Chapter Seven: The Unearthing Begins

The monitor hummed, and then blinked. It blinked again and finally a screen came up revealing that part of the equipment in the laboratory had been damaged. Wald frowned. Of course part of the machines had been destroyed; a blast of psionic energy had been channeled through them! Wald was happy that at least part of the entire system was still up, and more importantly, the piece of the system that he needed.

Ames was at the other end of the lab inspecting the damage. A nice, clean cut hole through the computers and the wall. Clean was one way to describe it, but maybe perfect was even better. Ames stepped back to inspect the hole again. He tilted his head and squinted. Was it perfect? He hadn't noticed it at first glance. The metal had melted into little streams on the surface, thus making it look a tad sloppy. But Ames was now inspecting it closely, and he went out into the hall and inspected the mess in the wall.

Indeed, the circle looked like a perfect 360 degrees.

He shook his head and almost smiled as he entered back into the laboratory. Wald was sitting at the far end, typing on the computer. It appeared that he did not want to be disturbed, so Ames checked out the containment unit.

It was unbelievable to think that something could penetrate the plasma and laser walls that guarded Durhkhan. Now the entire wall had ceased to operate. Upon closer inspection, Ames found that the emitters had been fried to a crisp. The emitters were the devices hooked to the floor, ceiling, and walls that shot out the plasma a laser fences. They were made of a mix of titanium and albanatrium, two of the strongest metal sources found on Braxis. But here, it made it look like cheap aluminum.

Wald stopped, sighed, and rubbed his face. He looked at the monitor. It told him that the security systems had failed. Yes, Wald was aware of that. He had the crater right next to him to prove it. He scrolled down until he reached something that interested him;

The computer had recorded where the energy was stimulating, from within the cell, within Durhkhan's mind… within a special region of his brain called the europlax. The europlax was supposedly to be an empty part of a Protoss brain. Much like humans, Protoss beings did not use one hundred percent of their minds. But now it seemed that they were wrong, that the vacant brain cells were used for something; energy storage.

Ames looked at the monitor as well and was astonished. Not only had that part of the head been thought useless, it was small. Very, in fact. And that made Ames wary… what if a Protoss was able to store energy in the forplaxtuno, the largest vacant space available? That much of this "psionic potential" could have the force to decimate a city, cause seas to boil… change climate conditions.

"Jesus," said Ames. Wald nodded.

"This is the biggest find of our generation, Ames. If we're able to find this joker and sedate him, we could figure out what he's capable of destroying."

Ames was concerned by that. What difference did it make what Durhkhan could destroy? Did it ever occur to Wald that the Protoss could use the energy to prevent natural disasters? Save people when a mine collapsed? No, Wald was not worried about that.

But it brought up another point; if the Protoss were this strong all the time, what had stopped them from using this power to crush the Zerg?

Connant, the cosmic-ray expert, snuck into the lab and quietly closed the door behind him. Ames turned and saw the young scientist.

"What are you doing here, Connant? You're supposed to be in the safety bunker!" scolded Ames. Connant nearly jumped out of his skin. "And besides, why'd you close the door? If you haven't noticed, there's a rather large-"

"Hole in the wall, I know. Thank you. So I'm weird, so what?" he headed for a small piece of equipment. He picked it up, dusted it off, and hit a small button. Papers began to print out of the side, and Connant grabbed and read them.

The machine stopped printing, and he tore off the piece of paper. He switched the device off and studied them intently. Connant then sniffed and looked at Ames and Wald. Then he rolled his tongue around in his mouth and put out a forced smile. Ames frowned as Wald continued to stare at the monitor.

"I'd hate to say it, but things don't seem to go back to normal here. Ever." Connant nearly dropped the papers as his smile dwindled into nothing. "These figures don't make sense, Ames, look at them."

"I don't know anything about astrology, Connant."

"It's astronomy, and you don't need to know anything about stars to figure out that this is really strange. Abnormal, even impossible! Would you just look?" Ames stepped forward, and Connant got impatient. "See? These figures tell me that the stars have been in three hundred and twenty-eight different patterns. Tonight."

"Okay, yes, that does seem pretty strange. Why, how many patterns are supposed to form every night on average?"

"One."

----

Renaud was running as fast as he could. Van Camp and Snider were struggling to keep up with him. As he darted in and out of certain offices to save time, Renaud thought about what was happening; things were out of control, and the only way to really save anyone was to get them out and bring this facility down in flames… he didn't know why that was the only idea that popped into his head. Maybe it was because he was so tired of this place, that he thought it was a scientific lab of chaos.

He nearly slipped as he burst through the doors to reach the third compound, and he ran up the stairs. He was nearly there now, and he gripped his rifle as firmly as possible. Renaud didn't want to start missing shots now. It would take a steady hand as well as mind.

Van Camp and Snider had finally caught up with him, and the three of them skidded to a stop at the end of the corridor when they saw three figures. Grady was in the corner, underneath the broken window and clutching his arm. He was bleeding. de Roos, however, was not so lucky. Though he was still alive, Durhkhan was gripping his neck, choking him to death.

