Shadow of the Xel'Naga Page 3

  Her brother climbed up the slope from boulder to boulder, until he topped the saddle and stared across the next valley. She didn't notice how long he stood in silent awe before he started yelling for her. “Octavia! Come up here!”

  She looked up, slammed the service door shut on the mining turret, then stood. “What is it?”

  But Lars bounded up onto a higher rocky outcropping, from which he could get a better view. He gave a low whistle. “Now this is interesting.”

  Octavia scrambled after him while the back of her mind ran through the different tricks she'd probably have to use to get the mining stations functional again. She knew Lars got distracted easily.

  From the top, she got a good look into the next valley, quickly seeing the changes the previous night's earthquake had wrought. Numerous new Vespene geysers steamed into the air, curls of silvery-white mist that could provide the colony with more than enough fuel for the next several decades.

  But that wasn't what had caught her brother's eye.

  “What do you think it is?” He gestured wildly toward the next rugged ridge across the bowl-shaped valley, twelve kilometers from Free Haven.

  Before the quake, a prominent conelike peak had jutted into the sky, a distinctive landmark on the continent. But that was yesterday.

  The terrible storm and severe tremors had sparked a huge avalanche, breaking off an entire side of the mountain. The stones had fallen away, split off like a scab ripped from a ragged wound, to expose something very strange—and completely unnatural—inside the mountain.

  And it was glowing.

  The two of them rushed back to the robo-harvester. The big vehicle crunched across the rough terrain and over the mountainous saddle, then toiled headfirst down the easiest switchbacked path into the adjacent valley. Lars drove faster than she had ever seen him try, but Octavia didn't complain. For once, she felt as eager to investigate as her brother did.

  He raced past the hissing geysers and clouds of eye-stinging gases, leaving deep tracks in the soft valley floor. Small animals of species Octavia had never seen—they probably weren't edible anyway— scampered out of the way.

  Finally, the vehicle crunched to an abrupt stop at the base of the avalanche field where the mountainside had collapsed. Octavia peered up through the dusty windshield at an enormous structure. She and Lars both stared at it in fascination and confusion, before jumping simultaneously out of the roboharvester for a better look.

  Neither of them had any idea what the object could be.

  Once buried deep within the mountain, the amazing artifact now pulsed like a huge resinous beehive. Its swirled walls and curved faces were lumpy and pocked with open air vents or passages. There seemed to be no functional design, no sensible blueprint, no purpose that Octavia could fathom.

  But the thing was obviously of alien origin. Possibly organic.

  “I guess we're not alone here on this planet,” she said.

  CHAPTER 4

  THE ABANDONED WORLD HAD NO REMEMBERED name. The planet was so obscure that it did not show up on even the most detailed of Protoss charts.

  The scholar female Xerana stepped on the dusty, time-worn remnants of what must once have been a Xel'Naga outpost, probably the first living being to stand here since the ancient progenitors had vanished into history and legend. She marveled at the idea and felt a stab of disappointment that she could never share this with the rest of the Protoss race.

  Her broad, knobbed feet crunched on tiny pebbles and rubble. No doubt, all of this had been a magnificent city, ages ago. The smell of dust and mystery hung thick in the still air.

  Xerana, like the others of the Dark Templar, had been banished from Protoss society, exiled from their beloved homeworld of Aiur. When the Protoss Judicator class had commanded that all members of their race must join the way of the Khala, a telepathic union that connected the Protoss in a sea of thought, the Dark Templar had refused to follow. They became outcasts, persecuted because they feared the Khala would strip away their individuality, melding them into an overall subconscious mind.

  Although the stern Judicators had driven them off and even now continued to hunt them down, the exiles bore the Protoss no ill will. The fabled Xel'Naga race had created all of them. The followers of the Khala disagreed with the Dark Templar on fundamental issues, but Xerana and her comrades still considered the First Born—the Protoss—their brothers and sisters.

