Masterminds & Comets

The tale of the Koprulu Sector unfucking itself

Date: 2508.07.24

Location: Naldor III, supposedly abandoned orbital platform
Time: a little over 3 hours after the pirate ship landed on Tarrin V

"Nabiros." the Archon said quietly.

"Yes?"

"There is a button we would like you to press. Could you do that for us?"

"Naturally, just point me in the right direction." after a minute of navigation, pressed a button on one of the terminals. "I can see the environmental information of the facility."

"Good." the Archon stopped for a moment, its black hand clutching the middle head, as if in pain. "Select the room the animals are in, the Terran ones. Then, lower the oxygen level, very, very slowly."

"Why?"

"These pirates are throwing over a dozen kinds of tantrums, and we can't rest while they are awake." the Archon growled with annoyance. "If we manage the oxygen level in there correctly, then we can put them to sleep, so we can have some peace and quiet."

Nabiros thought about it for a second, then nodded. "That's a reasonable request. Let's do it."

It took them a good ten minutes to ensure that the Terran aren't awake or dead, as much as everyone in the room would have personally preferred the latter. While their cultures might be wildly different, they all punished piracy with death. Protoss were a very communal people, they took any kind of betrayal very seriously.

"Aaah, much better." the Archon sat down into a dark corner to rest. "We doubt that our company will be pleasing for a while, so we have something for you to pass the time. There are two minds we can sense not far from here, prisoners most likely. Tekka will lead you to them."

"I want some peace and quiet as well, he can go alone." Tekka growled from another dark corner, giving Nabiros the impression he was talking to an empty room. A faintly glowing red holographic interface flashed to life, fingers clad in silvery metal dancing on it briefly, then it disappeared. "I set up a series of waypoints that will guide you there and back. Good night."

"Good night." and with that, Nabiros left the room to follow the waypoints. He was glad that the Terran relief force will arrive in only 3 hours, partially so his companions can rest, partially so they don't have to waste their time here too long.

The waypoints lead him straight to the prison, which involved some stairwells as well. Nabiros wondered if he could jump down but then decided against it; he was quite heavy, the drop wasn't short, and he didn't trust Terran architecture to not to fail him. Besides, he wasn't in any hurry, so he took his time going down the stairs as the designer intended. Nabiros had to admit, the station looked bad, even by Terran standards. It seemed that the pirates weren't interested in fixing their home beyond the areas they needed and to keep hull integrity stable. It was a filthy, ugly mess, and Nabiros suddenly wished he had one of those Firebat gauntlets to purge his way to the prison. That thought made him wonder if there was some in-built reflex in Purifier minds to assume that purification is always a solution to any conceivable problem one can come across in the physical world. Or, which was more likely, only the more belligerent and violent personalities were chosen for the program, considering how they were originally never meant to do anything else but fight wars the Conclave told them to. Somewhere deep down, Nabiros was glad that the Zerg butchered the Conclave, and maybe even that they pushed the Protoss to the brink of extinction. While he found himself increasingly at odds with the original phase-smith whose memories he inherited, they both agreed that the Protoss were in dire need of a thorough humbling.

After an altogether 3 minute walk, he reached the supposed prison area. However, it was only a storage room with a locked door that Nabiros had no patience to deal with. Besides, it was too small for him. Using a particle beam built into one of his mechanical tendrils, the Purifier quickly cut a large enough hole for himself in the flimsy and thin wall. Using the magnets built into his two large crane-like arms that he often thought of as his second pair of hands, he pulled the piece of metal out and gently placed it over the door. He didn't want to make noise that would upset his resting companions, he didn't want to find out what they are like when they are upset.

Inside the poorly lit room, there was a lot of mess that Nabiros couldn't care enough to identify. However, he found the two Terrans: one of them was a woman, average height and build for Terrans as far as he knew, but suspiciously thin, just like the colonists. She wore a dirty light brown overall, and she herself seemed unhygenic, but something about her made Nabiros think that this isn't what she normally looked like. The other at first seemed like a box, and only after registering life signs did he believe that it was actually the other Terran. It was a male of the species, large and with rough features, but he was also filthy and probably malnourished as the woman. More importantly, he was missing all his limbs, and from what Nabiros could tell, he already had cybernetic implants in their place, meaning that the man lost all his limbs at least for the second time. He was not awake, probably because he was even more malnourished than the woman, as the Purifier made what little sense he could of the readouts his sensors could offer him. It seemed very likely that the man gave his portion of the already meagre rations they were given to the woman.

