Yttrius dropped out of warp speed, just outside the range of the UED fleet. Any closer and scans could pick them up through a cloak.
The first adept recoiled from the console, and shouted "We survive!"
The second staggered out of the engine room. "All systems are functional. However, I advise at least twelve hours to allow for atomic restabilisation of the warp drives. Dark templar, are you still well?"
The dark templar stood. "I await my target, executor."
Yttrius brought up a display of the area "Mounting a mission here will not be easy... as the primary base of this force, it will be subject to many scans around sensitive areas. We are templar, but a frontal assault will achieve nothing. If we are found, our target will be dispatched. I will help you infiltrate, dark templar. I will connect myself to thier network, and initiate an overload. This will take the scanners offline. You must then locate our target, this being." He displayed Casa. "Once you have her location, call us. We will overwhelm the area's guards in a shock attack, and evacuate you. Clear?"
"Clear... Move me to edge of the fleet."
"Gladly. Adun Toridas, brave one."
As the Dark templar began his travels through the enemy fleet and Yttrius established a connection to the UED network, an elite Dominion squadron was soaring through the stars.
Reigel looked at his path long and hard. Computer-plotted, since the gaps were so erratic, and the results of months of work by Nova and Casa, slowly altering the scanner system. He turned to the crew behind him. Three ghosts, five elite marines, and himself. The best of the best. "Alright, this will be a bumpy ride- brace yourselves. Equipment checks. Vantage systems? Cloaking drives? EMP? Guard breakers?"
"All green, sir. Our information control will guide us to victory." Said a ghost.
Reigel gripped a sidebar. "Excellent. Entering scan gap now."
The ship slid in through the radar, to the hull of the flagship.
Dehaka was going for a more direct approach. The Behemoth was going to make a manouvre that would solidly classify as insane. Dehaka had debated just leaving Casa to solve her own problem, considering the risk to his own life, but soon shook it off, realising that if Casa were to die, not only would the time and care he'd invested into her be lost, but the essence it would translate to as well. In fact, doing this would grant him some essence anyway. Unless she was stuck under a large rock or something.
The Behemoth locked on to Casa's signature. It had some great sensitivity for psionics, to Abathur's credit. Dehaka readied his plan to infiltrate. Constant adaptation had given rise to a flexible defence system in The Behemoth. Green jelly of sorts was produced to be used as a drop pod for zerg that needed gravity and a floor to move. In the vacuum of space, the outside formed a frosty shell that could absorb light fire, and would weather entry to an atmosphere, while the insides were well-cushioned against the impact when the sphere of frozen jelly smashed into a planet at several hundred miles per hour.
Dehaka loaded himself into a bag of jelly. It was a good thing he only needed to breathe to speak, and occasionally to refuel some of his organs. Thirty minutes would be fine. The Behemoth picked up speed, and loaded three blobs of jelly. One with Dehaka and a few zerglings, one with some roaches and hydralisks, and one with a couple of drones. Now for the crazy part.
Normally, the drop bags would just be released into a planet's gravitational field, but the systems supplying artificial gravity to the flagship didn't create any external pull. So Dehaka needed a way to get the blob from around twenty thousand kilometres away, to the hull. That was why the Behemoth was travelling at full non-warp speed, directly at the flagship. The distance was closing rapidly, as the three blobs were exposed. And then, the Behemoth warped, but without taking the blobs. They continued forwards in the vacuum of space, straight for the UED's ship.
Dehaka watched the outside of his blob immediately freeze under zero pressure, feeling a slight tug on his throat as the pressure inside lessened. His plan had been put together at a moment's notice, but it had the theory in place. The worst thing that could happen would be if he missed. He'd be stuck going through space at only supersonic speeds for however long his reserves of energy would last. Even in hibernation he wouldn't be able to live for millions of years. To his relief, only the second worst thing possible happened: Automatic defences. Just as the ship was coming into view, a dozen interception missiles were fired at each blob. With no way to interact with them, Dehaka watched the four designated for him home closer, closer... He braced for impac-
Sound and shockwaves do not travel in space. They do travel through green jelly. The blast instantly liquefied most of Dehaka's insides, save for the absolute most well-protected parts of his body. However, the missiles had hit in a perfect ring, so he wasn't popped. The goo still coated him, and the explosion had not managed to slow him down.
Dehaka had a precious two minutes to try and repair as much of his insides as he could before impact. His brain and most of his digestive system were fine. The rest was not. Dehaka was desperately trying to break down what he could of the useless waste to fuel creaton of new cells, and it was going alright, but it hurt like nothing else and he could tell he'd have to sit down with something edible soon and rest to recover notable strength. Then he hit the side of the ship.
