Episode 20- The struggle of making an idea into reality.
It was over and done with unsurprisingly quickly. Dobromir didn't even have to lift a finger when a few wraiths made an attempt. Now the area was safe, and he could leave the protection of chrysalis to the hive.
For the Leader of Riders, the biggest issue was nothing to ride. Zerglings were too small, hydralisks just no, same with mutalisks. He didn't witness the whole zerg roster, but he safely assumed there wouldn't be any ridable zerg, in the rider mount way. "I mean yeah, I could climb the ultralisk but it would be pointless. I need a mount bigger than me no more than 5 times. And considering I don't know a lot of things, creating a new strain of zerg is out of the question." He explained to his imaginary audience. Looking over the wreckage of some nearby terran machines, and further away towards the remains of a base, he decided "If I can't take a step forward, a backward shuffle will have to be done."
The slowly increasing pain in the head worried Mina, but their destination was in sight. The slowly spinning globe, full of forests and lakes criss crossing each other created a magnificent sight. A small beacon of light shone, like a lighthouse amidst rolling waves and a stormy night.
Her passenger was still sitting in the same position, never moving more than an inch.
They could finally rest.
They were on the move, for the first time really. At last when it comes to the newly formed hive of Kerrigan's defenders. Lucky for him, there were more overlords than needed, so he occupied one fully with his junk. One man's trash is another one's treasure, especially to junkrats. And Dobromir didn't have the choice but to become one. With him were assorted piles of parts from vultures and goliath, along with some undefined plates of metal. He was occupied with cutting them with the scavenged ERK's arm, but it was so big he needed to strip big parts of it away. It ended up a lot smaller, but still half as big as him, thus remaining unwieldy.
He mostly activated the welder and cut the plates. He wasn't a tech wiz by any stretch of imagination, so anything more complicated than full power was beyond him. Similar with the vultures hovering engines, or goliath legs, so a mostly classic age mode of transportation will have to suffice.
"Are you alright deary?" A kind old voice asked.
Startled, Mina looked at her elderly speaker. She regretted it immediately, because her head didn't appreciate it. After a few seconds of unbearable pain and hazy vision she became coherent enough to respond.
"N-no, definitely no-not", she uttered, it was real torture to stay concious, and remaining upright.
"I clearly see it's not hungover. Believe me, deary, I have been drunk and have seen enough drunkards to tell. So, when did it begin?"
Here everything was rather hazy, so she really heard the last part.
"A few hours, at b-best"
"And what were you doing during those hours?"
"F-flying, here".
"So, you are the pilot that delivered the former Magistrate of Marsara. I can guess what happened to you, deary. Just wait a minute."
.
Mina put her head in her hands, and kept sitting, trying not to die. She heard the sound of the door opening by her left, and some talking. She didn't have enough mental capacity to comprehend what was said between her former passenger and the heads of the colony.
Some short interruption later, and the elderly woman returned, with a vial that seemed to hold purple liquid, with mist leaking from the tip. She honestly didn't care enough to be wary, so she just downed the offering as fast as she could. After a few seconds, her pain intensified enough to turn her world into sheer white, and Mina the Pilot crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut.
Dobromir turned his head briefly towards where the screams of zerg and protoss alike sounded with occasional explosions thrown into the mix. If he understood correctly, they were supposed to break free from the protoss forces and run. The massive fight between all the zerg drawn in by the psi emitters and the protoss fleet could end only with one outcome. There were just not enough protoss to win. But to avoid any threats to the Chrysalis, they would need to evacuate first.
The problem of protoss standing in their way to the other end of the platform was methodically dealt with by the waves of zerg. He was left behind to defend of course, but considering the eight massive hydralisks, he didn't have to lift a finger. On the other hand, no one was coming to their little platform anyway, so Dobromir had a lot of time to work on his pet project. After fiddling with the remains of ERK's arm, he figured out how to lower the flame's power by a lot. Now he was welding his scavenged parts together, and the final work started to take shape.
With a groan, Mina slowly came to consciousness, and was met with a clean white room, and feeling of fabric against her skin. Looking at the ceiling, she slowly started to regain her mental functions. Her headache receded to a dull feeling of pressure in her skull.
A nurse walked in, and after some fight with her clouded eyesight she noticed it. A male, even if the bias of genders and professions was lifted roughly six hundred years ago, a male nurse was still something of rarity.
"How do you feel, miss?" It was a normal question, and rather obvious one.
