Episode 53- Where lore dropping continues.
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After the troop charged forward, and was put to eternal rest the same as their predecessors, Mina steered the boat towards the specific place. Those guys had to be resocialized, she couldn't imagine normal humans to follow commands that stupid.
After the boat lowered as close to the earth as it could, Jaruga jumped off. Mina looked at Miko, Miko looked at Mina, and both shrugged. They didn't know what lurked in their companion's head, and it was better that way.
After a few minutes, Jaruga climbed the boat with something black thrown over the arm. After gently laying it on the deck, and giving a nod towards the pink haired pilot, Mina led the boat away, into the air. "What did you drag here anyway?"
Miko walked over, and just stared. Jaruga on the other hand, caressed the black surface. "Not what, but who. Thanks to his psionic capabilities, even if not too big, he was able to survive through my torrent of flames."
"Looks more like a charred corpse to me."
"Emphasis on the word Survive. His body should regenerate enough to live somewhere around tomorrow. That being said, he won't wake up without a reason…" Jaruga tried to think up something creative, but her mind came up with ideas that were… err, let's say complicated. "What do you think, oh my magnificent steerman? I need to carve something on his chest after all."
"You mean like a tattoo? Then just the word 'mom' surrounded with a heart." Mina considered the matter closed. Looking over at their base, Mina could see that they were finishing with the Factories and beginning with Starports. She was glad, it was a little unnerving to be the only flying ship around.
Jaruga leaned over, and sunk her finger into the black shell like a wet clay. After carving out the heart, she stopped. No idea why but… A sudden omnipotent feeling came over her for a second. It stopped as suddenly as it appeared, but during that time she already instinctively embedded the word 'dad'. It normally wouldn't look like much, but the insistence of the universe and destiny told Jaruga that this time, 'dad' was more important than 'mom', maybe because he was still alive…
Miko, on the other paw, ascertained that yes, the feeling of the living flame was present in this person too. All the ghosts her fiery friend defeated were granted a similar boon, though all of their 'auras' were totally different from their merry band consisting of three people. The ghosts were giving a feel of a small puddle of magma, barely hot enough to stay liquid. Jaruga, Mina and Miko herself were more like a great bonfire, lively and merrily crackling away into the night. This poor burnt sod before her was, on the other paw, a very small, barely flickering campfire.
Well, what do you know, there WAS a faster mode of transportation. But just between labs, apparently. Ebenezer witnessed a rather defense oriented underground metro station. The rails themself were in a spacious room, but to get to them they had to ride down an elevator. Watching from a lower perspective, he could see many positions for safe shooting, and even some slightly risen panels indicating the presence of hidden turrets.
They didn't board a train per se, but instead a weird wagon without engines. Of course, the actual rails were the magnetic kind, Terrans in Koprulu sector weren't that backwards. After boarding the railcar, Stetmann turned around and got down to business. "The start is rather jarring, so everyone needs to sit down and strap up tight. For the suited gentleman, I recommend leaning against something with magnetic boots activated."
As he finished talking, the overseer turned to the seats, and found that the two tagalongs from earlier were already strapped. Taking his escorts into consideration, he sat on the second row of seats, so they could occupy the double ones at the front. Their Armored Suits weren't that massive or heavy, so they just awkwardly sat there, a little too high.
Deciding to voice his concern, Ebenezer asked "Why, pray tell, is the first part jarring? And how are we going to move forward without engines exactly?"
Stetmann sat at the front of the wagon, on the single seat distanced from the rest somewhat. Before him was a small lit console, with a few options. He clicked 'THE Red Button!' and leaned back, supporting his head with both arms. "Eh, having actual trains would be too expensive, we will just shoot forward, like a bolt from a crossbow."
Getting a foreboding feeling, Scrooge turned his head, and noted that the man wasn't joking. From both directions he could see a part of a mighty string that extended somewhere… "What do you meaAAAAAA-!"
Of course, his didn't finish, because the countdown reached zero, and they shot forward so suddenly and fast that everyone was practically plastered to their seats, and Ebenezer's words rushed straight back down into his throat. Stemann, unseen to everyone, was grinning. Witnessing unaware newbies getting their first flight with 'BOLT' was always hilarious.
Ziemowit fully turned away from recent work, and focused all attention on the still rather fresh friend standing before Them. The situation looked delicate, probably because of the two intensely shining eyes, or maybe the fingers tightened into fists. OR the fact that she was shivering all over with repressed emotions, OR maybe it was just the sudden spike of pressure, that felt like a band of iron resting on Their head, ready to crush it in a second.
Deciding that gentleness and admitting to lack of knowledge would be the best, Wit carefully began. "I will assume that a Terran being both deaf and unable to speak is similar to your situation, but that gives me only a vague idea of how life was treating you."
Feeling a small hand touching her leg, Vella looked down at her new small companion, who was looking with, well… eyes that shined through the oculars of the scaled down mask. Feeling her small companion taking a deep breath, and then releasing a massive sigh, she attempted to do something similar.
Her eyes lowered their intensity to a low shimmer, her trembling stopped and her fists unfurled. Protoss were 'breathing' through skin, so she actually puffed up a little, before sagging on herself. It was… close enough.
