Fan Fiction

Starcraft: The Revival

By Averx2k1

Chapter One

Ta-Haki Desert, Outside the Terran Military Base E-20E, Planet Sanatos

"I don’t know, man, what do you think it is?" Private Reginald Harris stood with his friend, Private John Shields, in the blazing hot sun, in the middle of the desert.

"How should I know? You’re the one who wanted to check it out, and the only reason I came along was because I thought you knew what "it" is. Now, here we are in the desert, quite a way away from our cohorts, staring at some twisted creature of an unknown origin."

Normally, the two marines would not have been out there, but the subject of their curiosity dragged them quite a distance away from their assignment. They were assigned to a group of other marines, whose task was clear: deliver power cells to the Command Center on the opposite side of the base. The reason power cells were being delivered was because of the heat. It was so hot on Sanatos---about 900 degrees Fahrenheit---that power generators began malfunctioning, overloading and eventually exploding. So, as a reserve, the base was backed up with special batteries that would bring extra power to any building and withstand the extreme temperature.

About ten minutes after the group set out to deliver the power cells, Reggie saw a faint flash flare up. It lasted for less than a split second, but it immediately caught Reggie’s eye. That was when he and John broke away from the group to go check it out. The funny thing about that was the fact that no one in the group noticed them leave.

Reggie looked out across the arid desert, and then at John. The guy was freaking out because he knew that they would get seriously punished for leaving the group----and the assignment. Reggie, on the other hand, felt perfectly fine. Despite the heat (which had been neutralized by the cooling mechanism of his Marine suit), he was actually quite pleased with what he had found. Here was an organism probably no one had ever seen, one that could bring him recognition for discovering. What would the scientists say if they saw this thing? Reggie could see it now: "The unknown organism discovered by Reginald Harris."

"Hello!! Wake up, Rege!" John yelled into Reggie’s ears. "You’re daydreaming again."

"Oh. My fault. I was just thinking about what I----I mean,we--- just found here." He knew that John would never forgive him if he took all the credit for discovering the organism.

They stared at the creature for a few moments. The creature looked dead, but it could have been unconscious for all they knew. Its arms, which were more like tendrils with fingers, were wrapped across its chest. It had two tendril-like legs that coiled around each other like braids. The "tail" branched into two parts at the end. Its head was incredibly large compared to its body, and its dark eyes seemed to accentuate the mysteriousness of it overall. The whole organism couldn’t have been more than 4 feet long.

"Dude, is it alive?" asked John.

"I don’t know. Touch it and find out." Harris replied jokingly.

"Dude, ‘touch it?’ Hell no! I don’t know where that thing’s been." Instead of nudging the creature, John aimed his Gauss rifle at the creature’s stomach and fired a round into it. He knew better than to touch a foreign life form. He feared he would contract some foreign disease, which was also why he despised the Zerg. He hated them all for their filthiness, but he particularly hated the strain of Zerg known as the Defiler, a nightmarish one that seemed to be invulnerable to the infectious microorganisms that lived in every part of its own mutant, twisted body. How that was possible, he did not know, nor did he care. He only cared about eradicating every last Zerg, including Kerrigan, to ensure the safety of the galaxy.

"Well, I don’t know if it was alive, but it’s dead now!" John chuckled.

"Nice work. A newly discovered organism is definitely worth a lot when it’s got mutilated intestines," Reggie responded sarcastically.

Reggie’s sarcasm didn’t faze John at all, because John thought he was serious. Reggie grabbed the creature by the legs and started to drag it back to the base.

"Uggh, you touched it," muttered John.

"My gloves touched it. And if you look at your own hands, you’ll see that you’re wearing them, too. Geez, when did you become so squeamish? You never complained about how disgusting the Zerg were back on Tarsonis."

"That’s because the closest I ever got to a Zerg on Tarsonis was looking at one on television. Now look at me. I’m fighting real ones twenty-four-seven. They’re sick, I tell you, and as long as I’m on the back lines, I’ll be safe from their filth. Sure, I want to get rid of them, but from a relatively safe distance."

"Welcome to war," Reggie said as he walked off towards the base. John reluctantly followed.

