A/N

So, among other things, issue 1 of StarCraft: Survivours establishes that the Umojan Protectorate refuses to acknowledge the ceasefire between the zerg and protoss, even while the Dominion has done so. Kind of a step away from the timeframe of the original game, when the Protectorate was trying to contact the protoss.

Truth be told, I can't call this an error per se, because there's been plenty of hints that the Protectorate has become more militarized and aggressive, most notably in the Umojan skins in multiplayer. Still, if SC1 is "point a," and Survivours is "point c," then I'd have liked to have seen more of "point b" to show how it's changed over time. Because if Valerian takes the Dominion in one direction, and the Protectorate goes in another, that would be an interesting reversal.

Anyway, drabbled this up.

Enlightened

She'd been here two months, and was already sick of it.

Get out of bed at 0600. Be showered and dressed by 0615. Meet at the barracks with other Spearpoint Security staff at 0620, have breakfast, and be finished with that by 0630. Do a perimeter sweep from 0630 to 0700. At 0700, stand guard while the munitions workers had their own grub until 0720, and at 0730, take some small solace that work as a security guard wasn't as tiresome as a ten hour day making weapons for security to use. Well, that, and the Umojan Protectorate, but honestly, at this point, Aeneas might as well have been the whole universe. For all she knew, the so-called "Dark God" of years past might have killed everything outside this planet, and she wouldn't know the difference. For all she knew, the weapons Spearpoint was making were being shipped to his own armies rather than Umoja.

She told herself she didn't care. Pay was good. Umojans paid top credit for security, which meant by the end of her rotation, she could reside on a planet far more appealing than this little slikehole. Granted, that was probably most of the planets in the Koprulu sector, but still…

"Ida."

She didn't hear the voice, as she took another puff of her cancer stick. Officially, no smoking was allowed inside the factory. Still, as she was officially with Spearpoint Security, she could thus unofficially bend the rules to her benefit.

"Ida."

She blew out the smoke, letting her gaze linger over the assembly lines. By her estimate, machines were doing 90% of the work, and the flesh bags that were called terrans were doing the other 10%. Maybe one day, humanity would reach the Holy Grail that was 100% automation, and possibly find it was a poisoned chalice, but-

"Ida!"

She glanced at Richard. He had some weird combination of a smirk and a frown, and it was hard to tell exactly how he was feeling.

"Philosophizing again?"

Ah, so he was feeling like a smartarse. Fair enough, she thought – she could play that game to. It started by her taking another puff of her cancer stick.

"You know you're not allowed to that in here, right?"

She blew out the smoke. "Blow me."

He shooed it away. "Yeah, much rather you did the blowing. Or, like, not blow at all."

She shrugged.

"You know that stuff will kill you eventually right?"

"Lung cancer is easily operable."

"Hence why I said eventually."

Ida took another puff. "This is the K-sector Richard. Statistically speaking, I'm more likely to be killed by aliens or even a fellow terran than smoking."

He blinked. "That true?"

"Yes," she said, not revealing that that was just a guess.

"Huh. Fekk me." He shook his head. "Well, anyway, we're needed at the welcome bay. Foreman's doing his speech again."

Ida frowned. "More newbies?"

He shrugged, and she sighed. "Fekk."

"My thoughts exactly." He tapped his slughthrower, comfortable holstered in his belt. "Shall we go?"

Ida dropped the cancer stick and stamped it out – she liked to imagine her boot was on the face of Foreman Andreas, and that she was stamping on it forever. Which may or may not have been a metaphor for life, the universe, and everything, but either way…

"Fine. Let's go."

…she really couldn't wait to get off this shithole.

Getting to the "welcome bay" took two minutes. On average, Foreman Andreas's speeches to new workers lasted five minutes. So, while a layman might say the speech was twice as long as the travel time, it was more correct to say it was 2.5 time as long.

Oh God, the numbers have done a number on me.

Either way, Ida reflected, as she listened to the bastard prattle on, the exact time didn't matter too much in this case. 2.5 times as long, 5 times as long, 10 times as long, it was agony all the same.

"Ceasefire…Dominion…xenos…future of mankind…"

"Humankind," Ida murmured. Richard looked at her as the two leant back against a wall, keeping their eyes on the crowd. "What? I can be a stickler if I want to be."

"Ask Andreas. He's God down here."

She snorted. "Fine. Foreman's God. What does that make me?"

"Mary."

"Mary?"

"Mary." He pointed a finger at the crowd. "You're the one who keeps watch over all the children here that'll go onto do great things."

"Yeah…that's stretching the analogy. Besides, highly doubt there's anyone here who'll go on to do, quote, 'great things.'"

Richard didn't say anything.

"For the Protectorate…for Umoja…democracy…prosperity…"

Oh fekk off.

Ida wasn't sure where Andreas's words ended and where the words of the Protectorate began. Either way, he always gave some variation of the speech to newcomers in the "welcome bay." Technically it was a giant hanger, but as all landings were done on a pad outside Spearpoint, it really had no use now, except for stockpiling cargo and giving newbies a sense of welcome. Only, of course, some newbies found themselves put off that, shock of all shocks, working in a munitions factory meant actually making weapons, and that the K-sector was just as fekked up as it had been when aliens first showed up, and that meant some of them tried to slip out.

