Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Tassadar's Legacy: The Pact of the Five Gundams ❯ Mission Accepted ( Chapter 2 )

“Sir, you may want to take a look at this.” A voice chirped over the intercom in Jim Raynor's quarters aboard the Hyperion. A voice groaned from the bed, before Jim himself swung himself up and said, “Alright Matt, I'm comin'.” The intercom connection closed. Matt Horner and he had been working too long together, Jim mused. He even knew when he was really asleep or not in his own damn quarters! The rumpled lump under the covers next to him stirred, and luminous green eyes peered over the edge at him. Jim smiled down at the lovely sight Sarah Kerrigan presented and said, “Go back to sleep darlin'. I'm sure Matt would've called us both if it was anything too serious.”

Sarah, who'd spent the past 48 hours without sleep trying to withhold the Zerg brood they'd been chasing from following the call of a psi emitter gave him a smile, not bothering to argue, and promptly drifted back off to sleep. Jim Raynor smiled gently and thanked the heavens, again, that he was able to get his love back. Sighing again, Jim dragged himself up and shoved himself into his clothes. Grabbing a stimulant on his way out, he jolted as the liquid energy shot hit his system, and suddenly wide awake, he walked down the halls towards the bridge, dodging crew and hoping whatever Matt had to show him was worth waking up for.

Unfortunately, with Matt Horner as Captain of the Hyperion, Jim knew it usually was. Stepping through the automatic door, Jim walked up to the holographic board detailing their missions and asked, “Alright Matt. What've you got?” Captain Horner recognized the look in Jim's eyes and cut to the chase, “As you know, the Zerg brood we caught up to on our last mission was being called by a PSI Emitter to one of the outlying planets in our jurisdiction.” Matt walked over to one of the consoles where records were kept and Jim followed. Matt called up some information and pointed out, “What you don't know is that our scanners picked up some strange signatures branching off from the swarm just before we caught up to them and disappeared.” Jim nodded. Sarah had mentioned she'd felt something strange up until that point, making it more difficult to control the wayward Zerg.

Matt pulled up another diagram and said, “Just an hour ago, our long range scanners picked up those same signatures not far from our given course. But that's not all.” Face grim, Matt pressed another button and pulled up a view of a green and blue jewel of a planet, with a close up of one of the man-made structures surrounding it. Jim leaned in closer, his eyes narrowing and said, “That looks man made Matt.” Matt nodded and said, “It is. But there were no records of anyone else living in this area other than on the planets we just saved. Our intelligence confirms that it's a cluster of enclosed and maintained environments made suitable for human life. Colonies might be a suitable term.” Jim watched in dawning horror, as something dark blotted out parts of the colonies. Jim breathed out, “What in the hell is that?” Matt answered, “We're not sure sir. We weren't able to pick up a visual of it when we were after the Zerg before, but we're guessing that was due to interference as well as line of sight ruined by how closely the Zerg were flying together.” After only a moment of watching, the entire cluster imploded. Jim swallowed and said, “How many people were aboard?”

“Roughly half a million is our best guess for each one sir, and there are more clusters just like it at all but one of the Lagrange points around the planet.” came Matt's reply, subdued. Jim felt sick. Rising up to his full height and said, “Lay a course for that planet. If I miss my guess, this is the real mission we were set out to accomplish.” Matt nodded and said, “Already done sir.” Jim nodded and said, “Good. What's our ETA?” Matt responded, “Eight hours. Sooner, if engineering was more sure of our newly installed Protoss subdrives, but they won't risk pushing it without your orders.” Jim took only a moment to weigh the risk of using the wholly untested tech against arriving in time to save lives and responded immediately, “Do it.”

Matt nodded and said, “Aye sir.” He walked over to a panel and giving orders out to prepare for the jump, he pressed a button and said into the comm, “All hands brace for warp.” Matt closed the channel and looked at his watch, saying, “Helmsman on my mark.” A moment of pause as Jim took a firmer grip on the holo board and Matt Horner counted down, “5…4…3…2…1…mark.” With a jolt, the drive kicked in, and they were on their way. Jim wasted no time giving orders to analyze the data they had, find out what the hell they were, how to kill it, and pray they weren't too late.