John and Reggie had found the creature a few miles outside of the perimeter of the base. Both of them found it quite odd that no one had already noticed it. Not even a Comsat sweep, which was done regularly, had picked up this foreign life form. This made Reggie even more proud of his---I mean, their---discovery and urged him on toward the base. As they got close, Reggie and John heard a faint "beep", and the desert around them suddenly lit up. They felt the energy waves of a Comsat sweep, used to identify incoming units and detect cloaked, hostile units. Only the cloaked unit detection required some of the base’s main energy. The identification sweep did not, so it could be used frequently. It swept around the base every six seconds, while the detector sweep came around at the will of the Comsat operators. Standard procedure, thought Reggie.

It had taken Reggie and John 40 minutes to get from the middle of the desert to the main base. That meant that getting to the middle of the desert took just as long. After doing the calculations, John cursed loudly. He concluded that they should have been back an hour ago. "We are so late," said John. "When Commander DuGalle finds out---"

"He won’t find out," said Reggie. "And even if he did, do you think he would go out of his way to deal with two lowly marines like us? Please. Maybe our squad leader will punish us, but with what? Push-ups? Dining hall cleanup? And anyway, no punishment could ever account for what we found." He held up the limp corpse of the creature.

"I hope you’re right."

The duo walked past the long rows of bunkers to get to the security gates. The bunkers were truly a sight to see, for they were drastically changed from their old versions. Now they were more like towers, and could hold five men instead of four. And if they were empty, they still had a weaker, automated laser for handling lighter assaults. Basically, they only needed to be filled if a large swarm of 500,000 Zerg came knocking on the door. Welcome to the future, thought Reggie.

Reggie and John finally made it to the front gate. They were given a fingerprint scan and were given the go---until the alarm went off. What? thought Reggie. Then it hit him. The little monster he had found in the desert triggered the alarm. The two were stopped immediately.

A guard soon appeared from a small outpost near the gate. She came up to them with frightening speed. It disturbed Reggie a little. Reggie held back the urge to run, but it was hard. Before he became a soldier, he was a criminal, a thief, and the lowest of the low. To him, running was a natural reflex, since he used to constantly run from the law. If he hadn’t been drafted and "socially restructured," he’d still be running. Reggie snapped out of his flashback. The guard was standing there in a marine suit and with a pistol in her hand. What was she going to do, shoot the creature? Could she not tell that it was already dead?

"Sir, do you mind telling me what that is?"

"Uhh…" said Reggie. "I found it in the desert. I don’t know what it is. Some new life form, I guess. I was hoping to get it dissected or something… trust me, it’s not dangerous at all. It’s actually dead."

"No kidding." The guard snapped. "Sir, that thing belongs with the Science Facility, not in the hands of some trigger-happy marine." She pushed a button on her walkie-talkie. "I need a lab unit out here now. We got some guy here that claims he ‘found a new form of life.’" She turned to Reggie and said, "I really hope you don’t think you’re gonna get a medal or something for this discovery. No one got a medal when the Zerg were discovered." She turned and walked back to her outpost and opened up a magazine.

Reggie really despised that woman’s attitude. She reminded him of his sister. A small girl who always had something to say, she was just plain annoying.

"For her information," grumbled John, "the Zerg weren’t discovered. They came on their own free will to eradicate every last one of us. She needs to get her facts straight."

A few minutes later, the lab unit arrived. There were four scientists in specially modified suits, not marine suits, but basic survival suits that protected them from the heat. One scientist quickly opened the container and, after jerking the creature’s stiff body from Reggie’s hands, carefully slid the creature in. Then they ran off, not saying a word to neither Reggie nor John. Reggie thought that he would at least get an acknowledgment, or on of the scientist’s thoughts about the creature. But instead, nothing.

"This looks like the start of your road to glory," John joked.

"Shut up," replied Reggie.

Chapter 2

Command Center Beta, Terran Military Base E-20E

Inside the powerless Command Center, the occupants watched and waited in semi-darkness. It was a good thing someone thought to find a flashlight before the power went out. The intense heat caused the power outage; these were commonly called "burn-outs," and this wasn’t the first case. The base had been stationed on Sanatos for 1 year, and plenty of burn-outs had hindered its progress.