  And because they strove to better themselves in ways that the other Protoss refused to consider, the Dark Templar had discovered new sources of information. Xerana herself had unearthed many artifacts of the Xel'Naga and secrets of the Void. The other Protoss did not have such things, and they might never learn unless they stopped hating the Dark Templar. . . .

  On the silent, haunted landscape, Xerana stepped out under an orange sky and continued to walk among the powdery ruins. Even among the Dark Templar, she was a loner, a scholar. She was obsessed with finding any information about the ancient race that had created the Protoss, and much later the hideous Zerg.

  But the ruins on this abandoned planet had been worn down by erosion, erasing the most dramatic of remnants. Xerana did not give in to discouragement. She continued to dig.

  She looked up, saw a gauze of grayish clouds crawl over the orange sky, and wondered if a storm was coming and if she might be in danger. But the gray clouds, like visual static or smoke, soon dissipated. Xerana bent back to her work, searching the rubble.

  As twilight came, she allowed herself to imagine the evening activities that the Xel'Naga must have enjoyed. She knew the ancients had walked here in the shadows, and she now followed in their footsteps.

  The Xel'Naga, also called the Wanderers from Afar, were a peaceful and benevolent race, driven by the goal of studying and then spreading sentient evolution throughout the universe. After many experiments on other worlds, the Xel'Naga had come to the jungle world of Aiur and concentrated their efforts on the indigenous race there, secretly guiding them through evolution and civilization until they became the Protoss, the First Born.

  But when the satisfied and triumphant Xel'Naga finally revealed themselves, they unwittingly caused world-spanning chaos. The Protoss tribes split apart, each finding different ways to advance themselves. Some even turned upon the ancient Xel'Naga, finally driving away the Wanderers from Afar and then attacking each other in a protracted and bloody civil war known as the Aeon of Strife.

  Eventually, the Protoss healed their civilization by bringing the race together in a religious and telepathic bonding known as the Khala. For many centuries, the Khala allowed the Protoss to grow strong again, although it engendered a rigid caste system, limited independent thought, and blurred the distinction between individuals. Adherence to the path of the Khala was strictly enforced by unwavering religious-political leaders called Judicators.

  A few Protoss tribes refused the Khala, separating themselves from it and holding to their precious individuality. For a long time, the existence of these rebels remained a dark secret. And then came the persecution, until finally the Judicator Conclave banished all of the Rogue Tribes, placing their members aboard a derelict Xel'Naga ship and sending them off into the Void.

  These exiled rebels had become the Dark Templar, like Xerana, still loyal to the race that had driven them out but voraciously inquisitive, burning to understand their origins. Xerana needed to know why the Xel'Naga had considered the Protoss failures, why they had never returned, and why they had later devoted their efforts to creating the vicious Zerg.

  Like the others of her group, Xerana was a warrior as well as a researcher and scholar. So far, she had deciphered a great deal of Xel'Naga lore. Other Dark Templar had also tapped into the powers of the Void, learning secret psi techniques that the rest of the Protoss race did not understand. . . .

  Even when darkness fell on this unnamed world, Xerana still did not return to her large ship in orbit. Her golden gemfire eyes adapted to the dark, her telepathic senses extended, and
she continued to search. Her slender, muscular body was covered by dark robes held in place by a wide hieroglyphic-inscribed sash that signified her scholar's profession. She wore her clothing as a matter of formality and function, never for comfort. Affixed to her wide collar was a thin, etched tablet, a fragment she had found on an earlier excavation, displaying indecipherable words that had been inscribed by the hand of a long-forgotten Xel'Naga poet. It was her most prized possession.

  Traveling farther, Xerana found broken pillars, weathered columns of stone that time had polished smooth. She could make out the arrangement, though, similar to that of temples she had seen on other worlds. The pillars of rock had been placed in a precise pattern, as if to focus the energies of the cosmos.

  The columns had slumped under the weight of ages, battered by cosmic rays and pounding heat, scoured by millennia of wind that, on this world of unexpected colors, was as faint as a baby's breath. All around her in this place, Xerana could sense their presence with her psionic powers. She felt the whispers acknowledging her, guiding her.

