STETMANN AND THE WORLD-CHANGER

by SuperMudz

PROLOGUE

The ship crashed. The strange gravity vortex had caused the engines to fluctuate and seize up, Stetmann instantly understood the science of what happened, even if only in general terms. It was his admittedly derring intellect that had convinced Raynor to allow him to form part of the crew. And he had had opportunity like never before. Despite the dangers, he never lost sight of that, he was very fortunate.

The strange pods flourished everywhere on the crashed ship's deck, their pod like tentacles seeking out the crew-members. Security doors slammed shut and sirens blared, as marines held their stations and moved about uncertainly as to what to do.

They ushered the crew, and held frantic communications, and mostly just ended up running from the things as they encroached. The scientists tried to find weapons in laboratory equipment, no-one wanted to be unarmed, and they were smart enough when it came to it.

Gauss rifles were of particularly little use. Whatever animals these things had evolved to hunt, they had a remarkably useful profile for humans. They started looking for and breaking out the flame-throwers, which were slightly more effective, but not enough.

Napalm had incinerated even Zerg to ash. These things seemed to have some kind of natural defences not yet encountered by any. It was a different life. It would have been foolish to say these things presented more danger than the Zerg, but they certainly presented a more immediate danger.

Zerg and native fauna and flora were now warring for dominance on this world.

(*)

Raynor contacted him over the inter-systems communication – told him to sit tight, he'd send in some evac.

(*)

Chapter One

THE LANDING

Two weeks ago…

Stetmann saw life on this world. Flowers on tree-like entities, profuse in colour and limbs and leafy out-brush, as far as the eye could see.

He had named the world "Xixiv", a slightly shorter connotation for the symbols numerologing it on his planetary catalogue. Only a few ships had been out this way, and except for a perfunctory probe or two by a passing science vessel – it had largely gone unexplored.

Very peculiar, Stetmann had thought – it was rich and abundant in life. The only reason could be that for some reason, there were none of the profusely common mineral deposits to be found on this world. The system's charter didn't indicate any, but it didn't have a geologist's survey.

Very, very peculiar.

His own science vessel, the Aurora, captured and granted to him by the semi-official liaison of Valerian and Raynor shortly after the events on Char, was in high orbit, conducting scans around the clock 24/7 under his orders.

The first thing he had commanded to do with the grand opus to science, was utilise its formidable Dominion laboratories to keep Kerrigan under surveillance.

Raynor seemed to trust him, and only occasionally had it occurred to Stetmann to wonder why. Certainly, all he really cared about was his pursuit of science, and he and Jim had quickly become fast friends, if so it could be called- but Kerrigan was a personal and sore point with Stetmann he had never ever pressed Jim with, not with any amount of curiosity.

The chance to study someone who had been transformed into such a being, by the Zerg, was an incredible opportunity – and Raynor had had some bad experiences with that sort of thing.

Stetmann felt rather pleased. It meant, after all, simply that Jim did trust him to run the equipment. He would never pry, of course, his social graces might not be entirely up to snuff, but he knew enough to leave such things in the hands of people such as Hanson – not that she was around any more. She was certainly more experienced in the field of zerg infestation

She had been rather rude, though, he thought. She was just a little condescending towards his laboratory. Still, nice to have someone around who was interested, he thought brightly. Though that was a little arguable – they had interacted only professionally, and surprisingly, not due to his own usual reclusiveness when given a problem to dwell on.

Her insights had been profound, and occasionally he still wished for those few days before Char when they had the opportunity.

It was several days before they encountered their first mystery.

He watched them through the scanner. It was the fourth or fifth sighting – they had alerted him immediately when they showed up. Strange. Their outline was man-like, but their limbs were too large, and swinging. They moved and scuttled just out of sight, larger than any ordinary man outside of a suit. Several marines in power-suits approached the trees, their eyes steady and searching through the armoured plate-glass, looking for the enemy. There was nothing but a brief rustle.

After a while, they simply put up a perimeter and started disembarking the team. They erected a few defensive turrets, hand-held cannons to sweep the trees at the first sign of trouble. They were supposed to keep a secure landing site.

"Could they be some kind of native humanoid life?"

"It'd be a first if they are. Most life out here in Koprulu, for reasons unidentified, tend to conform more to rhynadarian proportions. A lot of heavy, squat life-forms – grazers. Plenty of strange life-forms on the rim, but nothing quite like that. I would say infested terrans, just as a matter of assumption, but I'm not picking up anything on the scanners, and there's no sign the Zerg have touched this world."

He sent several bots out to explore- their light blinking as they left the great, wallowing colony ship.

