Thanks to those who have reviewed or put this on Story Alert :)
Again, if something has already appeared in the game, I won't be describing it in detail. Just Google !
Plus, my vocab is really limited :/
Chapter 6: The Cure
Dr. Ariel Hanson's lab, Agrian settlement cluster, Haven …
...
The moment the face of the familiar rebel leader appeared on the holographic display screen, Hanson's own expression lit up. "Jim ! Captain ! Sir !"
"Hi, how're you doing, doc ?" James Raynor flashed one of his charming smiles, which also appeared shrewd, and slightly menacing to some, due to his low brows.
"I'm uh … fine !" Hanson stammered, not yet able to compose her thoughts. When she did she was no calmer. Just seeing Raynor made her heart race a little. That, coupled with the present … circumstances on Haven.
"You sure ? My boys and I are stopping over your world for a while." Raynor raised his brows in a conscious effort to appear kinder. "I've got a present for you. Two presents, in fact."
"Really !" Hanson allowed the 'pleasant surprise' to show on her face. "That's great ! … Thank you !" She took a deep breath, then visibly relaxed.
She did not know if Raynor noticed that slight change in posture. At this point, he had moved off the screen to talk to someone in another part of his room.
When he returned to the screen, Raynor had a worried expression on his face. "Ariel, our sensors are picking up Zerg life-signs scattered all over the planet, except the areas around your settlements. What's going on ?"
"Well …" Hanson paused, looking away from Raynor's eyes, then sighed. "As you know we've been keeping those refugees infected by the ZH ( Zerg Hyper-evolutionary ) virus under quarantine. We set up every precaution we could, but somehow … one of them got out."
She tensed, half-expecting Raynor to ask her how the hell that happened, especially after all the trouble they went through with the Protoss over this issue.
Raynor looked like he was about to do that, but he must have noticed her nervousness. Instead, he blinked, thought for a while, then replied. "We'll need to improve the security measures then. Have they attacked ?"
"No. We've set up UV beams at our perimeter outposts." Hanson looked down at her table for a while, then shook her head and returned her gaze to the screen. "We didn't want to risk more lives by sending hunting parties too far out from the settlements, so eventually their numbers started increasing in remote locations. I think they're multiplying on their own, but we have no idea how. It's a matter of time before they swarm in on us, and then we'd probably have to evacuate again."
"One thing at a time, doc. How close are we to the cure ?" Raynor asked.
"Depends on how you define 'close'." Hanson leaned to one side in her chair and rested her forehead in one hand. "The ZH virus mutates at a frightening rate. Everytime we think we've purged it, it comes back in full force, and more resilient against UV radiation."
At this moment the face of a youthful, pale-looking woman appeared next to Raynor. She was stunning, literally. Hanson stared wide-eyed at the screen motionless for a second, before noticing the strange appendages flowing off the woman's head. She realized that Raynor had backed away slightly and was looking at her in surprise as well. And then he quickly turned back towards the screen again. "Ariel, this is … Sarah, … Sarah"
"Kerrigan." The woman finished for him. "You must be Dr. Hanson. Jimmy has told me a lot about you. I look forward to seeing you … in person."
The way that Kerrigan was grinning at her sent a few chills down Hanson's spine.
"Anyway …" Raynor pressed his face close to the screen so that he blocked most of Kerrigan's figure from view. "Don't worry, we'll be fine." Raynor patted the edge of his own screen and gave a reassuring smile. "See you on the surface." And then the holographic image blurred and dissolved away.
Hanson rested her head back down onto an arm, and whispered to herself, "One thing at a time …"
Some hours later …
...
All the walls, floor, and ceiling were covered with milky white, flexible, featureless plasti-ceramic tiles to give the interior a pristine, respectable atmosphere. Heavy equipment, workstations and storage chambers and cabinets were built into niches along the walls, along with an automatic sliding door. The close observer may notice some cables emerging from otherwise tightly sealed gaps between the plasti-ceramic tiles, running over those tiles for one to a few feet, and then disappearing into other gaps or the backs of certain machinery.
The plan of the main lab-room was square and utilitarian, and might have looked like a civilian dining room before renovation. At the centre of the room there was even what looked like a rectangular dining table, except that instead of cutlery and dish tray, there were smaller scientific equipment, and some documents strewn over it. Directly over this table, attached to the ceiling, was an assortment of lamps and other dubious instruments mounted on movable armatures.