  She kicked over a crumbling boulder on impulse, and there, underneath the protective barrier of rock, saw a curved light stone, facedown in the ashy earth.

  Ah . . .

  Xerana pried it up and found a small fragment of an obelisk. A few faint pictographs still remained on the weathered and burned chunk of stone. This was what she had come here for. She could feel it.

  Before dawn, pleased with her prize, Xerana returned to her wandering ship and began studying her treasure as she set off into the lonely darkness again.

  Keeping to herself, for she had no companions, Xerana sat among all the artifacts she had collected. As she roamed the stars in her ship in search of answers, she had compiled a repository of Xel'Naga artifacts. She did not hoard these treasures or keep them merely as her personal possessions. They were for research, and each tiny item held one small part of the key to the understanding that the Dark Templar so desired.

  Xerana spent hour upon hour meditating, trying to piece together what was known of the ancient lost race so that she could derive fresh insights. She had already spent nearly a century digging up answers in the cold Void and in the vibrant genes of her race. In a separate chamber, where she went when she allowed herself to feel lonely, Xerana also kept many mementos of her beloved planet, Aiur, which she would probably never see again.

  As her ship cruised along, Xerana studied the worn, broken piece of the obelisk. After studying it almost to the point of putting herself into a trance, Xerana finally found a comparison among her other tiny specimens, and was able to decipher a set of runes. She translated a fragment, perhaps a bit of poetry or a legend that the Xel'Naga progenitors would have told each other as darkness gathered.

  Maybe with this additional piece of data she could add to the history the Dark Templar already knew. She might use it to make a connection with other seemingly disparate artifacts.

  She felt excitement and pride build within her, though she knew there were many secrets left to uncover. As her ship moved along, continuing its search, Xerana felt that a breakthrough was near, that the answers to her most important questions were so close she could almost touch them.

  CHAPTER 5

  UNDER THE COMMAND OF GENERAL EDMUND Duke, the warships of Alpha Squadron were always ready for battle. In fact, the troops were eager for it.

  The devastating first conflict with the Zerg and the Protoss had obliterated the fringe colony worlds of Chau Sara and Mar Sara, the Confederacy government world of Tarsonis, and the Protoss home planet of Aiur.

  Duke hated aliens—of any flavor. He woke up at night in his flagship cabin trying to strangle the sweaty sheets on his bunk.

  In the upheavals of the recent war, the charismatic rebel Arcturus Mengsk, leader of the violent Sons of Korhal, had seized command of what had been the Terran Confederacy and crowned himself the new emperor. Duke didn't think the man was particularly honorable or trustworthy or even talented. Mengsk was a politician, after all.

  Different government, same military. General Duke just did his job.

  Since he wanted to keep his command, Duke had no compunction about obeying whatever Emperor Arcturus Mengsk told him to do. The general knew who issued his orders.

  Many of the vessels had been damaged in the conflict, including his flagship, the Norad II. Since then, however, the new Emperor Mengsk had spent a lot of money to pump up the military. Alpha Squadron's damaged ships had been refurbished, their weapons had been reloaded, and they had been sent out into space again.

  His fleet consisted of Battlecruisers, Wraiths, Science Vessels, and Dropships, a full-fledged force ready for a dangerous galaxy. The cursed Protoss and Zerg were still out there somewhere.

  Alpha Squadron had left Korhal, the emperor's new capital planet, which had been damaged by Confederacy vengeance many years before. But Arcturus Mengsk had had the last laugh . . . and General Duke still had his military command. Nothing else mattered much to the general.

  For months, the ships of Alpha Squadron had been out on routine survey missions, mapping potential colony worlds, reestablishing contact with others that had fallen by the wayside. Duke could not have imagined a more boring assignment—not for a brilliant strategist like himself, and not for his loyal soldiers either.

