Galactic Dawn: Running Story of the Starcraft&Metroid Campaign, 2006.
Log 6: The Psionic Disruptor
A dusty wind blew out and in the entrance in the sand as the team approached, as
if the buried building were a long tired beast, waiting to roar to life again or
die beneath the red-orange dunes on the surface of a wounded planet. Tracks in
the sand led toward an open ventilation shaft whose covering had been blasted
off by a small explosion, indicating that Elric, still out of her mind, was
wandering around the inner workings of the building just out of the team's
reach.
The hallways were long and thinner than usual, forbidding them from walking
two-wide for very far in their powered armor. The metallic walls showed scores
and marks of being ravaged by harsh forces of wind and water over many years,
with the occasional pock mark of a stray flechette or unidentifiable scratch.
Whole tiles of the wall were missing in places, exposing bare wires that would
crack and spark irregularly, like an out-of-beat pulse. The lighting was dim,
operating only under emergency power that was collected (a common feature of
Terran architecture for the time period of the facility's construction) from
ambient radiation given off by the local star, or in this case, also a
background level from the southern wastes.
Laharl felt a crackling wave peel across his body, making his skin itch all
over. The others saw his image appear in an insubstantial blur, and then a more
opaque watery form. T'Auir and Moltar felt and looked the same.
Laharl: What is this? What is happening?
T'Auir: I don't know. It appears as though our cloaking devices and your shroud
are not working.
Tam: At least not fully. Any thoughts, Jargenduv?
Jargenduv: This may be a kind of interference. I'm scanning possible bands now.
Moltar: This could be an egregious setback. The three of us have beaten the odds
before on the backs of our invisibility.
Laharl: This is unnatural to me. I have only heard of this happening in stories
from Shakuras. Those were always told as tragedies.
Tam: That's enough of that. Its dark in here anyway. You three could still sneak
around the old-fashioned way, and until your weapons stop working I don't want
to hear another complaint.
Jargenduv: Interesting. There's a potent background radiation all over the
facility. It is interrupting some power transmission, sensor functions, our
communicators, and cloaking devices. There's also another curious feature.
Tam: What else could it possibly do against us?
Jargenduv: (takes Tam aside) I've seen this resonance pattern before, when we
first discovered Yuki in the stasis cell.
Tam: That's impossible, she wasn't wearing her suit then, what readings could
possibly...no.
Jargenduv: Yes, I'm afraid so. This means if we find her, we have no guarantee
that her brain won't be liquid.
Tam: Marvelous.
Every few minutes, one of the team would notice a shadow ducking into the
darkness down a hallway, or behind a collapsed bulkhead. Though still and
silent, the sparks and intermittent lighting gave the dungeon the feeling of
life, a feeling that Tam at least remembered as one and the same with his
experience on Tyrador station and the Ing. Jargenduv opened a door to a room
that looked much different from the others. Here were large screens and sensors
equipment of all kinds. There was a central table and chairs, and etched on one
of the consoles was "Targetting Station A." Jargenduv hinted that this was where
the main weapon would be fired, and that main power would be required before the
team would be able to complete their mission.
"Dark.
I can remember how the smell used to knit my socks whenever I tensed up.
Further on I can hear the visions and their potent proclamation.
I have never been so lucid.
I have never been so lucid.
I have never been so cold."
Laharl could hear Elric rolling overhead inside the ducts, and offered to try
and blast the ceiling open and free her. The rest of the team advised against
it, as Tam indicated that her biorythm was unstable enough to begin with, and
any trauma might complicate her condition unpredictably. Over the course of
hours, the team plumbed the dungeon of its mysteries, discovering that the
former occupants had created integrated and independent security systems to stop
intruders. Certain doors of varying levels could only be opened by an unlocking
command from remote terminals, or else the threshold would fuse to the door,
making it more difficult to pass than through the walls themselves. Also,
whenever one or two of them would split off, they would encounter noises and
visions of shadows more frequently. I wasn't until they discovered the need to
divide that this feature became a problem.
