Chapter 9: Chapter 8: Breaking Some Limits

Jack was staring at his HUD with borderline disbelief, though the ambivalence on his face made it hard to tell if he was about to start complaining or he was pleased with what he saw. 70/202. After the bodies had been dealt with, he had the SCVs work on a supply depot wall around the leftover tunnel the Nydus worm had left behind, and now he was up to 24 supply depots in total, plus the 10 supplied by the command center itself. "On the one hand, being able to have a massive army is nothing but a plus. On the other hand, there's no telling how big an army can be if my enemies are able to do the same. Is all a Zerg army has to do is create a massive hidden base full of Overlords to manage the swarm and then they could simply keep creating more and more units until they forcibly occupied a whole planet?" It was a worrying thought, and conflicts were likely to just keep getting more and more out of hand without things like a supply cap to limit the hostilities to a certain level. 

His current troop of Marines were still split between tunnel-watching duty and being split into small groups alongside the automated defenses. While he had considered setting up bunkers, he still wasn't seeing this base as a permanent place to settle, and had been putting it off. As a stopgap measure, he had the SCVs assist the Marines onto the roof of some of the supply depots, where they would be out of reach of the Zerg for a while if they showed up, and would be able to fire down on them. He couldn't exactly order them to fire through buildings without direct line-of-sight to the target like he could in the game, after all. 

Now he had the room to summon a whole lot more Marines as necessary, though now he was lacking the funds to fill his supply. For the first time in a long time, his mineral reserves had dropped down to the three digits, 715. It was time to sit back and let the SCVs recover his bank account. What can he do that would be productive aside from getting into an SCV himself? He opened his system interface, glancing over the icons. Battle wasn't available, as his management of cooldown time had been a mess over the past few days. He was pretty sure he didn't need a refresher on his Achievements at the moment, so that wasn't going to be of any use. Production was the opposite of building up his stores of supplies, as much as he itched to keep producing more Marines. 

"Incoming transmission." The Adjutant chimed in his ear, and Jack almost leapt in the air in surprise. Who was sending a transmission to him now? He thought he was isolated on this planet! "The transmission is being broadcast on an emergency frequency. Do you wish to accept the-" "Yes, answer! Put it through!" Jack all but shouted to hurry the AI up, eager to try and see if whoever was trying to talk to him knew what was going on. A small display appeared on his HUD, filled with static that slowly began to form into the outline of a face. The eager expression was swiftly removed, however, when he noted the blank, emotionless expression on the other end of the communication. It was definitely a human, in attire not dissimilar to his own... but reddish tendrils of biological matter were seen encircling the figure's shoulders, thin lines of it running up to the human's neck and piercing into it, visibly burrowing upward toward the base of the skull if the distended flesh was anything to go by. An infested Terran. They stared at each other without speaking for a few long moments. Then it displayed its teeth in an attempt at a smile, the rest of the face remaining motionless and unchanging aside from the terrifyingly wide, savage-looking smile.

The infested Terran spoke in a voice that sounded coarse and struggling, with strange echoing undertones as if it was a group of individuals speaking in tandem, "Brother... we have discovered something amazing. Something that will change everything. You must come to us. You must. Everything will be better. Everything will be perfect. You will be perfect." The tone was soothing, like someone was trying to calm a skittish animal, to reassure them that everything was fine. For their own good, even. "Fighting back will only bring you more suffering. Give in to the Swarm, become part of something greater." As if! Jack knew what happened to Terrans that were infested with Zerg biological material. He would be lucky if he didn't wind up completely losing his mind! 

The sense of several voices speaking at once started to distort from each other, overlapping one another and even starting to say differing things. "Do not resist! - Why do you resist? - The strength is admirable. - The strength is meaningless. - You can be so much more!" The multitude of voices were giving him a rising headache. There was a pulsing pain in his head, a sense of crushing pressure, like something in his skull was trying to batter its way out with a hammer. Jack couldn't breathe. "Ad-ju-t-t..." he tried to speak, but his tongue felt like it was made of lead as he dropped to his knees.

