"Aten-hut! Here's the situation"
Abraham Dio stood to attention, or at least made his best attempt. His body seemed to have been sculpted from jelly and was very slow to respond to his wishes. He'd been brought out of a cryo sleep chamber five minutes ago, but couldn't remember why he'd been in there or what he'd been doing previously. Abraham looked his commanding officer, General Julia Marshal. He knew who she was: leader of the Zeta Squadron of the Confederate military, known and derided for being the only woman to hold such a rank. It was rumoured that if it weren't for Senate 'connections' of an unspecified nature than she'd have no chance of holding any rank other than housewife, but Abraham knew different. She was cunning, resourceful, had a good head for strategy and had proven herself whenever meagre occasions to do so were actually thrown to her. If anything she deserved a much larger command and more aplomb than she had.
Abraham had no idea how he knew any of this. He knew he'd met her before but couldn't remember for the life of him where, when, and in what capacity.
They were standing in her personal quarters: very comfy and classy. The floor-boards were hardwood to give it a more rustic, homely feel that wasn't helped by the bare black metal of the walls that were only half-painted. There was a bear-skin rug on the floor in front of a four-poster bed. You could barely hear the sound of the ventilation fans
Lying on top of the bed and destroying the illusion was a rectangular object the size of a large suitcase that was covered in wires and dials and looked like it had been welded together in a real hurry. Abraham could see one of the corners had parcel-tape on it.
"I said attention, agent." Julia drawled, "Don't make me say it again. Now, what with all the ruckus that's been happenin' on Tarsonis these last few days we've lost contact entirely with command. We were sent out to hunt for Zerg and protect this here region." Julia made a face "Even though no-one lives here but dirt-farmers and phone-cleaners. We ain't found no Zerg, but we have run into a Protoss installation of some sort that refused to surrender. So we've commenced hostilities, but things have hit a snag. Our initial attack was a right mess, and even though we managed to throw back their counter-attack we took heavy losses in the process. We no longer have the manpower to make a frontal assault with any hope of victory against them, and I'm sure that they're in the same boat. That's where you come in."
Abraham's eyes shot open at the mention of Zerg and Protoss on Tarsonis. He hadn't heard anything about that had he?
"In all the chaos we have managed to secure hwun, count it, hwun, tactical nuclear missile. We may not technically have clearance to use it, but with high command in the state it's in we're never gonna get it neither and nobody lives in this goddamn piss-dump. If we could do enough damage to the Protoss with it, than we would be able to mop up whatever defences they have left. Only problem is we're never gonna do enough damage with it so long as they have those shields. So I had our lab boys rig us up one of these." She indicated the big thing on the bed. "It's a simple electromagnetic bomb wired together with something much more complicated: bits and pieces of the psi-emitter technology we were given to help us handle the Zerg. It's simple to use. Press this big red button here" Julia pointed at a button underneath a protective glass latch on top of the biggest flat surface, "And it detonates, sending out an EMP and a burst of "psychic static," as my boys call it, at the same time. If you set this baby off right in the heart of the Protoss nexus building you'll take down all of their communications and shields for the whole base temporarily. We estimate a couple of minutes at best. More than long enough for us to play Santa and drop out present down their chimney before they can get their defences back online. Do you understand your mission agent?"
Abrham blinked and rubbed his eyes. He could feel himself starting to wake up, but he still had a way to go yet. He'd missed most of what had just been said, so instead he took a deep breath and just focussed on his commander. He saw images flash past: The device going off, the Protoss running around in confusion, an almighty mushroom cloud, the roughnecks of Zeta squadron swarming into the flaming ruins and dispatching the half-dead and poisoned remnants of the aliens, a grand award ceremony and a sequence of medals pinned to Julia's chest. He blinked and nodded. "Understood."
"Good man. Now, this next bit is very important. You have to set off our bomb right in the centre of the Protoss nexus building, at the very heart of their matrix of whatsit. It's not a very refined device, so it doesn't have a very long range: detonate it anywhere else and you'll only take down the abilities of one structure if that."
Julia walked right up to Abraham, which made him instinctively back away out of some primal memory of pain that came to his mind. "Now listen to me boy. Our hopes for victory are riding on this slim chance, and I am using not one but three trump cards to pull it off. A stolen nuke, a jerry-rigged bomb, and you, the only Ghost agent that those goddamned turds at high-command saw fit to give me. If you mess this up, you will be dead, but death is the last thing you'll have to worry about, because I will personally follow you down to hell and what you'll get from me WILL BE A HUNDRED TIMES WORSE THAN ANYTHING SATAN WITH ALL HIS DEVILS CAN COME UP WITH! DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?!"
"Yes sir!"
"Good. Very good. Well, suit up and off you go then."
Templar Allarn took vengeance upon the ground with every step.
They had ordered him to withdraw!
He had seen the carnage and the peril first hand, had watched one of the Terrans' cowardly little buried machines spring from the ground and rip the legs right off Templar Jubei before his very eyes. They had placed him at the back of the line, assured him that he would be able to avenge the deaths of all those that the Terrans had taken in their initial assault and those what would die in the subsequent attack, but when he was mere steps from the Terran fortifications, when he had already lined up the first warrior that he was going to kill with his own blades…
They had ordered him to withdraw!
And he had, for he was Templar and he obeyed orders. But when he made his rage known upon returning he was chided, chided for his lack of discipline and given this useless post far away from the front lines as punishment! Lack of discipline! Had they no idea what it was like, to be torn away from the first glorious kill like that? Had they never been zealots in their time?