Presently, the door slid open, and Raynor, Kerrigan, Hanson, and Gabriel Tosh stepped into the room. Raynor was wearing his usual leather jacket and khaki trousers, Kerrigan in black pyjamas, and Tosh in his modified Spectre outfit.
"Um, take a seat …" Hanson gestured towards the chairs placed around the table, and waited for Raynor and Kerrigan to sit down at one side of the table. Tosh just stood silently at a distance from the table, playing with his balisong knife. That non-chalant look was misleading. As a spectre, Tosh could react to trouble faster than most other people, and for that reason he was brought along. That, and Tosh was himself curious about Kerrigan.
Hanson, then walked over to the opposite side and pulled a nearby chair behind her, all the time keeping her gaze on Kerrigan. Then she sat down, stretched herself and took a long relaxing breath. "Whew …"
"… that was quite an experience !" Kerrigan mimicked Hanson's gesture and spoke the same sentence in sync with Hanson's own words. It was an eerie thing to see and hear, especially that teasing way that Kerrigan glanced back at Hanson whenever she anticipated the latter's surface thoughts.
"Please ... stop that !" Hanson raised her hands in front of her face and sobbed dryly. This woman sitting in front of her may not be the Queen of Blades anymore … but she was still evil !
"Aw, doctor, you break my heart !" Kerrigan feigned a hurt look. "Now what do I do ? I need a new heart … " She slid one hand forward over the table, and grinned and licked her lips while giving Hanson a predatory stare.
Hanson placed her hands down and looked up, just in time to see Kerrigan's gesture, and her face paled. Tosh shot his gaze towards Kerrigan. The knife stopped spinning in his hands and pointed downwards in a firm grip.
"Sarah, cut it out !" Raynor scolded lightly, then turned to Hanson. "Don't mind that, she's just playing."
At this point, Kerrigan sat back and laughed. "Haha … the look on your faces !"
Meanwhile, Hanson yelped as she saw a rugged dark-skinned hand land on her right shoulder, and heard Tosh whisper into her ear. "Do not be afraid Doctor, she be hiding the terrible scars in her own soul, by scratching at yours."
Hanson took a second to make sense of the Spectre's peculiar manner of speech, then sighed, "Whatever …" and placed clipboard on the table. "Let's get this over with, OK."
"Right." Raynor nodded. "What do the tests say ?"
"Let's see." Hanson glanced briefly at her clipboard, then looked up again and smiled. "Good news is, she's not infested, and her body is in very good condition, physically."
"And … the bad news ?" Raynor raised a brow.
"Well, not exactly bad, it's just …" Hanson flipped two pages on her clipboard, then continued. "It seems that her own physiology has changed a lot from the human norm, especially in terms of psionic organs. The change has gone way beyond that of a Spectre … that is … if our friend here is representative of Spectres." She pointed a thumb at the dark-skinned man now standing beside her. "As I said, it's not really bad …"
" … but you think I'm dangerous." Kerrigan finished the sentence.
"I … I've never seen a case like yours before …" Hanson continued, trying not to meet Kerrigan's momentarily cold stare. "It's as if, instead of getting taken over by Zerg tissue, your body has evolved in response … into a new species … cladistically human but also more than human … some kind of missing link to a …" Hanson's voice softened slightly. "What am I saying ? Evolution does not work like that. That's impossible."
"Oh, but in this case it does." Kerrigan said with a slight smirk. "OK, I had help."
Raynor rested his chin between the thumb and index finger of one hand, and narrowed his eyes in thought. "Zeratul told me, that Sarah is the key to the future. Not the prophecy itself, but she shows the way … so he said. Maybe this is what he meant."
"Ze …" Hanson did not quite catch the pronunciation of Zeratul's name, but she had a vague idea of who Raynor was referring to. " … is that one of your Protoss friends ?"
"Zeratul, yes, he's quite a high ranking Dark Templar. Been through a lot …" Raynor paused momentarily, searching within his memories for the shortest and most appropriate way to describe his old friend. "He likes to go invisible and walk into peoples' places uninvited. For all we know he could be standing right here and watching us."