"Ah, there's a runner."

Ida followed Richard's gaze – sure enough, one of the newcomers was trying to slip away. He was on the other side of the hanger though, so she got on her radio.

"Runner, ten o' clock," Ida murmured.

"Roger that."

On the other side of the hanger she watched another security guard (Charlene? Darlene? Something like that.) walk up to the runner. Looking over, she was disappointed not to see any altercation, but rather a hand on a shoulder, and a steady walk back to the throng of humanity. When you started working at Spearpoint, you had to stay there until your contract was filled. Try to break it, and you'd be signing another contract held by the Grim Reaper.

"Umoja…Protectorate….life and liberty…"

"He's repeating himself," Ida murmured.

"Hmm."

She looked at Richard and frowned. Usually taking the shit out of Andreas's speeches was a small beacon of light on this miserable world, but looking at her colleague's face, he seemed less intent on playing.

"Okay. What's up?"

"Roof. Sky. Stars. Black stuff."

She gave him a small punch. "Let Andreas embarrass himself with the B.S. Richard, it doesn't suit you."

He glanced back at her.

"Only true democracy…threat of aliens…"

"Don't you think it's weird?" Richard asked.

"What is?"

"Assuming Andreas is saying what the Protectorate wants him to, that we're against aliens and all that…"

"Yes?" Ida had no idea where he was going with this.

"Dominion's signed a ceasefire with the zerg and protoss. Protectorate hasn't."

"I know history, Richard."

"Then you'd know that back in the Great War, the Protectorate tried to contact the protoss. Thought we could learn from them. Better ourselves. Show Umojans to be an enlightened people, so much better than the Confederacy or Kel-Morians."

Ida scoffed. She'd grown up on Umoja. She'd worked security there. While a far cry from the slums of places like Tarsonis City or Augustgrad, the image the Protectorate wanted to portray to the universe was just that – an image. A polished image, an image that had a solid pedestal, granted, but still, an image.

"And now we're here," Richard murmured, as Andreas kept yapping on. "Being all proud at our refusals of diplomacy. Selling people on making weapons to fight aliens, when most of these weapons will be used against fellow terrans."

Ida shrugged, trying to hide her unease. She wasn't meant to be uneasy. If you got uneasy, that meant you had a conscience, and if you had a conscience, places like Spearpoint would tear you apart. Nevertheless, she murmured, "want my advice Richard?"

"I mean, you've heard about the land grabs the Protectorate is making, right? There's people who say the Dominion's crumbling, so that means the KM's want a piece of the pie. And if they get some of the pie, that means Umoja needs to get some of the pie, and-"

"Richard," she hissed. He stopped talking and looked at her. "No-one cares, alright?"

"You care," he murmured.

"No, I don't. And you know why?"

He said nothing.

"Because those same aliens are the ones who've killed billions of us. Maybe not Umojans primarily, but still, they're aliens. You can't negotiate with the zerg, no matter what that pretty boy emperor says, and the protoss have their heads so far up their arses, they wouldn't listen to a word we lesser mortals say. So if the Protectorate wants to go from pacifist to antagonist, that's fine with me."

It felt good to say all that, she reflected. Would have felt better if it was true, but still, baby steps.

"Heads up their arses," Richard murmured. "Don't think the protoss have arses."

Oh shut up.

"I mean, they're photosynthetic, right? So if they don't eat, then they probably don't have arses."

Seriously, shut up.

"And pretty boy emperor?" He gave her a punch that was harder than she cared for. "Ooh, Ida's got a crush?"

She glared at him. "Listen habhead, I-"

"I mean, makes sense. You marry Emperor Valerian, you forge an alliance, then you have beautiful babies that kill each other for the throne-"

"Seriously, shut up!" She hissed. She took a step forward, as Andreas finished his speech. A round of applause commemorated the end, establishing that not only were the newbies suckered in, but by virtue of that fact, they were complete idiots. Her gaze lingered on a blonde haired boy who most notably wasn't clapping, and looked thoroughly miserable to be there.

Smart kid. A small smile touched her lips. Kinda cute too.

"And that's all," Andreas said. "Now, security will assign you to your quarters."

The hub-bub of conversation returned to the hanger, and Ida kept a watch on the boy. So much so that she didn't sense Richard come behind her until he put a hand on her shoulder.

"Credit for your thoughts?"

"Penny," she murmured. She shoved his hand away.

"The fekk's a penny?"

She snorted. "So enlightened." She gestured to some of the workers. "Alright, form up. Haven't got all day. Yeah, I know, day's twenty-nine hours here, but don't worry, you get used to it." She glanced at Richard. "Well, come on. Move it."

"Yeah. Sure. Okay."

She didn't even watch him head off to corral the sheep that were milling around. But either way, his words, and Andreas's words, lingered. Places like Spearpoint Base existed within the Umojan Protectorate, and if they were its underbelly, she was caught in the middle of it all.

"Move it people, move it."

Right this second at least, it was a bit harder to live with that than normal.