Ghost: Zero
Chapter 6: Future
Late that night on the day of injury
High Templar Yah'zugar hadn't even left the cavern over the course of several hours. He, like his fellow Templar, stayed with Selece and Miira. Taliz was especially skilled with first aid on humans, and Selece reckoned he had been with the original fleets that encountered the Terrans back in the original Terran home sector of Korpulu. Meanwhile, after pouring in more fuel, Yah'zugar graciously relit the gas lamp that hung over the living space. Taliz asked him to sit down, High Templars didn't get where they were by filling lamps.
"It's quite alright, my faithful Taliz. I wanted to have a look at these fine rifles. They have been taken care of well." Yah'zugar explained.
"Please, go ahead." Selece added half awake, and Taliz gave up his argument.
"Thank you, kind Mistress. Please, sleep. You do not have a drop of energy left in you, in more ways then one." Yah'zugar replied, and Selece smiled, closing her eyes. She was asleep in moments.
Miira was drifting off to sleep as well, and as soon as Taliz had finished mending her injury, she dropped off into slumber.
"There is too high a concentration of residual psionic energy in these walls for me to get a message to our command ship. Taliz, please go to the surface and send a message for me. Tell them to drop the submersible fortresses about 500 miles West before moving them off the coast, here. The Terran Confederacy will be out looking for these girls, and so they will need a backup location to live and launch from. Make extra sure that the transports aren't seen by Terran radar."
"We are staying for awhile, I presume High Templar?" Taliz replied.
"Yes. We have friends here now, fighting against great odds. I will not abandon them." Yah'zugar explained.
"I understand." Taliz left the cavern silently, and the High Templar turned his attention back to the two girls.
"So young as well..." Yah'zugar admitted quietly to himself.
----
"Sir, I'm getting a strong active psionic reading from the West coast! Stronger then anything I've ever seen," reported a communications officer.
A burly man with a gray beard and sinking eyes lumbered over to the display. He was M-A, the man in charge of all ground forces. However, when he reached the display, the signal was gone.
"Where? Don't waste my time, boy!" M-A roared. "I'm not here to chase you and your fool's errands!"
"It was there, sir. I saw it on the display." The officer replied confidently.
"Why didn't we see it before? Did it just appear out of thin air to say hello?" M-A asked sarcastically.
"This is a relatively new system, sir. Remember sir, it was added last week sir. It takes two hours to complete a 360 degree scan, sir." The officer knew that 'reminding' the high general was a dance with death if one wasn't careful, and was sure to include plenty of 'sirs' to make up for it.
"Are you saying I'm an idiot?" The general roared again.
"No sir." The officer replied hastily.
"Then shut your mouth." Ordered the general. "Dispatch two squadrons of Bees to the West coast!"
"I'll have to clear that with air command, M-A sir." The dispatcher on duty called out.
"What's your call sign, dispatcher?" The general asked with baited breath.
"C-BI 4."
"C-BI 4, is it? GET THAT CLEARANCE NOW you dog! You here me? NOW! Not later, NOW! Whatever it takes!" The general bellowed, shaking the eardrums of every last person in the control center. Although, many were already used to M-A's impatience.
"Yes sir," replied the dispatcher quickly, stressed and visibly tense.
"I hate you young people. Grow up already." The general said cruelly, turning away from the teenage dispatcher.
----
One hour later
The sounds of approaching craft could be heard now as the Wraith 'Bee's closed in on the coastline. The psionic energy that had been found by Confederate ground command had already disappeared, however. That energy was Taliz himself, and he had already retreated back down to the cavern after delivering the message to the Yulag'ya, the command ship for the Haz'rad scout fleet.
The command ship was a Carrier-class starship, however it was heavily modified with enhanced drives and scanning capability and was actually classified as a Carrier S-class. It was currently stationed on the far side of the planet, where the Terran's radar could not scan at the current time.
The sound of twenty-four Wraiths could just be heard from the central chamber, and Selece and Miira awoke.