"Really ?" Hanson waved towards the space at the unoccupied side of the table and smiled. "Hello there !". Normally she would be creeped out at the thought of an alien spying on her lab so effortlessly, but now she already had had half a day of inoculation against creepiness, no thanks to Kerrigan, and on some occasions, Tosh.
Raynor chuckled. "Just joking. Right now, he's somewhere else. Speaking of that, remember I told you I brought you two presents ?"
"Of course." Hanson forced a business-like smile to cover her inner feeling of mild apprehension. The first "present" had turned out to be Kerrigan. "Sir, I must say, I feel … honoured … for receiving such a rare research opportunity. It's … mind blowing." She glanced momentarily at Kerrigan.
Raynor caught onto Hanson's sarcastic tone, and laughed. "Don't worry Ariel, the second one isn't a human-Zerg hybrid. It's just …"
"Phew." Hanson breathed out inaudibly.
"… Zerg." Raynor finished. "As in ... the original Zerg."
A few more hours later … in a large forest clearing … some distance outside the established perimeter of the Agrian settlement cluster …
...
Zeratul looked up at the thick white clouds above, shading his eyes with one hand to block out the glare of the sun reflected off of them. It was midday on this part of Haven, supposedly the best time for the Terran colonists to travel out of their settlements.
Presently, he heard a faint humming noise, and several small black shapes flew in from outside his field of vision. Two of them grew larger as they descended from the sky, and the humming noise became more audible. Soon, the approaching objects became recognizable to Zeratul as common Terran military transports.
The dropships landed near the edge of the arena-sized clearing, and the doors to their passenger compartments opened up. Stepping out from within one dropship were three Raider marines, followed by Stetman. The latter carried a hefty briefcase with strange mechanical arms sprouting from one side and neatly folding over to the other.
From the other dropship, out came Raynor in his grey marine armour with the distinctive white skeletal serpent totem painted on it, followed by a young human female dressed in a labcoat, and Kerrigan, dressed in a black form-fitting outfit which Zeratul recognized as the old field uniform for Terran Ghosts.
Immediately, Raynor began directing the three marines to take up sentry positions at the far edge of the clearing. He spotted Zeratul walking towards him and waved.
"This is … breathtaking !" Hanson exclaimed as she set a foot on the ground outside, and took in the view before her, especially the large object at the centre of the clearing.
It was a giant pupa, roughly six metres long and two metres wide, wrapped in what appeared to be a thick layer of alien silk. At the top of the cocoon, said silk had turned from white to iridescent gold, like the carapace of some beetles. At the bottom, where the cocoon touched the ground, the silk had grown and spread over the Earth around it, covering the entire floor of the clearing, some nearby trees, and perhaps extending into the surrounding forest as well. It covered every patch of soil, rocks, and fallen logs like fungal hyphae magnified a million times, with short loose threads waving in the air like thin tentacles. There were even fruiting bodies popping up here and there, their tops coloured the same iridescent gold as the main cocoon.
The substance reminded Hanson of Zerg creep, except that this was a different colour, mostly pale whitish gold and brown on the outer surface, but with hints of purplish red and green showing from underneath. "What do you think ? Mutated Creep ?" She asked Stetman who had been standing beside her and gawking at the surreal scenery as well.
"Did a scan just now. Similar to Creep, but benign, for now. Let's see …" Stetman squatted down, and began collecting some samples with a tweezer and test-tube. "Hey, maybe we can put it together with normal Creep and see what happens." After a while, he noticed the waving threads trying to wrap themselves around his gloved hands, like the thin tentacles of a jellyfish around its potential prey, and he hastily stood up.
"Is that really a Zerg in there ?" Hanson pointed at the giant cocoon.
"Yup, I heard it's a really special one." Stetman answered as he plucked the threads from his gloves and shoved them into another test-tube.
"I can see that ..." the feeling of amazement was still evident in Hanson's voice. And then she pointed forward again. "What's she doing ?"
Now they saw Kerrigan walking towards one end of the giant ovoid pupa. She stood there, near what would to be its head ( or tip of its abdomen, to use the insect analogy ) and placed one hand on the surface of the silk. Where she touched, the silk extended and wrapped itself around her arm.
"Beats me." Stetman shrugged. "Why don't we go find out ?"