"A protoss nerve cord is the essence of the Khalai existence. It gives them unity, understanding, comfort in each other, and many many more things. Nerazim cut off their nerve cords, but they don't lose the ability to 'speak'. This is all I was 'told'. Never experienced, never truly belonged."
Wit through it over quickly, before steering the conversation forward. "So… how did you find yourself with this job?"
"Machines can communicate with me through numbers, they don't need to 'hear'. My psionic capability is almost nonexistent, so any kind of weapon is unusable for me. My choices were almost nonexistent, becoming a 'maintenance assistant' is one of the few fields where I can be any kind of useful."
"Can't you use any weapon? No other options? But what about skill? Or capable hands? Sharp mind? Wait… so much depends on the psionic capability?"
She only nodded in response, her head downcast.
Wit looked back at the almost finished work. "Oh man, some heavy burdens you carry there. You know what? Let me make you something. If any Terran without psionic capabilities, or smarts, can use this, then so can you."
Somewhat surprisingly, only the start was jarring. After a minute the ludicrous speed petered out, and after five they already were exiting the wagon. In relative silence, to give the newbies some time to overcome the shock, Stetmann led the ducklings forward.
After exiting an elevator and walking down a typical lab hallway, they found themselves in a rather spacy room, filled to the brim with screens. There were a few men and one gorilla walking or sitting around, fulfilling their duties.
Taking again his mantle of glorified tour guide, Stetmann gestured more or less at the whole room. "As you can see, this is THE Ultimate Monitoring Room! The actual researchers have their own smaller abodes, when they observe their subjects. I also must state that this is the lowest level people can go to. All the lower ones are strictly robots and drones only, because down there… are the zerg."
Stetmann looked at the group, making big eyes, arms flailing in the air and adding a 'wooo' noise. Seeing the deadpan expressions, mostly from the overseer and Trixie, he shrugged. "I am not kidding though. Before we implemented a massive and overpowered psi disruptor, we had a break out at least once a week. The robots and drones usually stalled the subjects long enough for the cavalry to arrive, and then it was just the question of taking a few alive again."
"Nowadays, their lives are in a constant state of middle age crisis, or maybe even worse. We know for a fact that zerg without control turn feral, but in this case, they are just mindless animals." A few moments of silence, before Stetmann hit his head with hand. "Wait, scratch that, animals are actually more or less intelligent, those zerg don't really have any of that. So their state is actually worse than any animal."
Ebenezer stopped listening about halfway of the rambling, and instead walked over to the group of monitors showing the zerg. They would present a pitiful sight if they weren't hatched for the sole purpose of killing. 'Puppets with String cut' actually depicted the situation perfectly.
"To what extent, do you actually conduct your experiments?" Ebenezer crossed his arms over his chest. Stern face and one eyebrow raised.
"We stopped early on to try to control it in any way. For now, we gather as much data as we can, try to decipher the whole DNA and copy as much as we can. Last I heard, they were trying to make a living armor. Not really my area of expertise."
A few moments of silence followed, everyone looking at the screens. Well, except one person, Nahida rather quickly discovered that those 'zerg' down there really were mindless. Even a small squirrel had some simple dreams and desires. What interested her much more, was the Gorilla walking around fully clothed in some tight suit, and with glasses perched atop its nose.
"What about him?" She asked, pointing to the hulking figure which represented a somewhat sophisticated look. "He has some complex dreams, sometimes even more so than a typical human."
Stetmann followed her finger, and recognition dawned upon him. "Ah, you speak about Winston. Compared to the other races, we just made sure that no annoying diseases would get a hold of him, especially the ones affecting the mind. Otherwise, he just practically spent all his life among humans and didn't really need any uplifting. Noone has any plans about him really, we just watch how he is doing, and support the direction he takes."
Situation was developing towards… well forward, so it was developing towards forwardness. The Captain already 'completed' the main base, and now was taking over the periphery defenses. And at the same time, started constructing additional expansion over the further mineral fields, and vespane gas geysers.
Jaruga on the other hand, was filled with unease because after one more attempt, the Ghosts stopped coming all together. Because counting on her enemies being idiots would be foolish, she instead restocked on her grenades, and waited. And waited… and… waited. Her two companions were buzzing with emotions, and barely could sit still.
Until finally… A signature, five times stronger than the previous ones, appreaded. "That way, go! go! go!" Mina instantly jumped to her feet, and steered the blazing ship in the pointed direction.
It quickly became apparent for Jaruga that there actually were five different signatures, bunched closed together. Deciding to repeat the earlier maneuver she leaned over the railing, took a deep breath and…
The UN masked Ghosts scattered in every direction, the not so big flame missing entirely. A moment later, the rotors one by one, were hit by specific ability that created a psionic-electric disturbance effectively shutting down the engines.
Considering that a scenario like that was very likely to happen, the engineers made sure that there would be safe landing. The boat's momentum quickly petered out, and started to slowly fall down to the ground.
