Athena possessed a marine and walked up to the girl. Terran units had their weapons ready all around her. The girl was likely dead, but they could never be too safe.
Athena had considered taking the girl alive at first for interrogation, but as the battle progressed she gave up on the idea. The girl was too dangerous to try to take alive, and any attempt to do so would likely only give the girl the chance to escape or do more damage. Terran units were also not the best at nonlethal methods. Plus, she doubted the girl could provide any useful information.
As she knelt down beside the girl in the marine's body, Athena heard the notification she was waiting for.
"Biological essence detected in close proximity to the host…"
"Analyzing essence…"
"Analysis complete. Essence overlaps with Zerg genetic sequences…"
"Zerg structure Lair has been unlocked…"
Lair. Not bad. Athena nodded to herself. What could she do with the lair? Aside from the extra Zerg supply, it would allow her to build Zerg overseers…
"Psychic energy detected in close proximity to the host…"
"Analyzing energy…"
"Analysis complete. Energy overlaps with Protoss psionic powers…"
"Protoss structure Pylon has been unlocked…"
Wait…Athena's eyes widened in surprise. Was she hallucinating? Protoss structure? Pylon? Why would this possible Decima bioweapon unlock the Protoss pylon? This girl had demonstrated no psychic powers during the battle. Why would she be related to the Protoss?
Athena returned to her own body, quickly entered the game and, as expected, saw the Protoss supply had increased the maximum Protoss supply to 50 units. She still couldn't build any Protoss combat units, but if she could find out more about this girl, things could change.
"Sir," Athena heard Vodka's voice from her earpiece. "We have rounded up the remaining civilians in the town. There's just a problem. More than a handful of them said they have reported this sighting to some of the local emergency services. Local police force. Decima Defense Command. I suggest we get out of here as soon as we can."
"I know. Even if no one called this in, the sound of that firefight may have attracted plenty of unwanted attention." Athena glanced at the surroundings again. It was good the Terrans finished the battle quite quickly. The roaches she had spread out around the perimeter had yet to notice anything. "Rum, take your men and try to clean up the battlefield as well as you can. Try to make it look like we were never here."
"Yes sir." Rum nodded and immediately began barking orders to the other Terran units. Cleaning up the battlefield wouldn't be too difficult as long as they had sufficient time. It wasn't like they had to mop up all the blood and bodies across the town.
"Vodka. How many civilians do you have?"
"A few dozen of them. There were a number of civilians who tried to resist. We had to take them out. The remaining survivors are all here. What should we do with them?"
Athena sighed. Once again, she couldn't afford to let the civilians go and tell the Decima government what they saw. It would just be too dangerous for her. She had no armor here, and it was possible some witnesses could identify her in the future.
"Execute them all." She said quietly. In a sense, these people were always going to die. Did it really matter if they died at the hands of the girl or at the hands of the Terran units?
But just as she said that order, and before Vodka could reply, Athena suddenly had an idea. An idea that might need these people alive. For now. "Actually, belay that order for a second."
"Yes sir."
Athena wasted no time and entered the game once again. A plan was forming in her head, but she needed to check a few things to see if it would work.
The mutant girl herself was enough to unlock two structures from two different races for Athena. More importantly, this was the first time she had unlocked a Protoss structure in this galaxy. If she could find out more about what created this girl, she could at least know what she should look for to unlock more Protoss structures.
At the same time, there were so many risks involved with pursuing whatever program created the girl. Athena knew nothing about where this experiment came from. She knew nothing about where they were and what resources they had at their disposal. The Decima government was likely behind this, but it was only because Athena assumed no other force would have reason to set up a research site on the capital world of another nation. Even for the Decima government, it was odd for them to place a secret program on their capital.
Essentially, she needed information, and this likely wasn't the type of information she could get with a few underground roach spies or by torturing a few prisoners. For this job, she needed better infiltrators.
She needed…changelings.
Athena quickly selected the Zerg hatchery, upgraded it into a lair, and produced an overlord. As expected, thanks to the presence of the lair, the overlord could now evolve into an overseer.
Overseers were the spies of the Zerg. During the evolution into overseers, overlords would grow numerous eyes across its body, allowing them to see much further and locate cloaked or burrowed units. That was good and all, but Athena would be insane if she decided to summon a giant Zerg monstrosity full of eyes into the sky above a Decima province. So what if she was in a remote part of the province? The Decima air defense network wasn't blind.
Overseers might help her in the future, but as of now all Athena wanted from them was their changelings.
She selected the overseer in the game and issued a command. The next second a blob fell out from the overseer. Athena sighed a little before selecting the blob that was the changeling and summoning it into reality.
As soon as the changeling materialized in front of her, Athena, despite being prepared for it, was a little taken back. Seeing the changeling in front of her was so much more terrifying than seeing it in the game. What seemed like a small dark blob in the game was in fact a hideous monster with a few too many yellow eyes on its head, two thin, long arms, and a lower body filled with purple ooze. This was a creature of nightmares, and it was capable of far more than just giving people bad dreams. It might seem frail compared to other Zerg units like zerglings or roaches, but its skills were never in direct combat.