They both slowly approached the cocoon.
Close behind them, were Zeratul and Raynor.
"So, how's Lulu doing ?" Raynor gestured towards the cocoon.
Zeratul raised a brow-ridge in amusement at the casualness with which Raynor referred to the cerebrate, as well as the human's inability to pronounce its true name. "It is alive, and asleep. That is all I can say. I am unable to communicate with it. It's essence seems to be reshaping itself. While your marines were unloading the cocoon, I began observed the surrounding area. The animals nearby were reacting to its psionic emanations. The lower creatures were drawn to it, before being consumed by the white tendrils that the Old One was sending out. Creatures which possessed an independent will, were less effected. Either that, or its influence was too subtle for me to notice. It is our sentience, and our vestments, which protect us." Zeratul tapped lightly at Raynor's shoulder pauldrons.
"I see." Raynor nodded, then recalled something. "What about those Infested by the ZH virus ? Are they affected ?"
"Hmm … I have not seen any of them yet." Zeratul paused in thought. "They must be hiding in their burrows to avoid the sunlight. If the Old One's tendrils have reached them, we may have to wait until nightfall to see how they are affected. Perhaps I'll stay here, and watch."
They were now standing next to Kerrigan. Nearby, Stetman was poking the cocoon with one of his instruments, while Hanson was frowning and shaking her head at her fellow scientist's lack of caution.
Just then, the coms in Raynor's helmet came to life, and he heard a familiar voice.
"Commander, are you there ?"
"I hear you, Matt." Raynor replied. "What's up ?"
"Sir, we are detecting multiple groups of Zerg life-signs heading your way."
"Infested Terrans ?"
"Mostly Infested Terrans, but some of their movement patterns indicate real Zerg."
"I see. How's the deployments in the Settlement areas going ?"
"Enough to hold off the Zerg if they decide to turn and attack the Agrians. Sir, you need to pull out of your current location immediately."
"Understood." Raynor pressed a button within his helmet and spoke into the coms again. "Sentries, fall back to the dropships. I repeat, fallback to the dropships."
As the sentry marines acknowledged the order, Raynor turned to the rest of the group. "Alright, we need to leave, now. The Zerg are coming."
"Just a moment …" Stetman entered the last line of data into his PDF and then looked up. "Huh what ? oh, the Zerg are coming ! Let's go !" He hurriedly packed his equipment back inside his briefcase, and and jogged towards the dropships, followed by Hanson. "I knew it, they're immune to sunlight already …"
Kerrigan opened her eyes, and pulled her hand away from the cocoon. "They're coming … for me."
"Sarah ?" Raynor saw Kerrigan standing motionless, and called out urgently. "We gotta go."
Kerrigan looked back at Raynor with a calm but determined expression. "Remember the psi-emitters, Jimmy ?"
Raynor did remember. Years ago, scientists working for the now deposed Confederate government had discovered that the Zerg were attracted to the psionic emanations of a Ghost. They had even developed portable devices called psi-emitters which broadcast the psionic imprint of Ghosts when activated, allowing the Confederates to lure the Zerg to predetermined locations. Ultimately, this technology was used, with horrifying success, against them by the Rebellion.
Compared to ordinary Ghosts, Kerrigan's own psionic potential was off the charts. While she was the Queen of Blades, this ability to call the Zerg to her had been very useful to her, but what about now ?
"We'll take you to a safe place." Raynor extended an armoured hand. "Come on. We'll figure out some other way to get the Zerg."
"And how long will that take ? As long as they have a place to hide, they'll just keep coming." Kerrigan sighed and then put up a smile. "Besides, Dr. Hanson has been looking for a cure to the virus, right ? Now she has one … sort of," She plucked the silk threads still attached to her arm, and raised them in the air before her. "but it's not tested yet."
Raynor remained silent for a while, then, he smiled as well. "Alright, but we'll do it from a safe place."
Zeratul appeared beside them. "I have recalled the Void Seeker to this location. If we take Kerrigan aboard my vessel, and maintain a cloaking field around it, we may lure the Zerg into traps of our making, while greatly reducing the risk to her life. It will also allow us to escape quickly if a threat arises."
