And now the action begins, at least, towards the latter part of the chapter. anyone who can guess John's last name gets an internet cookie. hint: SpecTRe. read and review as always.
It is getting late, but unfortunately there's just too much to do and too few hours in a day to do it all. We'd been working most of the day, even through the battle itself. We, Hanson and I have mapped the entirety of chromosome five, which coded for the virus which accelerated mutation within me, most of the information for my wings, as well as some of the new chemicals which accelerated metabolism and strengthened tissue, in addition to its regular functions. Speaking of accelerated metabolic rates, I'm hungry again, even though I'd eaten just two hours previously. Ah the joys of being one of the Zerg. I really don't know what Stettman was doing at the time, but he spent a lot of it poking at the two specimens inside their respective containers.
Finally, the work for today done, I turn my attention to the Artifacts again, they've been giving me a headache for the entire time I've been in here. "Hey, Doctor Hanson, do these things make you feel weird?" I inquire, indicating the artifacts as the object of my inquiry.
"No, they've been completely inert since they came here and I haven't felt anything off of them at all." She answers, also looking at them.
"Are you sure? It's like a pressure at the back of my neck, like… when someone is watching you." Hanson pulls up a diagnostic on the artifacts, and jumps slightly at what she sees.
"They're emitting energy. It's like… could you step away from them?" I do so, and the pressure lessens. "Incredible, they are reacting to your presence. They must be specifically designed to react to Zerg life. If I were to guess, the same thing would happen to a Protoss if they were near these things." I regard the artifacts more carefully,
"and what kind of energy are they emitting?" I ask.
"let's see… they're linking to you somehow… I knew those numbers were off. They've been leaching energy from you. That's why you were so hungry today." With that, I decide that the artifacts are definitely not trustworthy, and so glare at them.
"let's not have me near them then, since we don't know what they're using the energy for." I say. Hanson nods in agreement.
"We have a secondary lab; you've already been to it. I'll just need to finalize the move with Raynor." As she is saying it, the man himself enters the lab.
"Finalize what with me?" he asks, walking over.
"The artifacts are draining energy from me" I explain. "It has something to do with my infestation, apparently. We decided that it would be better to move me away from them to prevent anything bad from happening, either to me, the artifacts, or anything else around here." He looks at them, then back at us,
"Well, you're the experts. If you say that whatever they're doing might not be good, I'll let you move." After that, he looks at Doctor Hanson, and asks "so, were you able to dig up anything on Nova's claims?" she nods, she was researching this while I was eating my second breakfast.
"Honestly, there's no real evidence that Spectres are any more prone to aberrant behavior than ordinary people. A sudden increase in Psionic ability could induce a psychotic break, but Spectres aren't the monsters were we're led to believe. Nova lied to us. But what's more interesting than that is the comparison between the Terrazine we recovered earlier, and some of the compounds we've been mapping here. It seems the Zerg use a similar compound to overcome brain cell destabilization."
Raynor nods, and states "keep up the good work, doc" before leaving, presumably to check up on other matters. The work day ended, and I head back to my barracks, Hanson in tow as usual. I feel as though I know my body a little better now, having seen my genome. There were a couple of surprises in there, like the membrane that could cover my wings spontaneously if it starts coding. It would have been extremely awkward for that to happen without my knowledge. In addition, there have been some things in there which don't seem to have a use. Little bits of code which are not introns, but that don't make any sense. They're coding for garbage for all I can tell. Tomorrow we are actually going to use some of my original DNA in a test to see, in a laboratory controlled environment, how my infestation occurred in the different tissues.
Dave is once again absent from the Barracks. Conspicuously so, it's still early, but most of the team is in the barracks, talking about their training today or what they did for fun after it was over. I move to my computer terminal and log in. I don't use a DNA scanner so it has no objections to me. I log into Galaxy at War, an alternative sci-fi strategy game, and the game that we prefer to play, I get into a group with Zeke and Blake. I say alternative Science fiction because as far as I'm concerned, we're living science fiction right now, at least from a 21st century standpoint. We have hostile aliens, telekinetics in our own society, and live on a space ship. As I suspected, they're ahead of me in points. I growl softly in frustration and type "you know, it's not polite to play while I'm physically unable to join you." I would talk, but they're across the room and this is much easier.
Zeke responds with "Yeah well as they say, "all's fair in love and war" and, if you hadn't gotten captured you wouldn't be in this mess." He apparently doesn't realize how that left him open.
I send "aw, I didn't know you loved me." I hear an audible groan from across the room, and grin.
At that point, Blake sends to both of us "let's just get on with it, shall we?"
Three games in, and I'm back on top in points. We normally team up, but today I feel like a free for all. My favorite race to play is the Rentoth, whose main strategy is to sneak in behind your defenses and destroy your supply lines, going for the Death by a Thousand Cuts approach. Blake prefers the Xori, for which Zeke and I tease him to no end. In game cannon states that they are a Matriarchal society whose main strength is in preemptive strikes and targets of opportunity. As such all their warriors are female, and conform to the Terran standard of beauty, Very strong early game, but if you can hold them off they become a pushover later. Zeke prefers the Terrans, who in the ethnocentric view of the game's designers are the best all-around race, although they lack specialization in one area. The other two races you can play are the Celans, who are a powerful machine-race who are weak early game, but If you let them build up can crush you, and the Peroi, who almost all fly.
After the games, I walk over to where they sit huddled over their computers, Zeke watching the replay and trying to find a place where I cheat, and Blake watching the same to find weaknesses in my strategy. I stand behind them, "well, at least you're better fighters than me." I say, trying to console them over their losses.
