I do not own, nor do I profit from the Starcraft franchise. All characters protrayed are either fictional, or based on real people with their full permission. Contains sex between two males, and xeno human relations. This story is slow developing, and will eventually contain graphic descriptions of sex, but not for numerous chapters. Also contains graphic descriptions of death, violence, and gore periodically. Comments and constructive critisism may be directed to mknight1986@hotmail.com, flames will heat my house this winter.
"Greeting, my designation is CL..." the irritating monologue was interrupted by the crack of a firearm and a screech of static.
"Damn irritating things," Michael muttered under his breath. The little robots had a tendency to survive any impending Apocalypse, as evidenced by their presence on this world. It was one of many colony worlds settled from Earth in the last year after a cluster of garden worlds had been discovered on the edge of directorate space. Massive amounts of funds were spent, colonizing the twelve worlds discovered. Within a year, within days of each other, communication with every world had ceased. Investigations sent out by the Directorates military had found no survivors, except the irritating little machines. The first thing Michael had investigated before coming to this world was the most effective place to shoot them to shut them up. It had to be done just right, as any "injury" set them wailing for hours until the rest of their systems started shorting out.
He had disembarked from his ship less the three minutes ago only to be accosted by one of them, and he had to fight the temptation to fly back to earth and shoot some pimply programmer in the head for creating those foul robots.
He surveyed the surrounding terrain. The principle colony of this planet, which had never been given a name, was Fairfield. Surprisingly unimaginative, if apt. The ruin of the town was less then half a mile from the abandoned landing field, and it was surrounded by rolling fields of a plant the looked surprisingly like wheat. It was quite literally, a fair field.
Michael snorted to himself. He began double checking his weapons, a small pistol carried on his hip, and a relatively accurate custom sub machine gun. He smirked, his skill with weapons, both in using them and modifying them put him at odds with most of his chosen profession. He had technically graduated as an archeologist, specializing inn advanced prehuman technological civilizations.. A niche field, becoming more and more common in the wake certain finds on some more distant worlds. The fact that his tall form made him look like little more then a mercenary had landed him this contract, for even the investigators sent to study what was being termed "the badlands event" had not returned from this world, and it was thought that his experience working solo on the hell hole that was Pandora would allow him to be successful hear where the military had not.
As he approached the colony of Fairfield, he mused at the difference in architecture between this world and the last. While Pandora was an underfunded, marginally habitable world, this was a prime location for investment, and the high end prefabricated buildings reflected the difference. The wilderness was only just beginning to overgrow the settlement in the 3 months since it had gone silent.
He checked his com-link. As with the military, his had shut down. No noticeable jamming effects, yet upon entering the atmosphere, no communication was possible. No one was sure what had changed since it's survey and settlement, but the planet wide effect pointed to a technological effect, one that had possibly been activated inadvertently by the colonist.
Keeping in mind the limited nature of his first excursion to the planet, which was quite literally "Walk around, look in a single building, then return to the shuttle and depart", he only approached the outermost prefab, he thought it looked like a garage, even though the map displayed on the HUD in his sun glasses identified it as a house. Inside, considering he expected to find nothing, he found more then he was expecting.
Written on the wall were two simple words that sent a chill up Michael's spine, "Too late."
"At least it appeared to have been written on the wall with a marker, rather the blood," he muttered to himself. He thought he had seen a corny holovid that started out that way when he was younger.
He spared the message another glance, knowing that the recording device, also hidden neatly in his glasses, would have recorded the message well enough, and left the building. He was suddenly very aware of the lack of noise in the colony. Only a handful of insects could be heard, and it seemed unnaturally silent to him. He shook his head and tried to expel the sudden case of nerves he had and began silently walking the short distance back to the shuttle. The handful of minutes that it took seemed to take hours, and he could not prevent himself from nervously watching the fields of grass, which in his new paranoid mindset seemed far too tall, and capable of hiding many things.
He approached the small ship, and even though he had been away from it for less the 15 minutes, he was relieved to find it intact. As the hatch sealed behind him, signaling that it was now airtight, he felt the sense of paranoia begin to fade. So far the ship seemed fine, still fully powered at least. He sat in the pilots seat, and still all systems checked out. As the engines roared to life, bringing him back to the stars, he laughed quietly yo himself. "So frightened over something reminiscent of a bad holo drama, your losing it Mike," was his quiet self recrimination. The atmosphere began thinning around the ship, and right on schedule, roughly 100 miles up, the ships computer began automatically synchronizing with the military ship which was serving as the base of operations for the area.
A slightly static transmission flared over the ships com "Bunker Hill to shuttle zero eight, status." was barked over the com. Nervousness was readily apparent in the voice of the crewman operating it.
"Shuttle zero eight, little to report, I have video recording of the whole 15 minutes I was down there, and we can all check out the creepiness that is the wonderful vacation resort of Fairfield," was his sarcastic reply. The ships crew and him had only marginally gotten along, him having never worked well with others, and them having been dedicated to blowing things up rather then digging through dirt. Whenever someone tried being overly formal and "military"with him he always reminded them with sarcasm that he was a civilian.
His carefully crafted sarcasm seemed to be lost in the transmission, or possibly the nervousness, he mused as the reply came through, "Copy shuttle zero eight, approach to landing bay one for immediate debriefing."
His sarcastic nature flared and he was tempted to point out the ship had only one docking bay, but he restrained himself. He was not looking forward to the events after docking. The little ship was to be held in quarantine for days, debriefing to be carried out over the com, and more of those pesky little robots being the only ones coming on bored, hauling crates of supplies for his next outing to the planet below. He was frustrated about not being able to have actual human contact for the next month or two, continually held in isolation or back on the planet, alone. "For a month", he thought darkly, "I'm not even going to get laid." Even in the squalor that was Pandora he had gotten laid more frequently then that, and he had begun working his charm on several of the crew of this ship. "All that progress lost to a month quarantine, I'm gonna be pissed if I die without getting laid."
He let his thoughts wander, and brought the little ship in to land more quickly then the military would have likely preferred. He ignored the squawking radio and hit the breaking thrusters hard. He would undoubtedly get an earful during the debrief, but he was getting paid too much and this was far too important for them to do anything of great consequence to him. When the shuttle was secured he directed his attention to the small holo emitter, and prepared for the next boring 24 hours to pass, before he would go back down to the waiting planet to discover what secrets it held.