"I have become conscious of a thought, High Templar. I believe the Terran's noticed me when I delivered the message to our command ship." Taliz confessed.
"I am understanding the same feeling as well, my friend. It is of no concern. While the Terran Wraith is powerful, the pilots are not. They are incapable of tracking us in here. The residual psionic energy that permeates this labyrinth will fool any sensors they may have, and the cannons on those starships could not even begin to pierce this bedrock." Yah'zugar replied calmly.
"You got that right," Selece commented sleepily, listening with her eyes closed to the Wraiths overhead. Miira, realizing that Selece was awake, moved her hand into Selece's. Selece closed her fingers around it.
"Are you doing okay, Selece?" Miira asked in the same tired manner.
"Yes, I'm fine." Selece answered, looking back towards Miira.
"Mistresses, please sleep. You must regain yourselves." Taliz advised.
"Taliz is correct, my friends. I get the feeling that the Confederacy has taken an interest in our location." Yah'zugar added.
The girls nodded, and they shut their eyes once more.
----
"Command, this is A-BU 1. There's nothing here." Reported the squadron commander from his Wraith as he circled the area with his wing mates in formation.
"Commander, return home. A-BT 1, you have permission to return home as well." The squadrons turned East and started the trip back to the landing pads.
"Waste of time, again. They make us practice for hours every day, and for what? Scouting? Not one of us has ever shot at any Protoss, or Zerg for that matter. Waste of time, I'm telling yah." Commented a pilot.
"Genius, you have found the reason behind the job description for all pilots. We aren't recreation experts for nothing." Joked another.
"That's enough chatter, let's just get home and back to bed boys." BU 1 ordered.
"Yes coach," laughed another one.
----
Next morning
Selece awoke first, only to find two Protoss Templars waiting expectantly for her. Her head was throbbing, and her hands were shaking.
"Mistress, please do not stress yourself. You depleted your energy last night, and you are not expected to have recovered it by now. I'm sure you already know about the side effects of total energy depletion." Taliz advised. Selece nodded slightly, just as Miira awoke.
"Good morning, Selece, Templars. It is morning, isn't it?" Miira greeted.
"I believe in your time it is 0800 hours, so I would assume that it is now daytime here. Neither I nor my companion have left this chamber since we sent the message to the Yulag'ya. It is the case, however, that you are both awake and in terms of human tendencies, I believe it is time for a meal." Explained the High Templar.
"Selece hasn't eaten since noon, yesterday." Miira commented. "Although, I am sure what you eat is far different from what we eat."
"True, although both of our races do eat the seeds from many plants, baking them into breads and such. Bread is one of the staples of our diets. The seeds are from our home world of Aiur, so they may taste strange to you, but they are good to eat, and many humans have eaten them before." Yah'zugar pulled out three small packages from a small pouch under his cloak, handing one to each Selece and Miira. Taliz pulled out one from his own.
"Please, eat. You must be hungry. While you consume that, I shall explain a few things to you so that you understand them. I do not want to create a distance between my race and you two by not sharing basic information. That would be very unwise." The girls, along with the other Templar, unwrapped the rations and began to eat as Yah'zugar continued.
"After the Zerg plans to invade the Protoss home world of Aiur were discovered, I was sent by my people off into space using a proto-type drive that enabled us to fly ever farther away from the chaos. The fleet was labeled as a deep space scout fleet, as that was its primary purpose, and it has served that purpose well.
"However, our fleet wasn't ordinary in the least. It was sent to ensure the survival of our species, as well. The Yulag'ya is home to many Khalai, the minds behind our greatest advances, the hands that have built our homeland. They are the beings that have made this ship possible. They are the beings that drive us forward in every way imaginable. I have been entrusted with protecting them.