"Who are you?" the woman asked, her voice trembling with barely contained fear. "What do you want?"

Nabiros believed that he should not enter the room until the woman considers her a threat. "I am Nabiros, phase-smith of the Purifiers. My comrades and I have taken the pirates into custody, and a Dominion relief fleet is already en route to take control of the situation. They should be here in 3 hours." after hearing no response for several seconds, he asked. "May I enter?"

"Oh, umm... y-yes, of course." the woman seemed distracted with her thoughts.

As he stepped closer, careful to keep 3 meters between themselves, it became evident that these Terrans were abused physically as well. If the facial bruises were any indication, they had many of those all over them. Looking her in the for the first time, he saw an intelligent, curious mind that was indesperate need of some medical attention, food, and quality rest.

"Tekka, give me waypoints to the nearest food storage, as well as whatever these mongrels have for a medical facility." he said to Tekka over comms, which the woman could hear nothing of, then he turned to her. "I am not an expert in taking care of Terrans, so if I brought the two of you to a food storage and a medical facility, would that be of help?"

The woman's face lit up with a mixture of hope and lust for a decent meal and maybe, just maybe shower, but then it quickly turned into a sad expression. "I think my ankle is broken, I cannot walk, and as you can see, neither can he."

"That can be easily solved." Nabiros first picked up the woman in his arms, slowly and gently not to frighten or injure her in any way. Then, he turned around and picked up the man with his crane-arms and his tendrils, securing him on his back like a backpack.

"This is so embarrassing." the woman muttered.

"Why would it be?" he asked innocently, as he followed the waypoints he received from Tekka. Fortunately, the two locations were very close to each other, and not too far from where they were.

A weird little sound escaped from her, most likely in surprise that he heard her. She responded a few seconds later. "I can barely tolerate how filthy I am, and yet, here I am, getting my first-ever princess carry, and from a Protoss, of all people, just to make things worse."

Nabiros thought about it for a second. "You call this carrying method 'princess carry'?"

The woman moaned in exhaustion. "I'm sorry Mr. Protoss, I feel way too tired to explain human culture to you, so my short, and only, answer is 'yes'."

"I'm sorry, I did not mean to offend." Nabiros apologised, berating himself that he forgot her condition. "But do not worry, we will find you food and water, and whatever else you need and we can find."

"Aaahhh, that'd be nice." she moaned. "Oh, I mean, thank you very much."

"Happy to help." Nabiros said cheerfully and without thinking. He was glad that he had next to no facial expressions, otherwise the woman would have seen how surprised he was by his own words. He turned around a corner, went to the second door on the left, and hoped it wasn't locked. However, he soon realised that all his limbs are full of Terrans, though the door was much larger this time, he could fit through it with a little care. To his immense fortune, the door seemed to detect motion, and opened for him without any coercion. Looking around like a little bird from a large nest, the woman looked very happy, though she did drool a bit. Nabiros went to the back of the large room, near a small door that suspiciously looked like it lead to where the food actually was, and put the woman in one of the chairs at the table nearest to said door. He put a white, unassuming triangular coin before her on the table. In a moment, a holographic screen appeared above it that allowed the woman to see what he saw, although heavily filtered, limiting it to normal vision and without his HUD.

"I will go and find some food for you." he explained. "With this, you can help me identify what you need."

"Wow." she said, looking at the triangular coin and the holographic screen. "Oh god, I knew I looked like shit but I didn't know it was this bad."

Deciding not to comment, Nabiros went to the door, opened it, looked around inside, confirmed that the door could be sufficiently enlarged without damaging that nearby shelf, enlarged the hole, then went through. It took them a few minutes but they managed to find some sustenance. Oddly enough, they were several bars made of some white substance. Remembering that the colonists were talking about "meat", "vegetables", "pastry", and "drinks", Nabiros was fairly certain that these were field rations for soldiers, where more conventional food could not be prepared. A smart choice, he thought.

"Aaah, yesss, I feel my personality coming back to me." she moaned with joy after finishing the first one and washing it down with a cup of water. Seeing the slight tilt of the Protoss' head and the lack of comment, she explained herself. "Don't take it too literally but that's the best metaphor. I heard you Protoss don't eat, so hunger must be alien to you."

Nabiros thought for a second before replying. "We do require sustenance but we acquire it from the sun and the ambient humidity. As you can imagine, we seldom become malnourished. Consequently, seeing people starve is... a shock. Not something we can tolerate. Well, at least I can't."

