StarCraft Ulysses 2

by Gavin Mitchell

Following the events of Brood War, the final battle begins for control of the Korprulu sector, the Earth, and the galaxy... To be continued! Chapter 3 arriving later than you can bear.

1. Part 1: War of Wrath

STARCRAFT ULYSSES 2

To Shardendra.

'Shortly after DuGalle's defeat, the remainder of the UED Fleet was overtaken by Kerrigan's forces and eradicated. No UED vessel ever made it back to Earth to report what had transpired.

'With his rag-tag fleet beaten and crippled, Arcturus Mengsk fled back to Korhal to lick his wounds and plan the reconstruction of the Terran Dominion…

'Artanis and the Protoss survivors returned to Shakuras to begin rebuilding their once glorious civilisation…

'Zeratul and James Raynor went their separate ways and have not been heard from since their departure.

'And alone, floating on a dark platform above the burnt-out planet of Char, Sarah Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades, sat and lorded over the ravenous Swarms. Unable to shake the feeling that a great threat loomed just over the horizon, Kerrigan could only stare off into the vastness of space where she beheld a great void. Or perhaps a reflection of a hollow victory and the trials yet to come…'

PART 1: WAR OF WRATH

THANGORODRIM

As the last remnants of DuGalle's expeditionary fleet were overtaken by Mutalisks and eradicated, Gryphon tightened her human-skinned bat wings flush to her torso and shot through the door of Kerrigan's command centre at more than ninety miles an hour. Snapping out her wings once again, she slowed virtually to a halt and alighted gently on the ground in a vertical standing position. Furling her wings, she dropped to one knee, lowering her eyes before her liege… the Queen of Blades.

'The deed is done, my Queen,' she said quietly.

Kerrigan, her torso hunched and her fist raised to her lips, looked up for the first time.

'Then the last force in the galaxy which might have bested me has been destroyed,' whispered Kerrigan. 'And all other opposition has been broken utterly.'

'As you required, my liege.'

'You have done well, Gryphon. You have always been my faithful servant.'

Gryphon smiled, somewhat mirthlessly. She still had not looked at the Queen – Kerrigan was of perilous mood and seemed to have acquired a peculiar horror of being stared at. But she felt harsh footsteps, as of steel-shod feet on a steel floor, approach her.

A finger touched her gently beneath her chin. Knowing the terrific strength of which the Zerg Queen was capable, Gryphon raised her head and face.

She stared into orange eyes that were fierce, desperate – and red ringed.

'And what of Raynor?'

Gryphon sighed inwardly, but took care to show none of her displeasure at having been asked this question a hundred times on her face.

'Raynor disappeared soon after Fenix and Duke were slain. Our spies have been unable to find him.'

Kerrigan let out a long, shuddering sigh. Gryphon saw tears well up in the orange eyes and was barely able to refrain from shuddering in disgust.

'Duran?'

This, at least, was a relatively new question. 'Duran has also disappeared. I am not sure of the relevance of this, but I believe Zeratul has taken an interest in his whereabouts…'

Kerrigan's eyes narrowed and grew cold, and Gryphon felt a pang of regret that she did not get flashes of her old mistress like this more often. 'Then let them hunt each other down and destroy themselves. Duran abandoned me in my hour of need. He is anathema.'

Gryphon restrained a smile, but soon she was able to keep from smiling in truth as Kerrigan gave a querulous, shuddering sigh.

'And what of Mary Jane? What of our daughter?'

Gryphon kept a tight rein on her expression. 'Mary Jane has vanished absolutely… my liege.'

Kerrigan's mouth crumpled; she started some outburst, then forcibly bit it back. 'No note. No message. No word. Just to vanish while I fight my battles elsewhere. How can she do this to me?'

'And yet you have no clear opposition, my liege,' Gryphon murmured. 'You are, after all, the Queen of Blades.' Such talk seemed to comfort Kerrigan these days.

Kerrigan's mouth compressed to a tight line. 'Yes… I have the most powerful forces remaining in the galaxy. There remain none who can threaten me…'

'And soon we will be able to execute our final victory… my liege?' pressed Gryphon. Greatly daring, she reached forward and held the Queen's hand. It was gripped back painfully.

'Yes… my faithful vassal. Soon we will execute our plan.'

Gryphon squeezed Kerrigan's hand briefly, then slowly and carefully stood up. The sapling watered, it was time now to depart. 'Forgive me, my Queen. I must inspect the enslaved Cerebrates and the spawning grounds.'

'Yes, Gryphon. You must.'

Gryphon stood, and smoothed the remnants of her once-white dress over her hips. She turned on her heel and walked slowly, in human fashion, from the command centre, her wings furled upon her back. She did not walk quickly enough to miss Kerrigan's final words.

'They have left me,' she heard a pitiful whine behind her, 'and now all is dark and empty.'

Gryphon heard the sounds of frenzied weeping behind her as she left and called it madness.

THE WHITE COUNCIL

Then you are certain you can do this, sent Zeratul from the Templar Archives on Shakuras.

'Absolutely,' said Magellan quietly.

The long-wave FTL communication devices of the Protoss picked up their short-range telepathic sendings, converted them to send with faster-than-light transmission, and for a Protoss receiver would be translated back into longitudinal waves of psion particles which another Protoss would find comprehensible.

I know it is irrelevant, and it does not alter my counsel, responded Zeratul. But how was it that you made this… breakthrough?

For audiences who preferred to communicate without telepathy, however – which still included most humans – rather than be converted into psions they could instead be processed through a voice simulator. Thus it was that, almost uniquely, Magellan was hearing Zeratul speak with an audible, albeit digitised and flat-sounding, voice. It sounded very out of character.

'Well, as you know none of us had any immediate explanation for how it was that Raynor was able to slay Arcturus, take his head, verify his identity telepathically, and so forth, and yet Arcturus could appear alive again soon afterwards. And with the chaos surrounding the whole attack by the UED, none of us were able to discuss the matter again in lieu of more pressing issues.'

Magellan's words, on the other hand, were picked up by a microphone and converted into meaning engrams via a linguistic translator. They were then transmitted via FTL technology and translated into psionic communication at Zeratul's end.

But evidently, you considered it, construct, commented Zeratul during a pause.

'My mind does not allow me to let things like that go. It planted a seed. I recalled that I had given cloning technology to the Cabal of Ghosts in exchange for material on how to train their own people. Currently this seems like a mistake…'

There were many mistakes made around that time, construct, growled Zeratul, by all of us. We need to undo the damage that has been done, not create any more…

The accusation was obvious, but Magellan ploughed on regardless. 'I came to the blatant conclusion – at least to me – that the Cabal of Ghosts had used this technology to clone Arcturus, and the original's assassination by Raynor gave them the ideal opportunity to insert their own puppet into the role. And this led me to the belief that cloning was possible. You see, one can do anything if one can only believe that it is possible. When Henry Ford wanted the V8 engine to be built, he-'

So you developed cloning technology, cut in Zeratul with abruptness that sadly did not come across through the digitiser. While the sorrow Magellan had encountered during his time with Raynor had done much to humanise the construct, much of his arrogance, his bizarre sense of humour and his frequently misplaced enthusiasm still remained. I had always thought that cloning had never fully succeeded amongst your people due to insurmountable problems?

'Problems insurmountable before cyborg technology and genetic engineering resulted in me,' said the construct breezily. 'The chief problems of cloning were that the clone, having been grown from a cell in an artificial womb, would be born as a baby, and it would have none of the memories or personality of the adult. Of course growth acceleration is possible once one manipulates the time dilation effects our own FTL technology compensates for, and of course memories and personality were both superfluous to the requirements of myself and the Cabal of Ghosts.'

