"Alright," Raynor said in a heavy voice. As the word left his mouth, it carried a complex weight—like dropping a bit of his burden only to pick up a fresh sense of alarm.
"Miss Valerie, get in touch with your company right away. We... need that emergency tech support."
He paused, throwing a sharp look at Valerie, not setting terms so much as laying out an inescapable reality.
"You know where we stand, and you know how razor-thin the patience of those Protoss up there is. Any outside personnel and gear have to go through the toughest quarantine imaginable—not just on our end, but you can bet the Protoss will demand it too. That's not a request; it's what keeps us alive."
He looked around the bare-bones camp and the nervous crowd off in the distance.
"This is my crew and the civilians we picked up. Every move and every call has to put their safety absolute first.
Your tech experts can work in designated zones, and we'll give them all the backup and cover they need, but the overall game plan and final call stay with us based on how things play out."
His tone softened a notch, though it stayed firm.
"Of course, all research data and findings get shared across the board. This touches every single one of our lives, so there's zero room for info walls."
Finally, he looked Valerie right in the eye.
"For now, we strictly focus on fixing Haven's infection crisis. Anything else waits until we actually survive these three days."
His last words were crystal clear, drawing a hard line around the partnership.
Valerie listened closely, giving a solid nod to show she got it completely.
"Understood, Commander Raynor. What you laid out is the exact kind of concern and standard any responsible team would have in this spot. It's totally fair. I'll pass this back up the line just as it is. If the company signs off and sends support, our people and gear will fall right in line with your quarantine and safety checks, working completely inside your framework.
Data sharing is the whole foundation of this deal. As for everything else, like you said, we deal with the fire in front of us first."
She caught herself for a second, adding: "If everything goes smooth, support can land in twenty-four hours at the fastest."
"Then get to it," Raynor waved a hand, looking wiped out but decisive. Rolling the dice on an unknown third party was a gamble, but stuck between Selendis's main gun and a hidden Zerg outbreak, he had to grab whatever might tip the scales.
"We kick off our backup plans at the same time: Matt, pull together scouting teams for a ghost run into those weird scan zones. Grab whatever samples you can, but don't kick the hornet's nest. Dr. Hanson, keep your research moving and prep to link up with the outside tech team if they land.
Tychus, have the Raiders ready for internal screenings and emergency containment. Here's hoping... we don't have to pull the trigger on worst-case options."
Everyone took their orders and cleared out. Before stepping out, Dr. Hanson threw Raynor a conflicted look—part gratitude, part lingering worry. Valerie went straight to her comm stall, getting ready to send out the ping that could bring a breakthrough, or a whole new mess of variables.
Raynor sat alone in the briefing room.
He stared at Haven's projection, those blinking red dots looking like open sores on the planet. He bought three days, and now he was banking part of his hope on a mystery faction. It was risky, but it felt like the only narrow path holding a sliver of light in a dead end.
He rubbed his throbbing temples.
The weight of command had never felt this heavy. He didn't just have to dance between the Swarm and the Protoss; now he had to carefully weigh an incoming, unknown "ally."
Inside the bridge of the Eternal Seeker, absolute silence hung in the air, broken only by the low, rhythmic hum of the cogitator arrays and the soft rustle of data streams sliding across the displays.
The massive dataset from the Mar Sara virus-bomb test was still undergoing deep background analysis, but a top-priority encrypted transmission had taken over the main processing thread of Osiris' logic core.
Valerie's image was projected right before him over a secure channel, with the slightly messy comm booth of the Hyperion sitting in the background. Her debrief was as calm and structured as ever, but its contents pointed straight at a high-stakes, time-sensitive node packed with both danger and opportunity.
"—To wrap up: nearly a quarter of the seventy-two-hour limit set by Executor Selendis is already burned. The clash between Raynor and Dr. Hanson comes down to their core approach. Given the real threat and ticking clock, Raynor leans toward tracking down and clearing out the source and potential hosts.
Dr. Hanson firmly believes her path can yield a cure, refusing to write off a single life. Both sides are locked at a standstill, burning through emotions and time alike."
Valerie paused briefly, as if picking her words for maximum impact.
"I floated the idea of bringing in our tech capabilities as a new variable. Raynor agreed, though his guard is way up. He takes for granted that the Protoss will demand brutal quarantine checks, and he's insistence on total operational command and full data sharing. Bottom line, this is a cautious, reluctant call for help."
Osiris' crimson optical lens remained fixed on Valerie's projection, his synthesized voice flat and unreadable: "Evaluation received. Proceed."
"This isn't a standard contact run," Valerie's tone grew sharper. "The Haven crisis is a textbook entry point. First, high-value target. Early infection samples verified by the Protoss carry research value far beyond any battlefield wreckage or secondary mutants we've secured so far—they're the key to unlocking how the Swarm hides and infiltrates.
Second, low intervention cost with massive potential returns. We don't need to deploy a fleet or even structured units. Just one top-tier tech expert who can hold the room, equipped with a few key pieces of gear, dropping in under the cover of cutting-edge research aid."
She put heavy emphasis on the word "one."
"This individual slips straight into the inner circle of Raynor's team, watching Raynor's calls, Dr. Hanson's research chops, the impact of Tychus as a wildcard, and the overall grit of the outfit up close while fixing their biggest crisis. What we get is the freshest, most authentic firsthand data. More importantly,"
Valerie's eyes seemed to cut right through the projection, "if our tech—even if it just pinpoints the threat cleanly or slows the infection—helps them buy breathing room under the Protoss's guns... then the Far Star Alliance stops being some mystery corporate entity they need to watch out for.
They become a partner who holds a massive debt of gratitude, someone to treat with real weight. And down the road, when dealing with specific ancient artifacts, that leverage will be priceless."