Tracy Smith was monitoring the perimeter of the base on her screen when it happened, and she was quite annoyed. If this were the first time it happened, she wouldn’t have minded much. But this type of thing had happened more than enough times, at least 40 times in the past 3 months. And having to look at the flickering screen just added to her discontent. Indeed, she wasn’t a very tolerant person and had very little patience. Damn burn-outs, she thought. It’s funny how power generators on Korhal never get screwed up, and the temperature there gets much higher than on Sanatos. That cheap bastard, Emperor Mengsk, just doesn’t want to pay for better generators on Sanatos. This must be the only base in the universe that needs those stupid power cells.

"What’s the deal? We were supposed to have power by now," she said. She cursed those weak power generators.

"Soon," said one man.

To Tracy, "soon" meant at least an hour. Knowing that it would be a while before she would be able to see her monitor again, she leaned back in her chair and pulled out an old-school Game Gear. Such a primitive toy wouldn’t have entertained most people, but she wasn’t most people. She had an affinity for old devices and collected as many as she could. In her room, she had a box of old Earth toys that she felt were worth a lot, and she would sell them as soon as this whole Zerg-Protoss thing was over…if it ever would end…

********

Reggie and John, deciding that there was nothing else to do, started to head back to the barracks. Both men knew what was coming. Their squad leader, Jay Stone, would have their heads for failing to follow the mission. But at least they didn’t come back empty-handed.

Inside the barracks was a huge labyrinth of hallways and corridors. The place didn’t look too big on the outside, but the inside was brutal. If you didn’t know where you had to go, you could consider yourself already lost. Reggie and John had gotten lost their first day. After running around randomly looking for their quarters, a guard had finally come and showed them the way. And the first time they left their quarters, they needed someone to show them to the exit. But they weren’t the only ones who didn’t know where they were going. It happened to everybody that didn’t have enough sense to look at the barrack maps littered on the walls. It was a day Reggie tried to forget.

But now the two knew where they were going: to meet their squad leader and the rest of the group. They removed their helmets because the building was already air conditioned, plus it was standard procedure. Soon, they arrived at room 49-C- the squad’s meeting room. And sure enough, Stone and the rest of the guys and girls were there, sitting at a long, rectangular table.

Stone didn’t say anything to the two. He just sat at the head of the table, patiently looking at them. The rest of the marines sat quietly, as well. They’re all waiting for a decent explanation, thought Reggie. He decided that now would be a good time for them to explain themselves. He and John saluted Stone.

"Ahem," he started, taking a seat at the table. He decided that he should ask questions first, just to be safe. "Hey, sir…" Bad start. So…uh…how did it go?"

Stone shifted in his seat and put his feet up on the table. "Private Harris, Private Shields, so good of you to join us…again. For your information, the power cells never made it to Command Center Beta. Turns out that the ones you were assigned to deliver were lacking an anti-burn protective layer. The temperature outside caused them all to explode and leak, so we were forced to turn back. Such a simple task could have been completed if the cells were inspected first.

"Now, we have no power to provide for Command Center Beta. This isn’t entirely bad, however, because Command Center Alpha, which has power, has taken over the operations of Beta. So, the base is still in tact as long as Alpha’s reserve power lasts. That means that the entire base is fully operational for 36 hours. After that, we’ll need to contact some friends and restock our supply of power cells."

"Why doesn’t Beta have any reserve power? Don’t all buildings have reserve power?" Reggie asked, sounding concerned, even though he really wasn’t.

"Shit, Harris, you should know the answer to that! Didn’t you know that Beta doesn’t have any because it’s power supply was completely blown? Why else do you think we had to give them power?"

"Oh, yeah…" Reggie recalled the day before. There was a fire in Command Center Beta. It wasn’t a large fire, but it did blow up the reserve power storage tanks. "Sorry sir, but my mind has been wanderin’ lately."

"Yea, and you’ve been ‘wandering’ too. What the hell happened to you today? One minute you’re there and the next, you’re gone. Scared the shit out of all of us."

"Sorry sir, didn’t know you were so worried about lowly grunts like us." Reggie tried not to sound sarcastic, but he knew that Stone interpreted that last sentence the wrong way.

"Dammit, Harris, I wasn’t ‘worried’, I was concerned. If I were to say that I lost two of my men, what would Dugalle think? He’d think that you we’re killed by a Zerg or somethin’. Cause panic among the ranks, you know?" He paused for a second and took a sip of coffee. "Now answer the question, private. What happened?"