"Damn it! We lost all our mobility! We're sitting ducks at this point!" Jaruga briefly leaned out a little looking over the ledge, before retracting shortly after as a bullet whizzed just past her ear. Miko was laying flat just by the railing, shielding herself from any bullets, and Mina was crouching down by the steer wheel, where the safest place on the ship was.
Of course, their attention was soon taken away by the sudden wailing sound, which turned out to be just a Wraith… Only it was leaving a big blue contrail behind it, was speeding like crazy, and was that… Multi barreled laser canon? And additional massive rocket launchers on the two upper 'arms?'
Jaruga just jumped over the railing towards the ground, followed closely by Miko, as the deck was peppered with exploding rockets and laser rays shooting almost blindly. MIna, on the other hand, was sad that she left her musket further, but was glad that an emergency weapon was attached to the other side of the steering wheel… Because all the other equipment was more or less annihilated by the barrage.
"Hnnnn… Hah! Uh, heh." The weir grunts of extension were followed by the horrible screech of metal against metal as Wit dragged his art out of the autocrafter. The golden monstrosity that resembled a crossbow was as long as its creator itself. The stock itself was much thicker than Vella's waist and just one of its arms was much wider that Wit's shoulders multiplied by two. And despite ALL of that, it was still smaller than the one used by Bombastic bill, maybe because it wasn't a ballista.
'THUD' "Huff, huff, phew." Wit wiped the nonexistent sweat off of his masked face. "My arms are like a pair of noodles, but you shouldn't have much problem with it."
Vella looked at the weapon, then with a face full of determination, which pretty much amounted to eyes shimmering stronger, she gripped the mass of metall. And HEAVED! Contrary to its look, it didn't feel that heavy. Though holding it upward too long would probably be hard to achieve.
"That was the easy part." She looked at Wit, then at her new weapon then at Wit again. "Never seen a stringed weapon before? It isn't too complicated, trust me."
Taking it more firmly into one arm, she reached with the other, and barely reached the string. Gripping it, she experienced what true strength really means. And she certainly was found lacking.
"Did protoss go from no distance weapons to lasers, without anything in between?" She just nodded her head. "Put the stirrup to the ground, put your foot in the middle and then heave." This time, she just looked confused. Somehow, Wit's words didn't make much sense for her. "No cavalry either? I mean the half triangle at the front of the whole crossbow."
Now knowing, she did just that, and with both arms pulled upwards. That pretty much was the biggest weight she ever tried to pull, and succeeded! Wit handed her a bolt, created together with the weapon. Now getting the fell for the weapon, she put the ammo on the groove and pulled the simple trigger that couldn't be used for anything else. The sound was deafening, especially a new type of screech of metal, one that quickly ended when the big bolt embedded itself into the golden wall.
"It would be an overkill on zergling, but imagine it was a hydralisk… No psionic powers, no advanced technology you have to get used to, no sacrifices, just pure strength." Vella looked at him, literally beaming, even if only a little. "Now for example, let's say that the bolt has an explosive tip, wouldn't it be so much better? And I could give you a lot of different ideas as well, just ask."
"Here is the repositorium/museum where we hold the relics that are useless, or we learned everything we could."
The group witnessed a more of a collection, to tell the truth. The items big or small were mostly put on big shelfs, behind glass doors, with a note attached. The notes stated a string of numbers and a short description.
Ebenezer leaned over, "a statuette of tentacled rhomboid." It was a simple thing made from stone, and pretty much only its shape holds any kind of interest. Another thing catches his attention. "Leftover of protoss machinery." A piece of some kind of golden shell laid there, glinting softly.
"It's all mostly the same," continued Stetmann. "We don't take any bones, so our stock here is just filled with broken junk, a few weird effigies, and a few things that probably weren't created by protoss. If revealing it to the public wouldn't be so risky, we would put it into an actual museum."
Ebenezer sweeped his gaze over the room, and nothing really caught his eye. On the other hand, he personally knew at least one person who would have a field day there. He turned to his guide. "And where are your actual projects?"
"All over the place. We have the upgraded atmosphere generators, to use on ships, close to completion. A small replicator for wide battle use is also there, but we still work on the safety and stability part. Another group is working on something akin to plasma shield, the results are mixed for now. What else, what else…" Stetmann started rubbing his chin with his fingers. "Aha, we already upgraded our solar sails, our additional crystal coating is almost done being tested…"
"Enough." Scrooge waved his hands before himself. "I did what I was tasked with. Some other smarter personnel will handle the rest. Also, you have a week to give us the copy of all of your research, Earth will be providing the portable data banks. Maybe I will even have time to sleep today…"
His two bodyguards remained stoic and expressionless during the whole ordeal, as expected of them. The two mages apparently were wary in the presence of this sort of authority, and remained silent, occasionally exchanging some whispers.
Nahida and Trixie were talking whenever there was something to explain, so pretty much most of the time. Apparently, Trixie already knows all of the things shown today, even if she wasn't a researcher. Nahida, on the other hand, already found a few things that hold her interest. No, it wasn't the alien technology and no, it wasn't the empty shells without souls themselves either.
And Stetmann? He felt like he just completed a marathon, a drink, bead and drink again would be in order. So much interaction with an unknown and intense individual sucked all of his energy, he was done socializing for… maybe a week.