Part 1 Chapter 10: Control

2481 C.E.
UMOJAN EXPEDITIONARY FLEET
PLANET 2469JU01
The Umojan fleet had arrived on the next planet and was now preparing to make on of the measurements to the distance from the temple. All the ships from the fleet then started to diverge and set their courses to make the big circle, while down below the soldiers were performing the standard procedure around the designated observation post.
Meanwhile, Chester was reading the progress of his colleagues in figuring out what the alien runes meant. The long document was full of theories and suggestions which varied from vague to absurd. He skimmed through it and decided to find something better to read once he was done with the next, classified report.
He would soon change his mind. The classified report featured the data from the gorge. Wondering what was the point of him having access to secret documents which had no information worth being kept secret in them, he reached the point of the video where the soldiers had just killed the zergling. The action on the camera sure preserved much of the intensity of the action on the ground, Chester thought. The alien was damn creepy, surprising the troops like that. Then, the next scene grabbed his imagination.
Chester saw the camera move towards the niche in the rocky wall of the gorge. At first, he did not realize why the soldiers had stopped. Their voices did not reveal much, either.
'Tom, look at this.'
'I swear, these Zerg make me puke.'
'What the hell is this?'
'I don't know, just some white slime that covers the surface.'
'Disgusting.'
'Look, there's things within it.'
'Oh, man, don't say that!'
'I'm not saying anything, I'm just telling you that there are things in the goo.'
One of the soldiers stepped forward from the platoon and wiped away some of the colorless slime that covered everything.
'Is that bodies?' a soldier next to the camera person pointed at the darker silhouettes enclosed in the slime.
The camera tilted sideways and approached the surface. There were darker outlines of something humanoid under the goo.
'Well, I'll be damned...'
The camera jerked to the marine who had wiped the slime and moved closer to the exposed part. Under the transparent “skin” there was the head. Of a Protoss. His eyes were barely glowing and he seemed to have an expression of desperation.
Chester quickly jumped to the analysis text. This find was confirming the proposition that the Zerg could assimilate other species, which was derived from walls a and b in this and that room of the temples. Therefore, the Zerg were potentially not a species per se and had no definitive genome. The text then analyzed the possibilities of the Zerg consuming the Protoss and how some of the interpretations of the runes were incorrect and so on.
Chester was worried. Could these aliens assimilate humans? What would happen if they did? And what would the result of a hybrid between them and the Protoss be like? And what more information did the temples contain? His mind wobbled.
Down below, Williams cautiously walked away from the scientists, inspecting the terrain. The humans were surrounded by rich vegetation with many trees. They, like the bushes were colored in any hue between green and yellow. Williams was not glad to have to protect the precious artifact in such a place. There were many concealed positions in the vicinity, from which any enemy, even a Protoss, could observe them with impunity. Knowing that he lacked even the support of science vessels, he turned on his night vision goggles and started looking distrustfully at the flora, ready to fire at anything that moved in the dusk.
Behind him, the qualified personnel were taking out the artifact and getting ready to check its luminance.
The ghost was waiting, suspiciously monitoring the area. Suddenly, he heard a branch crack a few meters from him. He immediately turned left, his rifle raised towards any possible enemy. There was nothing. He looked deeper into the trees next to the marine who stood close where the sound was headr. The soldier seemed undisturbed and just observed the region without any concern.
'All units, this is your major. Keep your eyes open,' he said over the radio.
Still, nothing occurred. The Umojans in the middle of the circle were finishing the measurements. Suddenly, the person who was holding the artifact noticed something. The artifact was getting chaotic. The lights in it began to move more disorderly, as if the fear of something disturbed them and they were losing their sense of order and orbits.
'Hey, professor, come over here, the artifact is behaving strange,' he informed the supervisor who was thirty meters away over the radio.
Then, it was gone.
As he was holding the artifact in his hand, he suddenly stopped feeling its weight and he turned his eyes to his hand to see it missing.
'Where did the artifact go? Hey!' he switched the radio to call all humans present. 'The sphere is gone! I repeat, it's missing! It just disappeared, damnit! Help!'
The group on the ground was overcome by tumult. The guards started looking around in fear. There was nothing around them. Williams was terrified.
'Find what got in and kill it!' he shouted over the radio and turned on his auxiliary flashlight to try finding anything without the night vision technology. The marines were looking around, searching for some unknown stealthy enemy. Their lights moved from branch to branch, trying to identify what had stolen the sphere. The scientists were beginning to panic.
'I don't know, man, I don't know. One moment it was here, the other it was gone.' the assistant who was holding the artifact during the operations explained.