Around him, his Marines stood guard at their posts, his SCVs merrily chatted amongst each other as they broke off pieces of minerals, and the Adjutant seemed either unconcerned or uncaring about the transmission's visible effects on him. He tried to give a mental order to the nearest Marines, but he received a sense of 'thinking' at a solid wall. Like he had been forcibly isolated. The eyes of the infested Terran began to shine with an orange hue, wisps of psionic energy leaking from the pupils. "You are wasting your time. - Yes, struggle for control! - Does it seek dominance?" And then a new voice, one that seemed thunderous compared to the ones that came before, spoke with such force it made bile rise in Jack's throat as he all but convulsed in place, fighting to remain upright, "ONLY THE STRONGEST WILL LEAD." It was like a mandate from a God, blanking out his thoughts. 

Jack grit his teeth so hard he could taste blood, eyes clenched shut in agony. The last remark seemed to strike a nerve within him, as he felt a rush of heat course from his core, flowing through his chest toward his limbs, then to his extremities. When he felt the fire rise to his head, engulfing him completely, his eyes opened again. A green shine was leaking from Jack's eyes, in a mirror to the orange wisps from the infested Terran. Jack didn't speak, he couldn't speak. He jaw was locked in a rictus of pain, but he pushed the thought out with anger and aggression, feeling it force its way into this 'conversation'. "I. Do not. Take orders." Something inside him balked at the idea of having to listen to anyone else's decision, to demand subservience to none. Was it the pride? A side effect of his system? A delusion from this newfound sense of power he could feel coursing through him? Maybe a little of all three. 

Jack locked stares with the infested Terran, and this time it was the creature who was beginning to show signs of discomfort, the wide-spread grin falling back to an expression of neutrality, the subtle shake of his opponent's head being poorly concealed. "Arrogance!" The voices were once again in perfect unison, as if having reached some form of agreement, before the deepest voice spoke again. "WE SHALL SEE." Jack kept pushing outward against that wall of restraint around his attempt to give mental commands to his troops, feeling it swell away from him, like a dam blocking a river that was flooded well beyond its normal limits. "No! - NO! - Fool!" chorused at him. Then the dam burst, and with it the infested Terran's head exploded on screen, dropping out of sight. 

But now that the dam had burst, the river of power couldn't just stop. Jack clutched at his head with both hands, the emerald glow of his eyes growing to an almost painful degree. Finally his troops were aware of what was going on to their commander, but aside from staring at him none seemed willing to get any closer. A wave-like gust of shimmering green energy pulsed from him, staggering the units around him as if it was a physical blow to their minds. There was a pause, a lull, before another wave even larger than the first pulsed outward, following the curve of the terrain over the hills and down into the Nydus tunnel, as well as vanishing high into the sky overhead. The Adjutant's face took over the position where the infested Terran's face had been a moment before. "Warning. Class 8 psionic waveform detected."

Not that Jack was in a position to respond. When each pulse burst from him, he could feel it. He could feel everything. It was like he had been blind, and now he could really see. He wasn't limited by his eyes, he could tell exactly where every structure, every unit, every detail of terrain was around him. For a brief moment, he felt like he had that omnipresent 'view from above' that he only felt in his simulated battles. "Never submit." It was a voice that he had grown used to only hearing announce the start of each of his practice virtual battles, the grandfatherly male voice that seemed to come from his system itself. "Never surrender." The voice almost sounded like it was pleading with him, trying desperately to convince him of its sincerity. "A commander can make mistakes. A commander can lose. But a commander can never give up." The tone grew more firm, and a foreboding quality eased into its voice, "The day you give up on a fight, is the day I give up on you." 

Jack had so many questions he wanted to ask. They bubbled through his boiling brain, trying to rise to the surface. 'Why am I here? What am I supposed to do? Who are you?' But none of them made it out. The green hue in Jack's eyes faded with one last faint swipe of an energy pulse emitting from his kneeling figure. The sense of alertness, of seeing everything around him, vanished at the same time. The voice added nothing further, so perhaps it had vanished too? Or was it merely watching him? Eyes rolling upward sightlessly, Jack fell forward onto his face, losing consciousness. 

