The Chiron

Starcraft II Fan-fiction

“One quarter forward, five degrees starboard. Keep her on her axis.”

Captain Farland gave the order while he stood at the Chiron’s command console, in the midst of the bridge’s simmering activity. Captain Farland had only his imperious presence and the chevrons of his sleeve as his marks of station.  The Chiron was not a military vessel after all; it was a scientific cruiser, tasked with studying specific phenomena throughout the fringes of Koprulu Sector.

“Aye-aye. One quarter forward, double-oh-five degrees starboard on the plane”, the helmsman replied. The Chiron responded around them by changing the tone of its hum almost instantly, like a choir shifting the note they held.

“How does it look from your station, Salgado?” Captain Farland asked the officer immediately to his left.

“We’re getting clear readings of the object past the debris field, sir. All sensors are recording across the spectrum and we have a clear transmission to Tau Bellum” Lieutenant Salgado replied crisply, tapping away on the controls at his end of the command console. He brought up an image to the foreground of the holographic display that hung in front of him and the captain.

The Chiron was orbiting around the outer rim of a peculiar phenomenon; it was an almost perfect sphere of wreckage. It surrounded something else, a massive object the debris hid well. The naked eye could only catch glimpses of it.The sensors were doing a better job of it, highlighting a shape past the cloud. Most of the pieces were from Protoss ships. There was charred, desiccated slabs of organic material as well, undergoing a slow, withering decomposition.

The shape inside that sphere of trash was a cluster of towers surrounded by a wall, sitting on a clutch of craggy rock. It was of ancient design.

“Looks intriguing, doesn’t it?” Captain Farland asked.

“Yes sir”, Salgado answered reflexively, before adding “There are no signs of deliberate activity now, but there are remnants of at least one large-scale engagement here…”

“Obviously”, Captain Farland grunted as the Chiron sailed past what appeared to be a massive jawbone, with building-sized molars still rooted firmly in place. “Are there any fresh remains of anything out there, Lieutenant?”

“Everything seems to be fairly old. I think I can recognize some pieces from the older designs we have encountered from other races, but I couldn’t say for sure, sir. At least a few centuries old—” Salgado was cut off by a chirp from his instruments. He creased his brow as he deciphered the new readings “Something just came into our radar scope. I’m bringing optics around on it…”

The hologram shimmered, and finally came into focus, drawing the sleek lines of a Protoss fighter.  Salgado “Contact confirmed! Protoss vessel, Phoenix class. It’s closing in fast from the other rim of the debri field!”

“Have they hailed us?” Captain Farland demanded, throwing a sharp glance towards petty officer La Croix to his right.

She shook her head. “We’ve got all channels open and clear sir. The only activity we have is on our link with Tau Bellum.”

“I guess we’ll have to be the ones with manners here”, the captain replied. “Hail them.”

“Yessir”

“Helm, steady as she goes. Lieutenant, stand by for general quarters,” the captain was still calm, even if tension gripped everyone else in the bridge.

“Aye-aye, sir. Holding present course”, the helmsman replied while Lieutenant Salgado watched the hologram of the Phoenix intently. The image of the Protoss fighter hung there, almost like a knife suspended from an invisible wire in the middle of the room.

La Croix interjected “Sir, the Protoss vessel has established a link, sir. I’m patching it in now.”

Captain Farland began speaking in his conversational tone after the radio tone “Protoss vessel, this is the Terran cruiser Chiron on a scientific mission. We have no military objective, but we will—”

“Terran visitors”, a phantasmal voice interrupted Captain Farland. It was emotionally neutral, a conversion of a psionic transmission into sound. “I am Kurr’Chaza of the Ivory Guard. Your death will forewarn other interlopers. There will be no mercy.”

“Link has been closed,” La Croix informed the bridge.

“General Quarters”, Captain Farland said. The bridge burst into frantic activity.

Salgado couldn’t keep the anxiety from edging in his voice. “General quarters! General quarters! All personnel report to your battle stations! Damage control, on standby! This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill!”

“Full speed ahead, come about twenty degrees to starboard!” Captain Farland didn’t as much yell as speak with such power to his voice that it drowned out the sudden din of running feet and the voices of his officers. The helmsman’s reply was lost somewhere in the noise, but the choir of the ship’s engines raised its voice in a deafening crescendo. Captain Farland’s voice kept on cutting through the cacophony.

“Start calculating a jump back to Dominion space. Salgado, keep transmitting our telemetry data! Keep the main array trained on the object, but don’t let that fighter out of your sight! He can’t bring us down on his own, so more will be on their way! We can make it out before they cripple us, as long as all of you keep our wits about us!”

“Aye-aye sir!”

As the Chiron began its turn away from him, Kurr’Chaza narrowed his eyes, swung around to the cruiser’s flank and opened fire. His weapons did little more than peck at the thick armored hide of the much larger Terran vessel, but it still sharpened its turn as it ran for cover into the broken pieces from previous interlopers. They were inching closer to the center of the debris. He pursued them. If he had had a mouth, he would’ve smiled.

At the center of the sphere, the ivory fortress watched impassively, and waited.