"Like something is trying to squeeze my head, but is too weak to do so. "
"So as expected, don't worry, you won't die, and in fact someone will help you in a minute." After observing her some more, with some touches to confirm temperature and pulse he added, "The rest of your vitals is good, nothing changed. That's all from myself." With that, he walked out, closing the door behind him.
Mina was beginning to contemplate her life when the door opened again, and a familiar granny walked in.
"Sorry for the knockout, deary, but It was unavoidable. Anyway, introductions are in order. I'm Matilda, pleased to meet you."
"Mina" She didn't have the strength to tell more, and she didn't need to do so.
The older woman in the room seated herself in a chair, and started "I assume you want to know about your headache years?"
Her answer was a weak nod.
"Let's start with the beginning, some many many billions years ago there was nothing, and then… Explosion. From that explosion the cosmos as we know it began…" Seeing the horror of realization slowly creeping onto the bedridden girl's face, Matilda kept a straight face. For like a second, and then burst into laughter.
"Hehehe… how do youngsters tell it these days…? Ah, It's a prank bro!"
After getting in a few more laughs, and seeing the not amused expression, she started again "I don't think you will be able to listen for long, so let's cut to the chase. Your headache stems from our psi emitter, which makes zerg run away as fast as they could. Someone with stronger psionic capabilities than a standard human feels it too, just weaker than zerg. If someone was born on this planet, they don't feel any negative effects at all."
"But I scored 2.5 on my aptitude test, not worth mentioning."
"Ah, you see deary," With that her eyes started to twinkle, and she leaned a little forward, "Psionics powers as you know it today are relatively new. We, as in this colony, bringed with us more than a few Earth animals and a bit of culture. When you are well rested and ready, you will have the chance to learn more, deary".
Mina was left alone with her thoughts and headache again, and she contemplated her current life, which was just one massive chaotic whirlwind.
"Not bad, not bad", though out loud Dobromir, looking at his work. "It looks a little ugly though". He walked around, looking at his, well… sleigh. There were no wheels around, so he just took some materials from the destroyed bunker for the runners. Carriage itself was just slapped or rather welded together from a lot of different materials, it was big but rather boxy. The harnesses for pullers was the biggest issue. He needed to create from smaller pieces of metal links to create chains, because there was no suitable fabrics whatsoever. To the carriage was attached one big link, with the next one being a big triple T shaped intersection. Basically, a space for six pullers, with harnesses made of chains. Considering the zerg were his only option, the rough metal wouldn't cause discomfort to their carapace.
He already stole a few zerglings from the main force, and only one step remained. Really, controlling over some simple zerg was nothing for him. Something like slightly intelligent animals, which have to listen to their master. Even if zerg were alien, the small four legged zerglings had form familiar enough to not cause any logistics problems.
"Now THAT, is a work well done." The little buggers were a little antsy, but stayed put. His posture of head held high and hands on his sides remained for the whole ten seconds. After that, he received orders, more or less. Mostly images of him taking the chrysalis and going through the path cleared from the protoss.
"Hehehe, HAHAHAHA!" He was still cackling madly as he carried the princess to his evil carriage. After putting her down, and ignoring the Cerebrate untold consternation, he returned for his weapons, and clamored in on the front seat.
With mental command it began
"First - slowly - like a tortoise - heavily,
carriage - moving - on ground - sluggishly,
zerglings are toiling, pulling and tugging,
fervently struggling.
It gets faster, ooo I think we avoided disaster!" It was accompanied by quick avoidance of the hole on the road.
"Uff, how hot,
Puff, too hot."
Looking to his left, he saw a glint of golden spider, and continued chanting.
"Trying to shoot me? I think not".
It was accompanied by a plasma ball flying in their direction, only to dissipate on the tip of a lance. A moment later it was annihilated by mutalisks.
"They are running faster, accelerating like malaxer,
And it rumbles and knocks, bangs and rushes,
Where, or where to? Forward! On the railroad of fate!
Through cosmos and space!
We travel forward, like knights screaming "Onward!"
That's the path we choose! Running in our ruined shoes!
We are arriving at our destination! The only thing I feel is gigantic Elation!"
And indeed they arrived, at the other end of the platform, where transport was already waiting. The road was mostly clear, and the few zealots that passed by were too bewildered watching a chanting infected human speeding on his carriage pulled by zerglings.
Dobromir, with a bounce in his step, released the zerglings and took the chrysalis with him, his lance and shield slung across his back, and entered the overlord. Just before leaving, he instructed the weird creature to take his carriage with it's own claws.
.
Author's words:
I am very satisfied with the obvious part.