Terran

he Thor project has been shrouded in mystery since its very beginning. Agents of the Umojan Protectorate were the first to uncover a trail of clues that the Terran Dominion was intent on creating some kind of new terror weapon. The Umojans' curiosity was aroused when they heard rumors that the huge Simonson munitions facility on Korhal IV had been placed under a complete security lockdown by Dominion forces. Something big was in the offing, so big that the workers at the Simonson plant had been virtually placed under arrest to prevent any information from leaking out.

Bringing the thunder

The crack team of spies swung into action to search for leads that would betray the work being undertaken. Hacked cargo manifests showed deliveries of battlecruiser-weight neosteel armor plating extending back over a year. Passive sensors that the spies planted around the facility picked up occasional industrial-strength electromagnetic discharges and regular seismic shocks. An increasing flow of high-ranking Dominion officers was observed coming and going, indicating that the project was close to completion. Yet beyond these tantalizing pieces of the puzzle, the Umojan team drew a complete blank.

The Umojans began to be frustrated by their lack of progress, and frustration can lead to recklessness. A young operative on the team, Ulli Trey, offered to take the risk and try to infiltrate the facility. The team leader was reluctant but out of other options, and so he approved the plan. Trey's approach was flawless: she liquidated the driver of the Dominion commander and took his place. As she had anticipated, the rigorous security checks needed to get through the outer cordon around the facility were focused on the high-ranking officer instead of his lowly driver.

Once inside the facility, Trey released a clutch of nanotech micro-spies to trail the commander as he went deeper into the facility. From this point Ulli Trey could only sit and wait, hoping that the stealth capabilities of her miniature spy drones would be good enough to prevent them--and her--from being caught.

Time to let the hammer fall!

Within a few hours Agent Trey was free and clear, carrying vital information about the Dominion's most significant military development since the Brood War: Project Thor. The micro-spy images showed a huge bipedal war machine armed with two giant particle beams and a dorsal artillery battery that wouldn't be out of place on a battleship. Most disturbing of all was the demonstration that this monster could be built from the ground up by ordinary construction vehicles in an astonishingly short time frame. The Umojan team reported back to Protectorate, thoroughly shaken by their findings and praying that some counter could be found for such a beast.