Shadow of the Xel'Naga, page 5
Many decades ago the Protoss Conclave had sent out Koronis and his expeditionary force on a long-term mission far beyond the fringes of the Koprulu Sector. Since the Protoss were a long-lived race, they did not worry about decades or even centuries, and he had been proud to be chosen. Before departing, Koronis had been named Executor, a high rank held by very few, for his mission had been considered extremely important.
He and his crew had been dispatched to search for any sign of the heretical Dark Templar, who had refused to join the Khala and kept themselves separate from the unified mental presence of the Protoss. The Judicators in the Conclave could not accept such a blight on Protoss society. They commanded that the Dark Templar must be either brought into the fold or destroyed. Koronis had never considered the Dark Templar to be a great threat and would have preferred to leave the exiles alone, but the fanatical Conclave politicians made such decisions, not he.
Koronis was far more interested in the second part of his mission: to search for any remnants of the ancient progenitor race, the Xel'Naga, who had created the Protoss as their special children, their First Born.
Recent discoveries proved that the Xel'Naga had created the hostile Zerg as well, perhaps intending the Zerg to supplant the First Born. Executor Koronis did not know what to think of that, but it seemed to bespeak the continued failure and disappointment of his people.
As he contemplated, the Khaydarin crystal began to glow with a warm humming. At first Koronis took strength from it, until the power of the crystal artifact also amplified his ability to sense the anguish and despair that ran rampant through his crew.
He closed his gleaming eyes and withdrew his mind from the Khaydarin crystal. So far, after decades of searching, the Qel'Ha had uncovered no evidence of the Xel'Naga. Nor had they found any of the Dark Templar.
His expeditionary force was a mighty fleet that could have made a difference in the defense of Aiur against the Zerg; instead, for years they had wasted their time out here on the fringes of inhabited space. Koronis had nothing to show for it. With his three-fingered hand he held the long, colorful sash that designated his rank and office, a proud symbol that now seemed meaningless to him.
The shield door at the entry to his quarters slid upward, and the imposing figure of Judicator Amdor stood in the corridor, his red-orange eyes blazing. A deep purple robe was draped around him, flowing as if in reflection of his moods or mental energies. Jeweled shoulder pads and metal-scaled headgear made Amdor look ominous and impressive. On purpose.
As a powerful political representative of the Conclave, Judicator Amdor did not feel the need to show Koronis courtesy. There would have been some friction between the two of them if the commander had allowed it, but he was loyal to his race and to his mission and did not rise to the occasional criticisms that the stern Judicator heaped upon him. Amdor seemed to think the expedition's failure was the Executor's fault.
With no lips to move, no mouths to form words, all Protoss communicated through tight, telepathic bursts. The Judicator focused his conversation closely enough that no eavesdroppers could pick up even a hint of his sentences, though at times the mental spike was so sharp that it caused Koronis a faint twinge of pain. He showed none of it, however, simply turned and listened to what the Judicator had to say.
“This disgrace has gone on long enough, Executor. Our expeditionary force must return to Aiur. We are too late to help with the great battle against the Zerg, but we can assist with rebuilding. Turn the Qel'Ha around, and we will voyage back home. We must salvage what we can.”
The Zerg Overmind had been obliterated, and Aiur was saved, though at the cost of devastating much of the land. Tassadar, the accused traitor, had combined the powers of the Khala with secrets learned from the Void. Judicator Amdor called Tassadar's actions a despicable heresy taught him by the Dark Templar, but Koronis could not fault the hero for his results.
He wished he had been there to see the end. It would have been a marvelous sight. . . .
Without hurrying, the Executor put away his crystal-fragment and rose from his meditation chair. He straightened his sash and adjusted his extravagantly pointed shoulder pads.
Koronis's mental control was not as precise as that of the Judicator's, and Amdor caught some flicker of his musings. “Tassadar was no hero!” he said, his thought-words sharp. “He sacrificed his dedication to the Khala in order to achieve glory for himself and short-term gain.”
