#OR he died before that in some unrelated incident my brain changed its mind at one point lol

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space Orcs “The Plot.”

This is the continuation of both Zombie and The infection. Things are staring to heat up, so I hope you all enjoy.

The interior of the GA galactic laboratories was bright white and bustling with frantic movement. A group of straight backed humans marched down the center of the hallway in unintentional synchronization causing an additional unintentional aura of power to bubble up around them pushing the bustling alien scientists to the side wide eyed and staring, when they possessed eyes. 

Behind them, a cluster of GA representatives struggled to keep pace with the powerful strides of the humans, all accept for the chairwoman of the GA assembly, who followed with her easy stride, not all that dissimilar to the movement of an ostrich, on her long three toed legs, and the tall, regal silver plated Drev in his ceremonial armor.

The group of humans drew to a stiff halt in synchronization two figures stepped into the hall to block their passing, one human and the other Drev.

The newcomer raised his hand in a sharp salute, which was returned crisply by the other uninformed humans. A single green eye glittered from under the brim of a captain’s cap. Two sets of wings glittered on the man’s lapels. As he lowered his gloved hand, and shifted into a more comfortable position, a glimmer of blue alien carapace peered out from under his grey pant leg.

“I hope you have some answers for us, Commander.” The woman at the spearhead of the group stated lifting her chin in minute challenge to the man.

At the back of the group, the GA chairwoman shifted, pressing her way up and through the group of humans keeping her head high and her posture calm despite being surrounded by her more intimidating UNSC counterparts, “Yes, Commander, the assembly is particularly interested in your findings.” She glanced at one of the humans as the large dark pupil turned to examine her with a disapproving look, “Of course we understand the importance to your species if what we have heard is, in fact, true.”

Commander Vir gave a sharp nod unsettling many of the committee members with its alien swiftness, “All of your questions will be answered in due time.” He turned on the spot and motioned them down the hall after him, “You will forgive me if my involvement in this seems somewhat personal, but you must understand, all of these incidents have had a direct affect on my crew in one way or another.” He took a corner with the small female Drev marching at his side.

“At first we thought all the incidents were unrelated, but as we took a closer look, things changed, and not for the better.”

“Are you going to continue to be cryptic Commander, or do you plan to give us answers at some point.” The Large silver Drev barked voice mostly drowned out by the subcutaneous translation implants.

Commander Vir took another corner and stopped in front of a doorway before pausing to look around the group, “Are any of you particularly susceptible to telepathy?”

“Telepathy.” one of the humans scoffed, “What do you mean telepathy, boy.”

The commander turned to look at him, “I mean Colonel, the mind to mind communication employed by the race of extraterrestrials common known as Starborn?” The group turned to look at each other before, one by one, shaking their heads.

“Good.” He turned as the female drev pulled open the door for the group of him, and they stepped inwards to find a large room filled with equipment on one end and maps on the other end staffed by a team of humans, drev and others.

At the far end of the room, near the energy containment units stood a tall, dark haired female human, and a Vrul. Floating beside them was a strange eerie creature, humanoid in appearance surrounded by a fanning of hundreds of white ribbons spilling off its quartz white skin.

It turned to look at them with large dark eyes.

“Keep it Civil, Convict.” The commander snapped as he walked forward passing the bustling group of scientists and towards the strange creature. The UNSC and GA representatives stepped hesitantly into the room as the ethereal white creature gilded towards them. It stopped just in front of the admiral who grew very still very quickly back ramrod straight as it stared into the creature's eyes.

“Apologize” The commander suddenly snapped glowering at the eerie white alien.

It turned to look at him expression relatively passive.

“She may not be able to hear you, but I can, so apologize.”

The creature lifted its long skeletal arms in an exasperated motion and turned to look at the admiral. It made a few quick signs with his hands, and to their surprise a voice burst through their translation systems, “I am sorry, human, you are not decrepit and old, that was rude. Please forgive me for my out of place, but accurate description of your face.”

The commander glowered on while all the admiral could do was stare.

“You taught it sign language?” One of the humans at the back wondered.

“I think the better question is why can YOU hear him. Humans aren’t telepathic.” The colonel from earlier pointed out.

