close proximity to C&C)
[ ] Head for the prison to find Stetmann (Diff 2 Bluff Check - 2 Heat)
[ ] Head for the prison to find Stetmann, and fail to bluff your way past the guards. (Resets heat to 0, starts combat - low enemies, but very distant from C&C.)
[ ] Write In

Edit: oh, also, at any point, you can throw in as a write in that you're using Kerrigan's help to negate a heat gain! But you can only do so once!

 

[DragonCobolt]

Sarah leaned over the console, watching the isometric view of the marines stomping through the corridors, leading up through a set of stairs to rooms full of blue tiles - the walls covered with consoles, being worked by crew that glanced over at the marines, then went back to work. "Where you heading?" she asked.

"The prison," you said, sticking your tongue out of the corner of your mouth as you tapped out a command - one of the marines you had mentally decided was going to be the more 'friendly' one lived his hand to wave at one of the techs that had waved back. "I figure we should find out what these Raynor's Raiders are. That means, we break their poor bastards out and get them...on our side. Enemy of my enemy is my friend."

"I'll hold you that," Sarah said, quietly, drumming her fingers on the plastic rim of the console. Her green eyes flicked up to watch your face as you finished commanding the remote controlled drones into the prison area. A sign of exactly how dangerous the local Dominion commander thought the two captured rebels were was that there were only three other power armored troops in the prison bay, with a single bored officer sitting at a console - typing his way through some reports. He frowned, then lifted his gaze to your squad, his brows drawing in. You had a moment of absolute sneering contempt flash through you at the first up close footage of a Dominion uniform.

It seemed that between the fall of the Confederacy of the Planets and him being crowned Emperor Arcturus Mengsk I, the colonial upstart had had the same impulse that had struck every two bit third galaxy would be megalomanic you'd ever seen in any historical report or tactical assessment briefing: Your empire may be small and petty compared to the United Earth Federation, the Aeon Illuminate or even the petty scrap of an astrostate that was the Cybran Nation...and you may lack nanolathes and drone technology and quantum tunneling networks and, in some cases, electricity...

But you'd still have to have the spiffy uniforms.

Rather than the staid blue and gray of your UEF undress uniform, this Lieutenant had gold braid, a cape, a flat topped kepi with red trim, gold buttons and a skull insigna on the collar, belt and shoulders. You were shocked he didn't have a goddamn sword. He stood up and then frowned as you tapped in the commands for the remote drones to salute him.

"What's all this about?"

"We've been sent by command for the prisoners," you said through the drone. "Orders from the Emperor."

"I didn't get any orders from-" He stopped. "The Emperor?"

"He's taking a personal interest in the rebel scum," you said.

"Oh, nice touch with the scum there," Sarah whispered. You made a gesture for her to shush up. Fortunately, the microphone was smart enough to pick up her asides.

"Understood," the officer said, clasping his hands behind his back. "I take it that this will not be going into any of our logs?"

"Got it in one, sir," you said, and the man nodded, gesturing. "This way, Corporal."

Through the forward camera of the lead mech-marine, you could see the rather dingy looking prison cells. You were honestly a little surprised - the TDSV Galileo had been a civilian science vessel before it had been turned into the Dominion's out-rim broadcasting center: And yet here there were actual cells, with bars and overhanging turrets just in case anyone got tetchy. You frowned and glanced a question at Sarah. She lifted her eyes from the screen to meet yours, then arched an eyebrow.

"What?"

"Why does a civilian science ship have a brig like this?" you asked.

"It probably wasn't civilian," she said. "They had a lot of these things do double duty for black projects. Ghost research, atomics testing, that kind of thing. They preferred you talk about the planets they discovered, though. More photogenic." You scowled down at the screen, thinking as the officer came to the brig chamber where Swann and Stetmann were located. The bars opened, revealing that Swann was clearly a heavyworlder - he had the low bulk and slow grace of someone who had been raised at two or three Gs and not earth norms. Stetman meanwhile looked like he had just escaped from a high school - he still had acne, for god's sake. He was tall and scrawny and looked faintly terrified through his thin wire frame glasses.

"W-We have rights!" he squeaked.

"What rights? You were caught sneaking into a secure Dominion facility under the orders of a terrorist and a mass murderer," the officer said, his voice flat.