Zeratul raised one hooked, three-fingered hand to his face and turned away from the viewscreen. To those that had known him long enough, this could be seen as the human equivalent of a sigh. And you succeeded.

'And I succeeded.'

I suspect this shall be the last chance I have to say this, responsed Zeratul, but you know I consider this a bad decision. It is clear that it was never Raynor's destiny to have the powers of the Dark Templar. He should be left in peace.

'The Terrans do not acknowledge destiny,'

Zeratul shook his head, a movement Magellan noted with some amusement that he had picked up from humans. Then you have chosen to join your fate to that people. I've said enough. I have my own race to look after.

Magellan suppressed a smile of secret superiority. 'A shame you cannot join us for our meeting,' he said.

There are pressing matters here, replied Zeratul. There is still much friction between our sundered kindreds, and conversely there are those who wish to be trained in the ways of Entropy. And as for me, this may well be the last time I have chance to say this: but I do NOT approve. This is one battle you humans will be fighting on your own.

Magellan smirked mirthlessly. 'Then farewell.'

Zeratul's image vanished from the screen.

Smiling coldly to himself, Magellan left his quarters and headed for the conference room.

Walking the steel corridors of Raynor's battle cruiser Hyperion, Magellan's arrogance had time to rise to towering heights. It was thanks to him, of course, that the cloaking technology previously available to the Terrans had been improved to the point where it could be detected by the resources available to no other race. It was thanks to his ceaseless pilfering of Raynor's knowledge of psion and entropy manipulation that he had been able to harness these energies to his designs. And it was thanks to this miraculous technology that those allied to Raynor – the last pocket of rebellion in the galaxy – had evaded the purges of first DuGalle, and later Kerrigan. The rest of the galaxy might live in fear, but they were still free.

As he walked into the conference centre Raynor brought him down abruptly.

'You're late,' the ex-Marshall snapped.

Magellan felt blood rush to the organic parts of his face, and countered his embarrassment in the very human fashion of growing annoyed.

'I have been busy, sir,' snapped Magellan. 'Busy with very important things!'

'Busy enough to ignore the commanders of the fleet?' snapped Raynor, gesturing about him. 'We've been here half-hour!'

In fact the conference room was largely empty, and Magellan felt a pang of regret that their old allies, people like Zeratul, Fenix, Artanis were not there. Of course this brought back a reminder of why they were not there, which was a thought that Magellan angrily pushed away.

On Raynor's left was Tom Kazansky, ace pilot who had stuck with him through thick and thin – and it had mostly been damn near transparent where Raynor had been involved. Despite his abrasive and imperturbable exterior, Kazansky had been considerably shaken by his experiences in Kerrigan's zone of compulsion and her subsequent triumph over all of the Dark Templar, the UED and her own people, and thus he had been fortunate to acquire a lover, who herself had taken a major part in mellowing the pilot out.

To Kazansky's left sat that lover, a young woman dressed in a combination of Ghost uniform and the patched black leather and denim festooned with archaic 'anarchy' symbols that were common amongst Raynor's rebels and virtually forgotten throughout the rest of the galaxy. Most striking about the woman's appearance, however, was the chalk-whiteness of her skin, and its translucency to some fairly startling blue veins beneath. In stark contrast was the jet-black colour and straw-like texture of her hair, and the unrealistic, livid black of her eyes. A pure albino lacking any skin, hair or retinal pigments, Beatrice had only narrowly escaped being allowed to die as a child, as her impressive psionic abilities meant that she qualified for Ghost training. Reaching adulthood she was able to compensate for her inborn weakness as an albino with Ghost psionics, cybernetic eyes, and a gothy monochromatic colour scheme.

'For the record, Zeratul sends his disapproval,' spit back Magellan as he took his place on Raynor's right.

'Let that arrogant Protoss disapprove all he wants,' snapped Raynor. 'For he knows of course what we are about. Now, with the bulk of Kerrigan's fleets out in deep space pursuing the last remnants of the UED, the time has come for the implementation of Operation: Wrathchild.'

The other three exchanged glances. Kazansky looked resigned. Since the loss of his psychic powers and Ghost Templar status, Raynor had become increasingly tyrannical and would be gainsaid by nobody; and his old advisers, Kazansky and Magellan, were aware of their laxity in being too preoccupied to hold him back. Beatrice looked merely confused; before joining Raynor's forces recently she had been hiding out from all sides of the conflict. Magellan, however, looked triumphant. He knew that what Zeratul disapproved of was not Operation Wrathchild at all.

'Wrathchild?' said Beatrice a trifle uneasily.

'When we used Nanotech serum to cleanse Alexei Stukov of his infestation, it proved it could be done,' related Raynor. 'Currently Stukov is in charge of the Infestation Rehabilitation Centre on the planet of Haven in the neutral zone, where de-infested Terrans now go to be freed of the depressions and psychotic episodes brought on by being severed from the Zerg hive mind.'

'I am aware of that,' said Beatrice with a trace of irritation.

Raynor glowered at her. 'Well then. Operation Wrathchild involves the use of this Nanotech serum. It centres on what I have long believed; with Kerrigan out of the picture, the power of the Zerg in this sector will be broken forever.'

Beatrice's eyes grew wide. While no one dared relate these episodes in Raynor's earshot any longer, she had heard at great length in private about how Raynor had singularly failed to destroy Kerrigan on a previous occasion. She also knew that the time was that Raynor would have easily ripped these heretical thoughts from her mind, but no longer. Kazansky and Magellan however, who had been present at these events, merely looked uncomfortable.

'With Kerrigan's forces scattered and depleted following the three-pronged attack of the Dominion, the UED and the Protoss, it will never be easier to carry out Wrathchild.'

'Kill her?' said Beatrice.

'Snatch and de-infest her.'

Beatrice gasped. Kazansky and Magellan lowered their eyes.

'But how can we possibly get through her defences? Her spore colonies and Overlords will spot even cloaked Wraiths.'

Raynor glared at her further. 'Magellan has used the knowledge of entropy manipulation I picked up from the Dark Templar to enhance our detectors beyond any technology available to anyone else. It is one of the reasons our Rebellion-' he spoke even of his own people with a sneer '-has lasted this long. And you're being very forward for someone who only recently joined this management team!'

Beatrice's own eyes narrowed. 'I am the elected representative of the Ghosts amongst your fleet who, I might add, are now considerable in numbers thanks to numerous defections from the UED and Dominion. My voice has a right to be heard!'

Raynor fixed her with a killing stare but, seeing the cybernetic eyes staring back at him uncowed and defiant, he dropped his gaze. 'Fine. Suffice it to say that we have run many computer simulations of Wrathchild and on every occasion it has succeeded.'

Beatrice flicked her gaze over to the construct. 'Is this true?'

'It is. Out of one thousand, two hundred and seventy three planned runs of Wrathchild under these conditions, it has always succeeded.'

Beatrice stared, and the construct knew she was using her powers on him. Unfortunately for him, he had human brain tissue but not the skill to be able to lie easily to a telepath. 'Using these conditions.'

'Yes,' snapped Raynor. 'The other forces have been reduced to varying stages of destruction, too. Technically our own hidden Rebellion is the most well-organised military force left, if not the biggest in terms of numbers.'

'And so, using this model, Wrathchild has always succeeded,' said the construct with a confidence he no longer felt.

Beatrice continued to stare at Magellan. 'You're hiding something,' she finally snapped.

Kazansky put his hand on hers. 'B…' he said, 'Let it go.'

Beatrice turned to Kazansky in some anger, but feeling from him a wave of reassurance tinged with a strange sorrow, she paused, somewhat confused.