Tam: So you're saying that we can't accomplish everything from here in the main
power room, even though we've gone through all four security levels and
discovered spare power cells in one of the storage bays?
Jargenduv: Essentially, yes. At least one of us, well, me, would have to stay in
a targeting station and activate the device while you turn main power on.
Tam: And remind me why we can't stay together and do this one step at a time.
Moltar: We tried that already. As soon as we left main power, something stepped
in and removed the power cells. We don't know where they went. Because we
unlocked the secured areas, anything could have been doing it.
Laharl: You mean anything malevolent and sapient.
Moltar: Indeed.
Just then, a popping noise could be heard as the only working communicators, the
facility's hard-line intercom, crackled to life in the corner.
Elric: Hello? Is anyone there?
Tam: Elric? Where are you?
Elric: I'm not sure. Its dark in here. I found a tall room that looked much
different from these and as soon as I rolled inside I regained control. That's
when I tried to find you.
Tam: Well its a good thing the intercom works. Describe the room you're in, we
may have been there already.
Elric described the room and the team had no problem finding her once again. The
task remained of taking power cells from a storage bay into the main power room,
activating the system, and targeting the device to disrupt the cerebrate outside
of Tannar. Only a few hours remained before the whole city would be overrun.
Tam: T'Auir, Laharl, you stay in main power and make sure the cells keep
working. The rest of us will be in the targeting station working on operating
the weapon. Let's hope this goes better than last time.
T'Auir&Laharl: Understood.
A few moments after the rest left, T'Auir and Laharl found themselves in combat
with two apparitions of Eticoons bearing psiblades. The combat was fast and
fierce, and after the pair bested their spirits, one showed he had one final
trick to bring to bear. In a flash of light, the last Eticoon apparition
vanished leaving traces of a fine sparkling mist around Laharl's head. His eyes
became wild, and before him T'Auir's appearance melted away into the shape of
his enemies. He leapt furiously at T'Auir, who in confusion tried to defend
himself against the raving dark protoss. T'Auir managed to use the intercom to
summon the others, who arrived in time to see Laharl coming to.
T'Auir: The ghosts of this place have cunning and guile. We underestimated them.
Tam: Moltar, this time you stay behind as well, maybe they won't attack the
three of you.
Moltar: Very well.
Jargenduv: Every time I get close to having a target, something happens. This is
twice so far. Someone will pay for this.
Tam: Calm down. This time it will work.
The situation had stabalized. Tam, Jargenduv, and Elric went to targeting
station C and began to re-enter the codes and coordinates needed. A progress bar
showed eighty to ninety percent completion when main power failed for the third
time.
Tam: Damnit. What happened this time?
Moltar: We're not sure. The cells are still in and the switch is on. Something
else must have interrupted the circuit.
Tam: We'll check it out. Hold on.
This time, just as the three had re-entered main power, the lights came on and
the doors sealed shut with devices the team hadn't noticed before. Eight putrid
tentacles spilled out of the generator unit and wiggled off a thick layer of
slime and mucus. Their forms stretched to eighteen feet in the air, and
resembled the bodies of zerg mutalisks, only elongated and lacking wings. A
tri-cornered maw at the end of each tentacle released slimy green packages and
groaned through two lower teeth. The team sprang to action, artfully dodging the
rebounding glaive wurms thrown at them from eight directions. As each head was
hit, its body would harden with a thin crystal coating and become more difficult
to damage. Quickly they figured out that the worms shared each other's injuries,
and that they would have to try to change targets quickly to prevent the crystal
coating from having too much effect. Yuki fired her missiles with precision.
Cofforth took a position against the wall and fired his canister rifle. Tam
hurried to keep everyone from falling. B'Arun let loose gouts of flame. Laharl
ran the circle slicing each head as he passed. Jargenduv struck quickly and with
surgical precision with his burst laser, only to be retaliated against by
several of the heads at once, overloading his armor's circuitry and causing him
to fall. After a few minutes, the team had defeated the Mutaling Synerlisk, and
restored power systems once more. As they did so, the spirits of the dungeon
seemed to evaporate away, as though held there in the first place by the hateful
malevolence of the recently awakened parasite.