'I think I saw something moving that way,' one of the operators for the machinery said. 'It was like made of air, or lens. For two or three seconds, I could see an area of the forest over here where my depth perception was acting weird. You know, as if giant lens were hovering out of the circle of guards.'
The others were giving in to fear from the dark and the unknown that lurked out there. Something was living in that unknown zone that could bypass armed men and steal things from them with impunity. Something was moving in those woods and the Terrans could do nothing to stop it. Williams, however, did not share the men's concerns. He was simply mad at the daring of whatever took the precious sphere from them. He fired at the trees. A few birds flew away in fear but the uncanny emptiness remained. He was mad.
'Sir, what shall we do?' a marine asked him, frightened.
'Call the dropship. Time to let the others know.'
Aboard the dropship, the ghost called the fleet command on the little vessel's radio.
'Go ahead, major,' McNorman's voice was heard.
The ghost took a deep breath.
'Sir, we lost the artifact.'
There was a shocked pause.
'How the hell did you allow it to happen!?' the admiral was petrified.
'Sir, we don't know. The guy who was holding the sphere said that it just vanished. The guards saw nothing. Our circle was not breached in any way. Only one of the scientists with the machinery reports to have seen something barely visible move between the guards. It was going,' he looked at the compass on his wrist, 'northwards relative to the artifact.'
'Dear god, what could it be?' someone aboard the battlecruiser remarked.
'Whatever it was, it could not have gotten far! I'm sending all our ground forces around you, we will close the perimeter. You try to find something in there, traces or anything. Keep your eyes open,' the admiral told him.
'Yes, sir.'
Williams gave orders to the guards to spread out and begin looking for anything they could find.
Aboard the Andronikos, McNorman was rapidly giving orders to the units. A wave of shock began spreading throughout the fleet.
'I want all ships to turn on everything they've got and report every gnat they can hear. I want the science vessels moving in a circle here.'
The ships of the fleet were in a giant circle around the location of the accident. From the night sky, they shone down at the woods with their powerful searchlights, piercing the dark air of the forest. The science vessels were spiraling outwards from the fleet, diligently scanning every single square meter of ground for life. Even the wraiths were flying around, trying to spot any suspicious alien life forms. The fleet was extending its grip over the zone, in a desperate attempt to find the missing artifact.
The infantry battalion was quickly mobilized and deployed in a circle outside the ships' perimeter. Every man was attentively looking around in the gloomy wood, checking branches and barks with their flashlights. Even the goliaths were on the ground, struggling to move through the thick undergrowth and find and destroy who- or whatever had the artifact.
Williams and the marines who made up the guard of the sphere were rushing chaotically through the trees within the boundary of the perimeter. They were chaotically running from tree to tree and from rock to rock. The ghost could feel his muscles twitch from the adrenaline even as he stood still. He was constantly looking through the electronic scope of his canister rifle, desperately trying to find a target for his frustration. But, there was none.
The Umojans could not find anything. Three hours of detailed search later, the high command decided that the artifact was beyond the perimeter. Somewhere out in the wilderness, taken by an unknown hand.
'Gentlemen, we suffered a blow,' McNorman told the high command gathered in the Andronikos.
'Who could have taken it?' Arnold, who had agreed to be demoted to a commodore, asked.
'Could it be the gods that the Protoss spoke of?' Paskirov suggested.
'Probably it's the Protoss themselves, if you ask me,' Richardson answered. 'They cannot get through the defeat we inflicted upon them, so they are using some insidious trickery against us.'
Voices of approval were heard.
'If I may mention, there is no evidence that we're dealing with Protoss,' Summers noted.
'Who else could it be, then?' Ferguson said. 'Nobody else is in war with us. If it were a Zerg, we would have seen. Only the Protoss, with their fancy technologies and their wounded pride, can do that.'
'Why don't you stop blaming every misfortune we have here on the Protoss?' Paskirov argued.
'Why don't you stop defending them, vice-admiral?' Richardson replied.
'Enough!' McNorman interfered. 'This is not leading us anywhere. We must continue with the mission for now. We still have two possible locations for the temple. We will check them and then we'll figure out what to do next.'
The meeting was closed and the commanders prepared to return to their ships.
The expeditionary fleet now had nothing better to do than to move towards the two possible points where the temple was. The ships were flying over one of the planet's oceans. Down below, under the bulky wanderers beneath his battlecruiser, were the countless waves on its surface. The shone under the moonlight, but Boris knew that beneath them, there was a cold, dark abyss. Six kilometers of depth, according to the readings, were six kilometers of frigid water, home to who knows what life. Could the thieves be living down there, he thought, but dismissed the idea in its absurdity. A few hours later, the ships reached the rocky shore and continued to the supposed location of the temple. Yet, among the ghostly hills near the bay, there was nothing.