He was part of the exploratory team trying to find new worlds and colonies for the beleaguered citizens of Koprulu, those like Hanson's people, searching for a new home out of the direct warpath of the Zerg. Have a chance to continue life outside of the reach of the Zerg.

It was not a circumstance likely to last, but if things turned out well, then it would be a future well assured.

This initial sighting hadn't been promising in that regard.

His own team wasn't using gauss rifles, but concussive rifles, that discharged bolts of kinetic force that could blast life-forms and left them wary and stunned, but relatively unharmed after they recovered from the effects.

It wasn't Stetmann's way to harm life without good reason. He had come up with the design himself, and it was quickly adopted by laboratory personnel – he had been quite flattered.

Of course, this was his team now, and he had to decide.

APCs rumbled out, with escorts of marines – the lab personnel led the way. The marines would only intervene if a truly life-threatening situation was to occur. It seemed organised, the way the squad leaders had it handled – Stetmann wasn't too worried.

Raynor would be entering the system and making his own landing in less than twelve hours, and Stetmann planned to have as much set up as possible by then. His droids were in their cradles ready to clear any new landing sites and perimeter fences he wanted.

(*)

He spotted something. Strange floating things, almost like plant pods, but more transparent, like a jellyfish. He had read enough science fiction to be wary of things like that, floating with eerie calm over a dangerous world full of hostile life-forms. There could be a reason for their apparent passivity.

He ordered a perimeter of auto-turrets, and configured their perceptual matrices, himself. He already had a good idea what they should look for.

They were lumbering thoughtless brutes, apparently responding to some kind of unknown communication or instinct. Another kind of herd instinct no-one had seen before – before the Zerg. They were strong as hell, and tore through the protective force-wires. A few of them fell, stunned, smoking claws, but the rest lumbered through easily. They didn't seem to have a reason for it, it was simply there and they reacted.

If they found the food depots… The alarm sounded. Shit. It wasn't like him to swear, but he did, feeling the unusual epithet in his mind.

(*)

"Fascinating," he said, peering closer at it. It appeared to be a small piece from a protoss reaver. He said as much to his colleagues.

"How can you tell from that little piece?" they wondered. Stetmann had been studying protoss and zerg architectures and various paraphernalia for years now – he had developed a real knack for piecing together puzzles like that.

"The real question is what is it doing on this world?"

"Maybe it used to be a protoss colony?"

Obvious, I suppose.

"Does it tell us anything that we've discovered something that can be dated to one of their reaver war machines?"

"Well – " Grous scratched his beard at the question. "No-one's ever really been sure how old those things are in the first place. Analysis couldn't date their composition within any reliable range – some of their structures are thousands of years old."

Stetmann remembered that too. There had been a great controversy about how the protoss were getting these buildings from world to world. It had been remarkable to discover their vehicle of conveyance was space-time itself – they literally warped them from world to world via an energy transmission network never fully understood or tracked.

The protoss had been almost terrifying in the remarkable and strange things they had achieved, but it had certainly been a relaxed atmosphere when it turned out the protoss were, at least in intention, a benign people. At the least after events had turned out the way they had. Stetmann couldn't say any more than that, other than he was grateful on behalf of all humankind that Raynor had been there with them. Whatever had happened between them, it had apparently left the protoss with a favourable impression, which they all could do with.

The protoss might even need the terrans – now that they were refugees from their own world, much like the terrans were.

A frightening consequence of its own. The protoss had seemed so powerful – invincible to the greatest weapons – untouchable in their great warships that appeared and disappeared despite all them might the terran empire could muster to greet them.

They knew more about the protoss now, but there had been more questions with the answers about that mysterious race. All anyone really knew is that they were united with humanity in their struggle against the zerg, just… not necessarily at humanity's beck and call.

He knew there was hope that the protoss would devise some fantastic weapon to destroy the zerg – but given their withdrawal from sight, the terrans couldn't rely on them for defense. An opinion quickly reinforced when the first zerg reappeared and began consuming outlying human worlds.

Wherever the protoss were – they were not within range to aid, or they had their own problems. He didn't believe they were callous to human extermination – not now.

Even the protoss might need allies. And terrans weren't without resources of their own.

Stetmann had spent much of his time listening to the Umojan networks. They had been tracking as much as they could of the protoss presence, the occasional blip of one of their devices passing within scanner range, just a glimpse too deep in space to be sure of. The occasional relic, or remainder of some colony that once existed, was left behind, or the sites where their structures were recalled.

Entire research expeditions were conducting field tests, measuring and studying whatever energy signatures were left behind.