Raynor no longer cared much about such exchanges, viewing them merely with irritation. 'Well, now that that's dealt with.

'Convey to all forces in your areas that mobilisation for Wrathchild is to begin. Soon after the estimated ready time, we will strike. Council dismissed.'

Still looking back with a mixture of suspicion and confusion, Beatrice left the room, leading her lover, with his head bowed, behind her.

Magellan remained.

Raynor seemed lost in thought, gazing at the table, a faint look of desperation lost behind the surface anger and intimidating glare of his eyes. He seemed to become aware of the construct.

'Are you still here?'

'I need to show you something… alone,' said Magellan heavily.

ISILDUR'S HEIR

Breaking off the long-distance contact, Zeratul could only slump his sloping, inhuman shoulders in a very human expression of defeat. After all his best efforts to persuade him otherwise, the Terran construct still intended to go ahead with his scheme. For all that Zeratul meant what he had said to Magellan about his people being responsible for themselves, still the Dark Templar felt that he had failed.

The ancient Protoss, now uncomfortably wearing the mantle of leadership over the Dark Templar following the death of Raszagal, switched off his recently-constructed psionic translator and turned away. Leaving the Templar Archive that was his solitary haven, he walked out into the eternal shades of twilight of Shakuras.

As ever, the Dark Templar homeworld appeared deserted. Zeratul's people, victims of generations of persecution, could only be seen when they wanted to be seen, and Zeratul respected this as did all his fellows. The mainstream Protoss now living as exiled refugees on Shakuras were less than comfortable with this – in addition to now being the guests of their hereditary enemies – and tended to cling closely to their own enclaves as a result. This was not necessarily what their leaders wanted to achieve but Zeratul kept telling himself – as he did with the actions of Raynor's self-styled Anarch Rebellion – it was not his problem.

He had problems enough.

Brooding, the Dark Templar crossed the blue metal basilica pavement outside his home and walked over onto the barren wilderness that his people almost cultivated in their determination to change as little of their surroundings as possible. Lost in his own thoughts, he wandered far from the living area and into dead ground blocked from its direct view. Walking a straight line as far as possible, Zeratul seemed almost to be following some inner compulsion to come this way. But he was aware of nothing but his own thoughts.

Which was why he did not notice the young male Terran until he had almost walked into him.

Shocked – and horrified at his own lack of concentration – Zeratul leapt back several metres, his hand groping automatically for the Warp Blade concealed beneath his robes. He drew it out, but managed to prevent himself from activating it.

Who are you? What are you doing here? sent Zeratul in deafening psionic tones. Since at least a third of the problems he was brooding on involved Terrans, he was by no means thrilled to be confronted with one now. This world is a haven for the Protoss alone. Our races are not at peace. You are not welcome here!

This particular Terran would have looked odd by most standards. He was barely an adult, of small and slender build, with long hair tied back in a ponytail of a lustrous, almost luminous purple colour. Zeratul was not yet familiar enough with the varied appearance of these aliens to pick up on this; however, he did notice the identical Warp Blade hanging at the Terran's belt. The Terran, grinning, reached down to it.

How did you get that? sent Zeratul in actual alarm. Have you slain a Dark Templar and taken his weapon? Zeratul sent his thought processes along the channels that activated his own Warp Blade and a dark blue, twisting, rippling ribbon of entropic energy extruded itself from the cylinder. You clearly have no idea of the destructive and dangerous properties of this device. And if you have slain one of my people, then your life is forfeit.

The Terran did not appear at all fazed by the threat. He merely spoke one word.

'Crackers.'

Though the Protoss could neither hear nor understand language in any human way, Zeratul's gaze went completely blank. The glowing orange eyes lost all purpose. Even behind his mask, hood and alien features, puzzlement and bemusement could be discerned.

Then the glowing stare abruptly regained focus, and Zeratul looked at the Terran with uneasy recognition. Hello, child, sent the Protoss. Shall we continue our lessons?

'Don't mind if we do,' grinned the Terran.

In their natural dip in the ground the two fenced for hours, neither tiring or weakening as they drew on their inherent psionic talents and their manipulation of the entropy forces around them to sustain their efforts. Indeed, it was Zeratul who sensed himself starting to lose the mock battle first and broke it off, praising the human's skills.

You fight one-handed, like a true Dark Templar warrior, sent Zeratul with open admiration, and you do not seem to require your right arm for balance. Is there any way that you think you could use it offensively?

In answer the young male Terran held up his right hand clenched into a fist. A dark blue, glowing shard of energy flared from it.

Zeratul's eyes widened. A blade of pure psionic energy, he observed. I have only ever heard of such a thing being used once. It destroyed the powers of the one other Terran I have taught as I have taught you.

'I know. I have spoken with its inventor.'

Zeratul looked pained. It troubles me to know that you have dealings with such people, he sent. I would like to know how it is that you have association with such a destructive force as the Queen of Blades… and I must admit, it would be useful for me to know how such a weapon could be created.

The Terran grinned, again. 'Oh, you don't really want to know either of those things, old guy.'

Zeratul's gaze turned blank and confused again, and he raised his free hand to the back of his head. No… I suppose I don't… He trailed off.

'Now then. Is there anything more you can teach me.'

I cannot. Your fighting skills have surpassed mine, your entropy manipulation is up to the standard of any Dark Templar, and anything in addition to that is simply not known to me. To learn the secrets of the Psionic Storm of the High Templar or the mental domination of the Dark Archon, I fear you must look elsewhere…

'Oh, I assure you I have no need to learn either of those.' The Terran smiled again and looked over at a clump of alien vegetation, as though considering whether to incinerate it psionically or not, but then looked back at Zeratul.

Then your teaching has come to an end.

'Good. I'm glad we've had our time together here on Shakuras.

'Now hear this. There will be no need for you to remember any of our training sessions. Currently it has been useful for me to allow you to recall them from one to the next to provide necessary continuity. However, now that I have learned that which I need this is no longer the case. You will forget all of our time together… permanently.'

Yes… Yes, I will.

'I say farewell, and crackers.'

The Terran vanished – not an unusual sight on Shakuras, but not one often carried out by his species. Zeratul's eyes turned blank and confused once again, and did not clear until such time as he had walked slowly and carefully to the top of the high ground surrounding this dip, and sat down, meditating and surveying his homeland. As the blue lights flickered on and off in their otherwise permanent halo in the eternal dusk, the Dark Templar's gaze slowly cleared, and his mind returned to the problems that had occupied him to begin with.

After a while, a yellow dot detached itself from the overall halo of blue, and headed towards Zeratul's place of meditation, resolving itself into a Scout air vessel as it flew. Slowing, it touched down not far from Zeratul and its pilot emerged. The Dark Templar knew who this would be, and it brought him some measure of relief.

En Taro Tassadar, sent Artanis as he walked towards Zeratul's high seat. I imagined I would find you here. Increasingly, this is where you spend time meditating alone.

Yes. Yes, I know, the Dark Templar responded. Something was nagging at him, but he knew not what. He did indeed spend a great deal of time meditating out here far from his people, but then were not his problems so pressing that such sojourns alone were required?

Does something trouble you?

Zeratul could answer this with equanamity and his doubts vanished. Many things, young Executor. Magellan, despite all my urging to the contrary, is persisting with his scheme.

We can do nothing to influence the actions of their rebellion, or their race as a whole, responded Artanis in as consoling a pattern as he could manage. Perhaps it is their destiny that they will cleanse Kerrigan of her infestation and remove her threat from the galaxy. It will be all the better for it.