"Thanks." Raynor nodded appreciatively. "I'll inform the pilots to return to the settlement without us." He turned and headed towards the dropships.
A while later … in the control room aboard the Void Seeker, holding position 5 km above the Cocoon …
...
The cockpit was unusually dark and utilitarian for something of Protoss design. Unlike the Khalai Protoss, the Dark Templar believed firmly in thrift and keeping a low profile, and Zeratul exemplified those principles quite well.
The entire room was shaped roughly like a sphere, six metres wide and tall, with minimal protruding elements, to reduce the risk of injury when travelling in unsteady conditions. The floor, walls, and ceiling were covered in tessellating plates of various shapes, all metallic dark purple in colour, except for the entrances at the sides, and a large oval transparent section which took up nearly a quarter of the sphere, allowing a view of the outside towards the top, front and bottom of the ship.
There were no chairs nor tables. Specially designed niches along the walls and floor, with straps provided, served as seats and beds on occasion, all facing the centre of the room, where a small shallow mound served as the common control panel and workstation. Right on top of this mound, was a small crystal set into the ceiling. Its sky-blue glow provided most of the illumination in the room, in addition to the holographic display screens suspended in the space below it. These had lines connecting them to the top of the mound below, where a map of the surrounding terrain was being displayed.
Zeratul had dispatched Observers over the area covered by the Old One's fungal mat ( for convenience's sake let's call it that ), and then beyond. They hovered at regular distances from each other along the treetops, transmitting vision of the areas under them to the Void Seeker, and could relocate themselves at Zeratul's command.
"Look !" Kerrigan pointed towards one of the screen. It showed a view of one small part of the forest. This was a location of the outer limit of the fungal mat's extent. If one looked closely, one could see that the mat was expanding, slowly.
A creature recognizable as an Infested Terran had lumbered onto the mat, and stumbled, its feet held fast by the thread-like waving tendrils. As it struggled to free itself, stabbing, the ground with its scythe-like claws, the tendrils extended and wrapped more and more thickly around its limbs, then its torso, over its shoulders, until finally the creature was covered entirely in silken hyphae like a cocoon itself. After a while, it stopped moving. Similar events were seen occurring on the other display screens. "It's begun." Zeratul whispered.
And then they saw what appeared to be Zerglings and Roaches running over the fungal mat as well. These proved too fast for the silk tendrils to entrap.
"We need to draw those ones away." Kerrigan pointed at one screen showing the real Zerg creatures advancing over the fungal mat with impunity. "We can't let them reach the Cocoon."
Zeratul nodded. His hand moved over something along his side of the work-station. A faint hum could be heard throughout the ship. The terrain map began shifting sideways slowly, as if moving over an invisible treadmill, while the view outside the giant windscreen began shifting as well, confirming that the Void Seeker was indeed flying to a different location. "The course is set… Can you not take control of them ? Direct them away ?"
Kerrigan closed her eyes in concentration, then slowly shook her head. "I can't, there's … something else out there … prodding them on."
Raynor switched on his coms. "Raven squads 4 through 10, auto-turrets activate. Target all incoming Zerg units except for the Infested Terrans."
"Or-der Ac-know-ledged ..." Came the monotonous reply through the coms. "Com-men-cing …"
In response, Zeratul brought up a few display screens which focused on the positions of said static weapons. The three of them watched as the guns, placed in groups of four at short intervals along the original perimeter of the fungal mat, fired at the incoming Zerg creatures. The latter shuddered and tripped as the rounds tore into their hide, and collapsed onto the fungal mat, where they were eventually engulfed by the silk tendrils. Some of them turned and attacked the turrets, eventually overwhelming the guns and taking the latter apart in a flurry of brutally swiping claws and acid sprays. As they moved on towards their destination, they were shot down by even more turrets along the way, who were in turn overwhelmed by more Zerg.
"Damn, they just keep coming … " Raynor whispered. He turned towards a holographic display screen projected from a device placed in the seat-niche beside his own. "Matt, arm the Hyperion's laser batteries, and target the following coordinates … "
Beside him, Kerrigan, eyes still closed, raised her hands and then brought them down, palms curled and facing downward. Light blue sparks arced between her fingers and the insides of her palms. Her nerve cords began to raise themselves from their drooping positions, until they appeared as segmented spikes pointing behind her and waving about, as if blown by an invisible wind from the front.