"When we heard the news that our home world was burned, we hastened our speed towards this system as our scanners had reported water and life. After nearly 21 years of travel, we have caught up to the Terran ships that carried your race here. The original transports that brought you here had the most advanced warp drives anyone had ever known, making 21 years into just 10. I refer to them as being no longer because if they were still here, I would imagine that they would still be in use.
"Finding that this planet was the only habitable planet within several months of travel, I, as commander of the fleet, decided it would be best to begin analyzing the planet and its inhabitants. We sent out many Observers, and they have been patrolling the world for quite awhile. Like our fellow Protoss back home many years ago, we grew curious about the human race here in this time, and still found that the majority of the population cares little for the environment, and for each other.
"But, like before, we also noticed that these Terrans are advancing their technology at an extremely rapid rate. Every few months a new weapon is put into production, a modification is added to the squadrons of starships, or a new chemical is found to enhance vision. We are fortunate, though. The population is far to small to expand to new planets, and so the Terran scientists haven't worked very hard on regaining the technology for full orbital scanning, and we have been able to keep our fleet safely out of harms way by keeping it on the far side of the planet. It seems that the Terrans goal right now it to build might on the ground.
"While the Wraiths are fully capable of entering orbit, they don't, and it is my guess that the Terrans do not wish to. There really is nothing up there save for a sun and distant stars. Or, there could be another reason, and that is because the Terrans do not want anyone to know that they are here. Remaining on the planet's surface makes it difficult for others to pinpoint the identity of the inhabitants. However, if a Wraith were to enter orbit, it would be instantly noticeable as being of Terran construction. But even noticing a Wraith from the distance of Aiur or even Tarsonis is quite impossible, even with the best technology, and that is why we have no fear when it comes to leaving our own fleet in orbit.
"Soon after deploying our scouts, we found you two Mistresses. We were able to observe you without you noticing from a distance, but that distance grew as your psionic talents improved, and our intelligence flow diminished. Even so, we were able to discern the facts from the falsehoods to arrive at the conclusion that you were trying to purge your race of the evil minds controlling it. But, even with your valiant efforts, we knew that you two alone could not fully succeed.
"I, along with the other captains from the various ships in the fleet, met only a few weeks ago to decide the best course of action. It was decided that we would soon visit you two and offer friendship. Additionally, we would hide under the oceans and build a new city to promote the continued survival of our race. But, we did not want to leave the Terrans out of the equation. It was also decided that we would help you two, in any way we could, regain control of your race and finally set it straight. Finally end war, and militarism. We are so far from everything we left behind that we will never be found, and if something were to actually find us, we would have plenty of time to organize a defense. Together. Protoss and Terran races operating together. Both of our races can bore psionic capable offspring, and that is one of the greatest advantages the history of war as ever known.
"And, as you have probably have already guessed, our plans have been put into action. We are sorry we did not tell both of you sooner, my Mistresses, but there was no time. Mistress Miira was loosing her grasp on her own life, and the plan was thrown off. Please forgive me for not consulting with you sooner, as you are the greatest human beings I have ever had the privilege to know, and I do not want to put pressure on you at your young age. You already have a lot to account for as it is." Yah'zugar finished. Selece and Miira, having eaten their strange bread, didn't speak for many moments, absorbing the information. It was Selece who first spoke.
"High Templar, you have saved Miira, you have saved my dearest companion, you have come to preserve your race, and to preserve mine. You have given me and Miira a second chance. There is no need for apologies. We are in this together now. This is our world to share, and I propose an oath to one another, to encompass the four beings within this room forever. Loyalty, faithfulness, and friendship, until the universe itself fades from existence." Selece held out her hand, with Miira's following closely. Yah'zugar walked to the side of the bed and kneeled to be level with the girls, placing his hand with theirs. Taliz, who had been silent for quite some time, moved in last, kneeling and placing his hand with the rest.
"It is an eternal oath. And with it as our guide, let us make this world great, and our races proud." Yah'zugar vowed with utmost sincerely. It was yet another step towards something great, and a bright future seemed to be showing itself in everyone's mind now.