"Well," he began, "I saw something out in the desert. It was like a flash, and it lasted for a less then half a second. Since my eyes never lie, I knew something was up. I ran towards the desert. John followed. Don’t ask me why. A few miles later, we saw it. It was some sort of humanoid organism. I’d never seen anything like before. It looked like a Protoss with a tail. I grabbed it’s legs---if you could call them that---and dragged it back to base, knowing that I’d just discovered something entirely new. Then the labcoats took it."

The room went silent for a minute. Reggie looked at John, and John looked back. He was sure that Reggie’s explanation had gotten through to Stone.

Finally, Stone spoke. "Well, honestly, Harris, I don’t know what to make of this little adventure you two had. Since you didn’t come back empty-handed, I can’t say you wasted your time going out there. As for the creature, well, I’m sure we’ll hear from those labcoats pretty soon. Whatever you found, it better not be some mindless killer with the same motives as the Zerg.

"I’ll let you off with a warning this time. Next time you disregard my orders, I’ll make sure you never get a chance to fight the Zerg."

Like that’s a bad thing, thought Reggie.

"Dismissed." At Stone’s command, the marines got up and left the room, presumably heading to the lounge. John said to Reggie, "Yo, that was too close. Did you know disregarding a higher officer’s orders can lead to demotion?"

Reggie said nothing. He just shrugged his shoulders and walked off.

"Where you goin’?" asked John.

"The lounge. Come if you feel like. I think I’m expecting a few questions from our squad members."

"You think." John rolled his eyes and followed.

********

BioTech Science Facility, Military Base E-20E

The Operating Room of BioTech was dimly lit, almost perfectly dark. The walls were nearly invisible. In fact, the only thing that was clearly visible was the table in the center of the room with the scientists around it. On that table was none other than the specimen that Reggie and John found in the desert earlier that afternoon. A small, adjustable lamp hung above it.

"Alright guys, what have we got here?" a dark, unshaven scientist asked as he pushed a small button on the side of the operating table. A small tray slid up and out from under the table, loaded with dissecting pins, tweezers, drills, and the like.

"We have no clue what this thing is," another scientist, a tall female, responded, "but we’re about to find out. Hand me that knife."

The male scientist took a small knife from the tray and handed it to her. The woman then adjusted the light to focus on the dead creature’s chest. With great precision, she made a large slit down the middle of its body, and made four more slits perpendicular to it. Now she could open up the skin.

"God," she said. "what happened to it? It looks like it got shot."

"Sure did," the other scientist replied, pulling six metal bullets---"spikes", as they were called---from the creature’s insides.

Another scientist came in. This one was a short man with a bald head. "Ah, I see you’ve started without me."

Both scientists turned to face him.

"That’s because you’re late," said the woman. "What is it that makes you constantly late for these things?"

He didn’t answer.

"Come take a look at this," said the other man.

The bald man walked over and took a pin from the tray. He used it to carefully push the creature’s skin off to the side to get a look at the creature’s internal organs.

"I don’t see anything unusual yet, do you? It’s all here---lungs, heart, stomach, liver, intestines---all the vital organs that any animal would have. It would be hard to classify, especially since we don’t know what its living habits are like."

"Leave that to the taxonomists," the woman said. "What do we know about its nervous system? More specifically, how large is its brain, if it has one?"

"Let’s find out." The bald man reached over and took a medium-sized drill head and attached it to a drill. Focusing the light on the creature’s large head, he commented, "with a head that big, this creature’s brain may easily be larger than the human brain, or even rival that of the Protoss."

"That’s a scary thought," said the woman. "If it’s brain really is that large, then we can conclude that this specimen is part of a race that is advanced as the Protoss, maybe more."

Without further hesitation, the bald man drilled a hole directly through the creature’s skull. Immediately, the skull cracked loudly and split in half.

"Oh my God," the woman said, eyes wide. Her mouth was hanging wide open in shock at the absence of a brain within the creature’s skull. There was no gray matter, medulla or anything of that sort. Instead, a strange, blue fireball was present. It seemed to writhe with life. Even though it looked like a simple flame, all three of the scientists knew it was much more than that. They had seen something similar to it in the Protoss bodies they dissected, too. All Protoss lacked blood vessels, but contained a bluish flame that replaced blood vessels. This flame was part of their life force, and when a Protoss died, its blue flame would erupt with it, dissipating into the atmosphere.

