by Timothy Zahn
Tanya glared across the chamber. It was one thing to give something a shot and fail. It was another to simply dismiss it out of hand. I don’t see why it can’t work, she said. It’s xel’naga essence, and your people had a long history with the xel’naga. Besides, the psyolisks’ attack is especially hard on you, so we know their psionics are able to link with yours.
He gave a mental sigh. That is not the point, Tanya Caulfield. We are told that adostra stimulate growth in plant life. By its very nature and expression, plant life is different from animal life.
I understand that, Tanya said, fighting hard for patience. This was really not the time for a philosophical discussion. But the adostra themselves are animals, right? So you should be able to contact them.
And if that indeed proves to be the case, what shall I say to them? Would they, who celebrate and nurture life, understand the concept of nurturing death? Even if they do, how then would they embrace such an idea?
Tanya winced. She’d made much the same argument with Whist earlier, and still wasn’t convinced she was wrong.
But that was before they found themselves facing sixty zerglings under psyolisk control. Will you at least try?
I will try. Ulavu paused, and she sensed him opening up his private communication with her to include the rest of the group. I cannot promise I will succeed. I cannot promise even that I will be able to communicate with them. The adostra are far more alien than anything the protoss have ever encountered.
Which was, Tanya knew, an impressively high bar. Throughout their long history the protoss had been everywhere and seen everything. If a bunch of dreaming creatures in nutrient pods were that intimidating, this plan might rapidly hit a dead end.
“Just do your best,” Erin said encouragingly. “That’s all anyone asks.”
“Sure, don’t worry about it,” Dizz added. “You know us terrans. We never say die. Well, except to zerg,” he amended. “Occasionally to protoss. But mostly to zerg. You get the point.”
“You can quit babbling anytime,” Whist told him.
“Sorry,” Dizz said. “I just get nervous in enclosed spaces. Low ceilings and all. Most reapers do.”
Tanya glanced upward. The ceiling wasn’t that low, really. It was a good five meters above the floor, more than enough room for even Ulavu to walk without any risk of bumping his head. Still, for someone used to soaring over hills and battlefields, she supposed even five meters could get claustrophobic.
“No,” Dizz said quietly. “Look at the ceiling.”
Frowning, Tanya went back for a closer look. The ceiling was rocky, with the usual bumps and hollows a cave might have. She couldn’t tell if they had been carved out by zerg claws or zerg acid or a combination of both. Ahead, just this side of the first tier of adostra pods, was a particularly lumpy indentation, looking rather like a giant protoss had slammed a fist into it. Beside the indentation was an especially large protrusion that looked like an embryonic stalactite.
And right between the two of them was a hole.
Not just a deeper pit, she saw as they approached it, but an actual hole, angling upward through the rock. She couldn’t tell how far it went, but there was faint light inside, so some part must make it all the way to the surface. Possibly the route, or one of the routes, that the psyolisks had used to get in.
She looked at Dizz. He was looking back, his eyebrows raised as if she was missing something.
She looked at the hole again, trying vainly to reach out to his mind and at least get a clue as to what he was going for. But her teep power was too limited. The hole was there; it evidently reached to the top of the mesa…
And it was big enough for a person to squeeze into.
Not someone in CMC armor, like Whist or Erin. Not someone wearing the shoulder-mounted turbines of a reaper jump pack. Certainly not someone with the wide shoulders of a protoss.
But a human in the more compact armor of a Dominion ghost might just make it.
Was Dizz suggesting that she escape?
Her first reaction was revulsion at the very idea. How dare he think that she might run out on them?
But following on that reflexive anger was the sobering thought that they very well might all die in the next few minutes. If that occurred, with psyolisks blocking long-range communications, the only way Emperor Valerian and Hierarch Artanis would ever know what had happened was if someone got out before it was too late. And the only someone who could do that was her.
