.................................................................. .##...##...####...#####....####....####...##...##..######...####.. .##...##..##..##..##..##..##......##..##..###.###..##......##..... .##.#.##..######..#####...##.###..######..##.#.##..####.....####.. .#######..##..##..##..##..##..##..##..##..##...##..##..........##. ..##.##...##..##..##..##...####...##..##..##...##..######...####.. .................................................................. A Shockwave[xpow] fictional production

Note to Readers

I figure I should post the second chapter immediately because there was really no indication in the first as to what the story was going to be about, nor any action. This should clear things up enough for you to be left with some incentive (hopefully) to read the rest of the series. It will probably be a week or so before I get the next chapter up, so I hope you enjoy this in the meantime, and please keeping kicking those evil Toss players around for me in the meantime :-).

Shockwave[xpow]

II: Game Start

Coaster was there, Rock was there, when Rea arrived finally at ops. Rapser of course was not there; and just as Rea was about to comment on this, a medic bumped her way into the room.

"Someone needed ice for their nose?"

Coaster immediately grabbed the pack out of the medic's hand. "Wow, cool, that would be me!" he said. Turning toward Rea, he added, "Thanks, that was very thoughtful of you."

Rock wondered if smoke would come out of Rea's ears. Life went on in ops.

"Where's Rapser?"

Rock shrugged his massive shoulders. "Sorry ma'am, no word from him, he's not in his room, nobody's seen him."

"Uh huh," said Rea, rubbing her tender nose absently. "If anyone sees him, can they tell him to get in here so I can throttle him?"

Even Rock had to suppress a shudder.

"Anyway," she continued, "Kensha needs us to get the communications satellite up and running. You all know how important they think this is, supposedly it's for our own safetly so we can figure out what else is around here, blah blah insert the usual Directorate nonsense. Personally, though, I could care less about your safety or whether Kensha is able to figure out his puzzle about the moving scrap metal their early sweep supposedly picked up. I just want to get this done so I can go home, and I think y'all do too. And if that's not enough incentive, tough."

Rea sat down hard, daring anyone to oppose her. No questions, no responses. Perhaps, for once, this would turn out to be a normal stress-free day.

Perhaps not.

Something that looked like a walking heap of foliage crashed into the room brandishing some metallic frisbee. It was either a new form of sentient plant life... or it was Rapser covered with filth. Rea just gaped open-mouthed at the apparition.

"I've just seen the most AMAZING things, a wreckage of an earth ship in the middle of nowhere, some sort of data disc that has accurate PICTURES of a Protoss soldier on it, it's incredible I want to know what's on this thing I want to know how that ship got there maybe it's a data disc or something, let me through," he spat out at machine-gun pace.

Rock had heard about medical stimulants that Force soliders would sometimes use to hyper-inflate their capabilities in times of desperation, and wondered if Rapser might have accidentily shot himself up with too much of some.

"Rapser, you're an hour-"

"No no, save the usual screaming and yelling for later, this is AMAZING. Don't you half-brained idiots see the paradox in this? I want to extract the contents from this disk, someone help me connect this adaptor, I made it on the way back and it should suffice."

"Sure dude, this 'half-brained idiot' wants to know," grinned Coaster. He glanced over at Rea, who just gave a resigned nod. Honestly, Rea was a bit amused, and was also curious, even though she missed half of what Rapser had just said. Rapser certainly, well, at least kept life... interesting. She'd just let him run his show and scheme of a way to smack him around later in private.

The disc booted up, some peculiar title screen flashed for an instant, then Rapser and friends watched through an incredibly low resolution animation. Finally, some options came up: "New Game", "Exit", "Options."

"Hey, it's a GAME!" exclaimed Coaster. "You brought back a GAME? Rea's gonna really kill you now."

"Shut it, Coaster," spat Rapser.

Rock glanced over at Rea, but she was still just glaring at them from her seat.

"Hmm...new game...one opponent...K let's try this scenario," Rapser said to nobody in particular, clicking rapidly on a sequence of options and buttons. The screen flashed for a second, then he was presented with a limited terrain view with some buildings and icons interspersed.

"Hey, doesn't that thing in the middle look like our command center?" said Coaster. "And those other buildings look like our camp. Kinda funky."

"Ahem," interrupted Rea, rising from her seat. "O.k., I've seen enough. Sorry to disturb your fun, kids, but in case you don't remember, we have to get our comsat running, it is 'critical to the success of this operation'. You don't want to all get HANGED if Kensha comes in here and finds us playing video games that only a retarded kid would touch, do you?"

"With all due respect, Rea, give me a break," replied Rapser, never taking his eyes off the computer. "This is a really interesting puzzle, I'm sorry you can't appreciate it as such, but I'd like to figure it out. Besides, I happen to think it looks kinda fun, and that little medic that popped out of the barraks looks sorta like you on a good day."

"Sorry to object," she spat back at him, "but we have orders. And the last time I checked, you also take them from me. You first solve our comsat problems, I'll let you play your little game afterward, that is an order, or I'll hang you myself."

"Honest?" Rapser perked up.

"What, about the hanging?" smirked Coaster.

"Umm, yeah, promise - you figure out the comsat problem, I'll let you play with your kids' game. Now get to work."

"Fine. Then leave me alone, because I'm done with your satellite problems," Rapser chimed. "You'll find my personal uplink in my backpack, and I've roughed out the schematics for building a radar array to provide a connection, that's in the side zipped pocket. Now leave me alone."

"I hate you."

"I know. But either go away, or pipe down if you want to keep watching. Your talking while you're observing my game is ruining my concentration."

"My name is Larsen Roberts Handel. People have called me "Larsen", "Roberts", or "Handel" before. Everyone at camp calls me "Hard Rock", or "Rock" for short. It's o.k., a name is just a name. I'm here to serve the Forces. They tell me that millions of people depend on how well we do out here. I think sometimes I'd rather just be back working at home, because now when I look up at the stars at night, it just doesn't seem so peaceful anymore. I hear bad things, really terrible things, about what the Protoss do up there to our fleets. Sometimes I wish I could just make everything stop. Sometimes I wonder if there's another Protoss kid out there who thinks the same thing. I'm sure they have their reasons for what they're doing, maybe someday they'll tell us and we'll understand and all this fighting will come to an end and we can all go home. Tolaris is not like home at all. But I don't have much time to think about it anyway, because they've got me doing everything... sometimes I'm on patrol, sometimes I'm in ops. I like ops, this nice captain lady named Rea kinda got me to help them out in my spare time. I don't know what I'm doing there sometimes... I really don't know anything about computers. But she says I'm there to help "enforce discipline" or something, and also she tells me that every spare hand they can get there at ops, they need. Something about building a satellite, Admiral wants us to figure out what else is on this planet with us. Anyway, when I'm in ops, I think Rea smiles more, sometimes she tells me she's lonely when I'm training with the guys. So I figure I must be doing something right. But today, I'm away from ops, they're sending a bunch of us guys out to scout pretty far. It'll be cool, maybe I'll find that ship that Rapser was talking about, I dunno. But I tell you, being around a bunch of marines isn't as fun as sitting in ops and watching Rea make her guys work. I think they're still playing video games right now or something."