Zeratul spread his hands in a very human gesture of helplessness. They meddle with technology in a way that can only lead to further horrors. They have taken the knowledge of entropy that I taught to Raynor in my folly and adapted it to their own devices. They meddle with cloning and gene manipulation in only the way the Xel'Naga did before them. And where did that lead?

Artanis sent no thought by way of response.

And meanwhile, while the Anarch Rebellion sows the seeds of all our destruction, I find elsewhere that our worst fears are realised.

You found Duran?

Yes, and our suspicions are correct. On Braxis I found him with a tank which contained a Zerg / Protoss Hybrid and all the equipment required to make more.

Artanis bowed his head, looking at the floor. And what did you do?

It was clear from the setup that this facility was left there to be found. The Hybrid had not been activated – had it been, I doubt I would be speaking to you now. It could have destroyed me without question. After saying his piece, Duran teleported out in the full knowledge that I would be unable to stop him. I destroyed the Hybrid and all the equipment, and obliterated all trace of its existence. But what did this achieve? Really?

At least the Terrans on Braxis have no chance of abusing the technology themselves, Artanis offered, though it was fairly clear to both of them that he was clutching at a straw.

They don't need to. Magellan will eventually figure it out and abuse it himself, Zeratul thought bitterly. And if the power controlling Zeratul is what I suspect, whatever the Terrans can come up with will be the insignificant tinkerings of children by comparison.

Artanis was quiet, again. In the time of Tassadar, all hope seemed lost, but still they fought on, and eventually triumphed over the Zerg, the Executor sent.

Zeratul reached his hand towards his face, turning away. At times like this he realised just how young his opposite number was. To be replaced by the struggle against Kerrigan, and the UED. Perhaps Tassadar's sacrifice was in vain.

Artanis was shocked into psionic silence. Zeratul felt strongly that he had offended the younger commander. He realised, belatedly, that perhaps he should not alienate one of the few allies he had left.

I am sorry, he sent. I am aware of how you revere your predecessor, and with good cause. But it seems that though, for all our sundered kindreds lived in eternal enmity, before the Terrans entered this sector, there was a peace and stability, of sorts. Why do they have to dabble in powers so dangerous for the momentary advantage they can enjoy in their brief lives? They tried to control the Zerg, and failed. I can only dread the time when they do the same with entropy, with gene manipulation, and bring down even worse horrors on us.

Artanis could not argue with the content. He could only send:

Why are you so preoccupied with the Terrans?

I don't know, responded the Dark Templar with something very close to despair.

THE DOOM OF DORIATH

'What did you want to speak to me about?' said Raynor heavily as he left the conference centre.

Magellan hung back to allow him through the door. 'It would be best if I were to show you. Could you accompany me to my quarters?'

Raynor had already turned left, heading to his own, but wheeled on his heel, glowering imperiously at the construct. 'I stopped going to your quarters some time ago, Magellan. Having to stop artificial intelligences from escaping into the corridor and trying to keep from treading them underfoot gets wearing after a while. And what is it you want to show me anyway? Some miscegenated monkey with several extra brains? I have better things to do!'

Magellan counted to ten in every language he knew, a technique he had resolved to adopt next time Raynor went into his often-interrupted but never-ending whiny tirade. It took 0.86 seconds and thusly did little to improve the mood of his human side.

'I think you will want to see this,' said the construct, an edge of anger creeping into his voice.

Raynor's grim, angry, preoccupied façade wavered at something in Magellan's words, as did the desperate look behind it. For the first time in a long time the construct saw in his commander a flare of interest in something beyond himself.

It did not go out.

'Show me,' said Raynor curtly.

Magellan's quarters were significantly tidier and more organised than Raynor remembered. Whatever artificial intelligences or genetically manipulated creatures were currently under experimentation by the construct, they had been turned off or quietened. It was still dark, though. The cyborg tended to rely on his enhanced senses when not around mere humans.

Raynor halted in the doorway while Magellan walked on ahead. Ever alert to his surroundings, and still in the mindset of not wanting his time wasted by the construct, his eyes moved slowly in their sockets, examining the room. Nothing appeared new… till his eyes widened when they beheld a large, semi-vertical pod, bathed under the solitary harsh striplight in the room. It was this Magellan was walking towards.

Raynor followed slowly, eyes growing wider and wider, hit with an increasingly feeling of unreality. The pod was roughly oval, seven feet high and three wide, constructed of blackened steel. It was fronted with transluscent glass in jagged, mismatching panels; beneath the glass, nothing could be seen.

'It's this you want me to see,' breathed Raynor. He watched his breath form mist. The cyborg was not mindful of temperature either, but the most intense cold seemed to be radiating from the pod. He had considered touching it, but realised it would probably take the skin off his fingers.

'Not this. Its contents.'

Raynor drew in a breath and held it.

The construct stepped to the side and pressed buttons on a control panel. With a hiss as air rushed into the pressure differential within, then a sharp drop in temperature as the chilled air seethed out, the front cover of the pod began to rise slowly on a hinge at the top. Raynor stepped to the side as it moved through the space where he had been standing, then, driven by an anticipation now all-consuming, he leaned in to look, careful to avoid contact with the freezing metal.

For one moment the sight shocked him into a paralysed horror. It was a vision he had only ever seen the like of before in mirrors. Frozen within the pod, was his own body, naked, white and dead.

Raynor exhaled sharply, sucked in a breath of freezing air that burned his lungs, then gasped it out again. 'You cloned me!'

'Yes,' said Magellan heavily. This was always the part he had feared; Raynor's reaction. By now, it could be anything up to and including ordering both the clone and himself jettisoned into space. It was unlikely that anyone would carry out the order, but Raynor's moods were now doing nothing for morale. The unspoken reason for this drastic course of action.

Raynor did not seem inclined to threaten or bluster this time. His eyes were rapt with fascination. They never left the clone.

'Why did you do this? Do you think the Anarchs need a new leader?' The old bitterness was creeping in at the last.

'No. Can't you guess? What would a clone have that you no longer have?'

Raynor's eyes turned to Magellan for the first time, and the construct saw hope light in them with the fearsome intensity of a man who gave up all hope some time ago. 'A pineal gland!'

'A pineal gland. One I can implant into you.'

Raynor's grim, set face began to crease into a grin; not a kind of grin that Magellan particularly liked the look of, but a grin nonetheless. 'Magellan, we all know it, but I have been remiss in not stating this recently. You are a genius. How soon can this be done?'

'Now, if that is what you wish.'

'I wish it. As long as someone can be found to take command while I am gone.'

'Kazansky has already agreed to this,' said Magellan, not saying that Raynor not commanding for a while would be far better for the fleet than him commanding at the moment.

Raynor's eyes widened with shock. 'Kazansky knows about this?'

'He knows. So do Zeratul and Artanis. Why do you think the Protoss no longer have any involvement in our plans?' said Magellan with some bitterness. 'It's not the idea of snatching Kerrigan they disapprove of. It's this.'

'It will be worth it,' Raynor breathed.

Predictable, Magellan thought. The obsessive response of the fanatic.

'And for your information, Operation Wrathchild was only considered to be successful under the conditions of this operation working.'

'I'm sure it will. What will it involve?'

'Not much,' Magellan said, half-sarcastically, half-lying. 'I put you under full anaesthetic for as long as it takes to cut open your skull and your brain and cut the duff pineal gland out. I have already taken the liberty of removing the clone's.' With his metal arm, he reached over to the clone, eyes closed and supine in the pod, and raised his head. Raynor saw an ugly wound running vertically from the back of the clone's neck to the furthest rear extension of his skull. With his human arm, Magellan took a jar from behind the pod and held it up very carefully. A small organ floated in an off-white fluid. 'This goes in your head. It goes without saying that if anything goes wrong, you will be left with permanent brain damage… if you survive at all.'

