The Odd Couple

[Jim Raynor]

Swann barely slept.
 
His stout body shivered beneath the swag he managed to fish out of the sands. The night air was so bitterly cold that his teeth would not stop chattering. Just as he thought he might be growing sleepy, something sharp or blunt would poke him at an awkward angle, and he would have to shuffle around to avoid whatever piece of debris jabbed at his back. When he finally found something roughly approximating smooth rubble, the icy fingers of the desert wind crept up the nape of his neck and sent goosebumps racing over his skin, raising every single hair on the way. He found shut eye in between those moments, fleeting and sparse as they were.
 
Whenever his chilly, bumpy environment robbed him of another nap, Rory would shoot up and notice his protoss companion. Karax hunched in the opposite corner of the half-destroyed building, shoulder slumped hard against the wall. Not once did Swann notice the incandescent blue of Karax's eyes; obviously such sleeping arrangements had little effect on the alien phase-smith. Every time he saw the protoss catching forty winks, the terran engineer grimaced and grumbled, fidgeting with his swag as he repositioned himself and forced his heavy eyelids closed once more.
 
Yet as long as the night seemed to drag, it felt like no time at all had passed as the morning light splashed on Swann's face. Blinking, he groaned, consigned to his lack of rest, and sat upright, rubbing his gloved hand over his bearded face. The chill in the air had reduced, the sun chasing away the worst of its bite. Indeed, it was somewhat pleasant, but Swann knew it wouldn't last long. The higher the sun climbed in the sky, the hotter it would become. It behoved them to recommence their journey as soon as possible.
 
Karax, the lucky bastard, still snoozed away, tucked snugly in the corner. Swann chuckled mirthlessly to himself as he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the only ration of food he had on him. Unwrapping the packet, Swann chomped on the firm, stretchy jerky and pulled a bite free with some effort. He stared at the resting protoss as he chewed on the processed meat, wondering if it would be rude to wake him. He didn't need to eat, having some weird alien way of getting all the energy he needed from sunlight, and there was plenty of that in the desert. Stuff it, he decided. No time for sleeping anymore.
 
"Hey, Karax," Swann said in between grinding the jerky between his molars. "Karax! Time to get up!"
 
The protoss phase-smith stirred, rolling his shoulders, and fell still again.
 
"Karax!"
 
Nothing.
 
Grumbling, Swann swallowed his first bite and clenched the remaining jerky in his teeth as he patted the ground, looking for something to throw. His fingers rubbed against a smooth object with a pointed end and immediately latched onto it. An icy sensation gnawed at his finger tips, but he ignored it as he tossed it and it tinkled serenely as it bounced off Karax's elongated skull and onto the ground.
 
Karax finally unfurled, stretching his lanky frame. <Good morning, Rory Swann.>
 
"Yeah, good mornin' yourself," Swann said, labouring another morsel of jerky with his jaw. "Looks like you slept well."
 
<Indeed,> Karax said, sitting up. <The cool desert night was refreshing. A pity that the day cannot stay so comfortable.>
 
"You're tellin' me."
 
Karax frowned, his blue eyes focused on something on the ground. He seized it with all three fingers and inspected it. <I do not recall seeing this last night.>
 
"Huh? Oh that. I just threw that at ya to wake you up," Swann said, scratching at his chest. "Got places to go, ya know. Can't spend the whole day sleepin' on the job."
 
<Rory Swann,> Karax said, his telepathic voice trembling, <do you not recognise this object?>
 
Swann scowled and focused on what the protoss clutched in spindly fingers. A fragmented blue gem, a few chunks missing and more than a few fissures running over it, glinted in the rising sun's light.
 
"That ain't ... one of them protoss baubles?"
 
<A khaydarin crystal,> Karax corrected, though his tone seemed distracted. <There is no mistaking it. These minerals form the basis of much of protoss technology. It could be what I thought was a protoss mind signal. If there are a number of these within this building, my own psionic presence could have been reflected back at me, making me believe another of my kind had been here recently.>
 
Swann threw his swag away and dug about the rubble-strewn floor. He picked through chunks of wall and rock, brushed away dust and sand, and discovered a handful more crystals, all in differing states of disrepair.
 
"Looks like there's a few here," the terran engineer confirmed. "That'd help explain my terrible night tryin' to sleep."
 
Karax lurched over to the pile of khaydarin crystals that Swann had made and gingerly picked through them as if expecting to find something valuable in the damaged objects.
 
<Inconclusive.>
 
"What is?"
 
<I was hoping that one of these khaydarin crystals had an imprint of another protoss still etched in the lattices. There is no such imprint. I still do not know if a protoss is in genuine trouble, or if the beacon is the one stolen from me by that unscrupulous terran.>
 
Swann swallowed the last salty mouthful of jerky, hoping it would tide him over for the rest of their journey. "Oh well. No point gettin' all depressed about it. Let's set out and make some headway before the sun gets too high."
 
Karax nodded. <An excellent suggestion, Rory Swann. Let me get my bearings.> The protoss narrowed his eyes and stared into the middle distance. <Ah. I can sense the pulse of the distress beacon.> He pointed a wormy finger towards the horizon. <It is in that direction.>
 
"That so? Wasn't it comin' from the complete opposite way yesterday?" Swann noted.
 
Karax craned his neck over his shoulder, then back forward. <I ... do not recall.>
 
"Eh, anyway. As long as we got a direction."
 
<Indeed.> Karax bent over and scooped up a number of cracked khaydarin crystals. <I would like to keep these, Rory Swann. It may be possible to repair them for use back in our current town.>
 
Swann shrugged and picked up his drawstring bag, stretching it open as Karax deposited his loot. Once full, Swann cinched it up and slung it over his back.
 
"Ready to go?"
 
<Yes. Let us proceed, Rory Swann.>
 
The two unlikely allies stepped from jagged concrete floor and onto sand as they left the half razed building behind them. As they crested the first golden dune, the morning light already heating up the sands, Swann could've sworn he felt the ground move beneath his feet.