He would patrol now, around and around the heart of the nexus where the base's link to the Matrix on Aiur was made manifest in a huge towering spike of blue-white energy that went from the bottom of the Nexus' foundations right the centre of the Khaydarin crystal at the top. He was on the ground floor: the spike extended downwards for another three levels and upwards for a further ten. A hole opened in every floor at this level to allow the spike to pass through, though in most places it didn't interrupt the function of the nexus this particular room was used to regulate and guard the spike should any danger come to it. It was poorly-lit and but for Allarn and the occasional maintenance probe entirely empty. There were two doors into and out of it: one to the north and one to the south. It was the very central point of their campus here. No Terran was ever going to come near it unless they first fought through all of the outer fortifications and his superiors knew it.
It was at that point that Allarn saw the Terran. He stopped dead in his tracks.
The figure was almost half Allarn's height, small even by Terran standards, but had strapped to its back a mostly cylindrical rifle that was almost as long as it was tall. It did not wear the heavy armour that the other Terran warriors Allarn had encountered did: instead this armour seemed mostly skin-tight and black, covering the Terran's entire body from head to foot. It was wearing some form of goggles over its eyes that glowed faintly green and had slung awkwardly under one arm a great, roughly rectangular piece of machinery thrown together out of various lumps of metal with all the lack of elegance that Terran art tended to have.
The Terran had spotted him. For a time the two figures simply stared at each other, then the Terran's hand whipped to a large, faintly shining dial on its waist and shouting his battle-cry Allarn charged forwards, the psionic blades on his wrists leaping into life. Allarn's leg enhancements whirred and he took two steps and then sprung right to the doorway that the Terran had entered from, but as he did so the figure suddenly faded into a vague shimmer that vanished back down the hallway.
Allarn narrowed his eyes. The Terran would not escape his sight with their crude science: he focussed and reached out with his mind through the facility. He could clearly feel the presence of all of the probes and Protoss warriors that were broadcasting their presence, but even when he knew he must be close to the Terran and was even aware of what direction it must be in he could feel no whisper of its alien mind.
Could this Terran meddling be putting still to his mind? It was possible, but not likely. Could the Terran itself be hiding? Allarn had assumed that the Terrans were all blind animals, incapable of telepathy. What if some of them were not so?
Allarn hurried down the corridor in the direction that the Terran had fled, looking in every direction for the shimmer that he had seen when the Terran had first disappeared. At the other end of the corridor was just the small, hexagonal lift. It was empty. Allarn spun around and looked back down the corridor. Nothing there either. There was a clunk by his feet and the Zealot looked down to see a roughly circular object about the size of his palm land on the ground. It promptly exploded.
The force of the blast blew Allarn backwards into the wall of the lift, which dented when his armour came into contact with it. He then saw that tell-tale shimmer drop down from the ceiling above him, with the rather large and obvious rectangular device still slung under arm. Allarn stood up and jumped forwards: his blow had been aiming at the vague shape the shimmer gave him and connected with nothing, but he briefly felt the Terran's panic as his control over his thoughts slipped for a moment. The Terran had expected him to be dead. Allarn laughed at the idea: a warrior of the Templar killed by such an attack? The shrapnel had exhausted his shields but not so much as scraped his armour.
There was a thunk as whatever relic the Terran was carrying was dropped to the ground and the Terran raced back down the corridor. Allarn pursued: his long, rapid strides hissed almost inaudibly as the pistons implanted in his legs drove his muscles. He saw the shimmer get rapidly closer and closer but the Terran had a head start on him and was in the heart of the nexus building again before Allarn could outpace him. From there the Terran leapt into the air, pirouetting to avoid the energy pillar, and stuck to the ceiling somehow. Allarn jumped after him, flying through the air in spite of all the bulk of his armour, his psionic blade aimed straight to where the shimmer was…
Then there was an almighty crack and Allarn felt something hard strike his midriff and then there was a blast and he was thrown violently backwards into the ground. Shrapnel cut two red-hot lines across his face and another into his arm. He hit the ground hard and felt the armour on his torso crack: it had been shredded and melted by the blast. The was a soft clang as the shimmer dropped to the ground and walked slowly over to where Allarn was lying prone. The zealot's eyes burned with hatred as he saw the air in front of his face warp as if the muzzle of the Terran's huge rifle was right before his eyes…
And then there was a crunch of tortured metal and the barrel of the rifle collapsed in on itself. Again Allarn was laughing at how the Terran had underestimated the powers of a Templar: first their physical might, and now the power of their mind. Again Allarn received a brief flash of panic from the Terran but then it leapt over his prone body and back down the corridor again, the way it had come from. Allarn pushed himself to his feet in one fluid motion and let his rage flow through him as he jumped, sailing down the whole length of the hallway. The Terran flipped open a latch on top of the device and depressed a button just as Allarn's blades entered the back of his skull.
Allarn could sense the shockwave in the same way that you can see lots of bright spots if you've been dazzled. His blades shorted out and for a brief moment it felt like a small person had entered his head and was screaming inside it. Allarn fell to his knees, clutching at his head as the room spun.
"This is APOD eight-er eight-er one, we have confirmation of the energy spike: the package has been delivered. Requesting clearance to drop payload"
"This is General Julia Marshal. Clearance granted. We are a-go. Fire when ready."
"Roger that general, dropping payload now."
Captain Maryanne McManus pulled down on the throttle pressed the big red button that, on her first day only three months ago, she'd been warned never to press. The dropship Angel's cargo bay doors opened and out came an armed nuclear warhead. "Payload has been dropped, trigger armed, estimated time of detonation thirty seconds."
"Hang on eight-er eight-er, our sensors report that Protoss defensive shields are still online everywhere except for the nexus building. Abort drop immediately."
"Err… Too late command. The drop has already occurred."
"Shit. Alright, pull out immediately. All squads prepare to move in. This is going to be the best chance that we'll get. Enjoy the fireworks Maryanne. They'll be spectacular…"