Some of the display screens showed a crowd of Zerglings and Roaches stampeding over each other and frequently looking up at the sky. Suddenly, bolts of bluish white lightning leapt into their midst from many directions. Instead of flashing and disappearing quickly, said lightning twisted and crackled their way through the tightly packed Zerg. Every Zergling caught in its way ( which was almost every Zergling shown on screen ) shuddered and writhed in agony as smoke poured out from their orifices, before dropping dead or exploding to pieces. It took two or three waves of lightning to kill the Roaches this way. Those who managed to escape were impaled by thin orange threads of light shooting down from the sky, and collapsed into smouldering heaps. This time, there were no silk tendrils to claim the carcasses yet, as the Void Seeker had moved beyond the range of the Fungal Mat.
Kerrigan maintained the Psionic Storm for a few more seconds, until sparks began flying around her head as well. She abruptly opened her eyes and gasped. The sparks disappeared, and she fell back into her seat-niche, exhausted. "There's still more of them out there ..." she whispered meekly.
"Sir." Matt's face appeared on the portable holographic display screen again. "There are flying units headed your way. Wraith squadrons 5 to 11 are moving to intercept."
"Very good. Keep in touch." Raynor knew this was going to be a long day. He started unpacking his rations, and handed some of them to Kerrigan, who accepted them, and then glanced momentarily ahead at Zeratul.
"It's OK." Raynor whispered. "He doesn't need to eat."
Meanwhile, in Dr. Ariel Hanson's lab …
...
"Hey, come see this !" Stetman called out. For a while he heard no response.
"Dr. Hanson ?"
"Yes ?" Hanson walked over to where Stetman was looking through a microscope. When he heard her approaching, Stetman looked up excitedly. "Remember what I said about mixing the samples I collected with normal creep ?"
"Mhmm." Hanson nodded.
"Well, I mixed it with some other stuff as well." Stetman stood up and moved off his seat, then pointed towards the microscope. "Take a look !"
Hanson bent down and looked through the microscope. "It's attacking … what is that ?"
"… a piece of human skin tissue." Stetman answered, grinning as if he had just described the greatest scientific breakthrough of the decade.
"Fascinating …" Hanson looked up. "but I don't see your point."
"Not yet." Stetman removed the current slide from the microscope , and replaced it with another slide. "Now see. This was plucked from the Big Worm, after Kerrigan started … uh … patting it."
Hanson chuckled at Stetman's choice of words, and peered through the lenses again. "OK, it's … not moving. Is it … dead ?"
"Well, all our samples are almost dead, even the normal creep, but they still retain some of their functions." Stetman picked up another slide. "Now here comes the most exciting part." He inserted the slide he was holding into the microscope after removing the previous slide.
Hanson, still looking through the microscope, remained silent for a few seconds. And then she looked up and stared at the cabinet set into the wall in front of her. "I'm seeing things."
"No Ma'am you're not." Now the grin on Stetman's face was wider.
Midnight, aboard the Void Seeker … 5 km above the Cocoon, after travelling for the Void knows how much distance and back.
...
"Matt, are you detecting anymore Zerg heading our way ?" Raynor asked in a tired voice.
"Negative. They're all gone, as far as our sensors can reach." Matt replied and then smiled. "Sir, we just accomplished in one day, what could have taken weeks. I don't know what to say, except that ... well, I'm glad we kept Kerrigan alive. Without her, this wouldn't have been possible."
"We all did our part. Couldn't have pulled it off without you guys as well ... but I wished you were here to see the Void Seeker in action. It was ... insane. " Raynor paused to yawn. "By the way, did figure out how the infestation spread so fast ?"
"No idea, Sir, but there were real Zerg units, even flyers. I'm guessing this really has nothing to do with the ZH-infected escaping from quarantine." Matt yawned as well. "Sorry."
"Don't worry." Raynor waved, then recalled something. "Oh, speaking of Infested Terrans, that reminds me, we need to get some dropships over to the following coordinates ... to pick up the survivors."
"Survivors, Sir ?"
A/N:
How many of you actually bothered to count the number of "days" and "hours" which have elapsed since the start of this story ? Sorry, I'll try to put in specific dates and times next time XP
-Star