Even worse, if she was trapped here, Abathur might well carry her off somewhere to try to add her pyrokinesis to the zerg arsenal.
Maybe Dizz was right. Maybe, for all those very good reasons, she should make a break for it.
She squared her shoulders. No, she told herself flatly. She’d waited a long time for a chance to use her power for the Dominion. There was no way in hell she was going to abandon her team. Not like this.
As for Abathur, if she and the others were going to die, she would make sure there wasn’t enough left of her for even an evolution master to use.
What did you mean, no?
Tanya made a face. That was supposed to have been a private thought, not a message she was sending to Ulavu. Apparently, she’d leaned a little too hard on the word. Dizz is trying to get me to do something, she told him. But I can’t—
“Here we go,” Whist said, coming to a halt by the first tier of pods. “Ulavu, do your stuff. Everyone else, spread out—not too far—and start poking around like you’re looking for the best ways to get into the pods.”
“And to destroy them,” Tanya added.
“And to destroy them, right,” Whist said. “Whoever finds a way in first, get everyone else over there so that we can block the psyolisks’ view while Erin takes her samples. Got it? Go.”
They spread out, Dizz going a couple of pods to the left, Whist going the same distance to the right. Ulavu picked one of the pods in the center between them, and Tanya stepped up to one beside his. You can do this, she said. Take your time. Start by just trying to say hello.
I am trying, he replied, his mental voice unusually stressed. They are…very alien. I cannot…understand. Nor do I believe they understand me.
“Uh-oh,” Erin murmured from Ulavu’s other side.
“What is it?” Whist asked quietly.
“The zerglings,” Erin said. “They’re looking…really restless.”
Tanya sent a quick look at both ends of the chamber. The zerglings weren’t just restless. They were twitching and shifting their feet, their sickle limbs moving up and down, their mandibles opening and closing.
“That’s not good,” Dizz said. “What the hell set them off?”
“Could they have figured out what we’re doing?” Erin asked.
“Of course they’ve figured out what we’re doing,” Whist said grimly. “Damn it. Or at least they’ve figured out that we’re not here to destroy the pods. We could have done that from across the room.”
“But then why—?” Erin broke off.
“You got it,” Whist said. “They let us cross the room so that we’d be as far away from the exit as possible.”
“Okay, first things first,” Tanya said, fighting against the buzzing in her brain and the fear twisting through her stomach. She would not let Abathur have her. “Can we get Erin her samples before they make their move?”
“I still don’t know how to get in,” Erin said. “But Ulavu could cut one open.”
No, Ulavu said, his voice even more strained. I cannot understand them. But in the core of my being, I know that opening the pod will kill the adostra inside.
“So what?” Dizz retorted. “They’re all going to die anyway, right? That’s what Abathur wants.”
They may die. But they will not die by my hand.
“He’s right,” Erin said. “We’ve killed too many of them already. Way too many. We are not going to kill any more.”
“Fine,” Whist said. “Then I say we give Ulavu another thirty seconds to mak
e contact, then see about beating a dignified retreat.”
Tanya eyed the twitching zerglings, and the psyolisks behind them. “They’ll never let us do that,” she warned.
“Probably not,” Dizz said. “In that case, I guess we’ll just have to kill them.”
And without warning, the entire mass of zerglings charged.
They were going to die, Tanya thought distantly as she turned to the double line on her left and reached out with her power to the closest attacker. The zergling got two more steps and then stumbled and fell. She turned her attention to the one beside it, hearing behind her the muffled stutter of Whist’s C-14 as he opened up on his own wave of attackers. To her right, she caught the reflected light off the pods as Ulavu activated his warp blades.
She was looking almost directly at Dizz when he kicked in his turbines and leaped straight up into the air.
Aiming for the hole in the ceiling that he’d pointed out to her earlier.
Tanya’s first horrified thought was that he was running away, that he was hoping somehow to get through the narrow gap and escape the certain death heading toward them. She looked up, following his path as he rose, a flash of combined anger and betrayal sending a flicker of red across her vision.