The fleet then set course to the other location. The temple, similar to the other two, was located in a forest at the first ridges of a low and wide mountain massif. The sun was rising and the Terrans deployed troops and scientists down at the Temple to begin the examination.
Konrad was following Williams' platoon through the terraces of the temple. As he was randomly looking around the colored rocks that this temple was built of, he saw something behind the colonnade in the distance on the upper level.
'Hey, what is that?'
Williams and the troops saw it, too, and aimed.
'It's a Protoss,' he said. 'That cur, I can hear him!'
'What does he say? Shall I call the upper echelons?' Konrad asked.
'He... Yes, call them. This is important. You, guns down.'
Konrad turned on the radio and called the admiral.
'Yes, sir, it is important. I am quoting the major, here. He ordered. We have contact with a Protoss,' Konrad could be heard talking.
'Greetings, human,' the alien whispered in Williams' mind.
'What do you want from us, Protoss?' the ghost replied.
'I come here in peace. I was sent to deliver a message.'
'He says he is here to deliver a message, tell the admiral that,' Williams informed Konrad and thought to the alien. 'What message?'
'I am Menalis, neophyte of the true Dark Templar. My clan left a bigger tribe, called the Sei'Tara a long time ago, led by the sage called Sealeris. We have your artifact in our possession.'
'Wait, what?' the ghost thought and said over to the Tarsonian. 'This Protoss here is called Menalis and he claims to be from a certain clan of, quote, “true Dark Templar.” They are some sort of separatists from the previous group we have been meeting and... They have our sphere.'
'Well, that tilts the scales,' Konrad murmured before repeating the information to the admiral. 'McNorman asks what is he seeking here.'
'My commander wants to know why are you here,' the ghost thought.
'I will propose an exchange, gifted Terran. Our clan agrees to give you back the sphere if you bring us a special pendant,' the young voice of the Protoss echoed in his head.
'McNorman says to ask him what is this pendant,' Konrad informed Williams.
'This pendant,' the alien began, 'is a relic from our history. Long ago, there lived a wise sage of the Sei'Tara tribe, called Namdur. Under his wisdom and guidance, we stood strong and made great progress to understanding the great race that made my kin what it is. When he died, he was buried in a hidden tomb on the icy world of Grenafar. We know where his tomb lies, but Grenafar is now a world infested by Zerg and we cannot risk going there.'
'Alright, wait,' the ghost told the alien and told Konrad the story. 'What business shall we have on Grenafar, alien?'
'Namdur was buried with a valuable pendant. It was his possession and it contains much of his wisdom. My master wants your assistance in obtaining it.'
'So basically we go there, where the tomb is, and we steal the pendant?'
'The pendant rightfully belongs to us, human, and you will do no sin in bringing it back. When you do, we will return the sphere you so desperately need.'
Williams told Konrad everything he was hearing. The Tarsonian then spoke.
'McNorman says that it's a deal. We will get the artifact for them, let them tell the coordinates.'
The Protoss explained the position relative to the stars. Konrad made a final note.
'Before anything happens, the admiral says, he wants to see it.'
'That is impossible,' the Protoss whispered to the ghost.
'Do you want to check how impossible it is, when I take your hand off with a shot from my rifle?' Williams threatened the alien.
'You will have to find me first.'
The ghost looked around. There was no sign of the him.
'We will meet you here, by this temple, when you have the artifact. The tomb is located on the equator, on the slopes of the highest peak,' the neophyte spoke. 'Adun be with you.'
Williams quickly waved at two of the marines to go upstairs and check. Waving from behind the colonnade, they had found nothing. Wondering what on earth did these Protoss do, he leaned at the nearby wall and, looking at the lowest stairway at his side of the pyramidal structure, he saw Menalis.
More precisely, he saw a figure of air move down the stairs with long, smooth jumps. It seemed as if there was nothing there, but the alien was made of hollowness. The light seemed to bend where he stood and the Protoss did not even leave a shadow. When the figure reached the ground, Williams saw him materializing. The dark blue robes and the grey skin of the cloaked Protoss slowly became visible, as if the emptiness was washed away from them. Williams reached for his rifle, but realized that it was pointless. The Protoss quickly turned invisible again and under the surprised eyes of two of the nearby scientists disappeared into the woods.
