yes, finally, after six+ months, I'm back... for a little while at least, I may not publish another one for a while, as school does not allow me the time I need for writing. unfortunately, I feel that I burned myself out with writing every day, so I just stopped doing it...
About the chapter itself: I have decided *not* to include the vision of the future, and am doing a little divergence from Canon here for a few rest chapters before the Möbius mission. I hope this chapter is up to snuff for everyone, it definitely took long enough in coming.
as always, if you notice anything wrong with this chapter, Please PM me. I try to double and triple check my work, but some things do escape me, especially when the starting and finishing of the chapter happen so far apart.
"Tassadar?" Zeratul is shocked. Tassadar, a Protoss now venerated for his destruction of the wretched creature above which his wisp-like form now floats, is standing once more before him. "what is the meaning of this?"
"Peace, Zeratul, and I will tell you." His former comrade's mental communication seems layered, multiple voices speaking in concert. "When I channeled the energies of the Khala and the Void into the hull of the Gantrithor, I was unaware of the consequences of that action. My goal was to burn the Overmind to ash, destroying it utterly and loosing myself in the process. However, when I made contact with the Overmind itself, its energies mixed with my own, merging our minds into one whole. Even now I feel it within me, and I within it. I am no longer certain if there is even a distinction between us any longer. This transformation burned away my physical body, and destroyed the Overmind's. I found I could not leave this place when I awoke, and so I waited, disrupting the Zerg forces on the world, hoping for the day the Protoss would return."
"Know this, the Zerg were not created to be our enemy, but instead one half of our whole. We were intended to become the gods themselves, but Amon the outcast snuck in upon the Xel'naga experiments, he used his psionic ability to apply a directive to the Overmind, which it had no choice but to comply with. That directive was to merge with the Protoss through the use of conquest and force, which led to the sacking of Aiur and countless Terran and Protoss worlds. Amon believed this would cause a different type of being than the Xel'Naga who ruled this galaxy, which he in his own arrogance named the Amon'Tai. Supplying the Zerg with his upgrades, and luring the Behemoths, which you now know as the Zerg known as Overlords, into orbit around Zerus, he caused that the Xel'Naga should fall. Their warships burned beneath his corrupted swarm, and the survivors fled to their various refuge worlds, where they died, either by the swarm, or by time itself. Before they died, however, they developed a weapon against the Zerg, this weapon is a spire made from five components, each forged at a different facility, which when combined and charged will release a wave of energy capable of destroying most Zerg and severely injuring those capable of surviving the blast. When the wave targets an organism brought into the swarm directly, not hatched from a larva, it instead uses a psionic technique to regress their DNA to an approximation of how it existed before infestation. "
Zeratul, immediately recognizing the import of this, says "this could win us the war… but, Tassadar, were not the Zerg meant to ally with the Protoss against this Amon?"
The ghostly figure gives an indication of agreement, before expounding upon it. "When the Xel'Naga made this device, it's purpose was the destruction of the Zerg. They hoped that, deprived of his troops, and not having yet constructed any Amon'Tai, this would stop Amon's attempts to corrupt the cycle. However, this was not to be. Amon finished his work on the construction of the Amon'Tai, and they knew that now their children would have to stand together. To do so, they would need to destroy the Overmind, so they watched and waited, and the last of their kind was alive to witness the arrival of the Terrans to the sector. With their return, and the creation of the Queen of blades, he saw hope. She would become a unifying force for the Zerg, one who was extraordinarily gifted in their control even as a Terran. So he planted rumors, hoping they would eventually reach Terran forces, about the device his kind had constructed, and he changed it so that it would remove Amon's influence from Kerrigan, rather than killing her. His death occurred less than twelve cycles ago. I can only hope the plans he put in motion, and then confided in me, will reach fruition." Zeratul is more than a little surprised at the fact that there was a living Xel'Naga after all this time, although this "Amon" that had caused this all to happen is still alive as well.
"Tassadar, if you believe this, I will trust in your judgment. I will return to the Protoss high command, we shall begin the search for these devices immediately". Zeratul makes his move to leave.
"NO!" Tassadar exclaims. "They would destroy you as surely as they would the Zerg, they have been unpowered for thousands of years, and would remove your life force from your body for power. None with the Xel'Naga's enhancements may access them simply because of this. We must wait for the Terrans to act, to do that which we cannot".
Zeratul nods his ascent. "And what about you? Should I alert them to your presence?"
"no. that would only cause disunity and confusion in a time where such would be our downfall. I will remain here, watching from the shadows until this conflict is over, at which time, if I am able, I will reveal myself."
"and... the Amon'Tai? you said that they were already completed. why, then, have we not seen any?"
"you have, on a dark moon, in a secret Terran research facility."
With his parting words heard, Zeratul ends the vision. Raynor looks up to the artifact pieces he has been collecting. 'An ancient Xel'Naga super weapon?' it's a little hard to believe. nevertheless, both Tassadar and Zeratul seemed convinced by the end, and Raynor has never had either of them lie to him, although his alliance with Tassadar was both short and need based. If it can restore Kerrigan's mind, and likely her humanity as well, then these artifacts just became his most important mission. That means his next stop will be Tyrrador VIII, the Möbius foundation base lead by Doctor Emil Narud, and Tychus's financial backers on these artifact projects. That world hasn't been attacked, yet, but the Zerg are massing, and will likely be attacking within the week. For all that, though, his soldiers are tired, and the planet's not in danger yet. They can take a day off for their sanity; heaven knows he needs one himself.