Chapter 6: Future
Late that night on the day of injury
High Templar Yah'zugar hadn't even left the cavern over the course of several hours. He, like his fellow Templar, stayed with Selece and Miira. Taliz was especially skilled with first aid on humans, and Selece reckoned he had been with the original fleets that encountered the Terrans back in the original Terran home sector of Korpulu. Meanwhile, after pouring in more fuel, Yah'zugar graciously relit the gas lamp that hung over the living space. Taliz asked him to sit down, High Templars didn't get where they were by filling lamps.
"It's quite alright, my faithful Taliz. I wanted to have a look at these fine rifles. They have been taken care of well." Yah'zugar explained.
"Please, go ahead." Selece added half awake, and Taliz gave up his argument.
"Thank you, kind Mistress. Please, sleep. You do not have a drop of energy left in you, in more ways then one." Yah'zugar replied, and Selece smiled, closing her eyes. She was asleep in moments.
Miira was drifting off to sleep as well, and as soon as Taliz had finished mending her injury, she dropped off into slumber.
"There is too high a concentration of residual psionic energy in these walls for me to get a message to our command ship. Taliz, please go to the surface and send a message for me. Tell them to drop the submersible fortresses about 500 miles West before moving them off the coast, here. The Terran Confederacy will be out looking for these girls, and so they will need a backup location to live and launch from. Make extra sure that the transports aren't seen by Terran radar."
"We are staying for awhile, I presume High Templar?" Taliz replied.
"Yes. We have friends here now, fighting against great odds. I will not abandon them." Yah'zugar explained.
"I understand." Taliz left the cavern silently, and the High Templar turned his attention back to the two girls.
"So young as well..." Yah'zugar admitted quietly to himself.
----
"Sir, I'm getting a strong active psionic reading from the West coast! Stronger then anything I've ever seen," reported a communications officer.
A burly man with a gray beard and sinking eyes lumbered over to the display. He was M-A, the man in charge of all ground forces. However, when he reached the display, the signal was gone.
"Where? Don't waste my time, boy!" M-A roared. "I'm not here to chase you and your fool's errands!"
"It was there, sir. I saw it on the display." The officer replied confidently.
"Why didn't we see it before? Did it just appear out of thin air to say hello?" M-A asked sarcastically.
"This is a relatively new system, sir. Remember sir, it was added last week sir. It takes two hours to complete a 360 degree scan, sir." The officer knew that 'reminding' the high general was a dance with death if one wasn't careful, and was sure to include plenty of 'sirs' to make up for it.
"Are you saying I'm an idiot?" The general roared again.
"No sir." The officer replied hastily.
"Then shut your mouth." Ordered the general. "Dispatch two squadrons of Bees to the West coast!"
"I'll have to clear that with air command, M-A sir." The dispatcher on duty called out.
"What's your call sign, dispatcher?" The general asked with baited breath.
"C-BI 4."
"C-BI 4, is it? GET THAT CLEARANCE NOW you dog! You here me? NOW! Not later, NOW! Whatever it takes!" The general bellowed, shaking the eardrums of every last person in the control center. Although, many were already used to M-A's impatience.
"Yes sir," replied the dispatcher quickly, stressed and visibly tense.
"I hate you young people. Grow up already." The general said cruelly, turning away from the teenage dispatcher.
----
One hour later
The sounds of approaching craft could be heard now as the Wraith 'Bee's closed in on the coastline. The psionic energy that had been found by Confederate ground command had already disappeared, however. That energy was Taliz himself, and he had already retreated back down to the cavern after delivering the message to the Yulag'ya, the command ship for the Haz'rad scout fleet.
The command ship was a Carrier-class starship, however it was heavily modified with enhanced drives and scanning capability and was actually classified as a Carrier S-class. It was currently stationed on the far side of the planet, where the Terran's radar could not scan at the current time.
The sound of twenty-four Wraiths could just be heard from the central chamber, and Selece and Miira awoke.