The jelly stuck him there, as the impact forced him to cough up most of himself. The mixture of purplish flesh and black blood splattered against the hull, but Dehaka still clung to life, just. Much more head trauma would probably split his skull, aside from the fact his injuries only barely let him move. Hungry, every cell injured within a fraction of death, all but three bones broken, and having lost half his weight Dehaka started to crawl for an entry point.
Yttrius watched as the dark templar picked his way through the ships, accessing files on the initiate's performances thus far to try and find any useful extra talents. Apparently he had quite the combat record, often defeating dedicated warriors in training by only blade skill, but his mastery of void energy left much to be desired. The only thing that was really unique about him was his weapon, a handheld psi-sword. Based on Terran designs for something called a lightsaber. Apparently the weapon allowed him to exercise more skill in combat at the expense of shabby defence. Inferior to psi-blades, but perhaps useful for catching enemies off guard...
The dark templar weaved through hallways, past many marines, before stopping. He opened communications. "There is a psi-screen ahead that covers a whole ship. It would be best to deactivate it, so we can scan the area."
An adept looked to Yttrius. "It could be holding something. These Terrans clearly have little enough regard for their lives as to fight us, so trying to do stupid things like anomaly drives isn't out of the question."
Yttrius shook his head "Permission granted nonetheless. It would take far too long to manually search that vessel."
"I will strike at the target." Replied the dark templar.
Reigel's ghosts were scouting the area. The docking bays lacked stealth detection, but they absolutely teemed with guards and UED soldiers. The small carrier of elite troops had jammed itself into a corner, while Reigel looked at his computer. Transmission now would be picked up by the UED, but that particular sword was double-edged. Reigel was listening to the transmissions of half the fleet, expertly picking out important ones. But the message he needed was that the Dominion were attacking. It hadn't yet come.
Dehaka reached a missile slot. His bones had knitted back together enough for him to move, and most of what was left of him had reconstituted. He'd even found that his skull had actually fractured externally upon impact, before mending it as best he could. It was hard going, but the missile slot presented an access point.
Dehaka slowly pulled himself into the bay. It was just a small tube for weapons to be launched from, and unfortunately it was loaded. A bright red cap of a bomb was blocking Dehaka's access to the inside of the ship. Weakly, he dug a claw into the side, and began to lever it off. After a while, the plastic popped away, floating off into space. Dehaka shuffled through the gap, into the loading mechanism.
He could see a room before him. It had racks of ammunition for the missile launchers of the ship, extending in a curve all along the deck. It was currently unmanned. Perhaps the launchers were automatic? The whole area had no atmosphere or gravity, and meager lighting. Dehaka climbed onto the ceiling. No chance of security cameras there. Then he waited. He was in no state to take on anyone at the moment... he turned to his side, and without hesitation, bit off his left arm, While inefficient, the extra nutrients in his system were enough to fix what was needed. The muscles in his right, and his legs. He tensed, waiting.
The doors opened. A grey-suited marine was halfway through when Dehaka pounced from the ceiling, driving a claw through the marine's helmet. Death was instant.
The dark templar was already near the psi-screen's room. The main problem was that it was under highly competent guard. Or maybe something had put them on alert? Either way, it wouldn't be easy to take on three armed guards alone. And he simply wasn't good enough at channelling the void to blink into the guarded room.
"Yttrius. How should I proceed?"
No response came, thanks to the screen. Having eliminated any other choices, he moved behind the central two guards, psi sword in hand but unignited. And then the radio crackled on an officer's uniform.
'Dominion are attacking! I repeat, Dominion are attacking! Cease the search for private Ross, all non-security units are to report to the hangar for immediate deployment!'
A guard looked to his captain worriedly. "Sir... What should we do?"
"We have to stay here. With an unknown hostile on board, and our forces in the field, we're vulnerable. Damn this timing."
"Timing, sir?"
"That thing, that we saw get Ross... it was clearly a zerg. They don't take orders, as best we know. God knows how it got aboard, but if it goes for anything important we have to kill it. Reed, what's the status of our hunt?"
The marine known as Reed started to walk towards his superior officer, and the dark templar struck. His blade flashed, cutting all three guards in half with a single swing. He turned to the door, and started hacking at the lock. The neosteel gave way quickly enough.
Inside was a large glass cabinet full of servers, connected to a huge domed machine. One slice, and the screen was no more.
Reigel's team jumped out of the ship the second the bay was empty. As they charged through the corridors, the three ghosts suddenly snapped to attention. "Commander Reigel! The psi-screen has been disabled. We can sense other psionics here."
"Get me Nova and Casa's location. Marines, cover that opening, in case security shows up."
"Nova's in the brig. Casa's near the heart of the ship. Sir, we'll only have time for one..."
"Damn. We move for Casa first, she's our priority. We'll try and backtrack for Nova if we can throw the UED off our trail. Is the EMP prototype still working?" Asked Reigel.
"Prototype is working. The area's cameras are currently offline."
A few guards rounded the corner, into a few well-placed bullets. The elites pressed on for Casa's room.