Surprised, the Executor faced Amdor in the ship's corridor outside of his quarters. “But he saved the Protoss and sacrificed himself in the process. I hardly believe you can ascribe selfish motives to what Tassadar achieved.”
“The greatest thing he achieved,” Amdor snapped in return, “was that by eradicating the Zerg and devastating Aiur, he cleansed the Protoss race! In the aftermath of this disaster, we now have the opportunity to rebuild, to burn out the cancerous heretics that have corrupted our dedication to the Khala. I am eager to return home so that I can help the Conclave to ensure that we do not slip down this dark and ill-advised path.”
Seeing no point in arguing, Koronis acquiesced. He, too, wanted to return home, even without Amdor's insistence. “I exist to serve the Khala.”
When the two of them reached the bridge, the Executor took over the Qel'Ha's egg-shaped command chair. Judicator Amdor stood beside him like a grim parent, as if not convinced the commander would do as he had promised.
With the psychic booster, Koronis sent a message to all the Protoss minds in his fleet. “We will go home. We have work to do with our families and our cities and our world. Since we could not help when Aiur needed us most, we must be willing to give our lives and our minds to assist now . . . to make up for not being there.”
Through the mental link of his nerve appendages, Koronis felt a surge of relief and enthusiasm ripple through the crew, a hope that raised them above their gloom. The engines of the fleet's Carriers and flanking ships powered up. The navigators calculated a course that would take them back to the heart of Protoss space.
But before they could embark, the psychic communication loops—broad spiderweb transceivers woven into the hulls of the ships—received a powerful message pulse. A distant, alien signal.
The eerie notes vibrated through Koronis's mind, through the ships, through the entire crew. A cry, a shout, an indecipherable message.
The throbbing signal continued to pound, grating on the Executor's nerves, haunting yet somehow familiar. Judicator Amdor stood stiffly, confused at first, then startled.
When the distant call finally stopped, all the Protoss remained stunned. The Executor directed his thought-speech to Amdor, although others in the vicinity caught the fringes of his excited thoughts. “There is something of the Xel'Naga in that signal! I recognize the symbols and the tones. Do you not hear it? The message is . . . urgent.”
“And quite powerful,” Amdor said. “But what Xel'Naga device could broadcast a signal so strong and clear as to reach this far?” The Judicator turned his sharp gaze to the technical Khalai working at the communications equipment on the Qel'Ha's bridge.
One of the officers sent a quick mental burst. “We have tracked the signal back to a small planet. Uninhabited, as far as we know.”
Koronis studied the coordinates, quickly calculated how long it would take the expeditionary force to go there. He sent his thought clearly to Amdor. “Judicator, this signal offers us the opportunity to return to Aiur with some measure of honor and success—not as complete failures. If we can indeed find an important Xel'Naga device, we will accomplish our mission of discovery and return to Aiur as heroes. We can bring hope to our people.”
The Judicator nodded. “If the signal came from the Wanderers from Afar, it may well be an omen. We are the First Born, and our destiny is to retrieve our race's lost glory. Finding whatever sent this signal could be a huge step toward achieving that goal.”
“En taro Adun,” Koronis said, using the honor salute that meant “in honor of Adun,” a great Protoss hero.
“En taro Adun,” the Judicator responded curtly, as if distracted and already making plans.
Feeling confident for the first time since he had received the terrible news about Aiur, Executor Koronis summoned a robotic Observer and commanded that it be dispatched immediately to the source of the mysterious Xel'Naga signal.
CHAPTER 8
GONE. LARS WAS GONE.
The thought beat at Octavia's mind in rhythm with the thumping treads of the robo-harvester as she careened across the long, rugged kilometers toward the settlement. Her hands and feet operated the heavy equipment without any help from her conscious mind, for she had room for only one thought there: Lars is dead! She could hardly wrap her mind around it.