When he finally awoke, Jack felt as if his eyelids weighed a thousand pounds each, peeking open to find himself in the command center's medical bay. "Where...? How...?" He croaked, glancing over at the IV bag jabbed in his arm, and the series of small band-aids that peppered his arm in ridiculous quantity, as if whoever stuck the IV in him wasn't particularly good at finding a vein. Forget getting out of bed, it took all the force he could muster to create a small gap between the back of his head and his pillow. "Adjutant, status?" "Good morning, 21283. Please clarify, are you requesting a status update on yourself, the base, or your psionic outburst?" Good morning? He'd been here for a while now, and this was the first time the Adjutant had gone out of his way to offer a greeting of any kind. No, focus. Jack felt like his mind had been physically emptied, like if he opened his head he'd find his brain had shrunk down or been put through a blender and then dumped back into him. Every thought seemed to come through a fog. 

"All of it." Jack managed to force the words out, trying to play through what happened in his mind at the same time. He could recall the sense of power, but he couldn't feel any of it at the moment. Maybe he'd be able to sense it again once he rested and tried to recover? That's what he was hoping, at least. "Psionic. Like the Protoss? Or... I guess like a Ghost?" "Affirmative, during the transmission you displayed an unusual spike in psionic activity, reaching toward the upper limits of trained Ghost operatives. While not the highest recorded psionic output, the displayed release places 21283 in the top 2% of human psionics." Jack flashed a weak smile, and couldn't resist making a remark, "Is that why you're suddenly being more polite to me?"

"Psionic users currently fall outside of my assigned chain-of-command. This facility was not built with psionic users in mind, and as such 21283's position must be reevaluated. 21283's previous designation of pilot has been assessed and removed as psionic utilizing personnel are above piloting the T-280 SCV. 21283's previous designation as acting manager has been removed, reassessed, and reassigned after the repeated discovery of no better-qualified and willing personnel. 21283's psionic potential has been noted, however lack of official training prevents the designation of Ghost operative." Even the way that the Adjutant was explaining things sounded more patient and less clipped. 

"And the base?" Jack inquired, closing his eyes and reclining against the just-comfortable-enough medical bed. It wasn't unpleasant, but it wasn't exactly comfortable, either. They probably designed it so the injured wouldn't want to be in them any longer than they had to. Not that his own bunk was a whole lot better. "The psionic emanations and 21283's collapse disrupted mining operations by 12.5% for a period of 5.3 minutes and base maintenance by 5.2% for a period of 10.1 minutes. Guard duties were unaffected." Rolling his eyes without bothering to open them, Jack managed a weak chuckle. "Glad to see everyone cares about me so much. Did one of the maintenance staff jab my arm up?" He shook the arm with the IV in it, and received an affirmative-chirp in reply. "We really need to get some proper Medics on hand, and not just for combat healing." A small part in the back of his mind wandered to the fact that the base would finally get some women aboard at that time, but he hurriedly brushed it away. Now wasn't the time to think about that. 

"And finally, as for 21283's own situation, it is believed that the collapse due to exhaustion is the main issue, and 21283 should be able to return to duties as per usual after sufficient bed rest. Approximate time to recovery, however, cannot be estimated. The acting manager should be more familiar with their own body and be able to better gauge their recovery." The Adjutant wrapped up, "Is there anything else you would like to know?" The faintest side to side motion of his head started to indicate 'no', before he caught himself. He really was getting too used to treating the Adjutant like a real person. "No, Adjutant. That's all. Remind the SCVs to bring the Marines down from atop the supply depots and get everyone inside the defensive perimeter, then close the SCV bay. I don't want anyone caught outside in case that psionic event causes some sort of crazy new problem I have to deal with. I'm gonna get some sleep." 

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