But he wasn’t heading for the hole, she realized. He was instead aiming for the big fist-shaped indentation in the ceiling.
She frowned, utterly confused now, wondering if panic could have thrown him off-course. He half turned to face her and the others, almost delicately settled the high tortoise-neck collar of his jump pack against the edge of the hole, and opened up his turbines full blast.
And as Tanya watched, the sudden violent windstorm slammed full force into the converging line of zerglings, scattering them sideways and throwing them back across the chamber.
“I got these!” he shouted, his words barely audible over the labored scream from the turbines. “Work down the other side.”
Tanya spun around, feeling a smile baring her teeth. She should have known he had some other plan hatching.
But even with the enemy effectively cut by half, they were still dangerously close to the edge. Whist was working methodically through the attackers with his C-14; Erin was making some progress with her own gauss rifle, and with Tanya now joining them with her pyrokinesis, they were making headway.
But zerglings were tough. They could only be killed so quickly, and there were a hell of a lot of them. Peripherally, Tanya saw that Ulavu had closed down his warp blades—the zerglings were still too far out of melee range anyway—and had pulled out a small disk the size of a drink coaster. He crouched, cocking his hand and the disk toward his chest, then hurled it at the approaching zerglings.
And as it flew, the edge of the disk erupted into a ring of blazing green warp-blade fire, becoming a meter-diameter pinwheel of destruction. It struck the first zergling in its path, cut straight through it without even slowing, did the same to the zergling behind it—
The psyolisk waiting at the far end of the chamber tried to get out of the way. But the surprise of the unexpected attack was apparently too paralyzing, and the weapon itself was traveling too fast. The psyolisk had barely started to move when the spinning blade cut through its torso, dropping it to the stone floor. The Void energy vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and the now-plain disk bounced off the back wall and onto the floor.
Whist gave a wordless war whoop. “Nice job!” he shouted. “You got any more?”
No, only the one, Ulavu answered. Tanya Caulfield, can you retrieve it?
Tanya grimaced. All the way across the chamber, on the far side of two lines of zerglings. But he was right. The zerglings and psyolisks were momentarily confused and disorganized, and the disk was way too good a weapon to abandon. “I can try!” she shouted back. “Whist, clear me a path.”
“Sure.” He shifted his aim, pummeling the center of the line. Erin shifted her fire as well. Tanya tensed herself for a run, painfully aware that this was still going to take exquisite timing…
“Never mind—I’ll get it,” Dizz called. “Tanya, take this side.” Before Tanya could answer, the pitch from his turbines changed, and he shot past overhead. Swerving to avoid the zerglings’ efforts to pluck him out of the air with their sickle claws, he flew over their lines toward the disk.
Tanya didn’t wait to see any more. She spun around, hoping Dizz’s close-range turbine blast had done some damage to the zerg on that side.
It had, but not as much as she would have liked. The zerglings had been scattered back, and from the looks of things, some of them had been rather violently tossed and shoved across the rough floor. But aside from a few that were still scrabbling dizzily for balance, they seemed to be mostly pulling themselves together.
Bracing herself, she focused on the one that seemed most ready to resume the charge, then stretched out. The zergling shuddered and collapsed. She turned her attention to the next one—
Throw!
Tanya risked a glance over her shoulder. At the far end of the chamber, Dizz had landed and scooped up Ulavu’s disk. The other three psyolisks on that side were charging, clearly hoping to get to him before he could take off again. Dizz flipped the disk toward them and threw power to his turbos—
The disk again blazed with Void energy, slashing through the lead zerg’s torso and out its back. Its claws, still raised, scraped harmlessly across Dizz’s armored shins as he scrambled for altitude. The second psyolisk in line dodged as the disk shot past, dropping sideways out of its path. The pulsating blades vanished, and with unexpected dexterity the third psyolisk darted out a claw and snatched the disk out of the air.