"I have become conscious of a thought, High Templar. I believe the Terran's noticed me when I delivered the message to our command ship." Taliz confessed.
"I am understanding the same feeling as well, my friend. It is of no concern. While the Terran Wraith is powerful, the pilots are not. They are incapable of tracking us in here. The residual psionic energy that permeates this labyrinth will fool any sensors they may have, and the cannons on those starships could not even begin to pierce this bedrock." Yah'zugar replied calmly.
"You got that right," Selece commented sleepily, listening with her eyes closed to the Wraiths overhead. Miira, realizing that Selece was awake, moved her hand into Selece's. Selece closed her fingers around it.
"Are you doing okay, Selece?" Miira asked in the same tired manner.
"Yes, I'm fine." Selece answered, looking back towards Miira.
"Mistresses, please sleep. You must regain yourselves." Taliz advised.
"Taliz is correct, my friends. I get the feeling that the Confederacy has taken an interest in our location." Yah'zugar added.
The girls nodded, and they shut their eyes once more.
----
"Command, this is A-BU 1. There's nothing here." Reported the squadron commander from his Wraith as he circled the area with his wing mates in formation.
"Commander, return home. A-BT 1, you have permission to return home as well." The squadrons turned East and started the trip back to the landing pads.
"Waste of time, again. They make us practice for hours every day, and for what? Scouting? Not one of us has ever shot at any Protoss, or Zerg for that matter. Waste of time, I'm telling yah." Commented a pilot.
"Genius, you have found the reason behind the job description for all pilots. We aren't recreation experts for nothing." Joked another.
"That's enough chatter, let's just get home and back to bed boys." BU 1 ordered.
"Yes coach," laughed another one.
----
Next morning
Selece awoke first, only to find two Protoss Templars waiting expectantly for her. Her head was throbbing, and her hands were shaking.
"Mistress, please do not stress yourself. You depleted your energy last night, and you are not expected to have recovered it by now. I'm sure you already know about the side effects of total energy depletion." Taliz advised. Selece nodded slightly, just as Miira awoke.
"Good morning, Selece, Templars. It is morning, isn't it?" Miira greeted.
"I believe in your time it is 0800 hours, so I would assume that it is now daytime here. Neither I nor my companion have left this chamber since we sent the message to the Yulag'ya. It is the case, however, that you are both awake and in terms of human tendencies, I believe it is time for a meal." Explained the High Templar.
"Selece hasn't eaten since noon, yesterday." Miira commented. "Although, I am sure what you eat is far different from what we eat."
"True, although both of our races do eat the seeds from many plants, baking them into breads and such. Bread is one of the staples of our diets. The seeds are from our home world of Aiur, so they may taste strange to you, but they are good to eat, and many humans have eaten them before." Yah'zugar pulled out three small packages from a small pouch under his cloak, handing one to each Selece and Miira. Taliz pulled out one from his own.
"Please, eat. You must be hungry. While you consume that, I shall explain a few things to you so that you understand them. I do not want to create a distance between my race and you two by not sharing basic information. That would be very unwise." The girls, along with the other Templar, unwrapped the rations and began to eat as Yah'zugar continued.
"After the Zerg plans to invade the Protoss home world of Aiur were discovered, I was sent by my people off into space using a proto-type drive that enabled us to fly ever farther away from the chaos. The fleet was labeled as a deep space scout fleet, as that was its primary purpose, and it has served that purpose well.
"However, our fleet wasn't ordinary in the least. It was sent to ensure the survival of our species, as well. The Yulag'ya is home to many Khalai, the minds behind our greatest advances, the hands that have built our homeland. They are the beings that have made this ship possible. They are the beings that drive us forward in every way imaginable. I have been entrusted with protecting them.