"That's enviable." she said, munching on her second bar slowly. "I cannot even begin to imagine the socio-economic consequences of that single trait."

"... I thought that Terrans need time to digest the food they consume before resuming normal levels of activity." Nabiros remarked with slight surprise.

"Depends on who you ask." she shrugged. "Then again, this stuff was meant to kick in fast, so don't assume anything too big."

Nabiros nodded. "If I may ask, what lead you to this fate?"

The woman thought to herself for a while, before carefull saying, "Let's start over, shall we? I'm Valerie Jacobson, an investigative reporter for UNN. Now, since my introduction means about as little to you as yours to mine, it will require some explanation. If you're interested that is."

"Yes, please explain." Nabiros' expressions said nothing, but his voice was filled with curiosity.

"Umm... could you sit down, first? Looking up to you is making my neck hurt."

The Purifier quickly put two and two together. "We still have to go to the infirmary. You should be able to lie down there."

"Yeah, I really should have figured out that your armour is too heavy for these chairs." she nodded. Before she could move, Nabiros picked her up as she was on the chair, making Valerie instinctively grab the other two bars and the large bottle of water. He held the chair in his left hand by the bottom of the sitting part.

"Wow. You've got some muscles." Valerie said admiringly.

"I don't, I'm entirely mechanical." Nabiros replied.

"What, you're a robot?" she asked, turning to face him in her chair, her eyes wide with surprise.

"Are you an animal?" he asked, looking her in the eye (as much as you can with a visor for eyes).

Valerie took a breath to retort angrily, but then started thinking, opening her mouth to speak every now and then. They reached the infirmary when she said, "I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to be rude."

"You asked out of curiosity, there is nothing wrong with that." he said as he cut the door to size again and gently tilted the wreck to the floor. "I'm curious about you, you're curious about me, it is inevitable to find sensitive topics. As long as common courtesy is observed I'm open to further exchanges of information."

"Sounds good." she said, barely paying attention as she was watching the Purifier at work.

Fortunately, the infirmary looked moderately decent, though Nabiros did wish he had something to sterilise the place with. Still, he managed to find a pair of beds with clean sheets to put his protégés into. As he put her into bed, he quickly realised that this time he really needed to find something to sit on. Thinking quickly, he gently heated up the wreck he made of the door and its vicinity, then bent it into a sturdy box, bending it where necessary. He put it next to Valerie's bed and sat on it, though he did use his crane-army to help hold his weight. He didn't trust the sound he heard when he tried it at first.

"So that phase-smith part did mean that you were an engineer of some sort." Valerie sad as he put some pillows behind her back so she could sit comfortably.

"Correct." Nabiros nodded. "I'm a scientist as well as an engineer, though my preferences and talents make me lean towards the latter."

"Aah, I see." she nodded. "I guess it's my turn to explain what investigative journalism means." she drank a little from her bottle. "How do you Protoss handle news?"

"We tell it to each other." he shrugged. "Additionally, the central archives are constantly updated, with the news relevant to your job sorted to the top of the list. Very few things are hidden from the public, and even less than that stays that way for long. Awareness is maintained, allowing us to adapt and react as necessary with a decent reaction time. For example, when non-specialist sensors find a planet rich in raw materials, a number of things happen simultaneously. First, a team of prospectors will visit the planet and perform a wide range of scans to determine how much of what there is on the planet. Second, the Judicators decide how much should we invest into mining there, based on our current needs. Third, the Templar scout and secure the area, even if it is in the middle of our territory, just to be sure; they can always deem it sare enough to leave only a token garrison behind. Lastly, the many forges across the empire prepare some space in their workflow to create the necessary infrastructure that will be required for the mining colony, so that when the construction of the colony starts, the required buildings can be warped in immediately. Then, we wait for the prospectors' report and the Judicators' decision. For the example's sake, let's assume that the prospectors report that the planet is rich in vespene and decent in other things. Then, the Judicators, knowing that there is no such thing as having enough vespene, will order the construction of extractors, and if it makes sense logistically, refineries. They fit the new mining colony into the supply chains and assign the necessary workforce. Finally, the forges, well prepared for the new demands, already have at least some of the necessary structures ready between themselves, and the construction can begin. Depending on how long the prospectors take and how the forges' workflow looks like at the time, the first shipment will leave the planet usually a month after the initial detection."