'Major, the admiral wants to hear what happened,' Konrad patiently walked to him.
'Tell him that he might have to call a meeting.'
Half an hour later, while the temple was being recorded, the high command was gathered again.
'Surprisingly, there is hope, as you heard from the major here.' McNorman declared. 'We have to get there and find the pendant. It should not be hard, we just need to scan the equator of the planet and we'll know where the tomb is right away.'
'How do we know we can trust these particular aliens?' Richardson asked. 'Menalis himself said they are separatists. Traitors, in other words.'
'The enemy of my enemy is my friend, commodore,' Paskirov coldly said. 'We must try this deal. It is our best chance.'
'And trust these aliens?' Arnold expressed his doubt.
'There is nothing better we can do. The major can confirm they can turn invisible. This is how they stole the sphere and this is how the one named Menalis crept so close to us,' the vice-admiral argued. 'They were probably expecting us at the ruins. They must have rigged the whole planet with their invisible spies and we can expect them to know our every movement.'
'If they are so invisible, why won't they take the pendant themselves?' Ferguson was skeptic.
'I don't know – maybe the Zerg can smell them or somehow see them. I mean, we can see them if we focus. Their cloaking is about bending light around them or something... Talk to the scientists. Or, they may be lacking force.'
'That certainly makes sense – after all, they would have attacked us with some carriers by now,' Arnold murmured.
'Surely, the science vessels can detect them somehow. It is really disadvantageous to have to keep them away from the sphere. Their scanners disturb it,' McNorman noted. 'Whoever took our artifact must have sneaked between the fields of two of our science vessels.'
'There is something wrong about all this alien presence here,' Richardson said. 'What if they take the pendant like they took the sphere, right out of our hands?'
'We won't allow that, commodore, we will have our science vessels listening when we make the deal. Anyone have anything else to say?' the admiral asked. 'Good. We are leaving this planet in ten hours.'
***
2481 C.E.
UMOJAN EXPEDITIONARY FLEET
HIGH ORBIT OVER PLANET GRENAFAR
The ships exited warp space one by one and when they located the equator based on the rotation, the Terrans quickly headed down into the atmosphere. Grenafar was an frigid, inhospitable world. Beneath the rare clouds, the pale snowy surface of the planet was seen. There were only a few small bodies of water, all centered around the equator, and the rest of the planet promised to be a big icy void. The unusual thing about it were the sand-like dots on its surface, around the equator and the tropics. As the ships approached, the Terrans could see that they ranged from pink to purple. They were the numerous Zerg colonies of the planet.
The fleet entered high orbit. Where the atmosphere was thin and the Zerg would have hard time engaging the humans, the fleet set its course along the equator. Observing the numerous colonies down there, it was clear why the Protoss feared landing the planet. At ground level, they must have been enormous, and the Terrans could only surmise how great the numbers of the aliens that lurked down there really were. They had to be careful.
Soon, the highest peak was identified. The fleet descended towards it and the ground forces were prepared for deployment if need be. It was seven thousand meters tall and its smooth icy slopes rose majestically over the surrounding terrain. A suitable place to make the tomb of your favorite leader, Boris thought.
The descent brought the humans dangerously close to a nearby Zerg colony. The Terrans did not expect that the Zerg would spot the ships from two kilometers, but that proved to be an underestimation of the enemy. Before the humans could continue to the proximity of the peak, their sensors recorded a large aerial enemy force leaving the colony. A whole cloud of Zerg could be seen rising above it in the distance.
'Damn! These guys seem a lot,' McNorman said.
'Maybe we could take them down, sir. If we start firing now,' Bracknell proposed.
'No, that won't work. If they get close, we are done with.'
'Go high in the atmosphere and fight them there? It will be harder for them to maneuver at those altitudes,' a commodore proposed.
'No, they will cut us off before we get to a reasonable altitude,' Bracknell said.
'Run?'
'They will wait for us and who knows, they may alert all the other colonies on this damn planet,' McNorman said concerned. 'Damn!'
'Sir, there is a huge lake nearby,' a commodore said.
'I can see that, Gomez.'
'Well, why don't we hide underwater?' Gomez proposed.
'Are you crazy? We will freeze!' Bracknell declared.
'No, wait, he might be right. Adjutant give me Doctor Martens of the science vessel Amerigo,' McNorman ordered.
When the doctor appeared, McNorman asked.
'Is it safe to submerge the fleet in the lake southwest of here, doctor?'
Martens paused for a minute before answering.
'Yes, admiral, it will be. First of all, the pressure that the hulls...'