The robo-harvester lurched and bounced, crashing over dirt piles and mounds of rock debris. The rocking motion twisted her neck and shoulders, but she gritted her teeth.
Overhead, the same glider hawk still rested on high breezes, scanning the ground in a fruitless search for food. . . .
The massive vehicle ground its way up the steep slope, back and forth against the grade as boulders and loose dirt sprayed beneath the flurry of treads. Octavia's view of the stark landscape in front of her dimmed and grew blurry, as if a fog had rolled into the broad valley. She tried to clear the windshield but soon realized that the problem was with her own eyes.
Octavia was not given to bouts of weeping, and she didn't have time for it now. She had to get back to Free Haven to sound the alarm. To tell the other settlers about the ominous, murderous artifact that had been uncovered by the storm. She had always been far too practical to waste time on useless displays of emotion—not because she didn't care when a friend or family member died. It was a survival mechanism. Those colonists who allowed themselves to become easily depressed by the cruel vagaries of life here soon became listless, careless. And carelessness on Bhekar Ro usually meant a speedy death.
As far as Octavia could recall, she had cried only a few times before: once after the death of her grandparents, another time about a week after her parents' deaths from the spore blight, during the next thunderous storm when the realization had hit her like a slap in the face that her father would never be there to comfort her again. Tears were such an unaccustomed sensation that she hardly recognized it. Lars is gone!
But then, as salty drops flowed down her cheeks, her anger began to flow as well. What a ridiculous waste! It didn't make any sense. And what was that thing out there on the ridge? It obviously wasn't of Terran origin.
Why had she allowed Lars to talk her into going out there? What had they stood to gain from it? Yet Lars, with his insatiable curiosity, had felt the need to go. He had only been exploring.
And the thing had murdered her brother. Murdered. Stolen Lars from her forever—and for what? Who could say?
One thing she did know, however. She had to warn the other colonists before the artifact could claim any more lives.
The village meeting hall was filled to overflowing with nearly two thousand grumbling settlers. Octavia could hear snatches of conversation from around the hall.
“What kind of emergency? Wasn't the storm emergency enough?”
“I have crops to replant. Couldn't this wait?”
“I heard Lars Bren found something.”
“I heard he's disappeared!”
“. . . better hurry it up or I'll be leaving.”
At last, Mayor “Nik” Nikolai took his place on the low platform at the front of the room and called the meeting to order. He was a distractible and not overly charismatic person under normal circumstances, but at the age of twenty-eight he was already considered an established, respected administrator, more or less. He banged on his podium, trying to get the audience to settle down.
“Excuse me! Hello? Octavia Bren has some serious news for us.” He paused a moment, looking around. “Serious enough that I thought we might need to take a vote about what to do after you hear what she has to say.”
“Can't you just sum it up and we'll take a vote and get out of here?” Shayna Bradshaw yelled from the audience. “My irrigation system is clogged again, and—”
The mayor shook his head. “I think it'll be best if I let Octavia tell you in her own words.”
Octavia gritted her teeth at the grumbling in the room and stepped onto the platform. She clung to her anger instead of her grief. How hardened they had all become to news of tragedy or calamity. Somehow she had to make them understand how important this was. She cleared her throat and put as much volume and authority into her seventeen-year-old voice as she could. “I know most of you believe there's nothing important enough, nothing urgent enough to justify calling all of you here. Shocks and disappointments, even death, have become part of our everyday life.”
“So get to the point!” old Rastin called from the center of the room.
“Where's your brother?” called Cyn McCarthy, looking hopeful.
Octavia drew a deep steadying breath and started again. “Lars is dead.” She held up a hand to forestall the automatic murmurs of sympathy from the gathered crowd. “He was killed by something out on a ridge about twelve klicks from here. An alien artifact that was buried inside the mountain. Something huge.”