"When we heard the news that our home world was burned, we hastened our speed towards this system as our scanners had reported water and life. After nearly 21 years of travel, we have caught up to the Terran ships that carried your race here. The original transports that brought you here had the most advanced warp drives anyone had ever known, making 21 years into just 10. I refer to them as being no longer because if they were still here, I would imagine that they would still be in use.
"Finding that this planet was the only habitable planet within several months of travel, I, as commander of the fleet, decided it would be best to begin analyzing the planet and its inhabitants. We sent out many Observers, and they have been patrolling the world for quite awhile. Like our fellow Protoss back home many years ago, we grew curious about the human race here in this time, and still found that the majority of the population cares little for the environment, and for each other.
"But, like before, we also noticed that these Terrans are advancing their technology at an extremely rapid rate. Every few months a new weapon is put into production, a modification is added to the squadrons of starships, or a new chemical is found to enhance vision. We are fortunate, though. The population is far to small to expand to new planets, and so the Terran scientists haven't worked very hard on regaining the technology for full orbital scanning, and we have been able to keep our fleet safely out of harms way by keeping it on the far side of the planet. It seems that the Terrans goal right now it to build might on the ground.
"While the Wraiths are fully capable of entering orbit, they don't, and it is my guess that the Terrans do not wish to. There really is nothing up there save for a sun and distant stars. Or, there could be another reason, and that is because the Terrans do not want anyone to know that they are here. Remaining on the planet's surface makes it difficult for others to pinpoint the identity of the inhabitants. However, if a Wraith were to enter orbit, it would be instantly noticeable as being of Terran construction. But even noticing a Wraith from the distance of Aiur or even Tarsonis is quite impossible, even with the best technology, and that is why we have no fear when it comes to leaving our own fleet in orbit.
"Soon after deploying our scouts, we found you two Mistresses. We were able to observe you without you noticing from a distance, but that distance grew as your psionic talents improved, and our intelligence flow diminished. Even so, we were able to discern the facts from the falsehoods to arrive at the conclusion that you were trying to purge your race of the evil minds controlling it. But, even with your valiant efforts, we knew that you two alone could not fully succeed.
"I, along with the other captains from the various ships in the fleet, met only a few weeks ago to decide the best course of action. It was decided that we would soon visit you two and offer friendship. Additionally, we would hide under the oceans and build a new city to promote the continued survival of our race. But, we did not want to leave the Terrans out of the equation. It was also decided that we would help you two, in any way we could, regain control of your race and finally set it straight. Finally end war, and militarism. We are so far from everything we left behind that we will never be found, and if something were to actually find us, we would have plenty of time to organize a defense. Together. Protoss and Terran races operating together. Both of our races can bore psionic capable offspring, and that is one of the greatest advantages the history of war as ever known.
"And, as you have probably have already guessed, our plans have been put into action. We are sorry we did not tell both of you sooner, my Mistresses, but there was no time. Mistress Miira was loosing her grasp on her own life, and the plan was thrown off. Please forgive me for not consulting with you sooner, as you are the greatest human beings I have ever had the privilege to know, and I do not want to put pressure on you at your young age. You already have a lot to account for as it is." Yah'zugar finished. Selece and Miira, having eaten their strange bread, didn't speak for many moments, absorbing the information. It was Selece who first spoke.
"High Templar, you have saved Miira, you have saved my dearest companion, you have come to preserve your race, and to preserve mine. You have given me and Miira a second chance. There is no need for apologies. We are in this together now. This is our world to share, and I propose an oath to one another, to encompass the four beings within this room forever. Loyalty, faithfulness, and friendship, until the universe itself fades from existence." Selece held out her hand, with Miira's following closely. Yah'zugar walked to the side of the bed and kneeled to be level with the girls, placing his hand with theirs. Taliz, who had been silent for quite some time, moved in last, kneeling and placing his hand with the rest.
"It is an eternal oath. And with it as our guide, let us make this world great, and our races proud." Yah'zugar vowed with utmost sincerely. It was yet another step towards something great, and a bright future seemed to be showing itself in everyone's mind now.