Renaud, although perplexed as to why Durhkhan would kill him that way, reflexively cocked his rifle, shut one eye as he squinted with the other, and applied pressure to the trigger. Before the bullet left the barrel, Durhkhan looked straight at Renaud, his glowing blue eyes piercing his mind. But Renaud was tough, and the shell slapped Durhkhan straight in the forehead, causing him to release de Roos and whip around, smacking into the wall above Grady and ricocheting back to the floor. Grady covered his head and curled up as much as possible while de Roos coughed and scooted away from the corpse.

A breath of relief escaped from Renaud as he stared at what he had done. Van Camp patted him on the back.

"Nice shot, Renaud," he said.

Van Camp and Snider moved forward to aid their two comrades. They walked right past Ambrose, whose skull was still laying split in two pieces on the ground. Renaud noticed how ironic it was that where the blood from Ambrose's head stopped, the freshly-mopped floor glistened.

"I found Jarvis, Renaud," said Grady as Snider inspected his wound. "He's outside. Take a look."

Renaud moved to the window and looked outside. The blue hand was still there. He looked slightly up and saw a radiant blue figure, staring at the lump that Jarvis was buried under. Renaud blinked. What was he seeing? The figure looked like a specter, gleaming in the dark of night. And he looked again, noticing it was a perfect replica of Jarvis. The Jarvis-specter put his hands in his pockets, slowly looked up and met Renaud's eyes. Renaud was frozen in terror.

The ghost gave a crooked smile, winked, and then dropped to a look of anger. The Jarvis-specter opened its mouth a near foot before emitting a horrible sounding screech. Renaud covered his ears, backing up and tripping over Durhkhan. The rest of the crew looked at him in confusion. Van Camp got up from de Roos to look outside, but saw and heard nothing.

Renaud looked up from his spot to see the Jarvis-specter now suspended in the air at least twenty feet, his hands still in his pockets, and his jaw opened at an abnormal length. The sound continued to prick through the walls as his eyes turned black poured a strange blue substance.

The lieutenant shook his head and cried "No!" and looked again… the specter was gone. Renaud's eyebrows reflected a mood of anger as he went back to the window. Everything was back to normal. He then stared at Durhkhan, a mere zealot.

"He's pulling one of those templar tricks," said Renaud, coolly.

"Tricks? What are you talking about?" asked Snider.

"Hallucination. He's able to cast hallucinations. And he's dead, too. He must have sent something into my brain before I shot him."

"Yeah, I shot him too, idiot," scolded Grady, "but he wasn't dead. I'm an excellent shot, Renaud, so you know what that means." Renaud noticed to bullets that scratched the surface of Durhkhan's yellow armor.

"Yes, Grady, I know exactly what it means," started Renaud. "It means you suck. Look, you tried to shoot him in the chest. This stuff is tougher than marine armor, Grady."

"But what did you see, Renaud? And what did you hear?" asked Van Camp.

"I saw Jarvis's ghost just… just…" he stopped. "He was looking at his own corpse, and then he looked at me and winked. Then he started making this horrible noise. I can't even describe it." He saw that the others were a tad confused. "It was just something I saw; Durhkhan was trying to scare me. Scare me to death, even. And I think that's what he wants."

Grady rolled his eyes and pushed Van Camp away. de Roos got up with the help of Snider, and they started walking down the corridor.

"Grady, let me ask you something," started Renaud. "When Durhkhan came down here, after he killed Ambrose. Who was closer to him?"

"What?"

"You or de Roos? Who was closer to him?"

"I was, but-"

"And he just gave you a quick slash and cast you aside, putting you out of his way." Grady only nodded and then frowned. Renaud thought for a moment. "And then he choked de Roos… choked him." And last night, when I woke up… "Snider!" Renaud yelled. Snider turned around as did de Roos. "You dreamed last night, didn't you?" Snider looked perplexed.

"Well, yeah, I did… why?"

"And you dreamed that we were on that mission to retrieve Durhkhan, and everything was just the way it was-"

"Until he killed Thurston," interrupted Van Camp.

Renaud nodded as Grady stood up.

And then he thought. Durhkhan's goal was to kill all of his captors. Sure, Ambrose had nothing to do with it, but maybe he wanted to torment de Roos before he killed him. And when Durhkhan would kill de Roos, he would do it nice and slow; making sure that it hurt him, making sure that he would be sorry for disturbing the zealot.

"He was going to kill the five of us," said Renaud as he stared at the body. "Not anymore. Not unless he has Phaira-kur working for him. If he manipulated the mind of that thing… where is that Protoss anyway, Grady?" Grady raised and dropped his shoulders. Renaud ran down the corridor, looked left and then looked right. He dumbly grabbed his walkie-talkie and contacted Newell. "Newell, this is Renaud, do you copy."

There was a pause before Newell said, "This is Newell, go ahead Renaud."

"Listen, do you have Stratham and Thurston still with you?"

"Well, Stratham and I just checked out the top level. I sent Thurston back to-"

"You sent Thurston out into this base alone!" Renaud exclaimed. On the other end, Newell jerked back from the sudden burst of volume. He tried to think of something to say, but Renaud beat him. "Get back to the bunker as fast as you can and if you see Thurston, grab him and take him with you – even if he's dead." Renaud sighed and turned the walkie-talkie off.

Renaud signaled for everyone to follow him. They headed back to the main bunker.