“Did you say alien?” Mayor Nikolai was surprised.
“Yes, alien! We are not alone here on Bhekar Ro!”
Octavia described what had happened. Haltingly, she told about their exploration of the artifact, and when she got to the part with the bright beams of light spearing across her brother's body, flashing around him as he disintegrated, her throat seized up and refused to work. She felt a hand on her arm and looked up to see Cyn McCarthy standing next to her, a stricken look on the young widow's freckled face.
“Seems to me the answer's simple,” old Rastin said dismissively. “Nobody in the colony goes near that thing again. Leave it alone. If we expand, we just go th' other direction.”
Octavia gritted her teeth again, and anger gave her back her voice. Unless she convinced the settlers that this was serious, they might all die.
“Ignoring it isn't good enough. Something else happened out there. As I was leaving that thing, it sent a signal up into space. Some kind of transmission, or alarm, or homing beacon. The light was so bright it almost blinded me, and the sound shook the ground and threw me off my feet.”
“Hey, was that right before noon for about two minutes?” asked Kiernan Warner from the front row. “I think I heard that! If it was twelve klicks away, it must've been really loud.”
“Do you think the artifact was trying to communicate with us?” Lyn's younger brother Wes asked in an alarmed tone.
Octavia shook her head. “The beacon went straight up into space, as if it thought someone was out there waiting to get its signal. It might have been trying to communicate with someone, but definitely not us.”
The room erupted with exclamations, questions, and suggestions, and Octavia knew she had gotten their attention.
Mayor Nikolai took the stage again and held up his hands for quiet. When the room settled down slightly, he said, “Octavia believes we should contact the Terran Confederacy. Let them know what we've found here.”
A few of the colonists began to voice objections, but were quickly shushed by their neighbors.
“We don't know if that was a comm beacon or not, but if more of those things show up on Bhekar Ro, we may not be able to handle the situation ourselves,” Mayor Nikolai said.
“This is our planet!” Wes's cousin Jon said.
Octavia spoke up again. “Even if the artifact is the only one of its kind, we don't know what it can do. Now that it's been unearthed, it might become aggressive and go after our settlement. It might even cause earthquakes that could wipe us all out.”
“Put it to a vote,” Jon yelled.
“Yeah, we've heard enough,” Kiernan added.
“My irrigation system is still leaking,” Shayna Bradshaw grumbled.
To Octavia's relief, with the exception of three colonists, the vote was unanimous. A message would be sent to the last-known Terran government. Maybe the Confederacy had experience with such matters.
Octavia paced anxiously outside the communications turret that stood at an intersection across from the plaza at the center of the village. The comm system was like the antique Missile Turret at the center of the plaza in that no one knew if the equipment still worked. It had not been used for long-range communication in dozens of years, only for contacting outlying farms and settlements during emergency situations.
The mayor had insisted on complete privacy inside the turret while making the transmission attempt. He had been shut inside the tower for forty-five minutes now. Octavia hoped that was a good sign. Or maybe he couldn't figure out how to operate the transmitter.
Finally, Mayor Nikolai emerged wearing a bemused expression. He ran a hand through his spiky blond hair, looking very satisfied with himself.
“Did you get through?” Octavia asked. “Did you talk to the Terran Confederacy?”
“Well, not exactly. It seems the Confederacy fell apart and now the government is called the Terran Dominion. The guy I talked to called himself the emperor—pretty impressive, I suppose. Name of Arcturus Mengsk. He seemed interested in what we found, asked a lot of questions. Told me they'll probably send a military force out to investigate immediately.”
Octavia heaved a sigh of relief. “Good. Then help is on the way.”
Their troubles were over.
CHAPTER 9
AS HE LOUNGED BACK ON THE THRONE, NEWLY installed in the restored capital of Korhal, Emperor Arcturus Mengsk felt vindicated for all the years he had spent in guerrilla activities, scheming against the repressive Terran Confederacy.