Valerie sat there for a few moments in disbelief. "That's unbelievably efficient and open." she almost asked 'but what if a scandal happens, like a Judicator fucks a Templar's wife or something', but her instinct told her to go about it in a much more polite and indirect way. "Yours is an orderly society, I imagine? Everyone does their job, minds their own business, behaves well, that sort of thing?"

"Yes, usually that is the case." Nabiros nodded. "We have our share of miscreants as well but they are quickly expelled, imprisoned, or eradicated."

"I'm going resist the temptation of that tangent, so I'll just stick to the topic and... uuhhh... so you're telling me you don't have people who collect information and share it?"

"Of course there are, the scouts."

"Nonono, I mean, internally."

"The Judicators or their assistants do that. I'm not familiar with their organisation."

"So there is no one who will write an article about some law that was instated that the public has been against the entire time?"

"Why would they be against a law that the Judicators thought necessary or just? Why would they want to tell the Judicators how to perform their function without being Judicators themselves?"

"See, that's unbelievable." Valerie threw up her arms. "How the hell am I going to explain this *unknown Terran word* to you now?" Trying to think of something, Valerie went with what came to mind first. "Terran society is a bit like the Zerg, in a sense, except there is no coordination like that. Everyone is out for themselves, although there is a system to fit into, depending on what skills you were born with, your family's social and economic status, and your environment. Practically, there is no such thing as equality. If you can get the thing you want without anyone being able to stop you, it's yours. Same goes for information, which immediately creates a host of news agencies, each having their own perspective and professionals on what's going on in their chosen area of expertise, and then you have to factor in loyalty to the government, which can go either way. So you see, being a journalist means hunting for information, like a predator, making sure it's real, then doing whatever you want to or are forced to do with it. A single bit of information can make or brake governments. There was that huge scandal with Arcturus when that audio record got out, that almost knocked him off the throne, except he still had enough guns to hold onto power." she drank a few gulps from her bottle. "Investigative journalism is a bit more specific. You're after the truth, the whole truth, the unedited, as-it-crawled-out-of-its-mother truth, and decide if keeping it to yourself or sharing it with the world would be better for everyone involved. For example, if you find out that Archons are made of shoving two Templar into one, you'll shut up about it because it opens a giant cosmological can of worms, and nothing good can come of that. However, if you find out that, say, some Protoss decided to knock out an entire pirate base purely out of the goodness of their hearts, then you can either work with that, or dig deeper. Usually when digging deeper is an option, and you're a real, ballsy, die-hard investigative journalist, you dig deeper, or die trying, because living in lies is for cowards like Arcturus."

Nabiros stared in front of himself for a while, pondering what he heared, then a thought occured to him. "You know, I think my crew and I may resemble your description. At least it sounds much better than what we told the Dominion."

"What was that?"

Nabiros turned to look at Valerie. "Volunteer Protoss social workers."

Valerie exploded in laughter, long and hard. "If only I had been there when the comms guy told his boss that, and all the way up to the guy who's supposed to deal with this."

"Christ, Valerie, keep it down, my head is going to split in three." suddenly the man spoke up.

"Konrad!" Valerie shouted in surprise, turning to the other side where the man was laying. "Oh my god, Konrad! You're not going to believe this!"

"You decided to take a vow of silence and become a nun to atone for the headache your ceaseless chatter caused to others?" the man groaned, his eyes still closed in pain.

Valerie picked up one of her pillows and threw it at Konrad's face. "*unknown Terran word* you, you ungrateful *unknown Terran word*hole! We're saved! The pirates got *unknown Terran word* in the ass by some Protoss who dropped by, and the Dominion will have some folks here in hours!"

"What?" Konrad's voice was muffled under the pillow. "Listen, unless that Protoss guy brought some food with him I don't give a *unknown Terran word*."

Konrad saw that the pillow was lifted off of his face, revealing a giant Protoss clad head to toe in some armour, holding two combat ration bars and a bottle in his giant hands. "You have no limbs available, so you will have to be fed."

Valerie could be heard laughing, beating the bed with her fist. The two men waited patiently, if awkwardly, for her to finish. "I... I wish I had that on camera, oh my god... No need for you to feed him, I'l do it, just push my bed next to his, we've got this."

A few floors above, the Archon and Tekka could only guess at the raw waves of joy erupting from the infirmary. Tekka sat awkwardly, as the Archon giggled in the other corner, muttering something like 'it tickles'. She really, really wanted that relief fleet to hurry up.