At last, the targeting was complete, and Jargenduv looked to Tam, awaiting the
order to fire. The team's anxiety rose at the targeting array beckoned steadily
and quietly. The main viewscreen showed an image of the planet Korhal as seen
from orbit. Targeting identification status registered a plurality of psi
control well above cerebrate norms to the east of Tannar, and began to
triangulate the position. Status screens flashed wildly with information about
target signal IDs, displacement, energy of transmission and histographical psi
density in terms of numbers, bar charts, and 3-D web graphics. The lights dimmed
for a moment and came up red, as a beacon above the targeting console activated.
A text overlay flashed on the status screens reading "Target Located: Adjusting
Frequency." The viewscreen showed the image of a zerg cerebrate in full battle
array, flanked and overflown by orange-skinned zerg warriors. Database cross
reference indicated that this was not Kerrigan, the Overmind, the fledgeling
Overmind, or cerebrates Szaz, Daggoth, Marigaz, or Vjolnir. The new cerebrate
wiggled in the still desert air, its massive gray body coated in thick shiny
slime, throbbing with stolen life's blood it had scoured from the souls of the
innocent. A new message appeared on the status screens that read "Resonance
Found," and a white light appeared on the viewscreen, washing the screen with
the explosive chaos of the pure light. After thirteen seconds, the light
vanished and the cerebrate shown flailing wildly and contorting in pain. Its
once resolute ranks of warriors ran willy-nilly across the hillside, some
spasming, some crashing to the ground, some stumbling into each other or
spinning in place. They scattered and fell across the hills. The cerebrate
remained, twitching with what looked like small ripples on the screen, each of
which covered the length of a fighter-class ship. The room's lights returned as
power systems lurched under the weight of the psionic dynamo. The intercom
viewscreen showed an incoming signal. Suspended in the center of a mass of
fleshy neurons was a glowing red ellipsoid. The terrible voice spoke as the red
ellipsoid vibrated on the screen:
"I am the cerebrate Gordo. Your petty attempts to thwart my ambition will be
regarded by history as the atavistic attempts of a lesser race. Even now, with
the Myrmidons on the horizon, I shall scour you all."
The transmission ended and the team looked at one another with some worry and an
overarching feeling of content. They would be greeted as heroes of the town upon
their return. Elric had a request for before the team left.
Elric: Could we check out the other part of the building that I found? I think
it is of Chozo design and it may prove worthwhile.
Tam: Mission accomplished, right? I don't see why we shouldn't. What do the rest
of you think?
T'Auir: If someone built it here, then they must have had some purpose in mind.
And considering the potency of this weapon, it would be foolish to ignore.
Moltar: I agree, though I admit I am more curious about the place out of idle
curiosity than out of wanting to explore a potential threat.
Laharl: Frankly speaking, I'm tired. Still willing to press on, though.
Jargenduv: Let's do it! What's only one mortal wound on the day?
The team explored what turned out to be a Chozo catacomb and discovered along
the way many traps, mysterious runic text that warned about the traps and hinted
to coming difficulties elsewhere in the sector. One of the statues came to life
and attacked, throwing Laharl and Tam into conjured portals before Elric emerged
with a new weapon and blasted the construct with lucent rays, defeating it.
Jargenduv took a heavy hit and also faded away as Tam and Laharl had. A
staircase to the surface appeared, and T'Auir, Elric, and Moltar found
themselves on the surface of Korhal once again. They decided to follow the
directions of the catacomb runes and travel to Korhal's moon and discover what
had happened to their comrades. It was a long trek back through the sands to
reach their ship, and unknown difficulties surely awaited them as they did. The
team still felt a content at having safeguarded the nearby town, giving them the
strength to carry on and find their own. Surely, these were heroic acts, to be
remembered by the area for years to come.
Tannar, they thought, would not forget their saviors.