Raynor locked eyes with the construct. 'To have the powers of the Ghosts and the Dark Templar and to lose them again?' Raynor shook his head slowly. 'As I am, Magellan, it's not worth living at all. This is a risk I'm very prepared to take.'

Madman, Magellan thought. But instead he said:

'I can start the operation at once. I imagined that was what you might have wanted to do.'

'You got that right. You won't have to hold me down and strap me into any chairs this time.'

It occurred to the construct that he preferred Raynor back then. But again, the thought remained unspoken. Magellan sighed, once.

'My operating table is this way.'

'Bring it on,' Raynor said, already striding away, not giving his clone a second glance.

DENETHOR

As DuGalle's last message to his wife and the people of Earth played out on his laptop, Bob Callahan, president of the United Earth Directorate, turned increasingly pale. It made no difference that the message had been addressed to Helena. Privacy and human rights abuses were matters that had long since ceased to have any meaning in a world dreading Zerg infestation or Protoss cleansing.

When DuGalle's pistol put a bullet through his brain the president flinched as though shot himself. Subsequently he reached a shaking hand to his desk and pulled open a drawer; it rattled. He stared into it. It was filled with a plethora of pill boxes. He fumbled through them spastically, trying to remember what they all were and did. The amphetamines kept him going through all the stress. The tranquillisers took the edge off his worries. The fact that they might add to his paranoid fear of the alien wars in the Korprulu sector, or the fact that the detachment they gave him might add to his ruthlessness with regards to his own people, were matters he did not concern himself with, or allow anyone else to.

He took two of what he thought were each, slammed the drawer shut and buzzed for his secretary. The blonde, slender woman walked into his office. Lenina Orwell was very cold, very efficient, and very unavailable.

'You heard the news?' quavered the President, dry-swallowing the pills. 'Lenina, get me some water.'

'Yes, sir, to both,' she answered dispassionately, striding over to the cooler in the corner. Callahan's eyes were compelled to follow her legs beneath her pencil skirt. 'I also have a feed from DuGalle's private comlink, of course. And here it is, in a straight glass, sir.'

'The best of our wealth and manpower was sent into that Korprulu sector. Lost… all lost. The Zerg and the Protoss and the Dominion will be on us like flies around shit,' groaned Callahan.

'Perhaps,' said Orwell, face empty of all expression but a cold indifference. 'But why don't you abandon the small talk and cut right to what you really called me in here for?'

Callahan stared back at her with a mixture of resentment, guilt and admiration. 'Shit, Lenina, you know that as well as I do.'

'So will it be the Italian brunette ex-lesbian, the Chinese tantric sex practitioner or the Swedish Uppsalan temple dancer?'

'Considering the planet might be overrun by Zerg creep anytime soon?'

'Yes, sir.'

'All of them.'

THE TREASON OF ISENGARD

Arcturus Mengsk was a man who did not know himself.

Sometimes he found himself speaking, giving impassioned speeches to the live and virtual audience of his subjects, gesticulating with his fist in a studied, precise manner drawn from video footage. Sometimes he found himself speaking with groups of people; generals of his armies, political subordinates. Sometimes he tortured, and sometimes he killed, enemies, prisoners and threats to his reign.

Sometimes he slept. Sometimes he made love to women. Some he performed acts of studied depravity on, acts drawn from the minds of surviving prostitutes and political prisoners. Some he hurt so badly that they did not survive his orgasms; these were hurt in ways drawn from the memories of those who had had to dispose of his victims in the old days of the Dominion.

Arcturus did not want to do any of these things. Many of them filled him with horror and guilt, memories which did not make the pleasures of drink or drugs or sex he also experienced enjoyable for themselves. Sometimes he broke down and sobbed in despair, curled up on the floor with his head between his knees.

He was not often allowed to do that last; it rarely suited the purposes of his controllers. Because Arcturus was not a man who was allowed to set his own agenda, or operate according to his own motivations. He was a clone created with one intention; to be a figurehead for the Cabal of Ghosts, who since Raynor had slain the original Arcturus, had been the true rulers of the Dominion.

Working on shifts so that at least one Ghost was in mental linkage with Arcturus at all times, the clone puppet was ready for all eventualities. Having never had the opportunity to grow up he had never evolved any willpower or personality; that which he had was baby-like, spending all its time crying on the few occasions it took command. And they were indeed few. There were at least six Ghosts in every twenty-four hours to take control of Arcturus.

'And how are we this fine morning?' inquired Willard as he breezed into the Black Ops chamber, not far from Arcturus's throne room, where the two Ghosts designated for this shift were seated in za-zen meditation.

'None the better for your asking,' grated the one.

'Arcturus has been forced to flee back to Korhal with his tail between his legs,' growled the other. 'Me and this guy have to come up with some suitably face-saving speech and deliver it to the rabble before long. Kerrigan's going to turn her attention in our direction not long after that. So how else are we supposed to be this fine morning other than in a world of shit?'

'No! We'll be fine!' breezed Willard expansively. 'Kerrigan's not going to bother us for a while and maybe the Dark Templar will deal with her for us. So relax! Lighten up! Don't worry about it!'

The Ghost who had spoken first muttered something.

Willard frowned down on him. Whatever he had said, Willard might have chosen to make an issue of it, he might not. Despite being possibly the shortest Ghost in the Cabal, Willard had become Master due to the level of sheer ruthlessness he could summon. People who expressed any contrary opinions at all, and who Willard considered a threat, tended to wind up dead in extremely painful, messy, and spectacular ways; and in a secret society made up of elite, psionically-gifted assassins, this was no small achievement. Willard was now unquestioned as leader, and he was also responsible for incorporating the Ghosts into what was supposedly Mengsk's Dominion as the secret police, a role the majority of them much appreciated. Those who appreciated neither Willard nor the role had defected to Raynor's Anarch Rebellion, if they could achieve this, or eventually been eliminated by Willard, if they couldn't.

There was a quiet knock at the door; this had been noticeably absent when Willard entered. 'Come,' snapped out Willard in far icier tones than he had used earlier.

A young female Ghost entered. She looked terrified.

'Sir, I think you need to see this.'

Willard frowned at the Ghost who had muttered, then followed the new arrival.

These days military information reached the Ghosts first, and they decided whether to allow it to filter through to the other forces of the Terran Dominion, or the deluded Arcturus nominally their commander-in-chief. With a shaking hand, the Ghost indicated a sensor display to Willard.

'A fleet… coming from uncharted space,' he muttered. 'A huge fleet. Bigger than anything we or Artanis or even Kerrigan has left. With an exit vector orthogonal to anywhere the Zerg or the Protoss have attacked from.'

'Yes, sir,' quavered the Ghost. 'And their design isn't Zerg or Protoss or UED. It's like nothing we've ever seen!'

'Those big ships look like they could contain around four Carriers…' Willard muttered. He might have examined them further, but a crashingly loud psionic voice erupted in his head:

HUMAN! YOU OBSERVE US? WHAT ARE YOU DOING SO FAR FROM EARTH?

Willard's mind reeled.

I have never been to Earth. Who are you?

YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN TO EARTH? BUT YOU ARE HUMAN. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?

My ancestors were exiled from Earth… along with everyone else in this Dominion.

OH, REALLY? Willard heard the ghostly equivalent of a laugh, which struck him as most odd. From what limited experience he had had of telepathising with Protoss and Zerg, he knew that shared concepts could be communicated telepathically, but no-one pure Zerg or Protoss could ever physically laugh at anything. The concept of humour was one that could sometimes be translated. But laughing, along with coughing, required lungs…?

