Emerging from jumpspace three weeks later in the Bifter system, the Brazos went cloaked and headed in towards the prison planet. Straight away, they could tell that things were not right.
The expected fleet of warships was noticably absent. So were the orbital HOSDOC usually found defending such worlds. The planet's surface itself was similarly barren. As they approached, the sensors picked up dozens of the ramshackle shanty towns the wretched inmates of prison worlds cobble together; all were empty, and many showed the telltale signs of recent battle damage.
Of more interest were readings from the neutrino and densitometer sensors. Bifter was a rather unstable world, prone to earthquakes and vulcanism, and one particular dormant cone showed a strong artificial gravity field and large power plant signature from deep in the mountain's chest.
Settling into orbit, the Brazos hung over the site, silently watching. Clearly, the Bifter facility, unlike the Rhagosus one, was buried underground and had not been abandoned. More was coming to light; the top edge of the volcano's crater was studded with defensive turrets of various types, as well as some sort of shield generator.
Turning to Artanis, the Marines asked if he could probe the base for minds, to see if anyone - or anything - was still down there. The Protoss agreed, and withdrew into silence as he extended his mental tendils.
Minutes passed. The watching humans began to be concerned. Half an hour later, when the Protoss hadn't moved at all, they diffidently prodded him, to no avail. More robust attempts to rouse him proved futile. Finally, in desperation, they fetched one of their two psionic shield helmets, placed it on the alien's strangely-shaped skull, and turned it on.
The effects, though startling, were not what was expected. Artanis went instantly limp like a string-cut puppet, slumping from his chair onto the decking. Alarmed, the marines removed the helmet; instantly, the Protoss convulsed in agony, clutching his temples. They put the helmet back and he passed out again. Clearly, psionics were so intrinsic to Protoss that suppression of them was enough to incapacitate - but what was assailing him in the first place?
As they were considering this, a sudden outburst of shouts and curses came from the bridge. Uriah leaped for a console, slamming around it to check the status, and Jacques dashed down the corridor to the control room.
There he found a scene of some chaos. The flight crew were frantically working the controls, and outside the viewports, he could see the starfield and planet jinking violently about. Seized in some unknown force, the vessel was being dragged towards the planet, and towards the volcano base.
Throwing everything into the engines, Captain Maclean flung the ship first down, along the flow of the tractor beam, then back up and sideways. The ship lurched crossways through the effect, but at a price; terrible noises resounded from the ship's engine room, panels started blowing out on the bridge, and a smell of burning electronics drifted through the air. Startled, furious yells and swearing came through the intercom from Fred Drayman in the drive room as his precious engines started coming apart around his ears.
Seated at the turret consoles, Reagan and Cassandra opened up with everything they had at the crater rim, clearly the source of the problem. Laser bursts were initially successful, knocking out a coule of turrets, but were suddenly blocked by some sort of force shield. Turning to missiles, the two volleyed a barrage of nuclear warheads down the tractor beam.
Drawn to the generators at an insane speed, the missiles traversed the distance in an eyeblink. No human could possibly have reacted in time to stop them; searing atomic fire erupted around the crater, and in a few minutes, the tractor generators were smashed and the ship bounded suddenly away like a startled gazelle.
As it did, the humans suddenly heard a deafening voice resounding in their brains. In tone, and "feel", it was very alike the voice of the Cerebrate Grikala they'd fought on Sirnoth, and it was definitely broadcasting on the Zerg psionic wavelength - but there was some different quality to it, something more human.
"So! You come to challenge me, little Protoss?" it thundered. "I am ready. Come to me - and be absorbed." Uriah bellowed a challenge back, demanding to know who spoke. The answer came back - "I am the Queen of Blades."
The other nagging difference about the mind-voice now resolved itself; the tone was female. The Marines pretended to be willing to land and meet with the Voice, but insisted that she turn Artanis loose first. Eventually, she agreed, and the Protoss recovered consciousness.
Immediately, he made it quite clear that - in his opinion - the facility had to be assaulted immediately. The creature whose mind he'd been snared by was "something terrible", some new mix of Zerg and Human. In his brief probe, he'd also felt the presence of both Zerg breeds and Ultramarines, though he'd not managed to probe the whole base before he was caught.
There was some considerable discussion as to what to do. If they went back for theEsrator, there would be a gap of some five weeks; by the time they got back, the base would be deserted and everyone would have gone. Clearly, it had to be attacked immediately.
Artanis, though desperately wanting to assist in the attack, knew that he'd be more a liablity than an asset, vulnerable as he was to the terrible mental power of the Queen of Blades. Reluctantly, he agreed to remain on the ship rather than joining the ground force.
The plan that emerged was as follows. The Brazos would orbit Bifter a few more times; on one of those orbits, the APC would be dropped from its' bay as the ship was on the opposite side of the planet to the base (and therefore shadowed from sensor scans). While the ship then went on around, peeled off and apparently Jumped out of the system (although actually microjumping instead), the APC would sneak as close as possible, and a small team would assault the base overland.
Assembling outside the landed APC, the assault team checked their equipment. Powerful PRIS scanned the sides of the volcano, and after a great deal of observation, a tiny plume of steam was spotted emerging from the mountainside about half-way-up. They watched a bit longer. On an irregular pattern, bursts of steam emerged, and it seemed reasonable to explore this as a possible way in.
Jacques volunteered for the scouting role; but his next move startled everybody - he started shedding his armour and equipment! Stripped to the skin except for a small backpack containing his intrusion kit, he concentrated for a moment, and his skin shifted its' colour and pattern until it matched the ambient terrain almost completely. The effect as he walked away was amazing; even though they knew where he'd gone, the marines could barely see him. The effect extended into other spectra as well; there seemed to be some distortion of his IR signature as well.
Ghosting up the mountain, Jacques soon reached the place where the vapour had emerged. Looked at close to, it was apparent that the luxuriant vegetation The steam was coming out through was in fact plastic, and was draped over a large cylindrical shaft about 8' across. Cautiously, Jacques stepped in, his skin shifting smoothly from grass and scree to grey concrete in colour, and started down the pipe.
Around 70' in he came to a steel grille, designed to hinge open but loked and visibly alarmed. The mesh was quite big, though, so he unpacked the sensor ball he'd brought and set it off down the pipe to scout ahead. Meanwhile he set to work on the alarms, bypassing them so that the gate could be opened without setting them off. The sensor ball reached the far end and reported that the vapour pipe divided up into several 4" pipes leading to different places, but that at the point where they did, there was a maintenance hatch designed for humans. His bypass complete, Jacques activated his laser scalpel, and with one slash cut the lock on the grille, leaving it held shut but unsecured. Then he turned to some measures to secure the tunnel behind them once they went in. Between the entrance and the first gate, he used his lightsabre to penetrate the tunnel 12 times around its' circumference. In each hole, he placed a shaped charge and a remote control timer. He set two of these devil's necklaces, twenty yards apart, so that they would bring down the tunnel over a 20-yard span. Outside the tunnel entrance, he placed a semi-circular arrangement of claymore mines, dual-fused for contact and remote control, with a radius of 25 yards and spaced 3 yards apart. The pattern was designed for maximum damage to a single target rather than area effect. Then he went back to get the others. |
The mission was on!