Dehaka was almost done eating what was left of the hapless technician. About half his body weight had been restored, but he lacked some of the compounds he needed to properly regrow. Still, they hadn't been too bad...
He looked around for a way to move through the ship unnoticed. There was no air ventilation, obviously. The walls were neo-steel, and unlikely to conceal any secret path. But he couldn't move predictably. This missile chamber had one door. It likely already had marines on the other side. So Dehaka looked to the floor beneath him, neat square panels. Five seconds later, he'd ripped one of them off, torn through the wiring in the floor and dropped down to the floor below.
Now to get crafty. He moved to the corner of the identical room and pried up another panel, digging a hole in the metal. He turned and opened the airlock doors, leaving his false trail. The first thing he looked for in the airlock, and subsequently the corridor were security cameras. They were everywhere. Wide-lens things that each covered most of a corridor. So stealth was going to fail, hard. In that case, it was a matter of outrunning his hunters. He'd done enough of that to know what to do.
Take paths they can't, like the wall. Dehaka didn't know which room he'd burst into, but the occupants (justifiably) screamed as a 150-kilo injured primal zerg broke through the wall, and then continued through. Dehaka planned his path, moving with the thickest cable he could find in the walls. It had to lead to the power supply, and no power meant no cameras.
Freya Jo-Miller Lawrence, PhD, was a woman who had seen the rougher parts of life. She'd had a youth with a single father who worked himself fourteen hours a day. She'd been involved with gang violence from an early age, and still scraped her way through life with good grades in biology, and paying for university with money she stole from her own gang boss. She would have confidently said there was nothing that could scare her anymore after the risks she'd taken. None of that prepared her for this particular thursday. When the emergency alarms were sounded to signal important staff back to the nearest secure area (or as the instructor had put it: Find a good spot to pray), she'd been nowhere near a safe room. But for moment, she could have sworn she saw a golden angel in the corner of her eye, pointing to the kitchen. Inside had the kitchen's walk-in refrigerator. At least, in the event of assassins boarding the ship, they probably wouldn't check the refrigerator. She was right- instead, the infiltrator came through the floor of the room, knocking her off her feet. The assailant nearly barreled out of the room without stopping, but then froze, halfway through opening the door, and glared at Freya. Fear paralysed her.
"Terran. Where is the one I seek?" Said Dehaka.
Freya blanked in panic. "Who?!"
Dehaka walked over, and painfully pressed the sharp edge of a larger claw to her chest. "The zerg that I smell on you... It could only have come from her."
Everything clicked. "Casa is being held in lab one, near the centre of the vessel. Dehaka, don't kill me. I kept her alive, Dehaka!" Freya had no plans to die for her cause.
"Be thankful time is short for me." Dehaka moved his claw off Freya's chest, running out of the room. As he left, he ripped an unmarked box of some kind of chicken-based food off a shelf, devouring it without even opening it as he ran.
Freya picked herself up, and started fumbling for her radio.
Casa was only aware the psi-screen was down because the marine assigned to guard her was a total incompetent. When he received his warning that he was now in a room with someone capable of tearing the ship in half, he very loudly screamed 'WHY WASN'T THE SCREEN GUARDED, THEN?'
"I'm right here, you know." Said Casa innocently.
The marine grasped his rifle, pointing it at Casa's holding tank. "Screw whatever the doc says, I ain't sitting in the same room as a live nuke!"
Casa pointed at him, and crushed him flat with her telekinetic powers. Not a particularly efficient way to kill, but the first that came to mind. She then moved a tail around and neatly cut the front off her tank. It fell to the floor with a thunk. Then she started to stretch it to cut away her bonds, eventually freeing herself.
In a matter of minutes, the UED's situation had gone from a normal day to a full-blown disaster.
Author's notes: Uploads have been greatly slowed for a while because of upcoming exams, and they'll still be slow for a while. The exams end halfway through next month. But I won't abandon ANY of my stories.
The break-in of the UED ship will span more than one chapter, as you can see. And some explanation as to just how Dehaka survived that collision: From what I've seen of his abilities, he's quite resistant to shock damage, and blunt weapons. Also, he only needs his brain in order to stay alive, so as long as nothing can penetrate his skull or cut off blood supply, he won't die. If there was a surefire way to kill him, I'd say decapitation would be easiest. Still hard, of course.
Reigel as a co-op style commander would be all about information, playing a more supportive role than frontline armies like Kerrigan. He passively has an increased vision radius on all units, and recieves warnings of enemy attack sooner. Aside from that, he can empower allies by increasing thier research rate, and having detection built into many of his units.
Mpopl2: Okay, hear me out- A seige tank, mounted on Stukov's apocalisk. And the whole thing has a giant Terran flag on the front.
Samateus-Taal: Blizzard, the only game company that is literally so good their fans can't keep up.