Swann growled at that, but Stemann lifted his hands - about to push his glasses up his nose, but you quickly typed in a command and one of the marines closed retraints around his wrists. He paled even more, gulped, then stammered. "T-The, uh, right to an attorney is guaranteed under...a constitution!"

"Which constitution?" The officer scowled.

"One of them!" Stetmann wailed, desperately. "T-The Umojian Protectorate, I think."

"And if we were in Mooji space, that might mean something," the officer said, scowling. "Take them away."

"With pleasure," you said, and hoped that the vocal distortions provided by the mech-marine's speaker made your voice sound as bloodthirsty as possible. The officer stood by the cell, nodding with satisfaction as your squad fanned around the two rebels. Swann walked along with quiet dignity, his one good hand lashed to his front by a restraint specially adjusted for him. His other arm hung empty and loose. You had no idea if he had no cybernetic prosthesis due to choice or the Dominion's heavy handed security procedures. You marched the two men out of the prison block - then slowed. And then you turned the lead marine to face the pair of them, and thumbed down the key to flip the visor of the power armored suit it wore up.

Swann swore. Stetmann leaned in, eyes boggling. "An autonomous drone in a suit of power armor!" he exclaimed. "That's amazing! How do you prevent runaway internal system rot, that's the major problem with MULE units and-"

"Quiet," you said. "This is General Samantha Clarke. We spoke on the com."

"Oh, from Earth," Stetmann said, excitedly. "How is Earth?"

"This kid will buy anything," Swann grumbled.

"And this adult will not read a history book!"

"I read 'em, I just don't buy that these jackholes are from a mythical planet," Swann said. "The supercarrier records say they got launched when the whole planet was boilin' in their own carbon. If there is an Earth, it'd be halfway to turning into a place like...Char or Redstone."

"It came close," you said, dryly. "But it's much nicer these days."

"Amazing!" Stetmann started - while you thumbed up the visor just in case anyone else came ambling down this particular corridor. "Did you use some kind of-"

"Shut it," you said. "What was your mission here."

"We were sent to sneak a bug in," Swann said. "This place gets traffic from every Dominion blacksite out there - and all their long ranged spys on them Zerg critters and the Protoss. That info can go straight to the Hyperion and Raynor and his Protoss buddies can use it for whatever we need."

You arched an eyebrow.

"Huh," Sarah murmured. "Human with Protoss. Interesting."

"The bug's in the main tech-lab," Stetmann said, nervously.

"With my arm..." Swann muttered under his breath.

"Being examined and dissected," Stetmann continued. "But, uh, heh, if I built it right, they're still working on the outside, I think." He adjusted his glasses with one finger - awkwardly shifting his arms to do so as he strained against his restraints.

"What are you doin' here?" Swann asked, frowning up at you.

---
HEAT: 5/6

[ ] Bluff into the Tech Lab to get the bug and Swann's arm (Diff 3 Bluff check - lightly overheat)
[ ] Get caught bluff into the TL (Fail, reset heat to 0 - moderate enemies)
[ ] Send the two to dropship and then bluff into C&C - your mission comes first. (Diff 5 bluff check - heavily overheated)
[ ] Get caught heading into the C&C (Fail, many enemies)
[ ] Write In

 

[DragonCobolt]

"We're planning on...ruining Mengsk's day." You rubbed your jaw. "Can you two ride a power armored suit?"

Swann nodded. "It's damn uncomfortable, but their internals are made to...to..." His brow furrowed and he blinked as two of the mech-marine armors opened with a whirring clunk, revealing their internals. You piloted two of the other marines over, and they started to pull out the interface system your techs had made to make the suits pass cursory scans and operate properly. Soon, a pile of scrap was laid out before the ground, and there were two suits that were reasonably accessible.

"Ah, this is going to be even more uncomfortable, isn't it?" Swann grumbled, but despite that, he scrambled into the power armor, and you started to close it up in a hurry. Sarah's lips pressed to your ear, her voice very soft.

"And the scrap?"