Morning and therefore wakefulness come far too early for my liking. This in and of itself is nothing new, but the sleepy silence over the Barracks is. Normally, when I'm up this late, as a quick glance at the clock on the wall states it's 0921, everyone is awake and moving. Even the fact that I can sleep in this late is unusual. I shift off of my bed, the "Click" of carapace against the floor the loudest sound in the room apart from quiet snoring, I walk to the message board as quietly as I can, looking at today's assignments. In bold red letters, the message reads "All Combat troops required to remain off-duty for recovery purposes." It's not unusual to get a day off, in theory. Travel times are what they are, and rest is necessary to help combat stim-pack addiction. The reasoning behind this day off is sound; it's likely the most necessary one we've taken in a while. That mystery solved, I turn to return to my bed. I'm stopped, however, by John, who is standing behind me. "have you given any thought to my proposition?" he asks, and I remember what he's talking about. He is trying to persuade me to become a Spectre. I haven't spent much time thinking about this at all, too much else to do. Nevertheless I have an answer, although likely not the one he wants.
"Thank you for the offer, but for right now I would prefer to simply learn to control my ability. I feel that my personal talents lie elsewhere". I say. I need to be able to control my newfound Psionic potential, as those who do not have often done something unintentionally which might hurt them or others. That does not mean that I want to become a psionic assassin. My position as a field medic is more in line with my personality, and I enjoy it.
"I understand. I will set up the lessons for basic control with one of my superiors." With that, he vanishes in an overly dramatic fashion. I walk back to my bed, and sit down on the edge of it, trying to stop myself from mulling over the events of the past few weeks again in my head. The Revolution now has support on almost every world, and Mengsk is slowly but inescapably losing power, the Zerg virus, once a fate worse than death, is now little more than a new suit of armor that you can't take off quite yet. I look down at my own infested carapace, wondering at how normal seeing myself like this looks. I don't even worry about my wings any more, moving them as naturally as any other body part, and hardly sparing a thought when I do. This mental adaptation is a good thing. It causes me to not be distracted when the moment counts, and from breaking down when it doesn't. I just wish it didn't happen so fast, to so soon stop missing me. 'heh' I think to myself, 'there goes not dwelling on it'. I shift myself back onto my bed and lay down, before drifting back to sleep.
Far too soon, though, others start waking up, and I am forced awake by their talking. Stretching, I look at the clock again, barely over twenty minutes from when I fell asleep this time. Andrew is leaning against a wall on the far side from me. I get off of the bed and walk towards him, before taking up a similar position to him. "good morning" I say.
"you as well" he answers, looking a little distracted.
My curiosity piqued, I inquire "what are you thinking about?"
"Depressing thoughts, honestly. The state of the sector after this war ends, for one." He shakes his head, then. "it's such a mess, even with the Zerg threat partially neutralized with your cure, they're still a force to be reckoned with. The Protoss are isolationist, haven't heard from the non-tal'darim factions once, barring the Haven incident, of course. The Dominion's just getting worse and worse, cracking down on their citizens and enforcing martial law with their forces, and here we are, one battlecruiser with seven marine teams, and about as many vehicle specialists, trying to fight all of them at once."
"Ah. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say," I state honestly.
"I'm not asking you to say anything… those are my thoughts on the situation, however. Another thing is our squad… they're either recovering from a neural socialization, myself included, or they're infested. Neither one of those states is good for mental health. We keep going like this, even with our days off, someone's going to crack. It's a matter of when, and how badly." He responds, and he looks even more worried.
Agreeing, I answer "I've noticed. Their suits are all reading elevated stress levels, heightened blood pressure, adrenaline levels, etcetera… it's self-destructive but I'm not sure exactly what can be done about it".
He smiles, then. "I have an idea… we'll have to see if Raynor approves, though. It'll likely involve a stop on Haven."
I'm now more than a little intrigued. "you're going to ask for shore leave, aren't you."
He smiles. "it's the best way to handle these type of cases, the men are stressed, although we've won some victories. The Möbius foundation hasn't given us our next target, and Raynor is assisting the rebellion on different worlds from the Hyperion. We're just going to be sitting in space until there's something that needs to be done. This way, we're allowed to blow off some steam, even the infested members, which is not something that's possible on a Umojan world. Again, we'll see, but I'm hopeful."
"I wouldn't say not to some shore leave. It's best not to overstay, though, when I did that last time it ended up starting this whole mess in the first place."
He chuckles at that. "I wouldn't say that, although yes, it did cause you to be infested."
"yes… and in the end, that one rather backfired on the Zerg, didn't it. I get a new hairstyle, armor plating, and a cure for the Zerg virus, the Zerg themselves get an even more formidable enemy."
"careful there, no need to go tempting fate. It has a way of coming back around and stabbing you in the gut. We've had a stroke of good luck, but that just means we're being wound up for something bigger later on." He's a pessimist, has been since I met him, he says it's because that way, he only ever gets good surprises.
"Unfortunately, you're likely right in your pessimism." I say.
"Of course, it's not nearly as gratifying to be proved wrong, even when that means things turn out right." He says, smiling.
"Right. So, what are your plans for today? It's a free day after all."
He grimaces slightly. "well, I figured I'd be working on reports, there's a lot of paperwork that goes into things like what happened on Korhal. Not the least of which is the attempted brain-panning of all of our non-infested squad members."
That makes sense, although the word 'paperwork' bugs me, as it's been decades since we used actual paper. "I'm likely going down to see Hanson again, see if there's anything more on the Cure."
"sounds good, and thanks for keeping me informed on that," he raises his voice on that last part, indicating to all awake that he wants them also to keep him informed on what they're doing. After he says that, I do as I said I would and depart the barracks for the secondary lab, sending a message to doctor Hanson so she knows I'm coming.
Hanson's not in the lab when I arrive. I sit down in a chair, and pull open a terminal, deciding that there's more than one way to get information on the Cure.