HUMAN, I THINK WE CAN TURN THIS SITUATION TO OUR MUTUAL ADVANTAGE…

Willard's face lit up immediately.

That would do me just fine, he returned.

THE SLAYING OF CARCHAROTH

As Raynor opened his eyes a crack, a blinding shaft of light brought instant agony with it.

'Sir?' said Magellan uneasily. 'Take it slow. You haven't looked at light for a long time.'

'How long?' croaked Raynor. It was clear he hadn't drunk for a while either, but he ignored Magellan's advice, and opened his eyes a crack. He found that the pain diminished rapidly, surprisingly rapidly it seemed. He opened them fully. Surrounding him was the familiar black steel and claustrophobic darkness of Magellan's quarters. Visibility was actually quite adequate for once; either his eyes had become abnormally sensitive through lack of exposure, or there was some other reason.

'Seventy-seven hours,' said Magellan quietly. 'An amazingly short period of time to recover from major brain surgery.'

'I'll have to take your word for it,' Raynor whispered. He was conscious of a dull throb in the back of his head. Less pain than he'd expected. He sat up, ignoring Magellan's gasp of horror and clucks of disapproval, and felt the back of his head. Beneath his fingers was ugly, poorly healed, Keloid scarring extending at least six inches up and down the back of his head. It stung to the touch; Raynor winced.

'Are you able to do skin grafts?' said Raynor uneasily. He had had very little hair to start with, and doubted he was going to be capable of growing enough to cover this monstrosity in the near future, if ever. And he estimated 'ever' to be the more realistic time period on this occasion.

Magellan sighed. 'I am but it will take quite a bit of time.'

Raynor grimaced. 'Time we don't have. All right, let's consider it when things are quieter.' Raynor thought of his Dark Templar hooded green robes that were stashed back in his quarters, and considered ruefully the likelihood of wearing these with the hood up until such time as Magellan could manage the requesting cosmetic surgery. In the chaotic events that were to follow, Magellan was not going to manage the skin grafts for a long, long time, and Raynor's hood was rarely to leave his head thereafter.

Raynor felt the rough edges of the wound gingerly. 'Have you invented a rapid wound healer too? Surely this has healed quickly…'

'No sir. I have not invented any kind of wound healer. And the usage of UED technology is contraindicated for central nervous system damage.'

'Then why has this wound healed so rapidly?'

'Why do you think?'

Raynor considered. He stared deep into the construct's one human eye. He willed himself to look into Magellan's mind.

There it was. Half of it was missing, replaced with circuitry over which telepathy had no jurisdiction. The other half was frantically trying to screen him out by repeating insanely complicated formula to itself. Raynor fleetingly considered trying to break through this barrier, delve deeper, before realising what this meant…

'I got my powers back,' he hissed, lips curling upwards in bitter triumph.

Magellan grimaced. 'Yes. Your wound was healing even as I watched, while you were unconscious. You muttered in your sleep. You summoned entropy to you, crashing half the machines – including the ones keeping you alive. You cloaked and de-cloaked at random. You had your powers back the moment the pineal gland went in.'

'Then we've achieved what we wanted to achieve.' Raynor swung himself off the operating table, ignoring the weakness and spasmodic twitching in his limbs, and his burning desire for a sip of water, and the fact that his hospital gown opened all the way up the back. 'I have to get to my quarters, see if I can activate a Warp Blade once again. I don't doubt it. After that, Wrathchild goes ahead as soon as possible. If not sooner.'

Raynor began to limp to the exit.

No thanks, no acknowledgement, Magellan thought. Had he really expected any? No. 'Do you have any orders for me specifically?' he called wearily.

Raynor halted, his eyes abstracting and attention going within, Magellan fancying that an orange taint began to flood into the whites and irises. 'Yes. In fact I do.

'That clone of me. See if you can bring him to life.'

Magellan goggled. 'I can, sir, but what would be the use? He will have no experience, no personality.'

Raynor smiled, tight lipped.

'I think I have a good idea what sort of personality will be useful for him…'

ANGBAND

Tarsonis was a world of abandonment; a world which had both been abandoned itself many times, and a world which had seen many beings abandoned on it in their turn. Firstly Arcturus had summoned the Zerg here to destroy the people of the Confederacy, innocent or not, then had forsaken Kerrigan on the planet's surface. Subsequently the Zerg and the Protoss had seen no advantage in this blasted world. The Cabal of Ghosts and subsequently, Raynor's Anarch Rebellion (though they had not been called that then) had both been forced here having nowhere else to go. The Cabal had betrayed Raynor here, and the former had abandoned this planet for re-acceptance into the Dominion and the latter for an uncomfortable welcome on Shakuras – subsequently to be taken in, en masse, by Kerrigan's zone of compulsion. Finally even the Terran Dominion had abandoned it; the UED had taken no interest in such useless territory.

Zeratul could feel the despair and desperation of all these lost souls of all races, who had fallen to their own brethren or to the alien others, on his nightmare journey through the ruined cities and military installations of this forgotten world. He was bleeding from what felt like a thousand wounds; blue cobalt-based liquid dripped from his robes, trickled from his hooved triple-jointed legs. As he stalked his prey to its bolthole he had faced horrific mutations, fusions of Zerglings and Zealots, hideous creatures equally at home on two legs or on four, with psionic blades of light-blue energy, speed beyond any Protoss metabolism, ferocity beyond any Protoss mind. The pain in his body did not match the agony in his soul at the sight of these abominations. But at last he was close to his goal.

Crouched beneath the giant form of a shattered Protoss Cruiser was a rusted, seemingly abandoned Terran physics lab, the door blown off its hinges. Zeratul stumbled into the entranceway, having to lean heavily on the frame in a futile attempt to ease his fatigue. Dimly he could see his prey inside. If it had not heard his heavy staggers, surely it must be able to sense him psionically by now. But it made no reaction. The seeming male Terran figure, clad in a long cream coat, merely stared up at the sole sources of illumination in the room, computer banks showing ever-evolving hybrids of Zerg and Protoss.

This ends here, thought Zeratul. Lurching forward, he raised his Warp Blade and slashed directly through the back of the Terran with all of his remaining strength.

Nothing happened.

'Ah, Zeratul,' said Samir Duran, turning round and smiling slightly as the aging Protoss staggered, caught himself, struggled not to display weakness before this adversary. 'You have found me, then.'

His torso should have been sliced completely in two. But not even his coat was damaged.

You could not have survived that, thought Zeratul wearily. By this point, it was not even a question.

'No,' said Samir Duran with equanamity. 'I could not.' He began to pace back and forth before the exhausted Dark Templar, staring at him through narrowed eyes all the while. 'But was that really what you hoped to achieve? You thought a clumsy Warp Blade strike could take down a power of my magnitude?'

I no longer dared to hope for it, sent Zeratul wearily. All I wanted now was information. And proof.

'Information? And proof? So. You have come all this way, and nearly killed yourself. You realise now it is entirely up to me whether I let you off this planet alive. But what have you gained from it? All you have learned is that I am capable of creating Zerg-Protoss Hybrids, which you discovered some time ago… and that I am a Xel'Naga, a fact that should have been obvious from the first!'

Zeratul, despite himself, gave the mental Protoss equivalent of a sob. So you admit that you are a Xel'Naga?

'I do. It suits our purposes to reveal this now. Because the time is long since gone when anyone below the third level of intellect could stop us. At this point, revealing our identity will make the suffering of the Zerg and the Protoss as we have our revenge all the more sweet.'

Revenge? It was the Zerg who destroyed you!

'After the Protoss had abandoned us!' Duran spat, showing an inhuman level of fury on features that Zeratul could not see were also inhumanly mobile. 'You left us to be destroyed by our own creations!'