'Thank you, doctor, I have no time for the technicalities,' the admiral said and hung up. 'Adjutant, order all ships to head for the lake and get underwater.'
While the Zerg were approaching, the fleet headed towards the glass surface of the lake. There was no ice and the ships slowly entered. The battlecruisers were slowly falling towards the water. When the Graf von Moltke approached the surface, Boris could see the Andronikos in the distance. As the giant body of the flagship approached the water, the gravity generators were bending the surface of the lake downwards, like a heavy object was bending a mattress. The Andronikos was close to the level of the water, but beneath it there was still a bubble of air, as its gravity generators kept pushing the water downwards. Finally, when its sides reached the level of the surface, the top layer of water, no longer contained by the Terran machinery, started pouring in, gradually followed by the whole wall of water. Soon the battlecruisers were engulfed by the roar of the waves who reached around and above them, rushing to restore the former crystal smoothness of the lake.
Most of the crew members of the warships, including the Graf von Moltke were concerned. After all, wouldn't the water pressure break the windows and sink the vessel? Furthermore, there was the danger that the water would freeze around the ships and they would be stuck on the bottom, encased in giant blocks of ice.
The only ships where there were no such moods were the science vessels. The scientists onboard knew their physics. The windows of the ships were perfectly safe. They were designed to withstand great stress during combat. Their very thickness was enough to take them down far deeper than this lake. Furthermore, the idea that the ships would freeze was preposterous. The water of the lake itself was not frozen. And, even if there were ice sheets on top, the water beneath them would still be warmer. This was due to its unique property to be denser at four degrees above zero than at zero degrees and below. And, even if that was not the case, by some unknown twist of the natural laws, the vessels themselves were generally warmer than the surrounding water. Their systems were enough to prevent the formation of ice around them.
Ship by ship, the fleet hastily positioned itself in the huge lake, before the Zerg could know where the Terrans had gone.
Two hours later, the admiral gave the order to take off. The vessels emerged from the cold waters and prepared to move to the mountain. When they aligned against its tall slopes, the fleet sent men to scan the peak for cavities. Receiving the results, McNorman cleared the ice with fire from the batteries of the Andronikos and revealed the passageway inside the tomb.
Williams then led infantry inside. Walking through the straight ancient corridors in the body of the mountain, he finally found the main hall of the tomb. It was spacious, richly decorated, and illuminated by the dim bluish light that crept through a long surface vent on the ceiling. There were no pictures on the smooth walls, but only altars where Namdur's personal belongings once stood. In the middle, there was the sarcophagus. The ghost radioed the command to stop the search and walked around. There was nothing like a pendant on the stands by the walls, only rotten rags and other objects too worn out to be the pendant. Worthless antics, Williams thought. He waved at the three soldiers that were with him to come. Great chieftain or not, the mission was a mission. The marines stood by the huge sarcophagus and, by his order, began pushing the huge lid. The combat suits of the marines proved their worth and the sarcophagus was soon opened. In it, Williams saw the decomposed body of Namdur. The Protoss was buried with his clothes, now fragile rags, but on his chest there was a smooth golden pendant with several blue crystals socketed into its main part. The marines looked at the resting Protoss.
'Admiral, I see the necklace. I'm taking it,' the ghost told the command and rudely took the artifact, damaging the sage's corpse.
'Wait,' the admiral's voice was heard over the radio.
'Yes, sir?'
'Tell your men to leave. Did they see the necklace?'
'Yes, they did. Telling them,' the ghost obeyed.
'No, wait, don't. Tell keep them here,' McNorman said. 'Take the pendant. I want you to cut it into two pieces.'
'What?'
'You heard me. I want the artifact torn into two.'
'Well...' the ghost hesitated, bewildered by the orders.
'I will explain to you aboard the ship. Do it. Equal halves. Tell the soldiers to keep it secret.'
The orders were orders. Williams took out his combat knife and tried to sever the pendant. It was too durable. He gave it to two of the marines and ordered them to pull it, but they could not break it. Finally, he placed it on the ground. He took his rifle and fired two rounds against the pendant at point blank range. The powerful rounds of the Canister rifle did the job and nailed the chosen spots of the pendant to the ground splicing it like a chisel. The puzzled marines looked at the ghost as he picked up the two pieces.
'What you saw here is strictly classified,' he told them in a coldly hostile tone. 'Disclosing what you witnessed to anybody that was not present here will be punished by death. Nothing happened while we were here. Is that clear?'
'Yes, sir,' 'Yes,' the soldiers replied.
They left to the dropship at the entrance.