"What does this mean?" asked the dark man, trembling. "Could this be the same element that’s present in Protoss bodies?"

The woman regained her composure and replied, "It could very well be. We’d have to test it and compare it to the Protoss flame. If their molecular structures and chemical compositions are the same, this specimen could very well be a relative of the Protoss."

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s run some tests---" The man didn’t finish. His attention shifted to the specimen, as did the other two scientists’. None of them could believe what they were seeing.

The skull of the creature was repairing itself, its two halves welding back together as if they were hot metal in a kiln. The crack in it suddenly disappeared. Then, the creature’s skin started to close. The slit that the woman had made disappeared, as well, and the creature looked whole again.

"I can’t believe this," the bald man mumbled in awe. "This organism possesses the ability to regenerate itself. According to what we’ve learned in the past 6 years, the only other life form that has that ability is the Zerg---all Zerg strains. Does this mean that this organism is related to the Zerg somehow?"

The woman cleared her throat and turned to him. "Doctor, this organism has physical properties of both the Protoss and the Zerg. We’ve got a serious discovery here. What if the Protoss and the Zerg are actually descen---"

She stopped talking. The organism caught the attention of all three scientists once again, except that this time, it was moving. Its arms began to hoist it’s body off the table.

"What? How’s that possible?? I could have sworn that it was dead! We all saw how badly it’s stomach was messed up! There’s no way that it could still be alive, unless… unless was never dead…to begin with."

By now, the creature was upright. It wasn’t standing, but floating. It’s two twisted legs wrapped around each other, levitating above the floor. A strange blue aura was surrounding it. There was no doubt that the aura bore a remarkable resemblance to the Protoss psi shield…

Its head turned to face the three scientists, who were now backed up against a wall. It just stared at them, blankly but eerily. Then it moved towards them.

The scientists couldn’t move. Two of the scientists were frozen with fear, but the bald one couldn’t move for another reason. The creature was using its mind to hold him in place.

The creature, which was now face to face with the bald scientist, put its hand on the scientist’s head. Nothing happened for a while. There was silence for about two minutes. The other two scientists just stood and watched, helpless and powerless against the creature.

"Do something!" cried the dark scientist. "It’s probably sucking his brain out or something!"

The female scientist shot him a evil look. "What do you want me to do, hit the creature?? It’ll probably do to me what its doing to him!"

"Well, whatever this thing is doing, it’s going to stop it right now!" dark scientist picked up a nearby pole and slammed it into the creature’s head. It shuddered a little bit, but did move its hand from the man's head.

Suddenly, the creature jerked its hand back and let the man go. He fell to the ground, dead.

"You…you monster! What did you do to him??" shouted the dark scientist. Instead of waiting around for an answer from the creature, since he figured he wouldn’t get one anyway, he turned and ran for the door. The woman followed. The creature, though, stood and watched them run to the door, desperately trying to escape. They couldn’t. Somehow, the door got locked from the inside.

"God dammit, open!!" The scientists were now officially fearing for their lives, and they knew they would probably die there. As they tried desperately door, the creature moved forward. And then, remarkably, it spoke. It didn’t open its mouth, since it didn’t have one, but it spoke telepathically to the two scientists.

"Must…recreate. Start over. The universe is corrupt with war…must…recreate." The creature put its hand on the man’s head, and he fell over instantly, lifeless.

Stricken with even more fear, the woman ran to the other side of the room and turned on the intercom. No one had been monitoring the operation already, but she hoped to contact someone---someone who could hear her pleas.

"Hello!! This is an emergency!!! Subject which was presumed dead has escaped from the operation. Two operators are now dead. Requesting an extermination team!!!" She stopped and turned around. The creature was hovering above her. She looked into its eyes. "This organism can’t be a Zerg nor a Protoss. It seems to be a combination of both…"

The creature did not put its hand on her head like it did with the other two. It just hovered above her, waiting for her to make a move. Why is it sparing me, she thought. The creature spoke to her again, telepathically.

"The universe is corrupt. Must restart. No where to go now but forward. Must start anew…"

And with that, the creature reached down and put its hand on her head. The last thing she heard it say was, "we are the ultimate beings designed to build the ultimate race…"