"I, uh..." you gulped. It became rather hard to think of anything when she was pressing up against you like that. It was electrifying, and bloody embarrassing. You were almost fifty, damn it. Your brain, though, hit on the exact idea. Your fingers worked at the controls, micromanaging the packing up of the scrap into the supply crates. They were heavier, but the material compacted more than you'd expect. Once the suits were closed, you breathed a sigh of relief. "At least this way, I don't have to manage M2 and 3." You frowned, slightly - the UI said that both marines were redline units, non-functional.

"So, we're getting my arm, right?" Swann asked.

"And the bug," Stetmann added.

"If only to keep them from Dominion hands," you said, frowning as you started to maneuver the marines - and were fairly pleased that the two Raiders knew how to keep pace and not wander off on their own. Nightmare memories having to escort civilians through narrow canyons while simultaneously fighting off an Aeon invasion flashed through your mind. You pushed it down as the doors opened and the mech marines stomped into the tech-lab of the Galileo. The room was full of technical gear and equipment for maintenance and engineering. Several men were clustered around a relatively bulky looking disk of hard metal, a laser cutter buzzing into the side of it as they muttered around one another. A muffling thump sound came over the coms, then the microphone for Marine-3 managed to actually click into place.
"-s on? Hello?" Stetmann asked, his voice carrying to you and you alone. You grunted affirmation. "Okay, uh, that's the bug. It was designed to go into the com-array in the center of the command and control, uh, center." He coughed. "The problem, um, is, uh...what is ruining Mengsk's day, exactly? Are you going to blow up, uh, the ship?"

"Broadcast a propaganda message," you said, as you started to pilot M1 towards the side of the room where several other tech items were being kept. A scientist walked over, frowning as he saw your marine approaching the dethatched mechanical arm that, due to its stumpiness and bulk. You hefted it up and started to move to tuck it away into the storage crate - it was getting crampt in there.

"Whoa, what are you doing?"

"Gathering evidence, the prisoners are being shipped off to Khoral," you said, flatly.

"We haven't checked to make sure it's safe - who knows what weapons the rebels hid on it," the scientist said. You turned your armored bulk towards him, and wondered just how intimidating a lowered faceplate on a colonial marine power armored set was. It turned out, quite a lot, as the man blanched and backed off. "Uh, but, of course, you can handle that."

"That too," you said, pointing at the bug. The scientist looked back at it, then sighed.

"We haven't cracked the exterior - but it doesn't have enough energy storage to be too explosive based on our deep scans. I think it might be a compu-"

"I don't care," you said, channeling your inner corporal. You'd never come up through the ranks, but you did have eyes, ears and a brain. The scientest gulped.

A few seconds later, your marines were stomping along. "You're so surly," Sarah said, her voice amused. "And yet, when alone with a beautiful girl, you're very pliable. Curious, is it not?"

"I thought you liked surly," you said, flashing her a grin.

She bit her lower lip. That tiny dimple of flesh on teeth was enough to make you almost drive a mech-marine into a wall - but it was what she said next that made you flush. "And your shoulders," she said, grinning slightly. You shook your head, focusing back on the map, your cheeks burning.

"You left enough teeth marks in em," you muttered.

"What was that?" Swann asked.

"Nothing," you said, coughing.

The command and control center laid ahead. You started to do some mental math. From your primary objective perspective, the main thing you wanted was to just get your program into the broadcast. You'd run it, then evacuate the marines out - that'd get Swann and Stetmann to E1 and they could be punted back to Raynor - either using civilian ships or a quantum teleport with sufficient shielding and distance from Raynor's base. But that'd leave the Raiders without their bug planted: Doing it loud would make the Galileo useless for long term surveillance. Which meant the Raiders would be SOL. Course, how much you actually needed some pissant colonial resistance movement when you were the goddamn United Earth Federation with three ACUs was something that you'd have a hard time answering in a hearing if you were questioned about a mission you failed cause you were covering someone else's ass.

The doors were flanked by a pair of marines. "Authorization?" one asked.

---
HEAT: 5/6
[ ] Bluff yourself into the C&C and do this quietly. (Diff 5 bluff check - heavily overheated)
[ ] Get caught heading into the C&C (Fail, many enemies - but you have Stetmann and Swann on the scene, providing assistance.)
[ ] Write In

Note: You've already used your Kerrigan help. She can help you again in the actual fight, if one were to start, but not now.