Your creations… You brought this upon yourselves!

'Do you wish to die, Zeratul?' shrieked Duran in fury, stalking towards the Protoss with hands hooked into claws. The Protoss was calm and imperturbable. Duran halted, his eyes narrowed, his face taking on the sullen, bitter, vengeful expression of one who no longer defines themselves as anything but victim and who sees no future but endless retaliation. 'No… that would be too soon. We want you to live in fear, in anticipation of the revenge of the Xel'Naga. Go back to your people now, and tell them that they are all destined to die – perhaps quickly, if they grovel for mercy. It may not be some tomorrow, it may not be soon… but it will happen, at a time of our choosing, and not yours!'

The Protoss have lived the good lives of warriors, stated Zeratul calmly. We fear not death. We have lived beyond it and that is our strength.

For a instant Duran seemed set to explode in fury, but his face collapsed into a sneer, instead. 'You believe what you want to believe. Now I think I will let you kill this form of flesh, give you at least some shred of satisfaction out of another futile mission. You can destroy this installation too, if you wish. It makes no difference! We shall meet again at your death. Adieu.'

Entirely against his volition, and against his conscious urging, Zeratul's arm raised and slashed his Warp Blade through Duran for a second time. This time, what should happen, happened. Duran exploded in a shower of gore, red and black blood with standard human and mutated Zerg entrails.

Zeratul regained control of his arm. He lowered it to his side, shut off his Warp Blade and bowed his head, staring at the floor as the blood mingled, red, blue and black.

THE CHAINING OF MELKOR

Wings beating frantically, Gryphon soared over the battlefield that the dark side of Char had become, twisting in painful patterns and describing alterations in velocity which would have broken the back of any lesser mutant as she tried without success to discern some part of the conflict that was going to her advantage.

The field is lost! she sent finally, desperately to Kerrigan, who was co-ordinating efforts from her stronghold on the light side of the planet. Everything is lost!

How can this be? came back the response. Raynor's Anarch Rebellion is numbered only in the hundreds!

Every one of their vessels is cloaked! Gryphon sent back, tightening her wings to her through a hail of flak. Beneath her, Spore Colonies and Ultralisks were being torn apart by laser fire from Wraiths they could not even see. Overlords clustered, struggling to the conflict; their detection abilities somehow valueless, their last desperate tactic was to flock to the source of the shooting, try to smother the Wraith with their own bodies and bring it down that way. It was a strategy that had worked on precisely one Wraith so far; crashing to the floor of the desert, its strange cloaking device had failed, leaving it as a twisted black heap of wreckage, festooned with white Anarchy symbols. Three exploded Overlords had been taken with it. They have some new form of invisibility that our psionic detectors cannot penetrate.

There was a brief telepathic silence from Kerrigan. They have adapted the entropic invisibility of the Dark Templar, perhaps, she sent back slowly, and combined it with their own to form a new technology. Can we not teach our detectors to see past this, as they did with the Dark Templar?

Too late, was Gryphon's sole response.

But they cannot slay our Cerebrates? Kerrigan sent back, desperation now clear in her own thoughts. Only the energies wielded by the Dark Templar themselves have served to destroy them before. Ancalagon the Black can send endless waves of Tarrasques, brought alive by his psychic power. The UED might have had sufficient resources to bring down a Tarrasque, but not Raynor!

The Black One has fallen, thought Gryphon with grim fatalism. Somehow they have built entropic energies into the Yamato cannons of their Battlecruisers. Ancalagon was slain by a blast from a ship he never even saw.

Kerrigan was telepathically silent for even longer. Then:

Place yourself en rapport with the commander of their fleet, if you can, she set wearily to Gryphon. We shall try to close him down mentally. I will aid you.

Tried and failed, sent back Gryphon. The commander of their fleet has no psi to attack.

There was an even longer pause this time. And Kerrigan did not even ask for an explanation.

Then this battle is truly lost, she sent. At least, I die knowing that I took the UED, the Protoss, and the Dominion with me.

The Queen of Blades fell silent forever. These were her last words to her faithful servant.

Gryphon sucked in air, hyperventilating with horror. Her wings ceased to beat, and she plummeted towards the carnage below. Shots peppered the air around her, missing chiefly due to the speed of her descent. She was insensible. Racing through her mind were thoughts of her dark mistress, the woman who had brought her over to the power and passion and control offered by the life of the Zerg, the woman who had come so close to ruling the galaxy but for the betrayals by her former lover and her own daughter, the woman who had all but handed over mastery of the Swarm to herself. Compared to this, plummeting to her death seemed a minor distraction.

But at that moment, at the most extreme level of emotion, the creature who had once been Belinda Lister, a young human woman with an ordinary life, had the words diversionary tactic flash up in her head apropos of absolutely nothing. Snapping her wings to her in a blast of air, she arrowed out of her fatal plunge and shot for the light side of the planet at a right-angle tangent.

Outside Kerrigan's infested command centre, a heavily customised Wraith decloaked as it landed.

Raynor's plan had worked. Kerrigan's forces were all but tied up on the dark side of the planet, and he knew that Kerrigan was more likely to rely on her own martial and psionic abilities to defend herself than on any bodyguards. The area around Kerrigan's stronghold was deserted. Those few Sunken Colonies that might have defended the location had been blasted out of existence with Kazansky's souped-up laser cannons.

All was quiet.

A gangway swung down slowly from the entrails of the Wraith, and four figures started walking down it even before its extremity touched the ground.

'Stay sharp,' Raynor grated in the lead, now cloaked and hooded with his Dark Templar robe over his black combat gear, igniting his Warp Blade with a low roar. His plasma shield shimmered into existence around him.

'A shame I have not yet managed to miniaturise cloaking units down to the point where they can be carried by personnel,' Magellan lamented, close behind Raynor. 'We have had to decloak Kazansky's Wraith to exit it, and all of us are now quite visible.'

'At least I've got the remote,' Kazansky commented, pulling a device from his pocket and gesturing at his Wraith. It faded from view.

'It would be terrible if anything happened to Sherilene, wouldn't it?' Beatrice muttered. The joke sounded flat in her own ears, and no one else laughed.

The four grouped into a diamond formation: Raynor in the lead clutching his Warp Blade in his right hand; Magellan on the diamond's left with a myriad of blades projecting from his metallic arm; Kazansky on the right, wielding a pistol; and Beatrice bringing up the rear, walking backwards and attempting to provide cover behind them with a canister rifle. Their precautions seemed futile even to them. The place felt deserted, as though it had been given up on. The throne room had been located on a flat surface of the desert planet, where it was possible to see for miles. Nothing was moving to break any horizon.

The four fell back into single file to enter the command centre. The place was dark inside, and while all of them had been in Command Centres before, none of them had known them to echo previously. The place was thick with Zerg creep, but somehow it seemed dead, even though Zerg tissue could regenerate from practically nothing. This creep seemed to have lost the will.

'How is Pseudo-Raynor doing?'

Magellan tilted his head slightly to the side, and his human eye abstracted, as though he was listening to something far away. 'He's doing excellently. His forces are going through the Zerg like butter with a hot knife. The aliens do not know which way to turn.'

'This is too easy,' muttered Kazansky.

'Pessimistic as ever,' Raynor sneered over his shoulder. 'We're going to have to work on your positive mental outlook when we get back to Hyperion, Tom…'

The glare that Kazansky sent at Raynor's broad back betrayed anger and contempt. Beatrice squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head.