  But the political situation with the newly formed Terran Dominion was still unsteady, and Mengsk had picked his own men to form the Imperial Guard close to home. Presumably, General Duke had not yet convinced the emperor of his loyalty, so he and Alpha Squadron were dispatched far away, where they could cause little trouble.

  Duke preferred to avoid politics anyway, and if those two malicious species wanted to come back for another dogfight, he'd be happy to give it to them, all right. Damned aliens! In any case, the general expected to uncover more information and more strongholds of the evil Zerg or the treacherous Protoss—he didn't care which—out here in the uncharted areas than he would ever find back home in the civilized sectors.

  After so much time on patrol, General Duke had assessed the fleet's resources, looked at their military capabilities, and given orders for Alpha Squadron to stop at the next Vespene-rich asteroid field. He intended to stuff his ships to the gills with more resources than the emperor had allowed him. Now, he stood on the flagship, the rebuilt and completely repaired Norad II —now named Norad III —a Battlecruiser with all the punch General Duke could ever wish for.

  Ready to go.

  He just wished he had something to fight against, rather than doing this continuous . . . social studies homework assignment. Did Emperor Mengsk really want to know about the status of podunk colony worlds? Surely the new ruler of the Terran Dominion had more important things on his mind.

  Duke looked out the portholes of his flagship and watched the activity around him in space. All his soldiers moved efficiently—not because they were trying to impress their commander, but because they were truly that good. He had seen to that himself.

  On Vespene-rich asteroids in the belt, faint wisps of the silvery gas escaped into space from the low gravity, making the floating rocks look like played-out comets. Mobile Space Construction Vehicles found the most powerful geysers and set down, using asteroid materials to build impromptu refineries, which captured and distilled the gas into usable form. The SCVs bustled about like honeybees in a field of flowers, harvesting the gas and returning to the fleet with clear barrels of the fuel.

  Soon Duke's ships would be more than ready for anything . . . and, again, with nothing important to do.

  The task took no longer than necessary, following standard operating procedures. Still Duke paced the deck, glancing at status screens, barking orders to his officers, prowling about looking for something useful for his ships to do. Scouts in powered suits retrieved other valuable minerals from the asteroids in order to bring all of Alpha Squadron's ships and supplies up to optimal levels.

  During a lull, his helmsman and weapons officer, Lieutenant Scott,
chose to speak up. “General, sir, might I ask you a question? Permission to speak freely?” Tall, handsome, and forthright, Scott was well respected by the other Marines.

  “I assume all my officers have brains in their heads, Lieutenant. Otherwise, I'd just commission a crew of robots.” Duke was bored enough to give the young man his permission, though normally such boldness would have earned him a reprimand.

  “I assume you have a plan, sir?” Lieutenant Scott said. “Are we waiting to make our move?”

  “I always have a plan,” Duke said gruffly.

  “What kind of plan, sir? Are we going to strike back at the unlawful Dominion and overthrow Emperor Mengsk? Are we going to help establish a government in exile for the overthrown Terran Confederacy?”

  “Enough, Lieutenant!” General Duke said, raising his voice to a roar. “If the emperor hears such words he will convict you of treason.”

  “But, General, sir—they are rebels.” Scott seemed dubious. “Sons of Korhal. They were our enemies.”

  Duke pounded his fist on the command console of the Norad III. “They are currently the lawful government of all Terrans. Would you have me become a rebel myself, just so that I can wreak vengeance on another pack of rebels? May I remind you that our duty is to follow the orders of our commander in chief. After the destruction of Tarsonis, and now that we've finally driven back the Zerg, our legal political leader just happens to be Emperor Mengsk. You would do well not to forget that, son.”

  Lieutenant Scott realized it was time to hold any further comments in check.

  Duke lowered his voice, knowing that all of his Marines were impatient to strike against the vile aliens. “We are engaged in a fight for the human race, Lieutenant. Let's keep our priorities where they belong.”

  The other officers on the bridge, many of whom probably felt the same as Lieutenant Scott, took the reprimand to heart and very quickly found urgent duties with which to occupy themselves.