The Greed Stone

The protoss had fallen. Ten meter thick holes blackened with the smooth marks of concentrated nuclear fire had been bored through every point of structural consequence. The last gate sputtered to a halt, the scream of some poor soul lost in transit echoing as it crumbled and broke, pieces thudding softly into the rich jungle soil. The land bore the scars of every missile, every plasma bolt. Over the ashes, large shadows passed, the waiting assortium of mining and training facilities moving into position over the broken ruins.

Sometimes Azorius couldn't help but think of them as vultures.

As his marines took up perimeter positions, Azorius softly kicked at the leg of a gauss-spike-ridden protoss machine, leaking some sort of preservative fluid from a huge central core as it whirred weakly to a halt. Immortals, they were called. Sometimes he thought the Protoss had developed a cruel sense of irony after Aiur. Other times, watching these machines soak the fire of a dozen Crucio Tanks as they advanced on a fortified position, never stopping, never relenting - those times, he had truly believed.

"Sir." The voice came from behind him, rich and warm like hundred-year-old scotch, marred only by the low whirr of a power drill and the clank of machinery. Case was manning an SCV again. A hundred times Azorius had told him not to do it, but he had insisted that it put the troops at ease, knowing that the things were safe enough for even his trusted lieutenant to operate. They weren't safe: they were cheap and expendable, that was the whole point. But Case didn't care. One of these days the damn thing was going to go up in flames and leave Azorius without a lieutenant, but he didn't care. The man drove Azorius half-mad, sometimes.

"They fought hard." He said, still pushing the robotic leg around with a soft-toed boot. Whatever Case had to say, it could wait. His lieutenant knew better than to interrupt. "Harder than usual. They fought like they had to stand their ground. You know, they always used to fight like that. Had to admire them for it. Had to hate them for it. Now, they don't fight like that so much anymore."

"What changed?" Case said, bored indulgence in his voice.

"They lost." Azorius smiled. "They fought like idiots, brave, honorable idiots, and they lost. Now they know better, know how to come at you sideways, when to retreat, when to come out of the shadows like ghosts and when disappear right back into the dark. Now they fight smart - they fight more like us, even. Brave, still. Honorable, yes. But like us.

"But these ones... these ones fought like they did back in the old days. Like fanatics. Like they still had something to protect."

"I think I know what." Case said.

Azorius turned, then, saw the tousled young man leaning casually on the SCV, his left hand upraised in a clenched fist around a control, the machines giant clamp delicately mimicking the motion. Case lowered the clamp, twisted it sideways, and dropped the small round stone into Azorius' hand, where it landed softly and immediately bobbed up into the air like a cork in a dish of water.

It was blue, shockingly blue, with gold inscriptions in an alien language and indecipherable pictographs. Like so many Protoss devices it glowed, and spun slowly in the air, and made Azorius feel small and inconsequential and uncomprehendingly young, for all the streaks of grey in his hair, for all the small scars he bore from years of doing business in a time of war. It was old, too old, older than the Protoss, even.

But those colors... Azorius had spent too long in the Combine to not know those colors, the soft blue transitioning into the rich, vibrant gold, the same gold that surrounded them in veined crystalline structures everywhere, the same gold they had come here for, killed for.

It was the color of minerals, of wealth, of want take have. In the warmth of his hand it thrummed gently.

"So, sir, since you're apparently the resident expert on the Protoss now - maybe you can tell me what that it is?" Case said. Case hadn't touched it, hadn't felt it. He didn't know. Briefly, Azorius considered not telling him.

Briefly.

"It is, as you so often like to refer to it," Azorius said, "our meal ticket."