Zeke looks up and says "better fighters for sure, even in games. I still remember beating you again and again and again in that one third person shooter." What can I say? I can't fire a gun straight in those games; they're not realistic at all. I can aim fine with the MedNan dispenser though.
"You'd better not insult my aim, someday I might be patching you up again, and I might just miss with my surgical laser."
"You wouldn't do that to me, I'm your friend" to which I instinctively use my altered voice box to issue a very Zerg-like hiss. He jumps involuntarily at the sound, as do quite a few other people around him. I blush a little at the unexpected noise, and they uneasily return to what they were doing.
"well… that's new" I say,
"No joke. I just about crapped myself there." He responds.
"There's a lot of stuff I don't know yet." I say, looking down at my clawed hand.
"Don't worry," Blake says comfortingly "you'll get through it. After all, if you didn't I'd have to spend the rest of my tour with just Zeke, and that's not something I would wish on my worst enemy." I feel a little better at that.
"seriously though, what I said this morning still stands. if you ever need anything, don't hesitate to ask, we're going to help you through this. I promise"
The lights dim, I catch it this time, and everyone begins getting ready for sleep. I don't want to ruin any more clothes then I have to, and so just fall into bed as I am. Sleep won't come though. That strange noise proves just how much of a stranger I still am in my own body. I'm not sinking into despair or anything like that, I'm just unhappy about how very little I know. Perhaps tomorrow's studies will shed some additional light on it. It takes a long time, but at last, I fall asleep.
I feel much better in the morning, no nightmares wake me up and I feel refreshed and revitalized, if a little hungry. I look at the orders for today, and my good mood drops right out of the airlock. "Alpha squadron will report to dropship 122 for deployment." Deployment? I'm not allowed to leave the ship. There it is though, in bolded letters. The second line has it as well. I don't know what this means. Well, I know what it means, but I don't know why it happened. A lot of the other faces appear to have the same amount of shock. It's directed at me through the deployment, though, "we're supposed to trust a Zerg?" Dave cries out. I never did see him return to the Barracks last night, but he's here now.
Andrew looks at him angrily and says "no, you're supposed to trust Julia"
To which he cries "it's the same thing! How can you not see? You've all taken a demon into your council and it's going to betray you the first chance it gets! Julia is Dead, and you won't admit it!"
Andrew gets dangerous at that point. "Are you questioning my orders, Soldier? Think carefully before you answer, for it may well mean your career if you do." he backs off then, looking as though he was one step away from an enraged meltdown. This kind of behavior is why I feel we shouldn't be going. Soldiers need to trust the people at their backs. If Dave doesn't believe I'm trustworthy, he will be unable to perform as well as he normally does, and if I'm worried about what Dave is going to do, then I will be likewise unable to perform.
Regardless of the objections, we are still lined up for deployment at 0900 hours. Raynor greets us as he does all squads that are going to be deployed, and before our CMC armor is on. "here's the brief. We're going to get started with the next phase of our little rebellion. Your mission is to guard our base of operations while we intercept Dominion supply convoys on Tarsonis. You'll be aided by John S. here," Raynor indicates a Spectre operative, "all squads are being assigned a Spectre now that we have the tech to train them. Now, everyone but Julia, go get in your regular suits. Julia, we've got something special for you." They walk off, Andrew already trying to talk to our new member.
Raynor and I walk towards the front of the armory, where Swann awaits. I ask "sir, wasn't I confined to the ship? Why am I going on this mission?"
He looks at me and says "well, you've got Hanson to thank for that. She was up all night running through your Genome, don't know why, but she says that she's discovered why you're still sane, and she says it's permanent. I trust Hanson enough to believe her on something this important, so I'm letting you go on the mission. Besides, Alpha squad's one of our best, and we need all the help we can get on this one."
I'm surprised that Hanson stayed up that late, but grateful for the gesture. However, "but sir, my squad still doesn't trust me well enough-" I start
"Well, that should be helped by this mission as well, the only way to really build trust like this is with actions. You treat them right, and they'll come around soon enough."
We get up to Swann, and he greets Raynor and I, "hey cowboy, is this who you were talking about?" Raynor nods and Swann speaks up "Julia, nice to see you again. Heard what happened." He shudders exaggeratedly, "anyway, heard you needed a new suit to help with your eh… condition. So, here's what I got." He indicates a specialized suit, "it's more armor-plated, but that's just to make it more valuable than what you've already got. It's got ports here for your wings to fit through, and can come apart easy if it gets damaged and you need out. I included a sidearm as well, don't know why they don't all have that. That said it's still only got the basic stuff for a medic." I nod a thank you to him, and step inside the power armor, which clicks around my frame and powers on. I test the different functions, satisfied that I am allowed a full range of motion and that the HUD is good to go.
Then I comm Swann and say "all systems check out. Thanks"
He says "Hey, no problem. It's not very often I get a special order for this stuff, it's nice to have to think outside the box every once in a while" with that, I rejoin my squad.
I link up my HUD to theirs and we all climb inside the Special Operations Dropship we were provided. We hit atmo, a sensation I am never entirely pleased with, and then are at the base. The Marines move to the natural choke points, two on each one, and move behind cover. There are eight of them and only two entryways, so that leaves four marines and the medics to cover the rest of the base until the Mech soldiers can start operating, and we get some bunkers going. Our resident Spectre operative has vanished, probably to do whatever it is that psionic warrior assassins do. Sure enough, some of the SCVs, including a suit which has Blake's brother's symbol on it, start up autofabricators. Once they're finished, the last four marines split up two and two as well, the four marines per doorway, and one medic per group, pile into the bunker. Now comes my least favorite part of the mission, the part my squad has so eloquently dubbed "hurry up and wait".