The commander stopped a few feet from the containment unit, “That is exactly right colonel. Humans are very much NOT meant to communicate telepathically, but we are capable of it. We recently became aware of the reason for my….. Strange gift whilst conducting these experiments. As it turns out certain types of lesioning in the brain can affect a human's ability to receive telepathic transmissions. In my case.” He lifted a hand to his missing eye, “A freak accident caused damage to the area of my brain that is generally responsible for ignoring these signals, though at a cost.”

He turned towards one of the containment units hands clasped lightly behind his back.

“What cost?” The admiral wondered 

The Commander stood staring into the containment unit, “The stronger, or more numerous the signals are can cause electrical storms within the brain. In this case I am prone to sudden bouts of both major and partial seizures around the creatures temporarily beginning form he temporal lobe and then moving outwards, but this isn’t about me is it.” 

At that moment, something moved inside the left containment unit. All of the humans jumped, two of the delegates turned to run, and the Drev leveled his weapon as the creature slammed itself up against the glass. It was a horrible twisted thing, humanoid in looks with spidery fingers and skeletal bones covered from head to toe in tight flaking skin of reddish brown, livid like it had been burned and was beginning to peel away, a mummy or a side of beef jerky. Its large strange eyes were coated white like cataracts, and it leaned against the glass hands splayed mouth wide open head tilting back and forth as it stared at them. Thin tattered ribbons of burnt cloth seemed to trail out from behind it. Like the clothing of a charred corpse 

“What the HELL is that thing!”

The commander turned to look at them one eye squinted a bit as if he was fighting back a headache, “That, is an infected starborn.”

The group of them glanced back and forth between the pearly white creature, both beautiful and eerie and then back towards the nightmarish creature with its gaping mouth and thin, grasping fingers, 

The commander nodded against their unbelieving stares, “They showed up on one of our outer scouting missions. I nearly died in the ensuing scuffle, and hundreds more of them were killed, but we managed to take one alive aboard the ship. From what  I know of starborn, they can communicate in any language, as long as you are familiar with it. They can read your inner dialogue and anything that you happen to be thinking about at that moment which makes them relatively easy to understand. However these made absolutely no sense when I made contact with them. The exact quotes being something like ‘come out of your prison of flesh Deus, come and speak to us in your true form.”

One of the humans tilted their head in confusion, “Deus, isn’t that latin?”

Commander Vir nodded, “Yes, and I didn’t teach them that. So I suspect they had some human contact before me. However that isn’t the strange part.” 

He went silent and glanced over at the small Vrul scientist who turned to look at the assembled committee members adjusting himself studiously, “I performed a remote medical assessment on the specimen, and found that the skin degeneration and the cataract-like structures on the eyes are, indeed, caused by a virus.” He held up a hand, “But not by just any virus, this was a retro-virus. Someone had to directly and intentionally inject these creatures with the virus. A virus which contains human DNA.”

The faces around the room grew tight with shock. They glanced back and forth between each other in confusion, “But…. why-”

Commander Vir shook his head, “That is where we aren’t sure. We have a few theories, that someone is  attempting to give the Starborn the ability to communicate with humans that still have what we are calling, the neural dampener, another theory is that they might have been attempting to genetically harden the starborn against air pressure or Gravity. I mean think of the tactical possibilities, an army of telepathic creatures that can look inside your head and steal whatever information you want without having to lift a finger, not only that, but they could incapacitate an entire crew from outside a ship without a trace of their presence.” He glanced back at the starborn, “Luckily for us this experiment seems to be a failure.”

The small Vrul handed a holo-pad over to the dark haired human, “From what we can tell most of the changes seem to have a negative impact. Those burns you see there on the skin are a direct consequence of solar radiation, to which humans happen to be very sensitive. The white structures on the eyes seem to be an immune response to the forign human DNA. Whoever injected these creatures only succeeded in slowly killing them. This specimen here will expire after another few days.”