'Pseudo-Raynor's immunity to telepathy makes him ideal for this mission,' Raynor commented as they advanced through the stronghold. His voice echoed strangely through the steel corridors. It was starting to become clear that the acoustics of the place were so weird because all the doors had been removed, and many of the rooms and fixtures widened. Presumably Kerrigan no longer felt extremes of heat and cold as a human would. Perhaps the expanded corridors conferred some tactical advantage? Certainly human ergonomics would mean little to a Hydralisk.

'You do realise that Kerrigan can probably HEAR YOU!' hissed Beatrice, afraid and overstrained, her voice rising to a shriek by the end.

Raynor barked out a laugh. 'By this point it makes no difference! She has lost this battle. And against us… me with my powers back… she has no chance.'

Beatrice was about to make a comment about how Raynor's towering arrogance would prove his undoing when an unearthly inhuman shriek echoed down the corridors. Beatrice spun round, fatally, to face Raynor, who himself turned round to face her, lip curling in derision.

'What was that?' snapped the female Ghost.

It was Beatrice's fate to find out the hard way why the dimensions of the building had been enlarged.

Gryphon smashed into her lower back from behind at a hundred miles an hour. Her fists were locked rigid straight out in front of her, and the claws springing from the backs of her hands pierced through Beatrice's lower abdomen and ripped out the other side. With an audible crack, Beatrice's lower spine shattered. The female Ghost screamed out in absolute agony and mercifully passed out.

Gryphon had gauged her attack perfectly. All of her headlong kinetic energy had been expended on Beatrice, bringing her to a dead halt. She snapped out her wings to either side for balance, drew up her feet beneath her and yanked her claws from the female Ghost's midriff. As Beatrice collapsed in front of her, Gryphon slashed out with both claws at the woefully underprepared Magellan. His cybernetic arm sheared off at the shoulder in a shower of sparks and lubricants; some kind of electrical feedback leapt up from the construct's shoulder, momentarily scrambling his brains. Continuing the turn, Gryphon executed a spinning kick, the heel of her back foot slamming into the side of Kazansky's head. The pilot went down.

Raynor faced her over Beatrice's body, Warp Blade drawn, plasma shield shimmering, eyes narrowed.

'Care to take a shot at me?' he said quietly.

Gryphon let out her unearthly raptor call, at a level that could damage human eardrums, and went for Raynor in a frenzy of claws that was almost too quick to follow. Raynor merely appeared to move slightly.

Gryphon shrieked again, this time with an overtone of shock. In disbelief, she stared at the back of her left hand. The bone claws had been sheared off just shy of her knuckles.

She went for Raynor again. Again, all the human seemed to do was shift balance, but again a set of three ossified knives fell to the floor from the back of Gryphon's right hand. In pure disbelief, Gryphon stared at her lost weapons.

Raynor grinned, mirthlessly, and drew himself up, bringing his Warp Blade into a position where the hilt was held two-handed near the side of his head, the blade pointing horizontally straight at the mutant.

'How would you like me to go for your wings?' said the human quietly, smiling unpleasantly, a crazy light in his eyes.

The infested mutant stared back in sullen hatred. This woman had once tried to sleep with him, Raynor remembered. Staring back at him now was something that no longer much seemed to resemble a human.

As she looked back at him, though, she saw his eyes tainted orange, his plasma shield still at full strength, his Warp Blade crackling and alive with entropy. Gryphon's eyes flicked involuntarily over Raynor's shoulder. He noticed the movement. Before the birdlike mutant had arrived, he had been heading for a closed door – the only one he had seen so far in the complex.

Gryphon thought of her revered mistress, thought of her lost weaponry, and thought of what that Warp Blade could do to her wings.

'Another time,' she whispered, and leapt into the air, snapping her body out horizontally. She turned over in mid air from the supine to the prone position, and with a snap of displaced air, shot out of the room as rapidly as she had arrived.

Raynor turned on his heel immediately and headed for the chamber with the closed door. With one sweep of his Warp Blade, he blasted the portal from its hinges.

Kerrigan was inside, sprawled collapsed on her black metal throne. She lacked the strength to sit, could only loll.

'You have found me, then,' she whispered through lips faded to grey. Black blood was pooled around her, clotting on the steel fittings, the creep. 'But I won't be taken alive. I won't be like Arcturus, queen of my own eight by eight cell for the rest of my life, or put on trial for my crimes against the free peoples of the Korprulu sector.' The blood flowed from a multitude of pierce wounds in her forearms. The blackened, dripping fangs that had inflicting these were retracting back into her jawbones as she spoke. 'Today I die; defeated, but with honour.' The head lolled forward onto the chest, the orange eyes closed forever. H

Raynor depowered his Warp Blade immediately, his plasma shield flickered and died around him. 'No!' he whispered. He strode towards his former lover through a carpet of her own blood, lifted her head by the chin. She was out of it. 'You can't die!'

'It is possible that she will survive even now,' said Magellan wearily from the doorway. His cybernetic stump still weeping oil, he walked over to the Queen of Blades and examined her professionally. 'I saw this woman burned alive, remember.'

'Do you have the Nanotech Serum?' pressed Raynor, the light of an all-consuming obsession in his eyes.

Magellan shook his head. 'She will certainly not live through the process if I give it to her now. She must be allowed to remain infested for a while longer. No human could survive this level of blood loss.'

'Then we must get her to Haven as soon as possible,' Raynor whispered, gently patting Kerrigan's cheek, trying to get a reaction. There was none. 'Have Pseudo-Raynor call off his attack and summon his forces to meet with us at the terminator of the planet. We will convey Kerrigan there with Kazansky's Wraith…'

'Is she all you think about!' shrieked Kazansky from the doorway. His left hand was clutched to the livid bruise already forming on his face. His right hand still held his pistol. 'Beatrice's back is broken, and for what? So you can snatch Kerrigan from the death she wants and which she so richly deserves?'

Raynor turned round, faced him calmly. 'We achieved what we came here to achieve,' he said neutrally, coolly. 'The power of the Zerg in this sector is broken without its leader.' An unease started to cloud Raynor's mind as he realised the flaw in his own argument. 'I don't know, though. That Gryphon…'

Kazansky was evidently not interested in this. Eyes blazing with rage, he stormed across the room and raced his pistol so it pointed at Raynor's face not six inches away. 'You lying bastard! This was never about breaking the power of the Zerg at all! This was about you getting your lover back! My lover has lost her spine thanks to you! On the light side of the planet many others have lost their lives! I should pull this trigger right now, you selfish piece of shit!'

All expression drained from Raynor's face, save a cold dead look in his eyes as he stared at Kazansky. 'Do you have any idea how far out of your depth you are?' he said quietly. The orange flared in his eyes; his hand made the merest twitch to the Warp Blade hanging at his belt.

Kazansky held his gaze for a few seconds… though by this point, it would be difficult for any mere human to remain unintimidated by Raynor. Cursing viciously, he slammed his pistol back into his holster and stalked from the chamber.

Raynor shook his head, sighing. He walked slowly over to Kerrigan and gathered up her body from the chair. It felt like dead weight.

'Your orders have been relayed to the fleet, sir,' said Magellan in resigned tones. 'Pseudo-Raynor has pulled back from his attack. We will be met at the terminator, as requested.'

'His fleet can fly escort while we convey Kerrigan to Haven,' Raynor murmured. He could not take his eyes off Sarah's face. Her arms had collapsed across it, smearing her cheeks with black blood. 'They can defend us against any reprisals by the Zerg forces… or attempts to snatch Kerrigan back.'

I think the only one who wants her is you, thought Magellan. But he said nothing. Raynor headed for the exit. Kerrigan's arm trailed behind her, dripping black blood onto the floor in a row of drops. Shaking his head, Magellan followed.