And writhed back in pain as the warp blades again blazed out, cutting off the limb holding the disk and slicing through the bony part of the psyolisk’s head.
The last psyolisk, the one that had managed to dodge the disk, spun around and lunged toward Dizz, claws slashing furiously at his feet. It dropped in a heap as Whist sent a triple burst of spikes into it.
Tanya didn’t wait to see more. She turned back to find a dozen zerglings had massed together and were converging on her, sickle limbs raised to strike. She targeted one—watched it die—targeted the next—sent it wobbling to the floor—targeted a third—realized with a sinking feeling that she’d never get all of them in time—shied back as something small and dark shot past her shoulder—
And jerked as the disk spinning toward the zerglings once again came alive with Void energy. Two more of her attackers fell, cut clear through, and the others scattered out of the disk’s path, their charge momentarily blunted.
Tanya focused on the next in line, determined to use the few seconds that Ulavu had bought her to their fullest. A subtle flicker of light at the far end of the chamber caught her eye as she killed the next zergling in the pack.
And then Ulavu brushed past her, warp blades blazing from his forearms. Without hesitation, he waded into the mob. Tanya shifted her attention away from the zerglings within his reach and focused on the ones standing to the side, awaiting their turn. One of them stiffened and died; then a second and a third. A pile of carcasses was starting to gather at Ulavu’s feet, threatening to trap him in place.
There was a subtle movement at the back of the chamber: the three psyolisks that had been coordinating the zerglings on that side were scuttling along the wall toward the archway. Apparently, they’d judged the battle lost and were getting out.
She smiled tightly. Like hell they were.
Thirty seconds later, it was over.
“Everyone okay?” Whist called as they all lowered their weapons. “Ulavu? You okay?”
I am not incapacitated, the protoss said.
“Good,” Whist said shortly. “Not what I asked. Try again. How many new wounds have you picked up?”
Three. None are life-threatening.
“Let’s take a look,” Whist said, pulling out his medpack and stepping over to him. “Tanya? You’re looking a little shaky, too.”
/> “I’m fine,” Tanya assured him. Her skull was throbbing with the worst headache of her life, and her implant felt like it was going to catch fire and burn out the core of her brain. She hadn’t realized until it was over how much sheer effort she had been putting into the battle, or how much that effort would affect her.
But it was over, and she should have plenty of time to recover before Abathur could organize anything in the way of a rematch.
Anyway, she was certainly doing better than Whist. His armor showed at least two fresh claw marks, one of them going clear through to his undersuit. He must have blasted those particular zerglings squarely in the head at point-blank range.
The men and women in the ghost program barracks made a lot of snide jokes about marines. When this was over, she told herself firmly, she would go back and set them straight on exactly what marines did, how well they did it, and the terrible risks they took on their way to doing it.
Whist glanced up at her as he pulled a bandage from a compartment in his armor. “What’s that look supposed to mean?”
Tanya blinked. “Sorry,” she said. “Didn’t realize I was staring.”
“She’s good at those looks, though,” Dizz offered. “You should have seen the one she gave me when I headed up to start my windstorm.”
“Yeah, that was genius,” Whist told him. “Also panbrained stupid. You realize that with your pack going full tilt, if your collar had slipped off that bracing rock, you’d have snapped your neck in pretty much nothing flat?”
“You’re welcome,” Dizz said with a bland smile. “Always glad to do my bit for the Corps. So now what?”
“I think I may have a way to get some samples,” Erin put in. She had her pack open and was poking around the contents. “It occurred to me that if we can’t open the pods, maybe I can access the tubes carrying nutrients into and out of them. Usually there are some cast-off cells mixed in, which I can pull out.” She gestured across the room. “Then all I have to do is take samples from one of the psyolisks, and we should be able to prove they’re not the same species.”
“Valerian already has psyolisk samples,” Dizz reminded her.