Just then, the healthy starborn floated into view movements flowing and graceful like a swan upon open water. It lifted its hands and began its quick sharp movements, “I have been examining the creature’s mind closely as much as I can manage. It is a strange landscape of madness and pain. I cannot spend long there or suffer myself. It sees…. As if in darkness staring into bright lights as humans pass by. It screams about Deus, though I cannot make much more form it’s strange thoughts. Perhaps with more time I can puzzle out it’s intentions, but for now I am none the wiser.”

The group shifted in confusion and unease as the creature spoke. At the front of the room, Commander Vir placed a hand to his head and swayed slightly on his feet. Two of the humans stepped forward to steady him. The woman stepped forward to take a look at his eyes as the others stared on in worry. Eventually he snapped out of his unresponsive state. He waved the others off, “nothing more than an absence seizure. I should be fine, the dangers of being in the room with a maddened starborn.”

He turned towards the second containment unit before anyone could comment, “This next specimen is far more worrying I would think.” He motioned them a bit closer to the glass, and the group crowded around nervously.

He lay on his back strapped down by a seemingly excessive six point restraint. Wrists, ankles, a vest about his chest and one around the top of his head. Even as they watched the man strained against the padded restraints, and despite the padding, his wrists were worn raw, and the bedsheets were tinged with streaks of blood. With crazed wide eyes, sclera eerily white against his deep skin, he turned to look at them. A burst blood vessel in one eye gave rise to a palpable feeling of dread. 

He bared his teeth at them, and they could see most of the enamel was cracked, some of his teeth were missing. His arms and legs were horribly bloated with swelling and bruises. His fingers held evidence of attempted splinting, that been ripped away by his numerous escape attempts. He was stitched together in multiple places and as he turned his head the light above glittered over multiple surgical scars all around his head and down his neck.

“What kind of Frankenstein shit….” 

The man in the room began to laugh and tug at the restraints working himself up into a maddened furey.

Commander vir turned to look at the staggered GA and UNSC representatives, “This….. Is what a super soldier looks like.”

“The hell does that mean?”

Commander Vir turned to look at the small vrul doctor once more who busteled over to look at them, “Someone, with impeccable surgical knowledge, cut into this human’s brain, over, and over, and over again. They managed to isolate neurons in the spinothalamic pathway carrying pain information without damaging motor neurons. Unfortunately this human can also no longer sense temperature or pressure though he is completely without pain. They also leasoned the amygdala, and areas of the hippocampus leaving him virtually without empathy. Lastly they leasoned the part of the brain that, as commander Vir mentioned, we theorize blocks transmission with the starborn.” he motion back and forth between the two containment units, “The two of them, can speak with each other though both of them are likely to die within the weak. “

Commander Vir nodded in worry, “When we captured the human, as you know, he had managed to kill 13 members of a relay crew dismembering at least five of them with his bare hands as well as crack a door rated for 1000 lbs of force. His resulting injuries include nearly completely ripping the muscles in his legs and back from the skeletal structure, the complete destruction of ligaments, as well as rupturing a few other internal structures. We can’t medicate him, and he refuses to hold still. Not to mention he doesn't feel hunger, pain or even the need to relieve himself. We expect him to also perish within the week.” 

He motioned to the brain scan on the wall, “His ability to speak with the starborn, and the clear INTENTIONAL listening to allow it makes us think that these two events might be related.” He motioned to the starborn, “We had Conn do a little digging inside the human’s head as well, and he seems to be under the impression that other, what we assumed to be unrelated issues, could be connected as well. The gathering of cultists, the earthquake on the Tesraki homeworld, and the protests may all be connected.” He held up a hand, “This is where things are rather fuzzy. We aren’t sure how, but know you know as much as we do.”

The assembly stood quiet for a long moment just staring on in discomfort and disbelief, “So…. what you’re saying is someone is weaponizing humans.” The Drev representative, General Magnus wondered nervously switching his battle staff from one hand to the other.

Commander Vir nodded, “And you remember how things turned out the last time someone tried to experiment on humans?”

The GA representatives shifted uncomfortably.

“You don’t really think the Gib scientist could be behind this. We locked him away for good after the incident.”

Commander Vir turned his single eye on the speaker, “Perhaps, perhaps not. I would suggest checking in on him though. Perhaps if he is still there he might be able to offer some insight on what is happening, and what the endgame of our mysterious enemy could be.