"My Queen. How may I serve you?" The changeling inquired.
"Tell me what you are capable of first," Athena said as she glanced at the bags of purple ooze that the changeling was dragging behind it. What even was that? She didn't know, and she was perfectly fine with that.
As she received the psychic message from the changeling, Athena nodded to herself. The attributes of the changeling were more or less what she expected.
As Zerg units designed to infiltrate Terran forces, changelings had a terrifying skill set that made them nightmares to deal with. To begin with, changelings could shape-shift into the form of any human being. To complement that, changelings could produce a psionic effect on other human beings that would convince people that everything was fine and they were who they seemed to be. According to the changeling itself, this effect was limited, and more vigilante individuals would be more likely to break through this effect. That being said, usually, individuals around the changelings were given no reason to be suspicious.
Unlike most Zerg units whose intelligence levels were concerning, changelings were intelligent enough to blend into human groups and operate weapons and electronics. Infiltration was their job, after all. While changelings weren't really combatants, they could still fight by transforming parts of their bodies into bone blades. That, or just by using human firearms and weapons. They themselves were more fragile than Terran marines with armor, but they were still stronger than unarmored, normal human beings.
"How long can you last?" Athena asked thoughtfully. Changelings weren't designed to last forever.
"48 hours, my Queen." The changeling replied, not at all concerned by the fact that it would be dead in two days at best. Its intelligence didn't change the fact that it was a Zerg unit incapable of human emotions such as fear or self-preservation. It was created to serve the Swarm. Its own survival was irrelevant.
"And what happens when you die?"
"My body will remain in the same form I have taken when I am slain."
"Can you change your form again after your initial transformation?"
"Yes, my Queen."
"Can you shape-shift into someone who is currently dead?"
"Yes, my Queen."
Athena nodded and pointed to the girl's corpse on the ground. "Take her form, but without the injuries if you can."
The changeling, under the disgusted eyes of a handful of Terran marines, dragged its body to the girl. As it got there, the changeling stared at the girl for a second before its body rapidly transformed. Eyes, forearms, carapace, and purple goo were replaced by bones, flesh, and skin. In just seconds, the alien abomination that was the changeling became an innocent-looking girl. The transformation was on point even down to the bloody clothing and the broken restraints. By all accounts, the changeling looked identical to the girl whose corpse was just a few steps away.
"And the mutations?" Athena took a step closer, and the changeling raised her hands to show the claws and bone blade. These weren't just for show either. The changeling might not be as resilient as the girl, but it was still capable of easily gutting enemies who got too close.
"Good." Athena nodded in satisfaction before opening the game once again.
Changelings by themselves cost no resources and no supply, but they did require 50 units of energy from overseers. Each overseer had a maximum of 200 units of energy and it would take them a while to regenerate energy.
In other words, Athena would need quite a lot of overseers.
Three dozen Overlord and Overwatch class gunships descended onto the town of Tarrin. Soldiers in modified Lance class power armor, often exclusively used by the Decima Royal Guard and other elite forces, quickly surrounded the entire town. As some troops went door to door to round up the surviving townspeople, elite fire teams approached the town center, where a girl in bloody clothes was munching on pieces of human flesh.
As soon as the girl saw the troops, she lunged at them, but the fire teams knew exactly what they were doing and who they were facing. Several specially designed tranquilizer darts hit the girl, and as the soldiers anticipated, the girl collapsed quite quickly. In fact, it was a little quicker than they expected, not that any of them was complaining.
As the dust settled, the Decima soldiers began working on cleaning up. The incapacitated girl was given a number of new and tougher metal restraints and then placed into a large metal box, which was then loaded onto a modified Overwatch class gunship.
It didn't take long before the townspeople, whose very cries for help alerted these Decima soldiers, realized the soldiers weren't the heroes they expected. That became clear when the Decima soldiers disarmed the remaining civilians, briefly interrogated them as to if they told anyone else about this incident, and then herded them aboard fresh transports that just arrived. Those who protested were met with shock batons and rifle butts. These soldiers had little empathy for these civilians.
As the civilians and the test subject were both taken away, the Decima soldiers proceeded to destroy any evidence of what happened in this town. Corpses were buried. Electronics that might have recorded what happened were destroyed. Finally, before they left, the Decima soldiers lit the entire town of Tarrin ablaze, using the flames to burn away whatever evidence the previous steps might have missed.
Before long, the Decima soldiers were on their way back to base. None of them thought this as anything more than an ordinary containment mission. The test subject was contained. The witnesses were secured. As far as the issue of secrecy went, no one would really care too much about a single remote town with a tiny population.
Unbeknownst to them, those they were bringing with them back to base were hardly who they seemed to be. Not the test subject. Not even the townspeople.